owd collected. Once
more a diamond had been found. This sort of thing went on, at more or
less short intervals, ail day long.

It must have been nearly eleven o'clock before Brown and Beranger
strolled up. I watched their approach.

"Well, have you made our fortune?" asked Brown.

"I have found a diamond," I replied loftily.

"What!" he said, with a start. "Where is it?"

I searched through all the pockets and interstices of my coat with
trembling fingers. I turned every pocket inside out, but no diamond
could I find. I vainly searched the surrounding surface of the sand.
But all in vain; my treasure had disappeared. Brown and Beranger smiled
superciliously, and strolled back to De Beers. That was to me an hour
of bitter humiliation.

However, as the day went on, more and more diamonds, some of
considerable size, were found. Indubitable evidence of this having
reached my partners, they came back post-haste in the hope of being
able to mark out claims. They even went so far as to peg one out. This
was on the western edge of the kopje, clean outside the diamond bearing
area. But this circumstance was not yet known, for here the red soil
lay nearly ten feet deep over the bed-rock. However, we exchanged this
worthless site for a piece of ground in No. 9 Road a half claim
belonging to Alick McIntosh. The latter piece of ground turned out to
be very valuable.

Whilst affecting still to disbelieve in my find, my partners now
treated me with more respect. Towards them I assumed a patronizing
attitude. They no longer tried to force me to do cattle-herding. Day by
day the finds grew richer and more important. So far as I remember, it
was on the third day that Government sent officials to verify
boundaries and make a general survey of the surface of the mine. Each
individual had been, I think, permitted to mark out two claims. But the
"rush" had been so swift that very few had been able to avail
themselves of this privilege.

A certain amount of "hustling" was attempted; "roughs," who had come in
late, occasionally tried to bully those who looked "soft" out of their
ground. Being quite a youngster, I was, naturally, the kind of game
these gentry were seeking. However, I sought and obtained help among my
Kaffrarian friends, so when two glib tongued scoundrels endeavored to
claim my burrow on the score of prior occupation, they were soon hunted
off. Messrs. Tom Barry and George Ward were entrusted by the Landdrost
with th