ttle Widow with the sad sweet face, laughed the
prettiest little laugh that ever was laughed this side that other Eden
with its one fair woman.

Limber Tim closed his mouth and unscrewed himself from the palings on
the fence without as Sandy appeared, and the two took their way to their
cabin.

"And you are such good company." That was all Sandy could remember. What
could he have said? He tried and tried to recall his observations,
whatever they may have been, on the various topics of the day, but in
vain. He could only remember the circumstance of driving two ugly
bull-dogs back under his bench, of slaying and hiding away his mortal
enemy, and then hanging a felon for high treason; and then chiefest of
all, "You will come again, it is lonesome here; you are such good
company."

"You are such good company." The wind sang it through the trees as he
wended his way home. The water, away down in the canon below the trail,
sang it soft and low and sweet, sang it ever, and nothing more, and the
tea-kettle that night simmered and sang, and sang this one sweet song
for Sandy.

He took the first opportunity after supper to slip out and away from
Limber Tim; and there in the dark, with his face to the great black
forest, he stood saying over and over to himself, in his great coarse
voice, trying to catch the soft tones of the Widow, "You are such good
company."

That evening Limber Tim leaned up against the logs of the Howling
Wilderness, and told all that had happened, and how Sandy had seen the
Widow, how he had sat in her cabin, how he had talked, and how she had
smiled, and what a very hero his "pardner" had become. He told of
Washee-Washee.

The story of Washee-Washee went through the Forks, and then the next
morning the Forks rose up and "went through" Washee-Washee.

Perhaps it was what the Widow had said about the "poor little, helpless,
harmless man," that saved him, but certain it was, for some unknown
reason, the miners dealt gently with this strange little stranger. Had
this been one or even a dozen, of their own kind, some tree in the
neighborhood of the Forks would have borne in less than an hour one, or
even a dozen, of strange and ugly fruit. They went to Washee-Washee's
cabin. He smiled as he saw them approach, half shut his eyes as they
entered, laid his head a little to one side as they tore up his bunk,
and looked perfectly happy, and peaceful as a lamb, as they pulled out
from under it enough old cl