his own
making, under his arm, and his hat set jauntily on one side of his head.
He went along with an easy swagger, and looked particularly reckless,
but no man ever belied his looks more thoroughly. The swagger was
unintentional, and the recklessness did not exist. On the contrary, the
reading of the Bible had brought back to his mind a flood of home
memories, which forced more than one tear from his susceptible heart
into his light-blue eye, as he wandered in memory over the green hills
of Erin.

But the scenes that passed before him as he roamed about among the huts
and tents of the miners soon drew his thoughts to subjects less
agreeable to contemplate. On week-days the village, if we may thus
designate the scattered groups of huts and tents, was comparatively
quiet, but on Sundays it became a scene of riot and confusion. Not only
was it filled with its own idle population of diggers, but miners from
all the country round, within a circuit of eight or ten miles, flocked
into it for the purpose of buying provisions for the week, as well as
for the purpose of gambling and drinking, this being the only day in all
the week, in which they indulged in what they termed "a spree."

Consequently the gamblers and store-keepers did more business on Sunday
than on any other day. The place was crowded with men in their rough,
though picturesque, bandit-like costumes, rambling about from store to
store, drinking and inviting friends to drink, or losing in the
gaming-saloons all the earnings of a week of hard, steady toil--toil
more severe than is that of navvies or coal-heavers. There seemed to be
an irresistible attraction in these gambling-houses. Some men seemed
unable to withstand the temptation, and they seldom escaped being
fleeced. Yet they returned, week after week, to waste in these dens of
iniquity the golden treasure gathered with so much labour during their
six working days.

Larry O'Neil looked through the doorway of one of the gambling-houses as
he passed, and saw men standing and sitting round the tables, watching
with eager faces the progress of the play, while ever and anon one of
them would reel out, more than half-drunk with excitement and brandy.
Passing on through the crowded part of the village, which looked as if a
fair were being held there, he entered the narrow footpath that led
towards the deeper recesses at the head of the valley. O'Neil had not
yet, since his arrival, found time to wander