Cudlip—all the keepers of the Rest took the name with the house—was behind the bar, glancing suspiciously from the new arrivals to the incoming residents.
"And you say it's payable?" he said at length; and every ear in the room was strained and every eye turned upon the silent four.
"You take your colonial," one of the four answered.
"And a poor man's field? Good alluvial?" Cudlip added.
The man who had answered before looked round at him.
"Ain't we going there?" he said.
The crowd round the door and along the walls of the room surged forward. Good alluvial and a poor man's field? And four men going there? The questions were in every mind and the answer as well. For years the gully-rakers round Boulder Creek had been living and longing to hear such things, and the hungry eyes grew more hungry and the faces more alert. If four, why not forty? Why not——
"Where's the lay?" one of the Creekers asked sharply and shortly; and the room was silent till the answer came.
"Over the ridge," the man answered, nodding towards the west.
"How far?" some one inquired.