--they weren't sure which one--and along the drives was enough to
scare up the dead and make them take to the Bush.

'Why didn't you fools make off into the Bush and give us a chance,
instead of giving her a lead here?' asked Dave.

Jim and Kullers began to wish they had done so.

Mrs Middleton began to throw stones down the shaft--it was Pinter's--and
they, even the oldest and most anxious, began to grin in spite of
themselves, for they knew she couldn't hurt them from the surface, and
that, though she had been a working digger herself, she couldn't fill
both shafts before the fumes of liquor overtook her.

'I wonder which shaf' she'll come down,' asked Kullers in a tone
befitting the place and occasion.

'You'd better go and watch your shaft, Pinter,' said Dave, 'and Jim and
I'll watch mine.'

'I--I won't,' said Pinter hurriedly. 'I'm--I'm a modest man.'

Then they heard a clang in the direction of Pinter's shaft.

'She's thrown her bottle down,' said Dave.

Jim crawled along the drive a piece, urged by curiosity, and returned
hurriedly.

'She's broke the pitchfork off short, to use in the drive, and I believe
she's coming down.'

'Her crinoline'll handicap her,' said Pinter vacantly, 'that's a
comfort.'

'She's took it off!' said Dave excitedly; and peering along Pinter's
drive, they saw first an elastic-sided boot, then a red-striped
stocking, then a section of scarlet petticoat.

'Lemme out!' roared Pinter, lurching forward and making a swimming
motion with his hands in the direction of Dave's drive. Kullers
was already gone, and Jim well on the way. Dave, lanky and awkward,
scrambled up the shaft last. Mrs Middleton made good time, considering
she had the darkness to face and didn't know the workings, and when Dave
reached the top he had a tear in the leg of his moleskins, and the blood
ran from a nasty scratch. But he didn't wait to argue over the price of
a new pair of trousers. He made off through the Bush in the direction of
an encouraging whistle thrown back by Jim.

'She's too drunk to get her story listened to to-night,' said Dave. 'But
to-morrow she'll bring the neighbourhood down on us.'

'And she's enough, without the neighbourhood,' reflected Pinter.

Some time after dark they returned cautiously, reconnoitred their camp,
and after hiding in a hollow log such things as they couldn't carry,
they rolled up their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.

The Chinaman's Ghos