Part 29

"Stand still," said he, "or I may hurt you. I had to let him, my good fellow, or we'd have been dropping each other like bullocks. As it is, not a scratch between us, though I found young Bowen in a pretty bad way. Our friend had stuck up Jumping Creek barracks in the small hours, put a bullet through Bowen's leg, and come away in his uniform. Pretty tall, that, eh? I shouldn't wonder if you'd swing him for it alone, down here in Vic; no doubt you've got to be more severe in a young Colony. Well, I tracked my gentleman to the barracks, and I found Bowen in his blood, sent my trooper for a doctor, and got on your tracks before they were half an hour old. I came up with you just as he'd stuck you up. He had one in each hand. It wasn't quite good enough at the moment."

The knife shore through the rope for the last time, and it lay in short ends all round the tree.

"Now my hands," cried Kilbride fiercely.

"I beg pardon?" said the satirical Superintendent.

"My hands, I tell you!"

"There's a little word they teach 'em to say at our State Schools. Perhaps you never heard it down in Vic?"

"Don't be a silly fool," said Kilbride, wearily. "You haven't been through what I have!"

"That's true," said Cairns. "Still, you might be decently civil to the man that gets you out of a mess."

Nevertheless, the handcuffs were immediately removed; and that instant, with the curtest thanks, Sub-Inspector Kilbride sprang forward with such vigorous intent that the other detained him forcibly by one of his stiff and aching arms.

"What are you after now, Kilbride?"

"My prisoner!"

"Your what?"

"My prisoner," I said.

"I like that--and you his!"

Kilbride burst into a voluble defence of his position.

"What right have you on this side of the Murray, you Sydney-sider? None at all, except as a passenger. You can't lay finger on man, woman, or child in this Colony, and, by God, you sha'n't! Nor yet upon the three hundred there's on his head; and the sons of convicts down in Sydney can put that in their pipe and smoke it!"

For all his cool and ready insolence, the misshapen Superintendent from the other side stood dazed and bewildered by this volcanic outpouring. Then his dark face flushed darker, and with a snarl he clinched his fists. The Victorian, however, had turned on his heel, and now his liberated hands flew skyward, as though the bushranger's revolver covered him yet again.

But there was no such weapon discernible through the shade; no New South Welshman's horse; and neither sight, sound, wraith, nor echo of Stingaree, the outlawed bushranger, the terror and the despair of the Sister Colonies!

"I thought it might be done when I saw how you fixed him," said Kilbride cheerfully. "Those beggars can ride lying down or standing up!"

"I believe you saw him clear!"

"I'll settle that with you when I've caught him."

"You catch him, you gum-sucker, when you as good as let him go!"

And a volley of further and far more trenchant abuse was discharged by Superintendent Cairns, of the New South Wales Police. But Kilbride was already in the saddle; a covert outward kick with his spurred heel, and the third horse went cantering riderless into the trees.

"He won't go far," sang the Sub-Inspector, "and he'll take you safe back to barracks if you give him his head. It's easy to get bushed in this country--for new chums from penal settlements!"

As the Victorian galloped into the darkness, and the New South Welshman dashed wildly after the third horse, the laughing jackass in the invisible middle-distance gave his last grotesque guffaw at departed day. And the laughing jackass is a Victorian bird.

The Honor of the Road

Sergeant Cameron was undressing for bed when he first heard the voices through the weather-board walls; in less than a minute there was a knock at his door.

"Here's Mr. Hardcastle from Rosanna, sir. He says he must see you at once."