"It often does, and even if it lasts only six or seven weeks it brings in a lot. 'We're in luck this time,' I say to you, and I dream of nuggets as big as my head. The gutter, we reckon, is forty feet down, and we reach it in three weeks. Everybody round us is making his pile--why shouldn't we? But before we strike the lead a digger comes up, and says, 'Hallo, mates, have you heard about the claim you left in Mountain Maid Gully?' 'No,' say we, 'what about it?'--'Oh,' says the digger, 'only that two new chums jumped in after you'd gone away and found out it was the richest claim on the goldfield. They took a thousand ounces out of it the second week they were at work.' What do you say to that, Basil?"
"They're a relief. You take it philosophically, I admit; I growl over it like a bear with a sore head. I'd like to know why there's this difference between us."
"I'll try and tell you presently, when you've finished about the two claims."
"All right. I shouldn't be much of a man if the news about the ground we ran away from didn't rile me. I was so wild I could hardly sleep that night. But when I heard that in the next claim to the one we're working now a nugget weighing a hundred and fifty ounces was found I thought perhaps we'd got a richer claim than the one we'd deserted. So I bottled up my bad temper, and went on working with a good grace. And now we're on the gutter again, and here's the result." He held out the tin dish, and gazed at the tiny specks of gold with disgust. "Why it's the very worst we've struck yet."
"Not quite that. We've had as bad. What shall we do? Stick to it, or try somewhere else?
"We daren't go away. Stick to it we must. If we left it and I heard afterwards the same sort of story we were told about our claim on Mountain Maid, I should do somebody a mischief. You agree with me, then, that we remain and work the claim out?"
"I agree to anything you wish, Chaytor. I will stay or go away, just as you decide."
Chaytor looked at him with an eye of curiosity. "Were you ever a fellow of much strength of character, Basil?"
"I think so, once; not in any remarkable degree, but sufficient for most purposes."
"And now," replied Basil, taking his pipe from his mouth, and holding it listlessly between his fingers, "the life seems to have gone out of me. The only tie that binds me to it is you. I owe you an everlasting debt of gratitude, old fellow, and I wish I could do something to repay it. But in tying yourself to me you are tied to a log that keeps dragging you down. The ill luck that pursues us come from me. Throw me off and fortune will smile upon you."