get on
your track, but failed; I knew you meant to come to California, and
when we drifted here, I was hopeful of finding you, but I didn't think
it would be in this style."

While speaking the corporal had retained the hand of the captain,
shaking it occasionally as he spoke. He now gave it a final pressure
and dropped it.

"Captain, you and I went through some pretty tough scrimmages and you
were always dead true and game; when we lost our colonel and major,
you took command and led the charge that day at Cold Harbor; Grant or
Sheridan couldn't have done better."

"It _was_ rather warm," smiled the captain, blushing at the
compliment; "but, corporal, it looks as if we are going to have
something of the kind here."

Corporal Parker deliberately turned to the wondering group behind
him.

"Jim and Tom, you know what we agreed on, if this should prove to be
my old commander. You two wore the gray, but you are true blue now."

At this reminder, two of the company without a word rode forward and
placed themselves beside the corporal.

"Now, we'll face the other way."

His suggestion was followed. The three wheeled their animals around,
so that their riders, like the footmen, were in a line confronting
Colonel Briggs and his astonished company.

"Dress," said the corporal, looking down and moving his mule about
until the alignment would have drawn a compliment from a West Point
cadet.

"Now, boys, are your shooting irons ready?"

"They gin'rally air," was the significant response of one of the men.

"All right, colonel," added the corporal making a military salute;
"everything being in readiness please let the skirmish proceed."

Colonel Briggs emitted a forceful exclamation.

"What's the meaning of all this? I don't understand it."

"There are six on each side; that evens matters; shall you start the
music or do you prefer to have the captain fire the opening gun?"

"But you haven't told me what this means."

"It means that Captain Dawson and Corporal Bob Parker have drunk from
the same canteen."

It must be conceded that Colonel Briggs had one merit; no one was
quicker than he to grasp a situation. So long as there were nine men
on one side and three on the other, the success of the former was
promising. He meant to crowd the defiant miners to the wall and would
have done so but for the unprecedented turn of affairs. Now it was six
to six and he knew the mettle of the three recruits that had joined