s teeth and rubbed his tobacco between
his palms.

He spoke of it as if it had been a case of the small-pox, and as if he
was thinking how to best prevent the spread of the infection.

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST WOMAN IN THE FORKS.

One day Limber Tim came up from the Howling Wilderness, all excitement:
all gyrations, and gimlets, and corkscrews. He twisted himself around a
sapling--this great, overgrown, six-foot boy without a beard--and
shouting down to his "pardner" in the mine, Old Sandy, who stood at the
bottom of the open claim, leaning on his pick, resting a moment, looking
into the bright bubbling water that burst laughing from the bank before
him, dreaming a bit in the freshness about him; and said, "Hallo! I say!
a widder's come to town. D'ye hear? A widder; one what's up and up, and
on the square."

Sandy only looked up, for he was getting old, and gray, and wrinkled.
Then he looked at the silver stream that ran from the bank and through
the rocks at his feet, and called to him in the pleasant, balmy sunset,
sweet with the smell of fir, and he did not disturb the water again with
his pick. It looked too pretty, laughed, and sparkled, and leapt, and
made him glad and yet sad.

A poet was this man Sandy, a painter, a sculptor, a mighty moralist; a
man who could not write his name.

He laid down his pick, for the sun was just pitching his last lances at
the snow-peaks away up yonder above the firs, above the clouds, and
night was coming down with steady steps to possess this chasm in the
earth.

Limber Tim untwisted himself from the sapling as Sandy came up from the
mine, twisting his great shaggy beard with his right hand, while he
carried his black slouch hat in his left, and the two sauntered on
toward their cabin together, while Sandy's great gum boots whetted
together as he walked.

The "Parson" was in a neighboring cabin when it was announced that the
first woman had come to the camp. The intelligence was received in a
profound silence.

There was a piece of looking-glass tacked up over the fire-place of this
cabin.

Old Baldy whistled a little air, and walked up to this glass, sidewise,
silently, and stood there smoothing down his beard.

"Ginger blue!" cried the Parson, at last, bounding up from his bench,
and throwing out his arms, as if throwing the words from the ends of
his fingers. "Ginger blue! hell-ter-flicker!" And here he danced around
the cabin in a terrible state of excit