DICK HADDON and Ted McKnight were still at large next morning, and
nothing was heard of them till two o'clock in the afternoon, when
Wilson's man, Jim Peetree, reported having discovered the boys swimming
in the big quarry in the old Red Hand paddock. Jim, seeing a prospect of
covering himself with glory, made a dash after the truants; but they
snatched up their clothes and ran for the saplings up the creek, all
naked as they were, and Jim was soon out of the hunt--though he captured
Ted's shirt, and produced it as a guarantee of good faith.
That night three boys--three of the faithful--Jacker McKnight, Phil Doon,
and Billy Peterson, stole through Wilson's paddock carrying mysterious
bundles, and taking as many precautions to avoid observation and pursuit
as if they were really, as they pretended to be with the fine imagination
of early boyhood, desperate characters bent upon an undertaking of
unparalleled lawlessness and great daring. They crossed the creek and
crept along in the shadow of the hill, for the moon, although low down in
the sky, was still bright and dangerous to hunted outlaws. Off to the
left could be heard the long-drawn respirations of the engines at the
Silver Stream, and the grind of her puddlers, the splashing of the
slurry, and the occasional solemn, significant clang of a knocker. They
passed the old Red Hand shaft, long since deserted and denuded of poppet
legs and engine-houses, its comparatively ancient tips almost overgrown
and characterless, with lusty young gums flourishing amongst its
scattered boulders. Waddy venerated the old Red Hand as something so
ancient that its history left openings for untrammelled conjecture, and
the boys associated it with not a few of the mysteries of those grand
far-off ages when dragons abducted beautiful maidens and giants were
quite common outside circuses. The mouth of the shaft was covered with
substantial timbers, save for a small iron-barred door securely
padlocked. The pit now served a useful purpose as air-shaft for the
Silver Stream, and the iron-runged ladders still ran down into its black
depths.
The boys kept to the timber, and presently found themselves climbing down
the rugged rocks where the hillside suddenly became an abrupt wall. From
here had been blasted the thousands of tons of rock that went to the
building of that grim prison in Yarraman, the town where Frank Hardy lay,
a good half-day's tramp across the wide flat country faced by the
township The quarry, too, was overgrown again; being almost inaccessible
to Wilson's cattle its undergrowth was rank and high, and as it was
sheltered from the sun's rays and watered in part by a tiny spring, it
was often the one green oasis in a weary land of crackling yellow and
drab.
After gaining the bottom of the quarry, Jacker led the way to the deepest
end. Here the bottom, covered with scrub growth, sloped rather suddenly
for a few feet up to the abrupt wall. Going on his hands and knees under
the thick odorous peppermint saplings, Jacker ran his head into a niche
in the rock amongst climbing sarsaparilla, and remained so, like some
strange geological specimen half embedded in the rock. Within, where his
head was hidden, the darkness was impenetrable. Jacker blew a strange
note on a whistle manufactured from the nut of an apricot, and after a
few moments a light appeared below him, a feeble flame, far down in the
rock. This was waved twice and then withdrawn.
'Righto!' said Jacker in a hoarse piratical tone. 'Gimme the tucker,
Black Douglas; I'll go down. You coves keep watch, an' no talkin', mind.'
Phil grumbled inarticulately, and Jacker's tone became hoarser and more
piratical still.
'Who's commandin' here?' he growled. 'D'ye mean mutiny?
'Oh, shut up!' said Doon, bitterly. 'No one's goin' t' mutiny, but there
ain't no fun campin' here.'
McKnight relented.
'All right,' he said, 'come down if you wanter. S'pose you'll on'y be
makin' some kind of a row 'f I leave you.'
Jacker put the growth aside carefully, and going feet first gradually
disappeared. Within there in the formless darkness he stood upon a ladder
made of the long stem of a sapling to which cleats were nailed. The
sapling was suspended in a black abyss. The boy, with his bundle hanging
from his shoulder, started down fearlessly. Presently he came to where a
second prop was fastened to the first with spikes and strong rope. Here
he paused a moment, and called:
'Hello, be-e-low there!'
