"To hell with mining!" said Yank; "it's all right for a vacation, but it ain't noways a white man's stiddy work. Well, we had our vacation." "Then you're not going back to the mines?" "Not any!" stated Yank emphatically. "Nor home?" "No." "What then?" "I'm going to take up a farm up thar whar the Pine boys is settled, and I'm going to enjoy life reasonable. Thar's good soil, and thar's water; thar's pleasant prospects, and lots of game and fish. What more does a man want? And what makes me sick is that it's been thar all the time and it's only just this minute I've come to see it." "Mines for you, Johnny, or home?" asked Talbot. "Me, home?" cried Johnny; "why----" he checked himself, and added more quietly. "No, I'm not going home. There's nothing there for me but a good time, when you come right down to it. And mines? It strikes me that fresh gold is easy to get, but almighty hard to keep." "You never said a truer word than that, Johnny," I put in. "Besides which, I quit mining some time ago, as you remember," went on Johnny, "due to an artistic aversion to hard work," he added. "Any plans?" asked Talbot. "I think I'll just drift up to Sonoma and talk things over with Danny Randall," replied Johnny vaguely. "He had some sort of an idea of extending this express service next year." "And you?" Talbot turned to me. "I," said I, firmly, "am going to turn over my share in a business partnership with you; and in the meantime I expect to get a job driving team with John McGlynn for enough to pay the board bill while you rustle. And that goes!" I added warningly. "Thank you, Frank," replied Talbot, and I thought I saw his bright eye dim. He held silent for a moment. "Do you know," he said suddenly, "I believe we're on the right track. It isn't the gold. That is a bait, a glittering bait, that attracts the world to these shores. It's the country. The gold brings them, and out of the hordes that come, some, like us, will stick. And after the gold is dug and scattered and all but forgotten, we will find that we have fallen heirs to an empire." THE END NOTE The author desires fully to acknowledge his indebtedness to the following writers, from whose books he has drawn freely, both for historical fact, incidents, and the spirit of the times: