Lord! Do you mean to say your name isn't Pinkney?" he asked, with
a half embarrassed laugh.

"It IS Pinkney," said Rand; "but I never met you before."

"Didn't you come to see a young lady that joined my troupe at Gold Hill
last month, and say you'd meet me at Keeler's Ferry in a day or two?"

"No-o-o," said Rand, with a good-humored laugh. "I haven't left this
mountain for two months."

He might have added more; but his attention was directed to Miss
Euphemia, who during this short dialogue, having stuffed alternately her
handkerchief, the corner of her mantle, and her gloves, into her mouth,
restrained herself no longer, but gave way to an uncontrollable fit
of laughter. "O Sol!" she gasped explanatorily, as she threw herself
alternately against him, Mrs. Sol, and a bowlder, "you'll kill me yet!
O Lord! first we take possession of this man's property, then we claim
HIM." The contemplation of this humorous climax affected her so that
she was fain at last to walk away, and confide the rest of her speech to
space.

Sol joined in the laugh until his wife plucked his sleeve, and whispered
something in his ear. In an instant his face became at once mysterious
and demure. "I owe you an apology," he said, turning to Rand, but in a
voice ostentatiously pitched high enough for Miss Euphemia to overhear:
"I see I have made a mistake. A resemblance--only a mere resemblance,
as I look at you now--led me astray. Of course you don't know any young
lady in the profession?"

"Of course he doesn't, Sol," said Miss Euphemia. "I could have told you
that. He didn't even know ME!"

The voice and mock-heroic attitude of the speaker was enough to relieve
the general embarrassment with a laugh. Rand, now pleasantly conscious
of only Miss Euphemia's presence, again offered the hospitality of his
cabin, with the polite recognition of her friends in the sentence, "and
you might as well come along too."

"But won't we incommode the lady of the house?" said Mrs. Sol politely.

"What lady of the house"? said Rand almost angrily.

"Why, Ruth, you know!"

It was Rand's turn to become hilarious. "Ruth," he said, "is short
for Rutherford, my brother." His laugh, however, was echoed only by
Euphemia.

"Then you have a brother?" said Mrs. Sol benignly.

"Yes," said Rand: "he will be here soon." A sudden thought dropped the
color from his cheek. "Look here," he said, turning impulsively upon
Sol. "I have a brother, a twin-brother. It coul