"After all, she is not selfish," he reflected; "she has nothing to gain by saving Dysart, except"--he smiled grimly--"her rascally father's good name." * * * * * The rains were late, but they came at last, blowing in soft and warm from the southeast, washing the dust from the patient orange-trees and the draggled bananas, and luring countless green things out of the brown mould of the mesa into the winter sun. Birds fledged in the golden drought of summer went mad over the miracles of rain and grass, and riotously announced their discovery of a new heaven and a new earth to their elders. The leafless poinsettia flaunted its scarlet diadem at Palmerston's tent door, a monarch robbed of all but his crown, and the acacias west of the Dysart dooryard burst into sunlit yellow in a night. The rains had not been sufficient to stop work on the tunnel, and John watched its progress with the feverish eagerness of an inexperienced gambler. Now that it was fairly under way, Brownell seemed to lose interest in the result, and wandered, satchel in hand, over the mountain-side, leaving fragments of his linen duster on the thorny chaparral, and devising new schemes for the enrichment of the valley, to which his daughter listened at night in skeptical silence. Now and then his voice fell from some overhanging crag in a torrent of religious rapture, penetrating the cabin walls and trying Mrs. Dysart's pious soul beyond endurance. "Now listen to that, Emeline!" said John, exultantly, during one of these vocal inundations. "He's a-singin' the doxology. Now _I_ believe he's a Christian." Mrs. Dysart averted her face with a sigh of long-suffering patience. "Singin' is the easiest part of the Christian religion, Jawn. As for that,"--she jerked her head toward the source of vocal supply,--"it's soundin' brass; that's what I'd say if I was settin' in judgment, which I thank our heavenly Fawther I'm not." "Well, there goes Mr. Palmerston and the girl, anyway," said John, with eager irrelevance; "they seem to be gettin' pretty thick." Mrs. Dysart moved toward the open window with piously restrained curiosity. "I'm sorry for that girl," she said; "she's got one man more'n she can manage now, without tacklin' another." "Oh, well, now, Emeline, young folks, will be young folks, you know." There was in John's voice something dangerously near satisfaction with this well-known peculiarity of youth. "Yes; and they'll be old folks, too, which most of 'em seems to forget," returned Mrs. Dysart, sending a pessimistic glance after the retreating couple.