The Signal-Tree.
“I jest walked in,” said
Dolphin, “an’ I says, ’About thisyer
gold-escort: when does it start?’ I says.
The shrivelled party with the whiskers looks at me
acrost the counter, an’ e’ says, ’What
business is that of yours, my man?’ ‘None,’
I says, ‘’xcept me an’ my mate is
nervous of swaggin’ our gold to town ourselves.’
’Don’t you bother about that,’ ’e
says. ’All you’ve got to do is to
sell your gold to our agent on the field, and leave
the rest to him.’ The escort will leave
reg’lar, accordin’ to time-table; so we
can stick it up, sure as Gawd made little apples.”
“And what about goin’
through the Bank?” asked Sweet William.
“Now I ask you,” said
Dolphin, “what’s the use of messing with
the Bank, when we can clean out the gold-escort, an’
no one the wiser?”
“Same here. My opinion,” said Gentleman
Carnac.
“I’m slick agin letting
the Bank orf,” growled Garstang. “Why
not let the escort get its gold to the Bank, and then
nab everything in the show. The original plan’s
the best.”
“I gave you credit for more
sense, Garstang.” The leader of the gang
looked darkly at his subordinate. “I gave
you credit for knowing more of your trade.”
“More credit, eh?” asked
the man with the crooked mouth. “For why?”
The four rascals were in the cottage
where they had met before, and the room reeked with
the smoke of bad tobacco.
“Why?” replied Dolphin.
“Because you’re the oldest hand of the
lot, an’ you’ve been in the business all
your life.”
“Jes’ so,” said
Garstang, with an evil smile. “’Xcept when
I’ve bin the guest of the Widow.”
“Which has been pretty frequent,”
interjected Sweet William.
“To clean the Bank out is easy
enough,” said Dolphin: “the trouble
is to get away with the stuff. You ought to see
that with half an eye. To stick up the escort
requires a little skill, a little pluck; but as for
gettin’ away with the gold afterwards, that’s
child’s play.”
“Dead men don’t tell no tales,”
remarked Sweet William.
“But their carcases do,” objected Garstang.
“You beat everything!”
exclaimed the leader, growing almost angry. “Ain’t
there such a thing as a shovel? No wonder you
were copped pretty often by the traps, Garstang.”
“You two men wrangle like old
women,” said Carnac. “Drop it.
Tell us what’s the first thing to do.”
“To go an’ look at the country,”
answered Dolphin.
“That’s it.... Go
it.... Dolphin controls the whole push....
Jest do as ’e tells.” Garstang was
evidently annoyed that the leadership of the murderous
gang, which had once been his, had passed out of his
hands.
Dolphin took no notice of the remarks.
“We shall have plenty time to get to work, ’cause
the Bank can’t bring the gold to town till it’s
bought it, and it can’t begin to buy it till
the agent reaches the field, an’ he only started
to-day.”
“Every blessed thing’s
ready,” chimed in Sweet William, who was evidently
backing the new leader strongly. “Carny
an’ me’s bin through the guns, an’
they’re all clean an’ took to bits ready
for putting in the swags. When they’re
packed, not a trap in the country but wouldn’t
take us for the garden variety of diggers, 2 dwts.
to the dish, or even less. Quite mild, not to
say harmless, gruel-fed, strictly vegetarian a
very useful an’ respectable body of men.”
Dolphin smiled at the young man’s
witticism. “It doesn’t need for more
than two to go,” he said. “There’s
no use in making a public show of ourselves, like
a bloomin’ pack-train. Two’s plenty.”
“I’ll stop at ’ome,”
growled Garstang. “It’s your faik,
Dolphin you planned it. Let’s
see you carry it out.”
“I’ll go,” volunteered
William. “Carny can stop behind an’
help keep Garstang’s temper sweet.”
In his hilarity he smacked the sinister-faced man
on the back.
“Keep your hands t’ yerself,”
snarled Garstang, with an oath. “You’re
grown too funny, these days a man’d
think you ran the show.”
“Lord, what a mug!” Young
William grimaced at Garstang’s sour face.
“But it’ll sweeten up, olé man, when
the gold’s divided.”
“We’re wasting time,”
broke in Dolphin. “We must be getting along.
Pack your swag, William: mine’s at The
Bushman’s Tavern.”
“Matilda is ready,” exclaimed
the youthful member of the gang, picking up his swag
from the floor, and hitching it on to his shoulders.
“Gimme that long-handled shovel, Carny it’ll
look honest, though it weighs half a ton. Well,
so-long.”
He shook the bad-tempered Garstang,
slapped Carnac on the back, and followed Dolphin from
the cottage.
While this ominous meeting was being
held, Jake Ruggles might have been observed to be
acting in a most extraordinary manner in the back-garden
of Tresco’s shop. In the middle of a patch
of ill-nourished cabbages which struggled for existence
amid weeds and rubbish, he had planted a kitchen chair.
On the back of this he had rested a long telescope,
which usually adorned the big glass case which stood
against the wall behind the shop-counter. This
formidable instrument he had focussed upon the pinnacle
of a wooded height, which stood conspicuous behind
the line of foot-hills, and, as he peered at the distant
mountain-top, he gave vent to a string of ejaculations,
expressive of interest and astonishment.
Upon the top of the wooded mountain
a large tree, which he could distinguish with the
naked eye, stood conspicuous; a tree which spread
its branches high above its fellows, and silhouetted
its gigantic shape against the sky-line. Directing
his telescope upon this remarkable giant of the forest,
by aid of its powerful lenses he could see, projecting
from the topmost branch, a flag, which upon further
observation proved to be nothing less than the red
ensign employed on merchant ships; and it was this
emblem of the mercantile marine which so amazed and
interested the youthful Ruggles.
