The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1906-08-02
IN THE COURT OF LAST RESOR7
4 True Incident of the Australian Bush
By WILFRED FRENCH.

Never was 1 so near beat out" as
the night when 1 finally struck the
trail and wallowed into the alleged
'inn," a days ride down from Kali
goory and two days up from the coast,
in the widest Of the Australian noun
tains.
Rain? never knew what rain was
before, and have never seen it more
than sprinkle since. You could not
breathe without sheltering your nose,
and I believe one could have drowned
standing upright on tho top OF a rooe.
When it began l was out in the bush
with two naked native helpers, plot
ting a possible path, through those In
fernally erratic defiles, for the new
railway that was to connect Kalgoory
with the coast.
Rain? Dear Heaven! The two ma
tives crept into cave and both were
drowned there. Four solid hours l
waded, swan, wallowed, gulped, then
more dead than alive crawled into the
inn, reminding myself of rat once
pulled from a mud-hole by the tail
after holding him down with a stick
long enough for him to have drowned
twice over.
The railway is going in great shape
now and Kalgoory is a place. Then it
was only a mad mining corpse just
coming back to life. 1t had bcomed its
boom and got its crowd together, with
no end of saloons, a newspaper, and
telegraphic communication with the
coast; but there was no other connec-
ton except an evasive bridle-trail to
transport necessities up and luxuries-
dust and ore-down, without an ap-
parent possibility Of ever getting so
much as q two-wheeled cart through
those crazy intervening mountains.
1t was a death-warrant. The bottom
fell out of the boom and Kalgoory
died. Then Sir Robert Broadley, the
millionaire, bought everything in
sight, declared that possible or i'm
possible a railway was about to be, and
Kalgoory came to life.
Lord, how it did rain! I heard later
that over in Sydney they had been
praying for rain for one solid week.
It came all right, but there was an
error in billing, for in Sydney they
never got drop of it till goodness
knows how long later.
cfy oly
like home. 1t was only ccok-Whlle-
you-wait shack for transients who
were better used and satisfied to do
their sleeping in the open. 1t was
kept by a half-cast,-a fellow cast half
way between a human effort and an
ape,-who had precious little variety
in his larder and less in his vocabu-
larry. There were two more fugitives
from the injustice Of the elements al
ready established there. One was a
young priest on his way to contend
with the flesh and The devil up at Kal-
gocry, who gave his time to religious
mutterings and paid little attention to
the rest of us. But the other was
paragon! marvel of good nature and
unlimited resources. But for him
there would have been hardly an obit-
uary left of me by the end OF the
three mortal days and nights while the
heavens stayed wide open and we
huddled in the leaking inn. His other
name was hard to remember, so call
cd him the Elixir Of Life.
On my third afternoon at the inn,
the fourth day Of the storm, it re-
ceived knockout from the northwest,
and the mud-plastered postman stop
ped for a drink on his way-four days
later-to Kalgoory. The Elixir and
contributed a bob apiece for an ancient
newspaper he had about him and set
tied ourselves to read. Many fresh
Australian daily is a dead loss at a
penny, but this was cheap at two
bob. It startled us from our stagna-
ton with a thunderbolt,-the murder
OF Sir Robert Broadley, up at Kali
goory, four days before; telegraphed
to the coast and printed, then brought
back to us as vital news only days
ride from where it happened. There
was no evidence Of robbery except that
the assassin had cut off the little finger
of his victim, upon which he was
known to have worn unique and
beautiful diamond ring. The people
looked upon Sir Robert as their de-
liverer. They were frantic and prom
ised the criminal real American
lynching, spiced with aboriginal Aus
tralian tortures, when they laid hands
on him, which was sure to be soon,
for the man was murdered just before
the storm broke and the villain could
not have got far away. Every outlet
from the mountains was now effective
ly guarded and minute description
was given of a stranger who had been
seen following Sir Robert just before
the deed and since had disappeared.
My personal interest centred in the
effect it would have upon the pro-
posed railway and 1 was pondering it
when the cater door opened again.
The storm was subsiding as rapidly as