Although they had started at sunrise the little party had not nearly reached the pass by the hour that it was time for their mid-day halt. Having to find a practicable route for the horses, and having to remove so many objects that were obstacles in their way, had taken so much longer a time than they had expected. The boys removed the saddles and loads from the horses to ease them a little, and turned them loose to find what food they could amongst the scanty growth on the rocks. There was unfortunately no water for them, for the only little watercourse near them was absolutely dry. The boys and Murri had each his own water bottle with him, but Murri, with all the incurable thoughtlessness of an Australian savage, had drunk all of his store in the early part of the day. The boys were accustomed to this absolute want of foresight in Murri, so they were not surprised, but it annoyed Alec every time he displayed it.
He had a much hastier temper than George, and although, as a rule, it was well under control in the big affairs of life, he sometimes lost it over small matters—just as most of us do.
"Confound the fellow!" said he, in an annoyed voice. "He has drunk all his water and wants some of ours. What an idiot the man is to be sure. He must suffer for his own folly and go without any."
"Remember he is nothing but a child in mind," said George. "They always are. He either hopes that water will turn up somewhere or other, or, what is more likely, doesn't think at all. He just felt thirsty, and having the water at his saddle drank it up without another thought."
"I suppose that is it. But he ought not to hope to find water in such unlikely places."
"I don't know that he does. But I think you are as foolish as he is if you expect to find wisdom of that sort in such unlikely places as Murri's brain. You never will remember mother's one solitary piece of philosophy, 'Learn to expect disappointment.' And now that I have given my elder brother a lecture, which is very charming of me, I'll give Murri some of my water. Come along, old stoopid," he sang out pleasantly to the black.
"You won't do anything of the sort, my young Solomon," said Alec, whose face was bright again. "I shall. I lost my temper like a jackass, and I'll make up for it. You are quite right, most learned brother, so preach away as much as you like."
"I don't like preaching at all, any more than I like listening to sermons, and if you dare say that I preach to you, Arrick, or ever have preached, I'll come and gag you with this piece of soft damper," said George, taking up a stiff piece of the flour and water he was mixing.
Before they resumed their march, Murri pointed out to them the route they would have to follow. He remembered every yard of the road; he was wise enough in that way, although it was years since he had been there. The only way that they could go was along a narrow sort of shelf that formed a natural little path that led from the ravine they were then in, along the wall-like face of cliff, to the top of the next great ridge above them.
After a halt of a couple of hours Alec said that if they did not get on at once he feared they would not reach the pass before sunset. It was only with great difficulty that they managed to get the horses on to the narrow shelf that was their only path out of the ravine. Murri, leading his horse, went first in the line, then came George with Vaulty, and last came Alec, driving Amber before him, and leading the one pack-horse, to which the loss of the two horses had reduced them.
The ascent was very rough and steep, and quickly raised them to a great height above the valley they had rested in. Fortunately, no green thing grew on that rocky ledge to hide the inequalities of their path; it was too stony and too exposed to the terrible heat of the tropical sun for any vegetation to live upon it. Every now and then Murri had to roll some great rock, that blocked the path, into the gulf beneath them, which, striking the crags as it wildly plunged through air, would dash itself in pieces upon the rocks below, the noise of its descent echoing from side to side of the ravine in dull reverberations.
As they mounted higher and higher the path became narrower, and the precipice upon their right hand side became so sheer, that looking over the edge of the rock they stood upon they could see straight down into the valley a thousand feet below them. It was a fortunate thing that the boys' heads were perfectly steady; had they been nervous or giddy they must have fallen from their awful height from simple fright at the depth of air below them. Alec began to blame himself for not having examined the path before he ventured upon leading the horses on to it, for it had now become so narrow that the animals could not have turned round had the path suddenly ended or had they come upon any insuperable object across it. However, it was as well to go on boldly now that they had entered upon it and there was no help for it. He said to himself that he was every bit as thoughtless as their hare-brained guide.
