er feeling and my hands
trembled when I unfolded and read it.

"I don't clearly remember the next few minutes. The room seemed to be
spinning around, and I think I had to sit down to keep from falling,
but what saved me from collapse was my anger. I have been consumed
with indignation once or twice in my life, but was never so furious,
so uncontrollable, so utterly savage as I was after reading that note.
If I could have found Russell, I would have throttled him. It may
sound strange, but I hardly once thought of Nellie; it was _he_, the
villain, whom I yearned to get my hands on."

"Of course," said Ruggles, "that's the way you oughter feel."

"I don't know what possessed me to do so, but I rushed out and made
straight for his cabin, as if I would find him there. Of course that
too was empty, and then I came here. Fool that I have been!" exclaimed
the parent, leaping to his feet and striding up and down the room;
"not to see all this, but," he added pathetically, "I believed that
Nellie loved me."

The flaming wrath of the two melted into pity for the stricken father.
Parson Brush laid his hand on his shoulder and compelled him to resume
his seat. Then he spoke with the tenderness of a woman:

"That child _does_ love you more than she loves her own life, but she
is blinded by her infatuation for that smooth-tongued scoundrel. It is
the nature of her sex to feel and act thus; but, as I said, it does
not mean that her love for you is less--"

"Don't talk of her love for me," fiercely interrupted the parent; "we
only judge of a person by his actions."

"But you and I have made mistakes--"

"Nothing like this; why did she not ask me? why did _he_ not tell me
that he wished to marry her?--that is if he does," added the father,
as if determined to make his own cup as bitter as possible.

"He did not ask you, because he knew you would refuse; for from the
first time he entered this community, he was determined to have her."

"How do you know that?"

"Because Ruggles and I read him; we did what no one else did,--we
measured the man. Am I right, Wade?"

The miner nodded his head.

"Every word is as true as gospel; we noticed his sly looks at her,
that first night you and him entered the Heavenly Bower and she was
there. We couldn't make any mistake about it."

"And you didn't warn me! You two are as bad as he, because you kept
the secret when you ought to have put me on my guard, so that I might
have strangled