ng at the cabin of a brother miner or
woodsman, now recoiled suddenly from these well-dressed citizens. What
madness had sent him here, an intruder, or, even, as it seemed to him in
his dripping clothes, an impostor? And yet these were the people to whom
he had confidently expected to tell his story, and who would cheerfully
assist him with work! He could almost anticipate the hard laugh or
brutal hurried negative in their faces. In his foolish heart he thanked
God he had not tried it. Then the apathetic recoil which is apt to
follow any keen emotion overtook him. He was dazedly conscious of being
rudely shoved once or twice, and even heard the epithet "drunken lout"
from one who had run against him.

He found himself presently staring vacantly in the apothecary's window.
How long he stood there he could not tell, for he was aroused only by
the door opening in front of him, and a young girl emerging with some
purchase in her hand. He could see that she was handsomely dressed and
quite pretty, and as she passed out she lifted to his withdrawing figure
a pair of calm, inquiring eyes, which, however, changed to a look of
half-wondering, half-amused pity as she gazed. Yet that look of pity
stung his pride more deeply than all. With a deliberate effort he
recovered his energy. No, he would not beg, he would not ask assistance
from these people; he would go back--anywhere! To the steamboat first;
they might let him sleep there, give him a meal, and allow him to work
his passage back to Stockton. He might be refused. Well, what then?
Well, beyond, there was the bay! He laughed bitterly--his mind was sane
enough for that--but he kept on repeating it vaguely to himself, as he
crossed the street again, and once more made his way to the wharf.

The wind and rain had increased, but he no longer heeded them in his
feverish haste and his consciousness that motion could alone keep away
that dreadful apathy which threatened to overcloud his judgment. And he
wished while he was able to reason logically to make up his mind to end
this unsupportable situation that night. He was scarcely twenty, yet it
seemed to him that it had already been demonstrated that his life was
a failure; he was an orphan, and when he left college to seek his own
fortune in California, he believed he had staked his all upon that
venture--and lost.

That bitterness which is the sudden recoil of boyish enthusiasm, and is
none the less terrible for being without e