THE SKELETON MINE.
A Tale of South Africa.

I was one of the first prospectors in the Transval to search for gold and a precious dance it lead me. At that time but few Englishmen had ventured into the Boer country and such was the jealousy with which they were regarded that it was impossible to secure any information which would assist in the search. Footsore and weary I tramped from farm to farm, content to obtain a supper of mealies and the toughest of tough South African mutton. There were rumors on every hand that gold existed but to locate it was quite another matter. It has since transpired that in my wanderings I passed over some of the richest gold bearing deposits in the world but so unlike the gold bearing fields of California and Australia is the Rand that the most experienced miner would never have dreamed of the richness of the claims. I was not searching for quartz but the poor man’s field, placer mines. To add to my perplexities my money ran short and I could only replenish my purse at Cape Town. I sank so low that I was compelled to sell my horse and from that hour I was on a level with a Kaffir in the estimation of the Boers. The white man who approaches a farmhouse in the Transval on foot must be prepared for abject humiliation. Fortunately I had acquired some knowledge of sheep in Australia else I believe that I should have starved. When all else failed I became a sheep doctor and vended a compound whose virtues would have done credit to the most widely advertised patent medicine nostrum.

One long to be remembered evening I arrived at a Boer’s house situated twenty miles from any other habitation. When I asked for supper and a night’s lodging the door was slammed in my face and in the worst of German I was ordered to begone. Physically I was incapable of complying with the command and mentally I had not the slightest intention of departing. In an outhouse, devoted to storing mealies, sheep skins and harness, an old man was sitting on the doorstep compounding a mixture, which I recognized as a sheep remedy. I approached him and gave him to understand that I was possessed of a remedy which would work wonders in such cases. He was all attention instantly and the result was that in a few minutes an excellent meal was spread in the house, to which I was invited. Then I proceeded to mix a number of simples, which the man possessed, and finally I poured into the simmering mass, with the greatest care and ostentation, a few grains of borasic acid, which I fortunately possessed.

The following day I was the most surprised man in South Africa when I learned that my preparation was working a marvellous cure. I was invited to remain with the Boer the balance of the season as an honored guest. Day after day I tramped the hills, returning at night as wise and as rich as when I set out. There were unmistakable indications that gold should be found in the vicinity but the stubborn fact remained that I could not find it. I had given up all hopes and only remained to recruit my strength previous to setting out on my long journey to the coast when the following remarkable circumstances transpired.

I slept in a great four poster bed of proportions ample for a race of giants, and as I was deposited between two feather ticks in the old German fashion, the weather being the reverse of cold, my dreams were not the most pleasant and my rest not untroubled. But for offending the good housewife I would have asked for a sheepskin on the floor.

One sultry night, after a long day’s walk, I found myself tossing and restless and unable to get even a forty wink nap. For hours I thus lay lamenting my fate and regretting having abandoned the land of the Golden Fleece for the land of King Solomon’s mines. At a late hour I fell into a disturbed sleep. I awoke with a start and listened attentively. All was quiet in the house and yet I felt certain that some one was preparing to leave the place. How long this impression remained I am unable to say. I am by no means certain that I again fell asleep, and yet I am compelled by that which followed to acknowledge that it is probable that such was the fact. Whether dreaming or waking, I saw a venerable old man, dressed as a German peasant, walk quietly out of the front door, cast a suspicious glance around, as if to ascertain whether he had been observed and then slip out into the darkness, where he disappeared.

So realistic was the scene that the following morning I inquired whether a friend of the family had paid them a visit after I had retired.

The answer was, “No.”

Two nights later I saw precisely the same thing happen again but as on the former occasion I could not decide whether I had been dreaming or not. The appearance of the venerable old man was indellibly stamped upon my brain. I saw distinctly that he was very old, that his beard was as white as a lamb’s fleece and that he was dressed in an antiquated garb, seen only in the most secluded parts of Germany, in which country I had spent several months attending a school in my boyhood days. The next night I determined to remain awake but was not successful and again I saw the old man depart. His constant re-appearance had at last a powerful effect upon me. I decided that the next time, whether asleep or awake, I would follow him. With this resolve upon my mind I retired the next night and soon fell into a heavy sleep, due, no doubt, to my former wakefulness. Once more I awoke, or imagined that I awoke, with the well-defined conviction that some person was preparing to leave the house. Cautiously I crept out of bed and as the old man left by the front door I slipped out by a side entrance. I remember distinctly saying to myself: “This is certainly not a dream; there is the man walking slowly over the veldt and here I am watching and ready to follow where he may lead.”

