FANCY SKETCHES; OR EARLY LIFE IN THE WILD WEST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2058, 3 August 1893, Page 50

FANCY SKETCHES ; OR EARLY LIFE IN THE WILD WEST.

By Ajob.

MY MARY AT LAST ! OR JIM JONES'S BIG FIND.

Until Jim Jones pegged out on Guardian •Flat he'd had "reeking hard luck.*' This was away back among the early stirring sixties when "eggs was eggs " and pickles five shillings ; and the Premier of to-day a jolly packer fighting his way with bare knuckles, like most of the others.

The evening Jim Jones marked out was cloudless, and the sun, hurrying off to bed behind yonder strip of softly- sighing pines, threw a shadow or two about "Guardian" before finally plunging into the waters of Tasman Sea. It wasn't called Tasman then, but it was just as good in those days. Jim took particular notice of the shadows hero, because they always reminded him of the first time Mary came to him on that green park in dear old England, now so far away. " There it is again," muttered Jim ; " that makes the third time running ! I'll have that piece of ground," added he, resolutelyjdriving in four wooden pegs all round the spot. "And now it's mine," said he presently, surveying ' his work. Then he. added, somewhat thoughtfully, pointingjhis finger in the direction, " That there shadow's as plain a cross as ever I see," and then taking a last look at the sun and another at the shadow he went into his hut to boil the billy. The shadow referred to was, as Jim truly said, a true cross, and it was thrown partly on the ground and partly on Jim Jones's wood chimney by the limbs of a huge pine tree. Itwas seen to advantage this particular sunset.

Everyone laughed at Jim's claim. "Why, didn't Californian Jack bottom a duffer in the same spot; leastways, it was 'somewhere thereabouts.'"

Before long, however, Jim could well afford all the banter ; for that spot turned out to hide the very richest run of gold on the diggings. It was the veritable Bulls Point, and Jim sank on the pot made by the junction of Bulls Gutter and the deep lead afterwards found hugging the terraces all the way round to Swipers.

I say, Jim Jones sank down ; but not after the most approved style, nor the generally adopted mode of bottoming a hole.* He often afterwards used to excuse himself "by remarking ' that " ever since he could remember,' he had had a way of his own for doing things." The tea in the billy, well sweetened with brown sugar, was simmering by the fire, while Jim's rasher and eggs were doing on the frying pan. ".Ought to be ' cooked, I think," Jim was just muttering, when something suddenly happened to believe which will task to the utmost the credulity of the reader. The fireplace, fire, frying pan, billy, Jim Jones, suddenly went down— down — down 60ft, and the slabs of the old shaft (over which Jim had ignorantly built his hut and chimney), and the loose earth, stones, and treacherous boulders hiding it, came tumbling after and covered up poor Jim. Not much luck about, was there ?

In less than 15 minutes there were more than a thousand diggers round that shaft,'mournfully digging down for Jim's remains. They had no thought of getting him up alive, but hoping he might be whole, they worked with much care.

All the livelong night toiled (these greathearted fellows, in relays, drawing up endless buckets of stones, dirt, and splintered slabs. About noon of next day they reckoned to be nearing . the bottom, when the man below suddenly ceased work — struck dumb with amazement. He heard a voice below his feet saying : " Go easy, matey ! " "Is that you, Jim P" whispered the man. "Aye— and I'm all right, too ! " "Great Scott, boys ! He's alive ! " yells the bottom worker to the crowd on top Then there was some enthusiastic excitement if you like, and when eventually Jim was raised to daylight, strong men were actually seen to wipe tears of delight at his miraculous deliverance. „ Of course, the reader is dying to learn how ■ Jim Jones escaped. Well, when he arrived at the bottom several slab 3 had closed convexly over his headj and thus, a roof being formed, the stones and boul 'ers rattled harmlessly on it, Jim being quite safe beneath. [This is a fact.]

Some days later, when he had recovered the surprise naturally arising from such an unusual occurrence, Jim Jones lowered himself down to have one more look at what he had reckoned to have been his tomb. He found the frying pan and the bacon and the eggs and the billy, but he also found something else, and that too what his digger's instinct told him was more valuable than all the other finds. It was "wash." He filled the billy with it, made it fast to the rope, and climbing up the shaft, pulled it up after him. That billy had over loz of gold in it ! "Mary at last ! " breathed Jim fervently. Jim took out over £3000 worth.pf gold from that hole, sold out for another £1000, gave many valuable presents to his immediate deliverers, went Home and married his Mary on a fine English farm, where he is, I believe, now doing well. /r '