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THE GOLD-SEEKER'S STRANGE FATE
AN ASTOUNDING ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE

FOR true romance one must search the pages of real life, not the volumes of fiction. Tyler Tatlock was able to furnish much evidence of this truth, but in no case that he ever had to do with was it exemplified in a more startling manner than in that of Dick Reesland. The Reeslands are an old family. The name appears in Doomsday Book as Reese-de-land. The branch of the family with which this record deals had long been resident in a country district in Yorkshire. Mr. Richard Reesland at one time held an appointment in the Old East India Company's service, but was forced to retire early owing to his health breaking down. He returned home and married a Miss Bindloss, who had a small property. The union resulted in the birth of a son and two daughters. Mr. Reesland died while his children were still very young, but their mother was a sensible and devoted woman, and by studying economy she was enabled to give them a good education.

From his earliest years Dick, the son, displayed a restless, discontented, roving spirit, and, being an only boy, he was a good deal spoilt by his mother. He was a great reader, but beyond that had no inclination for anything, and as he grew in years he chafed at the dull, uneventful life he was compelled to lead; before he was fifteen he displayed such a masterful and determined spirit that he caused his family much distress, and there were not wanting signs that he was getting quite out-of-hand, as the saying is.

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One lady, who was very intimate with Dick's mother, and who, in her own estimation, was wondrous wise, declared that she was perfectly sure the boy would do evil things and come to grief if not controlled with a strictness which his mother—according to this philanthropic lady—was incapable of displaying. Now, it was a curious and most fortunate circumstance—so thought the lady—that her 'dear brother' was a clergyman, a worthy, estimable, and truly pious man, and 'so clever too,' and so fond of children, and so successful in managing wayward boys, and so many other things, that really the lady could not enumerate them. But she was successful in persuading Mrs. Reesland to send her boy to her dear brother, who was such an encyclopædia of all the virtues. The first week that Dick was under his control he took a dislike to him. In a month he had come to hate him with a hatred passing words, for the dear brother was one of those incompetent, arrogant, self-opinionated, dogmatic tyrants, who break the spirit and ruin the dispositions of nearly every child they have to deal with. Dick pleaded to his mother to remove him from the influence of this objectionable teacher, but, thinking it was to the boy's interest that he should remain, she declined, with the inevitable result in such cases—Dick removed himself; and when his people had passed many agonising months of suspense and fear, a letter came from him.

He was in Australia, and was working on some gold diggings at a place called Naraga in the Braidwood district. He was going to make a rapid fortune, he said, and then he would return home. But five years drifted away. His fortune had not been made; he did not return home. At fairly regular intervals he wrote, but seldom twice from the same place. His letters came from China, Japan, India, some of the South Sea Islands, New Zealand, California; and the last one from Australia again. He was then in Melbourne, and said he was going up country. His letters were always bald and brief, and seldom contained anything about himself beyond that he had been somewhere and was going somewhere else.

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Years passed, and nothing more was heard of him; then, by the death of an uncle, he succeeded to a large property, which, failing him, would pass to another branch of the family altogether. Now, as may be supposed, his mother—then growing an old woman—apart from her natural desire to once more clasp her long-absent son to her bosom before she laid down the burden of life, was anxious that he should take possession of the property to which he was legally en-titled. It was important, also, in the interest of all concerned, that, if dead, indisputable proof of his death should be forthcoming. Strangely enough, however, his mother firmly believed that he was still living; and when repeated advertising failed to bring forth any information, she resolved on the bold step of enlisting the services of Tyler Tatlock. It was a bold step, because if Tatlock had to go forth and hunt for the trail of the wanderer, it would necessarily be costly, and might be long. As a matter of fact, the task occupied Tatlock a good deal over a year. The great interests that were at stake, however, justified all the expense incurred and the time employed.

Tatlock journeyed direct from England to Melbourne, that being the last place from which Dick had communicated with his friends. He had given an address in Collins Street. It proved to be a lodging-house kept by very respectable people. Dick had stayed there several times. The landlady seemed to think he was peculiar.