They must have been climbing up this perilous track for nearly an hour, for they had been very cautious and slow in their movements for fear of an accident, when the horse that Murri was leading displaced a smallish stone which, instead of falling over the edge of the precipice and dashing itself a moment or so afterwards—with a noise made soft by the distance—on the rocks so far beneath, rolled down the path with momentarily increasing speed. George saw it coming, and, calling to Alec to look out, sprang into the air to prevent it striking his feet.
The stone passed by him without striking him, but as he retouched the ground the piece of rock on which his feet descended, loosened from the ledge by the sudden spring he had made, became detached from its position, and, quivering for a second, fell silently in a little cloud of dust and crumbling fragments over the edge of the awful chasm. A moment afterwards a dull crash rose from the valley, where it had shattered itself upon the rocks. But Alec did not hear the noise of it, for before the great stone had reached the pointed rocks his ears had been rent and every drop of blood in his body curdled by the piercing, agonising shriek that Geordie uttered as he felt himself falling from the path.
For one half second after he had leaped George had felt the trembling of the rock beneath him, and then, before he knew what was happening, he felt himself falling with the stone. Then it was that that loud despairing shriek burst from his agonised lips. He uttered no word nor name; that wild, hopeless cry was but the expression of the deadly fear and terror that he felt.
The horror of Alec's situation was doubled by the fact that from his position on the path he could not see what had happened. The path was narrow, and between him and his brother were two horses, Amber, which he was driving before him, and Vaulty, which George had been leading. At the sound of that shrill shriek an icy sweat burst out upon him, and he felt fear creeping in among the roots of his hair and roughening his skin. For one instant he stood still as death, frozen by terror to inaction, for he knew that it was George who cried. Then with rapid throbs his bursting heart began to beat, and through his pallid lips a cry broke forth—
"Geordie, Geordie! What is it?"
No answer came to his loud call, and loosing the bridle of the horse he was leading he flung himself down on the path. He could see nothing of his brother, but he saw that the two horses before him were standing perfectly still. Creeping on hands and knees, for there was not room for him to pass between the horse and the wall of rock that rose on his left hand side, he crawled between Amber's legs. Then, with a heart that stood still for fear, he saw that Geordie had disappeared. Vaulty, who was a few yards in front of him, was standing with all four legs stretched out as though resisting some great strain, and his head was pulled down to the very edge of the path. Not waiting to think what these things might mean, Alec crept under the sweating belly of the horse, which stood as still and stiff as though carved in stone.
Before he had passed between the fore legs of the sturdy roan he took one fearsome glance over the edge of the precipice.
Horror! What did he see?
There, a few feet below him, swinging at the end of the strained bridle reins of his horse, was Geordie, hanging and swaying horribly, with nothing between him and the awful rocks below but two thousand feet of air. As Alec looked over the edge of the precipice he saw the deathly face of his brother beneath him with strained, wide open eyes with a ghastly look of terror in them, gazing straight up at him. George's jaw was firmly clenched, and between the white, set teeth, which the retracted lips displayed, he hissed in a thrilling, awful whisper—
"Make haste! make haste! the bridle is slipping!"
With an indrawn shuddering breath of terror Alec pushed himself between the legs of the horse, and leaning over the edge of the precipice he grasped in his strong brown hand the two straps of the bridle that were nearest to him. Just as he was about to gather into his grasp the two other straps on the further side of the bit the leather on that side gave way, and with a sickening jerk Geordie dropped two feet further down, two feet nearer death.
Neither of the boys uttered a cry as this frightful accident happened. The struggle with death was too fierce for them to make a sound. Horribly the boy swayed about at the end of the two straining straps that alone suspended him above the vast abyss; the knuckles of his hands were white with the fearful energy of his grasp; his head hung back, and his dark curly hair fell away from his forehead, for his hat had slipped off, and even then was floating with great birdlike swoops to the valley below. His face was white as death, and his wild eyes stared up at Alec's face with an expression of agonised entreaty in them.
