e no doubt it was the sheriff and Brace. To avoid recognition at
that moment, he whipped up his horse, intending to keep the lead until
he could turn into the first cross-road. But the coming travelers had
the fleetest horse; and finding it impossible to distance them, he
drove close to the ditch, pulling up suddenly as the strange vehicle
was abreast of him, and forcing them to pass him at full speed, with
the result already chronicled. When they had vanished in the darkness,
Mr. Wynn, with a heart overflowing with Christian thankfulness and
universal benevolence, wheeled round, and drove back to the hotel he
had already passed. To pull up at the veranda with a stentorian shout,
to thump loudly at the deserted bar, to hilariously beat the panels of
the landlord's door, and commit a jocose assault and battery upon that
half-dressed and half-awakened man, was eminently characteristic of
Wynn, and part of his amiable plans that morning.

"Something to wash this wood smoke from my throat, Brother Carter, and
about as much again to prop open your eyes," he said, dragging Carter
before the bar, "and glasses round for as many of the boys as are up
and stirring after a hard-working Christian's rest. How goes the honest
publican's trade, and who have we here?"

"Thar's Judge Robinson and two lawyers from Sacramento, Dick Curson
over from Yolo," said Carter, "and that ar young Injin yarb doctor from
the Carquinez Woods. I reckon he's jist up--I noticed a light under his
door as I passed."

"He's my man for a friendly chat before breakfast," said Wynn. "You
needn't come up. I'll find the way. I don't want a light; I reckon my
eyes ain't as bright nor as young as his, but they'll see almost as far
in the dark--he-he!" And, nodding to Brother Carter, he strode along
the passage, and with no other introduction than a playful and
preliminary "Boo!" burst into one of the rooms. Low, who by the light
of a single candle was bending over the plates of a large quarto,
merely raised his eyes and looked at the intruder. The young man's
natural imperturbability, always exasperating to Wynn, seemed accented
that morning by contrast with his own over-acted animation.

"Ah ha!--wasting the midnight oil instead of imbibing the morning
dews," said Father Wynn archly, illustrating his metaphor with a
movement of his hand to his lips. "What have we here?"

"An anonymous gift," replied Low simply, recognizing the father of
Nellie by rising from