"Didst I not tell thee," said Geraldine, "that thou mustest not converse, but remain quiet? Let it suffice, however, that I strayed away from a Sabbath school picnic at Cheyenne, and have wandered on carelessly for several hundred miles, wotting not whence I wist." By this time the day god which we left gliding slowly adown the crimson west, had glode down the crimson west according to advertisement, and the solemn hush of night was coming on, broken anon by the long drawn shriek of the mountain lion, or the pealing of the thunder, which also reverberated anon through the otherwise solemn hush of night. Darkness came on apace. It would be folly to attempt to prevent it, so we will let it come on apace. CHAPTER III.--STARTLING REVELATIONS. |We will now suppose twenty-four hours to have passed Since the scenes narrated in the last chapter. The gloaming is beginning to gloam. It began to look as though if something were not done for Pumpkin Jim pretty previously, he would pass with a gentle, gliding movement up the flume. He was growing fainter hour by hour, and the extreme torpidity of his liver, gave rise to grave apprehensions on the part of his gentle guardian. His leg also gave him extreme pain and cause for uneasiness, to say the least. It had swollen to about the size of a flour barrel, and was still swelling as we go to press. He opened his eyes with a low moan, and looked up into the limber sun-bonnet. "Beauteous one, with the ethereal brow!" he began, but Geraldine blushed and bade him let up. "Gentle lady," he began again, "I am aware that the crisis is near. Unless I have help very soon, in some form or other, I shall have clomb the golden stair. Already the circulation is impaired, and the transverse duplex has ceased to vibrate. Dissolution is coming on. My pulse grows feebler hour by hour, and I feel that another morning sun will find only my earthly tenement here. My spirit will have wung its way to the realms of eternal day." "O, do not talk that way," sobbed Geraldine, filling her apron full of large, irregular fragments of grief. "It cannot, must not be!"