child when he set him to build the Mansion House, and took away the contract from Thomas Idle. Why, we beavers are all born with our eyes open, and yet what comes of it? Nothing. It is much better to be born virtuous and with a silver spoon in your mouth-you may take my word for that. O dear! O dear!'

Bim. had half a mind to inquire what the beaver would have done with a silver spoon if he had been born with it; but he did not like to intrude upon his distress with such trivialities.

'May I ask, Mr Castor Fiber,' said he, 'if you were all peculating builders?'

'I did not say "peculating," sir-I said "speculating," answered the beaver indignantly, his chestnut hair becoming very red indeed.

'I beg your pardon,' replied Bim. humbly; 'I thought it was the same thing.'

'So it is,' answered the beaver sharply; but it is not good manners to say so. No; they weren't all like me. The others were worse. Cast your eye on that tumble-down lodge of ours! Ain't it enough to make one's hair gray, and one's tail curl, to think that educated people should come and look at that and say: "Oh, that's a beaver lodge, is it? Well, if that's Castor Fiber's idea of a comfortable residence, we think he is easily satisfied; it seems to us that his intelligence has been considerably overrated. As for his damsthe less said about them the better." Of course, they can't think well of us, with such a miserable edifice before their eyes; and the expression of their opinion (for we hear every word that's said) is no small part of our punishment. We have all "scamped" our work, or neglected it when we were human beings, but we have not all been builders. That fellow there, yonder, who is just diving under water, was a submarine engineer in his time, and as designing a rogue as ever drew plan: there was no villainy he wouldn't compass, under pretence of "facilitating the intercourse of the great family of man." Did you never hear of the projected tunnel to China that was to be built under the sea, and lined with porcelain ?-that was the very man that brought it out. He had a beautiful office in Queer Street, but there was nothing in it; even the motto of the company, Ubique sub mari, was borrowed from that of the artillery and the marines; its arms were a willow-pattern plate; but it all went to smash, because it had not a leg to stand on.-How are you?'

This last remark was carelessly addressed to another beaver, who had come up from the water, and was beginning to dig vigorously in the wet earth. Stop a bit, till he gets well under the mud (which is his proper place),' whispered Castor Fiber, and you shall hear who he is. He's looking for a bit of coke, and I'll tell you why. He used to be a railway engineer, and made all his money, very disgracefully, out of the coal contracts. For my part, I should have been ashamed to have soiled my paws with such a thing. Wouldn't you?' Abimelech made no reply; he did not like water, as has been confessed, and was conscious that his own hands were far from clean.

'Who is that very shiny-looking beaver,' inquired he (by way of changing the conversation), sitting in the sun yonder upon his hind-legs, and doing nothing particular?'

'He's an idiot,' answered the other contemptuously. That is, he's "an idler," which is, in our

society, what drones are among the bees. You can easily guess what he was when he was a man, by his very looks.'

Bim. couldn't guess at all; to his eyes, the shinylooking beaver only looked like a new hat, and he said so.

That's very rude, young gentleman,' said Castor Fiber, in an offended tone; your remark is most obnoxious. Is it possible that you have never heard the proverb: "Never speak of hats in a beaver lodge." However, you are young, and have at least the delicacy to wear a cloth cap. That shiny creature-"highly polished" is his own expression-was once a person of title, which, after a fashion, he still retains; he is called de Beaver (but spelled de Beauvoir).'

'Did he never build anything when he was a

man?'

'Not he; except a few Castles in the air, and some Expectations upon the death of an uncle, which never came to anything. And yet he always lived-I won't do the bird-world the injustice to say "like a fighting-cock," but-on the fat of the land. He was born an Honourable, which was considered highly meritorious, and which really was a very great Credit to him, for, simply because of it, tradesmen served him without question, and bankers lent him money. If I'd had his advantages- But, bah! it puts my beaver up (our expression for a just indignation) to think of it.' 'But, surely,' urged Abimelech, 'there must have been something in him beside his having been born an Honourable ?'

'You must be most uncommon young,' said the beaver, scratching his nose with his claw, 'to think that he wanted anything more. You're not at a public school, I suppose?' 'Not yet,' said Bim., colouring; 'but I hope to go to one next Easter year.'

'Ah, well, when you do go, you'll see whether it isn't a good thing to be born a de Beaver. Why, common boys are sent there by their parents on purpose to rub against the shiny sort, to get the perfume.'

