Project Gutenberg's Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories, by Louis Becke

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Title: Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories
1904

Author: Louis Becke

Release Date: March 11, 2008 [EBook #24805]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHINKIE'S FLAT AND OTHER STORIES ***

Produced by David Widger

CHINKIE'S FLAT AND OTHER STORIES

By Louis Becke

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company 1904

TO MY DEAR OLD COMRADES

North Queensland.

December, 1908

CHAPTER I ~ "CHINKIE'S FLAT"

"Chinkie's Flat," In its decadence, was generally spoken of, by the
passing traveller, as a "God-forsaken hole," and it certainly did
present a repellent appearance when seen for the first time, gasping
under the torrid rays of a North Queensland sun, which had dried up
every green thing except the silver-leaved ironbarks, and the long,
sinuous line of she-oaks which denoted the course of Connolly's Creek on
which it stood.

"The township" was one of the usual Queensland mining type, a dozen
or so of bark-roofed humpies, a public-house with the title of "The
Digger's Best," a blacksmith's forge, and a quartz-crushing battery.

The battery at Chinkie's Flat stood apart from the "township" on a
little rise overlooking the yellow sands of Connolly's Creek, from
whence it derived its water supply--when there happened to be any water
in that part of the creek. The building which covered the antiquated
five-stamper battery, boiler, engine, and tanks, was merely a huge roof
of bark supported on untrimmed posts of brigalow and swamp gum, but rude
as was the structure, the miners at Chinkie's Flat, and other camps in
the vicinity, had once been distinctly proud of their battery, which
possessed the high-sounding title of "The Ever Victorious," and had
achieved fame by having in the "good times" of the Flat yielded a
certain Peter Finnerty two thousand ounces of gold from a hundred tons
of alluvial. The then owner of the battery was an intelligent, but
bibulous ex-marine engineer, who had served with Gordon in China,
and when he erected the structure he formally christened it "The Ever
Victorious