Selected Stories By Henry Lawson Part 32

"We'll work this thing on the strict Q.T.," said Dave.

He and Jim had a consultation by the camp fire outside their tent. Jim grumbled, in conclusion: "Well, then, best go under Jimmy Middleton. It's the shortest and straightest, and Jimmy's the freshest, anyway."

Then there was another trouble. How were they to account for the size of the waste-heap of clay on the surface which would be the result of such an extraordinary length of drive or tunnel for shallow sinkings? Dave had an idea of carrying some of the dirt away by night and putting it down a deserted shaft close by; but that would double the labour, and might lead to detection sooner than anything else. There were boys 'possum-hunting on those flats every night. Then Dave got an idea.

There was supposed to exist-and it has since been proved-another, a second gold-bearing alluvial bottom on that field, and several had tried for it. One, the town watchmaker, had sunk all his money in "duffers", trying for the second bottom. It was supposed to exist at a depth of from eighty to a hundred feet-on solid rock, I suppose. This watchmaker, an Italian, would put men on to sink, and superintend in person, and whenever he came to a little "colour" showing shelf, or false bottom, thirty or forty feet down-he'd go rooting round and spoil the shaft, and then start to sink another. It was extraordinary that he hadn't the sense to sink straight down, thoroughly test the second bottom, and if he found no gold there, to fill the shaft up to the other bottoms, or build platforms at the proper level and then explore them. He was living in a lunatic asylum the last I heard of him. And the last time I heard from that field, they were boring the ground like a sieve, with the latest machinery, to find the best place to put down a deep shaft, and finding gold from the second bottom on the bore. But I'm right off the line again.

"Old Pinter", Ballarat digger-his theory on second and other bottoms ran as follows:- "Ye see, this here gra.s.s surface-this here surface with trees an' gra.s.s on it, that we're livin' on, has got nothin' to do with us. This here bottom in the shaller sinkin's that we're workin' on is the slope to the bed of the new crick that was on the surface about the time that men was missin' links. The false bottoms, thirty or forty feet down, kin be said to have been on the surface about the time that men was monkeys. The secon' bottom-eighty or a hundred feet down-was on the surface about the time when men was frogs. Now--"

But it's with the missing-link surface we have to do, and had the friends of the local departed known what Dave and Jim were up to they would have regarded them as something lower than missing links.

"We'll give out we're tryin' for the second bottom," said Dave Regan. "We'll have to rig a fan for air, anyhow, and you don't want air in shallow sinkings."

"And someone will come poking round, and look down the hole and see the bottom," said Jim Bently.

"We must keep 'em away," said Dave. "Tar the bottom, or cover it with tarred canvas, to make it black. Then they won't see it. There's not many diggers left, and the rest are going; they're chucking up the claims in Log Paddock. Besides, I could get drunk and pick rows with the rest and they wouldn't come near me. The farmers ain't in love with us diggers, so they won't bother us. No man has a right to come poking round another man's claim: it ain't ettykit-I'll root up that old ettykit and stand to it-it's rather worn out now, but that's no matter. We'll s.h.i.+ft the tent down near the claim and see that no one comes nosing round on Sunday. They'll think we're only some more second-bottom lunatics, like Francea (the mining watchmaker). We're going to get our fortune out from under that old graveyard, Jim. You leave it all to me till you're born again with brains."

Dave's schemes were always elaborate, and that was why they so often came to the ground. He logged up his windla.s.s platform a little higher, bent about eighty feet of rope to the bole of the windla.s.s, which was a new one, and thereafter, whenever a suspicious-looking party (that is to say, a digger) hove in sight, Dave would let down about forty feet of rope and then wind, with simulated exertion, until the slack was taken up and the rope lifted the bucket from the shallow bottom.

"It would look better to have a whip-pole and a horse, but we can't afford them just yet," said Dave.

But I'm a little behind. They drove straight in under the cemetery, finding good wash all the way. The edge of Jimmy Middleton's box appeared in the top corner of the "face" (the working end) of the drive. They went under the b.u.t.t-end of the grave. They shoved up the end of the sh.e.l.l with a prop, to prevent the possibility of an accident which might disturb the mound above; they puddled-i.e., rammed-stiff clay up round the edges to keep the loose earth from dribbling down; and having given the bottom of the coffin a good coat of tar, they got over, or rather under, an unpleasant matter.

