But they could not find that he was doing anything of a suspicious character--except, perhaps, from the fact that it was not OUTWARDLY suspicious, which I grieve to say did not lull them to security.

He seemed to be either fixing up his cabin or smoking in his doorway.

On the second day he checked this itinerant curiosity by taking the initiative himself, and quietly walking from claim to claim and from cabin to cabin with a pacific but by no means a satisfying interest.

The shadow of his tall figure carrying his inseparable gun, which had not yet apparently "stood in the corner," falling upon an excavated bank beside the delving miners, gave them a sense of uneasiness they could not explain; a few characteristic yells of boisterous hilarity from their noontide gathering under a cottonwood somehow ceased when Mr.
Bulger was seen gravely approaching, and his casual stopping before a poker party in the gulch actually caused one of the most reckless gamblers to weakly recede from "a bluff" and allow his adversary to sweep the board.

After this it was felt that matters were becoming serious.