rl to marry a thief!

"But you forget, Paul," he said, after a few moments' thought, "that
Betty is sure to hear about this affair the first time you have a
visitor from Pine Tree Diggings."

"That's true, lad, I did forget that. But you know you can stoutly deny
that it was you who did it. Say there was some mistake, and git up some
cock-an'-a-bull story to confuse her. Anyhow, say nothing about it just
now."

Tom was still meditating what he should say in reply to this, when Betty
herself appeared, calling her father to dinner.

"Now, mind, not a word about the robbery," he whispered as he rose, "and
we'll make as much as we can of the b'ar."

"Yes, not a word about it," thought Tom, "till Betty and I are alone,
and then--a clean breast and good-bye to her, for ever!"

During dinner the girl manifested more than usual sympathy with Tom
Brixton. She saw that he was almost worn out with fatigue, and listened
with intense interest to her father's embellished narrative of the
encounter with the "b'ar," which narrative Tom was forced to interrupt
and correct several times, in the course of its delivery. But this
sympathy did not throw her off her guard. Remembering past visits, she
took special care that Tom should have no opportunity of being alone
with her.

"Now, you must be off to rest," said Paul Bevan, the moment his visitor
laid down his knife and fork, "for, let me tell you, I may want your
help before night. I've got an enemy, Tom, an enemy who has sworn to be
the death o' me, and who _will_ be the death o' me, I feel sure o' that
in the long-run. However, I'll keep him off as long as I can. He'd
have been under the sod long afore now, lad--if--if it hadn't bin for my
Betty. She's a queer girl is Betty, and she's made a queer man of her
old father."

"But who is this enemy, and when--what--? explain yourself."

"Well, I've no time to explain either `when' or `what' just now, and you
have no time to waste. Only I have had a hint from a friend, early this
morning, that my enemy has discovered my whereabouts, and is following
me up. But I'm ready for him, and right glad to have your stout arm to
help--though you couldn't fight a babby just now. Lie down, I say, an'
I'll call you when you're wanted."

Ceasing to press the matter, Tom entered a small room, in one corner of
which a narrow bed, or bunk, was fixed. Flinging himself on this, he
was fast asleep in less than two minutes. "Kind natu