THE LAST WASH-UP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2541, 26 November 1902, Page 74

THE LAST WASH-UP.

By J. Speight.

(For the Witness.)

The camp down the valley had split up, and miners in the other peggings were asking what could have brought it about-. There were eight of them in a really good claim—four whites and four yellows. At first they were the butts of the whole countryside, but 'twas combine or lose good time and, better, water. Tho whites had just started sulicing a heap of promising deposit, with race in grand order. A week's rain brought more than was looked for. The race of the whites and that of the yellows running side by side for quite a hundred yards along a falling spur, joined, and washed the framework of .the yellows' last stretch of pipe slap into the other's tail-race. Piles of mud, rocks, splintered supports, arid pipes faced the two camps as they stared at the temporarily-ruined workings. The spokesman of tk* yellows aa.w the.

whites, and before the weather had made it possible to patch the burst ducts, articles of partnership had been agreed on. The i claim of the coloured party was to be sluiced first, and the bank worked around to the gutted alluvion of' the whites. With the double force of water now available, it . was expected that the returns Would pan | out better even than the sepearate claims would have done. The sluicing of the working .claim was | divided into three shifts,- takinc" up the ! whole 24 hours, a white and a yellow being , paired off for each, while ' a like piebaldcouple was to put in its eight hours at the tail-race of the whites' old claim. When this latter was straightened up—^in a month or' so, they put it — "the company might' be in funds sufficient, and ample even, to run | another race and get hands to help to work J it. Men so fully occupied as these "had no time to fall out, and a smoother-going camp was not in the valley. They washed up every week and were to take it in turns, for 'twas a one-man job ; the others could look on, and did. Everything was fair and aboveboard, and as the . whites went to their side of the hump dividing the tents ofthe colour, there was but one opinion, in spite of the fact that their -very good friend" and partner, the .' iye!low, -be- he any one 'of • which,' never got ■ -so much by an ounce - or' two as their' man got — all was ' square. ' " Just" y a cbinci-' dence, that was all ; for, didn't they see the washing-up? . ' The firm's bank account swelled, and four hands were taken on to work the cleared race.. The wash-up was now fixed to take place once a fortnight at each race, so that every week the golden sif tings were gathered, and, in presence of the six, weighed and safed. Winter was now well on, Rnd biting winds made sluicing and forking tasks of doubtful pleasure. " To grip a fork "firmly "while~a gorge" freezer whistled on \ the hands- was not easy. A white lifting a stone out of the race let his .fork slip, and a jag in the foot and a triangular tear in the boot that covered it made it necessary, in that chillling water, to get another boot. Not wishing to waste time, and, perhaps, block the race^ he borrowed one from the door of an almond-eyed neighbour. Soon the white had two sore spots on his foot. The borrowed boot chafed so that-, at the dinner halt, .the worried forker made pokings many but futile to clear the ' boot from some accretion in the canvas lining. At last, with a piece of bent wire, he released the" bothering, abscess, and, tipping the boot, out fedl a scrap of rough. gold. - ' .His mouth was just- opening to. remark the strange -find to his. yellow .mate; when something flashed across him/ and on went the boot "as ifj it were - not' then V half sovereign less valuable than an v instant before: "" ."•'"■'■ ' "'* f "' ;, Saturday week came slowly to,those-.anxi-ously-expectant, whites; but. come it.'ilid, and, in due course, the ■'smaH-eye'd one,' stepping over the race, handed ouf the lastcleaned golden grains. Ten seconds afterwards he was gazing zenithwards with a white on his chest and two others rinsing out his gum boots into a dish. The washup was rich — quite half an ounce was collected from each pothole. Had he suspected that^ every cunning tip of the dish towards the top of his water-guards was noted, and that the awakened whites were now counting every splash that struck his thighs in the well-feigned awkward cleaning, he would have been content to take his legitimate share, and not exact a "bonus. At the termination of a long palaver the partnership was dissolved. To save their confrere from prosecution, .previous suspected peculations were made good. < . Of course, the whites tried" to keep the affair from a jeering public, Jbut, somehow, the whole vaJley soon got "to know why ' they were working their old claim alone.