be a boy, I can't
take it on the trail, and a ranger like me is not fit to look after her,
anyway. I think I told you before, I'm not a marrying man, and she, of
course, would not look at me if I was; so what does it matter about her
thinking of me? Of course, she won't--it ain't my intention. Even if she
leaves these diggings some day and forgets all about me, just as the young
wolves or wildcats do--well, what difference? I've helped old bums all
over the country, and never heard or wanted to hear of them again, and I'm
sure it's more worth one's while to help a young girl. Now, you're a nice
little woman, Mrs. Huzzard, and I like you. But if you and I are to keep
on being good friends, don't you speak like that about the child and me.
It's very foolish. If she should hear it, she'd leave us some fine night,
and we'd never learn her address."

Then he put on his hat, nodded to her, and walked out of the door as
though averse to any further discussion of the subject.

"Bums all over the country!" repeated Mrs. Huzzard, looking after him
darkly. "Well, Mr. Dan Overton, it's well for you that ward of yours, as
you call her, wasn't near enough to hear that speech. And you're not a
marrying man, are you? Well, well, I guess there's many a man and woman,
too, goes through life and don't know what they might be, just because
they never meet with the right person who could help them to learn, and
you're just of that sort. Not a marrying man! Humph! When there's not a
better favored one along this valley--that there ain't."

She fidgeted about the dinner preparations, filled with a puzzled
impatience as to why Dan Overton should thus decidedly state that he was
not one of the men to marry, though all the rest of the world might fall
into the popular habit if they chose.

"It's the natural ambition of creation," she declared in confidence to the
dried peach-pie she was slipping from the oven. "Of course, being as I'm a
widow myself, I can't just make that statement to men folks promiscuous
like. But it's true, and every man ought to know it's true, and why Dan
Overton--"

She paused in the midst of her soliloquy, and dropped into the nearest
chair, while a light of comprehension illuminated her broad face.

"To think it never came in my mind before," she ejaculated. "That's it!
Poor boy! he's had a girl somewhere and she's died, I suppose, or married
some other fellow; and that's why he's a bachelor at nearly thirty, I
gu