t was well known that high prices were
going there and that everybody paid in cash. No credit was given, of
course.

We had on blue serge shirts, moleskin trousers, and roughish leather
gaiters that came up to the knee, with ponchos strapped on in front;
inside them was a spare shirt or two; we had oldish felt hats, as if
we'd come a good way. Our saddles and bridles were rusty-looking and
worn; the horses were the only things that were a little too good, and
might bring the police to suspect us. We had to think of a yarn about
them. We looked just the same as a hundred other long-legged six-foot
natives with our beards and hair pretty wild--neither better nor worse.

As soon as Starlight came on to the Turon he was to rig himself out as a
regular swell, and gammon he'd just come out from England to look at the
goldfields. He could do that part wonderfully well. We would have backed
him to take in the devil himself, if he saw him, let alone goldfields
police, if Sergeant Goring wasn't about.

The second day Jim and I were driving quietly and easy on the road, the
colts trotting along as steady as old stock horses, and feeding a bit
every now and then. We knew we were getting near the Turon, so many
tracks came in from all parts, and all went one way. All of a sudden we
heard a low rumbling, roaring noise, something like the tide coming in
on the seashore.

'I say, Jim, old man, we haven't made any mistake--crossed over the main
range and got back to the coast, have we?'

'Not likely,' he said; 'but what the deuce is that row? I can't reckon
it up for the life of me.'

I studied and studied. On it went grinding and rattling like all the
round pebbles in the world rolling on a beach with a tidy surf on. I
tumbled at last.

'Remember that thing with the two rockers we saw at the Hermit's Hut in
the Hollow?' I said to Jim. 'We couldn't make out what it was. I know
now; it was a gold cradle, and there's hundreds and thousands rocking
there at the Turon. That's what's the matter.'

'We're going to see some life, it strikes me,' says he. 'We'll know it
all directly. But the first thing we've got to do is to shut these young
'uns up safe in the sale-yard. Then we can knock round this town in
comfort.'

We went outside of a rocky point, and sure enough here was the first
Australian gold-diggings in full blast. What a sight it was, to be sure!
Jim and I sat in our saddles while the horses went to work on the green
gra