ith Miss Mayfield, one could see
her "onct in a wile," and one could drink at Jeff's expense. Innocent
Jeff saw only generosity and kindness in the man he had half-choked,
and a sense of remorse and shame almost outweighed the relief of his
absence. "He might hev been ugly," said Jeff. He did not know how, in
this selfish world, there is very little room for gratuitous, active
ugliness.

Miss Mayfield did not leave her room that afternoon. The wind was
getting up, and it was growing dark when Jeff, idly sitting on his
porch, hoping for her appearance, was quite astounded at the apparition
of Yuba Bill as a pedestrian, dusty and thirsty, making for his usual
refreshment. Jeff brought out the bottle, but could not refrain from
mixing his verbal astonishment with the conventional cocktail. Bill,
partaking of his liquor and becoming once more a speaking animal, slowly
drew off his heavy, baggy driving gloves. No one had ever seen Bill
without them--he was currently believed to sleep in them--and when he
laid them on the counter they still retained the grip of his hand, which
gave them an entertaining likeness to two plethoric and overfed spiders.

"Ef I concluded to pass over my lines to a friend and take a pasear
up yer this evening," said Bill, eying Jeff sharply, "I don't know
ez thar's any law agin it! Onless yer keepin' a private branch o' the
Occidental Ho-tel, and on'y take in fash'n'ble fammerlies!"

Jeff, with a rising color, protested against such a supposition.

"Because ef ye ARE," said Bill, lifting his voice, and crushing one of
the overgrown spiders with his fist, "I've got a word or two to say to
the son of Joe Briggs of Tuolumne. Yes, sir! Joe Briggs--yer father--ez
blew his brains out for want of a man ez could stand up and say a word
to him at the right time."

"Bill," said Jeff, in a low, resolute tone--that tone yielded up only
from the smitten chords of despair and desperation--"thar's a sick woman
in the house. I'll listen to anything you've got to say if you'll say it
quietly. But you must and SHALL speak low."

Real men quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only your
shams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker more
than his words, dropped his own.

"I said I had a kepple of words to say to ye. Thar isn't any time in the
last fower months--ever since ye took stock in this old shanty, for the
matter o' that--that I couldn't hev said them to ye. I've knowed all