CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 1829.W13 1921 
 
 A waif of the plains.The ancestors of Pe 
 
 3 1924 021 992 858 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021992858 
 
*• 4 
 
 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 THE ANCESTORS OF 
 PETER ATHERLY 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 BY 
 
 ilret I|arte 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 <£bc C\ito0iOe press Cambribge 
 1921 
 
 E.M. 
 
/)f^f:S^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892, I894, l $9St 1 &$> AND 1899, BY BRET HARTE 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1S96 AND I9OO, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, I92O, BY ANNA BRET HARTE 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 tiOK 
 
 Introductory Note ix 
 
 A Waif of the Plains ... ..... 1 
 
 Susy : A Story of the Plains 121 
 
 Clarence ...... 284 
 
 An Ingenue of the Sierras ..„...„. 453 
 
INTEODUCTOKY NOTE 
 
 The present Volume contains a serial in Three Volumes, 
 of which. A Waif of the Plains is the first, Susy the 
 second, and Clarence the third. While I have tried to 
 make this fact by no means essential to the general reader's 
 understanding of or interest in any one part, nevertheless, 
 in connecting them, I may have been compelled to some 
 repetition which the reader of the serial may resent as su- 
 perfluous. It was my intention to give the consecutive 
 history of one or two characters in those natural episodes 
 of experience indicated by childhood, youth, and maturity, 
 yet with each episode complete as a story in itself. It was 
 my belief that these natural divisions were quite as consist- 
 ent with real life as the usual extended biography, culmi- 
 nating in the death of the hero, or the milder oblivion of 
 marriage. How far this experiment has been successful 
 must be left to the reader to judge. But I shall be quite 
 content if I have only offered a contribution towards the 
 solution of the much vexed question of the utility of the 
 three-volume novel. 
 
 In the pages of Clarence I am conscious of making a 
 more serious experiment. I have ventured to touch upon 
 an episode of American history which I believe to be sin- 
 gularly rich in dramatic and picturesque material, but which 
 is still so near to the memory of the reader that it may 
 seem to lack the glamour of romantic perspective as well 
 as accuracy of settled historic proportion. This may be 
 especially true of the one or two portraits I have attempted 
 
X INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 to give of personages already historic — yet painted by the 
 hand of a contemporary. But, here again, I shall he quite 
 content if I have only offered a suggestion to the coming 
 American novelist who shall enjoy that remoter and more 
 artistic distance. 
 
A WAIF OF THF PLAINS AND OTHER TALES 
 
 A WAIF OF THE PLAIN'S 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A long level of dull gray that further away became a 
 faint blue, with here and there darker patches that looked 
 like water. At times an open space, blackened and burnt 
 in an irregular circle, with a shred of newspaper, an old 
 rag, or broken tin can lying in the ashes. Beyond these 
 always a low dark line that seemed to sink into the ground 
 at night, and rose again in the morning with the first light, 
 but never otherwise changed its height and distance. A 
 sense of always moving with some indefinite purpose, but 
 of always returning at night to the same place — with the 
 same surroundings, the same people, the same bedclothes, 
 and the same awful black canopy dropped down from 
 above. A chalky taste of dust on the mouth and lips, a 
 gritty sense of earth on the fingers, and an all-pervading 
 heat and smell of cattle. 
 
 This was " The Great Plains " as they seemed to two 
 children from the hooded depth of an emigrant wagon, 
 above the swaying heads of toiling oxen, in the summer of 
 1852. 
 
 It had appeared so to them for two weeks, always the 
 same and always without the least sense to them of wonder 
 or monotony. When they viewed it from the road, walking 
 
2 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 beside the wagon, there was only the team itself added to 
 the unvarying picture. One of the wagons bore on its 
 canvas hood the inscription, in large black letters, " Off to 
 California!" on the other "Boot, Hog, or Die," but nei- 
 ther of them awoke in the minds of the children the faint- 
 est idea of playfulness or jocularity. Perhaps it was diffi- 
 cult to connect the serious men, who occasionally walked 
 beside them and seemed to grow more taciturn and de- 
 pressed as the day wore on, with this past effusive plea- 
 santry. 
 
 Yet the impressions of the two children differed slightly. 
 The eldest, a boy of eleven, was apparently new to the 
 domestic habits and customs of a life to which the younger, 
 a girl of seven, was evidently native and familiar. The 
 food was coarse and less skillfully prepared than that to 
 which he had been accustomed. There was a certain free- 
 dom and roughness in their intercourse, a simplicity that 
 bordered almost on rudeness in their domestic arrange- 
 ments, and a speech that was at times almost untranslat- 
 able to him. He slept in his clothes, wrapped up in 
 blankets ; he was conscious that in the matter of cleanliness 
 he was left to himself to overcome the difficulties of finding 
 water and towels. But it is. doubtful if in his youthful- 
 ness it affected him more than a novelty. He ate and 
 slept well, and found his life amusing. Only at times the 
 rudeness of his companions, or, worse, an indifference that 
 made him feel his dependency upon them, awoke a vague 
 sense of some wrong that had been done to him which, 
 while it was voiceless to all others and even uneasily put 
 aside by himself, was still always slumbering in his child- 
 ish consciousness. 
 
 To the party he was known as an orphan put on the 
 train at " St. Jo " by some relative of his stepmother, to 
 be delivered to another relative at Sacramento. As his 
 stepmother had not even taken leave of him, hut had en- 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 3 
 
 trusted his departure to the relative with whom he had 
 been lately living, it was considered as an act of "rid- 
 dance," and accepted as such by her party, and even 
 vaguely acquiesced in by the boy himself. What consid- 
 eration had been offered for his passage he did not know; 
 he only remembered that he had been told " to make him- 
 self handy." This he had done cheerfully, if at times 
 with the unskillfulness of a novice; but it was not a 
 peculiar or a menial task in a company where all took part 
 in manual labor, and where existence seemed to him to 
 bear the charm of a prolonged picnic. Neither was he 
 subjected to any difference of affection or treatment from 
 Mrs. Silsbee, the mother of his little companion, and the 
 wife of the leader of the train. Prematurely old, of ill 
 health, and harassed with cares, she had no time to waste 
 in discriminating maternal tenderness for her daughter, but 
 treated the children with equal and unbiased querulousness. 
 
 The rear wagon creaked, swayed, and rolled on slowly 
 and heavily. The hoofs of the draught-oxen, occasionally 
 striking in the dust with a dull report, sent little puffs like 
 smoke on either side of the track. Within, the children 
 were playing "keeping store." The little girl, as an 
 opulent and extravagant customer, was purchasing of the 
 boy, who sat behind a counter improvised from a nail-keg 
 and the front seat, most of the available contents of the 
 wagon, either under their own names or an imaginary one 
 as the moment suggested, and paying for them in the easy 
 and liberal currency of dried beans and bits of paper. 
 Change was given by the expeditious method of tearing 
 the paper into smaller fragments. The diminution of stock 
 was remedied by buying the same article over again under 
 a different name. Nevertheless, in spite of these favor- 
 able commercial conditions, the market seemed dull. 
 
 " I can show you a fine quality of sheeting at four cents 
 a yard, double width," said the boy, rising and leaning on 
 
4 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 his fingers on the counter as he had seen the shopmen do. 
 "All wool and will wash," he added, with easy gravity. 
 
 "I can buy it cheaper at Jackson's," said the girl, with 
 the intuitive duplicity of her bargaining sex. 
 
 "Very well," said the boy. "I won't play any more." 
 
 "Who cares? " said the girl indifferently. 
 
 The boy here promptly upset the counter; the rolled-up 
 blanket which had deceitfully represented the desirable 
 sheeting falling on the wagon floor. It apparently sug- 
 gested a new idea to the former salesman. "I say! let's 
 play ' damaged stock. ' See, I '11 tumble all the things 
 down here right on top o' the others, and sell 'em for less 
 than cost." 
 
 The girl looked up. The suggestion was bold, bad, and 
 momentarily attractive. But she only said "No," appar- 
 ently from habit, picked up her doll, and the boy clam- 
 bered to the front of the wagon. The incomplete episode 
 terminated at once with that perfect forgetfulness, indiffer- 
 ence, and irresponsibility common to all young animals. 
 If either could have flown away or bounded off finally at 
 that moment, they would have done so with no more con- 
 cern for preliminary detail than a bird or squirrel. The 
 wagon rolled steadily on. The boy could see that one of 
 their teamsters had climbed up on the tail-board of the 
 preceding vehicle. The other seemed to be walking in a 
 dusty sleep. 
 
 "Kla'uns," said the girl. 
 
 The boy, without turning his head, responded, "Susy." 
 
 " Wot are you going to be 1 " said the girl. 
 
 " Goin' to be 1 " repeated Clarence. 
 
 "When you is growed," explained Susy. 
 
 Clarence hesitated. His settled determination had been 
 to become a pirate, merciless yet discriminating. But 
 reading in a bethumbed "Guide to the Plains" that morn- 
 ing of Fort Laramie and Kit Carson, he had decided upon 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 5 
 
 the career of a "scout," as being more accessible and re- 
 quiring less water. Yet, out of compassion for Susy's 
 possible ignorance, he said neither, and responded with 
 the American boy's modest conventionality, "President." 
 It was safe, required no embarrassing description, and had 
 been approved by benevolent old gentlemen with their 
 hands on his head. 
 
 "I'm goin' to be a parson's wife," said Susy, "and 
 keep hens, and have things giv' to me. Baby clothes, and 
 apples, and apple sass — and melasses ! and more baby 
 clothes! and pork when you kill." 
 
 She had thrown herself at the bottom of the wagon, 
 with her back towards him and her doll in her lap. He 
 could see the curve of her curly head, and beyond, her 
 bare dimpled knees, which were raised, and over which 
 she was trying to fold the hem of her brief skirt. 
 
 "I wouldn't be a President's wife," she said presently. 
 
 "You couldn't!" 
 
 "Could if I wanted to!" 
 
 "Couldn't!" 
 
 "Could now!" 
 
 "Couldn't!" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Finding it difficult to explain his convictions of her 
 ineligibility, Clarence thought it equally crushing not to 
 give any. There was a long silence. It was very hot 
 and dusty. The wagon scarcely seemed to move. Clar- 
 ence gazed at the vignette of the track behind them formed 
 by the hood of the rear. Presently he rose and walked 
 past her to the tail-board. " Goin' to get down, " he said, 
 putting his legs over. 
 
 " Maw says ' No, ' " said Susy. 
 
 Clarence did not reply, but dropped to the ground be- 
 side the slowly turning wheels. Without quickening his 
 pace he could easily keep his hand on the tail-board. 
 
6 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "Kla'uns." 
 
 He looked up. 
 
 "Take me." 
 
 She had already clapped on her sunbonnet and was 
 standing at the edge of the tail-board, her little arms ex- 
 tended in such perfect confidence of being caught that the 
 boy could not resist. He caught her cleverly. They 
 halted a moment and let the lumbering vehicle move away 
 from them, as it swayed from side to side as if laboring in 
 a heavy sea. They remained motionless until it hail 
 reached nearly a hundred yards, and then, with a sudden 
 half-real, half-assumed, but altogether delightful trepida- 
 tion, ran forward and caught up with it again. This they 
 repeated two or three times until both themselves and the 
 excitement were exhausted, and they again plodded on 
 hand in hand. Presently Clarence uttered a cry. 
 
 "My! Susy look there!" 
 
 The rear wagon had once more slipped away from them 
 a considerable distance. Between it and them, crossing 
 its track, a most extraordinary creature had halted. 
 
 At first glance it seemed a dog — a discomfited, shame- 
 less, ownerless outcast of streets and byways, rather than 
 an honest stray of some drover's train. It was so gaunt, 
 so dusty, so greasy, so slouching, and so lazy! But as 
 they looked at it more intently they saw that the grayish 
 hair of its back had a bristly ridge, and there were great 
 poisonous-looking dark blotches on its flanks, and that the 
 slouch of its haunches was a peculiarity of its figure, and 
 not the cowering of fear. As it lifted its suspicious head 
 towards them they could see that its thin lips, too short 
 to cover its white teeth, were curled in a perpetual sneer. 
 
 " Here, doggie ! " said Clarence excitedly. " Good dog ! 
 Come." 
 
 Susy burst into a triumphant laugh. "Et tain't no 
 dog, silly; it 's er coyote." 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 7 
 
 Clarence blushed. It was n't the first time the pioneer's 
 daughter had shown her superior knowledge. He said 
 quickly, to hide his discomfiture, " I '11 ketch him, any- 
 way ; he 's nothin' mor'n a ki yi." 
 
 "Ye can't, though," said Susy, shaking her sunbonnet. 
 ; ' He 's faster nor a hoss ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, Clarence ran towards him, followed by 
 Susy. When they had come within twenty feet of him, 
 the lazy creature, without apparently the least effort, took 
 two or three limping bounds to one side, and remained at 
 the same distance as before. They repeated this onset 
 three or four times with more or less excitement and hilar- 
 ity, the animal evading them to one side, but never ac- 
 tually retreating before them. Finally, it occurred to them 
 both that although they were not catching him they were 
 not driving him away. The consequences of that thought 
 were put into shape by Susy with round-eyed significance. 
 
 "Kla'uns, he bites." 
 
 Clarence picked up a hard sun-baked clod, and, running 
 forward, threw it at the coyote. It was a clever shot, and 
 struck him on his slouching haunches. He snapped, and 
 gave a short snarling yelp, and vanished. Clarence re- 
 turned with a victorious air to his companion. But she 
 was gazing intently in the opposite direction, and for the 
 first time he discovered that the coyote had been leading 
 them half round a circle. 
 
 "Kla'uns," says Susy, with a hysterical little laugh. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "The wagon 's gone." 
 
 Clarence started. It was true. Not only their wagon, 
 but the whole train of oxen and teamsters had utterly dis- 
 appeared, vanishing as completely as if they had been 
 caught up in a whirlwind or engulfed in the earth ! Even 
 the low cloud of dust that usually marked their distant 
 eourse by day was nowhere to be seen. The long level 
 
8 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 plain stretched before them to the setting sun, without a 
 sign or trace of moving life or animation. That great blue 
 crystal bowl, filled with dust and fire by day, with stars 
 and darkness by night, which had always seemed to drop 
 its rim round them everywhere and shut them in, seemed 
 to them now to have been lifted to let the train pass outj 
 and then closed down upon them forever. 
 
CHAPTEE n 
 
 Their first sensation was one of purely animal freedom. 
 
 They looked at each other with sparkling eyes and long 
 silent t>reaths. But this spontaneous outburst of savage 
 nature soon passed. Susy's little hand presently reached 
 forward and clutched Clarence's jacket. The boy under- 
 stood it, and said quickly : — 
 
 "They ain't gone far, and they '11 stop as soon as they 
 find us gone." 
 
 They trotted on a little faster; the sun they had fol- 
 lowed every day and the fresh wagon tracks being their 
 unfailing guides; the keen, cool air of the plains, taking 
 the place of that all-pervading dust and smell of the per- 
 spiring oxen, invigorating them with its breath. 
 
 "We ain't skeered a bit, are we? " said Susy. 
 
 " What 's there to be afraid of 1 " said Clarence scorn- 
 fully. He said this none the less strongly because he 
 suddenly remembered that they had been often left alone 
 in the wagon for hours without being looked after, and 
 that their absence might not be noticed until the train 
 stopped to encamp at dusk, two hours later. They were 
 not running very fast, yet either they were more tired than 
 they knew, or the air was thinner, for they both seemed 
 to breathe quickly. Suddenly Clarence stopped. 
 
 "There they are now." 
 
 He was pointing to a light cloud of dust in the far-off 
 horizon, from which the black hulk of a wagon emerged 
 for a moment and was lost. But even as they gazed the 
 cloud seemed to sink like a fairy mirage to the earth again, 
 
10 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 the whole train disappeared, and only the empty stretch- 
 ing track returned. They did not know that this seem- 
 ingly flat and level plain was really undulatory, and that 
 the vanished train had simply dipped helow their view 
 on some further slope even as it had once before- But 
 they knew they were disappointed, and that disappoint- 
 ment revealed to them the fact that they had concealed it 
 from each other. The girl was the first to succumb, and 
 burst into a quick spasm of angry tears. That single act 
 of weakness called out the boy's pride and strength. 
 There was no longer an equality of suffering ; he had be- 
 come her protector; he felt himself responsible for both. 
 Considering her no longer his equal, he was no longer 
 frank with her. 
 
 "There 's nothin' to boo-hoo for," he said, with a half- 
 affected brusqueness. "So quit, now! They'll stop in 
 a minit, and send some one back for us. Should n't won- 
 der if they 're doin' it now." 
 
 But Susy, with feminine discrimination detecting the 
 hollow ring in his voice, here threw herself upon him and 
 began to beat him violently with her little fists. "They 
 ain't! They ain't! They ain't! You know it! How 
 dare you 1 " Then, exhausted with her struggles, she 
 suddenly threw herself flat on the dry grass, shut her eyes 
 tightly, and clutched at the stubble. 
 
 "Get up," said the boy, with a pale, determined face 
 that seemed to have got much older. 
 
 "You leave me be," said Susy. 
 
 " Do you want me to go away and leave you 1 " asked 
 the boy. 
 
 Susy opened one blue eye furtively in the secure depths 
 of her sunbonnet, and gazed at his changed face. 
 
 "Ye-e-s." 
 
 He pretended to turn away, but really to look at the 
 height of the sinking sun. 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 11 
 
 "Kla'uns!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Take me." 
 
 She was holding up her hands. He lifted her gently 
 in his arms, dropping her head over his shoulder. "Now," 
 he said cheerfully, "you keep a good lookout that way, 
 and I this, and we '11 soon be there." 
 
 The idea seemed to please her. After Clarence had 
 stumbled on for a few moments, she said, "Do you see 
 anything, Kla'uns?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "No more don't I." This equality of perception appar- 
 ently satisfied her. Presently she lay more limp in his 
 arms. She was asleep. 
 
 The sun was sinking lower; it had already touched the 
 edge of the horizon, and was level with his dazzled and 
 straining eyes. At times it seemed to impede his eager 
 search and task his vision. Haze and black spots floated 
 across the horizon, and round wafers, like duplicates of 
 the sun, glittered back from the dull surface of the plains.. 
 Then he resolved to look no more until he had counted 
 fifty, a hundred, but always with the same result, the 
 return of the empty, unending plains — the disk growing 
 redder as it neared the horizon, the fire it seemed to kindle 
 as it sank, but nothing more ! 
 
 Staggering under his burden, he tried' to distract him- 
 self by fancying how the discovery of their absence would 
 be made. He heard the listless, half-querulous discussion 
 about the locality that regularly pervaded the nightly 
 camp. He heard the discontented voice of Jake Silsbee 
 as he halted beside their wagon, and said, "Come out o' 
 that now, you two, and mighty quick about it." He 
 heard the command harshly repeated. He saw the look 
 of irritation on Silsbee 's dusty, bearded face, that followed 
 his hurried glance into the empty wagon. He heard the, 
 
12 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 query, " What 's gone o' them limbs now 1 " handed from 
 wagon to wagon. He heard a few oaths; Mrs. Silsbee's 
 high rasping voice, abuse of himself, the hurried and dis- 
 contented detachment of a search party , Silsbee and one 
 of the hired men, and vociferation and blame. Blame 
 always for himself, the elder, who might have "known 
 better ! " A little fear, perhaps, but he could not fancy 
 either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought upheld 
 his pride ; under the prospect of sympathy he might have 
 broken down. 
 
 At last he stumbled, and stopped to keep himself from 
 falling forward on his face. He could go no further ; his 
 breath was spent; he was dripping with perspiration; his 
 legs were trembling under him ; there was a roaring in his 
 ears ; round red disks of the sun were scattered everywhere 
 around him like spots of blood. To the right of the trail 
 there seemed to be a slight mound where he could rest 
 awhile, and yet keep his watchful survey of the horizon. 
 But on reaching it he found that it was only a tangle of 
 taller mesquite grass, into which he sank with his burden. 
 Nevertheless, if useless as a point of vantage, it afforded 
 a soft couch for Susy, who .seemed to have fallen quite 
 naturally into her usual afternoon siesta, and in a measure 
 it shielded her from a cold breeze that had sprung up from 
 the west. Utterly exhausted himself, but not daring to 
 yield to the torpor that seemed to be creeping over him, 
 Clarence half sat, half knelt down beside her, supporting 
 himself with one hand, and, partly hidden in the long 
 grass, kept his straining eyes fixed on the lonely track. 
 
 The red disk was sinking .'ower. It seemed to have 
 already crumbled away a part of the distance with its 
 eating fires. As it sank still lower, it shot out long, lumi- 
 nous rays, diverging fanlike across the plain, as if, in the 
 boy's excited fancy, it, too, were searching for the lost 
 strays. And as one long beam seemed to linger over his 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 13 
 
 hiding-place, he even thought that it might serve as a 
 guide to Silsbee and the other seekers, and was constrained 
 to stagger to his feet, erect in its light. But it soon sank, 
 and with it Clarence dropped back again to his crouching 
 watch. Yet he knew that the daylight was still good for 
 an hour, and with the withdrawal of that mystic sunset 
 glory objects became even more distinct and sharply defined 
 than at any other time. And with the merciful sheathing 
 of that naming sword which seemed to have waved between 
 him and the vanished train, his eyes already felt a blessed 
 relief. 
 
CHAPTEE HI 
 
 With the setting of the sun an ominous silence fell. 
 He could hear the low breathing of Susy, and even fancied 
 he could hear the beating of his own heart in that oppres- 
 sive hush of all nature. For the day's march had always 
 been accompanied by the monotonous creaking of wheels 
 and axles, and even the quiet of the night encampment 
 had been always more or less broken by the movement of 
 unquiet sleepers on the wagon beds, or the breathing of 
 the cattle. But here there was neither sound nor motion. 
 Susy's prattle, and even the sound of his own voice, would 
 have broken the benumbing spell, but it was part of his 
 growing self-denial now that he refrained from waking her 
 even by a whisper. She would awaken soon enough to 
 thirst and hunger, perhaps, and then what was he to do 1 
 If that looked-for help would only come now — while she 
 still slept. For it was part of his boyish fancy that if he 
 could deliver her asleep, and undemonstrative of fear and 
 suffering, he would be less blameful, and she less mindful 
 of her trouble. If it did not come — but he would not 
 think of that yet! If she was thirsty meantime — well, 
 it might rain, and there was always the dew which they 
 used to brush off the morning grass ; he would take off his 
 shirt and catch it in that, like a shipwrecked mariner. It 
 would be funny, and make her laugh. For himself he 
 would not laugh; he felt he was getting very old and 
 grown up in this loneliness. 
 
 It was getting darker — they should be looking into the 
 wagons now. A new doubt began to assail him. Ought 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 15 
 
 he not, now that he was rested, make the most of the 
 remaining moments of daylight, and hefore the glow faded 
 from the west, when he would no longer have any bearings 
 to guide him 1 But there was always the risk of waking 
 her ! — to what 1 The fear of being confronted again with 
 her fear, and of being unable to pacify her, at last decided 
 him to remain. But he crept softly through the grass, 
 and in the dust of the track traced the four points of the 
 compass, as he could still determine them by the sunset 
 light, with a large printed W to indicate the west! This 
 boyish contrivance particularly pleased him. If he had 
 only had a pole, a stick, or even a twig, on which to tie 
 his handkerchief and er°,ct it above the clump of mesquite 
 as a signal to the searchers in case he should be overcome 
 by fatigue or sleep, he would have been happy. But the 
 plain was barren of brush or timber; he did not dream 
 that this omission and the very unobtrusiveness of his 
 hiding-place would be his salvation from a greater danger. 
 
 With the coming darkness the wind arose and swept the 
 plain with a long-drawn sigh. This increased to a mur 
 mur, till presently the whole expanse — before sunk in 
 awful silence — seemed to awake with vague complaints, 
 incessant sounds, and low moanings. At times he thought 
 he heard the halloaing of distant voices, at times it seemed 
 as a whisper in his own ear. In the silence that followed 
 each blast he fancied he could detect the creaking of the 
 wagon, the dull thud of the oxen's hoofs, or broken frag- 
 ments of speech, blown and scattered even as he strained 
 his ears to listen by the next gust. This tension of the 
 ear began to confuse his brain, as his eyes had been previ- 
 ously dazzled by the sunlight, and a strange torpor began 
 to steal over his faculties. Once or twice his head dropped. 
 
 He awoke with a start. A moving figure had suddenly 
 uplifted itself between him and the horizon ! It was not 
 twenty yards away, so clearly outlined against the still 
 
16 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 luminous sky that it seemed even nearer. A human fig- 
 ure, but so disheveled, so fantastic, and yet so mean and 
 puerile in its extravagance that it seemed the outcome of 
 a childish dream. It was a mounted figure, but so ludi- 
 crously disproportionate to the pony it bestrode, whose 
 slim legs were stiffly buried in the dust in a breathless 
 halt, that it might have been a straggler from some vulgar 
 wandering circus. A tall hat, crownless and brimless, a 
 castaway of civilization, surmounted by a turkey's feather, 
 was on its head; over its shoulders hung a dirty tattered 
 blanket that scarcely covered the two painted legs which 
 seemed clothed in soiled yellow hose. In one hand it held 
 a gun ; the other was bent above its eyes in eager scrutiny 
 of some distant point beyond and west of the spot where 
 the children lay concealed. Presently, with a dozen quick 
 noiseless strides of the pony's legs, the apparition moved 
 to the right, its gaze still fixed on that mysterious part of 
 the horizon. There was no mistaking it now! The 
 painted Hebraic face, the large curved nose, the bony 
 cheek, the broad mouth, the shadowed eyes, the straight 
 long matted locks ! It was an Indian ! Not the pictur- 
 esque creature of Clarence's imagination, but still an In- 
 dian ! The boy was uneasy, suspicious, antagonistic, but 
 not afraid. He looked at the heavy animal face with the 
 superiority of intelligence, at the half-naked figure with 
 the conscious supremacy of dress, at the lower individuality 
 with the contempt of a higher race. Yet a moment after, 
 when the figure wheeled and disappeared towards the un- 
 dulating west, a strange chill crept over him. Yet he did 
 not know that in this puerile phantom and painted pygmy 
 the awful majesty of Death had passed him by. 
 
 "Mamma!" 
 
 It was Susy's voice, struggling into consciousness. Per- 
 haps she had been instinctively conscious of the boy's sud- 
 den fears. 
 
(A. WAIF OF THE PLAINS 17 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 He had just turned to the objective point of the Indian's 
 gaze. There was something! A dark line was moving 
 along with the gathering darkness. For a moment he 
 hardly dared to voice his thoughts even to himself. It 
 was a following train overtaking them from the rear! 
 And from the rapidity of its movements a train with 
 horses, hurrying forward to evening camp. He had never 
 dreamt of help from that quarter. This was what the 
 Indian's keen eyes had been watching, and why he had so 
 precipitately fled. 
 
 The strange train was now coming up at a round trot. 
 It was evidently well appointed, with five or six large 
 wagons and several outriders. In half an hour it would 
 be here. Yet he refrained from waking Susy, who had 
 fallen asleep again; his old superstition of securing her 
 safety first being still uppermost. He took off his jacket 
 to cover her shoulders, and rearranged her nest. Then 
 he glanced again at the coming train. But for some uni 
 accountable reason it had changed its direction, and instead 
 of following the track that should have brought it to his 
 side it had turned off to the left ! In ten minutes it would 
 pass abreast of him a mile and a half away ! If he woke 
 Susy now, he knew she would be helpless in her terror, 
 and he could not carry her half that distance. He might 
 rush to the train himself and return with help, but he 
 would never leave her alone — in the darkness. Never! 
 If she woke she would die of fright, perhaps, or wander 
 blindly and aimlessly away. No! The train would pass, 
 and with it that hope of rescue. Something was in his 
 throat, but he gulped it down and was quiet again, albeit 
 he shivered in the night wind. 
 
 The train was nearly abreast of him now. He ran out 
 of the tall grass, waving his straw hat above his head in 
 the faint hope of attracting attention. But he did not go 
 
18 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 far, for he found to his alarm that when he turned back 
 again the clump of mesquite was scarcely distinguishable 
 from the rest of the plain. This settled all question of 
 his going. Even if he reached the train and returned with 
 some one, how would he ever iind her again in this desolate 
 expanse ? 
 
 He watched the train slowly pass — still mechanically, 
 almost hopelessly, waving his hat as he ran up and down 
 before the mesquite, as if he were waving a last farewell 
 to his departing hope. Suddenly it appeared to him that 
 three of the outriders who were preceding the first wagon 
 had changed their shape. They were no longer sharp, 
 oblong, black blocks against the horizon, but had become 
 at first blurred and indistinct, then taller and narrower, 
 until at last they stood out like exclamation points against 
 the sky. He continued to wave his hat, they continued 
 to grow taller and narrower. He understood it now — the 
 three transformed blocks were the outriders coming towards 
 him. 
 
 This is what he had seen — 
 
 ■ ■ ■ 
 
 This is what he saw now — 
 
 ! ! ! 
 
 He ran back to Susy to see if she still slept, for his 
 foolish desire to have her saved unconsciously was stronger 
 than ever now that safety seemed so near. She was still 
 sleeping, although she had moved slightly. He ran to the 
 front again. 
 
 The outriders had apparently halted. What were they 
 doing? Why wouldn't they come on? 
 
 Suddenly a blinding flash of light seemed to burst from 
 one of them. Away over his head something whistled 
 like a rushing bird, and sped off invisible. They had fired 
 a gun; they were signaling to him — Clarence — like a 
 grown-up man. He would have given his life at that 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS J 9 
 
 moment to have had a gun. But he could only wave his 
 hat frantically. 
 
 One of the figures here bore away and impetuously darted 
 forward again. He was coming nearer, powerful, gigantic, 
 formidable, as he loomed through the darkness. All at 
 once he threw up his arm with a wild gesture to the 
 others; and his voice, manly, frank, and assuring, came 
 ringing before him. 
 
 " Hold up ! Good God ! It 's no Injin — it 's a child ! " 
 
 In another moment he had reined up beside Clarence 
 and leaned over him, bearded, handsome, powerful, and 
 protecting. 
 
 " Hallo ! What 's all this 1 What are you doing here 1 " 
 
 "Lost from Mr. Silsbee's train," said Clarence, pointing 
 to the darkened west. 
 
 "Lost? — how long?" 
 
 "About three hours. I thought they 'd come back for 
 us," said Clarence apologetically to this big, kindly man. 
 
 "And you kalkilated to wait here for 'em? " 
 
 " Yes, yes — I did — till I saw you. " 
 
 "Then why in thunder didn't you light out straight foi 
 us, instead of hanging round here and drawing us out ? " 
 
 The boy hung his head. He knew his reasons were 
 unchanged, but all at once they seemed very foolish and 
 unmanly to speak out. 
 
 " Only that we were on the keen jump for Injins, " con- 
 tinued the stranger, "we wouldn't have seen you at all, 
 and might hev shot you when we did. What possessed 
 you to stay here 1 " 
 
 The boy was still silent. "Kla'uns," said a faint, 
 sleepy voice from the mesquite, "take me." The rifle- 
 shot had awakened Susy. 
 
 The stranger turned quickly towards the sound. Clar- 
 ence started and recalled himself. "There," he said bit- 
 terly, "you 've done it now, you 've wakened her! That 's 
 
20 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 why I stayed. I couldn't carry her over there to you. 
 I could n't let her walk, for she 'd be frightened. I 
 would n't wake her up, for she 'd be frightened, and I 
 mightn't find her again. There! " He had made up his 
 mind to be abused, but he was reckless now that she was 
 safe. 
 
 The men glanced at each other. "Then," said the 
 spokesman quietly, "you didn't strike out for us on 
 account of your sister 1 " 
 
 "She ain't my sister," said Clarence quickly. "She's 
 a little girl. She 's Mrs. Silsbee's little girl. We were 
 in the wagon and got down. It 's my fault. I helped 
 her down." 
 
 The three men reined their horses closely round him, 
 leaning forward from their saddles, with their hands on 
 their knees and their heads on one side. "Then," said 
 the spokesman gravely, "you just reckoned to stay here, 
 old man, and take your chances with her rather than run 
 the risk of frightening or leaving her — though it was your 
 one chance of life ! " 
 
 "Yes," said the boy, scornful of this feeble, grown-up 
 repetition. 
 
 "Come here." 
 
 The boy came doggedly forward. The man pushed back 
 the well-worn straw hat from Clarence's forehead and looked 
 into his lowering face. With his hand still on the boy's 
 head he turned him round to the others, and said quietly : — 
 
 "Suthin' of a pup, eh?" 
 
 "You bet," they responded. 
 
 The voice was not unkindly, although the speaker had 
 thrown his lower jaw forward as to pronounce the word 
 " pup " with a humorous suggestion of a mastiff. Before 
 Clarence could make up his mind if the epithet was insult- 
 ing or not, the man put out his stirruped foot, and, with 
 a gesture of invitation, said, "Jump up." 
 
• A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 21 
 
 " But Susy, " said Clarence, drawing back. 
 "Look; she 's making up to Phil already." 
 Clarence looked. Susy had crawled out of the mesquite, 
 and with her sunbonnet hanging down her back, her curls 
 tossed around her face, still flushed with sleep, and Clar- 
 ence's jacket over her shoulders, was gazing up with grave 
 satisfaction in the laughing eyes of one of the men who 
 was with outstretched hands bending over her. Could he 
 believe his senses 1 The terror-stricken, willful, unman- 
 ageable Susy, whom he would have translated unconsciously 
 to safety without this terrible ordeal of being awakened to 
 the loss of her home and parents at any sacrifice to himself 
 — this ingenuous infant was absolutely throwing herself 
 with every appearance of forgetfulness into the arms of the 
 first newcomer! Yet his perception of this fact was 
 accompanied by no sense of ingratitude. For her sake he 
 felt relieved, and with a boyish smile of satisfaction and 
 encouragement vaulted into the saddle before the stranger. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The dash forward to the train, securely held in the 
 saddle by the arms of their deliverers, was a secret joy to 
 the children that seemed only too quickly over. The 
 resistless gallop of the fiery mustangs, the rush of the 
 night wind, the gathering darkness in which the distant 
 wagons, now halted and facing them, looked like domed 
 huts in the horizon — all these seemed but a delightful and 
 fitting climax to the events of the day. In the sublime 
 forgetfulness of youth, all they had gone through had left 
 no embarrassing record behind it; they were willing to 
 repeat their experiences on the morrow, confident of some 
 equally happy end. And when Clarence, timidly reaching 
 his hand towards the horsehair reins lightly held by his 
 companion, had them playfully yielded up to him by that 
 bold and confident rider, the boy felt himself indeed a 
 man. 
 
 But a greater surprise was in store for them. As they 
 neared the wagons, now formed into a circle with a certain 
 degree of military formality, they could see that the ap- 
 pointments of the strange party were larger and more 
 liberal than their own, or indeed anything they had ever 
 known of the kind. Forty or fifty. horses were tethered 
 within the circle, and the camp-fires were already blazing. 
 Before one of them a large tent was erected, and through 
 the parted flaps could be seen a table actually spread with 
 a white cloth. Was it a school feast, or was this their 
 ordinary household arrangement? Clarence and Susy 
 thought of their own dinners, usually laid on bare boards 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 23 
 
 beneath the sky, or under the low hood of the wagon in 
 rainy weather, and marveled. And when they finally 
 halted, and were lifted from their horses, and passed one 
 wagon fitted up as a bedroom and another as a kitchen, 
 they could only nudge each other with silent appreciation. 
 But here again the difference already noted in the quality 
 of the sensations of the two children was observable. 
 Both were equally and agreeably surprised. But Susy's 
 wonder was merely the sense of novelty and inexperience, 
 and a slight disbelief in the actual necessity of what she 
 saw; while Clarence, whether from some previous general 
 experience or peculiar temperament, had the conviction 
 that what he saw here was the usual custom, and what he 
 had known with the Silsbees was the novelty. The feel- 
 ing was attended with a slight sense of wounded pride for 
 Susy, as if her enthusiasm had exposed her to ridicule. 
 
 The man who had carried him, and seemed to be the 
 head of the party, had already preceded them to the tent, 
 and presently reappeared with a lady with whom he had 
 exchanged a dozen hurried words. They seemed to refer 
 to him and Susy ; but Clarence was too much preoccupied 
 with the fact that the lady was pretty, that her clothes 
 were neat and thoroughly clean, that her hair was tidy and 
 not rumpled, and that, although she wore an apron, it was 
 as clean as her gown, and even had ribbons on it, to listen 
 to what was said. And when she ran eagerly forward, 
 and with a fascinating smile lifted the astonished Susy in 
 her arms, Clarence, in his delight for his young charge, 
 quite forgot that she had not noticed him. The bearded 
 man, who seemed to be the lady's husband, evidently 
 pointed out the omission, with some additions that Clar- 
 ence could not catch; for after saying, with a pretty pout, 
 "Well, why shouldn't he?" she came forward with the 
 ume dazzling smile, and laid her small and clean white 
 hand upon his shoulder. 
 
24 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "And so you took good care of the dear little thing? 
 She 's such an angel, is n't she ? and you must love her 
 very much." 
 
 Clarence colored with delight. It was true it had 
 never occurred to him to look at Susy in the light of a 
 celestial visitant, and I fear he was just then more struck 
 with the fair complimenter than the compliment to his 
 companion, but he was pleased for her sake. He was not 
 yet old enough to be conscious of the sex's belief in its 
 irresistible domination over mankind at all ages, and that 
 Johnny in his check apron would be always a hopeless con- 
 quest of Jeannette in her pinafore, and that he ought to 
 have been in love with Susy. 
 
 Howbeit, the lady suddenly whisked her away to the 
 recesses of her own wagon, to reappear later, washed, 
 curled, and be-ribboned like a new doll, and Clarence was 
 left alone with the husband and another of the party. 
 
 "Well, my boy, you haven't told me your name yet." 
 
 "Clarence, sir." 
 
 " So Susy calls you, but what else ? " 
 
 "Clarence Brant." 
 
 " Any relation to Colonel Brant ? " asked the second 
 man carelessly. 
 
 "He was my father," said the boy, brightening under 
 this faint prospect of recognition in his loneliness. 
 
 The two men glanced at each other. The leader looked 
 at the boy curiously, and said : — 
 
 " Are you the son of Colonel Brant, of Louisville ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the boy, with a dim stirring of uneasi- 
 ness in his heart. "But he 's dead now," he added finally. 
 
 "Ah, when did he die? " said the man quickly. 
 
 "Oh, a long time ago. I don't remember him much. 
 I was very little," said the boy half apologetically. 
 
 "Ah, you don't remember him? " 
 
 w No," said Clarence shortly. He was beginring to fall 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 25 
 
 back upon that certain dogged repetition which in sensi- 
 tive children arises from their hopeless inability to express 
 their deeper feelings. He also had an instinctive con- 
 sciousness that this want of a knowledge of his father was 
 part of that vague wrong that had been done him. It did 
 not help his uneasiness that he could see that one of the 
 two men, who turned away with a half-laugh, misunder- 
 stood or did not believe him. 
 
 " How did you come with the Silsbees 1 " asked the first 
 man. 
 
 Clarence repeated mechanically, with a child's distaste of 
 practical details, how he had lived with an aunt at St. Jo, 
 and how his stepmother had procured his passage with the 
 Silsbees to California, where he was to meet his cousin. 
 All this with a lack of interest and abstraction that he was 
 miserably conscious told against him, but he was yet help- 
 less to resist. 
 
 The first man remained thoughtful, and then glanced at 
 Clarence's sunburnt hands. Presently his large, good- 
 humored smile returned. 
 
 " Well, I suppose you are hungry 1 " 
 
 " Yes, " said Clarence shyly. " But " — 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "I should like to wash myself a little," he returned 
 hesitatingly, thinking of the clean tent, the clean lady, 
 and Susy's ribbons. 
 
 "Certainly," said his friend, with a pleased look. 
 "Come with me." Instead of leading Clarence to the 
 Mattered tin basin and bar of yellow soap which had formed 
 the toilet service of the Silsbee party, he brought the boy 
 into one of the wagons, where there was a washstand, a 
 china basin, and a cake of scented soap. Standing beside 
 Clarence, he watched him perform his ablutions with an 
 approving air which rather embarrassed his protdge. Pre- 
 sently he said, almost abruptly : • — 
 
26 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "Do you remember your father's house at Louis* 
 ville?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; but it was a long time ago." 
 
 Clarence remembered it as being very different from his 
 home at St. Joseph's, but from some innate feeling of diffi- 
 dence he would have shrunk from describing it in that 
 way. He, however, said he thought it was a large house. 
 Yet the modest answer only made his new friend look at 
 him the more keenly. 
 
 "Your father was Colonel Hamilton Brant, of Louis- 
 ville, wasn't he? " he said half confidentially. 
 
 "Yes," said Clarence hopelessly. 
 
 "Well," said his friend cheerfully, as if dismissing an 
 abtruse problem from his mind, "let's go to supper." 
 
 When they reached the tent again, Clarence noticed that 
 the supper was laid only for his host and wife and the 
 second man, — who was familiarly called "Harry," but 
 who spoke of the former always as "Mr. and Mrs. Pey- 
 ton, " — while the remainder of the party, a dozen men, 
 were at a second camp-fire, and evidently enjoying them- 
 selves in a picturesque fashion. Had the boy been al- 
 lowed to choose, he would have joined them, partly because 
 it seemed more "manly," and partly that he dreaded a 
 renewal of the questioning. 
 
 But here, Susy, sitting bolt upright on an extemporized 
 high stool, happily diverted his attention by pointing to 
 the empty chair beside her. 
 
 "Kla'uns," she said suddenly, with her usual clear and 
 appalling frankness, " they is chickens, and hamanaigs, and 
 hot biksquits, and lasses, and Mister Peyton says I kin 
 have 'em all." 
 
 Clarence, who had begun suddenly to feel that he was 
 responsible for Susy's deportment, and was balefully con- 
 scious that she was holding her plated fork in her chubby 
 fist by its middle, and, from his previous knowledge of 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 27 
 
 her, was likely at any moment to plunge it into the dish 
 hef ore her, said softly : — 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 " Yes, you shall, dear, " said Mrs. Peyton, with tenderly 
 beaming assurance to Susy and a half-reproachful glance at 
 the boy. "Eat what you like, darling." 
 
 "It's a fork," whispered the still uneasy Clarence, as 
 Susy now seemed inclined to stir her bowl of milk with it. 
 
 "'T ain't, now, Kla'uns, it's only a split spoon," said 
 Susy. 
 
 But Mrs. Peyton, in her rapt admiration, took small 
 note of these irregularities, plying the child with food, 
 forgetting her own meal, and only stopping at times to lift 
 back the forward straying curls on Susy's shoulders. Mr. 
 Peyton looked on gravely and contentedly. Suddenly the 
 eyes of husband and wife met. 
 
 "She'd have been nearly as old as this, John," said 
 Mrs. Peyton in a faint voice. 
 
 John Peyton nodded without speaking, and turned his 
 eyes away into the gathering darkness. The man " Harry " 
 also looked abstractedly at his plate, as if he was saying 
 grace. Clarence wondered who " she " was, and why two 
 little tears dropped from Mrs. Peyton's lashes into Susy's 
 milk, and whether Susy might not violently object to it. 
 He did not know until later that the Peytons had lost 
 their only child, and Susy comfortably drained this mingled 
 cup of a mother's grief and tenderness without suspicion. 
 
 "I suppose we '11 come up with their train early to-mor- 
 row, if some of them don't find us to-night," said Mrs. 
 Peyton, with a long sigh and a regretful glance at Susy. 
 "Perhaps we might travel together for a little while," she 
 added timidly. 
 
 Harry laughed, and Mr. Peyton replied gravely, " I am 
 afraid we would n't travel with them, even for company's 
 sake; and," he added in a lower and graver voice, "it's 
 
28 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 rather odd the search party hasn't come upon us yet, 
 though I 'm keeping Pete and Hank patrolling the trail to 
 meet them." 
 
 "It's heartless — so it is!" said Mrs. Peyton, with 
 sudden indignation. "It would be all very well if it was 
 only this boy, who can take care of himself; but to be so 
 careless of a mere baby like this, it 's shameful! " 
 
 For the first time, Clarence tasted the cruelty of discrim- 
 ination. All the more keenly that he was beginning to 
 worship, after his boyish fashion, this sweet-faced, clean, 
 and tender-hearted woman. Perhaps Mr. Peyton noticed 
 it, for he came quietly to his aid. 
 
 "Maybe they know better than we in what careful hands 
 they had left her," he said y with a cheerful nod towards 
 Clarence. "And, again, they may have been fooled as we 
 were by Injin signs and left the straight road." 
 
 This suggestion instantly recalled to Clarence his vision 
 in the mesquite. Should he dare tell them ? Would they 
 believe him, or would they laugh at him before her 1 He 
 hesitated, and at last resolved to tell it privately to the 
 husband. When the meal was ended, and he was made 
 happy by Mrs. Peyton's laughing acceptance of his offer 
 to help her clear the table and wash the dishes, they all 
 gathered comfortably in front of the tent before the large 
 camp-fire. At the other fire the rest of the party were 
 playing cards and laughing, but Clarence no longer cared 
 to join them. He was quite tranquil in the maternal pro- 
 pinquity of his hostess, albeit a little uneasy as to his reti- 
 cence about the Indian. 
 
 "Kla'uns," said Susy, relieving a momentary pause, in 
 her highest voice, " knows how to speak. Speak, Kla'uns ! " 
 
 It appearing from Clarence's blushing explanation that 
 this gift was not the ordinary faculty of speech, but a 
 capacity to recite verse, he was politely pressed by the 
 company for a performance. 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 29 
 
 "Speak 'em, Kla'uns, the boy what stood unto the burn- 
 in' deck, and said, ' The boy, oh, where was he t ' " said 
 Susy, comfortably lying down on Mrs. Peyton's lap, and 
 contemplating her bare knees in the air. "It's 'bout a 
 boy," she added confidentially to Mrs. Peyton, "whose 
 father wouldn't never, never stay with him on a burnin' 
 ship, though he said, ' Stay, father, stay, ' ever so much. " 
 
 With this clear, lucid, and perfectly satisfactory expla- 
 nation of Mrs. Hemans's " Casabianca, " Clarence began. 
 Unfortunately, his actual rendering of this popular school 
 performance was more an effort of memory than anything 
 else, and was illustrated by those wooden gestures which 
 a Western schoolmaster had taught him. He described 
 the flames that "roared around him," by indicating with 
 his hand a perfect circle, of which he was the axis; he 
 adjured his father, the late Admiral Casabianca, by clasp- 
 ing his hands before his chin, as if wanting to be manacled 
 in an attitude which he was miserably conscious was unlike 
 anything he himself had ever felt or seen before; he de- 
 scribed that father "faint in death below," and "the flag 
 on high," with one single motion. Yet something that 
 the verses had kindled in his active imagination, perhaps, 
 rather than an illustration of the verses themselves^, at 
 times brightened his gray eyes, became tremulous in his 
 youthful voice, and, I fear, occasionally incoherent on his 
 lips. At times, when not conscious of his affected art, 
 the plain and all upon it seemed to him to slip away into 
 the night, the blazing camp-fire at his feet to wrap him in 
 a fateful glory, and a vague devotion to something — he 
 knew not what — so possessed him that he communicated 
 it, and probably some of his own youthful delight in ex- 
 travagant voice, to his hearers, until, when he ceased with 
 a glowing face, he was surprised to find that the card- 
 players had deserted their camp-fires and gathered round 
 the tent. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 "You didn't say 'Stay, father, stay,' enough, Kla'- 
 uns," said Susy critically. Then suddenly starting up- 
 right in Mrs. Peyton's lap, she continued rapidly, "I kin 
 dance. And sing. I kin dance High Jambooree." 
 
 "What's High Jambooree, dear?" asked Mrs. Peyton. 
 
 "You'll see. Lemme down." And Susy slipped to 
 the ground. 
 
 The dance of High Jambooree, evidently of remote 
 mystical African origin, appeared to consist of three small 
 skips to the right and then to the left, accompanied by the 
 -holding up of very short skirts, incessant " teetering " on the 
 toes of small feet, the exhibition of much bare knee and 
 stocking, and a gurgling accompaniment of childish laugh- 
 ter. Vehemently applauded, it left the little performer' 
 breathless, but invincible and ready for fresh conquest. 
 
 "I kin sing, too," she gasped hurriedly, as if unwilling 
 that the applause should lapse. "I kin sing. Oh, dear! 
 Kla'uns," piteously, "what is it I sing?" 
 
 " Ben Bolt, " suggested Clarence. 
 
 "Oh yes. Oh, don't you remember sweet Alers Ben 
 Bolt ? " began Susy in the same breath and the wrong key. 
 " Sweet Alers, with hair so brown, who wept with delight 
 when you giv'd her a smile, and " — with knitted brows 
 and appealing recitative, "what 's er rest of it, Kla'uns? " 
 
 " Who trembled with fear at your frown ? " prompted 
 Clarence. 
 
 " Who trembled with fear at my frown ? " shrilled Susy 
 " I forget er rest. Wait ! I kin sing " — 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 31 
 
 "Praise God," suggested Clarence. 
 
 "Yes." Here Susy, a regular attendant in camp and 
 prayer meetings, was on firmer ground. 
 
 Promptly lifting her high treble, yet with a certain 
 acquired deliberation, she began, "Praise God, from whom 
 all blessings flow." At the end of the second line the 
 whispering and laughing ceased. A deep voice to the 
 right, that of the champion poker-player, suddenly rose on 
 the swell of the third line. He was instantly followed by 
 a dozen ringing voices, and by the time the last line was 
 reached it was given with a full chorus, in which the dull 
 chant of teamsters and drivers mingled with the soprano 
 of Mrs. Peyton and Susy's childish treble. Again and 
 again it was repeated, with forgetful eyes and abstracted 
 faces, rising and falling with the night wind and the leap 
 and gleam of the camp-fires, and fading again like them in 
 the immeasurable mystery of the darkened plain. 
 
 In the deep and embarrassing silence that followed, at 
 last the party hesitatingly broke up, Mrs. Peyton retiring 
 with Susy after offering the child to Clarence for a perfunc- 
 tory "good-night" kiss, an unusual proceeding, which 
 somewhat astonished them both — and Clarence found 
 himself near Mr. Peyton. 
 
 "I think," said Clarence timidly, "I saw an Injin to- 
 day." 
 
 Mr. Peyton bent down towards him. "An Injin — 
 where ? " he asked quickly, with the same look of doubt- 
 ing interrogatory with which he had received Clarence's 
 name and parentage. 
 
 The boy for a moment regretted having spoken. But 
 with his old doggedness he particularized his statement. 
 Fortunately, being gifted with a keen perception, he was 
 able to describe the stranger accurately, and to impart 
 with his description that contempt for its subject which 
 he had felt, and which to his frontier auditor established 
 
32 A WAIF OF THE PLAIN'S 
 
 its truthfulness. Peyton turned abruptly away, but pre- 
 sently returned with Harry and another man. 
 
 " You are sure of this 1 " said Peyton half encouragingly. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "As sure as you are that your father is Colonel Brant 
 and is dead 1 " said Harry, with a light laugh. 
 
 Tears sprang into the boy's lowering eyes. "I don't 
 lie," he said doggedly. 
 
 "I believe you, Clarence," said Peyton quietly. "But 
 why didn't you say it before?" 
 
 "I didn't like to say it before Susy and — her!" stam- 
 mered the boy. 
 
 "Her?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, — Mrs. Peyton, " said Clarence blushingly. 
 
 "Oh," said Harry sarcastically, "how blessed polite we 
 are ! " 
 
 " That '11 do. Let up on him, will you ? " said Peyton, 
 roughly, to his subordinate. "The boy knows what he's 
 about. But," he continued, addressing Clarence, "how 
 was it the Injin didn't see you?" 
 
 "I was very still on account of not waking Susy," said 
 Clarence, " and " — He hesitated. 
 
 "And what?" 
 
 " He seemed more keen watching what you were doing, " 
 said the boy boldly. 
 
 " That 's so, " broke in the second man, who happened 
 to be experienced, "and as he was to wind'ard o' the boy 
 he was off his scent and bearings. He was one of their rear 
 scouts; the rest o' them 's ahead crossing our track to cut 
 us off. Ye didn't see anything else?" 
 
 " I saw a coyote first, " said Clarence, greatly encouraged. 
 
 " Hold on ! " said the expert, as Harry turned away 
 with a sneer. "That *~s a sign, too. Wolf don't go where 
 wolf hez been, and coyote don't foller Injins — there 's no 
 pickin's! How long afore did you see the coyote? " 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 38 
 
 " Just after we left the wagon, " said Clarence. 
 
 "That's it," said the man thoughtfully. "He was 
 driven on ahead, or hanging on their flanks. These Injins 
 are betwixt us and that ar train, or following it. " 
 
 Peyton made a hurried gesture of warning, as if remind- 
 ing the speaker of Clarence's presence — a gesture which 
 the boy noticed and wondered at. Then the conversation 
 of the three men took a lower tone, although Clarence dis- 
 tinctly heard the concluding opinion of the expert. 
 
 "It ain't no good now, Mr. Peyton, and you 'd be only 
 exposing yourself on their ground by breakin' camp agin 
 to-night. And you don't know that it ain't us they 're 
 watchin'. You see, if we had n't turned off the straight 
 road when we got that first scare from these yer lost chil- 
 dren, we might hev gone on and walked plump into some 
 cursed trap of those devils. To my mind, we 're just in 
 nigger luck, and with a good watch and my patrol we 're 
 all right to be fixed where we be till daylight." 
 
 Mr. Peyton presently turned away, taking Clarence 
 with him. "As we'll be up early and on the track of 
 your train to-morrow, my boy, you had better turn in now. 
 I 've put you up in my wagon, and as I expect to be in 
 the saddle most of the night, I reckon I won't trouble you 
 much. " He led the way to a second wagon — drawn up 
 beside the one where Susy and Mrs. Peyton had retired — 
 which Clarence was surprised to find fitted with a writing- 
 table and desk, a chair, and even a bookshelf containing 
 some volumes. A long locker, fitted like a lounge, had 
 been made up as a couch for him, with the unwonted lux- 
 ury of clean white sheets and pillow-cases. A soft matting 
 covered the floor of the heavy wagon bed, which, Mr. 
 Peyton explained, was hung on centre springs to prevent 
 jarring. The sides and roof of the vehicle were of lightly 
 paneled wood, instead of the usual hooked canvas frame 
 of the ordinary emigrant wagon, and fitted with a glazed 
 
34 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 door and movable window for light and air. Clarence 
 wondered why the big, powerful man, who seemed at 
 home on horseback, should ever care to sit in this office 
 like a merchant or a lawyer; and if this train sold things 
 to the other trains, or took goods, like the peddlers, to 
 towns on the route; but there seemed to be nothing to 
 sell, and the other wagons were filled with only the goods 
 required by the party. He would have liked to ask Mr. 
 Peyton who he was, and have questioned him as freely as 
 he himself had been questioned. But as the average adult 
 man never takes into consideration the injustice of denying 
 to the natural and even necessary curiosity of childhood 
 that questioning which he himself is so apt to assume 
 without right, and almost always without delicacy, Clar- 
 ence had no recourse. Yet the boy, like all children, was 
 conscious that if he had been afterwards questioned about 
 this inexplicable experience, he would have been blamed 
 for his ignorance concerning it. Left to himself presently, 
 and ensconced between the sheets, he lay for some moments 
 staring about him. The unwonted comfort of his couch, 
 so different from the stuffy blanket in the hard wagon 
 bed which he had shared with one of the teamsters, and 
 the novelty, order, and cleanliness of his surroundings, 
 while they were grateful to his instincts, began in some 
 vague way to depress him. To his loyal nature it seemed 
 a tacit infidelity to his former rough companions to be lying 
 here ; he had a dim idea that he had lost that independence 
 which equal discomfort and equal pleasure among them 
 had given him. There seemed a sense of servitude in 
 accepting this luxury which was not his. This set him 
 endeavoring to remember something of his father's house, 
 of the large rooms, drafty staircases, and far-off ceilings, 
 and the cold formality of a life that seemed made up of 
 strange faces; some stranger — his parents; some kinder — 
 4he servants; 'particularly the black nurse who had him in 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 85 
 
 eharge. Why did Mr. Peyton ask him about it 1 Why, 
 if it were so important to strangers, had not his mother 
 told him more of it ? And why was she not like this good 
 woman with the gentle voice who was so kind to — to 
 Susy 1 And what did they mean by making him so miser- 
 able 1 Something rose in his throat, but with an effort he 
 choked it back, and, creeping from the lounge, went softly 
 to the window, opened it to see if it "would work," and 
 looked out. The shrouded camp-fires, the stars that glit- 
 tered but gave no light, the dim moving bulk of a patrol 
 beyond the circle, all seemed to intensify the darkness, 
 and changed the current of his thoughts. He remembered 
 what Mr. Peyton had said of him, when they first met. 
 "Suthin' of a pup, ain't he?" Surely that meant some- 
 thing that was not bad! He crept back to the couch 
 again. 
 
 Lying there, still awake, he reflected that he would n't 
 be a scout when he grew up, but would be something like 
 Mr. Peyton, and have a train like this, and invite the 
 Silsbees and Susy to accompany him. For this purpose, 
 he and Susy, early to-morrow morning, would get permis- 
 sion to come in here and play at that game. This would 
 familiarize him with the details, so that he would be able 
 at any time to take charge of it. He was already an au- 
 thority on the subject of Indians! He had once been fired 
 at — as an Indian. He would always carry a rifle like 
 that hanging from the hooks at the end of the wagon 
 before him, and would eventually slay many Indians and 
 keep an account of them in a big book like that on the 
 desk. Susy would help him, having grown up a lady, 
 and they would both together issue provisions and rations 
 from the door of the wagon to the gathered crowds. He 
 Would be known as the "White Chief," his Indian name 
 being "Suthin' of a Pup." He would have a circus van 
 attached to the train, in which he would occasionally per- 
 
36 A WAIF OF THE PLAIN'S 
 
 form. He would also have artillery for protection. There 
 would be a terrific engagement, and he would rush into 
 the wagon, heated and blackened with gunpowder; and 
 Susy would put down an account of it in a book, and Mrs. 
 Peyton — for she would be there in some -vague capacity 
 — would say, "Really, now, I don't see but what we were 
 very lucky in having such a boy as Clarence with us. I 
 begin to understand him better." And Harry, who, for 
 purposes of vague poetical retaliation, would also drop in 
 at that moment, would mutter and say, "He is certainly 
 the son of Colonel Brant; dear me! " and apologize. And 
 his mother would come in also, in her coldest and most 
 indifferent manner, in a white ball-dress, and start and say, 
 "Good gracious, how that boy has grown! I am sorry I 
 did not see more of him when he was young." Yet even 
 in the midst of this came a confusing numbness, and then 
 the side of the wagon seemed to melt away, and he drifted 
 out again alone into the empty desolate plain from which 
 even the sleeping Susy had vanished, and he was left 
 deserted and forgotten. Then all was quiet in the wagon, 
 and only the night wind moving round it. But lo! the 
 lashes of the sleeping White Chief — the dauntless leader, 
 the ruthless destroyer of Indians — were wet with glitter- 
 ing tears! 
 
 Yet it seemed only a moment afterwards that he awoke 
 with a faint consciousness of some arrested motion. To 
 his utter consternation, the sun, three hours high, was 
 shining in the wagon, already hot and stifling in its beams. 
 There was the familiar smell and taste of the dirty road in 
 the air about. him. There was a faint creaking of boards 
 and springs, a slight oscillation, and beyond the audible 
 rattle of harness, as if the train had been under way, the 
 wagon moving, and then there had been a sudden halt. 
 They had probably come up with the Silsbee train; in a 
 few moments the change would be effected and all of his 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 37 
 
 strange experience would be over. He must get up now. 
 Yet, with the morning laziness of the healthy young 
 animal, he curled up a moment longer in his luxurious 
 couch. 
 
 How quiet it was ! There were far-off voices, but they 
 seemed suppressed and hurried. Through the window he 
 saw one of the teamsters run rapidly past him with a 
 strange, breathless, preoccupied face, halt a moment at one 
 of the following wagons, and then run back again to the 
 front. Then two of the voices came nearer, with the dull 
 beating of hoofs in the dust. 
 
 " Rout out the boy and ask him, " said a half-suppressed, 
 impatient voice, which Clarence at once recognized as the 
 man Harry's. 
 
 "Hold on till Peyton comes up," said the second voice 
 in a low tone; "leave it to him." 
 
 "Better find out what they were like, at once," grum- 
 bled Harry. 
 
 "Wait, stand back," said Peyton's voice, joining the 
 others; "I'll ask him." 
 
 Clarence looked wonderingly at the door. It opened on 
 Mr. Peyton, dusty and dismounted, with a strange, ab- 
 stracted look in his face. 
 
 " How many wagons are in your train, Clarence ? " 
 
 "Three, sir." 
 
 " Any marks on them ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Clarence eagerly: '"Off to California' 
 and ' Root, Hog, or Die. ' " 
 
 Mr. Peyton's eye seemed to leap up and hold Clarence's 
 with a sudden, strange significance, and then looked down. 
 
 " How many were you in all 1 " he continued. 
 
 "Five, and there was Mrs. Silsbee." 
 
 " No other woman ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Get up and dress yourself," he said gravely, '"and 
 
38 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 wait here till I come back. Keep cool and have your wits 
 about you." He dropped his voice slightly. "Perhaps 
 something 's happened that you '11 have to show yourself a 
 little man again for, Clarence ! " 
 
 The door closed, and the boy heard the same muffled 
 hoofs and voices die away towards the front. He began 
 to dress himself mechanically, almost vacantly, yet con- 
 scious always of a vague undercurrent of thrilling excite- 
 ment. When he had finished he waited almost breath- 
 lessly, feeling the same beating of his heart that he had 
 felt when he was following the vanished train the day 
 before. At last he could stand the suspense no longer, 
 and opened the door. Everything was still in the motion- 
 less caravan, except — it struck him oddly even then — 
 the unconcerned prattling voice of Susy from one of the 
 nearer wagons. Perhaps a sudden feeling that this was 
 something that concerned her, perhaps an irresistible im- 
 pulse, overcame him, but the next moment he had leaped 
 to the ground, faced about, and was running feverishly to 
 the front. 
 
 The first thing that met his eyes was the helpless and 
 desolate bulk of one of the Silsbee wagons a hundred rods 
 away, bereft of oxen and pole, standing alone and motion, 
 less against the dazzling sky! Near it was the broken 
 frame of another wagon, its fore wheels and axles gone, 
 pitched forward on its knees like an ox under the butcher's 
 sledge. Not far away there were the burnt and blackened 
 ruins of a third, around which the whole party on foot and 
 horseback seemed to be gathered. As the boy ran vio- 
 lently on, the group opened to make way for two men 
 carrying some helpless but awful object between them. 
 A terrible instinct made Clarence swerve from it in his 
 headlong course, but he was at the same moment discov- 
 ered by the others, and a cry arose of " Go back ! " 
 M Stop ! " " Keep him back 1 " Heeding it no more .than 
 
A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 39 
 
 the wind that whistled by him, Clarence made directly for 
 the foremost wagon — the one in which he and Susy had 
 played. A powerful hand caught his shoulder; it was 
 Mr. Peyton's. 
 
 "Mrs. Silsbee's wagon," said the boy, with white lips, 
 pointing to it. " Where is she ? " 
 
 "She's missing," said Peyton, "and one other — the 
 rest are dead." 
 
 "She must be there," said the boy, struggling, and 
 pointing to the wagon; "let me go." 
 
 "Clarence," said Peyton sternly, accenting his grasp 
 upon the boy's arm, "be a man! . Look around you. Try 
 and tell us who these are." 
 
 There seemed to be one or two heaps of old clothes 
 lying on the ground, and further on, where the men at a 
 command from Peyton had laid down their burden, an- 
 other. In those ragged, dusty heaps of clothes, from 
 which all the majesty of life seemed to have been ruth- 
 lessly stamped out, only what was ignoble and grotesque 
 appeared to be left. There was nothing terrible in this. 
 The boy moved slowly towards them; and, incredible even 
 to himself, the overpowering fear of them that a moment 
 before had overcome him left him as suddenly. He walked 
 from the one to the other, recognizing them by certain 
 marks and signs, and mentioning name after name. The 
 groups gazed at him curiously; he was conscious that he 
 scarcely understood himself, still less the same quiet pur- 
 pose that now made him turn towards the furthest wagon. 
 
 "There 's nothing there," said Peyton; "we 've searched 
 it " But the boy, without replying, continued his way, 
 axd the crowd followed him. 
 
 The deserted wagon, more rude, disorderly, and slovenly 
 than it had ever seemed to him before, was now heaped 
 and tumbled with broken bones, cans, scattered provisions, 
 pots, pans, blankets, and clothing in the foul confusion of 
 
40 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 a dust-heap. But in this heterogeneous mingling the 
 boy's quick eye caught sight of a draggled edge of calico. 
 
 "That 's Mrs. Silsbee's dress! " he cried, and leaped into 
 the wagon. 
 
 At first the men stared at each other, but an instant 
 later a dozen hands were helping him, nervously digging 
 and clearing away the rubbish. Then one man uttered 
 a sudden cry, and fell back with frantic but furious eyes 
 uplifted against the pitiless, smiling sky above him. 
 
 "Great God! look here!" 
 
 It was the yellowish, waxen face of Mrs. Silsbee that 
 had been uncovered. But to the fancy of the boy it had 
 changed; the old familiar lines of worry, care, and queru- 
 lousness had given way to a look of remote peace and 
 statue-like repose. He had often vexed her in her aggres- 
 sive life ; he was touched with remorse at her cold, passion- 
 less apathy now, and pressed timidly forward. Even as 
 he did so, the man, with a quick but warning gesture, 
 hurriedly threw his handkerchief over the matted locks, as 
 if to shut out something awful from his view. Clarence 
 felt himself drawn back; but' not before the white lips of 
 a bystander had whispered a single word — 
 
 "Scalped, too! by God!" 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 Then followed days and weeks that seemed to Claience 
 as a dream. At first, an interval of hushed and awed 
 restraint, when he and Susy were kept apart, a strange and 
 artificial interest taken little note of by him, but afterwards 
 remembered when others had forgotten it; the burial of 
 Mrs. Silsbee beneath a cairn of stones, with some ceremo- 
 nies that, simple though they were, seemed to usurp the 
 sacred rights of grief from him and Susy, and leave them 
 cold and frightened; days of frequent and incoherent child- 
 ish outbursts from Susy, growing fainter and rarer as time 
 went on, until they ceased, he knew not when; the haunt- 
 ing by night of that morning vision of the three or four 
 heaps of ragged clothes upon the ground, and a half regret 
 that he had not examined them more closely ; a recollec- 
 tion of the awful loneliness and desolation of the broken 
 and abandoned wagon left behind on its knees, as if pray- 
 ing mutely when the train went on and left it; the trun- 
 dling behind of the fateful wagon in which Mrs. Silsbee's 
 body had been found, superstitiously shunned by every 
 one, and when at last turned over to the authorities at an 
 outpost garrison, seeming to drop the last link from the 
 dragging chain of the past. The revelation to the children 
 of a new experience in that brief glimpse of the frontier 
 garrison ; the handsome officer in uniform and belted sword, 
 an heroic, vengeful figure to be admired and imitated here- 
 after; the sudden importance and respect given to Susy 
 and himself as "survivors;" the sympathetic questioning 
 Mid kindly exaggerations of their experiences, quickly 
 
42 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 accepted by Susy — all these, looking back upon them 
 afterwards, seemed to have passed in a dream. 
 
 No less strange and visionary to them seemed the real 
 transitions they noted from the moving train. How one 
 morning they missed the changeless, motionless, low, dark 
 line along the horizon, and before noon found themselves 
 among rocks and trees and a swiftly rushing river. How 
 there suddenly appeared beside them a few days later a 
 great gray cloud-covered ridge of mountains that they were 
 convinced was that same dark line that they had seen so 
 often. How the men laughed at them, and said that for 
 the last three days they had been crossing that dark line, 
 and that it was higher than the great gray-clouded range 
 before them, which it had always hidden from their view ! 
 How Susy firmly believed that these changes took place 
 in her sleep, when she always "kinder felt they were 
 crawlin' up," and how Clarence, in the happy depreciation 
 of extreme youth, expressed his conviction that they 
 "weren't a bit high, after all." How the weather became 
 cold, though it was already summer, and at night the camp- 
 fire was a necessity, and there was a stove in the tent with 
 Susy; and yet how all this faded away, and they were 
 again upon a dazzling, burnt, and sun»dried plain! But 
 always as in a dream ! 
 
 More real were the persons who composed the party — 
 whom they seemed to have always known — and who, in 
 the innocent caprice of children, had become to them more 
 actual than the dead had ever been. There was Mr. Pey- 
 ton, who they now knew owned the train, and who was 
 so rich that he "needn't go to California if he didn't 
 want to, and was going to buy a great deal of it if he liked 
 it," and who was also a lawyer and "policeman" — which 
 was Susy's rendering of "politician" — and was called 
 "Squire" and "Judge" at the frontier outpost, and could 
 order anybody to be "took up if he wanted to," and who 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 43 
 
 knew everybody by their Christian names; and Mrs. Pey- 
 ton, who had been delicate, and was ordered by the doctor 
 to live in the open air for six months, and " never go into 
 a house or a town again," and who was going to adopt 
 Susy as soon as her husband could arrange with Susy's 
 relatives, and draw up the papers ! How " Harry " was 
 Henry Benham, Mrs. Peyton's brother, and a kind of 
 partner of Mr. Peyton. And how the scout's name was 
 Gus Gildersleeve, or the " White Crow, " and how, through 
 his recognized intrepidity, an attack upon their train was 
 no doubt averted. Then there was "Bill," the stock 
 herder, and "Texas Jim," the vaquero — the latter mar- 
 velous and unprecedented in horsemanship. Such were 
 their companions, as appeared through the gossip of the 
 train and their own inexperienced consciousness. To 
 them, they were all astounding and important personages. 
 But, either from boyish curiosity or some sense of being 
 misunderstood, Clarence was more attracted by the two 
 individuals of the party who were least kind to him — 
 namely, Mrs. Peyton and her brother Harry. I fear that, 
 after the fashion of most children, and some grown-up peo- 
 ple, he thought less of the steady kindness of Mr. Peyton 
 and the others than of the rare tolerance of Harry or the 
 polite concessions of his sister. Miserably conscious of 
 this at times, he quite convinced himself that if he could 
 only win a word of approbation from Harry, or a smile 
 from Mrs. Peyton, he would afterwards revenge himself by 
 "running away." Whether he would or not, I cannot 
 say. I am writing of a foolish, growing, impressionable 
 boy of eleven, of whose sentiments nothing could be safely 
 predicted but uncertainty. 
 
 It was at this time that he became fascinated by another 
 member of the party, whose position had been too humble 
 and unimportant to be included in the group already 
 noted. Of the same appearance as vhe other teamsters in 
 
44 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 size, habits, and apparel, he had not at first exhibited to 
 Clarence any claim to sympathy. But it appeared that he 
 was actually a youth of only sixteen — a hopeless incorrigi- 
 ble of St. Joseph, whose parents had prevailed on Peyton 
 to allow him to join the party, by way of removing him 
 from evil associations and as a method of reform. Of this 
 Clarence was at first ignorant, not from any want of frank- 
 ness on the part of the youth, for that ingenuous young 
 gentleman later informed him that he had killed three men 
 in St. Louis, two in St. Jo, and that the officers of justice 
 were after him. But it was evident that to precocious 
 habits of drinking, smoking, chewing, and card-playing, 
 this overgrown youth added a strong tendency to exaggera- 
 tion of statement. Indeed, he was known as "Lying Jim 
 Hooker," and his various qualities presented a problem to 
 Clarence that was attractive and inspiring, doubtful, but 
 always fascinating. With the hoarse voice of early wicked- 
 ness and a contempt for ordinary courtesy, he had a round, 
 perfectly good-humored face, and a disposition that, when 
 not called upon to act up to his self-imposed r61e of reck- 
 less wickedness, was not unkindly. 
 
 It was only a few days after the massacre, and while 
 the children were still wrapped in the gloomy interest and 
 frightened reticence which followed it, that " Jim Hooker " 
 first characteristically flashed upon Clarence's perceptions. 
 Hanging half on and half off the saddle of an Indian pony, 
 the lank Jim suddenly made his appearance, dashing vio- 
 lently up and down the track, and around the wagon in. 
 which Clarence was sitting, tugging desperately at the 
 reins, with every indication of being furiously run away 
 with, and retaining his seat only with the most dauntless 
 courage and skill. Bound and round they went, the help- 
 less rider at times hanging by a single stirrup near the 
 ground, and again recovering himself by — as it seemed to 
 Clarence — almost superhuman effort. Clarence sat oper » 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 45 
 
 mouthed with anxiety and excitement, and yet a few of 
 the other teamsters laughed. Then the voice of Mr. Pey- 
 ton, from the window of his car, said quietly : — 
 
 " There, that will do, Jim. Quit it ! " 
 
 The furious horse and rider instantly disappeared. A 
 few moments after, the bewildered Clarence saw the re- 
 doubted horseman trotting along quietly in the dust of the 
 rear, on the same fiery steed, who in that prosaic light 
 bore an astounding resemblance to an ordinary team horse. 
 Later in the day he sought an explanation from the rider. 
 
 "You see, " answered Jim gloomily, "thar ain't a galoot 
 in this yer crowd ez knows jist what 's in that hoss ! And 
 them ez suspecks daren't say! It wouldn't do for to hev 
 it let out that the Judge hez a Morgan-Mexican plug 
 that 's killed two men afore he got him, and is bound to 
 kill another afore he gets through! Why, on'y the week 
 afore we kem up to you, that thar hoss bolted with me at 
 camping! Bucked and throwed me, but I kept my holt o' 
 the stirrups with my foot — so ! Dragged me a matter of 
 two miles, head down, and me keepin' away rocks with 
 my hand — so ! " 
 
 "Why didn't you loose your foot and let go?" asked 
 Clarence breathlessly. 
 
 " You might," said Jim, with deep scorn; "that ain't 
 my style. I just laid low till we kem to a steep pitched 
 hill, and goin' down when the hoss was, so to speak, 
 kinder below me, I just turned a handspring, so, and that 
 landed me onter his back again." 
 
 This action, though vividly illustrated by Jim's throw- 
 ing his hands down like feet beneath him, and indicating 
 the parabola of a spring in the air, proving altogether toe 
 much for Clarence's mind to grasp, he timidly turned tu 
 a less difficult detail. 
 
 " What made the horse bolt first, Mr. Hooker 1 " 
 
 "Smelt Injins!" said Jim, carelessly expectorating to< 
 
46 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 bacco juice in a curving jet from the side of his mouth — 
 a singularly fascinating accomplishment, peculiarly his own, 
 "'n' likely your Injins." 
 
 "But," argued Clarence hesitatingly, "you said it was 
 a week before — and " — 
 
 "Er Mexican plug kin smell Injins fifty, yes, a hundred 
 miles away," said Jim, with scornful deliberation; " 'n' if 
 Judge Peyton had took my advice, and hadn't been so 
 mighty 'feard about the character of his hoss gettin' out, 
 he'd hev played roots on them Injins afore they tetched 
 ye. But," he added, with gloomy dejection, "there ain't 
 no sand in this yer crowd, thar ain't no vim, thar ain't 
 nothin' ; and thar can't be ez long ez thar 's women and 
 babies, and women and baby fixin's, mixed up with it. 
 I 'd hev cut the whole blamed gang ef it were n't for one 
 or two things," he added darkly. 
 
 Clarence, impressed by Jim's mysterious manner, for 
 the moment forgot his contemptuous allusion to Mr. Pey- 
 ton, and the evident implication of Susy and himself, and 
 asked hurriedly, " What things 1 " 
 
 Jim, as if forgetful of the boy's presence in his fitful 
 mood, abstractedly half drew a glittering bowie-knife from 
 his boot leg, and then slowly put it back again. "Thar's 
 one or two old scores," he continued in a low voice, al- 
 though no one was in hearing distance of them, "one or 
 two private accounts," he went on tragically, averting his 
 eyes as if watched by some one, "thet hev to be wiped out 
 with blood afore / leave. Thar 's one or two men too 
 many alive and breathin' in this yer crowd. Mebbe it 's 
 Gus Gildersleeve ; mebbe it 's Harry Benham; mebbe," 
 he added, with dark yet noble disinterestedness, " it 's 
 me." 
 
 "Oh no," said Clarence, with polite deprecation. 
 
 Par from placating the gloomy Jim, this seemed only to 
 awake his suspicions. "Mebbe," he said, dancing sud- 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 47 
 
 denly away from Clarence, "mebbe you think I'm lyin'. 
 Mebbe you think, because you 're Colonel Brant's son, 
 yer kin run me with this yer train. Mebbe," he contin- 
 ued, dancing violently back again, "ye kalkilate, because 
 ye run off 'n' stampeded a baby, ye kin tote me round too, 
 sonny. Mebbe," he went on, executing a double-shuffle 
 in the dust, and alternately striking his hands on the sides 
 of his boots, "mebbe you're spyin' round and reportin' 
 to the Judge." 
 
 Firmly convinced that Jim was working himself up by 
 an Indian war-dance to some desperate assault on himself, 
 but resenting the last unjust accusation, Clarence had 
 recourse to one of his old dogged silences. Happily at 
 this moment an authoritative voice called out, "Now, then, 
 you Jim Hooker!" and the desperate Hooker, as usual, 
 vanished instantly. Nevertheless, he appeared an hour or 
 two later beside the wagon in which Susy and Clarence 
 were seated, with an expression of satiated vengeance and 
 remorseful bloodguiltiness in his face, and his hair combed 
 Indian fashion over his eyes. As he generously contented 
 himself with only passing a gloomy and disparaging criti- 
 cism on the game of cards that the children were playing, 
 it struck Clarence for the first time that a great deal of his 
 real wickedness resided in his hair. This set him to think- 
 ing that it was strange that Mr. Peyton did not try to 
 reform him with a pair of scissors, but not until Clarence 
 himself had for at least four days attempted to imitate Jim 
 by combing his own hair in that fashion. 
 
 A few days later, Jim again casually favored him with 
 a confidential interview. Clarence had been allowed to 
 bestride one of the team leaders postilionwise, and was 
 correspondingly elevated, when Jim joined him, on the 
 Mexican plug, which appeared — no doubt a part of ita 
 wicked art — heavily docile, and even slightly lame. 
 
 "How much," said Jim in a tone of gloomy confidence, 
 
48 A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "how much did you reckon to make by stealin' that gal- 
 baby, sonny 1 " 
 
 "Nothing," replied Clarence, with a smile. Perhaps 
 it was an evidence of the marked influence that Jim was 
 beginning to exert over him that he already did not attempt 
 to resent this fascinating implication of grown-up guilt. 
 
 "It orter bin a good job, if it warn't revenge," contin- 
 ued Jim moodily. 
 
 "No, it wasn't revenge," said Clarence hurriedly. 
 
 "Then ye kalkilated ter get er hundred dollars reward 
 ef the old man and old woman had n't bin scelped afore ye 
 got up to 'em?" said Jim. "That's your blamed dod- 
 gasted luck, eh! Enyhow, you'll make Mrs. Peyton 
 plank down suthin' if she adopts the babby. Look yer, 
 young feller," he said, starting suddenly and throwing his 
 face forward, glaring fiendishly through his matted side- 
 locks, "d' ye mean ter tell me it wasn't a plant — a skin 
 game — the hull thing 1 " 
 
 " A what 1 " said Clarence. 
 
 " D' ye mean to say " — it was wonderful how gratui- 
 tously husky his voice became at this moment — " d' ye 
 mean ter tell me ye didn't set on them Injins to wipe out 
 the Silsbees, so that ye could hev an out-an'-out gal orfen 
 on hand f er Mrs. Peyton ter adopt — eh ? " 
 
 But here Clarence was forced to protest, and strongly, 
 although Jim contemptuously ignored it. "Don't lie ter 
 me," he repeated mysteriously, "I'm fly. I'm dark, 
 young fel. We're cahoots in this thing!" And with 
 this artful suggestion of being in possession of Clarence's 
 guilty secret, he departed in time to elude the usual objur- 
 gation of his superior, " Phil, " the head teamster. 
 
 Nor was his baleful fascination exercised entirely on 
 Clarence. In spite of Mrs. Peyton's jealously affectionate 
 care, Clarence's frequent companionship, and the little 
 circle of admiring courtiers that always surrounded Susy, 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 49 
 
 it became evident that this small Eve had been secretly 
 approached and tempted by the Satanic Jim. She was 
 found one day to have a few heron's feathers in her pos- 
 session with which she adorned her curls, and at another 
 time was discovered to have rubbed her face and arms with 
 yellow and red ochre, confessedly the free gift of Jim 
 Hooker. It was to Clarence alone that she admitted the 
 significance and purport of these offerings. "Jim giv'd 
 'em to me," she said, "and Jim 's a kind of Injin hisself 
 that won't hurt me; and when bad Injins come, they'll 
 think I 'm his Injin baby and run away. And Jim said 
 if I 'd just told the Injins, when they came to kill papa 
 and mamma, that I b'longed to him, they 'd hev runned 
 away." 
 
 "But," said the practical Clarence, "you could not; you 
 know you were with Mrs. Peyton all the time." 
 
 "Kla'uns," said Susy, shaking her head and fixing her 
 round blue eyes with calm mendacity on the boy, " don't 
 you tell me. 7" was there 1 " 
 
 Clarence started back, and nearly fell over the wagon in 
 hopeless dismay at the dreadful revelation of Susy's powers 
 of exaggeration. "But," he gasped, "you know, Susy, 
 you and me left before " — 
 
 "Kla'uns," said Susy calmly, making a little pleat in 
 the skirt of her dress with her small thumb and fingers, 
 "don't you talk to me. I was there. I 'se a seriver ! 
 The men at the fort said so! The serivers is alius, alius 
 there, and alius, alius knows every thin'." 
 
 Clarence was too dumfounded to reply. He had a 
 vague recollection of having noticed before that Susy was 
 very much fascinated by the reputation given to her at 
 Fort Bidge as a "survivor," and was trying in an infantile 
 way to live up to it. This the wicked Jim had evidently 
 encouraged. For a day or two Clarence felt a little afraid 
 of her, and more^ lonely than ever. 
 
50 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 It was in this state, and while he was doggedly conscious 
 that his association with Jim did not prepossess Mrs. Pey- 
 ton or her brother in his favor, and that the former even 
 believed him responsible for Susy's unhallowed acquaint- 
 ance with Jim, that he drifted into one of those youthful 
 escapades on which elders are apt to sit in severe but not 
 always considerate judgment. Believing, like many other 
 children, that nobody cared particularly for him, except to 
 restrain him, discovering, as children do, much sooner 
 than we complacently imagine, that love and preference 
 have no logical connection with desert or character, Clar- 
 ence became boyishly reckless. But when, one day, it 
 was rumored that a herd of buffalo was in the vicinity, 
 and that the train would be delayed the next morning in 
 order that a hunt might be organized by Gildersleeve, 
 Benham, and a few others, Clarence listened willingly to 
 Jim's proposition that they should secretly follow it. 
 
 To effect their unhallowed purpose required boldness 
 and duplicity. It was arranged that shortly after the 
 departure of the hunting party Clarence should ask permis- 
 sion to mount and exercise one of the team horses — a 
 favor that had been frequently granted him; that in the 
 outskirts of the camp he should pretend that the horse ran 
 away with him, and Jim would start in pursuit. The 
 absence of the shooting party with so large a contingent of 
 horses and men would preclude any further detachment 
 from the camp to assist them. Once clear, they would 
 follow the track of the hunters, and, if discovered by 
 them, would offer the same excuse, with the addition that 
 they had lost their way to the camp. The plan was sus- 
 sessful. The details were carried out with almost too per- 
 fect effect; as it appeared that Jim, in order to give dra- 
 matic intensity to the fractiousness of Clarence's horse, 
 had inserted a thorn-apple under the neck of his saddle, 
 which Clarence only discovered in time to prevent himself 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 51 
 
 from being unseated. Urged forward by ostentatious 
 " Whoas ! " and surreptitious cuts in the rear from Jim, 
 pursuer and pursued presently found themselves safely 
 beyond the half-dry stream and fringe of alder bushes that 
 skirted the camp. They were not followed. Whether 
 the teamsters suspected and winked at this design, or be- 
 lieved that the boys could take care of themselves, and ran 
 no risk of being lost in the proximity of the hunting party, 
 there was no general alarm. 
 
 Thus reassured, and having a general idea of the direc- 
 tion of the hunt, the boys pushed hilariously forward, 
 Before them opened a vast expanse of bottom land, slightly 
 sloping on the right to a distant half-filled lagoon, formed 
 by the main river overflow, on whose tributary they had 
 encamped. The lagoon was partly hidden by straggling 
 timber and " brush, " and beyond that, again, stretched the 
 unlimitable plains — the pasture of their mighty game. 
 Hither, Jim hoarsely informed his companion, the buffa- 
 loes came to water. A few rods further on, he started 
 dramatically, and, alighting, proceeded to slowly examine 
 the ground. It seemed to be scattered over with half- 
 circular patches, which he pointed out mysteriously as 
 "buffalo chip." To Clarence's inexperienced perception 
 the plain bore a singular resemblance to the surface of an 
 ordinary unromantic cattle pasture that somewhat chilled 
 his heroic fancy. However, the two companions halted 
 and professionally examined their arms and equipments. 
 
 These, I grieve to say, though varied, were scarcely full 
 or satisfactory. The necessities of their flight had re- 
 stricted Jim to an old double-barreled fowling-piece, which 
 he usually carried slung across his shoulders; an old-fash- 
 ioned "six-shooter," whose barrels revolved occasionally 
 and unexpectedly, known as "Allen's Pepper Box" on 
 account of its culinary resemblance; and a bowie-knife. 
 Clarence carried an Indian bow and arrow with which ho 
 
52 A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 had been exercising, and a hatchet which he had concealed 
 under the flanks of his saddle. To this Jim generously 
 added the six-shooter, taking the hatchet in exchange — 
 a transfer that at first delighted Clarence, until, seeing the 
 warlike and picturesque effect of the hatchet in Jim's belt, 
 he regretted the transfer. The gun, Jim meantime ex- 
 plained, " extry charged, " " chuck up " to the middle with 
 slugs and revolver bullets, could only he fired by himself, 
 and even then, he darkly added, not without danger. This 
 poverty of equipment was, however, compensated by oppo- 
 site statements from Jim of the extraordinary results 
 obtained by these simple weapons from " fellers I knew : " 
 how he himself had once brought down a " bull " by a bold 
 shot with a revolver through its open bellowing mouth 
 that pierced its " innards ; " how a friend of his ■ — . an inti- 
 mate in fact — now in jail at Louisville for killing a sher- 
 iff's deputy, had once found himself alone and dismounted 
 with a simple clasp-knife and a lariat among a herd of 
 buffaloes; how, leaping calmly upon the shaggy shoulders 
 of the biggest bull, he lashed himself with the lariat firmly 
 to its horns, goading it onward with his clasp-knife, and 
 subsisting for days upon the flesh cut from its living body, 
 until, abandoned by its fellows, and exhausted by loss of 
 blood, it finally succumbed to its victor at the very out- 
 skirts of the camp to which he had artfully driven it! It 
 must be confessed that this recital somewhat took away 
 Clarence's breath, and he would have liked to ask a few 
 questions. But they were alone on the prairie, and linked 
 by a common transgression; the glorious sun was coming 
 up victoriously, the pure, crisp air was intoxicating their 
 nerves; in the bright forecast of youth everything was 
 possible ! 
 
 The surface of the bottom land that they were crossing 
 was here and there broken up by fissures and "pot-holes," 
 and some circumspection in their progress became neces- 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 53 
 
 sary. In one of these halts, Clarence was struck by a 
 dull, monotonous jarring that sounded like the heavy, 
 regular fall of water over a dam. Each time that they 
 slackened their pace the sound would become more audible, 
 and was at last accompanied by that slight but unmistak- 
 able tremor of the earth that betrayed the vicinity of a 
 waterfall. Hesitating over this phenomenon, which seemed 
 to imply that their topography was wrong and that they 
 had blundered from the track, they were presently startled 
 by the fact that the sound was actually approaching them ! 
 With a sudden instinct they both galloped towards the 
 lagoon. As the timber opened before them Jim uttered 
 a long ecstatic shout: "Why, it 's them ! " 
 
 At a first glance it seemed to Clarence as if the whole 
 plain beyond was broken up and rolling in tumbling waves 
 or furrows towards them. A second glance showed the 
 tossing fronts of a vast herd of buffaloes, and here and 
 there, darting in and out and among them, or emerging 
 from the cloud of dust behind, wild figures and flashes of 
 fire. With the idea of water still in his mind, it seemed 
 as if some tumultuous cidal wave were sweeping unseen 
 towards the lagoon, carrying everything before it. He 
 turned with eager eyes, in speechless expectancy, to his 
 companion. 
 
 Alack ! that redoubtable hero and mighty hunter was, to 
 all appearances, equally speechless and astonished. It was 
 true that he remained rooted to the saddle, a lank, still 
 heroic figure, alternately grasping his bitchet and gun with 
 a kind of spasmodic regularity. How long he would have 
 continued this could never be known, for the next moment, 
 with a deafening crash, the herd broke through the brush, 
 and, swerving at the right of the lagoon, bore down directly 
 upon them. All further doubt or hesitation on their part 
 Was stopped. The far-seeing, sagacious Mexican plug with 
 a terrific snort wheeled and fled furiously with his ridet 
 
54' A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 Moved, no doubt, by touching fidelity, Clarence's humblei 
 team-horse instantly followed. In a few moments those 
 devoted animals struggled neck to neck in noble emulation. 
 
 "What are we goin' off this way for? " gasped the sim- 
 ple Clarence. 
 
 "Peyton and Gildersleeve are back there — and they'll 
 see us," gasped Jim in reply. It struck Clarence that the 
 buffaloes were much nearer them than the hunting party, 
 and that the trampling hoofs of a dozen bulls were close 
 behind them, but with another gasp he shouted : — 
 
 "When are we going to hunt 'em? " 
 
 " Hunt them ! " screamed Jim, with a hysterical out- 
 burst of truth; "why, they 're huntin' us — dash it!" 
 
 Indeed, there was no doubt that their frenzied horses 
 were flying before the equally frenzied herd behind them. 
 They gained a momentary advantage by riding into one of 
 the fissures, and out again on the other side, while their 
 pursuers were obliged to make a de"tour. But in a few 
 minutes they were overtaken by that part of the herd who 
 had taken the other and nearer side of the lagoon, and 
 were now fairly in the midst of them. The ground shook 
 with their trampling hoofs; their steaming breath, min- 
 gling with the stinging dust that filled the air, half choked 
 and blinded Clarence. He was dimly conscious that Jim 
 had wildly thrown his hatchet at a cow-buffalo pressing 
 close upon his flanks. As they swept down into another 
 gully he saw him raise his fateful gun in utter desperation. 
 Clarence crouched low on his horse's outstretched neck. 
 There was a blinding flash, a single stunning report from 
 both barrels ; Jim reeled in one way half out of the saddle, 
 while the smoking gun seemed to leap in another over his 
 head, and then rider and horse vanished in a choking 
 cloud of dust and gunpowder. A moment after Clarence's 
 horse stopped with a sudden check, and the boy felt him- 
 self hurled over its head into the gully, alighting on some- 
 
A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 55' 
 
 thing that seemed to be a bounding cushion of curled and 
 twisted hair. It was the shaggy shoulder of an enormous 
 buffalo! For Jim's desperate random shot and double 
 charge had taken effect on the near hind leg of a preceding 
 bull, tearing away the flesh and ham-stringing the animal, 
 who had dropped in the gully just in front of Clarence's 
 horse. 
 
 Dazed but unhurt, the boy rolled from the lifted fore 
 quarters of the struggling brute to the ground. When he 
 staggered to his feet again, not only his horse was gone, 
 but the whole herd of buffaloes seemed to have passed too, 
 and he could hear the shouts of unseen hunters now ahead 
 of him. They had evidently overlooked his fall, and the 
 gully had concealed him. The sides before him were too 
 steep for his aching limbs to climb; the slope by which he 
 and the bull had descended when the collision occurred was 
 behind the wounded animal. Clarence was staggering 
 towards it when the bull, by a supreme effort, lifted itself 
 on three legs, half turned, and faced him. 
 
 These events had passed too quickly for the inexperi- 
 enced boy to have felt any active fear, or indeed anything 
 but wild excitement and confusion. But the spectacle of 
 that shaggy and enormous front, that seemed to fill the 
 whole gully, rising with awful deliberation between him 
 and escape, sent a thrill of terror through his frame. The 
 great, dull, bloodshot eyes glared at him with a dumb, 
 wondering fury; the large wet nostrils were so near that 
 their first snort of inarticulate rage made him reel back- 
 wards as from a blow. The gully was only a narrow and 
 short fissure or subsidence of the plain; a few paees more 
 of retreat and he would be at its end, against an almost 
 perpendicular bank fifteen feet high. If he attempted to 
 climb its crumbling sides and fell, there would be those 
 short but terrible horns waiting to impale him ! It seemed 
 too terrible, too cruel ! He was so small beside this over- 
 
S6 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 grown monster. It wasn't fair! The teais started to his 
 eyes, and then, in a rage at the injustice of Fate, he stood 
 doggedly still with clenched fists. He fixed his gaze with 
 half-hysterical, childish fury on those lurid eyes; he did 
 not know that, owing to the strange magnifying power of 
 the bull's convex pupils, he, Clarence, appeared much 
 bigger than he really was to the brute's heavy conscious- 
 ness, the distance from him most deceptive, and that it 
 was to this fact that hunters so often owed their escape. 
 He only thought of some desperate means of attack. Ah ! 
 the six-shooter. It was still in his pocket. He drew it 
 nervously, hopelessly — it looked so small compared with 
 his large enemy ! 
 
 He presented it with flashing eyes, and pulled the 
 trigger. A feeble click followed, another, and again! 
 Even this had mocked him. He pulled the trigger onca 
 more, wildly; there was a sudden explosion, and another. 
 He stepped back ; the balls had apparently flattened them- 
 selves harmlessly on the bull's forehead. He pulled again, 
 hopelessly; there was another report, a sudden furious 
 bellow, and the enormous brute threw his head savagely 
 to one side, burying his left horn deep in the crumbling 
 bank beside him. Again and again he charged the bank, 
 driving his left horn home, and bringing down the stones 
 and earth in showers. It was some seconds before Clarence 
 saw in a single glimpse of that wildly tossing crest the 
 reason of this fury. The blood was pouring from his left 
 eye, penetrated by the last bullet ; the bull was blinded ! 
 A terrible revulsion of feeling, a sudden sense of remorse 
 that was for the moment more awful than even his previ- 
 ous fear, overcame him. He had done that thing! As 
 much to fly from the dreadful spectacle as any instinct of 
 self-preservation, he took advantage of the next mad par- 
 oxysms of pain and blindness, that always impelled the 
 suffering beast towards the left, to slip past him on the 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 57 
 
 right, reach the incline, and scramble wildly up to the 
 plain again. Here he ran confusedly forward, not know- 
 ing whither- — only caring to escape that agonized bellow- 
 ing, to shut out forever the accusing look of that huge 
 blood-weltering eye. 
 
 Suddenly he heard a distant angry,shout. To his first 
 hurried glance the plain had seemed empty, but, looking 
 up, he saw two horsemen rapidly advancing with a led 
 horse behind them — his own. With the blessed sense 
 of relief that overtook him now came the fevered desire 
 for sympathy and to tell them all. But as they came 
 nearer he saw that they were Gildersleeve, the scout, and 
 Henry Benham, and that, far from sharing any delight in 
 his deliverance, their faces only exhibited irascible impa- 
 tience. Overcome by this new defeat, the boy stopped, 
 again dumb and dogged. 
 
 "Now, then, blank it all, will you get up and come 
 along, or do you reckon to keep the train waiting another 
 hour over your blanked foolishness ? " said Gildersleeve 
 savagely. 
 
 The boy hesitated, and then mounted mechanically, 
 without a word. 
 
 " 'T would have served 'em right to have gone and left 
 'em," muttered Benham vindictively. 
 
 For one wild instant Clarence thought of throwing him- 
 self from his horse and bidding them go on and leave him. 
 But before he could put this thought into action the two 
 men were galloping forward, with his horse led by a lariat 
 fastened to the horn of Gildersleeve's saddle. 
 
 In two hours more they had overtaken the train, already 
 on the march, and were in the midst of the group of out- 
 riders. Judge Peyton's face, albeit a trifle perplexed, 
 turned towards Clarence with a kindly, half-tolerant look 
 of welcome. The boy's heart instantly melted with for- 
 giveness. 
 
58 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "Well, my boy, let's hear your story. What hap- 
 pened 1 " 
 
 Clarence cast a hurried glance around, and saw Jim, 
 with face averted, riding gloomily behind. Then ner- 
 vously and hurriedly he told how he had been thrown into 
 the gully on the back of the wounded buffalo, and the 
 manner of his escape. An audible titter ran through the 
 cavalcade. Mr. Peyton regarded him gravely. " But how 
 did the buffalo get so conveniently into the gully 1 " he 
 asked. 
 
 "Jim Hooker lamed him with a shot-gun, and he fell 
 over," said Clarence timidly. 
 
 A roar of Homeric laughter went up from the party. 
 Clarence looked up, stung and startled, but caught a single 
 glimpse of Jim Hooker's face that made him forget his 
 own mortification. In its hopeless, heart-sick, and utterly 
 beaten dejection — the first and only real expression he 
 had seen on it — he read the dreadful truth. Jims repu- 
 tation had ruined him! The one genuine and striking 
 e-pisode of his life, the one trustworthy account he had 
 given of it, had been unanimously accepted as the biggest 
 and most consummate lie of his record! 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 With this incident of the hunt closed, to Clarence, the 
 last remembered episode of his journey. But he did not 
 know until long after that it had also closed to him what 
 might have been the opening of a new career. For it had 
 been Judge Peyton's intention in adopting Susy to include 
 a certain guardianship and protection of the boy, provided 
 he could get the consent of that vague relation to whom he 
 was consigned. But it had been pointed out by Mrs. 
 Peyton and her brother that Clarence's association with 
 Jim Hooker had made him a doubtful companion for Susy, 
 and even the Judge himself was forced to admit that the 
 boy's apparent taste for evil company was inconsistent with 
 his alleged birth and breeding. Unfortunately, Clarence, 
 in the conviction of being hopelessly misunderstood, and 
 that dogged acquiescence to fate which was one of his char- 
 acteristics, was too proud to correct the impression by any 
 of the hypocrisies of childhood. He had also a cloudy 
 instinct of loyalty to Jim in his disgrace, without, how- 
 ever, experiencing either the sympathy of an equal or the 
 zeal of a partisan, but rather — if it could be said of a boy 
 of his years — with the patronage and protection of a 
 superior. So he accepted without demur the intimation 
 that when the train reached California he would be for- 
 warded from Stockton with an outfit and a letter of expla- 
 nation to Sacramento, it being understood that in the event 
 of not finding his relative he would return to the Peytons 
 in one of the southern valleys, where they elected to puiv 
 chase a tract of land. 
 
fiO A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "With this outlook, and the prospect of change, indepen- 
 dence, and all the rich possibilities that to the imagination 
 of youth are included in them, Clarence had found the 
 days dragging. The halt at Salt Lake, the transit of the 
 dreary alkali deseit, even the wild passage of the Sierras, 
 were but a blurred picture in his memory. The sight of 
 eternal snows and the rolling of endless ranks of pines, the 
 first glimpse of a hillside of wild oats, the spectacle of a 
 rushing yellow river that to his fancy seemed tinged with 
 gold, were momentary excitements, quickly forgotten. 
 But when, one morning, halting at the outskirts of a strug- 
 gling settlement, he found the entire party eagerly gathered 
 around a passing stranger, who had taken from his saddle- 
 bags a small buckskin pouch to show them a double hand- 
 ful of shining scales of metal, Clarence felt the first 
 feverish and overmastering thrill of the gold-seekers. 
 Breathlessly he followed the breathless questions and care- 
 less replies. The gold had been dug out of a placer only 
 thirty miles away. It might be worth, say, a hundred 
 and fifty dollars; it was only Ms share of a week's work 
 with two partners. It was not much; "the country was 
 getting played out with fresh arrivals and greenhorns." 
 All this falling carelessly from the unshaven lips of a 
 dusty, roughly dressed man, with a long-handled shovel 
 and pickaxe strapped on his back, and a frying-pan depend- 
 ing from his saddle. But no panoplied or armed knight 
 ever seemed so heroic or independent a figure to Clarence. 
 What could be finer than the noble scorn conveyed in his 
 critical survey of the train, with its comfortable covered 
 wagons and appliances of civilization? "Ye '11 hev to get 
 rid of them there fixin's if yer goin' in for placer dig- 
 gin' ! " What a corroboration of Clarence's real thoughts! 
 What a picture of independence was this ! The pictur- 
 esque scout, the all-powerful Judge Peyton, the daring 
 young officer, all crumbled on their clayey pedestals before 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 61 
 
 this hero in a red flannel shirt and high-topped hoots. To 
 stroll around in the open air all day, and pick up those 
 shining bits of metal, without study, without method or 
 routine — this was really life ; to some day come upon that 
 large nugget "you couldn't lift," that was worth as much 
 as the train and horses — such a one as the stranger said 
 was found the other day at Sawyer's Bar — this was worth 
 giving up everything for. That rough man, with his smile 
 of careless superiority, was the living link between Clarence 
 and the Thousand and One Nights; in him were Aladdin 
 and Sindbad incarnate. 
 
 Two days later they reached Stockton. Here Clarence, 
 whose single suit of clothes had been reinforced by patch- 
 ing, odds and ends from Peyton's stores, and an extraor- 
 dinary costume of army cloth, got up by the regimental 
 tailor of Fort Ridge, was taken to be refitted at a general' 
 furnishing "emporium." But alas! in the selection of the 
 clothing for that adult locality scant provision seemed to 
 have been made for a boy of Clarence's years, and he was 
 with difficulty fitted from an old condemned Government 
 stores with "a boy's" seaman suit and a brass-buttoned 
 pea-jacket. To this outfit Mr. Peyton added a small sum 
 of money for his expenses and a letter of explanation to 
 his cousin. The stagecoach was to start at noon. It 
 only remained for Clarence to take leave of the party. 
 The final parting with Susy had been discounted on the 
 two previous days with some tears, small frights and cling- 
 ings, and the expressed determination on the child's part 
 " to go with him ; " but in the excitement of the arrival 
 at Stockton it was still further mitigated, and under the 
 influence of a little present from Clarence — his first dis- 
 bursement of his small capital — had at last taken the form 
 and promise of merely temporary separation. Neverthe- 
 less, when the boy's scanty pack was deposited under the 
 stagecoach seat, and he had been left alone, he ran rapidly 
 
62 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 back to the train for one moment more with Susy. Pant- 
 ing and a little frightened, he reached Mrs. Peyton's car. 
 
 "Goodness! You're not gone yet," said Mrs. Peyton 
 sharply. " Do you want to lose the stage 1 " 
 
 An instant before, in his loneliness, he might have 
 answered, "Yes." But under the cruel sting of Mrs. 
 Peyton's evident annoyance at his reappearance he felt his 
 legs suddenly tremble, and his voice left him. He did 
 not dare to look at Susy. But her voice rose comfortably 
 from the depths of the wagon where she was sitting. 
 
 "The stage will be goned away, Kla'uns." 
 
 She too ! Shame at his foolish weakness sent the yearn- 
 ing blood that had settled round his heart flying back into 
 his face. 
 
 "I was looking for — for — for Jim, ma'am," he said 
 at last boldly. 
 
 He saw a look of disgust pass over Mrs. Peyton's face, 
 and felt a malicious satisfaction as he turned and ran back 
 to the stage. But here, to his surprise, he actually found 
 Jim, whom he really had n't thought of, darkly watching 
 the last strapping of luggage. With a manner calculated to 
 convey the impression to the other passengers that he was 
 parting from a brother criminal, probably on his way to a 
 state prison, Jim shook hands gloomily with Clarence, and 
 eyed the other passengers furtively between his matted locks. 
 
 "Ef ye hear o' anythin' happenin', ye '11 know what's 
 up, " he said in a low, hoarse, but perfectly audible whisper. 
 " Me and them 's bound to part company afore long. Tell the 
 fellows at Deadman's Gulch to look out for me at any time." 
 
 Although Clarence was not going to Deadman's Gulch, 
 knew nothing of it, and had a faint suspicion that Jim was 
 equally ignorant, yet as one or two of the passengers 
 glanced anxiously at the demure, gray-eyed boy who 
 seemed booked for such a baleful destination, he really felt 
 the half-delighted, half-frightened consciousness that he 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 63 
 
 was starting in life under fascinating immoral pretenses. 
 But the forward spring of the fine-spirited horses, the 
 quickened motion, the glittering sunlight, and the thought 
 that he really was leaving behind him all the shackles of 
 dependence and custom, and plunging into a life of free- 
 dom, drove all else from his mind. He turned at last 
 from this hopeful, blissful future, and began to examine 
 his fellow passengers with boyish curiosity. Wedged in 
 between two silent men on the front seat, one of whom 
 seemed a farmer, and the other, by his black attire, a pro- 
 fessional man, Clarence was finally attracted by a black- 
 mantled, dark-haired, bonnetless woman on the back seat, 
 whose attention seemed to be monopolized by the jocular 
 gallantries of her companions and the two men before her 
 in the middle seat. From her position he could see little 
 more than her dark eyes, which occasionally seemed to 
 meet his frank curiosity in an amused sort of way, but he 
 was chiefly struck by the pretty foreign sound of her musi- 
 cal voice, which was unlike anything he had ever heard 
 before, and — alas for the inconstancy of youth — much 
 finer than Mrs. Peyton's. Presently his farmer compan- 
 ion, casting a patronizing glance on Clarence's pea-jacket 
 and brass buttons, said cheerily : — 
 
 "Jest off a voyage, sonny? " 
 
 "No, sir," stammered Clarence; "I came across the 
 plains. " 
 
 "Then I reckon that's the rig-out for the crew of a 
 prairie schooner, eh ? " There was a laugh at this which 
 perplexed Clarence. Observing it, the humorist kindly 
 condescended to explain that "prairie schooner" was the 
 current slang for an emigrant wagon. 
 
