A Reminiscence of ‘The Rivers.’
The people at Dead Finish had never applied for such a thing, nor
dreamt of, nor wished for it, neither they nor their children. These
latter were mostly of an age now to be of use about the house or in
the field. They had imagined themselves, these half-a-dozen or so of
scattered families hidden in the gloomy recesses of coastal scrubs,
quite secure from any officious interference with their offspring by
the Government. And, without exception, they took it as a most
uncalled-for act of tyranny, this proposed establishment of a school
and a teacher in their midst, and well within the two-mile radius from
all.
Here was the corn just ready to be pulled and husked, and got ready
for Tuberville, and who was to do it with Tom, Jack and Bill wasting
their time at a school?
‘If Mr Gov’ment was here,’ growled ‘Brombee’ O’Brien, the largest
selector of the lot, ‘I’d give ’im a bit o’ my mind. Wot bizness he
got, comin’ an’ takin’ the kids just as they’re a-gittin’ handy? Why
didn’t he come afore, when they was bits o’ crawlers, an’ no use to no
one? Anyhow, me an’ the missis niver ’ad no schoolin’; an’ why should
they? Will learnin’ cut through a two-foot log? Will ’rethmetic split
palin’s or shingles? Will readin’ an’ writin’ run brombees, or drive a
team o’ bullocks, or ’elp to plough or ’arrer? No; it ain’t likely.
Then wot’s the good of it? Garn? Wot they givin’ us?’
Thus Mr O’Brien, at a meeting of neighbours specially convened to
confront the unlooked-for emergency, and whose own ideas he voices to
the letter.
And when, later, the Inspector (taken at first for the ‘Gov’ment’)
puts in an appearance, the case is set before him precisely as above.
But, instead of listening to reason, he only rated them, told them
they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and dilated largely on the
beauty and advantage of a State education at only threepence per week
each child, and one shilling for seven or over. A paternal Government,
he said, had long mourned over their degraded and benighted condition;
and, at last, having, after much trouble, and at great expense,
secured a most accomplished gentleman as a teacher, resolved that one
of his first tasks should be that of making Dead Finish an ornament,
in place of a reproach, to the district.
This was, so the Inspector thought, putting the thing neatly indeed.
But it was all of no avail. They not only unanimously refused to have
anything to do with the erection of the school, but also to receive
the teacher when he arrived. They swore, too, that their children
should not leave work for education, and in the end, used language
unrecordable here, and such as the Inspector had never in all his life
heard before. But he persevered; and, bringing a couple of men from
the township fifty miles away, set them to work.
Dead Finish was situated at the extreme head of one of those short
Australian coastal rivers whose existence begins in boggy swamps and
ends in a big sand-bar.
The country was mountainous and scrubby, abounding in ‘falls,’
springs, morasses, giant timber, dingoes, ticks, leeches, and creeks.
The wonder was, not that anybody should ever have settled on it, but
that, once there, they should ever manage to get out of it, as they
did once in six months.
But for these few families on Dead Finish Creek, the district was
totally uninhabited. It was hard to say where they came from
originally. They were not a communicative people; but they were a
hard-working, hard-living one, whose only wish was to be left at peace
on the little patches they had hewn for themselves out of the mighty
primeval forest that, dark and solemn, walled them in on every side.
The spot chosen by the Inspector as the site of the new school was on
the extreme edge of one of the lesser falls that ran sloping swiftly
down three hundred feet or more into a small valley, generally full of
mist and the noise of running waters.
A mile away lived a settler named Brown, who, after an infinity of
coaxing and persuasion, and to the utter disgust of his neighbours,
had consented to receive and board the teacher on trial. As with the
rest of the Dead Finishers, ready money was so rare that the thoughts
of that proffered twelve shillings a week tempted him, and he fell,
and became a Judas to his fellows, and a mark for the finger of
scorn—he and his wife and their ten children.
