CHINKIE'S FLAT AND OTHER STORIES
By Louis Becke



CHINKIE'S FLAT AND OTHER STORIES

By Louis Becke


Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company 1904



     TO MY DEAR OLD COMRADES

     North Queensland.

     December, 1908





CHAPTER I ~ "CHINKIE'S FLAT"

"Chinkie's Flat," In its decadence, was generally spoken of, by the
passing traveller, as a "God-forsaken hole," and it certainly did
present a repellent appearance when seen for the first time, gasping
under the torrid rays of a North Queensland sun, which had dried up
every green thing except the silver-leaved ironbarks, and the long,
sinuous line of she-oaks which denoted the course of Connolly's Creek on
which it stood.

"The township" was one of the usual Queensland mining type, a dozen
or so of bark-roofed humpies, a public-house with the title of "The
Digger's Best," a blacksmith's forge, and a quartz-crushing battery.

The battery at Chinkie's Flat stood apart from the "township" on a
little rise overlooking the yellow sands of Connolly's Creek, from
whence it derived its water supply--when there happened to be any water
in that part of the creek. The building which covered the antiquated
five-stamper battery, boiler, engine, and tanks, was merely a huge roof
of bark supported on untrimmed posts of brigalow and swamp gum, but rude
as was the structure, the miners at Chinkie's Flat, and other camps in
the vicinity, had once been distinctly proud of their battery, which
possessed the high-sounding title of "The Ever Victorious," and had
achieved fame by having in the "good times" of the Flat yielded a
certain Peter Finnerty two thousand ounces of gold from a hundred tons
of alluvial. The then owner of the battery was an intelligent, but
bibulous ex-marine engineer, who had served with Gordon in China,
and when he erected the structure he formally christened it "The Ever
Victorious," in memory of Gordon's army, which stamped out the Taeping
rebellion.

The first crushing put through was Finnerty's, and when the "clean-up"
was over, and the hundreds of silvery balls of amalgam placed in the
retorts turned out over one hundred and sixty-six pounds' weight
of bright yellow gold, Chinkie's Flat went wild with excitement and
spirituous refreshment.

In less than three months there were over five hundred diggers on the
field, and the "Ever Victorious" banged and pounded away night and day,
the rattle and clang of the stamps only ceasing at midnight on Saturday,
and remaining silent till midnight on Sunday, the Sabbath being devoted
"to cleaning-up," retorting the amalgam, and overhauling and repairing
the machinery, and for relaxation, organising riding parties of twenty
or thirty, and chasing Chinamen, of whom there were over three hundred
within a radius of twenty miles.

The rich alluvial of Chinkie's Flat had, as a matter of fact, been first
discovered by a number of Chinese diggers, who were each getting from
five to ten ounces of gold per day, when they were discovered by the
aforesaid Peter Finnerty, who was out prospecting with a couple of
mates. Their indignation that a lot of heathen "Chows" should be
scooping up gold so easily, while they, Christians and legitimate
miners, should be toiling over the barren ridges day after day without
striking anything, was so great that for the moment, as they sat on
their horses and viewed the swarming Chinese working their cradles
on the bank of the creek, the power of speech deserted them. Hastily
turning their tired horses' heads, they rode as hard as they could to
the nearest mining camp, and on the following day thirty hairy-faced
foreign-devils came charging into the Chinese camp, uttering fearful
threats, and shooting right and left (with blank cartridges). The
Chinese broke and fled, and in half an hour each of the thirty men
had pegged out a claim, and Chinkie's Flat became famous as one of the
richest, though smallest, alluvial diggings in the Far North.

Three months after the "discovery" of the field by Mr. Peter Finnerty,
old "Taeping," as Gordon's ex-marine engineer had been promptly
nicknamed, arrived with his crushing battery, and then indeed were
halcyon days for the Flat. From early morn till long past midnight, the
little bar of the "Digger's Best" was crowded with diggers, packhorsemen
and teamsters; a police trooper arrived and fixed his tent on the ridge
overlooking the creek, and then--the very zenith of prosperity--a bank
official followed, and a stately building, composed of a dozen sheets of
bark for a roof, and floor sacks for the sides, was erected and opened
for business on the same day, amid much rejoicing and a large amount
of liquid refreshment dispensed by the landlord of the "hotel" at a
shilling per nobbler.

