as they fell heavily together out through the door on to the hard
street beyond. How much ill-feeling this little incident engendered may be
judged from the fact that the maimed man was employed by his late
adversary as clerk until his limb mended, and subsequently held the billet
for many months.

It was my misfortune to be engaged in organising a prospecting expedition
at this time--misfortune, because of the impossibility of getting any one
to attend to business. Camels had to be bought, and provisions and
equipment attended to. A syndicate had engaged my services and those of
my two companions whom I had chosen in Perth: Jim Conley, a fine, sturdy
American from Kentucky, the one; and Paddy Egan, an Irish-Victorian, the
other. Both had been some time on the fields, and Conley had had previous
experience in South Africa and on the Yukon, where he had negotiated the
now famous Chilcoot Pass without realising that it was the tremendous feat
that present-day travellers represent it to be.

There are few men more entertaining than diggers, when one can get them to
talk; there is hardly a corner of the habitable globe to which they have
not penetrated. Round a camp-fire one will hear tales of Africa, New
Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, America from Alaska to the Horn,
Madagascar, and other strange countries that would be a mine of
information to a writer of books of adventure--tales told in the main with
truth and accuracy, and in the quiet, unostentatious manner of the
habitual digger to whom poverty, riches, and hardships come all in their
turn as a matter of course.

Having chosen my mates, the next thing to be done was to procure beasts of
burden. Of numerous camels submitted for inspection I took three, which
were subsequently christened "Czar," "Satan," and "Misery" respectively;
the first from his noble and king-like mien, the second from his wild and
exceedingly unpleasant habit of kicking and striking--habits due not to
vice but to the nervousness of youth--and the third from his plaintive
remonstrances and sad-eyed looks of reproach as his saddle and load were
placed on his back.

The price of a good pack-camel then varied from 60 pounds to 80
pounds--and such prices as 100 pounds to 130 pounds were given for
first-class riding-camels. For South Australian-bred camels, the
descendants of stock originally imported from India by Sir Thomas Elder
some thirty years ago, a higher price was asked than for those bro