Weeks had passed since the accident, and Jim was still in the hospital. The disaster had been costly to the colliery, but not crippling. The shafts—always the most costly portion of mine development—had not been injured. Many of the galleries had been reopened. The great ventilation fans were working again at full speed. The cages of coal were whirling up the shaft as of old.

Otto, after a short rest, had gone to work. The old miner was well satisfied with the fulfilment of his prophecies. The "knockers" had indeed tasted blood, for the two men in the old workings had never been found. As the mining engineer had supposed, that section of the mine must be abandoned forever. Moreover, Otto's forecast that Clem would be rescued, uninjured, also had come true.

Clem, indeed, was recovering, but the doctor declared him as yet unfit to resume the arduous work of hewing below ground. Accordingly, Owens had given him a temporary position as assistant to the safety inspector of the mine, for the accident had awakened the interest of the men in safety work, and the young fellow was quite competent to help in the simpler forms of instruction.

Anton was still in a weak state. His lungs were affected. He was living at home with his mother, Owens having granted the boy leave on full pay until he was entirely well again.

As the mine fell more and more into its old routine, Owens found himself oftener at the hospital. The remembrance of old times was strong in him, and the mine owner seemed to renew his youth in the rude speech of the prospector, sprinkled as it was with mining terms once so familiar to his ear.

Jim's liking for his employer was rapidly growing into comradeship. He was fully conscious of Owens' delicacy in never referring to the secret and began to feel that here, at last, was a rich man he could trust. In the course of time, it was the old prospector who brought the matter up, first."Has Clem ever said anything more to you about my mine?" he asked abruptly.

Owens started, but he got a grip on himself at once. When he answered, it was in as casual a tone as he could assume.

"Not another word. I don't suppose he has, to anybody. He seems to know enough not to talk. You heard how he snubbed the reporter!"

"I know. I heard him. He's square, is Clem. But I ain't never yet asked him what I said, down there in the mine. It's been eatin' me, all the time I've been lyin' here. To think I kep' it quiet all these years, an' then go blurt it out, jest 'cos I was hungry!"

"You haven't any reason to blame yourself for that, you were unconscious. And, like you, I believe Clem is as straight as a string."

"Ay," agreed Jim, "he shows color in every pan (specks of gold in every handful of washed sand). I'd ha' gone West, judgin' from what he said the other day, if it hadn't been for him."

"You certainly would."

"An' that makes us pards (partners) in a way, don't it?"

Jim paused, and then burst out again, "But I can't help wonderin' jest how much I told!"

"You'll have to ask Clem that. You remember, he said nothing to the reporter except that, in your delirium you were talking about gold."

"Gold! Did I say gold? Are you dead sure that I said gold?"

"That's what Clem told, anyway."

"Then I must sure ha' been dreamin'!" Jim's tone was both embarrassed and evasive.

Owens saw, at once, by the prospector's manner that he was nervously fearful of having betrayed himself and that he wanted to drop the subject. This seemed a sure sign that the hinted discovery was true.

It was a ticklish moment. The mine-owner realized that if the matter were dropped, now, he might never have another chance to get back to it. Any attempt on his part to renew the subject would be sure to arouse Jim's suspicion. If he were to be of any service to the old prospector, he must seize the present opportunity.

"Too bad that it isn't gold then," he said, half commiseratingly. "There's nothing in all the world that can make a man rich in a minute, as gold can. I saw that, often enough, in Australia. That's the land of nuggets, Jim, big ones! Most of them were found by sheer luck, and it was poor men who found them, too, mostly.

"The Australian black-fellows—pretty much savages, those fellows—knew gold, long before the white men came. They used to make their javelin-heads of gold because it's the easiest metal to work, when cold, and is found pure.

"So it was not so surprising, Jim, that one of the first big gold finds was made by a black-fellow, a husky tattooed chap who owned no property except a small apron of matting for his middle, a bunch of feathers for his hair, a long-handled stone hatchet, and a boomerang.

"This Cl'ck, as he was called, was employed as a shepherd by Dr. Kerr, a large sheep-owner in New South Wales. Cl'ck was a fairly intelligent fellow and had learned to talk a few words of English. He knew gold when he saw it. Just at the time I'm speaking of, the whole world was excited over gold, for it was just after the discovery of gold in California in 1848 and the great gold rush of '49."

"My father was one of the 'forty-niners,'" put in Jim, eagerly."So you're of the real Argonaut breed, then!" exclaimed Owens, but he did not push the enquiry, preferring to allow Jim to tell his story in his own way and in his own time. In order, however, to keep the subject of gold present in Jim's mind, he continued:

"For some time there had been vague hints that there might be gold in Australia, but, before the time of the 'forty-niners' no attention had been paid to it.

"For example! Once, in 1834, a ticket-of-leave man (convict out on parole), working in New South Wales, found a small nugget of pure gold in the earth and brought it to the nearest town to sell. Being a convict, he was at once arrested for having possession of the gold, and not being able to explain how he had got it. His story that he had found it in the earth was laughed at, for never—so far as the Australians knew, then—had gold been found in nuggets. As it happened, a white settler had lost a gold watch a little time before. The weight of the nugget was just about that of the weight of the case of a gold watch. The ticket-of-leave man was accused of having stolen the watch, thrown away the works and melted down the case. He was found guilty and punished with a hundred and thirty lashes."

"Whew, that was pilin' it on heavy!" commented Jim.

"They had to be severe in those days," Owens explained. "Botany Bay and Port Jackson were penal stations. In those days there were about fifty thousand white folks in New South Wales and three-quarters of them were convicts. That meant ruling with an iron hand, if mutiny was to be prevented.

"Twice, after that, white settlers found signs of gold, but in such small quantities that the deposits were not worth working by the primitive means employed at that time. In 1841, signs of gold were found not far from Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, but the Governor personally asked the finder to keep the matter a secret for there were 45,000 convicts in the colony by that time, and he was afraid that news of a gold-find might start a revolt that the military would not be able to quell.

"Two years later an even more curious discovery was made. Mr. H. Anderson, who owned a sheep-station where now are found the great gold-fields of Ballarat—in the province of Victoria, south of New South Wales—threw away the finest chance to become a multi-millionaire that ever came to any man.

"While walking from the home kraal (corral) to his house, in company with a neighbor, he saw on the ground a small piece of white quartz shining in the sun and noticed a few thin streaks of yellow in the quartz.

"He picked it up in a casual way, cast a glance at it, and handed it to his companion.

"'We're the richest men in the world,' he said, jokingly. 'You and I are running sheep over a gold-mine.'

"This jesting statement was literally true.

"But the other, who knew just enough about such matters to be really ignorant, wanted to display his small store of knowledge.

"'Gold!' he said contemptuously, 'that's what they call fool's gold. It's pyrites of some sort. Tut, tut, man! Golden nonsense! The only gold in this country is what grows on the backs of sheep.'

"Mr. Anderson, trusting to his companion's supposed better knowledge, threw the piece of quartz at a pair of wallabies (small kangaroos) that were leaping about, near by, and thus lost the chance of becoming the richest man in Australia. Five years later came the news of the gold-finds in California, and the more thoughtful men in New South Wales remembered these vague stories about gold having been found in the island continent.

"Now, let us get back to Cl'ck. His employer, Dr. Kerr, had bidden him keep his eyes open for any signs of gold, during his wanderings over the wild pasture land with his flocks. He promised to give him five pounds—a large sum for a black-fellow, in those days—for any piece of gold he should bring in, no matter how small.

"One day, in February, 1851, while leading his flocks to water at Meroo Creek, Cl'ck happened to see what looked like a smudge of yellow on the surface of a good-sized bowlder of quartz. He chipped at it with his long-handled hatchet, and there, solidly embedded in the bowlder, was a huge chunk of gold. It weighed over 102 pounds and was sold for over $20,000.

"This accidental discovery, which made Kerr rich, and which, incidentally, gave Cl'ck a hut and a sheep-kraal of his own, was amazing enough in itself. Even in California, which was then regarded as the very fountain-head of gold, no such nugget had been found. Yet, a couple of weeks later, a strike was made of such importance as to throw even the Black-fellow Nugget in the shade. This second strike determined the fortunes of Australia.

"One of the 'forty-niners,' who went to the California gold-fields in the first ship that sailed from Sydney after the news of the Sacramento discoveries had reached Australia, was a prospector called E.H. Hargraves. He got to California in the middle of the rush, but luck was against him.

