"We must take one more good look for that ring," said Mrs. Wright. "Here, you boys, your eyes are sharp; you look too. I feel dreadful about it."
"I make no doubt that little thing was worth nigh onto ten dollars," sighed her husband. "It oughter have been Lizzie's wedding-ring. It's just our luck."
The last search proved as unavailing as the first. Two or three tears dropped from Elizabeth's eyes, as the trains finally moved on, for she felt as if the chances for recovering the lost treasure were exceedingly small.
"I've l'arned all there is to l'arn about that dark-complexioned chap," resumed Buckskin Joe, later in the forenoon, as he dropped alongside Wright's wagon. "It's just as I thought about his travelin' for his health. His name is Carollyn—Leger Carollyn, he writes it—a sort of a furrin'-lookin' name like himself. He's troubled with the liver-complaint or some other of them woman's ailin's that gentlemen take to, who are too keerful of theirselves; and now he's tryin' the nateral way o' livin' in the hopes of a cure. Boiled buffalo is excellent for dyspepsy—so's cold baked beans eaten with a chip out of an old stew-pan—and I reckon the Rocky Mountains will scare him out of his liver-complaints. I've bin noticing him considerable this mornin', and it strikes me that he's got more on his mind than he has on his stomach, though he's saller enough to show that's out o' fix. Lord, Miss, I've never seen the feller yet that could make my h'ar stand on end—but I'm blasted if I'd like to tell him he's got your ring—that is, unless I was certain he had; in which case, in course, knives and pistols couldn't purvent my throwin' it up to him. I'm goin' to keep an eye on the company ginerally, and make no doubt I shall tree the thief if he's in these woods. Don't fret, Miss—for leastwise, if we don't rekiver that ring, we're goin' where gold is plenty, and you shall have another as purty."
"But it won't be that—that was my mother's, you know, Joe."
"Was it now? Thunder and lizards! then we won't give it up nohow," responded the little guide, looking fierce, and marching along faster, for he could not bear to see the tears which sprung into the girl's eyes—he'd often swore he'd rather face a catamount than a cryin' woman.
The long day's journey was only a repetition of previous days, except that it was unusually dull and void of adventure. The plain grew more arid; there was no longer grass enough to tempt the bison; and no living thing varied the monotony of the way, except the curious villages of prairie-dogs, living in their sand-huts, and poking their queer, inquisitive noses out, to squeak and twitter at the travelers, and make Elizabeth laugh at their oddity.
"Wal, now, it does me good to hear you laugh out right smart ag'in," said Mr. Wright, "just as you did before we begun this desperate trip. You look like our Lizzie now, and not the tired little girl that's given her uncle the heart-ache for the last few days. If you knowed how much handsomer you look when you're full of fun!"
And truly if her face was a beautiful one in its resigned, almost dull melancholy, it was absolutely brilliant with light and color when it flashed out in mirth.
"I don't see the use of looking handsome here," replied she, with one of those arch sparkles of laughter beneath the long lashes which were all the more bewitching for being rare. "I don't care about aunt and yourself falling in love with me, any more than you are already, and old Joe is devoted enough to satisfy a more exacting person than I am."