curious fancy it had apparently lifted his friend's bark over the bar
in the Monterey mountains into an open quicksilver sea. So that he was
considerably surprised on receiving a note from Biggs to this purport:


"DEAR ROY--Run down here and help a fellow. I've too much of a load for
one. Maybe we can make a team and pull 'Blue Mass' out yet. BIGGSEY."


Thatcher, sitting in his scantily furnished lodgings, doubtful of his
next meal and in arrears for rent, heard this Macedonian cry as St.
Paul did. He wrote a promissory and soothing note to his landlady, but
fearing the "sweet sorrow" of personal parting, let his collapsed
valise down from his window by a cord, and, by means of an economical
combination of stage riding and pedestrianism, he presented himself, at
the close of the third day, at Biggs's door. In a few moments he was in
possession of the story; half an hour later in possession of half the
mine, its infelix past and its doubtful future, equally with his friend.

Business over, Biggs turned to look at his partner. "You've aged some
since I saw you last," he said. "Starvation luck, I s'pose. I'd know
your eyes, old fellow, if I saw them among ten thousand; but your lips
are parched, and your mouth's grimmer than it used to be." Thatcher
smiled to show that he could still do so, but did not say, as he might
have said, that self-control, suppressed resentment, disappointment, and
occasional hunger had done something in the way of correcting Nature's
obvious mistakes, and shutting up a kindly mouth. He only took off his
threadbare coat, rolled up his sleeves, and saying, "We've got lots of
work and some fighting before us," pitched into the "affairs" of the
"Blue Mass Company" on the instant.