s on his horse on
the great highway between Monterey and Sacramento, the Girl had indulged
in some pertinent thoughts which, if the truth were known, were anything
but complimentary to her behaviour. And, however successful she was
later on in persuading herself that he would eventually seek her out,
there was no question that at first she felt that the chances of her
ever setting eyes on him again were almost negligible. All the more
bitterly, therefore, did she regret her folly in not having told him
where she lived; particularly so since she assured herself that not only
was he the handsomest man that she had ever seen, but that he was the
only one who had ever succeeded in chaining her attention. That he had
been making love to her with his eyes, if not with words, she knew
only too well--a fact that had been anything but displeasing to her.
Indeed, far from having felt sorry that she had encouraged him, she,
unblushingly, acknowledged to herself that, if she had the thing to do
over again, she would encourage him still more.

Was she then a flirt? Not at all, in the common acceptation of the word.
All her knowledge of the ways of the world had been derived from Mother
Nature, who had supplied her with a quick and ready wit to turn aside,
with a smile, the protestations of the boys; had taught her how to live
on intimate terms with them and yet not be intimate; but when it came
to playing at love, which every city maid of the same age is an adept
at, she was strangely ignorant. Of a truth, then, it was something
far broader and deeper that had entered into her heart--love. Not
infrequently love comes as suddenly as this to young women who live
in small mining camps or out-of-the-way places where the men are
practically of a type; it is their unfamiliarity with the class which
a stranger represents when he makes his appearance in their midst that
is responsible, fully as much as his own personality, for their being
attracted to him. It is not impossible, of course, that if the Girl had
met him in Cloudy,--say as a miner there,--the result would have been
precisely the same. But it is much more likely that the attendant
conditions of their meeting aided him in appealing to her imagination,
and in touching a chord in her nature which, under other circumstances,
would not have responded in as many months as there were minutes on that
eventful day.

Little wonder then, that as each succeeding mile travelled by the stage