CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Australian winter had passed, the spring was smiling with strict impartiality on Three Star and Dog’s Ear alike, and the heavy rains had swollen the stream beside which Norman and Esmeralda had sat in the placid moonlight into a mighty torrent, whose brawling filled the camp with a sullen music, to which the men worked as to an accompaniment.

Things were looking up at Three Star, and times were flush. The Eldorado had been newly painted—a brilliant red picked out with green—some of the tents had developed into quite respectable wooden houses; MacGrath’s whisky had not improved, and was still as deadly; but empty champagne cases, piled ostentatiously outside the saloon—for the benefit of Dog’s Ear, which had not been lucky—indicated the prosperity of the camp.

At a newly covered table Varley sat, as of old, deftly and gracefully shuffling the cards, and softly inquiring, “Who plays this deal?” In honor of the blandness of the season he wore a new suit of the latest Melbourne fashion, and Esmeralda’s diamond pin glittered and shot fire from his correctly tied scarf.

The saloon was full, business in fine swing, and MacGrath, from his place behind the bar, dispensed, as of old, noggins[267] of his infamous whisky; there was the usual noisy game of billiards going on, and now and again a youth with musical gifts was hammering on the tin-kettle piano. Taffy, gloriously drunk, was bawling out the last comic song—it had expired in England of general loathing six months ago—and two men were quarreling in a corner and breathing threats of mutual destruction.

As of old, Varley sat serene, impassive, languid, his white hands shuffling and dealing the cards, his dark eyes glancing at the faces round the table as if he were performing some feat of magic, from which, sooner or later, as surely as fate or death, he would reap the benefit.

In a pause of the game, Taffy with difficulty steered his way to the table and smiled round with tipsy complacency.

“How’s the game a-going, Varley?” he asked, with a hiccough.

Varley nodded.

“I’ll sit down and take a hand,” said Taffy.

“No, you won’t,” remarked Varley, examining his cards with a quick sweep of his eye, which took in their value in an instant.

“I won’t?” said Taffy. “Oh, won’t I! Why not?”

“Because you couldn’t sit down if you tried, you old soaker; and if you did, you couldn’t see the cards. Go and get another drink and waltz off to bed; your nurse is waiting to undress you, my child.”

Taffy subsided, as he always did, with a tipsy grin.

“That di’mond o’ Esmeralda’s is a-firing away to-night fine, Varley,” he said, changing the subject discreetly. “Reminds me of them eyes of hers. Blame me if they usedn’t to shine jes’ like that when she was in one of her tantrums.”

Varley gave the slightest of nods, and Taffy leaned against a chair and sighed with maudlin tenderness.

“Ain’t—ain’t heard from her lately, I s’pose, Varley?”

“Not lately,” said Varley. “Get out of the light.”

“’Pears to me she don’t write as often as she might,” remarked one of the players. “Dessay she’s a’most forgot us all—forgot as there ever was such a dog-darned place as Three Star.”

Taffy lurched threateningly toward the speaker.

“What’s that?” he demanded, with the quick resentment of a tipsy man thirsting for a fight. “Who’s that as spoke? Scraggy-head, warn’t it? I thought so! And you calkilate Esmeralda’s forgot us all, do you, Ed-er-ward? Ain’t that[268] what he said, boys, or did my ears misdeceive me? Here, come out of it! Stand up and repeat them words like a man, and I’ll knock the head off yer!”

The man growled and looked at Varley appealingly.

“Why don’t somebody take the old man home?” he said, aggrievedly. “I ain’t said nothing’ agin her. It’s only natural as a fine lady should forget such a crew as us and such an all-fired hole as this.”

This repetition of the offense was too much for Taffy, and he lurched on to the speaker and gripped him by the arm.

The always imminent row would have commenced at once, but Varley rose and laid his hand on the giant’s huge shoulder.

“drop it, Taffy!” he said in his listless way. “You’re interfering with the game—with the game, do you hear?” as if he were charging Taffy with something little short of sacrilege. “Come out of it, and go and get a drink.”

“Jes’ let me lay him fust, Varley,” pleaded Taffy, with almost touching meekness. “There ain’t no one going to say a word agin our Esmeralda while I’m able to stand up for her!”

