Blazing Star was hungry, dirty, and ragged.
Blazing Star was beginning to set.
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.