The sick man opened his eyes, and closed them again wearily. His lips worked spasmodically for an instant; then he asked resolutely, but in an almost inaudible tone, "Did not _she_ come back, Si? Are you sure? Did you see all the passengers?" "It's no use, Ben; she's gone, and she'll never come back." "But, Si"--the quivering lips could hardly frame the words--"have you been to her cottage? I had not asked you to look, you know; but will you go to her room now, and see if she has not come back?" Without a word Si took his hat, his lips twitching almost as perceptibly as Ben Brodie's. When he had reached the door the sick man said, "You are not mad, Si, are you? Have patience with me; I shall be better--so much better--soon, and then you will forgive me." Si turned and held the feverish hand a moment, muttering that he'd go to--a very hot place if his partner bade him, and then left the room. Though he knew the utter folly of such a proceeding, he went to the vacant cottage, and peered through the open blind into the vacant room. There was something so death-like and still about the place that he turned with heavy heart and eyes bent down to the three steps that led from the stoop to the ground. Something white shimmered up out of the crevice between the stoop and the first step, and he bent down, saying to himself, "If it's only a scrap of paper, Ben is spoony enough to want it, and kiss it mebbee, because it was hers." The dampness of the past night had saturated the paper, and drying again in the sun, a portion of the letter--for such it proved to be--adhered to the board as Si attempted to draw it out. The letter unfolded itself, and fluttered lightly before Si's face, who bestowed a blessing on the "cobweb" paper, and then doggedly sat down to read what was written on it. His shaggy eyebrows seemed to grow heavier as he read, and his face turned a livid brown and then red again. When he had finished, he threw a hasty look over toward their cottage, and crushing the letter in fierce but silent wrath, he dropped the wad into his pocket and slowly retraced his steps. "She hasn't come?" If Ben had moved from his bed during Si's absence, the latter did not notice any derangement of furniture or bed-clothes, and he now dropped heavily into a chair beside his friend's bed. "When you get well, old fellow, we must go." "Where? To San Francisco?" "San Francisco be ----. No; to Siskiyou." There was no response. The fever had gone down, and Ben lay pale and still, like a corpse almost, except that his fingers seemed striving to touch something which evaded his grasp. The wind had grown stronger, and on it came borne the notes of the grossbeak, who strays down from the mountain-tops in the evening, and makes those who hear him think of home, of absent friends, and of all we hold dearest, and all who have gone from us farthest in this world.