would have recalled his demand, and trusted her infinitely;
but in that critical moment she fainted quite away, to his mingled
sorrow and alarm; and Mrs. Shaughnessy being summoned, Sam received a
wordy reprimand for having no more sense than to keep a sick woman up
half of the night; smarting under which undeserved censure, he retired,
to think over the events of the evening.

The hour of departure from Luckydog, for Sam's coach, was four o'clock
in the morning; and its driver was not a little surprised, when about to
mount the box, to discover Mrs. Page waiting to take a seat beside him.
After the adventure of the previous night, it was with some restraint
that he addressed her; and there was wanting, also, something of his
cheerful alacrity of manner, when he requested the stranger who had
taken the box-seat, to yield it to a lady. The stranger's mood seemed
uncongenial, for he declined to abdicate, intimating that there was room
for the lady between himself and the driver, if she insisted upon an
outside seat.

But Mrs. Page did not insist. She whispered Sam to open the coach-door,
and quietly took a seat inside; and Sam, with a sense of irritation very
unusual with him, climbed reluctantly to his place, giving the "cayuses"
the lash in a way that set them off on a keen run. By the time he had
gotten his team cooled down, the unusual mood had passed, and the
longing returned to hear the sweet voice, and watch the bright eyes that
had made his happiness on former occasions. Puzzled as he was, and
pained by the evidence he possessed of her connection, in some way, with
the victim of lynch-law, _that_ seemed like a dream in the clear, sunny
air of morning, while the more blissful past asserted its claim to be
considered reality. Not a lark, warbling its flute-notes by the
way-side, not a pretty bit of the familiar landscape, nor glimpse of
brook, that leaped sparkling down the mountain, but recalled some
charming utterance of Mrs. Dolly Page, as he first knew her; as he could
not now recognize her in the pale, nervous, and evidently suffering
woman, sitting, closely veiled, inside the coach.

Occupied with these thoughts, Sam felt a disagreeable shock when the
outside passenger--in a voice that contrasted roughly with that other
voice which was murmuring in his ear--began a remark about the mining
prospects of Lucky-dog.

"Some rich discoveries made in the neighborhood, eh? Did you ever try
your luck at mining?"