for you,
if he is hereabouts," said he. "You will be more comfortable there, and
I will be more likely than you to find him."

The lady hesitated for a moment longer; then she drew from her pocket a
diary, wrote a line or two on one of its leaves, tore it out and handed
it to the reporter.

"I will accept your offer, and be very grateful for it, for I do not
bear this mountain traveling very well. If you find him, give him this
scrawl and tell him where I am--that will be sufficient."

"Trust me to find him, ma'am," replied Spidertracks. "And as the stage
is just starting, and there won't be another for a week, allow me to see
you into it. Any baggage?"

"Only a small hand-bag in the tent," said she.

They hurried off together, Spidertracks found the bag, and five minutes
later was bowing and waving his old hat to the cloud of dust which the
departing stage left behind it. But when even the dust itself had
disappeared, he drew from his pocket the paper the fair passenger had
given him.

"'Tain't sealed," said he, reasoning with himself, "so there can't be
any secrets in it. Let's see--hello! 'Ernest is somewhere in this
country; I wish to see you about _him_--and about nothing else.'
Whew-w-w! What splendid material for a column, if there was only a live
paper in this infernal country! Looking for that young scamp, eh? There
_is_ something to her, and I'll help her if I can. Wonder if I'd
recognize him if I saw him again? I _ought_ to, if he looks as much like
his parents as he used to do. 'Twould do my soul good to make the poor
woman smile once; but it's an outrageous shame there's no good daily
paper here to work the whole thing up in. With the chase, and fighting,
and murder that _may_ come of it, 'twould make the leading sensation for
a week!"

The agonized reporter clasped his hands behind him and walked slowly
back to where he had left the crowd. Most of the citizens had, on seeing
the lady depart, taken a drink as a partial antidote to dejection, and
strolled away to their respective claims, regardless of the occasional
mud which threatened the polish on their boots; but two or three
gentlemen of irascible tempers and judicial minds lingered, to decide
whether Spidertracks had not, by the act of seeing the lady to the
stage, made himself an accessory to her departure, and consequently a
fit subject for challenge by every disappointed man in camp.

The reporter was in the midst of a very able and volub