“Make tucker, eh?” the Prospector laughed. “Well this’ll be good enough for us. We’ll put in our pegs above yours. But how you dropped on this field just gits over me. You couldn’t have come straighter, not if I’d shown you the way myself.”
“Instinct,” replied Moonlight. “Instinct and the natural attraction of the magnet.” He desired to take no credit for his own astuteness in prospecting.
Scarlett had so far said nothing, but he now invited the newcomers to eat, before they pitched their tent.
“No, no,” said the Prospector, “you must be on pretty short commons—you must ha’ bin out a fortnight and more. Me an’ my mate’ll provide the tucker.”
“We are a bit short, and that’s the truth,” said Moonlight, “but we reckon on holding out till we’ve finished this wash-up, and then one of us’ll have to fetch stores.”
While Benjamin and his mate were unpacking their swags and Scarlett was lighting the fire, Moonlight transferred the rest of the gold from the dish to the leather bag.
When the four men sat down to their frugal meal of “billy” tea, boiled bacon, and “damper,” they chatted and laughed like schoolboys.
“Ah!” exclaimed Tresco, as red flames of the fire shot toward the stars and illumined the gigantic trunks of the surrounding trees, “this is freedom and the charm of Nature. No blooming bills to meet, no bother about the orders of worrying customers, no everlasting bowing and scraping; all the charm of society, good-fellowship, confidence, and conversation, with none of the frills of so-called civilization. But that is not all. Added to this is the prospect of making a fortune in the morning. Now, that is what I call living.”