gold quartz reef which was supposed to exist
in the vicinity. There is always a rich reef supposed to exist in the
vicinity; the only questions are whether it is ten feet or hundreds
beneath the surface, and in which direction. They had struck some
pretty solid rock, also water which kept them baling. They used the
old-fashioned blasting-powder and time-fuse. They'd make a sausage or
cartridge of blasting-powder in a skin of strong calico or canvas, the
mouth sewn and bound round the end of the fuse; they'd dip the cartridge
in melted tallow to make it water-tight, get the drill-hole as dry as
possible, drop in the cartridge with some dry dust, and wad and ram with
stiff clay and broken brick. Then they'd light the fuse and get out of
the hole and wait. The result was usually an ugly pot-hole in the bottom
of the shaft and half a barrow-load of broken rock.

There was plenty of fish in the creek, fresh-water bream, cod, cat-fish,
and tailers. The party were fond of fish, and Andy and Dave of fishing.
Andy would fish for three hours at a stretch if encouraged by a 'nibble'
or a 'bite' now and then--say once in twenty minutes. The butcher was
always willing to give meat in exchange for fish when they caught more
than they could eat; but now it was winter, and these fish wouldn't
bite. However, the creek was low, just a chain of muddy water-holes,
from the hole with a few bucketfuls in it to the sizable pool with an
average depth of six or seven feet, and they could get fish by baling
out the smaller holes or muddying up the water in the larger ones
till the fish rose to the surface. There was the cat-fish, with spikes
growing out of the sides of its head, and if you got pricked you'd know
it, as Dave said. Andy took off his boots, tucked up his trousers, and
went into a hole one day to stir up the mud with his feet, and he knew
it. Dave scooped one out with his hand and got pricked, and he knew it
too; his arm swelled, and the pain throbbed up into his shoulder, and
down into his stomach too, he said, like a toothache he had once, and
kept him awake for two nights--only the toothache pain had a 'burred
edge', Dave said.

Dave got an idea.

'Why not blow the fish up in the big water-hole with a cartridge?' he
said. 'I'll try it.'

He thought the thing out and Andy Page worked it out. Andy usually put
Dave's theories into practice if they were practicable, or bore the
blame for the failure and the chaffing of his mates