Mrs. Berryn looked earnestly into his face for a moment, and then trusted him.
“Mr. Buffle,” she said, “he is the best man that ever lived. But we were both proud, and we quarrelled, and he left me in anger. I accidentally heard he was in California, through an acquaintance who saw him leave New York on the California steamer. If you see him, tell him I was wrong, and that I will die if he does not come back. Tell him—tell him—that.”
“Never mind, mum,” said Buffle, leading her hastily toward the shanty, and talking with unusual rapidity. “I’ll bring him back all right ef I find him; an’ find him I will, ef he’s on top of the ground.”
They entered the cabin, and Buffle was rather astonished at the appearance of his own home. The men were gone, but on the bare logs, where Buffle usually reposed, they had spread their coats neatly, and covered them with a blanket which little Muggy usually wore.
The cards had disappeared, and in their place lay a very small fragment of looking-glass; the demijohn stood in its accustomed place, but against it leaned a large chip, on which was scrawled, in charcoal, the word Worter.
“Good,” said Buffle, approvingly. “Now, mum, keep up yer heart. I tell yer I’ll fetch him, an’ any man at the Gulch ken tell yer thet lyin’ ain’t my gait.”
Buffle slammed the door, called at two or three other shanties, and gave orders in a style befitting a feudal lord, and in ten minutes was on horseback, galloping furiously out on the trail to Green Flat.
The Green Flatites wondered at finding the great man among them, and treated him with the most painful civility. As he neither hung about the saloon, “got up” a game, nor provoked a horse-trade, it was immediately surmised that he was looking for some one, and each man searchingly questioned his trembling memory whether he had ever done Buffle an injury.
All preserved a respectful silence as Buffle walked from claim to claim, carefully scrutinizing many, and all breathed freer as they saw him and his horse disappear over the hill on the Sonora trail.
At Sonora he considered it wise to stay over Sunday—not to enjoy religious privileges, but because on Sunday sinners from all parts of the country round flocked into Sonora, to commune with the spirits, infernal rather than celestial, gathered there.