imbering. And diggers came up with
their flannels and moleskins yellow and heavy, and dripping with wet
'mullock'.

Most of the diggers had gone to other fields, but there were a few
prospecting, in parties and singly, out on the flats and amongst the
ridges round Pipeclay. Sinking holes in search of a new Ballarat.

Dave Regan--lanky, easy-going Bush native; Jim Bently--a bit of a 'Flash
Jack'; and Andy Page--a character like what 'Kit' (in the 'Old Curiosity
Shop') might have been after a voyage to Australia and some Colonial
experience. These three were mates from habit and not necessity, for
it was all shallow sinking where they worked. They were poking down
pot-holes in the scrub in the vicinity of the racecourse, where the
sinking was from ten to fifteen feet.

Dave had theories--'ideers' or 'notions' he called them; Jim Bently laid
claim to none--he ran by sight, not scent, like a kangaroo-dog. Andy
Page--by the way, great admirer and faithful retainer of Dave Regan--was
simple and trusting, but, on critical occasions, he was apt to be
obstinately, uncomfortably, exasperatingly truthful, honest, and he had
reverence for higher things.

Dave thought hard all one quiet drowsy Sunday afternoon, and next
morning he, as head of the party, started to sink a hole as close to the
cemetery fence as he dared. It was a nice quiet spot in the thick scrub,
about three panels along the fence from the farthest corner post
from the road. They bottomed here at nine feet, and found encouraging
indications. They 'drove' (tunnelled) inwards at right angles to the
fence, and at a point immediately beneath it they were 'making tucker';
a few feet farther and they were making wages. The old alluvial bottom
sloped gently that way. The bottom here, by the way, was shelving,
brownish, rotten rock.

Just inside the cemetery fence, and at right angles to Dave's drive,
lay the shell containing all that was left of the late fiercely lamented
James Middleton, with older graves close at each end. A grave
was supposed to be six feet deep, and local gravediggers had been
conscientious. The old alluvial bottom sloped from nine to fifteen feet
here.

Dave worked the ground all round from the bottom of his shaft,
timbering--i.e., putting in a sapling prop--here and there where he
worked wide; but the 'payable dirt' ran in under the cemetery, and in no
other direction.

Dave, Jim, and Andy held a consultation in camp over their pipes
after