E. R. Punshon

“ Meanwhile he touched his hat to him and called him "sir," and observed that he had been working at the Vaal diggings, and was now on his way to Kimberley.
"Had any luck?" asked the farmer carelessly.
"Not much," answered Robson, hugging his secret knowledge to himself, "It's a trying sort of job."
"It's a poor sort of way of earning a living," said the young farmer severely—"just like going to Monte Carlo on the chance of breaking the bank. I suppose the attraction is, the boys do all the work while you lie in the shade and watch them, and hope they'll bring off the big find they never do." ”

“ When the coach had gone, Watson went back into the stable. The body would have to be removed, and it had occurred to him that he might as well go through the pockets and see if there was anything in them. As he expected, there was nothing at all; but he noticed the belt round the dead man's waist, and he took it off. It seemed a good one, and might be useful, and would be as well with him as with the police. He flung it down, and went out to get two of the boys to remove the body, and when he came back he was just in time to see one of the mules busy eating the belt. ”

“ If he wants anything, he can come out and ask for it."
But John Robson, potential rich man, owner of the biggest diamond South Africa had produced for ever so long, was not going to ask for anything from the man who had insulted him.
He hugged his wrath more than did Watson, who by the time the next coach arrived had quite forgotten it.
"Bill," he said to the driver, "there's a poor, half-crazed fool been hanging round here the last few days, dead set on getting to Kimberley. He can't pay his fare, but how would it be if you gave him a lift? You ain't such a big load to-day." ”

“ THE DIAMOND
By E. R. PUNSHON
"ONCE a digger, always a digger," say the people of South Africa; and, again, "No man ever leaves the Vaal." But John Robson was very sure that he at least was going to be an exception to that general and well-proved rule. ”

“ You get sick of the game once in a while, and you think you'll do some honest work for a change, instead of lying about half drunk, watching your boys and hoping they will make a big find, which they never do. ”

“ Watson cursed a little and hit the mule, and flung the belt away. Later a prowling hyena found it and ate it. And now, whether the Kimberley coach is drawn by a mule with a five-thousand-pound diamond inside it, or whether that diamond, is in the interior of one of the hyenas Watson can hear howling by night, is a problem that troubles neither him nor anyone else, since no one knows anything about it.
Copyright, 1917, by E. R. Punshon, in the United States of America
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. ”

“ Some would be dead, he supposed, and some here and some there, and most would be snug citizens, going daily to their offices and returning at night to their comfortable villas situated in select residential districts, and he—well, he was here in rags, trudging across the veld with a fortune in his pocket. ”