“Some un will hev to tackle her without Prossy knowin’ it.  For it would jest break his heart, arter all he’s gone through to get her here!” said Brewster significantly.

“Onless he did know it and it was that what made him so sorrowful when they first came.  B’gosh!  I never thought o’ that,” said Wynbrook, with one of his characteristic sudden illuminations.

“Well, gentlemen, whether he did or not,” said the barkeeper stoutly, “he must never know that we know it.  No, not if the old gal cleans out my bar and takes the last scad in the camp.”

And to this noble sentiment they responded as one man.

How far they would have been able to carry out that heroic resolve was never known, for an event occurred which eclipsed its importance.  One morning at breakfast Mrs. Pottinger fixed a clouded eye upon Prosper.

“Prosper,” she said, with fell deliberation “you ought to know you have a sister.”

“Yes, ma’am,” returned Prosper, with that meekness with which he usually received these family disclosures.

“A sister,” continued the lady, “whom you haven’t seen since you were a child; a sister who for family reasons has been living with other relatives; a girl of nineteen.”

“Yea, ma’am,” said Prosper humbly.  “But ef you wouldn’t mind writin’ all that down on a bit o’ paper—­ye know my short memory!  I would get it by heart to-day in the gulch.  I’d have it all pat enough by night, ef,” he added, with a short sigh, “ye was kalkilatin’ to make any illusions to it when the boys are here.”

“Your sister Augusta,” continued Mrs. Pottinger, calmly ignoring these details, “will be here to-morrow to make me a visit.”

But here the worm Prosper not only turned, but stood up, nearly upsetting the table.  “It can’t be did, ma’am it mustn’t be did!” he said wildly.  “It’s enough for me to have played this camp with you—­but now to run in”—­

“Can’t be did!” repeated Mrs. Pottinger, rising in her turn and fixing upon the unfortunate Prosper a pair of murky piratical eyes that had once quelled the sea-roving Pottinger.  “Do you, my adopted son, dare to tell me that I can’t have my own flesh and blood beneath my roof?”

“Yes!  I’d rather tell the whole story—­I’d rather tell the boys I fooled them—­than go on again!” burst out the excited Prosper.

But Mrs. Pottinger only set her lips implacably together.  “Very well, tell them then,” she said rigidly; “tell them how you lured me from my humble dependence in San Francisco with the prospect of a home with you; tell them how you compelled me to deceive their trusting hearts with your wicked falsehoods; tell them how you—­a foundling—­borrowed me for your mother, my poor dead husband for your father, and made me invent falsehood upon falsehood to tell them while you sat still and listened!”

Prosper gasped.

“Tell them,” she went on deliberately, “that when I wanted to bring my helpless child to her only home—­then, only then—­you determined to break your word to me, either because you meanly begrudged her that share of your house, or to keep your misdeeds from her knowledge!  Tell them that, Prossy, dear, and see what they’ll say!”