touching.  Indeed, it was a wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, with a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his “Nelly’s grave” in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener.  A sparrow hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to confess the superiority of man.  With a superior predatory capacity, he couldn’t sing.

But Mr. Hamlin presently found himself again on the highroad, and at his former pace.  Ditches and banks of gravel, denuded hillsides, stumps, and decayed trunks of trees, took the place of woodland and ravine, and indicated his approach to civilization.  Then a church steeple came in sight, and he knew that he had reached home.  In a few moments he was clattering down the single narrow street that lost itself in a chaotic ruin of races, ditches, and tailings at the foot of the hill, and dismounted before the gilded windows of the “Magnolia” saloon.  Passing through the long barroom, he pushed open a green-baize door, entered a dark passage, opened another door with a passkey, and found himself in a dimly lighted room whose furniture, though elegant and costly for the locality, showed signs of abuse.  The inlaid center table was overlaid with stained disks that were not contemplated in the original design.  The embroidered armchairs were discolored, and the green velvet lounge, on which Mr. Hamlin threw himself, was soiled at the foot with the red soil of Wingdam.

Mr. Hamlin did not sing in his cage.  He lay still, looking at a highly colored painting above him representing a young creature of opulent charms.  It occurred to him then, for the first time, that he had never seen exactly that kind of a woman, and that if he should, he would not, probably, fall in love with her.  Perhaps he was thinking of another style of beauty.  But just then someone knocked at the door.  Without rising, he pulled a cord that apparently shot back a bolt, for the door swung open, and a man entered.

The newcomer was broad-shouldered and robust—­a vigor not borne out in the face, which, though handsome, was singularly weak, and disfigured by dissipation.  He appeared to be also under the influence of liquor, for he started on seeing Mr. Hamlin, and said, “I thought Kate was here,” stammered, and seemed confused and embarrassed.

Mr. Hamlin smiled the smile which he had before worn on the Wingdam coach, and sat up, quite refreshed and ready for business.

“You didn’t come up on the stage,” continued the newcomer, “did you?”

“No,” replied Hamlin; “I left it at Scott’s Ferry.  It isn’t due for half an hour yet.  But how’s luck, Brown?”

“Damn bad,” said Brown, his face suddenly assuming an expression of weak despair; “I’m cleaned out again, Jack,” he continued, in a whining tone that formed a pitiable contrast to his bulky figure, “can’t you help me with a hundred till tomorrow’s cleanup?  You see I’ve got to send money home to the old woman, and—­you’ve won twenty times that amount from me.”