Stephen shrugged but before he could answer Uncle Bill cut in: “None of that please.”
Graham started walking towards the sound. “I’m going to have a look.”
Again Margaret let out a little cry. “Oh no Graham. Don’t!”
“But we should know who else is in the area,” Graham replied. “I’ll be careful.”
Uncle Bill held up his hand. “I agree. We should be aware of who is around, but we will all go. We don’t need to sneak around. We have every right to be here.”
So they all set off towards the mysterious sounds of chopping, Graham and Peter leading, then Uncle Bill, Stephen, Kylie, Margaret and Allison. Kylie felt quite sick with worry. She did not really want to go, but agreed it was important to know who else was in the area. ‘Particularly if it is those horrible men,’ she told herself.
Travel was easy. They just walked west along the cleared track which became more and more obvious as they went. After several hundred metres it was a well used trail clear of all vegetation.
Stephen sniffed. “Smoke,” he commented.
Kylie realized she could smell it. Then she saw it drifting in the trees. The sound of chopping became louder and clearer all the time. Much as Kylie did not want to go she found herself borne along by the event.
After less than five minutes walking they came to a clearing in the rainforest. On the right was a huge pile of sand and gravel with a wheelbarrow resting upside down on the side of it. Just beyond, against the side of a low hill, was the bare earth and black entrance to a mine. Timber props held up the roof and the whole thing looked very primitive. ‘Like one of those mines in an old photograph,’ Kylie thought.
The reason was immediately apparent. On the other side of the small clearing was a camp. In front of it, chopping wood with an axe, was a white-haired old man. He wore gumboots, filthy old trousers held up by braces and a dirty, mud-stained shirt of indeterminate colour. His face was mostly hidden by a white beard and his hair was straggling and unkempt. A battered felt hat topped off his ensemble.
The man’s camp consisted of a corrugated iron roof on bush saplings, open on two sides and with a tent at the far corner. Under the roof were a fireplace, table, chair and stacks of boxes and piles of gear. A smoky fire smouldered in the fireplace, the smoke drifting slowly across the clearing to hang in the still air.
The group came to a standstill on the edge of the clearing. The old man raised his axe and split a billet of timber with an expert swing. As he bent to reposition the wood he noticed them. For a moment he showed surprise. Then he lowered the axe and straightened up.
“Good dayee to yer,” he called.
Uncle Bill took the lead. He walked forward replying to the greeting. The teenagers followed. They stopped a few paces from the old man, who looked them over.
Uncle Bill put out his hand. “Bill Feltham. I’ve got a dairy farm up near Lamins Hill.”
The old man took his hand, looked him squarely in the eye and nodded. As they shook hands he replied: “Blair Donaldson. I’m a gold miner. Or at least I would be if I could find any of the damned stuff. I guess I’m really just a fossicker.”
Uncle Bill introduced the teenagers. “These are all nephews, nieces and assorted friends. They come from Cairns.” He gave their names. The old prospector nodded. “Aye, I know Captain Kirk. I sailed with him once, as a deckhand that was.” He paused and stared into what would have been the distance if there hadn’t been a wall of jungle in the way. “Be a good ten years ago, when I were a bit younger.”
“I hope we didn’t frighten you,” Kylie said.
The old man shook his head. “Not at all missie. Mind you, I don’t get many visitors here. In fact you are the first I have ever had in two years.”
“Do you live here?” Margaret asked.
The old prospector nodded. “Aye. This is my home, such as it is. Ah! Now here’s me forgettin’ me manners and you my guests. Come and have a cuppa. The water should be nearly boiled.”
Kylie did not want to but no-one else made any objection so they were ushered over to the shelter. They seated themselves on various boxes, bundles and blocks of wood.
“We can’t stay long,” Uncle Bill said. “We need to get back to our camp before dark.”
“Oh aye. And where is that?” the old prospector asked as he stoked up his fire.
