Pierre nodded in a sullen manner, and went back to his work, while
Vandeloup hurried on to catch up to McIntosh, who was now far ahead.
“I wish,” said this pleasant young man to himself, as he stumbled along,
“I wish that the mine would fall in and crush Pierre; he’s such a dead
weight to be hanging round my neck; besides, he has such a gaol-bird
look about him that it’s enough to make the police find out where he
came from; if they do, good-bye to wealth and respectability.”
He found Archie waiting for him at the entrance to the main drive, and
they soon arrived at the bottom of the shaft, got into the cage, and at
last reached the top of the earth again. Vandeloup drew a long breath of
the fresh pure air, but his eyes felt quite painful in the vivid glare
of the sun.
“I don’t envy the gnomes,” he said gaily to Archie as they went on to
the puddlers; “they must have been subject to chronic rheumatism.”
Mr McIntosh, not having an acquaintance with fairy lore, said nothing in
reply, but took Vandeloup to the puddlers, and showed all the process of
getting the gold.
The wash was carried along in the trucks from the top of the shaft
to the puddlers, which were large circular vats into which water was
constantly gushing. The wash dirt being put into these, there was an
iron ring held up by chains, having blunt spikes to it, which was called
a harrow. Two of these being attached to beams laid crosswise were
dragged round and round among the wash by the constant revolution of
the cross-pieces. This soon reduced all the wash dirt to a kind of fine,
creamy-looking syrup, with heavy white stones in it, which were removed
every now and then by the man in charge of the machine. Descending to
the second story of the framework, Vandeloup found himself in a
square chamber, the roof of which was the puddler. In this roof was
a trap-door, and when the wash dirt had been sufficiently mixed the
trap-door was opened, and it was precipitated through on to the floor
of the second chamber. A kind of broad trough, running in a slanting
direction and called a sluice, was on one side, and into this a quantity
of wash was put, and a tap at the top turned on, which caused the
water to wash the dirt down the sluice. Another man at the foot, with
a pitchfork, kept shifting up the stones which were mixed up with the
gravel, and by degrees all the surplus dirt was washed away, leaving
only these stones and a kind of fine black sand, in which the gold being
heavy, had stayed. This sand was carefully gathered up with a brush
and iron trowel into a shallow tin basin, and then an experienced miner
carefully manipulated the same with clear water. What with blowing with
the breath, and allowing the water to flow gently over it, all the
black sand was soon taken away, and the bottom of the tin dish was
then covered with dirty yellow grains of gold interspersed with little
water-worn nuggets. Archie took the gold and carried it down to the