Chapter II: Part 2

“To-morrow,” I said, “I shall know the reason.” That night I constructed a short ladder with which to surmount the difficulty. The following day I placed it against the ledge and climbed up. The crumbling snow, running down the bank, prevented me seeing what was before me. I brushed the snow away and looked in. At my very face was a skeleton hand holding a small black object in its bony fingers. I screamed with terror, the ladder lost its balance, the next instant I was twenty feet below on my back in the snow. I ran to the hut and actually barred the door, so great was my fright. What could it mean? I had read of demons appearing in the guise of black cats, a thousand grotesque fancies danced through my brain. Then I called Klondike, he was at my feet. He could not possibly be in the skeleton hand and also Klondike at the same time. Yet even that I imagined might be possible. You must bear in mind that for months I had lived isolated from human companionship, that my brain had became warped and my thoughts abnormal. Was the skeleton hand a warning? Should I abandon the quest and leave the mystery unsolved? Perhaps it was a portend of my fate. Thus I reasoned and surmised, conjured and imagined. My one consolation was that Klondike had crept into his accustomed place and was apparently sleeping the sleep of innocence, unmindful of the skeleton hand. When the sun came up over the mountains the next day my courage returned. I determined to probe the affair to the bottom. To prove that there was nothing supernatural about the cat, I took Klondike in my arms and made my way to the top of the ladder. The hand was there and the cat was there. He sprang from me and entered the opening, coming out again with a bone in his mouth, the fore-arm of a man. “Only the last resting place of some poor miner who has died in this wilderness,” was my comment. Then, for the first, I noticed that the object in the grasp of the skeleton hand was a small book. I reached out and tried to remove it from the bony fingers. They held it in a death grasp and I was compelled to pick up the hand, which I carried to my cabin. I pried open the fingers and opened the book. The fly leaf was closely written over in a language which I was unable to read. The book, printed in a fine, small, black type, was equally unreadable. From the chapters and for other reasons I decided that it was a copy of the New Testament. I carefully wiped it and laid it away on a shelf. “To-morrow,” I said, “I will close the opening, the stranger’s bones shall rest in peace.” The next day, provided with pick and shovel, I climbed the ledge and carefully removed the snow. Then I knelt down and looked in, the cavern was some three feet in height and eight in length. The small bones were strewn about, but the trunk remained prone upon the centre of the cavern. Suddenly something soft touched me on the face, I sprang back, lost my balance, and for the second time found myself on my back in the trench below. I scrambled to my feet and ran for the hut. Then I stopped and turned, Klondike was sitting complacently on the top of the ladder. “Now I will be a man,” I said, and I walked back heartily ashamed of myself. I took my tormentor to the hut, fastened him in and returned. I resolved to replace all of the scattered bones and seal up the mouth of the cave. To do so I was compelled to crawl inside. In my task I chanced to move the trunk, the sun shot a beam of light within and reflected a dull, yellow glitter. There could be no mistake, it was gold. Then I paused, should I take it or bury it with the bones? It had been his in life why not in death? If Simeon did not return I too would be found some day, my bones bleaching beside my handful of yellow dust. No, I would leave it with its rightful owner. Carefully I gathered the bones, they were sacred to the memory of the unknown. Edith’s love, hope and avarice all were but memories, as long passed as if ages had gone by. Then it came upon me that a trust had been committed to my charge. The dying man had left a message, a sacred injunction written in God’s Book. The handful of gold was to be sent to some loved one. Instantly all my sympathies were aroused. I had something to live for, to work for I felt like a new man. I went back to the hut and brought with me a small tin dish in which to gather the last grain. I picked up the nuggets one by one. So intent was I that it was not until the pannakin was half full that I noticed that the supply was by no means exhausted. I went for another and larger dish and another and another, and still more remained. Night came on and I was compelled to relinquish my task. The cabin had been transformed into a treasure house. A demon whispered in my ear, “You are rich. Edith and love and happiness are before you. Fool, you have but to reach out your hand and take the gold. Dead men tell no tales.”

A violent trembling seized upon me. My resolution wavered, then my eye rested upon the little black book and a great calm fell upon me. “No,” I said, “it is not mine, I will not be a thief.” From that moment I was firm and I never doubted but that providence would rescue me from the Yukon. When I had removed all the treasure I closed the mouth of the cave, then I fashioned a rude cross and planted it firmly in the ground to mark the burial place. My next step was to make forty small bags out of heavy cloth into which I poured the gold, the bags I buried in the hut beneath my bed. The possession of the treasure brought a new fear, that of robbers, yet so far as I knew, there was not a man within one hundred miles of me. I frequently awoke in the night and listened intently, believing that I heard footsteps. One night I suddenly sprang to my feet, at the very door were snarling and fighting dogs, then followed a thump on the side of the hut.

