poor Jack Brien;--and a lot
more. Perhaps you wouldn't like not another name of that sort.'

'Well; no,--unless it's necessary.'

'There ain't another John about the place, as I know. I never knew a
John down a mine,--never. We'll try it, anyhow.'

And so that was settled. As it happened, though Dick Shand had always
been Dick to his friend, Caldigate had never, as yet, been either John
or Jack to Dick Shand. There are men who fall into the way of being
called by their Christian names, and others who never hear them except
from their own family. But before the day was out, Caldigate had become
John to both his companions. 'It don't sound as it ought to do;--not
yet,' said Mick, after he had tried it about a dozen times in five
minutes.

Before the day was over it was clear that Mick Maggott had assumed the
mastery. When three men start on an enterprise together, one man must be
'boss.' Let the republic be as few as it may one man must be president.
And as Mick knew what he was about, he assumed the situation easily. The
fact that he was to receive wages from the others had no bearing on the
subject at all. Before they got to Ahalala, Caldigate had begun to
appreciate all this, and to understand in part what they would have to
do during this month, and how they would have to live. It was proposed
that they should at once fix on a spot,--'peg out a claim,' on some
unoccupied piece of ground, buy for themselves a small tent,--of which
they were assured that they would find many for sale,--and then begin to
sink a hole. When they entered Ahalala, Caldigate was surprised to find
that Mick was the most tired of the three. It is always so. The man who
has laboured from his youth upwards can endure with his arms. It is he
who has had leisure to shoot, to play cricket, to climb up mountains and
to handle a racket, that can walk. 'Darned if you ain't better stuff
than I took you for,' said Mick, as the three let the swags down from
their backs on the veranda of Ridley's hotel at Ahalala.

Ahalala was a very different place from Nobble,--made Nobble seem to be
almost a compact and prosperous city. At Nobble there was at any rate a
street. But at Ahalala everything was straggling. The houses, such as
they were, stood here and there about the place, while a great part of
the population lived under canvas. And then Ahalala was decidedly in the
forest. The trees around had not yet been altogether killed, nor had
they been cut do