eight o'clock in the morning
The cattle you saw belong to one of us -- this man here , '' pointing to Jansen , `` will sell you a beast to-morrow , I daresay . '' Then the armed protectors of the integrity from foreign invasion of the rights of Chinkie 's Flat nodded `` Good evening '' to Ah San , and walked back across the road to the `` Digger 's Best , '' and the Chinamen , with silent , childlike patience , resumed their loads and trotted along after their leader . They disappeared over the hill , and ere darkness descended the glare of their camp fires was casting steady gleams of light upon the dark waters of the still pool beneath the ridge . It was eight o'clock in the morning , and Jimmy Ah San , a fat , pleasant-faced Chinaman , dressed in European costume , came outside his tent , and filling his pipe , sat down on the ground , and with his hands clasped on his knees , saw six of the white men emerge from two or three humpies , and walk down to the new shaft to begin work . He was well acquainted with the previous history of the spot upon which he was now gazing , and something like a scowl darkened his good-humoured face as he looked upon the ragged , half-famished surrivors of his company , and thought of the past horrors and hardships of the fearful journey from the Cloncurty . Fifteen of their number had been murdered by blacks in less than a fortnight , and the bones of half a dozen more , who had succumbed to exhaustion or thirst lay bleaching on a strip of desert country between the Cloncurry and the Burdekin River . But Ah San was a man of courage -- and resource as well -- and his five-and-twenty years ' experience of bush and mining life in the Far North of Australia enabled him to pilot the remainder of his men by forced marches to the Cape River , where they had spelled for a month so as to gain strength for the long stage between that river and Conolly 's Creek , on one of the deserted fields of which he hoped to settle and retrieve his broken fortunes .