e muzzle of a double-barrelled shot-gun in his
face. The candidate did not stay to urge his claims, and the Gopher's
politics remained a mystery.

Here in this land of the sun the days trench deep into the nights of
northern countries, and birds and beasts retire before the sunset: a
habit which the transplanted Saxon declines to adopt.

Some idlers sat at sunset on the verandah of the last saloon, looking
down the gulch as the manzanita smoke curled up from the Gopher's cabin.

There is an hour when the best that is in man comes to the surface;
sometimes the outcroppings are not promising of any great inner wealth;
but the indications, whatever they may be, are not false. It is dulse
and drift coming to the surface when the storm of the day is over. Yet
the best thoughts are never uttered; often because no fit words are
found to array them in; oftener because no fit ear is found to receive
them.

How lonesome it looked, that little storm-stained cabin thus alone,
stooping down, hiding away in the long strong grass, as if half-ashamed
of the mournful history of its sad and lonely occupant.

A sailor broke silence: "Looks like a Feejee camp on a South Sea
island."

"Robinson Crusoe--the last man of the original camp--the last rose of
Summer." This was said by a young man who had sent some verses to the
_Hangtown Weekly_.

"Looks to me, in its crow's nest of chaparral, like the lucky ace of
spades," added a man who sat apart contemplating the wax under the nail
of his right fore-finger.

The schoolmaster here picked up the ace of hearts, drew out his pencil
and figured rapidly.

"There!" he cried, flourishing the card, "I put it an ounce a day for
eighteen years, and that is the result." The figures astonished them
all. It was decided that the old miser had at least a mule-load of gold
in his cabin.

"It is my opinion," said the new Squire, who was small of stature, and
consequently insolent and impertinent, "he had ought to be taken up,
tried, and hung for killing his pardner in '51."

"The time has run out," said the Coroner, who now came up, adjusting a
tall hat to which he was evidently not accustomed; "the time for such
cases by the law made and provided has run out, and it is my opinion it
can't be did."

Not long after this it was discovered that the Gopher was not at work.
Then it came out that he was very ill, and that Old Baboon was seen to
enter his cabin.

CHAPTER XXIX.

A NATURAL DEA