“If you are speaking about this 10,000 oz. we have taken out of our reef in six months, remember that Bayley and Ford dollied out 2,500 oz. for themselves before they handed it over to us on February 27th last, so that actually 12,500 oz. have been taken out of the claim, without a battery, in under nine months.  The shoot of gold is now proved over 100 feet long on the course of the reef, and we were down 52 feet in our shaft on the reef, with as good gold as ever at the bottom.  The other shaft, which we have got water in, is in the country (a downright shaft).  We expect to meet the reef in it at 170 feet.”

Besides Massie, myself, and Tom Cue, there were not then many employed, and really we used to have rather an enjoyable time than otherwise.  Working regular hours, eight hours on and sixteen off, sometimes on the surface, sometimes below, with hammer and drill, or pick and shovel, always amongst glittering gold, was by no means unpleasant.  It would certainly have been better still had we been able to keep what we found, but the next best thing to being successful is to see those one is fond of, pile up their banking account; and I have had few better friends than the resident shareholders on Bayley’s Reward.

What good fellows, too, were the professional miners, always ready to help one and make the time pass pleasantly.  Big Jim Breen was my mate for some time, and many a pleasant talk and smoke (Smoke, O! is a recognised rest from work at intervals during a miner’s shift) we have had at the bottom of a shaft, thirty to fifty feet from the surface!  I really think that having to get out of a nice warm bed or tent for night shift, viz., from midnight to 8 a.m., was the most unpleasant part of my life as a miner.

As recreation we used to play occasional games of cricket on a very hard and uneven pitch, and for social entertainments had frequent sing-songs and “buck dances”—­that is, dances in which there were no ladies to take part—­at Faahan’s Club Hotel in the town, some one and a half miles distant.  “Hotel” was rather too high-class a name, for it was by no means an imposing structure, hessian and corrugated iron taking the place of the bricks and slates of a more civilised building.  The addition of a weather-board front, which was subsequently erected, greatly enhanced its attractions.  Mr. Faahan can boast of having had the first two-storeyed house in the town; though the too critical might hold that the upper one, being merely a sham, could not be counted as dwelling-room.  There was no sham, however, about the festive character of those evening entertainments.

Thus time went on, the only change in my circumstances resulting from my promotion to engine-driver—­for now the Reward Claim boasted a small crushing plant—­and Spring came, and with it in November the disastrous rush to “Siberia.”  This name, like most others on the goldfields, may be traced to the wit of some disappointed digger.