"Now, git, you loafer!" he was saying in tones that left no doubt in the
minds of his friends that Happy was hot under the collar over something.

A shot followed.

"Missed, by the Lord Harry!" ejaculated Happy, deeply humiliated at his
failure to increase the mortuary record of the camp.

The incident, however, passed unnoticed by the faro players; not a man
within sound of the shot, for that matter, inquired what the trouble
was about; and even Nick, picking up his tray filled with glasses and a
bottle, walked straightway into the dance-hall looking as if the matter
were not worth a moment's thought.

At Nick's going the Indian's face brightened; it gave him the
opportunity for which he had been waiting. Nobly he maintained his
reputation as a thief by quietly going behind the bar and lifting from
a box four cigars which he stowed away in his pockets. But even that,
apparently did not satisfy him, for when he espied the butt of a cigar,
flung into the sawdust on the floor by a man who had just come in, he
picked it up before squatting down again to resume his card playing.

The newcomer, a man of, say, forty years, came slowly into the
room without a word of salutation to anyone. In common with his
fellow-miners, he wore a flannel shirt and boots. The latter gave every
evidence of age as did his clothes which, nevertheless, were neat.
His face wore a mild, gentle look and would have said that he was
companionable enough; yet it was impossible not to see that he was not
willingly seeking the cheer of the saloon but came there solely because
he had no other place to go. In a word, he had every appearance of a man