Participating in the general ill-luck of the camp, Cass was not without his own individual mischance.  He had resolutely determined to forget Miss Porter and all that tended to recall the unlucky ring, but, cruelly enough, she was the only thing that refused to be forgotten—­whose undulating figure reclined opposite to him in the weird moonlight of his ruined cabin, whose voice mingled with the song of the river by whose banks he toiled, and whose eyes and touch thrilled him in his dreams.  Partly for this reason, and partly because his clothes were beginning to be patched and torn, he avoided Red Chief and any place where he would be likely to meet her.  In spite of this precaution he had once seen her driving in a pony carriage, but so smartly and fashionably dressed that he drew back in the cover of a wayside willow that she might pass without recognition.  He looked down upon his red-splashed clothes and grimy, soil-streaked hands, and for a moment half hated her.  His comrades seldom spoke of her—­instinctively fearing some temptation that might beset his Spartan resolutions, but he heard from time to time that she had been seen at balls and parties, apparently enjoying those very frivolities of her sex she affected to condemn.  It was a Sabbath morning in early spring that he was returning from an ineffectual attempt to enlist a capitalist at the county town to redeem the fortunes of Blazing Star.  He was pondering over the narrowness of that capitalist, who had evidently but illogically connected Cass’s present appearance with the future of that struggling camp, when he became so footsore that he was obliged to accept a “lift” from a wayfaring teamster.  As the slowly lumbering vehicle passed the new church on the outskirts of the town, the congregation were sallying forth.  It was too late to jump down and run away, and Cass dared not ask his new-found friend to whip up his cattle.  Conscious of his unshorn beard and ragged garments, he kept his eyes fixed upon the road.  A voice that thrilled him called his name.  It was Miss Porter, a resplendent vision of silk, laces, and Easter flowers—­yet actually running, with something of her old dash and freedom, beside the wagon.  As the astonished teamster drew up before this elegant apparition, she panted: 

“Why did you make me run so far, and why didn’t you look up?”

Cass, trying to hide the patches on his knees beneath a newspaper, stammered that he had not seen her.

“And you did not hold down your head purposely?”

“No,” said Cass.

“Why have you not been to Red Chief?  Why didn’t you answer my message about the ring?” she asked, swiftly.

“You sent nothing but the ring,” said Cass, coloring, as he glanced at the teamster.

“Why, that was a message, you born idiot.”

Cass stared.  The teamster smiled.  Miss Porter gazed anxiously at the wagon.  “I think I’d like a ride in there; it looks awfully good.”  She glanced mischievously around at the lingering and curious congregation.  “May I?”