“You wooden-headed idiot, you can’t stand now!” said Varley. “Here!” And with a twist of his wrist he swung Taffy off his man—who had sat quite still, as if the whole responsibility and further conduct of the affair were in Varley’s hands—and led Taffy to the bar.

“A big soda,” he ordered, and was served immediately, though other men were clamoring. “Now drink that, and sit down there quietly;” and with a dexterous push he thrust Taffy into a bottomless chair in a corner, then he sauntered back to the card-table, and the game was resumed.

Suddenly, in the midst of a deal, his hand became motionless, and he looked up listeningly. His ears, quicker than the others—and they were by no means slow—had caught a significant sound.

“What is it, Varley?” asked one of the players.

“A shot,” he said, languidly.

Almost as he spoke, the sound was repeated, and this time was heard by some of the other men who were listening. They sprung to their feet, on the alert in a moment.

“Comes from the east,” said one. “Some o’ them darned Dog’s Ear scum!”

The hubbub in the saloon ceased as if at a word of command, and every eye was turned toward the east.

Varley rose and put on his hat, and, as if it were a signal,[269] the others drew their revolvers and moved to the door. Before any one could reach it, it was thrown open, and Bill, the postman, staggered in. He was covered with mud, was bleeding from a wound on the side of his head, and was panting and breathless.

The men rushed to him and collected round him as he sunk on to a chair, mopping his face with the sleeve of his coat, and staring before him with bulging eyes.

Varley pushed his way through the circle, and laid a white hand upon the heaving shoulder.

“Been dancing, Bill?” he inquired, languidly. “It’s dangerous at your time of life. Here, some one get him a drink!”

One of the men brought him a “stiff” whisky, and Bill, clutching it, tossed it off, and drew a long breath.

“Didn’t know as I was alive till I tasted it,” he remarked, as coolly as his shortness of breath would permit him. “Don’t offer me another, or I shall take it.”

Another was brought, and he disposed of it, the group waiting with sympathetic patience.

“What’s the shindy, Bill?” asked Varley, as the empty tumbler was taken away from him.

“Oh, only a little affair with some Dog’s Ear gentry,” said the postman, drawing his sleeve across his mouth this time. “I s’pose you thought you was never going to get your letters, eh, boys, seeing as I’m a matter of six hours late? Seems to me as things is coming to a pretty pass when Dog’s Ear takes to makin’ a target of her majesty’s mail.”

The listeners growled.

“Spin it out, Bill!” exhorted one.

“It’s this way,” he said, preparing himself for the narration by expectorating on the floor and pulling down his coat-cuffs. “I was a-riding up the slope of the Green Bank, when I see a couple o’ men crouching behind a tree. There was somethin’ so unornary in their way o’ looking around and fingerin’ their irons that it struck me they weren’t holding a Bible class, and I steered the mare behind a bush and took stock of ’em. They couldn’t see me, ’cause I was on the lee o’ the hill. It was evident that they was a-waitin’ for some one, and, as there ain’t any one as passes that way ’cepting myself, I concluded that they was laying for me. I led the mare a matter o’ a quarter of a mile off the track, and tied her up; then I crept round to the clump o’ trees where them two was a-waitin’ as innocent as babes, and I heard them talking as plain as you hear me. ‘He’s late,’ says one—that long-legged son of a sweep they calls Simon—‘and I never[270] knowed Bill late afore,’ which was highly complimentary. ‘No,’ says the other—I don’t know him, but he’s Dog’s Ear, too. ‘Are you sure the swag’s on him?’ ‘Almost certain,’ says Simon. ‘It’s about time for that girl o’ theirs to be sending coin or presents.’”

“Esmeralda!” exclaimed one of the listeners.

“Right, sonny; Esmeralda’s who they meant,” assented Bill. “I believe she sends money or jewelry pretty nigh every month. See’d that diamond pin Varley wears?”

All eyes turned to the sparkle of fire shining in Varley’s scarf, and Bill nodded again.

“‘He’ll be here presently,’ says Simon. ‘You shoot the mare, as arranged, and fire straight, or she’ll be off, and I’ll cover Bill. He may make a fight of it, for he’s precious proud and fussy about that mail-bag o’ his; but I’ll persuade him into reason.’

