tell you," he said.

"What's the good of waiting here?" Tony exclaimed. "It's nearly time for
dinner, and you can yarn then. Let's push on to the creek, if there is
one, and have a feed and yarn then."

"Young feller, my lad," Palmer Billy observed, turning towards Tony,
"you've the head of a jayneus. In course. Who wants to yarn with a full
tucker-bag outside and none under the waistbelt? Shove along."

He swung his swag on to his shoulder again and resumed the walk, the
others following, Gleeson silent and morose.

The view of Palmer Billy was correct. A creek, full of clear water
running over a sandy bed, flowed through the scrub; and while a fire was
being lit to boil the billy, Peters went a short distance along the
banks of the creek. When he came back he looked at Gleeson.

"You say you've been here?" he asked.

"No," Gleeson answered. "I say there's no gold in this creek or the
other. It was all bluff--only the game's gone wrong."

"Don't be too sure," Peters said. "We had no chance of prospecting the
other creek, with the mob jumping every one's claims, but I'm on to
wager this is no bluff. There's gold in that creek; not in tons, maybe,
but enough to give us wages, and good wages, for more than a week or
two."

"You don't say!" exclaimed Palmer Billy, standing up beside the fire
over which he had been stooping, as he watched for the water in the
billy to come to the boil.

"You're wrong," Gleeson retorted. "I tell you the whole thing was bluff.
The hole we dug was salted, and the creek was to be salted for a bit;
and then, when the rush set in, the news was to have been published and
our claim offered for sale, and bought, and offered again, just as the
big find was made, the find that was planted in the hole. Only Walker's
turned wrong, and Tap, the chap we left to do the salting, has cleared
with the gold; and if you hadn't stood by me in the row, I should have
cleared too, and left you to get out of the way of the mob as best you
could. Only you stood by me and Walker shied, so he can face the mob and
the music, and we'll clear. But there's no gold in this creek. There may
be a bit in the other; Tap may have dropped some of the stuff we were
fools enough to trust with him; but I'll swear he never came here, so
how could any gold get here?"

The three stood looking at him, Palmer Billy open-mouthed and open-eyed.

"And you calls yourself a miner?" he said, with scornful emphasis.

"No, I don't,