"I don't want to do that either. Yet you see my position about Bendigo?" And his troubled glance included Doherty, whose brown face was also awry with mixed feeling.
"We see it perfectly, my dear fellow," Denis answered; "and if we ever have another mate" (Doherty looked up quickly), "may he be half as staunch as you! We have done our best, but so far we've made a mess of it. You had had enough in October, and you've wasted these two months on our account out of the sheer goodness of your heart; my dear Moseley, you sha'n't waste another week. You've tried Bendigo, and we haven't; you go home with as good a conscience as you leave us, and in three or four months I shall follow you."
And they really parted in three or four days, and at a point not very much further than that from which they had first beheld the tents and mud-heaps of Ballarat; only Jimmy looked his last on them with a sigh, and even he had recovered his spirits when it came to clasping hands. But all three had light hearts at the end, and shoulders to match; for they had sold their entire kit at the very fair figure of £11 3s. They had also cash in hand to the tune of £2 11s. 6d., so that the Bendigonians had nearly £10 as their share, to take with them to the new field, but as Denis said, at least a hundred pounds' worth of experience to put to it. He it was who had kept the accounts, all through, and he who would not hear of Moseley's generous but unfair proposals at the end. It may be added that the Company's debt to the latter had been duly, if not forcibly, discharged; but after all, they had taken some thirteen ounces of gold out of the maligned hole on Black Hill Flat, and sold the same for over £50.
Denis and Jim stood without speaking while Moseley hurried away from them down the Melbourne road; but it may have been that their hands ached more from his than did their hearts. When he had waved his wideawake at the bend, and they theirs for the last time, it is certain that from that moment the original pair were more to each other than they had been for two wearisome months. They had almost as much to say as if they had been separated for the same period. But it was not Moseley that they discussed; it was their own new prospects, ways, and means. Nor had Denis long to wait for Mr. Doherty's earlier manner, which got up like a breeze in the free expression of his opinion that ten pounds was not enough to "see" them to Bendigo, "let alone starting of us when we gets there."
"Perhaps it isn't," said Denis, slackening a stride which had lacked something since the parting of the ways. "Let's sit down under that gum-tree and talk about it. If you are right," continued Denis, paring a slab of tobacco when they were duly seated, "it might be better to turn back to Ballarat instead of going on to Bendigo."
The matter-of-fact tone in which Denis made this startling suggestion betrayed him to Doherty without more ado. "You meant to do it all along!" said he.
"It was the only way to do it," returned Denis, rubbing his tobacco between both palms, "without hurting anybody's feelings. Now he need never know. He had a heart of gold, Jimmy, but it was the only kind we should have got with him; and that's the last word about him now he's gone, poor chap! Back he goes to Silly Suffolk, and back we go to Ballarat with nine-pound-three between us! But no more nice dry games on Black Hill Flat, or anywhere else where the chances are big and the certainties next to nothing; we're going to sink deep and wet and dirty, Jimmy; and we're not going to sink on chance again."
Jimmy's eyes were wide open in all senses at once.
"Sink deep on nine-pound-three, mister? And you've been studyin' the 'ole game all this time?"
"There's this," said Denis, producing Bullocky's nugget. "I believe you still have its fellow."