Golden Miles

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Katharine Susannah Prichard was born in 1883 in Fiji. Her family moved to Australia in 1886, and she spent her childhood in Melbourne and Launceston.

Prichard worked as a journalist, and travelled to London in 1908, where she was struck by the social inequality. In 1915 her first published novel, The Pioneers, won the Hodder & Stoughton All Empire Novel Competition, which enabled her return to Australia to write ‘about Australia and the realities of life for the Australian people’.

In 1919 she married war veteran Hugo Throssell VC and they moved to Perth, where their son, Ric Throssell, was born in 1922.

Prichard is the author of thirteen novels, among them Working Bullocks (1926), Coonardoo (1929), Haxby’s Circus (1930) and Winged Seeds (1950). She was a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia, and remained a member until her death. After her husband’s suicide, she threw herself into political work. She died in 1969, aged eighty-six.

KATHARINE

SUSANNAH

PRICHARD

Golden Miles

This edition published by Allen & Unwin House of Books in 2012 First published by the Australasian Publishing Company by arrangement with Jonathan Cape in 1948

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The dreamers wait. What can the spirit urge

Against the madness of this sorry day?

How can the timid form of Peace emerge

Unless the marshals let the dreamers say?

And they are few and most forsaken, Lord,

Who slaved and suffered for their human hope,

Though Thou shalt give the martyrs to the sword,

Preserve the future from the hangman’s rope!

Preserve for us, O God, the voice of those

Who, towering o’er the tempest, speak not yet

With audibility, the battle throws

Their protest back against their faces, wet

With tears of helplessness and huge regret.

Preserve them for the moment when their word

Above the ruinous carnage may be heard.

The Roaring Nineties was set in the prospecting days of the goldfields of Western Australia. Golden Miles belongs to the period when the mining industry had been established. This part of the story of Dinny Quin and Sally Gough moves from 1914 to 1927.

Every care has been taken to use fictitious names for the many characters associated with their story; and it is not intended that any individual should be identified with them.

Lal’s letters are the authentic letters of a young soldier who took part in the Gallipoli campaign.

Again, I wish to express appreciation for the sources of information made available to me by old prospectors, and the records of early writers, particularly those of Sir John Kirwin, whose books contain so much valuable material on development of the goldfields.

CHAPTER I

AN old rattletrap, drawn by a pair of rough-haired horses, crawled over the bare flat under a dim blue sky. Red dust stirred by the horses’ feet, half hid the buggy and the woman sitting on the front seat driving the horses.

Two or three times a month, she came like this on Sunday morning from that far edge of bush under haze, across the flat, and drove along the back streets among miners’ shacks and houses scattered along the Boulder road. It had been a dry winter: keen and frosty in the early morning but blazing with sunshine all day.

As Mrs. Gough hung out the boys’ shirts and working trousers which she always had to wash on a Sunday morning, she watched the buggy approach and disappear among the small, white-roofed wooden houses and humpies of rusty tin and bagging pressed close together and cluttering the flat.

She recognised that buggy which came in from the bush beyond the Salt Lake where Fred Cairns had a show; and knew the woman driving it was Maritana. Maritana, the half-caste, she was being called now. It was said Fred Cairns had married her. At any rate they had a swarm of youngsters, a herd of goats and a few hens running wild round their camp. Maritana was supposed to be selling eggs and plucked poultry when she drove round the Boulder on a Sunday morning. That she bought more than she sold was well known: in fact that Maritana was the gatherer and go-between for a gang which dealt in stolen gold.

Whom she worked for nobody knew, or how Fred Cairns passed on the gold Maritana collected. It was rumoured that the Big Four were behind Fred and his deals. Men who passed on a bit of ore to Maritana gained a certain amount of confidence from the idea. Nobody could name the Big Four, although it was said they were influential and respectable citizens who would, and did, protect their agents.

Since the Gold Stealing Commission had made its report more care was being exercised in transactions between those who had gold to sell and those who disposed of it. The detective staff employed by the mine owners had been increased and there had been several convictions lately. Under the new Gold Buyers Licensing Act heavy penalties could be exacted from persons found in possession of gold, or gold-bearing ore, ‘reasonably suspected of being stolen or unlawfully obtained’.

All this Mrs. Gough knew, and all this she was turning over in her mind when the buggy pulled up at the back gate of her boarding-house. As the mother of four sons, although only two of them were working on the mines, Sally Gough was perturbed by Maritana’s visits to her place. Of course Maritana came to see Paddy Cavan. Dick and Tom had nothing to do with Paddy, or any snide business he might be carrying on, their mother was sure; but she had just realised that it was not good enough to allow Paddy to use her house for his business.

She had worked too hard: struggled for years to give Dick his chance to study geology and metallurgy. Now, when he had got a job as assistant assayer on the Boulder Reef, nothing must be allowed to interfere with his prospects. Besides, Mrs. Gough reminded herself, she and Morris had always maintained a standard of honest and decent living for their sons. She was not going to allow that to be lowered by Paddy Cavan and his traffic in stolen gold, as it would be if her house were raided—though it would be a pity to lose Paddy as a boarder at present.