He had stated before leaving Melbourne that he was going to Sydney, and, as he was expecting some letters, he gave his address, which turned out to be a lodging-house in Elizabeth Street. When Tatlock arrived his man had gone, his destination being Brisbane. He had incidentally mentioned to a fellow-boarder in Sydney that he was going north from Brisbane. To go north from there meant either to foot it or to travel by one of the coasting steamers, many of which went to Torres Straits, while some crossed the Straits to New Guinea. To Brisbane Tatlock went, only to find that he was a day too late again, and that a stern chase was a long chase. He ascertained, however, that Dick Reesland | | 99 had taken passage in a coasting tramp, and booked to Cook-town, which is in the Cape York Peninsula. Tatlock had to kick his heels for a fortnight before he could get a steamer bound north, as there was only a monthly service in those days; and to his intense annoyance, while going into Rockhampton, the vessel ran on to a reef. She floated off again with the rising tide, but sustained such damage that ten days were occupied in repairing it. Bad weather had set in when the journey was resumed, and the passage north was long and stormy. Cooktown was reached at last. It was a wild place, far removed from civilisation. Gold in considerable quantities had been found in the neighbourhood, and there was a sparse population, consisting for the most part of gold-diggers. The climate is tropical, the country wild and barren.

Tatlock learned that Dick, who was well known, was a partner with three other men in a quartz reef fifty to sixty miles inland. Out to the reef Tatlock journeyed, only to find that once more he was a day too late; his man had moved on, nor did it seem likely that he would be able to follow him further, for his movements were evidently shrouded in mystery. His partners were reticent, and were not to be drawn, while the statement that their chum had come into a fortune seemed rather to annoy them than otherwise. Indeed, they did not disguise the fact that they resented Tatlock's presence, and it became evident to him that in that wild and lawless region a bullet might put an end to his further usefulness, since he was regarded as an intruder, and the rough characters who were fossicking around had a summary manner of dealing with intruders. To be shot like a dog and buried like a dog could serve no purpose, but Tatlock was not the man to be easily beaten. He might not be a match for the brute force which appeared to be the only law there, but he was infinitely more than a match when it came to a question of diplomacy, and so he deter-mined to retire, for a time at any rate, to Cooktown, and to watch and wait.

The youngest of Dick's three partners was a Chinaman | | 100 known as Loo Foo. This placid-faced Celestial could have given points to Bret Harte's 'Heathen Chinee.' He was as sly as they are made, and what he did not know in the way of wickedness was scarcely worth considering. It was obvious that the two white men with whom he worked did not love him too well, but Loo not only knew how to hold his own but he was in his way a little despot, and was possessed of some knowledge which gave him a certain power over his white mates. To the observant Tatlock this was plain, and he came to the conclusion that he might learn a good deal by watching Loo Foo.

The small settlement at Cooktown was in close touch with the diggings, as it was at Cooktown the stores were purchased and the gold shipped. The chief store in the settlement was in the hands of a Chinaman, Wing Lo by name, who sold most things required, and, unless he was much maligned, stole things whenever he got the chance. He also called himself a 'shipping agent, importer, exporter, contractor,' and Heaven knows what else. A smug-faced, wily demon was Wing Lo, and with his small eyes Tyler Tatlock saw there was something mysterious going on between Wing and Loo and the other partners of Dick Reesland.

One day three heavily-laden bullock drays entered the settlement from inland, and rounded up with a creak and a groan at Wing Lo's store. There were sacks filled with something, roughly made and heavy cases, and irregularly-shaped bundles. To a non-observant person these little details would have had no meaning. To Tatlock they were significant. 'Inland' was a wilderness. Men had recently brought gold to light, but beyond that Nature had remained undisturbed through the ages. A bee-line through this wilderness from Cooktown for about three hundred miles in length would strike a desolate spot on the eastern shores of the great Gulf of Carpentaria. Now, the question that naturally occurred to Tatlock's mind was—What did these queer-looking packages contain, and where had they come from ? Save for the rough diggers and | | 101 prospectors scattered about inland there was no population. The packages could not be filled with gold; what then were their contents? There was something suspicious about the whole affair, and the suspicion was not allayed when within an hour of the arrival of the drays came Loo Foo and his two white companions on horseback, and during the days that followed they and Wing Lo were very busy. A week later a coasting steamer from the north, and bound to Sydney, came in, and Wing Lo shipped the goods that had come from the interior, and consigned them to an agent in Sydney.

Tatlock had an instinctive feeling that those mysterious packages which were swung on board the steamer contained the key to the mystery, and he resolved to follow the packages, so he quietly slipped on board an hour or so before the vessel resumed her voyage, and in due course reached Sydney once more. He discovered that the goods were consigned to a Chinese firm in Sydney—'Shen, Yen, and Co., exporters and general dealers,' and that the mysterious bales and cases were filled with gold and silver articles, ivory goods, great quantities of silk, boxes of tea, bags of rice, and many other Chinese products. Now Tatlock knew quite well that silk, tea, rice, and the like were not grown on the Cape York peninsula, and the matter therefore required further investigation, so back he went to Cooktown, as being a convenient point of observation, but this time he went as somebody else.

