"At daybreak we will lie down in the bushes. The blacks will probably leave some fellows behind, as scouts. They, seeing nothing of us, will suppose we have given it up and gone home, and they will make but a short journey. At night we will go on again, and the chances are that, before morning, we shall catch sight of their fires, and will fall upon them at daylight. What do you think of the plan?"

"I think it is a good one," Mr. Blount said, warmly. "A capital plan. Of course we don't much like leaving our horses, for in this country one almost lives on horseback. Still, it will be the best plan, certainly; for as you say, the poor brutes will be half mad, by tomorrow night, with thirst."

"It will be a long tramp back again," a settler said dismally.

"We won't tramp all the way," Reuben said with a smile. "Directly we have overtaken the blacks, and given them a lesson, I will send Jim back again for the horses. He can cover the ground at a wonderful pace, and coming back he will ride one of them, and help the two constables to keep them together. They will have had two days' rest, and plenty of food and water, and will meet us before we get halfway back. There will be no fear of the blacks attacking them."

All agreed that the plan was excellent, and half an hour later the whole party--with the exception of the two constables, who were to start at daybreak with the horses, for the river--set out on their march. The sky was cloudless, and the stars would have been a sufficient guide, even had they not had Jim with them. The black, however, took his place at the head of the party, and strode along as unhesitating as if it had been broad daylight.

Chapter 12: The Bush Rangers.

Scarce a word was spoken as the little party marched along. It was possible, although very improbable, that the natives, on scattering before the charge of Mr. Blount and his companions, might have left some of their number behind, to watch the movements of their pursuers. They would, however, certainly not antic.i.p.ate the whites pushing forward that night. The fire had been piled high, the last thing before leaving, and the two men left there were told to keep it burning brightly till morning, and to start before anyone watching in the distance would be able to see whether the horses were mounted, or not. Should any natives approach the fire, after they had gone, they would take it for granted that the whole party had ridden back to the settlement.

All night, Reuben and his companions marched steadily forward; and were glad to throw themselves down on the ground, at the first appearance of daybreak. Four sentries were placed, with strict orders to keep a bright lookout through the bushes, but on no account to raise their heads above their level; and, arrangements having been made for their relief, every two hours, the rest of the party were soon sound asleep.

Except to relieve the sentries, there was no stir among them until late in the afternoon. Then there was a general movement, and soon all were sitting up, and appeasing their appet.i.te upon the cold meat and dampers they had brought with them.

"There is no harm in a pipe, I suppose, captain?" d.i.c.k Caister said laughingly.

"No, I think we can risk that," Reuben replied. "The eyes of the savages may be wonderfully keen, but they would be a great deal sharper than I can give them credit for, were they to notice the smoke of a dozen pipes, curling up among the bushes."

"I suppose, Mr. Blount," Reuben said as, after the meal was finished, the party lighted their pipes and drew closely round the fire, "you have heard of a good many bad businesses, with the blacks and bush rangers, in your time?"

"I have, indeed," Mr. Blount replied. "In the early days, the settlers had a hard time of it with the blacks; who were, of course, stronger than they are now and, after they had got over their first fear of firearms, more fearless of the whites. The bush rangers too were, when first they began to send convicts here, more numerous than at present. I do not know that they were as desperate as they are now--not so ready to take life, without provocation.

You see, there was a very much larger run of country open to them; and many convicts who escaped, and took to the bush, were content to have gained their freedom. Some of them took black gins, and never troubled the colonists again; beyond, perhaps, coming down to a station and carrying off a sheep or two, or a bullock, when they got sick of kangaroo meat and wanted a change.

"You see, the first settlers were generally poor and hard-working men. Young men with a little capital had not as yet been attracted here, so there was but little inducement for the escaped convicts to meddle with them. There were, of course, some notorious scoundrels, who seemed to murder for the pure love of the thing.

The worst of them, I think, was a fellow who went by the name of c.o.c.keye. What his real name was, I never heard.

"That man was a perfect devil; and was, for a long time, the terror of the settlers. He never worked with other white men, but lived among the blacks. Of course, in those days the police system was in its infancy, and we had to rely upon ourselves. I had a narrow escape, once, of losing my life, from him and his blacks.

