partnership had become one of mere business
and necessity.

Whatever we thought of each other, we did
not allow our private sentiments to interfere
with our joint efforts. We worked hard
together, and during the active hours of labour,
no one could possibly display more life and
energy than Browden, When, however, day
was over, and the melancholy night closed in
around us, the excitement ended and he sank
into a state of pitiable despondency.

There was a secret and disagreeable
consciousness of some vague cause of dislike
between us which it was impossible to shake off,
and which, ill defined as it was, quenched
everything like cordiality. This state of
things could not last long, nor was it my wish
that it should; so that when one Sunday
morning he abruptly told me after breakfast
that the time of our agreement had expired,
and that he proposed a separation of our
fortunes, I received the intimation without
raising any difficulties or expressing much
regret. He added that it was his purpose to
engage a labourer and work for himself
higher up the creek. He was embarrassed
while expressing this determination; but I
took it cheerfully, the dissolution was agreed
upon, and the rest of the day employed in
making division of our property, provisions,
tools, &c. That we effected to our mutual
satisfaction. It was agreed that he should
keep possession of his share of the tent until
he had obtained another and decided upon
the spot where he would have it pitched. At
daybreak the next morning he set off alone
with pan and pick on a "prospecting"
expedition. I got up shortly afterwards, had
breakfast, and taking the boy down with me
went to work as usual. It was a very bright,
close, cloudless morning; and, shut in as we
were by hills on all sides, there was a feeling
of suffocation in the atmosphere which
rendered our work more than usually oppresive.
Not a breath of air forced its way
through the narrow gully, and during the
day the heat was almost intolerable. We
worked on, however, to the end. I had my
supper earlier than usual, and was sitting by
the fire cleaning and drying the day's gold
before adding it to the main store, when the
unusual darkness of the evening attracted my
attention. A violent storm was impending.
A dark mass of lead-coloured clouds was
rapidly shutting out the blue sky and emitting
as it spread flashes of forked lightning; low
peals of distant thunder rolled along the
creek; large drops of rain were already falling
slowly, and pattering at intervals on the top
of my tent; the trees, which had during the
day remained motionless in the dead calm of
the atmosphere, were swept with fitful gusts
of wind, and had set up a melancholy moaning.

I went out to watch the coming of the
storm, and saw tlie coming of two men who
climbed the bank and ran towards the tent.
They were even more than usually grim with
the wild luxuriance of beard, whiskers, and
moustaches, out of which indeed very little
more than the extreme points of their noses
could be seen with anything like positive
distinctness. Appearances, however, go for
nothing at the mines. These were both tall,
strapping fellows, and were dressed in the
extreme of digging costume, for even at the
diggings there are fashions. They looked so
jaunty, wore such hats and such silk sashes,
and displayed their knives so ostentatiously,
that by their dress as well as figure I assumed
at once that they must be Americans bred in
the Californian school. When they spoke no
doubt remained upon that head. They told
me that they had been prospectmg in the
newly discovered creek, were tired out with
the day's walk, and wished to take shelter
till the storm was over. Of course I did the
honours of my tent; and, after furnishing
my guests with a supper, brought out the
bottle of spirits kept only for particular
occasions.

I found them good company, their conversation
principally turning on their own wild
lives. The evening ran on, and as there was
no lull in the storm, my new acquaintances
determined to remain where they were for
the night. I supplied them with blankets,
and all stretching ourselves upon the floor
of the tent we continued smoking and
conversing for some time. Soon afterwards the
covering to the aperture of the tent was
thrust aside and my partner came hastily in.
He was dripping wet, and said little either to
me or to the two strangers; but pouring out
with an unsteady hand a large quantity of
spirits, he divested himself of his wet clothes,
wrapped himself up in his blankets, and
seemed as usual desirous of being left to
his own meditations.

We had before been talking upon other
matters, but it so happened that, when he
came in, the Americans were talking about
California. I knew that this topic was
distasteful to my partner; but it did not matter
then, for he seemed to be deaf or indifferent
to everything that was said. From the spot
where I lay I could see him indistinctly in
his dusky corner of the tent, with his head
averted, and to all appearance fast asleep.
The candle burnt down in the neck of the
bottle (which served us for a candlestick),
and still the loquacious Californians kept up
a running fire of wonderful adventures in
which they had been engaged, and in which
grisly bears, Cordilleras, Spaniards,
mountetables, Judge Lynch, vigilance committees,
bowie-knives and revolvers played the most
conspicuous parts. The thunder still rolled
heavily, and every now and then the tent was
illuminated brightly by the lightning; but we
did not heed it.

Late in the night we were discussing
undiscovered crimes which had been perpetrated
in the mines and towns of California. One