Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/541

9, 1863.]

seven years ago I was at work on Burnt Flat, Springfield. I didn’t live on the flat, for the fellows who congregated about there were such a rowdy lot that my mate and I preferred taking up our abode at the head of one of the small gullies in the neighbourhood. Only one other person lived near us, and that was an old fellow named Steele, who occupied a log-hut about a couple of hundred yards from our tent. He had been on the diggings ever since the first, and had never been known to work with a mate; in fact, from his lonely habits he was known far and wide as “the Hatter.” His sole companion was a large and powerful kangaroo dog, named Watchman, whose disposition very much resembled that of his master, for he never took notice either of man or beast except when they approached too near the hut, on which occasions he showed himself worthy of his name.

The Hatter had been at work for a long time at some surfacing on an adjacent hill. When he first began at it some few trials of the stuff were made by others, but as they never could manage to hit upon anything payable, he was