The keys were hanging up inside, so we pushed him into the farthest cell and locked both doors.There were no windows, and the lock-up, like most bush ones, was built of heavy logs, just roughly squared, with the ceiling the same sort, so there wasn't much chance of his making himself heard.If any noise did come out the town people would only think it was a drunken man, and take no notice.
We lost no time then, and Starlight rode up to the bank first.
It was about ten minutes to three o'clock.Jim and I popped our horses into the police stables, and put on a couple of their waterproof capes.
The day was a little showery.Most of the people we heard afterwards took us for troopers from some other station on the track of bush-rangers, and not in regular uniform.It wasn't a bad joke, though, and the police got well chaffed about it.
We dodged down very careless like to the bank, and went in a minute or two after Starlight.He was waiting patiently with the cheque in his hand till some old woman got her money.She counted it, shillings, pence, and all, and then went out.The next moment Starlight pushed his cheque over.
The clerk looks at it for a moment, and quick-like says, `How will you have it?'
`This way,' Starlight answered, pointing his revolver at his head, `and don't you stir or I'll shoot you before you can raise your hand.'
The manager's room was a small den at one side.They don't allow much room in country banks unless they make up their mind to go in for a regular swell building.I jumped round and took charge of the young man.
Jim shut and locked the front door while Starlight knocked at the manager's room.He came out in a hurry, expecting to see one of the bank customers.When he saw Starlight's revolver, his face changed quick enough, but he made a rush to his drawer where he kept his revolver, and tried to make a fight of it, only we were too quick for him.Starlight put the muzzle of his pistol to his forehead and swore he'd blow out his brains there and then if he didn't stop quiet.We had to use the same words over and over again.
Jim used to grin sometimes.They generally did the business, though, so of course he was quite helpless.We hadn't to threaten him to find the key of the safe, because it was unlocked and the key in it.
He was just locking up his gold and the day's cash as we came in.
We tied him and the young fellow fast, legs and arms, and laid them down on the floor while we went through the place.There was a good lot of gold in the safe all weighed and labelled ready for the escort, which called there once a month.Bundles of notes, too; bags of sovereigns, silver, and copper.The last we didn't take.But all the rest we bundled up or put into handy boxes and bags we found there.
Father had come up by this time as close as he could to the back-yard.
We carried everything out and put them into his express-waggon;he shoved a rug over them and drove off, quite easy and comfortable.
We locked the back door of the bank and chucked away the key, first telling the manager not to make a row for ten minutes or we might have to come back again.He was a plucky fellow, and we hadn't been rough with him.He had sense enough to see that he was overmatched, and not to fight when it was no good.
I've known bankers to make a regular good fight of it, and sometimes come off best when their places was stuck up;but not when they were bested from the very start, like this one.
No man could have had a show, if he was two or three men in one, at the Ballabri money-shop.We walked slap down to the hotel -- then it was near the bank -- and called for drinks.
There weren't many people in the streets at that time in the afternoon, and the few that did notice us didn't think we were any one in particular.
Since the diggings broke out all sorts of travellers a little out of the common were wandering all about the country --speculators in mines, strangers, new chums of all kinds;even the cattle-drovers and stockmen, having their pockets full of money, began to put on more side and dress in a flash way.The bush people didn't take half the notice of strangers they would have done a couple of years before.
So we had our drinks, and shouted for the landlord and the people in the bar;walked up to the police station, took out our horses, and rode quickly off, while father was nearly five miles away on a cross-road, making Mr.White's trotters do their best time, and with seven or eight thousand pounds' worth of gold and cash under the driving seat.
That, I often think, was about the smartest trick we ever did.
It makes me laugh when I remember how savage the senior constable was when he came home, found his sub in a cell, the manager and his clerk just untied, the bank robbed of nearly everything, and us gone hours ago, with about as much chance of catching us as a mob of wild cattle that got out of the yard the night before.
Just about dark father made the place where the man met him with the trap before.Fresh horses was put in and the man drove slap away another road.He and Warrigal mounted the two brown horses and took the stuff in saddle-bags, which they'd brought with 'em.They were back at the Hollow by daylight, and we got there about an hour afterwards.We only rode sharp for the first twenty miles or so, and took it easier afterwards.
If sticking up the Goulburn mail made a noise in the country, you may depend the Ballabri bank robbery made ten times as much.
