nd 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.

"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