"Did you find out who he was?" broke in a rash passenger. "Did you
ever get over it?" added another unfortunate.

With a pause of insulting scorn at the interruption, the driver
resumed, pointedly, to Mulrady: "The pint of the whole thing was my
cussin' a helpless man, ez could neither cuss back nor shoot; and
then afterwards takin' you for his ghost layin' for me to get
even." He paused again, and then added, carelessly, "They say he
never kem to enuff to let on who he was or whar he kem from; and he
was eventooally taken to a 'Sylum for Doddering Idjits and Gin'ral
and Permiskus Imbeciles at Sacramento. I've heerd it's considered
a first-class institooshun, not only for them ez is paralyzed and
can't talk, as for them ez is the reverse and is too chipper.
Now," he added, languidly turning for the first time to his
miserable questioners, "how did YOU find it?"


CHAPTER II


When the news of the discovery of gold in Mulrady shaft was finally
made public, it created an excitement hitherto unknown in the
history of the country. Half of Red Dog and all Rough-and-Ready
were emptied upon the yellow hills surrounding Mulrady's, until
their circling camp fires looked like a besieging army that had
invested his peaceful pastoral home, preparatory to carrying it by
assault. Unfortunately for them, they found the various points of
vantage already garrisoned with notices of "preemption" for mining
purposes in the name of the various members of the Alvarado family.
This stroke of business was due to Mrs. Mulrady, as a means of