But the Inspector was jubilant; and after a last look around the
little hut, smelling of fresh-cut wood, with its three forms, one
stool, and bright, new blackboard, he departed, congratulating himself
on the satisfactory finish of the campaign. Also he indited a minute
and two memorandums to his Department with the intimation that
‘Provisional School No. 28,890, Parish of Dead Finish, County of
Salamanca,’ was completed and ready for occupation. Whereupon, an
animated correspondence took place, which, after lasting six months,
was at last closed by the announcement that a teacher had been
appointed. Then both sides rested from their labours, and the
Inspector, feeling that his annual holiday had been well earned, took
it.
Meanwhile, the little building perched on the brink of the gulf grew
bleached and weather-beaten with wind and rain and fog, and the Dead
Finishers derided ‘ole Gov’ment,’ and the Brown family emerged from
Coventry, and all was once more peace along the creek.
The winter passed, and a young man with thin legs and body, red hair,
and freckled face, appeared in Tuberville and remarked to the
residents generally that he would like to get to Dead Finish. He also
added that he was the ‘new teacher’ for that place. He at once became
an object of interest. People stared at him in much the same way as
did those others, of whom we read, at Martin Chuzzlewit and the
faithful Mark Tapley on their departure for Eden.
The Tuberville people—the majority of them at least—knew of the Dead
Finishers only by repute. These latter came in but twice a year to
exchange corn and hardwood for stores, potatoes, and a little cash. At
these times the programme was invariably the same. Their business
done, the long-haired, touzly-bearded men drove their teams outside
the town, and, leaving the bullocks in charge of the wild,
bare-footed, half-clad boys, returned, and, clubbing their money,
drank solidly as long as it lasted—generally two days.
They kept well together, and no one molested or interfered with them.
It was not worth while. Their especial house was a short distance out,
and when, borne up on the wind, came the roar of bush revelry, strange
and uncouth, the townspeople merely remarked one to the other that
‘Them Dead Finishers must be in again down at Duffy’s.’
Hence the interest taken in Mr Cruppy.
The Dead Finishers all drank ‘rum straight,’ and about two gallons was
their respective allowance. That safely stowed away, they took their
long whips out of the corner of the bar, called their rough
cattle-dogs, lying beside them, and made off to the wilderness again
for another fight with fire and axe against the stubborn forest, and
to raise corn enough for the next trip to market.
That half-yearly or so excursion was their one treat, such as it was;
and the toiling, hard-featured women at home, who never got away,
acquiesced tacitly in the liquid wind-up of it. They never looked for
any money on their men’s return. What was the good of money at Dead
Finish? No wonder the people laughed when the Inspector talked to them
of ‘school fees.’
[Illustration: But presently there was a report, a cloud of smoke,
and a flash out of the little window. (Page 68.)]
At last Mr Cruppy drifted into the ‘Bushman’s Home’ in search of
information. Could Mr Duffy tell him how to get to a place called Dead
Finish? No; Mr Duffy was sorry, but he really couldn’t. All he knew
about it was that it was up in the mountains, and a rough, long road
to travel. The new teacher, was he? Well, he was pleased to hear it,
but opined that he’d find some pretty hard cases amongst the kids up
there. Did he know Mr Brown at Dead Finish? Yes, he thought he did,
and a very strong cup of tea he was. Going to stay there, was he?
Well, he hoped that Mr Brown would make him comfortable. But, somehow,
he was doubtful. As to getting there, he would have to trust to
Providence. After a little more talk, however, Mr Cruppy discovered
that Providence, in this case, meant the sum of £4 sterling, for which
the publican expressed his willingness to do his best to find the Dead
Finish.
They were four days on the road, got bogged twice, capsized twice, and
broke the pole of the buggy before they found Brown, who received them
with more surprise than cordiality. Foreseeing ostracism again, he
wished to go back from his agreement, and was surly to a degree.
He said he should get his head caved in. If no one else did it,
‘Brombee’ O’Brien would. A week’s payment in advance mollified him
somewhat. But, if Mr Cruppy had not been an orphan, friendless, and on
his first appointment, he would have returned with Mr Duffy, who,
very much to his surprise, had by the time he reached home, fairly
earned his money.
The teacher’s bedroom was a bark lean-to; his bed sacks stuffed with
corn husks—and cobs. The food was hominy and pork, washed down with
coffee made from corn roasted and ground. He ventured to remark that
the accommodation was rough.
