s."

"Save yer breath," said Larry, drawing Smith's knife from its scabbard.
"See here, boys, sure two dovetails niver fitted closer than this bit o'
steel fits the pint o' Black Jim's knife. Them men standin' beside me
can swear they saw me take it out o' the breast o' the morthered man,
an' yerselves know that this is the murderer's knife."

Almost before Larry had concluded, Smith, who felt that his doom was
sealed, exerted all his strength, burst from the men who held him, and
darted like an arrow towards that part of the living circle which seemed
weakest. Most of the miners shrank back--only one man ventured to
oppose the fugitive; but he was driven down with such violence, that he
lay stunned on the sward, while Smith sprang like a goat up the steep
face of the adjacent precipice. A dozen rifles instantly poured forth
their contents, and the rocks rang with the leaden hail; but the aim had
been hurried, and the light shed by the fire at that distance was
uncertain.

The murderer, next moment, stood on the verge of the precipice, from
which he wrenched a mass of rock, and, shouting defiance, hurled it
back, with a fearful imprecation, at his enemies. The rock fell into
the midst of them, and fractured the skull of a young man, who fell with
a groan to the earth. Smith, who paused a moment to witness the result
of his throw, uttered a yell of exultation, and darted into the
mountains, whither, for hours after, he was hotly pursued by the enraged
miners. But one by one they returned to the Creek exhausted, and
telling the same tale--"Black Jim had made his escape."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

SABBATH AT THE DIGGINGS--LARRY O'NEIL TAKES TO WANDERING, AND MEETS WITH
ADVENTURES--AN IRISH YANKEE DISCOVERED--TERRIBLE CALAMITIES BEFALL
TRAVELLERS ON THE OVERLAND ROUTE.

There is no country in our fallen world, however debased and morally
barren, in which there does not exist a few green spots where human
tenderness and sympathy are found to grow. The atmosphere of the
gold-regions of California was, indeed, clouded to a fearful extent with
the soul-destroying vapours of worldliness, selfishness, and
ungodliness, which the terrors of Lynch law alone restrained from
breaking forth in all their devastating strength.

And this is not to be wondered at, for Europe and America naturally
poured the flood of their worst inhabitants over the land, in eager
search for that gold, the _love of which_, we are told in Sacred W