hs; the insidious stimulant had also put a strange vigor into his
blood and nerves. His face was flushed, but not distorted; his eyes
were brilliant, but not fixed; he looked as he might have looked to
Masters in his strength three years before on that very hillside.

"Listen to me, Alvin Mulrady," he said, leaning over him with burning
eyes. "Listen, while I have brain to think and strength to utter, why
I have learnt to distrust, fear, and hate them! You think you know my
story. Well, hear the truth from ME to-night, Alvin Mulrady, and do
not wonder if I have cause."

He stopped, and, with pathetic inefficiency, passed the fingers and
inward-turned thumb of his paralyzed hand across his mouth, as if to
calm himself. "Three years ago I was a miner, but not a miner like
you! I had experience, I had scientific knowledge, I had a theory, and
the patience and energy to carry it out. I selected a spot that had
all the indications, made a tunnel, and, without aid, counsel or
assistance of any kind, worked it for six months, without rest or
cessation, and with scarcely food enough to sustain my body. Well, I
made a strike; not like you, Mulrady, not a blunder of good luck, a
fool's fortune--there, I don't blame you for it--but in perfect
demonstration of my theory, the reward of my labor. It was no pocket,
but a vein, a lead, that I had regularly hunted down and found--a
fortune!

"I never knew how hard I had worked until that morning; I never knew
what privations I had undergone until that moment of my success, when I
found I could scarcely think or move! I staggered out into the open
air. The only human soul near me was a disappointed prospector, a man
named Masters, who had a tunnel not far away. I managed to conceal
from him my good fortune and my feeble state, for I was suspicious of
him--of any one; and as he was going away that day I thought I could
keep my secret until he was gone. I was dizzy and confused, but I
remember that I managed to write a letter to my wife, telling her of my
good fortune, and begging her to come to me; and I remember that I saw
Masters go. I don't remember anything else. They picked me up on the
road, near that boulder, as you know."

"I know," said Mulrady, with a swift recollection of the stage-driver's
account of his discovery.

"They say," continued Slinn, tremblingly, "that I never recovered my
senses or consciousness for nearly three years; they say I lost my
memory