the summit. And then
one day the staring, unchanged sky was faintly touched with remote
mysterious clouds, and grew tremulous in expression. The next morning
dawned upon a newer face in the heavens, on changed woods, on altered
outlines, on vanished crests, on forgotten distances. It was raining!

Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and intense
blue aerial islands, and then a storm set in. All day the summit pines
and redwoods rocked in the blast. At times the onset of the rain seemed
to be held back by the fury of the gale, or was visibly seen in sharp
waves on the hillside. Unknown and concealed watercourses suddenly
overflowed the trails, pools became lakes and brooks rivers. Hidden from
the storm, the sylvan silence of sheltered valleys was broken by the
impetuous rush of waters; even the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip's
retreat in the Gin and Ginger Woods became a cascade.

The storm drove Fairley from his couch early. The falling of a large
tree across the trail, and the sudden overflow of a small stream beside
it, hastened his steps. But he was doomed to encounter what was to him a
more disagreeable object--a human figure. By the bedraggled drapery that
flapped and fluttered in the wind, by the long, unkempt hair that hid
the face and eyes, and by the grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man
recognized one of his old trespassers,--an Indian squaw.

"Clear out 'er that! Come, make tracks, will ye?" the old man screamed;
but here the wind stopped his voice, and drove him against a hazel bush.

"Me heap sick," answered the squaw, shivering through her muddy shawl.

"I'll make ye a heap sicker if ye don't vamose the ranch," continued
Fairley, advancing.

"Me wantee Wangee girl. Wangee girl give me heap grub," said the squaw,
without moving.

"You bet your life," groaned the old man to himself. Nevertheless
an idea struck him. "Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye?" he asked
cautiously. "Ye ain't got no pooty things for poor Wangee girl?" he
continued, insinuatingly.

"Me got heap cache nuts and berries," said the squaw.

"Oh, in course! in course! That's just it," screamed Fairley; "you've
got 'em cached only two mile from yer, and you'll go and get 'em for a
half dollar, cash down."

"Me bring Wangee girl to cache," replied the Indian, pointing to the
wood. "Honest Injin."

Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley. But it required some
elaboration. Hurrying the squaw with him th