out at his
nose as well as his mouth.

"Joe," said Frank.

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Joe with nautical promptitude.

"I have been thinking a good deal about our affairs of late, and have
come to the conclusion that the sooner we go home the better."

"My notions pre-cisely."

"Moreover," continued Frank, "I think that we have come far enough in
this direction, and that it would be a good plan to return to Bigbear
Gully by a different route from that by which we came here, and thus
have an opportunity of seeing some of the other parts of the diggings.
What say you to that?"

"I'm agreeable," answered Joe.

"Well then, shall we decide to commence our return journey to-morrow?"

"By all means. Down wi' the helm, 'bout ship an' lay our course on
another tack by daylight," said Joe, shaking the ashes out of his pipe
with the slow unwilling air of a man who knows that he has had enough
but is loath to give up; "I always like to set sail by daylight. It
makes one feel up to the mark so to speak, as if one had lost none of
the day, and I suppose," he added with a sigh which resolved itself into
a yawn, "that if we means to start so bright an' early the sooner we
tumble in the better."

"True," said Frank, whose mouth irresistibly followed the example of
Joe's, "I think it will be as well to turn in."

There was a quiet, easy-going lowness in the speech and motions of the
two friends, which showed that they were just in a state of readiness to
fall into the arms of the drowsy god. They rolled themselves in their
blankets, placed their rifles by their sides, their heads on their
saddles, and their feet to the fire.

Joe Graddy's breathing proclaimed that he had succumbed at once, but
Frank lay for a considerable time winking owlishly at the stars, which
returned him the compliment with interest by twinkling at him through
the branches of the overhanging trees.

Early next morning they arose, remounted their mules and turned back,
diverging, according to arrangement, from their former track, and making
for a particular part of the diggings where Frank had been given to
understand there were many subjects of interest for his pencil. We
would fain linger by the way, to describe much of what they saw, but the
limits of our space require that we should hasten onward, and transport
the reader at once to a place named the Great Canon, which, being a very
singular locality, and peculiarly rich in gold, merits descriptio