‘It are,’ replied Mr Brown. ‘We’s rough. Take it or leave it. We niver
arst fer no schoolin’. I’ll get stoushed over this job yet. Brombee’s
got it in for me. So’s the Simmses, an’ all the rest ov ’em.’
With much difficulty the teacher got one of the boys to show him the
way to the school. They had to cross Dead Finish Creek fourteen times
to get there. Regarding the youngster as his first scholar, Mr Cruppy
endeavoured to detain him, but with a yell he fled down the mountain;
and, figuratively, the fiery cross was sent round.
Each day the teacher went up and waited in vain. No one came near the
school. Then he essayed a journey of remonstrance from farm to farm,
got bushed, was out for two nights, and would have been left out
altogether only that Mandy Brown, who pitied him, went away and
brought him in after running his tracks for a whole day. Then he
simply sat down and waited despairingly. Then the Inspector came back
from his holiday and visited Dead Finish, expecting to find everything
in full swing. In his wrath he took out summonses against the whole
settlement. No notice was taken of these until four troopers paid it a
visit. Then it went into Tuberville in a body, and was promptly fined
and admonished. Returning, it sent its children to school—a horde of
young barbarians, unkempt, unwashed, almost unclad, but stout and
sturdy. And it was the time of the pulling of the corn! Therefore the
elders had to work double tides to make up for the lost labour of
their offspring, stolidly glaring at poor Cruppy as he tried to beat
into their shock heads the mystery of A B C.
Amanda Brown was eighteen, buxom, bare-footed, curly-haired,
red-cheeked, could ride as she put it ‘anythin’ with hair on,’ use an
axe like a Canadian, and was reckoned the best hand at breaking in a
young bullock to the team of anyone about. And she, since her finding
of Cruppy in the ranges, leech-infested and draggled, had taken him
under her protection. But even she was powerless to influence the
feeling of public indignation, daily growing stronger, against the
Inspector, the teacher, and the ‘Gov’ment,’ and which ended in Cruppy
being requested to clear out from Brown’s. As the latter put it,
‘Mister,’ said he, ‘it ain’t no good shenaneckin’! I dussent keep you
no longer. It’s as much ’s our lives is wuth. Brombee an’ them’s
gittin’ madder an’ madder. Ef you won’t slither complete, you’ll ’ave
to go an’ camp in the schoolhouse up yonder. We’ll sell you a pot an’
a bit o’ ration, an’ ye’ll have to do the best ye can.’ So Cruppy
went, seeing nothing else for it, and Mr Brown once more held up his
head amongst his fellows.
Despite his lack of physique, Cruppy had a certain amount of stubborn
resistance and endurance within him, often observable in red-headed
people. He was, in short, plucky, and unwilling to give in. And Mandy,
out of the largeness of her heart, helped him all she knew how.
For instance, when Tom O’Brien (eldest son of ‘Brombee’) made his
intention known of scaring the teacher out of Dead Finish, from Mandy
came the few words of warning and the present of the old gun and some
ammunition. Thus it happened that one night, when awakened by eerie
yells from his lonely slumber, the teacher looked out and saw a wild
figure clad in skins, and with a pair of bullock’s horns spreading
from its head, he felt no whit dismayed. Capering and shouting round
the hut under the dim moonlight went the weird thing, enough in that
desolate spot to make even a brave man shudder with the uncanny
grotesqueness of it.
But presently there was a report—a cloud of smoke, and a flash out of
the little window, and with a scream the thing dropped, then got up
again, and ran swiftly out of sight.
‘Caught him fair smack, ye did,’ said Mandy, afterwards. ‘Them pellets
o’ coarse salt touched ’im up properly. He don’t set down now without
lookin’ fer pillers. Tom won’t try no more gammonin’ to be a yahoo.
He’s full ’s a tick ov sich sport, he is.’
Other attempts were from time to time made to frighten Cruppy out of
the district, but they were of no avail. The holidays were
approaching, and he had made up his mind to hold out at least until
then in hopes of getting a shift from Dead Finish.
But one night, in melancholy mood, watching a piece of salt beef boil,
and leaning over every now and again to take the scum off the pot, he
heard the tramp of horses outside. Opening the door cautiously, he saw
Mandy riding her own pony _en cavalier_, and leading another one ready
saddled.
