Next day after that I was at Willaroon. I could have got there overnight, but it looked better to camp near the place and come next morning. There I was all right. The overseer was a reasonable sort of man, and I found old George had been as good as his word, and left word if a couple of men like me and Starlight came up we were to be put on with the next mob of cattle that were going to Queensland. He did a store cattle trade with the far-out squatters that were stocking up new country in Queensland, and it paid him very well, as nearly everything did that he touched. We were to find our own horses and be paid so much a week—three pounds, I think—and so on.
As luck would have it, there was a biggish mob to start in a week, and road hands being scarce in that part the overseer was disappointed that my mate, as he called him, hadn’t come on, but I said he’d gone another track.
“Well, he’ll hardly get such wages at any other job,” says he, “and if I was Mr. Storefield I wouldn’t hire him again, not if he wanted a billet ever so bad.”
“I don’t suppose he will,” says I, “and serves him quite right too.”
I put my horses in the paddock—there was wild oats and crowsfoot knee-high in it—and helped the overseer to muster and draft. He gave me a fresh horse, of course. When he saw how handy I was in the yard he got quite shook on me, and, says he—
“By George, you’re just the chap the boss wants to send out to some new country he’s going to take up in Queensland. What’s your name? Now I think of it he didn’t tell me.”
“William Turner,” says I.
“Very well, William,” says he, “you’re a dashed good man, I can see, and I wish I could pick up a few more like you. Blessed if I ever saw such a lot of duffers in my life as there are on this side. I’ve hardly seen a man come by that’s worth his grub. You couldn’t stop till the next mob starts, I suppose? I’d make it worth your while.”
“I couldn’t well this time,” says I; “my mate’s got a friend out north just from home, and we’re tied to time to meet him. But if I come back this way I’ll put in a year with you.”
“Well, an offer’s an offer,” says he. “I can’t say more, but I think you’ll do better by stopping on here.”
I got away with the cattle all right, and the drover in charge was told to do all he could for me. The overseer said I was as good as two men, and it was “Bill” here and “William” there all the time till we were off. I wasn’t sorry to be clear away, for of course any day a trooper might have ridden up and asked questions about the horses, that were a little too good for a working drover.
Besides, I’d had a look at the papers, and I saw that Starlight had been as good as his word, in the matter of the advertisement. Sure enough, the Turon Star and a lot of other papers had, on the same day, received the same advertisement, with a pound note enclosed, and instructions to insert it four times.
Notice. To all whom it may concern. The Messrs. Marston Brothers and Co., being about to leave the district, request that all accounts against them may be sent to the Police Camp, Turon, addressed to the care of Sir Ferdinand Morringer, whose receipt will be a sufficient discharge. For the firm, Starlight.
I couldn’t have believed at first that he’d be so mad. But after a bit I saw that, like a lot of his reckless doings, it wasn’t so far out after all.
All the papers had taken it up as usual, and though some of them were pretty wild at the insult offered to the Government and so on, I could see they’d most of them come to think it was a blind of some sort, meant to cover a regular big touch that we were going in for, close by home, and wanting to throw the police off the scent once more. If we’d really wanted to make tracks, they said, this would be the last thing we’d think of doing. Bit by bit it was put about as there should be a carefully laid plot to stick up all the banks in Turon on the same day, and make a sweep of all the gold and cash.
I laughed when I saw this, because I knew that it was agreed upon between Aileen and Gracey that, about the time we were fairly started, whichever of them saw Sir Ferdinand first should allow it to be fished out of her, as a great secret, that we were working up to some tremendous big affair of this sort, and which was to put the crown on all our other doings. To make dead sure, we had sent word to Billy the Boy (and some money too) to raise a sham kind of sticking-up racket on the other side of the Turon, towards Bathurst way. He was to frighten a few small people that would be safe to talk about it, and make out that all the bushrangers in the country were camped about there. This was the sort of work that the young villain regularly went in for and took a pleasure in, and by the
