ike in style."

Perhaps owing to the criticism of the farmer, perhaps from some still
lurking suspicion of being overheard by eavesdroppers, or possibly from
a humane desire to relieve the strained apprehension of the women, Red
Jim, as the farmer disappeared to rejoin the stranger, again dropped
into a lighter and gentler vein of reminiscence. He told them how, when
a mere boy, he had been lost from an emigrant train in company with a
little girl some years his junior. How, when they found themselves alone
on the desolate plain, with the vanished train beyond their reach, he
endeavored to keep the child from a knowledge of the real danger of
their position, and to soothe and comfort her. How he carried her on
his back, until, exhausted, he sank in a heap of sage-brush. How he was
surrounded by Indians, who, however, never suspected his hiding-place;
and how he remained motionless and breathless with the sleeping child
for three hours, until they departed. How, at the last moment, he had
perceived a train in the distance, and had staggered with her thither,
although shot at and wounded by the trainmen in the belief that he
was an Indian. How it was afterwards discovered that the child was the
long-lost daughter of a millionaire; how he had resolutely refused
any gratuity for saving her, and she was now a peerless young heiress,
famous in California. Whether this lighter tone of narrative suited him
better, or whether the active feminine sympathy of his auditors
helped him along, certain it was that his story was more coherent and
intelligible and his voice less hoarse and constrained than in his
previous belligerent reminiscences; his expression changed, and even his
features worked into something like gentler emotion. The bright eyes
of Phoebe, fastened upon him, turned dim with a faint moisture, and
her pale cheek took upon itself a little color. The mother, after
interjecting "Du tell," and "I wanter know," remained open-mouthed,
staring at her visitor. And in the silence that followed, a pleasant,
but somewhat melancholy voice came from the open door.

"I beg your pardon, but I thought I couldn't be mistaken. It IS my old
friend, Jim Hooker!"

Everybody started. Red Jim stumbled to his feet with an inarticulate and
hysteric exclamation. Yet the apparition that now stood in the doorway
was far from being terrifying or discomposing. It was evidently the
stranger,--a slender, elegantly-knit figure, whose upper lip wa