His partial separation from Dora, occasioned by the advent of this other woman on the scene, soon opened Posey’s eyes to the fact that a total separation from her would take the ground entirely from under his feet, and leave him in a condition that he felt disinclined to contemplate so long as there might be a chance to avert such a calamity.  He accordingly improved the first opportunity that offered, and cast himself at the feet of Dora—­literally, mind you, on the lee side of a sage bush—­and lisped his love.  On this sacred ground let us tread as lightly as may be.  Suffice it that Posey’s suit prospered, and that presently a little programme came to be agreed upon between the contracting parties to this effect:  They would go on for the present precisely as if nothing had happened—­Dora to seek her father and Posey to seek his fortune.  As soon, however, as Dora should have succeeded in restoring the doctor to health, or had haply buried him, Posey should be notified, and they would thereupon be married.  Then Dora would open a school somewhere, wherever she might chance to find the indispensable children, while Posey, accompanied by his newly-fledged father-in-law, if perchance that worthy individual should be spared, would launch into the mines and conquer Fortune at the point of the pick.

Time flew fast with the lovers after this, and they were quite startled one day when Savage informed them that they were upon the very borders of the promised land.

That evening, an hour before sunset, the train was halted for the night at a point whence the travel-worn adventurers could look down for the first time into the Sacramento Valley, and render thanks in their various ways that the end of their tedious pilgrimage was almost reached.  As Dora Hanchett and Posey stood together upon a green knoll, following with their eyes the winding trail that their feet were to descend on the morrow, they descried, toiling slowly toward them, one of those returning bands of unsuccessful and discouraged veterans—­the reflux of the great wave of immigration constantly pouring into the golden valley—­which they had frequently met in the course of their long journey.  As the cavalcade drew nearer, Dora’s attention fixed itself upon a curious figure that brought up the rear.  Mounted upon a loose aggregation of bones and ears that purported to be a mule, this mysterious figure gradually approached, while Dora watched it as if fascinated.  On and on it came, and still she gazed, spell-bound.  Opposite her it paused.  There was no longer any doubt:  it was He.  Clad in the mangled remains of the original great-coat, the original boot-tops yet towering in the region of his ears, and the upper half of the original beaver crowning his well-developed brain, there He was.  Slowly and carefully he descended from the back of his shambling steed, settled himself well in his boots, pulled up the collar of his great-coat—­and there was little but collar left of it—­tipped