country."

"And the dismal desert. Why, you romantic young dreamer! You'll never
see a place south of here half so beautiful."

"But what's the good of its being beautiful if we can't live upon it?"

"Then you'd be glad to go?"

"Oh yes, sir," cried Ned.

"Humph! Well, Bourne, it seems then that you and I will have to go back
to England empty and alone."

"No, you won't, father," said Chris quickly. "I shouldn't go without
you went too."

"And I shouldn't either, father," said Ned huskily, as he went and stood
behind his father with his hands resting on Bourne's shoulders.

"Here, I wish you two young fellows had held your tongues," said Griggs
roughly, "because it's like filling a man full of pleasure, and then
making a hole and letting it all out again. But it's all right, lads,
and thankye all the same. No, you can't go away and leave your two
dads; it wouldn't be right, and you couldn't expect to prosper if you
did. But I wish they'd think as we do, and say they'd go and chance it.
Raally, doctor, and raally, Mr Bourne, I'd go to bed and sleep on it.
P'r'aps you'd feel a bit different in the morning. What do you say?"

The doctor was silent for a few moments, gazing full in the American's
face, the latter receiving the look without blenching.

"Let me see, Mr Griggs," he said; "I've known you nearly four years,
haven't I?"

"Four years, four months, doctor, and that's just as long as I've known
you."

"Yes," said the doctor, at last. "Bourne, what do you say to all this--
shall we go and sleep on it?"

The two boys caught hands and gazed hard at Ned's father, who was also
silent for a few moments, before he drew a deep breath and said firmly--

"Yes, Lee, old friend, I say let us go to rest now, think deeply, and as
we should, over what may mean success or failure, and decide in the
morning what we ought to do."

"Shout, boys," cried Griggs, springing up. "Not one of your English
hoo-roars, but a regular tiger--_ragh_--_ragh_--_ragh_! That's your
sort. They mean to go."

"Yes, Griggs, old neighbour," said the doctor; "in spite of all the
terrible obstacles I can see plainly in our path, I feel that to-morrow
morning my friend and I will have made up our minds that this is too
great a thing to give up easily, and that we shall decide to go."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

ALL FOR GOLD.

It was not until the doctor rapped sharply at the wooden partition that
separated the boys' from the me