ted expression.

"What are you talkin' 'bout, parson?"

"Didn't you refer to the diggings?" he innocently asked in turn.

"Come now, that won't do; you know my references to allusions was the
leftenant and the young lady. I say things look better as regards the
same."

"In what way?"

"In the only way there could be. They don't care partic'lar for each
other."

"There is no doubt they did some time ago."

"Of course, but I mean _now_."

"How do you explain the change, Wade?"

"The chap ain't a fool; he's took notice of our warnin's."

"I wasn't aware that we had given him any."

"Not 'zactly in words, but every time I've met him with the gal, I
give the leftenant a scowl. Once I come purty near shakin' my fist at
him; he's obsarved it all and is wise in time."

"I think there is ground for what you say," remarked the parson,
anxious to be convinced of the hoped-for fact; "what I base my belief
on is that the leftenant doesn't accompany her on her little riding
trips as often as her father or you or I: _that_ is a sure barometer,
according to my judgment. Still I have sometimes feared from the way
she talks and acts that she thinks more of him than is right."

"Nothing of the kind! She treats him as she does everybody else; the
leftenant is the friend of the cap and the leftenant give her the dog
that is the size of a meetin' house and the pony hardly as big as the
dog, but she doesn't think half as much of him as of you and me; how
can she?" demanded Ruggles, sitting bolt upright and spreading his
hand like a lawyer who has uttered an unanswerable argument; "hain't
she knowed us a blamed sight longer than him?"

"You are correct; I didn't think of that."

How eagerly we accept the argument, flimsy as it may be, which accords
with our wishes!

"When I feel sorter ugly over my 'spicions," continued Ruggles; "I
jest reflect that we've knowed the gal ever since she was a baby and
her father tumbled down a hundred feet onto the roof of the
Heavenly Bower, with her in his arms in the middle of that howlin'
blizzard,--when I think of that I say----"

The door of the cabin was hastily shoved inward and Captain Dawson,
his face as white as death, strode in.

"Have you seen anything of Nellie?" he asked in a husky whisper.

"No; what's the matter?" asked the startled miners.

"She has gone! she has left me!" gasped the father dropping into the
only remaining chair, the picture of despair and unutterable