"There, Missus Sandy, y'er wrong!" argued the little Judge, and then he began to tell her the story of Jonah and the whale, and wound up with the declaration that there was nothing at all unnatural in a fish eating gold in "this glorious climate of Californy." "Will you not take back your gold?" "Nary a red." There was a pale thoughtful young man, half ill, too feeble to work, to leave, to retreat from the mountains, standing by the fire when the Widow had entered the saloon. It was the boy poet. She took up the bag of gold, turned around, looked back in the corner of the saloon, for he had retreated out of sight as she entered, saw the young man hiding back in the shade, leaning over the bunk, caressing the dog; possibly he was crying. Her face lighted with a light that was high and beautiful and half divine. She turned, held the gold out to Poker Jake. "No!" "And then is it mine? all mine, to do as I like with it?" "Yours, lady. Yours to take and go home and git from out of the canon, out of this hole in the ground, and live like a Christian, as yer are, and not live here like a wild beast in a carawan." The man stood up as he spoke, and was proud of his speech, and the men cheered and cheered and said: "Bully for Poker Jake!" Then the little Widow turned again, went back to the boy leaning over the bull-dog, thrust it in his arms as he rose to look at her, and turning to the men was gone. They looked at each other in amazement and disgust. They could hardly believe their senses. "How dare she do it before us all?" said one. CHAPTER XVI. WAS THE WOMAN INSANE? As the boy left the saloon one of the men said, "Now I guess the little cuss will git up and dust." And that thought was their consolation. Not that they hated this boy, but they felt that he was out of place in the cabin of their "Widder." Other, and equally ingenious ways, all quite as innocent, had been used by the miners to force their gifts upon the one sweet woman, the patron saint of the camp, until she might have been almost as wealthy as the good old saint who lies mouldering before the eyes of all who care to pay a five-franc note, in the mighty cathedral at Milan. But now they would do no more. Nuggets, and bars, and scales, and specimens, and dust in her home in profusion. And why did the little woman remain in the wilderness? Why did not this little woman rise up some morning, smile a good-bye to those about her, leave the business to Washee-Washee, take her great big bodyguard, mount a mule, turn his head up the corkscrew trail toward the clouds, toward the snow, and find a milder clime? Who could she have been, this half hermit, this little missionary who had in one winter half civilized, almost christianized, a thousand savage men without preaching a single sermon?