At first the west was distasteful to him, but as he became better acquainted with its customs and habits he began to recognize the true manhood that is not unfrequently found under the miner’s garb. There is an uncouth, whole-soul generosity met with on the frontier of which the effete easterner knows nothing. Arriving at Waterville the following morning too late for the Gold Bluff stage, he was compelled to put in another day at Waterville. Remembering Miss Virginia Bonifield’s invitation, he called on her that evening, and was most hospitably received. In the course of their conversation she said: “I understand, Mr. Gilder, that you are interested with my father in Gray Rocks I hope you did not mis [130] understand me or my motive when I spoke discouragingly of my father’s mining prospects.” “May I ask,” said Vance, “what reason you have for your pessimistic views, if I may term them such?” “I presume,” she replied, a little nettled, “they are about as tangible and equally hard to explain as those of an optimist. I have a presentiment that father will never find what he is looking for in the Gray Rocks mine. My sister, Louise, encourages faith in what to me seems a mad belief.” “Your sister may be right,” replied Vance. “My greatest hope,” she replied, “is that I am wrong and that my sweet sister is right; but I really fear, Mr. Gilder, you will never see your money again that you have been investing with my father.” “I cannot doubt your sincerity,” replied Vance, “but I am glad to have more faith than you have.” “Why should I have any faith,” she replied. “Have I not seen my father clinging to that false hope year after year, and every day resulting in a fresh disappointment? Long ago I made up my mind that Aunt Sally is about right. She says that father has been planting money with different prospectors all over the mountains, and none of it has ever found its way back. She also predicts that father will work away on Gray Rocks until he dies, and never have his hopes realized. I love my father tenderly, and feel very sorry for him. A stranger cannot understand his personal charms and grandeur as one of his family. He is certainly one of the sweetest characters in the world. His persuasive powers, as you evidently have reason to know, are very great, and I feel it my duty to thus warn you for your own protection. Papa is [131] so sane on everything else excepting Gray Rocks, and is so foolish about that, notwithstanding his many years of lost labor.” “If your father has a ‘wheel in his head’ on the subject of Gray Rocks, I must admit that I, too, have one in mine,” replied Vance. The blush that overspread Virginia’s face suggested that she felt keenly the rebuke. “Pardon me, Mr. Gilder,” said she, “I had forgotten that I am not ‘my brother’s keeper’. I promise never to refer to the subject again.”