The Gold Seekers

By Vivian Stuart

The thirteenth book in the dramatic and intriguing story about the colonisation of Australia: a country made of blood, passion, and dreams.
 
Against overwhelming odds they fought to tame a savage land, now they must fight to keep it.
 
During the 1850s on a promise of fertile soil, the wilderness of Australia had been tamed by proud men and passionate women like the Broomes or Tempests. This first line of pioneers had worked the land for the betterment of the colony. But when gold was discovered in the rugged hills and desolate outback, a different type of pioneers made their way into the wilderness: The Gold seekers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skinnbok
• Release date: Apr 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9789979642381

Book preview

The Gold Seekers: The Australians 13

The Gold Seekers

The Australians 13 – The Gold Seekers

© Vivian Stuart, 1985

© eBook in English: Jentas ehf. 2022

Series: The Australians

Title: The Gold Seekers

Title number: 13

ISBN: 978-9979-64-238-1

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas ehf.

The Australians

The Exiles

The Prisoners

The Settlers

The Newcomers

The Traitors

The Rebels

The Explorers

The Travellers

The Adventurers

The Warriors

The Colonists

The Pioneers

The Gold Seekers

The Opportunists

The Patriots

The Partisans

The Empire Builders

The Road Builders

The Seafarers

The Mariners

The Nationalists

The Loyalists

The Imperialists

The Expansionists

———

This book is dedicated to my brother-in-law, Squadron Leader John Chisholm Ward, a seventh-generation descendant of one of Australia’s pioneer families.

CHAPTER I

Keep her going, young Luke! Daniel Murphy urged cheerfully. He grinned as, with powerful arms, he shovelled the contents of his barrow into the slanting, oblong box of the gold-mining rocker they were working. This one may yield more than dust. Others have made big strikes—why shouldn’t we? Morgan says the gold’s here, and he knows what he’s doing, don’t he?

His brother Luke, standing thigh-deep in the cold, murky waters of the creek, responded with an indifferent shrug.

Does he, Dan? he questioned. Does he? But not waiting for an answer, and with now-practiced skill, he bailed water into the cradle and began shaking it on its rockers in order to separate the mass of sand and gravel. Larger fragments of rock and useless pebbles were retained by a perforated metal sheet secured across the upper part of the box, the rest falling through into the sloping bottom, for the water to wash it past a series of slats or riffles. At the end of each day, someone would carefully scoop from behind the riffles the particles of gold that had settled there, mixed, inevitably, with sand.

Luke straightened up, smothering a sigh. Unlike his older brother, Daniel, who was a well-muscled six feet, he was small and slight and, just past his eighteenth birthday, the younger by three years. Until four months ago, when Captain Jasper Morgan had entered their lives on his way to the goldfields, both he and Dan had been content enough to work on their father’s small, isolated farm in California’s Sacramento Valley, raising hogs and horses and supplying the gold rush travellers and the mining camps with food and timber in addition to replacements for their worn-out teams.

Their father was a Mormon. Although he had been one of the early converts, he had found existence under Brigham Young in Great Salt Lake City too restrictive and had deserted the New Zion in order to return to the life and work he knew and loved best. But he had retained the principles of his faith, and the all-prevailing gold fever now gripping the state of California in the year 1850 had left him unmoved, for he had heeded the Mormon leader’s stern injunction that gold was for paving city streets and not for personal enrichment.

Luke, bareheaded under the relentless sun, mopped his brow as he watched his brother walk away, pushing the heavy barrow in the direction of the bank, where their two companions were toiling with picks and spades.

The coming of Captain Jasper Morgan had changed everything. Handsome, elegant, and worldly-wise, Morgan had an eloquent tongue and an answer for any argument. He had charmed them all initially and had even contrived to refute Brigham Young’s dictum by listing the advantages certain to accrue to those who had the wit and knowledge to prospect successfully for the gold that, he had claimed, was there for the taking. He had that knowledge; in a matter of a few weeks, his musical Welsh voice had asserted—or at most a couple of months—he would find a suitable site, and the skill he had acquired in the coal and tin mines of his native land would ensure success beyond the dreams of avarice.

But he needed help, Morgan had conceded—strong arms and young men accustomed to hard labour, since he himself —Luke smiled wryly at the memory—he himself, having followed a military profession and lived as a gentleman, was deficient on that score.

