he claims were started again, and Cullen had
orders for picks by the ton; while the possibility of reefs being
discovered, and tunnels and shafts being necessary to work them, filled
Smart with enthusiasm at the amount of sawn timber which would be
required in the early months of the coming year. It was evidently a
period of boom in the history of the town, and to pass the time until
the festive season was over, many a form of entertainment was suggested.
A race meeting was absolutely necessary, everybody urged, the diggers
for the fun of the thing, the selectors with an eye to business, for the
diggers had no horses, and as they might like to run their own, sales
were not improbable.

In the mean time some one suggested a euchre tournament and a billiard
handicap, and, in a day, what attention every one of the miners could
spare from the other attractions of the Rest, was absorbed in the double
struggle. In a couple of days, as far as they were able to understand
clearly, the majority of the men had lost a considerable portion of the
gold they had brought in; but no one seemed to have won it. Tap, who had
returned to the Rest, usually had a hand in the games that were going;
and Gleeson, who mingled with the crowd as a stranger to the other, also
joined in the fun, though mostly on the billiard-table. They were the
only two who never lost.

There was a certain element of mystery about the billiard-table at the
Rest, such as might reasonably be expected from cushions which had been
subjected to ten years of the Birralong climate, and from balls which
had been played with by such visitors as came to the Rest. A kerosene
lamp with a tin reflector, standing over each corner pocket, is not the
best light a billiard-table can have, more especially in a country where
flies and other winged insects are numerous, and possessed of a habit
of assembling largely round the lamps, and falling, more or less singed,
on the cloth of the table. To these drawbacks Gleeson earnestly
attributed the bad luck which usually attended the play of his
opponents, and the extraordinary strokes with which he was able to win
the hardest fought games; but not even these extenuating circumstances
could quite reconcile the miners to the constant loss they suffered at
his hands, and so it came about that he was the first one at whom they
shied.

In this he was personally responsible to a very large extent, for being
a man of exalted opinions as to hi