'What's that?' inquired Abimelech.

"The flavour of aristocracy, my young friend. It's a subtle essence, not easily to be detected (and indeed I never smelt it myself), but always sold at a fancy price. Have you never heard of castoreum?'

'O yes,' answered Bim., with a shudder down the small of his back, and very disagreeable stuff it is. I had some the morning after I ate the sucking-pig. Talk of the pleasure of having a silver spoon in your mouth-suppose it should be full of castor-oil! Ugh!'

The coarse but good-natured beaver put his paws to his sides and fairly squealed with laughter.

'O my tail and teeth, but this is too good!' cried he. Here's a boy as thinks I've been painting the attractions of castor-oil. Castoreum is a very different thing, as any beaver will tell you. It is exactly the same sort of essence among us as is the flavour of aristocracy among men.'

'I remember now,' said Abimelech; but I thought you all had it.'

'So we have; one has just as much of it as another, and more. It is only that fools have fancies. Mr Sleek-coat yonder happens to have a reputation for his castoreum, and it's astonishing how he is sought after. To see one's fellow

creatures abase themselves before that idle vagabond, is sickening to a plain honest'

'I beg your pardon,' said Abimelech; 'I didn't catch that last word.'

'I say it's disgusting,' continued the beaver, raising his voice, and gesticulating with his forepaws, quite disgusting that intelligent animals should go sniffing about that fellow as if he were a flower-bed. I have known them sniff and squeak and stand on two legs when they got near him, just as your people bow and scrape and go on all-fours in the presence of a lord. I only wish I had known about castoreum when I was a delegate.' 'Perhaps it might have done you good,' observed Bim., thinking he said 'delicate.'

'It never did anybody good, sir, and never will. I say, I wish when I had been delegate of the Democratic Builders, that I had known of this infirmity among the beavers, that I might have illustrated by it the sycophancy of mankind. Why should all this fuss be made about that worthless fellow? Ain't I also a beaver and a brother? Because I wipe my mouth with the back of my forepaw (a habit common to the building-trades, and especially after taking liquid refreshment), is that a reason why this shiny and useless Here the beaver stopped short, sat on his hind-legs, and seemed to listen attentively. At the same time, an odour as of pomatum, such as folk discover in their hats when they look into them at church, pervaded the ambient air.

'I think I heard Mr De Beaver mention my name; didn't you?'

'Well, you see, you have not told me what it is,' urged Bim.

Just so, just so.' (The beaver's attention was evidently riveted elsewhere.) I don't think my ears deceived me. He surely said "Badlaw, Badlaw"-I used to be honest Joe Badlaw, builder and democrat he calls me "Badlaw," I do assure you, quite familiarly.' The beaver was turning his forepaws one over the other in a state of great excitement and expectation, and sniffing as though he would sniff his nose off.

If

'My dear young friend, you must excuse me. I am not greatly mistaken, Mr De Beaver is about to favour us with some castoreum. For further information, see handbills-apply to the Sec'And not even waiting to finish the sentence, the beaver plunged into the water, and sought the lodge, to which his noble friend had already preceded him.

CHAPTER XVII.-WARNING.

BEFORE that evening, Walter had received intimations from Spoiled Five which had occasioned him some uneasiness. In his desultory, exceptional sort of life among the busy community, all labouring after a similar fashion for a common end, he heard and saw much which he was quite unsuspected of knowing. It was probably fortunate for him that he was unsuspected, for he might otherwise have incurred some risk, as it was extremely improbable that the dangerous members of that mixed community would have understood the paradoxical fidelity which was one of his chief characteristics.

Ireland is prolific of 'informers'—the executive has, unhappily, never been at a loss for such

creature

despicable and corrupt tools with which to do the inevitable dirty work of government-and yet there is no country in the world in which the 'informer' is held in such ruthless detestation. No matter what befalls him, however terrible his fate, the popular verdict is, 'served him right.' The wretch who betrays his fellow-men for the government pay is a moral leper, a absolutely apart and debarred from all human pity, one who earns his filthy wages carrying his life in his hand, and when he loses it, is just so much dead carrion. Similarly, there is nothing in the social system of France more admirable, which makes a deeper impression on the foreign observer, than the parental and filial relations as we see them there; and yet there is no country in the world in which the hideous crime of parricide, held by the ancients to be virtually impossible, is so frequent, or perpetrated under circumstances so appalling, and from motives so depraved.

