A serious question was the outfitting of Cass for what now was felt to be a diplomatic representation of the community.  His garments, it hardly need be said, were inappropriate to any wooing except that of the “maiden all forlorn,” which the advertiser clearly was not.  “He might,” suggested Fauquier, “drop in jest as he is—­kinder as if he’d got keerless of the world, being lovesick.”  But Cass objected strongly, and was borne out in his objection by his younger comrades.  At last a pair of white duck trousers, a red shirt, a flowing black silk scarf, and a Panama hat were procured at Red Chief, on credit, after a judicious exhibition of the advertisement.  A heavy wedding-ring, the property of Drummond (who was not married), was also lent as a graceful suggestion, and at the last moment Fauquier affixed to Cass’s scarf an enormous specimen pin of gold and quartz.  “It sorter indicates the auriferous wealth o’ this yer region, and the old man (the senior member of Bookham & Sons) needn’t know I won it at draw-poker in Frisco,” said Fauqier.  “Ef you ‘pass’ on the gal, you kin hand it back to me and I’ll try it on.”

Forty dollars for expenses was put into Cass’s hands, and the entire community accompanied him to the cross roads where he was to meet the Sacramento coach, which eventually carried him away, followed by a benediction of waving hats and exploding revolvers.

That Cass did not participate in the extravagant hopes of his comrades, and that he rejected utterly their matrimonial speculations in his behalf, need not be said.

Outwardly, he kept his own counsel with good-humored assent.  But there was something fascinating in the situation, and while he felt he had forever abandoned his romantic dream, he was not displeased to know that it might have proved a reality.  Nor was it distasteful to him to think that Miss Porter would hear of it and regret her late inability to appreciate his sentiment.  If he really were the object of some opulent maiden’s passion, he would show Miss Porter how he could sacrifice the most brilliant prospects for her sake.  Alone, on the top of the coach, he projected one of those satisfying conversations in which imaginative people delight, but which unfortunately never come quite up to rehearsal.  “Dear Miss Porter,” he would say, addressing the back of the driver, “if I could remain faithful to a dream of my youth, however illusive and unreal, can you believe that for the sake of lucre I could be false to the one real passion that alone supplanted it?” In the composition and delivery of this eloquent statement an hour was happily forgotten:  the only drawback to its complete effect was that a misplacing of epithets in rapid repetition did not seem to make the slightest difference, and Cass found himself saying “Dear Miss Porter, if I could be false to a dream of my youth, etc., etc., can you believe I could be faithful to the one real passion, etc., etc.,” with equal and perfect satisfaction.  As Miss Porter was reputed to be well off, if the unknown were poor, that might be another drawback.