"When do you expect to come on the 'gutter,' mate?" the stranger asked.
"In two or three days," replied Richard, his uneasy feeling increasing. But the man was a perfect stranger to him. He had never seen him before.
"Do you want to sell a share in the claim?" the new-comer asked, presently.
"No."
"I will give you twenty ounces for a third share."
"Don't want to sell, mate."
Richard spoke very shortly, and showed so evident a disinclination to talk with the stranger that the man walked away. That night Richard dreamt that they found a tremendous lump of gold, and that the man with the burnt scar under his eye stole it.
The following day the stranger came again. This time the Welshman was at the windlass, and the stranger found him more sociable than Richard. He lingered for half-an-hour or so, chatting with Welsh Tom.
"He wants to buy into the claim very bad," said the Welshman to Richard, afterwards. "But we won't sell a share in our big nugget, Dick." (He spoke this in a sly tone, for he did not share his mate's dreams of the lump of gold waiting for them at the bottom of the hole.) "His name is Honest Steve, he says."
As they approached nearer and nearer to the gutter of gold, Richard became more and more excited. His brain was busy with schemes for laying out his money to advantage. He had delayed writing to Alice until he could write to her the good news of their wonderful fortune. So unfortunate had he been in his gold-digging career, that he had been unable to send Alice a shilling since he bade her good-bye; and the last letter he had written to her was full of complaining and repining. But the next should not be. No; he would be able to tell her that all their sufferings were ended at last. His heart felt so glad that he spoke to the Welshman about her; and his mate encouraged him, and drew him on to talk of Alice. Welsh Tom, in his simple way, was a true friend to Richard's wife.