Gradually Alec hauled in inch after inch of the bridle. From his awkward position on the path, lying on his chest and leaning over the edge, he was not able to exert all his strength, so that it was very slowly that he was able to raise Geordie up. The sweat stood in great beads on his brow, not merely from the labour, which was great, but from his terrible anxiety lest these straps should break as the other pair had done under a lesser strain. But the leather held firm, and he blessed in his heart the man who had done that honest tanning.
Alec saw, with renewed terror, when Geordie's tightly clasped hands were almost within reach of his own, that a look of faintness began to steal over his face, and that the eyes, which had been so widely open in his agony, were gradually closing. If but for one instant insensibility overtook him he must loose his grasp of the reins and fall. The thought of this was too awful for contemplation, and was trebly terrible now that he was so nearly within his brother's reach.
"Hold on, Geordie. Hold on a minute longer, and I can reach you. Hold on, hold on, don't give way!" shouted Alec, his voice almost rising to a shriek as he saw the death-like look of faintness creeping faster and faster over Geordie's face.
Alec redoubled his already incredible exertions, straining every nerve till the tendons in his bare brown neck stood out like bars and the great swelling muscles on his arms and back seemed to turn to iron in their strength. Then, making one grand final effort, he held George's weight up by one arm alone, and stretching out the other seized his brother's wrist in a grasp of iron, just as poor Geordie's overtaxed strength gave way and his head rolled heavily to one side in total unconsciousness.
It was at this moment that Murri reached Alec's side; he had been some way ahead of the two boys, so that, although he stopped the moment he heard George's shriek, he had not been able to reach them before. It was fortunate that he came up when he did, for with George's dead weight hanging on to his outstretched arm Alec was quite unable to haul his brother back to the path; but with the assistance of the black boy he succeeded in raising the inanimate body of the senseless lad from his awful position, and in laying him in safety again on the rocky path.
It was only with difficulty that they revived the fainting boy; the mental shock and the bodily strain he had undergone in falling and holding himself up by his hands for so long were more than he could recover from at once. But in an hour's time the plucky fellow was sufficiently well to go on, though he shook as with a palsy.
"Don't speak of it; I can't bear to speak of it or think of it yet. Wait till we are away from this awful place," he had said, as soon as he could speak; so that no word was spoken until they had reached the top of the pass and left that frightful pathway, and had descended some little way down the gentle, wooded slopes of the other side, where, by the side of a little marshy pool, they camped for the night.
After the terrible time he had passed through on the side of the precipice, when he and death had looked so sternly in each other's face, George's sleep was disturbed that night. Awful dreams, in which he was again swaying, at the end of the bridle strap, above the ravine, haunted his slumbers and drove away his rest. Once he had awakened himself with a shriek, and had sprung up with the sweat of terror bursting out upon him, as in his dream the straps had broken, and he had fallen through the depths of space. The cry also awakened Alec and Murri, who were sleeping by his side near the little fire they had made, for the air was very cold at night upon the mountains at the height at which they were.
Murri, who lived in life-long dread of ghosts, debil-debils, and evil spirits, was trembling with superstitious fear. He thought the cry had proceeded from the awful blackness round them—for the sky was overcast and the night was very dark—and cowering down he flung fresh wood on to the fire and made a cheerful blaze. Even Alec and George were glad of its bright companionship, for though they feared no invisible visitant it was eerie and wild on that lone mountain side, with the starless night sky above them, and a black stillness all around.
They sat talking for some little time before they lay down to sleep again, glad to hear each other's voices, and to feel the fellowship of living waking men in that dark, awe-inspiring silence. George encouraged Murri, and told him that there was nothing to fear, that there was nothing there, just beyond the fire light, as the superstitious black believed. Murri had crept quite near to him, and, casting many a terrified glance around him, had told him in a low whisper, and in tones of fear, that he knew there was nothing there; and then, with that simple poetry of thought that all savages seem in some degree to possess, he added that what had alarmed him was that the darkness itself had stirred, and was moving towards him.
