Pinkey held up the sweetest of admonitory fingers.
Then, taking his head between her two hands, she again looked into
his brimming eyes, and said, simply, "GOOD dog," with the gentlest of
emphasis on the adjective, and popped into the coach.

The six bay horses started as one, the gorgeous green and gold vehicle
bounded forward, the red dust rose behind, and the yellow dog danced
in and out of it to the very outskirts of the settlement. And then he
soberly returned.

A day or two later he was missed--but the fact was afterward known that
he was at Spring Valley, the county town where Miss Preston lived, and
he was forgiven. A week afterward he was missed again, but this time for
a longer period, and then a pathetic letter arrived from Sacramento for
the storekeeper's wife.

"Would you mind," wrote Miss Pinkey Preston, "asking some of your boys
to come over here to Sacramento and bring back Bones? I don't mind
having the dear dog walk out with me at Spring Valley, where everyone
knows me; but here he DOES make one so noticeable, on account of HIS
COLOR. I've got scarcely a frock that he agrees with. He don't go with
my pink muslin, and that lovely buff tint he makes three shades lighter.
You know yellow is SO trying."

A consultation was quickly held by the whole settlement, and a
deputation sent to Sacramento to relieve the unfortunate girl. We
were all quite indignant with Bones--but, oddly enough, I think it was
greatly tempered with our new pride in him. While he was with us alone,
his peculiarities had been scarcely appreciated, but the recurrent
phrase "that yellow dog that they keep at the Rattlers" gave us a
mysterious importance along the countryside, as if we had secured a
"mascot" in some zoological curiosity.

This was further indicated by a singular occurrence. A new church had
been built at the crossroads, and an eminent divine had come from San
Francisco to preach the opening sermon. After a careful examination of
the camp's wardrobe, and some felicitous exchange of apparel, a few of
us were deputed to represent "Rattlers" at the Sunday service. In our
white ducks, straw hats, and flannel blouses, we were sufficiently
picturesque and distinctive as "honest miners" to be shown off in one of
the front pews.

Seated near the prettiest girls, who offered us their hymn books--in the
cleanly odor of fresh pine shavings, and ironed muslin, and blown over
by the spices of our own woods through the open win