he fields, based
upon the rich finds they were making, and the genuineness of which he,
obviously, never doubted.

Sydney picked up several small stones himself. The experts were always
finding them, so were the financial agents; yet Dick, though for a time
he could find out nothing to confirm his opinion, was convinced that
the whole thing meant a gigantic swindle. A few words in French between
the experts which they did not expect the "man in charge of the
transport" to understand a word here, and a look there, strengthened
this conviction into certainty, but still he had no proof.

Now Dick had heard of, and suffered from, more than one case of
"salting" since he first came to Luderitzbucht, and the quantity of
illicit diamonds in the hands of unscrupulous people made such salting
a comparatively easy matter, but if it were being done in this case, it
was certainly being done very thoroughly and artistically and when?

The whole party moved from place to place practically together in fact,
they kept in sight of each other ostentatiously.

It must be done after dark, if at all, and Dick resolved to watch at
night, as soon as he came to that conclusion. That same night, from his
tiny patrol tent, he watched the lights go out one by one, until the
camp lay silent, and apparently every one was asleep. And as time
passed he was nodding himself, when suddenly a shadow stole silently
from the tent occupied by the two prospectors, crossed to the experts'
tent, and disappeared inside. Dick saw the momentary gleam of an
electric torch and heard the tinkle of a bunch of keys, then the form
reappeared, and, with a glance round, passed silently and rapidly out
of sight across the sand-dunes.

Dick followed, the pale light from a waning moon, occasionally peeping
from behind the clouds, making the pursuit an easy one.

After half an hour of rapid walking the man disappeared over a gigantic
dune that Dick had noticed in the distance the previous evening, and
which he had heard marked the position of the next field to be
examined.

More cautiously now, and keeping well away from the man's actual spoor,
Dick crept up the slope, and peered over the crest down the farther
side.

The moon at that moment shone out clearly, and there, not fifty yards
away from him, Dick could see the figure of Grosman the prospector. He
was walking slowly up and down, now and then throwing his arm out with
the action of a sower, and the seeds he