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80 days, a few of "the boys" had celebrated New Year's with its help, and every time drinks were called, they poured a whiskey into its works to give them tone. Now the harmonium groaned and grunted out intermittent noises as though afflicted with chronic asthma.

I was presented to Paddy, and he stopped the "Maiden's Prayer" by introducing me to the fat girl. Then we withdrew with Paddy and drinks to convert him to our needs. Paddy was delighted with me, because I was an Irishman. He was the only man in the field who really knew anything about mining. The Palmer Gold Field comprised about two hundred square miles and, according to Paddy, there was "one damned fool for every square mile." Soon and readily enough, I had him talking about Mount Madden, where he worked.

"Sure, son," he exclaimed, "it's a great show! There's millions of tons of stuff in sight and it all goes about half an ounce. I've been shepherding the ground for over a year and none of 'em knows anything about it but me. There's Buchanan beyond it, too—"

"I hear that's good, Paddy," I broke in.

"Good, son? It's a Mount Moyan over again, but them damned fools, Hughes and Cameron, don't know anything about it at all, at all."

"They don't, eh?"

"Holy mother, why they've pegged right away from the lode. It's running to the east'ard and they've gone north."

"The lode goes east, Paddy?"

"It does, son. Why yez can see the foot-wall in the creek and follow it right up the mountain on the other side. That's the ground to take up."

"Who's got it?"

"No one, son."

"Paddy, I want you to peg out the whole of the eastern ground for me."