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Day-dreams were not possible in the vicinity of Richard Haddon. The boy was an ardent fossicker, and loved to be burrowing amongst old tailings, or groping in the sludge of an auriferous creek after little patches. He was soon peering into the ripples of Harry's cradle. 'Poor, he commented, with the confidence of an expert. 'Not up to much, Dick, said Harry.
A stranger might have thought the field entirely deserted until he came on a coat and a billy at the foot of saplings amongst the holes, and heard, in the shallow ground underneath, the thud of a pick, which told of some fossicker below rooting out what little wash remained. One afternoon towards Christmas, a windlass was erected over an old shaft of considerable depth at the foot of the gully.
The climate, situation, surroundings, and want of means of recreation all combine to make the publican's business a lucrative one. When, as sometimes happens, a fossicker comes in with a "shammy" full of gold, and lays himself out to make himself and every one else happy, then indeed the hotel-keeper's harvest is a rich one.
There a swagger meant a man who might rob or murder you in your sleep after you had fed and lodged him; or under the most favourable circumstances supposing him to be a "milder mannered man," a "fossicker," who would not hesitate to "jump your claim," or hang about when you are prospecting, to watch how much of the colour you found, and then go off stealthily to return next day at the head of a "rush" of a thousand diggers.
You'll have to clear out of that," Gleeson shouted as he rushed up. "That's our shaft," Walker yelled as he rushed up to the man sitting over the hole. A shout of derision came from the two men, and was echoed up and down the creek as each fossicker turned round to enjoy the spectacle of a "jump" at the outset of the field.
In the same way that a boy delights to stir up a monkey and hear him chatter, the fossicker bent on recreation rouses the old lady to feats of swearing far beyond the scope of most people. No man has yet been found who could withstand her onslaught. I saw her angry once! She positively alarmed me; the three witches in Macbeth thrown into one would be of no account in comparison.
He went straight to the shaft, let himself down carefully on to one of the old logs, and stooped to pick up the note, gleaming white in the sickly summer daylight. Then the rotten timber gave way suddenly, without a moment's warning. They found him that morning at about nine o'clock. The dog attracted the attention of an old fossicker passing to his work.
I can't bear disgrace!" she had moaned all these six weary years for the poor are often proud. But he lives on, for it takes a lot to break a man's heart. He holds up his head and toils on for the sake of a child that is left, and that child is Isley. And now the fossicker seems to see a vision of the future.
One may present a narrow strip of soft sand, cringing and squeaking under foot, almost entirely composed of finely ground coral and shells, among which polished fragments of red coral are to the beach-comber as the "colours" the gold fossicker may find in his dish prospective of reward.
Revolvers were useless without ammunition, and ammunition cost money; knives which were useful in a fight, were also eligible for trading purposes as a medium of exchange for flour and tobacco: consequently both were absent from the movable property of the average fossicker of Boulder Creek.
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