"That wis a mistak'," Mac replied apologetically. "I had the baggie in ma haun, meanin' tae send it doon in orthodox manner; bit yer injudishus remarks made me nervish, and doon it drappit, sudden-like."

After these explanations peace reigned again; but Stewart's rest had been so rudely broken that he now thought to work off his la.s.situde by an hour's graft with the pick. We had arranged ourselves into shifts, which went on and off alternately, or otherwise, as we thought fit; but it was my plan to reach bedrock without delay, so the shaft was never allowed to remain long unoccupied. Leaving Mac and Phil to attend to culinary matters, I went out with Stewart, and, after lowering him into the Stygian gloom, kept watch by the windla.s.s until the night closed over and Phil announced that tea was ready.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NO. 2 CLAIM--JUST STRUCK GOLD.]

Two more days pa.s.sed uneventfully. The hourly-expected bulletin of good news from No. 3 was being long deferred, and vague fears were beginning to be expressed that all was not satisfactory there. It was known that Nos. 3, 4, and 5 had put on extra shifts in the last few nights, and the depths of their sinkings must at this time have exceeded fifty feet. We at No. 7 awaited developments with keen interest. It was natural that we should hope for the worst at No. 3, for, as Emu Bill had said, we were on an entirely different tack, and might cease our labours when the gaudy emblem appeared over that claim. In these two days progress had been very slow with us, for a hard bar of conglomerate quartz had intervened at the 45-foot level, and we dared not use gelignite in case the heavy discharge might bring the upper walls inward and render our whole work useless.

It is always precarious to use blasting powder of any description at the deep levels of an alluvial shaft, and the more so when the upper formations have proved to be of non-cohesive nature. So we were compelled to laboriously pick the unyielding ma.s.s where we might, and otherwise drill and shatter it with hammers.

On the morning of the third day after the flag had been raised at No. 2 the Emu seemed to awake from his lethargy in earnest, and set to work with right good-will to make up for lost time.

"You wasn't wrong in takin' my advice arter all, mate," he said to me, when I appeared to inquire the reason of his unwonted activity.

"There's no flag up at No. 3 yet," I answered tentatively.

"No, nor won't be, nuther," he returned with evident satisfaction. "I tell you what, mate," he continued impressively, "the first flag that goes up will be at your own shaft, No. 7, so you'd better get your flagpole ready. The man what says I don't know this country is a liar, every time."

Yet still the men at the shafts in question continued to dig deeper and deeper. "We hasn't reached bottom yet," they said, in answer to all questions, and on that point they appeared decided.

"I'll go up and pint out the evil o' their ways," Emu Bill said, coming over to us after midday. "I don't believe in no man exartin' hissel' to no good." Then he addressed himself to Mac far below: "I say, Scottie, you're going to strike it first, and good luck to you, you hard-working sinner."

"Same to you, Leatherskin, an mony o' them," a voice from the depths replied gruffly, for the "hard-working sinner" had but imperfectly understood.

Leaving Phil in charge of the windla.s.s, I accompanied Emu Bill to the shafts he now considered doomed. "Look at the stuff they're takin' out,"

said he, drawing my attention to a heap of white and yellow cement-like substance; "the beggars have gone clean through the bedrock and don't know it."

The men at the windla.s.s eyed us savagely as we came near, and I experienced for a moment a malicious joy when I noticed our uncommunicative visitor among them. "We don't want no more opinions,"

one of their number cried; "we knows we hasn't struck bottom yet."

"Mates," said Emu Bill, with dignity, "I hiv sunk more duffers than thar be years in my life--an' I'm no chicken--an' I tells ye straight, you've not only struck bottom, but you've gone three or four feet past it. If you means to tunnel through to Ole England, that's your business, but if not, you'd better give it best."

Without further words, we retraced our steps, my companion fuming inwardly because of his brusque reception. Yet his advice must have had due effect, for that evening the unfortunately-placed shafts were being dismantled and late in the night the all too sanguine owners struck their camps and departed for other fields. Their disappointment was keen. They had missed fortune by only a few yards.

Next morning all the Flat knew that Nos. 3, 4, and 5 had duffered out, and, as a result, there was a great exodus of those who had been guided by these locations; but, on the other hand, rejoicings were the order of the day with the miners who believed Nos. 6 and 7 to mark the true continuation of the lead, which had last been proved at the second workings.

Our claim was then the cynosure of all eyes, for the Emu's shaft was yet barely six feet deep, and we were supposed to be close on the dreaded bottom. I was convinced that we should know our luck immediately the ironstone bar was penetrated, and that obstruction was not likely to hinder us much longer.

"I'll be the man that'll see gold first," Mac announced confidently, as he shouldered his pick after breakfast and prepared to take first shift.

"I've got a rale bonnie flag to pit up when ye're ready," said Stewart, displaying an imposing-looking Union Jack which had done service at Klondike, and which he had been surrept.i.tiously repairing for some days past.

Phil was silent. "I sincerely hope we may not be disappointed," he said at length. Like me, he could not understand the presence of the refractory formation so close upon auriferous wash--if the latter really existed in our claim.

"Geological rules don't count in this country, Phil," I suggested hopefully; then Mac departed, grumbling loudly at what he was pleased to call my "Job's comfortings."

For the best part of the forenoon I listened to the thudding of the pick with an anxious interest, for any stroke now might penetrate to the mysterious compound known as the cement wash; but the blows still rung hard and clear, and I grew weary waiting. It was not necessary to send the bucket below often. Though Mac smote the flinty rock with all his strength, and a vigour which few could have sustained, the result of his labours was almost infinitesimal. Every half-hour Stewart would receive from his perspiring companion a blunted pick, hoisted up on the end of the cable, while a fresh one was provided to continue the onslaught. Mac seemed tireless, and Stewart above, at a blazing fire, practised all his smithy art to keep the sorely-used tools in order; while ever and anon a hoa.r.s.e voice would bellow from the underground, "Mak' them hard, Stewart, ma man. Mind that it is no b.u.t.ter A'm diggin'."

