Pigeon Post

  They hurried out into the ravine, tore off their goggles, and stood blinking in the sunshine, comparing the golden, glittering specks on different bits of quartz.

  “Slip up and scout, somebody,” said Nancy.

  Roger was already climbing up. He stopped well above their heads. One foot kicked in the air.

  “He’s seen Squashy,” said Titty.

  “He’s just going up on the Screes,” Roger whispered hoarsely.

  “Pretending,” said Titty, “and then he’ll jump our claim the moment we’re gone.”

  “Golly,” said Nancy, “and we haven’t staked it yet. Dot, we’ll have to use that paper.” She pulled her blue pencil from her pocket.

  Dorothea tore a page from her exercise book. “Won’t you put the book under it to write on?” she said.

  Roger came sliding down to see.

  Nancy, pressing the exercise book against the face of the rock, wrote in big capital letters.

  “S.A.D. MINING COMPANY.”

  “What does it mean?” said Roger.

  “Swallows, Amazons and D’s Mining Company, you bone-headed young galoot.”

  “But why sad?” asked Roger, skipping hurriedly out of reach.

  Nancy laughed and scrumpled that leaf up.

  “Sorry, Dot,” she said, “I’ll have to take another, just in case there are more donks about.”

  On the second leaf she wrote “S.A.D.M.C.” and waited, blue pencil in air.

  “Trespassers will be prosecuted,” murmured Roger.

  “It isn’t trespassers that matter,” said Titty. “It’s jumpers. If Squashy tried to jump our claim …”

  “We’d jolly well kill him,” said Nancy.

  “Well, let’s say so,” said Roger.

  But both John and Susan were against this.

  “It’s no use threatening something you can’t do,” said John.

  “Don’t say what we’ll do,” said Susan.

  “What about ‘All rights reserved’?” suggested Dorothea.

  But Nancy was busy again with her blue pencil.

  “How about that?” she said at last, and held up the notice she had finished.

  “Jolly good,” said John. “We don’t want to worry ordinary decent people, only jumpers. No one will know what it means unless he’s someone we want to frighten off. And he won’t know what on earth is going to happen to him. Far better than saying he’ll be hanged or anything like that …”

  “Things worse than death,” Dorothea tasted the words with relish.

  “So long as he thinks it’s something pretty unpleasant,” said Titty.

  John began working a hole in the ground with the point of his stake.

  “Not there,” said Nancy. “Much too near. We’ve claimed the whole gulch. Supposing he does come snooping along there’s no need to show him the way into our mine. He may never see it. You know, we never spotted it ourselves first time.”

  John used a stone to drive the stake into the ground in the middle of the little valley. He split the top of it with a knife and wedged in the notice.

  “Three cheers for Golden Gulch,” said Nancy. “Not too loud … Come on now and get the things. No need for everybody to come. The able-seamen stay on guard. We’ll do the carting.”

  The captains and mates climbed the side of the Gulch and were gone.

  “I’ll just make sure what he says about crushing,” said Dick, and settled down to frantic study of Phillips on Metals.

  “Let’s get some more of the gold,” said Dorothea.

  Titty and Roger followed her back into the mine.

  “Gosh,” said Titty. “What a blessing you found it.”

  “No more combing, anyhow,” said Roger.

  CHAPTER XXII

  CRUSHING AND PANNING

  A HEAVILY laden party of prospectors came back from the camp. John carried a bucket full of water, very difficult not to spill on the uneven ground of the Topps. With his free hand he steadied a pole on his shoulder. Nancy, who was also carrying the big hurricane lantern, had the other end of the pole. Captain Flint’s heavy pestle and mortar swung from the middle of it. Peggy staggered along with a brilliantly cleaned frying-pan and a knapsack in which were eight bottles of ginger pop. John had been down to the farm and borrowed a big cold chisel from Robin Tyson. Susan was carrying the kettle and a knapsack full of food for the day, a huge supply of thick potted meat sandwiches and a lot of apples.

  “You should just have seen Captain Nancy cleaning up the frying-pan,” said Peggy, as the able-seamen met them in the gulch.

