“THE BLACKS RAISED A WILD HOWL AND FLED.”
XII.
A GOLD RUSH.
Soon after Harry and Donald returned to Wonga-Wonga, the station was excited by the news that gold had been found about seventy miles to the north of Jerry’s Town. At first the news was partially pooh-poohed at Wonga-Wonga.
“We’ve heard of storekeepers’ rushes before now, haven’t we?” Mr. Lawson said to the men, who were getting unsettled by the tidings. “Those fellows would make out that there was gold in the moon, if people could get there to buy their damaged goods; and nicely they’d clap it on for carriage.”
It soon became certain, however, that something more than the mere “colour of gold” had been found at Jim Crow Creek. Three parts of the population of Jerry’s Town started for the new diggings, and yet the town was busier than ever, such a stream of people poured through it. Nearly every township between Jerry’s Town and Sydney contributed its quota, and amongst those who came from Sydney were a good many who had sailed thither from Melbourne. Perhaps they had been doing very well on the Victoria diggings, but diggers have almost always a belief that they could do better somewhere else than where they are; and so, when they hear of new diggings, off they flock to them, like starlings from England in autumn.
Wonga-Wonga and the other stations near Jerry’s Plains soon became very short-handed. Shepherds and stockmen sloped wholesale for the Creek, sometimes helping themselves to their masters’ horses to get there. To make the best of a bad job, Mr. Lawson resolved to avail himself of the market for meat that had suddenly been created at Jim Crow Creek; and, accordingly, he and the boys started thither with some of the sheep and cattle that had been left with scarcely any one to look after them.
As they rode into Jerry’s Town, they passed a mob of Chinamen, in baggy blue breeches, who were preparing to encamp by the roadside. Most of them still wore their tails, coiled up like snakes, or dangling down like eels. The Jerry’s Town youngsters were pelting the Chinamen, and taking sly pulls at the dangling tails, whenever they got the chance, meanwhile shouting “Chow-chow” and singing in chorus—
“Here he was, and there he goes,
Chinaman with the monkey nose.”