Jim Bently smoked and burnt paper during his s.h.i.+ft below, and grumbled a good deal. "Blowed if I ever thought I'd be rooting for gold down among the blanky dead men," he said. But the dirt panned out better every dish they washed, and Dave worked the "wash" out right and left as they drove.

But, one fine morning, who should come along but the very last man whom Dave wished to see round there-"Old Pinter" (James Poynton), Californian and Victorian digger of the old school. He'd been prospecting down the creek, carried his pick over his shoulder-threaded through the eye in the heft of his big-bladed, short-handled shovel that hung behind-and his gold-dish under his arm.

I mightn't get a chance again to explain what a gold-dish and what gold-was.h.i.+ng is. Agold-was.h.i.+ng dish is a flat dish-nearer the shape of a bedroom bath-tub than anything else I have seen in England, or the dish we used for setting milk-I don't know whether the same is used here: the gold-dish measures, say, eighteen inches across the top. You get it full of wash dirt, squat down at a convenient place at the edge of the water-hole, where there is a rest for the dish in the water just below its own depth. You sink the dish and let the clay and gravel soak a while, then you work and rub it up with your hands, and as the clay dissolves, dish it off as muddy water or mullock. You are careful to wash the pebbles in case there is any gold sticking to them. And so till all the muddy or clayey matter is gone, and there is nothing but clean gravel in the bottom of the dish. You work this off carefully, turning the dish about this way and that and swis.h.i.+ng the water round in it. It requires some practice. The gold keeps to the bottom of the dish, by its own weight. At last there is only a little half-moon of sand or fine gravel in the bottom lower edge of the dish-you work the dish slanting from you. Presently the gold, if there was any in the dirt, appears in "colours", grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coa.r.s.er the gold is, the sooner it appears. Apractised digger can work off the last speck of gravel, without losing a "colour", by just working the water round and off in the dish. Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold in a tub of dirt, and, was.h.i.+ng it off in dishfuls, recover practically every colour.

The gold-was.h.i.+ng "cradle" is a box, shaped something like a boot, and the size of a travelling trunk, with rockers on, like a baby's cradle, and a stick up behind for a handle; on top, where you'll put your foot into the boot, is a tray with a perforated iron bottom; the clay and gravel is thrown on the tray, water thrown on it, and the cradle rocked smartly. The finer gravel and the mullock goes through and down over a sloping board covered with blanket, and with ledges on it to catch the gold. The dish was mostly used for prospecting; large quant.i.ties of wash dirt were put through the horse-power "puddling-machine", which there isn't room to describe here.

" 'Ello, Dave!" said Pinter, after looking with mild surprise at the size of Dave's waste-heap. "Tryin' for the second bottom?"

"Yes," said Dave, guttural.

Pinter dropped his tools with a clatter at the foot of the waste-heap and scratched his ear like an old c.o.c.katoo, which bird he resembled. Then he went to the windla.s.s, and resting his hands on his knees, he peered down, while Dave stood by helpless and hopeless.

Pinter straightened himself, blinking like an owl, and looked carelessly over the graveyard.

"Tryin' for a secon' bottom," he reflected absently. "Eh, Dave?"

Dave only stood and looked black.

Pinter tilted back his head and scratched the roots of his chinfeathers, which stuck out all round like a dirty, ragged fan held horizontally.

"Kullers is safe," reflected Pinter.

"All right," snapped Dave. "I suppose we must let him into it."

"Kullers" was a big American buck n.i.g.g.e.r, and had been Pinter's mate for some time-Pinter was a man of odd mates; and what Pinter meant was that Kullers was safe to hold his tongue.

Next morning Pinter and his coloured mate appeared on the ground early, Pinter with some tools and the n.i.g.g.e.r with a windla.s.s-bole on his shoulders. Pinter chose a spot about three panels or thirty feet along the other fence, the back fence of the cemetery, and started his hole. He lost no time for the sake of appearances; he sunk his shaft and started to drive straight for the point under the cemetery for which Dave was making; he gave out that he had bottomed on good "indications" running in the other direction, and would work the ground outside the fence. Meanwhile Dave rigged a fan-partly for the sake of appearances, but mainly because his and Jim's lively imaginations made the air in the drive worse than it really was. A "fan" is a thing like a paddle-wheel rigged in a box, about the size of a cradle, and something the shape of a shoe, but rounded over the top. There is a small grooved wheel on the axle of the fan outside, and an endless line, like a clothes-line, is carried over this wheel and a groove in the edge of a high light wooden driving-wheel rigged between two uprights in the rear and with a handle to turn. That's how the thing is driven. Awind-chute, like an endless pillow-slip, made of calico, with the mouth tacked over the open toe of the fan-box, and the end taken down the shaft and along the drive-this carries the fresh air into the workings.

