“Well, gentlemen,” he resumed, “since you desire it, I will tell you all I know. Soon after Helm’s departure, influenced by a desire to have the address of and see once more my benefactress, I drove my herd to Yreka, and sold it for a handsome sum. While there I searched diligently, but in vain, for my heroine. She had gone, and, as she had refused to give me her name, I found inquiry for her impracticable. I went to San Francisco, but no one could give me the least trace of her, and, after repeated disappointments, I gave up the search and returned to Oregon. “Five years thereafter, business took me to Portland. While seated by the office stove, in conversation with some old friends, the clerk came and whispered that a young lady in the parlor wished to see me. Wondering who she could be, I hastened to the room, and there sat my friend of the wilderness. She gave me a cordial greeting, and to my numerous and eager inquiries, informed me in substance that soon after she left me and returned to Yreka, she went to Boston. After a year spent among old friends, she came back to San Francisco, accompanied by her mother. She purchased a neat residence there, and it was now her home. She had arrived in Oregon with some friends the day before on a pleasure excursion, but intended to return in a few days. We had a pleasant interview, and I bade her good-bye.” “So you did not marry her, after all,” was the eager remark of our young friend. “No, gentlemen. Had I not been fortunately married some time before our last meeting, I cannot tell what might have happened; but as it was, I did not marry her after all, as you say.” CHAPTER XLII WHITE AND DORSETT The attachments formed between men, where the privileges and enjoyments of social life are confined to the monotonous round of a mining camp, are necessarily strong. The surroundings, which dictate great prudence in the choice of friends, where confidence is once established, are continually strengthening the ties that bind men to each other. Self-preservation and self-interest will furnish apologies for incompatibilities of temper in the mountains, which would sever friendships formed in less exposed communities. The sterling qualities of truth, honor, integrity, and kindness are sooner ascertained and more highly prized among miners than any other class. We have seen the operation of these principles in the instance of Beachy and Magruder, a very strong but not an exceptional case; this is another narrative of similar import.