‘Come along,’ she said, without dismounting. ‘They’re on their tails
proper now. Wanter git the corn shelled for Tuberville. No more
schoolin’ fer the kids. They’re a-goin’ to put the set on ye to-night,
hut an’ all. Pap, and Brombee, an’ the Simmses, an’ Pringles, an’ the
whole push is out. They got four teams o’ bullocks an’ all the ropes
an’ chains in the country, an’ they’re a-goin’ to hyste school an’ you
over the sidin’. It’ll be just one! two! three! an’ wallop ye all
goes! Roll up yer swag slippy an’ come along.’
Cruppy, seeing at once that a crisis, not altogether unexpected, had
arrived, did as he was told.
‘Now,’ said Mandy, leading the way into a dense clump of peppermint
suckers, ‘le’s wait an’ see the fun. They reckoned as how, sleepin’ so
sound, you wouldn’t know nothin’ till you struck bottom in the crik.
But they’re euchred agin.’
As the night wore on noises broke its stillness, and dark forms moved
athwart the little open space, whilst from far below in the gully came
the faint clank of chains and the muffled tramp of cattle.
‘Look,’ whispered Mandy admiringly, ‘ain’t they cunnin’? There’s Pap,
an’ ole Brombee, an’ young Tom, a-sneakin’ the big rope roun’ the hut.
You’d niver ha’ woke, sleepin’ sound as ye does.’
Even as she spoke a shrill whistle was heard. Then from below came a
tremendous volleying of whips, accompanied by hoarse yells of ‘Gee,
Brusher! Darling up! Wah Rowdy! Spanker! Redman!’ As the noose
tightened, the school first cracked, then toppled. The din below
redoubled, and with a crash the building disappeared bodily over the
brow of the hill.
‘That’s domino!’ remarked Mandy calmly. ‘There won’t be no more
schoolin’ at Dead Finish. Come along; I’ll set ye on the track. Ye kin
leave the horse an’ saddle at Duffy’s when you gits to the township. I
shook ’em from ole Brombee. Won’t he bite when he finds it out. But
you,’ she went on, ‘needn’t be scared. You seen him to-night doin’ his
best to break your neck. Well, so long! Give us a cheeker afore ye
goes; an’ don’t forget Mandy Brown o’ Dead Finish.’
‘NUMBER ONE NORTH RAINBOW.’
‘Another duffer!’
‘Rank as ever was bottomed!’
‘Seventy-five feet hard delving, and not a colour!’
The speakers were myself, the teller of this story, and my mate, Harry
Treloar.
We were sitting on a heap of earth and stones representing a month’s
fruitless, dreary labour. The last remark was Harry’s.
‘That makes, I think,’ continued he, ‘as nearly as I can guess, about
a dozen of the same species. And people have the cheek to call this a
poor man’s diggings!’
‘The prospectors are on good gold,’ I hazard.
‘So are the publicans,’ retorts he, ‘and the speculators, and the
storekeepers, and, apparently, everybody but the poor men—ourselves,
to wit. This place is evidently for capitalists. We’re nearly
“dead-brokers,” as they say out here. Let’s harness up Eclipse and go
over to old Yamnibar. We may make a rise there. It’s undignified, I
allow, scratching amongst the leavings of other men and other years;
dangerous, also, but that’s nothing. And many a good man has had to do
the same before us.’
No life can equal that of a digger’s if he be ‘on gold,’ even
moderately so; if not, none so weary and heart-breaking.
It’s all very well to talk, as some street-bred novelists do, of ‘hope
following every stroke of the pick, making the heaviest toil as
nought,’ and all that kind of thing; but when one has been
pick-stroking for months without seeing a colour; when one’s boots are
sticking together by suasion of string or greenhide; when every meal
is eaten on grudged credit; when one works late and early, wet and
dry, and all in vain, then hope becomes of that description which
maketh the heart sick, very sick, indeed. Treloar was, in general, a
regular Mark Tapley and Micawber rolled into one. But for once, fate,
so adverse, had proved too much for even his serenely hopeful temper.