Jacker's character had undergone a rapid change; he was now quite an
innocent and law-abiding person, a working shareholder in the Mount of
Gold Quartz-mining Company.
'On top!' answered a cautious voice from the depths.
'Look up--man on!
And now, having observed the formalities, Jacker continued his descent,
and in a few moments dropped from the primitive ladder and found a
footing on a few planks thrown from one drive to another, across what was
really an old shaft. At his back was a drive running into darkness;
before him was a small irregular excavation lit with a single candle, and
sitting in this, dressed, or, more correctly, undressed, like miners at
their work, were Dick Haddon and Ted McKnight.
Jacker threw his bundle on the floor of the drive.
'Crib,' he said carelessly; and then, after examining the face of the
excavation: 'S'pose we ain't likely to cut the lode this shift, Dick?
Dick shook his head thoughtfully.
'No,' he said. 'Allowin' for the underlay, we should strike her about
fifteen feet in.'
The other boys had now joined their mates. Each on his way down had
gravely followed the example of Jacker, who was supposed to be the boss
of the incoming shift. As the fathers labour their sons play, and for
months these boys had been digging in this old mine, off and on, with
enthralling mystery. The excavation in which Dick and Ted were seated
represented the joint labour of the members of the Mount of Gold
Quartz-mining Company, though the very existence of the mine was unknown
to a single soul outside the juvenile syndicate.
On the surface all signs of the shaft had long since been obliterated.
The quarrymen blasting into the side of the hill years back had made a
small opening into the disused pit at some distance from the top, and
this opening was accidentally discovered by Dick and Jacker one day
during a hunt for a wounded rabbit. Investigation proved the mine to be
of no great depth, and, thanks to the pumps of the Silver Stream, as dry
as a bone. A company of reliable small boys was formed with exceeding
caution and a fine observance of rule and precedent; for Dick Haddon did
nothing by halves, and forgot nothing that might give an air of reality
to the creations of his exuberant fancy.
The original intention of the Mount of Gold Quartz-mining Company was to
strike a reef five yards wide, composed entirely of gold, and to
overwhelm its various parents with contrition on account of past
lambastings by making them suddenly rich beyond the dreams of Oriental
avarice. Time had served to dim the ardour of its hopes in this
direction; but the mine was still an enticing enterprise when exciting
novelties in the way of adventure were wanting, and would always be a
hiding-place in which a youthful fugitive from injustice might defy all
authority so long as the members of the Company remained true to their
oath. Now that oath was quite the most solemn and impressive thing of the
kind that Dick Haddon and Phil Doon had been able to discover after
consulting the highest literary authorities.
The quarrel between Dick and Jacker McKnight that originated under the
school was quite forgotten in the resulting excitement. It was a mere
incident in any case, and would have made no material difference in their
friendship. It had not kept Jacker from visiting the Mount of Gold on the
same night with information and supplies, and now the boy was cheerfully
unconscious of the black eye that still ornamented his broad visage.
There were two well-worn shovels and a miner's pick in the drive. Jacker
seized the pick.
'Might as well put in a bit of work,' he said.
'Hold hard,' replied Dick, 'Smoke-ho, old man. What's goin' on on top?'
'Whips! They had a meetin' about youse last night--Jo, an' Rogers, an' my
dad, an' ole Tinribs, an' the rest. They're all after you. You're fairly
in fer it.'
Dick's face became radiant with magnificent ideas.
'What! You don't mean they're goin' t' form a band t' capture us?'
'Well, they sorter agreed about somethin' like that.'
'My word, that's into our hands, ain't it? Lemme see, we must be a band
of bushrangers what's robbed the gold escort an' the mounted p'lice're
huntin' us in the ranges. I'll be--yes, I'll be Morgan. An' Ted--!
