The Black Troopers and other stories

CHAPTER I.

A MEETING—THE RIDE ROUND THE RUN.

The drays with which I was travelling (it was in the month of March, 1849) had arrived as far as Lake Boga, on the Lower Murray River, within a day's journey of our destination. We had halted for the night close to a sheep-station established there. In the course of the evening the gentleman in charge of it—Macfarlane was his name—walked over to our camp; and I was informed by him that Mr. Stevenson, the superintendent of the run I was about to visit, had on the previous day ridden over to meet me, and had only returned home that afternoon. Having ascertained from him that I was a medical man, Mr. Macfarlane had come to invite me to his hut, and to ask me to visit one of his blacks, who had been wounded by a party from a tribe fifty miles up the river. These men had started originally for the purpose of surprising the blacks on Stevenson's station; but, traces of their presence in that neighbourhood having been discovered, they were forced to beat a retreat. In their rage at their disappointment, they had resolved, if possible, to slaughter some of the Lake blacks, rather than return empty-handed; but there also they were happily frustrated in their design, and only succeeded in wounding one man, whose leg they broke with a musket ball.

After this second disappointment, it was confidently anticipated that they would, as they generally did when their intended surprise proves a failure, return home, and await a more favourable opportunity. But they did not do so in this instance, as the result will show; for I subsequently had an opportunity of witnessing a striking illustration of the savage and barbarous mode of warfare of the Australian aboriginal, an opportunity not often afforded to the white man.

I set the wounded black's limb as well as I could with bark splints, and next day we started on our way to the banks of the Murray. The drays had to cross the river in order to reach the station I was going to. This was done by means of a punt, which had lately been built by a man who had also opened an inn for the use of travellers to South Australia, the road to which passed by the banks of the stream.

As we came in sight of this building, which was of weatherboard, with a verandah in front, I saw a man standing in the middle of the track or road, and watching our approach; and upon drawing near I observed that he was a black. When the driver, by whose team I was, recognised him, he uttered an exclamation, and stopped his dray.

'If there isn't that villain himself I was talking about to you, sir!'

'What do you mean?' I said.

'Why, I told you those blacks we heard of at the Lake yesterday, and who came to attack ours, wanted to kill one man in particular. That's him! His name is Bobby Peel, and he's the biggest rascal in the whole country round. It's a wonder he's alive yet, for when we left the run for this last trip to town, six or seven weeks ago, the black police were after him; and yet there he stands, as cool as you please, as if he hadn't ever killed a white man. Look at him!' he added, as his mate came up with his team.

'Why, it's Sir Robert! So he isn't settled yet. It isn't for want of trying; for if he's been shot at once, he has been twenty times at least. He'd a been dead long ago, only for our super, who won't let our men shoot him, as any one of them would only be too glad to do. There's not a place in the whole country round where he durst show himself, only ours.'

'How is that?' I asked.

'Because he's allers been a-robbing the out-station huts, sneaking in when the hut-keeper's away. He's a capital rider; and he'd get horses as he'd stole planted away in the bush, tethered handy; and he gallops off thirty miles one way, and robs a hut, and then gallops back and shows himself at our station. Then, when the squatters complain to our super about it, he says, "It couldn't ha' been Bobby, cos Bobby was at my head station that day you say your hut was robbed." Then next day, perhaps, away goes Master Bobby another way, and plays the same game! You see he isn't like the other blacks, who're afraid to travel alone after dark on account of the "devil-devils" they believe walk at night in the bush. But he was bowled out at that game at last, not long before we started this trip, and the super threatened he'd shoot him himself if he heard tell of any more of his games!'