It was three days after the Shadow's departure. The sun was shining fiercely on Golden Flat, and its scintillating rays reflected from the white mullock heaps at the various workings caused the eyes of the miners when they came to the surface to quiver and close painfully. The air was filled with dancing sand particles, and they shimmered kaleidoscope-like in the intense heat haze which rose and fell on the surface of the land like the waters of a boundless ethereal sea. The regular thud, thud of picks resounded loudly from the end of the lead where Nuggety Dick and his brawny compatriots were doggedly digging out the golden gravel, and away at the other end of the field Macguire's satellites made noisy din as they busied themselves sinking several shafts over the supposed trend of the mysterious channel.
The weather had been excessively hot since the Shadow left, and this fact had done much to restore the spirits of the gang, for, judging from their own feelings, they considered that the energy of Mackay's messenger would be spent long before he could hope to reach the township. At the Golden Promise the windlass was deserted, and the red symbol hung limp overhead. But it was not lack of energy that had occasioned this[Pg 132] apparent lapse of duty. Mackay and Jack had been in the tent all morning watching Bob's final experiments with the refractory clay formation which were to decide whether or no the great bulk of the Flat's treasure could be saved to them. Bob's head was now quite better, but prolonged study in a clime which is not adapted for acute mental effort had made his young face appear drawn and haggard, yet his eyes shone with the light of enthusiasm as he busied himself with his rather crude appliances and set them in order for a last conclusive test. Mackay had hastily constructed a small vat for him, made from the hardest wood to be found in the bush, with an overflow tap some halfway up its height. This the young chemist now quarter filled with the crushed compound to be tested, and made up the level with water, to which he afterwards added some salt.
"It will ensure its conductivity," he explained; but neither Mackay nor Jack were much enlightened, so they held their peace. Next a rubber tube, with an oddly-conceived wooden shield on its exposed extremity was thrust into the receptacle, then a small bottle containing some liquid which bubbled and effervesced alarmingly, was brought forward, and its loose nozzle connected to the free end of the tube.
"A simple method of generating hydrogen," said Bob dreamily, "just iron pebbles and very dilute sulphuric acid." Mackay ventured a non-committal grunt, but Jack's face now showed keen appreciation. Lastly the two wires of a very small electric battery—Bob's own manufacture—were connected to corresponding metallic sheets lining the opposing ends of the vat. "That is merely as an added assistance to help the decomposing of the stuff into its[Pg 133] elements," muttered Bob; then he fixed the nozzle of the hydrogen generator tightly and stepped back.
At once a gurgling boiling sound arose from the vat, and its contents swelled up in bubbling circles of slime and soapy ooze. Mackay, obeying a motion from Bob, hastily pulled out the overflow tap, and so caused the more solid matter within to subside. Again Bob loaded the vat, and again Mackay allowed the foaming mass to overflow, and never a word was spoken. The operation was repeated until fully a hundredweight of the refractory substance had been utilized, and by this time the floor of the tent was aswim with the dense oily scum let loose.
"That should be enough to calculate on," said Bob. "And now comes the crucial point." He undid all connections and handed the muddy box to Mackay, who took it silently, and emptied the coarse sandy residue into an awaiting gold-pan.
"It's lost its puggy nature, anyway," he commented, pouring on it some water from a kerosene tin. He gave the pan a rapid swirl, then an oblique turn, and gasped. The bottom of the basin was literally covered with a thin film of the finest imaginable golden grains, which blazed and sparkled in the penetrating sunlight!
Bob looked and heaved a sigh of profound thankfulness. Jack looked, and celebrated his joy by whooping like a red Indian. Mackay looked and looked, indeed, he did not once take his eyes off the dazzling spectacle. Bob guessed his fears, and at once dispersed them.
"It's the genuine article this time," he said with assurance. "If it was going to melt away it would have done so in the acid solution; but the fact is it has just[Pg 134] been set free from the solution, and so is now as stable and tangible as the sands of the desert."
The rough, horny handed pioneer set the pan down on the floor, and wiped the beaded perspiration from his forehead, then he reached out his great fist and took Bob's hand in a fervent grasp.
"It's no' often I have to acknowledge a better man than mysel'," he said grimly; "but I must admit you've knocked the wind clean out o' me wi' this grand process o' yours. Why, my laddie, it means fortune for you in the years to come, an ever growin' fortune, for ye can charge what ye like for your discovery. An' you little mair than a youngster, too! Man, Bob, you've got a held that any professor might well envy."