  “Not Nancy,” said Titty.

  “Got to have it clean,” said Nancy, and Titty understood how Nancy had suddenly come to take an interest in washing up. There was all the difference in the world between a pan that was to be used for gold-mining and one that was used only for scrambled eggs.

  “We’ve got a bit more gold,” said Roger. “But you can’t do much with only a hammer.”

  “Let’s get at it with the chisel,” said John.

  *

  The hurricane lantern swung from an ancient iron peg left in the rock of the cave by the miners of long ago and dwindled with rust till it was hardly thicker than a nail. John, his eyes protected by motor goggles, was at work at the vein with hammer and chisel. Nancy, also wearing her goggles, was sitting on a rock just outside the door and crushing with the pestle and mortar. In the bottom of the mortar she had put a large lump of quartz. She had tried one way of crushing and then another and had found that the best was the simplest. Holding the pestle with both hands she lifted it and brought it down only an inch or two on the quartz in the bottom of the mortar that rested on the ground between her knees. Lift, drop. Lift, drop. Thud … Thud … Thud.

  “It’s breaking up,” said Dick.

  “Smaller and smaller,” said Titty.

  “Let me try,” said Roger.

  Thud … Thud … Thud … Not a real thundering bang, of the kind Nancy would have liked. A dull scrunching thud. Again and again and again.

  “Perhaps somebody sat on that very stone,” said Dorothea, “and did the same a hundred years ago.”

  “Look here,” said Roger. “Who found the gold? You ought to let me do some of the crushing.”

  Nancy’s lips were tight together now. She was getting hotter and hotter.

  “Try if you like,” she said at last. “Two and a half minutes … Don’t believe you’ll last a second longer.”

  “I’ll do it till it’s powdered,” said Roger.

  “It’s got to be very fine powder,” said Dick. “Fine enough almost to float …”

  “Come on and try,” said Nancy.

  “You time me, Dick,” said Roger, putting his goggles on and taking Nancy’s place.

  At the second or third blow he looked a little surprised.

  “It’s quite easy,” he said, but hardly sounded as if he meant it.

  “Half a minute,” said Dick, looking at his watch.

  “Oh look here,” said Roger. “It must be more than that.”

  “Don’t stop crushing while you talk,” said Nancy.

  “But he said it was only half a minute …” Roger clenched his teeth and went on with the work … Up with the heavy pestle and down again. Up and down. Up and down. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  “One minute,” said Dick.

  “Minute and a half to go,” said Nancy.

  “Stick to it, Rogie,” said Titty. “You’ve nearly done another half minute.”

  Roger tried not banging quite so fast.

  “Minute and a half,” said Dick.

  “One more minute,” said Titty.

  Roger, very red in the face, pounded on. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  “Good man, Roger,” said Nancy. “I didn’t really think you’d last so long.”

  “Two minutes,” said Dick.

  Roger’s eyes bulged behind his goggles, but a faint grin began to show on his face. He was going to be able to do it. Thud … Thud … Thud … He qui
ckened up the pace. Thud. Thud. Thud. He was looking at Dick. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud …

  “Two and a half minutes,” said Dick, and Roger dropped the pestle, rolled off the stone he had been sitting on and lay panting on the ground.

  “Somebody else’s turn,” he said, with what breath he had left.

  “You did jolly well,” said Nancy.

  After that Dick and Titty and Dorothea had a go at the crushing. Then John came out from the mine with some more good bits of quartz in which there were quite large splashes that glinted gold in the sunlight.

  “Don’t put them in yet,” said Dick. “Let’s get one lot really fine enough for panning.”

  “It’s going to take a good long time,” said Nancy.

  John took on for a bit, talking at first but soon content to pound away in silence.

  “It’s getting pretty powdery,” said Roger, looking. into the mortar a few minutes later.

  “Take care, Roger!” said Susan.

  “That bit did hit me on the forehead,” said Roger.

  “It might have got your eye. You shouldn’t have taken your goggles off.”

