second more to aim he would have blown my brains out; but being so
quick, Nelson's bullet must have reached him as he fired at me, for his
shot went off through the roof. As the brute fell, there seemed to be a
general scrimmage, but the rest got off through the end door, which they
at last broke down, just as the Senator and the Vicomte and the other
miners came up the stairs. Wasn't it thrilling, Mamma? I would not have
missed it for worlds, now it is over.

I suppose the bullet which killed my assailant grazed a scrap of my
shoulder, or perhaps it was his gun going off did it, anyway I felt it
wet. The next instant I was in Nelson's arms, being carried into my
room. His face was again like death, and he bent over me.

"My God, have I hurt you?" he said in an agonised voice. "My darling, my
lady, my love----" But I don't feel as if I ought to tell you the rest
of his words, Mamma. They burst from him in the anguish of his heart,
and he is the dearest, noblest gentleman, and I feel honoured and
exalted by his love.

I reassured him as well as I could. I told him I was not really hurt at
all, only a little grazed, and I helped him to soak up the blood with my
handkerchief, and then for a few minutes I felt faint and can't remember
any more.

I don't suppose I could have been stupid for more than five minutes,
but when I came to, Octavia was there with a quilt pinned over her
nightgown, and she and the Senator were bathing my shoulder, and even
that little cut hurt rather and I fear will leave a deep scar.

The poor secretary had his ankle broken, but otherwise was unhurt, and
nobody minded at all about the man Nelson had killed. They only wished
he had exterminated more of them. And Tom and the Vicomte are having the
time of their lives, for as soon as dawn broke they joined the Sheriff
with a posse, aided by the state police in pursuit of the escaped
desperadoes, and as the _Moonbeams Chronicle_ prints it today, "A
general round up of bad men is in progress."

Fancy us having the luck to come in for all this, Mamma, and to see
the real thing! The Senator had only been joking, he said, when he had
promised us that, as all this sort of excitement is a thing of the past
in camps, which are generally perfectly orderly now; and he thought by
making us go to bed he was causing us to avoid seeing even a little
quarrelling in the streets.

None of the dear real miners would have touched us, and by some strange
chance n