A LINDSAY 0' THE DALE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13619, 12 December 1907, Page 3

A LINDSAY 0' THE DALE.

' • ' ", . BY A. G. HALES,

, s ' ppBIJSEED BY SPECIAL AKBANGEiCBNT. *

author of "The 'tier on the Tower," .Triicoll. Kins of Scouts." " McGlusky." •* Jair the Apostate." etc, eta

COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XVI. THE IAST STAND OF THE WM-OWKNS. : I rode the funny little chestnut into the bush with my husband, and he did his best to make me forget all my fears. We watched the moon come up, and turn the dark-green loaves of the gum-trees to • glittering white, until it almost looked as if ;l we were riding under a silver sea. Ido not think that there is any other country in the world where the moonlight has the same effect upon the forest leaves, for though the eucalypti leaves look dry and brittle, they ; M full of oil, and as the wind nutters them they shine just as the sea shines when HO ft winds sweep across it. " When we camped my young husband lit » fire cleverly in a hollow, so that it could nob be seen by any prowling enemy, and V e had supper whilst our horses grazed. We saw the 'possums come out of their nests hi the hollow logs, and frisk about amongst the foliage. Ba«il, who had a great love for all living wild things, was pointing out an opossum to me, that was carrying its young on its ; , back from one bough to another, when I fancied 1 heard a, twig break in the forest ' Hutching his arm. I bade him listen, and . „ we. sat with hearts beating hurriedly. \gaiu came that ominous sound, the ' 'I"snipping of a twig. "Creep along the •'i wound, dear, and lie close to that big -* m tree. There is someone stalking us, and, it in« st •* a white man; a black " •': would never give such a warning." ' I did as I was bidden, and when I got "to mv place of vantage I turned and saw . ! «T husband crawl along the ground to a place where the shadows lay very thickly; and I heard the ominous click-click as the ' ■:hammer of his rifle went back as he cocked 11 T could have cried as I lay in my place of concealment, to think that we. who ■■loved each other so dearly, could not have ",*' few hours in each other's company without being limited like wild things. ' \fter waiting in dreadful anxiety for ; some time I saw a man emerge from the • hush and stand in the little clearing where ' we had camped, find a glad cry broke from mv lips. ~,,-, The nest instant my husband had sprung from his hiding-place, and was grasping the new-comer by the hand. :*\ "Where, in the name of all that is wonderful, did you spring from?" asked-Basil. - The man chuckled, and I think I should have known him by that peculiar noise, \ 1 even if I had not been able to see his face. It was "the boundary rider," the man who, years before, had gone away into Queensland with old Honeyball and the ' Timor pony mare, to found a station in the hinterland of that wonderful country, ' which is destined some day to be the home -of many millions of white men. though wen now its back-country is an unknown 1 /,'land. to men of. our colour. ■ " "What has brought you here, old friend!" demanded Basil. f~M'i« The boundary rider began to fill his pipe, ipd, as ho did so, he spoke jerkily. "I ,v«a on my cattle run in Queensland, fine ISWfc of country, fine water, grass, and timber; got a nice lot of stock there. One |S: d»y in marched a Chinaman, carrying a pedlar's pack, and wanted me to buy from S;Sr'Bim. It puzzled me to know how the deuce .; h» had pushed as far inland as my hiding'fy'yiatt, and I bigan to., wonder if he was a £ police spy, or not; because it would never I aj« paid anyone, even a Chinaman, to 1 k»wk ■;goods so far out of the beaten.track. lipSftlfe * asked if he -might stay , kMfeir I' told him that he might do so. I • -'idleant .to ■;watch him as a cat watches a • *fflonsehole. He made himself jolly useful, *■■ ud when he asked mc to employ him as a I cook I did so. One day my men were .' rounding up the young stock in the horse - g - paddock, and they brought them in, with M old Honeyball as well. He's a fine figure ' ; *\*of a horse, even yet, though his galloping «v days are done. | "The Chinaman looked at the old horse, -{. then he came to me and whispered. "t 'Honeyball.' The next moment I had him "•' by the throat.. W - "'You infernal police-agent.' I said, as m I choked him 'so this is your game, is ». it!'