"There!" said Cissy, when they had passed, "didn't I tell you? Did you
ever see such conceit in your born days? I hope you did not look at
him."
Piney, conscious of having done so, and of having blushed under his
scrutiny, nevertheless stoutly asserted that she had merely looked at
him "to see who it was." But Cissy was placated by passing the Secamps'
cottage, from whose window the three strapping daughters of John
Secamp, lately an emigrant from Missouri, were, as Cissy had surmised,
lightening the household duties by gazing at the--to them--unwonted
wonders of the street. Whether their complexions, still bearing traces
of the alkali dust and inefficient nourishment of the plains, took a
more yellow tone from the spectacle of Cissy's hat, I cannot say. Cissy
thought they did; perhaps Piney was nearer the truth when she suggested
that they were only "looking" to enable them to make a home-made copy of
the hat next week.
Their progress forward and through the outskirts of the town was of
the same triumphal character. Teamsters withheld their oaths and their
uplifted whips as the two girls passed by; weary miners, toiling in
ditches, looked up with a pleasure that was half reminiscent of their
past; younger skylarkers stopped in their horse-play with half smiling,
half apologetic faces; more ambitious riders on the highway urged their
horses to greater speed under the girls' inspiring eyes, and "Vaquero
Billy," charging them, full tilt, brought up his mustang on its haunches
and rigid forelegs, with a sweeping bow of his sombrero, within a foot
of their artfully simulated terror! In this way they at last reached the
clearing in the forest, the church with its ostentatious spire, and the
Reverend Mr. Windibrook's dwelling, otherwise humorously known as "The
Pastorage," where Cissy intended to call.
The Reverend Mr. Windibrook had been selected by his ecclesiastical
superiors to minister to the spiritual wants of Canada City as being
what was called a "hearty" man. Certainly, if considerable lung
capacity, absence of reserve, and power of handshaking and back slapping
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