Each recurring wet season sees the whitened boulders swept off towards the sea-coast by the angry brown waters of the “flushed” river, in company with the like that has collected during the interval since the previous rains, and then the fierce torrent, gradually settling down once more into the bubbling little stream as we now have it, sets to work again to paint a fresh strip of white through the twilight forest glades.
Kneeling by the side of one of the chain of snowy pools that stretches into the misty vista of graceful palms and dark-leaved trees, beneath the afternoon shadows of the gorge, is a strange-looking figure, quite in keeping with the wild surroundings,—a thin, elderly man, with a ragged, unkempt beard and deeply bronzed and furrowed face, shaded by the most dilapidated of soft felt hats. The spare figure that Billy is now watching is covered with clothes so old, patched, and repatched that one would hesitate to pronounce an opinion as to which of the frowsy fragments formed part of the original garments. A certain yellow tone of colour, something between that of a nicely browned loaf and the lighter tints of a Cheddar cheese, pervades the “altogether” of the old man, for the iron-rust and clay-stains of years of lonely toil amongst the mountains have dyed both skin and rags of one common colour.
A thin but muscular left hand holds the outer rim of a brown, circular iron pan,—called by miners a “prospecting dish,”—and presses its other edge against the ancient’s open-bosomed shirt, so as to keep the vessel firmly in position, as the keen old eyes examine its contents for the cheering yellow specks with a small pocket-lens.
Billy stands looking at the old prospector for a minute, and rightly guesses that he is one of those mining recluses, called “hatters” in Australia, some specimens of which class our dark friend has met before. In fact, Billy’s curiosity as a miner himself makes him nearly forget the approaching natives, in his eagerness to ascertain if the dish now being “panned off” shows the presence of the precious metal in the locality. But this hesitation on his part is not for long. Billy has retained his European raiment at some considerable inconvenience in his flight through the scrub, for the same reason that chiefly prompts Australian aboriginals to put such value upon the sartorial signs of civilization, and now he is to reap the fruits of his forethought.
Many an Australian bushman will shoot a native at sight, without compunction, if in puris naturalibus, and it is a fact that many make it a rule to do so when meeting a “nigger” alone in the bush; but the same individuals would hesitate to pay this attention to a black sheltered in that badge of servitude, an old shirt or ragged pair of inexpressibles whose wearer may possibly belong to a neighbouring squatter or police inspector.
Billy trusts now implicitly to his torn clothes to serve as a flag of truce till he can get a hearing from the man whose life he is probably about to save; and careless of the fact that the old miner has a revolver hanging in the open pouch at his belt, and that a fowling-piece lies by the pick within a yard of the thin, hairy right arm, he girds up his tatters and commences to whistle loudly as he makes his way over the hot boulders towards the curious, propensic figure by the stream-side.
The old prospector turns suddenly as the shrill notes of Billy’s musical trilling echo along the rocky sides of the glen, and, dropping his dish, snatches up the brown old “Manton” by his side.
“Hold on, boss!” shouts Billy, thinking for the instant that perhaps he had been too rash after all, in leaving his shelter amongst the rocks before holding a parley with the stranger.
“Hold on, boss; you’ll want your powder for warragal blacks directly, and better not waste it on ‘good fellow’ like me.”
“Who the devil are you? Move a step an’ I blow your brains out,” responds the old man, lowering the piece, however, from his shoulder.