Sooner or later we began to see the secret of the Hollow would be found out. There was no great chance in the old times with only a few shepherds and stock riders wandering through the bush, once in a way straggling over the country. But now the whole colony swarmed with miners, who were always prospecting, as they called it—that is, looking out for fresh patches of gold. Now, small parties of these men—bold, hardy, experienced chaps—would take a pick and shovel, a bucket, and a tin dish, with a few weeks’ rations, and scour the whole countryside. They would try every creek, gully, hillside, and river-bed. If they found the colour of gold, the least trace of it in a dish of wash-dirt, they would at once settle down themselves. If it went rich the news would soon spread, and a thousand men might be gathered in one spot—the bank of a small creek, the side of a steep range—within a fortnight, with ten thousand more sure to follow within a month.

That might happen at any time on one of the spurs of Nulla Mountain; and the finding out of the track down to the Hollow by some one of the dozens of rambling, shooting, fishing diggers would be as certain to happen as the sun to rise.

Well, the country had changed, and we were bound to change with it. We couldn’t stop boxed up in the Hollow day after day, and month after month, shooting and horse-breaking, doing nothing and earning nothing.

If we went outside there were ten times more men looking out for us than ever, ten times more chance of our being tracked or run down than ever. That we knew from the newspapers. How did we see them? Oh, the old way. We sent out our scout, Warrigal, and he got our letters and papers, too, from a “sure hand,” as Starlight said the old people in the English wars used to say.

The papers were something to see. First he brought us in a handbill that was posted up in Bargo, like this:

FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD

The above reward will be paid to anyone giving information as to the whereabouts of Richard Marston, James Marston, and a man whose name is unknown, but who can be identified chiefly by the appellation of Starlight.

“Pleasing way of drawing attention to a gentleman’s private residence,” says Starlight, smiling first and looking rather grim afterwards. “Never mind, boys, they’ll increase that reward yet, by Jove! It will have to be a thousand apiece if they don’t look a little sharper.”

We laughed, and dad growled out—

“Don’t seem to have the pluck, any of ye, to tackle a big touch again. I expect they’ll send a summons for us next, and get old Bill Barkis, the bailiff at Bargo, to serve it.”