of the District Hospital. To-day, however,
there was more to tell. The English mail had come in, and the table was
strewn with foreign envelopes and journals. Besides the usual letters
from relatives, one in a queer, illiterate hand had reached him, the
address scrawled in purple ink on the cheapest note-paper. Opening it
with some curiosity, Mahony found that it was from his former
assistant, Long Jim.

The old man wrote in a dismal strain. Everything had gone against him.
His wife had died, he was out of work and penniless, and racked with
rheumatism--oh, it was "a crewl climat"! Did he stop in England, only
"the house" remained to him; he'd end in a pauper's grave. But he
believed if he could get back to a scrap of warmth and the sun, he'd be
good for some years yet. Now he'd always known Dr. Mahony for the
kindest, most liberal of gentlemen; the happiest days of his life had
been spent under him, on the Flat; and if he'd only give him a lift
now, there was nothing he wouldn't do to show his gratitude. Doctor
knew a bit about him, too. Here, he couldn't seem to get on with folk
at all. They looked crooked at him, and just because he'd once been
spunky enough to try his luck overseas. Mahony pshawed and smiled; then
wondered what Polly would say to this letter. She it was who had been
responsible for packing the old man off.

Unfolding the STAR, he ran his eye over its columns. He had garnered
the chief local news and was skimming the mining intelligence, when he
suddenly stopped short with an exclamation of surprise; and his grip on
the paper tightened. There it stood, black on white. "Porepunkahs" had
jumped to three pounds per share! What the dickens did that mean? He
turned back to the front sheet, to find if any clue to the claim's
renewed activity had escaped him; but sought in vain. So bolting the
rest of his breakfast, he hurried down to the town, to see if, on the
spot, he could pick up information with regard to the mysterious rise.

The next few days kept him in a twitter of excitement. "Porepunkahs"
went on advancing--not by leaps and bounds as before, but slowly and
steadily--and threw off a dividend. He got into bed at night with a hot
head, from wondering whether he ought to hold on or sell out; and
inside a week he was off to consult the one person who was in a
position to advise him. Henry Ocock's greeting resembled an
embrace--"It evidently means a fortune for him"--and all trifling
personal diff