is dirty handkerchief,
and said: "Now you trot over to your mar!"

He helped her through the loose picket of the fence and was turning away
when her faint voice again called him.

"Johnny!"

He turned back; she was standing on the other side of the fence holding
out her arms to him. He went to her with shining eyes, lifted her up,
and from her hot but loving little lips took a fatal kiss.

For only an hour later Mrs. Fraser found Florry in her bed, tossing with
a high fever and a light head. She was talking of "Johnny" and "gold,"
and had a flake of the metal in her tiny fist. When Mr. Staples was sent
for, and with the mother and father, hung anxiously above her bed, to
their eager questioning they could only find out that Florry had been to
a high mountain, ever so far away, and on the top of it there was gold
lying around, and a shining figure was giving it away to the people.

"And who were the people, Florry dear," said Mr. Staples persuasively;
"anybody ye know here?"

"They woz angels," said Florry, with a frightened glance over her
shoulder.

I grieve to say that Mr. Staples did not look as pleased at the
celestial vision as he might have, and poor Mrs. Fraser probably saw
that in her child's face which drove other things from her mind. Yet Mr.
Staples persisted:--

"And who led you to this beautiful mountain? Was it Johnny?"

"No."

"Who then?"

Florry opened her eyes on the speaker. "I fink it was Dod," she said,
and closed them again.

But here Dr. Duchesne hurried in, and after a single glance at the child
hustled Mr. Staples from the room. For there were grave complications
that puzzled him, Florry seemed easier and quieter under his kindly
voice and touch, but did not speak again,--and so, slowly sinking,
passed away that night in a dreamless sleep. This was followed by a mad
panic at Burnt Spring the next day, and Mrs. Medliker fled with her two
girls to Sacramento, leaving Johnny, ostensibly strong and active, to
keep house until his father's return. But Mr. Medliker's return was
again delayed, and in the epidemic, which had now taken a fast hold of
the settlement, Johnny's secret--and indeed the boy himself--was quite
forgotten. It was only on Mr. Medliker's arrival it was known that he
had been lying dangerously ill, alone, in the abandoned house. In his
strange reticence and firmness of purpose he had kept his sufferings to
himself,--as he had his other secret,--and they were revealed