The excited reporter sprang to his feet in an agony of genuine humanity and suppressed itemizing, and screamed: 

“Major, wait a minute—­you’ll be sorry if you don’t!”

But the gallant major had been at the bar for two or three hours, preparing himself for this valorous deed, and the courage he had there imbibed knew not how to brook delay—­not until the crowd had reached the mouth of the cave and found it dark, and had heard one unduly prudent miner suggest that it might be well to have a light, so as to dodge being sliced in the dark.

“Bring a light quick, then,” shouted the major. “I’ll drag him out when it comes; he knows my grip, curse him!”

A bunch of dried grass was hastily lighted and thrown into the cave, and the major rapidly followed it, while as many miners as could crowd in after him hastened to do so.  They found the major, with white face and trembling limbs, standing in front of the lady for whose sake they had done so much elaborate dressing in the morning, and who they had afterwards wrathfully seen departing in the stage.

The major rallied, turned around, and said: 

“There’s some mistake here, gentlemen.  Won’t you have the kindness to leave us alone?”

Slowly—­very slowly—­the crowd withdrew.  It seemed to them that, in the nature of things, the lady ought to have it out with the major with pistols or knives for disturbing her, and that they, who were in all the sadness of disappointment at failure of a well-planned independent execution, ought to see the end of the whole affair.  But a beseeching look from the lady herself finally cleared the cave, and the major exclaimed: 

“Louise, what does this mean?”

“It means,” said the lady, with most perfect composure, “that, thanks to a worthless father and a bad bringing-up by an incapable mother, Ernest has found his way into this country.  I came to find him, and I found him in this hole, to which his affectionate father brought him to-day.  It is about as well, I imagine, that I helped him to escape, seeing to what further kind attentions you had reserved him.”

“Please don’t be so icy, Louise,” begged the major.  “He attempted to rob and kill me, the young rascal; besides, I had not the faintest idea of who he was.”

“Perhaps,” said the lady, still very calm, “you will tell me from whom he inherited the virtues which prompted his peculiar actions towards you?  His mother has always earned her livelihood honorably.”

“Louise,” said the major, with a humility which would have astonished his acquaintance, “won’t you have the kindness to reserve your sarcasm until I am better able to bear it?  You probably think I have no heart—­I acknowledge I have thought as much myself—­but something is making me feel very weak and tender just now.”

The lady looked critically at him for a moment, and then burst into tears.