“‘Luck!’ he cried. ‘Now watch me. If I lost the whole of thisyer bloomin’ pile, I could start off to-morrer mornin’ an, before nightfall, I’d be on ground where a week’s work would give me back all I’d lost. An’ never a soul in this blank, blank town knows where the claim is.’”
“Well, well,” gasped old Mr. Crewe; his body bent forward, and his eyes peering into Scarlett’s face. “I’ve lived here since the settlement was founded. I got here when the people lived in nothing better than Maori whares and tents, when the ground on which this very club stands was a flax-swamp. I have seen this town grow, sir, from a camp to the principal town of a province. I know every man and boy living in it, do I not, Cathro? I know every hill and creek within fifty miles of it; I’ve explored every part of the bush, and I tell you I never saw payable gold in any stream nearer than Maori Gully, to reach which you must go by sea.”
“What about the man’s mates?” asked Cathro.
“I asked him about them,” replied Scarlett. “I said, ‘You have partners in this thing, I suppose.’ ‘You mean pals,’ he said. ‘No, sir. I’m a hatter—no one knows the place but me. I’m sole possessor of hundreds of thousands of ounces of gold. There’s my Miner’s Right.’ He threw a dirty parchment document on the table, drawn out in the name of William Wurcott.”
“Wurcott? Wurcott?” repeated Mr. Crewe, contemplatively. “I don’t know the name. The man doesn’t belong to Timber Town.”
“You speak as though you thought no one but a Timber Town man should get these good things.” Cathro smiled as he spoke.
“No, sir,” retorted the old gentleman, testily. “I said no such thing, sir. I simply said he did not belong to this town. But you must agree with me, it’s a precious strange thing that we men of this place have for years been searching the country round here for gold, and, by Jupiter! a stranger, an outsider, a mere interloper, a miserable ‘hatter’ from God knows where, discovers gold two days’ journey from the town, and brings in over eighty ounces?” The old man’s voice ran up to a falsetto, he stroked his nose with his forefinger and thumb, he broke into the shrill laugh of an octogenarian. “And the rascal boasts he can get a hundred ounces more in a week or two! We must look into the matter—we must see what it means.”
The three men smoked silently and solemnly.
“Scarlett, here, owns the man’s personal acquaintance,” said Cathro. “The game is to go mates with him—Scarlett, the ‘hatter,’ and myself.”
All three of them sat silent, and thought hard.