, we looked out and endeavored to
discover if persons wore loitering near; but all was quiet, and not a
soul was to be seen. We hastily closed the door and bolted it, and then
moved the wounded man to a mattress that we kept for Smith to sleep upon
when he was with us, and as we did so, and the light fell upon his
features, we were surprised to discover that our visitor was our nearest
neighbor, an elderly Englishman by the name of Critchet, who, in company
with his nephew, a young fellow of dissipated habits, was working a mine
about a quarter of a mile from our store. The young man's name was
Follet; and while we had never had any conversation with him, excepting
while selling a few articles which he required from the store, we had
taken a strong prejudice against him, although upon what ground we could
not really tell.

He was one of those kind of men who never look you full in the face
while speaking, and if indeed you caught his eye, it was only for the
sixteenth part of a second, and by accident at that. He had the name of
being a desperate gambler, and once Mr. Brown had called our attention
to him, and remarked that he had lost more money at card playing than he
made honestly, and wondered if his uncle supplied his extravagances.

The latter owned the claim which he was working, and employed the nephew
at a fair salary, and that was all that we knew of the connection
between them, excepting that we had seen them talking together in an
excited manner quite frequently, and only the day before we had heard
them quarrel on some subject that we did not care to listen to, for it
did not concern us.

Report had often reached our ears that Mr. Critchet had made quite a
fortune with his claim, and that he was very prudent in his
expenditures; but as he had never disputed our prices, and paid what we
demanded without a word of complaint, we placed no reliance upon the
assertions.

After our first expression of astonishment was over, we set to work
without delay to ascertain what injuries the old man had sustained. We
removed his vest and shirt, and found a small cut near the region of
his heart; but upon probing the wound we found that the blow, evidently
intended to be a fatal one, had been misdirected; that a rib had
received the point of the knife, and saved the old man from instant
death.

A further examination revealed two more stabs, one on the right shoulder
and the other on the left breast, both of which wer