Very gently and quietly, but firmly, Estelle made it apparent to her hostess that she was not to be shaken in her purpose. She had formed her plans carefully before leaving Melbourne, indeed during the voyage, and she had determined to see with her own eyes the very claim, as they called it, where he, the loved, the lost Lance Trevanion had worked. She must see John Polwarth, with whose name she was familiar, and his honest-hearted wife. She would never be able to rest without full and complete explanation from Mr. Stirling of all things connected with Lance's mysterious disappearance. Of course she could imagine that in Australia people often moved away to new diggings at great distances, and, she supposed, left off writing to their friends, though she could hardly account for it in her cousin's case. 'Poor thing! poor thing!' said Mrs. M'Alpine to herself, 'she will have to hear the wretched truth some time or other. _I_ can't venture upon it, but I don't know a man who is more likely to break it to her gently than Charlie Stirling, and so, as she is bent upon it, the sooner she gets safely out to "Growlers'" the better.' So it came to pass that, as Mr. M'Alpine was still absent on outpost duty, a trusty messenger was despatched next day for the Commissioner, who regretfully saw Estelle safely into the coach which, leaving daily for Growlers' at the convenient hour of 10 A.M., was the recognised mode of communication with that rising goldfield and township. There were two horses instead of four. The coach was smaller, and by no means so well appointed. The driver was less distinguished in air and manner, but capable and civil, particularly after receiving the Commissioner's strict injunction to take great care of his lady passenger. The road was more than novel, indeed exciting, to Estelle's untravelled mind, winding amid fallen trees, bounded on either side by yawning dark-mouthed shafts of unknown depth--some desolate and deserted, with unused windlass and dangling rope; others in work, with full-laden buckets which, as they came to the surface, Estelle believed to be partly filled with gold--now crossing a rushing water-race upon a rustic bridge of most temporary nature, and finally plunging through a creek which flowed level with the feet of the inside passengers. On the farther bank of this much celebrated watercourse stood a scattered collection of huts, tents, and cottages, threading which by no particular roadway the coach dashed ostentatiously into a more closely occupied thoroughfare, in which some dozen edifices of superior pretensions denoted the business centre of the township.