luice
that couldn't keep anythin' to yourself, and you'd have been sure to
have yelled it out to _me_ the first thing. So I waited. And I found
you out, you old sinner!" He reached forward and dug Uncle Billy in
the ribs.

"What _would_ you hev done?" said Uncle Billy, after an hysterical
collapse.

Uncle Jim's face grew grave again. "I'd hev--I'd--hev cl'ared out!
Out er 'Frisco! out er Californy! out er Ameriky! I couldn't have stud
it! Don't think I would hev begrudged ye yer luck! No man would have
been gladder than me." He leaned forward again, and laid his hand
caressingly upon his partner's arm--"Don't think I'd hev wanted to take
a penny of it--but I--thar! I _couldn't_ hev stood up under it! To
hev had _you_, you, you that I left behind, comin' down here rollin' in
wealth and new partners and friends, and arrive upon me--and this
shonty--and"--he threw towards the corner of the room a terrible
gesture, none the less terrible that it was illogical and inconsequent,
to all that had gone before--"and--and--_that broom_!"

There was a dead silence in the room. With it Uncle Billy seemed to
feel himself again transported to the homely cabin at Cedar Camp and
that fateful night, with his partner's strange, determined face before
him as then. He even fancied that he heard the roaring of the pines
without, and did not know that it was the distant sea.

But after a minute Uncle Jim resumed:--

"Of course you've made a little raise somehow, or you wouldn't be here?"

"Yes," said Uncle Billy eagerly. "Yes! I've got"-- He stopped and
stammered. "I've got--a--few hundreds."

"Oh, oh!" said Uncle Jim cheerfully. He paused, and then added
earnestly, "I say! You ain't got left, over and above your d--d
foolishness at the Oriental, as much as five hundred dollars?"

"I've got," said Uncle Billy, blushing a little over his first
deliberate and affected lie, "I've got at least five hundred and
seventy-two dollars. Yes," he added tentatively, gazing anxiously at
his partner, "I've got at least that."

"Jee whillikins!" said Uncle Jim, with a laugh. Then eagerly, "Look
here, pard! Then we're on velvet! I've got _nine_ hundred; put your
_five_ with that, and I know a little ranch that we can get for twelve
hundred. That's what I've been savin' up for--that's my little game!
No more minin' for _me_. It's got a shanty twice as big as our old
cabin, nigh on a hundred acres, and two mustangs. We can r