The troopers spent several hours in the quarries, moving every stone that might hide the entrance to a small cave, and leaving no room for a suspicion that Shine could be lying in concealment there.  For a Dick, who, in consideration of the seriousness of recent events with which he had been directly concerned, enjoying a week’s holiday, superintended the hunt from the banks; but he wearied of the work at length, and crossed the paddocks to join the men busy in the new shaft.  Harry Hardy, McKnight, Peterson, and Doon were sinking to cut the dyke discovered by the Mount of Gold Quartz-mining Company.  The mine had been christened the Native Youth; Dick, as the holder of a third interest, felt himself to be a person of some consequence about the claim, and discussed its prospects with the elder miners like a person of vast experience and considerable expert knowledge, using technical phrases liberally, and not forgetting to drop a word of advice here and there.  It might have been thought presumptuous in the small boy, but was nothing of the kind in the prospector and discoverer of the lode.

The big shareholder did not disdain even to assist in the work, and it was a proud and happy youth, clay-smirched and wearing ‘bo-yangs’ below his knees like a full-blown working miner, who marched through the bush with the other owners of the Native Youth at crib-time.  Being their own bosses the men of the new mine went home to dinner, and dined at their leisure like the aristocrats they expected to be.

Prouder still was Dick when he discovered brown haired, dark-eyed little Kitty Grey loitering amongst the trees, regarding him with evident admiration and awe.  He felt at that moment that he needed only a black pipe to make his triumph complete, and had a momentary resentment against the absurd prejudice that denied a boy of his years the right to smoke in public.  Kitty had scarcely dared to lift her eyes to her hero for some time past:  the wonderful stories told of him seemed to exalt him to such an altitude that she could hope for nothing better than to worship meekly at a great distance.  She was braver now, she actually approached him and spoke to him, yet timidly enough to have softened a heart of adamant; but Dick, stung by a laughing comment from McKnight, would have passed her by with an exaggerated indifference intended to convey an idea of his sublime superiority to little girls, no matter how large and dark and appealing their eyes might be.  Then she actually seized his hand.

‘Don’t go, Dickie,’ she said, ’I want to speak to you.  Miss Christina sent me.’

Kitty was a member of Christina Shine’s class at the chapel, and was one of half a dozen to whom Miss Chris represented all that was beautiful and most to be desired in an angel.  The mention of Christina’s name served to divest Dick of all pretentiousness.

‘What is it, Kitty?’ he asked eagerly.

‘She wants you.  She says you’re her friend, an’ you’ll go to her,’ Kitty spoke in a whisper, although the men were now well beyond earshot.