For six months longer all went well: more alluvial patches were
discovered in the surrounding country, and then several rich reefs were
found a mile away from the Flat, and every day new men arrived from
Cooktown to the north, and Brisbane, Sydney, and far New Zealand to the
south. Three new "hotels" sprang up; the police force was increased by
another trooper and two black trackers, who rode superciliously around
the camp, carbines on thighs, in their dark blue uniforms with scarlet
facings, and condescended to drink with even the humblest white man; and
then came the added glory of the "Chinkie's Flat Gold Escort"--when a
police van with an Irish sergeant, two white troopers, and eight black
police rattled through the camp, and pulled up at the bank, which now
had a corrugated iron roof, a proper door, and two windows, and (the
manager's own private property) a tin shower bath suspended by a cord
under the verandah, a seltzogene, and a hen with seven chickens. The
manager himself was a young sporting gentleman of parts, and his efforts
to provide Sunday recreation for his clients were duly appreciated--he
was secretary of the Chinkie's Flat Racing Club (meeting every alternate
Sunday), and he and old "Taeping" between them owned a dozen of kangaroo
dogs, which lived on the community generally, and afforded much exciting
sport every Saturday, either in hunting kangaroos or Chinamen, both of
which were plentiful in the vicinity.

For although Peter Finnerty and his party had succeeded in driving away
the heathen from the Flat itself, the continued further discoveries of
rich alluvial had brought them swarming into the district from all the
other gold-fields in the colony in such numbers that it was impossible
to keep the almond-eyed mining locusts out, especially as the Government
was disposed to give them a measure of protection--not from any
unnatural sentiment, but purely because they were revenue producers, and
the Government badly wanted money. Then, too, their camps were so large,
and so many of them were armed, and disposed to fight when in a corner,
that the breaking up of a "Chows' Camp" became more and more difficult,
and in the end the white diggers had to be content with surprising
outlying prospecting parties, chasing them with kangaroo dogs back to
their main camp, and burning their huts and mining gear, after first
making a careful search for gold, concealed under the earthen floor, or
among their ill-smelling personal effects. Sometimes they were rewarded,
sometimes not, but in either case they were satisfied that they were
doing their duty to Queensland and themselves by harrying the heathen
who raged so furiously, and were robbing the country of its gold.

Then, after old "Taeping" had succumbed to too much "Digger's Rest," and
Finnerty--now Peter Grattan Finnerty, Esq., Member of the Legislative
Assembly of Queensland--had left the Flat and become the champion of the
"struggling white miner" in the House at a salary of Ј300 a year, came
bad times, for the alluvial became worked out; and in parties of twos
and threes the old hands began to leave, heading westward across the
arid desert towards the Gilbert and the Etheridge Rivers, dying of
thirst or under the spears of the blacks by the way, but ever heedless
of what was before when the allurements and potentialities of a new
field lay beyond the shimmering haze of the sandy horizon.

Then, as the miners left, the few "cockatoo" settlers followed them,
or shifted in nearer to the town on the sea-coast with their horse and
bullock teams, and an ominous silence began to fall upon the Flat when
the tinkle of the cattle bells no longer was heard among the dark fringe
of sighing she-oaks bordering the creek. As day by day the quietude
deepened, the parrots and pheasants and squatter pigeons flew in and
about the Leichhardt trees at the foot of the bluff, and wild duck at
dusk came splashing into the battery dam, for there was now no one who
cared to shoot them; the merry-faced, rollicking, horse-racing young
bank manager and his baying pack of gaunt kangaroo dogs had vanished
with the rest; and then came the day when but eight men remained--seven
being old hands, and the eighth a stranger, who, with a blackboy, had
arrived the previous evening.

And had it not been for the coming of the stranger, Chinkie's Flat
would, in a few weeks, have been left to solitude, and reported to the
Gold-fields Warden as "abandoned and duffered out."




