with him that the influence of his
powerful protection was so strong that all active criticisms of Johnny
ceased, and only a respectful surveillance of his movements lingered in
the settlement. I do not know that this was altogether distasteful to
the child; it would have been strange, indeed, if he had not felt
at times exalted by this mysterious influence that he seemed to
have acquired over his fellow creatures. If he were merely hunting
blackberries in the brush, he was always sure, sooner or later, to find
a ready hand offered to help and accompany him; if he trapped a squirrel
or tracked down a wild bees' hoard, he generally found a smiling face
watching him. Prospectors sometimes stopped him with: "Well, Johnny, as
a chipper and far-minded boy, now WHAR would YOU advise us to dig?" I
grieve to say that Johnny was not above giving his advice,--and that it
was invariably of not the smallest use to the recipient.

And so the days passed. Mr. Medliker's absence was protracted, and
the hour of retribution and punishment still seemed far away. The
blackberries ripened and dried upon the hillside, and the squirrels
had gathered their hoards; the bees no longer came and went through
the thicket, but Johnny was still in daily mysterious possession of
his grains of gold! And then one day--after the fate of all heroic
humanity--his secret was imperilled by the blandishments and
machinations of the all-powerful sex.

Florry Fraser was a little playmate of Johnny's. Why, with his doubts of
his elder sister's intelligence and integrity, he should have selected a
child two years younger, and of singular simplicity, was, like his other
secret, his own. What SHE saw in him to attract her was equally strange;
possibly it may have been his brown-gooseberry eyes or his warts; but
she was quite content to trot after him, like a young squaw, carrying
his "bow-arrow," or his "trap," supremely satisfied to share his
woodland knowledge or his scanter confidences. For nobody who knew
Johnny suspected that she was privy to his great secret. Howbeit,
wherever his ragged straw hat, thatched with his tawny hair, was
detected in the brush, the little nankeen sunbonnet of Florry was sure
to be discerned not far behind. For two weeks they had not seen each
other. A fell disease, nurtured in ignorance, dirt, and carelessness,
was striking right and left through the valleys of the foothills,
and Florry, whose sister had just recovered from an att