Dave was working the ground on each side as he went, when one morning a thought struck him that should have struck him the day Pinter went to work. He felt mad that it hadn't struck him sooner.

Pinter and Kullers had also s.h.i.+fted their tent down into a nice quiet place in the Bush close handy; so, early next Sunday morning, while Pinter and Kullers were asleep, Dave posted Jim Bently to watch their tent, and whistle an alarm if they stirred, and then dropped down into Pinter's hole and saw at a glance what he was up to.

After that Dave lost no time; he drove straight on, encouraged by the thuds of Pinter's and Kullers' picks drawing nearer. They would strike his tunnel at right angles. Both parties worked long hours, only knocking off to fry a bit of steak in the pan, boil the billy, and throw themselves dressed on their bunks to get a few hours' sleep. Pinter had practical experience and a line clear of graves, and he made good time. The two parties now found it more comfortable to be not on speaking terms. Individually they grew furtive, and began to feel criminal like-at least Dave and Jim did. They'd start if a horse stumbled through the Bush, and expected to see a mounted policeman ride up at any moment and hear him ask questions. They had driven about thirty-five feet when, one Sat.u.r.day afternoon, the strain became too great, and Dave and Jim got drunk. The spree lasted over Sunday, and on Monday morning they felt too shaky to come to work and had more drink. On Monday afternoon, Kullers, whose s.h.i.+ft it was below, stuck his pick through the "face" of his drive into the wall of Dave's, about four feet from the end of it: the clay flaked away, leaving a hole as big as a wash-hand basin. They knocked off for the day and decided to let the other party take the offensive.

Tuesday morning Dave and Jim came to work, still feeling shaky. Jim went below, crawled along the drive, lit his candle, and stuck it in the spiked iron socket and the spike in the wall of the drive, quite close to the hole, without noticing either the hole or the increased freshness in the air. He started picking away at the "face" and sc.r.a.ping the clay back from under his feet, and didn't hear Kullers come to work. Kullers came in softly and decided to try a bit of cheerful bluff. He stuck his great round black face through the hole, the whites of his eyes rolling horribly in the candle-light, and said, with a deep guffaw: " 'Ullo! you dar'?"

No bandicoot ever went into his hole with the dogs after him quicker than Jim came out of his. He scrambled up the shaft by the foot-holes, and sat on the edge of the waste-heap, looking very pale.

"What's the matter?" asked Dave. "Have you seen a ghost?"

"I've seen the-the devil!" gasped Jim. "I'm-I'm done with this here ghoul business."

The parties got on speaking terms again. Dave was very warm, but Jim's language was worse. Pinter scratched his chinfeathers reflectively till the other party cooled. There was no appealing to the Commissioner for goldfields; they were outside all law, whether of the goldfields or otherwise-so, they did the only thing possible and sensible, they joined forces and became "Poynton, Regan & Party". They agreed to work the ground from the separate shafts, and decided to go ahead, irrespective of appearances, and get as much dirt out and cradled as possible before the inevitable exposure came along. They found plenty of "payable dirt", and soon the drive ended in a cl.u.s.ter of roomy chambers. They timbered up many coffins of various ages, burnt tarred canvas and brown paper, and kept the fan going. Outside they paid the storekeeper with difficulty and talked of hard times.

But one fine sunny morning, after about a week of partners.h.i.+p, they got a bad scare. Jim and Kullers were below, getting out dirt for all they were worth, and Pinter and Dave at their windla.s.ses, when who should march down from the cemetery gate but Mother Middleton herself. She was a hard woman to look at. She still wore the old-fas.h.i.+oned crinoline and her hair in a greasy net; and on this as on most other sober occasions, she wore the expression of a rough Irish navvy who has just enough drink to make him nasty and is looking out for an excuse for a row. She had a stride like a grenadier. Adigger had once measured her step by her footprints in the mud where she had stepped across a gutter; it measured three feet from toe to heel.