‘The cops won’t get me,’ Maritana replied, with a short, husky laugh. ‘Not unless they get a good many others, too.’

She got down from the buggy, opened the back gate and came into the yard carrying an empty sugar bag. Through the goat pen, and past the plots of the wilting vegetable garden, she walked slowly towards Mrs. Gough.

‘He is,’ Mrs. Gough said dryly. ‘And expecting you as usual, I suppose, Maritana.’

Maritana walked on towards the house. There was sulky defiance in the swing and stride of her spare, shabby figure.

Who would have recognised in her the wild, shy aboriginal girl she had once known, Mrs. Gough thought. Maritana had become a tall, scraggy woman, with skin like dirty brown paper, sagging on her high cheek bones. Her brown eyes had a shrewd glint, her wide mouth had become thin and hard. A sour expression lingered about it as though Maritana had tasted something vile and could not recover from the effect.

Maritana’s gurgle of amusement was cut short as Paddy opened the door of his room. Mrs. Gough could see him standing in the doorway as if he had just dragged on his shirt and trousers. His gingery mop of hair was on end and his chin unshaven. Maritana went into his room and Paddy shut the door.

Maritana was not there very long. When she walked back along the verandah and across the yard the sugar bag she was carrying had become bulkier: weighed more heavily on her shoulders.

‘Good day, Missus Sally,’ she remarked, with a sly, flitting smile as she passed.

‘You’re a fool to think you can get away with this game much longer, Maritana!’ Mrs. Gough exclaimed. ‘It’s not worth the risk. Why doesn’t your husband do his own dirty work?’

‘I been a fool all my life,’ Maritana said grimly. ‘But this time I’m gettin’ my cut. So there’s no need to worry.’

She went to the gate, opened and shut it, unbuckled a strap round the buggy wheels and climbed on to her seat.

‘You’d ought to see you do, too, Missus Sally,’ she called, and drove off.

Mrs. Gough’s blood flamed. She left the wet clothes in their box in the yard, and almost ran across the yard and along the verandah to Paddy’s room.

‘See here, Paddy,’ she cried, furiously, walking right in on him as he sat at a table entering up figures in an account book, ‘it’s no business of mine how you make money, but I won’t have Maritana coming here on a Sunday morning! The very dogs are barking what she’s after. And she’ll be caught one of these days, as sure as God made little apples.’

‘Now, now, ma’am,’ said Paddy, ‘y’r don’t have to worry about that.’

‘It’s all very well for you to say so,’ Sally declared impatiently. ‘You don’t have to tell me you’ve got a pull with the police, Paddy Cavan. There’s a good many of them in the racket with the Big Four, everybody knows. But Dinny Quin was saying, only the other day, the mine owners are sorer than ever about losses on the mines; and are talking about a big clean up. Well, my house isn’t going to be in it. I won’t have you bringing snide gold here and getting me raided.’

‘God, mum, you don’t think I’d do that? It’s ten years since I worked underground meself. If a man comes to me with a bit of stuff sometimes and asks me to help him get rid of it, well y’ can’t blame me, can yer?’

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ Sally demanded, ‘that other men in this house are bringing you gold?’

Mrs. Gough’s mind skipped to the boarders who occupied the bunk-house on the far side of the yard.

‘My own two boys and Dinny Quin. If it’s the Greeks, or Bill Dally who are passing stuff on to you, they’ve got to stop, or clear out.’

‘Morris!’ Mrs. Gough gasped. ‘Now, look here, Paddy Cavan, if you think I don’t know my own husband well enough to be sure he wouldn’t get mixed up in this business, you’re greatly mistaken.’

‘Take it easy, missus,’ Paddy chuckled. ‘I didn’t say Morrey was in the gold. I was merely remindin’ you that Morrey’s a member of this household, when y’ were goin’ over ’em. The master of it, in a manner of speakin’, though you do wear the pants.’

‘None of your cheek, Paddy Cavan!’ Mrs. Gough exclaimed wrathfully. ‘If you have made money and got on in the world—how is best known to yourself—you can’t bluff me. I’m not going to have my house get a bad name, and ruin my boys’ future, for you or anybody like you.’

‘’Course y’re not, ma’am,’ Paddy was all placatory guile. ‘But your house isn’t goin’ to get a bad name through me. On the other hand, I might be able to help you—if ever the boys get into a bit of trouble.’

‘That’s all very well, Paddy,’ she said. ‘I don’t doubt you’re in with the gang of crooks who are running this town at present. I’m not. But I want none of your protection or theirs. My boarding-house has been a decent, homely place for any man who knows how to behave himself. If you, or anybody else, wants to stow stolen gold here, you can get. That’s flat and I mean it.’

‘If everybody in the house who’s brought me a bit of gold cleared out, y’d be lonesome, missus.’

