at a very handsome, clean-shaven fellow, faultlessly attired, could not conceive such an absurdity.  So I therefore simply give the opinion of Joshua Bixley, Superintendent of the Long Divide Tunnel Company, for what it is worth:  “I never took much stock in that bear story, and its captivating old Forester’s daughter.  Old Forester knew a thing or two, and when he was out here consolidating tunnels, he found out that Jack Tenbrook was about headed for the big lead, and brought him out and introduced him to Amy.  You see, Jack, clear grit as he was, was mighty rough style, and about as simple as they make ’em, and they had to get up something to account for that girl’s taking a shine to him.  But they seem to be happy enough—­and what are you going to do about it?”

And I transfer this philosophic query to the reader.

THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS

He was scarcely eight when it was believed that he could have reasonably laid claim to the above title.  But he never did.  He was a small boy, intensely freckled to the roots of his tawny hair, with even a suspicion of it in his almond-shaped but somewhat full eyes, which were the greenish hue of a ripe gooseberry.  All this was very unlike his parents, from whom he diverged in resemblance in that fashion so often seen in the Southwest of America, as if the youth of the boundless West had struck a new note of independence and originality, overriding all conservative and established rules of heredity.  Something of this was also shown in a singular and remarkable reticence and firmness of purpose, quite unlike his family or schoolfellows.  His mother was the wife of a teamster, who had apparently once “dumped” his family, consisting of a boy and two girls, on the roadside at Burnt Spring, with the canvas roof of his wagon to cover them, while he proceeded to deliver other freight, not so exclusively his own, at other stations along the road, returning to them on distant and separate occasions with slight additions to their stock, habitation, and furniture.  In this way the canvas roof was finally shingled and the hut enlarged, and, under the quickening of a smiling California sky and the forcing of a teeming California soil, the chance-sown seed took root and became known as Medliker’s Ranch, or “Medliker’s,” with its bursting garden patch and its three sheds or “lean-to’s.”

The girls helped their mother in a childish, imitative way; the boy, John Bunyan, after a more desultory and original fashion—­when he was not “going to” or ostensibly “coming from” school, for he was seldom actually there.  Something of this fear was in the mind of Mrs. Medliker one morning as she looked up from the kettle she was scrubbing, with premonition of “more worriting,” to behold the Reverend Mr. Staples, the local minister, hale John Bunyan Medliker into the shanty with one hand.  Letting Johnny go, he placed his back against the door and wiped his face with a red handkerchief.  Johnny dropped into a chair, furtively glancing at the arm by which Mr. Staples had dragged him, and feeling it with the other hand to see if it was really longer.