When silver and other minerals in abundance were being discovered on the West Coast, and all Tasmania went mining mad, Sullivan, amongst others, found his way there. Labor was in great demand, wages were high, and he easily found work.
But work—ordinary honest work—was too tame and unremunerative for him, and beneath a man of his abilities, in his opinion. So, although he took a job here and a job there just to keep himself going, he spent most of his time visiting one claim after another and acquiring as much knowledge of mining (industrial and financial) as he could, and looking out for an opportunity to make one of his brilliant strokes.
After a while he thought he saw his way, but to carry out his scheme he required assistance, so he looked out for a suitable accomplice. Just then he chanced to meet Homer, the very man he would have chosen; and Homer, on learning his scheme, at once joined him. But he wanted a third, and his thoughts naturally turned to Potts. Potts, too, he learned from Homer, was also on the Coast, but a good many miles away. Sullivan at once sent Homer to fetch him, and Potts promptly came.
Sullivan took them to a certain claim he knew of that had been worked for a short time and then abandoned. It had yielded a rich percentage of gold for a few weeks, but the reef was only eight inches wide and had narrowed as it went down, and the gold had been a mere patch, the shoot running out at both ends, so the claim had been thrown up.
But on this same claim Sullivan had found another reef, about two yards wide, and cropping out across the whole tenacre section, but barren. It was not the right kind of quartz to carry gold; at least gold is very rarely found in such quartz. This claim Sullivan applied for in Homer’s name.
Going over this barren reef, which only cropped out faintly here and there and had to be searched for in the intervals, Sullivan skilfully salted certain parts which had become more or less friable from exposure to the weather. He had got a small supply of gold for the purpose. He then, with his mates, carefully covered up their work and set them to open up afresh the abandoned shaft, while he went down to Strahan seeking whom he might devour.
Now, there were at that time, when all Tasmania was mining mad, many capitalist speculators—some experienced, hard-headed men, some inexperienced and gullible—all on the look-out to have a throw for one of the rich prizes that abounded but could only be located by experiment. It was quite on the cards that you might get £100 for every £1 you laid out, but the chances were far more than a hundred to one against you.
It was an inexperienced investor that Sullivan was in search of. But how to get hold of one of them?
Before long he heard of one who was staying at the hotel at Strahan, and was intending to go up towards Mount Lyell.
Sullivan went to the hotel, managed at dinner to sit next to this individual, whose name was Simpson, got into conversation with him, and exerted all his charms. He spoke so courteously, displayed so much intelligence, and told such racy anecdotes, that he soon made the favorable impression he desired. They talked, of course, like everyone else, chiefly mining, and Sullivan learned that Simpson intended starting for Lyell the next day but one, and had hired a horse, which was to arrive next day. Sullivan appeared as much pleased with Simpson as Simpson was with him, and said he hoped to have the pleasure of meeting him again soon, as he himself, as it happened, was going up Mount Lyell way about that time. But never a word did he say about the claim.
That afternoon he sent particular instructions up to his two mates.
It was necessary that Simpson should somehow be got to stop at the claim (which was near the Mount Lyell track) on his way up. But how to get him to do so? Sullivan could not suggest it. Neither Potts nor Homer could be expected to draw him there, as they were both much too suspicious looking customers to attract anyone into the bush with specious stories of gold reefs, and no one else would be likely to recommend Simpson to an abandoned claim.
On the morning the unsuspecting Simpson was to commence his journey, Sullivan watched him sit down to breakfast, and, stepping into the stable, he tied a fine strong thread round the horse’s fetlock, well in under the hair, so that nothing could be seen, or even felt, when the horse went lame, as he certainly would do after an hour or two, from stoppage of the circulation. Then he stepped out on the Mount Lyell track. Simpson started later, travelling slowly, as the way was rough. He had not gone many miles when his horse started to go lame, and got steadily worse as he went on.
Presently he met Potts coming along. Potts saluted him cheerily, and then stopped suddenly and eyed the horse. Then he said, ‘That horse of yours will never carry you to Mount Lyell.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ replied Simpson; ‘I can’t think what’s the matter with him. He was all right when I started.’
Potts bent down and carefully felt the horse’s leg up and down. ‘I think I know what’s wrong,’ said he. ‘I’ve seen that kind of case before. An hour’s rest and a good bathing with hot water will set it right. If you like to come to our camp, which is close by, I’ll soon put your horse on his legs again. I was going a mile or so down the road, but it’s no great consequence, I can do that another time.’
Simpson thanked him, and accompanied him to the claim.
Here Homer received him with the best manners he could muster, and, producing the customary billy of tea, poured him out a pannikinful piping hot.
While Simpson was sipping it Potts put a fresh billy of water on to heat for the bathing process, and soon proceeded to bathe the horse’s leg.
While Homer engaged Simpson’s attention Potts slipped his knife in under the hair, soon found the thread, and cut it. Rather a difficult job it was, as the flesh had swelled up round it. The leg really did want bathing.
