“What is the matter, Pat?” the miners asked, good-naturedly, most of those present appearing to know our new defender.

“Matter, is it?” he repeated, scornfully; “I tells ye that if a hair of these two gintlemen’s is hurted, I’ll lick the whole of ye, blackguards that ye is.”

A roar of laughter followed this speech, which excited the Irishman’s indignation to its fullest extent.

“Ye laugh, do ye?  It’s little ye would laugh if ye saw these two gintlemen dressing the cuts and sores of poor miners who had divil a ha’penny to pay the doctor with.  It’s little ye would laugh if ye had seed this gintleman standing up and having a crack at old Pete Burley, the bully of Ballarat; and by me faith, he brought him down in less time than ye can descend a shaft with the crank broken.”

The allusion to the expeditious manner in which miners sometimes went down a shaft, much against their will, and at a great loss to their personal dignity, was received with rounds of laughter.

“You know those men, then?” cried a fellow who had been remarkably officious during the disturbance.

“Men, are they?” cried our indignant champion, and he raised one of his huge fists and dropped it with full force upon the head of the speaker, and down he went, as though shot.

“Call them gintlemen, hereafter, or by the powers, I strike ye, the next time I hit ye.”

There was another good-natured laugh at the expense of the fallen man, and at the Irishman’s wit.

“Are these the two Americans who have recently arrived, and who were concerned in that duel with Burley?”

“Of coorse they is; and haven’t they been giving a number of us poor divils medicine and good advice?  O, by the powers, let me say the man that wants to hurt ’em, that’s all!”

This announcement completely changed the feelings of the crowd, and the miners pressed forward, shook our hands in the most friendly manner, and we supposed that our trouble was over:  but Tom was not disposed to give up his prisoner in that manner, and perhaps he was the more strongly inclined for a battle, because Fred’s weight was much less than his own, and therefore he imagined that he would have things his own way at a game of fisticuffs.

“I am glad that the stranger is not a bushranger,” Tom said, “but he must not expect to make laws for us poor miners.  When we have dust stolen from us, we have a right to deal with the thief, and I shall claim my privilege.”  “That is only just,” murmured the miners.

“I have already offered to pay you for all that the boy has stolen,” Fred said, “but if that does not suit you, deliver him up to the police, and let him have an examination.”

“I shan’t do any thing of the kind.  I caught him in my tent stealing gold dust, and I shall deal with him in the regular way; I shall give him two dozen lashes across his back, and then let him run.”