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

we gotter do somethin' with him.' The tone was apologetic.

'I dare say you are quite justified,' Jim answered. 'A man doesn't keep his father in a barrel for mere amusement.'

'No, he don't ordinary, does he?' answered the native gravely. 'Fact is, the dad goes on a tear now 'n again, an' we pen him up to sober off. We can look after him all right after knocking off, but if we was to let him loose while we was at work he'd go pourin' Bill Mooney's fork-lightnin' gin into him till he had his bluchers full o' snakes 'an the whole lead swarmin' with fantods. So when he starts to work up a jamboree we pull off his boots an' tuck him in the tub, fastens the head, an' leave him till he's willin' to think better of it.'

'Well, that's bringing up a father in the way he should go,' laughed Jim. 'I apologize for attempting to break into your inebriates' retreat.'

'Inebriates' retreat!' A wide grin slowly developed on Peetree's gaunt face. 'That's a first name for it,' he said. 'Hanged if we don't have it painted up!'

'A sign of some kind is necessary. But isn't the old man likely to suffocate with that bung in?'

'Not he; there's heaps o' breathin' in the cask. That bung's just to gag him awhile.'

That evening after tea the two sons, with old Peetree under guard between them, joined the mates at their fire. Harry, Jim's friend of the morning's adventure, was about twenty-eight, tall and bony, with the shoulder stoop of a hard worker. Con and the father had the same general peculiarities. The three were identical in height and complexion, and in their mannerism and tricks of speech; but to-night the old man had a vacant, helpless expression, and seemed for the greater part of the time unconscious of the company he was in, and looked furtively about him into the night, muttering strangely to himself, and picking eagerly at his shirt-sleeves. The sons pressed their father to a sitting position, and then seated themselves one on each side, mounting guard.

'See, we got him loose again,' said Harry.

'He's milder to-night,' answered Done. 'What's the matter with him?'

'Only a touch o' the jims. He's liable to howl a bit now 'n again, but don't mind him. He's all right. Ain't you, dad?' He gave the old man's head an affectionate push.

'Once he takes to smoke he's comin' round,' said Con Peetree, making a vain attempt to induce the old man to draw at his pipe.

'There ain't a finer ole tough walkin' when he's off the licker,' said the elder proudly, 'an' not a better miner-ever lived.'

Done watched the group with keen delight. The young men's respect for their bibulous parent was quite sincere, their care of him was marked with a rough but unmistakable liking. The conversation turned upon the characteristics of the lead at Jim Crow, and drifted to the inevitable subject, the development of the agitation for the emancipation of the miners and the doings and sayings of the insurgent party at Ballarat, and every now and again Peetree senior would whisper ambiguously: 'There ain't such a thing ez a drop of gin? No, of course not.'

Once Harry drew a small flask from his pocket, poured a little spirit into a pannikin, and gave it to the old man. 'Hair off his dog, you know,' he said. And two or three times Con made an effort to induce his father to take a whiff of smoke, but old Peetree shook his head disgustedly, and returned to his mutterings and the picking of imaginary tarantulas off his sleeves.

In the morning Jim noticed that the wards 'Inebrits' Retreet' had been printed on the barrel with pipeclay.

The good luck that had marked their initial effort on Diamond Gully followed the mates to Jim Crow. They struck the wash-dirt in their first claim, and Jim, in sinking through the alluvial, stuck his pick into the largest nugget he had yet seen, a lump of rugged gold, pure and clean, which Mike estimated to be worth four hundred pounds. It glowed in the sunlight with the lustre of a live ember, and, gazing upon it, Done trembled again with the vehement joy that thrills in the veins of the least avaricious digger at the sight of such a find.

'If there's a large family o' these we're made men,' said Burton, fondling the nugget.

'Unless some of Douglas's men take a fancy to them when we've unearthed them.'

'Or Solo chips in an' lifts the pile. We must keep it dark till this field sobers up a bit.'

The tub of dirt taken from the bottom of their hole--that is, the deepest part of the strata of alluvial deposit, to which the best of the gold almost in variably gravitates--was extremely rich. The dregs in the tub, after all the clay and dirt had been washed away, blazed with coarse pieces, and Done carried away at least five hundred pounds' worth in nuggets wrapped in his gray jumper. The coarse gold was picked out of the washed gravel, and then the remainder of the stuff was put through the cradle, the slides of which captured and retained the smaller gold, with a certain amount of sand, and this was washed again in the tin dish, the last grains of base material being got rid of by shaking the gold on a sheet of paper after it had been thoroughly dried, and blowing with the mouth, a process at which the diggers became so expert that very little of even the finest gold-dust was lost in the operation.

