"Ef you're looking for a safe investment ez will pay ye better than
forty-rod whiskey at two bits a glass, jist you hang onter that ar
rifle. It may make your fortin yet, or save ye from a drunkard's grave."
With this ungracious pleasantry he hurried his dilatory passengers
back into the coach, cracked his whip, and was again upon the road. The
lights of the "Summit House" presently dropped here and there into the
wasting shadows of the trees. Another stretch through the close-set
ranks of pines, another dash through the opening, another whirl and
rattle by overhanging rocks, and the vehicle was swiftly descending.
Bill put his foot on the brake, threw his reins loosely on the necks of
his cattle, and looked leisurely back. The great mountain was slowly and
steadily rising between them and the valley they quitted.

And at that same moment Miss Mayfield had crept from her bed, and, with
a shawl around her pretty little figure, was pressing her eyes against a
blank window of the "Half-way House," and wondering where HE was now.


V.


The "opening" suggested by Bill was not a fortunate one. Possibly views
of business openings in the public-house line taken from the tops of
stage-coaches are not as judicious as those taken from less exalted
levels. Certain it is that the "goodwill" of the "Lone Star House"
promised little more pecuniary value than a conventional blessing. It
was in an older and more thickly settled locality than the "Half-way
House;" indeed, it was but half a mile away from Campville, famous in
'49--a place with a history and a disaster. But young communities are
impatient of settlements that through any accident fail to fulfil the