which proved one of the
richest little gullies ever worked by diggers. It was discovered by
some prospectors who followed the tracks which Mr. Turton had cut
over the scrubby mountains, and so they gratefully gave his name to
the gully, but I never heard that they gave him any of the gold which
they found in it. A narrow track from Foster was cut between high
walls of impenetrable scrub, and it soon became like a ditch full of
mud, deep and dangerous. If the diggers had been assured that they
would find heaven at the other end of it, they would never have tried
to go, the prospect of eternal happiness having a much less attraction
for them than the prospect of gold; but the sacred thirst made them
tramp bravely through the slough. The sun and wind never dried the
mud, because it was shut in and overshadowed by the dense growth of
the bush. All tools and provisions were carried through it on the
backs of horses, whose legs soon became caked with mud, and the hair
was taken off them as clean as if they had been shaved with a razor.
Most of them had a short life and a hard one.

The digging was quite shallow, and the gully was soon rifled of the
gold. At this time there was a mining registrar at Foster, as the
new diggings at Stockyard Creek were named, and some men, after
pegging out their claim at Turton's Creek, went back down the ditch
to register them at Foster. It was a great mistake. It was neither
the time nor the place for legal forms or ceremony. Time was of the
essence of the contract, and they wasted the essence. Other and
wiser men stepped on to their ground while they were absent,
commenced at once to work vigorously, and the original peggers, when
they returned, were unable to dislodge them. Peter Wilson pegged out
a claim, and then rode away to register it. He returned next day and
found two men on it who had already nearly worked it out.

"This claim is mine, mates," said Peter; "I pegged it out yesterday,
and I have registered it. You will have to come out."

One of the men looked up at Peter and said, "Oh! your name is Peter,
isn't it? I hear you are a fighting man. Well, you just come down
off that bare-legged horse, and I'll kill you in a couple of minutes,
while I take a spell."

"It's no use your talking that way; you'll see I'll have the law on
you, and you'll have to pay for it," replied Peter.

"You can go, Peter, and fetch the law as soon as you like. I don't
care a tinker's