ers.
Sometimes I think that she is so innocent and ignorant of evil, that
it will be better for her to spend the rest of her life here."

"It is a serious matter, but neither you nor she should be content to
remain in this place for the rest of your lives."

"Why not? Does that which she can learn elsewhere outweigh that which
she will never learn in this secluded settlement? Is not the man or
woman fortunate who never comes face to face with the ingratitude, the
treachery, the selfishness, the baseness and the sin which are the
accompaniments of civilization? In this untainted mountain air, her
nature will retain its freshness and purity; her life will be a well
spring of happiness and goodness to all with whom she comes in
contact; I shall never marry, and mean to keep her by me until in the
order of nature I am called away. That is the only boon that I ask
from heaven."

"But may not all this be hers and yours if the flower is transplanted
from the wilderness into a more congenial soil? Has she not already
acquired that rugged strength which renders her nature secure against
evil? Is she not doubly panoplied in goodness by the training of her
infancy and girlhood?"

"I would like to think so, but, lieutenant, I have lived a few years
longer than you. She _might_ not be safe there; I _know_ she is
here."

CHAPTER XIV

THE THUNDERBOLT

Lieutenant Russell was treading on delicate ground, where the utmost
caution was necessary. He must not alarm his friend. He smoked a few
minutes in silence.

"It is not for me to give counsel to my captain, but is it not a fact
that selfishness grows upon us with advancing years?"

"Very likely."

"Has it occurred to you that in concluding to pass the remainder of
your days in this mining settlement, you are thinking more of yourself
than of your child?"

"What have I said that warrants that question?" asked the captain
sharply.

"No higher motive than to protect a daughter from harm can inspire a
father, but if she should be allowed to close your eyes, when you come
to lie down and die, it will be hers to live: what _then_?"

"I shall leave her comfortably provided for. My pay amounted to a
goodly sum when the war ended, and it is placed where no one else can
reap the benefit of it. Then, too, as you know we have struck
considerable paying dirt of late. The prospects are that New
Constantinople, even if a small town, will soon be a rich one."

Lieutenant Ru