unafraid looseness of her bright hair. Her face, lit by her amber eyes
and crowned by those loose masses of hair, had a rare, dusky-gold
beauty. Despite her hair she was dark-skinned, smooth and warm like
bisque, and that same gold-dusted radiance that was in her hair and that
same amber-gold light that was in her eyes glowed ineffably from beneath
her skin. She was a pulse of light, colourful and vibrant. "Yes, indeed,
sir," she resumed after a while, jabbing the hat-pin into the hat
relentlessly, "_this_ is what a Missouri girl is like!"

_Chapter Four_

FOR THE BENEFIT OF CARINGTON

My dear Carry:

I should have written you sooner, save that the developments here have
given me so little that is pleasant to write about. My experience with
Grierson's agent has been too exasperating for description, and I should
have given up and have got out at once had it not been for the Missouri
in me, and had I not got a feeling of encouragement from other
experiences.

To begin with: When I reached Missouri, I lit out for the southwestern
part of the State by train. At Springfield I fell in with some English
fellows who are over at Joplin in the interests of a Welsh company. They
had an expedition all planned to take in some of the Southwest by team
on their way back to Joplin, and as they were going to push down pretty
close to my objective point, I joined the expedition. There was a great
deal of enthusiasm among us about zinc,--jack they call it down
here,--and the talk at first was all of the stupidity of Missourians in
not getting at this part of their State, as well as the section about
Joplin, in the search for ore. I noticed that as we got into the
rough-going of the ridge roads, and the hills got steeper and the woods
denser and the rocks thicker, the opinion seemed to grow upon us that
Missourians might understand their country better than we did. We had a
driver who knew the roads well, when he could find them. We had a
geological expert who got sadder and sadder every time we spilled out of
the waggons and speared around in the rocks for a little while. And we
had a great deal of bacon. Still, when we reached Bessietown, where we
struck the steam-cars, the Joplin crowd broke for the train on a run.
From Bessie there was a straight trail over the Ridge to Canaan and I
decided to make the trip on horseback. I had got stubborn.

Well, by and by, and more and more full of bacon, I was at Canaan, and
had fou