It had been falling for several
days, had already called a faint spring color to the wan landscape,
repairing with tender touches the ravages wrought by the proprietors,
or charitably covering their faults. The ragged seams in gulch and
canon lost their harsh outlines, a thin green mantle faintly clothed
the torn and abraded hillside. A few weeks more, and a veil of
forgetfulness would be drawn over the feeble failures of the Lone Star
claim. The charming derelicts themselves, listening to the raindrops on
the roof of their little cabin, gazed philosophically from the open
door, and accepted the prospect as a moral discharge from their
obligations. Four of the five partners were present. The Right and Left
Bowers, Union Mills, and the Judge.
It is scarcely necessary to say that not one of these titles was the
genuine name of its possessor. The Right and Left Bowers were two
brothers; their sobriquets, a cheerful adaptation from the favorite
game of euchre, expressing their relative value in the camp. The mere
fact that Union Mills had at one time patched his trousers with an old
flour-sack legibly bearing that brand of its fabrication, was a
tempting baptismal suggestion that the other partners could not forego.
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