suddenly remembering that she still had it, and she took the beautiful cameo head from her shawl and held it out to him.

“Please keep it as a souvenir,” he said, gently, adding: “And I wish you had something to give me in exchange.”

“I’ve lost everything, you know. I could give you naught but a ‘tress of my yellow hair,’” Star said, with a light laugh, and lifting the heavy braid which lay over her shoulder with a look of mock dismay.

“Oh, would you?” he asked, eagerly, and taking her literally at her word.

“It would be but a poor return for this lovely cameo,” she answered, flushing beneath his eager glance.

40“No, indeed, it would not,” he returned, earnestly. “May I have just a lock of its shining gold, please, Miss Star?” and his fingers touched the massive braid almost tenderly.

40

“I have nothing with which to cut it off, and—I’m afraid it would be very foolish,” she said, with drooping eyes, but a quickly beating heart.

For answer, he drew a tiny pair of scissors from one of the pockets of his vest, and held them out to her with a smile.

She took them hesitatingly, her delicate face crimsoning even to the light locks which lay upon her forehead; then, with a hand that was not quite steady, she clipped a silken tress from among the curling ends below the blue ribbon with which the braid was tied, and laid it, with the scissors, in his extended hand.

“Thank you; I shall always keep it,” he said, with glowing eyes, as he put it carefully between the leaves of a small notebook which he took from another pocket.

Then he took her hand in a warm, strong clasp, and, with a reluctantly spoken farewell, a lingering, wistful look into her lovely blue eyes, he went away.

As he disappeared through one door-way of the saloon, the figure of a woman, clad in plain dark robes, entered by the other, and threw a quick, searching glance around the place.

“I’m in search of a girl named Stella Gladstone,” she said, in sharp, incisive tones, as her eyes fell upon our lone Star.

The young girl took a step forward, her earnest glance fastened upon that plain yet not unkind face.

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