We rather ran than walked, but we were scarcely a mile out of town before we overtook some six or seven others bent on the same journey. The first twenty miles ran on a good road; that would be as far as we could go that night, because the next ten miles were only a blazed track right through the bush made by the prospectors, and could only be safely traversed in the daylight. On the whole journey we were both overtaken ourselves, and overtook other people, until, when we arrived at the camp, we numbered a score or more. Here we found another score of diggers sleeping or smoking, waiting for daylight. It was a moonlight night, and I could see that we had arrived at a place where a few humpies stood in seeming disorder round about. There was also a public-house, and it was in the street in front of that, that the whole army halted. I was both hot and tired, and as my mate suggested that we had better get an hour or two of sleep, I laid myself down and slept. I woke up again as my mate was shaking me. It was just break of day; still we seemed late, for everybody was up and stirring. There was no time for a billy of tea, or for ever so slight a stretch: it was up and away. Oh, how tired I was, and stiff, and footsore! I would not have minded if I might have started quietly, but this seemed like a race. Although I lost no time, yet I was the very last through the little street with the heavy swag on my back. My mate was beckoning to me as he, also late, ran a few hundred feet in front, and then disappeared amongst the trees. I felt irritable, as I often do before I have had my breakfast. I came by a baker's shop, over the door of which was written, "Cold refreshing summer drinks sold here." The baker and his wife, and a young girl also, were peeping out through the half-opened door, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle of the crowd racing down the street. I said to myself, "Bother running like a fool here, I am going for a bottle of beer." The baker asked me if I was going to look for gold out there, or was I looking for a job? "Because," said he, "if you think of finding gold in that place you will be mistaken." He then told me he had been on the spot the previous day, and that it was a "duffer," but still there would be a rush, and he would much like to get somebody to ride out with bread every day and sell it at the place. I told him I could not leave my mate like that, but the baker just invited me in to breakfast, and offered me the loan of a horse, and said also that he himself would take bread out as soon as we could be off. "Perhaps," said he, "if my mate did not like the place, as he was sure he would not, I might take a job from him."