CHINKIE'S FLAT AND OTHER STORIES
By Louis Becke
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company 1904
TO MY DEAR OLD COMRADES North Queensland. December, 1908
CONTENTS
CHAPTER II ~ GRAINGER MAKES A “DEAL”
CHAPTER IV ~ GRAINGER AND JIMMY AH SAN TALK TOGETHER
CHAPTER V ~ THE RESURRECTION OF THE “EVER VICTORIOUS”
CHAPTER VIII ~ MYRA AND SHEILA
CHAPTER IX ~ DINNER WITH “THE REFINED FAMILY”
CHAPTER X ~ THE “CHAMPION” ISSUES A “SPECIAL”
CHAPTER XI ~ A CHANGE OF PLANS
CHAPTER XII ~ SHEILA BECOMES ONE OF A VERY “UNREFINED” CIRCLE
CHAPTER XIV ~ “MISS CAROLINE” IS “ALL RIGHT” (VIDE DICK SCOTT )
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