HANDED IN HIS CHECKS
ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.

And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his
heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at
once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.




MIGGLES


We were eight, including the driver. We had not spoken during the
passage of the last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehicle
over the roughening road had spoiled the Judge's last poetical
quotation. The tall man beside the Judge was asleep, his arm passed
through the swaying strap and his head resting upon it--altogether a
limp, helpless-looking object, as if he had hanged himself and been cut
down too late. The French lady on the back seat was asleep, too, yet in
a half-conscious propriety of attitude, shown even in the disposition
of the handkerchief which she held to her forehead and which partially
veiled her face. The lady from Virginia City, traveling with her
husband, had long since lost all individuality in a wild confusion of
ribbons, veils, furs, and shawls. There was no sound but the rattling
of wheels and the dash of rain upon the roof. Suddenly the stage stopped
and we became dimly aware of voices. The driver was evidently in the
midst of an exciting colloquy with someone in the road--a colloquy of
which such fragments as "bridge gone," "twenty feet of water," "can't
pass," were occasionally distinguishable above the storm. Then came