ll over beyond the canyon, and in the bright
moonlight saw what appeared to be about half the population of the
village massed on and around the Wide West croppings. My heart gave an
exulting bound, and I said to myself, "They have made a new strike
to-night--and struck it richer than ever, no doubt." I started over
there, but gave it up. I said the "strick" would keep, and I had climbed
hill enough for one night. I went on down through the town, and as I was
passing a little German bakery, a woman ran out and begged me to come in
and help her. She said her husband had a fit. I went in, and judged she
was right--he appeared to have a hundred of them, compressed into one.
Two Germans were there, trying to hold him, and not making much of a
success of it. I ran up the street half a block or so and routed out a
sleeping doctor, brought him down half dressed, and we four wrestled with
the maniac, and doctored, drenched and bled him, for more than an hour,
and the poor German woman did the crying. He grew quiet, now, and the
doctor and I withdrew and left him to his friends.

It was a little after one o'clock. As I entered the cabin door, tired
but jolly, the dingy light of a tallow candle revealed Higbie, sitting by
the pine table gazing stupidly at my note, which he held in his fingers,
and looking pale, old, and haggard. I halted, and looked at him. He
looked at me, stolidly. I said:

"Higbie, what--what is it?"

"We're ruined--we didn't do the work--THE BLIND LEAD'S RELOCATED!"

It was enough. I sat down sick, grieved--broken-hearted, indeed. A
minute before, I was rich and brimful of vanity; I was a pauper now, and
very meek. We sat still an hour, busy with thought, busy with vain and
useless self-upbraidings, busy with "Why didn't I do this, and why didn't
I do that," but neither spoke a word. Then we dropped into mutual
explanations, and the mystery was cleared away. It came out that Higbie
had depended on me, as I had on him, and as both of us had on the
foreman. The folly of it! It was the first time that ever staid and
steadfast Higbie had left an important matter to chance or failed to be
true to his full share of a responsibility.

But he had never seen my note till this moment, and this moment was the
first time he had been in the cabin since the day he had seen me last.
He, also, had left a note for me, on that same fatal afternoon--had
ridden up on horseback, and looked through the windo