Bill looked round once, and melted into the bush pretty soon after that.
When I caught up he was about done; but I grabbed my swag and we pushed on, for I told Bill that I"d seen Stiffner making for the stables when I"d last looked round; and Bill thought that we"d better get lost in the bush as soon as ever we could, and stay lost, too, for Stiffner was a man that couldn"t stand being had.
The first thing that Bill said when we got safe into camp was: "I told you that we"d pull through all right. You need never be frightened when you"re travelling with me. Just take my advice and leave things to me, and we"ll hang out all right. Now-."
But I shut him up. He made me mad.
"Why, you--! What the sheol did _you_ do?"
"Do?" he says. "I got away with the swags, didn"t I? Where"d they be now if it wasn"t for me?"
Then I sat on him pretty hard for his pretensions, and paid him out for all the patronage he"d worked off on me, and called him a mug straight, and walked round him, so to speak, and blowed, and told him never to pretend to me again that he was a battler.
Then, when I thought I"d licked him into form, I cooled down and soaped him up a bit; but I never thought that he had three climaxes and a crisis in store for me.
He took it all pretty cool; he let me have my fling, and gave me time to get breath; then he leaned languidly over on his right side, shoved his left hand down into his left trouserpocket, and brought up a boot-lace, a box of matches, and nine-and-six.
As soon as I got the focus of it I gasped:
"Where the deuce did you get that?"
"I had it all along," he said, "but I seen at the pub that you had the show to chew a lug, so I thought we"d save it--nine-and-sixpences ain"t picked up every day."
Then he leaned over on his left, went down into the other pocket, and came up with a piece of tobacco and half-a-sovereign.
My eyes bulged out.
"Where the blazes did you get that from?" I yelled.
"That," he said, "was the half-quid you give me last night. Half-quids ain"t to be thrown away these times; and, besides, I had a down on Stiffner, and meant to pay him out; I reckoned that if we wasn"t sharp enough to take him down we hadn"t any business to be supposed to be alive. Anyway, I guessed we"d do it; and so we did--and got a bottle of whisky into the bargain."
Then he leaned back, tired-like, against the log, and dredged his upper left-hand waistcoat-pocket, and brought up a sovereign wrapped in a pound note. Then he waited for me to speak; but I couldn"t. I got my mouth open, but couldn"t get it shut again.
"I got that out of the mugs last night, but I thought that we"d want it, and might as well keep it. Quids ain"t so easily picked up, nowadays; and, besides, we need stuff more"n Stiffner does, and so--"
"And did he know you had the stuff?" I gasped.
"Oh, yes, that"s the fun of it. That"s what made him so excited. He was in the parlour all the time I was playing. But we might as well have a drink!
"We did. I wanted it."
Bill turned in by-and-by, and looked like a sleeping innocent in the moonlight. I sat up late, and smoked, and thought hard, and watched Bill, and turned in, and thought till near daylight, and then went to sleep, and had a nightmare about it. I dreamed I chased Stiffner forty miles to buy his pub, and that Bill turned out to be his nephew.
Bill divvied up all right, and gave me half a crown over, but I didn"t travel with him long after that. He was a decent young fellow as far as chaps go, and a good mate as far as mates go; but he was too far ahead for a peaceful, easy-going chap like me. It would have worn me out in a year to keep up to him.
P.S.--The name of this should have been: "Bill and Stiffner (thirdly, Jim)"
WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN
Jack Drew sat on the edge of the shaft, with his foot in the loop and one hand on the rope, ready to descend. His elder brother, Tom, stood at one end of the windla.s.s and the third mate at the other. Jack paused before swinging off, looked up at his brother, and impulsively held out his hand:
"You ain"t going to let the sun go down, are you, Tom?"
But Tom kept both hands on the windla.s.s-handle and said nothing.
"Lower away!"
They lowered him to the bottom, and Tom shouldered his pick in silence and walked off to the tent. He found the tin plate, pint-pot, and things set ready for him on the rough slab table under the bush shed. The tea was made, the cabbage and potatoes strained and placed in a billy near the fire. He found the fried bacon and steak between two plates in the camp-oven. He sat down to the table but he could not eat. He felt mean.
The inexperience and hasty temper of his brother had caused the quarrel between them that morning; but then Jack admitted that, and apologized when he first tried to make it up.
Tom moved round uneasily and tried to smoke: he could not get Jack"s last appeal out of his ears--"You ain"t going to let the sun go down, Tom?"
Tom found himself glancing at the sun. It was less than two hours from sunset. He thought of the words of the old Hebrew--or Chinese--poet; he wasn"t religious, and the authorship didn"t matter. The old poet"s words began to haunt him "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath--Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
The line contains good, sound advice; for quick-tempered men are often the most sensitive, and when they let the sun go down on the aforesaid wrath that quality is likely to get them down and worry them during the night.
Tom started to go to the claim, but checked himself, and sat down and tried to draw comfort from his pipe. He understood his brother thoroughly, but his brother never understood him--that was where the trouble was. Presently he got thinking how Jack would worry about the quarrel and have no heart for his work. Perhaps he was fretting over it now, all alone by himself, down at the end of the damp, dark drive. Tom had a lot of the old woman about him, in spite of his unsociable ways and brooding temper.
He had almost made up his mind to go below again, on some excuse, when his mate shouted from the top of the shaft:
"Tom! Tom! For Christ"s sake come here!"
Tom"s heart gave a great thump, and he ran like a kangaroo to the shaft.
All the diggers within hearing were soon on the spot. They saw at a glance what had happened. It was madness to sink without timber in such treacherous ground. _The sides of the shaft were closing in_. Tom sprang forward and shouted through the crevice:
"To the face, Jack! To the face, for your life!"
"The old Workings!" he cried, turning to the diggers. "Bring a fan and tools. We"ll dig him out."
A few minutes later a fan was rigged over a deserted shaft close by, where fortunately the windla.s.s had been left for bailing purposes, and men were down in the old drive. Tom knew that he and his mates had driven very close to the old workings.
He knelt in the damp clay before the face and worked like a madman; he refused to take turn about, and only dropped the pick to seize a shovel in his strong hands, and s.n.a.t.c.h back the loose clay from under his feet; he reckoned that he had six or, perhaps, eight feet to drive, and he knew that the air could not last long in the new drive--even if that had not already fallen in and crushed his brother. Great drops of perspiration stood out on Tom"s forehead, and his breath began to come in choking sobs, but he still struck strong, savage blows into the clay before him, and the drive lengthened quickly. Once he paused a moment to listen, and then distinctly heard a sound as of a tool or stone being struck against the end of the new drive. Jack was safe!
Tom dug on until the clay suddenly fell away from his pick and left a hole, about the size of a plate, in the "face" before him. "Thank G.o.d!"
said a hoa.r.s.e, strained voice at the other side.
"All right, Jack!"
"Yes, old man; you are just in time; I"ve hardly got room to stand in, and I"m nearly smothered." He was crouching against the "face" of the new drive.
Tom dropped his pick and fell back against the man behind him.
"Oh, G.o.d! my back!" he cried.