ginous bacon?
Delicious are the grasshoppers that sport on the hillside,--are they
better than the dried apples of the Pale Faces? Pleasant is the gurgle
of the torrent, Kish-Kish, but is it better than the cluck-cluck of old
Bourbon from the old stone bottle?"

"Ugh!" said the Indian,--"ugh! good. The White Rabbit is wise. Her
words fall as the snow on Tootoonolo, and the rocky heart of
Muck-a-Muck is hidden. What says my brother the Gray Gopher of Dutch
Flat?"

"She has spoken, Muck-a-Muck," said the Judge, gazing fondly on his
daughter. "It is well. Our treaty is concluded. No, thank you,--you
need NOT dance the Dance of Snow Shoes, or the Moccasin Dance, the
Dance of Green Corn, or the Treaty Dance. I would be alone. A strange
sadness overpowers me."

"I go," said the Indian. "Tell your great chief in Washington, the
Sachem Andy, that the Red Man is retiring before the footsteps of the
adventurous Pioneer. Inform him, if you please, that westward the star
of empire takes its way, that the chiefs of the Pi-Ute nation are for
Reconstruction to a man, and that Klamath will poll a heavy Republican
vote in the fall."

And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck withdrew.

CHAPTER III.

Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after the
retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to Virginia
City. "He may never return again," sighed the young girl as she
glanced at the frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly careering
horses,--"at least, with unbroken bones. Should he meet with an
accident! I mind me now a fearful legend, familiar to my childhood.
Can it be that the drivers on this line are privately instructed to
despatch all passengers maimed by accident, to prevent tedious
litigation? No, no. But why this weight upon my heart?"

She seated herself at the piano and lightly passed her hand over the
keys. Then, in a clear mezzo-soprano voice, she sang the first verse
of one of the most popular Irish ballads:--

"O Arrah, ma dheelish, the distant dudheen
Lies soft in the moonlight, ma bouchal vourneen:
The springing gossoons on the heather are still,
And the caubeens and colleens are heard on the hills."

But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, her
hands sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away the
mysterious shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white
crape bo