“Hello! Hello! are you there!” came in a hoarse voice.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Open the door, new chum.” It was Simeon.

I gave a shout, rushed out and fairly hugged him with joy and Jim too, who was unharnessing the dogs.

“And here’s Klondike, grown as big as a tiger,” Simeon cried, picking up the cat. “Have you any grub?”

“Plenty.”

“Boil the billy and make tea. Is any of the brandy left?”

“I never touched it.”

“The best news yet. Knock the neck off a bottle, Jim, brandy.” Jim was in the hut in an instant. After justice had been more than done to the meal, Simeon after looking around said, “Well done for a boy. Had a long wait, eh?”

“I always thought you would come.”

“Hear that Jim, no one doubts the old man’s word. That’s better than gold. I would have been back in a month, but we got word from a party who came down from this section that you had left and that the cache had been robbed. It must have been another camp. Had many visitors looking for food and stealing what you did not give?”

“I have not seen a man since we parted in the woods.”

“Good heavens! why hundreds and hundreds have gone down the river and you did not know enough to make for the big stream, get taken on board and find yourself in Dawson City in two days.”

“No.”

“I told you Jim, that being a new chum he’d sit down as long as the grub held out.”

“Did you mine any gold?”

“A little.”

“Show it?”

I handed him the buckskin bag which held the gold I had mined.

“Twenty ounces, enough to take you home.”

“How did you succeed?” I asked.

“Struck it rich, took out twenty-five thousand dollars worth, Jim twenty thousand, and the rest of the party about the same and we have only scratched over our claims. The dust is down at the city.”

“When shall we make a start?” I asked.

“In the morning.”

Then we turned in for sleep.

At an early hour Jim was busy loading the sleds with supplies. “I’m blessed if you have eaten as much as a canary bird,” he remarked to me. “The boys will have to run up and bring down the rest.”

I had purposely said nothing of my wonderful experience, waiting until I could tell Simeon privately, which I did showing him the skeleton hand and the black book in confirmation.

“I don’t know where you picked up these things,” he said, “but one thing is certain you are off your chump.”

“But I have the gold.”

“Where?”

“Buried there.”

“Take the pick and dig it up.”

“What do you say to that,” I asked as I pulled out a bag, “and that and that and that.”

“Jim, we are a fine lot of duffers, come in, this new chum and the cat, mind you the cat, have beaten every man on the Bonanza and Eldorado.”

Jim came in and stared, he could not speak, then he whispered, “How many has he got?”

“Only forty bags.”

“But the gold is not mine,” I said.

“Not yours, then whose is it?”

“The dead man’s.”

“And you will not keep it?”

“No, if the book contains a will.”

“And you are a lawyer’s clerk?”

“I could not keep it,” I repeated firmly,

Simeon turned me around and around and then said. “I believe you, if you live you will make a man, you have got the timber in you, shake.”

The gold was carried out and loaded on a sled while I put Klondike in a bag. We reached Dawson City and after some weeks delay secured a steamer for St. Michael’s, from that point we sailed to Vancouver. At the latter place I ascertained that the value of the find was one hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars. The dust was deposited in the Bank of Montreal. Then Simeon and I went in quest of a man who could read the writing in the black book. At last an officer from a Russian man-of-war was found. He translated the message. Here is the translation:—

“My name is Vospar Plonvisky, I was born in Warsaw of noble Polish parents. The Russian authorities arrested me as a member of a secret society and banished me to Siberia. There I remained for twenty years. Again and again the black knout (cat in English) cut my flesh to the bone for trying to escape. Finally I made my way to sea in an open boat and reached Alaska. The accursed Russian was there. I was seized on suspicion and sent into the interior to look for mines with several officials. Our voyage was up a great river. One night I stole the boat, which was well supplied with provisions and firearms, and sailed away up the river. After several weeks I came to the rapids, where I abandoned the boat, then I packed my provisions into the interior, keeping to the west. My intention was to make my way to Canada, when I reached a small stream, near this spot I found a small stream the bed of which was yellow with gold. I resolved to gather a vast store, hide it and then proceed on my way. After I had collected the gold I hid it in the cave where my bones rest. Then my last sickness came upon me. I grew weaker day by day. I realize that I am dying, my last act is to write this and creep into the cave I make a solemn vow, it is: If a Russian should find me and touch me or my gold, I swear by the memory of the black knout (cat), that I will return and curse him and his children and his children’s children. To the man of any other nation the gold is a free gift.”

I sold the gold to the bank and handed a cheque for five thousand dollars to Simeon.

