He was taken completely by surprise, and I said:

"Yes, Devon, so you are; I was on the tug-Black invited me."

His surprise increased to a very serious concern, and he said, looking first at Claribel:

"I was going to tell you about it; but is it known that I was in the launch?"

"No!" said Claribel eagerly, "there's no proof. But"-as she caught my surprised look, she returned to her former manner-"you are in very great danger, nevertheless."

"Black has shown me a letter," I said, "written by some one who was able to give the information which led to the attempt to capture you. It isn't signed and it doesn't mention any names, butwell, Black is District Attorney, and all he needs is the man who wrote that letter."

Devon made no immediate reply to this, but after thinking a moment he drew some papers from his pockets, and showing me one of them, asked if the handwriting it contained was the same that in which Black's letter was written. It was, and I told him so.

as

"Then, as I thought," he said, "I am in no danger. The rascal will not be caught."

"Your conclusion," I remarked, "is hardly an obvious one."

"Well," he answered, "it's this way. He is a man whom I dismissed from my service because of a theft he committed in taking some valuable jewels from the Park Hotel. He was not found out, but he made the mistake of thinking that for a share of the proceeds I would dispose of the stones for him. Of course I returned them to the hotel management instead. So you see he cannot afford to be found. I could send him to San

Quentin for ten years. He is probably well out of the country by this time."

I could not but admit that there was very little likelihood of the man's capture, and I said as much, not failing to note as I did so that Claribel seemed to be drawing considerable comfort from the situation. She said:

"There is a difference between st"Yes," interrupted Devon, "he failed

to distinguish between burglary in the first degree and honestly conducted trade."

This statement, showing the persistency with which Devon held to the ridiculous ideas which had placed us all in such an unpleasant position, thoroughly angered me, and I determined that Claribel, at least, should realize the situation.

"Let me tell you, Devon," I said, "that such honestly conducted trade as you refer to is very far from being the respectable thing you think it. Such ideas as you entertain

"Are no more than mistaken theories," interrupted Claribel decisively, and I noticed that Devon winced painfully, though my harshness had failed to touch him. Claribel, however, appeared not to notice anything, and she continued:

"I can even realize, now, that courage and error sometimes go together;" her glance certainly bespoke a high degree of admiration.

Of course she was right, and I was grateful to her for checking my temper; but I intended to make it quite plain that I did not desire ner to share in the danger that still confronted Devon, so I said, for the benefit of both of them:

"Society will not listen to mistaken theories, and my object in speaking as I did was to remind Devon that Black has the power of the community back of him."

"You are right, Frank," said Devon, "and though I have, to-night, severed all connection with what I consider a thoroughly honorable business, I am still in some danger. I—”

But Claribel again interrupted.

"I think I understand Mr. Black," she said, "and-I hope you won't think me too conceited-but-don't you thinkthat is, if Mr. Black-should lose personal interest which he may-Oh, don't you understand?" and she stood there, helplessly blushing, until our denser minds perceived her intention of betrothing herself at once to Devon, and so removing Theodore Black's chief motive in the matter.

I saw clearly that the game had gotten entirely beyond me. And Devon, as Clari

INCE-NEZ and an enlarged VOcabulary are unusual attributes in a mining camp, and Semprey called for respect by these alone. In his sight, however, they were littlehis outstanding property was his keen power of analysis. Human motives were, he said, as apparent to him as stuffed birds in a glass case. There was no doubt of his reputation in Blue Pool Camp, due to a mundane spirit of prophecy which he possessed: given an inhabitant of the camp and a certain course of events, he would foretell with confidence the path that individual would take. The number of imaginary cases (discussed with the boys in the saloon), greatly exceeded the actual, and had in some measure enhanced his reputation; but in the actual he had never been known to err.

One hot summer evening the dusty red stage from Hawkins put down a Cornishman of the name of Pendennick in Blue Pool Camp; he was fresh from St. Just; had worked in the Botallack mine, he said, but the scarcity of work and the increasing demand of a wife and family upon his meagre earnings had driven him to try his fortune in the far West.

