Denis Dent by E.W. Hornung

Jewson had not exaggerated the manifest attraction of the claim in Rotten Gully. The hut was eighteen feet by ten, very solidly built, with a fireplace and a chimney at the inner end. Many neat contrivances in the shape of shelves and racks testified to the leisurely particularity of the late owner. He had settled down as on some desert island where a man might expect to end his days. There were refinements so superfluous in themselves as to suggest that the actual work had proved as alluring as the natural reward. In point of fact the Eureka Lead had been followed through the gully and lost on the flat beyond while this deliberate digger built him his hut and sank the hole which he was fated to abandon within a few feet of the gutter.

But the hole was by far the best and soundest in the gully, which deserved its name insomuch as it provided insecure sinkings as a rule. Some of the abandoned shafts had already fallen in; but this one was beautifully slabbed with timber from top to bottom, now some sixty odd feet, the depth of the lead hereabouts being something under seventy.