‘Any gold to sell to-day, Burton?’ asked Dick.

‘Yes, in half a minute, old man,’ replied Mike, deeply interested in the tricks of the juggler.

Brigalow Dick drew his horse up closer and watched the performance.

‘Bet you’re Californian, Whiskers,’ he said.

The stranger nodded.  ‘Let me have another shooter,’ he said.

A third was thrown to him, and he twirled the three in the air, discharging each into the tip as it reached his hand.

‘Bravo! bravo!’ The performance was growing quite exciting.

‘That’s simply nothing,’ said the amateur prestidigitateur modestly.  ‘Throw me another, and I’ll show what I call a damn good trick.’  He cast his eye around the group.  It lit upon the gold-buyer casually.

‘Here you are.’  Brigalow drew his revolver from his belt, and threw it.

‘Very good, and many thanks,’ said the stranger.  He coolly placed the other revolver in his shirt, turned the gold-buyer’s long six-shooter on its owner, and said:  ‘Come down off that horse, Richard, my boy!’ Brigalow laughed uneasily, but did not stir.  ‘Comedown, curse you!’ cried the other with sudden ferocity; and, springing to his feet, he seized Dick, and brought him heavily to the ground over his horse’s rump.  ’Lie there, or, by God, I’ll scatter your brains on the grass!’ said the juggler.  ’The first man that moves will peg out a claim in hell to-night,’ he continued, leading the horse away, and walking backwards himself, with the revolver pointed.  No man doubted his word.  Dick crouched on the ground, staring after him, furious, but quite beaten.  Suddenly the robber sprang to the horse’s back with a clean jump.  ’Now, that is what I call damn good sleight of hand, Brigalow!’ he cried; and, producing a short, heavy green-hide whip from his shirt, he lashed the horse mercilessly, and went riding at a breakneck pace down the gully, heading for the distant timber.

‘Tricked!’ cried the ex-trooper, jumping to his feet—­’ tricked by the great Blue Bunyip!  Tricked like a kid!’ He turned and ran for the troopers.

‘I surmise Mr. Solo was lurkin’ behind them there whiskers,’ said a tall, thin Californian, when the party had somewhat recovered the surprise.

Jim started, recalling the encounter with Long Aleck in the Melbourne bar.

‘Was that Solo, do you think?’ he asked.

‘Dead cert’ replied the Californian.  ‘Them’s his playful ways.’

‘If you guessed it, why didn’t you give a hint?’

‘Not knowin’, can’t say; but it’s just pawsible I ain’t pushin’ myself forward as a target this spring.’

Done found this indisposition to interfere in ‘other people’s business’ very marked amongst the diggers; and their toleration of notorious evildoers was a pronounced feature of their easy-going character, encouraged, no doubt, by their contempt for the law, which appealed to them only as an instrument of oppression.