The Gold Seekers

THE GOLD SEEKERS

BY

WILLIAM STUART LONG

THEY CAME SEEKING WEALTH

AND VENGEANCE.

THEIR DREAMS MIGHT FORGE A NATION-OR DESTROY IT.

In the 1850s Australia was a land of fertile promise and bitter truths, a wilderness that could only be tamed by proud men and passion,tit women like the Broomes and Tempests. It was also a land will a secret—a secret that would be revealed with the discovery of gold in he rugged hills and desolate outback.

With that discovery Australia became a mecca for men like Luke Murphy—questing, adventurous, torn between the lure of wealth and he dictates of his heart. And for men like Jasper Morgan—unscrupulous brigands for whom gold was a hunger so consuming, it justified every excess, every savagery, every sin.

WAS IT VISION OR MADNESS THAT DROVE THEM TO PIT THEIR WILES AGAINST A HARSH LAND, AN ELUSIVE TREASURE—AND EACH OTHER?

Luke Murphy—Driven halfway round the world by a passion for vengeance, in Australia he found friendship, love, and a destiny of blood and honor.

Mercy Bancroft—Lovely and defenseless, she lived in thrall to one man—until she found protection with the enemy who’d sworn to destroy him.

Elizabeth Tempest—The daughter of Rick and Katie, she grew up innocent amid hardship and unearthly beauty. Luke Murphy taught her what it was to be a woman.

Captain Red Broome—A born commander, he was the best and the brightest of the sons of the founders. But would his duty to ship and crown make him betray his highest ideals?

Captain Jasper Morgan—He was a blackguard with a hundred names and a thousand deceptions—and one chilling obsession: the insatiable lust for gold.

DRIVEN BY PASSION, GREED AND GLITTERING DREAMS OF THE FUTURE, THEY WERE …

THE GOLD SEEKERS

THE MAGNIFICENT SAGA

FROM THE PRODUCER

OF THE KENT FAMILY

CHRONICLES AND

WAGONS WEST

o““71009”00450““4 N 0

Published by

Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

New York, New York 10017

Produced by Book Creations, Inc. Chairman of the Board: Lyle Kenyon Engel.

Copyright Š 1985 by Book Creations, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means.

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording or by any information storage and retrieval

system, without the written permission of the Publisher,

except where permitted by law

Dell Ž TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc. ISBN: 0-440-13169-3

Printed in the United Stales of America First printing—July 1985

10 98765432 WFH

This book is dedicated to my brother-in-law, Squadron Leader John Chisholm Ward, a seventh-generation descendant of one of Australia’s pioneer families.

Acknowledgments and Notes

As always, I acknowledge very gratefully the guidance received from Lyle Kenyon Engel in the writing of this book, as well as the help and cooperation of the editorial, publicity, and research staffs at Book Creations, Inc., of Canaan, New York, and, in particular, that of my editors, Philip D. Rich and Glenn Novak. I also greatly appreciate the friendship and encouragement so generously given by Maria and George Engel, Carol Krach, Jean Sepanski-Guarda, and Mary Ann McNally at a time when I suffered the very sad loss of my partner and helpmate, Bill Mann, to whom the previous book in this series, The Colonists, was dedicated.

I should also like to put on record my appreciation of the help given me by my British publisher, Aidan Ellis of Aidan Ellis Publishing Ltd., and that of the Australian distributors of the paperback editions, Hodder & Stoughton, in publicizing The Australians series in that country. On my recent visit to Sydney I had reason to be most grateful to Ian Parry-Okeden of Radio 2 UE, to the Sydney booksellers in general, and to Selwa Anthony in particular, for the successful signing session she arranged, and to the staff of Doubleday Australia for their hospitality and support.

