er, at a few
paces distant, sitting on her horse as energetic and observant as on the
first morning they had met. A superstitious thrill passed over him and
awoke his old antagonism.

She nodded to him slightly. "I came here to refresh my memory," she
said, "as Mr. Hornsby thought I might be asked to give my evidence again
at Blazing Star."

Cass carelessly struck an aimless blow with his pick against the sod and
did not reply.

"And you?" she queried.

"I stumbled upon the place just now while prospecting, or I shouldn't be
here."

"Then it was YOU made these holes?"

"No," said Cass, with ill-concealed disgust. "Nobody but a stranger
would go foolin' round such a spot."

He stopped, as the rude significance of his speech struck him, and added
surlily, "I mean--no one would dig here."

The girl laughed and showed a set of very white teeth in her square jaw.
Cass averted his face.

"Do you mean to say that every miner doesn't know that it's lucky to dig
wherever human blood has been spilt?"

Cass felt a return of his superstition, but he did not look up. "I never
heard it before," he said, severely.

"And you call yourself a California miner?"

"I do."

It was impossible for Miss Porter to misunderstand his curt speech and
unsocial manner. She stared at him and colored slightly. Lifting her
reins lightly, she said: "You certainly do not seem like most of the
miners I have met."

"Nor you like any girl from the East I ever met," he responded.

"What do you mean?" she asked, checking her horse.

"What I say," he answered, doggedly. Reasonable as this reply was, it
immediately struck him that it was scarcely dignified or manly. But
before he could explain himself Miss Porter was gone.

He met her again that very evening. The trial had been summarily
suspended by the appearance of the Sheriff of Calaveras and his posse,
who took Joe from that self-constituted tribunal of Blazing Star and
set his face southward and toward authoritative although more cautious
justice. But not before the evidence of the previous inquest had been
read, and the incident of the ring again delivered to the public.

It is said the prisoner burst into an incredulous laugh and asked to see
this mysterious waif. It was handed to him. Standing in the very
shadow of the gallows tree--which might have been one of the pines that
sheltered the billiard room in which the Vigilance Committee held their
conclave--the prisoner gave way