mingled with a feeling
that he was losing something very fine and tender which had but just
come into his life.

He went back to his work on the other side of the river, where his crew
was working. He was called home a few weeks later, and he never saw
husband or wife again. He learned from Wilber, however, in a short
letter that things were going much the same as ever.

"Dear Sir: I don't know much about Miner. Hees purty quiet I guess.
Dock Moss thinks hees a little off his nut. I don't. I think its pur
cussidness."

OF THOSE WHO SEEK.

I. THE PRISONED SOUL.

The Capitol swarmed with people.

Groups of legislators tramped noisily along the corridors, laughing
loudly, gesticulating with pointed fingers or closed fists.

Squads of ragged, wondering, and wistful-eyed negroes, splashed with
orange-colored mud from the fields, moved timidly on from magnificence
to magnificence, keeping close to each other, solemn and silent. When
they spoke they whispered. Others from the city streets laughed loudly
and swaggered along to show their contempt for the place and their
knowledge of its public character; but their insolence was half assumed.

Lean and lank Southerners, with the imperial cut on their pale, brown
whiskers, alternated with stalwart, slouch-hatted Westerners.
Clean-shaven, pale clerks hurried to and fro; groups of sightseers
infested every nook, and wore the look of those determined to see it
all. They were accompanied often by one whose certainty of accent gave
evidence of his fitness to be their guide. The sound of his voice
proclaimed his judgments as he pushed his dazed wordless victims about.

In a group in the center of the checkered marble floor of the rotunda, a
powerful Indian, dressed in semi-civilized fashion, was standing,
looking wonderingly down into the upturned face of a little girl. The
circle of bystanders silently studied both man and maid.

She was about eleven years of age and was tastefully dressed, and seemed
a healthy child. Her face was solemn, sweet, and inquisitive. She held
one half-opened hand in the air; with the other she touched the Indian's
dark, strongly molded cheek, and pressed his long hair which streamed
from beneath his broad white hat.

No one smiled. She was deaf and dumb and blind.

In her raised rosy little palm, with lightning-swift motion, fluttered
the hand of her teacher. By the teacher's side stood an Indian
interpreter, dressed in hunting shirt