rose from the eastward stretched out threateningly towards the two
men tramping steadily onward through the dewy grass, as though it
would have drawn them back again to the prison from whence they had
so miraculously escaped.




CHAPTER I

THE PACTOLUS CLAIM


In the early days of Australia, when the gold fever was at its
height, and the marvellous Melbourne of to-day was more like an
enlarged camp than anything else, there was a man called Robert
Curtis, who arrived in the new land of Ophir with many others to
seek his fortune. Mr Curtis was of good family, but having been
expelled from Oxford for holding certain unorthodox opinions quite
at variance with the accepted theological tenets of the University,
he had added to his crime by marrying a pretty girl, whose face was
her fortune, and who was born, as the story books say, of poor but
honest parents. Poverty and honesty, however, were not sufficient
recommendations in the eyes of Mr Curtis, senior, to excuse such a
match; so he promptly followed the precedent set by Oxford, and
expelled his son from the family circle. That young gentleman and
his wife came out to Australia filled with ambitious dreams of
acquiring a fortune, and then of returning to heap coals of fire on
the heads of those who had turned them out.