"You left them—I found them. Or you were sleeping, but I was unarmed."
"You would lie like that—to save my name?"
"And a man whom I remember perfectly . . ."
Stingaree heard no more; he was down on his knees, collecting the letters into heaps and shovelling them into the bags. Even the copy of Punch and the loose wrapper went in with the rest.
"You can't carry them," said he, when none remained outside. "I'll take them for you and dump them on the track."
"I have to pass the time till midnight. I can manage them in two journeys."
But Stingaree insisted, and presently stood ready to mount his mare.
"You give me your word, Kentish?"
"My word of honor."
"It is something to have one to give! I shall not come back this way; we shall have the Clear Corner police on our tracks by moonlight, and the more they have to choose from the better. So I must go. You have given me your word; you wouldn't care to give me——"
But his hand went out a little as he spoke, and Kentish's met it seven-eights of the way.
"Give this up, man! It's a poor game, when all's said; do give it up!" urged the man of the world with the warmth of a lad. "Come back to England and——"
But the hand he had detained was wrenched from his, and, in the pink sunset sifted through the pines, Stingaree vaulted into his saddle with an oath.
"With a price on my skin!" he cried, and galloped from the gully with a bitter laugh.
And in the moonlight sure enough came bobbing horsemen, with fluttering pugarees and short tunics with silver buttons; but they saw nothing of the missing passenger, who had carried the bags some distance down the road, and had found them quite a comfortable couch in a certain box-clump commanding a sufficient view of the road. Nevertheless, when the little coach came swaying on its leathern springs, its scarlet enamel stained black as ink in the moonshine, he was on the spot to stop it with uplifted arms.
"Don't shoot!" he cried. "I'm the passenger you put down this afternoon." And the driver nearly tumbled from his perch.
"What about my mail-bags?" he recovered himself enough to ask: for it was perfectly plain that the pretentiously intrepid passenger had been skulking all day in the scrub, scared by the terrors of the road.
"They're in that clump," replied Mr. Kentish. "And you can get them yourself, or send someone else for them, for I have carried them far enough."
"That be blowed for a yarn!" cried the driver, forgetting his benefits in the virtuous indignation of the moment.
"I don't wonder at your thinking it one," returned the other, mildly; "for I never had such absolute luck in all my life!"
And he went on to amplify his first lie like a man.
But when the bags were really back in the coach, piled roof-high on those of the downward mail, then it was worse fun for Guy Kentish outside than even he had anticipated. Question followed question, compliment capped compliment, and a certain unsteady undercurrent of incredulity by no means lessened his embarrassment. Had he but told the truth, he felt he could have borne the praise, and indeed enjoyed it, for he had done far better than anybody was likely to suppose, and already it was irritating to have to keep that circumstance a secret. Yet one thing he was able to say from his soul before the coach drew up at the next stage.
"You should have a spell here," the driver had suggested, "and let me pick you up again on my way back. You'd soon lay hands on the bird himself, if you can put salt on his tail as you've done. And no one else can—we want a few more chums like you."
"I dare say!"
And the new chum's tone bore its own significance.
"You don't mean," cried the driver, "to go and tell me you'll hurry home after this?"
"Only by the first steamer!" said Guy Kentish.
And he kept that word as well.
The Taking of Stingaree
Stingaree had crossed the Murray, and all Victoria was agog with the news. It was not his first descent upon that Colony, nor likely to be his last, unless Sub-Inspector Kilbride and his mounted myrmidons did much better than they had done before. There is no stimulus, however, like a trembling reputation. Within four-and-twenty hours Kilbride himself was on the track of the invader, whose heels he had never seen, much less his face. And he rode alone.
It was not merely his reputation that was at stake, though nothing could restore that more effectually than the single-handed capture of so notorious a desperado as Stingaree. The dashing officer was not unnaturally actuated by the sum of three hundred pounds now set upon the outlaw's person, alive or dead. That would be a little windfall for one man, but not much to divide among five or six; on the other hand, and with all his faults, Sub-Inspector Kilbride had courage enough to furnish forth a squadron. He was a black-bearded, high-cheeked Irish-Australian, keen and over-eager to a disease, restless, irascible, but full of the fire and dash that make as dangerous an enemy as another good fighter need desire. And as a fine fighter in an infamous cause, Stingaree had his admirers even in Victoria, where the old tale of popular sympathy with a picturesque rascal was responsible for not the least of the Sub-Inspector's difficulties. But even this struck Kilbride as yet another of those obstacles which were more easily surmounted alone than at the head of a talkative squad; and with that conviction he pushed his thoroughbred on and on through a whole cool night and three parts of an Australian summer's day. Imagine, then, his disgust at the apparition of a mounted trooper galloping to meet him in the middle of the afternoon, and within a few miles of a former hiding-place of the bushranger, where the senior officer had strong hopes of finding and surprising him now.
"Where the devil do you come from?" cried Kilbride, as the other rode up.
"Jumping Creek," was the crisp reply. "Stationed there."
"Then why don't you stop there and do your duty?"
"Stingaree!" said the laconic trooper.
"What! Do you think you're after him too?"
"I am after him."
"So am I."
"Then you're going in the wrong direction."
Kilbride flushed a warm brown from beard to helmet.
"Do you know who you're speaking to?" cried he. "I'm Sub-Inspector Kilbride, and this business is my business, and no other man's in this Colony. You go back to your barracks, sir! I'm not going to have every damned fool in the force charging about the country on his own account."
The trooper was a dark, smart, dapper young fellow, of a type not easily browbeaten or subdued. And discipline is not the strong point of forces so irregular as the mounted police of a crescent colony. But nothing could have been more admirable than the manner in which this rebuke was received.
"Very well, sir, if you wish it; but I can assure you that you are off the track of Stingaree."
"How do you know?" asked Kilbride, rudely; but he was beginning to look less black.
"I happen to know the place. You would have some difficulty in finding it if you never were there before. I only stumbled across it by accident myself."
"Lately?"
"One day last winter when I was out looking for some horses."
"And you kept it to yourself!"
The trooper hung his head. "I knew we should have him across the river again," he said. "It was only a question of time; and—well, sir, you can understand!"