ry good. Then I suppose you're
going to mine, and sink a shaft and tunnel, and----" the humour of it
was too much for him, and he broke off in a loud laugh, which ended in a
set of expressions not quite relevant, but calculated to relieve his
feelings.

"I'm going to prospect in the morning all the same," Peters said, as
quietly as before.

"Yes; why not? Let's try the hill," Tony exclaimed.

"Young fellow, you're a boy in most things, not forgetting age," Palmer
Billy began; "but in mining you are a baby in a cradle; you----"

"I'm not so sure," Peters interrupted. "It's up the hill I'm going to
prospect in the morning."

"All right," Palmer Billy answered, with a fierce energy. "Then I'll
mind camp and go fishing in the lagoon. Maybe I'll catch a dinner,
anyhow."

But in the morning he had recovered somewhat from the bitterness of the
disappointment he felt at having his theory, elaborated in many a yarn
around the camp-fire on the way up the creek, shattered by the discovery
of the swamp.

"What's the move?" he asked Peters, as soon as breakfast was over.

"You're the boss of the show," Peters answered.

"No, my lad. I'm through. I'm an old hand, but when it comes to striking
a swamp where I said there'd be a reef, it's time to shift. You're the
boss now. I'll be cook and bring along the accordion. A bit of a stave
may change the luck."

"Then we'll go for the hill," Peters said. "We'll prospect any likely
looking stone, and if there are no signs of payable quartz, then maybe
the country will change on the other side of the rise."

"And so will the tucker," Tony added. "There's more than half the stores
gone now, and we're a good three days' journey from Birralong, the
nearest township I know to this range."

"There's time enough for tucker," Peters replied. "When we've got to the
top of the hill we can talk about that; we may have struck the reef by
then, and be able to buy up the township if we want to."

They left the waterhole to face the steep, thickly timbered slope of the
hill. The climbing was awkward and trying work for the horses, and the
men had to lead them the greater part of the day, ever striving to get
through the thick undergrowth nearer the summit of the ridge. Whenever
any rock was seen to crop out, either Palmer Billy or Peters examined it
for any sign of quartz or pyrites, but nothing rewarded their efforts.

For three days they clambered and toiled before they reached the summit