CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 OF 
 
 STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 
 1943 
 
^Sornell University Library 
 F5P6 
 
 Pine valley / 
 
 3 1924 021 982 990 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021982990 
 
QUARTZ MOUNTAIN. 
 
PINE VALLEY 
 
 BT 
 
 LEWIS B. FRANCE 
 
 oi9(o 
 
 NEW TOEK : 46 East 14th Steket 
 THOMAS Y. CKOWELL & COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON: 100 PrnoHAsa Steeet 
 
COPTKIQHT, 1897, 
 
 Bt T. T. CEOWELL & CO. 
 
 J. S. CuBhinf; & Co. — Bervrick & Smith 
 Norwood MaHS. U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ONE WINTER AT THE GKAY EAGLE MINE 
 
 A PRAYER FOR BALTIMORE HATCH 
 
 HIS HARVEST 
 
 ON HIS HONOR 
 
 FINALLY RECOGNIZED .... 
 
 " AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM ' 
 
 1 
 
 27 
 49 
 75 
 91 
 121 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 QUARTZ MOUNTAIN Frontispiece 
 
 PINE VALLEY 5 
 
 BALD MOUNTAIN 22 
 
 MOUNT ROSA 30 
 
 BLIND HORSE GULCH 51 
 
 MOUNT OP THE HOLY CROSS 89 
 
ONE WINTER 
 
 AT 
 
 THE GRAY EAGLE MINE. 
 
ONE WINTER 
 
 AT 
 
 THE GRAY EAGLE MINE. 
 
 A MAN with broad shoulders and a long 
 beard, playing dry nurse to a pretty baby, 
 may be a somewhat unusual picture in a rude 
 mining camp. Nevertheless every Sunday 
 when the weather was fair during one summer, 
 and at odd times during the week days, the man 
 and the baby enjoyed themselves on the trails 
 in Pine Valley Bar. Sometimes the youngster 
 was wide awake on the man's shoulders, at 
 other times asleep in his arms. The tenderness 
 exhibited for his charge never occasioned any 
 flippant observation; on the contrary, when 
 uncouth citizens poked their fingers into the 
 baby's ribs and tickled him, they manifested 
 a degree of gentleness not usually accorded to 
 a rollicking, hearty youngster, or to a rugged 
 3 
 
4 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 companion. Their overtures were always ac- 
 companied by a sympathy unexpressed except 
 in a sudden quietness of manner at sight of 
 the pair, as if the baby might be carrying 
 a sorrow about with him that was not to be 
 carelessly intruded upon and the man not to 
 be treated otherwise than with deference. 
 
 The baby seemed to possess an influence that 
 purified the atmosphere : while the men might 
 be garrulous or profane in the presence of any 
 other youngster better capable of imitating 
 their wickedness, with this one they bit the 
 oath in two, although he was not old enough to 
 distinguish between blasphemy and a prayer. 
 He was such a good-natured baby, too, always 
 ready with a smile for any one who took his 
 hands or kissed them, that every one seemed 
 in some sort impressed with the individual 
 responsibility of making life pleasant to him. 
 The situation, no doubt, derived much of its 
 dignity from the fact that no ties of kinship 
 existed between the baby and the man, and 
 every one knew in Pine Valley the way in 
 which the companionship came about and 
 matured. 
 
PINE VALLEY. 
 
THE GBAT EAGLE MINE. 5 
 
 Bald Mountain has a gorge in it. Hold 
 your hands together in front of you, palms 
 up, the fingers elevated, giving an inclination 
 of forty-five degrees at a guess, and that will 
 give you a notion of the shape of the gorge 
 and the lay of it, but not the size. 
 
 On the foot of Bald Mountain, at the edge 
 of a sparse growth of young trees on the east- 
 ern slope of Pine Valley, was perched the cabin 
 of Clay Dickey. It was none too stately to 
 decline the shelter of a little clump of pines 
 that were ragged and leaning down hill, and 
 only the afternoon sun could strike it fairly 
 as he inclined toward Quartz Mountain on the 
 West. In front, on the lower side, a few hun- 
 dred feet of green slope stood for a well-kept 
 lawn, if not too closely inspected; on the 
 other side Bald Mountain rose quite abruptly, 
 with the little trees serving as an adolescent 
 beard, leaving the upper part of the rugged 
 face and head quite bare. Within a stone's 
 throw behind the cabin and up the mountain, 
 was the tunnel's mouth of the Gray Eagle 
 Mine, owned and worked by Clay Dickey and 
 Ballard, his partner. The Gray Eagle had 
 
6 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 yielded its owners twenty and odd thousand 
 dollars from a chance pocket, and had absorbed 
 it again in addition to five other thousand, as 
 is not uncommon with mines — some of them 
 being as lavish of promises as a toper on the 
 road to reform. A trail, skirting first the 
 young trees and then the timber of larger 
 growth, led down to Pine Valley Bar, half a 
 mile below, and the Bar was quite an active 
 mining camp twenty-eight years ago. 
 
 In the lowest depression in front of the cabin, 
 and for a little way along the foot of Quartz 
 Mountain, a quantity of dead timber was strewn 
 about, and piled up irregularly in places, and 
 this saved Clay Dickey, as well as the dwellers 
 at the Bar, many an hour's work when in need 
 of winter fuel. It was used as a free wood- 
 yard, that might have been appreciated and 
 treated economically by the unfortunate in a 
 great city, and this was really the only con- 
 sideration given to it. Down through the dead 
 trees and rocks a little brook tumbled joyously 
 until it reached the upper end of the Bar, when 
 the clear water gave token of the pollution inci- 
 dent to man's invasion. This little creek some- 
 
THE GBAT EAOLE MINE. 7 
 
 time in the past had become swollen, perhaps, 
 and had wrathfuUy borne the dead trees from 
 the mountains above and heaped them up as 
 evidence of its prowess when in the humor; 
 this possible cause of the wood-yard was satis- 
 factory, if any one took thought of the cause. 
 
 The modest abode of Clay Dickey was always 
 tidy ; there was not another cabin in Pine Val- 
 ley that would presume to set itself up in com- 
 petition. Wherefore Mrs. Dickey was accorded 
 the reputation of being the best house-keeper 
 in the camp, but she treated the distinction 
 lightly. 
 
 " There isn't much house to keep — two 
 rooms and a lean-to kitchen, no carpets to 
 sweep and only Clay and the baby to take care 
 of." 
 
 " Isn't that enough for one woman to do and 
 she by no means robust?" 
 
 " Bless you, no — why when Clay strikes the 
 pay streak again we will add another room — 
 maybe two." 
 
 And, as if to emphasize the conviction and 
 ward off debate, Mrs. Dickey, greatly to the 
 motherly admiration of visiting Mrs. Hicks, 
 
8 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 deftly whipped his royal highness from the soap 
 box, that served him as a confined cabinet, and 
 as adroitly settled him at one of the alabaster 
 fonts for which he had been whimpering. And 
 a very pretty, blue-eyed majesty he was, with 
 one pink and dimpled hand tenderly caressing 
 the source of his satisfaction. It caused the 
 mother no inconvenience to lift the little hand 
 and fondle her cheek with it — a very fair 
 cheek, rivalling the tints of softly blending 
 white and red roses. The smile of recogni- 
 tion and the pause in his banquet with which 
 he greeted the heart welling out of the eyes 
 looking lovingly down, were irresistible. Mrs. 
 Dickey was obliged to interrupt him further by 
 a kiss and a hug, then she hid the dimples in 
 her warm palm, which was only a little larger 
 than the pink one, and the feast was resumed. 
 On this autumn afternoon the sun dropped 
 behind Quartz Mountain and put the Valley in 
 shadows that soon took on the exquisite tone 
 reflected from the cloudless amber in the West 
 and every object seemed daintily veiled in a hue 
 of gold. The soft color stole even into the 
 little cabin and garmented the mother and the 
 
THE GBAT EAGLE MINE. 9 
 
 pretty babe in a light wMcb had a touch of holi- 
 ness in its caress and which, in the sweet peace- 
 fulness reigning, partook of a benediction. 
 Unsentimental Mrs. Hicks acknowledged the 
 influence of the moment and did not tip-toe out 
 until the shadows turned again into gray. On 
 her way down the trail she encountered a 
 sturdy figure coming up and in it recognized 
 Clay Dickey, his woollen shirt and canvas ovei-- 
 alls stained with patches of color known to 
 obtain in the earth of the Gray Eagle Mine. It 
 was a strong, clean-shaven face that she looked 
 into and the skin of the forehead very fair, 
 with a pleasant light in the dark eyes as he 
 greeted her. 
 
 " Do you know that you're a very lucky man, 
 Clay Dickey?" 
 
 "No, I don't, Mrs. Hicks." 
 
 "What! with such a wife and love of a 
 baby!" 
 
 " Oh," and his smile exhibited a hint of sad- 
 ness. " No doubt of my luck there, Mrs. Hicks, 
 but — " 
 
 "Yes, you want to be rich." 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
10 ONE WINTEB AT 
 
 "Well, I hope you may be — you will be," 
 suddenly changing the air of questioning to one 
 of conviction, and, with a cheery pat of her 
 hand upon the brawny arm, they took their 
 several ways. Clay Dickey feeling encouraged, 
 and Mrs. Hicks experiencing the bliss that fol- 
 lows the bestowal of kindness, if the kindness 
 be only the gift of a stimulating word. 
 
 Architecturally considered Pine Valley Bar 
 was very much like other mining camps — not 
 at all imposing. 
 
 The term " camp " is an appropriate title for 
 such congregations of logs and dirt roofs, tents 
 and humanity ; it betokens instability, a desire 
 to accumulate wealth rapidly and then flit, to 
 indulge in the enjoyment of it without any re- 
 gard for the place of its acquisition and, not 
 infrequently, the means. In such surroundings 
 but few privations have a deterring influence. 
 After the earlier hardships have worked callous 
 spots on unaccustomed hands, the poverty of all 
 conveniences is accepted as in some sort an in- 
 centive, so that the moral and physical organi- 
 zations are kept harmoniously in tone. The 
 environment does not tend to elevation, you 
 
TSE GRAT EAGLE MINE. 11 
 
 understand, but magnanimity is not killed, it 
 becomes callous, like the hands, hibernates, and 
 appears again upon occasion. The moderately 
 fortunate man in Pine Valley is, as a rule, as 
 prodigal of the proceeds of his toil as an improvi- 
 dent suddenly falling heir to a great estate, and 
 this is the only anomaly in the situation. The 
 instalments are generous, beyond precedent, but 
 they possess the common vice of appearing as 
 trifles not worthy of consideration, because of 
 the " big strike " impending that is to make up 
 the sum total of the aspirant's happiness. Ex- 
 cept, however, in rare instances the " big strike " 
 keeps enticingly just far enough ahead to be out 
 of reach. And all this, perhaps, is nothing more 
 than the exposition of common traits in new 
 surroundings, a sort of relapse into savagery 
 after a taste of what we exalt as civilization, 
 with the defects of civilization decorating the 
 garments unconcernedly and, at times, defiantly. 
 Just as his majesty had been returned sound 
 asleep to his unpretentious couch, Clay Dickey 
 reached the cabin. He stood at the doorway 
 anticipating the pleasant expression which would 
 greet him when his wife should look up, and. 
 
.12 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 after the baby was tucked in, she came to him. 
 Standing on the doorsill, her eyes were quite 
 on a level with his, and she looked into them 
 with much the same expression with which she 
 had responded to the baby, just before inter- 
 rupting his supper, to hug him. 
 
 " Is anything the matter, Clay ? " She recog- 
 nized his moods as intuitively as a bird under- 
 stands the promises of the weather, and placed 
 her hands upon his shoulders. 
 
 " No — only I have arranged to have you go 
 outside for the winter." 
 
 " Not right away ! " 
 
 "No, but before the snow flies." 
 
 "Then we'll not think of it as determined 
 upon — it wUl be some time before snow comes, 
 and you know it is never deep or inconvenient 
 in Pine Valley." 
 
 "I can't say that I know it — three seasons 
 are not enough to make one a reliable prophet." 
 
 "I would like to remain through the winter, 
 just for the novelty of it." 
 
 " You would find no novelty, Dell, only dis- 
 comfort." 
 
 "Why, I shaU be delighted, Clay." 
 
THE GRAY EAGLE MINE. 13 
 
 "I know just how delighted and why," and 
 he put his rough hands tenderly on the softer 
 ones resting on his shoulders. "You are say- 
 ing to yourself just now: 'we can't afford it,' 
 but I say we must and will." 
 
 " Don't let us talk of it any more now." 
 An amused expression flitted into Clay 
 Dickey's eyes as he removed the hands and held 
 them; he realized that the probabilities of her 
 remaining were quite strong. The knowledge 
 was very gratifying, still, in company with the 
 pleasure, was a hint of impatience at the hard 
 lines compelling his wife to what he knew to be 
 a sacrifice; she didn't deserve it, but he dared 
 not give a hint of that. 
 
 "Very well, — I see Hank coming up the 
 trail, he said he would take supper with us." 
 "I hope he has not been drinking." 
 "I'll vouch for him — he has too much re- 
 spect for you." 
 
 "I'm glad he respects some one." 
 "Don't be too hard on him, Dell — perhaps 
 you might influence him to quit altogether," he 
 concluded, good-humoredly. 
 
 " I shall not take any such liberty," and she 
 
14 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 turned away as Ballard came within hearing 
 distance. 
 
 The deepening twilight necessitated a candle, 
 and in the glow of it, the junior partner ex- 
 hibited no special evidences of dissipation. Both 
 men were fine specimens, physically. Ballard 
 was quiet and deferential toward his hostess, but 
 observant of her during the preparation of the 
 evening meal. A remark of Dickey's concern- 
 ing Mrs. Hicks's affirmation and the prediction 
 of wealth brought a smile to the junior's lips, 
 and then he laughed. This culminated in arous- 
 ing his majesty, who stared at him with very 
 wide open eyes from his corner. A momentary 
 look of annoyance flitted across Mrs. Dickey's 
 face, but the transgressor failed to notice it — he 
 was looking down at the baby ; both seemed to 
 be interested, and Ballard, reaching over, placed 
 his finger in the pink hand which had found its 
 way out from the cover ; the baby closed upon 
 it and kicked in a way that promised speedy 
 freedom from the soap box. Dickey picked him 
 up and set him on his knee, and the little fellow 
 stretched out his hands, caressed the long beard 
 of Ballard without pulling it, looked up into his 
 
THE as AT EAGLE MINE. 15 
 
 eyes and then at the beard, as if he were solving 
 a mystery. Ballard took him in his arms and 
 pressed the cool, firm cheek against his own. 
 Mrs. Dickey glanced around at the group but 
 gave no token of her thoughts. When Dickey 
 undertook to relieve his guest, his royal high- 
 ness was not favorably disposed to the change, 
 and surrendered only to his mother's appeal. 
 
 " I shall have to let my beard grow," said 
 Dickey, laughing, as he placed his own stool 
 at the table for his partner and invited him to 
 occupy it. 
 
 "I'll win him from you, if you don't," and 
 the baby at the sound of Ballard's voice looked 
 at him and smiled as if he understood and 
 approved. 
 
 That night the junior partner went to bed 
 drunk. Mrs. Dickey learning of it concluded, 
 not erroneously perhaps, that " Ballard had a 
 romance," and she experienced a gentler feel- 
 ing toward him. 
 
 The days of sunshine followed each other, 
 the nights grew colder, and it seemed as if 
 the clouds had determined upon a permanent 
 holiday over some other quarter of the globe. 
 
16 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 The clear sky put on its amber dress every 
 evening, after the sun had been a little while 
 behind Quartz Mountain, and draped the valley 
 in the dainty golden glow, always bringing 
 with it a peacefulness that seemed imbued with 
 solemnity. It could not be possible for one 
 to feel otherwise than happy in such an atmos- 
 phere, persisted Mrs. Dickey, and Clay Dickey 
 was won to her way of thinking in spite of his 
 resolution, and without being surprised at his 
 submission. Christmas day at noon found the 
 partners in their shirt sleeves, coming down the 
 trail from the mine and raising the dust at every 
 step. How long would it last ? and, were the 
 dwellers in Pine Valley to have any winter? 
 But every morning the ice, wherever it formed, 
 was a little thicker, it was always cold at night 
 and each night grew perceptibly colder. It 
 required snow to constitute proper winter 
 weather in the estimation of these men. 
 
 "There is the first cloud I have seen for a 
 month," and Ballard pointed west. 
 
 " Make it two months and you will be nearer 
 right." 
 