CHAPTER II ~ GRAINGER MAKES A "DEAL"

Three years before Edward Grainger had been the leader of a small
prospecting party which had done fairly well on the rivers debouching
into the Gulf of Carpentaria from the western side of Cape York
Peninsula. He was an Englishman, his mates were all Australian-born,
vigorous, sturdy bushmen, inured to privation and hardship, and
possessing unbounded confidence in their leader, though he was by no
means the oldest man of the party, and not a "native." But Grainger
had had great experience as an explorer and prospector, for he had been
compelled to begin the battle of life when but a lad of fifteen. His
father, once a fairly wealthy squatter in the colony of Victoria, was
ruined by successive droughts, and died leaving his station deeply
mortgaged to the bank, which promptly foreclosed, and Mrs. Grainger
found herself and two daughters dependent upon her only son, a boy of
fifteen, for a living. He, however, was equal to the occasion. Leaving
his mother and sisters in lodgings in Melbourne, he made his way to New
South Wales with a mob of travelling cattle, earning his pound a week
and rations. At Sydney he worked on the wharves as a lumper, and then
joined in the wild rush to the famous Tambaroora diggings, and was
fortunate enough to meet with remunerative employment, and from then
began his mining experiences, which in the course of the following ten
years took him nearly all over the Australian colonies, New Zealand,
and Tasmania. Never making much money, and never very "hard up," he had
always managed to provide for his mother and sisters; and when he formed
his prospecting party to Cape York and sailed from Brisbane, he knew
that they would not suffer from any financial straits for at least two
years.

For nearly three years he and his party wandered from one river to
another along the torrid shores of the great gulf, sometimes doing well,
sometimes not getting enough gold to pay for the food they ate, but
always, always hopeful of the day when they would "strike it rich." Then
came misfortune--sharp and sudden.

Camped on the Batavia River during the wet season, the whole party of
five sickened with malaria, and found themselves unable to move to the
high land at the head of the river owing to all their horses having died
from eating "poison plant." Too weak to travel by land, they determined
to build a raft and reach the mouth of the river, where there was a
small cattle station. Here they intended to remain till the end of the
rains, buy fresh horses and provisions, and return and prospect some of
the deep gullies and watercourses at the head of the Batavia River.

Scarcely had they completed the raft, and loaded it with their effects,
when they were rushed by a mob of blacks, and in a few seconds two of
the five were gasping out their lives from spear wounds, and all the
others were wounded. Fortunately for the survivors, Grainger had his
revolver in his belt, and this saved them, for he at once opened fire on
the savages, whilst the other men worked the raft out into the middle
of the stream, where they were out of danger from spears and able to use
their rifles.

After a terrible voyage of three days, and suffering both from their
wounds and the bone-racking agonies of fever, they at last reached the
cattle station, where they were kindly received in the rough, hospitable
fashion common to all pioneers in Australia. But, when at the end of a
month one of Grainger's mates died of his wounds, and the other bade him
goodbye and went off in a pearling lugger to Thursday Island, the leader
sickened of Cape York Peninsula, and turned his face southwards once
more, in the hope that fortune would be more kind to him on the new
rushes at the Cloncurry, seven hundred miles away. From the station
owner he bought six horses, and with but one black-boy for a companion,
started off on his long, long journey through country which for the most
part had not yet been traversed even by the explorer.

Travelling slowly, prospecting as he went, and adding a few ounces of
gold here and there to the little bag he carried in his saddle-pouch,
quite three months passed ere he and the black boy reached the
Cloncurry. Here, however, he found nothing to tempt him--the field
was overcrowded, and every day brought fresh arrivals, and so, after a
week's spell, he once more set out, this time to the eastward towards
the alluvial fields near the Burdekin River, of which he had heard.

It was at the close of a long day's ride over grassless, sun-smitten
country, that he came in sight of Chinkie's Flat, and the welcome green
of the she-oaks fringing Connolly's Creek and soughing to the wind. The
quietness and verdancy of the creek pleased him, and he resolved to have
a long, long spell, and try and get rid of the fever which had again
attacked him and made his life a misery.

Riding up to the hotel he found a party of some twenty or more diggers
who were having a last carouse--for the "benefit" of the landlord---ere
they bade goodbye to Chinkie's Flat on the following evening. Among them
were two men who had become possessed of the "Ever Victorious" battery,
left to them by the recently deceased "Taeping," who had succumbed to
alleged rum and bad whiskey. They jocularly offered Grainger the
entire plant for twenty-five pounds and his horses. He made a laughing
rejoinder and said he would take a look at the machine in the morning.
He meant to have a long spell, he said, and Chinkie's Flat would suit
him better than Townsville or Port Denison to pull up, as hotels there
were expensive and he had not much money. Then, as was customary, he
returned the drink he had accepted from them by shouting for all hands,
and was at once voted "a good sort."

