tly. "Chaps like that
have no business to be trusted with guns."

"Hist!"

"Come on, lads," we heard plainly. "I'm sure I hit him."

"Don't be a fool," cried another voice. "Wait till daylight. Do you
want to be clawed?"

"Shall I roar?" whispered Esau.

"Don't--don't, whatever you do," I whispered back in alarm, for I had
not the slightest faith in my companion's imitation, and felt certain
that we should be found out.

The men too seemed to be coming on, but in a few minutes the rustling
and breaking of wood ceased, and we crept on again for a little way; and
then, with the light of the fire reduced to a faint glow, we stood
upright and began to ascend the little valley at a fairly rapid rate for
the darkness.

"What an escape!" I said, breathing more freely now.

"That's what I ought to say," grumbled Esau. "That bullet came close by
me."

"And by me too," I replied. "I felt a twig that it cut off fall upon
me. But never mind as we were not hit."

"But I do mind," grumbled Esau. "I didn't come out here to be shot at."

"Don't talk," I said. "Perhaps we shall come upon another camp before
long."

I proved to be right, for at the end of an hour we came upon a rough
tent, so dimly seen that we should have passed it where it stood, so
much canvas thrown over a ridge pole, if we had not been warned by a low
snoring sound.

We crept down to the waterside, and slowly edged our way on; but when we
were some fifty yards farther we stopped to consider our position.

"S'pose that's old Gunson," said Esau, "and we're going away from him
now?"

The idea struck me too, but I set it triumphantly aside directly.

"If it were Mr Gunson there would be a fire, and most likely Quong
keeping watch. Besides, we don't know that he had a tent like that."

"No, he hadn't got a tent," assented Esau; and we went on, to find that
at every quarter of a mile there was a tent or a fire; and it soon
became evident that the solitary little valley we had explored on the
day of my accident was rapidly getting to hold a population of its own.

We had passed several of these busy encampments, and were beginning to
despair of finding Mr Gunson, when, as nearly as we could guess in the
darkness, just about where we washed the gold, we came upon a fire,
whose warm yellow glow lit up a huge pine, and at the scene before us we
stopped to reconnoitre.

"That's where I was cutting the tree," muttered Esau; "and--yes, there's