ot wait for a second command. With another glance round
the room, he began to make his way through the crowd towards the front.
But in that parting glance he caught a glimpse of a woman presiding over
a "wheel of fortune" in a corner, whose face seemed familiar. He looked
again, timidly. In spite of an extraordinary head-dress or crown that
she wore as the "Goddess of Fortune," he recognized, twisted in its
tinsel, a certain scarlet vine which he had seen before; in spite of the
hoarse formula which she was continually repeating, he recognized the
foreign accent. It was the woman of the stage-coach! With a sudden dread
that she might recognize him, and likewise demand his services "for
luck," he turned and fled.

Once more in the open air, there came upon him a vague loathing
and horror of the restless madness and feverish distraction of this
half-civilized city. It was the more powerful that it was vague, and the
outcome of some inward instinct. He found himself longing for the pure
air and sympathetic loneliness of the plains and wilderness; he began to
yearn for the companionship of his humble associates--the teamster, the
scout Gildersleeve, and even Jim Hooker. But above all and before all
was the wild desire to get away from these maddening streets and
their bewildering occupants. He ran back to the baker's, gathered his
purchases together, took advantage of a friendly doorway to strap them
on his boyish shoulders, slipped into a side street, and struck out at
once for the outskirts.

It had been his first intention to take stage to the nearest mining
district, but the diminution of his small capital forbade that outlay,
and he decided to walk there by the highroad, of whose general direction
he had informed himself. In half an hour the lights of the flat,
struggling city, and their reflection in the shallow, turbid river
before it, had sunk well behind him. The air was cool and soft; a yellow
moon swam in the slight haze that rose above the tules; in the distance
a few scattered cottonwoods and sycamores marked like sentinels the
road. When he had walked some distance he sat down beneath one of them
to make a frugal supper from the dry rations in his pack, but in the
absence of any spring he was forced to quench his thirst with a glass of
water in a wayside tavern. Here he was good-humoredly offered
something stronger, which he declined, and replied to certain curious
interrogations by saying that he expected to