"Jooragong is young, but he has slain him who slew the blacks--the white
wizard who burrowed like the wombat--the white wizard with the face like
the flying fox. Jooragong is young, but he is braver than the old men.
We will all be the gins of Jooragong."
And then there would have been a great corroborree, had not a sceptical
old warrior said,
"Jooragong is brave in his own mouth. Why did Jooragong leave the scalp
of the white wizard under the wattle? Let us go and look on the face of
the flying fox. Let us be sure that the white wizard will no more burrow
like the wombat."
Jooragong looked very much like a trapped dingo, but he could not refuse
the old man's challenge. A party of the blacks started under his
guidance to make sure of the death of the white wizard, and the son of
Kaludie went with them. At last Jooragong stopped and said,
"The white wizard lies dead under _that_ tree," pointing to one in the
distance; but when they came to the tree, there was no corpse there. "He
is gone--he is a wizard," said Jooragong.
"Let Jooragong show me the white wizard's tracks," answered the old
warrior.
"He burrows like the wombat," said Jooragong.
"Then Jooragong, who is young, but braver than the old men, has not
speared the wombat," sneered the old man. "We will go back, and the gins
shall sing of Jooragong--'Jooragong is young. Jooragong is brave. His
enemies are dried up before him like water. We look for the enemies whom
he hath speared, but we find them not. When dead they still fear
Jooragong, who is braver than the old men.'"
The son of Kaludie, however, did not go back to camp. Jooragong had led
the party of searchers within sight of the station buildings, and Harry
determined to make a bolt for them, if he died for it. He found it
easier work than he had expected to get away. The rest of the blacks
were so busy jabbering jibes at Jooragong that Harry was not noticed
when he lagged behind, and in a few minutes he was able to slip behind a
tree, and thence make a slant for the station. When he had once ventured
to begin to run, he kept on running as if he was racing Death. He
tumbled to the ground dead-beat, but panting like a steam-engine just
about to blow up, when he had almost reached the huts. Donald ran out,
and then looked half inclined to run away again.
"Harry," he said, "are ye sure it's yoursel', of your wraith? Hech, man,
ye're a sicht for sair een," Donald went on, with the tears gushing up
into his own generally hard-looking grey eyes, like water oozing from a
rock. "We thocht ye'd been deid, an' buried inside the blacks this long
while."
After Harry's escape the blacks again made very audacious descents on
the station buildings. For one thing, they wanted to recapture the son
of Kaludie; for another, they wanted to kill the white wizard, who,
instead of having been speared by Jooragong, had made the braggart dodge
from tree to tree before his gun. For a third thing the black fellows
had a great relish for the white fellows' stores, to which every now and
then they found a scrambling chance of helping themselves. More fighting
took place, and every now and then a black was shot. Still the blacks
came down upon the homestead. As it was impossible to guess when they
would come, the place could not be efficiently guarded unless the whole
of the little garrison always stayed at home--and in that case how was
the work of the station to be done?
"Ah tell thee whet 'tis, Mester Sydney," said Jawing Jim (who up in the
bush had almost begun to merit his _sobriquet_); "if tha wan't poiason
the warmin, tha moost skeer 'em. Me an' Boab'll do it for thee. Boab
ain't mooch fit for nawthing else nowa, poor lahd!"
This was the stratagem the men contrived: They cut off the head of a
dead black fellow, and put it into a full flour-cask, the top of which
was left open. Then leaving the store door unlocked, and the flour-cask
just behind it, all the pioneers left the buildings; the boys, however,
returning by a roundabout route, and "planting" in some scrub not far
off to witness what might happen. They had to wait some time, but at
last the blacks made their appearance. Even their keen eyes detecting no
trace of the presence of any whites, they soon swarmed up boldly to the
store. Jooragong, bravest of the brave when there was nothing to be
feared, rolled out the cask that stood so conveniently near and open,
and began to scoop out the flour with both hands. But presently they
brought up his countryman's head. The other blacks raised a wild howl
and fled, but Jooragong stood stock-still, gaping, with eyes starting
from his head at his hideous handful. The firing of the boys' guns broke
the spell. Off Jooragong bounded also, dropping the floury head out of
his floury hands back into the cask; and so long as Harry and Donald
stayed at Pigeon Park, the blacks never again ventured within gunshot of
the store.
