“Yes, that was her name,” the man answered, with a sigh, “and I shall never forget the day they buried her. They had a parson over from Fort Union, a grave-spoken but pleasant-faced man, and he almost took us right into heaven where that sweet woman had gone, with the beautiful, solemn words he spoke. The coffin was solid rosewood, and came from Santa Fe, with another great box of sweet smelling flowers. The captain never showed himself that day; he just sat alone by the coffin in the front room of his house and never made a sound until the men went in to take it away, when he gave a groan, that I shall never forget as long as I live, and fell on his face to the floor where he was picked up in a dead faint. Poor fellow! he was worn-out with watching, to say nothing of his grief. I tell you that was a sorry day for the camp, for there wasn’t more’n a half-dozen women in the place, and most of them were none of the best; though after the captain’s wife came there they seemed to take more pride in being kind of decent. Well, she was buried under a great cypress tree where she loved to sit on warm days, and the captain had it all fenced off, after a while, and put a white stone up by the grave with just her first name on it, and the miners rough as they were, never let the flowers wither on that grave as long as I staid there. I don’t know how it was afterward, for it’s more than twenty years since the poor thing died.” The man had to stop and use his handkerchief vigorously just here, and Everet could see that he was deeply moved over the memory of that sad time. “What became of the child?” the young man asked, after a moment. “Well, when the Dales first went there to live, they hired a girl to serve Mrs. Dale, for she was delicate, and the captain wouldn’t permit her to do any work, and she—the girl had the care of the boy after the mother died. But they didn’t stay long in the place, only about a month. The captain didn’t seem to have any heart for anything; appeared wretched and half crazed, and finally, when the girl was married to a man named Jack Henly, who was going to California, to be a farmer, the cottage was shut up, its furniture sold, and they all went away together.” “What was this girl’s name?” Everet demanded. “Margery something. I can’t remember her other name just now,” said the miner. Even though Everet Mapleson had been expecting just this reply it gave him a shock when he heard that name pronounced. He had, at last, he believed, traced Geoffrey Huntress’ birth! It was proved that Annie Dale was his mother. When she left Richmond she had doubtless gone to the man whom she loved, and who had enticed her, with smooth words and fair promises, to go with him to that wild mining region where they had lived together as husband and wife. That they were not really so, Everet felt quite sure, else the man would never have taken the girl’s name, instead of giving her his own. “What did they name the child?” he asked.