Part 20

Tents were struck, and the campers' impedimenta securely fastened to the pack-saddles, in the grey dawn of the following morning--the party having breakfasted by starlight.

The gold diggings about to be visited was situated in the ranges, equi-distant from Bullaroi and the Bay. The route from the Bay lay along the homeward track as far as the caves. At this point the trail turned due north--winding among the rugged country to the site of the mining camp, which, in its palmy days, covered a flat that lay between some precipitous hills and a swiftly flowing mountain stream.

The diggings in question was deserted, save by a few fossikers, or gully-rakers, as they were generally called--men who earned a precarious living by following up the dry gullies, and picking out wash dirt from between the rocks; or else dry-blowing likely spots of the surface. The lure of gold--so common to all--fed the imagination of these men. They became nomads; lived in the most primitive ways; faced and endured untold hardships; and, if not cheerful, were always hopeful. They saw visions and dreamed dreams--of gold. The years passed, age pressed heavily, eyesight grew dim, and limbs palsied with weakness: but even when broken down and encompassed with infirmity, their very senility sustained its spirits upon visions of the rich find that was surely coming--to-morrow.

When the diggings "broke out," and the rush "set in," the flat was white with tents, the population running into four figures. It was an alluvial diggings; that is, the gold was washed from the earth, and not crushed from the quartz. In the flush days of Rocky Gully, rich "pockets" of gold were struck, and huge fortunes made. Life then, in the character of its splendours and pleasures, was barbaric. Lucky diggers, with the spending lust upon them, ordered champagne baths, lit their pipes with five-pound notes, shod their horses with plates of gold, squandered their suddenly acquired riches on camp wantons, and among the harpies of the gambling hells. There were many exceptions to this foolish course, 'tis true; but such is the mental intoxication consequent upon a lucky find, and the sudden acquisition of wealth, that the majority of lucky diggers succumb, and in a few weeks or months, shorn of their possessions, either blow out their brains in remorse, or challenge fortune once more upon the same or some other goldfield.

Rocky Gully was now a worked-out diggings, and its population had long ago drifted away to other fields. Naught remained to remind one of its glory now but a few tumbledown houses, and the wood skeletons of iron buildings, together with countless heaps of empty tins and other refuse. Naught, that is, save a dozen or so of fossikers, who were distributed over the field; each having his area, into which the others never intruded.

How was it, then, that the Bullaroi party should have included a trip to the deserted mining camp in their programme of sport and adventure? There was nothing inviting in the region so far as game was concerned; nor was there the rough excitements of a live diggings. The truth is, it was the outcome of a suggestion of Harry. The stockman had a yarn he was very fond of relating, which included some tragic incidents associated with Rocky Gully. As a youth he lived there in its "boom" days, and towards the close of his stay there he was mates with Humpy Bob. Humpy Bob was an eccentric character, well known on a dozen goldfields, whose shrewdness as a gold finder was countervailed by his incredible folly in spending his riches. On one occasion, when he had struck a "pocket," from which he drew over a thousand ounces, he began a carouse which continued until the last penny was spent.

As illustrative of his folly during that spree, he purchased a general store for the sum of one thousand pounds. The same evening, in company with the drunken guests of a champagne party he had given, he proceeded to the store, deliberately fired it, and, with the other banqueters, stripped stark naked, danced a wild corrobberie while it burned.

Bob sober was the antithesis of Bob drunk. Abstemious, taciturn, industrious, solitary, with a genius for divining likely places, he followed the pursuit of gold: seldom failing to earn good wages; often winning handsome profits; occasionally making a pile.

Humpy's end came suddenly and tragically; and of this Harry was a witness.

The two men were driving a tunnel at a likely spot in the bank of a blind gully about three miles from the main camp. They worked in relays, and had driven in about a score of yards, when Harry suggested shoring it with saplings for safety. Humpy Bob, however, who was always running risks, made light of the suggestion. They had just struck a vein of promising stuff, which gave "prospects" of several grains to the dish. When it was Bob's turn to go on, Harry again suggested shoring up certain loose spots; especially one near where he had been picking, for there had been a small fall during his shift. This the other would not consent to, though his partner pleaded earnestly.

