have some idea how they fared."

"I am not worried about what happened to them, sir. From what I know,
I believe they deserved all that came to them. But my case is
different. I love your daughter, and merely came to see her. If she
does not return my love, that is all there is about it. I shall go
away and trouble her no more."

"And so you were willing to run such a risk with the vague uncertainty
of winning my daughter? Did you stop to count the cost?"

"I did. But it has been said by one, who is considered an authority,
that

"'He is not worthy of the honey-comb
'That shuns the hive because the bees have stings.'"

"Who said that?" Weston asked.

"No less a person than Master Shakespeare himself. He is a safe guide
to all young lovers."

"I like those words," and Weston glanced toward his books. "I have
read much in Shakespeare, but cannot remember that saying. I admire
your spirit, too, and it is a great pity that you have not used it in
some other cause. Were you alone in this fool-chase of yours?"

"Not at all. For a while I had the company of a fine old man, Frontier
Samson by name. No doubt you have heard of him."

"Indeed, I have, and a bigger rascal never lived."

"Rascal! do you say?"

"Yes, and a mean one at that. He is a deceiver, and should be driven
out of the country. He has given me more trouble than any man I ever
met."

"Then the fault must be yours, sir, and I am sorry for you. That old
prospector has been to me a true friend ever since I met him on the
Northern Light. I fear he is much worried over my disappearance, and
no doubt he thinks that I am lying dead somewhere in the wilderness."

"H'm, don't you worry about him. Most likely he is pleased to be rid
of you."

"I cannot believe that of him," Reynolds stoutly defended. "Anyway, he
would not treat a man as a prisoner and a criminal such as you do. He
is a true friend, so I believe, and one of Nature's gentlemen."

"A queer gentleman," and Weston smiled for the first time during the
interview. "I am surprised that you consider him as one."

"I wish I could consider all I have met in the same light. Such men
are altogether too rare. He is the only perfect gentleman, to my way
of thinking, I have encountered since coming north."

"Do you not consider me one?"

"Not from what I have so far observed."

"How dare you say that?"

"I have always been in the habit of fitting my words to whom I am
t