splintered ruin of the barrel on which he had been sitting. "Thur!
did ye ever see the like! Did ye dream that all the while I was
talkin' she was a meditatin' that?"

The same artistic perception and noble reticence distinguished her
bray. It was one of which a less sagacious animal would have been
foolishly vain or ostentatiously prodigal. It was a contralto of
great compass and profundity--reaching from low G to high C--
perhaps a trifle stronger in the lower register, and not altogether
free from a nasal falsetto in the upper. Daring and brilliant as
it was in the middle notes, it was perhaps more musically
remarkable for its great sustaining power. The element of surprise
always entered into the hearer's enjoyment; long after any ordinary
strain of human origin would have ceased, faint echoes of Jinny's
last note were perpetually recurring. But it was as an
intellectual and moral expression that her bray was perfect. As
far beyond her size as were her aspirations, it was a free and
running commentary of scorn at all created things extant, with
ironical and sardonic additions that were terrible. It reviled all
human endeavor, it quenched all sentiment, it suspended frivolity,
it scattered reverie, it paralyzed action. It was omnipotent.
More wonderful and characteristic than all, the very existence of
this tremendous organ was unknown to the camp for six months after
the arrival of its modest owner, and only revealed to them under
circumstances that seemed to point more conclusively than ever to
her rare discretion.

It was the beginning of a warm night and the middle of a heated
political discussion. Sawyer's Bar had gathered in force at the
Crossing, and by the light of flaring pine torches, cheered and