Brennan provides a vivid description of the Araluen goldfield, so rich that it was called 'The Happy Valley', at one stage supporting 110 hotels. The publicans' spirits had to be transported down the steep mountainsides on slides. Following an accident in which a slide broke loose and demolished a miner's cottage, Brennan encounters the occupant, Lionel Rochester, ex British Army in India, who collects snakes, has had two narrow escapes from death that morning, and is in need of a wife. Brennan attempts to assist him in his marital quest and, in the process, reveals a strange tale.