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The Taking of Stingaree · Stingaree

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  Chapter five of Stingaree by E. W. Horning. This LibriVox recording is
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  in the public domain. Read by Beeswax Candle the taking of Stingaree. Stingaree
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  acrossed the murray, and all Victoria was agog with the news. It was
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  not as first descent upon that colony, nor likely to be as last.
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  Unless sub inspector kill Bride, and as mounted mermidons did much better than they
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  had done before, there is no stimulus, however, like a trembling reputation.
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  Within four and twenty hours, Kilbride himself was on the track of the
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  invader, whose heels he had never seen, much less his face, and
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  he rode alone. It was not merely his reputation that was at stake,
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  though nothing could restore that more effectory than the single handed capture of Sow notorious
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  a desperade as Stingaree. The dashing officer was not unnaturally actuated by the sum
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  of three hundred pounds now set upon the outlaw's person, alive or dead.
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  That would be a little wind for one man, but not much to divide
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  among five or six. On the other hand, and with all his faults,
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  some inspector kill Bride had courage enough to furnish forth a squadron. It
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  was a black bearded, high cheeked, Irish Australian, keen and over eager
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  to a disease, restless, irascible, but full of the fire and dash
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  that make his dangerous an enemy, as another good fighter need desire, and
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  as a fine fighter and an infamous cause. Stingaree had his admirers even in
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  Victoria, with the old tale of popular sympathy. With a picturesque rascal was
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  responsible for not the least of the souther Inspector's difficulties. But even this struck
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  kill Bride as yet another of those obstacles which were more easily surmounted alone than
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  at the head of a talkative squad And with that conviction he pushed his thoroughbred
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  on and on through a whole cool night in three parts of an Australian summer's
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  day. Imagine then his disgust at the apparition of a mounted troops galloping to
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  meet him in the middle of the afternoon, and within a few miles of
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  a former hiding place of the bush Ranger, where the senior officer had strong
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  hopes of finding and surprising him. Now, where the devil do you come
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  from, cried Kilbride, as the other rode up jumping creek. Was the
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  crisp reply stationed there? Then why don't you stop there and do your duty?
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  Stingery, said the laconic trooper. What do you think you're after him
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  too? I am after him, so am I. Then you're going in
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  the wrong direction. Kilbride flushed a warm brown from beard to Helbert. Do
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  you know who you're speaking to? Cried he? Oh, I'm so inspectacure
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  braid in this business is my business? You know whether man's in this colony.
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  You'll go back to your barracks. Sir, You're not going to have
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  every damned fool in the forest charger in the country and his older coat.
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  The trooper was a dark, smart, dapper young fellow of a type not
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  easy, brow beaten or subdued, and discipline is not the strong point of
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  force as so irregular as the mounted police of a Crescent colony. But nothing
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  could have been more admirable than the manner in which this rebuke was received.
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  Very well, sir, if you wish it, But I can assure you
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  that you are off the track of stingery. How do you know, asked
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  Kilbride rudely, but he was beginning to look less black. I happen to
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  know the place. You would have some difficulty in finding it if you'd never
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  been there before. And he stumbled across it by accident myself lately one day
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  last winter, when I was out looking for some horses, and you kept
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  it to yourself. The trooper hung his head. I knew we should have
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  him across the river again, he said, it's only a question of time.
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  And well, sir, you can understand you were keener taking him yourself.
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  Were you as keen as you are? Mister Kilbride owned the younger man,
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  raising bold eyes and looking as superior, fairly and squarely in the face.
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  Kilbride returned the stair, and what he saw unsettled him. The other
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  was wiry, trim, eminently alert. He had the masterful mouth and the
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  dare devil ee, and his horse seemed a part of himself, a more
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  promising comrade. That hot work was not to be desired. The work would
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  be hot of stingery at half a chance. After all, was better for
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  two to succeed than for one to fail. Harf the muddy in a whole
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  skin, said Kilbride to himself, and wrapped out his decision with an oath.
