With slow, sure-footed steps he reached the farther side of the water
and put her on her feet.

"There, I thought I'd reveal the distressing truth about myself while I
had you at my mercy."

"I might have suspected, but I gave the name no thought. Bines, to be
sure. You are the son of the Bines who died some months ago. I heard
Mr. Shepler and my father talking about some of your mining properties.
Mr. Shepler thought the 'One Girl' was such a funny name for your
father to give a mine."

Now they neared the foot of the shaft where the rest of the party
seemed to await them. As they came up Percival felt himself raked by a
broadside from the maternal lorgnon that left him all but disabled. The
father glowered at him and asked questions in the high key we are apt
to adopt in addressing foreigners, in the instinctive fallacy that any
language can be understood by any one if it be spoken loudly enough.
The mother's manner was a crushing rebuke to the young man for his
audacity. The father's manner was meant to intimate that natives of the
region in which they were then adventuring were not worthy of rebuke,
save such general rebukes as may be conveyed by displaying one's
natural superiority of manner. The other members of the party,
excepting Shepler, who talked with Pangburn at a little distance, took
cue from the Milbreys and aggressively ignored the abductor of an only
daughter. They talked over, around, and through him, as only may those
mortals whom it hath pleased heaven to have born within certain areas
on Manhattan Island.

The young man felt like a social outcast until he caught a glance from