Follow him I did. My strange guide never once looked behind him after he had left the house but proceeded directly to the hills, which ran along the north of the farm and were distant some two miles. He gradually quickened his pace and finally I was compelled to run to keep him in sight. After he entered the hills he turned and doubled on his track in the most provoking manner and frequently I not only lost sight of him but barely escaped meeting him face to face, so sudden were his turns and so unexpected his re-appearances. Why I was following him I could not tell. In fact I was possessed of but a single impulse and that was to follow. The old man never halted or hesitated but finally entered a narrow valley, at the end of which rose a precipitous cliff. At that point he suddenly disappeared. When I reached the spot I found that beneath an overhanging rock an excavation had been made at some time in the past, as there were no signs of recent work. The pit was thickly strewn with fallen leaves, and as it was but a few feet in depth, I let myself down into it in the hope of discovering some passage by which the old man had disappeared. My foot struck something which was evidently metal. It proved to be an antiquated shovel with a short handle. The night was a bright one and at the time the moonbeams streamed directly into the place. I could discover no means of retreat save by the way I had entered and it was impossible for my strange guide to have returned by that route and passed me unnoticed, unless he possessed the power of rendering himself invisible. To probe the matter to the bottom I commenced digging. The ground was exceedingly hard and my progress correspondingly slow. I threw out several shovels of earth and then climbed up the bank and examined it. I came upon a nugget, worth at least five pounds, then another and another, but all smaller than the first. All of my mining instincts were aroused and I forgot the strange circumstances under which I had been led to the mine. Again I entered the pit and set to work with all my energy and again I was handsomely rewarded. The fever of greed seized upon me and I worked as if my life depended on the result. The seventh time I began digging but the first thrust of the shovel brought it in contact with some hard substance. I stooped down and found that I had uncovered the complete skeleton of a man. An indescribable terror seized upon me. I had been mining in a grave. I am not superstitious but for the first I clearly realized the uncanny circumstances which surrounded my discovery. I imagined that I heard vague whisperings in the air and that a rumbling sound came swelling up the valley. I lost my presence of mind, threw down the shovel and ran for my life. I would have sworn that a legion of nameless fiends were at my very heels, so insane was my fright. When I emerged from the hills the moon was shining calmly and the sense of peace and repose brought me to my senses. I walked rapidly to the farmhouse, which was in sight, crept in and without undressing threw myself on the bed. I was soon asleep nor did I awake until the housewife called me to breakfast.

When I discovered that I was dressed I was amazed. I remembered distinctly going to bed the previous evening: but had no recollection of having got up during the night, until by chance I put my hand in my pocket and drew out one of the nuggets. Then it all came back to me with a vividness which was startling in its intensity. There could be no doubt of the mine for the gold in my pockets was worth fully one hundred and fifty pounds.

I resolved that I would keep my discovery a secret and continue to work the mine which had yielded such handsome results in a single night. Then I repaired to the hills and began my search. Half an hour convinced me that I retained not the slightest clew as to the location of the mine. Day after day I continued the search but in vain. No trace of the valley could I discover and finally I was compelled to admit that a doubt existed in my mind as to whether the gold had been found by me or had been placed in my pocket by some kind fairy.

To have found and lost such an exceedingly rich deposit was exasperating in itself but the uncertainty which enshrouded the whole business made me doubt my own sanity.

One evening as I was sitting in the house brooding over the problem the Boer’s wife opened a great clothes’ press, removed several articles of wearing apparel and laid them on the floor. My attention was immediately attracted to an old coat.

“Who owns the suit of clothes?” I inquired.

“They belonged to grandfather,” was the answer.

“Is he dead?” I queried.

“Dead more than twenty years, in fact before I was married and came to live here, for he was my husband’s father.”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes, but I was only a little girl at the time.”

“Why have the clothes been kept?”

“Before he died he gave orders that they were not to be used and his wishes have been respected. My husband has told me that he was a man of many peculiarities and as it was due to him that we have the farm we cherish his name and respect his wishes.”

“What were his peculiarities?”

“One was that he paid several visits to the Cape and when he returned he always brought with him a bag of money, but to the day of his death even his son, my husband, did not know how he came to have it. With this money he bought land and cattle and sheep and thus became rich. Had he lived he would have been the richest Boer in this part of the country. Then his death was a mystery and a mystery which has never been cleared up. He had grown to be old and feeble and he did no more work, but nothing could keep him out of the hills. If anyone followed him he flew into a great passion and cursed him roundly. My husband feared that some accident would befall him in his wanderings and the fear was at last realized. These clothes were his best and he prized them very much, for he said that they had brought him ‘good luck.’ It was for that reason he wanted them kept, no doubt. One day he went away to the hills and he never came back. The whole country joined in the search but no trace was ever found. He was not able to walk a long way and could not have wandered any distance and that was what made his disappearance the more strange. Some were of the opinion that he was carried off by the Kaffirs, some that he had been murdered, for it was well known that he always had gold in his pocket. Whatever befell him no one knows.”

