rehension. The Peetrees were not unsociable, but
with them conversation was not essential to human intercourse. They were
content to sit on a log, or spread themselves on the dry grass in company
with friendly diggers, smoking composedly through a whole evening,
without contributing more than an approving 'My word!' or 'My colonial!'
to the night's debate. Mike was in full sympathy with their neighbours.
Like him, they were deeply imbued with the spirit of revolt stirring in
the land, and they were as eager to participate in the struggle that was
to overthrow the rule of the nominees of Downing Street and strangle the
hydra of official tyranny; but Done, although his sentiments were just as
strongly on the side of the miners, was too profoundly concerned with the
actions and interests of the moment to content himself with the society
of the Peetrees and the discussion of possibilities. He liked them; they
were amusing elements in the varied life around him, but he wanted to see
and to hear. His blood ran too hotly for camp-fire argument. When the
time for fighting came, well and good: none would be more eager than he;
but meanwhile love and laughter, play and strife, invited a man, and Jim
responded with the impetuosity of an impish boy just escaped from
parental control.

The mates continued to do well at Jim Crow, and Jim Done found himself
growing tolerably rich without any marked gratification. He could not see
what more gold could confer upon him. He was now a nightly visitor at
Mrs. Ben Kyley's tent, but gambled with rather more spirit of late, and,
finding himself a much less easy victim to Mary's rum, drank more than
formerly. A certain stage of intoxication--an intoxication of the blood
rather than the senses--threw a roseate glamour over the gaieties of the
shanty, and robbed him of that remaining reticence of manner and speech
that would have kept him an observer rather than a participant.

Police supervision was fitful and weak at Jim Crow, and there were wild
nights at Mary Kyley's. Aurora appeared in a new character--that of
popular musician. Seated with her heels tucked under her on the end of
the shanty bar, she rattled off lively dance-music on an old violin; or,
mounted on an inverted tub, she sang songs of rebellion and devilment to
a crowd of diggers warm with rum and rampant with animal spirits. Mary
Kyley, whose gay heart responded readily to the conviviality of her
guests, danced at these times, c