McCONNACHIE'S FIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21505, 31 May 1933, Page 3

McCONNACHIE'S FIGHT

BY HOGH NEVILL

I had been briefed to appear before the Warden's Court at Cromwell in a mining dispute that involved a considerable sum, and had put up the night before at The Maori's Head, that cheerful little pub just on the left as you turn into the town from the south. My client was not showing up till the morning, so that night I dropped into the bar for company. It was a trifle after closing time and the company was just settling down for the evening. Save myself, everyone seemed to know everyone else. They looked an ordinary enough lot, working miners for the most part, with nothing outstanding about them. But one man struck my eye at once. He had snow-white hair and rather surprisingly bright blue eyes that twinkled out of one of the most cheerful faces you could wish to see. He must have been at least seventy, but his shoulders wero as broad and square as a guardsman's and his muscles spoke of a man who had worked hard all bis life and could do a good day's work 3 et - He started speaking just as I camo in. A beautiful voice he had, one of those deep bell-like Irish voices that barristers would sell their souls for. He didn't speak with much of a brogue. It> was just the occasional quaint turn of a phrase that gave his origin away. The men had evidently been groaning over the hardships of alluvial miniug, and his voice rang with scorn. " Hardships!" he said. " Why, you slack-muscled, scrimshanking, good-for-noughts, ye don't know, what hardships are. Ye'vo a nice little town hero to minister to your comforts, and ye live in weather-board huts, most of ye, and go to bed at night, I'll warrant, with hot-water botties on your delicate little toes. And ve've pictures for your amusement and policemen to keep ye from quarrelling." I could seo from the satisfied looks on tho faces near me that they considered the white-haired man wellstarted. I leaned over and whispered to my neighbour, " Who is liq ?" " Who is he?" said the man. " Why, old Mick, Flannagan. A real old-timer. Been on the diggings ever sfnee he could crawl. Always finding gold and always selling out. It's the life he loves, not the money. We get him talking nearly every night. Yarns! I never met anyone like him. Just you listen to him."

"Quarrelling!" the old man was saying. " Aye, I've seeen some quarrels in my time. Did I ever tell you the story of McConnaebie's fight?" A chorus of " No, heave ahead," greeted him. " You've got tho old man talking, eh?" ho said. " I know you. You think I'm tho world's best liar. Well, there's moro than one man in Waihi to this day could confirm what I'm going to tell you. It was up in Thames it Jill happened. Let's see —thirty, forty, it must be forty-five years ago. We were a pretty rough settlement, I can tell you. Not far from Waihi wo wero. Canvastown wo called our little village. It was mostly tents with one storo kept by a slippery old rascal called O'Flaherty, an Irishman like meself, but no credit to tho country at all. He had brought his daughter with him. He thought she'd draw trade, and by the saints he was right, though that mining village was no place for her. " Yes, you're riglat; I was in lovo with her and so was every man in tho settlement. Yes, and so would you have been if you'd been there and had anything but soda-water in your veins. But the love of most of us was a pale, small thing beside the love that my partner, Buck McConnachie, had for her. We all knew Buck was head over ears, and that Kathleen was the same, and wo pretty well left the field clear for the two of them. But her father, the mean old devil, wouldn't be hearing a word of it. For Buck was as poor as a church mouse. " ' No,' says he to Buck. ' You can marry my daughter the day you can show me a thousand pounds in the bank, and not a day before.'

