But there came a time when the windlasses over the rabbit-burrow prospector's shafts had made their last necessary revolution. Jim Buckley knew the cross section of that country as well as you or I know the cross section of an apple we have just cut in two. Then, having satisfied his purposes, he looked to his friendships. He had never had many. Alfred, Billy Knapp, Hal Townsend, Charley Fanchild--why you could count them on the fingers of one hand--and two of these were dead, and another was so far away in the cattle country of Arizona that he might as well have been so. Jim would have liked well to have gathered this old band of comrades about him and said, "Here, boys, is what I have. It is more than enough for me: it is more than enough for all of us. Let us share it, just as we used to share our bacon or our coffee in the old days, and so we can grow old together in the way that suits us best, the way of the pioneer." As he sat in the cabin now, or stalked the hills with his rifle, this old comradeship took more and more shape from the mists of the past, and there grew up in his breast a sharp craving for old times, old faces, old friends. It was a peculiarity of his nature that his ideas possessed a sort of cumulative force. They gathered added reasons for their carrying out as a rolling snowball gathers snow. Toward the end of that month, he packed a strange old valise with clothes for the journey, strapped on his best six-shooter, put his cabin in order, and rode his horse down to Crooked Horn. There he left the animal with Billy Powers and took the train for Edgemont and thence to Rapid. He knew that Billy was somewhere in the Hills. At Rapid he learned of that individual's new importance. His heart sank a little at the thought that this prosperity might forfend his own scheme of comradeship, but nevertheless he took Blair's stage for Copper Creek and Custer. Near Rockerville the axle gave way. The brake was repaired at a miner's forge with some difficulty, but the job carried on so late into the afternoon that Blair refused to go farther that night, and the party slept at Rockerville. The next morning they pushed on again about daylight, in order that Blair might start back from Custer before noon, thus reducing his delay by a few hours. A half mile below Durand's shack the axle again gave way, this time with a sudden violence that sent flying the baggage which had been piled on top. Jim found his valise in the bushes. The catch had snapped when the bag hit the ground, so that it lay half open; but fortunately its contents had not emptied. Jim closed it with the two end-clasps, and set it by the side of the road. He did not notice that the ivory miniature had dropped out, and now lay face downward at the roots of a _mesquite_. Blair looked up from his inspection.