‘Now scoot!’ he said, ‘an’ don’t show yer ugly chiv on Jim Crow again, ’r you’ll catch a fatal dose o’ lead.

The crippled thief limped away without a word, pressing a palm to his streaming ear.

‘That seemed an infernally brutal thing to do,’ said Jim to his mate, when they were discussing the incident.

‘Not a bit of it,’ answered Burton.  ‘We’ve got to mark his sort, an’ a brand like that’s known every where.  A bloke with an ear stripped off can’t pretend to be a honest man here; he’s got to be either a trooper or one of Her Majesty’s commissioners.’

‘But you weren’t at all bitter about Solo.’

’Solo ain’t a tent-robber; he generally robs the people who rob us.  A tent-robber is the meanest kind of hound that runs.’

Jim was grateful for this lesson in diggers’ ethics, and went peacefully to sleep on it, having by this time acquired complete confidence in Burton’s hiding-place.

When the mates had more gold than they could carry in their belts with comfort, and trustworthy gold-buyers were not available, choosing a suitable hour long after midnight, Burton dug a hole near the tent, Jim keeping careful watch the while to make sure they were not observed.  The gold was placed in a pan, and buried in this hole, and after that the camp-fire was built on the spot, and kept burning day and night.  It never occurred to anyone to look under the fire for hidden gold.

Their first claim was nearly worked out, and the two young men were busy below digging out the last of the wash-dirt, when a voice calling down the shaft caused both picks to be suspended simultaneously, and the mates looked curiously into each other’s faces in the dim candle-light.

Hello below, there!’

‘Aurora!’ said Mike.

Jim went up the rope suspended in the shaft hand over hand.  Aurora was standing by the windlass smiling down at him.  The girl was remarkably well dressed.  The gown she wore was too florid, perhaps, for that sickly refinement which abhors colour, but it suited her tall figure and her hale and exuberant good looks.  As he came up the shaft the picture she made standing in the sunlight, with a background of sun-splashed, vari-coloured tips, and one drowsing gum-tree fringed with the gold and purple of young growth, gave him a thrill of joy, so vivid she seemed, so fresh.  She had occupied his mind little since the departure from Diamond Gully; but seeing her again so radiant, he was glad through and through, and laughed with pure delight when she met him at the shaft’s mouth with a kiss.  Once upon his feet, he clasped her in his arms.  Her walk along the lead had attracted a good deal of attention, and the embrace was the signal for a sympathetic cheer from the miners about, and the men whirled their hats in the air.

‘Arrah!  Won’t ye sarve the bla’gards all alike, darlin’?’ cried a young fellow on the left.

Aurora bowed low, and scattered kisses over the field with both hands, winning another cheer.  Jim watched her with pride.  After all, she it was who stood as his goddess of gaiety in the twelve months of absolutely happy life that had marked the reaction from the brutal stupidity and sourness of that other existence.  He owed her much gratitude, much tenderness.  He kissed her again almost reverently.