"When I was about seventeen, I lived with my father and mother in a station about fifty miles from Sydney, or as it was called then Port Jackson. It was at that time quite an outlying station. We had two convicts allotted to us, both of them honest fellows enough, who had been transported for poaching or something of that kind--anyhow, they were not old hands, and gave no trouble. My father was a kind master, and we always felt that, in case of need, we could rely upon them just as upon ourselves. In those days it was next to impossible to get hired hands for, as there was plenty of land for anyone to squat upon, comparatively close to the port, the men who came out generally set up for themselves, at once.

"One day I had been out on horseback, to look for a couple of bullocks which had strayed away; and was on my way back when, ahead of me, I heard the cooey of the blacks. I didn't think much of it, because they were common enough at that time, and a party had made a sort of encampment at a stream, about a mile from the house; but when, a minute later, I heard a gun fired, I guessed that there was mischief.

"The sound seemed to come from away towards the right, where I knew that one of our men was out, herding the bullocks; so I clapped spurs to my horse, and rode in that direction. When I got near, I saw the cattle running wildly about, and a mob of black fellows among them. I could see no signs of our man, and guessed that he must have gone down; and that I had best ride and warn them, at the house.

"The blacks saw me, and started at a run in my direction, but I soon left them behind. I was within a quarter of a mile of the house, when a native yell burst out ahead of me, followed by two shots. I rode on and, when I got near the house, saw a lot of black fellows round it.

"Then came a flash from one of the upper windows, and I saw one of them roll over. That was a satisfaction, for I knew they hadn't caught my father asleep. I knew the doors and shutters were strong, and that he could make a good fight of it. Still, there was only him and my mother at home, for both the men had gone out before I left in the morning; and one man hasn't much chance of holding a house, attacked on all sides. So I made up my mind to try to dash through them, when the shutter opened a little, and my father shouted out:

"'Ride for help, Bill. I will keep them off, till you get back.'

"So I turned; but when I had gone a few yards I looked over my shoulder, and I saw a man dash out from behind the house on horseback, and start at a gallop after me. It was a bay with a white leg, and I knew that c.o.c.keye used to ride such a horse, and that there wasn't a better in the colony. Almost at the same moment I heard a shot again, but I didn't look round.

"I can tell you I felt pretty badly frightened, for there was no mercy to be expected from that scoundrel, and I knew that he was a good deal better mounted than I was. The next station was about four miles off, and I had about two hundred yards start, but before I had gone half a mile, he was within fifty yards of me. I could hear him, cursing and swearing and shouting to me to stop, but I had made up my mind I would not do that.

"I had got a brace of pistols with me, but I wasn't much of a shot.

I had, soon after I started, pulled them out of the holsters and shoved them into my belt in front of me; so that, as he came up, he shouldn't see my hand go down for them. My hope was that he would ride straight up to the side of me, not knowing that I was armed; and that would give me a chance of suddenly letting fly at him.

"You would think the chance was a poor one; and that he would, to a certainty, shoot me down before he got up. I did not much think he would do that, for I guessed that the scoundrel would do with me as he had in some other cases; namely, take me and carry me back to the house, and there either threaten to shoot me, or hang me up over a fire, or some such devilry, to make those inside give in. I was determined this shouldn't be, and that if I could not shoot him I would be shot myself; for otherwise he would have got my father and mother, and it would have been three lives instead of one.

"Presently--crack!--came the sound of a pistol, and I heard the bullet whiz close by. I expect that it was only to frighten me into stopping; but in a second or two he fired again, and the shot just grazed my shoulder, so he was in earnest that time.

"I bent low on my saddle, got a pistol out of my belt, and prepared. There was another shot, the horse gave a spring and I knew he was. .h.i.t, but for a time he went faster than ever; still, the last shot wasn't from more than twenty yards behind; and I expected, every minute, to see his horse's head coming up beside me. Then I heard a curse and a sudden fall and, looking round, saw his horse was down.

"c.o.c.keye was on his feet in a moment, and drew another pistol from his holster; so I concluded to keep on as hard as I could go, without waiting to make inquiries. I guessed pretty well what had happened. The shot I had heard my father fire, as he started after me, had hit the horse; and the poor brute had kept on until he dropped. I understood the fellow's firing, now. He felt his horse was failing under him, and his only chance was to stop me.