I took up the coat and hat and could have sworn that the man I had followed to the hills was dressed in precisely the same garments. Could it be possible that after all these years I had found his grave? Had it been his ghost which I had seen night after night issuing from the house and making its way to the lonely grave in the hills? Had his wealth been derived from the sale of the gold which he had dug out of the pit? Admitting these facts, why had I been chosen to solve the mystery? Was it possible that a sympathy existed between the dead and gone Boer miner and the needy prospector, myself? These questions I was unable to answer. My common sense revolted at such conclusions and yet, argue as I would, the gold was in my pocket to prove their truth.

There remained another explanation, it was that I had not been awake during the periods in which I saw the old man. I had developed into a somnambulist and had got up in the night, imagining that I was following an old man and while in that state picked up the gold found in my pocket in the morning. Unfortunately this theory did not account for the previous existence of my ghostly guide. I realized the uselessness of attempting to explain to my Boer friends the peculiar circumstances of the case and in consequence kept silent. From that hour I abandoned my search for a mine, which was alike a mine and a grave, the location being only known to ghosts or somnambulists.

A MAORI LEGEND.
A New Zealand Story.

I spent a week in a pah down in the hot lake country, the King’s land, New Zealand, a short time before the destruction of the Pink and White Terraces. One night as I lay in my thatched hut, with the boiling water singing and simmering on every side, an old Maori wise-man paid me a visit and told me the following story.

“A thousand moons ago my people came over the sea in great canoes from the islands. Then the Maori was like the white man of to-day, restless as the wind, ever roving to and fro from land to land. The canoes came ashore down at the coast and it was beside these lakes that the pahs were built because the fern root grew here in the warm, damp earth and the Great Spirit made the water boil, in which to cook it. Then our wise men said, ‘Here is our home and this land was made for the Maori. Here shall be found that which we so long have sought.’ All would have been well if our people had listened to these words. After a time there spread from ear to ear the story of a wonderful lake, hid away up in the mountains. No man could tell where the story came from, for no man could be found who had ever seen the lake. The mountains, or the lakes, or the boiling springs, or the pink hills, may have whispered it at night into some ear. It may have been a dream, but it came and at last that no man doubted it. Many a Maori set out to find the wonderful lake and wandered among the mountains, which grew blacker and blacker and higher and higher as he went on, but one and all came back telling of great streams, of jagged rocks, of dark caverns, but never catching a glimpse of the lake.”

“Then our wise men held a council in the great pah, and day by day they studied and thought. At last it was decided that a venerable old man, who had never eaten of human flesh, should go forth alone into the mountains in quest of the lake. Much we wondered as he departed, for with him he took only a staff and no fern root or anything to eat. We bade him good bye with sorrow in our hearts, for we felt that we should never look upon his face again, and that his bones would bleach upon the mountain side, with no pah to covert them, but there they would lie for all time to come, a warning to men who went in search of the wonderful lake. Days went by and the wise man was given up for lost, when he came down the mountain side and all of our people went out to meet him. When they asked him if he had found the lake he bowed his head upon his breast and smiled, and the people, young and old, gathered about him with many questions, but answered he never a word. One and all saw that a great change had come over him. A mild light beamed in his eyes and a smile ever played about his lips. Kindness and sympathy covered him as with a mantle of sweet fern and all felt that he was good to look upon. From him there went out a power for good never felt in Maori land before, and the people knew that to him had been given a sign which would lead them to happiness. Yet some there were who scoffed and said it was a trick of the wise men, that he had been hidden in the hills and no good would come of it. From that day the wise man went about doing good and to all he said, there be three things:

“Eat not of human flesh.”

“Help one another.”

“Be content with your lot.”

“A few followed his counsel and found peace, but the many went on their way, blind in their own conceit. The quiet of the valley and its simple fare were to them as bitter herbs. They wandered away to other islands and over the land to the north and south. They fought and ate each other, and the message of the wise man became to them and to their children but a dream. Once a year, at spring tide, when the moon was full, the wise man left the pah with two young men and went into the mountains and to the lake. Each time they returned on the seventh day and from that day to the day of their deaths their faces shone as did the face of the wise man, and they went about saying:

“Eat not of human flesh.”

“Help one another.”

“Be content with your lot.”