“‘Oh, will you!’ says I to myself, and, as I didn’t think their conversation elevatin’, I crawls back to where the mare was tied and thinks things over a bit.”

He wet his lips suggestively, and, without a word, one of the men got his glass replenished.

“Now, boys, there’s a kind of affection ’twixt me and the mare; anyhow, I’m thinking her’s too good for a running target for the scum of Dog’s Ear to shoot at, and so I just leaves her there quiet and contented, and set off on foot to make a round of it. I’d got a couple of miles when I hears something moving, and there was my two friends lightin’ out on my trail. I lay low and quiet-like for a bit, then went back on my tracks and waited; that dazed ’em a bit, and then I made straight for here on a bee-line, and keeping under cover of the scrub. I’d spent the afternoon at this game, but I thought I’d given ’em the slip, when up rides a third gentleman a’most a top of me. ‘Hold up!’ says he, covering me. I chucked up my hands, but I’d took the precaution to stick a revolver down the back of the collar o’ my coat—it’s a darned bad fit, and there’s room—and I snatched it out and fired without waiting to ask how his mother was. Then, as he tumbled off his gee-gee, I lit out for all I knew, for I heard the other two comin’ round the bend. I’d got in sight o’ this blessed haven o’ rest an’ respectability, when one o’ the darned skunks fired and peeled a bit off my cocoa-nut. Don’t none o’ you faint,” with a grin—“it ain’t nothin’ to speak of.”

A low growl rose.

“And they’ve got the mail,” said one, with an oath

[271]

But the postman turned on him with an angry twinkle in his eyes.

“How’d you guess that, now?” he asked.

“Where’s the bag?”

“Lyin’ beside the mare, you precocious infant,” said Bill, showing his teeth. “The bag’s there, but it’s empty; the mail’s here. Jes’ you come and take off my boots, you mutton-headed idiot!”

The man, by no means resentful, obeyed, and the letters came pouring out of Bill’s long boots.

The men cheered and offered to grab them up, but Bill kicked out warningly.

“Thank you, all the same,” he remarked, with an ironical smile. “But I guess I’m capable of distributing her majesty’s mail without assistance;” and sweeping the letters into a small heap with his huge feet, he dealt them out to their owners with more than his usual solemnity. “And now, boys, I’m thinking I’ll go and fetch the mare. Oh, she’s safe enough; you bet those Dog’s Ear lambs will get back to their kennel as fast as they can moozle, now they know that I’ve got to shelter, and that Three Star is posted up in their little game.”

There were plenty of volunteers for the task of recovering the pony, but Varley remarked languidly that Bill and he were sufficient, and they decided to start after Bill had got his wound washed by Mother Melinda, who, as chief nurse in Three Star, was sent for.

While Bill was submitting to the operation as patiently as he could, Varley opened his letters. They were partly on business, partly personal; invitations from various camps to come and open a gambling saloon; flowery epistles from members of the fair sex—most of them reproaching him for his long absence and neglect of writing.

The men glanced at him from time to time as he leaned back in his tilted chair and read and tore up his letters with languid impassiveness; and Taffy, rousing from a peaceful slumber, got up and drifted across the room to him, and now quite sober, looked down at him sheepishly.

“Post in, Varley, eh?” he remarked in a low and insinuating voice. “Anything interestin’?”

“Nothing particularly so,” said Varley, rolling a cigarette and lighting it with the last of his letters, an epistle written in the sentimental woman’s hand known as “Italian.”

“Ah!” Taffy drew a long breath of disappointment. “Nothing—nothing from Ralda, I s’pose?” he added in an off-hand way.

[272]

“No,” said Varley.

Taffy, while elaborately filling and lighting his pipe, stole a glance at the clear-cut, impassive face.

“Nothin’ this mail,” he said, as if it were rather satisfactory than otherwise. “Of course not. ’Tain’t to be supposed that Ralda ain’t got nothing else to do than to sit on a cheer writing letters to Three Star, as if she were a blamed clerk in a store, is it?”

Varley nodded.