Bob laughed right heartily as he returned the elder man's grip. The tension on his nerves had gone, and he felt almost constrained, like Jack, to shout in his gladness.
"If it means fortune, I shall refuse to take more than my third of it," he said, with grave emphasis. "This is a partnership affair. I'd rather break the whole concern up now than make a halfpenny that you two didn't share." Then he gave utterance to a firm, fixed belief, which had done much to sustain him during his intricate studies of the deceptive formation. "As for my youth," he continued, with a smile, and addressing himself more directly to Mackay, "I won't allow that that should entitle me to any credit, for the same brain is with us always, and, surely, when it is young, and fully developed, it should be able to grasp and evolve theories which, when older, it would hesitate to accept. The beaten track is so hard to forsake when one grows old in text-book experience. If the ordinary science professor came along here now and[Pg 135] examined my theories concerning this stuff and its treatment, without being shown their proof in practice, he would call them absurd and irrational. And why? Because I have gone wide of all precedent and text-book knowledge, and treated the compound for gold in an unstable state, and in that unstable state it is not supposed to exist." The young man spoke clearly and logically, yet with an unusual twinkle in his keen blue eyes.
When he had finished, Mackay ventured a word of admonition.
"Too much study when the brain is young, Bob," said he, "is vera dangerous indeed, though I quite agree wi' you in your line o' argument. Young genius, hooever, blossoms an' dees like the flowers of the spring—they never reach their summer; so the auld fossilized, follow-my-leader blockheads exist and flourish an' are aye wi' us. But I'll see that ye dinna work oot any more scientific problems for a bit. It'll be a grand relaxation after this for you to study the beauties o' Nature as shown in the Never Never country back here." He laughed sardonically, and waved his hand towards the unknown east.
"I'll be with you whenever you are ready," answered Bob, eagerly.
"And I'll bet you won't shake me out of it," spoke up Jack; and Mackay was comforted.
The sound of approaching footsteps was now heard outside the tent. Mackay hastily seized the gold pan, and placed it out of sight.
"Not a word aboot the discovery," he advised. "It will keep for a bit, until we hear what Macguire's tactics are."
A second more, and Emu Bill popped his head inside.[Pg 136] "Hang ye, Mac," said he, "I've nearly burst myself hollerin' down that shaft o' yours. I didn't think you'd be loafin' round at this time o' day, I didn't."
"What's that you've got in your fist?" asked Mackay, evading all explanations, and glancing at a huge, greyish fragment which Emu Bill was carrying abstractedly about.
"Oh—that? That's another specimen I wanted to show ye. The gold in it fairly howled at me down the shaft; but there ain't enough in it now to fill a muskittie's eye. All my wash has made into the humbuggin' stuff now. I'll have to give it best, boys, I will."
The resigned melancholy of his voice worked strangely on the feelings of Bob and Jack, and they gazed questioningly at Mackay, who nodded.
"Ay, show it to him, Bob," said he. "I think the Emu kens well enough hoo to haud his tongue."
"My goodness, mates," faltered Bill, in an awed whisper, when he saw the pan, "that is an almighty fine prospect. I reckon it must be twenty-ounce stuff. Where in thunder did ye get it?"
"It came from your shaft, Emu," said Bob. "It's the same deceiving miradgy humbugging material as that you've got in your hand. I've just found out how to bring back the gold after it fades away."
Emu Bill stared in amazement. "Will somebody kindly kick me?" he murmured feebly. "Is my sight goin' back on me again, or is it a real honest fact that hits me on the optic nerve?"
But he was soon led to understand that the gold in the pan was no delusion of the senses—that it was indeed a solid, substantial quantity.
[Pg 137]
"I takes off my hat to you, Bob," he said, with a little catch in his usually strong voice; and he suited the action to the word. "This'll mean new life to the whole Flat; an' I hope it'll spell fortune to you, my lad. What a pity Macguire's crowd got hitched on alongside the Golden Promise. They'll hit it every time, most likely; an', hang me! if they deserve it."
"We'll keep quiet aboot this discovery until we see how the bold Macguire tackles on to the mirage," said Mackay. "The meeserable thief may have jumped our ground in the Warden's office, for a' we know."
