“They stopped the horse, darling, and one poor fellow was hurt. And oh, Amy, if you had seen the other one in a red shirt, with a pistol at his waist! I couldn’t help thinking of you, dear. He was just your idea. You remember, a yellow mustache and great blue eyes. And how he did stare at poor me! You never see such men in Burke Street, Amy;” and so on, for four pages of pretty feminine gossip. In the mean time poor Boss, badly shaken, had been helped up the hill by his partner and regained the shelter of the shanty. Abe doctored him out of the rude pharmacopœia of the camp, and bandaged up his strained arm. Both were men of few words, and neither made any allusion to what had taken place. It was noticed, however, by Blinky, that his master failed to pay his usual nightly orisons before the shrine of Susan Banks. Whether this sagacious fowl drew any deductions from this, and from the fact that Bones sat long and earnestly smoking by the smouldering fire, I know not. Suffice it that as the candle died away and the miner rose from his chair, his feathered friend flew down upon his shoulder, and was only prevented from giving vent to a sympathetic hoot by Abe’s warning finger, and its own strong inherent sense of propriety. * * * * * A casual visitor dropping into the straggling township of Harvey’s Sluice shortly after Miss Carrie Sinclair’s arrival would have noticed a considerable alteration in the manners and customs of its inhabitants. Whether it was the refining influence of a woman’s presence, or whether it sprang from an emulation excited by the brilliant appearance of Abe Durton, it is hard to say--probably from a blending of the two. Certain it is that that young man had suddenly developed an affection for cleanliness and a regard for the conventionalities of civilization, which aroused the astonishment and ridicule of his companions. That Boss Morgan should pay attention to his personal appearance had long been set down as a curious and inexplicable phenomenon, depending upon early education; but that loose-limbed easy-going Bones should flaunt about in a clean shirt was regarded by every grimy denizen of the Sluice as a direct and premeditated insult. In self-defence, therefore, there was a general cleaning up after working hours, and such a run upon the grocery establishment, that soap went up to an unprecedented figure, and a fresh consignment had to be ordered from McFarlane’s store in Buckhurst.