in the valley were
rude huts, hastily put together, the homes of the miners. Some of them
were built of solid trunks of trees laid horizontally, after the
American backwoods order of architecture. The interstices were generally
daubed with clay to make them water-tight, and the roofs were covered
with sheets of bark, kept down by logs laid upon them. There were tents,
also, made of slabs, and covered with canvas. Still others were covered
with bullock hides.

To Harry and Jack the sight was a novel one, and they regarded the
extemporized village with interest.

Obed's eyes glistened, and he rubbed his hands with delight.

"This seems like home," he said. "It's just like Shantytown in
Californy, where I worked three months last year. I say, boys, how do
you like it?"

"I shouldn't like to live here very long," said Harry.

"I like shipboard better," said Jack.

"I agree with you, boys," said Obed, "but it'll suit me well enough if I
can find enough gold here. When I've made my pile, Australy won't hold
me long. I shall make tracks for America. We have no bushrangers
there."

"But you have Indians," retorted the police captain, who did not quite
relish the strictures upon the colony of which he was an official. "I
would rather be captured by a bushranger than scalped by an Indian."

"I agree with you, captain, but the Indians won't scalp you unless you
go where they are. I never saw one till I was past twenty-one."

"Indeed!" said the captain in evident surprise. "I thought they were all
over the country. Why, one of your countrymen told me they would
sometimes surprise families within ten miles of your great city of New
York, and scalp them all. He said he was brought up--raised, he called
it--twenty miles away, and was obliged to barricade the doors and
windows every night, and keep a supply of loaded muskets by the side of
his bed, to resist the Indians in case they made a night attack."

Obed laughed till the tears came to his eyes, and the two boys also
looked amused.

"Did you believe all this, captain?" he asked.

"Why not?" asked the captain, looking offended. "My informant was a
countryman of yours."

"He was stuffing you, captain."

"_Stuffing_ me! I don't understand," said the captain, puzzled.

"He saw that you knew very little of America, and he practised a little
on your credulity--isn't that the word?"

"How do I know but you are doing the same now? Probably you want to give
me a favora