, however,
they emerged one day on to a small patch of level land, from one side of
which a steep, thickly wooded hill rose, and towards the centre of which
a shallow, reed-grown pool formed the commencement of the stream. It was
entirely different to what any one had expected, and as they traversed
the area of land, covered with rank vegetation, they saw how in a rainy
season it would be a peaty swamp formed by the drainage from the hills
around.

A more complete overthrow of Palmer Billy's theory could not have
occurred. The miles of country they had patiently journeyed over at the
slow pace necessitated by the constant fossicking and prospecting, had
been practically barren of gold, and the head of the stream, which the
leader had always maintained would be found in a series of springs
bubbling up in stony country, and surrounded by rocks, streaked and
veined by quartz, had been found to be a small pool in the middle of a
partially dried-up swamp.

Palmer Billy for once was silent as the camp was made.

"It's no good," he grumbled, when, with pipes alight, they lounged round
the fire after the evening meal. "It's no good. We've struck a duffer.
It's the old yarn. When we had a pile we didn't know how to keep it from
the sharks, and now--well, we've struck a duffer."

"We're not through yet," Peters remarked, after a moment's silence.

"Not through?" Palmer Billy exclaimed, his raucous voice taking to
itself a touch of scorn. "What do you call this? Are you going to take
this up as a selection and grow pumpkins? Do you think there's any gold
in this mud-pan? Did you ever see nuggets in a swamp of reeds? There's
not an ounce of sand or gravel to the acre. How are you going to work
it? Mine? Sink a shaft and drive tunnels? Not through, you call it, and
never more than a colour to the dish after fourteen days and more of
graft. I'm full of it. There was more of a show on Boulder Creek."

"'Kick at troubles when they come, boys,'" Tony chanted from the other
side of the fire.

"Wot price that?" Palmer Billy interrupted. "Singing a digger's song on
a darned dirty mud-heap. It's a blasphemy."

"Why?" Peters asked quietly.

"Why? Because there's no gold in it, that's why," Palmer Billy retorted.

"No; but there may be under it," Peters answered.

Palmer Billy rose to his feet, and stood with the firelight playing on
his rugged face and figure as he turned towards Peters.

"Oh, there may be some under it! Oh! Ve