"I mean what I say," returned Maxwell, quickly. "He was going to see his sister--a mere child. Of course he can't go now. But he must see her--if she can be brought to him. Can you--_will_ you do it?" Jack cast another swift glance at Gabriel. "Count me in," he said, promptly; "when shall I go?" "Now--at once." "All right. Where shall I fetch her to?" "One Horse Gulch." "The game's made," said Jack, sententiously. "She'll be there by sundown to-morrow." He was off like a flash, but as swiftly returned, and called Maxwell to the door. "Look here," he said, in a whisper, "p'r'aps it would be as well if the sheriff didn't know I was _his_ friend," he went on, indicating Gabriel with a toss of his head and a wink of his black eye, "because, you see, Joe Hall and I ain't friends. We had a little difficulty, and some shootin' and foolishness down at Marysville last year. Joe's a good, square man, but he ain't above prejudice, and it might go against our man." Maxwell nodded, and Jack once more darted off. But his colour was so high, and his exaltation so excessive, that when he reached his room his faithful Pete looked at him in undisguised alarm. "Bress us--it tain't no whisky, Mars Jack, arter all de doctors tole you?" he said, clasping his hands in dismay. The bare suggestion was enough for Jack in his present hilarious humour. He instantly hiccuped, lapsed wildly over against Pete with artfully simulated alcoholic weakness, tumbled him on the floor, and grasping his white, woolly head, waved over it a boot-jack, and frantically demanded "another bottle." Then he laughed; as suddenly got up with the greatest gravity and a complete change in his demeanour, and wanted to know, severely, what he, Pete, meant by lying there on the floor in a state of beastly intoxication? "Bress me! Mars Jack, but ye _did_ frighten me. I jiss allowed dem tourists downstairs had been gettin' ye tight." "You did--you degraded old ruffian! If you'd been reading Volney's 'Ruins,' or reflectin' on some of those moral maxims that I'm just wastin' my time and health unloading to you, instead of making me the subject of your inebriated reveries, you wouldn't get picked up so often. Pack my valise, and chuck it into some horse and buggy--no matter whose. Be quick." "Is we gwine to Sacramento, Mars Jack?"