Tom Gerrard Part 17

"Of what are you thinking, Mr Gerrard?"

"I was wondering if your father would care to make a prospecting trip up my way instead of going to the Gilbert rush. When I left Ocho Rios there were several prospecting parties on Cape York Peninsula--some of them doing very well--and I myself got seven ounces of gold in a few hours from a creek about sixty miles from my station. Unfortunately, however, another man as well as myself knows of this place, and he asked me not to say anything about it for six months. He means to go there with a prospecting party."

"You mean Mr Aulain," and Kate turned her frank eyes to his.

"How did you know?"

She flushed. "You remember the letter you brought me from him. In that letter he told me that he was leaving the Native Police, and intended going in for mining, as he knew of some very rich auriferous country near your station, and that you, who also knew of it, had promised him to keep it secret from any other prospecting party."

"Yes, I did. I should like to see Aulain 'strike it rich' as your father says, Miss Fraser," and then he smiled. "If only for the sake of my kind, patient nurse of last month."

Again Kate's face flushed. "I know what you mean, Mr Gerrard, but----" she bent her head, and began to tie on a fishhook to the line she was carrying. "But you are mistaken. I like Mr Aulain very, very much, but I do not like any one enough to--to--oh, dear! I've broken the snooding."

"Never mind, I'll fix it for you," and as his hand touched her's, a new hope came into his life. He knew what she meant him to understand--that she was not going to marry Aulain--and then he went on quickly.

"I gabble like an old woman, do I not, Miss Fraser? Oh, this is what I was about to say, I believe that the Batavia River district is full of rich reefs and alluvial gold as well, and from what I hear from Lacey, I don't think the Gilbert will prove a permanent gold-field. Now, I will try to persuade your father to come to my part of the country instead of the Gilbert, which, by the time he reaches it, will probably be played out altogether, and abandoned."

"Ah! do persuade him, Mr Gerrard; I liked the thought of our going to the Gilbert, but I like better--oh, ever so much better--your suggestion of the Batavia River, for there we should be near the sea; and I love the sea and the beaches. I am horribly selfish, I am afraid."

Gerrard stroked his beard meditatively. "Yes, you'll be near the sea, Miss Fraser. But it is an awful country for a lady to live in; the fever is very bad there, and the blacks are a continual source of danger and trouble."

"Anything that my father can go through I can face too," she said proudly; "and besides that I have had fever, am not afraid of blacks or anything--except alligators," and she shuddered, as she smiled.

"Then you will be in a continual state of fear. All the rivers on the Peninsula are alive with them, and I have lost hundreds of cattle by the brutes." Then he laughed. "But they won't get many this year."

"How bravely he takes his misfortunes," she thought. Then she said, "Well, I shall take good care of myself, and not cross any creeks if the water is not clear. Now here we are at the pool. Isn't it lovely and quiet? I do hope we shall have caught enough fish by the time father comes."

Gerrard, as he filled his pipe, watched her smooth, slender brown hands baiting the hook of her line with a small gra.s.shopper, and noted the beautiful contour of her features, and the intent expression in her long-lashed eyes as she surveyed it. She looked up.

"Now, Mr Gerrard what _are_ you doing? Don't be so lazy. I'll have at least three fish before you have your line ready. Oh, I do wish I were a man!"

"Why?"

"Because then I could smoke a pipe when I am fishing. It must be delightful! When father and Sam Young and c.o.c.kney Smith come here with me to fish, and I see them all looking so placidly content with their pipes in their mouths, I feel as if I was missing something. Now, watch!"

She made a cast with her light rod of bamboo, and almost at the same moment that the impaled gra.s.shopper fell upon the gla.s.sy surface of the pool it was seized by a fish of the grayling species; known to Queenslanders as "speckled trout."

"There you are!" she cried triumphantly, as she swung the silvery-scaled beauty out of the water, and deftly grasped it with her left hand.

"First to me."

