Whenever the gold-hunters moved their camp, the bushmen volunteered to carry the luggage.

And the white men waxed ever more careless.

They grew weary prospecting, and at the same time carrying their rifles and the heavy cartridge-belts, and the practice began of leaving their weapons behind them in camp.
"I tell 'm plenty fella white marster look sharp eye belong him.

And plenty fella white marster make 'm big laugh along me, say Binu Charley allee same pickaninny--my word, they speak along me allee same pickaninny." Came the morning when Binu Charley noticed that the women and children had disappeared.

Tudor, at the time, was lying in a stupor with fever in a late camp five miles away, the main camp having moved on those five miles in order to prospect an outcrop of likely quartz.