"As happened so often with the men who knew only a little mining, he thought he could do better than merely follow the crowd. He staked a claim that looked more promising than the ground on the outskirts of the established mining camps. The claim proved worthless, or nearly so.

"Seeing the vast crowds streaming into California, and being convinced that there would not be gold enough for all, Hargraves decided to go home, rather than to stay in the California gold-diggings and die of hunger—as so many of the forty-niners did."

Jim nodded assentingly. He knew those stories. Many a one had his father told him. He was well aware that the trail of gold is a line of graves.

"On his way back home," Owens continued, "Hargraves remembered that he had seen ground in New South Wales which bore a marked resemblance to the regions where gold had been found in California. It was not ordinary alluvial gold land, such as prospectors were apt to seek, and no one had ever suspected that gold might be found there. Hargraves had kept his eyes open, when in California, and had realized that alluvial gold was but a beginning, that the biggest amount of wealth lay in a reef.

"Reaching Sydney in December, 1850, Hargraves made his way towards what is now the town of Bathurst. He was out in the field, prospecting, when the Black-fellow Nugget was found, and heard nothing about it.

"Near the end of February, 1851, working in Summerhill Creek, he discovered sure signs of gold, though in no such alluring quantity as had been found on the creeks leading into the Sacramento River. He worked steadily up the creek, not only panning as he went, but also striking off to right and left to see if the ground gave promise of a reef. There, on the last day of the month, he found a bowlder of quartz and gold, or, to speak more correctly, a detached piece of quartz from a reef, the greater part of which was almost pure gold and weighed 106 pounds.

"Hargraves was a man of sense. Instead of hurrying back to the nearest town with his find, selling it and blowing the money, he did some further prospecting. He collected specimens from different parts of the neighborhood, realizing that he had made a discovery not less sensational than when Sutter found the first gold in his mill-race in California.

"Then he went straight to the government authorities of New South Wales, and, in addition to establishing his own claims, he asked that a reward be given him by the government. The governor, anxious to stop the emigration from New South Wales to California, and realizing that a gold-find would bring enormous wealth and prosperity to the colony, made him a grant of $50,000 and a pension, providing that he would reveal the gold-bearing locality to the authorities, first, and providing the territory should produce a million dollars' worth of gold.

"Hargraves was as good as his word. He showed not only the famous Lewis Ponds, Summerhill, but also another and even bigger field on the upper waters of the Macquarie River. Owing to their prior information, the authorities were able to establish mining laws and good government before the rush set it, and Bathhurst was freed from the wild orgy of lawlessness which marked the days of the 'forty-niners.'

"All this, Jim, was a wonderful jump forward for New South Wales, and the town of Sydney boomed. But it was equally bad for the other provinces of Australia, and Victoria, being the nearest, suffered most. Almost every man able to wield a pick or rock a miner's cradle, deserted his work and rushed to Bathurst. The gold was so easy to separate from the quartz that a man could get rich using no other tool than an ordinary hammer.

"Shepherds and even sheep-owners deserted their flocks, farmers let their land go to weed, merchants abandoned their shops, manufacturers allowed their machinery to rust, school-teachers locked the doors of schools, and workmen of every line of labor flocked to Sydney and toiled along the widely beaten track to Bathurst.

"The authorities of the province of Victoria were in despair. The colony was plunging into ruin. Something must be done at once. They offered a huge reward to any one who should find gold within two hundred miles of Melbourne. On the very same day, two men came to claim the reward. One had made a strike on the Plenty River, the other on the Yarra-Yarra. In August, 1851, came the discovery of gold at Ballarat, gold in its pure form and in large grains. The Bendigo fields developed immediately after.

"Then came a rush unparalleled! Money came easy, just as it comes easy to any man who has the good luck to be first at a strike. Every one got rich in Ballarat. There were no blanks. It was the richest ground that ever was found. The grains of gold were so big that they stuck out and looked at you!

"Geelong, which was the nearest town to Ballarat, was deserted. Three months after the discovery of gold the mayor of Geelong complained that there were only eleven men and over three thousand women and children in the town."

