“I don’t think he will want to; but it’s John Fleming.”

She took his hand.  “You didn’t tell me yours,” he said, holding the little red fingers, “in case I wanted to know.”

It pleased her to consider the rejoinder intensely witty.  She showed all her little teeth, threw away his hand, and said:—­

“G’ long with ye, Mr. Fleming.  It’s Tinka”—­

“Tinker?”

“Yes; short for Katinka,—­Katinka Jallinger.”

“Good-by, Miss Jallinger.”

“Good-by.  Dad’s name is Henry Boone Jallinger, of Kentucky, ef ye was ever askin’.”

“Thank you.”

He turned away as she swiftly re-entered the house.  As he walked away, he half expected to hear her voice uplifted again in the camp-meeting chant, but he was disappointed.  When he reached the top of the hill he turned and looked back at the cabin.

She was apparently waiting for this, and waved him an adieu with the humble pan he had borrowed.  It flashed a moment dazzlingly as it caught the declining sun, and then went out, even obliterating the little figure behind it.

PART II

Mr. Jack Fleming was indeed “not much of a miner.”  He and his partners—­both as young, hopeful, and inefficient as himself—­had for three months worked a claim in a mountain mining settlement which yielded them a certain amount of healthy exercise, good-humored grumbling, and exalted independence.  To dig for three or four hours in the morning, smoke their pipes under a redwood-tree for an hour at noon, take up their labors again until sunset, when they “washed up” and gathered sufficient gold to pay for their daily wants, was, without their seeking it, or even knowing it, the realization of a charming socialistic ideal which better men than themselves had only dreamed of.  Fleming fell back into this refined barbarism, giving little thought to his woodland experience, and no revelation of it to his partners.  He had transacted their business at the mining town.  His deviations en route were nothing to them, and small account to himself.

The third day after his return he was lying under a redwood when his partner approached him.

“You aren’t uneasy in your mind about any unpaid bill—­say a wash bill—­that you’re owing?”

“Why?”

“There’s a big nigger woman in camp looking for you; she’s got a folded account paper in her hand.  It looks deucedly like a bill.”

“There must be some mistake,” suggested Fleming, sitting up.

“She says not, and she’s got your name pat enough!  Faulkner” (his other partner) “headed her straight up the gulch, away from camp, while I came down to warn you.  So if you choose to skedaddle into the brush out there and lie low until we get her away, we’ll fix it!”

“Nonsense!  I’ll see her.”

His partner looked aghast at this temerity, but Fleming, jumping to his feet, at once set out to meet his mysterious visitor.  This was no easy matter, as the ingenious Faulkner was laboriously leading his charge up the steep gulch road, with great politeness, but many audible misgivings as to whether this was not “Jack Fleming’s day for going to Jamestown.”