on the recent election at Fresno, without the slightest further
reference to the pursuit of the robbers. It was not until the remaining
and undenominated passenger turned to Hale, and, regretting that he had
immediate business at the Summit, offered to accompany the party if they
would wait a couple of hours, that Colonel Clinch briefly returned to
the subject.

"FOUR men will do, and ez we'll hev to take horses from the station
we'll hev to take the fourth man from there."

With these words he resumed his uninteresting conversation with the
equally uninterested Rawlins, and the undenominated passenger subsided
into an admiring and dreamy contemplation of them both. With all his
principle and really high-minded purpose, Hale could not help feeling
constrained and annoyed at the sudden subordinate and auxiliary position
to which he, the projector of the enterprise, had been reduced. It was
true that he had never offered himself as their leader; it was true that
the principle he wished to uphold and the effect he sought to obtain
would be equally demonstrated under another; it was true that the
execution of his own conception gravitated by some occult impulse to
the man who had not sought it, and whom he had always regarded as an
incapable. But all this was so unlike precedent or tradition that, after
the fashion of conservative men, he was suspicious of it, and only that
his honor was now involved he would have withdrawn from the enterprise.
There was still a chance of reasserting himself at the station, where he
was known, and where some authority might be deputed to him.

But even this prospect failed. The station, half hotel and half stable,
contained only the landlord, who was also express agent, and the new
volunteer who Clinch had suggested would be found among the stable-men.