seemed also to possess some importance, for, the stillness
being suddenly broken by the turning of the handle of the heavy door he
had just closed, and its opening with difficulty, his first act was
to hurriedly conceal them, without apparently paying a thought to the
exposed gold before him. And his expression and attitude in facing
round towards the door was quite as much of nervous secretiveness as of
indignation at the interruption.

Yet the intruder appeared, though singular, by no means formidable. He
was a man slightly past the middle age, with a thin face, hollowed at
the cheeks and temples as if by illness or asceticism, and a grayish
beard that encircled his throat like a soiled worsted "comforter" below
his clean-shaven chin and mouth. His manner was slow and methodical, and
even when he shot the bolt of the door behind him, the act did not seem
aggressive. Nevertheless Mr. Farendell half rose with his hand on
his pistol-pocket, but the stranger merely lifted his own hand with
a gesture of indifferent warning, and, drawing a chair towards him,
dropped into it deliberately.

Mr. Farendell's angry stare changed suddenly to one of surprised
recognition. "Josh Scranton," he said hesitatingly.

"I reckon," responded the stranger slowly. "That's the name I allus
bore, and YOU called yourself Farendell. Well, we ain't seen each other
sens the spring o' '50, when ye left me lying nigh petered out with
chills and fever on the Stanislaus River, and sold the claim that me and
Duffy worked under our very feet, and skedaddled for 'Frisco!"

"I only exercised my right as principal owner, and to secure my
advances," began the late Mr. Farendell sharply.

But again the thin hand was raised, this time with a slow, scornful
waiving of any explanations. "It ain't that in partickler that I've kem
to see ye for to-night," said the stranger slowly, "nor it ain't about
your takin' the name o' 'Farendell,' that friend o' yours who died on
the passage here with ye, and whose papers ye borrowed! Nor it ain't
on account o' that wife of yours ye left behind in Missouri, and whose
letters you never answered. It's them things all together--and suthin'
else!"

"What the d---l do you want, then?" said Farendell, with a desperate
directness that was, however, a tacit confession of the truth of these
accusations.

"Yer allowin' that ye'll get married tomorrow?" said Scranton slowly.

"Yes, and be d----d to you," said Farendell fierce