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Done did not press the point, although he knew that she took gifts of quaintly-shaped nuggets from the other men with the indifference of a queen accepting tribute. Mrs. Ben Kyley greeted the mates with noisy joviality when they met, and Ben took his pipe from his mouth, and said he was 'right down blarsted glad, which amounted to quite a demonstration, coming from him.
Jim's arm stole to her waist of its own initiative. Then Mrs. Ben Kyley came roaring into the tent. 'Inveigling my girl away! she cried. 'Get out, you kidnapper!
Mike was promptly at his mate's back. 'Stave him off, Jim, he said. 'Use your straight left, and if he gets in throw him. He's a dirty in-fighter. Mike had boxed a good deal with Done lately, and did not tremble for his friend. Kyley came forward again. It was no part of his duty to prevent an honourable settlement of a quarrel between man and man, and very far from his inclination.
Jim recollected this in calculating his chances and determining his methods. 'Time! cried Kyley. Done took his ground easily, with his left arm well up, and his right in for defence, a style so unusual at that date as to provide a little derision amongst the onlookers. Mike, standing with his arms outspread and his shoulders to the crowd, keeping the ring, smiled complacently.
Ben Kyley profited largely, as she and Aurora were kept working at high pressure for two days, making Christmas puddings, for which the diggers cheerfully paid half a guinea apiece.
As his strength returned, Aurora permitted Mary Kyley to assume the larger share of the nursing, and Jim was told what news there was, excepting the truth about poor Mike. It was Ryder who had informed Aurora that Done and his friends were in the stockade, where he had seen them during the Saturday afternoon.
When the song ended half the diggers on Jim Crow were gathered about Burton's camp-fire, and the loudest roar of applause came from Mary Kyley! Presently somebody out in the crowd commenced to play a flute, and slid from a few bars of' Home, Sweet Home! into a rollicking jig. Half a dozen strong hands Jim's first were laid upon Mrs. Ben, and she was dragged to the front.
Ben Kyley, they had succeeded in depositing the larger part of their earnings at Diamond Gully in a Melbourne bank, and now they were hampered with no great responsibility in the way of riches.
'You shall not fight! she cried. 'You coward! You brute! At this juncture Kyley, who had been away replenishing the rum-barrel, entered the tent. He took in the situation at a glance. 'Look after Aurora, Ben! ordered Mrs. Kyley, and Kyley calmly took the struggling girl in his arms, and handed her bodily over the counter into the washer-woman's gentle care.
Ordinarily her English was as pure as Mrs. Kyley's, and Mrs. Kyley had the reputation of being a lady of vast attainments. 'There's the money, said Jim, 'and will you take this for the dance? He offered her a nugget he had picked from the week's yield, a flat, heart-shaped slug, curiously embossed. ''Deed, an' it's mighty fine, said the girl, 'but I'd rather have ye me debtor for life.
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