‘I’m not sayin’ anything—givin’ anybody away,’ Paddy replied doggedly. ‘But if y’ mean it, y’ll have more rooms than mine to let next week. And y’ know things aren’t so good now, as they were a year or so ago. Kal was boomin’ when I came to board here. But it looks as if we were in for another slump. There’s a lot of men unemployed already, and it’s goin’ to be hard gettin’ boarders who can pay reg’lar and on the spot.’

‘Look here, ma’am,’ Paddy argued, ‘y’re a sensible woman. What in the name-er-blazes are y’ carryin’ on like this for? You know the fields. You know well enough nobody blames a man workin’ underground for takin’ a bit of his, now and then. Miners’ privilege, and all that. Isn’t that what the mine owners themselves say? And y’ know as well as I do the prosperity of this town depends on the money in circulation here, and that comes from the gold sold on the spot. Not from production figures of the mines and dividends that go overseas.’

‘I know all that,’ Sally said obstinately. ‘All I say is, Morris and I’ve never had anything to do with the snide business. My boys’ve been brought up to run straight, and I won’t have their chances in life ruined for the sake of a few bob I make on your board, Paddy.’

‘Meaning Dick, chiefly,’ Mrs. Gough agreed. ‘He’s got a good job in the assay room on the Boulder Reef, and I haven’t slaved all these years to give him a chance . . .’

Mrs. Gough’s head lifted and her eyes flashed. ‘All I’ve ever wanted was to give Dick a chance to earn a decent living.’

‘Tom’s different,’ Mrs. Gough defended herself. ‘Tom’s physically stronger for one thing, and he refuses to be anything but a miner. Do you think I didn’t want him to study and go to college, too? But Tom had only one idea in his head. To get into the mines and be earning a man’s wages, as soon as possible.’

‘Give his mother a hand keepin’ the family and the old man, to say nothing of helpin’ Dick through the School of Mines and the university. . . .’

‘Tom’s a good boy, Paddy,’ his mother agreed. ‘There was never a better. You don’t have to tell me that. But Dick’s got the brains of the family, and we’ve all done what we could for him.’

‘Brains?’ Paddy sneered. ‘He’s a good-looking young waster. Tom’s worth a dozen of him, if y’ ask me.’

‘I don’t,’ Mrs. Gough snapped. She wondered why she was talking about her sons to Paddy Cavan. It was a waste of time; but she could so easily be drawn into talking about them, her dear boys. Her mind was always full of them, particularly Dick. Her thoughts revolved round their doings and needs: what they said, and how they were getting on in their work. She never ceased to marvel at the differences of character, physique and mentality between them.

It seemed strange that she and Morris should have children who were so unlike themselves and each other; and yet, in each of the boys, some trait of their parents had been repeated and intensified. Sally realised this sometimes with a flicker of amusement and a twinge of anxiety. But it annoyed her to have been drawn into discussing Dick and Tom with Paddy this morning.

She had so much to do. The midday dinner must not be late. A savoury odour of meat roasting in the kitchen oven was wafted to her: her ear caught the frizzle of fat round it. She wondered whether the joint was cooking too fast. And there were wet clothes still in her basket in the yard. They must be hung out and the table set for dinner. She had no time to waste arguing with Paddy. But this matter of Paddy’s deals with Maritana had to be settled; and it was a good time to settle it, before the boys came back from their swim in the new pool, and the men started to hang about for their dinner.

Mrs. Gough knew well enough why Paddy had spoken slightingly of Dick. Why there was always a surly resentment in his attitude towards Dick. He could never forgive Dick for having qualities which he himself would never possess. He was so good looking and lovable, her Dick, Mrs. Gough told herself. Irresponsible and a little selfish, perhaps in an unconscious, ingrained way; but so generous and devoted to her and his brothers, that they thought the world of him.

Sometimes Sally wondered whether she had been right to send Dick to a public school in Adelaide where the mine managers sent their sons, while Tom and Lal had grown up on the fields with nothing but a state school education, and a knowledge of the surroundings and men they would have to work among. Of course, she had hoped to send each of the boys for a few years to Prince Alfred’s. Dick had thoroughly enjoyed his days at school there, and come home with the manners and confidence which made him a most presentable young man now.

And there was Amy. That, above all, was why Paddy Cavan had a grouch against Dick. Amy and Dick had gone about together since they were children. They had always been sweethearts, although as Amy grew up and Dick was still studying, or away in Sydney with Mr. de Morfé, Amy had flirted with innumerable men, young and old. She was a bright, birdlike little creature, restless and wilful, but guileless: flitted about, enjoying any sort of diversion which came her way—until Dick appeared on the scene again. Then there had been no one but Dick with whom she wanted to ride, dance or play tennis. Everybody knew it and laughed about a love affair, so naïve and destined to end in the happy marriage of the young couple. Now Dick had a job, their engagement had been announced, and they were talking of being married soon.

There was only one person to whom this news would not be pleasing. And that was Paddy Cavan.

