f happy."

And, touching her sweetheart's arm as a signal for departure, the
dazzling vision of muslins and ribbons vanished from the shop.

CHAPTER V.

Bill the Prospector.

He came down the street like a dog that has strayed into church during
sermon-time; a masterless man without a domicile. He was unkempt and
travel-stained; his moleskin trousers, held up by a strap buckled round
his waist, were trodden down at the heels; under the hem of his coat, a
thing of rents and patches, protruded the brass end of a knife-sheath.
His back was bent under the weight of his neat, compact swag, which
contained his six-by-eight tent and the blankets and gear necessary to a
bushman. He helped his weary steps with a long _manuka_ stick, to which
still clung the rough red bark, and looking neither to left nor right,
he steadfastly trudged along the middle of the road. What with his
ragged black beard which grew almost to his eyes, and the brim of his
slouch hat, which had once been black, but was now green with age and
weather, only the point of his rather characterless nose and his two
bright black eyes were visible. But though to all appearances he was a
desperate ruffian, capable of robbery and cold-blooded murder, his was a
welcome figure in Timber Town. Men turned to look at him as he tramped
past in his heavy, mud-stained blucher boots. One man, standing outside
The Lucky Digger, asked him if he had "struck it rich." But the
"swagger" looked at the man, without replying.

"Come and have a drink, mate," said another.

"Ain't thirsty," replied the "swagger."

"Let 'im alone," said a third. "Can't you see he's bin working a
'duffer'?"

Benjamin Tresco, standing on the curb of the pavement, watched the
advent of the prospector with an altogether remarkable interest, which
rose to positive restlessness when he saw the digger pause before the
entrance of the Kangaroo Bank.

The ill-clad, dirty stranger pushed through the swinging, glass door,
stood with his hobnailed boots on the tesselated pavement inside the
bank, and contemplated the Semitic face of the spruce clerk who, with
the glittering gold-scales by his side, stood behind the polished
mahogany counter.

But either the place looked too grand and expensive, or else the clerk's
appearance offended, but the "swagger" backed out of the building, and
stood once more upon the asphalt, wearing the air of a stray dog with no
home or friends.

Tresco crossed the