The dying woman cast her eyes appealingly at the surgeon, and that worthy stepped outside the door. Then the yellow-faced woman said:

"Sam, doctor says I ain't got much time left."

"Mary," said Sam, "I wish ter God I could die fur yer. The children--"

"It's them I want to talk about, Sam," replied his wife. 'An' I wish they could die with me, rather'n hev 'em liv ez I've hed to. Not that you ain't been a kind husband to me, for you hev. Whenever I wanted meat yev got it, somehow; an' when yev been ugly drunk, yev kep' away from the house. But I'm dyin', Sam, and it's cos you've killed me."

"Good God, Mary!" cried the astonished Sam, jumping up; "yure crazy--here, doctor!"

"Doctor can't do no good, Sam; keep still, and listen, ef yer love me like yer once said yer did; for I hevn't got much breath left," gasped the woman.

"Mary," said the aggrieved Sam, "I swow to God I dunno what yer drivin'

at."

"It's jest this, Sam," replied the woman: "Yer tuk me, tellin' me ye'd love me an' honor me an' pertect me. You mean to say, now, yev done it?

I'm a-dyin', Sam--I hain't got no favors to ask of nobody, an' I'm tellin' the truth, not knowin' what word'll be my last."

"Then tell a feller where the killin' came in, Mary, for heaven's sake,"

said the unhappy Sam.

"It's come in all along, Sam," said the woman; "there is women in the States, so I've heerd, that marries fur a home, an' bread an' butter, but you promised more'n that, Sam. An' I've waited. An' it ain't come.

An' there's somethin' in me that's all starved and cut to pieces. An'

it's your fault, Sam. I tuk yer fur better or fur wuss, an' I've never grumbled."

"I know yer hain't, Mary," whispered the conscience-stricken Pike. "An'

I know what yer mean. Ef God'll only let yer be fur a few years, I'll see ef the thing can't be helped. Don't cuss me, Mary--I've never knowed how I've been a-goin'. I wish there was somethin' I could do 'fore you go, to pay yer all I owe yer. I'd go back on everything that makes life worth hevin'."

"Pay it to the children, Sam," said the sick woman, raising herself in her miserable bed. "I'll forgive yer everything if you'll do the right thing fur them. Do--do--everything!" said the woman, throwing up her arms and falling backward. Her husband's arm caught her; his lips brought to her wan face a smile, which the grim visitor, who an instant later stole her breath, pityingly left in full possession of the rightful inheritance from which it had been so long excluded.

Sam knelt for a moment with his face beside his wife--what he said or did the Lord only knew, but the doctor, who was of a speculative mind, afterward said that when Sam appeared at the door he showed the first Pike face in which he had ever seen any signs of a soul.

Sam went to the sod house, where lived the oldest woman in the camp, and briefly announced the end of his wife. Then, after some consultation with the old woman, Sam rode to town on one of his horses, leading another. He came back with but one horse and a large bundle; and soon the women were making for Mrs. Trotwine her last earthly robe, and the first new one she had worn for years. The next day a wagon brought a coffin and a minister, and the whole camp silently and respectfully followed Mrs. Trotwine to a home with which she could find no fault.

For three days all the male Pikes in the camp sat on the log in front of Sam's door, and expressed their sympathy as did the three friends of Job--that is, they held their peace. But on the fourth their tongues were unloosed. As a conversationalist the Pike is not a success, but Sam's actions were so unusual and utterly unheard of, that it seemed as if even the stones must have wondered and communed among themselves.

"I never heard of such a thing," said Brown Buck; "he's gone an' bought new clothes for each of the four young 'uns."

"Yes," said the patriarch of the camp, "an' this mornin', when I went down to the bank to soak my head, 'cos last night's liquor didn't agree with it, I seed Sam with all his young 'uns as they wuz a washin' their face an' hands with soap. They'll ketch their death an' be on the hill with their mother 'fore long, if he don't look out; somebody ort to reason with him."