“An’ yet, somehow,” said Taffy, under his breath, “I shouldn’t a-been sorry if there’d been a line or two this post, so as I could have got the bulge on Ed-er-ward. It ’ud a-shown him that Ralda ain’t so mean as to forget old friends, as he and some other mutton-heads may suppose.”

Varley nodded again.

“Make your mind easy, Taff,” he said. “Esmeralda hasn’t forgotten us; but just at present she mayn’t have much time for letter-writing; young ladies who are just married don’t find time hang on their hands much.”

“Jes’ so. You’re right every time, Varley,” assented Taffy, brightening up. “Of course not. She’s cavortin’ around with her new husband, and don’t have time to write; but presently she’ll settle down like and send us a regular long ’un; one o’ them kind that makes us bust ourselves a-laughing one minute and want to go for some o’ them fools over there the next. Well, if there ain’t no letter, I’m off home. Not another drop, thank ye, Varley. I know when I’ve had enough,” he concluded, though Varley had not offered him a drink.

Varley smoked on, with his eyes half closed, through the renewed din—for this last piece of audacity on the part of Dog’s Ear was being discussed warmly and with an appropriate accompaniment of fiery language; but though he looked the embodiment of mental and physical ease, there was an under-current of vague anxiety and disquietude running below his outward placidity. Esmeralda had not written for the last six weeks; and notwithstanding the reason which he had given to Taffy for her silence, he was disquieted. She had written, until this break, so regularly, and she had promised to give him a full account of her wedding. He had read a description of it in the Melbourne paper, it is true, but he wanted to read it in her own words, to glean between the lines whether she were happy or not.

“I’m a fanciful fool,” he thought. “I want a change of air—a little rough-and-tumble work somewhere; and I’d[273] better get it or I shall be drifting into melancholy. Happy? Of course she’s happy! Why shouldn’t she be? Married to a man she loves—that’s evident enough; she gives herself away in every letter—and treated like a princess by the family. If they had come the high and haughty business and looked down upon her: but they haven’t, so she says. Happy? Yes, that’s it; she’s too happy to write!” He stifled a sigh as Bill came across the room with his head tied up in a—comparatively—clean dish-cloth. “Well, William, are you ready?”

“Right away, cap’n,” responded Bill. He turned up his eyes at the bandage apologetically. “Any one ’ud think, by the appearance of me, that I’d lost the whole uv my scalp, instead o’ only havin’ one side o’ my hair cut; but don’t let on about it now.” He jerked his head toward Mother Melinda, who, with her arms akimbo, was watching him with a surgeon’s pride. “I’ll wait till I get outside ’fore I takes the blamed thing off. It wouldn’t do to hurt her feelin’s, Varley; she’s as proud of it as if she’d took a leg off me.”

The two men filled up their revolvers and went out quietly. There was no particular peril in the business; the mare, with the intelligence acquired in several similar situations, would remain quiet until her master came for her, and the Dog’s Ear men, knowing that Three Star was on the alert, would stop in their camp for that night at least; but Varley and Bill kept a sharp lookout notwithstanding. They went along in silence for some time, then Bill said, quietly:

“Varley, I didn’t let on before the boys to all I heard them Dog’s Ear chaps talking. You see, some of our boys are a bit young-heady, and ’ud a-opened their mouths too wide, and perhaps spoiled the game.”

“Your wisdom is always supernal, William,” said Varley, absently. “What is it? Is Dog’s Ear going to attack the Melbourne Bank?”

“No,” said Bill, quietly; “but they’re going to ‘put up’ the coach to-morrow.”

For all his nonchalance and sang-froid, Varley was rather startled.

“That’s rather high and lofty tumbling for Dog’s Ear,” he remarked. “Sure?”

“Sartin,” said Bill, succinctly. “Them two vermin was a-talking about it. A gang of their best men is to lie in the hollow at the Gulch and surround the coach. It ’pears that they’ve had news that some Melbourne gents is a-coming, along, and they calkilate that there’ll be some coin aboard, likewise[274] watches and other gim-cracks, and that the coach will be worth overhauling.”

Varley pondered over this choice piece of information.

“How many?” he asked at last.

