I once heard father say that, with all his faults, he was the best of the bunch." Something interrupted the conversation of the two young men at this point, and they separated.

A couple of hours afterward, as Andrew walked along one of the streets of Santa Fe, musing over the intelligence he had gleaned from young Winters, a fellow soldier, whose time of service had also just expired, met him, and said-- "You're not going back to the States, are you ?" "Such has been my intention," replied Andrew.
"I'm not going." "I thought you were." "I've altered my mind.

A party sets off to-morrow for the gold regions of California, and I'm going with them." "Indeed! That's a sudden change of resolution.

But you don't believe all the stories you hear of this El Dorado?
"No, not all of them.

But if even the half be true, there's a golden harvest to be reaped by all who put in the sickle." "Yes, the half is encouraging enough," said Andrew, in a tone of abstraction.