The suggested ceremony necessitated more speeches, but when they were finished the lawyer read the articles of association. Strangely enough, they were devoid of legal technicalities, and consisted of four clearly-worded clauses, destitute of legal fiction, to which all present readily subscribed their names.
That done, they drank to the prosperity of The Timber Town Gold League.
CHAPTER XXII.
Women’s Ways.
Scarlett had a day upon his hands while his gold-seeking confreres of the League made their preparations for the journey to Bush Robin Creek. To loiter about the town meant that he would be pestered with questions regarding the locality of the new “field,” which, until his friends’ “claims” were pegged off, it was desirous to keep secret. He decided, therefore, to re-visit the scene of the wreck of The Mersey Witch.
On a mount, lent him by Chesterman, he was on his way to the Maori pa, before the town was stirring. The road, which he had never traversed before, wound its tortuous way along the shore for some eight miles, and then struck inland across the neck of a wooded peninsula, on the further side of which the rugged and rocky shore was fringed with virgin forest. He had reached the thick and shady “bush” which covered the isthmus, where the dew of the morning still lay cool on leaf and frond, and the great black boles of the forest giants stood sentinel amid the verdant undergrowth, when he overtook a girl who was walking towards the pa.
Her dress was peculiar; she wore a short Maori mat over her shoulders, and a blue petticoat fell from waist to ankle, while her head and feet were bare.
Jack reined in his horse, and asked if he was on the road which led to the pa, when the girl turned her merry, brown face, with its red lips and laughing, brown eyes, and said in English as good as his own, “Good morning. Yes, this is the road to the pa. Why, you were the last person I expected to see.” She held up her hand to him, to greet him in European fashion.
“Amiria!” he exclaimed. “How are you? It’s quite appropriate to meet you here—I’m on my way to the wreck, to see how the old ship looks, if there is anything of her left. How far is it to the pa?”