hem when we reach the station. I am going to give you a lift there
when my daughter is ready. And here she is."

It was the old Cissy that stepped into the room, dressed as she was when
she left her father's house two days before. Oddly enough, he fancied
that something of her old conscious manner had returned with her
clothes, and as he stepped with her into the back seat of the covered
sleigh in waiting, he could not help saying, "I really think I
understand you better in your other clothes."

A slight blush mounted to Cissy's cheek, but her eyes were still
audacious. "All the same, I don't think you'd like to walk down Main
Street with me in that rig, although you once thought nothing of taking
me over your old mill in your blue blouse and overalls." And having
apparently greatly relieved her proud little heart by this enigmatic
statement, she grew so chatty and confidential that the young man was
satisfied that he had been in love with her from the first!

When they reached the station, Trixit drew him aside. Taking an envelope
marked "Private Contracts" from his pocket, he opened it and displayed
some papers. "These are the securities. Tell your directors that you
have seen them safe in my hands, and that no one else has seen them.
Tell them that if they will send me their renewed notes, dated from
to-day, to Sacramento within the next three days, I will return the
securities. That is my message."

The young man bowed. But before the coach started he managed to draw
near to Cissy. "You are not returning to Canada City," he said.

The young girl made a gesture of indignation. "No! I am never going
there again. I go with my popper to Sacramento."

"Then I suppose I must say 'good-by.'"

The girl looked at him in surprise. "Popper says you are coming to
Sacramento in three days!"

"Am I?"

He looked at her fixedly. She returned his glance audaciously,
steadfastly.

"You are," she said, in her low but distinct voice.

"I will."

And he did.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FONDA

PART I

"Well!" said the editor of the "Mountain Clarion," looking up
impatiently from his copy. "What's the matter now?"

The intruder in his sanctum was his foreman. He was also acting as
pressman, as might be seen from his shirt-sleeves spattered with ink,
rolled up over the arm that had just been working "the Archimedian lever
that moves the world," which was the editor's favorite allusion to the
hand-press that strict e