“Is that so?” asked stout Ben, as he was called, and his face appeared to express satisfaction at the news.  “That is r-e-l-i-a-b-l-e, I s’pose, Charley?” “My word for it, Ben.  But come and shake hands with Burley’s tamer, and encourage the youngster with your patronage.”

The giant, drew the back of his hand across his mouth as though it was watering for the whiskey, but after a slight urging, the second time he suffered Charley to conduct him to the corner of the saloon, where Fred, Smith, and myself were standing, receiving congratulations from all who wanted a drink of liquor free of cost.

“This is the chap, Ben,” Charley said, nodding towards Fred, and that was all the introduction which was deemed necessary.

“I am happy to know you,” said “Fred, grasping n hand that was about the size of a shoulder of mutton, and twice as hard and nubby.

“You did putty well with Burley, and I am glad of it,” Ben replied, shutting his fist and compressing Fred’s bind for what he intended as a gentle squeeze—­but I could see by my friend’s face that he would be very glad when it was relinquished.

“A fine shot you made of it, sir,” Ben said, not noticing that he had inflicted a large amount of pain.

“Is the poor fellow badly hurt?” asked Fred.

“Well, he’s got an ugly hole in him, and it’s hard hunting—­the sawbones will have to find the lead.”

“I hope that, he will live,” repeated Fred.  “I did not seek his life, and I should be sorry to think that an act of mine sent him from the world with all his sins unrepented of.”

“Never you mind about that,” replied Ben.  “If a feller wants to take your heart out, you’ve got the right to say to that feller, you don’t come it; and if the feller still persists, you is bound to act on the defensive, and either lick him or kill him, I don’t care which.  I jinerally lick ’em.”

As I glanced at the sturdy limbs of the giant miner I thought that he would be apt to meet but few men who would not prefer the shooting to the licking.

“You often have trouble here in Ballarat?” Fred asked.

“Well, no, I can’t say that I see much of it.  Sometimes the fellers make a rumpus, but they generally let me alone, and that’s all I ax of ’em.  But whar’s that ’ere licker we’s to have?  ’Pears to me it’s rather slow in getting ’long.”

“Here it comes,” shouted Charley, bustling around the crowded room, if, indeed, room it could be called.  “I had to wait for it to be unloaded, Ben, ’cos it arrived only an hour or two ago from Sydney.”

“You say it’s the real New York first proof whiskey, do ye?” asked Ben, holding a tumbler two thirds full of the stuff up to the light, and scanning its color with a critical eye.

“The real thing, and no mistake.  It’s just sich as you used to git when chopping away down in the backwoods of Maine,” replied Charley.

We then discovered, what we had all along suspected, that the miner was an American, and belonged in the Eastern State.