ild fruits were white with blossoms, as if from far above on the
mountains the snows had blown down and settled here and there on the new
twigs of green.

And high up above the camp of the Twin Springs, Overton and Harris sat
looking over the wide stretches of forest, and the younger man looked
troubled.

"I think your fear is all an empty affair," he said, in an argumentative
tone. "You eat well and sleep well. What gives you the idea you are to be
called in soon?"

"Several things," said the other, slowly, and his speech was yet
indistinct; "but most of all the feel of my feet and legs. A week ago my
feet turned cold; this week the coldness is up to my knees, and it won't
go away. I know what it means. When it gets as high as my heart I'll be
done for. That won't take long, Dan; and I want to see her first."

"She can't help you."

"Yes, she can, too. You don't know. Dan, send for her."

"Things are all different with her now," protested the other. "She's with
friends who are not of the diggings or the ranges, Joe. She is going to
marry Max Lyster; and, altogether, is not the same little girl who made
our coffee for us down there in the flat. You must not expect that she
will change all her new, happy life to run back here just because you want
to talk to her."

"She'll come if you telegraph I want her," insisted Harris. "I know her
better than you do, Dan. The fine life will never spoil her. She would be
happier here to-day in a canoe than she would be on a throne. I know her
best."

"She wasn't very happy before she left here."

"No," he agreed; "but there were reasons, Dan. Why are you so set against
her coming back?"

"Set against it? Oh, no."

"Yes, you are. Mrs. Huzzard and all the camp would be only too glad to see
her; but you--you say no. What's your reason?"

"Joe, not many months ago you tried to make me suspicious of her," said
Overton, not moving his eyes from a distant blue peak of the hills. "You
remember the day you fell in a heap? Well, I've never asked you your
reasons for that; though I've thought of it considerably. You changed your
mind about her afterward, and trusted her with the plan of this gold field
down here. Now, you had reasons for that, too; but I never have asked you
what they are. Do the same for me, will you?"

The other man did not answer for a little while, but he watched Dan's
moody face with a great deal of kindness in his own.

"You won't tell me?" he said at la