I said afore, and this yer woman's got the drop on
five of us! But--hallo, Ned, old man--what's the matter with your head?"
He laid his hand gently on the matted temple of his younger partner.

"I had--a slip--on the trail," he stammered. "Had to go back again for
another pailful. That's what delayed me, you know, boys," he added. "But
it's nothing!"

"Nothing!" ejaculated Parkhurst, clapping him on the back and twisting
him around by the shoulders so that he faced his companions. "Nothing!
Look at him, gentlemen; and he says it's 'nothing.' That's how a MAN
takes it! HE didn't go round yellin' and wringin' his hands and sayin'
'Me pay-l! me pay-l!' when it spilt! He just humped himself and trotted
back for another. And yet every drop of water in that overset bucket
meant hard work and hard sweat, and was as precious as gold."

Luckily for Bray, whose mingled emotions under Parkhurst's eloquence
were beginning to be hysterical, the foreman interrupted.

"Well, boys! it's time we got to work again, and took another heave at
the old ledge! But now that this job of Neworth's is over--I don't mind
tellin' ye suthin." As their leader usually spoke but little, and to
the point, the four men gathered around him. "Although I engineered this
affair, and got it up, somehow, I never SAW that Neworth standing on
this ledge! No, boys! I never saw him HERE." The look of superstition
which Bray and the others had often seen on this old miner's face,
and which so often showed itself in his acts, was there. "And though I
wanted him to come, and allowed to have him come, I'm kinder relieved
that he didn't, and so let whatsoever luck's in the air come to us five
alone, boys, just as we stand."

The next morning Bray was up before his companions, and although it was
not his turn, offered to bring water from the spring. He was not in love
with Eugenia--he had not forgotten his remorse of the previous day--but
he would like to go there once more before he relentlessly wiped out her
image from his mind. And he had heard that although Neworth had gone on
to Sacramento, his son and the two ladies had stopped on for a day or
two at the ditch superintendent's house on the summit, only two miles
away. She might pass on the road; he might get a glimpse of her again
and a wave of her hand before this thing was over forever, and he should
have to take up the daily routine of his work again. It was not love--of
THAT he was assured--but it was the