[Illustration: "THE BLACKS RAISED A WILD HOWL AND FLED."]
XII.
A GOLD RUSH.
Soon after Harry and Donald returned to Wonga-Wonga, the station was
excited by the news that gold had been found about seventy miles to the
north of Jerry's Town. At first the news was partially pooh-poohed at
Wonga-Wonga.
"We've heard of _storekeepers' rushes_ before now, haven't we?" Mr.
Lawson said to the men, who were getting unsettled by the tidings.
"Those fellows would make out that there was gold in the moon, if people
could get there to buy their damaged goods; and nicely they'd clap it on
for carriage."
It soon became certain, however, that something more than the mere
"colour of gold" had been found at Jim Crow Creek. Three parts of the
population of Jerry's Town started for the new diggings, and yet the
town was busier than ever, such a stream of people poured through it.
Nearly every township between Jerry's Town and Sydney contributed its
quota, and amongst those who came from Sydney were a good many who had
sailed thither from Melbourne. Perhaps they had been doing very well on
the Victoria diggings, but diggers have almost always a belief that they
could do better somewhere else than where they are; and so, when they
hear of new diggings, off they flock to them, like starlings from
England in autumn.
Wonga-Wonga and the other stations near Jerry's Plains soon became very
short-handed. Shepherds and stockmen sloped wholesale for the Creek,
sometimes helping themselves to their masters' horses to get there. To
make the best of a bad job, Mr. Lawson resolved to avail himself of the
market for meat that had suddenly been created at Jim Crow Creek; and,
accordingly, he and the boys started thither with some of the sheep and
cattle that had been left with scarcely any one to look after them.
As they rode into Jerry's Town, they passed a mob of Chinamen, in baggy
blue breeches, who were preparing to encamp by the roadside. Most of
them still wore their tails, coiled up like snakes, or dangling down
like eels. The Jerry's Town youngsters were pelting the Chinamen, and
taking sly pulls at the dangling tails, whenever they got the chance,
meanwhile shouting "Chow-chow" and singing in chorus--
"Here he was, and there he goes,
Chinaman with the monkey nose."
As the Chinamen laid down the bamboos they had carried on their
shoulders, with bundles hanging from them like milk-pails from a yoke,
and gathered sticks to boil their rice, their almond eyes glanced very
evilly from under their beehive hats at the young outside barbarians. I
am sorry to say that is not only the _young_ barbarians who behave very
brutally to Chinamen in Australia.
All the way from Jerry's Town to Jim Crow Creek the road, that used to
look even more solitary than Highgate Archway Road looks during the
greater part of the year, was every here and there almost as crowded as
Highgate Archway Road during the time of Barnet Fair. Men on horseback,
with saddle-bags and pistols peeping from their holsters, were ambling
and cantering along, singly and in couples, and in threes and fours.
Moleskin-trousered pedestrians, who had "humped the swag," were toiling
along, footsore and perspiring, their red or blue shirts rolled up and
laid upon the top of their heavy loads. Greenhorn-looking young fellows,
fresh from the counter or the desk, were sitting down, dead beat.
Tarpaulined drays ground along in a long line, monotonously jingling the
pots and pannikins slung beneath.
[Illustration: "MEN ON HORSEBACK, WITH SADDLE-BAGS AND PISTOLS."]
Here and there a dray had broken down, and the driver was fussing about
as angry as a wasp, or smoking in sulky idleness, because he could not
get any one to stop to help him right his cargo. Every public was
crammed with rowdy-looking, bronzed, bearded fellows, shouting for
nobblers, spiders, and stone-fences. The free commons which every
traveller in Australia used to look upon as a right rather than a
favour, had ceased to be supplied by either house or hut. If any
passenger wanted food or drink, he had to pay for them, and pay smartly
too. Some of the parties taking their meals along the road were faring
jollily, but some of the pedestrians who limped past them cast enviously
hungry glances on their commissariat. To say nothing of brandy, bitter
beer, sardines, and potted salmon, _they_ were speculating anxiously as
to how much longer they could make sure of tea and damper.
