ung man I never met. When I went
to sell my little pile, he had over 12,000 ounces in a old leather
boot-trunk in his tent, besides more in a sugar-bag. He'd even filled
one of his top-boots with gold, and its feller stood waitin' to receive
my contribution. 'Good morning,' I says. 'Are you the boss o' this
show?' 'I'm in charge of the Bank,' he says, just as grand as if he was
behind a mahog'ny counter with brass fixings. 'Then weigh my pile,' I
says, handing over my gold. Then what d'you think he done? 'Just wait
till I get my scales,' he says. 'I've lent 'em to the Police Sergeant.
Please have the goodness to look after the business while I'm gone.'
With that he leaves me in the company of close on L100,000, and never a
soul'd have bin the wiser if I'd helped myself to a thousand or two. But
the reel digger don't act so--it's the loafers on the diggings gets us a
bad name. I've dreamed of it, I've had reg'lar nightmares about it when
I've bin stone-broke and without a sixpence to buy a drink."

"What?" said Tresco. "Gold littered about like lumber, and you
practically given the office to help yourself? It's wonderful, Bill,
what restraint there is in an honest mind! You can't ever have been to
Sunday School."

"How d'you know?" asked the Prospector.

"Because, if you'd ha' bin regular to Sunday School when you were a boy,
and bin told what a perfect horrible little devil you were, till you
believed it, why, you'd ha' stole thousands of pounds from that calico
Bank, just to prove such theories true. Now _I_ was brought up godly. I
was learnt texts, strings of 'em a chain long; I had a red-headed,
pimply teacher who just revelled in inbred sin and hell-fire till he
made me want to fry him on the school grate. I couldn't ha' withstood
your temptation. I'd most certainly have felt justified in taking a few
ounces of gold, as payment for keeping the rest intact."

"You're talking nonsense, the two of you," said Moonlight. "To rob on a
gold-field means to be shot or, at the very least, gaoled. And when a
man's on good gold himself, he doesn't steal other people's. My best
luck was on the Rifle River, at a bend called Felix Point. It had a
sandy beach where the water was shallow, just like this one here. My
mate and I fossicked with a knife and a pannikin, and before the day was
over we had between 30 and 40 ounces. The gold lay on a bottom of black
sand and gravel which looked like so many eggs. After we'd put up our
s