Read Ebook: In Quest of Gold; Or Under the Whanga Falls by St Johnston Alfred Browne Gordon Illustrator

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Ebook has 796 lines and 52523 words, and 16 pages

which the whole country had suffered from on the other side the mountains had not prevailed here, for trees and bushes, grasses, ferns, and flowers, were green and flourishing, and were running wild with that wanton luxuriance that a tropical sun engenders in a land where rain is frequent. Down some of the valleys little streams were flowing, a rare sight for Australia, and in one or two places the boys saw, for the first time in their lives, silvery cascades of water dashing and tumbling from the heights above to the clear basins below, into which their waters poured.

It was by the side of one of these streams that they had made their mid-day halt, and had cooked in his skin the young bandicoot that Alec had shot in the morning. The boys were now so excited at the thought that at last they were approaching the scene of their labours that they did not make so long a halt as usual. This did not so much matter, as the feed for the horses by the side of the stream was plentiful and good. At last, in the early afternoon, they made their way through a chaotic mass of rocks at the foot of a great grey mountain, and rounding his grand shoulder, that for some time had shut out their view of what was in front, Murri sang out--

"Oh, let us push on, Alec," said George, impetuously. "It can't be very far, and we can perhaps get there to-night."

"It won't be any use if we do, for it will be nearly dark, and we could not do anything. But let us try; I am every bit as anxious as you are to reach the valley. Geordie, do you know I believe I should die of sheer disappointment if we find nothing."

But Murri was, as usual in these matters, quite right. They could not manage to get to the valley before sunset, though they did their best to do so. They had to camp that night with still a few miles between them and the fateful valley.

Long before sunrise next day the boys were astir. They could not rest after the first call of the laughing jackass in a neighbouring tree had told them that dawn was at hand. They were too excited at the thought that at last the day had dawned which might see them rich, rich beyond their wildest dreams, with gold enough to pay off the odious debt on Wandaroo, and more, much more, besides. It almost seemed to them, with the Whanga gully so near, that they held the gold already.

"Oh, never mind breakfast, Alec, do let us get on. A hunch of damper will do for me. I am not hungry."

"Neither am I, or I don't feel it if I really am, but I am going to make a good breakfast, and so are you, young sir, so don't make a fuss. We have a day's work before us, and it may be a hard one."

It did not take them very long to get the tea and food ready, for they had made their fire over night, against a log of wood, and it had smouldered till morning. It is always advisable to do so when camping out, as it then is not necessary to feed the fire through the night.

After an hour's ride through country that was similar to that which they had passed over the day before, they had rounded the mountain, which Murri had said was Tooingoora, and at last they reached the opening in the hills which the black boy said was Whanga. The boys' hearts beat high as they looked up the valley which had been so constantly in their thoughts, and with flushed, eager faces they turned their horses' heads towards the entrance to it.

"Geordie, I declare that now I am here, I am almost afraid to go in. I know it is idiotic, but I am so nervous that I can hardly stay in the saddle."

"Get off and sit on the ground then," said George, with a little laugh, for now that the time was at hand, when they must learn the best or the worst, he was much the calmer of the two.

"I suppose we shall put the worth of our venture to the test within the next hour. What shall we do if we find nothing after all?"

"Go home again, I suppose," said George, with more calmness than he really felt. "We shall not be a bit worse off than we were before, at any rate."

"No, but we shall have suffered a great deal all in vain, and my disappointment will be none the less keen because we are none the worse off than before."

"You, at any rate, will be worse off than before, old boy, for your hair is half burnt off, and nearly all that fascinating moustache singed away," said George, lightly. Nearly everything had a comic side to it for him, and seeing Alec so gloomy and desponding he tried to cheer him up.

"How can you talk in that careless way of what is so important to us all?"

"Oh, I could be cheerful enough if I knew for a certainty that we had come on a fool's errand. It is only this anxiety and uncertainty that I cannot bear."

The boys grew very silent as they approached the head of the valley, where they knew the hole was that the nugget had been taken from. Even George, for all his light-hearted gaiety, was quiet, and rode along with his eyes steadily fixed upon the end of the valley and his jaw squarely set, in a way that made him resemble Alec more closely than ever. Over country of the wild, rocky sort, of which the valley consisted, it is always the best plan to leave your horse to choose his own way, and both Murri and the boys followed this method.