The boys were not surprised to hear that Pendennick intended to preachin the schoolhouse on Sunday evening. They were accustomed to "Cousin Jacks" (as they called Cornishmen) going about preaching and especially tenderfoots. Unhappily of late Blue Pool Camp had had enough of preachers. The last was a drunk known as Professor Brooks, who, when his oratorical duties were successfully accomplished, invariably repaired to the saloon, where he would stay with as little remission as possible until he had run through the collection. Under such circumstances, Blue Pool Camp could hardly be blamed from having decided to forego preachers.

"No, boys," said Semprey, in his re

fined way, taking his pince-nez in his right hand and emphasizing his words with them. "No, boys, if a man works not neither shall he eat. What I say is, preachers are superfluities-let a man be honest and kind to his neighbors, that will suffice. And, boys," he added, basing his remark upon his observation of Professor Brooks' character, "I ll bet two bits Pendennick 'll give up preaching within six months."

The congregation at the first Sunday evening service consisted of the school ma'am and a few children. The following Sunday the children had deserted him. So Pendennick, sincere as he was, decided to give up the work for a time.

Even Semprey was astonished at the immediate fulfillment of his prophesy; he meditated the greater part of a day upon his wonderful insight and grasp of character, and decided that Pendennick would be a man worth watching. Accordingly he dropped in on him and had a long talk, but learned to his amazement that the Cornishman was very much in earnest about preaching, and Semprey thanked his stars for a deliverance from an error in prognostication. Indeed, so impressed was he with Pendennick's earnestness and so well aware of the irksomeness of Blue Pool Camp to such a man that he felt he was in no way risking his reputation in prophesying that Pendennick would leave the Camp within a year.

A few days later the Cornishman surprised the Camp by striking a rich pocket at the foot of Moabite Hill. Semprey was the first to arrive on the scene: he went ostensibly to show Pendennick how to stake out his claim, but found the location notices were all in order, and placed with due regard to the direction of the vein. Semprey pegged out a claim at either end, one for himself and one for a friend-"for the sake of companionship," he told Pendennick, as he sat on

a fallen tree beneath the shadow of a monkey-pine and watched him pan out the gold in a little artificial pool.

"It's always the fools that makes the strikes," he said to himself as he walked back to camp along the scorching, dusty road. "Here I am, the smartest man in town, and I hain't made grub money for a year."

Pendennick's luck showed no signs of failing. Twenty, thirty or forty dollars a day were panned out regularly, and Semprey, emulous and not unenvious, set to work to lay open his claims with the energy of a steam-plow-at times. Often he would go and watch Pendennick at his pool; and, in the hope of entering into partnership with him, endure patiently his tirades against the vices of the Camp, and more especially the desecration of the Sabbath. Pendennick never worked on Sunday, but the Blue Pool Camp boys, had it not been for the fact that the boarding house supplied ice cream on that day in the summer, and oyster soup in the winter, would never have known it from any of the other days of the week. Semprey learned in the course of these talks that Pendennick had promised to return home for his family when he had saved five thousand dollars.

Semprey was notably the smartest man in the Camp, and in his close observation of Pendennick he perceived as the months passed by that his neighbor's avowed principles were becoming apparently less and less impedimentive to his practices. Pendennick at first read a book or took a quiet stroll on Sundays. After a while he would confine his walks to his own claim, and his meditations would often be interrupted by examinations of the ground; later on, Pendennick used to take his pole-pick when he went meditating; and in a few weeks more he fell into the way of filling his pool on Sunday evenings and sharpening his tools for the morrow's work. Semprey was much concerned about these developments. As he had made such a point with the boys of Pendennick's prophesied departure, he felt that if Pendennick were allowed to become lax he would surely stay, and his own reputation van

ish. Besides this, Semprey was beginning to entertain a hope that he might buy Pendennick's claim when the prophesied departure came to pass. At all costs Pendennick must leave.

While Semprey was contemplating this problem Pendennick went a step further -he commenced to work seven days a week as the other boys did. He argued -ignoring the unstable foundation of the assertion-that as he had been unable to keep his thoughts off his work on the Sunday, surely it would be no worse to work. Semprey was alarmed; he neglected his claims altogether that Sunday in his anxiety to discover a way of getting Pendennick to leave the Camp and so fulfill his prophesy, for his reputation was very dear to him.

The next day he casually advised Pendennick to sell his claim: the gold would certainly give out sooner or later, and it would be best to get the property off his hands whilst it was a paying concern. But Pendennick would have none of it; he knew, he said, that he had pay rock for years.

