ned hide--he
appeared to be bound in morocco.

After their meal Jim spread himself upon the ground, his head pillowed on
the swag, stretching his tired limbs. Mike sat smoking, and there was
silence over and about them. One of those brief hushes, when all the
night voices are stilled and the trees merge into black, motionless
masses, was upon the Bush, and it infected the men. All day they had
marched with the throng; their tramp had never been lonely, thousands of
men were moving upon Forest Creek, and every now and again they passed a
toiling party burdened with tools and utensils, or were passed in turn by
more enthusiastic spirits pushing on, eager for a share in the treasure
of Red Gully, Diamond Gully, and Castlemaine. The shouts of the joyous
travellers were still echoing in Done's ears.

He had seen diggers on the track under varying fortunes, cursing
dreadfully by broken-down teams, urging on their dull bullocks--slow, but
very sure--singing exuberantly as they paced by, carrying heavy swags
with light hearts, shouting as they went, under the impulse of a common
hope that begot friendliness in all; and yet each man was armed
now--there was a revolver or a pistol in every belt. They came out of the
Bush, and the Bush swallowed them again--strange groups. Two Jim passed
he recognised as sailors off the Francis Cadman: one was in the shafts of
a loaded wheel barrow, the other, with a rope over his shoulder, trudged
ahead, towing manfully, both as merry as boys at play, despite the ten
days' journey ahead of them.

'Good luck, mate!' 'Good luck!' The trees showered kindly wishes, and
hearty compliments danced from lip to lip. A spirit of irrepressible
jollity laughed in the land. Drays, waggons, buggies, cabs, vehicles of
all kinds, were pressed into the service of the adventurers. Four diggers
went roaring by in a dilapidated landau that had seen vice-regal service
in Hobart Town, driven by a fifth blackguard dressed in an old livery,
and they brandished champagne bottles, and scattered the liquid gold like
emperors--lucky pioneers from Buninyong. A ragged, bare-footed, hatless
urchin, a stowaway fresh from the streets of London, whipped behind, as
he might have done a few weeks earlier on a Bishop's carriage in Rotten
Row. The mates next encountered a band of Chinamen carrying their burdens
on bamboos, covering the ground smartly with their springing trot and
cackling gaily as they went; then a 'hatter,' drunk