"That is a grand idea and a terrible one, isn't it?" said George, turning to his brother. "To make a sort of personality of the very darkness. I believe superstition is catching, for I can myself almost believe that I see the blackness moving."
"Geordie, you are ill," said the matter-of-fact Alec. "I am sure you are, or you wouldn't talk such nonsense. Blackness moving! indeed, it is just a draught of it you want."
"Come a bit nearer the fire," said the boy, with a little uneasy laugh at himself. "I can't see you, and it is rather gruesome and grim to feel alone."
"I wish you could go to sleep, I am sure you are overdone," said Alec, quietly and kindly, looking earnestly in his brother's too bright eyes. "We will make a halt here to-morrow, and give you a thorough rest."
"Oh, no, not that; Alec, I can't bear to wait. We seem to have lost so much time already. Let us get on."
"What is the hurry?"
"It is just the gold and nothing else. Ever since we started it has been dazzling me and dancing before me. I can see nothing else, and think of nothing else."
"And I have been the same," said his brother, with little merriment. "When I have been silent and you have thought me tired, my mind has been busy making pictures of the gold and what it will procure us."
"It is terrible, isn't it? We were quite happy before."
"Yes, and shall be again when we have got this business off our minds. I don't want heaps of money; all I wish for is to find enough to clear off the debt from Wandaroo, and start again a free man, owing no one anything."
"What a nuisance money is after all. Look at Murri there, sound asleep again already, without a penny to bless himself with, and yet perfectly happy and free from care."
"Yes, a noble sight! A thoughtless savage, without a care for to-morrow, and snoring like a hog."
"And I vote we follow his example as quickly as possible. So good-night, old miser."
"Good-night, young avarice."
Pulling their blankets up to their ears, and settling their heads more comfortably on their saddles, they fell asleep again, and this time they slumbered on till dawn without disturbance.
The descent on the other side of the pass, although difficult enough, presented none of the dangers that the ascent had done the day before, and the little party accomplished it quite early in the day. They now found themselves in a strange land of mountains and valleys, little narrow gullies of rock without a tree or shrub about them, and hills covered so thickly with luxuriant bush and tropical vegetation as to be quite impassable for the horses. Everything was so different from the country round Wandaroo, that they might have been dropped down in another world.
It was evident that the terrible drought 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—
"Missa Law, you mil-mil" (see) "mountain like um tooth. That fellow, Tooingoora, Whanga along o' that fellow other side. Mine bail pitnee yarroman go there this day. One more sleep. Yarroman go along o' that fellow plenty much picannini ingin." (I don't think the horses can get there to-day. One more night. Horses get there soon after baby sun, or sunrise).
"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?"
"To hide what I really feel," said Geordie, quickly, and looking round with a face that was serious for a moment; and then he added, as though to alter the impression his almost involuntary confession had made, "It is no use being down in the mouth before we find we have come in vain, so let us be cheerful till then."
"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 Whanga valley, the entrance to which the party had now reached, was a narrow opening, between two great spurs of Tooingoora, which ran back for a mile or two till it ended in a precipitous mass of rocks at the very foot of the great mountain itself. The opening to this valley, which at its beginning was a mere rocky defile, was between two bold crags, the bases of which were clothed in dense green bush, but the summits of which were bare rocks of dazzling white quartz, that reflected the sunlight brilliantly. There was a stream flowing noisily down the centre of the valley, tumbling over the stones and boulders that blocked its course in many tiny cascades. The scenery was very impressive and grand, looking up the narrow defile, for the hills on either side of it rose in huge broken cliffs, throwing the greater part of the valley into deep shadow; but, where in one place it widened out, and a clump of tall quandang trees grew beside the stream, the sun flooded it with brilliant light that fell upon the gleaming, flashing water, making it shine like burnished silver, and mellowing the warm tones of the rocks. Beyond all this, filling up the whole end of the valley, rose the great mass of the mountain high into the clear blue sky, its great white crags of quartz shining like fields of snow or ice upon its hoary summit.