She marched to the grave of Jimmy Middleton, laid a dingy bunch of flowers thereon, with the gesture of an angry man banging his first down on the table, turned on her heel, and marched out. The diggers were dirt beneath her feet. Presently they heard her drive on in her spring-cart on her way into town, and they drew breaths of relief.

It was afternoon. Dave and Pinter were feeling tired, and were just deciding to knock off work for that day when they heard a scuffling in the direction of the different shafts, and both Jim and Kullers dropped down and bundled in in a great hurry. Jim chuckled in a silly way, as if there was something funny, and Kullers guffawed in sympathy.

"What's up now?" demanded Dave apprehensively.

"Mother Middleton," said Jim; "she's blind mad drunk, and she's got a bottle in one hand and a new pitchfork in the other, that she's bringing out for someone."

"How the h.e.l.l did she drop to it?" exclaimed Pinter.

"Dunno," said Jim. "Anyway, she's coming for us. Listen to her!"

They didn't have to listen hard. The language which came down the shaft-they weren't sure which one-and along the drives was enough to scare up the dead and make them take to the Bush.

"Why didn't you fools make off into the Bush and give us a chance, instead of giving her a lead here?" asked Dave.

Jim and Kullers began to wish they had done so.

Mrs Middleton began to throw stones, down the shaft-it was Pinter's-and they, even the oldest and most anxious, began to grin in spite of themselves, for they knew she couldn't hurt them from the surface, and that, though she had been a working digger herself, she couldn't fill both shafts before the fumes of liquor overtook her.

"I wonder which shaf' she'll come down," asked Kullers in a tone befitting the place and occasion.

"You'd better go and watch your shaft, Pinter," said Dave, "and Jim and I'll watch mine."

"I-I won't," said Pinter hurriedly. "I'm-I'm a modest man."

Then they heard a clang in the direction of Pinter's shaft.

"She's thrown her bottle down," said Dave.

Jim crawled along the drive a piece, urged by curiosity, and returned hurriedly.

"She's broke the pitchfork off short, to use in the drive, and I believe she's coming down."

"Her crinoline'll handicap her," said Pinter vacantly, "that's a comfort."

"She's took it off!" said Dave excitedly; and peering along Pinter's drive, they saw first an elastic-sided boot, then a red-striped stocking, then a section of scarlet petticoat.

"Lemme out!" roared Pinter, lurching forward and making a swimming motion with his hands in the direction of Dave's drive. Kullers was already gone and Jim was well on the way. Dave, lanky and awkward, scrambled up the shaft last. Mrs Middleton made good time, considering she had the darkness to face and didn't know the workings, and when Dave reached the top he had a tear in the leg of his moleskins, and the blood ran from a nasty scratch. But he didn't wait to argue over the price of a new pair of trousers. He made off through the Bush in the direction of an encouraging whistle thrown back by Jim.

"She's too drunk to get her story listened to to-night," said Dave. "But to-morrow she'll bring the neighbourhood down on us."

"And she's enough, without the neighbourhood," reflected Pinter.

Some time after dark they returned cautiously, reconnoitred their camp, and after hiding in a hollow log such things as they couldn't carry, they rolled up their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.

The Loaded Dog.

DAVE REGAN, Jim Bently, and Andy Page were sinking a shaft at Stony Creek in search of a rich gold quartz reef which was supposed to exist in the vicinity. There is always a rich reef supposed to exist in the vicinity; the only questions are whether it is ten feet or hundreds beneath the surface, and in which direction. They had struck some pretty solid rock, also water which kept them bailing. They used the old-fas.h.i.+oned blasting-powder and time-fuse. They'd make a sausage or cartridge of blasting-powder in a skin of strong calico or canvas, the mouth sewn and bound round the end of the fuse; they'd dip the cartridge in melted tallow to make it water-tight, get the drill-hole as dry as possible, drop in the cartridge with some dry dust, and wad and ram with stiff clay and broken brick. Then they'd light the fuse and get out of the hole and wait. The result was usually an ugly pot-hole in the bottom of the shaft and half a barrow-load of broken rock.

