They each gravely took one of Barker’s hands and led him to the corner of the cabin.  There, on an old flour barrel, stood a large tin prospecting pan, in which the partners also occasionally used to knead their bread.  A dirty towel covered it.  Demorest whisked it dexterously aside, and disclosed three large fragments of decomposed gold and quartz.  Barker started back.

“Heft it!” said Demorest grimly.

Barker could scarcely lift the pan!

“Four thousand dollars’ weight if a penny!” said Stacy, in short staccato sentences.  “In a pocket!  Brought it out the second stroke of the pick!  We’d been awfully blue after you left.  Awfully blue, too, when that bill of sale came, for we thought you’d been wasting your money on us.  Reckoned we oughtn’t to take it, but send it straight back to you.  Messenger gone!  Then Demorest reckoned as it was done it couldn’t be undone, and we ought to make just one ‘prospect’ on the claim, and strike a single stroke for you.  And there it is.  And there’s more on the hillside.”

“But it isn’t mine!  It isn’t yours!  It’s Carter’s.  I never had the money to pay for it—­and I haven’t got it now.”

“But you gave the note—­and it is not due for thirty days.”

A recollection flashed upon Barker.  “Yes,” he said with thoughtful simplicity, “that’s what Kitty said.”

“Oh, Kitty said so,” said both partners, gravely.

“Yes,” stammered Barker, turning away with a heightened color, “and, as I didn’t stay there to luncheon, I think I’d better be getting it ready.”  He picked up the coffeepot and turned to the hearth as his two partners stepped beyond the door.

“Wasn’t it exactly like him?” said Demorest.

“Him all over,” said Stacy.

“And his worry over that note?” said Demorest.

“And ‘what Kitty said,’” said Stacy.

“Look here!  I reckon that wasn’t all that Kitty said.”

“Of course not.”

“What luck!”

A YELLOW DOG

I never knew why in the Western States of America a yellow dog should be proverbially considered the acme of canine degradation and incompetency, nor why the possession of one should seriously affect the social standing of its possessor.  But the fact being established, I think we accepted it at Rattlers Ridge without question.  The matter of ownership was more difficult to settle; and although the dog I have in my mind at the present writing attached himself impartially and equally to everyone in camp, no one ventured to exclusively claim him; while, after the perpetration of any canine atrocity, everybody repudiated him with indecent haste.

“Well, I can swear he hasn’t been near our shanty for weeks,” or the retort, “He was last seen comin’ out of your cabin,” expressed the eagerness with which Rattlers Ridge washed its hands of any responsibility.  Yet he was by no means a common dog, nor even an unhandsome dog; and it was a singular fact that his severest critics vied with each other in narrating instances of his sagacity, insight, and agility which they themselves had witnessed.