oved
that girl as well as I did, and I knew she liked him better than she did
me, and would be happier I dare say with him. But then I knew that old
Robins would have preferred me to him, as I was better off--and the
girl would do as he said--and, you see, I thought I was kinder in the
way--and so I left. But," he continued, as I was about to interrupt him,
"for fear the old man might object to Rattler, I've lent him enough
to set him up in business for himself in Dogtown. A pushing, active,
brilliant fellow, you know, like Rattler can get along, and will soon be
in his old position again--and you needn't be hard on him, you know, if
he doesn't. Good-by."

I was too much disgusted with his treatment of that Rattler to be at all
amiable, but as his business was profitable, I promised to attend to
it, and he left. A few weeks passed. The return steamer arrived, and a
terrible incident occupied the papers for days afterward. People in all
parts of the State conned eagerly the details of an awful shipwreck, and
those who had friends aboard went away by themselves, and read the long
list of the lost under their breath. I read of the gifted, the gallant,
the noble, and loved ones who had perished, and among them I think I was
the first to read the name of David Fagg. For the "man of no account"
had "gone home!"

MLISS

CHAPTER I

Just where the Sierra Nevada begins to subside in gentler undulations,
and the rivers grow less rapid and yellow, on the side of a great red
mountain, stands "Smith's Pocket." Seen from the red road at sunset,
in the red light and the red dust, its white houses look like the
outcroppings of quartz on the mountainside. The red stage topped
with red-shirted passengers is lost to view half a dozen times in the
tortuous descent, turning up unexpectedly in out-of-the-way places, and
vanishing altogether within a hundred yards of the town. It is probably
owing to this sudden twist in the road that the advent of a stranger
at Smith's Pocket is usually attended with a peculiar circumstance.
Dismounting from the vehicle at the stage office, the too-confident
traveler is apt to walk straight out of town under the impression that
it lies in quite another direction. It is related that one of the tunnel
men, two miles from town, met one of these self-reliant passengers
with a carpetbag, umbrella, Harper's Magazine, and other evidences of
"Civilization and Refinement," plodding along over the road he