Then he rose up, came forward, and shaking the new bride by the hand, then lifting it to his lips and kissing it gallantly, he said carelessly, and as if nothing had happened, "You will pardon me for pausing occasionally as I did. The room is so warm and the ceremony is so long, that I really began to be exhausted." He was going on to say something about the glorious climate of California, but the men came forward, crowded around in this day of all days, and quite squeezed the little man away from the "Widow," as she was still called. It was perfectly splendid! How they did shout, and laugh, and cheer, and how careful they were to shake all the round oaths out of their speech before addressing her. And how they did crowd around, as Sandy led her away, every man of them, even to Washee-Washee, to wish her "God speed," and a long and a pleasant life in their midst, down there in the gorge, in the heart of the great Sierras. Only two circumstances in connection with this first family of the Sierras worth mentioning, occurred for some months. The first of these was the banishment of the boy-poet from the presence of the Widow. Sandy led her at once to the "parsonage" with the green window blinds, as he had solemnly promised the Parson to do. Into this house the boy was never seen to enter. Sandy, it was whispered, had forbidden him the house. The verdict of the Camp was: Served him right. The other little event was, to all appearances, of still less consequence. Yet it showed that there was a storm brewing, and it was a straw which showed which way the wind was blowing. The boy was seen late at night by some men who were passing, peering in at the Widow's window. He ran away like one caught in a crime. But they said he "looked pale as a ghost, and sickly, and sad, and lonesome." CHAPTER XV. WHAT'S THE MATTER NOW! Just exactly how many days or weeks or even months had blown over the Forks through the long bleak winter since the wedding no man knew. These men in the mountains, snowed up for half-a-year, where there is no business, where there is no law, no church, nothing but half-wild men hard at work--these men, I say, sometimes forget the day, the week, even the month. Yet the Day of the week is always kept. Six days they labor in the mine; the seventh, they do not rest, but they at least do not mine. Certainly there was snow on the day of the wedding, and certain it was that there was a little fall of snow on the high hill-sides, and in the black fir tops, and the great pines were tipped in white, as Sandy hurried from his cabin down to the Forks in search of his now divorced and forgotten Limber Tim. He was pale and excited. He pushed his great black, broad hat down over his eyes as he hurried on down the trail, slipping and sliding over the worn walk, over the new sprinkle of snow, in his great big gum boots. Then he pushed his hat back so as to get the cool wind of March in his face and even the blustering snow in his beard.