that's what set me to raising
sheep."

When Uncle Ezra said this, he tipped me a wink, and settled back on his
couch of fragrant boughs, nursing his left leg for company.

CHAPTER II.

TOM MASON AGAIN.

"Well," said Ben interrogatively, "the nugget that Elam had to do with
wasn't any relation to this one, was it?"

"Wait till I tell you. I don't reckon there is any one thing in the
world that has been the cause of so much misery and mischief of all
kinds as that there nugget," continued Uncle Ezra reflectively. "The man
who found it, whose name was Morgan, and who was working with two
pardners, share and share alike, was about as honest as a man ever gets
to be, but the sight of the small fortune which he unearthed one day by
a single stroke of his pick, while working a little apart from the
others, was too much for him. He was as poor as a man ever gets to be,
and, worse than all, he had a sweetheart off in the States who was
waiting for him to raise a stake and come home and marry her. He didn't
like the idea of dividing with his two pardners, who would drop their
roll at the faro table as soon as they got the chance, and so he took
and buried his find and worked on as if nothing had happened. That is to
say, he tried to; but with a big chunk of gold within easy reach of his
hand it don't stand to reason that he could act just as he did before.
He was uneasy all the time, and his pardners noticed it and suspected
something. He took to visiting his nugget's hiding-place every night, to
make sure that no one had dug it up, and his pardners found it out on
him; and when at last he grew desperate and tried to carry it away
secretly, there was some shooting done, and Morgan and one of his
pardners were killed."

"That left the survivor a rich man!" exclaimed Ben, who was deeply
interested.

"Now, just wait till I tell you. That left the survivor a tolerable rich
man, but his sudden accession of wealth scared him so badly that he
buried the nugget in a new place and put for 'Frisco, where he took sick
and died. When the medical sharps warned him that he had not long to
live, he told one of the nurses about the nugget, and gave him a map of
the locality in which it was hidden. A month or so afterward the nurse
organized a small expedition and went to the mountains to hunt for the
treasure; but he hired for a guide a treacherous Greaser, who went
ahead, dug up the nugget, and brought it to Brazos City, a sma