d all," she
murmured finally. The man beside her looked around into her face
and laughed.

"I'm not very bad scared," he said, advancing softly in line with his
proposed patient, motioning the girl not to make herself known, or
startle her uncle.

Johnnie stole after him, filled with anxiety. When the newcomer stood
directly behind the kneeling man, he bent, and his arms shot out with
surprising quickness. The fingers of one hand dropped as though
predestined upon the back of the neck, the other caught skilfully
beneath the chin. There was a sharp wrench, an odd crack, a grunt from
Uncle Pros, and then the mountaineer sprang to his full and very
considerable height with a roar. Whirling upon his adversary, he
grappled him in his long arms, hugging like a grizzly, and shouting:

"You, Gid Himes, wha'r's my specimens?"

He shook the stranger savagely.

"You an' Shade Buckheath--you p'ar o' scoundrels--give me back my silver
specimens! Give me back my silver ore that shows about the mine for my
little gal."

"Uncle Pros! Uncle Pros!" screamed Johnnie, rushing in and laying hold
of the man's arm, "Don't you know me? It's Johnnie. Don't hurt this
gentleman."

The convulsion of rage subsided in the old man with almost comical
suddenness. His tense form relaxed; he stumbled back, dropping his hands
at his sides and staring about him, then at Johnnie.

"Why, honey," he gasped, "how did you come here? Whar's Gid? Whar's
Shade Buckheath? Lord A'mighty! Whar am I at?"

He looked around him bewildered, evidently expecting to see the porch of
Himes's boarding-house at Cottonville, the scattered bits of silver ore,
and the rifled bandanna. He put his hand to his head, and sliding it
softly down to the back of the neck demanded.

"What's been did to me?"

"You be right good and quiet now, and mind Johnnie," the girl began,
with a pathetic tremble in her voice, "and she'll take you back to the
hospital where they're so kind to you."

"The hospital?" echoed Pros. "That hospital down at Cottonville? I never
was inside o' one o' them places--what do you want me to go thar for,
Johnnie? Who is this gentleman? How came we-all up here on the road
this-a-way?"

"I can quiet him," said Johnnie aside to her new friend. "I always can
when he gets wild this way."

The unknown shook his head.

"You'll never have to quiet him any more, unless he breaks his neck
again," came the announcement. "Your uncle is as sane as anybody--h