would be all in our favour instead of being a hundred to one that we
weren't placed and no takers.

Starlight was glad enough to see me back, and like everything he
tackled, had been squaring it all for our getting away with head and
hand. We wanted to take everything with us that could do us any good,
naturally. Father and he had made it right with some one they knew at
Turon to take the gold and give them a price for it--not all it was
worth, but something over three-fourths value. The rest he was to keep
for his share, for trouble and risk. There was some risk, no doubt, in
dealing with us, but all the gold that was bought in them days wasn't
square, not by a lot. But there was no way of swearing to it. Gold was
gold, and once it was in the banks it was lumped up with the rest. There
was a lot of things to be thought of before we regularly made a move for
good and all; but when you make up your mind for a dart, it's wonderful
how things shape. We hadn't much trouble dividing the gold, and what
cash there was we could whack easy enough. There was the live stock that
was running in the Hollow, of course. We couldn't well take them with
us, except a few of the horses. We made a deal at last with father for
them. He took my share and Starlight's, and paid us in cash out of his
share of the notes. All we wanted was a couple of horses each, one to
carry a pack, one to ride.

As for dad, he told us out, plump and plain, that he wasn't going to
shift. The Hollow was good enough for him, and there he was going to
stop. If Jim and I and Starlight chose to try and make blank emigrants
of ourselves, well and good. He didn't see as they'd have such a rosy
time getting over to these new townships on the other side. We might get
took in, and wish we was back again before all was said and done. But
some people could never let well alone. Here we had everything that any
man in his senses could wish for, and we wasn't contented. Every one was
going to cut away and leave him; he'd be all by himself, with no one
but the dog for company, and be as miserable as a bandicoot; but no one
cared a blank brass farden about that.

'Come with us, governor,' says Starlight, 'have a cruise round the
world, and smell salt water again. You've not been boxed up in the bush
all your life, though you've been a goodish while there. Make a start,
and bring old Crib too.'

'I'm too old and getting stiff in the j'ints,' says dad, brightening up
a bit,