 "I couldn't," explained Clarence, naively looking at 
 the dark eyes on the back seat, "get any clothes at Stock- 
 ton but these; I suppose the folks didn't think there 'd 
 ever be boys in California." 
 
64 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 The simplicity of this speech evidently impressed the 
 others, for the two men in the middle seats turned at a 
 whisper from the lady and regarded him curiously. Clar- 
 ence blushed slightly and became silent. Presently the 
 vehicle began to slacken its speed. They were ascending 
 a hill; on either bank grew huge cottonwoods, from which 
 occasionally depended a beautiful scarlet vine. 
 
 "Ah! eet ees pretty," said the lady, nodding her black- 
 veiled head towards it. "Eet is good in ze hair." 
 
 One of the men made an awkward attempt to clutch a 
 spray from the window. A brilliant inspiration flashed 
 upon Clarence. When the stage began the ascent of the 
 next hill, following the example of an outside passenger, 
 he jumped down to walk. At the top of the hill he 
 rejoined the stage, flushed and panting, but carrying a 
 small branch of the vine in his scratched hands. Handing 
 it to the man on the middle seat, he said, with grave, 
 boyish politeness — " Please — for the lady. " 
 
 A slight smile passed over the face of Clarence's neigh- 
 bors. The bonnetless woman nodded a pleasant acknow- 
 ledgment, and coquettishly wound the vine in her glossy 
 hair. The dark man at his side, who hadn't spoken yet, 
 turned to Clarence dryly. 
 
 " If you 're goin' to keep up this gait, sonny, I reckon 
 ye won't find much trouble gettin' a man's suit to fit you 
 by the time you reach Sacramento. " 
 
 Clarence didn't quite understand him, but noticed that[ 
 a singular gravity seemed to overtake the two jocular men 1 
 on the middle seat, and the lady looked out of the window. 
 He came to the conclusion that he had made a mistake 
 about alluding to his clothes and his size. He must try 
 and behave more manly. That opportunity seemed to be 
 offered two hours later, when the stage stopped at a way- 
 side hotel or restaurant. 
 
 Two or three passengers had got down to refresh them- 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 6a 
 
 selves at the bar. His right and left hand neighbors 
 were, however, engaged in a drawling conversation on the 
 comparative merits of San Erancisco sand-hill and water 
 lots; the jocular occupants of the middle seat were still 
 engrossed with the lady. Clarence slipped out of the stage 
 and entered the bar-room with some ostentation. The 
 complete ignoring of his person by the barkeeper and his 
 customers, however, somewhat disconcerted him. He 
 hesitated a moment, and then returned gravely to the stage 
 door and opened it. 
 
 "Would you mind taking a drink with me, sir?" said 
 Clarence politely, addressing the farmer-looking passenger 
 who had been most civil to him. A dead silence followed. 
 The two men on the middle seat faced entirely around to 
 gaze at him. 
 
 "The Commodore asks if you '11 take a drink with him," 
 explained one of the men to Clarence's friend with the 
 greatest seriousness. 
 
 "Eh? Oh yes, certainly," returned that gentleman, 
 changing his astonished expression to one of the deepest 
 gravity, "seeing it's the Commodore." 
 
 "And perhaps you and your friend will join, too?" 
 said Clarence timidly to the passenger who had explained; 
 " and you too, sir ? " he added to the dark man. 
 
 "Really, gentlemen, I don't see how we can refuse," 
 said the latter, with the greatest formality, and appealing 
 to the others. " A compliment of this kind from our dis- 
 tinguished friend is not to be taken lightly. " 
 
 "I have observed, sir, that the Commodore's head is 
 level," returned the other man with equal gravity. 
 
 Clarence could have wished they had not treated his 
 first hospitable effort quite so formally, but as they stepped 
 from the coach with unbending faces he led them, a little 
 frightened, into the bar-room. Here, unfortunately, as 
 he was barely able to reach over the counter, the barkeeper 
 
66 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 t 
 
 would have again overlooked him but for a quick glance 
 from the dark man, which seemed to change even the bar- 
 keeper's perfunctory smiling face into supernatural gravity. 
 
 "The Commodore is standing treat," said the dark man, 
 with unbroken seriousness, indicating Clarence, and leaning 
 back with an air of respectful formality. "I will take 
 straight whiskey. The Commodore, on account of just 
 changing climate, will, I believe, for the present content 
 himself with lemon soda." 
 
 Clarence had previously resolved to take whiskey, like 
 the others, but a little doubtful of the politeness of coun- 
 termanding his guest's order, and perhaps slightly embar- 
 rassed by the fact that all the other customers seemed to 
 have gathered round him and his party with equally im- 
 movable faces, he said hurriedly : — 
 
 "Lemon soda for me, please." 
 
 "The Commodore," said the barkeeper, with impassive 
 features, as he bent forward and wiped the counter with 
 professional deliberation, "is right. No matter how much 
 a man may be accustomed all his life to liquor, when he is 
 changing climate, gentlemen, he says ' Lemon soda for me ' 
 all the time." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Clarence, brightening, "you will join 
 too ? " 
 
 "I shall be proud on this occasion, sir." f 
 
 "I think," said the tall man, still as ceremoniously 
 unbending as before, " that there can be but one toast here, 
 gentlemen. I give you the health of the Commodore. 
 May his shadow never be less." 
 
 The health was drunk solemnly. Clarence felt his 
 cheeks tingle, and in his excitement drank his own health 
 with the others. Yet he was disappointed that there was 
 not more joviality; he wondered if men always drank 
 together so stiffly. And it occurred to him that it would 
 be expensive. Nevertheless, he had his purse all ready 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 67 
 
 ostentatiously in his hand; in fact, the paying for it out 
 of his own money was not the least manly and independent 
 pleasure he had promised himself. " How much 1 " he 
 asked, with an affectation of carelessness. 
 
 The barkeeper cast his eye professionally over the bar- 
 room. "I think you said treats for the crowd; call it 
 twenty dollars to make even change." 
 
 Clarence's heart sank. He had heard already of the 
 exaggeration of California prices. Twenty dollars! It 
 was half his fortune. Nevertheless, with an heroic effort, 
 he controlled himself, and with slightly nervous fingers 
 counted out the money. It struck him, however, as curi- 
 ous, not to say ungentlemanly, that the bystanders craned 
 their necks over his shoulder to look at the contents of hia 
 purse, although some slight explanation was offered by 
 the tall man. 
 
 "The Commodore's purse, gentlemen, is really a singular 
 one. Permit me," he said, taking it from Clarence's hand 
 with great politeness. " It is one of the new pattern, you 
 observe, quite worthy of inspection." He handed it to a 
 man behind him, who in turn handed it to another, while 
 a chorus of "suthin' quite new," "the latest style," fol- 
 lowed it in its passage round the room, and indicated to 
 Clarence its whereabouts. It was presently handed back 
 to the barkeeper, who had begged also to inspect it, and 
 who, with an air of scrupulous ceremony, insisted upon 
 placing it himself in Clarence's side pocket, as if it were 
 an important part of his function. The driver here called 
 "all aboard." The passengers hurriedly reseated them- 
 selves, and the episode abruptly ended. For, to Clarence's 
 surprise, these attentive friends of a moment ago at once 
 became interested in the views of a new passenger concern- 
 ing the local politics of San Francisco, and he found him- 
 self utterly forgotten. The bonnetless woman had changed 
 her position, and her head was no longer visible. The 
 
68 A WAIF (A THE KLAINS 
 
 disillusion and depression that overcame him suddenly 
 ivere as complete as his previous expectations and hopeful- 
 ness had been extravagant. For the first time his utter 
 unimportance in the world and his inadequacy to this new 
 life around him came upon him crushingly. 
 
 The heat and jolting of the stage caused him to fall into 
 a slight slumber, and when he awoke he found his two 
 neighbors had just got out at a wayside station. They 
 had evidently not cared to waken him to say "good-by." 
 From the conversation of the other passengers he learned 
 that the tall man was a well-known gambler, and the one 
 who looked like a farmer was a ship captain who had 
 become a wealthy merchant. Clarence thought he under- 
 stood now why the latter had asked him if he came off 
 a voyage, and that the nickname of " Commodore " given 
 to him, Clarence, was some joke intended for the captain's 
 understanding. He missed them, for he wanted to talk 
 to them about his relative at Sacramento, whom he was 
 now so soon to see. At last, between sleeping and wak- 
 ing, the end of his journey was unexpectedly reached. It 
 was dark, but, being "steamer night," the shops and busi- 
 ness places were still open, and Mr. Peyton had arranged 
 that the stage-driver should deliver Clarence at the address 
 of his relative in "J Street," — an address which Clarence 
 had luckily remembered. But the boy was somewhat dis- 
 comfited to find that it was a large office or banking-house. 
 He, however, descended from the stage, and with his small 
 pack in his hand entered the building as the stage drove 
 off, and, addressing one of the busy clerks, asked for " Mr. 
 Jackson Brant." 
 
 There was no such person in the office. There never 
 had been any such person. The bank had always occupied 
 that building. Was there not some mistake in the num- 
 ber? No; the name, number, and street had been deeply 
 engrafted in the boy's recollection. Stop! it might be the 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 69 
 
 name of a customer who had given his address at the bank. 
 The clerk who made this suggestion disappeared promptly 
 to make inquiries in the counting-room. Clarence, with 
 a rapidly beating heart, awaited him. The clerk returned. 
 There was no such name on the books. Jackson Brant 
 was utterly unknown to every one in the establishment. 
 
 For an instant the counter against which the boy was 
 leaning seemed to yield with his weight; he was obliged 
 to steady himself with both hands to keep from falling. 
 It was not his disappointment, which was terrible ; it was 
 not a thought of his future, which seemed hopeless; it was 
 not his injured pride at appearing to have willfully deceived 
 Mr. Peyton, which was more dreadful than all these; but 
 it was the sudden, sickening sense that he himself had 
 been deceived, tricked, and fooled! For it flashed upon 
 him for the first time that the vague sense of wrong which 
 had always haunted him was this — that this was the vile 
 culmination of a plan to get rid of him, and that he had 
 been deliberately lost and led astray by his relatives as 
 helplessly and completely as a useless cat or dog! 
 
 Perhaps there was something of this in his face, for the 
 clerk, staring at him, bade him sit down for a moment, 
 and again vanished into the mysterious interior. Clarence 
 had no conception how long he was absent, or indeed of 
 anything but his own breathless thoughts, for he was con- 
 scious of wondering afterwards why the clerk was leading 
 him through a door in the counter into an inner room of 
 many desks, and again through a glass door into a smaller 
 office, where a preternaturally busy-looking man sat writ- 
 ing at a desk. Without looking up, but pausing only to 
 apply a blotting-pad to the paper before him, the man said 
 crisply : — 
 
 "So you 've been consigned to some one who don't seem 
 to turn up, and can't be found, eh? Never mind that," 
 as Clarence laid Peyton's letter before him. " Can't read 
 
70 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 it now. Well, I suppose you want to be shipped back to 
 Stockton?" 
 
 "No! " said the boy, recovering his voice with an effort. 
 
 "Eh, that 's business, though. Know anybody here? " 
 
 "Not a living soul; that 's why they sent me," said the 
 boy in sudden reckless desperation. He was the more 
 furious that he knew the tears were standing in his eyes. 
 
 The idea seemed to strike the man amusingly. " Looks 
 a little like it, don't it 1 " he said, smiling grimly at the 
 paper before him. " Got any mcney ? " 
 
 "A little." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "About twenty dollars," said Clarence hesitatingly. 
 The man opened a drawer at his side, mechanically, foi 
 he did not raise his eyes, and took out two ten-dollar gold 
 pieces. "I'll go twenty better," he said, laying them 
 down on the desk. "That'll give you a chance to look 
 around. Come back here, if you don't see your way 
 clear." He dipped his pen into the ink with a significant 
 gesture as if closing the interview. 
 
 Clarence pushed back the coin. "I'm not a beggar," 
 he said doggedly. 
 
 The man this time raised his head and surveyed the boy 
 with two keen eyes. " You 're not, hey ? Well, do I 
 look like one ? " 
 
 "No," stammered Clarence, as he glanced into the 
 man's haughty eyes. 
 
 "Yet, if I were in your fix, I'd take that money and 
 be glad to get it." 
 
 "If you'll let me pay you back again," said Clarence, 
 a little ashamed, and considerably frightened at his implied 
 accusation of the man before him. 
 
 "You can," said the man, bending over his desk again. 
 
 Clarence took up the money and awkwardly drew out 
 his purse. But it was the first time he had touched it 
 
A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 71 
 
 since it was returned to him in the har-room, and it struck 
 him that it was heavy and full — indeed, so full that on 
 opening it a few coins rolled out on to the floor. The 
 man looked up abruptly. 
 
 " I thought you said you had only twenty dollars 1 " he 
 remarked grimly. 
 
 "Mr. Peyton gave me forty," returned Clarence, stupe- 
 fied and blushing. "I spent twenty dollars for drinks at 
 the bar — and, " he stammered, "I — I — I don't know 
 how the rest came here." 
 
 "You spent twenty dollars for drinks?" said the man, 
 laying down his pen, and leaning back in his chair to gaze 
 at the boy. 
 
 " Yes — that is — I treated some gentlemen of the stage, 
 sir, at Davidson's Crossing." 
 
 "Did you treat the whole stage company? " 
 
 " No, sir, only about four or five — and the barkeeper. 
 But everything 's so dear in California, /know that." 
 
 "Evidently. But it don't seem to make much differ- 
 ence with you," said the man, glancing at the purse. 
 
 "They wanted my purse to look at," said Clarence hur- 
 riedly, "and that's how the thing happened. Somebody 
 put his own money back into my purse by accident." 
 
 " Of course, " said the man grimly. 
 
 "Yes, that 's the reason," said Clarence, a little relieved, 
 but somewhat embarrassed by the man's persistent eyes. 
 
 "Then, of course," said the other quietly, "you don't 
 require my twenty dollars now." 
 
 "But," returned Clarence hesitatingly, "this isn't my 
 money. I must find out who it belongs to, and give it 
 back again. Perhaps," he added timidly, "I might leave 
 it here with you, and call for it when I find the man, or 
 send him here." 
 
 With the greatest gravity he here separated the surplus 
 from what was left of Peyton's gift and the twenty dollars 
 
72 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 he had just received. The balance unaccounted for was 
 forty dollars. He laid it on the desk before the man, 
 who, still looking at him, rose and opened the door. 
 
 "Mr. Eeed." 
 
 The clerk who had shown Clarence in appeared. 
 
 "Open an account with" — He stopped and turned 
 interrogatively to Clarence. 
 
 "Clarence Brant," said Clarence, coloring with excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "With Clarence Brant. Take that deposit" — point- 
 ing to the money — " and give him a receipt. " He paused 
 as the clerk retired with a wondering gaze at the money, 
 looked again at Clarence, said, "I think you'll do," 
 and reentered the private office, closing the door behind 
 him. 
 
 I hope it will not be deemed inconceivable that Clar- 
 ence, only a few moments before crushed with bitter disap- 
 pointment and the hopeless revelation of his abandonment 
 by his relatives, now felt himself lifted up suddenly into 
 an imaginary height of independence and manhood. He 
 was leaving the bank, in which he stood a minute before 
 a friendless boy, not as a successful beggar, for this impor- 
 tant man had disclaimed the idea, but absolutely as a cus- 
 tomer! a depositor! a business man like the grown-up 
 clients who were thronging the other office, and before the 
 eyes of the clerk who had pitied him ! And he, Clarence, 
 had been spoken to by this man, whose name he now re- 
 cognized as the one that was on the door of the building — 
 a man of whom his fellow passengers had spoken with 
 admiring envy — a banker famous in all California ! Will 
 it be deemed incredible that this imaginative and hopeful 
 boy, forgetting all else, the object of his visit, and even 
 the fact that he considered this money was not his own, 
 actually put his hat a little on one side as he strolled out 
 on his way to the streets and prospective fortune 1 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 73 
 
 Two hours later the banker had another visitor. It 
 chanced to be the farmer-looking man who had been Clar- 
 ence's fellow passenger. Evidently a privileged person, 
 he was at once ushered as " Captain Stevens " into the 
 presence of the banker. At the end of a familiar business 
 interview the captain asked carelessly : — 
 
 " Any letters for me 1 " 
 
 The busy banker pointed with his pen to the letter 
 " S " in a row of alphabetically labeled pigeon-holes against 
 the wall. The captain, having selected his correspondence, 
 paused with a letter in his hand. 
 
 "Look here, Carden, there 's a letter here for some chap 
 called ' John Silsbee. ' It was here when I called, ten 
 weeks ago." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "That's the name of that Pike County man who was 
 killed by Injins in the plains. The 'Frisco papers had all 
 the particulars last night; maybe it's for that fellow. It 
 hasn't got a postmark. Who left it here? " 
 
 Mr. Carden summoned a clerk. It appeared that the 
 letter had been left by a certain Brant Fauquier, to be 
 called for. 
 
 Captain Stevens smiled. "Brant 's been too busy deal- 
 in' faro to think of 'em agin, and since that shootin' affair 
 at Angels, I hear he 's skipped to the southern coast some- 
 where. Cal Johnson, his old chum, was in the up stage 
 from Stockton this afternoon." 
 
 " Did you come by the up stage from Stockton this after- 
 noon 1 " said Carden, looking up. 
 
 " Yes, as far as Ten-mile Station — rode the rest of the 
 way here." 
 
 "Did you notice a queer little old-fashioned kid — about 
 so high — like a runaway schoolboy 1 " 
 
 "Did I? By G— d! sir, he treated me to drinks." 
 
 Carden jumped from his chair. "Then he wasn't 
 lying!" 
 
74 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "No! We let him do it; but we made it good for the 
 little chap afterwards. Hello! What 'sup?" 
 
 But Mr. Carden was already in the outer office beside 
 the clerk who had admitted Clarence. 
 
 " You remember that boy Brant who was here 1 " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Where did he go?" 
 
 "Don't know, sir." 
 
 "Go and find him somewhere and somehow. Go to all 
 the hotels, restaurants, and gin-mills near here, and hunt 
 him up. Take some one with you, if you can't do it 
 alone. Bring him back here, quick ! " 
 
 It was nearly midnight when the clerk fruitlessly re- 
 turned. It was the fierce high noon of " steamer nights ; " 
 light flashed brilliantly from shops, counting-houses, drink- 
 ing-saloons, and gambling-hells. The streets were yet full 
 of eager, hurrying feet — swift to fortune, ambition, plea- 
 sure, or crime. But from among these deeper, harsher 
 footfalls the echo of the homeless boy's ligh* i»ioocent 
 tread seemed to have died out forever. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Whejt Clarence was once more in the busy street before 
 the bank, it seemed clear to his boyish mind that, being 
 now cast adrift upon the world and responsible to no one, 
 there was no reason why he should not at once proceed to 
 the nearest gold mines! The idea of returning to Mr. 
 Peyton and Susy, as a disowned and abandoned outcast, 
 was not to be thought of. He would purchase some kind 
 of an outfit, such as he had seen the miners carry, and 
 start off as soon as he had got his supper. But although 
 one of his most delightful anticipations had been the unfet- 
 tered freedom of ordering a meal at a restaurant, on enter- 
 ing the first one he found himself the object of so much 
 curiosity, partly from his size and partly from his dress, 
 which the unfortunate boy was beginning to suspect was 
 really preposterous, that he turned away with a stammered 
 excuse, and did not try another. Further on he found 
 a baker's shop, where he refreshed himself with some 
 gingerbread and lemon soda. At an adjacent grocery he 
 purchased some herrings, smoked beef, and biscuits, as 
 future provisions for his " pack " or kit. Then began his 
 real quest for an outfit. In an hour he had secured — 
 ostensibly for some friend, to avoid curious inquiry — a 
 pan, a blanket, a shovel and pick, all of which he deposited 
 at the baker's, his unostentatious headquarters, with the 
 exception of a pair of disguising high boots that half hid 
 his sailor trousers, which he kept to put on at the last. 
 Even to his inexperience the cost of these articles seemed 
 enormous ; when his purchases were complete, of his entire 
 
76 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 capital scarcely four dollars remained! Yet in the fond 
 illusions of boyhood these rude appointments seemed pos- 
 sessed of far more value than the gold he had given in 
 exchange for them, and he had enjoyed a child's delight 
 in testing the transforming magic of money. 
 
 Meanwhile, the feverish contact of the crowded street 
 had, strange to say, increased his loneliness, while the 
 ruder joviality of its dissipations began to fill him with 
 a vague uneasiness. The passing glimpse of dancing-halls 
 and gaudily whirling figures that seemed only feminine in 
 their apparel; the shouts and boisterous choruses from 
 concert rooms; the groups of drunken roisterers that con- 
 gregated around the doors of saloons or, hilariously charg- 
 ing down the streets, elbowed him against the wall, or 
 humorously insisted on his company, discomposed and 
 frightened him. He had known rude companionship 
 before, but it was serious, practical, and under control. 
 There was something in this vulgar degradation of intellect 
 and power — qualities that Clarence had always boyishly 
 worshiped — which sickened and disillusioned him. Later 
 on a pistol shot in a crowd beyond, the rush of eager men 
 past him, the disclosure of a limp and helpless figure against 
 the wall, the closing of the crowd again around it, although 
 it stirred him with a fearful curiosity, actually shocked 
 him less hopelessly than their brutish enjoyments and 
 abandonment. 
 
 It was in one of these rushes that he had been crushed 
 against a swinging door, which, giving way to his pressure, 
 disclosed to his wondering eyes a long, glitteringly adorned, 
 and brightly lit room, densely filled with a silent, attentive 
 throng in attitudes of decorous abstraction and preoccupa- 
 tion, that even the shouts and tumult at its very doors 
 could not disturb. Men of all ranks and conditions, 
 plainly or elaborately clad, were grouped together under 
 this magic spell of silence and attention. The tables before 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 77 
 
 them were covered with cards and loose heaps of gold and 
 silver. A clicking, the rattling of an ivory ball, and the 
 frequent, formal, lazy reiteration of some unintelligible 
 sentence was all that he heard. But by a sudden instinct 
 he understood it all. It was a gambling saloon! 
 
 Encouraged by the decorous stillness, and the fact that 
 everybody appeared too much engaged to notice him, the 
 boy drew timidly beside one of the tables. It was covered 
 with a number of cards, on which were placed certain sums 
 of money. Looking down, Clarence saw that he was 
 standing before a card that as yet had nothing on it. A 
 single player at his side looked up, glanced at Clarence 
 curiously, and then placed half a dozen gold pieces on the 
 vacant card. Absorbed in the general aspect of the room 
 and the players, Clarence did not notice that his neighbor 
 won twice, and even thrice, upon that card. Becoming 
 aware, however, that the player, while gathering in his 
 gains, was smilingly regarding him, he moved in some 
 embarrassment to the other end. of the table, where there 
 seemed another gap in the crowd. It so chanced that here 
 was also another vacant card. The previous neighbor of 
 Clarence instantly shoved a sum of money across the table 
 on the vacant card and won! At this the other players 
 began to regard Clarence singularly, one or two of the 
 spectators smiled, and the boy, coloring, moved awkwardly 
 away. But his sleeve was caught by the successful player, 
 who, detaining him gently, put three gold pieces into his 
 hand. 
 
 "That's your share, sonny," he whispered. 
 
 " Share — for what 1 " stammered the astounded Clar- 
 ence. 
 
 " For bringing me ' the luck, ' " said the man. 
 
 Clarence stared. " Am I — to — to play with it ? " hfe 
 said, glancing at the coins and then at the table, in igno- 
 rance of the stranger's meaning. 
 
78 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "No, no!" said the man hurriedly, "don't do that 
 You'll lose it, sonny, sure! Don't you see, you bring 
 the luck to others, not to yourself. Keep it, old man, and 
 run home ! " 
 
 "I don't want it! I won't have it!" said Clarence, 
 with a swift recollection of the manipulation of his purse 
 that morning, and a sudden distrust of all mankind. 
 
 "There!" He turned back to the table and laid the 
 money on the first vacant card he saw. In another mo- 
 ment, as it seemed to him, it was raked away by the dealer. 
 A sense of relief came over him. 
 
 "There!" said the man, with an awed voice and a 
 strange, fatuous look in his eye. "What did I tell you? 
 You see, it's alius so! Now," he added roughly, "get 
 up and get out o' this, afore you lose the boots and shirt 
 off ye." 
 
 Clarence did not wait for a second command. With 
 another glance round the room, he began to make his way 
 through the crowd towards the front. But in that part- 
 ing glance he caught a glimpse of a woman presiding over 
 a " wheel of fortune " in a corner, whose face seemed famil- 
 iar. He looked again, timidly. In spite of an extraordi- 
 nary head-dress or crown that she wore as the "Goddess 
 of Fortune," he recognized, twisted in its tinsel, a certain 
 scarlet vine which he had seen before; in spite of the 
 hoarse formula which she was continually repeating, he 
 recognized the foreign accent. It was the woman of the 
 stagecoach! With a sudden dread that she might recog- 
 nize him, and likewise demand his services "for luck," he 
 turned and fled. 
 
 Once more in the open air, there came upon him a vague 
 loathing and horror of the restless madness and feverish 
 distraction of this half-civilized city. It was the more 
 powerful that it was vague, and the outcome of some in- 
 ward instinct. He found himself longing for the pure ah 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 79 
 
 and sympathetic loneliness of the plains and wilderness; 
 he began to yearn for the companionship of his humble 
 associates — the teamster, the scout Gildersleeve, and even 
 Jim Hooker. But above all and before all was the wild 
 desire to get away from these maddening streets and their 
 bewildering occupants. He ran back to the baker's, gath- 
 ered his purchases together, took advantage of a friendly 
 doorway to strap them on his boyish shoulders, slipped 
 into a side street, and struck out at once for the outskirts. 
 
 It had been his first intention to take stage to the near- 
 est mining district, but the diminution of his small capital 
 forbade that outlay, and he decided to walk there by the 
 highroad, of whose general direction he had informed him- 
 self. In half an hour the lights of the flat, struggling 
 city, and their reflection in the shallow, turbid river before 
 it, had sunk well behind him. The air was cool and soft; 
 a yellow moon swam in the slight haze that rose above the 
 tules; in the distance a few scattered cottonwoods and 
 sycamores marked like sentinels the road. When he had 
 walked some distance he sat down beneath one of them to 
 make a frugal supper from the dry rations in his pack, but 
 in the absence of any spring he was forced to quench his 
 thirst with a glass of water in a wayside tavern. Here he 
 was good humoredly offered something stronger, which he 
 declined, and replied to certain curious interrogations by 
 saying that he expected to overtake his friends in a wagon 
 further on. A new distrust of mankind had begun to 
 make the boy an adept in innocent falsehood, the more 
 deceptive as his careless, cheerful manner, the result of his 
 relief at leaving the city, and his perfect ease in the loving 
 companionship of night and nature, certainly gave no indi- 
 cation of his homelessness and poverty. 
 
 It was long past midnight when, weary in body, but 
 still hopeful and happy in mind, he turned off the dusty 
 road into a vast rolling expanse of wild oats, with the 
 
80 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 same sense of security of rest as a traveler to his inn. 
 Here, completely screened from view by the tall stalks of 
 grain that rose thickly around him to the height of a man's 
 shoulder, he beat down a few of them for a bed, on which 
 he deposited his blanket. Placing his pack for a pillow, 
 he curled himself up in his blanket, and speedily fell 
 asleep. 
 
 He awoke at sunrise, refreshed, invigorated, and hun- 
 gry. But he was forced to defer his first self-prepared 
 breakfast until he had reached water, and a less dangerous 
 place than the wild-oat field to build his first camp-fire. 
 This he found a mile further on, near some dwarf willows 
 on the bank of a half-dry stream. Of his various efforts 
 to prepare his first meal, the fire was the most successful ; 
 fhe coffee was somewhat too substantially thick, and the 
 bacon and herring lacked definiteness of quality from hav- 
 ing been cooked in the same vessel. In this boyish picnic 
 he missed Susy, and recalled, perhaps a little bitterly, her 
 coldness at parting. But the novelty of his situation, the 
 brilliant sunshine and sense of freedom, and the road already 
 awakening to dusty life with passing teams, dismissed 
 everything but the future from his mind. Readjusting 
 his pack, he stepped on cheerily.' At noon he was over- 
 taken by a teamster, who in return for a match to light 
 his pipe gave him a lift of a dozen miles. It is to be 
 feared that Clarence's account of himself was equally fan- 
 ciful with his previous story, and that the teamster parted 
 from him with a genuine regret, and a hope that he would 
 soon be overtaken by his friends along the road. "And 
 mind that you ain't such a fool agin to let 'em make you 
 tote their dod- blasted tools fur them ! " he added unsus- 
 pectingly, pointing to Clarence's mining outfit. Thus saved 
 the heaviest part of the day's journey, for the road was 
 continually rising from the plains during the last six miles, 
 Clarence was able yet to cover a considerable distance on 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 81 
 
 foot before he halted for supper. Here he was again for- 
 tunate. An empty lumber team watering at the same 
 spring, its driver offered to take Clarence's purchases — 
 for the boy had profited by his late friend's suggestion to 
 personally detach himself from his equipment — to Buck- 
 eye Mills for a dollar, which would also include a " shake- 
 down passage " for himself on the floor of the wagon. " I 
 reckon you 've been foolin' away in Sacramento the money 
 yer parents give yer fur return stage fare, eh? Don't lie, 
 sonny, " he added grimly, as the now artful Clarence smiled 
 diplomatically. "I've been thar myself ! " Luckily, the 
 excuse that he was "tired and sleepy" prevented further 
 dangerous questioning, and the boy was soon really in deep 
 slumber on the wagon floor. 
 
 He awoke betimes to find himself already in the moun- 
 tains. Buckeye Mills was a straggling settlement, and 
 Clarence prudently stopped any embarrassing inquiry from 
 his friend by dropping off the wagon with his equipment 
 as they entered it, and hurriedly saying "Good-by!" from 
 a cross-road through the woods. He had learned that the 
 nearest mining camp was five miles away, and its direction 
 was indicated by a long wooden "flume," or water-way, 
 that alternately appeared and disappeared on the flank of 
 the mountain opposite. The cooler and drier air, the 
 grateful shadow of pine and bay, and the spicy balsamic 
 odors that everywhere greeted him thrilled and exhilarated 
 him. The trail plunging sometimes into an undisturbed 
 forest, he started the birds before him like a flight of 
 arrows through its dim recesses; at times he hung breath- 
 lessly over the blue depths of canons where the same for- 
 ests were repeated a thousand feet below. Towards noon 
 he struck into a rude road — evidently the thoroughfare of 
 the locality — and was surprised to find that it, as well as 
 the adjacent soil wherever disturbed, was a deep Indian 
 red. Everywhere, along its sides, powdering the banks 
 
82 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 ami boles of trees with its ruddy stain, in mounds and 
 hillocks of piled dirt on the road, or in liquid paint-like 
 pools, when a trickling stream had formed a gutter across 
 it, there was always the same deep sanguinary color. Once 
 or twice it became more vivid in contrast with the white 
 teeth of quartz that peeped through it from the hillside or 
 crossed the road in crumbled strata. One of those pieces 
 Clarence picked up with a quickened pulse. It was veined 
 and streaked with shining mica and tiny glittering cubes 
 of mineral that looked like gold! 
 
 The road now began to descend towards a winding 
 stream, shrunken by drought and ditching, that glared 
 dazzlingly in the sunlight from its white bars of sand, or 
 glistened in shining sheets and channels. Along its banks, 
 and even encroaching upon its bed, were scattered a few 
 mud cabins, strange-looking wooden troughs and gutters, 
 and here and there, glancing through the leaves, the white 
 canvas of tents. The stumps of felled trees and blackened 
 spaces, as of recent fires, marked the stream on either side. 
 A sudden sense of disappointment overcame Clarence. It 
 looked vulgar, common, and worse than all — familiar. 
 It was like the unlovely outskirts of a dozen other prosaic 
 settlements he had seen in less romantic localities. In 
 that muddy red stream, pouring out of a wooden gutter, in 
 which three or four bearded, slouching, half-naked figures 
 were raking like chiffonniers, there was nothing to suggest 
 the royal metal. Yet he was so absorbed in gazing at the 
 scene, and had walked so rapidly during the past few 
 minutes, that he was startled, on turning a sharp corner 
 cf the road, to come abruptly upon an outlying dwelling. 
 
 It was a nondescript building, half canvas and half 
 boards. The interior seen through the open door was 
 fitted up with side shelves, a counter carelessly piled with 
 provisions, groceries, clothing, and hardware — with no 
 attempt at display or even ordinary selection — and a table, 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 83 
 
 on which stood a demijohn and three or four dirty glasses. 
 Two roughly dressed men, whose long, matted heards and 
 hair left only their eyes and lips visible in the tangled 
 hirsute wilderness below their slouched hats, were leaning 
 against the opposite sides of the doorway, smoking. Al- 
 most thrown against them in the rapid momentum of his 
 descent, Clarence halted violently. 
 
 "Well, sonny, you needn't capsize the shanty," said 
 the first man, without taking his pipe from his lips. 
 
 "If yer looking fur yer ma, she and yer Aunt Jane hev 
 jest gone over to Parson Doolittle's to take tea," observed 
 the second man lazily. "She allowed that you 'd wait." 
 
 "I'm — I'm — going to — to the mines," explained 
 Clarence, with some hesitation. "I suppose this is the 
 way ? " 
 
 The two men took their pipes from their lips, looked 
 at each other, completely wiped every vestige of expression 
 from their faces with the back of their hands, turned their 
 eyes into the interior of the cabin, and said, "Will yer 
 come yer, now will yer 1 " Thus adjured, half a dozen 
 men, also bearded and carrying pipes in their mouths, 
 straggled out of the shanty, and, filing in front of it, 
 squatted down, with their backs against the boards, and 
 gazed comfortably at the boy. Clarence began to feel 
 uneasy. 
 
 "I'll give," said one, taking out his pipe and grimly 
 eying Clarence, "a hundred dollars for him as he stands." 
 
 "And seein' as he 's got that bran'-new rig-out o' tools," 
 said another, "I'll give a hundred and fifty — and the 
 drinks. I've been," he added apologetically, "wantin' 
 suthin' like this a long time." 
 
 "Well, gen'lemen," said the man who had first spoken 
 to him, "lookin' at him by and large; takin' in, so to 
 speak, the gin'ral gait of him in single harness; bearin' 
 in mind the perfect freshness of him, and the coolness and 
 
84 A WAR- JF THE PLAINS 
 
 size of his cheek — the easy downiness, previousness, and 
 utter don't-care-a-damnativeness of his coming yer, I think 
 two hundred ain't too much for him, and we '11 call it 
 a bargain." 
 
 Clarence's previous experience of this grim, smileless 
 Califoinian chaff was not calculated to restore his confi- 
 dence. He drew away from the cabin, and repeated 
 doggedly, "I asked you if this was the way to the mines." 
 
 " It are the mines, and these yere are the miners, " said 
 the first speaker gravely. "Permit me to interdoose 'em. 
 This yere 's Shasta Jim, this yere 's Shortcard Billy, this is 
 Nasty Bob, and this Slumgulliori Dick. This yere 's the 
 Dook o' Chatham Street, the Livin' Skeleton, and me ! " 
 
 "May we ask, fair young sir," said the Living Skeleton, 
 who, however, seemed in fairly robust condition, " whence 
 came ye on the wings of the morning, and whose Marble 
 Halls ye hev left desolate ? " 
 
 "I came across the plains, and got into Stockton two 
 days ago on Mr. Peyton's train," said Clarence indig- 
 nantly, seeing no reason now to conceal anything. "I 
 came to Sacramento to find my cousin, who isn't living 
 there any more. I don't see anything funny in that ! I 
 came here to the mines to dig gold — because — because 
 Mr. Silsbee, the man who was to bring me here and might 
 have found my cousin for me, was killed by Indians." 
 
 "Hold up, sonny. Let me help ye," said the first 
 speaker, rising to his feet. " You didn't get killed by 
 Injins because you got lost out of a train with Silsbee 's 
 infant darter. Peyton picked you up while you was takin' 
 care of her, and two days arter you kern up to the broken- 
 down Silsbee wagons, with all the folks lyin' there slar- 
 tered. " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Clarence, breathless with astonishment. 
 
 "And," continued the man, putting his hand gravely to 
 his head as if to assist his memory, ''when you was all 
 
A WAIE OF THE PLAINS 85 
 
 alone on the plains with that little child you saw one of 
 those redskins, as near to you as I be, watchin' the train, 
 and you didn't breathe or move while he was there? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Clarence eagerly. 
 
 "And you was shot at by Peyton, he thinkin' you was 
 an Injin in the mesquite grass? And you once shot a 
 buffalo that had been pitched with you down a gully — all 
 by yourself ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Clarence, crimson with wonder and plea- 
 sure. " You know me, then ? " 
 
 "Well, ye-e-es," said the man gravely, parting his mus- 
 tache with his fingers. "You see, you 've been here 
 before. " 
 
 " Before ! Me ? " repeated the astounded Clarence. 
 
 "Yes, before. Last night. You was taller then, and 
 had n't cut your hair. You cursed a good deal more than 
 you do now. You drank a man's share of whiskey, and 
 you borrowed fifty dollars to get to Sacramento with. I 
 reckon you have n't got it about you now, eh 1 " 
 
 Clarence's brain reeled in utter confusion and hopeless 
 terror. 
 
 Was he going crazy, or had these cruel men learned his 
 story from his faithless friends, and this was a part of the 
 plot ? He staggered forward, but the men had risen and 
 quickly encircled him, as if to prevent his escape. In 
 vague and helpless desperation he gasped : — 
 
 "What place is this?" 
 
 "Folks call it Deadman's Gulch." 
 
 Deadman's Gulch! A flash of intelligence lit up the 
 boy's blind confusion. Deadman's Gulch! Could it have 
 been Jim Hooker who had really run away, and had taken 
 his name ? He turned half imploringly to the first speaker. 
 
 "Wasn't he older than me, and bigger? Didn't he 
 have a smooth, round face and little eyes? Didn't he 
 talk hoarse ? Did n't he " — He stopped hopelessly. 
 
86 A WAIF OF THE PLAIN'S 
 
 "Yes; oh, he wasn't a bit like you," said the man 
 musingly. "Ye see, that 's the h— 11 of it! You 're alto- 
 gether too many and too various fur this camp." 
 
 "I don't know who's been here before, or what they 
 have said," said Clarence desperately, yet even in that 
 desperation retaining the dogged loyalty to his old play- 
 mate which was part of his nature. "I don't know, and 
 I don't care — there! I 'ni Clarence Brant, of Kentucky; 
 I started in Silsbee's train from St. Jo, and I 'm going to 
 the mines, and you can't stop me ! " 
 
 The man who had first spoken started, looked keenly at 
 Clarence, and then turned to the others. The gentleman 
 known as the Living Skeleton had obtruded his huge bulk 
 in front of the boy, and, gazing at him, said reflectively, 
 " Darned if it don't look like one of Brant's pups — sure ! " 
 
 "Air ye any relation to Kernel Hamilton Brant, of 
 Looeyville ? " asked the first speaker. 
 
 Again that old question ! Poor Clarence hesitated, de- 
 spairingly. Was he to go through the same cross-exami- 
 nation he had undergone with the Peytons? "Yes," he 
 said doggedly, "I am — but he 's dead, and you know it." 
 
 "Dead — of course." "Sartin." "He's dead." "The 
 kernel 's planted," said the men in chorus. 
 
 "Well, yes," reflected the Living Skeleton ostenta- 
 tiously, as one who spoke from experience. " Ham Brant 's 
 about as bony now as they make 'em." 
 
 "You bet! About the dustiest, deadest corpse you kin 
 turn out," corroborated Slumgullion Dick, nodding his 
 head gloomily to the others ; " in point o' fack, es a corpse, 
 about the last one I should keer to go huntin' fur. " 
 
 "The kernel's tech 'ud be cold and clammy," concluded 
 the Duke of Chatham Street, who had not yet spoken, 
 " sure. But what did yer mammy say about it ? Is she 
 gettin' married agin ? Did she send ye here ? " 
 
 It seemed to Clarence that the Duke of Chatham Street 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 87 
 
 here received a kick from his companions; but the boy 
 repeated doggedly : — 
 
 "I came to Sacramento to find my cousin, Jackson 
 Brant; but he wasn't there." 
 
 "Jackson Brant!" echoed the, first speaker, glancing at 
 the others. " Did your mother say he was your cousin ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Clarence wearily. "Good-by." 
 
 " Hullo, sonny, where are you going ? " 
 
 "To dig gold," said the boy. "And you know you 
 can't prevent me, if it is n't on your claim. I know the 
 law." He had heard Mr. Peyton discuss it at Stockton, 
 and he fancied that the men, who were whispering among 
 themselves, looked kinder than before, and as if they were 
 no longer "acting" to him. The first speaker laid his 
 hand on his shoulder, and said, "All right, come with 
 me, and I '11 show you where to dig. " 
 
 " Who are you 1 " said Clarence. " You called yourself 
 only ' me. ' " 
 
 "Well, you can call me Flynn — Tom Mynn." 
 
 " And you '11 show me where I can dig — myself 1 " 
 
 "I will." 
 
 "Do you know," said Clarence timidly, yet with a half- 
 conscious smile, " that I — I kinder bring luck 1 " 
 
 The man looked down upon him, and said gravely, but, 
 as it struck Clarence, with a new kind of gravity, " I be- 
 lieve you." 
 
 "Yes," said Clarence eagerly, as they walked along 
 together, "I brought luck to a man in Sacramento the 
 other day." And he related with great earnestness his 
 experience in the gambling saloon. Not content with that 
 — the sealed fountains of his childish deep being broken 
 ■up by some mysterious sympathy — he spoke of his hospi- 
 table exploit with the passengers at the wayside bar, of the 
 finding of his Fortunatus' purse and his deposit at the bank. 
 Whether that characteristic old-fashioned reticence which 
 
88 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 had been such an important factor for good or ill in his 
 future had suddenly deserted him, or whether some extra- 
 ordinary prepossession in his companion had affected him, 
 he did not know; but by the time the pair had reached 
 the hillside Flynn was in possession of all the boy's his- 
 tory. On one point only was his reserve unshaken. Con- 
 scious although he was of Jim Hooker's duplicity, he 
 affected to treat it as a comrade's joke. 
 
 They halted at last in the middle of an apparently fer- 
 tile hillside. Clarence shifted his shovel from his shoul- 
 ders, unslung his pan, and looked at Flynn. "Dig any- 
 where here, where you like, " said his companion carelessly, 
 " and you '11 be sure to find the color. Fill your pan with 
 the dirt, go to that sluice, and let the water run in on the 
 top of the pan — workin' it round so," he added, illustrat- 
 ing a rotary motion with the vessel. "Keep doing that 
 until all the soil is washed out of it, and you have only the 
 black sand at the bottom. Then work that the same way 
 until you see the color. Don't be afraid of washing the 
 gold out of the pan — you couldn't do it if you tried. 
 There, I '11 leave you here, and you wait till I come back." 
 With another grave nod and something like a smile in the 
 only visible part of his bearded face — his eyes — he strode 
 rapidly away. 
 
 Clarence did not lose time. Selecting a spot where the 
 grass was less thick, he broke through the soil and turned 
 up two or three spadefuls of red soil. When he had filled 
 the pan and raised it to his shoulder, he was astounded at 
 its weight. He did not know that it was due to the red 
 precipitate of iron that gave it its color. Staggering along 
 with his burden to the running sluice, which looked like 
 an open wooden gutter, at the foot of the hill, he began to 
 carefully carry out Flynn' s direction. The first dip of the 
 pan in the running water carried off half the contents of 
 the pan in liquid paint-like ooze. For a moment he gave 
 
A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 89 
 
 Way to boyish satisfaction in the sight and touch of this 
 unctuous solution, and dabbled his fingers in it. A few 
 moments more of rinsing and he came to the sediment of 
 fine black sand that was beneath it. Another plunge and 
 swilling of water in the pan, and — could he believe his 
 eyes ! — a few yellow tiny scales, scarcely larger than pins' 
 heads, glittered among the sand. He poured it off. But 
 his companion was right; the lighter sand shifted from 
 side to side with the water, but the glittering points re- 
 mained adhering by their own tiny specific gravity to the 
 smooth surface of the bottom. It was " the color " — 
 gold! 
 
 Clarence's heart seemed to give a great leap within him. 
 A vision of wealth, of independence, of power, sprang be- 
 fore his dazzled eyes, and — a hand lightly touched him 
 on the shoulder. 
 
 He started. In his complete preoccupation and excite- 
 ment, he had not heard the clatter of horse-hoofs, and to 
 his amazement Mynn was already beside him, mounted, 
 and leading a second horse. 
 
 " You kin ride ? " he said shortly. 
 
 "Yes," stammered Clarence; "but" — 
 
 "But — we've only got two hours to reach Buckeye 
 Mills in time to catch the down stage. Drop all that, 
 jump up, and come with me ! " 
 
 "But I 've just found gold," said the boy excitedly. 
 
 " And I ' ve just found your — cousin. Come ! " 
 
 He spurred his horse across Clarence's scattered imple- 
 ments, half helped, half lifted, the boy into the saddle of 
 the second horse, and, with a cut of his riata over the ani- 
 mal's haunches, the next moment they were both galloping 
 furiously away. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Torn suddenly from his prospective future, but ton 
 much dominated by the man beside him to protest, Clar- 
 ence was silent until a rise in the road, a few minutes later, 
 partly abated their headlong speed, and gave him chance 
 to recover his breath and courage. 
 
 "Where is my cousin? " he asked. 
 
 "In the Southern county, two hundred miles from 
 here. " 
 
 " Are we going to him ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 They rode furiously forward again. It was nearly half 
 an hour before they came to a longer ascent. Clarence 
 could see that Elynn was from time to time examining him 
 curiously under his slouched hat. This somewhat embar- 
 rassed him, but in his singular confidence in the man no 
 distrust mingled with it. 
 
 " Ye never saw your — cousin ? " he asked. 
 
 "No," said Clarence; "nor he me. I don't think he 
 knew me much, anyway." 
 
 " How old mout ye be, Clarence ? " 
 
 "Eleven." 
 
 " Well, as you 're suthin' of a pup " — Clarence started, 
 and recalled Peyton's first criticism of him — "I reckon to 
 tell ye suthin'. Ye ain't goin' to be skeert,, or afeard, or 
 lose yer sand, I kalkilate, for skunkin' ain't in your breed. 
 Well, wot ef I told ye that thish yer — thish yer — cousin 
 o' yours was the biggest devil onhung; that he'd just 
 killed a man, and had to lite out elsewhere, and thet 's 
 
A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 91 
 
 why he did n' t show up in Sacramento — what if I told 
 you that 1 " 
 
 Clarence felt that this was somehow a little too much. 
 He was perfectly truthful, and lifting his frank eyes to 
 Flynn, he said : — 
 
 V I should think you were talking a good deal like Jim 
 Hooker!" 
 
 His companion stared, and suddenly reined up his 
 horse ; then, bursting into a shout of laughter, he galloped 
 ahead, from time to time shaking his head, slapping his 
 legs, and making the dim woods ring with his boisterous 
 mirth. Then as suddenly becoming thoughtful again, he 
 rode on rapidly for half an hour, only speaking to Clarence 
 to urge him forward, and assisting his progress by lashing 
 the haunches of his horse. Luckily, the boy was a good 
 rider — a fact which Flynn seemed to thoroughly appreci- 
 ate — or he would have been unseated a dozen times. 
 
 At last the straggling sheds of Buckeye Mills came into 
 softer purple view on the opposite mountain. Then laying 
 his hand on Clarence's shoulder as he reined in at his side, 
 Flynn broke the silence. 
 
 "There, boy," he said, wiping the mirthful tears from 
 his eyes. " I was only foolin' — only tryin' yer grit ! 
 This yer cousin I 'm taking you to ez as quiet and soft- 
 spoken and as old-fashioned ez you be. Why, he 's that 
 wrapped up in books and study that he lives alone in a 
 big adobe rancherie among a lot o' Spanish, and he don't 
 keer to see his own countrymen ! Why, he 's even changed 
 his name, and calls himself Don Juan Robinson ! But he 's 
 very.rich; he owns three leagues of land and heaps of cat- 
 tle and horses, and," glancing approvingly at Clarence's 
 seat in the saddle, "I reckon you '11 hev plenty of fun thar." 
 
 " But, " hesitated Clarence, to whom this proposal seemed 
 only a repetition of Peyton's charitable offer, "I think 
 I 'd better stay here and dig gold — with you." 
 
92 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "And I think you 'd better not," said the man, with a 
 gravity that was very like a settled determination. 
 
 " But my cousin never came, for me to Sacramento — 
 nor sent, nor even wrote," persisted Clarence indignantly. 
 
 "Not to you, boy; but he wrote to the man whom he 
 reckoned would bring you there — Jack Silsbee — and left 
 it in the care of the bank. And Silsbee, being dead, 
 didn't come for the letter; and as you didn't ask for it 
 when you came, and did n't even mention Silsbee 's name, 
 that same letter was sent back to your cousin through me, 
 because the bank thought we knew his whereabouts. It 
 came to the gulch by an express rider, whilst you were 
 prospectin' on the hillside. Eememberin' your story, I 
 took the liberty of opening it, and found out that your 
 cousin had told Silsbee to bring you straight to him. So 
 I 'm only doin' now what Silsbee would have done." 
 
 Any momentary doubt or suspicion that might have 
 risen in Clarence's mind vanished as he met his compan- 
 ion's steady and masterful eye. Even his disappointment 
 was forgotten in the charm of this new-found friendship 
 and protection. And as its outset had been marked by an 
 unusual burst of confidence on Clarence's part, the boy, in 
 his gratitude, now felt something of the timid shyness of 
 a deeper feeling, and once more became reticent. 
 
 They were in time to snatch a hasty meal at Buckeye 
 Mills before the stage arrived, and Clarence noticed that 
 his friend, despite his rough dress and lawless aspect, 
 provoked a marked degree of respect from those he met — 
 in which, perhaps, a wholesome fear was mingled. It is 
 certain that the two best places in the stage were given up 
 to them without protest, and that a careless, almost super- 
 cilious invitation to drink from Flynn was responded to 
 with singular alacrity by all, including even two fastidi- 
 ously dressed and previously reserved passengers. I am 
 afraid that Clarence enjoyed this proof of his friend's sin- 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 93 
 
 gular dominance with a boyish pride, and, conscious of 
 the curious eyes of the passengers, directed occasionally to 
 himself, was somewhat ostentatious in his familiarity with 
 this bearded autocrat. 
 
 At noon the next day they left the stage at a wayside 
 road station, and Flynn briefly informed Clarence that they 
 must again take horses. This at first seemed difficult in 
 that out-of-the-way settlement, where they alone had 
 stopped, but a whisper from the driver in the ear of the 
 station-master produced a couple of fiery mustangs, with 
 the same accompaniment of cautious awe and mystery. 
 For the next two days they traveled on horseback, resting 
 by night at the lodgings of one or other of Flynn's friends 
 in the outskirts of a large town, where they arrived in the 
 darkness, and left before day. To any one more experi- 
 enced than the simple-minded boy it would have been evi- 
 dent that Flynn was purposely avoiding the more traveled 
 roads and conveyances; and when they changed horses 
 again, the next day's ride was through an apparently un- 
 broken wilderness of scattered wood and rolling plain. 
 Yet to Clarence, with his pantheistic reliance and joyous 
 sympathy with nature, the change was filled with exhilarat- 
 ing pleasure. The vast seas of tossing wild oats, the 
 hillside still variegated with strange flowers, the virgin 
 freshness of untrodden woods and leafy aisles, whose floors 
 of moss or bark were undisturbed by human footprint, 
 were a keen delight and novelty. More than this, his 
 quick eye, trained perceptions, and frontier knowledge now 
 stood him in good stead. His intuitive sense of distance, 
 instincts of woodcraft, and his unerring detection of those 
 signs, landmarks, and guide-posts of nature, undistinguish- 
 able to aught but birds and beasts and some children, were 
 now of the greatest service to his less favored companion. 
 In this part of their strange pilgrimage it was the boy who 
 took the lead. Flynn, who during the past two days seemed 
 
94 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 to have fallen into a mood of watchful reserve, nodded his 
 approbation. "This sort of thing's yer best holt, boy." 
 he said. "Men and cities ain't your little game." 
 
 At the next stopping-place Clarence had a surprise. 
 They had again entered a town at nightfall, and lodged 
 with another friend of Flynn's in rooms which from vague 
 sounds appeared to be over a gambling saloon. Clarence 
 woke late in the morning, and, descending into the street 
 to mount for the day's journey, was startled to find that 
 Flynn was not on the other horse, but that a well-dressed 
 and handsome stranger had taken his place. But a laugh, 
 and the familiar command, "Jump up, boy," made him 
 look again. It was Flynn, but completely shaven of 
 beard and mustache, closely clipped of hair, and in a fastid- 
 iously cut suit of black ! 
 
 "Then you didn't know me!" said Flynn. 
 
 "Not till you spoke," replied Clarence. 
 
 "So much the better," said his friend sententiously, as 
 he put spurs to his horse. But as they cantered through 
 the street, Clarence, who had already become accustomed 
 to the stranger's hirsute adornment, felt a little more awe 
 of him. The profile of the mouth and chin now exposed 
 to his sidelong glance was hard and stern, and slightly 
 saturnine. Although unable at the time to identify it with 
 anybody he had ever known, it seemed to the imaginative 
 boy "to be vaguely connected with some sad experience. 
 But the eyes were thoughtful and kindly, and the boy later 
 believed that if he had been more familiar with the face 
 he would have loved it better. For it was the last and 
 only day he was to see it, as, late that afternoon, after a 
 dusty ride along more traveled highways, they reached 
 their journey's end. 
 
 It was a low-walled house, with red-tiled roofs showing 
 against the dark green of venerable pear and fig trees, and 
 a square courtyard in the centre, where they had dis- 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 95 
 
 mounted. A few words in Spanish from Flynn to one of 
 the lounging peons admitted them to a wooden corridor, 
 and thence to a long, low room, which to Clarence's eyes 
 seemed literally piled with hooks and engravings. Here 
 Flynn hurriedly bade him stay while he sought the host 
 in another part of the building. But Clarence did not 
 miss him ; indeed, it may be feared, he forgot even the 
 object of their journey in the new sensations that suddenly 
 thronged upon him, and the boyish vista of the future that 
 they seemed to open. He was dazed and intoxicated. He 
 had never seen so many books before ; he had never con- 
 ceived of such lovely pictures. And yet in some vague 
 way he thought he must have dreamt of them at some time. 
 He had mounted a chair, and was gazing spellbound at 
 an engraving of a sea-fight, when he heard Flynn's voice. 
 
 His friend had quietly reentered the room, in company 
 with an oldish, half-foreign-looking man, evidently his 
 relation. With no helping recollection, with no means of 
 comparison beyond a vague idea that his cousin might 
 look like himself, Clarence stood hopelessly before him. 
 He had already made up his mind that he would have to 
 go through the usual cross-questioning in regard to his 
 father and family; he had even forlornly thought of in- 
 venting some innocent details to fill out his imperfect and 
 unsatisfactory recollection. But, glancing up, he was sur- 
 prised to find that his elderly cousin was as embarrassed as 
 he was. Flynn, as usual, masterfully interposed. 
 
 "Of course ye don't remember each other, and thai 
 ain't much that either of you knows about family matters, 
 I reckon," he said grimly; "and as your cousin calls him- 
 self Don Juan Robinson," he added to Clarence, "it 's just 
 as well that you let ' Jackson Brant ' slide. I know him 
 better than you, but you '11 get used to him, and he to 
 you, soon enough. At least, you 'd better," he concluded a 
 with his singular gravity. 
 
96 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 As he turned as if to leave the room with Clarence's 
 embarrassed relative — much to that gentleman's apparent 
 relief — the boy looked up at the latter and said timidly : — 
 
 "May I look at those books?" 
 
 His cousin stopped, and glanced at him with the first 
 expression of interest he had shown. 
 
 "Ah, you read; you like books?" 
 
 "Yes," said Clarence. As his cousin remained still 
 looking at him thoughtfully, he added, "My hands are 
 pretty clean, but I can wash them first, if you like." 
 
 "You may look at them," said Don Juan smilingly; 
 " and as they are old books you can wash your hands after- 
 wards." And, turning to Flynn suddenly, with an air of 
 relief, "I tell you what I'll do — I'll teach him Span- 
 ish!" 
 
 They left the room together, and Clarence turned 
 eagerly to the shelves. They were old books, some indeed 
 very old, queerly bound, and worm-eaten. Some were in 
 foreign languages, but others in clear, bold English type, 
 with quaint wood-cuts and illustrations. One seemed to be 
 a chronicle of battles and sieges, with pictured representa- 
 tions of combatants spitted with arrows, cleanly lopped off 
 in limb, or toppled over distinctly by visible cannon-shot. 
 He was deep in its perusal when he heard the clatter of 
 horse's hoofs in the courtyard and the voice of Flynn. 
 He ran to the window, and was astonished to see his 
 friend already on horseback, taking leave of his host. 
 
 For one instant Clarence felt one of those sudden revul- 
 sions of feeling common to his age, but which he had 
 always timidly hidden under dogged demeanor. Flynn, 
 his only friend! Flynn, his only boyish confidant! 
 Flynn, his latest hero, was going away and forsaking him 
 without a word of parting ! It was true that he had only 
 agreed to take him to his guardian, but still Flynn need 
 not have left him without a word of hope or encourage- 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 97 
 
 ment! With any one else Clarence would probably have 
 taken refuge in his usual Indian stoicism, but the same 
 feeling that had impelled him to offer Flynn his boyish 
 confidences on their first meeting now overpowered him. 
 He dropped his book, ran out into the corridor, and made 
 his way to the courtyard, just as Flynn galloped out from 
 the arch. 
 
 But the boy uttered a despairing shout that reached the 
 rider. He drew rein, wheeled, halted, and sat facing Clar- 
 ence impatiently. To add to Clarence's embarrassment 
 his cousin had lingered in the corridor, attracted by the 
 interruption, and a peon, lounging in the archway, obse- 
 quiously approached Flynn's bridle-rein. But the rider 
 waved him off, and, turning sternly to Clarence, said : — 
 
 "What 's the matter now 1 " 
 
 "Nothing," said Clarence, striving to keep back the hot 
 tears that rose in his eyes. "But you were going away 
 without saying 'good-by.' You've been very kind to 
 me, and — and — I want to thank you ! " 
 
 A deep flush crossed Flynn's face. Then glancing sus- 
 piciously towards the corridor, he said hurriedly : — ■ 
 
 " Did he send you 1 " 
 
 "No, I came myself. I heard you going." 
 
 "All right. Good-by." He leaned forward as if about 
 to take Clarence's outstretched hand, checked himself sud- 
 denly with a grim smile, and taking from his pocket a 
 gold coin handed it to the boy. 
 
 Clarence took it, tossed it with a proud gesture to the 
 waiting peon, who caught it thankfully, drew back a step 
 from Flynn, and saying, with white cheeks, "I only 
 wanted to say good-by," dropped his hot eyes to the 
 ground. But it did not seem to be his own voice that 
 had spoken, nor his own self that had prompted the act. 
 
 There was a quick interchange of glances between the 
 departing guest and his late host, in which Flynn's eyes 
 
98 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 flashed with an odd, admiring fire, but when Clarence 
 raised his head again he was gone. And as the boy turned 
 back with a broken heart towards the corridor, his cousin 
 laid his hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 "Muy hidalgamente, Clarence," he said pleasantly. 
 " Yes, we shall make something of you ! " 
 
CHAPTEE X 
 
 Then followed to Clarence three uneventful years. 
 During that interval he learnt that Jackson Brant, or Don 
 Juan Robinson — for the tie of kinship was the least factor 
 in their relations to each other, and after the departure of 
 Plynn was tacitly ignored by both — was more Spanish 
 than American. An early residence in Lower California, 
 marriage with a rich Mexican widow, whose dying child- 
 less left him sole heir, and some strange restraining idio- 
 syncrasy of temperament had quite denationalized him. 
 A bookish recluse, somewhat superfastidious towards his 
 own countrymen, the more Clarence knew him the more 
 singular appeared his acquaintance with Flynn ; but as he 
 did not exhibit more communicativeness on this point than 
 upon their own kinship, Clarence finally concluded that it 
 was due to the dominant character of his former friend, 
 and thought no more about it. He entered upon the new 
 life at El Refugio with no disturbing past. Quickly 
 adapting himself to the lazy freedom of this hacienda exist- 
 ence, he spent the mornings on horseback ranging the hills 
 among his cousin's cattle, and the afternoons and evenings 
 busied among his cousin's books with equally lawless and 
 undisciplined independence. The easy-going Don Juan, 
 it is true, attempted to make good his rash promise to 
 teach the boy Spanish, and actually set him a few tasks; 
 but in a few weeks the quick-witted Clarence acquired 
 such a colloquial proficiency from his casual acquaintance 
 with vaqueros and small traders that he was glad to leave 
 the matter in his young kinsman's hands. Again, by one 
 
100 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 of those illogical sequences which make a lifelong reputa- 
 tion depend upon a single trivial act, Clarence's social 
 status was settled forever at El Refugio Rancho by his 
 picturesque diversion of Flynn's parting gift. The grate- 
 ful peon to whom the boy had scornfully tossed the coin 
 repeated the act, gesture, and spirit of the scene to his 
 companion, and Don Juan's unknown and youthful rela- 
 tion was at once recognized as hijo de la familia, and unde- 
 niably a hidalgo born and bred. But in the more vivid 
 imagination of feminine El Refugio the incident reached 
 its highest poetic form. "It is true, Mother of God," 
 said Chucha of the Mill; "it was Domingo who himself 
 relates it as it were the Creed. When the American escort 
 has arrived with the young gentleman, this escort, look 
 you, being not of the same quality, he is departing again 
 without a word of permission. Comes to him at this 
 moment my little hidalgo. ' You have yourself forgotten 
 to take from me your demission,' he said. This escort, 
 thinking to make his peace with a mere muchaeho, gives 
 to him a gold piece of twenty pesos. The little hidalgo 
 has taken it so, and with the words, ' Ah ! you would 
 make of me your almoner to my cousin's people, ' has 
 given it at the moment to Domingo, and with a grace and 
 fire admirable." But it is certain that Clarence's singular 
 simplicity and truthfulness, a faculty of being picturesquely 
 indolent in a way that suggested a dreamy abstraction of 
 mind rather than any vulgar tendency to bodily ease and 
 comfort, and possibly the fact that he was a good horse- 
 man, made him a popular hero at El Refugio. At the 
 end of three years Don Juan found that this inexperienced 
 and apparently idle boy of fourteen knew more of the 
 practical ruling of the ranch than he did himself; also 
 that this unlettered young rustic had devoured nearly 
 all the books in his library with boyish recklessness of 
 digestion. He found, too, that in spite of his singular 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 101 
 
 independence of action, Clarence was possessed of an in- 
 vincible loyalty to principle, and that, asking no senti- 
 mental affection, and indeed yielding none, he was, with- 
 out presuming on his relationship, devoted to his cousin's 
 interest. It seemed that from being a glancing ray of 
 sunshine in the house, evasive but never obtrusive, he had 
 become a daily necessity of comfort and security to his 
 benefactor. 
 
 Clarence was, however, astonished, when, one morning, 
 Don Juan, with the same embarrassed manner he had 
 shown at their first meeting, suddenly asked him, "what 
 business he expected to follow." It seemed the more sin- 
 gular, as the speaker, like most abstracted men, had hith- 
 erto always studiously ignored the future, in their daily 
 intercourse. Yet this might have been either the habit of 
 security or the caution of doubt. Whatever it was, it was 
 some sudden disturbance of Don Juan's equanimity, as 
 disconcerting to himself as it was to Clarence. So con- 
 scious was the boy of this that, without replying to his 
 cousin's question, but striving in vain to recall some 
 delinquency of his own, he asked, with his usual boyish 
 directness : — 
 
 "Has anything happened? Have I done anything 
 wrong ? " 
 
 "No, no," returned Don Juan hurriedly. "But, you 
 see, it 's time that you should think of your future — or at 
 least prepare for it. I mean you ought to have some 
 more regular education. You will have to go to school. 
 It 's too bad," he added fretfully, with a certain impatient 
 forgetfulness of Clarence's presence, and as if following 
 his own thought. "Just as you are becoming of service 
 to me, and justifying your ridiculous position here — and 
 all this d — d nonsense that's gone before — I mean, of 
 course, Clarence," he interrupted himself, catching sight 
 of the boy's whitening cheek and darkening eye — " I mean., 
 
102 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 you know — this ridiculousness of my keeping you from 
 school at your age, and trying to teach you myself — don't 
 you see ? " 
 
 "You think it is — ridiculous," repeated Clarence, with 
 dogged persistency. 
 
 "I mean I am ridiculous," said Don Juan hastily. 
 "There! there! let's say no more about it. To-morrow 
 we '11 ride over to San Jose" and see the Father Secretary 
 at the Jesuits' College about your entering at once. It 's 
 a good school, and you'll always be near the rancho!" 
 And so the interview ended. 
 
 I am afraid that Clarence's first idea was to run away. 
 There are few experiences more crushing to an ingenuous 
 nature than the sudden revelation of the aspect in which 
 it is regarded by others. The unfortunate Clarence, con- 
 scious only of his loyalty to his cousin's interest and what 
 he believed were the duties of his position, awoke to find 
 that position "ridiculous." In an afternoon's gloomy ride 
 through the lonely hills, and later in the sleepless solitude 
 of his room at night, he concluded that his cousin was 
 right. He would go to school; he would study hard — ■ 
 so hard that in a little, a very little while, he could make 
 a living for himself. He awoke contented. It was the 
 blessing of youth that this resolve and execution seemed 
 as one and the same thing. 
 
 The next day found him installed as a pupil and boarder 
 in the college. Don Juan's position and Spanish predilec- 
 tions naturally made his relation acceptable to the faculty; 
 but Clarence could not help perceiving that Father Sobri- 
 ente, the Principal, regarded him at times with a thought- 
 ful curiosity that made him suspect that his cousin had 
 especially bespoken that attention, and that he occasionally 
 questioned him on his antecedents in a way that made him 
 dread a renewal of the old questioning about his progenitor. 
 For the rest, he was a polished, cultivated man; yet, in 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 103 
 
 the characteristic, material criticism of youth, I am afraid 
 that Clarence chiefly identified him as a priest with large 
 hands, whose soft palms seemed to he cushioned with 
 kindness, and whose equally large feet, encased in extraor- 
 dinary shapeless shoes of undyed leather, seemed to tread 
 down noiselessly — rather than to ostentatiously crush — 
 the obstacles that beset the path of the young student. 
 In the cloistered galleries of the courtyard Clarence some- 
 times felt himself borne down by the protecting weight of 
 this paternal hand; in the midnight silence of the dormi- 
 tory he fancied he was often conscious of the soft browsing 
 tread and snuffly muffled breathing of his elephantine- 
 footed mentor. 
 
 His relations with his school fellows were at first far 
 from pleasant. Whether they suspected favoritism; 
 whether they resented that old and unsympathetic manner 
 which sprang from his habits of association with his elders ; 
 or whether they rested their objections on the broader 
 grounds of his being a stranger, I do not know, but they 
 presently passed from cruel sneers to physical opposition. 
 It was then found that this gentle and reserved youth had 
 retained certain objectionable, rude, direct, rustic qualities 
 of fist and foot, and that, violating all rules and disdaining 
 the pomp and circumstance of schoolboy warfare, of which 
 he knew nothing, he simply thrashed a few of his equals 
 out of hand, with or without ceremony, as the occasion or 
 the insult happened. In this emergency one of the seniors 
 was selected to teach this youthful savage his proper posi- 
 tion. A challenge was given, and accepted by Clarence 
 with a feverish alacrity that surprised himself as much as 
 his adversary. This was a youth of eighteen, his superior 
 in size and skill. The first blow bathed Clarence's face 
 in his own blood. But the sanguinary chrism, to the 
 alarm of the spectators, effected an instantaneous and un- 
 hallowed change in the boy. Instantly closing with his 
 
104 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 adversary, Clarence sprang at his throat like an animal, 
 and locking his arm around his neck began to strangle him. 
 Blind to the blows that rained upon him, he eventually 
 bore his staggering enemy by sheer onset and surprise to 
 the earth. Amidst the general alarm, the strength of half 
 a dozen hastily summoned teachers was necessary to unlock 
 his hold. Even then he struggled to renew the conflict. 
 But his adversary had disappeared, and from that day for- 
 ward Clarence was never again molested. 
 
 Seated before Father Sobriente in the infirmary, with 
 swollen and bandaged face, and eyes that still seemed to 
 see everything in the murky light of his own blood, Clar- 
 ence felt the soft weight of the father's hand upon his 
 knee. 
 
 "My son," said the priest gently, "you are not of our 
 religion, or I should claim as a right to ask a question of 
 your own heart at this moment. But as to a good friend, 
 Claro, a good friend," he continued, patting the boy's 
 knee, "you will tell me, old Father Sobriente, frankly 
 and truthfully, as is your habit, one little thing. Were 
 you not afraid ? " 
 
 "No," said Clarence doggedly. "I'll lick him again 
 to-morrow. " 
 
 "Softly, my son! It was not of him I speak, but of 
 something more terrible and awful. Were you not afraid 
 of — of " — he paused, and suddenly darting his clear eyes 
 into the very depths of Clarence's soul, added — "of your- 
 self? " 
 
 The boy started, shuddered, and burst into tears. 
 
 "So, so," said the priest gently, "we have found our 
 real enemy. Good ! Now, by the grace of God, my little 
 warrior, we shall fight Mm and conquer." 
 
 Whether Clarence profited by this lesson, or whether 
 this brief exhibition of his quality prevented any repetition 
 of the cause, the episode was soon forgotten. As his 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 105 
 
 school fellows had never been his associates or confidants, 
 it mattered little to him whether they feared or respected 
 him, or were hypocritically obsequious, after the fashion 
 of the weaker. His studies, at all events, profited by this 
 lack of distraction. Already his two years of desultory 
 and omnivorous reading had given him a facile familiarity 
 with many things, which left him utterly free of the timid- 
 ity, awkwardness, or non-interest of a beginner. His 
 usually reserved manner, which had been lack of expression 
 rather than of conviction, had deceived his tutors. The 
 audacity of a mind that had never been dominated by 
 others, and owed no allegiance to precedent, made his 
 merely superficial progress something marvelous. 
 
 At the end of the first year he was a phenomenal scholar, 
 who seemed capable of anything. Nevertheless, Father 
 Sobriente had an interview with Don Juan, and as a result 
 Clarence was slightly kept back in his studies, a little more 
 freedom from the rules was conceded to him, and be was 
 even encouraged to take some diversion. Of such was the 
 privilege to visit the neighboring town of Santa Clara 
 unrestricted and unattended. He had always been liber- 
 ally furnished with pocket-money, for which, in his com- 
 panionless state and Spartan habits, he had a singular and 
 unboyish contempt. Nevertheless, he always appeared 
 dressed with scrupulous neatness, and was rather distin- 
 guished looking in his older reserve and melancholy self- 
 reliance. 
 
 Lounging one afternoon along the Alameda, a leafy 
 avenue set out by the early Mission Fathers between the 
 village of San Jose" and the Convent of Santa Clara, he saw 
 a double file of young girls from the convent approaching, 
 on their usual promenade. A view of this procession being 
 the fondest ambition of the San Jose" collegian, and espe- 
 cially interdicted and circumvented by the good Fathers 
 attending the college excursions, Clarence felt for it the 
 
106 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 profound indifference of a boy who, in the intermediate 
 temperate zone of fifteen years, thinks that he is no longer 
 young and romantic ! He was passing them with a care- • 
 less glance, when a pair of deep violet eyes caught his own 
 under the broad shade of a coquettishly beribboned hat, 
 even as they had once looked at him from the depths of 
 a calico sunbonnet. Susy ! He started, and would have 
 spoken; but with a quick little gesture of caution and a 
 meaning glance at the two nuns who walked at the head 
 and foot of the file, she indicated him to follow. He did 
 so at a respectful distance, albeit wondering. A little 
 further on Susy dropped her handkerchief, and was obliged 
 to dart out and run back to the end of the file to recover 
 it. But she gave another swift glance of her blue eyes as 
 she snatched it up and demurely ran back to her place. 
 The procession passed on, but when Clarence reached the 
 spot where she had paused he saw a three-cornered bit of 
 paper lying in the grass. He was too discreet to pick it 
 tip while the girls were still in sight, but continued on, 
 returning to it later. It contained a few words in a 
 schoolgirl's hand, hastily scrawled in pencil: "Come to 
 the south wall near the big pear-tree at six. " 
 
 Delighted as Clarence felt, he was at the same time em- 
 barrassed. He could not understand the necessity of this 
 mysterious rendezvous. He knew that if she was a scholar 
 she was under certain conventual restraints; but with the 
 privileges of his position and friendship with his teachers, 
 he believed that Father Sobriente would easily procure 
 him an interview with this old playfellow, of whom he 
 had often spoken, and who was, with himself, the sole 
 survivor of his tragical past. And trusted as he was by 
 Sobriente, there was something in this clandestine though 
 innocent rendezvous that went against his loyalty. Nev- 
 ertheless, he kept the appointment, and at the stated time 
 was at the south wall of the convent, over which the 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 107 
 
 gnarled boughs of the distinguishing pear-tree hung. 
 Hard by in the wall was a grated wicket door that seemed 
 unused. 
 
 Would she appear among the boughs or on the edge of 
 the wall? Either would be like the old Susy. But to 
 his surprise he heard the sound of a key turning in the 
 lock. The grated door suddenly swung on its hinges, and 
 Susy slipped out. Grasping his hand, she said, "Let's 
 run, Clarence," and before he could reply she started off 
 with him at a rapid pace. Down the lane they flew — 
 very much, as it seemed to Clarence's fancy, as they had 
 flown from the old emigrant wagon on the prairie, four 
 years before. He glanced at the fluttering, fairylike 
 figure beside him. She had grown taller and more grace- 
 ful; she was dressed in exquisite taste, with a minuteness 
 of luxurious detail that bespoke the spoilt child; but there 
 was the same prodigal outburst of rippling, golden hair 
 down her back and shoulders, violet eyes, capricious little 
 mouth, and the same delicate hands and feet he had re- 
 membered. He would have preferred a more deliberate 
 survey, but with a shake of her head and an hysteric little 
 laugh she only said, "Run, Clarence, run," and again 
 darted forward. Arriving at the cross-street, they turned 
 the corner, and halted breathlessly. 
 
 "But you're not running away from school, Susy, are 
 you ? " said Clarence anxiously. 
 
 "Only a little bit. Just enough to get ahead of the 
 other girls," she said, rearranging her golden curls and 
 tilted hat. "You see, Clarence," she condescended to 
 explain, with a sudden assumption of older superiority, 
 "mother 's here at the hotel all this week, and I 'm allowed 
 to go home every night, like a day scholar. Only there 's 
 three or four other girls that go out at the same time with 
 me, and one of the Sisters, and to-day I got ahead of 'em 
 just to see you." 
 
108 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 " But " — began Clarence. 
 
 "Oh, it 's all right; the other girls knew it, and helped 
 me. They don't start out for half an hour yet, and they '11 
 say I 've just run ahead, and when they and the Sister get 
 to the hotel I '11 be there already — don't you see?" 
 
 "Yes," said Clarence dubiously. 
 
 "And we '11 go to an ice-cream saloon now, sha'n't we? 
 There 's a nice one near the hotel. I 've got some money," 
 she added quickly, as Clarence looked embarrassed. 
 
 "So have I," said Clarence, with a faint accession of 
 color. "Let's go!" She had relinquished his hand to 
 smooth out her frock, and they were walking side by side 
 at a more moderate pace. "But," he continued, clinging 
 to his first idea with masculine persistence, and anxious to 
 assure his companion of his power, of his position, "I'm 
 in the college, and Father Sobriente, who knows your 
 lady superior, is a good friend of mine and gives me privi- 
 leges ; and — and — when he knows that you and I used 
 to play together — why, he '11 fix it that we may see each 
 other whenever we want." 
 
 " Oh, you silly ! " said Susy. " What ! — when you 're " — 
 
 "When I'm what?" 
 
 The young girl shot a violet-blue ray from under her 
 broad hat. " Why — when we 're grown up now ? " Then 
 with a certain precision, "Why, they're very particular 
 about young gentlemen ! Why, Clarence, if they suspected 
 that you and I were " — Another violet ray from under 
 the hat completed this unfinished sentence. 
 
 Pleased and yet confused, Clarence looked straight ahead 
 with deepening color. "Why," continued Susy, "Mary 
 Eogers, that was walking with me, thought you were ever 
 so old — and a distinguished Spaniard ! And I, " she said 
 abruptly — "haven't I grown? Tell me, Clarence," with 
 her old appealing impatience, "haven't I grown? Do tell 
 me!" 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 109 
 
 "Very much," said Clarence. 
 
 "And is n't this frock pretty — it 's only my second hest 
 . — but I 've a prettier one with lace all down in front; but 
 is n't this one pretty, Clarence, tell me ? " 
 
 Clarence thought the frock and its fair owner perfection, 
 and said so. Whereat Susy, as if suddenly aware of the 
 presence of passers-by, assumed an air of severe propriety, 
 dropped her hands by her side, and with an affected con- 
 scientiousness walked on, a little further from Clarence's 
 side, until they reached the ice-cream saloon. 
 
 "Get a table near the back, Clarence," she said in a 
 confidential whisper, "where they can't see us — and 
 strawberry, you know, for the lemon and vanilla here are 
 just horrid ! " 
 
 They took their seats in a kind of rustic arbor in the 
 rear of the shop, which gave them the appearance of two 
 youthful but somewhat over-dressed and over-conscious 
 shepherds. There was an interval of slight awkwardness, 
 which Susy endeavored to displace. "There has been," 
 she remarked,- with easy conversational lightness, "quite 
 an excitement about our French teacher being changed. 
 The girls in our class think it most disgraceful." 
 
 And this was all she could say after a separation of four 
 years! Clarence was desperate, but as yet idealess and 
 voiceless. At last, with an effort over his spoon, he gasped 
 a floating recollection : " Do you still like flapjacks, Susy 1 " 
 
 "Oh yes," with a laugh, "but we don't have them 
 now." 
 
 " And Mose " (a black pointer, who used to yelp when 
 Susy sang), "does he still sing with you? " 
 
 "Oh, he's been lost ever so long," said Susy com- 
 posedly; "but I 've got a Newfoundland and a spaniel and 
 a black pony , " and here, with a rapid inventory of her 
 other personal effects, she drifted into some desultory 
 details of the devotion of her adopted parents, whom she 
 
110 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 now readily spoke of as " papa " and " mamma, " -with evi- 
 dently no disturbing recollection of the dead. From which 
 it appeared that the Peytons were very rich, and, in addi- 
 tion to their possessions in the lower country, owned a 
 ranch in Santa Clara and a house in San Francisco. Like 
 all children, her strongest impressions were the most 
 recent. In the vain hope to lead her back to this material 
 yesterday, he said : — 
 
 " You remember Jim Hooker ? " 
 
 "Oh, he ran away, when you left. But just think of 
 it! The other day, when papa and I went into a big 
 restaurant in San Francisco, who should be there waiting 
 on the table — yes, Clarence, a real waiter — but Jim 
 Hooker! Papa spoke to him; but of course," with a 
 slight elevation of her pretty chin, "I couldn't, you know; 
 fancy — a waiter ! " 
 
 The story of how Jim Hooker had personated him 
 stopped short upon Clarence's lips. He could not bring 
 himself now to add that revelation to the contempt of his 
 small companion, which, in spite of its naivete, somewhat 
 grated on his sensibilities. 
 
 "Clarence," she said, suddenly turning towards him 
 mysteriously, and indicating the shopman and his assist- 
 ants, "I really believe these people suspect us." 
 
 "Of what? " said the practical Clarence. 
 
 "Don't be silly! Don't you see how they are staring?" 
 
 Clarence was really unable to detect the least curiosity 
 on the part of the shopman, or that any one exhibited the 
 slightest concern in him or his companion. But he felt 
 a return of the embarrassed pleasure he was conscious of 
 a moment before. 
 
 " Then you 're living with your father 1 " said Susy, 
 changing the subject. 
 
 "You mean my cousin," said Clarence, smiling. "You 
 know my father died long before I ever knew you." 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 111 
 
 "Yes; that's what you used to say, Clarence, hut papa 
 says it isn't so." But seeing the boy's wondering eyes 
 fixed on her with a troubled expression, she added quickly, 
 " Oh, then, he is your cousin ! " 
 
 "Well, I think I ought to know," said Clarence, with 
 a smile, that was, however, far from comfortable, and a 
 quick return of his old unpleasant recollections of the 
 Peytons. "Why, I was brought to him by one of his 
 friends." And Clarence gave a rapid boyish summary of 
 his journey from Sacramento, and Flynn's discovery of the 
 letter addressed to Silsbee. But before he had concluded 
 he was conscious that Susy was by no means interested in 
 these details, nor in the least affected by the passing allu- 
 sion to her dead father and his relation to Clarence's mis- 
 adventures. With her rounded chin in her hand, she was 
 slowly examining his face, with a certain mischievous yet 
 demure abstraction. "I tell you what, Clarence," she 
 said, when he had finished, "you ought to make your 
 cousin get you one of those sombreros, and a nice gold- 
 braided serape. They 'd just suit you. And then — then 
 you could ride up and down the Alameda when we are 
 going by." 
 
 "But I 'm coming to see you at — at your house, and at 
 the convent," he said eagerly. "Father Sobriente and my 
 cousin will fix it all right." 
 
 But Susy shook her head, with superior wisdom. "No; 
 they must never know our secret ! — neither papa nor 
 mamma, especially mamma. And they mustn't know 
 that we 've met again — after these years ! " It is impos- 
 sible to describe the deep significance which Susy's blue 
 eyes gave to this expression. After a pause she went on : — 
 
 "No! We must never meet again, Clarence, unless 
 Mary Bogers helps. She is my best, my onliest friend, 
 and older than I; having had trouble herself, and being 
 expressly forbidden to see him again. You can speak to 
 
112 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 her about Suzette — that's my name now; I was rechris* 
 tened Suzette Alexandra Peyton by mamma. And now, 
 Clarence," dropping her voice and glancing shyly around 
 the saloon, "you may kiss me just once under my hat, for 
 good-by." She adroitly slanted her broad-brimmed hat 
 towards the front of the shop, and in its shadow advanced 
 her fresh young cheek to Clarence. 
 
 Coloring and laughing, the boy pressed his lips to it 
 twice. Then Susy arose, with the faintest affectation of 
 a sigh, shook out her skirt, drew on her gloves with the 
 greatest gravity, and saying, "Don't follow me further 
 than the door — they 're coming now, " walked with super- 
 cilious dignity past the preoccupied proprietor and waiters 
 to the entrance. Here she said, with marked civility, 
 "Good-afternoon, Mr. Brant," and tripped away towards 
 the hotel. Clarence lingered for a moment to look after 
 the lithe and elegant little figure, with its shining undula- 
 tions of hair that fell over the back and shoulders of her 
 white frock like a golden mantle, and then turned away in 
 the opposite direction. 
 
 He walked home in a state, as it seemed to him, of 
 absurd perplexity. There were many reasons why his 
 encounter with Susy should have been of unmixed plea- 
 sure. She had remembered him of her own free will, and, 
 in spite of the change in her fortune, had made the first 
 advances. Her doubts about her future interviews had 
 affected him but little ; still less, I fear, did he think of 
 the other changes in her character and disposition, for he 
 was of that age when they added only a piquancy and fas- 
 cination to her — as of one who, in spite of her weakness 
 of nature, was still devoted to him ! But he was painfully 
 conscious that this meeting had revived in him all the 
 fears, vague uneasiness, and sense of wrong that had 
 haunted his first boyhood, and which he thought he had 
 buried at El Eefugio four years ago. Susy's allusion to 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 113 
 
 his father and the reiteration of Peyton's skepticism awoke 
 in his older intellect the first feeling of suspicion that was 
 compatible with his open nature. Was this recurring reti- 
 cence and mystery due to any act of his father's? But, 
 looking back upon it in after-years, he concluded that the 
 incident of that day was a premonition rather than a recol= 
 lection. 
 
CHAPTEK XI 
 
 When he reached the college the Angelus had long 
 since rung. In the corridor he met one of the Fathers, 
 who, instead of questioning him, returned his salutation 
 with a grave gentleness that struck him. He had turned 
 into Father Sobriente's quiet study with the intention of 
 reporting himself, when he was disturbed to find him in 
 consultation with three or four of the faculty, who seemed 
 to be thrown into some slight confusion by his entrance. 
 Clarence was about to retire hurriedly when Father Sobri- 
 ente, breaking up the council with a significant glance at 
 the others, called him back. Confused and embarrassed, 
 with a dread of something impending, the boy tried to 
 avert it by a hurried account of his meeting with Susy, 
 and his hopes of Father Sobriente's counsel and assistance. 
 Taking upon himself the idea of suggesting Susy's esca- 
 pade, he confessed the fault. The old man gazed into his 
 frank eyes with a thoughtful, half-compassionate smile. 
 " I was just thinking of giving you a holiday with — with 
 Don Juan Eobinson." The unusual substitution of this 
 final title for the habitual " your cousin " struck Clarence 
 uneasily. "But we will speak of that later. Sit down, 
 my son ; I am not busy. We shall talk a little. Father 
 Pedro says you are getting on fluently with your transla- 
 tions. That is excellent, my son, excellent." 
 
 Clarence's face beamed with relief and pleasure. His 
 vague fears began to dissipate. 
 
 " And you translate even from dictation ! Good ! We 
 have an hour to spare, and you shall give to me a speci- 
 
A WAIF OF THU PLAINS 115 
 
 men of your skill. Eh 1 Good ! I will walk here and 
 dictate to you in my poor English, and you shall sit there 
 and render it to me in your good Spanish. Eh ? So we 
 shall amuse and instruct ourselves." 
 
 Clarence smiled. These sporadic moments of instruc 
 tion and admonition were not unusual to the good Father. 
 He cheerfully seated himself at the Padre's table before 
 a blank sheet of paper, with a pen in his hand. Father 
 Sobriente paced the apartment, with his usual heavy but 
 noiseless tread. To his surprise, the good priest, after an 
 exhaustive pinch of snuff, blew his nose, and began, in his 
 most lugubrious style of pulpit exhortation : — 
 
 "It has been written that the sins of the father shall be 
 visited upon the children, and the unthinking and worldly 
 have sought refuge from this law by declaring it harsh and 
 cruel. Miserable and blind ! For do we not see that the 
 wicked man, who in the pride of his power and vainglory 
 is willing to risk punishment to himself, — and believes it 
 to be courage, — must pause before the awful mandate that 
 condemns an equal suffering to those he loves, which he 
 cannot withhold or suffer for ? In the spectacle of these 
 innocents struggling against disgrace, perhaps disease, pov- 
 erty, or desertion, what avails his haughty, all-defying 
 spirit 1 Let us imagine, Clarence. " 
 
 " Sir ? " said the literal Clarence, pausing in his exer- 
 cise. 
 
 "I mean," continued the priest, with a slight cough, 
 " let the thoughtful man picture a father : a desperate, self- 
 willed man, who scorned the laws of God and society — 
 keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he called 
 ' honor, ' and relying only on his own courage and his 
 knowledge of human weakness. Imagine him cruel and 
 bloody — a gambler by profession, an outlaw among men, 
 an outcast from the Church ; voluntarily abandoning friends 
 and family — the wife he should have cherished, the son 
 
116 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 he should have reared and educated — for the gratification 
 of his deadly passions. Yet imagine that man suddenly 
 confronted with the thought of that heritage of shame and 
 disgust which he had brought upon his innocent offspring 
 — to whom he cannot give even his own desperate reck- 
 lessness to sustain its vicarious suffering. "What must be 
 the feelings of a parent " — 
 
 "Father Sobriente," said Clarence softly. 
 
 To the boy's surprise, scarcely had he spoken when the 
 soft protecting palm of the priest was already upon his 
 shoulder, and the snuffy but kindly upper lip, trembling 
 with some strange emotion, close beside his cheek. 
 
 " "What is it, Clarence 1 " he said hurriedly. " Speak, 
 my son, without fear ! You would ask " — 
 
 " I only wanted to know if ' padre ' takes a masculine 
 verb here," replied Clarence naively. 
 
 Father Sobriente blew his nose violently. "Truly — 
 though used for either gender, by the context masculine," 
 he responded gravely. "Ah," he added, leaning over 
 Clarence, and scanning his work hastily, "Good, very 
 good! And now, possibly," he continued, passing his 
 hand like a damp sponge over his heated brow, "we shall 
 reverse our exercise. I shall deliver to you in Spanish 
 what you shall render back in English, eh 1 And — let us 
 consider — we shall make something more familiar and 
 narrative, eh 1 " 
 
 To this Clarence, somewhat bored by these present 
 solemn abstractions, assented gladly, and took up his pen. 
 Father Sobriente, resuming his noiseless pacing, began : — 
 
 "On the fertile plains of Guadalajara lived a certain 
 caballero, possessed of flocks and lands, and a wife and 
 son. But, being also possessed of a fiery and roving na- 
 ture, he did not value them as he did perilous adventure, 
 feats of arms, and sanguinary encounters. To this may 
 be added riotous excesses, gambling and drunkenness, 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 117 
 
 which in time decreased his patrimony, even as his rebel- 
 lious and quarrelsome spirit had alienated his family and 
 neighbors. His wife, borne down by shame and sorrow, 
 died while her son was still an infant. In a fit of equal 
 remorse and recklessness the caballero married again within 
 the year. But the new wife was of a temper and bearing 
 as bitter as her consort. Violent quarrels ensued between 
 them, ending in the husband abandoning his wife and son, 
 and leaving St. Louis — I should say Guadalajara — for- 
 ever. Joining some adventurers in a foreign land, under 
 an assumed name, he pursued his reckless course, until, by 
 one or two acts of outlawry, he made his return to civili- 
 zation impossible. The deserted wife and stepmother of 
 his child coldly accepted the situation, forbidding his name 
 to be spoken again in her presence, announced that he was 
 dead, and kept the knowledge of his existence from his 
 own son, whom she placed under the charge of her sister. 
 But the sister managed to secretly communicate with the 
 outlawed father, and, under a pretext, arranged between 
 them, of sending the boy to another relation, actually dis- 
 patched the innocent child to his unworthy parent. Per- 
 haps stirred by remorse, the infamous man " — 
 
 " Stop ! " said Clarence suddenly. 
 
 He had thrown down his pen, and was standing erect 
 and rigid before the Father. 
 
 "You are trying to tell me something, Father Sobri- 
 ente," he said, with an effort. "Speak out, I implore 
 you. I can stand anything but this mystery. I am no 
 longer a child. I have a right to know all. This that 
 you are telling me is no fable — I see it in your face, 
 Father Sobriente ; it is' the story of — of " — 
 
 "Your father, Clarence," said the priest in a trembling 
 voice. 
 
 The boy drew back, with a white face. "My father!" 
 he repeated. " Living, or dead 1 " 
 
218 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "Living, when you first left your home," said the old 
 man hurriedly, seizing Clarence's hand, "for it was he 
 who in the name of your cousin sent for you. Living — 
 yes, while you were here, for it was he who for the past 
 three years stood in the shadow of this assumed cousin, 
 Don Juan, and at last sent you to this school. Living, 
 Clarence, yes; but living under a name and reputation 
 that would have blasted you ! And now dead — dead in 
 Mexico, shot as an insurgent and in a still desperate career! 
 May God have mercy on his soul! " 
 
 " Dead ! " repeated Clarence, trembling, " only now ? " 
 
 "The news of the insurrection and his fate came only 
 an hour since," continued the Padre quickly; "his com- 
 plicity with it and his identity were known only to Don 
 Juan. He would have spared you any knowledge of the 
 truth, even as this dead man would; but I and my 
 brothers thought otherwise. I have broken it to you 
 badly, my son, but forgive me ! " 
 
 An hysterical laugh broke from Clarence, and the priest 
 recoiled before t him. " Forgive you ! What was this man 
 to me ? " he said, with boyish vehemence. " He never 
 loved me ! He deserted me ; he made my life a lie. He 
 never sought me, came near me, or stretched a hand to me 
 that I could take ! " 
 
 " Hash ! hush ! " said the priest, with a horrified look, 
 laying his huge hand upon the boy's shoulder and bearing 
 him down to his seat. "You know not what you say. 
 Think — think, Clarence! "Was there none of all those 
 who have befriended you — who were kind to you in your 
 wanderings — to whom your heart turned unconsciously? 
 Think, Clarence! You yourself have spoken to me of 
 such a one. Let your heart speak again, for his sake — ■ 
 for the sake of the dead." 
 
 A gentler light suffused the boy's eyes, and he started. 
 Catching convulsively at his companion's sleeve, he said in 
 
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS 119 
 
 an eager, boyish whisper, " There was one, a wicked, des- 
 perate man, whom they all feared — Flynn, who brought 
 me from the mines. Yes, I thought that he was my 
 cousin's loyal friend — more than all the rest; and I told 
 him everything — all, that I never told the man I thought 
 my cousin, or any one, or even you; and I think, I think, 
 Father, I liked him best of all. I thought since it was 
 wrong," he continued, with a trembling smile, "for I was 
 foolishly fond even of the way the others feared him, he 
 that I feared not, and who was so kind to me. Yet he, 
 too, left me without a word, and when I would have fol- 
 lowed him " — But the boy broke down, and buried his 
 face in his hands. 
 
 "No, no," said Father Sobriente, with eager persistence, 
 "that was his foolish pride to spare you the knowledge of 
 your kinship with one so feared, and part of the blind and 
 mistaken penance he had laid upon himself. For even at 
 that moment of your boyish indignation, he never was so 
 fond of you as then. Yes, my poor boy, this man, to 
 whom God led your wandering feet at Deadman's Gulch; 
 the man who brought you here, and by some secret hold 
 ■—I know not what — on Don Juan's past, persuaded him 
 to assume to be your relation; this man Flynn, this Jack- 
 son Brant the gambler, this Hamilton Brant the outlaw 
 — was your father ! Ah, yes ! Weep on, my son ; each 
 tear of love and forgiveness from thee hath vicarious power 
 to wash away his sin." 
 
 With a single sweep of his protecting hand he drew 
 Clarence towards his breast, until the boy slowly sank 
 upon his knees at his feet. Then, lifting his eyes towards 
 the ceiling, he said softly in an older tongue, "And thou, 
 too, unhappy and perturbed spirit, rest ! " 
 
 It was nearly dawn when the good Padre wiped the 
 last tears from Clarence's clearer eyes. "And now, my 
 
120 A "WAIF OF THE PLAINS 
 
 son," he said, with a gentle smile, as he rose to his feet, 
 "let us not forget the living. Although your stepmother 
 has, through her own act, no legal claim upon you, far he 
 it from me to indicate your attitude towards her. Enough 
 that you are independent." He turned, and, opening a 
 drawer in his secretary, took out a bank-book, and placed 
 it in the hands of the wondering boy. 
 
 "It was his wish, Clarence, that even after his death 
 you should never have to prove your kinship to claim your 
 rights. Taking advantage of the boyish deposit you had 
 left with Mr. Carden at the bank, with his connivance and 
 in your name he added to it, month by month and year by 
 year; Mr. Carden cheerfully accepting the trust and man- 
 agement of the fund. The seed thus sown has produced 
 a thousandfold, Clarence, beyond all expectations. You 
 are not only free, my son, but of yourself and in whatever 
 name you choose — your own master. " 
 
 "I shall keep my father's name," said the boy simply. 
 
 " Amen ! " said Father Sobriente. 
 
 Here closes the chronicle of Clarence Brant's boyhood. 
 How he sustained his name and independence in after- 
 years, and who, of those already mentioned in these pages, 
 helped him to make or mar it, may be a matter for future 
 record. 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Wheee the San Leandro turnpike stretches its dusty, 
 hot, and interminable length along the valley, at a point 
 where the heat and dust have become intolerable, the 
 monotonous expanse of wild oats on either side illimitable, 
 and the distant horizon apparently remoter than ever, it 
 suddenly slips between a stunted thicket or hedge of 
 scrub oaks, which until that moment had been undistin- 
 guishable above the long, misty, quivering level of the 
 grain. The thicket rising gradually in height, but with 
 a regular slope whose gradient had been determined by 
 centuries of western trade-winds, presently becomes a fair 
 wood of live-oak, and a few hundred yards further at last 
 assumes the aspect of a primeval forest. A delicious cool- 
 ness fills the air; the long, shadowy aisles greet the aching 
 eye with a soothing twilight; the murmur of unseen brooks 
 is heard, and, by a strange irony, the enormous, widely 
 spaced stacks of wild oats are replaced by a carpet of tiny- 
 leaved mosses and chickweed at the roots of trees, and the 
 minutest clover in more open spaces. The baked and 
 cracked adobe soil of the now vanished plains is exchanged 
 for a heavy red mineral dust and gravel, rocks and boulders 
 make their appearance, and at times the road is crossed by 
 the white veins of quartz. It is still the San Leandro 
 turnpike, — a few miles later to rise from this Canada into 
 the upper plains again, — but it is also the actual gateway 
 and avenue to the Eobles Eancho. When the departing 
 
122 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 visitors of Judge Peyton, now owner of the rancho, reach 
 the outer plains again, after twenty minutes' drive from 
 the house, the Canada, rancho, and avenue have as com- 
 pletely disappeared from view as if they had been swal- 
 lowed up in the plain. 
 
 A cross-road from the turnpike is the usual approach to 
 the casa or mansion, — a long, low quadrangle of brown 
 adobe wall in a bare but gently sloping eminence. And 
 here a second surprise meets the stranger. He seems to 
 have emerged from the forest upon another illimitable 
 plain, but one utterly trackless, wild, and desolate. It is, 
 however, only a lower terrace of the same valley, and, in 
 fact, comprises the three square leagues of the Eobles 
 Bancho. Uncultivated and savage as it appears, given 
 over to wild cattle and horses that sometimes sweep in 
 frightened bands around the very casa itself, the long 
 south wall of the corral embraces an orchard of gnarled 
 pear-trees, an old vineyard, and a venerable garden of 
 olives and oranges. A manor, formerly granted by Charles 
 V. to Don Vincente Eobles, of Andalusia, of pious and 
 ascetic memory, it had commended itself to Judge Peyton, 
 of Kentucky, a modern heretic pioneer of bookish tastes 
 and secluded habits, who had bought it of Don Vincente's 
 descendants. Here Judge Peyton seemed to have realized 
 his idea of a perfect climate, and a retirement, half studi- 
 ous, half active, with something of the seignioralty of the 
 old slaveholder that he had been. Here, too, he had seen 
 the hope of restoring his wife's health — for which he had 
 undertaken the overland emigration — more than fulfilled 
 in Mrs. Peyton's improved physical condition, albeit at 
 the expense, perhaps, of some of the languorous graces of 
 ailing American wifehood. 
 
 It was with a curious recognition of this latter fact that 
 Judge Peyton watched his wife crossing the patio or court- 
 yard with her arm around the neck of her adopted daugh- 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 123 
 
 ter "Suzette." A sudden memory crossed his mind of the 
 first day that he had seen them together, — the day that 
 he had brought the child and her boy-companion — two 
 estrays from an emigrant train on the plains — to his wife 
 in camp. Certainly Mrs. Peyton was stouter and stronger 
 fibred; the wonderful Calif ornian climate had material- 
 ized her figure, as it had their Eastern fruits and flowers, 
 but it was stranger that " Susy " — the child of homelier 
 frontier blood and parentage, whose wholesome peasant 
 plumpness had at first attracted them — should have grown 
 thinner and more graceful, and even seemed to have gained 
 the delicacy his wife had lost. Six years had impercepti- 
 bly wrougbt this change; it had never struck him before 
 so forcibly as on this day of Susy's return from the con- 
 vent school at Santa Clara for the holidays. 
 
 The woman and child had reached the broad veranda 
 which, on one side of the patio, replaced the old Spanish 
 corridor. It was the single modern innovation that Pey- 
 ton had allowed himself when he had broken the quadran- 
 gular symmetry of the old house with a wooden annex 
 or addition beyond the walls. It made a pleasant loung- 
 ing-place, shadowed from the hot midday sun by sloping 
 roofs and awnings, and sheltered from the boisterous after- 
 noon trade-winds by the opposite side of the court. But 
 Susy did not seem inclined to linger there long that morn- 
 ing, in spite of Mrs. Peyton's evident desire for a maternal 
 tete-a-tete. The nervous preoccupation and capricious 
 ennui of an indulged child showed in her pretty but dis- 
 contented face, and knit her curved eyebrows, and Peyton 
 saw a look of pain pass over his wife's face as the young 
 girl suddenly and half laughingly broke away and fluttered 
 off towards the old garden. 
 
 Mrs. Peyton looked up and caught her husband's eye. 
 
 "I am afraid Susy finds it more dull here every time 
 she returns," she said, with an apologetic smile. "I am 
 
124 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 glad she has invited one of her school friends to come for 
 a visit to-morrow. You know, yourself, John," she 
 added, with a slight partisan attitude, "that the lonely 
 old house and wild plain are not particularly lively for 
 young people, however much they may suit your ways." 
 
 "It certainly must be dull if she can't stand it for three 
 weeks in the year," said her husband dryly. "But we 
 really cannot open the San Francisco house for her summer 
 vacation, nor can we move from the rancho to a more fash- 
 ionable locality. Besides, it will do her good to run wild 
 here. I can remember when she was n't so fastidious. In 
 fact, I was thinking just now how changed she was from 
 the day when we picked her up " — 
 
 "How often am I to remind you, John," interrupted 
 the lady, with some impatience, " that we agreed never to 
 speak of her past, or even to think of her as anything but 
 our own child. You know how it pains me! And the 
 poor dear herself has forgotten it, and thinks, of us only 
 as her own parents. I really believe that if that wretched 
 father and mother of hers had not been killed by the 
 Indians, or were to come to life again, she would neither 
 know them nor care for them. I mean, of course, John," 
 she said, averting her eyes from a slightly cynical smile on 
 her husband's face, "that it's only natural for young chil- 
 dren to be forgetful, and ready to take new impressions." 
 
 "And as long, dear, as we are not the subjects of this 
 youthful forgetfulness, and she is n't really finding us as 
 stupid as the rancho," replied her husband cheerfully, "I 
 suppose we mustn't complain." 
 
 " John, how can you talk such nonsense 1 " said Mrs. 
 Peyton impatiently. "But I have no fear of that," she 
 added, with a slightly ostentatious confidence. "I only 
 wish I was as sure " — 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 "Of nothing happening that could take her from us 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 125 
 
 I do not mean death, John, — like our first little one. 
 That does not happen to one twice ; but I sometimes 
 dread " — 
 
 "What? She's only fifteen, and it's rather early to 
 think about the only other inevitable separation, — mar- 
 riage. Come, Ally, this is mere fancy. She has been 
 given up to us by her family, — at least, by all that we 
 know are left of them. I have legally adopted her. If 
 I have not made her my heiress, it is because I prefer to 
 leave everything to you, and I would rather she should 
 know that she was dependent upon you for the future 
 than upon me. " 
 
 " And I can make a will in her favor if I want to 1 " 
 said Mrs. Peyton quickly. 
 
 "Always," responded her husband smilingly; "but you 
 have ample time to think of that, I trust. Meanwhile I 
 have some news for you which may make Susy's visit to 
 the rancho this time less dull to her. You remember 
 Clarence Brant, the boy who was with her when we picked 
 her up, and who really saved her life 1 " 
 
 "No, I don't," said Mrs. Peyton pettishly, "nor do I 
 want to! You know, John, how distasteful and unplea- 
 sant it is for me to have those dreary, petty, and vulgar 
 details of the poor child's past life recalled, and, thank 
 Heaven, I have forgotten them except when you choose to 
 drag them before me. You agreed, long ago, that we 
 were never to talk of the Indian massacre of her parents, 
 so that we could also ignore it before her; then why do 
 you talk of her vulgar friends, who are just as unpleasant ? 
 Please let us drop the past." 
 
 "Willingly, my dear; but, unfortunately, we cannot 
 make others do it. And this is a case in point. It 
 appears that this boy, whom we brought to Sacramento to 
 deliver to a relative " — 
 
 " And who was a wicked little impostor, — you remem- 
 
^26 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 ber that yourself, John, for he said that he was the son of 
 Colonel Brant, and that he was dead; and you know, and 
 my brother Harry knew, that Colonel Brant was alive all 
 the time, and that he was lying, and Colonel Brant was 
 not his father," broke in Mrs. Peyton impatiently. 
 
