“Strip off your stockings and shirt, and put these on,” I said, handing him a new pair of socks, and a calico shirt too small for me, but which I thought would answer his purpose.

Again did the tell-tale blood mount in the young fellow’s face, and he looked embarrassed and perplexed.

“I would rather not,” he said, after a moment’s pause, and I saw that he was trembling violently.

“Nonsense—­off with your shoes at once,” and Fred stooped down to assist him, and in spite of his resistance tore off his ragged stockings, and was about to replace them with mine, when the boy began to cry again.

We looked at his grieved face, suffused with blushes, and then we looked at the naked foot and ankle, and immediately arrived at our conclusions; and, strange to say, they were of wonderful unanimity.  We thought the exposed limb was too white to belong to our own sex, and as our eyes met we exclaimed,—­

“The devil!  A woman!”

“Who would have thought it?” cried Fred, with wonder depicted upon his face.

“Don’t cry,” I said, addressing the girl in as mild a tone as I could assume; but to my astonishment, the little thing only cried the harder.

“You are a smart man to talk to women,” Fred exclaimed, pettishly.  “That voice of yours is enough to frighten a female into convulsions, and your face is not very prepossessing as I suppose you are aware.  This is the way you should go to work.”

To my surprise, the impudent puppy seated himself by the side of the girl, took one of her unresisting hands in his own, and began to talk to her in such a soothing manner that her tears were dried up, as if by magic; and she actually smiled when he told her how comfortable she could be in a little bedroom which, he promised to fit up for her exclusive accommodation, and where no one would intrude upon her moments of privacy.

“Jack,” said Fred, suddenly jumping up and laying his hand on my arm, “we must protect this poor girl to the best of our ability.”

“I suppose that we must,” I returned, with great philosophy.

“She is an innocent little thing,” my friend added, in a musing tone.

“Is she?” I asked; “pray, how do you happen to know?”

“O, because she is constantly blushing and crying,” Fred answered, boldly.

“Is that the only method by which you judge?” I asked, quite lost in admiration at his perceptible powers.

“Of course it is—­innocence always blushes.”

Let ladies take note that in the estimate of some men a blush is regarded with more veneration than a hundred protestations of purity.  Where my friend obtained his knowledge of women I am unable to say, for he was never married, although many times in love.

“What is she doing here at the mines?” I inquired.

“That I have not found out as yet, but I will interrogate her on the subject,” replied Fred, with much confidence.