and the big man became immersed in a
magazine. The handkerchief slipped from his knees into the aisle.
Thompson politely restored it.

"Thank you, young man, thank you," said Britt. Then a puzzled look
came over his brow. Polishing the glasses he took another sharp look.
He leaned across the aisle.

"I _beg_ your pardon," he said, with stately courtesy. "But I am
sure I have met you somewhere. No, don't tell me. Pardon an old man's
harmless vanity, but it is my weakness to make my memory do its work
unaided, when possible. I have a famous memory generally, and yours
is not a face to be easily forgotten. Let me see--not in New York, I
think--Philadelphia--Washington? No--you would be from the West, by
your hat. Um-m-Omaha--Chicago, St. Louis?--_Butte_!" he said, with a
resounding thwack on his knee. "Butte! 'Where every prospect pleases,
and only man is vile'!"

"Right you are," said the Westerner, well pleased. "I seem to remember
you, too."

"I have it!" said Mitchell. "Don't remember your name--but you're the
very man Judge Harney pointed out to me as the unluckiest prospector
in Montana. Said you could locate a claim bounded on all sides by
paying property and gopher through to China without ever striking
ore."

"May I come over there and talk?" said Steve. "Mighty glad to see some
one from my town. You didn't live there though, or I should have met
you."

"Certainly," said Mitchell, making room. "Glad to have you. Live
there? Oh, no, I only made a couple of trips. Some associates of mine
were in with Miles Finlen--you know him, I reckon?--on the Bird's-eye
proposition, and I took a flyer with them," he explained. "I lost out.
Dropped several dollars," His face lit up with comfortable good-humor.
"It was a good mine, but it got tied up in the courts. Let me
see--what did Harney call you--Townsend, Johnson?"

"Thompson," said Steve, smiling. "Steve Thompson."

"So it was--so it was. Well, I was getting close. Glad to meet you,
Mr. Thompson. That is my name." He handed over a bit of pasteboard,
inscribed;

MR. J.F. MITCHELL

"On Vesey Street now, just south of Barclay Street Ferry. I'll jot
down the number--you want to come round and look me up. Sorry I can't
ask you to use my house for headquarters. Wife's away to Bar Harbor
for the summer, and I'm camping out in a hotel. Tell you what,
though--you put up at my caravanserai--the Cornucopia--good house,
treat you well. I'll be busy a day or so catch