"I kept on till I got safe to the station. The three men there started in different directions, to fetch a.s.sistance, and by the evening we had a score of men a.s.sembled there, and started back to our station. We heard a cooey when we were within a mile of the place, and guessed it was a fellow on the watch. By the time we got there they had all cleared off, but it was a close thing.

"My mother was a courageous woman, and had defended the back of the house, and my father the front. The blacks had made several attempts to burn the place down; but the roof, like the walls, was made of solid timber; which is the only safe way to build a house, when you are exposed to attacks of the blacks.

"As long as daylight lasted the old people had done very well, and had kept the blacks at a distance; and we saw, by the marks of blood in the morning, that they must have killed or wounded eight or ten of them; but if we hadn't come up before the blacks had darkness to cover them, it would have gone hard with them. Of course we knew that, and calculated so as to get there before nightfall."

"What became of the bush ranger?" Reuben asked.

"Well, curiously enough, that was the last time he ever troubled the settlements. We never knew exactly what became of him, but it was said that the blacks killed and eat him. I know that was very often the end of those fellows. As long as all went on well, the blacks were friendly enough with them, and were glad to follow their lead; but after a repulse like that they got at our station, or perhaps as a result of some quarrel about the division of the plunder, or their gins, or something of that sort, they would fall suddenly on their white friends, and make cooked meat of them."

"I suppose the blacks seldom spare any whites who fall into their hands?" Reuben asked.

"Scarcely ever," Mr. Blount replied. "That was why they were more dreaded than the bush rangers. The latter would kill, if they were in the humour for it; but if there was no serious resistance, and none of their number got hurt, more often than not they contented themselves by leaving everyone tied, hand and foot, till somebody came to unloose them.

"I remember one horrible case, in which they so tied up three white men at a lonely station, and n.o.body happened to go near it for three weeks afterwards. It struck someone that none of them had been seen, for some time; and a couple of men rode over and, to their horror, found the three men dead of hunger and thirst.

"Now the black fellows don't do that sort of thing. When they do attack a station and take it, they kill every soul; man, woman, and child."

"I suppose, in that affair you were telling us of," Reuben asked, "both of your ticket-of-leave men were killed?"

"Yes. One seemed to have been surprised and speared at once. The other had made a stout fight of it, for the bodies of three natives were found near him."

"I remember one case," one of the others said, "in which the blacks did spare one of the party, in a station which they attacked. It was a little girl of about three years old. Why they did so I don't know; perhaps the chief took a fancy to her. Maybe he had lost a child of the same age, and thought his gin would take to the little one. Anyhow, he carried her off.

"The father happened to be away at the time. He had gone down to Sydney with a waggon, for stores; and when he got back he found the house burned, and the bodies of his wife, two boys, and two men, but there was no trace of that of the child.

"He was nearly out of his mind, poor fellow. The neighbours all thought that the body must have been burned with the house; but he would have it that there would have been some sign of her. No one else thought so; and besides, it wasn't the custom of the blacks to carry off anyone. The father got a party to try and follow the blacks, but of course it was no use. They had pretty near two days'

start.

"The father never took to his farm again, but hung about the out stations, doing a job here and there for his grub. Sometimes he would be away for a bit, and when he came back, though he never talked about it, everyone knew he had been out hunting the blacks.

"I do not know how many of them he killed, but I know he never spared one, when he got him outside the settlement. After a time the blacks never troubled that part. So many of them had been killed that they got a superst.i.tious fear of the man, and believed he was possessed of an evil spirit; and I don't believe twenty of them, together, would have dared to attack him.

"At last, from some of the half-tamed blacks in the settlement, he got to hear some sort of rumour that there was a white girl, living with one of the tribes far out in their country, and he set out. He was away four months, and he never said what he had been doing all the time. In fact, he started almost directly for the port, and went home by the next ship.

"However, he brought his child back with him. It was four years since she had been carried off, and she was a regular little savage, when she arrived in the settlement with him. Of course she could not speak a word of English, and was as fierce as a little wildcat. I expect she got all right, after a bit.

"I didn't see the man, but I heard he was worn to a shadow, when he got back. He must have had an awful time of it, in the bush. What with hunger and thirst, and dodging the blacks, I don't know how he lived through it; but he looked contented and happy, in spite of his starvation, and they say it was wonderful to see how patient he was with the child.