he cross the line in the daytime? They would
have to wait till night. Finally the captain said he would wait and
send Job with a scout at dusk, and follow with the troops at midnight.

The bugle sounded recall, and the soldiers waited, so that Job could
keep his promise. All that summer day as he lay on the cot, listening
to the ripple of the spring, the neighing of the horses, the
bugle-calls, and the coming and going of the men, he thought of those
comrades shut in the store office without food, and waiting for relief
which it must seem would never come.

Just at dusk, mounted behind a sturdy little trooper, and well
disguised, Job started back. They passed around Wawona by a side
trail; and, striking the main turnpike near its junction with the
Signal Peak road, galloped on in the dark, fearing no recognition, and
well prepared to meet anyone who demanded a halt. The light was
burning in Aunty Perkins' window as they passed. It was after midnight
when they crept slowly down the timber on the other side of
Rattlesnake Gulch, and Job dismounted and stole on ahead.

A gloom rested on the Yellow Jacket. A few lights shone out of shanty
windows and in saloons. The stars seemed to rest on the top of the
smoke-stacks which rose like vast shadows in the distance. A low,
far-off murmur of voices, now rising, now dying down, stole out on the
clear night air.

Down Job crept, now on hands and knees, to the foot of Sullivan's
alley. He heard a step. The sentry was coming. Job gave the call Pat
and he had agreed upon--the sharp bark of a coyote. In an instant he
saw a flash and heard a report, as a bullet whizzed past him. Then he
heard voices:

"What was that, Jacob?"

"A leetle hund, I tinks."

"A hund? You shoot him not! You save bullets for bigger ting. See?"

Oh, where was Pat Rooney! It was fully an hour before the sentry's
pace changed and the step sounded like Pat's. Again Job barked, and a
hoot like an owl's replied. It was Tim's father! A few minutes, and
Pat had clasped him to his heart, and told him the officers were still
in the store office; that the men were desperate--they had been
drinking heavily, and, he was afraid, before another night would burn
the whole place. Would Job go back into the mine and take his chances?

Of course Job went. He slunk up the alley into a hidden passage-way he
knew of back of the Last Chance Saloon, and kept in between the
buildings till within a stone's throw of the offic