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We knew the auctioneers there and everywhere else would sell a lot of likely stock and ask no questions; but there had been such a lot of horse-stealing since the diggings broke out that a law had been passed on purpose to check it. In this way: If any auctioneer sold a stolen horse and the owner claimed it before six months the auctioneer was held liable.
Then we learned what we might have known before but how should we? that the gold was not to be found in any and every sort of loose earth that might happen to be lying about, but only in either a sort of blue clay or a pulverized granite. Sometimes this "pay dirt" would be found atop the ground. Again, the miner had to dig for it. "All the surface diggings are taken up," our friend told us.
The miner, without taking it, looked at the man with amazement, exclaiming: "Well, stranger, you are a curiosity. I guess you haven't been in the diggings long. You had better keep that lump for a sample."
The house is advertised as an up-to-date hotel in the ABC Railway Guide, but diggings more wretched I never struck, and you do fetch up in some queer places on tour in the Provinces, let alone the States," says Red Umbrella, tossing the wistaria-wreathed hat.
Before the end of the year the export of gold from Victoria alone had very nearly reached half a million in value. In two years the population of the Victorian gold-fields almost equalled the whole population of the colony at the close of 1850. Most of the diggers lived in tents, and had absolutely no interest in the colony beyond the mere hope of profit from the diggings.
He stood looking at her with the uneasy grin which usually came to his face when he was uncertain. "What do you mean? Tony could tell me more " "Oh, I don't know," he interrupted. "I thought you'd have known it's all over the place, and the township's full of it how Tony and Nellie have fixed things up. Whenever he comes in from the diggings he goes straight to the Murrays first."
"Haven't you got anything else to eat with it?" The young man considered briefly. "No," he confessed; "there's not another scrap of anything in my diggings to eat. I think old Jack is pretty hard up for grub in his shack, too. He hated to give up the onion, but I worried him into parting with it."
This desertion of the ships by the sailors is an every-day occurrence; the diggings themselves, or the large amount they could obtain for the run home from another master, offer too many temptations.
Meanwhile Tom Brixton, with the gold in a game-bag slung across his shoulder, was speeding down the valley, or mountain gorge, at the head of which the Pine Tree Diggings lay, with all the vigour and activity of youthful strength, but with none of the exultation that might be supposed to characterise a successful thief.
They laughed at him, and kicked themselves for not having tapped him for a couple of hundred more. Nothing remained for Anderson but to work the worthless ground. This he did, and out of it he took over three-quarters of a million of dollars. It was not till Frank Dinsmore, who already had big holdings on Birch Creek, took a hand, that the old-timers developed faith in the new diggings.
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