inamen joined
with unflagging zeal. Then the audience rose to leave the hall, and the
miners respectfully stood aside to let their superintendent and his
party take the lead. Wang and his brethren still sat quiet, watching the
people flock past them, with an evident determination to stay until the
very end; but at length they too grasped their hats and started to rise.
The next instant there was a clattering of chairs, followed by three
startled howls, which broke upon the air and turned every face in the
same direction. There in a row stood the three Chinamen, ruefully
rubbing the backs of their heads, while their little almond eyes seemed
to be popping out from their sockets, with surprise and with the
unwonted strain upon their scalps. From the end of every pigtail dangled
one of the light folding chairs which filled the room. Howard's strings
were as strong as Ned's knots were firm. The Chinamen had not risen from
their seats; their seats had risen with the Chinamen.

CHAPTER XV.

MR. ATHERDEN.

"Really and truly, Charlie, I never should have known you; you look so
perfectly elegant."

"Thank you, ma'am!" And Charlie bowed low before his cousin, who joined
him in the laugh at the unexpected form that her intended compliment had
taken.

"You know what I mean," she said saucily. "Of course, you're always a
dear old boy, even if you aren't a beauty. But now there's a sort of
young man look to you, that makes me half afraid of you."

"Perhaps, if you stayed so, you'd treat me a little better," suggested
Charlie teasingly. "I feel most uncommon queer, though. Do you honestly
like the looks, Allie?"

Allie dropped into an easy-chair, and surveyed him from head to foot.

"Now turn around very slowly," she commanded; "and then walk off a few
steps, so. Yes," she added, after an admiring pause; "you really do
look very well, considering who you are; only I never, never should know
you. It just changes you all over, and makes you seem four or five years
older."

"Wish I were!" remarked Charlie meditatively. "Only I should be ready
for college then, and have to go back East and leave you. What a jolly
year this has been!"

"Yes, it has," assented Allie absently. She was still looking up at her
cousin, with a feeling of sisterly pride in the tall, straight figure
before her.

Montana had evidently agreed with the boy, for, during the year he had
spent there, he had grown so rapidly as to leave Howard far