s away, with nothing left to them but the hard-won
gold they had saved and their mining tools, but ready and eager to
venture forth again.

* Gulf of Carpentaria.

One day, so the clergyman related, a man named Potter was travelling
from Burketown to Port Denison, and camped beside a small water-hole to
rest until the morning. After unsaddling and hobbling out the horse he
had been riding, and unloading the pack-horse, he threw his packbags at
the foot of a Leichhardt tree, lit a fire, and began to boil a billy of
tea. He knew that he was in dangerous country, and that it was unwise of
him to light a fire, but being of a reckless disposition, and having a
firm belief in his luck, he took no further precaution beyond opening
the flap of his revolver pouch.

He had just taken out a piece of damper and some salt meat, which, with
the hot tea, were to be his supper, when he was startled to hear some
one address him by name, and looking up, he saw a powerfully-built black
fellow with a long black beard and smiling face standing a dozen yards
or so away. He was all but nude, but round his waist was buokled a broad
leather police belt with two ammunition pouches; in his right hand he
carried a repeating rifle.

"Don't you know me, Mr. Potter?" he said in excellent English.

Potter recognised him at once, and the two shook hands.

"Why, you're Sandy! Have you left the police?" (He knew nothing of what
had occurred.)

"Yes," was the reply, "I skipped," and carelessly putting his rifle
down, he asked Potter if he had any tobacco to spare.

"Yes, I can give you a few plugs," and going to his saddle bags he
produced four square plugs of tobacco, which he handed to his visitor,
who took them eagerly, at once produced a silver-mounted pipe (probably
taken from some murdered digger) filled it, and began to smoke and talk.

"My word, Mr. Potter," he said with easy familiarity, "it is a good
thing for you that I knew you," and he showed his white, even teeth in a
smile. "But I haven't forgot that when I got speared on the Albert River
five years ago you drove me into Burketown in your buggy to get a doctor
for me." (He had formerly been one of Potter's stockmen, and had been
badly wounded in an encounter with wild blacks.)

Potter made some apparently careless reply. He knew that Sandy, though
an excellent stockman, had always had a bad record, and indeed he had
been compelled to dismiss him on account of his dangerous t