Gulch, and the piece of ground at the top of the hill, that
had been set aside as a burial place, was already dotted thickly with
graves, filled in almost every instance by men who had died, in the
local phraseology, "with their boots on."

Neither then nor afterwards did Red George allude to the subject to
Dick, whose life after this signal instance of his championship was
easier than it had hitherto been, for there were few in Pine Tree Gulch
who cared to excite Red George's anger; and strangers going to the
place were sure to receive a friendly warning that it was best for their
health to keep their tempers over any shortcomings on the part of White
Faced Dick.

Grateful as he was for Red George's interference on his behalf, Dick
felt the circumstance which had ensued more than anyone else in the
camp. With others it was the subject of five minutes' talk, but Dick
could not get out of his head the thought of the dead man's face as he
fell back. He had seen many such frays before, but he was too full of
his own troubles for them to make much impression upon him. But in the
present case he felt as if he himself was responsible for the death of
the gambler; if he had not blundered this would not have happened.

He wondered whether the dead man had a wife and children, and, if so,
were they expecting his return? Would they ever hear where he had died,
and how?

But this feeling, which, tired out as he was when the time came for
closing the bar, often prevented him from sleeping for hours, in no way
lessened his gratitude and devotion towards Red George, and he felt that
he could die willingly if his life would benefit his champion. Sometimes
he thought, too, that his life would not be much to give, for, in spite
of shelter and food, the cough which he had caught while working in the
water still clung to him, and as his employer said to him angrily one
day:

"Your victuals don't do you no good, Dick; you get thinner and thinner,
and folks will think as I starve you. Darned if you aint a disgrace to
the establishment."

The wind was whistling down the gorges, and the clouds hung among the
pine woods which still clothed the upper slopes of the hills, and the
diggers, as they turned out one morning, looked up apprehensively.

"But it could not be," they assured each other. Everyone knew that the
rains were not due for another month yet; it could only be a passing
shower if it rained at all.

But as the morning wen