“I was at it myself,” he says; “I worked at the Nelson fields for three months, and spent all I made in buying a salted claim which busted up the second day. I went at it again, though, and struck it rich; but when the gold wagon was going down to the settlements, it was stuck up by those cursed rangers, and not a red cent left.” “That was a bad job,” I says. “Broke me--ruined me clean. Never mind, I’ve seen them all hanged for it; that makes it easier to bear. There’s only one left--the villain that gave the evidence. I’d die happy if I could come across him. There are two things I have to do if I meet him.” “What’s that?” says I, carelessly. “I’ve got to ask him where the money lies--they never had time to make away with it, and it’s _cachéd_ somewhere in the mountains--and then I’ve got to stretch his neck for him, and send his soul down to join the men that he betrayed.” It seemed to me that I knew something about that _caché_, and I felt like laughing; but he was watching me, and it struck me that he had a nasty, vindictive kind of mind. “I’m going up on the bridge,” I said, for he was not a man whose acquaintance I cared much about making. He wouldn’t hear of my leaving him, though. “We’re both miners,” he says, “and we’re pals for the voyage. Come down to the bar. I’m not too poor to shout.” I couldn’t refuse him well, and we went down together; and that was the beginning of the trouble. What harm was I doing anyone on the ship? All I asked for was a quiet life, leaving others alone and getting left alone myself. No man could ask fairer than that. And now just you listen to what came of it. We were passing the front of the ladies’ cabins, on our way to the saloon, when out comes a servant lass--a freckled currency she-devil--with a baby in her arms. We were brushing past her, when she gave a scream like a railway whistle, and nearly dropped the kid. My nerves gave a sort of a jump when I heard that scream, but I turned and begged her pardon, letting on that I thought I might have trod on her foot. I knew the game was up, though, when I saw her white face, and her leaning against the door and pointing. “It’s him!” she cried; “it’s him! I saw him in the court-house. Oh, don’t let him hurt the baby!” “Who is it?” asked the steward and half-a-dozen others in a breath. “It’s him--Maloney--Maloney, the murderer--oh, take him away--take him away!”