naturally reverted to the whiskey, which he had prudently _cached_. "And
yet it don't somehow sound like whiskey," said the gambler. It was not
until he caught sight of the blazing fire through the still blinding
storm and the group around it that he settled to the conviction that it
was "square fun."

Whether Mr. Oakhurst had _cached_ his cards with the whiskey as
something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It
was certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he "didn't say cards once"
during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordion,
produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack.
Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of his
instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from
its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone
castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a
rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great
earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and
Covenanter's swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality,
caused it speedily to infect the others, who at last joined in the
refrain:--

"I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,
And I'm bound to die in His army."

The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token
of the vow.

At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the stars
glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson, somehow managed
to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself
to the Innocent, by saying that he had "often been a week without
sleep." "Doing what?" asked Tom. "Poker!" replied Oakhurst,
sententiously; "when a man gets a streak of luck,--nigger-luck,--he
don't get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck," continued the gambler,
reflectively, "is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for
certain is that it's bound to change. And it's finding out when it's
going to change that makes you. We've had a streak of bad luck since we
left Poker Flat,--you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If you
can hold your cards right along, you're all right. For," added the
gambler, with cheerful irrelevance,--

"I'm proud to live in