time in three months that she had spoken of him at all, and the master
knew she had kept resolutely aloof from him since her great change.
Satisfied from her manner that it was fruitless to question her purpose,
he passively followed. In out-of-the-way places, low groggeries,
restaurants, and saloons; in gambling hells and dance houses, the
master, preceded by Mliss, came and went. In the reeking smoke and
blasphemous outcries of low dens, the child, holding the master's hand,
stood and anxiously gazed, seemingly unconscious of all in the one
absorbing nature of her pursuit. Some of the revelers, recognizing
Mliss, called to the child to sing and dance for them, and would have
forced liquor upon her but for the interference of the master. Others,
recognizing him mutely, made way for them to pass. So an hour slipped
by. Then the child whispered in his ear that there was a cabin on the
other side of the creek crossed by the long flume, where she thought he
still might be. Thither they crossed--a toilsome half-hour's walk--but
in vain. They were returning by the ditch at the abutment of the flume,
gazing at the lights of the town on the opposite bank, when, suddenly,
sharply, a quick report rang out on the clear night air. The echoes
caught it, and carried it round and round Red Mountain, and set the
dogs to barking all along the streams. Lights seemed to dance and move
quickly on the outskirts of the town for a few moments, the stream
rippled quite audibly beside them, a few stones loosened themselves from
the hillside and splashed into the stream, a heavy wind seemed to surge
the branches of the funereal pines, and then the silence seemed to fall
thicker, heavier, and deadlier. The master turned toward Mliss with an
unconscious gesture of protection, but the child had gone. Oppressed by
a strange fear, he ran quickly down the trail to the river's bed, and,
jumping from boulder to boulder, reached the base of Red Mountain and
the outskirts of the village. Midway of the crossing he looked up and
held his breath in awe. For high above him on the narrow flume he saw