although
they were obliged to send back one of the horses, which had proved to
be useless. Here Mr Rutter slept in a bed for the last time during
four months; and the next day, having purchased another horse, and
sold some of their goods to lighten the wagon, they set forth again
towards evening. The road was nothing more than a dray-track, to which
the horses were unequal; and after proceeding a few miles, they were
detained at the village of Prospect for a week, till one of the
partners had returned to Sydney, and brought back a pair of
bush-horses and a new cart. As they proceeded the next day, they found
the track over which they travelled become more and more populous;
till, on crossing the Macquarrie, they encamped in the midst of
thirteen teams of cattle and their thirteen companies, all bound upon
the same errand as themselves.

On the 12th of June, in the dusk of the evening, they reached the
summit of a hill overlooking their destination. The Summerhill Creek
lay before them, with the camp-fires of fifty or sixty huts; and as
they descended into the midst, the inhabitants of this village of the
desert were returning from work with laughter and rude merriment.
After pitching their camp, and taking some refreshment, they proceeded
anxiously to inquire the news; and that night they turned in with no
very bright anticipations, after learning that the creek was high and
goods low, the weather alternating between rain and frost, the mines
overcrowded, and superfluous hands deserting them fast. They struggled
for awhile against these evil auguries; they even contrived, with
great labour, to pick up an ounce or two of gold; but at length,
losing heart, the party broke up on the 23d, and all went home but our
adventurer.

His geological and mechanical knowledge enabled him to obtain a
partnership with another band of gold-hunters then at work; and after
spending some days in _prospecting_ on account of the new concern, he
found 'a chink he liked the look of,' which appeared to have been
partially worked. Licences were accordingly taken out, the
commissioner being on the spot, and forty-five feet of frontage to the
creek were marked off. As soon as the river became a little lower,
they began in earnest to dig a race for turning the course of the
water. Their pump was made and fixed ready to drain; a dam was
emptied; six ounces of gold were obtained as an earnest of what they
might expect; and then it began to rain, a