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Updated: June 11, 2025
"What did you want to squirt the hose on me that time for?" "I told you it was an accident," said Bert quietly. "And I say you did it on purpose. I said I'd get even with you, and now I'm going to." "I don't want to fight, Danny," said Bert quietly. "Huh! he's afraid!" sneered Jack Westly, one of Danny's friends. "Yes, he's a coward!" taunted Danny. "I'm not!" cried Bert stoutly.
They turned and fled, hotly pursued by the men of Pine Tree Diggings. "That'll do!" cried Flinders to Brixton; "they'll not need us any more this night. Come wid me now." Fred Westly, who had rushed to the attack with the rest, soon pulled up.
Now, while Tom Brixton was revolving this knotty question in his mind, and Bully Gashford was revolving questions quite as knotty, and much more complex, and Fred Westly was discussing with Flinders the best plan to be pursued in the event of Tom refusing to fly, there was a party of men assembled under the trees in a mountain gorge, not far distant, who were discussing a plan of operations which, when carried out, bade fair to sweep away, arrest, and overturn other knotty questions and deep-laid plans altogether.
About daybreak the marauders set out again, and it chanced that the direction they took was the same as that taken by Fred Westly and his comrades. These latter had made up their minds to try their fortune at a recently discovered goldfield, which was well reported of, though the yield had not been sufficient to cause a "rush" to the place.
"No," replied Westly, "but there is no reason why you should not consent to accept an offer when it is made to you by an old chum. Besides, I offer the money on loan, the only condition being that you won't gamble it away." "Fred," returned Brixton, impressively, "I must gamble with it if I take it. I can no more give up gambling than I can give up drinking.
"But the country has been kept for a long time in constant alarm and turmoil by these men," said Fred Westly, "and, although I like fighting as little as any man, I cannot help thinking that we owe it as a duty to society to capture as many of them as we can, especially now that we seem to have caught them in a sort of trap." "What says Mahoghany Drake on the subject!" asked Unaco.
"Tom, my dear boy," returned Fred, earnestly, "you are getting weak. It is evident that they have delayed supper too long. Try to sleep now, and I'll go and see why Tolly has not brought it." So saying, Fred Westly left the tent and went off in quest of his little friend.
"Ye may well ax that, sor," said Flinders, staggering to his feet and seizing his axe, which always lay handy at his side. Paul had glanced round sharply, like a man inured to danger, but seeing nothing to alarm him, had remained in a sitting position. "Why, Westly, you've been dreaming," he said with a broad grin.
He laboured each day with pick and shovel with the energy of a hero and the dogged perseverance of a navvy, and each night he went to Lantry's store to increase his gains by gambling. As a matter of course his "luck," as he called it, varied. Sometimes he returned to the tent which he shared with his friend Westly, depressed, out of humour, and empty-handed.
Of course Paddy Flinders went with the same party, and we need scarcely add that the little Irishman sympathised with Fred. "D'ee think it's likely we'll cotch 'im?" he asked, in a whisper, on the evening of that day, as they went rapidly through the woods together, a little in rear of their party. "It is difficult to say," answered Westly.
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