“Don’t know him, mister,” said Colonel Two, who happened to be the owner of the hut. “Besides ef, as is most likely, he’s growed long hair an’ a beard since he left the States, his own mother wouldn’t know him from George Washington. Brother o’ yourn?”
“No,” said one of the thin men; “he’s—well, the fact is, we’ll give a thousand dollars to any one who’ll find him for us in twenty-four hours.”
“Deppity sheriffs?” asked the colonel, retiring somewhat hastily under his blankets.
“About the same thing,” said one of the thin men, with a sickly smile.
“Git!” roared the colonel, suddenly springing from his bed, and cocking his revolver. “I b’lieve in the Golden Rule, I do!”
The detectives, with the fine instinct peculiar to their profession, rightly construed the colonel’s action as a hint, and withdrew, and Jim retired to his own hut, and fell asleep while waiting for his partner.
Morning came, but no Tarpaulin; dinner-time arrived, but Jim ate alone, and was rather blue. He loved a sociable chat, and of late Tarpaulin had been almost his sole companion.
Evening came, but Tarpaulin came not.
Jim couldn’t abide the saloon for a whole evening, so he lit a candle in his own hut, and attempted to read.
Tarpaulin was a lover of newspapers—it seemed to Jim he received more papers than all the remaining miners put together.