"I was a young man," he said, "and filled with the spirit of adventure, when I went West, taking my youthful wife with me. It was a hard life for a woman; but it was her wish to go and, indeed, I would have left her behind me very unwillingly. We prospered in the mining country. My wife enjoyed the novelty of our new life, and we began to gather about us the comforts of a home. Then little Lea was born." He paused a moment and sighed heavily. "My wife was never well again. She drooped and faded. When Lea was six months old, she died, and I buried her at the foot of her favorite mountain. I put my baby into the care of one of the women of the settlement--it was the best I could do,--and I lived on as I might. But the place grew hateful to me. There was one man among the rest whose friendship I prized, and after the loss of my wife I clung to him as if he were of my own blood. His name was Arthur Pearson." Again the narrator paused, and the eyes of the two listeners instinctively sought each other. "Pearson was younger than I, and was never rugged like most of the men who lived that wild life. And after a time I saw that he, too, was failing. He grew thin and began to cough dismally. Pearson was very fond of my baby girl; and sometimes we would sit and talk of her future, and wish her away from that place, where she must grow up without the knowledge and graces of refined civilization. "As Pearson became worse, he began to talk of going back to the States, and much as I would miss him, I strongly advised him to go. At last when he had fully decided to do so, he made me a proposition: If I would trust my baby to him, he would take her back and put her in the care of my sister, who had no children of her own, and who was just the one to make of little Lea all that a woman should be. I knew how gladly she would watch over my daughter, and after I had thought upon the matter, I decided to send Lea to her, under the guardianship of Pearson. As I look back, I can see my selfishness. I should have gone with Arthur and the child. But my grief was too fresh; I could not bear to turn my face homeward alone. I wanted change and absorbing occupation, and I had already decided to dispose of my mining interest, and go to Australia. "I found a nurse for my baby girl; a woman in our little community, who had lost her husband in a mine explosion a few months before. She was glad of an opportunity to return to her friends, and I felt sure that I could trust her with Lea. So they set out for the East, and I made preparations for my journey, while waiting to hear that Pearson and the train were safely beyond the mountains and most dangerous passes.