dollar bill into his coat pocket."

Before leaving town, we visited our gunmaker, with the intention of
ordering some cartridges. By the merest chance, he spoke of Johnson.

"A Britisher was in here yesterday: somethin' o' the cut o' you boys."

"In a grey suit with a brown sombrero?"

"Sure enough."

"Did he buy cartridges?"

"He bought a six-shooter and a few cartridges."

"Oh!" said Ajax.

We found ourselves walking towards a secluded lot at the back of the
Old Mission Church. Ajax asked me for an opinion which I was too dazed
to express.

"We've done a silly thing, and perhaps a wicked thing," said my
brother. "If that poor devil is lying dead in the brush-hills, I shall
never forgive myself. We've given a starving man too heavy a meal."

"Bosh!" said I, believing every word he uttered--the echo, indeed, of
my own thoughts. "I feel in my bones we are going to see Johnson
again."

Twenty-four hours later we heard of him. The Santa Barbara stage had
been held up by one man. It happened, however, that a remarkably bold
and fearless driver was on the box. The stage had been stopped upon
the top of a hill, but not exactly on the crest of it. The driver
testified that the would-be robber had leaped out of a clump of
manzanita, just as the heavy, lumbering coach was beginning to roll
down the steep hill in front of it. To pull up at such a moment was
difficult. The driver saw his chance and took it. He lashed the
leaders and charged straight at the highwayman, who jumped aside to
avoid being run over, and then, being a-foot, abandoned his
enterprise. He was wearing a mask fashioned out of a gunny-sack, new
overalls, and _brown_ shoes! That same night, at Los Olivos, a
man wearing brown shoes was arrested by a deputy sheriff because he
refused to give a proper account of himself; but, on being searched, a
letter to the cashier of the San Lorenzo bank, signed (so ran the
paragraph) by a well-known and responsible Englishman, was found in
the pocket of his coat. Whereupon he was allowed to go his ways, with
many apologies from the over-zealous official.

"Johnson!" said Ajax.

"Did he hold up the stage?" I asked.

"Of course he did" replied my brother contemptuously.

After this incident, Johnson, who for a brief time had loomed so large
in our imaginations, faded into a sort of wraith. Years passed,
bringing with them great changes for me. I left California and settled
in England. I wrote a book which exc