enny!" said Stacy, in short
staccato sentences. "In a pocket! Brought it out the second stroke of
the pick! We'd been awfully blue after you left. Awfully blue, too, when
that bill of sale came, for we thought you'd been wasting your money on
US. Reckoned we oughtn't to take it, but send it straight back to you.
Messenger gone! Then Demorest reckoned as it was done it couldn't be
undone, and we ought to make just one 'prospect' on the claim, and
strike a single stroke for you. And there it is. And there's more on the
hillside."

"But it isn't MINE! It isn't YOURS! It's Carter's. I never had the money
to pay for it--and I haven't got it now."

"But you gave the note--and it is not due for thirty days."

A recollection flashed upon Barker. "Yes," he said with thoughtful
simplicity, "that's what Kitty said."

"Oh, Kitty said so," said both partners, gravely.

"Yes," stammered Barker, turning away with a heightened color, "and, as I
didn't stay there to luncheon, I think I'd better be getting it ready."
He picked up the coffeepot and turned to the hearth as his two partners
stepped beyond the door.

"Wasn't it exactly like him?" said Demorest.

"Him all over," said Stacy.

"And his worry over that note?" said Demorest.

"And 'what Kitty said,'" said Stacy.

"Look here! I reckon that wasn't ALL that Kitty said."

"Of course not."

"What luck!"

A YELLOW DOG

I never knew why in the Western States of America a yellow dog should be
proverbially considered the acme of canine degradation and incompetency,
nor why the possession of one should seriously affect the social
standing of its possessor. But the fact being established, I think we
accepted it at Rattlers Ridge without question. The matter of ownership
was more difficult to settle; and although the dog I have in my mind at
the present writing attached himself impartially and equally to everyone
in camp, no one ventured to exclusively claim him; while, after the
perpetration of any canine atrocity, everybody repudiated him with
indecent haste.

"Well, I can swear he hasn't been near our shanty for weeks," or the
retort, "He was last seen comin' out of YOUR cabin," expressed
the eagerness with which Rattlers Ridge washed its hands of any
responsibility. Yet he was by no means a common dog, nor even an
unhandsome dog; and it was a singular fact that his severest critics
vied with each other in narrating instances of his sagacity, insight,
and agil