w dollars by, though I won't have so many after to-morrow, after
I've given you a little pile, Jinny."

"P'r'aps there won't be any to-morrow, as you expect," she said slowly.

The old man started. "What, you and Jake ain't quarrelled again? You
ain't broke it off at the last moment, same as before? You ain't had a
letter from Jake?" He looked at the white petticoat on the chairback,
and shook his head in bewilderment.

"I've had no letter," she answered. "I've had no letter from Selby for
a month. It was all settled then, and there was no good writing, when
he was coming to-morrow with the minister and the licence. Who do you
think'd be postman from Selby here? It must have cost him ten dollars to
send the last letter."

"Then what's the matter? I don't understand," the old man urged
querulously. He did not want her to marry and leave him, but he wanted
no more troubles; he did not relish being asked awkward questions by
every mountaineer he met, as to why Jenny Long didn't marry Jake Lawson.

"There's only one way that I can be married tomorrow," she said at
last, "and that's by you taking a man down the Dog Nose Rapids to Bindon
to-night."

He dropped the pigeons on the floor, dumbfounded. "What in--"

He stopped short, in sheer incapacity, to go further. Jenny had not
always been easy to understand, but she was wholly incomprehensible now.

She picked up the pigeons and was about to speak, but she glanced at the
bedroom door, where her exhausted visitor had stretched himself on her
bed, and beckoned her uncle to another room.

"There's a plate of vittles ready for you in there," she said. "I'll
tell you as you eat."

He followed her into the little living-room adorned by the trophies of
his earlier achievements with gun and rifle, and sat down at the table,
where some food lay covered by a clean white cloth.

"No one'll ever look after me as you've done, Jinny," he said, as he
lifted the cloth and saw the palatable dish ready for him. Then he
remembered again about to-morrow and the Dog Nose Rapids.

"What's it all about, Jinny? What's that about my canoeing a man down to
Bindon?"

"Eat, uncle," she said more softly than she had yet spoken, for his
words about her care of him had brought a moisture to her eyes. "I'll be
back in a minute and tell you all about it."

"Well, it's about took away my appetite," he said. "I feel a kind of
sinking." He took from his pocket a bottle, poured some of its conte