n. Ye ain't
goin' to be skeert, or afeard, or lose yer sand, I kalkilate, for
skunkin' ain't in your breed. Well, wot ef I told ye that thish
yer--thish yer--COUSIN o' yours was the biggest devil onhung; that he'd
just killed a man, and had to lite out elsewhere, and THET'S why he
didn't show up in Sacramento--what if I told you that?"

Clarence felt that this was somehow a little too much. He was perfectly
truthful, and lifting his frank eyes to Flynn, he said,

"I should think you were talking a good deal like Jim Hooker!"

His companion stared, and suddenly reined up his horse; then, bursting
into a shout of laughter, he galloped ahead, from time to time shaking
his head, slapping his legs, and making the dim woods ring with his
boisterous mirth. Then as suddenly becoming thoughtful again, he rode on
rapidly for half an hour, only speaking to Clarence to urge him forward,
and assisting his progress by lashing the haunches of his horse.
Luckily, the boy was a good rider--a fact which Flynn seemed to
thoroughly appreciate--or he would have been unseated a dozen times.

At last the straggling sheds of Buckeye Mills came into softer purple
view on the opposite mountain. Then laying his hand on Clarence's
shoulder as he reined in at his side, Flynn broke the silence.

"There, boy," he said, wiping the mirthful tears from his eyes. "I was
only foolin'--only tryin' yer grit! This yer cousin I'm taking you to be
as quiet and soft-spoken and as old-fashioned ez you be. Why, he's
that wrapped up in books and study that he lives alone in a big adobe
rancherie among a lot o' Spanish, and he don't keer to see his own
countrymen! Why, he's even changed his name, and calles himself Don Juan
Robinson! But he's very rich; he owns three leagues of land and heaps of
cattle and horses, and," glancing approvingly at Clarence's seat in the
saddle, "I reckon you'll hev plenty of fun thar."

"But," hesitated Clarence, to whom this proposal seemed only a
repetition of Peyton's charitable offer, "I think I'd better stay here
and dig gold--WITH YOU."

"And I think you'd better not," said the man, with a gravity that was
very like a settled determination.

"But my cousin never came for me to Sacramento--nor sent, nor even
wrote," persisted Clarence indignantly.

"Not to YOU, boy; but he wrote to the man whom he reckoned would bring
you there--Jack Silsbee--and left it in the care of the bank. And
Silsbee, being dead, didn't come for t