‘This means a gallop for the troopers,’ said Mike.

‘They’ll run him down!’ ejaculated Jim at a venture.

‘The man occupyin’ my socks is bettin’ ten ounces agin all the feathers off a wart-hog that they don’t,’ answered the Californian.

‘But look at the weight he carries!’

‘You’re a bright boy—­a most remarkably bright boy!’ drawled the American, ‘an’ I guess you’ll pick up a heap o’ knowledge afore you die out, but up to now you don’t know much about Solo.  He kin ride like the devil, an’ fight like the hosts of hell, an’ he’s ez full o’ tricks ez a pum’kin’s full o’ pips.  I tell you, Amurka’s proud of her son.’

‘Who sez he’s American?’ asked a digger, resenting the appropriation.

’Well, sir, if he ain’t he’s that good an imitation he might’s well be the real thing.’

About half an hour later three troopers came cantering through Diamond Gully, looking very smart in their Bedford cords and shining top-boots, and the diggers yelled derisive orders, and greeted them with cries of contempt, jeering them from every hole along the lead.  ‘Jo!’ was the favourite epithet hurled at the troopers and all representatives of constituted authority.  Done never discovered the origin of the term, but into it the diggers compressed all the hatred they felt for unjust laws, domineering officials, and flagrant maladministration.

‘I thought you knew this Solo,’ said Jim to his mate that evening.

‘Well,’ replied Mike, ’I reckoned I did; but he changes his disguises pretty smartly, ‘r else that was another party in the same line o’ business.’

IX

In the four days and a half of their first week on the field Burton and Done cleared close upon seven hundred pounds.  By the end of the second week they had worked out their first mine, and Jim possessed eight hundred pounds.  They tried another claim, and bottomed on the pipeclay.  The hole was a duffer.  They tried a third, and cut the wash once more.  This claim was not nearly so rich as their first, but rich enough to pay handsomely, and Mike, young as he was, was too old a miner to abandon a good claim on the chance of finding a better.  By this time Jim was feeling himself quite an experienced digger; he could sink a straight shaft, knock down wash-dirt with the best, and pan off a prospect as neatly and with as workmanlike a flourish as any man on the field.  He was rapidly coming into close touch with the life about him, adopting the manners of his associates, and slowly wearing down that diffidence which still clung to him in the society of strangers.  He was reticent, but there remained no suspicion, no animosity towards his kind.  Looking back a year, he could hardly recognise himself; the Jim Done of Chisley seemed an old man by comparison.  Already Jim of Forest Creek could laugh at Jim o’ Mill End, but the consciousness of an escape from a horror remained.  How serious he had been in those days!  How he had permitted himself to suffer!  Thank God, it was all gone!