There arrived in town, obedient to the summons of Heart's Desire, the dusty buckboard driven by Willie the sheepherder. Upon the front seat with him was Mr. Ellsworth; on the back seat sat Porter Barkley and Constance. The chief actors in the impending drama were now upon the stage, and all Heart's Desire knew that action of some sort must presently follow. With due decorum, however, all Heart's Desire stood apart, while the three travellers, dusty and weary, buried themselves in the privacy of Uncle Jim Brothers's best spare rooms. Then Heart's Desire sought out Willie the sheepherder. "Now, Willie," said Doc Tomlinson, "look here--you tell us the truth for once. There's a heap of trouble goin' on here, and we want to get at the bottom of it. Maybe you heard something. Now, say, is this here railroad figurin' on comin' in here, or not?" "Shore it'll come," said Willie, sagely. "Them folks has got money to do just what they want. Railroad'll be here in a few days if they feel like it." "Maybe _we_ don't feel like it," said Doc Tomlinson, grimly. "We'll see about that to-night." "The girl, she's the one," said Willie, vaguely. "What's that you mean?" commanded Doc Tomlinson. "The funniest thing," said Willie, "is how things is mixed. Lord John, he rides on the front seat; and Lord Peter Berkeley,--that's the lawyer for the railroad,--he rides on the back seat with her, and he sues for her hand, he does, all the way up from the Sacramentos. Says he to Lord John, says he, 'Gimme the hand of this fair daughter of thine, and the treasure shall be yours,' says he." "Ah, ha!" said Doc Tomlinson. "I shore thought that girl was mixed up in this somehow. But I didn't understand. Wonder if Dan Anderson told us everything he knew?" "They set on the back seat," continued Willie, glancing importantly at the listeners to his romance, "a-lookin' into each other's eyes. And says the bold juke, to her, says he, 'Constance!' like that. 'Constance,' says he, 'I've loved you these many years agone.'" "What did she say then?" "I didn't ketch what she said. But by'm by the proud earl--" "You said the bold juke." "It's the same thing. The proud earl laughs, scornful of restraint, like earls always is, and says he agin, 'Lord John, the treasure shall be thine, but the proudest treasure of me life is this fair daughter of thine that sets here by me side, Lord John,' says he. From that I thought maybe the Lady Constance had said something I didn't ketch. Of course, I was busy drivin' the coach." The men of Heart's Desire looked from one to the other. "Well, I'll be damned!" said Doc Tomlinson. Curly chewed tobacco vigorously. "To me," he said, "it looks like Dan was throwed down. That girl was over to my house, too; and I didn't think that of her."