he said,
"I shouldn't have left till I'd fossicked that gorge, if I'd been you."

"Then you've been through it?" queried Bill.

Moonlight nodded.

"How did it pan out?"

"There was gold there."

"Make tucker, eh?" the Prospector laughed. "Well this'll be good enough
for us. We'll put in our pegs above yours. But how you dropped on this
field just gits over me. You couldn't have come straighter, not if I'd
shown you the way myself."

"Instinct," replied Moonlight. "Instinct and the natural attraction of
the magnet." He desired to take no credit for his own astuteness in
prospecting.

Scarlett had so far said nothing, but he now invited the newcomers to
eat, before they pitched their tent.

"No, no," said the Prospector, "you must be on pretty short commons--you
must ha' bin out a fortnight and more. Me an' my mate'll provide the
tucker."

"We _are_ a bit short, and that's the truth," said Moonlight, "but we
reckon on holding out till we've finished this wash-up, and then one of
us'll have to fetch stores."

While Benjamin and his mate were unpacking their swags and Scarlett was
lighting the fire, Moonlight transferred the rest of the gold from the
dish to the leather bag.

When the four men sat down to their frugal meal of "billy" tea, boiled
bacon, and "damper," they chatted and laughed like schoolboys.

"Ah!" exclaimed Tresco, as red flames of the fire shot toward the stars
and illumined the gigantic trunks of the surrounding trees, "this is
freedom and the charm of Nature. No blooming bills to meet, no bother
about the orders of worrying customers, no everlasting bowing and
scraping; all the charm of society, good-fellowship, confidence, and
conversation, with none of the frills of so-called civilization. But
that is not all. Added to this is the prospect of making a fortune in
the morning. Now, that is what I call living."

CHAPTER XIX.

A Den of Thieves.

Down a by-lane in the outskirts of Timber Town stood a dilapidated
wooden cottage. Its windows lacked many panes, its walls were bare
of paint, the shingles of its roof were rotten and scanty; it seemed
uninhabitable and empty, and yet, as night fell, within it there burned
a light. Moreover, there were other signs of life within its crazy
walls, for when all without was quiet and dark, the door opened and a
bare-headed man emerged.

"Carny!" he called.

A whistle sounded down the lane, and soon a figure advanced from the
shadow of