 "As it seems you do remember that much," said Peyton 
 dryly, " it is only just to him that I should tell you that 
 it appears that he was not an impostor. His story was 
 true. I have just learned that Colonel Brant was actually 
 his father, but had concealed his lawless life here, as well 
 as his identity, from the boy. He was really that vague 
 relative to whom Clarence was confided, and under that 
 disguise he afterwards protected the boy, had him carefully 
 educated at the Jesuits' College of San Jose, and, dying 
 two years ago in that filibuster raid in Mexico, left him a 
 considerable fortune. " 
 
 " And what has he to do with Susy's holidays t " said 
 Mrs. Peyton, with uneasy quickness. "John, you surely 
 cannot expect her ever to meet this common creature again, 
 with his vulgar ways. His wretched associates like that 
 Jim Hooker, and, as you yourself admit, the blood of an 
 assassin, duelist — and Heaven knows what kind of a 
 pirate his father was n't at the last — in his veins ! You 
 don't believe that a lad of this type, however much of his 
 father's ill-gotten money he may have, can be fit company 
 for your daughter? You never could have thought of 
 inviting him here 1 " 
 
 "I'm afraid that's exactly what I have done, Ally," 
 said the smiling but unmoved Peyton; "but I'm still 
 more afraid that your conception of his present condition 
 is an unfair one, like your remembrance of his past. 
 Father Sobriente, whom I met at San Jose' yesterday, says 
 he is very intelligent, and thoroughly educated, with 
 charming manners and refined tastes. His father's money, 
 which they say was an investment for him in Carden's 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 127 
 
 Bank five years ago, is as good as any one's, and his 
 father's blood won't hurt him in California or the South- 
 west. At least, he is received everywhere, and Don Juan 
 Robinson was his guardian. Indeed, as far as social status 
 goes, it might be a serious question if the actual daughter 
 of the late John Silsbee, of Pike County, and the adopted 
 child of John Peyton was in the least his superior. As 
 Father Sobriente evidently knew of Clarence's former com- 
 panionship with Susy and her parents, it would be hardly 
 politic for us to ignore it or seem to be ashamed of it. So 
 I entrusted Sobriente with an invitation to young Brant on 
 the spot." 
 
 Mrs. Peyton's impatience, indignation, and opposition, 
 which had successively given way before her husband's 
 quiet, masterful good humor, here took the form of a neu- 
 rotic fatalism. She shook her head with superstitious 
 resignation. 
 
 "Didn't I tell you, John, that I always had a dread of 
 something coming " — 
 
 "But if it comes in the shape of a shy young lad, I see 
 nothing singularly portentous in it. They have not met 
 since they were quite small; their tastes have changed; if 
 they don't quarrel and fight they may be equally bored 
 with each other. Yet until then, in one way or another, 
 Clarence will occupy the young lady's vacant caprice, and 
 her school friend, Mary Rogers, will be here, you know, 
 to divide his attentions, and," added Peyton, with mock 
 solemnity, "preserve the interest of strict propriety. 
 Shall I break it to her, — or will you ? " 
 
 "No, — yes," hesitated Mrs. Peyton; "perhaps I had 
 better." 
 
 "Very well, I leave his character in your hands; only 
 don't prejudice her into a romantic fancy for him." And 
 Judge Peyton lounged smilingly away. 
 
 Then two little tears forced themselves from Mrs. Pey- 
 
128 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 ton's eyes. Again she saw that prospect of uninterrupted 
 companionship with Susy, upon which each successive year 
 she had built so many maternal hopes and confidences, 
 fade away before her. She dreaded the coming of Susy's 
 school friend, who shared her daughter's present thoughts 
 and intimacy, although she had herself invited her in a 
 more desperate dread of the child's abstracted, discontented 
 eyes; she dreaded the advent of the boy who had shared 
 Susy's early life before she knew her; she dreaded the 
 ordeal of breaking the news and perhaps seeing that pretty 
 animation spring into her eyes, which she had begun to 
 believe no solicitude or tenderness of her own ever again 
 awakened, — and yet she dreaded still more that her hus- 
 band should see it too. For the love of this re-created 
 woman, although not entirely materialized with her 
 changed fibre, had nevertheless become a coarser selfishness 
 fostered by her loneliness and limited experience. The 
 maternal yearning left unsatisfied by the loss of her first- 
 born had never been filled by Susy's thoughtless acceptance 
 of it; she had been led astray by the child's easy transfer- 
 ence of dependence and the forgetfulness of youth, and 
 was only now dimly conscious of finding herself face to 
 face with an alien nature. 
 
 She started to her feet and followed the direction that 
 Susy had taken. For a moment she had to front the after- 
 noon trade-wind which chilled her as it swept the plain 
 beyond the gateway, but was stopped by the adobe wall, 
 above whose shelter the stunted treetops — through years 
 of exposure — slanted as if trimmed by gigantic shears. 
 At first, looking down the venerable alley of fantastic, 
 knotted shapes, she saw no trace of Susy. But halfway 
 down the gleam of a white skirt against a thicket of dark 
 olives showed her the young girl sitting on a bench in 
 a neglected arbor. In the midst of this formal and faded 
 pageantry she looked charmingly fresh, youthful, and 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 129 
 
 pretty ; and yet the unfortunate woman thought that her 
 attitude and expression at that moment suggested more 
 than her fifteen years of girlhood. Her golden hair still 
 hung unfettered over her straight, boylike back and shoul- 
 ders; her short skirt still showed her childish feet and 
 ankles; yet there seemed to be some undefined maturity 
 or a vague womanliness about her that stung Mrs. Pey- 
 ton's heart. The child was growing away from her, too! 
 
 "Susy!" 
 
 The young girl raised her head quickly; her deep violet 
 eyes seemed also to leap with a sudden suspicion, and with 
 a half-mechanical, secretive movement, that might have 
 been only a schoolgirl's instinct, her right hand had slipped 
 a paper on which she was scribbling between the leaves of 
 her book. Yet the next moment, even while looking 
 interrogatively at her mother, she withdrew the paper 
 quietly, tore it up into small pieces, and threw them on 
 the ground. 
 
 But Mrs. Peyton was too preoccupied with her news to 
 notice the circumstance, and too nervous in her haste to be 
 tactful. " Susy, your father has invited that boy, Clar- 
 ence Brant, — you know that creature we picked up and 
 assisted on the plains, when you were a mere baby, — to 
 come down here and make us a visit." 
 
 Her heart seemed to stop beating as she gazed breath- 
 lessly at the girl. But Susy's face, unchanged except for 
 the alert, questioning eyes, remained fixed for a moment; 
 then a childish smile of wonder, opened her small red 
 mouth, expanded it slightly as she said simply : — 
 
 "Lor, mar! He hasn't, really!" 
 
 Inexpressibly, yet unreasonably reassured, Mrs. Peyton 
 hurriedly recounted her husband's story of Clarence's for- 
 tune, and was even joyfully surprised into some fairness 
 of statement. 
 
 "But you don't remember him much, do you, dear? 
 
130 SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 It was so long ago, and — you are quite a young lady 
 now," she added eagerly. 
 
 The open mouth was still fixed; the wondering smile 
 would have been idiotic in any face less dimpled, rosy, 
 and piquant than Susy's. After a slight gasp, as if in 
 still incredulous and partly reminiscent preoccupation, she 
 said without replying : — 
 
 " How funny ! When is he coming ? " 
 
 "Day after to-morrow," returned Mrs. Peyton, with a 
 contented smile. 
 
 "And Mary Eogers will be here, too. It will be real 
 fun for her. " 
 
 Mrs. Peyton was more than reassured. Half ashamed 
 of her jealous fears, she drew Susy's golden head towards 
 her and kissed it. And the young girl, still reminiscent, 
 witL smilingly abstracted toleration, returned the caress. 
 
CHAPTER n 
 
 It was not thought inconsistent with Susy's capricious- 
 ness that she should declare her intention the next morn- 
 ing of driving her pony huggy to Santa Inez to anticipate 
 the stagecoach and fetch Mary Rogers from the station. 
 Mrs. Peyton, as usual, supported the young lady's whim 
 and opposed her husband's objections. 
 
 "Because the stagecoach happens to pass our gate, 
 John, it is no reason why Susy should n't drive her friend 
 from Santa Inez if she prefers it. It 's only seven miles, 
 and you can send Pedro to follow her on horseback to see 
 that she comes to no harm." 
 
 "But that isn't Pedro's business," said Peyton. 
 
 " He ought to be proud of the privilege, " returned the 
 lady, with a toss of her head. 
 
 Peyton smiled grimly, but yielded; and when the stage- 
 coach drew up the next afternoon at the Santa Inez Hotel, 
 Susy was already waiting in her pony carriage before it. 
 Although the susceptible driver, expressman, and passen- 
 gers generally, charmed with this golden-haired vision, 
 would have gladly protracted the meeting of the two young 
 friends, the transfer of Mary Rogers from the coach to the 
 carriage was effected with considerable hauteur and youth- 
 ful dignity by Susy. Even Mary Rogers, two years Susy's 
 senior, a serious brunette, whose good humor did not, 
 however, impair her capacity for sentiment, was impressed 
 and even embarrassed by her demeanor; but only for a 
 moment. When they had driven from the hotel and were 
 fairly hidden again in the dust of the outlying plain, with 
 
132 SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 the discreet Pedro hovering in the distance, Susy dropped 
 the reins, and, grasping her companion's arm, gasped, in 
 tones of dramatic intensity : — 
 
 "He 's been heard from, and is coming here ! " 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 A sickening sense that her old confidante had already 
 lost touch with her — they had been separated for nearly 
 two weeks — might have passed through Susy's mind. 
 
 "Who?" she repeated, with a vicious shake of Mary's 
 arm, "why, Clarence Brant, of course." 
 
 " No ! " said Mary vaguely. 
 
 Nevertheless, Susy went on rapidly, as if to neutralize 
 the effect of her comrade's vacuity. 
 
 "You never could have imagined it! Never! Even 
 /, when mother told me, I thought I should have fainted, 
 and all would have been revealed ! " 
 
 "But," hesitated the still wondering confidante, "I 
 thought that was all over long ago. You haven't seen 
 him nor heard from him since that day you met acciden- 
 tally at Santa Clara, two years ago, have you ? " 
 
 Susy's eyes shot a blue ray of dark but unutterable 
 significance into Mary's, and then were carefully averted. 
 Mary Kogers, although perfectly satisfied that Susy had 
 never seen Clarence since, nevertheless instantly accepted 
 and was even thrilled with this artful suggestion of a 
 clandestine correspondence. Such was the simple faith of 
 youthful friendship. 
 
 "Mother knows nothing of it, of course, and a word 
 from you or him would ruin everything," continued the 
 breathless Susy. " That 's why I came to fetch you and 
 warn you. You must see him first, and warn him at any 
 cost. If I hadn't run every risk to come here to-day, 
 Heaven knows what might have happened ! What do you 
 think of the ponies, dear ? They 're my own, and the 
 sweetest! This one 's Susy, that one Clarence, — but pri- 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 133 
 
 vately, you know. Before the world and in the stables 
 he 's only Birdie." 
 
 "But I thought you wrote to me that you called them 
 ' Paul and Virginia, ' " said Mary doubtfully. 
 
 "I do, sometimes," said Susy calmly. "But one has 
 to learn to suppress one's feelings, dear!" Then quickly, 
 "I do so hate deceit, don't you? Tell me, don't you 
 think deceit perfectly hateful ? " 
 
 Without waiting for her friend's loyal assent, she con- 
 tinued rapidly: "And he's just rolling in wealth! and 
 educated, papa says, to the highest degree ! " 
 
 "Then," began Mary, "if he 's coming with your 
 mother's consent, and if you have n't quarreled, and it is 
 not broken off, I should think you 'd be just delighted." 
 
 But another quick flash from Susy's eyes dispersed these 
 beatific visions of the future. " Hush ! " she said, with 
 suppressed dramatic intensity. "You know not what you 
 say ! There 's an awful mystery hangs over him. Mary 
 Rogers," continued the young girl, approaching her small 
 mouth to her confidante's ear in an appalling whisper. 
 " His father was — a pirate ! Yes — lived a pirate and 
 was killed a pirate ! " 
 
 The statement, however, seemed to be partly ineffective. 
 Mary Sogers was startled but not alarmed, and even pro- 
 tested feebly. " But, " she said, " if the father 's dead, 
 what 's that to do with Clarence 1 He was always with 
 your papa — so you told me, dear — or other people, and 
 couldn't catch anything from his own father. And I 'm 
 sure, dearest, he always seemed nice and quiet." 
 
 " Yes, seemed, " returned Susy darkly, " but that 's all 
 you know ! It was in his blood. You know it always 
 is, — you read it in the books, — you could see it in his 
 eye. There were times, my dear, when he was thwarted, 
 — when the slightest attention from another person to me 
 revealed it ! I have kept it to myself, — but think, dear* 
 
134 SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 est, of the effects of jealousy on that passionate nature! 
 Sometimes I tremble to look back upon it." 
 
 Nevertheless, she raised her hands and threw back her 
 lovely golden mane from her childish shoulders with an 
 easy, untroubled gesture. It was singular that Mary 
 Kogers, leaning back comfortably in the buggy, also 
 accepted these heart-rending revelations with comfortably 
 knitted brows and luxuriously contented concern. If she 
 found it difficult to recognize in the picture just drawn by 
 Susy the quiet, gentle, and sadly reserved youth she had 
 known, she said nothing. After a silence, lazily watching 
 the distant wheeling vaquero, she said : — 
 
 "And your father always sends an outrider like that 
 with you 1 How nice ! So picturesque — and like the 
 old Spanish days." 
 
 " Hush ! " saic( Susy, with another unutterable glance. 
 
 But this time Mary was in full sympathetic communion 
 with her friend, and equal to any incoherent hiatus of 
 . revelation. 
 
 "No!" she said promptly, "you don't mean it!" 
 
 "Don't ask me. I daren't say anything to papa, for 
 he 'd be simply furious. But tbere are times when we 're 
 alone, and Pedro wheels down so near with such a look 
 in his black eyes, that I 'm all in a tremble. It 's dread- 
 ful! They say he 's a real Briones, — and he sometimes 
 says something in Spanish, ending with ' senorita, ' but I 
 pretend I don't understand." 
 
 " And I suppose that if anything should happen to the 
 ponies, he 'd just risk his life to save you. " 
 
 "Yes, — and it would be so awful, — for I just hate 
 him!" 
 
 " But if I was with you, dear, he could n't expect you 
 to be as grateful as if you were alone. Susy ! " she con- 
 tinued after a pause, " if you just stirred up the ponies a 
 little so as to make 'em go fast, perhaps he might think 
 
SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 135 
 
 they 'd got away from you, and come dashing down here. 
 It would be so funny to see him, — wouldn't it? " 
 
 The two girls looked at each other; their eyes sparkled 
 already with a fearful joy, — they drew a long breath of 
 guilty anticipation. For a moment Susy even believed in 
 her imaginary sketch of Pedro's devotion. 
 
 "Papa said I wasn't to use the whip except in a case 
 of necessity," she said, reaching for the slender silver- 
 handled toy, and setting her pretty lips together with the 
 added determination of disobedience. "G'long!" — and 
 she laid the lash smartly on the shining backs of the 
 animals. 
 
 They were wiry, slender brutes of Mojave Indian blood, 
 only lately broken to harness, and still undisciplined in 
 temper. The lash sent, them rearing into the air, where, 
 forgetting themselves in the slackened traces and loose 
 reins, they came down with a succession of bounds that 
 brought the light buggy leaping after them with its wheels 
 scarcely touching the ground. That unlucky lash had 
 knocked away the bonds of a few months' servitude and 
 sent the half- broken brutes instinctively careering with 
 arched backs and kicking heels into the field towards the 
 nearest cover. 
 
 Mary Rogers cast a hurried glance over her shoulder. 
 Alas, they had not calculated on the insidious levels of 
 the terraced plain, and the faithful Pedro had suddenly 
 disappeared; the intervention of six inches of rising wild 
 oats had wiped him out of the prospect and their possible 
 salvation as completely as if he had been miles away. 
 Nevertheless, the girls were not frightened; perhaps they 
 had not time. There was, however, the briefest interval 
 for the most dominant of feminine emotions, and it was 
 taken advantage of by Susy. 
 
 " It was all your fault, dear ! " she gasped, as the fore- 
 wheels of the buggy, dropping into a gopher rut, suddenly 
 
136 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 tilted up the back of the vehicle and shot its fair occupants 
 into the yielding palisades of dusty grain. The shock 
 detached the whiffletree from the splinter-bar, snapped the 
 light pole, and, turning the now thoroughly frightened 
 animals again from their course, sent them, goaded by the 
 clattering fragments, flying down the turnpike. Half a 
 mile farther on they overtook the gleaming white canvas 
 hood of a slowly moving wagon drawn by two oxen, and, 
 swerving again, the nearer pony stepped upon a trailing 
 trace and ingloriously ended their career by rolling himself 
 and his companion in the dust at the very feet of the peace- 
 fully plodding team. 
 
 Equally harmless and inglorious was the catastrophe of 
 Susy and her friend. The strong, elastic stalks of the tall 
 grain broke their fall and enabled them to scramble to 
 their feet, dusty, disheveled, but unhurt, and even un- 
 stunned by the shock. Their first instinctive cries over 
 a damaged hat or ripped skirt were followed by the quick 
 reaction of childish laughter. They were alone; the very 
 defection of Pedro consoled them, in its absence of any 
 witness to their disaster; even their previous slight atti- 
 tude to each other was forgotten. They groped their way, 
 pushing and panting, to the road again, where, beholding 
 the overset buggy with its wheels ludicrously in the air, 
 they suddenly seized and shook each other, and in an out- 
 burst of hilarious ecstasy, fairly laughed until the tears 
 came into their eyes. 
 
 Then there was a breathless silence. 
 
 "The stage will be coming by in a moment," composedly 
 said Susy. "Fix me, dear." 
 
 Mary Eogers calmly walked around her friend, bestow- 
 ing a practical shake there, a pluck here, completely rety- 
 ing one bow and restoring an engaging fullness to another, 
 yet critically examining, with her head on one side, the 
 fascinating result. Then Susy performed the same func- 
 
SUSY: A STORY OP THE PLAINS 137 
 
 tion for Mary with equal deliberation and deftness. Sud- 
 denly Mary started and looked up. 
 
 "It's coming," she said quickly, "and they've seen 
 us." 
 
 The expression of the faces of the two girls instantly 
 changed. A pained dignity and resignation, apparently 
 born of the most harrowing experiences and controlled 
 only by perfect good breeding, was distinctly suggested in 
 their features and attitude as they stood patiently by the 
 wreck of their overturned buggy awaiting the oncoming 
 coach. In sharp contrast was the evident excitement 
 among the passengers. A few rose from their seats in 
 their eagerness; as the stage pulled up in the road beside 
 the buggy four or five of the younger men leaped to the 
 ground. 
 
 " Are you hurt, miss ? " they gasped sympathetically. 
 
 Susy did not immediately reply, but ominously knitted 
 her pretty eyebrows as if repressing a spasm of pain. 
 Then she said, "Not at all," coldly, with the suggestion 
 of stoically concealing some lasting or perhaps fatal injury, 
 and took the arm of Mary Rogers, who had, in the mean 
 time, established a touching yet graceful limp. 
 
 Declining the proffered assistance of the passengers, they 
 helped each other into the coach, and freezingly requesting 
 the driver to stop at Mr. Peyton's gate, maintained a 
 statuesque and impressive silence. At the gates they got 
 down, followed by the sympathetic glances of the others. 
 
 To all appearance their escapade, albeit fraught with 
 dangerous possibilities, had happily ended. But in the 
 economy of human affairs, as in nature, forces are not sud- 
 denly let loose without more or less sympathetic disturbance 
 which is apt to linger after the impelling cause is harm- 
 lessly spent. The fright which the girls had unsuccess- 
 fully attempted to produce in the heart of their escort had 
 passed him to become a panic elsewhere. Judge Peyton s 
 
138 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 riding near the gateway of his rancho, was suddenly con- 
 fronted hy the spectacle of one of his vaqueros driving on 
 before him the two lassoed and dusty ponies, with a face 
 that broke into violent gesticulating at his master's quick 
 interrogation. 
 
 " Ah ! Mother of God ! It was an evil day ! For the 
 bronchos had run away, upset the buggy, and had only 
 been stopped by a brave Americano of an ox-team, whose 
 lasso was even now around their necks, to prove it, and 
 who had been dragged a matter of a hundred varas, like 
 a calf, at their heels. The senoritas, — ah ! had he not 
 already said they were safe, by the mercy of Jesus! — 
 picked up by the coach, and would be here at this 
 moment." 
 
 "But where was Pedro all the timet What was he 
 doing?" demanded Peyton, with a darkened face and 
 gathering anger. 
 
 The vaquero looked at his master, and shrugged his 
 shoulders significantly. At any other time Peyton would 
 have remembered that Pedro, as the reputed scion of a 
 decayed Spanish family, and claiming superiority, was not 
 a favorite with his fellow retainers. But the gesture, half 
 of suggestion, half of depreciation, irritated Peyton still 
 more. 
 
 "Well, where is this American who did something 
 when there wasn't a man among you all able to stop a 
 child's runaway ponies?" he said sarcastically. "Let me 
 see him." 
 
 The vaquero became still more deprecatory. 
 
 "Ah! He had driven on with his team towards San 
 Antonio. He would not stop to be thanked. But that 
 was the whole truth. He, Incarnacion, could swear to it 
 »s to the Creed. There was nothing more." 
 
 "Take those beasts around the back way to the corral," 
 said Peyton, thoroughly enraged, "and not a word of this 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 139 
 
 to any one at the casa, do you hear ? Not a word to Mrs. 
 Peyton or the servants, or, by Heaven, I '11 clear the 
 rancho of the whole lazy crew of you at once. Out of the 
 Way there, and be off! " 
 
 He spurred his horse past the frightened menial, and 
 dashed down the narrow lane that led to the gate. But, 
 as Incarnacion had truly said, "It was an evil day," for at 
 the bottom of the lane, ambling slowly along as he lazily 
 puffed a yellow cigarette, appeared the figure of the erring 
 Pedro. Utterly unconscious of the accident, attributing the 
 disappearance of his charges to the inequalities of the plain, 
 and, in truth, little interested in what he firmly believed 
 was his purely artificial function, he had even made a 
 larger circuit to stop at a wayside fonda for refreshments. 
 
 Unfortunately, there is no more illogical sequence of 
 human emotion than the exasperation produced by the 
 bland manner of the unfortunate object who has excited 
 it, although that very unconcern may be the convincing 
 proof of innocence of intention. Judge Peyton, already 
 influenced, was furious at the comfortable oblivousness of 
 his careless henchman, and rode angrily towards him. 
 Only a quick turn of Pedro's wrist kept the two men from 
 coming into collision. 
 
 " Is this the way you attend to your duty ? " demanded 
 Peyton in a thick, suppressed voice. "Where is the 
 buggy 1 Where is my daughter 1 " 
 
 There was no mistaking Judge Peyton's manner, even 
 if the reason of it was not so clear to Pedro's mind, and 
 his hot Latin blood flew instinctively to his face. But 
 for that, he might have shown some concern or asked an 
 explanation. As it was, he at once retorted with the 
 national shrug and the national half- scornful, half-lazy 
 "Quiensabe?" 
 
 "Who knows?" repeated Peyton hotly. "I do! She 
 was thrown out of her buggy through your negligence and 
 
140 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 infernal laziness! The ponies ran away, and were stopped 
 by a stranger who was n't afraid of risking his bones, while 
 you were limping around somewhere like a slouching, 
 cowardly coyote." 
 
 The vaquero struggled a moment between blank aston- 
 ishment and inarticulate rage. At last he burst out : — 
 
 " I am no coyote ! I was there ! I saw no runaway ! " 
 
 "Don't lie to me, sir!" roared Peyton. "I tell you 
 the buggy was smashed, the girls were thrown out and 
 nearly killed " — He stopped suddenly. The sound of 
 youthful laughter had come from the bottom of the lane, 
 where Susy Peyton and Mary Kogers, just alighted from 
 the coach, in the reaction of their previous constrained 
 attitude, were flying hilariously into view. A slight 
 embarrassment crossed Peyton's face; a still deeper flush 
 of anger overspread Pedro's sullen cheek. 
 
 Then Pedro found tongue again, his native one, rapidly, 
 violently, half incoherently. "Ah, yes! It had come 
 to this. It seems he was not a vaquero, a companion of 
 the padrone on land that had been his own before the 
 Americanos robbed him of it, but a servant, a lackey of 
 muchachas, an attendant on children to amuse them, or 
 - — why not? — an appendage to his daughter's state! Ah, 
 Jesus Maria ! such a state ! such a muchacha ! A picked- 
 up foundling — a swineherd's daughter — to be ennobled 
 by his, Pedro's, attendance, and for whose vulgar, clown- 
 ish tricks, — tricks of a swineherd's daughter, — he, Pedro, 
 was to be brought to book and insulted as if she were of 
 Hidalgo blood ! Ah, Caramba ! Don Juan Peyton would 
 find he could no more make a servant of him than he could 
 make a lady of her ! " 
 
 The two young girls were rapidly approaching. Judge 
 Peyton spurred his horse beside the vaquero 's, and, swing- 
 ing the long thong of his bridle ominously in his clenched 
 fingers, said, with a white face : — 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 141 
 
 " Vamos ! » 
 
 Pedro's hand slid towards his sash. Peyton only looked 
 at him with a rigid smile of scorn. 
 
 "Or I '11 lash you here before them both," he added in 
 a lower voice. 
 
 The vaquero met Peyton's relentless eyes with a yellow 
 flash of hate, drew his reins sharply, until his mustang, 
 galled by the cruel bit, reared suddenly as if to strike at 
 the immovable American, then, apparently with the same 
 action, he swung it around on its hind legs, as on a pivot, 
 and dashed towards the corral at a furious gallop. 
 
CHAPTER Hi 
 
 Meantime the heroic proprietor of the peaceful ox- 
 team, whose valor Incarnacion had so infelicitously cele- 
 brated, was walking listlessly in the dust beside his wagon. 
 At a first glance his slouching figure, taken in connection 
 with his bucolic conveyance, did not immediately suggest 
 a hero. As he emerged from the dusty cloud it could be 
 seen that he was wearing a belt from which a large dragoon 
 revolver and hunting-knife were slung, and placed some- 
 what ostentatiously across the wagon seat was a rifle. Yet 
 the other contents of the wagon were of a singularly inof- 
 fensive character, and even suggested articles of homely 
 barter. Culinary utensils of all sizes, tubs, scullery 
 brushes, and clocks, with several rolls of cheap carpeting 
 and calico, might have been the wares of some traveling 
 vender. Yet, as they were only visible through a flap of 
 the drawn curtains of the canvas hood, they did not miti- 
 gate the general aggressive effect of their owner's appear- 
 ance. A red bandana handkerchief knotted and thrown 
 loosely over his shoulders, a slouched hat pulled darkly 
 over a head of long tangled hair, which, however, sha- 
 dowed a round, comfortable face, scantily and youthfully 
 bearded, were part of these confusing inconsistencies. 
 
 The shadows of the team wagon were already lengthen- 
 ing grotesquely over the flat, cultivated fields, which for 
 some time had taken the place of the plains of wild oats 
 in the branch road into which they had turned. The 
 gigantic shadow of the proprietor,' occasionally projected 
 before it, was in characteristic exaggeration, and was often 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 143 
 
 obliterated by a puff of dust, stirred by the plodding hoofs 
 of the peaceful oxen, and swept across the field by the 
 strong afternoon trades. The sun sank lower, although a 
 still potent presence above the horizon line ; the creaking 
 wagon lumbered still heavily along. Yet at intervals its 
 belligerent proprietor would start up from his slouching, 
 silent march, break out into violent, disproportionate, but 
 utterly ineffective objurgation of his cattle, jump into the 
 air and kick his heels together in some paroxysm of indig- 
 nation against them, — an act, however, which was re- 
 ceived always with heavy bovine indifference, the dogged 
 scorn of swaying, repudiating heads, or the dull contempt 
 of lazily flicking tails. 
 
 Towards sunset one or two straggling barns and cot- 
 tages indicated their approach to the outskirts of a country 
 town or settlement. Here the team halted, as if the bel- 
 ligerent-looking teamster had felt his appearance was incon- 
 sistent with an effeminate civilization, and the oxen were 
 turned into an open waste opposite a nondescript wooden 
 tenement, half farmhouse and half cabin, evidently of the 
 rudest Western origin. He may have recognized the fact 
 that these " shanties " were not, as the ordinary traveler 
 might infer, the first rude shelter of the original pioneers 
 or settlers, but the later makeshifts of some recent Western 
 immigrants who, like himself, probably found themselves 
 unequal to the settled habits of the village, and who still 
 retained their nomadic instincts. It chanced, however, 
 that the cabin at present was occupied by a New England 
 mechanic and his family, who had emigrated by ship 
 around Cape Horn, and who had no experience of the 
 West, the plains, or its people. It was, therefore, with 
 some curiosity and a certain amount of fascinated awe that 
 the mechanic's only daughter regarded from the open door 
 of her dwelling the arrival of this wild and lawless-looking 
 stranger. 
 
144 SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 Meantime he had opened the curtains of the wagon and 
 taken from its interior a number of pots, pans, and culi- 
 nary utensils, which he proceeded to hang upon certain 
 hooks that were placed on the outer ribs of the board and 
 the sides of the vehicle. To this he added a roll of rag 
 carpet, the end of which hung from the tail-board, and a 
 roll of pink calico temptingly displayed on the seat. The 
 mystification and curiosity of the young girl grew more 
 intense at these proceedings. It looked like the ordinary 
 exhibition of a traveling peddler, but the gloomy and 
 em-battled appearance of the man himself scouted so peace- 
 ful and commonplace a suggestion. Under the pretense 
 of chasing away a marauding hen, she sallied out upon the 
 waste near the wagon. It then became evident that the 
 traveler had seen her, and was not averse to her interest 
 in his movements, although he had not changed his atti- 
 tude of savage retrospection. An occasional ejaculation of 
 suppressed passion, as if the memory of some past conflict 
 was too much for him, escaped him even in this peaceful 
 occupation. As this possibly caused the young girl to still 
 hover timidly in the distance, he suddenly entered the 
 wagon and reappeared carrying a tin bucket, with which 
 he somewhat ostentatiously crossed her path, his eyes 
 darkly wandering as if seeking something. 
 
 "If you 're lookin' for the spring, it 's a spell furder on 
 ■ — by the willows. " 
 
 It was a pleasant voice, the teamster thought, albeit 
 with a dry, crisp, New England accent unfamiliar to his 
 ears. He looked into the depths of an unlovely blue-check 
 sunbonnet, and saw certain small, irregular features and a 
 sallow cheek, lit up by a pair of perfectly innocent, trust- 
 ful, and wondering brown eyes. Their timid possessor 
 seemed to be a girl of seventeen, whose figure, although 
 apparently clad in one of her mother's gowns, was still 
 undeveloped and repressed by rustic hardship and innutri- 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 145 
 
 tion. As her eyes met his she saw that the face of this 
 gloomy stranger was still youthful, by no means implaca- 
 ble, and, even at that moment, was actually suffused by 
 a brick-colored blush ! In matters of mere intuition, the 
 sex, even in its most rustic phase, is still our superior; 
 and this unsophisticated girl, as the trespasser stammered, 
 "Thank ye, miss," was instinctively emboldened to greater 
 freedom. 
 
 "Dad ain't tu hum, but ye kin have a drink o' milk if 
 ye keer for it." 
 
 She motioned shyly towards the cabin, and then led 
 the way. The stranger, with an inarticulate murmur, 
 afterwards disguised as a cough, followed her meekly. 
 Nevertheless, by the time they had reached the cabin he 
 had shaken his long hair over his eyes again, and a dark 
 abstraction gathered chiefly in his eyebrows. But it did 
 not efface from the girl's mind the previous concession of 
 a blush, and, although it added to her curiosity, did not 
 alarm her. He drank the milk awkwardly. But by the 
 laws of courtesy, even among the most savage tribes, she 
 felt he was, at that moment at least, harmless. A timid 
 smile fluttered around her mouth as she said : — 
 
 "When ye hung up them things I thought ye might be 
 havin' suthing to swap or sell. That is, " — with tactful 
 politeness, — " mother was wantin' a new skillet, and it 
 would have been handy if you'd had one. But" — with 
 an apologetic glance at his equipments — "if it ain't your 
 business, it 's all right, and no offense." 
 
 "I've got a lot o' skillets," said the strange teamster, 
 with marked condescension, "and she can have one. 
 They 're all that 's left outer a heap o' trader's stuff cap- 
 tured by Injuns t'other side of Laramie. We had a big 
 fight to get 'em back. Lost two of our best m'en, — ■ 
 scalped at Bloody Creek, — and had to drop a dozen red- 
 skins in their tracks^ — me and another man, — lyin' flat 
 
146 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 in er wagon and firin' under the flaps o' the canvas. I 
 don't know ez they waz wuth it," he added in gloomy 
 retrospect; "but I've got to get rid of 'em, I reckon, 
 somehow, afore I work over to Deadman's Gulch again." 
 
 The young girl's eyes brightened timidly with a femi- 
 nine mingling of imaginative awe and personal, pitying 
 interest. He was, after all, so young and amiable looking 
 for such hardships and adventures. And with all this, 
 he — this Indian fighter — was a little afraid of her ! 
 
 "Then that's why you carry that knife and six- 
 shooter?" she said. "But you won't want 'em now, 
 here in the settlement." 
 
 "That's ez mebbe," said the stranger darkly. He 
 paused, and then suddenly, as if recklessly accepting a 
 dangerous risk, unbuckled his revolver and handed it 
 abstractedly to the young girl. But the sheath of the 
 bowie-knife was a fixture in his body-belt, and he was 
 obliged to withdraw the glittering blade by itself, and to 
 hand it to her in all its naked terrors. The young girl 
 received the weapons with a smiling complacency. Upon 
 such altars as these the skeptical reader will remember that 
 Mars had once hung his "battered shield," his lance, and 
 " uncontrolled crest. " 
 
 Nevertheless, the warlike teamster was not without 
 embarrassment. Muttering something about the necessity 
 of "looking after his stock," he achieved a hesitating bow, 
 backed awkwardly out of the door, and receiving from the 
 conquering hands of the young girl his weapons again, 
 was obliged to carry them somewhat ingloriously in his 
 hands across the road, and put them on the wagon seat, 
 where, in company with the culinary articles, they seemed 
 to lose their distinctively aggressive character. Here, 
 although his cheek was still flushed from his peaceful 
 encounter, his voice regained some of its hoarse severity 
 as he drove the oxen from the muddy pool into which they 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 147 
 
 had luxuriantly wandered, and brought their fodder from 
 the wagon. Later, as the sun was setting, he lit a corn- 
 cob pipe, and somewhat ostentatiously strolled down the 
 road, with a furtive eye lingering upon the still open door 
 of the farmhouse. Presently two angular figures appeared 
 from it, the farmer and his wife, intent on barter. 
 
 These he received with his previous gloomy preoccupa- 
 tion, and a slight variation of the story he had told their 
 daughter. It is possible that his suggestive indifference 
 piqued and heightened the bargaining instincts of the 
 woman, for she not only bought the skillet, but purchased 
 a clock and a roll of carpeting. Still more, in some effu- 
 sion of rustic courtesy, she extended an invitation to him 
 to sup with them, which he declined and accepted in the 
 same embarrassed breath, returning the proffered hospital- 
 ity by confidentially showing them a couple of dried 
 scalps, presumably of Indian origin. It was in the same 
 moment of human weakness that he answered their polite 
 query as to "what they might call him," by intimating 
 that his name was "Bed Jim," — a title of achievement 
 by which he was generally known, which for the present 
 must suffice them. But during the repast that followed 
 this was shortened to "Mister Jim," and even familiarly 
 by the elders to plain "Jim." Only the young girl habit- 
 ually used the formal prefix in return for the "Miss 
 Phoebe " that he called her. 
 
 With three such sympathetic and unexperienced auditors 
 the gloomy embarrassment of Red Jim was soon dissi- 
 pated, although it could hardly be said that he was gener- 
 ally communicative. Dark tales of Indian warfare, of 
 night attacks and wild stampedes, in which he had always 
 taken a prominent part, flowed freely from his lips, but 
 little else of his past history or present prospects. And 
 even his narratives of adventure were more or less frag- 
 mentary and imperfect in detail. 
 
148 SUSTf : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "You woz saying," said the farmer, with slow, matter- 
 of-fact, New England deliberation, "ez how you guessed 
 you woz beguiled amongst the Injins by your Mexican 
 partner, a pow'ful influential man, and yet you woz the 
 only one escaped the gen'ral slarterin'. How came the 
 Injins to kill him, — their friend? " 
 
 "They didn't," returned Jim, with ominously averted 
 eyes. 
 
 " What became of him ? " continued the farmer. 
 
 Eed Jim shadowed his eyes with his hand, and cast a 
 dark glance of scrutiny out of the doors and windows. 
 The young girl perceived it with timid, fascinated concern, 
 and said hurriedly : — 
 
 "Don't ask him, father! Don't you see he mustn't 
 tell?" 
 
 "Not when spies may be hangin' round, and doggin' 
 me at every step," said Eed Jim, as if reflecting, with 
 another furtive glance towards the already fading prospect 
 without. "They've sworn to revenge him," he added 
 moodily. 
 
 A momentary silence followed. The farmer coughed 
 slightly, and looked dubiously at his wife. But the two 
 women had already exchanged feminine glances of sympa- 
 thy for this evident slayer of traitors, and were apparently 
 inclined to stop any adverse criticism. 
 
 In the midst of which a shout was heard from the road. 
 The farmer and his family instinctively started. Red Jim 
 alone remained unmoved, — a fact which did not lessen 
 the admiration of his feminine audience. The host rose 
 quickly, and went out. The figure of a horseman had 
 halted in the road, but after a few moments' conversation 
 with the farmer they both moved towards the house and 
 disappeared. When the farmer returned, it was to say 
 that "one of them 'Frisco dandies, who didn't keer about 
 Btoppin' at the hotel in. the settlement," had halted to 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 149 
 
 give his " critter " a feed and drink that he might continue 
 his journey. He had asked him to come in while the 
 horse was feeding, but the stranger had "guessed he'd 
 stretch his legs outside and smoke his cigar ; " he might 
 have thought the company "not fine enough for him," but 
 he was "civil spoken enough, and had an all-fired smart 
 hoss, and seemed to know how to run him." To the 
 anxious inquiries of his wife and daughter he added that 
 the stranger didn't seem like a spy or a Mexican; was 
 "as young as him," pointing to the moody Red Jim, 
 "and a darned sight more peaceful-like in style." 
 
 Perhaps owing to the criticism of the farmer, perhaps 
 from some still lurking suspicion of being overheard by 
 eavesdroppers, or possibly from a humane desire to relieve 
 the strained apprehension of the women, Red Jim, as the 
 farmer disappeared to rejoin the stranger, again dropped 
 into a lighter and gentler vein of reminiscence. He told 
 them how, when a mere boy, he had been lost from an 
 emigrant train in company with a little girl some years his 
 junior. How, when they found themselves alone on the 
 desolate plain, with the vanished train beyond their reach, 
 he endeavored to keep the child from a knowledge of the 
 real danger of their position, and to soothe and comfort 
 her. How he carried her on his back, until, exhausted, 
 he sank in a heap of sage-brush. How he was surrounded 
 by Indians, who, however, never suspected his hiding- 
 place; and how he remained motionless and breathless 
 with the sleeping child for three hours, until they de- 
 parted. How, at the last moment, he had perceived a 
 train in the distance, and had staggered with her thither, 
 although shot at and wounded by the trainmen in the 
 belief that he was an Indian. How it was afterwards 
 discovered that the child was the long-lost daughter of a 
 millionaire; how he had resolutely refused any gratuity 
 for saving her, and she was now a peerless young heiress, 
 
150 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 famous in California. Whether this lighter tone of narra- 
 tive suited him better, or whether the active feminine 
 sympathy of his auditors helped him along, certain it was 
 that his story was more coherent and intelligible and his 
 voice less hoarse and constrained than in his previous 
 belligerent reminiscences; his expression changed, and 
 even his features worked into something like gentler emo- 
 tion. The bright eyes of Phoebe, fastened upon him, 
 turned dim with a faint moisture, and her pale cheek took 
 upon itself a little color. The mother, after interjecting 
 " Du tell, " and " I wanter know, " remained open-mouthed, 
 staring at her visitor. And in the silence that followed, 
 a pleasant, but somewhat melancholy voice came from the 
 open door. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, but I thought I could n't be mis- 
 taken. It is my old friend, Jim Hooker ! " 
 
 Everybody started. Red Jim stumbled to his feet with 
 an inarticulate and hysteric exclamation. Yet the appari- 
 tion that now stood in the doorway was far from being 
 terrifying or discomposing. It was evidently the stranger, 
 — a slender, elegantly knit figure, whose upper lip was 
 faintly shadowed by a soft, dark mustache indicating early 
 manhood, and whose unstudied ease in his well-fitting 
 garments bespoke the dweller of cities. Good looking and 
 well dressed, without the consciousness of being either; 
 self-possessed through easy circumstances, yet without self- 
 assertion; courteous by nature and instinct as well as from 
 an experience of granting favors, he might have been a 
 welcome addition to even a more critical company. But 
 Eed Jim, hurriedly seizing his outstretched hand, instantly 
 dragged him away from the doorway into the road and out 
 of hearing of his audience. 
 
 "Did you hear what I was saying? " he asked hoarsely. 
 
 "Well, yes, — I think so," returned the stranger, with 
 a quiet smile. 
 
SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 151 
 
 "Ye ain't goin' back on me, Clarence, are ye, — ain't 
 goin' to gimme away afore them, old pard, are ye 1 " said 
 Jim, with a sudden change to almost pathetic pleading. 
 
 "No," returned the stranger, smiling. "And certainly 
 not before that interested young lady, Jim. But stop. 
 Let me look at you." 
 
 He held out both hands, took Jim's, spread them apart 
 for a moment with a boyish gesture, and, looking in his 
 face, said half mischievously, half sadly, "Yes, it's the 
 same old Jim Hooker, — unchanged. " 
 
 "But you're changed, — reg'lar war paint, Big Injin 
 style ! " said Hooker, looking up at him with an awkward 
 mingling of admiration and envy. " Heard you struck it 
 rich with the old man, and was Mister Brant now ! " 
 
 " Yes ! " said Clarence gently, yet with a smile that had 
 not only a tinge of weariness but even of sadness in it. 
 
 Unfortunately, the act, which was quite natural to 
 Clarence's sensitiveness, and indeed partly sprang from 
 some concern in his old companion's fortunes, translated 
 itself by a very human process to Hooker's consciousness 
 as a piece of rank affectation. He would have been 
 exalted and exultant in Clarence's place, consequently any 
 other exhibition was only "airs." Nevertheless, at the 
 present moment Clarence was to be placated. 
 
 "You didn't mind my telling that story about your 
 savin' Susy as my own, did ye 1 " he said, with a hasty 
 glance over his shoulder. " I only did it to fool the old 
 man and women-folks, and make talk. You won't blow 
 on me? Ye ain't mad about it? " 
 
 It had crossed Clarence's memory that, when they were 
 both younger, Jim Hooker had once not only borrowed his 
 story, but his name and personality as well. Yet in his 
 loyalty to old memories there was mingled no resentment 
 for past injury. "Of course not," he said, with a smile 
 that was, however, still thoughtful. "Why should I? 
 
152 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 Only I ought to tell you that Susy Peyton is living with 
 her adopted parents not ten miles from here, and it might 
 reach their ears. She 's quite a young lady now, andiif 
 /wouldn't tell her story to strangers, I don't think you 
 ought to, Jim." 
 
 He said this so pleasantly that even the skeptical Jim 
 forgot what he believed were the " airs and graces " of self- 
 abnegation, and said, "Let 's go inside, and I '11 introduce 
 you," and turned to the house. But Clarence Brant drew 
 back. "I 'm going on as soon as my horse is fed, for I 'm 
 on a visit to Peyton, and I intend to push as far as Santa 
 Inez still to-night. I want to talk with you about your- 
 self, Jim," he added gently; "your prospects and your 
 future. I heard," he went on hesitatingly, "that you 
 were — at work — in a restaurant in San Francisco. I'm 
 glad to see that you are at least your own master here," 
 -—he glanced at the wagon. "You are selling things, I 
 suppose? For yourself, or another? Is that team yours? 
 Come," he added, still pleasantly, but in an older and 
 graver voice, with perhaps the least touch of experienced 
 authority, "be frank, Jim. Which is it? Never mind 
 what things you 've told in there, tell me the truth about 
 yourself. Can I help you in any way ? Believe me, I 
 should like to. We have been old friends, whatever dif- 
 ference in our luck, I am yours still." 
 
 Thus adjured, the redoubtable Jim, in a hoarse whisper, 
 with a furtive eye on the house, admitted that he was 
 traveling for an itinerant peddler, whom he expected to 
 join later in the settlement; that he had his own methods 
 of disposing of his wares, and (darkly) that his proprietor 
 and the world generally had better not interfere with him; 
 that (with a return to more confidential lightness) he had 
 already "worked the Wild West Injin" business so suc- 
 cessfully as to dispose of his wares, particularly in yondei 
 house, and might do even more if not prematurely and 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 153 
 
 wantonly "blown upon," "gone back on," or "given 
 away. " 
 
 "But wouldn't you like to settle down on some bit of 
 land like this, and improve it for yourself 1 " said Clarence. 
 "All these valley terraces are bound to rise in value, and 
 meantime you would be independent. It could be man- 
 aged, Jim. I think i" could arrange it for you," he went 
 on, with a slight glow of youthful enthusiasm. "Write 
 to me at Peyton's ranch, and I '11 see you when I come 
 back, and we'll hunt up something for you together." 
 As Jim received the proposition with a kind of gloomy 
 embarrassment, he added lightly, with a glance at the 
 farmhouse, "It might be near here, you know; and you 'd 
 have pleasant neighbors, and even eager listeners to your 
 old adventures." 
 
 "You'd better come in a minit before you go," said 
 Jim, clumsily evading a direct reply. Clarence hesitated 
 a moment, and then yielded. For an equal moment Jim 
 Hooker was torn between secret jealousy of his old com- 
 rade's graces and a desire to present them as familiar asso- 
 ciations of his own. But his vanity was quickly appeased. 
 
 Need it be said that the two women received this fleck 
 and foam of a super-civilization they knew little of as 
 almost an impertinence compared to the rugged, gloomy, 
 pathetic, and equally youthful hero of an adventurous 
 wilderness of which they knew still less 1 What availed 
 the courtesy and gentle melancholy of Clarence Brant 
 beside the mysterious gloom and dark savagery of Bed 
 Jim 1 Yet they received him patronizingly, as one who 
 was, like themselves, an admirer of manly grace and power, 
 and the recipient of Jim's friendship. The farmer alone 
 seemed to prefer Clarence, and yet the latter's tacit indorse- 
 ment of Bed Jim, through his evident previous intimacy 
 with him, impressed the man in Jim's favor. All of which 
 Clarence saw with that sensitive perception which had 
 
154 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 given him an early insight into human weakness, yet still 
 had never shaken his youthful optimism. He smiled a 
 little thoughtfully, but was openly fraternal to Jim, cour- 
 teous to his host and family, and, as he rode away in the 
 faint moonlight, magnificently opulent in his largess to the 
 farmer, — his first and only assertion of his position. 
 
 The farmhouse, straggling barn, and fringe of dusty 
 willows, the white dome of the motionless wagon, with 
 the hanging frying-pans and kettles showing in the moon- 
 light like black silhouettes against the staring canvas, all 
 presently sank behind Clarence like the details of a dream, 
 and he was alone with the moon, the hazy mystery of the 
 level, grassy plain, and the monotony of the unending 
 road. As he rode slowly along he thought of that other 
 dreary plain, white with alkali patches and brown with 
 rings of deserted camp-fires, known to his boyhood of 
 deprivation, dependency, danger, and adventure, oddly 
 enough, with a strange delight; and his later years of 
 study, monastic seclusion, and final ease and independence, 
 with an easy sense of wasted existence and useless waiting. 
 He remembered his homeless childhood in the South, 
 where servants and slaves took the place of the father he 
 had never known, and the mother that he rarely saw ; he 
 remembered his abandonment to a mysterious female rela- 
 tion, where his natural guardians seemed to have over- 
 looked and forgotten him, until he was sent, an all too 
 young adventurer, to work his passage on an overland 
 emigrant train across the plains; he remembered, as yester- 
 day, the fears, the hopes, the dreams and dangers of that 
 momentous journey. He recalled his little playmate, 
 Susy, and their strange adventures — the whole incident 
 that the imaginative Jim Hooker had translated and 
 rehearsed as his own — rose vividly before him. He 
 thought of the cruel end of that pilgrimage, which again 
 left him homeless and forgotten by even the relative he 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 155 
 
 was seeking in a strange land. He remembered his soli- 
 tary journey to the gold mines, taken with a boy's trust 
 and a boy's fearlessness, and the strange protector he had 
 found there, who had news of his missing kinsman; he 
 remembered how this protector — whom he had at once 
 instinctively loved — transferred him to the house of this 
 new-found relation, who treated him kindly and sent him 
 to the Jesuits' school, but who never awakened in him a 
 feeling of kinship. He dreamed again of his life at school, 
 his accidental meeting with Susy at Santa Clara, the keen 
 revival of his boyish love for his old playmate, now a 
 pretty schoolgirl, the petted adopted child of wealthy 
 parents. He recalled the terrible shock that interrupted 
 this boyish episode : the news of the death of his protector, 
 and the revelation that this hard, silent, and mysterious 
 man was his own father, whose reckless life and desperate 
 reputation had impelled him to assume a disguise. 
 
 He remembered how his sudden accession to wealth and 
 independence had half frightened him, and had always left 
 a lurking sensitiveness that he was unfairly favored, by 
 some mere accident, above his less lucky companions: 
 The rude vices of his old associates had made him impa- 
 tient of the feebler sensual indulgences of the later com- 
 panions of his luxury, and exposed their hollow fascina- 
 tions; his sensitive fastidiousness kept him clean among 
 vulgar temptations ; his clear perceptions were never blinded 
 by selfish sophistry. Meantime his feeling for Susy re- 
 mained unchanged. Pride had kept him from seeking the 
 Peytons. His present visit was as unpremeditated as 
 Peyton's invitation had been unlooked for by him. Yet 
 he had not allowed himself to be deceived. He knew that 
 this courtesy was probably due to the change in his for- 
 tune, although he had hoped it might have been some 
 change in their opinion brought about by Susy. But he 
 would at least see her again, not in the pretty, half-clan- 
 
156 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 destine way she had thought necessary, but openly and aa 
 her equal. 
 
 In his rapid ride he seemed to have suddenly penetrated 
 the peaceful calm of the night. The restless irritation 
 of the afternoon trade-winds had subsided; the tender 
 moonlight had hushed and tranquilly possessed the worried 
 plain; the unending files of wild oats, far spaced and dis- 
 tinct, stood erect and motionless as trees; something of 
 the sedate solemnity of a great forest seemed to have fallen 
 upon their giant stalks. There was no dew. In that 
 light, dry air, the heavier dust no longer rose beneath the 
 heels of his horse, whose flying shadow passed over the 
 field like a cloud, leaving no trail or track behind it. In 
 the preoccupation of his thought and his breathless retro- 
 spect, the young man had ridden faster than he intended, 
 and he now checked his panting horse. The influence of 
 the night and the hushed landscape stole over him; his 
 thoughts took a gentler turn; in that dim, mysterious 
 horizon line before him, his future seemed to be dreamily 
 peopled with airy, graceful shapes that more or less took 
 the likeness of Susy. She was bright, coquettish, roman- 
 tic, as he had last seen her; she was older, graver, and 
 thoughtfully welcome of him; or she was cold, distant, 
 and severely forgetful of the past. How would her 
 adopted father and mother receive him 1 Would they ever 
 look upon him in the light of a suitor to the young girl ? 
 He had no fear of Peyton, — he understood his own sex, 
 and, young as he was, knew already how to make himself 
 respected; but how could he overcome that instinctive 
 aversion which Mrs. Peyton had so often made him feel he 
 had provoked? Yet in this dreamy hush of earth and 
 sky, what was not possible 1 His boyish heart beat high 
 with daring visions. 
 
 He saw Mrs. Peyton in the porch, welcoming him with 
 that maternal smile which his childish longing had so 
 
SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 157 
 
 often craved to share with Susy. Peyton would be there, 
 too, — Peyton, who had once pushed back his torn straw 
 hat to look approvingly in his boyish eyes; and Peyton, 
 perhaps, might be proud of him. 
 
 Suddenly he started. A voice in his very ear! 
 
 " Bah ! A yoke of vulgar cattle grazing on lands that 
 were thine by right and law. Neither more nor less than 
 that. And I tell thee, Pancho, like cattle, to be driven 
 off or caught and branded for one's own. Ha! There 
 are those who could swear to the truth of this on the 
 Creed. Ay ! and bring papers stamped and signed by the 
 governor's rubric to prove it. And not that I hate them, 
 — bah ! what are those heretic swine to me 1 But thou 
 dost comprehend me 1 It galls and pricks roe to see them 
 swelling themselves with stolen husks, and men like thee, 
 Pancho, ousted from their own land." 
 
 Clarence had halted in utter bewilderment. No one 
 was visible before him, behind him, on either side. The 
 words, in Spanish, came from the air, the sky, the distant 
 horizon, he knew not which. Was he still dreaming 1 A 
 strange shiver crept over his skin as if the air had grown 
 suddenly chill. Then another mysterious voice arose, 
 incredulous, half mocking, but equally distinct and clear. 
 
 " Caramba ! What is this 1 You are wandering, friend 
 Pancho. You are still smarting from his tongue. He 
 has the grant confirmed by his brigand government ; he has 
 the possession, stolen by a thief like himself ; and he has 
 the corregidores with him. For is he not one of them 
 himself, this Judge Peyton 1 " 
 
 Peyton ! Clarence felt the blood rush back to his face 
 in astonishment and indignation. His heels mechanically 
 pressed his horse's flanks, and the animal sprang forward. 
 
 " Guarda ! Mira ! " said the voice again in a quicker, 
 lower tone. But this time it was evidently in the field 
 beside him, and the heads and shoulders of two horsemen 
 
158 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 emerged at the same moment from the tall ranks of wild 
 oats. The mystery was solved. The strangers had been 
 making their way along a lower level of the terraced plain, 
 hidden by the grain, not twenty yards away, and parallel 
 with the road they were now ascending to join. Their 
 figures were alike formless in long striped serapes, and 
 their features undistinguishable under stiff black sombreros. 
 
 "Buenas noches, senor," said the second voice, in 
 formal and cautious deliberation. 
 
 A sudden inspiration made Clarence respond in English, 
 as if he had not comprehended the stranger's words, 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " Gooda-nighta, " repeated the stranger. 
 
 "Oh, good-night," returned Clarence. They passed 
 him. Their spurs tinkled twice or thrice, their mustangs 
 sprang forward, and the next moment the loose folds of 
 their serapes were fluttering at their sides like wings in 
 their flight. 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 
 After the chill of a dewless night the morning sun 
 was apt to look ardently upon the Robles Rancho, if so 
 strong an expression could describe the dry, oven-like heat 
 of a Calif ornian coast-range valley. Before ten o'clock the 
 adobe wall of the patio was warm enough to permit linger- 
 ing vaqueros and idle peons to lean against it, and the 
 exposed annex was filled with sharp, resinous odors from 
 the oozing sap of unseasoned "redwood" boards, warped 
 and drying in the hot sunshine. Even at that early hour 
 the climbing Castilian roses were drooping against the 
 wooden columns of the new veranda, scarcely older than 
 themselves, and mingling an already faded spice with the 
 aroma of baking wood and the more material fragrance of 
 steaming coffee, that seemed dominant everywhere. 
 
 In fact, the pretty breakfast-room, whose three broad 
 windows, always open to the veranda, gave an al-fresco 
 effect to every meal, was a pathetic endeavor to the South- 
 ern-bred Peyton to emulate the soft, luxurious, and open- 
 aii indolence of his native South, in a climate that was not 
 only not tropical, but even austere in its most fervid 
 moments. Yet, although cold draughts invaded it from 
 the rear that morning, Judge Peyton sat alone, between 
 the open doors and windows, awaiting the slow coming of 
 his wife and the young ladies. He was not in an entirely 
 comfortable mood that morning. Things were not going 
 on well at Eobles. That truculent vagabond, Pedro, had, 
 the night before, taken himself off with a curse that had 
 frightened even the vaqueros, who most hated him as a 
 
160 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 companion, but who now seemed inclined to regard his 
 absence as an injury done to their race. Peyton, uneasily 
 conscious that his own anger had been excited by an exag- 
 gerated conception of the accident, was now, like most 
 obstinate men, inclined to exaggerate the importance of 
 Pedro's insolence. He was well out of it to get rid of 
 this quarrelsome hanger-on, whose presumption and ill 
 humor threatened the discipline of the rancho, yet he could 
 not entirely forget that he had employed him on account 
 of his family claims, and from a desire to placate racial 
 jealousy and settle local differences. For the inferior 
 Mexicans and Indian half-breeds still regarded their old 
 masters with affection; were, in fact, more concerned for 
 the integrity of their caste than the masters were them- 
 selves, and the old Spanish families who had made alli- 
 ances with Americans, and shared their land with them, 
 had rarely succeeded in alienating their retainers with their 
 lands. Certain experiences in the proving of his grant 
 before the Land Commission had taught Peyton that they 
 were not to be depended upon. And lately there had 
 been unpleasant rumors of the discovery of some unlooked- 
 for claimants to a division of the grant itself, which might 
 affect his own title. 
 
 He looked up quiekly as voices and light steps on the 
 veranda at last heralded the approach of his tardy house- 
 hold from the corridor. But, in spite of his preoccupa- 
 tion, he was startled and even awkwardly impressed with 
 a change in Susy's appearance. She was wearing, for the 
 first time, a long skirt, and this sudden maturing of her 
 figure struck him, as a man, much more forcibly than it 
 would probably have impressed a woman, more familiar 
 with details. He had not noticed certain indications of 
 womanhood, as significant, perhaps, in her carriage as her 
 outlines, which had been lately perfectly apparent to her 
 mother and Mary, but which were to him now, for the 
 
-BUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 161 
 
 first time, indicated by a few inches of skirt. She not 
 only looked taller to his masculine eyes, but these few 
 inches had added to the mystery as well as the drapery of 
 the goddess; they were not so much the revelation of 
 maturity as the suggestion that it was hidden. So im- 
 pressed was he, that a half-serious lecture on her yester- 
 day's childishness, the outcome of his irritated reflections 
 that morning, died upon his lips. He felt he was no 
 longer dealing with a child. 
 
 He welcomed them with that smile of bantering appro- 
 bation, supposed to keep down inordinate vanity, which 
 for some occult reason one always reserves for the members 
 of one's own family. He was quite conscious that Susy 
 was looking very pretty in this new and mature frock, and 
 that as she stood beside his wife, far from aging Mrs. 
 Peyton's good looks and figure, she appeared like an equal 
 companion, and that they mutually " became " one another. 
 This, and the fact that they were all, including Mary 
 Rogers, in their freshest, gayest morning dresses, awakened 
 a half-humorous, half-real apprehension in his mind, that 
 he was now hopelessly surrounded by a matured sex, and 
 in a weak minority. 
 
 "I think I ought to have been prepared," he began 
 grimly, "for this addition to — to — the skirts of my 
 family. " 
 
 "Why, John," returned Mrs. Peyton quickly; "do you 
 mean to say yon have n't noticed that the poor child has 
 for weeks been looking positively indecent ? " 
 
 "Really, papa, I 've been a sight to behold. Haven't 
 I, Mary 1 " chimed in Susy. 
 
 "Yes, dear. Why, Judge, I've been wondering that 
 Susy stood it so well, and never complained." 
 
 Peyton glanced around him at this compact feminine 
 smbattlement. It was as he feared. Yet even here he 
 was again at fault. 
 
162 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "And," said Mrs. Peyton slowly, with the reserved 
 significance of the feminine postscript in her voice, "if 
 that Mr. Brant is coming here to-day, it would be just as 
 well for him to see that she is no longer a child, as when 
 he knew her." 
 
 An hour later, good-natured Mary Rogers, in her char- 
 acter of "a dear," — which was usually indicated by the 
 undertaking of small errands for her friend, — was gather- 
 ing roses from the old garden for Susy's adornment, when 
 she saw a vision which lingered with her for many a day. 
 She had stopped to look through the iron grille in the 
 adobe wall, across the open wind-swept plain. Miniature 
 waves were passing over the wild oats, with glittering 
 disturbances here and there in the depressions like the 
 sparkling of green foam; the horizon line was sharply 
 defined against the hard, steel-blue sky; everywhere the 
 brand-new morning was shining with almost painted bril- 
 liancy; the vigor, spirit, and even crudeness of youth 
 were over all. The young girl was dazzled and bewil- 
 dered. Suddenly, as if blown out of the waving grain, or 
 an incarnation of the vivid morning, the bright and strik- 
 ing figure of a youthful horseman flashed before the grille. 
 It was Clarence Brant! Mary Rogers had always seen 
 him, in the loyalty of friendship, with Susy's prepossessed 
 eyes, yet she fancied that morning that he had never 
 looked so handsome before. Even the foppish fripperies 
 of his riding-dress and silver trappings seemed as much 
 the natural expression of conquering youth as the invinci- 
 ble morning sunshine. Perhaps it might have been a reac- 
 tion against Susy's caprice of some latent susceptibility of 
 her own ; but a momentary antagonism to her friend stirred 
 even her kindly nature. What right had Susy to trifle 
 with such an opportunity ? Who was she to hesitate over 
 this gallant prince 1 
 
 But Prince Charming 's quick eyes had detected her, and 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 1C3 
 
 the next moment his beautiful horse was beside the grating, 
 and his ready hand of greeting extended through the bars. 
 
 "I suppose I am early and unexpected, but I slept at 
 Santa Inez last night, that I might ride over in the cool 
 of the morning. My things are coming by the stagecoach, 
 later. It seemed such a slow way of coming one's self." 
 
 Mary Rogers's black eyes intimated that the way he had 
 taken was the right one, but she gallantly recovered herself 
 and remembered her position as confidante. And here 
 was the opportunity of delivering Susy's warning unob- 
 served. She withdrew her hand from Clarence's frank 
 grasp, and passing it through the grating, patted the sleek, 
 shining flanks of his horse, with a discreet division of 
 admiration. 
 
 "And such a lovely creature, too! And Susy will be 
 so delighted ! and oh, Mr. Brant, please, you 're to say 
 nothing of having met her at Santa Clara. It 's just as 
 well not to begin with that here, for, you see" (with a 
 large, maternal manner), "you were both so young then." 
 
 Clarence drew a quick breath. It was the first check 
 to his vision of independence and equal footing! Then 
 his invitation was not the outcome of a continuous friend- 
 ship revived by Susy, as he had hoped; the Peytons had 
 known nothing of his meeting with her, or perhaps they 
 would not have invited him. He was here as an impostor, 
 — and all because Susy had chosen to make a mystery of 
 a harmless encounter, which might have been explained, 
 and which they might have even countenanced. He thought 
 bitterly of his old playmate for a brief moment, — as brief 
 as Mary's antagonism. The young girl noticed the change 
 in his face, but misinterpreted it. 
 
 "Oh, there 's no danger oi its coming out if you don't 
 say anything," she said quickly. "Ride on to the house, 
 and don't wait for me. You '11 find them in the patio on 
 the veranda." 
 
164 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 Clarence moved on, but not as spiritedly as before. 
 Nevertheless there was still dash enough about him and 
 the animal he bestrode to stir into admiration the few 
 lounging vaqueros of a country which was apt to judge 
 the status of a rider by the quality of his horse. Nor was 
 the favorable impression confined to them alone. Peyton's 
 gratification rang out cheerily in his greeting: — 
 
 "Bravo, Clarence! You are here in true caballero 
 style. Thanks for the compliment to the rancho." 
 
 For a moment the young man was transported back 
 again to his boyhood, and once more felt Peyton's approv- 
 ing hand pushing back the worn straw hat from his child- 
 ish forehead. A faint color rose to his cheeks; his eyes 
 momentarily dropped. The highest art could have done 
 no more ! The slight aggressiveness of his youthful finery 
 and picturesque good looks was condoned at once; his 
 modesty conquered where self-assertion might have pro- 
 voked opposition, and even Mrs. Peyton felt herself im- 
 pelled to come forward with an outstretched hand scarcely 
 less frank than her husband's. Then Clarence lifted his 
 eyes. He saw before him the woman to whom his child- 
 ish heart had gone out with the inscrutable longing and 
 adoration of a motherless, homeless, companionless boy; 
 the woman who had absorbed the love of his playmate 
 without sharing it with him ; who had showered her pro- 
 tecting and maternal caresses on Susy, a waif like himself, 
 yet had not only left his heart lonely and desolate, but 
 had even added to his childish distrust of himself the 
 thought that he had excited her aversion. He saw her 
 more beautiful than ever in her restored health, freshness 
 of coloring, and mature roundness of outline. He was 
 unconsciously touched with a man's admiration for her 
 without losing his boyish yearnings and half-filial affec- 
 tion; in her new materialistic womanhood his youthful 
 imagination had lifted her to a queen and goddess. There 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 165 
 
 ■was all this appeal in his still boyish eyes, — L/es that 
 had never yet known shame or fear in the expression of 
 their emotions; there was all this in the gesture with 
 which he lifted Mrs. Peyton's fingers to his lips. The 
 little group saw in this act only a Spanish courtesy in 
 keeping with his accepted r61e. But a thrill of surprise, 
 of embarrassment, of intense gratification passed over her. 
 For he had not even looked at Susy! 
 
 Her relenting was graceful. She welcomed him with 
 a winning smile. Then she motioned pleasantly towards 
 Susy. 
 
 "But here is an older friend, Mr. Brant, whom you do 
 not seem to recognize, — Susy, whom you have not seen 
 since she was a child." 
 
 A quick flush rose to. Clarence's cheek. The group 
 smiled at this evident youthful confession of some boyish 
 admiration. But Clarence knew that his truthful blood 
 was merely resenting the deceit his lips were sealed from 
 divulging. He did not dare to glance at Susy; it added 
 to the general amusement that the young girl was obliged 
 to present herself. But in this interval she had exchanged 
 glances with Mary Rogers, who had rejoined the group, 
 and she knew she was safe. She smiled with gracious 
 condescension at Clarence; observed, with the patronizing 
 superiority of age and established position, that he had 
 grown, but had not greatly changed, and, it is needless to 
 say, again filled her mother's heart with joy. Clarence, 
 still intoxicated with Mrs. Peyton's kindliness, and, per- 
 haps, still embarrassed by remorse, had not time to remark 
 the girl's studied attitude. He shook hands with her cor- 
 dially, and then, in the quick reaction of youth, accepted 
 with humorous gravity the elaborate introduction to Mary 
 Rogers by Susy, which completed this little comedy. And 
 if, with a woman's quickness, Mrs. Peyton detected a 
 certain lingering glance which passed between Mary Rogers 
 
166 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 and Clarence, and misinterpreted it, it was only a part of 
 that mystification into which these youthful actors are apt 
 to throw their mature audiences. 
 
 "Confess, Ally," said Peyton cheerfully, as the three 
 young people suddenly found their tongues with aimless 
 vivacity and inconsequent laughter, and started with unin- 
 telligible spirits for an exploration of the garden, " confess 
 now that your bete noir is really a very manly as well as 
 a very presentable young fellow. By Jove! the padres 
 have made a Spanish swell out of him without spoiling the 
 Brant grit, either ! Come, now ; you 're not afraid that 
 Susy's style will suffer from his companionship. 'Pon 
 my soul, she might borrow a little of his courtesy to his 
 elders without indelicacy. I only wish she had as sincere 
 a way of showing her respect for you as he has. Did you 
 notice that he really did n't seem to see anybody else but 
 you at first 1 And yet you never were a friend to him, 
 like Susy." 
 
 The lady tossed her head slightly, but smiled. 
 
 "This is the first time he's seen Mary Rogers, isn't 
 it ? " she said meditatively. 
 
 " I reckon. But what 's that to do with his politeness 
 to you ? " 
 
 " And do her parents know him 1 " she continued, with- 
 out replying. 
 
 " How do I know ? I suppose everybody has heard of 
 him. Why?" 
 
 "Because I think they 've taken a fancy to each other." 
 
 " What in the name of folly, Ally " — began the despair- 
 ing Peyton. 
 
 "When you invite a handsome, rich, and fascinating 
 young man into the company of young ladies, John," 
 returned Mrs. Peyton in her severest manner, "you must 
 not forge,t you owe a certain responsibility to the parents. 
 I shall certainly look after Miss Bogers." 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 Although the three young people had left the veranda 
 together, when they reached the old garden Clarence and 
 Susy found themselves considerably in advance of Mary 
 Rogers, who had become suddenly and deeply interested in 
 the beauty of a passion-vine near the gate. At the first 
 discovery of their isolation their voluble exchange of infor- 
 mation about themselves and their occupations since their 
 last meeting stopped simultaneously. Clarence, who had 
 forgotten his momentary irritation, and had recovered his 
 old happiness in Susy's presence, was nevertheless conscious 
 of some other change in her than that suggested by the 
 lengthened skirt and the later and more delicate accentua- 
 tion of her prettiness. It was not her affectation of supe- 
 riority and older social experience, for that was only the 
 outcome of what he had found charming in her as a child, 
 and which he still good humoredly accepted ; nor was it- 
 her characteristic exaggeration of speech, which he still 
 pleasantly recognized. It was something else, vague and 
 indefinite, — something that had been unnoticed while 
 Mary was with them, but had now come between them 
 like some unknown presence which had taken the confi- 
 dante's place. He remained silent, looking at her half- 
 brightening cheek and conscious profile. Then he spoke 
 with awkward directness. 
 
 "You are changed, Susy, more than in looks." 
 
 "Hush," said the girl in a tragic whisper, with a warn- 
 ing gesture towards the blandly unconscious Mary. 
 
 "But," returned Clarence wonderingly, "she's your-« 
 our friend, you know. " 
 
168 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "I don't know," said Susy in a still deeper tone, "that 
 is — oh, don't ask me! But when you're always sur- 
 rounded by spies, when you can't say your soul is your 
 own, you doubt everybody ! " There was such a pretty 
 distress in her violet eyes and curving eyebrows, that 
 Clarence, albeit vague as to its origin and particulars, 
 nevertheless possessed himself of the little hand that was 
 gesticulating dangerously near his own,, and pressed it 
 sympathetically., Perhaps preoccupied with her emotions, 
 she did not, immediately withdraw it, as she went on 
 rapidly : " And if you were cooped up here, day after day, 
 behind these bars," pointing to the grille, "you'd know 
 what I suffer." 
 
 " But " — began Clarence. 
 
 "Hush! " said Susy, with a stamp of her little foot. 
 
 Clarence, who had only wished to point out that th<a 
 whole lower end of the garden wall was in ruins and the 
 grille really was no prevention, "hushed." 
 
 "And listen! Don't pay me much attention to-day, 
 but talk to her," indicating the still discreet and distant 
 Mary, " before father and mother. Not a word 1 to her of 
 this confidence, Clarence. To-morrow ride out alone on 
 your beautiful horse, and come back by way of the woods, 
 beyond our turning, at four o'clock. There 's a trail to 
 the right of the big, madrono tree. Take that. Be care- 
 ful and keep a good lookout, for she mustn't see you." 
 
 "Who mustn't see me? " said the puzzled Clarence. 
 
 "Why, Mary, of course, you silly boy!" returned the 
 girl impatiently. " She '11 be looking for me. Go now, 
 Clarence ! Stop ! Look at that lovely big maiden's-blush 
 up there," pointing to a pink-suffused specimen of rose 
 grandiflora hanging on the wall. " Get it, Clarence, — 
 that one, — I '11 show you where, — there ! " They had 
 already plunged into the leafy bramble, and, standing on 
 tiptoe, with her hand on his shoulder and head upturned, 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 169 
 
 Susy's cheek had innocently approached Clarence's own. 
 At this moment Clarence, possibly through some confusion 
 of color, fragrance, or softness of contact, seemed to have 
 availed himself of the opportunity, in a way which caused 
 Susy to instantly rejoin Mary Rogers with affected dignity, 
 leaving him to follow a few moments later with the cap- 
 tured flower. 
 
 Without trying to understand the reason of to-morrow's; 
 rendezvous, and perhaps not altogether convinced of the 
 reality of Susy's troubles, he, however, did not find that 
 difficulty in carrying out her other commands which he 
 had expected. Mrs. Peyton was still gracious, and, with 
 feminine tact, induced him to talk of himself, until she 
 was presently in possession of his whole history, barring 
 the episode of his meeting with Susy, since he had parted 
 with them. He felt a strange satisfaction in familiarly 
 pouring out his confidences to this superior woman, whom 
 he had always held in awe. There was a new delight in 
 her womanly interest in his trials and adventures, and a 
 subtle pleasure even in her half-motherly criticism and 
 admonition of some passages. I am afraid he forgot Susy, 
 who listened with the complacency of an exhibitor ; Mary, 
 whose black eyes dilated alternately with sympathy for the 
 performer and deprecation of Mrs. Peyton's critical glances; 
 and Peyton, who, however, seemed lost in thought, and 
 preoccupied. Clarence was happy. The softly shaded 
 lights in the broad, spacious, comfortably furnished draw- 
 ing-room shone on the group before him. It was a picture 
 of refined domesticity which the homeless Clarence had 
 never known except as a vague, half- painful, boyish remem- 
 brance ; it was a realization of welcome that far exceeded 
 his wildest boyish vision of the preceding night. With 
 that recollection came another, — a more uneasy one. He 
 remembered how that vision had been interrupted by the 
 strange voices in the road, and their vague but ominous 
 
170 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 import to his host. A feeling of self-reproach came over 
 him. The threats had impressed him as only mere brag- 
 gadocio, — he knew the characteristic exaggeration of the 
 race, — but perhaps he ought to privately tell Peyton of 
 the incident at once. 
 
 The opportunity came later, when the ladies had retired, 
 and Peyton, wrapped in a poncho in a rocking-chair, on 
 the now chilly veranda, looked up from his reverie and a 
 cigar. Clarence casually introduced the incident, as if 
 only for the sake of describing the supernatural effect of 
 the hidden voices, but he was concerned to see that Pey- 
 ton was considerably disturbed by their more material 
 import. After questioning him as to the appearance of 
 the two men, his* host said: "I don't mind telling you, 
 Clarence, that as far as that fellow's intentions go he is 
 quite sincere, although his threats are only borrowed thun- 
 der. He is a man whom I have just dismissed for care- 
 lessness and insolence, — two things that run in double 
 harness in this country, — but I should be more afraid to 
 find him at my back on a dark night, alone on the plains, 
 than to confront him in daylight, in the witness box, 
 against me. He was only repeating a silly rumor that the 
 title to this rancho and the nine square leagues beyond 
 would be attacked by some speculators." 
 
 "But I thought your title was confirmed two years ago," 
 said Clarence. 
 
 "The grant was confirmed," returned Peyton, "which 
 means that the conveyance of the Mexican government of 
 these lands to the ancestor of Victor Eobles was held to 
 be legally proven by the United States Land Commission, 
 and a patent issued to all those who held under it. I and 
 my neighbors hold under it by purchase from Victor Eo- 
 bles, subject to the confirmation of the Land Commission. 
 But that confirmation was only of Victor's great-grand- 
 father's title, and it is now alleged that as Victor's father 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 171 
 
 died without making a will, Victor has claimed and dis- 
 posed of property which he ought to have divided with his 
 sisters. At least, some speculating rascals in San Fran- 
 cisco have set up what they call ' the Sisters' title, ' and 
 are selling it to actual settlers on the unoccupied lands 
 heyond. As, hy the law, it would hold possession against 
 the mere ordinary squatters, whose only right is hased, as 
 you know, on the presumption that there is no title 
 claimed, it gives the possessor immunity to enjoy the use 
 of the property until the case is decided, and even should 
 the original title hold good against his, the successful liti- 
 gant would probably be willing to pay for improvements 
 and possession to save the expensive and tedious process of 
 ejectment. " 
 
 " But this does not affect you, who have already posses- 
 sion 1 " said Clarence quickly. 
 
 "No, not as far as this house and the lands I actually 
 occupy and cultivate are concerned ; and they know that 
 I am safe to fight to the last, and carry the case to the 
 Supreme Court in that case, until the swindle is exposed, 
 or they drop it; but I may have to pay them something 
 to keep the squatters off my unoccupied land." 
 
 "But you surely wouldn't recognize those rascals in 
 any way ? " said the astonished Clarence. 
 
 " As against other rascals 1 Why not ? " returned Pey- 
 ton grimly. "I only pay for the possession which their 
 sham title gives me to my own land. If by accident that 
 title obtains, I am still on the safe side." After a pause 
 he said, more gravely, "What you overheard, Clarence, 
 shows me that the plan is more forward than I had imag- 
 ined, and that I may have to fight traitors here." 
 
 "I hope, sir," said Clarence, with a quick glow in his 
 earnest face, " that you '11 let me help you. You thought 
 I did once, you remember, — with the Indians. " 
 
 There was so much of the old Clarence in his boyish 
 
172 SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 appeal and eager, questioning face that Peyton, who had 
 been talking to him as a younger hut equal man of affairs, 
 was startled into a smile. "You did, Clarence, though' 
 the Indians butchered your friends, after all. I don't 
 know, though, but that your experiences with those Span- 
 iards — you must have known a lot of them when you 
 were with Don Juan Robinson and at the college — might 
 be of service in getting at evidence, or smashing their wit- 
 nesses if it comes to a fight. But just now, money is 
 everything. They must be bought off the land if I. have 
 to mortgage it for the purpose. That strikes you 'as a 
 rather heroic remedy, Clarence, eh 1 " he continued in his 
 old, half- bantering attitude towards Clarence's inexperi- 
 enced youth, "don't it? " 
 
 But Clarence was not thinking of that. Another more 
 audacious but equally youthful and enthusiastic idea had' 
 taken possession of his mind, and he lay awake half that 
 night revolving it. It was true that it was somewhat 
 impractically mixed with his visions of Mrs. Peyton and 
 Susy, and even included his previous scheme of relief for 
 the improvident and incorrigible Hooker. But it gave a 
 wonderful sincerity and happiness to his slumbers that 
 night, which the wiser and older Peyton might have 
 envied, and I wot not was in the long run as correct and 
 sagacious as Peyton's sleepless cogitations. And in the 
 early morning Mr. Clarence Brant, the young capitalist, 
 sat down to his traveling-desk and wrote two clear-headed, 
 logical, and practical business letters, — one to his banker, 
 and the other to his former guardian, Don Juan Robinson, 
 — as his first step in a resolve that was, nevertheless, per- 
 haps as wildly quixotic and enthusiastic as any dream his 
 boyish and unselfish heart had ever indulged.. 
 
 At breakfast, in the charmed freedom of the domestic 
 circle, Clarence forgot Susy's capricious commands of yes- 
 terday, and began to address himself to her in his old ear- 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 173 
 
 nest fashion, until he was warned by a significant knitting 
 of the young lady's brows and monosyllabic responses. 
 But in his youthful loyalty to Mrs. Peyton, he was more 
 pained to notice Susy's occasional unconscious indifference 
 to her adopted mother's affectionate expression, and a more 
 conscious disregard of her wishes. So uneasy did he be- 
 come, in his sensitive concern for Mrs. Peyton's half-con- 
 cealed mortification, that he gladly accepted Peyton's offer 
 to go with him to visit the farm and corral. As the after- 
 noon approached, with another twinge of self-reproach, he 
 was obliged to invent some excuse to decline certain hospi- 
 table plans Of Mrs. Peyton's for his entertainment, and at 
 half past three stole somewhat guiltily, with his horse, 
 from the stables. But he had to pass before the outer wall 
 of the garden and grille, through which he had seen Mary 
 the day before. Raising his eyes mechanically, he was 
 startled to see Mrs. Peyton standing behind the grating, 
 with her abstracted gaze fixed upon the wind-tossed, level 
 grain beyond her. She smiled as she saw him, but there 
 were traces of tears in her proud, handsome eyes. 
 
 " You are going to ride ? " she said pleasantly. 
 
 "Y-e-es," stammeTed the shamefaced Clarence. 
 
 She glanced at him wistfully. 
 
 "You are right. The girls have gone away by them- 
 selves. Mr. Peyton has ridden over to Santa Inez on this 
 dreadful land business, and I suppose you 'd have found 
 him a dull riding companion. It is rathef stupid here. I 
 quite envy you, Mr. Brant, your horse and your freedom." 
 
 "But, Mrs. Peyton," broke in Clarence impulsively, 
 "you have a horse — I saw it, a lovely lady's horse- 
 eating its head off in the stable. Won't you let me run 
 back and order it; and won't you, please, come out with, 
 me for a good, long gallop 1 " 
 
 He meant what he said. He had spoken quickly, im- 
 pulsively, but with the perfect understanding in his own 
 
174 ST7SY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 mind that his proposition meant the complete abandonment 
 of his rendezvous with Susy. Mrs. Peyton was astounded 
 and slightly stirred with his earnestness, albeit unaware of 
 all it implied. 
 
 "It's a great temptation, Mr. Brant," she said, with 
 a playful smile, which dazzled Clarence with its first faint 
 suggestion of a refined woman's coquetry; "but I 'm afraid 
 that Mr. Peyton would think me going mad in my old age. 
 No. Go on and enjoy your gallop, and if you should see 
 those giddy girls anywhere, send them home early for 
 chocolate, before the cold wind gets up." 
 
 She turned, waved her slim white hand playfully in 
 acknowledgment of Clarence's bared head, and moved 
 away. 
 
 For the first few moments the young man tried to find 
 relief in furious riding, and in bullying his spirited horse. 
 Then he pulled quickly up. What was he doing 1 What 
 was he going to do ? What foolish, vapid deceit was this 
 that he was going to practice upon that noble, queenly, 
 confiding, generous woman? (He had already forgotten 
 that she had always distrusted him.) What a fool he was 
 not to tell her half jokingly that he expected to meet 
 Susy! But would he have dared to talk half jokingly to 
 such a woman on such a topic ? And would it have been 
 honorable without disclosing the whole truth, — that they 
 had met secretly before? And was it fair to Susy? — 
 dear, innocent, childish Susy! Yet something must be 
 done! It was such trivial, purposeless deceit, after all; 
 for this noble woman, Mrs. Peyton, so kind, so gentle, 
 would never object to his loving Susy and marrying her. 
 And they would live happily together; and Mrs. Peyton 
 would never be separated from them, but always beaming 
 tenderly upon them as she did just now in the garden. 
 Yes, he would have a serious understanding with Susy, 
 and that would excuse the clandestine meeting to-day. 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 175 
 
 His rapid pace, meantime, had brought him to the im- 
 perceptible incline of the terrace, and he was astonished, 
 in turning in the saddle, to find that the casa, corral, and 
 outbuildings had completely vanished, and that behind 
 him rolled only the long sea of grain, which seemed to 
 have swallowed them in its yellowing depths. Before him 
 lay the wooded ravine through which the stagecoach 
 passed, which was also the entrance to the rancho, and 
 there, too, probably, was the turning of which Susy had 
 spoken. But it was still early for the rendezvous ; indeed, 
 he was in no hurry to meet her in his present discontented 
 state, and he made a listless circuit of the field, in the 
 hope of discovering the phenomena that had caused the 
 rancho's mysterious disappearance. When he had found 
 that it was the effect of the different levels, his attention 
 was arrested by a multitude of moving objects in a still 
 more distant field, which proved to be a band of wild 
 horses. In and out among them, circling aimlessly, as it 
 seemed to him, appeared two horsemen apparently perform- 
 ing some mystic evolution. To add to their singular per- 
 formance, from time to time one of the flying herd, driven 
 by the horsemen far beyond the circle of its companions, 
 dropped suddenly and unaccountably in full career. The 
 field closed over it as if it had been swallowed up. In a 
 few moments it appeared again, trotting peacefully behind 
 its former pursuer. It was some time before Clarence 
 grasped the meaning of this strange spectacle. Although 
 the clear, dry atmosphere sharply accented the silhouette- 
 like outlines of the men and horses, so great was the dis- 
 tance that the slender forty-foot lasso, which in the skillful 
 hands of the horsemen had effected these captures, was 
 completely invisible ! The horsemen were Peyton's va- 
 queros, making a selection from the young horses for the 
 market. He remembered now that Peyton had told him 
 that he might be obliged to raise money by sacrificing 
 
176 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 some of his stock, and the thought'brought baclt Clarence's 
 uneasiness as he turned again to the trail. Indeed, he 
 was hardly in the vein for a gentle tryst, as he entered the 
 wooded ravine to seek the madrono tree which was to serve 
 as a guide to his lady's bower. 
 
 A few rods further, under the cool vault filled with 
 woodland spicing, he came upon it. In its summer harle- 
 quin dress of scarlet and green, with hanging bells of 
 poly-tinted berries, like some personified sylvan Folly, it 
 seemed a fitting symbol of Susy's childish masquerade of 
 passion. Its bizarre beauty, so opposed to the sober grav- 
 ity of the sedate pines and hemlocks, made it an unmistak- 
 able landmark. Here he dismounted and picketed his 
 horse. And here, beside it, to the right, ran the little 
 trail crawling over mossy boulders; a narrow yellow track 
 through the carpet of pine-needles between the closest file 
 of trees; an almost imperceptible Streak across pools of 
 chickweed at their roots, and a brown and ragged swath 
 through the ferns. As he went on, the anxiety and un- 
 easiness that had possessed him gave way to a languid 
 intoxication of the senses; the mysterious seclusion of 
 these woodland depths recovered the old influence they 
 had exerted over his boyhood. He was not returning to 
 Susy, as much as to the older love of his youth, of which 
 she was, perhaps, only an incident. It was therefore with 
 an odd boyish thrill again that, coming suddenly upon a 
 little hollow, like a deserted nest, where the lost trail made 
 him hesitate, he heard the crackle of a starched skirt be- 
 hind him, was conscious of the subtle odor of freshly 
 ironed and scented muslin, and felt the gentl« pressure of 
 delicate fingers upon his eyes. 
 
 "Susy!" 
 
 "You silly boy! "Where were you blundering tol 
 Why did n't you look around you ? " 
 
 "I thought I would hear your voices." 
 
SUSY: A STORY QF THE PLAINS 177 
 
 " Whose voices, idiot ? " 
 
 "Yours and Mary's," returned Clarence innocently, 
 looking round for the confidante. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! Then you wanted to see Mary ? Well, 
 she 's looking for me somewhere. Perhaps you '11 go and 
 find her, or shall I ? " 
 
 She was offering to pass him when he laid his hand on 
 hers to detain her: She instantly evaded it, and drew 
 herself up to her full height, incontestably displaying the 
 dignity of the added inches to her skirt. All this was 
 charmingly like the old Susy, but it did not bid fair to 
 help him to a serious interview. And, looking at the 
 pretty, pink, mocking face before him, with the witchery 
 of the woodland still upon him, he began to think that ha 
 had better put it off. 
 
 "Never mind about Mary," he said laughingly. "But 
 you said you wanted to see me, Susy; and here I am." 
 
 " Said I wanted to see you 1 " repeated Susy, with her 
 blue eyes lifted in celestial scorn and wonderment. " Said 
 / wanted to see you ? Are you not mistaken, Mr. Brant ? 
 Really, I imagined that you came here to see me." 
 
 With her fair head upturned, and the leaf of her scarlet 
 lip temptingly curled over, Clarence began to think this 
 latest phase of her extravagance the most fascinating. He 
 drew nearer to her as he said gently, " You know what I 
 mean, Susy. You said yesterday you were troubled. I 
 thought you might have something to tell me." 
 
 "I should think it was you who might have something 
 to tell me after all these years," she said poutingly, yet 
 self-possessed. " But I suppose you came here only to see 
 Mary and mother. I 'm sure you let them know that 
 plainly enough last evening." 
 
 " But you said " — began the stupefied Clarence. 
 
 "Never mind what I said. It's always what 1 sayi 
 never what you say; and you don't say anything." 
 
178 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 The woodland influence must have been still very strong 
 upon Clarence that he did not discover in all this that, 
 while Susy's general capriciousness was unchanged, there 
 was a new and singular insincerity in her manifest acting. 
 She was either concealing the existence of some other real 
 emotion, or assuming one that was absent. But he did 
 not notice it, and only replied tenderly : — 
 
 " But I want to say a great deal to you, Susy. I want 
 to say that if you still feel as I do, and as I have always 
 felt, and you think you could be happy as 7" would be if 
 — if — we could be always together, we need not conceal 
 it from your mother and father any longer. I am old 
 enough to speak for myself, and I am my own master. 
 Your mother has been very kind to me, — so kind that it 
 does n't seem quite right to deceive her, — and when I tell 
 her that I love you, and that I want you to be my wife, 
 I believe she will give us her blessing." 
 
 Susy uttered a strange little laugh, and with an assump- 
 tion of coyness, that was, however, still affected, stooped 
 to pick a few berries from a manzanita bush. 
 
 "I'll tell you what she'll say, Clarence. She'll say 
 you 're frightfully young, and so you are ! " 
 
 The young fellow tried to echo the laugh, but felt as if 
 he had received a blow. For the first time he was con- 
 scious of the truth : this girl, whom he had fondly regarded 
 as a child, had already passed him in the race ; she had 
 become a woman before he was yet a man, and now stood 
 before him, maturer in her knowledge, and older in her 
 understanding, of herself and of him. This was the change 
 that had perplexed him; this was the presence that had 
 come between them, — a Susy he had never known be- 
 fore. 
 
 She laughed at his changed expression, and then swung 
 herself easily to a sitting posture on the low projecting 
 branch, of a hemlock. The act was still girlish, but, nev- 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 179 
 
 ertheless, she looked down upon him in a superior, patro- 
 nizing way. "Now, Clarence," she said, with a half- 
 abstracted manner, " don't you be a big fool ! If you talk 
 that way to mother, she '11 only tell you to wait two or 
 three years until you know your own mind, and she '11 
 pack me off to that horrid school again, besides watching 
 me like a cat every moment you are here. If you want to 
 stay here, and see me sometimes like this, you '11 just 
 behave as you have done, and say nothing. Do you see? 
 Perhaps you don't care to come, or are satisfied with Mary 
 and mother. Say so, then. Goodness knows, I don't 
 want to force you to come here." 
 
 Modest and reserved as Clarence was generally, I fear 
 that bashfulness of approach to the other sex was not one 
 of these indications. He walked up to Susy with appall- 
 ing directness, and passed his arm around her waist. She 
 did not move, but remained looking at him and his intrud- 
 ing arm with a certain critical curiosity, as if awaiting some 
 novel sensation. At which he kissed her. She then 
 slowly disengaged his arm, and said : — 
 
 "Eeally, upon my word, Clarence," in perfectly level 
 tones, and slipped quietly to the ground. 
 
 He again caught her in his arms, encircling her disar- 
 ranged hair and part of the beribboned hat hanging over 
 her shoulder, and remained for an instant holding her thus 
 silently and tenderly. Then she freed herself with an 
 abstracted air, a half smile, and an unchanged color except 
 where her soft cheek had been abraded by his coat collar. 
 
 "You're a bold, rude boy, Clarence," she said, putting 
 back her hair quietly, and straightening the brim of her 
 hat. " Heaven knows where you learned manners ! " and 
 then, from a safer distance, with the same critical look in 
 her violet eyes, "I suppose you think mother would allow 
 that if she knew it ? " 
 
 But Clarence, now completely subjugated, with the 
 
180 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 memory of the kiss upon him and a heightened color, pro- 
 tested that he only wanted to make their intercourse less 
 constrained, and to have their relations, even their engage- 
 ment, recognized by her parents; still he would take her 
 advice. Only there was always the danger that if they 
 were discovered she would be sent back to the convent all 
 the same, and his banishment, instead of being the proba- 
 tion of a few years, would be a perpetual separation. 
 
 " We could always run away, Clarence, " responded the 
 young girl calmly. " There 'a nothing the matter with 
 that." 
 
 Clarence was startled. The idea of desolating the sad, 
 proud, handsome Mrs, Peyton, whom he worshiped, and 
 her kind husband, whom he was just about to serve, was 
 so grotesque and confusing, that he said hopelessly, " Yes. " 
 
 "Of course," she continued, with the same odd affecta- 
 tion of coyness, which was, however, distinctly uncalled 
 for, as she eyed him from under her broad hat, "you 
 need n't come with me unless you like. I can run away 
 by myself, — if I want to I I 've thought of it before. 
 One can't stand everything!" 
 
 "But, Susy," said Clarence, with a swift remorseful 
 recollection of her confidence yesterday, "is there really 
 anything troubles you ? Tell me, dear. What is it 1 " 
 
 "Oh, nothing — everything I It's no use, — you can't 
 understand! You like it, I know you do. I can see it; 
 it's your style. But it's stupid, it's awful, Clarence! 
 With mamma snooping over you and around you all day, 
 with her 'dear child,' 'mamma's pet,' and 'What is it, 
 dear 1 ' and ' Tell it all to your own mamma, ' : — as if I 
 would ! And ' my own mamma, ' indeed ! As if I did n't 
 know, Clarence, that she isn't. And papa, caring for 
 nothing but this hideous, dreary rancho, and the huge, 
 empty plains. It 's worse than school, for there, at least, 
 , when you went, out, you could see sojnething besides cattle 
 
SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 181 
 
 and horses and yellow-faced half-breeds ! But here 
 
 Lord! it 's only a wonder I have n't run away before ! " 
 
 Startled and shocked as Clarence was at this revelation, 
 accompanied as it was by a hardness of manner that was 
 new to him, the influence of the young girl was still so 
 strong upon him that he tried to evade it as only an ex- 
 travagance, and said with a faint smile, " But where would 
 you run to 1 " 
 
 She looked at him cunningly, with her head on one 
 side, and then said : — 
 
 " I have friends, and " — 
 
 She hesitated, pursing up her pretty lips. 
 
 "And what?" 
 
 " Eolations. " 
 
 "Belations?" 
 
 "Yes, — an aunt by marriage. She lives in Sacramento. 
 She 'd be overjoyed to have me come to her. Her second 
 husband has a theatre there." 
 
 " But, Susy, what does Mrs. Peyton know of this ? " 
 
 "Nothing. Do you think I 'd tell her, and have her buy 
 them up as she has my other relations? Do you suppose 
 I don't know that I 've been bought Up like a nigger? " 
 
 She looked indignant, compressing her delicate little 
 nostrils, and yet, somehow, Clarence had the same singular 
 impression that she was only acting. 
 
 The calling of a far-off voice came faintly through the 
 wood. 
 
 "That's Mary, looking for me," said Susy composedly. 
 " You must go, now, Clarence. Quick ! Eemember what 
 I said, — and don't breathe a word of this. Good-by." 
 
 But Clarence was standing still, breathless, hopelessly 
 disturbed, and irresolute. Then he turned away mechani- 
 cally towards the trail. 
 
 "Well, Clarence?" 
 
 She was looking at him half reproachfully, half coquet- 
 
182 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 tishly, with smiling, parted lips. He hastened to forget 
 himself and his troubles upon them twice and thrice. 
 Then she quickly disengaged herself, whispered, "Go, 
 now," and, as Mary's call was repeated, Clarence heard 
 her voice, high and clear, answering, "Here, dear," as he 
 was plunging into the thicket. 
 
 He had scarcely reached the madrofio tree again and 
 remounted his horse, before he heard the sound of hoofs 
 approaching from the road. In his present uneasiness he 
 did not care to be discovered so near the rendezvous, and 
 drew back into the shadow until the horseman should pass. 
 It was Peyton, with a somewhat disturbed face, riding 
 rapidly. Still less was he inclined to join or immediately 
 follow him, but he was relieved when his host, instead of 
 taking the direct road to the rancho, through the wild oats, 
 turned off in the direction of the corral. 
 
 A moment later Clarence wheeled into the direct road, 
 and presently found himself in the long afternoon shadows 
 through the thickest of the grain. He was riding slowly, 
 immersed in thought, when he was suddenly startled by 
 a hissing noise at his ear, and what seemed to be the 
 uncoiling stroke of a leaping serpent at his side. Instinct- 
 ively he threw himself forward on his horse's neck, and 
 as the animal shied into the grain, felt the crawling scrape 
 and jerk of a horsehair lariat across his back and down his 
 horse's flanks. He reined in indignantly and stood up in 
 his stirrups. Nothing was to he seen above the level of 
 the grain. Beneath him the trailing riata had as noise- 
 lessly vanished as if it had been indeed a gliding snake. 
 Had he been the victim of a practical joke, or of the blun- 
 der of some stupid vaquero ? For he made no doubt that 
 it was the lasso of one of the performers he had watched 
 that afternoon. But his preoccupied mind did not dwell 
 long upon it, and by the time he had reached the wall of 
 the old garden, the incident was forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Relieved of Clarence Brant's embarrassing presence, 
 Jim Hooker did not, however, refuse to avail himself of 
 that opportunity to expound to the farmer and his family 
 the immense wealth, influence, and importance of the 
 friend who had just left him. Although Clarence's plan 
 had suggested reticence, Hooker could not forego the plea- 
 sure of informing them that " Clar " Brant had just offered 
 to let him into an extensive land speculation. He had 
 previously declined a large share or original location in a 
 mine of Clarence's, now worth a million, because it was 
 not "his style." But the land speculation in a country of 
 unsettled titles and lawless men, he need not remind them, 
 required some experience of border warfare. He would 
 not say positively, although he left them to draw their own 
 conclusions with gloomy significance, that this was why 
 Clarence had sought him. With this dark suggestion, he 
 took leave of Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins and their daughter 
 Phoebe the next day, not without some natural human 
 emotion, and peacefully drove his team and wagon into the 
 settlement of Fair Plains. 
 
 He was not prepared, however, for a sudden realization 
 of his imaginative prospects. A few days after his arrival 
 in Fair Plains, he received a letter from Clarence, explain- 
 ing that he had not time to return to Hooker to consult 
 him, but had, nevertheless, fulfilled his promise, by taking 
 advantage of an opportunity of purchasing the Spanish 
 Sisters' title to certain unoccupied lands near the settle- 
 ment. As these lands in part joined the section already 
 
184 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 preempted and occupied by Hopkins, Clarence thought that 
 Jim Hooker would choose that part for the sake of his 
 neighbor's company. He inclosed a draft on San Fran- 
 cisco, for a sum sufficient to enable Jim to put up a cabin 
 and "stock" the property, which he begged he would con- 
 sider in the light of a loan, to be paid back in install- 
 ments, only when the property could afford it. At the 
 same time, if Jim was in difficulty, he was to inform him. 
 The letter closed with a characteristic Clarence-like min- 
 gling of enthusiasm and older wisdom. " I wish you luck, 
 Jim, but I see no reason why you should trust to it. I 
 don't know of anything that could keep you from making 
 yourself independent of any one, if you go to work with 
 & long aim and don't fritter away your chances on short 
 ones. If I were you, old fellow, I 'd drop the Plains and 
 the Indians out of my thoughts, or at least out of my 
 talk, for a while ; they won't help you in the long run. 
 The people who believe you will be jealous of you; those 
 who don't, will look down upon you, and if they get to 
 questioning your little Indian romances, Jim, they '11 be 
 apt to question your civilized facts. That won't help you 
 in the ranching business, and that's your only real grip 
 now." For the space of two or three hours after this, 
 Jim was reasonably grateful and even subdued, — so much 
 so that his employer, to whom he confided his good fortune, 
 frankly confessed that he believed him from that unusual 
 fact alone. Unfortunately, neither the practical lesson 
 conveyed in this grim admission, nor the sentiment of 
 gratitude, remained long with Jim. Another idea had 
 taken possession of his fancy. Although the land nomi- 
 nated in his bill of sale had been, except on the occasion, 
 of his own temporary halt there, always unoccupied, un- 
 sought, and unclaimed, and although he was amply pro- 
 tected by legal certificates, he gravely collected a posse of 
 three or four idlers from Fair Plains, armed them at his 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 185 
 
 own expense, and in the dead of night took belligerent 
 and forcible possession of the peaceful domain which the 
 weak generosity and unheroic dollars of Clarence had pur- 
 chased for him ! A martial camp-fire tempered the chill 
 night winds to the pulses of the invaders, and enabled 
 them to sleep on their arms in the field they had won. 
 The morning sun revealed to the astonished Hopkins 
 family the embattled plain beyond, with its armed sentries. 
 Only then did Jim Hooker condescend to explain the 
 reason of his warlike occupation, with dark hints of the 
 Outlying "squatters" and "jumpers," whose incursions 
 their boldness alone had repulsed. The effect of this 
 romantic situation upon the two women, with the slight 
 fascination of danger imported into their quiet lives, may 
 well be imagined. Possibly owing to some incautious ques- 
 tioning by Mr. Hopkins, and some doubts of the discipline 
 and sincerity of his posse, Jim discharged them the next 
 day ; but during the erection of his cabin by some peaceful 
 carpenters from the settlement, he returned to his gloomy 
 preoccupation and the ostentatious wearing of his revolvers. 
 As an opulent and powerful neighbor, he took his meals 
 with the family while his house was being built, and gen- 
 erally impressed them with a sense of security they had 
 never missed. 
 
 Meantime, Clarence, duly informed of the installation 
 of Jim as his tenant, underwent a severe trial. It was 
 necessary for his plans that this should be kept a secret at 
 present, and this was no easy thing for his habitually frank 
 and open nature. He had once mentioned that he had 
 met Jim at the settlement, but the information was re- 
 ceived with such indifference by Susy, and such marked 
 disfavor by Mrs. Peyton, that he said no more. He ac- 
 companied Peyton in his rides around the rancho, fully 
 possessed himself of the details of its boundaries, the de- 
 batable lands held by the enemy, and listened with beat- 
 
186 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAIN'S 
 
 ing pulses, but a hushed tongue, to his host's ill-concealed 
 misgivings. 
 
 " You see, Clarence, that lower terrace ? " he said, 
 pointing to a far-reaching longitudinal plain beyond the 
 corral ; " it extends from my corral to Fair Plains. That 
 is claimed by the Sisters' title, and, as things appear to be 
 going, if a division of the land is made it will be theirs. 
 It 's bad enough to have this best grazing land lying just 
 on the flanks of the corral held by these rascals at an 
 absurd prohibitory price, but I am afraid that it may be 
 made to mean something even worse. According to the 
 old surveys, these terraces on different levels were the 
 natural divisions of the property, — one heir or his tenant 
 taking one, and another taking another, — an easy distinc- 
 tion that saved the necessity of boundary fencing or monu- 
 ments, and gave no trouble to people who were either kins- 
 men or lived in lazy patriarchal concord. That is the form 
 of division they are trying to reestablish now. Well," he 
 continued, suddenly lifting his eyes to the young man's 
 flushed face, in some unconscious, sympathetic response to 
 his earnest breathlessness, "although my boundary line 
 extends half a mile into that field, my house and garden 
 and corral are actually upon that terrace or level. " They 
 certainly appeared to Clarence to be on the same line as 
 the long field beyond. "If," went on Peyton, "such a 
 decision is made, these men will push on and claim the 
 house and everything on the terrace." 
 
 " But, " said Clarence quickly, " you said their title was 
 only valuable where they have got or can give possession. 
 You already have yours. They can't take it from you 
 except by force." 
 
 " No, " said Peyton grimly, " nor will they dare to do 
 it as long as I live to fight them." 
 
 "But," persisted Clarence, with the same singular hesi- 
 tancy of manner, "why didn't you purchase possession of 
 
SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 187 
 
 at least that part of the land which lies so dangerously 
 near your own house ? " 
 
 "Because it was held by squatters, who naturally pre- 
 ferred buying what might prove a legal title to their land 
 from these impostors than to sell out their possession to 
 me at a fair price." 
 
 "But couldn't you have bought from them both?" 
 continued Clarence. 
 
 "My dear Clarence, I am not a Croesus nor a fool. 
 Only a man who was both would attempt to treat with 
 these rascals, who would now, of course, insist that their 
 whole claim should be bought up at their own price by the 
 man who was most concerned in defeating them." 
 
 He turned away a little impatiently. Fortunately he 
 did not observe that Clarence's averted face was crimson 
 with embarrassment, and that a faint smile hovered ner- 
 vously about his mouth. 
 
 Since his late rendezvous with Susy, Clarence had had 
 no chance to interrogate her further regarding her mysteri- 
 ous relative. That that shadowy presence was more or 
 less exaggerated, if not an absolute myth, he more than 
 half suspected, but of the discontent that had produced it, 
 or the recklessness it might provoke, there was no doubt. 
 She might be tempted to some act of folly. He wondered 
 if Mary Rogers knew it. Yet, with his sensitive ideas of 
 loyalty, he would have shrunk from any confidence with 
 Mary regarding her friend's secrets, although he fancied 
 that Mary's dark eyes sometimes dwelt upon him with 
 mournful consciousness and premonition. He did not 
 imagine the truth, that this romantic contemplation was 
 only the result of Mary's conviction that Susy was utterly 
 unworthy of his love. It so chanced one morning that 
 the vaquero who brought the post from Santa Inez arrived 
 earlier than usual, and so anticipated the two girls, who 
 usually made a youthful point of meeting him first as h«- 
 
188 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 passed the garden wall. The letter bag was consequently 
 delivered to Mrs. Peyton in the presence of the others, 
 and a look of consternation passed between the young 
 girls. But Mary quickly seized upon the bag as if with 
 girlish and mischievous impatience, opened it, and glanced 
 within it. 
 
