In the Roaring Fifties by Edward Dyson (best classic books TXT) 📖

to a large wooden hall with a row of lamps blazing along its front and a foreign sign over the door. From within floated strains of music and the beating of many feet. Jim entered. The place was crowded with hairy diggers--mostly successful, he learned presently. The atmosphere was heavy with smoke. A wild dance was going on, and several sets held the floor. Half a dozen of the most fortunate of the men had female partners, the others danced 'bucks,' man and man, and the pounding of their heavy boots and the yells of laughter provoked by their clumsy movements quite drowned the music of the feeble orchestra, crowded away in the far corner of the room. Along one end ran an unplaned wooden counter, where two or three barmen were kept busy serving gin, brandy, and rum to the parched dancers. When the dance was ended there was a rush for the bar, and Jim found now that dancing did not go by favour, the hands of the fair being bestowed upon the highest bidders. One tall, lack-haired, laughing girl, with the figure and face of a Bacchante, sprang upon a chair, shaking aloft a yellow scarf, and was auctioned for the next dance amidst a storm of bidding and a hurricane of merriment. She was borne down the room in the arms of the triumphant digger, who had paid thirty 'weights' for his bouncing partner--six pounds for ten minutes' dancing, and the proud purchaser couldn't dance a step!

Jim watched the women curiously; they were a new type to him--young, virile, red-lipped, flushed with wine, shameless in the face of the crowd, their faces kindled with laughter. They led the men in their wild revel--pagans absolute. One in particular attracted Done; she was tall, dark-eyed, and black-haired. This, in conjunction with the bold combination of red and black in her costume, gave him the belief that she was Spanish. There was about her some suggestion of character and strength that pleased him. She romped like a child; her merriment was clean and unforced. He saw nothing of the corruption that Vice is supposed to stamp upon the faces of her votaries. These women, despite the feeble kerosene lights, the tobacco-smoke, and the bare, ugly walls, might have been participants in the revels of Dionysus.

Several times, passing him in the dance, the eyes of the Spaniard flashed into his own, and she smiled. When the dance was ended she confronted him.

'Sure, you're goin' to dance wid me, ain't ye now?' she said in the most mellifluous brogue.

Done shook his head and laughed with diffidence.

'No, thanks,' he said. 'I'm not a rich digger. Only a poor new chum,' he added, hoping to carry conviction.

'Straight from the Ould Country, is it?' asked the girl eagerly. 'Have ye the word of ould Ireland, an' how does she stand? The dance is yours for the shmallest token.'

'I'm sorry I don't know Ireland,' said Jim.

'Then I'll give you the dance fer natural love an' affection.'

Done protested that he could not dance, but the laughing girl dragged him into the thick of it.

'Come along!' she cried, dropping the brogue. 'I'm a patriot, and I love you for the green in your eye.'

Jim danced. He was literally forced into it, and presently found himself getting along quite decently in a barbaric sort of polka. When the music ceased he followed the custom of the country, and shouted for his partner. She drank sherry. He left the hall a few minutes later, with the girl's kiss, lightly given, tingling on his lips, and walked away quickly, treading on air. Presently he began to question himself. Why this growing exuberance? Was it drink? Never before had he felt its influence. He pulled himself together. He was crowding his sensation: it was time to cry a halt.

The young man returned to the hotel where he had left his belongings. The long bar was crowded with men. The hotel was little more than a large tent with a pretentious wooden front. It was illumined by a single lamp suspended above the counter. This lamp lit up the faces of the men gathered under it, but beyond the countenances of the customers faded into a mist of tobacco-smoke, deepening into darkness in the corners.

Done leant against the bar, watching the scene, still curious, content to wait till the busy barman had leisure to attend to him. After a few moments he found himself an object of most marked interest to a tall, thin digger, perched on an up-ended barrel, drinking porter. The man was watching him narrowly, and at length, as if to leave no doubt of his attentions, he stepped down, and, standing squarely in front of Done, looked him closely in the face. Jim returned the stare, finding curiosity deepen into surprise, and surprise into conviction, in the countenance confronting him.

'Solo!' cried the man. 'Solo, by all that's holy!' As he spoke he sprang between Jim and the door way, as if to cut off escape. 'Bail up!' he said; 'we've got you tight this trip.'

'You're making a mistake, I think, mate,' said Jim. 'Anyhow, my name is not Solo.'

'That's a bluff! I know you too damn well! Boys,' continued the miner, addressing the crowd, 'it's Solo. I'll wager my soul on it. Get at him! There's five hundred cold guineas on his head!'

'I tell you you're wrong!' blurted Done.

The tall man waited for no further argument, but jumped at Done, and they closed. There was a short struggle, and Jim put his opponent down with an old Cousin-Jack trick that he had often tried on better men.

'The man's drunk!' said Jim, as the crowd narrowed in on him. He set his back against the counter, prepared to make a good fight.

