“Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes, and I didn’t believe it.  But I have spoken to Jacky about it, and he has seen it; it is on the other side of the bush.  I am ready to start for it to-morrow, for there is little good to be done here now the weather has broken.”

George assented with joy; but, when Robinson suggested that Jacky would be very useful to pilot them through the bush, his countenance fell.

“Don’t think of it,” said he.  “I know he is here, Tom, and I shan’t go after him.  But don’t let him come near me, the nasty little, creeping, murdering varmint.  Poor Abner will never get over his tomahawk—­not if he lives fifty years.”

In short, it was agreed they should go alone at peep of day.

“I have talked it over with Jem already, and he will take charge of our tent till we come back.”

“So be it.”

“We must take some provisions with us, George.”

“I’ll go and get some cold meat and bread, Tom.”

“Do.  I’m going to the tent.”

Robinson, it is to be observed, had not been in his tent since George and he left it and took their gold out of it just before sunrise.  As he now carried their joint wealth about his person, his anxiety was transferred.

Now at the door of the tent he was intercepted by Jem, very red in the face, partly with brandy, partly with rage.  Walker, whose life he had saved, whom he had taken to his own tent, and whom Robinson had seen lying asleep in the best blanket, this Walker had absconded with his boots and half a pound of tobacco.

“Well, but you knew he was a rogue.  Why did you leave him alone in your tent?”

“I only left him for a minute to go a few steps with you if you remember, and you said yourself he was asleep.  Well, the moment our backs were turned he must have got up and done the trick.”

“I don’t, like it,” said Robinson.

“No more don’t I,” said Jem.

“If he was not asleep, be must have heard me say I was going to cross the bush with my mate to-morrow at daybreak.”

“Well! and what if he did?”

“He is like enough to have gone and told the whole gang.”

“And what if he has?”

Robinson was about to explain to Jem. that he now carried all the joint gold in his pocket, but he forbore.  “It is too great a stake for me to trust anybody unless I am forced,” thought he.  So he only said:  “Well, it is best to be prudent.  I shall change the hour for starting.”

“You are a cunning one, captain, but I really think you are overcareful sometimes.”

“Jem,” said the other gravely, “there is a mystery in this mine.  There is a black gang in it, and that Walker is one of them.  I think they have sworn to have my gold or my life, and they shan’t have either if I can help it.  I shall start two hours before the sun.”

He was quite right; Walker had been shamming sleep, and full four hours ago he had told his confederates as a matter of course all that he had heard in the enemy’s camp.