" He might as well have said a million for all the chance Buck saw of getting it. We had been having; a. pretty poor time at Canvastown just then and many a man was leaving in search of better luck. Buck and I had spent pretty near all our cash in explosives and so forth. In fact, there were only two men doing any good at all. They were partners and had a couplo of claims they worked between them. They employed a lot of men too. One was a no-account sort of fellow, hardworking but with not a word to say. But his partner was a cock of quite another colour. ' Tiger ' Blake ho called himself. He'd been a professional pug, as anyone with eyes could see, for he'd ono of the nicest cauliflower ears I've ever laid eyes 011 and his noso was only just among those present. A real , second-rate heavyweight's face. The top-notchers never look like that, you'll notice. But 110 could scrap, for those parts, and there was none of us could stand up to him iA the ring. He'd picked a few quarrels when 110 came, and now he strutted pretty well as ho pleased. " And he'd pretty soon fallen for Kathleen O'Flaherty, just like the rest of us.; He didn't dare play any tricks with her, for ho couldn't fight tho whole settlement at once. Buck's and niy claim adjoined ono of his. It's quartz-mining up tliero of course, and they're biggish claims. We'd been following a promising-looking reef, but it seemed to peter out about halfway across and we'd been pretty well on our uppers for tho last month or so. Sometimes Buck would get so angry he could hardly sneak, and old O'Flaherty would egg Blako on, for he dearly liked to s<*> Buck humiliated in front of Kathleen. But Kathleen never winked an eyelash and at times she'd take up the cudgels for Buck when 110 was too tongue-tied to do it for himself. That'd make her old dad look black, for lie know the size of Blake's bank balance and 110 was always hoping that some day Kathleen would change her mind and marry him. ' Tiger ' had proposed twice already, and it was the third time that she refused him that he went just about mad with rage. And bully-like it was 011 Buck he decided to vent that rage. Ho daren't touch the girl, for as I've said, he'd have had to tackle tho whole town as well. No, ho picked on Buck, and that's where. 110 made his big mistake. " But before .1 tell you about that I must ,tell you of a thing that had happened the very same day. Buck and I had been messing about tho claim trying to locate that reef we'd lost. It had taken it into its head to do a. queer dip and at last wc found it pretty well outcropping just 011 tho edgo of 'Tiger ' Blake's claim and heading right into the middlo of that gentleman's land. Well, just there we found at last what we'd been sweating our souls out for. Gold, real payable gold. But by tho irony of things there was only about a foot of it showing. I suppose you don't know, ye alluvial men, that the lodo in a reef always runs at a different angle to tho reef. Well, this lode dipped away. Wo dug like fury and found that that foot' was all that wo had on our land, and that lodo must dip right into ' Tiger's ' claim. Lying there in chunks it was, and we unable to use a pick on it.

A NEW ZEALAND STORY.

(COPYRIGHT)

" Blake had hardly touched that claim. Ho and his partner were doing well out of the other, and thought this a poor thing. But we didn't dare offer to buy it, for 'he was suspicious and would have put a price on it that we couldn't have come within cooee of, if indeed he'd ha' sold it all. " Our thinking hadn't come to much by the time -we went up to the store that night. When we got there we saw Blake with a face on him like a thunderstorm, talking to old man O'Flaherty, who was trying to calm him down. The place was pretty full, for wo all yarned there o'nights, and there was a good audience for what happened. Buck had managed to get Kathleeif over to a deserted corner of the shop when Blake stood up, with that look still on his face, and says: ' Hey, you love-birds, if you couid leave off cuddling for a moment, I'd like to speak to Mr. McConnachie.' " Buck looked up in surprise. ' Yes, Mr. 'Tiger' Blake,' he says very stiff and polite, ' and what might you be wanting to say?' " 1 Just this,' says Blake, now beside himself with the passion he'd whipped up in himself, ' that if you don't get out of this store this minute I'll take jou by tho slack of your pants and throw you out.' Buck's face turned quite white with the rage that was in him, both at the insult and at the language Blake had used before Kathleen. He saw that Blake was bent on humiliating him to vent his own disappointment, lor Kathleen had told him what was up. He thought pretty quickly those few moments. He was a thirteen stone man himself, hut Blake tipped the scalo at over fourteen, and under ordinary conditions could have knocked him out in fivo minutes. But he went up to Blake and looked liim in tho eye and said, ' You big hulking bully, you think you can fight? Well, will you fight me on my own conditions?' " 1 I'll fight you on any conditions, you young pup,' he growled, ' and beat you with one hand.' " ' Well,' said Buck, ' my conditions are that wc. fight to-morrow afternoon at 3 sharp in a ring thirty yards square, no rounds and a fight to a knockout. If you win 1 clear out of tho town for good. If I win I take over your No. 2 claim, the one next mine. Is that agreed?' " Blake nodded, and as for us wc wero so dumbfonnded our eves were standing a clear inch out of our heads. Someone got a five-gallon jar from his hut and we spent the rest of the evening drinking Buck's health, all bar Buck, who wasn't taking anything that night. It wasn't till I got him home to tho hut that night that he explained. " ' It's like this, Mick,' ho said. ' I figured I could never beat that pug in an ordinary fight. He's a stone heavier than me and twice as clever, even if I have done a bit of boxing. But he's been drinking like a fish since the money started rolling in and what's ir.oro lie's getting fat. I'm just going to run rings round him till he's so tired ho can't hold his arms up. Then I'll go in and give him the beating up he deserves.'