“Not a cent,” he said, “I have enough and to spare.”

Then I gave him five hundred to hand to Jim. One week later I was in Toronto. It was Saturday night when I arrived. When the cab drew up at Edith’s home I saw that the drawing room was a blaze of light. Then my heart sank, I had not had a word from her since I left on the quest. I felt that she had broken her promise to me and married Fred Reingold. With a trembling hand I rang the bell. I ignored the servant and walked in with Klondike in my arms. The next instant Edith was in my arms. Her first words were:

“Did you get any of the letters or telegrams?”

“Not one.”

“Did you see the notices in the newspapers?”

“No, what notices?”

“Notices for you to come back. Father did not lose his fortune. It was a mistake in the telegram from Chicago, the margin was on the right side and all was explained when the broker wrote. Father nearly recovered and is very well.”

“What of Fred Reingold?” I stammered.

“Married six months ago to Bessie Loudon.”

“I have got the gold,” I said.

“And we don’t want it,” Edith answered.

In our library, under a glass case, stands the skeleton hand holding the Greek Testament. Now and then I point out this hand to the new baby whose name is Simeon.

THE SKELETON MINE.
A Tale of South Africa.

I was one of the first prospectors in the Transval to search for gold and a precious dance it lead me. At that time but few Englishmen had ventured into the Boer country and such was the jealousy with which they were regarded that it was impossible to secure any information which would assist in the search. Footsore and weary I tramped from farm to farm, content to obtain a supper of mealies and the toughest of tough South African mutton. There were rumors on every hand that gold existed but to locate it was quite another matter. It has since transpired that in my wanderings I passed over some of the richest gold bearing deposits in the world but so unlike the gold bearing fields of California and Australia is the Rand that the most experienced miner would never have dreamed of the richness of the claims. I was not searching for quartz but the poor man’s field, placer mines. To add to my perplexities my money ran short and I could only replenish my purse at Cape Town. I sank so low that I was compelled to sell my horse and from that hour I was on a level with a Kaffir in the estimation of the Boers. The white man who approaches a farmhouse in the Transval on foot must be prepared for abject humiliation. Fortunately I had acquired some knowledge of sheep in Australia else I believe that I should have starved. When all else failed I became a sheep doctor and vended a compound whose virtues would have done credit to the most widely advertised patent medicine nostrum.

One long to be remembered evening I arrived at a Boer’s house situated twenty miles from any other habitation. When I asked for supper and a night’s lodging the door was slammed in my face and in the worst of German I was ordered to begone. Physically I was incapable of complying with the command and mentally I had not the slightest intention of departing. In an outhouse, devoted to storing mealies, sheep skins and harness, an old man was sitting on the doorstep compounding a mixture, which I recognized as a sheep remedy. I approached him and gave him to understand that I was possessed of a remedy which would work wonders in such cases. He was all attention instantly and the result was that in a few minutes an excellent meal was spread in the house, to which I was invited. Then I proceeded to mix a number of simples, which the man possessed, and finally I poured into the simmering mass, with the greatest care and ostentation, a few grains of borasic acid, which I fortunately possessed.

The following day I was the most surprised man in South Africa when I learned that my preparation was working a marvellous cure. I was invited to remain with the Boer the balance of the season as an honored guest. Day after day I tramped the hills, returning at night as wise and as rich as when I set out. There were unmistakable indications that gold should be found in the vicinity but the stubborn fact remained that I could not find it. I had given up all hopes and only remained to recruit my strength previous to setting out on my long journey to the coast when the following remarkable circumstances transpired.

I slept in a great four poster bed of proportions ample for a race of giants, and as I was deposited between two feather ticks in the old German fashion, the weather being the reverse of cold, my dreams were not the most pleasant and my rest not untroubled. But for offending the good housewife I would have asked for a sheepskin on the floor.

One sultry night, after a long day’s walk, I found myself tossing and restless and unable to get even a forty wink nap. For hours I thus lay lamenting my fate and regretting having abandoned the land of the Golden Fleece for the land of King Solomon’s mines. At a late hour I fell into a disturbed sleep. I awoke with a start and listened attentively. All was quiet in the house and yet I felt certain that some one was preparing to leave the place. How long this impression remained I am unable to say. I am by no means certain that I again fell asleep, and yet I am compelled by that which followed to acknowledge that it is probable that such was the fact. Whether dreaming or waking, I saw a venerable old man, dressed as a German peasant, walk quietly out of the front door, cast a suspicious glance around, as if to ascertain whether he had been observed and then slip out into the darkness, where he disappeared.

So realistic was the scene that the following morning I inquired whether a friend of the family had paid them a visit after I had retired.

The answer was, “No.”