There was plenty of fish in the creek, fresh-water bream, cod, cat-fish, and tailers. The party were fond of fish, and Andy and Dave of fis.h.i.+ng. Andy would fish for three hours at a stretch if encouraged by a "nibble" or a "bite" now and then-say once in twenty minutes. The butcher was always willing to give meat in exchange for fish when they caught more than they could eat; but now it was winter, and these fish wouldn't bite. However, the creek was low, just a chain of muddy water-holes, from the hole with a few bucketfuls in it to the sizable pool with an average depth of six or seven feet, and they could get fish by bailing out the smaller holes or muddying up the water in the larger ones till the fish rose to the surface. There was the cat-fish, with spikes growing out of the sides of its head, and if you got p.r.i.c.ked you'd know it, as Dave said. Andy took off his boots, tucked up his trousers, and went into a hole one day to stir up the mud with his feet, and he knew it. Dave scooped one out with his hand and got p.r.i.c.ked, and he knew it too; his arm swelled, and the pain throbbed up into his shoulder, and down into his stomach too, he said, like a toothache he had once, and kept him awake for two nights-only the toothache pain had a "burred edge", Dave said.

Dave got an idea.

"Why not blow the fish up in the big water-hole with a cartridge?" he said. "I'll try it."

He thought the thing out and Andy Page worked it out. Andy usually put Dave's theories into practice if they were practicable, or bore the blame for the failure and the chaffing of his mates if they weren't.

He made a cartridge about three times the size of those they used in the rock. Jim Bently said it was big enough to blow the bottom out of the river. The inner skin was of stout calico; Andy stuck the end of a six-foot piece of fuse well down in the powder and bound the mouth of the bag firmly to it with whipcord. The idea was to sink the cartridge in the water with the open end of the fuse attached to a float on the surface, ready for lighting. Andy dipped the cartridge in melted bees'-wax to make it water-tight. "We'll have to leave it some time before we light it," said Dave, "to give the fish time to get over their scare when we put it in, and come nosing round again; so we'll want it well water-tight."

Round the cartridge Andy, at Dave's suggestion, bound a strip of sail canvas-that they used for making water-bags-to increase the force of the explosion, and round that he pasted layers of stiff brown paper-on the plan of the sort of fireworks we called "gun-crackers". He let the paper dry in the sun, then he sewed a covering of two thicknesses of canvas over it, and bound the thing from end to end with stout fis.h.i.+ng-line. Dave's schemes were elaborate, and he often worked his inventions out to nothing. The cartridge was rigid and solid enough now-a formidable bomb; but Andy and Dave wanted to be sure. Andy sewed on another layer of canvas, dipped the cartridge in melted tallow, twisted a length of fencing-wire round it as an afterthought, dipped it in tallow again, and stood it carefully against a tent-peg, where he'd know where to find it, and wound the fuse loosely round it. Then he went to the camp-fire to try some potatoes which were boiling in their jackets in a billy, and to see about frying some chops for dinner. Dave and Jim were at work in the claim that morning.

They had a big black young retriever dog-or rather an overgrown pup, a big, foolish, four-footed mate, who was always s...o...b..ring round them and las.h.i.+ng their legs with his heavy tail that swung round like a stock-whip. Most of his head was usually a red, idiotic, s...o...b..ring grin of appreciation of his own silliness. He seemed to take life, the world, his two-legged mates, and his own instinct as a huge joke. He'd retrieve anything: he carted back most of the camp rubbish that Andy threw away. They had a cat that died in hot weather, and Andy threw it a good distance away in the scrub; and early one morning the dog found the cat, after it had been dead a week of so, and carried it back to camp, and laid it just inside the tent-flaps, where it could best make its presence known when the mates should rise and begin to sniff suspiciously in the sickly, smothering atmosphere of the summer sunrise. He used to retrieve them when they went in swimming; he'd jump in after them, and take their hands in his mouth, and try to swim out with them, and scratch their naked bodies with his paws. They loved him for his good-heartedness and his foolishness, but when they wished to enjoy a swim they had to tie him up in camp.

He watched Andy with great interest all the morning making the cartridge, and hindered him considerably, trying to help; but about noon he went off to the claim to see how Dave and Jim were getting on, and to come home to dinner with them. Andy saw them coming, and put a panful of mutton-chops on the fire. Andy was cook to-day; Dave and Jim stood with their backs to the fire, as Bushmen do in all weathers, waiting till dinner should be ready. The retriever went nosing round after something he seemed to have missed.

