ROTTEN GULLY
Jewson had not exaggerated the manifest attraction of the claim in
Rotten Gully. The hut was eighteen feet by ten, very solidly built, with
a fireplace and a chimney at the inner end. Many neat contrivances in
the shape of shelves and racks testified to the leisurely particularity
of the late owner. He had settled down as on some desert island where a
man might expect to end his days. There were refinements so superfluous
in themselves as to suggest that the actual work had proved as alluring
as the natural reward. In point of fact the Eureka Lead had been
followed through the gully and lost on the flat beyond while this
deliberate digger built him his hut and sank the hole which he was fated
to abandon within a few feet of the gutter.
But the hole was by far the best and soundest in the gully, which
deserved its name insomuch as it provided insecure sinkings as a rule.
Some of the abandoned shafts had already fallen in; but this one was
beautifully slabbed with timber from top to bottom, now some sixty odd
feet, the depth of the lead hereabouts being something under seventy.
One of the first things Denis did when they were left in peaceable
possession of the claim was to locate it in his last map; and a mark was
duly made in the very middle of one of the red rivers.
"Right over the gutter!" he exclaimed. "The sinker said so; but he
wasn't the man to sink anywhere else. Don't you remember him saying we
were within a few feet of it? Jimmy, I'm going through some of those
feet before I'm an hour older, and we'll try the first tub to-night!"
He went down at once in the bucket, armed with a spade--a complete plant
had been thrown in with the claim--and for an hour he dug straight down,
making the smallest and deepest hole possible, and finally filling the
bucket from the bottom. But it was hard work. The red clay was so
veritably rotten that again and again the little hole filled up. Denis's
shirt was plastered to his skin when Doherty wound him above ground with
the bucket, and the clay in the latter was still as red as ever. Denis
took it to the creek, however, and tried it piecemeal in a tin dish, but
did not get a grain. He returned to Doherty unruffled and smiling.
"It's no use, Jimmy; we've not got down to it yet, and we sha'n't get
down to it like that. We must go on digging the whole shaft. But there's
another good hour of daylight, and if you like to go down and do a trick
I'll wind up the buckets as you fill them."
As the shaft went down by inches the sides had to be slabbed as
heretofore; but the "sets of timber" stacked outside the tent proved to
be cut to the size, pointed, and ready for fitting into the grooved
uprights, which in their turn were found to have been driven into the
four corners of the shaft to a depth of several feet beyond that of the
shaft itself. So there was no difficulty there while the cut slabs
lasted, and as the pair worked half the night in their excitement, by
lantern light, and were at it again by sunrise, they had added some
three or four feet to the depth by the following forenoon. Then Denis
tried another little hole in the middle, and this time the third
spadeful was different from the other two. Some particles of gravel
trickled from the end of the spade, and even what was on it was of two
colours and two consistencies. The next thrust grated to the ear. Denis
roared for the bucket, and a head and shoulders stamped themselves upon
the square envelope of sky overhead.
"I've struck it! I've struck it! Down with the bucket and stand by to
wind up!"
A wideawake danced against the tiny square of blue; a shrill cheer came
tumbling in echoes down the timbered shaft; then a leaping bucket, then
a writhing rope; and the head and shoulders hung over the brink once
more in motionless silhouette, while Denis filled the bucket with the
gravelly substance, separating the inaugural spadeful with his hands.
There was a difference even to the touch. The red clay was slightly
damp, the gravelly compound perceptibly warmer, and so delightfully
gritty that Denis could have sworn the grits were pure gold. But it took
him some time to fill the bucket, for the red clay was not too damp to
crumble, and it continually poured back into his advance hole, burying
him sometimes to the thighs. At last, however, a homogeneous bucketful
was got to upper air, and Denis after it in a mud-bath of clay and
perspiration, but with his triumph shining through his filth.
It still remained to test the stuff and justify the triumph, but Denis
did both without delay at the creek, which was far nearer here than on
Black Hill Flat. They had no cradle as yet at the new claim, whose late
methodical proprietor had not arrived at the stage of requiring one; but
Denis took the tin dish once more, and came back beating it like a
tambourine, on knee and head, but carrying the empty bucket at arm's
length in the other hand. At least it felt as empty to Denis as it
looked to Doherty, until the bucket was tilted, and what had seemed but
a sparse deposit of rather yellow and sparkling sand formed a slender
segment of palpable gold-dust.
They poured it from the bucket back into the tin dish, and from the tin
dish into a smaller tin, and from the smaller tin into the saucer in
which Jewson really did get a glimpse of about half of it that night.
The trial "tub" had yielded upwards of two ounces, by the gold-scales of
a friendly neighbour; before night Denis had spent quite half on a good
candle, a pair of scales, and the wherewithal for a digger's supper of
new damper, steaming chops, and scalding tea.
