.

"Ah Sing, will you tell me what happened," she asked, knowing well that
a command would only elicit a stolid "No savvey." Put as a favor, or a
confidence, he might respond.

"Him Digger Dan, no good! He stealem me clo'e. Ketchem. Missa Land
(Rand) an' plenty man come, he lun (run). I ketchem him! Tlee (three)
lobber (robber) come. To-o muchee men. I no can fight! He--"

"They tied him on a horse and drove it down the canyon for us to follow,
while they got away."

"I tell you, he knows more about it than he's telling!"

"I don't think so, sheriff," said Rand, positively. The man turned to
him, suspiciously.

"Me go home, all same Missie Joe?" Hop Sing raised an expressionless
face and glared at the broad belt of the sheriff.

"Well, you can go, but I'm going to keep an eye on you and see that
your apron's hanging in the Halstead's kitchen every day of your heathen
life."

Later that night when Rand started home, strange incantations were going
on in Sing's lean-to. In four china bowls punk was burning, and an old
Chinaman was muttering weird invocations over the clothes of Digger Dan
slowly smouldering in a coal-oil can in the middle of the floor. Hop
Sing held one hand in the smoke, raised the other aloft and made a
blood-curdling oath of some sort which, by the expression of his face,
probably consigned the owner forever more to the nethermost depths 'of
Tophet.

"Why, where is Ali Sing?" asked Jo the next morning, when she found the
tall slave still in the kitchen.

"He got heap sick cousin. He go way. I stay. He come back bime-by." Jo
knew that it was useless to question further.

The summer drifted by and still Sing did not return. Rand walked in
one day with the first flurry of snow, from his claim in the south. He
caught both of Jo's hands in his without a word, kissed them tenderly
and let them go.

"Rand," she faltered, "it is so long since I've heard from you. You have
been acting so strangely-for months!"

"Jo, have you not heard the talk that has been whispered with my name
ever since Sing disappeared? They say that I know too much about the
holdups; that I helped the Chinaman to escape; that Digger Dan and Hop
Sing are one; that--"

"I would not listen to such falsehoods," cried the girl, her grey eyes
flashing.

"You blessed little woman! But considering this, how can I say to you
what--tell you that which glorifies the very life in my frame. How can I
offer you a name tarnished by