dear Florence, had come out to this distant coast to search for me. But
I tell you, Jake, it's rather tantalizing to think that she is waiting
for me in San Francisco, while I am tied by the ankle to this lonely
cabin so many miles away."

"It won't be for long now, Dick," said Bradley. "You feel a good deal
better, don't you?"

"Yes; my ankle is much stronger than it was. Yesterday I walked about
the cabin, and even went out of doors. I felt rather tired afterward,
but it didn't hurt me."

"All you want is a little patience, Dick. You mustn't get up too soon. A
sprain is worse than a break, so I've often heard: I can't say I know
from experience."

"I hope you won't. It's a very trying experience, as I can testify."

"You'd get well quicker if we had some doctor's stuff to put on it, but
I reckon anyhow you'll be out in a week or ten days."

"I hope so. If I could only write to Florence and let her know where
and how I am, I wouldn't mind so much the waiting."

"Don't worry about her. She's in 'Frisco, where nothing can't happen to
her," said Bradley, whose loose grammar I cannot recommend my young
readers to imitate.

"I am not sure about that. Her guardian might find out where she is, and
follow her even to San Francisco. If I were on the spot he could do no
harm."

"I tell you, Dick, that gal--excuse me, I mean that young lady--is a
smart one, and I reckon she can get ahead of her guardian if she wants
to. Ben here told me how she circumvented him at the Astor House over in
York. She'll hold her own ag'in him, even if he does track her to
'Frisco."

Some of my readers may desire to know more about Dewey and his two
friends, and I will sketch for their benefit the events to which Bradley
referred.

Florence Douglas was the ward of the Albany merchant, John Campbell, who
by the terms of her father's will was entrusted with the care of her
large property till she had attained the age of twenty-five, a period
nearly a year distant. Mr. Campbell, anxious to secure his ward's large
property for his son, sought to induce Florence to marry the said son,
but this she distinctly declined to do. Irritated and disappointed, Mr.
Campbell darkly intimated that should her opposition continue he would
procure from two pliant physicians a certificate of her insanity and
have her confined in that most terrible of prisons, a mad-house. The
fear that he would carry his threat into execution nerved Florence to a
bold move