“What they saw, what they heard at the lake, no man knew. Year after year only three went out and returned. At last the hour came when the old wise man fell sick and death sat by his side. Then he sent for my father’s father, who was an old man, and to him confided the task of leading each year the young men into the mountains, telling him also of the first visit and what would come of it. This is the story which he told to my father’s father:

“I went into the mountains, trusting, that was all. If for me to see the lake would be good for my people then I knew that the way would be pointed out, so I journied on and on and though without food for the whole day, I felt no hunger. As night came near I descended into a valley in which plenty of ferns were growing and the water boiling in a small spring. I gathered my fern roots and cooked them in the spring. The next day I faced the mountains again. I had gone but a little way when I saw before me an immense bird pluming itself on a shelving rock. I had seen the skeletons of such birds many times, but never a live bird before. Its plumage was dazzling white and its arched neck shone like the wattle in the sunshine. Its tufted head was more than twice the height of a man’s head from the ground and although the bird was a long way off I felt that its eyes were soft and full of tenderness. As I approached the white bird walked away, stopping each minute to pick some green morsel, for its stride was enormous and in the twinkling of an eye it could have mounted into the clouds, hanging over the mountains. All day long I followed the bird, turning and twisting, going forward and coming back again until I lost all reckoning of the pah, but something whispered in my ear that it was to be. At night I always found ferns for food and a hot spring so my wants were provided for. On the third day out, as night drew near, I came very close to the bird, almost close enough to touch it, when it stepped through some great ferns with leaves of silvery whiteness, such as I had never seen before, and when I had followed it the bird had disappeared. I raised my eyes and there at my feet was a circular lake, girt about by immense mountains, with cliffs rising from the water higher than twenty Kauri pines. Looking behind me, the way I had come, I saw the silver ferns but in the background a wall of rock through which no opening was visible. Much I wondered, but being tired and hungry I gathered some of the ferns, but no hot spring was at hand as before. I stepped to the lake, touched it with my hand, it was almost boiling. That night I slept beneath the silver ferns. The next morning when I awoke there was no sign of the white bird but a little boat lay on the sand before me containing three seats and three paddles. After eating some fern root I stepped into the boat and paddled out. Then, for the first, I saw that the lake contained a single island, lying in its centre, but this island was not like any other island. It had three equal sides, on it was neither tree nor shrub. I soon made my way to its shore. There was only one landing place, a narrow ledge upon which I drew up the boat. By some natural steps I went up and found on the top a circular, shallow basin full of boiling water. The basin was formed of a dazzling white stone with alternate bands of a soft yellow, which I had never seen before, but which I now know the white man calls gold. From the centre to the outside these bands ran round and round and it was only a question of time when they would cover the whole island. A great attraction had the pool for me. I sat down by its side and watched the blue water run over the rim and splash its way down to the lake, leaving behind little bands of white and yellow, and as I sat there the steam coming up in the centre sang a song in the Maori tongue. The song was:

“Eat not, eat not, eat not of human flesh.”

“Help one, help one, help one another.”

“Be content, be content, be content with your lot.”

“I knew that I was to tell these things to my people and I never forgot them.”

“Then I lay down and fell asleep, how long I slept I know not. When I awoke the sun was gone and the great cross blazing in the sky and yet the pool sang the same song and the water ran over the rim and down into the lake. Once again I looked into the basin and then my heart grew still. As I looked down I saw away and away a group of islands with a blue sea all around them running into little bays and long arms, and under a part of one island was a great fire burning and sending up boiling water. Away out in the ocean I saw another island, with an opening in the centre, through which rushed flame and smoke. This island was the chimney for the fires burning below me, on which our pahs were built. On our islands I saw many Maoris, some good, many bad with fierce fires burning in their hearts. And the voice of the spring said, ‘Behold your brothers, but the day is near at hand when great canoes will come over the waters with white wings and a white man will come in the canoes and in his heart burns still fiercer fires and he will make war upon you; not with spears but with things which vomit fire and carry death a long way off. He will kill the Maoris and take the land and in a few years your people will be no more, but to you is given a trust. In the full moon, once in the year, bring hither two wise Maoris and let their ears hear my song. Then shall they go to their brothers and speak the truth. If your people listen, one island shall be preserved for them and the black men shall not all die.’”