The gorge—it can hardly be called a valley—was very far from level; it rose steeply from the entrance all the way to the end of it, so that riding along it was not at all easy. Murri pointed out in several places signs of the recent presence of myalls, but as there were no camp fires to be seen in the gully, and as he thought the traces were several days old, he said that he believed "black fellow go away two, four days."
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.
The black boy, who was ignorant of the object of the long journey they had taken, and did not trouble his head to think why they should have travelled so far to see the Whanga, was the merriest of the party. He had no terrible anxiety about finding the gold to trouble him, and as he had plenty to eat and plenty of "toombacco" he was as happy as the day was long. He was singing a long, monotonous corroborree, with an appreciation of his own efforts that was very delightful to witness, occasionally interrupting it to shout at the horse he was leading, or to call out something to the boys, who were ahead.
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.
Murri ceased his corroborree for a moment, and pointing to the foaming pool said in the most unconcerned manner—
"That's um hole yo come see. Yo like um?"
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."
"I'm not going to fret about it," said Alec, as he got off his horse, "but I am convinced that the gold is there. Nuggets are never found alone. That pool is a natural 'pocket,' as diggers call that sort of place."
"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.
When this little business was satisfactorily settled—it took but a very few minutes to arrange matters—Murri, who as usual was dreaming of something to eat, and thought this an opportunity not to be neglected, asked if he might go down the valley and try to catch something. It did not matter what, for all is fish that comes to an Australian aboriginal's net. The boys did not want him for anything, so he started off with his boomerang and spears and throwing stick towards the clump of tall quandang trees they had passed when coming up the valley.
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."
By the way he poked about among the loose rocks and stones, and scratched in the sand with a short stick he had cut in the scrub, it looked as though he were doing a little prospecting for gold on his own account. But the thought that there was gold above the fall as well as below it had not entered his head. Had he been a practical gold digger he would have recognised at once, from the nature of the stones about him, that he was amongst the gold-bearing rocks, or rather that the stones were fragments, brought down from the mountain, of auriferous quartz.
Having satisfied himself of the practicability of his plan by this personal survey, he leaped across the stream, and keeping along the edge of the cliff he soon stood above the place in the main ravine where they had camped. He saw his brother below him putting the finishing stitches to his work, and taking up a little pebble he threw it so that it almost dropped on the hat of the unconscious Alec. Geordie greeted him with a stave of a song as Alec leaped to his feet and looked around, and danced a little corroborree, all of his own invention, so near to the edge of the cliff that Alec was almost frightened out of his senses.
"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?"
"Let me get something to eat first, and then I'll tell you all about it. I had no breakfast this morning, and I want to 'patter um bittee damper,' as Murri would say. Come and sit down on this rock, it is a particularly soft and comfortable one, and well in the shade. Well, sir, this is my idea," said he, throwing off his cap and giving his still damp hair a little impetuous shake that was very characteristic of him. "We must get to the bottom of that pool. It is too idiotic to have come all this way on purpose, and then to go back without doing it."
"And how are you going to do it—dive?"
"Be quiet, don't interrupt," said George, putting down by the side of him the food which in his earnestness he had forgotten to touch. "I will tell you what I believe we can do. It will take some time, and a lot of hard work, but of course that doesn't matter."
"No, of course not."
"We must divert the stream from its present channel and send it pouring over the cliff in another place. I have been up on to the top and have found a branch of the watercourse which we can use if we can manage to dam up the present channel."
Alec had sat listening, perfectly silent up till now, but at this point his admiration broke out.
"What a splendid idea! When did you think of it?" And then, as the thought struck him that diverting the stream would not solve their difficulty, he suddenly added, "But that won't empty the pool for us, that will be as full as ever."
"You jolly old muff, do you think I had not thought of that?"
"Well, and how do you propose to empty it?"
