The Ghost Camp

CHAPTER I

A wild and desolate land; dreary, even savage, to the unaccustomed eye. Forest-clothed hills towering above the faint, narrow track leading eastward, along which a man had been leading a tired horse; he was now resting against a granite boulder. A dark, mist-enshrouded day, during which the continuous driving showers had soaked through an overcoat, now become so heavy that he carried it across his arm. A fairly heavy valise, above a pair of blankets, was strapped in front of his saddle.

He was prepared for bush travelling – although his term of “colonial experience,” judging from his ruddy cheek and general get-up, had been limited. A rift in the over-hanging cloud-wrack, through which the low sunrays broke with a sudden gleam, showed a darksome mountain range to the south, with summit and sides, snow-clad and dazzling white.

The wayfarer stood up and stared at the apparition: “a good omen,” thought he, “perhaps a true landmark. The fellows at the mail-change told me to steer in a general way for the highest snow peak, which they called ‘the Bogong,’ or some such name. Though this track seems better marked, these mountain roads, as they call them – goat paths would be the better name – for there is not a wheel mark to be seen – one needs the foot of a chamois and the eye of our friend up there.” Here he looked upward, where one of the great birds of prey, half hawk, half eagle, as the pioneers decided, floated with moveless wing above crag and hollow. Then rising with an effort, and taking the bridle rein, he began to lead the weary horse up the rocky ascent. “Poor old Gilpin!” he soliloquised, “you are more knocked up than I am – and yet you have the look of a clever cob – such as we should have fancied in England for a roadster, or a covert hack. But roads are roads there, while in this benighted land, people either don’t know how to make them, or seem to do their cross-country work without them. I wonder if I shall fall in with bed and board to-night. The last was rough, but sufficing – a good fire too, now I think of it, and precious cold it was. Well, come along, John! I must bustle you a bit when we get to the top of this everlasting hill – truly biblical in that respect. What a lonesome place it is, now that the sun has gone under again! I suppose there’s no one within fifty miles – Hulloa!”

This exclamation was called forth by the appearance of a horseman at no great distance – along the line of track. Man and horse were motionless, though so near that he wondered he had not observed them before. The rider’s face, which was towards him, bore, as far as he could judge, an expression of keenest attention.

“Wonder if he is a bushranger?” thought the traveller; “ought to have brought one of my revolvers; but everybody told me that there were none ‘out’ now; that I was as safe as if I was in England – safer, in fact, than ‘south the water’ in the little village. However, I shall soon know.”

Before he had time to decide seriously, the horseman came towards him. He saw a slight, dark, wiry individual, something above the middle height, sunburned, and almost blackened as to such portions of his neck and face as could be perceived for an abundant beard and moustache. The horse, blood-looking, and in hard condition, presented a striking contrast to his own leg-weary, disconsolate animal. The traveller thought him capable of fast and far performances. His sure and easy gait, as he stepped freely along the rocky path, stamped him as “mountain-bred,” or, if not “to the manner born,” having lived long enough amid these tremendous glens and rocky fastnesses, to negotiate their ladder-like declivities with ease and safety.

“Good evening!” said the stranger, civilly enough. “Going to ‘Haunted Creek?’ – a bit off the road, ar’n’t you?”

“I was doubtful about the track, but I thought it might lead there. I was told that it was only eight miles.”

“It’s a good fourteen, and you won’t get there to-night. Not with that horse, anyhow. But look here! I’m going to my place, a few miles off, with these cattle – if you like to give me a hand, I can put you up for the night, and show you the way in the morning.”

“Thanks very much, really I feel much obliged to you. I was afraid I should have had to camp out, and it looks like a bad night.”

“All right,” said the bushman, for such he evidently was; “these crawlin’ cattle are brutes to straggle, and I’m lost without my dog. I’ll bring ’em up, and if you’ll keep the tail going, we’ll get along easy enough.”

“But where are they?” inquired the tourist, looking around, as if he expected to see them rise out of the earth.

