“Thank ye, sir; thank ye; and if there is a God, I thank Him, too, that I’ve been allowed to set eyes on ye once more, and in yer right mind, too,” was the fervent response. “I reckon,” he continued, after a moment of thought, “it might be called the work of Providence that I lost ye there in New York, for if ye’d gone with me to Australia, I doubt that ye’d ever been cured, and I’m right sure ye’d never been the gentleman that ye are. I’d thank ye to tell me about the good man that befriended ye.” “I will, Jack, presently, but I first want to ask you a few more questions about the past.” “All right, sir: anything I can tell ye, ye shall know. “Well, then, I’d like you to describe the man who was my father,” Geoffrey said, gravely. Jack turned to look upon the young man beside him. “The best description ye could get of him’d be to go and look at yerself in the glass,” he said, studying Geoffrey’s face and form, “for ye’re as nigh like him as another man could be, when I first saw him after he brought that pretty little woman to live here. He’d been off to meet her somewhere, and he’d shaved off all his heavy beard, had his hair trimmed up in the fashion, and wore a dandy suit o’ clothes.” “His name was Dale, you say? Are you sure that was his true name?” the young man asked. “I couldn’t take my oath as to that, sir, but everybody here knew him as Captain William Dale, though I don’t know how he came to be a captain. She used to call him ‘Will,’ in a way that made his eyes shine enough to do ye good.” Geoffrey’s eyes lighted at this. It was evident that Captain Dale had truly loved the girl whom he had brought there, whether she had been his legal wife or not. “Do you know what her name was before he married her?” he asked. “No, sir; that is one of the things I can’t tell ye; even Margery never found out that. They was both very shy of talkin’ about themselves afore folks, and nobody ever knew where they came from, either.” “Did they never have visitors—was there no friend whoever came to see them?” “No, sir; and they didn’t seem to want anybody; she was just his world, and he her’n. My girl used to think it was kind of strange, though, that they never got any letters; but she never did, and never writ any, either.” “Did she seem happy?” Geoffrey asked, in a hushed tone, as if this was ground he hardly liked to trespass upon. “As chipper as a bird,” Jack returned; “and she could sing like one, too. Many’s the night the boys have stolen to yonder house to listen while she sang and played to the cap; he had a pianer sent up from Santa Fe; and she was always bright and smilin’; she was like a streak o’ sunshine in a dark place, for there wasn’t anybody like her anywhere about.” Geoffrey felt his heart yearn wistfully for this sweet and gentle woman, who had been his mother, and who had brightened that wild and dreary place with her presence for one short year.