"He's like his mother—only good for a sneak thief."
"He's the dead spit of his father, if you want to know," Barber answered savagely; and Tap again slunk back.
CHAPTER XVII.
A BUSHMAN'S BANKER.
When Bobby Murray rode from Birralong with a couple of months' supply of stores for the mining camp, he found that during his brief absence the others had made great progress in their work. The boulder which had first revealed the secrets of Peters's reef, had been entirely broken up and crushed, with such crude appliances as the three were able to construct, the result, a heap of coarse gold, testifying that, even if crude, the appliances were effective. Other boulders had also been disposed of and the free, coarse gold extracted; while the tailings, or residue from the crushings, were carefully piled up by Palmer Billy, the blowpipe of Peters, now almost a fetish with the former sceptic, having shown that gold in considerable quantity still remained to be extracted.
They had also sunk a shallow trial shaft near the site of the original boulder, and though the hole was only a few feet deep, it showed on all sides the same class of stone. Lower down the slope of the hill there were also outcrops of the stone, and, as Palmer Billy said, it seemed as though, now they had struck it, there was no getting away from the payable ore.
The two more experienced miners of the party debated as to the best methods of working their find, and had decided that they should all work as they had commenced, until they had won enough gold to set them on their feet, financially, whatever might occur. With it, three should journey to Birralong, and place it in the keeping of Marmot, while one—Palmer Billy bespoke the post—should remain on the ground, and "hold" it in case other prospectors came along. Then, when their first earnings were in the safe keeping of Marmot, Tony and Murray were to return, while Peters journeyed to the nearest mining official, declared the find, and had the reward claims of the four, as pegged out, proclaimed and secured.