ring eyes that could not see the sun, and then, surely, it would be
good if some kind hand would make a hole in the hot, dry ground, where
his body might lie at rest until the day of days, when the dead shall
rise and the earth and the ocean give back that which they have taken.

What was that?

The prospector's shovel struck something hard, something which was so
much heavier than ordinary stone, and that had a peculiar ring when
struck by the shovel.

He leaned forward then, and picked it up, casting a scared look round,
fearful lest any of his chums had repented and come back to help him.
But no, he was alone, save for the dead; even the hoodie crow had flown
away because it did not seem of any use waiting any longer, and instinct
had told the creature that a horse was dying by a dried-out water-hole
some two miles away.

The man dug another hole after that, at some little distance, and,
dragging the body there, gave it decent burial, even kneeling with
clasped hands and closed eyes for a few minutes when his task was done,
trying to remember "Our Father", which was the prayer he had learned at
his mother's knee many years before. It was the only prayer that
occurred to him then, and it was not so inappropriate as it seemed. Then
he went back to the first hole that he had dug, and, carefully filling
it in, made a little cross of plaited sticks, which he planted at the
head of the grave that held no dead.

"I guess that will about do," he muttered to himself, and then, with a
final look round, he picked up his swag, and, hoisting it to his back,
set his face towards the hills and civilization once more. Tucked away
in his belt he carried fragments of the stone he had taken from that
first grave he had started to dig, and he meant to raise money on his
expectations, then come back with horses and tools to dig up the
fortune upon which he had stumbled when performing that act of mercy to
the nameless dead.

He was worn out and half-starved; he had been so near to despair, too,
that this tremendous find proved too much for him, and when three days
later he staggered into the main street of Latimer, which was a township
some fifty miles from Mostyn, he was too ill to tell anyone of what he
had found, or even to get the help for himself that he so sorely needed.

Most likely he would have lain on a dirty bed at the one hotel until he
died, and so the secret of that empty grave on the sandy plain would
have never be