Meanwhile Homer began talking about their claim; how rich it was, and how anxious they were to keep it and work it, but found it difficult for want of means, and wanted a partner with a little money, hinting that they would sell it for a reasonable figure if they could not get anyone to join. He admitted that the claim had been worked and abandoned, and that the reef had narrowed downwards, for Sullivan had strictly enjoined them to speak nothing but the exact truth, and though it was contrary to their nature to adhere strictly to it, still they kept reasonably near it.
Potts bathed his horse and then joined them. He urged the exceeding richness of the reef, and said he could show gold in it visible to the naked eye, and, taking Simpson to the shaft, he did show a few specks, and said, what was quite true, that a reef that narrowed in ten feet down was quite likely to widen again in the next ten feet, and that gold shoots often ran out and then re-appeared richer than ever. Simpson, however, was not charmed, and after a while got ready to go, thanking the two men for their help and hospitality. The last thing Potts said was: ‘Well, we are going to start for Strahan presently for fresh supplies. If you want to communicate with us you will find us or hear of us at the hotel there for the next three days.’
‘All right,’ said Simpson, and he rode off.
About a mile up the track he met Sullivan, and stopped for a few minutes’ chat, and presently mentioned the reef he had been shown, adding that he did not think much of it.
‘No, neither do I,’ answered Sullivan, ‘I know it well. It has been tried before and abandoned. But if you are looking out for an opening of that sort I know of one not very far from here that is really promising.’
‘Then why don’t you take it up? asked Simpson.
‘Me!’ replied Sullivan, smiling, ‘I’m a poor man; how can I take up a claim. Even if I could scrape up enough to pay the survey fee and the Government rent, I’d be no further on. To work a mine requires money.’
‘Then it’s no use to you?’
‘No; the mine, as a mine, is no use to me, but the knowledge of the reef is. I wouldn’t sell my knowledge for money, but I’d sell half a share of the mine to anyone with money, who could work it or float a company to work it, and leave me the other half—or even a third.’
‘It must be a rich reef to be worth buying on such terms.’
‘Well, I believe it is rich. I believe it’s a fortune. But I ask no man to buy blindfold. All I ask is, that if, after seeing and testing the reef, he concludes to take the claim up, he will give me a share in the mine. If he doesn’t think the reef a good one he can let it alone; if he does think it good, he can and ought to pay me—not in money, I don’t want that, but in shares only—for the opportunity which I find him. It’s hard lines if the poor man who never can take up a good thing when he finds it is to be left out in the cold altogether—never to have even a share in a good thing when he finds it.’
‘That’s reasonable enough. I wouldn’t mind having a look at your mine. That, at any rate, can’t hurt either of us.’
‘Just so; but you’ll excuse me, sir, in showing you the mine I’m parting with my knowledge. If you’ll give me a written acknowledgment—well, I’m a poor man, as I said before, and here’s a chance for me I may not get again for some time. If you’ll give me a right for a quarter—hang it, for one-fifth—in the event of your taking up the claim. I’ll show it you straight away, it’s no distance off. Remember, you run no risk. I’m not asking for money, only for a share in the venture—a paid-up share, mind.’
‘Very well; I’ll give that if I find it worth taking up.’
‘Then just come a few hundred yards further on to the Madam Percy claim, where we can get paper and ink.’
So they went on to the Madam Percy, got paper and ink, and the agreement was duly made out, signed, and witnessed.
‘Now retrace your steps,’ said Sullivan, and he took his companion back to the claim he had just left finding it deserted for the time, Homer and Potts having left, as they had said they intended. Sullivan picked up a pan, a pick, and a shovel, and took Simpson up the hill and into the scrub.
‘The reef I mean is on this very claim,’ he said, ‘but these two duffers know nothing about it. I don’t exactly blame them either, because they are neither experienced prospectors nor bushmen, and anyone might walk over the reef a dozen times without noticing it. That often happens when the scrub is thick and the reef only peeps out here and there and looks to the inexperienced eye just like ordinary rock. I only found it out myself by accident. See here,’ said he, stooping down, drawing the bushes aside, and disclosing a piece of rock just showing above the soil. ‘Here’s some paper. I’ll tear it into ten or a dozen pieces, and we’ll take specimens from as many different places and test them, each separately, afterwards. You take the pick yourself, if you like, and break off a little.’
Simpson did so. The top, having been long exposed to the weather, was friable, and broke up easily. Sullivan put some into one of the pieces of paper. He then took Simpson further on, and looking about, presently found, or rather managed to let Simpson find, another outcrop, and then another, and then another and another, repeating the process of taking some of the surface stone from each.
