es as
he watched the first lolling tongue of the rapids reach for the tiny
boat. If it filled, Slim was gone, for no human being could swim in the
roaring, white stretch where the great, green river reared, curled back,
and broke into iridescent foam. The boat went out of sight, rose, bobbed
for an instant on a crest, then disappeared.

Bruce said finally, in relief:

"He's made it again."

He watched Slim make a noose in the painter, throw it over a bowlder,
wipe the water from his rifle with his shirt sleeve, and start to
scramble up the steep mountainside.

"The runt of something good--that feller," Bruce added, with somber
eyes. "I ought to pull out of here. It's no use, we can't hit it off any
more."

He closed the cabin door against thieving pack rats, and went down to
the river, where his old-fashioned California rocker stood at the
water's edge. He started to work, still thinking of Slim.

Invariably he injected the same comment into his speculations regarding
his partner: "The runt of something good." It was the "something good"
in Slim, the ear-marks of good breeding, and the peculiar fascination of
blue blood run riot, which had first attracted him in Meadows, the
mountain town one hundred and fifty miles above. This prospecting trip
had been Bruce's own proposal, and he tried to remember this when the
friction was greatest.

Slim, however, had jumped at his suggestion that they build a barge and
work the small sand bars along the river which were enriched with fine
gold from some mysterious source above by each high water. They were to
labor together and share and share alike. This was understood between
them before they left Meadows, but the plan did not work out because
Slim failed to do his part. Save for an occasional day of desultory
work, he spent his time in the mountains, killing game for which they
had no use, trapping animals whose pelts were worthless during the
summer months. He seemed to kill for the pleasure he found in killing.
Protests from Bruce were useless, and this wanton slaughter added day by
day to the dislike he felt for his partner, to the resentment which now
was ever smoldering in his heart.

Bruce wondered often at his own self-control. He carried scars of knife
and bullet which bore mute testimony to the fact that with his childhood
he had not outgrown his quick and violent temper. In mining camps, from
Mexico to the Stikine and Alaska in the North, he was known as a
"