A LONELY DIGGER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 131, 15 February 1909, Page 4

A LONELY DIGGER.

Sixteen years ng<> a New '/.calarxJ town on the w--i con s t «»< 'he South Island u>ed to »>c haunted by a hard-looking digger who came in jt short intervals to indulge in ft drunk that was .-imply awful in its intensity. It was notoriously a pttor. hungry region for the solitary digger ; almost the only gold obtained there was by sundry big sluicing companies. and the loiwu: pick-and-sho\el artist seldom mad«--nougft to liavc two respectable «>rifr* pi-r annum. Yet this particular "battler" used to have a tear about uinre « fortnight : he paid for ii in <old. too. but where his reef was 10.-jiti'il .-jiti'il no one could discover. He «n« reticent when sober, and a east-iron sphinx when drunk. Hut he had one friend—the editor of the local pa|»er —and one day. to »he astonishment of that impecunious pressman, he rame to his ofllrc wilh a proposition. Il<? had found a rich rcrt". which, he asserted, was liotli large nnd apj»arent iy |iermtnrnt, and if the |»a|nrr man could grt tip a cotnl»any to buy it at a big figure he would have half (he profits. The editor closed tb«* Imrgain then- and then and. in addition, he fell on the neck of that hard case and wept tears 01 ioy. Then it was agreed that as *oon as the miner had finished his present orgies they should go out together atHl sec the find. It was l«i.;sn a.m. when the bargain was •truck, and at «.t"» p.m. the same dav the digger deHlieratcly blew his head a distance of «« yards with a dug of dynamite, and took his golden secret wilh him to another and brighter world. So one has ever found the reef since. The editor toils on in his dingy office, and thinks dis» mall.v of his lost fortune, and now and then, on moonlight nights, he gom out to the cemetery, with a faint hope that the unquiet ghost of his partner may rise from «h<* dead •ml tell Hfm wh««rc the plant located. Mut no ghost ever rjs<-s.