‘After him!’ shouted McPhee.

A couple of troopers and two more foot police joined in the chase, but the youngster was a good runner and very cunning.  He kept to the mined ground, where the troopers would certainly have broken their necks had they put their horses after him, and springing like a wallaby he cleared the holes, and darted in and out amongst the tips, to the utter confusion of the lubberly and ill-conditioned pursuers.  Straight up the lead he ran, and now all the foot police were hunting him, while the troopers rode along the right and the left of the gully to keep him from breaking for the tents, or for Boulder Hill, where there were hiding places amongst the big rocks and in the wombat-holes under them.

‘Run him down!’ shouted McPhee, furious after the indignities that had been put upon his high office.  ‘Five pounds to the man who nabs him!’

The diggers shouted a grand chorus of encouragement to the lad, and added a cry of contempt for Mr. Commissioner and all his horde.  A number of the men joined in the chase, to add to the confusion of the police.  The rest, crowded on the higher ground, formed a large audience, and a more enthusiastic audience, or a more vociferous one for its size, had never witnessed a sporting event in wide Australia.  The excitement grew with every successful trick of the runaway, and now he was leading his hunters in and out amongst the claims at the gully’s head, apparently quite indifferent to the heat of the day or the stress of the chase.  The miners were giving the youth all the assistance they could by devising hindrances for the police.  Barrows, picks, shovels, buckets, and hide-bags found their way under the legs of the pursuers, windlass-ropes were stretched to trip them up, and preoccupied miners jostled them at every turn, and endeavoured to detain them in argument.

Presently the prisoners, in the charge of three troopers, finding attention diverted from them, seized the opportunity to make a bolt for the hunted digger’s haven of refuge, Boulder Hill, and the confusion of tongues swelled to one rapturous howl at the sight.  The unlicensed diggers spread, running their best, and dodging smartly to avoid the horses.  One poor devil went down under the hoofs of a big roan, and there arose another roar of different portent.

The youngster was being hemmed in amongst a few claims on the extreme left.  The troopers had stationed themselves beyond, and the police were closing in on him, while the crowd yelled encouragement and advice.  With a rush and a reckless spring from a mullock-heap, the youth cleared his enemies again, and came racing up the gully once more, the baffled police and a number of miners following pell-mell, the troopers cantering on the wings of the hunt.  If the boy could reach the crowd where it was thickest there was a chance for him, but he was running straight at Commissioner McPhee, who sat upon his horse watching the chase, and relieving his official feelings with a flow of elegant objurgation.