 That afternoon, without any admonition, the 
 
THE GBAT EAGLE MINE. 17 
 
 sky turned gray, it seemed all at once, and there 
 was a blue mist in the valley before twilight. 
 The next morning there were a few inches of 
 snow on the ground and it continued to de- 
 scend, in great flakes, during the day. When 
 the storm ceased, Dickey's notion of winter was 
 realized ; the sun had no other effect than to 
 settle the white covering and the next snow- 
 fall doubled the depth. The seclusion and in- 
 convenience of getting around did not change 
 the pleasant ways of Mrs. Dickey, and Clay 
 confessed to himself that he was becoming ac- 
 quainted with his wife. The happiness that 
 made up the early days of his married life was 
 very feeble and unsatisfactory compared to his 
 present bliss ; heretofore he had not considered 
 that possible. His wonder and admiration grew 
 apace and together, until he began to almost dis- 
 credit his own share in producing the delightful 
 result. But had any one read Mrs. Dickey he 
 would have discovered in turn that there was 
 no one on earth like Clay, not even the baby. 
 
 The accumulating snow offered no impedi- 
 ment to work in the mine, the partners were 
 required to break the trails afresh about once 
 
18 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 ia two weeks, and, being busy, March came 
 around before they were fairly aware of it ; the 
 snow was piled up in great masses all through 
 Pine Valley, and in the gorge on Bald Moun- 
 tain, which Dickey knew to be quite twenty 
 feet deep, it was level with the edges; the 
 young pines lower down were quite hidden. 
 The citizens at the Bar had not been cut off 
 entirely from the outside world and were get- 
 ting through the season cheerfully; only one 
 man had been killed, and as he had been the 
 aggressor and not generally agreeable, his de- 
 mise hardly varied the routine. But the Bar 
 was glad to feel the effect of an occasional 
 warm day, the camp would soon be free and the 
 monotony relieved. The warm days increased 
 in frequency. 
 
 Coming down the trail on one of these days, 
 Dickey in the lead, the manner of the men was 
 more animated than usual. Ballard, in his 
 hurry, slipped and fell into the drift, but he 
 gathered himself up good-naturedly. Dickey 
 joined in the laugh and pushed open his cabin 
 door with an abruptness that caused his wife 
 to look up suddenly ; but a glance at his 
 
THE GRAY EAGLE MINE. 19 
 
 face sufficed to put her in possession of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 " You have struck the pay streak, Clay ! " 
 
 " I am sure we have," and Clay Dickey put 
 his arms around her while the baby kicked 
 and, with the little pink hands, beat his ap- 
 proval upon his blanket. Ballard stood for a 
 moment looking in, caught sight of the happy 
 face emerging from the shelter of the broad 
 shoulders, and then of the baby in the 
 corner. 
 
 "We have been in the same kind of ground 
 all the morning, Mrs. Dickey, that led us to 
 the old pocket — I have just lighted the fuse 
 for a heavy blast, you will hear it in a few 
 moments, and we shall know after dinner." 
 With a wave of his hand to his partner, who 
 stood with his arm around his wife's waist, and 
 all with bright smiles on their faces, he turned 
 into the trail leading to the Bar. 
 
 A dozen rods from the cabin and Ballard 
 heard the report of the explosion in the mine ; 
 he paused almost imperceptibly, and with a 
 pleased expression on his lips continued his 
 way a few steps beyond the edge of the large 
 
20 ONE WINTBB AT 
 
 timber skirting the young growth, halted and 
 turned about : the cracking of what he thought 
 to be a limb on the mountain side above had 
 startled him. While he gazed up the slope to 
 learn the cause, it seemed to him that the whole 
 summit of Bald Mountain was moving. In an 
 instant — there could be no mistaking his im- 
 pression — the entire face just above the gorge 
 was crossed by a wide horizontal fissure and 
 the great mass of snow was, it appeared to 
 him, crawling down, and then he felt the earth 
 under him quiver, as, with the quickness of 
 thought, the immense pile, gathering a sudden 
 impetus, came crashing down the mountain side, 
 tearing out the young trees by the roots, rolling 
 them on the surface and burying them out of 
 sight again. Down upon the cabin and the 
 small clump of pines the resistless volume 
 swept with a deafening roar, pilinig up over the 
 slope, down and across the little brook, covering 
 " the wood-yard " and pausing only at the foot 
 of Quartz Mountain. 
 
 Ballard had called, he thought, a cry of warn- 
 ing to his partner, but remembered afterwards 
 that he had articulated no word; what he would 
 
THE GRAY EAGLE MINE. 21 
 
 have said stuck in his throat and resolved itself 
 into a gurgling sound, as of one choking, or like 
 the cry of some dumb animal in terror. He 
 had not moved from his halting place : iif ty feet 
 from him in the direction of the cabin the snow 
 was piled higher than his head, and the irregu- 
 lar mass rose to a greater height beyond and 
 where the cabin had stood; the face of Bald 
 Mountain was quite bare, and the upper end of 
 the slide had stopped just below the tunnel's 
 mouth of the Gray Eagle Mine. 
 
 Half a minute had not elapsed, from the sound 
 of the breaking limb, until silence was again 
 reigning in the valley. He stood, with lips 
 parted, glaring at the pile of snow, and then at 
 the dark mouth of the tunnel and the naked 
 mountain side ; even a little tree with its roots in 
 the air, which had lodged near the upper end of 
 the drift, did not escape his notice. But it 
 seemed a long time to Ballard before he regained 
 his senses, and then he felt that he was drifting 
 out of one terrible dream into another, knowing 
 all the time that if he could only stir he would 
 awake and find relief. He made the struggle 
 and was horrified at the sound of his own voice, 
 
22 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 as with his hands unconsciously clasped, he 
 endeavored to pray: 
 
 " God have mercy on them ! " 
 
 He was fairly himself now, with his wits 
 about him. He whipped his revolver from the 
 scabbard and six quick, sharp reports rang out, 
 each treading upon the heels of its predecessor 
 so closely that the echoes came trembling back 
 to him in one long, rattling measure. Then he 
 turned and started down the trail at his best 
 speed. Half-way to the Bar he saw hastening 
 toward him two men ; behind them, a short dis- 
 tance, were others, coming in single file, some 
 of them slipping now and then on the hard 
 beaten way — but coming ! and yet how slowly 
 they crept along! The terrible crash had 
 startled every one at the Bar; the quick reports 
 of the revolver had their meaning and were 
 understood; some one saw the bared face of 
 Bald Mountain and shouted his discovery ner- 
 vously. That disaster had visited Pine Valley 
 was as evident to every man as it had been 
 to Ballard, and they hastened with picks and 
 shovels. Ballard turned when he was certain 
 that he had been observed, and waving them 
 
. ,«. - -p^ 
 
THS GRAY EAGLE MINE. 23 
 
 on, the compact mass was soon alive with stal- 
 wart men, the location of the cabin fixed and 
 the snow set flying. Within a few minutes the 
 men were in each other's way, and were divided 
 into shifts, many standing ready to take the 
 place of the first one who gave the slightest 
 token of weariness. Down they went, ten feet, 
 and no sign greeted them; fifteen feet, — and 
 Ballard, who stood leaning a moment upon his 
 shovel, drew his hand across his eyes and then 
 bent again to his work. Twenty feet, and he 
 stopped, threw up his hand and panted : 
 
 " Hark ! " 
 
 Every man could hear through his own lips 
 the beating of his own heart — the pause was 
 only a few seconds and a muffled cry greeted 
 the keen sense of half a score. 
 
 " Here, boys, carefully, now, — just here ! " 
 
 Ballard's shovel encountered, what he knew 
 to be a log, by the feeling; it was quickly laid 
 bare and another, and still another lower down. 
 
 They had struck a corner of the cabin, the 
 upper logs were swept away, the three lower 
 tiers had been forced from their places, where 
 they were fastened to the door jamb, the ends 
 
24 ONE WINTER AT 
 
 had swung around, the corners holding, and in 
 that cuddy, with the uppermost log lying a foot 
 or more above and across him, was the baby, 
 unharmed. Ballard lifted him out and the 
 little one's voice came back to him fully in the 
 fresh air. 
 
 Mrs. Hicks said afterwards that she hoped 
 never to see such a look in any one's face as she 
 saw in Ballard's when he was approaching to 
 lay the child in her arms — a pale face, despite 
 the exertion he had undergone, with lips closed 
 so that she felt the jaws were almost crushing 
 the teeth setting against each other, the nos- 
 trils contracting and expanding rapidly, and 
 an expression in his eyes that made her think 
 he would step defiantly into the very presence 
 of the Father. It was a glance only and he 
 returned to his labor. Twenty feet away and 
 farther down the hill, wedged in between 
 and under some of the cabin logs, Ballard 
 knew that they had found hia partner and, 
 clinging to his body, the dead wife. A portion 
 of her dress first indicated where they lay, and 
 Ballard had turned away at the sight of it. He 
 would carry with him always, not the impassive 
 
THE GBAT EAGL.W MINE. 25 
 
 eyes staring out of the cruel drift, but the 
 remembrance of Clay Dickey standing with his 
 arm around her and the happy expression on 
 their faces as he turned from their cabin 
 door. 
 
A PRAYER FOR BALTIMORE HATCH 
 
A PRAYER FOR BALTIMORE HATCH. 
 
 The winter of 1863 set in early throughout 
 the Rocky Mountain region ; snow fell late in 
 October and the earth was not free of it, even 
 in Golddust on the eastern slope, until the fol- 
 lowing April. The stage coach was then the 
 only means of rapid transit east and west ; a rail- 
 road was merely a possibility, that might ripen 
 into a fact, perhaps before the next glacial 
 epoch; hence the smoke, that usually follows 
 on the heels of the locomotive, did not envelop 
 Golddust. She was atmospherically clean, so 
 that before Christmas arrived the foot-hills, and 
 the great Range towering beyond, presented 
 themselves unobscured to her in a mantle that 
 softened the contour of their rugged forms. 
 Now and again the mountains would put on a 
 gray mist and add a few inches or maybe a foot 
 
 or more to the thickness of their white robe, 
 29 
 
30 A PRATER 
 
 but the stormy days were always followed by 
 weeks of sunshine and a clear amber sky in 
 the west as evening succeeded evening. Mount 
 Rosa, standing nearest, would greet the rising 
 sun with an exquisite blush, and her stately 
 brothers north and south for two hundred miles 
 would assume the rose tints in fraternal vigi- 
 lance; then, as the minutes sped by and they 
 recognized the unsullied appeal, they would 
 assume the delicate gray, as if recovering ma- 
 jestically from the surprise of the early morn- 
 ing kiss, and the beautiful She would bask 
 smilingly, and white through the live-long day, 
 chastely diffident and declining to melt under 
 the fervent caress. 
 
 Over at Pine Valley Bar the citizens were 
 hibernating in the customary way, which ex- 
 presses, to one not a tenderfoot, very little 
 work, play practically unlimited and the other 
 intemperance — well, perhaps the less said the 
 better. Baltimore Hatch had strayed in from 
 Blind Horse Gulch early in the season, in com- 
 pany with a mercenary motive and " a faro 
 lay out." Upon his arrival he had not deter- 
 mined to spend the winter, but after a brief 
 
4 ^'^^t 
 
 t^ ■: 
 
FOB BALTIMORE HATCH. 31 
 
 sojourn he reached a conclusion. He explained 
 it after this fashion : 
 
 "One night I filled up wuth tanglefoot — I 
 don't do it often, see ? then I got playin' on the 
 wrong side 'r the table an' went broke, see ? — 
 yer knows how 'tis yerself." 
 
 The explanation was satisfying without the 
 confirmatory reference, but in the financial mind 
 of Baltimore a national bank was of the same 
 dignity as a faro bank, so long as it didn't " go 
 broke"; hence the innocency. In distressing 
 circumstances he was, perhaps, the most hope- 
 ful man at the Bar; the path never converged 
 in his view, but always radiated; he saw "a 
 winnin' " in a dozen directions and the last 
 failure opened up as many ne^^ \.cids to success- 
 ful issues. It was a religious custom with him 
 never to dress his left foot first in the morning, 
 or afternoon, rather; he rigidly avoided stray 
 pins and cross-eyed people, and declined the 
 most persuasive chances during the early phases 
 of the moon, if it so happened that he first 
 caught sight of that satellite over the wrong 
 shoulder. His specialty, however, in the army 
 of omens, culminated on buttons ; a gray button 
 
32 A PUATEB 
 
 was, in his estimation, as baneful as the bite of 
 a rattlesnake. To the vice of a gray button 
 on a pair of new trousers he attributed the 
 desire for the " tanglefoot " which led to disas- 
 ter — he discovered his Nemesis next day when 
 it was too late. His financial condition not 
 being debatable and his clothes affirming his 
 poverty, he one evening — 
 
 " Tapped Hank Ballard for a ten-dollar 
 stake." 
 
 Upon giving him the money, Ballard remon- 
 strated : 
 
 "Why don't you quit gambling and go to 
 work, Baltimore ? " 
 
 "Now see here, Hank, does yer want me to 
 starve to death ? " 
 
 The next day he approached Ballard and of- 
 fered him two hundred and ten dollars; the 
 creditor accepted the ten and declined the two 
 hundred. 
 
 " See here, Hank Ballard, I win four hundred, 
 you don't mean ter say I'd hold out — " 
 
 "Not at all, Baltimore," interrupted the 
 other, "but I don't care to make money that 
 way." 
 
FOB BALTIMORE HATCH. 33 
 
 "Damned if you ever stake me agin." 
 
 There was no mistaking Baltimore's indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 " Very well," and Ballard laughed. 
 
 " But see here ! this ain't no square deal, 
 Hank Ballard ! it's yourn, an' you must take it. 
 Didn't you stake me when I were dead broke ? " 
 
 Baltimore recognized no distinction between 
 liberty and license ; he was accustomed to hav- 
 ing his own way, whether his way was to be 
 ugly or otherwise. Ballard, persisting in his 
 refusal, felt, as Baltimore turned from him, 
 that he had perhaps incurred his enmity. 
 When Baltimore's logic, as he understood it, 
 failed to bring his creditor to terms, he sud- 
 denly became silent. The next day he left the 
 camp, going out on snowshoes, and Ballard 
 thought for a moment that he might hear of 
 him again; he had known precisely such in- 
 stances, resulting unfortunately, and Baltimore 
 had intimated that he would "git even." It 
 was a queer code of ethics that construed a 
 kindness into an insult, and yet this was evi- 
 dently the light in which Baltimore considered 
 his involuntary debt; he was incensed because 
 
34 A PBAYES 
 
 his creditor would not accept his due. Perhaps 
 the sense of honor is peculiar to the craft, or, 
 rather, to a class of the craft, and was never 
 heard of outside of the fraternity in which Bal- 
 timore owned a membership. Ballard dropped 
 what he termed an eccentric out of his 
 thoughts, though the anomaly might have af- 
 forded material out of which to build an essay 
 on the philosophy of mind. 
 
 From the tunnel's mouth of the Gray Eagle 
 Mine one could look out over lower, intervening 
 hills and through the blue veil worn by them in 
 the summer time, and have before him in the 
 distance the emblem of our civilization in pure 
 snow, set in a huge mountain's side. Some- 
 times, on certain of the summer days, the sun 
 went down behind the Holy Mount, and in its 
 decline would touch a bit of fleece above the 
 summit and shape it into a crimson crown, or 
 when the clouds were plentiful, turn them into 
 groups of cherubim. To Ballard the imposing 
 symbol set by Nature in such grand proportions 
 took on a wealth of inspiration before unknown 
 to him ; as if it might be the sign elevated in the 
 wilderness by the Divine command, anticipat- 
 
FOR BALTIMORE HATCH. 35 
 
 ing the march of humanity. It was a reminder 
 that always sent him quickly back over the well- 
 worn path to the time when he first beheld the 
 token and was told the story of the beautiful 
 life and its sublime surrender. And now, while 
 approaching the honors of the natal day, the 
 great emblem was hidden, he knew, under the 
 accumulated snow ; still only hidden, to be re- 
 vealed again under the gentle influence of the 
 summer's breath, symbolizing in the changes 
 the sweet promise of the One crucified. 
 
 It was a beautiful conception that singled 
 out the birthday from all other days, as the 
 day of rejoicing, and, under the shadow of the 
 Holy Mount, it prepares one for the conviction 
 that the purpose of life embraces very much 
 outside of one's self. The difficulty lies in not 
 being always equal to the proper entertainment 
 of this conviction; it is ungenerously out- 
 stripped on the annual road. But as Christmas 
 approaches one's step lags a little, and, if the 
 conviction does not lay hold again, it touches at 
 least the skirts of one's garments and one is 
 persuaded to walk in the sunshine of the pres- 
 ence. Through the year Pine Valley Bar had 
 
36 A PBATER 
 
 beeu pursuing its own purpose, which, under 
 the emblem on the Mount, was no purpose at 
 all, but began to look back for the neglected 
 good company. Mrs. Hicks and Ballard were 
 the first overtaken; they possessed, perhaps, an 
 inspiration in little Clay Dickey. It was very 
 pleasant to be conducted back on the road and 
 into the sunshine by a little child ; without one 
 in the house Christmas would be somewhat des- 
 titute of support; the young presence is the 
 potent exemplifier of the hallowed occasion. 
 
