made a swoop upon its property, of various kinds, and had succeeded in making off with it. The very night after the ride just mentioned, the best horses in Sam Rice's team were stolen, making it necessary to substitute what Sam called "a pa'r of ornery cayuses." To put the climax to his misfortunes, the "road-agents" attacked him next morning, when, the "ornery cayuses" becoming unmanageable, Sam was forced to surrender the treasure-box, and the passengers their bullion. The excitement in Lucky-dog was intense. A vigilance committee, secretly organized, lay in waiting for the offenders, and, after a week or two, made a capture of a well-known sporting-man, whose presence in camp had for some time been regarded with suspicion. Short shrift was afforded him. That same afternoon his gentlemanly person swung dangling from a gnarled pine-tree limb, and his frightened soul had fled into outer darkness.
When this event became known to Mrs. Dolly Page, she turned ghostly white, and then fainted dead away. Mrs. Shanghnessy was very much concerned for her friend; berating in round terms, the brutishness of people who could talk of such things before a tender-hearted lady like that. To Mr. Rice, particularly, she expatiated upon the coarseness of certain people, and the refined sensitiveness of others; and Sam was much inclined to agree with her, so far as her remarks applied to her friend, who was not yet recovered sufficiently to be visible. Indeed, Mrs. Page was not visible for so many days, that Sam's soul began to long for her with a mighty longing. At length, she made her appearance, considerably paler and thinner than was her wont; but doubly interesting and lovely to the eyes of so partial an observer as Sam, who would willingly have sheltered her weakness in his strong, manly arms. Sam, naturally enough, would never have hinted at the event which had so distressed her; but she relieved him of all embarrassment on that subject, by saying to him almost at once:
