tlaw
retreated to the brush than Jake Dodsley whipped out his gun and took to
the same brush, bent upon an encounter with his despoiler. Poor Jake
never came from the brush alive. The rest heard the report of a rifle
shot, and when, some time later, they found Jake, he was dead, with a
rifle ball in his head.

The first murder done and the fourth robbery! Yet the mystery was as
insoluble as ever. Of what avail was the rage of eight hundred miners,
the sagacity of the indefatigable officers of the law, and the united
efforts of the vengeance-breathing population throughout the country
round about to hunt the murderers down? Why, it seemed as if the devil
himself were holding justice up to ridicule and scorn.

We had the funeral next day. Sir Charles Lackington came by private
wagon in the morning; his daughter was with him. Their escape from
participation in the affair of the previous day naturally filled them
with thanksgiving, yet did not abate their sympathy for the rest of us in
our mourning over the dead poet. Sir Charles was the first to suggest a
fund for a monument to poor Jake, and he headed the subscription list
with one hundred dollars, cash down. A noble funeral it was; everybody
cried; at the grave Three-fingered Hoover recited the poem about true
love and Jim Woppit threw in a wreath of hollyhock leaves which his
sister had sent--the poor thing was too sick to come herself. She must
have cared more for Jake than she had ever let on, for she took to her
bed when she heard that he was dead.

Amid the deepest excitement further schemes for the apprehension of the
criminals who had so long baffled detection were set on foot and--but
this is not a story of crime; it is the story of a wooing, and I must not
suffer myself to be drawn away from the narrative of that wooing. With
the death of the poet Dodsley one actor fell out of the little comedy.
And yet another stepped in at once. You would hardly guess who it
was--Mary Lackington. This seventeen-year-old girl favored her father in
personal appearance and character; she was of the English type of blonde
beauty--a light-hearted, good-hearted, sympathetic creature who
recognized it as her paramount duty to minister to her invalid father.
He had been her instructor in books, he had conducted her education, he
had directed her amusements, he had been her associate--in short, father
and daughter were companions, and from that sweet companionship both