"Ay," agreed Jim, "and I remember in Pot-Luck Camp, the first time a decent woman came into the town, a miner offered her a bag of gold-dust to just shake hands with him. I've seen seven camps in a string, wi' maybe a thousand men in each an' nary a woman in the lot!"

"A camp like that becomes right wild," Owens agreed. "Ballarat, for a while, was about as dangerous a place as ever the world saw. Ticket-of-leave men from New South Wales, escaped or paroled convicts from Tasmania, roughs that had been run out of camps by vigilance committees in California, Chinese and Malays swarmed there. The diggers refused to take out licenses, fired on the police, charged the military stockade, and when the troops charged back and took 125 prisoners, a jury acquitted every one of the mutineers as upholders of individual liberty. If a man did not find gold, he starved at the exorbitant prices demanded for food; if he did make a strike, the chances were ten to one he would be murdered the next day. Colorado, at is worst, could not be compared with early days at Ballarat.

"Bendigo followed right after. That was a nugget corner. During the year 1852, alone, three big nuggets were found there, one of 24 pounds, one of 28 pounds, and one of 47 pounds. All these nuggets revealed outcrops and the finders all became rich men."One of them was found in a queer way. A prospector, or 'fossicker' as they call them back there, had been panning all along a small creek, finding hardly enough color to pay him for his day's work. He was walking on the very edge of the bank, scanning every stone he came to, but seeing no prospects. Suddenly the bank caved in under him, throwing him into the water. He came up, spluttering, and there, right in front of him, the water was washing off the dirt, was one of the purest nuggets that Australia ever produced. That was probably the most profitable bath in history."

"Some men are born lucky!" declared Jim, enviously.

"That's true," Owens agreed, "and it has been a characteristic of Australia that all the big finds have been made by lucky accidents. Even recent discoveries are no exception. Did you ever hear the story of Pilbarra and the crow?"

"Never did."

"It's a classic in Australian gold mining. It's as queer a story as I know. It doesn't sound true, a bit, but all the documents in the case are on record.

"One fine day, a youngster in West Australia—clear across the other side of the continent from Bathurst and Ballarat—was idling along a narrow track, as youngsters will, even when sent on a hurried message. On his way, he saw a black crow hopping some distance away. With a natural boy movement, he picked up a stone and shied it at the crow. The bird gave a loud croak and flew away a little distance, but in the same direction in which the boy was walking. Presently the crow was within throwing distance, again. The boy stooped to pick up another stone.

"Just as he was about to let fly, however, he noticed some gold specks in it and took it home. There he showed it to his father, who was an employe in the convict prison there. His father showed it to the Warden, as he was compelled to do, for he was also a convict, though a 'trusty.'

"The much-excited Warden knew that the governor of the colony ought to be notified at once, but how was he to do so without the secret leaking out through the telegraph office? Forgetting, in his excitement, that the governor did not know as much about the matter as he did, he sent the following message:

"'Boy here has just thrown stone at crow.'

"He entirely neglected to mention that there was anything special in either the stone or the crow.

"The telegram puzzled the governor not a little. But he had a sense of humor, and he replied to the Warden's telegram with the following message:

"'Yes; but what happened to the crow?'

"The Warden realized his former omission, and risking discovery, telegraphed:

"'Stone, gold.'

"The telegraph operator, not seeing how this could be a reply to the governor's question thought an error had been made and forwarded the message:

"'Stone cold.'

"The governor thought his friend the Warden must have gone crazy, but he was not to be outdone. He wired back:

"'Forward crow.'

"This time it was the turn of the Warden to be puzzled, and, as soon as his duties would permit, he went to the capital—almost a thousand-mile journey—taking, not the crow, but the stone filled with specks of gold. This was in 1888. Over half-a-million dollars' worth of gold was taken from Pilbarra before the end of the year.

"The richest gold field in Australia was hit on by accident four years later. This was Kimberley. Signs of gold had been found there in 1882, and again in 1886 but not enough to be worth working. In 1892 two prospectors started out to explore the region. They worked for weeks and found nothing. One of them, thoroughly disgusted, gave up the search and started for home.

"Two nights after, while camping, his horse became restless and started to plunge and kick at a wombat, near by. The prospector got up to quiet the beast, fearing he would break the picket-rope. On his way, he stumbled over a stone, which, in the light of early dawn, he saw to be rich in gold. He pegged out a claim at once, fetched his partner, and the two men took out $50,000 worth of gold in three weeks. This was the beginning of the great Coolgardie field.

