The story goes that the old gold digger hit pay dirt.
Nobody knows how true it is. They say he had travelled what must have been the best part of thirty kilometres, on foot, in one day. Through the hot desert and the bush, he had made his way into town. He started before sunup and arrived at the public house in the late afternoon. Exhausted, he went to the bar and dropped a tiny pellet of gold on the counter. He sat with cold beers recuperating for a while before thinking about the huge gold nugget he was carrying. He thought it would be unwise to have it on display in public, particularly in such a place. He made his way to the gents, where he dug into his pocket. It was not there! He found a hole! He checked his other pocket. He checked all of his pockets, several times. It was obvious; it had been that pocket. It had been in that pocket with the tear in it and it had fallen out, but where?
He asked himself how anything that big and that heavy could fall through his pocket without him noticing. It had been a very hot day. He had felt delirious a couple of times. Anyway, the more he thought about it, the more he realised that it could only be somewhere along the thirty kilometres he’d just walked. He would have to retrace his route, every inch of it! It would be worth it; worth the trouble. He’d get a room here, then take off at first light.
Back at the bar, without making too much of a show of it, he began by checking the floor of the pub, then the steps at the front. He got a few queer looks from people, but ignored them. They didn’t know what was at stake. Outside, he stood looking back along the side of the road he had come in on. He shook his head and went back in to finish his drink.
The story goes that back at the bar he thinks about how he’d found what he’d spent three long years looking for. He remembers how he was chipping away when the thing just fell out and landed at his feet. He remembers how he picked it up and weighed it in the palm of his hand. He had tried to estimate what it was worth. It had to be worth thousands, considering the going rate. It would either fetch enough for him to retire, or at the very least to return to the same spot and hopefully find more and with better equipment and supplies. Thinking back, it now dawned on him that he’d come away too quickly, on an impulse. There was bound to be more at the site. Despite everything, that night he slept well.
Some say he took off the next morning. Some say he went back, all the way back, taking care to retrace his steps, and some say he was never seen again.