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  The trooper's eyes lit with reckless mirth, and a soft cheer came from
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  under his breath. Boyterbury, what's your name? Said Kilbride, before we
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  start? Bowen? Jack, Bowen? Then ain't no more? Look at
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  you? Where on earth them should tell me before to assure that took that
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  black fellow who murdered the shepherd a woolshed creak, wasn't it? The admission
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  was made with due modesty. Why you're the very man for me, kill
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  Bride cried, Who show the way, Jack, and now make the gully?
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  And off they went together at a canter, the slanting sun striking fire
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  from their buttons and accoutermore and lighting their son burned faces as it lit the
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  red stems and the white that raced past them on either side. For a
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  little they followed the path which kill Bride had taken on his way thither,
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  and the trooper plunged into a thick bush on the left, and the game
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  became follow my leader, in and out out and in through a maze of
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  red stems and of white, and the pungent eucalyptus scent hung heavy as the
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  sage green perpendicular leaves themselves, and so onward till the sum inspector called a
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  hold horrify. Is it now bowing two or three miles? So good?
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  It'd be late for another hour and a half. We pickt at the milks
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  a breather while we can, and there we no harm and two drawers.
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  I was just thinking the same thing, sir. So they rains dangled while
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  they cut up a pipe full of apparent shoe leather, apiece and bras.
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  Only the dull blue smoke was curling and circling against the dull green foliage,
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  producing subtle half tint harmonies and momentary arabesques as the horses ambled neck and neck.
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  Nature of this colony, paughed Kilbride. Well, no er old country
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  originally, but have been out some years. That's all right as long as
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  you're not a new South Welshman, said Kilbride, with a chuckle. I'll
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  be shot if I wouldn't almost have turned you back if you had been.
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  Victoria is to have all the creditors, she said, anyway, they shan't
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  have any. On the other side, or I'll know the reason. The
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  Victorian swore, why why by jove, oh it is leaf loose my man
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  again, as let them have a hand in taking him. But why why
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  do you live so near the border? And you can ask, did you
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  never hear a Sydney sided drover blown about his bloomin colony? Have you never
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  heard of Sydney harbor? Till you're sick? And then they're papers? Cried
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  Kilbride, with columns in his tone. But I'll have the last laugh.
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  He a sworer wood and a whim, a swarid text, stingery, so
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  I heard, yes, they put it in their infernal papers. But it
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  was true, take a my win, or die in the intente, or
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  die and be dumbed to me. All the bitterness of previous failure. Indeed,
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  a notorious and much criticized defeat was in the Southern spector's tone that of
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  his subordinate, though light as air had a touch of insolence. But an
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  outsider could not have failed that Kilbride was too excited to detect. The outsider
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  might possibly have foreseen a rivalry which no longer entered Kilbride's hot head. Meanwhile,
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  the country was changing, even with their now leisurely advanced. The timbered
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  flats in the region of the river had merged into a gully which was rapidly
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  developing into a gorge with new, luxuriant growths, which added greatly to the
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  density of the forest, suggesting its very heart. The almost neutral eucalyptian tint
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  was splashed with the gay hues of many parrots, as though the gum trees
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  had burst to flower. The noise of running water stole gradually through the murmur
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  of leaves, and suddenly an object in the grass struck the sight like a
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  lantern flashed at dead of night. It proved to be an empty sardine tin,
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  pricked by a stray lance from the slanting sun. We must be near,
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  whispered Kilbride. We are there. You hear the creek. Here's a
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  gunya there, that's all. Shall we rush it on horseback or creep up
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  on foot? You'll know the lay of the land? Women wish do you
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  recommend rushing it? Then here goes In a few seconds, they leaped their
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  horses into a tiny clearing on the banks of a creek as relatively minute,
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  and the gunya a mere funnel of boughs and leaves in which a man could
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  lie at full length. They only sit upright at the funnel's mouth seemed as
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  empty as the space on every hand. The only other sign of stingery was
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  a hank of rope flung carelessly across the Gunya. Roof may be watching us
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  from among the trees, muttered Kilbride, looking sharply about him. Bowen screwed
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  up his eyes and followed suit. I'm hardly think it, mister Kilbride,
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  but it is possible. In here we sit for him to pot us.
