Forthwith a crowd of dirty, tanned diggers turned their heads in the direction of Gustav Werstein’s American Bar, and walked toward it as briskly as the heat and their weariness would admit of.  The Israelite saw them coming, straightened himself out of the half-doze in which he had passed the baking afternoon, stopped down the tobacco in the porcelain bowl of his long-stemmed pipe with stumpy forefinger, and, twisting a cork off his corkscrew, stood in readiness.

“Name yer pizons, boys, an’ get outside ’em, wishin’ all good luck to R’yal Straight; R’yal Straight bein’ the name o’ this yer stone given by Thomas D. Hesquire, original diskiverer an’ present perprietor.”

The orders were given,—­bass at five shillings a bottle, champagne (nee gooseberry) at five pounds, Cape smoke at two shillings per two fingers,—­and, at a given signal, there was an inarticulate roar from dusty throats, an inversion of tumblers over thirsty mouths, and a second inversion over the ground to show that all the contents had disappeared.

Satan, the one cat and only domestic pet of the camp, saw that there was a general treat going on, and bustling up for his drink took a can of condensed milk at six shillings.  Other diggers came trooping in as the news spread, and Tommy Dartmoor, who was rapidly becoming mellow, for he drank half a tumbler of raw whisky with every one who nodded to him, stood them refreshments galore, while the greasy Jew began to see visions of his adopted fatherland in the near distance.

So the Kaffirs, except those who had supplies of their own, kept sober and peaceful, while the higher order of the human race at Big Stone Hole, after the manner of their kind, began to squabble.  It was natural for them to do so, perhaps, for the weather was so hot, and the liquors, for the most part, more so; and under these circumstances men do not always cast about them long for a casus belli.  One or two minor brawls opened the ball, and Herr Gustav, scenting battle in the air, drew from a locker a card, which he balanced against the bottles on a shelf above his head.  It read thus: 

     GENTS IS REKESTED TO SHOOT
     CLEAR OF THE BARR-KEP. 
     BROKIN GLAS MAY BE PADE FOR
     AT COST PRISE.

and had been written for the German by a gentleman who had had some experience in Forty Rod Gulch, Nevada.  The action elicited a contemptuous laugh from one or two of the new hands, but the oldsters began shifting sundry articles which depended from their belts into positions from which they might be handled at the shortest notice; and the black cat, more wise than any of them, having drunk his fill, stalked solemnly out into the security of the darkness.