Jupiter in Sagittarius (18 February 1866)
- Meanwhile, Lauderback and gotten out of Hokitika for the moment, since he didn't like seeing the Godspeed as it was getting hauled up on shore (a view he couldn't really avoid, since his window at the hotel looked out over it).
- So, at the present moment, he's in Kumara hunting with Balfour.
- It seems that a few days after the Godspeed wrecked, Balfour admitted to Lauderback that his crate (the one with the deed) was missing. Of course, Lauderback no longer really cared about the deed, since there was now no ship to get back from Carver.
- When Balfour mentions that he is about to go back to Hokitika, Lauderback tries to get him to stay—but Balfour stands firm (since he wants to get to Lydia's séance that evening).
- Relations between the two men seem to have changed. Because Balfour believes that Lauderback has held back the full story of his relationship to Carver and Wells, he doesn't feel that inclined to suck up to him anymore.
- As they keep talking, Balfour manages to get himself into a very sticky situation. He ends up tipping Lauderback off to the fact that Shepard got the money to build his jailhouse from Nilssen—which means he violated the pact of secrecy that the 13 men at the Crown had agreed upon back in January.
- Balfour then floats the possibility that the gold Carver had had sewn into ladies' dresses had somehow found its way into Crosbie's cabin, since the value of the two gold piles matched pretty well, it seems …
- After they parted ways, Lauderback went and wrote a letter to Ben for the purposes of getting it published in the West Coast Times. It asked George Shepard to identify the sources of his funding for the jailhouse. He then sent a messenger with the letter in the hopes of getting it in Monday's paper.