CHAPTER VI.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 2, 1 November 1902, Page 88

In Search of a Fortune.

By A. Pick

CHAPTER VI.

A Story of the Auckland Mining Boom.

Illustrated, by Trevor Lloyd.

I RETURNED to Auckland in a curious frame of mind. Hitherto I had dreamt of golden leaders and rich reefs giving, me sudden wealth, and now, instead of being thrilled by visions of gleaming metal, I saw a girl's face showing white in the gloom of a summer night. I realized that I had searched for gold and precious gems through many years and in many wild places, and had won — well, at least experience and endurance, but little else. I realized also that I was deeply in love with Nina, and that rich reefs and mines of gems were nothing except as steps toward her ; and in my heart I knew that gold or gems counted but little in her eyes. Yes ; I knew this of a surety, and loved her the more because of her pride and the strength of her goodness. I was thinking of these things when I was brought up suddenly by the call, " Hey, Mr Pick !" It was the assayer. He drew r me aside with an air of secrecy.

" Look here," he said, " I think you and I can do a stroke of business. You sent in some samples of pyrites, and said there was any amount of the same material. I'm in touch with an English syndicate, and if what you say about aluantities is all right, we can make you an offer. Come along and I'll in-

troduce you to the head of the syndicate."

I followed the assayer into a very gorgeous office, and made the acquaintance of one of those men who contributed very largely to the Auckland mining boom. He was very shrewd and business-like, and seemed to think any man who held

mining property was an unmitigated rascal.

He questioned me about the claim at Taihararu, and I told him straight all about it. I had the grant of the claim in my pocket, and sketched him a rough plan of the locality and the position of the big slip.

" Well," he said, in conclusion,. " If you like to put the claim under offer to us, we will send our mining expert out to look at it, and if his views accord with yours, we may come to terms." Thinking that English capital might find the golden reef which I had so vainly sought in the Maitaiterangi, I told him of the claim I had there, and, as the assayer backed up my statement regarding the richness of the samples, the syndicate manager asked me to put this claim under offer too.

"I suppose/ said the manager just as I was leaving, " that you are not inclined to take a sporting offer for your two claims. Aucklanders are asking very large sums for untried properties, and they

want to hamper us with all sorts of restrictions regarding shares." " Well," I said, '* you make the offer, and I'll let you know."

"TU think over it," he said, " and will write to you in a few days ; if you leave me your address."

I left my address, of course, and went out of. the office in company with my friend, the assayer. " Mr Pick," he said, as soon as we were outside ; " you don't know how to deal with these mining syndicates at all. If you'll allow me to say so, you're too straight, too— er— ah— too honest."

I believed he meant too stupid, but I was not offended.

" Now," he went on insinuatingly, " if you like to put your business into my hands, I'm sure I can get you better terms than you can get for yourself."

" I'll be very glad to do so," said I ; " for I must confess that I am no hand at making a bargain, and I shall be very glad to give you a cut in, as they call it. There's only one condition," and I mentioned my promise to the young surveyor. It did not take long for me to, come to a clear understanding with the assayer, and to give him the necessary power to act for me.

" Now/ he said, when we had concluded our business, " I believe you have been on the Queensland opal fields."

" Yes," enough ;

I answered simply " I have."

" Some of my friends," went on the assayer, " have had samples of opals sent to them from a certain locality, and we want some one to go down and look at the place. If you are inclined to undertake the work, just say so, and I'll fix up terms that that will suit you." I undertook right away, and the terms certainly suited me. I found that I could not start before tlie rext^ evening, as no steamers were running, and early the next morning the indefatigable assayer hunted me up, and gave me a commission

to inspect two claims — one at Puriri and the other at Whangamata.

" You can do them all on the one journey," he remarked, as we fixed up the terms — and again they suited me.

I took boat down to the Thames on Saturday afternoon, and shall not easily forget the marvel of that voyage. Therehad been months of hot, dry weather, and now great bush fires, raged, apparently on all the hillsof the Coromandel Peninsula, and in every other part of the Auckland Province. Dense clouds of smoko rolled slowly over the Gulf, and hung like filmy curtains overislands and reaches of oily-looking water. The sunset in the valley of the Waihou would have stimulated Turner's' imagination of the gorgeous. The smell of the hot dust, the pungbnt odour of the smoke,, the heat of the still air gave a sense of strangeness to everything.. I dropped off at Puriri, and went for a bathe in the river, but even the river seemed warm ; and that night the people of the hotel brokethe record in long beers and shandy-gaffs.

On Sunday morning I hired a hack — a clever little skew-bald mare, and was just mounting for my journey when there rode up to thehotel an old friend of mine, whotold me that he was going much in the same direction as myself. We rode through to Omahu, and I visited the claim which I had been asked to inspect. It did not take me long, to find out that the report sent in about it was altogether misleading ; then we werejoined by the owner of a kauri forest, who was going into the hills to see if his timber was safe. We had not ridden far along the track when we met a Maori.