In the morning he walked down to the deserted battery, examined it
carefully, and found that although it was in very bad order, and
deficient especially in screens--the one greatest essential--it was
still capable of a great deal of work. Then he washed off a dish or two
of tailings from one of the many heaps about, and although he had no
acid, nor any other means of making a proper test in such a short time,
his scientific knowledge acquired on the big gold-fields of the
southern colonies and New Zealand showed him that there was a very
heavy percentage of gold still to be won from the tailings by simple and
inexpensive treatment.

"I'll buy the thing," he said to himself; "I can't lose much by doing
so, and there's every chance of saving a good deal of gold, if I once
get some fine screens, and that will only take six weeks or so."

By noon the "deal" was completed, and in exchange fer twenty-five
pounds in cash, six horses and their saddlery, Grainger, amid much
good-humoured chaff from the vendors, took possession of the "Ever
Victorious" crushing mill, together with some thousands of tons of
tailings, but when he announced his intention of putting the plant in
order and crushing for the "public" generally, as well as for himself,
six men who yet had some faith in the field and believed that some
of the many reefs would pay to work, elected to stay, especially when
Grainger said that if their crushings turned out "duffers" he would
charge them nothing for using the battery.

At one o'clock that day there were but eight Europeans and one black
boy left on the once noisy Chinkie's Flat--the landlord of "The Digger's
Best," six miners, Grainger, and the black boy, "Jacky," who had
accompanied him on his arduous journey from the Batavia River. At
Grainger's request they all met at the public-house! and sat down to a
dinner of salt meat, damper, and tea, and after it was finished and each
man had lit his pipe, Grainger went into details.

"Now, boys, this is how the thing hangs. I've bought the old rattletrap
because I believe there's a lot of life in the old girl yet, and I'm
going to spend all the money I have in putting her in order and getting
some new gear up from Brisbane or Sydney. If I lose my money I won't
grumble, but I don't think I _shall_ lose it if you will agree to give
some of the reefs a thorough good trial. As I told you, I won't ask you
for a penny if the stone I crush for you turns out no good; but it is
my belief--and I know what I am talking about--that there are a thousand
tons of surface stuff lying around this field which will give half an
ounce to an ounce to the ton if it is put through a decent machine.
And I'm going to make the old 'Ever Victorious' a pretty decent battery
before long. But it's no good my spending my money--I possess only four
hundred pounds--if you don't back me up and lend a hand."

"You're the man for us," said one of the men; "we'll stick to you and
do all the bullocking. But the battery is very old, and we have the idea
that old Taeping wasn't much of a boss of a crushing mill, and didn't
know much about amalgamation."

Grainger nodded: "I am sure of it. I don't believe that he saved more
than 50 per cent, of the gold from the surface stuff he put through, and
not more than a third from the stone.... Well, boys, what is it to be?"

The men looked at each other for a moment or two, and then they one and
all emphatically asserted their intention of remaining on the field,
assisting Grainger in repairing the plant and raising trial crushings of
stone from every reef on the field.

"That's all right, then, boys," said Grainger. "Now you go ahead and
raise the stone, and as soon as I am a bit stronger I'll start off
for the Bay and buy what I want in the way of screens, grinding pans,
quicksilver, and other gear. I'm almost convinced that with new, fine
screens we shall get good results out of the stone, and if we are
disappointed, then well tackle that heap of tailings. I've seen a lot of
tailings treated without being roasted in Victoria, and understand the
process right enough."

"Well, we'll do our share of yacker, mister," said a man named Dick
Scott.

"And I'll do mine. As soon as I am fit some of you must lend me a couple
of horses, and I'll ride down to the Bay.{*} I daresay I can get all
that we want there in the way of machinery without my going or sending
to Brisbane for it."

     * The present city of Townsville, then always called "The
     Bay," it being situated on the shores of Cleveland Bay.

On the following morning work was started by the six men, the landlord
of the public-house agreeing to cook for all hands for the first week,
while Grainger and the black boy (though the former was still very weak
from recurrent attacks of ague) tried numberless prospects from all
parts of the heaps of tailings. At the end of a week the miners began to
raise some very likely-looking stone! and Grainger, finding some jars
of muriatic acid among the stores belonging to the battery,