 Influenced by the preparations of Mrs. Hicks, 
 Ballard found himself pleasantly drifting back 
 and forth on this road between the early and 
 later days. He had been wont to stray at times 
 into divergent passages, encountering obstruc- 
 tions that turned him about and cast him into 
 ungenerous shadows. One of the phantoms 
 which had haunted him had been hard to exor- 
 cise. After his visits to the Dickey cabin came 
 his moments of supreme trial ; in the happiness 
 dwelling there he thought that he recognized 
 what might have been his own; it had been 
 wrecked through no fault of his, still the knowl- 
 edge gave him no solace ; Mrs. Dickey's pleas- 
 
FOB BALTIMORE HATCH. 37 
 
 ant ways reminded him, but there the resem- 
 blance between her and that other ceased, yet 
 he failed to recognize the line of demarcation ; 
 ordinarily one may put the unworthy behind 
 him, but Ballard, of himself, could not bury this 
 ghost of a love that was dead to him, he knew, 
 beyond resurrection. He needed something to 
 move him out of himself, and the phantom dis- 
 appeared on the day that he lifted the pretty 
 babe out of the pitiless drift. When he felt the 
 pink hands again in his long beard, he was 
 brought back into the old life which he had 
 thought forever lost. And when the pink hand 
 reached further up and curiously touched the 
 bronzed cheek, Ballard's vision became unsteady 
 and he sought to hide the cause by pressing the 
 rosy face against his own — then it was that the 
 phantom was buried. 
 
 And it had been buried quite two years, when 
 Ballard, with little Clay Dickey on his knee 
 under the glow of the bright fire in Mrs. Hicks's 
 best room, was telling him the story of the beau- 
 tiful life as it had been told to him, and that 
 this was the eve of the blessed day. Then, that 
 there was to come that night a weird visitor, 
 
38 A PBATER 
 
 upon a special mission, whom the children never 
 saw, but whose influence neither man nor 
 woman who had been subjects of his bounty 
 ever entirely forgot, and who felt themselves 
 better men and women for the recollection ; and 
 that little Clay was to hang up, for the first 
 time, in anticipation of a munificent remem- 
 brance, his longest stockings. Ballard could 
 not tell him what the pretty things would be, 
 that was one of the mysteries religiously with- 
 held by this stranger and was revealed only on 
 the following morning and first to the one who 
 had been favored. Was there any possibility of 
 the stranger failing to make his visit on this 
 particular occasion? No, he would be sure to 
 come, and little Clay might go to sleep with the 
 happy consciousness that no promise Ballard had 
 ever made to him was more certain of fulfil- 
 ment. Then, when it became safe, there was 
 gathered under Mrs. Hicks's roof a band of con- 
 spirators made up of Indiana's wife and several 
 other wives — women with whom vicissitudes 
 had held close communion and upon whom 
 Time had bestowed no favors; there was no 
 dazzling apparel, rather the virtue of a patch 
 
FOB BALTIMORE HATCH. 39 
 
 here and there. But each one came provided 
 with a token, and each was beautified by a 
 touch of the grace that ascended Calvary. 
 
 On Christmas morning Baltimore Hatch re- 
 appeared upon the street of Pine Valley Bar 
 faultlessly apparelled and gave into the hands 
 of a friend a magnificent turkey, with instruc- 
 tions to tender it, with his compliments in a 
 note, to Mrs. Hicks. A turkey she had not 
 been able to obtain in Pine Valley Bar "for 
 love or money," and it was the one delicacy 
 lacking in the ample provision she had made 
 for a dinner that day to Ballard and some of 
 his men. Mrs. Hicks, with her hands in the 
 dough, condescended to accept, with thanks. 
 The note was tied to the turkey's leg and bore 
 this superscription in juvenile print: 
 " Mrs. Hicks to be red when dresed." 
 Mrs. Hicks pondered over it. Did it indicate 
 Baltimore's preference touching the color of her 
 garments? By what authority did he presume 
 to dictate how she should dress? She then 
 gave him credit for good sense and could con- 
 ceive of no authority. It must refer to the 
 turkey — but what did he mean by wanting the 
 
40 A PBATEB 
 
 turkey " red when dressed " ? besides, was not 
 the turkey already dressed? Mrs. Hicks aban- 
 doned the contest and proceeded with her bread 
 making. The turkey lay on the table in front 
 of her and she could not but cast admiring 
 glances at it as she kneaded the dough, and 
 considered whether she would better use "cove 
 oysters in the stuffing." She concluded that 
 she would ; then she observed in this connection 
 that the crop and vent had been sewed up. 
 What was the use of that when she must cut 
 them open again? and the crop seemed full; 
 this was a mystery making a still stronger 
 appeal to her curiosity, and she hastened her 
 movements to get the bread ready for the oven 
 — that must not be permitted to spoil in any 
 circumstances. Having made it safe from pos- 
 sible deterioration, she cut open the crop and out 
 rolled a twenty-dollar gold piece, then another 
 and another, until she beheld ten ; this was not 
 all: she took out a small package, unwrapped 
 it and discovered a diamond pin. Mrs. Hicks 
 sat down. Was the man crazy? and had he 
 adopted this method to declare a tender pas- 
 sion? This inquiry brought a smile to her face 
 
FOB BALTIMOBE HATCH. 41 
 
 in place of the look of bewilderment, but then 
 she reluctantly discarded the conjecture : she 
 was quite old enough to be his mother, and 
 would have no hesitation in admitting it; her 
 son John was nearly as old as Baltimore. Still, 
 what woman believes herself beyond the pale 
 of admiration ; maybe the reckless fellow was 
 moved by some sort of filial regard lingering in 
 his memory ; this was a gratifying solution, but, 
 even in this view, the presents must be returned. 
 And all this time Mrs. Hicks had unconsciously 
 avoided the means to a full explanation of Bal- 
 timore's eccentricity. She thought of the note, 
 already detached, unfolded it and read in the 
 juvenile print: 
 
 " Pine Valey bar crismas. 
 
 " Mrs. Hicks 
 
 " Inclose fine a turkey, he's a gobiler but tha 
 is allers tendrest hes fat bein wel fed i oe Hank 
 ballard a dab of two hundred pacers an he wont 
 have it its hisen you'll fine it in the crap and 
 use it fer the Kid the dimon is yourn in remind 
 of Crismas an the orfant the wach an chane is 
 
42 A PBATEE 
 
 hisen from you and you neadnt give it away to 
 Ballard an i am even 
 
 " yourn to coman 
 
 " B Hatch 
 
 " p s wot difrance tween selin grocers short 
 an winin on a skware deel to mi mine a skware 
 deel dubble diskounts it B. H." 
 
 Mrs. Hicks devoted some time to the study of 
 this missive and after several readings she could 
 read between the lines, and the revelation, thus 
 worked out, produced a perceptible quiver of her 
 lips and a sudden flush of her eyelids. But she 
 resisted the inclination and proceeded to search 
 for the watch and chain ; these she found inside 
 the bird, set in a velvet case and wrapped in a 
 piece of newspaper. The watch was "just a 
 love of a watch," the chain four feet long, if it 
 was an inch, and " all gold." WhUe she was 
 admiring it, Ballard, with little Clay astride his 
 shoulders and blowing a tin horn, marched into 
 the kitchen. Ballard was the last person whose 
 presence she desired in this crisis; she en- 
 deavored to conceal the watch by closing her 
 hand upon it and thrusting it behind her, but a 
 
FOB BALTIMORE HATCH. 43 
 
 bit of the chain remained exposed and the coins 
 and pin lay in full yiew upon the kitchen table. 
 The intruder took in the situation and the 
 articles at a glance and pleasantly turned upon 
 his heel to retreat. His royal highness, how- 
 ever, attracted by the glittering stone, in its rich 
 setting, called a halt. Mrs. Hicks felt, of a 
 sudden, that she must disobey Baltimore's in- 
 junction ; it was Ballard's business to know, and 
 she offered him the watch. He received it, 
 looked it over, opened the case and felt little 
 Clay's cheek resting against his head while the 
 tin horn was having a rest. Ballard read the 
 engraving on the inner side: "Clay Dickey, 
 Christmas 1863, from B. H." 
 
 "What possessed you, Mrs. Hicks, to go to 
 such expense ? " 
 
 " Me ! it's not mine ! " 
 
 " These are your initials," and Ballard re- 
 turned the watch, open. 
 
 " Well ! ain't that too funny ! — did anybody 
 ever! — here, read this," and she gave him 
 Baltimore's note. Ballard studied it out, going 
 between the lines as he read, glanced at the 
 gold and the pin on the table, and then said 
 very quietly : 
 
44 A PBAYEB 
 
 "With your permission, Mrs. Hicks, I will 
 ask Baltimore to dinner to-day." 
 
 "Ask him, certainly — the question is, will 
 he come?" 
 
 Ballard had no difficulty in locating him, but 
 Baltimore treated the pleasant "Good morn- 
 ing " with bare civility. 
 
 "My foreman intends leaving on the first 
 of the month, and I offer the situation to you, 
 Baltimore," was Ballard's unceremonious an- 
 nouncement after the first greeting. 
 
 "'Bleeged — but I don't want none of it in 
 mine." 
 
 "I'll pay you good wages." 
 
 "How much, now, fer a starter?" 
 
 "Two hundred a month — but I'd like a 
 promise of you." 
 
 "I don't go a cent on a blind — I don't make 
 no promises I can't keep — what is it ? " 
 
 "That you will quit gambling." 
 
 "Cheese it, Hank Ballard." 
 
 "I wish you would consent to accept the 
 place." 
 
 "I can't see it." 
 
 "Will you take dinner with me to-day?" 
 
FOB BALTIMORE HATCH. 45 
 
 "Take dinner! What yer givin' me?" 
 
 " I should be pleased to have you take dinner 
 with me, that is all." 
 
 "Mucho gracia, Senor, but eajcuse me." 
 
 "Mrs. Hicks is to give us a turkey and I 
 should like you to carve it — I don't know 
 how." 
 
 "Sold agin — my bottom dollar says it — 
 she's give me dead away, has she? I might 
 'a swore to it — I never knowd a woman yet 
 to keep anythin'." 
 
 " She will keep the diamond, Baltimore — 
 and she wished me to invite you to dinner." 
 
 "Fer a fact?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "How is it with me and you?" 
 
 "You have made it more than square." 
 
 " Shake ! But, I say — I'd given a even hun- 
 dred to see her goin' inter that turkey," and 
 Baltimore laughed. 
 
 "You have not said that you will come to 
 dinner." 
 
 "I know." 
 
 "What shall I say to Mrs. Hicks?" 
 
 "Tell her I'll come." 
 
46 A PBATER 
 
 The best room in Mrs. Hicks's mansion was 
 not stately, but the lack of magnificence was 
 atoned for in comfort ; there was entertainment 
 in the illustrated papers covering the log walls, 
 warmth from the broad fireplace, and from the 
 " Welcome " done in pine sprays over the pine 
 mantel. The table was the only obtrusive 
 object and occupied nearly the entire length. 
 When it was made ready, however, a way to 
 it was found by the round dozen who sat down. 
 Mrs. Hicks declined a seat and announced her 
 intention to wait upon her guests, but in the 
 privacy of the kitchen she imparted to Indi- 
 ana's wife her reason for refusing to make one 
 of thirteen. She performed the service in a 
 bombazine gown and a check apron, with the 
 solitaire brilliantly holding a red ribbon about 
 her neck. She aroused comment because of 
 the display, and gave Santa Claus the credit, 
 while Baltimore, sitting behind the turkey, 
 gave no sign. And that turkey ! " stuffed with 
 cove oysters," and rivalling the tint of an amber 
 cloud on a summer evening, had never been 
 paralleled in Pine Valley Bar or anywhere else. 
 Ballard at one end presided over a roast of 
 
FOB BALTIMORE HATCH, 47 
 
 venison, the potatoes were baked to the state 
 of perfection that enabled them to crumble 
 into delicate flakes at the first crack of their 
 jackets, and then, as the hostess expressed it: 
 "Blessed be the canneries, in such emergen- 
 cies," there was no lack of savory dishes to 
 elaborate the feast, followed by the mince pies, 
 her objects of special solicitude, and the coffee 
 to conclude with. When all were seated, Mrs. 
 Hicks standing erect behind the occupant of 
 the only high chair, Ballard raised his hand; 
 there was a sudden hush because of that motion 
 and nothing else, and the men looked toward 
 him. Then out of the stillness came the sweet 
 voice of the little child and each turned toward 
 him sitting opposite Baltimore : 
 
 "Dod make us tankful — bess Pine Valley 
 Bar an' Unke Ballard an' Mama Hicks — an' 
 — an' — be dood to Ballamore Hatch." 
 
 Baltimore, putting the fork into the turkey, 
 failed in the proper adjustment of the tines to 
 the breast bone and was compelled to a second 
 effort — and yet Baltimore had always been 
 credited with possessing a steady hand, even 
 under the weight of — "a calibre forty-four." 
 
HIS HARVEST. 
 
HIS HARVEST. 
 
 The eastern slope of Prospect Mountain is 
 covered with young pines. Bleached and rot- 
 ten stumps attest the density of the old growth. 
 The locality is " gophered " with prospect holes 
 and mining shafts caving in and long since 
 abandoned. The old growth was consumed in 
 timbering these once enticing avenues to 
 wealth, that symbolize in their decay the 
 blighted hopes of the toilers. The mountain 
 side is treacherous ground for the unwary, the 
 tangled undergrowth hides pitfalls that thirty 
 years ago were open to the sunlight, but peril- 
 ous even then on a dark night. There was 
 once a well-beaten trail entering at the base of 
 the northern end and rising, like a bar sinister, 
 along the face of the mountain, crossing a sag 
 at the south, thence down into Blind Horse 
 Gulch. At a time when the Gulch was degen- 
 51 
 
52 HIS HARVEST. 
 
 crating as a mining camp, and the eastern slope 
 had been entirely forsaken, a prospector, fol- 
 lowed by a dog and driving a burro, tramped 
 over the depression and down the old trail. 
 Half-way and a little on one side, a spring 
 bubbled out from the base of a huge boulder 
 and sent a tiny rill, tumbling and growing in 
 volume, down through a clump of aspens 
 which it helped to nourish. The short trail to 
 the spring and an old fruit-can on a broken 
 willow sprout confessed to frequent visitors. 
 The prospector halted there, seated himself 
 on a convenient stone, also giving token of 
 use, and dipping up a canful of the crystal, 
 took a long drink. Perhaps he delayed his 
 departure because of the delicious cup and a 
 thought of a repetition, or, with the indiffer- 
 ence of those in his vocation, to whom time is 
 of no consequence, he lingered on the hard 
 seat while his burro refreshed himself with the 
 luscious grass. 
 
 The dog evidently considered it too early 
 in the day to rest, and after satisfying himself 
 at the rill, he ranged through the brush. Pres- 
 ently he gave tongue, but without attracting 
 
BLIND HORSE GULCH. 
 
HIS HARVEST. 63 
 
 the attention of his master; then he became 
 clamorous without effect, and, returning to the 
 spring, he made a personal appeal. His actions 
 were so demonstrative that the man was finally 
 moved to inquire of him the cause, whereupon 
 the dog started off again and the master not 
 following, he returned. 
 
 "What have you treed. Crackers?" but 
 Crackers, declining any prolonged caress, was 
 off again, with an unmistakable invitation to 
 follow. The man unstrapped a rifle from the 
 burro's pack and started in quest of the bear, or 
 whatever might be the incentive to Crackers' 
 excitement. A short distance on the other side 
 of the trail the dog dashed about a mass of 
 undergrowth and matted vines, poking his nose 
 into it and drawing suddenly back, keeping one 
 eye on his follower. The latter approached 
 cautiously, ready for any emergency, but pres- 
 ently became quite assured that there was no 
 dangerous animal in the brush, there being no 
 response to the dog's outcries. Drawing nearer, 
 he parted the vines and halted — immediately 
 at his feet was one of the old shafts. He rec- 
 ognized it as a shaft of the Blue Bird claim. 
 
64 HIS HARVEST. 
 
 " You darn fool ! Can't you find nothin' bet- 
 ter to bark at than a hole in the ground ! Get 
 out, you little cuss ! " 
 
 But Crackers declined, remonstrated elo- 
 quently at his master's lack of intelligence, 
 and stood nervously looking first into the black 
 depths and then at the creature made in His 
 image looming over him. 
 