The music of her laugh, and her bright, animated features, filled Gerrard with delight as he watched her make a second cast. Then he too set to work, and, for the next quarter of an hour, they vied to make the greatest catch. Gerrard was a long way behind, when Douglas Fraser appeared. He was saying over and over again to himself: "There is nothing between her and Aulain! there is nothing between them!" Then, as he put his hand to his scarred face, the wild elation in his heart died away.

"Well, young people, what luck?" said the burly mine-owner, as with his hands on his hips, he leant against a she-oak.

"Splendid, father! thirty-five. How is the reef going?"

"Pinched out all together, chick. We can hang the battery up now."

Kate laid down her rod, and covered her face with her hands, and Gerrard saw the tears trickling through her fingers. For she loved the Gully, as she had loved no other place before.

Fraser stepped over to her, and placed his hand on her bent head.

"Never mind, little girl! We'll strike it rich some day."

"Yes, father!" she whispered, as she smiled through her tears, "we _shall_ strike a patch some day."

CHAPTER XVIII

On their way home, Gerrard and Fraser discussed the position, and Kate's heart beat quicker when her father said, "I think you are right, Gerrard. Ill give up the idea of the Gilbert, and shall try my luck on the Batavia."

"Very well, it is settled. We can leave by the next steamer for Somerset."

"I meant to overland it."

"Don't think of it. It is over a thousand miles, and you would have to pa.s.s through some fearful country, full of poison bush, and would perhaps lose all your horses. Then, too, the blacks are bad, very bad."

"Some of my men will be sure to come with me; especially Young and Smith."

"Don't think of overlanding it," persisted Gerrard. "It would take you, even with the best of luck, two months to get to the Batavia. Come with me to Somerset. I think we can get all the horses we want there, and then we can go across country--only one hundred and fifty miles--to the Gulf side; if not, I'll hire one of the pearling luggers to take us round by Cape York."

So Douglas Fraser yielded, and when they reached the house, he sent word to the claim and battery for all the men to come to him.

"Boys," he said, as the toil-stained, rough miners filed into the sitting-room, "we'll have to clear out of the Gully now that the reef has pinched out. Now, Mr Gerrard tells me that there is both good reefing and alluvial country up about the Batavia River; all the creeks carry gold; so I am going there with him, Will any of you come in with me?"

Every one of them gave a ready a.s.sent.

"Why, boss," said Sam Young, "we coves ain't agoin' to leave you an'

Miss Kate as long as we can make tucker and wages--or half wages, as fur as that goes. What say, lads?"

"Of course you can't leave us," said Kate with a laugh; "you all know what it is to have a woman cook."

"An' a lady doctor for them as have jim-jams," said one of them, looking at c.o.c.kney Smith, who shuffled his feet, and stared at something he pretended to see outside.

The matter was soon concluded, and the few following days were spent in crushing the last of the stone from the claim, and having a final clean-up of the battery. And Douglas Fraser could not help a heavy sigh escaping him, as he looked at the now silent machinery, and the cold, fireless boiler, to be in a few years hidden from view by the ever-encroaching forest of brigalow and gum trees.

Knowles, when he heard they were going, came to say good-bye. He looked so dejected that Kate felt a real pity for him; especially now that she knew the story of his life.

"I'll be as lonely as a bandicoot after you go," he said frankly, as he twisted his carefully-waxed moustache; "and, by Jove, if I were not bound to stay at Kaburie for Mrs Tallis, I would ask your father to let me make one of his party. I don't know anything about mining, but I could make myself useful with the horses--sort of a cow-boy, you know."

"I really do wish you could come with us, Mr Knowles. We shall miss you very much. Father, when he looked at his chess-board yesterday, heaved such a tremendous sigh, and I knew that he was thinking of you, and wondering if he will ever find any such another player."

"Ah! I shall miss my chess, too. Still, one never knows what may happen, and it is possible that some day you may see me up on the Batavia, looking for a billet on some cattle station. I would go now if I could. But I must stick to Mrs Tallis, at least until she gets another manager."

"She won't let you leave Kaburie, Mr Knowles. She likes you too much; she told me so." The little man's face suffused with pleasure. "It was very good of her. But I should like her ever so much more if she would give me a better salary."