Starlight just spoke a word to them all; he didn't talk much, but looked hard and stern about the face, as a captain ought to do.
He rode up to the gap and saw where the trees had been cut down to block up the road.It would be hard work getting the coach through there now -- for a bit to come.
After that our horses and the two packers were left behind with Warrigal and father, close enough for hearing, but well out of the way for seeing; it was behind a thick belt of timber.
They tied up some to trees and short-hobbled others, keeping them all so as to be ready at a moment's notice.Our men hid themselves behind rocks and stumps on the high side of the road so as they could see well, and had all the shadow on their side.Wall and Hulbert and their lot had their mob of horses, packers, and all planted away, and two young fellows belonging to their crowd minding them.
We'd been ready a good bit when a cove comes tearing up full bat.
We were watching to see how he shaped, and whether he looked likely to lay on the police, when I saw it was Billy the Boy.
`Now I call this something like,' says he, pulling up short:
`army in readiness, the enemy not far off.My word, it is a fine thing to turn out, ain't it, Dick? Do you chaps feel shaky at all?
Ain't yer gallied the least little bit? They're a-comin'!'
`How long will they be?' Starlight said.`Just remember that you're not skylarking at a pound-yard, my boy.'
`All right, Captain,' he answered, quiet enough.`I started on ahead the moment I saw 'em leave the camp.They're safe to be here in ten minutes now.You can see 'em when they come into the flat.
I'll clear out to the back for a bit.I want 'em to think I come up permiskus-like when it's over.' So the young rascal galloped away till the trees hid him, and in a quarter of an hour more we saw the leaders of the four-horse drag that carried the escort gold turn round on the forest road and show out into the flat.
It gave me a queer feeling just at first.We hadn't been used to firing on the Queen's servants, not in cold blood, anyhow, but it was them or us for it now.There was no time to think about it.They came along at a steady trot up the hill.We knew the Turon sergeant of police that drove, a tall man with a big black beard down to his chest.
He had been in an English dragoon regiment, and could handle the ribbons above a bit.He had a trooper alongside him on the box with his rifle between his knees.Two more were in the body of the drag.
They had put their rifles down and were talking and laughing, not expecting anything sudden.Two more of the mounted men rode in front, but not far.The couple behind were a good way off.All of a sudden the men in front came on the trees lying across the road.
They pulled up short, and one of them jumped down and looked to see if anything could be done to move them.The other man held his horse.
The coach drove up close, so that they were bunched up pretty well together.
`Who the devil has been doing that?' sung out the sergeant.
`Just as if the road isn't bad enough without these infernal lazy scoundrels of bullock-drivers cutting down trees to make us go round.
It's a beastly track here at the best of times.'
`I believe them trees have been fallen on purpose,' says the trooper that was down.`There's been men, and horses too, about here to-day, by the tracks.They're up to no good!'
`Fire!'
The order was given in Starlight's clear, bold voice.
Just like a horn it sounded.You might have heard it twice as far off.
A dozen shots followed the next second, making as much row as fifty because of the way the sound echoed among the rocks.
I never saw a bigger surprise in my life, and wasn't likely to do, as this was my first regular battle.We had plenty of time to take aim, and just at first it looked as if the whole blessed lot of the police was killed and wounded.
The sergeant threw up his arms and fell off the box like a log, just under the horses' feet.One of the troopers on ahead dropped, he that was holding the horses, and both horses started off at full gallop.
The two men in the body of the drag were both hit -- one badly.
So when the two troopers came up full gallop from the back they found us cutting the traces of the team, that was all plunging like mad, and letting the horses go.
We opened fire at them directly they showed themselves;of course they couldn't do much in the face of a dozen men, all well armed and behind good cover.They kept it up for a bit till one of their horses was hit, and then made tracks for Turon to report that the escort had been stuck up by twenty or thirty men at Eugowra Rocks -- the others had come up with the pack-horses by this time, along with Master Billy the Boy firing his revolver and shouting enough for half-a-dozen; so we looked a big crowd -- that all the men were shot dead, wounded, or taken prisoners, and that a strong force had better be despatched at once to recapture the gold.
A good deal of this was true, though not all.The only man killed was the sergeant.He was shot clean through the heart, and never stirred again.
Of the five other men, three were badly wounded and two slightly.
We attended to them as well as we could, and tied the others so that they would not be able to give any bother for an hour or two at any rate.