He Was Satisfied
With What He Saw - Indeed, He Could Hardly Have Been Otherwise At That
Period Of The Mine's
Existence; and on our arrival in Cue, wither we had
travelled part of the way together, a bargain was struck,
And before many
days Jim and I returned with the glad tidings that the mine was sold, and
would be taken over forthwith.
The road from Cue was as uninteresting as all others on the goldfields -
miles of flat, sandy soil covered with dense scrub, an occasional open
plain of grass and saltbush round the foot of the breakaways, and cliffs
that are pretty frequently met with. Travellers on this road had been kept
lively by a band of marauding black-fellows, most of whom had "done time"
at Rotnest Jail for cattle-spearing, probably, on the coast stations.
Having learnt the value of white-fellows' food, they took to the road, and
were continually bailing up lonely swagmen, who were forced to give up
their provisions or be knocked on the head, since hardly any carried
firearms. The finest prize that they captured was a loaded camel, which in
some extraordinary way had got adrift from the end of a large caravan,
and wandered into the scrub. The Afghans, when they had perceived their
loss, tracked up the camel, only to find it dying in agony, with its knees
chopped nearly two. This was Jacky-Jacky's way of putting the poor beast
down to be unloaded. Happily, after a Warden was appointed at Lawlers, a
trooper was sent out, who broke up the gang and captured most of them, at
the expense of the life of one black tracker.
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