and freshly arrived Eastern emigrants.  Two or three days passed thus in this quaint double existence.  Three or four times a day he would enter the gorgeous Oriental with affected ease and carelessness, demand his key from the hotel-clerk, ask for the letter that did not come, go to his room, gaze vaguely from his window on the passing crowd below for the partner he could not find, and then return to the Good Cheer House for rest and sustenance.  On the fourth day he received a short note from Uncle Jim; it was couched in his usual sanguine but brief and businesslike style.  He was very sorry, but important and profitable business took him out of town, but he trusted to return soon and welcome his old partner.  He was also, for the first time, jocose, and hoped that Uncle Billy would not “see all the sights” before he, Uncle Jim, returned.  Disappointing as this procrastination was to Uncle Billy, a gleam of hope irradiated it:  the letter had bridged over that gulf which seemed to yawn between them at the post-office.  His old partner had accepted his visit to San Francisco without question, and had alluded to a renewal of their old intimacy.  For Uncle Billy, with all his trustful simplicity, had been tortured by two harrowing doubts:  one, whether Uncle Jim in his new-fledged smartness as a “city” man—­such as he saw in the streets—­would care for his rough companionship; the other, whether he, Uncle Billy, ought not to tell him at once of his changed fortune.  But, like all weak, unreasoning men, he clung desperately to a detail—­he could not forego his old idea of astounding Uncle Jim by giving him his share of the “strike” as his first intimation of it, and he doubted, with more reason perhaps, if Jim would see him after he had heard of his good fortune.  For Uncle Billy had still a frightened recollection of Uncle Jim’s sudden stroke for independence, and that rigid punctiliousness which had made him doggedly accept the responsibility of his extravagant stake at euchre.

With a view of educating himself for Uncle Jim’s company, he “saw the sights” of San Francisco—­as an overgrown and somewhat stupid child might have seen them—­with great curiosity, but little contamination or corruption.  But I think he was chiefly pleased with watching the arrival of the Sacramento and Stockton steamers at the wharves, in the hope of discovering his old partner among the passengers on the gang-plank.  Here, with his old superstitious tendency and gambler’s instinct, he would augur great success in his search that day if any one of the passengers bore the least resemblance to Uncle Jim, if a man or woman stepped off first, or if he met a single person’s questioning eye.  Indeed, this got to be the real occupation of the day, which he would on no account have omitted, and to a certain extent revived each day in his mind the morning’s work of their old partnership.  He would say to himself, “It’s time to go and look up Jim,” and put off what he was pleased to think were his pleasures until this act of duty was accomplished.