The Great Gold Rush Part 39

It seemed more as the remembrance of a dream than of actual occurrence.

He was in England. Even the voice of Alice ...

A pungent odour was about him. He heard a buzzing rising rapidly in key, higher--higher--yet higher; higher--higher still; then there was a "click." As John Berwick's senses were stolen away by the blessed influence of an anaesthetic his lips framed the word "Alice." She heard the name, and was glad.

The first words John uttered as the drug left him were incoherent; but gradually they took form.

"Who's afraid to die? I'm not afraid to die. What's the good of a man's religion if he's afraid to die?"

"I know you're not afraid to die," said Alice.

The only reply she got was, "Oh, my head! my head!"

"What's the matter with your head?"

"Oh, my head! it's bursting."

"Water! water!" continued to be his cry; but Alice would feed him with only a drop or two at a time. Gradually his ravings grew less p.r.o.nounced, less frequent.

"Who are you?" he asked, after gazing for some time with dazed eyes at Alice. "You look very like Alice Peel. Alice is in England, and I am--where am I?"

"I'm glad I look like Alice Peel," she said in reply.

"She's the only girl--in all the world," he murmured, before his mind again wandered, and he muttered straggling fragments of verses.

"Alice, Alice!" he cried suddenly.

"Yes," said Alice, soothing his head with her cool hand.

He recognized her. "Alice!" he cried again.

She bent over and kissed him. "Go to sleep," she said.

John did as he was commanded. When he woke two hours later he called for water, and Alice gave him some from a cup.

"Alice, I've been wounded; yes, I remember that--but how did you get here?"

"I will tell you to-morrow when you are stronger. You must not excite yourself now."

But at six o'clock that evening Surgeon-Major Peel, taking his temperature and finding it normal, gave the necessary permission. So Alice told their story.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS

John Berwick's accident was the last touch which caused the uprising to crumble. One more great effort after the ideal of justice had fallen and parted.

Frank Corte was sitting in front of the Dominion Creek cabin, by the side of a pool of water that had formed since the claims--which rightfully belonged to himself and his three a.s.sociates--had been taken over by the agents of Poo-Bah. The policy of the land was to reap to-day and spend to-morrow, so a dam had been put in on the "pup" or tributary of Dominion Creek that entered above the claims; and already a harvest was in sight. Frank had some possessions in the cabin, which he had come to fetch before joining the new stampede.

Above the cabin was a line of sluice-boxes, into which half-a-dozen l.u.s.ty Scandinavians were shovelling the precious dirt. It was Frank's own claim they were working--and he gritted his teeth. For an instant his face lost its habitual grin. "If this was only G.o.d's country," he muttered, as he glanced through the open door of the cabin at the rifle hanging on the wall therein. He continued to whirl the gold-pan which he held in his hands. In the pan was a handful of dirt he was idly concentrating. "The boss won't stand for it--and he's a white man."

Frank smiled again.

From the mining operations at the sluice-boxes, voices came to where Corte sat. Neither the foreman nor his men had realized that their voices were carrying beyond the sound of rus.h.i.+ng water. They were shouting that they might hear each other above the roar in the sluices, and were laughing cheerily--for Poo-Bah was a good paymaster to his men.

"One dollar, two dollar, one and six bits"--would float to Frank's ears, as the foreman estimated the contents of a pan; and he would inwardly groan as he calculated the wealth that was pa.s.sing from him into the great grafter's pocket.

"I guess we'd better clean up; we can get her down to the black sand by half-past ten and finished an hour later."

Something rose in Frank's throat and almost choked him. The att.i.tude of these intruders galled him. He half jumped up to seize his rifle, when "No," he muttered: "Them yellow-legs!"

His attention was attracted to the gold-pan. Specks of gold were floating upon the water; at the bottom of the pan he noticed an unmistakable grease spot, and, true to its nature, it had secured to its surface several of the tiny yellow grains. Grease was alike fatal to the gold-pan and the stamp battery.

Suddenly his eyes took on a new light: they were full of energy. He glanced towards the working miners, and followed the line of sluices to the artificial pond in the "pup" whence they got their water. "Yes, yes!" he muttered, and sprang to his feet. He hurried to the quarters of one of his friends, Jerry, the engineer on a neighbouring claim where a steam-plant had been installed.

"Jerry," said Frank, "I want two bottles of lubricating oil."

"Pretty near all I got."

"Don't care--must have it."

"All right, what do you want it for?"

"Frying slap-jacks." Frank went with his evil-smelling petroleum.

"What the devil is he up to!" asked Jerry, as the drooping figure hulked out of sight. The weasel that peeped at him through the poles of his cabin floor could not tell him, nor did he know.

Frank put the oil on the table of his cabin, and then went outside and began chopping wood. It was now the orthodox bed-time, so he must show a good reason for being about. The sun had just set in the north, the quarter it sets in the Northland.

"Shut her off," he heard the foreman cry, and he knew the cleaning was to be commenced. Down came the axe on a four-inch stick of spruce with a force that burst it asunder and threw the pieces far apart. No experienced woodman in the ordinary course of events would have used so much force, and Frank Corte had chopped much wood.

The roar of the water diminished, the voices of the clean-up men fell away. He could hear no more, but he knew every move. First, the riffles would be lifted from the sluice-boxes and the dump-box, and the dirt in the sluice-boxes would be shovelled into the dump-box. Then a strip of wood, about two inches square, would be placed across the dump-box where it joined the head of the sluices. This would prevent the gold from being washed down the boxes.

When these processes were accomplished the foreman shouted "Turn on half a head," and Ole Oleson, at the gate, allowed half the usual flow of water to rush down the flume to the dump-box. Had Frank watched the impact of the water on the dirt in the dump-box he would, even in the now failing light, have seen a burst of yellow s.h.i.+ne out from what had previously appeared dross.

As the water reached the dirt the dirt was forced against it by three or four stout paddles, whereby the husky workmen churned and washed the dirt thoroughly. Across the dump-box where the water met the pay-dirt stretched a band of gold. First it was half an inch, and then two inches. Meanwhile the pebbles and the dross worked their way over the retaining block and b.u.mped ignominiously to the tailings.

"It looks good," said the foreman in loud tones. Frank heard him then shout to Ole, "A quarter of a head." Corte, thereupon, threw down his axe. It was time for action. He went into the cabin, and placed the two bottles of oil in a bucket, with which he set out for the dam. It was the most natural thing in the world for a man to draw a bucket of water before retiring: he might want a drink during the night.

Ole was almost asleep when Frank came up to him. He was lounging over the gate. Frank greeted him with, "Good-evening, partner; you're working late to-night."

"Dat's so," was all Ole had life enough to answer. Frank slipped his bucket into the water; the bottle sank against the mud. The hues of iridescence spread across the weird and silent surface.

The bottles were safely at the bottom of the pool, and the bucket full of water, as Frank turned towards the cabin, saying, "Good-night, Ole."

As he neared his cabin he heard the foreman shout, "Shut her half off"; and knew that the work of taking out the black sand from the dust was at hand. He knew that already the small specks of gold were being carried to the lower end of the pool. So he made haste, and, taking a blanket, nailed it at the waste gate of the lower pond, so that the total flood from above went through it: then he turned in.

He was awake at four on the next morning, and, proceeding to the lower pond, loosed the blanket, which was heavy with water and gold. Then he built a fire in the open, and after it was burning well placed the blanket upon it.