He was an Anglo-Indian. Now he is Assistant Commissioner at Bhurtpore,
also a C.S.I.; and, when he reads this, will recollect and perhaps
sigh for the days when he possessed a liver and an appetite, and was
penniless.
Our turnout was rather a curious one. The season was dry, and, feed
being scarce, Treloar had concluded that, at such a time, a bullock
would be better able to eke out a living than a horse. Therefore, a
working bullock drew our tilted cart about the country.
‘You see, my boy,’ said Treloar, when deciding on the purchase, ‘an ox
is a beggar that always seems to have something to chew. Turn a horse
out where there’s no grass, and he’ll probably go to the deuce before
morning. But your ox, now, after a good look around, seeing he’s
struck a barren patch, ’ll draw on his reserves, bring up something
from somewhere, and start chewing away like one o’clock. That comforts
his owner. I vote for the ox. He may be slow, but he generally appears
to have enough in his stomach to keep his jaws going; and, in a dry
time, that is a distinct advantage.’
So Eclipse was bought, I merely stipulating that Treloar should always
drive.
I have an idea, that, after a while, as the old ‘worker’ sauntered
along, regarding the perspiring Harry, and his exhortations and
exclamations, often in Hindustani, with a mild stare of surprise, as
he slowly stooped for a dry tussock, or reached aloft for an
overhanging branch, the latter somewhat repented him of his
experiment. But he never said so. And, to do him justice, Eclipse was
not a bad ‘ox’; and, when he could get nothing better, justified
Harry’s expectations by seeming able to chew stones. But his motto was
decidedly _festina lente_.
Yamnibar, ‘Old Yamnibar,’ at last. Behind us, on the far inland river,
we had left a busy scene of activity. Hurrying crowds of men, the
whirr of a thousand windlasses, the swish of countless cradles, and
the ceaseless pounding by night and by day of the battery stamps. And
now what a contrast!
A wide, trackless valley, covered with grave-like mounds, on which
grass grew rankly; with ruined buildings and rotting machinery, and,
here and there, pools of stagnant water, whilst the only thing save
the sweep of the wind that reached our ears was a distant rhythmical
moaning, coming very sadly in that desolate place—the sounding of the
sea on the rock-bound coast not far away.
The only signs of life, as Eclipse, pausing now and again, and taking
a ruminative survey of the valley, drew us by degrees down the sloping
hills, were the buglings of a squad of native companions flying
heavily towards the setting sun.
‘What a dismal hole!’ I muttered, as the ‘ox,’ spying some green
rushes, bolted at top speed—about a mile an hour—towards them.
‘Let’s try and find a golden one,’ laughed my mercurial friend. ‘Here
we have a whole gold-field to ourselves. Just think of it! “Lords of
the fowl and the brute”—Eclipse and _Kálee_ and the bralgas. Take the
old chap out of the _gharri_, and we’ll pitch our camp.’
I ought to have spoken of _Kálee_ long ago. Indeed, when one comes to
think of it, I ought to have called this story after her. But man is
an ungrateful animal—worse than most dogs. Not that the great
deerhound with the faithful eyes, who might have stepped out of one of
Landseer’s pictures, was forgotten—far from it. But for her we should
possibly now, both of us, be bundles of dry bones, with all sorts of
underground small deer making merry amongst them.
She ought, according to her merits, to hold pride of place here. But
she was quiet and unobtrusive as she was faithful and affectionate,
whereas Eclipse was nothing of the kind, only a noisy blusterer,
thinking of no one but himself. Therefore, as happens so often with
us, has he stolen a march on a failing memory for prior recognition.
But the ‘ox’ is grass, and _Kálee_ still lives in the great Eastern
Empire, and has two servants to wait upon her. _O Dea certe!_
‘Behold!’ said Treloar, as we lay and smoked in the moonlight, after
supper, in front of our tent, which we had pitched between the
door-posts of what had evidently been a building of some size, but of
which they were the sole remains. ‘Behold, my friend, the end of it
all! But a few years are passed, and where, now, are the busy
thousands that toiled and strove and jostled each other, below there,
in earth’s bowels, in the fierce race for gold? Look at it now! Think
of the great waves of human hopes and disappointments and joys that
have rolled to and fro across this miserable patch of earth! Think of
the brave hearts that came hot with the excitement of the quest, and
departed broken with the emptiness of it. Also, of those others, who
never departed, but lie at rest beneath that yellow clay. Just a
little while, in the new-born one, is centred alike the glow of
success and the cold chill of failure; all the might of swift fierce
endeavour, every passion, good and bad, that convulses our wretched
souls. And then, after a brief season, its pristine form defaced and
scarred, comes the rotting solitude of the tomb! Why ’tis, in some
sort, the story of our corporal life and death!