"There's a hundred to one chances against there being anything serious, mate, and I'm not goin' to waste any time in propping up the blessed tunnel. It's not worth it. We'll most likely clean it out to-morrer. So-long!"

So saying, the digger entered the drive, and was soon at his work. Harry, having nothing to do for a while, went to the tent and stretched himself on his bunk for a rest, intending to return in an hour or so to wheel out the mullock. Unfortunately he fell asleep, and hours passed by before he awoke. When he did, he jumped from his bunk and ran out to the drive, scolding himself for his negligence. The barrow was missing from its usual place, and, after a hasty search, the youth went to the tunnel's mouth and shouted to his mate. There was no response, nor were the usual pick sounds to be heard. The light was still burning at the end of the tunnel. Hastily traversing the drive in a half-stooping position, as indeed compelled by the size of the tunnel, the youth covered about half the distance when he stumbled over the barrow, severely barking his shins. Using hot language against the carelessness of his mate at leaving the barrow in such a place, and with a half fear at the unsatisfactory look of things, he scrambled up and went on towards the end of the tunnel. He had not taken more than two steps when he again stumbled; this time over a softer substance. It was his mate!

Humpy Bob was lying unconscious, half-covered with a mass of fallen earth and rocks. Groping his way across this pile of debris, the excited and frightened youth reached the end of the drive, seized the light and returned to his mate.

Tearing frantically at the soil and stones, he liberated old Humpy, and, as gently as possible, drew him to the tunnel mouth. Then dashing to the little stream below, he brought water in a billy, and made the customary attempts to restore his stricken mate to consciousness. His utmost attempts availed not. The vital spark had fled. Not all the resources of medicine or surgery could bring light into the half-closed eyes, or life into those rapidly stiffening limbs. Humpy Bob would never again unearth a nugget, rock a cradle, appraise the value of a prospect, or get on the "razzle-dazzle" and "paint the town red."

It would seem that after working for a while, and making a heap of mullock, the digger had come out of the tunnel for Harry. Not seeing him about, the old man seized the barrow with the object of wheeling out some of the earth. He had loaded it, and was in the act of wheeling it along, when a mass of earth fell full upon his back, fracturing the spine.

Harry was greatly affected by this sad occurrence; for Humpy Bob had many good points of character, and a strong attachment had grown up between them. As soon as his mate was buried, he left the goldfield, and got a job on one of the stations.

He had often thought of revisiting this scene, for he had a feeling that good gold would be found there. Of late the desire to test the ground again had grown strong, and, when the project of the jaunt to the seaside was launched, he suggested a trip to the old diggings. The boys gladly fell in with the idea, for it furnished them with an item that gave additional spice to the outing.

The journey to the diggings was necessarily slow. The pack-horses were heavily weighted by the extra burden of the fish, and the method of progress was that shuffling gait known as the "jog." Though monotonous and tiring to the rider, it is the easiest pace for the loaded animals, and one that can be kept up all day.

"Seems a pity that we should cart this blessed fish to the diggings, Sandy. Wouldn't it be better to 'cache' it somewhere near the junction? It's giving the horses unnecessary work, in my opinion. Let's see, it's twelve miles to the junction, an' fifteen from there to Rocky Gully. Supposin' we planted the stuff in the scrub at the junction; it'd save thirty miles of hauling, an' be no end of a gain all round."

"Good enough, Joe! What d'yer say, Harry? We could hide the barrels an' bag easy enough in the scrub."

"M-yes, perhaps so. Come ter think of it, I'm not so sure. Barrels'd be all right, but 'twon't be the dingoes' fault if they don't root out the dried fish. Tell you what, boys, plant 'em in the caves!"