" Next day, you ran gather, there | wasn't lnueh ■work doue on any of the | claims. You know how news travels in tlio goldfields, and by three o'clock that afternoon I should think pretty j near every miner in the district was ; there. Waihi was empty that day, they say, and it must havo been from i tlio crowd round that ring,. One hundred and twenty yards round it was, and you should have seen those fellows stare \yhen they saw the size of j it. We'd double-roped and staked it and every yard of it was packed six I deep with laughing miners. The police ! had mayhe heard of the affair, but it's i the blind oar they heard it with, for . they knew ' Tiger ' Blake, and they | didn't love him. Everyone there knew ! him ' too and it was tho hope j of seeing him thrashed that had brought them there in their hundreds. " It was three o'clock to the tick when I brought my man up to the ring. "'Hev! Buck,' sings out someone, 'what's this? A racecourse?' " ' Maybe it is,' says Buck and winks a most portentous wink. " We had a bit of a wait till Blake arrived, and when ho did the crowd bad-named keeping them waiting. Then they started to count him out, and you could see the temper rising in him. He looked as if lie hadn'tbeen quite as temperate as Buck the night before, and a few who had money on him started to hedge. But they had little time for that, for Ave started tho game right off. " Well, Buck sauntered across the ring as casual as you please, but our friend Blake, who was in a raging temper by now, what with tho drink and tho jeering and his thwarted passion, came rushing across, very scientific hut in an awful hurry to get it over. And then, believe it or not, Buck just turned his back on him and ran. Yes, he ran like a sprinter, Blake after him, swearing at him for a coward, till ho got to the fence. Then he swerved, and off down tho side, and so on. The crowd just stared for a moment. Then they saw the racecourse remark in all its hearings and they sat back and roared. " It went on that way for a bit and then Blako saw ho was. making a fool of himself and ho started trying to corner Buck. But Buck was always two jumps ahead of him at thp.t game. Then Blake grew cunning and stopped dead in tho middle of the ring to get his breath back. Buck couldn't afford to let that happen, so lie hopped in and tried to plant one in Blake's breadbasket. Ho missed by about- threo inches and got a real beauty on one eye that showed him that Blake might bo blown but he wasn't beaten, notby a long chalk. So then he started taunting Blake. He told mo afterwards he asked him if he thought he was going to marry Kathleen when 'tho fight was over, and telling him sho wouldn't marry a dirty louse like him if he was the only thing left to marry. And what with one thing and another, ho got Blako seeing red again, and off they went, Blake chasing and he giving ground all the time. Then ho judged Blako was pretty well all in, and started in on him. It was a ding dong go for a bit, as even as you could want, left right, left right. But tliero was wasn't much behind Blake's blows now. But most of the crowd hadn't appreciated how far gone ho was and there was a gasp of surprise when Buck drew off and let rip one to the solar plexus. It was a real Fitzsimmons punch and ' Tiger ' Blake just folded hp like a jack-knife and sank to the grass. '' He didn't even flicker an eyelid when the referee said ' ten,' and by tho time ho recovered, tho audience, with Buck in the middle of them, were emptying the collars of the nearest pub. " We sold that claim for £SOOO. to a big syndicate, Buck and I, for tho silly old fool made nie take half shares. And the last I saw of him ho was milking cows in Taranaki and Kathleen was teaching their first baby to walk. Ho wasn't a real miner, Buck wasn't." It was at this moment that mine host of tho Maori's Head stuck his own through tho door and remarked that tho sergeant completo with constablo was coining down tho street and if any of the gentlemen would care to make use of tho back exit. .