th pleased and relieved.

A week or two after Keith had taken up his abode in Gumbolt, Mr. Gilsey
was taken down with his old enemy, the rheumatism, and Keith went to
visit him. He found him in great anxiety lest his removal from the box
should hasten the arrival of the railway. He unexpectedly gave Keith
evidence of the highest confidence he could have in any man. He asked
if he would take the stage until he got well. Gordon readily assented.

So the next morning at daylight Keith found himself sitting in the boot,
enveloped in old Tim's greatcoat, enthroned in that high seat toward
which he had looked in his childhood-dreams.

It was hard work and more or less perilous work, but his experience as a
boy on the plantation and at Squire Rawson's, when he had driven the
four-horse wagon, stood him in good stead.

Old Tim's illness was more protracted than any one had contemplated,
and, before the first winter was out, Gordon had a reputation as a
stage-driver second only to old Gilsey himself.

Stage-driving, however, was not his only occupation, and before the next
Spring had passed, Keith had become what Mr. Plume called "one of
Gumbolt's rising young sons." His readiness to lend a hand to any one
who needed a helper began to tell. Whether it was Mr. Gilsey trying to
climb with his stiff joints to the boot of his stage, or Squire Rawson's
cousin, Captain Turley, the sandy-whiskered, sandy-clothed surveyor,
running his lines through the laurel bushes among the gray debris of the
crumbled mountain-side; Mr. Quincy Plume trying to evolve new copy from
a splitting head, or the shouting wagon-drivers thrashing their teams up
the muddy street, he could and would help any one.

He was so popular that he was nominated to be the town constable, a
tribute to his victory over Mr. Bluffy.

Terpy and he, too, had become friends, and though Keith stuck to his
resolution not to visit her "establishment," few days went by that she
did not pass him on the street or happen along where he was, and always
with a half-abashed nod and a rising color.

CHAPTER XII

KEITH DECLINES AN OFFER

With the growth of Gumbolt, Mr. Wickersham and his friends awakened to
the fact that Squire Rawson was not the simple cattle-dealer he appeared
to be, but was a man to be reckoned with. He not only held a large
amount of the most valuable property in the Gap, but had as yet proved
wholly intractable about disposing of it. Accordingly, the age