Jim Crow Creek was reached at last. A week or two before, it had been so
quiet that the shy water-moles would come up and bask for the half-hour
together on the surface of its gravy-soup-coloured water. There was
nothing to startle them except the sudden scream of a flock of parrots
flashing across, or the lazy rustle of the long, inky, lanky-tassel-like
leaves which the grey-boled trees upon the banks dipped into the smooth
stream. But now for two or three miles upon both banks there was bustle.
The trees had been cut down, the banks scarped and honeycombed, and
dotted with big boil-like heaps of dusty earth. The tortured creek, here
dammed, there almost drained, and yonder flowing in a new channel,
seemed to be as puzzled as to its identity as the old lady who had her
petticoats cut all round about. Steam sent up quick, angry white puffs;
windlasses went round and round at the top of yawning wells of dirt; the
grinding, rattling dash of shovels into soil, the ticking click of picks
on stone resounded everywhere. Cradles rocked; hip-booted men, who
looked as if they had not washed either face or hands for a twelvemonth,
swished their precious mud round and round in washing-pans. Scattered
along the sloping sides of the creek, and jostlingly jumbled on the flat
it once crept round, so sleepily quiet, were all kinds of extemporized
stores and dwellings: a house or two of corrugated iron; more hastily
knocked-up ones of slabs; canvas-walled houses, roofed with
asphalte-felt; round tents, square tents, polygonal tents, and mere bark
gunyahs. Some had their owners' names roughly painted on the canvas.
Outside one tent hung a brass plate inscribed with "Mr. So-and-So,
Photographer." Keen-looking gold-buyers stood at the doors of their
wooden "offices." A commissioner, swellish in gold lace, cantered
superciliously through the bustling throngs. Policemen lounged about,
striving to look unconscious of the "Joey!" which the miners found time
to shout after them in scorn. Hanging about the sly grog-shop tents,
there were men who might have been thought to have more time for such
amusement, since smoking and nobblerizing was all that they seemed to
have to do; but these gentry appeared by no means eager to attract the
attention of the police. The gold-buyers looked anxious when the
rascals' furtively-ferocious eyes chanced to fall their way, and they
were not the kind of man that a solitary digger would have liked to see
peeping into his tent at night, or loitering before him in the bush.
Everybody at Jim Crow Creek had guns or pistols of some kind, and took
care to let his neighbours know that he was armed by firing off his
weapons before he turned in, and then ostentatiously reloading them
after the gun-powdery good night.
Before Mr. Lawson and the boys reached the "township," as the Jim Crow
Flat was already called, their sheep and cattle were bought up by a
butcher who was waiting on the road. They bought their chops of him for
their evening meal, and when they found what he charged for them, Mr.
Lawson was not quite so satisfied with his cattle bargain as he had been
when he made it. After tea, the boys strolled out to look about them,
and presently came to a large tent, with the American colours flying
above it. There was a crowd at the entrance, and it was as much as two
money-takers could do to make sure that they did take the
admission-money from all the boisterous fellows who were rolling in.
Amongst them were a few women, with faces like brown leather, who were
still more boisterous.
"Let's go in, Donald," said Harry. "It must be those Ethiopian chaps
that passed us on the road in the American waggon."
The boys struggled in at last, and then wished, but in vain, that they
could struggle out. They were jammed in a steaming, smoking, rum-scented
mass of miners, good-tempered enough in the main, but apparently of
opinion that the proper place for a man's elbows was in his neighbour's
ribs, and for his feet upon his neighbour's toes. Not more than half had
seats, and sometimes they swayed about so, that it seemed certain the
bulging tent must fall. They joined most discordantly in all the
choruses, and when especially pleased, pitched coppers, and sixpences,
and shillings on the stage. They threw other things that were not so
pleasant. One wag threw a potato, which hit Bones upon the nose just
when he was propounding a conundrum to Tambourine; and Mr. Bones, in
spite of his fun, being a very irascible little serenader, leaped down
amongst his audience, and made frantic efforts to get at his assailant.