‘“Over the Mountains of the Moon,
Down the Vale of Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,” the shade replied,
“For there lies El Dorado.”
Behold, my friend, the Valley of the Shadow that has passed, wherein
many a bold soul has gone down to Hades, “unhouselled, disappointed,
unaneled.” Do their ghosts wander yet, I ask?’
‘O, bother!’ I mutter sleepily. ‘I’m tired. Let’s turn in.’
Fortunately such outbursts were rare. But when the fit came on, I knew
too well the uselessness of attempting to stop it.
Awakened towards the small hours by the roarings of Eclipse,
triumphantly apprising the world at large that his belly was full, I
found the lantern still burning, and could see Treloar’s eye ‘in a
fine phrenzy rolling,’ as he scribbled rapidly. Years afterwards I
read in the _Bombay Pioneer_ ‘How the Night Falls on Yamnibar,’ and
thought it passable.
It was anything but pleasant work, this groping about old workings. It
was also very dangerous. Many were the close shaves we had of being
buried, sometimes alive, at others flattened out.
The soil, for the first twenty or thirty feet, was of a loose, friable
description. Thence to the bottom, averaging eighty feet, was
‘standing ground,’ _i.e._, needed no timbering. But, in many cases,
the slabbing from the upper parts had rotted away and fallen down,
followed by big masses of earth, which blocked up the entrance to the
drives where our work lay.
Then after, with great trouble, clearing the bottom, generally yellow
pipeclay, and exploring the dark, cramped passages for pillars, we
had, before beginning to displace these, to support the roof by
artificial ones. Timber had at the time of the rush been plentiful; as
a consequence pillars were scarce. Also, the field, having in its
prime been a wonderfully rich one, it had been repeatedly fossicked
over. This made them scarcer still.
Often after a heavy job of clearing out and heaving-up mullock, water,
and slabs, all the time in imminent peril of a ‘fall’ from some part
of the shaft, would we discover, on exploring the drives, that they
were simply groves of props—not a natural support left standing.
Such a network of holes and burrows as the place was! I can compare it
to nothing but a Brobdingnagian rabbit-warren.
The flat had been undermined, claim breaking into claim, until the
wonder was that the whole top crust didn’t cave in. In some places
this had happened, and one looked down into a dismal chaos of soil,
rotten timber, and surface water.
As I have remarked, it was risky work this hunting for the few
solitary grains amongst the rotten treasure-husks left by others,
especially without a local knowledge of the past, which would have
been so invaluable to us. But there came to be, nevertheless, a sort
of dreary fascination in it.
We had heard that, on this same field, years after its total
abandonment, a two hundred ounce nugget had been found by a solitary
fossicker in a pillar left in an old claim.
Very often, I believe, did the picture of that big lump rise before
us as we crawled and twisted and wriggled about like a pair of great
subterranean yellow eels, not knowing the moment a few odd tons of
earth might fall and bury us.
One day an incident rather out of the common befell. Lowering Treloar
cautiously down an old shaft to, as usual, make a preliminary survey,
I presently heard a splash and a cry of ‘Heave-up!’ Up he came, a
regular Laocoon, in the close embraces of a thumping, lively carpet
snake, whose frogging ground he had intruded upon.
He had, by luck, got a firm grip of the reptile round the neck, and
was not bitten. He was, however, badly scared.
Doubtfully he listened as, while releasing him from the coils, I
assured him that the thing was perfectly harmless.
Was I quite certain on this point? he wished to know. Of course I was;
and I quoted all the authorities I could think of.
Then, before despatching it, would I let it bite me? As an ardent
ophiologist, he took the utmost interest in such a fact, and would
like to become as confident as myself of it.
