ops and the sky as the second man had
done. But the first man now laid his hand kindly on her shoulder and
said, "Sit down."

Then they told her there had been an earthquake so strong that it had
thrown down a part of the hillside, including the wagon trail. That a
wagon team and driver, such as she had described, had been carried down
with it, crushed to fragments, and buried under a hundred feet of rock
in the gulch below. A party had gone down to examine, but it would be
weeks perhaps before they found it, and she must be prepared for the
worst. She looked at them vaguely and with tearless eyes.

"Then ye reckon dad's dead?"

"We fear it."

"Then wot's a-goin' to become o' me?" she said simply.

They glanced again at each other. "Have you no friends in California?"
said the elder man.

"Nary one."

"What was your father going to do?"

"Dunno. I reckon HE didn't either."

"You may stay here for the present," said the elder man meditatively.
"Can you milk?"

The girl nodded. "And I suppose you know something about looking after
stock?" he continued.

The girl remembered that her father thought she didn't, but this was no
time for criticism, and she again nodded.

"Come with me," said the older man, rising. "I suppose," he added,
glancing at her ragged frock, "everything you have is in the wagon."

She nodded, adding with the same cold naivete, "It ain't much!"

They walked on, the girl following; at times straying furtively on
either side, as if meditating an escape in the woods,--which indeed
had once or twice been vaguely in her thoughts,--but chiefly to avoid
further questioning and not to hear what the men said to each other. For
they were evidently speaking of her, and she could not help hearing
the younger repeat her words, "Wot's agoin' to become o' me?" with
considerable amusement, and the addition: "She'll take care of herself,
you bet! I call that remark o' hers the richest thing out."

"And I call the state of things that provoked it--monstrous!" said the
elder man grimly. "You don't know the lives of these people."

Presently they came to an open clearing in the forest, yet so incomplete
that many of the felled trees, partly lopped of their boughs, still
lay where they had fallen. There was a cabin or dwelling of unplaned,
unpainted boards; very simple in structure, yet made in a workmanlike
fashion, quite unlike the usual log cabin she had seen. This made her
think that the elder man w