 "If you are not yourself a fool," intimated 
 Crackers, "you will look down there and see 
 what that is lying at the bottom. One of your 
 kind, very much disfigured and very repulsive 
 in its putrescence ! Ah ! you can smell, can 
 you not ? I thought so ; now part the vines 
 a little more and the sun will help you see." 
 
 And, obeying this intimation of Crackers, 
 you observe, Mr. Prospector, that the body is 
 fully dressed and has a roll of blankets lying 
 under it; you recognize these and the clothes 
 and then — one who was once your intimate. He 
 must have fallen in, you are satisfied, and there 
 is a stifled sensation in your breast that perhaps 
 the fall was fatal on the instant ; you pray that 
 it was, since it was to be a death of such a 
 character, and that he had not lingered ago- 
 
HIS HARVEST. 55 
 
 nized and hopelessly through the night, looking 
 despairingly at the bright stars shining down ; 
 that he had not watched for the sun in the vain 
 hope that with daylight some one might chance 
 to come over the trail, and he could shout for 
 aid ; that the sun did not come up and disclose 
 the rotten and slimy timbers from which the 
 hands had slipped and the finger nails scraped 
 the treacherous surface; that climbing to the 
 meridian the warm rays did not dart for a 
 little while against the northerly wall, the line 
 of light creeping down but giving no cheer and 
 slowly creeping up again, leaving him lingering 
 and choked in the dark, realizing that he must 
 rot unknown. Of what offence could one be 
 guilty to deserve such a fate ! You pray that 
 he died at once ! 
 
 Silence brooded over Blind Horse Gulch ; the 
 silence of an August afternoon, with the sun's 
 rays shining over the great mountain standing 
 west, beating hot against the cliffs of Prospect 
 Mountain standing east, and making drowsi- 
 ness the monarch. The Gulch was vegetating 
 
56 HIS HARVEST. 
 
 through a season of doubtful promise and the 
 citizens were physically inert, in harmony with 
 their torpid mental condition. If any were busy, 
 they were under ground and out of sight, hav- 
 ing surrendered the Gulch, for the time, to the 
 flies. The busy scavengers availed themselves 
 of the prevailing quiet and buzzed obtrusively 
 about those somnolent above ground and re- 
 sponsive to irritation. The river, rippling past, 
 attempted to vary the monotony by an occa- 
 sional interlude, but the music was an exasper- 
 ating failure. In front of the Brittle Silver 
 Saloon a coterie of flies was gathered about the 
 sour bung-hole of an empty whiskey barrel — 
 green flies and blue, with beautifully burnished, 
 metallic bodies and they rendered a bass accom- 
 paniment to the treble of an occasional house- 
 fly. One of the latter, satisfied of his inability 
 to draw either sustenance or hilarity from the 
 depleted vessel, with an anathema, perhaps, upon 
 the avaricious saloon-keeper and the bibulous 
 avidity of the average citizen, flew away, around 
 the corner and straight up the hillside to a 
 cabin a few hundred feet distant. An unusual 
 flight, perhaps, for a house-fly to make ; but he 
 
HIS HARVEST. 67 
 
 may have been moved by intuition, experience, 
 or, possibly, by some psychological influence, to 
 make the flight and to alight upon the heavy 
 moustache of a man with his hat over his face 
 and lying asleep upon a bench in the shade of 
 this cabin. This fly took a survey of the man's 
 nostrils, elevated and washed his hind feet, then 
 his hands, with eminent satisfaction, caressed 
 his head alternately with the right and left, 
 washed them again with a gleefulness abso- 
 lutely patent, and then, as if aware of admiring 
 observers, he reached out and tickled the carti- 
 lage dividing the gaping cavities in front of 
 him — 
 
 " Pshew ! Damn that fly ! " 
 
 The man rubbed his nose violently with one 
 hand while he recovered his hat with the other, 
 and recognized his impotency. In such circum- 
 stances human sympathy, however broad other- 
 wise, resolves itself into ridicule; the maledic- 
 tion is as weak and absurd as the self-inflicted 
 blow and adds to the merriment. The sleeper, 
 now fully aroused, became aware that he was 
 being laughed at. It was a laugh not born of, 
 though it might have been fed upon, flitch and 
 
58 HIS HARVEST. 
 
 potatoes, and hence was not irritating, but 
 pleasantly contagious. It came from another 
 cabin across the street, that is, had there been 
 any street. This cabin had a porch in front of 
 it and the porch was overrun by a thrifty wild 
 clematis suggestive of coolness, and there were 
 old fruit-cans with wild flowers in them set 
 upon the window-sill. In the sordid surround- 
 ings this cabin wore an air of neatness ; it sug- 
 gested a possibility, and seemed to hold itself 
 aloof, as if aware of its own superiority, and to 
 insist upon a recognition of its consequence. 
 And the laugh that rippled out from the shade 
 of the clematis ! An impudent jay, perched 
 upon the ridge-pole, ceased his chatter and 
 listened as if unwilling to lose a note of it. 
 Certainly no wild mountain side was ever before 
 delighted with the like of it; sweeter than the 
 melody of silver bells it came drifting down to 
 the whilom sleeper, bringing a smile to his lips 
 and bearing with it the atmosphere of lofty 
 ceilings and exquisite draperies, brocades and 
 delicate laces ; Purity and all her beautiful at- 
 tendants. Then the smile faded out. 
 
 What of the musician? A contradiction of 
 
HIS hahvebt. 59 
 
 the cabin. The fair hair, half uncoiled and 
 hanging loosely ; a light-colored silk dress soiled 
 with many spots of grease and in disorder ; the 
 little slippers down at the heel ; the cheeks in- 
 flamed, and the skin flabby under the eyes ; the 
 dry lips parted, disclosing two rows of pearls, 
 the only beauty in harmony with the sweet 
 laugh — ah! that mouth must have been tempt- 
 ing enough once to melt the austerity of one 
 sanctified, and was sweet under a mother's holy 
 kiss! 
 
 What a disappointment! Ay! And the 
 aching hearts that reached out appealingly into 
 the unknown and yearned for the purity they 
 had so tenderly cherished — what of their shat- 
 tered faith ? Could they recognize Julie ? No ! 
 neither the name nor the woman ! 
 
 The man on the bench, York Maxwell, sat up 
 and, without brushing the dust from his hat, 
 carelessly crushed it on the side of his head. 
 He glanced toward the porch and then beyond, 
 and saw a figure striding down the trail from 
 what looked like a rat hole, with a gray patch 
 in front of it, away up on the mountain side. 
 In the figure he recognized his partner, Rocky 
 
60 HIS HARVEST. 
 
 Henderson ; in the rat hole, the tunnel's mouth 
 of their mine. 
 
 "Julie has started on another drunk." This 
 from York, as Rocky halted at the door and 
 caught the air of a familiar song and the thrum 
 of a guitar coming from the shelter of the clem- 
 atis. " Go over and coax the liquor away from 
 her." 
 
 "Let her drink — I'm thinking about that 
 hole up yonder." 
 
 " The White Cloud Mine, you mean," and 
 York laughed, regardless of the other's serious 
 manner, and the remembrance of the months of 
 toil and the many dollars expended there. 
 
 " It's rather a black cloud to us, York — she's 
 played out." 
 
 "You aren't giving me anything new." 
 
 "Why didn't you say so before?" 
 
 "I hated to put a damper on you. Rocky. 
 Then, I wanted you to satisfy yourself." 
 
 "What do you propose doing?" 
 
 "Ask me something easy." 
 
 " We can't muster a hundred dollars between 
 us!" 
 
 "I'd be rich with half of it." 
 
HIS HARVEST. 61 
 
 " What was the sense in going on, when you 
 knew it would come to no good?" 
 
 " I wouldn't travel any further on that trail, 
 Rocky — no use in finding fault." 
 
 "You are right — we are both in the mire. I 
 shall get out of here." 
 
 "I'd like to go with you." 
 
 "Come, then, I'll divide with you," and 
 Rocky, folding his arms, leaned against the 
 door jamb. 
 
 " Couldn't think of it. Rocky." 
 
 Blind Horse Gulch still enjoyed a weekly 
 mail, and the carrier, in company with a dusty 
 buckboard, a pair of dusty mules, a dusty little 
 mail sack, and a dusty passenger, drew up in 
 front of the Last Chance Hotel, while the im- 
 poverished partners were yet engaged in can- 
 vassing their indigence. Passengers to Blind 
 Horse were becoming quite uncommon, an arri- 
 val really attained the dignity of a curiosity. 
 Whether the citizens were animated by a desire 
 to see one endowed with the temerity supposed 
 to be requisite in a visitor, or were buoyed by 
 
62 HIS HABVEST. 
 
 the hope of meeting a possible acquaintance, 
 has never been satisfactorily determined — the 
 majority ordinarily appeared upon the arrival 
 of the buckboard ; it had become the fashion and 
 bore the character somewhat of a public and 
 hospitable welcome to the passenger, if one 
 chanced, or to the driver and his establishment 
 if he came without a fare. In the latter case 
 his familiars greeted him hilariously, or, in their 
 exuberance, pulled him off his perch and in- 
 sisted that he should " take something." Others 
 smiled in a way unaccountable upon any other 
 hypothesis than an absolute mental vacuity, 
 while others stared grimly. 
 
 Upon the occasion in question the Gulch pre- 
 sented itself in a body, the chance passenger 
 being a woman, who was young and attractive, 
 even with dust on her eyebrows and dust on her 
 hair. Half a dozen pairs of hands were out- 
 stretched to assist her in alighting, but the iron 
 step of the buckboard was convenient, the 
 daintily booted foot had no difficulty in finding 
 it, and the passenger reached the earth unas- 
 sisted, while she acknowledged the unaccepted 
 gallantry by a smile. The " old felts " were 
 
HIS HARVEST. 63 
 
 lifted awkwardly because of their aggravating 
 incapacity for elegance in any circumstances, 
 and the new arrival was escorted by two rows 
 of admiring eyes, besides twoscore massed in 
 the background, to the friendly hand of Mrs. 
 Hobbs, who stood prepared in the doorway. 
 Every man's face wore a smile as he looked into 
 his neighbor's, and the verdict was reached with- 
 out debate. If any were disposed to be rude, 
 they proclaimed no hint of it, and more than one 
 gave the front of his canvas jacket a fillip with 
 his fingers, in the vain attempt to knock off the 
 dust, or with straightened shoulders buttoned 
 it over his woollen shirt. The elevating influ- 
 ence was as sudden and decided as if the dirt of 
 the sidewalk had been changed into velvet and 
 the cotton overalls transformed into broadcloth. 
 Shanghai Dickson and Baltimore Hatch 
 lounged into the Brittle Silver and rested 
 their elbows on the bar, arranged their foxy 
 boots loungingly crosswise, and half a dozen 
 others following, disposed of themselves after 
 the same manner. Baltimore, considering that 
 the occasion demanded active demonstration of 
 approval, vociferated: 
 
64 HIS HARVEST. 
 
 " Barkeep, set 'em up fer the crowd." 
 
 Multiplied recourse to this source of inspira- 
 tion lifted no one out of the sea of conjecture. 
 
 A later accession from the Last Chance, how- 
 ever, found himself an object of interest. 
 
 "Rocky Henderson!" The name was re- 
 peated in a tone of astonishment. 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "Yer don't mean it?" 
 
 "Dead sure?" 
 
 " Well, I'm damned ! " and Baltimore, having 
 thus announced his hopeless condition, avowed 
 himself dry, which may not be considered novel 
 in the circumstances. 
 
 One of the objects of these ambiguous com- 
 ments still stood leaning against the door jamb 
 of the cabin, talking to his partner. The thrum 
 of the guitar and the familiar song floated about 
 him unheeded. The music ceased suddenly on 
 a half-finished note ; York opened his eyes and 
 started to arise, looking beyond and behind his 
 companion. 
 
 " Charlie ! " and Rocky faced about, startled. 
 Standing there was the new arrival, both hands 
 extended, her lips parted, her breast heaving — 
 
HIS HARVEST. 65 
 
 from the exertion of climbing the hill, perhaps 
 — and the pretty face flushed, also with the 
 exercise, no doubt, for Kocky only looked at 
 her in surprise. 
 
 " Why ! " with the bright and beautiful ex- 
 pression of hope and gladness still in the up- 
 turned face — " Don't you know me, Charlie ? " 
 but the happy laugh was stilled almost in its 
 birth, as Rocky gave no sign of recognition; 
 and "Charlie," uttered for the third time, — 
 the hands still extended but the flush gone 
 from the face, — was only a sigh. The pant- 
 ing did not cease and the rapid breathing 
 parched her throat and tongue ; she could only 
 look at him, her arms now hanging limp. 
 
 Julie, with an old sunbonnet trailing at the 
 back of her head, stepped out from the shelter 
 of the clematis, the silk dress repulsive in the 
 bright sunlight. The post-office was ostensi- 
 bly her objective point, but she unnecessarily 
 lengthened the journey by crossing toward the 
 group. She continued humming the familiar 
 tune, bestowing a smile upon Rocky as she 
 passed, which was changed to a stare for the 
 new arrival. Rocky gave no heed, but the 
 
66 HIS BAEVEST. 
 
 apparition revived the stranger; she glanced 
 at it and looked again at Rocky, incredulously 
 at first and then pleadingly, for some sign of 
 contradiction. 
 
 " Is it possible I Speak to me, Charlie I " 
 "Really, you must pardon me, madam, but 
 you are laboring under a mistake; I do not 
 know you." 
 
 She did not answer; there was a slight, 
 startled motion of her figure, as if she had 
 trodden upon something repulsive, and the 
 pressure of her nails against her palms, as he 
 concluded; but she looked at him intently, — 
 looked until he escaped by stepping into the 
 cabin; as he disappeared, she observed York. 
 He arose as if to approach her, but she turned 
 and walked steadily down the trail, passed the 
 Brittle Silver, quite brushed the soiled dress 
 of Julie returning from her fruitless errand, 
 and gave no sign. But Mrs. Hobbs came out 
 of her own apartment some time after, and 
 there was a suspicion of inflammation about 
 her eyelids and she had a set expression on 
 her face that was uncommon with the usually 
 amiable hostess of the Last Chance. 
 
HIS HARVMST. 67 
 
 The afternoon sun, smilingly contented with 
 his day's work, hid himself behind the hill 
 standing west, draped the Gulch in a golden 
 shadow, and then bade a rosy good night to 
 the lofty cliffs of Prospect Mountain standing 
 east. The twilight set in and the obscurity 
 deepening, Rocky cheered his isolation in the 
 cabin with a lighted candle fixed in a bottle. 
 
 He would roll up his blankets in the morn- 
 ing and go out on foot. 
 
 York came in and, without a word, seated 
 himself on a stool by the side of the black 
 fireplace, his back against the wall. Rocky, 
 sitting silently by the pine table, his elbow 
 upon it and his face fairly in the candlelight, 
 became aware of the other's gaze, and looked 
 up. York, his ankle on one knee, nursed the 
 other in his clasped hands; his dark eyes 
 emitted a strange glow, it might be because 
 of his position, half in the shadow of the 
 chimney, and the expression did not vary as 
 his companion encountered it. The stillness 
 remained unchallenged for a minute or more, 
 and the attitudes of the men unchanged. 
 Rocky was the first to move; he withdrew 
 
68 BIS SAnVEST. 
 
 his hand from his cheek, rested it on the pine 
 table and beat upon the well-greased boards 
 softly with his fingers, then he spoke : 
 
 "I shall go out in the morning." 
 
 The other gave no intimation that he heeded 
 the announcement. 
 
 "I dislike to abandon you, old boy," and 
 Rocky ceased the monotonous play upon the 
 table top, a faint smile playing about his lips. 
 York made no response. 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" and there 
 was a hint of impatience in the tone, but he 
 resumed the thrumming. 
 
 "No need to ask that," and with the words 
 came a slight quiver of the heavy moustache, 
 that might have been construed into an incipi- 
 ent smile ; but the other evidently detected 
 another sensation, not flattering, in the motive 
 of it. The impatience was now unequivocal. 
 
 "Don't talk in riddles." 
 
 "I have propounded no riddle to you." 
 
 "Your manner is an enigma." 
 
 " You're a liar," and York continued to nurse 
 his knee as if he fnight have been coldly an- 
 nouncing a mutual conclusion. The other ceased 
 
BIS BAJRVEST. 69 
 
 drumming and closed his hand; a momentary- 
 flash of the eyes aided in indicating his apprecia- 
 tion of the indignity. The self-control of the 
 men afforded but little contrast and seemed 
 ominous of ill. 
 
