tolen from men who had befriended him; he had jumped claims; he had
denied his score at the storekeeper's; he had lied on all possible
occasions; and had gambled away money which had been confided to him in
trust.

One mining camp after another had become too hot for him; but he never
adopted a new set of principles when he staked a new claim, so his stay
in new localities was never of sufficient length to establish the fact
of legal residence. His name seemed to be a respectable cognomen of
Scriptural extraction, but it was really a contraction of a name which,
while equally Scriptural and far more famous, was decidedly
unpopular--the name of Judas Iscariot.

The whole name had been originally bestowed upon Jude, in recognition of
his success in swindling a mining partner; but, with an acuteness of
perception worthy of emulation, the miners determined that the length of
the appellation detracted from its force, so they shortened it to Jude.

As a few of the more enterprising citizens of Gopher Hill were one
morning discussing the desirableness of getting rid of Jude, and
wondering how best to effect such a result, they received important
foreign aid.

A man rode up to the saloon, dismounted, and tacked on the wall a poster
offering one thousand dollars reward for the apprehension of a certain
person who had committed an atrocious murder a month before at Duck Run.

The names and _aliases_ of the guilty person were unfamiliar to those
who gathered about the poster, but the description of the murderer's
appearance was so suggestive, that Squire Bogern, one of the bystanders,
found Jude, and requested him to read the poster.

"Well, 'twasn't _me_ done it," sulkily growled the namesake of the
apostolic treasurer.

"Ther' hain't nobody in Gopher that 'ud take a feller up fur a reward,"
replied the squire, studiously oblivious of Jude's denial; "but it's a
nice mornin' fur a walk. Ye can't miss the trail an' git lost, ye know.
An', seein' yer hevn't staked any claim, an' so hain't got any to
dispose of, mebbe yer could git, inside of five minutes."

Jude was accustomed to "notices to quit," and was able to extract their
import from any verbiage whatever, so he drank by and to himself, and
immediately sauntered out of town, with an air of bravado in his
carriage, and a very lonesome look in his face.

Down the trail he tramped, past claims whose occupants knew him well
enough, but who, just as he passed, found some