But I pointed out earnestly that this was simply trifling, and that we
had no time to spare. Practical demonstration is a very capital thing
in many cases. But _ver non semper viret_, and our friend of the
curiously-patterned skin might not be _always_ innocuous.
We took three ounces out of a pillar in Snake Shaft. That night, on
returning to our camp, we found an old man there. He was the first
person we had seen for a month; and so were inclined to be cordial.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about the new-comer, except
that he had a habit of tightly shutting one eye as he looked at you.
I have called him old because his hair was grey; but he was still a
very powerful man, and likely to prove a tough one at close quarters.
‘Come and have some supper, mate,’ said Treloar.
‘Call me Brummy, an’ keep yer dorg orf,’ replied the other, as he
poured out a pannikin of tea. ‘I don’t fancy a big beast like yon
a-breathin’ inter the back o’ a feller’s neck.’
And, indeed, _Kálee’s_ attentions were marked. She sniffed around and
around the new-comer, bristled all her hair up, and carried on a
monologue which sounded unpleasant.
‘No,’ he resumed in answer to a question, as Treloar sent _Kálee_ to
her kennel. ‘I was never on this here field before. Down about the
Lachlan’s my _towri_. Everybody theer knows Brummy. I’m goin’ to do a
bit of fossickin’ now I got this far. Ain’t a-thinkin’ o’ interferin’
wi’ you. Surfiss is my dart—roun’ about the old tailin’s and puddlers.
Down below’s too risky in a rotten shop like this. I leaves that game
to the young ’uns. An’’ (with a sly grin) ‘old Brum does as well as
the best on ’em in the long run.’
Soon after this he went away and pitched a ragged fly further along
the flat.
Next day, as we were having a smoke and a spell after rigging two new
windlass standards, he came up to us, and in a furtive sort of
manner, began to try and discover the position of those claims which
we had already prospected. Having no motive for concealment, we told
him as well as we could, also pointing out most of them from where we
sat.
He appeared quite pleased as we finished, and marched off with his old
tin dish banging and rattling against the pick on his shoulder.
‘That old man,’ remarked Harry presently, ‘is a dangerous old man.
Moreover, he is a liar.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
‘The first,’ he replied, ‘I feel—as _Kálee_ did. Now for the second
count in the indictment. Did you not hear him tell us that this was
his first visit to Yamnibar? Well, when he asked so carelessly if we
had tried the big shaft over yonder—the one where you can see the
remains of a horse-whim—and you said that we had not, a momentary
gleam of satisfaction passed across his face. We’ll try that hole
to-morrow morning. Luckily, our new standards are finished.’
‘Pooh!’ I said. ‘My dear fellow, your legal training has made you too
suspicious. The poor old beggar may have an idea of prospecting that
very shaft himself.’
‘He probably has,’ replied Treloar quietly. ‘Only don’t forget that he
doesn’t like underground work.’
However, my companion had his own way, which, except in such matters
as that of the snake-test, he generally did; and next morning saw us
fixing our windlass at the summit of the big heap of mullock which
towered above its fellows.
We seldom got anything in such claims. They had mostly been worked by
rich companies, and every ounce of wash-dirt removed.
It was pretty late by the time we had removed sufficient of the
_débris_ from the bottom of the shaft—too late to do more that night.
As we walked over to our camp, we caught a glimpse of ‘Brummy’
following us.
‘He’s been watching,’ said Treloar.
‘Nonsense!’ I replied impatiently. ‘You’re becoming a monomaniac.’
That evening our neighbour came over to our fire; and in consequence
_Kálee_, in low threatening communion with herself, had to be put upon
the chain.
‘Goin’ to try the big un?’ he asked presently.
‘Yes,’ said Harry; ‘there may be something there. One can never tell.’
‘Not much danger!’ he blurted out. ‘The coves as worked Number One
North Rainbow weren’t the chaps to leave much behind ’em.
Leastways’—he quickly added, seeing his mistake, ‘so I’ve heerd say.’
Treloar gave me a look which meant ‘How now?’ but neither of us took
further notice.
‘I’ve heard tell, too,’ he continued, ‘as that claim’s häänted.’