"You must come up, Mac," I said, when one o'clock drew near, but he would not hear of it. "I ken I hivna faur tae gang noo," he cried. "I can hear the sound gettin' hollow."

Another ten minutes pa.s.sed, and now I could distinctly note a difference in the tone of the echoes ringing upwards. Thud! Thud! Thud! went the pick, and Mac's breath came in long deep gasps, that made Stewart rave wildly at the severe nature of his comrade's exertions.

Then suddenly there was a crash, followed by a shout of joy. Mac had bottomed at last.

For several moments complete silence reigned; then a subdued sc.r.a.ping below indicated that Mac was collecting some of the newly-exposed stratum for a.n.a.lysis.

"What does it look like?" I whispered down. There are few indeed who could withstand a touch of the gold fever at such a critical time, and I was impatient to know the best or the worst; either report would have allayed the indescribable feeling that possessed me then. The most hardened goldseeker is not immune from the thrill created when bottom has been reached; at that moment he is at one with the veriest novice who eagerly expects to view gold in its rough state for the first time.

My companion did not at once gratify my longing for knowledge, and when he replied, Phil, Stewart, and myself were peering down into the shaft awaiting intelligence with breathless interest.

"I think," he muttered, in tones that struck upon our ears as a knell of doom, "I raelly think--ye micht keep yer heids oot o' the licht."

"Mac!" I admonished, "remember this is no time for pleasantries."

"Weel, weel," he responded apologetically, "I wis wantin' tae gie correct infurmashun, bit the glint aff Stewart's pow mak's a' thing coloured." Stewart promptly drew back his head with a howl of rage.

"Mak' nae mair refleckshuns!" he cried indignantly.

There came a creak at the windla.s.s rope as Mac put his foot into the half-filled bucket and prepared to ascend; then his voice rolled up to us again. "Wha's makin' refleckshuns? I was only makin' menshun o' the bonnie auburn----"

"Shut up, Mac," Phil interrupted, and Mac obligingly cut short his soliloquy and roared--

"Staun by the windla.s.s, ye deevils, I'm comin' up wi' specimens!"

If he had had cause at one time to comment on the slow and uncertain nature of his upward flight, he a.s.suredly had no room for complaint in that direction on this occasion. All three of us went to the windla.s.s and yanked our comrade to the surface at a rate that caused him much consternation. Then I seized the bucket, which contained a few pounds of an alarmingly white-looking deposit, and hurried with it into the tent, where the gold-pan, freshly scrubbed, lay waiting beside a kerosene tin half filled with muddy water. On closer examination the samples looked decidedly more promising; little granules of quartz were interspersed with the white cement, and a sprinkling of ironshot particles were also in evidence. We had struck an alluvial wash: that was clear enough, and now the question was--would it prove to be auriferous? Without speaking we commenced to crush the matrix into as fine a powder as possible, and when that operation was completed, the whole was emptied into the gold-pan.

"It looks just like sugar," Stewart broke out, "an' no near so dirty as Klonduk gravel."

"Get your flag ready," I said, "we'll know our luck in a few minutes." I now filled the pan with water, and began to give it that concentric motion so familiar to those who search for the yellow metal. Gradually, very gradually, the water was canted off, carrying with it the bulk of the lighter sands, and finally the residue was left in the form of some ounces of black ironstone powder, which, because of its weight, had remained, and about an equal amount of coa.r.s.e quartz grains that had escaped crushing.

"But I don't see any gold," said Phil despondingly.

"Ye're faur too impatient," Mac reproved. "Ye didna expec' tae see it floatin' on tap o' a' that stuff surely?"

I tilted the pan obliquely several times in order to make the contents slide round in the circular groove provided, and as it slowly moved under the gentle pressure of the little water remaining, it left a glittering trail in its wake, which caused my three companions to break out in a whoop of delight.

Some sixty seconds later the Union Jack floated bravely above our windla.s.s, and was hailed with a thunder of applause.

CAMP-FIRE REMINISCENCES

For many weeks work went on merrily. One after another the various claims reached paying gravel, and flags of all designs and colours soon marked the course of the lead for fully half a mile, after which distance the golden vein effectually eluded discovery; it had apparently disappeared into the bowels of the earth. For the first few days succeeding our location of the auriferous wash we contented ourselves in dollying the more easily disintegrated parts of the white conglomerate, and collecting the solid and c.u.mbrous blocks excavated into sacks, each of which when filled weighed over a hundred pounds. These I meant to send to some crushing battery when several tons had been raised.

The water for dollying as well as for all other purposes was obtained from a deep shaft sunk near at hand by a speculative individual, who considered that water might ultimately pay him as generously as gold, and as he charged eightpence a gallon for the brackish fluid, and had an unlimited demand for it at that, he probably found it a less troublesome and much more lucrative commodity than even a moderately wealthy claim on the Five-Mile Lead. As it so happened, however, when other claims began to copy our tactics and dolly portions of their wash, it was made evident that the water bore was not equal to the strain, and once or twice it ran dry at a most critical time. After a careful computation of its capacity we saw that it could only be drawn upon for domestic purposes in future, and even then there was every probability of the supply giving out if a good rainfall did not soon occur to moisten the land and percolate to the impervious basin tapped by the bore in question.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR SHAFT.]