The main books consulted were supplied by E. G. Glover of Birlingham, Worcestershire, Conrad Bailey of Melbourne, Victoria, and Selwa Anthony of Sydney. These included: The Australian Encyclopaedia: Angus & Robertson, 1927; The History of Tasmania: J. West, Dowling, 1852; The Macarthurs of Camden: S. M. Onslow, Rigby, 1973, reprint of 1914 edition; Elizabeth Macarthur and Her World: Hazel King; Punishment Short of Death: Margaret Hazzard, Hyland House Publishing, Melbourne, 1984; Transported: Christopher

Sweeney, Macmillan of Australia, 1981; Australian Explorers: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Oxford University Press, 1958; History of Australia: Marjorie Barnard, Angus & Robertson, 1962 (copy supplied by Bay Books); The Gold Seekers: Norman Bartlett, Readers Book Club, London, 1965; Unwilling Emigrants: Alexandra Hasluck, Oxford University Press, 1959; New Zealand: Reginald Horsley, T. C. & E. C.Jack, Edinburgh, 1912; Australian Historical Monographs: various titles, edited by George Mackaness, Ford, Sydney, 1956; The Beginning: Appleyard & Manford, University of Western Australia Press, 1979; Australia: W. H. Lang, Caxton Publishing Co., London, reprint; Practical Experiences at the Diggings: W. Hall, 1852, reprint; Notes of a Gold Digger: J. Bonwick, 1852, reprint; The Baltimore Clipper: Irving Chapelle, Bonanza Books, New York, 1930. I have also taken the liberty of adapting, from one of my earlier works, material pertaining to the Crimea battles, which are part of the historical record.

Research on my behalf was undertaken in Sydney by Vera Koenigswarter and in London by Judith Farrington, and by Book Creations’ researcher Kathleen Halverson, for the gold rush in California. I am indebted to all three, and to Ian Cottam of York for the loan of his books, and to Ada Broadley for her unfailing help and support in the domestic field.

This book, like the others in the series, is written as a novel, with fictional characters superimposed on the narrative. Their adventures and misadventures are based on fact and, at times, may seem more credible than those of the real-life characters with whom their stories are interwoven. Nevertheless, I have not embroidered or exaggerated the actions of any of them, save where it was expedient to dramatize these a little in order to avoid writing “dull” history. Leaders of the Eureka stockade episode are, in all save one case, called by their real names and their actions accurately described, and—lest I give offense unwittingly to any descendants—the one I have fictionalized has had his name changed slightly since I cannot prove that all his actions were as heinous as they are here portrayed.

“Keep her going, young Luke!” Daniel Murphy urged cheerfully. He grinned as, with powerful arms, he shoveled the contents of his barrow into the slanting, oblong box of the gold-mining rocker they were working. “This one may yield more than dust. Others have made big strikes—why shouldn’t we? Morgan says the gold’s here, and he knows what he’s doing, don’t he?”

His brother Luke, standing thigh-deep in the cold, murky waters of the creek, responded with an indifferent shrug.

“Does he, Dan?” he questioned. “Does he?” But not waiting for an answer, and with now-practiced skill, he bailed water into the cradle and began shaking it on its rockers in order to separate the mass of sand and gravel. Larger fragments of rock and useless pebbles were retained by a perforated metal sheet secured across the upper part of the box, the rest falling through into the sloping bottom, for the water to wash it past a series of slats or riffles. At the end of each day, someone would carefully scoop from behind the riffles the particles of gold that had settled there, mixed, inevitably, with sand.

Luke straightened up, smothering a sigh. Unlike his older brother, Daniel, who was a well-muscled six feet, he was small and slight and, just past his eighteenth birthday, the younger by three years. Until four months ago, when Captain Jasper Morgan had entered their lives on his way to the goldfields, both he and Dan had been content enough to work on their father’s small, isolated farm in California’s Sacramento Valley, raising hogs and horses and supplying the gold rush travelers and the mining camps with food and timber in addition to replacements for their worn-out teams.