. <*§ "I nearly had the life out of him before Is I let him drop, and the first thing the | pagan did, when he got his breath again, -; was to sit up and grin. Then he pulled '. off one of his shoes, and, pulling out his I knife, he carefully ripped away the stitches • *- that kept his two thick soles together, and ? there, in between, lay a letter snugly L packed. v , * T>Tceman spiv,' ho whispered. ,-; 'Killowen sply allee time. Plaps you no ; glad, you no "chokee me qlite.' <> ."I glanced at. the letter, and knew it ": ya.s Dave Killowen's handwriting, and then ' I was kind to the yellow man, for it did Me good to get a 'message from my old captain. •'i ; .'; "You see, I'd been extracting all those years to hear from some' of you, and it ■would not have surprised me 'at any time ■; to see.the whole gang of you ride* up to • my homestead. . "The letter told mo that Dave wanted . we, 'and he asked me to meet him and >-~ bring some good horses. He expected that ""•fjhad bred some great animals from old ", Honeyball: and I had, too. I had a dozen to select from, all broken in and trained to our old business. Great animals, I tell .you; but there is one, a son -of the old horse and the Timor pony mare, that for . - upeed, pluck, stamina, and cleverness ' has never .had an equal. He can jump a '■■ stockyard fence with a fourteen-stone man en his back, and I can wheel him round on a dinner-plate when he's going at the , ' .top of his speed. I used to be half-sorry • ■ sometimes that he was mine, because had - he belonged to someone else I would have ridden five hundred miles to loot him." Ig^M,''^Where is he now?" queried Basil, with just the suspicion of a laugh in his voice. . "Dave ' : -Killowen has him," was the . "r laconic reply. ,'i "You have met Dave?" We both put toe same question in the same breath. . "Yes." ''Where is he?" "He is at our camp in the Black Hills, Kenneth is with him, also. . ." "Ken; has dear Ken escaped?" I cried, and I could have hugged the boundary rider, for bringing me.such news. .. "'Yes, Ken is free, and he will never be taken 'again alive. I wouldn't be the officer 'who tried to arrest him for all the money in the wide world." ... How did Ken manage it?" The qu'es- . tiQfl came.from my husband. "It was Dave who did it. Dave had Vernon watched night and day. Scarce • ■ had he moved out of Sydney to come to ■look for you fellows, ere" Dave sent a woman, who was in his pay, to the prison to - ; '«* Ken, and tell him to stand ready for * rescue.' She was a clever woman. Dave Vi Wver employed fools. ' ■. ■ "She found Ken at last behind double ' * a .'lß of bars, with a warder seated between to listen to all the conversation, and . . to . prevent the passing of anything to the .Prisoner. She bribed the gaoler, somehow, • to jet her have speech with Ken privately, *M she managed to make him believe her ij*::; story; though this was a terrible hard job, . ■ ■S?, ÜBe Ken suspected every living thing." ,1 '■ *t- ? boundary rider ground his heel into ;V' l he dirt. .Look here," he whispered, and his t voice was like the sound of a waggon-wheel crushing gravel. "I've talked to your broker Ken, and he has told me what life in . *oe l*»l settlement means, and. if ever I ■■ fiu ■"* tDe police again, I'm going to ' "I*"* until I've only one cartridge left, and 4f „'S oin S to "* that one on my ' *li ; lf tne mur ders that are committed ■" the gaols are done so that the murderer 4 ™y be hanged and put out of his misery. I Tw y t a prisoner has killed a warder simply &'f .■«»t-ne might die himself. I've read the grtory of Siberia, and I tell you that th« ;,. Russian dens were homes of mercy com- : P*r*a to our Australian prison helis." im : y: ■ - -4- : " ''> ■»■;«!!. ■'■■ .

