that has grown on me from
being so much alone. What a splendid type of a man your father is, Miss
Fraser."

The glance of delight which shone in her eyes made Tom Gerrard's heart
quicken as it had never before to the voice of any woman.

CHAPTER X

Douglas Fraser was a widower, his wife having died when Kate was only
four years of age. She was now nineteen, and had been her father's
constant companion and helpmate ever since the death of her mother.
Fraser, who to all appearance was only the ordinary type of working
miner common to all Australasian gold-fields, was in reality a
highly-educated man, who had been not only a successful barrister, but
a judge of the District Court of New South Wales. The death of his wife,
however, to whom he was passionately devoted, changed the whole course
of his existence. Resigning his appointment, he withdrew himself
absolutely from all society, sold his house and such other property as
he possessed, and then, to the astonishment of his many warm friends,
disappeared with his little daughter from Sydney altogether. A year
or so later one of these friends came across him riding down the
main street of the mining township of Gympie (on the Mary River in
Queensland). He was in the ordinary diggers' costume, and the once
clean-shaved, legal face was now covered with a rough, strong beard.

"How are you, Favenc?" said his ex-Honour the Judge, quietly, as
he pulled up his horse, and dismounted; "have you too, caught the
gold-field fever, that I see you in Gympie?"

"No! I'm here on circuit with Judge Blakeney--Crown-Prosecuting. And how
are you, Fraser?"

"Oh, very well! I've gone in for mining; always had a hankering that
way. So far I have had no brilliant success, but hope to get on to
something good in the course of time."

For some years after this he wandered from one gold-field to another,
always getting further northward, and always accompanied by his child,
to whom he was able to give a good education, though not in a style
that would have met with the approbation of the principal of a
ladies' school. He had finally settled at Fraser's Gully, where he had
discovered a large, but not rich reef, and for the past five years he
and some half a dozen miners had worked it, sometimes doing very well,
at others their labour yielding them a poor return. On the whole,
however, he was making money, and the life suited him. Very often he
would urge Kate to go to Sydney for a yea