For some little time they had heard a dull, roaring noise in front of them, and as the boys approached the head of the valley, the air was shaken by the heavy sound of a fall of water, but they could see no cascade that could account for it. When the party was within a very short distance of the great cliff in which the gully ended, Alec pulled up his horse, turned round and said to Murri, who was slapping his naked thigh in time to the song he was singing--

"Murri, whereabouts um hole where Black Harry find um 'heavy stone'?" which was the name the blacks had given to the nugget that Harry had worn.

"Yo go on along um picannini creek, other side along o' that fellow," answered he, making a sweep with his arm and indicating a great buttress of rock which projected into the gully, and round which the stream, "um picannini creek," was flowing. "Mine believe plenty much water fill um hole like along o' that time picannini Murri come along o' Whanga," added he, carelessly.

Alec's heart sank as he understood what Murri meant. He remembered that he had told him, at the camp at Wandaroo, that when he was there before, with his tribe as a little lad, the pool was full of water. Alec had hoped that it would be all dried up after the long drought they had suffered, and, notwithstanding the stream which flowed down the valley, he had trusted to the last that the water might not be flowing through that one particular pool.

"Geordie," said Alec, catching his brother up, "we must be prepared for the worst. Murri says that he believes the hole is filled with water, just as it was when he was a picannini and came here."

As he spoke they all rounded the great abutting rock, and saw before them a grand cascade of shining water falling in one huge column from the cliff, and plunging, amidst sheets of silvery spray, into the deep rock basin at its foot.

"That's um hole yo come see. Yo like um?"

WAYS AND MEANS.

It would be difficult to imagine anything more painful than the boys' feelings at that moment; the disappointment was almost more than they could bear. It is true they had built their hopes upon very slight foundations, but their disappointment was none the less keen on that account. They had thought about the gold so much, hoped for it so ardently, and undergone such dangers to reach the spot where they expected to discover it, that to find all their sanguine anticipations blighted was very bitter to them. The dream of gold had been so bright a one, and the chances of their dream coming true had seemed so probable, that they almost felt they had a right to its fulfilment--older people often feel the same about the achievement of their desires, and with as little reason.

"Well," said Alec, after a moment or two of silent contemplation of the pool and cascade which had frustrated all their plans, "well, we have been living in a fool's paradise, and this is what comes of it."

"Beastly, isn't it?" said George. "But look here Alec, old man, perhaps after all there is no gold at the bottom of that pool, so don't let us fret about it."

"And we may not put our hands in it! Never mind, we have only lost what we never had."

"You jolly Irishman! Well, we may as well turn back. It is no use staying here."

"I beg to differ," said Geordie, who had thrown one leg over his horse's head, and was sitting sideways on his saddle in an idle sort of manner, and he slipped to the ground as he spoke. "At any rate let us stay here to-day, and give the horses a rest before we turn homewards."

His busy brain had already begun to think out several schemes for getting at the bottom of the pool, but he would not mention them to Alec for fear of again raising hopes that might prove false. His active mind was generally the one to devise methods and plans, which he would often have been quite unable to execute without Alec's steady-going co-operation. But these two fellows always worked so well together, and were so completely one at heart, that neither thought for one moment of taking special credit to himself for any one part that he might have originated or executed.

Taking the horses some little way down the stream, where there seemed to be more and better food for them than close to the waterfall, the boys and Murri unloaded them, and hobbling them, as usual, turned them loose. Alec suggested that if they were going to stay one night in the gully--"And the rest," thought George--they had better pitch their camp somewhere thereabouts, as they would be near the fall and yet out of reach of its deafening noise. So they arranged their goods and chattels close to one side of the gully where the steep cliff cast a grateful shade.

Directly that George saw Alec engaged upon making some alteration in the stuffing of one of the pack saddles, which had begun to chafe the back of the horse that carried it, he started off by himself to make a more careful survey of the pool and the waterfall. He wished to go alone, so he walked off without saying anything to his brother. Alec, although he had said that he should be quite cheerful if he knew the worst, seemed very much depressed at the failure of all his hopes, and sat rather gloomily over his work. He was paying close attention to what he was doing, for he hated careless work of any kind, and did not see Geordie leave the camp.

