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“Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?” he said.

She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner were the centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with a slight rise of color, returned, “Yes.”

“Well, Miss Mullins, I’ve got a question or two to ask ye. I ask it straight out afore this crowd. It’s in my rights to take ye aside and ask it—but that ain’t my style; I’m no detective. I needn’t ask it at all, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be asked by others. Ye needn’t answer it ef ye don’t like; ye’ve got a friend over ther–Judge Thompson–who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jest as any other man here is–as though ye’d packed your own jury. Well, the simple question I’ve got to ask ye is THIS: Did you signal to anybody from the coach when we passed Galloper’s an hour ago?”

We all thought that Bill’s courage and audacity had reached its climax here. To openly and publicly accuse a “lady” before a group of chivalrous Californians, and that lady possessing the further attractions of youth, good looks, and innocence, was little short of desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson, with a bland propitiatory smile began: “Really, Bill, I must protest on behalf of this young lady”–when the fair accused, raising her eyes to her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight but convincing hesitation of conscientious truthfulness:–

“I DID.”

“Ahem!” interposed the Judge hastily, “er–that is–er–you allowed your handkerchief to flutter from the window,–I noticed it myself,–casually–one might say even playfully–but without any particular significance.”

The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular mingling of pride and impatience, returned briefly:–

“I signaled.”

“Who did you signal to?” asked Bill gravely.

“The young gentleman I’m going to marry.”

A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger passengers, was instantly suppressed by a savage glance from Bill.

“What did you signal to him for?” he continued.

“To tell him I was here, and that it was all right,” returned the young girl, with a steadily rising pride and color.

“Wot was all right?” demanded Bill.

“That I wasn’t followed, and that he could meet me on the road beyond Cass’s Ridge Station.” She hesitated a moment, and then, with a still greater pride, in which a youthful defiance was still mingled, said:

“I’ve run away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No one can stop me. Dad didn’t like him just because he was poor, and dad’s got money. Dad wanted me to marry a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and things to bribe me.”

“And you’re taking them in your trunk to the other feller?” said Bill grimly.

“Yes, he’s poor,” returned the girl defiantly.

“Then your father’s name is Mullins?” asked Bill.

“It’s not Mullins. I–I–took that name,” she hesitated, with her first exhibition of self-consciousness.

“Wot IS his name?”

“Eli Hemmings.”

A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. The fame of Eli or “Skinner” Hemmings, as a notorious miser and usurer, had passed even beyond Galloper’s Ridge.

“The step that you’re taking, Miss Mullins, I need not tell you, is one of great gravity,” said Judge Thompson, with a certain paternal seriousness of manner, in which, however, we were glad to detect a glaring affectation; “and I trust that you and your affianced have fully weighed it. Far be it from me to interfere with or question the natural affections of two young people, but may I ask you what you know of the–er–young gentleman for whom you are sacrificing so much, and, perhaps, imperiling your whole future? For instance, have you known him long?”

The slightly troubled air of trying to understand,–not unlike the vague wonderment of childhood,–with which Miss Mullins had received the beginning of this exordium, changed to a relieved smile of comprehension as she said quickly, “Oh yes, nearly a whole year.”