" You no get through across the range," he said ; " bush all on fire ; plenty blaze !"

" We'll try," replied the owner of kauri, and we tried. We rode up a spur and reached a steep, narrow

ridge; all behind us was. blackened bush and charred logs. In front •of us was a dense wall of smoke. We rode into the smoke and inferno. In the deep gullies on either hand the forest, fires raged furiously, sparks and dust and smoke enveloped us ; the heat was stifling. Now and again a fearful crash told of falling limbs and trunks. Luckily there was no wind or we •could never have gone through. In places close to the ridge the fern crackled in fierce flame, and trees overhanging us smouldered or blazed. If a breeze had. sprung up whilst we were on that ridge we should have been suffocated or burnt. The horses were stupid with fear, but the owner of kauri spurred his hack on mercilessly — he had great interests at stake — and we followed.

We .reached a. timber camp just about dark, and all hands were out combating a fern fire. The head of the camp came to us, grimy and sweating. The owner of kauri put a few sharp questions.

" Yes ; the logs in Mititai were all right. The fire hadn't touched the dry kauri. Peter's camp was burnt out. Johnson's bullocks were lost. The tents up by the big rock were burnt, and the men had lost all their belongings. Yes ; they had a devil of a time last night, and expected it would be like Hades to-night. He'd buried the dynamite and some of, the stores, and had plenty of water in case sparks set fire to the shingle." Men fought the insidious flames all night, taking spell about. I went out now and again to lend a hand ; I could not sleep for the heat and smoke. The fern fire was a determined foe ; it might be beaten down a dozen times, but it sprang up again. There was so much dead timber on the ground that if ever the fern had got well into a blaze, the camp would have faeen destroyed.

Luckily for us the night was perfectly calm, and though next morn : iog a breeze sprang up, it was

from the north-east, and therefore in our favour. We pushed on soon after sunrise, riding through dense bush, guiltless of tracks. My friend knew a short cut, or thought he did, and after dragging our horses up the side of a big spur, and sliding with them half-way down another, we came to fairly open fern country. We had a consultation there ; my friend wanted to push on to Whangamata right away, and suggested that I should go with him instead of going down to Tairua. He said that it would be impossible now to cross the ranges except by the Wires track where the bush had been burnt out some weeks, and that if I would ride with him to Whangamata, he'd take my horse back by the Wires, and I could finish my work at Whangamata, and take the steamer from thence to Tairua. I agreed, and thus made the acquaintance of the White Horse Track.

For some distance we rode through tall bracken, from which the yellow pollen rose in clouds, half stifling us sometimes, and giving us both a jaundiced appearance. Then we entered on a long narrow ridge, like the roof of a church ; so narrow was the track that it seemed as if a puff of wind would blow us into the depths beneath. It was what 'the New Zealand people call a razor-back, and it led us to a long, high bluff up which the track went like a steep, narrow staircase. I protested that no horse could climb it, and I had seen what marvellous things a bush horse could do. The incline, so my companion said, was at an angle of about 75 degrees, and as he was an engineer he ought to know. There was no sign of any other track either round the bluff or down the ridge, so we put our horses at the precipice, and they climbed it — literally climbed it. It was worn into a gutter, and there were ledges and crannies like steps. A. number of people know the White Horse Track, I suppose, and some of them will, no doubt, read this

description of it, but I'm sure they will acknowledge that I havn't exaggerated one bit. There is no doubt that if our horses had made a slip they would have been killed, and I confess to a mean feeling of pleasure in being first, for there was no onb above to fall on me.

When we reached the top both horses and men breathed a sigh of relief, and felt as if they had accomplished a dangerous and difficult task. The track still continued along a razor-back ridge, but after a mile or so it descended, and the ridge broadened. We wound down a gully, swam our horses across a narrow, deep tidal creek, and began to climb again. We saw ahead of us a small pack team going like the deuce, and hastened after ii. We caught it just as it was ascending a pinch not unlike the White Horse Track, and hailed the man with : " How far is it to Whangamata ?"

" Oh, a deuce of a way if you follow this track !" was the reply. " You can get to Whangamata if you can get on to the main ridge, and if your horses can get through the bush ; but I'd advise you to try the ordinary way, as its about ten miles

Hie told us where we should pick up the ordinary way, and we made back to it. : , In time we descended to the shores of the Whangamata Harbour, and had to ride along the mud flats, but it brought us one of the finest sights in the way of flowering trees that I have aver seen. Late in the evening we came to a long, narrow peninsula jutting out into the harbour. The peninsula was fringed with a belt of noble pohutukawas, which were one mass of crimson blossom. The tide had risen, and we had to ride in the shallow water to escape the low spreading branches, and the reflection of the flowers made the water a vivid red, so that when the horses churned it up it looked like —well, I can't find a simile that isn't gory.