During his stay he had learnt much; he was an apt pupil and quick to gather up ideas, and when he returned it was as a 'fossicker,' prospector, gold-digger. His capacity for assimilating himself to the character he adopted was simply marvellous. He was not only a born actor, but an exceptionally clever mimic. So when he once more appeared at Cooktown he had unkempt hair, wore mole-skin trousers tucked into Wellington boots, a blue flannel shirt, a soft felt slouched hat. On his back he carried his swag, which, besides the inevitable red blanket and 'billy,' included pickaxe, shovel, hammer, &c. And he talked digger language, and bounced and hinted at the rich claims | | 102 he had been on, but an irresistible desire to rove prevented his staying long anywhere. He hired a Chinese loafer who hung about the wharf always on the look-out for a job he hoped would never come. But for three dollars a week and his grub he condescended to become Jack Coney's 'boy.' Jack Coney, otherwise Tyler Tatlock, next invested in a dray, a couple of horses, a tent, and other necessary paraphernalia for a life in the wilderness, then he set forth towards the interior with his Chinese attendant, Woon. When he arrived at the reef where Loo Foo and his white companions were at work, he fraternised, he talked in digger language, and appeared learned as regards quartz and alluvial cradling and washing, crushing and separating.

Loo Foo and his mates thought Jack Coney a bit of a gasser, but he knew a thing or two, and though he wasn't very big he was slippery, and could handle the shooting-irons. He was a bit too curious and inquisitive for their liking, and poked his nose where he had no business to do. They didn't admit his right to inquire what the old packing cases lying about were there for, nor why they kept a wooden shanty at their claims so carefully guarded and locked. However, all's well that ends well. The gassy little chap announced his intention of moving on. So they liquored up, said 'So long,' and 'Jack' and his 'boy' moved off west. He was surprised to find there was a good track, and this seemed to confirm certain suspicions he had in his mind. He followed the track, and in due time came to the southern end of the Gulf of Carpentaria. He was not surprised to find a long, low, rough log building and three or four pigtails loafing about. He had got on very good terms with his 'boy' Woon, who was a rascal, but useful. He didn't like work, so 'Jack Coney' took good care that he should have little to do, and he did like dollars, and Jack was liberal in that respect. You see, he had to use Woon as eyes and cars, and it was astonishing how much he saw and heard through that medium. Jack shifted his tent almost daily. He was supposed to be prospecting, but he slept with one eye open, as the saying is.

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When he had been in the neighbourhood a fortnight, he one morning saw a rakish-looking brig with a sharp prow and a low freeboard standing in towards the shore under a pressure of canvas. Her hull was painted slate colour, very unusual, and there was something about her which suggested that she was not altogether a peaceful trader. She made signals to the shore, and the signals were answered by the pigtails. She was very smartly handled, and her crew evidently knew their business. When within a mile and a half of the shore, her sails having previously been clewed up, she let go her anchor, and afterwards a boat was lowered and manned, and the skipper, a bronzed, bearded, rough, determined-looking fellow, sat in the stern, and was rowed to the shore. There he had a conference with the guardian pigtails, and soon the brig's boats were busy conveying a very miscellaneous lot of goods to the shore, and as they arrived they were quickly stored in the log cabin.

The following day 'Jack Coney' appeared upon the scene, and requested to have a word with the skipper, who was a white man, as was his chief mate, while the rest of the crew were Chinamen. The captain was known to his crew as 'Bill,' and Bill only—'Captain Bill.' It was quite enough for them. But 'Tyler Tatlock when alone with him said:

'Unless I am very much mistaken, I am addressing Dick Reesland.'

Captain Bill looked savage, and exclaimed hotly, 'No, you are not.'

Tatlock smiled as he answered: 'I am certain of it now.'

'And in the name of the fiend who are you?' demanded the skipper, as he twisted his fingers about the butt of a revolver.

Tatlock smiled again. 'An emissary who brings you good news. I have come from England on purpose to find you, and I've had a long search.'

'And what's the good news?' asked the skipper eagerly.

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'Ah, then you are Dick Reesland?'

'Oh, well, since you seem to know me--Yes. Now, then, what's your business?'

It did not take Tatlock long to make known the tidings of which he was the bearer, and the sea-smitten, sun-parched salt, Captain Dick Reesland, seemed much troubled, and for some time he remained thoughtful. At last he spoke.

