The Great Crushing at Mount Sugar-Bag | Page 6

with this amalgam? Von't you redord
(retort) it now?"
"No," answered Rody, "It's not worth while having two retortings. Take
it away with you--you have the best right to it--and lock it up. then, as
soon as we have put this mullocky stuff through, we will retort the lot

together. It won't take long running that stuff through the battery--it's
soft as butter."
Then, after carefully weighing the amalgam, Rody handed it over to Mr.
Cohen for safe keeping, and he and Buller went up to their humpy for
the night. But before they bade Mr. Cohen good-night, Rody wrote out
a few words on a slip of paper, and handed it to Ikey, with a
two-shilling piece.
"Send that along to Big Boulder by any one passing, will you? I told
Durham I'd send him a wire. He won't leave Townsville until
to-morrow. The steamer goes at four in the afternoon to-morrow."
When Mr. Cohen got home he read Rody's message, which was brief,
but explicit--
"Crushing going badly; not ten weights. Mullock may go as much or
more."
At eight o'clock next morning Rody and Buller were ready to feed their
second lot of stone into the boxes. At Rody's suggestion the mill
manager, who was also the engine driver (and who employed but two
Chinamen to feed and empty the sludge pits in connection with the
wretched old machine), put on very old coarse screens; and whilst he
was engaged in doing this, rody stowed a certain small but heavy
canvas bag in a conveniently accessible spot near the battery boxes.
As soon as the screens were fixed, old Joe Fryer came round and
started the engine, whilst Rody "fed" and Buller attended to the tables
and blankets.
"We'll feed her, Fryer," said Rody. "These Chinkies are right enough
with hard stone, but they're no good with mucky stuff like this. They'd
have the boxes choked in no time."
Fryer was quite agreeable, and as soon as he turned away to attend to
the furnace Rody seized the canvas bag and poured about a quart of the
lead filings into the box. At the same time, Buller came round from the

tables with a cupful of quicksilver, and poured that in. This was done at
frequent intervals.
In a quarter of an hour Buller came round to Rody and said, in Fryer's
hearing, that the amalgam was showing pretty thick on the plates.
Fryer went to look at it, naturally feeling pleased at such goo news. In a
minute he was back, and seizing Rody by the hand, his dirty old face
beaming with excitement.
"By Jingo! You fellows have struck it this time. I haven't seen anything
like it since the time Billy Mason and George Boys put ten loads of
stuff like this through and got four hundred ounces. And look here, his
stuff of yours is going to be as good."
"Well, look here, Fryer," said Rody, modestly, "I may as well tell you
that I somehow thought it was pretty right. And I believe we've just
dropped on such another patch as Mason and Boys did in '72."
Buller by this time was apparetnly as much excited as old Fryer, and
was now sweeping the amalgam off the plates with a rubber, like a
street scraper sweepsup mud--in great stiff ridges--and dropping it into
an enamelled bucket. And every time that Fryer was out of sight
shoving a log of wood into the furnace, rody would pour another quart
of lead filings in the feed-box, and Buller would follow with a pint of
quicksilver.
"Luckily we got him to put on those old worn screens," muttered Rody
to Buller, "the cursed stuff is beginning to clog the boxes as it is."
At last, there being no more lead left and but little quicksilver, the
stampers worked with more freedom, and in another hour Rody flung
down his shovel--the final shovelful of mullock had gone into the box.
"I'll help you clean up as soon as I draw my fire," said old Fryer. "By
thunder, boys, what'll the chaps say when they see this? What about old
Sugar-bag being played out, eh?"

Fortunately for Rody and his partner the mill was a good two miles
away from the main camp, there being no nearer water available, and
no one had troubled to come down to see how the crushing was going,
except one Micky Foran, who had carted their stone down from the
claim. But when Micky saw Fryer and Rody go round to the back of
the boxes, lift the apron, and take off the screens, he gave a yell that
could have been heard a mile:
"Holy Saints, it looks like a grotto filled wid silver!"
And so it did, for the whole of the