What'll we make Ted? I know--I know. He'll be my faithful black boy,
what'll rather die than leave me. You fellers bring a cork to-morrow, an'
we'll pretty quick make a faithful black boy of Twitter.'
All eyes were turned upon Ted, who did not seem in the least impressed by
the magnificent prospect. Indeed, the faithful native was palpably out of
sorts; he took no part in the enthusiasm of his mates, his face was pale,
and funk was legible in the diffident eye he turned upon the company.
Dick noted this and put in an artful touch or two.
'Jacky-Jacky, the faithful black boy,' he said; 'brave as a lion, an' the
best shot in the world--better'n me!
The ruse was not successful. Ted failed to respond.
'Twitter don't seem to want to be no black boy,' said Phil.
'I'll be Jacky-Jacky,' volunteered Peterson eagerly.
Peterson was a stolid youth with a face like a wooden doll; absolutely
reliable since he was as stubborn under adult rule as a whole team of
unbroken bullocks, and quite reckless of consequences for the reason that
he never anticipated them. Peterson would have made a most successful
Jacky-Jacky, but his suggestion was overlooked in the general concern
inspired by Ted's conduct.
Feeling the eyes of the party upon him, Ted grew more uneasy, the corners
of his mouth drew down, one finger went up slowly, and Twitter began to
snivel.
'I--I--w--wa--want to go home,' he said.
The mates looked at each other in amazement. Ted was little, but his
pluck had been tried on many occasions, and this was a great surprise.
'Well, he's on'y a kiddy,' said Phil pityingly, and with the superiority
two years may confer.
Dick found the three were looking to him for an explanation.
'Ted's real scared,' he said. 'We made a discovery this afternoon--in
there.'
'In the big drive?' asked Jacker. The others looked startled.
Dick nodded, and took up the candle. 'Come an' see,' he said.
Dick led the way along the opposite drive, and his mates followed, not
too eagerly, Ted bringing up the rear. The drive was about eighty feet in
extent. Having reached the end, Dick held the candle low, and made
visible to his wondering mates a black cavity about eighteen inches in
diameter in one corner near the floor.
'We were workin' in here a bit for a change this afternoon after Peetree
hunted us, an' I broke through.'
'What's in there?' asked Jacker in an awed voice.
'Look,' said Dick.
Jacker backed away; the other three kept a respectful distance and stared
silently.
'It's on'y another drive,' Dick explained. 'It must come from the Red
Hand, I think.'
Dick was quite undisturbed, but the others were afraid, and even when
they had returned to their own drive cast many doubting glances back into
the darkness. In the mine as they had known it before everything was
definite, and there was nothing of which a boy of spirit need be afraid.
The shaft was choked with dirt a few feet below their landing-planks, and
there was no spot in which a mystery might lurk; but it was very
different now with that black hole leading Heaven knew into what awesome
depths, harbouring goodness knew what horrors. Ted's defection had
suddenly become the sentiment of the majority. At that moment Dick could
have counted on Peterson alone had need arisen.
'We'll go down there an' explore them workin's,' said Dick, having lit a
piece of dry root and composed himself for a smoke.
'In the daytime, Morgan,' said Jacker hastily and with diffidence.
'All right; but it don't make no difference down here, you know.'
Jacker thought it did, for although it was always night in the drives,
the consciousness that the earth above was flooded with sunlight was a
great heartener.
'Don't you think you'd best give this up for once--this bushranger game?'
ventured Jacker.
'Why?' Dick's eyes were round with surprise.
'Oh, well, Twitter's jack of it, an' I don't think it's much fun.' Jacker
had assumed a careless air. 'See here, Dick,' he continued smartly, 'the
Cow Flat chaps made a raid last night, an' took Butts an' three
others--mine among 'em.'
