On the afternoon of his second day in Melbourne Jim saw Lucy Woodrow once more.  She passed in Macdougal’s trap as Done and his mate were walking along Swanston Street.  She looked very pretty, and was laughing gaily at something her companion had said.  The sight of that companion affected Jim in a peculiar way.  He looked a man of about forty, strongly but sparely built; his face, clean-shaven but for the triangle of hair coming just below the ears, had a cameo-like correctness of outline; the lips were firm and full, the eyes deep.  He wore one of the flat-brimmed bell-toppers fashionable at the time, a skirted coat, and a high collar.  In a flash the whole man was photographed on Jim’s mind—­why he could not understand.  The sensations given him by the sight of that face were quite apart from the pang he experienced on noting Lucy’s apparent interest in the man.  Jim felt for the miniature in his pocket.  It was hard to believe that only about twenty-four hours had sped since their parting.  Looking back now over so much that was strange, he thought as many weeks might have gone in the interval.

‘Monkey Mack,’ said Mike, following the direction of Jim’s eyes.

‘Do you know him?’

’Everybody knows of him.  Owns the best-stocked station out of New South.  Made a pile through the rushes, selling stock at famine prices.  Richest squatter in Vic, an’ that dirty mean he won’t wash ‘cause o’ the ruinous wear and tear on soap.  Used to go round collecting the wool the sheep scraped off on his fences an’ trees, an’ for years cadged his toby, (tobacco, you know) off passing teamsters; then, when the teamsters shied at him, gave up smokin’.  Owns thousands of acres an’ hundreds o’ thousands o’ pounds, an’ wears toe-rags, an’ yet lets his wife have what she likes, an’ spend what she pleases.  That was his wife ‘long side him.’

‘Yes, she came over in our ship.’

‘Shipmates, eh?  That’s as good as first-cousins.’

‘Who was the other man?’

’Donno.  Looked like something just blown ashore.  Very superior, likely.  Mrs Mack’s got a weakness for gentility.  She was a neighbourin’ squatter’s milkmaid, they say.’

‘Well, Macdougal’s not mean in the matter of horseflesh.’

’Right.  That’s his other great extravagance.  See, he gets about badly on those spider-legs of his, and makes up for his misfortune when he splits across a horse.  He breeds the best, drives like a fiend, an’ can ride anythin’ lapped in hide.’

A week later Done and Burton were on their way to Forest Creek diggings.  Everything worth working on Ballarat was pegged out, Mike said.  Forest Creek was the new Eldorado.  Their tools and stores were four days ahead, in the care of an experienced teamster whom Mike knew well, and whom he could trust to pull through, despite the abominable roads and the misfortunes that had knocked up many a well-found team and marked the track with crippled horses and stranded