dition. His great expressive eyes shone out
with an unnatural brilliancy from his pale, sunken cheeks, and a deeper
shade of melancholy seemed settling on his naturally thoughtful face.
Thompson probably noticed it more than anybody else, but said nothing,
while Old Platte and Jones exchanged ideas on the subject with a sort of
puzzled anxiety, mingled, it might be, with some genuine alarm. They
noticed that the work began to fatigue him more and more, and that he
often had to pause in the middle of it weary and exhausted.

At last, one day, about the first of November, he remained in his bunk
in the cabin, unable to come down to the claim. In their rough, uncouth
way they pitied him, and would have given anything they could command to
be able to relieve him. But they seemed instinctively to feel that his
case was something out of their reach, and with the exception of a weak
suggestion from Jones, that he should try some of "them ar antibilious
pills as he had in his box," no course of medical treatment was
contemplated. Besides, was he not himself a doctor? and if he could do
nothing, what should they be able to effect? The argument was
sufficiently conclusive; at least, Jones accepted it as such, and
retired in some confusion, comforting himself by the perusal of the
label on his box of pills, which really seemed to justify the suggestion
he had made. Twice after this, on days when the warm sunshine tempted
him out of doors, he came down to the claim and sat by the wheel and
watched them working; but he never did any more work. He did not tell
them he could not do it, or complain that he was too weak: it was
tacitly understood that his share of the season's labor was over.

About the middle of November the winter stepped in in its sudden way and
commenced to take possession of the valley of the Blue, and by the first
of December the ice was so thick that the partners reluctantly stopped
work. "Jones of Chihuahua" had expressed his determination of going
south to Santa Fe, to stay until spring among the "Greasers," but Old
Platte and Thompson would stay on the Blue for the winter, and to that
end had laid in such provisions as were deemed necessary. The settlement
below on the Bar had been abandoned early in November; and it was
doubtful if a white man besides themselves could be found by its waters
any nearer than the end of the Great Canon of the Rio Colorado. But they
cared very little for that, and looked forward