From thence they had managed, by fair means and foul, to work their way to other places, and had latterly been living in the Middle Island, earning what they could by horse-breaking and divers odd jobs.
But your true convict hates work with a curiously deadly hatred, and these four men agreed to go and look round them at the new West Coast diggings.

They found, however, that there, as elsewhere, it would be necessary to work hard, so in disgust at seeing the nuggets and dust which rewarded the toil of more industrious men, they left Hokitika and reached Nelson on their way to Picton, the chief town of the adjoining province of Marlborough.

Most of the gold found its way under a strongly armed escort to the banks in both these towns, but it was well-known that fortunate diggers occasionally travelled together, unarmed, and laden with "dust." So safe had been the roads hitherto, that the commonest precautions were not taken, nor the least secrecy observed about travellers' movements.
It was therefore no mystery that four unarmed diggers, carrying a considerable number of ounces of gold-dust with them, were going to start from the Canvas-town diggings for Nelson on a certain day, and the men I have mentioned set out to meet them.

One part of their long journey led them over the Maungatapu range by a saddle, which in its lowest part is 2,700 feet above the sea-level.

The night before the murder, the victims and their assassins camped out with only ten miles between them.