  “Don’t try to shove your nose into it,” said John. “Here you are, Susan. You have a go. How fine does it really have to be, Professor?”

  “The book doesn’t say,” said Dick. “But it can’t be too fine. It all depends on gravity. Gold’s heavier than stone. We’ve got to get it into particles, and then the gold particles’ll go to the bottom when we’re doing the panning. If the particles aren’t very fine they’ll all go to the bottom at once instead of the lighter ones hanging about in the water.”

  “This lot must be pretty nearly done,” said Nancy, when everybody had had another go with the heavy pestle. There were no lumps left in the bottom of the mortar, and a fine dust, that seemed to be growing paler and paler, spirted round the pestle in little puffs of grey smoke.

  “Let’s try the panning,” said John. “We may as well find out whether it works at all.”

  “Do we pour the water on the powder or the other way round?” said Nancy.

  “Water first,” said Dick, “and properly they have a machine to keep the water on the joggle.”

  “We’ll do our own joggling,” said John. “Look out, Nancy, don’t fill the frying-pan too full.”

  Titty, Dorothea, and Peggy came out just in time to see the panning begin. John was holding the frying-pan half full of water. Nancy took a pinch of the fine dust from the bottom of the mortar and dropped it on the top of the water, where it spread over the surface.

  “Good. Good,” said Dick. “It’s fine enough. Now joggle.”

  John began a quick wriggling motion, so that the water in the frying-pan broke into little pointed waves. “Ow. Sorry,” he said. “It’s jolly hard not to splash.”

  “Anything going to the bottom?” Nancy was trying to see what was happening but this was impossible while the frying-pan was being kept on the joggle by John.

  “Oughtn’t the gold to have gone through by now?” asked John.

  Dick was hunting in the book. He found the place. “It doesn’t say how long it takes,” he said. “But anyhow, they use a stream to wash away all the light stuff and leave the gold behind. I should think you ought to throw the top lot away …”

  “It’ll mean an awful lot of water,” said Susan.

  “If we had an empty pemmican tin we could pour it into that, and let the stuff settle, and use the water again,” said Dick.

  “Anyway, we can spare this lot,” said Nancy. “Chuck it away and let’s have a look at the gold.”

  “Carefully,” said Peggy. “Don’t let it wash the gold away, too.”

  John let the dirty water and the scum that was still on the surface flow away over the edge of the frying-pan. Heads crowded closer to see what was left.

  “But it’s all gone,” said Roger, and turned to look at the small grey puddle on the ground.

  “No, it hasn’t,” said Nancy. “You can see the glint of it.”

  There certainly was just a trace of something at the bottom of the frying-pan.

  “Drop more water,” said John.

  Susan poured it out. John swilled the frying-pan round with it, so that all the dust that was left in it was gathered together. He stirred it up, and joggled it again.

  “Try now,” said Nancy.

  John poured off the water. Along the edge at one side of the pan there was certainly something left.

  JOGGLING THE PAN

  “It may be only shining because it’s wet,” said Titty, remembering the pearls dived for long ago in the water by Wild Cat Island, gleaming pale jewels that turned to dull pebbles as soon as they had dried in the sun.

  “It’s the real thing,” said Captain Nancy. “Anyway, it’ll be dry in a minute in this sun.”

  “Spread it on a bit of paper,” said Susan.

  “Who’s got any?” said Nancy.

  The blank volume of The Outlaw of the Broads lost another page. The sediment, glittering yellow, was spread on it with the point of a knife.

  “I think we ought to wash that lot again,” said Dick.

  “Giminy,” said Nancy. “We can’t. If we do, there won’t be any left at all.”

  Crushing and panning was going to be much harder work than anybody expected. Turns with the huge pestle were made shorter and shorter. One minute each was enough for Roger and Dick, Titty and Dorothea, but every minute helped to rest the tired muscles of the others. Dick suggested taking that first tiny pinch of gold dust to show Slater Bob, but the actual mining of the quartz was going on so well now, with the help of Robin Tyson’s cold chisel as well as the hammers, that it seemed a pity not to crush and pan until they had a bag of gold worth looking at.