“Can’t say,” replied Bill. “I calkilate they wouldn’t take more than they could help; the fewer the better in jobs o’ this kind, you see.”

“Half a dozen, perhaps,” said Varley, meditatively. “What time does the coach pass the Gulch?”

“Nine fifteen.”

“Ah, dark!”

“Yes, dark,” said Bill, nodding. “They could put up the old thing and clean it out, and ride off without a blessed soul knowin’ who did it.”

“They could have done so, yes,” said Varley. “Dog’s Ear is growing clever. But I suppose it is off now? They know you heard them?”

“Not they,” said Bill. “They never knew I was near them when they was talkin’. No, you bet the game is on still, Varley, and you an’ me is going to take a hand, eh, pard?” and he grinned and rubbed his smarting head with that anticipation which we are told is the keenest joy.

“Yes. You were right to keep your mouth shut in the saloon,” said Varley; “and, as you say, we will take a hand in it. It’s no business of Three Star to provide a police force for the protection of the Ballarat Coaching Company’s old Noah’s ark, but we’ll do it this once, just to spoil Dog’s Ear’s fun. Where’s this said mare, William?”

They found the mare patiently awaiting them, and Bill, after bestowing a few words of praise, which the animal understood and appreciated most perfectly, insisted upon Varley’s getting into the saddle. As they rode back to the camp, Varley concocted and matured a plan of operation. No one would have guessed that anything serious was in the wind, as the two men sauntered up to the bar of the Eldorado, and with a “Mare’s all right!” called for a drink. Nor had any one any inkling of the expedition even, when, at six o’clock the next evening, Varley, stretching himself and yawning, got up from the table and sauntered into the open air, where, at a little distance, Bill and five other men were already in the saddle, with Varley’s fast mare in their midst.

“Ready, boys?” he said, as he mounted.

“We’re on, Varley!” responded Bill, briefly. “Here’s the boys accordin’ to orders; but they don’t know what game’s afoot.”

[275]

Varley nodded.

“Dog’s Ear is going to ‘put up’ the coach at the Gulch,” he said. “Don’t shout and don’t laugh,” for, after a moment of incredulous astonishment, some of them opened their mouths as if to greet the statement with a contemptuous guffaw. “It’s a fact; William overheard those two fellows yesterday. See? Right! Now, boys, for the plan of attack. You, Taffy, and MacGrath will ride round the bend and get behind the clump of trees on the left side of the road. Go right round, and keep a sharp lookout. Benson and Karl will keep a quarter of a mile this side, and wait in the hollow; Bill and I will hide ourselves on the other side of the Gulch. If all goes well, and Dog’s Ear doesn’t smell a rat, they’ll drop on the coach as it passes over the bridge. It will take them a minute or two to put up the coach, and we’ll wait until they’re engaged in the business, and drop on them. Wait till you hear me fire, and then ride in. Got it?”

“We hev,” responded Taffy, emphatically.

“Then, so long,” said Varley, laconically; and the men, with their mouths set grimly, rode quietly away.

“It’s a’most too many for the business, I’m thinking, Varley,” said Bill; but Varley shook his head.

“I know Dog’s Ear, William; there will be more than six in this affair.”

They separated at the bed of the river and rode openly in the direction opposite to that of the coach road, as if they were simply out for a gallop. They, at any rate, reached their appointed place without, so far as they could tell, being seen, and well hidden by the darkness under the trees and the thick scrub, waited for the coach.

Presently they heard the muffled tramp of horses’ hoofs on the short turf, and Bill, crouching in his saddle—quite unnecessarily—whispered, “Dog’s Ear.”

Varley nodded, and a faint smile played about his lips. The men they were going to checkmate were within a few yards of them, divided from them only by the road that spanned the Gulch. They could hear a voice, husky and low, giving orders, a few muttered responses, then all was still again.

“How many?” asked Varley, with his mouth almost at Bill’s ear.

Bill shook his head doubtfully.

“Almost a dozen,” he said.

Varley nodded; it confirmed his own estimate. Then both men sat motionless, straining their ears for the sound of the[276] coming coach. Presently Varley moved slightly, and stretching out his hand in the darkness, touched Bill’s arm, and a moment or two afterward the latter heard the rhythmical beat of the horses’ feet, and yet a little later the dull roll of the wheels.

