n the wharf.

"Why didn't you go?" said Clay; "you have no business at the
Custom-House."

"Neither have you," said MacWilliams. "But I guess we both understand.
There's no good pushing your luck too far."

"What do you mean by that--this time?"

"Why, what have we to do with all of this?" cried MacWilliams. "It's
what I keep telling you every day. We're not in that class, and you're
only making it harder for yourself when they've gone. I call it
cruelty to animals myself, having women like that around. Up North,
where everybody's white, you don't notice it so much, but down
here--Lord!"

"That's absurd," Clay answered. "Why should you turn your back on
civilization when it comes to you, just because you're not going back
to civilization by the next steamer? Every person you meet either
helps you or hurts you. Those girls help us, even if they do make the
life here seem bare and mean."

"Bare and mean!" repeated MacWilliams incredulously. "I think that's
just what they don't do. I like it all the better because they're
mixed up in it. I never took so much interest in your mines until she
took to riding over them, and I didn't think great shakes of my old
ore-road, either, but now that she's got to acting as engineer, it's
sort of nickel-plated the whole outfit. I'm going to name the new
engine after her--when it gets here--if her old man will let me."

"What do you mean? Miss Langham hasn't been to the mines but once, has
she?"

"Miss Langham!" exclaimed MacWilliams. "No, I mean the other, Miss
Hope. She comes out with Ted nearly every day now, and she's learning
how to run a locomotive. Just for fun, you know," he added,
reassuringly.

"I didn't suppose she had any intention of joining the Brotherhood,"
said Clay. "So she's been out every day, has she? I like that," he
commented, enthusiastically. "She's a fine, sweet girl."

"Fine, sweet girl!" growled MacWilliams. "I should hope so. She's the
best. They don't make them any better than that, and just think, if
she's like that now, what will she be when she's grown up, when she's
learned a few things? Now her sister. You can see just what her
sister will be at thirty, and at fifty, and at eighty. She's
thoroughbred and she's the most beautiful woman to look at I ever
saw--but, my son--she is too careful. She hasn't any illusions, and no
sense of humor. And a woman with no illusions and no sense of humor is
going to be monotonous.