“Returning to the shore, I found the moa standing by the bunch of ferns and following it for two days I was once more in sight of the pah. There I told the story of the mysterious lake and the pool to the wise men and when the full moon came the next year three Maoris went forth in quest of the lake. They were guided by the white moa and they too heard the pool sing and saw into its depths. Season after season three men went and came and repeated the song of the pool. The scoffers asked, ‘Where are the white men with fire in their hearts, and where are the big canoes with white wings?’ And the ferns grew and faded into brown and rotted on the damp earth. But at last the white man came and the wise men knew that the day was at hand. With the white man came also wise men, who, while they pointed to the sky above and told us of the Great Spirit, stole the land from under our feet. And we saw that a great fire burned in their hearts, but it was not the fire of war but a yellow flame, which could only be quenched by a treasure they called ‘gold.’ These wise white men heard of the lake in the mountains and the pool with its yellow bands and much they searched the mountains but found it not. Then they heard of the journey of the three Maoris each rainy season, led by the white moa. They watched and when the Maoris set out they followed and thus it was that they found the lake. Three white men had followed the three Maoris. While the Maoris were standing beside the lake the white men seized the boat and paddled as fast as they could to the island. The moa stood on the shore and nodded its head up and down as much as to say, ‘You shall see.’ Two white men clambered on shore, the other remaining in the boat. Once beside the pool the white men saw not its beauty, they heard not the song, for their eyes were filled with the yellow metal and their hearts with greed. They were blind to the blue waters, the purple mountains, blind and deaf to all but gold. Then they set to work and dug up the yellow rim and the little channels over which the water ran, and, where once all was beauty and song and the whisper of the Great Spirit, only desolation was left. All day long they toiled and carried the gold and loaded it into the boat and so blind were they that they did not see that the boat grew no deeper in the water. All day the moa nodded its head, all day long the Maoris wondered. Then a great sleep fell upon them. The water in the lake was sinking down, down, down, carrying with it the little boat. It sank away as silently as a bird in the air, without a gurgle or a splash. The fountain sang and flowed and the yellow bands ran out and down and over the two men binding them fast to the rock. When they awoke they were pinned fast. They writhed and twisted and screamed for their companion in the boat but he was a thousand feet below, paddling, paddling, not to the island not to the shore, but around and around. Then through the jagged rocks, away below came a great roar as of a mighty river lashing itself into fury on the black stones. When this sound fell on their ears they set up a pitiful cry which came over the lake to the Maoris and made their hearts sad. Then the fire died out of the white men’s hearts and the green leaves of the ferns, where the Maoris stood grew into wondrous beauty in their eyes and the plumage of the moa shone like burnished silver. Their cries for help died away in the rushing waters below. The fountain stopped, the blue water sank down to the black river, leaving only a jagged hole, crusted as far as they could see with gold, but now they loathed the yellow metal and blamed it, instead of their own hearts, for all the evil which had come upon them. Out of the pool then came a faint blue wreath, spreading about them, embracing them and creeping like a cloud over the island. Then the hot steam gushed forth. Madly they writhed and gasped for breath but hotter and hotter grew the steam. The sun went down and night came on. Under the green ferns the Maoris lay down and slept. When the sun came up the pool had ceased to vomit steam. Two skeletons on the island were bleached as white as snow on the mountain tops. A skeleton in the boat, with a skeleton paddle in his hands was paddling in a never ending circle around and around.”

“The moa nodded his head and led the way back to the pah and from that day to this never a moa has been seen in New Zealand. Amid the mountains lies the wonderful lake but it will never be found until the yellow fires have burned out of the hearts of the white men.”

THE GARDEN GULLY
MINE.

“You ken Bendigo,” said my companion, looking out of the corner of his eye at the bottle sitting on the table before us.

“Right well,” I answered. We had dropped in at the Criterion, Swanson street, Melbourne, for an evening.

“Weel,” continued Sandy McLeod, “it’s a long time agone but I’ll never forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“The Garden Gully, did you ever hear the story?”

“No, I’m a new chum, as you know.”

I poured out a glass of Falon’s sparkling, at the sight Sandy smacked his lips. Sandy was a colonial solicitor and apparently an unprofitable mine to work for a story, so I bided my time. The glass of wine began to mellow his heart, for he abruptly exclaimed, “Men on gold fields are crazed with greed, but a good-looking woman sends them stark mad. Even I, Sandy McLeod, was once mad.”

“It was only a passing craze,” I suggested.

“Not a bit of it, mad for months, mad when awake and doubly mad when asleep.”

“What cured you?”

“A nip of the same dog,” and then he burst into a laugh. “One more glass and then I will tell you the story.”

Settling back in his chair, he began in a voice, mellower than I dreamed that he possessed:

“Teddy O’Flynn, yes O’Flynn with a big O, as he used to say, had a little cabin on the Bendigo field, and behind the cabin was a little garden in the gully. It was the only garden on Bendigo at that time and we all knew it to a man. No deep shafts then, only a spade, a pick, and a tin dish, and thirty thousand miners on the field. That garden grew roses and English roses too, at that. I can see them now and it’s near on fifty years ago. They whispered to every man Jack of us of home, dear home. When we went up there and leaned on the palings of a Sunday, back we were in our native villages. Teddy O’Flynn was not the man to cultivate roses, save the ones which blossomed on his nose and they were always in full bloom. Teddy had a foster daughter, the queen rose of Bendigo, and as the roses bloomed so bloomed Rosa, for that was her name. While the roses were in bloom on Saturday afternoon Rosa made a round of the camp. She never sold the roses but she made each miner a present of one, and the miners not to be outdone, made her a present of a pinch of gold. She had to pinch it herself between her rosy little finger and thumb. Rosa took up the camp in a regular way so that in time we all got a rose and were satisfied.”

