Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/515

 proportion of free men employed as guards and warders, overseers and head workmen, there was obviously no temptation to leave recognised positions, to ramble through the terrible foodless wastes, with a price on their heads, as was the stern usage of the period.

But in the case of the reckless felon the conditions were different. He had been flogged—he was worked in irons for bad conduct. If returned by his employer to the authorities as useless or stubborn, no prospect lay before him but that of ending a wretched life in the severer penal settlements, where incorrigibles were doomed to chains and slavery. He declared for the open sky, the free forest. The toll levied on the drays of the squatter, the homestead of the farmer, or the wayfarer on the high-road, was necessarily the chief, almost the only support of outlaws. For a time they lived and flourished. Having secured arms—the fowling-piece, musket, or pistol of the period—they entrapped or intimidated the unwary traveller. They made stubborn defence against the minions of the law, unless the odds were too great. In some instances, having discovered retreats known only to the aboriginal tribes or outlying shepherds, mostly sympathisers, their evasion of justice was prolonged for years. The end, however, was but delayed. Tracked down, betrayed, slain in fair fight with police, with soldiers, with settlers combining for self-defence, the same fate awaited all.

Found with arms in their hands, they were hanged as a matter of course. No sentence of imprisonment afforded them hope of escape, with further possibilities of crime. They had played the great hazard, and the forfeit was duly paid.

Living in this condition of continual warfare—their hand against all men, and, with rare exceptions, all men against them, the gallows or the bullet their certain doom—it is not to be wondered at that crimes of violence shocked and aroused the community. 'As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb,' was the familiar proverb quoted in reference to deeds of blood and rapine. With fancied wrongs and years of oppression to avenge, they showed no mercy. They had received none. Fighting with the rope round their necks, they were reckless and ruthless. And when the last act of the grim tragedy was played, with the hangman for stage manager and