oracularly.

"Hold you--does he need a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?" was
Grassette's surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. "Let us
speak in French," he said in patois. "This rope-twister will not
understan'. He is no good--I spit at him."

The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff's protest, they spoke in
French, Grassette with his eyes intently fixed on the other, eagerly
listening.

"I have come," said the Governor, "to say to you, Grassette, that you
have still a chance of life."

He paused, and Grassette's face took on a look of bewilderment and vague
anxiety. A chance of life--what did it mean?

"Reprieve?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

The Governor shook his head. "Not yet; but there is a chance. Something
has happened. A man's life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but
more likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now.
Keeley's Gulch--the mine there."

"They have found it--gold?" asked Grassette, his eyes staring. He was
forgetting for a moment where and what he was.

"He went to find it, the man whose life is in danger. He had heard from
a trapper who had been a miner once. While he was there, a landslip
came, and the opening to the mine was closed up--"