Nelson had given him a second more to aim he would have blown my brains out; but being so quick, Nelson’s bullet must have reached him as he fired at me, for his shot went off through the roof.  As the brute fell, there seemed to be a general scrimmage, but the rest got off through the end door, which they at last broke down, just as the Senator and the Vicomte and the other miners came up the stairs.  Wasn’t it thrilling, Mamma?  I would not have missed it for worlds, now it is over.

I suppose the bullet which killed my assailant grazed a scrap of my shoulder, or perhaps it was his gun going off did it, anyway I felt it wet.  The next instant I was in Nelson’s arms, being carried into my room.  His face was again like death, and he bent over me.

“My God, have I hurt you?” he said in an agonised voice.  “My darling, my lady, my love——­” But I don’t feel as if I ought to tell you the rest of his words, Mamma.  They burst from him in the anguish of his heart, and he is the dearest, noblest gentleman, and I feel honoured and exalted by his love.

I reassured him as well as I could.  I told him I was not really hurt at all, only a little grazed, and I helped him to soak up the blood with my handkerchief, and then for a few minutes I felt faint and can’t remember any more.

I don’t suppose I could have been stupid for more than five minutes, but when I came to, Octavia was there with a quilt pinned over her nightgown, and she and the Senator were bathing my shoulder, and even that little cut hurt rather and I fear will leave a deep scar.

The poor secretary had his ankle broken, but otherwise was unhurt, and nobody minded at all about the man Nelson had killed.  They only wished he had exterminated more of them.  And Tom and the Vicomte are having the time of their lives, for as soon as dawn broke they joined the Sheriff with a posse, aided by the state police in pursuit of the escaped desperadoes, and as the Moonbeams Chronicle prints it today, “A general round up of bad men is in progress.”

Fancy us having the luck to come in for all this, Mamma, and to see the real thing!  The Senator had only been joking, he said, when he had promised us that, as all this sort of excitement is a thing of the past in camps, which are generally perfectly orderly now; and he thought by making us go to bed he was causing us to avoid seeing even a little quarrelling in the streets.

None of the dear real miners would have touched us, and by some strange chance not one of the men of our party had heard that the famous desperadoes were arrived in the town.  They will all be lynched if they are caught, of course, so I can’t help rather hoping they will get away.  Perhaps it would be a lesson to them, and I hate to think of any more people being killed.  But, of course, if Nelson had not had the nerve to fire, just like William Tell, the man would have blown my brains out, and as you know, Mamma, I have always despised mawkish sentiment, and I would rather he was dead than me, so I shan’t let myself think a thing more about it, only to be deeply and profoundly grateful to Nelson for saving my life.