 "There are only three letters for you," she said, handing 
 them to Clarence, with a quick look of significance, which 
 he failed to comprehend, "and nothing for me or Susy." 
 
 "But," began the innocent Clarence, as his first glance 
 at the letters showed him that one was directed to Susy, 
 " here is " — 
 
 A wicked pinch on his arm that was nearest Mary 
 stopped his speech, and he quickly put the letters in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Didn't you understand that Susy don't want her 
 mother to see that letter 1 " asked Mary impatiently, when 
 they were alone a moment later. 
 
 "No," said Clarence simply, handing her the missive. 
 
 Mary took it and turned it over in her hands. 
 
 "It's in a man's handwriting," she said innocently. 
 
 " I had n't noticed it, " returned Clarence, with invincible 
 naivete, "but perhaps it is." 
 
 "And you hand it over for me to give to Susy, and 
 ain't a bit curious to know who it 's from? " 
 
 "No," returned Clarence, opening his big eyes in smil- 
 ing and apologetic wonder. 
 
 "Well," responded the young lady, with a long breath 
 of melancholy astonishment, "certainly, of all things you 
 are — you really are ! " With which incoherency — 
 apparently perfectly intelligible to herself — she left him. 
 She had not herself the slightest idea who the letter was 
 from ; she only knew that Susy wanted it concealed. 
 
 The incident made little impression on Clarence, except 
 as part of the general uneasiness he felt in regard to his 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 189 
 
 old playmate. It seemed so odd to him that this worry 
 should come from her, — that she herself should form the 
 one discordant note in the Arcadian dream that he had 
 found so sweet; in his previous imaginings it was the 
 presence of Mrs. Peyton which he had dreaded; she whose 
 propinquity now seemed so full of gentleness, reassurance, 
 and repose. How worthy she seemed of any sacrifice he 
 could make for her! He had seen little of her for the 
 last two or three days, although her smile and greeting 
 were always ready for him. Poor Clarence did not dream 
 that she had found from certain incontestable signs and 
 tokens, both in the young ladies and himself, that he did 
 not require watching, and that becoming more resigned to 
 Susy's indifference, which seemed so general and passive 
 in quality, she was no longer tortured by the sting of jeal- 
 ousy. 
 
 Finding himself alone that afternoon, the young man 
 had wandered somewhat listlessly beyond the low adobe 
 gateway. The habits of the siesta obtained in a modified 
 form at the rancho. After luncheon, its masters and em- 
 ployees usually retired, not so much from the torrid heat 
 of the afternoon sun, but from the first harrying of the 
 afternoon trades, whose monotonous whistle swept round 
 the walls. A straggling passion- vine near the gate beat 
 and struggled against the wind. Clarence had stopped 
 near it, and was gazing with worried abstraction across the 
 tossing fields, when a soft voice called his name. 
 
 It was a pleasant voice, — Mrs. Peyton's. He glanced 
 back at the gateway ; it was empty. He looked quickly 
 to the right and left : no one was there. 
 
 The voice spoke again with the musical addition of a 
 laugh; it seemed to come from the passion-vine. Ah, 
 yes; behind it, and half overgrown by its branches, was 
 a long, narrow embrasured opening in the wall, defended 
 by the usual Spanish grating, and still further back, as in 
 
190 SUSY; A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 the frame of a picture, the half length figure of Mrs. Pey- 
 ton, very handsome and striking, too, with a painted pio- 
 turesqueness from the effect of the checkered light and 
 shade. 
 
 "You looked so tired and hored out there," she said. 
 " I am afraid you are finding it very dull at the rancho. 
 The prospect is certainly not very enlivening from where 
 you stand." 
 
 Clarence protested with a visible pleasure in his eyes, 
 as he held back a spray before the opening. 
 
 "If you are not afraid of being worse bored, come in 
 here and talk with me. You have never seen this part of 
 the house, I think, — my own sitting-room. You reach 
 it from the hall in the gallery. But Lola or Anita will 
 show you the way." 
 
 He reentered the gateway, and quickly found the hall, 1 
 — a narrow, arched passage, whose black, tunnel-like 
 shadows were absolutely unaffected by the vivid, colorless 
 glare of the courtyard without, seen through an opening at 
 the end. The contrast was sharp, blinding, and distinct; 
 even the edges of the opening were black; the outer light 
 halted on the threshold and never penetrated within. The 
 warm odor of verbena and dried rose leaves stole from a 
 half-open door somewhere in the cloistered gloom. Guided , 
 by it, Clarence presently found himself on the threshold of 
 a low-vaulted room. Two other narrow embrasured win- 
 dows like the one he had just seen, and a fourth, wider 
 latticed casement, hung with gauze curtains, suffused the 
 apartment with a ckar, yet mysterious twilight that seemed 
 its own. The gloomy walls were warmed by bright-fringed 
 bookshelves, topped with trifles of light feminine coloring 
 and adornment. Low easy-chairs and a lounge, small 
 fanciful tables, a dainty desk, gayly colored baskets of. 
 worsteds or mysterious kaleidoscopic fragments, and vases 
 of flowers pervaded the apartment with a mingled sense of 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 191 
 
 grace and comfort. There was a womanly refinement in 
 its careless negligence, and even the delicate wrapper of 
 Japanese silk, gathered at the waist and falling in easy- 
 folds to the feet of the graceful mistress of this charming 
 disorder, looked a part of its refined abandonment. 
 
 Clarence hesitated as on the threshold of some sacred 
 shrine. But Mrs. Peyton, with her own hands, cleared 
 a space for him on the lounge. 
 
 "You will easily suspect from all this disorder, Mr. 
 Brant, that I spend a greater part of my time here, and 
 that I seldom see much company. Mr. Peyton occasion- 
 ally comes in long enough to stumble over a footstool or 
 upset a vase, and I think Mary and Susy avoid it from a 
 firm conviction that there is work concealed in these bas- 
 kets. But I have my books here, and in the afternoons, 
 behind these thick walls, one forgets the incessant stir and 
 restlessness of the dreadful winds outside. Just now you 
 were foolish enough to tempt them while you were ner- 
 vous, or worried, or listless. Take my word for it, it 's 
 a great mistake. There is no more use fighting them, as 
 I tell Mr. Peyton, than of fighting the people born under 
 them. I have my own opinion that these winds were sent 
 only to stir this lazy race of mongrels into activity, but 
 they are enough to drive us Anglo-Saxons into nervous 
 frenzy. Don't you think so? But you are young and 
 energetic, and perhaps you are not affected by them." 
 
 She spoke pleasantly and playfully, yet with a certain 
 nervous tension of voice and manner that seemed to illus- 
 trate her theory. At least, Clarence, in quick sympathy 
 with her slightest emotion, was touched by it. There is 
 no more insidious attraction in the persons we admire 
 than the belief that we know and understand their unhap- 
 piness, and that our admiration for them is lifted higher 
 than a mere mutual instinctive sympathy with beauty or 
 Strength. This adorable woman had suffered. The very 
 
192 SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 thought aroused his chivalry. It loosened, also, I fear, 
 his quick, impulsive tongue. 
 
 Oh yes; he knew it. He had lived under this whip 
 of air and sky for three years, alone in a Spanish rancho, 
 with only the native peons around him, and scarcely speak- 
 ing his own tongue even to his guardian. He spent his 
 mornings on horseback in fields like these, until the vientos 
 generales, as they called them, sprang up and drove him 
 nearly frantic; and his only relief was to bury himself 
 among the books in his guardian's library, and shut out 
 the world, — just as she did. The smile which hovered 
 around the lady's mouth at that moment arrested Clarence, 
 with a quick remembrance of their former relative posi- 
 tions, and a sudden conviction of his familiarity in suggest- 
 ing an equality of experience, and he blushed. But Mrs. 
 Peyton diverted his embarrassment with an air of inter- 
 ested absorption in his story, and said : — 
 
 "Then you know these people thoroughly, Mr. Brant? 
 I am afraid that we do not." 
 
 Clarence had already gathered that fact within the last 
 few days, and, with his usual impulsive directness, said 
 so. A slight knitting of Mrs. Peyton's brows passed off, 
 however, as he quickly and earnestly went on to say that 
 it was impossible for the Peytons in their present relations 
 to the natives to judge them, or to be judged by them 
 fairly. How they were a childlike race, credulous and 
 trustful, but, like all credulous and trustful people, given 
 to retaliate when imposed upon with a larger insincerity, 
 exaggeration, and treachery. How they had seen their 
 houses and lands occupied by strangers, their religion 
 scorned, their customs derided, their partiarchal society 
 invaded by hollow civilization or frontier brutality — all 
 this fortified by incident and illustration, the outcome of 
 some youthful experience, and given with the glowing 
 enthusiasm of conviction. Mrs. Peyton listened with the 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 193 
 
 usual divided feminine interest between subject and 
 speaker. 
 
 Where did this rough, sullen boy — as she had known 
 him — pick up this delicate and swift perception, this 
 reflective judgment, and this odd felicity of expression? 
 It was not possible that it was in him while he was the 
 companion of her husband's servants or the recognized 
 "chum" of the scamp Hooker. No. But if he could 
 have changed like this, why not Susy 1 Mrs. Peyton, in 
 the conservatism of her sex, had never been quite free 
 from fears of her adopted daughter's hereditary instincts; 
 but, with this example before her, she now took heart. 
 Perhaps the change was coming slowly ; perhaps even now 
 what she thought was indifference and coldness was only 
 some abnormal preparation or condition. But she only 
 smiled and said : — 
 
 "Then, if you think those people have been wronged, 
 you are not on our side, Mr. Brant ? " 
 
 What to an older and more worldly man would have 
 seemed, and probably was, only a playful reproach, struck 
 Clarence deeply, and brought his pent-up feelings to his 
 lips. 
 
 " You have never wronged them. You could n't do it; 
 it is n't in your nature. I am on your side, and for you 
 and yours always, Mrs. Peyton. Prom the first time I 
 saw you on the plains, when I was brought, a ragged boy, 
 before you by your husband, I think I would gladly have 
 laid down my life for you. I don't mind telling you now 
 that I was even jealous of poor Susy, so anxious was I for 
 the smallest share in your thoughts, if only for a moment. 
 You could have done anything with me you wished, and 
 I should have been happy, — far happier than I have been 
 ever since. I tell you this, Mrs. Peyton, now, because 
 you have just doubted if I might be ' on your side, ' but 
 I have been longing to tell it all to you before, and it is 
 
194 SUSY : . A STOHY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 that I am ready to do anything you want, — all you want, 
 — to be on your side and at your side, now and forever. " 
 
 He was so earnest and hearty, and above all so appall- 
 ingly and blissfully happy, in this relief of his feelings, 
 smiling as if it were the most natural thing in the world, 
 and so absurdly unconscious of his twenty-two years, his 
 little brown curling mustache, the fire in his wistful, yearn- 
 ing eyes, and, above all, of his clasped hands and lover- 
 like attitude, that Mrs. Qeyton — at first rigid as stone, 
 then suffused to the eyes — cast a hasty glance round the 
 apartment, put her handkerchief to her face, and laughed 
 like a girl. 
 
 At which Clarence, by no means discomposed, but rather 
 accepting her emotion as perfectly natural, joined her heart- 
 ily, and added : — 
 
 "It's so, Mrs. Peyton; I'm glad I told you. You 
 don't mind it, do you? " 
 
 But Mrs. Peyton had resumed her gravity, and perhaps 
 a touch of her previous misgivings. 
 
 " I should certainly be very sorry, " she said; looking at 
 him critically, "to object to your sharing your old friend- 
 ship for your little playmate with her parents and guardi- 
 ans, or to your expressing it to them as frankly as to her." 
 
 She saw the quick change in his mobile face and the 
 momentary arrest of its happy expression. She was fright- 
 ened and yet puzzled. It was not the sensitiveness of a 
 lover at the mention of the loved one's name, and yet it 
 suggested an uneasy consciousness. If his previous impul- 
 sive outburst had been prompted honestly, or even artfully, 
 by his passion for Susy, why had he looked so shocked 
 when she spoke of her 1 
 
 But Clarence, whose emotion had been caused by the 
 sudden recall of his knowledge of Susy's own disloyalty to 
 the woman whose searching eyes were upon him, in his 
 revulsion against the deceit was, for an instant, upon the 
 
SUSY: A STOEY 01 THE PLAINS 195 
 
 point of divulging all. Perhaps, if Mrs. Peyton had 
 shown more confidence, he would have done so, and mate- 
 rially altered the evolution of this story. But, happily, it 
 is upon these slight human weaknesses that your romancer 
 depends, and Clarence, with no other reason than the in- 
 stinctive sympathy of youth with youth in its opposition 
 to wisdom and experience, let the opportunity pass, and 
 took the responsibility of it out of the hands of this chron- 
 icler. 
 
 Howbeit, to cover his confusion, he seized upon the 
 second idea that was in his mind, and stammered, "Susy! 
 Yes, I wanted to speak to you about her." Mrs. Peyton 
 held her breath, but the young man went on, although 
 hesitatingly, with evident sincerity. "Have you heard 
 from any of her relations since — since — you adopted 
 her?" 
 
 It seemed a natural enough question, although not the 
 sequitur she had expected. "No," she said carelessly. 
 "It was well understood, after the nearest relation — an 
 aunt by marriage — had signed her consent to Susy's adop- 
 tion, that there should be no further intercourse with the 
 family. There seemed to us no necessity for reopening the 
 past, and Susy herself expressed no desire." She stopped, 
 and again fixing her handsome eyes on Clarence, said, 
 " Do you know any of them t " 
 
 But Clarence by this time had recovered himself, and 
 was able to answer carelessly and truthfully that he did 
 not. Mrs. Peyton, still regarding him closely, added 
 somewhat deliberately, "It matters little now what rela- 
 tions she has; Mr. Peyton and I have complete legal con- 
 trol over her until she is of age, and we can easily protect 
 her from any folly of her own or others, or from any of 
 the foolish fancies that sometimes overtake girls of her age 
 and inexperience." 
 . To her utter surprise, however, Clarence uttered a faint 
 
196 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 sigh of relief, and his face again recovered its expression 
 of boyish happiness. "I'm glad of it, Mrs. Peyton," he 
 said heartily. "No one could understand better what is 
 for her interest in all things than yourself. Not," he 
 said, with hasty and equally hearty loyalty to his old play- 
 mate, " that I think she would ever go against your wishes, 
 or do anything that she knows to be wrong, but she is. 
 very young and innocent, — as much of a child as ever, 
 don't you think so, Mrs. Peyton? " 
 
 It was amusing, yet nevertheless puzzling, to hear this 
 boyish young man comment upon Susy's girlishness. And 
 Clarence was serious, for he had quite forgotten in Mrs. 
 Peyton's presence the impression of superiority which Susy 
 had lately made upon him. But Mrs. Peyton returned to 
 the charge, or, rather, to an attack upon what she con- 
 ceived to be Clarence's old position. 
 
 "I suppose she does seem girlish compared to Mary 
 Rogers, who is a much more reserved and quiet nature. 
 But Mary is very charming, Mr. Brant, and I am really 
 delighted to have her here with Susy. She has such 
 lovely dark eyes and such good manners. She has been 
 well brought up, and it is easy to see that her friends are 
 superior people. I must write to them to thank them for 
 her visit, and beg them to let her stay longer. I think 
 you said you didn't know them? " 
 
 But Clarence, whose eyes had been thoughtfully and 
 admiringly wandering over every characteristic detail of 
 the charming apartment, here raised them to its handsome 
 mistress, with an apologetic air and a "No" of such unaf- 
 fected and complete abstraction, that she was again dum- 
 founded. Certainly, it could not be Mary in whom he 
 was interested. 
 
 Abandoning any further inquisition for the present, she 
 let the talk naturally fall upon the books scattered about 
 the tables. The young man knew them all far better than 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 197 
 
 she did, with a cognate knowledge of others of which she 
 had never heard. She found herself in the attitude of 
 receiving information from this boy, whose boyishness, 
 however, seemed to have evaporated, whose tone had 
 changed with the subject, and who now spoke with the 
 conscious reserve of knowledge. Decidedly, she must have 
 grown rusty in her seclusion. This came, she thought 
 bitterly, of living alone; of her husband's preoccupation 
 with the property; of Susy's frivolous caprices. At the 
 end of eight years to be outstripped by a former cattle- 
 boy of her husband's, and to have her French corrected in 
 a matter-of-fact way by this recent pupil of the priests, 
 was really too bad ! Perhaps he even looked down upon 
 Susy ! She smiled dangerously but suavely. 
 
 "You must have worked so hard to educate yourself 
 from nothing, Mr. Brant. You couldn't read, I think, 
 when you first came to us. No 1 Could you really ? I 
 know it has been very difficult for Susy to get on with 
 her studies in proportion. We had so much to first eradi- 
 cate in the way of manners, style, and habits of thought 
 which the poor child had picked up from her companions, 
 and for which she was not responsible. Of course, with 
 a boy that does not signify, " she added, with feline gentle- 
 ness. 
 
 But the barbed speech glanced from the young man's 
 smoothly smiling abstraction. 
 
 "Ah, yes. But those were happy days, Mrs. Peyton," 
 he answered, with an exasperating return of his previous 
 boyish enthusiasm, " perhap's because of our ignorance. 
 I don't think that Susy and I are any happier for knowing 
 that the plains are not as flat as we believed they were, 
 and that the sun does n't have to burn a hole in them 
 every night when it sets. But I know I believed that 
 you knew everything. When I once saw you smiling 
 over a book in your hand, I thought it must be a different 
 
198 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 one from any that I had ever seen, and perhaps made 
 expressly for you. I can see you there still. Do you 
 know," quite confidentially, "that you reminded me — of 
 course you were much younger — of what I rememhered of 
 my mother ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Peyton's reply of "Ah, indeed," albeit polite, 
 indicated some coldness and lack of animation. Clarence 
 rose quickly, but cast a long and lingering look around 
 him. 
 
 "You will come again, Mr. Brant," said the lady more 
 graciously. " If you are going to ride now, perhaps you 
 would try to meet Mr. Peyton. He is late already, and 
 I am always uneasy when he is out alone, — particularly 
 on one of those half-broken horses, which they consider 
 good enough for riding here. You have ridden them 
 before and understand them, but I am afraid that 's another 
 thing we have got to learn. " 
 
 When the young man found himself again confronting 
 the glittering light of the courtyard, he remembered the 
 interview and the soft twilight of the boudoir only as part 
 of a pleasant dream. There was a rude awakening in the 
 fierce wind, which had increased with the lengthening 
 shadows. It seemed to sweep away the half-sensuous 
 comfort that had pervaded him, and made him coldly real- 
 ize that he had done nothing to solve the difficulties of his 
 relations to Susy. He had lost the one chance of confid- 
 ing to Mrs. Peyton, — if he had ever really intended to do 
 so. It was impossible for him to do it hereafter without 
 a confession of prolonged deceit. 
 
 He reached the stables impatiently, where his attention 
 was attracted by the sound of excited voices in the corral. 
 Looking within, he was concerned to see that one of the 
 vaqueros was holding the dragging bridle of a blown, 
 dusty, and foam-covered horse, around whom a dozen idlers 
 were gathered. Even beneath its coating of dust and foam 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 199 
 
 and the half-displaced saddle blanket, Clarence immedi- 
 ately recognized the spirited pinto mustang which Peyton 
 had ridden that morning. 
 
 "What's the matter?" said Clarence, from the gate- 
 way. 
 
 The men fell apart, glancing at each other. One said 
 quickly in Spanish : — 
 
 "Say nothing to him. It is an affair of the house." 
 
 But this brought Clarence down like a bombshell among 
 them, not to be overlooked in his equal command of their 
 tongue and of them. "Ah! come, now. What drunken 
 piggishness is this ? Speak ! " 
 
 "The padron has been — perhaps — thrown," stammered 
 the first speaker. " His horse arrives, — but he does not. 
 We go to inform the senora. " 
 
 "No, you don't! mules and imbeciles! Do you want 
 to frighten her to death? Mount, every one of you, and 
 follow me ! " 
 
 The men hesitated, hut for only a moment. Clarence 
 had a fine assortment of Spanish epithets, expletives, and 
 objurgations, gathered in his rodeo experience at El Refu- 
 gio, and laid them about him with such fervor and dis- 
 crimination that two or three mules, presumably with 
 guilty consciences, mistaking their direction, actually cow- 
 ered against the stockade of the corral in fear. In another 
 iKoment the vaqueros had hastily mounted, and, with 
 Clarence at their head, were dashing down the road towards 
 Santa Inez. Here he spread them in open order in the 
 grain, on either side of the track, himself taking the road. 
 
 They did not proceed very far. For when they had 
 reached the gradual slope which marked the decline to the 
 second terrace, Clarence, obeying an instinct as irresistible 
 as it was unaccountable, which for the last few moments 
 had been forcing itself upon him, ordered a halt. The 
 casa and cgrral had already sunk in the plain behind them; 
 
200 SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 it was the spot where the lasso had been thrown at him a 
 few evenings before! Bidding the men converge slowly 
 towards the road, he went on more cautiously, with his 
 eyes upon the track before him. Presently he stopped. 
 There was a ragged displacement of the cracked and crum- 
 bling soil and the unmistakable scoop of kicking hoofs. As 
 he stooped to examine them, one of the men at the right 
 uttered a shout. By the same strange instinct Clarence 
 knew that Peyton was found! 
 
 He was, indeed, lying there among the wild oats at the 
 right of the road, but without trace of life or scarcely 
 human appearance. His clothes, where not torn am} 
 shredded away, were partly turned inside out; his shoul- 
 ders, neck, and head were a shapeless, undistinguishabl* 
 mask of dried earth and rags, like a mummy-wrapping 
 His left boot was gone. His large frame seemed boneless, 
 and, except for the cerements of his mud-stiffened cloth . 
 ing, was limp and sodden. 
 
 Clarence raised his head suddenly from a quick exami- 
 nation of the body, and looked at the men around k ; ji. 
 One of them was already cantering away. Clarence in- 
 stantly threw himself on his horse, and, putting spuiri to 
 the animal, drew a revolver from his holster and fired over 
 the man's head. The rider turned in his saddle, sa-^ his 
 pursuer, and pulled up. 
 
 "Go back," said Clarence, "or my next shot won't 
 miss you." 
 
 "I was only going to inform the senora," said the man, 
 with a shrug and a forced smile. 
 
 " I will do that, " said Clarence grimly, driving him 
 back with him into the waiting circle; then turning to 
 them he said slowly, with deliberate, smileless irony, 
 " And now, my brave gentlemen, — knights of the bull 
 and gallant mustang hunters, — 1 want to inform you that 
 I believe that Mr. Peyton was murdered, and if the man 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OK THE PLAINS 201 
 
 who killed him is anywhere this side of hell, I intend to 
 find him. Good! You understand me! Now lift up 
 the body, — you two, by the shoulders; you two, by the 
 feet. Let your horses follow. For I intend that you 
 four shall carry home your master in your arms, on foot. 
 Now forward to the corral by the back trail. Disobey me, 
 or step out of line and " — He raised the revolver omi- 
 nously. 
 
 If the change wrought in the dead man before them was 
 weird and terrifying, no less distinct and ominous was the 
 change that, during the last few minutes, had come over 
 the living speaker. For it was no longer the youthful 
 Clarence who sat there, but a haggard, prematurely worn, 
 desperate-looking avenger, lank of cheek, and injected of 
 eye, whose white teeth glistened under the brown mustache 
 and thin pale lips that parted when his restrained breath 
 now and then hurriedly escaped them. 
 
 As the procession moved on, two men slunk behind with 
 the horses. 
 
 "Mother of God! Who is this wolf's whelp?" said 
 Manuel. 
 
 " Hush ! " said his companion in a terrified whisper. 
 "Have you not heard? It is the son of Hamilton Brant, 
 the assassin, the duelist, — he who was fusiladed in 
 Sonora." He made the sign of the cross quickly. "Jesus 
 Maria ! Let them look out who have cause, for the blood 
 of his father is in him ! " 
 
CHAPTEE Vn 
 
 What other speech passed between Clarence and Pey« 
 ton's retainers was not known, but not a word of the inter- 
 view seemed to have been divulged by those present. It 
 was generally believed and accepted that Judge Peyton 
 met his death by being thrown from his half-broken mus- 
 tang, and dragged at its heels, and medical opinion, hastily 
 summoned from Santa Inez after the body had been borne 
 to the corral, and stripped of its hideous encasings, de- 
 clared that the neck had been broken, and death had fol- 
 lowed instantaneously. An inquest was deemed unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 Clarence had selected Mary to break the news to Mrs. 
 Peyton, and the frightened young girl was too much struck 
 with the change still visible in his face, and the half author- 
 ity of his manner, to decline, or even to fully appreciate 
 the calamity that had befallen them. After the first 
 benumbing shock, Mrs. Peyton passed into that strange 
 exaltation of excitement brought on by the immediate 
 necessity for action, followed by a pallid calm, which the 
 average spectator too often unfairly accepts as incongruous, 
 inadequate, or artificial. There had also occurred one of 
 those strange compensations that wait on Death or disrup- 
 ture by catastrophe: such as the rude shaking down of an 
 unsettled life, the forcible realization of what were vague 
 speculations, the breaking of old habits and traditions, and 
 the unloosing of half- conscious bonds. Mrs. Peyton, with- 
 out insensibility to her loss or disloyalty to her affections, 
 nevertheless felt a relief to know that she was now really 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 203 
 
 Susy's guardian, free to order her new life wherever and 
 under what conditions she chose as most favorable to it, 
 and that she could dispose of this house that was wearying 
 to her when Susy was away, and which the girl herself 
 had always found insupportable. She could settle this 
 question of Clarence's relations to her daughter out of 
 hand without advice or opposition. She had a brother in 
 the East, who would be summoned to take care of the pro- 
 perty. This consideration for the living pursued her, even 
 while the dead man's presence still awed the hushed house; 
 it was in her thoughts as she stood beside his bier and 
 adjusted the flowers on his breast, which no longer moved 
 for or against these vanities; and it stayed with her even 
 in the solitude of her darkened room. 
 
 But if Mrs. Peyton was deficient, it was Susy who filled 
 the popular idea of a mourner, and whose emotional atti- 
 tude of a grief- stricken daughter left nothing to be desired. 
 It was she who, when the house was filled with sympathiz- 
 ing friends from San Francisco and the few near neighbors 
 who had hurried with condolences, was overflowing in her 
 reminiscences of the dead man's goodness to her, and her 
 own undying affection; who recalled ominous things that 
 he had said, and strange premonitions of her own; the 
 result of her ever-present filial anxiety; it was she who 
 had hurried home that afternoon, impelled with vague 
 fears of some impending calamity; it was she who .drew 
 a picture of Peyton as a doting and almost too indulgent 
 parent, which Mary Rogers failed to recognize, and which 
 brought back vividly to Clarence's recollection her own 
 childish exaggerations of the Indian massacre. I am far 
 from saying that she was entirely insincere or merely acting 
 .at these moments; at times she was taken with a mild 
 hysteria, brought on by the exciting intrusion of this real 
 event in her monotonous life, by the attentions of her 
 friends, the importance of her suffering as an only child, 
 
204 SUSY : A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 and the advancement of her position as the heiress of the 
 Robles Eancho. If her tears were near the surface, they 
 were at least genuine, and filmed her violet eyes and red- 
 dened her pretty eyelids quite as effectually as if they had 
 welled from the depths of her being. Her black frock 
 lent a matured dignity to her figure, and paled her delicate 
 complexion with the refinement of suffering. Even Clar- 
 ence was moved in that dark and haggard abstraction that 
 had settled upon him since his strange outbreak over the 
 body of his old friend. 
 
 The extent of that change had not been noticed by Mrs. 
 Peyton, who had only observed that Clarence had treated 
 her grief with a grave and silent respect. She was grate- 
 ful for that. A repetition of his boyish impulsiveness 
 would have been distasteful to her at such a moment. She 
 only thought him more mature and more subdued, and as 
 the only man now in her household his services had been 
 invaluable in the emergency. 
 
 The funeral had taken place at Santa Inez, where half 
 the county gathered to pay their last respects to their 
 former fellow citizen and neighbor, whose legal and com- 
 bative victories they had admired, and whom death had 
 lifted into a public character. The family were returning 
 to the house the same afternoon, Mrs. Peyton and the girls 
 in one carriage, the female house-servants in another, and 
 Clarence on horseback. They had reached the first pla- 
 teau, and Clarence was riding a little in advance, when 
 an extraordinary figure, rising from the grain beyond, be- 
 gan to gesticulate to him wildly. Checking the driver 01 
 the first carriage, Clarence bore down upon the stranger. 
 To his amazement it was Jim Hooker. Mounted on a 
 peaceful, unwieldy plough horse, he was nevertheless 
 accoutred and armed after his most extravagant fashion. 
 In addition to a heavy rifle across his saddle-bow he was 
 weighted down with a knife and revolvers. Clarence wal 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 205 
 
 in no mood for trifling, and almost rudely demanded his 
 business. 
 
 "Gord, Clarence, it ain't foolin'. The Sisters' title 
 was decided yesterday." 
 
 "I knew it, you fool! It's your title! You were 
 already on your land and in possession. What the devil 
 are you doing here ? " 
 
 " Yes, — but, " stammered Jim, " all the boys holding 
 that title moved up here to ' make the division ' and grab 
 all they could. And I followed. And I found out that 
 they were going to grab Judge Peyton's house, because it 
 was on the line, if they could, and findin' you. was all 
 away, by Gord they did! and they're in it! And I 
 stoled out and rode down here to warn ye.'' 
 
 He stopped, looked at Clarence, glanced darkly around 
 him and then down on his accoutrements. Even in that 
 supreme moment of sincerity, he could not resist the pos- 
 sibilities of the situation. 
 
 "It's as much as my life's worth," he said gloomily. 
 "But," with a dark glance at his weapons, "I'll sell it 
 dearly. " 
 
 "Jim!" said Clarence in a terrible voice, "you're not 
 lying again ? " 
 
 "No," said Jim hurriedly. "I swear it, Clarence! 
 No! Honest Injin this time. And look. I '11 help you. 
 They ain't expectin' you yet, and they think ye '11 come 
 by the road. Ef I raised a scare off there by the corral, 
 while you 're creepin' round by the back, mebbe you could 
 get in while they 're all lookin' for ye in front, don't you 
 see? I'll raise a big row, and they needn't know but 
 what ye 've got wind of it and brought a party with you 
 from Santa Inez." 
 
 In a flash Clarence had wrought a feasible plan out of 
 Jim's fantasy. 
 
 "Good," he said, wringing his old companion's hand. 
 
206 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 " Go back quietly now ; hang round the corral, and when 
 you see the carriage climbing the last terrace raise your 
 alarm. Don't mind how loud it is, there '11 be nobody but 
 the servants in the carriages." 
 
 He rode qiiickly back to the first carriage, at whose 
 window Mrs. Peyton's calm face was already questioning 
 him. He told her briefly and concisely of the attack, and 
 what he proposed to do. 
 
 "You have shown yourself so strong in matters of worse 
 moment than this," he added quietly, "that I have no 
 fears for your courage. I have only to ask you to trust 
 yourself to me, to put you back at once in your own home. 
 Your presence there, just now, is the one important thing, 
 whatever happens afterwards. " 
 
 She recognized his maturer tone and determined manner, 
 and nodded assent. More than that, a faint fire came into- 
 her handsome eyes ; the two girls kindled their own at that 
 flaming beacon, and sat with flushed cheeks and suspended, 
 indignant breath. They Were Western Americans, and 
 not over much used to imppsition. 
 
 " You must get down before we raise the hill, and follow 
 me on foot through the grains I was thinking, " he added, 
 turning to Mrs. Peyton, "of your boudoir window." 
 
 She had been thinking of it, too, and nodded. 
 
 "The vine has loosened the bars," he said. 
 
 "If it hasn't, we must squeeze through them," she 
 returned simply. 
 
 At the end of the terrace Clarence dismounted, and 
 helped them from the carriage. He then gave directions 
 to the coachmen to follow the road slowly to the corral in 
 front of the casa, and tied his horse behind the second car- 
 riage. Then, with Mrs. Peyton and the two young girls, 
 he plunged into the grain. 
 
 It was hot, it was dusty ; their thin shoes slipped in the 
 crumbling adobe, and the great blades caught in their 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 207 
 
 crape draperies, but they uttered no complaint. Whatevei 
 ulterior thought was in their minds, they were bent only 
 on one thing at that moment, — on entering the house at 
 any hazard. Mrs. Peyton had lived long enough on the 
 frontier to know the magic power of possession. Susy 
 already was old enough to feel the acute feminine horror of 
 the profanation of her own belongings by alien hands. Clar- 
 ence, more- cognizant of the whole truth than the others, 
 was equally silent and determined; and Mary Eogers was 
 fired with the zeal of loyalty. 
 
 Suddenly a series of blood-curdling yells broke from the 
 direction of the corral, and they stopped. But Clarence 
 at once recognized the well-known war-whoop imitation 
 of Jim Hooker, — - infinitely more gruesome and appalling 
 than the genuine aboriginal challenge. A half dozen shots 
 fired in quick succession had evidently the same friendly 
 origin. 
 
 "Now is our time," said Clarence eagerly. "We must 
 run for the house." 
 
 They had fortunately reached by this time the angle of 
 the adobe wall of the casa, and the long afternoon shadows 
 of the building were in their favor. They pressed forward 
 eagerly with the sounds of Jim Hooker's sham encounter 
 still in their ears, mingled with answering shouts of defi- 
 ance from strange voices within the building towards the 
 front. 
 
 They rapidly skirted the wall, even passing boldly 
 before the back gateway, which seemed empty and deserted, 
 and the next moment stood beside the narrow window of 
 the boudoir. Clarence's surmises were correct; the iron 
 grating was not only loose, but yielded to a vigorous 
 wrench, the vine itself acting as a lever to pull out the 
 rusty bars. The young man held out his hand, but Mrs. 
 Peyton, with the sudden agility of a young girl, leaped 
 into the window, followed by Mary and Susy. The inner 
 
208 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 casement yielded to her touch; the next moment they 
 were within the room. Then Mrs. Peyton's flushed and 
 triumphant face reappeared at the window. 
 
 "It's all right; the men are all in the courtyard, or in 
 the front of the house. The boudoir door is strong, and 
 we can bolt them out. " 
 
 "It won't be necessary," said Clarence quietly; "you 
 will not be disturbed." 
 
 " But are you not coming in 1 " she asked timidly, hold- 
 ing the window open. 
 
 Clarence looked at her with his first faint smile since 
 Peyton's death. 
 
 "Of course I am, but not in that way. I am going in 
 by the front gate. " 
 
 She would have detained him, but, with a quick wave 
 of his hand, he left her, and ran swiftly around the wall 
 of the casa toward the front. The gate was half open; a 
 dozen excited men were gathered before it and in the arch- 
 way, and among them, whitened with dust, blackened with 
 powder, and apparently glutted with rapine, and still hold- 
 ing a revolver in his hand, was Jim Hooker ! As Clarence 
 approached, the men quickly retreated inside the gate and 
 closed it, but not before he had exchanged a meaning 
 glance with Jim. When he reached the gate, a man from 
 within roughly demanded his business. 
 
 " I wish to see the leader of this party, " said Clarence 
 quietly. 
 
 "I reckon you do," returned the man, with a short 
 laugh. ."But I kalkilate he don't return the compliment." 
 
 "He probably will when he reads this note to his em- 
 ployer," continued Clarence still cooll}', selecting a paper 
 from his pocket-book. It was addressed to Francisco 
 Robles, Superintendent of the Sisters' Title, and directed 
 him to give Mr. Clarence Brant free access to the property 
 and the fullest information concerning it. The man took 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 209 
 
 It* glanced at it, looked again at Clarence, and then passed 
 the paper to a third man among the group in the court- 
 yard. The latter read it, and approached the gate care- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Well, what do you want? " 
 
 "I am afraid you have the advantage of me in being 
 able to transact business through bars," said Clarence, 
 with slow but malevolent distinctness, "and as mine is 
 important, I think you had better open the gate to me." 
 
 The slight laugh that his speech had -evoked from the 
 bystanders was checked as the leader retorted angrily : — 
 
 "That 's all very well; but how do I know that you 're 
 the man represented in that letter 1 Pancho Eobles may 
 know you, but 1 don't." 
 
 "That you can find out very easily," said Clarence. 
 " There is a man among your party who knows me, — Mr. 
 Hooker. Ask him." 
 
 The man turned, with a quick mingling of surprise and 
 suspicion, to the gloomy, imperturbable Hooker. Clarence 
 could not hear the reply of that young gentleman, but it 
 was evidently not wanting in his usual dark, enigmatical 
 exaggeration. The man surlily opened the gate. 
 
 "All the same," he said, still glancing suspiciously at 
 Hooker, "I don't see what he 's got to do with you." 
 
 "A great deal," said Clarence, entering the courtyard, 
 and stepping into the veranda; "he 's one of my tenants." 
 
 " Your what ? " said the man, with a coarse laugh of 
 incredulity. 
 
 "My tenants," repeated Clarence, glancing around the 
 courtyard carelessly. Nevertheless, he was relieved to 
 notice that the three or four Mexicans of the party did not 
 seem to be old retainers of the rancho. There was no 
 evidence of the internal treachery he had feared. 
 
 " Your tenants ! " echoed the man, with an uneasy 
 glance at the faces of the others. 
 
210 SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "Yes," said Clarence, with business brevity; "and, foi 
 the matter of that, although I have no reason to be particu- 
 larly proud of it, so are you all. You ask my business 
 here. It seems to be the same as yours, — to hold posses- 
 sion of this house! With this difference, however," he 
 continued, taking a document from his pocket. " Here is 
 the certificate, signed by the County Clerk, of the bill of 
 sale of the entire Sisters' title to me. It includes the 
 whole two leagues from Fair Plains to the old boundary 
 line of this rancho, which you forcibly entered this morn- 
 ing. There is the document; examine it if you like. 
 The only shadow of a claim you could have to this prop- 
 erty you would have to derive from vie. The only excuse 
 you could have for this act of lawlessness would be orders 
 from me. And all that you have done this morning is 
 only the assertion of my legal right to this house. If I 
 disavow your act, as I might, I leave you as helpless as 
 any tramp that was ever kicked from a doorstep, — as any 
 burglar that was ever collared on the fence by a constable." 
 
 It was the truth. There was no denying the authority 
 of the document, the facts of the situation, or its ultimate 
 power and significance. There was consternation, stupe- 
 faction, and even a half-humorous recognition of the absur- 
 dity of their position on most of the faces around him. 
 Incongruous as the scene was, it was made still more gro- 
 tesque by the attitude of Jim Hooker. Ruthlessly aban- 
 doning the party of convicted trespassers, he stalked gloom- 
 ily over to the side of Clarence, with the air of having 
 been all the time scornfully in the secret and a mien of 
 wearied victoriousness, and thus halting, he disdainfully 
 expectorated tobacco juice on the ground between him and 
 his late companions, as if to form a line of demarcation. 
 The few Mexicans began to edge towards the gateway. 
 This defection of his followers recalled the leader, who 
 was no coward, to himself again. 
 
SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 2H 
 
 " Shut the gate, there ! " he shouted. 
 
 As its two sides clashed together again, he turned delib- 
 erately to Clarence. 
 
 "That's all very well, young man, as regards the title. 
 You may have bought up the land, and legally own every 
 square inch of howling wilderness between this and San 
 Francisco, and I wish you joy of your d — d fool's bargain; 
 you may have got a whole circus like that," pointing to 
 the gloomy Jim, " at your back. But with all your money 
 and all your friends you 've forgotten one thing. You 
 haven't got possession, and we have." 
 
 "That's just where we differ," said Clarence coolly, 
 "for if you take the trouble to examine the house, you 
 will see that it is already in possession of Mrs. Peyton, — 
 my tenant." 
 
 He paused to give effect to his revelations. But he 
 was, nevertheless, unprepared for an unrehearsed dramatic 
 situation. Mrs. Peyton, who had been tired of waiting, 
 and was listening in the passage, at the mention of her 
 name, entered the gallery, followed by the young ladies. 
 The slight look of surprise upon her face, at the revelation 
 she had just heard of Clarence's ownership, only gave the 
 suggestion of her having been unexpectedly disturbed in 
 her peaceful seclusion. One of the Mexicans turned pale, 
 with a frightened glance at the passage, as if he expected 
 the figure of the dead man to follow. 
 
 The group fell back. The game was over, — and lost. 
 No one recognized it more quickly than the gamblers them- 
 selves. More than that, desperate and lawless as they 
 were, they still retained the chivalry of Western men, and 
 every hat was slowly doffed to the three black figures thai 
 stood silently in the gallery. And even apologetic speech 
 began to loosen the clenched teeth of the discomfited 
 leader. 
 
 " We — were — told there was no one in the house, " he 
 stammered. 
 
212 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "And it was the truth," said a pert, youthful, yet 
 slightly affected voice. "For we climbed into the window 
 just as you came in at the gate." 
 
 It was Susy's words that stung their ears again; but it 
 was Susy's pretty figure, suddenly advanced and in a 
 slightly theatrical attitude, that checked their anger. 
 There had been a sudden ominous silence, as the whole 
 plot of rescue seemed to be revealed to them in those auda- 
 cious words. But a sense of the ludicrous, which too 
 often was the only perception that ever mitigated the pas« 
 sions of such assemblies, here suddenly asserted itself. 
 The leader burst into a loud laugh, which was echoed by 
 the others, and, with waving hats, the whole party swept 
 peacefully out through the gate. 
 
 "But what does all this mean about your purchasing 
 the land, Mr. Brant 1 " said Mrs. Peyton quickly, fixing 
 her eyes intently on Clarence. 
 
 A faint color — p the useless protest of his truthful blood 
 — came to his cheek. 
 
 "The house is yours, and yours alone, Mrs. Peyton. 
 The purchase of the Sisters' title was a private arrange- 
 ment between Mr. Peyton and myself, in view of an emer- 
 gency like this." 
 
 She did not, however, take her proud, searching eyes 
 from his face, and he was forced to turn away. 
 
 " It was so like dear, good, thoughtful papa, " said Susy. 
 "Why, bless me," in a lower voice, "if that isn't that 
 lying old Jim Hooker standing there by the gate 1 " 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Judge Peyton had bequeathed his entire property 
 unconditionally to his wife. But his affairs were found to 
 be greatly in disorder, and his papers in confusion, and 
 although Mrs. Peyton could discover no actual record of 
 the late transaction with Mr. Brant, which had saved her 
 the possession of the homestead, it was evident that he 
 had spent large sums in speculative attempts to maintain 
 the integrity of his estate. That enormous domain, al- 
 though perfectly unencumbered, had been nevertheless 
 unremunerative, partly through the costs of litigation and 
 partly through the systematic depredations to which its 
 great size and long line of unprotected boundary had sub- 
 jected it. It had been invaded by squatters and "jump- 
 ers," who had sown and reaped crops without discovery; 
 its cattle and wild horses had strayed or been driven 
 beyond its ill-defined and hopeless limits. Against these 
 difficulties the widow felt herself unable and unwilling to 
 contend, and with the advice of her friends and her law- 
 yer, she concluded to sell the estate, except that portion 
 covered by the Sisters' title, which, with the homestead, 
 had been reconveyed to her by Clarence. She retired 
 with Susy to the house in San Francisco, leaving Clarence 
 to occupy and hold the casa, with her servants, for her 
 until order was restored. The Eobles Rancho thus became 
 the headquarters of the new owner of the Sisters' title, 
 from which he administered its affairs, visited its incum- 
 bencies, overlooked and surveyed its lands, and — occasion- 
 ally — collected its rents. There were not wanting critics 
 
214 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 who averred that these were scarcely remunerative, and 
 that the young San Francisco fine gentleman, who was 
 only Hamilton Brant's son, after all, yet who wished to 
 ape the dignity and degree of a large landholder, had made 
 a very foolish bargain. I grieve to say that one of hia 
 own tenants, namely, Jim Hooker, in his secret heart 
 inclined to that belief, and looked upon Clarence's specula- 
 tion as an act of far-seeing and inordinate vanity. 
 
 Indeed, the belligerent Jim had partly — and of course 
 darkly — intimated something of this to Susy in their brief 
 reunion at the casa during the few days that followed its 
 successful reoccupation. And Clarence, remembering her 
 older caprices, and her remark on her first recognition of 
 him, was quite surprised at the easy familiarity of her 
 reception of this forgotten companion of their childhood. 
 But he was still more concerned in noticing, for the first 
 time, a singular sympathetic understanding of each other, 
 and an odd similarity of occasional action and expression 
 between them. It was a part of this monstrous peculiarity 
 that neither the sympathy nor the likeness suggested any 
 particular friendship or amity in the pair, but rather a 
 mutual antagonism and suspicion. Mrs. Peyton, coldly 
 polite to Clarence's former companion, but condescend- 
 ingly gracious to his present tenant and retainer, did not 
 notice it, preoccupied with the annoyance and pain of 
 Susy's frequent references to the old days of their demo- 
 cratic equality. 
 
 " You don't remember, Jim, the time that you painted 
 my face in the wagon, and got me up as an Indian 
 papoose 1 " she said mischievously. 
 
 But Jim, who had no desire to recall his previous hum- 
 ble position before Mrs. Peyton or Clarence, was only 
 vaguely responsive. Clarence, although joyfully touched 
 at this seeming evidence of Susy's loyalty to the past, 
 nevertheless found himself even more acutely pained at the 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 215 
 
 distress it caused Mrs. Peyton, and was as relieved as she 
 was by Hooker's reticence. For he had seen little of Susy 
 since Peyton's death, and there had been no repetition of 
 their secret interviews. Neither had he, nor she as far as 
 he could judge, noticed the omission. He had been more 
 than usually kind, gentle, and protecting in his manner 
 towards her, with little reference, however, to any response 
 from her, yet he was vaguely conscious of some change in 
 his feelings. He attributed it, when he thought of it at 
 all, to the exciting experiences through which he had 
 passed; to some sentiment of responsibility to his dead 
 friend ; and to another secret preoccupation that was always 
 in his mind. He believed it would pass in time. Yet 
 he felt a certain satisfaction that she was no longer 
 able to trouble him, except, of course, when she pained 
 Mrs. Peyton, and then he was half conscious of taking the 
 old attitude of the dead husband in mediating between 
 them. Yet so great was his inexperience that he be- 
 lieved, with pathetic simplicity of perception, that all 
 this was due to the slow maturing of his love for her, and 
 that he was still able to make her happy. But this was 
 something to be thought of later. Just now Providence 
 seemed to have offered him a vocation and a purpose that 
 his idle adolescence had never known. He did not dream 
 that his capacity for patience was only the slow wasting 
 of his love. 
 
 Meantime that more wonderful change and recreation of 
 the Californian landscape, so familiar, yet always so young, 
 had come to the rancho. The league-long terrace that had 
 yellowed, whitened, and wasted for half a year beneath a 
 staring, monotonous sky, now under sailing clouds, flying 
 and broken shafts of light, and sharply defined lines of 
 rain, had taken a faint hue of resurrection. The dust 
 that had muffled the roads and byways, and choked the 
 low oaks that fringed the sunken Canada, had long since 
 
216 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 been laid. The warm, moist breath of the southwest 
 trades had softened the hard, dry lines of the landscape, 
 and restored its color as of a picture over which a damp 
 sponge had been passed. The broad expanse of plateau 
 before the casa glistened and grew dark. The hidden 
 woods of the Canada, cleared and strengthened in their soli- 
 tude, dripped along the trails and hollows that were now 
 transformed into running streams. The distinguishing 
 madrono near the entrance to the rancho had changed its 
 crimson summer suit and masqueraded in buff and green. 
 
 Yet thert were leaden days, when half the prospect 
 seemed to be seen through palisades of rain; when the 
 slight incline between the terraces became a tumultuous 
 cascade, and the surest hoofs slipped on trails of unctuous 
 mud; when cattle were bogged a few yards from the high- 
 way, and the crossing of the turnpike road was a dangerous 
 ford. There were days of gale and tempest, when the 
 shriveled stalks of giant oats were stricken like trees, and 
 lay across each other in rigid angles, and a roar as of the 
 sea came up from the writhing tre'etops in the sunken val- 
 ley. There were long weary nights of steady downpour, 
 hammering on the red tiles of the casa, and drumming on 
 the shingles of the new veranda, which was more terrible 
 to be borne. Alone, but for the servants, and an occa- 
 sional storm-stayed tenant from Fair Plains, Clarence might 
 have, at such times, questioned the effect of this seclusion 
 upon his impassioned nature. But he had already been 
 accustomed to monastic seclusion in his boyish life at El 
 Eefugio, and he did not reflect that, for that very reason, 
 its indulgences might have been dangerous. From time 
 to time letters reached him from the outer world of San 
 Francisco, — a few pleasant lines from Mrs. Peyton, in 
 answer to his own chronicle of his half stewardship, giving 
 the news of the family, and briefly recounting their move- 
 ments. She was afraid that Susy's sensitive nature chafed 
 
SUSY : A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 217 
 
 under the restriction of mourning in the gay city, but she 
 trusted to bring her back for a change to Robles when the 
 rains were over. This was a poor substitute for those 
 brief, happy glimpses of the home circle which had so 
 charmed him, but he accepted it stoically. He wandered 
 over the old house, from which the perfume of domesticity 
 seemed to have evaporated, yet, notwithstanding Mrs. 
 Peyton's playful permission, he never intruded upon the 
 sanctity of the boudoir, and kept it jealously locked. 
 
 He was sitting in Peyton's business room one morning, 
 when Incarnacion entered. Clarence had taken a fancy to 
 this Indian, half steward, half vaquero, who had recipro- 
 cated it with a certain dog-like fidelity, but also a feline 
 indirectness that was part of his nature. He had been 
 early prepossessed with Clarence through a kinsman at El 
 Refugio, where the young American's generosity had left 
 a romantic record among the common people. He had 
 been pleased to approve of his follies before the knowledge 
 of his profitless and lordly land purchase had commended 
 itself to him as corroborative testimony. " Of true hidalgo 
 blood, mark you, " he had said oracularly. " Wherefore 
 was his father sacrificed by mongrels ! As to the others, 
 believe me, — bah ! " 
 
 He stood there, sombrero in hand, murky and confiden- 
 tial, steaming through his soaked serape and exhaling a 
 blended odor of equine perspiration and cigarette smoke. 
 
 "It was, perhaps, as the master had noticed, a brigand's 
 own day ! Bullying, treacherous, and wicked ! It blew 
 you off your horse if you so much as lifted your arms and 
 let the wind get inside your serape; and as for the mud, 
 — caramba! in fifty varas your forelegs were like bears, 
 and your hoofs were earthen plasters ! " 
 
 Clarence knew that Incarnacion had not sought him 
 with mere meteorological information, and patiently awaited 
 further developments. The vaquero went on : — 
 
218 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "But one of the things this beast of a weather did was 
 to wash down the stalks of the grain, and to clear out the 
 trough and hollows between, and to make level the fields, 
 and — look you! to uncover the stones and rubbish and 
 whatever the summer dust had buried. Indeed, it was 
 even as a miracle that Jose 1 Mendez one day, after the first 
 showers, came upon a silver button from his calzas, which 
 he had lost in the early summer. And it was only that 
 morning that, remembering how much and with what fire 
 Don Clarencio had sought the missing boot from the foot 
 of the Senor Peyton when his body was found, he, Incar- 
 nacion, had thought he would look for it on the falda of 
 the second terrace. And behold, Mother of God ! it was 
 there! Soaked with mud and rain, but the same as when 
 the senor was alive. To the very spur ! " 
 
 He drew the boot from beneath his serape and laid it 
 before Clarence. The young man instantly recognized it, 
 in spite of its weather-beaten condition and its air of gro- 
 tesque and drunken inconsistency to the usually trim and 
 correct appearance of Peyton when alive. "It is the 
 same," he said, in a low voice. 
 
 "Good!" said Incarnacion. "Now, if Don Clarencio 
 will examine the American spur, he will see — what 1 A 
 few horse-hairs twisted and caught in the sharp points of 
 the rowel. Good ! Is it the hair of the horse that Senor 
 rode 1 Clearly not ; and in truth not. It is too long for 
 the flanks and belly of the horse; it is not the same color 
 as the tail and the mane. How comes it there? It comes 
 from the twisted horse-hair rope of a riata, and not from 
 the braided cowhide thongs of the regular lasso of a va- 
 quero. The lasso slips not much, but holds; the riata 
 slips much and strangles." 
 
 "But Mr. Peyton was not strangled," said Clarence 
 quickly. 
 
 "No, for the noose of .the riata was perhaps large, — 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 219 
 
 who knows? It might have slipped down his arms, pin- 
 ioned him, and pulled him off* Truly ! — such has been 
 known before. Then on the ground it slipped again, or 
 he perhaps worked it off to his feet where it caught on his 
 spur, and then he was dragged until the boot came off, 
 and behold! he was dead." 
 
 This had been Clarence's own theory of the murder, but 
 he had only half confided it to Incarnacion. He silently 
 examined the spur with the accusing horse-hair, and placed 
 it in his desk. Incarnacion continued : — 
 
 "There is not a vaquero in the whole rancho who has 
 a horse- hair riata. We use the braided cowhide; it is 
 heavier and stronger; it is for the bull and not the man. 
 The horse-hair riata comes from over the range — south. " 
 
 There was a dead silence, broken only by the drumming 
 of the rain upon the roof of the veranda. Incarnacion 
 slightly shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Don Clarencio does not know the southern county? 
 Francisco Eobles, cousin of the ' Sisters, ' — he they call 
 ' Pancho, ' — comes from the south. Surely when Don 
 Clarencio bought the title he saw Francisco, for he was the 
 steward ? " 
 
 " I dealt only with the actual owners and through my 
 bankers in San Francisco," returned Clarence abstractedly. 
 
 Incarnacion looked through the yellow corners of his 
 murky eyes at his master. 
 
 "Pedro Valdez, who was sent away by Senor Peyton, 
 is the foster-brother of Francisco. They were much to- 
 gether. Now that Francisco is rich from the gold Don 
 Clarencio paid for the title, they come not much together. 
 But Pedro is rich, too. Mother of God! He gambles 
 and is a fine gentleman. He holds his head high, — even 
 over the Americanos he gambles with. Truly, they say 
 he can shoot with the best of them. He boasts and swells 
 himself, this Pedro! He says if all the old families were 
 
220 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 like him, they would drive those western swine back ovei 
 the mountains again." 
 
 Clarence raised his eyes, caught a subtle yellow flash 
 from Incarnacion's, gazed at him suddenly, and rose. 
 
 "I don't think I have ever seen him," he said quietly. 
 "Thank you for bringing me the spur. But keep the 
 knowledge of it to yourself, good Nascio, for the present." 
 
 Nascio nevertheless still lingered. Perceiving which, 
 Clarence handed him a cigarette and proceeded to light one 
 himself. He knew that the vaquero would re-roll his, 
 and that that always deliberate occupation would cover 
 and be an excuse for further confidence. 
 
 "The Senora Peyton does not perhaps meet this Pedro in 
 the society of San Francisco 1 " 
 
 " Surely not. The senora is in mourning and goes not 
 out in society, nor would she probably go anywhere where 
 she would meet a dismissed servant of her husband." 
 
 Incarnacion slowly lit his cigarette, and said between 
 the puffs, " And the senorita — she would not meet him ? " 
 
 "Assuredly not." 
 
 "And," continued Incarnacion, throwing down the 
 match and putting his foot on it, "if this boaster, this 
 turkey-cock, says she did, you could put him out like 
 that?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Clarence, with an easy confidence he 
 was, however, far from feeling, "if he really said it — 
 which I doubt." 
 
 "Ah, truly," said Incarnacion; "who knows? It may 
 be another Senorita Silsbee." 
 
 "The senora' s adopted daughter is called Miss Peyton, 
 friend Nascio. You forget yourself, " said Clarence quietly. ' 
 
 "Ah, pardon!" said Incarnacion with effusive apology; 
 "but she was born Silsbee. Everybody knows it; she 
 herself has told it to Pepita. The Senor Peyton bequeathed 
 his estate to the Senora Peyton. He named not the 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 221 
 
 BeSorita ! Eh, what would you t It is the common cackle 
 of the barnyard. But I say ' Mees Silsbee.' For look 
 you. There is a Silsbee of Sacramento, the daughter of 
 her aunt, who writes letters to her. Pepita has seen 
 them! And possibly it is only that Mees of whom the 
 brigand Pedro boasts." 
 
 " Possibly, " said Clarence, " but as far as this rancho is 
 concerned, friend Nascio, thou wilt understand — and I 
 look to thee to make the others understand — that there 
 is no Senorita Silsbee here, only the Senorita Peyton, the 
 respected daughter of the senora thy mistress ! " He spoke 
 with the quaint mingling of familiarity and paternal grav- 
 ity of the Spanish master — a faculty he had acquired at 
 El Refugio in a like vicarious position, and which never 
 failed as a sign of authority. " And now, " he added gravely, 
 "get out of this, friend, with God's blessing, and see that 
 thou rememberest what I told thee." 
 
 The retainer, with equal gravity, stepped backwards, 
 saluted with his sombrero until the stiff brim scraped the 
 floor, and then solemnly withdrew. 
 
 Left to himself, Clarence remained for an instant silent 
 and thoughtful before the oven-like hearth. So! every- 
 body knew Susy's real relations to the Peytons, and 
 everybody but Mrs. Peyton, perhaps, knew that she was 
 secretly corresponding with some one of her own family. 
 In other circumstances he might have found some excuse 
 for this assertion of her independence and love of her kin- 
 dred, but in her attitude towards Mrs. Peyton it seemed 
 monstrous. It appeared impossible that Mrs. Peyton 
 should not have heard of it, or suspected the young girl's 
 disaffection. Perhaps she had, — it was another burden 
 laid upon her shoulders, — but the proud woman had kept 
 it to herself. A film of moisture came across his eyes. I 
 fear he thought less of the suggestion of Susy's secret 
 meeting with Pedro, or Incarnacion's implied suspicions 
 
222 SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 that Pedro was concerned in Peyton's death, than of this 
 sentimental possibility. He knew that Pedro had been 
 hated by the others on account of his position; he knew 
 the instinctive jealousies of the race and their predisposi- 
 tion to extravagant misconstruction. Prom what he had 
 gathered, and particularly from the voices he had over- 
 heard on the Fair Plains Road, it seemed to him that 
 Pedro was more capable of mercenary intrigue than physi- 
 cal revenge. He was not aware of the irrevocable affront 
 put upon Pedro by Peyton, and he had consequently 
 attached no importance to Peyton's own half-scornful inti- 
 mation of the only kind of retaliation that Pedro would 
 be likely to make. The unsuccessful attempt upon himself 
 he had always thought might have been an accident, or if 
 it was really a premeditated assault, it might have been 
 intended actually for himself and not Peyton, as he had 
 first thought, and his old friend had suffered for him, 
 through some mistake of the assailant. The purpose, 
 which alone seemed wanting, might have been to remove 
 Clarence as a possible witness who had overheard their 
 conspiracy — how much of it they did not know — on the 
 Pair Plains Road that night. The only clue he held to 
 the murderer, in the spur locked in his desk, merely led 
 him beyond the confines of the rancho, but definitely no- 
 where else. It was, however, some relief to know that 
 the crime was not committed by one of Peyton's retainers, 
 nor the outcome of domestic treachery. 
 
 After some consideration he resolved to seek Jim 
 Hooker, who might be possessed of some information re- 
 specting Susy's relations, either from the young girl's own 
 confidences or from Jim's personal knowledge of the old 
 frontier families. From a sense of loyalty to Susy and 
 Mrs. Peyton, he had never alluded to the subject before 
 him, but since the young girl's own indiscretion had mads 
 it a matter of common report, however distasteful it was 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 223 
 
 to his own feelings, he felt he could not plead the sense 
 of delicacy for her. He had great hopes in what he had 
 always believed was only her exaggeration of fact as well 
 as feeling. And he had an instinctive reliance on her fel- 
 low poseur's ability to detect it. A few days later, when 
 he found he could safely leave the rancho alone, he rode 
 to Fair Plains. 
 
 The floods were out along the turnpike road, and even 
 seemed to have increased since his last journey. The face 
 of the landscape had changed again. One of the lower 
 terraces had become a wild mere of sedge and reeds. The 
 dry and dusty bed of a forgotten brook had reappeared, 
 a full- banked river, crossing the turnpike and compelling 
 a long de'tour before the traveler could ford it. But as he 
 approached the Hopkins farm and the opposite clearing 
 and cabin of Jim Hooker, he was quite unprepared for a 
 still more remarkable transformation. The cabin, a three- 
 roomed structure, and its cattle-shed had entirely disap- 
 peared! There were no traces or signs of inundation. 
 The land lay on a gentle acclivity above the farm and 
 secure from the effects of the flood, and a part of the 
 ploughed and cleared land around the site of the cabin 
 showed no evidence of overflow on its black, upturned 
 soil. But the house was gone! Only a few timbers too 
 heavy to be removed, the blighting erasions of a few 
 months of occupation, and the dull, blackened area of the 
 site itself were to be seen. The fence alone was intact. 
 
 Clarence halted before it, perplexed and astonished. 
 Scarcely two weeks had elapsed since he had last visited it 
 and sat beneath its roof with Jim, and already its few 
 ruins had taken upon themselves the look of years of aban- 
 donment and decay. The wild land seemed to have thrown 
 off its yoke of cultivation in a night, and nature rioted 
 again with all its primal forces over the freed soil. Wild 
 oats and mustard were springing already in the broken 
 
224 SUSY: A STOKT OF THE PLAINS 
 
 furrows, and lank vines were slimily spreading over a few 
 scattered but still unseasoned and sappy shingles. Some 
 battered tin cans and fragments of old clothing looked as 
 remote as if they had been relics of the earliest immigra- 
 tion. 
 
 Clarence turned inquiringly towards the Hopkins farm- 
 house across the road. His arrival, however, had already 
 been noticed, as the door of the kitchen opened in an an- 
 ticipatory fashion, and he could see the slight figure of 
 Phoebe Hopkins in the doorway, backed by the overlook- 
 ing heads and shoulders of her parents. The face of the 
 young girl was pale and drawn with anxiety, at which 
 Clarence's simple astonishment took a shade of concern. 
 
 "I am looking for Mr. Hooker," he said uneasily. 
 "And I don't seem to be able to find either him or his 
 house. " 
 
 "And you don't know what's gone of him?" said the 
 girl quickly. 
 
 "No; I haven't seen him for two weeks." 
 
 " There, I told you so ! " said the girl, turning ner- 
 vously to her parents. "I knew it. He hasn't seen him 
 for two weeks." Then, looking almost tearfully at Clar- 
 ence's face, she said, "No more have we." 
 
 "But," said Clarence impatiently, "something must 
 have happened. Where is his house 1 " 
 
 "Taken away by them jumpers," interrupted the old 
 farmer ; " a lot of roughs that pulled it down and carted it 
 off in a jiffy before our very eyes without answerin' a civil 
 question to me or her. But he was n't there, nor before, 
 nor since." 
 
 "No," added the old woman, with flashing eyes, "or 
 he 'd let 'em have what ther' was in his six-shooters." 
 
 "No, he wouldn't, mother," said the girl impatiently, 
 "he 'd changed, and was agin all them ideas of force and 
 riotin'. He was for peace and law all the time. Why, 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 225 
 
 the day before we missed him he was tellin' me California 
 never would be decent until people obeyed the laws and 
 the titles were settled. And for that reason, because he 
 would n't fight agin the law, or without the consent of the 
 law, they've killed him, or kidnapped him away." 
 
 The girl's lips quivered, and her small brown hands 
 twisted the edges of her blue checked apron. Although 
 this new picture of Jim's peacefulness was as astounding 
 and unsatisfactory as his own disappearance, there was no 
 doubt of the sincerity of poor Phoebe's impression. 
 
 In vain did Clarence point out to them there must be 
 some mistake ; that the trespassers — the so-called jumpers 
 — really belonged to the same party as Hooker, and would 
 have no reason to dispossess him ; that, in fact, they were 
 all his, Clarence's, tenants. In vain he assured them of 
 Hooker's perfect security in possession; that he could have 
 driven the intruders away by the simple exhibition of his 
 lease, or that he could have even called a constable from 
 the town of Fair Plains to protect him from mere lawless- 
 ness. In vain did he assure them of his intention to find 
 his missing friend, and reinstate him at any cost. The 
 conviction that the unfortunate young man had been foully 
 dealt with was fixed in the minds of the two women. For 
 a moment Clarence himself was staggered by it. 
 
 "You see," said the young girl, with a kindling face, 
 "the day before he came back from Eobles, ther' were 
 some queer men hangin' round his cabin, but as they were 
 the same kind that went off with him the day the Sisters' 
 title was confirmed, we thought nothing of it. But when 
 he came back from you he seemed worried and anxious, 
 and wasn't a bit like himself. We thought perhaps he 'd 
 got into some trouble there, or been disappointed. Ha 
 hadn't, had he, Mr. Brant?" continued Phoebe, with an 
 appealing look. 
 
 "By no means," said Clarence warmly. "On the one- 
 
226 SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 trary, he was able to do his friends good service there, and 
 was successful in what he attempted. Mrs. Peyton was 
 very grateful. Of course he told you what had happened, 
 and what he did for us," continued Clarence, with a smile. 
 
 He had already amused himself on the way with a fan- 
 ciful conception of the exaggerated account Jim had given 
 of his exploits. But the bewildered girl shook her head. 
 
 "No, he didn't tell us anything." 
 
 Clarence was really alarmed. This unprecedented ab- 
 stention of Hooker's was portentous. 
 
 "He didn't say anything but what I told you about law 
 and order," she went on; "but that same night we heard 
 a good deal of talking and shouting in the cabin and 
 around it. And the next day he was talking with father, 
 and wanting to know how he kept his land without trouble 
 from outsiders." 
 
 "And I said," broke in Hopkins, "that I guessed folks 
 didn't bother a man with women folks around, and that 
 I kalkilated that /wasn't quite as notorious for fightin' as 
 he was." 
 
 "And he said," also interrupted Mrs. Hopkins, "and 
 quite in his nat'ral way, too, — gloomy like, you remem- 
 ber, Cyrus, " appealingly to her husband, — " that that was 
 his curse." 
 
 The smile that flickered around Clarence's mouth faded, 
 however, as he caught sight of Phoebe's pleading, interro- 
 gating eyes. It was really too bad. "Whatever change 
 had come over the rascal it was top evident that his previ- 
 ous belligerent personality had had its full effect upon the 
 simple girl, and that, hereafter, one pair of honest eyes 
 would be wistfully following him. 
 
 Perplexed and indignant, Clarence again closely ques- 
 tioned her as to the personnel of the trespassing party who 
 had been seen once or twice since passing over the field. 
 He had at last elicited enough information to identify one 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 227 
 
 of them as Gilroy, the leader of the party that had invaded 
 Bobles Rancho. His cheek flushed. Even if they had 
 wished to take a theatrical and momentary revenge or. 
 Hooker for the passing treachery to them which they had 
 just discovered, although such retaliation was only transi- 
 tory, and they could not hold the land, it was an insult tc 
 Clarence himself, whose tenant Jim was, and subversive 
 of all their legally acquired rights. He would confront 
 this Gilroy at once; his half-wild encampment was only 
 a few miles away, just over the boundaries of the Eoblea 
 estate. Without stating his intention, he took leave of 
 the Hopkins family with the cheerful assurance that he 
 would probably return with some news of Hooker, and 
 rode away. 
 
 The trail became more indistinct and unfrequented as it 
 diverged from the main road, and presently lost itself in 
 the slope towards the east. The horizon grew larger: 
 there were faint bluish lines upon it which he knew were 
 distant mountains ; beyond this a still fainter white line — • 
 the Sierran snows. Presently he intersected a trail run- 
 ning south, and remarked that it crossed the highway 
 behind him, where he had once met the two mysterioua 
 horsemen. They had evidently reached the terrace through 
 the wild oats by that trail. A little farther on were a few 
 groups of sheds and canvas tents in a bare and open space, 
 with scattered cattle and horsemen, exactly like an en- 
 campment, or the gathering of a country fair. As Clarence 
 rode down towards them he could see that his approach 
 was instantly observed, and that a simultaneous movement 
 was made as if to anticipate him. For the first time he 
 realized the possible consequences of his visit, single* 
 handed, but it was too late to retrace his steps. With a 
 glance at his holster, he rode boldly forward to the nearest 
 shed. A dozen men hovered near him, but something in 
 his quiet, determined manner held them aloof. Gilroy 
 
828 StTSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 wr 3 on the threshold in his shiit sleeves. A single look 
 showed him that Clarence was alone, and with a careless 
 gesture of his hand he warned away his own followers. 
 
 " You 've got a sort of easy way of droppin' in whar you 
 ain't invited, Brant," he said with a grim smile, which 
 was not, however, without a certain air of approval. 
 "Got it from your father, did n't you? " 
 
 "I don't know, hut I don't believe he ever thought it 
 necessary to warn twenty men of the approach of one," 
 replied Clarence, in the same tone. "I had no time to 
 stand on ceremony, for I have just come from Hooker's 
 quarter section at Pair Plains. " 
 
 Gilroy smiled again, and gazed abstractedly at the sky. 
 
 "You know as well as I do," said Clarence, controlling 
 his voice with an effort, "that what you have done there • 
 •will have to be undone, if you wish to hold even those 
 lawless men of yours together, or keep yourself and them 
 from being run into the brush like highwaymen. I 've no 
 fear for that. Neither do I care to know what was your 
 motive in doing it; but I can only tell you that if it was 
 retaliation, I alone was and still am responsible foi Hook- 
 er's action at the rancho. I came here to know just what 
 you have done with him, and, if necessary, to take his 
 place. " 
 
 " You 're just a little too previous in your talk, I reckon, 
 Brant," returned Gilroy lazily, "and as to legality, I 
 reckon we stand on the same level with yourself, just here. 
 Beginnin' with what you came for: as we don't know' 
 where your Jim Hooker is, and as we ain't done any thin' 
 to him, we don't exackly see what we could do with you 
 in his place. Ez to our motives, — well, we 've got a 
 good deal to say about that. We reckoned that he was n't 
 exackly the kind of man we wanted for a neighbor. His 
 pow'ful fightin' style didn't suit us peaceful folks, and 
 we thought it rather worked agin this new ' law and order * 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 229 
 
 racket to have such a man about, to say nuthin' of it preju- 
 dicin' quiet settlers. He had too many revolvers for one 
 man to keep his eye on, and was altogether too much 
 steeped in blood, so to speak, for ordinary washin' and 
 domestic purposes! His hull get up was too deathlike 
 and clammy; so we persuaded him to leave. We just 
 went there, all of us, and exhorted him. We stayed round 
 there two days and nights, takin' turns, talkin' with him, 
 nuthin' more, only selecting subjects in his own style to 
 please him, until he left! And then, as we didn't see 
 any use for his house there, we took it away. Them 's 
 the cold facts, Brant," he added with a certain convincing 
 indifference that left no room for doubt, " and you can stand 
 by 'em. Now, workin' back to the first principle you laid 
 down, — that we '11 have to undo what we 've done, — we 
 don't agree with you, for we 've taken a leaf outer your 
 own book. We 've got it here in black and white. 
 We 've got a bill o' sale of Hooker's house and possession, 
 and we 're on the land in place of him, — as your ten- 
 ants." He reentered the shanty, took a piece of paper 
 from a soap-box on the shelf, and held it out to Clarence. 
 "Here it is. It's a fair and square deal, Brant. We 
 gave him, as it says here, a hundred dollars for it! No 
 humbuggin', but the hard cash, by Jiminy! And he took 
 the money." 
 
 The ring of truth in the man's voice was as unmistak- 
 able as the signature in Jim's own hand. Hooker had 
 sold out! Clarence turned hastily away. 
 
 "We don't know where he went," continued Gilroy 
 grimly, "but I reckon you ain't over anxious to see him 
 now. And I kin tell ye something to ease your mind, — 
 he didn't require much persuadin'. And I kin tell ye 
 another, if ye ain't above takin' advice from folks that 
 don't pretend to give it," he added, with the same curious 
 look of interest in his face. "You've done well to get 
 
230 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 shut of him, and if you got shut of a few more of his kind 
 that you trust to, you 'd do better. " 
 
 As if to avoid noticing any angry reply from the young 
 man, he reentered the cabin and shut the door behind him. 
 Clarence felt the uselessness of further parley, and rode 
 away. 
 
 But Gilroy's Parthian arrow rankled as he rode. He 
 was not greatly shocked at Jim's defection, for he was 
 always fully conscious of his vanity and weakness; but he 
 was by no means certain that Jim's extravagance and brag- 
 gadocio, which he had found only amusing and, perhaps, 
 even pathetic, might not be as provocative and prejudicial 
 to others as Gilroy had said. But, like all sympathetic 
 and unselfish natures, he sought to find some excuse for 
 his old companion's weakness in his own mistaken judg- 
 ment. He had no business to bring poor Jim on the land, 
 to subject his singular temperament to the temptations of 
 such a life and such surroundings; he should never have 
 made use of his services at the rancho. He had done him 
 harm rather than good in his ill-advised, and, perhaps, 
 selfish attempts to help him. I have said that Gilroy's 
 parting warning rankled in his breast, but not ignobly. 
 It wounded the surface of his sensitive nature, hut could 
 not taint or corrupt the pure, wholesome blood of the 
 gentleman beneath it. For in Gilroy's warning he saw 
 only his own shortcomings. A strange fatality had marked 
 his friendships. He had been no help to Jim; he had 
 brought no happiness to Susy or Mrs. Peyton, whose dis- 
 agreement his visit seemed to have accented. Thinking 
 over the mysterious attack upon himself, it now seemed to 
 him possible that, in some obscure way, his presence at 
 the rancho had precipitated the more serious attack on 
 Peyton. If, as it had been, said, there was some curse 
 upon his inheritance from his father, he seemed to have 
 made others share it with him. He was riding onward 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 231 
 
 abstractedly, ■with his head sunk on his breast and his eyes 
 fixed upon some vague point between his horse's sensitive 
 ears, when a sudden, intelligent, forward pricking of them 
 startled him, and an apparition arose from the plain before 
 him that seemed to sweep all other sense away. 
 
 It was the figure of a handsome young horseman as 
 abstracted as himself, but evidently on better terms with 
 his own personality. He was dark haired, sallow cheeked, 
 and blue eyed, — the type of the old Spanish Californian. 
 A burnt-out cigarette was in his mouth, and he was riding 
 a roan mustang with the lazy grace of his race. But what 
 arrested Clarence's attention more than his picturesque 
 person was the narrow, flexible, long coil of gray horse- 
 hair riata which hung from his saddle-bow, but whose 
 knotted and silver-beaded terminating lash he was swirl- 
 ing idly in his narrow brown hand. Clarence knew and 
 instantly recognized it as the ordinary fanciful appendage 
 of a gentleman rider, used for tethering his horse on lonely 
 plains, and always made the object of the most lavish 
 expenditure of decoration and artistic skill. But he was 
 as suddenly filled with a blind, unreasoning sense of repul- 
 sion and fury, and lifted his eyes to the man as he ap- 
 proached. What the stranger saw in Clarence's blazing 
 eyes no one but himself knew, for his own became fixed 
 and staring; his sallow cheeks grew lanker and livid; his 
 careless, jaunty bearing stiffened into rigidity, and swerv- 
 ing his horse to one side he suddenly passed Clarence at 
 a furious gallop. The young American wheeled quickly, 
 and for an instant his knees convulsively gripped the 
 ilanks of his horse to follow. But the next moment he 
 recalled himself, and with an effort began to collect his 
 thoughts. What was he intending to do, and for what 
 reason! He had met hundreds of such horsemen before, 
 and caparisoned and accoutred like this, even to the riata. 
 And he certainly was not dressed like either of the myste- 
 
232 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 rious horsemen whom he had overheard that moonlight 
 evening. He looked back; the stranger had already slack- 
 ened his pace, and was slowly disappearing. Clarence 
 turned and rode on his way. 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 
 Without disclosing the full extent of Jim's defection 
 and desertion, Clarence was able to truthfully assure the 
 Hopkins family of his personal safety, and to promise that 
 he would continue his quest, and send them further news 
 of the absentee. He believed it would be found that Jim 
 had been called away on some important business, but that 
 not daring to leave his new shanty exposed and temptingly 
 unprotected, he had made a virtue of necessity by selling 
 it to his neighbors, intending to build a better house on its 
 site after his return. Having comforted Phoebe, and im- 
 pulsively conceived further plans for restoring Jim to her, 
 — happily without any recurrence of his previous doubts 
 as to his own efficacy as a special Providence, — he re- 
 turned to the rancho. If he thought again of Jim's defec- 
 tion and Gilroy's warning, it was only to strengthen 
 himself to a clearer perception of his unselfish duty and 
 singleness of purpose. He would give up brooding, apply 
 himself more practically "to the management of the prop- 
 erty, carry out his plans for the foundation of a Landlords' 
 Protective League for the southern counties, become a can- 
 didate for the Legislature, and, in brief, try to fill Pey- 
 ton's place in the county as he had at the rancho. He 
 would endeavor to become better acquainted with the half- 
 breed laborers on the estate and avoid the friction between 
 them and the Americans; he was conscious that he had 
 not made that use of his early familiarity with their ways 
 and language which he might have done. If, occasionally, 
 the figure of the young Spaniard whom he had met on the 
 
234 STJSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 lonely road obtruded itself on him, it was always with tha 
 instinctive premonition that ho would meet him again, and 
 the mystery of the sudden repulsion be in some way ex- 
 plained. Thus Clarence! But the momentary impulse 
 that had driven him to Pair Plains, the eagerness to set 
 his mind at rest regarding Susy and her relatives, he had 
 utterly forgotten. 
 
 Howbeit some of the energy and enthusiasm that he 
 breathed into these various essays made their impression. 
 He succeeded in forming the Landlords' League; under 
 a commission suggested by him the straggling boundaries 
 of Eobles and the adjacent claims were resurveyed, defined, 
 and mutually protected; even the lawless Gilroy, from 
 extending an amused toleration to the young administrator, 
 grew to recognize and accept him; the peons and vaqueros 
 began to have faith in a man who acknowledged them 
 sufficiently to rebuild the ruined Mission Chapel on the 
 estate, and save them the long pilgrimage to Santa Inez on 
 Sundays and saints' days; the San Francisco priest im- 
 ported from Clarence's old college at San Jose^ and an 
 habitual guest at Clarence's hospitable board, was grateful 
 enough to fill his flock with loyalty to the young padron. 
 
 He had returned from a long drive one afternoon, and 
 had just thrown himself into an easy chair with the com- 
 fortable consciousness of a rest fairly earned. The dull 
 embers of a fire occasionally glowed in the oven-like heartb, 
 although the open casement of a window let in the soft 
 breath of the southwest trades. The angelus had just 
 rung from the restored chapel, and, mellowed by distance, 
 seemed to Clarence to lend that repose to the wind-swept 
 landscape that it had always lacked. 
 
 Suddenly his quick ear detected the sound of wheels in 
 the ruts of the carriage way. Usually his visitors to the 
 casa came on horseback, and carts and wagons used only 
 the lower road. As the sound approached nearer, an odd 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 235 
 
 fancy filled his heart with unaccountable pleasure. Could 
 it be Mrs. Peyton making an unexpected visit to the 
 rancho? He held his breath. The vehicle was now roll- 
 ing on into the patio. The clatter of hoofs and a halt 
 were followed by the accents of women's voices. One 
 seemed familiar. He rose quickly, as light footsteps ran 
 along the corridor, and then the door opened impetuously 
 to the laughing face of Susy ! 
 
 He came towards her hastily, yet with only the simple 
 impulse of astonishment. He had no thought of kissing 
 her, hut as he approached, she threw her charming head 
 archly to one side, with a mischievous knitting of her 
 brows and a significant gesture towards the passage, that 
 indicated the proximity of a stranger and the possibility of 
 interruption. 
 
 "Hush! Mrs. McClosky 's here," she whispered. 
 
 " Mrs. McClosky t " repeated Clarence vaguely. 
 
 "Yes, of course," impatiently. "My Aunt Jane. 
 Silly! We just cut away down here to surprise you. 
 Aunty 's never seen the place, and here was a good chance." 
 
 "And your mother — Mrs. Peyton? Has she — does 
 she ? " — stammered Clarence. 
 
 "Has she — does she?" mimicked Susy, with increas- 
 ing impatience. "Why, of course she doesn't know any- 
 thing about it. She thinks I 'm visiting Mary Eogers at 
 Oakland. And I am — afterwards," she laughed. "I 
 just wrote to Aunt Jane to meet me at Alameda, and we 
 took the stage to Santa Inez and drove on here in a buggy. 
 Wasn't it real fun? Tell me, Clarence! You don't say 
 anything ! Tell me — was n't it real fun ? " 
 
 This was all so like her old, childlike, charming, irre- 
 sponsible self, that Clarence, troubled and bewildered as 
 he was, took her hands and drew her like a child towards 
 him. 
 
 "Of course," she went on, yet stopping to smell a rose' 
 
286 SUSY , A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 bud in his buttonhole, "I have a perfect right to come to 
 my own home, goodness knows! and if I bring my own 
 aunt, a married woman, with me, — although," loftily, 
 "there may be a young unmarried gentleman alone there, 
 — still I fail to see any impropriety in it ! '* 
 
 He was still holding her ; but in that instant her man- 
 ner had completely changed again; the old Susy seemed 
 to have slipped away and evaded him, and he was retain- 
 ing only a conscious actress in his arms. 
 
 " Release me, Mr. Brant, please," she said, with a lan- 
 guid affected glance behind her; "we are not alone." 
 
 Then, as the rustling of a skirt sounded nearer in the 
 passage, she seemed to change back to her old self once 
 more, and with a lightning flash of significance whis- 
 pered, — 
 
 " She knows everything ! " 
 
 To add to Clarence's confusion, the woman who entered 
 . cast a quick glance of playful meaning on the separating 
 youthful pair. She was an ineffective blonde with a cer- 
 tain beauty that seemed to be gradually succumbing to the 
 ravages of paint and powder rather than years; her dress 
 appeared to have suffered from an equally unwise excess of 
 ornamentation and trimming, and she gave the general 
 impression of having been intended for exhibition in almost 
 any other light than the one in which she happened to be. 
 There were two or three mudstains on the laces of her 
 sleeve and underskirt that were obtrusively incongruous. 
 Her voice, which had, however, a ring of honest intention 
 in it, was somewhat over-strained, and evidently had not 
 yet adjusted itself to the low-ceilinged, conventual-like 
 building. 
 
 "There, children, don't mind me! I know I 'm not on 
 in this scene, but I got nervous waiting there, in what you 
 call the 'sallon,-' with only those Greaser servants staring 
 round me in a circle, like a regular chorus. My ! but it 's 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 237 
 
 anteek here — regular anteek — Spanish." Then, with a 
 glance at Clarence, "So this is Clarence Brant, — your 
 Clarence? Interduce me, Susy." 
 
 In his confusion of indignation, pain, and even a certain 
 conception of the grim ludicrousness of the situation, Clar- 
 ence grasped despairingly at the single sentence of Susy's. 
 "In my own home." Surely, at least, it was her own 
 home, and as he was only the business agent of her adopted 
 mother, he had no right to dictate to her under what cir- 
 cumstances she should return to it, or whom she should 
 introduce there. In her independence and caprice Susy 
 might easily have gone elsewhere with this astounding 
 relative, and would Mrs. Peyton like it better ? Clinging 
 to this idea, his instinct of hospitality asserted itself. He 
 welcomed Mrs. McClosky with nervous effusion : — 
 
 "I am only Mrs. Peyton's major-domo here, but any 
 guest of her daughter's is welcome. " 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. McClosky, with ostentatious archness, 
 '•I reckon Susy and I understand your position here, and 
 you 've got a good berth of it. But we won't trouble you 
 much on Mrs. Peyton's account, will we, Susy 1 And now 
 she and me will just take a look around the shanty, — it 
 is real old Spanish anteek, ain't it? — and sorter take stock 
 of it, and you young folks will have to tear yourselves 
 apart for a while, and play propriety before me. You 've 
 got to be on your good behavior while I 'm here, I can tell 
 you! I 'm a heavy old 'doo-anna.' Ain't , I, Susy? 
 Schoolma'ms and mother superiors ain't in the game with 
 me for discipline." 
 
 She threw her arms around the young girl's waist and 
 drew her towards her affectionately, an action that slightly 
 precipitated some powder upon the black dress of her niece. 
 Susy glanced mischievously at Clarence, but withdrew her 
 eyes presently to let them rest with unmistakable apprecia- 
 tion and admiration on her relative. A pang shot through 
 
238 SUSY: A STORY OF THE rt-viNS 
 
 Clarence's breast. He had never seen her look in that 
 way at Mrs. Peyton. Yet here was this stranger, provin- 
 cial, overdressed, and extravagant, whose vulgarity was 
 only made tolerable through her good humor, who had 
 awakened that interest which the refined Mrs. Peyton had 
 never yet been able to touch. As Mrs. McClosky swept 
 out of the room with Susy he turned away with a sinking 
 heart. 
 
 Yet it was necessary that the Spanish house servants 
 should not suspect this treason to their mistress, and Clar- 
 ence stopped their childish curiosity about the stranger 
 with a careless and easy acceptance of Susy's sudden visit 
 in the light of an ordinary occurrence, and with a familiar- 
 ity towards Mrs. McClosky which became the more dis- 
 tasteful to him in proportion as he saw that it was evi- 
 dently agreeable to her. But, easily responsive, she 
 became speedily confidential. Without a single question 
 from himself, or a contributing remark from Susy, in half 
 an hour she had told him her whole history. How, as 
 Jane Silsbee, an elder sister of Susy's mother, she had 
 early eloped from the paternal home in Kansas with 
 McClosky, a strolling actor. How she had married him 
 and gone on the stage under his stage name, effectively 
 preventing any recognition by her family. How, coming 
 to California, where her husband had become manager of 
 the theatre at Sacramento, she was indignant to find that 
 her only surviving relation, a sister-in-law, living in the 
 same place, had for a money consideration given up all 
 claim to the orpharad Susy, and how she had resolved to 
 find out "if the poor child was happy." How she suc- 
 ceeded in finding out that she was not happy. How she 
 wrote to her, and even met her secretly at San Prancisco 
 and Oakland, and how she had undertaken this journey 
 partly for "a lark," and partly to see Clarence and the 
 property. There was no doubt of the speaker's sincerity; 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 239 
 
 with this outrageous candor there was an equal oblivious- 
 ness of any indelicacy in her conduct towards Mrs. Peyton 
 that seemed hopeless. Yet he must talk plainly to her; 
 he must say to her what he could not say to Susy ; upon 
 her Mrs. Peyton's happiness — he believed he was think- 
 ing of Susy's also — depended. He must take the first 
 opportunity of speaking to her alone. 
 
 That opportunity came sooner than he had expected. 
 After dinner, Mrs. McClosky turned to Susy, and, play- 
 fully telling her that she had " to talk business " with Mr 
 Brant, bade her go to the salon and await her. When the 
 young girl left the room, she looked at Clarence, and, with 
 that assumption of curtness with which coarse but kindly 
 natures believe they overcome the difficulty of delicate sub- 
 jects, said abruptly : — 
 
 " Well, young man, now what 's all this between you 
 and Susy t I 'm looking after her interests — same as if 
 she was my own girl. If you 've got anything to say, 
 now 's your time. And don't you shilly-shally too long 
 over it, either, for you might as well know that a girl like 
 that can have her pick and choice, and be beholden to no 
 one; and when she don't care to choose, there 'sme and my 
 husband ready to do for her all the same. We mightn't 
 be able to do the anteek Spanish Squire, but we 've got 
 our own line of business, and it 's a comfortable one." 
 
 To have this said to him under the roof of Mrs. Peyton, 
 from whom, in his sensitiveness, he had thus far jealously 
 guarded his own secret, was even more than Clarence's 
 gentleness could stand, and fixed his wavering resolution. 
 
 "I don't think we quite understand each other, Mrs. 
 McClosky," he said coldly, but with glittering eyes. "I 
 have certainly something to say to you; if it is not on a 
 subject as pleasant as the one you propose, it is, neverthe- 
 less, one that I think you and I are more competent to 
 discuss together." 
 
240 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 Then, with quiet but unrelenting directness, he pointed 
 out to her that Susy was a legally adopted daughter of 
 Mrs. Peyton, and, as a minor, utterly under her control; 
 that Mrs. Peyton had no knowledge of any opposing rela- 
 tives; and that Susy had not only concealed the fact from 
 her, but that he was satisfied that Mrs. Peyton did not 
 even know of Susy's discontent and alienation; that she 
 had tenderly and carefully brought up the helpless orphan 
 as her own child, and, even if she had not gained her affec- 
 tion, was at least entitled to her obedience and respect: 
 that while Susy's girlish caprice and inexperience excused 
 her conduct, Mrs. Peyton and her friends would have a 
 right to expect more consideration from a person of Mrs. 
 McClosky's maturer judgment. That for these reasons, 
 and as the friend of Mrs. Peyton, whom he could alone 
 recognize as Susy's guardian and the arbiter of her affec- 
 tions, he must decline to discuss the young girl with any 
 reference to himself or his own intentions. 
 
 An unmistakable flush asserted itself under the lady's 
 powder. 
 
 "Suit yourself, young man, suit yourself," she said, 
 with equally direct resentment and antagonism; "only 
 mebbee you '11 let me tell you that Jim McClosky ain't no 
 fool, and mebbee knows what lawyers think of an arrange- 
 ment with a sister-in-law that leaves a real sister out! 
 Mebbee that 's a ' Sister's title ' you ain't thought of, Mr. 
 Brant ! And mebbee you '11 find out that your chance o' 
 gettin' Mrs. Peyton's consent ain't as safe to gamble on 
 as you reckon it is. And mebbee, what 's more to the 
 purpose, if you did get it, it might not be just the trump 
 card to fetch Susy with! And to wind up, Mr. Brant, 
 when you do have to come down to the bed-rock and me 
 and Jim McClosky, you may find out that him and me 
 have discovered a better match for Susy than the son of 
 old Ham Brant, who is trying to play the Spanish grandee 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 241 
 
 off his father's money on a couple of women. And we 
 mayn't have to go far to do it — or to get the real thing, 
 Mr. Brant!" 
 
 Too heartsick and disgusted to even notice the slur upon 
 himself or the import of her last words, Clarence only 
 rose and bowed as she jumped up from the table. But 
 as she reached the door he said, half appealingly : — 
 
 "Whatever are your other intentions, Mrs. McClosky, 
 as we are both Susy's guests, I beg you will say nothing 
 of this to her while we are here, and particularly that you 
 will not allow her to think for a moment that I have dis- 
 cussed my relations to her with anybody." 
 
 She flung herself out of the door without a reply ; but 
 on entering the dark low-ceilinged drawing-room she was 
 surprised to find that Susy was not there. She was con- 
 sequently obliged to return to the veranda, where Clarence 
 had withdrawn, and to somewhat ostentatiously demand of 
 the servants that Susy should be sent to her room at once. 
 But the young girl was not in her own room, and was 
 apparently nowhere to be found. Clarence, who had now 
 fully determined as a last resource to make a direct appeal 
 to Susy herself, listened to this fruitless search with some 
 concern. She could not have gone out in the rain, which 
 was again falling. She might be hiding somewhere to 
 avoid a recurrence of the scene she had perhaps partly 
 overheard. He turned into the corridor that led to Mrs. 
 Peyton's boudoir. As he knew that it was locked, he was 
 surprised to see by the dim light of the hanging lamp that 
 a duplicate key to the one in his desk was in the lock. 
 It must be Susy's, and the young girl had probably taken 
 refuge there. He knocked gently. There was a rustle in 
 the room and the sound of a chair being moved, but no 
 reply. Impelled by a sudden instinct he opened the door, 
 and was met by a cool current of air from some open win- 
 dow. At the same moment the figure of Susy approached 
 him from the semi-darkness of the interior. 
 
242 SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 "I did not know you were here," said Clarence, much 
 relieved, he knew not why, " but I am glad, for I wanted 
 to speak with you alone for a few moments." 
 
 She did not reply, but he drew a match from his pocket 
 and lit the two candles which he knew stood on the table. 
 The wick of one was still warm, as if it had been recently 
 extinguished. As the light slowly radiated, he could see 
 that she was regarding him with an air of affected uncon 
 cern, but a somewhat heightened color. It was like hel, 
 and not inconsistent with his idea that she had come thew 
 to avoid an after scene with Mrs. McClosky or himself, of 
 perhaps both. The room was not disarranged in any 
 way. The window that was opened was the casement of 
 the deep embrasured one in the rear wall, and the light cur- 
 tain before it still swayed occasionally in the night wind. 
 
 "I'm afraid I had a row with your aunt, Susy," he 
 began lightly, in his old familiar way ; " but I had to tell 
 her I did n't think her conduct to Mrs. Peyton was exactly 
 the square thing towards one who had been as devoted to 
 you as she has been." 
 
 "Oh, for goodness' sake, don't go over all that again," 
 said Susy impatiently. "I 've had enough of it." 
 
 Clarence flushed, but recovered himself. 
 
 "Then you overheard what I said, and know what I 
 think," he said calmly. 
 
 " I knew it before, " said the young girl, with a slight 
 supercilious toss of the head, and yet a certain abstraction 
 of manner as she went to the window and closed it. 
 " Anybody could see it ! I know you always wanted me 
 to stay here with Mrs. Peyton, and be coddled and moni- 
 tored and catechised and shut up away from any one, until 
 you had been coddled and monitored and catechised by 
 somebody else sufficiently to suit her ideas of your being 
 a fit husband for me. I told aunty it was no use our 
 coming here to — to " — 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 243 
 
 "To do what?" asked Clarence. 
 
 "To put some spirit into you," said the young girl, 
 turning upon him sharply; "to keep you from being tied 
 to that woman's apron-strings. To keep her from making 
 a slave of you as she would of me. But it is of no use. 
 Mary Rogers was right when she said you had no wish to 
 please anybody but Mrs. Peyton, and no eyes for anybody 
 but her. And if it hadn't been too ridiculous, considering 
 her age and yours, she 'd say you were dead in love with 
 her." 
 
 For an instant Clarence felt the blood rush to his face 
 and then sink away, leaving him pale and cold. The 
 room, which had seemed to whirl around him, and then 
 fade away, returned with appalling distinctness, — the dis- 
 tinctness of memory, — and a vision of the first day that 
 he had seen Mrs. Peyton sitting there, as he seemed to see 
 her now. For the first time there flashed upon him the 
 conviction that the young girl had spoken the truth, and 
 had brusquely brushed the veil from his foolish eyes. He 
 was in love with Mrs. Peyton ! That was what his doubts 
 and hesitation regarding Susy meant. That alone was the 
 source, secret, and limit of his vague ambition. 
 
 But with the conviction came a singular calm. In the 
 last few moments he seemed to have grown older, to have 
 loosed the bonds of old companionship with Susy, and the 
 later impression she had given him of her mature know- 
 ledge, and moved on far beyond her years and experience. 
 And it was with an authority that was half paternal, and 
 in a voice he himself scarcely recognized, that he said : — 
 
 "If I did not know you were prejudiced by a foolish 
 and indiscreet woman, I should believe that you were 
 trying to insult me as you have your adopted mother, and 
 would save you the pain of doing both in her house by 
 leaving it now and forever. But because I believe you 
 are controlled against your best instinct by that woman, I 
 
244 SUSY: A STOKT OF THE PLAINS 
 
 shall remain here with you to frustrate her as best I can, 
 or until I am able to lay everything before Mrs. Peyton 
 except the foolish speech you have just made." 
 
 The young girl laughed. "Why not that one too, 
 while you 're about it? See what she '11 say." 
 
 "I shall tell her," continued Clarence calmly, "only 
 what you yourself have made it necessary for me to tell 
 her to save you from folly and disgrace, and only enough 
 to spare her the mortification of hearing it first from her 
 own servants." 
 
 "Hearing what from her own servants? What do you 
 mean 1 How dare you ? " demanded the young girl 
 sharply. 
 
 She was quite real in her anxiety now, although her 
 attitude of virtuous indignation struck him as being like 
 all her emotional expression, namely, acting. 
 
 " I mean that the servants know of your correspondence 
 with Mrs. McClosky, and that she claims to be your aunt," 
 returned Clarence. "They know that you confided to 
 Pepita. They believe that either Mrs. McClosky or you 
 have seen " — 
 
 He had stopped suddenly. He was about to say that 
 the servants (particularly Incarnacion) knew that Pedro 
 had boasted of having met Susy, when, for the first time, 
 the tremendous significance of what he had hitherto con- 
 sidered as merely an idle falsehood flashed upon him. 
 
 " Seen whom ? " repeated Susy in a higher voice, impa- 
 tiently stamping her foot. 
 
 Clarence looked at her, and in her excited, questioning 
 face saw a confirmation of his still half-formed suspicions. 
 In his own abrupt pause and knitted eyebrows she must 
 have read his thoughts also. Their eyes met. Her violet 
 pupils dilated, trembled, and then quickly shifted as she 
 suddenly stiffened into an attitude of scornful indifference, 
 almost grotesque in its unreality. His eyes slowly turned 
 
SUSY : A STORY OF THE PLAINS 245 
 
 to the window, the door, the candles on the table and the 
 chair before it, and then came back to her face again. 
 Then he drew a deep breath. 
 
 "I give no heed to the idle gossip of servants, Susy," 
 he said slowly. "I have no belief that you have ever 
 contemplated anything worse than an act of girlish folly, 
 or the gratification of a passing caprice. Neither do I 
 want to appeal to you or frighten you, but I must tell you 
 now, that I know certain facts that might make such a 
 simple act of folly monstrous, inconceivable in you, and 
 almost accessory to a crime! I can tell you no more. 
 But so satisfied am I of such a possibility, that I shall not 
 scruple to take any means — the strongest — to prevent' 
 even the remotest chance of it. Your aunt has been 
 looking for you ; you had better go to her now. I will 
 close the room and lock the door. Meantime, I should 
 advise you not to sit so near an open window with a candle 
 at night in this locality. Even if it might not be danger- 
 ous for you, it might be fatal to the foolish creatures it 
 might attract. " 
 
 He took the key from the door as he held it open for 
 her to pass out. She uttered a shrill little laugh, like a 
 nervous, mischievous child, and, slipping out of her previ- 
 ous artificial attitude as if it had been a mantle, ran out ot 
 the room. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 As Susy's footsteps died away, Clarence closed the door, 
 walked to the window, and examined it closely. The 
 hars had been restored since he had wrenched them off to 
 give ingress to the family on the day of recapture. He 
 glanced around the room; nothing seemed to have been 
 disturbed. Nevertheless he was uneasy. The suspicions 
 of a frank, trustful nature when once aroused are apt to 
 be more general and far-reaching than the specific distrusts 
 of the disingenuous, for they imply the overthrow of a 
 whole principle and not a mere detail. Clarence's convic- 
 tion that Susy had seen Pedro recently since his dismissal 
 led him into the wildest surmises of her motives. It was 
 possible that without her having reason to suspect Pedro's 
 greater crime, he might have confided to her his intention 
 of reclaiming the property and installing her as the mis- 
 tress and chatelaine of the rancho. The idea was one that 
 might have appealed to Susy's theatrical imagination. He 
 recalled Mrs. McClosky's sneer at his own pretensions and 
 her vague threats of a rival of more lineal descent. The 
 possible infidelity of Susy to himself touched him lightly 
 when the first surprise was over; indeed, it scarcely could 
 be called infidelity, if she knew and believed Mary Rog- 
 ers's discovery; and the conviction that he and she had 
 really never loved each other now enabled him, as he 
 believed, to look at her conduct dispassionately. Yet it 
 was her treachery to Mrs. Peyton and not to himself that 
 impressed him most, and perhaps made him equally unjust, 
 through his affections. 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 247 
 
 He extinguished the candles, partly from some vague 
 precautions he could not explain, and partly to think over 
 his fears in the abstraction and obscurity of the semi-dark- 
 ness. The higher windows suffused a faint light on the 
 ceiling, and, assisted by the dark lantern-like glow cast on 
 the opposite wall by the tunnel of the embrasured window, 
 the familiar outlines of the room and its furniture came 
 back to him. Somewhat in this fashion also, in the 
 obscurity and quiet, came back to him the events he had 
 overlooked and forgotten. He recalled now some gossip 
 of the servants, and hints dropped by Susy of a violent 
 quarrel between Peyton and Pedro, which resulted in 
 Pedro's dismissal, but which now seemed clearly attribut- 
 able to some graver cause than inattention and insolence. 
 He recalled Mary Rogers's playful pleasantries with Susy 
 about Pedro, and Susy's mysterious air, which he had 
 hitherto regarded only as part of her exaggeration. He 
 remembered Mrs. Peyton's unwarrantable uneasiness about 
 Susy, which he had either overlooked or referred entirely 
 to himself; she must have suspected something. To his 
 quickened imagination, in this ruin of his faith and trust, 
 he believed that Hooker's defection was either part of the 
 conspiracy, or that he had run away to avoid being impli- 
 cated with Susy in its discovery. This, too, was the sig- 
 nificance of Gilroy's parting warning. He and Mrs. Pey- 
 ton alone had been blind and confiding in the midst of this 
 treachery, and even he had been blind to his own real 
 affections. 
 
 The wind had risen again, and the faint light on the 
 oppbsite wall grew tremulous and shifting with the move- 
 ment of the foliage without. But presently the glow 
 became quite obliterated, as if by the intervention of some 
 opaque body outside the window. He rose hurriedly and 
 went to the casement. But at the same moment he fancied 
 he heard the jamming of a door or window in quite an- 
 
248 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 other direction, and his examination of the casement before 
 him showed him only the silver light of the thinly clouded 
 sky falling uninterruptedly through the bars and foliage 
 on the interior of the whitewashed embrasure. Then a 
 conception of his mistake flashed across him. The line 
 of the casa was long, straggling, and exposed elsewhere; 
 why should the attempt to enter or communicate with any 
 one within be confined only to this single point? And 
 why not satisfy himself at once if any trespassers were 
 lounging around the walls, and then confront them boldly 
 in the open? Their discovery and identification was as 
 important as the defeat of their intentions. 
 
 He relit the candle, and, placing it on a small table by 
 the wall beyond the visual range of the window, rearranged 
 the curtain so that, while it permitted the light to pass 
 out, it left the room in shadow. He then opened the door 
 softly, locked it behind him, and passed noiselessly into 
 the hall. Susy's and Mrs. McClosky's rooms were at the 
 further end of the passage, but between them and the bou- 
 doir was the open patio, and the low murmur of the voices 
 of servants, who still lingered until he should dismiss them 
 for the night. Turning back, he moved silently down the 
 passage, until he reached the narrow arched door to the 
 garden. This he unlocked and opened with the same 
 stealthy caution. The rain had recommenced. Not daring 
 to risk a return to his room, he took from a peg in the 
 recess an old waterproof cloak and "sou'wester" of Pey- 
 ton's, which still hung there, and passed out into the 
 night, locking the door behind him. To keep the know' 
 ledge of his secret patrol from the stablemen, he did no; 
 attempt to take out his own horse, but trusted to find some 
 vaquero's mustang in the corral. By good luck an old 
 "Blue Grass" hack of Peyton's, nearest the stockade as 
 he entered, allowed itself to be quickly caught. Using its 
 rope headstall for a bridle,' Clarence vaulted on its bare 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 249 
 
 back, and paced cautiously out into the road. Here he 
 kept the curve of the long line of stockade until he reached 
 the outlying field where, half hidden in the withered, sap- 
 less, but still standing stalks of grain, he slowly began a 
 circuit of the casa. 
 
 The misty gray dome above him, which an invisible 
 moon seemed to have quicksilvered over, alternately light 
 ened and darkened with passing gusts of fine rain. Nev- 
 ertheless he could see the outline of the broad quadrangle 
 of the house quite distinctly, except on the west side, 
 where a fringe of writhing willows beat the brown adobe 
 walls with their imploring arms at every gust. Elsewhere 
 nothing moved ; the view was uninterrupted to where the 
 shining, watery sky met the equally shining, watery plain. 
 He had already made a half circuit of the house, and was 
 still noiselessly picking his way along the furrows, muffled 
 with soaked and broken-down blades, and the velvety 
 upspringing of the " volunteer " growth, when suddenly, 
 not fifty yards before him, without sound or warning, a 
 figure rode out of the grain upon the open cross-road, and 
 deliberately halted with a listless, abstracted, waiting air. 
 Clarence instantly recognized one of his own vaqueros, an 
 undersized half-breed, but he as instantly divined that he 
 was only an outpost or confederate, stationed to give the 
 alarm. The same precaution had prevented each hearing 
 the other, and the lesser height of the vaquero had ren- 
 dered him indistinguishable as he preceded Clarence among 
 the grain. As the young man made no doubt that the real 
 trespasser was nearer the casa, along the line of willows, 
 he wheeled to intercept him without alarming his sentry. 
 Unfortunately, his horse answered the rope bridle clumsily, 
 and splashed in striking out. The watcher quickly raised 
 his head, and Clarence knew that his only chance was now to 
 suppress him. Determined to do this at any hazard, with 
 a threatening gesture he charged boldly down upon him. 
 
