is,
and yer WE are settled! Ye noticed how he just knocked the bottom
outer our plans to work. Ye noticed that quick sort o' sneerin' smile
o' his, didn't ye--that's Lacy! I've seen him knock over a heap o'
things without sayin' anythin'--with jist that smile."

It occurred to us that we might have some difficulty in utilizing this
smile in our present affairs, and that we should have probably
preferred something more assuring, but Captain Jim's faith was
contagious.

"What is he, anyway?" asked Joe Walker lazily.

"Eh!" echoed Captain Jim in astonishment. "What is Lacy Bassett?"

"Yes, what is he?" repeated Walker.

"Wot IS--he?"

"Yes."

"I've knowed him now goin' as four year," said Captain Jim with slow
reflective contentment. "Let's see. It was in the fall o' '54 I first
met him, and he's allus been the same ez you see him now."

"But what is his business or profession? What does he do?"

Captain Jim looked reproachfully at his questioner.

"Do?" he repeated, turning to the rest of us as if disdaining a direct
reply. "Do?--why, wot he's doin' now. He's allus the same, allus Lacy
Bassett."

Howbeit, we went to work the next day under the superintendence of the
stranger with youthful and enthusiastic energy, and began the sinking
of a shaft at once. To do Captain Jim's friend justice, for the first
few weeks he did not shirk a fair share of the actual labor, replacing
his objectionable and unsuitable finery with a suit of serviceable
working clothes got together by general contribution of the camp, and
assuring us of a fact we afterwards had cause to remember, that "he
brought nothing but himself into Eureka Gulch." It may be added that
he certainly had not brought money there, as Captain Jim advanced the
small amounts necessary for his purchases in the distant settlement,
and for the still smaller sums he lost at cards, which he played with
characteristic self-sufficiency.

Meantime the work in the shaft progressed slowly but regularly. Even
when the novelty had worn off and the excitement of anticipation grew
fainter, I am afraid that we clung to this new form of occupation as an
apology for remaining there; for the fascinations of our vagabond and
unconventional life were more potent than we dreamed of. We were
slowly fettered by our very freedom; there was a strange spell in this
very boundlessness of our license that kept us from even the desire of
change; in the wild and lawless arms