“Higbie, we owe the butcher six dollars, and he has been threatening to stop our—­”

“Hang the butcher!”

“Amen.”

And so it went on.  By three o’clock we found it was no use, and so we got up and played cribbage and smoked pipes till sunrise.  It was my week to cook.  I always hated cooking—­now, I abhorred it.

The news was all over town.  The former excitement was great—­this one was greater still.  I walked the streets serene and happy.  Higbie said the foreman had been offered two hundred thousand dollars for his third of the mine.  I said I would like to see myself selling for any such price.  My ideas were lofty.  My figure was a million.  Still, I honestly believe that if I had been offered it, it would have had no other effect than to make me hold off for more.

I found abundant enjoyment in being rich.  A man offered me a three-hundred-dollar horse, and wanted to take my simple, unendorsed note for it.  That brought the most realizing sense I had yet had that I was actually rich, beyond shadow of doubt.  It was followed by numerous other evidences of a similar nature—­among which I may mention the fact of the butcher leaving us a double supply of meat and saying nothing about money.

By the laws of the district, the “locators” or claimants of a ledge were obliged to do a fair and reasonable amount of work on their new property within ten days after the date of the location, or the property was forfeited, and anybody could go and seize it that chose.  So we determined to go to work the next day.  About the middle of the afternoon, as I was coming out of the post office, I met a Mr. Gardiner, who told me that Capt.  John Nye was lying dangerously ill at his place (the “Nine-Mile Ranch"), and that he and his wife were not able to give him nearly as much care and attention as his case demanded.  I said if he would wait for me a moment, I would go down and help in the sick room.  I ran to the cabin to tell Higbie.  He was not there, but I left a note on the table for him, and a few minutes later I left town in Gardiner’s wagon.

CHAPTER XLI.

Captain Nye was very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism.  But the old gentleman was himself—­which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agreeable when comfortable, but a singularly violent wild-cat when things did not go well.  He would be smiling along pleasantly enough, when a sudden spasm of his disease would take him and he would go out of his smile into a perfect fury.  He would groan and wail and howl with the anguish, and fill up the odd chinks with the most elaborate profanity that strong convictions and a fine fancy could contrive.  With fair opportunity he could swear very well and handle his adjectives with considerable judgment; but when the spasm was on him it was painful to listen to him, he was so awkward.  However, I had seen him nurse a sick