250 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 But he had not crossed half the distance between them 
 when the man uttered an appalling cry, so wild and de- 
 spairing that it seemed to chill even the hot blood in Clar- 
 ence's veins, and dashed frenziedly down the cross-road 
 into the interminable plain. Before Clarence could deter- 
 mine if that cry was a signal or an involuntary outburst, 
 it was followed instantly by the sound of frightened and 
 struggling hoofs clattering against the wall of the casa, 
 and a swaying of the shrubbery near the back gate of the 
 patio. Here was his real quarry ! Without hesitation he 
 dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode furiously 
 towards it. As he approached, a long tremor seemed to 
 pass through the shrubbery, with the retreating sound of 
 horse hoofs. The unseen trespasser had evidently taken 
 the alarm and was fleeing, and Clarence dashed in pur- 
 suit. Following the sound, for the shrubbery hid the 
 fugitive from view, he passed the last wall of the casa ; 
 but it soon became evident that the unknown had the 
 better horse. The hoof-beats grew fainter and fainter, 
 and at times appeared even to cease, until his own approach 
 started them again, eventually to fade away in the distance. 
 In vain Clarence dug his heels into the flanks of his heav- 
 ier steed, and regretted his own mustang; and when at 
 last he reached the edge of the thicket he had lost both 
 sight and sound of the fugitive. The descent to the lower 
 terrace lay before him empty and desolate. The man had 
 escaped ! 
 
 He turned slowly back with baffled anger and vindictive- 
 ness. However, he had prevented something, although 
 he knew not what. The principal had got away, but he 
 had identified his confederate, and for the first time held 
 a clue to his mysterious visitant. There was no use to 
 alarm the household, which did not seem to have been 
 disturbed. The trespassers were far away by this time, 
 rad the attempt would hardly be repeated that night. H9 
 
SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 251 
 
 made his way quietly back to the corral, let loose his 
 horse, and regained the casa unobserved. He unlocked 
 the arched door in the wall, reentered the darkened pas- 
 sage, stopped a moment to open the door of the boudoir, 
 glance at the closely fastened casement, and extinguish the 
 still burning candle, and, relocking the door securely, 
 made his way to his own room. 
 
 But he could not sleep. The whole incident, over so 
 quickly, had nevertheless impressed him deeply, and yet 
 like a dream. The strange yell of the vaquero still rang 
 in his ears, but with an unearthly and superstitious signifi- 
 cance that was even more dreamlike in its meaning. He 
 awakened from a fitful slumber to find the light of morning 
 in the room, and Incarnacion standing by his bedside. 
 
 The yellow face of the steward was greenish with terror, 
 and his lips were dry. 
 
 "Get up, Senor Clarencio; get up at once, my master. 
 Strange things have happened. Mother of God protect 
 us!" 
 
 Clarence rolled to his feet, with the events of the past 
 night struggling back upon his consciousness. 
 
 " What mean you, Nascio 1 " he said, grasping the man's 
 arm, which was still mechanically making the sign of the 
 cross, as he muttered incoherently. "Speak, I command 
 you ! " 
 
 "It is Jose, the little vaquero, who is even now at 
 the padre's house, raving as a lunatic, stricken as a mad- 
 man with terror ! He has seen him, — the dead alive ! 
 Save us ! " 
 
 " Are you mad yourself, Nascio 1 " said Clarence. 
 "Whom has he seen? " 
 
 "Whom? God help us! the old padron — Senor Pey- 
 ton himself ! He rushed towards him here, in the patio, 
 last night — out of the air, the sky, the ground, he knew 
 not. his own self, wrapped in his old storm cloak and 
 
252 SUSY: A STOKY OP THE PLAINS 
 
 hat, and riding his own horse, — erect, terrible, and menac- 
 ing, with an awful hand upholding a rope — so ! He saw 
 him with these eyes, as I see you. What he said to him, 
 God knows! The priest, perhaps, for he has made confes- 
 sion ! " 
 
 In a flash of intelligence Clarence comprehended all. 
 He rose grimly and began to dress himself. 
 
 "Not a word of this to the women, — to any one, Nas- 
 cio, dost thou understand 1 " he said curtly. " It may be 
 that Jose" has been partaking too freely of aguardiente, — 
 it is possible. I will see the priest myself. But what 
 possesses thee? Collect thyself, good Nascio." 
 
 But the man was still trembling. 
 
 " It is not all, — Mother of God ! it is not all, master ! " 
 he stammered, dropping to his knees and still crossing 
 himself. " This morning, beside the corral, they find the 
 horse of Pedro Valdez splashed and spattered on saddle 
 and bridle, and in the stirrup, — dost thou hear? the stir- 
 rup, — hanging, the tom-off boot of Valdez ! Ah, God ! 
 The same as his ! Now do you understand ? It is his ven- 
 geance. No ! Jesu forgive me ! it is the vengeance of God ! " 
 
 Clarence was staggered. 
 
 "And you have not found Valdez? You have looked 
 for him ? " he said, hurriedly throwing on his clothes. 
 
 "Everywhere, — all over the plain. The whole rancho 
 has been out since sunrise, — here and there and every- 
 where. And there is nothing! Of course not. "What 
 would you 1 " He pointed solemnly to the ground. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Clarence, buttoning his coat and 
 seizing his hat. " Follow me. " 
 
 He ran down the passage, followed by Incarnacion, 
 through the excited, gesticulating crowd of servants in the 
 patio, and out of the back gate. He turned first along 
 the wall of the casa towards the barred window of the 
 boudoir. Then a cry came from Incarnacion. 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 253 
 
 They ran quickly forward. Hanging from the grating 
 of the window, like a mass of limp and saturated clothes, 
 was the hody of Pedro Valdez, with one unhooted foot 
 dangling within an inch of the ground. His head was 
 passed inside the grating and fixed as at that moment 
 when the first spring of the frightened horse had broken 
 his neck between the bars as in a garrote, and the second 
 plunge of the terrified animal had carried off his boot i& 
 the caught stirrup when it escaped. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The winter rains were over and gone, and the whole 
 long line of Californian coast was dashed with color. 
 There were miles of yellow and red poppies, leagues of 
 lupines that painted the gently rounded hills with soft 
 primary hues, and long continuous slopes, like low moun- 
 tain systems, of daisies and dandelions. At Sacramento 
 it was already summer; the yellow river was flashing and 
 intolerable ; the tule and marsh grasses were lush and long ; 
 the bloom of Cottonwood and sycamore whitened the out- 
 skirts of the city, and as Cyrus Hopkins and his daughter 
 Phoebe looked from the veranda of the Placer Hotel, accus- 
 tomed as they were to the cool trade winds of the coast val- 
 leys, they felt homesick from the memory of eastern heats. 
 
 Later, when they were surveying the long dinner tables 
 at the table d'h6te with something of the uncomfortable 
 and shamefaced loneliness of the provincial, Phoebe uttered 
 a slight cry and clutched her father's arm. Mr. Hopkins 
 stayed the play of his squared elbows and glanced inquir- 
 ingly at his daughter's face. There was a pretty anima- 
 tion in it, as she pointed to a figure that had just entered. 
 It was that of a young man attired in the extravagance 
 rather than the taste of the prevailing fashion, which did 
 not, however, in the least conceal a decided rusticity of 
 limb and movement. A long mustache, which looked 
 unkempt, even in its pomatumed stiffness, and lank, dark 
 hair that had bent but never curled under the barber's 
 iron, made him notable even in that heterogeneous assem- 
 bly. 
 
SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 255 
 
 "That's he," whispered Phoebe. 
 
 "Who?" said her father. 
 
 Alas for the inconsistencies of love' The blush came 
 with the name and not the vision. 
 
 "Mr. Hooker," she stammered. 
 
 It was, indeed, Jim Hooker. But the r61e of his exag- 
 geration was no longer the same ; the remorseful gloom in 
 which he had been habitually steeped had changed intc 
 a fatigued, yet haughty, fastidiousness more in keeping 
 with his fashionable garments. He was more peaceful, 
 yet not entirely placable, and, as he sat down at a side 
 table and pulled down his striped cuffs with his clasped 
 fingers, he cast a glance of critical disapproval on the gen- 
 eral company. Nevertheless, he seemed to be furtively 
 watchful of his effect upon them, and as one or two whis- 
 pered and looked towards him, his consciousness became 
 darkly manifest. 
 
 All of which might have intimidated the gentle Phoebe, 
 but did not discompose her father. He rose, and crossing 
 over to Hooker's table, clapped him heartily on the back. 
 
 " How do, Hooker ? I did n't recognize you in them 
 fine clothes, but Phoebe guessed as how it was you.'' 
 
 Flushed, disconcerted, irritated, but always in whole- 
 some awe of Mr. Hopkins, Jim returned his greeting awk- 
 wardly and half hysterically. How he would have received 
 the more timid Phoebe is another question. But Mr. 
 Hopkins, without apparently noticing these symptoms, 
 went on : — 
 
 "We 're only just down, Phoebe and me, and as I guess 
 we '11 want to talk over old times, we '11 come alongside o 1 
 you. Hold on, and I '11 fetch her." 
 
 The interval gave the unhappy Jim a chance to recover 
 himself, to regain his vanished cuffs, display his heavy 
 watch-chain, curl his mustache, and otherwise reassume 
 his air of blase fastidiousness. But the transfer made, 
 
856 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 Phoebe, after shaking hands, became speechless under these 
 perfections. Not so her father. 
 
 "If there 's anything in looks, you seem to be prosper- 
 ing," he said grimly; "unless you're in the tailorin' line, 
 and you 're only showin' off stock. What mout ye be 
 doing ? " 
 
 "Ye ain't bin long in Sacramento, I reckon? " suggested 
 Jini, with patronizing pity. 
 
 "No, we only came this morning," returned Hopkins. 
 
 "And you ain't bin to the theatre? " continued Jim. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Nor moved much in — in — gin'ral fash'nable sas- 
 siety ? " 
 
 "Not yet," interposed Phoebe, with an air of faint 
 apology. 
 
 "Nor seen any of them large posters on the fences, of 
 'The Prairie Flower ; or, Red-handed Dick,' — three-act 
 play with five tableaux, — just the biggest sensation out, 
 — runnin' for forty nights, — money turned away every 
 night, — standin' room only ? " continued Jim, with pro- 
 longed toleration. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Well, I play Eed-handed Dick. I thought you might 
 have seen it and recognized me. All those people over 
 there," darkly indicating the long table, "know me. A 
 fellow can't stand it, you know, being stared at by such 
 a vulgar, low-bred lot. It 's gettin' too fresh here. I '11 
 have to give the landlord notice and cut the whole hotel. 
 They don't seem to have ever seen a gentleman and a 
 professional before." 
 
 " Then you 're a play-actor now ? " said the farmer, in 
 a tone which did not, however, exhibit the exact degree 
 of admiration which shone in Phoebe's eyes. 
 
 "For the present," said Jim, with lofty indifference. 
 "'You see I was in — in partnership with McClosky, the 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 257 
 
 manager, and I didn't like the style of the chump that 
 was doin' Red-handed Dick, so I offered to take his place 
 one night to show him how. And by Jinks! the audi- 
 ence, after that night, wouldn't let anybody else play it, 
 — wouldn't stand even the biggest, highest-priced stars in 
 it! I reckon," he added gloomily, "I '11 have to run the 
 darned thing in all the big towns in Californy, — if I don't 
 have to go East with it after all, just for the business. 
 But it 's an awful grind on a man, — leaves him no time, 
 along of the invitations he gets, and what with being run 
 after in the streets and stared at in the hotels he don't get 
 no privacy. There 's men, and women, too, over at that 
 table, that just lie in wait for me here till I come, and 
 don't lift their eyes off me. I wonder they don't bring 
 their opery-glasses with them." 
 
 Concerned, sympathizing, and indignant, poor Phoebe 
 turned her brown head and honest eyes in that direction. 
 But because they were honest, they could not help observ- 
 ing that the other table did not seem to be paying the 
 slightest attention to the distinguished impersonator of 
 Red-handed Dick. Perhaps he had been overheard. 
 
 "Then that was the reason ye didn't come back to your 
 location. I always guessed it was because you 'd got wind 
 of the smash-up down there, afore we did," said Hopkins 
 grimly. 
 
 " What smash-up 1 " asked Jim, with slightly resentful 
 quickness. 
 
 "Why, the smash-up of the Sisters' title, — didn't you 
 hear that 1 " 
 
 There was a slight movement of relief and a return of 
 gloomy hauteur in Jim's manner. 
 
 "No, we don't know much of what goes on in the cow 
 counties, up here." 
 
 "Ye mout, considerin' it concerns some o' your friends," 
 returned Hopkins dryly. "For the Sisters' title went 
 
258 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 smash as soon as it was known that Pedro Valdez — the 
 man as started it — had his neck hroken outside the walls 
 o' Robles Rancho ; and they do say as this yer Brant, your 
 friend, had suthin' to do with the breaking of it, though 
 it was laid to the ghost of old Peyton. Anyhow, there 
 was such a big skeer that one of the Greaser gang, who 
 thought he 'd seen the ghost, being a Papist, to save his 
 everlasting soul went to the priest and confessed. But the 
 priest wouldn't give him absolution until he 'd blown the 
 hull thing, and made it public. And then it turned out 
 that all the dockyments for the title, and even the custom- 
 house paper, were forged by Pedro Valdez, and put on the 
 market by his confederates. And that 's just where your 
 friend, Clarence Brant, comes in, for he had bought up 
 the whole title from them fellers. Now, either, as some 
 say, he was in the fraud from the beginnin', and never 
 paid anything, or else he was an all-fired fool, and had 
 parted with his money like one. Some allow that the 
 reason was that he was awfully sweet on Mrs. Peyton's 
 adopted daughter, and ez the parents did n't approve of 
 him, he did this so as to get a holt over them by the prop- 
 erty. But he 's a ruined man, anyway, now; for they say 
 he 's such a darned fool that he 's goin' to pay for all the 
 improvements that the folks who bought under him put 
 into the land, and that '11 take his last cent. I thought 
 I 'd tell you that, for I suppose you 've lost a heap in 
 your improvements, and will put in your claim 1 " 
 
 "I reckon I put nearly as much into it as Clar Brant 
 did," said Jim gloomily, "but I ain't goin' to take a cent 
 from him, or go back on him now." 
 
 The rascal could not resist this last mendacious oppor- 
 tunity, although he was perfectly sincere in his renuncia- 
 tion, touched in his sympathy, and there was even a film 
 of moisture in his shifting eyes. 
 
 Phoebe was thrilled with the generosity of this noble 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 259 
 
 feeing, who could be unselfish even in his superior condi- 
 tion. She added softly : — 
 
 " And they say that the girl did not eare for him at all, 
 but was actually going to run off with Pedro, when he 
 stopped her and sent for Mrs. Peyton." 
 
 To her surprise, Jim's face flushed violently. 
 
 "It's all a dod- blasted lie," he said, in a thick stage 
 whisper. "It's only the hog-wash them Greasers and 
 Pike County galoots ladle out to each other around the 
 stove in a county grocery. But," recalling himself loftily, 
 and with a tolerant wave of his be-diamonded hand, "wot 
 kin you expect from one of them cow counties? They 
 ain't satisfied till they drive every gentleman out of the 
 darned gopher-holes they call their ' kentry. ' " 
 
 In her admiration of what she believed to be a loyal 
 outburst for his friend, Phoebe overlooked the implied 
 sneer at her provincial home. But her father went on 
 with a perfunctory, exasperating, dusty aridity : — 
 
 "That mebbee ez mebbee, Mr. Hooker, but the story 
 down in our precinct goes that she gave Mrs. Peyton the 
 slip, — chucked up her situation as adopted darter, and 
 went off with a queer sort of a cirkiss woman, — one of 
 her own kin, and I reckon one of her own kind." 
 
 To this Mr. Hooker offered no further reply than a 
 withering rebuke of the waiter, a genteel abstraction, and 
 a lofty change of subject. He pressed upon them two 
 tickets for the performance, of which he seemed to have 
 a number neatly clasped in an india-rubber band, and 
 advised them to come early. They would see him after the 
 performance and sup together. He must leave them now, 
 as he had to be punctually at the theatre, and if he lin- 
 gered he should be pestered by interviewers. He with- 
 drew under a dazzling display of cuff and white handker- 
 chief, and with that inward swing of the arm and slight 
 bowiness of the leg generally recognized in his profession 
 as the lounging exit of high comedy. 
 
260 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 The mingling of awe and an uneasy sense of changed 
 relations which that meeting with Jim had brought to 
 Phoebe was not lessened when she entered the theatre with 
 her father that evening, and even Mr. Hopkins seemed to 
 share her feelings. The theatre was large, and brilliant in 
 decoration, the seats were well filled with the same hete- 
 rogeneous mingling she had seen in the dining-room at the 
 Placer Hotel, but in the parquet were some fashionable 
 costumes and cultivated faces. Mr. Hopkins was not alto- 
 gether so sure that Jim had been "only gassing." But 
 the gorgeous drop curtain, representing an allegory of Cali- 
 fornian prosperity and abundance, presently uprolled upon 
 a scene of Western life almost as striking in its glaring 
 unreality. From a rose- clad English cottage in a subtropi- 
 cal landscape skipped "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower." The 
 briefest of skirts, the most unsullied of stockings, the tini- 
 est of slippers, and the few diamonds that glittered on her 
 fair neck and fingers, revealed at once the simple and 
 unpretending daughter of the American backwoodsman. 
 A tumult of delighted greeting broke from the audience. 
 The bright color came to the pink, girlish cheeks, gratified 
 vanity danced in her violet eyes, and . as she piquantly 
 bowed her acknowledgments, this great breath of praise 
 seemed to transfigure and possess her. A very young actor 
 who represented the giddy world in a straw hat with an 
 effeminate manner was alternately petted and girded at by 
 her during the opening exposition of the plot, until the 
 statement that a " dark destiny " obliged her to follow her 
 uncle in an emigrant train across the plains closed the act, 
 apparently extinguished him, and left her the central 
 figure. So far, she evidently was the favorite. A singu- 
 lar aversion to her crept into the heart of Phoebe. 
 
 But the second act brought an Indian attack upon the 
 emigrant train, and here " Rosalie " displayed the archest 
 heroism and the pinkest and most distracting self-posses- 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 261 
 
 sion, in marked contrast to the giddy worldling who, 
 having accompanied her apparently for comic purposes best 
 known to himself, cowered abjectly under wagons, and 
 was pulled ignominiously out of straw, until Red Dick 
 swept out of the wings with a chosen band and a burst of 
 revolvers and turned the tide of victory. Attired as a 
 picturesque combination of the Neapolitan smuggler, river- 
 bar miner, and Mexican vaquero, Jim Hooker instantly 
 began to justify the plaudits that greeted him and the most 
 sanguinary hopes of the audience. A gloomy but fascina- 
 ting cloud of gunpowder and dark intrigue from that 
 moment hung about the stage. 
 
 Yet in this sombre obscuration Rosalie had passed a 
 happy six months, coming out with her character and 
 stockings equally unchanged and unblemished, to be re- 
 warded with the band of Red Dick and the discovery of 
 her father, the governor of New Mexico, as a white-haired, 
 but objectionable vaquero, at the fall of the curtain. 
 
 Through this exciting performance Phoebe sat with a 
 vague and increasing stase of loneliness and distrust. She 
 did not know that Hooker had added to his ordinary inven- 
 tive exaggeration the form of dramatic composition. But 
 she had early detected the singular fact that such shadowy 
 outlines of plot as the piece possessed were evidently based 
 on his previous narrative of his own experiences, and the 
 saving of Susy Peyton — by himself ! There was the epi- 
 sode of their being lost on the plains, as he had already 
 related it to her, with the addition of a few years to Susy's 
 age and some vivid picturesqueness to himself as Red 
 Dick. She was not, of course, aware that the part of the 
 giddy worldling was Jim's own conception of the character 
 of Clarence. But what, even to her provincial taste, 
 seemed the extravagance of the piece, she felt, in some 
 way, reflected upon the truthfulness of the story she had 
 heard. It seemed to be a parody on himself, and in the 
 
262 SUSY: A STOKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 laughter which some of the most thrilling points produced 
 in certain of the audience, she heard an echo of her own 
 doubts. But even this she could have borne if Jim's 
 confidence had not been given to the general public; it 
 was no longer hers alone, she shared it with them. And 
 this strange, bold girl, who acted with him, — the " Blanche 
 Belville " of the bills, — how often he must have told her 
 the story, and yet how badly she had learned it ! It was 
 not her own idea of it, nor of him. In the last extrava- 
 gant scene she turned her weary and half -shamed eyes from 
 the stage and looked around the theatre. Among a group 
 of loungers by the wall a face that seemed familiar was 
 turned towards her own with a look of kindly and sympa- 
 thetic recognition. It was the face of Clarence Brant. 
 When the curtain fell, and she and her father rose to go, 
 he was at their side. He seemed older and more superior 
 looking than she had ever thought him before, and there 
 was a gentle yet sad wisdom in his eyes and voice that 
 comforted her even while it made her feel like crying. 
 
 " You are satisfied that no harm has come to our friend, " 
 he said pleasantly. " Of course you recognized him ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes; we met him to-day," said Phoebe. Her 
 provincial pride impelled her to keep up a show of security 
 and indifference. "We are going to supper with him." 
 
 Clarence slightly lifted his brows. 
 
 "You are more fortunate than I am," he said smilingly. 
 "I only arrived here at seven, and I must leave at mid- 
 night." 
 
 Phoebe hesitated a moment, then said with affected care- 
 
 " What do you think of the young girl who plays with 
 him 1 Do you know her 1 Who is she ? " 
 
 He looked at her quickly, and then said, with some 
 surprise: — 
 
 "Did he not tell you?" 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 263 
 
 "No." 
 
 " She was the adopted daughter of Mrs. Peyton, — Miss 
 Susan Silsbee," he said gravely. 
 
 "Then she did run away from home as they said," said 
 Phoebe impulsively. 
 
 "Not exactly as they said," said Clarence gently. 
 "She elected to make her home with her aunt, Mrs. 
 McClosky, who is the wife of the manager of this theatre, 
 and she adopted the profession a month ago. As it now 
 appears that there was some informality in the old articles 
 of guardianship, Mrs. Peyton would have been powerless 
 to prevent her from doing either, even if she had wished 
 to." 
 
 The infelicity of questioning Clarence regarding Susy 
 suddenly flashed upon the forgetful Phoebe, and she col- 
 ored. Yet, although sad, he did not look like a rejected 
 lover. 
 
 "Of course, if she is here with her own relatives, that 
 makes all the difference, " she said gently. " It is protec- 
 tion." 
 
 "Certainly," said Clarence. 
 
 "And," continued Phoebe hesitatingly, "she is playing 
 with — with — an old friend — Mr. Hooker ! " 
 
 "That is quite proper, too, considering their relations," 
 said Clarence tolerantly. 
 
 " I — don't — understand, " stammered Phoebe. 
 
 The slightly cynical smile on Clarence's face changed as 
 he looked into Phoebe's eyes. 
 
 "I've just heard that they are married," he returned 
 gently, 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Nowhere had the long season of flowers brought such 
 glory as to the broad plains and slopes of Eobles Rancho. 
 By some fortuitous chance of soil, or flood, or drifting 
 pollen, the three terraces had each taken a distinct and 
 separate blossom and tint of color. The straggling line of 
 corral, the crumbling wall of the old garden, the out-lying 
 chapel, and even the brown walls of the casa itself, were 
 half sunken in the tall racemes of crowding lupines, until 
 from the distance they seemed to be slowly settling in the 
 profundity of a dark-blue sea. The second terrace was a 
 league-long flow of gray and gold daisies, in which the 
 cattle dazedly wandered mid-leg deep. A perpetual sun- 
 shine of yellow dandelions lay upon the third. The gentle 
 slope to the dark-green Canada was a broad cataract of 
 crimson poppies. Everywhere where water had stood, 
 great patches of color had taken its place. It seemed as 
 if the rains had ceased only that the broken heavens might 
 drop flowers. 
 
 Never before had its beauty — a beauty that seemed 
 built upon a cruel* youthful, obliterating forgetfulness of 
 the past — struck Clarence as keenly as when he had made 
 up his mind that he must leave the place forever. For 
 the tale of his mischance and ill fortune, as told by Hopr 
 kins, was unfortunately true. When he discovered that 
 in his desire to save Peyton's house by the purchase of the 
 Sisters' title he himself had been the victim of a gigantic 
 fraud, he accepted the loss of the greater part of his for- 
 tune with resignation, and was even satisfied by the 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 265 
 
 thought that he had at least effected the possession of the 
 property for Mrs. Peyton. But when he found that those 
 of his tenants who had bought under him had acquired 
 only a dubious possession of their lands and no title, he 
 had unhesitatingly reimbursed them for their improvements 
 with the last of his capital. Only the lawless Gilroy had 
 good-humoredly declined. The quiet acceptance of the 
 others did not, unfortunately, preclude their settled belief 
 that Clarence had participated in the fraud, and that even 
 now his restitution was making a dangerous precedent, 
 subversive of the best interests of the State, and discourag- 
 ing to immigration. Some doubted his sanity. Only one, 
 struck with the sincerity of his motive, hesitated to take 
 his money, with a look of commiseration on his face. 
 
 " Are you not satisfied 1 " asked Clarence, smiling. 
 
 "Yes, but" — 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "Nothin'. Only I was thinkin' that a man like you. 
 must feel awful lonesome in Calforny ! " 
 
 Lonely he was, indeed; but his loneliness was not the 
 loss of fortune nor what it might bring. Perhaps he had 
 never fully realized his wealth; it had been an accident 
 rather than a custom of his life, and when it had failed in 
 the only test he had made of its power, it is to be feared 
 that he only sentimentally regretted it. It was too early 
 yet for him to comprehend the veiled blessings of the 
 catastrophe in its merciful disruption of habits and ways of 
 life; his loneliness was still the hopeless solitude left by 
 vanished ideals and overthrown idols. He was satisfied 
 that he had never cared for Susy, but he still cared for the 
 belief that he had. 
 
 After the discovery of Pedro's body that fatal morning, 
 a brief but emphatic interview between himself and Mrs. 
 McClosky had followed. He had insisted upon her imme- 
 diately accompanying Susy and himself to Mrs. Peyton in 
 
266 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 San Francisco. Horror-stricken and terrified at the catas- 
 trophe, and frightened by the strange looks of the excited 
 servants, they did not dare to disobey him. He had left 
 them with Mrs. Peyton in the briefest preliminary inter- 
 view, during which he spoke only of the catastrophe, 
 shielding the woman from the presumption of having pro- 
 voked it, and urging only the importance of settling the 
 question of guardianship at once. It was odd that Mrs. 
 Peyton had been less disturbed than he imagined she 
 would be at even his charitable version of Susy's unfaith- 
 fulness to her; it even seemed to him that she had already 
 suspected it. But as he was about to withdraw to leave 
 her to meet them alone, she had stopped him suddenly. 
 
 " What would you advise me to do ? " 
 
 It was his first interview with her since the revelation 
 of his own feelings. He looked into the pleading, troubled 
 eyes of the woman he now knew he had loved, and stam- 
 mered : — 
 
 " You alone can judge. Only you must remember that 
 one cannot force an affection any more than one can pre- 
 vent it." 
 
 He felt himself blushing, and, conscious of the construc- 
 tion of his words, he even fancied that she was displeased. 
 
 " Then you have no preference?" she said, a little im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "None." 
 
 She made a slight gesture with her handsome shoulders, 
 but she only said, "I should have liked to have pleased 
 you in this, " and turned coldly away. He had left with- 
 out knowing the result of the interview ; but a few days 
 later he received a letter from her stating that she had 
 allowed Susy to return to her aunt, and that she had 
 resigned all claims to her guardianship. 
 
 "It seemed to be a foregone conclusion," she wrote; 
 "and although I cannot think such a change will be for 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 267 
 
 her permanent welfare, it is her present wish, and who 
 knows, indeed, if the change will be permanent? I have 
 not allowed the legal question to interfere with my judg- 
 ment, although her friends must know that she forfeits 
 any claim upon the estate by her action; but at the same 
 time, in the event of her suitable marriage, I should try 
 10 carry out what I believe would have been Mr. Peyton's 
 wishes. " 
 
 There were a few lines of postscript: "It seems to me 
 that the change would leave you more free to consult your 
 own wishes in regard to continuing your friendship with 
 Susy, and upon such a footing as may please you. I judge 
 from Mrs. McClosky's conversation that she believed you 
 thought you were only doing your duty in reporting to 
 me, and that the circumstances had not altered the good 
 terms in which you all three formerly stood." 
 
 Clarence had dropped the letter with a burning indigna- 
 tion that seemed to sting his eyes until a scalding moisture 
 hid the words before him. What might not Susy have 
 said? What exaggeration of his affection was she not 
 capable of suggesting? He recalled Mrs. McClosky, and 
 remembered her easy acceptance of him as Susy's lover. 
 What had they told Mrs. Peyton? What must be her 
 opinion of his deceit towards herself ? It was hard enough 
 to bear this before he knew he loved her. It was intoler- 
 able now! And this is what she meant when she sug- 
 gested that he should renew his old terms with Susy; it 
 was for him that this ill-disguised, scornful generosity in 
 regard to Susy's pecuniary expectations was intended. 
 What should he do ? He would write to her, and indig- 
 nantly deny any clandestine affection for Susy. But could 
 he do that, in honor, in truthfulness? Would it not be 
 better to write and confess all ? Yes, — everything. 
 
 Fortunately for his still boyish impulsiveness, it was at 
 this time that the discovery of his own financial ruin came 
 
568 SUSY: A STOBY OP THE PLAINS 
 
 to him. The inquest on the body of Pedro Valdez and 
 the confession of his confidant had revealed the facts of 
 the fraudulent title and forged testamentary documents. 
 Although it was correctly believed that Pedro had met his 
 death in an escapade of gallantry or intrigue, the coroner's 
 jury had returned a verdict of "accidental death," and the 
 lesser scandal was lost in the wider, far-spreading disclo- 
 sure of fraud. When he had resolved to assume all the 
 liabilities of his purchase, he was obliged to write to Mrs. 
 Peyton and confess his ruin. But he was glad to remind 
 her that it did not alter her status or security ; he had only 
 given her the possession, and she would revert to her origi- 
 nal and now uncontested title But as there was now no 
 reason for his continuing the stewardship, and as he must 
 adopt some profession and seek his fortune elsewhere, he 
 begged her to relieve him of his duty. Albeit written 
 with a throbbing heart and suffused eyes, it was a plain, 
 business-like, and practical letter. Her reply was equally 
 cool and matter of fact. She was sorry to hear of his 
 losses, although she could not agree with him that they 
 could logically sever his present connection with the 
 ranch o, or that, placed upon another and distinctly busi- 
 ness footing, the occupation would not be as remunerative 
 to him as any other. But, of course, if he had a prefer- 
 ence for some more independent position, that was another 
 question, although he would forgive her for using the 
 privilege of her years to remind him that his financial and 
 business success had not yet justified ' his independence. 
 She would also advise him not to decide hastily, or, at 
 least, to wait until she had again thoroughly gone over her 
 husband's papers with her lawyer, in reference to the old 
 purchase of the Sisters' title, and the conditions under 
 which it was bought. She knew that Mr. Brant would 
 not refuse this as a matter of business, nor would that 
 friendship, which she valued so highly, allow him to im- 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OK THE PLAINS 269 
 
 peril the possession of the rancho by leaving it at such a 
 moment. As soon as she had finished the examination of 
 the papers, she would write again. Her letter seemed to 
 leave him no hope, if, indeed, he had ever indulged in 
 any. It was the practical kindliness of a woman of busi- 
 ness, nothing more. As to the examination of her hus- 
 band's papers, that was a natural precaution. He alone 
 knew that they would give no record of a transaction which 
 had never occurred. He briefly replied that his inten- 
 tion to seek another situation was unchanged, but that he 
 would cheerfully await the arrival of his successor. Two 
 weeks passed. Then Mr. Sanderson, Mrs. Peyton's law- 
 yer, arrived, bringing an apologetic note from Mrs. Peyton. 
 She was so sorry her business was still delayed, but as she 
 had felt that she had no right to detain him entirely at 
 Robles, she had sent to Mr. Sanderson to temporarily 
 relieve him, that he might be free to look around him or 
 visit San Prancisco in reference to his own business, only 
 extracting a promise from him that he would return to 
 Robles to meet her at the end of the week, before settling 
 upon anything. 
 
 The bitter smile with which Clarence had read thus far 
 suddenly changed. Some mysterious touch of unbusiness- 
 like but womanly hesitation, that he had never noticed in 
 her previous letters, gave him a faint sense of pleasure, as 
 if her note had been perfumed. He had availed himself 
 of the offer. It was on this visit to Sacramento that he 
 had accidentally discovered the marriage of Susy and 
 Hooker. 
 
 " It 's a great deal better business for her to have a hus- 
 band in the ' profesh ' if she 's a-goin' to stick to it," said 
 his informant, Mrs. McClosky, "and she's nothing if she 
 ain't business and profesh, Mr. Brant. I never see a girl 
 that was born for the stage — yes, you might say jess cut 
 out o' the boards of the stage — as that girl Susy is! And 
 
270 SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 that's jest what's the matter; and you know it, and I 
 know it, and there you are ! " 
 
 It was with these experiences that Clarence was to-day 
 reentering the wooded and rocky gateway of the rancho 
 from the high road of the Canada; but as he cantered up 
 the first slope, through the drift of scarlet poppies that 
 almost obliterated the track, and the blue and yellow 
 blooms of the terraces again broke upon his view, he 
 thought only of Mrs. Peyton's pleasure in this changed 
 aspect of her old home. She had told him of it once 
 before, and of her delight in it; and he had once thought 
 how happy he should be to see it with her. 
 
 The servant who took his horse told him that the senora 
 had arrived that morning from Santa Inez, bringing with 
 her the two Senoritas Hernandez from the rancho of Los 
 Canejos, and that other guests were expected. And there 
 was the Senor Sanderson and his Reverence Padre Esteban. 
 Truly an affair of hospitality, the first since the padron 
 died. Whatever dream Clarence might have had of oppor- 
 tunities for confidential interview was rudely dispelled. 
 Yet Mrs. Peyton had left orders to be informed at once of 
 Don Clarencio's arrivaL 
 
 As he crossed the patio and stepped upon the corridor 
 he fancied he already detected in the internal arrangements 
 the subtle influence of Mrs. Peyton's taste and the inde- 
 finable domination of the mistress. For an instant he 
 thought of anticipating the servant and seeking her in the 
 boudoir, but some instinct withheld him, and he turned 
 into the study which he had used as an office. It was 
 empty; a few embers glimmered on the hearth. At the 
 same moment there was a light step behind him, and Mrs. 
 Peyton entered and closed the door behind her. She was 
 very beautiful. Although paler and thinner, there was an 
 odd sort of animation about her, so unlike her usual repose 
 that it seemed almost feverish. 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 271 
 
 " I thought we could talk together a few moments before 
 the guests arrive. The house will be presently so full, 
 and my duties as hostess commence. " 
 
 "I was — about to seek you — in — in the boudcir," 
 hesitated Clarence. 
 
 She gave an impatient shiver. 
 
 "Good heavens, not there! I shall never go there 
 again. I should fancy every time I looked out of the 
 window that I saw the head of that man between the bars. 
 No! I am only "thankful that I wasn't here at the time, 
 and that I can keep my remembrance of the dear old place 
 unchanged." She checked herself a little abruptly, and 
 then, added somewhat irrelevantly but cheerfully, "Well, 
 you have been away ? What have you done 1 " 
 
 "Nothing," said Clarence. 
 
 "Then you have kept your promise," she said, with the 
 same nervous hilarity. 
 
 " I have returned here without making any other engage- 
 ment," he said gravely; "but I have not altered my deter- 
 mination. " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders again, or, as it seemed, the 
 skin of her tightly fitting black dress above them, with the 
 sensitive shiver of a highly groomed horse, and moved to 
 the hearth as if for warmth ; put her slim, slippered foot 
 upon the low fender, drawing, with a quick hand, the 
 whole width of her skirt behind her until it clingingly 
 accented the long, graceful curve from her hip to her feet. 
 All this was so unlike her usual fastidiousness and repose 
 that he was struck by it. With her eyes on the glowing 
 embers of the hearth, and tentatively advancing her toe 
 to its warmth and drawing it away, she said : — 
 
 " Of course, you must please yourself. I am afraid I 
 have no right except that of habit and custom to keep you 
 here; and you know," she added, with an only half- with- 
 held bitterness, "that they are not always very effective 
 
272 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 with young people who prefer to have the ordering of theit 
 own lives. But I have something still to tell you hefore 
 you finally decide. I have, as you know, been looking 
 over my — over Mr. Peyton's papers very carefully. 
 Well, as a result, I find, Mr. Brant, that there is no 
 record whatever of his wonderfully providential purchase 
 of the Sisters' title from you; that he never entered into 
 any written agreement with you, and never paid you a 
 cent; and that, furthermore, his papers show me that he 
 never even contemplated it; nor, indeed, even knew of 
 your owning the title when he died. Yes, Mr. Brant, it 
 was all to your foresight and prudence, and your generos- 
 ity alone, that we owe our present possession of the rancho. 
 When you helped us into that awful window, it was your 
 house we were entering; and if it had been you, and not 
 those wretches, who had chosen to shut the doors on us 
 after the funeral, we could never have entered here again. 
 Don't deny it, Mr. Brant. I have suspected it a long 
 time, and when you spoke of changing your position, I 
 determined to find out if it wasn't i" who had to leave the 
 house rather than you. One moment, please. And I did 
 find out, and it was I. Don't speak, please, yet. And 
 now," she said, with a quick return to her previous ner- 
 vous hilarity, "knowing this, as you did, and knowing, 
 too, that I would know it when I examined the papers, — 
 don't speak, I 'm not through yet, — don't you think that 
 it was just a little cruel for you to try to hurry me, and 
 make me come here instead of your coming to me in San 
 Francisco, when I gave you leave for that purpose 1 " 
 
 "But, Mrs. Peyton," gasped Clarence. 
 
 "Please don't interrupt me," said the lady, with a touch 
 of her old imperiousness, "for in a moment I must join 
 my guests. When I found you would n't tell me, and left 
 it to me to find out, I could only go away as I did, and 
 really leave you to control what I believed was your own 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 2T3 
 
 property. And I thought, too, that I understood your 
 motives, and, to be frank with you, that worried me; for 
 I believed I knew the disposition and feelings of a certain 
 person better than yourself." 
 
 "One moment," broke out Clarence, "you must hear 
 me, now. Foolish and misguided as that purchase may 
 have been, I swear to you I had only one motive in mak- 
 ing it, — to save the homestead for you and your husband, 
 who had been my first and earliest benefactors. What 
 the result of it was, you, as a business woman, know; your 
 friends know ; your lawyer will tell you the same. You 
 owe me nothing. I have given you nothing but the repos- 
 session of this property, which any other man could have 
 done, and perhaps less stupidly than I did. I would not 
 have forced you to come here to hear this if I had dreamed 
 of your suspicions, or even if I had simply understood that 
 you would see me in San Francisco as I passed through." 
 
 "Passed through? Where were you going?" she said 
 quickly. 
 
 "To Sacramento." ' 
 
 The abrupt change in her manner startled him to a recol- 
 lection of Susy, and he blushed. She bit her lips, and 
 moved towards the window. 
 
 " Then you saw her ? " she said, turning suddenly 
 towards him. The inquiry of her beautiful eyes was more 
 imperative than her speech. 
 
 Clarence recognized quickly what he thought was his 
 cruel blunder in touching the half-healed wound of separa- 
 tion. But he had gone too far to be other than perfectly 
 truthful now. 
 
 "Yes; I saw her on the stage," he said, with a return 
 of his boyish earnestness ; " and I learned something which 
 I wanted you to first hear from me. She is married, — ■ 
 and to Mr. Hooker, who is in the same theatrical company 
 with her. But I want you to think, as I honestly do, 
 
274 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 that it is the best for her. She has married in her profes« 
 sion, which is a great protection and a help to her success, 
 and she has married a man who can look lightly upon 
 certain qualities in her that others might not be so lenient 
 to. His worst faults are on the surface, and will wear 
 away in contact with the world, and he looks up to her as 
 his superior. I gathered this from her friend, for I did 
 not speak with her myself; I did not go there to see her. 
 But as I expected to be leaving you soon, I thought it 
 only right that as I was the humble means of first bringing 
 her into your life, I should bring you this last news, which 
 I suppose takes her out of it forever. Only I want you 
 to believe that you have nothing to regret, and that she 
 is neither lost nor unhappy." 
 
 The expression of suspicious inquiry on her face when 
 he began changed gradually to perplexity as he continued, 
 and then relaxed into a faint, peculiar smile. But there 
 was not the slightest trace of that pain, wounded pride, 
 indignation, or anger, that he had expected to see upon it. 
 
 " That means, I suppose, Mr. Brant, that you no longe? 
 care for her 1 " 
 
 The smile had passed, yet she spoke now with a half- 
 real, half-affected archness that was also unlike her. 
 
 "It means," said Clarence with a white face, but a 
 steady voice, "that I care for her now as much as I ever 
 cared for her, no matter to what folly it once might have 
 led me. But it means, also, that there was no time when 
 I was not able to tell it to you as frankly as I do now " — 
 
 "One moment, please," she interrupted, and turned 
 quickly towards the door. She opened it and looked out. 
 " I thought they were calling me, — and — I — I — must 
 go now, Mr. Brant. And without finishing my business 
 either, or saying half I had intended to say. But wait " 
 — she put her hand to her head in a pretty perplexity, 
 "it's a moonlight night, and I'll propose after dinner a 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 275 
 
 stroll in the gardens, and you can manage to walk a little 
 with me." She stopped again, returned, said, "It was 
 very kind of you to think of me at Sacramento," held out 
 her hand, allowed it to remain for an instant, cool but 
 acquiescent, in his warmer grasp, and with the same odd 
 youthfulness of movement and gesture slipped out of the 
 door. 
 
 An hour later she was at the head of her dinner table, 
 serene, beautiful, and calm, in her elegant mourning, pro- 
 vokingly inaccessible in the sweet deliberation of her wid- 
 owed years; Padre Esteban was at her side with a local 
 magnate, who had known Peyton and his wife, while 
 Donna Eosita and a pair of liquid-tongued, childlike 
 senoritas were near Clarence and Sanderson. To the priest 
 Mrs. Peyton spoke admiringly of the changes in the rancho 
 and the restoration of the Mission Chapel, and together 
 they had commended Clarence from the level of their supe- 
 rior passionless reserve and years. Clarence felt hopelessly 
 young and hopelessly lonely; the naive prattle of the 
 young girls beside him appeared infantine. In his abstrac- 
 tion, he heard Mrs. Peyton allude to the beauty of the 
 night, and propose that after coffee and chocolate the ladies 
 should put on their wraps and go with her to the old 
 garden. Clarence raised his eyes; she was not looking at 
 him, but there was a slight consciousness in her face that 
 was not there before, and the faintest color in her cheek, 
 still lingering, no doubt, from the excitement of conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 It was a cool, tranquil, dewless night when they at last 
 straggled out, mere black and white patches in the colorless 
 moonlight. The brilliancy of the flower-hued landscape 
 was subdued under its passive, pale austerity; even the 
 gray and gold of the second terrace seemed dulled and 
 confused. At any other time Clarence might have lingered 
 over this strange effect, but his eyes followed only a tall 
 
276 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 figure, in a long striped burnous, that moved gracefully 
 beside the soutaned priest. As he approached, it turned 
 towards him. 
 
 "Ah! here you are. I just told Father Esteban that 
 you talked of leaving to-morrow, and that he would have 
 to excuse me a few moments while you showed me what 
 you had done to the old garden." 
 
 She moved beside him, and, with a hesitation that was 
 not unlike a more youthful timidity, slipped her hand 
 through his arm. It was for the first time, and, without 
 thinking, he pressed it impulsively to his side. I have 
 already intimated that Clarence's reserve was at times 
 qualified by singular directness. 
 
 A few steps carried them out of hearing; a few more, 
 and they seemed alone in the world. The long adobe wall 
 glanced away emptily beside them, and was lost; the black 
 shadows of the knotted pear-trees were beneath their feet. 
 They began to walk with the slight affectation of treading 
 the shadows as if they were patterns on a carpet. Clar- 
 ence was voiceless, and yet he seemed to be moving beside 
 a spirit that must be first addressed. 
 
 But it was flesh and blood nevertheless. 
 
 " I interrupted you in something you were saying when 
 I left the office," she said quietly. 
 
 "I was speaking of Susy," returned Clarence eagerly; 
 "and" — 
 
 "Then you needn't go on," interrupted Mrs. Peyton 
 quickly. "I understand you, and believe you. I would 
 rather talk of something else. We have not yet arranged 
 how I can make restitution to you for the capital you sank 
 in saving this place. You will be reasonable, Mr. Brant, 
 and not leave me with the shame and pain of knowing 
 that you ruined yourself for the sake of your old friends. 
 For it is no more a sentimental idea of mine to feel in this 
 way than it is a fair and sensible one for you to imply that 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 277 
 
 a mere quibble of construction absolves me from responsi- 
 bility. Mr. Sanderson himself admits that the reposses- 
 sion you gave us is a fair and legal basis for any arrange- 
 ment of sharing or division of the property with you, that 
 might enable you to remain here and continue the work 
 you have so well begun. Have you no suggestion, or 
 must it come from me, Mr. Brant ? " 
 
 "Neither. Let us not talk of that now." 
 
 She did not seem to notice the boyish doggedness of his 
 speech, except so far as it might have increased her incon- 
 sequent and nervously pitched levity. 
 
 "Then suppose we speak of the Misses Hernandez, with 
 whom you scarcely exchanged a word at dinner, and whom 
 I invited for you and your fluent Spanish. They are 
 charming girls, even if they are a little stupid. But what 
 can I do 1 If I am to live here, I must have a few young 
 people around me, if only to make the place cheerful for 
 others. Do you know I have taken a great fancy to Miss 
 Rogers, and have asked her to visit me. I think she is 
 «*i good friend of yours, although perhaps she is a little 
 why. What 's the matter 1 You have nothing against 
 her, have you ? " 
 
 Clarence had stopped short. They had reached the end 
 of the pear-tree shadows. A few steps more would bring 
 them to the fallen south wall of the garden and the open 
 moonlight beyond, but to the right an olive alley of deeper 
 shadow diverged. 
 
 "No," he said, with slow deliberation; "I have to 
 thank Mary Rogers for having discovered something in me 
 that I have been blindly, foolishly, and hopelessly strug- 
 gling with." 
 
 "And, pray, what was that? " said Mrs. Peyton sharply. 
 
 "That I love you!" 
 
 Mrs. Peyton was fairly startled. The embarrassment of 
 any truth is apt to be in its eternal abruptness, which do 
 
278 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 deviousness of tact or circumlocution of diplomacy has 
 ever yet surmounted. "Whatever had been in her heart, 
 or mind, she was unprepared for this directness. The bolt 
 had dropped from the sky; they were alone; there was 
 nothing between the stars and the earth but herself and 
 this man and this truth; it could not be overlooked, sur- 
 mounted, or escaped from. A step or two more would 
 take her out of the garden into the moonlight, but always 
 into this awful frankness of blunt and outspoken nature. 
 She hesitated, and turned the corner into the olive shad- 
 ows. It was, perhaps, more dangerous; but less shame- 
 less, and less like truckling. And the appallingly direct 
 Clarence instantly followed. 
 
 "I know you will despise me, hate me; and, perhaps, 
 worst of all, disbelieve me; but I swear to you, now, that 
 I have always loved you, — yes, always! When first I 
 came here, it was not to see my old playmate, but you, 
 for I had kept the memory of you as I first saw you when 
 a boy, and you have always been my ideal. I have 
 thought of, dreamed of, worshiped, and lived for no other 
 woman. Even when I found Susy again, grown up here 
 at your side; even when I thought that I might, with 
 your consent, marry her, it was that I might be with you 
 always ; that I might be a part of your home, your family, 
 and have a place with her in your heart; for it was you 
 I loved, and you only. Don't laugh at me, Mrs. Peyton, 
 it is the truth, the whole truth, I am telling you. God 
 help me ! " 
 
 If she only could have laughed, — harshly, ironically, 
 or even mercifully and kindly ! But it would not come. 
 And she burst out : — 
 
 "I am not laughing. Good heavens, don't you see? 
 It is me you are making ridiculous." 
 
 " You ridiculous ? " he said in a momentarily choked, 
 half-stupefied voice. "You — a beautiful woman, my 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 279 
 
 superior in everything, the mistress of these lands where 
 I am only steward — made ridiculous, not hy my presump- 
 tion, hut by my confession ? Was the saint you just now 
 admired in Father Esteban's chapel ridiculous because of 
 the peon clowns who were kneeling before it ? " 
 
 "Hush! This is wicked! Stop!" 
 
 She felt she was now on firm ground, and made the 
 most of it in voice and manner. She must draw the line 
 somewhere, and she would draw it between passion and 
 impiety. 
 
 "Not until I have told you all, and I must before I 
 leave you. I loved you when I came here, — even when 
 your husband was alive. Don't be angry, Mrs. Peyton; 
 he would not, and need not, have been angry ; he would 
 have pitied the foolish boy, who, in the very innocence 
 and ignorance of his passion, might have revealed it to 
 him as he did to everybody but one. And yet, I some- 
 times think you might have guessed it, had you thought 
 of me at all. It must have been on my lips that day I 
 sat with you in the boudoir. I know that I was filled 
 with it; with it and with you; with your presence, with 
 your beauty, your grace of heart and mind, — yes, Mrs. 
 Peyton, even with your own unrequited love for Susy. 
 Only, then, I knew not what it was. " 
 
 "But I think I can tell you what it was then, and 
 now," said Mrs. Peyton, recovering her nervous little 
 laugh, though it died a moment after on her lips. "I 
 remember it very well. You told me then that I reminded 
 you of your mother. Well, I am not old enough to be 
 your mother, Mr. Brant, but I am old enough to have 
 been, and might have been, the mother of your wife. 
 That was what you meant then; that is what you mean 
 now. I was wrong to accuse you of trying to make me 
 iidiculous. I ask your pardon. Let us leave it as it was 
 that day in the boudoir, as it is now. Let me still remind 
 
280 SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 you of your mother, — I know she must have been a good 
 woman to have had so good a son, — and when you have 
 found some sweet young girl to make you happy, come to 
 me for a mother's blessing, and we will laugh at the recol- 
 lection and misunderstanding of this evening." 
 
 Her voice did not, however, exhibit that exquisite 
 maternal tenderness which the beatific vision ought to have 
 called up, and the persistent voice of Clarence could not 
 be evaded in the shadow. 
 
 "I said you reminded me of my mother," he went on at 
 her side, " because I knew her and lost her only as a child. 
 She never was anything to me but a memory, and yet an 
 ideal of all that was sweet and lovable in woman. Per- 
 haps it was a dream of what she might have been when 
 she was as young in years as you. If it pleases you still 
 to misunderstand me, it may please you also to know that 
 there is a reminder of her even in this. I have no remem- 
 brance of a word of affection from her, nor a caress; I have 
 been as hopeless in my love for her who was my mother, 
 as for the woman I would make my wife." 
 
 "But you have seen no one, you know no one, you are 
 young, you scarcely know your own self ! You will for- 
 get this, you will forget me ! And if — if — I should — 
 listen to you, what would the world say, what would you 
 yourself say a few years hence? Oh, be reasonable. 
 Think of it, — it would be so wild, — so mad ! so — so — 
 utterly ridiculous ! " 
 
 In proof of its ludicrous quality, two tears escaped her 
 eyes in the darkness. But Clarence caught the white flash 
 of her withdrawn handkerchief in the shadow, and cap- 
 tured her returning hand. It was. trembling, but did not 
 struggle, and presently hushed itself to rest in his. 
 
 "I 'm not only a fool but a brute," he, said in a lower 
 voice. " Forgive me. I have given you pain, — you, for 
 whom I would have died." 
 
SUSY: A STORY OF THE PLAINS 281 
 
 They had both stopped. He was still holding her 
 sleeping hand. His arm had stolen around the burnous 
 so softly that it followed the curves of her figure as lightly 
 as a fold of the garment, and was presumably unfelt. 
 Grief has its privileges, and suffering exonerates a ques- 
 tionable situation. In another moment her fair head 
 might have dropped upon his shoulder. But an approach- 
 ing voice uprose in the adjoining broad allee. It might 
 have been the world speaking through the voice of the 
 lawyer Sanderson. 
 
 "Yes, he is a good fellow, and an intelligent fellow, 
 too, but a perfect child in his experience of mankind." 
 
 They both started, but Mrs. Peyton's hand suddenly 
 woke up and grasped his firmly. Then she said in a 
 higher, but perfectly level tone : — 
 
 " Yes, I think with you we had better look at it again 
 in the sunlight to-morrow. But here come our friends; 
 they have probably been waiting for us to join them and 
 go in." 
 
 The wholesome freshness of early morning was in the 
 room when Clarence awoke, cleared and strengthened. 
 His resolution had been made. He would leave the 
 rancho that morning, to enter the world again and seek his 
 fortune elsewhere. This was only right to her, whose 
 future it should never be said he had imperiled by his 
 folly and inexperience ; and if, in a year or two of struggle 
 he could prove his right to address her again, he would 
 return. He had not spoken to her since they had parted 
 in the garden, with the grim truths of the lawyer ringing 
 in his ears, but he had written a few lines of farewell, to 
 be given to her after he had left. He was calm in his 
 resolution, albeit a little pale and hollow-eyed for it. 
 
 He crept downstairs in the gray twilight of the scarce- 
 awakened house, and made his way to the stables. Sad' 
 
282 SUSY: A STQKY OF THE PLAINS 
 
 dling his horse, and mounting, he paced forth into the 
 crisp morning air. The sun, just risen, was everywhere 
 bringing out the fresh color of the flower-strewn terraces, 
 as the last night's shadows, which had hidden thera, were 
 Slowly beaten back. He cast a last look at the brown 
 adobe quadrangle of the quiet house, just touched with 
 the bronzing of the sun, and then turned his face towards 
 the highway. As he passed the angle of the old garden 
 he hesitated, but, strong in his resolution, he put the rec- 
 ollection of last night behind him, and rode by without 
 raising his eyes. 
 
 "Clarence!" 
 
 It was her voice. He wheeled his horse. She was 
 standing behind 4ihe grille in the old wall as he had seen 
 her standing on the day he had ridden to his rendezvous 
 with Susy. A Spanish manta was thrown over her head 
 and shoulders, as if she had dressed hastily, and had run 
 out to intercept him while he was still in the stable. Her 
 beautiful face was pale in its black-hooded recess, and 
 there were faint circles around her lovely eyes. 
 
 " You were going without saying ' good-by ' ! " shq said 
 softly. 
 
 She passed her slim white hand between the grating. 
 Clarence leaped to the ground, caught it, and pressed it to 
 his lips. But he did not let it go. 
 
 " No ! no ! " she said, struggling to withdraw it. " It 
 is better as it is — as — as you have decided it to be. 
 Only I could not let you go thus, — without a word. 
 There now, — go, Clarence, go. Please! Don't you see 
 I am behind these bars? Think of them as the years that 
 separate us, my poor, dear, foolish boy. Think of them 
 as standing between us, growing closer, heavier, and more 
 cruel and hopeless as the years go on." 
 
 Ah, well ! they had been good bars a hundred and fifty 
 years ago, when it was thought as necessary to repress the 
 
SUSY: A STOEY OF THE PLAINS 283 
 
 innocence that was behind them as the wickedness that 
 was without. They had done duty in the convent at Santa 
 Inez, and the monastery of Santa Barbara, and had been 
 brought hither in Governor Micheltorrenas' time to keep 
 the daughters of Robles from the insidious contact of the 
 outer world, when they took the air in their cloistered 
 pleasance. Guitars had tinkled against them in vain, and 
 they had withstood the stress and storm of love tokens. 
 But, like many other things which have had their day 
 and time, they had retained their semblance of power, even 
 while rattling loosely in their sockets, only because no one 
 had ever thought of putting them to the test, and, in the 
 strong hand of Clarence, assisted, perhaps, by the leaning 
 figure of Mrs. Peyton, I grieve to say that the whole grille 
 suddenly collapsed, became a frame of tinkling iron, and 
 then clanked, bar by bar, into the road. Mrs. Peyton 
 uttered a little cry and drew back, and Clarence, leaping 
 the ruins, caught her in his arms. 
 
 For a moment only, for she quickly withdrew from 
 them, and although the morning sunlight was quite rosy 
 on her cheeks, she said gravely, pointing to the dismantled 
 opening : — 
 
 "I suppose you must stay now, for you never could 
 leave me here alone and defenseless. " 
 
 He stayed. And with this fulfillment of his youthful 
 dreams the romance of his young manhood seemed to be 
 completed, and so closed the second volume of this trilogy. 
 But what effect that fulfillment of youth had upon his 
 maturer years, or the fortunes of those who were nearly 
 concerned in it, may be told in a later and final chronicle. 
 
CLARENCE 
 
 PART I 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 As Clarence Brant, President of the Robles Land Com- 
 pany, and husband of the rich widow of John Peyton, of 
 the Robles Ranche, mingled with the outgoing audience 
 of the Cosmopolitan Theatre, at San Francisco, he elicited 
 the usual smiling nods and recognition due to his good 
 looks and good fortune. But as he hurriedly slipped 
 through the still lingering winter's rain into the smart 
 coupe" that was awaiting him, and gave the order "Home," 
 the word struck him with a peculiarly ironical significance. 
 His home was a handsome one, and lacked nothing in 
 appointment and comfort, but he had gone to the theatre 
 to evade its hollow loneliness. Nor was it because his 
 wife was not. there, for he had a miserable consciousness 
 that her temporary absence had nothing to do with his 
 homelessness. The distraction of the theatre over, that 
 dull, vague, but aching sense of loneliness which was daily 
 growing upon him returned with greater vigor. 
 
 He leaned back in the coupe' and gloomily reflected. 
 
 He had been married scarcely a year, yet even in the 
 illusions of the honeymoon the woman, older than himself, 
 and the widow of his old patron, had half unconsciously 
 reasserted herself, and slipped back into the domination of 
 her old position. It was at first pleasant enough, — this 
 half-maternal protectorate which is apt to mingle even 
 with the affections of younger women, — and Clarence, in 
 
CLARENCE 285 
 
 his easy, half-feminine intuition of the sex, yielded, as 
 the strong are apt to yield, through the very consciousness 
 of their own superiority. But this is a quality the weaker 
 are not apt to recognize, and the woman who has once 
 tasted equal power with her husband not only does not 
 easily relegate it, but even makes its continuance a test of 
 the affections. The usual triumphant feminine conclusion, 
 "Then you no longer love me," had in Clarence's brief 
 experience gone even further and reached its inscrutable 
 climax, "Then I no longer love you," although shown 
 only in a momentary hardening of the eye and voice. 
 And added to this was his sudden, but confused remem- 
 brance that he had seen that eye and heard that voice in 
 marital altercation during Judge Peyton's life, and that 
 he himself, her boy partisan, had sympathized with her. 
 Yet, strange to say, this had given him more pain than 
 her occasional other reversions to the past — to her old 
 suspicions of him when he was a youthful protege of her 
 husband and a presumed suitor of her adopted daughter 
 Susy. High natures are more apt to forgive wrong done 
 to themselves than any abstract injustice. And her capri- 
 cious tyranny over her dependents and servants, or an 
 unreasoning enmity to a neighbor or friend, outraged his. 
 finer sense more than her own misconception of himself. 
 Nor did he dream that this was a "thing most women sel- 
 dom understand, or, understanding, ever forgive. 
 
 The coupe rattled over the stones or swirled through the 
 muddy pools of the main thoroughfares. Newspaper and 
 telegraphic offices were still brilliantly lit, and crowds were 
 gathered about the bulletin boards. He knew that news 
 had arrived from Washington that evening of the first 
 active outbreaks of secession, and that the city was breath- 
 less with excitement. Had he not just come from the 
 theatre, where certain insignificant allusions in the play 
 had been suddenly caught up and cheered or hissed by 
 
286 CLARENCE 
 
 hitherto unknown partisans, to the dumb astonishment of 
 a majority of the audience comfortably settled to money- 
 getting and their own affairs alone ? Had he not applauded, 
 albeit half-scornfully, the pretty actress — his old playmate 
 Susy — who had audaciously and all incongruously waved 
 the American flag in their faces ? Yes ! he had known it ; 
 had lived for the last few weeks in an atmosphere electri- 
 cally surcharged with it — and yet it had chiefly affected 
 him in his personal homelessness. For his wife was a 
 Southerner, a born slaveholder, and a secessionist, whose 
 noted prejudices to the North had even outrun her late 
 husband's politics. At first the piquancy and recklessness 
 of her opinionative speech amused him as part of her 
 characteristic flavor, or as a lingering youthfulness which 
 the maturer intellect always pardons. He had never taken 
 her politics seriously — why should he 1 With her head 
 on his shoulder he had listened to her extravagant diatribes 
 against the North. He had forgiven her outrageous indict- 
 ment of his caste and his associates for the sake of the 
 imperious but handsome lips that uttered it. But when 
 he was compelled to listen to her words echoed and re- 
 peated by her friends and family; when he found that 
 with the clannishness of her race she had drawn closer to 
 them in this controversy, — that she depended upon them 
 for her intelligence and'information rather than upon him, 
 — he had awakened to the reality of his situation. He 
 had borne the allusions of her brother, whose old scorn for 
 his dependent childhood had been embittered by his sister's 
 marriage and was now scarcely concealed. Yet, while he 
 had never altered his own political faith and social creed 
 in this antagonistic atmosphere, he had often wondered, 
 with his old conscientiousness and characteristic self-abne- 
 gation, whether his own political convictions were not 
 merely a revulsion from his domestic tyranny and alien 
 surroundings. 
 
CLARENCE 28? 
 
 In the midst of this gloomy retrospect the coupe* stopped 
 with a jerk before his own house. The door was quickly 
 opened by a servant, who appeared to be awaiting him. 
 
 " Some one to see you in the library, sir, " said the man, 
 " and " — He hesitated and looked towards the coupe\ 
 
 " Well ? " said Clarence impatiently. 
 
 "He said, sir, as how you were not to send away the 
 carriage. " 
 
 " Indeed, and who is it 1 " demanded Clarence sharply. 
 
 "Mr. Hooker. He said I was to say Jim Hooker." 
 
 The momentary annoyance in Clarence's face changed to 
 a look of reflective curiosity. 
 
 "He said he knew you were at the theatre, and he 
 would wait until you came home," continued the man, 
 dubiously watching his master's face. "He don't know 
 you 've come in, sir, and — and I can easily get rid of 
 him." 
 
 "No matter now. I'll see him, and," added Clarence, 
 with a faint smile, " let the carriage wait. " 
 
 Yet, as he turned towards the library he was by no 
 means certain that an interview with the old associate of 
 his boyhood under Judge Peyton's guardianship would 
 divert his mind. Yet he let no trace of his doubts nor of 
 his past gloom show in his face as he entered the room. 
 
 Mr. Hooker was apparently examining the elegant 
 furniture and luxurious accommodation with his usual 
 resentful enviousness. Clarence had got a "soft thing." 
 That it was more or less the result of his "artfulness," 
 and that he was unduly " puffed up " by it, was, in 
 Hooker's characteristic reasoning, equally clear. As his 
 host smilingly advanced with outstretched hand, Mr. 
 Hooker's efforts to assume a proper abstraction of manner 
 and contemptuous indifference to Clarence's surroundings 
 which should wound his vanity ended in his lolling back 
 at full length in the chair with his eyes on the ceiling. 
 
288 CLARENCE 
 
 But, remembering suddenly that he was really the bearer 
 of a message to Clarence, it struck him that his supine 
 position was, from a theatrical view-point, infelicitous. 
 In his experiences of the stage he had never delivered a 
 message in that way. He rose awkwardly to his feet. 
 
 " It was so good of you to wait, " said Clarence courte- 
 ously. 
 
 "Saw you in the theatre," said Hooker brusquely, 
 "Third row in parquet. Susy said it was you, and had 
 suthiii' to say to you. Suthin* you ought to know," he 
 continued, with a slight return of his old mystery of man- 
 ner which Clarence so well remembered. " You saw her 
 — - she fetched the house with that flag business, eh ? She 
 knows which way the cat is going to jump, you bet. I 
 tell you, for all the blowing of these secessionists, the 
 Union's goin' to pay! Yes, sir!" He stopped, glanced 
 round the handsome room, and added darkly, "Mebbee 
 better than this." 
 
 With the memory of Hooker's characteristic fondness 
 for mystery still in his mind, Clarence overlooked the 
 innuendo, and said smilingly, — 
 
 "Why didn't you bring Mrs. Hooker here? I should 
 have been honored with her company." 
 
 Mr. Hooker frowned slightly at this seeming levity. 
 
 "Never goes out after a performance. Nervous exhaus- 
 tion. Left her at our rooms in Market Street. We can 
 drive there in ten minutes. That 's why I asked to have 
 the carriage wait." 
 
 Clarence hesitated. Without caring in the least to 
 renew the acquaintance of his old playmate and sweet- 
 heart, a meeting that night in some vague way suggested 
 to him a .providential diversion. Nor was he deceived by 
 any gravity in the message. With his remembrance of 
 Susy's theatrical tendencies, he was quite prepared for 
 any capricious futile extravagance. 
 
CLARENCE 289 
 
 " You are sure We will not disturb her ? " he said po- 
 litely. 
 
 "No." 
 
 Clarence led the way to the carriage. If Mr. Hooker 
 expected him during the journey to try to divine the pur- 
 port of Susy's message he was disappointed. His compan- 
 ion did not allude to it. Possibly looking upon it as a 
 combined theatrical performance, Clarence preferred to 
 wait for Susy as the better actor. The carriage rolled 
 rapidly through the now deserted streets, and at last, under 
 the directions of Mr. Hooker, who was leaning half out of 
 the window, it drew up at a middle-ciass restaurant, above 
 whose Still lit and steaming windows were some ostenta- 
 tiously public apartments, accessible from a side entrance. 
 As they ascended the staircase together, it became evident 
 that Mr. Hooker was scarcely more at his ease in the char- 
 acter of host than he had been as guest. He stared gloom- 
 ily at a descending visitor, grunted audibly at a waiter in 
 the passage, and stopped before a door, where a recently 
 deposited tray displayed the half-eaten carcase of a fowl, 
 an empty champagne bottle, two half-filled glasses, and a 
 faded bouquet. The whole passage was redolent with a 
 singular blending of damp cooking, stale cigarette smoke, 
 and patchouli. 
 
 Putting the tray aside with his foot, Mr. Hooker opened 
 the door hesitatingly and peered into the room, muttered 
 a few indistinct words, which were followed by a rapid 
 rustling of skirts, and then, with his hand still on the 
 door-knob, turning to Clarence, who had discreetly halted 
 on the threshold, flung the door open theatrically and bade 
 him enter. 
 
 "She is somewhere in the suite," he added, with a 
 large wave of the hand towards a door that was still oscil- 
 lating. " Be here in a minute. " 
 
 Clarence took in the apartment with a quiet glance. Its 
 
290 CLAEENCE 
 
 furniture had the frayed and discolored splendors of a pub- 
 lic parlor which had been privately used and maltreated; 
 there were stains in the large medallioned carpet; the 
 gilded veneer had been chipped from a heavy centre table, 
 showing the rough, white deal beneath, which gave it the 
 appearance of a stage " property ; " the walls, paneled with 
 gilt-framed mirrors, reflected every domestic detail or pri- 
 vate relaxation with shameless publicity. A damp water- 
 proof, shawl, and open newspaper were lying across the 
 once brilliant sofa; a powder-puff, a plate of fruit, and a 
 play-book were on the centre table, and on the marble- 
 topped sideboard was Mr. Hooker's second-best hat, with 
 a soiled collar, evidently but lately exchanged for the one 
 he had on, peeping over its brim. The whole apartment 
 seemed to mingle the furtive disclosures of the dressing- 
 room with the open ostentations of the stage, with even 
 a slight suggestion of the auditorium in a few scattered 
 programmes on the floor and chairs. 
 
 The inner door opened again with a slight theatrical 
 start, and Susy, in an elaborate dressing-gown, moved 
 languidly into the room. She apparently had not had 
 time to change her underskirt, for there was the dust of 
 the stage on its delicate lace edging, as she threw herself 
 into an armchair and crossed her pretty slippered feet 
 before her. Her face was pale, its pallor incautiously 
 increased by powder; and as Clarence looked at its still 
 youthful, charming outline, he was not perhaps sorry that 
 the exquisite pink and white skin beneath, which he had 
 once kissed, was hidden from that awakened recollection. 
 Yet there was little trace of the girlish Susy in the pretty, 
 but prematurely jaded, actress before him, and he felt 
 momentarily relieved. It was her youth and freshness 
 appealing to his own youth and imagination that he had 
 loved — not her. Yet as she greeted him with a slight 
 exaggeration of glance, voice, and manner, he remembered 
 that even as a girl she was an actress. 
 
CLARENCE 291 
 
 Nothing of this, however, was in his voice and manner 
 as he gently thanked her for the opportunity of meeting 
 her again. And he was frank, for the diversion he had 
 expected he had found ; he even was conscious of thinking 
 more kindly of his wife who had supplanted her. 
 
 "I told Jim he must fetch you if he had to carry you," 
 she said, striking the palm of her hand with her fan, and 
 glancing at her hushand. "I reckon he guessed why, 
 though I didn't tell him — I don't tell Jim everything." 
 
 Here Jim rose, and looking at his watch, "guessed he 'd 
 run over to the Lick House and get some cigars. " If he 
 was acting upon some hint from his wife, his simulation 
 was so badly done that Clarence felt his first sense of un- 
 easiness. But as Hooker closed the door awkwardly and 
 unostentatiously behind him, Clarence smilingly said he 
 had waited to hear the message from her own lips. 
 
 "Jim only knows what he "s heard outside: the talk of 
 men, you know, — and he hears a good deal of that — 
 more, perhaps, than you do. It was that which put me 
 up to finding out the truth. And I did n't rest till I did. 
 I 'm not to be fooled, Clarence, — you don't mind my call- 
 ing you Clarence now we 're both married and done for, — 
 and I 'm not the kind to be fooled by anybody from the 
 Cow counties — and that's the Eobles Eanche. I 'm a 
 Southern woman myself from Missouri, but I 'm for the 
 Union first, last, and all the time, and I call myself a 
 match for any lazy, dawdling, lash-swinging slaveholder 
 and slaveholderess — whether they 're mixed blood, Heaven 
 only knows, or what — or their friends or relations, or the 
 dirty half-Spanish grandees and their mixed half-nigger 
 peons who truckle to them. You bet ! " 
 
 His blood had stirred quickly at the mention of the 
 Eobles Ranche, but the rest of Susy's speech was too much 
 in the vein of her old extravagance to touch him seriously. 
 He found himself only considering how strange it was that 
 
292 CLARENCE 
 
 the old petulance and impulsiveness of her girlhood were 
 actually bringing back with them her pink cheeks and bril- 
 liant eyes. 
 
 "You surely didn't ask Jim to bring me here," he said 
 omilingly, " to tell me that Mrs. Peyton " — he corrected 
 himselt hastily as a malicious sparkle came into Susy's blue 
 eyes — " that my wife was a Southern woman, and proba- 
 bly sympathized with her class? Well, I don't know that 
 I should blame her for that any more than she should 
 blame me for being a Northern man and a Unionist." 
 
 "And she does n't blame you? " asked Susy sneeringly. 
 
 The color came slightly to Clarence's cheek, but before 
 he could reply the actress added, — 
 
 " No, she prefers to use you ! " 
 
 "I don't think I understand you," said Clarence, rising 
 coldly. 
 
 "No, you don't understand her I " retorted Susy sharply. 
 "Look here, Clarence Brant, you're right; I didn't ask 
 you here to tell you — what you and everybody knows — 
 that your wife is a Southerner. I did n't ask you here to 
 tell you what everybody suspects- — that she turns you 
 round her little finger. But I did ask you here to tell you 
 what nobody, not even you, suspects — but what I know ! 
 — and that is that she 's a traitor — and more, a spy ! —■ 
 and that I 've only got to say the word, or send that man 
 Jim to say the word, to have her dragged out of her Cop- 
 perhead den at Bobles Banche and shut up in Fort Alcatraz 
 this very night ! " i 
 
 Still with the pink glowing in her rounding cheek, and 
 eyes snapping like splintered sapphires, she rose to her 
 feet, with her pretty shoulders lifted, her small hands and 
 white teeth both tightly clenched, and took a step towards 
 him. Even in her attitude there was a reminiscence of 
 her willful childhood, although still blended with the pro- 
 vincial actress whom he had seen on the stage only an 
 
CLARENCE 293 
 
 hour ago. Thoroughly alarmed at her threat, in his efforts 
 to conceal his feelings he was not above a weak retaliation 
 Stepping back, he affected to regard her with a critical 
 admiration that was only half simulated, and said with a 
 smile, — 
 
 "Very well done — but you have forgotten the flag." 
 
 She did not flinch. Rather accepting the sarcasm as 
 a tribute to her art, she went on with increasing exag- 
 geration: "No, it is you who have forgotten the flag — 
 forgotten your country, your people, your manhood — 
 everything for that high-toned, double-dyed old spy and 
 traitress ! For while you are standing here, your wife is 
 gathering under her roof at Robles a gang of spies and 
 traitors like herself — secession leaders and their bloated, 
 drunken ' chivalry ! ' Yes, you may smile your superior 
 smile, but I tell you, Clarence Brant, that with all your 
 smartness and book learning you know no more of what 
 goes on around you than a child. But others do ! This 
 conspiracy is known to the government, the Federal officers 
 have been warned; Greneral Sumner has been sent out here 
 — and his first act was to change the command at Fort 
 Alcatraz, and send your wife's Southern friend — Captain 
 Pinckney — to the right about ! Yes — everything is 
 known but one thing, and that is where and how this pre- 
 cious crew meet! That I alone know, and that I've told 
 you ! " 
 
 "And I suppose," said Clarence, with an unchanged 
 smile, "that this valuable information came from your 
 husband — my old friend, Jim Hooker 1 " 
 
 "No," she answered sharply, "it comes from Cencho — 
 one of your own peons — who is more true to you and the 
 old Rancho than you have ever been. He saw what was 
 going on, and came to me, to warn you ! " 
 
 " But why not to me directly ? " asked Clarence, with 
 affected incredulity. 
 
294 CLAKENCE 
 
 " Ask him ! " she said viciously. " Perhaps he did n't 
 want to warn the master against the mistress. Perhaps he 
 thought we are still friends. Perhaps " — she hesitated 
 with a lower voice and a forced smile — " perhaps he used 
 to see us together in the old times." 
 
 "Very likely," said Clarence quietly. "And for the 
 sake of those old times, Susy," he went on, with a singular 
 gentleness that was quite distinct from his paling face and 
 set eyes, "I am going to forget all that you have just said 
 of me and mine, in all the old willfulness and impatience 
 that I see you still keep — with all your old prettiness. " 
 He took his hat from the table and gravely held out his 
 hand. 
 
 She was frightened for a moment with his impassive 
 abstraction. In the old days she had known it — had 
 believed it was his dogged " obstinacy " — but she knew 
 the hopelessness of opposing it. Yet with feminine per- 
 sistency she again threw herself against it, as against a 
 wall. 
 
 " You don't believe me ! Well, go and see for your- 
 self. They are at Robles now. If you catch the early 
 morning stage at Santa Clara you will come upon them 
 before they disperse. Dare you try it 1 " 
 
 "Whatever I do," he returned smilingly, "I shall 
 always be grateful to you for giving me this opportunity 
 of seeing you again as you were. Make my excuses to 
 your husband. Good-night." 
 
 "Clarence!" 
 
 But he had already closed the door behind him. His 
 face did not relax its expression nor change as he looked 
 again at the tray with its broken viands before the door, 
 the worn, stained hall carpet, or the waiter who shuffled 
 past him. He was apparently as critically conscious of 
 them and of the close odors of the hall, and the atmosphere 
 of listless decay and faded extravagance around him, as 
 
CLARENCE 295 
 
 before the interview. But if the woman he had just 
 parted from had watched him she would have supposed he 
 still utterly disbelieved her story. Yet he was conscious 
 that all that he saw was a part of his degradation, for he 
 had believed every word she had uttered. Through all 
 her extravagance, envy, and revengefulness he saw the 
 central truth — that he had been deceived — not by his 
 wife, but by himself! He had suspected all this before. 
 This was what had been really troubling him — this was 
 what he had put aside, rather than his faith, not in her, 
 but in his ideal. He remembered letters that had passed 
 between her and Captain Pinckney — letters that she had 
 openly sent to notorious Southern leaders; her nervous 
 anxiety to remain at the Rancho; the innuendoes and 
 significant glances of friends which he had put aside — 
 as he had this woman's message! Susy had told him 
 nothing new of his wife — but the truth of himself! 
 And the revelation came from people who he was conscious 
 were the inferiors of himself and his wife. To an inde- 
 pendent, proud, and self-made man it was the culminating 
 stroke. 
 
 In the same abstracted voice he told the coachman to 
 diive home. The return seemed interminable — though 
 he never shifted his position. Yet when he drew up at 
 his own door and looked at his watch he found he had 
 been absent only half an hour. Only half an hour! As 
 he entered the house he turned with the same abstraction 
 towards a mirror in the hall, as if he expected to see some 
 outward and visible change in himself in that time. Dis- 
 missing his servants to bed, he went into his dressing- 
 room, completely changed his attire, put on a pair of long 
 riding-boots, and throwing a serape over his shoulders, 
 paused a moment, took a pair of small " Derringer " pistols 
 from a box, put them in his pockets, and then slipped 
 cautiously down the staircase. A lack of confidence in his 
 
296 CLAKENCE 
 
 own domestics had invaded him for the first time. The 
 lights were out. He silently opened the door and was in 
 the street. 
 
 He walked hastily a few squares to a livery stable whose 
 proprietor he knew. His first inquiry was for one "Eed- 
 skin," a particular horse; the second for its proprietor. 
 Happily both were in. The proprietor asked no question 
 of a customer of Clarence's condition. The horse, half 
 Spanish, powerful and irascible, was quickly saddled. As 
 Clarence mounted, the man in an impulse pf sociability 
 said, — 
 
 "Saw you at the theatre to-night, sir." 
 
 "Ah," returned Clarence, quietly gathering up the 
 reins. 
 
 '"Rather a smart trick of that woman with the flag," he 
 went on tentatively. Then, with a possible doubt of his 
 customer's politics, he added with a forced smile, "I 
 reckon it 's all party fuss, though; there ain't any real 
 danger. " 
 
 But fast as Clarence might ride the words lingered in 
 his ears. He saw through the man's hesitation; he, too, 
 had probably heard that Clarence Brant weakly sympa- 
 thized with his wife's sentiments, and dared not speak 
 fully. And he understood the cowardly suggestion that 
 there was "no real danger." It had been Clarence's one 
 fallacy. He had believed the public excitement was only 
 a temporary outbreak of partisan feeling, soon to subside. 
 Even now he was conscious that he was less doubtful of 
 the integrity of the Union than of his own household. It 
 was not the devotion of the patriot, but the indignation of 
 an outraged husband, that was spurring him on. 
 
 He knew that if he reached Woodville by five o'clock 
 he could get ferried across the bay at the Embarcadero, 
 and catch the down coach to Eair Plains, whence he could 
 ride to the Bancho. As the coach did not connect directly 
 
CLARENCE 297 
 
 with San Francisco, the chance of his surprising them was 
 greater. Once clear of the city outskirts, he bullied Red- 
 skin into irascible speed, and plunged into the rainy dark- 
 ness of the highroad. The way was familiar. For a 
 while he was content to feel the buffeting, caused by his 
 rapid pace, of wind and rain against his depressed head 
 and shoulders in a sheer brutal sense of opposition and 
 power, or to relieve his pent-up excitement by dashing 
 through overflowed gullies in the road ot across the quaggy, 
 sodden edges of meadowland, until he had controlled Red- 
 skin's rebellious extravagance into a long steady stride. 
 Then he raised his head and straightened himself on the 
 saddle, to think. But to no purpose. He had no plan; 
 everything would depend upon the situation; the thought 
 of forestalling any action of the conspirators, by warning 
 or calling in the aid of the authorities, for an instant 
 crossed his mind, but was as instantly dismissed. He had 
 but an instinct — to see with his own eyes what his reason 
 told him was true. Day was breaking through drifting 
 scud and pewter-colored clouds as he reached Woodville 
 ferry, checkered with splashes of the soil and the spume of 
 his horse, from whose neck and flanks the sweat rolled like 
 lather. Yet he was not conscious how intent had been his 
 purpose until he felt a sudden instinctive shock on seeing 
 that the ferryboat was gone. For an instant his wonderful 
 self-possession abandoned him ; he could only gaze vacantly 
 at the leaden-colored bay, without a thought or expedient. 
 But in another moment he saw that the boat was returning 
 from the distance. Had he lost his only chance? He 
 glanced hurriedly at his watch ; he had come more quickly 
 than he imagined; there would still be time. He beck- 
 oned impatiently to the ferryman; the boat — a ship's 
 pinnace, with two men in it — crept in with exasper- 
 ating slowness. At last the two rowers suddenly leaped 
 ashore. 
 
298 CLARENCE 
 
 "Ye might have come before, with the other passenger. 
 We don't reckon to run lightnin' trips on this ferry." 
 
 But Clarence was himself again. "Twenty dollars fox 
 two more oars in that boat," he said quietly, "and fifty if 
 you get me over in time to catch the down stage." 
 
 The man glanced at Clarence's eyes. "Run up and 
 rouse out Jake and Sam, " he said to the other boatman ; 
 then more leisurely, gazing at his customer's travel-stained 
 equipment, he said, "There must have been a heap o' 
 passengers got left by last night's boat. You 're the second 
 man that took this route in a hurry." 
 
 At any other time the coincidence might have struck 
 Clarence. But he only answered curtly, "Unless we are 
 under way in ten minutes you will find I am not the 
 second man, and that our bargain 's off." 
 
 But here two men emerged from the shanty beside the 
 ferryhouse, and tumbled sleepily into the boat. Clarence 
 seized an extra pair of sculls that were standing against 
 the shed, and threw them into the stern. "I don't mind 
 taking a hand myself for exercise," he said quietly. 
 
 The ferryman glanced again at Clarence's travel-worn 
 figure and determined eyes with mingled approval and 
 surprise. He lingered a moment with his oars lifted, look- 
 ing at his passenger. "It ain't no business o' mine, 
 young man," he said deliberately, "but I reckon you 
 understand me when I say that I 've just taken another 
 man over there." 
 
 "I do," said Clarence impatiently. 
 
 " And you still want to go 1 " 
 
 "Certainly," replied Clarence, with a cold stare, taking 
 up his oars. 
 
 The man shrugged his shoulders, bent himself for the 
 stroke, and the boat sprung forward. The others rowed 
 strongly and rapidly, the tough ashen blades springing like 
 steel from the water, the heavy boat seeming to leap in 
 
CLARENCE 299 
 
 successive bounds until they were fairly beyond the curving 
 inshore current and clearing the placid, misty surface of 
 the bay. Clarence did not speak, but bent abstractedly 
 over his oar; the ferryman and his crew rowed in equal 
 panting silence; a few startled ducks whirred before them, 
 but dropped again to rest. In half an hour they were at 
 the Embarcadero. The time was fairly up. Clarence's 
 eyes were eagerly bent for the first appearance of the stage- 
 coach around the little promontory ; the ferryman was as 
 eagerly scanning the bare, empty street of the still sleeping 
 settlement. 
 
 "I don't see him anywhere," said the ferryman with a 
 glance, half of astonishment and half of curiosity, at his 
 solitary passenger. 
 
 "See whom?" asked Clarence carelessly, as he handed 
 the man his promised fee. 
 
 "The other man I ferried over to catch the stage. He 
 must have gone on without waiting. You 're in luck, 
 young fellow ! " 
 
 "I don't understand you," said Clarence impatiently. 
 " What has your previous passenger to do with me ? " 
 
 " Well, I reckon you know best. He 's the kind of 
 man, gin'rally speaking, that other men, in a pow'ful 
 hurry, don't care to meet — and, as a rule, don't foller 
 arter. It's gin'rally the other way." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " inquired Clarence sternly. " Of 
 whom are you speaking ? " 
 
 " The Chief of Police of San Francisco ! " 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 The laugh that instinctively broke from Clarence's lipa 
 was so sincere and unaffected that the man was discon- 
 certed, and at last joined in it, a little shamefacedly. 
 The grotesque blunder of being taken as a fugitive from 
 justice relieved Clarence's mind from its acute tension, — ■ 
 he was momentarily diverted, — and it was not until the 
 boatman had departed, and he was again alone, that it 
 seemed to have any collateral significance. Then an uneasy 
 recollection of Susy's threat that she had the power to put 
 his wife in Port Alcatraz came across him. Could she 
 have already warned the municipal authorities and this 
 man? But he quickly remembered that any action from 
 such a warning could only have been taken by the United 
 States Marshal, and not by a civic official, and dismissed 
 the idea. 
 
 Nevertheless, when the stage with its half-spent lamps 
 still burning dimly against the morning light swept round 
 the curve and rolled heavily up to the rude shanty which 
 served as coach-office, he became watchful. A single 
 yawning individual in its doorway received a few letters 
 and parcels, but Clarence was evidently the only waiting 
 passenger. Any hope that he might have entertained that 
 his mysterious predecessor would emerge from some seclu- 
 sion at that moment was disappointed. As he entered the 
 coach he made a rapid survey of his fellow-travelers, but 
 satisfied himself that the stranger was not among them. 
 They were mainly small traders or farmers, a miner or two, 
 and apparently a Spanish- American of better degree and 
 
CLARENCE 301 
 
 personality. Possibly the circumstance that men of this 
 class usually preferred to travel on horseback and were 
 rarely seen in public conveyances attracted his attention, 
 and their eyes met more than once in mutual curiosity. 
 Presently Clarence addressed a remark to the stranger in 
 Spanish; he replied fluently and courteously, but at the 
 next stopping-place he asked a question of the expressman 
 in an unmistakable Missouri accent. Clarence's curiosity 
 was satisfied; he was evidently one of those early Ameri- 
 can settlers who had been so long domiciled in Southern 
 California as to adopt the speech as well as the habiliments 
 of the Spaniard. 
 
 The conversation fell upon the political news of the pre- 
 vious night, or rather seemed to be lazily continued from 
 some previous, more excited discussion, in which one of 
 the contestants — a red-bearded miner — had subsided into 
 an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence 
 that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, 
 judging from a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous insti- 
 gator of the controversy. He was not surprised, therefore, 
 when the man turned to him with a certain courtesy and 
 said, — 
 
 "And what, sir, is the political feeling in your dis- 
 trict?" 
 
 But Clarence was in no mood to be drawn out, and 
 replied, ■ almost curtly, that as he had come only from San 
 Francisco, they were probably as well informed on that 
 subject as himself. A quick and searching glance from 
 the .stranger's eye made him regret his answer, but in the 
 silence that ensued the red-bearded miner, evidently still 
 rankling at heart, saw his opportunity. Slapping his huge 
 hands on his knees, and leaning far forward until he 
 seemed to plunge his flaming beard, like a firebrand, into 
 the controversy, he said grimly, — 
 
 "Well, I kin tell you, gen'l'men, this. It ain't goin' 
 
802 CLAKENCE 
 
 to be no matter wot 's the political feeling here or thar — 
 it ain't goin' to be no matter wot 's the State's rights and 
 wot 's Fed'ral rights — it ain't goin' to be no question 
 whether the gov'ment 's got the right to relieve its own 
 soldiers that those Secesh is besieging in Fort Sumter or 
 whether they have n't — but the first gun that's fired at 
 the flag blows the chains off every d — n nigger south of 
 Mason and Dixon's line ! You hear me ! I 'm shoutin' ! 
 And whether you call yourselves ' Secesh ' or ' Union ' or 
 ' Copperhead ' or ' Peace men, ' you 've got to face it! " 
 
 There was an angry start in one or two of the seats; one 
 man caught at the swinging side-strap and half rose, a 
 husky voice began, "It's a d^d " — and then all as sud- 
 denly subsided. Every eye was turned to an insignificant 
 figure in the back seat. It was a woman, holding a child 
 on her lap, and gazing out of the window -with her sex's 
 profound unconcern in politics. Clarence understood the 
 rude chivalry of the road well enough to comprehend that 
 this unconscious but omnipotent figure had more than once 
 that day controlled the passions of the disputants. They 
 dropped back wearily to their seats, and their mutterings 
 rolled off in the rattle of the wheels. Clarence glanced at 
 the Missourian; he was regarding the red- bearded miner 
 with a singular curiosity. 
 
 The rain had ceased, but the afternoon shadows were 
 deepening when they at last reached Fair Plains, where 
 Clarence expected to take horse to the Eancho. He was 
 astonished, however, to learn that all the horses in the 
 stable were engaged, but remembering that some of. his 
 own stock were in pasturage with a tenant at Fair Plains, 
 and that he should probably have a better selection, he 
 turned his steps thither. Passing out of the stable-yard 
 he recognized the Missourian 's voice in whispered conver- 
 sation with the proprietor, but the two men withdrew into 
 the shadow as he approached. An ill-defined uneasiness 
 
CLARENCE 303 
 
 came over him; he knew the proprietor, who also seemed 
 to know the Missourian, and this evident avoidance of him 
 was significant. Perhaps his reputation as a doubtful 
 Unionist had preceded him, but this would not account 
 for their conduct in a district so strongly Southern in sym- 
 pathy as Fair Plains. More impressed by the occurrence 
 than he cared to admit, when at last, after some delay, he 
 had secured his horse, and was once more in the saddle, 
 he kept a sharp lookout for his quondam companion. But 
 here another circumstance added to his suspicions; there 
 was a main road leading to Santa Inez, the next town, and 
 the Kancho, and this Clarence had purposely taken in 
 order to watch the Missourian ; but there was also a cut-off 
 directly to the Kancho, known only to the habitues of the 
 Kancho. After a few moments' rapid riding on a mus- 
 tang much superior to any in the hotel stables, he was 
 satisfied that the stranger must have taken the cut-off. 
 Putting spurs to his horse he trusted still to precede him 
 to the "Rancho — if that were his destination. 
 
 As he dashed along the familiar road, by a strange per- 
 versity of fancy, instead of thinking of his purpose, he 
 found himself recalling the first time he had ridden that 
 way in the flush of his youth and hopefulness. The girl- 
 sweetheart he was then going to rejoin was now the wife 
 of another; the woman who had been her guardian was 
 now his own wife. He had accepted without a pang the 
 young girl's dereliction, but it was through her revelation 
 that he was now about to confront the dereliction of his 
 own wife. And this was the reward of his youthful trust 
 and loyalty ! A bitter laugh broke from his lips. It was 
 part of his still youthful self-delusion that he believed 
 himself wiser and stronger for it. 
 
 It was quite dark when he reached the upper field or 
 first terrace of the Eancho. He could see the white walls 
 of the casa rising dimly out of the green sea of early wild 
 
804 CLAEENCE 
 
 grasses, like a phantom island. It was here that the cut- 
 off joined the main road — now the only one that led to 
 the casa. He was satisfied that no one could have pre- 
 ceded him from Fair Plains; but it was true that he must 
 take precautions against his own discovery. Dismounting 
 near a clump of willows, he unsaddled and unbridled his 
 horse, and with a cut of the riata over its haunches sent 
 it flying across the field in the direction of a band of feed- 
 ing mustangs, Which it presently joined. Then, keeping 
 well in the shadow of a belt of shrub-oaks, he skirted the 
 long lesser terraces of the casa, intending to approach the 
 house by way of the old garden and corral. A drizzling 
 rain, occasionally driven by the wind into long, misty, 
 Curtain-like waves, obscured the prospect and favored his 
 design. He reached the low adobe wall of the corral in 
 safety ; looking over he could detect, in spite of the dark- 
 ness, that a number of the horses were of alien brands, 
 and even recognized one or two from the Santa Inez dis- 
 trict. The vague outline of buggies and carryalls filled the 
 long shed beside the stables. There was company at the 
 easa — so far Susy was right ! 
 
 Nevertheless, lingering still by the wall of the old gar- 
 den for the deepening of night, his nervous feverishness 
 was again invaded and benumbed by sullen memories. 
 There was the opening left by the old grille in the wall, 
 behind which Mrs. Peyton stood on the morning when he 
 thought he was leaving the ranch forever; where he had 
 first clasped her in his arms, and stayed. A turn of the 
 head, a moment's indecision, a single glance of a languorous 
 eye, had brought this culmination. And now he stood 
 again before that ruined grille, his house and lands, even 
 his name, misused by a mad, scheming enthusiast, and 
 himself a creeping spy of his own dishonor! He turned 
 with a bitter smile again to the garden. A few dark red 
 Castilian roses still leaned forward and swayed in the wind 
 
CLARENCE 305 
 
 ■with dripping leaves. It was here that the first morning 
 of his arrival he had kissed Susy ; the perfume and color 
 of her pink skin came back to him with a sudden shock as 
 he stood there; he caught at a flower, drew it towards 
 him, inhaled its odor in a long breath that left him faint 
 and leaning against the wall. Then again he smiled, but 
 this time more wickedly — in what he believed his cyni- 
 cism had sprung up the first instinct of revenge ! 
 
 It was now dark enough for him to venture across the 
 carriage road and make his way to the rear of the house. 
 His first characteristic instinct had been to enter openly at 
 his own front gate, but the terrible temptation to over- 
 hear and watch the conspiracy unobserved — that fascina- 
 tion common to deceived humanity to witness its own 
 shame — had now grown upon him. He knew that a 
 word or gesture of explanation, apology, appeal, or even 
 terror from his wife would check his rage and weaken his 
 purpose. His perfect knowledge of the house and the 
 security of its inmates would enable him from some ob- 
 scure landing or gallery to participate in any secret con- 
 clave they might hold in the patio — the only place suit- 
 able for so numerous a rendezvous. The absence of light 
 in the few external windows pointed to this central gath- 
 ering. And he had already conceived his plan of entrance. 
 
 Gaining the rear wall of the casa he began cautiously to 
 skirt its brambly base until he had reached a long, oven- 
 like window half obliterated by a monstrous passion vine. 
 It was the window of what had once been Mrs. Peyton's 
 boudoir; the window by which he had once forced an en- 
 trance to the house when it was in the hands of squatters, 
 the window from which Susy had signaled her Spanish 
 lover, the window whose grating had broken the neck of 
 Judge Peyton's presumed assassin. But these recollections 
 no longer delayed him ; the moment for action had arrived. 
 He knew that since the tragedy the boudoir had heen di* 
 
'306 CLARENCE 
 
 mantled and shunned; the servants believed it to he 
 haunted by the assassin's ghost. With the aid of the pas- 
 sion vine the ingress was easy ; the interior window was 
 open; the rustle of dead leaves on the bare floor as he 
 entered, and the whir of a frightened bird by his ear, told 
 the story of its desolation and the source of the strange 
 noises that had been heard there. The door leading to 
 the corridor was lightly bolted, merely to keep it from 
 rattling in the wind. Slipping the bolt with the blade of 
 his pocket-knife he peered into the dark passage. The 
 light streaming under a door to the left, and the sound of 
 voices, convinced him that his conjecture was right, and 
 the meeting was gathered on the broad balconies around 
 the patio. He knew that a narrow gallery, faced with 
 Venetian blinds to exclude the sun, looked down upon 
 them. He managed to gain it without discovery; luckily 
 the blinds were still down; between their slats, himself 
 invisible, he could hear and see everything that occurred. 
 
 Yet even at this supreme moment the first thing that 
 struck him was the almost ludicrous contrast between the 
 appearance of the meeting and its tremendous object. 
 Whether he was influenced by any previous boyish concep- 
 tion of a clouded and gloomy conspiracy he did not know, 
 but he was for an instant almost disconcerted by the appar- 
 ent levity and festivity of the conclave. Decanters and 
 glasses stood on small tables before them; nearly all were 
 drinking and smoking. They comprised fifteen or twenty 
 men, some of whose faces were familiar to him elsewhere 
 as Southern politicians; a few, he was shocked to see, 
 were well-known Northern Democrats. Occupying a char- 
 acteristically central position was the famous Colonel Star- 
 bottle, of Virginia. Jaunty and youthful-looking in his 
 mask-like, beardless face, expansive and dignified in his 
 middle-aged port and carriage, he alone retained some of 
 the importance — albeit slightly theatrical and affected — 
 
CLARENCE 307 
 
 of the occasion. Clarence in his first hurried glance had 
 not observed his wife, and for a moment had felt relieved ; 
 hut as Colonel Starhottle arose at that moment, and with 
 a studiously chivalrous and courtly manner turned to his 
 right, he saw that she was sitting at the further end of the 
 balcony, and that a man whom he recognized as Captain 
 Pinckney was standing beside her. The blood quickly 
 tightened around his heart, but left him cold and obser- 
 vant. 
 
 "It was seldom, indeed," remarked Colonel Starbottle, 
 placing his fat fingers in the frill of his shirt front, " that 
 a movement like this was graced with the actual presence 
 of a lofty, inspiring, yet delicate spirit — a Boadicea — 
 indeed, he might say a Joan of Arc — in the person of 
 their charming hostess, Mrs. Brant. Not only were they 
 favored by her social and hospitable ministration, but by 
 her active and enthusiastic cooperation in the glorious work 
 they had in hand. It was through her correspondence 
 and earnest advocacy that they were to be favored to-night 
 with the aid and counsel of one of the most distinguished 
 and powerful men in the Southern district of California, 
 Judge Beeswinger, of Los Angeles. He had not the honor 
 of that gentleman's personal acquaintance; he believed he 
 was not far wrong in saying that this was also the misfor- 
 tune of every gentleman present; but the name itself was 
 a tower of strength. He would go further, and say that 
 Mrs. Brant herself was personally unacquainted with him, 
 but it was through the fervor, poetry, grace, and genius of 
 her correspondence with that gentleman that they were to 
 have the honor of his presence that very evening. It was 
 understood that advices had been received of his departure, 
 and that he might be expected at Bobles at any moment." 
 
 "But what proof have we of Judge Beeswinger's sound- 
 ness 1 " said a lazy Southern voice at the conclusion of 
 Colonel Starbottle's periods. "Nobody here seems to 
 
308 CLARENCE 
 
 know him by sight: is it not risky to admit a man to out 
 meeting whom we are unable to identify 1 " 
 
 "I reckon nobody but a fool or some prying mudsill of 
 a Yankee would trust his skin here," returned another; 
 "and if he did we 'd know what to do with him." 
 
 But Clarence's attention was riveted on his wife, and 
 the significant speech passed him as unheeded as had the 
 colonel's rhetoric. She was looking very handsome and 
 slightly flushed, with a proud light in her eyes that he had 
 never seen before. Absorbed in the discussion, she seemed 
 to be paying little attention to Captain Pinckney as she 
 rose suddenly to her feet. 
 
 " Judge Beeswinger will be attended here by Mr. Mac- 
 Niel, of the Fair Plains Hotel, who will vouch for him 
 and introduce him," she said in a clear voice, which rang 
 with an imperiousness that Clarence well remembered. 
 "The judge was to arrive by the coach from Martinez to 
 Fair Plains, and is due now." 
 
 "Is there no gentleman to introduce him? Must we 
 take him on the word of a common trader — by Jove ! a 
 whiskey -seller 1 " continued the previous voice sneeringly. 
 
 "On the word of a lady, Mr. Brooks," said Captain 
 Pinckney, with a slight gesture towards Mrs. Brant — 
 "who answers for both." 
 
 Clarence had started slightly at his wife's voice and the 
 information it conveyed. His fellow-passenger, and the 
 confidant of MacNiel, was the man they were expecting! 
 If they had recognized him, Clarence, would they not warn 
 the company of his proximity 1 He held his breath as the 
 sound of voices came from the outer gate of the courtyard. 
 Mrs. Brant rose; at the same moment the gate swung 
 epen, and a man entered. It was the Missourian. 
 
 He turned with old-fashioned courtesy to the single 
 woman standing on the balcony. 
 
 " My fair correspondent, I believe ! I am Judge Bee- 
 
CLARENCE 309 
 
 swinger. Your agent, MacNiel, passed me through your 
 guards at the gate, hut I did not deem it advisable to 
 bring him into this assembly of gentlemen without your 
 further consideration. I trust I was right." 
 
 The quiet dignity and self-possession, the quaint, old- 
 fashioned colonial precision of speech, modified by a soft 
 Virginian intonation, and, above all, some singular individ- 
 uality of the man himself, produced a profound sensation, 
 and seemed to suddenly give the gathering an impressive- 
 ness it had lacked before. For an instant Clarence forgot 
 himself and his personal wrongs in the shock of indigna- 
 tion he felt at this potent addition to the ranks of his ene- 
 mies. He saw his wife's eyes sparkle with pride over her 
 acquisition, arid noticed that Pinckney cast a disturbed 
 glance at the newcomer. 
 
 The stranger ascended the few steps to the balcony and 
 took Mrs. Brant's hand with profound courtesy. "Intro- 
 duce me to my colleagues — distinctly and separately. It 
 behooves a man at such a moment to know to whom he 
 intrusts his life and honor, and the life and honor of his 
 cause. " 
 
 It was evidently no mere formal courtesy to the stranger. 
 As he stepped forward along the balcony, and under Mrs. 
 Brant's graceful guidance was introduced to each of the 
 members, he not only listened with scrupulous care and 
 attention to the name and profession of each man, but bent 
 upon him a clear, searching glance that seemed to photo- 
 graph him in his memory. With two exceptions. He 
 passed Colonel Starbottle's expanding shirt frill with a 
 bow of elaborate precision, and said, "Colonel Starbottle's 
 fame requires neither introduction nor explanation." Be- 
 fore Captain Pinckney he paused. 
 
 " An officer of the United States army, I believe, sir 1 " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Educated at West Point, I think, by the government 
 to whom you have taken the oath of allegiance ? " 
 
310 CLARENCE 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Very good, sir," said the stranger, turning away. 
 
 " You have forgotten one other fact, sir, " said Pinckney, 
 with a slightly supercilious air. 
 
 "Indeed! What is it?" 
 
 "I am, first of all, a native of the State of South Caro- 
 lina!" 
 
 A murmur of applause and approval ran round the bal- 
 cony. Captain Pinckney smiled and exchanged glances 
 with Mrs. Brant, but the stranger quietly returned to the 
 central table beside Colonel Starbottle. "I am not only 
 an unexpected delegate to this august assembly, gentle- 
 men," he began gravely, "but I am the bearer of perhaps 
 equally unexpected news. By my position in the Southern 
 district I am in possession of dispatches received only this 
 morning by pony express. Fort Sumter has been besieged. 
 The United States flag, carrying relief to the beleaguered 
 garrison, has been fired upon by the State of South Caro- 
 lina." 
 
 A burst of almost hysteric applause and enthusiasm 
 broke from the assembly, and made the dim, vault-like 
 passages and corridors of the casa ring. Cheer after cheer 
 went up to the veiled gallery and the misty sky beyond. 
 Men mounted on the tables and waved their hands franti- 
 cally, and in the midst of this bewildering turbulence of 
 sound and motion Clarence saw his wife mounted on a 
 chair, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes, waving her 
 handkerchief like an inspired priestess. Only the stranger, 
 still standing beside Colonel Starbottle, remained unmoved 
 and impassive. Then, with an imperative gesture, he 
 demanded a sudden silence. 
 
 "Convincing and unanimous as this demonstration is, 
 gentlemen," he began quietly, "it is my duty, neverthe- 
 less, to ask you if you have seriously considered the mean- 
 ing of the news I have brought. It is my duty to tell you 
 
CLARENCE 311 
 
 that it means civil war. It means the clash of arms be« 
 tween two sections of a mighty country ; it means the dis- 
 ruption of friends, the breaking of family ties, the separa- 
 tion of fathers and sons, of brothers and sisters — even, 
 perhaps, to the disseverment of husband and wife ! " 
 
 "It means the sovereignty of the South — and the 
 breaking of a covenant with low-born traders and abolition- 
 ists," said Captain Pinckney. 
 
 "If there are any gentlemen present," continued the 
 stranger, without heeding the interruption, "who have 
 pledged this State to the support of the South in this 
 emergency, or to the establishment of a Pacific republic in 
 aid and sympathy with it, whose names are on this paper " 
 . — he lifted a sheet of paper lying before Colonel Starbottle 
 — " but who now feel that the gravity of the news de- 
 mands a more serious consideration of the purpose, they 
 are at liberty to withdraw from the meeting, giving their 
 honor, as Southern gentlemen, to keep the secret intact." 
 
 "Not if I know it," interrupted a stalwart Kentuckian r 
 as he rose to his feet and strode down the steps to the 
 patio. "For," he added, placing his back against the 
 gateway, "I '11 shoot the first coward that backs out now." 
 
 A roar of laughter and approval followed, but was 
 silenced again by the quiet, unimpassioned voice of the 
 stranger. "If, on the other hand," he went on calmly, 
 "you all feel that this news is the fitting culmination and 
 consecration of the hopes, wishes, and plans of this meet- 
 ing, you will assert it again, over your own signatures, to 
 Colonel Starbottle at this table." 
 
 When the Kentuckian had risen, Clarence had started 
 from his concealment; when he now saw the eager figures 
 pressing forward to the table he hesitated no longer. Slip- 
 ping along the passage, he reached the staircase which led 
 to the corridor in the rear of the balcony. Descending 
 this rapidly, he not only came upon the backs of the 
 
312 CLARENCE 
 
 excited crowd around the table, but even elbowed one of 
 the conspirators aside without being noticed. His wife, 
 who had risen from her chair at the end of the balcony, 
 was already moving towards the table. With a quick 
 movement he seized her wrist, and threw her back in the 
 chair again. A cry broke from her lips as she recognized 
 him, but, still holding her wrist, he stepped quickly be- 
 tween her and the astonished crowd. There was a moment 
 of silence, then the cry of " Spy ! " and " Seize him ! " rose 
 quickly, but above all the voice of the Missourian was 
 heard commanding them to stand back. Turning to Clar- 
 ence, he said quietly, "— 
 
 "I should know your face, sir. Who are you? " 
 
 "The husband of this woman and the master of this 
 house, " said Clarence as quietly, but in a voice he hardly 
 recognized as his own. 
 