 "Why do you apply that epithet to me?" 
 The inquiry opened defiantly, but drifted al- 
 most imperceptibly into a tone of reproach that 
 became confirmed upon the further inquiry : " I 
 have always treated you like a gentleman ? " 
 
 " I never gave you cause to treat me other- 
 wise." 
 
 "I am to understand, then, that you have 
 reason to consider me as one having no claim 
 to that distinction?" 
 
 "You could have said it in fewer words." 
 
 " I do not wish to quarrel with you, York." 
 
 "Suit yourself." 
 
 " Why do you force this contest upon me ? " 
 
 " Why do you ask me ? " 
 
 "Is it because of that strange woman?" 
 
 York made no reply; there was only the 
 slight quiver of the moustache, as before; his 
 position remained unchanged. Rocky arose and 
 walked to the farther end of the cabin, twelve 
 
70 HIS HARVEST. 
 
 feet away ; when he turned he saw York stand- 
 ing by the chimney, his right hand upon his 
 hip. 
 
 " No, York, we will have none of that ! " 
 
 " I have already said : ' Suit yourself.' " 
 
 " I have said no." 
 
 " Then do the other thing, if you are a man," 
 and without further words he strode to the door 
 and out of it. Rocky paced up and down the 
 cabin a few times, then resumed his seat. He 
 was not destined to remain undisturbed. 
 
 The good breeding in the Gulch interdicted, 
 as a rule, the politeness of knocking upon one's 
 door when admittance was desired ; the formal- 
 ity was treated, in some sort, as a relic of an 
 antique civilization. To knock might indicate 
 a doubt of welcome or a difference in the social 
 standing of the host and his visitor; and an 
 assumption of superiority had a tendency to 
 unpleasant results. 
 
 Thus fortified, Baltimore, Shanghai, and an- 
 other, a gentleman with long, light hair and a 
 pleasant manner, known as Cheyenne, presented 
 themselves to Mr. Henderson communing with 
 himself in the light of the stearine candle. After 
 
SIS HARVEST. 71 
 
 an introductory salutation, unpolished but com- 
 prehensive, Baltimore, who had usurped the 
 delicate position of spokesman, brought his 
 hand down a second time, and in the best pos- 
 sible humor, upon the shoulder of Rocky, with 
 the remark: 
 
 " You see, it's this yere way. Rocky ; we's a 
 committee, me and Shanghai and Cheyenne." 
 
 "WeU, from whom, and what is your pur- 
 pose?" and Rocky looked beyond Baltimore, 
 toward Cheyenne. 
 
 " The Gulch wants yer to go down and kind'r 
 cotton to the little lady at the Last Chance." 
 
 "But I do not know the little lady, as you 
 call her," and he looked from one to the other, 
 stopping at Cheyenne, in whose face he de- 
 tected an expression that reminded him of 
 York's while the latter sat in the chimney 
 corner a little while before. 
 
 "She says she's yer wife. Rocky Henderson, 
 and her word goes I " affirmed Baltimore. 
 
 " The Gulch exhibits rather an unusual 
 interest in me." 
 
 "Now yer dead to rights — they wouldn't 
 mind hangin' yer ! " 
 
72 HIS BARVEST. 
 
 " Has she appealed to the camp, thinking to 
 force herself upon me?" 
 
 "Nary appeal." 
 
 " No one has spoken with her, Mr. Henderson, 
 except Mrs. Hobbs. My impression is you 
 would better go," and Cheyenne's voice was 
 very pleasant, but there was in it something 
 approaching a command. 
 
 " If the lady should decline to receive me ? " 
 
 "It is better that you ascertain of her." 
 
 "Suppose I decline." 
 
 "I trust you will not." 
 
 "I will determine in the morning — I wish 
 you good night, gentlemen." 
 
 " You will excuse my interference, Mr. Hen- 
 derson. I am here as your well-wisher, to save 
 you trouble," and Cheyenne moved toward the 
 door, which Rocky held open. 
 
 " Thank you — I have heard of you — in the 
 office of mediator." 
 
 " I only thought to save you annoyance ! " 
 
 "But you have failed, you see." 
 
 "Only in my estimate of you." 
 
 Baltimore and Shanghai hesitated, — an affray 
 was one of the elements going to make tip their 
 
HIS HAnVEST. 73 
 
 sum of human happiness, — but they followed 
 Cheyenne at his instance. A majority of the 
 Gulch was awaiting, in a cabin devoted to 
 public use, the return of the committee. The 
 report was not satisfactory, and the entire 
 body voted to wait upon Rocky and escort him 
 to the Last Chance Hotel. But the mission 
 ended in discomfiture — Rocky had disappeared 
 in the darkness of the night. 
 
 The driver of the buckboard, on his next trip 
 out, had a quiet, closely veiled passenger from 
 whom he refused to accept the customary fare. 
 The road which they travelled was but a little 
 lower down the mountain side than the trail, 
 and they passed within a hundred feet of the 
 Blue Bird shaft. A solitary raven perched on 
 a dwarfed and ragged pine near the edge, 
 lazily arose and flew away; he may have been 
 disturbed by the clatter of the wagon, or, 
 perhaps, this ebon symbol was selfishly disposed 
 and did not wish to give any hint of the prom- 
 ise to him in the mangled and motionless figure 
 lying below, of the discolored, upturned face, of 
 the wide-open eyes into which light would 
 never again enter. 
 
74 BIS HARVEST. 
 
 Two weeks thereafter it was that York was 
 persuaded away from the spring by Crackers 
 and induced to cross the old trail. When 
 the news reached the Gulch, there was lack of 
 sympathy for Rocky; York experienced no 
 little difficulty in having the remains of his 
 late partner rescued and decently disposed of, 
 because of a rumor — a rumor not traceable 
 to any definite source, but potent : that Rocky 
 had not only deserted his own home, but had 
 desecrated that of a friend, and hence — Julie. 
 
ON HIS HONOR. 
 
ON HIS HONOR. 
 
 Even tlie title and position of a mining su- 
 perintendent failed to make the Kid impressive. 
 The most superficial observer, however, could 
 comprehend that he had been reared in an at- 
 mosphere to which evil was repulsive. 
 
 Looked at from behind, his neck was slender, 
 the muscles standing out prominently, giving 
 one the impression that the Kid was recovering 
 from an attack of illness ; a front view contra- 
 dicted this impression — his complexion was 
 fair, the skin quite transparent and the cheeks 
 flushed, in contrast to the blue veins ; his beard 
 was silky, his eyes were large and wore a tired 
 expression in their brown depths, and the 
 "whites" of them had a bluish tinge. The Kid 
 was not broad across the shoulders and the 
 bosom of his woollen shirt suggested an owner- 
 77 
 
78 ON BIS BONOM. 
 
 ship of the garment in one of much greater 
 girth of chest. 
 
 The rumor was decently credited that, 
 through anxiety for his health, the Kid had 
 been assigned to Pine Valley Bar. But there 
 was also a hint that through paternal influence, 
 denied in every other direction, he had been 
 labelled superintendent of the Mississippi Belle. 
 He had never seen a mine, but an infusion of 
 young blood might restore the Mississippi Belle 
 to a paying basis. 
 
 As a first step towards the acquisition of the 
 knowledge necessary to a proper exercise of his 
 office, the Kid made his appearance behind a 
 team of fast horses, and thus excited the admi- 
 ration of the Bar. Then there were champagne 
 suppers at the Aurora, and these were expen- 
 sive regardless of the questionable vintage; 
 and, at his own estimate, the Kid was no kid. 
 
 In this condition of mind he encountered 
 Baltimore Hatch and his " faro layout," and in 
 less than half a year he grew more round- 
 shouldered and flat in the chest, coughed on the 
 least provocation and lost his interest in the 
 Mississippi Belle. 
 
ON HIS HONOR. 79 
 
 "The infusion of young blood'* had failed 
 in its mission and two wrecks were manifest. 
 Baltimore, being deferred to, assumed super- 
 vision of the late superintendent as few men 
 would have done in the circumstances ; the Kid 
 felt exalted and the horses were absorbed. 
 
 Gray days were not common in Pine Valley 
 during the fall and early winter, but they 
 would assert themselves at times, and such 
 seasons were strong grounds for the Kid's con- 
 finement in his own quarters. And very com- 
 fortable quarters they were, considering the 
 lack of wealth in the occupant and the poverty 
 of luxuries prevailing in Pine Valley. 
 
 The question was : How did he maintain the 
 old style? 
 
 No one, however, exerted himself to set up a 
 solution — the gratification of one's palate ren- 
 ders an examination of the kitchen superfluous, 
 if not injudicious. 
 
 The Kid's cabin parlor had a board floor and 
 a carpet, a fireplace, curtains at the windows, 
 upholstered chairs and a sideboard, to say noth- 
 ing of other epicurean fancies. And on one of 
 those gray afternoons the Kid occupied his most 
 
80 ON HIS HONOR. 
 
 enticing chair, one that enabled him to rest his 
 elbows on its arms and to support his chin upon 
 his hands, if he felt so inclined, and he was so 
 inclined this afternoon. The curtains were 
 drawn and the firelight, into which he gazed 
 with eyes more enlarged than ever, assumed a 
 liberty, as any other artist might, and endeav- 
 ored to put a cheerful color into his complex- 
 ion. But the attempt was a lamentable failure, 
 suggesting only the mere ghost of an effort, 
 although the firelight, without doubt, did its 
 best. The Kid did not even exert himself suf- 
 ficiently, during an hour, to change his position ; 
 notwithstanding he breathed as if he might 
 have been just recuperating from a season of 
 violent exercise. It was a good time for com- 
 pany and yet somewhat early in the afternoon, 
 except for the claims of the Kid in that regard. 
 His appearance made a very impressive demand 
 without his volunteering, even to himself, any 
 expression of his need. 
 
 Baltimore Hatch always made himself at home 
 and lounged in, as was his custom, on cloudy 
 afternoons. The Kid turned his head merely 
 to ascertain to whom he might be indebted. 
 
ON HIS BONOR. 81 
 
 " Hello, pardner ! " began Baltimore ; then he 
 immediately felt ashamed at having allowed 
 himself to be betrayed into an expression of 
 emotion in any circumstances and, from being 
 very much astonished, Baltimore suddenly be- 
 came much encouraged : 
 
 "Feelin' better, ain't yer?" 
 
 The Kid thought he was, or soon would be, 
 and he smiled ; but the smile seemed to indicate 
 that the muscles about his lips were somewhat 
 refractory, and the effort resulted in giving to 
 the great eyes a very sad and weary expression. 
 
 " Yes," continued Baltimore, helping himself 
 to a chair, rubbing his knees with his open palms 
 and beaming on the Kid with the matchless 
 exuberance of a healthy physique. " Of course, 
 you bet — and yer know that it's been kind'r 
 dweUin' in my mind that next fall I'd coax you 
 off to Cuba — I'd like to go to Cuba, now, 
 wouldn't you ? 'Tain't cold there in winter? " 
 
 The Kid thought he would enjoy a winter in 
 Cuba, and felt assured that such a sojourn 
 would have put him on his feet again. But — 
 
 "'Course, 'course it will, an' we'll go, — bet 
 yer life." 
 
82 ON HIS HONOS. 
 
 " That's not much of a stake." 
 
 " What's not much of a stake ? " demanded 
 Baltimore. 
 
 "My life." 
 
 The Kid was a long time saying it, and the 
 weary expression of his eyes lingered after the 
 ghost of the smile had Tanished. 
 
 " Oh, come off now, do," persisted Baltimore. 
 "Let's have a game of draw — here, I'll swing 
 yer cheer round and bring up the table — 
 Don't want to ? Well, all right, pardner." 
 
 " I'll make you a bet, Baltimore," and the Kid 
 took a still longer time in the last remark. 
 
 "Make yer bet." Baltimore said it laugh- 
 ingly and slapped his knee with his hand. 
 
 " I've not five minutes left," and the Kid felt 
 in his vest pocket; the long slender finger did 
 not respond readily to his will, but he succeeded 
 at last in locating the object of his search — it 
 was a ten-dollar greenback and he held it in his 
 hand resting on the arm of the chair. 
 
 " Why, yer ain't goin' away ? " insisted Balti- 
 more, ignoring the Kid's meaning. The other 
 nodded and the smile seemed more reluctant 
 than ever. 
 
ON HIS HONOR. 83 
 
 "Now where yer goin'?" still rejecting the 
 palpable fact. 
 
 The other shook his head and held up the 
 note. 
 
 " Shan't I go fer a doctor ? " He spoke with 
 a strange gentleness and placed his hand ten- 
 derly on that of the Kid, — " Well then, what 
 kin I do fer yer?" 
 
 " Take the bet? — four minutes," and the Kid 
 made an effort only to hold out the bill; it 
 dropped from his fingers and the smile refused 
 to follow the look turned upon Baltimore. 
 
 "Hain't yer no word, or nothin' — " 
 
 But the inquiry was interrupted by a mo- 
 tion of the Kid's lips and Baltimore, supporting 
 the other's head, leaned over him. The smile 
 flitted into his face and was gone again as he 
 whispered : 
 
 "I'd have won." 
 
 Even Baltimore Hatch was shocked, as he 
 gently withdrew his hand and, still bending 
 over, looked into the eyes from which the light 
 had gone out. 
 
 At this crisis another interruption occurred: 
 
 " Hello, Baltimore ! " The voice was femi- 
 
84 ON HIS HONOR. 
 
 nine, but loud. " Cannot you find something 
 better to make love to than the Kid?" 
 
 Baltimore turned and took in at a glance a 
 pair of white slippers and an overjewelled hand 
 that held up the skirt of a soiled silk dress, 
 then he looked into the reckless face not yet 
 lost to comeliness. There was a sudden tran- 
 sition in the blue eyes from merriment to 
 astonishment, thence to awe, as, by a gesture 
 needing no interpretation, he pointed to the 
 figure in the chair. 
 
 " My God ! you don't mean it ! " This was 
 a startled whisper, and was, as well, the ghost 
 of a forgotten prayer. She quickly swept round 
 to the other side and, kneeling, tenderly lifted 
 the nerveless hand and pressed it to her bosom. 
 "Poor fellow." And she looked up through 
 overflowing eyes. 
 
 The occasion sanctified the touch and the 
 oblation of tears. 
 
 Baltimore took upon himself the office of 
 administrator of the Kid's estate; not a very 
 valuable estate, but sufficient to insure a decent 
 bestowal of what remained of the Kid. And 
 certain of the Pine Valley populace intimated 
 
ON BIS HOlSrOB. 85 
 
 that Baltimore ■would have exhibited a closer 
 regard to his duty and " the fair thing " had 
 he himself borne the burden. 
 
 What disposition, in such event, could have 
 been made of the chattels? was Baltimore's 
 inquiry. 
 
 There was no answer to this — no one appear- 
 ing with a claim against the estate. 
 
 " Then don't kick," said Baltimore. " Wouldn't 
 he ruther be buried out of his own property 
 than yourn? Ef he could say so, yes. Then 
 I say, don't kick. Them things was his'n — he 
 win 'em an' I know it. Is there any man wot 
 wants to kick? Ef so — " 
 
 But no individual presented himself for that 
 sacrifice in this emergency. And Baltimore 
 did not intimate to whose ill-luck the Kid had 
 been indebted, not only for the chattels, but for 
 the personal comforts enjoyed by him after his 
 suspension from the Mississippi Belle. 
 
 Baltimore was an expert in more exercises 
 than one and was never known to whisper an 
 explanation of any supposed failure of his 
 own. 
 
 By dint of much persuasion and correspond- 
 
86 ON HIS HONOR. 
 
 ence at second hand, Baltimore was induced 
 away from. Pine Valley for a brief period. 
 And on one day, at a long distance from Pine 
 Valley, in an atmosphere fragrant with the odor 
 of lilies, he contemplated his well-polished 
 boots, quite over the welts in the embrace of 
 a beautiful carpet — such a carpet as he had 
 never before seen or considered that he should 
 tread upon. He was permitted to study for 
 five minutes, standing, the difference between 
 elegance and the luxury to which he had been 
 accustomed. He was nowise abashed — the 
 emergency he could not patronize had never 
 developed. So he responded by a cool inclina- 
 tion of the head to a similar inclination from a 
 rotund gentleman in black, and gold eye-glasses, 
 who entered and walked across the carpet like 
 one accustomed to it. 
 
 The gentleman quite buried himself in a 
 chair and Baltimore saved him the effort of 
 extending an invitation, by doing the same ; the 
 host stared, Baltimore responded with conquer- 
 ing tenacity. 
 
 The host was glad, perhaps, to turn his atten- 
 tion from the visitor to the woman who entered 
 
ON HIS HONOB. 87 
 
 at the doubtful moment, and who greeted Bal- 
 timore graciously. She was a stately woman 
 and beautiful, dressed in black — and Baltimore 
 thought he detected in her face the best expres- 
 sion of the Kid, refined. 
 
