thed out their spirits to Him who gave them, and were laid in their
last resting-place with wealth untold beneath them, and earth
impregnated with gold-dust for their winding-sheet. Happy, thrice
happy, the few who in that hour could truly say to Jesus, "Whom have I
in heaven but Thee? and there is _none upon earth_ that I desire beside
Thee."

Just as our travellers approached the nearest and largest cluster of
huts and tents, a sudden change came over the scene. The hour of noon
had arrived, and, as if with one consent, the miners threw down their
tools, and swarmed, like the skirmishers of an invading host, up from
the stream towards the huts--a few of the more jovial among them singing
at the full pitch of their lungs, but most of them too wearied to care
for aught save food and repose.

Noon is the universal dinner-hour throughout the gold-mines, an hour
which might be adopted with profit in every way, we venture to suggest,
by those who dig for gold in commercial and legal ledgers and cash-books
in more civilised lands. When the new-comers reached a moderately-sized
log-cabin, which was the chief hotel of the colony, they found it in all
the bustle of preparation for an immediate and simple, though
substantial, meal.

"Can we have dinner!" inquired Ned, entering this house of
entertainment, while his companions were unsaddling and picketing their
horses and mules.

"To be sure ye can, my hearty," answered the smiling landlord, "if ye
pay for it."

"That's just the reason I asked the question," answered Ned, seating
himself on a cask--all available chairs, stool; and benches having been
already appropriated by mud-bespattered miners, "because, you must know,
I _can't_ pay for it."

"Ho!" ejaculated mine host, with a grin, "hard-up, eh! got cleaned out
with the trip up, an' trust to diggin' for the future? Well, I'll give
ye credit; come on, and stick in. It's every man for himself here, an'
no favour."

Thus invited, Ned and his friends squeezed themselves into seats beside
the long _table d'hote_--which boasted a canvas table-cloth, and had
casks for legs--and made a hearty meal, in the course of which they
obtained a great deal of useful information from their friend McLeod the
Scotchman.

After dinner, which was eaten hurriedly, most of the miners returned to
their work, and Ned with his friend; under the guidance of McLeod, went
down to the river to be initiated into the mysteries of gold-diggin