It gave me a new thought as to the longevity of the human race to hear Mrs. Laughlin speak of her mother back east. I hung my head and studied the planking of the verandah, then looked upward and gazed at the far-off glacier glittering under the blue sky, tried to wear the appearance of a deaf man who had not heard this altercation. Really I took the matter too seriously. Had I only known it at the time, they were a most devoted couple and would—not "kiss again with tears" and seek forgiveness and reconciliation, but—speak to each other most kindly, as though no "words" had ever passed between them, half an hour later. But at the time of the little altercation on the verandah, when Mrs. Laughlin gave voice to her threat and then, turning, stalked back into the hotel, Laughlin wheeled about with his head thrust forward, showing his lean neck craning out of his wide collar, and opened his lips as though to discharge a pursuing shot. But the parrot took the words out of his mouth, so to speak, giving a shriek of laughter and crying out: "Well, if this don’t beat cock-fighting!" The landlord looked up quizzically at the bird and then there was an awkward pause. I wondered what to say to break this silence that followed upon the exhibition of the break in the connubial bliss of my landlord and his wife. Then I remembered something that I decidedly did want to ask, so I was actually more seeking information than striving to put Mr. Laughlin at his ease again, when I said: "By the way, what is all this talk I hear about the Lost Cabin Mine? Everybody is speaking about it, you know. What is the Lost Cabin Mine? What is the story of it? People seem just to take it for granted that everybody knows about it." "Gee-whiz!" said the landlord in astonishment, wheeling round upon me. He stretched out a hand to a chair, dragged it along the verandah, and sat down beside me in the shadow. "You don’t know that story? Why, then I ’ll give you all there is to it so far. And talking about the Lost Cabin, now there’s what you might be doin’ if on’y you had the price of an outfit—go out and find it, my bold buck, and live happy ever after——"