when the gold fever was badly abroad, and men were leaving
everything--hearth, home, kith, kin, and often life as well--to join in
the mad scurry after the will-o'-the-wisp which they were pleased to call
fortune. Boulder Creek, a small stream--when rain fell--full of big
stones, and with here and there a patch of yellow sandy gravel lying in
corners and crevices, wound its way through country which was equally
rocky, but with just enough soil above the rock to sparsely nourish the
gnarled, scraggy gums which waged with the spear-grass a constant
struggle for existence.

The road to the west from Birralong crossed Boulder Creek, running along
the summit of a dwarfed ridge, parallel with the valley of the stream,
until it took a sudden turn downwards towards a spot where the stones
were less numerous, and which was locally known as the Ford. Halfway
down from the top of the ridge to the level of the creek, about an acre
spread out flat on the left-hand side, and here Cudlip's Rest was built.

There was gold in the creek at the time, tradition said, and men trooped
down to it from all parts, camping along the ridge, and climbing down
with the dawn to the bed of the creek and digging where they could in
the sandy gravel, or picking at the boulders and dollying the fragments
in the hopes of discovering some of the gold which report said was to be
found in the creek. As the sun went down at the end of each day, the men
climbed back to their tents on the ridge, cursing their luck--or the
want of it--to satisfy their hunger. Then they wandered with one accord
to the flat where Cudlip's Rest was situated, and assisted in making the
only "pile" which was ever amassed on the diggings of Boulder Creek.

Most of the men who first came out from civilization to make their piles
on Boulder Creek wandered back again, their piles still to make--with
that one exception; but the reputation of his success, though he never
rocked a cradle nor bumped a dolly in the whole course of his stay on
the field, hung about the place, growing in magnitude as the years
passed on, and inspiring many a simple heart with that blind faith and
patience necessary to spend one's life chipping at rocks well nigh
innocent of pyrites, and sluicing gravel which sometimes carries a grain
to the dish--for, after the first-comers had gone back to civilization,
there were many who came to take their places.

With the departure of its founder, the Rest lost a good