the younger man. "It's ghostly. It's a town of dead men. As soon as it is dark the ghosts will rise and walk about – play billiards, I expect. What shall we do?"
"Hotel," growled the chief. "Sleep on floor – sit on chairs – eat off a table."
They entered the hotel.
A most orderly bar: the glasses there; the bright-coloured bottles: two or three casks of Bourbon whisky; the counter; the very dice on the counter with which the bar-keeper used to "go" the miners for drinks. How things at once so necessary to civilised life and so portable as dice were left behind, it is impossible to explain.
Everything was there except the drink. The greasers tried the casks and examined the bottles. Emptiness. A miner may leave behind him the impedimenta, but the real necessaries of life – rifle, revolver, bowie, and cards – he takes with him. And as for the drink, he carries that away too for greater safety, inside himself.
The English servant looked round him and smiled superior.
"No tap for beer, as usual, sir," he said. "These poor Californians has much to learn."
Mr. Gilead P. Beck looked round mournfully.
"Everything gone but the fixin's," he sighed. "There used to be good beds, where there wasn't more'n two at once in them; and there used to be such a crowd around this bar as you would not find nearer'n St. Louis City."
"Hush!" said Jack, holding up his hand. There were steps.
Mr. Beck pricked up his ears.
"Chinamen, likely. If there's a row, gentlemen, give me something, if it's only a toothpick, to chime in with. But that's not a Chinese step; that's an Englishman's. He wears boots, but they are not miner's boots; he walks firm and slow, like all Englishmen; he is not in a hurry, like our folk. And who but an Englishman would be found staying behind in the Empire City when it's gone to pot?"
The footsteps came down the stairs.
"Most unhandsome of a ghost," said the younger man, "to walk before midnight."
The producer of the footsteps appeared.
"Told you he was an Englishman!" cried Mr. Beck.
Indeed, there was no mistaking the nationality of the man, in spite of his dress, which was cosmopolitan. He wore boots, but not, as the quick ear of the American told him, the great boots of the miner; he had on a flannel shirt with a red silk belt; he wore a sort of blanket thrown back from his shoulders; and he had a broad felt hat. Of course he carried arms, but they were not visible.
He was a man of middle height, with clear blue eyes; the perfect complexion of an Englishman of good stock and in complete health; a brown beard, long and rather curly, streaked with here and there a grey hair; square and clear-cut nostrils; and a mouth which, though not much of it was visible, looked as if it would easily smile, might readily become tender, and would certainly find it difficult to be stern. He might be any age, from five and thirty to five and forty.
The greasers fell back and grouped about the door. The questions which might be raised had no interest for them. The two leaders stood together; and Mr. Gilead P. Beck, rolling an empty keg to their side, turned it up and sat down with the air of a judge, looking from one party to the other.
"Englishmen, I see," said the stranger.
"Ye-yes," said Ladds, not, as Mr. Beck expected, immediately holding out his hand for the stranger to grasp.
"You have probably lost your way?"
"Been hunting. Working round – San Francisco. Followed track; accident; got here. Your hotel, perhaps? Fine situation, but lonely."
"Not a ghost, then," murmured the other, with a look of temporary disappointment.
"If you will come upstairs to my quarters, I may be able to make you comfortable for the night. Your party will accommodate themselves without our help."
He referred to the greasers, who had already begun their preparations for spending a happy night. When he led the way up the stairs, he was followed, not only by the two gentlemen he had invited, but also by the ragamuffin hunter, miner, or adventurer, and by the valet, who conceived it his duty to follow his master.
He lived, this hermit, in one of the small bed-rooms of the hotel, which he had converted into a sitting-room. It contained a single rocking-chair and a table. There was also a shelf, which served for a sideboard, and a curtain under the shelf, which acted as a cupboard.
"You see my den," he said. "I came here a year or so ago by accident, like yourselves. I found the place deserted. I liked the solitude, the scenery, whatever you like, and I stayed here. You are the only visitors I have had in a year."
"Chinamen?" said Mr. Gilead P. Beck.
"Well, Chinamen, of course. But only two of them. They take turns, at forty dollars a month, to cook my dinners. And there is a half-caste, who does not mind running down to Sacramento when I want anything. And so, you see, I make out pretty well."
He opened the window, and blew a whistle.
In two minutes a Chinaman came tumbling up the stairs. His inscrutable face expressed all the conflicting passions of humanity at once – ambition, vanity, self respect, humour, satire, avarice, resignation, patience, revenge, meekness, long-suffering, remembrance, and a thousand others. No Aryan comes within a hundred miles of it.
"Dinner as soon as you can," said his master.
"Ayah! can do," replied the Celestial. "What time you wantchee?
"As soon as you can. Half an hour."
"Can do. My no have got cully-powder. Have makee finish. Have got?"
"Look for some; make Achow help."
"How can? No, b'long his pidgin. He no helpee. B'long my pidgin makee cook chow-chow. Ayah! Achow have go makee cheat over Mexican man. Makee play cards all same euchre."
In fact, on looking out of the window, the other Celestial was clearly visible, manipulating a pack of cards and apparently inviting the Mexicans to a friendly game, in which there could be no deception.
Then Ladds' conscience smote him.
"Beg pardon. Should have seen. Make remark about hotel. Apologise."
"He means," said the other, "that he was a terrible great fool not to see that you are a gentleman."
Ladds nodded.
"Let me introduce our party," the speaker went on. "This is our esteemed friend Mr. Gilead P. Beck, whom we caught in a bear-hunt – "
"Bar behind," said Mr. Beck.
"This is Captain Ladds, of the 35th Dragoons."
"Ladds," said Ladds. "Nibs, cocoa-nibs – pure aroma – best breakfast-digester – blessing to mothers – perfect fragrance."
"His name is Ladds; and he wishes to communicate to you the fact that he is the son of the man who made an immense fortune – immense, Tommy?"
Ladds nodded.
"By a crafty compound known as 'Ladds' Patent Anti-Dyspeptic Cocoa.' This is Ladd's servant, John Boimer, the best
