"Ah, Miss, you don't have such men as Tom Ruger out where you come from," said the driver, as Tom disappeared up the road. "And them nags of his'n can't be beat this side of the mountains. He makes a heap o' money with 'em."
"What! a horse-jockey?" exclaimed Miss Borlan.
"We don't call him that, miss. Some says he's a sportin' man, which ain't nothin' ag'in him, for the country's new, ye see. He's got heaps o' money anyway, and there ain't a camp nor a town on the coast that don't know Tom Ruger. Ah, ye don't have such men as Tommy. He'd be at home in a palace, now wouldn't he? And it's jest the same in a miner's shanty. Ye don't have such men as he. If he takes a likin' to anybody, he sticks to 'em through thick and thin; but if he gits ag'in ye once, he's—the—very—deuce. Ah, ye don't have no such man out where you come from."
She did not care to dispute this point. In fact, after what she had seen and heard, she was inclined to believe that there was no such men as Tom Ruger out where she had come from; so she made no reply; and the driver, following out his train of thought, rattled on about Tom Ruger until they came in sight of Ten Mile Gulch, winding up his narrative with the sage, but rather unexpected, remark, that there weren't no such men as Tom Ruger out where she had come from.
II.
The barroom at the Miners' Home might have been more crowded at some former period of its existence, but to have duplicated the two dozen faces and forms of the two dozen Ten Milers who were congregated there that beautiful Autumn afternoon would have been a hopeless task.
Ten Mile Gulch had turned out en masse, and those same Ten Milers were distinguished neither for their good looks, nor taste in dress, nor softness of heart or language, nor elegance of manners. Further than that we do not care to go at present.
But there was one face and one form absent. No more would the genial atmosphere of that barroom respond to the heavings of his broad chest, no more would the dignified concoctor of rare and villainous drinks pass him the whisky-straight. Alas! Bill Foster had passed in his checks, and gone the way of all Ten Milers.
And it was this fact that brought these diligent delvers after hidden treasure from their work, for Bill had not gone in the ordinary way. At night he was in the full enjoyment of health and a game of poker; in the morning they found him just outside the domicile of Jack Borlan, with a small puncture near the heart to tell how it was done. Such was life at Ten Mile Gulch.
Who made the puncture?