s about played out, and he didn't want
any more in his--thank you!" repeated the Judge with a mechanical effort
of memory utterly devoid of personal or present interest.

"I always suspected that man, after Grimshaw begun to deal with him,"
said the Left Bower. "They're just mean enough to join hands against
us." It was a fixed belief of the Lone Star partners that they were
pursued by personal enmities.

"More than likely those new strangers over in the Fork have been paying
cash and filled him up with conceit," said Union Mills, trying to dry
his leg by alternately beating it or rubbing it against the cabin wall.
"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 g