happen in their loved California. They knew that a great gold discovery had been made in the region of the American River some forty miles northeast of Sutter's Fort. Indeed, for the last year, all California had gone gold-mad over this same discovery; and now every able-bodied man in the country, who could possibly get there, was at the mines. Stores, ranches, ships, pulpits, all businesses and all professions had been deserted for the alluring smiles of the yellow god, gold, until it might be truthfully said, that in all California there was but one business and that one business was gold-digging.

The devastating gold-fever had swept over the Conroyal and the Randolph ranchos; and had left, of all the grown-up males, only Thure and Bud, who, not yet being of age, had been compelled to stay, much against their wills, to care for the women folks and the ranchos, while their fathers and brothers and all the able-bodied help had rushed off, like madmen, to the mines; and only their loyalty to their loved mothers and fathers had kept them from following. Now, the one great hope of their lives was to win permission to go to the mines, where men were winning fortunes in a day, and try their luck at gold-digging.

The Conroyal rancho, the Randolph and the Conroyal families had united, when the men went to the mines, and both families were now living at the Conroyal rancho, was some five miles from the scene of the robbery and attempted murder of the miner; and, for the first two miles of the homeward ride, the wounded man lay unconscious and motionless in Thure's arms. Then he began to move restlessly and to mutter unintelligible things.

"He sure isn't dead," Thure declared, as the struggles of the man nearly pitched both of them out of the saddle. "Just give me a hand, Bud; for, I reckon, we'll have to lower him to the ground until he gets his right senses back or quits this twitching and jerking. I am afraid he will start the wound to bleeding again."

Bud quickly sprang off the back of his horse; and together and as gently as possible the two boys lowered the wounded miner from the saddle and laid him down on a little mound of grass. A few rods away a small stream of water wound its way, half-hidden by tall grass and bushes and low trees, through the little valley where they had stopped.

"Get your hat full of water," Thure said, as he bent down to see if the bandage over the wound was still in its place. "Seems to me he ought to be getting his senses back by this time."

Bud at once started off on the run for the water and soon was back with his broad-brimmed felt hat full of the cooling fluid; and, kneeling down by the side of the wounded man, who now lay quiet, with eyes closed, although he was still muttering incoherently, he bathed the hot forehead and the swollen lumps on the back of his head.

Suddenly the miner's eyes opened and stared wonderingly around him and up into the faces of the two boys. For a minute he did not seem to be able to comprehend what had happened. Then the blank wondering look suddenly left his eyes.

"Did they get the gold?" and his hand went quickly to his waist. There was no belt there. "Gone! A good twenty pounds of as fine gold as was ever dug from the earth, gone!—Gods, if they had but given me any kind of a show, they would not have got it so easily!" and his eyes flamed and he attempted to sit up, but fell back with a groan and a whitening face.

For a minute or two he lay with eyes closed, breathing heavily. Evidently he was trying to collect his thoughts, to realize his situation. When he opened his eyes again there was a solemn, an awed look in them that had not been there before, and the anger had gone.

"I have been stabbed," he said slowly, "and I am dying."

"No, no. The knife did not go near your heart. It struck too low. You will soon be all right again. Wait until we get you home and mother will soon make a whole man of you. Mother is about the best nurse in all California," and Thure gripped one of the hard toil-worn hands and smiled encouragingly.

"No." As the man spoke his eyes never once left Thure's face. "No, I am dying. I know. I was once a surgeon, an army surgeon." For a moment his eyes darkened, as if with bitter recollections. "But, what matters the past now? Let it bury its dead," and he smiled grimly. "This is death. I know. I have seen many die just this way. Internal hemorrhage, we doctors called it. The blood from the wound is flowing into my body. I can feel it. I have half an hour, possibly an hour to live; and then—" The awed look in the eyes deepened, and, for a couple of minutes, he did not speak, but lay staring straight up into the blue skies. Suddenly his white lips tightened and he turned to Thure.

"How far is it to your home and to your mother?" he asked abruptly.

"About three miles; but I can carry you so easily that I am sure—"

"Too far," the wounded man broke in impatiently. "I might die before I got there. No, this shall be my deathbed—the soft green grass, canopied by the blue skies—a fitting end, a fitting end," he added gloomily.

"Come, come," and Thure tried to make his voice sound cheery and full of hope. "Never say die, until you are dead. Just wait until we get home and mother will put new life into you. Now, I'll get on my horse, and Bud will lift you up into my arms, and we'll be home before you know it," and Thure jumped to his feet and started toward his horse.

"No, come back," and the miner impatiently lifted himself up on one elbow. "Come back. I have no time to waste riding three miles for a deathbed. I—" Again the keen eyes searched the faces of the two boys. "I have much to say and little time in which to say it. Get that bearskin off your horse and make me as comfortable as possible on it. And be quick about it; for I am going fast, and, before I go, I want to make you two boys my heirs for saving me from those two villains. The cowardly curs! They hit me from behind!" and again the eyes flamed with anger. "They got the gold I had with me and they got me; but they did not get the secret of Crooked Arm Gulch, nor learn how to find its Golden Elbow. Curse them! If I could but live, I'd—But, what's the use?" and he sank back white-lipped on the grass. "That knife stab in the breast has done for me. And just when the golden key that unlocks all the doors of pleasure and power was tight-gripped in my very fingers! Just my luck! But," and the look of somber resignation came back into the pain-racked eyes, "I'll not die like a snarling, whining coyote. I'll meet death, as I have met life—face to face, with both eyes wide open. Now," and he turned to Bud, who had hurried to his horse and, unloosening the bear-skin, had hastened back with it and spread it out on the grass, soft hair up, by the side of the wounded man, "lay me on the skin and stuff something under my head and shoulders, so as to keep the blood from flooding my lungs and heart as long as possible; for I have that to tell that must not wait, even for death," and the white lips tightened firmly.

Thure and Bud, anxious to do everything possible to ease the last moments of the dying man, now carefully lifted him and laid him down on the skin of the grizzly bear as gently as possible. Then, taking off one of the saddles and their own coats, they placed the saddle, softened by the folded coats and the bearskin, under the head and the shoulders of the miner; and only the white tight-drawn lips and the burning eyes told of the intense pain that he must have suffered while the change was being made.

For a couple of minutes the wounded man lay silent on the bearskin, with closed eyes, breathing heavily. Then he suddenly opened his eyes and turned them resolutely on the two boys, who stood, one on each side, bending anxiously over him.

"There, that is better," he said. "That is all you can do for me. Now, sit down close to my head, so that you can hear every word that I say; for never did dying lips have a more important message to utter, never did mortal