"Good shot! The very thing the doctor ordered! The caves! yes. 'Twon't take us more'n a mile out of the way; an' 'twill be on the road to Bullaroi on the return trip. We can easily strike in on the west side of the cave ridge, and hide 'em in the stables. Nobody knows of that place but father an' the 'rangers; now poor ole Ben's shot----"

"Maybe it's ha-aunted, bhoys. It's juist th' sphot owld Ben'd hide his sowl in, so as to frighten awa-ay th' p'lice whin they goes rummagin' about f'r booty; loike th' carr-sthle ghosts in th' owld conthry. Bedad, thin, Oi'll be expactin' t' see th' bowld raider comin' on us out iv th' dark, his face shinin' loike th' stuff phwat matches is made ov."

"Brimstone an' treacle you're thinkin' of, ain't you, Denny? But, I say, chaps, it'll be better to hide 'em at the 'ranger's outlet; though it'll be the dickens own job to get the barrels into the cave up that slope. Wouldn't it be better, after all, to hide the stuff in the scrub, slinging the bag into a tree, high enough to be safe from the dingoes?"

So it would, and have saved a most painful experience; but having started the idea of hiding the fish in the caves, it presented an attraction that the others would not surrender. It gave a flavour of romance to the act. Now that he was dead, the bushranger's hiding-place took on a new interest; and so it came to pass that Tom found himself in a minority of one.

They found it a tough piece of work to get the barrels up the precipitous slope to the cave entrance. But, when the fish was at last stored in the forage chamber, as it was now called, and the party had remounted their horses, they could appreciate the advantage gained by relieving the pack-horses of so much dead weight.

They now made more rapid headway, and struck an accommodation house, in the early afternoon, kept by one Jago Smith--an old acquaintance of Harry's.

*CHAPTER XXXII*

*HOW THEY STRUCK GOLD*

"There's a bonny wee spot in the mountains I love, Where the pine trees are waving o'erhead far above, Where the miners are happy, kindhearted, and free; And many come here from way over the sea. There's gold in the mountain, there's gold in each glen, The good time is coming, have patience, brave men; Hold on to your ledges, and soon you will see Both money and mills coming over the sea." C. CRAWFORD.

Jago Smith was an "old timer," as, in Colonial parlance, men with his past were called. A Londoner by birth, he was initiated when but a child into the arts and artifices of that profession which flourishes by the application of sleight-of-hand tricks to the pockets and purses of an unsuspecting public. In short, this London arab was a thief, belonging to just such a school as Dickens has portrayed in _Oliver Twist_.

His career as a collector of "wipes" was brought to a summary end through being caught full-handed in a theatre crush. A "Children's Court," or a "First Offender's Act," was unknown in the early days of the nineteenth century; consequently young Jago Smith was had up before the magistrate, committed to the Assizes, convicted to the hulks, and ultimately transported to Botany Bay to serve a term of penal servitude.

At a theatrical effort made by certain prisoners of histrionic talent at Sydney, at the tail-end of the eighteenth century, to which first Governor Philip and his wife were "graciously" invited, the following lines form part of the prologue composed for the occasion--

"From distant climes, o'er wide-spread seas, we come, But not with much eclat or beat of drum. True patriots all; for be it understood, We left our country for our country's good.

No private views disgraced our generous zeal, What urged our travels was our country's weal, And none can doubt, but that our emigration Has proved most useful to the British nation."

Fourteen years' penal servitude for the theft of a few pocket-handkerchiefs! Such a sentence to-day would be regarded as a monstrous iniquity; it passed without comment in those days.

But transportation was not an unmixed evil to Jago Smith. As early as 1793 schools were started at the penal settlement, under the impression that they would be the most likely means of effecting a reformation in the morals of youthful prisoners.

Jago, with the consent of the master to whom he was assigned on landing, attended a night school, and gained some insight into the three R's.

After a somewhat varied career, the ex-pickpocket, who had served his time, became a settler on Rocky Creek; and when the Rocky Gully gold rush set in he drove a very profitable trade with the diggers. In addition to raising cattle on his selection, Smith kept an accommodation house, where board and lodging was to be had. As the place was on the public road, about five miles from the diggings, it received much patronage. Jago was very proud of his signboard. It was an incontestable proof of his accomplishments in writing and spelling.

