he's American?' asked a digger, resenting the appropriation.

'Well, sir, if he ain't he's that good an imitation he might's well be
the real thing.'

About half an hour later three troopers came cantering through Diamond
Gully, looking very smart in their Bedford cords and shining top-boots,
and the diggers yelled derisive orders, and greeted them with cries of
contempt, jeering them from every hole along the lead. 'Jo!' was the
favourite epithet hurled at the troopers and all representatives of
constituted authority. Done never discovered the origin of the term, but
into it the diggers compressed all the hatred they felt for unjust laws,
domineering officials, and flagrant maladministration.

'I thought you knew this Solo,' said Jim to his mate that evening.

'Well,' replied Mike, 'I reckoned I did; but he changes his disguises
pretty smartly, 'r else that was another party in the same line o'
business.'

IX

IN the four days and a half of their first week on the field Burton and
Done cleared close upon seven hundred pounds. By the end of the second
week they had worked out their first mine, and Jim possessed eight
hundred pounds. They tried another claim, and bottomed on the pipeclay.
The hole was a duffer. They tried a third, and cut the wash once more.
This claim was not nearly so rich as their first, but rich enough to pay
handsomely, and Mike, young as he was, was too old a miner to abandon a
good claim on the chance of finding a better. By this time Jim was
feeling himself quite an experienced digger; he could sink a straight
shaft, knock down wash-dirt with the best, and pan off a prospect as
neatly and with as workmanlike a flourish as any man on the field. He was
rapidly coming into close touch with the life about him, adopting the
manners of his associates, and slowly wearing down that diffidence which
still clung to him in the society of strangers. He was reticent, but
there remained no suspicion, no animosity towards his kind. Looking back
a year, he could hardly recognise himself; the Jim Done of Chisley seemed
an old man by comparison. Already Jim of Forest Creek could laugh at Jim
o' Mill End, but the consciousness of an escape from a horror remained.
How serious he had been in those days! How he had permitted himself to
suffer! Thank God, it was all gone!

Going into the tent on the afternoon of the second Sunday, Jim found his
mate asleep on one of the bunks. In the hollow of his out-thrown h