A SPECULATION.
"You'd better come with us, Tom," said Smith, a few days after.
"There's not much need for you here now. This rain has done you out
of a job which would never make you rich."
They were walking together on the outskirts of the barren town, close
by the New Find, which had turned the inside of the earth up to the
sky. They were making money there, though every night the men
working it had nightmares, and sweated to think the gold was done.
Smith waved his hand towards it.
"They've taken out fifty thousand already, Tom," he said.
"And I daresay they'll take out no more," said red-faced Tom, whose
natural good-humour and hopefulness were a little off in colour.
"What then? They'll float it," said Smith. "It would do us four. I
could show my peeled nose in England again."
He rubbed his aquiline beak, which was badly skinned. His blue eyes
were bright and eager and courageous.
"Oh, if you didn't drink such a lot, you'd be a daisy," said Tom, who
had spent years in America, and mixed his talk as the other did his
drinks.
"Hang it," said Smith, "I give you my word I'm off drink. I tell you
honestly that I mean it. And out yonder we sha'n't be able to get
it."
Tom looked out across the north-east plain, and shook his head.
"No, perhaps not," he answered.
But Smith grew impatient.
"This rain has filled up the holes," he cried, "and there'll be
plenty for a week or two, even if no more falls."
"No more will fall," said Tom. "It's rare luck as this fell."
But, all the same, before they went back, he promised to go with the
others upon their expedition.
"It must be out there somewhere," said Hicks that night, when
everything was ready for the morning's start. "For Bill Herder, that
brought that bit of stuff in, was only gone a fortnight. And if he
was off his nut with the fever, I believe he spoke the gospel truth.
And, anyhow, that lump of stuff doesn't lie, and where it came from
is not more than a week's journey."
For Herder, who had helped to turn their faces to the north-east, had
died in the very bed occupied by the Cockney. He dropped off his
horse at the door one evening as the chums were at supper, and three
days afterwards he collapsed and went out. All he had brought back
with him was one lump of quartz and gold, weighing about eight
pounds. He looked at them pitifully before he died, but could tell
them nothing but that he got it "out yonder." So he was buried, and
no one knew if he had a friend to whom news of his death should be
sent.
The first expedition made by Hicks, Smith, and Mandeville, was an
ill-considered and rash one. For Smith was reckless. He was always
ready to take chances that any other man would shirk. He rushed his
chums into a violent hurry, and got them a day out on the burning
plain before they knew it. Some of the men in town believed they
knew where they were going, and followed them from a distance. But
when they saw the open dry horror of a flat world before them, those
who sneaked behind failed in their hearts and turned back. They
spread reports of the country in that quarter, which gave rise at
last to circumstantial rumours that the Smith party was already dead
of thirst.
But on the fourth day they came in.
Smith had growled even then, for he swore that another few hours
would bring them to water. A faint cloud-line on the horizon he
described as big trees by a creek. But the water in their big bags
was nearly done, and one had leaked.
"This time," said Smith, "I'm going through, if I die like a dog on a
wet sack."
"A dry sack," said Hicks.
But early in the dawn, the three faced the plain once more, and with
them went Tom.
"I might just as well make a spoon, or spoil a horn," said Tom. "And
there is gold in this all-fired rotten country anyhow."
It was still almost dark when they saddled up and struck out
north-west upon the endless, mysterious plain, and, by the time the
white-hot sun shot up on their right hands, and the light poured
across the dead level, the town was ten miles behind them. But they
could still see its tin roofs and tin walls gleaming.
"This reminds me that I once went from a ship in a boat," said Tom,
"when it was dead calm, and the sea was thick blue oil. It's like
being at sea here."
He was riding by the side of the Cockney, who nodded, and whistled.
"It's a blooming rum start, this is," said Mandeville. "To think
that two years ago I was never outside London, and now to be on a
plain like this 'ere. I was a moke ever to leave the bakery
business. And yet I dunno, bakin' wasn't nice work. What was you at
'ome, Tom?"
"A pound a week clerk," said Tom.
"And what fetched you out 'ere?"
"I got sacked, and couldn't get another job, so I came to my brother
in Melbourne, and there--"
"And there," cried Mandeville, "it's a sight worse than at 'ome."
"That's where you hit it," said Tom. "So then I went to San
Francisco, and there or thereabouts I stayed for two years, and this
gold racket fetched me back."
"Do you know who Smith was afore he came out?" asked Mandeville.
Tom shook his head.
"He was a real gent; a clergyman's son, and 'ad a lot of money.
Drink done him, and a woman, I daresay. But he's a rare good sort,
and a good plucked un. 'E'd fight 'Icks if so be 'e sauced him.
I've seed 'im fight till 'e was a red rag, and cryin' because the
other licked him. And when 'e's drunk 'e's a terror, an 'oly terror,
and it's stand from under when 'e flies 'igh."
For Mandeville adored Smith, and felt that it was a high privilege to
be the friend of a clergyman's son. He always spoke as if such a
parentage was a kind of profession.
At about ten o'clock they made camp by a thickish bit of mulga scrub,
where there was a little grass newly sprung up about a small
water-hole. They ate a lunch of mutton and bread.
"No more good bread," said Smith, "our baker will have to come down
to Johnny cakes and flap-jacks."
"Never mind us," said the Baker, which was one of Mandeville's names.
"I'm thinking of the 'orses. It's little there is to pick. And with
this 'ere sun like a h'oven for 'eat, it'll dry it up in two days."
"Don't croak," growled Hicks, whose vast length was stretched under
the only bit of shade thereabouts.
"I ain't growling," said the Baker, "I'm only just expressing
opinions. And your 'orse will want tucker if 'e's to carry your
bloomin' carcass far."
Hicks laughed, and reached out for Mandeville, who rolled a foot
further away from him.
"What kind of 'orses do you breed down on the 'Awksbery River, old
man?" he asked. "Or does your folks go on foot? Or perhaps you're
bigger than most."
"I'm the little un' of the family," said Hicks. And they all laughed.
"Lord save us from your brothers," said Smith. "But let's be getting
a bit of a snooze."
So they lay and sweated, and hunted off the infernal ubiquitous
flies, and got sticky and bad-tempered, till the sun was two hours
past the meridian.
And before them, as they rode on again, was the eternal plain, which
ran ahead of them for ever.
But when they camped at night, they were thirty miles, or perhaps
more, from the New Find.