e York District to Port Denison. I'm sick to death
of nigger chasing in the Far North, and want to be somewhere where I can
feel I'm not entirely an outcast from the world, with no one to talk to
but my own black troopers, any one of whom would put a bullet into my
back if I turned rusty."

"Oh, well, I think it is pretty certain I shall buy Mrs Tallis's
station. I like Ocho Rios very well, but now, since this last trip of
mine South, I feel as you do--I want to be a little less out of the
world. I might, perhaps, sell Ocho Rios, and fix myself at Kaburie. If I
don't, I'll put a manager there, and keep the place going, for I have
a great belief that there will be some rich gold discoveries in the
Batavia River country before long--and thousands of meat-hungry diggers
means pots of money to a cattleman."

"I'm certain, too, that there will be some big fields opened up that way
soon," said Aulain. "In that valise of mine, there under the bed, are
three or four ounces of alluvial gold which my troopers and I washed out
in one day at the head of a little creek running into the Batavia."

"Place with a hunking big boulder standing up in the middle of a deep
pool, with a lot of fish in it?" queried Gerrard.

"Yes; but how the deuce did you come across it? I've never seen a beast
of yours within fifty miles of it--the country is too rough even for
cattle--and I thought that my troopers and I were the first that ever
saw the place."

"When were you there?"

"About a month after you left Ocho Rios for Sydney."

"Well, my dear little laddie, I was there a year ago, camped there for a
couple of days, and did a little washing out--with two quart billy cans
for a dish."

"Get anything?"

"Seven ounces, sonny; mostly in coarse gold too."

Aulain whistled. "And you never went back there?"

"No! I never had the time for one thing; another reason was that it
would not have paid me to have left my station for the sake of a few
hundred pounds' worth of gold, and thirdly, although I know a little
about alluvial mining, I don't know anything about reefing--wouldn't
know a gold-bearing reef from a rank duffer, unless I saw the gold
sticking up in it in lumps. And there are several parties of prospectors
up in Cape York Peninsula now, and some of them are sure to make their
way to the Batavia River country in the course of time. If any come to
my place I'll give them all the help I can. I'd like to see a really
good gold-field d