ver, I disagreed with Otto's version of the robber
chief.

"But you have made him out all bad," I told him. "I have heard the story
often, and he wasn't all bad by any means."

"He was a wild desperado. Why, even after he was dead and lying on the
sidewalk in Auburn, a man came up and kicked his face."

"Yes, and they say that everybody in the county was mad about it, and
when the man ran for supervisor more than a year later, no decent person
would vote for him and he lost his election." Now, the true story of
Rattlesnake Dick is this, and I never tire of hearing it:

"Would you present me to your sister's friend, then, George?"

"Why not."

"I am an Ishmailite! I, the son of an honorable English gentleman, have
done a term in prison."

"But these ideas are extreme, Dick. There is no such general opinion
of you. Were you not exonerated from having stolen the wretched little
Jew's goods? It is all forgotten," and George Taylor paused in his
restless pacing, before the long, graceful figure on the bunk against
the wall. Dick raised handsome eyes whose flashing light was made of
pain.

"George, I wish--how I wish that it were forgotten. But it is not. They
whisper it in doorways, and over the card tables and down in the drift
tunnels. Wherever I go it follows me like an evil spirit, rearing its
unclean head between me and all fair things." His deep voice reflected
the hurt in his dark eyes, and his broad shoulders drooped in
despondency.

"Dick--Dick, the gay the debonair--this is not like you. Brace up, man,
and come with me to this opening of the new opera house, if only to add
to my pleasure. All the town will be there to hear the singer who has
just landed in San Francisco from Boston."

"She it was who brought you the letter from your sister?"

"Yes, yes. They were school-mates. She is beautiful, and you shall meet
her after the concert."

The "Opera House" was crowded, the front rows seating the leading men
of the community and their richly clad wives and daughters. In the back
rows, seated on benches and around the side walls were, the roughly
dressed miners and the usual flotsam of a mining town. The singer was
not of the hurdy-gurdy type so common in those days, but a "lady,"
young, lovely and accomplished. Her ballads were greeted with the
greatest enthusiasm, and soon the stage began to be showered with gold.
The miners brought her back again and again, calling the names of songs
they wished to