not go until you speak. Do not deny me now. You will!--I see it in
your sweet face--such a face as I have seen in my dreams. I see it in
your eyes, Miss Mary!--you will take my boy!"

The last red beam crept higher, suffused Miss Mary's eyes with something
of its glory, flickered, and faded, and went out. The sun had set on Red
Gulch. In the twilight and silence Miss Mary's voice sounded pleasantly.

"I will take the boy. Send him to me tonight."

The happy mother raised the hem of Miss Mary's skirts to her lips. She
would have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not.
She rose to her feet.

"Does--this man--know of your intention?" asked Miss Mary, suddenly.

"No, nor cares. He has never even seen the child to know it."

"Go to him at once--tonight--now! Tell him what you have done. Tell him
I have taken his child, and tell him--he must never see--see--the child
again. Wherever it may be, he must not come; wherever I may take it, he
must not follow! There, go now, please--I'm weary, and--have much yet to
do!"

They walked together to the door. On the threshold the woman turned.

"Good night."

She would have fallen at Miss Mary's feet. But at the same moment the
young girl reached out her arms, caught the sinful woman to her own pure
breast for one brief moment, and then closed and locked the door.

It was with a sudden sense of great responsibility that Profane Bill
took the reins of the Slumgullion Stage the next morning, for the
schoolmistress was one of his passengers. As he entered the highroad, in
obedience to a pleasant voice from the "inside," he suddenly reined up
his horses and respectfully waited as Tommy hopped out at the command of
Miss Mary. "Not that bush, Tommy--the next."

Tommy whipped out his new pocketknife, and, cutting a branch from a tall
azalea bush, returned with it to Miss Mary.

"All right now?"

"All right."

And the stage door closed on the Idyl of Red Gulch.

BROWN OF CALAVERAS

A subdued tone of conversation, and the absence of cigar smoke and boot
heels at the windows of the Wingdam stagecoach, made it evident that
one of the inside passengers was a woman. A disposition on the part
of loungers at the stations to congregate before the window, and some
concern in regard to the appearance of coats, hats, and collars, further
indicated that she was lovely. All of which Mr. Jack Hamlin, on the
box seat, noted with the smile of cynical philosophy.