"Oh, thank you, Boker, I've seen the senoritas."

He walked quickly past the men, and the shorter one, who had not spoken,
called after him rather huskily,--

"W-what do you think of the little school-ma'am?"

Arnold turned back and confronted the speaker in silence.

"I say! Is she thin 'nough to suit you?" the heavy-playful one persisted.

"Shut up, Jack!" said his comrade. "You're a little high now, you know."

He dragged him on, up the trail; the voices of the two men blended with the
night chorus of the camp as they passed out of sight.

Miss Newell sat perfectly still for a while; then she went to her room, and
threw herself down on the bed, listening to an endless mental repetition of
those words that the faithless night had brought to her ear. The moonlight
had left the piazza, and crept round to the side of the house; it shone
in at the window, touching the girl's cold fingers pressed to her burning
cheeks and temples. She got up, drew the curtain, and groped her way back
to the bed, where she lay for hours, trying to convince herself that her
misery was out of all proportion to the cause, and that those coarse words
could make no real difference in her life.

They did make a little difference: they loosened the slight, indefinite
threads of intercourse which a year had woven between these two exiles.
Miss Newell was prepared to withdraw from any further overtures of
friendship from the engineer; but he made it unnecessary for her to do