was times when if the twenty-seven passengers o' that stage hed found
theirselves swimming in the American River five hundred feet below
the road, I never could have explained it satisfactorily to the
company,--never.

"The sheriff said," Bill continued hastily, as if to preclude any
interruption from the young man,--"the sheriff said he had been
brought into Murphy's Camp three years before, dripping with water, and
sufferin' from perkussion of the brain, and had been cared for generally
by the boys 'round. When I told the sheriff I knowed 'im, I got him to
leave him in my care; and I took him to 'Frisco, Tommy, to 'Frisco,
and I put him in charge o' the best doctors there, and paid his board
myself. There was nothin' he didn't have ez he wanted. Don't look that
way, my dear boy, for God's sake, don't!"

"O Bill," said Islington, rising and staggering to the window, "why did
you keep this from me?"

"Why?" said Bill, turning on him savagely,--"why? because I warn't a
fool. Thar was you, winnin' your way in college; thar was YOU, risin' in
the world, and of some account to it; yer was an old bummer, ez good ez
dead to it,--a man ez oughter been dead afore! a man ez never denied it!
But you allus liked him better nor me," said Bill, bitterly.

"Forgive me, Bill," said the young man, seizing both his hands. "I know
you did it for the best; but go on."

"Thar ain't much more to tell, nor much use to tell it, as I can see,"
said Bill, moodily. "He never could be cured, the doctors said, for he
had what they called monomania,--was always talking about his wife and