task all the harder.
Well, first to see this ranch, and then--I wish I'd never come upon
this business! Better suffer nervous dyspepsia all the rest of my life
than break such a woman's heart. Her husband may have been a scamp of
the first water, but she's a lady and a Christian. So is that beautiful
little girl, and it's from her I mean to get all my needed information."

Absorbed in thoughts that were far from pleasant, the gentleman
walked beside Mrs. Trent to the horseblock, and mounted the horse
which a gray-haired stable "boy" was holding for him, all without
rousing from the preoccupation that held him. It was not till he heard
Jessica's excited call coming over the space between the cottage and the
"quarters" that he realized where he was and looked up, expectant.

The little girl who had left them for a few moments, was galloping toward
them on the back of a rough-coated broncho, waving a paper in her hand
and with distressed indignation, crying out as she came:

"'Forty-niner' has gone. Dear old 'Forty-niner!' I found this
letter in his room and it's forever--forever! Oh, mother! And he says
_you_ discharged him--or it means that--without show of chance! Mother,
mother, how could you? That dear old man that everybody loved!"

"Discharged him--I? I should as soon have thought of discharging myself!
What fresh distress is this?"

Catching the paper from Jessica's hand Mrs. Trent read it, then turned
and without a word walked slowly into the house. But her head was giddy
and her limbs trembled, and she had a strange feeling as if she were
being swiftly inclosed in a net from which she could not escape.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE MINER'S CABIN

"Forgive me, mother! I oughtn't to have told it that way. But what does
it mean? Why should you want him to go?"

"Did you not hear me say I would not have dismissed him? No, dear.
There is something in this I don't understand. How do we know but that
all the other 'boys' who left so suddenly have been deceived in just
this way? As long as there was food enough to eat and a roof to shelter
them the men whom your father befriended and who, in turn have befriended
us, were as welcome to Sobrante as my own children. I must think this
over. We must then find Ephraim and bring him back. We must. There!
We'll not discuss it any more at present. You are keeping Mr. Hale
waiting and that is rudeness. Go, now, and explain all your father's
plans to him, as you ride."