"Let's go and wipe out Wynberg's Process," cried some one, and at once there was a rush in the direction of the flaunting sign.
But Mackay restrained them. "Leave the miserable man's property alone, boys," he said. "You have promised a' that I wished, an' I'll hold you to your promise that the young laddie will aye get the credit o' his own discovery. We're goin' away vera soon on a new trail, an' may never see any o' ye again, but Wentworth's Process will be wi' ye in oor absence to make you remember how much you owe to a laddie's energy an' brains."
Then the crowd broke up amid noisy protestations of everlasting good will, and the original group who held Golden Flat were left alone. It was apparent that Emu Bill, Nuggety Dick, and their boon comrades, Never Never Dave and Dead Broke Dan, were considerably exercised over Mackay's statement about going away in the near future.
"I reckon you hasn't given us too much notice," complained old Dead Broke, reproachfully; "it'll take us a bit o' time to clean up yet."
"But I don't want you to come with me, boys," remonstrated Mackay. "I didna expect——"
"Well, I calc'late you made a mistake if you thought you were to leave me," hastily interjected Emu Bill.
"An' me! an' me!" came the cry. The Shadow alone made no remark. He knew that all present could not go, and he naturally reasoned that he, as the youngest next to Jack, would be left.
Mackay, after a pause, appealed to them in logical language. "You can't all leave your claims for the sake o' comin' wi' me on what may be only a wild-goose chase," he said, "an' besides, six in the party is quite enough. I think Nuggety there, who is the maist capable gold-miner o' the lot o' us; an' Dead Broke, who has the chance o' doin' vera well wi' his mine,—I think they should both wait an' look after things while we are away. It would never do to leave your mines half worked out. They would be jumped before we got out o' sight."
"I believe that is just right," agreed Emu Bill. "Nuggety can hang on to my interest for me; he's my partner, anyway."
"An' Dead Broke can do the same for me," cried Never Never Dave. "The workings are shallow, and one man can easily get along on his own, an' nary galoot can jump them neither, for the wash is pretty well scraped out already, an' one man's pegs would hold what's left."