“Ef,” he remarked slowly,—­“ef a hundred thousand dollars down and half a million in perspektive is ennything, Major, there is!”

MRS. SKAGGS’S HUSBANDS.

PART II—­EAST.

It was characteristic of Angel’s that the disappearance of Johnson, and the fact that he had left his entire property to Tommy, thrilled the community but slightly in comparison with the astounding discovery that he had anything to leave.  The finding of a cinnabar lode at Angel’s absorbed all collateral facts or subsequent details.  Prospectors from adjoining camps thronged the settlement; the hillside for a mile on either side of Johnson’s claim was staked out and pre-empted; trade received a sudden stimulus; and, in the excited rhetoric of the “Weekly Record,” “a new era had broken upon Angel’s.”  “On Thursday last,” added that paper, “over five hundred dollars was taken in over the bar of the Mansion House.”

Of the fate of Johnson there was little doubt.  He had been last seen lying on a boulder on the river-bank by outside passengers of the Wingdam night coach, and when Finn of Robinson’s Ferry admitted to have fired three shots from a revolver at a dark object struggling in the water near the ferry, which he “suspicioned” to be a bear, the question seemed to be settled.  Whatever might have been the fallibility of his judgment, of the accuracy of his aim there could be no doubt.  The general belief that Johnson, after possessing himself of the muleteer’s pistol, could have run amuck, gave a certain retributive justice to this story, which rendered it acceptable to the camp.

It was also characteristic of Angel’s that no feeling of envy or opposition to the good fortune of Tommy Islington prevailed there.  That he was thoroughly cognizant, from the first, of Johnson’s discovery, that his attentions to him were interested, calculating, and speculative was, however, the general belief of the majority,—­a belief that, singularly enough, awakened the first feelings of genuine respect for Tommy ever shown by the camp.  “He ain’t no fool; Yuba Bill seed thet from the first,” said the barkeeper.  It was Yuba Bill who applied for the guardianship of Tommy after his accession to Johnson’s claim, and on whose bonds the richest men of Calaveras were represented.  It was Yuba Bill, also, when Tommy was sent East to finish his education, accompanied him to San Francisco, and, before parting with his charge on the steamer’s deck, drew him aside, and said, “Ef at enny time you want enny money, Tommy, over and ’bove your ’lowance, you kin write; but ef you’ll take my advice,” he added, with a sudden huskiness mitigating the severity of his voice, “you’ll forget every derned ole spavined, string-halted bummer as you ever met or knew at Angel’s,—­ev’ry one, Tommy,—­ev’ry one!  And so—­boy—­take care of yourself—­and—­and God bless ye, and pertikerly d—­n me for a first-class