"Drink it all, I suppose," said Geordie, with a bright laugh at the sudden change from hope to doubt that took place in Alec's face. But, seeing how anxious he looked, he laid one hand on his brother's knee to give emphasis to what he said. The novelty and boldness of his own idea had greatly excited him, though he tried to carry it off lightly; and when he spoke his voice was lowered, as though there were any one within some hundreds of miles who could overhear him.
"No," he said, "the pool is no great difficulty after all if we can only carry out my scheme. The bottom of it is on a level with the stream, except just in the middle, where it is deeper, and the wall of rock over which the second little waterfall flows is but a thin one. If we can break through that all the water in the pool, or nearly all of it, will rush out into the stream."
"It will be slow work, but we ought to be able to do it."
"We will do it, and not so particularly slowly after all, for I mean to drill a hole into the rock and blast it up with gunpowder. Margaret little thought when she told us, before we left, to be sure to take plenty of powder, to what a purpose we should put it."
"But how much have we?"
"Plenty. We have used very little since we started."
"Geordie," said Alec, as he rose from the stone, "in my opinion you are a regular genius. Yes, you are; don't deny it."
"Oh, very well," laughed George, "I will be one if you like. It is easy enough to be a genius if that is all that is wanted. I've only just thought of a sort of plan, and, mind you, I shall leave all the details to you, for you always do things so much better than I do."
"Not I; but I am ready to begin at once."
"It is too hot yet, there is not a bit of shade up there on the top of the cliff. We had better wait till a little later in the afternoon."
"Let's go and examine the pool at any rate. It is not too hot for that, and I want to have a look at that wall of rock. So come on."
When they had returned to the camp after their visit to the waterfall, they found that Murri had got back. All that he brought was one kangaroo rat and a parrot. A very poor result for so long a morning's hunting.
"This all you get along um gully?" asked George, pointing to the black fellow's very scanty spoils.
Murri shook his head, and said, "Mine kill pigeums, two pigeums, along o' quandangs. Murri plenty much hunglee. Mine go make fire, cook um pigeums, and mine patter" (eat) "um bofe."
This speech was so characteristic of the Australian black that neither of the boys was at all surprised at it. Although Murri was in many ways an exceptional specimen of the aboriginal race, it was not to be supposed that he should be free from all their faults and failings. Generosity can hardly be expected to be found among the virtues of a man who, like his ancestors for countless generations, has always thought of himself first, and of supplying his own requirements to the full before he gives away of his superfluity. Murri had killed the birds by his own skill and with his own strength, and who had so good a right as he to cook and eat them? That was what he himself would have said had he been asked, and he felt no shame in owning to George that he had cooked and eaten them himself. It was as useless to talk to him of generosity or self-sacrifice as it would be to try to make a man blind from his birth understand the meaning of colours.
Later in the afternoon, about two hours before sunset, the boys again walked towards the waterfall. Alec, who was not nearly so good a climber as George, utterly refused to climb up the cliff at the place Geordie had first ascended it. He said that he had some respect for his bones if Geordie had not, and climb up that cliff, which was no better than a stone wall, he would not. It was with some little difficulty that they found any less steep place, but they did at last discover one, some little way to the right hand side of the fall.
As soon as Alec had been shown the channel that George thought best for their purpose, he began to work. He was never one to spare himself when there was a difficult task on hand, and he flung himself into this new labour with all his usual ardour. George found his energy contagious, and they worked to such purpose that when they left off, some little time before sunset, they had collected a great pile of rocks at the edge of the stream with which they intended to begin their dam next day.
As it was evident, from the amount of work they had before them, that their stay in the valley would be of some duration, the boys determined to make more extensive preparations for camping than they usually did. It was almost too late that night to do anything, but they devoted the next day to building themselves a sort of little hut, which would not only shelter them from the heat by day and from the heavy dews of night, but would serve as some sort of protection if they were again attacked by myalls.
