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“‘One thing to a time. Then I ordered them dust sacks throwed out, and the driver to ’bout-face and retreat.’

“‘Sure,’ says I, ‘simple as a wart on a kid’s nose. There was you with a half ton of gold to fly off with! Come again.’

“‘I then dropped them sacks off the edge of the cliff where they rolled into the brush. After a while I climbed down after them, and was on hand when your posse started out. Then I carried them home at leisure.’

“‘What did you do with your hoss?’ I asked him, mighty sarcastic. ‘Seems to me you overlook a few bets.’

“‘I didn’t have no hoss,’ says he.

“‘But the real hold-up—-

“‘You mean them tracks. Well, just to amuse you fellows, I walked in the dust up to that flat rock. Then I clamped a big pair of horseshoes on hind-side before and walked back again.'”

California John’s audience had been listening intently. Now it could no longer contain itself, but broke forth into exclamations indicative of various emotions.

“That’s why them front and back tracks was the same size!” someone cried.

“Gee, you’re bright!” said California John. “That’s what I told him. I also told him he was a wonder, but how did he manage to slip out near a ton of dust up that road without our knowing it?

“‘You did know it,’ says he. ‘Did you fellows really think there was any gold-bearing ore in the Lost Dog? We just run that dust through the mill along with a lot of worthless rock, and shipped it out open and above board as our own mill run. There never was an ounce of dust come out of the Lost Dog, and there never will.’ Then he give me back my gun–emptied–we shook hands, and here I be.”

After the next burst of astonishment had ebbed, and had been succeeded by a rather general feeling of admiration, somebody asked California John if Jimmy had come back solely for the purpose of clearing up the mystery. California John had evidently been waiting for this question. He arose and knocked the ashes from his pipe.

“Bring a candle,” he requested the storekeeper, and led the way to the abandoned Lost Dog. Into the tunnel he led them, to the very end. There he paused, holding aloft his light. At his feet was a canvas which, being removed, was found to cover neatly a number of heavy sacks.

“Here’s our dust,” said California John, “every ounce of it, he said. He kept about six hundred thousand or so that belonged to Bright: but he didn’t take none of ours. He come back to tell me so.”

The men crowded around for closer inspection.

“I wonder why he done that?” Tibbetts marvelled.

“I asked him that,” replied California John, grimly, “He said his conscience never would rest easy if he robbed us babes.”

Tibbetts broke the ensuing silence.

“Was ‘babes’ the word he used?” he asked, softly.

“‘Babes’ was the word,” said California John.