eedle his
appetite with a lighter second meal than it had demanded the day before.
He must see if this would not average better on the day's overhead.

After breakfast he was irresistibly drawn to view the moving picture of
his old home being dismantled. He knew now that he might stand brazenly
there without possible criticism. He found Jimmy and a companion
property-boy already busy. Much of the furniture was outside to be
carted away. Jimmy, as Merton lolled idly in the doorway, emptied the
blackened coffee pot into the ashes of the fireplace and then proceeded
to spoon into the same refuse heap half a kettle of beans upon which
the honest miners had once feasted. The watcher deplored that he had not
done more than taste the beans when he had taken his final survey of the
place this morning. They had been good beans, but to do more than taste
them would have been stealing. Now he saw them thrown away and regretted
that he could not have known what their fate was to be. There had been
enough of them to save him a day's expenses.

He stood aside as the two boys brought out the cooking utensils, the
rifle, the miners' tools, to stow them in a waiting handcart. When they
had loaded this vehicle they trundled it on up the narrow street of the
Western town. Yet they went only a little way, halting before one of the
street's largest buildings. A sign above its wooden porch flaunted the
name Crystal Palace Hotel. They unlocked its front door and took the
things from the cart inside.

From the street the watcher could see them stowing these away. The room
appeared to contain a miscellaneous collection of articles needed in the
ruder sort of photodrama. Emptying their cart, they returned with it
to the cabin for another load. Merton Gill stepped to the doorway and
peered in from apparently idle curiosity. He could see a row of saddles
on wooden supports; there were kitchen stoves, lamps, painted chairs,
and heavy earthenware dishes on shelves. His eyes wandered over these
articles until they came to rest upon a pile of blankets at one side of
the room. They were neatly folded, and they were many.

Down before the cabin he could see the handcart being reloaded by Jimmie
and his helper. Otherwise the street was empty. The young man at the
doorway stepped lightly in and regarded the windows on either side of
the door. He sauntered to the street and appeared to be wondering what
he would examine next in this curious world. He pa