The one great danger in travelling in the wild parts of Queensland is the probability of being attacked by the fierce black natives, and every traveller in that little known country should be constantly on his guard. It is only natural that the native black races should retaliate upon the white intruders, at whose hands they have suffered so much; and as they have not the courage, or indeed the weapons, to enable them to attack a well-peopled station, they wait until they have a chance of murdering a solitary shepherd, or surrounding and surprising a small party when travelling away from civilised parts.
It was the thought of their exposed situation in case of an attack that guided Alec in his choice of a position for their camp. After examining the gully on both sides, he found a place that he thought admirably suited to his purpose. On the opposite side of the stream from that on which they had first encamped, there was a little opening in the side of the ravine. It was only a sort of wide crack in the rock, down which perhaps in times of heavy rain a little waterfall might flow. The width of it across the opening was about ten feet, and it was about the same, or a little more, in depth, at which distance the two walls of rock met at an angle.
Alec, who was a practical fellow, saw that this would give him two sides to his house, and, that if he built a wall of some sort across the front of it, he would have the shell of a comfortable, although triangular, shelter. Without waste of further time he and George set to work to collect a number of the large stones that were scattered thickly along all the edge of the stream and in it. With these they slowly (for the work was none of the easiest beneath a blazing tropical sun) built a wall about four feet high across the front of the little opening. They knew, from the previous day's experience, that they could not expect much of that sort of work from Murri, so they set him to chop down a good big pile of brushwood from the scrub that grew a little way down the gully. To this kind of labour Murri was much more accustomed, as the natives build their gunyahs of boughs of trees and brushwood. He could use a hatchet quite as expertly as the boys, and in a short time had cut quite as much as they would want for their purpose.
It took them the best part of the day to get their house finished, for the stones of their wall would often slip when the boughs were being forced in between them, and the covering in of the roof took some little time, as they had great difficulty in fixing the thick ends of the branches they used for that purpose in the rocky sides of their house. But by working well they managed to get it done, and had installed themselves and all their possessions, saddles, guns, provisions, and stores of every sort—not a great quantity, by-the-by—in their new camp before the sun had set. It certainly was more comfortable than sleeping without any shelter, for the nights felt cold after the great heat of the days, and the dews that fell were quite heavy enough to wet their blankets and clothes right through.
The floor of the "humpie," as the boys called it, using the word that in Australia means hut or house or hovel, indiscriminately, was quite dry, and the roof looked thick enough to keep out all wet, so that they were in no small degree satisfied with their work when at last it was finished.
"I say, Geordie," said Alec to his brother, who was busy in front of their newly-finished home making some Johnny cakes for their supper, "I've been thinking that it would be foolish for us to announce the fact of our presence here by firing our guns off. The noise would very probably be heard by some wretched tribe of myalls, and they would be bouncing here in no time to see what the row was all about; and I think we have had enough of them for one journey."
"I quite agree with you, most learned sir," said George, lifting up one floury hand and pushing his cap back that he might see his brother the better; "I don't want any more myalls just yet. But why do you make these wise remarks?"
"Because I should like something more for my supper than Johnny cakes and part of a tinned salmon. I was going to try to get a shot at something, but I think we had better send Murri, whose shooting isn't quite so noisy as ours. Hullo, Murri," he added, turning round to that worthy person, who was hugging his knees by the side of the fire, "you go kill something. Mine want pigeon, bandicoot, cockatoo, anything. Burrima" (quickly), "you bail go patter him all along yourself this time." (Don't you eat him by yourself this time.) "If you do," he added, dropping into his own vernacular, "I'll jolly well punch your head."
"You had better go with him. I won't put the Johnny cakes in till you come back."
"Yes, that will be the safest way, and I can have a look at the horses and see that they have not strayed."
Murri was willing enough to go. A new spirit seemed to possess him when he was engaged in hunting or work of that kind, and his expressionless face would light up, and a new fire would shine in his eyes. He seized his boomerang and other weapons, which were lying by the side of him, and sprang to his feet to accompany Alec down the ravine.