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"Sticking up" is merely a concise colonial rendering of "Your money or your life," and was originally employed by Australian bushrangers, those terrible freebooters whose ranks used to be always recruited from escaped convicts.
By a flash of lightning we could see three of the bushrangers examining the banks of the creek, for the purpose of judging whether it could be forded by the horses or not. They seemed to decide against its feasibility, for we heard them grumbling at the idea of stopping there all night, and getting sighted by "d d old Wright" in the morning.
She told us she had listened to the defendant when he solemnly swore that he had seduced her former pupil, that he had stood in the dock for horse-stealing, and had been the associate of highwaymen and bushrangers, and had made a will for the purpose of fraud; and yet this woman took him by the hand, and was not ashamed of his companionship. His counsel described her as a ministering angel.
I almost regretted that we had not, during their absence, endeavored to gain some secure retreat, either at the station on our right, which our Day belonged to, and where it was thought the bushrangers would not have dared to follow us, or else having struck out boldly for Mount Tarrengower, endeavored to have discovered a path or trail that led over the mountain, where we might have found safety.
He was only silenced by the driver threatening to throw him as a juicy morsel to the gang of bushrangers who, sure as blazes, would be waiting to stick the coach up directly it entered the bush. Husband and wife lingered to watch the start, when the champing horses took a headlong plunge forward and, together with the coach, were swallowed up in a whirlwind of dust.
The corporal addressed as Jackson stopped only long enough to detail six men, when he starred towards the town at a brisk gallop, which raised a cloud of dust that resembled a fog bank. "Two of you take these fellows to prison and double iron them, and tell old Warner that he had better look after them sharp, for they are bushrangers of some notoriety."
In that dreary retreat bushrangers find homes stealing forth as they do during the night, to feast upon slaughtered sheep, and rob travellers; they lead an anxious life, as they never know who is about to betray them, and give them up to the merciless rigor of the authorities of the city, or else shoot them down as thoughtlessly as you would a kangaroo, in case one should cross your path."
"Can he have been attacked by bushrangers, and thrown here?" I asked. "I don't think that," answered Guy, pointing up to the cliff. "See, he must have fallen over, and striking his head on the ground, have become insensible. Go and get some water from yonder pool in your hat, and I think that if we bathe his head, he will come to."
The fellow muttered something which we did not hear, and Murden shouted again, "Did we disturb you from a refreshing nap, Bimbo, or have you grown lazier than ever? Come, stir yourself, and start a fire; we want breakfast. In a few minutes there will be a dozen more here, and they will eat you out of house and home, unless you are smart. Bushrangers always have good appetites."
Every one, except myself, was to walk, and we furthermore determined to "camp out" as much as possible, and thus avoid the vicinity of the inns and halting-places on the way, which are frequently the lurking-places of thieves and bushrangers.
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