The place certainly did not present a very hopeful appearance when George came to examine it. The waterfall poured in one straight column from the top of the perpendicular cliff, and dashed itself into the pool beneath, which again overflowed to the stream below in a little cascade, from the narrow lip of rock which formed the front edge of the basin. George thought that the scene was a very beautiful and grand one now that he could look at it with calmer eyes. The ravine, at the far end of which the cascade fell, was very narrow, so that the lofty cliffs on either side shut out the direct sunshine, except at mid-day, when the sun was just overhead. The whole place was dim and full of shadow, and the sound of the falling water and the coolness of the air, moistened by the drifting showers of misty spray, made it a pleasant retreat from the glare and tropical heat of the ardent day beyond its limits. The rocks for the most part were bare of vegetation, but in one or two places near the fall itself masses of tall grasses and ferns grew with luxuriant greenness, and along the top of the cliff from which the cascade fell a line of bushes grew, and creeping plants, which hung far down the rock, swayed by the current of air made by the great mass of falling water.

The water looked cool and inviting, and George thought he would have a dip into it before he began his exploration. He thought that by so doing he might discover how deep the pool was. The basin into which the waterfall plunged was some five or six feet above the level of the stream, into which the water flowed by a second and much smaller cascade. Undressing--a work that did not take him very long--on the bank of the stream, George scrambled up by the side of the little waterfall, and stood on the narrow wall of rock that confined the waters of the basin, his well-made muscular body and legs looking strangely fair when compared with his red and sun-browned face and neck and arms. He stood for one moment with one foot in the water--how hot the sun was on his naked body--and then plunged into the pool.

He found that he could just touch bottom near the place where the water flowed out, but that nearer the middle of the pool it was beyond his depth. He did not go under the fall, though he went close to it, for the volume of water was so great and fell in so heavy a stream. Standing, a few minutes afterwards, in the sunshine to dry himself before he dressed again, he made a rough mental calculation, and found that the parts of the pool he had been able to bottom were about on a level with the stream. With a pleased little nod he sprang lightly down the rocks, which were hot to his naked feet, and scrambled into his clothes.

As soon as he was dressed he walked to the face of the great cliff over which the water plunged, and began to examine it to find a place where he might climb up. The rock near the fall was quite too steep for any one to ascend, but a little way from it, where the ravine curved, George found a place up which he thought he could manage to scramble. As he was strong and a quite fearless rock climber, he was often able to conquer difficulties that most people would have found insuperable. Jamming tightly on to his head the cap he had extemporised the night after he lost his felt hat at the precipice, two days before, George began to climb. It was a work for arms as well as legs, for the cliff was so steep in places that he had actually to haul himself up by his hands; but Geordie was at home in this sort of climbing, and nimbly scaled up places that from below looked absolutely perpendicular.

It took even Geordie some time to get to the top, for the cliff was higher than it appeared to be from the ravine, but at last he was able to grasp the stout stem of a ti-bush that grew on the edge of the crag, and holding this and throwing his chest on to the flat ground at the top he was able to haul himself up. He sprang to his feet at once, for he was in such perfect condition that even the violent exertion he had just made had not put him out of breath. He found himself on a little piece of comparatively level ground which rose, at first gradually, and then by a steeper incline, till it joined the great bulk of Tooingoora, which towered, majestic and grim, before him. The ground, just where he was, was covered with a thick and tangled growth of scrub, through which he could hear the sound of the swiftly running stream, which poured itself with a roar over the edge of the height.

George made his way between the bushes with some little difficulty, for they were so matted together with a strong wiry sort of creeper, and in a moment or two he reached the edge of the stream. He found that it was flowing very rapidly, as though preparing for the leap it was about to make, along a rocky watercourse, which at present was a great deal too wide for its requirements, but the whole of which in flood times it would probably occupy.

George examined the bed of the stream very carefully, walking up it some little way and then back again to the place where the water plunged over the edge of the rock in one great smooth sweep. He seemed to observe one part more than any; it was where a dried-up arm of the watercourse branched out from the side of the running stream; it would evidently be converted into a stream itself if only a very little more water came down from the mountain, for its sandy bed was only just above the level of the one that was then flowing. After examining the nature of the ground just there, George gave a little satisfied laugh, and said, in a deeply mysterious manner--

"Yes, I believe this will do."

"Come down, you young ape!" he yelled.

"Ape yourself," replied Geordie; but he instantly swung himself over the edge and began descending at a break-neck pace, and in a moment he stood by the side of his brother.

"You'll break your neck as sure as fate if you fling yourself about like that. I never saw such a fellow as you are; you are just like a cat on your feet. Where have you been?"

"In the waterfall, up the waterfall, and over the waterfall, and I have come to the conclusion that the waterfall is but a poor creature, and that we can manage it after all."

"Manage it! What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say, and I think you will agree with me when you hear my plan, and have examined the stream before it falls from the cliff."

"Plan! what plan?"

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