Henry’s heart pounded so hard he could feel it thudding against his ribs. False hope was a common thing on the goldfields. There were so many stories about promising leads that had bottomed out, or a flash in a gold-panning dish that was just that and no more. Days and days of washing and sifting dirt often produced only the tiniest amount of gold, or nothing at all.

But this was different.

He squatted down and looked at the line of rock in the wall of the new tunnel. It was a while before he saw the glint of gold, but it was there.

‘I can only see it because the sun is at just that angle,’ he said aloud, wonderingly. ‘If it wasn’t for the sun, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all.’

He climbed up the ladder and stood breathing the fresh air. He was shaking. It had been quiet on the goldfields earlier because nearly all the miners, apart from the Chinese, had gone to the meeting at Bakery Hill. Now they were back, and all around him Henry could hear the usual racket of the diggings: the laughing and shouting and occasional bursts of song, the creak and thud of windlasses and cradles and horse-drawn whims.

For as far as Henry could see, people were working hard, swinging picks, shovelling earth, sinking shafts, working, working, working.

Out of all these people, he thought, I have been successful. I’ve made the sort of discovery everyone dreams of making. The sort of discovery that will change our lives.

Holding the piece of rock, he walked over to where Frank and Eliza were working the cradle.

‘Have a look at this,’ he said to Frank.

Frank glanced at it. ‘It don’t look like much.’

‘Look again,’ Henry said. ‘See? That’s gold, isn’t it?’

Frank grabbed the rock. ‘Where?’

‘Show me,’ said Eliza, reaching for it. ‘Show me! Let me look!’

Henry grabbed it back and held it up to the sun. The gold glittered. ‘There!’

‘I can see it,’ crowed Eliza.

‘Me too.’ Frank stared at the rock. ‘But I don’t believe it.’

‘I didn’t believe it either,’ Henry said. ‘But it’s there, isn’t it?’ His feeling of shock was changing to one of excitement. Wait till he told Father! ‘There could be a whole lot of gold down there,’ he went on. ‘Father told me our claim could be on an old buried river bed. It could even be part of a new lead.’

Frank opened his eyes wide. ‘Does that mean we’re rich? Really rich?’

Henry ignored the ‘we’, because Frank was his friend. He nodded. ‘We could be.’

Frank shook Henry’s hand. Then he hugged him in a bear hug. ‘We’re rich,’ he shouted. ‘We’re rich! We’re rich!’

‘We’re rich!’ yelled Eliza.

They held hands and jumped up and down, screaming. People around them looked up from their work and came over to see what was happening. ‘Well done, bairns,’ said Alex McGregor. ‘I’m right pleased for ye.’

‘What he means is he’d be even more pleased if it was his find,’ said another miner, a young man in dirty moleskins. But he thumped Henry on the shoulder. ‘Good for you, lad. It just goes to show that you should never lose hope.’

‘Yes,’ said Henry. He couldn’t stop smiling. ‘You never know what’s around the corner, do you?’

As he said it, he heard a familiar shout. ‘Joe! Joe! Joe!’

‘I know what’s around the corner,’ said Alex McGregor. ‘The wallopers, that’s what. You bairns had best make yourselves scarce.’

In the distance Henry could see a couple of blue-uniformed troopers on horseback. Were they riding in his direction? Yes, they were.

He put the piece of rock in his coat pocket.

‘Come on,’ said Eliza. ‘We mustn’t get caught.’

They raced each other as far as the main road and then stopped, panting and laughing. When they had their breath back, they walked up and down the street, looking in the shop windows.

‘We can have as many cream buns as we like now,’ Henry said, gazing at the baker’s display and breathing in the smell of fresh-baked bread. ‘And we can have eggs and toffee and chocolate and . . .’

‘I can have new clothes,’ Eliza chimed in. ‘With lace on. And a parasol.’

‘I’ll get a gold watch for Father,’ said Henry. ‘And a horse for me.’

‘New shoes for me and the children,’ Frank said, looking down at his battered old boots. ‘And a fine house for Ma.’

‘A house for us, too,’ said Henry. ‘With a proper outhouse. No more holes in the ground.’

‘An outhouse!’ said Frank. ‘Sure, we’ll have one of those as well.’

There was nothing they couldn’t have! The thought made Henry feel dizzy. ‘We should get back to the claim,’ he said at last. ‘The traps must’ve gone by now.’

He put his hand in his pocket and touched the rock, just to make sure of it. Had he really found gold? It was like a dream. But the rock was there, as real as he was.

Nearer to the claim, Henry stopped. Something was wrong. A horse was hitched to the fallen log. He prayed that it belonged to somebody just passing through. But what if it belonged to one of the traps? And what if –

Oh Lord.

He began to run.