第39章 Part II.(3)

This here bottom in the shaller sinkin's that we're workin'on is the slope to the bed of the NEW crick that was on the surface about the time that men was missin'links.The false bottoms,thirty or forty feet down,kin be said to have been on the surface about the time that men was monkeys.The SECON'bottom --eighty or a hundred feet down --was on the surface about the time when men was frogs.Now --'

But it's with the missing-link surface we have to do,and had the friends of the local departed known what Dave and Jim were up to they would have regarded them as something lower than missing-links.

`We'll give out we're tryin'for the second bottom,'said Dave Regan.

`We'll have to rig a fan for air,anyhow,and you don't want air in shallow sinkings.'

`And some one will come poking round,and look down the hole and see the bottom,'said Jim Bently.

`We must keep 'em away,'said Dave.`Tar the bottom,or cover it with tarred canvas,to make it black.Then they won't see it.

There's not many diggers left,and the rest are going;they're chucking up the claims in Log Paddock.Besides,I could get drunk and pick rows with the rest and they wouldn't come near me.

The farmers ain't in love with us diggers,so they won't bother us.

No man has a right to come poking round another man's claim:it ain't ettykit --I'll root up that old ettykit and stand to it --it's rather worn out now,but that's no matter.We'll shift the tent down near the claim and see that no one comes nosing round on Sunday.

They'll think we're only some more second-bottom lunatics,like Francea [the mining watchmaker].We're going to get our fortune out from under that old graveyard,Jim.You leave it all to me till you're born again with brains.'

Dave's schemes were always elaborate,and that was why they so often came to the ground.He logged up his windlass platform a little higher,bent about eighty feet of rope to the bole of the windlass,which was a new one,and thereafter,whenever a suspicious-looking party (that is to say,a digger)hove in sight,Dave would let down about forty feet of rope and then wind,with simulated exertion,until the slack was taken up and the rope lifted the bucket from the shallow bottom.

`It would look better to have a whip-pole and a horse,but we can't afford them just yet,'said Dave.

But I'm a little behind.They drove straight in under the cemetery,finding good wash all the way.The edge of Jimmy Middleton's box appeared in the top corner of the `face'(the working end)of the drive.

They went under the butt-end of the grave.They shoved up the end of the shell with a prop,to prevent the possibility of an accident which might disturb the mound above;they puddled --i.e.rammed --stiff clay up round the edges to keep the loose earth from dribbling down;and having given the bottom of the coffin a good coat of tar,they got over,or rather under,an unpleasant matter.

Jim Bently smoked and burnt paper during his shift below,and grumbled a good deal.`Blowed if I ever thought I'd be rooting for gold down among the blanky dead men,'he said.But the dirt panned out better every dish they washed,and Dave worked the `wash'out right and left as they drove.

But,one fine morning,who should come along but the very last man whom Dave wished to see round there --`Old Pinter'(James Poynton),Californian and Victorian digger of the old school.He'd been prospecting down the creek,carried his pick over his shoulder --threaded through the eye in the heft of his big-bladed,short-handled shovel that hung behind --and his gold-dish under his arm.

I mightn't get a chance again to explain what a gold-dish and what gold-washing is.A gold washing-dish is a flat dish --nearer the shape of a bedroom bath-tub than anything else I have seen in England,or the dish we used for setting milk --I don't know whether the same is used here:the gold-dish measures,say,eighteen inches across the top.You get it full of wash dirt,squat down at a convenient place at the edge of the water-hole,where there is a rest for the dish in the water just below its own depth.

You sink the dish and let the clay and gravel soak a while,then you work and rub it up with your hands,and as the clay dissolves,dish it off as muddy water or mullock.You are careful to wash the pebbles in case there is any gold sticking to them.

And so till all the muddy or clayey matter is gone,and there is nothing but clean gravel in the bottom of the dish.You work this off carefully,turning the dish about this way and that and swishing the water round in it.

It requires some practice.The gold keeps to the bottom of the dish,by its own weight.At last there is only a little half-moon of sand or fine gravel in the bottom lower edge of the dish --you work the dish slanting from you.Presently the gold,if there was any in the dirt,appears in `colours',grains,or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand.The more gold there is in the dirt,or the coarser the gold is,the sooner it appears.A practised digger can work off the last speck of gravel,without losing a `colour',by just working the water round and off in the dish.Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold in a tub of dirt,and,washing it off in dishfuls,recover practically every colour.

The gold-washing `cradle'is a box,shaped something like a boot,and the size of a travelling trunk,with rockers on,like a baby's cradle,and a stick up behind for a handle;on top,where you'll put your foot into the boot,is a tray with a perforated iron bottom;the clay and gravel is thrown on the tray,water thrown on it,and the cradle rocked smartly.The finer gravel and the mullock goes through and down over a sloping board covered with blanket,and with ledges on it to catch the gold.The dish was mostly used for prospecting;large quantities of wash dirt was put through the horse-power `puddling-machine',which there isn't room to describe here.

`'Ello,Dave!'said Pinter,after looking with mild surprise at the size of Dave's waste-heap.`Tryin'for the second bottom?'