"In the same region, about 24 miles away, not long after the opening of the Coolgardie field, a miner just missed wealth. There was a small camp there, but one man had no luck. While sitting dispiritedly in his dog-tent, just before going to sleep, he began to burrow with his fingers in the loose soil on which he was slouching and discovered a small pocket of gold. He was so excited that he shouted out the news to the camp.

"Before he could realize what was happening, the other miners crowded round, and pegged out claims to the very borders of his tent. All he got out of it was the small bit of ground on which his tent stood. The pocket only yielded a hundred dollars' worth of gold, his neighbors to right and left, got more than ten times that amount in the first three days.

"I could go on for hours, Jim, telling you about the Australian gold-fields, but I've said enough to show you that I meant what I said when I suggested that it was a pity that you hadn't found gold. The mining of every other metal needs a lot of capital to begin with—as gold does, when you begin to work a reef—but, in nearly every gold deposit, there are placers or pockets where a man can clean up quickly."

Jim's face was glowing with a lively interest. His excitement had grown as the mine-owner proceeded.

"And these here nuggets," he queried, "what makes 'em? Where do they come from? We don't find anything like that over here!"

"No," agreed Owens, "you don't. Chunks like 'The Welcome Stranger' which sold for $48,000 and which was found right in the road, the wheel of a passing wagon having cut through the soft earth and exposed it, are peculiar to Australia. Even South Africa, which is the largest gold-producing country in the world, hasn't any nuggets like that.

"As for where nuggets come from, Jim, that's a bit of a puzzle. Some say they grew in the earth, water heavily laden with gold, depositing more and more of the metal in the one place; other scientists claim that the nuggets were made in the days when the earth was all fire, and that the nuggets have been there ever since. Neither theory answers all the facts. It's truer to say that we don't know, yet, how nuggets came to be, nor why Australia has most of them.

"Some day, Jim, if you're interested, I'll try to explain to you the geology of gold. It's pretty complicated. I did a lot of study on it, when I was a young chap. Somehow, I seemed to be one of the men who didn't have any luck at the diggings. So I took to assay work (ore-testing), out there in Australia, and made more with my little assay outfit than most of the miners did with their claims."Jim propped himself up on one elbow and stared fixedly at the mine-owner.

"You know how to make an assay, yourself?"

"Roughly, yes. Of course, only for field work, you understand. I don't pretend to be a mineralogical chemist."

"You can do it yet?"

"I suppose so. I haven't done any for years. This coal-mine business has kept me busy. But I've still got my portable assay outfit up at the house. I kept it for old-time's sake."

Jim's eyes glistened eagerly.

"You go to my cabin, Owens," he said, and it was noticeable that he dropped the "Mr.," "and five long paces due north from my kitchen window, you dig! You'll find a chunk of ore, there. Assay it, and then come back here!"

"But—"

The old prospector waved the interruption aside, impatiently.

"Do it, and then talk!"

Owens shrugged his shoulders and left, but little less excited than Jim.

That evening, during the middle of the night shift, when no one was likely to see him, the mine-owner went to the spot designated and began to dig. A foot or two beneath the surface, he found the chunk of ore. He put it in his pocket and hurried to his own house.

It was nearly dawn before he completed the assay. Then he put the ore and his memorandum of results in the safe and went to bed for a short sleep.

That morning, after breakfast, he returned to the hospital. He found Jim in an excited state.

"No, Mr. Owens, there's nothing wrong with him," the doctor explained, "only he hasn't slept all night. He's been asking for you, every few minutes."

When the mine-owner entered the ward, Jim struggled up to a sitting position.

"What about it?" he queried.

Owens closed the door carefully, came up to the sick man's bedside, and answered quietly,

"About 110 grains of gold to the ton and 800 ounces of silver. There's some native copper, too."

"It's a real find then?"

"It isn't what you'd call rich," the Australian answered cautiously.

"How about this, then?"Jim took his old coat, which he had got the hospital attendant to bring him the night before, ripped open a seam, showing a narrow tube of buckskin running around the hem, and, opening its mouth, poured out a few grains of yellow metal into the palm of his hand.