Andy's brain still worked on the cartridge; his eye was caught by the glare of an empty kerosene-tin lying in the bushes, and it struck him that it wouldn't be a bad idea to sink the cartridge packed with clay, sand, or stones in the tin, to increase the force of the explosion. He may have been all out, from a scientific point of view, but the notion looked all right to him. Jim Bently, by the way, wasn't interested in their "d.a.m.ned silliness". Andy noticed an empty treacle-tin-the sort with the little tin neck or spout soldered on to the top for the convenience of pouring out the treacle-and it struck him that this would have made the best kind of cartridge-case; he would only have had to pour in the powder, stick the fuse in through the neck, and cork and seal it with bees'-wax. He was turning to suggest this to Dave, when Dave glanced over his shoulder to see how the chops were doing-and bolted. He explained afterwards that he thought he heard the pan spluttering extra; and looked to see if the chops were burning. Jim Bently looked behind and bolted after Dave. Andy stood stock-still, staring after them.

"Run, Andy! run!" they shouted back at him. "Run!!! Look behind you, you fool!" Andy turned slowly and looked, and there, close behind him, was the retriever with the cartridge in his mouth-wedged into his broadest and silliest grin. And that wasn't all. The dog had come round the fire to Andy, and the loose end of the fuse had trailed and waggled over the burning sticks into the blaze; Andy had slit and nicked the firing end of the fuse well, and now it was hissing and spitting properly.

Andy's legs started with a jolt; his legs started before his brain did, and he made after Dave and Jim. And the dog followed Andy.

Dave and Jim were good runners-Jim the best-for a short distance; Andy was slow and heavy, but he had the strength and the wind and could last. The dog leapt and capered round him, delighted as a dog could be to find his mates, as he thought, on for a frolic. Dave and Jim kept shouting back, "Don't foller us! don't foller us, you coloured fool!" but Andy kept on, no matter how they dodged. They could never explain, any more than the dog, why they followed each other, but so they ran, Dave keeping in Jim's track in all its turnings, Andy after Dave, and the dog circling round Andy-the live fuse swis.h.i.+ng in all directions and hissing and spluttering and stinking; Jim yelling to Dave not to follow him, Dave shouting to Andy to go in another direction-to "spread out"-and Andy roaring at the dog to go home. Then Andy's brain began to work, stimulated by the crisis: he tried to get a running kick at the dog, but the dog dodged; he s.n.a.t.c.hed up sticks and stones and threw them at the dog and ran on again. The retriever saw that he'd made a mistake about Andy, and left him and bounded after Dave. Dave, who had the presence of mind to think that the fuse's time wasn't up yet, made a dive and a grab for the dog, caught him by the tail, and as he swung round s.n.a.t.c.hed the cartridge out of his mouth and flung it as far as he could: the dog immediately bounded after it and retrieved it. Dave roared, and cursed at the dog, who, seeing that Dave was offended, left him and went after Jim, who was well ahead. Jim swung to a sapling and went up it like a native bear; it was a young sapling, and Jim couldn't safely get more than ten or twelve feet from the ground. The dog laid the cartridge, as carefully, as if it was a kitten, at the foot of the sapling, and capered and leaped and whooped joyously round under Jim. The big pup reckoned that this wa s part of the lark-he was all right now-it was Jim who was out for a spree. The fuse sounded as if it were going a mile a minute. Jim tried to climb higher and the sapling bent and cracked. Jim fell on his feet and ran. The dog swooped on the cartridge and followed. It all took but a very few moments. Jim ran to a digger's hole, about ten feet deep, and dropped down into it-landing on soft mud-and was safe. The dog grinned sardonically down on him, over the edge, for a moment, as if he thought it would be a good lark to drop the cartridge down on Jim.

"Go away, Tommy," said Jim feebly, "go away."

The dog bounded off after Dave, who was the only one in sight now; Andy had dropped behind a log, where he lay flat on his face, having suddenly remembered a picture of the Russo-Turkish war with a circle of Turks lying flat on their faces (as if they were ashamed) round a newly-arrived sh.e.l.l.