Two nights later I saw precisely the same thing happen again but as on the former occasion I could not decide whether I had been dreaming or not. The appearance of the venerable old man was indellibly stamped upon my brain. I saw distinctly that he was very old, that his beard was as white as a lamb’s fleece and that he was dressed in an antiquated garb, seen only in the most secluded parts of Germany, in which country I had spent several months attending a school in my boyhood days. The next night I determined to remain awake but was not successful and again I saw the old man depart. His constant re-appearance had at last a powerful effect upon me. I decided that the next time, whether asleep or awake, I would follow him. With this resolve upon my mind I retired the next night and soon fell into a heavy sleep, due, no doubt, to my former wakefulness. Once more I awoke, or imagined that I awoke, with the well-defined conviction that some person was preparing to leave the house. Cautiously I crept out of bed and as the old man left by the front door I slipped out by a side entrance. I remember distinctly saying to myself: “This is certainly not a dream; there is the man walking slowly over the veldt and here I am watching and ready to follow where he may lead.”

Follow him I did. My strange guide never once looked behind him after he had left the house but proceeded directly to the hills, which ran along the north of the farm and were distant some two miles. He gradually quickened his pace and finally I was compelled to run to keep him in sight. After he entered the hills he turned and doubled on his track in the most provoking manner and frequently I not only lost sight of him but barely escaped meeting him face to face, so sudden were his turns and so unexpected his re-appearances. Why I was following him I could not tell. In fact I was possessed of but a single impulse and that was to follow. The old man never halted or hesitated but finally entered a narrow valley, at the end of which rose a precipitous cliff. At that point he suddenly disappeared. When I reached the spot I found that beneath an overhanging rock an excavation had been made at some time in the past, as there were no signs of recent work. The pit was thickly strewn with fallen leaves, and as it was but a few feet in depth, I let myself down into it in the hope of discovering some passage by which the old man had disappeared. My foot struck something which was evidently metal. It proved to be an antiquated shovel with a short handle. The night was a bright one and at the time the moonbeams streamed directly into the place. I could discover no means of retreat save by the way I had entered and it was impossible for my strange guide to have returned by that route and passed me unnoticed, unless he possessed the power of rendering himself invisible. To probe the matter to the bottom I commenced digging. The ground was exceedingly hard and my progress correspondingly slow. I threw out several shovels of earth and then climbed up the bank and examined it. I came upon a nugget, worth at least five pounds, then another and another, but all smaller than the first. All of my mining instincts were aroused and I forgot the strange circumstances under which I had been led to the mine. Again I entered the pit and set to work with all my energy and again I was handsomely rewarded. The fever of greed seized upon me and I worked as if my life depended on the result. The seventh time I began digging but the first thrust of the shovel brought it in contact with some hard substance. I stooped down and found that I had uncovered the complete skeleton of a man. An indescribable terror seized upon me. I had been mining in a grave. I am not superstitious but for the first I clearly realized the uncanny circumstances which surrounded my discovery. I imagined that I heard vague whisperings in the air and that a rumbling sound came swelling up the valley. I lost my presence of mind, threw down the shovel and ran for my life. I would have sworn that a legion of nameless fiends were at my very heels, so insane was my fright. When I emerged from the hills the moon was shining calmly and the sense of peace and repose brought me to my senses. I walked rapidly to the farmhouse, which was in sight, crept in and without undressing threw myself on the bed. I was soon asleep nor did I awake until the housewife called me to breakfast.

When I discovered that I was dressed I was amazed. I remembered distinctly going to bed the previous evening: but had no recollection of having got up during the night, until by chance I put my hand in my pocket and drew out one of the nuggets. Then it all came back to me with a vividness which was startling in its intensity. There could be no doubt of the mine for the gold in my pockets was worth fully one hundred and fifty pounds.

I resolved that I would keep my discovery a secret and continue to work the mine which had yielded such handsome results in a single night. Then I repaired to the hills and began my search. Half an hour convinced me that I retained not the slightest clew as to the location of the mine. Day after day I continued the search but in vain. No trace of the valley could I discover and finally I was compelled to admit that a doubt existed in my mind as to whether the gold had been found by me or had been placed in my pocket by some kind fairy.

To have found and lost such an exceedingly rich deposit was exasperating in itself but the uncertainty which enshrouded the whole business made me doubt my own sanity.

One evening as I was sitting in the house brooding over the problem the Boer’s wife opened a great clothes’ press, removed several articles of wearing apparel and laid them on the floor. My attention was immediately attracted to an old coat.

“Who owns the suit of clothes?” I inquired.

“They belonged to grandfather,” was the answer.

“Is he dead?” I queried.

