"But I'm just going to touch bottom," the tall digger expostulated. "After weeks and months I'm all but on it, and now you want to carry me off!"
The visitor whispered some smiling argument, which elicited a shrug of familiar and restrained contempt.
"It isn't the money," said the tall man. "It's the fun of the thing, don't you know."
The visitor took out his watch as though they could just catch a train.
"I've arranged for fresh horses all along the road," said he. "These have only done ten miles, and they can do the same ten back again. I hope I made it plain about the first ship. It may sail the day after to-morrow."
The digger sighed inevitable acquiescence. He looked rather sadly, yet with some quiet amusement, at his rude little home, at the good windlass on its staging stamped against the sky. His assistant had meanwhile risen from his slumbers, and was standing respectfully at hand.
"Charles," said the digger, "I've got to go home. Are you coming with me, or will you stay out here and make your fortune out of the hole? I'll make you a present of it if you will."
But the look of splendid disgust had vanished as if by magic from the assistant's face. "I'll go home with you, sir!" he said emphatically, and then looked from one gentleman to the other, as though he might have committed a solecism. He was forthwith ordered into the hut to put his master's things together, with a grim smile on the master's part, who proceeded at last to notice Denis, or at any rate to record such notice with his fraction of a nod.
"So it's to you I owe my prompt discovery," said he. "'Pon my word I'm not as grateful to you as I ought to be! Doing any better on Black Hill Flat?"
"I've left it," said Denis, rather shortly.