l.
"Once begin wrong with that kind of snipe and you drag everybody down
with you."

This vague conclusion was received with dead silence. Everybody had
become interested in the speaker's peculiar method of drying his leg,
to the exclusion of the previous topic. A few offered criticism, no one
assistance.

"Who did the grocery man say that to?" asked the Right Bower, finally
returning to the question.

"The Old Man," answered the Judge.

"Of course," ejaculated the Right Bower sarcastically.

"Of course," echoed the other partners together. "That's like him. The
Old Man all over!"

It did not appear exactly what was like the Old Man, or why it was like
him, but generally that he alone was responsible for the grocery man's
defection. It was put more concisely by Union Mills.

"That comes of letting him go there! It's just a fair provocation to
any man to have the Old Man sent to him. They can't, sorter, restrain
themselves at him. He's enough to spoil the credit of the Rothschilds."

"That's so," chimed in the Judge. "And look at his prospecting. Why, he
was out two nights last week, all night, prospecting in the moonlight
for blind leads, just out of sheer foolishness."

"It was quite enough for me," broke in the Left Bower, "when the other
day, you remember when, he proposed to us white men to settle down to
plain ground sluicing, making 'grub' wages just like any Chinaman. It
just showed his idea of the Lone Star claim."

"Well, I never said it afore," added Union Mills, "but when that one of
the Mattison boys came over here to examine the claim with an eye to
purchasin', it was the Old Man that took the conceit out of him. He
just as good as admitted that a lot of work had got to be done afore
any pay ore could be realized. Never even asked him over to the shanty
here to jine us in a friendly game; just kept him, so to speak, to
himself. And naturally the Mattisons didn't see it."

A silence followed, broken only by the rain monotonously falling on the
roof, and occasionally through the broad adobe chimney, where it
provoked a retaliating hiss and splutter from the dying embers of the
hearth. The Right Bower, with a sudden access of energy, drew the empty
barrel before him, and taking a pack of well-worn cards from his
pocket, began to make a "solitaire" upon the lid. The others gazed at
him with languid interest.

"Makin' it for anythin'?" asked Mills.

The Right Bower nodded.

The Judge and Left