 " Stand aside from her, then — unless you are hoping 
 that her danger *nay protect you ! " said the Kentuckian, 
 significantly drawing his revolver. 
 
 But Mrs. Brant sprang suddenly to her feet beside Clar- 
 ence. 
 
 "We are neither of us cowards, Mr. Brooks — though 
 he speaks the truth — and — more shame to me " — she 
 added, with a look of savage scorn at Clarence — " is my 
 husband ! " 
 
 " What is your purpose in coming here 1 " continued 
 Judge Beeswinget, With his eyes fixed on Clarence. 
 
 "I have given you all the information," said Clarence 
 quietly, "that is necessary to make you, as a gentleman, 
 leave this house at once — and that is my purpose. It is 
 all the information you will get from me as long as you and 
 your friends insult my roof With your uninvited presence. 
 What I may have to say to you and each of you hereaftet 
 — what I may choose to demand of you, according to your 
 own code of honor, " — he fixed his eyes on Captain Pinck* 
 
CLARENCE 313 
 
 ney's — "is another question, and one not usually dis- 
 cussed before a lady." 
 
 " Pardon me. A moment — a single moment. " 
 
 It was the voice of Colonel Starbottle; it was the frilled 
 shirt front, the lightly buttoned blue coat with its expand- 
 ing lapels, like bursting petals, and the smiling mask of 
 that gentleman rising above the table and bowing to Clar- 
 ence Brant and his wife with infinite courtesy. "The — 
 er — humiliating situation in which we find ourselves, gen- 
 tlemen, — the reluctant witnesses of — er — what we trust 
 is only a temporary disagreement between our charming 
 hostess and the — er — gentleman whom she recognized 
 under the highest title to our consideration, — is distress- 
 ing to us all, and would seem to amply justify that gentle- 
 man's claims to a personal satisfaction, which I know we 
 would all delight to give. But that situation rests upon 
 the supposition that our gathering here was of a purely 
 social or festive nature ! It may be, " continued the colo- 
 nel with a blandly reflective air, "that the spectacle of 
 these decanters and glasses, and the nectar furnished us 
 by our Hebe-like hostess " (he lifted a glass of whiskey 
 and water to his lips while he bowed to Mrs. Brant grace- 
 fully), "has led the gentleman to such a deduction. But 
 when I suggest to him that our meeting was of a business, 
 or private nature, it strikes me that the question of intru- 
 sion may be fairly divided between him and ourselves. 
 We may be even justified, in view of that privacy, in 
 asking him if his — er — entrance to this house was — er 
 — coincident with his appearance among us. " 
 
 "With my front door in possession of strangers," said 
 Clarence, more in reply to a sudden contemptuous glance 
 from his wife than Starbottle's insinuation, "I entered the 
 house through the window." 
 
 "Of my boudoir, where another intruder once broke his 
 neck," interrupted his wife with a mocking laugh. 
 
314 CLARENCE 
 
 " Where I once helped this lady to regain possession of 
 her house when it was held by another party of illegal 
 trespassers, who, however, were content to call themselves 
 'jumpers,' and did not claim the privacy of gentlemen." 
 
 "Do you mean to imply, sir," began Colonel Starbottle 
 haughtily, "that" — 
 
 "I mean to imply, sir," said Clarence with quiet scorn, 
 "that I have neither the wish to know nor the slightest 
 concern in any purpose that brought you here, and that 
 when you quit the house you take your secrets and your 
 privacy with you intact without let or hindrance from 
 me." 
 
 "Do you mean to say, Mr. Brant," said Judge Bee- 
 swinger, suppressing the angry interruption of his fellows 
 with a dominant wave of his hand, as he fixed his eyes on 
 Clarence keenly, "that you have no sympathy with your 
 wife's political sentiments? " 
 
 "I have already given you the information necessary to 
 make you quit this house, and that is all you have a right 
 to know," returned Clarence with folded arms. 
 
 "But I can answer for him," said Mrs. Brant, rising, 
 with a quivering voice and curling lip. "There is no 
 sympathy between us. We are as far apart as the poles. 
 We have nothing in common but this house and his 
 name. " 
 
 "But you are husband and wife, bound together by a 
 sacred compact." 
 
 " A compact ! " echoed Mrs. Brant, with a bitter laugh. 
 " Yes, the compact that binds South Carolina to the nigger- 
 worshiping Massachusetts. The compact that links to- 
 gether white and black, the gentleman and the trader, the 
 planter and the poor white — the compact of those United 
 States. Bah ! that has been broken, and so can this. " 
 
 Clarence's face paled. But before he could speak there 
 was a rapid clattering at the gate and a dismounted 
 
CLAEENOE 315 
 
 vaquero entered excitedly. Turning to Mrs. Brant he said 
 hurriedly, "Mother of God! the casa is surrounded by a 
 rabble of mounted men, and there is one among them even 
 now who demands admittance in the name of the Law." 
 
 "This is your work," said Brooks, facing Clarence furi- 
 ously. " You have brought them with you, but, by God, 
 they shall not save you ! " He would have clutched Clar- 
 ence, but the powerful arm of Judge Beeswinger inter- 
 vened. Nevertheless, he still struggled to reach Clarence, 
 appealing to the others: "Are you fools to stand there and 
 let him triumph! Don't you see the cowardly Yankee 
 trick he 's played upon us? " 
 
 "He has not," said Mrs. Brant haughtily. "I have 
 no reason to love him or his friends; but I know he does 
 aot lie." 
 
 " Gentlemen ! — gentlemen ! " implored Colonel Starbot- 
 tle with beaming and unctuous persuasion, " may I — er — . 
 remark — that all this is far from the question 1 Are we 
 to be alarmed because an unknown rabble, no matter 
 whence they come, demand entrance here in the name of 
 the Law 1 I am not aware of any law of the State of 
 California that we are infringing. By all means admit 
 them." 
 
 The gate was thrown open. A single thick-set man, 
 apparently unarmed and dressed like an ordinary traveler, 
 followed by half a dozen other equally unpretentious-look- 
 ing men, entered. The leader turned to the balcony. 
 
 "I am the Chief of Police of San Francisco. I have 
 warrants for the arrest of Colonel Culpepper Starbottle, 
 Joshua Brooks, Captain Pinckney, Clarence Brant and 
 Alice his wife, and others charged with inciting to riot 
 and unlawful practice calculated to disturb the peace of the 
 State of California and its relations with the Federal gov- 
 ernment," said the leader, in a dry official voice. 
 
 Clarence started. In spite of its monotonous utterance 
 
316 CLARENCE 
 
 it was the voice of the red-bearded controversialist of the 
 stagecoach. But where were his characteristic beard and 
 hair? Involuntarily Clarence glanced at Judge Beeswinger; 
 that gentleman was quietly regarding the stranger with an 
 impassive face that betrayed no recognition whatever. 
 
 "But the city of San Francisco has no jurisdiction here," 
 said Colonel Starbottle, turning a bland smile towards his 
 fellow- members. "I am — er — sorry to inform you that 
 you are simply trespassing, sir." 
 
 " I am here also as deputy sheriff, " returned the stranger 
 coolly. " We were unable to locate the precise place of 
 this meeting, although we knew of its existence. I was 
 sworn in this morning at Santa Inez by the judge of this 
 district, and these gentlemen with me are my posse." 
 
 There was a quick movement of resistance by the mem- 
 bers, which was, however, again waved blandly aside by 
 Colonel Starbottle. Leaning forward in a slightly forensic 
 attitude, with his fingers on the table and a shirt frill that 
 seemed to have become of itself erectile, he said, with 
 pained but polite precision, "I grieve to have to state, sir,, 
 that even that position is utterly untenable here. I am 
 a lawyer myself, as my friend here, Judge Beeswinger — . 
 eh 1 I beg your pardon ! " 
 
 The officer of the law had momentarily started, with his 
 eyes fixed on Judge Beeswinger, who, however, seemed to 
 be quietly writing at the table. 
 
 "As Judge Beeswinger," continued Colonel Starbottle, 
 "will probably tell you; and as a jurist himself, he will 
 also probably agree with me when I also inform you that, 
 as the United States government is an aggrieved party, it 
 is a matter for the Federal courts to prosecute, and that 
 the only officer we can recognize is the United States Mar- 
 shal for the district. When I add that the marshal, Colo- 
 nel Crackenthorpe, is one of my oldest friends, and an 
 active sympathizer with the South in the present struggle, 
 
CLARENCE 317 
 
 you will understand that any action from him in this mat- 
 ter is exceedingly improbable." 
 
 The general murmur of laughter, relief, and approval 
 ■was broken by the quiet voice of Judge Beeswinger. 
 
 "Let me see your warrant, Mr. Deputy Sheriff." 
 
 The officer approached him with a slightly perplexed 
 and constrained air, and exhibited the paper. Judge 
 Beeswinger handed it back to him. "Colonel Starbottle 
 is quite right in his contention," he said quietly; "the 
 only officer that this assembly can recognize is the United 
 States Marshal or his legal deputy. But Colonel Starbot- 
 tle is wrong in his supposition that Colonel Crackenthorpe 
 still retains the functions of that office. He was removed 
 by the President of the United States, and his successor 
 was appointed and sworn in by the Federal judge early this 
 morning." He paused, and folding up the paper on which 
 he had been writing, placed it in the hands of the deputy. 
 "And this," he continued in the same even voice, "con- 
 stitutes you his deputy, and will enable you to carry out 
 your duty in coming here." 
 
 " What the devil does this mean, sir 1 Who are you 1 " 
 gasped Colonel Starbottle, recoiling suddenly from the man 
 at his side. 
 
 " I am the new United States Marshal for the Southern 
 District of California." 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 
 Unsuspected and astounding as the reyelation was to 
 Clarence, its strange receptipn by the conspirators seemed 
 to him as astounding. He had started forward, half ex- 
 pecting that the complacent and self-confessed spy would 
 be immolated by his infuriated dupes. But to his surprise 
 the shock seemed to have changed their natures, and given 
 them the dignity they had lacked. The excitability, irri- 
 tation, and recklessness which had previously characterized 
 them had disappeared. The deputy and his posse, who 
 had advanced to the assistance of their revealed chief, met 
 with no resistance. They had evidently, as if with one 
 accord^ drawn away from Judge Beeswinger, leaving a 
 cleared space around him, and regarded their captors with 
 sullen contemptuous silence. It was only brpken by Colo- 
 nel Starbottie: — 
 
 "Your duty commands you, sir, to use all possible dili- 
 gence in bringing us before the Federal judge of this dis- 
 trict — unless your master in Washington has violated the 
 Constitution so far as to remove him, too ! " 
 
 "I understand you perfectly," returned Judge Bee- 
 swinger, with unchanged composure; "and as you know 
 that Judge "Wilson unfortunately cannot be removed ex- 
 cept through a regular course of impeachment, I suppose 
 you may still count upon his Southern sympathies to be- 
 friend you. With that I have nothing to do ; my duty is 
 complete when my deputy has brought you before him and 
 I have stated the circumstances of the arrest." 
 
 "I congratulate you, sir," said Captain Pinckney, with 
 
CLARENCE 319 
 
 an ironical salute, " on your prompt reward for your treach- 
 ery to the South, and your equally prompt adoption of the 
 peculiar tactics of your friends in the way in which you 
 have entered this house." 
 
 "I am sorry I cannot congratulate you, sir," returned 
 Judge Beeswinger gravely, " on breaking your oath to the 
 government which has educated and supported you and 
 given you the epaulettes you disgrace. Nor shall I discuss 
 ' treachery ' with the man who has not only violated the 
 trust of his country, but even the integrity of his friend's 
 household. It is for that reason that I withhold the action 
 of this warrant in so far as it affects the persons of the 
 master and mistress of this home. I am satisfied that Mr. 
 Brant has been as ignorant of what has been done here as 
 I am that his wife has been only the foolish dupe of a 
 double traitor ! " 
 
 "Silence!" 
 
 The words broke simultaneously from the lips of Clar- 
 ence and Captain Pinckney. They stood staring at each 
 other — the one pale, the other crimson — as Mrs. Brant, 
 apparently oblivious of the significance of their united 
 adjuration, turned to Judge Beeswinger in the fury of her 
 still stifled rage and mortification. 
 
 "Keep your mercy for your fellow-spy," she said, with 
 a contemptuous gesture towards her husband; "I go with 
 these gentlemen ! " 
 
 "You will not," said Clarence quietly, "until I have 
 said a word to you alone." He laid his hand firmly upon 
 her wrist. 
 
 The deputy and his prisoners filed slowly out of the 
 courtyard together, the latter courteously saluting Mrs. 
 Brant as they passed, but turning from Judge Beeswinger in 
 contemptuous silence. The judge followed them to the gate, 
 but there he paused. Turning to Mrs. Brant, who was still 
 half struggling in the strong grip of her husband, he said, — 
 
320 CLARENCE 
 
 "Any compunction I may have had in misleading you 
 by accepting your invitation here I dismissed after I had 
 entered this house. And I trust," he added, turning to 
 Clarence sternly, " I leave you the master of it ! " 
 
 As the gate closed behind him, Clarence locked it. 
 When his wife turned upon him angrily, he said quietly, — 
 
 "I have no intention of restraining your liberty a 
 moment after our interview is over, but until then I do 
 not intend to be disturbed." 
 
 She threw herself disdainfully back in her chair, her 
 hands clasped in her lap in half-contemptuous resignation, 
 with her eyes upon her long slim arched feet crossed before 
 her. Even in her attitude there was something of her old 
 fascination which, however, now seemed to sting Clarence 
 to the quick. 
 
 "I have nothing to say to you in regard to what has 
 just passed in this house, except that as long as I remain 
 even nominally its master it shall not be repeated. Al- 
 though I shall no longer attempt to influence or control 
 your political sympathies, I shall not allow you to indulge 
 them where in any way they seem to imply my sanction. 
 But so little do I oppose your liberty, that you are free to 
 rejoin your political companions whenever you choose to 
 do so on your own responsibility. But I must first know 
 from your own lips whether your sympathies are purely 
 political — or a name for something else 1 " 
 
 She had alternately flushed and paled, although still 
 keeping her scornful attitude as he went on, but there was 
 no mistaking the genuineness of her vague wonderment at 
 his concluding words. 
 
 "I don't understand you," she said, lifting her eyes to 
 his in a moment of cold curiosity. " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " What do I mean t What did Judge Beeswinger mean 
 when he called Captain Pinckney a double traitor ? " ha 
 said roughly. 
 
CLARENCE 321 
 
 She sprang to her feet with flashing eyes. "And you 
 
 — you ! dare to repeat the cowardly lie of a confessed 
 spy. This, then, is what you wished to tell me — this the 
 insult for which you have kept me here ; because you are 
 incapable of understanding unselfish patriotism or devotion 
 
 — even to your own cause — you dare to judge me by 
 your own base, Yankee-trading standards. Yes, it is wor- 
 thy of you ! " She walked rapidly up and down, and then 
 suddenly faced him. "I understand it all; I appreciate 
 your magnanimity now. You are willing I should join 
 the company of these chivalrous gentlemen in order to give 
 color to your calumnies ! Say at once that it was you who 
 put up this spy to correspond with me — to come here — 
 in order to entrap me. Yes ! entrap me — I — who a 
 moment ago stood up for you before these gentlemen, and 
 said you could not lie. Bah ! " 
 
 Struck only by the wild extravagance of her speech and 
 temper, Clarence did not know that when women are most 
 illogical they are apt to be most sincere, and from a man's 
 standpoint her unreasoning deductions appeared to him only 
 as an affectation to gain time for thought, or a theatrical 
 display, like Susy's. And he was turning half contemptu- 
 ously away, when she again faced him with flashing eyes. 
 
 "Well, hear me! I accept; I leave here at once to 
 join my own' people, my own friends — those who under- 
 stand me — put what construction on it that you choose. 
 Do your worst; you cannot do more to separate us than 
 you have done just now." 
 
 She left him, and ran up the steps with a singular return 
 of her old occasional nymph-like nimbleness — the move- 
 ment of a woman who had never borne children — and a 
 swish of her long skirts that he remembered for many a 
 day after, as she disappeared in the corridor. He remained 
 looking after her — indignant, outraged, and unconvinced. 
 There was a rattling at the gate. 
 
322 CLARENCE 
 
 He remembered he had locked it. He dpened it to the 
 flushed pink cheeks and dancing eyes of Susy. The rain 
 was still dripping from her wet cloak as she swung it from 
 her shoulders. 
 
 "I know it all! — all that's happened," she burst out 
 ■with half-girlish exuberance and half the actress's declama- 
 tion. " We met them all in the road — posse and prison- 
 ers. Chief Thompson knew me and told me all. And so 
 you've done it — and you're master in your old house 
 again. Clarence, old boy! Jim said you wouldn't do it 
 — said you 'd weaken on account of her ! But I said 
 ' No. ' I knew you better, old Clarence, and I saw it in 
 your face, for all your stiffness ! ha ! But for all that I 
 was mighty nervous and uneasy, arid I just made Jim send 
 an excuse to the theatre arid we rushed it down here! 
 Lordy ! but it looks natural to see the old house again ! 
 And she - — you packed her off with the others — did n't 
 you 1 Tell me, Clarence, " in her old appealing voice, 
 "you shook her, too! " 
 
 Dazed and astounded, and yet experiencing a vague 
 sense of relief with something like his old tenderness 
 towards the willful woman before him, he had silently 
 regarded her until her allusion to his wife recalled him to 
 himself. 
 
 " Hush ! " he said quickly, with a glance towards the 
 corridor. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Susy, with a malicious smile, " then that 's 
 why Captain Pinckney was lingering in the rear with the 
 deputy. " 
 
 "Silence!" repeated Clarence sternly. "Go in there," 
 pointing to the garden room below the balcony, "and wait 
 there with your husband." 
 
 He half led, half pushed her into the room which had 
 been his business office, and returned to the patio. A 
 hesitating voice from the balcony said, " Clarence ! " 
 
CLAEENCE 323 
 
 It was his wife's voice, but modified and gentler — more 
 like her voice as he had first heard it, or as if it had been 
 chastened by some reminiscence of those days. It was his 
 wife's face, too, that looked down on his — paler than he 
 had seen it since he entered the house. She was shawled 
 and hooded, carrying a traveling-bag in her hand. 
 
 " I am going, Clarence, " she said, pausing before him, 
 with gentle gravity, "but not in anger. I even ask you 
 to forgive me for the foolish words that I think your still 
 more foolish accusation " — she smiled faintly — " dragged 
 from me. I am going because I know that I have brought 
 — and that while I am here I shall always be bringing — 
 upon you the imputation and even the responsibility of my 
 own faith ! While I am proud to own it, — and if needs 
 be suffer for it, — I have no right to ruin your prospects, 
 or even make you the victim of the slurs that others may 
 cast upon me. Let us part as friends — separated only by 
 our different political faiths, but keeping all other faiths 
 together — until God shall settle the right of this struggle. 
 Perhaps it may be soon — I sometimes think it may be 
 years of agony for all ; but until then, good-by. " 
 
 She had slowly descended the steps to the patio, looking 
 handsomer than he had ever seen her, and as if sustained 
 and upheld by the enthusiasm of her cause. Her hand 
 was outstretched towards his — his heart beat violently — 
 in another moment he might have forgotten all and clasped 
 her to his breast. Suddenly she stopped, her outstretched 
 arm stiffened, her finger pointed to the chair on which 
 Susy's cloak was hanging. 
 
 "What's that?" she said in a sharp, high, metallic 
 voice. " Who is here 1 Speak ! " 
 
 "Susy," said Clarence. 
 
 She cast a scathing glance round the patio, and then 
 settled her piercing eyes on Clarence with a bitter smile. 
 
 "Already!" 
 
324 CLARENCE 
 
 Clarence felt the blood rush to his face as he stammered, 
 "She knew what was happening here, and came to give 
 you warning." 
 
 "Liar!" 
 
 " Stop ! " said Clarence, with a white face. " She came 
 to tell me that Captain Pinckney was still lingering for 
 you in the road." 
 
 He threw open the gate to let her pass. As she swept 
 out she lifted her hand. As he closed the gate there were 
 the marks of her four fingers on his cheek. 
 
CHAPTEK IV 
 
 Fob once Susy had not exaggerated. Captain Pinck- 
 ney was lingering, with the deputy who had charge of 
 him, on the trail near the casa. It had already been 
 pretty well understood by both captives and captors that 
 the arrest was simply a legal demonstration; that the sym- 
 pathizing Federal judge would undoubtedly order the dis- 
 charge of the prisoners on their own recognizances, and it 
 was probable that the deputy saw no harm in granting 
 Pinckney J s request — which was virtually only a delay in 
 his liberation. It was also possible that Pinckney had 
 worked upon the chivalrous sympathies of the man by 
 professing his disinclination to leave their devoted col- 
 league, Mrs. Brant, at the mercy of her antagonistic and 
 cold-blooded husband at such a crisis, and it is to be feared 
 also that Clarence, as a reputed lukewarm partisan, excited 
 no personal sympathy, even from his own party. How- 
 beit, the deputy agreed to delay Pinckney's journey for 
 a parting interview with his fair hostess. 
 
 How far this expressed the real sentiments of Captain 
 Pinckney was never known. Whether his political associ- 
 ation with Mrs. Brant had developed into a warmer solici- 
 tude, understood or ignored by her, — what were his hopes 
 and aspirations regarding her future, — were by the course 
 of fate never disclosed. A man of easy ethics, but rigid 
 artificialities of honor, flattered and pampered by class 
 prejudice, a so-called "man of the world," with no expe- 
 rience beyond his own limited circle, yet brave and devoted 
 to that, it were well, perhaps, to leave this last act of Li? 
 inefficient life as it was accepted by the deputy. 
 
326 CLARENCE 
 
 Dismounting, he approached the house from the garden. 
 He was already familiar with the low arched doorway 
 which led to the business room, and from which he could 
 gain admittance to the patio, but it so chanced that he 
 entered the dark passage at the moment that Clarence had 
 thrust Susy into the business room, and heard its door 
 shut sharply. For an instant he believed that Mrs. Brant 
 had taken refuge there, but as he cautiously moved forward 
 he heard her voice in the patio beyond. Its accents struck 
 him as pleading; an intense curiosity drew him further 
 along the passage. Suddenly her voice seemed to change 
 to angry denunciation, and the word " Liar " rang upon his 
 ears. It was followed by his own name uttered sardoni- 
 cally by Clarence, the swift rustle of a skirt, the clash of 
 the gate, and then — forgetting everything, he burst into 
 the patio. 
 
 Clarence was just turning from the gate with the marks 
 of his wife's hand still red on his white cheek. He saw 
 Captain Pinckney's eyes upon it, and the faint, half-mali- 
 cious, half-hysteric smile upon his lips. But without a 
 start or gesture of surprise he locked the gate, and, turning 
 to him, said with frigid significance, — 
 
 "I thank you for returning so promptly, and for recog- 
 nizing the only thing I now require at your hand." 
 
 But Captain Pinckney had recovered his supercilious 
 ease with the significant demand. 
 
 " You seem to have had something already from another's 
 hand, sir, but I am at your service," he said lightly. 
 
 "You will consider that I have accepted it from you," 
 said Clarence, drawing closer to him with a rigid face. 
 " I suppose it will not be necessary for me to return it — 
 to make you understand me." 
 
 "Go on," said Pinckney, flushing slightly. "Make 
 jour terms; I am ready." 
 
 ''But I 'm not," said the unexpected voice of the deputy 
 
CLARENCE 327' 
 
 at the grille of the gateway. "Excuse my interfering, 
 gentlemen, but this sort o' thing ain't down in my sche- 
 dule. I 've let this gentleman," pointing to Captain Pinck- 
 ney, " off for a minute to say ' good- by ' to a lady, who I 
 reckon has just ridden off in her buggy with her servant 
 without saying by your leave, but I didn't calkelate to let 
 him inter another business, which, like as not, may pre- 
 vent me from delivering his body safe and sound into 
 court. You hear me ! " As Clarence opened the gate he 
 added, "I don't want ter spoil sport between gents, but 
 it 's got to come in after I 've done my duty." 
 
 "I'll meet you, sir, anywhere, and with what weapons 
 you choose," said Pinckney, turning angrily upon Clarence, 
 "as soon as this farce — for which you and your friends 
 are responsible — is over. " He was furious at the intima- 
 tion that Mrs. Brant had escaped him. 
 
 A different thought was in the husband's mind. "But 
 what assurance have I that you are going on with the dep- 
 uty 1 " he said with purposely insulting deliberation. 
 
 "My word, sir," said Captain Pinckney sharply. 
 
 "And if that ain't enuff, there's mine!" said the dep- 
 uty. "For if this gentleman swerves to the right or left 
 betwixt this and Santa Inez, I '11 blow a hole through him 
 myself. And that," he added deprecatingly, "is saying 
 a good deal for a man who does n't want to spoil sport, 
 and for the matter of that is willing to stand by and see 
 fair play done at Santa Inez any time to-morrow before 
 breakfast. " 
 
 "Then I can count on you," said Clarence, with a sud- 
 den impulse extending his hand. 
 
 The man hesitated a moment and then grasped it. 
 
 "Well, I wasn't expecting that," he said slowly; "but 
 you look as if you meant business, and if you ain't got 
 anybody else to see you through, I'm thar! I suppose 
 this gentleman will have his friends." 
 
328 CLARENCE 
 
 "I shall be there at six with my seconds," said Pinck- 
 ney curtly. "Lead on." 
 
 The gate closed behind them. Clarence stood looking 
 around the empty patio and the silent house, from which 
 it was now plain that the servants had been withdrawn to 
 insure the secrecy of the conspiracy. Cool and collected 
 as he knew he was, he remained for a moment in hesita- 
 tion. Then the sound of voices came to his ear from the 
 garden room, the light frivolity of Susy's laugh and 
 Hooker's huskier accents. He had forgotten they were 
 there — he had forgotten their existence ! 
 
 Trusting still to his calmness, he called to Hooker in 
 his usual voice. That gentleman appeared with a face 
 which his attempts to make unconcerned and impassive 
 had, however, only deepened into funereal gravity. 
 
 "I have something to attend to," said Clarence, with 
 a faint smile, "and I must ask you and Susy to excuse me 
 for a little while. She knows the house perfectly, and 
 will call the servants from the annex to provide you both 
 with refreshment until I join you a little later." Satisfied 
 from Hooker's manner that they knew nothing of, his later 
 interview with Pinckney, he turned away and ascended to 
 his own room. 
 
 There he threw himself into an armchair by the dim 
 light of a single candle as if to reflect. But he was con- 
 scious, even then, of his own calmness and want of excite- 
 ment, and that no reflection was necessary. "What he had 
 done and what he intended to do was quite clear ; there 
 was no alternative suggested or to be even sought after. 
 He had that sense of relief which comes with the climax 
 of all great struggles, even of defeat. 
 
 He had never known before how hopeless and continu- 
 ous had been that struggle until now it was over. He had 
 no fear of to-morrow ; he would meet it as he had to-day, 
 with the same singular consciousness of being equal to the 
 
CLARENCE 329 
 
 occasion. There was even no necessity of preparation for 
 it; his will, leaving his fortune to his wife, — which 
 seemed a slight thing now in this greater separation, — 
 was already in his safe in San Francisco; his pistols were 
 in the next room. He was even slightly disturbed by his 
 own insensibility, and passed into his wife's bed-room 
 partly in the hope of disturbing his serenity by some me- 
 mento of their past. There was no disorder of flight — 
 everything was in its place, except the drawer of her desk, 
 which was still open, as if she had taken something from 
 it as an afterthought. There were letters and papers there, 
 some of his own and some in Captain Pinckney's handwrit- 
 ing. It did not occur to him to look at them — even to 
 justify himself, or excuse her. He knew that his hatred 
 of Captain Pinckney was not so much that he believed him 
 her lover, as his sudden conviction that she was like him ! 
 He was the male of her species — a being antagonistic to 
 himself, whom he could fight, and crush, and revenge him- 
 self upon. But most of all he loathed his past, not on 
 account of her, but of his own weakness that had made 
 him her dupe and a misunderstood man to his friends. 
 He had been derelict of duty in his unselfish devotion to 
 her; he had stifled his ambition, and underrated his own 
 possibilities. No wonder that others had accepted him at 
 his own valuation. Clarence Brant was a modest man, 
 but the egotism of modesty is more fatal than that of pre- 
 tension, for it has the haunting consciousness of superior 
 virtue. 
 
 He reentered his own room and again threw himself into 
 his chair. His calm was being succeeded by a physical 
 weariness ; he remembered he had not slept the night be- 
 fore, and he ought to take some rest to be fresh in the 
 early morning. Yet he must also show himself before his 
 self-invited guests, — Susy and her husband, — or their 
 suspicions would be aroused. He would try to sleep for 
 
330 CLARENCE 
 
 a little while in the chair before he went downstairs again. 
 He closed his eyes oddly enough on a dim dreamy recollec- 
 tion of Susy in the old days, in the little madrono hollow 
 where she had once given him a rendezvous. He forgot 
 the maturer and critical uneasiness with which he had then 
 received her coquettish and willful advances, which he now 
 knew was the effect of the growing dominance of Mrs. 
 Peyton over him, and remembered only her bright, youth- 
 ful eyes, and the kisses he had pressed upon her soft fra- 
 grant cheek. The faintness he had felt when waiting in 
 the old rose garden, a few hours ago, seemed to steal on 
 him once more, and to lapse into a pleasant drowsiness. 
 He even seemed again to inhale the perfume of the roses. 
 
 "Clarence!" 
 
 He started. He had been sleeping, but the voice 
 sounded strangely real. 
 
 A light, girlish laugh followed. He sprang to his feet. 
 It was Susy standing beside him — and Susy even as she 
 looked in the old days ! 
 
 For with a flash of her old audacity, aided by her fami- 
 liar knowledge of the house and the bunch of household 
 keys she had found, which dangled from her girdle, as in 
 the old fashion, she had disinterred one of her old frocks 
 from a closet, slipped it on, and loosening her brown 
 hair had let it fall in rippling waves down her back. It 
 was Susy in her old girlishness, with the instinct of the 
 grown actress in the arrangement of her short skirt over 
 her pretty ankles and the half-conscious pose she had 
 taken. 
 
 "Poor dear old Clarence," she said, with dancing eyes; 
 "I might have won a dozen pairs of gloves from you while 
 you slept there. But you 're tired, dear old boy, and 
 you 've had a hard time of it. No matter; you 've shown 
 yourself a man at last, and I 'm proud of you." 
 
 Half ashamed of the pleasure he felt even in his embar- 
 
CLARENCE 331 
 
 rassment, Clarence stammered, "But this change — this 
 dress. " 
 
 Susy clapped her hands like a child. " I knew it would 
 surprise you! It's an old frock I wore the year I went 
 away with auntie. I knew where it was hidden, and 
 fished it out again with these keys, Clarence; it seemed 
 so like old times. Lord! when I was with the old ser- 
 vants again, and you didn't come down, I just felt as if 
 I 'd never been away, and I just rampaged free. It seemed 
 to me, don't you know, not as if I 'd just come, but as if 
 I 'd always been right here, and it was you who 'd just 
 come. Don't you understand! Just as you came when 
 me and Mary Rogers were here; don't you remember her, 
 Clarence, and how she used to do ' gooseberry ' for us 1 
 Well, just like that. So I said to Jim, ' I don't know 
 you any more — get! ' and I just slipped on this frock and 
 ordered Manuela around as I used to do — and she in fits 
 of laughter; I reckon, Clarence, she hasn't laughed as 
 much since I left. And then I thought of you — perhaps 
 worried and flustered as yet over things, and the change, 
 and I just slipped into the kitchen and I told old fat Con- 
 chita to make some of these tortillas you know, — with 
 sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top, — and I tied on an 
 apron and brought 'em up to you on a tray with a glass of 
 that old Catalan wine you used to like. Then I sorter 
 felt frightened when I got here, and I didn't hear any 
 noise, and I put the tray down in the hall and peeped in 
 and found you asleep. Sit still, I '11 fetch 'em." 
 
 She tripped out into the passage, returning with the 
 tray, which she put on the table beside Clarence, and then, 
 standing back a little and with her hands tucked soubrette 
 fashion in the tiny pockets of her apron, gazed at him 
 with a mischievous smile. 
 
 It was impossible not to smile back as he nibbled the 
 crisp Mexican cake and drank the old mission wine. And 
 Susy's tongue trilled an accompaniment to his thanks. 
 
332 CLAEENCE 
 
 " Lord ! it seems so nice to be here — just you and me, 
 Clarence — like in the old days — with nobody naggin' 
 and swoopin' round after you. Don't be greedy, Clarence, 
 but give me a cake." She took one and finished the dregs 
 of his glass. 
 
 Then sitting on the arm of his chair, she darted a violet 
 ray of half reproach and half mischievousness into his 
 amused and retrospective eyes. "There used to be room 
 for two in that chair, Klarns." 
 
 The use of the old childish diminutive for his name 
 seemed to him natural as her familiarity, and he moved 
 a little sideways to make room for her with an instinct of 
 pleasure, but the' same sense of irresponsibility that had 
 characterized his reflections. Nevertheless, he looked 
 critically into the mischievous eyes, and said quietly, — 
 
 "Where is your husband?" 
 
 There was no trace of embarrassment, apology, or even 
 of consciousness in her pretty face as she replied, passing 
 her hand lightly through his hair, — 
 
 " Oh, Jim ? I ' ve packed him off ! " 
 
 " Packed him off ! " echoed Clarence, slightly astonished. 
 
 "Yes, to Fair Plains, full tilt after your wife's buggy. 
 You see, , Clarence, after the old cat —r- that's your wife, 
 please — left, I wanted to make sure she had gone, and 
 wasn't hangin' round to lead you off again with your leg 
 tied to her apron string like a chicken's! No! I said to 
 Jim, ' Just you ride after her until you see she 's safe and 
 sound in the down coach from Fair Plains without her 
 knowin' it, and if she 's inclined to hang back or wobble 
 any, you post back here and let me know ! ' I told him 
 I would stay and look after you to see you did n't bol* 
 too ! " She laughed, and then added, " But I did n't thinf' 
 I should fall into the old ways so soon, and have such a 
 nice time. Did you, Clarence 1 " 
 
 She looked so irresponsible, sitting there with her face 
 
CLARENCE 338 
 
 near his, and so childishly, or perhaps thoughtlessly, 
 happy, that he could only admire her levity, and even 
 the slight shock that her flippant allusion to his wife had 
 given him seemed to him only a weakness of his own. 
 After all, was not hers the true philosophy 1 Why should 
 not these bright eyes see things more clearly than his 
 own t Nevertheless, with his eyes still fixed upon them, 
 he continued, — 
 
 " And Jim was willing to go ? " 
 
 She stopped, with her fingers still lifting a lock of his 
 hair. "Why, yes, you silly — why shouldn't he? I'd 
 like to see him refuse. Why, Lord! Jim will do any- 
 thing I ask him." She put down the lock of hair, and 
 suddenly looking full into his eyes, said, "That's just the 
 difference between him and me, and you and — that 
 woman ! " 
 
 " Then you love him ! " 
 
 "About as much as you love her," she said, with an 
 unaffected laugh; "only he don't wind me around his 
 finger. " > 
 
 No doubt she was right for all her thoughtlessness, and 
 yet he was going to fight about that woman to-morrow! 
 No — he forgot ; he was going to fight Captain Pinckney 
 because he was like her! 
 
 Susy had put her finger on the crease between his brows 
 which this supposition had made, and tried to rub it out. 
 
 "You know it as well as I do, Clarence," she said, with 
 a pretty wrinkling of her own brows, which was her near- 
 est approach to thoughtfulness. "You know you never 
 really liked her, only you thought her ways were grander 
 and more proper than mine, and you know you wer 
 always a little bit of a snob and a prig too — dear boy 
 And Mrs. Peyton was — bless my soul ! — a Benham ant 
 a planter's daughter, and I — I was only a picked-up 
 orphan! That's where Jim is better than you — now sit 
 
334 CLARENCE 
 
 still, goosey! — even if I don't like him as much. Oh, 
 I know what you're always thinking; you're thinking 
 we're both exaggerated and theatrical, ain't you? But 
 don't you think it 's a heap better to be exaggerated and 
 theatrical about things that are just sentimental and roman- 
 tic than to be so awfully possessed and overcome about 
 things that are only real? There, you needn't stare at me 
 so ! It 's true. You 've had your fill of grandeur and 
 propriety, and — here you are. And, " she added with a 
 little chuckle, as she tucked Up her feet and leaned a little 
 closer to him, "here 's me." 
 
 He did not speak, but his arm quite unconsciously 
 passed round her small waist. 
 
 "You see, Clarence," she went on with equal uncon- 
 sciousness of the act, "you ought never to have let me go 
 — never ! You ought to have kept me here — or run away 
 with me. And you oughtn't to have tried to make me 
 proper. And you oughtn't to have driven me to flirt with 
 that horrid Spaniard, and you oughtn't to have been so 
 horribly cold and severe when I did. And you ought n't 
 to have made me take up with Jim, who was the only one 
 who thought me his equal. I might have been very silly 
 and capricious; I might have been very vain, but my 
 vanity is n't a bit worse than your pride ; my love of praise 
 and applause in the theatre is n't a bit more horrid than 
 your fears of what people might think of you or me. 
 That 's gospel truth, isn't it, Clarence? Tell me! Don't 
 look that way and this — look at me ! I ain?t poisonous, 
 Clarence. Why, one of your cheeks is redder than the 
 other, Clarence; that's the one that's turned from me. 
 Come," she went on, taking the lapels of his coat between 
 her hands and half shaking him, half drawing him nearer 
 her bright face. " Tell me — is n't it true ? " 
 
 "I was thinking of you just now when I fell asleep, 
 Susy," he said. He did not know why he said it; he 
 
CLARENCE 835 
 
 had not intended to tell her, he had only meant to avoid 
 a direct answer to her question; yet even now he went on. 
 ■' And I thought of you when I was out there in the rose 
 garden waiting to come in here." 
 
 " You did ? " she said, drawing in her breath. A wave 
 of delicate pink color came up to her very eyes, it seemed 
 to him as quickly and as innocently as when she was a 
 girl. "And what did you think, Klarns," she half whis- 
 pered — "tell me." 
 
 He did not speak, but answered her blue eyes and then 
 her lips, as her arms slipped quite naturally around his 
 neck. 
 
 The dawn was breaking as Clarence and Jim Hooker 
 emerged together from the gate of the casa. Mr. Hooker 
 looked sleepy. He had found, after his return from Fair 
 Plains, that his host had an early engagement at Santa 
 Inez, and he had insisted upon rising to see him off. It 
 was with difficulty, indeed, that Clarence could prevent his 
 accompanying him. Clarence had not revealed to Susy 
 the night before the real object of his journey, nor did 
 Hooker evidently suspect it, yet when the former had 
 mounted his horse, he hesitated for an instant, extending 
 his hand. 
 
 "If I should happen to be detained," he began with 
 a half smile. 
 
 But Jim was struggling with a yawn. "That's all 
 right — don't mind us," he said, stretching his arms. 
 Clarence's hesitating hand dropped to his side, and with 
 a light reckless laugh and a half sense of providential relief 
 he galloped away. 
 
 What happened immediately thereafter during his soli- 
 tary ride to Santa Inez, looking back upon it in after years, 
 seemed but a confused recollection, more like a dream. 
 The long stretches of vague distance, gradually opening 
 
336 CLARENCE 
 
 clearer with the rising sun in an unclouded sky ; the meet- 
 ing with a few early or belated travelers and his uncon- 
 scious avoidance of them, as if they might know of his 
 object; the black shadows of foreshortened cattle rising 
 before him on the plain and arousing the same uneasy sen- 
 sation of their being waylaying men; the wondering recog- 
 nition of houses and landmarks he had long been familiar 
 with ; his purposeless attempts to recall the circumstances 
 in which he had known them — all these were like a 
 dream. So, too, were the recollections of the night before, 
 the episode with Susy, already mingled and blended with 
 the memory of their previous past; his futile attempts to 
 look forward to the future, always, however, abandoned 
 with relief at the thought that the next few hours might 
 make them unnecessary. So also was the sudden realiza- 
 tion that Santa Inez was before him, when he had thought 
 he was not yet half way there, and as he dismounted be- 
 fore the Court House his singular feeling — followed, how- 
 ever, by no fear or distress — was that he had come so 
 early to the rendezvous that he was not yet quite prepared 
 for it. 
 
 This same sense of unreality pervaded his meeting with 
 the deputy sheriff, at the news that the Federal judge had, 
 as was expected, dismissed the prisoners on their own re- 
 cognizances, and that Captain Pinckney was at the hotel at 
 breakfast. In the like abstracted manner he replied to 
 the one or two questions of the deputy, exhibited the 
 pistols he had brought with him, and finally accompanied 
 him to a little meadow hidden by trees, below the hotel, 
 where the other principal and his seconds were awaiting 
 them. And here he awoke — clear-eyed, keen, forceful, 
 and intense ! 
 
 So stimulated were his faculties that his sense of hearing 
 in its acuteness took in every word of the conversation 
 between the seconds, a few paces distant. He heard his 
 
CLABENCE 337 
 
 adversary's seconds say carelessly to the deputy sheriff, "I 
 presume this is a case where there will be no apology or 
 mediation," and the deputy's reply, "I reckon my man 
 means business, but he seems a little queer." He heard 
 the other second laugh, and say lightly, "They're apt to 
 be so when it 'a their first time out," followed by the more 
 anxious aside of the other second as the deputy turned 
 away, — "Yes, but by G — d I don't like his looks! " His 
 sense of sight was also so acute that having lost the choice 
 of position, when the coin was tossed, and being turned 
 with his face to the sun, even through the glare he saw, 
 with unerring distinctness of outline, the black-coated 
 figure of his opponent moved into range — saw the perfect 
 outline of his features, and how the easy, supercilious 
 smile, as he threw away his cigar, appeared to drop out of 
 his face with a kind of vacant awe as he faced him. He 
 felt his nerves become as steel as the counting began, and 
 at the word "three," knew he had fired by the recoil of 
 the pistol in his leveled hand, simultaneously with its 
 utterance. And at the same moment, still standing like 
 a rock, he saw his adversary miserably collapse, his legs 
 grotesquely curving inwards under him, — without even 
 the dignity of death in his fall, — and so sink helplessly 
 like a felled bull to the ground. Still erect, and lowering 
 only the muzzle of his pistol, as a thin feather of smoke 
 curled up its shining side, he saw the doctor and seconds 
 run quickly to the heap, try to lift its limp impotence into 
 shape, and let it drop again with the words, "Eight 
 through the forehead, by G- — d ! " 
 
 "You've done for him," said the deputy, turning to 
 Clarence with a singular look of curiosity, "and I reckon 
 you had better get out of this mighty quick. They did n't 
 expect it; they're just ragin' ; they may round on you 
 — and " — he added, more slowly, " they seem to have 
 just found out who you are." 
 
338 CLARENCE 
 
 Even while he was speaking, Clarence, with his quick- 
 ened ear, heard the words, "One of Hamilton Brant's 
 pups." "Just like his father," from the group around the 
 dead man. He did not hesitate, but walked coolly towards 
 them. Yet a certain fierce pride — which he had never 
 known before — stirred in his veins as their voices hushed 
 and they half recoiled before him. 
 
 "Am I to understand from my second, gentlemen," he 
 said, looking round the group, "that you are not satisr 
 fied?" 
 
 "The fight was square enough," said Pinckney's second 
 in some embarrassment, "but I reckon that he," pointing 
 to the dead man, "did not know who you were." 
 
 "Do you mean that he did not know that I was the son 
 of a man proficient in the use of arms 1 " 
 
 "I reckon that's about it," returned the second, glanc- 
 ing at the others. 
 
 "I am glad to say, sir, that I have a better opinion of 
 his courage," said Clarence, lifting his hat to the dead 
 body as he turned away. 
 
 Yet he was conscious of no remorse, concern, or even 
 pity in his act. Perhaps this was visible in his face, for 
 the group appeared awed by this perfection of the duelist's 
 coolness, and even returned his formal parting salutation 
 with a vague and timid respect. He thanked the deputy, 
 regained the hotel, saddled his horse and galloped away. 
 
 But not towards the Bancho. Now that he could think 
 of his future, that had no place in his reflections; even 
 the episode of Susy was forgotten in the new and strange 
 conception of himself and his irresponsibility which had 
 come upon him with the killing of Pinckney and the 
 words of his second. It was his dead father who had 
 stiffened his arm and directed the fatal shot! It was 
 hereditary influences — which others had been so quick to 
 recognize — that had brought about this completing climax 
 
CLARENCE 339 
 
 of his trouble. How else could he account for it that he 
 — a conscientious, peaceful, sensitive man, tender and for- 
 giving as he had believed himself to be — could now feel 
 so little sorrow or compunction for his culminating act? 
 He had read of successful duelists who were haunted by 
 remorse for their first victim ; who retained a terrible con- 
 sciousness of the appearance of the dead man ; he had no 
 such feeling; he had only a grim contentment in the 
 wiped-out inefficient life, and contempt for the limp and 
 helpless body. He suddenly recalled his callousness as a 
 boy when face to face with the victims of the Indian mas- 
 sacre, his sense of fastidious superciliousness in the discov- 
 ery of the body of Susy's mother! — surely it was the cold 
 blood of his father influencing him ever thus. What had 
 he to do with affection, with domestic happiness, with the 
 ordinary ambitions of man's life — whose blood was frozen 
 at its source ! Yet even with this very thought came once 
 more the old inconsistent tenderness he had as a boy lav- 
 ished upon the almost unknown and fugitive father who 
 had forsaken his childish companionship, and remembered 
 him only by secret gifts. He remembered how he had 
 worshiped him even while the pious padres at San Jose 
 were endeavoring to eliminate this terrible poison from his 
 blood and combat his hereditary instinct in his conflicts 
 with his school-fellows. And it was a part of this incon- 
 sistency that, riding away from the scene of his first blood- 
 shed, his eyes were dimmed with moisture, not for his 
 victim, but for the one being who he believed had impelled 
 him to the act. 
 
 This and more was in his mind during his long ride to 
 Pair Plains, his journey by coach to the Embarcadero, his 
 midnight passage across the dark waters of the bay, and 
 his reentrance to San Francisco, but what should be his 
 future was still unsettled. 
 
 As he wound round the crest of Eussian Hill and looked 
 
6i0 CLARENCE 
 
 down again upon the awakened city, he was startled to see 
 that it was fluttering and streaming with hunting. From 
 every public building and hotel, from the roofs of private 
 houses, and even the windows of lonely dwellings, flapped 
 and waved the striped and starry banner. The steady 
 breath of the sea carried it out from masts and yards of 
 ships at their wharves, from the battlements of the forts 
 Alcatraz and Yerba Bueno. He remembered that the 
 ferryman had told him that the news from Fort Sumter 
 had swept the city with a revulsion of patriotic sentiment, 
 and that there was no doubt that the State was saved to 
 the Union. He looked down upon it with haggard, bewil- 
 dered eyes, and then a strange gasp and fullness of the 
 throat! For afar a solitary bugle had blown the "reveille" 
 at Fort Alcatraz. 
 
PART n 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Night at last, and the stir and tumult of a great fight 
 over. Even the excitement that had swept this portion 
 of the battlefield — only a small section of a vaster area of 
 struggle — into which a brigade had marched, held its 
 own, been beaten back, recovered its ground, and, pursuing, 
 had passed out of it forever, leaving only its dead behind, 
 and knowing nothing more of that struggle than its own 
 impact and momentum — even this wild excitement had 
 long since evaporated with the stinging smoke of gun- 
 powder, the acrid smell of burning rags from the clothing 
 of a dead soldier fired by a bursting shell, or the heated 
 reek of sweat and leather. A cool breath that seemed to 
 bring back once more the odor of the upturned earthworks 
 along the now dumb line of battle began to move from the 
 suggestive darkness beyond. 
 
 But into that awful penetralia of death and silence there 
 was no invasion — there had been no retreat. A few of 
 the wounded had been brought out, under fire, but the 
 others had been left with the dead for the morning light 
 and succor. For it was known that in that horrible ob- 
 scurity, riderless horses, frantic with the smell of blood, 
 galloped wildly here and there, or, maddened by wounds, 
 plunged furiously at the intruder; that the wounded sol- 
 dier, still armed, could not always distinguish friend from 
 foe or from the ghouls of camp followers who stripped the 
 dead in the darkness and struggled with the dying. A 
 
342 CLARENCE 
 
 shot or two heard somewhere in that obscurity counted as 
 nothing with the long fusillade that had swept it in the 
 daytime ; the passing of a single life, more or less, amounted 
 to little in the long roll-call of the day's slaughter. 
 
 But with the first beams of the morning sun — and the 
 slowly moving " relief detail " from the camp — came a 
 weird half-resurrection of that ghastly field. Then it was 
 that the long rays of sunlight, streaming away a mile 
 beyond the battle line, pointed out the first harvest of the 
 dead where the reserves had been posted. There they lay 
 in heaps and piles, killed by solid shot or bursting shells 
 that had leaped the battle line to plunge into the waiting 
 ranks beyond. As the sun lifted higher its beams fell 
 within the range of musketry fire, where the dead lay 
 thicker, — even as they had fallen when killed outright, — . 
 with arms extended and feet at all angles to the field. As 
 it touched these dead upturned faces, strangely enough it 
 brought out no expression of pain or anguish — but rather 
 as if death had arrested them only in surprise and awe. 
 It revealed on the lips of those who had been mortally 
 wounded and had turned upon their side the relief which 
 death had brought their suffering, sometimes shown in a 
 faint smile. Mounting higher, it glanced upon the actual 
 battle line, curiously curving for the shelter of walls, 
 fences, and breastworks, and here the dead lay, even as 
 when they lay and fired, their faces prone in the grass but 
 their muskets still resting across the breastworks. Exposed 
 to grape and canister from the battery on the ridge, death 
 had come to them mercifully also — through the head and 
 throat. And now the whole field lay bare in the sunlight, 
 broken with grotesque shadows cast from sitting, crouch- 
 ing, half-recumbent but always rigid figures, which might 
 have been effigies on their own monuments. ' One half- 
 kneeling soldier, with head bowed between his stiffened 
 hands, might have stood for a carven figure of Grief at the 
 
CLARENCE 343 
 
 feet of his dead comrade. A captain, shot through the brain 
 in the act of mounting a -wall, lay sideways half across it, 
 his lips parted with a word of command; his sword still 
 pointing over the barrier the way that they should go. 
 
 But it was not until the sun had mounted higher that it 
 struck the central horror of the field and seemed to linger 
 there in dazzling persistence, now and then returning to it 
 in startling flashes that it might be seen of men and those 
 who brought succor. A tiny brook had run obliquely near 
 the battle line. It was here that, the night before the 
 battle, friend and foe had filled their canteens side by side 
 with soldierly recklessness — or perhaps a higher instinct 
 — purposely ignoring each other's presence; it was here 
 that the wounded had afterwards crept, crawled, and 
 dragged themselves; here they had pushed, wrangled, 
 striven, and fought for a draught of that precious fluid 
 which assuaged the thirst of their wounds — or happily 
 put them out of their misery forever; here overborne, 
 crushed, suffocated by numbers, pouring their own blood 
 Into the flood, and tumbling after it with their helpless 
 bodies, they dammed the stream, until recoiling, red and 
 angry, it had burst its banks and overflowed the cotton- 
 field in a broad pool that now sparkled in the sunlight. 
 But below this human dam — a mile away — where the 
 brook still crept sluggishly, the ambulance horses sniffed 
 and started from it. 
 
 The detail moved on slowly, doing their work expedi- 
 tiously, and apparently callously, but really only with that 
 mechanical movement that saves emotion. Only once they 
 were moved to an outbreak of indignation, — the discovery 
 of the body of an officer whose pockets were turned inside 
 out, but whose hand was still tightly grasped on his but- 
 toned waistcoat, as if resisting the outrage that had been 
 done while still in life. As the men disengaged the stif- 
 fened hand something slipped from the waistcoat to the 
 
344 CLARENCE 
 
 ground. The corporal picked it up and handed it to his 
 officer. It was a sealed packet. The officer received it 
 with the carelessness which long experience of these pa- 
 thetic missives from the dying to their living relations had 
 induced, and dropped it in the pocket of his tunic, with 
 the half-dozen others that he had picked up that morning, 
 and moved on with the detail. A little further on they 
 halted, in the attitude of attention, as a mounted officer 
 appeared, riding slowly down the line. 
 
 There was something more than the hahitual respect of 
 their superior in their faces as he came forward. For it 
 was the general who had commanded the brigade the day 
 hefore, — the man who had leaped with one hound into 
 the foremost rank of military leaders. It was his invin- 
 cible spirit that had led the advance, held hack defeat 
 against overwhelming numbers, sustained the rally, im- 
 pressed his subordinate officers with his own undeviating 
 purpose, and even infused them with an almost supersti- 
 tious belief in his destiny of success. It was this man 
 who had done what it was deemed impossible to do, — 
 what even at the time it was thought unwise and unstrate- 
 gic to do, — who had held a weak position, of apparently 
 no importance, under the mandate of an incomprehensible 
 order from his superior, which at best asked only for a 
 sacrifice and was rewarded with a victory. He had deci- 
 mated his brigade, but the wounded and dying had cheered 
 him as he passed, and the survivors had pursued the enemy 
 until the bugle called them back. For such a record he 
 looked still too young and scholarly, albeit his handsome 
 face was dark and energetic, and his manner taciturn. 
 
 His quick eye had already caught sight of the rifled 
 body of the officer, and contracted. As the captain of the 
 detail saluted him he said curtly, — 
 
 " I thought the orders were to fire upon any one desecrat' 
 ing the dead ? " 
 
CLARENCE 345 
 
 "They are, General; but the hyenas don't give us a 
 chance. That 's all yonder poor fellow saved from their 
 claws," replied the officer, as he held up the sealed packet. 
 " It has no address. " 
 
 The general took it, examined the envelope, thrust it 
 into his belt, and said, — 
 
 "I will take charge of it." 
 
 The sound of horses' hoofs came from the rocky roadside 
 beyond the brook. Both men turned. A number of fiel(? 
 officers were approaching. 
 
 "The division staff," said the captain, in a lower voice, 
 falling back. 
 
 They came slowly forward, a central figure on a gray 
 horse leading here — as in history. A short, thick-set 
 man with a grizzled beard closely cropped around an in- 
 scrutable mouth, and the serious formality of a respectable 
 country deacon in his aspect, which even the major-gen- 
 eral's blazon on the shoulder-strap of his loose tunic on his 
 soldierly seat in the saddle could not entirely obliterate. 
 He had evidently perceived the general of brigade, and 
 quickened his horse as the latter drew up. The staff fol- 
 lowed more leisurely, but still with some curiosity, to wit- 
 ness the meeting of the first general of the army with the 
 youngest. The division general saluted, but almost in- 
 stantly withdrew his leathern gauntlet, and offered his 
 bared hand to the brigadier. The words of heroes are 
 scant. The drawn-up detail, the waiting staff listened. 
 This was all they heard : — 
 
 "Halleck tells me you 're from California? " 
 
 "Yes, General." 
 
 "Ah! I lived there, too, in the early days. Wonderfi' 
 country. Developed greatly since my time, I suppose 1 " 
 
 "Yes, General." 
 
 "Great resources; finest wheat-growing country in the 
 world, sir. You don't happen to know what the actual 
 crop was this year 1 " 
 
546 CLARENCE 
 
 "Hardly, General! but something enormous." 
 
 " Yes, I have always said it would be. Have a cigar ? " 
 
 He handed his cigar-case to the brigadier. Then he 
 took one himself, lighted it at the smouldering end of the. 
 one he had taken from his mouth, was about to throw the 
 stump carelessly down, but, suddenly recollecting himself, 
 leaned over his horse, and dropped it carefully a few inches 
 away from the face of a dead soldier. Then, straightening 
 himself in the saddle, he shoved his horse against the 
 brigadier, moving him a little further on, while a slight 
 movement of his hand kept the staff from following. 
 
 "A heavy loss here! " 
 
 "I 'm afraid so, General." 
 
 "It couldn't be helped. We had to rush in your bri- 
 gade to gain time, and occupy the enemy, until we could 
 change front." 
 
 The young general looked at the shrewd, cold eyes of 
 his chief. 
 
 " Change front 1 " he echoed. 
 
 " Yes. Before a gun was fired, we discovered that the 
 enemy was in complete possession of all our plans, and 
 knew every detail of our forward movement. All had to 
 be changed." 
 
 The younger man now instantly understood the incom- 
 prehensible order of the day before. 
 
 The general of division continued, with his first touch 
 of official formality, — 
 
 "You understand, therefore, General Brant, that in the 
 face of this extraordinary treachery, the utmost, vigilance 
 is required, and a complete surveillance of your camp fol- 
 lowers and civilians, to detect the actual spy within our 
 lines, or the traitor we are harboring, who has become 
 possessed of this information. You will overhaul your 
 brigade, and weed out all suspects, and in the position 
 which you are to take to-morrow, and the plantation you 
 
CLARENCE 347 
 
 will occupy, you will see that your private quarters, as 
 well as your lines, are cleared of all but those you can 
 vouch for." 
 
 He reined in his horse, again extended his hand, saluted, 
 and rejoined his staff. 
 
 Brigadier-General Clarence Brant remained for a moment 
 with his head bent in thoughtful contemplation of the cool- 
 ness of his veteran chief under this exciting disclosure, and 
 the strategy with which he had frustrated the traitor's 
 success. Then his eye caught the sealed packet in his 
 belt. He mechanically drew it out, and broke the seal. 
 The envelope was filled with papers and memorandums. 
 But as he looked at them his face darkened and his brow 
 knit. He glanced quickly around him. The staff had 
 trotted away ; the captain and his detail were continuing 
 their work at a little distance. He took a long breath, 
 for he was holding in his hand a tracing of their camp, 
 even of the position he was to occupy to-morrow, and a 
 detailed account of the movements, plans, and force of the 
 whole division as had been arranged in council of war the 
 day before the battle! But there was no indication of the 
 writer or his intentions. 
 
 He thrust the papers hurriedly back into the envelope, 
 but placed it, this time, in his breast. He galloped 
 towards the captain. 
 
 "Let me see again the officer from whom you took that 
 packet ! " 
 
 The captain led him to where the body lay, with others, 
 extended more decently on the grass awaiting removal. 
 General Brant with difficulty repressed an ejaculation. 
 
 "Why, it 's one of our own men," he said quickly. 
 
 "Yes, General. They say it's Lieutenant Wainwright, 
 a regular, of the paymaster-general's department." 
 
 " Then what was he doing here 1 " asked General Brant 
 sternly. 
 
348 CLARENCE 
 
 "I can't make out, sir, unless he went into the last 
 advance as a volunteer. Wanted to see the fight, I sup- 
 pose. He was a dashing fellow, a West Pointer, — and 
 a Southerner, too, — a Virginian. " 
 
 " A Southerner ! " echoed Brant quickly. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Search him again, " said Brant quietly. He had recov- 
 ered his usual coolness, and as the captain again examined 
 the body, he took out his tablets and wrote a few lines. 
 It was an order to search the quarters of Lieutenant Wain- 
 wright and bring all papers, letters, and documents to him. 
 He then beckoned one of the detail towards him. "Take 
 that to the provost marshal at once. Well, Captain," he 
 added calmly, as the officer again approached him, "what 
 do you find ? " 
 
 "Only this, sir," returned the captain, with a half 
 smile, producing a small photograph. "I suppose it was 
 overlooked, too." 
 
 He handed it to Brant. 
 
 There was a sudden fixing of his commanding officer's 
 eyes, but his face did not otherwise change. 
 
 "It's the usual find, General. Always a photograph! 
 But this time a handsome woman ! " 
 
 "Very," said Clarence Brant quietly. It was the por- 
 trait of his own wife. 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 Nevertheless, so complete was his control of voice 
 and manner that, as he rode on to his quarters, no one 
 would have dreamed that General Brant had just looked 
 upon the likeness of the wife from whom he had parted in 
 anger four years ago. Still less would they have suspected 
 the strange fear that came upon him that in some way she 
 was connected with the treachery he had just discovered. 
 He had heard from her only once, and then through her 
 late husband's lawyer, in regard to her Californian prop- 
 erty, and believed that she had gone to her relations in 
 Alabama, where she had identified herself with the South- 
 ern cause, even to the sacrifice of her private fortune. He 
 had heard her name mentioned in the Southern press as 
 a fascinating society leader, and even coadjutrix of South- 
 ern politicians, but he had no reason to believe that she 
 had taken so active or so desperate a part in the struggle. 
 He tried to think that his uneasiness sprang from his recol- 
 lection of the previous treachery of Captain Pinckney, and 
 the part that she had played in the Californian conspiracy, 
 although he had long since acquitted her of the betrayal of 
 any nearer trust. But there was a fateful similarity in 
 the two cases. There was no doubt that this Lieutenant 
 Wainwright was a traitor in the camp, — that he had suc- 
 cumbed to the usual sophistry of his class in regard to his 
 superior allegiance to his native State. But was there the 
 inducement of another emotion, or was the photograph only 
 the souvenir of a fascinating priestess of rebellion, whom 
 the dead man had met ? There was perhaps less of feeling 
 
850 CLARENCE 
 
 than scorn in the first suggestion, but he was nevertheless 
 relieved when the provost marshal found no other incrimi- 
 nating papers in Wainwright's effects. Nor did he reveal 
 to the division general the finding of the photograph. It 
 was sufficient to disclose the work of the traitor without 
 adding what might be a clue to his wife's participation in 
 it, near or remote. There was risk enough in the former 
 course, which his duty made imperative. He hardly 
 dared to think of the past day's slaughter, which — there 
 was no doubt now — had been due to the previous work of 
 the spy, and how his brigade had been selected, by the 
 irony of Fate, to suffer for and yet retrieve it. If she 
 had had a hand in this wicked plot, ought he to spare her ? 
 Or was his destiny and hers to be thus monstrously linked 
 together ? 
 
 Luckily, however, the expiation of the chief offender 
 and the timely discovery of his papers enabled the division 
 commander to keep the affair discreetly silent, and to enjoin 
 equal secrecy on the part of Brant. The latter, however, 
 did not relax his vigilance, and after the advance the next 
 day he made a minute inspection of the ground he was to 
 occupy, its approaches and connections with the outlying 
 country, and the rebel lines; increased the stringency of 
 picket and sentry regulations, and exercised a rigid surveil- 
 lance of noncombatants and civilians within the lines, 
 even to the lowest canteener or camp follower. Then he 
 turned his attention to the house he was to occupy as his 
 headquarters. 
 
 It was a fine specimen of the old colonial planter's 
 house, with its broad veranda, its great detached offices and 
 negro quarters, and had, thus far, escaped the ravages and 
 billeting of the war. It had been occupied by its owner 
 up to a few days before the engagement, and so great had 
 been the confidence of the enemy in their success that it 
 had been used as the Confederate headquarters on the 
 
CLARENCE 351 
 
 morning of the decisive battle. Jasmine and rose, un- 
 stained by the sulphur of gunpowder, twined around its 
 ruined columns and half hid the recessed windows; the 
 careless flower garden was still in its unkempt and un- 
 plucked luxuriance ; the courtyard before the stables alone 
 showed marks of the late military occupancy, and was 
 pulverized by the uneasy horsehoofs of the waiting staff. 
 But the mingled impress of barbaric prodigality with patri- 
 archal simplicity was still there in the domestic arrange- 
 ments of a race who lived on half equal familiarity with 
 strangers and their own servants. 
 
 The negro servants still remained, with a certain cat- 
 like fidelity to the place, and adapted themselves to the 
 Northern invaders with a childlike enjoyment of the nov- 
 elty of change. Brant, nevertheless, looked them over 
 with an experienced eye, and satisfied himself of their 
 trustworthiness; there were the usual number of "boys," 
 gray-haired and grizzled in body service, and the "mam- 
 mys " and " aunties " of the kitchen. There were two or 
 three rooms in the wing which still contained private arti- 
 cles, pictures and souvenirs of the family, and a "young 
 lady's " boudoir, which Brant, with characteristic delicacy, 
 kept carefully isolated and intact from his military house- 
 hold, and accessible only to the family servants. The 
 room he had selected for himself was nearest it, — a small, 
 plainly furnished apartment, with an almost conventual 
 simplicity in its cold, white walls and draperies, and the 
 narrow, nun-like bed. It struck him that it might have 
 belonged to some prim elder daughter or maiden aunt, who 
 had acted as housekeeper, as it commanded the wing and 
 servants' offices, with easy access to the central hall. 
 
 There followed a week of inactivity in which Brant felt 
 a singular resemblance in this Southern mansion to the old 
 casa at Bobles. The afternoon shadows of the deep veran- 
 das recalled the old monastic gloom of the Spanish house, 
 
352 CLARENCE 
 
 which even the presence of a lounging officer or waiting 
 orderly could not entirely dissipate, and the scent of the 
 rose and jasmine from his windows overcame him with sad 
 memories. He began to chafe under this inaction, and 
 long again for the excitement of the march and bivouac, 
 in which, for the past four years, he had buried his past. 
 
 He was sitting one afternoon alone before his reports 
 and dispatches, when this influence seemed so strong that 
 he half impulsively laid them aside to indulge in a long 
 reverie. He was recalling his last day at Robles, the early 
 morning duel with Pinckney, the return to San Francisco, 
 and the sudden resolution which sent him that day across 
 the continent to offer his services to the Government. He 
 remembered his delay in the Western town, where a volun- 
 teer regiment was being recruited, his entrance into it as 
 a private, his rapid selection, through the force of his 
 sheer devotion and intelligent concentration, to the cap- 
 taincy of his company ; his swift promotion on hard-fought 
 fields to the head of the regiment, and the singular success 
 that had followed his resistless energy, which left him no 
 time to think of anything but his duty. The sudden in- 
 trusion of his wife upon his career now, even in this acci- 
 dental and perhaps innocent way, had seriously unsettled 
 him. 
 
 The shadows were growing heavier and deeper, it lacked 
 only a few moments of the sunset bugle, when he was 
 recalled to himself by that singular instinctive conscious- 
 ness, common to humanity, of being intently looked at. 
 He turned quickly, — the door behind him closed softly. 
 He rose and slipped into the hall. The tall figure of a 
 woman was going down the passage. She was erect and 
 graceful; but, as she turned towards the door leading to 
 the offices, he distinctly saw the gaudily turbaned head and 
 black silhouette of a negress. Nevertheless, he halted 
 a moment at the door of the next room. 
 
CLAKENCE 353 
 
 "See who that -woman is who has just passed, Mr. 
 Martin. She doesn't seem to helong to the house." 
 
 The young officer rose, put on his cap, and departed. 
 In a few moments he returned. 
 
 " Was she tall, sir, of a good figure, and very straight ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She is a servant of our - neighbors, the Manlys, who 
 occasionally visits the servants here; a mulatto, I think." 
 
 Brant reflected. Many of the mulattoes and negresses 
 were of good figure, and the habit of carrying burdens on 
 their heads gave them a singularly erect carriage. 
 
 The lieutenant looked at his chief. 
 
 •' Have you any orders to give concerning her, General ? " 
 
 "No," said Brant, after a moment'b pause, and turned 
 away. 
 
 The officer smiled. It seemed a good story to tell at 
 mess of this human weakness of his handsome, reserved, 
 and ascetic-looking leader. 
 
 A few mornings afterwards Brant was interrupted over 
 his reports by the almost abrupt entrance of the officer of 
 the day. His face was flushed, and it was evident that 
 only the presence of his superior restrained his excitement. 
 He held a paper in his hand. 
 
 " A lady presents this order and pass from Washington, 
 countersigned by the division general." 
 
 "A lady?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, she is dressed as such. But she has not 
 only declined the most ordinary civilities and courtesies 
 we have offered her, but she has insulted Mr. Martin and 
 myself grossly, and demands to be shown to you — alone. " 
 
 Brant took the paper. It was a special order from the 
 President, passing Miss Matilda Faulkner through the 
 Federal lines to visit her uncle's home, known as "Gray 
 Oaks," now held and occupied as the headquarters of 
 Brant's Brigade, in order to arrange for the preservation 
 
354 CLARENCE 
 
 and disposal of certain family effects and private property 
 that still remained there, or to take and carry away such 
 property; and invoking all necessary aid and assistance 
 from the United States forces in such occupancy. It was 
 countersigned by the division commander. It was per- 
 fectly regular and of undoubted authenticity. He had 
 heard of passes of this kind, — the terror of the army, — 
 issued in Washington under some strange controlling influ- 
 ence and against military protest ; but he did not let his 
 subordinate see the uneasiness with which it filled him. 
 
 "Show her in," he said quietly. 
 
 But she had already entered, brushing scornfully past 
 the officer, and drawing her skirt aside, as if contaminated: 
 a very pretty Southern girl, scornful and red-lipped, clad 
 in a gray riding-habit, and still carrying her riding-whip 
 clenched ominously in her slim, gauntleted hand! 
 
 " You have my permit in your hand, " she said brusquely, 
 hardly raising her eyes to Brant. "I suppose it's all 
 straight enough, — and even if it isn't, I don't reckon to 
 be kept waiting with those hirelings." 
 
 "Your 'permit' is 'straight' enough, Miss Faulkner," 
 said Brant, slowly reading her name from the document 
 before him. "But, as it does not seem to include permis- 
 sion to insult my officers, you will perhaps allow them first 
 to retire." 
 
 He made a sign to the officer, v/ho passed out of the 
 door. 
 
 As it closed, he went on, in a gentle but coldly unim- 
 passioned voice, — 
 
 "I perceive you are a Southern lady, and therefore I 
 need not remind you that it is not considered good form 
 to treat even the slaves of those one does not like unciv- 
 illy, and I must, therefore, ask you to keep your active 
 animosity for myself." 
 
 The young girl lifted her eyes. She had evidently not 
 
CLARENCE 355 
 
 expected to meet a man so young, so handsome, so refined, 
 and so coldly invincible in manner. Still less was she 
 prepared for that kind of antagonism. In keeping up her 
 preconcerted attitude towards the "Northern hireling," she 
 had been met with official brusqueness, contemptuous 
 silence, or aggrieved indignation, — but nothing so exasper- 
 ating as this. She even fancied that this elegant but sar- 
 donic-looking soldier was mocking her. She bit her red 
 lip, but, with a. scornful gesture of her riding- whip, said, — ■ 
 "I reckon that your knowledge of Southern ladies is, 
 for certain reasons, not very extensive." 
 
 "Pardon me; I have had the honor of marrying one." 
 Apparently more exasperated than before, she turned 
 upon him abruptly. 
 
 "You say my pass is all right. Then I presume I may 
 attend to the business that brought me here." 
 
 " Certainly ; but you will forgive me if I imagined that 
 an expression of contempt for your hosts was a part of it." 
 He rang a bell on the table. It was responded toby 
 an orderly. 
 
 "Send all the household servants here." 
 The room was presently filled with the dusky faces of 
 the negro retainers. Here and there was the gleaming of 
 white teeth, but a majority of the assembly wore the true 
 negro serious acceptance of the importance of "an occa- 
 sion." One or two even affected an official and soldierly 
 bearing. And, as he fully expected, there were several 
 glances of significant recognition of the stranger. 
 
 "You will give," said Brant sternly, "every aid and 
 attention to the wants of this young lady, who is here to 
 represent the interests of your old master. As she will 
 be entirely dependent upon you in all things connected 
 with her visit here, see to it that she does not have to 
 complain to me of any inattention, — or be obliged to ask 
 for other assistance." 
 
856 CLARENCE 
 
 As Miss Faulkner, albeit a trifle paler in the cheek, but 
 as scornful as ever, was about to follow the servants from 
 the room, Brant stopped her, with a coldly courteous ges- 
 ture. 
 
 "You will understand, therefore,. Miss Faulkner, that 
 you have your wish, and that you will not be exposed to 
 any contact with the members of my military family, nor 
 they with you." 
 
 " Am I then to be a prisoner in this houSe — and under 
 a free pass of your — President 1 " she said indignantly. 
 
 "By no means! You are free to come and go, and see 
 whom you please. I have no power to control your ac- 
 tions. But I have the power to control theirs." 
 
 She swept furiously from the room. 
 
 " That is quite enough to fill her with a desire to flirt 
 with every man here," said Brant to himself, with a faint 
 smile ; " but I fancy they have had a taste enough of her 
 quality. " 
 
 Nevertheless he sat down and wrote a few lines to the 
 division commander, pointing out that he had already 
 placed the owner's private property under strict surveil- 
 lance, that it was cared for and perfectly preserved by the 
 household servants, and that the pass was evidently ob- 
 tained as a subterfuge. 
 
 To this he received a formal reply, regretting that the 
 authorities at Washington still found it necessary to put 
 this kind of risk and burden on the army in the field, but 
 that the order emanated from the highest authority, and 
 must be strictly obeyed. At the bottom of the page was 
 a characteristic line in pencil in the general's own hand, 
 — "Not the kind that is dangerous." 
 
 A flush mounted Brant's cheeks, as if it contained not 
 only a hidden, but a personal significance. He had thought 
 of his own wife ! 
 
 Singularly enough, a day or two later, at dinner, the 
 
CLARENCE 357 
 
 conversation turned upon the intense sectional feeling of 
 Southern women, probably induced by their late experi- 
 ences. Brant, at the head of the table, in his habitual 
 abstraction, was scarcely following the somewhat excited 
 diction of Colonel Strangeways, one of his staff, 
 i "No, sir," reiterated that indignant warrior, "take my 
 word for it! A Southern woman isn't to be trusted on 
 this point, whether as a sister, sweetheart, or wife. And 
 when she is trusted, she 's bound to get the better of the 
 man in any of those relations ! " 
 
 The dead silence that followed, the ominous joggle of 
 a glass at the speaker's elbow, the quick, sympathetic 
 glance that Brant instinctively felt was directed at his own 
 face, and the abrupt change of subject, could not but 
 arrest his attention, even if he had overlooked the speech. 
 Still his face betrayed nothing. It had never, however, 
 occurred to him before that his family affairs might be 
 known — neither had he ever thought of keeping tbem 
 a secret. It seemed so purely a personal and private mis- 
 fortune, that he had never dreamed of its having any pub- 
 lic interest. And even now he was a little ashamed of 
 what he believed was his sensitiveness to mere conven- 
 tional criticism, which, with the instinct of a proud man, 
 he had despised. 
 
 He was not far wrong in his sardonic intuition of the 
 effect of his prohibition upon Miss Faulkner's feelings. 
 Certainly that young lady, when not engaged in her myste- 
 rious occupation of arranging her uncle's effects, occasion- 
 ally was seen in the garden, and in the woods beyond. 
 Although her presence was the signal for the " oblique " of 
 any lounging " shoulder-strap, " or the vacant " front " of 
 a posted sentry, she seemed to regard their occasional 
 proximity with less active disfavor. Once, when she had 
 mounted the wall to gather a magnolia blossom, the chair 
 by which she had ascended rolled over, leaving her on the 
 
358 CLARENCE 
 
 wall. At a signal from the guard-room, two sappers and 
 ^miners appeared carrying a scaling-ladder, which they 
 placed silently against the wall, and as silently withdrew. 
 On another occasion, the same spirited young lady, whom 
 Brant was satisfied would have probably imperiled her life 
 under fire in devotion to her cause, was brought ignomin- 
 iously to bay in the field by that most appalling of domes- 
 tic animals, the wandering and untrammeled cow ! Brant 
 could not help smiling as he heard the quick, harsh call 
 to "Turn out, guard," saw the men march stolidly with 
 fixed bayonets to the vicinity of the affrighted animal, who 
 fled, leaving the fair stranger to walk shamefacedly to the 
 house. He was surprised, however, that she should have 
 halted before his door, and with tremulous indignation, 
 said, — 
 
 "I thank you, sir, for your chivalrousness in turning 
 a defenseless woman into ridicule ! " 
 
 "I regret, Miss Faulkner," began Brant gravely, "that 
 you should believe that I am able to control the advances 
 of farmyard cattle as easily as " — But he stopped, as he 
 saw that the angry flash of her blue eyes, as she darted 
 past him, was set in tears. A little remorseful on the fol- 
 lowing day, he added a word to his ordinary cap-lifting 
 when she went by, but she retained a reproachful silence. 
 Later in the day, he received from her servant a respectful 
 .request for an interview, and was relieved to find that she 
 entered his presence with no trace of her former aggres- 
 sion, but rather with the resignation of a deeply injured, 
 yet not entirely unforgiving, woman. 
 
 "I thought," she began coldly, "that I ought to inform 
 you that I would probably be able to conclude my business 
 here by the day after to-morrow, and that you would then 
 be relieved of my presence. I am aware — indeed, " she 
 added bitterly, "I could scarcely help perceiving, that it 
 has been an exceedingly irksome one." 
 
CLARENCE 359 
 
 "I trust," began Brant coldly, "that no gentleman of 
 my command has " — ■ 
 
 "No!" 
 
 She interrupted him quickly, with a return of her 
 former manner, and a passionate sweep of the hand. 
 
 "Do you suppose for a moment that I am speaking — 
 that I am even thinking — of them 1 What are they to 
 me ? " 
 
 "Thank you. I am glad to know that they are nothing; 
 and that I may now trust that you have consulted my 
 wishes, and have reserved your animosity solely for me," 
 returned Brant quietly. "That being so, I see no reason 
 for your hurrying your departure in the least." 
 
 She rose instantly. 
 
 "I have," she said slowly, controlling herself with a 
 slight effort, "found some one who will take my duty off 
 my hands. She is a servant of one of your neighbors, — 
 who is an old friend of my uncle's. The woman is fami- 
 liar with the house and our private property. I will give 
 her full instructions to act for me, and even an authoriza- 
 tion in writing, if you prefer it. She is already in the 
 habit of coming here; but her visits will give you very 
 little trouble. And as she is a slave, or, as you call it, 
 I believe, a chattel, she will be already quite accustomed 
 to the treatment which her class are in the habit of receiv- 
 ing from Northern hands. " 
 
 Without waiting to perceive the effect of her Parthian 
 shot, she swept proudly out of the room. 
 
 "I wonder what she means," mused Brant, as he/ 
 quick step died away in the passage. "One thing is cer- 
 tain, — a woman like that is altogether too impulsive fcs 
 a spy. " 
 
 Later, in the twilight, he saw her walking in the gar- 
 den. There was a figure at her side. A little curious, 
 he examined it more closely from his window. It was 
 
360 CLARENCE 
 
 already familiar to him, — the erect, shapely form of his 
 neighbor's servant. A thoughtful look passed over his 
 face as he muttered, — 
 
 "So this is to be her deputy." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Called to a general council of officers at divisional 
 headquarters the next day, Brant had little time for further 
 speculation regarding his strange guest, but a remark from 
 the division commander, that he preferred to commit the 
 general plan of a movement then under discussion to their 
 memories rather than to written orders in the ordinary 
 routine, seemed to show that his chief still suspected the 
 existence of a spy. He, therefore, told him of his late 
 interview with Miss Faulkner, and her probable with- 
 drawal in favor of a mulatto neighbor. The division com- 
 mander received the information with indifference. 
 
 " They 're much too clever to employ a hussy like that, 
 who shows her hand at every turn, either as a spy or a 
 messenger of spies, — and the mulattoes are too stupid, to 
 say nothing of their probable fidelity to us. No, General, 
 if we are watched, it is by an eagle, and not a mocking- 
 bird. Miss Faulkner has nothing worse about her than 
 her tongue; and there isn't the nigger blood in the whole 
 South that would risk a noose for her, or for any of their 
 masters or mistresses ! " 
 
 It was, therefore, perhaps, with some mitigation of his 
 usual critical severity that he saw her walking before him 
 alone in the lane as he rode home to quarters. She was 
 apparently lost in a half-impatient, half-moody reverie, 
 which even the trotting hoofbeats of his own and his 
 orderly's horse had not disturbed. From time to time she 
 struck the myrtle hedge beside her with the head of a large 
 flower which hung by its stalk from her listless hands, or 
 
862 CLARENCE 
 
 held it to her face as if to inhale its perfume. Dismissing 
 his orderly by a side path, he rode gently forward, but, to 
 his surprise, without turning or seeming to be aware of 
 his presence, she quickened her pace, and even appeared 
 to look from side to side for some avenue of escape. If 
 only to mend matters, he was obliged to ride quickly for- 
 ward to her side, where he threw himself from his horse, 
 flung the reins on his arm, and began to walk beside her. 
 She at first turned a slightly flushed cheek away from him, 
 and then looked up with a purely simulated start of sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " I am afraid, " he said gently, " that I am the first to 
 break my own orders in regard to any intrusion on your 
 privacy. But I wanted to ask you if I could give you any 
 aid whatever in the change you think of making." 
 
 He was quite sincere, — had been touched by her mani- 
 fest disturbance, and, despite his masculine relentlessness 
 of criticism, he had an intuition of feminine suffering that 
 was in itself feminine. 
 
 "Meaning, that you are in a hurry to get rid of me," 
 she said curtly, without raising her eyes. 
 
 " Meaning that I only wish to expedite a business which 
 I think is unpleasant to you, but which I believe you have 
 undertaken from unselfish devotion." 
 
 The scant expression of a reserved nature is sometimes 
 more attractive to women than the most fluent vivacity. 
 Possibly there was also a melancholy grace in this sardonic 
 soldier's manner that affected her, for she looked up, and 
 said impulsively, — 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 But he met her eager eyes with some surprise. 
 
 "I certainly do," he replied more coldly. "I can ima- 
 gine your feelings on finding your uncle's home in the pos- 
 session of your enemies, and your presence under the 
 family roof only a sufferance. I can hardly believe it a 
 
CLARENCE 3G3 
 
 pleasure to you, or a task you would have accepted for 
 yourself alone." 
 
 "But," she said, turning towards him wickedly, "what 
 if I did it only to excite my revenge ; what if I knew it 
 would give me courage to incite my people to carry war 
 into your own homes; to make you of the North feel as I 
 feel, and taste our bitterness ? " 
 
 "I could easily understand that, too," he returned, with 
 listless coldness, "although I don't admit that revenge is 
 an unmixed pleasure, even to a woman." 
 
 "A woman!" she repeated indignantly. "There is no 
 sex in a war like this. " 
 
 "You are spoiling your flower," he said quietly. "It 
 is very pretty, and a native one, too; not an invader, or 
 even transplanted. May I look at it ? " 
 
 She hesitated, half recoiling for an instant, and her 
 hand trembled. Then, suddenly and abruptly she said, 
 with a hysteric little laugh, "Take it, then," and almost 
 thrust it in his hand. 
 
 It certainly was a pretty flower, not unlike a lily in 
 appearance, with a bell-like cup and long anthers covered 
 with a fine pollen, like red dust. As he lifted it to his 
 face, to inhale its perfume, she uttered a slight cry, and 
 snatched it from his hand. 
 
 " There ! " she said, with the same nervous laugh. " I 
 knew you would; I ought to have warned you. The 
 pollen comes off so easily, and leaves a stain. And you 've 
 got some on your cheek. Look ! " she continued, taking 
 her handkerchief from her pocket and wiping his cheek; 
 "see there!" The delicate cambric showed a blood-red 
 streak. 
 
 "It grows in a swamp," she continued, in the same 
 excited strain; "we call it dragon's teeth, — like the kind 
 that was sown in the story, you know. We children used 
 to find it, and then paint our faces and lips with it. We 
 
3C4 CLARENCE 
 
 called it our rouge. I was almost tempted to try it again 
 when I found it just now. It took me back so to the old 
 times. " 
 
 Following her odd manner rather than her words, as she 
 turned her face towards him suddenly, Brant was inclined 
 to think that she had tried it already, so scarlet was her 
 cheek. But it presently paled again under his cold scru- 
 tiny. 
 
 "You must miss the old times," he said calmly. "I 
 am afraid you found very little of them left, except in 
 these flowers." 
 
 "And hardly these," she said bitterly. "Your troops 
 had found a way through the marsh, and had trampled 
 down the bushes." 
 
 Brant's brow clouded. He remembered that the brook, 
 which had run red during the fight, had lost itself in this 
 marsh. It did not increase his liking for this beautiful 
 but blindly vicious animal at his side, and even his mo- 
 mentary pity for her was fading fast. She was incorrigi- 
 ble. They walked on for a few moments in silence. 
 
 "You said," she hegan at last, in a gentler and even 
 hesitating voice, "that your wife was a Southern woman." 
 
 He checked an irritated start with difficulty. 
 
 " I believe I did, " he said coldly, as if he regretted it. 
 
 "And of course you taught her your gospel, — the gos- 
 pel according to St. Lincoln. Oh, I know, " she went on 
 hurriedly, as if conscious of his irritation and seeking to 
 allay it. " She was a woman and loved you, and thought 
 with your thoughts and saw only with your eyes. Yes, 
 that 's the way with us, — I suppose we all do it!" she 
 added bitterly. 
 
 "She had her own opinions," said Brant briefly, as he 
 recovered himself. 
 
 Nevertheless, his manner so decidedly closed all further 
 discussion that there was nothing left for the young girl 
 
CLARENCE 365 
 
 but silence. But it was broken by her in a few moments 
 in her old contemptuous voice and manner. 
 
 "Pray don't trouble yourself to accompany me any fur- 
 ther, General Brant. Unless, of course, you are afraid I 
 may come across some of your — your soldiers. I promise 
 you I won't eat them." 
 
 "I am afraid you must suffer my company a little 
 longer, Miss Faulkner, on account of those same soldiers," 
 returned Brant gravely. "You may not know that this 
 road, in which I find you, takes you through a cordon of 
 pickets. If you were alone you would be stopped, ques- 
 tioned, and, failing to give the password, you would be 
 detained, sent to the guard-house, and " — he stopped, and 
 fixed his eyes on her keenly as he added, "and searched." 
 
 " You would not dare to search a woman ! " she said in- 
 dignantly, although her flush gave way to a slight pallor. 
 
 "You said just now that there should be no sex in a 
 war like this," returned Brant carelessly, but without 
 abating his scrutinizing gaze. 
 
 " Then it is war 1 " she said quickly, with a white, sig- 
 nificant face. 
 
 His look of scrutiny turned to one of puzzled wonder. 
 But at the same moment there was the flash of a bayonet 
 in the hedge, a voice called " Halt ! " and a soldier stepped 
 into the road. 
 
 General Brant advanced, met the salute of the picket 
 with a few formal words, and then turned towards his fair 
 companion, as another soldier and a sergeant joined the 
 group. 
 
 "Miss Faulkner is new to the camp, took the wrong 
 turning, and was unwittingly leaving the lines when I 
 joined her." He fixed his eyes intently on her now color- 
 less face, but she did not return his look. "You will 
 show her the shortest way to quarters," he continued, to 
 the sergeant, "and should she at any time again lose her 
 
366 CLARENCE 
 
 way, yoil will again conduct her home, — but without 
 detaining or reporting her. " 
 
 He lifted his cap, remounted his horse, and rode away, 
 as the young girl, with a proud, indifferent step, moved 
 down the road with the sergeant. A mounted officer 
 passed him and saluted, — it was one of his own staff. 
 From some strange instinct, he knew that he had witnessed 
 the scene, and from some equally strange intuition he was 
 annoyed by it. But he continued his way, visiting one 
 or two outposts, and returned by a long ddtour to his quar- 
 ters. As he stepped upon the veranda he saw Miss Faulk- 
 ner at the bottom of the garden talking with some one 
 across the hedge. By the aid of his glass he could recog- 
 nize the shapely figure of the mulatto woman which he 
 had seen before. But by its aid he also discovered that 
 she was carrying a flower exactly like the one which Miss 
 Faulkner still held in her hand. Had she been with Miss 
 Faulkner in the lane, and if so, why had she disappeared 
 when he came up 1 Impelled by something stronger than 
 mere curiosity, he walked quickly down the garden, but 
 she evidently had noticed him, for she as quickly disap- 
 peared. Not caring to meet Miss Faulkner again, he 
 retraced his steps, resolving that he would, on the first 
 opportunity, personally examine and interrogate this new 
 visitor. For if she were to take Miss Faulkner's place in 
 a subordinate capacity, this precaution was clearly within 
 his rights. 
 
 He reentered his room and seated himself at his desk 
 before the dispatches, orders, and reports awaiting him. 
 He found himself, however, working half mechanically, 
 and recurring to his late interview with Miss Faulkner in 
 the lane. If she had any inclination to act the spy, or 
 to use her position here as a means of communicating with 
 the enemy's lines, he thought he had thoroughly frightened 
 her. Nevertheless, now, for the first time, he was inclined 
 
CLARENCE 367 
 
 to accept his chief's opinion of her. She was not only too 
 clumsy and inexperienced, but she totally lacked the self- 
 restraint of a spy. Her nervous agitation in the lane was 
 due to something more disturbing than his mere possible 
 intrusion upon her confidences with the mulatto. The 
 significance of her question, " Then it is war ? " was at 
 best a threat, and that implied hesitation. He recalled 
 her strange allusion to his wife ; was it merely the outcome 
 of his own foolish confession on their first interview, or 
 was it a concealed ironical taunt? Being satisfied, how- 
 ever, that she was not likely to imperil his public duty in 
 any way, he was angry with himself for speculating fur- 
 ther. But, although he still felt towards her the same 
 antagonism she had at first provoked, he was conscious that 
 she was beginning to exercise a strange fascination over 
 him. 
 
 Dismissing her at last with an effort, he finished his 
 work and then rose, and, unlocking a closet, took out a 
 £,mall dispatch-box, to which he intended to intrust a few 
 more important orders and memoranda. As he opened it 
 with a key on his watch-chain, he was struck with a faint 
 perfume that seemed to come from it, — a perfume that he 
 remembered. Was it the smell of the flower that Miss 
 Faulkner carried, or the scent of the handkerchief with 
 which she had wiped his cheek, or a mingling of both? 
 Or was he under some spell to think of that wretched girl, 
 and her witch-like flower? He leaned over the box and 
 suddenly started. Upon the outer covering of a dispatch 
 was a singular blood-red streak ! He examined it closely, 
 — it was the powdery stain of the lily pollen, — exactly as 
 he had seen it on her handkerchief. 
 
 There could be no mistake. He passed his finger over 
 the stain; he could still feel the slippery, infinitesimal 
 powder of the pollen. It was not there when he had 
 closed the box that morning; it was impossible that it 
 
368 CLARENCE 
 
 should be there unless the box had been opened in his 
 absence. He reexamined the contents of the box; the 
 papers were all there. More than that, they were papers 
 of no importance except to him personally; contained no 
 plans nor key to any military secret; he had been far too 
 wise to intrust any to the accidents of this alien house. 
 The prying intruder, whoever it was, had gained nothing! 
 But there was unmistakably the attempt! And the exist- 
 ence of a would-be spy within the purlieus of the house 
 was equally clear. 
 
 He called an officer from the next room. 
 
 " Has any one been here since my absence 1 " 
 
 "No, General." 
 
 " Has any one passed through the hall 1 " 
 
 He had fully anticipated the answer, as the subaltern 
 replied, "Only the women servants." 
 
 He reentered the room. Closing the door, he again 
 carefully examined the box, his table, the papers upon it, 
 the chair before it, and even the Chinese matting on the 
 floor, for any further indication of the pollen. It hardly 
 seemed possible that any one could have entered the room 
 with the flower in their hand without scattering some of 
 the telltale dust elsewhere ; it was too large a flower to be 
 worn on the breast or in the hair. Again, no one would 
 have dared to linger there long enough to have made an 
 examination of the box, with an officer in the next room, 
 and the sergeant passing. The box had been removed, 
 and the examination made elsewhere ! 
 
 An idea seized him. Miss Faulkner was still absent, 
 the mulatto had apparently gone home. He quickly 
 mounted the staircase, but, instead of entering his room, 
 turned suddenly aside into the wing which had been 
 reserved. The first door yielded as he turned its knob 
 gently and entered a room which he at once recognized as 
 the "young lady's boudoir." But the dusty and draped 
 
CLARENCE 369 
 
 furniture had been rearranged and uncovered, and the 
 apartment bore every sign of present use. Yet, although 
 there was unmistakable evidence of its being used by a 
 person of taste and refinement, he was surprised to see 
 that the garments hanging in an open press were such as 
 were used by negro servants, and that a gaudy handker- 
 chief such as housemaids used for turbans was lying on the 
 pretty silk coverlet. He did not linger over these details, 
 but cast a rapid glance round the room. Then his eyes 
 became fixed on a fanciful writing-desk, which stood by 
 the window. For, in a handsome vase placed on its level 
 top, and drooping on a portfolio below, hung a cluster of 
 the very flowers that Miss Faulkner had carried! 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 
 It seemed plain to Brant that the dispatch-box had 
 been conveyed here and opened for security on this desk, 
 and in the hurry of examining the papers the flower had 
 been jostled and the fallen grains of pollen overlooked by 
 the spy. There were one or two freckles of red on the 
 desk, which made this accident appear the more probable. 
 But he was equally struck by another circumstance. The 
 desk stood immediately before the window. As he glanced 
 mechanically from it, he was surprised to see that it com- 
 manded an extensive view of the slope below the eminence 
 on which the house stood, even beyond his furthest line of 
 pickets. The vase of flowers, each of which was nearly as 
 large as a magnolia blossom, and striking in color, occupied 
 a central position before it, and no doubt could be quite 
 distinctly seen from a distance. From this circumstance 
 he could not resist the strong impression that this fateful 
 and extraordinary blossom, carried by Miss Faulkner and 
 the mulatto, and so strikingly " in evidence " at the win- 
 dow, was in some way a signal. Obeying an impulse 
 which he was conscious had a half-superstitious foundation, 
 he carefully lifted the vase from its position before the 
 window, and placed it on a side table. Then he cautiously 
 slipped from the room. 
 
 But he could not easily shake off the perplexity which 
 the occurrence had caused, although he was satisfied that 
 it was fraught with no military or strategic danger to his 
 command, and that the unknown spy had obtained no in- 
 formation whatever. Yet he was forced to admit to him- 
 
CLARENCE 371 
 
 self that he was more concerned in his attempts to justify 
 the conduct of Miss Faulkner with this later revelation. 
 It was quite possible that the dispatch-box had been pur- 
 loined by some one else during her absence from the house, 
 as the presence of the mulatto servant in his room would 
 have been less Suspicious than hers. There was really 
 little evidence to connect Miss Faulkner with the actual 
 outrage, — rather might not the real spy have taken advan- 
 tage of her visit here, to throw suspicion upon her? He 
 remembered her singular manner, — the strange inconsis- 
 tency with which she had forced this flower upon him. 
 She would hardly have done so had she been conscious of 
 its having so serious an import. Yet, what was the secret 
 of her manifest agitation ? A sudden inspiration flashed 
 across his mind; a smile came upon his lips. She was in 
 love! The enemy's line contained some sighing Strephon 
 of a young subaltern with whom she was in communica- 
 tion, and for whom she had undertaken this quest. The 
 flower was their language of correspondence, no doubt. It 
 explained also the young girl's animosity against the 
 younger officers, — his adversaries ; against himself, — 
 their commander. He had previously wondered why, if 
 she were indeed a spy, she had not chosen, upon some 
 equally specious order from Washington, the headquarters 
 of the division commander, whose secrets were more valu- 
 able. This was explained by the fact that she was nearer 
 the lines and her lover in her present abode. He had no 
 idea that he was making excuses for her, — he believed 
 himself only just. The recollection of what she had said 
 of the power of love, albeit it had hurt him cruelly at the 
 time, was now clearer to him, and even seemed to mitigate 
 her offense. She would be here but a day or two longer; 
 he could afford to wait without interrogating her. 
 
 But as to the real intruder, spy or thief, — that was 
 another affair, and quickly settled. He gave an order to 
 
372 CLARENCE 
 
 the officer of the day peremptorily forbidding the entrance 
 of alien servants or slaves within the precincts of the head- 
 quarters. Any one thus trespassing was to be brought 
 before him. The officer looked surprised, he even fancied 
 disappointed. The graces of the mulatto woman's figure 
 had evidently not been thrown away upon his subalterns. 
 
 An hour or two later, when he was mounting his horse 
 for a round of inspection, he was surprised to see Miss 
 Faulkner, accompanied by the mulatto woman, running 
 hurriedly to the house. He had forgotten his late order 
 until he saw the latter halted by the sentries, but the 
 young girl came flying on, regardless of her companion. 
 Her skirt was held in one hand, her straw hat had fallen 
 back in her flight, and was caught only by a ribbon around 
 her swelling throat, and her loosened hair lay in a black 
 rippled loop on one shoulder. For an instant Brant 
 thought that she was seeking him in indignation at his 
 order, but a second look at her set face, eager eyes, and 
 parted scarlet lips, showed him that she had not even 
 noticed him in the concentration of her purpose. She 
 swept by him into the hall, he heard the swish of her 
 skirt and rapid feet on the stairs, — she was gone. What 
 had happened, or was this another of her moods 1 
 
 But he was called to himself by the apparition of a cor- 
 poral standing before him, with the mulatto woman, — the 
 first capture under his order. She was tall, well-formed, 
 •but unmistakably showing the negro type, even in her 
 small features. Her black eyes were excited, but unintel- 
 ligent ; her manner dogged, but with the obstinacy of half- 
 conscious stupidity. Brant felt not only disappointed, but 
 had a singular impression that she was not the same woman 
 that he had first seen. Yet there was the tall, graceful 
 figure, the dark profile, and the turbaned head that he had 
 once followed down the passage by his room. 
 
 Her story was as stupidly simple. She had known 
 
CLARENCE 373 
 
 "Missy" from a chile! She had just traipsed over to see 
 her that afternoon ; they were walking together when the 
 sojers stopped her. She had never been stopped before, 
 even by " the patter rollers. " * Her old massa (Manly) 
 had gib leaf to go see Miss Tilly, and had n't said nuffin 
 about no " orders. " 
 
 More annoyed than he cared to confess, Brant briefly 
 dismissed her with a warning. As he cantered down the 
 slope the view of the distant pickets recalled the window 
 in the wing, and he turned in his saddle to look at it. 
 There it was — the largest and most dominant window in 
 that part of the building — and within it, a distinct and 
 vivid object almost filling the opening, was the vase of 
 flowers, which he had a few hours ago removed, restored 
 to its original position / He smiled. The hurried en- 
 trance and consternation of Miss Faulkner were now fully 
 explained. He had interrupted some impassioned message, 
 perhaps even countermanded some affectionate rendezvous 
 beyond the lines. And it seemed to settle the fact that it 
 was she who had done the signaling ! But would not this 
 also make her cognizant of the taking of the dispatch-box ? 
 He reflected, however, that the room was apparently occu- 
 pied by the mulatto woman, — he remembered the calico 
 dresses and turban on the bed, — and it was possible that 
 Miss Faulkner had only visited it for the purpose of signal- 
 ing to her lover. Although this circumstance did not tend 
 to make his mind easier, it was, however, presently diverted 
 by a new arrival and a strange recognition. 
 
 As he rode through the camp a group of officers, congre- 
 gated before a large mess tent, appeared to be highly amused 
 by the conversation — half monologue and half harangue — 
 of a singular-looking individual who stood in the centre. 
 He wore a "slouch" hat, to the band of which he had 
 
 1 That is, patrols, — a civic home-guard in the South that kept surveil- 
 lance of slaves. 
 
374 CLAKENCE 
 
 imparted a military air by the addition of a gold cord, but 
 the brim was caught up at the side in a peculiarly theatri- 
 cal and highly artificial fashion. A heavy cavalry sabre 
 depended from a broad-buckled belt under his black frock 
 coat, with the addition of two revolvers — minus their 
 holsters — stuck on either side of the buckle, after the 
 style of a stage smuggler. A pair of long enameled leather 
 riding boots, with the tops turned deeply over, as if they 
 had once done duty for the representative of a cavalier, 
 completed his extraordinary equipment. The group were 
 so absorbed in him that they did not perceive the approach 
 of their- chief and his orderly; and Brant, with a sign to 
 the latter, halted only a few paces from this central figure. 
 His speech was a singular mingling of high-flown and 
 exalted epithets, with inexact pronunciation and occasional 
 lapses of Western slang. 
 
 " Well, I ain't purtendin' to any stratutegical smartness, 
 and I didn't gradooate at West Point as one of those 
 Apocryphal Engineers; I don't do much talking about 
 k flank ' movements or ' recognizances in force ' or ' Ekellon 
 skirmishing,' but when it comes down to square Ingin 
 fightin', I reckon I kin have my say. There are men who 
 don't know the Army Contractor," he added darkly, "who 
 niebbe have heard of ' Bed Jim. ' I don't mention names, 
 gentlemen, but only the other day a man that you all know 
 says to me, ' If I only knew what you do about scoutin' I 
 would n't be wanting for information as I do. ' I ain't 
 goin' to say who it was, or break any confidences between 
 gentlemen by saying how many stars he had on his shoul- 
 der-strap; but he was a man who knew what he was say- 
 ing. And I say agin, gentlemen, that the curse of the 
 Northern Army is the want of proper scoutin'. What was 
 it caused Bull's Run? — Want o' scoutin'. What was it 
 rolled up Pope? — Want o' scoutin'. What caused the 
 slaughter at the Wilderness ? — Want o' scoutin' — Ingin 
 
CLABENCE 375 
 
 gcoutin' ! Why, only the other day, gentlemen, I was 
 approached to know what I 'd take to organize a scoutin' 
 force. And what did I say? — 'No, General; it ain't 
 because I represent one of the largest Army Beef Contracts 
 in this country,' says I. ' It ain't because I belong, so to 
 speak, to the "Sinews of War;" but because I'd want 
 about ten thousand trained Ingins from the Reservations ! ' 
 And the regular West Point, high-toned, scientific inkybus 
 that weigbs so heavily on our army don't see it — and 
 won't have it! Then Sherman, he sez to me " — 
 
 But here a roar of laughter interrupted him, and in the 
 cross fire of sarcastic interrogations that began Brant saw, 
 with relief, a chance of escape. For in the voice, manner, 
 and, above all, the characteristic temperament of the 
 stranger, he had recognized his old playmate and the hus- 
 band of Susy, — the redoubtable Jim Hooker ! There was 
 no mistaking that gloomy audacity ; that mysterious signifi- 
 cance; that magnificent lying. But even at that moment 
 Clarence Brant's heart had gone out, with all his old loy- 
 alty of feeling, towards his old companion. He knew that 
 a public recognition of him then and there would plunge 
 Hooker into confusion ; he felt keenly the ironical plaudits 
 and laughter of his officers over the manifest weakness and 
 vanity of the ex-teamster, ex-rancher, ex-actor, and hus- 
 band of his old girl sweetheart, and would have spared 
 bim the knowledge that he had overheard it. Turning 
 hastily to the orderly, he bade him bring the stranger to 
 his headquarters, and rode away unperceived. 
 
 He had heard enough, however, to account for his pres- 
 ence there, and the singular chance that had brought them 
 again together. He was evidently one of those large civil 
 contractors of supplies whom the Government was obliged 
 to employ, who visited the camp half officially, and whom 
 the army alternately depended upon and abused. Brant 
 had dealt with his underlings in the Commissariat, and 
 
376 CLARENCE 
 
 even now remembered that he had heard he was coming, 
 but had overlooked the significance of his name. But how 
 he came to leave his theatrical profession, how he had 
 attained a position which implied a command of consider- 
 able capital, — for many of the contractors had already 
 amassed large fortunes, — and what had become of Susy 
 and her ambitions in this radical change of circumstances, 
 were things still to be learned. In his own changed con- 
 ditions he had seldom thought of her; it was with a 
 strange feeling of irritation and half responsibility that he 
 now recalled their last interview and the emotion to which 
 he had yielded. 
 
 He had not long to wait. He had scarcely regained the 
 quarters at his own private office before he heard the step 
 of the orderly upon the veranda and the trailing clank of 
 Hooker's sabre. He did not know, however, that Hooker, 
 without recognizing his name, had received the message as 
 a personal tribute, and had left his sarcastic companions 
 triumphantly, with the air of going to a confidential inter- 
 view, to which his well-known military criticism had 
 entitled him. It was with a bearing of gloomy importance 
 and his characteristic, sullen, sidelong glance that he 
 entered the apartment and did not look up until Brant had 
 signaled the orderly to withdraw, and closed the door be- 
 hind him. And then he recognized his old boyish com- 
 panion — the preferred favorite of fortune ! 
 
 For a moment he gasped with astonishment. For a 
 moment gloomy incredulity, suspicion, delight, pride, 
 admiration, even affection, struggled for mastery in his 
 sullen, staring eyes and open, twitching mouth. For here 
 was Clarence Brant, handsomer than ever, more superior 
 than ever, in the majesty of uniform and authority which 
 fitted him — the younger man — by reason of his four years 
 of active service, with the careless ease and bearing of the 
 veteran! Here was the hero whose name was already so 
 
CLARENCE 377 
 
 famous that the mere coincidence of it with that of the 
 modest civilian he had known would have struck him as pre- 
 posterous. Yet here he was — supreme and dazzling — sur- 
 rounded by the pomp and circumstance of war — into whose 
 reserved presence he, Jim Hooker, had been ushered with 
 the formality of challenge, saluting, and presented bayonets ! 
 
