she declared was a charm to keep everything bad away; another day she found a new kind of wild-flower, which she prattled over in the quaintest and prettiest fashion; another day she discovered that Rhadamanthus was a fairy who had changed himself into a dog to take care of her. The faithful, ragged beast! She announced the amazing discovery to him in the most impressive manner, kneeling before him, and putting his paws on her shoulders, the while he looked into her face, and blinked in confirmation. A baize partition separated the compartment in which she slept from ours, and one night, when I heard her, before going to bed, lisping her prayer that God would bless dear father and dear Tom and Rhad, my thoughts went back to the time when I, too, prayed before I went to sleep. On Sundays we would take a walk, and Bill, in the evening, would read a chapter from a Bible he had—which him, nor me, nor Rhad, would ever have thought of but for our dear little angel. Those Sundays, with Bill, and the little girl, and the ragged, faithful dog, are never out of my mind. I wish I had always spent my Sundays in the same way.
During this time we had only seen Teddy the Tyler once. About a fortnight after we started working he strolled upon us. A tin dish with nearly a pound of gold in it was lying on the ground, and he threw a woefully covetous look at it. He had his pick and shovel hanging over his shoulder, and walking past us he stuck his pick in the ground, and tucked up his shirt-sleeves.
Bill, following him, took the pick and shovel, and pitched them a dozen yards off.
“I told you you shouldn’t come into this gully,” he said.
“It’s as much mine as yours,” replied Teddy the Tyler. “I mean to fight for it, mate, at all events.”
“That’s fairly spoken,” said Bill. “Fight you shall, and if you lick me, we’ll give you this gully, and get another. Tom, come and see fair play.”
To it they went. But Teddy might as well have stood up against a rock as against my mate. Bill was the strongest man I ever knew, and he gave Teddy such an awful thrashing that he threw up his arms in less than a quarter of an hour.
“Had enough, mate?” asked Bill.
Teddy shouldered his pick, and walked away without a word, throwing a devil’s look behind him as he went.
“He’d murder the lot of us, Bill,” I said, “if we gave him a chance.”
“Daresay,” said Bill; “we won’t give it to him.”
In eleven weeks we got eleven hundred ounces of gold, and then a thing happened that makes my blood turn cold to speak of. I started one night to get a stock of provisions. We used to start in the night so that we shouldn’t be discovered, and when we made our appearance at the cattle station early in the morning for meat and flour, the people there didn’t suspect we had been walking all the previous night. I was pretty well the whole day getting back, for I had to be cautious, to prevent being followed. Within half a mile of our gully I met Bill, with a ghost’s face on him, and looking as if he had gone mad in my absence.
Running towards me, he said wildly,
“Tom, for God’s sake answer me quickly! Have you seen Lizzie?”
“Not since last night,” I said, with an uncomfortable feeling at Bill’s wild manner.
“She’s lost! She’s lost!” he screamed.
“Lost!”
“I’ve been hunting for her all the day. O my pet, my darling! if I don’t find you, may the world be burned, and all that’s in it!”
I was almost as mad as he was, for you know I loved the little thing as if she were my own daughter.
“Keep cool, Bill,” I said, as quietly as I could, though I felt my words trembling with the trembling of my lips; “if we want to do any good, we mustn’t lose our wits.”
“I know, I know!” he said, beating his hands together; “but what am I to do—what am I to do?”
“When did you miss her?”
“This morning. I got up at day-light, and left her sleeping in her crib. She was asleep, and I kissed her before I went out. I shall never kiss her again! I shall never kiss her again! O my pet, my pet!”
And he broke into a passionate fit of sobbing. It was awful to see. I waited till he was a bit calmer, and then I told him to go on.
“I came back to breakfast, and she was gone; and Rhad’s off his chain, and gone too. I’ve been hunting for her all the day. O God! tell me where she is!”
“I am glad the dog was with her,” I said. “How long is it since you were at the tent?”
“Not an hour ago. But all this talking won’t bring her back. Let’s go on searching for her. Perhaps she has climbed over the ranges, and is lost in the bush beyond.”
“She could never do it, Bill; she hasn’t strength enough, the dear little thing, to walk to the top of these hills. Now, Bill, I am cooler than you are, and I intend to keep cool. Although I’d give my legs and arms rather than any hurt should come to our pretty darling,”—I had to hold myself tight in here, to keep myself from breaking down—“I’m not going to let my feelings run away with me. If I am to help you, I must know everything. Let us go back to the tent, and start from there. Here’s my hand, Bill; I’ll search for our darling till I drop.”
He grasped my hand, and we ran to our tent. The first thing I did was to examine the dog’s chain. It had been unlocked in the usual way, and the key was lying on the table.
“That’s plain proof,” I said, “that Liz herself let him loose, and took him out with her. Had she all her things on?”
Yes; her hat and mantle were gone, and also a little basket she used to take with her, to fill with wild flowers.”
“You see,” I said, “she went out flower-gathering. Now which way did she go?”
Naturally, I considered, she would take the road she knew best—the one that led to the gully Bill first worked in. There was a creek on the road, pretty deep in parts, and the dreadful idea struck me that she might have fallen in. All this time Bill was behaving in the wildest manner. He took every little thing that belonged to her, and kissed them again and again. He called her by name, as if she could hear him; cried to his dead wife, as if she were standing before him; and altogether was about as useless as a man well could be. Then, taking a chamois-leather bag filled with gold, he threw it on the ground, screaming,
“To the Devil with all the gold! Devil gold! devil gold! why did I come here and lose my pet for you? O Lord! take all the gold, and give me back my child!”
“Come along, Bill,” I said, without appearing to heed his ravings, for that, I knew, was the best way; “I am going to the creek to look for her.”
“She hasn’t fallen in!” he cried. “How do you know she has fallen in? It’s not true! My pet is not drowned! No, no!”
“I don’t say she is drowned,” I said. “God forbid that she is! Behave like a man, Bill, and keep your senses about you, or we may as well give her up altogether.”
I was bound to speak in that way to him, and after a time I got him to be a little more reasonable. Then we started for the creek, calling out “Liz!