Dan had been eager to take him up on the offer of a partnership. Dan, for all their strict upbringing and their Mormon principles, had always hankered after the chance to join the thousands of gold seekers who had come flooding into the bleak, inhospitable land since James Marshall’s discovery at Sutler’s Mill. And Luke’s smile widened into one of deep affection. Where Dan went, he went, too. When their father had given his consent and their mother her cautious approval, they had signed the deeds of partnership, and leaving in their places the two old Mexicans Morgan had brought with him from San Francisco, they had undertaken the chore of driving their new partner’s wagon, with its tents and mining gear, to the site he had chosen.

It had been a weary journey, through abandoned diggings and deserted mining camps, for the gold-hungry invaders were constantly moving on as news of fresh strikes reached them and new arrivals added daily to their number, now rumoured to be more than one hundred thousand. California had been ceded to the United States by Mexico and was now a state of the Union; millions of empty acres, uncultivated and uninhabited, were—as Morgan had said of the gold they were yielding—there for the taking. The miners formed their own committees, elected leaders, and made what laws they deemed necessary, and any man might stake a claim and hold it for as long as he continued to work it and left his tools or his tent on the site.

But Morgan did not share these democratic notions. He had a theory which, Luke reflected sullenly, he had not seen fit to divulge either to Dan or himself or to the two other men—both Australians and brothers, by the name of Gardener, Frank and Tom—whom he had also picked up on the way and taken into partnership.

They had passed through the largely canvas city of Sacramento, on through the sealike valley, and through the oak-clad foothills to the broad plateau of the Sierra, then down once again to the Feather River region, where finally Morgan had ordered a halt. They had set up camp in a dim gorge, known locally as Windy Gully, through the steep, rocky center of which ran a shallow stream. Morgan had displayed a secretive expertise while he made a survey of his chosen site but had finally pronounced the rocks gold-bearing and assured his anxious partners that the stream, conscientiously worked, would yield as much alluvial gold as they could wish for.

He had supervised the setting up of their rocker, had doled out spades and buckets from the wagon, and, having instructed them as to the procedure they must follow, had taken two of the horses and absented himself for almost three weeks. Dan came back, trundling another barrowload of sand and pebbles, and Luke dealt with it in brooding silence.

Cheer up, lad, his brother said. It’ll be grub time soon, and Frankie trapped us a couple o’ plump buck rabbits, so we’ll eat well at least. Even if we don’t have much to show for a hard day’s work.

We never do have much, Luke retorted, refusing to be placated. A few bags of dust, that’s all, and sweat enough to find that. He shook the rocker box with angry violence. And there’s Captain Morgan, always giving orders and never lending us a hand himself! Some partnership this is, with the four of us doing all the work.

He’s learnt us what to do, Luke, Dan reminded him. And paid for the wagon and the horses and the supplies. He jerked his head skyward. ‘Twill be sundown in half an hour. You’ll feel differently when you’ve a decent meal inside you.

Maybe he would, Luke agreed, but without conviction, his resentment of Jasper Morgan growing. The captain had returned after his three-week-long absence, bringing, it was true, more supplies and a second wagon. He had also brought a girl with him—his daughter, according to Tom Gardener, the only one to have seen her—and instead of living with the rest of them in the tents, he had moved into the storekeeper’s house at Flycatcher’s Bend, three miles away, and spent less time than before on their claim.

Luke scowled up at the setting sun, shivering now that the upper part of his body was deprived of its earlier warmth, and found himself wondering about the girl, Morgan’s daughter. Morgan kept her well out of sight, which, in view of the proximity of the area’s main mining camp, was perhaps understandable. The men there were, on the whole, sober and well behaved; but there were more than two hundred of them, and inevitably there were a few that stepped over the traces, given the opportunity. They were men from all corners of the earth—Americans, of course, and British, Australians, Blacks from the southern states, Mexicans, Germans, Frenchmen, a few Irish, and a small bunch from Chile.

The elected camp committee had drawn up the bylaws, which were strictly and sometimes brutally enforced. But some of the miners struck it rich and then went to celebrate their good fortune by getting drunk, despite the extortionate price the storekeepers in the locality charged for liquor, most of which was rotgut stuff, illicitly distilled. The camps themselves were primitive; in some there were a few rough timber huts, but most of the miners slept under canvas. A handful of the men—those who had exhausted their grubstakes in their quest for a strike—existed without even a tent; and a pretty young female—and Morgan’s girl was pretty, Tom had asserted—would clearly be a sore temptation to such men, the more so since they had, for the most part, been deprived of feminine company for a long time.

