thought the word was "kinder."

Perhaps this was why, after he watched her canter away, he went back to
the garden, and from the bruised and trampled strawberry bed gathered
a small basket of the finest fruit, covered them with leaves, added a
paper with the highly ingenious witticism, "Picked up with you," and
sent them to her by one of the Chinamen. Her forcible entry moved
Li Sing, his foreman, also chief laundryman to the settlement, to
reminiscences:

"Me heap knew Missy Wells and ole man, who go dead. Ole man allee
time make chin music to Missy. Allee time jaw jaw--allee time make
lows--allee time cuttee up Missy! Plenty time lockee up Missy topside
house; no can walkee--no can talkee--no hab got--how can get?--must
washee washee allee same Chinaman. Ole man go dead--Missy all lightee
now. Plenty fun. Plenty stay in Blown's big house, top-side hill; Blown
first-chop man."

Had he inquired he might have found this pagan testimony, for once,
corroborated by the Christian neighbors.

But another incident drove all this from his mind. The little
stream--the life blood of his garden--ran dry! Inquiry showed that it
had been diverted two miles away into Brown's ditch! Wells's indignant
protest elicited a formal reply from Brown, stating that he owned the
adjacent mining claims, and reminding him that mining rights to water
took precedence of the agricultural claim, but offering, by way of
compensation, to purchase the land thus made useless and sterile.
Jackson suddenly recalled the prophecy of the gloomy barkeeper. The end,
had come! But what could the scheming capitalist want with the land,
equally useless--as his uncle had proved--for mining purposes? Could it
be sheer malignity, incited by his vengeful cousin? But here he paused,
rejecting the idea as quickly as it came. No! his partners were right!
He was a trespasser on his cousin's heritage--there was no luck in
it--he was wrong, and this was his punishment! Instead of yielding
gracefully as he might, he must back down now, and she would never know
his first real feelings. Even now he would make over the property to
her as a free gift. But his partners had advanced him money from their
scanty means to plant and work it. He believed that an appeal to their
feelings would persuade them to forego even that, but he shrank even
more from confessing his defeat to THEM than to her.

He had little heart in his labors that day, and dismissed the Chinamen
early. He a