lf by saying cautiously, "You spoke of it
first."

"That's the more sing'lar," said Uncle Billy confidently. "And I've
been thinking about it, and kinder seeing myself thar all day. It's
mighty queer!" He got up and began to rummage among some torn and
coverless books in the corner.

"Where's that 'Dream Book' gone to?"

"The Carson boys borrowed it," replied Uncle Jim.

"Anyhow, yours wasn't no dream--only a kind o' vision, and the book
don't take no stock in visions." Nevertheless, he watched his partner
with some sympathy, and added, "That reminds me that I had a dream the
other night of being in 'Frisco at a small hotel, with heaps o' money,
and all the time being sort o' scared and bewildered over it."

"No?" queried his partner eagerly yet reproachfully. "You never let on
anything about it to _me_! It's mighty queer you havin' these strange
feelin's, for I've had 'em myself. And only to-night, comin' up from
the spring, I saw two crows hopping in the trail, and I says, 'If I see
another, it's luck, sure!' And you'll think I'm lyin', but when I went
to the wood-pile just now there was the _third_ one sittin' up on a log
as plain as I see you. Tell 'e what folks ken laugh--but that's just
what Jim Filgee saw the night before he made the big strike!"

They were both smiling, yet with an underlying credulity and
seriousness as singularly pathetic as it seemed incongruous to their
years and intelligence. Small wonder, however, that in their
occupation and environment--living daily in an atmosphere of hope,
expectation, and chance, looking forward each morning to the blind
stroke of a pick that might bring fortune--they should see signs in
nature and hear mystic voices in the trackless woods that surrounded
them. Still less strange that they were peculiarly susceptible to the
more recognized diversions of chance, and were gamblers on the turning
of a card who trusted to the revelation of a shovelful of upturned
earth.

It was quite natural, therefore, that they should return from their
abstract form of divination to the table and their cards. But they
were scarcely seated before they heard a crackling step in the brush
outside, and the free latch of their door was lifted. A younger member
of the camp entered. He uttered a peevish "Halloo!" which might have
passed for a greeting, or might have been a slight protest at finding
the door closed, drew the stool from which Uncle Jim had just risen
befor