I. We solemnly agree to stand by each other in all circumstances.

II.  Each man is to come provided with firearms.

III.  The capital is to be contributed equally, or credit given, as may be agreed to by the majority.

IV.  The profit or loss to be equally divided.

V. In the event of death or disablement occurring to any of the party, his share of the stock and profits is to be immediately handed over to his friends.

On this paction being signed, the party set forth, provided with L.100 worth of goods, a cart and a team of horses, and reached Paramatta, a distance of eighteen miles, the first night, although they were obliged to send back one of the horses, which had proved to be useless.  Here Mr Rutter slept in a bed for the last time during four months; and the next day, having purchased another horse, and sold some of their goods to lighten the wagon, they set forth again towards evening.  The road was nothing more than a dray-track, to which the horses were unequal; and after proceeding a few miles, they were detained at the village of Prospect for a week, till one of the partners had returned to Sydney, and brought back a pair of bush-horses and a new cart.  As they proceeded the next day, they found the track over which they travelled become more and more populous; till, on crossing the Macquarrie, they encamped in the midst of thirteen teams of cattle and their thirteen companies, all bound upon the same errand as themselves.

On the 12th of June, in the dusk of the evening, they reached the summit of a hill overlooking their destination.  The Summerhill Creek lay before them, with the camp-fires of fifty or sixty huts; and as they descended into the midst, the inhabitants of this village of the desert were returning from work with laughter and rude merriment.  After pitching their camp, and taking some refreshment, they proceeded anxiously to inquire the news; and that night they turned in with no very bright anticipations, after learning that the creek was high and goods low, the weather alternating between rain and frost, the mines overcrowded, and superfluous hands deserting them fast.  They struggled for awhile against these evil auguries; they even contrived, with great labour, to pick up an ounce or two of gold; but at length, losing heart, the party broke up on the 23d, and all went home but our adventurer.

His geological and mechanical knowledge enabled him to obtain a partnership with another band of gold-hunters then at work; and after spending some days in prospecting on account of the new concern, he found ‘a chink he liked the look of,’ which appeared to have been partially worked.  Licences were accordingly taken out, the commissioner being on the spot, and forty-five feet of frontage to the creek were marked off.  As soon as the river became a little lower, they began in earnest to dig a race for turning the course of the water.  Their pump was made and fixed ready to drain; a dam was emptied; six ounces of gold were obtained as an earnest of what they might expect; and then it began to rain, and the creek to roar, and the whole of their machinery was swept away.