‘Oh!’ said Treloar airily, and as if in constant association with
them, ‘we don’t mind ghosts. It’s the living, not the dead, that force
us betimes to keep a sharp look-out.’
‘Well, mates,’ retorted Brummy, rather sulkily, ‘I ain’t quite
cunnin’ enuff yet to chew tacks, but I ain’t not altogether a born
hidjiot; an’ if anybody was to offer me a thousand poun’ to go down
that ’ere shaft, where you got your win’less rigged, an’ up them
drives, I wouldn’t do it.’
‘I was down it to-day,’ I remarked, ‘and didn’t notice anything out of
the common.’
‘Mebbe not, mebbe not—yet,’ said he. ‘But the yarns I’ve listened
to—on the Lachlan, over yander—consarning that ’ere Rainbow claim ’d
make your ’air stick up stiff.’
During the night, feeling restless and unable to sleep, I got up and
went outside. The weather was very hot, and, for some time, I sat and
listened to the faint wash of the sea, longing for a plunge in its
cool depths. Suddenly, in the great expanse of gloom, my eyes caught
the glimmer of a light. As nearly as I could guess, it was moving
slowly towards the shaft we were to descend in the morning.
‘There goes your aged friend,’ said a voice at my shoulder, which made
me start with the unexpectedness of it.
‘Too hot and close to sleep,’ explained Treloar. ‘Come out for a
breath of air.’
‘Let’s shepherd the old chap, and see what his little game is. Bring
the lantern. Needn’t show a light. We know the way well enough. I
expect he’s after ghosts.’
As, breathless, we arrived at our windlass, Treloar gave a grunt of
disappointment on seeing that everything was exactly as we had left
it—rope coiled neatly round the barrel, green-hide bucket hanging over
the mouth.
‘It must have been a Jack-o’-lantern,’ said he; ‘or perhaps the old
sinner’s gone down some other shaft. Yes, by Jingo! look there!’ he
exclaimed, pointing to where, a couple of hundred of yards distant, a
flash of light was visible for a moment. ‘He’s gone down the Snake
Shaft! Those ladders are as rotten as pears; and he’ll break his
wicked old neck if he isn’t careful. I wish him joy of all he’ll find
there, even if he gets to the bottom safely. What came we out for to
see? Let’s make back.’
It was my turn down next morning, and when I got to the end of the
hundred and odd feet of the häänted shaft, I lit my candle, and, at
random, entered one of the four roomy drives that had been put in so
many long years ago.
So extensively had it been quarried, that I was only obliged to stoop
slightly. Not a trace of earthen pillar here. A valuable property
this, and a clean-swept one. Travelling warily along, I suddenly
stumbled over a ridge of mullock, into what was evidently another
drive altogether.
My course, so far, had been downwards. The new tunnel sloped slightly
upwards.
Evidently both claims had been driving for a ‘gutter.’ One of them had
got to the end of its tether before reaching it. The surface limits of
‘golden holes’ are pretty strictly defined; but roguery, as well as
miscalculation, has been known to produce curious effects in
adjoining claims. Not that, just then, I bothered myself with any such
speculations. I was on the look-out for a lump of that rich water-worn
conglomerate which had made Yamnibar, in the days of its youth, the
talk of the world. Sitting down to rest a minute, the candlelight fell
brightly on the shining steel of a pick.
I had noticed how freshly the earth smelled, and wondered thereat. The
pick was fresh too. One could swear that it had not left its owner’s
grip five minutes. Without a doubt it had been used to remove the thin
curtain of earth between the rival drives.
Looking more closely, fresh knee and footprints were plentiful.
What the deuce did it mean?
Crawling along the new drive, which was much smaller than the
Rainbow’s, I at length emerged into a shaft that struck me as
familiar.
The ‘Snake,’ or I was a Dutchman!
I knew it by the ladders, for one thing; for another, by a piece of
timber at the entrance to the opposite drive—the one in which we had
made our three-ounce rise.
I tried the rungs of the rude ladders. Not half so rotten as we had
taken them to be. Also covered with fresh earth left by recent boots.
Only fifty feet to the top, and up I went safely enough. Treloar was
sitting smoking, with his back towards me as I approached.