A day or two later, to Pendennick's astonishment and chagrin, the pay streak disappeared. He felt that the blame was somehow due to Semprey, and vowed he would never tell him of his ill-luck. In hope of striking good rock again he continued work, but pan after pan showed scarcely a color; nevertheless when Semprey was around the prospects were as rich as ever-a pinch of gold dust from his pocket would be mixed with the dirt before panning, and Semprey continued to believe that Pendennick's luck was binding him closer and closer to Blue Pool Camp.

At length Semprey conceived a plan for getting rid of his neighbor; he seated himself on a log one day, and, when Pendennick arrived with the pay dirt, was deep in meditation.

"Look here, Pendennick," he said presently, "you have been kinder frankand-ingenuous with me about your affairs, while I have in a greater or less degree maintained silence regardin mine"-Semprey was proudly conscious of the rhetorical effect of his vocabulary. "Now, I would esteem your advice

some in this matter. About twenty years ago I set my heart on comin' out West, but the old folks opposed the whole scheme. I talked with them day after day continuously until at last they accorded me permission to go. Well, I was a religious chap in 'em days, but soon after I arrived"-Semprey spoke slowly, so that the words might take full effect, "I dropped that kind of thing like everyone else, and set to work to make somethin'. I've been at it ever since, and though I've made money enough to look at, I feel somehow life ain't all it's cracked up to be out here, and I'm beginning to think it's kinder hard to leave my people desolate back East. What would you advise, me to do?" He looked toward Pendennick, who had his eyes fixed on a heron in the creek. There was silence for several minutes; Pendennick was thinking of a letter he had received from his wife that morning begging him to return: he turned to his companion.

"I-think-I'd-go-home," he said, very slowly and with much hesitation. When Semprey reached the road on his way back to Camp, he laughed long and heartily. "Rose like a trout," he said. "I'll try him again to-morrow." He turned in at the store for his paper. Old Carpenter, the storekeeper, asked him how his claims were coming on.

"Well," he replied, "can't say that they show up very well, but Pendennick's claim is conspicuously and continuously rich: I'd give five thousand for it."

"Pendennick ain't a-goin' to pack up his traps yet awhile," answered Carpenter; "you bet cher life he ain't."

"I'll bet ten dollars he'll be on his way back to the Old Country within a month," said Semprey.

"I ain't a bettin' man or I'd take you," said Carpenter; and there the matter dropped.

Pendennick, already influenced by his wife's appeal to return, was a ready victim to Semprey's veiled attack upon his emotional feelings; and the touch Semprey gave to his fictitious story concerning his lapse from religious principles struck even deeper than he had anticipated. Pendennick owned to himself

that he was fallen, and perhaps in falling had confirmed the men's opinions about professors of religion; and thinking that to commence preaching again after his claim had failed would only prejudice them to greater extent, he decided he would sell it, and go home. He was too honest to sell his property as a paying claim, and too sensitive to let Semprey know it had given out, so he decided not to give Semprey the offer.

The next day Semprey again talked to him of home and said he supposed that Pendennick must have nearly saved the five thousand. The Cornishman began to suspect that Semprey was working to obtain his claim.

"Expect I'll be going back to the Old Country soon," he said.

"Well," answered Semprey, "I'll be sorry to lose your company, but I guess I can submit as good an offer for your claim as anyone."

"Thought you were going home," said Pendennick.

"Well, I guess I am; but I want to buy this for a friend of mine," answered Semprey.

That evening when Pendennick went for his letters he told Carpenter that he intended to go home at once if he could find a buyer for his claim.

"What do you want for it?" asked Carpenter.

"A hundred dollars," answered the Cornishman. "The gold has disappearedhaven't seen color this last month."

"Semprey was telling me yesterday that it was keeping rich," said the storekeeper.

"So he thinks," answered Pendennick laughing. "But you may be sure that

I wouldn't offer to you for a hundred if I thought there was gold there. The shanty cost me a hundred dollars to put up."

"Well, I'll give you ninety for the whole shootin'-match," said Carpenter. And so it was settled.

While this deal was progressing, Semprey was up at the saloon. Despite his anxiety to tell the boys of the approaching fulfillment of his prophecy concerning Pendennick, his eagerness to buy the claim kept him silent, though at times