My own
tracks were visible in the dust covering the floor, but
there were no others. I relit my pipe, provided fresh
fuel by ripping a thin board or two from the inside
of the house--I did not care to go into the darkness
out of doors--and passed the rest of the night
smoking and thinking, and feeding my fire; not for
added years of life would I have permitted that little
flame to expire again.
Some years afterward I met in Sacramento a man
named Morgan, to whom I had a note of introduc-
tion from a friend in San Francisco. Dining with
him one evening at his home I observed various
'trophies' upon the wall, indicating that he was fond
of shooting. It turned out that he was, and in re-
lating some of his feats he mentioned having been
in the region of my adventure.
'Mr. Morgan,' I asked abruptly, 'do you know
a place up there called Macarger's Gulch? '
'I have good reason to,' he replied; 'it was I who
gave to the newspapers, last year, the accounts of
the finding of the skeleton there."
I had not heard of it; the accounts had been pub-
lished, it appeared, while I was absent in the East.
'By the way,' said Morgan, 'the name of the
gulch is a corruption; it should have been called
"MacGregor's." My dear,' he added, speaking to
his wife, 'Mr. Elderson has upset his wine.'
That was hardly accurate--I had simply dropped
it, glass and all.
'There was an old shanty once in the gulch,' Mor-
gan resumed when the ruin wrought by my awk-
wardness had been repaired, 'but just previously to
my visit it had been blown down, or rather blown
away, for its debris was scattered all about, the very
floor being parted, plank from plank.
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