away and tidy yourself before the stage comes."

The young lady replied to the last innuendo by taking two spirals of
soft hair, like "corn silk," from her oval cheek, wetting them with
her lips, and tucking them behind her ears. Her father's ungentlemanly
suggestion being thus disposed of, she returned to her first charge.

"It ain't no politics; you ain't been swearing enough for THAT! Come,
now! It's the mysterious stranger ye've been talking about!"

Both men stared at her with unaffected concern.

"What do YOU know about any mysterious stranger?" demanded her father.

"Do you suppose you men kin keep a secret," scoffed Polly. "Why, Dick
Ruggles told me how skeert ye all were over an entire stranger, and he
advised me not to wander down the road after dark. I asked him if he
thought I was a pickaninny to be frightened by bogies, and that if
he hadn't a better excuse for wantin' 'to see me home' from the Injin
spring, he might slide."

Larry laughed again, albeit a little bitterly, for it seemed to him that
the excuse was fully justified; but the colonel said promptly, "Dick's
a fool, and you might have told him there were worse things to be met on
the road than bogies. Run away now, and see that the niggers are on hand
when the stage comes."

Two hours later the stage came with a clatter of hoofs and a cloud of
red dust, which precipitated itself and a dozen thirsty travelers
upon the veranda before the hotel bar-room; it brought also the usual
"express" newspapers and much talk to Colonel Swinger, who always
received his guests in a lofty personal fashion at the door, as he might
have done in his old Virginian home; but it brought likewise--marvelous
to relate--an ACTUAL GUEST, who had two trunks and asked for a room! He
was evidently a stranger to the ways of Buena Vista, and particularly
to those of Colonel Swinger, and at first seemed inclined to resent the
social attitude of his host, and his frank and free curiosity. When he,
however, found that Colonel Swinger was even better satisfied to give
an account of HIS OWN affairs, his family, pedigree, and his present
residence, he began to betray some interest. The colonel told him
all the news, and would no doubt have even expatiated on his ghostly
visitant, had he not prudently concluded that his guest might decline to
remain in a haunted inn. The stranger had spoken of staying a week; he
had some private mining speculations to watch at Wynyard's Gulch,--t