“Dead more than twenty years, in fact before I was married and came to live here, for he was my husband’s father.”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes, but I was only a little girl at the time.”

“Why have the clothes been kept?”

“Before he died he gave orders that they were not to be used and his wishes have been respected. My husband has told me that he was a man of many peculiarities and as it was due to him that we have the farm we cherish his name and respect his wishes.”

“What were his peculiarities?”

“One was that he paid several visits to the Cape and when he returned he always brought with him a bag of money, but to the day of his death even his son, my husband, did not know how he came to have it. With this money he bought land and cattle and sheep and thus became rich. Had he lived he would have been the richest Boer in this part of the country. Then his death was a mystery and a mystery which has never been cleared up. He had grown to be old and feeble and he did no more work, but nothing could keep him out of the hills. If anyone followed him he flew into a great passion and cursed him roundly. My husband feared that some accident would befall him in his wanderings and the fear was at last realized. These clothes were his best and he prized them very much, for he said that they had brought him ‘good luck.’ It was for that reason he wanted them kept, no doubt. One day he went away to the hills and he never came back. The whole country joined in the search but no trace was ever found. He was not able to walk a long way and could not have wandered any distance and that was what made his disappearance the more strange. Some were of the opinion that he was carried off by the Kaffirs, some that he had been murdered, for it was well known that he always had gold in his pocket. Whatever befell him no one knows.”

I took up the coat and hat and could have sworn that the man I had followed to the hills was dressed in precisely the same garments. Could it be possible that after all these years I had found his grave? Had it been his ghost which I had seen night after night issuing from the house and making its way to the lonely grave in the hills? Had his wealth been derived from the sale of the gold which he had dug out of the pit? Admitting these facts, why had I been chosen to solve the mystery? Was it possible that a sympathy existed between the dead and gone Boer miner and the needy prospector, myself? These questions I was unable to answer. My common sense revolted at such conclusions and yet, argue as I would, the gold was in my pocket to prove their truth.

There remained another explanation, it was that I had not been awake during the periods in which I saw the old man. I had developed into a somnambulist and had got up in the night, imagining that I was following an old man and while in that state picked up the gold found in my pocket in the morning. Unfortunately this theory did not account for the previous existence of my ghostly guide. I realized the uselessness of attempting to explain to my Boer friends the peculiar circumstances of the case and in consequence kept silent. From that hour I abandoned my search for a mine, which was alike a mine and a grave, the location being only known to ghosts or somnambulists.

A MAORI LEGEND.
A New Zealand Story.

I spent a week in a pah down in the hot lake country, the King’s land, New Zealand, a short time before the destruction of the Pink and White Terraces. One night as I lay in my thatched hut, with the boiling water singing and simmering on every side, an old Maori wise-man paid me a visit and told me the following story.

“A thousand moons ago my people came over the sea in great canoes from the islands. Then the Maori was like the white man of to-day, restless as the wind, ever roving to and fro from land to land. The canoes came ashore down at the coast and it was beside these lakes that the pahs were built because the fern root grew here in the warm, damp earth and the Great Spirit made the water boil, in which to cook it. Then our wise men said, ‘Here is our home and this land was made for the Maori. Here shall be found that which we so long have sought.’ All would have been well if our people had listened to these words. After a time there spread from ear to ear the story of a wonderful lake, hid away up in the mountains. No man could tell where the story came from, for no man could be found who had ever seen the lake. The mountains, or the lakes, or the boiling springs, or the pink hills, may have whispered it at night into some ear. It may have been a dream, but it came and at last that no man doubted it. Many a Maori set out to find the wonderful lake and wandered among the mountains, which grew blacker and blacker and higher and higher as he went on, but one and all came back telling of great streams, of jagged rocks, of dark caverns, but never catching a glimpse of the lake.”

“Then our wise men held a council in the great pah, and day by day they studied and thought. At last it was decided that a venerable old man, who had never eaten of human flesh, should go forth alone into the mountains in quest of the lake. Much we wondered as he departed, for with him he took only a staff and no fern root or anything to eat. We bade him good bye with sorrow in our hearts, for we felt that we should never look upon his face again, and that his bones would bleach upon the mountain side, with no pah to covert them, but there they would lie for all time to come, a warning to men who went in search of the wonderful lake. Days went by and the wise man was given up for lost, when he came down the mountain side and all of our people went out to meet him. When they asked him if he had found the lake he bowed his head upon his breast and smiled, and the people, young and old, gathered about him with many questions, but answered he never a word. One and all saw that a great change had come over him. A mild light beamed in his eyes and a smile ever played about his lips. Kindness and sympathy covered him as with a mantle of sweet fern and all felt that he was good to look upon. From him there went out a power for good never felt in Maori land before, and the people knew that to him had been given a sign which would lead them to happiness. Yet some there were who scoffed and said it was a trick of the wise men, that he had been hidden in the hills and no good would come of it. From that day the wise man went about doing good and to all he said, there be three things:

“Eat not of human flesh.”

