It is full three months after Saul' Fielding's introduction to the small settlement in Campbell's Ranges. Of human beings there are fifty souls, all told. Four women--wives--seven children, and thirty-nine men. Of other living creatures there are at least a dozen dogs--(what is your gold-field without its dogs?)--three goats, wise, as all goats are, in their generation, a large number of poultry (some of them in the shell), and a cat. The shade of Whittington would rejoice if it knew that this cat cost an ounce of gold--and a pinch over. It is June and winter, and the snow-season is in its meridian. The workers are snow-bound; the heights all around them are more than man-deep in snow. But they have no fear. They have made wise preparations for the coming of the enemy, and up to the present time they have escaped hurt. They have wood and provisions to last them for full six months. That they are cut off from the world for a time daunts them not. Their courage is of the Spartan kind. They have been successful far beyond their expectations, and nearly every man there is worth his hundred ounces of gold. Some have more, a few less. Saul has eighty ounces, and he keeps it next to his heart, sewn in his blue serge shirt David's wife reproved him once for carrying the weight about. 'It is nearly seven pounds weight, Saul Fielding,' she said; 'it must weigh you down.' 'Weigh me down, David's wife! he replied, with a sweet look in his eyes. 'It is a feather's weight. It bears me up! It is not mine; it belongs to the dearest woman in the world. The little bag that contains it contains my salvation!' David and Saul were mates; they dug and shared, and he lived with the father, mother, and child. The man he called David, the woman David's wife, the child David's daughter. He said to David's wife one day: 'When I go home and join my dear woman, she and I every night of our lives will call down a blessing for David and David's wife, and David's daughter.' He often said things to David's wife that brought tears to her eyes. 'We shall go home, too,' said David's wife, 'and we shall see her.' 'Please God,' returned Saul, and whispered, 'Come, happy time!'