Part 20 (1/2)

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. A gold 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. A practised 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 was 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 under 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 chin-feathers, 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. A wind-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?'