You drank a man's share of whiskey, and you borrowed fifty dollars to get to Sacramento with.

I reckon you haven't got it about you now, eh ?" Clarence's brain reeled in utter confusion and hopeless terror.
Was he going crazy, or had these cruel men learned his story from his faithless friends, and this was a part of the plot?
He staggered forward, but the men had risen and quickly encircled him, as if to prevent his escape.

In vague and helpless desperation he gasped-- "What place is this ?" "Folks call it Deadman's Gulch." Deadman's Gulch! A flash of intelligence lit up the boy's blind confusion.

Deadman's Gulch! Could it have been Jim Hooker who had really run away, and had taken his name?
He turned half-imploringly to the first speaker.
"Wasn't he older than me, and bigger?
Didn't he have a smooth, round face and little eyes?
Didn't he talk hoarse?
Didn't he--" He stopped hopelessly.
"Yes; oh, he wasn't a bit like you," said the man musingly.

"Ye see, that's the h-ll of it! You're altogether TOO MANY and TOO VARIOUS fur this camp." "I don't know who's been here before, or what they have said," said Clarence desperately, yet even in that desperation retaining the dogged loyalty to his old playmate, which was part of his nature.