“Wot did I do wot for?” said Prosper sullenly.

“This!  Making my mother pretend you were her son!  Bringing her here among these men to live a lie!”

“She was willin’,” said Prosper gloomily.  “I told her what she had to do, and she seemed to like it.”

“But couldn’t you see she was old and weak, and wasn’t responsible for her actions?  Or were you only thinking of yourself?”

This last taunt stung him.  He looked up.  He was not facing a helpless, dependent old woman as he had been the day before, but a handsome, clever girl, in every way his superior—­and in the right!  In his vague sense of honor it seemed more creditable for him to fight it out with her.  He burst out:  “I never thought of myself!  I never had an old mother; I never knew what it was to want one—­but the men did!  And as I couldn’t get one for them, I got one for myself—­to share and share alike—­I thought they’d be happier ef there was one in the camp!”

There was the unmistakable accent of truth in his voice.  There came a faint twitching of the young girl’s lips and the dawning of a smile.  But it only acted as a goad to the unfortunate Prosper.  “Ye kin laugh, Miss Pottinger, but it’s God’s truth!  But one thing I didn’t do.  No!  When your mother wanted to bring you in here as my sister, I kicked!  I did!  And you kin thank me, for all your laughin’, that you’re standing in this camp in your own name—­and ain’t nothin’ but my cousin.”

“I suppose you thought your precious friends didn’t want a sister too?” said the girl ironically.

“It don’t make no matter wot they want now,” he said gloomily.  “For,” he added, with sudden desperation, “it’s come to an end!  Yes!  You and your mother will stay here a spell so that the boys don’t suspicion nothin’ of either of ye.  Then I’ll give it out that you’re takin’ your aunt away on a visit.  Then I’ll make over to her a thousand dollars for all the trouble I’ve given her, and you’ll take her away.  I’ve bin a fool, Miss Pottinger, mebbe I am one now, but what I’m doin’ is on the square, and it’s got to be done!”

He looked so simple and so good—­so like an honest schoolboy confessing a fault and abiding by his punishment, for all his six feet of altitude and silky mustache—­that Miss Pottinger lowered her eyes.  But she recovered herself and said sharply:—­

“It’s all very well to talk of her going away!  But she won’t.  You have made her like you—­yes! like you better than me—­than any of us!  She says you’re the only one who ever treated her like a mother—­as a mother should be treated.  She says she never knew what peace and comfort were until she came to you.  There!  Don’t stare like that!  Don’t you understand?  Don’t you see?  Must I tell you again that she is strange—­that—­that she was always queer and strange—­and queerer on account of her unfortunate habits—­surely you knew them, Mr. Riggs!  She quarreled