"He was nearly out of his mind, poor fellow. The neighbours all thought that the body must have been burned with the house; but he would have it that there would have been some sign of her. No one else thought so; and besides, it wasn't the custom of the blacks to carry off anyone. The father got a party to try and follow the blacks, but of course it was no use. They had pretty near two days' start.
"The father never took to his farm again, but hung about the out stations, doing a job here and there for his grub. Sometimes he would be away for a bit, and when he came back, though he never talked about it, everyone knew he had been out hunting the blacks.
"I do not know how many of them he killed, but I know he never spared one, when he got him outside the settlement. After a time the blacks never troubled that part. So many of them had been killed that they got a superstitious fear of the man, and believed he was possessed of an evil spirit; and I don't believe twenty of them, together, would have dared to attack him.
"At last, from some of the half-tamed blacks in the settlement, he got to hear some sort of rumour that there was a white girl, living with one of the tribes far out in their country, and he set out. He was away four months, and he never said what he had been doing all the time. In fact, he started almost directly for the port, and went home by the next ship.
"However, he brought his child back with him. It was four years since she had been carried off, and she was a regular little savage, when she arrived in the settlement with him. Of course she could not speak a word of English, and was as fierce as a little wildcat. I expect she got all right, after a bit.
"I didn't see the man, but I heard he was worn to a shadow, when he got back. He must have had an awful time of it, in the bush. What with hunger and thirst, and dodging the blacks, I don't know how he lived through it; but he looked contented and happy, in spite of his starvation, and they say it was wonderful to see how patient he was with the child.
"They got up a subscription, at Sydney, to send them both home. I heard that the captain of the ship he went in said, when he came back the next voyage, that the child had taken to him, and had got civilized and like other children before they got to England."
"Of course, such fellows as Cockeye and Fothergill are the exceptions, and not the rule," Mr. Blount said. "Were there many of such scoundrels about, we should have to abandon our settlements and make war upon them; for there would be no living in the colony till they were exterminated. Most of these fellows are the colonial version of the highwaymen, at home. It is just 'Stand and deliver.' They content themselves with taking what they can find in a traveller's pockets, or can obtain by a flying visit to his station."
"Yes, I had several of those in my last district," Reuben said. "They were just mounted robbers, and gave us a good deal of trouble in hunting them down. But none of them had shed blood during their career, and they did not even draw a pistol when we captured them. That style of bush ranger is a nuisance, but no more. Men seldom carry much money about with them here, and no great harm was done."
"You see," Dick Caister said, "these fellows have a remarkable objection to putting their necks in the way of a noose; so that although they may lug out a pistol and shout 'Bail up!' they will very seldom draw a trigger, if you show fight. So long as they do not take life they know that, if they are caught, all they have to expect is to be kept at hard work during the rest of their sentence, and perhaps for a bit longer. They don't mind the risk of that. They have had their outing, sometimes a long one; but if they once take life, they know its hanging when they are caught; and are therefore careful not to press too hard upon their triggers.