'You started it!' groaned Ted.

'Pretty lot o' bushrangers you are, anyway,' d.i.c.k sneered, 'howlin'

'cause a woman gave you a bit of a doin'.'

'How' d you like it?' asked Jacker sullenly.

d.i.c.k disdained to reply; indeed his attention was occupied with more important things. Out of the night came the sound of galloping hoofs and calling voices. The boys listened anxiously for a minute or so, and then realised their danger.

'They're after us!' exclaimed d.i.c.k. 'Scatter an' run for the scrub. Meet at the mine!'

The pursuers dashed up on their horses just as the boys swarmed over the fence into Wilson's paddock. It was the party of young men who first pa.s.sed the bushrangers, and the man on the grey horse. They were armed with bottles, three parts drunk, and bent on making an heroic capture.

Some of them sprang from their horses and pursued the flying bushrangers through the trees.

d.i.c.k and Peterson reached the Gaol Quarry safely, and sat in doleful silence waiting for their mates, and wondering if any had been taken. Ted and Jacker joined them a few minutes later, and Phil Doon came limping up in the course of a quarter of an hour. He had bad news.

'They've got Gable!' he cried from a distance.

'No. Go on!'

'S'help me. I fell gettin' over the fence an' sneaked into a hollow tree, an' saw 'em snavel him. 'Here's one of 'em' said one, an' they put him on a horse an' tied his legs under its belly, an' they've gone into Yarraman with him.'

'Gee-rusalem! An' what'd he say?' gasped d.i.c.k.

'Nothin' 'sept 'Oh, crickey!''

'Well, he won't split on us. He won't know a word about it in the mornin'. We're all right if none of us blabs. You fellers goin' to stay?'

'I ain't. I'm sick o' bein' a bushranger,' said Jacker, with a reflective and remorseful rub at his hurt place.

'So'm I,' said Ted.

Phil Doon, it appeared, had pressing reasons for returning home, but Peterson remembered that he had still an account to settle with his father, and resolved to share d.i.c.k's fortune.

'Right you are,' said d.i.c.k. 'You fellers bring some crib to-morrer, an'

if you see Parrot Cann tell him to fetch some too--an', mind, no blabbin'.'

Reverses of this kind did not depress him; he had experienced many failures, but the wreck of one enterprise only implied the necessity of starting another.

'Say,' he said mysteriously, 'there's a big reason why we should keep things darker'n ever. Listen. We've struck the reef!

The others stared incredulously.

'You're havin' us,' said Jacker.

'Am I? Tell 'em, Billy.'

'No, he ain't,' said Peterson. 'It's true, strike me breath. We got a specimen this mornin' wif three colours in it.'

'So if anyone's told where we're hidin' they'll see the stone an' go an'

jump the mine,' said d.i.c.k artfully.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEITHER of the McKnights nor Parrot came to the boys on the Sunday morning, and d.i.c.k and Billy, whose larder had run short, were compelled to make a raid on Wilson's garden--which yielded little in the way of fruit, but carrots and turnips were not despised. At about eleven o'clock, from an outlook amongst some scrub on the Red hand tip, d.i.c.k and his mate could see that something unusual was going on in Waddy. They saw a crowd gathering near the Drovers' Arms, and could catch the glitter of the accoutrements of a couple of troopers. A little later a mounted policeman actually came cantering into the paddock and forced them to creep stealthily to their safe retreat at the bottom of the mine. Here they sat and talked, prey to the most torturing curiosity. d.i.c.k's theories to explain the apparent sensation were fine and large, investing himself and his companion with profound dignity as the heroes of a thrilling adventure; but Billy's for a wonder were somewhat gloomy, reckoning with parental castigations and ten years in gaol. This unusual frame of mind was induced, no doubt, by a limited and strictly vegetarian diet. d.i.c.k took into account the possibility that Jacker, Ted, or Phil Doon might divulge the Company's great secret, although his faith in the loyalty of his mates was strong. If the worst came to the worst he meditated a retreat through the hole into the Red Hand drive, and flight from thence down the ladder-shaft and into the s.p.a.cious workings of the Silver Stream.

To help pa.s.s the time the two worked a little in the drive, breaking down about a hundredweight of the quartz ridge that had cut in across the narrow face. The stone showed gold freely. At another time this would have occasioned the wildest jubilation, but now everything was secondary to the wonder inspired by what they had seen in Waddy, combined with their dread of the results of last night's work. It was well on in the afternoon when they were joyfully startled by the sound of a whistle in the shaft.

'h.e.l.lo, below there!' cried a voice, and a few seconds later Parrot Cann, too excited to go through the usual formalities, rattled down and landed in a heap at d.i.c.k's feet.

'What's up?' asked d.i.c.k eagerly, as Parrot crept into the drive.

'Oh, I say,' gasped Parrot, 'youse fellers are in fer it!'

'How? Who split? What're the troopers doin'?'

'They're after youse.'

'After us!' Peterson's face paled at this corroboration of his worst suspicions.

'My oath! Gable's in gaol at Yarraman; Phil an' Jacker an' Ted's been took, an' now they're after you.'

Fer what?'

'Rob'ry under arms, the feller said, an' shooting with intent' r somethin'.

d.i.c.k whistled incredulously. Here was fame, here was glory. His favourite authors were justified, and yet there was the dark side; thought of his mother came with a sharp twinge.

'Who went an' split--Ted?'

'None o' the Company,' said Parrot. 'The troopers came to arrest Gable's mates, thinkin' they was men, an' Toll-bar Sam told who you was. He saw you all last night.'

'Did they take Ted, an' Jacker, an' Phil right away?'

'Um. Off to Yarraman. You don't know what a row's on. It's awful. Them fellers what captured Gable told a yarn about a gang o' bushrangers'n a terrible fight, an' swore Gable was the blood thirstiest of 'em all. The Yarraman Mercury printed a special paper this mornin', with all about the outbreak of a new gang o' bushrangers in great big type, an' every one's near mad about it, 'sept those what's laughin'.'

The boys gazed at each other for a few moments in silence. It took some time to grasp the astounding facts. They were real bushrangers, their escapades had been printed in the papers, they were actually being pursued by bona fide troopers on flesh-and-blood horses--what more could ambitious youth demand?

d.i.c.k's unconquerable romanticism upheld him; he had achieved distinction, and the prospect of deluding and outwitting the police after the manner of his most brilliant heroes filled him with delight; but Billy Peterson was awed and out of spirits.

'It's all right, Billy,' said d.i.c.k, 'they'll never find us here. We can defy 'em all fer weeks.'

'Yes,' said Billy bitterly, 'but I'm hungry!'

'You didn't bring no crib, Parrot.' d.i.c.k had made it a rule that the necessities of a shareholder temporarily in difficulties and hiding in the mine were to be attended to by the free members of the Company or others who, like Parrot Cann, were admitted to the Company's councils.

'Wasn't game,' answered Parrot; 'they'd 'a' watched me. Had to sneak away as it was.'

d.i.c.k puckered his face wisely. It was a very dirty face just now; his red hair, long neglected, hung in wisps over his forehead and about his ears, giving him an elfish look in the candlelight.