United States or Madagascar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"As a matter of fact, I was on the point of writing out a similar one myself, when I saw yours and guessed I'd let you do the work." "Who are you?" Bryce demanded with a trace of sharpness in his voice. The man at the other end of the wire laughed cheerfully. "Never you mind," he said. "You'll know soon enough, as soon as you've landed Jack Bradby's plunder.
"I don't like shooting a horse," Cumshaw remarked. "It's like murder." Bradby's only answer was a muttered oath. The trials of the Journey were bringing out the worst side of the man, a side that Cumshaw had never seen before. He eyed his companion thoughtfully.
Far away below them, in among the misty shapes of the distant trees, he caught a glimpse of a collection of dark little dots whose unfamiliar look puzzled him. He called Mr. Bradby's attention to them, and that gentleman glanced at them in an offhand way and pronounced them to be kangaroos. "Come on," he added in a different tone. "Hurry up with you there!" Mr.
The humor of this was apparently lost on the captured ones, for they received it in silence, much to Mr. Bradby's disgust. "Laugh when I crack a joke!" he roared. "Laugh, all of you, damn you!" Somebody giggled in a half-hearted manner. "That's no sort of a laugh," snorted Mr. Bradby. "When I say laugh, I mean laugh. I don't want you to bubble like that jackass did."
Bradby watched him with some misgiving. No man could say with certainty just what secret the dilapidated hut held, and Bradby's state of mind was such that he took the gloomier view of the situation. He would not have been very much surprised to see half a dozen troopers issue from the hut. He would have taken it as the inevitable ending of such an adventure.
If the wilderness was to get on Bradby's nerves at this early stage, Cumshaw could see that there was likely to be very serious trouble before the end came. The air in the highlands was laden with a freshness which, while it stung the men to action, at the same time put a keen edge on their tempers.
The man who had fired the fatal shot dropped on his knees beside him and lifted up his head. Bradby's face was ashy pale, even in the faint moonlight one could see that, but he was still conscious. "It's no use," he panted. "I'm done." "Where is the gold and where are your mates?" the man asked, conscious that a word from the dying bushranger would solve everything.
During the morning Bradby's horse developed lameness, and, though the two men slackened the pace in order to give it every chance, by mid-day it could barely limp along. "This won't do," said Bradby in despair. "We're losing time we can ill afford. All the same this old crock'll have to struggle on until nightfall, and then we'll see whether we'll have to shoot it."
Bradby's revolver, and whose head still throbbed with the force of the blow. He stared uncomprehendingly at the steep sides of the gully; they had no place in his gallery of mental pictures. He had a vague idea that there should be a creek somewhere close at hand. His head was throbbing, pulsing as if some mighty engine were working inside it.
He had enough presence of mind to tether both his own and Bradby's mount, and then he cautiously parted the bushes. For the moment he could see nothing but a great wall of golden blossoms, and then out of the depths came Bradby's furious voice. He was cursing the horse and the slope and everything and everyone within hearing in the simple and forceful fashion of the Australian bushman.
Word Of The Day