When he drove into the high road again, however, an overlooked possibility threatened for a moment to indefinitely postpone his amiable intentions regarding Low.  The hotel was at the further end of the settlement towards the Carquinez Woods, and as Wynn had nearly reached it he was recalled to himself by the sounds of hoofs and wheels rapidly approaching from the direction of the Excelsior turnpike.  Wynn made no doubt it was the sheriff and Brace.  To avoid recognition at that moment, he whipped up his horse, intending to keep the lead until he could turn into the first cross-road.  But the coming travelers had the fleetest horse, and finding it impossible to distance them he drove close to the ditch, pulling up suddenly as the strange vehicle was abreast of him, and forcing them to pass him at full speed, with the result already chronicled.  When they had vanished in the darkness, Mr. Wynn, with a heart overflowing with Christian thankfulness and universal benevolence, wheeled round, and drove back to the hotel he had already passed.  To pull up at the veranda with a stentorian shout, to thump loudly at the deserted bar, to hilariously beat the panels of the landlord’s door, and commit a jocose assault and battery upon that half-dresssed and half-awakened man, was eminently characteristic of Wynn, and part of his amiable plans that morning.

“Something to wash this wood smoke from my throat, Brother Carter, and about as much again to prop open your eyes,” he said, dragging Carter before the bar, “and glasses round for as many of the boys as are up and stirring after a hard-working Christian’s rest.  How goes the honest publican’s trade, and who have we here?”

“Thar’s Judge Robinson and two lawyers from Sacramento, Dick Curson over from Yolo,” said Carter, “and that ar young Injin yarb doctor from the Carquinez Woods.  I reckon he’s jist up—­I noticed a light under his door as I passed.”

“He’s my man for a friendly chat before breakfast,” said Wynn.  “You needn’t come up.  I’ll find the way.  I don’t want a light; I reckon my eyes ain’t as bright nor as young as his, but they’ll see almost as far in the dark—­he! he!” And, nodding to Brother Carter, he strode along the passage, and with no other introduction than a playful and preliminary “Boo!” burst into one of the rooms.  Low, who by the light of a single candle was bending over the plates of a large quarto, merely raised his eyes and looked at the intruder.  The young man’s natural imperturbability, always exasperating to Wynn, seemed accented that morning by contrast with his own over-acted animation.

“Ah ha!—­wasting the midnight oil instead of imbibing the morning dews,” said Father Wynn archly, illustrating his metaphor with a movement of his hand to his lips.  “What have we here?”

“An anonymous gift,” replied Low simply, recognizing the father of Nellie by rising from his chair.  “It’s a volume I’ve longed to possess, but never could afford to buy.  I cannot imagine who sent it to me.”