eyes.

"Don't know's I could tell you, neighbor, I kind o' fancied the ones
with the snappin' black eyes. But I ruther guess some other kind would
ha' done's well, when it come to the pint."

Enoch raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

"Wouldn't ary one on 'em hev you?" he asked.

"Never asked 'em," was the reply. "It was this way," Amberley went on,
gathering himself together for the unaccustomed effort of expounding a
situation. "I never seemed to feel to hev _gumption_ enough to raise a
family."

Enoch's countenance took on a judicial look. "Yet you've got a good
eddication," he remarked, after thoughtful consideration of the case.
"You've got book larnin' enough to make your way."

"Wall, yes; the eddication's stayed by me. I ruther guess 'twas the
gumption that got knocked out. That was at Antietam."

"Didn't know you was in the war," Enoch exclaimed, with a visible
accession of respect. "Was you hit?"

"Wall, yes; in the head. I wa' n't much more 'n a youngster, and when
they let me loose the doctors said I was good 's new; 'n I ruther guess
I was, all except the gumption. 'T was kind o' curous, too," he went on,
warming to his subject, and fumbling at something on the side of his
head. "When the bullet ploughed through here, the settin' sun was in my
eyes; 'n soon's I got on my feet agin I wanted to go West. I was let go
there in Virginia, 'n though I hankered after my own folks as bad as
anybody, there was nothin' for it, but to turn toward the settin' sun.
'N fust I went to Ohio, 'n then to Illinois, 'n then to Missouri, 'n so
on here. Never could manage to stop more 'n a few years in one place
till I come up agin the Rocky Mountings. Since then I've felt kind o'
settled and satisfied."

But Simon's satisfaction was destined to be rudely broken in upon.

One pleasant September day somebody picked up something in the Gulch
that looked like a dingy bit of quartz, and carried it down to
Springtown, and shortly after that a squad of men appeared upon the
scene. The mountains, faithless to their trust, had let them in. They
gathered together along the Gulch and on the side of Bear Mountain,
where Amberley could see them, little remote groups, sometimes losing
themselves among the pine-trees, sometimes showing plain against the sky
on the exposed comb of the mountain-side. By and by more men came and
rougher ones, bringing mules and oxen with them, and camping in tents
which they deserted by day. When the ear