" repeated all--all save Ashby, whose snores by this time
could be heard throughout the big room--and drained their glasses.

VI.

There was a general movement towards the bar when the fair proprietress
of The Polka, who had lingered longer than usual in her little cabin on
top of the mountain, breezily entered the place by the main door. In a
coarse, blue skirt, and rough, white flannel blouse, cut away and held
in place at the throat by a crimson ribbon, the Girl made a pretty
picture; it was not difficult to see why the boys of Cloudy Mountain
Camp had a feeling which fell little short of adoration for this
sun-browned maid, with the spirit of the mountain in her eyes. That
each in his own way had given her to understand that he was desperately
smitten with her, goes without saying. But, although she accepted their
rough homage as a matter of course, such a thought as falling in love
with anyone of them had never entered her mind.

As far back, almost, as she could remember, the Girl had lived among
them and had ever been a true comrade, sharing their disappointments and
thrilling with their successes. Of a nature pure and simple, she was,
nevertheless, frank and outspoken. Moreover, she knew to a dot what was
meant when someone--bolder than his mates--stretched out his arms to
her. One such exhibition on a man's part she was likely to forgive and
forget, but the wrath and scorn that had blazed forth from her blue
eyes on such an occasion had been sufficient to prevent a repetition of
the offence. In short, unspoiled by their coarse flattery, and, to all
appearances, happy and care-free, she attended to the running of The
Polka wholly unsmirched by her environment.

But a keen observer would not have failed to detect that the Girl took
a little less pleasure in her surroundings than she had taken in them
before she had made the trip to Monterey. Downright glad, to use her own
expression, as she had been on her return to see the boys of the camp
and hear their boisterous shouts of welcome when the stage drew up in
front of The Polka, she had to acknowledge that her home-coming was not
quite what she expected. It was as if she had suddenly been startled out
of a beautiful dream wherein she had been listening to the soft music of
her lover's voice and brought face to face with the actualities of life,
which, in her case, to say the least, were very real.

For hours after leaving her admirer sitting motionles