"'Twon't do no good," sighed Limping Jim. "He's lost his head, an'

reason just goes into one ear and out at t'other. When he was scrapin'

aroun' the front door t'other day, an' I asked him what he wuz a-layin'

the ground all bare an' desolate for, he said he was done keepin'

pig-pen. Now everybody but him knows he never had a pig. His head's gone, just mark my words."

On the morning of the fourth day Sam's friends had just secured a full attendance on the log, and were at work upon their first pipes, when they were startled by seeing Sam harness his horse in the wagon and put all his children into it.

"Whar yer bound fur, Sam?" asked the patriarch.

Sam blushed as near as a Pike could, but answered with only a little hesitation:

"Goin' to take 'em to school to Maxfield--goin' to do it ev'ry day."

The incumbent of the log were too nearly paralyzed to remonstrate, but after a few moments of silence the patriarch remarked, in tones of feeling, yet decision:

"He's hed a tough time of it, but he's no bizness to ruin the settlement. I'm an old man myself, an' I need peace of mind, so I'm goin' to pack up my traps and mosey. When the folks at Maxfield knows what he's doin', they'll make him a constable or a justice, an' I'm too much of a man to live nigh any sich."

And next day the patriarch wheeled his family and property to parts unknown.

A few days later Jim Merrick, a brisk farmer a few miles from the Bend, stood in front of his own house, and shaded his eyes in solemn wonder.

It couldn't be--he'd never heard of such a thing before yet it was--there was no doubt of it--there was a Pike riding right toward him, in open daylight. He could swear that Pike had often visited him--that is, his wheatfield and corral--after dark, but a daylight visit from a Pike was as unusual as a social call of a Samaritan upon a Jew. And when Sam--for it was he--approached Merrick and made his business known, the farmer was more astonished and confused than he had ever been in his life before. Sam wanted to know for how much money Merrick would plow and plant a hundred and sixty acres of wheat for him, and whether he would take Sam's horse--a fine animal, brought from the States, and for which Sam could show a bill of sale--as security for the amount until he could harvest and sell his crop. Merrick so well understood the Pike nature, that he made a very liberal offer, and afterward said he would have paid handsomely for the chance.

A few days later, and the remaining Pikes at the Bend experienced the greatest scare that had ever visited their souls. A brisk man came into the Bend with a tripod on his shoulder, and a wire chain, and some wire pins, and a queer machine under his arm, and before dark the Pikes understood that Sam had deliberately constituted himself a renegade by entering a quarter section of land. Next morning two more residences were empty, and the remaining fathers of the hamlet adorned not Sam's log, but wandered about with faces vacant of all expression save the agony of the patriot who sees his home invaded by corrupting influences too powerful for him to resist.

Then Merrick sent up a gang-plow and eight horses, and the tender green of Sam's quarter section was rapidly changed to a dull-brown color, which is odious unto the eye of the Pike. Day by day the brown spot grew larger, and one morning Sam arose to find all his neighbors departed, having wreaked their vengeance upon him by taking away his dogs. And in his delight at their disappearance, Sam freely forgave them all.

Regularly the children were carried to and from school, and even to Sunday-school--regularly every evening Sam visited the grave on the hillside, and came back to lie by the hour looking at the sleeping darlings--little by little farmers began to realize that their property was undisturbed--little by little Sam's wheat grew and waxed golden; and then there came a day when a man from 'Frisco came and changed it into a heavier gold--more gold than Sam had ever seen before. And the farmers began to stop in to see Sam, and their children came to see his, and kind women were unusually kind to the orphans, and as day by day Sam took his solitary walk on the hillside, the load on his heart grew lighter, until he ceased to fear the day when he, too, should lie there.

