Down went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum! and the long trip was ended.
Well - well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus's
'pal.' It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to an
understanding with the two victims, he was to have given Backus four
queens, but alas, he didn't.
A week later, I stumbled upon Backus - arrayed in the height of fashion -
in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting -
'Ah, by-the-way, you needn't mind about those gores. I don't really
know anything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up in a
week's apprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed. My cattle-
culture and cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn - I shan't need them
any more.'
Next day we reluctantly parted from the 'Gold Dust' and her officers,
hoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day. A thing
which the fates were to render tragically impossible!
Chapter 37 The End of the 'Gold Dust'
FOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of these
foregoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram -
A TERRIBLE DISASTER.
SEVENTEEN PERSONS KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER 'GOLD DUST.'
'NASHVILLE, Aug. 7. - A despatch from Hickman, Ky., says -
'The steamer "Gold Dust" exploded her boilers at three o'clock to-day,
just after leaving Hickman.
