Lieutenant Burrell had come with the others, for the arrival of a
steamboat called for the presence of every soul in camp, and, spying
Necia in the outskirts of the crowd, he took his place beside her.
He felt constrained, after what had happened on the previous
evening, but she seemed to have forgotten the episode, and greeted
him with her usual frankness. Even had she remembered it, there was
nothing he could say in explanation or in apology. He had lain awake
for hours thinking of her, and had fallen asleep with her still in
his mind, for the revelation of her blood had come as a shock to
him, the full force of which he could not appreciate until he had
given himself time to think of it calmly.

He had sprung from a race of Slave-holders, from a land where birth
and breed are more than any other thing, where a drop of impure
blood effects an ineradicable stain; therefore the thought of
this girl's ignoble parentage was so repugnant to him that the more
he pondered it the more pitiful it seemed, the more monstrous. Lying
awake and thinking of her in the stillness of his quarters, it had
seemed a very unfortunate and a very terrible thing. During his
morning duties the vision of her had been fresh before him again,
and his constant contemplation of the matter had wrought a change in
his attitude towards the girl, of which he was uncomfortably
conscious and which he was glad to see she did not perceive.

"There are some of the lucky men from El Dorado Creek," she informed
him, pointing out certain people on the deck. "They are going out to
the States to get something to eat. They say that nothing like those
mines have ever been heard of in the world. I wish father had gone
up last year when the news came."