’I’m going digging.  I have no mate.  I can’t say what field I’m making for till I know more about them.’

‘Look here, take in my points.’  The native struck another match, and held it that Done might make an inventory of his perfections.  ’Five foot ten high, strong as a horse, sound in wind and limb, know the country, know the game, been on three fields, want a mate.  Name’s Micah Wentworth Burton—­Mike for short.  Got all traps, pans, shovels, picks, cradle, tub, windlass, barrow.  Long Aleck—­chap that attacked you—­was my mate; he’s turning teamster.  Take me on, an’ here’s my hand.  We’re made for a pair.’

Burton stopped for lack of wind.  He jerked his words with a slight nasal intonation, and his manner and his action indicated a characteristic impetuosity.  Done was astounded at his own seeming good fortune and the other’s rash confidence.

‘Come,’ he said doubtingly, ’do you mean to say you’ll go into partnership in this desperate way with a man you don’t know, but whom you suspect of being a notorious rogue, and give him all the advantages of your property and your knowledge?’

’Will I?  My oath!  Is it a deal?  All that about Solo is off.  I might ‘a’ known he had too much horse-sense to mooch about Melbourne disguised only in a daily shave.  As for the rest, blast it! we’re men.  I take you on chance, you take me on spec.  We can look after ourselves, I s’pose.  Well, what say?’

’I couldn’t ask for anything better.  The only objection to the arrangement is that I take all and give nothing.’

’Done, then!  But don’t you run away with a wrong idea.  There ‘re heaps o’ decent men an’ good miners in Melbourne who’d jump at a mate of your stamp.  Come along to my tent up Canvas Town to-night.  There’s a spare bunk.  Aleck started on a jamboree that won’t mature for a week.  We can talk things into order.’

Jim Done awoke next morning with a fear in his heart that he had made a fool of himself.  His mate was sitting just without the tent, grilling chops on a piece of hoop-iron twisted into a grid.  Jim’s head felt new to him, and ached badly; old doubts, old prejudices, possessed him.  Why should all the regard this stranger expressed have developed in an acquaintanceship of minutes?  Why should Burton be so eager to bestow benefits upon him?  That was not the customary way of men.  He got up, dressed and washed, and took breakfast with his mate, and the sullen suspicion lingered; but Mike talked volubly, questioning nothing, and as the morning wore on his obvious sincerity won on Done, and ere they turned their backs upon Melbourne the Australian’s spontaneous, careless confidence in him and his open-hearted cordiality planted in Done the seeds of one of those strong, lasting friendships which are never half expressed in words, although they may sometimes be attested in eloquent and heroic actions.