CHAPTER VIII.
SHANTY-KEEPING, PROSPECTING, THORKILL'S DEATH.

Some time after this my friend and countryman came to me one evening about nine o'clock with a very important air, and told me he had heard of a new find of gold some thirty miles distant, and that there would be sure to be a terrible rush as soon as it became generally known. As for him, he would like to go if I would go with him and be his mate, because, as he put it, he was sure I was lucky. He could not well have made a greater mistake, but anyhow I was flattered and agreed to go. Then I found he wanted to go at once. I had a few days' wages coming to me, but I went to my employer's house at once and got my cheque. That we changed in a public-house and went to our tents, saying nothing to anybody about our intentions. Having got our swags ready, we, more like thieves than anything else, knocked the one tent over and were off. My friend's tent remained, and my horses were in a paddock with saddles and belongings; there was no time to get them, and suspicion would have been created had we tried.

We rather ran than walked, but we were scarcely a mile out of town before we overtook some six or seven others bent on the same journey. The first twenty miles ran on a good road; that would be as far as we could go that night, because the next ten miles were only a blazed track right through the bush made by the prospectors, and could only be safely traversed in the daylight. On the whole journey we were both overtaken ourselves, and overtook other people, until, when we arrived at the camp, we numbered a score or more. Here we found another score of diggers sleeping or smoking, waiting for daylight. It was a moonlight night, and I could see that we had arrived at a place where a few humpies stood in seeming disorder round about. There was also a public-house, and it was in the street in front of that, that the whole army halted. I was both hot and tired, and as my mate suggested that we had better get an hour or two of sleep, I laid myself down and slept. I woke up again as my mate was shaking me. It was just break of day; still we seemed late, for everybody was up and stirring. There was no time for a billy of tea, or for ever so slight a stretch: it was up and away. Oh, how tired I was, and stiff, and footsore! I would not have minded if I might have started quietly, but this seemed like a race. Although I lost no time, yet I was the very last through the little street with the heavy swag on my back. My mate was beckoning to me as he, also late, ran a few hundred feet in front, and then disappeared amongst the trees. I felt irritable, as I often do before I have had my breakfast. I came by a baker's shop, over the door of which was written, "Cold refreshing summer drinks sold here." The baker and his wife, and a young girl also, were peeping out through the half-opened door, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle of the crowd racing down the street. I said to myself, "Bother running like a fool here, I am going for a bottle of beer."

The baker asked me if I was going to look for gold out there, or was I looking for a job? "Because," said he, "if you think of finding gold in that place you will be mistaken."

He then told me he had been on the spot the previous day, and that it was a "duffer," but still there would be a rush, and he would much like to get somebody to ride out with bread every day and sell it at the place. I told him I could not leave my mate like that, but the baker just invited me in to breakfast, and offered me the loan of a horse, and said also that he himself would take bread out as soon as we could be off. "Perhaps," said he, "if my mate did not like the place, as he was sure he would not, I might take a job from him."

I therefore rode out with the baker after breakfast and found my mate, who, as the baker predicted, was in no way enthusiastic about finding anything as good as he had left, and before evening he was satisfied to return to Ravenswood before any one could jump his claim there. As I did not like going back, but wanted the change to ride up and down with bread, I engaged with the baker for one pound ten shillings per week and board. My duty now was to load a pack-horse every day with bread, and, having another to ride, to take the bread to the "rush" and sell it. The butcher at the "Twenty Mile" also engaged a man to ride up with beef, and we generally rode in company. But it soon proved that it did not pay our employers to keep us on, and after about three weeks' time we both got notice to leave. That brought me to think that as there were many men on the "rush," it might pay me to get my two horses up from Ravenswood, and, buying myself both bread and meat together, sell it on my own account. To that all parties were willing, and as one thing brings another with it, I went to the Chinamen's shop with a view to seeing what profit he would give me on groceries. As "Johnny" strongly advised me to sell a little grog for him, I bethought myself that I had while with the baker learned to make hop-beer and ginger-beer, and found that I could make it for a penny a big glassful and charge a shilling. I resolved, therefore, to take up that industry too. There was nobody at all who had anything for sale at the "rush," and I determined to go out and build a hut and start a general store and shanty. I now went out to the "rush" again, and got two men to help me in the building. The hut I put up was very primitive. Just one room about fourteen by twelve feet, made of saplings, packing-cases, bark, or anything I could get at all suitable. The roof was bark; the counter was bark also, and at night had to serve for my bed. The door was an artistic piece of rubbish, if I might use that term, but somehow it all hung together and could be locked up. Outside I made a sunshade with tables and chairs under. That was managed by four forked saplings put into the ground, and other straight saplings resting as wall-plates in the forks. Again a row of lighter sticks lay across them and leafy bushes on the top, and the chairs were a lot of logs cross-cut at a height of eighteen inches. The job was completed in three or four days; then I went up to Ravenswood for my horses, and on my return got out a cask to make hop-beer in, some buckets, and a few groceries. I was now my own "boss," and wonderfully proud and happy I was in my little shanty. Besides my own two horses, the butcher and baker each lent me a horse to carry the bread and meat on, and I had quite enough to do—indeed my energy knew no bounds.

Just about the time I started, the Palmer diggings came to the front, and a great rush set in to that place from the south. But as no one seemed to know properly where the Palmer was, and as conflicting and disparaging statements soon arrived from the Palmer, and the wet season was coming on, the north was everywhere swarming with men who were ready to camp and prospect anywhere, just to abide time. As soon, therefore, as I started for myself, numbers of men would arrive every day, and I had so much to do that I did not know sometimes how to fling myself about quick enough. Long before daylight I was up and got my four horses together. I had a little yard for them. Then, in a racing gallop, I had to tear into the butcher's, baker's, and grocer's, at the "Twenty Mile." My goods would stand ready for me when I came. I would just fling the stuff on the horses, leave my orders for the next day, and be back again in time to sell bread and meat for breakfast! When that was over I had to carry water from the creek to brew a cask of hop-beer, clean up shop, serve people with grog, and feed the horses, make breakfast for myself, chuck out a loafer or two, and other matters, all at the same time. Thus it went on all day. In the afternoon I had sometimes to send a man off with the horses for more rations, and from five o'clock to ten, eleven, twelve, and sometimes all night, there would be a lot of fellows drinking outside the shanty.

THE BAKER'S CART