Mrs. Gough could not imagine why he had ever flattered himself he had any hope of capturing Amy. Yet Paddy had done his best when Dick was away to win a place in Amy’s good graces. He had sent her flowers and boxes of chocolates: given her a lovely little chestnut mare, even. That was supposed to be the basis of Amy’s toleration of him. She had gobbled his chocolates, ridden his horse, made fun of and laughed at Paddy, until Paddy was beside himself with desire for her.

He had approached Laura with a proposal of marriage when Amy was only eighteen, Dick still at the School of Mines.

‘Don’t be a fool, Paddy,’ Laura said. ‘It’s out of the question. You’re nearly thirty, fat and going bald. Amy would never think of it.’

‘I’m not much to look at, ma’am,’ Paddy protested. ‘But I’m well in. Amy’d have all the money she wants and we’d live in style. Up here, because y’ know all about me, y’ can’t see the difference between Mr. Patrick Cavan and Paddy Cavan who came up on the track with the first team to Coolgardie. But in Perth I go about with all the toffs, dine with directors and their wives and daughters. There’s nothing like mixing with that mob to polish up y’r manners. Amy wouldn’t be ashamed of me, if . . .’

‘P’raps not,’ Laura admitted impatiently. ‘But it’s no use thinking of such a thing. Amy’s in love with Dick Gough, and he is with her. It’s always been understood they’ll be married some day.’

Amy had laughed at the absurdity of the idea when her mother told her about it. She laughed, even more lightheartedly when Paddy attempted to make love to her. She was quite accustomed to men making love to her and wanting to marry her. Paddy’s devotion was just something Amy took for granted and made use of when it suited her. . . .

‘Besides,’ Sally was pleased at the thought of wiping that smug complacency off Paddy’s face, ‘Dick and Amy have made up their minds to be married before the end of the year, so I’m not going to risk having any unpleasantness interfere with their wedding.’

Paddy sat a moment with his lower lip thrust out, his heavy, still youthful face, sullen and brooding. This passion for Amy was the one thing which had ever caused Paddy Cavan to spend a moment’s thought on anything but the achievement of his purpose. That was, as everybody knew, to be a rich and influential man, as soon as possible, and at all costs.

He had battled along from the time he was a kid on the fields, with good humour and hardihood: shrewd and unscrupulous, but likeable enough in personal relations. Now that he had made his way, held big interests in mines all over the field, people were beginning to talk of him as a coming man, respect his perspicacity in mining affairs and seek his advice. If it was hinted that his affluence owed something to the illicit traffic in gold and its ramifications throughout the mining industry, nobody cared to produce any facts which might embarrass Mr. Cavan. Paddy was well protected by the mining companies he represented and by the mine managers with whom he associated.

Mrs. Gough had been amused by his bluff and bluster, and the blarney with which he had overcome her reluctance to let him become one of her boarders. She had never been able to take Paddy at his own valuation, as a man of importance in mining affairs. To-day, for the first time she saw the power in that heavy head and stocky figure: realised the dynamic will dominating them. She thought, apprehensively, that Paddy Cavan would stop at nothing to gain his ends. But a girl’s first love he could not buy up like stock on the share market. Amy’s at any rate. That he would not get, Sally assured herself. Amy was in love with Dick. Romantically, hot-headedly in love with Dick. She wanted to marry him despite the fact that Dick’s salary barely kept him in clothes and cigarettes, and that Dick, himself, would rather have waited until he had a better income.

His mother was dismayed at the prospect of Dick having to undertake the responsibilities of a home of his own while he was still so young and had such a small salary. But Laura, it seemed, agreed with Amy that she and Dick might as well be married, as remain engaged for a long time, or until he got a better position.

Conscious of having betrayed himself to Mrs. Gough, Paddy threw off his despondency.

‘Oh, well, there’s as many good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, they say,’ he remarked. ‘And a good fisherman knows how to catch ’em. I’d not be wishing to embarrass ye with me presence, ma’am, if y’ mean what y’ve been sayin’ about a small business transaction to oblige old mates, now and them.’

‘I mean it.’ Sally stuck to her guns though her heart sank. ‘I won’t have this sort of business transacted in my house.’

‘Right!’ Paddy’s blue eyes were cold and hard. ‘I’ll vacate my room at the end of the week, by y’r leave, ma’am.’

‘That’ll suit me. Since Dick came home I’ve been wanting this room for him, anyhow,’ Sally said.

She turned away, conscious of having offended Paddy, aroused his ill will and an ugly resentment by her action. Had she done right, she asked herself, anxiously. Perhaps she should have talked the matter over with Morris and Dinny before saying anything to Paddy. She intended to do so after Maritana’s last visit; but had put off making up her mind about it. This morning, what with the men calling to Maritana as she drew up at the gate, and Maritana’s own jibe as she drove off, the whole object of Maritana’s visit had been too flagrant to ignore. Sally told herself that a presentiment of danger swept over her. She had acted on impulse, knowing how easily Tom or Dick might be implicated if attention of the gold stealing detective staff were drawn to Maritana’s visits on a Sunday morning.

