hain't nary red."

"I'll stand by you, Mr. Bickford."

"You're a fust-rate feller, Joe. You seem to know just what to do."

"It isn't so long since I was a greenhorn and allowed myself to be
taken in by Hogan."

"You've cut your eye-teeth since then."

"I have had some experience of the world, but I may get taken in
again."

Joe and his friend found the miners social and very ready to give
them information.

"How much do I make a day?" said one in answer to a question from
Joshua. "Well, it varies. Sometimes I make ten dollars, and from
that all the way up to twenty-five. Once I found a piece worth fifty
dollars. I was in luck then."

"I should say you were," said Mr. Bickford. "The idea of findin'
fifty dollars in the river. It looks kind of strange, don't it, Joe?"

"Are any larger pieces ever found here?" asked Joe.

"Sometimes."

"I have seen larger nuggets on exhibition in San Francisco, worth
several hundred dollars. Are any such to be found here?"

"Generally they come from the dry diggings. We don't often find such
specimens in the river washings. But these are more reliable."

"Can a man save money here?"

"If he'll be careful of what he gets. But much of our dust goes
there."

He pointed, as he spoke, to a small cabin, used as a store and
gambling den at one and the same time. There in the evening the
miners collected, and by faro, poker, or monte managed to lose all
that they had washed out during the day.

"That's the curse of our mining settlement," said their informant.
"But for the temptations which the gaming-house offers, many whom you
see working here would now be on their way home with a comfortable
provision for their families. I never go there, but then I am in the
minority."

"What did you used to do when you was to hum?" inquired Joshua, who
was by nature curious and had no scruples about gratifying his
curiosity.

"I used to keep school winters. In the spring and summer I assisted
my father on his farm down in Maine."

"You don't say you're from Maine? Why, I'm from Maine myself,"
remarked Joshua.

"Indeed! Whereabouts in Maine did you live?"

"Pumpkin Hollow."

"I kept school in Pumpkin Hollow one winter."

"You don't say so? What is your name?" inquired Joshua earnestly.

"John Kellogg."

"I thought so!" exclaimed Mr. Bickford, excited.

"Why, I used to go to school to you, Mr. Kellogg."

"It is nine years ago, and you must have changed so