big
fools as you."

CHAPTER XVI

NOW

It was the parson who now broke in.

"Why do we sit here, lamenting that which cannot be helped? Do you
mean to give up, captain, and let her go? Will you settle down to
toil in the diggings, giving her no further thought, while this
pretty-faced lieutenant is chuckling over the clever manner by which
he fooled you as well as us--"

"No!" fairly shouted the roused parent; "I will follow them to the
ends of the earth! They shall not find a foot of ground that will
protect them! She has never seen me angry, but she shall now!"

"We are with you," coolly responded Brush, "but only on one
condition."

"What's that?"

"That this account is to be settled with _him_ alone; you musn't speak
so much as a cross word to Nellie; she will shed many a bitter tear of
sorrow; she will drain the cup to its dregs; _he_, the cause of it
all, is to be brought to judgment. When do you wish to take up the
pursuit?"

"Now!"

"And we are with you."

There was something wonderful in the way Parson Brush kept control of
himself. Externally he was as calm as when standing in front of the
adamantine blackboard, giving instruction to Nellie Dawson, while down
deep in his heart, raged a tempest such as rouses into life the
darkest passions that can nerve a man to wrong doing. Believing it
necessary to stir the father to action, he had done it by well chosen
words, that could not have been more effective.

For weeks and months the shadow had brooded over him. Sometimes it
seemed to lift and dissolve into unsubstantiality, only to come back
more baleful than before. And the moment when he had about persuaded
himself that it was but a figment of the imagination, it had sprung
into being and crushed him. But he was now stern, remorseless,
resolute, implacable.

It was much the same with Wade Ruggles. He strove desperately to gain
the remarkable control of his feelings, displayed by his comrade, and
partly succeeded. But there was a restless fidgeting which caused him
to move aimlessly about the room and showed itself now and then in a
slight tremulousness of the voice and hands, but his eyes wore that
steely glitter, which those at his side had noticed when the rumble
and grumble told that the battle was on.

Captain Dawson went from one extreme to the other. Crazed, tumultuous
in his fury, and at first like a baffled tiger, he moderated his voice
and manner until his companions wondere