A lovely picture lay at her feet, for the cañon opened out before her eyes in all the grandeur of its mountainous surroundings, while the little town in its bosom was softened and beautified by the kindly autumnal haze, which took away the crude shabbiness of its detail and brought it into harmony with the rugged landscape about it. Beyond the town lay the creek, and over it all floated the heavy pall of thick white smoke, which seemed to be supported on the tall red chimneys of the smelter buildings. The sun was dropping behind the mountains, and already the town lay in shadow, while the last beams lingered upon the cloud of smoke which flushed to a pale pink, then deepened to a rosy glow. The girl's eyes rested on the scene below her; then, surprised at the continued silence of her escort, she glanced at him once more. He was still groping about underneath his hat, with the same strained, upward roll to his eyes; but, as she looked at him, a new light burst in upon Louise's mind, for two long locks of tawny hair had straggled down over his right ear, and lay in a feeble ringlet against the top of his tall collar. The Reverend Gabriel's wrist brushed against them; he felt of them inquiringly; then he deliberately took off his hat to show the top of his head shorn of the glory of his curl, and the long ends of hair hanging in elf-locks about his face.
"Miss—um—Miss Everett," he began hesitatingly, while a dark flush rose on his weather-beaten cheeks; "Miss Everett, I am exceedingly sorry to trouble you, but"—he paused; then went on desperately; "in fact, could you be good enough to lend me a hairpin? The exertion of my climb has removed mine from its accustomed place, and I fear that my hair may be slightly disarranged."
The silence that followed was unbroken while Louise felt about among her braids and drew out a long, slender pin; but when the doctor put his hat down on the ground by his side, carefully rolled up his hair over his two forefingers, spread it into the usual long curl, and fastened it into its place, Allie and Ned fell into an uncontrollable fit of giggling. But, for the once, Grant's attention was distracted, for he was gazing steadily towards the engine house at the mouth of the mine.
"Say, Lou," he exclaimed; "what's going on down there? Everybody's rushing over to the mine; something must be wrong."
Louise's eyes followed the direction of his hand.
"There 's some trouble, down there," she said, rising abruptly. "Will you excuse us, Dr. Hornblower, if we go down without waiting to get rested? I am always a little anxious about my father." And she hurried away down the hill, leaving the Reverend Gabriel to adjust his hairpin at his ease, while he reflected upon the unsatisfactory nature of his walk.
CHAPTER XI.
"SWEET CHARITY'S SAKE."
"You see," Howard was explaining to Ned, that evening, "he'd put in his charge for the blast, and was tamping it down all right; but he kicked over his drill, and the end fell on an extra package of giant powder."