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We worked on runs where the snow came down every now and then in such a way as to make us think that we might be snowed up alive some fine morning. It was very slow and tedious work, but the newspapers seldom came there, and we were not worried day after day with telegrams about our Adelaide stroke, and descriptions of Starlight's own look and way of speaking.
However, though we were not going slow either, but kept up a reasonable fast pace, it must have been past midnight when we rode into Starlight's camp; very glad Jim and I were to see the fire not a big one either. We had been taking it pretty easy, you see, for a month or two, and were not quite so ready for an eighty-mile ride as if we had been in something like training.
It was spring, an' the range was smooth an' tough. All through the snow Starlight's long legs had given him a big advantage, but now her weight made it a purty good bet either way. "Let 'em go grassin', Barbie," sez I. "This fine young grass " "I knew you were afraid to make a fair test of it," she sez scornful.
He had good call to know him, as well as the rest of us, for a most expensive animal, before all was said and done. What he cost us all round it would be hard indeed to cipher up. Anyhow, there was a great laugh at Starlight's easy way of taking it.
He is regarded rather as a victim than as an active agent in the many criminal offences chargeable to the account of Starlight's gang. 'Since writing the above we have been informed that trooper Walsh, who with another constable was escorting James Marston to Bargo Gaol, has been brought in badly wounded.
I could see, by the stain on Starlight's mouth and the blood on his breast, he'd been shot through the lungs. I was badly hit too, and going in the head, though I didn't feel it so much at the time. I began to hear voices like in a dream; then my eyes darkened, and I fell like a log.
I thought I knew the word he was going to say, and that word was 'Guilty. Sure enough I didn't hear anything more for a bit. I don't mind owning that. Most men feel that way the first time. There was a sound like rushing waters in my ears, and the courthouse and the people all swam before my eyes. The first I heard was Starlight's voice again, just as cool and leisurely as ever.
There was blood on the rags that bound his head all up, and being round his forehead and over his chin it made him look more and more like a corpse. Not much you could see, only his eyes, that were burning bright like two coals of fire. Up to Starlight's body he goes and sits himself down by it.
We made a deal at last with father for them. He took my share and Starlight's, and paid us in cash out of his share of the notes. All we wanted was a couple of horses each, one to carry a pack, one to ride. As for dad, he told us out, plump and plain, that he wasn't going to shift. The Hollow was good enough for him, and there he was going to stop.
'Nothing at all for a good spell, if you've any sense, growled father. 'It'll give us all we know to keep dark when this thing gets into the papers, and the police in three colonies are all in full cry like a pack of beagles. The thing is, what'll be our best dart now? 'I'll go back overland, says he. 'Starlight's going to take Warrigal with him, and they'll be off to the islands for a turn.
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