This was an important matter. Butts was Dick's big grey billygoat, the
best goat in harness the boys had ever known or ever heard of; and the
'Cow Flat chaps' were the boys of a small centre about two miles and a
half further down the creek, between whom and the boys of Waddy there
existed an interminable feud that led them to fight on sight, and steal
such of each other's possessions as could be easily and expeditiously
removed. Dick's excitement soon evaporated; evidently root smoking was
conducive to a philosophical frame of mind.
'We'll get them back all right--after,' he said.
'They'll work Butts to a shadder,' Jacker remarked insinuatingly.
'Then we'll go down some night, an' strip Amson's garden.' Amson was a
prominent resident of Cow Flat, and had nothing whatever to do with the
goat raid, but the boyish sense of justice does not stoop to find
distinctions.
Jacker Mack had another string to his bow. 'They say Harry Hardy's comin'
home this week,' he said.
'No!' cried Dick, much moved. 'Who says?'
'Gable says.'
'Pooh! Gable's a kid.'
'No matter, it's true. Mrs. Hardy had a letter, 'n Harry's coming down
with cattle.'
'Gosh! he'll make it hot for Tinribs, I bet.'
Waddy had been waiting for Harry Hardy to come home, confident that he
would do something of an exciting character to the disadvantage of those
persons who had been instrumental in sending his brother Frank to gaol.
Harry was much the younger of the two brothers; for some years he had
been away droving, and the news of his brother's misfortune was bringing
him home from a Queensland station. The township thought, too, there
would be a score to wipe out on his mother's account, and the return was
looked for as an important public event.
Dick pondered over the situation for a moment. It would never do to miss
any entertainment that might result from Harry's return, and yet there
was Joel Ham still to be reckoned with.
'I think we'd better wait,' he said. 'You fellows can let on as soon's he
arrives.'
Ted's face fell again, and Jacker moved uneasily. He was anxious to be
out of the mine and away from the uncanny possibilities of that dark
chasm, and yet it was absolutely necessary that he should show no sign of
funk, leave no opening for the tongue of derision. Some day, perhaps,
when the full strength of the company was available and candles were
numerous, he would follow Dick's lead in the work of exploration, but for
the present his whole desire was to get to the surface. Now recollection
came, and with it hope. Diving into his breast pocket, he drew and
crumpled envelope, and handed it to Dick.
A letter,' he said, 'from your mother.'
Dick was surprised; as he took the note Jacker discovered an accusation
in his eye.
'The oath don't say nothin' agin' letters,' said McKnight sullenly.
'No,' answered his mate, 'but really miners ain't supposed to have
mothers runnin' after 'em, like if they were kids.'
'Well,' said the other, on the defensive, 'your mother comes to me at
dinner time, an' she says: 'I s'pose 'taint likely you'll see my Dick,
Jacker.' I said,' No, Missus Haddon, 'taint, s'elp me.' Then she says,
'Well, if he should come to see you, will you give him this?' So I took
it, an' there you are.'
Dick read the letter slowly; it was a very artful letter, most pathetic,
and sprinkled with drops which might have been tears. The writer spoke
despondingly of her loneliness and her desolation, and the fears she
endured when by herself in the house at night, knowing there was a camp
of blacks in the corner paddock, and so many rough cattlemen about. She
was entirely helpless since her only protector had deserted her, and she
supposed that it only remained for her to be resigned to her fate. She
signed her self, 'Your forsaken and sorrow-stricken mother.'
When Dick had finished reading he started to put on his clothes.
'What's up, Morgan?' asked Phil.
'Knock off!' was the brief reply.
'But what yer goin' to do?'
'I'm goin' home.'
'Home!' cried Peterson. 'Why?'
'Because!'
Dick had the instincts of a leader; he demanded reasons for everything,
but gave none.
Before the lads parted that night young Haddon proffered Ted McKnight
excellent advice.
'Your dad's night shift, ain't he?' he said. 'Well, don't you go in till
near twelve. He'll be gone to work then, an' when he comes off in the
mornin' he'll be too tired to lick you much.' This, from an orphan with
practically no experience of paternal rule, argued a fine intuition.