“Is anything the matter?  Don’t—­don’t look so, Old Man, for God’s sake!”

The Old Man pointed to the dull, smooth, black side of the mountain, without a crag, break, or protuberance, and said with ashen lips: 

“It’s gone!”

* * * * *

And it was gone!  A second slide had taken place, stripping the flank of the mountain, and burying the treasure and the weak implement that had marked its side deep under a chaos of rock and debris at its base.

“Thank God!” The blank faces of his companions turned quickly to the Right Bower.  “Thank God!” he repeated, with his arm round the neck of the Old Man.

“Had he stayed behind he would have been buried too.”  He paused, and, pointing solemnly to the depths below, said, “And thank God for showing us where we may yet labor for it in hope and patience like honest men.”

The men silently bowed their heads and slowly descended the mountain.  But when they had reached the plain, one of them called out to the others to watch a star that seemed to be rising and moving towards them over the hushed and sleeping valley.

“It’s only the stage-coach, boys,” said the Left Bower, smiling; “the coach that was to take us away.”

In the security of their new-found fraternity they resolved to wait and see it pass.  As it swept by with flash of light, beat of hoofs, and jingle of harness, the only real presence in the dreamy landscape, the driver shouted a hoarse greeting to the phantom partners, audible only to the Judge, who was nearest the vehicle.

“Did you hear—­did you hear what he said, boys?” he gasped, turning to his companions.  “No?  Shake hands all round, boys!  God bless you all, boys!  To think we didn’t know it all this while!”

“Know what?”

“Merry Christmas!”

A SHIP OF ’49.

It had rained so persistently in San Francisco during the first week of January, 1854, that a certain quagmire in the roadway of Long Wharf had become impassable, and a plank was thrown over its dangerous depth.  Indeed, so treacherous was the spot that it was alleged, on good authority, that a hastily embarking traveler had once hopelessly lost his portmanteau, and was fain to dispose of his entire interest in it for the sum of two dollars and fifty cents to a speculative stranger on the wharf.  As the stranger’s search was rewarded afterwards only by the discovery of the body of a casual Chinaman, who had evidently endeavored wickedly to anticipate him, a feeling of commercial insecurity was added to the other eccentricities of the locality.