III.
HOW MONEY USED TO BE MADE.
OUR contracts were nearly finished, when the contractor—Mr. Mather—failed, leaving us all in the lurch. Unfortunately, I was hit harder than anyone else. After eight months of hard life, I found myself in my slab hut at Sawpit Gully, with a very limited stock of provisions, and—a claim on the estate!
It is not in my nature to despond or stick in the mud long. I called together a meeting of my men, explained to them the position of affairs, left the assets of the estate in their charge, and went to Melbourne to fight it out with the Official Assignee. After some trouble I managed to draw the wages due to the men, but my screw had to be left in abeyance until the assets were realised; meanwhile the Court placed me in charge of the valuable property, scattered over the whole of the district, at a salary.
In such times as those one could ill afford to sit quietly awaiting the slow process of the law.
Sawpit Gully—now Elphinstone—was the dividing point of the various main thoroughfares to Fryer’s Creek, Forest Creek, Bendigo, M’Ivor, and other new diggings. It struck me that, in view of the thousands of people who daily passed through, a store might be a paying game. Unfortunately capital was the first consideration, and it was then “an absent friend.” Brooding over my empty purse, I mentioned my project to my men over the camp-fire one evening, prior to going to bed. A couple of hours later a deputation entered my hut. The spokesman—old Sellick, an old Tasmanian “lifer”—said—
“Look you here, boss; you have been a good friend to us chaps, and d—n it, we ain’t agoing to see you in a muck. Pick out your spot; we mean to give you a lift. We will put up your shanty; and if you want money—why, you shall have it.”