oxen, and if you want me to, I'll drive these critters, and you three can foller along as you please."
"That'll suit me," said Fletcher with unusual graciousness. "I've no doubt you understand the business better than I do."
"I ought to understand it," said Stackpole. "I was raised on a farm in
New Hampshire, and used to drive oxen when I wasn't tall enough to see over their backs. I never thought then that I'd be drivin' a team in
Australy."
"What led you to come out here, Mr. Stackpole?" asked Harry.
"Well, a kinder rovin' disposition, I guess. A year ago I was in Californy, but things didn't pan out very well, so when I read accounts of the gold fields out here, I jist dropped my pick and started, and here I am."
"Didn't you find any gold-dust in California?" asked Fletcher, with sudden interest.
"Well, I found some," answered the Yankee, with drawling deliberation, "but not enough to satisfy me. You see," he added, "I've got two to make money for."
"And who are those two?" inquired Fletcher.
"The first is my old dad – he's gettin' kinder broken down, and can't work as well as he could when he was a young man. He's got a thousand-dollar mortgage on his farm, and I want to pay that off. It'll kinder ease the old man's mind."
"That a very excellent object, Mr. Stackpole," said Harry, who felt still more drawn to his plain, ungainly, but evidently good-hearted companion.
"I think so myself," said Obed simply.
"The other person is your wife, I fancy," said Fletcher.
"I expect she will be my wife when I get forehanded enough," replied Obed. "It's Suke Stanwood, one of Farmer Stanwood's gals. We was raised together, and we've been engaged for nigh on to five years."
"Very romantic!" said Fletcher, but there was a veiled sneer in his tone, as he scanned with contemptuous amusement the ungainly figure of his Yankee companion.
"I don't know much about such things," said Obed, "but I guess Suke and
I will pull together well."
"You are not exactly a young man," said Fletcher. "You've waited some time."
"I'm thirty-nine last birthday," said Obed. "I was engaged ten years ago, but the girl didn't know her own mind, and she ran off with a man that came along with a photograph saloon. I guess it's just as well, for she was always rather flighty."
"It is very strange she should have deserted a man of your attractions," said Fletcher with a smile.
Harry was indignant at this open ridicule of so honest and worthy a fellow as Stackpole, and he wondered whether the Yankee would be obtuse enough not to see it. His doubt was soon solved.
"It looks to me as if you was pokin' fun at me, Fletcher," said Obed, with a quiet, steady look at the other. "I'm a good-natured fellow in the main, but I don't stand any nonsense. I know very well I'm a rough looking chap, and I don't mind your sayin' so, but I aint willin' to be laughed at."
"My dear fellow," said Fletcher smoothly, "you quite mistake my meaning, I assure you. I am the last person to laugh at you. I think you are too modest, though. You are what may be called a 'rough diamond.'"
"I accept your apology, Fletcher," said Obed. "If no offence was meant, none is taken. I don't know much about diamonds, rough or smooth, but at any rate I aint a paste one."
"A good hit! Bravo!" laughed Fletcher. "You are a man of great penetration, Stackpole, and a decided acquisition to our party."
"I'm glad you think so," said Obed dryly. "If I remember right, you didn't want me to join you."
"At first I did not, but I have changed my mind. I didn't know you then."
"And I don't know you now," said Obed bluntly. "If you don't mind, s'pose you tell us what brought you out here."
Fletcher frowned and regarded the Yankee suspiciously, as if seeking his motive in asking this question, but his suspicions were dissipated by a glance at that honest face, and he answered lightly, "Really, there isn't much to tell. My father was a merchant of Manchester, and tried to make me follow in his steps, but I was inclined to be wild, incurred some debts, and finally threw up business and came out here."
"Have you prospered as far as you've gone?"
"Yes and no. I've made money and I've spent it, and the accounts are about even."
"That means you haven't much left."
"Right you are, my friend, but in your steady company I mean to turn over a new leaf, and go in for money and respectability. Now I've made a clean breast of it, and you know all about me."
In spite of this statement there was not one of his three companions who did not feel sure that there was much in Fletcher's history which he had kept concealed, and possibly for very good reasons.
CHAPTER VI. A NIGHT INCIDENT
The path of a gold-seeker in Australia was beset with difficulties. The country about Melbourne, and far inland, was boggy, the soil being volcanic, and abounding in mud which appears to have no bottom. The road to the mines was all the worse for having been ploughed up by bullock teams, and worked into a slough which proved the discouragement of mining parties. Some were even months in traversing the comparatively small distance across the country to the goal they sought. But the attraction of money, which is said to make the mare go, enabled them to triumph at last over the obstacles that intervened. It was not long before our party began to understand the nature of the task they had undertaken. The cart sank up to the hubs in a bog, and the oxen stood still in patient despair.
"Well, if this don't beat all creation!" ejaculated Obed. "I've been in the Western States, and I thought I knew something about mud, but Australy's ahead. I say, Fletcher, is there much of this that we've got to go through?"
"Mud's the rule, and dry land the exception," answered Fletcher coolly.
"Well, that's comfortin'!" remarked Stackpole, drawing a deep breath. "I s'pose people do get through after a while."
"Yes, generally. I was six weeks getting to the Ovens once."
"I wish we had some ovens to bake this mud," said Obed, with a grim smile at his joke. "It would take a powerful large one."
There was nothing for it but dogged perseverance. It took an hour to get the oxen and cart through a bog a hundred feet across, and the appearance of the party, when they finally reached the other side, was more picturesque than attractive.
"How would Clinton get along here?" suggested Harry. "I can imagine the poor fellow's despair."
"His trousers would suffer some," said Jack. "I think it would break his heart. The sea is much nicer. If we could only go by water," and the young sailor looked down at his mud-bedraggled clothes, and his shoes caked thickly over with the tenacious mud.
"Yes, the sea would be cleaner at any rate. I agree with you there,
Jack."
Arrived on the other side of the bog, they were obliged to give the tired cattle a rest. Indeed, they needed rest themselves.
At the end of the day they made an encampment. As well as they could judge, they were about eight miles from Melbourne.
"Eight miles; and how far is the whole distance?" asked Harry.
"About a hundred miles," answered Fletcher.
"At this rate, we can go through in twelve or thirteen days, then."
"You mustn't expect this rate of speed," said Fletcher. "We shan't average over five miles."
"Well, I hope we'll get paid for it," said Obed. "If we don't I'd better have stayed in Californy. We haven't any such mines as this in that country."
"You'd better have stayed there," said Fletcher dryly, and he evidently wished that his companion had done so.
"'Variety's the spice of life,' as my old schoolmaster used to say," responded Obed. "I kinder want to see what