With lengthy strides the strangely-garbed runner shot past; in his hand he gripped a spade, which tended to make his appearance the more wonderful, but that he meant business was very evident.

"Fur Heaven's sake, pit aff the coat!" howled Stewart, and Mac toned down the impertinence of the remark by adding stentoriously--

"Ye'll rin lichter withoot it, ma man."

The individual addressed slowed up at once. "Thanks for the idea, boys,"

said he good-naturedly, and he promptly discarded the objectionable emblem of civilised parts and threw it carelessly into a mulga bush.

Then noting that he was a good way in advance of the main army, he mopped his streaming face and gave the information, "There's been a big strike at the Five Mile, boys, wherever that may be. I am letting the first man steer the way on purpose."

"Ye're a daisy tae rin," admiringly spoke Mac, seizing the tent and a packet of miscellaneous merchandise, while Stewart feverishly gathered up the remainder of our meagre belongings. He of the "biled shirt" now set down to work again, making a pace which I, who had joined in the chase, found hard indeed to emulate; and my companions, heavily laden as they were, hung into our rear like leeches.

Far behind we could hear the sand crunch under hundreds of feet, and the mallee shrubs crackling and breaking, but hardly a word was spoken. Mile after mile we crashed through the endless brush and over the monotonous iron-shot plains. Mac puffed and blowed like some huge grampus, and Stewart's deep breathing sounded like the exhaust expirations of an overworked steam engine.

"Keep her gaun, Mac; keep her gaun," this personage would splutter when his more portly comrade showed signs of flagging, which well he might, considering that he clutched in his arms a weight of nearly forty pounds.

"Wha's stoppin'? ye inseegneeficant broken-winded donkey engine!"

retorted his aggravated compatriot, rolling along manfully.

But the race was nearly over. Half a mile further on the land dipped ever so slightly, and in the gentle hollow formed about a dozen men rushed madly about, pacing off prospectors' claims, and driving rude pegs at the boundary corners.

The sight had an exhilarating effect on Mac and Stewart, and with wild shouts they quickly drew up the little distance they had lost, and would have pa.s.sed my white-shirted pacemaker and myself were we not compelled for very shame to keep our lead if we died for it.

"By Jove!" panted he of the strange garments, "these beggars behind can run."

And Mac at his heels chivalrously grunted between his breaths, "I've never had a harder tussle tae keep up ma deegnity--no never."

A few minutes more, and we reached the field of operations. The men there were too busy marking off their properties to give us much attention. I noticed swiftly that our first visitor of the few words had his claim neatly pegged, and was sitting in the middle of it, complacently smoking. He must have received special information of the find or he could not have got away so much before the others. Our second pa.s.sing acquaintance--he of the emotionless countenance who had steered our quartet unknowingly--had got in a hundred yards ahead of us, and he was now coolly cutting pegs with which to mark his chosen area.

"It's a deep alluvial leader, mate," he said to me. Then he added obligingly, "I guess I knows the lie of the kintry, an' if ye hitch on at the end o' my boundaries, ye'll likely sink on it, plumb."

The advice of an experienced miner should always be accepted; and while Mac and Stewart were felling several small trees for use as marking-posts, I proceeded to line off the direction of our claim as suggested by the angle of my adviser's corner channels. I performed this work with much care, knowing how slim are one's chances of holding any gold-bearing area at a rush unless the holder's t.i.tle is beyond dispute according to official regulations.

The straggling body of men was now beginning to appear on the crest of the undulation which marked the only visible natural boundary of the valley; in less than three minutes the madly-striving crowd would be upon us, and we should be a.s.suredly swamped by its numbers so that no pegs could be driven. Then I noticed the man who had doffed his fashionable coat to oblige Stewart, standing dejectedly near by; his sleeves were rolled up, displaying splendidly-formed muscles, and he held his shovel loosely in his hand as if uncertain what to do with it.

"Better get your pegs fixed quickly," I advised.

But he shook his head rather sadly. "I haven't got an axe," he said, "and--and I'm new to this sort of thing."

Mac had by this time obtained the four blazed posts necessary to denote our "three-men square," and Stewart promptly began to smite them into position in their proper places.

"If ye'll alloo me," said Mac, "I'll get the bitties o' sticks fur ye; I'd be vera sorry tae a bonnie rinner like you left in the cauld."

But there was no time now.

"Shift out our posts instead, Mac," I instructed, "we'll make a four-men lot of it and divide afterwards."

Our white-shirted a.s.sociate looked at me gratefully, and held out his hand. "My name is Philip Morris," he said. "I am an Englishman, just out from the old country."