A raw-boned, brown-faced native of about twenty-six grappled with him, but only as a pretence, as Done speedily found.

'Bolt, or you're a done man!' whispered the Australian at his ear. 'When I smash the lamp, over the counter and under the tent, and skedaddle for your life!'

This young fellow allowed himself to be thrown off, and backed into the crowd. The long man, who had recovered his wind, turned to address the men.

'It's Solo, mates,' he said, 'and there's five hundred waiting for us if we take him.'

The men moved forward in a body, but just then a pewter crashed into the lamp, and there was darkness. Acting on his new friend's advice, Done cleared the counter at a bound, and dived under the canvas. Picking himself up, he ran into the darkness. He heard footsteps following him, and increased his pace, stumbling on the strange ground. But a voice assured him.

'Keep to the right! Make for cover!' panted his pursuer.


VII

FINDING only one man following, Jim Done ceased running on reaching a clump of trees, and presently he was joined by the young Australian who had aided him.

'My colonial, you sprint like an emu!' gasped the latter. 'All the same, that was a mad sort o' thing to do.'

'What was?'

'Why, showin' yourself 'bout here with the cheek of a dashed commissioner, while there's five hundred on your head, hot or cold, live or dead, an' every trooper in the country whim' to give his long ears to pot you.'

'But you are quite wrong; I'm not this Solo.'

'Not Solo! That won't wash. Wasn't I there with Long Aleck when you got away with the gold Hoban hid in our nosebag other side o' Geelong?'

'You're on the wrong scent. My name is Done. I'm a new chum, landed only this morning off the Francis Cadman.'

'Here, let's look you over again.' The stranger struck a match, and, shielding it with his hands, examined Jim's face. 'Dunno,' he said, 'but p'r'aps you are a bit young. Still, rig a beard around that chiv of yours, and it's Solo to the life.'

'If it's worth while, walk down to the ship with me, and I'll satisfy you in two minutes.'

Your word's good enough for me. Solo or no, taint my deal.'

'Well, you've gone to some trouble to help me out of a hole, and I'm obliged.' Done offered his hand, and the other shook it heartily. 'You might tell me who and what this Solo is,' continued Jim.

'Smartest, coolest, most darin' gold-thief in Australia. Outlawed for robbery under arms, wanted by all the police 'tween here and the Murray, and his head's worth five hundred to you 'r me, 'r any yob that can rob him of it. He works alone. What his right name is no one knows.'

'That's all a bright look-out for me!' laughed Jim. 'But if he's such an infernal scoundrel, and he's robbed you among the rest, why come to his rescue?'

''Pon my soul, I dunno I' replied the Australian, scratching his head dubiously, ''less it's 'cause of his pluck 'n' the dashed pleasant, gentlemanly way he has o' doin' things. By the way, what 're you out for? Goin' diggin'? Got a mate? Where 're you makin'?'

'I'm going digging. I have no mate. I can't say what field I'm making for till I know more about them.'

'Look here, take in my points.' The native struck another match, and held it that Done might make an inventory of his perfections. 'Five foot ten high, strong as a horse, sound in wind and limb, know the country, know the game, been on three fields, want a mate. Name's Micah Wentworth Burton--Mike for short. Got all traps, pans, shovels, picks, cradle, tub, windlass, barrow. Long Aleck--chap that attacked you--was my mate; he's turning teamster. Take me on, an' here's my hand. We're made for a pair.'

Burton stopped for lack of wind. He jerked his words with a slight nasal intonation, and his manner and his action indicated a characteristic impetuosity. Done was astounded at his own seeming good fortune and the other's rash confidence.

'Come,' he said doubtingly, 'do you mean to say you'll go into partnership in this desperate way with a man you don't know, but whom you suspect of being a notorious rogue, and give him all the advantages of your property and your knowledge?'

'Will I? My oath! Is it a deal? All that about Solo is off. I might 'a' known he had too much horse-sense to mooch about Melbourne disguised only in a daily shave. As for the rest, blast it! we're men. I take you on chance, you take me on spec. We can look after ourselves, I s'pose. Well, what say?'

'I couldn't ask for anything better. The only objection to the arrangement is that I take all and give nothing.'

'Done, then! But don't you run away with a wrong idea. There 're heaps o' decent men an' good miners in Melbourne who'd jump at a mate of your stamp. Come along to my tent up Canvas Town to-night. There's a spare bunk. Aleck started on a jamboree that won't mature for a week. We can talk things into order.'

Jim Done awoke next morning with a fear in his heart that he had made a fool of himself. His mate was sitting just without the tent, grilling chops on a piece of hoop-iron twisted into a grid. Jim's head felt new to him, and ached badly; old doubts, old prejudices, possessed him. Why should all the regard this stranger expressed have developed in an acquaintanceship of minutes? Why should Burton be so eager to bestow benefits upon him? That was