Uncle Bill told him. Kylie noted Graham and Peter staring around at the details of the camp with fascinated interest. She had expected it to be very dirty but noted with relief that it was actually quite tidy and clean. The old prospector’s clothes were covered in grime but that was from the day’s work she decided. This impression was reinforced by the sight of washing hanging on a line at the side of the shelter.
“Are you Scottish?” Margaret asked.
The old prospector gave a wry grin. “Aye, but I’d have hoped I might be called an Aussie after living here all these years.”
Margaret blushed. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It was just your accent.”
The old prospector smiled. “It’s alright lassie. It’s a hard thing to shake off, an accent. Mind you, I can talk like a proper Aussie when I try.” He paused for a second, then said in a broad Australian accent: “G’day mate. Strewth, stone the bloody crows!”
It sounded so funny to Kylie she burst out laughing, then hastily stopped lest she offend the old prospector. However he grinned at her. “Yer see, dinkum Aussie eh?”
That caused them all to smile. The old prospector then explained: “I was born in Aberdeen way back in 1937 and came out here as a wee bairn just after the second war. But the accent has stuck with me all these years.”
“Are you really a gold miner?” Kylie asked.
Again the old prospector gave his wry smile. “I am that. Or I try to be. Mind you I worked at a lot of jobs over the years. Spent most of my life working in an office checking lists of figures though. Now I’m glad to spend my days a bit closer to nature.”
“Have you found any gold?” Kylie asked.
The old prospector made another face. “I find a bit now and then; enough to pay my way. But this is terrible hard country to prospect in.”
“We know,” Graham added, earning a frown from Kylie.
The old prospector did not appear to notice this exchange but went on: “I spent five years fossicking around the Hodgkinson, if you know where that is.”
“Out near Mt Mulligan,” Graham replied.
“That’s right. Then I came here two years ago to try my luck.”
“Don’t you get lonely?” Margaret asked.
“Not really. I go home every week or so and that gives me a good dose of people.”
“Do you live near here?” Kylie asked.
“No. Like you, in Cairns,” the old prospector answered. Again he smiled. “I’ve a tribe of kids and grandkids you know and they keep me busy.”
The old prospector did not mention a wife and Kylie did not like to ask. ‘I like him,’ she decided.
The conversation became general and they discussed mutual acquaintances. After a while the old prospector asked: “If you don’t mind me asking, what brings you to this part of the world?”
That caused an awkward silence. Kylie thought fast but decided there was no point in trying to keep secret what they were doing.
“We are looking for gold too,” she said.
The old prospector’s face split into a grin. “Well, good luck to ye then. Have ye found any?”
They all shook their heads and the old prospector grinned again. “Ah well, don’t give up. Keep looking for a year or two and ye might find a bit.”
That made them all pull faces again. “One day is enough!” Allison grumbled.
“So what made you all come to this neck of the woods then?” the old prospector asked. “I mean most people would go to one of the more famous goldfields like Charters Towers or the Palmer River.”
That caused another awkward silence. Kylie met Uncle Bill’s eyes a
nd he nodded. She said: “We are looking for a gold mine my great grandfather discovered.”
The old prospector’s eyes lit up with interest. “Oh aye. And what would be the name of his mine?”
Again Kylie hesitated but then decided that there was no point in not telling the old man. She said: “He called it ‘The Jeweller’s Shop’.”
The old prospector nodded slowly and then said: “Aye. I’ve heard of that. That is what brought me to this place.”
CHAPTER 23
NUGGET CREEK
For a moment there was an awkward silence. Kylie was appalled and amazed. She blurted out: “How did you know about the ‘Jeweller’s Shop’?”
The old prospector raised his eyebrows, then said: “Everyone knows about the famous ‘Jeweller’s Shop’. Every fossicker I have ever spoken to has wanted to find it. It is an item of local folklore.”
Kylie made a face and felt silly. “I thought it was a family secret.”
At that Uncle Bill laughed. “Some secret! Everywhere we go we find people who know about it and are looking too.”
