The Ghost Camp; or, the Avengers. Rolf Boldrewood
meestery made clear, the maist careless unbeliever must acknowledge that Heaven’s justice is done even in this warld o’ appairent contradeections. Weel, aweel, I’m gey and loth to come to the tale deed o’ bluid, o’ the fearsome eend. Things had settled doon at Omeo after the events ye ken o’. There was a wheen duffing and horse-stealing to contend wi’! But siccan lifting of kye will there be, amang these mountains and glens, I had a’maist said till the Day of Judgment—but no to be profane, the country was quieter than it had been for years, when word came to heidquarters that Ned Lawless had broken gaol; had been seen makin’ across by Talbingo to the table-land, aboot Long Plain and Lobb’s Hole. There was an ‘auld gun’ (as we ca’ confairmed creeminals) in the lock-up, as the news came; a Monaro native, and haun and glove with a’ the moss-troopers and reivers south of the Snowy River.
“ ‘D’ye know where Inspector Dayrell is now, Sergeant?’ says he, quite free and pleasant. He was only in for ‘unlawfully using’—a maitter o’ six months’ gaol at the warst.
“ ‘Maybe I do, maybe I don’t; what call have ye to be speirin’?’
“ ‘He’ll never trouble me again, Sergeant, I’m full up of anything like a big touch now; this bit of foolishness don’t count. But if you want to do Dayrell a rale good turn, tell him to clear out to New Zealand, the Islands, San Francisco—anywhere.’
“ ‘Why should I?’ says I. ‘And him to lose his chance of being made a Superintendent.’
“ ‘Superintendent be hanged!’ (it was not in Court, ye ken), and he put his heid doon low, and spak’ low and airnest.
“ ‘Is a step in the service worth a man’s life? You tell him from me, Monaro Joe, that if Ned Lawless isn’t dead or taken within a month, his life’s not worth a bent stirrup iron.’
“ ‘And the Lawless crowd broken up?’ says I. ‘Man! ye’re gettin’ dotty. Ned’s a dour body, waur after these years’ gaol. I wadna put it past him, but he’s helpless, wantin’ mates. Coke’s a cripple with the rheumatics. Kate’s awa, naebody kens where.’
“ ‘Ye’re a good offisher, Sergeant,’ says he, ‘but you don’t know everything. You want a year’s duffing near Lobb’s Hole to sharpen you up. But if I lay you on to something, will you get the Beak to let me down easy about this sweating racket, a bloomin’ moke, worth about two notes! I never offered him for sale, the police know that. A rotten screw, or I shouldn’t have been overhauled by that new chum Irish trooper. I was ashamed of myself, I raly was.’
“ ‘If ye give information of value to the depairtment as regards this dangerous creeminal,’ says I, ‘I’ll no press the case.’
“ ‘Well—this is God’s truth,’ says he, quite solemn. ‘His sister Kate’s been livin’ at Tin Pot Flat for months, under another name. They say she’s off her head at times, never been right since she lost her child.’
“ ‘Lost her child!’ says I. ‘Ye don’t say so—the puir crater, and a fine boy he was. How cam’ that?’
“ ‘Well, the time Kate rode to White Rock and started Dayrell after Larry Trevenna, just as he was goin’ to clear out for the old country, passin’ hisself off for Lance (that was a caper, wasn’t it?), she left her boy with the stockrider’s young wife at Running Creek. The girl (she was a new chum Paddy) was away for a bit, hangin’ out clothes or somethin’; the poor kid got down to the creek and was drowned. Kate was stark starin’ mad for forty-eight hours. Then she took the kid in front of her on the little roan mare, and never spoke till after the Coroner come and orders it to be buried.’
“ ‘And she at Tin Pot Flat, and me nane the wiser! Any mair of the crowd?’
