uced rations,
but if we find nothing by the third noon we'll turn back forthwith."

The others agreed, and on the second night we lay in camp in a burnt
forest. We were all tired and hungry, and--for Johnston was silent--a
melancholy settled down upon the camp, while I lay nearly frozen under two
blankets, watching a half-moon sail slowly above the fretted ridge of
firs. At last Johnston spoke:

"To-morrow is the fatal day. Ralph has the look of an unsatisfied wolf;
you are hungry, Harry; we are all hungry, and such is mortal man that at
this moment my soul longs more than all things for even the most cindery
flapjack that ever came out of a camp cook's frying-pan. Still, I'm not
going home 'returned empty' this time, and fragments of a forgotten verse
keep jingling through my head. It's an encouraging stanza, to the effect
that, though often one gets weary, the long, long road has a turning, and
there's an end at last. It would be particularly nice if it ended up in a
quartz reef that paid for the stamping, especially when one might square
up some of one's youthful misdeeds with the proceeds. Ever heard me
moralizing, Ralph? The question is whether one can ever square the
reckoning of such foolishness."

"I haven't thought about it," I answered, remembering how when Johnston
harangued the railroaders' camp, banjo in hand, he would mix up the
wildest nonsense with sentiment. "But it's an axiom, isn't it, that a man
must pay for his fun, and if you will go looking for gold mines in winter
you can't expect to be comfortable."

"He hasn't thought about it," said Johnston. "Ralph, all things
considered, you are a lucky individual. What can man want better than to
win his way to fortune, and the love of a virtuous maid, tramping behind
his oxen under clear sunshine down the half-mile furrow, looking only for
the harvest, and sowing hope with the grain. There's a restfulness about
it that appeals to me. Some men are born with a chronic desire for rest."

"I don't think you were among them," I answered irritably; "and there's
precious little rest in summer on the prairie;" but Johnston continued:

"I too loved a virtuous maiden, and, stranger still, I fancy she loved me,
but unfortunately there was one of the other kind too, and the result
thereof was as usual--disaster. I've been trying to remedy that
disaster--did you ever wonder where my dividends went to? Well, there is a
reason why I'm anxious to find a mine. If we d