[Illustration]

FIRST PRAYER AT HANNEY'S

Hanney's Diggings certainly needed a missionary, if any place ever did; but, as one of the boys once remarked during a great lack of water, "It had to keep on a-needin'." Zealous men came up by steamer _via_ the Isthmus, and seemed to consume with their fiery haste to get on board the vessel for China and Japan, and carry the glad tidings to the heathen. Self-sacrificing souls gave up home and friends, and hurried across, overland, to brave the Pacific and bury themselves among the Australasian savages. But, though they all passed in sight of Hanney's, none of them paused to give any attention to the souls who had flocked there. Men came out from 'Frisco and the East to labor with the Chinese miners, who were the only peaceable and well-behaved people in the mines; but the white-faced, good-natured, hard-swearing, generous, heavy-drinking, enthusiastic, murderous Anglo-Saxons they let severely alone. Perhaps they thought that hearts in which the good seed had once been sown, but failed to come up into fruit, were barren soil; perhaps they thought it preferable to be killed and eaten by cannibals than to be tumbled into a gulch by a revolver-shot, while the shootist strolled calmly off in company with his approving conscience, never thinking to ascertain whether his bullet had completed the business, or whether a wounded man might not have to fight death and coyotes together.

At any rate, the missionaries let Hanney's alone. If any one with an unquenchable desire to carry the Word where it is utterly unknown, a digestion without fear, and a full-proof article of common sense (these last two requisites are absolute), should be looking for an eligible location, Hanney's is just the place for him, and he need give himself no trouble for fear some one would step in before him. If he has several dozens of similarly constituted friends, they can all find similar locations by betaking themselves to any mining camp in the West.

As Hanney's had no preacher, it will be readily imagined it had no church. With the first crowd who located there came an insolvent rumseller from the East. He called himself Pentecost, which was as near his right name as is usual with miners, and the boys dubbed his shop "Pentecost Chapel" at once. The name, somehow, reached the East, for within a few months there reached the post-office at Hanney's a document addressed to "Preacher in charge of Pentecost Chapel." The postmaster went up and down the brook in high spirits, and told the boys; they instantly dropped shovel and pan, formed line, and escorted the postmaster and document to the chapel. Pentecost acknowledged the joke, and stood treat for the crowd, after which he solemnly tore the wrapper, and disclosed the report of a certain missionary society. Modestly expressing his gratification at the honor, and his unworthiness of it, he moved that old Thompson, who had the loudest voice in the crowd, should read the report aloud, he, Pentecost, volunteering to furnish Thompson all necessary spirituous aid during the continuance of his task. Thompson promptly signified his acquiescence, cleared his throat with a glass of amber-colored liquid, and commenced, the boys meanwhile listening attentively, and commenting critically.

"Too much cussed heavenly twang," observed one, disapprovingly, as one letter largely composed of Scriptural extracts was read.

"Why the deuce didn't he shoot?" indignantly demanded another, as a tale of escape from heathen pursuers was read.

"Shot up wimmen in a derned dark room! Well, _I'll_ be durned!"

soliloquized a yellow-haired Missourian, as Thompson read an account of a Zenana. "Reckon they'd set an infernal sight higher by wimmen if they wuz in the diggins' six months--hey, fellers?"

"You bet!" emphatically responded a majority of those present.

Before the boys became very restive, Thompson finished the pamphlet, including a few lines on the cover, which stated that the society was greatly in need of funds, and that contributions might be sent to the society's financial agent in Boston. Thompson gracefully concluded his service by passing the hat, with the following net result: Two revolvers, one double-barreled pistol, three knives, one watch, two rings (both home-made, valuable and fearfully ugly), a pocket-inkstand, a silver tobacco-box, and forty or fifty ounces of dust and nuggets.