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  Let's dismount whether or no. This slid to the ground. The trooper found
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  himself at the mouth of the Gunya. But if he were in there after
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  all, said he. He isn't, said Kilbride, stepping in front and
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  stooping quickly. But you might creep in, jack and see if he's left
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  any sign of leash behind him. The man was standing between the horses.
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  The revolver was cought. Bowen's answer was to hand his weapon over to Kilbride
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  and creep into the gunyar on his hands and knees. Here's something or other,
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  his voice cried thickly from within. It's half buried wait a bit sharpishire
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  can all right, but it's a box and jolly heavy. Kilbride appeared nervously
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  to right, left and center. Then his eyes fell upon his companion,
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  wriggling back into the open, a shallow oblong box in his arms. It's
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  polished, dimmed, and dusted with the mold, as though they had violated
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  a grave. Kick it open, exclaimed Kilbride excitedly. But there was no
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  need for that. The box was not even locked, and the lifted lid
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  revealed an inner one of glass protecting a brass cylinder with steel bristles and uneven
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  growth, and a long line of Liliputian hammers. Oh musical box, said
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  the staggered sub inspector. That's it, sir, I remember hearing that he
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  collared one on one of the stations. He stuck out last time he was
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  down here, must have lain on the ground ever since then. He shows
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  how hard you must have pressed him, mister Kilbride. Yes, they hided
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  him back across the murray soon as they heard of Mahdrevich's rejoined the other room.
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  Grim bravado, anything else in the gun? Yer O he took that
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  trip? I fancy if we dig a bit. He never gave him time
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  to roll his swag. They must have a look, said Kilbride, his
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  excitement fed by his reviving vanity. The other questioned whether it were worth while.
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  This settled the souther inspector. There may be something to shore where he's
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  gone, that casuist suggested, for I don't believe he's anywhere here. Shall
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  I have the sutor? Sir, thanks, and keep your aise open.
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  Just in kiss. It is my opinion that the birds flown somewherets, and
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  it's thirush to find out where. Kilbride then crept into the gun near on
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  his hands and knees, and found it less dark than he had supposed,
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  the light filtering freely through the leaves and branches. At the inner extremity,
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  he found a mildewed blanket, and the place where the musical box had evidently
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  laid a long time. But there, though we delved to the elbows and
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  the loosened earth, his discoveries ended. Puzzled and annoyed. Kilbride was on
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  the verge of cursing his subordinate, and all at once he was given fresh
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  cause. The musical box had burst into selections from the pirates of Penzance.
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  What the deuce are you at, shouted the irate officer, only seeing how
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  it goes? Stop at at once? You full you may hear it,
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  you said, the bird had flown? Who dare to argue with me?
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  By thunder? You should see? But it was some inspector kill Bride who
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  saw most backing precipitately out of the gun ya. He turned round before rising
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  upright, and remained upon his knees. After all, he was covered by
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  two revolvers, one of them his own, and the face behind the barrels
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  was the one with which the last hour had familiarized to kill Bride. The
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  only difference was the single eye glass and the right eye, and the strains
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  of the musical box so thin and tinkling in the open air filled with the
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  paws. What in blazers are you playing at? Laughed the luckless officer,
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  feigning to treat the affair as a joke, even while the iron truth was
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  entering his soul by inches. Rise another inch without my leave, and you
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  may be in blazes to see. Look here, bone, what do you
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  mean? Only that stingery happens to be a home After all, mister Kilbride,
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  The victim's grin was no longer forced. The situation made for laughter,
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  even if the laughter were hysterical, and for an instant it was given even
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  to Kilbride to see the cruel humor of it. Then he realized all it
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  meant to him certain ruin or a sudden death, and the drop stood thick
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  upon his skin. What if boone, he at length asked hoarsely. The
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  idea of another victim came as a slight alleviation of his own grotesque case.
