“What am I doing up here?” he said in answer to the older man’s question. “Looking after my interests. What else would bring a man into these trails? There’s an old claim of my father’s out Thompson’s Flat way, that they’ve been getting up a fairy tale about. Ever since the Buckeye Belle’s panned out so well they keep inventing yarns down below that sound like forty-nine. But the Buckeye Belle _has_ made a strike, Forsythe tells me.” “The Gracey boys are here to-night. They’ll tell you all about it. Black Dan won’t have anything else to do.” The younger man pursed his lips for a whistle of surprise. “That’s luck,” he said. “What’s Black Dan Gracey doing in a center of civilization like this?” “Bringing his daughter in for a dance. We’ve got a party on here to-night. Go into your room and primp up the best you know how. Dancing men are short.” The young man laughed, a deep, jolly laugh. “Timed it just right, didn’t I? Do you suppose the belles of Foleys will take me this way, travel-stained and weary? I’d like to see Black Dan’s daughter. They say she promises to be a beauty.” “Promises!” echoed the Colonel; “she kept that promise some time ago. She’s sixteen years old, my boy, and she can take your pelt and nail it to the barn door whenever she’s a mind to.” The other turned away to the open door of the room Forsythe had lit up for him. “Sixteen!” he said. “Oh, that’s too young! No, Colonel, I’ve not got to the age when sixteen attracts. But you ought to be just about there. So long! You’ll see me later looking on at your gambols with the sixteen-year-older.” His boyish laugh issued from the room, and as the Colonel went down stairs he could hear it above the swishing of water and the sound of smitten crockery. From below the first tentative whinings of the violins rose, and as he reached the lower hall he heard the rattling of vehicles and the sound of voices as the earlier guests began to arrive. To the right of the hall he discovered Black Dan, secluded in a small room reserved by Forsythe for honored patrons, smoking tranquilly as he tilted back in a wooden arm-chair. The Colonel joined him, and for an hour the smoke of their cigars mingled amicably as they talked over the mining prospects of the district, and the Colonel’s scheme for the development of his mineral spring. It was near nine and the dance had passed its initial stage of bashful gaiety, when they strolled down the balcony to where the windows of the dining-room cast elongated squares of light into the darkness. This room, built on the angle of the house, had a door in the front, flanked by two windows, and down the long side a line of four more windows. Before each aperture there was a gathering of shadowy shapes, the light gilding staring faces.