Page:Australian Emigrant 1854.djvu/172

 huddled up in a corner, in which position they were kept by the table being placed in front of them.—The hut was ransacked and every thing turned topsy-turvey. The only decent coat I possessed was appropriated, and one of my two linen shirts went for tinder. After they had laden their horses with provisions from my store, the rascals added insult to injury, for they set to and ate up all the breakfast I had prepared for my friends. In rummaging out my stock they had come across some rum, the remnant of my last spree, and I was in hopes they would have drank freely, but the one who appeared to be the leader of the gang seized upon the liquor immediately it was produced, and serving out a small portion to each of his comrades, he spilt the remainder upon the ground. Although this proceeding was evidently distasteful, no one ventured to remonstrate. I was now ordered to go inside and to assist in tying my friends together by the arms in order to prevent the possibility of pursuit, but this I positively refused to do. All the bushrangers were in the hut, and the horses with their burdens hitched up outside, when we were startled by a rattling volley followed by a loud cheer. All was confusion, and in the midst of it I and my friends made a bolt, rushed outside, holding up both hands to show we were unarmed, and nearly had our brains kicked out, for two horses were struggling in the doorway in the agonies of death. The bushrangers also endeavoured to escape, but finding it hopeless, they returned to the hut, and from all I can judge they mean to fight it out; the rope is about their necks and they know it. All this accounts for your seeing me unarmed, but though there are no spare weapons yet, there will be by and by, for those fellows know how to handle a rifle as well as the men who have come out to take them and who dropped upon them at such a convenient time."

During Rugsby's account of the occurrences which had led