Even so, Luke told himself sourly, Jasper Morgan had no call to spend half his time with her, leaving his partners to do all the work on the claim. They were not paid a wage, and because he had supplied their food and equipment, Morgan had demanded and arbitrarily taken a fifty percent share of their so-far meagre returns.

The captain’s a gentleman, Dan always reminded him when he voiced his doubts. And like he says, his word is his bond. He’ll not cheat us, Luke.

But was he really a gentleman? Certainly Morgan talked with all the arrogant assurance that went with social superiority. His commission, he had told them, had been granted by the Queen of England, and he had fought in the Carlist War in Spain, as a soldier of fortune, with a splendid, jewel-encrusted gold medal, bearing Queen Isabella’s head, to prove his claim and his courage. But for all that, and in spite of the man’s glib talk of past glories and wide travel, Luke’s doubts had not been set at rest. Rather, they had increased and worried him more, particularly since the girl’s arrival. Her name was Mercy, Tom had said, which might or might not be Welsh. Or it was, perhaps, a shortened form of Mercedes...

Hi, there, Luke old son! Tom himself hailed him from the creek bank, a big, genial fellow who, whatever the temperature, worked with his torso bared and in pants cut off above the knee. He and his brother shared most of the heavy digging with Dan, and in addition, Frankie Gardener had volunteered to act as camp cook. Frankie’s roastin’ them rabbits he snared, an’ he says they won’t be long. You c’n knock off now, lad, an’ git into some dry clothes. I’ll ‘tend to the riffles.

Thanks, Tom, Luke acknowledged gratefully. He straightened up, flexing his cramped muscles and conscious of the pangs of hunger. It had been a long day, and he hoped, as he did most days, that they would have more than sand and a sprinkling of gold dust to show for it, although such hopes were seldom fulfilled. Morgan would not hear of their moving on, however small their return; he had chosen the Windy Gully site, bringing all his expert knowledge to the task, and to abandon it would be to call that knowledge into question.

As Luke made his way along the water’s edge, an appetizing smell of roasting meat greeted him, and he gave Frankie Gardener a friendly wave. At least he and Dan had struck it rich where the other members of their partnership were concerned, he reflected. The Gardeners were as fine a pair of men as any he had ever met—honest, hardworking, utterly dependable, and the best of company, even in the face of disappointment. He enjoyed listening to the yarns they told about Australia as they hunkered down beside their campfire in the evening. Both had been seamen until, like so many others, they had jumped ship in San Francisco and come to try their luck in the goldfields.

Neither of them planned to stay in America.

Soon as we make a worthwhile strike, we’ll be off back to Sydney Town, Tom had said many times, and smiled as he went on to talk of his wife and children and his longing to end what had become a three-year separation from them. He had talked also of a fellow Australian named Hargraves, Luke recalled, a merchant seaman serving in the same ship, with whom Jasper Morgan had had some dealings.

Frankie had said of Hargraves, He has his head screwed on the right way, has Ned. Reckons the country in our Bathurst an’ Goulburn areas is as like this here as to make no difference. So if there’s gold here in California, then there’s every chance there’ll be gold in New South Wales, an’ I, for one, can’t wait to go back an’ find out. All Tom an’ me are waiting for is just one good strike an’ we’ll be hightailin’ it home!

But there had been no good strike — Just a few small bags of dust, won after days and weeks of backbreaking toil and sweat. And it was backbreaking, Luke thought sourly. Each spadeful of earth took effort; each laden barrow must be wheeled over the rough ground to the cradle, tipped into it, rocked, and washed. Placer mining, it was called. Panning was easier but less rewarding, and in any case, after a day spent swilling river sand in a heavy metal pan, a man’s muscles ached and his head reeled. And they were working their claim with the knowledge that other miners, more skilled and experienced than they themselves, had worked Windy Gully and moved on. Besides—

Hey, Luke boy! Frankie, hands cupped about his mouth, hailed him from the tent site. Luke obediently halted and looked up to the top of the rocky bank, some thirty feet above.

