was
speakin' of this yer investment."

"And your bowels all the time irregular?" continued Hawkins, blushing
under Wingate's eye, and yet clinging despairingly to his theme, like a
shipwrecked mariner to his plank.

Wingate did not reply, but glanced significantly at the rest. Hawkins
evidently saw this recognition of his mental deficiency, and said
apologetically, "You was saying suthin' about my investment?"

"Yes," said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost take Hawkins's breath
away,--"the investment you made in"--

"Rafferty's Ditch," said the "Fool" timidly.

For a moment, the visitors could only stare blankly at each other.
"Rafferty's Ditch," the one notorious failure of Five Forks!--Rafferty's
Ditch, the impracticable scheme of an utterly unpractical
man!--Rafferty's Ditch, a ridiculous plan for taking water that could
not be got to a place where it wasn't wanted!--Rafferty's Ditch, that
had buried the fortunes of Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in
its muddy depths!

"And thet's it, is it?" said Wingate, after a gloomy pause. "Thet's it!
I see it all now, boys. That's how ragged Pat Rafferty went down to San
Francisco yesterday in store-clothes, and his wife and four children
went off in a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet's why them ten workmen of
his, ez hadn't a cent to bless themselves with, was playin' billiards
last night, and eatin' isters. Thet's whar that money kum frum,--one
hundred dollars to pay for the long advertisement of the new issue of
ditch stock in the 'Times' yesterday. Thet's why them six strangers
were booked at the Magnolia hotel yesterday. Don't you see? It's thet
money--and that 'Fool'!"

The "Fool" sat silent. The visitors rose without a word.

"You never took any of them Indian Vegetable Pills?" asked Hawkins
timidly of Wingate.

"No!" roared Wingate as he opened the door.

"They tell me, that, took with the Panacea,--they was out o' the Panacea
when I went to the drug-store last week,--they say, that, took with the
Panacea, they always effect a certin cure." But by this time, Wingate
and his disgusted friends had retreated, slamming the door on the "Fool"
and his ailments.

Nevertheless, in six months the whole affair was forgotten: the money
had been spent; the "Ditch" had been purchased by a company of Boston
capitalists, fired by the glowing description of an Eastern tourist, who
had spent one drunken night at Five Forks; and I think even the mental
condition of H