an ominous groan. loaned occasioned the withdrawal of several gentlemen from the audience amidst the hisses or ironical cheers of the others.

One or two other items of money

At last Captain Dick stopped and advanced to the footlights.

'Gentlemen and friends,' he said, slowly. 'I foots up $25,000 as Roger Catron hez made, fair and square, in this yer county. I foots up $27,000 ez he has spent in this yer county. I puts it to you ez men,-far-minded men, -ef this man was a pauper and debtor? I put it to you ez far-minded men,- -ez free and easy men,- —ez political economists, ez this the kind of men to impoverish a county?'

An overwhelming and instantaneous No!' almost drowned the last utterance of the speaker.

Thar is only one item,' said Captain Dick, slowly, 'only one item, that ez men,-ez far-minded men,—ez political economists,-it seems to me we hez the right to question. It's this: Thar is an item, read to you by me, of $2,000 paid to certing San Francisco detectives, paid out o' the assets o' Roger Catron, for the finding of Roger Catron's body. Gentlemen of Sandy Bar and friends, I found that body, and yer it is!'

And Roger Catron, a little pale and nervous, but palpably in the flesh, stepped upon the platform.

Of course the newspapers were full of it the next day. Of course, in due time, it appeared as a garbled and romantic item in the San Francisco press. Of course Mrs. Catron, on reading it, fainted, and for two days said that

this last cruel blow ended all relations between her husband and herself. On the third day she expressed her belief that, if he had had the slightest feeling for her, he would, long since, for the sake of mere decency, have communicated with her. On the fourth day she thought she had been, perhaps, badly advised, had an open quarrel with her relatives, and intimated that a wife had certain obligations, &c. On the sixth day, still not hearing from him, she quoted Scripture, spoke of a seventy-times-seven forgiveness, and went generally into mild hysterics. On the seventh, she left in the morning train for Sandy Bar.

And really I don't know as I have anything more to tell. I dined with them recently, and, upon my word, a more decorous, correct, conventional, and dull dinner I never ate in my life.

161

'WHO WAS MY QUIET FRIEND?'

'STRANGER!

The voice was not loud, but clear and penetrating. I looked vainly up and down the narrow, darkening trail. No one in the fringe of alder ahead; no one on the gullied slope behind.

This time a little impatiently. The Californian classical vocative, 'O,' always meant business.

I looked up, and perceived for the first time on the ledge, thirty feet above me, another trail parallel with my own, and looking down upon me through the buckeye bushes a small man on a black horse.

Five things to be here noted by the circumspect mountaineer. First, the locality,-lonely and inaccessible, and away from the regular faring of teamsters and miners. Secondly, the stranger's superior knowledge of the road, from the fact that the other trail was unknown to the ordinary traveller. Thirdly, that he was well armed and equipped. Fourthly, that he was better mounted. Fifthly, that any distrust or timidity arising from the contemplation of these facts had better be kept to one's self.

All this passed rapidly through my mind as I returned his salutation.

M

'Got any tobacco?' he asked.

I had, and signified the fact, holding up the pouch inquiringly.

'All right, I'll come down. Ride on, and I'll jine ye on the slide.'

'The slide!' Here was a new geographical discovery as odd as the second trail. I had ridden over the trail a dozen times, and seen no communication between the ledge and trail. Nevertheless, I went on a hundred yards or so, when there was a sharp crackling in the underbrush, a shower of stones on the trail, and my friend plunged through the bushes to my side, down a grade that I should scarcely have dared to lead my horse. There was no doubt he was an accomplished rider,—another fact to be noted.

As he ranged beside me, I found I was not mistaken as to his size; he was quite under the medium height, and but for a pair of cold, gray eyes, was rather commonplace in feature.

'You've got a good horse there,' I suggested.

He was filling his pipe from my pouch, but looked up a little surprised, and said, 'Of course.' He then puffed away with the nervous eagerness of a man long deprived of that sedative. Finally, between the puffs, he asked me whence I came.

I replied, 'From Lagrange.'

He looked at me a few moments curiously, but on my adding that I had only halted there for a few hours, he said: 'I thought I knew every man between Lagrange and Indian Spring, but somehow I sorter disremember your face and your name.'

Not particularly caring that he should remember either, I replied half laughingly, that, as I lived the other side of Indian Spring, it was quite natural. He took he rebuff, if such it was, so quietly that as an act of mere perfunctory politeness I asked him where he came from. 'Lagrange.'

'And are you going to—'

'Well that depends pretty much on how things pan out, and whether I can make the riffle.' He let his hand rest quite unconsciously on the leathern holster of his dragoon revolver, yet with a strong suggestion to me of his ability to make the riffle' if he wanted to, and added: 'But just now I was reck'nin' on taking a little pasear with you.'

There was nothing offensive in his speech save its familiarity, and the reflection, perhaps, that whether I objected or not, he was quite able to do as he said. I only replied that if our pasear was prolonged beyond Heavytree Hill, I should have to borrow his beast. To my surprise he replied quietly, 'That's so,' adding that the horse was at my disposal when he wasn't using it, and half of it when he was. 'Dick has carried double many a time before this,' he continued, 'and kin do it again; when your mustang gives out I'll give you a lift and room to spare.'

I could not help smiling at the idea of appearing before the boys at Red Gulch en croupe with the stranger; but neither could I help being oddly affected by the suggestion that his horse had done double duty before. what occasion, and why?' was a question I kept to my

'On