Spoiled Five had the true Irish horror and hatred of an 'informer,' carried to its extreme; for supposing he had been mixed up in any equivocal transaction, not only would he have regarded the betrayal of a comrade as an abominable sin, but he had a deeply rooted aversion to being a party to any kind of detection whatever. He was a perfectly honest, sober individual himself, singularly industrious and tranquil in all his ways, and so little given to conviviality, that he sometimes risked his popularity with his rough though rarely unkind employers, by his lack of disposition to drink and smoke, and his scanty appreciation of howling joviality. But he had a native lawlessness in him; he hated police; he would have lent a hand to the rope which should hang a spy, any day; while his usual vigilance and keen intelligence would be suffered to slumber strangely, if the matter in hand were the bringing of any other kind of delinquent into trouble.'

Without fully understanding his character in these respects, Walter Clint had an impression that in conveying to him a warning that he would do well to send the dust lately washed to the nearest station for purchase by the bankers without delay, Spoiled Five had given a strong proof of his attachment. He had not given any explanation, but had merely pressed the matter as an earnest request, muttering something vague about 'quare people' being about. Walter had told Daly what Spoiled Five had said, and found him unwilling to attach any great importance to it. Everything had been very quiet lately, and they had not had any reason for apprehension in consequence of the isolation of their hut. Neither rumour nor their own observation led them to believe that there was any fresh element of disorder, any addition to the average of rowdyism, in the place. They had not any large quantity of dust' ready, and, but for the finding of the nugget, which was, they had no doubt, of very considerable value, they would not have thought of profiting by the approaching opportunity of transmitting what they had to the station, with the security afforded by numbers. But the finding of the nugget made all the difference, and it was arranged that Walter should join the expedition.

It was with singular approbation that Spoiled Five heard this. Of course it confirmed his impression that some piece of exceptional good fortune had befallen the partners; and his vexation was

proportionate to his short-lived satisfaction when the confirmation of Deering's opinion was made manifest by Daly's increasing illness. It was quite clear that Walter could not leave his friend, who continued for many days unconscious of his presence, and in a state of troubled delirium positively appalling to Spoiled Five, who, if he was not, as Walter had said, afraid of nothing else, was very distinctly afraid of that.

'Holy Virgin!' he would say, with awe, which made the ejaculation half a supplication, listen to him now! Isn't it dhreadful to hear him goin' an like that; it's he must have the bad mind, I'm afeerd, though his ways is so quite and aisy.' It became so evident to Walter that their faithful assistant was becoming seriously shaken in his good opinion of Lawrence, by his wild ravings and denunciations of imaginary enemies, that he endeavoured to keep him as much away as possible. Deering laughed at the man's ignorance and at Walter's consideration, much to the indignation of Spoiled Five.

'Nothing to do with his thoughts, with his past life, his goin's on hasn't! Ay, bedad, I'm goin' to believe that, amn't I, for him or any other docthor! Maybe there's no Miss Kate, then; that's on his mind for some rayson best known to himself? And who's that ould Clibborn he tuk me for last night, I'd like to know; and let a roar out of him as if he was stuck wid a knife? Sure, they say when a man's dhrunk he tells the thruth, and why wouldn't he tell it when he 's mad? Av it was the docthor there, I'm thinkin' he wouldn't be too pleasant to listen to.'

After a few days, Daly's illness took a favourable turn, and he began to mend rapidly. Walter had suffered very much from both fatigue and anxiety, and was in great need of rest, when, late one night, after he had almost begun to despair of Spoiled Five's return from the store, whither he had gone to make some purchases several hours before, the man came in, and said, with great seriousness, that he had something important to tell him. His manner effectually roused Walter.

'Is Misther Daly asleep?' he asked. 'He is. Why?'

'Because, he mus'n't hear what I'm goin' to say. Come out behind the house with me, sir, av ye plaze.'

Walter complied. Spoiled Five planted himself against the low wall, and taking hold of Walter respectfully, by the sleeve of his red shirt, said, in a low, but decided voice, from which his habitual drawl was almost entirely banished:

'Misther Clint, you and Misther Daly has known me for a good bit now; did yez ever know me to pry into your affairs, or to make yez an impiddent answer, or to tell yez a lie?'

