160 East and West 
their ancient felt hats were tipped over those 
grizzled faces, hawk-like beaks, and keen eyes 
which seem to characterise all old prospectors 
and miners. In silence they sat and spat 
gloomily into the dust, reminiscing perhaps, 
like myself, on a day that was gone. 
A peep into the barroom revealed the 
venerable stove with its accommodating iron 
railing for the feet of those who took their 
ease in the barroom chairs; the box of sand 
so essential to the indulgence of their favourite 
pastime. Instinctively I glanced behind the 
bar. Yes, clustered about the tops of the 
vials of bitters were the red ants as of yore. 
Who would suppose that a dusty road under 
a brilliant summer sky, and the sight of red 
ants on a bottle in a barroom would have any 
particular association? But if in such a bar- 
room, in one camp or another, in your adven- 
turous youth when the spirit was high and 
you were more easily amused than now, you 
had shaken those large yellow dice out of that 
old leathern box for hours at a time with 
gentlemen whose very appearance would have 
caused your elders a painful shock of surprise; 
if at such a table in such an interior, you 
had shown enthusiasm, aye, even excitement, 
over blue and white chips, uttering their dry 
