Two more days passed uneventfully. The hourly-expected bulletin of good news from No. 3 was being long deferred, and vague fears were beginning to be expressed that all was not satisfactory there. It was known that Nos. 3, 4, and 5 had put on extra shifts in the last few nights, and the depths of their sinkings must at this time have exceeded fifty feet. We at No. 7 awaited developments with keen interest. It was natural that we should hope for the worst at No. 3, for, as Emu Bill had said, we were on an entirely different tack, and might cease our labours when the gaudy emblem appeared over that claim. In these two days progress had been very slow with us, for a hard bar of conglomerate quartz had intervened at the 45-foot level, and we dared not use gelignite in case the heavy discharge might bring the upper walls inward and render our whole work useless.
It is always precarious to use blasting powder of any description at the deep levels of an alluvial shaft, and the more so when the upper formations have proved to be of non-cohesive nature. So we were compelled to laboriously pick the unyielding mass where we might, and otherwise drill and shatter it with hammers.
On the morning of the third day after the flag had been raised at No. 2 the Emu seemed to awake from his lethargy in earnest, and set to work with right good-will to make up for lost time.
"You wasn't wrong in takin' my advice arter all, mate," he said to me, when I appeared to inquire the reason of his unwonted activity.
"There's no flag up at No. 3 yet," I answered tentatively.
"No, nor won't be, nuther," he returned with evident satisfaction. "I tell you what, mate," he continued impressively, "the first flag that goes up will be at your own shaft, No. 7, so you'd better get your flagpole ready. The man what says I don't know this country is a liar, every time."
Yet still the men at the shafts in question continued to dig deeper and deeper. "We hasn't reached bottom yet," they said, in answer to all questions, and on that point they appeared decided.