'As you are a detective, and have so cleverly found me out, I suppose you know pretty well what I am. I'm part owner of yonder brig. I'm a ruffian, and my co-partners are ruffians; my crew are devils. We are not legitimate traders, but pirates. Yes, sir, pirates; and we scour these Eastern seas; but we find our victims mostly amongst Chinese coasting vessels, and we get some rich hauls. I do not follow the calling for the sake of the pelf; but the life, the risk, the danger, the excitement appeal to me. Now, the fortune you have come to tell me about does not tempt me, and were it for that alone I do not think I would leave this fascinating calling of mine; but I owe my dear mother something. For her sake I will return. You go back to Cooktown, where I will rejoin you.'

'Can I depend upon your doing that?'

'Sir, if you think my honour is worth anything, I will pledge my honour.'

'I accept the pledge. Give me your hand. I will wait in Cooktown for you.'

'Of course, it may be weeks before we meet, for I have many arrangements to make.'

'I quite understand that.'

So they parted, and 'Jack Coney,' with Woon his boy, slowly made his way back to Cooktown, where he let it be known that his prospecting had not resulted in much. But he thought he would have another try, and go further north. He was in no hurry, however, and people came to the conclusion that he certainly was not, for the weeks slipped by and stretched into months, and still he lingered in the little town. He himself began to think that Dick had played false in spite of his pledged honour. Then a | | 105 rumour ran that there had been a murder in the interior. Some Chinese diggers had murdered a white man. So said the rumour. A day or two afterwards this was modified. The white man had been shot, but was still living. And yet another version of the story was put in circulation. The white man had not been shot at all, but had shot several Chinamen, and had escaped into the bush, and nobody knew what had become of him.

These contradictory reports will serve to show the difficulty there was in obtaining reliable information from the interior. That there was foundation, however, for the rumours was proved one day by Skipper Bill, or Dick Reesland, coming into the town in a bad way. There was a feverish anxiety to learn news, but Skipper Bill was exasperating beyond endurance. He smiled a ghastly smile when plied with questions, and said he had nothing to tell.

Privately to Tatlock he gasped, 'Yes, the fiends tried to murder me when they heard I was going. Exasperation and a fear that I might betray them drove them wild, and they peppered me. I'm tough, and take a lot of killing, like a cat. But I've got a bullet in my left lung, and I fancy the last chapter is nearly written. Get me down to Sydney as soon as you can. Possibly the hospital people there will be able to fish the bullet out.'

Two days after this Dick Reesland and Tyler Tatlock sailed away in a southern-bound steamer. It was evident that Dick was in a very bad way indeed, and Tatlock was afraid he would not even live to get to Sydney. When they had left Cooktown well behind, Dick told his companion that it was Loo Foo who had shot him. Loo was a deeply-dyed villain, and had a large interest in the pirate business, as well as in the quartz reef. He had established agencies for the sale of the pirates' cargoes in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. When Dick told him he was going away Foo feared that his profitable trade would be gone. A quarrel ensued, and Foo winged his man.

'And what did you do?' asked Tatlock.

'Killed him,' answered Dick, with a wan smile.

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'A pleasant state of things,' remarked Tatlock reflectively.

'Oh, that's the beauty of a free life, where the only law you recognise is the law of powder and shot. It's the only life worth living. The sky above you, the desert or wilderness around you, or the salt spray of the great ocean saturating every pore in your body. I am returning to the commonplaceness of civilisation simply because my mother's voice has spoken. But—ah, yes; you bet it won't be long before I return to freedom.'

Dick talked hopefully, but it was clear to Tatlock that he was drifting out, and it seemed doubtful if he would last until Sydney was reached. As he himself had said, however, he was tough, and took a lot of killing. Ninety-nine per cent. of men wounded as he was must have succumbed long ago, but he lingered, and, though suffering great agony, he uttered no groan.

Sydney was reached at last; he was carried ashore and to the hospital, and the doctors at once pronounced the case hopeless, as he was too low for an operation to be attempted, but it was marvellous how tough he really proved. For three weeks after arriving in Sydney he wrestled with death. He was cheerful and communicative, and piece by piece, chapter by chapter, as it were, Tatlock gathered from his own lips the following strange story of his life:

He had been cowboy in America; lumberman in Canada. He had served before the mast, and sailed in every sea. In Texas he had fought a lassoo fight with a human scourge, who bore the reputation of having committed a score of murders, and Dick killed his man, for which he was presented with an address and a purse of gold. In Mexico he married a Mexican beauty, in spite of the threats of a rival. Three months later the rival carried off the bride, and left the husband for dead, with a knife sticking in him. But Dick was walking about again, sound and well, a month later. In Cuba he placed himself at the head of a band of insurgents five hundred strong, and he held a village for a fortnight against thousands of Spanish soldiers. | | 107 A price was set upon his head, but a Cuban belle had fallen in love with him, and guided him for nights and days through swamps and jungles, and nursed him for weeks through the delirium of fever. Finally they escaped, and got to Jamaica, in the West Indies, where the devoted preserver of his life died.

