interested me
more) a few long hairs, late the property of Stoffles.

Stoffles, however--she is still with us--has a superfluity of long hair,
and is constantly leaving it about.

G. H. POWELL.

DICK BAKER'S CAT

One of my comrades there--another of those victims of eighteen years of
unrequited toil and blighted hopes--was one of the gentlest spirits that
ever bore its patient cross in a weary exile: grave and simple Dick
Baker, pocket-miner of Dead-Horse Gulch. He was forty-six, grey as a
rat, earnest, thoughtful, slenderly educated, slouchily dressed and
clay-soiled, but his heart was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever
brought to light--than any, indeed, that ever was mined or minted.

Whenever he was out of luck and a little downhearted, he would fall to
mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to own (for where
women and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets,
for they must love something). And he always spoke of the strange
sagacity of that cat with the air of a man who believed in his secret
heart that there was something human about it--maybe even supernatural.

I heard him talking about this animal once. He said:

"Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom Quartz, which
you'd 'a' took an interest in, I reckon--, most anybody would. I had him
here eight year--and he was the remarkablest cat _I_ ever see. He was a
large grey one of the Tom specie, an' he had more hard, natchral sense
than any man in this camp--'n' a _power_ of dignity--he wouldn't let the
Gov'ner of Californy be familiar with him. He never ketched a rat in
his life--'peared to be above it. He never cared for nothing but mining.
He knowed more about mining, that cat did, than any man _I_ ever, ever
see. You couldn't tell _him_ noth'n' 'bout placer-diggin's--'n' as for
pocket-mining, why he was just born for it. He would dig out after me
an' Jim when we went over the hills prospect'n', and he would trot along
behind us for as much as five mile, if we went so fur. An' he had the
best judgment about mining-ground--why you never see anything like it.
When we went to work, he'd scatter a glance around, 'n' if he didn't
think much of the indications, he would give a look as much as to say,
'Well, I'll have to get you to excuse _me_,' 'n' without another word
he'd hyste his nose into the air 'n' shove for home. But if the ground
suite