“The folks about here are very kind,” said Miggles, after a pause, coming a little into the light again. “The men from the Fork used to hang around here, until they found they wasn’t wanted, and the women are kind, and don’t call. I was pretty lonely until I picked up Joaquin in the woods yonder one day, when he wasn’t so high, and taught him to beg for his dinner; and then thar’s Polly—that’s the magpie—she knows no end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of evenings with her talk, and so I don’t feel like as I was the only living being about the ranch. And Jim here,” said Miggles, with her old laugh again, and coming out quite into the firelight,—“Jim—Why, boys, you would admire to see how much he knows for a man like him. Sometimes I bring him flowers, and he looks at ’em just as natural as if he knew ’em; and times, when we’re sitting alone, I read him those things on the wall. Why, Lord!” said Miggles, with her frank laugh, “I’ve read him that whole side of the house this winter. There never was such a man for reading as Jim.” “Why,” asked the Judge, “do you not marry this man to whom you have devoted your youthful life?” “Well, you see,” said Miggles, “it would be playing it rather low down on Jim to take advantage of his being so helpless. And then, too, if we were man and wife, now, we’d both know that I was _bound_ to do what I do now of my own accord.” “But you are young yet and attractive”— “It’s getting late,” said Miggles gravely, “and you’d better all turn in. Good-night, boys;” and throwing the blanket over her head, Miggles laid herself down beside Jim’s chair, her head pillowed on the low stool that held his feet, and spoke no more. The fire slowly faded from the hearth; we each sought our blankets in silence; and presently there was no sound in the long room but the pattering of the rain upon the roof and the heavy breathing of the sleepers. It was nearly morning when I awoke from a troubled dream. The storm had passed, the stars were shining, and through the shutterless window the full moon, lifting itself over the solemn pines without, looked into the room. It touched the lonely figure in the chair with an infinite compassion, and seemed to baptize with a shining flood the lowly head of the woman whose hair, as in the sweet old story, bathed the feet of him she loved. It even lent a kindly poetry to the rugged outline of Yuba Bill, half reclining on his elbow between them and his passengers, with savagely patient eyes keeping watch and ward. And then I fell asleep and only woke at broad day, with Yuba Bill standing over me, and “All aboard” ringing in my ears.