“Close by,” answered the stranger, laconically, at the same time riding down the slope of the mountain with loose rein, and careless seat, as if the jumble of rocks, tree-roots, and rolling stones, was the most level high road in the world. Looking after the new acquaintance he descried a small lot of cattle perched on a rocky pinnacle, partly covered by a patch of scrub. The grass around them was high and green – but, with one exception, that of a cow munching a tussac in an undecided way, they did not appear to care about the green herbage, or tall kangaroo grass which grew around them. Had he known anything about the habits of cattle, he would have seen by their appearance that these fat beasts (for such they were) had come far and fast; were like his horse, thoroughly exhausted, and as such, indifferent to the attractions of wayside pasture.

However, with the aid of a hunting crop, which he flourished behind them, with threatening action, the bushman soon managed to get them on to the track, and with the aid of his newly-made comrade induced them to move with a decent show of alacrity. That some were footsore, and two painfully lame, was apparent to the new assistant, also that they were well-bred animals, heavy weights, and in that state and condition which is provincially alluded to as “rolling fat.”

“Nice meat, ar’n’t they?” said the bushman; “come a good way too. Beastly rough track; I was half a mind to bring them by Wagga – but this is the shortest way – straight over the ranges. I’m butchering just now, with gold-mining for a change, but that’s mostly winter work.”

“Where do you buy your cattle?” asked the Englishman – not that he cared as to that part of the occupation, but the gold-mining seemed to him a romantic, independent way of earning a living. He was even now turning over in his mind the idea of a few months camping among these Alpine regions, with, of course, the off-chance of coming upon an untouched gold mine.

“Oh! a few here and there, in all sorts of places.” Here the stranger shot a searching glance, tinged with suspicion, towards the questioner. “I buy the chance of stray cattle now and then, and pick ’em up as I come across ’em. We’d as well jog along here, it’s better going.”

The track had become more marked. There were no wheel marks, the absence of which had surprised the traveller, since the beginning of his day’s march, but tracks of cattle and unshod horses were numerous; while the ground being less rocky, indeed commencing to be marshy, no difficulty was found in driving the cattle briskly along it. His horse too, having “company,” had become less dilatory and despondent.

“We’re not far off, now,” said his companion, “and it’s just as well. We’ll have rain to-night – may be snow. So a roof and a fire won’t be too bad.”

To this statement the tourist cheerfully assented, his spirits rising somewhat, when another mile being passed, they turned to the north at a sharp angle to the road, and following a devious track, found themselves at the slip-rails of a small but well-fenced paddock, into which the cattle were turned, and permitted to stray at will. Fastening the slip rails with scrupulous care, and following the line of fence for a hundred yards, they came to a hut built of slabs, and neatly roofed with sheets of the stringy bark tree (Eucalyptus obliqua) where his guide unsaddled, and motioned to the guest to do likewise. As also to put the saddle against the wall of the hut, with the stuffing outward. “That’ll dry ’em a bit,” he said; “mine’s wet enough anyhow. Just bring your horse after me.”

Passing through a hand gate, he released his horse, first, however, putting on a pair of hobbles; “the feed’s good,” he said, “but this moke’s just out of the bush, and rather flash – he might jump the fence in the night, so it’s best to make sure. Yours won’t care about anything but filling his belly, not to-night anyhow, so he can go loose. Now we’ll see about a fire, and boil the billy for tea. Come along in.”

Entering the hut, which though small, was neat and clean; it was seen to contain two rooms, the inner one apparently used as a bedroom, there being two bed-places, on each of which was a rude mattress covered with a blanket. A store of brushwood and dry billets had been placed in a corner, from which a fire was soon blazing in the rude stone chimney, while a camp kettle (provincially a “billy”) was on the way to boil without loss of time.

A good-sized piece of corned beef, part of a round, with half a “damper” loaf being extracted from a cupboard or locker, was placed on the rude slab table; after which pannikins and tin plates, with knives and forks, provided from the same receptacle, were brought forth, completing the preparations for a meal that the guest believed he was likely to relish.

“Oh! I nearly forgot,” said the traveller, as his entertainer, dropping a handful of tea into the “billy,” now at the boil, and stirring it with a twig, put on the lid. “I brought a flask, it’s very fair whisky, and a tot won’t hurt either of us, after a long day and a wet one.” Going to his coat, he brought out a flask, and nearly filling the tin cup which was closed over the upper part, offered it to his host. He, rather to the surprise of the Englishman, hesitated and motioned as if to refuse, but on second thoughts smiled in a mysterious way, and taking the tin cup, nodded, and saying “Well, here’s fortune!” tossed it off. Blount took one of the pannikins, and pouring out a moderate allowance, filled it up with the clear spring water, and drank it by instalments.

