although shot at and wounded by the trainmen in the belief that he
was an Indian. How it was afterwards discovered that the child was the
long-lost daughter of a millionaire; how he had resolutely refused
any gratuity for saving her, and she was now a peerless young heiress,
famous in California. Whether this lighter tone of narrative suited him
better, or whether the active feminine sympathy of his auditors
helped him along, certain it was that his story was more coherent and
intelligible and his voice less hoarse and constrained than in his
previous belligerent reminiscences; his expression changed, and even his
features worked into something like gentler emotion. The bright eyes
of Phoebe, fastened upon him, turned dim with a faint moisture, and
her pale cheek took upon itself a little color. The mother, after
interjecting "Du tell," and "I wanter know," remained open-mouthed,
staring at her visitor. And in the silence that followed, a pleasant,
but somewhat melancholy voice came from the open door.

"I beg your pardon, but I thought I couldn't be mistaken. It IS my old
friend, Jim Hooker!"

Everybody started. Red Jim stumbled to his feet with an inarticulate and
hysteric exclamation. Yet the apparition that now stood in the doorway
was far from being terrifying or discomposing. It was evidently the
stranger,--a slender, elegantly-knit figure, whose upper lip was faintly
shadowed by a soft, dark mustache indicating early manhood, and whose
unstudied ease in his well-fitting garments bespoke the dweller of
cities. Good-looking and well-dressed, without the consciousness of
being either; self-possessed through easy circumstances, yet without
self-assertion; courteous by nature and instinct as well as from an
experience of granting favors, he might have been a welcome addition
to even a more critical company. But Red Jim, hurriedly seizing his