She rushed into the kitchen to see that the meat and pumpkin and potatoes were not burning, turned them, and moved aside the apples simmering on the stove for an apple pie. She was just going back to the yard to finish hanging out her washing when Bill Dally called:

It was the sort of thing that would happen when she was behind with everything and so worried, Sally exclaimed to herself. Everything was going wrong, this morning.

The gust of wind which had skirled through the yard in a spiral of red dust was scurrying away over the flat as she went across the yard. It had done all the damage it could, loosened the crazy prop which supported her clothes-line, and flung the wet clothes in the dust. Sally picked them up, swearing in a way that made Bill glance at her lazily as he sat on the step of the bunk-house, reading the racing news.

‘It’s all very well for you to sit there, grinning, Bill Dally,’ Sally said crossly. ‘If you’d grabbed the clothes and taken them off the line into the wash-house when you saw the dust coming, it wouldn’t’ve hurt you.’

‘For Chris-sakes, missus,’ Bill demurred, ‘how did I know a puff of wind and a bit of dust was going to send y’r prop flyin’?’

Sally gathered up her dust-raddled clothes. Irritated and dishevelled, she stood a moment looking towards the road where a car had drawn up in front of the house. Who on earth could be coming to see her at this hour of the morning? She made a dash for the wash-house, dropped her armful of dirty clothes into one of the troughs, and went back to the yard, trying to tidy her hair.

‘Anybody at home?’ a gay mocking voice called. ‘We knocked and couldn’t make anyone hear.’

It was Frisco who strode into the yard, debonair and well-groomed, in English tweeds and a hard hat. The girl with him was fair and golden-haired. Her white-clad figure, white gloves and shoes, made Sally conscious of her bedraggled appearance, down-at-heel slippers, and dirty apron; but she stiffened to a protective dignity and her eyes met Frisco’s with a challenging smile.

‘Arrived last night,’ Frisco explained, deriding them. ‘On my honeymoon, you might say! May I introduce my wife? Sylvia, Mrs. Morris Fitz-Morris Gough.’

Sally knew Frisco’s first wife had died in child-birth: she had not heard of his second marriage.

Her eyes sparkled with anger because Frisco seemed delighted to have caught her at a disadvantage; but she contrived to say in her naturally friendly and charming manner:

‘I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. de Morfé. Will you come in? It’s such a hot morning, and your husband knows our free and easy way on the goldfields. We usually have a cup of tea at this time.’

‘No, no!’ Frisco blustered, determined not to let Mrs. Gough overcome her discomfiture. ‘As a matter of fact it was Paddy Cavan we came to see. A little business I have to fix up with him. Is Paddy in?’

‘You’ll find him in his room: first door on the verandah,’ Mrs. Gough replied easily, and turned again to her washing.

She lifted the box of dust-spattered clothes at her feet and carried it over to the wash-house, while Mr. de Morfé and his bride made their way along the path to the verandah where a vine spread its green leaves in the sunshine.

CHAPTER II

MRS. GOUGH could remember every detail of what happened in the months that followed her row with Paddy. And so could Dinny Quin. It was a date in their minds around which many reminiscences revolved, and from which disaster had flowed.

That very morning, while Sally was having it out with Paddy, Dinny and Bill were tramping along the Boulder road.

‘Well, there it is, the Golden Mile, the richest square mile of gold-bearin’ ground in the world, they say, Bill!’

Dinny stood on the dusty road, looking back towards the Boulder ridge, and the ramshackle township stretching out from it over bare, red earth.

Bill Gerrity, the man beside him better known as Bill Jehosophat in the old days, stared at the torn back of the ridge, the high peaks of dumps round the big mines; slimes solidified into barren sierras, grey, tawny, umber and purple: the sheds and scantlings of mine buildings, batteries, treatment plants, cluttered beside them: the forest of poppet legs and sky shafts cut against blue of the sky: the tall black chimneys sending yellow fumes drifting across the township and into the distance. Nearby shacks of rusty tin and bagging were scattered between abandoned shafts and heaps of rubble, merging with the white-washed, dust-raddled houses packed as close as in a city slum, far out over the plain.

It was a foreign landscape, blasted and sinister, to Bill Gerrity who was visiting the goldfields after an absence of twelve years.

‘Great jumping Jehosaphat, Dinny,’ he gasped, ‘I can scarcely believe me eyes. When Paddy Hannan picked up a handful of slugs over there be Maritana, and we pegged alongside of him, it was all thick bush between the camps and this end of the ridge. Now, it’s bare as a desert, not a tree or skerek of scrub left.’

Dinny grinned. ‘First time y’ve mentioned Jehosaphat since y’ arrived, Bill.’

‘The wife reckons it’s swearin’,’ Bill apologised, a trifle sheepishly. ‘And I’m supposed to be a reformed character. But, hell, I’ve been achin’ for a sight of this country, Dinny, and a yarn with old mates! Sometimes, I reckon it was a mistake to’ve cleared out when Speck and me sold our show on the Wealth of Nations rush. Thought I was doin’ the right thing goin’ home to see my folks in Victoria. Got run into buyin’ land and sheep, somehow—and gettin’ married. But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be settlin’ down. What with sheep and a family, a man feels as if he had the worries of the world on his shoulders. I’d give a lot to chuck it all and go off prospectin’ with you, Dinny.’