‘Now,’ said Sullivan, stepping the distance from one outcrop to another across the hill, ‘you see there’s a width of six feet actually showing; and as it’s wildly unlikely that the whole width shows, the reef is pretty certain to be a good many feet wider, but we’ll say it’s only one foot wider. Then we have a reef seven feet wide. Now for the length.’ He then took Simpson along the hill for a good distance, finding bits of outcrop here and there, and taking specimens from each. He then turned back, counting his paces, and tested the ground in the opposite direction. ‘There,’ said he presently, ‘There’s four chains of a reef seven feet wide, that’s clear, anyhow. Now we’ve got to test the quality.’
Returning to the camp he hunted about in the tent till he found a pestle and mortar. ‘Now try some of your specimens,’ he said. Simpson pounded them up roughly— several of them—and trying them in the pan separately, saw gold distinctly in almost all of them, several quite large grains in some.
Simpson got rather excited. ‘It certainly looks promising,’ he said.
‘All right,’ said Sullivan. ‘Now you take those specimens back to Strahan, and have them tested carefully before you decide.’ Then he added, ‘And you may as well get some expert’s opinion upon them.’
Sullivan, of course, would much rather he did nothing of the sort, but he reflected Simpson would be almost certain to do so in any case, so it would look better if he suggested it, and the mere fact of him proposing it would make Simpson perhaps less insistent on doing so, or, at any rate, satisfied with less of it.
‘But what’s the use of all this?’ asked Simpson. ‘Those two men hold the claim, and they believe in their little reef, so they’ll hold on.’
‘That’s nothing,’ replied Sullivan. ‘I know they believe in it, and therefore will ask a good price for it. But they can’t work it. They know that. They haven’t the money, and they’ll take two or three hundred pounds for it, you’ll see. And my share of the purchase money can be deducted from my receipts, with interest, when my receipts come in.’
‘Well, we’ll see about it,’ said Simpson, and rode off.
Next evening Sullivan reached Strahan. He noticed Homer and Potts sitting in the hotel, but made no sign, and sought Simpson upstairs. He found him in a state of suppressed excitement. He had had the specimens tested separately. Only two of them had shown no trace of gold; the others had yielded from a few pennyweights to over five ounces to the ton, an average of two ounces fairly distributed along the whole line of reef. He had shown the specimens to an expert, who had said the result seemed all right and very satisfactory, but remarked that that kind of quartz rarely contained gold, though he admitted it did sometimes. He asked Simpson whether it was all right, and warned him to be careful, asking whether anyone was wanting to sell him a section. Simpson had replied, ‘No; not for money, only for a share in the mine.’
‘That looked well, at any rate,’ the expert had replied, but still had warned him to be careful and get further tests.
Simpson, however, was satisfied, and not only satisfied, but eager. A reef seven feet wide, four chains long at least, and yielding over two ounces average along the greater part of the reef, was too dazzling a bait to be resisted.
The sellers did not know what they were selling, and the man who did know would not sell at all, but insisted on staying in and taking his reward out of the results. There was a risk, of course—a risk that the reef might pinch out, or the gold shoot run out; but that was the regular and inevitable risk in all mining. If he was not going to run any risk he had no business to speculate. Moreover, his intention had been from the beginning not to buy into a proved mine, the cost of entering which would be proportionately high and yield only a good interest on the outlay; but to buy cheap into an unproved mine that promised well, in the hope of making a fortune; and here was exactly the chance he was looking for.
He did not say all this to Sullivan, but Sullivan understood his thoughts as well as if he had spoken them, and maintained a discreet silence.
‘Well, what do you think it worth?’ Simpson asked at last.
‘That is for you to decide,’ replied Sullivan cautiously.
‘Would a couple of hundred buy it, do you think?’ asked Simpson.
‘Scarcely, I fear,’ replied Sullivan. ‘You see the fellows thoroughly believe in that shaft of theirs, and feel it a real grievance to be obliged to sell out. I expect they’ll stand out for more. Besides, after all, the shaft may also turn up trumps. Reefs that pinch often widen out again, and lost gold shoots re-appear. The odds are equal both ways, and the mine certainly yielded a big percentage one time. If it was me I’d willingly go another hundred, or more if necessary.’
‘Well, we’ll see what they say.’ So saying, Simpson stepped out and called Homer and Potts.
We need not follow the bargaining. Homer and Potts first pretended to want to join rather than buy them out, then asked first £500, then came down to £400, and finally accepted £300, plus the rent they had paid (£10) and £10 apiece more to cover their expenses. The cheque was made out, the transfer signed, and the parties separated.
Next day the three confederates sailed by the steamer, renewed their acquaintance as soon as they were out of sight of the wharf, and finally arriving in Hobart, cashed their cheque and proceeded to enjoy themselves.
If anyone thinks Simpson was taken in too easily he can never have witnessed a mining mania. Thousands on thousands of pounds were invested on far less grounds than were presented to Simpson. I know a case in which no gold had been seen, nor even a reef established. A mere cap of quartz was struck at the bottom of a shaft, and the finders carefully abstained from testing it, but floated a company. The shares were taken up quickly.