quietly prospecting in the vicinity of the rush, had opened up a new
gully. The 'find' was kept dark pending Mike's return, and when the
Peetrees had secured their ground, the mates were given the pick of the
lead. The discovery leaked out as soon as the friends started operations,
and a little rush from the original field followed. Jim was now a mile
and a half from Mrs. Kyley's shanty, and derived some satisfaction from
that fact. His feelings towards Aurora had undergone another change.
Lucy's image loomed to the almost total eclipse of that of her rival, and
yet he could not spend ten minutes in the company of the girl at the
shanty without being won by her buoyant spirits and the kindliness of her
soul. He had some dread of growing to hate Aurora now that Lucy had
reestablished herself--a dread founded more on some familiarity with
popular fiction than on a knowledge of his own heart.

Christmas came, and there was a rough attempt to celebrate it on Jim
Crow, an attempt by which Mrs. Ben Kyley profited largely, as she and
Aurora were kept working at high pressure for two days, making Christmas
puddings, for which the diggers cheerfully paid half a guinea apiece.
Rich plum-pudding, hearty eating, and heavy drinking, the proper
concomitants to an English Christmas as the miners understood it, were
not compatible with merriment during an Australian Christmas-tune, with
the glass at one hundred degrees in the shade; but trifling
considerations of that kind were not allowed to interfere with the
uproarious festivities at Jim Crow. January passed quietly. The dirt at
One Tree Gully proved highly remunerative, and the mates worked hard.
Done had discovered an object beyond the rapturous enjoyment of the
moment, and showed himself more anxious to win gold. He was living a
comparatively quiet life, and the locket containing Lucy Woodrow's
picture was restored to its rightful place next his heart. There was a
time when the thought of such an act of flagrant and foolish
sentimentality would have made him groan aloud.

One night in the following March, returning to their tent from the
shanty, where he had left Burton deep in a game of euchre, Jim was
startled to see a stream of light flash momentarily across the canvas
wall. His first thought was of thieves, and, drawing his revolver, he
stole noiselessly to the entrance and peeped in. He saw the figure of a
man seated at the head of Mike's bed. On the small table between th