together a few remnants for his last meal. It was not until he had
finished his coffee, and Collinson had brought up his horse, that a
slight sense of shame at his own and his comrades' selfishness
embarrassed his parting with his patient host. He himself was
going to Skinner's to plead for him; he knew that Parker had left
the draft,--he had seen it lying in the bar,--but a new sense of
delicacy kept him from alluding to it now. It was better to leave
Collinson with his own peculiar ideas of the responsibilities of
hospitality unchanged. Key shook his hand warmly, and galloped up
the rocky slope. But when he had finally reached the higher level,
and fancied he could even now see the dust raised by his departing
comrades on their two diverging paths, although he knew that they
had already gone their different ways,--perhaps never to meet
again,--his thoughts and his eyes reverted only to the ruined mill
below him and its lonely occupant.

He could see him quite distinctly in that clear air, still standing
before his door. And then he appeared to make a parting gesture
with his hand, and something like snow fluttered in the air above
his head. It was only the torn fragments of Parker's draft, which
this homely gentleman of the Sierras, standing beside his empty
pork barrel, had scattered to the four winds.


CHAPTER II.


Key's attention was presently directed to something more important
to his present purpose. The keen wind which he had faced in
mounting the grade had changed, and was now blowing at his back.