"But once they have killed a man, they don't generally care how many more lives they take. They are desperate, then, and seem to exult in devilry of all kinds. As to being stuck up by an ordinary bush ranger, one would think no more of it than of having one's pockets picked, in England.
"It's lucky for us, on the whole, that the black fellows have such a hatred of the white men. Were it not for that, a good many of these fellows would go all lengths, relying on taking to the bush when they had made the colony too hot to hold them. But there are only a few of them that have ever got on well with the blacks, and many a man who has gone out into the bush has found his end there. You see, there's no explaining to a dozen natives, who jump up and begin to throw spears and boomerangs at you, that you are a bad white fellow, and not a colonist on the search for fresh runs.
"No, the bush rangers on the whole are not such a bad lot of fellows. I suppose there is not one of us, here, who hasn't had men ride up and ask for food; who were, he knew pretty well, bush rangers. Of course they got their food, as anyone else would who rode up to a station and asked for it.
"Once, only, I was told to hand over any money I had in the house. As, fortunately, I had only a few pounds I gave it up without making a fight for it. It's no use risking one's life, unless for something worth fighting for. I suppose most of us here have had similar experiences."
There was a general chorus of assent among the settlers.
"Many of them are poor-spirited wretches. Two of them bailed up a waggoner of mine, coming out with a load from the port. He pretended to give in and, as they were opening some of the boxes, he knocked one over with the butt end of his whip. The other fired a hasty shot, and then jumped on to his horse and galloped off again; and my man brought in the fellow he had stunned."
"Did you hand him over to the police?" Reuben asked.
"Not I," the settler laughed. "I thought he had got what he deserved, so I bandaged up his head and let him go. Those poor beggars of convicts have a dreadful hard time of it, and I don't think there are many settlers who would hand over any man who had escaped, and taken to the bush, even if he had occasionally bailed up a waggoner or so. We know what a flogging the poor wretch would get and, as long as it's only an occasional robbery, to keep themselves from starving, we don't feel any great animosity against them. It's different, altogether, when they take to murder. Then, of course, they must be hunted down like wild beasts.
"And now I vote that we have a nap. My pipe's out, and I suppose we shall be on the tramp again, as soon as it is dark."