"Made your pile?" he asks.
"Pretty fair," says I.
"I was at it myself," he says; "I worked at the Nelson fields for three months, and spent all I made in buying a salted claim which busted up the second day. I went at it again, though, and struck it rich; but when the gold wagon was going down to the settlements, it was stuck up by those cursed rangers, and not a red cent left."
"That was a bad job," I says.
"Broke me—ruined me clean. Never mind, I've seen them all hanged for it; that makes it easier to bear. There's only one left—the villain that gave the evidence. I'd die happy if I could come across him. There were two things I have to do if I meet him."
"What's that?" says I carelessly.
"I've got to ask him where the money lies—they never had time to make away with it, and it's cachéd somewhere in the mountains—and then I've got to stretch his neck for him, and send his soul down to join the men that he betrayed."
It seemed to me that I knew something about that caché, and I felt like laughing; but he was
