The Great Crushing at Mount Sugar-Bag

The Great Crushing at Mount Sugar-Bag
A Queensland Mining Tale
by Louis Becke

"Let's sling it, boys. There's no fun in our bullocking here day after day
and not making tucker! I'm sick to death of the infernal hole, and mean
to get out of it."
"So am I, Ned. I was sick of it a month ago," said Harry Durham,
filling his pipe and flinging himself down at full length upon his
luxurious couch--a corn-sack suspended between four posts driven into
the earthen floor of the hut. "I'm ready to chuck it up to-morrow and
drive a mob of nanny-goats to the Palmer, like young Preston did the
other day."
"How much do we owe that old divil Ikey now?" said Rody Minogue,
the third man of the party, who sat at the open doorway looking out
upon the disreputable collection of bark humpies that constituted the
played-out mining township of Mount Sugar-bag.
"About £70 now," said Durham; "but against that he's got our five
horses. The old beast means to shut down on us, I can see that plainly
enough.
When I went to him on Saturday for the tucker he had a face on him as
long as a child's coffin."
"Look here, boys," said Buller, the pessimsit, "let the infernal old
vampire keep our three saddle-horses--they are worth more than
seventy quid--and be hanged to him. We'll have the two pack-horses
left. Let us sell one, and with the other to carry our swags, we'll foot it
to Cleveland Bay, or Bowen, I don't care which."

"An' what are we goin' to do whin we get there?" asked Rody.
Buller shrugged his shoulders. "Dashed if I know, Rody; walk up and
down Bowen jetty watch the steamers come in."
"And live on pack-horse meat," said Durham.
"Now, look here," and Rody got up from the doorway and sat upon the
rough table in the middle of the room, "I want you fellows to listen to
me. First of all, tell me this: Isn't it through me entirely that we've
managed to get tick from old Ikey Cohen at all?"
"Right," said Durham; "no one but you, Rody, would have had courage
enough to make love to greasy-faced Mrs. Ikey."
"Don't be ungrateful. Every time I've been to the place I've sympathised
with her hard lot in being tied to an uncongential mate like Ikey Cohen,
and for every half a dozen times I've squeezed her had you fellows
have to thank me for a sixpenny plug of sheepwash tobacco."
"By Heavens! how you must have suffered for that tin of
baking-powder that we got last week, and which didn't go down the
bill!"
Rody laughed good-naturedly.
"Well, perhaps I did. But never mind poking fun at me, I'm talking
seriously now. Here we are, stone-broke, and divil a chance can I see of
our getting on to anything good at Sugar-bag. We've got about forty
tons of stone at grass, haven't we? What do you think it'll go?"
"About fifteen pennyweights," said Durham.
"I say ten," said Buller
"And I say it's going to be the biggest crushing on Sugar-bag since the
old days," said Rody.
"Rot!" said Durham.

"Now just you wait and listen to what I've got to say. We've got forty
tons at grass now. Now, we won't get a show to crush for some weeks,
because there's Tom Doyle's lot and then Patterson's to go through first.
It's no use asking old Fryer to put our stuff through before theirs.
Besides, we don't want him to."
"Don't we? I think we want to get out of this God-forsaken hole as
quick as we can."
"So we do. But getting our stuff through first won't help us away.
Reckon it up, my boys! Forty tons, even if it goes an ounce, means only
about £140. Out of that old Cohen gets £70--just half, that would leave
us £70; out of this we shall have to give Fryer £40 for crushing. That
leaves us £30."
"That'll take us to Townsville or Cooktown, anyway," said Durham.
"Yes," said Rody, "if we get it. But we won't. That stone isn't going to
crush for more than ten pennyweights to the ton."
A dead silence followed. Rody was the oldest and most experienced
miner of them all, and knew what he was talking about. Then Buller
groaned.
"That means, then, that after we've paid Fryer £40 for his crushing we'll
have £30 for old Cohen and nothing for ourselves.
"That's it, Ned."
No one spoke for a moment, until Durham, who had good Scriptural
knowledge, began cursing King Pharaoh for not crossing the Red Sea
first in boats and blocking Moses and his crowd from landing on the
other side.
"Well, wait a minute," resumed Rody, "I haven't