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The restraint and evident uneasiness of his companions had at last touched him. He turned his frank young eyes upon them; they glanced helplessly at each other. Yet his first concern was for them, his first instinct paternal and protecting. He ran his eyes quickly over them; they were all there and apparently in their usual condition. “Anything wrong with the claim?” he suggested.

Without looking at him the Right Bower rose, leaned against the open door with his hands behind him and his face towards the landscape, and said, apparently to the distant prospect: “The claim’s played out, the partnership’s played out, and the sooner we skedaddle out of this the better. If,” he added, turning to the Old Man, “if you want to stay, if you want to do Chinaman’s work at Chinaman’s wages, if you want to hang on to the charity of the traders at the Crossing, you can do it, and enjoy the prospects and the Noah’s doves alone. But we’re calculatin’ to step out of it.”

“But I haven’t said I wanted to do it alone” protested the Old Man with a gesture of bewilderment.

“If these are your general ideas of the partnership,” continued the Right Bower, clinging to the established hypothesis of the other partners for support, “it ain’t ours, and the only way we can prove it is to stop the foolishness right here. We calculated to dissolve the partnership and strike out for ourselves elsewhere. You’re no longer responsible for us, nor we for you. And we reckon it’s the square thing to leave you the claim and the cabin and all it contains. To prevent any trouble with the traders, we’ve drawn up a paper here”–

“With a bonus of fifty thousand dollars each down, and the rest to be settled on my children,” interrupted the Old Man, with a half uneasy laugh. “Of course. But”–he stopped suddenly, the blood dropped from his fresh cheek, and he again glanced quickly round the group. “I don’t think–I–I quite sabe, boys,” he added, with a slight tremor of voice and lip. “If it’s a conundrum, ask me an easier one.”

Any lingering doubt he might have had of their meaning was dispelled by the Judge. “It’s about the softest thing you kin drop into, Old Man,” he said confidentially; “if I had n’t promised the other boys to go with them, and if I did n’t need the best medical advice in Sacramento for my lungs, I’d just enjoy staying with you.”

“It gives a sorter freedom to a young fellow like you, Old Man, like goin’ into the world on your own capital, that every Californian boy has n’t got,” said Union Mills, patronizingly.

“Of course it’s rather hard papers on us, you know, givin’ up everything, so to speak; but it’s for your good, and we ain’t goin’ back on you,” said the Left Bower, “are we, boys?”

The color had returned to the Old Man’s face a little more quickly and freely than usual. He picked up the hat he had cast down, put it on carefully over his brown curls, drew the flap down on the side towards his companions, and put his hands in his pockets. “All right,” he said, in a slightly altered voice. “When do you go?”

“To-day,” answered the Left Bower. “We calculate to take a moonlight pasear over to the Cross Roads and meet the down stage at about twelve to-night. There’s plenty of time yet,” he added, with a slight laugh; “it’s only three o’clock now.”

There was a dead silence. Even the rain withheld its continuous patter, a dumb, gray film covered the ashes of the hushed hearth. For the first time the Right Bower exhibited some slight embarrassment.

“I reckon it’s held up for a spell,” he said, ostentatiously examining the weather, “and we might as well take a run round the claim to see if we’ve forgotten nothing. Of course, we’ll be back again,” he added hastily, without looking at the Old Man, “before we go, you know.”