“Thought yer was,” grunts the old prospector, taking his pipe from between his yellow teeth for an instant; “noticed the way yer carried the pick, and guessed yer knew something about ‘breaking down a face.’”
“Yes, I can do that much, anyhow,” remarks Billy quietly.
“Well, that bein’ so, lad, I ain’t the man as would turn dog on a poor beggar, let alone a miner, be he black or white. I ain’t built that way.” The old man stops speaking to listen to a slight noise outside the cave for a moment, and then continues: “If yer like to camp here longer me till I’ve done this gully, yer can. But just sling me a yarn about how yer came to this hole in the ranges.” The speaker turns towards the fire, that has burnt itself low, and commences to rake it into renewed brightness. As he does so, his head and right arm leave the shelter of the projecting rock before-mentioned, and come between the luminous background of flames and the cave entrance.
Then Billy’s prognostications are fulfilled; for some natives, who have been silently watching for an opportunity to attack the occupants of the cavern, immediately take advantage of the appearance of the old digger, and the fire embers are scattered right and left by three spears, which, however, luckily all miss their human target.
The two men leap to their feet, and Billy, snatching up the old “hatter’s” shot-gun, without waiting a moment to ask the permission of its owner, glides noiselessly into the darkness, and is lost to the view of his startled host. Presently the latter proceeds to collect the scattered fire-sticks, and adding to them the spears, which he breaks up into pieces, he relights his pipe and waits for the return of his guest. Half an hour passes in silence, and then two loud reports, followed by the rain-like pattering of bouncing shot about the entrance to the cave, and the screams of a number of agonized voices, proclaim the successful accomplishment of Billy’s plucky plan of retaliation upon the enemy outside.
“No more trouble to-night,” observes that individual, with a complaisant grin, as he presently returns into the cavern, striking the butt of the gun he carries, as he walks, so as to give a jangling signal of his approach to the man by the fire, who, revolver in hand, might otherwise mistake him for an enemy. “Shot guns better at night than a rifle for this kind of work. The beggars have all cleared. None killed, I think.”
“All the better, lad. All the days I’ve knocked about the bush, I’ve never shot a black yet, though I’ve seen a many bowled over. But they warn’t bad in the old days, as they are now. These beggars here, though, are a bit koolie (fierce); and I don’t blame them. They don’t like to see a white face,”—the old man’s countenance was about the tone of colour of a new pig-skin saddle,—“they don’t like to see a white face hereabouts, for the scrub’s the only place in this part of Queensland where the poor beggars ain’t hunted.”
The night passes without further cause for alarm, and next day, and the one after, and for several weeks Billy remains with the old prospector. And the latter, being a sensible man, and finding himself thus brought into contact with a mind in no ways inferior to his own,—albeit housed in corporal surroundings of that dark tint that has hitherto placed the unfortunate aborigines beyond the pale of civilized law in Australia,—soon makes a companion and partner of Billy, instead of treating him as a mere animal, as has hitherto been his custom with those black “boys” he has had occasion to employ.
Moreover, in our dark friend the ancient “hatter” finds his ideal of what a model “mate” should be,—strong, cheerful, plucky, frugal, and, above all, lucky. And sometimes, as the strange pair smoke their evening pipes together in the firelit cave, and the thoughts of the “boss” go flying back into the dim vistas of memory, and the cruel swindles perpetrated upon him by this and that white partner of his younger days are re-enacted in his mind’s eye, he cannot help contrasting them unfavourably with his present mate, whose coming departure, although he is “only a nigger,” the old man begins to dread with a fear that surprises himself.
“Swelp me,” the poor old solitary soul sometimes ejaculates to himself, as the chilling thought of once more being a lonely “hatter” in these awful wilds goes like an ague-shiver through his spare and bended form, “I suppose I’m getting too old for this kind of work; and if I had had a mate like Billy when I was young I would have been doing the ‘toff’ in Sydney by this time, like that rascal Canoona Bill that swindled me on the Crocodile, and not have had to work up to my knees in water, with the pan and shovel, at my time of life.”