find in this world again? In this way she dwelt upon the subject,
until at last she convinced herself that her whole duty lay in nothing
less than an immediate effort to go to him. If, fortunately, she
should find him alive and well, she would gladly share his fortune,
however hard it might be, and would never leave him so long as he
lived. But if, as she feared, he should prove to be indeed sick
and near his end in that wild region, where, she asked, should his
daughter be but at his side?

This is the ridiculous way in which such headstrong creatures as this
Dora Hanchett are accustomed to meet you when you seek to point out to
them the unreasonableness of a line of conduct on which they have set
their hearts.

Deaf to all arguments, therefore, Dora shut up her house and set about
making preparations for her journey. In the adjoining county, as she
had learned, a company of gold-hunters had been organized, and was
then on the point of starting for the Sacramento Valley, in which was
situated the little town from which her father had last written. Of
this company of sixty men she knew but one, and he was a mere boy in
years, the youngest of the party. This was Hiram Bridge, familiarly
termed Posey in honor of his native county, who four years before had
been one of Dora's first pupils in her Clarksville school. She was
little more than a girl herself at that time, and Hiram was her
biggest boy; and her recollection now of the bond of good-fellowship
that soon grew up between herself and the shy, overgrown but not
overbright lad relieved her of any hesitation she might otherwise have
felt in applying to him to obtain permission for her to accompany his
party to its destination.