‘A man can get work for wages,’ suggested Dick.

’Wages!  What’s the use of that?  A man as knows mining can earn wages.  But Ahalala aint a place for wages.  If you want wages, go to one of the old-fashioned places,—­Bendigo, or the like of that.  I’ve worked for wages, but what comes of it?  A man goes to Ahalala because he wants to run his chance, and get a big haul.  It’s every one on his own bottom pretty much at Ahalala.’

‘Wages be ——!’ said Jack Brien, rising from the seat and hitching up his trousers as he left the room.  It was very evident that Jack Brien was a gambler.

After dinner there was a smoke, and after the smoke Dick Shand ‘shouted’ for the company.  Dick had quite learned by this time the mystery of shouting.  When one man ‘stands’ drinks all round, he shouts; and then it is no more than reciprocal that another man should do the same.  And, in this way, when the reciprocal feeling is spread over a good many drinkers, a good deal of liquor is consumed.

While Dick Shand’s ‘shout’ was being consumed, Caldigate asked one of his new friends where Mr. Crinkett lived.  Was Mr. Crinkett known in Nobble?  It seemed that Crinkett was very well known in Nobble indeed.  If anybody had done well at Nobble, Mr. Crinkett had done well.  He was the ‘swell’ of the place.  This informant did not think that Mr. Crinkett had himself gone very deep at Ahalala.  Mr. Crinkett had risen high enough in his profession to be able to achieve more certainty than could be found at such a place as Ahalala.  By this time they were on the road to Mr. Crinkett’s house, this new friend having undertaken to show them the way.

‘He can put you up to a thing or two, if he likes,’ said the new friend.  ‘Perhaps he’s a pal of yourn?’

Caldigate explained that he had never seen Mr. Crinkett, but that he had come to Nobble armed with a letter from a gentleman in England who had once been concerned in gold-digging.

‘He’s a civil enough gent, is Crinkett,’ said the miner;—­’but he do like making money.  They say of him there’s nothing he wouldn’t sell,—­not even his grandmother’s bones.  I like trade, myself,’ added the miner; ’but some of ’em’s too sharp.  That’s where Crinkett lives.  He’s a swell; ain’t he?’

They had walked about half a mile from the town, turning down a lane at the back of the house, and had made their way through yawning pit-holes and heaps of dirt and pools of yellow water,—­where everything was disorderly and apparently deserted,—­till they came to a cluster of heaps so large as to look like little hills; and here there were signs of mining vitality.  On their way they had not come across a single shred of vegetation, though here and there stood the bare trunks of a few dead and headless trees, the ghosts of the forest which had occupied the place six or seven years previously.  On the tops of these artificial hills there were sundry rickety-looking erections, and around them were troughs and sheds