I didn't like to say convict, and so I hesitated.

"O, yes; I was sentenced to ten years' transportation for writing
another man's name instead of my own on a piece of paper."

"That is forgery."

The convict smiled, as much as to say, you have hit it, and continued to
smoke his pipe with infinite satisfaction.

"I should like to know if the company we are likely to meet in the mines
are of the same class?" muttered Fred.

"Most of them," replied the man, who appeared to be a man of education;
"and you'll find them more honest than those never sentenced, because
they know that their freedom depends upon their reputation."

We sat staring at our informant for some time; but after a while he
knocked the ashes from his pipe, and arose as though going.

"If you want your traps taken to the mines at a reasonable rate, I'll do
it for you, as I start to-morrow with a load of goods for Ballarat," he
said, after a moment's hesitation.

"Is that mine productive?" we asked.

"It's as rich as any of them. You may sink a shaft and strike a vein,
and you may get nothing. It's all a lottery."

We consulted together for a few minutes, and concluded to try our