ook bad before a
jury."

With this the men sadly dispersed, leaving the innocent Cass with the
ring in his hand, and a general impression on his mind that he was
already an object of suspicion to his comrades,--an impression, it is
hardly necessary to say, they fully intended should be left to rankle
in his guileless bosom.

Notwithstanding Cass's first hopeful superstition, the ring did not
seem to bring him nor the camp any luck. Daily the "clean up" brought
the same scant rewards to their labors, and deepened the sardonic
gravity of Blazing Star. But, if Cass found no material result from his
treasure, it stimulated his lazy imagination, and, albeit a dangerous
and seductive stimulant, at least lifted him out of the monotonous
grooves of his half-careless, half-slovenly, but always self-contented
camp life. Heeding the wise caution of his comrades, he took the habit
of wearing the ring only at night. Wrapped in his blanket, he
stealthily slipped the golden circlet over his little finger, and, as
he averred, "slept all the better for it." Whether it ever evoked any
warmer dream or vision during those calm, cold, virgin-like spring
nights, when even the moon and the greater planets retreated into the
icy blue, steel-like firmament, I cannot say. Enough that this
superstition began to be colored a little by fancy, and his fatalism
somewhat mitigated by hope. Dreams of this kind did not tend to promote
his efficiency in the communistic labors of the camp, and brought him a
self-isolation that, however gratifying at first, soon debarred him the
benefits of that hard practical wisdom which underlaid the grumbling of
his fellow-workers.

"I'm dog-goned," said one commentator, "ef I don't believe that Cass is
looney over that yer ring he found. Wears it on a string under his
shirt."

Meantime, the seasons did not wait the discovery of the secret. The red
pools in Blazing Star highway were soon dried up in the fervent June
sun and riotous night winds of those altitudes. The ephemeral grasses
that had quickly supplanted these pools and the chocolate-colored mud,
were as quickly parched and withered. The footprints of spring became
vague and indefinite, and were finally lost in the impalpable dust of
the summer highway.

In one of his long, aimless excursions, Cass had penetrated a thick
undergrowth of buckeye and hazel, and found himself quite unexpectedly
upon the high road to Red Chief's Crossing. Cass knew by the lur