ll ago," and he
nodded toward the back sitting room. "She hasn't passed out again, as I've
seen."

Then, as Mrs. Huzzard smiled on him in a friendly way, he ventured
further:

"She's a very pretty girl, as any one can see. Might I ask her name?"

"Oh, yes! Her name is Rivers--Miss Tana Rivers," said Mrs. Huzzard. "You
must be a stranger in the settlement?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am. My name is Harris--Jim Harris. I come down from the
diggings with Mr. Overton this morning. He allowed it would be all right
for me to step inside, if I wanted to see the dancing."

"To be sure it is," agreed Mrs. Huzzard, heartily. "His friends are our
friends, and civil folks are always right welcome."

"Thank, you, ma'am; you're kind, I'm sure. But we ain't just friends,
especial. Only I had business in his line, so we picked up acquaintance
and come into camp together; and when I saw the pretty girl in white, I
did think I'd like to come in a spell. She looks so uncommon like a boy I
knew up in the 'big bend' country. Looks enough like him to be a twin; but
he wasn't called Rivers. Has--has this young lady any brothers or cousins
up there?"

"Well, now, as for cousins, they are far out, and we hain't ever talked
about them; but as for brothers or sisters, father or mother, that she
hasn't got, for she told me so. Her pa and Mr. Dan Overton they was
partners once; and when the pa died he just left his child to the
partner's care; and he couldn't have left her to a squarer man."

"That's what report says of him," conceded the stranger, watching her with
guarded attention. "Then Mr. Overton's partner hasn't been dead long?"

"Oh, no--not very long; not long enough for the child to get used to
talking of it to strangers, I guess; so we don't ask her many questions
about it. But it troubles her yet, I know."

"Of course--of course; such a pretty little girl, too."

Then the two fell into quite a pleasant chat, and it was not until he
moved away from beside her, to make room for the doctor's wife, that Mrs.
Huzzard observed that one arm hung limply beside him, and that one leg
dragged a little as he walked. He was a man who bore paralysis with him.

She thought, while he was talking to her, that he looked like a man who
had seen trouble. A weary, drawn look was about his eyes. She had seen
dissipated men who looked like that; yet this stranger seemed in no ways a
man of that sort. He was so quiet and polite; and when she saw the almost