The Boss of Taroomba

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  AMOS JUDD. By J. A. Mitchell, Editor of "Life"IA. A Love Story. By Q. [Arthur T. Quiller-Couch]THE SUICIDE CLUB. By Robert Louis StevensonIRRALIE'S BUSHRANGER. By E. W. HornungA MASTER SPIRIT. By Harriet Prescott SpoffordMADAME DELPHINE. By George W. CableONE OF THE VISCONTI. By Eva Wilder BrodheadA BOOK OF MARTYRS. By Cornelia Atwood PrattA BRIDE FROM THE BUSH. By E. W. HornungTHE MAN WHO WINS. By Robert HerrickAN INHERITANCE. By Harriet Prescott SpoffordTHE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE BLACK STOCK. By Thomas Nelson PageLITERARY LOVE LETTERS AND OTHER STORIES. By Robert HerrickA ROMANCE IN TRANSIT. By Francis LyndeIN OLD NARRAGANSETT. By Alice Morse EarleSEVEN MONTHS A PRISONER. By J. V. Hadley"IF I WERE A MAN." By Harrison RobertsonSWEETHEARTS AND WIVES. By Anna A. RogersA CIVILIAN ATTACHE. By Helen Dawes BrownTHE BOSS OF TAROOMBA. By E. W. Hornung

  _Other volumes to be announced_

  THE BOSS OF TAROOMBA

  BY

  E. W. HORNUNG

  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONSNEW YORK 1900

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I PAGETHE LITTLE MUSICIAN 1

  CHAPTER II

  A FRIEND INDEED 13

  CHAPTER III

  "HARD TIMES" 25

  CHAPTER IV

  THE TREASURE IN THE STORE 41

  CHAPTER V

  MASTERLESS MEN 55

  CHAPTER VI

  L500 71

  CHAPTER VII

  THE RINGER OF THE SHED 83

  CHAPTER VIII

  "THREE SHADOWS" 102

  CHAPTER IX

  NO HOPE FOR HIM 120

  CHAPTER X

  MISSING 138

  CHAPTER XI

  LOST IN THE BUSH 152

  CHAPTER XII

  FALLEN AMONG THIEVES 162

  CHAPTER XIII

  A SMOKING CONCERT 179

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE RAID ON THE STATION 194

  CHAPTER XV

  THE NIGHT ATTACK 210

  CHAPTER XVI

  IN THE MIDST OF DEATH 232

  THE BOSS OF TAROOMBA

  CHAPTER I

  THE LITTLE MUSICIAN

  They were terribly sentimental words, but the fellow sang them as thoughhe meant every syllable. Altogether, the song was not the kind of thingto go down with a back-block audience, any more than the singer was theclass of man.

  He was a little bit of a fellow, with long dark hair and dark glowingeyes, and he swayed on the music-stool, as he played and sang, in amanner most new to the young men of Taroomba. He had not much voice, butthe sensitive lips took such pains with each word, and the long, nervousfingers fell so lightly upon the old piano, that every one of theegregious lines travelled whole and unmistakable to the farthest cornerof the room. And that was an additional pity, because the piano was soplaced that the performer was forced to turn his back upon hisaudience; and behind it the young men of Taroomba were making great gameof him all the time.

  In the moderate light of two kerosene lamps, the room seemed full ofcord breeches and leather belts and flannel collars and sunburntthroats. It was not a large room, however, and there were only four menpresent, not counting the singer. They were young fellows, in the main,though the one leaning his elbow on the piano had a bushy red beard, andhis yellow hair was beginning to thin. Another was reading _TheAustralasian_ on the sofa; and a sort of twist to his mustache, acertain rigor about his unshaven chin, if they betrayed no sympathy withthe singer, suggested a measure of contempt for the dumb clownery goingon behind the singer's back. Over his very head, indeed, the red-beardedman was signalling maliciously to a youth who with coarse fat face andhands was mimicking the performer in the middle of the room; while theyoungest man of the lot, who wore spectacles and a Home-bred look,giggled in a half-ashamed, half-anxious way, as though not a littleconcerned lest they should all be caught. And when the song ended, andthe singer spun round on the stool, they had certainly a narrow escape.

  "Great song!" cried the mimic, pulling himself together in an instant,and clapping out a brutal burlesque of applause.

  "Shut up, Sandy," said the man with the beard, dropping a yellow-fringedeyelid over a very blue eye. "Don't you mind Mr. Sanderson, sir," headded to the musician; "he's not a bad chap, only he thinks he's funny.We'll show him what funniment really is in a minute or two. I've justfound the very song! But what's the price of the last pretty thing?"

