Sand on the Gumshoe: a century of Australian crime writing

‘Under below,’ called the voice of Billy Pagan cheerily, and with feelings of relief I heard the hook on the windlass rope strike metallically against the walls of the shaft. There were two slings on the hook. I slung the two bags of samples, called to the men on top to ‘haul away,’ and as soon as the samples were out of reach took the sampling sheet over my shoulder, put the prospecting hammer in my belt, blew out the candle and started for the surface.

I expected Hercules, maddened by his black and silent rage, to wrench me from the ladder, and I climbed through the half gloom with only one sensation, and that, the instinct to reach the good earth’s surface quickly; but I had no need for fear. Hercules warred in no such open ways. I could hear him muttering curses in the blackness of the drive, but I was on the last ladder before he began to climb.

Billy Pagan stood on guard over the bags. At the mouth of the shaft Swainger, looking furtively depressed and making his anxiety more apparent by affecting an air of good fellowship, deprecated an immediate departure.

‘Give the show a chance, Mr Pagan,’ he said. ‘There’s another reef further over there.’

‘But no work done on it?’

‘Not as much as on this one – just potholes.’

‘Well, I don’t trouble to see them,’ replied Billy Pagan. ‘My instructions were to sample a mine not potholes.’

‘But you’d better wait and drive back in the cool. Your horses are getting a bit of green feed, too.’

Billy Pagan smiled – he knew how much ‘green feed’ there was in that drought-stricken wilderness, and then he suddenly snapped rather than said, ‘Green feed! Much more likely poison plant… Hallo! What’s that fellow doing with my horses?’

I looked in the direction of his gaze and saw one of the over-tall youths stoning Pagan’s two greys. They had halted to browse on the ridge three hundred yards from us, and the lanky youth attempted to drive them on. Another minute and they would have been driven down the ridge and out of our sight in the gullies.

‘Hey, you! Leave those horses alone,’ Billy shouted, and at the sound of his voice the lanky youth dropped behind a boulder and disappeared, and the horses resumed feeding on the scanty salt-bush.

Billy Pagan’s eyes glittered, but he said no word to betray the fact that his suspicions were aroused to their highest pitch.

‘Will you bring my horses back here, Harry,’ he said quietly, and I threw the sampling sheet on the bags. At sight of it Swainger’s eyes were filled with murder.

As I turned to go the sullen face of Hercules appeared at the mouth of the shaft.

When I returned with the horses the group of three at the shaft mouth were waiting in silence; Hercules, with his strong, sullen head bent, relieving his passion by pulling fragments of stout chip with fingers that seemed to be made of steel – so hard and irresistible seemed their grip upon the wood. Swainger, in doubt, glaring at the sampling sheet; Billy Pagan, cool, calmly smiling his superiority in the struggle.

As I came up he said, ‘Will you put the horses in, Harry? The harness is in the buggy’, and as I nodded acquiescence, his tone became stern as he hailed the second lanky youth who hovered round the buggy with an axle-nut wrench.

‘Hey, you! What are you doing?’

‘Goin’ to put a drop o’ neatsfoot in the axleboxes,’ replied the youth sulkily.

‘Well, why don’t you?’ I, who knew him, detected irony in the question – irony that was sure of the weakness of its opponent.

‘Our wrench won’t fit,’ said the youth, even more sulkily than before.

‘Won’t it? Well, there’s a wrench in the box under the seat.’

The youth started towards it.

‘Wait a minute – the box is locked.’

The youth stopped with an oath.

‘Never mind – I’ll oil the axles myself. I like greasy work… Come here, my lad.’

The youth slouched to the mouth of the shaft. ‘Take one of these bags, will you? I’ll take the other.’

‘I’ll carry one,’ said Hercules with a little badly disguised eagerness in his voice.

‘I won’t trouble you,’ said Billy soothingly, as if he were merely careful that Hercules should not overtax his strength. ‘But you may carry the sampling sheet.’

Hercules snatched up the canvas and cursed in a whisper as audible as a stage aside.

The little procession came to the buggy. Billy Pagan stacked the bags in the front of the vehicle, took his seat and put a foot on each bag. I handed him the reins as Swainger came from the camp with a bottle and glasses.

‘No thanks,’ said Billy; ‘I never drink before twelve.’

‘But it’s after twelve now,’ said Swainger.

‘I mean before twelve midnight then.’

Swainger scowled, but affected to laugh off his disappointment.

I fastened the traces to the bars and mounted to the buggy beside the engineer.

He bore upon the reins to feel the mouths of the horses and let them know the journey was begi

‘Good-bye, so

Hercules had disappeared.

‘In the camp, I think,’ replied Swainger confusedly.

‘All right… Well, good-bye.’

He put the horses up to the collar as he spoke, and the buggy moved.

‘Good-bye, Mr Pagan… Hey! You’re left the sampling sheet.’

‘Never mind… I’ll give it to you. You’ll find it handy next time.’

If Swainger made reply he never heard it. The beautiful team took us swiftly past the spurs of gleaming quartz into the deep-milled dust of the main track.

‘So the mine’s a fraud, Billy?’

‘Fraud’s no name for it… And those fellows would stick at nothing. That black scoundrel sneaking after us in the dark; the murder in the eyes of both of them when they saw the sampling sheet, and knew that the little game of salting the bottom edges of the drive was no good to them… I knew when I saw the stone it was N.G… They sunk that shaft on the strength of little rich leaders that I could see at the surface had been payable… Then they say, Well, here’s a boom. We’ll be in it. We’ve got any quantity of stone, and we’ll make the quality good enough… I don’t grumble at them doing that… It’s all in the game – their game; and it’s all in my game to crab them if I can.’

‘What are you hot about then?’

‘Because they’ve done things that are not in the game. They’d have thrown us both down that shaft and the samples after us, only they hadn’t quite enough courage for it. If we had shown the least sign of fear we were done. But they couldn’t understand a man having sufficient front to laugh at ‘em. And what clumsy liars! Swainger had come along to measure up the work of the contractors, and there’s no contractors there and not a foot of work has been done for months. They tried to lose our horses, didn’t they? – and that long-necked young thief who was monkeying round with a wrench – trying to kindly grease the wheels and lose an axle-nut or two… They’ve put my back up. We’ve only two days to stop Harmer paying the money to the other thief in London – less than two days, because Australia is nine hours ahead of England.’

‘And where did the black ruffian go to?’

‘Did you see a cloud of dust away to the right – two miles back?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ll lay a wager that was Mr Hercules rounding up his horses and galloping them back to the English Flag.’

‘They’ll follow us then?’