as quietly depart.  There was something so humble and unobtrusive in these visits, that the editor could not find it in his heart to deny them, and accepting them, like the woodpeckers, as a part of his sylvan surroundings, often forgot even his presence.  Once or twice, moved by some beauty of expression in the moist, shy eyes, he felt like seriously admonishing his visitor of his idle folly; but his glance falling upon the oiled hair and the gorgeous necktie, he invariably thought better of it.  The case was evidently hopeless.

The interview between Mr. Chubbuck and the “California Pet” took place in a private room of the Union Hotel; propriety being respected by the presence of that arch-humorist, “Boston.”  To this gentleman we are indebted for the only true account of the meeting.  However reticent Mr. Chubbuck might have been in the presence of his own sex, toward the fairer portion of humanity he was, like most poets, exceedingly voluble.  Accustomed as the “California Pet” had been to excessive compliment, she was fairly embarrassed by the extravagant praises of her visitor.  Her personation of boy characters, her dancing of the “champion jig,” were particularly dwelt upon with fervid but unmistakable admiration.  At last, recovering her audacity and emboldened by the presence of “Boston,” the “California Pet” electrified her hearers by demanding, half jestingly, half viciously, if it were as a boy or a girl that she was the subject of his flattering admiration.

“That knocked him out o’ time,” said the delighted “Boston,” in his subsequent account of the interview.  “But do you believe the d——­d fool actually asked her to take him with her; wanted to engage in the company.”

The plan, as briefly unfolded by “Boston,” was to prevail upon Mr. Chubbuck to make his appearance in costume (already designed and prepared by the inventor) before a Sierra Flat audience, and recite an original poem at the Hall immediately on the conclusion of the “California Pet’s” performance.  At a given signal the audience were to rise and deliver a volley of unsavory articles (previously provided by the originator of the scheme); then a select few were to rush on the stage, seize the poet, and, after marching him in triumphal procession through town, were to deposit him beyond its uttermost limits, with strict injunctions never to enter it again.  To the first part of the plan the poet was committed, for the latter portion it was easy enough to find participants.

The eventful night came, and with it an audience that packed the long narrow room with one dense mass of human beings.  The “California Pet” never had been so joyous, so reckless, so fascinating and audacious before.  But the applause was tame and weak compared to the ironical outburst that greeted the second rising of the curtain and the entrance of the born poet of Sierra Flat.  Then there was a hush of expectancy, and the poet stepped to the foot-lights and stood with his manuscript in his hand.