Summary
The story begins with three miners - Dave Regan, Jim Bently, and Andy Page - attempting to sink a shaft at Stony Creek in search of a rich gold quartz reef which is supposed to exist in the vicinity. The party is fond of fish, and Andy and Dave are fond of fishing. Andy would fish for three hours at a stretch if encouraged by a "nibble" or a "bite" now and then. At one point, Dave thinks to blow the fish up in the big water-hole in the creek with a cartridge.
Dave is usually the one to come up with schemes, and Andy is the one to implement them. Andy usually puts Dave’s theories into practice if they are practicable, or bears the blame for their failure. Andy makes a cartridge about three times the size of those they usually use. Dave’s schemes are elaborate, and he often worked his inventions out to nothing.
The idea is to sink the cartridge in the water with the open end of the fuse attached to a float on the surface, ready for lighting. Andy dips the cartridge in melted beeswax to make it water-tight. He is very careful and meticulous in making the explosive.
The trio also has a big, black, young retriever dog, Tommy. The trio loves him for his good-heartedness and his foolishness, but when they wish to enjoy a swim they have to tie him up in camp. He is playful and nagging at times as well.
He retrieves anything; he carts back most of the camp rubbish that Andy throws away. Once they had a cat that died in hot weather, and Andy threw it a good distance away in the scrub; early one morning, Tommy found the cat, after it had been dead a week or so, and carried it back to camp, and laid it just inside the tent-flaps.
Andy sees Dave and Jim returning from working on the cartridge, and puts a panful of mutton-chops on the fire. Dave and Jim stand with their backs to the fire, as bushmen do in all weathers, waiting until dinner is ready. Tommy goes nosing around after something he seems to have missed.
Andy continues to work on the cartridge as well. The glare of an empty kerosene-tin lying in the bushes catches his eye, and it strikes him to sink the cartridge packed with clay, sand, or stones in the tin to increase the force of the explosion. Jim is not interested in Andy and Dave’s "damned silliness."
Analysis
The primary purpose Andy, Dave, and Jim are in the bush is to acquire wealth. This involves the exploitation and destruction of the environment around them, not simply for the acquisition of wealth but also for apparently sadistic reasons ("Why not blow the fish up in the big water-hole with a cartridge?"). In this way, the three of them have come to find nature and natural things empty and suited for domination. Nonetheless, they also come to acknowledge - through a series of antics - a primordial order of things. They know that dogs are not humans, nor as intelligent. But they seem to temporarily forget about this, carelessly leaving unattended a powerful cartridge within the reach of an even more careless and playful dog. To make matters worse, they are fully aware how dangerous the cartridge is and how foolish their dog is.
The cartridge is metonymic of life in the bush itself. It is dangerous, unpredictable, and a source of dread and anxiety. It shows that while in the bush, the dangers go away only temporarily. At the same time, the cartridge represents the key to dominating and overcoming the bush: it is an explosive that destroys the bush. It is a tool for establishing supremacy. Regardless of how hostile the bush is, it is the miners who are invading, so the bush reacts with justified resistance.
When Tommy chases the miners with the cartridge in his mouth, there is a sense of justice being delivered. The miners are cruelly attempting to kill the fish in the creek and destroy the environment. As an agent of non-human nature, Tommy is a kind of conduit through which the bush engages in retribution. After all, the miners have no ethical or moral reason for being there. The purpose of their presence is purely exploitative.
However, the bush is still kind to them, as the main target of retribution becomes the yellow-mongrel, which has been irking the bushmen for an unspecified amount of time. The yellow-mongrel is eventually killed due to the explosion of the cartridge. When the cartridge is dropped, the neighborhood dogs gather for the moment of reckoning. In a sense, they are the jury, with the bush presiding as the judge. They implicitly approve of his death and are saved from the cartridge blast. The yellow-mongrel is given three sniffs or three chances (also a sign of mercy from the bush) to get away from the cartridge.
This does not entirely clear the bush of cruelty. As it can be interpreted to have chosen Tommy to be the harbinger of justice, it can also be seen to have used Tommy as a sacrifice for its cause. There is no indication initially that there is any kind of protection for Tommy. In fact, Tommy is abused by his supposedly benevolent, loving owners. Instead of panicking, they could have taken the risk of playing with Tommy and quickly remove the cartridge from his mouth and toss it, while ensuring that he does not go after the cartridge again.
Rather they kick him, throw rocks at him, and catch him by the tail. Moreover, the readers also come to learn that Tommy has been bullied by the yellow-mongrel. The abuse that Tommy experiences at the hands of various forces within the story speaks to his function as a conduit of information but also his positionality as an object to be carved and shaped by the desires of those who are more powerful than him.
