d. He began to chuckle, finally to
laugh uproariously.

York, with his eyes still fixed on the old man, withdrew the hand with
which he had taken his.

"Didn't we fool 'em nicely; eh, Yorky! He, he! The biggest thing yet
ever played in this camp! I always said I'd play 'em all some day, and
I have--played 'em for six months. Ain't it rich?--ain't it the richest
thing you ever seed? Did you see Abner's face when he spoke 'bout that
man as seed me in Sonora? Warn't it good as the minstrels? Oh, it's too
much!" and, striking his leg with the palm of his hand, he almost
threw himself from the bed in a paroxysm of laughter,--a paroxysm that,
nevertheless, appeared to be half real and half affected.

"Is that photograph hers?" said York in a low voice, after a slight
pause.

"Hers? No! It's one of the San Francisco actresses. He, he! Don't you
see? I bought it for two bits in one of the bookstores. I never thought
they'd swaller THAT too; but they did! Oh, but the old man played 'em
this time didn't he--eh?" and he peered curiously in York's face.

"Yes, and he played ME too," said York, looking steadily in the old
man's eye.

"Yes, of course," interposed Plunkett hastily; "but you know, Yorky, you
got out of it well! You've sold 'em too. We've both got em on a string
now--you and me--got to stick together now. You did it well, Yorky: you
did it well. Why, when you said you'd seen me in York City, I'm d----d
if I didn't"--

"Didn't what?" said York gently; for the old man had stopped with a pale
face and wandering eye.

"Eh?"

"You say when I said I had seen you in New York you thought"--

"You lie!" said the old man fiercely. "I didn't say I thought any thing.
What are you trying to go back on me for, eh?" His hands were trembling
as he rose muttering from the bed, and made his way toward the hearth.

"Gimme some whiskey," he said presently "and dry up. You oughter treat
anyway. Them fellows oughter treated last night. By hookey, I'd made
'em--only I fell sick."

York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the table beside him, and,
going to the door, turned his back upon his guest, and looked out on the
night. Although it was clear moonlight, the familiar prospect never to
him seemed so dreary. The dead waste of the broad Wingdam highway never
seemed so monotonous, so like the days that he had passed, and were to
come to him, so like the old man in its suggestion of going sometime,
and never getting there. He tu