ot be disturbed here," he added, in reply to an inquiring glance that
Bill directed to the door, "and I am ready to hear you."

"Firstly, then," said Bill, drawing his chair nearer Islington, "answer
me one question, Tommy, fair and square, and up and down."

"Go on," said Islington, with a slight smile.

"Ef I should say to you, Tommy,--say to you to-day, right here, you must
come with me,--you must leave this place for a month, a year, two years
maybe, perhaps forever,--is there anything that 'ud keep you,--anything,
my boy, ez you couldn't leave?"

"No," said Tommy, quietly; "I am only visiting here. I thought of
leaving Greyport to-day."

"But if I should say to you, Tommy, come with me on a pasear to Chiny,
to Japan, to South Ameriky, p'r'aps, could you go?"

"Yes," said Islington, after a slight pause.

"Thar isn't ennything," said Bill, drawing a little closer, and lowering
his voice confidentially,--"ennything in the way of a young woman--you
understand, Tommy--ez would keep you? They're mighty sweet about here;
and whether a man is young or old, Tommy, there's always some woman as
is brake or whip to him!"

In a certain excited bitterness that characterized the delivery of
this abstract truth, Bill did not see that the young man's face flushed
slightly as he answered "No."

"Then listen. It's seven years ago, Tommy, thet I was working one o'
the Pioneer coaches over from Gold Hill. Ez I stood in front o' the
stage-office, the sheriff o' the county comes to me, and he sez, 'Bill,'
sez he, 'I've got a looney chap, as I'm in charge of, taking 'im down to
the 'sylum in Stockton. He'z quiet and peaceable, but the insides don't
like to ride with him. Hev you enny objection to give him a lift on the
box beside you?' I sez, 'No; put him up.' When I came to go and get up
on that box beside him, that man, Tommy,--that man sittin' there, quiet
and peaceable, was--Johnson!

"He didn't know me, my boy," Yuba Bill continued, rising and putting his
hands on Tommy's shoulders,--"he didn't know me. He didn't know nothing
about you, nor Angel's, nor the quicksilver lode, nor even his own name.
He said his name was Skaggs, but I knowd it was Johnson. Thar was times,
Tommy, you might have knocked me off that box with a feather; thar
was times when if the twenty-seven passengers o' that stage hed found
theirselves swimming in the American River five hundred feet below
the road, I never could have explained it satisfactor