Jessie shook her head, tearfully. "I don't believe he will ever come back," she said. "Wal', s'pose he doesn't? I reckon you two ain't goin' to let go your grip on that account. But troubles do seem to kind o' thicken around you! That's so." He paused a moment, musing over our troubles, and Ralph took advantage of his silence to call his attention to the kitten with which one of the neighbors had presented him to the jealous torment of his old playfellow, the big cat: "My new tat tan wink wiv bof he eyes, see?" he proclaimed, holding the animal up for inspection. "Yes, yes, I see, little feller," was the absent reply. Encouraged, Ralph put the kitten on his lap. "Her won't bite; 'oo needn't be 'fraid," he said. Mr. Wilson stroked the small cat mechanically and then lifted it to the ground--using its tail for a handle, to Ralph's speechless indignation--then he faced us again, his forehead puckered with anxious wrinkles: "There's one thing that I never thought of until early this morning--when I did, I hurried through with my chores and came right over here. It's a stunner to find that Joe's gone, now, in addition to all the rest, but we must keep a stiff upper lip. Fact is, I'm to blame for not thinking of this thing six weeks--yes, three months ago. I ought to have thought of it, children," he swept us all with a compassionate glance, "the day that your father died. I'd be willing to bet a big sum, if I was a betting man--which I'm thankful to say that I ain't--that Jake Horton thought of it, and has kept it well in mind all along; he ain't the man to overlook such a thing as that." Wiping his perplexed face with the red silk handkerchief that he always kept in his hat for that purpose, he continued, desperately: "This claim was taken up, lived on, built on, notices for proving up by Ralph C. Gordon. Ralph C. Gordon! Wal'," he ran his fingers again through his iron-gray hair, making it stand more defiantly upright than ever, "there ain't no Ralph C. Gordon!" The point that we had overlooked, presented to us now, for the first time, almost on the eve of our proving up, was of such vital importance, as it occurred to our awakened understanding, that, at first, we could do nothing but stare at each other, and at him, in stunned dismay. But hope, as that saving angel will, stirred, and began to brighten as our friend proceeded.