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  I didn't kill him, said Stingery. Good, said Kilbride, with something,
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  that two of them should live to share the shame. But Wiingham I
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  did, added the bushranger. I couldn't help myself. The beggar put a
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  bullet through my hat. Did well early to get one back in the leg.
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  And Kilbride longed to be wakened and wounded in his turn, since blood
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  alone could lessen his disgrace. On cooler reflection, however, it was obviously
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  wiser to feign a surrender more abject than it might finally prove to have been.
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  Well, said Kilbride. You have the whip hand over me this tame,
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  and I give you best. How long are you going to keep me
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  on my knees? You can get up when you like, replied Stingery,
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  if you promise not to play the full So you are really going to take
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  me this time, were you? I have really no desire to rub a
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  ding, But if I were you, I should have kept that to myself
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  until I had done it. If you wanted to have me all to yourself,
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  well you couldn't pay me a higher compliment, But I am going to
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  pay you a high one and return. You really did make me run for
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  it last time and leave all sorts of things behind, so this time I
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  mean to take them with me and leave you here instead. Nevertheless, you're
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  the only Victorian trap I have any respect for, mister Kilbride, or I
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  shouldn't have gone to all this trouble to get you here. Kilbride did not
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  blanch, but he heard his apparent doom with a glittering and was deaf for
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  a little to the pirates of Penzance. Oh, I'm not going to harm
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  a good man like you, continued Stingery, unless you make me your friend
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  Bowen made me. But I don't promise to fire low every time. Mark
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  you there's another good man on the other side, Cairn's by name. You
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  know him, do He'll kick up his heels when he hears at this.
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  They do no better in New South Wales. So don't let that worry you.
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  Think you held both shooters at one stage of the game. I trusted
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  you, and so you trusted me. Felly, you would known. Eh.
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  Hear that tune, I know what it is. It's in your honor,
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  mister Kilbride, and Stingery hummed the Policeman's chorus sotto voce, but before
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  the end, with a swift remorse induced by the dignity of Kilbride's bearing and
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  a humiliating disaster, he swooped upon the insolent instrument and stopped its tinkle by
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  touching the lever with one revolver barrel, while sedulously covering the souther inspector with
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  the other. The sudden cessation of the toy music, bringing back into undue
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  prominence all the little bush noises which had filled the air before, brought home
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  to Kilbride a position which he had subconsciously associated with those malevolent strains, something
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  theatrical and unreal. He had known in his heart that it was real without
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  grasping the reality until now. He flung up his fists in sudden entreaty.
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  Put a bullet through me, he cried, If you're a man, Stingery
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  shook a decisive head. Not if I can help it, said he.
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  But I fear I shall have to tie you up. That's slow death never
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  has been yet. But you must take your chance. Give me that rope
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  that stung over the gun. You it's got to be done. Kilbride obeyed
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  with apparent apathy. But his heart was inflamed with a sudden and infernal glow.
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  Yes, it had never ended in death in any case that he could
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  recall at this time. On a trick of all the bush rangers. On
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  the contrary, sooner or later, most victims had contrived to release themselves.
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  Well, one victim was going to complete his release by hanging himself by the
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  same rope to the same tree. Meanwhile, he confronted his captor grimly.
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  The coil in both hands. There's a loop at one end, said Stingery.
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  Stick your foot through it, either foot you like kill Bride obeyed,
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  wondering whether his head would go through when his turn came. Now, chuck
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  me the other end, it fell in coils at the bush ranger's feet.
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  Now stand up against that blue gum, he continued, pointing at the tree
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  with Kilbride's revolver, his own being back at his hips stand steel like a
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  sensible chap. Stingery then walked round and round the tree, paying up the
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  long rope, yet keeping it taut till look wound round tree and man from
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  the latter's ankles to his armpits. Instinctively. Kilbride had kept his arms free
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  to the last, but there were no use to him in his suit of
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  hemp, and one after another his wrists were pinned and handcuffed behind the tree.
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  The cold steel came as a shock. The captive had counted on loosening
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  the knots by degrees, beginning with those about his hands. There was no
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  loosening steel guives like these. He knew the field of them too well.