  "Of 'Love Flees before the Dawn?'" said the musician, simply.

  "Yes."

  "It's the same as all the rest; you see----"

  Here the mimic broke in with a bright, congenial joke.

  "Love how much?" cried he, winking with his whole heavy face. "I don't,chaps, do you?"

  The sally was greeted with a roar, in which the musician joined timidly,while the man on the sofa smiled faintly without looking up from hispaper.

  "Never mind him," said the red-bearded man, who was for keeping up thefun as long as possible; "he's too witty to live. What did you say theprice was?"

  "Most of the songs are half a crown."

  "Come, I say, that's a stiffish price, isn't it?"

  "Plucky stiff for fleas!" exclaimed the wit.

  The musician flushed, but tossed back his head of hair, and held out hishand for the song.

  "I can't help it, gentlemen. I can't afford to charge less. Every one ofthese songs has been sent out from Home, and I get them from a man inMelbourne, who makes _me_ pay for them. You're five hundred miles upcountry, where you can't expect town prices."

  "Keep your hair on, old man!" said the wit, soothingly.

  "My what? My hair is my own business!"

  The little musician had turned upon his tormentor like a knife. His darkeyes were glaring indignantly, and his nervous fingers had twitchedthemselves into a pair of absurdly unserviceable white fists. But now afreckled hand was laid upon his shoulder, and the man with the beard wassaying, "Come, come, my good fellow, you've made a mistake; my friendSanderson meant nothing personal. It's our way up here, you know, tochi-ak each other and our visitors too."

  "Then I don't like your way," said the little man, stoutly.

  "Well, Sandy meant no offence, I'll swear to that."

  "Of course I didn't," said Sanderson.

  The musician looked from one to the other, and the anger went out ofhim, making way for shame.

  "Then the offence is on my side," said he, awkwardly, "and I beg yourpardon."

  He took a pile of new music from the piano, and was about to go.

  "No, no, we're not going to let you off so easily," said the beardedman, laughing.

  "You'll have to sing us one more song to show there's no ill feeling,"put in Sanderson.

  "And here's the song," added the other. "The very thing. I found it justnow. There you are--'The World's Creation!'"

  "Not that thing!" said the musician.

  "Why not?"

  "It's a comic song."

  "The very thing we want."

  "We'll buy up your whole stock of comic songs," said Sanderson.

  "Hear, hear," cried the silent youth who wore spectacles.

  "I wish you would," the musician said, smiling.

  "But we must hear them first."

  "I hate singing them."

  "Well, give us this one as a favor! Only this one. Do."

  T
he musician wavered. He was a very sensitive young man, with aconstitutional desire to please, and an acute horror of making a fool ofhimself. Now the whole soul of him was aching with the conviction thathe had done this already, in showing his teeth at what had evidentlybeen meant as harmless and inoffensive badinage. And it was this feelingthat engendered the desperate desire at once to expiate his late displayof temper, and to win the good opinion of these men by fairly amusingthem after all. Certainly the song in demand did not amuse himself, butthen it was equally certain that his taste in humor differed fromtheirs. He could not decide in his mind. He longed to make these menlaugh. To get on with older and rougher men was his great difficulty,and one of his ambitions.

  "We must have this," said the man with the beard, who had been lookingover the song. "The words are first chop!"

  "I can't stand them," the musician confessed.

  "Why, are they too profane?"

  "They are too silly."

  "Well, they ain't for us. Climb down to our level, and fire away."

  With a sigh and a smile, and a full complement of those misgivings whichwere a part of his temperament, the little visitor sat down and playedwith much vivacity a banjo accompaniment which sounded far better thananything else had done on the antiquated, weather-beaten bush piano. Thejingle struck fire with the audience, and the performer knew it, as hewent on to describe himself as "straight from Old Virginia," with hishead "stuffed full of knowledge," in spite of the fact that he had"never been to 'Frisco or any other college;" the entertaininginformation that "this world it was created in the twinkling of twocracks" bringing the first verse to a conclusion. Then came thechorus--of which there can scarcely be two opinions. The young mencaught it up with a howl, with the exception of the reader on the sofa,who put his fingers in his ears. This is how it went:

  Oh, walk up, Mr. Pompey, oh, walk up while I say, Will you walk into the banjo and hear the parlor play? Will you walk into the parlor and hear the banjo ring? Oh, listen to de darkies how merrily dey sing!

