. Maybe, after all, it was only the devotion of
some honest, clear-headed man, some wealthy, fortunate fellow who wanted
to quietly reward her for her noble deeds in the day of trouble.

Then came another nugget, and then another. She laid them in a row on
her mantel-piece, and men (for visitors were not so infrequent now as at
first) would come in, handle them, make their observations, guess from
what claim this one came or that; and no man there ever told or hinted
or in any way remarked that he had sent this or that, or had had any
part in the splendid gifts that lay so carelessly on the little Widow's
mantel-piece.

The little dreamer, the boy-poet, was once more seen on the trail with
his pick and pan looking for gold in the earth by day, for gold in the
skies at night. But never a word did he whisper of the awful threat of
the Parson.

CHAPTER X.

A SCENE IN THE SIERRAS.

To the amazement of all the Forks, one day, when a bearded man in gum
boots, slouch hat, and blue shirt, reached in at the Widow's for his
washing, the hand that reached it out was not the Widow's. It was the
little brown lazy hand of Washee-Washee.

Of course the camp did not like this. This Chinaman to them was a sort
of eclipse, a dark body passing between the miners and their sun. They
remonstrated, and the Parson bore the remonstrance to the Widow in a
speech of his own; and, to his own great surprise it was not ornamented
with a single oath.

"The Forks began his reformation; let me go on with it. Why not?"
answered the woman.

"You will be plundered."

"Of what?"

The Parson looked at the gold nuggets on the mantel-piece, and shifted
the quid of tobacco from right to left.

"Washee-Washee will lie," began the Widow soberly. "He can lie, and he
does lie, very cheerfully and very rapidly, in spite of his name, which
might suggest better things; but he steals no more--do you, little
brownie?"

Washee-Washee's little black eyes glistened with gratitude. The little
pagan was coming up in the social scale. The Widow had begun her
missionary business where all the world ought to begin it--at home.

The Parson went away. He felt that somehow his footing with the Widow
was shaken, and that he must do something to redeem the day.

The Parson was always trying to do something original. He concluded to
"lay for" the Chinaman.

He took a fresh quid of tobacco, stowed himself away in the bush, and
waited.

In the twilight,