140 Australian Life 



ment and hardships of a hundred " rushes." If 

 they stopped to reckon up the risks, their chance of 

 "pegging out ' ' a good claim would be a very small 

 one. Therefore, the prospector must put dangers 

 behind him, or face them with the pluck and en- 

 durance that comes from a brave and hopeful 

 spirit. The whitening bones of camels and horses 

 are not the only objects that serve to remind the 

 traveller on these Western plains that if the re- 

 wards offered are great, the risks are great also. 

 Wherever the prospector has been, there may be 

 found the graves of the pioneers just a mound 

 of sand, with a rough railing of wood, fencing it 

 from the surrounding desert. Sometimes a wooden 

 slab or tin plate proclaims the name of the man 

 who rests there, but very often these graves in 

 the wilderness are nameless, because the names 

 of the dead men were not known to the miners 

 who buried them there. 



Their story they could easily have told, for 

 many of them had been within an ace of enacting 

 it themselves. A too bold incursion into un- 

 known wastes, a dried-up water-hole, and an 

 empty water-bag, and then the awful delirium of 

 thirst under a fiery sun. And somewhere on the 

 green Eastern coast, a lonely woman waiting for 

 a letter that never comes. Every Australian pro- 

 spector knows that story by heart. 



But let us accompany our Argonauts in their 

 plucky expedition to the rush at " Back of Be- 

 yond." On arrival there, they learn the good 



