an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the
crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting
hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and
vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter's swing
to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality, caused it speedily to
infect the others, who at last joined in the refrain:

"I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,

And I'm bound to die in His army."

The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward as if in token of
the vow.

At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the
stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson somehow managed
to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself
to the Innocent by saying that he had "often been a week without sleep."
"Doing what?" asked Tom. "Poker!" replied Oakhurst, sententiously; "when
a man gets a streak of luck,--nigger luck--he don't get tired. The luck
gives in first. Luck," continued the gambler, reflectively, "is a mighty
queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it's bound to
change. And it's finding out when it's going to change that makes you.
We've had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat--you come along,
and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards right along
you're all right. For," added the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance,