Gabriel stopped his work, laid down the petticoat, and taking the curly head of Olly between his knees, with one hand beneath her chin and the other on the top of her head, turned her mischievous face towards his. "Olly," he said, seriously, "when I got you outer the snow at Starvation Camp; when I toted you on my back for miles till we got into the valley; when we lay by thar for two weeks, and me a felling trees and picking up provisions here and thar, in the wood or the river, wharever thar was bird or fish, I reckon you got along as well--I won't say better--ez if you had a woman to look arter you. When at last we kem here to this camp, and I built this yer house, I don't think any woman could hev done better. If they could, I'm wrong, and Mrs. Markle's right." Olly began to be uncomfortable. Then the quick instincts of her sex came to her relief, and she archly assumed the aggressive. "I think Mrs. Markle likes you, Gabe." Gabriel looked down at the little figure in alarm. There are some subjects whereof the youngest of womankind has an instinctive knowledge that makes the wisest of us tremble. "Go to bed, Olly," said the cowardly Gabriel. But Olly wanted to sit up, so she changed the subject. "The Mexican you're tendin' isn't a Mexican, he's a Chileno; Mrs. Markle says so." "Maybe; it's all the same. _I_ call him a Mexican. He talks too straight, anyway," said Gabriel, indifferently. "Did he ask you any more questions about--about old times?" continued the girl. "Yes; he wanted to know everything that happened in Starvation Camp. He was rek'larly took with poor Gracie; asked a heap o' questions about her--how she acted, and seemed to feel as bad as we did about never hearing anything from her. I never met a man, Olly, afore, as seemed to take such an interest in other folks' sorrers as he did. You'd have tho't he'd been one of the party. And he made me tell him all about Dr. Devarges." "And Philip?" queried Olly. "No," said Gabriel, somewhat curtly. "Gabriel," said Olly, sullenly, "I wish you didn't talk so to people about those days." "Why?" asked Gabriel, wonderingly. "Because it ain't good to talk about. Gabriel dear," she continued, with a slight quivering of the upper lip, "sometimes I think the people round yer look upon us sorter queer. That little boy that came here with the emigrant family wouldn't play with me, and Mrs. Markle's little girl said that we did dreadful things up there in the snow. He said I was a cannon-ball." "A what?" asked Gabriel. "A cannon-ball! He said that you and I"---- "Hush," interrupted Gabriel, sternly, as an angry flush came into his sunburnt cheek, "I'll jest bust that boy if I see him round yer agin." "But, Gabriel," persisted Olly, "nobody"----