The mates finished their third day's work on Jim Crow, wet to the hips, smeared from top to toe with yellow clay, dog-weary, but quite jubilant. They were as well satisfied with their next day's work, and the next. They had succeeded in keeping the knowledge of their big find to themselves; but returning to their camp one night about a week later, Done was amazed to find the earthen floor of the tent dug up to a depth of about a foot. Burton grinned.

'Someone's bottomed a shicer to-night,' he said.

'What's the meaning of this?' asked Done.

'We've had a little visit from some damn scoundrel who thought we'd buried our gold here. Must 'a' taken us for a pair o' Johnnie-come-latelies.'

At that moment a shot rang out on the night air, and sounds of angry voices and scuffling came from the direction of the Peetrees' tent.

'By the Lord Harry, they've nabbed him!' said Mike. 'Come along!'

They found Con Peetree holding a man down with a persuasive revolver, while Harry, with a burning match sheltered in his palm, examined the captive.

'Cot him diggin' in our tent. He broke 'way, but I've winged him,' said Harry.

'He gave us a look in, too,' said Mike.

'Lose any stuff?'

'Not a colour.'

'Same here; but we can't let him go scot-free. That kink in the calf counts for nothing, and handin' him over to the beaks means too much worry. Here, give's a light, Burton.'

Mike struck a match, and, taking the thief by the ear, Harry Peetree drew a knife.

'Good God!' cried Jim, 'you don't mean to--' Jim's intervention was too late to help the prostrate man; Peetree had already slashed off the lobe of his left ear. He threw the fragment in the man's face.

'Now scoot!' he said, 'an' don't show yer ugly chiv on Jim Crow again, 'r you'll catch a fatal dose o' lead.

The crippled thief limped away without a word, pressing a palm to his streaming ear.

'That seemed an infernally brutal thing to do,' said Jim to his mate, when they were discussing the incident.

'Not a bit of it,' answered Burton. 'We've got to mark his sort, an' a brand like that's known every where. A bloke with an ear stripped off can't pretend to be a honest man here; he's got to be either a trooper or one of Her Majesty's commissioners.'

'But you weren't at all bitter about Solo.'

'Solo ain't a tent-robber; he generally robs the people who rob us. A tent-robber is the meanest kind of hound that runs.'

Jim was grateful for this lesson in diggers' ethics, and went peacefully to sleep on it, having by this time acquired complete confidence in Burton's hiding-place.

When the mates had more gold than they could carry in their belts with comfort, and trustworthy gold-buyers were not available, choosing a suitable hour long after midnight, Burton dug a hole near the tent, Jim keeping careful watch the while to make sure they were not observed. The gold was placed in a pan, and buried in this hole, and after that the camp-fire was built on the spot, and kept burning day and night. It never occurred to anyone to look under the fire for hidden gold.

Their first claim was nearly worked out, and the two young men were busy below digging out the last of the wash-dirt, when a voice calling down the shaft caused both picks to be suspended simultaneously, and the mates looked curiously into each other's faces in the dim candle-light.

Hello below, there!'

'Aurora!' said Mike.

Jim went up the rope suspended in the shaft hand over hand. Aurora was standing by the windlass smiling down at him. The girl was remarkably well dressed. The gown she wore was too florid, perhaps, for that sickly refinement which abhors colour, but it suited her tall figure and her hale and exuberant good looks. As he came up the shaft the picture she made standing in the sunlight, with a background of sun-splashed, vari-coloured tips, and one drowsing gum-tree fringed with the gold and purple of young growth, gave him a thrill of joy, so vivid she seemed, so fresh. She had occupied his mind little since the departure from Diamond Gully; but seeing her again so radiant, he was glad through and through, and laughed with pure delight when she met him at the shaft's mouth with a kiss. Once upon his feet, he clasped her in his arms. Her walk along the lead had attracted a good deal of attention, and the embrace was the signal for a sympathetic cheer from the miners about, and the men whirled their hats in the air.

'Arrah! Won't ye sarve the bla'gards all alike, darlin'?' cried a young fellow on the left.

Aurora bowed low, and scattered kisses over the field with both hands, winning another cheer. Jim watched her with pride. After all, she it was who stood as his goddess of gaiety in the twelve months of absolutely happy life that had marked the reaction from the brutal stupidity and sourness of that other existence. He owed her much gratitude, much tenderness. He kissed her again almost reverently.

'Did you think I was never coming, Jimmy?' she asked softly.

Jim practised the virtue of equivocation. It had never occurred to him that she would come, but he would rather have bitten a piece off his tongue than have said so just then.

'So you made up your mind to follow the moment I told you I was going?' he said.

'What else? Could I have bid you good-bye so glibly? Could you have walked off with a smile and a kiss, and never a word of coming again?'

'Darling, I can never want to lose you.'

'Whist' no words fer the future!' she said, reverting to her whimsical brogue.