ortures of pain; and
nobody with the smallest medical skill, within God knows how many miles!
Death seemed certain, but while life remained they were not the men to
give in, and they thought of a plan whereby the life of their mate might
be saved if only their horses held out. They travelled five miles, then
camped, and the available man returned to the rocks to water the horses
at the risk of being again attacked by the niggers. And thus dot and go
one, they hoped to reach Cutmore's.

So much endurance could not remain unrewarded and the two wounded men were
overjoyed by the report of a shot (a dynamite shot as it afterwards
transpired, fired by Rogers, Parks, and Lockhart as they worked on their
reef), and as soon as the horses returned, the little band set forth in
the direction from which the welcome sound had come, and before long saw
the camp of the lucky prospectors.

Fortunately Mr. Parks had some knowledge of surgery, picked up in the
African bush, where he had been a trader, and so could doctor the wounded
men. Here they camped until one morning, Janet, recovered of his hurt,
picked up a nugget of gold, strangely enough, close to the track from
Roger's camp to the reef he was working. This nugget was the first-fruit
of a plentiful harvest, and presently they went down to the coast where
poor Cable could be properly attended to in hospital. Pickering and Janet
returned as soon as possible, but not before some inkling of their find
had leaked out; consequently when they returned, just at the time of our
arrival on the scene, their tracks were followed, and a "rush" set in.

We were not long in making our camp at the new diggings, or in getting to
work to hunt for gold. Being out for a syndicate, who naturally wanted
something big in the way of a reef, we were precluded from the alluring
search for alluvial, "specking," as it is termed.

It seems the simplest thing in the world to find a good mine--that is, as
I said before, after you have found it! On Sunday, February 17th, Paddy
and I took a walk, and stepped right on to an outcrop of quartz showing
beautiful gold. Quite simple! Any fool can prospect; all he wants is a
little luck, and the strange inner urgings that make him examine a certain
quartz reef or blow that others have passed, perhaps dozens of times,
without happening to look in the right place! Roughly marking out an area,
to establish our prior claim to the ground amongst those already on the
fi