“Well, we might do worse than put our pegs alongside theirs, eh, Ben?”
“Oceans worse,” replied Tresco.
“Did you prospect the gorge?” asked Moonlight.
“I wasn’t never in the gorge,” said the Prospector. “The river was too high, all the time I was working; but there’s been no rain for six weeks, so she’s low now.”
Tresco advanced with mock trepidation, and looked closely at the gold in the chamois-leather bag, which he lifted with assumed difficulty. “About half a hundredweight,” he said. “How much more of this sort have you got?”
Moonlight ignored the question, but turning to the Prospector, he said, “I shouldn’t have left till I’d fossicked that gorge, if I’d been you.”
“Then you’ve been through it?” queried Bill.
Moonlight nodded.
“How did it pan out?”
“There was gold there.”