Christie did not reply. Yet the laughter of her sister in advance with
the Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she tried to
crush further familiarity only ridiculous.

"Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?"

She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her
own, and hesitated. After all, why should she add to her other real
disappointments by taking this absurd creature seriously?

"In what way?" she returned, with a half smile.

"To play. On the piano, of course. There isn't one nearer here than
Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You
couldn't do anything on a banjo?" he added doubtfully; "Kearney's got
one."

"I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those
mountains," said Christie laughingly, to avoid the collateral of the
banjo.

"We got a billiard-table over from Stockton," half bashfully interrupted
Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to recover his
composure, "and it had to be brought over in sections on the back of a
mule, so I don't see why--" He stopped short again in confusion, at a
sign from his brother, and then added, "I mean, of course, that a piano
is a heap more delicate, and valuable, and all that sort of thing, but
it's worth trying for."

"Fairfax was always saying he'd get one for himself, so I reckon it's