“I must say I feel better after that,” he observed, “and if a dram needs an excuse, a long, cold ride, stiff legs, and a wetting ought to be sufficient.”

“They don’t look about for excuses up here,” said his new acquaintance, “and some takes a deal more than is good for them. I don’t hold with that, but a nip or two’s neither here nor there, particular after a long day. Help yourself to the meat and damper, you see your supper.”

The traveller needed no second invitation; he did not, like the clerk of Copmanhurst, plunge his fingers into the venison pasty, there being neither venison nor pasty, but after cutting off several slices of the excellent round of beef which had apparently sustained previous assaults, he made good time, with the aid of a well-baked “damper,” and an occasional reference to a pannikin of hot tea, so that as their appetites declined, more leisure was afforded for conversation.

“And now,” he said, after filling up a second pannikin of tea, and lighting his pipe, “I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, as I hear the rain coming down, and the wind rising. May I ask whose hospitality I’m enjoying? I’m Valentine Blount of Langley in Herefordshire. Not long out, as I dare say you have noticed. Just travelling about to have a look at the country.”

“My name’s John Carter,” said the bushman, with apparent frankness, as he confronted Blount’s steady eye, “but I’m better known from here to Omeo, as ‘Little River Jack’; there’s lots of people knows me by that name, that don’t know me by any other.”

“And what do you do when you get gold – take it to Melbourne to sell?”

“There’s no call to do that. Melbourne’s a good way off, and it takes time to get there. But there’s always gold buyers about townships, that are on for a little business. They give a trifle under market price, but they pay cash, and it suits us mountain chaps to deal that way. Sometimes I’m a buyer myself, along with the cattle-dealing. Look here!” As he spoke, he detached a leather pouch from his belt, looking like one that stockriders wear for carrying pipe and tobacco, which he threw on the table. The grog had inclined to confidences and relaxed his attitude of caution. Blount lifted it, rather surprised at its weight. “This is gold, isn’t it?”

“Yes! a good sample too. Worth four pound an ounce. Like to look at it?”

“Very much. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen gold in the raw state before.”

“Well, here it is – the real thing, and no mistake. Right if a chap could only get enough of it.” Here he opened the mouth of the pouch, which seemed three parts full, and pouring some of it on a tin plate, awaited Blount’s remarks.

As the precious metal, partly in dust, partly in larger fragments, rattled on the plate, Blount looked on with deep interest, and then, on being invited so to do, handled it with the air of a man to whom a new and astonishing object is presented for the first time.

“So,” he said musingly, “here is one of the great lures which have moved the world since the dawn of history. Love, war, and ambition, have been subservient to it. Priests and philosophers, kings and queens, the court beauty and the Prime Minister, have vainly struggled against its influence. But – ” he broke off with a laugh, as he noted his companion’s look of wonder, “here am I, another example of its fascination, moralising in a mountain hut and mystifying my worthy entertainer.”

“And now, my friend!” he inquired, relapsing into the manner of everyday life, “what may be the market value of this heavy little parcel?”

“Well – I put it at fifty ounces, or thereabouts,” said Mr. “Little River Jack,” carefully pouring back the contents of the pouch, to the last grain; “at, say four pound an ounce, it’s worth a couple of hundred notes, though we sha’n’t get that price for it. But at Melbourne mint, it’s worth every shilling, maybe a trifle more.” Before closing the pouch, he took out a small nugget of, perhaps, half an ounce in weight, and saying, “You’re welcome to this. It’ll make a decent scarf pin,” handed it to Mr. Blount.

But that gentleman declined it, saying, “Thanks, very much, but I’d rather not.” Then, seeing that the owner seemed hurt, even resentful, qualified the refusal by saying, “But if you would do me a service, which I should value far more, you might introduce me to some party of miners, with whom I could work for a month or two, and learn, perhaps, how to get a few ounces by my own exertions. I think I should like the work. It must be very interesting.”

