" Not dug out, worked out, or washed out, but dissipated in
a year of speculation and chance.
Against this tide of fortune Cass struggled manfully, and even evoked
the slow praise of his companions. Better still, he won a certain praise
for himself, in himself, in a consciousness of increased strength,
health, power, and self-reliance. He began to turn his quick imagination
and perception to some practical account, and made one or two
discoveries which quite startled his more experienced but more
conservative companions. Nevertheless, Cass's discoveries and labors
were not of a kind that produced immediate pecuniary realization, and
Blazing Star, which consumed so many pounds of pork and flour daily,
did not unfortunately produce the daily equivalent in gold. Blazing Star
lost its credit. Blazing Star was hungry, dirty, and ragged. Blazing
Star was beginning to set.
Participating in the general ill luck of the camp, Cass was not without
his own individual mischances. He had resolutely determined to forget
Miss Porter and all that tended to recall the unlucky ring, but, cruelly
enough, she was the only thing that refused to be forgotten--whose
undulating figure reclined opposite to him in the weird moonlight of his
ruined cabin, whose voice mingled with the song of the river by whose
banks he toiled, and whose eyes and touch thrilled him in his dreams.
Partly for this reason, and partly because his clothes were beginning to
be patched and torn, he avoided Red Chief and any place where he would
be likely to meet her.
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