the midst of this stupefaction, it was a part of his strange mental
condition that trivial details of Miss Mayfield's face and figure,
and even apparel, were constantly before him, to the exclusion of
consecutive thought. A collar she used to wear, a ribbon she had once
tied around her waist, a blue vein in her dropped eyelid, a curve in
her soft, full, bird-like throat, the arch of her in-step in her small
boots--all these were plainer to him than the future, or even the
present. But a voice in his ear, a figure before his abstracted eyes, at
last broke upon his reverie.

"Jeff Briggs!"

Jeff mechanically took the outstretched hand of a young clerk of the
Pioneer Coach Company, who had once accompanied Yuba Bill and stopped at
the "Half-way House." He endeavored to collect his thoughts; here seemed
to be an opportunity to go somewhere!

"What are you doing now?" said the young man briskly.

"Nothing," said Jeff simply.

"Oh, I see--going home!"

Home! the word stung sharply through Jeff's benumbed consciousness.

"No," he stammered, "that is--"

"Look here, Jeff," broke in the young man, "I've got a chance for you
that don't fall in a man's way every day. Wells, Fargo & Co.'s treasure
messenger from Robinson's Ferry to Mempheys has slipped out. The place