“Put your hand on my shoulder,” said the parson. “I can get you both ashore.” “Tain’t no use,” said Jude, feebly; “corpses don’t count for much in Californy.” “But your immortal part,” remonstrated the parson, trying to seize Jude by the hand which held little Johnny. “God hev mercy on it!” whispered the dying man; “it’s the fust time He ever had an excuse to do it.” Strong man and expert swimmer as the ex-minister was, he was compelled to relinquish his hold of the wounded man; and Jude, after one or two fitful struggles against his fate, drifted lifeless down the stream and into eternity, while the widowed mother regained her child. The man of God, the chivalrous Frenchman and the brutish Mike slowly returned to their camp; but no one who met them could imagine, from their looks, that they were either of them anything better than fugitives from justice. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that: was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=).