 Luckily, Brant had taken advantage of his first gratified 
 ejaculation to shake him warmly by the hand, and then, 
 with both hands laid familiarly on his shoulder, force him 
 down into a chair. Luckily, for by that time Jim Hooker 
 had, with characteristic gloominess, found time to taste 
 the pangs of envy — an envy the more keen since, in spite 
 of his success as a peaceful contractor, he had always 
 secretly longed for military display and distinction. He 
 looked at the man who had achieved it, as he firmly be- 
 lieved, by sheer luck and accident, and his eyes darkened. 
 Then, with characteristic weakness and vanity, he began 
 to resist his first impressions of Clarence's superiority, and 
 to air his own importance. He leaned heavily back in the 
 chair in which he had been thus genially forced, drew off 
 his gauntlet and attempted to thrust it through his belt, 
 as he had seen Brant do, but failed on account of his pis- 
 tols already occupying that position, dropped it, got his 
 sword between his legs in attempting to pick it up, and 
 then leaned back again, with half-closed eyes serenely in- 
 different of his old companion's smiling face. 
 
 " I reckon, " he began slowly, with a slightly patronizing 
 air, " that we 'd have met, sooner or later, at Washington, 
 or at Grant's headquarters, for Hooker, Meacham & Co. 
 go everywhere, and are about as well known as major-gen- 
 erals, to say nothin'," he went on, with a sidelong glance 
 at Brant's shoulder-straps, "of brigadiers; and it 's rather 
 strange — only, of course, you're kind of fresh in the 
 service — that you ain't heard of me afore." 
 
 "But I'm very glad to hear of you now, Jim," said 
 
378 CLARENCE 
 
 Brant, smiling, "and from your own lips — which I am 
 also delighted to find," he added mischievously, "are still 
 as frankly communicative on that topic as of old. But I 
 congratulate you, old fellow, on your good fortune. When 
 did you leave the stage ? " 
 
 Mr. Hooker frowned slightly. 
 
 "I never was really on the stage, you know," he said, 
 waving his hand with assumed negligence. " Only went 
 on to please my wife. Mrs. Hooker wouldn't act with 
 vulgar professionals, don't you see! I was really manager 
 most of the time, and lessee of the theatre. Went East 
 when the war broke out, to offer my sword and knowledge 
 of Ingin fightin' to Uncle Sam! Drifted into a big pork 
 contract at St. Louis, with Fremont. Been at it ever 
 since. Offered a commission in the reg'lar service lots o' 
 times. Refused. " 
 
 " Why 1 " asked Brant demurely. 
 
 "Too much West Point starch around to suit me," 
 returned Hooker darkly. " And too many spies ! " 
 
 " Spies ? " echoed Brant abstractedly, with a momentary 
 reminiscence of Miss Faulkner. 
 
 "Yes, spies," continued Hooker, with dogged mystery. 
 "One half of Washington is watching t' other half, and, 
 from the President's wife down, most of the women are 
 secesh ! " 
 
 Brant suddenly fixed his keen eyes on his guest. But 
 the next moment he reflected that this was only Jim 
 Hooker's usual speech, and possessed no ulterior signifi- 
 cance. He smiled again, and said more gently, — 
 
 "And how is Mrs. Hooker? " 
 
 Mr. Hooker fixed his eyes on the ceiling, rose, and pre- 
 tended to look out of the window; then, taking his seat 
 again by the table, as if fronting an imaginary audience- 
 and pulling slowly at his gauntlets after the usual theatri 
 oal indication of perfect sang froid, said. — 
 
CLARENCE 379 
 
 "There ain't any!" 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said Brant, with genuine emotion. 
 " I beg your pardon. Keally, I " — 
 
 "Mrs. Hooker and me are divorced," continued Hooker, 
 slightly changing his attitude, and leaning heavily on his 
 sabre, with his eyes still on his fanciful audience. "There 
 was, you understand, " — lightly tossing his gauntlet aside, 
 — " incompatibility of temper — and — we — parted ! 
 Ha!" 
 
 He uttered a low, bitter, scornful laugh, which, how- 
 ever, produced the distinct impression in Brant's mind 
 that up to that moment he had never had the slightest 
 feeling in the matter whatever. 
 
 "You seemed to be on such good terms with each 
 other ! " murmured Brant vaguely. 
 
 " Seemed ! " said Hooker bitterly, glancing sardonically 
 at an ideal second row in the pit before him, "yes — ■ 
 seemed ! There were other differences, social and political. 
 You understand that; you have suffered, too." He 
 reached out his hand and pressed Brant's, in heavy effu- 
 siveness. "But," he continued haughtily, lightly tossing 
 his glove again, "we are also men of the world; we let 
 that pass." 
 
 And it was possible that he found the strain of his pres- 
 ent attitude too great, for he changed to an easier position. 
 
 "But," said Brant curiously, "I always thought that 
 Mrs. Hooker was intensely Union and Northern 1 " 
 
 " Put on ! " said Hooker, in his natural voice. 
 
 " But you remember the incident of the flag ? " persisted 
 Brant. 
 
 " Mrs. Hooker was always an actress, " said Hooker sig- 
 nificantly. "But," he added cheerfully, "Mrs. Hooker is 
 now the wife of Senator Boompointer, one of the wealthiest 
 and most powerful Republicans in Washington — carries 
 the patronage of the whole West in his vest pocket." 
 
380 CLARENCE 
 
 " Yet, if she is not a Republican, why did she " — began 
 Brant. 
 
 "For a purpose," replied Hooker darkly. "But," he 
 added again, with greater cheerfulness, "she belongs to 
 the very elite of Washington society. Goes to all the 
 foreign ambassadors' balls, and is a power at the White 
 House. Her picture is in all the first-class illustrated 
 papers. " 
 
 The singular but unmistakable pride of the man in the 
 importance of the wife from whom he was divorced, and 
 for whom he did not care, would have offended Brant's 
 delicacy, or at least have excited his ridicule, but for the 
 reason that he was more deeply stung by Hooker's allusion 
 to his own wife and his degrading similitude of their two 
 conditions. But he dismissed the former as part of Hook- 
 er's invincible and still boyish extravagance, and the latter 
 as part of his equally characteristic assumption. Perhaps 
 he was conscious, too, notwithstanding the lapse of years 
 and the condonation of separation and forgetfulness, that 
 he deserved little delicacy from the hands of Susy's hus- 
 band. Nevertheless, he dreaded to hear him speak again 
 of her ; and the fear was realized in a question. 
 
 " Does she know you are here 1 " 
 
 "Who?" said Brant curtly. 
 
 "Your wife. That is — I reckon she 's your wife still, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Yes; but I do not know what she knows," returnee? 
 Brant quietly. He had regained his self-composure. 
 
 "Susy, — Mrs. Senator Boompointer, that is," — said 
 Hooker, with an apparent dignity in his late wife's new 
 title, "allowed that she 'd gone abroad on a secret mission 
 from the Southern Confederacy to them crowned heads 
 over there. She was good at ropin' men in, you know. 
 Anyhow, Susy, afore she was Mrs. Boompointer, was dead 
 set on findin' out where she was, but never could. She 
 
CLARENCE 381 
 
 seemed to drop out of sight a year ago. Some said one 
 thing, and some said another. But you can bet your bot- 
 tom dollar that Mrs. Senator Boompointer, who knows 
 how to pull all the wires in Washington, will know, if any 
 one does." 
 
 "But is Mrs. Boompointer really disaffected, and a 
 Southern sympathizer 1 " said Brant, " or is it only caprice 
 or fashion ? " 
 
 While speaking he had risen, with a half-abstracted 
 face, and had gone to the window, where he stood in a 
 listening attitude. Presently he opened the window, and 
 stepped outside. Hooker wonderingly followed him. 
 One or two officers had already stepped out of their rooms, 
 and were standing upon the veranda ; another had halted 
 in the path. Then one quickly reentered the house, reap- 
 peared with his cap and sword in his hand, and ran lightly 
 toward the guard-house. A slight crackling noise seemed 
 to come from beyond the garden wall. 
 
 "What 's up? " said Hooker, with staring eyes. 
 
 "Picket firing!" 
 
 The crackling suddenly became a long rattle. Brant 
 reentered the room, and picked up his hat. 
 
 "You '11 excuse me for a few moments? " 
 
 A faint sound, soft yet full, and not unlike a bursting 
 bubble, made the house appear to leap elastioally, like the 
 rebound of a rubber ball. 
 
 "What 's that? " gasped Hooker. 
 
 "Cannon, out of range!" 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 1st another instant bugles were ringing through the 
 camp, with the hurrying hoofs of the officers' horses and the 
 trampling of forming men. The house itself was almost 
 deserted. Although the single cannon-shot had been 
 enough to show that it was no mere skirmishing of pickets, 
 Brant still did not believe in any serious attack of the 
 enemy. His position, as in the previous engagement, had 
 no strategic importance to them ; they were no doubt only 
 making a feint against it to conceal some advance upon the 
 centre of the army two miles away. Satisfied that he was 
 in easy supporting distance of his division commander, he 
 extended his line along the ridge, ready to fall back in 
 that direction, while retarding their advance and masking 
 the position of his own chief. He gave a few orders neces- 
 sary to the probable abandonment of the house, and then 
 returned to it. Shot and shell were already dropping in 
 the field below. A thin ridge of blue haze showed the 
 line of skirmish fire. A small conical, white cloud, like 
 a bursting cotton-pod, revealed an open battery in the 
 willow-fringed meadow. Yet the pastor«.l peacefulness of 
 the house was unchanged. The afternoon sun lay softly 
 on its deep verandas ; the pot pourri incense of fallen rose- 
 leaves haunted it still. 
 
 He entered his room through the French window on the 
 veranda, when the door leading from the passage was sud- 
 denly flung open, and Miss Faulkner swept quickly inside, 
 closed the door behind her, and leaned back against it» 
 panting and breathless. 
 
CLARENCE 383 
 
 Clarence was startled, and for a moment ashamed. He 
 had suddenly realized that in the excitement he had en- 
 tirely forgotten her and the dangers to which she might be 
 exposed. She had probably heard the firing, her womanly 
 fears had been awakened; she had come to him for protec- 
 tion. But as he turned towards her with a reassuring 
 smile, he was shocked to see that her agitation and pallor 
 were far beyond any physical cause. She motioned him 
 desperately to shut the window by which he had entered, 
 and said, with white lips, — 
 
 " I must speak with you alone ! " 
 
 " Certainly. But there is no immediate danger to you 
 even here — and I can soon put you beyond the reach of 
 any possible harm." 
 
 " Harm — to me ! God ! if it were only that ! " 
 
 He stared at her uneasily. 
 
 "Listen," she said gaspingly, "listen to me! Then 
 hate, despise me — kill me if you will. For you are 
 betrayed and ruined — cut off and surrounded! It has 
 been helped on by me, but I swear to you the blow did 
 not come from my hand. I would have saved you. God 
 only knows how it happened — it was Pate ! " 
 
 In an instant Brant saw the whole truth instinctively 
 and clearly. But with the revelation came the usual calm- 
 ness and perfect self-possession which never yet had failed 
 him in any emergency. With the sound of the increasing 
 cannonade and its shifting position made clearer to his 
 ears, the view of his whole threatened position spread 
 out like a map before his eyes, the swift calculation in his 
 mind of the time his men could hold the ridge — even a 
 hurried estimate of the precious moments he could give 
 to the wretched woman before him — he even then, 
 gravely and gently, led her to a chair and said in a calm 
 Voice, — 
 
 "That is not enough! Speak slowly, plainly. I must 
 
884 CLAKENCE 
 
 know everything. How and in what way have you he- 
 trayed me ? " 
 
 She looked at him imploringly — reassured, yet awed by 
 his gentleness. 
 
 "You won't believe me; you cannot believe me! for I 
 do not even know. I have taken and exchanged letters 
 
 — whose contents I never saw — between the Confederates 
 and a spy who comes to this house, but who is far away 
 by this time. I did it because I thought you hated and 
 despised me — because I thought it was my duty to help 
 my cause — because you said it was ' war ' between us — 
 but I never spied on you. I swear it." 
 
 " Then how do you know of this attack 1 " he said 
 calmly. 
 
 She brightened, half timidly, half hopefully. 
 
 " There is a window in the wing of this house that over- 
 looks the slope near the Confederate lines. There was a 
 signal placed in it — not by me — but I know it meant 
 that as long as it was there the plot, whatever it was, was 
 not ripe, and that no attack would be made on you as long 
 as it was visible. That much I know, — that much the 
 spy had to tell me, for we both had to guard that room in 
 turns. I wanted to keep this dreadful thing off — until " 
 
 — her voice trembled, "until," she added hurriedly, seeing 
 his calm eyes were reading her very soul, "until I went 
 away — and for that purpose I withheld some of the letters 
 that were given me. But to-day, while I was awcy from 
 the house, I looked back and saw that the signal was no 
 longer there. Some one had changed it. I ran back, but 
 I was too late — God help me ! — as you see. " 
 
 The truth flashed upon Brant. It was his own hand 
 that had precipitated the attack. But a larger truth came 
 to him now, like a dazzling inspiration. If he had thus 
 precipitated the attack before they were ready, there was 
 a chance that it was imperfect, and there was still hope. 
 
CLARENCE 385 
 
 But there was no trace of this visible in his face as he 
 fixed his eyes calmly on hers, although his pulses were 
 halting in expectancy as he said, — 
 
 "Then the spy had suspected you, and changed it." 
 
 "Oh, no," she said eagerly, "for the spy was with me 
 and was frightened too. We both ran back together — 
 you remember — she was stopped by the patrol ! " 
 
 She checked herself suddenly, but too late. Her cheeks 
 blazed, her head sank, with the foolish identification of 
 the spy into which her eagerness had betrayed her. 
 
 But Brant appeared not to notice it. He was, in fact, 
 puzzling his brain to conceive what information the stupid 
 mulatto woman could have obtained here. His strength, 
 his position was no secret to the enemy — there was no- 
 thing to gain from him. She must have been, like the 
 trembling, eager woman before him, a mere tool of others. 
 
 " Did this woman live here ? " he said. 
 
 "No," she said. "She lived with the Manlys, but had 
 friends whom she visited at your general's headquarters." 
 
 With difficulty Brant suppressed a start. It was clear 
 to him now. The information had been obtained at the divi- 
 sion headquarters, and passed through his camp as being 
 nearest the Confederate lines. But what was the informa- 
 tion — and what movement had he precipitated? It was 
 clear that this woman did not know. He looked at her 
 keenly. A sudden explosion shook the house, — a drift of 
 smoke passed the window, — a shell had burst in the garden. 
 
 She had been gazing at him despairingly, wistfully — 
 but did not blanch or start. 
 
 An idea took possession of him. He approached her, 
 and took her cold hand. A half smile parted her pale lips. 
 
 "You have courage — you have devotion," he said 
 gravely. "I believe you regret the step you have taken. 
 If ycu could undo what you have done, even at peril to 
 yourself, dare you do it 1 " 
 
S86 CLARENCE 
 
 "Yep," she said breathlessly. 
 
 " You are known to the enemy. If I am surrounded, 
 you could pass through their lines unquestioned ? " 
 
 "Yes," she said eagerly. 
 
 "A note from me would pass you again through the 
 pickets of our headquarters. But you would bear a note 
 to the general that no eyes but his must see. It would 
 not implicate you or yours; would only be a word of 
 warning." 
 
 "And you," she said quickly, "would be saved! They 
 would come to your assistance ! You would not then be 
 taken?" 
 
 He smiled gently. 
 
 " Perhaps — who knows ! " 
 
 He sat down and wrote hurriedly. 
 
 " This, " he said, handing her a slip of paper, " is a pass. 
 You will use it beyond your own lines. This note," he 
 continued,, handing her a sealed envelope, " is for the gen- 
 eral. No one else must see it or know of it — not even 
 your lover, should you meet him ! " 
 
 " My lover ! " she said indignantly, with a flash of her 
 old savagery ; " what do you mean ? I have no lover ! " 
 
 Brant glanced at her flushed face. 
 
 "I thought," he said quietly, "that there was some 
 one you cared for in yonder lines — some one you wrote 
 to. It would have been an excuse " — 
 
 He stopped, as her face paled again, and her handi 
 dropped heavily at her side. 
 
 " Good God ! — you thought that, too ! You thought 
 that I would sacrifice you for another man ! " 
 
 "Pardon me," said Brant quickly. "I was foolish. 
 But whether your lover is a man or a cause, you have 
 shown a woman's devotion. And, in repairing your fault, 
 you are showing more than a woman's courage now." 
 
 To his surprise, the color had again mounted her pretty 
 
CLARENCE 387 
 
 cheeks, and even a flash of mischief shone in her blue 
 eyes. 
 
 "It would have been an excuse," she murmured, "yes 
 — to save a man, surely ! " Then she said quickly, " I 
 will go. At once ! I am ready ! " 
 
 "One moment," he said gravely. "Although this pass 
 and an escort insure your probable safe conduct, this is ' war ' 
 and danger ! You are still a spy ! Are you ready to go ? " 
 
 "I am," she said proudly, tossing back a braid of her 
 fallen hair. Yet a moment after she hesitated. Then she 
 said, in a lower voice, " Are you ready to forgive 1 " 
 
 "In either case," he said, touched by her manner; "and 
 God speed you ! " 
 
 He extended his hand, and left a slight pressure on her 
 cold fingers. But they slipped quickly from his grasp, 
 and she turned away with a heightened color. 
 
 He stepped to the door. One or two aides-de-camp, 
 withheld by his order against intrusion, were waiting 
 eagerly with reports. The horse of a mounted field officer 
 was pawing the garden turf. The officers stared at the 
 young girl. 
 
 " Take Miss Faulkner, with a flag, to some safe point of 
 the enemy's line. She is a noncombatant of their own, 
 and will receive their protection." 
 
 He had scarcely exchanged a dozen words with the aide- 
 de-camp before the field officer hurriedly entered. Taking 
 Brant aside, he said quickly, — 
 
 "Pardon me, General; but there is a strong feeling 
 among the men that this attack is the result of some infor- 
 mation obtained by the enemy. You must know that the 
 woman you have just given a safeguard to is suspected, 
 and the men are indignant." 
 
 "The more reason why she should be conveyed beyond 
 any consequences of their folly, Major," said Brant fri- 
 gidly, "and I look to you for her safe convoy. There is 
 
388 CLAEENCE 
 
 nothing in this attack to show that the enemy has received 
 any information regarding us. But I would suggest that 
 it would be better to see that my orders are carried out 
 regarding the slaves and noncombatants who are passing 
 our lines from divisional headquarters, where valuable 
 information may be obtained, than in the surveillance of 
 a testy and outspoken girl." 
 
 An angry flush crossed the major's cheek as he saluted 
 and fell back, and Brant turned to the aide-de-camp. The 
 news was grave. The column of the enemy was moving 
 against the ridge — it was no longer possible to hold it — 
 and the brigade was cut off from its communication with 
 the divisional headquarters, although as yet no combined 
 movement was made against it. Brant's secret fears that 
 it was an intended impact against the centre were con- 
 firmed. Would his communication to the divisional com- 
 mander pass through the attacking column in time t 
 
 Yet one thing puzzled him. The enemy, after forcing 
 his flank, had shown no disposition, even with their over- 
 whelming force, to turn aside and crush him. He could 
 easily have fallen back, when it was possible to hold the 
 ridge no longer, without pursuit. His other flank and 
 rear were not threatened, as they might have been, by the 
 division of so large an attacking column, which was moving 
 steadily on towards the ridge. It was this fact that seemed 
 to show a failure or imperfection in the enemy's plan. It 
 «vas possible that his precipitation of the attack by the 
 changed signal had been the cause of it. Doubtless some 
 provision had been made to attack him in flank and rear, 
 but in the unexpected hurry of the onset it had to be 
 abandoned. He could still save himself, as his officers 
 knew; but his conviction that he might yet be able to 
 support his divisional commander by holding his position 
 doggedly, but coolly awaiting his opportunity, was strong. 
 More than that, it was his temperament and instinct. 
 
CLAEENCE 389 
 
 Harrying them in flank and rear, contesting the ground 
 inch by inch, and holding his own against the artillery 
 sent to dislodge him, or the outriding cavalry that, circling 
 round, swept through his open ranks, he saw his files melt 
 away beside this steady current without flinching. 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 Yet all along the fateful ridge — now obscured and 
 confused with thin crossing smoke-drifts from file-firing, 
 like partly rubbed-out slate-pencil marks; or else, when 
 cleared of those drifts, presenting only an indistinguishable 
 map of zigzag lines of straggling wagons and horses, unin- 
 telligible to any eye but his — the singular magnetism of 
 the chief was felt everywhere: whether it was shown iu 
 the quick closing in of resistance to some sharper onset of 
 the enemy or the more dogged stand of inaction under fire, 
 his power was always dominant. A word or two of com- 
 prehensive direction sent through an aide-de-camp, or the 
 sudden relief of his dark, watchful, composed face uplifted 
 above a line of bayonets, never failed in their magic. Like 
 all born leaders, he seemed in these emergencies to hold 
 a charmed life — infecting his followers with a like disbe- 
 lief in death; men dropped to right and left of him with 
 serene assurance in their ghastly faces or a cry of life and 
 confidence in their last gasp. Stragglers fell in and closed 
 up under his passing glance; a hopeless, inextricable wran- 
 gle around an overturned caisson, at a turn of the road, 
 resolved itself into an orderly, quiet, deliberate clearing 
 away of the impediment before the significant waiting of 
 that dark, silent horseman. 
 
 Tet under thi3 imperturbable mask he was keenly con- 
 scious of everything; in that apparent concentration there 
 was a sharpening of all his senses and his impressibility: 
 he saw the first trace of doubt or alarm in the face of a 
 subaltern to whom he was giving an order; the first touch 
 
CLARENCE 391 
 
 of sluggishness in a re-forming line ; the more significant 
 clumsiness of a living evolution that he knew was clogged 
 by the dead bodies of comrades; the ominous silence of a 
 breastwork; the awful inertia of some rigidly kneeling files 
 beyond, which still kept their form but never would move 
 again; the melting away of skirmish points; the sudden 
 gaps here and there; the sickening incurving of what a 
 moment before had been a straight line — all these he saw 
 in all their fatal significance. But even at this moment, 
 coming upon a hasty barricade of overset commissary 
 wagons, he stopped to glance at a familiar figure he had 
 seen but an hour ago, who now seemed to be command- 
 ing a group of collected stragglers and camp followers. 
 Mounted on a wheel, with a revolver in each hand and 
 a bowie knife between his teeth — theatrical even in his 
 paroxysm of undoubted courage — glared Jim Hooker. 
 And Clarence Brant, with the whole responsibility of the 
 field on his shoulders, even at that desperate moment, 
 found himself recalling a vivid picture of the actor Hooker 
 personating the character of " Eed Dick " in " Bosalie, the 
 Prairie Flower," as he had seen him in a California theatre 
 five years before. 
 
 It wanted still an hour of the darkness that would prob- 
 ably close the fight of that day. Could he hold out, keep- 
 ing his offensive position so long ? A hasty council with 
 his officers showed him that the weakness of their position 
 had already infected them. They reminded him that his 
 line of retreat was still open — that in the course of the 
 night the enemy, although still pressing towards the divi- 
 sion centre, might yet turn and outflank him — or that 
 their strangely delayed supports might come up before 
 morning. Brant's glass, however, remained fixed on the 
 main column, still pursuing its way along the ridge. It 
 struck him suddenly, however, that the steady current had 
 stopped, spjead out along the crest on both sides, and was 
 
392 CLARENCE 
 
 now at right angles with its previous course. There had 
 been a check! The next moment the thunder of guns 
 along the whole horizon, and the rising cloud of smoke, 
 revealed a line of battle. The division centre was engaged. 
 The opportunity he had longed for had come — the desper- 
 ate chance to throw himself on their rear and cut his way 
 through to the division — but it had come too late ! He 
 looked at his shattered ranks — scarce a regiment remained. 
 Even as a demonstration, the attack would fail against the 
 enemy's superior numbers. Nothing clearly was left to 
 him now but to remain where he was — within supporting 
 distance, and await the issue of the fight beyond. He was 
 putting up his glass, when the dull boom of cannon in the 
 extreme western limit of the horizon attracted his atten- 
 tion. By the still gleaming sky he could see a long gray 
 line stealing up from the valley from the distant rear of 
 the headquarters to join the main column. They were the 
 missing supports! His heart leaped. He held the key of 
 the mystery now. The one imperfect detail of the enemy's 
 plan was before him. The supports, coming later from 
 the west, had only seen the second signal from the window 
 — when Miss Faulkner had replaced the vase — and had 
 avoided his position. It was impossible to limit the effect 
 of this blunder. If the young girl who had thus saved 
 him had reached the division commander with his message 
 in time, he might be forewarned, and even profit by it. 
 His own position would be less precarious, as the enemy, 
 already engaged in front, would be unable to recover their 
 position in the rear and correct the blunder. The bulk of 
 their column had already streamed past him. If defeated, 
 there was always the danger that it might be rolled back 
 upon him — but he conjectured that the division comman- 
 der would attempt to prevent the junction of the supports 
 with the main column by breaking between them, crowding 
 them from the ridge, and joining him. As the last strag- 
 
CLAKENCE 393 
 
 glers of the rear guard swept by, Brant's bugles were 
 already recalling the skirmishers. He redoubled his pick- 
 ets, and resolved to wait and watch. 
 
 And there was the more painful duty of looking after 
 the wounded and the dead. The larger rooms of the head- 
 quarters had already been used as a hospital. Passing 
 from cot to cot, recognizing in the faces now drawn with 
 agony, or staring in vacant unconsciousness, the features 
 that he had seen only a few hours before flushed with 
 enthusiasm and excitement, something of his old doubting, 
 questioning nature returned. Was there no way but this ? 
 How far was he — moving among them unscathed and 
 uninjured — responsible 1 
 
 And if not he — who then ? His mind went back bit- 
 terly to the old days of the conspiracy — to the inception 
 of that struggle which was bearing such ghastly fruit. 
 He thought of his traitorous wife, until he felt his cheeks 
 tingle, and he was fain to avert his eyes from those of his 
 prostrate comrades, in a strange fear that, with the clair- 
 voyance of dying men, they should read his secret. 
 
 It was past midnight when, without undressing, he 
 threw himself upon his bed in the little convent-like cell 
 to snatch a few moments of deep. Its spotless, peaceful 
 walls and draperies affected him strangely, as if he had 
 brought into its immaculate serenity the sanguine stain of 
 war. He was awakened suddenly from a deep slumber by 
 an indefinite sense of alarm. His first thought was that 
 he had been summoned to repel an attack. He sat up and 
 listened : everything was silent except the measured tread 
 of the sentry on the gravel walk below. But the door 
 was open. He sprang to his feet and slipped into the 
 gallery in time to see the tall figure of a woman glide 
 before the last moonlit window at its farthest end. He 
 could not see her face — but the characteristic turbaned 
 head of the negro race was plainly visible. 
 
894 CLARENCE 
 
 He did not care to follow her or even to alarm the 
 guard. If it were the spy or one of her emissaries, she 
 was powerless now to do any harm, and under his late 
 orders and the rigorous vigilance of his sentinels she could 
 not leave the lines — or, indeed, the house. She probably 
 knew this as well as he did; it was, therefore, no doubt 
 only an accidental intrusion of one of the servants. He 
 reentered the room, and stood for a few moments by the 
 window, looking over the moonlit ridge. The sounds of 
 distant cannon had long since ceased. Wide awake, and 
 refreshed by the keen morning air, which alone of all 
 created things seemed to have shaken the burden of the 
 dreadful yesterday from its dewy wings, he turned away 
 and lit a candle on the table. As he was rebuckling his 
 sword belt he saw a piece of paper lying on the foot of the 
 bed from which he had just risen. Taking it to the can- 
 dle, he read in a roughly scrawled hand : — 
 
 "You are asleep when you should be on the march. 
 You have no time to lose. Before daybreak the supports 
 of the column you have been foolishly resisting will be 
 upon you. — From one who would save you, but hates 
 your cause." 
 
 A smile of scorn passed his lips. The handwriting was 
 unknown and evidently disguised. The purport of the 
 message had not alarmed him; but suddenly a suspicion 
 flashed upon him — that it came from Miss Faulkner! 
 She had failed in her attempt to pass through the enemy's 
 lines — or she had never tried to. She had deceived him 
 — or had thought better of her chivalrous impulse, and 
 now sought to mitigate her second treachery by this second 
 warning. And he had let her messenger escape him ! 
 
 He hurriedly descended the stairs. The sound of voices 
 was approaching him. He halted, and recognized the 
 faces of the brigade surgeon and one of his aides-de-camp. 
 
 '-'We were hesitating whether to disturb you, General, 
 
CLA.RENCE 395 
 
 but it may be an affair of some importance. Under your 
 orders a negro woman was just now challenged stealing 
 out of the lines. Attempting to escape, she was chased, 
 there was a struggle and scramble over the wall, and she 
 fell, striking her head. She was brought into the guard- 
 house unconscious." 
 
 "Very good. I will see her," said Brant, with a feel- 
 ing of relief. 
 
 "One moment, General. We thought you would per- 
 haps prefer to see her alone," sail? the surgeon, "for when 
 I endeavored to bring her to, and was sponging her face 
 and head to discover her injuries, her color came off! She 
 was a white woman — stained and disguised as a mulatto. " 
 
 For an instant Brant's heart sank. It was Miss Faulk- 
 ner. 
 
 " Did you recognize her ? " he said, glancing from the 
 one to the other. " Have you seen her here before 1 " 
 
 "No, sir," replied the aide-de-camp. "But she seemed 
 to be quite a superior woman — a lady, I should say." 
 
 Brant breathed more freely. 
 
 "Where is she now? " he asked. 
 
 " In the guard-house. We thought it better not to bring 
 her into hospital, among the men, until we had your 
 orders. " 
 
 " You have done well, " returned Brant gravely. " And 
 you will keep this to yourselves for the present; but see 
 that she is brought here quietly and with as little publicity 
 as possible. Put her in my room above, which I give up 
 to her and any necessary attendant. But you will look 
 carefully after her, doctor, " — he turned to the surgeon, — 
 "and when she recovers consciousness let me know." 
 
 He moved away. Although attaching little importance 
 to the mysterious message, whether sent by Miss ' Faulk- 
 ner or emanating from the stranger herself, which, he 
 reasoned, was based only upon a knowledge of the original 
 
39B CLAHENCE 
 
 plan of attack, he nevertheless quickly dispatched a small 
 scouting party in the direction from which the attack might 
 come, with orders to fall back and report at once. With 
 a certain half irony of recollection he had selected Jim 
 Hooker to accompany the party as a volunteer. This 
 done, he returned to the gallery. The surgeon met him 
 at the door. 
 
 "The indications of concussion are passing away," he 
 said, " but she seems to be suffering from the exhaustion 
 following some great nervous excitement. You may go in 
 — she may rally from it at any moment. " 
 
 With the artificial step and mysterious hush of the ordi- 
 nary visitor to a sick bed, Brant entered the room. But 
 some instinct greater than this common expression of 
 humanity held him suddenly in awe. The room seemed 
 no longer his — it had slipped back into that austere con- 
 ventual privacy which had first impressed him. Yet he 
 hesitated ; another strange suggestion — it seemed almost 
 a vague recollection — overcame him like some lingering 
 perfume, far off and pathetic, in its dying familiarity. 
 He turned his eyes almost timidly towards the bed. The 
 coverlet was drawn up near the throat of the figure to 
 replace the striped cotton gown stained with blood and 
 dust, which had been hurriedly torn off and thrown on a 
 chair. The pale face, cleansed of blood and disguising 
 color, the long hair, still damp from the surgeon's sponge, 
 lay rigidly back on the pillow. Suddenly this man of 
 steady nerve uttered a faint cry, and, with a face as white 
 as the upturned one before him, fell on his knees beside 
 the bed. For the face that lay there was his wife's ! 
 
 Yes, hers ! But the beautiful hair that she had gloried 
 in — the hair that in his youth he had thought had once 
 fallen like a benediction on his shoulder — was streaked 
 with gray along the blue- veined hollows of the temples; 
 the orbits of those clear eyes, beneath their delicately 
 
CLARENCE 397 
 
 arched brows, were ringed with days of suffering; only the 
 clear-cut profile, even to the delicate imperiousness of lips 
 and nostril, was still there in all its beauty. The coverlet 
 had slipped from her shoulder; its familiar cold contour 
 startled him. He remembered how, in their early married 
 days, he had felt the sanctity of that Diana-like revelation, 
 and the still nymph-like austerity which clung to this 
 strange, childless woman. He even fancied that he 
 breathed again the subtle characteristic perfume of the 
 laces, embroideries, and delicate enwrappings in her cham- 
 ber at Kobles. Perhaps it was the intensity of his gaze — 
 perhaps it was the magnetism of his presence — but her 
 lips parted with a half sigh, half moan. Her head, al- 
 though her eyes were still closed, turned on the pillow 
 instinctively towards him. He rose from his knees. Her 
 eyes opened slowly. As the first glare of wonderment 
 cleared from them, they met him — in the old antagonism 
 of spirit. Yet her first gesture was a pathetic feminine 
 movement with both hands to arrange her straggling hair. 
 It brought her white fingers, cleaned of their disguising 
 stains, as a sudden revelation to her of what had happened ; 
 she instantly slipped them back under the coverlet again. 
 Brant did not speak, but with folded arms stood gazing 
 upon her. It was her voice that first broke the silence. 
 
 " You have recognized me ? Well, I suppose you know 
 all," she said, with a weak half-defiance. 
 
 He bowed his head. He felt as yet he could not trust 
 his voice, and envied her her own. 
 
 "I may sit up, mayn't II" She managed, by sheer 
 force of will, to struggle to a sitting posture. Then, as 
 the coverlet slipped from the bare shoulder, she said, as 
 she drew it, with a shiver of disgust, around her again, — 
 
 "I forgot that you strip w*omen, you Northern soldiers! 
 But I forgot, too," she added, with a sarcastic smile, 
 "that you are also my husband, and I am in your room." 
 
398 CLARENCE 
 
 The contemptuous significance of her speech dispelled 
 the last lingering remnant of Brant's dream. In a voice 
 as dry as her own, he said, — 
 
 "I am afraid you will now have to remember only that 
 I am a Northern general, and you a Southern spy. " 
 
 ."So be it," she said gravely. Then impulsively, "But 
 I have not spied on you." 
 
 Yet, the next moment, she bit her lips as if the expres- 
 sion had unwittingly escaped her; and with a reckless 
 shrug of her shoulders. she lay back on her pillow. 
 
 "It matters not," said Brant coldly. "You have used 
 this house and those within it to forward your designs. 
 It is not your fault that you found nothing in the dispatch- 
 box you opened." 
 
 She stared at him quickly ; then shrugged her shoulders 
 again. 
 
 "I might have known she was false to me," she said 
 bitterly, " and that you would wheedle her soul away as 
 you have others. Well,, she betrayed me! For what?" 
 
 A flush passed over Brant's face. But with an effort 
 he contained himself. 
 
 "It was the flower that betrayed you! The flower 
 whose red dust fell in the box when you opened it on the 
 desk by the window in yonder room — the flower that 
 stood in the window as a signal — the flower I myself 
 removed, and so spoiled the miserable plot that your 
 friends concocted." 
 
 A look of mingled terror and awe came into her face. 
 
 " You changed the signal ! " she repeated dazedly ; then, 
 in a lower voice, " that accounts for it all ! " But the next 
 moment she turned again fiercely upon him. "And you 
 mean to tell me that she didn't help you — that she 
 didn't sell me — your wife — to you for — for what was 
 it? A look — a kiss!" 
 
 "I mean to say that she did not know the signal was 
 
CLAEENCE 399 
 
 changed, and that she herself restored it to its place. It 
 is no fault of hers nor yours that I am not here a pris- 
 oner. " 
 
 She passed her thin hand dazedly across her forehead. 
 
 "I see," she muttered. Then again bursting out pas- 
 sionately, she said — "Fool! you never would have been 
 touched! Do you think that Lee would have gone for 
 you, with higher game in your division commander ? No ! 
 Those supports were a feint to draw him to your assistance 
 while our main column broke his centre. Yes, you may 
 stare at me, Clarence Brant. You are a good lawyer — 
 they say a dashing fighter, too. I never thought you a 
 coward, even in your irresolution ; but you are fighting 
 with men drilled in the art of war and strategy when you 
 were a boy outcast on the plains." She stopped, closed 
 her eyes, and then added, wearily — " But that was yester- 
 day — to-day, who knows 1 All may be changed. The 
 supports may still attack you. That was why I stopped 
 to write you that note an hour ago, when I believed I 
 should be leaving here forever. Yes, I did it!" she went 
 on, with half-wearied, half-dogged determination. "You 
 may as well know all. I had arranged to fly. Your 
 pickets were to be drawn by friends of mine, who were 
 waiting for me beyond your lines. Well, I lingered here 
 when I saw you arrive — lingered to write you that note. 
 And — I was too late ! " 
 
 But Brant had been watching her varying expression, 
 her kindling eye, her strange masculine grasp of military 
 knowledge, her soldierly phraseology, all so new to her, 
 that he scarcely heeded the feminine ending of her speech. 
 It seemed to him no longer the Diana of his youthful 
 fancy, but some Pallas Athene, who now looked up at 
 him from the pillow. He had never before fully believed 
 in her unselfish devotion to the cause until now, when it 
 seemed to have almost unsexed her. In his wildest oom- 
 
400 CLARENCE 
 
 prehension of her he had never dreamed her a Joan of Arc, 
 and yet hers was the face which might have confronted 
 him, exalted and inspired, on the battlefield itself. He 
 recalled himself with an effort. 
 
 "I thank you for your would-be warning," he said more 
 gently, if not so tenderly, " and God knows I wish your 
 flight had been successful. But even your warning is 
 unnecessary, for the supports had already come up; they 
 had followed the second signal, and diverged to engage 
 our division on the left, leaving me alone. And their ruse 
 of drawing our commander to assist me would not have 
 been successful, as I had suspected it, and sent a message 
 to him that I wanted no help." 
 
 It was the truth; it was the sole purport of the note he 
 had sent through Miss Faulkner. He would not have 
 disclosed his sacrifice; but so great was the strange domi- 
 nation of this woman still over him, that he felt compelled 
 to assert his superiority. She fixed her eyes upon him. 
 
 " And Miss Faulkner took your message 1 " she said 
 slowly. "Don't deny it! No one else could have passed 
 through our lines; and you gave her a safe conduct 
 through yours. Yes, I might have known it. And this 
 was the creature they sent me for an ally and confidant ! " 
 
 For an instant Brant felt the sting of this enforced con- 
 trast between the two women. But he only said, — 
 
 " You forget that I did not know you were the spy, nor 
 do I believe that she suspected you were my wife." 
 
 " Why should she 1 " she said almost fiercely. " I am 
 known among these people only by the name of Benham — 
 my maiden name. Yes ! — you can take me out, and 
 shoot me under that name, without disgracing yours. No- 
 body will know that the Southern spy was the wife of the 
 Northern general! You see, I have thought even of 
 that!" 
 
 ".And thinking of that," said Brant slowly, "you have 
 
CLARENCE 401 
 
 put yourself — I will not say in my power, for you are in 
 the power of any man in this camp who may know you, 
 or even hear you speak. Well, let us understand each 
 other plainly. I do not know how great a sacrifice your 
 devotion to your cause demands of you; I do know what 
 it seems to demand of me. Hear me, then ! I will do 
 my hest to protect you, and get you safely away from here ; 
 but, failing that, I tell you plainly that I shall blow out 
 your brains and my own together." 
 
 She knew that he would do it. Yet her eyes suddenly 
 beamed with a new and awakening light; she put back 
 her hair again, and half raised herself upon the pillow, to 
 gaze at his dark, set face. 
 
 "And as I shall let no other life but ours be periled in 
 this affair," he went on quietly, "and will accompany you 
 myself in some disguise beyond the lines, we will together 
 take the risks — or the bullets of the sentries that may 
 save us both all further trouble. An hour or two more 
 will settle that. Until then your weak condition will 
 excuse you from any disturbance or intrusion here. The 
 mulatto woman you have sometimes personated may be 
 still in this house; I will appoint her to attend you. I 
 suppose you can trust her, for you must personate her 
 again, and escape in her clothes, while she takes your place 
 in this room as my prisoner." 
 
 "Clarence!" 
 
 Her voice had changed suddenly ; it was no longer bitter 
 and stridulous, but low and thrilling as he had heard her 
 call to him that night in the patio of Eobles. He turned 
 quickly. She was leaning from the bed — her thin, white 
 hands stretched appealingly towards him. 
 
 " Let us go together, Clarence, " she said eagerly. " Let 
 us leave this horrible place — these wicked, cruel people 
 
 — forever. Come with me ! Come with me to my people 
 
 — to my own faith — to my own house — which shall be 
 
402 CLARENCE 
 
 yours ! Come with me to defend it with your good sword, 
 Clarence, against those vile invaders with whom you have 
 nothing in common, and who are the dirt under your feet. 
 Yes, yes ! I know it ! — I have done you wrong — I have 
 lied to you when I spoke against your skill and power. 
 You are a hero — a born leader of men! I know it! 
 Have I not heard it from the men who have fought against 
 you, and yet admired and understood you, ay, better than 
 your own 1 — gallant men, Clarence, soldiers bred who did 
 not know what you were to me nor how proud I was of 
 you even while I hated you? Come with me! Think 
 what we would do together — with one faith — one cause 
 — one ambition! Think, Clarence, there is no limit you 
 might not attain ! We are no niggards of our rewards and 
 honors — we have no hireling votes to truckle to — we 
 know our friends ! Even I — Clarence — I " — there was 
 a strange pathos in the sudden humility that seemed to 
 overcome her — "I have had my reward and known my 
 power. I have been sent abroad, in the confidence of the 
 highest — to the highest. Don't turn from me. I am 
 offering you no bribe, Clarence, only your deserts. Come 
 with me. Leave these curs behind, and live the hero 
 that you are ! " 
 
 He turned his blazing eyes upon her. 
 
 "If you were a man" — he began passionately, then 
 stopped. 
 
 "No! I am only a woman and must fight in a woman's 
 way, " she interrupted bitterly. " Yes ! I intreat, I im- 
 plore, I wheedle, I flatter, I fawn, I lie! I creep where 
 you stand upright, and pass through doors to which you 
 would not bow. You wear your blazon of honor on your 
 shoulder; I hide mine in a slave's gown. And yet I have 
 worked and striven and suffered! Listen, Clarence," — 
 her voice again sank to its appealing minor, — "I know 
 what you men call ' honor, ' that which makes you cling 
 
CLARENCE 403 
 
 to a merely spoken word, or an empty oath. Well, let 
 that pass ! I am weary ; I have done my share of this 
 work, you have done yours. Let us both fly ; let us leave 
 the fight to those who shall come after us, and let us go 
 together to some distant land where the sounds of these 
 guns or the blood of our brothers no longer cry out to us 
 for vengeance ! There are those living here — I have met 
 them, Clarence," she went on hurriedly, "who think it 
 wrong to lift up fratricidal hands in the struggle, yet who 
 cannot live under the Northern yoke. They are," her 
 voice hesitated, "good men and women — they are re- 
 spected — they are " — 
 
 "Eecreants and slaves, before whom you, spy as you 
 are, stand a queen ! " broke in Brant passionately. He 
 stopped and turned towards the window. After a pause 
 he came back again towards the bed — paused again and 
 then said in a lower voice — " Four years ago, Alice, in 
 the patio of our house at Robles, I might have listened to 
 this proposal, and — I tremble to think — I might have 
 accepted it! I loved you; I was as weak, as selfish, as 
 unreflecting, my life was as purposeless — but for you — 
 as the creatures you speak of. But give me now, at least, 
 the credit of a devotion to my cause equal to your own — 
 a credit which I have never denied you ! For the night 
 that you left me, I awoke to a sense of my own worthless- 
 ness and degradation — perhaps I have even to thank you 
 for that awakening — and I realized the bitter truth. But 
 that night I found my true vocation — my purpose, my 
 manhood " — 
 
 A bitter laugh came from the pillow on which she had 
 languidly thrown herself. 
 
 " I believe I left you with Mrs. Hooker — spare me the 
 details. " 
 
 The blood rushed to Brant's face and then receded as 
 wuddenly. 
 
404 CLARENCE 
 
 "You left me with Captain Pinckney, who had tempted 
 you, and whom I killed ! " he said furiously. 
 
 They were both staring savagely at each other. Sud- 
 denly he said, " Hush ! " and sprang towards the door, as 
 the sound of hurried footsteps echoed along the passage. 
 But he was too late; it was thrown open to the officer of 
 the guard, who appeared, standing on the threshold. 
 
 "Two Confederate officers arrested hovering around our 
 pickets. They demand to see you." 
 
 Before Brant could interpose, two men in riding cloaks 
 of Confederate gray stepped into the room with a jaunty 
 and self-confident air. 
 
 1 Not demand, General, " said the foremost, a tall, dis- 
 tinguished-looking man, lifting his hand with a graceful 
 deprecating air. "In fact, too sorry to bother you with 
 an affair of no importance except to ourselves. A bit of 
 after-dinner bravado brought us in contact with your pick- 
 ets, and, of course, we had to take the consequences. 
 Served us right, and we were lucky not to have got a bul- 
 let through us. Gad ! I 'm afraid my men would have 
 been less discreet! I am Colonel Lagrange, of the 5th 
 Tennessee; my young friend here is Captain Faulkner, of 
 the 1st Kentucky. Some excuse for a youngster like him 
 — none for me ! I " — 
 
 He stopped, for his eyes suddenly fell upon the bed and 
 its occupant. Both he and his companion started. But 
 to the natural, unaffected dismay of a gentleman who had 
 unwittingly intruded upon a lady's bed-chamber, Brant's 
 quick eye saw a more disastrous concern superadded. 
 Colonel Lagrange was quick to recover himself, as they 
 both removed their caps. 
 
 "A thousand pardons," he said, hurriedly stepping back- 
 wards to the door. " But I hardly need say to a fellow- 
 officer, General, that we had no idea of making so gross an 
 intrusion! We heard some cock-and-bull story of your 
 
CLAKENCE 405 
 
 being occupied — cross-questioning an escaped or escaping 
 nigger — or we should never have forced ourselves upon 
 you. " 
 
 Brant glanced quickly at his wife. Her face had appar- 
 ently hecome rigid on the entrance of the two men; her 
 eyes were coldly fixed upon the ceiling. He bowed for- 
 mally, and, with a wave of his hand towards the door, 
 said, — 
 
 "I will hear your story below, gentlemen." 
 He followed them from the room, stopped to quietly 
 turn the key in the lock, and then motioned them to pre- 
 cede him down the staircase. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Not a word was exchanged till they had reached the 
 lower landing and Brant's private room. Dismissing his 
 subaltern and orderly with a sign, Brant turned towards 
 his prisoners. The jaunty ease, but not the self-posses- 
 sion, had gone from Lagrange's face; the eyes of Captain 
 Faulkner were fixed on his older companion with a half- 
 humorous look of perplexity. 
 
 "I am afraid I can only repeat, General, that our fool- 
 hardy freak has put us in collision with your sentries," 
 said Lagrange, with a slight hauteur, that replaced his 
 former jauntiness; "and we were very properly made pris- 
 oners. If you will accept my parole, I have no doubt our 
 commander will proceed to exchange a couple of gallant 
 fellows of yours, whom I have had the honor of meeting 
 within our own lines, and whom you must miss probably 
 more than I fear our superiors miss us." 
 
 "Whatever brought you here, gentlemen," said Brant 
 dryly, "I am glad, for your sakes, that you are in uniform, 
 although it does not, unfortunately, relieve me of an un- 
 pleasant duty." 
 
 "I don't think I understand you," returned Lagrange 
 coldly. 
 
 " If you had not been in uniform, you would probably 
 have been shot down as spies, without the trouble of cap- 
 ture," said Brant quietly. 
 
 " Do you mean to imply, sir, " — began Lagrange sternly. 
 
 "I mean to say that the existence of a Confederate spy 
 between this camp and the division headquarters is suffi- 
 ciently well known to us to justify the strongest action." 
 
CLARENCE 407 
 
 "And pray, how can that affect us?" «aid Lagrange 
 Vaughtily. 
 
 " I need not inform so old a soldier as Colonel Lagrange 
 ftiat the aiding, abetting, and even receiving information 
 from a spy or traitor within one's lines is an equally dan- 
 gerous service." 
 
 "Perhaps you would like to satisfy yourself, General," 
 said Colonel Lagrange, with an ironical laugh. " Pray do not 
 hesitate on account of our uniform. Search us if you like." 
 
 "Not on entering my lines, Colonel," replied Brant, 
 with quiet significance. 
 
 Lagrange's cheek flushed. But he recovered himself 
 quickly, and with a formal bow said, — 
 
 " You will, then, perhaps, let us know your pleasure 1 " 
 
 "My duty, Colonel, is to keep you both close prisoners 
 here until I have an opportunity to forward you to the 
 division commander, with a report of the circumstances of 
 your arrest. That I propose to do. How soon I may 
 have that opportunity, or if I am ever to have it," contin- 
 ued Brant, fixing his clear eyes significantly on Lagrange, 
 "depends upon the chances of war, which you probably 
 understand as well as I do." 
 
 "We should never think of making any calculation on 
 the action of an officer of such infinite resources as Genera) 
 Brant," said Lagrange ironically. 
 
 "You will, no doubt, have an opportunity of stating 
 your own case to the division commander," continued 
 Brant, with an unmoved face. "And," he continued, 
 turning for the first time to Captain Faulkner, "when 
 you tell the commander what I believe to be the fact — ■ 
 from your name and resemblance — that you are a relation 
 of the young lady who for the last three weeks has been 
 an inmate of this house under a pass from Washington, 
 you will, I have no doubt, favorably explain your own 
 propinquity to my lines." 
 
408 CLARENCE 
 
 " My sister Tilly ! " said the young officer impulsively. 
 "But she is no longer here. She passed through the lines 
 back to Washington yesterday. No," he added, with a 
 light laugh, "I'm afraid that excuse won't count for to- 
 day." 
 
 A sudden frown upon the face of the elder officer, added 
 to the perfect ingenuousness of Eaulkner's speech, satisfied 
 Brant that he had not only elicited the truth, but that 
 Miss Faulkner had been successful. But he was sincere in 
 his suggestion that her relationship to the young officer 
 would incline the division commander to look leniently 
 upon his fault, for he was conscious of a singular satisfac- 
 tion in thus being able to serve her. Of the real object 
 of the two men before him he had no doubt. They were 
 " the friends " of his wife, who were waiting for her out- 
 side the lines! Chance alone had saved her from being 
 arrested with them, with the consequent exposure of her 
 treachery before his own men, who, as yet, had no proof 
 of her guilt, nor any suspicion of her actual identity. 
 Meanwhile his own chance of conveying her with safety 
 beyond his lines was not affected by the incident; the 
 prisoners dare not reveal what they knew of her, and it 
 was with a grim triumph that he thought of compassing 
 her escape without their aid. Nothing of this, however, 
 was visible in his face, which the younger man watched 
 with a kind of boyish curiosity, while Colonel Lagrange 
 regarded the ceiling with a politely repressed yawn. "I 
 regret," concluded Brant, as he summoned the officer of 
 the guard, " that I shall have to deprive you of each other's 
 company during the time you are here ; but I shall see that 
 you, separately, want for nothing in your confinement." 
 
 " If this is with a view to separate interrogatory, General, 
 I can retire now," said Lagrange, rising, with ironical 
 politeness. 
 
 "I believe I have all the information I require," re« 
 
CLARENCE 409 
 
 turned Brant, with undisturbed composure. Giving the 
 necessary orders to his subaltern, he acknowledged with 
 equal calm the formal salutes of the two prisoners as they 
 were led away, and returned quickly to his bedroom above. 
 He paused instinctively for a moment before the closed 
 door, and listened. There was no sound from withia 
 He unlocked the door, and opened it. 
 
 So quiet was the interior that for an instant, without 
 glancing at the bed, he cast a quick look at the window, 
 which, till then, he had forgotten, and which he remem- 
 bered gave upon the veranda roof. But it was still closed, 
 and as he approached the bed, he saw his wife still lying 
 there, in the attitude in which he had left her. But her _ 
 eyes were ringed, and slightly filmed, as if with recent 
 tears. 
 
 It was perhaps this circumstance that softened his voice, 
 still harsh with command, as he said, — 
 
 "I suppose you knew those two men?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And that I have put it out of their power to help 
 you?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 There was something so strangely submissive in her 
 voice that he again looked suspiciously at her. But he 
 was shocked to see that she was quite pale now, and that 
 the fire had gone out of her dark eyes. 
 
 "Then I may tell you what is my plan to save you. 
 But, first, you must find this mulatto woman who has 
 acted as your double." 
 
 "She is here." 
 
 "Here?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "How do you know it?" he asked, in quick suspicion. 
 
 "She was not to leave this place until she knew I was 
 safe within our lines. I have some friends who are faiths 
 
410 CLARENCE 
 
 ful to me." After a pause she added, "She has been here 
 already. " 
 
 He lobked at her, startled. " Impossible — I " — 
 
 " You locked the door. Yes ! but she has a second key. 
 And even if she had not, there is another entrance from 
 that closet. You do not know this house : you have been 
 here two weeks; I spent two years of my life, as a girl, in 
 this room." 
 
 An indescribable sensation came over him; he remem- 
 bered how he had felt when he first occupied it; this was 
 followed ' by a keen sense of shame on reflecting that he 
 had been, ever since, but a helpless puppet in the power 
 of his enemies, and that she could have escaped if she 
 would, even now. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said grimly, "you have already arranged 
 your plans 1 " 
 
 She looked at him with a singular reproachfulness even 
 in her submission. 
 
 "I have only told her to be ready to change clothes 
 with me and help me color my face and hands at the time 
 appointed. I have left the rest to you. " 
 
 " Then this is my plan. I have changed only a detail. 
 You and she must both leave this house at the same time, 
 by different exits, but one of them must be private — and 
 unknown to my men. Do you know of such a one ? " 
 
 "Yes," she said, "in the rear of the negro quarters." 
 
 " Good, " he replied, " that will be your way out. She 
 will leave here, publicly, through the parade, armed with 
 a pass from me. She will be overhauled and challenged 
 by the first sentry near the guard-house, below the wall. 
 She will be subjected to some delay and scrutiny, which 
 she will, however, be able to pass better than you would. 
 This will create the momentary diversion that we require. 
 In the mean time, you will have left the house by the rear, 
 and you will then keep in the shadow of the hedge until 
 
CLARENCE 411 
 
 you can drop down along the Run, where it empties into 
 the swamp. That," he continued, fixing his keen eyes 
 upon her, " is the one weak point in the position of this 
 place that is neither overlooked nor defended. But per- 
 haps," he added again grimly, "you already know it." 
 
 "It is the marsh where the flowers grow, near the path 
 where you met Miss Faulkner. I had crossed the marsh 
 to give her a letter," she said slowly. 
 
 A bitter smile came over Brant's face, but passed as 
 quickly. 
 
 "Enough," he said quietly, "I will meet you beside the 
 Run, and cross the marsh with you until you are within 
 hailing distance of your lines. I will be in plain clothes, 
 Alice," he went on slowly, "for it will not be the commander 
 of this force who accompanies you, but your husband, and, 
 without disgracing his uniform, he will drop to your level ; 
 for the instant he passes his own lines, in disguise, he will 
 become, like you, a spy, and amenable to its penalties." 
 
 Her eyes seemed suddenly to leap up to his with that 
 strange look of awakening and enthusiasm which he had 
 noted before. And in its complete prepossession of all her 
 instincts she rose from the bed, unheeding her bared arms 
 and shoulders and loosened hair, and stood upright before 
 him. For an instant husband and wife regarded each other 
 as unreservedly as in their own chamber at Robles. 
 
 "When shall I go?" 
 
 He glanced through the window already growing lighter 
 with the coming dawn. The relief would pass in a few 
 moments; the time seemed propitious. 
 
 "At once," he said. "I will send Rose to you." 
 
 But his wife had already passed into the closet, and was 
 tapping upon some inner door. He heard the sound of 
 hinges turning and the rustling of garments. She reap- 
 peared, holding the curtains of the closet together with hei 
 hand, and said, — 
 
112 CLAEENOE 
 
 " Go ! When she comes to your office for the pass, yon 
 will know that I have gone." 
 
 He turned away. 
 
 "Stop!" she said faintly. 
 
 He turned back. Her expression had again changed. 
 Her face was deadly pale ; a strange tremor seemed to have 
 taken possession of her. Her hands dropped from the 
 curtain. Her beautiful arms moved slightly forward; it 
 seemed to him that she would in the next moment have 
 extended them towards him. But even then she said 
 hurriedly, " Go ! Go ! " and slipped again behind the 
 curtains. 
 
 He quickly descended the stairs as the sound of tramp- 
 ling feet on the road, and the hurried word of command, 
 announced the return of the scouting party. The officer 
 had little report to make beyond the fact that a morning 
 mist, creeping along the valley, prevented any further 
 observation, and bade fair to interrupt their own communi- 
 cations with the camp. Everything was quiet in the west, 
 although the enemy's lines along the ridge seemed to have 
 receded. 
 
 Brant had listened impatiently, for a new idea had 
 seized him. Hooker was of the party, and was the one 
 man in whom he could partly confide, and obtain a dis- 
 guise. He at once made his way to the commissary 
 wagons — one of which he knew Hooker used as a tent. 
 Hastily telling him that he wished to visit the pickets 
 without recognition, he induced him to lend him his 
 slouched hat and frock coat, leaving with him his own 
 distinguishing tunic, hat, and sword. He resisted the belt 
 and pistols which Hooker would have forced upon him. 
 As he left the wagon he was amusedly conscious that his 
 old companion was characteristically examining the gar- 
 ments he had left behind with mingled admiration and 
 envy. But he did not know, as he slipped out of the 
 
CLARENCE 413 
 
 camp, that Mr. Hooker was quietly trying them on, before 
 a broken mirror in the wagon-head ! 
 
 The gray light of that summer morning was already so 
 strong that, to avoid detection, he quickly dropped into the 
 shadow of the gully that sloped towards the Run. The hot 
 mist which the scouts had seen was now lying like a tran- 
 quil sea between him and the pickets of the enemy's rear- 
 guard, which it seemed to submerge, and was clinging in 
 moist tenuous swathes — like drawn-out cotton wool — along 
 the ridge, half obliterating its face. From the valley in 
 the rear it was already stealing in a thin white line up the 
 slope like the advance of a ghostly column, with a stealthi- 
 ness that, in spite of himself, touched him with supersti- 
 tious significance. A warm perfume, languid and treach- 
 erous — as from the swamp magnolia — seemed to rise from 
 the half- hidden marsh. An ominous silence, that appeared 
 to be a part of this veiling of all things under the clear 
 opal-tinted sky above, was so little like the hush of rest 
 and peace, that he half yearned for the outburst of musketry 
 and tumult of attack that might dispel it. All that he had 
 ever heard or dreamed of the insidious South, with its lan- 
 guid subtleties of climate and of race, seemed to encompass 
 him here. 
 
 But the next moment he saw the figure he was waiting 
 for stealing towards him from the shadow of the gulley 
 beneath the negro quarters. 
 
 Even in that uncertain light there was no mistaking the 
 tall figure, the gaudily striped clinging gown and turbaned 
 head. And then a strange revulsion of feeling, quite 
 characteristic of the emotional side of his singular tempera- 
 ment, overcame him. He was taking leave of his wife — 
 the dream of his youth — perhaps forever ! It should be 
 no parting in anger as at Eobles ; it should be with a ten= 
 derness that would blot out their past in their separate 
 memories — God knows ! it might even be that a parting 
 
414 CLARENCE 
 
 at that moment was a joining of them in eternity. In his 
 momentary exaltation it even struck him that it was a duty, 
 no less sacred, no less unselfish than the one to which he 
 had devoted his life. The light was growing stronger; he 
 could hear voices in the nearest picket line, and the sound 
 of a cough in the invading mist. He made a hurried sign 
 to the on-coming figure to follow him, ran ahead, and halted 
 at last in the cover of a hackmatack hush. Still gazing 
 forward over the marsh, he stealthily held out his hand 
 behind him as the rustling skirt came nearer. At last his 
 hand was touched — but even at that touch he started and 
 turned quickly. 
 
 It was not his wife, but Kose ! — her mulatto double ! 
 Her face was rigid with fright, her beady eyes staring in 
 their china sockets, her white teeth chattering. Yet she 
 would have spoken. 
 
 " Hush ! " he said, clutching her hand, in a fierce whis- 
 per. " Not a word ! " 
 
 She was holding something white in her fingers; he 
 snatched it quickly. It was a note from his wife — not 
 in the disguised hand of her first warning, but in one that 
 he remembered as if it were a voice from their past. 
 
 "Forgive me for disobeying you to save you from cap- 
 ture, disgrace, or death — which would have come to you 
 where you were going! I have taken Rose's pass. You 
 need not fear that your honor will suffer by it, for if I am 
 stopped I shall confess that I took it from her. Think no 
 more of me, Clarence, but onLy of yourself. You are in 
 danger. " 
 
 He crushed the letter in his hand. 
 
 "Tell me," he said in a fierce whisper, seizing her arm, 
 "and speak low. When did you leave her? " 
 
 "Sho'ly just now!" gasped the frightened woman. 
 
 He flung her aside. There might be still time to over- 
 take and save her before she reached the picket lines. Ha 
 
CLA.RENCE 4l5 
 
 ran up the gully, and out on to the slope towards the first 
 guard-post. But a familiar challenge reached his ear, and 
 his heart stopped beating. 
 
 "Who goes there?" 
 
 There was a pause, a rattle of arms — voices — anothei 
 pause — and Brant stood breathlessly listening. Then the 
 voice rose again slowly and clearly: "Pass the mulatto 
 woman ! " 
 
 Thank God! she was saved! But the thought had 
 scarcely crossed his mind before it seemed to him that a 
 blinding crackle of sparks burst out along the whole slope 
 below the wall, a characteristic yell which he knew too 
 well rang in his ears, and an undulating line of dusty fig- 
 ures came leaping like gray wolves out of the mist upon his 
 pickets. He heard the shouts of his men falling back as 
 they fired; the harsh commands of a few officers hurrying 
 to their posts, and knew that he had been hopelessly sur- 
 prised and surrounded ! 
 
 He ran forward among his disorganized men. To his 
 consternation no one seemed to heed him! Then the re- 
 membrance of his disguise flashed upon him. But he had 
 only time to throw away his hat and snatch a sword from 
 a falling lieutenant, before a scorching flash seemed to pass 
 before his eyes and burn through his hair, and he dropped 
 like a log beside his subaltern. 
 
 An aching under the bandage around his head where a 
 spent bullet had grazed his scalp, and the sound of impos- 
 sible voices in his ears were all he knew as he struggled 
 slowly back to consciousness again. Even then it still 
 seemed a delusion, — for he was lying on a cot in his own 
 hospital, yet with officers of the division staff around him, 
 and the division commander himself standing by his side, 
 and regarding him with an air of grave but not unkindly 
 concern. But the wounded man felt instinctively that it 
 
416 CLARENCE 
 
 was not the effect of his physical condition, and a sense of 
 shame came suddenly over him, which was not dissipated 
 hy his superior's words. For, motioning the others aside, 
 the major-general leaned over his cot, and said, — 
 
 " Until a few moments ago, the report was that you had 
 been captured in the first rush of the rear-guard which we 
 were rolling up for your attack, and when you were picked 
 up, just now, in plain clothes on the slope, you were not 
 recognized. The one thing seemed to be as improbable as 
 the other," he added significantly. 
 
 The miserable truth flashed across Brant's mind. 
 Hooker must have been captured in his clothes — perhaps 
 in some extravagant sally — and had not been recognized in 
 the confusion by his own officers. Nevertheless, he raised 
 his eyes to his superior. 
 
 " You got my note 1 " 
 
 The general's brow darkened. 
 
 "Yes," he said slowly, "but finding you thus unpre- 
 pared — I had been thinking just now that you had been 
 deceived by that woman — or by others — and that it was 
 a clumsy forgery." He stopped, and seeing the hopeless 
 bewilderment in the face of the wounded man, added more 
 kindly: "But we will not talk of that in your present con- 
 dition. The doctor says a few hours will put you straight 
 again. Get strong, for I want you to lose no time — for 
 your own sake — to report yourself at Washington." 
 
 " Report myself — at Washington ! " repeated Brant 
 slowly. 
 
 "That was last night's order," said the commander, with 
 military curtness. Then he burst out: "I don't under- 
 stand it, Brant ! I believe you have been misunderstood, 
 misrepresented, perhaps maligned — and I shall make it my 
 business to see the thing through — but those are the De- 
 partment orders. And for the present — I am sorry to say 
 you are relieved of your command." 
 
CLARENCE 417 
 
 He turned away, and Brant closed his eyes. With them 
 it seemed to him that he closed his career. No one would 
 ever understand his explanation — even had he been tempted 
 to give one, and he knew he never would. Everything 
 was over now ! Even this wretched bullet had not struck 
 him fairly, and culminated his fate as it might! For an 
 instant, he recalled his wife's last offer to fly with him 
 beyond the seas — beyond this cruel injustice — but even 
 as he recalled it, he knew that flight meant the worst of all 
 
 — a half-confession ! But she had escaped ! Thank God 
 for that ! Again and again in his hopeless perplexity this 
 comfort returned to him, — he had saved her ; he had done 
 his duty. And harping upon this in his strange fatalism, 
 it at last seemed to him that this was for what he had lived 
 
 — for what he had suffered — for what he had fitly ended 
 his career. Perhaps it was left for him now to pass his 
 remaining years in forgotten exile — even as his father had 
 
 — his father ! — his breath came quickly at the thought — 
 God knows ! perhaps as wrongfully accused ! It may have 
 been a Providence that she had borne him no child, to 
 whom this dreadful heritage could be again transmitted. 
 
 There was something of this strange and fateful resigna- 
 tion in his face, a few hours later, when he was able to be 
 helped again into the saddle. But he could see in the eyes 
 of the few comrades who commiseratingly took leave of 
 him a vague, half-repressed awe of some indefinite weak- 
 ness in the man, that mingled with their heartfelt parting 
 with a gallant soldier. Yet even this touched him no 
 longer. He cast a glance at the house and the room where 
 he had parted from her, at the slope from which she had 
 passed — and rode away. 
 
 And then, as his figure disappeared down the road, the 
 restrained commentary of wonder, surmise, and criticism 
 broke out : — 
 
 "It must have been something mighty bad, for the old 
 
418 CLARENCE 
 
 man, who swears by him, looked father troubled. And it 
 was deuced queer, you know, this changing clothes with 
 somebody, just before this surprise ! " 
 
 "Nonsense! It 's something away back of that! Didn't 
 you hear the old man say that the orders for him to report 
 himself came from Washington last night ? No ! " — the 
 speaker lowered his voice — " Strangeways says that he had 
 regularly sold himself out to one of them d — d secesh 
 woman spies! It's the old Marc Antony business over 
 again ! " 
 
 "Now I think of it," said a younger subaltern, "he did 
 seem mightily taken with one of those quadroons or mulat- 
 toes he issued orders against. I suppose that was a blind 
 for us ! I remember the first day he saw her ; he was regu- 
 larly keen to know all about her." 
 
 Major Curtis gave a short laugh. 
 
 " That mulatto, Martin, was a white woman, burnt-corked ! 
 She was trying to get through the lines last night, and fell 
 off a wall or got a knock on the head from a sentry's car- 
 bine. When she was brought in, Doctor Simmons set to 
 washing the blood off her face ; the cork came off and the 
 whole thing came out. Brant hushed it up — and the 
 woman, too, — in his own quarters! It 's supposed now 
 that she got away somehow in the rush ! " 
 
 "It goes further back than that, gentlemen," said the 
 adjutant authoritatively. "They say his wife was a. howl- 
 ing secessionist, four years ago, in California, was mixed 
 up in a conspiracy, and he had to leave on account of it. 
 Look how thick he and that Miss Faulkner became, before 
 he helped her off ! " 
 
 "That's your jealousy, Tommy; she knew he was, by 
 all odds, the biggest man here, and a good deal more, too, 
 and you had no show ! " 
 
 In the laugh that followed, it would seem that Brant's 
 eulogy had been spoken and forgotten. But as Lieutenant 
 
CtAEENCE 419 
 
 Martin was turning away, a lingering corporal touched his 
 cap. 
 
 "You were speaking of those prowling mulattoes, sir. 
 You know the general passed one out this morning." 
 
 "So I have heard." 
 
 "I reckon she didn't get very tar. It was just at the 
 time that we were driven in by their first fire, and I think 
 she got her share of it, too. Do you mind walking this 
 way, sir 1 " 
 
 The lieutenant did not mind, although he rather Ian- 
 guidly followed. When they had reached the top of the 
 gully, the corporal pointed to what seemed to be a bit of 
 striped calico hanging on a thorn bush in the ravine. 
 
 "That's her," said the corporal. "I know the dress; 
 I was on guard when she was passed. The searchers, who 
 were picking up our men, haven't got to her yet; but she 
 ain't moved or stirred these two hours. Would you like 
 to go down and see her ? " 
 
 The lieutenant hesitated. He was young, and slightly 
 fastidious as to unnecessary unpleasantness. He believed 
 he would wait until the searchers brought her up, when 
 the corporal might call him. 
 
 The mist came up gloriously from the swamp like a 
 golden halo. And as Clarence Brant, already forgotten, 
 rode moodily through it towards Washington, hugging to 
 his heart the solitary comfort of his great sacrifice, his wife, 
 Alice Brant, for whom he had made it, was lying in the 
 ravine, dead and uncared for. Perhaps it was part of the 
 inconsistency of her sex that she was pierced with the bul- 
 lets of those she had loved, and was wearing the garments 
 of the race that she had wronged. 
 
PAET III 
 CHAPTEB I 
 
 It was sunset of a hot day at Washington. Even at 
 that hour the broad avenues, which diverged from the Cap- 
 itol like the rays of another sun, were fierce and glittering. 
 The sterile distances between glowed more cruelly than 
 ever, and pedestrians, keeping in the scant shade, hesitated 
 on the curbstones before plunging into the Sahara-like waste 
 of crossings. The city seemed deserted. Even that vast 
 army of contractors, speculators, place-hunters, and lobby- 
 ists, which hung on the heels of the other army, and had 
 turned this pacific camp of the nation into a battlefield of 
 ignoble conflict and contention — more disastrous than the 
 one to the South — had slunk into their holes in hotel back 
 bedrooms, in shady bar-rooms, or in the negro quarters of 
 Georgetown, as if the majestic, white-robed Goddess en- 
 throned upon the dome of the Capitol had at last descended 
 among them and was smiting to right and left with the flat 
 and flash of her insufferable sword. 
 
 Into this stifling atmosphere of greed and corruption 
 Clarence Brant stepped from the shadow of the War De- 
 partment. For the last three weeks he had haunted its 
 ante-rooms and audience-chambers, in the vain hope of 
 righting himself before his superiors, who were content,' 
 without formulating charges against him, to keep him in 
 this disgrace of inaction and the anxiety of suspense. Un- 
 able to ascertain the details of the accusation, and conscious 
 of his own secret, he was debarred the last resort of demand- 
 ing a court-martial, which he knew could only exonerate 
 
CLARENCE 421 
 
 him by the exposure of the guilt of his wife, whom he still 
 hoped had safely escaped. His division commander, in 
 active operations in the field, had no time to help him at 
 Washington. Elbowed aside by greedy contractors, fore- 
 stalled by selfish politicians, and disdaining the ordinary 
 method of influence, he had no friend to turn to. In his 
 few years of campaigning he had lost his instinct of diplo- 
 macy, without acquiring a soldier's bluntness. 
 
 The nearly level rays of the sun forced him at last to 
 . turn aside into one of the openings of a large building — a 
 famous caravansary of that hotel-haunted capital, and he 
 presently found himself in the luxurious bar-room, fragrant 
 with mint, and cool with ice-slabs piled symmetrically on 
 its marble counters. A few groups of men were seeking 
 coolness at small tables with glasses before them and palm- 
 leaf fans in their hands, but a larger and noisier assemblage 
 was collected before the bar, where a man, collarless and 
 in his shirt-sleeves, with his back to the counter, was pre- 
 tentiously addressing them. Brant, who had moodily 
 dropped into a chair in the corner, after ordering a cooling 
 drink as an excuse for his temporary refuge from the stifling 
 street, half-regretted his enforced participation in their con- 
 viviality. But a sudden lowering of the speaker's voice 
 into a note of gloomy significance seemed familiar to him. 
 He glanced at him quickly, from the shadow of his corner. 
 He was not mistaken — it was Jim Hooker ! 
 
 For the first time in his life, Brant wished to evade him. 
 In the days of his own prosperity his heart had always 
 gone out towards this old companion of his boyhood; in 
 his present humiliation his presence jarred upon him. He 
 would have slipped away, but to do so he would have had 
 ,to pass before the counter again, and Hooker, with the 
 self-consciousness of a story-teller, had an eye on his audi- 
 ence. Brant, with a palm-leaf fan before his face, was 
 obliged to listen. 
 
422 CLAKENCE 
 
 "Yes, gentlemen," said Hooker, examining his glass 
 dramatically, "when a man's heen cooped up in a Rebel 
 prison, with a death line before him that he 's obliged to 
 cross every time he wants a square drink, it seems sort of 
 like a dream of his boyhood to be standin' here comf'ble 
 before his liquor, alongside o' white men once more. And 
 when he knows he 's bin put to all that trouble jest to save 
 the reputation of another man, and the secrets of a few 
 high and mighty ones, it 's almost enough to make his 
 liquor go agin him. " He stopped theatrically, seemed to 
 choke emotionally over his brandy squash, but with a pause 
 of dramatic determination finally dashed it down. "No, 
 gentlemen," he continued gloomily, "I don't say what I'm 
 back in Washington for — I don't say what I've been 
 sayin' to myself when I 've bin picking the weevils outer 
 my biscuits in Libby Prison — but ef you don't see some 
 pretty big men in the War Department obliged to climb 
 down in the next few days, my name ain't Jim Hooker, of 
 Hooker, Meacham & Co., Army Beef Contractors, and the 
 man who saved the fight at Gray Oaks ! " 
 
 The smile of satisfaction that went around his audience 
 — an audience quick to seize the weakness of any perform- 
 ance — might have startled a vanity less oblivious than 
 Hooker's; but it only aroused Brant's indignation and pity, 
 and made his position still more intolerable. But Hooker, 
 scornfully expectorating a thin stream of tobacco juice 
 against the spittoon, remained for an instant gloomily silent. 
 
 "Tell us about the fight again," said a smiling auditor. 
 
 Hooker looked around the room with a certain dark sus- 
 piciousness, and then, in an affected lower voice, which his 
 theatrical experience made perfectly audible, went on : — 
 
 "It ain't much to speak of, and if it wasn't for the 
 principle of the thing, I wouldn't be talking. A man 
 who 's seen Injin fightin' don't go much on this here West 
 Point fightin' by rule-of-three — but that ain't here o* 
 
CLARENCE 423 
 
 there! Well, I'd bin out a-scoutin' — just to help the 
 boys along, and I was sittin' in my wagon about daybreak, 
 when along comes a brigadier-general, and he looks into 
 the wagon flap. I oughter tell you first, gentlemen, that 
 every minute he was expecting an attack — but he did n't 
 let on a hint of it to me. ' How are you, Jim? ' said he. 
 ' How are you, General 1 ' said I. ' Would you mind lendin' 
 me your coat and hat? ' says he. ' I 've got a little game 
 here with our pickets, and I don't want to be recognized.' 
 'Anything to oblige, General, ' said I, and with that I strips 
 off my coat and hat, and he peels and puts them on. 
 ' Nearly the same figure, Jim, ' he says, lookin' at me, ' sup- 
 pose you try on my things and see. ' With that he handti 
 me his coat — full uniform, by G — d! — with the little 
 gold cords and laces and the epaulettes with a star, and I 
 puts it on — quite innocent-like. And then he says, 
 handin' me his sword and belt, ' Same inches round the 
 waist, I reckon, ' and I puts that on, too. ' You may as 
 well keep 'em on till I come back, ' says he, ' for it 's mighty 
 damp and malarious at this time around the swamp. ' And 
 with that he lights out. Well, gentlemen, I had n't sat 
 there five minutes before Bang ! bang ! rattle ! rattle ! ker« 
 shiz ! and I hears a yell. I steps out of the wagon ; every- 
 thing 's quite dark, but the rattle .goes on. Then along 
 trots an orderly, leadin' a horse. 'Mount, General,' he 
 says; ' we 're attacked — the rear- guard 's on us! ' " 
 
 He paused, looked round his audience, and then, in a 
 lower voice, said darkly, — 
 
 "I ain't a fool, an' in that minute a man's brain works 
 at high pressure, and I saw it all ! I saw the little game 
 of the brigadier — to skunk away in my clothes and leave 
 me to be captured in his. But I ain't a dog neither, and 
 I mounted that horse, gentlemen, and lit out to where the 
 men were formin'! I didn't dare to speak, lest they 
 should know me, but I waved my sword, and by G — d! 
 
424 CLARENCE 
 
 they followed me! And. the next minute we was in the 
 thick of it. I had my hat as full of holes as that ice 
 strainer; I had a dozen bullets through my coat, the fringe 
 of my epaulettes was shot away, but I kept the boys at 
 their work — and we stopped 'em! Stopped 'em, gentle- 
 men, until we heard the bugles of the rest of our division, 
 that all this time had been rolling that blasted rear-guard 
 over on us ! And it saved the fight ; but the next minute 
 the Johnny Rebs made a last dash and cut me off — and 
 there I was — by G — d, a prisoner ! Me that had saved 
 the fight!" 
 
 A ripple of ironical applause went round as Hooker 
 gloomily drained his glass, and then held up his hand in 
 scornful deprecation. 
 
 "I said I was a prisoner, gentlemen," he went on bit- 
 terly; "but that ain't all! I asked to see Johnston, told 
 him what I had done, and demanded to be exchanged for 
 a general officer. He said, ' You be d — d. ' I then sent 
 word to the division commander-in-chief, and told him how 
 I had saved Gray Oaks when his brigadier ran away, and 
 he said, ' You be d — d.' I 've bin ' You be d — d ' from 
 the lowest non-com. to the commander-in-chief, and when 
 I was at last exchanged, I was exchanged, gentlemen, for 
 two mules and a broken wagon. But I 'm here, gentlemen 
 ■ — as I was thar ! " 
 
 "Why don't you see the President about it? " asked a 
 bystander, in affected commiseration. 
 
 Mr. Hooker stared contemptuously at the suggestion, 
 and expectorated his scornful dissent. 
 
 "Not much! " he said. "But I 'm going to see the man 
 that carries him and his cabinet in his breeches pocket — 
 Senator Boompointer. " 
 
 "Boompointer 's a big man," continued his auditoi 
 doubtfully. " Po you know him 1 " 
 
 " Know him 1 '' Mr. Hooker laughed a bitter, sardonic 
 
CLARENCE 425 
 
 laugh. "Well, gentlemen, I ain't the kind o' man to go 
 in for family influence ; but, " he added, with gloomy eleva- 
 tion, "considering he's an intimate relation of mine, by 
 marriage, I should say I did." 
 
 Brant heard no more; the facing around of his old com- 
 panion towards the bar gave him that opportunity of escap- 
 ing he had been waiting for. The defection of Hooker and 
 his peculiar inventions were too characteristic of him to 
 excite surprise, and, although they no longer awakened his 
 good-humored tolerance, they were powerless to affect him 
 in his greater trouble. Only one thing he learned — that 
 Hooker knew nothing of his wife being in camp as a spy 
 — the incident would have been too tempting to have es- 
 caped his dramatic embellishment. And the allusion to 
 Senator Boompointer, monstrous as it seemed in Hooker's 
 mouth, gave him a grim temptation. He had heard of 
 Boompointer's wonderful power; he believed that Susy 
 would and could help him — Clarence — whether she did 
 or did not help Hooker. But the next moment he dis- 
 missed the idea, with a flushing cheek. How low had he 
 already sunk, even to think of it! 
 
 It had been once or twice in his mind to seek the Presi- 
 dent, and, under a promise of secrecy, reveal a part of hia 
 story. He had heard many anecdotes of his goodness of 
 heart and generous tolerance of all things, but with this 
 was joined — so said contemporaneous history — a flippancy 
 of speech and a brutality of directness from which Clar- 
 ence's sensibility shrank. Would he see anything in his 
 wife but a common spy on his army ? would he see anything 
 in him but the weak victim, like many others, of a schem- 
 ing woman? Stories were current in camp and Congress 
 of the way that this grim humorist had, with an apposite 
 anecdote or a rugged illustration, brushed away the most 
 delicate sentiment or the subtlest poetry, even as he had 
 exposed the sham of Puritanic morality or of Epicurean 
 
426 CLARENCE 
 
 ethics. Brant had even solicited an audience, but had 
 retired awkwardly, and with his confidence unspoken, be- 
 fore the dark, humorous eyes, that seemed almost too tol- 
 erant of his grievance. He had been to levees, and his 
 heart had sunk equally before the vulgar crowd who seemed 
 to regard this man as their own buffoon, and the pompous- 
 ness of position, learning, and dignity which he seemed to 
 delight to shake and disturb. 
 
 One afternoon, a few days later, in sheer listlessness of 
 purpose, he found himself again at the White House. The 
 President was giving audience to a deputation of fanatics, 
 who, with a pathetic simplicity almost equal to his own 
 pathetic tolerance, were urging upon this ruler of millions 
 the policy of an insignificant score, and Brant listened to 
 his patient, practical response of facts and logic, clothed 
 in simple but sinewy English, up to the inevitable climax 
 of humorous illustration, which the young brigadier could 
 now see was necessary to relieve the grimness of his refusal. 
 For the first time Brant felt the courage to address him, 
 and resolved to wait until the deputation retired. As they 
 left the gallery he lingered in the ante-room for the Presi- 
 dent to appear. But, as he did not come, afraid of losing 
 his chances, he returned to the gallery. Alone in his 
 privacy and shadow, the man he had just left was standing 
 by a column, in motionless abstraction, looking over the 
 distant garden. But the kindly, humorous face was almost 
 tragic with an intensity of weariness! Every line of those 
 strong, rustic features was relaxed under a burden which 
 even the long, lank, angular figure — overgrown and unfin- 
 ished as his own West — seemed to be distorted in its 
 efforts to adjust itself to; while the dark, deep-set eyes 
 were abstracted with the vague prescience of the prophet 
 and the martyr. Shocked at that sudden change, Brant 
 felt his cheek burn with shame. And he was about to 
 break upon that wearied man's unbending; he was about 
 
CLARENCE 427 
 
 to add his petty burden to the shoulders of this Western 
 Atlas. He drew back silently, and descended the stairs. 
 
 But before he had left the house, while mingling with 
 the crowd in one of the larger rooms, he saw the President 
 reappear beside an important, prosperous-looking figure, on 
 whom the kindly giant was now smiling with humorous 
 toleration. He noticed the divided attention of the crowd : 
 the name of Senator Boompointer was upon every lip : he 
 was nearly face to face with that famous dispenser of place 
 and preferment — this second husband of Susy ! An inde- 
 scribable feeling — half cynical, half fateful — came over 
 him. He would not have been surprised to see Jim 
 Hooker join the throng, which now seemed to him to even 
 dwarf the lonely central figure that had so lately touched 
 him! He wanted to escape it all! 
 
 But his fate brought him to the entrance at the same 
 moment that Boompointer was leaving it, and that distin- 
 guished man brushed hastily by him as a gorgeous carriage, 
 drawn by two spirited horses, and driven by a resplendent 
 negro coachman, dashed up. It was the Boompointer 
 carriage. 
 
 A fashionably dressed, pretty woman, who, in style, 
 bearing, opulent contentment, and ingenuous self-conscious- 
 ness, was in perfect keeping with the slight ostentation of 
 the equipage, was its only occupant. As Boompointer 
 stepped into the vehicle, her blue eyes fell for an instant 
 on Brant. A happy, childlike pink flush came into her 
 cheeks, and a violet ray of recognition and mischief darted 
 from her eyes to his. For it was Susy. 
 
CHAPTER n 
 
 When Brant returned to his hotel there was an aug- 
 mented respect in the voice of the clerk as he handed him 
 a note with the remark that it had been left by Senator 
 Boompointer's coachman. He had no difficulty in recog- 
 nizing Susy's peculiarly Brobdingnagian school-girl hand. 
 
 "Kla'uns, I call it real mean! I believe you just hoped 
 I wouldn't know you. If you 're a bit like your old self 
 you '11 come right off here — this very night! I 've got a 
 big party on — but we can talk somewhere between the 
 acts! Haven't I growed? Tell me! And my! what a 
 gloomy swell the young brigadier is! The carriage will 
 come for you — so you have no excuse." 
 
 The effect of this childish note upon Brant was strangely 
 out of proportion to its triviality. But then it was Susy's 
 very triviality — so expressive of her characteristic irrespon- 
 sibility — which had always affected him at such moments. 
 Again, as at Bobles, he felt it react against his own ethics. 
 Was she not right in her delightful materialism 1 Was she 
 not happier than if she had been consistently true to Mrs. 
 Peyton, to the convent, to the episode of her theatrical 
 career, to Jim Hooker — even to himself? And did he 
 conscientiously believe that Hooker or himself had suffered 
 from her inconsistency ? No ! Prom all that he had heard, 
 she was a suitable helpmate to the senator, in her social 
 attractiveness, her charming ostentations, her engaging 
 vanity that disarmed suspicion, and her lack of responsibil- 
 ity even in her partisanship. Nobody ever dared to hold 
 the senator responsible for her promises, even while enjoy- 
 
CLARENCE 429 
 
 ing the fellowship of both, and it is said that the worthy 
 man singularly profited by it. Looking upon the invita- 
 tion as a possible distraction to his gloomy thoughts, Brant 
 resolved to go. 
 
 The moon was high as the carriage whirled him out of 
 the still stifling avenues towards the Soldiers' Home — a 
 sylvan suburb frequented by cabinet ministers and the 
 President — where the good Senator had "decreed," like 
 Kubla Khan, "a stately pleasure dome," to entertain his 
 friends and partisans. As they approached the house, the 
 trembling light like fireflies through the leaves, the warm 
 silence broken only by a military band playing a drowsy 
 waltz on the veranda, and the heavy odors of jessamine 
 in the air, thrilled Brant with a sense of shame as he 
 thought of his old comrades in the field. But this was 
 presently dissipated by the uniforms that met him in the 
 hall, with the presence of some of his distinguished supe- 
 riors. At the head of the stairs, with a circling background 
 of the shining crosses and ribbons of the diplomatic corps, 
 stood Susy — her bare arms and neck glittering with dia- 
 monds, her face radiant with childlike vivacity. A signifi- 
 cant pressure of her little glove as he made his bow seemed 
 to be his only welcome, but a moment later she caught his 
 arm. "You've yet to know him," she said in a half 
 whisper; "he thinks a good deal of himself — just like 
 Jim. But he makes others believe it, and that 's where 
 poor Jim slipped up. " She paused before the man thus 
 characteristically disposed of, and presented Brant. It 
 was the man he had seen before — material, capable, dog- 
 matic. A glance from his shrewd eyes — accustomed to 
 the weighing of men's weaknesses and ambitions — and a 
 few hurried phrases apparently satisfied him that Brant 
 was not just then important or available to him, and the 
 two men, a moment later, drifted easily apart. Brant 
 sauntered listlessly through the crowded rooms, half re- 
 
430 CLARENCE 
 
 morsefully conscious that he had taken some irrevocable 
 step, and none the less assured by the presence of two or 
 three reporters and correspondents who were dogging his 
 steps, or the glance of two or three pretty women whose 
 curiosity had evidently been aroused by the singular ab- 
 straction of this handsome, distinguished, but sardonic- 
 looking officer. But the next moment he was genuinely 
 moved. 
 
 A tall young woman had just glided into the centre of 
 the room with an indolent yet supple gracefulness that 
 seemed familiar ,to him. A change in her position sud- 
 denly revealed her face. It was Miss Faulkner. Pre- 
 viously he had known her only in the riding-habit of 
 Confederate gray which she had at first affected, or in the 
 light muslin morning-dress she had worn at Gray Oakc. 
 It seemed to him, to-night, that the studied elegance of 
 her full dress became her still more; that the pretty will- 
 fulness of her chin and shoulders was chastened and modi- 
 fied by the pearls round her fair throat. Suddenly their 
 eyes met; her face paled visibly; he fancied that she 
 almost leaned against her companion for support; then she 
 met his glance again with a face into which the color had 
 as suddenly rushed, but with eyes that seemed to be 
 appealing to him even to the point of pain and fright. 
 Brant was not conceited; he could see that the girl's agi- 
 tation was not the effect of any mere personal influence in 
 his recognition, but of something else. He turned hastily 
 away ; when he looked around again she was gone. 
 
 Nevertheless he felt filled with a vague irritation. Did 
 she think him such a fool as to imperil her safety by 
 openly recognizing her without her consent? Did she 
 think that he would dare to presume upon the service she 
 had done him? Or, more outrageous thought, had she 
 heard of his disgrace, known its cause, and feared that he 
 would drag her into a disclosure to save himself? "No, 
 
CLARENCE 431 
 
 no ; she eould not think that ! She had perhaps regretted 
 what she had done in a freak of girlish chivalry ; she had 
 returned to her old feelings and partisanship ; she was only 
 startled at meeting the single witness of her folly. Well, 
 she need not fear! He would as studiously avoid her 
 hereafter, and she should know it. And yet — yes, there 
 was a "yet." For he could not forget — indeed, in the 
 past three weeks it had been more often before him than 
 he cared to think — that she was the one human being 
 who had been capable of a great act of self-sacrifice for 
 him — her enemy, her accuser, the man who had scarcely 
 treated her civilly. He was ashamed to remember now 
 that this thought had occurred to him at the bedside of 
 his wife — at the hour of her escape — even on the fatal 
 slope on which he had been struck down. And now this 
 fond illusion must go with the rest — the girl who had 
 served him so loyally was ashamed of it ! A bitter smile 
 crossed his face. 
 
 "Well, I don't wonder! Here are all the women ask- 
 ing me who is that good-looking Mephistopheles, with the 
 burning eyes, who is prowling around my rooms as if 
 searching for a victim. Why, you 're smiling for all the 
 world like poor Jim when he used to do the Red Avenger." 
 
 Susy's voice — and illustration — recalled him to him- 
 self. 
 
 "Furious I may be," he said with a gentler smile, 
 although his eyes still glittered, — " furious that I have to 
 wait until the one woman I came to see — the one woman 
 I have not seen for so long, while these puppets have been 
 nightly dancing before her — can give me a few moments 
 from them, to talk of the old days." 
 
 In his reaction he was quite sincere, although he felt a 
 slight sense of remorse as he saw the quick, faint color 
 rise, as in those old days, even through the to-night'o 
 powder of her cheek. 
 
432 CLARENCE 
 
 "That's like the old Kla'uns," she said, with a slight 
 pressure of his arm, "but we will not have a chance to 
 speak until later. When they are nearly all gone, you '11 
 take me to get a little refreshment, and we '11 have a chat 
 in the conservatory. But you must drop that awfully 
 wicked look and make yourself generally agreeable to those 
 women until then." 
 
 It was, perhaps, part of this reaction which enabled him 
 to obey his hostess's commands with a certain recklessness 
 that, however, seemed to be in keeping with the previous 
 Satanic reputation he had all unconsciously achieved. 
 The women listened to the cynical flippancy of this good- 
 looking soldier with an undisguised admiration which in 
 turn excited curiosity and envy from his own sex. He 
 saw the whispered questioning, the lifted eyebrows, scorn- 
 ful shrugging of shoulders — and knew that the story of 
 his disgrace was in the air. But I fear this only excited 
 him to further recklessness and triumph. Once he thought 
 he recognized Miss Faulkner's figure at a distance, and 
 even fancied that she had been watching him ; but he only 
 redoubled his attentions to the fair woman beside him, and 
 looked no more. 
 
 Yet he was glad when the guests began to drop off, the 
 great rooms thinned, and Susy, appearing on the arm of 
 her husband, coquettishly reminded him of his promise. 
 
 "For I want to talk to you of old times. General Brant," 
 she went on, turning explanatorily to Boompointer, "mar- 
 ried my adopted mother in California — at Bobles, a dear 
 old place where I spent my earliest years. So, you see, 
 we are sort of relations by marriage," she added, with 
 delightful naivete. 
 
 Hooker's own vainglorious allusion to his relation to 
 the man before him flashed across Brant's mind, but it 
 left now only a smile on his lips. He felt he had already 
 become a part of the irresponsible comedy played around 
 
CLARENCE 433 
 
 him. Why should he resist, or examine its ethics too 
 closely? He offered his arm to Susy as they descended 
 the stairs, hut, instead of pausing in the supper-room, she 
 simply passed through it with a significant pressure on his 
 arm, and, drawing aside a muslin curtain, stepped into the 
 moonlit conservatory. Behind the curtain there was a 
 small rustic settee ; without releasing his arm she sat down, 
 so that when he dropped heside her, their hands met, and 
 mutually clasped. 
 
 "Now, Kla'uns," she said, with a slight, comfortable 
 shiver as she nestled beside him, "it's a little like your 
 chair down at old Eobles, isn't it? — tell me! And to 
 think it's five years ago! But, Kla'uns, what's the 
 matter? You are changed," she said, looking at his dark 
 face in the moonlight, " or you have something to tell 
 me. " 
 
 "I have." 
 
 "And it's something dreadful, I know!" she said, 
 wrinkling her brows with a pretty terror. "Couldn't you 
 pretend you had told it to me, and let us go on just the 
 same ? Could n't you, Kla'uns ? Tell me ! " 
 
 "I am afraid I couldn't," he said, with a sad smile. 
 
 "Is it about yourself, Kla'uns? You know," she went 
 on with cheerful rapidity, "I know everything about you 
 — I always did, you know — and I don't care, and never 
 did care, and it don't, and never did, make the slightest 
 difference to me. So don't tell it, and waste time, 
 Kla'uns." 
 
 "It's not about me, but about my wife!" he said 
 slowly. 
 
 Her expression changed slightly. 
 
 " Oh, her ! " she said after a pause. Then, half re- 
 signedly, "Go on, Kla'uns." 
 
 He began. He had a dozen times rehearsed to himself 
 his miserable story, always feeling it keenly, and even 
 
434 CLARENCE 
 
 fearing that he might be carried away by emotion or mov- 
 bid sentiment in telling it to another. But, to his aston- 
 ishment, he found himself telling it practically, calmly, 
 almost cynically, to his old playmate, repressing the half 
 devotion and even tenderness that had governed him, from 
 the time that his wife, disguised as the mulatto woman, 
 had secretly watched him at his office, to the hour that he 
 had passed her through the lines. He withheld only the 
 incident of Miss Faulkner's complicity and sacrifice. 
 
 " And she got away, after having kicked you out of your 
 place, Kla'uns? " said Susy, when he had ended. 
 
 Clarence stiffened beside her. But he felt he had gone 
 too far to quarrel with his confidante. 
 
 "She went away. I honestly believe we shall never 
 meet again, or I should not be telling you this ! " 
 
 "Kla'uns," she said lightly, taking his hand again, 
 "don't you believe it! She won't let you go. You're 
 one of those men that a woman, when she 's once hooked 
 on to, won't let go of, even when she believes she no 
 longer loves him, or meets bigger and better men. I 
 reckon it's because you're so different from other men; 
 maybe there are so many different things about you to 
 hook on to, and you don't slip off as easily as the others. 
 Now, if you were like old Peyton, her first husband, or 
 like poor Jim, or even my Boompointer, you 'd be all 
 right! No, my boy, all we can do is to try to keep her 
 from getting at you here. I reckon she won't trust her- 
 self in Washington again in a hurry." 
 
 "But I cannot stay here; my career is in the field." 
 
 "Your career is alongside o' me, honey — and Boom- 
 pointer. But nearer me. We '11 fix all that. I heard 
 something about your being in disgrace, but the story was 
 that you were sweet on some secesh girl down there, and 
 neglected your business, Kla'uns. But, Lordy! to think 
 it was only your own wife ! Never mind ; we '11 straighten 
 
CLARENCE 435 
 
 that out. We 've had worse jobs than that on. Why, 
 there was that commissary who was buying up dead horses 
 at one end of the field and selling them to the Govern- 
 ment for mess be'ef at the other; and there was that gen- 
 eral who wouldn't make an attack when it rained; and 
 the other general — you know who I mean, Kla'uns — 
 who wouldn't invade the State where his sister lived; but 
 we straightened them out, somehow, and they were a heap 
 worse than you. We '11 get you a position in the war 
 department here, one of the bureau offices, where you 
 keep your rank and your uniform — you don't look bad in 
 it, Kla'uns — on better pay. And you'll come and see 
 me, and we '11 talk over old times." 
 
 Brant felt his heart turn sick within him. But he was 
 at her mercy now ! He said, with an effort, — 
 
 "But I've told you that my career — nay, my life — 
 now is in the field." 
 
 "Don't you be a fool, Kla'uns, and leave it there! 
 You have done your work of fighting — mighty good 
 fighting, too, — and everybody knows it. You've earned 
 a change. Let others take your place." 
 
 He shuddered, as he remembered that his wife had 
 made the same appeal. Was he a fool then, and these 
 two women — so totally unlike in everything — right in 
 this? 
 
 "Come, Kla'uns," said Susy, relapsing again against his 
 shoulder. "Now talk to me! You don't say what you 
 think of me, of my home, of my furniture, of my position 
 — even of him ! Tell me ! " 
 
 "I find you well, prosperous, and happy," he said, with 
 a faint smile. 
 
 " Is that all J And how do I look 1 " 
 
 She turned her still youthful, mischievous face towards 
 him in the moonlight. The witchery of her blue eyes was 
 still there as of old, the same frank irresponsibility beamed 
 
436 CLARENCE 
 
 from them ; her parted lips seemed to give him back the 
 breath of his youth. He started, but she did not. 
 • Susy, dear ! " 
 
 It was her husband's voice. 
 
 " I quite forgot, " the Senator went on, as he drew the 
 curtain aside, "that you are engaged with a friend; but 
 Miss Faulkner is waiting to say good-night, and I volun- 
 teered to find you." 
 
 " Tell her to wait a moment, " said Susy, with an impa- 
 tience that was as undisguised as it was without embarrass- 
 ment or confusion. 
 
 But Miss Faulkner, unconsciously following Mr. Boom- 
 pointer, was already upon them. For a moment the whole 
 four were silent, although perfectly composed. Senator 
 Boompointer, unconscious of any infelicity in his interrup- 
 tion, was calmly waiting. Clarence, opposed suddenly to 
 the young girl whom he believed was avoiding his recogni- 
 tion, rose, coldly imperturbable. Miss Faulkner, looking 
 taller and more erect in the long folds of her satin cloak, 
 neither paled nor blushed, as she regarded Susy and Brant 
 with a smile of well-bred apology. 
 
 " I expect to leave Washington to-morrow, and may not 
 be able to call again," she said, "or I would not have so 
 particularly pressed a leave-taking .upon you. " 
 
 "I was talking with my old friend, General Brant," 
 said Susy, more by way of .introduction than apology. 
 
 Brant bowed. For an instant the clear eyes of Miss 
 Faulkner slipped icily across his as she made him an old- 
 fashioned Southern courtesy, and, taking Susy's arm, she 
 left the room. , Brant did not linger, but took leave of his 
 host almost in the same breath. At the front door a well- 
 appointed carriage of one of the Legations had just rolled 
 into waiting. He looked back; he saw Miss Faulkner, 
 erect and looking like a bride in her gauzy draperies, de- 
 •scending the stairs before the waiting servants. He felt 
 
CLARENCE 437 
 
 his heart beat strangely. He hesitated, recalled himself 
 with an effort, hurriedly stepped from the porch into the 
 path, as he heard the carriage door close behind him in the 
 distance, and then felt the dust from her horse's hoofs rise 
 around him as she drove past him and away. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Although Brant was convinced as soon as he left the 
 house that he could not accept anything from the Boom- 
 pointer influence, and that his interview with Susy was 
 fruitless, he knew that he must temporize. While he did 
 not believe that his old playmate would willingly betray 
 him, he was uneasy when he thought of the vanity and 
 impulsiveness which might compromise him — or of a pos- 
 sible jealousy that might seek revenge. Yet he had no 
 reason to believe that Susy's nature was jealous, or that 
 she was likely to have any cause; but the fact remained 
 that Miss Faulkner's innocent intrusion upon their tete-k- 
 t§te affected him more strongly than anything else in his 
 interview with Susy. Once out of the atmosphere of that 
 house, it struck him, too, that Miss Faulkner was almost 
 as much of an alien in it as himself. He wondered what 
 she had been doing there. Could it be possible that she 
 was obtaining information for the South? But he rejected 
 the idea as quickly as it had occurred to him. Perhaps 
 there could be no stronger proof of the unconscious influ- 
 ence the young girl already had over him. 
 
 He remembered the liveries of the diplomatic carriage 
 that had borne her away, and ascertained without difficulty 
 that her sister had married one of the foreign ministers, 
 and that she was a guest in his house. But he was the 
 more astonished to hear that she and her sister were con- 
 sidered to be Southern Unionists — and were greatly 
 petted in governmental circles for their sacrificing fidelity 
 to the flag. His informant, an official in the State Depart- 
 
CLARENCE 439 
 
 ment, added that Miss Matilda might have been a good 
 deal of a madcap at the outbreak of the war — for the sis- 
 ters had a brother in the Confederate service — but that 
 she had changed greatly, and, indeed, within a month, 
 "For," he added, "she was at the White House for the 
 first time last week, and they say the President talked 
 more to her than to any other woman." 
 
 The indescribable sensation with which this simple in- 
 formation filled Brant startled him more than the news 
 itself. Hope, joy, fear, distrust, and despair, alternately 
 distracted him. He recalled Miss Faulkner's almost ago- 
 nizing glance of appeal to him in the drawing-room at 
 Susy's, and it seemed to be equally consistent with the 
 truth of what he had just heard — or some monstrous 
 treachery and deceit of which she might be capable. Even 
 now she might be a secret emissary of some spy within the 
 President's family; she might have been in correspondence 
 with some traitor in the Boompointer clique, and her 
 imploring glance only the result of a fear of exposure. 
 Or, again, she might have truly recanted after her escapade 
 at Gray Oaks, and feared only his recollection of her as 
 go-between of spies. And yet both ofthese presumptions 
 were inconsistent with her conduct in the conservatory. 
 It seemed impossible that this impulsive woman, capable 
 of doing what he had himself known her to do, and equally 
 sensitive to the shame or joy of such impulses, should be 
 the same conventional woman of society who had so coldly 
 recognized and parted from him. 
 
 But this interval of doubt was transitory. The next 
 day he received a dispatch from the War Department, 
 ordering him to report himself for duty at once. With a 
 beating heart he hurried to the Secretary. But that offi- 
 cial had merely left a memorandum with his assistant 
 directing General Brant to accompany some fresh levies to 
 a camp of "organization" near the front. Brant felt a 
 
440 CLARENCE 
 
 chill of disappointment. Duties of this kind had been 
 left to dubious regular army veterans, hurriedly displaced 
 general officers, and favored detrimentals. But if it was 
 not restoration, it was no longer inaction, and it was at 
 least a release from Washington. 
 
 It was also evidently the result of some influence — but 
 hardly that of the Boompointers, for he knew that Susy 
 wished to keep him at the capital. Was there another 
 power at work to send him away from Washington ? His 
 previous doubts returned. Nor were they dissipated when 
 the chief of the bureau placed a letter before him with the 
 remark that it had been entrusted to him by a lady with 
 the request that it should be delivered only into his own 
 hands. 
 
 " She did not know your hotel address, but ascertained 
 you were to call here. She said it was of some impor- 
 tance. There is no mystery about it, General, " continued 
 the official with a mischievous glance at Brant's handsome, ■ 
 perplexed face, "although it's from a very pretty woman 
 — whom we all know." 
 
 " Mrs. Boompointer 1 " suggested Brant, with affected 
 lightness. 
 
 It was a maladroit speech. The official's face darkened. 
 
 " We have not yet become a Postal Department for the 
 Boompointers, General," he said dryly, "however great 
 their influence elsewhere. It was from rather a different 
 style of woman — Miss Faulkner. You will receive your 
 papers later at your hotel, and leave to-night. " 
 
 Brant's unlucky slip was still potent enough to divert 
 the official's attention, or he would have noticed the change • 
 in his visitor's face, and the abruptness of his departure. 
 
 Once in the street, Brant tore off the envelope. But 
 beneath it was another, on which was written in a delicate, 
 refined hand: "Please do not open this until you reach 
 your destination." 
 
CLARENCE 441 
 
 Then she knew he was going ! And perhaps this was 
 her influence? All his suspicions again returned. She 
 knew he was going near the lines, and his very appoint- 
 ment, through her power, might be a plot to serve her and 
 the enemy ! Was this letter, which she was entrusting to 
 him, the cover of some missive to her Southern friends 
 which she expected him to carry — perhaps as a return for 
 her own act of self-sacrifice ? Was this the appeal she had 
 been making to his chivalry, his gratitude, his honor? 
 The perspiration stood in beads on his forehead. What 
 defect lay hidden in his nature that seemed to make him 
 an easy victim of these intriguing women ? He had not 
 even the excuse of gallantry ; less susceptible to the poten- 
 cies of the sex than most men, he was still compelled to 
 bear that reputation. He remembered his coldness to Miss 
 Faulkner in the first days of their meeting, and her effect 
 upon his subalterns. Why had she selected him from 
 among them — when she could have modeled the others 
 like wax to her purposes ? Why ? And yet with the 
 question came a possible answer that he hardly dared to 
 think of — that in its very vagueness seemed to fill him 
 with a stimulating thrill and hopefulness. He quickened 
 his pace. He would take the letter, and yet be master of 
 himself when the time came to open it. 
 
