met the following:

"Unity Church made a brilliant scene on Christmas night at the
wedding of Miss Frances Evelyn Bright, a charming young society
lady, to Walter Graham Davis, the well-known actor. Miss Bright
had just returned from Grizzly county, where she has been for
her health, so her friends made the reception that followed one
in a double sense."

It was a haggard, red-eyed young fellow who crept down the stairs
after dusk, stole out to the stable, and saddled Bess. All night he
rode up and down the mountain roads. He hated the ground Miss Bright
had walked over, hated the house she had lived in, hated the school,
vowed he'd never enter it again, hated himself. She was gone, Jane was
gone--long since he had let Dan have her to himself--his church was
gone, all his peace of soul, all his religion, was gone. He would ride
up on Lookout Point and plunge over into the Gulch to death and
eternity, he and Bess together. Who cared? They were all alike--all
were heartless. Poor boy! he was learning a lesson that many a one has
learned--a bitter lesson--and all the forces of evil seemed to fight
for his soul that dark night as he climbed Lookout Point on Bess.

He had reached the top when the moon came up over El Capitan and drove
away the gloom, lighting up the white-topped peaks and the dark, black
ravine. Somehow, he thought of his mother. There had been one good
woman in the world, after all. He hesitated, then turned slowly down
the hill and toward home.

CHAPTER XIV.

YANKEE SAM.

It was a wild March night when Job Malden found his way back to God.
No one could ever forget that night. The storm tore over the mountains
till the great forests fairly creaked and groaned beneath the mad
sweep of the wind.

At dusk that afternoon a rap startled Job as he sat by the fire
watching the logs crackle and thinking of by-gone days, while the rain
poured without. He opened the door, and saw Mike Hennessy, dripping
wet and with cap in hand.

"Shure, Mr. Job, the top of the evenin' to yez. But Mr. Schwarzwalder,
the hotel keeper at the town, wants ye, he says, to bring the Holy
Book;" at which Mike reverently crossed himself. "A man is dyin' and
wants yez;" and the good-natured Irishman was gone in an instant,
leaving Job in blank amazement.

Ride that awful night to Gold City--take the Bible--man dying. What
could it mean? But the lad's better nature conquered, and, the Bible
sn