The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1906-09-01
IN THE COURT OF LAST RESOR7
4 True Incident of the Australian
By WILFRED FRENCH.

Never was | SO near beat OUT
the night when finally struck tn
trail and wallowed into the ALLEGED
'inn," a days ride down from kal
goory ard two days up from the coast
In the widest Of the Australian noun
tains.
Rain? I never knew what rain wa:
before, and have never seen il more
than sprinkle since. You could no
breathe without shetering your nose
and ! believe one could have drowned
standing upright on the top of rcck
When it began | was out in the pusf
With two naked native helpers, plot
ting possible path. through those In
formally erratic defles. for the ne"
railway that was to connect kalSoory
with the coast.
Rain? Dear Heaven. The two ma
tives crept into a cave and both were
drowned there Four solid hours
waded, swan, wallowed, gulped, then
more dead than alive crawled into the
inn, reminding myself of a rat | once
pulled from a mud hole by the tail
after holding him down with Suck
long enough for him to have drowned
twice over.
The railway is going in great shape
now and kalgoory is place. Then 1t
was only a mad mining corpse just
coming back to life. 1t had doomed its
boom and got its crowd together, with
~
Geographic communication with the
coast; but there was no other connec-
ton except an egasive bridle-trail to
transport necessities up and luXurle6-
dust and ore-Gown, without an 0p-
parent possibility OF ever getting so
much as a twO-wheeied cart through
those crazy intervening mountains.
1t was death-warrant. The bottom
fell out Of the boom and KalSoOry
died. Then Sir Robert Broadley. the
millionaire. bought everything in
sight, declared that possible or i'm
possible railway was about to be, and
Kalgoory came to life.
Lord, how it did rain, I heard Letter
that over in sydney they had been
praying for rain for ole solid week.
1t 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.
The inn which | struck was no place
like home 1t was only ccokwhile-
youwait shack for transients who
were better used and satisfied to dc
their sleeping in the open. 1t was
kept by a half-cast,- 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 fueitives
from the injustice of the elements al
ready established there One was
young priest on his way to contend
with the flesh and the devil up at Kal-
gOory, who gave his time to religious
mutterings and paid little attention to
the rest of us. But the other was a
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
ed him the Elixir Of Life.
On my third afternoon at the inn, |
the fourth day of the storm, it re-
ceived a Knockout from the northwest,
and the mud-plastered postman stop |
ped for drink on his way-four days |
later-to Kalgoory. The Elixir and !
bob apiece for an ancient |
newspaper he had about him and set
lied ourselves to read. Many fresh
Australian daily is a dead loss at a
penny, but this was cheap at two
bob. 1t startled us from our stagna-
ion with q thunderbolt,-the murder
If Sir Robert Broadley, up at Kol-
,oory, four days before; telegraphei t
o the coast and printed, then brought
Jack to us as vital news only days
'ide from where it happened There
vas no evidence of robbery eXcept tn"7
he assassin had cut off the little flu.
If his victim, upon which he t,as Il
lnOWn to have worn a unique and
'eautiful diamond ring The people |.
ooked upon Sir Robert as their de-
iverer. They were frantic and prom
sed the criminal a real American
spiced with aboriginal Aus
ralian tortures, when they laid hands
n him, which was sure to be soon.
Or the man was murdered just before
he storm broke and the villain could
OF have got far away. Every outlet ,
rom the mountains was now effective s
7 guarded and a minute description ,
as given Of a stranger who had been /
zen following Sir Robert just before ,
10 deed and since had disappeared.