Thereafter the pair sat up planning, building, furnishing and inhabiting
castles which were no longer altogether in the air; but with Denis, in
any case, early hours would have been impossible after such a meal
hurled into an empty stomach in the late evening of such a day; and the
pernicious combination may be confidently traced in the view which he
took of this very aspect of a situation otherwise surpassing all his
dreams.
"It's all very well for a day or two," said Denis, "but you and I can
never go on doing all the work and the cooking too. We couldn't even if
we were born cooks. What we want is some fellow to look after us and the
hut. Two all told are not enough."
Doherty was toying with the gold-dust in the saucer, picking it up in
pinches, and letting it trickle through his fingers in fairy showers,
playing with it, drawing in it, as children play and draw in sand. The
game palled even as Denis spoke.
"Two were enough for the swell cove who was here before us, mister."
"I know: he took his time: so many hours a day, or so few, and not a
minute more. What's the result? He isn't here to reap his reward,
because he was in no hurry, and it didn't much matter after all. But I
am here--I am in a hurry--every grain and every minute matters to me!"
"It would mean one grain in three instead of in two."
"Then the three would come quicker than the two do now. Not that we're
obliged to take another partner because we want an extra hand; at two
ounces to the tub we could afford to make it worth many a man's while to
do all we want at so much the week."
Jimmy looked up quickly.
"Then you haven't heard from Mr. Moseley yet?"
"I have, Jimmy. I called at the post-office to-night, and the letter was
there. Not he! Not for Joe! He wishes us all possible luck, but he has
had enough of the diggings to last him a lifetime; and from what he says
he ought to be out at sea by this time, homeward bound. Put the billy on
the fire, Jimmy, and we'll drink him a good voyage in half a pannikin of
tea before we turn in."
To all this Jewson stood listening, if not at the door, still within
easy earshot of the unsuspecting friends; and as he listened an
inspiration burst upon his crafty brain. He drew away in the moonlight,
nodding and grinning to himself--a grotesque Mephistopheles if you
will--yet deeper and darker than friend or foe imagined. His plan was
matured on the way back to the Gravel Pits, and Captain Devenish was
told just as much as it was good for him to know that night, but as we
have seen, not a syllable more, and that modicum with the wary tact and
infinite precaution of a Mephistopheles of higher class.
Next day was a great one at the new claim; from early morning to high
noon the pair laboured in hourly shifts at lowering the whole shaft to
the level of the precious wash-dirt. It was not to be done in the time.
But later in the day they went deep at one corner, and at last uncovered
an angle of the gutter which they had only probed the day before. They
took up several bucketfuls to try in the new cradle before dark. The
yields were uneven, but the lowest was an ounce, the highest three
ounces ten pennyweight, and the day's aggregate just under one pound, or
upward of forty pounds sterling.
Yet they were less excited than they had been the night before. The gold
was there; it was only a question of getting it out, a question of time,
ways, and means. They had taken turns at the creek as well as in the
hole, and the friendly neighbour who had lent his scales had kept an eye
on the new cradle in their absence, which was intermittent owing to the
necessity of one always remaining on the claim. "You must find another
mate," said he to Doherty, who no longer disagreed as he toiled back to
the hut. They must find another mate, or they must greatly reduce their
hours of labour. A reduction of profits would result in either case.
To-night they were too tired to cook. Denis made tea, and each took a
pannikin to his couch, and spread himself prostrate in the dusk.
"In another hour or two," said Denis, "we'll go out one at a time, and
have the best supper that money can buy on Ballarat. We can afford that;
but we can't afford to go on using ourselves up at this rate."
A slumbrous sigh was the only answer from the other bunk; but Denis was
too much exercised in his mind to close an eye. Should they seek a mate?
or should they restrict their hours? Could they get a respectable
hireling to look after them if they tried? The last plan was the most
desirable for obvious reasons; and Denis desired it on other grounds as
well. He was naturally anxious, for his own sake and for one other's, to
make as much money as possible in as little time; and he had tasted
blood, at last, in an intoxicating draught. He had begun making up for
lost time; that was what he must go on doing. It was not so with
Doherty, however, and this time Denis had quite decided to respect the
prejudices of the lad who had stood by him so loyally through so many
luckless weeks. After all, in the beginning they had actually started
for the diggings, they two, to sink or to swim together. The importation
of Moseley had been as unfair as it had proved unwise; the ignorant lad
had found himself at a continual disadvantage between the two educated
men; they could talk in parables beyond his comprehension, and Moseley
invariably did. Doherty had been bitterly jealous of him, yet had
striven finely to suppress his chagrin, and never stooped to backbiting
or tale-bearing under its stress. And his devotion to Denis had never
wavered; that was at once a touching consideration and a clear claim.
No; there should be no more partners if Denis could help it, but if he
could not, then the newcomer should be a man after Jimmy's heart rather
than his own.
It was moonlight when Denis came to this conclusion of the matter,
though he had lain down in daylight not long before. He did not lie many
minutes more. A shambling step came to his ears, came nearer and nearer;
he jumped up in time to meet a tottering figure at the door.