Goskin started up at the mention of the name. He knew Driscoll well.

“He your brother? I’ll have him here in half an hour.”

As Goskin dashed out into the storm the musician pressed his hand to his side and groaned. Goskin heard the word “Hurry!” and sped down the ravine to Driscoll’s cabin. It was quite light in the room when the two men returned. Driscoll was pale as death.

“My God! I hope he’s alive! I wronged him when we lived in England twenty years ago.”

They saw the old man had drawn the blankets over his face. The two stood a moment, awed by the thought that he might be dead. Goskin lifted the blanket and pulled it down, astonished. There was no one there!

“Gone!” cried Driscoll wildly.

“Gone!” echoed Goskin, pulling out his cash-drawer. “Ten thousand dollars in the sack, and the Lord knows how much loose change in the drawer!”

The next day the boys got out, followed a horse’s track through the snow, and lost them in the trail leading toward Pioche.

There was a man missing from the camp. It was the three-card monte man, who used to deny point- blank that he could play the scale. One day they found a wig of white hair, and called to mind when the “stranger” had pushed those locks back when he looked toward the ceiling for inspiration on the night of December 24, 1858.