l
Lawton's girl. Live's down th' gulch. He's th' fella' that was yar
afore grub," he explained.

For a full minute Bennington stared at the cards in his hand. The
patriarch became impatient.

"Yore play, sonny," he suggested.

"I don't believe you know the one I mean," returned Bennington slowly.
"She's a girl with a little mouth and a nose that is tipped up just a
trifle----"

"Snub!" interrupted Old Mizzou, with some impatience. "Yas, I knows.
Same critter. Only one like her in th' Hills. Sasshays all over th'
scenery, an' don't do nothin' but sit on rocks."

"So she's the daughter of that man!" said Bennington, still more
slowly.

"Wall, so Mis' Lawton sez," chuckled Mizzou.

That night Bennington lay awake for some time. He had discovered the
Mountain Flower; the story-book West was complete at last. But he had
offended his discovery. What was the etiquette in such a case? Back
East he would have felt called upon to apologize for being rude. Then,
at the thought of apologizing to a daughter of that turkey-necked old
whisky-guzzler he had to laugh.

CHAPTER IV

THE SUN FAIRY

The next afternoon, after the day's writing and prospecting were
finished, Bennington resolved to go deer hunting. He had skipped
thirteen chapters of his work to describe the heroine, Rhoda. She had
wonderful eyes, and was, I believe, dressed in a garment whose colour
was pink.

"Keep yore moccasins greased," Old Mizzou advised at parting; by which
he meant that the young man was to step softly.

This he found to be difficult. His course lay along the top of the
ridge where the obstructions were many. There were outcrops, boulders,
ravines, broken twigs, old leaves, and dikes, all of which had to be
surmounted or avoided. They were all aggravating, but the dikes
possessed some intellectual interest which the others lacked.

A dike, be it understood, is a hole in the earth made visible. That is
to say, in old days, when mountains were much loftier than they are
now, various agencies brought it to pass that they split and cracked
and yawned down to the innermost cores of their being in such hideous
fashion that chasms and holes of great depth and perpendicularity were
opened in them. Thereupon the interior fires were released, and these,
vomiting up a vast supply of molten material, filled said chasms and
holes to the very brim. The molten material cooled into fire-hardened
rock. The rains descended and the snows melted