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  They would kill Bride's own that he had brought with him for Stingarey found them
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  in your saddle bags while you were in by gunya, explained the bushrangers,
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  stepping round to survey his work. Sorry to see the kid, so to
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  speak, but you see, you were my most dangerous enemy the side of
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  the murray. The enemy did not look very dangerous as he stood on the
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  dusk and the heart of that forest lashed to that tree, with his finger
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  tips not quite meeting behind it, and the blood already on his wrists.
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  And no, he whispered hoarse, already, his lips cracking, his throat
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  parched. I shall give you a drink before I go, and won't take
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  one from you. I shall make you, for I have to be a
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  bigger brute than ever. We must live to spin this yarn, never Stingaree
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  smiled to himself as he produced pipe and tobacco. But it was not his
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  sinister s twas rather that of the victor who salutes the vanquished in his heart.
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  Meanwhile, a more striking and a more subtle change had come over the
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  face of Kilbride. Twas not joy, but it was a new grimness,
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  And in his preoccupation the bush ranger did not notice it at all. He
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  sauntered nearer with his knife and his tobacco plug. There was some compassion in
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  his pensive stare. Cheer up Man said he there's no disgrace in coming out
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  second best to me. You may smile. You will find it's generally admitted
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  in New South Wales. After all, you didn't tell little crooked Cairns how
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  it happened, so that stops your smile. But he's the best man left
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  on my tracks. Or I shouldn't be surprised if he's the first to find
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  you day more, should I? Said a harsh voice behind the bush ranger,
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  hands up in empty Stingery for you all the next dead man, and
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  this little carlony quick ast thought Stingery stepped in front of the tide Victorian,
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  but his hands were up and his eye glass dangling on its string. Now
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  you don't catch me kill two beds, rasped the newcomer's voice. Though I'm
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  not sure which of you would be least loss. Stingery stood aside once more
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  and waved his hands without lowering them, bowing from his captor to his captive
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  as he did so. Superintended Cairns of New South Wales inspector killed bride of
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  Victoria, said he you two men will be glad to know each other.
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  New South Welshman drawed out a dry expression of his own satisfaction. It was
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  a strange and striking personality, dark as a mulatto and round shouldered to the
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  extent of some distinct deformity. He carried his eyes high under the lids,
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  and shot his piercing glance from under the penthouse of a beetling brow. Lipless
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  mouth was pursed in such a fashion as to shorten the upper lip and exaggerate
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  in an already powerful chin. And the stooping and intent carriage was no less
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  suggestive of the human sleuth hound than were a veiled vigilance and dogged determination of
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  the lowered face. Such was the man who had succeeded where Kilbride had failed,
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  succeeded at the most humiliating moment of that most ignominious failure, and who
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  came unwarrantably from the wrong side of the murray. Victorian stood in his bonds
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  and favored his rival with such a glare as he had not leveled its stingery
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  himself. But not a syllable did kill Bride vouchsafe, and the superintendent was
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  fully occupied with his prisoner. Little croker Keynes am, I there are those
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  that look a jolly side spawler, and I'll have a worse hump than mine
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  for the rest of their born days. Come nearer and tell your back.
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  The Revolver was withdrawn from its carrier on the stolen constabulary belt. The Bushranger
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  was then searched for other weapons, then marched into the bush at Pistol's point,
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  and brought back handcuffed to the Superintendent's bridle. That's the way you'll come,
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  marching, came now, boy, and one of us in all spag
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  each side. Don't trust you in a saddle and a dark night. Indeed,
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  it was nearly dark already, and the nebulous middle distance, a laughing
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  jackass was indulging in his evening peal. Keern jerked his head in the direction
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  of the unearthly cackle. Lots of them down here in Vicker, I believe,
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  said he, and at length turned his attention to the bound man.
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  You see, I wanted to land him alive, in kicking without spilling blood.
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  He continued, opening his knife. It's why I had to let him
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  tie you up. You less, him, stundered the Victorian, breaking his
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  silence with a bellow. Was as though the man with the knife had cut
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  through the rope into the bound man's body. Stand still, said he,
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  or I may hurt you, or had to let him, my good fellow.
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  Would he been dropping each other like bullocks? As it is not a
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  scratch between us. Though, I found young Bowen in a pretty bad way.
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  Our friend had stuck up jumping creek barracks in the small hours. Put
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  a bullet through Boward's leg and come away in his uniform pretty tall that,
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  eh, shouldn't wonder if you'd swing him for it alone down here in Vic,
• 23:03
  No doubt you've got to be more severe in a young colony. But
• 23:06
  I tracked my gentleman to the barracks and I found bowing in his blood,
• 23:10
  sent my trooper for a doctor, and got on your tracks before they were
• 23:14
  half an hour old. I'll come up with you. Just as he stuck
• 23:17
  you up. He'd won on each hand. Wasn't quite good enough at the
• 23:21
  moment. Book knife snare through the rope for the last time, and it
• 23:26
  lay in short ends all round the tree. You're may hands, cried Kilbride
• 23:30
  fiercely. I beg pardon, said the satirical superintendent me Hans, I tell
• 23:37
  you. Isn't it a word they teach them to say at our state schools?
• 23:41
  Perhaps you've never heard it down in Vic, don't be a silly fool,
• 23:45
  said Kilbride, wearily. You haven't been through what I have. That's
• 23:51
  true, said Kenns. Still you might be decently civil to the man that
• 23:55
  gets you out of a mess. Nevertheless, the handcuffs were immediately mood at
• 24:00
  that instant with the courteous thanks some inspector. Kilbride sprang forward with such a
• 24:04
  vigorous intent that the other detained them forcibly by one of his stiff and aching
• 24:08
  arms. What are you after, now, Kilbride, my prisoner? You
• 24:12
  are what my prisoner? I said? Oh I like that? And you
• 24:18
  his Kilbride, burst into voluble defense of his position. What rate if you
• 24:23
  on this side of them marry you Sydney Cider, None at all, except
• 24:26
  as a passenger. You can't lay finger a man, woman or chair in
• 24:30
  this colony, and by god you shan't nor yet upon the three hundred beers
• 24:34
  on his head, and the sons of convicts done in Sydney can put dash
• 24:38
  in their paper and smoke it. For all his cool and ready insolence,
• 24:42
  the Misshape and Superintendent from the other side, still dazed and bewildered by this
• 24:45
  volcanic outpouring, then his dark face flushed darker. With a snarl, he
• 24:52
  clinched his fists. The Victorian, however, it turned on his heel,
• 24:56
  and now his liberated hands flew skyward as though theush Ranger's revolver covered him yet
• 25:00
  again. But there was no such weapon discern all through the shade, no
• 25:07
  new South Welshman's horse, and neither sight, sound, wraith, nor echo
• 25:11
  of Stingery, the outlawed Bushranger, the terror and the despair of the sister
• 25:15
  colonies retort. It may be done, when a sure how you've fixed him,
• 25:21
  said Kilbride, cheerfully dors Becker's can rade, laying down or standin' up.
• 25:26
  I believe you saw him clear, or settle that with you when I've
• 25:29
  caught him. You catch him, you gum sucker, when you as good
• 25:33
  as let him go. And a volley of further and more trenchant abuse was
• 25:37
  discharged by Superintendent Cairns of the New South Wales Police, that Kilbride was already
• 25:44
  in the saddle a covert outward, kicked with a spurred heel, and the
• 25:48
  third horse went cantering, riderless into the trees. He won't go far,
• 25:53
  sang the South Inspector, and you'll take your safe back to barracks. You
• 25:56
  should give him his head. It's easy to get bushed from this for new
• 26:00
  charms from penal settlements. As the Victorian galloped into the darkness and the new
• 26:06
  South Welshmen dashed wildly out of the third horse, the laughing Jackass in the
• 26:11
  invisible middle distance gave his last grotesque defour at departed day. And the laughing
• 26:17
  Jackass is a Victorian bird. End of Chapter five