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From a certain intuitive pride in his partner and his affection, Uncle Billy did not show these letters openly to the camp, although he spoke freely of his former partner’s promising future, and even read them short extracts. It is needless to say that the camp did not accept Uncle Billy’s story with unsuspecting confidence. On the contrary, a hundred surmises, humorous or serious, but always extravagant, were afloat in Cedar Camp. The partners had quarreled over their clothes–Uncle Jim, who was taller than Uncle Billy, had refused to wear his partner’s trousers. They had quarreled over cards–Uncle Jim had discovered that Uncle Billy was in possession of a “cold deck,” or marked pack. They had quarreled over Uncle Billy’s carelessness in grinding up half a box of “bilious pills” in the morning’s coffee. A gloomily imaginative mule-driver had darkly suggested that, as no one had really seen Uncle Jim leave the camp, he was still there, and his bones would yet be found in one of the ditches; while a still more credulous miner averred that what he had thought was the cry of a screech-owl the night previous to Uncle Jim’s disappearance, might have been the agonized utterance of that murdered man. It was highly characteristic of that camp–and, indeed, of others in California–that nobody, not even the ingenious theorists themselves, believed their story, and that no one took the slightest pains to verify or disprove it. Happily, Uncle Billy never knew it, and moved all unconsciously in this atmosphere of burlesque suspicion. And then a singular change took place in the attitude of the camp towards him and the disrupted partnership. Hitherto, for no reason whatever, all had agreed to put the blame upon Billy–possibly because he was present to receive it. As days passed that slight reticence and dejection in his manner, which they had at first attributed to remorse and a guilty conscience, now began to tell as absurdly in his favor. Here was poor Uncle Billy toiling though the ditches, while his selfish partner was lolling in the lap of luxury in San Francisco! Uncle Billy’s glowing accounts of Uncle Jim’s success only contributed to the sympathy now fully given in his behalf and their execration of the absconding partner. It was proposed at Biggs’s store that a letter expressing the indignation of the camp over his heartless conduct to his late partner, William Fall, should be forwarded to him. Condolences were offered to Uncle Billy, and uncouth attempts were made to cheer his loneliness. A procession of half a dozen men twice a week to his cabin, carrying their own whiskey and winding up with a “stag dance” before the premises, was sufficient to lighten his eclipsed gayety and remind him of a happier past. “Surprise” working parties visited his claim with spasmodic essays towards helping him, and great good humor and hilarity prevailed. It was not an unusual thing for an honest miner to arise from an idle gathering in some cabin and excuse himself with the remark that he “reckoned he’d put in an hour’s work in Uncle Billy’s tailings!” And yet, as before, it was very improbable if any of these reckless benefactors REALLY believed in their own earnestness or in the gravity of the situation. Indeed, a kind of hopeful cynicism ran through their performances. “Like as not, Uncle Billy is still in ‘cahoots’ [i. e., shares] with his old pard, and is just laughin’ at us as he’s sendin’ him accounts of our tomfoolin’.”

And so the winter passed and the rains, and the days of cloudless skies and chill starlit nights began. There were still freshets from the snow reservoirs piled high in the Sierran passes, and the Bar was flooded, but that passed too, and only the sunshine remained. Monotonous as the seasons were, there was a faint movement in the camp with the stirring of the sap in the pines and cedars. And then, one day, there was a strange excitement on the Bar. Men were seen running hither and thither, but mainly gathering in a crowd on Uncle Billy’s claim, that still retained the old partners’ names in “The Fall and Foster.” To add to the excitement, there was the quickly repeated report of a revolver, to all appearance aimlessly exploded in the air by some one on the outskirts of the assemblage. As the crowd opened, Uncle Billy appeared, pale, hysterical, breathless, and staggering a little under the back-slapping and hand-shaking of the whole camp. For Uncle Billy had “struck it rich”–had just discovered a “pocket,” roughly estimated to be worth fifteen thousand dollars!