“You are going to play hob, you are,” said Mike, laughingly pushing Shoshone back, while Mike and Snakes engaged in mimic battle for the privilege of waiting upon “the Angel,” and finally dodged out the bar-room door to reach the dining-room first. Helen stood for a moment looking up to the great mountains beyond, with misty eyes, as she thought, as she did every hour of her life: “How I thank God that He let me live to find out it is never too late to mend.” Then she turned and went into the dining-room, where the four men pressed her to eat until she declared she should never be hungry again as long as she lived. While they were in the dining-room, and Pierson and his party were upstairs, there came toiling up the street a curious procession, consisting of a bony horse covered with impedimenta, among which was seated a slender, pale-faced boy. The horse was partly led, partly dragged, by Morris Goldberg, himself dusty and unkempt. His search had been long and wearisome, and it had exhausted nearly all his funds, but he found a trace of the lost girl, and had followed it as best he could, bringing with him the little boy, Loney. Sometimes, when his money was completely gone, he would stop a few days in a town and go to work mending such shoes as he could get to do, and in that way they had managed to exist. Now, they had reached this spot, and here Morris intended to remain while he sought for the mine, the deed to which was in his possession. There had been next to no vegetation on the last lap of this lonely road, and the poor beast was ready to drop. Morris Goldberg was out of his element in the mines, or, indeed, anywhere but in a city. He was too credulous and too ignorant of the way of life, and accepted all that was told him as truth. The cowboys and miners living so far from refined amusements found a sort of vicarious solace in “joshing greenhorns,” as they called it, and this meant that every newcomer was the butt of their rough jokes and rougher horse-play. The way to this lonely hamlet was long, and bordered by ranges and mines, and the men along the route had made him believe that unless he wished to be killed as a tenderfoot he must dress and act like a cowboy. At their last stopping-place the boys on a ranch joined in the fun, and fitted the poor shoemaker out with a pair of long-haired “chaps,” or leggings, and these they made him put on the wrong way. This made locomotion difficult and awkward. He was prevailed upon to wear a wide belt with four pistols. These the boys took good care to see were loaded with blank cartridges. Then the unsuspecting man was filled with stories of the dangerous location toward which he was traveling, and had impressed upon him that he must be always ready with his gun, and always try to shoot first, if any trouble arose.