Emu Bill grasped the situation at once. "I'm a thick-head," said he. "Of course that bounder doesn't know; an' he won't know from me nuther. Mums the word, it is; an' what a howlin' joy it will be to see Macguire clutch on to the mirage. But I'll bet my boots, Mac, that the Shadow has busted up his claim-jumping game. I knows the young beggar, I does."
"An' so do I," said Mackay. "But I'll no blame him all the same if he canna accomplish the impossible."
It was now well after midday, and Emu Bill departed to prepare his lunch.
"I guess it's about time we had something to eat too," said Jack, who had been of that opinion for over an hour, and the three sallied out.
Jack was an expert at boiling the billy and making tea, and Mackay had a wonderful knowledge of the art of bush cookery, so that between them they always contrived to make a fairly palatable repast, notwithstanding the unvaried nature of their stores. Bob generally carried the water, or unearthed from their hiding-place the few enamelled cups and plates necessary; but, as he said[Pg 138] himself, his assistance in matters culinary would never have been missed. On this occasion he amused himself taking altitudes of the sun with his cherished sextant, while his companions attended to the more practical affairs. In one direction—slightly north of west from the camp—the open desert could be traced without interruption in the shape of scrub or hillocks, until it merged into the distant horizon. Bob had discovered this two days before, when he first endeavoured to make use of Mackay's gift, and he knew that it was just about one o'clock in the afternoon that the sextant reflectors would bring the sun down to this level line, and so give a true declination without the use of an artificial horizon. He ogled away in this direction now, keeping time by Mackay's old but trusty chronometer which lay on the sand before him, until Jack's call of "tucker"—which is the bush synonym for all sorts and conditions of meals—caused him to seek his wonted place at the open-air table.
"There is a dot or speck on the sky-line which I can't make out," he said, placing the sextant down carefully at his side. "I don't remember of it being there yesterday."
"Perhaps it's a tree grown up like Jonah's gourd," laughed Jack. "Have some more tea, Bob; and you'll see two trees next time you look!"
A little later Mackay lolled back in lazy satisfaction. "I believe," he said with a chuckle, "that I'm just in the mood to gie ye another verse o' 'The Muskittie's Lament.' I see Jack's no feenished, so I'll be sure o' him listening to my masterpiece this time." He lifted up his voice and sent forth a doleful wail as a preliminary; then, noting the grieved countenances of his audience,[Pg 139] he relented. "I'll get my flute an' play ye a bit frae the 'Bohemian Girl' instead. I'm no' so sure that I could tackle that high note in 'The Muskittie's Lament' on a fu' stomach."
He arose and walked to the tent, returning almost immediately with his instrument. But before he sat down his eye happened to glance over the unbroken track towards the west, and a frown settled over his features.
"Your obstruction on the sky-line was a man on horseback, Bob," said he; "I hope he's no' another professional fighter, wha wants me to chastise him into a humbler spirit."
Since the arrival of Macguire's party a further influx from the outside world had been daily expected, for news of gold "strikes" travels quickly, and the sudden exodus of nearly a dozen men from a comparatively small centre could only be construed in one way. Therefore, little more than passing interest was paid to the approaching horseman, who was yet a considerable way off, and Mackay, squatting down on the sand, blew at his flute right merrily, and promptly forgot all about him. The boys, too, quickly became enthralled with his melody, though with them there was always the shivering dread that the flautist would burst into song, and so break the spell that bound them. Many and various were the airs he played, but at last he sought solace in the old Scotch song, "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," and the feeling which he managed to infuse into the instrument was simply wonderful.
"Ay, my lads," said Mackay, when he had finished, "there's naething like the auld Scots sangs for awakenin'[Pg 140] kindly memories o' the land we're aye so glad to get away from. I'm no so sure, mind you, that it isna good fur us whiles to have a wholesome, tender sentiment gruppin' at the strings o' oor cauld hearts, an' playing strange music thereon; it straightens oor backs, an' gies us a grander sympathy——"
He ceased his flow of eloquence, and assumed a listening attitude of intense eagerness. Faintly over the plains had come the sound of a voice raised in cheerful song.
"Our visitor seems in a happy mood," said Bob, turning to look.
Mackay grunted, Jack laughed outright, for distinctly through the still air came the staccato refrain—
"A—bright—wee—muskittie—sat—on—a—tree."
The horseman was coming forward at an easy trot, jerking out the plaintive strains of Mackay's pet ditty to the novel time of his steed's clattering hoof-beats. As yet he was too far distant to be plainly distinguishable, but the song was enough for Mackay.
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