There was a small hotel or shanty on the creek on the main road, not far from the claim. Dave was desperate, the time flew much faster in his stimulated imagination than it did in reality, so he made for the shanty. There were several casual Bushmen on the verandah and in the bar; Dave rushed into the bar, banging the door to behind him. "My dog!" he gasped, in reply to the astonished stare of the publican, "the blanky retriever-he's got a live cartridge in his mouth--"

The retriever, finding the front door shut against him, had bounded round and in by the back way, and now stood smiling in the doorway leading from the pa.s.sage, the cartridge still in his mouth and the fuse spluttering. They burst out of that bar. Tommy bounded first after one and then after another, for, being a young dog, he tried to make friends with everybody.

The Bushmen ran round corners, and some shut themselves in the stable. There was a new weatherboard and corrugated-iron kitchen and wash-house on piles in the back-yard, with some women was.h.i.+ng clothes inside. Dave and the publican bundled in there and shut the door-the publican cursing Dave and calling him a crimson fool, in hurried tones, and wanting to know what the h.e.l.l he came here for.

The retriever went in under the kitchen, amongst the piles, but, luckily for those inside, there was a vicious yellow mongrel cattle-dog sulking and nursing his nastiness under there-a sneaking, fighting, thieving canine, whom neighbours had tried for years to shoot or poison. Tommy saw his danger-he'd had experience from this dog-and started out and across the yard, still sticking to the cartridge. Half-way across the yard the yellow dog caught him and nipped him. Tommy dropped the cartridge, gave one terrified yell, and took to the Bush. The yellow dog followed him to the fence and then ran back to see what he had dropped.

Nearly a dozen other dogs came from round all the corners and under the buildings-spidery, thievish, cold-blooded kangaroo-dogs, mongrel sheep-and cattle-dogs, vicious black and yellow dogs-that slip after you in the dark, nip your heels, and vanish without explaining-and yapping, yelping small fry. They kept at a respectable distance round the nasty yellow dog, for it was dangerous to go near him when he thought he had found something which might be good for a dog to eat. He sniffed at the cartridge twice, and was just taking a third cautious sniff when-- It was a very good blasting-powder-a new brand that Dave had recently got up from Sydney; and the cartridge had been excellently well made. Andy was very patient and painstaking in all he did, and nearly as handy as the average sailor with needles, twine, canvas, and rope.

Bushmen say that that kitchen jumped off its piles and on again. When the smoke and dust cleared away, the remains of the nasty yellow dog were lying against the paling fence of the yard looking as if he had been kicked into a fire by a horse and afterwards rolled in the dust under a barrow, and finally thrown against the fence from a distance. Several saddle-horses, which had been "hanging-up" round the verandah, were galloping wildly down the road in clouds of dust, with broken bridle-reins flying; and from a circle round the outskirts, from every point of the compa.s.s in the scrub, came the yelping of dogs. Two of them went home, to the place where they were born, thirty miles away, and reached it the same night and stayed there; it was not till towards evening that the rest came back cautiously to make inquiries. One was trying to walk on two legs, and most of 'em looked more or less singed; and a little, singed, stumpy-tailed dog, who had been in the habit of hopping the back half of him along on one leg, had reason to be glad that he'd saved up the other leg all those years, for he needed it now. There was one old one-eyed cattle-dog round that shanty for years afterwards, who couldn't stand the smell of a gun being cleaned. He it was who had taken an interest, only second to that of the yellow dog, in the cartridge. Bushmen said that it was amusing to slip up on his blind side and stick a dirty ramrod under his nose: he wouldn't wait to bring his solitary eye to bear-he'd take to the Bush and stay out all night.

For half an hour or so after the explosion there were several Bushmen round behind the stable who crouched, doubled up, against the wall, or rolled gently on the dust, trying to laugh without shrieking. There were two white women in hysterics at the house, and a half-caste rus.h.i.+ng aimlessly round with a dipper of cold water. The publican was holding his wife tight and begging her between her squawks, to "hold up for my sake, Mary, or I'll lam the life out of ye".

Dave decided to apologise later on, "when things had settled a bit", and went back to camp. And the dog that had done it all, "Tommy", the great, idiotic mongrel retriever, came s...o...b..ring round Dave and las.h.i.+ng his legs with his tail, and trotted home after him, smiling his broadest, longest, and reddest smile of amiability, and apparently satisfied for one afternoon with the fun he'd had.