“Help one another.”

“Be content with your lot.”

“A few followed his counsel and found peace, but the many went on their way, blind in their own conceit. The quiet of the valley and its simple fare were to them as bitter herbs. They wandered away to other islands and over the land to the north and south. They fought and ate each other, and the message of the wise man became to them and to their children but a dream. Once a year, at spring tide, when the moon was full, the wise man left the pah with two young men and went into the mountains and to the lake. Each time they returned on the seventh day and from that day to the day of their deaths their faces shone as did the face of the wise man, and they went about saying:

“Eat not of human flesh.”

“Help one another.”

“Be content with your lot.”

“What they saw, what they heard at the lake, no man knew. Year after year only three went out and returned. At last the hour came when the old wise man fell sick and death sat by his side. Then he sent for my father’s father, who was an old man, and to him confided the task of leading each year the young men into the mountains, telling him also of the first visit and what would come of it. This is the story which he told to my father’s father:

“I went into the mountains, trusting, that was all. If for me to see the lake would be good for my people then I knew that the way would be pointed out, so I journied on and on and though without food for the whole day, I felt no hunger. As night came near I descended into a valley in which plenty of ferns were growing and the water boiling in a small spring. I gathered my fern roots and cooked them in the spring. The next day I faced the mountains again. I had gone but a little way when I saw before me an immense bird pluming itself on a shelving rock. I had seen the skeletons of such birds many times, but never a live bird before. Its plumage was dazzling white and its arched neck shone like the wattle in the sunshine. Its tufted head was more than twice the height of a man’s head from the ground and although the bird was a long way off I felt that its eyes were soft and full of tenderness. As I approached the white bird walked away, stopping each minute to pick some green morsel, for its stride was enormous and in the twinkling of an eye it could have mounted into the clouds, hanging over the mountains. All day long I followed the bird, turning and twisting, going forward and coming back again until I lost all reckoning of the pah, but something whispered in my ear that it was to be. At night I always found ferns for food and a hot spring so my wants were provided for. On the third day out, as night drew near, I came very close to the bird, almost close enough to touch it, when it stepped through some great ferns with leaves of silvery whiteness, such as I had never seen before, and when I had followed it the bird had disappeared. I raised my eyes and there at my feet was a circular lake, girt about by immense mountains, with cliffs rising from the water higher than twenty Kauri pines. Looking behind me, the way I had come, I saw the silver ferns but in the background a wall of rock through which no opening was visible. Much I wondered, but being tired and hungry I gathered some of the ferns, but no hot spring was at hand as before. I stepped to the lake, touched it with my hand, it was almost boiling. That night I slept beneath the silver ferns. The next morning when I awoke there was no sign of the white bird but a little boat lay on the sand before me containing three seats and three paddles. After eating some fern root I stepped into the boat and paddled out. Then, for the first, I saw that the lake contained a single island, lying in its centre, but this island was not like any other island. It had three equal sides, on it was neither tree nor shrub. I soon made my way to its shore. There was only one landing place, a narrow ledge upon which I drew up the boat. By some natural steps I went up and found on the top a circular, shallow basin full of boiling water. The basin was formed of a dazzling white stone with alternate bands of a soft yellow, which I had never seen before, but which I now know the white man calls gold. From the centre to the outside these bands ran round and round and it was only a question of time when they would cover the whole island. A great attraction had the pool for me. I sat down by its side and watched the blue water run over the rim and splash its way down to the lake, leaving behind little bands of white and yellow, and as I sat there the steam coming up in the centre sang a song in the Maori tongue. The song was:

“Eat not, eat not, eat not of human flesh.”

“Help one, help one, help one another.”

“Be content, be content, be content with your lot.”

“I knew that I was to tell these things to my people and I never forgot them.”

“Then I lay down and fell asleep, how long I slept I know not. When I awoke the sun was gone and the great cross blazing in the sky and yet the pool sang the same song and the water ran over the rim and down into the lake. Once again I looked into the basin and then my heart grew still. As I looked down I saw away and away a group of islands with a blue sea all around them running into little bays and long arms, and under a part of one island was a great fire burning and sending up boiling water. Away out in the ocean I saw another island, with an opening in the centre, through which rushed flame and smoke. This island was the chimney for the fires burning below me, on which our pahs were built. On our islands I saw many Maoris, some good, many bad with fierce fires burning in their hearts. And the voice of the spring said, ‘Behold your brothers, but the day is near at hand when great canoes will come over the waters with white wings and a white man will come in the canoes and in his heart burns still fiercer fires and he will make war upon you; not with spears but with things which vomit fire and carry death a long way off. He will kill the Maoris and take the land and in a few years your people will be no more, but to you is given a trust. In the full moon, once in the year, bring hither two wise Maoris and let their ears hear my song. Then shall they go to their brothers and speak the truth. If your people listen, one island shall be preserved for them and the black men shall not all die.’”

