"You see,"--and the man leaned over to the other, and began in a whisper and strangeness of manner that suggested that his mind was wandering,--"you see, we all came out here together: Godfrey, that's the Gopher; Wilson, that's Curly, and I. Things didn't go right with me there, after I came away, so I just let them drift here. Lost my 'grip,' as they say, didn't have any 'snap' any more, as people call it. Godfrey and Wilson got on very well, though, till Wilson was killed." "Till the Gopher killed him?" "Well, now, there's where it is," said Old Baboon, and he shuddered. The dog, too, seemed to grow nervous, and crowded his ugly head up tighter between the old man's legs. "There's where it is. Godfrey did not kill Wilson. The Gopher did not kill Curly no more than did you. You see, Curly was young, and out here, he fell to gambling and taking a bit too much, and one night, when Godfrey tried to get him away from a game, a set of roughs got up a row, upset the table, and Curly got knifed by some one of the set, who made the row to get a grab at the money. Godfrey was holding the boy at the time to keep him from striking, for he was mad drunk. "Poor Curly only said, 'Don't let them know it at home,' and died in his arms. Every body was stranger to every body then, and no one took stock in that which did not concern him. People said Godfrey was right--that it was a case of self-defense, and Godfrey never said a word, never denied he killed him, but went back to the cabin, and took possession of everything, and had it all his own way. He worked like a Chinaman, and never took any part in miners' meetings, or any thing of the kind, and people began to fear and shun him. By-and-by most of his old friends had gone; and he was only known as the Gopher." Again Baboon paused, and the dog crept closer than before, as if he knew the name of his master. Once more the man arose, lifted the candle, contemplated the beads in the bottle, as before, and returned. He did not sit down, but took up and pulled back the blankets at the end of the bunk. "I thought as much," said the stranger to himself. "The gold is hidden in the straw." "Look at them," said he; and he threw down a bundle of papers, and held down the dim candle. There were hundreds of letters, all written in a fine steel-plate lady's hand. Some addressed to Godfrey, and some to Wilson. Now and then was one with a border of black, telling that some one at home no longer waited the return. "Come home, come home," was at the bottom of them all. One addressed to Wilson, of a recent date, thanked him with all a mother's and sister's tenderness for the money he had so constantly sent them through all the weary years.