enever he was on the spree. Sometimes, when in the later stages of
his cups, Knox would fire in all directions apparently for the purpose
of relieving his feelings. However, as there were no tents very close
to his, this did not matter so very much. Many a time have I heard the
old Colt revolver barking at intervals through the evening, but the
performance was taken quite as a matter of course. One would merely say
to another:

"Hullo, there's Knox at it again. I suppose he'll be out to-morrow or
the day after."

I remember something which caused much comment early in 1875. I can
vouch for the details, so far as I relate them. On New Year's Night,
1874, three men met at a bar known as "The Half-way House," which stood
where the creek narrowed and made a sharp turn a few hundred yards
above the Middle Camp. The late John Barrington, afterwards of Knysna,
was one, another was a man named Marshall, the name of the third I have
forgotten.

Just before midnight they drank to a profane and senseless toast,
"Before this day twelve months may we all die in a tail-race and be
covered by tailings." "Tailings" are the waste products of the
sluice-box, the sand and gravel carried away by the stream of water
which flows over the "ripples."

About four months afterwards the man whose name I have forgotten was
out prospecting among the higher ranges to the north of the creek. He
fell ill and endeavored to return to camp, but a bitterly cold rain set
in and he perished miserably. Soon afterwards Marshall, who had been in
the Low Country, went down with fever. The attack was comparatively
light, so he soon got better. But one dark night, while still somewhat
weak, he went out to visit a friend. Not far from the tent of the
latter a "head-race," which is not just the same as a "tail-race," had
recently been dug. As the digging had been effected while Marshall was
laid up, he was unaware of the existence of the excavation.

The head-race was about eight feet deep; it was wide at the top, but it
narrowed down to about a foot's-breadth at the bottom. Into this chasm
poor Marshall fell headlong, and his shoulders jammed where the channel
narrowed. Owing to weakness he was unable to extricate himself, and his
head, being downward, damned the water up so that it drowned him. The
tent of the friend he had intended to visit stood close by. This man
noticed that the flow of the water stopped several times and then went
on again with a rush.