We Americans reciprocated with a hoe-down or so, to jigging strains blasphemously evoked by one of our number from that gentle guitar; and perhaps a song or two. _Oh, Susannah!_ was revived; and other old favourites; and we had also the innumerable verses of a brand-new favourite, local to the country. It had to do with the exploits and death of one Lame Jesse. I can recall only two of the many verses: "Lame Jesse was a hard old case; He never would repent. He ne'er was known to miss a meal-- He never paid a cent! "Lame Jesse, too, like all the rest, He did to Death resign; And in his bloom went up the flume In the days of Forty-nine." When the evening chill descended, which now was quite early, we scattered to our various occupations, leaving Yank to his rest. One Sunday in the middle of October two men trudged into town leading each a pack-horse. I was at the time talking to Barnes at his hotel, and saw them from a distance hitching their animals outside Morton's. They stayed there for some time, then came out, unhitched their horses, led them as far as the Empire, hesitated, finally again tied the beasts, and disappeared. In this manner they gradually worked along to the Bella Union, where at last I recognized them as McNally and Buck Barry, our comrades of the Porcupine. Of course I at once rushed over to see them. I found them surrounded by a crowd to whom they were offering drinks free-handed. Both were already pretty drunk, but they knew me as soon as I entered the door, and surged toward me hands out. "Well! well! well!" cried McNally delightedly. "And here's himself! And who'd have thought of seeing you here! I made sure you were in the valley and out of the country long since. And you're just in time! Make a name for it? Better call it whiskey straight. Drink to us, my boy! Come, join my friends! We're all friends here! Come on, and here's to luck, the best luck ever! We've got two horse-loads of gold out there--nothing but gold--and it all came from our old diggings. You ought to have stayed. We had no trouble. Bagsby was an old fool!" All the time he was dragging me along by the arm toward the crowd at the bar. Barry maintained an air of owlish gravity. "Where's Missouri Jones?" I inquired; but I might as well have asked the stone mountains. McNally chattered on, excited, his blue eyes dancing, bragging over and over about his two horse-loads of gold. The crowd took his whiskey, laughed with him, and tried shrewdly to pump him as to the location of his diggings. McNally gave them no satisfaction there; but even when most hilarious retained enough sense to put them off the track. As will be imagined, I was most uneasy about the whole proceeding, and tried quietly to draw the two men off.