see down town?" said Olly, not at all rebuffed.
"No one," said Gabriel, shortly.
"You did! You smell of linnyments and peppermint," said Olly, with a positive shake of the head. "You've been to Briggs's and the new family up the gulch."
"Yes," said Gabriel, "that Mexican's legs is better, but the baby's dead. Jest remind me, to-morrow, to look through mother's things for suthin' for that poor woman."
"Gabe, do you know what Mrs. Markle says of you?" said Olly, suddenly raising her head.
"No," replied Gabriel, with an affectation of indifference that, like all his affectations, was a perfect failure.
"She says," said Olly, "that you want to be looked after yourself more'n all these people. She says you're just throwing yourself away on other folks. She says I ought to have a woman to look after me."
Gabriel stopped his work, laid down the petticoat, and taking the curly head of Olly between his knees, with one hand beneath her chin and the other on the top of her head, turned her mischievous face towards his. "Olly," he said, seriously, "when I got you outer the snow at Starvation Camp; when I toted you on my back for miles till we got into the valley; when we lay by thar for two weeks, and me a felling trees and picking up provisions here and thar, in the wood or the river, wharever thar was bird or fish, I reckon you got along as well – I won't say better – ez if you had a woman to look arter you. When at last we kem here to this camp, and I built this yer house, I don't think any woman could hev done better. If they could, I'm wrong, and Mrs. Markle's right."
Olly began to be uncomfortable. Then the quick instincts of her sex came to her relief, and she archly assumed the aggressive.
"I think Mrs. Markle likes you, Gabe."
Gabriel looked down at the little figure in alarm. There are some subjects whereof the youngest of womankind has an instinctive knowledge that makes the wisest of us tremble.
"Go to bed, Olly," said the cowardly Gabriel.
But Olly wanted to sit up, so she changed the subject.
"The Mexican you're tendin' isn't a Mexican, he's a Chileno; Mrs. Markle says so."
"Maybe; it's all the same. I call him a Mexican. He talks too straight, anyway," said Gabriel, indifferently.
"Did he ask you any more questions about – about old times?" continued the girl.
"Yes; he wanted to know everything that happened in Starvation Camp. He was rek'larly took with poor Gracie; asked a heap o' questions about her – how she acted, and seemed to feel as bad as we did about never hearing anything from her. I never met a man, Olly, afore, as seemed to take such an interest in other folks' sorrers as he did. You'd have tho't he'd been one of the party. And he made me tell him all about Dr. Devarges."
"And Philip?" queried Olly.
"No," said Gabriel, somewhat curtly.
"Gabriel," said Olly, sullenly, "I wish you didn't talk so to people about those days."
"Why?" asked Gabriel, wonderingly.
"Because it ain't good to talk about. Gabriel dear," she continued, with a slight quivering of the upper lip, "sometimes I think the people round yer look upon us sorter queer. That little boy that came here with the emigrant family wouldn't play with me, and Mrs. Markle's little girl said that we did dreadful things up there in the snow. He said I was a cannon-ball."
"A what?" asked Gabriel.
"A cannon-ball! He said that you and I" —
"Hush," interrupted Gabriel, sternly, as an angry flush came into his sunburnt cheek, "I'll jest bust that boy if I see him round yer agin."
"But, Gabriel," persisted Olly, "nobody" —
"Will you go to bed, Olly, and not catch your death yer on this cold floor asking ornery and perfectly ridickulus questions?" said Gabriel, briskly, lifting her to her feet. "Thet Markle girl ain't got no sense anyway – she's allers leading you round in ditches, ruinin' your best clothes, and keepin' me up half the night mendin' on 'em."
Thus admonished, Olly retreated behind the canvas screen, and Gabriel resumed his needle and thread. But the thread became entangled, and was often snappishly broken, and Gabriel sewed imaginary, vindictive stitches in the imaginary calves of an imaginary youthful emigrant, until Olly's voice again broke the silence.
"Oh, Gabe!"
"Yes," said Gabriel, putting down his work despairingly.
"Do you think – that Philip – ate Grace?"
Gabriel rose swiftly, and disappeared behind the screen. As he did so, the door softly opened, and a man stepped into the cabin. The new-comer cast a rapid glance around the dimly-lighted room, and then remained motionless in the doorway. From behind the screen came the sound of voices. The stranger hesitated, and then uttered a slight cough.
In an instant Gabriel reappeared. The look of angry concern at the intrusion turned to one of absolute stupefaction as he examined the stranger more attentively. The new-comer smiled faintly, yet politely, and then, with a slight halt in his step, moved towards a chair, into which he dropped with a deprecating gesture.
"I shall sit – and you shall pardon me. You have surprise! Yes? Five, six hour ago you leave me very sick on a bed – where you are so kind – so good. Yes? Ah? You see me here now, and you say crazy! Mad!"
He raised his right hand with the fingers upward, twirled them to signify Gabriel's supposed idea of a whirling brain, and smiled again.
"Listen. Comes to me an hour ago a message most important. Most necessary it is I go to-night – now, to Marysville. You see. Yes? I rise and dress myself. Ha! I have great strength for the effort. I am better. But I say to myself, 'Victor, you shall first pay your respects to the good Pike who have been so kind, so good. You shall press the hand of the noble grand miner who have recover you. Bueno, I am here!"
He extended a thin, nervous brown hand, and for the first time since his entrance concentrated his keen black eyes, which had roved over the apartment and taken in its minutest details, upon his host. Gabriel, lost in bewilderment, could only gasp – "But you ain't well enough, you know. You can't walk yet. You'll kill yourself!"
The stranger smiled.
"Yes? – you think – you think? Look now! Waits me, outside, the horse of the livery-stable man. How many miles you think to the stage town? Fifteen." (He emphasized them with his five uplifted fingers.) "It is nothing. Two hour comes the stage and I am there. Ha!"
Even as he spoke, with a gesture, as if brushing away all difficulties, his keen eyes were resting upon a little shelf above the chimney, whereon stood an old-fashioned daguerreotype case open. He rose, and, with a slight halting step and an expression of pain, limped across the room to the shelf, and took up the daguerreotype.
"What have we?" he asked.
"It is Gracie," said Gabriel, brightening up. "Taken the day we started from St. Jo."
"How long?"
"Six years ago. She was fourteen then," said Gabriel, taking the case in his hand and brushing the glass fondly with his palm. "Thar warn't no puttier gal in all Missouri," he added, with fraternal pride, looking down upon the
