of their heads and their hot impatience under restraint.  A half-caste aboriginal boy, dressed apparently in his master’s old clothes—­and the master’s own clothes were none too new—­sprawled on the bottom of the vehicle, and grinned at Done in a friendly way over the tailboard.  Jim resented the cripple’s contempt for his wrongs, and ignored the question put to him.  He was taking up his belongings again, when Mrs. Macdougal herself fluttered by.

‘Why, Mack!’ she cried.

The driver’s eyes left his horses’ ears for a moment, and rested on the lady.  They displayed no particular feeling.

‘Hello, missus!’ he said casually, adding, after a pause:  ’Best jump up.  Nags a bit fresh.’

Jim walked on.  So this was Donald Macdougal, J.P., of Boobyalla.  The young man’s annoyance fell from him.  He thought of the devoted husband’s greeting after their long parting, and laughed aloud.  Macdougal of Boobyalla was no demonstrative lover.  A few minutes later the waggon dashed past Done; the bays were being driven at a gallop, and the vehicle fairly jumped on the broken road.  The young man caught a glimpse of Lucy clinging desperately to her seat, and then waggon and horses were buried in a dust-cloud of their own making, which was whirled away at a terrific pace, and spun out of his view round a distant corner.

Done plodded along with his bag upon his shoulder.  He had no definite plan of action.  He thought now of looking about him for a day or two before leaving for the fields.  No doubt it would be an easy matter to get accommodation at some hotel or lodging-house.  After that he would move with the throng, and his future actions would depend upon such knowledge as he might be able to gather from the experienced people with whom he came in contact.  He presently had ample proof that the driving of Macdougal of Boobyalla was nothing extraordinary here.  Three horsemen passed him at a racing speed, and with much shouting and cracking of whips, and a wild, bewhiskered Bushman, driving two horses in a light, giglike vehicle, charged through the dust at a pace implying some business of life or death; but a little further on Jim came upon the steaming pair tethered to a post outside a rough structure labelled the ‘Miner’s Rest,’ and at the bar stood the driver toying lazily with a nobbler of brandy.  He passed groups of men lounging against the building and sitting in the street, all smoking, none showing particular concern about anything.  Their lethargy surprised him.  He had expected to find the town mad with excitement, to behold here the gold fever blazing without restraint; but wherever there was a post to lean against a man was leaning against it, exactly as if there were nothing doing, and the world had not just run demented over the richness of their Victorian fields.  It remained for him to learn that this very excitement provoked a corresponding lassitude, and that when the Australian diggers were not indulging in the extreme of frenzied exertion or boisterous recreation their inertia surpassed that of their own koala, the native sloth.