'I think you're mistaken about that man being a convict, Burton,' said Done to Mike later, breaking a long silence.

'Sure I'm not. Saw the cuff-marks on his wrists as he was battling with Stony. Why?'

'He's the man who was in the trap with Macdougal of b.o.o.byalla the other day in Swanston Street.'

'The swell in the choker and double-decker?'

'Yes. For some reason his face impressed me. I couldn't mistake it.'

'Didn't notice it; but if he's own brother to Governor Latrobe himself, I'll take my affie he's a lag.'

The mates overtook the carter with their tent and stores and tools within a day's journey of the rush, and pushed on to secure a claim. Done's first sight of a busy goldfield was gained on a clear, sunny morning, when, after pa.s.sing through Sawpit Gully, they came upon the beginning of the long lead that comprised many rushes, known as Forest Creek. The impression Jim retained was a semi-humorous one of humans reduced to the proportions and the dignity of ants, engaged upon the business of ants wrought to a pitch of excitement by some grand windfall at their doors.

Little figures bustled about, carrying burdens; pigmies swarmed along the lead. The holes, with their white and yellow tips, were cl.u.s.tered as close together as the cells in a great honeycomb, and into the shafts and out of them bobbed hurrying, eager creatures. The whirring of windla.s.ses, the clatter of nail-keg buckets, the incessant calls, 'Look up below!'

and the distinct ringing of hammer on anvil, blended into a quaint symphony of labour. The swish, swish, swish, of the wet dirt in the cradle-hoppers and the rattling of the tailings thrown from the shovels providing an unvarying substratum of sound. There were tents everywhere, large and small, dotting the distance, but cl.u.s.tering into a township of canvas to the right of the Creek, and over the scene floated a faint mirage, so that the whole field and all in it quivered in the warm ascending air, the gauzy effect aiding the idea of stagy unreality.

At the first sight of the lead Mike threw his hat into the air and cheered wildly. Another party coming in were beating their jaded horses to a run, the men jumping beside the team mad with joy, shouting like maniacs. On all hands were the waggons and drays unloading by tents not yet fully erected. The men who were not busy at their claims or puddling, cradling or panning-off dishes by the creek, were breathlessly engaged upon the work of getting their canvas houses into order and be stowing their goods; newcomers pa.s.sed unheeded, however boisterous.

'Before tea we'll have our pegs in here, Jim,' said Mike joyfully.

They had been walking since two hours before daybreak, but elation possessed them to the exclusion of all thought of fatigue. The sight of the field of action set Jim's sinews twitching; he longed for the strife, and found some difficulty in restraining himself from running with the preceding party pell-mell on to the creek. But he had nothing of the gold-seeker's fever in his blood; the thought of ama.s.sing a fortune had merely occurred to him: it was the free, strong, exhilarating life that stirred him most deeply.

Burton discovered an old acquaintance in a sooty blacksmith perspiring copiously over an open-air forge, and the mates left their swags in his tent and hastened to the high-walled, square tent occupied by the warden of the field to secure their licenses. Here Jim had his first taste of officialdom in Australia, and he did not like it. The tent was thronged with miners eager to secure their papers; they were met with cold-blooded intolerance by a cla.s.s of officials often bred to their business in the infamous convict system, and now incapable of putting off their tyrannous insolence in the faces of free men. Several foot police--Vandemonians from the convict settlements--were stationed in the tent to enforce the mandate of Commissioner McPhee, or any understrapper who might resent the impatience of a digger, and order him to be propelled into the open on the toe of a regulation boot. The new hands bore the indignities carelessly, but the experienced diggers came up to the rough counter grimly and silently, conveying in their att.i.tude Some suggestion of a reckoning almost due. They under stood all the injustice and flagrant abuse the licenses implied, the new chums did not.

'Take care o' that, Done,' said Mike, flipping his own license with his thumb; 'they're important. I've heard em called tickets of admission to the new republic.'

'What do they stand for, Mike?'

'One month. For one month James Done is ent.i.tled to burrow for gold in Her Majesty's mud hereabout, an' for that time he's reckoned to have a right to be alive. At the end of the month he trots up to renew, and the price is thirty bob every time.'

'But if James Done doesn't happen to have thirty bob?'

'Then his right to be alive is null and void, and if he's caught so much as sc.r.a.ping dirt to bury a pup he's dealt with according to law. If in his month's work he doesn't earn enough to buy grease for his windla.s.s, he must take out his miner's right or run the chance of being scragged.'

'That seems strangely out of place here. And the men stand it?'

'And heaps more. This license qualifies a miner to be dragged out of his hole at any moment, like a blasted wombat, by the scruff, to be bully-d.a.m.ned from Geelong to breakfast by some lag-punching, lop-eared ex-warder with a string of troopers at his heels!' Jim saw his mate in a bitter mood, for the first time.

'But why the license, if it confers no benefit?'

'To rob the diggers mercilessly, and to provide swine like those in there with a chance of riding the high horse over better men!' Mike was mixing his metaphors in his wrath. 'But you'll know all about it in time. If you're in the habit of using your hands, keep 'em tight in your pockets when the traps are out man-hunting. It's worse than manslaughter to punch a trooper. They'd have you in the logs in ten ticks less 'n no time.'

Done refused to be depressed by the prospect. He understood that with his right in his pocket a miner was safe, and the charge did not seem to him a serious grievance in this land of plenteous gold.