 Yes, he had come, at her solicitation, to tell 
 her of her "boy," and at the word there was 
 only a little quiver of the handsome chin, then 
 the lips were suddenly compressed, but only for 
 an instant, and these were the only signs to indi- 
 cate that aught but an ordinarily serious matter 
 was under consideration. Baltimore lost him- 
 self in admiration more than once, but recovered, 
 with his opinion of his late protSgS in no wise 
 exalted. The gentleman in the chair never 
 looked up, although aware that he was several 
 times silently appealed to by the lady ; his face 
 was a network of wrinkles and his eyes were 
 concealed under heavy, lowering brows; his 
 fingers were interlaced, but they retained the 
 gold-mounted eye-glasses. 
 
 " The Kid had never exhibited any disposition 
 out of the ordinary, at least in Pine Valley. He 
 was a gentleman, that's what he was, anybody 
 would understand that. The failure of the 
 
88 ON HIS HONOR. 
 
 Mississippi Belle was not out of the ordinary, 
 either ; not one mine in a hundred was fit to be 
 called a mine — they was prospects, that's what 
 they was. If every manager should be called 
 to account because the mine petered out, why 
 many a manager would have more than he could 
 answer for — nine out of ten would. The fact 
 of the Kid having been a gentleman must not be 
 lost sight of — a generous whole-souled gentle- 
 man, as considerate as a woman, when a demand 
 was made in that direction. He didn't consider 
 that his residence in Pine Valley should be at- 
 tributed to other than his own inclination. If 
 anybody was to blame for his being there, he 
 was to blame his own self; but there was no 
 blame to lodge anywhere. Maybe, as the Kid 
 intimated, he had been a little wrongheaded 
 before his advent into Pine Valley ; but where 
 was the boy or man that hadn't got himself off 
 wrong some time or other? And all he had to 
 do was to say so, and he knew that all he had 
 to do was to say so, and he did say so, only the 
 acknowledgment hadn't got beyond the cabin 
 at Pine Valley." 
 
 At this juncture, Baltimore noticed that the 
 

ON HIS BONOR. 89 
 
 gentleman in tlie chair relinquished his eye- 
 glasses, but that was the only way in which he 
 condescended to admit that he was interested, 
 and Baltimore failed to comprehend the sign. 
 
 It was a very comfortable cabin, voluptuous, 
 in fact, for Pine Valley, continued Baltimore 
 in substance ; and on that winter afternoon, 
 as the sun went down, without a cloud to dim 
 his lustre, the Kid had pointed over towards 
 the Mount of the Holy Gross, and said that 
 he knew what was hid under the snow there, 
 and hoped there might be something in the 
 promise of it for him ; and if anything was 
 wrong (and Baltimore did not believe there 
 had been anything seriously wrong), no one 
 was to blame ; and as the Kid went out in 
 search of the fulfilment of the promise, he 
 prayed to be forgiven. 
 
 The gentleman in the chair turned a little, 
 looked through the window and shuddered 
 slightly, as one might under a sudden chill ; 
 but he did not move again or notice the visitor. 
 
 On his way out, Baltimore, unexpectedly, 
 found himself confronted in the hall by the 
 lady in black, of whom he had just taken leave. 
 
90 ON HIS HONOR. 
 
 " Say to me, on your honor — is all that you 
 have told me true?" 
 
 "On my honor, madam." 
 
 " May God bless you, sir ! " 
 
 And Baltimore recovered himself in time to 
 understand that he was descending stone steps by 
 the aid of an iron baluster ; that he was bearing 
 with him the vision of two white hands clasped 
 over the back of an oak chair and a woman's 
 head resting upon them, and was conscious that 
 the fresh air was brushing his cheeks, and that 
 it was not freighted with the odor of lilies, but 
 was sweeter and — then he wondered at his own 
 matchless capacity as a liar, thought of the fate 
 of Ananias and concluded that he might perhaps 
 deserve credit for the motive. 
 
FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 Guy Hekeick was possessed of a wife, whom 
 he had taken at random, and of vices which he 
 took no pains to conceal. Nearly every one in 
 Pine Valley Bar laughed at and with him and 
 deprecated nothing, except now and then some 
 one intimated, perhaps, that Mrs. Herriok was 
 a very patient woman. Even his generosity 
 trenched upon the border and threatened to 
 present itself as a blemish. So long as he 
 squandered his own gains, his prodigality might 
 be palliated, with the proviso, of course, that he 
 did not permit Mrs. Herrick to come to want 
 — the want, however, was not prescribed, the 
 significance of it was treated by the Pine Val- 
 ley public as an undemonstrable problem in the 
 domestic economy of the Herrick establish- 
 ment; it vibrated between doubtful affluence 
 and penury, lingering about the latter without 
 93 
 
94 FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 any ability on the part of the public to fix it 
 and Mrs. Herrick giving no sign. She said it 
 was nobody's business if he did squander his 
 gains : " they was his'n " and he had " a right 
 to," and if he obtained what in justice belonged 
 to her, why : " hadn't he a interest in it," she'd 
 like to know? and again — whose business was 
 it? Plainly Mrs. Herrick was no student of 
 economy outside of her own domestic horizon ; 
 the possibility of either becoming a public bur- 
 den did not suggest itself, and had any one sug- 
 gested it to her he would have met the same, to 
 her, unanswerable inquiry. 
 
 She was proud of him : " Look at my Guy ! 
 ain't he hansum ! " In this regard her taste was 
 perhaps not so much at fault, except in the 
 expression of it ; but there could be no question 
 of her sincerity. " Let him git off them miner's 
 duds and dress him in a biled shirt and plug 
 hat — then see!" She never progressed in her 
 inventory beyond these two articles of apparel, 
 but it is fair to presume that in her mind's eye 
 the accomplishment embraced a full suit of 
 black, and " a reel dimon' " emphasizing his 
 claims to distinction. 
 
FINALLY BECOGNIZMD. 95 
 
 Time had been, no doubt, and not a great 
 wbile before, when her paragon might reason- 
 ably have returned the compliment and dwelt 
 upon the blandishments of Mrs. Herrick; but 
 that same Time, in its impartial persistency, 
 had made so many impressions that she was 
 apparently older than he. She had her mission 
 and kept boarders, and boarders failing she 
 took in washing and delved, scraped, and econo- 
 mized, even to meanness — and the self-denial 
 might have been a virtue with her if the motive 
 had not degraded it to a vice. But in mitiga- 
 tion : If happiness be the purpose of life, Mrs. 
 Herrick was accomplishing her limited mission 
 — in this sense, Mrs. Herrick exercised and 
 enjoyed, to the full of her genius, the solution 
 of the great problem. 
 
 In one of his periods of opulence as a result 
 of a season at poker — five-cent ante — " Guy 
 Herrick grub-staked Champagne Tarrent " with 
 the half of his wealth, amounting in the aggre- 
 gate to eighty dollars. Every one laughed at 
 the folly of the investment. Champagne had 
 been so knighted in ridicule, the delicate tipple 
 effervesced purely in his imagination while his 
 
96 FINALLY BECOGNIZED. 
 
 capacity for whiskey was marvellous. But 
 Champagne disappeared in company with a 
 crop-eared burro, a tin cup and frying pan, a 
 box of matches wrapped up in a bit of oil-cloth, 
 a few pounds of bacon and flour, together with 
 a little coffee, packed, with a roll of unsavory 
 blankets, upon the back of his docile convey- 
 ance, and was not seen in Pine Valley for a 
 month. When he returned, he was sober and 
 had an interview with Herrick, after which he 
 proceeded to get drunk, on the remnant of the 
 "grub stake," very much to the annoyance of 
 his patron. The prospector had made a dis- 
 covery, but, like the majority of his craft, was 
 exasperatingly ambiguous upon the question of 
 the location, even to Herrick, When he became 
 sober, the pair departed mysteriously in the 
 night and their absence was not discovered 
 until two days thereafter; too late to follow 
 them, but their return could be watched and 
 the direction whence they came could be ascer- 
 tained. The first intimation, however, of their 
 arrival was in the presence of the crop-eared 
 burro placidly contemplating the back door of 
 the Herrick mansion. 
 
FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 97 
 
 Pine Valley Bar was more interested than 
 ever ; it would not put up with any such illib- 
 erality; but as nothing short of force could 
 compel a revelation and, the occasion not justi- 
 fying harsh measures, the Bar was compelled to 
 express itself by profane disapproval. Vigi- 
 lance was increased, but, notwithstanding, the 
 two disappeared again and returned, and the 
 Bar was no nearer satisfaction than before. 
 Probably to this day the situation might have 
 remained unchanged, had not Herrick given 
 them the opportunity to follow him, while he 
 made the pretence of being as secret as ever. 
 His own advantage having been made secure, 
 the mystery was kept hanging over the enter- 
 prise for his own amusement. A stampede 
 from Pine Valley was the result of the expo- 
 sure and every one was surprised that the 
 promised bonanza was barely two miles away 
 and where dozens had not condescended to 
 spend any time. Only such an improvident 
 pair would have thought of putting a pick into 
 this barren-looking place, and the act must 
 have been prompted by sheer good-luck, so that 
 their promised fortune excited envy without 
 
98 FINALLY EECOGNIZED. 
 
 commanding the respect that commonly bows 
 to success intelligently achieved. 
 
 Herrick, however, was in no wise moved, only 
 to change his habits after squandering the first 
 few hundred dollars realized. Wealth was no 
 longer prospective or coming to him in parcels ; 
 he was possessed of it in bulk, and, when con- 
 vinced of the fact, possibly the most reliable 
 prospector in Pine Valley Bar would have 
 failed to cajole him out of a " grub stake " in 
 the absence of security, and as no prospector 
 was ever known to be capable of producing 
 security, he felt safe. This suddenly acquired 
 disposition may have become a necessity in his 
 changed circumstances, to prevent being bled to 
 death financially ; being poor, he could afford to 
 be generous ; being rich, he was too poor to af- 
 ford the luxury, and the prospect of indulging 
 in the pleasure was farther away from him at 
 the close of each day. And it took only a little 
 while before the virtue was buried under re- 
 grets because he had not taken up the whole 
 mountain side or laid claim to it and the right 
 to appropriate its entire product. He dressed 
 well now, and really adopted the white shirt 
 
FINALLY EECOGNIZEB. 99 
 
 and plug hat and not only one diamond, but as 
 many as could be advantageously displayed, 
 with ample provisions for a change, to avoid 
 possible monotony or to answer the demands of 
 fashion, and was promoted to a colonelcy. 
 
 In the circumstances Mrs. Herrick, in his 
 mind, aged rapidly, and while his own English 
 was, to some people, systematically startling, 
 that of Mrs. Herrick was altogether objection- 
 able to him. She was too old, he conceived, 
 for reform in any direction and the old, sordid 
 environment had become so adapted to her that, 
 in the new, she became disconcerted on the least 
 provocation, and her clothes refused to fit com- 
 fortably. The Colonel had built a new house in 
 Pine Valley, not what would be considered a 
 very pretentious house, perhaps, in more culti- 
 vated surroundings, but one that was palatial 
 in the Valley and that presented a wealth of 
 clapboards and rooms sufficient for the demands 
 of a large family. These rooms were opulent 
 in gilt paper and hitherto unattainable carpets 
 and draperies that persisted, under the super- 
 vision of Mrs. Herrick, in being uncompromis- 
 ingly cold and stiff even in warm weather. 
 
100 FINALLY nECOGNIZED. 
 
 And she would insist on retiring at stated 
 weekly intervals to a secluded room, there to 
 do certain of the washing for her Guy and 
 herself ; it saved that much in cash, besides the 
 "almon'-eyed heathen" was destructive. The 
 other affairs of the mansion were her especial 
 province ; she would have no servant, making 
 waste and inviting want. Colonel Herrick's 
 shirts were unobjectionable in dead white fin- 
 ish, and were as delicate and pliable as linen 
 could be flattered; he was proud of them and 
 the diamonds, but became indignant at the offer 
 of a patched coat in which to entertain visitors 
 who wore involuntary fringe on the bottom of 
 their trousers. 
 
 Could she ever achieve the standard the 
 Colonel had set up, of feminine excellence, to 
 agree with his changed condition ? He thought 
 not ; and this, while the Colonel was to her the 
 same Guy, only in a new dress that had no 
 interest for her, except as he enjoyed it. En- 
 tertaining these opposite views, the announce- 
 ment of his conclusion was crushing even to a 
 woman with a generous capacity for bad Eng- 
 lish and pardonable notions of economy. He 
 
FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 101 
 
 could not mean it, she insisted. Yes, but tlie 
 Colonel did, and he didn't want any fuss about 
 it, either. Was there any other woman intrud- 
 ing? No; and the flash of defiance made the 
 Colonel glad that he could be truthful in this 
 regard. She could have the house and half of 
 all he possessed. This was not ungenerous 
 from his standpoint; but her answer: 
 
 " I wish 't we was poor agin, Guy, and back 
 in the old cabin." 
 
 "I don't, by a damned sight," and he af- 
 firmed it with a laugh that, in the circum- 
 stances, made the brutal retort seem refined. 
 
 When the news found its way to the Bar, 
 the social fabric of the camp was shaken. 
 Some wondered, while others "knowed jest 
 how it'd be." There wouldn't be any divorce, 
 however; Mrs. Herrick wouldn't permit that. 
 She would accept her portion and did; she 
 disposed of the house to be used as a hotel, 
 then she left Pine Valley and the gossip. But 
 she brought away with the portion, which was 
 large, something that she cherished more ten- 
 derly than the wealth, and which she knew 
 would ever remain with her, despite Herrick's 
 
102 FINALLY MECOGNIZED. 
 
 rejection of it, ready to be made manifest 
 should the time ever come. She hoped the 
 time might come, while she had no reason 
 whatever to entertain the dream; nevertheless 
 the possibility was a solace in the humiliation 
 which, with her, partook of a sorrow rather 
 than a mortification; and if it should chance, 
 she would take up the old life as if the thread 
 had never been broken — not exultantly, but 
 in the conviction that she had no wrong to 
 forgive. Colonel Herrick, in the light of this 
 magnanimity, was quite obscure, infinitesimal 
 and mean, but he did not know it. 
 
 After a time he encountered and became 
 infatuated with Mrs. Purrlee, and every one 
 from Golddust to Pine Valley Bar, and across 
 country, knew Mrs. Purrlee with the ravishing 
 brown eyes, but no one could swear to any- 
 thing positively bad. She was charming and 
 shrewd, and though oscillating in debatable 
 ground, she had half a score of admirers in 
 her train, any one of whom would have been 
 willing to surrender on the least encourage- 
 ment. She added Herrick to her list of 
 possibilities in the event of a satisfactory 
 
FINALLY BEC06NIZED. 103 
 
 conclusion to certain legal formalities touch- 
 ing his eligibility. But she gave him no 
 hint ; he understood his situation and must, of 
 his own motion, be delicate enough to change 
 it, before presuming to be other than an 
 acquaintance. Sufficiently intimate, however, 
 he might be to admit of respectful attention 
 and the expenditure of sums, large or small, 
 as his gallantry might suggest, for her enter- 
 tainment. Mr. Purrlee was an undeiined 
 quantity in the estimation of her followers: 
 whether he were dead, or hibernating in a 
 winter of her creation, or temporarily retired 
 at the instance of the law, was not seriously 
 canvassed. 
 
 Being infatuated, as already affirmed, the 
 Colonel must be credited with the blissful 
 imbecility warranted by that condition. His 
 daily visits to the mine were reduced to one 
 a week, and his visits to metropolitan Gold- 
 dust were multiplied. By a queer concur- 
 rence of circumstances he, three times out 
 of five at least, encountered Mrs. Purrlee 
 in the delightful metropolis, where "high 
 jinks" were possible without the disagree- 
 
104 FINALLY BECOGNIZED. 
 
 able publicity inevitable in tbe limited and 
 thinly populated district of Pine Valley. Mrs. 
 Purrlee finally took up her abode permanently 
 in Golddust, and a very gorgeous abode it 
 was, at first quite beyond the unfolding taste 
 of the Colonel. She maintained her own 
 equipage, coachman and cook, and gave de- 
 lightful little suppers, with now and again 
 a lady friend or so, to break the monotony 
 of the masculine majority. And withal one 
 of these who knew, intimated that Mrs. 
 Purrlee's investments were wonderfully judi- 
 cious for a woman, and that her bank account 
 was growing. 
 
