t by his ecstasies over a
large sample of iron pyrites, which he had mistaken for a splendid
specimen of gold ore. Altogether it was a novel and pleasant
experience for him, and when he joined Houston later, he felt himself
considerably wiser in western lore.

After supper, Mr. Blaisdell and Haight returned to the office for a
private conference regarding some new ores which the latter had been
testing. Morgan strolled down the gulch in the direction of the Y,
drawn by the attractions of the gambling house and dance hall, leaving
the two strangers to seek their own amusement, or to be entertained by
Miss Gladden; they chose the latter, and, since among the mountains as
on the ocean, friendships are quickly formed, the three were soon
chatting as pleasantly, out in the low, rustic porch, as though their
acquaintance dated back a number of days, instead of only a few hours.
At the kitchen door, old Jim Maverick and his sons, with a dozen or so
miners, lounged about, smoking their pipes, and enlivened by the
blushing, giggling Miss Bixby.

With the latter crowd Lyle would never mingle, much to the indignation
of Maverick himself, and the chagrin of two or three would-be
admirers, and not feeling at liberty to join, unasked, the group in
the porch, she withdrew to her little room up-stairs, and taking from
its hiding place one of the new books her friend had brought her,
she was for a while unconscious of everything else. Then, as the
twilight deepened, she closed the book, and having again concealed it,
sat watching the stars just beginning to appear, one by one, and
musing, as she often did, on her own life. Why had she not, with her
passionate love of the beautiful and her thirst for knowledge, been
given the birth and training, the social advantages of any one of
that little group below? Or, if the fates had decreed that she must be
born in such ignorance and degradation, and spend her life in such
surroundings, why had they not given her a nature corresponding to
her environment, as indifferent and unaspiring as that of the
phlegmatic Miss Bixby? Why must she always feel as if she had been
born to a better life than this, when in all probability, it must
always go on in the same old routine which she hated and despised?
She wondered what Jack meant by the questions he had asked her so
often lately, as to where they had lived before coming to the
mountains, and regarding her earliest recollections. Well, what were
he