CHAPTER XI.
On the 8th July I left Kiandra, in company with “Johnnie the Mailman”; it was a bad season for travelling, inasmuch as the snow lay thick on the ground, several feet deep in places. On his last trip up he lost his way, and had to camp out all night, notwithstanding which he determined to make the return trip, and as he was the best guide I could get, I made up my mind to accompany him. Before starting, Carmichael put a bottle of the best “battle-axe” into my valise, as he said, “There is none to be had on the road, and it might come in handy,” which sure enough it did. On reaching Adelong I received a pressing invitation from my friends Drummond and Jones, the manager and accountant there, to stay for a day or two and recruit, which I did. They had just removed into their new premises—a comfortable brick building, with every accommodation. One day during my stay we went down to an old building which had been for some years used as the bank office, the floor of which we took up, and collected several bucketsful of dirt and dust from underneath, which we took down to the creek and washed. So many thousand ounces of gold having been cleaned in the office, it was only reasonable to suppose some little must have found its way through the cracks in the floor; and it is astonishing how little, for out of five or six buckets of dirt we only got a few pennyweights, showing how carefully the gold must have been cleaned. I have known as much as 10 ozs. of gold taken from under the floor of a gold office. I had great fun in panning off, that part, as an old experienced digger, falling to my lot. In panning off the first dish, in which I could see there was very little gold, I took the opportunity, when Drummond, who was watching me closely, was turning away, of slipping a small nugget, which I had in my mouth, into the dish, which he no sooner saw than he took possession of, and said he would take it as his share of the day’s work; it was a case of the “biter bit.” Before I left I told him of the little joke I had played upon him.
On the morning of the 16th July I started for Lambing Flat, in company with a gentleman named Saunders. About midday we made Gundagai. Here we found two townships, known as North
