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Can you manage a hot bath and a bed for me to-night?" I asked. He glanced at me curiously, and, after a moment's consideration, he replied "I'll see what the missus'll say." Luckily "the missus" said "Yes," so ten minutes later I was sluicing hot water over my aching limbs with a stable sponge in the bath which, I suspect, did duty on ordinary occasions for the family washing.
The nomadic digger who called no man master is a steady-going wage-earner now. Coal-mines and quartz-reefs are the mainstays of Westland. Company management, trade unions, conciliation cases, and laws against Sunday labour have succeeded the rough, free-and-easy days of glittering possibilities for everybody. Even the alluvial fields are now systematically worked by hydraulic sluicing companies.
Amazed and full of wonder at this terrific storm, so different from those on the surface for there was neither wind nor lightning, but just that steady, frightful sluicing down of solid tons of rain Stern made his way back to the patriarch's house. There he met Beatrice, just awakened. "No chance to raise the machine to-day!" she called to him as he entered.
He crossed the stream below the pool, stepping agilely from stone to stone. Where the side-hill touched the water he dug up a shovelful of dirt and put it into the gold-pan. He squatted down, holding the pan in his two hands, and partly immersing it in the stream. Then he imparted to the pan a deft circular motion that sent the water sluicing in and out through the dirt and gravel.
As the rains came to facilitate the sluicing, more men were added to the force shovelling in the creeks, and this made our work heavier. An exceedingly cranky foreigner, as head cook, presided over the big coal range in the mess-house, and we women "played second fiddle," so to speak.
I could see this now for myself as a gleam of sunshine came down through the shattered skylight, showing up all the hideous details of the place, with the sides of the cabin and the bulkhead dividing it from the passage, as well as the deck beams overhead, all spattered with blood; albeit, the water sluicing about below had removed all traces of the sad tragedy from thence long since.
He toiled on until the hole was a yard in depth, but the gravel he flung out was dry, and at length he stopped and sat on the side of the excavation, gasping. "Nothing yet," he said. "You're sure you struck it?" "Yes," replied Weston, quietly, "I'm sure." Once more Devine seized the shovel, but in a moment he flung it down suddenly, with a sharp, glad cry. "It's sluicing out!"
But, outside of that, he's as harmless as a canary." "Dashed dangerous things, canaries," said Archie, thoughtfully. "They peck at you." "Don't weaken!" pleaded the Press-agent "Oh, all right. I'll take him. By the way, touching the matter of browsing and sluicing. What do I feed him on?" "Oh, anything. Bread-and-milk or fruit or soft-boiled egg or dog-biscuit or ants'-eggs.
"I vote we go to the Cosmopolis," he said, steering his newly-found friend through the crowd. "The browsing and sluicing isn't bad there, and I can sign the bill which is no small consideration nowadays." The Sausage Chappie chuckled amusedly. "I can't go to a place like the Cosmopolis looking like this." Archie, was a little embarrassed. "Oh, I don't know, you know, don't you know!" he said.
His departure ended the incident of the morning, and we immediately finished sluicing the decks, the cook and steward fight having somewhat delayed this operation, as it was getting on for "eight bells" and nearly breakfast-time.
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