CHAPTER XXVI. — A THIEF'S EMBARRASSMENT.
When the thief left Obed Stackpole's cabin with his booty his heart was filled with exultation. He had been drifting about for years, the football of fortune, oftener down than up, and had more than once known what it was to pass an entire day without food. And all this because he had never been willing to settle down to steady work or honest industry. He had set out in life with a dislike for each, and a decided preference for living by his wits. Theft was no new thing for him. Once he had barely escaped with his life in one of the Western States of America for stealing a horse. He had drifted to Australia, with no idea of working at the mines or anywhere else, but with the intention of robbing some lucky miner and making off with the proceeds of his industry.
Well, he had succeeded, and his heart was light.
"No more hard work for me," he said to himself joyfully, "no more privation and suffering. Now I can live like a gentleman."
It never seemed to occur to him that a thief could by no possibility live like a gentleman. To be a gentleman, in his opinion, meant having a pocketful of money.
He would like to have examined the nugget, but there was no time, nor was there light enough to form an opinion of it. Besides, Obed and the two boys might at any moment discover their loss, and then there would be pursuers on his track. He could not hide it, for it was too large, and anyone seeing what he carried would suspect its nature and character.
The responsibility of property was upon him now. It was an unaccustomed sensation. This thief began now to dread an encounter with other thieves. There were other men, as well as himself, who had little respect for the rights of property, and this he well knew.
"Where shall I go?" he asked himself in perplexity.
It would not do to stay in the neighborhood of the mining camp. By dawn, or as soon as tidings of the robbery should spread, there would be an organized pursuit. In any mining settlement a thief fares hard. In the absence of any established code of laws, the relentless laws of Judge Lynch are executed with merciless severity. Beads of perspiration began to form on the brow of the thief as he realized the terrible danger he had incurred. What good would it do him after all to get away with the nugget if it should cost him his life, and that was a contingency, as his experience assured him, by no means improbable.
"If I were only in Melbourne," he said to himself, "I would lose no time in disposing of the nugget, and then would take the first ship for England—or anywhere else. Any place would be better than Australia, for that will soon be too hot to hold me."