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Many a hard-working selector, who remembered his parched paddocks and bony stock, thought of throwing in his lot with the men he had formerly referred to as gully-rakers, when he saw the lavish expenditure, not only at the Rest, but at Marmot's, made possible by the gold they had won. Nor were the establishments at either end of the township alone in profiting.
It was quite enough to spur on the energies of the hungry gully-rakers, and with brief good wishes they went on their way, hastening as much as their burdens and the steepness of the track would allow. Other mobs, some small, some large, were encountered as the two rode on, and always Barber gave the same answer to the questions, and with the same result.
But he heard him and her one night as they were riding in, him bringing her back from some moonlight ride they was always getting up he heard her say to him, 'But who do you take after, Tony? And next day, so Sam Nuggan says, Taylor and his misses was talkin' a lot and Tony was watchin' a lot, and then he ups and comes into the township, and the next he hears he'd gone off with them gully-rakers."
When they were out of earshot of the bar, two of them exchanged glances and grim smiles. "What did I tell you?" one said. "There's no bigger fools in creation than a mob of gully-rakers." "Keep your tongue quiet, Gleeson," the other replied. "They haven't all started yet. Besides " he glanced towards their two companions, who were loosening the horses from the fence where they had been hitched.
For years the gully-rakers round Boulder Creek had been living and longing to hear such things, and the hungry eyes grew more hungry and the faces more alert. If four, why not forty? Why not "Where's the lay?" one of the Creekers asked sharply and shortly; and the room was silent till the answer came. "Over the ridge," the man answered, nodding towards the west. "How far?" some one inquired.
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