The Black Opal

by Katharine Susannah Prichard

"Tell you the truth, Pony-Fence, I don't understand Michael over this business," George said. "He's been right off his nest the last week or two. It might have got him down what's being said—he might be so sore about anybody thinkin' that of him, or that it's just too mean and paltry to take any notice of.... But I'd rather he'd said something.... It's played Armitage's game all right, the yarn that's been goin' round, about Michael's not being the man we think he is. And the worst of it is, you don't know exactly where it came from. Charley, of course—but it was here before him.... He's just stoked the gossip a bit. But it's done the Ridge more harm than a dozen Armitages could 've——"

"To-night'll bring things to a head," Watty interrupted, as though they had talked the thing over and he knew exactly what George was going to say next. "I reck'n we'll see better how we stand—what's the game—and the men who are going to stand by us.... Michael's with us, I'll swear; and if we've got to put up a fight ... we'll have it out with him about those yarns.... And it'll be hell for any man who drops a word of them afterwards."

When they went into the hall George and Watty marched to the front form and seated themselves there. Bully Bryant and Pony-Fence remained somewhere about the middle of the hall, as men from every rush on the fields filed into the seats and the hall filled. Potch came in and sat near Bully and Pony-Fence. As Newton, Armitage, and the American engineer crossed the platform, Michael took a seat towards the front, a little behind George and Watty. George stood up and hailed him, but Michael shook his head, indicating that he would stay where he was.

Peter Newton, after a good deal of embarrassment, had consented to be chairman of the meeting. But he looked desperately uncomfortable when he took his place behind a small table and an array of glasses and a water bottle, with John Armitage on one side of him and Mr. Andrew M'Intosh, the American engineer, on the other.

His introductory remarks were as brief as he could make them, and chiefly pointed out that being chairman of the meeting was not to be regarded as an endorsement of Mr. Armitage's plan.

John Armitage had never looked keener, more immaculate, and more of another world than he did when he stood up and faced the men that night. Most of them were smoking, and soon after the meeting began the hall was filled with a thin, bluish haze. It veiled the crowd below him, blurred the shapes and outlines of the men sitting close together along the benches, most of them wearing their working clothes, faded blueys, or worn moleskins, with handkerchiefs red or white round their throats. Their faces swam before John Armitage as on a dark sea. All the weather-beaten, sun-red, gaunt, or full, fat, daubs of faces, pallid through the smoke, turned towards him with a curious, strained, and intent expression of waiting to hear what he had to say.

Before making any statement himself, Mr. Armitage said he would ask Mr. Andrew M'Intosh, who had come with him from America some time ago to report on the field, and who was one of the ablest engineers in the United States of America, to tell what he thought of the natural resources of the Ridge, and the possibilities of making an up-to-date, flourishing town of Fallen Star under conditions proposed by the Armitage Syndicate.

Andrew M'Intosh, a meagrely-fleshed man, with squarish face, blunt features, and hair in a brush from a broad, wrinkled forehead, stood up in response to Mr. Armitage's invitation. He was a man of deeds, not words, he declared, and would leave Mr. Armitage to give them the substance of his report. His knees jerked nervously and his face and hands twitched all the time he was speaking. He had an air of protesting against what he was doing and of having been dragged into this business, although he was more or less interested in it. He confessed that he had not investigated the resources of Fallen Star Ridge as completely as he would have wished, but he had done so sufficiently to enable him to assure the people of Fallen Star that if they accepted the proposition Mr. Armitage was to lay before them, the country would back them. He himself, he said, would have confidence enough in it to throw in his lot with them, should they accept Mr. Armitage's proposition; and he gave them his word that if they did so, and he were invited to take charge of the reorganisation of the mines, he would work whole-heartedly for the success of the undertaking he and the miners of Fallen Star Ridge might mutually engage in. He talked at some length of the need for a great deal of preliminary prospecting in order to locate the best sites for mines, of the necessity for plant to use in construction works, and of the possibility of a better water supply for the township, and the advantages that would entail.

The men were impressed by the matter-of-factness of the engineer's manner and his review of technical and geological aspects of the situation, although he gave very little information they had not already possessed. When he sat down, Armitage pushed back his chair and confronted the men again.

He made his position clear from the outset. It was a straightforward business proposition he was putting before men of the Ridge, he said; but one the success of which would depend on their co-operation. As their agent of exchange with the world at large, he described the disastrous consequences the slump of the last year or so had had for both Armitage and Son and for Fallen Star, and how the system he proposed, by opening up a wider area for mining and by investigating the resources of the old mines more thoroughly under the direction of an expert mining engineer, would result in increased production and prosperity for the people of the Ridge and Fallen Star township. He saw possibilities of making a thriving township of Fallen Star, and he promised men of the Ridge that if they accepted the scheme he had outlined for them, the Armitage Syndicate would make a prosperous township of Fallen Star. In no time people: would be having electricity in their homes, water laid on, rose gardens, cabbage patches, and all manner of comforts and conveniences as a result of the improved means of communication with Budda and Sydney, which population and increased production would ensure.