The Press., 1894-12-20
confusion. None of her belongings was

confusion None of her belongings was touched or looked at
 ''The Pine Valley coach will be along before morning. We can only say we are sorry for the blunder, ]" and with a courteous gesture of farewell to Helen the party rode away
 Both leaders lay dead in their tracks. Clearly there was nothing to do but to wait for the Pine Valley coach. Helen was made comfortable with shawls and wraps on a bed of pine boughs and fell asleep quietly under the stars. She did not wake even when the coach came up.
 'Now, Helen,' a voice said, and she opened her eyes to find Harry standing beside her, and with him tall figure, dark in the starlight. Another road agent?' she said, half asleep.
 Harry laughed. "We don't know what he may develop into. At present he is Frank Bronson
 Helen rose to her feet, broad awake at once. ..
 ''You've had @ stirring introduction to your new life '' a pleasant voice said, 'and popular report makes you out a heroine. ;
 Helen flushed little resentfully. He might have been talking to girl of Is in that voice of easy patronage. She was silent. Harry, used to that peculiar ity, did not notice.
 Frank Bronson began again, ''I'm afraid you'll be inconveniently crowd ed, Miss Tryon."
 II beg your pardon," in her slow, cold way, ''I am Mrs. Morse ''
 They came out just then into the glare of the lamps. Bronson looked at her curiously.
 ''Harry did not tell me- he said, with sudden air of constrained bash fitness.
 At the journeys end the passenger whose pocketbook she had saved took a great solitaire diamond off his little finger. "A memento, madam, simply a memento. The ring was i'll the wallet. You saved me $15, 900 last night by your presence of mind.
 She would not take it, but a few weeks later there came to her through the postofice the stone reset in another ring heavy enough for an armlet. She smiled, slipping it over her slender fin ger. Then she met Bronson s eyes watch ing her.
 My good deeds pursue me- I am the heroine of Pine Gulch.' Would you have suspected it? And there is no ad- dress. " She dropped the ring into his hand and walked away.
 They were settled now ill their new home A very sketchy sort of home it was, but enough for the needs of a cli- mate where house is not needed much more or much oftener than an umbrel la. They had camped with the luxuries of wall tents while the young men did their own building. A sitting room, two sleeping rooms and kitchen, that was all, and the canvas of the tents made an awning under which a ham, mock might be swung. The new pine boards were aromatic in the hot sun- shine; the conventional requirements of living were reduced to their very sim plsst form.
 It was a solitary enough life for a woman. One of Harry's experimental gang of Chinese workers had been de- tailed to kitchen duties, and the peace of the house was profound. But was still, but somehow, little by little, she seemed to come back toward human sympathies and interests. Half uncon- sciously her black garments were laid aside as oppressive ill the heat of the long, bright days. The young men con- ing home at night found white draped presence awaiting them. Harry thought without spoken comment that some thing of her girlhood as he remembered it was coming back into her face and into the rounding outlines of her figure. Once or twice he heard an echo of the old imperious infections of speech when something went wrong in the simple programme of their housekeeping. Once or twice she laughed aloud at some of Sam Lees achievements. At least the old mOnOtonous calm was broken. She had fits of depression, felt keenly in the sensitive household atmosphere.
 It was the evening after the coming of the ring Helen found herself at the very bottom of her register of feeling. They were all out of doors ill the large SldTT0u, uoWl0SS SOuGnW0SC0rn n1RnU. The two men, outstretched on their blankets, lay silently smoking Helen, swinging in her hammock, was speech less too. By and by Harry asked her some trivial question, and the voice that answered him was hoarse with tears. He took no notice, and a minute after she went into the house. Harry followed her and came back after awhile, his own voice not oversteady.
 ''That girl has broken down at last. It's the first time ill years, and not easy years either. doubt if any one has seen her cry since she came home."
 Mrs Morse?"
 "Who else?" testify "How I hate the name! never think of it if I can help it. You don't know the story?'
 ''I have guessed-that is, I mean l couldn't help knowing there was some thing painful. Mrs. Morse is young to be a widow. "
 "She is 25," brusquely. "He1en al- ways would have her own way. She had it when she was IT and married 8 scoundrel. He got a life sentence for train robbery and was killed trying to