Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/514

506 stump, the flap of the tent was drawn back, and a man stepped out into the air, and, shading his eyes with his hand, gazed over towards the store.

“Ah, there he is. He has heard us singing and jollifying, and wonders, I suppose, that I don’t come over to impart to him the good news which has made us all so merry. It’s uncommon little that’s pleasant I have to tell him though. Ah, now he is gone in again. He couldn’t make me out against this black stump, though his eyes are as sharp as needles, too. Well, I suppose I must cross somehow or another; so here goes.”

I descended to the edge of the fog-bank, and then on my hands and knees crawled cautiously down towards the creek, feeling carefully about on all sides before every movement, to avoid tumbling headlong down one of the many old shafts by which I was surrounded. At last I heard the waters of the creek immediately below me, and at the same moment found myself amongst the branches of a tree. It was a large white gum, which had been felled so as to fall across the watercourse and form a rude bridge. Slowly I crawled along its slippery surface, in imminent danger more than once of losing my balance and being precipitated into the raging gulf below. At last, however, to my great relief, I found myself once more on terra firma, and, the holes on that side being less numerous, in another minute I emerged from the fog and resumed my usual upright attitude. As I opened the tent door, the savoury scent of beefsteaks greeted me.

“How late you are,” said my mate. “I heard you all talking at the door of the store, as you separated; so, as I had got uncommonly hungry with waiting, and thought you might be the same, I began to prepare a little supper. It will soon be ready, and afterwards you can tell me what luck you have had.”

“Oh, I can tell you that at once. As bad as could be. The hole was a duffer; it did not contain even the colour. Here have I been camped out now for upwards of ten days, with no shelter but a miserable mimi, which was about as much use to keep out the wet and cold as the frame of an umbrella without the cover. It has rained every day, and all day, and frozen every night, and all night. Jem, the black, like an ass, as he is, fell into Reedy Creek as we were going. We managed to fish him out about three-parts drowned; but we were less lucky with the bag containing the flour, tea, and sugar, so that I have been confined to a diet of mutton and water, till I am sick of the sight of them. However, as the steaks seem about ready, I shall just make myself some slight amends.”

“Well, now, I am sorry things have turned out so bad. I thought from your description the gully looked likely.”

“So it did, and so it does still, and I feel sure there must be gold in it somewhere; but, at any rate, it did not happen to be where we sank, for we put down one hole in the middle and one at each side, and drove fair across it, so that we must have dropped on the gutter had there been one. I shouldn’t mind trying some other part of it again when it gets warmer, but I can tell you this is the last prospecting expedition I mean to go upon in winter. And, now that I have told you of our failure, I want to know what we are to do with ourselves? This place is clean worked out. What is left wouldn’t keep a Chinaman. We haven’t got a pound in the world; and Sydney Bill, who is the only store-keeper left who will give us tick, talks of going up to the Avoca next week. He had a letter from there to-day, to say that things were pretty brisk, so he called me in this evening, as I was passing, to tell me the news, and when he heard of our bad luck, shouted any amount of old tom, to keep up our spirits, like a good fellow, as he is.”

“Yes, he is a true digger,” said Jackson. “Make it easily, spend it quickly, is his motto; and occasionally he discounts his luck beforehand so effectually, that very little is left for himself when it comes. And so he told you that things looked well on the Avoca?”

“Yes; and, what’s more to the purpose, he offered to take up our swags in his dray, and to trust us up there till we dropped on something good, so I don’t think we can do better than accept his offer.”

“Well, now,” said Jackson, “I happen to know Avoca well, and I have my doubts about the great finds that are being made there. I am pretty sure that there is some ground here yet which will pay us as well as ever Avoca did, or will, and that too without having to gad through twenty feet of ironstone cement, which is a nice amusement, truly, if your claim after all turns out a blank.”

“Ah, you are still hankering to try and recover the lost lead out of Nuggety Gully. Now, first of all, I don’t believe that it’s lost at all, my opinion being that it either ran out or joined the worked out one in White Horse Flat; and secondly, pray how are we to keep soul and body together while indulging your crotchets?”

“I think,” said Jackson, “I can provide for that; look here.”

As he spoke, he placed upon the table a sheet of writing paper, and then drawing from out his pocket a small leather bag, emptied the contents upon it. I gazed in mute astonishment upon a charming little pile of rough shotty gold which lay there before me.

“Forty-seven ounces, thirteen pennyweights, eight grains and a half,” said my mate calmly. “I think that will keep us during our experiment, and take us up to the Avoca, or anywhere else we may fancy afterwards, without laying ourselves under an obligation to a living soul.”

“But, Jackson,” I exclaimed, at last recovering my power of speech, “where on earth did you get all this from? You surely haven’t been sticking any one up?”

“Not exactly. I’ll tell you how I came to drop upon it. For the first few days after you were gone I went on working at the headings in the Smith’s old hole, and managed to get out just enough to keep me going. Last Sunday I took my usual walk down to the bottom of Nuggety, and on my way back, just as I had got about halfway up, my cap blew off and went down one of the holes. Well, as I didn’t care about losing it,