If he did not dare to confess his past suspicions,
he was equally afraid to venture upon the boldness he had premeditated
a few hours before. He was therefore obliged to take a middle course of
slightly egotistical narration of his own personal adventures, with
which he beguiled the young girl's ear. This he only departed from
once, to describe to her a valuable grizzly bearskin which he had seen
that day for sale at Indian Spring, with a view to divining her
possible acceptance of it for a "buggy robe;" and once to comment upon
a ring which she had inadvertently disclosed in pulling off her glove.
"It's only an old family keepsake," she added, with easy mendacity; and
affecting to recognize in Mr. Brace's curiosity a not unnatural excuse
for toying with her charming fingers, she hid them in chaste and
virginal seclusion in her lap, until she could recover the ring and
resume her glove.
A week passed--a week of peculiar and desiccating heat for even those
dry Sierra table-lands. The long days were filled with impalpable dust
and acrid haze suspended in the motionless air; the nights were
breathless and dewless; the cold wind which usually swept down from the
snow line was laid to sleep over a dark monotonous level, whose horizon
was pricked with the eating fires of burning forest crests.
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