  The chorus ended with a whoop which assured the soloist that he wasamusing his men; and having himself one of those susceptible, excitablenatures which can enter into almost anything, given the fair wind ofappreciation to fill their sails, the little musician began actually toenjoy the nonsense himself. His long fingers rang out the tinklingaccompaniment with a crisp, confident touch. He sang the second verse,which built up the universe in numbers calculated to shock a religiousor even a reasonably cultivated order of mind, as though he were by nomeans ashamed of it. And so far as culture and religion were concernedhe was tolerably safe--each fresh peal of laughter reassured him ofthis. That the laugh was with him he never doubted until the end of thethird verse. Then it was that the roars of merriment rose louder thanever, and that their note suddenly struck the musician's trained ear asfalse. He sang through the next verse with an overwhelming sense of itsinanity, and with the life gone out of his voice and fingers alike.Still they roared with laughter, but he who made them knew now that thelaugh was at his expense. He turned hot all over, then cold, then hotterthan ever. A shadow was dancing on the music in front of him; he couldhear a suppressed titter at the back of the boisterous laughter;something brushed against his hair, and he could bear it all no longer.Snatching his fingers from the keys, he wheeled round on the music-stoolin time to catch the heavy youth Sanderson in the mimic act of braininghim with a chair; his tongue was out like a brat's, his eyes shone witha baleful mirth, while the red-bearded man was rolling about the room inan ecstasy of malicious merriment.

  The singer sprang to his feet in a palsy of indignation. His dark eyesglared with the dumb rage of a wounded animal; then they ranged roundthe room for something with which to strike, and before Sanderson hadtime to drop the chair he had been brandishing over the other's head,the musician had snatched up the kerosene lamp from the top of thepiano, and was poising it in the air with murderous intent. Yet hisanger had not blinded him utterly. His flashing eyes were fixed upon thefat mocking face which he longed to mark for life, but he could also seebeyond it, and what he saw made him put down the lamp without a word.

  At the other side of the room was a door leading out upon the veranda;it had been open all the evening, and now it was the frame of anunlooked-for picture, for a tall, strong girl was standing upon thethreshold.

  "Well, I never!" said she, calmly, as she came into their midst with aslow, commanding stride. "So this is the way you play when I'm away, isit? What poor little mice they are, to be sure!"

  Sanderson had put down the chair, and was looking indescribably foolish.The boy in the spectacles, though he had been a merely passive party tothe late proceedings, seemed only a little less uncomfortable. The manon the sofa and the little trembling musician were devouring the girlwith their eyes. It was the personage with the beard who swaggeredforward into the breach.

  "Good-evening, Naomi," said he, holding out a hand which she refused tosee. "This is Mr. Engelhardt, who has come to tune your piano for you.Mr. Engelhardt--Miss Pryse."

  The hand which had been refused to the man who was in a position toaddress Miss Pryse as Naomi, was held out frankly to the stranger. Itwas a firm, cool hand, which left him a stronger and a saner man for itstouch.

  "I am delighted to see you, Mr. Engelhardt. I congratulate you on yoursongs, and on your spirit, too. It was about time that Mr. Sanderson metsomebody who objected to his peculiar form of fun. He has been spoilingfor this ever since I have known him!"

  "Come, I say, Naomi," said the man who was on familiar terms with her,"it was all meant in good part, you know. You're rather rough upon poorSandy."

  "Not so rough as both you and he have been upon a visitor. I am ashamedof you all!"

  Her scornful eyes looked black in the lamplight; her eyebrows _were_black. This with her splendid coloring was all the musician could besure of; though his gaze never shifted from her face. Now she turned tohim and said, kindly:

  "I have been enjoying your songs immensely--especially the comic one. Icame in some time ago, and have been listening to everything. You singsplendidly."

  "These gentlemen will hardly agree with you."

  "These gentlemen," said Miss Pryse, laying an unpleasant stress on theword, "disagree with me horribly at times. They make me ill. What a lotof songs you have brought!"

  "I brought them to sell," said the young fellow, blushing. "I have juststarted business--set up shop at Deniliquin--a music-shop, you know. Iam making a round to tune the pianos at the stations."

  "What a capital idea! You will find ours in a terrible state, I'mafraid."

  "Yes, it is rather bad; I was talking about it to the boss before Istarted to make a fool of myself."

  "To the boss, do you say?"

  "Yes."

  "And pray which is he?"

  The piano-tuner pointed to the bushy red beard.

  "Why, bless your life," cried Naomi Pryse, as the red beard splitacross and showed its teeth, "_he's_ not the boss! Don't you believe it.If you've anything to say to the boss, you'd better come outside and sayit."

  "But which is he, Miss Pryse?"

  "He's a she, and you're talking to her now, Mr. Engelhardt!"