sight, wisely reserving themselves
until that precise moment when the impatient audience would--as all
audiences do on similar occasions--threaten to bring down the building
with stamping of feet, accompanied with steam-engine-like whistles, and
savage cries of "Music!"

While Ned Sinton and his friends were quietly looking round upon the
crowd, Larry O'Neil's attention was arrested by the conversation of two
men who sat just in front of him. One was a rough-looking miner, in a
wide-awake and red-flannel shirt; the other was a negro, in a shirt of
blue-striped calico.

"Who be this Missey Nelina?" inquired the negro, turning to his
companion.

"I dun know; but I was here last night, an' I'd take my davy, I saw the
little gal in the ranche of a feller away in the plains, five hundred
miles to the east'ard, two months ago. Her father, poor chap, was
killed by a wild horse."

"How was dat?" inquired the negro, with an expression of great interest.

"Well, it was this way it happened," replied the other, putting a quid
of tobacco into his cheek, such as only a sailor would venture to
masticate. "I was up at the diggin's about six months, without gittin'
more gold than jist kep' me in life--for, ye see, I was always an
unlucky dog--when one day I goes down to my claim, and, at the very
first lick, dug up two chunks o' gold as big as yer fists; so I sold my
claim and shovel, and came down here for a spree. Well, as I was
sayin', I come to the ranche o' a feller called Bangi, or Bongi, or
Bungi, or some sort o' bang, with a gi at the end o' 't. He was
clappin' his little gal on the head, when I comed up, and said good-bye
to her. I didn't rightly hear what she said; but I was so taken with
her pretty face that I couldn't help axin' if the little thing was
his'n. `Yees,' says he--for he was a Mexican, and couldn't come round
the English lingo--`she me darter.' I found the man was goin' to catch
a wild horse, so, says I, `I'll go with ye,' an', says he, `come 'long,'
so away we went, slappin' over the plains at a great rate, him and me,
and a Yankee, a friend o' his and three or four servants, after a drove
o' wild horses that had been seen that mornin' near the house. Well,
away we went after the wild horses. Oh! it was grand sport! The man
had lent me one of his beasts, an' it went at such a spankin' pace, I
could scarce keep my seat, and had to hold on by the saddle--not bein'
used to ridin' much, d'ye see.