Certainly not, Five; nothing of the kind. You have been our best friend in this strange place, and perfectly trustworthy.'

"Thank ye, sir; that's hearty, anyhow. Well, then, ye'll listen to what I tell you, and you'll be said an' led by me? Won't you?'

His ugly disfigured face, and his maimed figure, acquired intense expression from his passionate

earnestness.

'Won't you?' he repeated, tightening his grasp on Walter's sleeve, slightly shaking him.

'I think so, Five. But you must speak out, before I promise.'

'I'll spake out, at laste in as far as I can; but you'll have to take my word, and not ask me for raysons, or for proofs-for that's just what I can't give you. There's quare people about, and the best men in the placers is gone to the station, and ye 'll mind what I tould you afore, Misther Clint?'

Walter inclined his head in assent. He was listening eagerly, watching the man's scarred face intently.

'There's disappointed people here; and when men has come all across the world to do the kind of work that's goin' here, and meets wid disappointment, if they're anyway bad at all, they're not far off desperation. I can't say more about that, and I won't. I don't know what you and Misther Daly found, nor where ye found it; I didn't ask you, and I don't want to know.' He saw that Walter was going to speak, and he stopped him, by a quick movement of his mutilated hand.

'No, sir; don't tell me. I beg and pray of you not to tell me. Whatever you found, and wherever you have it, if it's about the premises, hide it-hide it, sir, somewhere away from the hut, and let no one but yourself know where it's hid. Do it at once, sir; do it as soon as there's light; that will be in an hour; don't let me know anything about it. Let me mind Misther Daly-I'll lie on the floor in the room, and he'll never know it isn't you; or, if he calls you, I'll have some excuse readybut do it, Misther Clint, do it, if you want to bring what you've got safe home to them that's waitin' for you an' it. And tell me nothin' at all about it; that's all I ask for my own sake.'

'But,' said Walter, as Spoiled Five loosed his hold upon his sleeve, and stood waiting his reply, 'you will surely tell me what you apprehend, and who are the dangerous parties?'

'No, sir; I won't. I'll tell you nothin' but what I have tould you. But if ye don't mind me, if you don't be said and led by me, you and Misther Daly will only be sorry for it once, and that'll be all your life long.'

He glanced up, along the frowning face of the huge rock which rose, a black mass, behind the hut, towards the clear, steel-like sky, already beginning to flush at the approach of the swift-coming morning, then limped into the hut, and softly entering the room in which Daly was sleeping the deep, restful sleep of convalescence, curled himself up on the floor beside the_locker, and resolutely shut his one eye, in dogged determination, if not in slumber.

Walter remained motionless on the little stony plateau at the back of the hut, where Spoiled Five had left him. All inclination to treat the Irishman's warning lightly had disappeared. He had no perception, no suggestion presented itself to him of the quarter from which danger was to be expected, or the form in which it might come; but he was entirely convinced by Spoiled Five's manner and his words, and he resolved at once to act upon his counsel.

The light was spreading over the face of the sky before Walter, now all unconscious of fatigue, left the spot, having matured and considered his plan of action. Then he went out, stepped down into the rugged road, and from thence rapidly climbed a stony path which led to the brow of a ravine, forming a portion of their claim, distant about a quarter of a mile from the hut. The place

was perfectly silent and solitary, the mining tools were lying about, the whole scene was peaceful. He gazed from the top of the ravine at a spot where the rugged earth was scooped deeply out under the ragged edge, and after a few minutes' search, his eye lighted on the spot he was looking for. It was a large piece of rock, which stuck out from the earth; and exactly beneath it, at an interval of about six feet, there was another-the two forming natural slabs, by whose rough sides were clumps of stringy, harsh, brownish vegetation. The lower of the two slabs was so placed that a strong active man could reach it by a spring from the winding path, which was, in fact, a dry watercourse, that led upwards into the ravine, on the side opposite to that from which Walter had approached it. He once more looked cautiously all round, and rapidly retraced his steps to the hut. A couple of hours later, when Walter had lain down in his hammock to rest, and Lawrence Daly was thinking of getting up, when the hut and its surroundings wore a most unusual aspect of stillness and idleness, Deering, making an early visit to his patient, found Spoiled Five sitting on a wooden bench before the door, arrayed in a rough leathern apron, and cleaning all the arms belonging to the establishment.

