The Pylades of this Orestes was known of ordinary mortals as Royal
Thatcher. His genealogy, birth, and education are, I take it, of little
account to this chronicle, which is only concerned with his friendship
for Biggs and the result thereof. He had known Biggs a year or two
previously; they had shared each other's purses, bunks, cabins,
provisions, and often friends, with that perfect freedom from obligation
which belonged to the pioneer life. The varying tide of fortune had just
then stranded Thatcher on a desert sand hill in San Francisco, with
an uninsured cargo of Expectations, while to Thatcher's active but not
curious fancy it had apparently lifted his friend's bark over the bar
in the Monterey mountains into an open quicksilver sea. So that he was
considerably surprised on receiving a note from Biggs to this purport:
"DEAR ROY--Run down here and help a fellow. I've too much of a load for
one. Maybe we can make a team and pull 'Blue Mass' out yet. BIGGSEY."
Thatcher, sitting in his scantily furnished lodgings, doubtful of his
next meal and in arrears for rent, heard this Macedonian cry as St.
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