“Teddy O’Flynn had never studied books and yet he was a bit of a philosopher, and an Irish philosopher at that. Teddy never worked and yet he ate and drank of the best on Bendigo. Perhaps the pinches which Rosa made had something to do with Teddy’s good fortune. The miners were content, Teddy was happy, and Rosa—well the whole camp was in love with her.”

“And you fell in love with her too,” I ventured to remark.

“I never denied it.”

“At that time there were but two lawyers on the field, Phalin Shea and Sandy McLeod, that’s myself. Part of the time we dug on the lead, for we both held claims, but when a dispute arose Phalin was retained by one client, and McLeod by the other, then we fought it out before the Gold Commissioner and honors were generally equally divided. The Shamrock and the Scotch Thistle, they used to call us. The best of friends we were, though we often nearly came to blows. Rosa distinguished us from the other miners by calling us gentlemen. Phalin and I were regarded as the favored suitors but that did not prevent the other men from striving to secure such a valuable claim. One evening I was at O’Flynn’s cabin and the next night Phalin was at the same place and basking in the same smiles. To all of our vows Rosa returned the same answer.”

“What would become of Teddy O’Flynn if I married?” We each promised to allow Teddy a pension for life. Rosa well knew that Phalin and I could not scrape up a hundred pounds, but like all miners, we were willing to bank on the future for any number of thousands. Rosa was most impartial and fed each on the same manna. Our infatuation increased month by month and when the rainy season came on and no roses remained Teddy proved equal to the occasion and regularly borrowed half a sovereign from each when we called at the cabin. Phalin may have lent the money out of sheer Irish good-will but I know that Sandy McLeod, in his heart regarded him, Teddy, as a golden fleece. How the contest would have ended I cannot say, but unfortunately Teddy suddenly conceived the idea of becoming rich. That decided our fate. His plan was to sink a shaft in the garden in the gully and open up a gold mine. Naturally we expected that Rosa would protest, but on the contrary she declared that the plan originated with her own sweet self. She had dreamed that there was an immense deposit of gold hidden away beneath the English roses. Teddy had only to dig and he would find the treasure, but no person was to assist him and the work must be done at night. Only Phalin and myself were taken into the secret. Teddy went to work and day after day poured into our ears the history of his progress. As the garden lay far removed from the Bendigo lead and no indications existed that gold would be found, in our hearts we secretly felt that it was a clever device, upon the part of Rosa, to keep her foster parent out of the public and at the same time set him to work. The mining had been going on for about three weeks when one afternoon Phalin and I each received a note from Rosa asking us to call that evening at the cabin. We were punctual to the minute, but each was somewhat crestfallen on discovering the presence of his rival. Teddy O’Flynn was laboring under an excitement which he in vain attempted to conceal. After a substantial supper and a glass of hot toddy, Rosa drew the curtain of the four pane window and then told us the story.

Teddy had struck upon one of the richest leads ever found on Bendigo. The earth was literally packed with gold. Then Teddy took up the running.

“I tell yez I’ve struck it.”

We both grasped him by the hand, for Teddy had suddenly become an important factor, a factor we instantly saw must be counted upon and conciliated. Rosa was now sole heiress, it might be to millions. Not that we loved her any more ardently, that was impossible, but fortune had suddenly turned the wheel and we keenly felt the change. All we could say to Teddy was, “Rich, rich.”

“Just loaded down with the yellow beauty,” he exclaimed. “Come down and see the jade. She’s led me many a fine caper from the old sod, up here among the kangaroos and the wallaby and the bears wid no tails and the dirty hathen nagers, but I’ve got her down in the gully, and it will be sailing away to the blessed shores of St. Patrick that Teddy O’Flynn will be, with a mighty big O.”

“Come with me this blessed minute.”

