ed once
over a difference in the disposal of a hundred thousand dollars that
they never had, nor expected to have. He remembered how Union Mills
always began his career as a millionnaire by a "square meal" at
Delmonico's; how the Right Bower's initial step was always a trip home
"to see his mother"; how the Left Bower would immediately placate the
parents of his beloved with priceless gifts (it may be parenthetically
remarked that the parents and the beloved one were as hypothetical
as the fortune); and how the Judge would make his first start as a
capitalist by breaking a certain faro bank in Sacramento. He himself had
been equally eloquent in extravagant fancy in those penniless days,
he who now was quite cold and impassive beside the more extravagant
reality.

How different it might have been! If they had only waited a day longer!
if they had only broken their resolves to him kindly and parted in good
will! How he would long ere this have rushed to greet them with the
joyful news! How they would have danced around it, sung themselves
hoarse, laughed down their enemies, and run up the flag triumphantly on
the summit of the Lone Star Mountain! How they would have crowned him
"the Old Man," "the hero of the camp!" How he would have told them the
whole story; how some strange instinct had impelled him to ascend the
summit, and how another step on that summit would have precipitated him
into the canyon! And how--but what if somebody else, Union Mills or the
Judge, had been the first discoverer? Might they not have meanly kept
the secret from him; have selfishly helped themselves and done--

"What YOU are doing now."

The hot blood rushed to his cheek, as if a strange voice were at his
ear. For a moment he could not believe that it came from his own pale
lips until he found himself speaking. He rose to his feet, tingling with
shame, and began hurriedly to descend the mountain.

He would go to them, tell them of his discovery, let them give him his
share, and leave them forever. It was the only thing to be done, strange
that he had not thought of it at once. Yet it was hard, very hard and
cruel to be forced to meet them again. What had he done to suffer this
mortification? For a moment he actually hated this vulgar treasure that
had forever buried under its gross ponderability the light and careless
past, and utterly crushed out the poetry of their old, indolent, happy
existence.

He was sure to find them waiting at t