‘Go on, Bill,’ Dinny replied, pleased all the same to hear Bill talking like that. ‘A man’s got to settle down sometime, and the goldfields is no place to do it. Things aren’t like they used to be. Hundreds of prospectors workin’ on the mines for a crust.’

Bill looked prosperous but care-worn. He had put on flesh: wore his new slop suit of grey tweed and felt hat, with some satisfaction, but had lost the zest and gay recklessness of the days when he was battling for gold. He wished he could have changed into a pair of working trousers and an old shirt to go round the mines with Dinny. But his wife was waiting for him at the hotel, and would not have approved of his doing that.

Seeing Dinny, limping beside him, in worn moles and a flannel shirt, as game and lively as he had been when they swamped along with the first team for Coolgardie in ’92, made Bill feel that Dinny had had the best of things, just jogging along as he pleased, while he, Bill Jehosaphat, had tried to turn himself into a successful sheep-farmer, and the sober and respectable father of a large family. Deep lines creased the leather of Dinny’s face, but there was content and a tranquil happiness in the smile of his far-sighted eyes, faded to pale blue of the summer sky, though they were, and his hair turning grey.

Dinny had got the things he valued most, here, in his life on the fields, Bill surmised. He, himself, had lost them through reaching out after something he thought he ought to have; but had not particularly wanted, except as a demonstration to himself that a man could put his money to good use, and take on obligations if he chose. He still felt he had been right to pull out of the old spendthrift, free and easy way of life, though he hankered after it. Having proved his ability to wrestle with all those other propositions: ‘make good’ as his parents and Phoebe had never thought he would, he was inclined now to consider himself entitled to do as he pleased. Give up the everlasting worry of sheep, sell the station, or leave Phoebe to manage it and the children; and come back to live, lousing on the dumps round the mines, or prospecting out in the back country like any old hatter. That would be happiness for him, Bill thought. Happiest years of his life had been spent chasing rushes between the limitless horizons of this sun-blasted country.

‘It’s the sulphur fumes from the treatment plants killed off the native vegetation.’ Dinny said. ‘Modest Maryanski was right when he said telluride would give the mines a new lease of life. That, and solution of the sulphide bugbear—but we got the blasted fumes. Kal was boomin’ for half a dozen years after the slump in ’98. Frisco—Mr. de Morfé—beggin’ his pardon, and the London stock-jobbers made fortunes. The place went along like a house afire for a while. But things are lookin’ bad again now. They say the big mines are played out. Don’t believe it, meself.

‘Look at ’em! There, in the foreground. The old Iron Duke and the Croesus, Brown Hill over yonder: behind ’em the Kalgoorlie, North and South, and Midas, the Australia and Oroya. Along the ridge the Great Boulder, Boulder Reef, Perseverance, Ivanhoe, Golden Horseshoe, Lake View.’

‘By 1910, the Boulder mines had turned out £ 46,000,000 worth of gold.’ Dinny stoked the ashes in the bowl of his pipe and lighted up. ‘Underground there’s miles of workin’s. A hundred and twenty miles of drives and crosscuts on ten of ’em. Y’ could walk through six or eight miles on the Great Boulder when the mainshaft was down only two thousand seven hundred feet. But it’s not much to look at, the Golden Mile. Precious little the people who live here’ve got out of all the wealth the mines’ve produced. The mining companies haven’t spent a penny to make up for the way they’ve laid waste the country side. Any comforts of civilisation we’ve got, in Boulder City and Kalgoorlie, the people’ve paid for, and the mine’ve got the benefit of ’em: the railway, water supply and electric light. Miners’re still livin’ in those rotten humpies of rusty tin and bagging on Ding Bat flat. Did y’r ever see a more dreary, poverty-stricken lookin’ place?’

‘Can’t say I ever have,’ Bill admitted. ‘And when W. G. Brookman, Charley de Rose and Sam Pearce pegged on the ridge, we used to call it their sheep farm. Nobody thought they’d ever get payable gold there. Remember, Dinny?’

‘But Sam Pearce was a good prospector,’ Bill went on. ‘He told me himself, he tested every lease before they applied for it: got gold from all his borings in the country rock. So between ’em, he and his mates held forty acres when they struck it rich on the Great Boulder.’

‘Struck it rich!’ Dinny exclaimed. ‘You bet they did. There was fifteen men in the syndicate backing Brookman and Pearce, in the first place, and they had a workin’ capital of £ 150. When the shareholders met and went into liquidation, four years later, they owned nine of the biggest mines on the Golden Mile, and had a dominatin’ interest in others. The capital value of their holdings was round about £ 30,000,000, and they cut up over £ 13,000,000 in cash and dividends. Can y’ beat it?’