“You said a family secret?” the old prospector suggested.
Kylie nodded. “Great grandad found it back in nineteen thirty one.”
Again the old prospector raised his eyebrows. “So you should know where it is. Didn’t he tell you?”
Kylie’s mind raced. ‘Should I answer that question? What can I say?’ Her eyes met Uncle Bill’s and he nodded and answered for her.
“He did. He left a diary and a letter but we have only recently found both of them and they don’t seem to be much help.”
The old prospector was clearly interested. He said: “Well, I wish you luck. I’ve been searching for two years for it and have covered just about every square yard of this blasted jungle and not a sign of it. Just an occasional bit of colour in a creek. I’ve given up and now I’m working over this old claim.”
Kylie felt her hopes sink. Two years! If this man had been looking that long what chance did they have; and in only a few days! She felt foolish and depressed.
The old prospector asked: “It’s none of my business of course but why don’t your clues help you find it?”
Uncle Bill held out his hand to Kylie and she reluctantly passed him the old letter. He did not give it to the old prospector but read a bit from it, then continued: “It’s finding the right place to start. Once we follow the instructions things start to go haywire. We’ve just spent hours thrashing around in the jungle up Nugget Creek there and none of the instructions made much sense.” As he spoke he pointed back to where they had spent the last few hours.
The old prospector raised one eyebrow and half turned to glance in the direction Uncle Bill had indicated. He shook his head. “That isn’t Nugget Creek. That is Reward Creek.”
“Are you sure?” Uncle Bill asked.
“Positive,” the old prospector replied.
Kylie felt her heart beat more rapidly as the implications of what the old prospector had said sank in. She said: “So where is Nugget Creek?”
The old prospector pointed the other way. “Next creek to the west. Along that track there.”
Graham took out his map and looked at it, a puzzled look on his face. “But.. but how could it be? This map must be wrong.”
“Do you mind if I look at it?” the old prospector asked.
Graham shrugged and handed it to him. The old prospector studied it for a minute. “It’s OK, just not complete. There were a lot more mines and claims than are shown here.”
“But it is the official Mines Department map,” Kylie said.
The old prospector smiled. “I’m sure it is. Lots of men came and did some digging without bothering with the formalities of registering a claim. It saved paying a lot of government charges and taxes you see.”
Margaret opened her mouth in scandalized surprise. “But that would be breaking the law!” she said.
The old prospector met her eyes and smiled. “Yes. But it was during the Great Depression this gold rush. Men were desperate and their families starving.”
Margaret nodded and blushed. Kylie pointed to the map. “So where did we go wrong? If that creek there isn’t Nugget Creek what is it?”
The old prospector looked at where she was pointing and shook his head. “That is Reward Creek.”
“But you said Nugget Creek was the next creek to the west,” Kylie said, staring hard at the tiny black lines which indicated creeks on the map.
“No. I don’t think all the creeks are marked on that map,” the old prospector said. “It is the next creek. Look, you start there at the ‘Erin’ mine, which was the main mine in the area, then cross the Mulgrave to this point, which is here, then turn left to go west.”
“But we started at the ‘Erin’ and that took us to that creek back there,” Kylie replied in a puzzled voice.
The old prospector looked in the direction she had pointed and shook his head. “Couldn’t be. The ‘Erin’ is just across the river from here.” He pointed to a track just beside the shelter. It led south into the jungle.
“But.. but if that isn’t the ‘Erin’ mine where we started from, what is it?” Kylie asked.
“That would have been the ‘Shamrock’,” the old prospector replied. He smiled and met her eyes. ‘He’s a very nice old man,’ Kylie thought. While they talked he had been stoking the fire and now he paused to lift off the billy. Tea leaves were added to it and he spent a minute chatting while he set up three metal pannikins.
“Sugar? Sorry but the only milk I’ve got is condensed,” he explained.
