“I’ll see you hanged first,” I retorted.  “You are not going to make me draw up a fifty pound piece of quartz, and then laugh at me for my labor.”

“Pull up quick,” cried Fred, in an eager voice; and I heard a howl from the Irishman at my obstinacy.

“In the name of the saints, up wid it, good master Jim,” pleaded Mike; but I rather hesitated, strengthened in the view which I took in the matter by the policeman.

“It’s little gold that was ever taken from this claim, sir,” he said, “although it has paid one or two proprietors by speculation.  The soil is not of the right kind for large nuggets.”

“How big is it?” I asked, addressing those who were some thirty feet below me.

“About as large as your head,” was Fred’s reply.

“Is it solid?” I demanded.

“It looks to be!  But don’t stand there asking questions, when you can satisfy yourself.  Round up the bucket.”

I began to think that the Irishman’s dream was true, and that the whiskey had not taken possession of his senses.

Fred was not in the habit of indulging in practical jokes; and I finally concluded that I might as well satisfy myself whether a stone or a lump of gold was in the bucket.  I wound up the windlass, while the policeman peeked down the long, dark shaft, eagerly watching for the bucket, to see what it contained.

“Do you see any thing?” I asked, when I thought that it was near enough to get a glimpse of its contents.

Before I could repeat the question, the eyes of the patrolman glared as though starting from their sockets, and his face flushed scarlet.

“Up with it, in the name of goodness,” my companion shouted, leaning over the shaft, and grasping the rope that held the bucket in one hand, and attempting to pull it up, regardless of the rough windlass that I was working at.

“Can you see it?” I demanded, resting from my labor for a moment, and glancing down the shaft.

“Don’t stop, sir,” cried the policeman; “up with it, or the devil may carry it off before our eyes.”

I did not feel so superstitious; and in spite of the warning managed to get a glimpse of the lump that had almost turned the brains of the Irishman and Fred.

At the first glance, I almost let go my hold of the windlass, I was so overpowered.  My eyes appeared to blur over, and my brain grew dizzy.  I did not seem to possess the strength of an infant, and for a moment I paused, and tried to rally my senses.

My heart beat so wildly that I thought it would burst, for the single glance that I had cast towards the bucket revealed to me a sight that would have driven half the miners of Ballarat crazy, and the remaining portion frantic with delight, provided, of course, they had seen and owned what I saw.

CHAPTER LXI.

THE RESULT OF GROWING RICH TOO RAPIDLY.