As they sat, and ate their simple fare—“damper” baked on the red-hot embers of their fire, a pigeon which Scarlett had shot that morning, and tea—their conversation was of their “claim.”
“What do you think it will go?”
“The dirt in the creek is rich enough, but what’s in the flat nobody can say. There may be richer gold in some of the higher terraces than down here. I’ve known such cases.”
At the place where they were camped, the valley had been, at some distant period, a lake which had subsided after depositing a rich layer of silt, through which the stream had cut its way subsequently. Over this rich alluvial deposit the forest had spread luxuriantly, and it was only the skill of the experienced prospector that could discover the possibilities of the enormous stretches of river silt which Nature had so carefully hidden beneath the tangled, well-nigh impenetrable forest.
“The river is rich,” continued Moonlight, “that we know. Possibly it deposited gold on these flats for ages. If that is so, this valley will be one of the biggest ‘fields’ yet developed. What we must do first is to test the bottom of the old lake; therefore, as soon as we have taken the best of the gold out of the river, I propose to ‘sink’ on the terraces till I find the rich deposit.”
“Perhaps what we are getting now has come from the terraces above,” said Jack.
“I think not.”
“Where does it come from then?”
“I can’t say, unless it is from some reef in the ranges. You must not forget that there’s the lower end of the valley to be prospected yet—we have done nothing below the gorge.”
Talking thus, they ate their “damper” and stewed pigeon, and drank their “billy” tea. Then they lit their pipes, and strolled towards the scene of their labours.