“I wonder,” he remarked, after a discursive, fitful, but very spicy preface of ten minutes’ duration, “why they couldn’t find somethin’ I _hed_ done, instead of tuckin’ some other feller’s job on me? I _hev_ had difficulties, but this here one’s just one more than _I_ knows on. Like ’nuff some galoot’ll be mean ’nuff to try to git that thousand. I’d try it myself, ef I wuz only somebody else. Wonder why I can’t be decent, like other fellers. ’Twon’t pay to waste time thinkin’ ’bout that, though, fur I’ll hev to make a livin’ somehow.” Jude indulged in a long sigh, perhaps a penitential one, and drew from his pocket a well-filled flask, which he had purchased at the last saloon he had passed. As he extracted it, there came also from his pocket a copy of the poster, which he had abstracted from a tree _en route_. “Thar ’tis again!” he exclaimed, angrily. “Can’t be satisfied showin’ itself ev’rywhar, but must come out of my pocket without bein’ axed. Let’s see, p’r’aps it don’t mean me, after all—’One eye gone, broken nose, scar on right cheek, powder-marks on left, stumpy beard, sallow complexion, hangdog look.’ _I’d_ give a thousand ef I had it to git the feller that writ that; an’ yit it means me, an’ no dodgin’. Lord, Lord! what ’ud the old woman say ef she wuz to see me nowadays?” He looked intently at the flask for a moment or two, as if expecting an answer therefrom, then he extracted the cork, and took a generous drink. But even the liquor failed to help him to a more cheerful view of the situation, for he continued: “Nobody knows me—nobody sez, ‘Hello!’—nobody axes me to name my bitters—nobody even cusses me. They let me stake a claim, but nobody offers to lend me a pick or a shovel, an’ nobody ever comes to the shanty to spend the evenin’, ’less it’s a greenhorn. Curse ’em all! I’ll make some of ’em bleed fur it. I’ll git their dust, an’ go back East; ther’s plenty of folks _thar_ that’ll be glad to see me, ef I’ve got the dust. An’ mebbe ’twould comfort the old woman some, after all the trouble I’ve made her. Offer rewards fur me, do they? I’ll give ’em some reason to do it. I haint afeard of the hull State of Californy, an’——Good Lord! what’s that?” The gentleman who was not afraid of the whole State of California sprang hastily to his feet, turned very pale, and felt for his revolver, for he heard rapid footsteps approaching by a little path in the bushes. But though the footsteps seemed to come nearer, and very rapidly, he slowly took his hand from his pistol, and changed his scared look for a puzzled one. “Cryin’! Reckon I ain’t in danger from anybody that’s bellerin’; but it’s the fust time I’ve heerd that kind of a noise in _these_ parts. Must be a woman. Sounds like what I used to hear to home when I got on a tear; _’tis_ a woman!” [Illustration: “GET HIM—GET JOHNNY!” CRIED THE WOMAN, FALLING ON HER KNEES, AND SEIZING JUDE’S HAND. ]