“The olé beggar’s
got his pennant out,” he exclaimed, as he smacked
his lean shanks and again applied his eye to the telescope.
“That means a spree for Benjamin. The crafty
olé rascal’ll be comin’ in to-night.
It means his tucker supply’s given out, an’
I must fly round for bacon, tea, sugar, bread, flour;
an’ I think I’ll put in a tin or two of
jam, by way of a treat.”
He took a long look at the signal,
and then shut up the telescope.
“It’s quite plain,”
he soliloquised: “the old un’s comin’
in. I must shut up shop, and forage. Then,
after dark, I’ll take the tucker to the ford.”
But, as though a sudden inspiration
had seized him, he readjusted his instrument and once
more examined the conspicuous tree.
“Why, he’s there himself,
sittin’ in a forked bough, an’ watchin’
me through his glass.” Placing the telescope
gently on the ground, Jake turned himself into a human
semaphore, and gesticulated frantically with his arms.
“That ought to fetch ’im,” and he
again placed his eye to the telescope. “Yes,
he sees. He’s wavin’ his ’at.
Good old Ben. It’s better than a play.
Comic opera ain’t in it with this sort o’
game. He’s fair rampin’ with joy
’cause I seen ’im.” Shutting
up his instrument, Jake gave a last exhibition of
mad gesticulations, danced a mimic war-dance, and
then, with the big telescope under his arm, he went
into the house.
It was a long stretch of tangled forest
from the big tree to Tresco’s cave, but the
goldsmith was now an expert bushman, versed in the
ways of the wilderness, active if not agile, enduring
if still short of breath. His once ponderous
form had lost weight, his once well-filled garments
hung in creases on him, but a look of robust health
shone in his eye and a wholesome tan adorned his cheek.
He strode down the mountain as though he had been
born on its arboreous slopes. Without pause, without
so much as a false step, he traversed those wild gullies,
wet where the dew still lay under the leafy screen
of boughs, watered by streams which gurgled over mighty
boulders a wilderness where banks of ferns
grew in the dank shade and the thick tangle of undergrowth
blocked the traveller’s way.
But well on into the afternoon Tresco
had reached the neighbourhood of his cave, where his
recluse life dragged out its weary days. His route
lay for a brief mile along the track which led to the
diggings. Reaching this cleared path, where locomotion
was easier, the goldsmith quickened his pace, when
suddenly, as he turned a corner, he came upon two men
walking towards him from Timber Town.
In a moment he had taken cover in
the thick underscrub which lined each side of the
track, and quickly passing a little way in the direction
from which he had come, he hid himself behind a dense
thicket, and waited for the wayfarers to pass by.
They came along slowly, being heavy laden.
“I tell yer I seen the bloke
on the track, Dolly, just about here,” said
the younger man of the two. “One moment
he was here, next ’e was gone. Didn’t
you see ’m?”
“I must ha’ bin lookin’
t’other way, up the track,” said the other.
“I was thinkin’ o’ somethin’.
I was thinkin’ that this place, just here, was
made a-purpose for our business. Now, look at
this rock.”
He led his companion to the inner
edge of the track, where a big rock abutted upon the
acute angle which the path made in circumventing the
forest-clad hill-side. Placing their “swags”
on the path the two men clambered up behind the rock,
and Tresco could hear their conversation as he lay
behind the thick scrub opposite them.
“See?” said Dolphin, as
he pointed up the track in the direction of Timber
Town. “From here you can command the track
for a half-a-mile.”
Sweet William looked, and said, “That’s
so you can.”
“Now, look this way,”
Dolphin pointed down the track in the direction of
the diggings. “How far can you see, this
way?”
“Near a mile,” replied William.
“Very good. We plant two
men behind this rock, and two over there in the bush,
on the opposite side, and we can bail up a dozen men.
Eh?”
“It’s the place, the identical
spot, Dolly; but I should put the other two men a
little way up the track we don’t want
to shoot each other.”
“Just so. It would be like
this: we have ’em in view, a long while
before they arrive; they’re coming up hill, tired,
and goin’ slow; we’re behind perfect cover.”
“I don’t see how we can
beat it, unless it is to put a tree across the road,
just round the corner on the Timber Town side.”
“No, no. That’d give
the show away. That’d identify the spot.
There’re a hundred reasons against it.
A tree across the track might stop the diggers as
well, and the first party that come along would axe
it through, and where would our log be then?
It would never do. But let’s get down,
and have a drink. Thank Gawd, there’s a
bottle or two left in my swag.”
Tresco saw them clamber down from
the rock, and drink beer by the wayside. Only
too quickly did he recognise these men, who looked
like diggers but behaved so strangely; but the sight
of the liquor was almost more than he could bear,
yet not daring to stir a finger lest he should be
discovered he was forced to see them drink it.
Indeed, they made quite a meal; eating
bread and cheese, which they washed down with their
favourite beverage. When the bottles were empty,
Dolphin flung them into the bushes opposite to him,
and the missiles, shivering into hundreds of pieces,
sprinkled the goldsmith with broken glass.
He stifled a wordy protest which rose
to his lips, and lay still; and shortly afterwards
he had the pleasure of seeing the undesirable strangers
hump their “swags” and retrace their steps
towards Timber Town.
When they had disappeared, Tresco
came from his hiding-place. He looked up and
down the track. “Just so,” he soliloquised,
“half-a-mile this way, a mile that. Good
cover.... Commanding position. What’s
their little game? It seems to me that there
are bigger rascals than Benjamin in Timber Town.”
And with this salve applied to his conscience, the
goldsmith pursued his way towards his dismal cavern.