o empty gin cases--one for
the solid gold of the miners, and the other for the gold, notes, and
paper of the trio.

Then the game began, and the men crowded round the walls of the room,
silent, stern, and scowling, as they saw Gleeson run away from their
champion like a racehorse from a bullock-team. He went out the points
he had boastingly offered ahead of the Birralong champion, and a gleam
and a flash went round the room as the men realized what it meant--the
combined wealth of the crowd belonged to the three.

"Double or quits," Gleeson cried, as he faced round on Tony.

"Done," he answered; and Gleeson glanced round the room.

"Are you on?" he asked.

A growl of assent was the answer, and the second game began.

Tony, unsteadied in the first game by the day's travelling, set his
teeth hard, and nerved himself to avoid a repetition of the defeat. The
bumps in the cushions favoured him, and he held his own from the start,
and came in just ahead of his opponent amidst howls of approval from the
diggers.

As the noise lulled before the growing desire to toast success, long
life, and various other pleasant prospects to the winner of the second
game, an artistic piece of by-play was introduced by a violent
altercation between Walker, Tap, and Gleeson, the first two savagely
attacking the latter for having thrown away their money by playing
double or quits. Walker repudiated the matter, and claimed that as he
had not agreed to the stake on the second game, he was entitled to
payment for the wagers he had made on the first.

Palmer Billy advanced to the table.

"If a man ain't satisfied with the whackin' we give him," he said, in a
tone that penetrated to every corner of the room, and with his eyes
fixed on Gleeson in what, to the latter, was a peculiarly disconcerting
glance, "why, we're on to whack him again--or his mates."

"Good iron, Billy," some one yelled. "Set 'em up again."

"_When_ we've irrigated, if you please," Palmer Billy retorted; adding,
to the host, "Rum--straight."

In order that there might be no misunderstanding about the third game,
it was decided in advance that the stakes were to be the same as before,
and that in the morning another game would be played, by daylight, for
double or quits, whoever the loser might be, the stakes remaining where
they were, in the gin cases, in charge of the constable and the
proprietor of the Rest. The interval between the second and third games
being so