umbled upon some miserable secret, which was dead and buried, but
could not rest in its grave; that there was no room left for doubt,
which is sometimes blessed, and he had fled without a word;
disappeared, and left to her own wretched heart the task of telling her
the reason why.

Circus Jack did not tell Marian these stories, though he had heard them
all; indeed, they had all been retold and discussed in the bar-room,
not half an hour since. An average woman would have repeated them to
her, and thus tempted her to reveal the truth; but a chivalrous heart
beat under Jack's flannel shirt, and he could no more bear to hurt her
than he could have crushed a little bird to death with his hand.

If any of the stories were true, and she yet loved poor Jim, he told
her enough to wring her heart and haunt her dreams for ever.

The winter that he spent in the hollow of a great pine tree, on the rim
of Yosemite valley, was perhaps his happiest and most peaceful. Every
Yosemite tourist stops to peep inside this tree, and to wonder if a man
really lived there. "It was comfortable enough," says the hale old
pioneer of the valley below. "He had plenty of room. We both slept in
it one night."

At which the tourist peeps in again, and wonders if the long-limbed
Texan was not a bit cramped by the footboard.

When Circus Jack told Marian the story it was fresher and less
wonderful than now.

"Was the snow very deep?" she said. "Was there no danger of his
freezing to death?"

"I never hearn much about it anyhow," said Circus Jack, "'cept thet he
lived thar alone cuttin' shingles. I 'spect the snow was 'bout four or
five foot deep up thar whar he lived. He's a close-mouthed one, I tell
yer. Never git nothin' outer him, an' when he's drunk he don't tell
nothin' whatsomd-ever!"

This, with a glance half pitying, half reassuring, as though he would
promise her that the secret, whatever it might be, was safe.

One comforting doubt beat at the woman's heart all the while that Jack
was talking. "Perhaps this man was not the one!"

She mentioned this at length, and asked Jack what his quandom "partner"
was like.

"He was a slight-built feller, rayther light-complected," was the
reply. "An' han'some! I called him han'some, didn't you, Scotty?"

Scotty, thus appealed to, gave a profane assent. He had scarcely moved
a muscle since he sat down, with his eyes fixed on Marian's fair,
ever-changing face. Mrs. Sharpe, after a vain attempt