There was an instant or two of suspense, interrupted by the musical notes of the guard’s horn, then out from the darkness there grew two specks of light from the lamps; the rhythmical beat struck sharper, the roll of the wheels deepened, and suddenly the coach loomed through the night and the leaders rattled on to the bridge.

This was evidently the signal for the Dog’s Ear attack; for, as the metal of the horses’ shoes rang upon the timber, there was a rush from the Gulch beneath, and a body of horsemen surrounded the coach, while one man, mounted on an appropriately black horse, rode up alongside the coachman and covered him.

“Chuck up your hands, Johnson, and get down!” he said, curtly. “Come down now, like a good boy, and don’t alarm the passengers.”

The driver peered into the darkness and swore, voices from the top of the coach called out inquiringly and excitedly, then a deep silence followed.

“Persuade him to come down quickly, gentlemen,” said the leader of the gang. “We don’t want any fire-works, but—we mean business. It’s our show, you see, and it’s no use making a fuss.”

Two or three men scrambled down and were instantly surrounded, but the coachman did not move for a minute; then he turned to some one on the seat behind him and said something.

“Are you coming, or not?” demanded the ringleader, impatiently, and he significantly imitated the click of a trigger with his lips.

Johnson looked down.

“Yes; it’s your show,” he said, coolly. “If I’d only a-known jes’ a quarter of a mile back—but that’s neither here nor there. I’m coming. Save your powder!”

Even then he did not hurry, but took off his thick gloves with a deliberation which must have exasperated the man below. Then he climbed down with unnecessary caution, and stood with his hands in his pockets, the revolver still covering him. Two of the gang were at the leaders’ bridles, the others were busy “emptying” the three passengers, and all was going merrily and to the entire satisfaction of Dog’s Ear,[277] when Varley, firing just over the commander’s head, plunged up the other side of the Gulch and rode down upon him.

The startled man swore and tried to swing his horse aside, but Varley was on him with an impetus too swift and irresistible, and coolly knocked him out of his saddle as the man fired.

Instantly the place, wrapped a moment before in the solemn calm of an Australian night, was transformed into a miniature pandemonium. Shots, yells, oaths, the crack of revolvers, and the dull “ping” of the bullets, mingled with the stamping of the rearing horses.

The driver, startled for a moment, soon took in the turn of events, and snatching out his revolver, shot one of the men stationed at the leaders’ heads, and rushed for his companion, who turned and fled.

The darkness increased the confusion—it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe—and Varley was just in time to stop the driver from sending a bullet through him by shouting out:

“All right, Johnson! It’s I—Varley! Keep to the horses; we’ll manage the rest.”

As he spoke, his low, clear voice ringing out, a cry rose from the top of the coach. It was a woman’s voice, and the cry a strange mixture of fear and joy.

Something in it made Varley’s heart jump as it had not hitherto leaped that night. He reined in his plunging horse for a moment.

“God! I must be dreaming!” he muttered.

Then he dashed forward, and snatching one of the huge coach-lamps from its socket, held it above his head and peered up in the darkness.

The light flickered in his grasp as he swayed to his horse’s movements, but as its rays swept across the top of the coach, he saw a woman kneeling on one of the seats, her face, pale but fearless, bent down toward him.

It was Esmeralda—or her ghost!

He gasped, and held the lamp higher.

“Esmeralda!” he shouted, his voice thick and husky. “Esmeralda, is that—”

“Yes, yes, yes! It’s I—Esmeralda! Varley! Varley!” she cried, holding out her arms to him.

In the excitement of recognition they appeared to have quite forgotten what was going on around them, and Varley was completely ignoring the fact that the lamp was revealing him to his foes and making a splendid mark for them.
 
One of the Dog’s Ear men rode round, stared, swore, and raised his revolver, and Varley would have paid the penalty for his fool-hardiness there and then, but with a cry of warning Esmeralda bent down and snatched the lamp from Varley’s hand and dashed it into the face of his assailant. The next instant all was darkness, for one of the Dog’s Ear men had smashed the other lantern with a bullet.