A nook to the left shielded the equipment during blasting. The action occurred further down the tunnel. It was a slow-motion chase after sedentary prey.

The men took turns following the vein with pickaxe and a small jackhammer. They chided each other genially during the shift change but became subdued as work resumed. All eyes strained after the tiniest glimmer, willing the green and red fire to materialize like a fever dream.

"Come on, come on,where is it?" David muttered. "Where's the bloody opal?" 

His inquiries echoed unanswered through the cold air. When the shimmering vein of potch and opal finally appeared, his buddy Mark drilled five deep cavities under the vein. Explosive charges would be sunk into each then linked with a single fuse. I abandoned the shaft as Mark tinkered with the detonating caps.

Gathered on the surface we waited. David was unusually quiet.

"No matter how many years I mine," he finally remarked, "the first explosion always makes me jump." 

The wind swirled in the powdery dust. Bumph!  The ground trembled briefly like a horse shaking off flies. We stared at nothing and counted, relaxing only after the fifth charge detonated.

While the blower removed the poisonous fumes from the mine, we sat on the piles of dross left over from previous blows. We munched sandwiches and snacks, wasting little time in the important business of prospecting.

A fellow with a face wrinkled from years of squinting into wind and sun doddered from a gritty cloud blowing over the plains. He lived in a trailer on an old claim and eked out a living by noodling, sifting the slag for overlooked opal. Half a dozen motley dogs were his only companions.

David offered the man packets of tobacco and rolling papers. In return, the old fellow watched for poachers whenever David's group was not there.

Although miners usually abandoned a vein when they drew close to its borders, avarice was as alive under the ground as above. Drilling into someone else's claim could draw fines of $1,000.00 AU per foot but the criminal could always say someone else must have dug after he'd abandoned his mine.

An unwritten miner's law was occasionally enforced.  A week before my arrival a blower, a $50,000.00 AU piece of equipment, had mysteriously caught on fire one night.  The owner had allegedly been caught poaching a few months before and had evaded traditional law.

Frontier justice was not so easily avoided.