Basil put his hand on the man's arm. "Don't say any more, old chap, tell us of the escape.. There shall never be l another capture of a live Killowen; or, if there is, 1 swear that I'll ride to the court and shoot the prisoner in the dock rather than see him go to such a doom as Ken went to." The boundary rider continued his story. " Oh, it was not so hard to arrange when Vernon was out of the way. Somehow, from what Ken told me, I think that a lot of the warders believe that Vernon drove your father to the hush ; they think he has been at the bottom of a lot of mischief; but' ho has extraordinary influence in high places. " Warders we, c bribed wholesale, and in the end Ken 4.-id Dave slipped quietly away from the co«st, and 1 met them at Sunny Corner with horses. After that, the rest was easy. But both" of them are set like granite on one thing. They are going to hunt for Vernon until they run him down. They will follow him to England if ho takes ship and leaves this country. It is not now a question of Vernon hounding down the Killowens; there are two, at least, who will never rest, night or day, whilst ho lives. "You won't know Ken when you see him. He is a big,, gaunt, wild-looking man who looks like a wolf in winter. No one who had known him would believe that ho was your song-bird only a few years ago ; a happy, sinless boy. He is terrible to look at, terrible to listen to; no one seems to have any influence with him but his poor, old, grey mother." "Mother has seen him, then?" I asked the question with a catch in my voice. >v Yes : and when she saw him, she fell down on her face and asked the Lord to let the rocks and the hills fall rpon her. Then she fell to cursing Vernon, and Dave stood there, white as a dead man, and looked on, saying never a word. " It was the most awful thing I ever looked at, or listened to. But Vernon's hour is coming. He can't escape from vengeance of men who know no fear, and hope for nothing. Dave is at work now." "What is ho doing?" was my husband's query. "He is luring Vernon's black police away from him. They have, no loyalty in them, and Dave is working on them through his agents; he wants to find out where Vernon is." "So do we," answered Basil.: "we've been hunting him like a wild dog, and we have given him a bad time. He has starved, he has lain out in the cold and the wet with neither fire nor shelter, he has ridden and run until the life must be nearly worn out of him. We would have had him fifty times if it had not been for his black boy." " He has got away from you, I think. I met with some wood-cutters to-day, and they saidPthat Vernon had turned up at Neil's Springs more dead than alive. " If that is so," muttered Basil, "we'll make back and join Dave; and then we'll run him out of O'Neil's Springs, for the dingo is on his last hunt." We put the saddles on our horses, and went with the boundary rider to the place where he had left his mount. No need to tell me it was a son of old Honeyball. I saw that at a glance, and said so. "Yes," he replied, " this is one I bred on my Queensland run, and he is about good enough for most things. But wait till you see the horse your brother Dave is riding. ■ You'll say you never saw anything quite so perfect before." Together we rode in search of Bryan and the gang, and when we found them the word was given to break back through the line of the advancing police force. . We picked up my iron-grey mare on the way, and I was glad to feel her springing stride under me once more. She was quite fresh again, after the spell she had had, and the corn had made her playful. Every now and again she would make a little spring, and duck her head down nearly to her knees, and pretend to buck meout of the saddle but it was only play, and I knew it. All the outlaws made much of me, they could not do enough for me in their rough fashion. When we camped at night, they used to pull down leafy boughs from the trees, and build what the wild blacks call a "mis mia," a kind of bough hut. When they had done this, they would make their own camp quite a little distance away. My husband used to tether our horses close to the mia mia, and hour after hour we would sit together and he would tell of the doings of the Killowen gang. I had no fear, because Bryan, my brother, was in command of the gang, and he, I knew, had too much skill to allow the police to surprise üb. Sentries were always on the watch, and they were all so alert that a snake could scarce stir in the grass without them noticing it. Slowly and easy we rode back, and the memory of that ride in the midst of these bold, wild fellows abides with me yet as a pleasing memory. One of the bushrangers rode far ahead, right in front of us; another rode ahead on each hank, so that there was no fear of us blundering into an ambush. At last came the word that our enemies were near us, and the two leaders determined to be bold, and let the police ride right by us. We drew our horses into thick cover, and each man threw his coat over the head of his horse. I wrapped my jacket round the grey mare's head and waited, dreading that she might hear the police horses and whinney to them. But that danger passed,'the police did not dream that we were within many days' march of them; they expected that we should be riding away from them, not coming towards them, and they were careless. We'let them pass, and then rode on, leaving one of our best men behind to watch°them, lest they should strike our tracks by accident and wheel round and follow us. Our gang had prepared for such an emergency before starting on the back track by knocking off all the horses shoes, and putting them on again hind before, to that when we were riding due east it looked to anyone who saw our tracks that we were riding due west. This was a trick brother Davie had taught us long before, and it had often come in useful. Still, we knew the cunning of the trackers too well to feel sure that our ruse would be successful; they were so suspicious that they might send a man back to. follow, and see if all was well. But either they did not run into our trail, or else they were satisfied that we were still in front of them, so that we were not molested. "Telegraphs" began to spring up on every side, who gave us warning of everything, and told us the news of the whole countryside. So at last we reached home, and I ran to mother and got her welcome. (To.be continued . daily.)