Tom, who had previously had some experience on diggings, after working for some hours in the dry watercourse, called his companion, and said, “I have found these few small nuggets, and there is gold, I expect, in this sand, and you have some too, I see,” as Mat produced a few nuggets also, “but this I’m pretty sure is ‘a poor man’s diggings.’ I will tell you what I mean; you would have to take all this sand and shingle away to the nearest water, and wash it in a ‘cradle,’ and even then the gold would not last long, for here is where the real quantity of the ore is, in these rocks of hard white quartz, up the creek.”
Then taking Mat to the spot, he explained that this gold-bearing quartz which was rich in veins of ore, might be almost endless.
“But then, you see,” he continued, “this part where all the gold is, is not ‘a poor man’s diggings;’ to win this gold means erecting machinery, costing thousands of pounds, on the spot; and what would it cost even if it were possible to land it on the coast, to transport it hither? It cannot be done, Mat; some future day, when the country is opened up, there is no doubt that it will be done; but we can’t do it, mate.”
Mat saw the truth of Tom’s argument, and at once agreed to take what they could find, but not to waste any more time there, adding, “No doubt Tim and I got most of the loose gold, excepting the small stuff which could only be found by using the cradle and water as you say.”
Upon their return to the camp, they found the whole tribe laughing and dancing round their “toys,” axes, large and small, beads, and gaudy handkerchiefs. The whole of the “spoil” was taken out every morning to be examined, and fresh wonders were discovered in the treasures every moment. Dromoora had had to explain the secret powers of the thunder-sticks till he was tired.
Mat returned for a few days to his wild, savage life, chiefly to show Tom the various methods employed in hunting the game, as pursued by really wild blacks, and Tom took such a fancy to the life, that he wished to stay on for some weeks, but Mat insisted that they had already stayed long enough, that it would not be fair to the squire to delay, as station matters required their presence at the Creek, and that they really must not leave the ladies any longer by themselves. To which Tom replied that his mother and sister were perfectly well able to take care of themselves, and besides that they had the squire and parson to look after them.
Dromoora and his tribe, upon hearing Mat’s decision to return immediately, implored him to remain and be their chief.
To refuse this request, when he saw their urgent appeals, went to Mat’s heart, but he was obliged to harden his feelings, and also to show some diplomacy in refusing them.
But Mat had a powerful and steadfast friend in Dromoora, with whom he had been conferring apart, and when the tribe gathered round him to hear his decision, he thus addressed them,—
“I have brought your chief and Terebare back safely. I have brought the things I promised. Now I ask you to let me go back; there are bad white men about my friends at home. The chief will tell.”