he'd been smoking an opium pipe, instead of smelling punk, he ought to
be man enough to confess it. Yet it was noticeable that they were
all very anxious to examine the packet again, but Cy Parker was alike
indifferent to demand or entreaty.
A few days later I saw Abe Wynford, one of the party, coming out of See
Yup's wash-house. He muttered something in passing about the infamous
delay in sending home his washing, but did not linger long in
conversation. The next day I met another miner AT the wash-house, but HE
lingered so long on some trifling details that I finally left him there
alone with See Yup. When I called upon Poker Jack of Shasta, there was a
singular smell of incense in HIS cabin, which he attributed to the very
resinous quality of the fir logs he was burning. I did not attempt
to probe these mysteries by any direct appeal to See Yup himself: I
respected his reticence; indeed, if I had not, I was quite satisfied
that he would have lied to me. Enough that his wash-house was well
patronized, and he was decidedly "getting on."
It might have been a month afterwards that Dr. Duchesne was setting a
broken bone in the settlement, and after the operation was over, had
strolled into the Palmetto Saloon. He was an old army surgeon, much
respected and loved in the district, although perhaps a little feared
for the honest roughness and military precision of his speech. After he
had exchanged salutations with the miners in his usual hearty fashion,
and accepted their invitation to drink, Cy Parker, with a certain
affected carelessness which did not, however, conceal a singular
hesitation in his speech, began:--
"I've been wantin' to ask ye a question, Doc,--a sort o' darned fool
question, ye know,--nothing in the way of consultation, don't you see,
though it's kin er in the way o' your purfeshun. Sabe?"
"Go on, Cy," said the doctor good-humoredly, "this is my dispensary
hour."
"Oh! it ain't anything about symptoms, Doc, and there ain't anything the
matter with me. It's only just to ask ye if ye happened to know anything
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