Robbery Under Arms, Rolf Boldrewood [pdf e book reader txt] 📗

“Much obliged, sir,” says Joe, touching his hat. “Come inside and I’ll give you the cheque.”

“Quite unnecessary now,” says Starlight; “but as I’m acting for a friend, it may be as well.”

We saw him pocket the cheque, and ride slowly over to the bank, which was half-tent, half-bark hut.

We didn’t think it safe to stay on the Turon an hour longer than we were forced to do. We had seen the diggings, and got a good notion of what the whole thing was like; sold the horses and got the money, that was the principal thing. Nothing for it now but to get back to the Hollow. Something would be sure to be said about the horses being sold, and when it came out that they were not Muldoon’s there would be a great flare-up. Still they could not prove that the horses were stolen. There wasn’t a wrong brand or a faked one in the lot. And no one could swear to a single head of them, though the whole lot were come by on the cross, and father could have told who owned everyone among them. That was curious, wasn’t it?

We put in a night at Jonathan Barnes’s on our way back. Maddie got the earrings, and Bella the making of a new riding habit, which she had been wanting and talking about for a good while. Starlight dressed up, and did the new chum young Englishman, eyeglass and all, over again, and repeated the conversation he had with the Inspector of Police about his friend Mr. Muldoon’s illness, and the colts he recommended. It was grand, and the girls laughed till they cried again. Well, those were merry days; we did have a bit of fun sometimes, and if the devil was dogging us he kept a good way out of sight. It’s his way at the start when fellows take the downward track.

We got back safe enough, and father opened his eyes when he saw the roll of notes Starlight counted over as the price of the colts. “Horse-breeding’s our best game,” says the old man, “if they’re going to pay such prices as this. I’ve half a mind to start and take a lot over to Port Phillip. I believe they’d have fetched a hundred a piece there.”

It was the old story. If we could have looked ahead a bit and had not anything to do with those infernal Momberah cattle, we should have been free to have tackled these diggings like everybody else, or gone cattle-droving, butchering, or twenty other things that meant making money hand over hand, and no danger or obligation to any man.

There was George Storefield, old Slow and Sure as we used to call him, making no end of money by farming and carrying, and every now and then buying a farm, so that he’d have all the frontage to the creek and the richest part of the valley for miles directly.

We could each of us do a bigger day’s work than George; he said so himself. We could write and cipher as well, we were as good at a bargain, and better at lots of things. Why was he steadily going up the tree and rising in life, in money, and standing, while we had gone down, and were going lower every day? Why, because he had stuck steadily to his work and been always square, always honest. We hadn’t. This is what came of it.

As we didn’t want to go away anywhere till the little excitement about the horses was over, we had to stay quiet for a spell, and amuse ourselves the best way we could in the Hollow. We were yarning about the diggings next morning, telling father what a row all the cradles made, when all of a sudden Jim says, “Suppose we go and try to rout out something about that old hermit’s hut. There was a cradle there, wasn’t there? There’s no doubt he’d been washing gold in the creek there years and years before these other chaps found it at the Turon. He might have planted a lot; there’s no saying. Suppose we go and have a look today?”

“I don’t mind,” I said; “it will give us something to do. Did you ever hear of his having gold, father?”

“Only from Warrigal, and he didn’t say much,” says dad. “But from what he did let out, the chaps that were here then thought they’d a show of coming in for some when he died, and were nearly going to burn the hut down when they didn’t get anything, that’s all I know.”

Next day we started off early and took some grub with us to camp out all night. We took a spade, a pick, and an axe. They’d be handy if we wanted to dig or be moving things. No horse, one gun, and some cartridges.

It had been raining a lot lately but cleared up for a beautiful day. The grass looked splendid. When we came to the old hut it looked quite homelike. It was getting on for spring, the middle of October. The weather had been ever so cold and wet, but now the sun came out warm and the days were getting longer. There was an almond-tree near the old hut full of white flowers, and an early peach-tree in bloom. “I wonder if our almond tree’s out yet in the Rocky Flat Garden?” says Jim. I knew what he was thinking of.

We put our things inside the old hut, and began to make a regular search to see if we could find anything. We found letters cut here and there in the slabs; They’d been cut deep with a sharp knife, and plenty of time taken over the work. There were some short words, but they didn’t seem to mean anything.

I looked at ’em over and over again, though Jim, who was always wanting to get to hard work, and never liked