eap, or the
resident constable was transferred--when the township, speaking
figuratively, migrated from one end of the town to the other, and
Marmot's was deserted for the good of the Rest. There was a breezy
freshness in the neighbourhood then, a wave of primitive
goodfellowship, as it were, with a period of hazy indistinctness
separating it from the time when the rising sun brought with it a
succeeding wave of virtuous antagonism and a distressing dryness of the
throat.

But such occasions were rare--too rare, some thought--and, as a general
thing, Birralong had a reputation for sobriety, and maintained it with
dignity.

A few days before, there had arrived at the Carrier's Rest a party of
three men, who were on their way to the West, where, according to the
story they told, they had found a wonderfully rich gold-field. Many a
story of that kind had already been told in Birralong, both at the Rest
and on Marmot's verandah, and the Birralong folk were sceptical,
especially those who on former occasions had been induced, on the
strength of the story, to furnish stores on credit, or take a
contributing interest in the newly found claim; in either case receiving
in return only the knowledge that, even in matters connected with
gold-mining, humanity is sometimes frail. They had not been averse,
however, to pay visits to the Rest and give their support to the
proposals the strangers had made, with the characteristic
open-handedness of miners, to toast success and thumping returns from
the new field. But beyond that their enthusiasm had not gone, except in
one instance, and he had thrown in his lot with the three and had
journeyed away in their company.

It was that which was puzzling Birralong. The last man in the district
whom they expected to be carried away by the glib tales of nuggets by
the bucketful and gravel running two ounces to the dish, was Tony
Taylor; still less did they expect that he would leave his selection
home, to say nothing of the charms of Birralong and Marmot's verandah,
for a wild-cat yarn of travelling fossickers. He was one of the
brightest lights in the district, handsome, dare-devil Tony. There was
not a horse he could not ride, and his rivals had brought some pretty
tough buckjumpers to test him at different times--"fair holy terrors,"
they called them--but Tony sat them, even when girth and crupper had
carried away. He was the only individual who had been able to solve the
mysteries of the