Alec bounded up as though he were shot. "What's the matter, what's the matter?" asked he in a startled voice.
"All sorts of things are the matter, but getting up is the one on hand just now, so turn out and come and have a dip in the stream—that'll wake you up."
The morning was cool before the sun was up, and the mists lay all about the valley. Leaving Murri in the humpie still asleep, or pretending to be so, the boys came out as they were, and, with Como barking a glad morning bark and leaping by the side of them, they ran to the stream. The water was cold, and the boys came out of it rosy and steaming, and feeling fresh and strong. It did not take them long to get into their clothes, and soon they were walking back to the humpie, where they combed their crisp wet hair and made Murri get up and make a fire.
They were in capital spirits, and whilst the "billies" were boiling for their tea they walked together to have a look at their gold. There it all lay, just as they had left it. Nuggets and lumps of pure gold, yellow and heavy and chill; great pieces of rich quartz, with bits of gold stuck all over it, and gold mixed with the sand that covered the bottom of the rocky basin. The boys leaped down from the rocks into the dried-up pool, and began picking up the heavy pieces of the precious metal, for the mere pleasure of handling it. Geordie laughed aloud.
"Isn't it wonderful? Look at this piece and that one, why it is pure solid gold! Alec, how much do we owe that old beast of a Crosby?"
"He lent us £4,000, and there's another £600 or £700 interest, I suppose, by this time. Just think of the old usurer extorting 15 per cent., and from a friend, too."
"Well, do you think there is £5,000 worth of gold here?"
"Yes, and more—much more; twice or three times that much, but we can't take it all."
"Nor want it. To get five or six thousand pounds worth is all that I pray for. Funny to think, isn't it, that those yellow stones there mean so much to us? Wandaroo, and freedom from debt; and a mile or so of fencing; and a new strain of sheep perhaps! It makes me laugh to think of it."
And laugh he did, a jolly, happy peal, that rang through the clear morning air and echoed from the rocks.