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White, Stewart Edward, 1873-1946

"The Claim Jumpers"

"I was just coming to see you. Wasn't
it a great rain?"
"And isn't the gulch awful? Down near our way the timber began to jam,
and it is all choked up; but up here it is desolate."
He turned his horse about, and they paced slowly along together,
telling each other their respective experiences in the storm. It seemed
that the Lawtons had known nothing of the cloud-burst itself, except
from its effects in filling up the ravine. Rumours of the drowning of a
miner were about.
It soon became evident that the brightness of the morning was reflected
from the girl's mood. She fairly sparkled with gaiety and high spirits.
The two got along famously.
"Where are you going?" asked Bennington at last.
"On the picnic, of course," she rejoined promptly. "Weren't you
invited? I thought you were."
"I thought it would be too wet," he averred in explanation.
"Not a bit! The rain dries quickly in the hills, and the cloud-burst
only came into this gulch. I have here," she went on, twisting around
in her saddle to inspect a large bundle and a pair of well-stuffed
saddle bags, "I have here a coffee pot, a frying pan, a little kettle,
two tin cups, and various sorts of grub.


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