My Strangest Case by Guy Boothby
page 62 of 243 (25%)
page 62 of 243 (25%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
fact that he had prophesied disaster from the outset.
"No," he said, "you have made your bed, my lad, and now you must lie upon it. There is still a considerable portion of your apprenticeship to be served, and it will be quite soon enough for us at the end of that time to decide what you are to do." A month later I was at sea again, bound this time for Sydney. We reached that port on my nineteenth birthday, and by that time I had made up my mind. Articles or no Articles, I was determined to spend no more of my life on board that hateful ship. Accordingly, one day having obtained shore leave, I purchased a new rig-out, and leaving my sea-going togs with the Jewish shopman, I made tracks, as the saying goes, into the Bush with all speed. Happen what might, I was resolved that Captain Fairweather should not set eyes on George Fairfax again. From that time onward my career was a strange one. I became a veritable Jack-of-all-Trades. A station-hand, a roust-about, shearer, assistant to a travelling hawker, a gold-miner, and at last a trooper in one of the finest bodies of men in the world, the Queensland Mounted Police. It was in this curious fashion that I arrived at my real vocation. After a considerable period spent at headquarters, I was drafted to a station in the Far West. There was a good deal of horse and sheep-stealing going on in that particular locality, and a large amount of tact and ingenuity were necessary to discover the criminals. I soon found that this was a business at which I was likely to be successful. More than once I had the good fortune to be able to bring to book men who had carried on their trade for years, and who had been entirely unsuspected. Eventually my reputation in this particular line of business became noised abroad, until it came to the ears of the Commissioner himself. Then news reached |
|