Of course me and Hooker we didn't take no stock in that yarn, and
little Bill went off alone.

"A couple of months after that me and Hooker see we'd got to do
something pretty quick or starve, and so we made up our minds to
prospect a little. We headed up the gulch, but without ever thinkin'
of little Bill, and as indications was good, we kept on in the same
direction for a couple of days. It was on the third day out, and we'd
got about twenty miles from the Bend, and hadn't struck nothin' yet
to bet on, when all of a sudden Hooker yells out, 'Holy Moses, Jake!
look-a there!' and what do you s'pose we see?

"About as fur as from here to that mule there, leanin' ag'in a tree,
sot little Bill Skinner--what was left of him, I mean, for he was
as dead as a dornick. And what do you s'pose he was a-settin' on? A
nugget of the pure metal worth forty thousand dollars! Yes, sir! We
could see in a minute how it was. Bill had found this nugget, and
bein' weak for want of grub, of course he couldn't carry it. So he had
sot down on it to guard it. And there he sot and sot. He dassent go to
sleep for fear somebody'd hook it, and he couldn't leave it to get
any grub for the same reason. We could see he'd browsed 'round on
the bushes as fur as he could reach, but that couldn't keep him alive
long, and so there he'd sot and sot till finally he'd pegged out.

"And that's what's the matter with Posey. I wakes up in the night and
sees him a-settin' thar by that wagon, and says I to myself, 'Thar
sets Posey on his nugget!' And one of these fine mornin's we'll find
nothin' but Posey's bones a-settin' there, and his buttons and such
like."

About this time, as they were now nearing the region where danger
from Indian raids was apprehended, Savage's company and another party
hailing from Illinois joined forces for mutual protection, and all
proceeded thenceforward under Savage's direction. Accompanying this
Illinois party was a woman going out to the diggings to join her
husband, who was prospering, and had sent for her to come on. The
two women thereafter keeping constantly together, Posey felt his
responsibility so far lightened that he occasionally indulged himself
in a "square" night's sleep, while Dora and her new-found friend
slumbered beneath his ample wagon-cover.

His partial separation from Dora, occasioned by the advent of this
other woman on the scene, soon opened Posey's eyes to the fact that
a total separation from her wou