We hurried down to the gully. Once on the spot we saw that Teddy was original in his mining. He had cut a series of short trenches which grew deeper and finally terminated in an irregular hole, into which we all crowded, though unable to stand upright, so low was the pit. Teddy lit a candle and pointing to the pick said to Phalin, “dig, dig,” then he gave me the shovel. The ground was very hard, of a dull yellow color and interspersed with small grey, broken quartz crystals. We filled a wash-tub which Teddy deftly lifted to his head and balanced with his hands, then marched out and up to the cabin. In the kitchen we began to pan out the contents of the tub with the aid of some water and a tin wash-dish. Teddy stood aloof leaving Phalin and McLeod to do the work. The earth was literally full of coarse gold. In all of our experience at Ballarat and Bendigo we had never seen its equal.

“I want yez gintlemen to float a Company,” said O’Flynn.

“What shall we call it?”

“The Saint Patrick.”

“No,” said Rosa, “I dreamed it out and I must name it.”

“What shall it be?”

“Call it the Garden Gully.”

Then and there it was christened and baptised in the wash-tub.

“How much shall we float it for?” inquired Phalin.

“Fifty thousand pounds at a pound a share. Give all the boys a chance.”

The following morning the notice was on the door of the Commissioner’s office and within two hours every rod of land for half a mile on each side of the cabin had been staked out. The camp went mad, hundreds of good claims were abandoned and as promptly jumped by the unlucky. Before the sun went down Phalin and I had more cases than had ever fallen to us before in our lives. When questioned about the Garden Gully we related the story of the wash-tub. That day every share was sold and half a crown paid down. For two days it was almost impossible to get near the cabin. The earth swarmed with miners but not a spec of gold was found.

On the morning of the third day Phalin and I found our huts besieged by an angry mob. During the excitement Teddy had been transformed into Teddy O’Flynn, Esq., a personage who held high carnival at the Golden Fleece and who, during that time, had ordered and helped drink one hundred bottles of champagne at twenty dollars a bottle. The situation was serious. Phalin and I were marched up to the Golden Fleece where O’Flynn was secured and the trio, followed by thousands, proceeded to the Garden Gully where Rosa was mounting guard over the entrance to the mine. She was armed with an antiquated musket and resolutely kept the men at bay. A fierce light burned in her blue eyes which enhanced her beauty a thousand fold. At our suggestion two miners were let into the pit to secure some wash-dirt. Our lives hung upon the issue. If the miners did not find gold our fate was sealed. Phalin, McLeod and Teddy would dangle from the limb of the nearest gum tree within ten minutes. The dirt was brought out and panned off in the presence of the mob. I shall never forget the silence which fell upon the men till my dying day. When the miner turned and flashed the gold in the pan in our faces a cheer for O’Flynn broke forth, and such cheers as Bendigo had never heard before. The very hills rang again and again. Rosa was the heroine of the hour. Dirty and greasy miners clasped her in their arms and kissed her with frantic joy. O’Flynn and his solicitors were escorted in a triumphal march back to the Golden Fleece where Teddy made a speech and ‘shouted’ for all who cared to drink. In the confusion Phalin and I made our escape. The next day shares in the Garden Gully advanced to two pounds each. A week later the mine was turned over to the share holders and work commenced. Teddy O’Flynn was entertained that night at a banquet at which it was declared that he was the gold king of the land of the Southern Cross. At midnight Teddy sank a limp mass under the table and was carried to bed with the honors of a dead Pharoah.

For a few hours the Garden Gully realized the wildest dreams and then just as suddenly stopped. Not even the colour could be found. Shares dropped to a shilling and no takers. The gold Commissioner ordered an investigation. During the inquiry it was clearly shown that the mine had been salted. The plan had been to first dig the hole and then charge a gun with powder and coarse gold and fire it into the earth. Rosa, who was innocent of the fraud, testified that at night she had heard many shots and that O’Flynn had explained that he had been shooting at kangaroos, which came to gnaw the rose bushes. When confronted by the evidence, O’Flynn refused to confess maintaining a dogged silence, save that if the mine was salted Rosa and his solicitors were innocent. The money received was returned to the share holders, except a few hundred pounds which O’Flynn had squandered. O’Flynn was committed to stand his trial.

The following night Phalin and I repaired to the little cabin where, much to our surprise, we found Rosa, apparently in the best of spirits. When we asked her for an explanation she said:

“I tell you there is plenty of gold in the Garden Gully and it was not put there by Teddy O’Flynn. I saw it again last night in my dreams. It is down deeper and runs away out there,” pointing toward the range. “Will you dig for it or shall I do the work myself.”

We suggested hiring two miners.

“No,” she said, with a toss of her pretty head, “it must be found without any outside help and Teddy set free.”