 By the time Mrs. Herrick had been absent 
 a year, the Colonel began to consider him- 
 self cheerless without her. He would have 
 requested her return had he known where 
 to address her, and he deserved the credit 
 of not knowing. She had gone away from 
 Pine Valley voluntarily, but with no inten- 
 tion, expressed or mentally reserved, of not 
 returning; on the contrary, it had been her 
 purpose to report herself in Pine Valley after 
 a certain lapse of time, but she had kept her 
 
FINALLY BECOONIZED. 105 
 
 own counsel. This apparently unimportant 
 bit of reticence, in view of the Colonel's 
 design, may also be set down to his credit. 
 In the circumstances it required no violent 
 strain upon his conscience to bring about the 
 conviction in his own mind that he had been 
 deserted and he would swear to it, also that 
 he had pined in his loneliness during the 
 fixed statutory period, and was, therefore, 
 entitled to the benefit of the law. He was 
 confirmed in this view by his counsellor, who 
 affirmed that the " animo revertendi " not being 
 manifest, — which the Colonel failed to under- 
 stand but took for granted, — he might file a 
 bill for divorce and obtain a decree without 
 publicity. This he undertook to do, but was 
 very much surprised to learn at the critical 
 moment that the anticipated default against 
 the absent lady would not be allowed — she 
 had procured her answer to be filed within 
 the time prescribed. Thereupon the Colonel 
 condemned the uncertainties of the law and 
 wondered why a gentleman in a free country 
 could not be permitted to follow his own 
 inclinations, without restraint. He would 
 
106 FINALLY BECOGNIZED. 
 
 have condemned his attorney also, touching 
 his breach of warranty in the matter of the 
 publicity, had not that gentleman been too 
 intimately acquainted with the " bottom facts." 
 Mrs. Herrick also wrote to her disconsolate 
 spouse — the characters of this missive were 
 crabbed and the orthography regardless of 
 fixed rules, but the letter was quite intelli- 
 gible and convincing; any doubts he may 
 have harbored concerning her voluntary ab- 
 sence were set at rest by the assurance that 
 she would follow in person, should he wish 
 it. And really she was sorry that he had 
 entertained such an erroneous view of her 
 inclinations — she had no notion of deserting 
 him. Had the Colonel not fully appreciated 
 the integrity of the writer, he would have 
 pronounced the production the bitterest satire 
 within his experience. To adopt his own 
 terms : he had been doing " dead work " ; he 
 would be compelled to a little "underhand 
 stoping in another level " ; and a very low 
 level it was that he contemplated; but the 
 tools failed him, as we shall see. 
 
 The " dead work " had not been confined to 
 
FINALLY EJECOGNIZED. 107 
 
 Golddust and Pine Valley Bar; it embraced 
 the Colonel's mining interests, and "dead work" 
 in a mine explains itself on the mere suggestion. 
 After three months of it, the Colonel received 
 an invitation to call, from the cashier of the 
 bank where he did business ; a polite invitation, 
 in well-chosen language, but stamped in print- 
 ers' ink on an insignificant slip of paper, that 
 bespoke economical business methods, without 
 any regard whatever for the amenities of the 
 social relations. Notwithstanding the polished 
 terms of it, — they are pretty much alike, — no 
 man ever experienced any pleasure upon the 
 receipt of one, and, though the Colonel was an 
 exceptional man in many particulars, he felt, 
 when he read it, that he was of the herd. After 
 an interview with his host — the term is used 
 advisedly and is comprehensive — the Colonel 
 felt distressed, although there had not been 
 even a tender of refreshment. He carried his 
 distress about with him for two days and 
 experienced no relief ; then it grew serious and 
 the disorder appeared in his face. 
 
 He encountered The Purrlee at about this 
 date in one of his daily rounds through the 
 
108 FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 business quarter of Golddust, and when she had 
 passed, acknowledging his salutation, he won- 
 dered if it were she; but there could be no 
 mistaking the figure and its carriage. He knew 
 she was going home, and that she reached her 
 domicile before his arrival was also manifest. 
 
 Of course the servant lied, but, the Colonel 
 was convinced, not without orders. On top of 
 the disorder contracted in the private room at 
 the bank, this cut under his left ribs was too 
 severe for his patience. He did something 
 which he had not been guilty of doing for three 
 years, and exactly what he should not have 
 done in the circumstances, — he got drunk ; 
 sentimentally drunk, as a first stage, with its 
 drivelling accessories ; then obtrusively and ob- 
 jectionably drunk ; then boisterous and threat- 
 ening, at which stage the landlord of his hotel 
 refused to entertain him and, Golddust being 
 better prepared for such emergencies than Pine 
 Valley Bar, the Colonel passed the night 
 vtretchedly. 
 
 It was rumored next day, and regretted in a 
 decently hollow manner, that he had attempted 
 to shoot himself, after retiring ; but this was an 
 
FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 109 
 
 exaggeration, he had not been permitted to go 
 to his repose prepared for any such mistake, it 
 being the custom to relieve the guests of the 
 inn where he lodged of all portable property, 
 upon registration. He may have impotently 
 suggested what he would do in favorable cir- 
 cumstances, and that, perhaps, gave the rumor 
 birth; then it reached maturity in a perfectly 
 reasonable manner, and the Colonel discovered 
 that every one knew as much, if not a little 
 more, about his situation than he did himself. 
 In this view Pine Valley Bar, being compara- 
 tively unpretentious, offered inducements more 
 in accord with his humor. 
 
 The Colonel drifted back and forth for a 
 year or more ; the good clothes were husbanded, 
 and the diamonds, the last trace of his departed 
 affluence, disappeared one at a time, and when 
 he put on a woollen shirt again he had no use 
 for the remaining gem. His coats assumed the 
 customary gray tone along the seams and be- 
 came polished in sections, his hat was shabby 
 and his boots periodically suffered for the want 
 of new half soles and were depressing. About 
 this time he acquired the reputation of a man 
 
110 FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 with a mine — the Jay Bird Mine — who bore 
 about in his pockets specimens indicating fabu- 
 lous wealth, could he find some one with the 
 other wealth necessary to a proper development 
 of the hidden treasure. The unintentional 
 omission of his title now affected him, and that 
 was a very pitiable sign; it was one of the 
 gratuities of appreciative friends, and he re- 
 sented being deprived of it, even temporarily 
 and by accident. 
 
 Within five years from the time Mrs. Herrick 
 disposed of the clapboards and carpets, the 
 Colonel had put behind him fifteen years at 
 least and excited no interest. He was glad now 
 of intermittent invitations to a meal in his 
 former dining-room, sometime enlarged, but 
 with faded evidences of its early grandeur 
 lingering in tarnished gilt. He had a way of 
 referring to the hotel on occasion as "my old 
 house," as if the allusion might fix him favor- 
 ably in the mind of the listener, as one who had 
 encountered undeserved reverses, but who was 
 capable of smiling in the most adverse circum- 
 stances, as became a well-ordered man of the 
 world, and as one holding a conviction that a 
 
FINALLY RECOGNIZED. Ill 
 
 change for the better was approaching from im- 
 mediately around the corner, and he would not 
 be surprised at its arrival on the moment. He 
 had become so accustomed to the receipt of 
 favors, that solicitation, in the absence of volun- 
 tary offers, had ceased to be a burden to him. 
 The contrast between the Colonel in the days of 
 the new clapboards, and the Colonel in the days 
 of his second poverty, was so marked that he 
 would have readily escaped recognition, except 
 by those who had observed the daily change. 
 
 What would he do through the approaching 
 winter? The autumn days were come and Pine 
 Valley was beautiful in colors invited by the 
 chill touch of the early frosts; many days of 
 sunshine had followed each other Vidthout the 
 intervention of a cloud ; there might be more to 
 come, but treading on the heels of these would 
 succeed the bitter cold. 
 
 Through these peaceful days ^ there was the 
 coming and going of all sorts of people ; the 
 Valley was enticing, had produced much wealth 
 and was rich in promise. The sun had become 
 the only solacing companion on the Colonel's 
 list, steadfast and fervent, readily responding to 
 
112 FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 the remnant of ambition lingering with him. 
 Under its influence and, with his back against 
 any convenient support, he would listlessly view 
 the passing people, who were, with rare excep- 
 tions, strangers to him. To feel that one's life 
 has been a failure, or that one has outlived one's 
 usefulness, would ordinarily, no doubt, be a 
 temptation to cut it very short ; but the Colonel 
 placidly accepted the situation and it did not 
 seem possible that anything could lift him out 
 of his emptiness. He had hardly the energy to 
 frame mental conclusions upon the appearance 
 of any person or thing out of the ordinary, and 
 so one day, while he occupied an empty beer 
 keg and basked in the sunlight, a lady passed 
 him by, the hem of her garments brushing the 
 toes that protruded through his worn shoes. 
 She glanced at him indifferently, but he gave 
 no sign, although her face was pleasant to look 
 upon. Standing a few yards away was a man in 
 a slouch hat, but otherwise neatly dressed, with 
 a heavy overcoat hanging from one shoulder, 
 though an overcoat was altogether superfluous 
 on so warm a day. He had his hands in his 
 trousers' pockets and seemed to have quite as 
 
FINALLY BECOQNIZED. 113 
 
 much to occupy his mind as did the Colonel, at 
 whom he cast an occasional glance. The keeper 
 of the saloon came out and warned the Colonel 
 off the seat ; this person was a recent arrival and 
 some impulse, perhaps of the earlier times 
 lingering in the Colonel's mind, prompted him 
 to remonstrate. Objection to his orders did not 
 accord with the fellow's notions of propriety, 
 and he was about to enforce his command with 
 his hand already on the Colonel's collar, when 
 he was suddenly admonished to desist by a hand 
 on his shoulder, and the man with the overcoat 
 said: 
 
 " Cheese that, pard — take yer hand off'n this 
 man ! " 
 
 The other looked around and into a familiar 
 face, in which he saw an expression precluding 
 debate. 
 
 "Oh, he's a friend of yourn?" 
 
 "And don't yer fergit it! — come. Colonel, 
 I'm goin' to lunch — won't yer jine me ? I've 
 jest got back." 
 
 The invitation revived the recipient and he 
 accepted with the ghost of his old laugh. This 
 Samaritan in wolf's clothing slipped his arm 
 
114 FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 through the Colonel's, and it seemed to brace 
 up the shrinking figure and put life into his 
 eyes, as they walked off. 
 
 "Let me see," said the Colonel, absolutely 
 with a hint of embarrassment in his manner; 
 " I'm a little off in the matter of names, but not 
 of faces — what is your name ? Really it has es- 
 caped me." 
 
 " Well, now, that jest 'minds me — I'm owin' 
 yer. Colonel." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "I am, fer a fact, a matter of a hundred 
 dollars — and yer've forgot it, I see." 
 
 Certainly the Colonel had, but it was not 
 for him to dispute the other's word; and the 
 sum! well, its possibilities were quite beyond 
 his grasp. 
 
 " I've made a winnin', Colonel, and it's a good 
 time to divvy. But I say, Colonel, yer seem a 
 little down on yer luck," and the other stopped, 
 took a surprised survey of his charge and acted 
 altogether as if the rags had just occurred to 
 him. 
 
 " Temporarily — yes — temporarily — but I'll 
 be all right when I make a sale of the Jay 
 
FINALLY BMCOGNIZED. 115 
 
 Bird." The rough allusion to his manifest pov- 
 erty did not humiliate him, quite the contrary. 
 He avowed his prospects with much of the fer- 
 vor that dwelt with him in the days when he 
 was actually possessed of hope. 
 
 " Of course, certain^- hard luck is like to hit 
 any man — I've been there more'n oncet — but I 
 say, Colonel, lemme pay yer that little dab an' 
 yer jest go and git yerself in shape — come, I'll 
 go with yer, an' we'll take in the noon layout 
 at the Eorer." 
 
 The Aurora enjoyed the reputation of being 
 the most exclusive restaurant in Pine Valley 
 Bar and the Colonel permitted himself to be 
 taken fully into custody, with the impression 
 haunting him that he was again fairly on his 
 feet. Fortune had condescended to smile upon 
 him once more, the Jay Bird was to be disposed 
 of and he saw the proceeds in bank unthreat- 
 ened by stale judgments and executions. And 
 perhaps at the end of the game, this rude 
 exemplifier of the divine magnanimity, known 
 only as Baltimore Hatch, who had "made a 
 winnin'," and shared it with a needy stranger, 
 may find a credit to his account that will be 
 a surprise. 
 
116 FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 Under the influence of an excellent meal, a 
 new suit of clothes and a few dollars in cash, 
 the Colonel, with a toothpick between his lips, 
 sauntered toward the " old house." It was an 
 occasion when he would have hummed a tune, 
 had he been gifted that way, but instead he 
 actually patronized the clerk, by his manner, 
 as he reached for the register. 
 
 " By the way — Colonel Herrick — you are 
 him, ain't you ? " 
 
 "I am Colonel Herrick, sir." 
 
 "Yes, sir — there's a party in number ten 
 inquirin' for you — not registered; will you 
 send up your card?" 
 
 The Colonel wrote his name a little stiffly, 
 being out of practice — with visions of a speedy 
 disposition of the Jay Bird Mine and its pleas- 
 ant results still flitting through his brain — and 
 deposited the card on the Japanned salver in 
 the bellboy's hand, with the air of one accus- 
 tomed. 
 
 The Colonel was ushered into his old bed- 
 room, now doing service as a parlor, to await 
 the appearance of the occupant of number ten. 
 The same paper was on the walls and he re- 
 
FINALLY RECOGNIZED. 117 
 
 membered parcels of the furniture, but there 
 was an air of flashiness about the apartment, 
 even in its decay, that palled on his taste and 
 forbade regrets. The exquisite experience in 
 decoration possessed and imparted to him by- 
 Mrs. Purrlee had remained dormant merely, 
 through his season of vicissitude. The knowl- 
 edge, however, clung to him without his be- 
 stowing a thought upon his tutor. After a 
 glance around the room, the Colonel turned, 
 looked out of the window and was about closing 
 the details in the sale of the Jay Bird Mine, 
 — indeed the papers were executed and ready 
 for delivery, — when he heard the door open, 
 and he wheeled around to encounter a lady — 
 the same who had brushed his toes with her 
 skirts that very day — and he was disappointed. 
 What did a woman want with a mine, and 
 leaving the mine out, what did any woman 
 want of him — but he removed his new hat 
 and bowed. The lady responded and in a man- 
 ner that commanded the Colonel's strict atten- 
 tion; it could not be Mrs. Purrlee; neither five 
 years nor any science within his knowledge 
 could turn brown eyes into blue, though the 
 
118 FINALLY MJECOGNIZED. 
 
 hair, within that time, might be influenced and 
 become gray about the temples. But for all the 
 world her carriage was equal to that of Mrs. 
 Purrlee, and while she was not as handsome, 
 there was that in her face — not possessed by 
 Mrs. Purrlee — which most men recognize at 
 once and that all men are bound to respect. 
 The Colonel was moved to bow a second time 
 and to reach gallantly for a chair, but his hand 
 rested on the back, stayed by the sound of her 
 voice — there was something familiar about that, 
 but he could not adjust the association at once, 
 the language, simple enough, aiding in puzzling 
 him. Then the hand on the chair back shook a 
 little, until he closed his fingers upon it. 
 
 "Do you not recognize me?" Her manner 
 was self-contained and wonderfully pleasing. 
 
 The Colonel wet his lips and hoarsely an- 
 swered : 
 
 " Yes." But he was not assured ; the change 
 was so decided, so out of the usual order, that it 
 was quite incomprehensible. 
 
 She stepped toward him, holding out her 
 hand; he made no motion to accept it, and she 
 halted, looking at him earnestly, then: 
 
FINALLY BEGOGNIZEB. 119 
 
 " I think you do not know me, Guy ! " 
 The Colonel passed his hand tremblingly 
 across his forehead — how long since he had 
 been addressed by that name ! and it had never 
 moved him as it did now ! Perhaps it was this 
 that put the strength of the old life into him 
 with the faults left out, endowed him with a 
 strange virtue, widened his vision and enabled 
 him to comprehend and express his loss: 
 "I did not know you — now it is too late." 
 " No I no ! Guy ! do not say that ! not too 
 late ! " She moved a step nearer and held out 
 both hands to him — nearer still, checked his 
 self-depreciating gesture, touched and raised 
 him out of his old self, quite to her level, 
 and held him there. 
 
"AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL 
 LEAD THEM." 
 
"AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL 
 LEAD THEM." 
 
 A DEEFT to the right from the main tunnel of 
 the Gray Eagle Mine contained very rich ore. 
 It had been followed during the winter until 
 the workmen reached the daylight, twenty feet 
 from the bottom of the narrow rift, with 
 almost perpendicular sides, in Bald Mountain. 
 The mineral had been 'sorted, sacked and piled 
 up in the drift awaiting the disappearance of 
 the snow ; it could then be more readily removed 
 and shipped. Work had been suspended pre- 
 paratory to putting in certain machinery, which 
 Ballard considered necessary to the proper 
 development of the mine and, in consequence, 
 most of his men were enjoying a holiday away 
 from Pine Valley. 
 