Andy chained the dog up securely, and cooked some more chops, while Dave went to help Jim out of the hole.

And most of this is why, for years afterwards, lanky, easy-going Bushmen, riding lazily past Dave's camp, would cry, in a lazy drawl and with just a hint of the nasal tw.a.n.g: "'El-lo, Da-a-ve! How's the fis.h.i.+n' getting on, Da-a-ve?"

A Wild Irishman.

ABOUT seven years ago I drifted from out back in Australia to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, and up country to a little town called Pahiatua, which meaneth the "home of the G.o.ds", and is situated in the Wairarapa (rippling or sparkling water) district. They have a pretty little legend to the effect that the name of the district was not originally suggested by its rivers, streams, and lakes, but by the tears alleged to have been noticed, by a dusky squire, in the eyes of a warrior chief who was looking his first, or last-I don't remember which-upon the scene. He was the discoverer, I suppose, now I come to think of it, else the place would have been already named. Maybe the scene reminded the old cannibal of the home of his childhood.

Pahiatua was not the home of my G.o.d; and it rained for five weeks. While waiting for a remittance, from an Australian newspaper-which, I anxiously hoped, would arrive in time for enough of it to be left (after paying board) to take me away somewhere-I spent many hours in the little shop of a shoemaker who had been a digger; and he told me yarns of the old days on the West Coast of Middle Island. And, ever and anon, he returned to one, a hard case from the West Coast, called "The Flour of Wheat", and his cousin, and his mate, Dinny Murphy, dead. And ever and again the shoemaker (he was large, humorous, and good-natured) made me promise that, when I dropped across an old West Coast digger-no matter who or what he was, or whether he was drunk or sober-I'd ask him if he knew the Flour of Wheat, and hear what he had to say.

I make no attempt to give any one shade of the Irish brogue-it can't be done in writing.

"There's the little red Irishman," said the shoemaker, who was Irish himself, "who always wants to fight when he has a gla.s.s in him; and there's the big sarcastic dark Irishman who makes more trouble and fights at a spree than half-a-dozen little red ones put together; and there's the cheerful easy-going Irishman. Now the Flour was a combination of all three and several other sorts. He was known from the first amongst the boys at Th' Canary as the Flour o' Wheat, but no one knew exactly why. Some said that the right name was the F1-o-w-e-r, not F1-o-u-r, and that he was called that because there was no flower on wheat. The name might have been a compliment paid to the man's character by someone who understood and appreciated it-or appreciated it without understanding it. Or it might have come of some chance saying of the Flour himself, or his mates-or an accident with bags of flour. He might have worked in a mill. But we've had enough of that. It's the man-not the name. He was just a big, dark, blue-eyed Irish digger. He worked hard, drank hard, fought hard-and didn't swear. No man had ever heard him swear (except once); all things were 'lovely' with him. He was always lucky. He got gold and threw it away.

"The Flour was sent out to Australia (by his friends) in connection with some trouble in Ireland in eighteen-something. The date doesn't matter; there was mostly trouble in Ireland in those days; and n.o.body, that knew the man, could have the slightest doubt that he helped the trouble-provided he was there at the time. I heard all this from a man who knew him in Australia. The relatives that he was sent out to were soon very anxious to see the end of him. He was as wild as they made them in Ireland. When he had a few drinks, he'd walk restlessly to and fro outside the shanty, swinging his right arm across in front of him with elbow bent and hand closed, as if he had a head in chancery, and muttering, as though in explanation to himself: " 'Oi must be walkin' or foightin'!-Oi must be walkin' or foightin'!-Oi must be walkin' or foightin!'

"They say that he wanted to eat his Australian relatives before he was done; and the story goes that one night, while he was on the spree, they put their belongings into a cart and took to the Bush.

"There's no floury record for several years; then the Flour turned up on the West Coast of New Zealand and was never very far from a pub kept by a cousin (that he had tracked, unearthed, or discovered somehow) at a place called Th' Canary. I remember the first time I saw the Flour.

"I was on a bit of a spree myself, at Th' Canary, and one evening I was standing outside Brady's (the Flour's cousin's place) with Tom Lyons and Dinny Murphy, when I saw a big man coming across the flat with a swag on his back.