eems to me Hogan looks rather down in the mouth," said Joe to
Bickford.

"He's mad 'cause he didn't find the nugget. That's what's the matter
with him. I say, Hogan, you look as if your dinner didn't agree with
you."

"My luck don't agree with me."

"You don't seem to look at things right. Wasn't you lucky the other
day to get away from the bear?"

"I was unlucky enough to fall in with him."

"Wasn't you lucky in meetin' my friend Joe in New York, and raisin'
money enough out of him to pay your passage out to Californy?"

"I should be better off in New York. I am dead broke."

"You'd be dead broke in New York. Such fellers as you always is dead
broke."

"Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Bickford?" demanded Hogan irritably.

"Oh, don't rare up, Hogan. It won't do no good. You'd ought to have
more respect for me, considerin' I was your boss once."

"I'd give something for that boy's luck."

"Joe's luck? Well, things have gone pretty well with turn; but that
don't explain all his success--he's willin' to work."

"So am I."

"Then go to work on your claim. There's no knowin' but there's a
bigger nugget inside of it. If you stand round with your hands in
your pockets, you'll never find it."

"It's the poorest claim in the gulch," said Hogan discontentedly.

"It pays the poorest because you don't work half the time."

Hogan apparently didn't like Mr. Bickford's plainness of speech. He
walked away moodily, with his hands in his pockets. He could not
help contrasting his penniless position with the enviable position of
the two friends, and the devil, who is always in wait for such
moments, thrust an evil suggestion into his mind.

It was this:

He asked himself why could he not steal the nugget which Joe had
found?

"He can spare it, for he has sold the claim for a fortune," Hogan
reasoned. "It isn't fair that he should have everything and I should
have nothing. He ought to have made me his partner, anyway. He
would if he hadn't been so selfish. I have just as much right to a
share in it as this infernal Yankee. I'd like to choke him."

This argument was a very weak one, but a man easily persuades himself
of what he wants to do.

"I'll try for it," Hogan decided, "this very night."

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE NUGGET IS STOLEN.

At this time Joe and Joshua were occupying a tent which they had
purchased on favorable terms of a fellow miner.

They retired in good season, for they wish