But well on into the afternoon Tresco had reached the neighbourhood of his cave, where his recluse life dragged out its weary days. His route lay for a brief mile along the track which led to the diggings. Reaching this cleared path, where locomotion was easier, the goldsmith quickened his pace, when suddenly, as he turned a corner, he came upon two men walking towards him from Timber Town.
In a moment he had taken cover in the thick underscrub which lined each side of the track, and quickly passing a little way in the direction from which he had come, he hid himself behind a dense thicket, and waited for the wayfarers to pass by.
They came along slowly, being heavy laden.
“I tell yer I seen the bloke on the track, Dolly, just about here,” said the younger man of the two. “One moment he was here, next ’e was gone. Didn’t you see ’m?”
“I must ha’ bin lookin’ t’other way, up the track,” said the other. “I was thinkin’ o’ somethin’. I was thinkin’ that this place, just here, was made a-purpose for our business. Now, look at this rock.”
He led his companion to the inner edge of the track, where a big rock abutted upon the acute angle which the path made in circumventing the forest-clad hill-side. Placing their “swags” on the path the two men clambered up behind the rock, and Tresco could hear their conversation as he lay behind the thick scrub opposite them.
“See?” said Dolphin, as he pointed up the track in the direction of Timber Town. “From here you can command the track for a half-a-mile.”
Sweet William looked, and said, “That’s so—you can.”
“Now, look this way,” Dolphin pointed down the track in the direction of the diggings. “How far can you see, this way?”
“Near a mile,” replied William.