After breakfast he washed up, and was then ready to dive into the mystery wrapped up in the diagram. He stood silent for a few minutes in expectation, as nature stands hushed when waiting for a thunder shower. Spreading the diagram on his knee, he pored over it for half an hour. He was at a standstill. There was a deadlock. He had got the clue to one end of the line, for the tree was on the hillside clearly enough, corresponding exactly with the tree on the drawing; but what was the triangle at the other end of the line? He tried to imagine a three-sided figure, composed of the creek, a fallen log, and an outcrop of the rock; but he gave it up as a bad job, the lines being more like a dog's hind leg than a triangle. He spelled triangle over and over again. Nothing came of it. He was fairly cornered at every point. He cuffed and whipped his brains to no purpose.
At last he looked up, and his weary eyes rested on the tent. Viewed from the front it had a triangular shape.
"Fool!" he said, "not to see it before."
A line projected from the tent to the tree would give the line in the diagram.
"Now," he thought, "I must walk over the ground and find out whether the old man intended the figures to be 45 or 65, and whether he measured from the tree or the tent." He jumped up, placed himself in a bee-line between the tent and the tree, and walked fifteen paces, each of which he believed to be three feet. This distance would make forty-five feet. Then he looked for some indication, some mark or sign. There was nothing to indicate that man had ever disturbed this solitude. Forty-five was evidently not the distance. He would try sixty-five; so he paced to about this distance and stopped, but could see nothing unusual—nothing to guide him. He felt like a blind man groping his way in the Sahara.
CHAPTER V
He would try from the tree this time. He walked to it, then turned, and paced fifteen steps in a line with the tent. Here the ground was covered with broken pieces of quartz, but there was no mark or sign that would attract a bushman's eye. Then he walked about twenty feet more, when, suddenly, the ground seemed to give way under his feet, and he felt himself falling down a hole. He had just time to throw himself forward and clutch the solid earth. With a great effort he managed to hold on to the side of the hole and drag himself up. The excavation had been lightly covered with brushwood and earth. This was no doubt the key to the diagram, and something perhaps was to be unlocked here. Peering into the hole he saw a rough ladder, and went down it about fourteen feet. A marvellous sight filled his eyes with wonder! The cap of a reef had been broken off, and the stone blazed with gold. In half an hour he had picked out about twenty ounces.
He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. What was that noise? He heard a muffled rumbling, and the ground seemed to vibrate. Some animal was in the Devil's Punch Bowl, and was moving northwards. He lay motionless for a little while, then, as the footsteps grew fainter, he crept up the ladder, and raised his left eye above the top of the hole. A horse, with a man on his back, was slowly climbing the steep bank, and in a moment disappeared over the other side. Bill drew a sigh of relief. Last night he longed for company, now he did not wish to see a human creature. The rich shoot of gold he had come upon would make up for the poor surroundings and the awful solitude of the Devil's Punch Bowl. The gold would compensate for all.