Instantly we both agreed with her. We would have agreed to any proposition falling from the same lips. Without a moment’s delay she produced two miner’s caps, into the peaks of which she thrust two candles, then marched us out to the pit. The candles were lighted. Rosa took a seat on the tub, we seized the pick and shovel and began to dig. Rosa chatted and laughed, the hours flew by, at midnight she brought us a lunch and two bottles of ale, but it was not until near dawn that our taskmaster called a halt. Rosa explained that during the day she would wash some of the dirt and report the result the next night. Worn out and completely exhausted Phalin and I staggered to our huts. Not a word was exchanged as we stumbled down the path. Our hands were covered with blisters, our clothes bedaubed with yellow clay, our faces streaked and seared with soot and grease from the dripping candles. Two such melancholy objects could not be found in all Bendigo. Each was determined not to yield. It was a contest of Scotch grit and Irish pluck. All day long we slept or nursed our lacerated hands, each recuperating for the second struggle. We were animated by no hope that gold would be found, a more powerful influence was at work and bade us continue the struggle. At night we were again at the cabin. Rosa reported “No gold.” Then we renewed our labors, with the same hardships and the same results. For eight nights in succession the struggle went on. Our legal business went by the board, rumor said we were drinking ourselves to death and appearances confirmed the rumor. On the ninth night imagine our surprise when Rosa informed us that we had struck the lead and in proof exhibited fully an ounce of the yellow metal. No miner ever gazed upon a great nugget which he had found, with joy equal to ours. It was a drawn battle. When will it end? was the query in our minds. Rosa gave no sign but served an excellent supper, prepared to celebrate our success. It was then arranged that Rosa was to pay the gold Commissioner a visit the following morning and inform him that the lead had again been found in the Garden Gully and that consequently Teddy O’Flynn had committed no fraud and should be released. Our offices was opened that day, but no attention was paid to our reformation so great was the excitement. An investigation of the mine proved the truth of Rosa’s statement. Once more the tide turned in favor of Teddy O’Flynn and for the second time he became the gold king of Bendigo. Teddy had sold the Garden Gully for a rich mine and it was rich. The shareholders demanded the return of their stock, paid in their money and gave Teddy a second banquet at the Golden Fleece, with the same results, save that Teddy went under the table at ten thirty instead of at twelve, a weakness attributed to his confinement in the caboose and consequently condoned by his friends.

Three days later Phalin and Sandy McLeod each received a note from Rosa requesting them to be present at the cabin at eight p.m., and also stating, in post script, that it was an important occasion, therefore we were to be dressed in our best. Phalin inferred from the word ‘important’ that he was the lucky man, while I drew the same inference from the same word. Walking on the air, for our happiness made us oblivious of Bendigo, its dust and its wretchedness, we approached the cabin at the same time, punctual to a minute. We passed compliments of the day and then surveyed each other. Phalin was dressed in a pair of black trousers, a white shirt and a collar, a yellow vest, but no coat. Sandy boasted an antideluvian dress coat, blue trousers and a red shirt. We were met at the door by Rosa, clad in a white muslin gown, with a great bunch of roses at her belt. I had never seen her look lovelier. So great was my happiness at securing the prize that the words died on my lips. Phalin was equally overcome and for precisely the same reasons. Teddy received us with genuine Irish hospitality and a glass of whiskey. Entering the cabin we were face to face with a young English curate who had been sent up from Melbourne as a missionary. It was evident that the hour had come, we were confronted by our destiny. The curate remarked in a languid drawl, “This is a happy occasion.” Rosa smiled her sweetest. Then she went out to the kitchen and came back blushing and leaning on the arm of Dennis McCarthy, a young Irish miner.

“My dear friends,” she said, “I have bid you to my wedding. Dennis is the lucky man, we pledged our troth in dear old Kerry.”

The ceremony proceeded and each kissed the bride. It was the first and last time. How we spent the next hour I shall never know and Phalin can furnish you with no fuller particulars. I have a confused recollection of Rosa, the curate, Teddy, a bunch of roses and McCarthy, that is all. At last we got away, heaven only knows what we said. Once out on the path we stalked along in moody silence. When we came to the Golden Fleece we both turned in, entered the private parlor and ordered whiskey, straight. Two hours later we were sent home by the landlord in barrows. When I awoke the next morning I found myself in Phalin’s hut and in Phalin’s bed. Phalin found himself in my hut and in my bed. How the thing happened we have never been able to explain. The following day when we met we concluded to enter into partnership and the sign reads to this day, Shea & McLeod, solicitors.

“No, we have never married.”

“What about the Garden Gully?”

“The mine is running yet and has paid the shareholders many handsome dividends.”

“Rosa?”

The day following the wedding, the bride, McCarthy and Teddy took a special stage for Melbourne en route for the old sod. A week later my partner and I each received a letter, precisely the same, written in Rosa’s best hand, containing a certified cheque on the Bank of Australia, drawn in our favor, for five hundred pounds.