“There!” he said, slapping the fourteen cents on the counter, “now it’s even dollars!” “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Pedler Jim, turning his back and walking over to the window. Somers looked after the retreating figure, and a broad smile lighted up his round red face. Slipping his hand inside his coat he pulled out a roll of greenbacks. In another minute the fourteen cents lay neatly piled on top of two ten-dollar bills. The man hastily slipped into his old position and coughed meaningly. “Ye don’t seem pleased,” he began. The hunchback did not stir. “Mebbe ye don’t want my money,” hazarded the miner. No answer. “Oh, well, I can take it back,” and Somers shuffled noisily off his seat. Pedler Jim wheeled about and came down the store with his small black eyes blazing. “Jiminy Christmas, man! If you ain’t enough ter try a saint! I’m blest if I can git mad at ye, though, fur all yer pesterin’ ways. Now what in thunder—” The storekeeper’s jaw dropped, and his mouth fell open idiotically as his eyes rested on the greenbacks. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he murmured again, and clutched the money in his claw-like fingers. At that moment the outer door opened to admit a tall, broad-shouldered miner wearing a slouch hat well over his eyes. In a trice Pedler Jim was the obsequious merchant behind the counter. The newcomer gave his order in a low voice and stood motionless while the hunchback busied himself in filling it. “Anything else?” suggested Jim wistfully, as he pushed a small package toward him. “Oh, I guess that’ll do for this time,” returned the man, picking up his purchase and motioning toward a dollar bill on the counter. Pedler Jim looked up quickly and something like tenderness came into his eyes. “I—guess you’re from Yankee-land, stranger; shake, won’t ye?” he said, thrusting his hand across the counter. “Gorry! but it’s prime ter see a good old New Englander among all these dagos and Dutchmen and the Lord only knows what else here. Bill an’ me was gittin’ lonesome—I’m glad ye come!” At Jim’s first words the stranger had stepped back, but the outstretched hand had brought him to the counter again, and he gave the brown fingers a grip that made the little hunchback wince with pain. But Pedler Jim’s welcome was scarcely spoken before the man had turned and disappeared through the door. “Well, I snum! I should think he was ‘Hustler Joe’!” murmured Jim. “If he didn’t even hustle off and leave his change,” he added, looking helplessly at the dollar bill on the counter. Somers laughed. “Hustle!—you’d oughter see him at the mines! why, that man works like all possessed. He don’t speak nor look at a soul of us ’nless he has to. If there’s a chance ter work extry—he gits it; an’ he acts abused ’cause he can’t work every night and Sundays to boot. Gosh! I can’t understand him,” finished Bill, with a yawn and a long stretch.