pon them to save what they could. Anyway,
it was difficult to tear themselves away from the fascinations of
Nature's prodigal outburst, and so, as being the easiest and most
pleasurable course, they abandoned themselves to it.

So it was that Minky found his store deserted. He lounged idly out on
to the veranda and propped himself against one of the posts. And,
standing there, his thoughtful eyes roamed, subtly attracted to the
spot where Zip's luck had demonstrated itself.

He stood there for some time watching the hurrying figures of the
miners as they moved to and fro, but his mind was far away. Somehow
Zip's luck, in spite of the excessive figures which extravagant minds
had estimated it at, only took second place with him. He was thinking
of the man who had journeyed to Spawn City. He was worrying about him,
his one and only friend.

He had understood something of that self-imposed task which the
gambler had undertaken, though its full significance had never quite
been his. Now he felt that in some way he was responsible. Now he felt
that the journey should never have been taken. He felt that he should
have refused to ship his gold. And yet he knew full well that his
refusal would have been quite useless. Wild Bill was a man whom
opposition only drove the harder, and he would have contrived a means
of carrying out his purpose, no matter what barred his way.

However, even with this assurance he still felt uncomfortably
regretful. His responsibility was no less, and for the life of him he
could not rise to enthusiasm over this luck of Scipio's. It would have
been different if Bill had been there to discuss the matter with him.

And as the moments passed his spirits fell lower and lower, until at
last a great depression weighed him down.

It was in the midst of this depression, when, for the hundredth time,
he had wished that his friend had never started out on his wild
enterprise, that he suddenly found himself staring out across the
river at the Spawn City trail. He stared for some moments, scarcely
comprehending that at which he looked. Then suddenly he became aware
of a horseman racing down the slope towards the river, and in a moment
mind and body were alert, and he stood waiting.

* * * * *

Minky was still standing on his veranda. But he was no longer leaning
against the post; he was holding a letter in his hand which he had
just finished reading. It was a pai