As soon as the tea was ready, the four men gathered round the blanket on which Walker had spread the eatables, and set to on the meal with healthy appetites. As they sat eating, the sun went down, and fresh logs were thrown on the fire, lighting up the open space with a warm, bright light. They had finished, and were starting their pipes, when, on the other side of the creek where the firelight streamed across the track, the figures of two men with swags on their backs and diggers' picks and shovels over their shoulders, came in sight.
They greeted the camp with a shout, and splashed through the creek and up to the fire, where they threw down their swags and sat on them, like men who had tramped a long, wearying journey, and at the end of it preferred rest to either food or converse.
"Done a record, haven't you?" Gleeson asked, looking round at them.
"Don't know about a record, mate; but it's been a teaser coming up the ridge," one of the men answered.
"Many more behind?" Peters asked.
The men laughed.
"The whole of Boulder Creek," one answered.
"Don't you want a feed?" Gleeson asked.
"Don't mind if I do," each man answered, as he rose from his swag, and moved over to the place where the "tucker" was.
They were busily engaged—too busy to talk—in two minutes, and they kept at it steadily till the billy was empty and the beef and damper low.