"Surfacing, I suppose?" said he, with a slight but sufficient indication of the Tynesiders' claim. "I beg your pardon?" said Denis, out of his depth at once. "I ought to beg yours," the tall man responded, opening his blue eyes a little wider, and regarding Denis with quiet interest. "I merely saw you come away from that claim over there, and I take rather an interest in Black Hill Flat. That is it, you know." Denis nodded. "You aren't a new chum, then?" the other added, smiling over the term. "Oh, yes, I am. This is our first sight of the diggings." "Then it's no use asking you a technical question; but surfacing, of course, means going no deeper than the surface--some ten or twenty feet, don't you know. Very few do go deeper, and I am not sure that it would pay on this flat." Denis explained that the Tynesiders had only got about five feet down. "So many of them give it up at that," said the tall man, with a faint smile, and would have gone on with the least little nod; but Denis quickly asked him how deep he would go himself and what he thought of Black Hill Flat. "I'm a deep-sinker," was the reply; "but if I wasn't, and was one of a party, there's nowhere I would sooner try my luck than over there. The drawback is than you can't go very near the water, because the lead doesn't; so you have a long way to carry your wash-dirt, and it wants three or four to keep the pot boiling. On the other hand that's what keeps off the average digger, who's the most impatient person in the world, and so you have the place more or less to yourself. Still, of course, the fewer there are to seek the longer they will take to find, unless some one is very fortunate. A lucky man, though," said the tall digger, looking back toward the Tynesiders' camp--"a lucky man with two hard-working mates might make his fortune there as soon as anywhere." "Didn't some Frenchmen?" asked Denis, remembering what he had heard at the claim. "Ah, that was on the hill, and quartz; how they crushed it I can't conceive; for the ordinary man it would be more ruinous than deep sinking, which is saying a great deal." The tall digger was turning away again, with rather more of a smile, but Denis's eager face detained him a little longer. "Then which do you recommend," asked Denis, "surfacing or deep-sinking?" "Oh, come," laughed the other, "I'll be shot if I recommend either! It depends on yourself and your resources. One's quick and cheap and easy, but nearly all a matter of luck; the other's far slower and more expensive, but also far surer for a man of intelligence, as I can see you are. If you go in for surfacing, you might give Black Hill Flat a trial; but I shouldn't tackle it less than three strong."