enough to show that I loaf you, Rachel."

He let her lead him to his desk, and there he sat and wrote a cheque
which Rachel took gladly. She gave him one more kiss, and said, "You
dear, good, kind old party; your little Rachel's _awfully_ pleased," and
gaily tripped from the dingy office into the sunny street.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Digging.

Moonlight and Scarlett were glad with the delight of success, for inside
their tent, which was pitched beside Bush Robin Creek, lay almost as
much gold as one of them could conveniently carry to Timber Town.

They had searched the rocky sides of the gorge where they had first
found gold, and its ledges and crevices had proved to be exceedingly
rich. Next, they had examined the upper reaches of the creek, and after
selecting a place where the best "prospects" were to be found, they had
determined to work the bottom of the river-bed. Their "claim" was pegged
off, the water had been diverted, and the dam had been strengthened
with boulders taken from the river-bed, and now, having placed their
sluice-boxes in position, they were about to have their first "washing
up."

As they sat, and ate their simple fare--"damper" baked on the red-hot
embers of their fire, a pigeon which Scarlett had shot that morning, and
tea--their conversation was of their "claim."

"What do you think it will go?"

"The dirt in the creek is rich enough, but what's in the flat nobody can
say. There may be richer gold in some of the higher terraces than down
here. I've known such cases."

At the place where they were camped, the valley had been, at some
distant period, a lake which had subsided after depositing a rich layer
of silt, through which the stream had cut its way subsequently. Over
this rich alluvial deposit the forest had spread luxuriantly, and it was
only the skill of the experienced prospector that could discover the
possibilities of the enormous stretches of river silt which Nature had
so carefully hidden beneath the tangled, well-nigh impenetrable forest.

"The river is rich," continued Moonlight, "that we know. Possibly it
deposited gold on these flats for ages. If that is so, this valley will
be one of the biggest 'fields' yet developed. What we must do first is
to test the bottom of the old lake; therefore, as soon as we have taken
the best of the gold out of the river, I propose to 'sink' on the
terraces till I find the rich deposit."

"Perhaps what we are getting now has come fr