Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/501

 'Did you ever get hit,' I said, 'in a scrimmage with the police?'

'That near done for me,' he explained, pulling back his singlet and showing a large, ragged cicatrice over the region of the heart. 'I wish to God it had. But it wasn't the police.'

'How then?'

'Goin' up to a hut at night; the feller waited for me. Them marks are slugs.'

'Wonder it didn't kill you,' I said. 'Must have been a good handful of them.'

'Well, I crawled off, and some chaps I knowed nursed me till I got round. But it was a near thing. "Born to be hanged," they say, "save you a lot." But it won't run to that, d'ye think, sir, when we haven't killed any one?'

'Not quite,' I said, 'though you fired at Mr. Waller and his men with intent, as the Act says, to do serious bodily harm. You'll get a term of imprisonment of course.'

'A long "stretch," I expect,' he said. 'Well; it's no use cryin'. Good-bye, sir, and thanks very much.'

Then we parted. He went on his way and I saw him no more; circumstances prevented that. I never met him or his companions again. They were sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment, and as all this happened thirty odd years ago, they must be out years and years since. Let us hope that they reformed. It is on the cards, also, that they may have 'struck it rich' on a Queensland or West Australian goldfield.

After this capture and disposal of our highwaymen, the land had rest for a season. One of the consequences of the outbreak might have had an ending calculated to surprise the European wool-buyer. Just before the bale of broken fleece referred to was filled up and put into the press, Mrs. Boldrewood recollected that she had never seen the box of ammunition since the day they were huddled into the wool-bale. It was hastily examined and the explosives hauled out, just as the press was being put down; great was the laughter in the shed, as the men thought of the faces of the wool-brokers in a London saleroom when the 'mixed pieces' were turned out for inspection. I never got my watch back, though my cousin recovered his. The police heard that the bushrangers had, holding out