As for dad, he told us out, plump and plain, that he wasn’t going to shift. The Hollow was good enough for him, and there he was going to stop. If Jim and I and Starlight chose to try and make blank emigrants of ourselves, well and good. He didn’t see as they’d have such a rosy time getting over to these new townships on the other side. We might get took in, and wish we was back again before all was said and done. But some people could never let well alone. Here we had everything that any man in his senses could wish for, and we wasn’t contented. Everyone was going to cut away and leave him; he’d be all by himself, with no one but the dog for company, and be as miserable as a bandicoot; but no one cared a blank brass farden about that.
“Come with us, governor,” says Starlight, “have a cruise round the world, and smell salt water again. You’ve not been boxed up in the bush all your life, though you’ve been a goodish while there. Make a start, and bring old Crib too.”
“I’m too old and getting stiff in the j’ints,” says dad, brightening up a bit, “or I don’t say as I wouldn’t. Don’t mind my growling. But I’m bound to be a bit lonely like when you are all drawed off the camp. No! take your own way and I’ll take mine.”
“Next Monday ought to see us off,” says Starlight. “We have got the gold and cash part all right. I’ve had that money paid to Knightley’s credit in the Australian Bank I promised him, and got a receipt for it.”
“That’s just like yer,” says father, “and a rank soft thing for a man as has seen the world to drop into. Losin’ yer share of the five hundred quid, and then dropping a couple of hundred notes at one gamble, besides buying a horse yer could have took for nothing. He’ll never bring twenty pound again, neither.”
“Always pay my play debts,” says Starlight. “Always did, and always will. As for the horse—a bargain, a bargain.”
“And a dashed bad bargain too. Why didn’t ye turn parson instead of taking to the bush?” says father, with a grin. “Dashed if I ain’t seen some parsons that could give you odds and walk round ye at horse-dealin’.”
“You take your own way, Ben, and I’ll take mine,” says Starlight rather fierce, and then father left off and went to do something or other, while us two took our horses and rode out. We hadn’t a long time to be in the old Hollow now. It had been a good friend to us in time of need, and we was sorry in a kind of way to leave it. We were going to play for a big stake, and if we lost we shouldn’t have another throw in.
Our horses were in great buckle now; they hadn’t been doing much lately. I had the one I’d brought with me, and a thoroughbred brown horse that had been broken in the first season we came there.
Starlight was to ride Rainbow, of course, and he had great picking before he made up his mind what to choose for second horse. At last he pitched upon a thoroughbred bay mare named Locket that had been stolen from a mining township the other side of the country. She was the fastest mare they’d ever bred—sound, and a weight-carrier too.
“I think I’ll take Locket after all,” says he, after thinking about it best part of an hour. “She’s very fast and a stayer. Good-tempered too, and the old horse has taken up with her. It will be company for him.”
“Take your own way,” I said, “but I wouldn’t chance her. She’s known to a lot of jockey-boys and hangers-on. They could swear to that white patch on her neck among a thousand.”
“If you come to that, Rainbow is not an everyday horse, and I can’t leave him behind, can I? I’ll ship him, if I can, that’s more. But it won’t matter much, for we’ll have to take back tracks all the way. You didn’t suppose we were to ride along the mail road, did you?”
“I didn’t suppose anything,” says I, “but that we were going to clear out the safest way we could. If we’re to do the swell business we’d better do it apart, or else put an advertisement into the Turon Star that Starlight, Marston, and Co. are giving up business and going to leave the district, all accounts owing to be sent in by a certain date.”
“A first-rate idea,” says he. “I’m dashed if I don’t do it. There’s nothing like making one’s exit in good form. How savage Morringer will be! Thank you for the hint, Dick.”
There was no use talking to him when he got into this sort of humour. He was the most mad, reckless character I ever came across, and any kind of checking only seemed to make
