the information of Demorest,
often with chaffing and only under good-humored protest. "Tell Demorest
how you broke the 'Copper Ring,'" from the admiring Barker, or, "Tell
Demorest how your d----d foolishness in buying up the right and plant of
the Ditch Company got you control of the railroad," from the mischievous
Stacy, were challenges in point. Presently they left the table, and, to
the astonishment of the waiters who removed the cloth, common brier-wood
pipes, thoughtfully provided by Barker in commemoration of the Past,
were lit, and they ranged themselves in armchairs before the fire quite
unconsciously in their old attitudes. The two windows on either side of
the hearth gave them the same view that the open door of the old cabin
had made familiar to them, the league-long valley below the shadowy bulk
of the Black Spur rising in the distance, and, still more remote, the
pallid snow-line that soared even beyond its crest.

As in the old time, they were for many moments silent; and then, as in
the old time, it was the irrepressible Barker who broke the silence.
"But Stacy does not tell you anything about his friend, the beautiful
Mrs. Horncastle. You know he's the guardian of one of the finest women
in California--a woman as noble and generous as she is handsome. And
think of it! He's protecting her from her brute of a husband, and
looking after her property. Isn't it good and chivalrous of him?"

The irrepressible laughter of the two men brought only wonder and
reproachful indignation into the widely opened eyes of Barker. HE was
perfectly sincere. He had been thinking of Stacy's admiration for
Mrs. Horncastle in his ride from Boomville, and, strange to say, yet
characteristic of his nature, it was equally the natural outcome of his
interview with her and the singular effect she had upon him. That he
(Barker) thoroughly sympathized with her only convinced him that Stacy
must feel the same for her, and that, no doubt, she must respond to him
equally. And how noble it was in his old partner, with his advantages of
position in the world and his protecting relations to her, not to avail
himself of this influence upon her generous nature. If he himself--a
married man and the husband of Kitty--was so conscious of her charm, how
much greater it must be to the free and INEXPERIENCED Stacy.

The italics were in Barker's thought; for in those matters he felt
that Stacy and even Demorest, occupied in other things, had not h