ll me Unlucky Jim, and Unlucky Jim I'll be to the end of the
chapter. Why, boss, me and Sammy Walker has sunk every damned cent
we've got in that claim, the fruit o' nine years' hard work, and here
you comes ridin' up as cool as may be, and tells me that it's all gone
for nothing."

"Well, there are others who will suffer as well as you," said one of the
crowd.

"I reckon we're all hit pretty hard if this is true," remarked another.

"I'm fair sick of it," said the little man, passing his grimy hand
across his eyes and leaving a black smear as he did so. "This ain't the
first time--no, nor the second--that my luck has played me this trick.
I've a mighty good mind to throw up my hand altogether."

"Come in and have some whisky," said a rough sympathizer, and the
unlucky one was hustled in through the rude door of the Griqualand
Saloon, there to find such comfort as he might from the multitudinous
bottles which adorned the interior of that building. Liquor had lost
its efficacy that evening, however, and a dead depression rested over
the little town. Nor was it confined to Dutoitspan. All along the
diggings the dismal tidings spread with a rapidity which was
astonishing. At eleven o'clock there was consternation at Klipdrift.
At quarter-past one Hebron was up and aghast at the news. At three in
the morning a mounted messenger galloped into Bluejacket, and before
daybreak a digger committee was sitting at Delporte's Hope discussing
the situation. So during that eventful night down the whole long line
of the Vaal River there was ruin and heartburning and dismay, while five
thousand miles away an old gentleman was sleeping calmly and dreamlessly
in his comfortable bed, from whose busy brain had emanated all this
misery and misfortune.

Perhaps the said old gentleman might have slumbered a little less
profoundly could he have seen the sight which met his son's eyes on the
following morning. Ezra had passed the night at Dutoitspan, in the hut
of a hospitable miner. Having risen in the morning, he was dressing
himself in a leisurely, methodical fashion, when his host, who had been
inhaling the morning breeze, thrust his head through the window.

"Come out here, Mr. Girdlestone," he cried. "There's some fun on.
One of the boys is dead drunk, and they are carrying him in."

Ezra pulled on his coat and ran out. A little group of miners were
walking slowly up the main street. He and his host were waiting for the