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"An' we all hopes that y'ur luck will continue, 'til you gits enough tew send you back home in fine style not that we're none anxious tew see you go," he added hastily, "'cause 'twould be 'bout as painful an operation as bein' seperated from a sore tooth, to be seperated from that singin' apperatus of your'n. We'll be expectin' you tew come over an' sing some more for us tew-night."
"But 'twouldn't be good sense tew let th' hull town know th' size of y'ur pile. It's tew goll durned big an' temptin'. Not that I wants tew scare you, Leetle Woman. Only it's jest good hoss-religion not tew tempt y'ur feller mortals more'n it's necessary. Now forgit th' gold an' give us a song." Ham had not been without his reasons in thus trying to arouse the fears of Mr. and Mrs.
"Wal, now," and the good-natured face of Ham loomed up between the two boys, "I reckon, if you all will jest take a look at that thar table, you'll stop y'ur talkin' and git tew eatin' some sudden.
For a matter of nigh upon forty year you've carried me, man and boy, back'ards and for'ards in safety and comfort over these here seas; and now, like a jade, you goes and founders, a desartin' of me in my old age. Arter a lifetime spent upon the heavin' buzzum of the stormy ocean `where the winds do blow, do blow' you're bound to-day to y'ur last moorin's in old Davy's locker.
"I'll be durned, if it should prove true, if I don't go back tew my old home in Vermont, that I ain't seen since I was a yunk 'bout y'ur age, an' buy up th' old farm, an' build a big house on it, an' Gosh, a'mighty, if that yarn of y'urn ain't sot me tew dreamin'!" and Ham came back to the earth, looking a bit foolish.
"Heah's the Rim," she said, in her quaint Southern drawl. "An' there's Y'ur Tonto Basin." Jean had been intent only upon the girl. He had kept step beside her without taking note of what was ahead of him. At her words he looked up expectantly, to be struck mute. He felt a sheer force, a downward drawing of an immense abyss beneath him.
Well, then, good-bye, Betsy Jane, my beauty; dear you are to me as the child of a man's age; may y'ur old timbers find a soft and easy restin' place in their last berth? And if it warn't for the old 'oman and the lasses ashore there, I'd as lief go down with thee as be where I am."
"Then," and the alcalde looked sharply into the face of the witness, "you never saw either William Ugger or Spikenard Quinley, until you saw them, as described in your testimony, on the day of the murder?" "If y'ur meanin' that little pock-marked runt an' that big red-readed feller with a smashed nose, a-standin' thar, I sart'inly never did see them afore that identickle moment.
"An', Leetle Woman, Dick's more'n half right 'bout bein' some cautious who you tells y'ur good luck tew. Thar was a miner murdered for his gold 'bout a week ago nigh Sacremento City; an' th' murderers worn't caught an' might be a-snoopin' 'round Hangtown right now." "Mercy!" and Mrs. Dickson turned a whitening face to Ham.
"Wal, we shore was in luck, Dick, when we took you intew th' partnership," Ham declared heartily; "for, I reckon, we'd had a durned long hunt a-findin' our way jest by that map, but now all we've got tew do is jest tew foller y'ur lead. Wal, lead on," and he grinned.
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