‘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 beginning. Then he shook hands with Swainger, thanking him for the hospitality of the camp in the usual set terms, and concluded to the lanky youth.
‘Good-bye, sonny – I take the will for the deed in the matter of greasing the axles… Good-b’ – Hallo! Where’s your mate, Mr Swainger?’
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?’
‘My colonial oath they will. The game’s just begun, but we’ll win it.’
‘We! What do you get out of it, Billy?’
His face hardened at that, and he replied almost coldly, ‘My fee – and so far as actual inspection goes, it’s the easiest two hundred and fifty I ever earned.’
‘But you’ll get it whether you beat these fellows or not?’
‘Harry,’ said Billy Pagan severely, ‘I’m surprised at you. You’re no sportsman!’
‘Now, Mr Manning,’ said Billy, the night after our arrival in Coolgardie, ‘will you please tell me how you took your samples?’
‘In the usual way,’ replied the older man, but deprecatingly – ‘all along the drive diagonally in six feet sections.’
‘But you didn’t use a sampling sheet. All the stone you broke down fell to the floor and you shovelled it up from there and then quartered it.’
‘Yes, but -’
‘And the result is this. I’ve crushed and panned all my samplings, and I can only get a few grains to the ton. But I took a special sample of the broken stuff along the side of the drive and I got twelve ounces to the ton for one sample and fourteen ounces for the other.’
‘Good heavens! Then I was salted?’
‘You were.’
‘I’m ashamed of myself. I am sick of myself. I might have known by the character of the rock, but I don’t trust my eyes, as I’m shortsighted.’
‘It can’t be helped – you got an average of two ounces for all the stone in sight, didn’t you?’
‘Yes – two ounces.’
‘Then we’ve just got time to stop the swindle… Now don’t be downhearted. Nobody could doubt your straightness.’
The old man smiled sadly. ‘But I doubt my own ability now, Mr Pagan.’
‘We must go now… Good-bye. See you later… Off to the telephone office, Harry.’
The terminus of the telegraph line was twenty miles further west, and from Coolgardie telegrams were sent by telephone to the operator at the terminus at Pink Rocks.
Billy Pagan coded a cable that was translatable thus, ‘Refuse to complete. The mine is an absolute swindle.’
We walked to the Post Office feeling very successful and confident, but Billy Pagan stopped at the entrance as Swainger’s figure disappeared within.
‘They’re here, Harry – but they’re later than I thought. And what’s the good of them being here now and cabling?’
We entered. Hercules leaned against the wall of the inner office and glared at us, drunkenly truculent.
Billy rapped at the wooden shutter of the telephone room, and the clerk appeared and demanded our business.
‘I’ve got a cable I want sent right away.’
‘Can’t send it till I’ve got this message through.’
‘And how long will that be?’
‘About two hours.’
‘Two hours! Man, it must go through at once. I’ll pay urgent rates.’
‘It’s an urgent I’ve got on now, and it’s a long message.’
Billy thought a moment and then replied, ‘All right, I’ll come back in two hours. You must arrange to break the long message if it’s not through then.’
The clerk said ‘All right,’ and closed the shutter. The telephone bell rang again – the voice of the transmitter spoke again.
We left the office, Billy leading me into the scrub beyond the office, and then by a detour back to the Post Office, but at its side and not its front.
‘Quiet,’ he whispered. ‘Keep out of the ray of the lamp. Now… crawl behind me.’
We crawled through a little belt of scrub and past the piles of a building – built, as usual, high from the ground on zinc-covered piles to delay the ravages of white ants.
We were under the Post Office.
‘Listen – Harry – what is it?’
We listened and heard this: -
‘In the last summer number of The Clarion we reviewed the Westralian discoveries by sea – ‘Have you got that? eh. … Never mind whether it’s rot or not - this is the message and I’m being paid for it -’ By sea. Inseparably connected with the land discoveries are the travels of John Forrest, Alexander Forrest, Fyre Austin and others whose names we know and of that great and nameless legion of explorers and prospectors and adventurers who have beaten the ways for the little men of the cities in all countries and at all times. And if there is one thing that calls for the adventurous Australian’s gratitude it is - ‘Got that?”