“With a bonus of fifty thousand dollars each down, and the rest to be settled on my children,” interrupted the Old Man, with a half uneasy laugh.  “Of course.  But”—­he stopped suddenly, the blood dropped from his fresh cheek, and he again glanced quickly round the group.  “I don’t think—­I—­I quite sabe, boys,” he added, with a slight tremor of voice and lip.  “If it’s a conundrum, ask me an easier one.”

Any lingering doubt he might have had of their meaning was dispelled by the Judge.  “It’s about the softest thing you kin drop into, Old Man,” he said confidentially; “if I had n’t promised the other boys to go with them, and if I did n’t need the best medical advice in Sacramento for my lungs, I’d just enjoy staying with you.”

“It gives a sorter freedom to a young fellow like you, Old Man, like goin’ into the world on your own capital, that every Californian boy has n’t got,” said Union Mills, patronizingly.

“Of course it’s rather hard papers on us, you know, givin’ up everything, so to speak; but it’s for your good, and we ain’t goin’ back on you,” said the Left Bower, “are we, boys?”

The color had returned to the Old Man’s face a little more quickly and freely than usual.  He picked up the hat he had cast down, put it on carefully over his brown curls, drew the flap down on the side towards his companions, and put his hands in his pockets.  “All right,” he said, in a slightly altered voice.  “When do you go?”

“To-day,” answered the Left Bower.  “We calculate to take a moonlight pasear over to the Cross Roads and meet the down stage at about twelve to-night.  There’s plenty of time yet,” he added, with a slight laugh; “it’s only three o’clock now.”

There was a dead silence.  Even the rain withheld its continuous patter, a dumb, gray film covered the ashes of the hushed hearth.  For the first time the Right Bower exhibited some slight embarrassment.

“I reckon it’s held up for a spell,” he said, ostentatiously examining the weather, “and we might as well take a run round the claim to see if we’ve forgotten nothing.  Of course, we’ll be back again,” he added hastily, without looking at the Old Man, “before we go, you know.”

The others began to look for their hats, but so awkwardly and with such evident preoccupation of mind that it was not at first discovered that the Judge had his already on.  This raised a laugh, as did also a clumsy stumble of Union Mills against the pork barrel, although that gentleman took refuge from his confusion and secured a decent retreat by a gross exaggeration of his lameness, as he limped after the Right Bower.  The Judge whistled feebly.  The Left Bower, in a more ambitious effort to impart a certain gayety to his exit, stopped on the threshold and said, as if in arch confidence to his companions, “Darned if the Old Man don’t look two inches higher since he became a proprietor,” laughed patronizingly, and vanished.