through the window and saw her
face at the other window, and without waiting to step around to her,
yelled to the agent like a madman: "Say, you, mister!--don't give the
gal that ticket. It's a mistake. She's going 'tother way;" and shoving
his gaunt head and shoulders into the window and wildly gesticulating to
the young lady, as the agent in a scared way saw the muscular intruder
hovering over his tickets and money-box, he continued excitedly:

"Say, Lil, old gal! Lil Nettleton!--Dick--Dick Hosford, ye know! Ain't I
tellin' the truth? ain't it all a mistake, and ain't you goin' the other
way--with _me_, ye know--yes, 'long with Dick?"

[Illustration: _"Say, you?--mister?--don't give the gal that ticket!
It's all a mistake!"--_]

Lilly Nettleton, for it was no other, nodded to the agent--who returned
the money--and quickly stepped around to help Dick disengage himself
from the window, and then quickly drew him away from the crowd which the
little episode had collected, sat down beside him, and, heartily
laughing at his ludicrous appearance, said, "Why, Dick, where under
heaven did _you_ come from?"

"Lil, gal," said poor Dick, wiping the tears of joy out of his eyes, "I
come all the way from Californy fur ye, found ye gone and the old folks
all bust and banged up about it. Fur six weary weeks I've been huntin',
huntin' ye up and down, here and yon, and was goin' back to Terre Haute,
sell the d----d farm I bought fur ye, and skip back to the Slope to kill
Injuns, or somethin', to drown my sorrow, fur I told the old folks I'd
bring ye back, or never set foot in them diggin's agin'!"

Lilly looked at the great-hearted man beside her in a strange,
calculating kind of a way, never touched by his tenderness and simple
sacrifice, but moving very closely to him in a winsome way that quite
overcame him.

"And I come to marry ye, Lil," persisted Dick, anxiously.

"To marry me, Dick?"

"Yes, and bought ye a purty farm at Terre Haute."

"A farm, Dick?"

"Yes, Lil, a farm, with as snug a little house as ye ever sot eyes on."

"But where did you get so much money? You never wrote anything about
it."

"No, I wanted to kinder surprise ye; but I got it honest--got it honest;
with these two hands, Lil, that'll work for ye all yer life like a
nigger, if ye'll only come 'long with me and never go gallavantin' any
more."

"And won't you ask me any questions or allow them--at home, Dick--to ask
any, and take me just as I a