“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.