gain examined his uncle's old mining claim on the top of
the slope, but was satisfied that it had been a hopeless enterprise
and wisely abandoned. It was sunset when he stood under the buckeyes,
gloomily looking at the glow fade out of the west, as it had out of his
boyish hopes. He had grown to like the place. It was the hour, too, when
the few flowers he had cultivated gave back their pleasant odors, as if
grateful for his care. And then he heard his name called.

It was his cousin, standing a few yards from him in evident hesitation.
She was quite pale, and for a moment he thought she was still suffering
from her fall, until he saw in her nervous, half-embarrassed manner that
it had no physical cause. Her old audacity and anger seemed gone, yet
there was a queer determination in her pretty brows.

"Good-evening," he said.

She did not return his greeting, but pulling uneasily at her glove, said
hesitatingly: "Uncle has asked you to sell him this land?"

"Yes."

"Well--don't!" she burst out abruptly.

He stared at her.

"Oh, I'm not trying to keep you here," she went on, flashing back into
her old temper; "so you needn't stare like that. I say, 'Don't,' because
it ain't right, it ain't fair."

"Why, he's left me no alternative," he said.

"That's just it--that's why it's mean and low. I don't care if he is our
uncle."

Jackson was bewildered and shocked.

"I know it's horrid to say it," she said, with a white face; "but it's
horrider to keep it in! Oh, Jack! when we were little, and used to fight
and quarrel, I never was mean--was I? I never was underhanded--was I?
I never lied--did I? And I can't lie now. Jack," she looked hurriedly
around her, "HE wants to get hold of the land--HE thinks there's gold in
the slope and bank by the stream. He says dad was a fool to have located
his claim so high up. Jack! did you ever prospect the bank?"

A dawning of intelligence came upon Jackson. "No," he said; "but," he
added bitterly, "what's the use? He owns the water now,--I couldn't work
it."

"But, Jack, IF you found the color, this would be a MINING claim! You
could claim the water right; and, as it's your land, your claim would be
first!"

Jackson was startled. "Yes, IF I found the color."

"You WOULD find it."

"WOULD?"

"Yes! I DID--on the sly! Yesterday morning on your slope by the stream,
when no one was up! I washed a panful and got that." She took a piece of
tissue paper from her pocket, opened i