“ ‘You remember Dick?—the young brother—he that was left behind when they cleared for Balooka—he’s a man grown, this years and years; well, she lives with him. And they say she goes to the shaft every day that Lance was hauled out from, to kneel down and pray. What for, God only knows. Dick’s quiet, but dangerous; he’s the best rider and tracker from Dargo High Plain to Bourke, and that’s a big word.’
“ ‘I ken that; I’ll joost ride round, and tak’ a look—he’ll need watchin’, and if he’s joined Ned, and Kate’s makin’ a third, there’ll be de’il’s wark ere lang.’
“That evening the tent was doon, Kate and the younger Lawless chiel gane—and nane could say when, how, or where.
“For a week, and the week after that, the wires were going all day and half the nicht. Every police station on the border of New South Wales and Victoria from Monaro to Murray Downs was noticed to look up their black tracker, and have their best horses ready. As for Dayrell, they couldna warn him that the avengers o’ bluid, as nae doot they held themselves to be, were on his trail. He was richt awa amang the ‘snaw leases,’ (as they ca’d them—a country only habitable by man or beast frae late spring to early autumn;) on the trail o’ a gang o’ horse and cattle thieves that had defied the police of three colonies. They had left a record in Queensland before they crossed the New South Wales border.
“Noted men among them—ane tried for murder! A mate, suspect o’ treachery, was found in a creek wi’ twa bullets in’s heid—there were ither evil deeds to accoont for.
“Ay, they were a dour gang—fightin’ to the death. So Dayrell took five of his best men and volunteered for the capture. ‘He was getting rusty,’ he said, ‘but would break up this gang or they should have his scalp.’ These were the very words he used.
“Omeo diggings were passed on the way up. There was sure to be some one that knew him, wherever he went in any of the colonies.
“A tall man put his head out of a shaft on ‘Tin Pot’ as he rode through the Flat at the head of his troopers, and cursed him with deleeberate maleegnity until they were out of sight. ‘Ride on, you bloody dog!’ he said—grinding his teeth—‘you won’t reign much longer now that Ned and I can work together again, and we have your tracks. I know every foot of the road you’re bound to travel now—once you’re as far as Merrigal there’s no get away between Snowy Creek and the Jibbo. It was our rotten luck the day we first set eyes on you. We were not such a bad crowd if we’d been let alone. Tessie had half persuaded Ned to drop the cross work after we got shut of the Balooka horses. The day afore he told me he’d two minds to let ’em go on the road. Then he couldn’t have been pulled for more than illegal using, which isn’t felony. But you must come along and spoil everything. Lance was copped, as innocent as a child: Ned gets a stretch—it was his death sentence. I know what it’s turned him into. Kate’s gone mad, what with losin’ the kid—a fine little chap, so he was (I cried when I heard of it)! Larry’s hanged—serve him right.
“ ‘Lance is dead and buried, poor chap! I don’t know what’ll become of me. And what’s more I don’t care; but I’ll have revenge, blast you! before the year’s out, if I swing for it!’
“He didna ken Dick Lawless again in his digger’s dress, and there were few that he didna remember either, if it was ten years after. So he joost gaed alang blithe and gay. The sun was abune the fog that aye hangs o’er the flat till midday, or maybe disna lift at a’ like a Highland mist. He touched his horse’s rein, and the gey, weel-trained beastie gave a dance like, and shook his heid, till bit and curb chain jingled again.
“Ah! me, these things are fearsome at the doing and but little better in the telling. He wadna hae been sae blithe had he seen anither face that peered o’er the shaft just as he turned at the angle of the road and struck into a canter with his troopers ahint him. It was the face of a haggard, clean-shaved man, with hair cut close to the head, and a wild, desperate look like a hunted beast—only one miner on the field knew who the strange man was, and he would never have kent him, but for hearin’ a whisper the night before of a ‘cross cove’ having come late at night to ‘Mrs. Jones’s’ tent.
“Dead beat and half starved to boot was he, but word went round the little goldfield that it was