"Lower away the bucket, you flounder-faced mummy!" came the prompt reply, which penetrated the darkness in sharp staccato syllables.
Mac looked pained. "Noo, if that had been Stewart," he muttered grimly, "I wud a kent weel what tae dae, bit being the golologist——" He shook his head feebly, and reached for the hide bucket, which was lying near. Then, forgetting in the flurry of the moment to hitch it on to the rope, he let it descend at the fastest speed the law of gravity would permit.
"Staun frae under!" he yelled, realising too late what he had done; but in such a narrow space there was no room for dodging, and the leathern receptacle struck the unfortunate man below with more force than was agreeable. "Ye brocht it on yersel'," consolingly spoke Mac. "It's a veesitation o' Providence fur miscain' me sae sairly."
The words that greeted his ears were eloquent and emphatic, and he marched into the tent in high dudgeon. "Gang an' pull the golologist oot o' the shaft," said he to Stewart. "He's in the position o' a humourist, an' he canna see throo't."
Perhaps there are few who could have smiled and looked pleasant under similar circumstances; but the "golologist" was of a forgiving nature, and his enmity dissolved when he reached the surface.
"You'll admit, Mac," he said, after allowances had been made on both sides, "that I had some slight cause for grumbling, and in your magnanimity you might have spared me your last forcible addition to the argument."
"That wis a mistak'," Mac replied apologetically. "I had the baggie in ma haun, meanin' tae send it doon in orthodox manner; bit yer injudishus remarks made me nervish, and doon it drappit, sudden-like."
After these explanations peace reigned again; but Stewart's rest had been so rudely broken that he now thought to work off his lassitude by an hour's graft with the pick. We had arranged ourselves into shifts, which went on and off alternately, or otherwise, as we thought fit; but it was my plan to reach bedrock without delay, so the shaft was never allowed to remain long unoccupied. Leaving Mac and Phil to attend to culinary matters, I went out with Stewart, and, after lowering him into the Stygian gloom, kept watch by the windlass until the night closed over and Phil announced that tea was ready.
| No. 2 Claim—Just Struck Gold. |