“‘And she at Tin Pot Flat, and me nane the wiser! Any mair of the crowd?’
“‘You remember Dick? – the young brother – he that was left behind when they cleared for Balooka – he’s a man grown, this years and years; well, she lives with him. And they say she goes to the shaft every day that Lance was hauled out from, to kneel down and pray. What for, God only knows. Dick’s quiet, but dangerous; he’s the best rider and tracker from Dargo High Plain to Bourke, and that’s a big word.’
“‘I ken that; I’ll joost ride round, and tak’ a look – he’ll need watchin’, and if he’s joined Ned, and Kate’s makin’ a third, there’ll be de’il’s wark ere lang.’
“That evening the tent was doon, Kate and the younger Lawless chiel gane – and nane could say when, how, or where.
“For a week, and the week after that, the wires were going all day and half the nicht. Every police station on the border of New South Wales and Victoria from Monaro to Murray Downs was noticed to look up their black tracker, and have their best horses ready. As for Dayrell, they couldna warn him that the avengers o’ bluid, as nae doot they held themselves to be, were on his trail. He was richt awa amang the ‘snaw leases,’ (as they ca’d them – a country only habitable by man or beast frae late spring to early autumn;) on the trail o’ a gang o’ horse and cattle thieves that had defied the police of three colonies. They had left a record in Queensland before they crossed the New South Wales border.
“Noted men among them – ane tried for murder! A mate, suspect o’ treachery, was found in a creek wi’ twa bullets in’s heid – there were ither evil deeds to accoont for.
“Ay, they were a dour gang – fightin’ to the death. So Dayrell took five of his best men and volunteered for the capture. ‘He was getting rusty,’ he said, ‘but would break up this gang or they should have his scalp.’ These were the very words he used.
“Omeo diggings were passed on the way up. There was sure to be some one that knew him, wherever he went in any of the colonies.
“A tall man put his head out of a shaft on ‘Tin Pot’ as he rode through the Flat at the head of his troopers, and cursed him with deleeberate maleegnity until they were out of sight. ‘Ride on, you bloody dog!’ he said – grinding his teeth – ‘you won’t reign much longer now that Ned and I can work together again, and we have your tracks. I know every foot of the road you’re bound to travel now – once you’re as far as Merrigal there’s no get away between Snowy Creek and the Jibbo. It was our rotten luck the day we first set eyes on you. We were not such a bad crowd if we’d been let alone. Tessie had half persuaded Ned to drop the cross work after we got shut of the Balooka horses. The day afore he told me he’d two minds to let ’em go on the road. Then he couldn’t have been pulled for more than illegal using, which isn’t felony. But you must come along and spoil everything. Lance was copped, as innocent as a child: Ned gets a stretch – it was his death sentence. I know what it’s turned him into. Kate’s gone mad, what with losin’ the kid – a fine little chap, so he was (I cried when I heard of it)! Larry’s hanged – serve him right.
“‘Lance is dead and buried, poor chap! I don’t know what’ll become of me. And what’s more I don’t care; but I’ll have revenge, blast you! before the year’s out, if I swing for it!’
“He didna ken Dick Lawless again in his digger’s dress, and there were few that he didna remember either, if it was ten years after. So he joost gaed alang blithe and gay. The sun was abune the fog that aye hangs o’er the flat till midday, or maybe disna lift at a’ like a Highland mist. He touched his horse’s rein, and the gey, weel-trained beastie gave a dance like, and shook his heid, till bit and curb chain jingled again.
“Ah! me, these things are fearsome at the doing and but little better in the telling. He wadna hae been sae blithe had he seen anither face that peered o’er the shaft just as he turned at the angle of the road and struck into a canter with his troopers ahint him. It was the face of a haggard, clean-shaved man, with hair cut close to the head, and a wild, desperate look like a hunted beast – only one miner on the field knew who the strange man was, and he would never have kent him, but for hearin’ a whisper the night before of a ‘cross cove’ having come late at night to ‘Mrs. Jones’s’ tent.
“Dead beat and half starved to boot was he, but word went round the little goldfield that it was Ned Lawless, the famous horse and cattle ‘duffer’ who’d been arrested by Inspector Dayrell, and ‘put away’ for five years.
“Miners are no joost attached to thae kind o’ folk, and for this one, believed to have stolen wash-dirt cart-horses at Ballarat, they certainly had no love, but, as for layin’ the police on the hunted wretch, even though the reward was tempting, not a man, working as they were on a poor field, but would have scorned the action, and been vara unceevil to him that suggested it. No! that was the business of the police – they were paid for it – let them run him down or any other poor devil that was ‘wanted,’ but as for helping them by so much as raising a finger, it was not in their line.
“Anyhow, an hour before dawn, one man who had reasons for airly rising thought he saw Dick with his sister, ‘Mrs. Jones,’ and the stranger, ride down the gulley which led towards Buckley’s Crossing; the woman was on a roan pony mare, which she brought with her when she came on ‘Tin Pot,’ a year ago. The stranger had an old grey screw Dick had bought for a note, which would let any one catch him, night or day. The fog was thick, and he couldn’t say on his oath which way they went, but they took what was called the ‘mountain track.’”
“A nice crowd, as they say in these parts,” said Mr. Blount. “Where did they go and what did they do, Sergeant?”
“They were ready for any de’il’s wark, ye may believe,” said the old man, impressively, “and, as I heard frae one that daurna speak me false, they were no lang ere they were at it.
“The day after they were seen leaving ‘Tin Pot,’ they called at a small settler’s place and took his twa best horses. He was a man that had good anes, wad win races at sma’ townships.
“The wife and her sister were at hame, the man was awa’.
“They loaded up a packhorse with rations, more by token a rug and twa pairs blankets. The younger man told them the horses wad maybe stray back. He paid for the rations and the blankets, but said they must have them. It was a lonely place. The woman sat on her horse, and wadna come ben, though they asked her to have a cup of tea. She shook her head; they couldna see her face for a thick veil she wore.
“This information didna come in for some days later, when the man won hame; the women were afraid to leave the place, ye may weel believe. The raiders rode hard, maistly at nicht, keepit aff the main road, and took ‘cuts’ when they could find them. Dick Lawless knew them a’, could amaist smell them, his mates used to say.
“They got the Inspector’s trail and never lost it; if they were off it for a while, they could always ‘cut’ it again. They had telegraphs plenty (bush anes) but there were nane to warn Dayrell o’ them that thirsted for his life-bluid, and were following on through the snaw, like the wolves on a Russian steppe, as the buiks tell us. He was joost ‘fey,’ in the high spirits that foretell death or misfortune, as we Hielanders believe. He had the chance o’ a capture that would ring through three colonies. It did that, but no in the way he expeckit.
“He heard tell frae a bushman, a brither o’ the man that the gang shot before he had time to do more than threaten to ‘give them away,’ that they were to be at the ‘Ghost Camp’ aboot the twentieth o’ the month. An auld fastness this, at the edge o’ broken, mountainous country, where the wild blacks cam’ to hide after killing cattle or robbing huts, when Queensland was first ta’en up by squatters. A place no that easy to ride to, maist deeficult to discover, amang the great mountain forests o’ the border. Battles had there been, between the black police and the wild native tribes that