s before took the
first honors at Yale, shifted his position, so as to keep an eye on
his comrade, and straightway proceeded to drop into a sound slumber,
which was not broken until the sun rose on the following morning.

The sympathy for Wade was general. Had he not insisted upon carrying
out in spirit and letter the full punishment pronounced upon him,
there would have been a unanimous agreement to commute his term by
one or two days at least; but all knew the grit or "sand" of the
fellow too well to propose it.

His actions on the seventh day caused considerable disquietude. He had
labored in the mines, in a desultory fashion up to that time, but he
did not do a stroke of work during the concluding hours of his ordeal.
It was observed by his partner, Budge Isham, that his appetite was
unusually good and he seemed to be in high spirits. His friends
attributed this to the closeness of his reward for his abstention, but
he took several walks up the mountain side and was gone for a good
while. He wore a smiling face and Vose Adams declared that he
overheard him communing with himself, when he thought he was too far
off for the act to be noticed.

"No use of talkin'," whispered Vose; "Wade ain't quite himself; he's a
little off and won't be exactly right till after two or three days."

"He has my sympathy," remarked the parson, "but it will serve as a
lesson which he will always remember."

"And won't _we_ remember it?" said Ike Hoe, with a shudder. "When
we're disposed to say one of them unproper words, the picture of that
miserable scamp going a full week without a touch of Mountain Dew,
will freeze up our lips closer than a clam."

That night the usual group was gathered at the Heavenly Bower. There
were the same merry jests, the reminiscences, the conjectures how
certain diggings would pan out, the small talk and the general good
feeling. Common hardship and suffering had brought these rough men
close to one another. They were indulgent and charitable and each one
would have eagerly risked his life for the sake of the rest. Quick to
anger, they were equally quick to forgive, mutually rejoicing in good
fortune, and mutually sympathetic in sorrow.

There was more than one furtive glance at Ruggles, who was among the
first arrivals. Whispers had passed around of his strange actions, and
the surprise would not have been great had it been found that he had
gone clean daft; but nothing in his manner indicated anythi