Had she intended to flaunt his folly in his face, or had she believed he still mourned for it and deemed its recovery a sufficient reward for his slight service?
For an instant he felt tempted to follow Charley's advice, and cast this symbol of folly and contempt in the dust of the mountain road.

And had she not made his humiliation complete by begging Charley's interference between him and his enemy?
He would go home and send her back the handkerchief she had given him.

But here the unromantic reflection that although he had washed it that very afternoon in the solitude of his own cabin, he could not possibly iron it, but must send it "rough dried," stayed his indignant feet.
Two or three days, a week, a fortnight even, of this hopeless resentment filled Cass's breast.

Then the news of Kanaka Joe's acquittal in the state court momentarily revived the story of the ring, and revamped a few stale jokes in the camp.

But the interest soon flagged; the fortunes of the little community of Blazing Star had been for some months failing; and with early snows in the mountain and wasted capital in fruitless schemes on the river, there was little room for the indulgence of that lazy and original humor which belonged to their lost youth and prosperity.