  They rested for dinner and, crawling up the side of the gulch and using the telescope, saw that Squashy Hat, high on the hillside above them, was sitting on a rock and resting, too. After dinner and grog (“The only thing against these bottles,” said Roger, “is that they aren’t big enough inside”), they remembered the pigeon that was to go to Beckfoot.

  “What will she say when she hears we’ve found it?” said Peggy.

  “I wish we had a code,” said Nancy. “But it’s no good expecting her to read a semaphore picture when she’s busy with paperers and plasterers. And, anyhow, it’d take too long to draw.”

  Dorothea looked puzzled for a moment.

  “Code,” said Titty, “in case somebody else got hold of it.”

  “Somebody might shoot the pigeon,” said Roger.

  “Some horrid ally of Squashy’s,” said Titty.

  “We’ll put it so that she’ll know and no one else,” said Nancy. She carefully tore a narrow slip from the bit of paper on which lay that tiny pile of golden dust. For a moment she sucked the pencil she had borrowed from Dick. She wrote. “What about this?” she said. “ROGER FOUND IT. TONS AND TONS.”

  “But there isn’t really much,” said Dick.

  “Not already panned,” said Nancy. “But there will be. Look at the lumps waiting to be crushed, and anybody can see we could go on mining it for ever.” She scribbled, “LOVE FROM THE S.A.D.M.C.”, and finished by drawing the usual cross-bones and a skull that was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Who’s going to send it off?” she asked.

  “I am,” said Roger, “and I’ll take the kettle for more water.”

  “Don’t you want to do some more crushing?”

  “Later on,” said Roger. “But I think I ought to send the pigeon off first. Come on, Dick. Let’s both go.”

  But Dick was far too much worried about the right methods of panning to think of anything else. Titty, Dorothea, and Roger went back to the camp together, where Homer, alone in the big cage, was waiting his turn to fly.

  Titty caught him and held him gently while Roger slipped the message under the rubber ring on his leg. They put him in one of the small travelling-baskets and carried him out on the Topps so that he should get a clear start. Rog
er took him in both hands.

  “It’s the best news you’ve ever carried,” said Dorothea.

  “Now then,” said Titty, and Roger flung him up into the air.

  The pigeon flew far across the Topps before beginning to rise. Then, making a wide circle in the air, he came back high over their heads, higher, higher.

  “Hullo,” said Roger, “there’s another pigeon … higher still.”

  “Rogie,” cried Titty. “It’s a hawk!”

  Far, far above the soaring Homer, they could all see a tiny speck in that brilliant sky that almost blinded them. A tiny black speck, dropping, dropping, nearer … hovering … dropping again, while Homer the pigeon climbed through the air to meet it.

  “Homer! Homer! It’s a hawk!” Roger shouted.

  “It’ll get him,” cried Titty.

  “It’s probably a hawk of Squashy Hat’s. He’s been waiting on purpose, hooded, on a gloved wrist,” said Dorothea, “and Squashy’s flown him at our Homer.”

  “Can’t we do anything?” said Titty. “Hey! Hey!” she shouted and waved her arms frantically to frighten the hawk.

  But now it seemed that Homer had seen his danger. He was climbing no longer, but coming down again, in queer zigzag flights. The hawk suddenly dropped like a stone.

  “He’s got him!” sobbed Titty.

  “Missed him,” shouted Roger. “Well dodged.”

  The hawk was rising again, flying above the pigeon who was now not far above the ground. The two birds were close together. The hawk swooped. Homer seemed to slip sideways in the air and, a second later, had plunged into the green tops of the trees.

  “Done him!” shouted Roger.

  “But the hawk’s gone after him,” said Titty.

  “He hasn’t got him,” said Roger. “Look!”

  And they saw the hawk rise again above the trees, hover for a while, and at last swing away and up until they lost sight of it against that blinding sky.

  “Squashy Hat must be feeling pretty desperate to try a horrid trick like that,” said Dorothea.