“Thar!” said Yuba Bill, quietly putting the coach lamp back in its place; “you're better already. Thar's nothing like six horses to draw a woman out of a man. I've knowed a case where it took eight mustangs, but it was a mulatter from New Orleans, and they are pizen! Ye might hit up a little on the Pinto hoss--he ain't harmin' ye. So! Now, Jeff, take your time, and take it easy, and what's all this yer about?” To control six fiery mustangs, and at the same time give picturesque and affecting exposition of the subtle struggles of Love and Pride, was a performance beyond Jeff's powers. He had recourse to an angry staccato, which somehow seemed to him as ineffective as his previous discourse to Miss Mayfield; he was a little incoherent, and perhaps mixed his impressions with his facts, but he nevertheless managed to convey to Bill some general idea of the events of the past three days. “And she sent ye off after that letter, that wasn't thar, while she fixed things up with Dodd?” “Yes,” said Jeff furiously. “Ye needn't bully the Pinto colt, Jeff; he is doin' his level best. And she snaked that ar ten dollars outer Dodd?” “Yes; and sent it back to ME. To ME, Bill! At such a time as this! As if I was dead broke!--a mere tramp. As if--” “In course! in course!” said Bill soothingly, yet turning his head aside to bestow a deceitful smile upon the trees that whirled beside them. “And ye told her ye didn't want her money?” “Yes, Bill--but it--it--it was AFTER she had done this!” “Surely! I'll take the lines now, Jeff.” He took them. Jeff relapsed into gloomy silence. The starlight of that dewless Sierran night was bright and cold and passionless. There was no moon to lead the fancy astray with its faint mysteries and suggestions; nothing but a clear, grayish-blue twilight, with sharply silhouetted shadows, pointed here and there with bright large-spaced constant stars. The deep breath of the pine-woods, the faint, cool resinous spices of bay and laurel, at last brought surcease to his wounded spirit. The blessed weariness of exhausted youth stole tenderly on him. His head nodded, dropped. Yuba Bill, with a grim smile, drew him to his side, enveloped him in his blanket, and felt his head at last sink upon his own broad shoulder. A few minutes later the coach drew up at the “Summit House.” Yuba Bill did not dismount, an unusual and disturbing circumstance that brought the bar-keeper to the veranda. “What's up, old man?” “I am.” “Sworn off your reg'lar pizen?” “My physician,” said Bill gravely, “hez ordered me dry champagne every three hours.” Nevertheless, the bar-keeper lingered. “Who's that you're dry-nussin' up there?” I regret that I may not give Yuba Bill's literal reply. It suggested a form of inquiry at once distant, indirect, outrageous, and impossible. The bar-keeper flashed a lantern upon Jeff's curls and his drooping eyelashes and mustaches. “It's that son o' Briggs o' Tuolumne--pooty boy, ain't he?” Bill disdained a reply.