the candle in a whisky-bottle that stood on a greasy
table in the center of the earthen floor, he picked up the tow-string,
and pointing to the bunk in the corner, they sat down together, and the
old dog rested his nose between the old man's legs.

After looking about the cabin in nervous silence for a time, Baboon
arose with a look of resolution, handed the man his string, stepped to a
niche in the wall, and taking an old crevicing-knife, struck it in
stoutly above the latch.

"This means something," said the man to himself; "here will be a
revelation," and a vision of the Gopher's gold-bags crossed his mind
with tempting vividness. After a while the old man came back, took up
the whisky-bottle, removed the candle from its neck, and holding it up
between his face and the light, which he held in the other hand, seemed
to decide some weighty proposition by the run of the beads in the
bottle, and then turned and offered it in silence.

As the stranger declined his kindness, he hurriedly took a long draught,
replaced the candle, then came and sat down close at his side, took his
string, and the old dog again thrust his nose between his knees.

"You see,"--and the man leaned over to the other, and began in a whisper
and strangeness of manner that suggested that his mind was
wandering,--"you see, we all came out here together: Godfrey, that's the
Gopher; Wilson, that's Curly, and I. Things didn't go right with me
there, after I came away, so I just let them drift here. Lost my 'grip,'
as they say, didn't have any 'snap' any more, as people call it. Godfrey
and Wilson got on very well, though, till Wilson was killed."

"Till the Gopher killed him?"

"Well, now, there's where it is," said Old Baboon, and he shuddered. The
dog, too, seemed to grow nervous, and crowded his ugly head up tighter
between the old man's legs.

"There's where it is. Godfrey did not kill Wilson. The Gopher did not
kill Curly no more than did you. You see, Curly was young, and out here,
he fell to gambling and taking a bit too much, and one night, when
Godfrey tried to get him away from a game, a set of roughs got up a row,
upset the table, and Curly got knifed by some one of the set, who made
the row to get a grab at the money. Godfrey was holding the boy at the
time to keep him from striking, for he was mad drunk.

"Poor Curly only said, 'Don't let them know it at home,' and died in his
arms. Every body was stranger to every body then, and no