Their father was a Mormon. Although he had been one of

the early converts, he had found existence under Brigham Young in Great Salt Lake City too restrictive and had deserted the New Zion in order to return to the life and work he knew and loved best. But he had retained the principles of his faith, and the all-prevailing gold fever now gripping the state of California in the year 1850 had left him unmoved, for he had heeded the Mormon leader’s stern injunction that gold was for paving city streets and not for personal enrichment.

Luke, bareheaded under the relentless sun, mopped his brow as he watched his brother walk away, pushing the heavy barrow in the direction of the bank, where their two companions were toiling with picks and spades.

The coming of Captain Jasper Morgan had changed everything. Handsome, elegant, and worldly-wise, Morgan had an eloquent tongue and an answer for any argument. He had charmed them all initially and had even contrived to refute Brigham Young’s dictum by listing the advantages certain to accrue to those who had the wit and knowledge to prospect successfully for the gold that, he had claimed, was there for the taking. He had that knowledge; in a matter of a few weeks, his musical Welsh voice had asserted—or at most a couple of months—he would find a suitable site, and the skill he had acquired in the coal and tin mines of his native land would ensure success beyond the dreams of avarice.

But he needed help, Morgan had conceded—strong arms and young men accustomed to hard labor, since he himself —Luke smiled wryly at the memory—he himself, having followed a military profession and lived as a gentleman, was deficient on that score.

Dan had been eager to take him up on the offer of a partnership. Dan, for all their strict upbringing and their Mormon principles, had always hankered after the chance to join the thousands of gold seekers who had come flooding into the bleak, inhospitable land since James Marshall’s discovery at Sutler’s Mill. And Luke’s smile widened into one of deep affection. Where Dan went, he went, too. When their father had given his consent and their mother her cautious approval, they had signed the deeds of partnership, and leaving in their places the two old Mexicans Morgan had brought with him from San Francisco, they had undertaken the chore of driving their new partner’s wagon, with its tents and mining gear, to the site he had chosen.

It had been a weary journey, through abandoned diggings and deserted mining camps, for the gold-hungry invaders were constantly moving on as news of fresh strikes reached them and new arrivals added daily to their number, now rumored to be more than one hundred thousand. California had been ceded to the United States by Mexico and was now a state of the Union; millions of empty acres, uncultivated and uninhabited, were—as Morgan had said of the gold they were yielding—there for the taking. The miners formed their own committees, elected leaders, and made what laws they deemed necessary, and any man might stake a claim and hold it for as long as he continued to work it and left his tools or his tent on the site.

But Morgan did not share these democratic notions. He had a theory which, Luke reflected sullenly, he had not seen fit to divulge either to Dan or himself or to the two other men—both Australians and brothers, by the name of Gardener, Frank and Tom—whom he had also picked up on the way and taken into partnership.

They had passed through the largely canvas city of Sacramento, on through the sealike valley, and through the oak-clad foothills to the broad plateau of the Sierra, then down once again to the Feather River region, where finally Morgan had ordered a halt. They had set up camp in a dim gorge, known locally as Windy Gully, through the steep, rocky center of which ran a shallow stream. Morgan had displayed a secretive expertise while he made a survey of his chosen site but had finally pronounced the rocks gold-bearing and assured his anxious partners that the stream, conscientiously worked, would yield as much alluvial gold as they could wish for.

He had supervised the setting up of their rocker, had doled out spades and buckets from the wagon, and, having instructed them as to the procedure they must follow, had taken two of the horses and absented himself for almost three weeks. He— Dan came back, trundling another barrowload

of sand and pebbles, and Luke dealt with it in brooding silence.

“Cheer up, lad,” his brother said. “It’ll be grub time soon, and Frankie trapped us a couple o’ plump buck rabbits, so we’ll eat well at least. Even if we don’t have much to show for a hard day’s work.”

“We never do have much,” Luke retorted, refusing to be placated. “A few bags of dust, that’s all, and sweat enough to find that.” He shook the rocker box with angry violence. “And there’s Captain Morgan, always giving orders and never lending us a hand himself! Some partnership this is, with the four of us doing all the work.”