, drawn from bruises in cutting out brambles in the
brush; on--more awful than all--a monstrous, shiny "specimen" gold ring
encircling one of his fingers,--on the whiskey bottle that shamelessly
bulged from his side pocket, and then--slowly dropped her dissatisfied
eyelids.

"Why can't I stay HERE?" she said languidly. "It's quite nice and
comfortable."

"Because we can't leave you alone, and we must go with this gentleman to
help him."

Miss Amy let the tail of her eye again creep shudderingly over this
impossible Jack. "I thought the--the gentleman was going to help US,"
she said dryly.

"Nonsense, Amy, you don't understand," said her father impatiently.
"This gentleman is kind enough to offer to make some sledge-runners for
us at his cabin, and we must help him."

"But I can stay here while you go. I'm not afraid."

"Yes, but you're ALONE here, and something might happen."

"Nothing could happen," interrupted Jack, quickly and cheerfully. He had
flushed at first, but he was now considering that the carrying of a lady
as expensively attired and apparently as delicate and particular as this
one might be somewhat difficult. "There's nothin' that would hurt ye
here," he continued, addressing the velvet cap and furred throat in the
darkness, "and if there was it couldn't get at ye, bein', so to
speak, in the same sort o' fix as you. So you're all right," he added
positively.

Inconsistently enough, the young lady did not accept this as gratefully
as might have been imagined, but Jack did not see the slight flash of
her eye as, ignoring him, she replied markedly to her father, "I'd much
rather stop here, papa."

"And," continued Jack, turning also to her father, "you can keep the
wagon and the whole gorge in sight from the trail all the way up. So you
can see that everything's all right. Why, I saw YOU from the first."
He stopped awkwardly, and added, "Come along; the sooner we're off the
quicker the job's over."

"Pray don't delay the gentleman and--the job," said Miss Amy sweetly.

Reassured by Jack's last suggestion, her father followed him with
the driver and the second man of the party, a youngish and somewhat
undistinctive individual, but to whose gallant anxieties Miss Amy
responded effusively. Nevertheless, the young lady had especially noted
Jack's confession that he had seen them when they first entered the
gorge. "And I suppose," she added to herself mentally, "that he
sat there with his boozing c