The mates had a crib with Duffy, the blacksmith; and after the meal, armed with wooden pegs, a pick, and a shovel, they set out to secure a claim. Acting on the urgent advice of Duffy, they headed for Diamond Gully, nearly two miles off; and here Mike loitered about amongst the claims, chatting with the men on top, keeping his eyes wide open, and gathering information as he went. The majority of the miners were quite enthusiastic; they were doing well, and had no desire to conceal the fact. One showed a prospect in the tin dish that wrung a wondering oath from Mike, and yet he moved on. Done could not understand. There was plenty of free land on either side, extending for miles.

'Why not here, Burton?' he asked, indicating a pleasant spot.

'Off the lead, probably,' answered Mike. 'We don't want to waste time bottoming shicers--sinking duffers,' he added in explanation. Done was still unenlightened. 'Putting down shafts where there isn't a colour,'

continued Burton. 'We'll get right on the lead, or I'm a spud-miner from Donegal.'

In due course they came to a claim that interested Burton deeply, but the man at the windla.s.s was gloomy, almost despairing. He didn't believe he'd got a tucker show, and sadly advised Mike to shepherd a hole down to the left.

'We ain't in sight of her here,' he said.

Burton took a pinch of dirt from the side of the bucket at his feet, rubbed it between his finger and thumb, and grinned at the digger.

'Take me for a Johnny Raw, don't you?' he said. 'This is good enough for me. Quick, Jim, the pegs!'

The exclamation was drawn from him by the sight of three men running along the lead in their direction.

As Burton hammered in his first peg, the newcomers started hammering a peg for the same holding. Mike paced the twenty-four feet, and kicked the stranger's peg out of the ground. Not a word was spoken. The intruding digger, a stoutly-built, cheerful-looking Geordie, promptly struck at Mike, and they fought. Done stood aside, nonplussed by the suddenness of all this, and for a minute a hard give-and-take battle raged on the claim. Jim discovered the Geordie's mate busying himself driving in a peg. Seizing the man by the back of the neck, he dragged him to his feet, and sent him spinning with a long swing. After which he gripped Mike's opponent in the same way, and bowled him over and over.

'Now you get the pegs in, Mike,' said Jim. 'I'll attend to these.'

The Geordie arose and rushed at Jim with the vehemence of an old fighter, but Done stopped him with a straight left, closed, and threw him. Mike ceased hammering the peg to applaud.

'Neat and nice!' he cried. 'Would any other gentleman like a sample?'

'I'm quite satisfied,' said the Geordie, without a trace of ill-feeling.

'Then peg out the next,' continued Mike. 'It should be quite as good a spec as this if your friend's on anything like a gutter.'

'Ay, ay, lad!' responded the Tynesider, who had a mouse on his cheek as big as his thumb, and he set cheerfully to work to peg out two men's ground further on. His bluff having failed, he cherished not the slightest resentment, and two minutes later, to Jim's great amus.e.m.e.nt, all concerned were indulging in affable conversation. The newcomers were friends of the party in the working mine, where the lead had been cut, a prospect from the headings promising so well that the holders had hastened to acquaint the Geordie with the fact. The latter arrived too late, however--first come, first served, being the law of the diggings, and first peg in meant legal possession.

Two men's ground measured twelve feet by twenty-four feet. Mike had taken the twenty-four feet in the direction in which the lead seemed to be running, and now he lined out a shaft about four feet by two feet, and commenced sinking. He dug down to the depth of his waist, and at sunset the mates returned to Forest Creek. That night the teamster arrived with their goods, and Done and Burton slept under canvas, the tent having been hastily thrown across a hurdle to provide a screen from the glowing moonlight, the trees here being stunted and widely scattered.

'So you're a wrestler, Jim said Mike, when they had turned in for the night.

'I know a fall or two,' answered Done.

'You put Long Aleck down on his chin in short order, an' he fancied his mutton, I can tell you. Know how to turn a fist to the best advantage, too, don't you? That Geordie's an old sailor who's been through the mill.

I know the breed. You stopped him like a stone wall. I'm satisfied I struck it lucky when we met.'

'Glad you think I'll be useful. I don't seem to have been of much account up to now.

'Useful! A man's got to fight 'r knuckle under. The rushes ain't peopled with penny saints. You've got to punch a few to get yourself respected.'

Done was not long learning the truth of this. He found in time that the feats of arms he had mastered with the idea of impressing his enemies in Chisley were his most valuable accomplishments in Australia.

Next day the mates carted their belongings to their claim, and the morning was spent in erecting the tent, rigging bunks, and making things shipshape. They got to work in the shaft again after dinner, Done taking his first lesson in sinking. Within two hours they came upon the wash dirt, the sinking at Diamond Gully being very shallow. While they were busy Jack Thorn, the Geordie, came up from the creek and approached them, grinning broadly, and hiding something under his hat.

'Hope yer eyesight's good, mates,' he said. 'I've got a bit of a dazzler here to spring on you. What d'yer think o' that?' He removed his hat, and exposed a pint pannikin filled to the brim with clean, coa.r.s.e nuggets.

'Whew!' whistled Jim. 'You've hit it thick.'

'Yes,' he said. 'That's from three buckets off the bottom. I s'pose you'll get her just ez good. My mate's got a few ounces o' finer stuff.

We're mightily obliged to you boys for puttin' us in this hole.'