After rounding the peninsula we had to swim our horses across a tidal river, and when we came out on the other side there was a swamp with no signs of a track. We simply let the horses follow their own sense of direction, and they brought us out all right at our destination. My friend rode on the next day, and took with him the little skewbald mare, as clever anid good a little animal as ever I rode. Climb like a cat, swim like a dog, go anywhere and face anything, and be as chirpy at the end of a journey almost as at the beginning. I inspected the claims and went down to the steamer. She was resting, with her nose on a beautiful, sandy beach and her stern in deep water. There being no wharf this was her usual position for discharging cargo. Soon after I got on board she steamed out of the harbour. Whilst we were at tea the captain asked me if I was going to Auckland. " No," I said ; " only as far a^ Tairua." " But we're not going to call in there," he replied. I was determined not to be put off my expedition, so I prevailed on the captain, for extra payment, to land me on the beach in a boat. He remarked that if the barometer was any guide there wouldn't be much show of launching a boat by the time we got to Tairua ; but at four o'clock the next morning" I was awakened — the boat was lowered, and I got into it and was rowed shoreward. I had bargained to be landed on the beach, but I saw there was a nasty surf on, so I bribed the men to pull me across the bar inside the Tairua estuary, and they did so cheerfully. When I stepped ashore it began to rain heavily, but after walking about a mile along the beach I came on a snug little whare, and found its owner at work lighting the fire. He told me that the hotel was on the other side of the estuary, and offered to pull :me

across in his boat for a few shillings. We sailed across before half a gale of wind, and 1 was at the hotel before breakfast.

The man who had been appointed to meet me was anxious to make a start as soon as possible for the opal field ; and as I was anxious to get through with the work, I agreed to go with him, although it was still raining, and the wind had •chopped round to the north-east and was blowing almost up to hurricane pitch. The only horse I could get was an immense animal with legs like a camel and a neck like a giraffe. I protested at first but 1 was glad afterwards that I'd got such a horse. I need not give •any details about the ride — the track, if track there was, went up the estuary across mud flats and over tidal creeks. I saw the •opal country and saw opals, and thought well of the prospects, but I was anxious to get back, for it was raining in torrents, and a gale such as I had never before experienced in New Zealand

was

raging. My companion, who was well equipped with an oilskin coat, and evidently convinced that he could pick out enough opals to pay him for a wetting, refused to budge. I tried to drive into his head that with such a gale blowing up the river and the tide rising, the journey back might be dangerous if delayed, but I could not move him. I waited for him until my patience was exhausted, then rode on alone. As soon as I got into the low ground I knew there was trouble ahead. A small bridge we had crossed was already covered with water, and my big, chuckle-headed horse jibbed at it until I armed myself with a club and hammered him over. By the time I got across my companion rode up. He was mounted on a magnificent chestnut horse, and was evidently used to rough work, else we should never have got through. When we got down to the estuary the tide had covered all the flats, and it seemed impossible to return by the route

we had followed that morning. I said something to this effect, and was met with the reply that there could only be a few inches of water on the flats. The chestnut horse faced the muddy, tossing waters bravely. It went down and down until only its white nose showed above the water, and I smiled when I saw its rider's oilskin coat flop up and down with the waves, and laughed when I saw a wave roil up against that rider's back, and pour down his neck. I ceased to laugh when the water came crawling under my armpits, but I could not help being pleased at the way fche big, ugly horse under me swam. I do not know how far we went before our horses found bottom again, but it was a long way, and then the water was up to our saddle flaps. There were four miles of muddy water before us, and the tide was rising. We floundered through, our horses swimming every now and again. We had to trust to a straight course, and ran the danger of fouling snags and old logs. There was worse ahead, for where the estuary narrowed there was a high cliff, and a shelving bank covered with big, loose rocks, outside of which was deep water and a swift current. There's not much use in going into the details of that ride, or that swim over that stretch of storm-tossed water. More than once I thought my horse would exhaust himself and turn turtle, for he floundered so prodigiously, but we got through — got round the cliffs and into safety, and, of course, were thankful that it was over.

When I got back to Auckland I handed in my reports to the assayer, and he, without remark, handed me a written offer of £1000 for each of my two claims. I knew men were asking from five thousand pounds upwards and a large number of shares for properties no better, and said so.

" Well," replied the assayer ; " they've got to wait until a company's formed to get a figure like

that, but my man won't stick for a few pounds. State the lowest sum you'll take." I asked £2500 clear of all commissions, and I got it. When I received the cheq,ue next day the assayer remarked that he supposed I'd go and peg out some • more claims.

" No/ said I ; " I've pegged out, a claim that isn't on the goldfields, and I'm going prospecting* there right away."

I went up to Hugh Redhill's placo that evening, and began to put my work into land that held neither reefs nor leaders, but the fortune I sought was visible.

(to be concluded.)