pounds--and the week's expenses came to one
hundred and forty pounds. I am afraid, Mr Gerrard, that father and I and
all the men will have to leave Fraser's Gully, and set our faces to
the North, and leave the old battery behind us to the native bears and
opossums and iguanas and snakes," and her voice faltered, for she dearly
loved the place where she had spent so many happy years.

"I am sorry," said Gerrard, musingly. "I suppose your father--if he
does leave here--from what he said to me is thinking of going to the
newly-opened gold fields on the Gilbert River?"

"Yes, in that direction at any rate, prospecting as we travel. That is
the one thing that consoles me; I love the idea of seeing new country."

Gerrard made no answer for some minutes. He was thinking of a certain
place on a creek, running into the Batavia River--the place "with a
hunking big boulder standing up in the middle of a deep pool," of which
he had spoken to Aulain, and he now half-regretted his promise to him to
"keep it dark" for six months.

"Of what are you thinking, Mr Gerrard?"

"I was wondering if your father would care to make a prospecting trip up
my way instead of going to the Gilbert rush. When I left Ocho Rios there
were several prospecting parties on Cape York Peninsula--some of them
doing very well--and I myself got seven ounces of gold in a few hours
from a creek about sixty miles from my station. Unfortunately, however,
another man as well as myself knows of this place, and he asked me not
to say anything about it for six months. He means to go there with a
prospecting party."

"You mean Mr Aulain," and Kate turned her frank eyes to his.

"How did you know?"

She flushed. "You remember the letter you brought me from him. In that
letter he told me that he was leaving the Native Police, and intended
going in for mining, as he knew of some very rich auriferous country
near your station, and that you, who also knew of it, had promised him
to keep it secret from any other prospecting party."

"Yes, I did. I should like to see Aulain 'strike it rich' as your father
says, Miss Fraser," and then he smiled. "If only for the sake of my
kind, patient nurse of last month."

Again Kate's face flushed. "I know what you mean, Mr Gerrard,
but----" she bent her head, and began to tie on a fishhook to the line
she was carrying. "But you are mistaken. I like Mr Aulain very, very
much, but I do not like any one enough to--to--oh, dear! I've