When I bought a number of shares in the Coyote Tunnel at Mugginsville, in ’54, I thought I’d take a run up there and see it.  I stopped at the Empire Hotel, and after dinner I got a horse and rode round the town and out to the claim.  One of those individuals whom newspaper correspondents call “our intelligent informant,” and to whom in all small communities the right of answering questions is tacitly yielded, was quietly pointed out to me.  Habit had enabled him to work and talk at the same time, and he never pretermitted either.  He gave me a history of the claim, and added:  “You see, stranger,” (he addressed the bank before him) “gold is sure to come out’er that theer claim, (he put in a comma with his pick) but the old pro-pri-e-tor (he wriggled out the word and the point of his pick) warn’t of much account (a long stroke of the pick for a period).  He was green, and let the boys about here jump him”—­and the rest of his sentence was confided to his hat, which he had removed to wipe his manly brow with his red bandanna.

I asked him who was the original proprietor.

“His name war Fagg.”

I went to see him.  He looked a little older and plainer.  He had worked hard, he said, and was getting on “so-so.”  I took quite a liking to him and patronized him to some extent.  Whether I did so because I was beginning to have a distrust for such fellows as Rattler and Mixer is not necessary for me to state.

You remember how the Coyote Tunnel went in, and how awfully we shareholders were done!  Well, the next thing I heard was that Rattler, who was one of the heaviest shareholders, was up at Mugginsville keeping bar for the proprietor of the Mugginsville Hotel, and that old Fagg had struck it rich, and didn’t know what to do with his money.  All this was told me by Mixer, who had been there, settling up matters, and likewise that Fagg was sweet upon the daughter of the proprietor of the aforesaid hotel.  And so by hearsay and letter I eventually gathered that old Robins, the hotel man, was trying to get up a match between Nellie Robins and Fagg.  Nellie was a pretty, plump, and foolish little thing, and would do just as her father wished.  I thought it would be a good thing for Fagg if he should marry and settle down; that as a married man he might be of some account.  So I ran up to Mugginsville one day to look after things.

It did me an immense deal of good to make Rattler mix my drinks for me—­Rattler! the gay, brilliant, and unconquerable Rattler, who had tried to snub me two years ago.  I talked to him about old Fagg and Nellie, particularly as I thought the subject was distasteful.  He never liked Fagg, and he was sure, he said, that Nellie didn’t.  Did Nellie like anybody else?  He turned around to the mirror behind the bar and brushed up his hair!  I understood the conceited wretch.  I thought I’d put Fagg on his guard and get him to hurry up matters.  I had a long talk with him.  You could see by