For a short time he was manager of a West Indian cotton plantation, and again came within an ace of losing his life. He was one day bitten in the arm by one of the most deadly snakes in the West Indies—the fer-de-lance. But he had a flask of gunpowder in his pocket. Without a moment's hesitation he poured a quantity of the powder on the wound and fired it. It was a heroic remedy. It made him very ill, but saved his life. After that he turned his back on the West Indies, and sailed to Boston. There he shipped in a South Sea whaler, and put in two years, but cleared out at Honolulu, as the skipper was a tyrant. He next turned up in New Zealand, and went prospecting in the 'Snowy Range,' and discovered a gold mine, which he sold to a syndicate, and moved on.

Melbourne knew him next, but the hot and dusty town had no charms for him, so he organised a small expedition, numbering twenty all told, to go prospecting in New Guinea, and they chartered a schooner to take them to their destination. They were wrecked on a reef, however. They lost everything, as well as half their number, who were drowned. He returned to Melbourne, and shortly afterwards got a passage in a steamer going to Shanghai, where he fell ill with cholera, but pulled through all right, and a rebellion being in full blast he joined the rebel ranks, and had a glorious time for something like six months, until he was captured by the Imperialists and sent to Amoy, where he was to be decapitated. But General Gordon came to his rescue, and on the grounds that he was an Englishman secured his release. For some time after that he wandered about China with no very definite purpose, only he liked to be moving about. One day he found himself at Pekin, went down to Tientsin on the coast, and | | 108 secured a passage in a Chinese boat going to Shanghai, but fell in with pirates, who killed the crew, but took him prisoner, he being a white man, and they expected that his friends would ransom him. They carried him inland, and when he declined to give the address of any of his friends they tortured him. He managed to escape, and made his way to Hong Kong, where he shipped in a trader for the Philippines, but once again was wrecked. He spent eight days in an open boat in a tropical sea, with five others, and endured the most terrible sufferings. He and one other, the sole survivors of the crew, were picked up by a passing steamer, and carried to Borneo.

For a short time he became a sort of overseer on a guttapercha estate. But it was too monotonous, and he wanted to move on again. He got a passage in a native trader going to New Guinea for a cargo of cocoanuts and native pottery. He spent two months in that wonderful island; was one day captured by cannibals, and was about to be speared for the pot, when he seized a native club from one of his captors, ran amuck amongst them, got down to the coast, and was taken aboard a beche de mer fishing vessel, which transferred him to a pearler that subsequently landed him at Cooktown. A great many Chinamen had flocked there, owing to rumours of gold in the interior. He went out prospecting with Loo Foo and two other white men. They were not very successful; then it occurred to the ingenious mind of Loo Foo that there was good business to be done by preying on Chinese coasters. He proposed it to Dick, who fell in with the idea, for it would keep him moving and afford him the excitement he craved for. They scraped enough money together to buy a small brig, and Loo Foo, who was a born administrator, set about organising the business. Dick knew nothing about business. He hated it, but he could navigate a vessel with any one, and fighting was as the breath of his nostrils.

For a long time the business flourished. By bringing the plunder into the Gulf of Carpentaria, and taking it across the peninsula to Cooktown, where Foo had his spies | | 109 and agents, they managed to escape detection, which would have been certain had they sailed their vessel into any regular port. How long this state of matters would have gone on it is difficult to say had Tatlock not appeared upon the scene. Sooner or later no doubt the authorities must have become suspicious. As it was, Loo Foo brought about the climax. Naturally when he heard that Dick was going he was furious, for Dick was an essential link in the chain. When persuasion, argument, and even threats failed, he began to fear for his own skin, and on the principle that dead men tell no tales he tried to quieten Dick. He succeeded in putting a bullet into his lung, but got one through his own brain in return, which stretched him low at once. Dick's marvellous vitality enabled him to stave off the inevitable for weeks, but he was conquered at last, and one night, as the darkness was giving place to dawn, he passed.

Tatlock returned to England. His mission was fulfilled; and though he did not restore the wandering and erring son to the anxious and yearning mother, he carried with him a will which the dying man had legally executed, and which prevented the greater portion of the property from passing out of his branch of the family. Moreover, Tatlock learned one of the strangest human stories that have ever been told; while as a feat in the art of detection the way in which he traced the wanderer is perhaps unparalleled.