eem to be takin' the old man's death very pow'fully," said the
younger, with a laugh.

"Quite as much as he deserved, I daresay," said the doctor curtly. "If
the accident had happened to HER, he would have whined and whimpered to
us for the sake of getting something, but have been as much relieved,
you may be certain. SHE'S too young and too natural to be a hypocrite
yet."

Suddenly the laughter ceased and Liberty Jones's voice arose, shrill
but masterful: "Thar, that'll do! Quit now! You jest get back to your
scrubbin'--d'ye hear? I'm boss o' this shanty, you bet!"

The doctor turned with a grim smile to his companion. "That's the only
thing that bothered me, and I've been waiting for. She's settled it.
She'll do. Come."

They turned away briskly through the wood. At the end of half an hour's
walk they found the team that had brought them there in waiting, and
drove towards San Jose. It was nearly ten miles before they passed
another habitation or trace of clearing. And by this time night had
fallen upon the cabin they had left, and upon the newly made orphan and
her Indian companion, alone and contented in that trackless solitude.

*****

Liberty Jones had been a year at the cabin. In that time she had learned
that her employer's name was Doctor Ruysdael, that he had a lucrative
practice in San Jose, but had also "taken up" a league or two of wild
forest land in the Santa Cruz range, which he preserved and held after
a fashion of his own, which gave him the reputation of being a "crank"
among the very few neighbors his vast possessions permitted, and the
equally few friends his singular tastes allowed him. It was believed
that a man owning such an enormous quantity of timber land, who should
refuse to set up a sawmill and absolutely forbid the felling of trees;
who should decline to connect it with the highway to Santa Cruz, and
close it against improvement and speculation, had given sufficient
evidence of his insanity; but when to this was added the rumor that he
himself was not only devoid of the human instinct of hunting the wild
animals with which his domain abounded, but that he held it so sacred to
their use as to forbid the firing of a gun within his limits, and that
these restrictions were further preserved and "policed" by the scattered
remnants of a band of aborigines,--known as "digger Injins,"--it was
seriously hinted that his eccentricity had acquired a political and
moral significance, and demande