and Uncle Jim had dissolved partnership. Pride had prevented Uncle Billy
from revealing his suspicions of the truth, or of relating the events
that preceded Uncle Jim's clandestine flight, and Dick Bullen had gone
to Sacramento by stage-coach the same morning. He briefly gave out that
his partner had been called to San Francisco on important business of
their own, that indeed might necessitate his own removal there later. In
this he was singularly assisted by a letter from the absent Jim, dated
at San Francisco, begging him not to be anxious about his success, as he
had hopes of presently entering into a profitable business, but with no
further allusions to his precipitate departure, nor any suggestion of
a reason for it. For two or three days Uncle Billy was staggered and
bewildered; in his profound simplicity he wondered if his extraordinary
good fortune that night had made him deaf to some explanation of his
partner's, or, more terrible, if he had shown some "low" and incredible
intimation of taking his partner's extravagant bet as REAL and binding.
In this distress he wrote to Uncle Jim an appealing and apologetic
letter, albeit somewhat incoherent and inaccurate, and bristling
with misspelling, camp slang, and old partnership jibes. But to this
elaborate epistle he received only Uncle Jim's repeated assurances of
his own bright prospects, and his hopes that his old partner would be
more fortunate, single-handed, on the old claim. For a whole week or two
Uncle Billy sulked, but his invincible optimism and good humor got the
better of him, and he thought only of his old partner's good fortune.
He wrote him regularly, but always to one address--a box at the San
Francisco post-office, which to the simple-minded Uncle Billy suggested
a certain official importance. To these letters Uncle Jim responded
regularly but briefly.

From a certain intuitive pride in his partner and his affection, Uncle
Billy did not show these letters openly to the camp, although he spoke