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.We broke our "saleratus bread" with appetites unimpaired by restlessness or anxiety; we went to sleep under the grave and sedate stars with a serene consciousness of having fairly earned our rest; we awoke the next morning with unabated trustfulness, and a sweet obliviousness of even the hypothetical fortunes we had perhaps won or lost at cards overnight.We paid no heed to the fact that our little capital was slowly sinking with the shaft, and that the rainy season-wherein not only "no man could work," but even such play as ours was impossible-was momentarily impending."What's up, Lacy, old pard? What's gone o' you?" said Captain Jim tenderly.There was a dead silence; we looked at each other blankly."It's no use, boys," said Rowley, summarizing the result of our conference, "we must speak out to him, and if nobody else cares to do it I will.I don't know why we should be more mealy-mouthed than they are at the settlement.They don't hesitate to call Bassett a dead-beat, whatever Captain Jim says to the contrary.""There! I said so! Go on! I'd have sworn to it afore you opened your lips.I knowed it the day you sneaked around and wanted to know wot his business was! I said to myself, Cap, look out for that sneakin' hound Rowley, he's no friend o' Lacy's.And the day Lacy so far demeaned himself as to give ye that splendid explanation o' things, I watched ye; ye didn't think it, but I watched ye.Ye can't fool me! I saw ye lookin' at Walker there, and I said to myself, Wot's the use, Lacy, wot's the use o' your slingin' them words to such as THEM? Wot do THEY know? It's just their pure jealousy and ignorance.Ef you'd come down yer, and lazed around with us and fallen into our common ways, you'd ha' been ez good a man ez the next.But no, it ain't your style, Lacy, you're accustomed to high-toned men like Professor Parker, and you can't help showing it.No wonder you took to avoidin' us; no wonder I've had to foller you over the Burnt Wood Crossin' time and again, to get to see ye.I see it all now: ye can't stand the kempany I brought ye to! Ye had to wipe the slum gullion of Eureka Gulch off your hands, Lacy"- He stopped, gasped for breath, and then lifted his voice more savagely, "And now, what's this? Wot's this hogwash? this yer lyin' slander about his gettin' things on the kempany's credit? Eh, speak up, some of ye!""Ye dussen't say it! Well, hark to me then," he continued with white and feverish lips."I put him up to helpin' himself.I told him to use the kempany's name for credit.Ye kin put that down to ME.And when ye talk of HIS resigning, I want ye to understand that I resign outer this rotten kempany and TAKE HIM WITH ME! Ef all the gold yer lookin' for was piled up in that shaft from its bottom in hell to its top in the gulch, it ain't enough to keep me here away from him! Ye kin take all my share-all MY rights yer above ground and below it-all I carry,"-he threw his buckskin purse and revolver on the ground,-"and pay yourselves what you reckon you've lost through HIM.But you and me is quits from to- day."He strode away before a restraining voice or hand could reach him.His dripping figure seemed to melt into the rain beneath the thickening shadows of the pines, and the next moment he was gone.From that day forward Eureka Gulch knew him no more.And the camp itself somehow melted away during the rainy season, even as he had done.Chapter II.In the hope of familiarizing myself with the local interests of the community, I took up a copy of the "Gilead Guardian" which lay on my desk, forgetting for the moment the usual custom of the country press to displace local news for long editorials on foreign subjects and national politics.I found, to my disappointment, that the "Guardian" exhibited more than the usual dearth of domestic intelligence, although it was singularly oracular on "The State of Europe," and "Jeffersonian Democracy." A certain cheap assurance, a copy-book dogmatism, a colloquial familiarity, even in the impersonal plural, and a series of inaccuracies and blunders here and there, struck some old chord in my memory.I was mutely wondering where and when I had become personally familiar with rhetoric like that, when the door of the office opened and a man entered.I was surprised to recognize Captain Jim.I had not seen him since he had indignantly left us, three years before, in Eureka Gulch.The circumstances of his defection were certainly not conducive to any voluntary renewal of friendship on either side; and although, even as a former member of the Eureka Mining Company, I was not conscious of retaining any sense of injury, yet the whole occurrence flashed back upon me with awkward distinctness.To my relief, however, he greeted me with his old cordiality; to my amusement he added to it a suggestion of the large forgiveness of conscious rectitude and amiable toleration.I thought, however, I detected, as he glanced at the paper which was still in my hand and then back again at my face, the same uneasy canine resemblance I remembered of old.He had changed but little in appearance; perhaps he was a trifle stouter, more mature, and slower in his movements.If I may return to my canine illustration, his grayer, dustier, and more wiry ensemble gave me the impression that certain pastoral and agricultural conditions had varied his type, and he looked more like a shepherd's dog in whose brown eyes there was an abiding consciousness of the care of straying sheep, and possibly of one black one in particular.He had, he told me, abandoned mining and taken up farming on a rather large scale.He had prospered.He had other interests at stake, "A flour-mill with some improvements-and-and"-here his eyes wandered to the "Guardian" again, and he asked me somewhat abruptly what I thought of the paper.Something impelled me to restrain my previous fuller criticism, and I contented myself by saying briefly that I thought it rather ambitious for the locality."That's the word," he said with a look of gratified relief, "'ambitious'-you've just hit it.And what's the matter with thet? Ye kan't expect a high-toned man to write down to the level of every karpin' hound, ken ye now? That's what he says to me"- He stopped half confused, and then added abruptly: "That's one o' my investments
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