"No, I didn't see it." "I s'pose you met the old man? He owns this outfit here." "Oh, ho!" exclaimed David. "Is that so?" A sudden light came into his eyes, and traces of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. "What sort of a man is he?" he asked. "Well," replied Smith,--he had informed David that such was his name, and Yonkers, New York, his home,--"he's different from any Irishman I ever saw. Hasn't any more sense of humor than a cow, and he's the worst-tempered man in this whole country. Look at that sick horse and you'll see how he treats his animals, and he don't treat his wife and us men much better. He's going to winter on a claim of his near Dawson, and wants me to work for him up there, but I don't know about it. I'd never have started with him if I'd known him. He hasn't paid me a cent of wages yet, and I don't believe he intends to." David saw that he had a friend and sympathizer in Smith. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do," said he, "provided you're willing. I'm going to sleep in the tent to-night. If a man ever owed me a night's lodging, he's the man." And David told how he had been locked out of his own house, and cheated out of his rest. "Well, well!" exclaimed Smith, when he heard the tale. "I just wish you could have put some lead into that dog. You'd have been perfectly justified. I guess you're entitled to rather more than a night's lodging. If the miserly old fellow had left me anything to eat, I'd see that you had a good supper and breakfast, but he took every scrap of bacon with him, and I've only flour and coffee to live on till he gets back." "I've a pretty good chunk of bacon, but no flour," said David. "We'd better join forces. I'll contribute the bacon if you'll make some flapjacks." Smith gladly assented, so it was not long before David was eating a supper partly at his own, but largely also at the disagreeable packer's expense. Doubtless because it is human nature to enjoy levying a just tax on a mean man, he swallowed those flapjacks and drank that coffee with peculiar zest. The meal was no sooner finished than Smith caught sight of the truant mule on a distant hillside and set off to capture it, while David spread his blankets within the tent and presently turned in. He slept soundly till broad daylight, when he awoke with a start and found a fat ground-squirrel sitting comfortably on his breast, and eying him complacently. It ran out as soon as he stirred, and then amused itself by running up the roof of the tent on one side, and sliding down the other. Altogether it was the most lively ground-squirrel he had seen.