There was very nearly a battle-royal between house and performers, and
Mr. Bones was pulled up at last by his brethren, with his woolly wig
half off his head, his long-tailed coat split from waist to collar, and
his huge shirt-collar and cravat in a sadly crumpled condition. Whilst
the scrimmage lasted, Donald had noticed a broad-shouldered mulatto, in
red shirt and ear-rings, who had kept on plunging backwards and forwards
in the crowd, apparently bent on increasing the confusion.
"Hae ye got anything in your pockets, Harry?" said Donald, when
comparative calm had been restored. "Just spot yon body in the red
shirt. He tried my pockets more than once. I suppose he thocht I'd bring
a bundle of notes in here. I'm nae sae daft."
It was nearly midnight when the "entertainment" concluded, and it was
Sunday morning before all the entertained got into the open air again.
As the reeking crowd struggled out, the mulatto recommenced his plunging
manoeuvres. When the boys got out, they saw him hurrying in the
moonlight down an alley between two little rows of tents.
"He's a nice young man for a small music party," said Harry, looking
after him; "and there seems to be plenty of his sort. Come along,
Donald; we've a good step to go, and I should feel so spoony if I got
bailed up by those fellows; though it isn't much, is it, they could ease
us of?"
Mr. Lawson had pitched his tent on the other side of the "township,"
some little way down the Jerry's Town road, in a place where there were
no other tents near.
When the boys had crossed the flat, and were ascending the steep rough
bush track dignified with the name of Jerry's Town Road, they were not
exactly pleased to see a man who looked very much like the mulatto, and
two other men, slip out of the bush, and seat themselves on a log and a
stump by the roadside.
"It don't seem game to turn out of the road for those fellows, does it,
Donald?" said Harry. "But I'll go bail they're up to no good, and
they're hulking big beggars, and I'll be bound they've barkers, and we
haven't."
"I dinna think they're planting for us," answered Donald; "but, as like
as not, they'd gie us a knock on the head if we went up to them; an'
what's the use o' gettin' a knock on the head for nae guid, if ye can
avoid it?"
"I should uncommonly like to know what they're scheming," said Harry, as
the boys turned aside into the bush. "They're jabbering fast enough
about something. Let's creep up behind and listen. P'r'aps it's the
governor they've a down on."
This is what the boys heard when they had crept like cats to a
listening-place:
"It's a squatter fellow that sold some bullocks to Wilcox the butcher,"
said one of the mulatto's companions. "He's camped out yonder by
himself."
"Well, but," objected the mulatto, "Wilcox would pay him in orders, and
what's the good of them?"
"Ah, but I heard him ask Wilcox for some in cash or notes, if he had it.
The fellow said he'd got cleaned out on the road up, and must have some
money to take him back. So Wilcox gave him some; I can't say how much it
was, but any's worth finding. Besides, he's a gold ticker--a real
handsome one, as big as a frying-pan. And then there's the three horses,
and first-chop colonial saddles."
"Is there anybody with him, then?"
"Two young 'uns came with him, but they've gone down into the town, an'
if they've come back, it don't matter much. I fancy he's turned in now.
I've been watching him this good while, till I come down to hunt up you
and Bill."
"Well, let's be off then," said the mulatto; and the three began to run.
The boys tried to make a short cut for the tent, but lost ground
instead. When they reached the tent Mr. Lawson was on his back,
half-throttling, however, the mulatto who knelt upon him, whilst the
other two scoundrels were giving him savage blows and kicks.
"Put--a--ball--in--to--him," gasped the mulatto.
Before a pistol could be pointed, however, the two boys had leaped on
the two men, and by the suddenness of the onslaught toppled them over,
tumbling at the same time themselves. For a minute a confused heap of
trunks and limbs heaved and wriggled on the floor; but Mr. Lawson rolled
himself out, and, getting uppermost in turn, brought down his huge
Northumbrian fist with a tremendous thud upon the mulatto's face. As
soon as the other two men could scramble to their feet, they took to
their heels. The boys had got hold of their pistols by that time, and
Mr. Lawson was reaching out his hand for his revolver. Three bullets
whistled after the two runaways, but neither was hit. Meantime the
mulatto, save for his stertorous breathing, lay like a log upon the
ground.
"Get your horse, Harry, and ride in for the police," said Mr. Lawson.
"We'd best tie the scoundrel first, though."
Harry and Donald went to catch the hobbled horse; Mr. Lawson turned to
refasten an up-pulled tent-peg, and to get a cord, and when he turned
round again, the mulatto was gone.
"The rascal was only shamming," said Mr. Lawson, feeling rather silly,
when the boys returned. "I turned my back for a second, and he wriggled
off like a snake. Now, boys, turn in, and I'll keep watch till the sun
comes up. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get a snooze, I shouldn't
have been laid on my back by those mean curs. I must have been sleeping
like a top when they pounced in upon me. I've to thank you, boys, and
let us all thank God."
Mr. Lawson and the boys stayed over the Sunday at Jim Crow Creek, but it
was a strange Sunday. The miners knocked off work, but they economized
the Sabbath hours in fighting out the week's quarrels, which they could
not spare time to settle on week-days. The only "service" was one
conducted by a tall, gauntly-sinewy Cornish miner, who shouted at the
top of his voice, and worked himself into a pale perspiration as he
flung about his long limbs as if they were galvanized. A few of his
hearers looked pleased to be reminded anyhow of what the day was. A few
more looked ashamed _because_ they were ashamed to look pleased too. But
most grinned, and then passed on to find more exciting amusements.
"Faix, it's the crathur's way o' divartin' himself," said the
police-sergeant, who had stopped for a few minutes to hear his own creed
anathematized; "and a mighty queer kind o' divarsion it is, to my
thinkin'."
The sergeant, when spoken to about the attempted robbery, instantly
recognized the mulatto.
"It's that thief o' the worruld, Baltimor-r-e Ben. That's who it is
entirely. They call him Baltimor-r-e Ben becase he came from
Mel-bour-r-ne. He'll lie dar-ruk for a bit afthur this, but we'll have
him, sir-r; an' if we won't, the digger bhoys will string him up if they
catch him. An' was it the young gintlemen settled the other bla'guards?
More power to their elbows! You should have kicked him on the shins,
sir-r. A neegur's head's as harrud to crack as an Irishman's."
At Wonga-Wonga, as well as by the Jim Crow Creek police-sergeant, Harry
and Donald were considered great heroes, when their exploits were told
there. If Mrs. Lawson had had her way, however, neither her husband nor
the boys would ever have gone to Jim Crow Creek again. Once more,
nevertheless, they drove stock over thither. And then, suddenly, the
place was deserted by all except a few Chinese fossickers, who
mysteriously made a living out of claims which Europeans had thrown up
as not worth a speck. The tide of diggers rolled back to Sydney, cursing
the storekeepers as they went. Some waves of the tide crept rather than
rolled, and some of the tide never got back. There was misery, sickness,
starvation, at Jim Crow Creek and along the road; but sundry
storekeepers had balanced their ledgers greatly to their satisfaction.
"Those miners ought to be 'cute enough by this time to take care of
themselves," said Harry, when he was talking over the matter; "but still
it does seem an infested shame that they should be done so. I wish
Hargreaves had never come back from California. I don't see what gold
has done for the colony, except spoilt the runs and run up shepherds'
wages."
"Ah, that is how you Boys in the Bush talk," said Miss Smith, who had
recently returned from Sydney.
"Miss Smith," replied Harry, majestically, "I no longer consider myself
a _Boy_ in the Bush."
_THE END._