BILL MOSELY REAPPEARS.
It will be necessary to go back a little in order to explain how so extraordinary a charge came to be made against the party in which we are interested.
Bill Mosely and Tom Hadley did not become reconciled to the loss of their stolen horses. They found it much less agreeable to use their own legs than the legs of the two mustangs which had borne them so comfortably over the hills. They cursed the fate which had led to their meeting with Ki Sing, and the poor Chinaman would have fared worse at their hands had they anticipated the trouble which he indirectly brought them.
Bill Mosely was naturally lazy; any sort of work he considered beneath him, and he desired to avoid all possible trouble in the lawless and vagabond life which he had chosen. He took it worse, indeed, than his companion, who was neither so shiftless nor so lazy as he.
During the few days which had elapsed since they were glad to leave the mountain-cabin they had averaged less than ten miles' daily travel. They had money enough to purchase animals to replace those which had been taken from them, but had not found any one who was willing to sell for a reasonable price, and Mosely, though he came easily by his money, was far from lavish in the spending of it.
It chanced that an hour after the arrival of Richard Dewey and his party at the Golden Gulch Hotel, Mosely and his companion, dusty and tired, approached the small mining-settlement, of which the hotel was the principal building.
They had had nothing to eat since morning, and both of them felt hungry, not to say ravenous.
"Thank Heaven, Tom, there's a mining-town!" ejaculated Mosely, with an expression of devotion not usual to him. "Now we can get something to eat, and I, for my part, feel as empty as a drum. It's hard travelling on an empty stomach."
"I should say so," remarked Mr. Hadley, with his usual formula. It must be admitted, however, that in the present instance he was entirely sincere, and fully meant what he said.
"There's a hotel," said Tom Hadley, a minute later, venturing on an original observation.