NATURAL CAUSES

Grey River Argus, 1 March 1928, Page 5

NATURAL CAUSES

A TALE OF THE WEST COAST. (By Edward G. Guy.) The wharf reeled under the feet of Wu Hoy. the canvas tents and tin shanties of the fledgling gold town of Hokiitka danced crazy steps before his aching eyes. For Wu Hoy had been fearfully seasick —he was in fact still seasick. The trip down the storm swept West Coast in the little three masted schooner “Stormgull” had been nine days of foodless, retching, rolling hell. Stowed away in his blanket in the reeking hold, Wu Hoy had suffered the tortures of the damned. His mind was numbed, fear in his soul.

Smells! Bilge, tar, stale food, per spiring humans.

Noise’ Yelling, ribald be-whiskered. diggers from the Victorian gold fields, clattering loose articles, swish and boom of rollers advancing, gurgle and gasp of the bilge as the ship sunk in the trough. Nine days, but it had seemed eternity. Wu Hoy had tried to be-wile the time with dreams—he had failed. Always the dreams, retreated and vanished before the lurching of the ship that set his brain reeling and his stomach in violent 'revolt.

But now it was over, and he felt his senses quickening and his desires again concentrating on, a vision of gold. Delightful, entrancing vision that had seduced him from his little laundry on Te Aro Flat, Wellington, to this land of primitive discomfort.

Again, the little whaj-f reeled as Wu Hoy. his s wag at last assembled, placed an arm through each strap and jerked erect.

He staggered, recovered and slowly started down the rutted clay street his steps shaping along the western route, out of the town, on toward snow capped mountains that rose white and sparkling from a coverlet of dark, secretive bush.

“Tonk << tonk”, swinging billy touched against head of glittering pick and the merry tuis became silent and watched him go. Three weeks later Wu Hoy came* down the same road. He entered the town, passed the open doors of the hotels, continued straight to the end of the street to the gold receivers’ office.

The receiver took the chamois leather that Wu Hoy offered him, rolled the contents into the gold scales, and, without comment, passed over two thick bundles of notes. Wu Hoy then went along the beach at the back of the street to the kitchen of Keller’s hotel where he held long and furtive conversation with one, Ah Joe, who cooked there.

The result was, that when Wu Hoy unobtrusively left town that night. Ah Joe went with him to share the burden of flour, rice and tools. Five miles out they camped, lit a fire and talked far into the night. Dawn brought them to the trail again. Three miles more and they turned sharply into the bush and all that day followed a difficult track that at sunset brought them out to a stream konwn to the old Maoris by the name Wai-O-Tahuna. Wu Hoy and Ah Joe did not know the name of the stream and did not feel any curiosity regarding it. Neither did they take any stock of its pellucid beauty and its lovely surroundings. Rather did they set to work as if intent on spoiling those very things . Trees were felled and spaces cleared away. A solid log dam was thrown across the stream and in the bed below were laid long runs of sluice boxes. These boxes were pitted with round holes, large near the dam and gradually diminishing until, at the end of the race, they were not bigger than a threepenny piece. After this was completed, the two Chinamen worked every day at a small tunnel from which the soil was dumped at the foot of the dam. At the end of a week there was a large mound of yellow clay and then Wu Hoy left the waters loose by means of a cleverly arranged sliding trap. Pell mell rushed the water down the race carrying with it the spoil. Boiling and bubbling along, swirling into the sluice holes and out again but leaving each an accumulation of dirt and stones some of which shone yellow. Carefully Wu Hoy fanned the contents of the holes until at last the dirt was gone and only gold was left. Nuggets! one the size of Wu Hoys two thumbnails, others smaller and smaller, right down to the smallest atoms of yellow dust. All lying on the table between Wu Hoy and Ah Joe.

One-third of the pile Wu Hoy placed in front of Ah Joe who imperturbably wrapped it in a chamois cloth and placed it under the head of his bunk. The remainder Wu Hoy carefully placed in a leathern money belt which he strapped around his body underneath his shirt.

The weeks drew into months and the little claim worked steadily along. Once a month Mounted Constable O’Grady stumbled up the track on his bay mare,, chatted a space with the two. At the end of every wash-up Wu Hoy and Ah Joe sat over the little heap of gold and shared it into two. One third for Ah Joe, two thirds for Wu Hoy.

Imperceptebly at first, and then more rapidly the pile began to shrink until the time came one day in autumn when the wash revealed not a colour. Ah Joe took the matter philosophically enough. His was a settled disposition, but Wu Hoy was worried. True he did not say nothing, but inwardly he felt a gnawing feeling of discontent. “China, Land of his Fathers, inspiration of his desires. How he had dreamed of it.” His wearying, backbreaking work on the claim had been made the lighter by a grim desire to gather enough precious gold' to carry him back to China. To a pretty wife, to a life of ease and importance in his native village, for in China gold was gold. And now the claim had petered out. Wu Hoy was disconsolate. He had a fair store of gold but not enough. If only he had not been forced to pay one third to Ah Joe.

Far into the night Wu Hoy smoked and brooded. There was Ah Joe. What need had he of gold.’ Surely none. He did not want to go back to China. Wouldn’t rro if fep could. Yet he had gold. A parcel of gold, fat and inviting, alwavs under his head when he slept. If ‘ 1