The Gold-Stealers Part 29

d.i.c.k brightened up, and shook hands cheerfully.

'You're quite sure about that gold? You hid it securely?' queried the detective.

'Yes, I buried it under the reef quite safe.'

'And n.o.body knows of this hole but yourself?'

'Yes, Jacker knows, an' Ted, an' Billy Peterson, an'--'

'Bless my soul, the whole towns.h.i.+p knows! We won't get an ounce of that gold--not a colour. We'd better make the search at once, Mr. Hardy.

You'll need a rope and tools, I suppose. Hunt up the men you spoke of as quickly as possible, will you?'

Harry and d.i.c.k started off together in quest of McKnight. He was on the night s.h.i.+ft, and they found him in bed. Harry explained. McKnight was scornful and profane.

'What--that boy Haddon again?' he cried. 'Now what's his little game?

What devilment's he up to?

'But this looks all right,' Harry expostulated.

'All right, my grandmother's cat! You'll be findin' quartz reefs in a gum-tree next.'

'You ask Jacker an' Ted,' put in d.i.c.k resentfully, hurt to find his well-intentioned efforts so ungraciously received.

'Ask Jacker, is it? If Jacker comes playin' any of your monkey tricks with me, my lad, I'll make him smell mischief, I tell you.'

'But hang it all, Mack! you might as well come an' see. I own the chances o' finding a shallow reef in that locality look blue, but you know there was talk o' something of the kind years ago.'

'Yes, talk by fellers that didn't know a quartz lode from a load o'

bricks or a stone wall. Get out, I'm sleepy.'

'Show him the specimen,' said d.i.c.k.

Harry handed it over.

'The boy says this is from his show. How's that?' he said.

McKnight took the stone indifferently, cast his eye over it, and then sat up with a jerk. He moistened the stone here and there, glared again in a strained silence, and one leg shot out of bed. He weighed the specimen in his hand, and the second leg followed. Then McKnight fell to dressing himself; he literally jumped into his clothes, and as he b.u.t.toned his vest all askew, he gasped:

'Hold on there--I'll be with you in two twos!'

'Wouldn't break my neck about it, old man,' said Harry sarcastically, 'p'raps the boy made that specimen out of a door k.n.o.b an' a bit of brick.'

'Did he, but--That's just the same cla.s.s o' stone as the specimen Henderson found in the back paddock twelve years ago, that sent everyone daft after a reef there. Come on.'

McKnight was now much the most eager of the three, and led the way at a great pace to Peterson's house. Peterson was more easily convinced, and in a few minutes the four joined Downy at Mrs. Hardy's. The detective had borrowed a coil of rope, the necessary tools were provided, and the party set off. The five no sooner appeared on the flat with their burdens than they were sighted by many of the people of Waddy, now eagerly on the lookout for adventure, and before they reached the bush they had quite a mob at their heels, fed by a thin stream of men, women, and children hurrying to witness the newest development of Waddy's latest and greatest affair.

d.i.c.k led the men into the Gaol Quarry, and at the spring turned and pointed the way through the scrub growth under which he and his mates always crawled to get at the opening leading into the Mount of Gold.

'In there,' he said, 'agin the wall.'

Harry and McKnight broke a pa.s.sage through the saplings and ti-tree.

''Tween them two rocks,' said d.i.c.k; 'low down under the fern.'

'Yes,' cried Harry, 'here we are! Let's have the hammer, Peterson.'

Harry broke away projecting pieces of stone, widening the aperture, and d.i.c.k and the detective joined them at the opening.

'I'll go first,' said the boy. 'I can go down the ladder we made, but it mightn't bear a man.'

d.i.c.k went below and lit a couple of candles. Nothing had been touched in the drive, and he peeped into the shaft and saw that the loose dirt there was as he left it. Harry joined him in a few minutes and McKnight followed. The men came down on the boys' curious ladder, but with a rope about their waists, paid out from above. Downy was the last to go below, Peterson remaining on the surface to keep the crowd back from the entrance.

McKnight seized a candle, crawled to the extremity of d.i.c.k's diminis.h.i.+ng drive, and examined the place curiously.

'It's right,' he cried, 'right as the bank. She's a d.y.k.e formation, I should say, an' rich. By the holy, we're made men--made men, Hardy!

Detective Downy was too deeply interested in his own quest to pay much attention to the miners.

'Now, my lad,' he said, 'where are we?'

'The bag's there under them lumps.' d.i.c.k held his candle low, throwing its light into the shaft. Downy dropped from the slabs placed across from drive to drive into the bottom, and going on his knees threw aside the lumps of mullock indicated by the boy. d.i.c.k followed him holding the candle, and watching his movements, anxiously at first, and then with terror. He flung himself down beside the detective, and plunged his hand amongst the rubble, then ceased and faced the detective, mute, despairing.

'Well, well,' cried Downy in alarm, 'what is it?

'Gone!' whispered d.i.c.k.

'Gone? Are you sure? We have not searched yet.'

'It's gone!'

'You may have made a mistake. Hardy, Mc Knight, lend a hand here.'

'No good,' said d.i.c.k, 'it's gone.--it's stolen. I put it right here, coverin' it with this flat junk an' a lot o' small stuff. I know--I know quite well.'

Harry and McKnight went into the shaft with shovels, and turned over the dirt stowed there to the depth of two feet, but the bag was gone.

'Show a light here,' Downy said suddenly, looking up at d.i.c.k from the slab on which he was seated above the two workers. He took the candle and examined the edge of the slab closely.

'You said the bag containing the stolen gold was made of hide.'

'Yes,' said the boy, 'green hide--just a calfskin bag, with the hair on.'

'Humph! Then here is proof that part of your story is true anyhow.' He held up a little tuft of reddish hair.

'Rogers had a skin bag, a red-an'-white one. Used to use it fer haulin'

in the shallow alluvial at Eel Creek. I've seen it at his hut often,'

said McKnight. 'But, I say, mister, if you' take the advice of an old miner you'll get out o' this just as quick as you can lick. See, the timber's been taken out o' this shaft, an' it's a wonder to me it ain't come down in a lump an' buried them kids long since. It's d.a.m.n dangerous, I tell you.'