confusion, which his weak face and whisky-muddled intellect but poorly
carried out, and said:

"Damn it, Jack, a man must have a little liberty, you know. But
come, what do you say to a little game? Give us a show to double this
hundred."

Jack Hamlin looked curiously at his fatuous friend. Perhaps he knew that
the man was predestined to lose the money, and preferred that it should
flow back into his own coffers rather than any other. He nodded his
head, and drew his chair toward the table. At the same moment there came
a rap upon the door.

"It's Kate," said Mr. Brown.

Mr. Hamlin shot back the bolt, and the door opened. But, for the
first time in his life, he staggered to his feet, utterly unnerved and
abashed, and for the first time in his life the hot blood crimsoned his
colorless cheeks to his forehead. For before him stood the lady he had
lifted from the Wingdam coach, whom Brown--dropping his cards with a
hysterical laugh--greeted as:

"My old woman, by thunder!"

They say that Mrs. Brown burst into tears, and reproaches of her
husband. I saw her, in 1857, at Marysville, and disbelieve the story.
And the WINGDAM CHRONICLE, of the next week, under the head of "Touching
Reunion," said: "One of those beautiful and touching incidents, peculiar
to California life, occurred last week in our city. The wife of one of
Wingdam's eminent pioneers, tired of the effete civilization of the East