little confused at the silence and scrutiny. Bill walked deliberately
to the bar, and, placing his back against it, faced Tommy with a look of
demure enjoyment.
"Ef," he remarked slowly,--"ef a hundred thousand dollars down and half
a million in perspektive is ennything, Major, THERE IS!"
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS.
PART II--EAST.
It was characteristic of Angel's that the disappearance of Johnson, and
the fact that he had left his entire property to Tommy, thrilled the
community but slightly in comparison with the astounding discovery that
he had anything to leave. The finding of a cinnabar lode at Angel's
absorbed all collateral facts or subsequent details. Prospectors from
adjoining camps thronged the settlement; the hillside for a mile on
either side of Johnson's claim was staked out and pre-empted; trade
received a sudden stimulus; and, in the excited rhetoric of the "Weekly
Record," "a new era had broken upon Angel's." "On Thursday last," added
that paper, "over five hundred dollars was taken in over the bar of the
Mansion House."
Of the fate of Johnson there was little doubt. He had been last seen
lying on a boulder on the river-bank by outside passengers of the
Wingdam night coach, and when Finn of Robinson's Ferry admitted to have
fired three shots from a revolver at a dark object struggling in the
water near the ferry, which he "suspicioned" to be a bear, the question
seemed to be settled. Whatever might have been the fallibility of
his judgment, of the accuracy of his aim there could be no doubt. The
general belief that Johnson, after possessing himself of the muleteer's
pistol, could have run amuck, gave a certain retributive justice to this
story, which rendered it acceptable to the camp.
It was also characteristic of Angel's that no feeling of envy or
opposition to the good fortune of Tommy Islington prevailed there. That
he was thoroughly cognizant, from the first, of Johnson's discovery,
that his attentions to him were interested, calculating, and speculative
was, however, the general belief of the majority,--a belief that,
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