Boston Bill, who was notoriously absent-minded, dropped in a pocket-comb, but, on being sternly called to order by old Thompson, cursed himself most fluently, and redeemed his disgraceful contribution with a gold double-eagle. "The Webfoot," who was the most unlucky man in camp, had been so wrought upon by the tale of one missionary who had lost his all many times in succession, sympathetically contributed his only shovel, for which act he was enthusiastically cursed and liberally treated at the bar, while the shovel was promptly sold at auction to the highest bidder, who presented it, with a staggering slap between the shoulders, to its original owner. The remaining non-legal tenders were then converted into gold-dust, and the whole dispatched by express, with a grim note from Pentecost, to the society's treasurer at Boston. As the society was controlled by a denomination which does not understand how good can come out of evil, no detail of this contribution ever appeared in print. But a few months thereafter there _did_ appear at Hanney's a thin-chested, large-headed youth, with a heavily loaded mule, who announced himself as duly accredited by the aforementioned society to preach the Gospel among the miners. The boys received him cordially, and Pentecost offered him the nightly hospitality of curling up to sleep in front of the bar-room fireplace. His mule's load proved to consist largely of tracts, which he vigorously distributed, and which the boys used to wrap up dust in. He nearly starved while trying to learn to cook his own food, so some of the boys took him in and fed him. He tried to persuade the boys to stop drinking, and they good-naturedly laughed; but when he attempted to break up the "little game" which was the only amusement of the camp--the only _steady_ amusement, for fights were short and irregular--the camp rose in its wrath, and the young man hastily rose and went for his mule.

But at the time of which this story treats a missionary would have fared even worse, for the boys where wholly absorbed by a very unrighteous, but still very darling, pleasure. A pair of veteran knifeists, who had fought each other at sight for almost ten years every time they met, had again found themselves in the same settlement, and Hanney's had the honor to be that particular settlement. "Judge" Briggs, one of the heroes, had many years before discussed with his neighbor, Billy Bent, the merits of two opposing brands of mining shovels. In the course of the chat they drank considerable villainous whisky, and naturally resorted to knives as final arguments. The matter might have ended here, had either gained a decided advantage over the other; but both were skillful--each inflicted and received so near the same number of wounds, that the wisest men in camp were unable to decide which whipped. Now, to average Californians in the mines this is a most distressing state of affairs; the spectators and friends of the combatants waste a great deal of time, liquor, and blood on the subject, while the combatants themselves feel unspeakably uneasy on the neutral ground between victory and defeat. At Sonora, where Billy and the Judge had their first encounter, there was no verdict, so the Judge indignantly shook the dust from his feet and went elsewhere. Soon Billy happened in at the same place, and a set-to occurred at sight, in which the average was no disarranged. Both men went about, for a month or two, in a patched-up condition, and then Billy roamed off, to be soon met by the Judge with the usual result. Both men were known by reputation all through the gold regions, and the advent of either at any "gulch," or "washin'," was the best advertisement the saloon-keepers could desire. In the East, hundreds of men would have tried to reason the men out of this feud, and some few would have forcibly separated them while fighting; but in the diggings any interference in such matters is considered impertinent, and deserving of punishment.

[Illustration: 'THOMPSON GRACEFULLY CONCLUDED HIS SERVICE BY PASSING THE HAT.']

Hanney's had been fairly excited for a week, for the Judge had arrived the week before, and his points had been carefully scrutinized and weighed, time and again, by every man in the camp. There seemed nothing unusual about him--he was of middle size, and long hair and beard, a not unpleasant expression, and very dirty clothes; he never jumped a claim, always took his whisky straight, played as fair a game of poker as the average of the boys, and never stole a mule from any one whiter than a Mexican. The boys had just about ascertained all this, and made their "blind" bets on the result of the next fight, when the whole camp was convulsed with the intelligence that Billy Bent had also arrived. Work immediately ceased, except in the immediate vicinity of the champions, and the boys stuck close to the chapel, that being the spot where the encounter should naturally take place. Miners thronged in from fifty miles around, and nothing but a special mule express saved the camp from the horror of Pentecost's bar being inadequate to the demand. Between "straight bets" and "hedging" most of the gold dust in camp had been "put up," for a bet is the only California backing of an opinion. As the men did not seem to seek each other, the boys had ample time to "grind things down to a pint," as the camp concisely expressed it, and the matter had given excuse for a dozen minor fights, when order was suddenly restored one afternoon by the entrance of Billy and his neighbors, just as the Judge and _his_ neighbors were finishing a drink.