ACKOMERDASHON FUR MAN AN BESTE SMALL BIER SOULED HEAR GORD SIVE TH E KWEEN J SMITH

As the party drew up to the hitching blocks, old Jago, who was lounging in an arm-chair in the verandah, hobbled out to the front, quietly surveying the group; to whom Harry addressed himself.

"Good-evenin', Mister Smith. How are yer gettin' on these times?"

"Not gettin' any younger, you may be sure. But who be you?"

"Don't yer remember me, Jago?" replied the stockman, walking up to the old man.

"Yes; I see who it is now. You be the boy wot worked with old Humpy, an' used ter stay here when Bob had an attack of the jim-jams."

"The same, ole chap. We're goin' to put up here for the night, and intend goin' on to-morrer to where me an' Humpy worked when 'e was took. Got room for us, I s'pose?"

"Plenty o' room, me lad. Not over rushed with travellers these times. Better take your 'orses round ter the back; ye'll find the saddle-room in the old plice, an' yer can turn the neddies inter the paddock. There's plenty o' grass fer 'em."

The boys were ready for the supper of homely fare which awaited them at sunset. After supper, Harry and the old man got into a conversation, in which the former stated that he was determined to have a try at the old claim; for, though Humpy had put it about when working it that it was a "shicer," Harry, of course, knew differently. The gold-bearing stuff, it is true, was but a thin vein, but they expected it to develop into something better farther on. Old Jago informed him that no one had touched the spot, so far as he knew. Yes, he had some picks and shovels and prospecting dishes, which he had taken as payment at one time and another from hard-ups. Harry was welcome to make a selection.

This the stockman did without any delay. He took from the curious assortment of diggers' tools two picks, two short-handled shovels, two prospecting dishes, the roller and handle of a windlass, a couple of buckets, some stout rope, a length of chain, a strong hook, a crowbar, and a pound or two of blasting powder.

These he obtained as a loan, for Smith would not hear of pay. He viewed the whole thing in the light of a joke. The idea of Harry starting to work a claim with a parcel of kids who had never seen a gold shaft in their lives, with a time limit of three or four days at the most! The stockman was but humouring the fancies and ambitions of the kids. They, no doubt, expected to locate the golden nuggets in the same fashion that they would track a missing bullock on the bush, or run down a wild cat to its lair in a hollow log. Well, they would at least develop their arm muscles and have blistered hands to show their friends. So the old settler--who at the time of the rush had listened to the confident prediction of many a greenhorn, going post-haste to pick up the nuggets that were waiting for somebody to tumble over. Not so Harry; he, at least, was no greenhorn. He would give the abandoned workings a trial. It would be a novelty for the boys, and though they mightn't get anything to boast about, would, he was confident, get enough to give each member of the party a souvenir of the visit.

Leaving the accommodation house after an early breakfast, the band of diggers, for such we must now call them, arrived at the old workings in a couple of hours, passing _en route_ two or three fossikers who were working their shows. These ancients looked with a degree of astonishment upon this cluster of youths, whose very jauntiness was suggestive of a prime lark.

Arrived at the diggings, the party had a good look round. Intense solitude reigned everywhere, and save for the heaps of rusty cooking utensils and other rubbish there was little to indicate that the place had once been a busy hive of life and energy. An old signboard, written by another hand than had done Jago Smith's, was seen nailed to a tree. Its language was simple and to the point.

ROYAL HOTEL ALL DRINKS 6c.

_N.B.--Clean Glasses_

Harry took a rapid survey of the situation. The place apparently had not been disturbed since the fatal accident. The old tent poles remained as he had left them, and there was no evidence of any one having camped there for years.

Proceeding to the tunnel, which, as previously described, was driven into the perpendicular bank of a deep gully, things looked pretty much as they did on that fatal day, excepting that the earth had fretted away about the tunnel mouth, and, on venturing in a short distance, the man saw that the roof had broken down, completely blocking the mine.