A swaying mob of perspiring and fiery-eyed men of all nationalities now flooded the valley as a tumultuous sea of humanity, and scattered in twos and fours throughout its entire length.

"You've struck a circus for a start, Morris," I said. "I think we'll all remember the Five-Mile Rush."

SINKING FOR GOLD

Next morning the Five-Mile Flat was the scene of extraordinary activity.

Tents sprung up like mushrooms in all directions, and the thud, thud of picks sounded incessantly. It was almost pitiful to witness the feverish eagerness with which most of the diggers tried to bottom on their claims. The depth of the Lead at Discovery shaft was given out to be only forty feet, but the strata encountered before that level was reached had been of a flinty impervious nature, necessitating the use of much giant powder.

At least the original prospectors, who were camped near to us, gave me that information in a fit of generosity when they learned that I had some little experience of geological formations. They even allowed me to descend their shaft--most unheard-of thing--and compute the angle and dip of the lode for the benefit of the general a.s.sembly; a privilege which was duly appreciated, as it enabled me to calculate the proper position in our own claim at which to sink. The lode, so called, proved to be an auriferous wash, or alluvial gutter, the bed of an extremely ancient watercourse, probably silted up long before the time of the Pharaohs.

Our newly-acquired companion, who had already won the good graces of both Mac and Stewart, astonished me greatly, while I was expounding my theories on these matters for his special edification, by making several courteous corrections to my statements, so that I was forced to tread more cautiously; and when I had finished, he capped my argument with a lucid technical discourse and much scientific addenda.

"You certainly know a fair-sized amount for an inexperienced man," I said, with some irritation; but he hastened to explain.

"My knowledge is purely theoretical," he replied. "Perhaps I should not have spoken."

His admirable good sense appealed to Mac's idea of fairness. "I'm thinkin'," began that gentleman, gazing at me reproachfully, "I'm thinkin' that oor freen Phil-ip is a vera modest man, a vera modest man indeed."

"I'm o' the opeenion," cried Stewart, from the interior of the tent, "that if he keeps awa' frae tailie coats, and dresses rashunal, he'll be a rale orniment tae ony camp."

The young man was much moved by these expressions of good-will; but when I asked him to mark off his allotment on our too large mining territory, he stubbornly refused. "If it had not been for your kindness I should have no claim to any corner of the ground," he said.

I explained, however, that Mac, Stewart, and myself would not be allowed by law to possess a four-men holding, and therefore there was no kindness on my part in giving him back his own. Yet still he hesitated.

"I am all alone, boys," he said at last, "and I don't think I could do much damage to the ground by myself. Might I come in with you?"

This was a _denouement_ I had not antic.i.p.ated, though in some unaccountable manner I felt drawn to the stranger; still, the vision of his coat-tails fluttering in the wind could not be dispelled.

"What do you say, Mac?" I asked, expecting a gruff rejoinder in the negative; but the answer agreeably surprised me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DISCOVERY" SHAFT--ON GOLD.]

"He's a man o' pairts like oorsel's, a modest man, an' a golologist forbye," replied Mac, grandiloquently; "it wud be sinfu' tae refuse him oor guid company."

Then Stewart, who had been paying great attention, rushed from the tent and added his testimony. "Tailie coat or no tailie coat," he shouted, "he's a guid man, as I kin testeefy, an' me an' Mac'll be prood tae hae him wi' us. Forbye," he continued, "he's a Breetisher, an' tho' he isna Scotch, me an' Mac'll look ower that fau't wi' muckle tolerashun."

"I wis aboot tae re-mark----" began Mac, but Stewart had not completed his peroration.

"Haud yer tongue, Mac," said he sternly; "ye ken weel yer nae speaker like me." Then he resumed the flow of his eloquence: "An' noo," he said, "on behauf o' Mac--wha is a man o' disteenction tho' he disna look it--an' in conformeety wi' ma ain incleenations, I hae pleesure in signifyin' oor muckle approval o' yer qualities."

The candidate for admission to our ill.u.s.trious company looked gratified, as well he might, and straightening his tall form he endeavoured to make suitable reply to the expectant couple.

"Gentlemen!" said he, and at the word Mac hitched up his nether garments and looked solemn, while Stewart coughed discreetly. "Gentlemen,"

repeated "tailie coat" in a voice that seemed to issue from his boots, "it is with considerable feeling of elation that I have heard your extemporaneous----"

"Haud on!" howled Mac in horror; "ye'll dae, ma man, ye'll dae. Come on, Stewart." And as they walked sorrowfully apart Stewart's voice floated back plaintively,