e to bid you good-bye he said.

'Where are you going, Mick?' asked Caldigate, climbing up out of the
hole by the rope.

'I'm blessed if I know, but I'm off. You are getting that hole
tarnation crooked.'

The man was going without any allusion to the wages he had earned, or to
the work that he had done. But then, in truth, he had not earned his
wages, as he had broken his contract. He made no complaint, however, and
no apology, but was prepared to start.

'That's all nonsense,' said Dick, catching hold of him.

'You put your swag down,' said Caldigate, also catching hold of the
other shoulder.

'What am I to put my swag down for? I'm a-going back to Nobble.
Crinkett'll give me work.'

'You're not going to leave us in that way,' said Dick.

'Stop and make the shaft straight,' said Caldigate. The man looked
irresolute. 'Friends are not to part like that.'

'Friends!' said the poor fellow. 'Who'll be friends to such a beast as I
be? But I'll stay out the month if you'll find me my grub.'

'You shall have your grub and your money, too. Do you think we've
forgotten the potatoes?'

'---- the potatoes,' said the man, bursting into tears. Then he chucked
away his swag, and threw himself under the tent upon the straw. The next
day he was making things as straight as he could down the shaft.

When they had been at work about five weeks there was a pole stuck into
their heap of dirt, and on the top of the pole there was a little red
flag flying. At about thirty feet from the surface, when they had
already been obliged to insert transverse logs in the shaft to prevent
the sides from falling in, they had come upon a kind of soil altogether
different from the ordinary clay through which they had been working.
There was a stratum of loose shingle or gravelly earth, running
apparently in a sloping direction, taking the decline of the very
slight hill on which their claim was situated. Mick, as soon as this was
brought to light, became an altered man. The first bucket of this stuff
that was pulled up was deposited by him separately, and he at once sat
down to wash it. This he did in an open tin pan. Handful after handful
he washed, shifting and teasing it about in the pan, and then he cast it
out, always leaving some very small residuum. He was intent upon his
business to a degree that Caldigate would have thought to be beyond the
man's nature. With extreme patience he went on washing handful after
handful all the day, whi