"There ain't any prisons, and, if there were, there would be nobody to keep them."
Just then Bradley was hailed by a rough-looking man, whom at home Ben would have taken for a tramp.
"What, Bradley, back again? I didn't expect to see you here?"
"I didn't expect to come, Hunter, but I fooled away my money in 'Frisco, and have come back for more."
"And who's this boy-your son, or nephew?"
"No; he's no kin to me. I ran across him down to 'Frisco. Ben, let me make you acquainted with my old chum, Frank Hunter. He isn't much to look at, but-"
"I have seen better days," interrupted Hunter, smiling. "I was rather a dandy in my college days at old Yale, though I don't look like it now."
Ben regarded him with surprise. He had not dreamed that this sun-brown, bearded man, in the roughest of mining-garbs, had ever seen the inside of a college.
Hunter smiled at the boy's evident surprise.
"I don't look like a college graduate, do I? But I assure you I am not the worst-dressed man in camp. My friend, the mayor, is rougher-looking than I. Some time I hope to return to the haunts of civilization, and then I will try to conform to habits which I have almost forgotten."