The Ghost Camp. Rolf Boldrewood
heron of Australia (Ardea) rose from the reeds; while from time to time the wallaroo (the kangaroo of the mountain-side) put in appearance to his great delight.
The sun came out, glorifying the wide and varied landscape and the cloudless azure against which the snow-covered mountain summits glittered like silver coronets. Birds of unknown note and plumage called and chirped. All Nature, recovering from the cold and darkness of the night, made haste to greet the brilliant apparition of the sun god.
Keeping within sight of the creek – the course of which he was pledged to follow – he became aware of a dull monotonous sound, which he somehow connected with machinery. It was varied by occasional reports like muffled blasts, as of the fall of heavy bodies. “That is the sluicing claim,” he told himself, “and I shall see the wonderful ‘water gun,’ which Sheila told me of. Quite an adventure!” The claim was farther off than he at first judged, but after climbing with stout heart a “stey brae,” he looked down on the sluicing appliances, and marvelled at the inventive ingenuity which the gold industry had developed. Before him was a ravine down which a torrent of water was rushing with great force and rapidity, bearing along in its course clay, gravel, quartz, and even boulders of respectable size.
He was civilly received by the claim-holders; the manager – an ex-Californian miner – remarking, “Yes, sir, I’m a ‘forty-niner,’ – worked at Suttor’s Mill first year gold was struck there. This is a pretty big thing, though it ain’t a circumstance to some I’ve seen in Arizona and Colorado. This water’s led five hundred feet from these workings. See it play on the face of the hill-side yonder – reckon we’ve cut it away two hundred feet from grass.”
Mr. Blount looked with amazement at the thin, vicious, thread of water, which, directed against the lower and middle strata of the mass of ferruginous slate, had laid bare the alluvium through which ran an ancient river, silted up and overlaid for centuries. The course of this long dead and buried stream could be traced by the water-worn boulders and the smoothness of the rocks which had formed its bed. Where he stood, there had been a fall of forty feet as shown by the formation of the rocky channel.
The manager civilly directed the “gunner” to lower the weapon, and aim it at a spot nearer to where Blount was standing. He much marvelled to see the stones torn from the “face” and sent flying in the air, creating a fair-sized geyser where the water smote the cliff. In this fashion of undermining hundreds of tons are brought down from time to time, to be driven by the roaring torrent into the “tail-race,” whence they pass into the “sluice-box,” and so on to the creek, leaving the gold behind in the riffle bars.
“I suppose it’s not an expensive way of treating the ore in the rough?” queried Blount.
“I reckon not. Cheapest way on airth. The labour we pay at present only comes to one man to a thousand yards. This company has been paying dividends for fifteen years!”
Mr. Blount thanked the obliging American, who, like all respectable miners, was well-mannered to strangers, the sole exception being in the case of a party that have “struck gold” in a secluded spot, and naturally do not desire all the world to know about it. But even they are less rude than evasive.
He looked at his watch and decided that he had not more than enough time to get back to Bunjil in time for lunch. So he shook hands with Mr. Hiram Endicott and set out for that nucleus of civilisation.
Making rather better time on the return journey, he arrived much pleased with himself, considering that he had accomplished an important advance in bush-craft and mineralogy.
Sheila welcomed him in a clean print dress, with a smiling face, but expressed a faint surprise at his safe return, and at his having found the road to the sluice-working, and back.
“Why! how could I lose the way?” he demanded, justly indignant. “Was not the creek a sufficiently safe guide?”
“Oh! it can be done,” answered the girl archly. “There was a gentleman followed the creek the wrong way, and got among the ranges before he found out his mistake; and another one – he was a newspaper editor – thought he’d make a near cut, found himself miles lower down, and didn’t get back before dark. My word! how hungry he was, and cross too!”
“Well, I’m not very hungry or even cross – but I’m going to wash my hands, after which lunch will be ready, I suppose?”
“You’ve just guessed it,” she replied. “You’ll have tea, I suppose?”
“Certainly. Whether Australia was created to develop the tea and sugar industry, or tea to provide a portable and refreshing beverage for the inhabitants to work, and travel, or even fight on, is not finally decided, but they go wondrous well together.”
After an entirely satisfactory lunch, Mr. Blount bethought him of the cob – and knowing, as do all Englishmen, that to do your duty to your neighbour when he is a horse, you must exercise him at least once a day, he sent for George, and requested that he should be brought forth. In a few moments the valuable animal arrived, looking quite spruce and spirited, with coat much smoother and mane tidied; quite like an English covert hack, as Mr. Blount told himself. His legs had filled somewhat, but the groom assured Blount that that was nothing, and would go off.
Taking counsel of the landlord on this occasion, that worthy host said, “Would you like to see an old hand about here that could tell you a few stories about the early days?”
“Like?” answered Mr. Blount with effusion, “nothing better.” It was one of his besetting virtues to know all about the denizens of any place – particularly if partly civilised – wherever he happened to sojourn for a season. It is chiefly a peculiarity of the imaginative-sympathetic nature whereby much knowledge of sorts is acquired – sometimes. But there is a reverse side to the shield.
“George! Ge-or-ge!” shouted the landlord, “catch the old mare and bring her round. Look slippy!”
George fled away like the wind, with a sieve and a bridle in his hand, and going to the corner of a small grass paddock, under false pretences induced an elderly bay mare to come up to him (there being no corn in the sieve), then he basely slipped the reins over her head and led her away captive.
The landlord reappeared with a pair of long-necked spurs buckled on to his heels, and getting swiftly into the saddle, started the old mare off at a shuffling walk. She was a character in her way. Her coat was rough, her tail was long, there was a certain amount of hair on her legs, and yes! she was slightly lame on the near fore-leg. But her eye was bright, her shoulder oblique; and as she reined up at a touch of the rusty snaffle and stuck out her tail, Arab fashion, she began to show class, Mr. Blount thought.
“She’ll be all right, directly,” said the landlord, noticing Mr. Blount’s scrutiny of the leg, “I never know whether it’s rheumatism, or one of her dodges – she’s as sound as a bell after a mile.” To add to her smart appearance, she had no shoes.
They passed quickly through cornfields and meadow lands, rich in pasture, and showing signs of an occasional heavy crop. The agriculture was careless, as is chiefly the case where Nature does so much that man excuses himself for doing little. A cottage on the south side of the road surrounded by a well-cultivated orchard furnished the exception which proves the rule. Mr. Middleton opened the rough but effective gate, with a patent self-closing latch, without dismounting from his mare, who squeezed her shoulder against it, as if she thought she could open it herself. “Steady!” said her owner – “this gate’s not an uphill one – she’ll push up a gate hung to slam down hill as if she knew who made it. She does know a lot of things you wouldn’t expect of her.” Holding the gate open till Mr. Blount and the cob were safely through, he led the way to the cottage, from which issued a tall, upright, elderly man, with a distinctly military bearing.
“This is Mr. Blount, Sergeant,” said the host, “staying at my place for a day or two – just from England, as you see! I told him you knew all about this side, and the people in it – old hands, and new.”
“Ay! the people – the people!” said the old man meditatively. “The land’s a’ richt – fresh and innocent, just as God made it, but the people! the de’il made them on purpose