you bein' in the know now, you 'll understand what's running underneath everything they say. As for the other men goin' out and looking for a cabin! Shucks! Might as well go and look for that needle you hear people talk about in the haystack. Not but what a great lot has gone out. Most every man in the Poorman Mine went off with a pack-hoss to hunt it, and plenty others too. And between you and me," said the landlord, "I reckon they 're all on the wrong scent. They 're all away along Baker Range, and I reckon they must be on the wrong scent there or else them three others wouldn't be sittin' here in Baker City smiling; that is, if they dew know where the location is."

Just then the Chinese cook arrived quietly on the scene to inform Mr. Laughlin of the progress of dinner. Then a laugh sounded in the passage and Apache Kid entered the bar-room accompanied by a heavy-set, loose-jawed man of thirty years or thereby, a man with a slovenly appearance in his dress and a cruel expression on his face.

"That's them both," said Laughlin, prodding me with his elbow as they marched through the bar and out to the rear verandah where we heard them dragging chairs about, and the harsh voice of the parrot, evidently awakened from his reveries in the sunshine:

"Well, well! If this ain't——" and a dry cackle of laughter.

"They 're lookin' right lively and pleased with themselves," said the proprietor. "I reckon if Canlan comes along to-night it will be worth your while, now that you know the ins and outs of the business, to keep an eye on the three and watch the co-mical game they keep on playin' with each other. But it can't go on forever, that there game. I do hope, if they make a bloody end to it, it don't take place in my house. Times is changed from the old days. I 've seen when it was quite an advertisement to have a bit of shooting in your house some night. And if there was n't enough holes made in the roof and chairs broke, you could make some more damage yourself; and the crowd would come in, and you 'd point out where so-and-so was standing, and where so-and-so was settin', and tell 'em how it happened, and them listening and setting up the drinks all the time. It certainly was good for business, a little shooting now and then, in the old days. But times is changed, and the sheriff we hev now is a very lively man. All the same, we ain't done with Lost Cabin Mine yet—and that ain't no lie."

CHAPTER III

Mr. Laughlin's Prophecy is Fulfilled

sense of exhilaration filled me, as I strolled down town that evening, which I can only ascribe to the rare atmosphere of that part of the world. It was certainly not due to any improvement in my financial condition, nor to any hope of "making my pile" speedily, and to "make a pile" is the predominating thought in men's minds there, with an intensity that is known in few other lands. I was pondering the story of the Lost Cabin Mine as I went, and in my own mind had come to the decision that Apache Kid and his comrade knew the whereabouts of that bonanza. Canlan, I argued, if he knew its locality at all, must have come by his news before he fell in with his rivals on the waggon road, for after that, according to the hotel-keeper's narrative, he had had no speech with the dying man.

I was in the midst of these reflections when I turned into Baker Street, the main street of Baker City. There was a wonderful bustle there; men were coming and going on either sidewalk thick as bees in hiving time; the golden air of evening was laden with the perfume of cigars; indeed, the blue of the smoke never seemed to fly clear of Baker Street on the evenings; and the sound of the many phonographs that thrust their trumpets out from all the stores on that thoroughfare, added to the din of voices and laughter, rose above the sounds of talk, to be precise, with a barbaric medley of hoarse songs and throaty recitations. So much for the sidewalks. In the middle of the street, to cross which one had to wade knee-deep in sand, pack-horses were constantly coming and going and groaning teams arriving from the mountains. To add to the barbarous nature of the scene, now and again an Indian would go by, not with feathered head-dress as in former days, but with a gaudy kerchief bound about his head, tinsel glittering here and there about his half-savage, half-civilised garb, and a pennon of dust following the quick patter of his pony's hoofs. I walked the length of Baker Street and then turned, walking back again with a numb pain suddenly in my heart, for as I turned right about I saw the great, quiet hills far off, and beyond them the ineffable blue of the sky. And there is something in me that makes me always fall silent when amidst the din of men I see the enduring, uncomplaining, undesiring hills. So I went back to the hotel again, and without passing through the bar but going around the house, found the rear verandah untenanted, with its half dozen vacant chairs, and there I sat down to watch the twilight change the hills. But I had not been seated long when a small set man, smelling very strongly of whisky, came out with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and, leaning against one of the verandah props, looked up at the hills, spitting at regular intervals far out into the sand and slowly ruminating a chew of tobacco.

"Canlan, for a certainty," I said to myself, when he, looking toward the door from which he had emerged, attracted by a sudden louder outbreak of voices and rattling of chairs within, revealed to me a face very sorely pock-marked, as was easily seen with the lamplight streaming out on him from the bar. On seeing me he made some remark on the evening, came over and sat down beside me, and asked me why I sat at the back of the hotel instead of at the front.

"Because one can see the hills from here," said I.

He grunted and remarked that a man would do better to sit at the front and see what was going on in the town. Then he rose and, walking to and fro, flung remarks to me, in passing, regarding the doings in the city and the mines and so forth, the local gossip of the place. He had just reverted to his first theme of the absurdity of sitting at the rear of the house when out came Apache Kid and Donoghue and threw themselves into the chairs near me, Donoghue taking the one beside me which Canlan had just vacated. If Canlan thought a man a fool for choosing the rear instead of the front, he was evidently, nevertheless, content to be a fool himself, for after one or two peregrinations and expectorations he drew a chair to the front of the verandah and seated himself, half turned towards us, and began amusing himself with tilting the chair to and fro like a rocker. The valley was all in shadow now, and as we sat there in the silence the moon swam up in the middle of one of the clefts of the mountains, silhouetting for a brief space, ere it left them for the open sky, the ragged edge of the tree-tops in the highest forest.

Apache Kid muttered something, Donoghue growled, "What say?" And it surprised me somewhat to hear the reply: "O! I was only saying 'with how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies.' It's lonesome-like, up there, Larry."

"Aye! Lonesome!" replied Larry with a sigh.

A fifth man joined us then, and, hearing this, remarked: "A man thinks powerful up