Dinny turned his back on the mines. Bill wanted to have a look at a claim he had once pegged on the far side of Cassidy’s Hill, so they walked on along the Boulder road towards Kalgoorlie. It was a day of blazing sunshine and frail blue skies. The corrugated iron roofs of houses on the flat seemed to be quivering in the heat. Bill took off his coat, sweating and breathing hard. Dinny plugged along serenely. Hundreds in the shade meant nothing to him, and there was no shade on the Boulder road. When they had cut off to the right, across rising stony ground, and located Bill’s claim, Bill was glad to drop down and rest for awhile on the hillside.

‘It was during the last slump I went east,’ he mused. ‘There was talk of the oxidised ore peterin’ out and Kalgoorlie becomin’ as dead as the old camp. Queer how Coolgardie’s never come again, and Kalgoorlie and Boulder’ve grown like this.’

He was gazing over the scattered encampment of the two cities, spreading for four miles over the plain under shimmering haze towards Boulder, and away for two or three miles beyond Kalgoorlie, towards the North End. Sudden puffs of dust rose and skirled on a stretch of bare, sun-baked red earth behind the most distant houses, and a dingy line of scrub still clung to the far horizon. Mt. Burgess rose above it, blue and remote.

‘Comin’ of the water gave the mines a new lease of life as much as anything,’ Dinny said. ‘With plenty of water to simplify the treatment of sulphide ore, and reduce costs, and with the railway bringin’ machinery up from the coast, Kalgoorlie was on the upgrade again, in no time.’

‘Must’ve been a great day when that “river of pure water” Sir John promised, started to flow through the fields?’

‘It was a great day, all right.’ Dinny’s grin flickered. ‘Some of us old timers was celebratin’ for a week. We forgave John Forrest a lot on account of the water. And the women went near crazy with joy. Y’d’ve thought it was a miracle’d happened when water started to gush from the taps in their kitchens and bathrooms.’

‘Nat Harper suggested the scheme at a dinner in Kanowna, the boys tell me,’ Bill interrupted. ‘And got laughed at for his pains.’

‘It was a “fantastic dream” to think of bringin’ water from the Darling Ranges to the goldfields, most of the hard heads said,’ Dinny burbled happily. ‘But some of us wanted the water so bad, we was willin’ to dream it could be done.

‘C. Y. O’Connor, the government engineer, was a great man: worked out the plans for pumpin’ stations and three hundred and twenty-five miles of pipe line to bring the water from the Helena River to a reservoir on Mount Charlotte—though he never lived to see the dream come true. Was badgered to death by one of the newspapers and some of the mine managers here, who said the scheme was doomed to failure. But the water came, millions of gallons of fresh water. There it is, flowin’ into the reservoir every day.

‘We’ve got a park in Kalgoorlie planted with trees, now; and lawns where the sprinklers go for hours, keepin’ the place green. And a swimmin’ pool in the same street. The boys rush it on Saturdays and Sundays: packed like sardines they are, with scarcely room to splash in. It’s a great place for a bath on a hot day when y’ haven’t got one of y’r own.’

‘And you’ve run a loop line from the main railway station out to Boulder, I see. Got trams on the roads, and suburbs of villa residences and bungalows at Mullingar and Lamington Heights: electric light in the streets and the houses. S’truth, Dinny, if I hadn’t seen it with me own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Things started to move after the water came, like I told you,’ Dinny said. ‘It was the peak year in 1906. New pubs, shops and houses goin’ up everywhere. But there were rumours of another slump brewin’ and some of us began to feel uneasy. The mine owners talked of payable ore givin’ out—though over-capitalisation of the mines was the real trouble.

‘There were more than five thousand men workin’ on the mines then, and it was plain as the nose on y’r face the slump was goin’ to have pretty serious consequences. More serious than when there was a good bit of alluvial gold about. The alluvial was worked out and hundreds of alluvial men were workin’ on the mines for wages. But wages didn’t keep pace with the big profits the mining companies had been makin’, and of course a workin’ miner thinks he’s entitled to take up a few specimens, now and then.’

‘Don’t blame him,’ Bill drawled, remembering he had been a working miner, himself, before the rush to Coolgardie.

‘Not on the fields, we don’t, ‘t any rate,’ Dinny grinned. ‘The money put into circulation by, what the law calls, “the illicit traffic in gold”, helps to keep things flourishin’ here. But the business life of the place depends on the mines: on the miners bein’ able to pay their way. The gold-mining industry’s got a strangle-hold of Kalgoorlie.

‘There’s been some record returns from high grade ore—like when the Lake View turned out a ton of gold a month. Six thousand four hundred tons of telluride ore made over three-quarters of a million sterling in a few months. Most of it went overseas, of course. But when the mining companies’d been tearin’ the guts out of the mines for three or four years, profits began to fall. They looked round for something to make a dust up over, till they could clear themselves and unload stock. The Gold Stealing Commission was just what they wanted.’

‘There was a bit of fun, all right,’ Dinny agreed, ‘like as if you’d stirred up an ants’ nest with a big stick. All the boys were scurryin’ to get rid of any stuff they might have lyin’ about. But it was the gold buyers and big boys in the racket got the wind up most of all.

