The Black Opal

by Katharine Susannah Prichard

That was how Jun established himself anywhere. He had an easy, plausible, good-natured way. All the men laughed and drank with him and gave him grudging admiration, notwithstanding the threads and shreds of resentments and distrusts which old stories of his dealings, even with mates, had put in their minds. None of those stories had been proved against him, his friends said, Charley Heathfield among them. That was a fact. But there were too many of them to be good for any man's soul, Ridge men, who took Jun with a grain of salt, thought—Michael Brady, George Woods, Archie Cross, and Watty Frost among them; but Charley Heathfield, Michael's mate, had struck up a friendship with Jun since his return to the Ridge.

George Woods and the Crosses said it was a case of birds of a feather, but they did not say that to Michael. They knew Michael had the sort of affection for Charley that a man has for a dog he has saved from drowning.

Charley Heathfield had been down on his luck when he went to the Ridge, his wife and a small boy with him; and the rush which he had expected to bring him a couple of hundred pounds' worth of opal at least, if it did not make his fortune, had left him worse off than it found him—a piece of debris in its wake. He and Rouminof had put down a shaft together, and as neither of them, after the first few weeks, did any more work than they could help, and were drunk or quarrelling half of their time, nothing came of their efforts.

Charley, when his wife died, was ill himself, and living in a hut a few yards from Michael's. She had been a waitress in a city restaurant, and he had married her, he said, because she could carry ten dishes of hot soup on one arm and four trays on the other. A tall, stolid, pale-faced woman, she had hated the back-country and her husband's sense of humour, and had fretted herself to death rather than endure them. Charley had no particular opinion of himself or of her. He called his youngster Potch—"a little bit of Potch," he said, because the kid would never be anything better than poor opal at the best of times.

Michael had nursed Charley while he was ill during that winter, and had taken him in hand when he was well enough to get about again. Charley was supposed to have weak lungs; but better food, steady habits, and the fine, dry air of a mild summer set him up wonderfully. Snow-Shoes had worked with Michael for a long time; he said that he was getting too old for the everyday toil of the mine, though, when Michael talked of taking on Charley to work with them. It would suit him all right if Michael found another mate. Michael and Charley Heathfield had worked together ever since, and Snow-Shoes had made his living as far as anybody knew by noodling on the dumps.

But Charley and Michael had not come on a glimmer of opal worth speaking of for nearly twelve months. They were hanging on to their claim, hoping each day they would strike something good. There is a superstition among the miners that luck often changes when it seems at its worst. Both Charley and Michael had storekeeper's accounts as long as their arms, and the men knew if their luck did not change soon, one or the other of them would have to go over to Warria, or to one of the other stations, and earn enough money there to keep the other going on the claim.

They had no doubt it would be Michael who would have to go. Charley was not fond of work, and would be able to loaf away his time very pleasantly on the mine, making only a pretence of doing anything, until Michael returned. They wondered why Michael did not go and get a move into his affairs at once. Paul and Sophie might have-something to do with his putting off going, they told each other; Michael was anxious how Paul and his luck would fare when it was a question of squaring up with Jun, and as to how the squaring up, when it came, would affect Sophie.

Some of them had been concerning themselves on Paul's account also. They did not like a good deal they had seen of the way Jun was using Paul, and they had resolved to see he got fair play when it was time for a settlement of his and Jun's account. George Woods, Watty Frost, and Bill Grant went along to talk the matter over with Michael one evening, and found him fixing a shed at the back of the hut which he and Potch had put up for Sophie and her father, a few yards from Charley Heathfield's, and in line with Michael's own hut at the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush.

"Paul says he's going away if he gets a good thing out of his and Jun's find," George Woods said.

"It'll be a good thing—if he gets a fair deal," Michael replied.