Читать книгу The Last Chance: A Tale of the Golden West онлайн

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‘That makes it just right for us, sir,’ said the old man; ‘they’ll knock out the track of our wheels, for good and all, so that no man can tell where we left the main trail—and they’ve twisted, and twisted so, as any feller that’s trackin’ us up won’t have any show of hittin’ our dart, any more’n a mob of kangaroos.’

Both partners knew enough of the working of claims on new goldfields to judge how essential it was to their success that they should be able to take possession, undisturbed by the tumult and confusion of a rush on new ground, known or reported to be rich. Wild exaggerations, and rumours of Aladdin’s caves, would pass from camp to camp, with every fresh arrival of miners. The Commissioner had seen before the lonely creek flat, or fern-fringed gully, converted within forty-eight hours into a populous township, with main street, shops, hotels, billiard-rooms, more or less effective for their needs; while every acre for miles around the reef or alluvial deposit was pegged out and jealously guarded by armed men, whom it needed but little imagination to believe capable of shedding blood in defence of their legal or fancied rights.