"I'm sending up some specimens," he cried.
Jack gave a howl of delight; hearing which, Bob, who had been reading in the tent, rushed out, and with eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement, hurried to the shaft mouth. He was just in time to assist in the raising of the heavily laden bucket. Nearer and nearer it came to the surface. Would the wash be gold-bearing or would it be barren? The boys' agitation was intense. Their limbs trembled and their hands could scarcely retain their grip on the windlass arms. Down below stood Mackay, perspiring with his arduous toil, watching the bucket ascend with somewhat anxious eyes. The glare of the sun across the shaft's mouth made everything apparent to him, while he himself was obscured from view in the shadows. The bucket had almost reached the top; already Bob had stretched out his hand to grasp it, when a stentorian shout from below arrested the movement, and, for a space, the fateful harbinger of good or evil tidings hung motionless.
"Keep a good grip o' your nerves—an' the windlass, lads. Heave away!"
The caution came in time. It suddenly flashed upon them both that a single slip on their part, a momentary hesitation, might prove disastrous to their friend below. Again Bob stretched out his hand, his eyes caught the glisten of gold, but his grip was sure. Next instant he and Jack were gazing at a whitish mass, through which shone myriad dazzling particles of the yellow metal. A few minutes later Mackay was jerked to the surface; there was no hesitancy in the movement of the windlass now; the moment of extreme tension had come and gone. Together they sat down on the sand and examined the specimens one by one without speaking. Then Mackay rose to his feet.
"The theory was right, Bob," he said calmly. "This is the richest stuff on the lead. I don't know how much there is of it yet, but there's enough to make you glad you came out to Australia, anyhow. Run up the flag, Jack," he directed, turning to that youth, who was still joyously examining his treasures. "Let Golden Flat know that we three are right here every time." He spoke jovially, yet so quietly, that his words exercised a kind of restraint over his hearers, which he was quick to notice.
"Never mind me, my lads," he said. "You've got every reason to rejoice, but you must remember that I'm an old hand at gold digging, an' the yellow dirt doesna mak' me enthuse like it aince did." Truly enough, to this strange Scot of many moods, the excitement and risk attending discovery was everything; he viewed the rich reward likely to be his with almost stoical indifference. Indeed, he was engaged in a deep philosophical argument with Bob concerning the uses and abuses of gold as a factor in the world's history, when the population of Golden Flat arrived in a body to tender their congratulations.
"But in these days," Bob was saying, "not to have gold is held to be almost a proof of one's inferiority. The world does not judge from an intellectual standpoint. It demands wealth. No matter what brains a young man may have at home, the chances are against his ever coming to the front unaided. Gold——" Bob stopped suddenly, having become aware of a growing audience behind him.
From the group old battered Dead Broke made grave utterance.
"I believe your ideas are kerect, Bob; but from what I sees here you can thank your lucky stars that the gold has come to you early in life. Look at me an' Nuggety——"