‘The fat was in the fire when a journalist named Jack Scantlebury, havin’ a look round for English investors, said in an article to the newspapers that hundreds of thousands of pounds was being lost by shareholders, through gold stealin’ on the mines. Detective Sergeant Kavanagh and a staff of dees were sent up to investigate. Kavanagh reported that gold stealin’ was being carried on to “an enormous extent”. So a royal commission was set up “to inquire into the allegations”.’

Dinny laughed as he thought of it. He had a lot of yarns about gold stealing, and the tricks miners played in order to get away with a bit of rich ore.

‘Before the Commission started taking evidence, The Kalgoorlie Treatment Company’s plant closed over night,’ he went on. ‘Every man and boy who had anything to do with it disappeared. And several well-known and respectable citizens had urgent business elsewhere.

‘It was well known some of the buyers had dummy mines, and plants alongside, in which they treated any gold comin’ into their hands. Others were sendin’ concentrates to the Eastern States for treatment. But from beginning to end of the inquiry, there wasn’t a tittle of evidence to prove where the gold came from, bein’ treated in these plants. Gold sold to the banks, smelted bullion, gives no indication of its origin, and if it’s supposed to come from a mine that’s been worked out, the bankers can’t be expected to know. In some cases, monthly returns were bein’ made to the mining registrar of gold from leases which didn’t exist. By the way, Tassy was called to give information to the Commission, about the gold he’d been sellin’ to one of the banks.’

‘Himself,’ Dinny chortled, and went on to describe how in his own wily and witty way, Tassy had been evading a direct answer to awkward questions, all the morning, when he was forced at last to say precisely where his gold was obtained.

‘“Why, haven’t I been tellin’ y’r Honour for the past hour,” he said. “I been workin’ a good patch in me mine for a year of more. Mind, I don’t say she was a jeweller’s shop—and she’s jest about worked out now. But as I was sayin’ to me mate, the other day, she was as rich a patch as I’ve seen in all me born days, and I’ve seen plenty—in the old Brown Hill, and . . .”

‘“To be sure now, it’s called the Hard-to-Find,” said Tassy, and launched into a rambling description of the whereabouts of his mine.

‘A detective was deputed to go with Tassy and inspect the mine. Tassy led him by rough and round-about tracks to an abandoned shaft away out in the bush.

‘The detective was all for doin’ his duty and makin’ an attempt to descend by a rotten ladder, hangin’ into black depths of the shaft.

‘“It’s dangerous, I tell ye,” Tassy assured him. “A bit of rock, or something might fall on ye.”

‘The detective took the hint. He didn’t try to examine the workin’s of the abandoned shaft: returned and reported to the Commissioner that he’d inspected the Hard-to-Find mine, and that Mr. Regan’s account of it was substantially correct. It certainly was “hard to find”.’

‘The Commissioner’s report did one thing. It emphasised the fact that though gold stealing was bein’ carried on, on an extensive scale, “the odd specimens secured by working miners would not account for more than a small portion of it, and that the bulk of the thefts are not from underground”.

‘Detective Sergeant Kavanagh himself said: “I do not regard the miner as the greatest sinner. In my opinion, and I base it on very good grounds, persons in much higher positions where the facilities are greater, get away with much more and both have to depend on the receiver for their reward.” Under cross examination, Kavanagh explained he referred to men in the position of—well, assayers or amalgamators, and people who deal with the gold after it comes up on top.’

‘“It struck me that managers of the mines of the large incorporated companies, are of the opinion that most of whatever is taken, is from below. Whereas the managers of mines where the ore is of lower grade, think most of what is stolen is taken from the treatment plant in the shape of gold amalgam and zinc slimes from the precipitation boxes.”’

Dinny thought the Commission had done a good job. It had put the blame for gold stealing, on a large scale, where it belonged. There were some instances of men shipping concentrates from small privately owned treatment plants, not connected with mining leases, and netting proceeds of £ 10,000 to £ 12,000 a year.

Recommendations for tightening up the law in relation to gold stealing had been put into effect.

‘Sales of gold bullion became illegal except to, or by, a licensed gold dealer on his licensed premises,’ Dinny said. ‘Though alluvial could still be freely bought and sold.’

But, he told Bill, there was a good deal of dissatisfaction with a clause in the Amended Police Act which stated: “Any person who is charged before a magistrate with having on his person, or on any animal, or in any cart, or other vehicle, or in his possession on any premises of which he is the tenant or occupier, any gold reasonably suspected of being stolen or unlawfully obtained, is liable to summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £ 50, or to imprisonment with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding six months.”

‘This clause makes it possible for a man wantin’ to work off a grudge against another to plant a bit of stolen gold on him, and arouse the dee’s suspicions as to where it may be found. It’s happened, two or three times, and a decent bloke has taken the knock.’

Phone:	(61 2) 8425 0100
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KATHARINE

SUSANNAH

PRICHARD

Golden Miles

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II