“It’s that interesting,” said the bushman, all signs of annoyance clearing from his countenance, “that once a man takes to it he never quits it till he makes a fortune or dies so poor that the Government has to bury him. I’ve known many a man that used a cheque book as big as a school slate, and could draw for a hundred thousand or more, drop it all in a few years, and be found dead in a worse ‘humpy’ than this, where he’d been living alone for years.”

“Strange to have been rich by his own handiwork, and not to be able to keep something for his old age,” said Blount; “how is it to be accounted for?”

“By luck, d – d hard luck!” said John Carter, whom the subject seemed to have excited. “Every miner’s a born gambler; if he don’t do it with cards, he puts his earnings, his time, his life blood, as one might say, on the chance of a claim turning out well. It’s good luck, and not hard work, that gives him a ‘golden hole,’ where he can’t help digging up gold like potatoes, and it’s luck, bad luck, that turns him out a beggar from every ‘show’ for years, till he hasn’t got a shirt to his back. Why do I stick to it, you’ll say? Because I’m a fool, always have been, always will be, I expect. But I like the game, and I can’t leave it for the life of me. However, that says nothing. I’m no worse than others. I can just keep myself and my horse, while there’s an old mate of mine living in London and Paris, and swelling it about with the best! You’d like to have a look in, you say? Well, you stop at Bunjil for a week, till I come back from Bago; it’s a good inn, clean and comfortable, and the girl there, if I tell her, will look after you; see you have a fire too, these cold nights. Are you on?”

“Yes! most decidedly,” replied Blount, with great heartiness. “A mountain hotel should be a new experience.”

“Then it’s a bargain. I’m going down the river for a few days. When I get back, I’ll pick you up at Bunjil, and we’ll go to a place such as you never seen before, and might never have dropped on as long as you lived, if you hadn’t met me, accidental like. And now we’d as well turn in. I expect some chaps that’s bought the cattle, and they won’t be here later than daylight.” Accepting another glass of whisky as nightcap, and subsequently removing merely his boots and breeches, both of which he placed before the fire, but at a safe distance, Mr. “Little River Jack” “turned in” as he expressed it, and was shortly wrapped in the embrace of the kind deity who favours the dwellers in the Waste, though often rejecting the advances of the luxurious inhabitants of cities. Mr. Blount delayed his retirement, as he smoked before the still glowing “back log” and dwelt upon the adventures of the day.

“How that fellow must enjoy his slumbers!” thought he. “In the saddle before daylight, as he told me; up and down these rocky fastnesses – fifteen hours of slow, monotonous work, more wearying than any amount of fast going – and now, by his unlaboured breathing, sleeping like a tired child; his narrow world – its few cares – its honest, if sometimes exhausting labours, as completely shut out as if he was in another planet. Enviable mortal! I should like to change places with him.”

After expressing this imprudent desire, as indeed are often those of men, who, unacquainted with the conditions surrounding untried modes of life, believe that they could attain happiness by merely exchanging positions, Mr. Blount undressed before the fire, and bestowed himself upon the unoccupied couch, where he speedily fell asleep, just as he had imagined himself extracting large lumps of gold from a vein of virgin quartz, in a romantic fern-shaded ravine, discovered by himself.

From this pleasing state of matters, he was awakened by a sound as of horse hoofs and the low growl of a dog. It was not quite dark. He sat up and listened intently. There was no illusion. He went to the hut door and looked out. Day was breaking, and through the misty dawnlight he was enabled to distinguish his host in conversation with a man on horseback, outside of the slip-rails. Presently the cattle, driven by another horseman, with whom was a dog, apparently of more than ordinary intelligence, came to the slip-rails. They made a rush as soon as they were through, as is the manner of such, on strange ground – but the second horseman promptly “wheeled” them towards the faint dawn line now becoming more distinct, and disappeared through the forest arches. Mr. Blount discerning that the day had begun, for practical purposes, proceeded to dress.

Walking over to the chimney, he found that the smouldering logs had been put together, and a cheerful blaze was beginning to show itself. The billy, newly filled, was close to it, and by the time he had washed the upper part of his body in a tin bucket placed on a log end, outside the door, his friend of the previous night appeared with both horses, which he fastened to the paddock fence.

