n' on th' Old Colony one way and
another for more'n twenty years. When I knowed him he used t' run th'
steamboat express from Boston t' Fall River--their boss train on that
blasted old road. Steve owned a house clost t' th' line just a little
way out o' Braintree; an' when 't was his day off he'd mostly slide down
from Fall River on No. 2, an' walk out home from Braintree along th'
track. Nobody ever know'd just how 't happened--Steve was th' soberest
man I ever knowed; never drunk a drop o' nothin'--but one day, as he was
walkin' out home, No. 15, that was th' slow freight from Boston t'
Newport, ketched him an' got in its work on him--an' that was th' end o'
Steve. It didn't kill him right smack off, an' I went down t' see him;
for I did think th' world of old Steve. He was a-layin' in his bed, an'
I could see that he was a-most gone when I got there; but he chippered
up a little for a minute as I shook hands with him and ast him how he
was. He said he was poorly; an' then he kep' quiet for a while. Then he
kind o' ketched his breath an' seemed t' want t' say somethin'. So I
bent over him, an' he said, in a kind of a whisperin' groan: 'Jus' think
of it, Seth, what did it was th' slow freight! That's what cuts me;
that's what cuts me the worst kind. I wouldn't a-minded if 't had been
th' express--them things will happen, an' they've got t' come. But here
I've been a-railroadin' for more'n twenty year, an' t' think o' _me_
bein' busted by that d----n slow freight!' An' then he turned over, an'
give a sort of a grunt, an' died."

I am not sure that I myself should have selected this particular story
to tell to Rayburn just then; but the moral that it contained
unquestionably was a sound one, and, in a way, was calculated to impress
upon him strongly the conviction that his duty was to get well.

XXXVIII.

KING CHALTZANTZIN'S TREASURE.

Whether or not Young's story had this good effect upon Rayburn, I am not
prepared to say; but it is certain that he slept well that night--his
first good night's sleep for many weeks--and that when morning came he
was so much stronger and brighter as to fill us with a still more
earnest hope that he was well started on the way to recovery.

Young quickly brought in some birds for our breakfast, and when the meal
was finished he took me aside and said: "Now, Professor, lets me an' you
go back t' that hole an' bring away all there is there that's worth
carryin'. It's not much, I