Here Miss Jenvie interposed and said:  “What was the most precious thing you ever found in the mines, Mr. Sedgwick?”

“Considering who asked the question, it would be cruel not to tell you it was Jack,” he replied.

All laughed, and Miss Jenvie said:  “Is it true, did you and Jack first meet underground?”

“Indeed we did,” said Sedgwick, “and we were neither of us handsomely attired.  I thought he was a gnome; he thought me a Chinese dragon.”

Then Miss Grace interposed; “Mr. Sedgwick,” said she, “is not Texas a land where there are a great many cattle?”

“Millions of them,” was the reply.

“And is not that the region where the cowboy is also found?” she continued.

“There are a few there, surely,” said Sedgwick, and looking across the table he saw a smile on Jack’s face.

“They are good riders and good shots, are they not?” Grace asked.

“Some of them ride well, and nearly all of them shoot well,” said Sedgwick.

“I would like to go there,” said Grace, impetuously; “it must be a jolly life.”  Then looking at her mother, she laughed gaily and said:  “If ever one of those cowboys, with broad hat and jingling spurs, comes this way, you had better lock the doors, mamma, if you want to keep me.”

Sedgwick kept a steady face, but his heart was throbbing so that he feared the company would hear it.

Then Jenvie asked Sedgwick if mining in Nevada was not mostly carried on by rough and rude men.

Sedgwick’s face became grave in a moment, as he said:  “We must judge men by the motives behind their lives, if we would get at what they really are.  There are married men and single men at work in the mines.  The married men have wives and little children to support.  They wish to have their dear ones fed and clothed as well as other generous people feed and clothe their families.  They want their children educated.  They have, moreover, all around them examples of rich men who a year or five years previous were as humble and poor as they now are.  The young men have hopes quite as sweet, purposes quite as high.  This one is to build up a little fortune for some one he loves; this one has a home in his mind’s eye which he means to purchase; this one has relatives whom he dreams of making happy, while others have visions of honors and fame, so soon as something which is in their thoughts shall materialize.

“Then the occupation itself and the results have a tendency, I think, to exalt men.  To begin with, the work is a steady struggle against nature’s tremendous forces.  The rock has to be blasted, the waters controlled, the consuming heat tempered, the swelling clay confined, and to do this men have to employ great agents.  A silver mine generally has Desolation placed as a watch above it.  To work it everything has to be carried to it.  The forest away off on some mountain side has to be felled and hauled to the spot.  For many months the great