d.

"Well, no, I can't say that I see much of it. Sometimes the fellers make
a rumpus, but they generally let me alone, and that's all I ax of 'em.
But whar's that 'ere licker we's to have? 'Pears to me it's rather slow
in getting 'long."

"Here it comes," shouted Charley, bustling around the crowded room, if,
indeed, room it could be called. "I had to wait for it to be unloaded,
Ben, 'cos it arrived only an hour or two ago from Sydney."

"You say it's the real New York first proof whiskey, do ye?" asked Ben,
holding a tumbler two thirds full of the stuff up to the light, and
scanning its color with a critical eye.

"The real thing, and no mistake. It's just sich as you used to git when
chopping away down in the backwoods of Maine," replied Charley.

We then discovered, what we had all along suspected, that the miner was
an American, and belonged in the Eastern State.

"Come, ain't you fellers a goin' to drink with us? That ain't exactly
the thing, you know. There ain't no aristocracy in these parts. Every
feller is tree and equal, as the old Constitution of the States says."

We could not withstand Ben's pressing intimation that we were to
consider ourselves no better than others present, and after waiting
five minutes for a chance at a glass, we managed to swallow a few
mouthfuls of the vile stuff.

"That's the ticket!" he cried, when he saw that we were disposed to
follow his example; "nothing like good whiskey to keep a man all right,
at the mines. I don't drink much myself, but I've no objections to other
people taking a nip now and then."

As he spoke, he held out his glass for another nip, and the attentive
Charley, with an eye to his profits, quickly filled it.

"I give you," said Ben, appealing to the crowd for silence--for most of
the miners had grown talkative, under the influence of their drink--"I
give you a toast. Here's to the tax, and d---- the man that wouldn't
d---- it!"

The toast was received with yells of applause, and even when the
confusion was at its height, I noticed a small, dark-complexioned man,
wearing a blue frock coat with brass buttons, but with no other insignia
of office or authority, enter the room.

His presence was not noticed by the crowd, which still continued its
revels, until the new comer approached us, when a death-like silence
crept over the assembly.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said the dark man, addressing Fred and myself
in a courteous manner; "I belive that