 One morning Ballard missed four of the 
 sacks and going to the end of the drift he 
 123 
 
124 "AND A LITTLE CHILD 
 
 discovered the footprints of two men and a 
 burro; these he traced in the snow to the 
 bottom of the ravine, but lost them where the 
 earth was bare. Ore thieves were a new species 
 of animal in Pine Valley and Ballard, never 
 having had use for a watchman, was surprised 
 as well as angry. He kept his own counsel 
 and, with a Winchester conveniently in hand, 
 watched three nights where he could command 
 the foot of the rift — but he detected no one. 
 The fourth night he did not go on guard and 
 the next day two additional sacks were missing. 
 The night after he made his way into the drift 
 through the main workings and took up a 
 station behind the sacks. The vigil was fruit- 
 less as well as were those of three nights 
 following. Ballard concluded that he in turn 
 was being watched and, more incensed than 
 ever, began casting about in his mind for some 
 one upon whom he could rely as a counsellor. 
 In the emergency Baltimore Hatch occurred to 
 him as one better qualified than any other to 
 find the trail of the thieves. Ballard sought 
 him out, communicated his loss and need, but 
 Baltimore was unable to think of any one upon 
 
SHALL LEAD TBSM." 125 
 
 whom even suspicion might be fixed. He vol- 
 unteered, himself, to watch the ore, but the 
 other was not disposed to accept the offer; it 
 was " no enviable job, sitting quietly for hours 
 in that dark, damp drift," — he spoke from 
 experience. But Baltimore laughed and in- 
 sisted — he enjoyed the prospect of "takin' a 
 hand in" what, in the environment, would be 
 considered justifiable homicide. 
 
 That night Baltimore was missed in his 
 accustomed haunts, and on the succeeding 
 afternoon Ballard received through the mail 
 the following missive: 
 
 "The ore taken from your mine is buried 
 
 at the foot of the double pine on the southwest 
 
 side of Quartz Mountain. You are doubtless 
 
 acquainted with the locality. Please do not 
 
 attempt to discover the thieves. 
 
 " Julie." 
 
 Ballard thought that he recognized some- 
 thing familiar in the handwriting. His own 
 hand trembled while he reflected; he placed 
 the note on his desk and continued to scan it 
 while his face betokened his agitation. Finally 
 
126 "AND A LITTLE CHILD 
 
 he took the note up hastily and went in search 
 of Baltimore, whom he found making his toilet 
 for the day, as was his custom. 
 
 "Read this, Baltimore, and tell me, if you 
 can, who wrote it." 
 
 Certainly he could, — he knew Julie, so did 
 every one in the camp, except Ballard, — she 
 had come in a week before from Blind Horse 
 Gulch. And Baltimore was quite well satisfied 
 that he now knew at least one of the thieves. 
 But Ballard would abide by her injunction, 
 would he not, and make no attempt to dis- 
 cover them? Ballard hesitated, and the other 
 appealed to him: 
 
 "We can take care of ourselves, but how 
 about this yere woman when they find out she's 
 give 'em away? See? 'Sides, yer don't care 
 to see the woman, Hank Ballard," Baltimore 
 concluded hesitatingly. 
 
 "Why?" Ballard's lips were dry and he 
 moistened them with his tongue. He dreaded, 
 while he would have his suspicion confirmed 
 of the writer's identity. Baltimore merely 
 shook his head while he looked the other in 
 the eyes. 
 
SHALL LEAD THEM." 127 
 
 "You don't mean to say she — " Ballard 
 paused, unable to couple the name that was on 
 his lips with the woman who had written him. 
 Baltimore turned away and busied himself 
 adjusting his cravat. When it was tied to his 
 satisfaction, he gave it an approving pat dain- 
 tily, his head a little on one side to assure him- 
 self that it was faultless, then he spoke : 
 
 "Now, yer see, Hank, ef them fellers had 
 on'y dropped in last night they wouldn't 'a 
 been no call for this yere writin'. It's a pity 
 they didn't drop in." And Baltimore next 
 interested himself in a recalcitrant lock over 
 the middle of his forehead, while Ballard 
 silently, and with set, white lips, tore the 
 missive into small pieces and dropped them 
 on the floor. 
 
 " That ere looks more like it," said Baltimore, 
 approvingly, as if he comprehended the full 
 meaning of the act. " She'll light out, knowin' 
 you're here and you can git the ore later." 
 He concluded with a cough, which he intended 
 to be a delicate cover to his affirmance, but 
 which resolved itself quite into a paroxysm. 
 
 " Cannot I do something for her ? " 
 
128 "AND A LITTLE CBILD 
 
 " See yere, Hank Ballard," interrupted Bal- 
 timore, still very red in the face, "I thought 
 as you'd give it up ! don't cast no bread on the 
 waters, it'll on'y come back mouldy, — I don't 
 take no stock in it, 'specially up yere in the 
 hills away from tide water." 
 
 "But Baltimore, I—" 
 
 "'Zackly; I see, — 'tain't no use, Hank 
 Ballard, — Jesus fergin' the Magdalene, whoever 
 else did ?—sabe?" 
 
 Ballard turned away, thrust his hands into 
 his pockets, looked out of the window and 
 nervously tapped one foot upon the floor. 
 
 "Now," continued Baltimore, holding up his 
 waistcoat and daintily flicking off what he con- 
 ceived to be a particle of dust upon the gar- 
 ment, "Bardolph, a-li'as Baltimore Hatch, kin 
 go to Congress, money says it, — an' become a 
 distinguished member of society, an' that's why 
 I feel to spit in the face of society. But that 
 wouldn't work no cure, — no more is there a 
 cure for Julie." 
 
 " I should like to make her way less thorny, 
 Baltimore ; remember, she was once my — " 
 Ballard paused without turning round. 
 
SHALL LEAD THEM." 129 
 
 "Don't go inter the game, — yer'U on'y play 
 a losin' hand fer both." 
 
 " Cannot you do something ? " 
 
 " Me ! no more'n I can make a bobtail flush 
 beat a straight." Baltimore concluded his pro- 
 testation in another paroxysm of coughing. 
 This attack diverted Ballard's attention from 
 the object that had been holding him in durance 
 for an hour. Baltimore, however, treated lightly 
 the other's expression of sympathy and declined 
 his advice to see the doctor. 
 
 "I ain't no use for doctors, more'n I have 
 for gospel sharps," and Baltimore adjusted his 
 slouch hat jauntily on the back of his head, 
 threw a heavy overcoat over one shoulder and 
 settled his hands in his trousers' pockets, deci- 
 sively. Thus presented, he was, in the opinion 
 of Ballard, a handsome man, and Ballard found 
 himself weighing the possibilities for the reckless 
 fellow in a more favorable environment. The 
 other, accustomed to study men's thoughts, 
 understood that he had created a favorable im- 
 pression, and, in company with his visitor, 
 strolled out whistling softly. 
 
130 "AND A LITTLE CHILD 
 
 Three days passed. In the evening a light 
 snow was falling and Ballard sat gazing dreamily 
 into his office fire. The blaze of the fat pine 
 rendered a candle superfluous. He had secretly 
 recovered his ore a few hours before and con- 
 gratulated himself, while he regretted the cir- 
 cumstance which required him to allow the 
 thieves to go unpunished. He had heard some- 
 thing that day which set him drifting, — it was 
 only a woman's laugh, heard by accident, as the 
 morning coach was about starting on its daily 
 trip from Pine Valley. He had turned away 
 suddenly at the sound of it, but it haunted him 
 during the day and now. The rude stone fire- 
 place at which he sat had given way to tiles and 
 surrounding luxuries altogether foreign to Pine 
 Valley. In the midst of it all, the innocent 
 face of a beautiful, fair-haired woman was tor- 
 turing him. The laugh and the vision were in 
 harmony ; he admitted to himself his folly and 
 yet he clung to his misery. A sudden draught 
 of cold air aroused him and the spectre vanished 
 as he turned and looked towards the door. An 
 object there greeted him, which for the moment 
 seemed to stop the beating of his heart : Balti- 
 
SHALL LEAD THEM." 131 
 
 more Hatch — without boots or coat, his hair 
 dishevelled, his eyes gleaming savagely, a re- 
 volver in his hand and his thumb on the ham- 
 mer — stood in the open doorway. As he 
 made no attempt to raise the weapon, Ballard's 
 self-possession reasserted itself : 
 
 " Come in, Baltimore." He pushed back his 
 chair and arose. 
 
 " Sh ! " The wild intruder suddenly raised 
 his gun, levelling it, Ballard thought, directly 
 at him and, with a finger on his lips to em- 
 phasize his admonition, crept in, gazing beyond 
 his friend. " I've got 'em in a hole, — they 
 are right behind yer. Hank ! " came in a 
 hoarse whisper. " Stand still ! they keep 
 dodgin' ! " 
 
 " Come up close to me," said the other 
 quietly; "then dodging won't save them." 
 
 The suggestion struck Baltimore favorably; 
 he crept on, his arm extended, his eyes still 
 looking beyond, intent upon the imaginary 
 victims. The weapon quite touched Ballard's 
 side, then the latter raised his hand quickly and 
 grasped the barrel close to the cylinder. 
 
 " There," said Ballard, with a sigh of relief, 
 
132 ''AND A LITTLE CHILD 
 
 "I am glad you came in, — but what are you 
 going to do with this boot-jack?" 
 
 At the first interference Baltimore attempted 
 to draw back, but the other held him without 
 any apparent effort. At the strange character- 
 ization of the weapon, Baltimore relaxed his 
 hold and looked down upon it in amazement; 
 Ballard quietly took possession of it. The next 
 instant Baltimore began to shiver and reached 
 out as if for support. He would have fallen, 
 but Ballard caught him, lifted him in his arms 
 and carried him to his own bed in the adjoining 
 room. 
 
 "How'd I get here, Hank?" he whispered, 
 after a little while. 
 
 " God only knows, my poor fellow, — you are 
 evidently very ill." 
 
 "Yes?" and Baltimore continued to shiver 
 even in the pile of blankets and the warm 
 room. 
 
 " Have you seen a doctor ? " 
 
 "No, — I don't want no doctor." 
 
 "Shan't I ask Mrs. Hicks to come?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Ballard despatched the first passer-by on that 
 
SHALL LEAD THEM." 133 
 
 mission. Mrs. Hicks was quick to respond, and, 
 recognizing the emergency, insisted upon the 
 doctor. Baltimore shook his head. 
 
 " Hank Ballard, go fetch that doctor. There 
 is an old hot-water bag at the house, John'U 
 give it to you, — fill it with hot water and don't 
 lose a minute." 
 
 The orders were issued peremptorily and Bal- 
 timore looked up with a flash of defiance in his 
 eyes and then said, whimperingly : 
 
 "You boss me round same as ef I was the 
 little Guv'ner," as he frequently designated 
 little Clay Dickey. 
 
 " Yes, and you'U mind me just the same, my 
 poor boy." 
 
 She gently pushed back his hair and pressed 
 her hand upon his forehead. There was some- 
 thing in her tone and in the touch that moved 
 Baltimore strangely, — that brought to him the 
 remembrance of what seemed a sweet but long- 
 forgotten dream and he looked into her eyes 
 contentedly, — a look that needed no words of 
 explanation between them. 
 
 "Where is she, Baltimore?" 
 
 "Dead, — ever so long ago." 
 
134 "AND A LITTLE CHILD 
 
 " She was a good mother to you, Baltimore ? " 
 
 Baltimore answered by turning his head away 
 and the tremor that again crept over him might 
 have been because of the chill. 
 
 Mrs. Hicks forthwith began to exhibit an 
 acquaintance with Ballard's quarters, finding 
 her way to certain relics of his "baching days," 
 and possessed herself of an old iron kettle. 
 
 " Greasy, of course," apostrophizing the uten- 
 sil that had assisted the owner in the prepara- 
 tion of many a meal ; " that's a man's way, all 
 over, — stale beans in it ! " and she abandoned 
 it in disgust for a battered coffee-pot as prom- 
 ising at least interior cleanliness. This she 
 adopted, rinsing out the adhering grounds, 
 filling it with water and placing it on the 
 fire. 
 
 The doctor arrived and unburdened his mind 
 concerning the efficacy of hot stones, water, 
 flax-seed poultices, digitalis, and various other 
 antidotes of promise in such emergencies. 
 
 "A bad case of pneumonia, — both lungs 
 involved. We must get up reaction, Mrs. 
 Hicks." 
 
 Mrs. Hicks intimated that she was well 
 
SHALL LEAD TSEM." 135 
 
 aware of the necessity for "reaction," but 
 depended upon the doctor's experience for the 
 most expeditious method. After an hour of 
 persistent labor, during a portion of which 
 Ballard found exacting use for his superior 
 physical ability to hold the patient in bed, 
 Baltimore dropped into an uneasy slumber. 
 Then there was a whispered consultation in 
 the other room between Mrs. Hicks and the 
 doctor. The conclusion reached was not at 
 all encouraging and was whispered, with a 
 suppressed sob, to Ballard sitting on the edge 
 of the bed. 
 
 After silently watching Baltimore, and wip- 
 ing her eyes with her apron, she whispered 
 again : 
 
 "I didn't count little Clay." 
 
 "Didn't count little Clay, Mrs. Hicks?" 
 
 "No, he was only a baby, — but counting 
 him there was thirteen at dinner Christmas." 
 
 In other circumstances Ballard would have 
 laughed outright ; as it was, he smiled incredu- 
 lously and shook his head. 
 
 "You may shake your head. Hank Ballard, 
 but here's the proof." 
 
136 "AND A LITTLE CHILD 
 
 " We'll hope for the best, Mrs. Hicks." 
 
 "And that's all the good it will do, I'm 
 afraid." 
 
 The morning sun crept above the summit 
 of the Range, lit up the uttermost peak of 
 Quartz Mountain, cast his rays into the val- 
 ley, bejewelling the pines in their fresh gar- 
 ment of snow, and found Baltimore with a 
 very slender hold upon another day of life. 
 The hours dragged, the doctor came and 
 went, and came and went again, leaving no 
 hope. Mrs. Hicks very gently imparted to 
 Baltimore the fact, and he accepted the an- 
 nouncement smilingly. 
 
 There was a minister in the camp, — should 
 not he be called in? 
 
 "Not by no means, Mrs. Hicks. I have 
 saw the feller, he's got the yaller janders." 
 
 Mrs. Hicks insisted gently that the jaundice, 
 if the minister were really afflicted as Baltimore 
 suggested, would not prevent his administering 
 due spiritual comfort. 
 
 "His mind is pizoned with the janders, 
 Mrs. Hicks, — I partly hearn him oncet, — 
 don't fetch him." The protest was made 
 
SHALL LEAD THEM." 137 
 
 decisively, for one in his weak condition, 
 and the inexpediency of denying it was too 
 plain to be controverted. 
 
 Mrs. Hicks, admitting her incapacity, never- 
 theless entered upon the solemn duty and 
 Baltimore, during his lucid intervals, listened 
 patiently. He seemed to comprehend as a 
 summary of her efforts that she was seeking 
 to turn his attention towards his best Friend, 
 whose beneficence was beyond mortal under- 
 standing, and who stood ready to forgive his 
 many years of wickedness, if, in this last 
 moment, he would only ask for pardon. 
 Baltimore seemed to be revolving the advice 
 in his mind, while little Clay, who had been 
 placed upon the bed at the dying man's re- 
 quest, looked on wonderingly. Finally Balti- 
 more whispered: 
 
 "I didn't think — you'd 'a done it — Mrs. 
 Hicks." 
 
 "Done what, Baltimore?" 
 
 "Advise me — to ring in — a cold — deck 
 — on my best — Friend." 
 
 " O Baltimore, Baltimore ! " remonstrated 
 Mrs. Hicks, half sobbing. 
 
138 "^ LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM." 
 
 " I ain't — no such a man — Mrs. Hicks," 
 shaking his head feebly. 
 
 Little Clay, divining that his sympathy was 
 needed, put his hand in Baltimore's, and, in 
 a child's half-whisper, assured him: 
 
 "Dod will be dood to Ballamore." 
 
 "Will he, fer a — fact, little — Guv'ner ? " 
 
 "Yes, he will." 
 
 " God," whispered Baltimore, dreamily, as if 
 he might be weighing the prophecy. 
 
 "He's our Father, you know, Ballamore." 
 
 "Right you are — little Guv'ner — which is 
 in heaven — say it — little Guv'ner," and Balti- 
 more, still holding the hand of the little child, 
 and while the lisping accents yet lingered in 
 his ears, drifted out into the unknown. 
 
, .A