Yeah, Frankie? You want something?

A bucket o’ fresh water, lad. Make sure your bucket’s clean—it’s for makin’ the coffee. Don’t want to swaller no dust with our coffee, do we? Nor any nuggets, neither.

It was a jest that had long since worn thin, and Luke did not laugh. He glanced back to where Tom and Dan were busy scraping out the riffles and saw Dan shake his head in answer to his unspoken question. Just dust, then, he thought with bitterness—dust, a pinch of which would buy a drink or two, and a handful sell for twenty dollars; barely enough to keep them in flour and coffee, with prices what they were at the diggings. It took nearly an ounce of dust a day just to keep one miner fed and working...

Right, he called back, swallowing his disappointment. I’ll get your water, Frankie.

He returned to the stream, the water squelching out of his worn cowhide boots. Conscientiously he rinsed the bucket, then filled it with fresh creek water. The bank at this point was steep; there was an easier ascent a few yards back, but in his present mood of black depression, Luke did not bother to walk back.

That this was a mistake he quickly realized as his wet boots slipped on the lichen-covered rock and he had to put out his free hand swiftly to grasp the exposed roots of a scrubby manzanita growing in a crevice, in order to avoid spilling the contents of his bucket. He managed to steady himself, losing only a few drops of the water, but then, without warning, the manzanita roots lost their frail hold, and Luke found himself having to cling to the edge of the crevice with both hands, letting the bucket fall.

Cursing, he watched the bucket roll out of reach and was about to go down to retrieve it when something in the interior of the crevice caught his eye. Where the roots of the mountain shrub had been there were pebbles lying as they might have done in a bird’s nest; only the pebbles were larger than any bird’s eggs he had ever seen, and in the last, faint rays of the setting sun they possessed a dull, reflected gleam.

Scarcely daring to believe the evidence of his eyes, Luke reached into the crevice and picked up one of the pebbles, an impulsive shout strangled in his throat. Best to make sure, he told himself, his heart pounding like a living thing against his ribs. There had been so many failures, so many dashed hopes; it wouldn’t do to yell out to Dan and the others that at long last he had made the strike they had dreamed of. Not until he was sure.

It did not take him long to make sure. He had seen and handled other nuggets before, and there was no mistake about these: Weight and feel were right. They were gold! And there were—God in heaven,—there were eight of them, varying in size and shape, the largest, as nearly as he could guess, weighing around five pounds.

An even larger one was embedded in the rock. His hands trembling, Luke took out his jackknife and, with infinite care and some difficulty, pried it out. Again resisting the impulse to call to the others, he filled his pockets with the smaller nuggets and clambered down to fetch his bucket, into which he placed his last find.

The light had almost gone, and he strode back to the gentle ascent they usually took, mounting it as if he were walking on air. Dan and Tom were spreading out the day’s small mixture of sand and dust to dry in front of the fire, and Frankie, busy with his rabbits on their spits, observed, without turning around, his tone mildly reproachful, That you, Luke? Took your time, didn’t you? Let’s have the water; these rabbits are just about done.

I brought something better than water, Luke said. His voice was so hoarse with excitement that it sounded unnatural, even to himself, and Dan, quick to sense the emotional strain under which his brother was labouring, jumped up and grasped him by the shoulders.

What is it, young Luke? What is it, boy?

This, Luke stammered, his throat tight. We—we m-made it, Dan; we made our strike! Praise be to God!

He dropped to his knees by the fire, and as the other three watched in stunned amazement, he turned out first his pockets and then upended the heavy bucket, placing his haul on the strip of canvas on which the few handfuls of dust and sand were drying.

They stared with mouths agape, momentarily bereft of words. Then Tom picked up the largest of the nuggets and leaped to his feet, emitting a wild, triumphant yell.

Jesus, boys, we’re rich! This must be worth—God Almighty, a bloody fortune! We can go home, Frankie! The kid’s made it for us, and made it big! Luke, you’re a marvel!

One of the precious jackrabbits fell from its spit into the fire, but Frankie did not trouble to retrieve it. He wrung Luke’s hand, his tanned face aglow and his blue, seaman’s eyes full of tears as he sought vainly for words.

Where? he managed at last. Where did you find all these, Luke?

Luke told him, feeling suddenly as if it were all a dream and fearful that he might waken from it. "Pinch