"Now, my beauty, don't spare the grass because it's Government property, and don't go far away."
The horses being unsaddled, the four men placed their swags and saddles together, and while one started a fire, another filled the smoke-begrimed billy at the stream, and set it to boil by the blazing twigs, another unrolled the "tucker-bags," and spread the contents of beef and damper on a blanket, and the fourth, Gleeson, sat on a log and filled his pipe.
"It isn't every one who finds a payable rush," Peters remarked solemnly, as he stood by the fire after his share of the work was done. "Tony, my lad, you will observe that; and consequently the man who finds the payable rush don't do no cooking at the camp."
"There's three for one man's work. What's the need of crowding?" Gleeson asked, as he came over to the fire to get a light for his pipe.
"None. Nor jawing either. He's all jaw," the fourth man, who was overhauling the tucker-bag, exclaimed, with a snarl in his voice.
"Now then, Samuel Walker, don't you make the sugar sour," Peters rejoined. "Your taste in——hullo!" he broke off, as the sound of a coo-ee away down the track came to his ears. "They're right on our heels. The whole mob will be here an hour after sunset."
"Of course they will. We ought to have stayed at the pub, or kept the find dark," Walker said.
"There's no pleasing you," Peters replied. "Our claims are pegged out by Government, so why should we grumble at others having a look in on their own."
"The billy's boiling," Tony interrupted.
"Then make the tea," Peters retorted, adding, as he watched the operation being carried out, "You've the makings of a digger about you, Tony, if you stick at it long enough."