ates finished their third day's work on Jim Crow, wet to the hips,
smeared from top to toe with yellow clay, dog-weary, but quite jubilant.
They were as well satisfied with their next day's work, and the next.
They had succeeded in keeping the knowledge of their big find to
themselves; but returning to their camp one night about a week later,
Done was amazed to find the earthen floor of the tent dug up to a depth
of about a foot. Burton grinned.

'Someone's bottomed a shicer to-night,' he said.

'What's the meaning of this?' asked Done.

'We've had a little visit from some damn scoundrel who thought we'd buried
our gold here. Must 'a' taken us for a pair o' Johnnie-come-latelies.'

At that moment a shot rang out on the night air, and sounds of angry
voices and scuffling came from the direction of the Peetrees' tent.

'By the Lord Harry, they've nabbed him!' said Mike. 'Come along!'

They found Con Peetree holding a man down with a persuasive revolver,
while Harry, with a burning match sheltered in his palm, examined the
captive.

'Cot him diggin' in our tent. He broke 'way, but I've winged him,' said
Harry.

'He gave us a look in, too,' said Mike.

'Lose any stuff?'

'Not a colour.'

'Same here; but we can't let him go scot-free. That kink in the calf
counts for nothing, and handin' him over to the beaks means too much
worry. Here, give's a light, Burton.'

Mike struck a match, and, taking the thief by the ear, Harry Peetree drew
a knife.

'Good God!' cried Jim, 'you don't mean to--' Jim's intervention was too
late to help the prostrate man; Peetree had already slashed off the lobe
of his left ear. He threw the fragment in the man's face.

'Now scoot!' he said, 'an' don't show yer ugly chiv on Jim Crow again, 'r
you'll catch a fatal dose o' lead.

The crippled thief limped away without a word, pressing a palm to his
streaming ear.

'That seemed an infernally brutal thing to do,' said Jim to his mate,
when they were discussing the incident.

'Not a bit of it,' answered Burton. 'We've got to mark his sort, an' a
brand like that's known every where. A bloke with an ear stripped off
can't pretend to be a honest man here; he's got to be either a trooper or
one of Her Majesty's commissioners.'

'But you weren't at all bitter about Solo.'

'Solo ain't a tent-robber; he generally robs the people who rob us. A
tent-robber is the meanest kind of hound that runs.'

Jim was grateful for this lesson in digg