“Returning to the shore, I found the moa standing by the bunch of ferns and following it for two days I was once more in sight of the pah. There I told the story of the mysterious lake and the pool to the wise men and when the full moon came the next year three Maoris went forth in quest of the lake. They were guided by the white moa and they too heard the pool sing and saw into its depths. Season after season three men went and came and repeated the song of the pool. The scoffers asked, ‘Where are the white men with fire in their hearts, and where are the big canoes with white wings?’ And the ferns grew and faded into brown and rotted on the damp earth. But at last the white man came and the wise men knew that the day was at hand. With the white man came also wise men, who, while they pointed to the sky above and told us of the Great Spirit, stole the land from under our feet. And we saw that a great fire burned in their hearts, but it was not the fire of war but a yellow flame, which could only be quenched by a treasure they called ‘gold.’ These wise white men heard of the lake in the mountains and the pool with its yellow bands and much they searched the mountains but found it not. Then they heard of the journey of the three Maoris each rainy season, led by the white moa. They watched and when the Maoris set out they followed and thus it was that they found the lake. Three white men had followed the three Maoris. While the Maoris were standing beside the lake the white men seized the boat and paddled as fast as they could to the island. The moa stood on the shore and nodded its head up and down as much as to say, ‘You shall see.’ Two white men clambered on shore, the other remaining in the boat. Once beside the pool the white men saw not its beauty, they heard not the song, for their eyes were filled with the yellow metal and their hearts with greed. They were blind to the blue waters, the purple mountains, blind and deaf to all but gold. Then they set to work and dug up the yellow rim and the little channels over which the water ran, and, where once all was beauty and song and the whisper of the Great Spirit, only desolation was left. All day long they toiled and carried the gold and loaded it into the boat and so blind were they that they did not see that the boat grew no deeper in the water. All day the moa nodded its head, all day long the Maoris wondered. Then a great sleep fell upon them. The water in the lake was sinking down, down, down, carrying with it the little boat. It sank away as silently as a bird in the air, without a gurgle or a splash. The fountain sang and flowed and the yellow bands ran out and down and over the two men binding them fast to the rock. When they awoke they were pinned fast. They writhed and twisted and screamed for their companion in the boat but he was a thousand feet below, paddling, paddling, not to the island not to the shore, but around and around. Then through the jagged rocks, away below came a great roar as of a mighty river lashing itself into fury on the black stones. When this sound fell on their ears they set up a pitiful cry which came over the lake to the Maoris and made their hearts sad. Then the fire died out of the white men’s hearts and the green leaves of the ferns, where the Maoris stood grew into wondrous beauty in their eyes and the plumage of the moa shone like burnished silver. Their cries for help died away in the rushing waters below. The fountain stopped, the blue water sank down to the black river, leaving only a jagged hole, crusted as far as they could see with gold, but now they loathed the yellow metal and blamed it, instead of their own hearts, for all the evil which had come upon them. Out of the pool then came a faint blue wreath, spreading about them, embracing them and creeping like a cloud over the island. Then the hot steam gushed forth. Madly they writhed and gasped for breath but hotter and hotter grew the steam. The sun went down and night came on. Under the green ferns the Maoris lay down and slept. When the sun came up the pool had ceased to vomit steam. Two skeletons on the island were bleached as white as snow on the mountain tops. A skeleton in the boat, with a skeleton paddle in his hands was paddling in a never ending circle around and around.”

“The moa nodded his head and led the way back to the pah and from that day to this never a moa has been seen in New Zealand. Amid the mountains lies the wonderful lake but it will never be found until the yellow fires have burned out of the hearts of the white men.”

THE GARDEN GULLY
MINE.

“You ken Bendigo,” said my companion, looking out of the corner of his eye at the bottle sitting on the table before us.

“Right well,” I answered. We had dropped in at the Criterion, Swanson street, Melbourne, for an evening.

“Weel,” continued Sandy McLeod, “it’s a long time agone but I’ll never forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“The Garden Gully, did you ever hear the story?”

“No, I’m a new chum, as you know.”

