contemplating the bustle of leave-taking, hand-shaking, and
embracing, in which I had no share. A lantern at the gangway lit up each
face that passed, and I strained my eyes to mark one, the only one in
whom I was interested. As I knew not whether the ingenious Chico were
young, old, short, slim, fat, or six-foot,--whether brown or fair,
smooth-faced or bearded,--my observations were necessarily universal,
and I was compelled to let none escape me.

At first, each passenger appeared to be "him;" and then, after a few
minutes, I gave up the hope of detection. There were fellows whose
exterior might mean anything,--large, loose-coated figures, with leather
overalls and riding-whips, many of them with pistols at their girdles,
and one or two wearing swords, parading the deck on every side. It
needed not the accompaniment of horse-gear, saddles, holsters, halters,
and cavessons to show that they belonged to a fraternity which, in every
land of the Old World or the New, has a prescriptive claim to knavery.
Although all of them were natives of the United States, neither in
their dark-brown complexions, deep mustaches and whiskers, and strange
gestures, was there any trace of that land which we persist in deeming
so purely Anglo-Saxon. The prairie and the hunting-ground, the life of
bivouac and the habit of danger, had imparted its character to their
looks; and there was, besides, that air of swagger and braggadocio so
essentially the type of your trafficker in horse-flesh.

If my attention had not been turned to another subject, I would
willingly have studied a little the sayings and doings of this
peculiar class, seeing that it might yet be my lot to form one of "the
brotherhood;" but my thoughts were too deeply interested in discovering
"Chico," whose presence in the same ship with me actually weighed on my
mind like the terror of a phantom.

"Can this be him?" was the question which arose to my heart as figure
after figure passed me near where I lay; but the careless, indolent
look of the passenger as regularly negatived the suspicion. We were now
under way, steaming along in still water with all the tremendous power
of our high-pressure engines, which shook the vessel as though they
would rend its strong framework asunder. The night was beautifully calm
and mild, and, although without a moon, the sky sparkled with a thousand
stars, many of which were of size and brilliancy to throw long columns
of light across the bay.