tle held fast in 'is hand, he coughed out, 'I
baptise this ground Virginia town.' An' so Virginia town, which was
afterwards changed t' city, the handful o' shanties was named.

"For all that my prospects were lookin' so rosy, I was really havin'
bad luck. Day after day, I was throwin' away wagon-loads o' 'blue
stuff,' as all th' other miners were doin', an' as those who had gone
before us had done--we damned it, an' didn't know its value. A month
after I'd sold out, a feller had some o' it assayed, an' it was found
to be worth nearly seven thousand dollars in gold an' silver per ton.

"I guess that curse o' the Mormons was more powerful 'an it seemed at
first sight--it's followed me through life an' ruined all the men with
whom I've come in touch. Old Virginia was thrown from his horse, an'
killed while drunk. O'Riley sold out his share for forty thousand
dollars, the bulk o' which he spent in wildcat speculations, so that,
what wi' disappointment an' loss, he finished out his days in a
madhouse. Penrod sold for eight thousand, an' soon spent everything he
had. Old Pancake sold for eleven thousand, an' lost every dollar.
Then, gettin' sick o' seein' other fellers grow rich out o' what had
bin his, he wandered off prospecting an' blew out his brains wi' his
own gun in the mountains o' Montana. A chap named Hansard, one o' our
first millionaires, died a pauper an' was buried at the public
expense. As for myself, you can see what I've become--the Man wi' the
Dead Soul."

He paused, and looked round at Granger. "_The Man wi' the Dead Soul_,"
he repeated, "that's what I am. When I die, my name will not be known
among men."

"I don't suppose there's any of us'll be remembered long," said
Granger. "There's a man out there on the bend; I was at Oxford with
him. He was one of the finest oars that England ever had. The papers
were full of him once. A sporting edition never came out but . . ."

He was interrupted. "Pass the whisky," Beorn said; "if we're goin' to
be forgot, it don't much matter what we do or have done; an' we may as
well forget."

He swallowed the spirit greedily at one quick gulp. "Where'd I got to?
Oh, yes, I'd sold out my claim for money down, an' made a fool o'
myself. You see I thought that my find was a gash-vein an' would soon
peter out, an' that I was doin' somethin' mighty clever to sell at
all. Instead o' which, I'd only skimmed the surface an' hadn't gone
deep enough. The men who bought from us