notice that if he offered to escape we would shoot him down like a dog. He led us right through the bush, without ever speaking, till he came to a very long gully with steep sides, and about the middle of it he stopped, and pointing to a great half-charred log, said:
“‘Underneath that.’
“We rolled away the log and began to dig, taking it in turns. It was a lightish soil, and easy sinking; so that working with a will, as we did, it wasn’t very long before we reached the body.
“It was in a horrible state of decay, but still it wasn’t so far gone, but what we could swear to it. We left some of our party with it, and then we started with Alick to take him to the police camp at Kajunga. Now, the creek, about a mile above Kajunga runs at the bottom of a tremendous precipice 300 or 400 feet in height, and along the top of this precipice lay our road. The scrub is very thick about there, and comes pretty well up to the edge of the cliff, so that there is but a narrow pathway of a few feet in width. Well, we had got almost within sight of the township, when who should come out of the bush about a hundred yards a head of us, but Charley. It was broad daylight, so that there was no mistaking him. Well, I can tell you, my heart beat double-quick, and I don’t think that any one of us felt quite at his ease. Alick was walking by my side when he caught sight of Charley advancing towards him. With a yell of terror he rushed across the narrow path and flung himself headlong over the precipice. He did it so suddenly that none of us could even offer to prevent him. I sprang to the edge of the cliff just in time to see him strike heavily against a projecting granite boulder, and fall with a dull splash into the dark waters of the creek, which closed over him for ever. When I looked round I saw the supposed ghost gazing over the precipice with an expression of horror and amazement in his face.
“This can’t be anything but a man, after all, thinks I, so I marched straight up to him, and I then saw at once that it was not Charley, though the likeness was so striking that at a short distance it would have deceived any one. The mystery was soon explained. He was Charley’s brother, Jack Smart, who not finding him in Melbourne, as he had expected, had come up to Kajunga to look after him. The evening before, he had missed his way, and got up to our tents. He had not replied to my welcome, because, being very deaf, he had not heard it. Alick’s extraordinary behaviour upon seeing him, had led him to believe that he was amongst a lot of candidates for the Yarra Bend,[1] so that while we were lugging Alick out of the fire, he quietly sloped into the bush again. Having worked for several years along with his brother in California, he had taken to dress exactly in the same style, which made the resemblance between them almost perfect. Well, you may be sure, when the news of all this reached the township, there was the devil to pay. Everybody knocked off work, and started off to see the place where the murdered man had been buried. There had been a pretty smart shower since we dug the body up, and as a Scotchman of the name of Campbell was looking at the grave, he saw something bright among the dirt that had been thrown up. He stooped down and picked it up, and what should it be but a nugget of pretty nigh three ounces, a small piece of which had been washed clean by the rain. Well, he jumped straight into the grave, and drove his pick in at once, and Rush Oh! was the order of the day. Claims were marked out on every side, the corpse was left to the care of Jack Smart and the police, who had just come up, and the gully was soon alive with the whole population of Kajunga, mad with excitement. I had marked out a claim about fifty yards from the grave claim as it was called, and was hard at work sinking for my bare life, when some one touched me on the shoulder. It was Hepe.
“‘Well,’ says he, ‘what I said has come true. He found the claim, but he never handled the gold.’
“Well, whether it was chance or not, I cannot say, but everything Hepe told us, that night came to pass; for that was the best rush ever known on Kajunga, and the grave claim was allowed on all hands to be the best hole on it; and yet those who worked it never benefited by it, for the two Campbells who had it, after working it right out, all except one pillar, attempted to take that away without putting in proper props, so the roof of the drive fell in on them, and they were both killed. What became of the gold they took out of it was never known. No government receipts were found either on their bodies or among their things, nor could an ounce of gold be discovered though search was made wherever it was thought they might have stowed it away. My belief is that they planted it somewhere in the bush, but where, no one will ever know, for it ain’t likely that pick or spade will ever be plied upon the old Kajunga again.
“‘And what amount of gold do you think they took out of their claim?’ said I.
“‘Well, me and my mate cleared nearly 2000l. a man after all expenses paid. The American hole, which was the best after Campbell’s, turned out, I know, upwards of 5000l, so that I should think there must be between 5000l. and 6000l. lying somewhere handy if one only knew where to drop upon it; but prospecting for that lot amongst all these wild gullies would be but a poor spec, I reckon. And now, mates, my yarn is clean spun out, and as we must be up with the sun in the morning, I shall say good night.’
“So saying, he knocked the ashes from his pipe, rolled himself in his blanket, and in a few minutes was sound asleep, an example we were none of us slow to follow.”
An Old Chum.
A DEFINITION.
She asked the Professor: he shook his white head,
And tried very hard to be firm;
“An Album is not much in my way,” he said:
“Pray, madam, define me the term.”
She smiled on his spectacles: quite shut him up
With a smile that all argument ends:
“Why, Doctor, I thought you’d been better brought up.
An Album’s a handbook of Friends.”
H. M. Moule.
- ↑ The Yarra Bend is the Melbourne Madhouse.
