e pitiless
archery of her eyes, with an excitement that seemed almost real.

"Who is your deliciously cool friend?" she managed to whisper to me at
supper, as I sat utterly dazed and bewildered between the enrapt May
Sylvester, who seemed to hang upon his words, and this giddy girl of
the period, who was emptying the battery of her charms in active
rivalry upon him. "Of course we know his name isn't Kearney. But how
romantic! And isn't he perfectly lovely? And who is he?"

I replied with severe irony that I was not aware what foreign potentate
was then traveling incognito in the Sierras of California, but that
when his royal highness was pleased to inform me, I should be glad to
introduce him properly. "Until then," I added, "I fear the
acquaintance must be Morganatic."

"You're only jealous of him," she said pertly. "Look at May--she is
completely fascinated. And her father, too." And actually, the
languid, world-sick, cynical Sylvester was regarding him with a boyish
interest and enthusiasm almost incompatible with his nature. Yet I
submit honestly to the clear-headed reason of my own sex, that I could
see nothing more in the man than I have already delivered to the reader.

In the middle of an exciting story of adventure, of which he, to the
already prejudiced mind of his fair auditors, was evidently the hero,
he stopped suddenly.

"It's only some pack train passing the bridge on the lower trail,"
explained Sylvester; "go on."

"It may be my horse is a trifle oneasy in the stable," said the alleged
Kearney; "he ain't used to boards and covering." Heaven only knows
what wild and delicious revelation lay in the statement of this fact,
but the girls looked at each other with cheeks pink with excitement as
Kearney arose, and, with quiet absence of ceremony, quitted the table.

"Ain't he just lovely?" said Kate, gasping for breath, "and so witty."

"Witty!" said the gentle May, with just the slightest trace of defiance
in her sweet voice; "witty, my dear? why, don't you see that his heart
is just breaking with pathos? Witty, indeed; why, when he was speaking
of that poor Mexican woman that was hung, I saw the tears gather in his
eyes. Witty, indeed!"

"Tears," laughed the cynical Sylvester, "tears, idle tears. Why, you
silly children, the man is a man of the world, a philosopher, quiet,
observant, unassuming."

"Unassuming!" Was Sylvester intoxicated, or had the mysterious
stranger mixed the "insa