asked Citizen Tim one day,
timidly and in confidence.

"Right?--didn't I marry 'em?"

"But it warn't twelve months."

"Twelve months! don't care ef it warn't six months. I married 'em, and I
married 'em good and fast, and that's the end of it."

Public opinion flows and ebbs like the tide of the sea. At one time this
little camp was unanimous in the opinion that the mysterious little
woman could be none other than Nancy Williams, and it would talk of
little else. Then it would tire of this subject, change its opinion, and
let the matter drop for months together.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE JUDGE IS LONESOME.

"In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
love."

This was the song of the fat little Judge, one fine morning, as he
wandered down towards the Howling Wilderness, sniffing the glorious
balm, the very breath of the forest, and glancing ever and anon over his
shoulder towards the cabin of Captain Tommy.

How new, and fresh and sweet, and fragrant the odors of the mighty,
mossy woods that climbed and climbed and ever climbed as if to mount the
summits, and push their tasselled tops against the indolent summer
clouds that hovered like great white-winged birds above the peaks of
snow. So new and fresh it seemed that summer morning, that the little
Judge stopped on the hill-side and stood there to inhale its sweetness.

"How fresh and fine is this new world of Californy. It is only finished
to-day. I can smell the varnish on it."

The Judge took out his great cotton bandanna, took off his hat, and
polished his bald head till it shone in the sun like a mirror.

Then the little man stuffed his big handkerchief back in his bosom, and
went on down the trail, humming softly to himself:

"In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
love."

A man in great gum boots, duck breeches, a hat like a tent, with a gold
pan under his arm and a pipe sticking out through a mask of matted
beard, met the little man in the trail, heard his song as he passed, and
looking back over his shoulder, said to himself: "The derned bald-headed
old rooster! What's he a-singin' hymns fur now?"

The little Judge could not sit down in the saloon. He felt that
something was the matter, and he thought that he was lonesome. The
little brown mice upstairs could be heard all day now, for the miners
were at work up to their thighs in the water, delving away there in
their great gum