“It isn’t so much the work of white men,” broke in Brace, “as it is of Greasers, Chinamen, and Diggers, especially Diggers.  There’s that blasted Low, ranges the whole Carquinez Woods as if they were his.  I reckon he ain’t particular just where he throws his matches.”

“But he’s not a Digger; he’s a Cherokee, and only a half-breed at that,” interpolated Wynn.  “Unless,” he added, with the artful suggestion of the betrayed trust of a too credulous Christian, “he deceived me in this as in other things.”

In what other things Low had deceived him he did not say; but, to the astonishment of both men, Dunn growled a dissent to Brace’s proposition.  Either from some secret irritation with that possible rival, or impatience at the prolonged absence of Nellie, he had “had enough of that sort of hog-wash ladled out to him for genuine liquor.”  As to the Carquinez Woods, he [Dunn] “didn’t know why Low hadn’t as much right there as if he’d grabbed it under a preemption law and didn’t live there.”  With this hint at certain speculations of Father Wynn in public lands for a homestead, he added that “If they [Brace and Wynn] could bring him along any older American settler than an Indian, they might rake down his [Dunn’s] pile.”  Unprepared for this turn in the conversation, Wynn hastened to explain that he did not refer to the pure aborigine, whose gradual extinction no one regretted more than himself, but to the mongrel, who inherited only the vices of civilization.  “There should be a law, sir, against the mingling of races.  There are men, sir, who violate the laws of the Most High by living with Indian women—­squaw men, sir, as they are called.”

Dunn rose with a face livid with weakness and passion.  “Who dares say that?  They are a d—­d sight better than sneaking Northern Abolitionists, who married their daughters to buck niggers like—­” But a spasm of pain withheld this Parthian shot at the politics of his two companions, and he sank back helplessly in his chair.

An awkward silence ensued.  The three men looked at each other in embarrassment and confusion.  Dunn felt that he had given way to a gratuitous passion; Wynn had a vague presentiment that he had said something that imperiled his daughter’s prospects; and Brace was divided between an angry retort and the secret purpose already alluded to.

“It’s all the blasted heat,” said Dunn, with a forced smile, pushing away the whisky which Wynn had ostentatiously placed before him.

“Of course,” said Wynn hastily; “only it’s a pity Nellie ain’t here to give you her smelling-salts.  She ought to be back now,” he added, no longer mindful of Brace’s presence; “the coach is over-due now, though I reckon the heat made Yuba Bill take it easy at the up grade.”

“If you mean the coach from Indian Spring,” said Brace quietly, “it’s in already; but Miss Nellie didn’t come on it.”

“May be she got out at the Crossing,” said Wynn cheerfully; “she sometimes does.”