sing occasionally as I did. The room is so warm and the ceremony is
so long, that I really began to be exhausted."

He was going on to say something about the glorious climate of
California, but the men came forward, crowded around in this day of all
days, and quite squeezed the little man away from the "Widow," as she
was still called.

It was perfectly splendid! How they did shout, and laugh, and cheer, and
how careful they were to shake all the round oaths out of their speech
before addressing her. And how they did crowd around, as Sandy led her
away, every man of them, even to Washee-Washee, to wish her "God speed,"
and a long and a pleasant life in their midst, down there in the gorge,
in the heart of the great Sierras.

Only two circumstances in connection with this first family of the
Sierras worth mentioning, occurred for some months. The first of these
was the banishment of the boy-poet from the presence of the Widow. Sandy
led her at once to the "parsonage" with the green window blinds, as he
had solemnly promised the Parson to do. Into this house the boy was
never seen to enter. Sandy, it was whispered, had forbidden him the
house. The verdict of the Camp was: Served him right.

The other little event was, to all appearances, of still less
consequence. Yet it showed that there was a storm brewing, and it was a
straw which showed which way the wind was blowing. The boy was seen late
at night by some men who were passing, peering in at the Widow's window.
He ran away like one caught in a crime. But they said he "looked pale as
a ghost, and sickly, and sad, and lonesome."

CHAPTER XV.

WHAT'S THE MATTER NOW!

Just exactly how many days or weeks or even months had blown over the
Forks through the long bleak winter since the wedding no man knew. These
men in the mountains, snowed up for half-a-year, where there is no
business, where there is no law, no church, nothing but half-wild men
hard at work--these men, I say, sometimes forget the day, the week, even
the month. Yet the Day of the week is always kept. Six days they labor
in the mine; the seventh, they do not rest, but they at least do not
mine.

Certainly there was snow on the day of the wedding, and certain it was
that there was a little fall of snow on the high hill-sides, and in the
black fir tops, and the great pines were tipped in white, as Sandy
hurried from his cabin down to the Forks in search of his now divorced
and forgotten Limbe