"Free gold!" he said, triumphantly.

One glance of a trained eye sufficed.

"That's the stuff, sure enough. But you didn't find much of it, eh?"

"Where do you get that idea?"

"The grains are big enough to pan easily. If there was much of it, you wouldn't have left the place without cleaning up a good stake."

"There is plenty of it. But I had to get out."

"Why, then?"

"To save my skin. An' I couldn't get back there."

"Back where?"

"Where I found it."

"That doesn't tell me much."

"It ain't intended to."

"Then why," said Owens, showing irritation, "did you show me the ore at all?"

Jim looked at him under lowered eyelids.

"Have you ever been a prospector, honest?"The owner of the coal mine put his hand in his breast pocket.

"I thought this might interest you," he said, "so I brought it along. That's me!"

He put his finger on one of the figures in the picture that he handed to the prospector. It showed a young fellow, bearded, in the typical Australian digger's rig-out, panning gold. The photograph was an old one, evidently, and there was no doubt that it was a resemblance of Owens in his youth.

"Ay, it's you," said Jim.

For some minutes there was silence. The mine-owner let the prospector think the matter out in his own way. Finally, with an air of desperate determination, Jim began:

"I'm gettin' old, now, an' times has changed since I found that ore. I ain't never give up hope of gettin' back there, but it don't look like it, now. I ain't the man I was. This last spell has crippled me up, pretty bad, too. I ain't never goin' to be right husky, again. The doctor says so."

"You can have a job above ground, here, as long as you want to."

Jim nodded appreciation of the offer.

"That's a square deal," he admitted. "But," he went on viciously, "I've had enough o' coal. I don't want to see a bit o' coal again, long's I live! I want to get back to God's country."

"Which is?"

"Where I found that!" replied Jim, evasively.

Owens made no protest. He kept silent, being sure that his companion would go on to talk.

"I'm gettin' old," Jim repeated, after a while, "an' it takes two things to get where I found that ore—a tough constitution an' money. I got neither. It's a job for a young fellow."

"I'm not much younger than you are," suggested Owens.

"Clem is."

"Well?"

"But he hasn't got any more money'n I have."

The mine-owner bent a level glance at the old prospector.

"Don't beat about the bush so much, Jim. If you don't want to say anything, why, drop the whole business. If you have anything to say, spit it out! You want me to grub-stake you? Is that it?"

"Me an' Clem. I won't do nothin' without Clem. A man has to have a pardner."

"I've no objection to Clem. On the contrary. But I don't grub-stake a man just because he shows me a bit of ore! I've been in the game too long for that. How do I know where that gold comes from? It might have been picked up from some mine now working at full blast. As for the gold-dust—why, it would be queer if you hadn't found some of it, somewhere.

"No," he went on, anticipating Jim's interruption, "I'm going to do the talking for a minute. You wanted to be sure I was a prospector. I showed you. You wanted to be sure I knew enough about gold to make an assay. I've done that for you.

"But confidence can't be all on the one side. You'll have to show your cards, the same way. You'll have to convince me that you're on the square, too. I'm not suspecting anything, mind, but this has got to be an open-and-shut deal, or I don't go in.

"Tell me who you are, where you've been, what you've done and what you know about gold deposits, anyway. I've got to know where you found this ore, how you came to find it, and why you haven't been able to get back there. You'll have to show me some proof, to start with, and what chances there are of taking the necessary machinery to the place, before I think about investing any capital.

"You can keep back the exact location of the strike to the last, if you like. If it sounds right, why, I'll think about it. But, mark you, Jim, I make no promises. You can talk, or not, just as you choose. I'm not hunting trouble, understand, this colliery keeps me busy enough. But if you want help, maybe I can give it to you. That ore deposit—if it's a deposit—can either be let alone or developed. If you let it alone, it's no good to anybody. If it's developed, there's a chance that it might make money for the both of us. Decide! It's up to you!"

Silence fell in the hospital ward. Jim's eyes were far away, evidently in that strange and distant land where he had made his find. Then he turned a piercing glance on the mine-owner, who returned it frankly.

The old prospector cleared his throat and swallowed hard. For a moment he seemed about to speak, and then stopped himself. At last his features settled into decision.

"Send for Clem to come here to-morrow," he said, "I'll tell the yarn."