his is
the man who desires to become your son-in-law."

"Are you serious, Smith?" the stockman asked, with a suspicious glance
of his keen, gray eye.

"I assure you that I am, and that I will labor with all my might to make
your child a happy wife."

Smith bore the scrutiny without flinching, although his words were
uttered by syllables.

"But my child is poor; I can give her neither wealth, nor a proud,
untarnished name. I have been a sentenced convict."

"And what have I been?" asked Smith, with a tremulous voice, his head
falling upon his breast.

"Let us not refer to such matters," cried the stockman, briskly,
throwing off, with an effort, the constraint which the conversation had
given him. "I ask you if you are willing to marry my daughter, poor as
she is, and poor as you know me to be?"

The stockman's gray eyes were fixed upon the face of the suitor as
though reading his most secret thoughts.

"I have already answered that question, and told you that I was willing
and anxious to have the ceremony performed without delay. You shall live
with us, and take care of the house while I am at the mines. You shall
never want as long as I possess a shilling," answered Smith, heartily.
"Do those words come from your heart?" asked the old convict, eagerly.

"Else I should not have uttered them," Smith answered.

"Then my daughter shall be your wife; but she will not be the penniless
woman you think for. Follow me, and I will show you a sight that will
surprise you."

Thinking that the invitation was not addressed to us, Fred and myself
held back, and did not offer to follow the old man into his hut. The
stockman saw that we hesitated, and he called to us.

"Come in, all of you. I can trust friends, and I am sure you have all
proved to be such."

We followed, wondering what he meant by his words and hasty gestures,
and half inclined to think that the late trials through which he had
passed, had unsettled his brain.

"Come in," he whispered, "and shut the door. We don't want passing
strangers to see what we have concealed. Becky, where is the iron bar?"
he whispered, still lower.

His daughter handed a small iron bar to him, and with it he raised the
corner of a heavy stone, which formed his hearth.

"Now hold the bar in that position for me," he said, addressing Smith.

The latter complied, with his request, when the stockman inserted his
hand under the stone, and after groping about for a moment, pulle