Stingaree

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!"

"You were keen on taking him yourself, were you?"

"As keen as you are, Mr. Kilbride!" owned the younger man, raising bold eyes, and looking his superior fairly and squarely in the face.

Kilbride returned the stare, and what he saw unsettled him. The other was wiry, trim, eminently alert; he had the masterful mouth and the dare-devil eye, and his horse seemed a part of himself. A more promising comrade at hot work was not to be desired: and the work would be hot if Stingaree had half a chance. After all, it was better for two to succeed than for one to fail. "Half the money and a whole skin!" said Kilbride to himself, and rapped out his decision with an oath.

The trooper's eyes lit with reckless mirth, and a soft cheer came from under his breath.

"By the bye, what's your name," said Kilbride, "before we start?"

"Bowen – Jack Bowen."

"Then I know all about you! Why on earth didn't you tell me before? It was you who took that black fellow who murdered the shepherd on Woolshed Creek, wasn't it?"

The admission was made with due modesty.

"Why, you're the very man for me!" Kilbride cried. "You show the way, Jack, and I'll make the going."

And off they went together at a canter, the slanting sun striking fire from their buttons and accoutrements, and lighting their sunburnt faces as it lit the red stems and the white that raced past them on either side. For a little they followed the path which Kilbride had taken on his way thither; then the trooper plunged into the thick bush on the left, and the game became follow-my-leader, in and out, out and in, through a maze of red stems and of white, where the pungent eucalyptus scent hung heavy as the sage-green, perpendicular leaves themselves: and so onward until the Sub-Inspector called a halt.

"How far is it now, Bowen?"

"Two or three miles, sir."

"Good! It'll be light for another hour and a half. We'd better give the mokes a breather while we can. And there'd be no harm in two draws."

"I was just thinking the same thing, sir."

So their reins dangled while they cut up a pipeful of apparent shoe-leather apiece: and presently the dull blue smoke was curling and circling against the dull green foliage, producing subtle half-tint harmonies and momentary arabesques as the horses ambled neck and neck.

"Native of this Colony?" puffed Kilbride.

"Well, no – old country originally – but I've been out some years."

"That's all right so long as you're not a New South Welshman," said Kilbride, with a chuckle. "I'll be shot if I wouldn't almost have turned you back if you had been!"

"Victoria is to have all the credit, is she, sir?"

"Anyhow they sha'n't have any on the other side, or I'll know the reason!" the Victorian swore. "I – I – by Jove, I'd as lief lose my man again as let them have a hand in taking him!"

"But why?"

"Why? Do you live so near the border, and can you ask? Did you never hear a Sydney-side drover blowing about his blooming Colony? Haven't you heard of Sydney Harbor till you're sick? And then their papers!" cried Kilbride, with columns in his tone. "But I'll have the last laugh yet! I swore I would, and I will! I swore I'd take Stingaree – "

"So I heard."

"Yes, they put it in their infernal papers! But it was true – take him I will!"

"Or die in the attempt, eh?"