over. The crowds were pouring out the door, the
organist was playing "Marching Through Georgia" on the wheezy organ as
the liveliest thing she knew, the people were wishing each other
"Merry Christmas," as Job, hurrying out of the church, felt a touch on
his shoulder, and, looking up, saw Slim Jim the gambler.

"Job, come out here. I have something to tell you," said he.

Pushing through the throng, they crept around the church in the dark,
when Jim, putting his hand on the youth's shoulder, said:

"Job, I remember the night you came to Gold City, what a poor,
homeless lad you were! I remember the day you won the horse-race and I
said, 'The devil's got the kid now sure.' And now I am so glad, Job,
that you've gone and done the square thing. I helped bury your father,
and I tell you he was a fine fellow--a gentleman, if he had only let
the drink and cards alone. Oh, Job, never touch them! You think it's
strange, perhaps, but I was good once, far off in old Pennsylvania. I
was a mother's boy, and went to church, and--Job, would you believe
it?--I was going to be a preacher!--I, poor Slim Jim that nobody cares
for, now. But I wanted to get rich, and I came to Gold City. I learned
to play cards, and--well, here I am. No help for me--Slim Jim's lost
this world and his soul, too. But you're on the right track, and, if
when you die and go up there where those things shine,"--and he
pointed through the pines to the starlit sky--"you meet a little,
sweet old lady with white hair and a gray dress knitting a pair of
socks, tell her that her Jamie never forgot her and would give the
best hand he ever had to feel her kiss once more and hear her say
good-night. Tell her--listen, boy!--tell her it was the cards that
ruined Jamie, but he's her Jamie still." And with tears on his face
and in his voice, the tall, pale wreck of manhood hurried off in the
darkness, leaving Job alone in the gloom.

It was late that night when Job said his prayer by his bed at home,
but he made it long enough to put in one plea for Slim Jim.

CHAPTER X.

THE COVE MINE.

It is six miles from Pine Tree Ranch to the Cove Mine. You go over
Lookout Point, from where El Capitan and the outline of the Yosemite
can be easily seen on a clear day, down along the winding upper ridge
of the Gulch, up again over the divide near Deer Spring and down along
the zigzag trail on the steep side of Big Bear Mountain, then down to
the very waters of the south fo