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188 where the fire had been, and his face toward the foe—still talking on—and on—and on. And the stranger? He sat there still, with his eyes fixed in a dull, stony stare straight in the Judge's face—mad, hopelessly mad! They pulled the Judge away by main force, and compelled him to notice the condition of his victim, something he had utterly omitted to do before. It was too late; reason had given way at last before the terrible strain, and she never recovered her throne. To this day, a grey-haired, quiet, hopelessly-afflicted patient wanders around in the public ward of the Insane Asylum at Stockton, looking with a fixed, stony stare before him, and never speaking to any human being; only at long intervals muttering half incoherently, "Presently, presently!" while the Judge goes on the even tenor of his way, dealing out justice to his fellow-men, and sleeping at nights like a Christian—when he has nobody to talk to.

Years passed on, and the "road agents" who had long made it lively for the travelers and expressmen in the Sierra Nevada and the gold districts of the foothill country of California, finding the old stamping-ground becoming comparatively unproductive, shifted their base of operations over to the western and southern parts of the State, and set to work with fresh energy to gain a livelihood by the industrious practice of their profession. In the spring and summer of 1871 they affected Sonoma county to a disagreeable extent, and cleaned out stage-load after stage-load over there in the northwest, about Cloverdale. You can see the road with the glass, there where it winds