him a lift in a wagon, I
suppose.

I am taking a rest, now--modified by searchings for the lost trail.
I was tired to death, mother, and low-spirited, and sometimes coming
uncomfortably near to losing hope; but the miners in this little camp
are good fellows, and I am used to their sort this long time back; and
their breezy ways freshen a person up and make him forget his troubles.
I have been here a month. I am cabining with a young fellow named
"Sammy" Hillyer, about twenty-five, the only son of his mother--like
me--and loves her dearly, and writes to her every week--part of which
is like me. He is a timid body, and in the matter of intellect--well,
he cannot be depended upon to set a river on fire; but no matter, he is
well liked; he is good and fine, and it is meat and bread and rest and
luxury to sit and talk with him and have a comradeship again. I wish
"James Walker" could have it. He had friends; he liked company. That
brings up that picture of him, the time that I saw him last. The pathos
of it! It comes before me often and often. At that very time, poor
thing, I was girding up my conscience to make him move on again!

Hillyer's heart is better than mine, better than anybody's in the
community, I suppose, for he is the one friend of the black sheep of the
camp--Flint Buckner--and the only man Flint ever talks with or allows to
talk with him. He says he knows Flint's history, and that it is trouble
that has made him what he is, and so one ought to be as charitable
toward him as one can. Now none but a pretty large heart could find
space to accommodate a lodger like Flint Buckner, from all I hear about
him outside. I think that this one detail will give you a better idea of
Sammy's character than any labored-out description I could furnish you
of him. In one of our talks he said something about like this: "Flint is
a kinsman of mine, and he pours out all his troubles to me--empties his
breast from time to time, or I reckon it would burst. There couldn't be
any unhappier man, Archy Stillman; his life had been made up of misery
of mind--he isn't near as old as he looks. He has lost the feel of
reposefulness and peace--oh, years and years ago! He doesn't know what
good luck is--never has had any; often says he wishes he was in the
other hell, he is so tired of this one."

IV.

"No real gentleman will tell the naked truth
in the presence of ladies."

It was a crisp and spicy morning in early