like the other habitations in the wild Far West,
save that they had this peculiarity--each hut was mounted on a huge
springless framework, supported by four lumbering wooden wheels. By
this arrangement the hut could be moved from place to place, sometimes
to the fields, with their mines of undiscovered treasure; sometimes to
the sea, burdened with legacies of the mighty deep.

CHARLEY was smoking a pipe, and thinking of that fair home in San
Francisco, the very centre of civilisation, where the hotels were
admirable, the stores well stocked, and house property at a premium.

"I did not discover a single ruby yesterday," he murmured, and then
he looked at the wooden spade of a child--"I found only there a young
'un's toy. But it has softened my heart, and taught me that human
nature is human nature."

He paused to wipe away with a sunburnt hand a furtive tear.

"CHARLEY, my lad," he exclaimed, "this is unmanly. What would DARE
DEATH DICK or THUNDER TIM say to such a show of water?"

He took the spade, and was about to throw it with violence to the
ground, when his better nature triumphed, and he placed it, almost
with reverence, on the bench beside him.

He was disturbed by a tap on the outer door--the door that faced the
sea.

"Who's there?" he shouted, as he held in one hand a revolver, and in
the other a bowie-knife of the usual fashion.

"Are you ready?"

It was a gruff voice, and yet there was something feminine about
it. CHARLEY had never feared to meet a woman yet, and he did not now
shrink from the encounter. However his training had made him cautious.
It might be a trap of the bloodthirsty Indians--those Children of
Nature who were known to indulge in any cruel subterfuge to secure the
white men as their prey.

"Are you ready?" was repeated in the same gruff voice, but now the
tone was one of entreaty. The speaker seemed to be imploring for a
reply.

CHARLEY hesitated no longer. He put down the bowie-knife, and still
holding the revolver, opened the door.

He started back! Yes, it was a woman who confronted him. But such a
woman! Her face was weather-beaten and sunburnt. Her hair was grey,
and there were pieces of sea-weed in the shapeless mass that once may
have been called a bonnet. She was wearing a heavy serge dress that
was dripping with the sea. On her huge feet were old boots sodden with
sand and wet. She might have been of any age, from fifty upwards.

She gazed at CHARLEY with an uncann