I poured out a glass of Falon’s sparkling, at the sight Sandy smacked his lips. Sandy was a colonial solicitor and apparently an unprofitable mine to work for a story, so I bided my time. The glass of wine began to mellow his heart, for he abruptly exclaimed, “Men on gold fields are crazed with greed, but a good-looking woman sends them stark mad. Even I, Sandy McLeod, was once mad.”

“It was only a passing craze,” I suggested.

“Not a bit of it, mad for months, mad when awake and doubly mad when asleep.”

“What cured you?”

“A nip of the same dog,” and then he burst into a laugh. “One more glass and then I will tell you the story.”

Settling back in his chair, he began in a voice, mellower than I dreamed that he possessed:

“Teddy O’Flynn, yes O’Flynn with a big O, as he used to say, had a little cabin on the Bendigo field, and behind the cabin was a little garden in the gully. It was the only garden on Bendigo at that time and we all knew it to a man. No deep shafts then, only a spade, a pick, and a tin dish, and thirty thousand miners on the field. That garden grew roses and English roses too, at that. I can see them now and it’s near on fifty years ago. They whispered to every man Jack of us of home, dear home. When we went up there and leaned on the palings of a Sunday, back we were in our native villages. Teddy O’Flynn was not the man to cultivate roses, save the ones which blossomed on his nose and they were always in full bloom. Teddy had a foster daughter, the queen rose of Bendigo, and as the roses bloomed so bloomed Rosa, for that was her name. While the roses were in bloom on Saturday afternoon Rosa made a round of the camp. She never sold the roses but she made each miner a present of one, and the miners not to be outdone, made her a present of a pinch of gold. She had to pinch it herself between her rosy little finger and thumb. Rosa took up the camp in a regular way so that in time we all got a rose and were satisfied.”

“Teddy O’Flynn had never studied books and yet he was a bit of a philosopher, and an Irish philosopher at that. Teddy never worked and yet he ate and drank of the best on Bendigo. Perhaps the pinches which Rosa made had something to do with Teddy’s good fortune. The miners were content, Teddy was happy, and Rosa—well the whole camp was in love with her.”

“And you fell in love with her too,” I ventured to remark.

“I never denied it.”

“At that time there were but two lawyers on the field, Phalin Shea and Sandy McLeod, that’s myself. Part of the time we dug on the lead, for we both held claims, but when a dispute arose Phalin was retained by one client, and McLeod by the other, then we fought it out before the Gold Commissioner and honors were generally equally divided. The Shamrock and the Scotch Thistle, they used to call us. The best of friends we were, though we often nearly came to blows. Rosa distinguished us from the other miners by calling us gentlemen. Phalin and I were regarded as the favored suitors but that did not prevent the other men from striving to secure such a valuable claim. One evening I was at O’Flynn’s cabin and the next night Phalin was at the same place and basking in the same smiles. To all of our vows Rosa returned the same answer.”

“What would become of Teddy O’Flynn if I married?” We each promised to allow Teddy a pension for life. Rosa well knew that Phalin and I could not scrape up a hundred pounds, but like all miners, we were willing to bank on the future for any number of thousands. Rosa was most impartial and fed each on the same manna. Our infatuation increased month by month and when the rainy season came on and no roses remained Teddy proved equal to the occasion and regularly borrowed half a sovereign from each when we called at the cabin. Phalin may have lent the money out of sheer Irish good-will but I know that Sandy McLeod, in his heart regarded him, Teddy, as a golden fleece. How the contest would have ended I cannot say, but unfortunately Teddy suddenly conceived the idea of becoming rich. That decided our fate. His plan was to sink a shaft in the garden in the gully and open up a gold mine. Naturally we expected that Rosa would protest, but on the contrary she declared that the plan originated with her own sweet self. She had dreamed that there was an immense deposit of gold hidden away beneath the English roses. Teddy had only to dig and he would find the treasure, but no person was to assist him and the work must be done at night. Only Phalin and myself were taken into the secret. Teddy went to work and day after day poured into our ears the history of his progress. As the garden lay far removed from the Bendigo lead and no indications existed that gold would be found, in our hearts we secretly felt that it was a clever device, upon the part of Rosa, to keep her foster parent out of the public and at the same time set him to work. The mining had been going on for about three weeks when one afternoon Phalin and I each received a note from Rosa asking us to call that evening at the cabin. We were punctual to the minute, but each was somewhat crestfallen on discovering the presence of his rival. Teddy O’Flynn was laboring under an excitement which he in vain attempted to conceal. After a substantial supper and a glass of hot toddy, Rosa drew the curtain of the four pane window and then told us the story.

Teddy had struck upon one of the richest leads ever found on Bendigo. The earth was literally packed with gold. Then Teddy took up the running.

“I tell yez I’ve struck it.”