Page:Knaves of Diamonds.pdf/290

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271
BEAUTY IN CAMP

She was a splendid worker, too, and we never had such meals in our lives as she made out of the rough tack that we were able to get for her. And then she fixed up our clothes and looked after our shirts, and tidied our shanties, and altogether made us feel so respectable that we thought of bringing a parson up country and building a church for him.

"At last we got to look upon her so much as the good angel of the camp that we decided to put the diamond safe in her hut, believing that neither man nor spirit would ever think of stealing it out of there.

"I was the one to propose this, and the boys deputed me to ask her to take charge of it for us. After a lot of pretty refusals she said 'Yes,' and we carted it in and delivered it over to her.

"Three nights later she vanished like a ghost into a fog, and when we at last broke the hut open, we found every bag empty but