Coyote Valley was all alive. Vaqueros from the foot-hill ranches were tearing up and down the dusty road along Coyote Creek from Wilkins' ranch to the foot of the valley, buckboards loaded with Mexicans, Joe's stage creaking beneath the weight of half the roughs of Gold City, groups of excited miners on foot, were making their way as fast as possible to Wilkins' old hay barn, which had been turned into a combination of saloon and grand stand. Under the shade of an immense live-oak just west of the barn, the big waiter at the Miners' Home was running an opposition saloon to the one inside, with a plank on two kegs for a bar. The center of the barn was already filled with dark-skinned Senoritas and tall, gawky miners dancing to the music of a squeaky violin. The air was filled with dust and bets and oaths, when on that strange Sunday morning Job galloped up Coyote Valley and pulled up in time to hear Dan's voice in high pitch cry out: "There she is, the best mare in Grizzly county; ten to one against the crowd! Come in, Job; come up, boys! Let's have a drink around to the success of the Hon. Job Malden, the slickest rider in all the hills!" Almost before he knew it. Job was hauled bodily up to the bar and had a beer glass in his hand. How strange he felt! How queer it all was! He had been in the mountains three years, but this was his first Sunday picnic. Andrew Malden, though he had no religion, had always seen that Job went to Sunday-school at the Frost Creek School. To-day he had ostensibly started for there. But this was very different from the old log school-house. How different Job looked from the rest! He wore "store clothes" and a neck-tie. In the rush, something dropped on the floor. He looked down and picked it up, with a quick glance around, while a great lump came into his throat. It was a little Testament, his mother's, the one she had given him the day she died, and there was the old temperance pledge he had signed in a boy's scrawling hand. He was supposed to be at Sunday-school, so he had been obliged to carry the book. For a moment he hesitated, then he jammed it in his pocket out of sight. He hated it, he hated himself. The step was taken; he took the glass, he drank with the rest. He left the bar with a proud air. He was a man. He would win that race or die. * * * * *