stened
and sticking straight over his forehead like the horn of an animal. He
would run the comb through with his right hand and then smooth the hair
with his left. He stopped with both arms crooked over his head, and
wheeled around like an automaton, and stared at the boy a moment, and
then said:

"Well, there! Why didn't you ring the door-bell? I say, youngster, come
forward and give us a grip of your hand. Halloo! you've got your brother
with you!"

"Not my brother, but my cousin, Howard Lawrence."

The two boys shook hands with the three, and the grip that they received
from the horny palms made them wince with pain.

"But where'd you come from? We don't see a couple of youngsters dressed
up in your style promenading 'round in these parts every day. Where'd
you come from?"

"The steamer on which we took passage the other day from Panama, was
burned off the coast, and we got ashore on a raft."

"Be you the only ones?"

"No; there were quite a number that escaped."

"Where be they?"

"They were carried away by a vessel while we had wandered inland."

"And you two--halloo! here's your grandfather!"

"No; that is Tim O'Rooney, a good friend of ours."

"Your humble sarvint!" saluted the Irishman, removing his hat, making a
profound bow and scraping a large foot upon the ground.

"Well, there! We're glad to see you. What's all your names?"

They were given several times, and then carefully spelled at the request
of the large-whiskered man, who desired that no mistake might be made.

"You may call me Ned Trimble, and that ugly-looking fellow 'tending to
the fire is George Wakeman, and that horrid-looking chap scrubbing off
his dirty face, is Alfred Wilkins. Neither of them know much, and I
brought them along to black my boots and dress my hair."

It looked as though Ned was a sort of a wag, for his companions smiled
as if they were used to that thing. He continued:

"We're a party of hunters that have been in Californy for the last five
years, and I rather guess I've prospected through every part of it."

"You must be rich by this time."

"Rich!" laughed Ned Trimble. "Well there, we're everything but rich.
Somehow or other we hain't had the luck. We sold a claim up in the
diggings for five hundred dollars, and the next week the party sold it
for fifteen thousand. That's the way it has always gone with us; but we
are going to be rich yet--ain't we, boys."

"Yes, if we only live long enough," replied