“Those fellows woke you up, coming for the cattle? Thought you’d sleep through it. I was going to rouse you when breakfast was ready.”

“I slept soundly in all conscience, but still I was quite ready to turn out. I suppose those were the butchers that you sold the cattle to?”

“Two of their men – it’s all the same. They stopped close by last night so as to get an early start. They’ve a good way to go, and’ll want all their time, these short days. Your horse looks different this morning. It’s wonderful what a good paddock and a night’s rest will do!”

“Yes, indeed, he does look different,” as he saddled him up, and, plucking some of the tall grass which grew abundantly around, treated him to a partial rub down. “How far is it to Bunjil, as you call it?”

“Well, not more than twenty miles, but the road’s middlin’ rough. Anyhow we’ll get there latish, and you can take it easy till I come back. I mightn’t be away more than three or four days.”

Misty, even threatening, at the commencement, the day became fine, even warm, after breakfast. Wind is rarely an accompaniment of such weather, and as the sun rode higher in the cloudless sky, Blount thought he had rarely known a finer day. “What bracing mountain air!” he said to himself. “Recalls the Highlands; but I see no oat fields, and the peasantry are absent. These hills should rear a splendid race of men – and rosy-cheeked lasses in abundance. The roads I cannot recommend.”

Mr. John Carter had admitted that the way was rough. His companion thought he had understated the case. It was well nigh impassable. When not climbing hills as steep as the side of a house, they were sliding down bridle tracks like the “Ladder of Cattaro.” These Mr. Carter’s horse hardly noticed; a down grade being negotiated with ease and security, while he seemed, to Blount’s amazement, to step from rock to rock like a chamois. That gentleman’s own horse had no such accomplishments, but blundered perilously from time to time, so that his owner was fain to lead him over the rougher passes. This rendered their progress slower than it would otherwise have been, while he was fain to look enviously at his companion, who, either smoking or discoursing on local topics, rode with careless rein, trusting implicitly, as it seemed, to his horse’s intelligence.

“Here’s the Divide!” he said at length, pointing to a ridge which rose almost at right angles from the accepted track. “We leave the road here, and head straight for Bunjil mountain. There he stands with his cap on! The snow’s fell early this season.”

As he spoke he pointed towards a mountain peak of unusual height, snow-capped, and even as to its spreading flanks, streaked with patches and lines of the same colour. The white clouds which hung round the lofty summit – six thousand feet from earth, were soft-hued and fleecy; but their pallor was blurred and dingy compared with the silver coronet which glorified the dark-hued Titan.

“Road!” echoed Mr. Blount, “I don’t see any; what passes for it, I shall be pleased to leave. If we are to go along this ‘Divide,’ as you call it, I hope it will be pleasanter riding.”

“Well, it is a queerish track for a bit, but after Razor Back’s passed, it’s leveller like. We can raise a trot for a mile or two afore we make Bunjil township. Razor Back’s a narrer cut with a big drop both sides, as we shall have to go stiddy over.”

“The Divide,” as John Carter called it, was an improvement upon the track they quitted. It was less rocky, and passably level. There was a gradual ascent however, which Mr. Blount did not notice until he observed that the timber was becoming more sparse, while the view around them was disclosing features of a grand, even awful character. On either side the forest commenced to slope downwards, at an increasingly sharp gradient. Instead of the ordinary precipice, above which the travellers rode, on one or other side of the bridle track, having the hill on the other, there appeared to be a precipice of unknown depth on either hand. As the ascent became more marked, Blount perceived that the winding path led towards a pinnacle from which the view was extensive, and in a sense, dreadful, from its dizzy altitude – its abysmal depths, – and, as he began to realise, its far from improbable danger.

“This here’s what we call the leadin’ range; it follers the divide from the head waters of the Tambo; that’s where we stopped last night. It’s the only road between that side of the country and the river. If you don’t strike this ‘cut,’ and there’s not more than a score or so of us mountain chaps as knows it, it would take a man days to cross over, and then he mightn’t do it.”

“What would happen to him?” asked Blount, feeling a natural curiosity to learn more of this weird region, differing so widely from any idea that he had ever gathered from descriptions of Australia.