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–Wot though time flies?
Turrue love never dies!

That honest voice–oh, could I hear it now! That honest face–oh, could I see it again! And, oh, that once more I could feel the clasp of that brave hand and the cordial grace of that dear, noble presence!

It was in the fall of the year; the nights were long, yet this night sped quickly. Long before daybreak significant sounds in the back room betokened that Miss Woppit was up and moving around. Through the closed door and from behind the improvised rampart of wood-box and small trunk the young lady informed her chivalric protectors that they might go home, prefacing this permission, however, with a solicitous inquiry as to whether anything had been heard from Brother Jim and his posse.

Jim Woppit and his men must have had a hard ride of it. They did not show up in camp until eleven o’clock that day, and a tougher-looking outfit you never saw. They had scoured the surrounding country with the utmost diligence, yet no trace whatever had they discovered of the outlaws; the wretches had disappeared so quickly, so mysteriously, that it seemed hard to believe that they had indeed existed. The crime, so boldly and so successfully done, was of course the one theme of talk, of theory, and of speculation in all that region for the conventional period of nine days. And then it appeared to be forgotten, or, at least, men seldom spoke of it, and presently it came to be accepted as the popular belief that the robbery had been committed by a gang of desperate tramps, this theory being confirmed by a certain exploit subsequently in the San Juan country, an exploit wherein three desperate tramps assaulted the triweekly road-hack, and, making off with their booty, were ultimately taken and strung up to a convenient tree.

Still, the reward of one thousand dollars offered by the city government of Red Hoss Mountain for information leading to the arrest of the glen robbers was not withdrawn, and there were those in the camp who quietly persevered in the belief that the outrage had been done by parties as yet undiscovered, if not unsuspected. Mr. Mills, the superintendent of the Royal Victoria, had many a secret conference with Jim Woppit, and it finally leaked out that the cold, discriminating, and vigilant eye of eternal justice was riveted upon Steve Barclay, the stage-driver. Few of us suspected Steve; he was a good-natured, inoffensive fellow; it seemed the idlest folly to surmise that he could have been in collusion with the highwaymen. But Mr. Mills had his own ideas on the subject; he was a man of positive convictions, and, having pretty nearly always demonstrated that he was in the right, it boded ill for Steve Barclay when Mr. Mills made up his mind that Steve must have been concerned in one way or another in that Magpie Glen crime.

The wooing of Miss Woppit pursued the even tenor of its curious triple way. Wars and rumors of wars served merely to imbue it with certain heroic fervor. Jake Dodsley’s contributions to the “Leadville Herald” and to Henry Feldwisch’s Denver “Inter-Ocean,” though still aimed at the virgin mistress of The Bower, were pitched in a more exalted key and breathed a spirit that defied all human dangers. What though death confronted the poet and the brutal malice of nocturnal marauders threatened the object of his adoration, what, short of superhuman intervention, should prevent the poet from baffling all hostile environments and placing the queen of his heart securely upon his throne beside him, etc., etc.? We all know how the poets go it when they once get started. The Magpie Glen affair gave Jake Dodsley a new impulse, and marked copies of his wonderful effusions found their way to the Woppit cabin in amazing plenty and with exceeding frequency. In a moment of vindictive bitterness was Barber Sam heard to intimate that the robbery was particularly to be regretted for having served to open the sluices of Jake Dodsley’s poetic soul.