as, having hobbled his horse, he took off the
saddle and bridle, and smacked it on the flank, exclaiming--

"Now, my beauty, don't spare the grass because it's Government property,
and don't go far away."

The horses being unsaddled, the four men placed their swags and saddles
together, and while one started a fire, another filled the
smoke-begrimed billy at the stream, and set it to boil by the blazing
twigs, another unrolled the "tucker-bags," and spread the contents of
beef and damper on a blanket, and the fourth, Gleeson, sat on a log and
filled his pipe.

"It isn't every one who finds a payable rush," Peters remarked solemnly,
as he stood by the fire after his share of the work was done. "Tony, my
lad, you will observe that; and consequently the man who finds the
payable rush don't do no cooking at the camp."

"There's three for one man's work. What's the need of crowding?" Gleeson
asked, as he came over to the fire to get a light for his pipe.

"None. Nor jawing either. He's all jaw," the fourth man, who was
overhauling the tucker-bag, exclaimed, with a snarl in his voice.

"Now then, Samuel Walker, don't you make the sugar sour," Peters
rejoined. "Your taste in----hullo!" he broke off, as the sound of a
coo-ee away down the track came to his ears. "They're right on our
heels. The whole mob will be here an hour after sunset."

"Of course they will. We ought to have stayed at the pub, or kept the
find dark," Walker said.

"There's no pleasing you," Peters replied. "Our claims are pegged out by
Government, so why should we grumble at others having a look in on their
own."

"The billy's boiling," Tony interrupted.

"Then make the tea," Peters retorted, adding, as he watched the
operation being carried out, "You've the makings of a digger about you,
Tony, if you stick at it long enough."

As soon as the tea was ready, the four men gathered round the blanket on
which Walker had spread the eatables, and set to on the meal with
healthy appetites. As they sat eating, the sun went down, and fresh logs
were thrown on the fire, lighting up the open space with a warm, bright
light. They had finished, and were starting their pipes, when, on the
other side of the creek where the firelight streamed across the track,
the figures of two men with swags on their backs and diggers' picks and
shovels over their shoulders, came in sight.

They greeted the camp with a shout, and splashed through the creek and
up to the fi