“If I ever prayed in my life I’d do so now,” one of the toughest of the miners said, wiping his eyes with his grimy hand. “I should s’pose Stokes, who has been through the mill, would go at it. Hallo, Stokes! Ain’t there a prayer for the sick in that book of yourn you read so much?” he called to Stokes, coming slowly from his cabin. Stokes nodded, and the rough continued: “Well, you’d better say it for Miss Elithe, and lively, too. No time to fool round now.” “I am saying it all the time,” was Stokes’s reply, as he passed on to his work. Every day a boy was sent to Samona for news, and when at last Paul’s telegram, “She is better,” flashed across the continent and was carried to the camp a loud huzza went up from the miners, the tough leading the yell and getting drunker that night than he had ever been before in his life by way of celebrating Elithe’s recovery. Mr. Pennington did not return from Helena for a week or more, consequently he knew nothing of Elithe’s illness until the worst was over and Paul’s telegrams came every day, signed sometimes Paul Ralston and sometimes P. R. “He is awful good to take so much interest in Elithe, isn’t he?” Rob said to Mr. Pennington, when communicating the last telegram to him. “I wonder who he is.” There was no reply, but Mr. Pennington’s face was dark, as he turned away with something akin to jealousy stirring in his heart and a half resolve to start at once for Oak City and assert his claim to Elithe against all the world. CHAPTER XVII. GETTING ACQUAINTED. After the disease left her, if there had been any disease, Elithe’s recovery was rapid. Of her illness she remembered nothing, except a feeling that she was having a delicious rest and a dream of Mr. Pennington and the diamond ring. Where was her dress and the box, she wondered, and was about to inquire, when, as if guessing her thoughts, her aunt said to her, “I’ve washed your things, dress and all. There was a box in the pocket. I don’t know what was in it, if anything, but I put it in your trunk.”