is suit about the
'Amity Claim,' and that he lives in the old cabin, and is drunk half his
time. O, I beg your pardon," added the lively lady, as a flush crossed
York's sallow cheek; "but, bless me, I really thought that old grudge
was made up. I'm sure it ought to be."

It was three months after this conversation, and a pleasant summer
evening, that the Poverty Flat coach drew up before the veranda of the
Union Hotel at Sandy Bar. Among its passengers was one, apparently a
stranger, in the local distinction of well-fitting clothes and closely
shaven face, who demanded a private room and retired early to rest. But
before sunrise next morning he arose, and, drawing some clothes from his
carpet-bag, proceeded to array himself in a pair of white duck trousers,
a white duck overshirt, and straw hat. When his toilet was completed, he
tied a red bandanna handkerchief in a loop and threw it loosely over his
shoulders. The transformation was complete. As he crept softly down the
stairs and stepped into the road, no one would have detected in him the
elegant stranger of the previous night, and but few have recognized the
face and figure of Henry York of Sandy Bar.

In the uncertain light of that early hour, and in the change that had
come over the settlement, he had to pause for a moment to recall where
he stood. The Sandy Bar of his recollection lay below him, nearer the
river; the buildings around him were of later date and newer fashion.
As he strode toward the river, he noticed here a schoolhouse and there a
church. A little farther on, "The Sunny South" came in view, transformed
into a restaurant, its gilding faded and its paint rubbed off. He now
knew where he was; and, running briskly down a declivity, crossed a
ditch, and stood upon the lower boundary of the Amity Claim.

The gray mist was rising slowly from the river, clinging to the
tree-tops and drifting up the mountain-side, until it was caught among
those rocky altars, and held a sacrifice to the ascending sun. At his
feet the earth, cruelly gashed and scarred by his forgotten engines,
had, since the old days, put on a show of greenness here and there, and
now smiled forgivingly up at him, as if things were not so bad after
all. A few birds were bathing in the ditch with a pleasant suggestion of
its being a new and special provision of nature, and a hare ran into an
inverted sluice-box, as he approached, as if it were put there for that
purpose.

He had not yet