"Well, Harry," exclaimed Joe, when the leader emerged from the tunnel mouth, which the boys had been eagerly watching, "is it all clear? Did you go to the end?"

Didn't git half-way. Tunnel's half blocked."

"What a pity!" chorused the lads.

"Dunno 'bout that; cause, yer see, it's proof ter me no one's bin interferin.'"

"'Twon't be a heavy job to clear it out, will it?" continued Joe.

"Carn't say; depends on the amount that's fallen. But 'tain't my notion ter use the tunnel at all. Yer see, it's this way: it may take us an hour or a day to clear the rubbage outer the tunnel. When we'd done that, we'd have ter do two other things afore we could tackle the wash-dirt. Fust an' foremost, there's plenty of foul air in the far end of the drive, like wot nearly pisened you coves in the caves. Let me tell you, it's hard work clearing the stinkin' air outer a tunnel. You can git it outer a shaft easy enough, by tyin' a bunch o' bushes onter a rope and running 'em up an' down; but it's mighty hard work clearin' a tunnel, an' orften a long job. Then, s'posin' we got it out, we'd have ter shore up the whole blessed length; for, let me tell you, I'm not goin' ter run any risks in this 'ere job. We've had fright enough over Joe an' the shark, an' I cuddent face the Boss an' the missus if anything happened to any of you here. Now, to shore up this blessed tunnel'd take a power of timber, an' ter git it an' fix it'd take a far longer time than we've got."

"Oh, I say, Harry," cried Tom in tones of deep disappointment, voicing the feelings of the group of boy diggers, "don't tell us it's all a go, an' we're to return without havin' a try! Can't you find some other spot?"

"Harry, ye spalpeen, Oi dhramed all laast night Oi was diggin' up gowlden prr-aties, an', ochone! Oi'd just stuck th' pick into a monsther iv a prr-atie, a ton weight at the laast, an' was tryin' me best to upind her wid a laver, whin owld Jago comes bangin' at th' dure. Begor! Oi was sweatin' loike a stoker whin th' owld mahn woke me. Jist give me wan little chanst, me bhoy, an' be Saint Michael Oi'll----"

"Ye'll git yer charnse, Denny, never fret. They's more ways of killin' a pig besides chokin' 'im with a lump o' butter. It never was my plan, boys, ter use the ole tunnel. There's a better way nor that. When me an' ole Humpy drove in 'ere, we wus follerin' a lead, an' ye niver can tell 'ow far yer 'ave ter go: maybe a few feet, maybe a 'undered yards afore it opens out inter a body. So we did the right thing then. Now I propose ter put down a shaft, to tap the wash-dirt jist erbout the end of the tunnel, or, maybe, a little furder up nor that. I calkerlate we'll tap it in twenty feet or so. I know the clarss of country we'll have to go through. All this bank's wot we call 'made up.' It's a formation called pudden stone. It's formed o' river wash, an' is pretty pebbly. The pebbles is the plums. We'll go through it in a couple o' days at most, an' that'd give us two days more afore we need clear orf 'ome."

The boys were delighted beyond measure at Harry's proposal, and set about rigging up the camp near the spot which the leader had selected to put down the shaft.

While the pals were doing this, Harry and Denny set to work at sinking the shaft. So expeditious were they that by night they had sunk the hole about ten feet and had rigged up the windlass. All the boys had a turn at digging, which they enjoyed immensely because of the novelty of the work. Harry and Denny, however, did the main part, while the lads manned the windlass, and hauled up the stuff from time to time, as the buckets were filled.

At daylight next morning the party were eating breakfast preparatory to a long day's work at the shaft. They had to do a good deal of blasting, for some of the stones were too heavy to haul up, and that consumed time. It was verging on evening when, clearing up a rather heavy blast, Harry, who had gone down to fill the bucket, cried out, "Haul up quick! we've broken through. Foul air!"

On winding their comrade up, he declared that the blast had broken the ground into the tunnel, and that the foul air was coming freely into the bottom of the shaft. "We'll let it stay as it is till termorrer, an' then we'll clear it out."