Thompson took it with a hand that shook as his rarely did.
"Send it soon—it's addressed and all—send it to her. Maybe she will be glad to know I am—gone—at last—out of her path—out of the way—and the world. She sent it back to me—would not have it—or me. Now—" Then his mind seemed to wander, and he rambled incoherently, repeating over and over again a name that sounded like that on the envelope. "You will do it, won't you, Thompson?" said he, rallying suddenly.
Thompson's voice was husky and thick as he answered impressively, "Damn me ef I don't!" adding mentally, as he glanced at the package, "Damn her skin, whoever she is! She's at the bottom of all this here business, you bet."
Gentleman Dick's lips moved as if he were speaking, and as Thompson leaned over him he could hear, in a broken whisper, "Gold—in old boot—under bed—Old Platte half."
He heard no more. The pressure of the wasted fingers relaxed, the weary head sunk slowly back on the pillow, and the tired eyelids drooped over the glazing eyes.
"Dick!" said Thompson—"Dick, old man!"
Too late. Away through the softly-falling snow, from the Blue with its stillness and solitude, from its heartaches and sorrows and troubles, the weary spirit had fled, and Gentleman Dick was at rest.
Spring had come again; the snow had melted from the valleys; the grass and the ferns and the green grass and bright lichens once more peeped out among the gray boulders and about the feet of the stately pines; and the Blue, freed from its wintry prison, sang merrily over the gravelly reaches. And as the miners flocked down that spring from over the range, they saw near by the Chihuahua Claim and the deserted cabin, in a square formed by four gigantic pines, a neatly-built cairn of boulders. One big gray boulder rested securely on top of all, and on it was hacked, in rough and simple letters, GENTLEMAN DICK.
W. MACKAY LAFFAN.