e gentle stoicism of the proprietors
themselves. The youthful enthusiasm which had at first lifted the most
ineffectual trial, the most useless essay, to the plane of actual
achievement, died out, leaving them only the dull, prosaic record of
half-finished ditches, purposeless shafts, untenable pits, abandoned
engines, and meaningless disruptions of the soil upon the Lone Star
claim, and empty flour sacks and pork barrels in the Lone Star cabin.

They had borne their poverty, if that term could be applied to a light
renunciation of all superfluities in food, dress, or ornament,
ameliorated by the gentle depredations already alluded to, with
unassuming levity. More than that: having segregated themselves from
their fellow-miners of Red Gulch, and entered upon the possession of
the little manzanita-thicketed valley five miles away, the failure of
their enterprise had assumed in their eyes only the vague significance
of the decline and fall of a general community, and to that extent
relieved them of individual responsibility. It was easier for them to
admit that the Lone Star claim was "played out" than confess to a
personal bankruptcy. Moreover, they still retained the sacred right of
criticism of government, and rose superior in their private opinions to
their own collective wisdom. Each one experienced a grateful sense of
the entire responsibility of the other four in the fate of their
enterprise.

On December 24, 1863, a gentle rain was still falling over the length
and breadth of the Lone Star claim. It had been falling for several
days, had already called a faint spring color to the wan landscape,
repairing with tender touches the ravages wrought by the proprietors,
or charitably covering their faults. The ragged seams in gulch and
canon lost their harsh outlines, a thin green mantle faintly clothed
the torn and abraded hillside. A few weeks more, and a veil of
forgetfulness would be drawn over the feeble failures of the Lone Star
claim. The charming derelicts themselves, listening to the raindrops on
the roof of their little cabin, gazed philosophically from the open
door, and accepted the prospect as a moral discharge from their
obligations. Four of the five partners were present. The Right and Left
Bowers, Union Mills, and the Judge.

It is scarcely necessary to say that not one of these titles was the
genuine name of its possessor. The Right and Left Bowers were two
brothers; their sobriquets, a cheerful adapt