o wane. They had traveled continuously over a long
stretch of plain between two mountain ranges, over a country entirely
uninhabited except by the stage company's employees, who kept the
stations and tended the stock. This lone woman had seen but one other
woman on the road. Plenty of teams--great "prairie schooners," loaded
with every conceivable thing for supplying the wants of an isolated
non-producing community, and drawn by ten or fourteen mules--had been
passed through the day.

As night fell, Mrs. Hastings saw what she had never before seen or
imagined--the camps of these teamsters by the roadside; horses and mules
staked, or tied to the wagons; the men lying prone upon the earth,
wrapped in blankets, their dust-blackened faces turned up to the frosty
twinkling stars. Did people really live in that way?--how many
superfluous things were there in a city!

The night was moonless and clear, and cold as at that altitude they
always are. Sleep, from the roughness of the road, was impossible. Her
companions dozed, and woke with exclamations when the heavy lurchings of
the coach disturbed them too roughly. Mrs. Hastings never closed her
eyes. When morning dawned, they were on the top of a range of mountains,
like those that had been in sight all the day before. Down these heights
they rattled away, and at four in the morning entered the streets of
Chloride Hill--a city of board and canvas houses. Arrived at the stage
office, the lady looked penetratingly into the crowd of men always
waiting for the stages, but saw no face she recognized. Yes, one--and
that the face of the gentleman who sat down opposite her at table in
Elko.

"Permit me," he said; "I think you inquired for Mr. Hastings?"

"I did; he is my husband. I expected to find him here," she replied,
feeling that sense of injury and desire to cry which tired women feel,
jostled about in a crowd of men.

Leaving her a moment to say something to an employee of the office, the
stranger returned immediately, saying to the man: "Take this lady to
Mrs. Robb's boarding-house." Then to her: "I will inquire for your
husband, and send him to you if he is in town. The hack does not go over
to Deep Canon for several hours yet. Meanwhile you had better take some
rest. You must be greatly fatigued."

Fatigued! her head swam round and round; and she really was too much
exhausted to feel as disappointed as she might at Jack's non-appearance.
Much relieved by the prospect o