The latter shook his head. 'I think he is going downhill fast. He will talk. We have tried opiates as strong as we dare give him, but they don't seem to have any effect, which is often the case with steady drinkers. He has not been a drunkard, I believe, but he has been in the habit of taking a lot of liquor regularly. He scarcely sleeps at all. That girl nurses him with wonderful patience, but she is breaking down under the strain. She wasn't in his tent this morning, and it is the first time that she has been away. When I called the other man, Murdoch, seemed a good deal put out. I don't know what about, and when I told him outside the tent that the other was worrying himself and was a good deal weaker than he was two days ago, he muttered, "The infernal skunk, it is a pity he didn't go down twenty years ago." So I suppose there has been some row between them.' 'He was a bad lot, Ryan; I know something of his past history, and believe that he was a thorough scoundrel.' 'Is that so? I never saw much of him. I don't throw away my money at the bars; my object is to make as much money as will buy me a snug practice in the old country.' 'Quite right, Ryan; it's a pity that more do not have some such object in view, and so lay by their earnings instead of throwing them away in those saloons or in the gambling hells of Sacramento.' CHAPTER XXIII The next day it was known in camp that the wounded man was sinking. There was a general feeling of pity for the girl who was believed to be his daughter, but none for the man himself, owing to his having been detected cheating--one of the deepest of crimes in a community where all men gambled more or less. The next morning it was known that he was dead. He was buried a few hours later. Had he died in good odour, the whole camp would have followed him to his grave; but not one would attend the funeral of a detected cheat, and Murdoch had to hire six men to carry the roughly-made coffin to a cleared spot among the pines that had been set apart as the graveyard of the camp. He himself followed, the only mourner, and those who saw the little procession pass through the camp remarked on Murdoch's stern and frowning face. When the body was consigned to the earth--without prayer or ceremony--Murdoch went down to where Ned was at work. 'Come round this evening,' he said; 'there is a lot to tell you.' When he went into the saloon in the evening, Murdoch beckoned him into the inner room. Having closed the door, he placed a bottle, a jug of water, and two tumblers upon the table.