Kylie was almost busting with impatience, wanting to ask more questions but she held her tongue until the tea was made. The old prospector passed the cups to Uncle Bill, Peter and Margaret. “Sorry. I only have three cups. I don’t get many visitors and I left the best china at home,” he explained with a chuckle. He seated himself again and said to Uncle Bill: “Bill Feltham you said? It was Hec Pike who found the ‘Jeweller’s Shop’ wasn’t it?”
Uncle Bill nodded. “That’s right. He was my grandad. Mum was Grace Pike. She married Stan Feltham. It was a sad story. He made the find but was very sick at the time, some sort of fever. He managed to walk home, back up onto the Tablelands there, and then died. Before he left he wrote this letter and wrote the story in his diary.”
The old prospector nodded and his eyes gleamed with interest. Uncle Bill went on: “We’ve got a copy of the diary here. I’ll read it to you.”
Uncle Bill read from the copy of the last few pages of the diary. The others sat and listened. Kylie wasn’t sure if she wanted Uncle Bill to give so much information to a stranger but conceded that, if they couldn’t find it themselves, it didn’t matter.
When Uncle Bill finished the old prospector nodded thoughtfully and said: “That’s a real sad tale that. The puir woman; left with three bairns and one of them only a baby.”
Kylie added: “He badly wanted her to have her share of the gold. That’s why he wrote to his brother Herbert.”
“So if Herbert got the letter with the instructions how come he didn’t find the gold?” the old prospector asked.
“Because he didn’t have the diary to tell him where,” Kylie explained. “We only found it among some old papers just before Christmas.”
Graham added: “Even then we spent a week looking in the wrong place. We didn’t read it carefully enough and spent days thrashing around in the jungle up at the headwaters of Christmas Creek.”
They all groaned and laughed and embellished this part of the tale. Kylie explained: “That was because he mentioned going along the Christmas Creek track in the diary.” She went on to explain how they had worked out that they were searching in the wrong place. “So we concluded it had to be down here in the Mulgrave valley,” she concluded.
The old prospector nodded again. “Aye. That was where the rumours I had heard put it.”
Peter now asked: “So, if the mine we started from is the ‘Shamrock’ and
if, as you say, the ‘Erin’ is just across the river from here, what is the mine we found on the other side of the creek you call Reward Creek?”
“The ‘Just Reward’,” replied the old prospector.
“We thought it was the ‘Bright Smile’,” Peter replied.
The old prospector shook his head. “Nope. This is the ‘Bright Smile’ right here.” He pointed to the tunnel entrance in the slope.
“Are you sure?” Graham asked.
The old prospector gave him a hard look, then nodded. “Of course I’m sure. I measured it off from the survey pegs and I’ve got the lease from the mining warden.”
Uncle Bill said: “I know this isn’t any of my business so don’t answer if you don’t want to, but have you found any gold?”
The old prospector made a face. “A bit. About enough to cover me rations and some whisky. I keep hoping though. If I don’t find more soon though I’ll have to give up and go back to the blasted old people’s home and put up with that witch of a matron.”
“What sort of gold have you found?” Graham asked.
“Mostly only a few specks of colour in the wash. I also found some tiny nuggets,” the old prospector replied. He stood up and reached up onto a shelf against the back wall. In a small glass jar he had about a dozen tiny pieces of gold. Most were only the size of grains of sand but one was as big as a pea. The teenagers examined them with great interest.
“Found the big one in Nugget Creek,” the old prospector said. “I reckon there’s more but I can’t find the seam that it and these other floaters come from.”
“It could be the ‘Jeweller’s Shop’,” Graham suggested.
“Might be. I’ll look up the creek again when the wet season is over,” the old prospector agreed.
Kylie felt her hopes surge. The sight of real gold from Nugget Creek fired her imagination. She said: “You wouldn’t know where ‘Frank’s Claim’ was would you?”
The old prospector shook his head. “Don’t know of any place named that. Did it have any other name?”
They did not know. Peter said: “We thought it was the old diggings just back along this track, just this side of Reward Creek.”
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