'I'm doubly glad to find you quite off the sicklist,' said Deering, after he and Daly had talked for some time, 'because I shall have no hesitation about starting to-morrow.'

'To-morrow! Are you going so soon?' 'Yes; going to Sacramento, and thence on the "roll" I told Clint I meant to try, down New Mexico way.'

'And when to England?' "That the Fates only can tell. I have no particular wish to get back. Have you?'

Well-yes-I think I have. I don't take very kindly to any other country, for long at a time. In that sense, I'm a wanderer too. But we can't go back until we've got what we came for.'

They talked of the prospects of the country, and of the state generally, and exchanged some commonplaces about the prospect of their meeting again. Presently, Walter, who had heard the voices on awaking, came in. He was looking pale and tired. He wore a short canvas coat over his digger's shirt, and in one of the gaping dog's-eared pockets there was a small green leather case, considerably the worse for wear, which served the manifold purposes of purse, portfolio, and housewife. He shook hands with Deering, and seated himself in his favourite place on the locker, leaning his head against the wall. Daly told Walter that Deering was leaving the place on the following day, and Deering offered to take charge of any letters they might have ready, to be mailed at Sacramento.

This was a welcome offer to Walter, who had written to Florence at intervals during Daly's illness, and also to Miriam, and was very glad of an opportunity of securing a comparatively early despatch of his letters. They were ready; he had only to put that intended for Florence into a cover, enclose it in the letter for Miriam, and direct both to Mrs St Quentin, at the Firs, Drington, Hampshire. The letters were in the leather case in his pocket, and he got writing materials, which he placed on the locker, and then pulled out the case, produced the letters, and was about to write the addresses, when Deering interrupted him.

'What's the matter with your wrist, Clint?' he asked. 'It is bleeding, and you are smearing the edges of your letters with blood.'

Bleeding!' exclaimed Walter, holding up his hand, and in doing so, pushing the letter-case, which he had mechanically closed, off the locker, whence it fell on the floor. 'So it is! I cut my wrist with a bit of stone this morning, and, washing my hands now, have set it bleeding again. It's a nasty deep three-cornered cut too.' He was twisting a handkerchief round it, when Deering said:

'Stay; I'll do it up for you!' and took out of his pocket a leather case containing a few small surgical instruments, and a provision of lint and stickingplaster. With the aid of these materials he fastened up the cut in Walter's wrist, after a fashion, which he declared to be very comfortable, though it stiffened his hand, and caused him to write the names, Miriam' and 'Florence,' upon the several letters intended for his sister and his wife, in a formal and constrained manner. This done, and the letters confided to Deering, Walter cleared away the writing materials, and resumed his customary position.

The three young men talked on for a considerable time. There was no very strong or real liking between them, but they were of the same class in society, living among men who, for the most part, belonged to inferior classes; and the kind of association which theirs had been, if it had less bearing in the future than the associations of less exceptional phases of society, had greater importance in the present. When at length Deering announced that he must go, and was taking a cordial leave of Daly, combining good wishes with some final professional instructions, Walter declared his intention of accompanying him a bit of the way. He would see him past the bluff, he said; and they were leaving the hut together, when Deering saw his leather instrument-case lying on the floor, in front of the locker. He picked it up, put it in his pocket, and they went out.

At first they talked exclusively of Daly, but after awhile, observing Walter shade his eyes with his hand, though his broad-leaved Panama hat sheltered them already, Deering asked him if he felt ill.

'No,' said Walter; 'it's only the glare of the sun: it is hotter than usual to-day, I think; and I was up all night, and feel queer.'

'Indeed! Anything wrong with Daly ?' 'No,' Walter answered, rather confusedly; 'I had something particular to do, which kept me up, and I was always bad at doing without sleep.'

'I should say so,' said Deering quietly, 'for you are inclined to stagger now; only, you are guarding against it at every step. Don't come any farther, I beg; and don't neglect yourself in any way, just now. You're overdone.'

He stood still as he spoke, and put out his hand. They had reached the bluff by this time, and, with some friendly words, they parted, Deering walking quickly on, and Walter watching his receding figure so long as it was in sight.

'He's a queer, restless fellow, and rather a bad lot, I suspect,' thought Walter. 'I wonder whether I shall ever see him again!'

'What the devil was he doing,' thought Deering, that kept him up all night, and made him look so confused? I don't think he rightly knew what he