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

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But more matter-of-fact mundane considerations had to be considered, and primarily dealt with. Three months’ further leave had to be applied for ssss1 ‘upon urgent private affairs,’ at the conclusion of which period the applicant proposed to retire from the New South Wales Civil Service. This was tolerably certain to be granted. The appointment was a fairly good one, as such billets go. There are always aspiring suitors for promotion, or officials of equal rank and qualifications, who, from family or other reasons, desire removal.

Of course the truth leaked out after a few days. The departure of the Commissioner and the old prospector had not been unnoticed. No joint enterprise could have been possible in his own district; such a partnership would have been illegal. Even if veiled, it must inevitably have led to complications between private and official relations. Against all such enterprises, however alluring, he had set his face resolutely. So the public came to the conclusion even before the first copies of the Western Watchman came to hand, that the ‘show’ must be in another colony; and so would result only in the loss of their Commissioner and Police Magistrate—in addition to the usual exodus of that section of the population which invariably follows the newest ‘rush,’ whether to Carpentaria or Klondyke. Then waifs and wasters could be well spared, while the steady workers would be useful in sending back reliable information to their mates and friends. Con Heffernan had started, Patroclus the Greek, Karl Richter, and the two Morgans; they would write quick enough after they got there, and if the find was half as good as was talked about, every man in Barrawong who wasn’t married, or ssss1 had cash enough to take him there, would be on the road within forty-eight hours.