 That time came three days later, in his tent at Three 
 Pines Crossing. As he broke open the envelope, he was 
 relieved to find that it contained no other inclosure, and 
 seemed intended only for himself. It began abruptly : — 
 
 "When you read this, you will understand why I did 
 not speak to you when we met last night; why I even 
 dreaded that you might speak to me, knowing, as ,1 did, 
 what I ought to tell you at that place and moment — some- 
 thing you could only know from me. I did not know you 
 were in Washington, although I knew you were relieved; 
 I had no way of seeing you or sending to you before,, and 
 
442 CLARENCE 
 
 I only came to Mrs. Boompointer's party in the hope of 
 hearing news of you. 
 
 " You know that my brother was captured by your pick- 
 ets in company with another officer. He thinks you sus- 
 pected the truth — that he and his friend were hovering 
 near your lines to effect the escape of the spy. But he 
 says that, although they failed to help her, she did escape, 
 or was passed through the lines by your connivance. He 
 says that you seemed to know her, that from what Rose 
 — the mulatto woman — told him, you and she were 
 evidently old friends. I would not speak of this, nor 
 intrude upon your private affairs, only that I think you 
 ought to know that I had no knowledge of it when I was 
 in your house, but believed her to be a stranger to you. 
 You gave me no intimation that you knew her, and I 
 believed that you were frank with me. But I should not 
 speak of this at all — for I believe that it would have 
 made no difference to me in repairing the wrong that I 
 thought I had done you — only that, as I am forced by 
 circumstances to tell you the terrible ending of this story, 
 you ought to know it all. 
 
 "My brother wrote to me that the evening after you 
 left, the burying party picked up the body of what they 
 believed to be a mulatto woman lying on the slope. It 
 was not Rose, but the body of the very woman — the real 
 and only spy — whom you had passed through the lines. 
 She was accidentally killed by the Confederates in the 
 first attack upon you, at daybreak. But only my brother 
 and his friend recognized her through her blackened face 
 and disguise, and on the plea that she was a servant of 
 one of their friends, they got permission from the division 
 commander to take her away, and she was buried by her 
 friends and among her people in the little cemetery of 
 Three Pines Crossing, not far from where you have gone. 
 My brother thought that I ought to tell you this : it seems 
 
CLARENCE 443 
 
 that he and his friend had a strange sympathy for you in 
 what they appear to know or guess of your relations with 
 that woman, and I think he was touched by what he 
 thought was your kindness and chivalry to him on account 
 of his sister. But I do not think he ever knew, or will 
 know how great is the task that he has imposed upon me. 
 
 "You know now, do you not, why I did not speak to 
 you when we first met; it seemed so impossible to do it in 
 an atmosphere and a festivity that was so incongruous with 
 the dreadful message I was charged with. And when I 
 had to meet you later — perhaps I may have wronged you 
 — but it seemed to me that you were so preoccupied and 
 interested with other things that I might perhaps only be 
 wearying you with something you cared little for, or per- 
 haps already knew and had quickly forgotten. 
 
 "I had been wanting to say something else to you when 
 I had got rid of my dreadful message. I do not know if 
 you still care to hear it. But you were once generous 
 enough to think that I had done you a service in bringing 
 a letter to your commander. Although I know better than 
 anybody else the genuine devotion to your duty that made 
 you accept my poor service, from all that I can hear, you 
 have never had the credit of it. Will you not try me 
 again t I am more in favor here, and I might yet be more 
 successful in showing your superiors how true you have 
 been to your trust, even if you have little faith in your 
 friend, Matilda Faulkner." 
 
 For a long time he remained motionless, with the letter 
 in his hand. Then he arose, ordered his horse, and gal- 
 loped away. 
 
 There was little difficulty in finding the cemetery of 
 Three Pines Crossing — a hillside slope, hearsed with pine 
 and cypress, and starred with white crosses, that in the 
 distance looked like flowers. Still less was there in find- 
 ing the newer marble shaft among the older lichen-spotted 
 
444 CLARENCE 
 
 slabs, which bore the simple words: "Alice Benham, 
 Martyr." A few Confederate soldiers, under still plainer 
 and newer wooden headstones, carved only with initials, 
 lay at her feet. Brant sank on his knees beside the grave, 
 but he was shocked to see that the base of the marble was 
 stained with the red pollen of the fateful lily, whose blos- 
 soms had been heaped upon her mound, but whose fallen 
 petals lay dark and sodden in decay. 
 
 How long he remained there he did not know. And 
 then a solitary, bugle from the camp seemed to summon 
 him, as it had once before summoned him, and he went 
 away — as he had gone before — to a separation that he 
 now knew was for all time. 
 
 Then followed a month of superintendence and drill, 
 and the infusing into the little camp under his instruction 
 the spirit which seemed to be passing out of his own life 
 forever. Shut in by alien hills on the borderland of the 
 great struggle, from time to time reports reached him of 
 the bitter fighting, and almost disastrous successes of his 
 old division commander. Orders came from Washington 
 to hurry the preparation of his raw levies to the field, and 
 a faint hope sprang up in his mind. But following it 
 came another dispatch ordering his return to the Capital. 
 
 He reached it with neither hope nor fear — so benumbed 
 had become his spirit under this last trial, ana what seemed 
 to be now the mockery of this last sacrifice to his wife. 
 Though it was no longer a question of her life and safety, 
 he knew that he could still preserve her memory from 
 stain by keeping her secret, even though its divulgings 
 might clear himself. For that reason, he had even hesi- 
 tated to inform Susy of her death, in the fear that, in her 
 thoughtless irresponsibility and impulsiveness, she might 
 be tempted to use it in his favor. He had made his late 
 appointment a plea for her withholding any present efforts 
 to assist him. He even avoided the Boompointers' house, 
 
CLA.EENCE 445 
 
 in what he believed was partly a duty to the memory oi 
 his wife. But he saw no inconsistency in occasionally 
 extending his lonely walks to the vicinity of a foreign 
 Legation, or in being lifted with a certain expectation at 
 the sight of its liveries on the Avenue. There was a crav- 
 ing for sympathy in his heart, which Miss Faulkner's letter 
 had awakened. 
 
 Meantime, he had reported himself for duty at the Wai 
 Department — with little hope, however, in that formality. 
 But he was surprised the next day when the chief of the 
 bureau informed him that his claim was before the Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 "I was not aware that I had presented any claim," he> 
 said, a little haughtily. 
 
 The bureau chief looked up with some surprise. This 
 quiet, patient, reserved man had puzzled him once or twice 
 before. 
 
 "Perhaps I should say ' case,' General," he said dryly. 
 "But the personal interest of the highest executive in the 
 land strikes me as being desirable in anything." 
 
 "I only mean that I have obeyed the orders of the de- 
 partment in reporting myself here, as I have done," said 
 Brant, with less feeling, but none the less firmness; "and 
 I should imagine it was not the duty of a soldier to ques- 
 tion them. Which I fancy a ' claim ' or a ' case ' would 
 imply. " 
 
 He had no idea of taking this attitude before, but the 
 disappointments of the past month, added to this first offi- 
 cial notice of his disgrace, had brought forward that 
 dogged, reckless, yet half-scornful obstinacy that was part 
 of his nature. 
 
 The official smiled. 
 
 "I suppose, then, you are waiting to hear from the 
 President," he said dryly. 
 
 "I am awaiting orders from the department," returned 
 
446 CLARENCE 
 
 Brant quietly, "but whether they originate in the Presi- 
 dent as commander-in-chief, or not — it is not for me to 
 inquire. " 
 
 Even when he reached his hotel this half-savage indiffer- 
 ence which had taken the place of his former incertitude 
 had not changed. It seemed to him that he had reached 
 the crisis of his life where he was no longer a free agent, 
 and could wait, superior alike to effort or expectation. 
 And it was with a merely dispassionate curiosity that he 
 found a note the next morning from the President's private 
 secretary, informing him that the President would see 
 him early that day. 
 
 A few hours later he was ushered through the public 
 rooms of the White House to a more secluded part of the 
 household. The messenger stopped before a modest door 
 and knocked. It was opened by a tall figure — the Presi- 
 dent himself. He reached out a long arm to Brant, who 
 stood hesitatingly on the threshold, grasped his hand, and 
 led him into the room. It had a single, large, elaborately 
 draped window and a handsome medallioned carpet, which 
 contrasted with the otherwise almost appalling simplicity 
 of the furniture. A single plain angular desk, with a 
 blotting pad and a few sheets of large foolscap upon it, a 
 waste-paper basket and four plain armchairs, completed the 
 interior with a contrast as simple and homely as its long- 
 limbed, black-coated occupant. Releasing the hand of the 
 general to shut a door which opened into another apart- 
 ment, the President shoved an armchair towards him and 
 sank somewhat wearily into another before the desk. But 
 only for a moment; the long shambling limbs did not seem 
 to adjust themselves easily to the chair; the high narrow 
 shoulders drooped to find a more comfortable lounging 
 attitude, shifted from side to side, and the long legs moved 
 dispersedly. Yet the face that was turned towards Brant 
 was humorous and tranquil. 
 
CLARENCE 447 
 
 "I was told I should have to send for you if I wished 
 to see you," he said smilingly. 
 
 Already mollified, and perhaps again falling under the 
 previous influence of this singular man, Brant began some- 
 what hesitatingly to explain. 
 
 But the President checked him gently, — 
 
 "You don't understand. It was something new to my 
 experience here to find an able-bodied American citizen 
 with an honest genuine grievance who had to have it 
 drawn from him like a decayed tooth. But you have been 
 here before. I seem to remember your face." 
 
 Brant's reserve had gone. He admitted that he had 
 twice sought an audience — but — 
 
 "You dodged the dentist! That was wrong." As 
 Brant made a slight movement of deprecation the President 
 continued: "I understand! Not from fear of giving pain 
 to yourself but to others. I don't know that that is right, 
 either. A certain amount of pain must be suffered in this 
 world — even by one's enemies. Well, I have looked into 
 your case, General Brant." He took up a piece of paper 
 from his desk, scrawled with two or three notes in pencil. 
 "I think this is the way it stands. You were command- 
 ing a position at Gray Oaks when information was received 
 by the department that, either through neglect or compli- 
 city, spies were passing through your lines. There was no 
 attempt to prove your neglect; your orders, the facts of 
 your personal care and precaution, were all before the 
 department. But it was also shown that your wife, from 
 whom you were only temporarily separated, was a notori- 
 ous secessionist; that, before the war, you yourself were 
 suspected, and that, therefore, you were quite capable of 
 evading your own orders, which you may have only given 
 as a blind. On this information you were relieved by the 
 department of your command. Later on it was discovered 
 that the spy was none other than your own wife, disguised 
 
448 CLAEENCE 
 
 as a mulatto; that, after her arrest by your own soldiers, 
 you connived at her escape — and this was considered con- 
 elusive proof of — well, let us say — your treachery." 
 
 "But I did not know it was my wife until she was 
 arrested," said Brant impulsively. 
 
 The President knitted his eyebrows humorously. 
 
 "Don't let us travel out of the record, General. 
 51 You 're as bad as the department. The question was 
 one of your personal treachery, but you need not accept 
 the fact that you were justly removed because your wife 
 was a spy. Now, General, I am an old lawyer, and I 
 don't mind telling you that in Illinois we wouldn't hang 
 a yellow dog on that evidence before the department. 
 But when I was asked to look into the matter by your 
 friends, I discovered something of more importance to you. 
 I had been trying to find a scrap of evidence that would 
 justify the presumption that you had sent information to 
 the enemy. I found that it was based upon the fact of 
 the enemy being in possession of knowledge at the first 
 battle at Gray Oaks, which could only have been obtained 
 from our side, and which led to a Federal disaster; that 
 you, however, retrieved by your gallantry. I then asked 
 the secretary if he was prepared to show that you had sent 
 the information with that view, or that you had been 
 overtaken by a tardy sense of repentance. He preferred 
 to consider my suggestion as humorous. But the inquiry 
 led to my further discovery that the only treasonable corre- 
 spondence actually in evidence was found upon the body of 
 a trusted Federal officer, and had been forwarded to the divi- 
 sion commander. But there was no record of it in the case. " 
 
 "Why, I forwarded it myself," said Brant eagerly. 
 
 "So the division commander writes, " said the President, 
 smiling, "and he forwarded it to the department. But it 
 was suppressed in some way. Have you any enemies, 
 General Brant?" 
 
CLARENCE 449 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "Then you probably have. You are young and success- 
 ful. Think of the hundred other officers who naturally 
 believe themselves better than you are, and haven't a trai- 
 torous wife. Still, the department may have made an 
 example of you for the benefit of the only man who 
 couldn't profit by it." 
 
 " Might it not have been, sir, that this suppression was 
 for the good report of the service — as the chief offender 
 was dead ? " 
 
 "I am glad to hear you say so, General, for it is the 
 argument I have used successfully in behalf of your wife." 
 
 " Then you know it all, sir ? " said Brant after a gloomy 
 pause. 
 
 "All, I think. Come, General, you seemed just now 
 to be uncertain about your enemies. Let me assure you, 
 you need not be so in regard to your friends. 
 
 "I dare to hope I have found one, sir," said Brant with 
 almost boyish timidity. 
 
 " Oh, not me ! " said the President, with a laugh of 
 deprecation. "Some one much more potent." 
 
 " May I know his name, Mr. President 1 " 
 
 "No, for it is a woman. You were nearly ruined by 
 one, General. I suppose it 's quite right that you should 
 be saved by one. And, of course, irregularly." 
 
 " A woman ! " echoed Brant. 
 
 "Yes; one who was willing to confess herself a worse 
 spy than your wife — a double traitor — to save you! 
 Upon my word, General, I don't know if the department 
 was far wrong; a man with such an alternately unsettling 
 and convincing effect upon a woman's highest political con- 
 victions should be under some restraint. Luckily the 
 department knows nothing of it." 
 
 "Nor would any one else have known from me," said 
 Brant eagerly. "I trust that she did not think — that 
 you, sir, did not for an instant believe that I " — 
 
450 CLARENCE 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! Nobody would have believed you ! It 
 ■was her free confidence to me. That was what made the 
 affair so difficult to handle. For even her bringing your 
 dispatch to the division commander looked bad for you; 
 and you know he even doubted its authenticity." 
 
 "Does she — does Miss Faulkner know the spy was my 
 wife 1 " hesitated Brant. 
 
 The President twisted himself in his chair, so as to 
 regard Brant more gravely with his deep-set eyes, and then 
 thoughtfully rubbed his leg. 
 
 "Don't let us travel out of the record, General," he 
 said after a pause. But as the color surged into Brant's 
 cheek he raised his eyes to the ceiling, and said, in half- 
 humorous recollection, — 
 
 "No, I think that fact was first gathered from your 
 other friend — Mr. Hooker. " 
 
 " Hooker ! " said Brant indignantly ; " did he come 
 here ? " 
 
 "Pray don't destroy my faith in Mr. Hooker, General," 
 said the President, in half-weary, half-humorous depreca- 
 tion. " Don't tell me that any of his inventions are true I 
 Leave me at least that magnificent liar — the one perfectly 
 intelligible witness you have. For from the time that he 
 first appeared here with a grievance and a claim for a com- 
 mission, he has been an unspeakable joy to me and a con- 
 vincing testimony to you. Other witnesses have been 
 partisans and prejudiced; Mr. Hooker was frankly true to 
 himself. How else should I have known of the care you 
 took to disguise yourself, save the honor of your uniform, 
 and run the risk of being shot as an unknown spy at your 
 wife's side, except from his magnificent version of his part 
 in it 1 How else should I have known the story of your 
 discovery of the Californian conspiracy, except from his 
 supreme portrayal of it, with himself as the hero? No, 
 you must not forget to thank Mr. Hooker when you meet 
 
CLARENCE 451 
 
 him. Miss Faulkner is at present more accessible; she is 
 calling on some members of my family in the next room. 
 Shall I leave you with her ? " 
 
 Brant rose with a pale face and a quickly throbbing 
 heart as the President, glancing at the clock, untwisted 
 himself from the chair, and shook himself out full length, 
 and rose gradually to his feet. 
 
 "Your wish for active service is granted, General 
 Brant," he said slowly, "and you will at once rejoin your 
 old division commander, who is now at the head of the 
 Tenth Army Corps. But," he said, after a deliberate 
 pause, " there are certain rules and regulations of your ser- 
 vice that even i" cannot, with decent respect to your depart- 
 ment, override. You will, therefore, understand that you 
 cannot rejoin the army in your former position." 
 
 The slight flush that came to Brant's cheek quickly 
 passed. And there was only the unmistakable sparkle of 
 renewed youth in his frank eyes as he said, — 
 
 "Let me go to the front again, Mr. President, and I 
 care not how." 
 
 The President smiled, and, laying his heavy hand on 
 Brant's shoulder, pushed him gently towards the door of 
 the inner room. 
 
 "I was only about to say," he added, as he opened the 
 door, "that it would be necessary for you to rejoin your 
 promoted commander as a major-general. And," he con- 
 tinued, lifting his voice, as he gently pushed his guest into 
 the room, "he hasn't even thanked me for it, Miss Paulk- 
 ner ! " 
 
 The door closed behind him, and he stood for a moment 
 dazed, and still hearing the distant voice of the President, 
 in the room he had just quitted, now welcoming a new 
 visitor. But the room before him, opening into a conser- 
 vatory, was empty, save for a single figure that turned, 
 half timidly, half mischievously, towards him. The same 
 
452 CLARENCE 
 
 quick, sympathetic glance was in both their faces; thfc 
 same timid, happy look in both their eyes. He moved 
 quickly to her side. 
 
 " Then you knew that — that — woman was my wife 1 " 
 he said, hurriedly, as he grasped her hand. 
 
 She cast a half-appealing look at his face — a half-fright- 
 ened one around the room and at the open door beyond. 
 
 "Let us," she said faintly, "go into the conservatory. 5 ' 
 
 It is but a few years ago that the veracious chronicler 
 of these pages moved with a wondering crowd of sightseers 
 in the gardens of the White House. The war cloud had 
 long since lifted and vanished; the Potomac flowed peace- 
 fully by and on to where once lay the broad plantation of 
 a great Confederate leader — now a national cemetery that 
 had gathered the soldier dead of both sections side by side 
 in equal rest and honor — and the great goddess once more 
 looked down serenely from the dome of the white Capitol. 
 The chronicler's attention was attracted by an erect, hand- 
 some soldierly-looking man, with a beard and mustache 
 slightly streaked with gray, pointing out the various ob- 
 jects of interest to a boy of twelve or fourteen at his side. 
 
 " Yes ; although, as I told you, this house belongs only 
 to the President of the United States and his family," said 
 the gentleman smilingly, "in that little conservatory I 
 proposed to your mother." 
 
 " Oh ! Clarence, how can you ! " said the lady reprov- 
 ingly, "you know it was long after that! " 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 I 
 
 We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the 
 semi-darkness of Galloper's Eidge. The vehicle itself 
 was only a huge lumbering shadow; its side-lights were 
 carefully extinguished, and Yuba Eill had just politely 
 removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the 
 cigar with which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his 
 coolness. For it had been rumored that the Ramon Mar- 
 tinez gang of " road agents " were " laying " for us on the 
 second grade, and would time the passage of our lights 
 across Galloper's in order to intercept us in the "brush" 
 beyond. If wo could cross the ridge without being seen, 
 and so get through the brush before they reached it, we 
 were safe. If they followed, it would only be a stern 
 chase with the odds in our favor. 
 
 The huge vehicle swayed from side to side, rolled > 
 dipped, and plunged, but Bill kept the track, as if, in the 
 whispered words of the Expressman, he could "feel and 
 smell " the road he could no longer see. We knew that at 
 times we hung perilously over the edge of slopes that 
 eventually dropped a thousand feet sheer to the tops of the 
 sugar-pines below, but we knew that Bill knew it also. 
 The half visibls heads of the horses, drawn wedge-wise 
 together by the tightened reins, appeared to cleave the 
 darkness like a ploughshare, held between his rigid hands. 
 Even the hoof-beats of the six horses had fallen into a 
 vague, monotonous, distant roll. Then the ridge was 
 crossed, and we plunged into the still blacker obscurity of 
 
454 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 the brush. Rather we no longer seemed to move — it was 
 only the phantom night that rushed by us. The horses 
 might have been submerged in some swift Lethean stream ; 
 nothing but the top of the coach and the rigid bulk of 
 Yuba Bill arose above them. Yet even in that awful 
 moment our speed was unslackened; it was as if Bill cared 
 no longer to guide but only to drive, or as if the direction 
 of his huge machine was determined by other hands than 
 his. An incautious whisperer hazarded the paralyzing 
 suggestion of our " meeting another team. " To our great 
 astonishment Bill overheard it; to our greater astonish- 
 ment he replied. " It 'ud be only a neck and neck race 
 which would get to h — 11 first," he said quietly. But we 
 were relieved — for he had spoken ! Almost simulta- 
 neously the wider turnpike began to glimmer faintly as a 
 visible track before us; the wayside trees fell out of line, 
 opened up, and dropped off one after another; we were 
 on the broader tableland, out of danger, and apparently 
 unperceived and unpursued. 
 
 Nevertheless in the conversation that broke out again 
 with the relighting of the lamps, and the comments, con- 
 gratulations, and reminiscences that were freely exchanged, 
 Yuba Bill preserved a dissatisfied and even resentful 
 silence. The most generous praise of his skill and cour- 
 age awoke no response. "I reckon the old man waz just 
 spilin' for a fight, and is feelin' disappointed," said a pas- 
 senger. But those who knew that Bill had the true 
 fighter's scorn for any purely purposeless conflict were 
 more or less concerned and watchful of him. He would 
 drive steadily for four or five minutes with thoughtfully 
 knitted brows, but eyes still keenly observant under his 
 slouched hat, and then, relaxing his strained attitude, 
 would give way to a movement of impatience. "You 
 ain't uneasy about anything, Bill, are you?" asked the 
 Expressman confidentially. Bill lifted his eyes with a 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 455 
 
 slightly contemptuous surprise. "Not about anything ter 
 come. It 's what hez happened that I don't exackly sabe. 
 I don't see no signs of Ramon's gang ever havin' been out 
 at all, and ef they were out I don't see why they didn't 
 go for us." 
 
 "The simple fact is that our ruse was successful," said 
 an outside passenger. " They waited to see our lights on 
 the ridge, and, not seeing them, missed us until we had 
 passed. That 's my opinion." 
 
 " You ain't puttin' any price on that opinion, air ye t " 
 inquired Bill politely. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "'Cos thar's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them 
 things, and I 've seen worse things in it." 
 
 "Come off, Bill," retorted the passenger, slightly net- 
 tled by the tittering of his companions. "Then what did 
 you put out the lights for 1 " 
 
 "Well, - " returned Bill grimly, "it mout have been be- 
 cause I did n't keer to hev you chaps blazin' away at the 
 first bush you thought you saw move in your skeer, and 
 bringin' down their fire on us." 
 
 The explanation, though unsatisfactory, was by no 
 means an improbable one, and we thought it better to 
 accept it with a laugh. Bill, however, resumed his ab- 
 stracted manner. 
 
 " Who got in at the Summit 1 " he at last asked abruptly 
 of the Expressman. 
 
 "Derrick and Simpson of Cold Spring, and one of the 
 ' Excelsior ; boys, " responded the Expressman. 
 
 "And that Pike County girl from Dow's Flat, with her 
 bundles. Don't forget her," added the outside passenger 
 ironically. 
 
 "Does anybody here know her?" continued Bill, ignor- 
 ing the irony. 
 
 "You'd better ask Judge Thompson; he was mighty 
 
456 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 attentive to her; gettin' her a seat by the off window, and 
 lookin' after her bundles and things." 
 
 "Gettin' her a seat by the window?" repeated Bill. 
 
 "Yes, she wanted to see everything, and wasn't afraid 
 of the shooting." 
 
 "Yes," broke in a third passenger, "and he was so 
 d — d civil that when she dropped her ring in the straw, 
 he struck a match agin all your rules, you know, and held 
 it for her to find it. And it was just as we were crossin' 
 through the brush, too. I saw the hull thing through the 
 window, for I was hanging over the wheels with my gun 
 ready for action. And it was n't no fault of Judge Thomp- 
 son's if his d — d foolishness had n't shown us up, and got 
 us a shot from the gang." 
 
 Bill gave a short grunt, but drove steadily on without 
 further comment or even turning his eyes to the speaker. 
 
 We were now not more than a mile from the station at 
 the crossroads where we were to change horses. The lights 
 already glimmered in the distance, and there was a faint 
 suggestion of the coming dawn on the summits of the ridge 
 to the west. We had plunged into a belt of timber, when 
 suddenly a horseman emerged at a sharp canter from a trail 
 that seemed to be parallel with our own. We were all 
 slightly startled; Yuba Bill alone preserving his moody 
 calm. 
 
 "Hullo!" he said. 
 
 The stranger wheeled to our side as Bill slackened his 
 speed. He seemed to be a " packer " or freight muleteer. 
 
 "Ye didn't get ' held up ' on the Divide?" continued 
 Bill cheerfully. 
 
 "No," returned the packer, with a laugh; "/ don't 
 carry treasure. But I see you 're all right, too. I saw 
 you crossin' over Galloper's." 
 
 " Saw us ? " said Bill sharply. " We had our lights 
 out." 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 457 
 
 "Yes, but there was suthin' white — a handkerchief or 
 woman's veil, I reckon — hangin' from the window. It 
 was only a movin' spot agin the hillside, but ez I was 
 lookin' out for ye I knew it was you by that. Good- 
 night!" 
 
 He cantered away. We tried to look at each other's 
 faces, and at Bill's expression in the darkness, but he nei- 
 ther spoke nor stirred until he threw down the reins when 
 we stopped before the station. The passengers quickly 
 descended from the roof; the Expressman was about to 
 follow, but Bill plucked his sleeve. 
 
 "I 'm goin' to take a look over this yer stage and these 
 yer passengers with ye, afore we start." 
 
 "Why, what's up?" 
 
 "Well," said Bill, slowly disengaging himself from one 
 of his enormous gloves, " when we waltzed down into the 
 brush up there I saw a man, ez plain ez I see you, rise up 
 from it. I thought our time had come and the band was 
 goin' to play, when he sorter drew back, made a sign, and 
 we just scooted past him." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well," said Bill, "it means that this yer coach was 
 passed through free to-night." 
 
 "You don't object to that — surely? I think we were 
 deucedly lucky." 
 
 Bill slowly drew off his other glove. " I 've been riskin' 
 my everlastin' life on this d — d line three times a week," 
 he said with mock humility, "and I'm alius thankful for 
 small mercies. But," he added grimly, "when it comes 
 down to being passed free by some pal of a hoss thief, and 
 thet called a speshal Providence, I ain't in it! No, sir s 
 I ain't in it!" 
 
n 
 
 It was with mixed emotions that the passengers heard 
 that a delay of fifteen minutes to tighten certain screw- 
 holts had been ordered by the autocratic Bill. Some were 
 anxious to get their breakfast at Sugar Pine, but others 
 were not averse to linger for the daylight that promised 
 greater safety on the road. The Expressman, knowing 
 the real cause of Bill's delay, was nevertheless at a loss to 
 understand the object of it. The passengers were all well 
 known; any idea of complicity with the road agents was 
 wild and impossible, and, even if there was a confederate 
 of the gang among them, he would have been more likely 
 to precipitate a robbery than to eheck it. Again, the dis- 
 covery of such a confederate — to whom they clearly owed 
 their safety — and his arrest would have been quite against 
 the Calif ornian sense of justice, if not actually illegal. It 
 seemed evident that Bill's quixotic sense of honor was 
 leading him astray. 
 
 The station consisted of a stable, a wagon shed, and a 
 building containing three rooms. The first was fitted lip 
 with " bunks " or sleeping berths for the employees ; the 
 second was the kitchen; and the third and larger apart- 
 ment was dining-room or sitting-room, and was used as 
 general waiting-room for the passengers. It was not a 
 refreshment station, and there was no " bar. " But a mys- 
 terious command from the omnipotent Bill produced a 
 demijohn of whiskey, with which he hospitably treated 
 the company. The seductive influence of the liquor loos- 
 ened the tongue of the gallant Judge Thompson. He 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 459 
 
 admitted to having struck a match to enable the fair Pike 
 Countian to find her ring, which, however, proved to have 
 fallen in her lap. She was " a fine, healthy young woman 
 — a type of the Par West, sir; in fact, quite a prairie 
 blossom! yet simple and guileless as a child." She was 
 on her way to Marysville, he believed, "although she ex- 
 pected to meet friends — a friend, in fact — later on. " It 
 was her first visit to a large town — in fact, any civilized 
 centre — since she crossed the plains three years ago. Her 
 girlish curiosity was quite touching, and her innocence 
 irresistible. In fact, in a country whose tendency was to 
 produce "frivolity and forwardness in young girls, ha 
 found her a most interesting young person." She was 
 even then out in the stable-yard watching the horses being 
 harnessed, "preferring to indulge a pardonable healthy 
 young curiosity than to listen to the empty compliments of 
 the younger passengers." 
 
 The figure which Bill saw thus engaged, without being 
 otherwise distinguished, certainly seemed to justify the 
 Judge's opinion. She appeared to be a well-matured 
 country girl, whose frank gray eyes and large laughing 
 mouth expressed a wholesome and abiding gratification in 
 her life and surroundings. She was watching the replac- 
 ing of luggage in the boot. A little feminine start, as one 
 of her own parcels was thrown somewhat roughly on the 
 roof, gave Bill his opportunity. "Now there," he growled 
 to the helper, "ye ain't carting stone! Look out, will 
 yer ! Some of your things, miss ? " he added, with gruff 
 courtesy, turning to her. "These yer trunks, for in- 
 stance 1 " 
 
 She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside 
 the helper, seized a large square trunk in his arms. But 
 from excess of zeal, or some other mischance, his foot 
 slipped, and he came down heavily, striking the corner of 
 the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges and fas- 
 
460 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 tenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the 
 accident discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, 
 lace-edged feminine apparel of an apparently superior qual- 
 ity. The young lady uttered another cry and came quickly 
 forward, but Bill was profuse in his apologies, himself 
 girded the broken box with a strap, and declared his inten- 
 tion of having the company " make it good " to her with 
 a new one. Then he casually accompanied her to the door 
 of the waiting-room,' entered, made a place for her before 
 the fire by simply lifting the nearest and most youthful 
 passenger by the coat collar from the stool that he was 
 occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displaced 
 another man who was standing before the chimney, and, 
 drawing himself up to his full six feet of height in front 
 of her, glanced down upon his fair passenger as he took 
 his waybill from his pocket. 
 
 " Your name is down here as Miss Mullins 1 " he said. 
 
 She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her 
 questioner were the centre of interest to the whole circle 
 of passengers, and, with a slight rise of color, returned, 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, Miss Mullins, I 've got a question or two to ask 
 ye. I ask it straight out afore this crowd. It 's in my 
 rights to take ye aside and ask it — but that ain't my 
 style; I'm no detective. I needn't ask it at all, but act 
 as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be asked 
 by others. Ye needn't answer it ef ye don't like; ye 've 
 got a friend over ther — Judge Thompson — who is a 
 friend to ye, right or wrong, jest as any other man here is 
 — as though ye 'd packed your own jury. Well, the sim- 
 ple question I 've got to ask ye is this : Did you signal to 
 anybody from the coach when we passed Galloper's an 
 hour ago 1 " 
 
 We all thought that Bill's courage and audacity had 
 reached its climax here. To openly and publicly accuse 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 461 
 
 a " lady " before a group of chivalrous Califomians, and 
 that lady possessing the further attractions of youth, good 
 looks, and innocence, was little short of desperation. 
 There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the 
 fair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, 
 but the very boldness of the act held them in stupefied 
 surprise. Judge Thompson, with a bland propitiatory 
 smile began: "Eeally, Bill, I must protest on behalf of 
 this young lady " — when the fair accused, raising her eyes 
 to her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered 
 with the slight but convincing hesitation of conscientious 
 truthfulness : — 
 
 "I did." 
 
 " Ahem ! " interposed the Judge hastily, " er — that is 
 — er — you allowed your handkerchief to flutter from the 
 window, — I noticed it myself, — casually — one might 
 say even playfully — but without any particular signifk 
 cance. " 
 
 The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular ming- 
 ling of pride and impatience, returned briefly : — 
 
 "I signaled." 
 
 " Who did you signal to ? " asked Bill gravely. 
 
 "The young gentleman I 'm going to marry." 
 
 A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger 
 passengers, was instantly suppressed by a savage glance 
 from Bill. 
 
 " What did you signal to him for 1 " he continued. 
 
 "To tell him I was here, and that it was all right," 
 returned the young girl, with a steadily rising pride and 
 color. 
 
 "Wot was all right? " demanded Bill. 
 
 "That I wasn't followed, and that he could meet me 
 on the road beyond Cass's Eidge Station." She hesitated 
 a moment, and then, with a still greater pride, in which 
 a youthful defiance was still mingled, said: "I've run 
 
462 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No 
 one can stop me. Dad did n't like him just because he 
 was poor, and dad 's got money. Dad wanted me to marry 
 a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and things to bribe 
 me." 
 
 "And you're taking them in your trunk to the other 
 feller 1 " said Bill grimly. 
 
 "Yes, he 's poor," returned the girl defiantly. 
 
 "Then your father's name is Mullins?" asked Bill. 
 
 " It 's not Mullins. I — I — took that name, " she hesi- 
 tated, with her first exhibition of self -consciousness. 
 
 "Wot is his name?" 
 
 "EliHemmings." 
 
 A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. 
 The fame of Eli or " Skinner " Hemmings, as a notorious 
 miser and usurer, had passed even beyond Galloper's 
 Bidge. 
 
 " The step that you 're taking, Miss Mullins, I need not 
 tell you, is one of great gravity," said Judge Thompson, 
 •with a certain paternal seriousness of manner, in which, 
 however, we were glad to detect a glaring affectation ; " and 
 I trust that you and your affianced have fully weighed it. 
 Far be it from me to interfere with or question the natural 
 affections of two young people, but may I ask you what 
 you know of the — er — young gentleman for whom you 
 are sacrificing so much, and, perhaps, imperiling your 
 whole future ? For instance, have you known him long ? " 
 
 The slightly troubled air of trying to understand, — not 
 unlike the vague wonderment of childhood, — with which 
 Miss Mullins had received the beginning of this exordium, 
 changed to a relieved smile of comprehension as she said 
 quickly, " Oh yes, nearly a whole year. " 
 
 "And," said the Judge, smiling, "has he a vocation — ■ 
 is he in business 1 " 
 
 "Oh yes," she returned; "he 's a collector." 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIEKRAS 463 
 
 "A collector!" 
 
 " Yes ; he collects bills, you know, — money, " she went 
 on, with childish eagerness, " not for himself, — he never 
 has any money, poor Charley, — but for his firm. It 's 
 dreadful hard work, too; keeps him out for days and 
 nights, over bad roads and baddest weather. Sometimes, 
 when he 's stole over to the ranch just to see me, he 's 
 been so bad he could scarcely keep his seat in the saddle, 
 much less stand. And he 's got to take mighty big risks, 
 too. Times the folks are cross with him and won't pay ; 
 once they shot him in the arm, and he came to me, and 
 I helped do it up for him. But he don't mind. He 's 
 real brave, — jest as brave as he 's good." There was such 
 a wholesome ring of truth in this pretty praise that we 
 were touched in sympathy with the speaker. 
 
 " What firm does he collect for 1 " asked the Judge 
 gently. 
 
 "I don't know exactly — he won't tell me; but I think 
 it 's a Spanish firm. You see " — she took us all into her 
 confidence with a sweeping smile of innocent yet half- 
 mischievous artfulness — "I only know because I peeped 
 over a letter he once got from his firm, telling him he 
 must hustle up and be ready for the road the next day; 
 but I think the name was Martinez — yes, Ramon Marti- 
 nez. " 
 
 In the dead silence that ensued — a silence so profound 
 that we could hear the horses in the distant stable-yard 
 rattling their harness — one of the younger " Excelsior " 
 boys burst into a hysteric laugh, but the fierce eye of 
 Yuba Bill was down upon him, and seemed to instantly 
 stiffen him into a silent, grinning mask. The young girl, 
 however, took no note of it. Following out, with lover- 
 like diffusiveness, the reminiscences thus awakened, she 
 went on : — 
 
 "Yes, it's mighty hard work, but he says it's all for 
 
i64 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 me, and as soon as we 're married he '11 quit it. He might 
 have quit it before, but he won't take no money of me, 
 nor what I told him I could get out of dad! That ain't 
 his style. He 's mighty proud — if he is poor — is Char- 
 ley. Why, thar 's all ma's money which she left me in 
 the Savin's Bank that I wanted to draw out — for I had 
 the right — and give it to him, but he would n't hear of 
 it ! Why, he would n't take one of the things I 've got 
 with me, if he knew it. And so he goes on ridin' and 
 ridin', here and there and everywhere, and gettin' more 
 and more played out and sad, and thin and pale as a spirit, 
 and always so uneasy about his business, and startin' up 
 at times when we 're meetin' out in the South Woods or 
 in the far clearin', and sayin' : ' I must be goin' now, 
 Polly, ' and yet always try in' to be duffle and chipper 
 afore me. Why, he must have rid miles and miles to have 
 watched for me thar in the brush at the foot of Galloper's 
 to-night, jest to see if all was safe ; and Lordy ! I'd have 
 given him the signal and showed a light if I 'd died for it 
 the next minit. There ! That 's what I know of Charley 
 
 — that 's what I 'm running away from home for — that 's 
 what I 'm running to him for, and I don't care who knows 
 it ! And I only wish I 'd done it afore — and I would 
 
 — if — if — if — he'd only asked me 1 There now ! " 
 She stopped, panted, and choked. Then one of the sud- 
 den transitions of youthful emotion overtook the eager, 
 laughing face; it clouded up with the swift change of 
 childhood, a lightning quiver of expression broke over it, 
 and — then came the rain ! 
 
 I think this simple act completed our utter demoraliza- 
 tion! We smiled feebly at each other with that assump- 
 tion of masculine superiority which is miserably conscious 
 of its own helplessness at such moments. We looked out 
 of the window, blew our noses, said : "Eh — what ? " and 
 "I say," vaguely to each other, and were greatly relieved, 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIEEEAS 465 
 
 and yet apparently astonished, when Yuba Bill, -who had 
 turned his back upon the fair speaker, and was kicking 
 the logs in the fireplace, suddenly swept down upon us 
 and bundled us all into the road, leaving Miss Mullins 
 alone. Then he walked aside with Judge Thompson for 
 a few moments; returned to us, autocratically demanded 
 of the party a complete reticence towards Miss Mullins on 
 the subject-matter under discussion, reentered the station, 
 reappeared with the young lady, suppressed a faint idiotic 
 cheer which broke from us at the spectacle of her innocent 
 face once more cleared and rosy, climbed the box, and in 
 another moment we were under way. 
 
 "Then she don't know what her lover is yet?" asked 
 the Expressman eagerly. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Are you certain it 's one of the gang? " 
 
 "Can't say for sure. It mout be a young chap from 
 Yolo who bucked agin the tiger * at Sacramento, got regu- 
 larly cleaned out and busted, and joined the gang for a 
 flier. They say thar was a new hand in that job over at 
 Keeley's, — and a mighty game one, too; and ez there 
 was some buckshot onloaded that trip, he might hev got 
 his share, and that would tally with what the girl said 
 about his arm. See ! Ef that 's the man, I 've heered he 
 was the son of some big preacher in the States, and a col- 
 lege sharp to boot, who ran wild in 'Erisco, and played 
 himself for all he was worth. They 're the wust kind to 
 kick when they once get a foot over the traces. For 
 stiddy, comf'ble kempany," added Bill reflectively, "give 
 me the son of a man that was hanged ! " 
 
 " But what are you going to do about this ? " 
 
 " That depends upon the feller who comes to meet her. " 
 
 "But you ain't going to try to take him? That would 
 be playing it pretty low down on them both." 
 1 Gambled at faro. 
 
466 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 " Keep your hair on, Jimmy ! The Judge and me are 
 only going to rastle with the sperrit of that gay young 
 galoot, when he drops down for his girl — and exhort him 
 pow'ful! Ef he allows he 's convicted of sin and will find 
 the Lord, we '11 marry him and the gal offhand at the next 
 station, and the Judge will officiate himself for nothin'. 
 We 're goin' to have this yer elopement done on the 
 square — and our waybill clean — you bet ! " 
 
 "But you don't suppose he'll trust himself in your 
 hands 1 " 
 
 " Polly will signal to him that it 's all square. " 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Expressman. Nevertheless in those 
 few moments the men seemed to have exchanged disposi- 
 tions. The Expressman looked doubtfully, critically, and 
 even cynically before him. Bill's face had relaxed, and 
 something like a bland smile beamed across it, as he drove 
 confidently and unhesitatingly forward. 
 
 Day, meantime, although full blown and radiant on the 
 mountain summits around us, was yet nebulous and uncer- 
 tain in the valleys into which we were plunging. Lights 
 still glimmered in the cabins and few ranch buildings 
 which began to indicate the thicker settlements. And the 
 shadows were heaviest in a little copse, where a note from 
 Judge Thompson in the coach was handed up to Yuba 
 Bill, who at once slowly began to draw up his horses. 
 The coach stopped finally near the junction of a small 
 crossroad. At the same moment Miss Mullins slipped 
 down from the vehicle, and, with a parting wave of her 
 hand to the Judge, who had assisted her from the steps, 
 tripped down the crossroad, and disappeared in its semi- 
 obscurity. To our surprise the stage waited, Bill holding 
 the reins listlessly in his hands. Five minutes passed — 
 an eternity of expectation, and, as there was that in Yuba 
 Bill's face which forbade idle questioning, an aching void 
 of silence also! This was at last broken by a strange 
 voice from the road : — 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 467 
 
 ■'Go on — we'll follow." 
 
 The coach started forward. Presently we heard the 
 sound of other wheels behind us. We all craned our 
 necks backward to get a view of the unknown, but by the 
 growing light we could only see that we were followed at 
 a distance by a buggy with two figures in it. Evidently 
 Polly Mullins and her lover ! We hoped that they would 
 pass us. But the vehicle, although drawn by a fast horse, 
 preserved its distance always, and it was plain that its 
 driver had no desire to satisfy our curiosity. The Express- 
 man had recourse to Bill. 
 
 " Is it the man you thought of ? " he asked eagerly. 
 
 "I reckon," said Bill briefly. 
 
 "But," continued the Expressman, returning to his 
 former skepticism, "what 's to keep them both from levant- 
 ing together now 1 " 
 
 Bill jerked his hand towards the boot with a grim smile. 
 
 "Their baggage." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the Expressman. 
 
 "Yes," continued Bill. "We '11 hang on to that gal's 
 little frills and fixin's until this yer job's settled, and the 
 ceremony's over, jest as ef we waz her own father. And, 
 what's more, young man," he added, suddenly turning to 
 the Expressman, "you'll express them trunks of hers 
 through to Sacramento with your kempany's lables, and 
 hand her the receipts and checks for them, so she can get 
 'em there. That '11 keep him, outer temptation and the 
 reach o' the gang, until they get away among white men 
 and civilization again. When your hoary-headed ole 
 grandfather, or, to speak plainer, that partikler old whis- 
 key-soaker known as Yuba Bill, wot sits on this box," he 
 continued, with a diabolical wink at the Expressman, 
 'waltzes in to pervide for a young couple jest startin' in 
 life, thar 's nothin' mean about his style, you bet. He 
 fills the bill every time ! Speshul Providences take a back 
 seat when he 's around." 
 
468 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 When the station hotel and straggling settlement of 
 Sugar Pine, now distinct and clear in the growing light, 
 at last rose within rifleshot on the plateau, the buggy sud- 
 denly darted swiftly by us, so swiftly that the faces of the 
 two occupants were barely distinguishable as they passed, 
 and keeping the lead by a dozen lengths, reached the door 
 of the hotel. The young girl and her companion leaped 
 down and vanished ,within as we drew up. They had 
 evidently determined to elude our curiosity, and were suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 But the material appetites of the passengers, sharpened 
 by the keen mountain air, were more potent than their 
 curiosity, and, as the breakfast- bell rang out at the moment 
 the stage stopped, a majority of them rushed into the 
 dining-room and scrambled for places without giving much 
 heed to the vanished couple or to the Judge and Yuba 
 Bill, who had disappeared also. The through coach to 
 Marysville and Sacramento was likewise waiting, for Sugar 
 Pine was the limit of Bill's ministration, and the coach 
 which we had just left went no farther. In the course of 
 twenty minutes, however, there was a slight and somewhat 
 ceremonious bustling in the hall and on the veranda, and 
 Yuba Bill and the Judge reappeared. The latter was lead- 
 ing, with some elaboration of manner and detail, the 
 shapely figure of Miss Mullins, and Yuba Bill was accom- 
 panying her companion to the buggy. We all rushed to 
 the windows to get a good view of the mysterious stranger 
 and probable ex-brigand whose life was now linked with 
 our fair fellow-passenger. I am afraid, however, that we 
 all participated in a certain impression of disappointment 
 and doubt. Handsome and even cultivated-looking, he 
 assuredly was — young and vigorous in appearance. But 
 there was a certain half-shamed, half-defiant suggestion in 
 his expression, yet coupled with a watchful lurking uneasi- 
 ness which was not . pleasant and hardly becoming in a 
 
AN INGENUE OV THE SIEEKAS 469 
 
 bridegroom — and the possessor of such a bride. But the 
 frank, joyous, innocent face of Polly Mullins, resplendent 
 with a simple, happy confidence, melted our hearts again, 
 and condoned the fellow's shortcomings. We waved our 
 hands; I think we would have given three rousing cheera 
 as they drove away if the omnipotent eye of Yuba Bill 
 had not been upon us. It was well, for the next moment 
 we were summoned to the presence of that soft-hearted 
 autocrat. 
 
 We found him alone with the Judge in a private sitting- 
 room, standing before a table on which there were a decan- 
 ter and glasses. As we filed expectantly into the room 
 and the door closed behind us, he cast a glance of hesitat- 
 ing tolerance over the group. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said slowly, "you was all present at 
 the beginnin' of a little game this mornin', and the Judge 
 thar thinks that you oughter be let in at the finish. 1 
 don't see that it 's any of your d — d business — so to 
 speak; but ez the Judge here allows you're all in the 
 secret, I 've called you in to take a partin' drink to the 
 health of Mr. and Mrs. Charley Byng — ez is now com- 
 f'ably off on their bridal tower. What you know or what 
 you suspects of the young galoot that 's married the gal 
 ain't worth shucks to anybody, and I would n't give it to 
 a yaller pup to play with, but the Judge thinks you ought 
 all to promise right here that you '11 keep it dark. That 's 
 his opinion. Ez far as my opinion goes, gen'l'men," con- 
 tinued Bill, with greater blandness and apparent cordiality, 
 "I wanter simply remark, in a keerless, offhand gin'ral 
 way, that ef I ketch any God-forsaken, lop-eared, chuckle- 
 headed blatherin' idjet airin' his opinion " — 
 
 "One moment, Bill," interposed Judge Thompson with 
 a grave smile ; " let me explain. You understand, gentle- 
 men," he said, turning to us, "the singular, and I may 
 say affecting, situation which our good-hearted friend here 
 
470 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 has done so much, to bring to what we hope will be a 
 happy termination. I want to give here, as my profes- 
 sional opinion, that there is nothing in his request which, 
 in your capacity as good citizens and law-abiding men, you 
 may not grant. I want to tell you, also, that you are 
 condoning no offense against the statutes ; that there is not 
 a particle of legal evidence before us of the criminal ante- 
 cedents of Mr. Charles Byng, except that which has been 
 told you by the innocent lips of his betrothed, which the 
 law of the land has now sealed forever in the mouth of his 
 wife, and that our own actual experience of his acts has 
 been in the main exculpatory of any previous irregularity 
 — if not incompatible with it. Briefly, no judge would 
 charge, no jury convict, on such evidence. When I add 
 that the young girl is of legal age, that there is no evidence 
 of any previous undue influence, but rather of the reverse, 
 on the part of the bridegroom, and that I was content, as 
 a magistrate, to perform the ceremony, I think you will 
 be satisfied to give your promise, for the sake of the bride, 
 and drink a happy life to them both." 
 
 I need not say that we did this cheerfully, and .even 
 extorted from Bill a grunt of satisfaction. The majority 
 of the company, however, who were going with the thiough 
 coach to Sacramento, then took their leave, and, as we 
 accompanied them to the veranda, we could see that Miss 
 Polly Mullins's trunks were already transferred to the 
 other vehicle under the protecting seals and labels of the 
 all-potent Express Company. Then the whip cracked, 
 the coach rolled away, and the last traces of the adventur- 
 ous young couple disappeared in the hanging red dust of 
 its wheels. 
 
 But Yuba Bill's grim satisfaction at the happy issue of 
 the episode seemed to suffer no abatement. He even 
 exceeded his usual deliberately regulated potations, and, 
 standing comfortably with his back to the centre of the 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIEEEAS 471 
 
 now deserted bar-room, was more than usually loquacious 
 with the Expressman. "You see," he said, in bland 
 reminiscence, "when your old Uncle Bill takes hold of a job 
 like this, he puts it straight through without changin' 
 hosses. Yet thar was a moment, young feller, when I 
 thought I was stompt! It was when we'd made up our 
 mind to make that chap tell the gal fust all what he was ! 
 Ef she 'd rared or kicked in the traces, or hung back only 
 ez much ez that, we 'd hev given him jest five minits' law 
 to get up and get and leave her, and we 'd hev toted that 
 gal and her fixin's back to her dad again ! But she jest 
 gave a little scream and start, and then went off inter 
 hysterics, right on his buzzum, laughin' and cryin' and 
 sayin' that nothin' should part 'em. Gosh! if I didn't 
 think he woz more cut up than she about it; a minit it 
 looked as ef he didn't allow to marry her arter all, but 
 that passed, and they was married hard and fast — you 
 bet! I reckon he 's had enough of stayin' out o' nights to 
 last him, and ef the valley settlements hev n't got hold of 
 a very shinin' member, at least the foothills hev got shut 
 of one more of the Ramon Martinez gang. " 
 
 "What's that about the Ramon Martinez gang?" said 
 a quiet potential voice. 
 
 Bill turned quickly. It was the voice of the Divisional 
 Superintendent of the Express Company, — a man of 
 eccentric determination of character, and one of the few 
 whom the autocratic Bill recognized as an equal, — who 
 had just entered the barroom. His dusty pongee cloak 
 and soft hat indicated that he had that morning arrived on 
 a round of inspection. 
 
 "Don't care if I do, Bill," he continued, in response to 
 Bill's invitatory gesture, walking to the bar. "It's a 
 little raw out on the road. Well, what were you saying 
 about Ramon Martinez gang? You haven't come across 
 one of 'em, have you 1 " 
 
472 AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 "No," said Bill, with a slight blinking of his eye, as 
 he ostentatiously lifted his glass to the light. 
 
 "And you won't" added the Superintendent, leisurely 
 sipping his liquor. "For the fact is, the gang is about 
 played out. Not from want of a job now and then, but 
 from the difficulty of disposing of the results of their work. 
 Since the new instructions to the agents to identify and 
 trace all dust and bullion offered to them went into force, 
 you see, they can't get rid of their swag. All the gang 
 are spotted at the offices, and it costs too much for them 
 to pay a fence or a middleman of any standing. Why, all 
 that flaky river gold they took from the Excelsior Company 
 can be identified as easy as if it was stamped with the 
 company's mark. They can't melt it down themselves; 
 they can't get others to do it for them; they can't ship it 
 to the Mint or Assay Offices in Marysville and 'Frisco, for 
 tbey won't take it without our certificate and seals; and 
 we don't take any undeclared freight within, the lines that 
 we 've drawn around their beat, except from people and 
 agents known. Why, you know that well enough, Jim," 
 he said, suddenly appealing to the Expressman, "don't 
 you t " 
 
 Possibly the suddenness of the appeal caused the Ex- 
 pressman to swallow his liquor the wrong way, for he was 
 overtaken with a fit of coughing, and stammered hastily 
 as he laid down his glass, "Yes — of course — certainly." 
 
 "No, sir," resumed the Superintendent cheerfully, 
 "they're pretty well played out. And the best proof of 
 it is that they 've lately been robbing ordinary passengers' 
 trunks. There was a freight wagon ' held up ' near Dow's 
 Flat the other day, and a lot of baggage gone through. I 
 had to go down there to look into it. Darned if they 
 had n't lifted a lot o' woman's wedding things from that 
 rich couple who got married the other day out at Marys- 
 ville. Looks as if they were playing it rather low down. 
 
AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS 473 
 
 don't it 1 Coining down to hardpan and the bed rock — • 
 eh?" 
 
 The Expressman's face was turned anxiously towards 
 Bill, who, after a hurried gulp of his remaining liquor, 
 still stood staring at the window. Then he slowly drew 
 on one of his large gloves. "Ye didn't," he said, with 
 a slow, drawling, but perfectly distinct, articulation, 
 " happen to know old ' Skinner ' Hemmings when you were 
 over there ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And his daughter?" 
 
 "He hasn't got any." 
 
 "A sort o' mild, innocent, guileless child of nature?" 
 persisted Bill, with a yellow face, a deadly calm, and 
 Satantic deliberation. 
 
 "No. I tell you he hasn't any daughter. Old man 
 Hemmings is a confirmed old bachelor. He 's too mean 
 to support more than one." 
 
 "And you didn't happen to know any o' that gang, did 
 ye ? " continued Bill, with infinite protraction. 
 
 "Yes. Knew 'em all. There was French Pete, Cher- 
 okee Bob, Kanaka Joe, One-eyed Stillson, Softy Brown, 
 Spanish Jack, and two or three Greasers." 
 
 "And ye didn't know a man by the name of Charley 
 Byng?" 
 
 "No," returned the Superintendent, with a slight sug- 
 gestion of weariness and a distraught glance towards the 
 door. 
 
 "A dark, stylish chap, with shifty black eyes and a 
 curled-up merstache ? " continued Bill, with dry, colorless 
 persistence. 
 
 " No. Look here, Bill, I'm in a little bit of a hurry 
 — but I suppose you must have your little joke before we 
 part. Now, what is your little game ? " 
 
 " Wot you mean ? " demanded Bill, with sudden brusque- 
 ness. 
 
474 AN INGENUE OF THE SIEKKAS 
 
 "Mean? Well, old man, you know as well as I do. 
 You 're giving me the very description of Ramon Martinez 
 himself, ha! ha! No — Bill! you didn't play me this 
 time. You 're mighty spry and clever, but you did n't 
 catch on just then." 
 
 He nodded and moved away with a light laugh. Bill 
 turned a stony face to the Expressman. Suddenly a 
 gleam of mirth came into his gloomy eyes. He bent over 
 the young man, and said in a hoarse, chuckling whisper; — 
 
 "But I got even after all!" 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " He 's tied up to that lying little she-devil, hard and 
 fast!" 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Ancestors of Petee Atheklt .1 
 
 The Passing of Enriquez 71 
 
 An Esmeralda of Rocky Canon 108 
 
 The Man at the Semaphore ..... . 124 
 
 See Tup 144 
 
 The Boom in the "Calaveras Clarion" . 161 
 
 The Secret of Sobriente's Well 182 
 
 When the Waters were up at "Jules" . . . 199 
 
 The Youngest Prospector in Calaveras 220 
 
 A Tale of Three Truants 239 
 
 The Man and the Mountain , 252 
 
 The Desborough Connections 267 
 
 Two Americans 303 
 
 The Strange Experience of Alkali Dick . . . • 338 
 
 "Unser Karl" 361 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHEELY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 It must be admitted that the civilizing processes of 
 Eough and Ready were not marked by any of the amel- 
 iorating conditions of other improved camps. After the 
 discovery of the famous " Eureka " lead, there was the 
 usual influx of gamblers and saloon-keepers ; but that was 
 accepted as a matter of course. But it was thought hard 
 that, after a church was built v and a new school erected, it 
 should suddenly be found necessary to have doors that 
 locked, instead of standing shamelessly open to the criti- 
 cism and temptation of wayfarers, or that portable property 
 could no longer be left out at night in the old fond reli- 
 ance on universal brotherhood. The habit of borrowing 
 was stopped with the introduction of more money into the 
 camp, and the establishment of rates of interest ; the poorer 
 people either took what they wanted, or as indiscreetly 
 bought on credit. There were better clothes to be seen in 
 its one long, straggling street, but those who wore them 
 generally lacked the grim virtue of the old pioneers, and 
 the fairer faces that were to be seen were generally rouged. 
 There was a year or two of this kind of mutation, in which 
 the youthful barbarism of Rough and Ready might have 
 been said to struggle with adult civilized wickedness, and 
 then the name itself disappeared. By an Act of the Legis- 
 
2 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHEELY 
 
 lature the growing town was called " Atherly," after the 
 owner of the Eureka mine, — Peter Atherly, — who had 
 given largess to the town in its " Waterworks " and a " Gin 
 Mill," as the new Atherly Hotel and its gilded bar-rooms 
 were now called. Even at the last moment, however, the 
 new title of " Atherly " hung in the balance. The roman- 
 tic daughter of the pastor had said that Mr. Atherly should 
 be called " Atherly of Atherly," an aristocratic title so 
 strongly suggestive of an innovation upon democratic prin- 
 ciples that it was not until it was discreetly suggested that 
 everybody was still free to call him "Atherly, late of 
 Rough and Ready," that opposition ceased. 
 
 Possibly this incident may have first awakened him to 
 the value of his name, and some anxiety as to its origin. 
 Roughly speaking, Atherly's father was only a bucolic 
 emigrant from " Mizzouri," -and his mother had done the 
 washing for the camp on her first arrival. The Atherlys 
 had suffered on their overland journey from drought and 
 famine, with the addition -of being captured by Indians, 
 who had held them captive for ten months. Indeed, Mr. 
 Atherly, senior, never recovered from the effects of his cap- 
 tivity, and died shortly after Mrs. Atherly had given birth 
 to twins, Peter and Jenny Atherly. This was scant know- 
 ledge for Peter in the glorification of his name through his 
 immediate progenitors ; but " Atherly of Atherly " still 
 sounded pleasantly, and, as the young lady had said, 
 smacked of old feudal days and honors. It was believed 
 beyond doubt, even in their simple family records, — the 
 fly-leaf of a Bible, — that Peter Atherly's great-grandfa- 
 ther was an Englishman who brought over to his Majesty's 
 Virginian possessions his only son, then a boy. It was 
 not established, however, to what class of deportation he 
 belonged : whether he was suffering exile from religious or 
 judicial conviction, or if he were only one of the articled 
 " apprentices " who largely made up the American immi- 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 3 
 
 gration of those days. Howbeit, " Atherly " was undoubt- 
 edly an English name, even suggesting respectable and 
 landed ancestry, and Peter Atherly was proud of it. He 
 looked somewhat askance upon his Irish and German fellow 
 citizens, and talked a good deal about " race." Two things, 
 however, concerned him : he was not in looks certainly like 
 any type of modern Englishman as seen either on the stage 
 in San Francisco, or as an actual tourist in the mining 
 regions, and his accent was undoubtedly Southwestern. He 
 was tall and dark, with deep-set eyes in a singularly immo- 
 bile countenance ; he had an erect but lithe and sinewy 
 figure even for his thirty odd years, and might easily have 
 been taken for any other American except for the single 
 exception that his nose was distinctly Roman, and gave 
 him a distinguished air. There was a suggestion of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln (and even of Don Quixote) in his tall, melan- 
 choly figure and length of limb, but nothing whatever that 
 suggested an Englishman. 
 
 It was shortly after the christening of Atherly town that 
 an incident occurred which at first shook, and then the 
 more finnly established, his mild monomania. His widowed 
 mother had been for the last two years an inmate of a pri- 
 vate asylum for inebriates, through certain habits contracted 
 while washing for the camp in the first year of her widow- 
 hood. This had always been a matter of open sympathy 
 to Rough and Ready ; but it was a secret reproach hinted 
 at in Atherly, although it was known that the rich Peter 
 Atherly kept his mother liberally supplied, and that both 
 he and his sister " Jinny " or Jenny Atherly visited her 
 frequently. One day he was telegraphed for, and on going" 
 to the asylum found Mrs. Atherly delirious and raving. 
 Through her son's liberality she had bribed an attendant, 
 and was fast succumbing to a private debauch. In the in- 
 tervals of her delirium she called Peter by name, talked 
 frenziedly and mysteriously of his " high connections " — 
 
4 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHEELY 
 
 alluded to himself and his sister as being of the "true 
 breed " — and with a certain vigor of epithet, picked up 
 in the familiarity of the camp during the days when she 
 was known as "Old Ma'am Atherly " or "Aunt Sally," 
 declared that they were " no corn-cracking Hoosiers," 
 " hayseed pikes," nor " northern Yankee scum," and that 
 she should yet live to see them " holding their own lands 
 again and the lands of their forefathers." Quieted at last 
 by opiates, she fell into a more lucid but scarcely less dis- 
 tressing attitude. Recognizing her son again, as well as 
 her own fast failing condition, she sarcastically thanked 
 him for coming to " see her off," congratulated him that 
 he would soon be spared the lie and expense of keeping 
 her here on account of his pride, under the thin pretext of 
 trying to " cure " her. She knew that Sally Atherly of 
 Hough and Ready was n't considered fit company for 
 " Atherly of Atherly " by his fine new friends. This and 
 much more in a voice mingling maudlin sentiment with 
 bitter resentment, and with an ominous glitter in her blood- 
 shot and glairy eyes. Peter winced with a consciousness of 
 the half-truth of her reproaches, but the curiosity and 
 excitement awakened by the revelations of her frenzy were 
 greater than his remorse. He said quickly : — 
 
 " You were speaking of father ! — of his family — his 
 lands and possessions. Tell me again ! " 
 
 " Wot are ye givin' us ? " she ejaculated in husky sus- 
 picion, opening upon him her beady eyes, in which the film 
 of death was already gathering. 
 
 " Tell me of father, — my father and his family ! his 
 great-grandfather ! — the Atherlys, my relations — what 
 you were saying. What do you know about them ? " 
 
 " That 's all ye wanter know — is it ? That 's what 
 ye V comin' to the old washerwoman for — is it ? " she 
 burst out with the desperation of disgust. " Well — give 
 it up ! Ask me another ! " 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 5 
 
 " But, mother — the old records, you know ! The 
 family Bible — what you once told us — me and Jinny ! " 
 
 Something gurgled in her throat like a chuckle. With 
 the energy of malevolence, she stammered : " There was n't 
 no records — there was n't no family Bible ! it 's all a lie 
 
 — you hear me ! Your Atherly that you 're so proud of 
 was just a British bummer who was kicked outer his fam- 
 ily in England and sent to buzz round in Americky. He 
 honey-fogled me — Sally Magregor — out of a better family 
 than his'n, in Kansas, and skyugled me away, but it was a 
 straight out marriage, and I kin prove it. It was in the St. 
 Louis papers, and I 've got it stored away safe enoiigh in 
 my trunk ! You hear me ! I 'm shoutin' ! But he was n't 
 no old settler in Mizzouri — he was n't descended from any 
 settler, either ! He was a new man outer England — fresh 
 caught — and talked down his throat. And he fooled me 
 — the darter of an old family that was settled on the right 
 bank of the Mizzouri afore Dan'l Boone came to Kentucky 
 
 — with his new philanderings. Then he broke up, and 
 went all to pieces when we struck Californy, and left me 
 
 — Sally Magregor, whose father had niggers of his own — 
 to wash for Bough and Beady ! That 's your Atherly ! 
 Take him ! I don't want him — I 've done with him ! I 
 was done with him long afore — afore " — a cough checked 
 her utterance, — " afore " — She gasped again, but the 
 words seemed to strangle in her throat. Intent only on her 
 words and scarcely heeding her sufferings, Peter was bending 
 over her eagerly, when the doctor rudely pulled him away 
 and lifted her to a sitting posture. But she never spoke 
 again. The strongest restoratives quickly administered only 
 left her in a state of scarcely breathing unconsciousness. 
 
 " Is she dying ? Can't you bring her to," said the anx- 
 ious Peter, " if only for a moment, doctor ? " 
 
 " I 'm thinkin'," said the visiting doctor, an old Scotch 
 army surgeon, looking at the rich Mr. Atherly with cool, 
 
6 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 professional contempt, " that your mother willna do any 
 more washing for me as in the old time, nor give up her 
 life again to support her bairns. And it isna my eenten- 
 tion to bring her back to pain for the purposes of geeneral 
 conversation ! " 
 
 Nor, indeed, did she ever come back to any purpose, but 
 passed away with her unfinished sentence. And her limbs 
 were scarcely decently composed by the attendants before 
 Peter was rummaging the trunk in her room for the paper 
 she had spoken of. It was in an old work-box — a now 
 faded yellow clipping from a newspaper, lying amidst spoils 
 of cotton thread, buttons, and beeswax, which he even then 
 remembered to have seen upon his mother's lap when she 
 superadded the sewing on of buttons to her washing of the 
 miners' shirts. And his dark and hollow cheek glowed 
 with gratified sentiment as he read the clipping. 
 
 " We hear with regret of the death of Philip Atherly, 
 Esq., of Rough and Eeady, California. Mr. Atherly will 
 be remembered by some of our readers as the hero of the 
 romantic elopement of Miss Sallie Magregor, daughter of 
 Colonel ' Bob ' Magregor, which created such a stir in well- 
 to-do circles some thirty years ago. It was known vaguely 
 that the young couple had ' gone West,' — a then unknown 
 region, — but it seems that after severe trials and tribula- 
 tions on the frontier with savages, they emigrated early 
 to Oregon, and then, on the outbreak of the gold fever, to 
 California. But it will be a surprise to many to know that 
 it has just transpired that Mr. Atherly was the second son 
 of Sir Ashley Atherly, an English baronet, and by the death 
 of his brother might have succeeded to the property and 
 title." 
 
 He remained for some moments looking fixedly at the 
 paper, until the commonplace paragraph imprinted itself 
 upon his brain as no line of sage or poet had ever done, 
 and then he folded it up and put it in his pocket. In his 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 1 
 
 exaltation he felt that even the mother he had never loved 
 was promoted to a certain respect as his father's wife, al- 
 though he was equally conscious of a new resentment against 
 her for her contemptuous allusions to Ms father, and her 
 evident hopeless inability to comprehend his position. His 
 mother, he feared, was indeed low ! — but he was his fa- 
 ther's son ! Nevertheless, he gave her a funeral at Atherly, 
 long remembered for its barbaric opulence and display. 
 Thirty carriages, procured from Sacramento at great ex- 
 pense, were freely offered to his friends to join in the 
 astounding pageant. A wonderful casket of iron and silver, 
 brought from San Francisco, held the remains of the ex- 
 washerwoman of Rough and Heady. But a more remark- 
 able innovation was the addition of a royal crown to the 
 other ornamentation of the casket. Peter Atherly's ideas 
 of heraldry were very vague, — Sacramento at that time 
 offered him no opportunity of knowing what were the arms 
 of the Atherlys, — and the introduction of the royal crown 
 seemed to satisfy Peter's mind as to what a crest might be, 
 while to the ordinary democratic mind it simply suggested 
 that the corpse was English ! Political criticism being thus 
 happily averted, Mrs. Atherly's body was laid in the little 
 cemetery, not far away from certain rude wooden crosses 
 which marked the burial-place of wanderers whose very 
 aatnes were unknown, and in due time a marble shaft was 
 erected over it. But when, the next day, the county paper 
 contained, in addition to the column-and-a-half description 
 of the funeral, the more formal announcement of the death 
 of " Mrs. Sallie Atherly, wife of the late Philip Atherly, 
 second son of Sir Ashley Atherly, of England," criticism 
 and comment broke out. The old pioneers of Rough and 
 Ready felt that they had been imposed upon, and that in 
 some vague way the unfortunate woman had made them 
 the victims of a huge practical joke during all these years. 
 That she had grimly enjoyed their ignorance of her position 
 
8 THE ANCESTORS OF TETER ATHERLY 
 
 they did not doubt. " Why, I remember onct when I was 
 sorter bullyraggin' her about mixin' up my duds with Doc 
 Simmons's, and sendin' me Whiskey Dick's old rags, she 
 turned round sudden with a kind of screech, and ran out 
 into the brush. I reckoned, at the time, that it was either 
 'drink ' or feelin's, and could hev kicked myself for being 
 sassy to the old woman, but I know now that all this time 
 that air critter — that barrownet's daughter-in-law — was 
 just laughin' herself into fits in the brush ! . No, sir,, she 
 played this yer camp for all it was worth, year in and out, 
 and we just gave ourselves away like speckled idiots ! and 
 now she 's lyin' out thar in the bone yard, and keeps on 
 p'intin' the joke, and a-roarin' at us in marble." 
 
 Even the later citizens in Atherly felt an equal resent- 
 ment against her, but from different motives. That her 
 drinking habits and her powerful vocabulary were all the 
 effect of her aristocratic alliance they never doubted. And, 
 although it brought the virtues of their own superior repub- 
 lican sobriety into greater contrast, they felt a scandal at 
 having been tricked into attending this gilded funeral of dis- 
 sipated rank. Peter Atherly found himself unpopular in 
 his own town. The sober who drank from his free " Wa- 
 terworks," and the giddy ones who imbibed at his " Gin 
 Mill," equally criticised him. He could not understand it , 
 his peculiar predilections had been accepted before, when 
 they were mere presumptions ; why should they not now, 
 when they were admitted facts ? He was conscious of no 
 change in himself since the funeral ! Yet the criticism went 
 on. - Presently it took the milder but more contagious form 
 of ridicule. In his own hotel, built with his own money, 
 and in his own presence, he had heard a reckless frequenter 
 of the bar-room decline some proffered refreshment on the 
 ground that " he only drank with his titled relatives." A 
 local humorist, amidst the applause of an admiring crowd 
 at the post-office window, had openly accused the postmaster 
 
THE ANCESTORS OE PETER ATHERLY 9 
 
 of withholding letters to him from his only surviving bro- 
 ther, " the Dook of Doncherknow." " The ole dooky never 
 onct missed the mail to let me know wot 's goin' on in 
 me childhood's home," remarked the humorist plaintively ; 
 " and yer 'a this dod-blasted gov'ment mule of a postmaster 
 keepin' me letters back ! " Letters with pretentious and 
 gilded coats of arms, taken from the decorated inner lining 
 of cigar-boxes, were posted to prominent citizens. The 
 neighboring and unregenerated settlement of Red Dog was 
 more outrageous in its contribution. The Red Dog " Sen- 
 tinel," in commenting on the death of "Haulbowline Tom," 
 a drunken English man-o'-war's man, said : " It may not 
 be generally known that our regretted fellow citizen, while 
 serving on H. M. S. Boxer, was secretly married to Queen 
 Kikalu of the Friendly Group ; but, unlike some of our 
 prosperous neighbors, he never boasted of his royal alliance, 
 and resisted with steady British pluck any invitation to 
 share the throne. Indeed, any allusion to the subject affected 
 him deeply. There are those among us who will remember 
 the beautiful portrait of his royal bride tattooed upon his 
 left arm with the royal crest and the crossed flags of the 
 two nations." Only Peter Atherly and his sister under- 
 stood the sting inflicted either by accident or design in the 
 latter sentence. Both he and his sister had some singular 
 hieroglyphic branded on their arms, — probably a reminis- 
 cence of their life on the plains in their infant Indian cap- 
 tivity. But there was no mistaking the general sentiment. 
 The criticisms of a small town may become inevasible. 
 Atherly determined to take the first opportunity to leave 
 Bough and Ready. He was rich ; his property was secure ; 
 there was no reason why he should stay where his family 
 pretensions were a drawback. And a further circumstance 
 determined his resolution. 
 
 He was awaiting his sister in his new house on a little 
 crest above the town. She had been at the time of her 
 
10 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 mother's death, and since, a private hoarder in the Sacred 
 ^J^art Convent at Santa Clara, whence she had been sum- 
 moned to the funeral, hut had returned the next day. Few 
 people had noticed in her brother's carriage the veiled figure 
 which might have belonged to one of the religious orders ; 
 still less did they remember the dark, lank, heavy-browed 
 girl who had sometimes been seen about Rough and Ready. 
 For she had her brother's melancholy, and greater reticence, 
 and had continued of her own free will, long after her girl- 
 ish pupilage at the convent, to live secluded under its ma- 
 ternal roof without taking orders. A general suspicion that 
 she was either a religious " crank," or considered herself too 
 good to live in a mountain mining town, had not contributed 
 to her brother's popularity. In her abstraction from worldly 
 ambitions she had, naturally, taken no part in her brother's 
 family pretensions. He had given her an independent al- 
 lowance, and she was supposed to be equally a sharer in his 
 good fortune. Yet she had suddenly declared her intention 
 of returning to Atherly, to consult him on affairs of impor- 
 tance. Peter was both surprised and eager ; there was but 
 little affection between them, but, preoccupied with his one 
 idea, he was satisfied that she wanted to talk about the 
 family. 
 
 But he was amazed, disappointed, and disconcerted. For 
 Jenny Atherly, the sober recluse of Santa Clara, hidden in 
 her sombre draperies at the funeral, was no longer to be 
 recognized in the fashionable, smartly but somewhat over- 
 dressed woman he saw before him. In spite of her large 
 features and the distinguishing Roman nose, like his own, 
 she looked even pretty in her excitement. She had left the 
 convent, she was tired of the life there, she was satisfied 
 that a religious vocation would not suit her. In brief, she 
 intended to enjoy herself like other women. If he really 
 felt a pride in the family, he ought to take her out, like 
 other brothers, and " give her a show." He could do it 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 11 
 
 there if he liked, and she would keep house for him. If he 
 did n't want to, she must have enough money to keep her 
 fashionably in San Francisco. But she wanted excitement, 
 and that she would have ! She wanted to go to balls, the- 
 atres, and entertainments, and she intended to ! Her voice 
 grew quite high, and her dark cheek glowed with some new- 
 found emotion. 
 
 Astounded as he was, Peter succumbed. It was better 
 that she should indulge her astounding caprice under his 
 roof than elsewhere. It would not do for the sister of an 
 Atherly to provoke scandal. He gave entertainments, pic- 
 nics, and parties, and " Jinny " Atherly plunged into these 
 mild festivities with the enthusiasm of a school-girl. She 
 not only could dance with feverish energy all night, but 
 next day could mount a horse — she was a fearless rider — 
 and lead the most accomplished horsemen. She was a good 
 shot, she walked with the untiring foot of a coyote, she 
 threaded the woods with the instinct of a pioneer. Peter 
 regarded her with a singular mingling of astonishment and 
 fear. Surely she had not learned this at school ! These 
 were not the teachings nor the sports of the good sisters ! 
 He once dared to interrogate her regarding this change in 
 her habits. " I always felt like it," she answered quickly, 
 " but I kept it down. I used sometimes to feel that I 
 could n't stand it any longer, but must rush out and do 
 something," she said passionately ; " but," she went on 
 with furtive eyes, and a sudden wild timidity like that of 
 a fawn, " I was afraid ! I was afraid it was like mother ! 
 It seemed to me to be her bipod that was rising in me, and 
 I kept it down, — I did n't want to be like her, — and I 
 prayed and struggled against it. Did you," she said, sud- 
 denly grasping his hand, " ever feel like that ? " 
 
 But Peter never had. His melancholy faith in his 
 father's race had left no thought of his mother's blood 
 mingling with it. " But," he said gravely, " believing this, 
 why did you change ? " 
 
12 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 "Because I could holdout no longer. I should have 
 gone crazy. Times I wanted to take some of those meek 
 nuns, some of those white-faced pupils with their blue eyes 
 and wavy flaxen hair, and strangle them. I could n't strive 
 and pray and struggle any longer there, and so I came here 
 to let myself out ! I suppose when I get married — and 
 I ought to, with my money — it may change me ! You 
 don't suppose," she said, with a return of her wild-animal- 
 like timidity, " it is anything that was in father, in those 
 Atherlys, — do you ? " 
 
 But Peter had no idea of anything but virtue in the 
 Atherly blood ; he had heard that the upper class of Euro- 
 peans were fond of field sports and of hunting ; it was odd 
 that his sister should inherit this propensity and not he. 
 He regarded her more kindly for this evidence of race. 
 " You think of getting married ? " he said more gently, yet 
 with a certain brotherly doubt that any man could like her 
 enough, even with her money. " Is there any one here 
 would — suit you ? " he added diplomatically. 
 
 " No — I hate them all ! " she burst out. " There is n't 
 one I don't despise for his sickening, foppish, womanish 
 airs." 
 
 Nevertheless, it was quite evident that some of the men 
 were attracted by her singular originality and a certain good 
 comradeship in her ways. And it was on one of their rid- 
 ing excursions that Peter noticed that she was singled out 
 by a good-looking, blond-haired young lawyer of the town 
 for his especial attentions. As the cavalcade straggled in 
 climbing the mountain, the young fellow rode close to her 
 saddle-bow, and as the distance lengthened between the 
 other stragglers, they at last were quite alone. When the 
 trail became more densely wooded, Peter quite lost sight of 
 them. But when, a few moments later, having lost the 
 trail himself, they again appeared in the distance before 
 him, he was so amazed that he unconsciously halted. For 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 13 
 
 the two horses were walking side by side, and the stranger's 
 arm was round his sister's waist. 
 
 Had Peter any sense of humor he might have smiled at 
 this weakness in his Amazonian sister, but he saw only 
 the serious, practical side of the situation, with, of course, 
 its inevitable relation to his one controlling idea. The 
 young man was in good practice, and would have made an 
 eligible husband to any one else. But was he fit to mate 
 with an Atherly ? What would those as yet unknown and 
 powerful relatives say to it ? At the same time he could 
 not help knowing that " Jinny," in the eccentricities of 
 her virgin spinsterhood, might be equally objectionable to 
 them, as she certainly was a severe trial to him here. If 
 she were off his hands he might be able to prosecute his 
 search for his relatives with more freedom. After all, 
 there were mesalliances in all families, and being a woman 
 she was not in the direct line. Instead, therefore, of spur- 
 ring forward to join them, he lingered a little until they 
 passed out of sight, and until he was joined by a compan- 
 ion from behind. Him, too, he purposely delayed. They 
 were walking slowly, breathing their mustangs, when his 
 companion suddenly uttered a cry of alarm, and sprang 
 from his horse. For on the trail before them lay the young 
 lawyer quite unconscious, with his riderless steed nipping 
 the young leaves of the underbrush. He was evidently 
 stunned by a fall, although across his face was a liyid welt 
 which might have been caused by collision with the small 
 elastic limb of a sapling, or a blow from a riding-whip ; 
 happily the last idea was only in Peter's mind. As they 
 lifted him up he came slowly to consciousness. He was 
 bewildered and dazed at first, but as he began to speak the 
 color came back freshly to his face. He could not con- 
 ceive, he stammered, what had happened. He was riding 
 with Miss Atherly, and he supposed his horse had slipped 
 upon some withered pine needles and thrown him ! A 
 
14 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLT 
 
 Epasm of pain crossed, his face suddenly, and he lifted his 
 hand to the top of his head. Was he hurt there ? No, 
 but perhaps his hair, which was flowing and curly, had 
 caught in the branches — like Absalom's ! He tried to 
 smile, and even begged them to assist him to his horse that 
 he might follow his fair companion, who would be wonder- 
 ing where he was; but Peter, satisfied that he had received 
 no serious injury, hurriedly enjoined him to stay, while he 
 himself would follow his sister. Putting spurs to his horse, 
 he succeeded, in spite of the slippery trail, in overtaking 
 her near the summit. At the sound of his horse's hoofs 
 she wheeled quickly, came dashing furiously towards him, 
 and only pulled lip at the sound of his voice. But she had 
 not time to change her first attitude and expression, which 
 was something which perplexed and alarmed him. Her 
 long, lithe figure was half crouching, half clinging to the 
 horse's back, her loosened hair flying over her shoulders, her 
 dark eyes gleaming with an odd, nymph-like mischief. Her 
 white teeth flashed as she recognized him, but her laugh was 
 still mocking and uncanny. He took refuge in indignation. 
 
 " What has happened ? " he said sharply. 
 
 " The fool tried to kiss me ! " she said simply. " And 
 I — I — let out at him — like mother ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, she gave him one of those shy, timid 
 glances he had noticed before, and began coiling something 
 around her fingers, with a suggestion of coy embarrassment, 
 indescribably inconsistent with her previous masculine inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 " You might have killed him," said Peter angrily. 
 
 "Perhaps I might ! Ought I have killed him, Peter ? " 
 she said anxiously, yet with the same winning, timid smile. 
 If she had not been his sister, he would have thought her 
 quite handsome. 
 
 "As it is," he said impetuously, "you have made a 
 frightful scandal here." 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHERLY 15 
 
 " He won't say anything about it — will he ? " she in- 
 quired shyly, still twisting the something around her 
 finger. 
 
 Peter did not reply ; perhaps the young lawyer really 
 loved her and would keep her secret ! But he was vexed, 
 and there was something maniacal in her twisting lingers. 
 
 " What have you got there ? " he said sharply. 
 
 She shook the object in the air before her with a laugh. 
 " Only a lock of his hair," she said gayly ; " but I did n't 
 cut it off! " 
 
 " Throw it away, and come here ! " he said angrily. 
 
 But she only tucked the little blond curl into her waist 
 belt and shook her head. He urged his horse forward, but 
 she turned and fled, laughing as he pursued her. Being 
 the better rider she could easily evade him whenever he 
 got too near, and in this way they eventually reached the 
 town and their house long before their companions. But 
 she was far enough ahead of her brother to be able to dis- 
 mount and hide her trophy with childish glee before he 
 arrived. 
 
 She was right in believing that her unfortunate cavalier 
 would make no revelation of her conduct, and his catastro- 
 phe passed as an accident. But Peter could not disguise 
 the fact that much of his unpopularity was shared by his 
 sister. The matrons of Atherly believed that she was 
 " fast," and remembered more distinctly than ever the evil 
 habits of her mother. That she would, in the due course 
 of time, " take to drink," they never doubted. Her dan- 
 cing was considered outrageous in its unfettered freedom, 
 and her extraordinary powers of endurance were looked 
 upon as " masculine " by the weaker girls whose partners 
 she took from them. She reciprocally looked down upon 
 them, and made no secret of her contempt for their small 
 refinements and fancies. She affected only the society of 
 men, and even treated them with a familiarity that was 
 
16 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 both fearless and scornful. Peter saw that it was useless 
 to face the opposition ; Miss Atherly did not seem to 
 encourage the renewal of the young lawyer's attentions, 
 although it was evident that he was still attracted by her, 
 nor did she seem to invite advances from others. He must 
 go away — and he would have to take her with him. It 
 seemed ridiculous that a woman of thirty, of masculine 
 character, should require a chaperon in a brother of equal 
 age ; but Peter knew the singular blending of childlike 
 ignorance with this Amazonian quality. He had made his 
 arrangements for an absence from Atherly of three or four 
 years, and they departed together. The young fair-haired 
 lawyer came to the stagecoach office to see them off. Peter 
 could detect no sentiment in his sister's familiar farewell 
 of her unfortunate suitor. At New York, however, it was 
 arranged that " Jinny " should stay with some friends 
 whom they had made en route, and that, if she wished, 
 she could come to Europe later, and join him in London. 
 
 Thus relieved of one, Peter Atherly of Atherly started 
 on his cherished quest of his other and more remote rela- 
 tions. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Peter Atherly had been four months in England, but 
 knew little of the country until one summer afternoon when 
 his carriage rolled along the well-ordered road between 
 Nonningsby Station and Ashley Grange. 
 
 In that four months he had consulted authorities, exam- 
 ined records, visited the Heralds' College, written letters, 
 and made a few friends. A rich American, tracing his 
 genealogical tree, was not a new thing — even in that day 
 — in London; but there was something original and simple 
 in his methods, and so much that was grave, reserved, and 
 un-American in his personality, that it awakened interest. 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHEELY 17 
 
 A recognition that he was a foreigner, hut a puzzled doubt, 
 however, of his exact nationality, which he found every- 
 where, at first pained him, hut he became reconciled to 
 it at about the same time that his English acquaintances 
 abandoned their own reserve and caution before the greater 
 reticence of this melancholy American, and actually became 
 the questioners ! In this way his quest became known only 
 as a disclosure of his own courtesy, and offers of assistance 
 were pressed eagerly upon him. That was why Sir Edward 
 Atherly found himself gravely puzzled, as he sat with his 
 family solicitor one morning in the library of Ashley Grange. 
 
 " Humph ! " said Sir Edward. " And you say he has 
 absolutely no other purpose in making these inquiries ? " 
 
 " Positively none," returned the solicitor. "He is even 
 willing to sign a renunciation of any claim which might 
 arise out of this information. It is rather a singular case, 
 but he seems to be a rich man and quite able to indulge 
 his harmless caprices." 
 
 " And you are quite sure he is Philip's son ? " 
 
 " Quite, from the papers he brings me. Of course I 
 informed him that even if he should be able to establish 
 a legal marriage he could expect nothing as next of kin, as 
 you had children of your own. He seemed to know that 
 already, and avowed that his only wish was to satisfy his 
 own mind." 
 
 " I suppose he wants to claim kinship and all that sort 
 of thing for society's sake ? " 
 
 " I do not think so," said the solicitor dryly. " I sug- 
 gested au interview with you, but he seemed to think it 
 quite unnecessary, if I could give him the information he 
 required." 
 
 " Ha ! " said Sir Edward promptly, " we '11 invite him 
 here. Lady Atherly can bring in some people to see him. 
 Is h e — ahem — What is he like ? The usual American; 
 I suppose ? " 
 
IS THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 "Not at all. Quite foreign-looking — dark, and rather 
 like an Italian. There is no resemblance to Mr. Philip," he 
 said, glancing at the painting of a flaxen-haired child fon- 
 dling a greyhound under the elms of Ashley Park. 
 
 " Ah ! Yes, yes ! Perhaps the mother was one of 
 those Southern Creoles, or mulattoes," said Sir Edward, with 
 an Englishman's tolerant regard for the vagaries of people 
 who were clearly not English ; " they 're rather attractive 
 women, I hear." 
 
 " I think you do quite well to be civil to him," said the 
 solicitor. " He seems to take an interest in the family, 
 and being rich, and apparently only anxious to enhance the 
 family prestige, you ought to know him. Now, in refer- 
 ence to those mortgages on Appleby Farm, if you could 
 get" — 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " said Sir Edward quickly ; " we '11 have 
 him down here ; and, I say ! you '11 come too ? " 
 
 The solicitor bowed. " And, by the way," continued 
 Sir Edward, " there was a girl, too, — was n't there ? He 
 has a sister, I believe ? " 
 
 " Yes, but he has left her in America." 
 
 "Ah, yes ! — very good — yes ! — of course. We '11 
 have Lord Greyshott and Sir Roger and old Lady Everton, 
 
 — she knows all about Sir Ashley and the family. And 
 
 — er — is he young or old ? " 
 
 " About thirty, I should say, Sir Edward." 
 " Ah, well ! We '11 have Lady Elfrida over from the 
 Towers." 
 
 Had Peter known of these preparations, he might have 
 turned back to Nonningsby without even visiting the old 
 church in Ashley Park, which he had been told held the 
 ashes of his ancestors. For during these four months the 
 conviction that he was a foreigner and that he had little 
 or nothing in common with things here had been clearly 
 forced upon him. He could recognize some kinship in the 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 19 
 
 manners and customs of the people to those he had known 
 in the West and on the Atlantic coast, but not to his own 
 individuality, and he seemed even more a stranger here — 
 where he had expected to feel the thrill of consanguinity — 
 than in the West. He had accepted the invitation of the 
 living Atherly for the sake of the Atherlys long dead and 
 forgotten. As the great quadrangle of stone and ivy lifted 
 itself out of the park, he looked longingly towards the little 
 square tower which peeped from between the yews nearer 
 the road. As the carriage drove up to the carved archway 
 whence so many Atherlys had issued into the world, he 
 could not believe that any of his blood had gone forth from 
 it, or, except himself, had ever entered it before. Once 
 in the great house he felt like a prisoner as he wandered 
 through the long corridors to his room ; even the noble 
 trees beyond his mullioned windows seemed of another 
 growth than those he had known. 
 
 There was no doubt that he created a sensation at Ashley 
 Grange, not only from his singular kinship, but from his 
 striking individuality. The Atherlys and their guests were, 
 fascinated and freely admiring. His very originality, which 
 prevented them from comparing him with any English or 
 American standard of excellence, gave them a comfortable 
 assurance of safety in their admiration. His reserve, his 
 seriousness, his simplicity, very unlike their own, and yet 
 near enough to suggest a delicate flattery, was in his favor. 
 So was his naive frankness in regard to his status in the 
 family, shown in the few words of greeting with Sir Ashley, 
 and in his later simple yet free admissions regarding his 
 obscure youth, his former poverty, and his present wealth. 
 He boasted of neither ; he was disturbed by neither. Stand- 
 ing alone, a stranger, for the first time in an assemblage of 
 distinguished and titled men and women, he betrayed no 
 consciousness ; surrounded for the first time by objects whnh 
 he knew his wealth could not buy, he showed the most ui? 
 
20 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHEELY 
 
 mistakable indifference, — the indifference of temperament 
 The ladies vied with each other to attack this unimpressible 
 nature, — this profound isolation from external attraction. 
 They followed him about, they looked into his dark, melan- 
 choly eyes ; it was impossible, they thought, that he could 
 continue this superb acting forever. A glance, a smile, a 
 burst of ingenuous confidence, a covert appeal to his chivalry 
 would yet catch him tripping. But the melancholy eyes 
 that had gazed at the treasures of Ashley Grange and the 
 opulent ease of its guests without kindling opened to their 
 first emotion, — wonder ! At which Lady Elfrida, who had 
 ingenuously admired him, hated him a little, as the first 
 step towards a kindlier feeling. 
 
 The next day, having declared his intention of visiting 
 Ashley Church, and, as frankly, his intention of going there 
 alone, he slipped out in the afternoon and made his way 
 quietly through the park to the square ivied tower he had 
 first seen. In this tranquil level length of the wood there 
 was the one spot, the churchyard, where, oddly enough, the 
 green earth heaved into little billows as if to show the 
 turbulence of that life which those who lay below them had 
 lately quitted. It was a relief to the somewhat studied and 
 formal monotony of the well-ordered woodland, — every rood 
 of which had been. paced by visitors, keepers, or poachers, 
 — to find those decrepit and bending tombstones, lurching 
 at every angle, or deeply sinking into the green sea of for- 
 getfulness around them. All this, and the trodden paths 
 of the villagers towards that common place of meeting, 
 struck him as being more human than anything he had left 
 behind him at the Grange. 
 
 He entered the ivy-grown porch and stared for a moment 
 at the half-legal official parochial notices posted on the oaken 
 door, — his first obtrusive intimation of the combination of 
 church and state, — and hesitated. He was not prepared 
 to find that this last resting-place of his people had some- 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 21 
 
 thing to do with taxes and tithes, and that a certain material 
 respectability and security attended his votive sigh. God 
 and the reigning sovereign of the realm preserved a decorous 
 alliance in the royal arms that appeared above the official 
 notices. Presently he pushed open the door gently and 
 entered the nave. For a moment it seemed to him as if 
 the arched gloom of the woods he had left behind was 
 repeated in the dim aisle and vaulted roof ; there was an 
 earthy odor, as if the church itself, springing from the fer- 
 tilizing dust below, had taken root in the soil ; the checkers 
 of light from the faded stained-glass windows fell like the 
 flicker of leaves on the pavement. He paused before the 
 cold altar, and started, for beside him lay the recumbent 
 figure of a warrior pillowed on his helmet with the parapher- 
 nalia of his trade around him. A sudden childish memory 
 of the great Western plains, and the biers of the Indian 
 " braves " raised on upright poles against the staring sky 
 and above the sun-baked prairie, rushed upon him. There, 
 too, had lain the weapons of the departed chieftain ; there, 
 too, lay the Indian's "faithful hound," here simulated by 
 the cross-legged crusader's canine effigy. And now, strangest 
 of all, he found that this unlooked-for recollection and re- 
 membrance thrilled him more at that moment than the dead 
 before him. Here they rested, — the Atherlys of centuries ; 
 recumbent in armor or priestly robes, upright in busts that 
 were periwigged or hidden in long curls, above the marble 
 record of their deeds and virtues. Some of these records 
 were in Latin, — an unknown tongue to Peter, — some in a 
 quaint English almost as unintelligible ; but none as foreign 
 to him as the dead themselves. Their banners waved above 
 his head ; their voices filled the silent church, but fell upon 
 his vacant eye and duller ear. He was none of them. 
 
 Presently he was conscious of a footstep, so faint, so sub- 
 tle, that it might have come from a peregrinating ghost. 
 He turned quickly and saw Lady Elfrida, half bold, yet 
 
22 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEK ATHERLY 
 
 half frightened, halting beside a pillar of the chancel. But 
 there was nothing of the dead about her : she was radiating 
 and pulsating with the uncompromising and material fresh- 
 ness of English girlhood. The wild rose in the hedgerow 
 was not more tangible than her cheek, nor the summer sky 
 more clearly cool and blue than her eyes. The vigor of 
 health and unfettered freedom of limb was in her figure 
 from her buckled walking-shoe to her brown hair topped by 
 a sailor hat. The assurance and contentment of a well- 
 ordered life, of secured position and freedom from vain 
 anxieties or expectations, were visible in every line of her 
 refined, delicate, and evenly quiescent features. And yet 
 Lady Elfrida, for the first time in her girlhood, felt a little 
 nervous. 
 
 Yet she was frank, too, with the frankness of those who 
 have no thought of being misunderstood. She said she had 
 come there out of curiosity to see how he would " get on " 
 with his ancestors. She had been watching him from the 
 chancel ever since he came, — and she was disappointed. 
 As far as emotion went she thought he had the advantage 
 of the stoniest and longest dead of them all. Perhaps he 
 did not like them ? But he must be careful what he said, 
 for some of her own people were there, — manifestly this 
 one. (She put the toe of her buckled shoe on the crusader 
 Peter had just looked at.) And then there was another in 
 the corner. So she had a right to come there as well as he, 
 — and she could act as cicerone ! This one was a De Brecy, 
 one of King John's knights, who married an Atherly. (She 
 swung herself into a half-sitting posture on the effigy of the 
 dead knight, composed her straight short skirt over her trim 
 ankles, and looked up into Peter's dark face.) That would 
 make them some kind of relations, — would n't it ? He 
 must come over to Bentley Towers and see the rest of the 
 De Brecys in the chapel there to-morrow. Perhaps there 
 might be some he liked better, and who looked more like 
 
THE ANCESTOES OF PETER ATHERLY 23 
 
 Lim. For there was no one here or at the Grange who 
 resembled him in the least. 
 
 He assented to the truth of this with such grave, disarm- 
 ing courtesy, and yet with such undisguised wonder, — as 
 she appeared to talk with greater freedom to a stranger than 
 an American girl would, — that she at once popped off the 
 crusader, and accompanied him somewhat more demurely 
 around the church. Suddenly she stopped with a slight 
 exclamation. 
 
 They had halted before a tablet to the memory of a later 
 Atherly, an officer of his Majesty's 100th Foot, who was 
 killed at Braddock's defeat. The tablet was supported on 
 the one side by a weeping Fame, and on the other by a 
 manacled North American Indian. She stammered and 
 said : " You see there are other Atherlys who went to 
 America even before your father," and then stopped with a 
 sense of having made a slip. 
 
 A wild and inexplicable resentment against this compla- 
 cent historical outrage suddenly took possession of Peter. 
 He knew that his rage was inconsistent with his usual calm, 
 but he could not help it ! His swarthy cheek glowed, his 
 dark eyes flashed, he almost trembled with excitement as 
 he hurriedly pointed out to Lady Elfrida that the Indians 
 were victorious in that ill-fated expedition of the British 
 forces, and that the captive savage was an allegorical lie. 
 So swift and convincing was his emotion that the young 
 girl, knowing nothing of the subject and caring less, shared 
 his indignation, followed him with anxious eyes, and their 
 hands for an instant touched in innocent and generous sym- 
 pathy. And then — he knew not how or why — a still 
 more wild and terrible idea sprang up in his fancy. He 
 knew it was madness, yet for a moment he could only stand 
 and grapple with it silently and breathlessly. It was to 
 seize this young and innocent girl, this witness of his disap- 
 pointment, this complacent and beautiful type of all they 
 
24 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 Talued here, and bear her away — a prisoner, a hostage — . 
 he knew not why — on a galloping horse in the dust of the 
 prairie — far beyond the seas ! It was only when he saw 
 her cheek flush and pale, when he saw her staring at him 
 with helpless, frightened, but fascinated eyes, — the eyes 
 of the fluttering bird under the spell of the rattlesnake, — 
 that he drew his breath and turned bewildered away. 
 " And do you know, dear," she said with naive simplicity 
 to her sister that evening, " that although he was an Ameri- 
 can, and everybody says that they don't care at all for those 
 poor Indians, he was so magnanimous in his indignation 
 that I fancied he looked like one of Cooper's heroes him- 
 self rather than an Atherly. It was such a stupid thing 
 for me to show him that tomb of Major Atherly, you know, 
 who fought the Americans, — did n't he ? — or was it later ? 
 — but I quite forgot he was an American." And with this 
 belief in her mind, and in the high expiation of a noble 
 nature, she forbore her characteristic raillery, and followed 
 him meekly, manacled in spirit like the allegorical figure, 
 to the church porch, where they separated, to meet on the 
 morrow. But that morrow never came. 
 
 For late in the afternoon a cable message reached him 
 from California asking him to return to accept a nomina- 
 tion to Congress from his own district. It determined his 
 resolution, which for a moment at the church porch had 
 wavered under the bright eyes of Lady Elfrida. He tele- 
 graphed his acceptance, hurriedly took leave of his honestly 
 lamenting kinsman, followed his dispatch to London, and 
 in a few days was on the Atlantic. 
 
 How he was received in California, bow he found his 
 sister married to the blond lawyer, how he recovered his 
 popularity and won his election, are details that do not he- 
 long to this chronicle of his quest. And that quest seemed 
 to have terminated forever with his appearance at Washing- 
 ton to take his seat as Congressman. 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 25 
 
 It was the night of a levee at the White House. The 
 East Room was crowded with smartly dressed men and 
 women of the capital, quaintly simple legislators from re- 
 mote States in bygone fashions, officers in uniform, and the 
 diplomatic circle blazing with orders. The invoker of this 
 brilliant assembly stood in simple evening dress near the 
 door, — unattended and hedged by no formality. He shook 
 the hand of the new Congressman heartily, congratulated 
 him by name, and turned smilingly to the next comer. 
 Presently there was a slight stir at one of the opposite 
 doors, the crowd fell back, and five figures stalked majesti- 
 cally into the centre of the room. They were the leading 
 chiefs of an Indian reservation coming to pay their respects 
 to their " Great Father," the President. Their costumes 
 were a mingling of the picturesque with the grotesque ; of 
 tawdriness with magnificence ; of artificial tinsel and glitter 
 with the regal spoils of the chase ; of childlike vanity with 
 barbaric pride. Yet before these the glittering orders and 
 ribbons of the diplomats became dull and meaningless, the 
 uniforms of the officers mere servile livery. Their painted, 
 immobile faces and plumed heads towered with grave dig- 
 nity above the meaner crowd ; their inscrutable eyes re- 
 turned no response to the timid glances directed towards 
 them. They stood by themselves, alone and impassive, 
 yet their presence filled the room with the sense of kings. 
 The unostentatious, simple republican court suddenly seemed 
 to have become royal. Even the interpreter who stood be- 
 tween their remote dignity and the nearer civilized world 
 acquired the status of a court chamberlain. 
 
 When their " Great Father," apparently the less impor- 
 tant personage, had smilingly received them, a political 
 colleague approached Peter and took his arm. " Gray 
 Eagle would like to speak with you. Come on ! Here 's 
 your chance ! You may be put on the Committee on In- 
 dian Relations, and pick up a few facts. Remember we 
 
26 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 want a firm policy ; no more palaver about the ' Great 
 Father,' and no more blankets and guns ! You know what 
 we used to say out West, ' The only " Good Indian " is a 
 dead one.' So wade in, and hear what the old plug hat has 
 to say." 
 
 Peter permitted himself to be led to the group. Even 
 at that moment he remembered the figure of the Indian 
 on the tomb at Ashley Grange, and felt a slight flash of 
 satisfaction over the superior height and bearing of Gray 
 Eagle. 
 
 " How ! " said Gray Eagle. " How ! " said the other 
 four chiefs. " How ! " repeated Peter instinctively. At a 
 gesture from Gray Eagle the interpreter said : " Let your 
 friend stand back ; Gray Eagle has nothing to say to him. 
 He wishes to speak only with you." 
 
 Peter's friend reluctantly withdrew, but threw a caution- 
 ing glance towards him. " Ugh .' " said Gray Eagle. 
 " Ugh ! " said the other chiefs. A few guttural words fol- 
 lowed to the interpreter, who turned, and facing Peter with 
 the monotonous impassiveness which he had caught from 
 the chiefs, said : " He says he knew your father. He was 
 a great chief, — with many horses and many squaws. He 
 is dead." 
 
 " My father was an Englishman, — Philip Atherly ! " 
 said Peter, with an odd nervousness creeping over him. 
 
 The interpreter repeated the words to Gray Eagle, who, 
 after a guttural " Ugh ! " answered in his own tongue. 
 
 " He says," continued the interpreter with a slight shrug, 
 yet relapsing into his former impassiveness, " that your 
 father was a great chief, and your mother a paleface, or 
 white woman. , She was captured with an Englishman, but 
 she became the wife of the chief while in captivity. She 
 was only released before the birth of her children, but a 
 year or two afterwards she brought them as infants to see 
 their father, — the Great Chief, — and to get the mark oi 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHEKLY 27 
 
 'heir tribe. He says you and your sister are each marked 
 on the left arm." 
 
 Then Gray Eagle opened his mouth and uttered his first 
 English sentence. " His father, big Injin, take common 
 white squaw ! Papoose no good, — too much white squaw 
 mother, not enough big Injin father ! Look ! He big man, 
 but no can bear pain ! Ugh ! " 
 
 The interpreter turned in time to catch Peter. He had 
 fainted. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A hot afternoon on the plains. A dusty cavalcade of 
 United States cavalry and commissary wagons, which from 
 a distance preserved a certain military precision of move- 
 ment, but on nearer view resolved itself into straggling 
 troopers in twos and fours interspersed between the wagons, 
 two non-commissioned officers and a guide riding ahead, who 
 had already fallen into the cavalry slouch, but off to the 
 right, smartly erect and cadet-like, the young lieutenant in 
 command. A wide road that had the appearance of being 
 at once well traveled and yet deserted, and that, although 
 well defined under foot, still seemed to disappear and lose 
 itself a hundred feet ahead in the monotonous level. A 
 horizon that in that clear, dry, hazeless atmosphere never 
 mocked you, yet never changed, but kept its eternal rim of 
 mountains at the same height and distance from hour to 
 hour and day to day. Dust — a parching alkaline powder 
 that cracked the skin — everywhere, clinging to the hubs 
 and spokes of the wheels, without being disturbed by move- 
 went, incrusting the cavalryman from his high boots to the 
 crossed sabres of his cap ; going off in small puffs like 
 explosions under the plunging hoof of the horses, but too 
 heavy to rise and follow them. A reeking smell of horse 
 sweat and boot leather that lingered in the road long after 
 
28 THE ANCESTOR'S OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 the train had passed. An external silence broken only bj 
 the cough of a jaded horse in the suffocating dust, or the 
 cracking of harness leather. Within one of the wagons that 
 seemed a miracle of military neatness and methodical stow- 
 age, a lazy conversation carried on by a grizzled driver and 
 sunbrowned farrier. 
 
 " ' Who be you ? ' sezee. ' I 'm Peter Atherly, a mem- 
 ber of Congress,' sez the long, dark-complected man, sezee, 
 ' and I 'm on a commission for looking into this yer Injin 
 grievance,' sezee. ' You may be God Almighty,' sez Ne- 
 braska Bill, sezee, ' but you look a d — d sight more like a 
 hoss-stealin' Apache,- and we don't want any of your psalm- 
 singing, big-talkin' peacemakers interferin' with our ways 
 of treatin' pizen, — you hear me ? I 'm shoutin',' sezee. 
 With that the dark-complected man's eyes began to glisten, 
 and he sorter squirmed all over to get at Bill, and Bill 
 outs with his battery — Whoa, will ye ; what 's up with 
 you now ? " The latter remark was directed to the young 
 spirited near horse he was driving, who was beginning to be 
 strangely excited. 
 
 " What happened then ? " said the farrier lazily. 
 
 " Well," continued the driver, having momentarily 
 quieted his horse, " I reckoned it was about time for me to 
 wheel into line, for fellers of the Bill stripe, out on the 
 plains, would ez leave plug a man in citizen's clothes, even 
 if he was the President himself, as they would drop on an 
 Injin or a nigger. ' Look here, Bill,' sez I, ' I 'm escortin' 
 this stranger under gov'meht orders, and I 'm responsible 
 for him. I ain't allowed to waste gov'ment powder and 
 shot on your kind onless I 've orders, but if you '11 wait till 
 I strip off this shell l I '11 lam the stuffin' outer ye, afore 
 the stranger.' With that Bill just danced with rage, but 
 dassent fire, for he knew, and I knew, that if he 'd plugged 
 me he 'd been a dead frontiersman afore the next mornin'." 
 1 Cavalry jacket. 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 29 
 
 " But you 'd have had to give him up to the authorities, 
 and a jury of his own kind would have set him free." 
 
 "Not much! If you hadn't just joined, you'd know 
 that ain't the way o' 30th Cavalry," returned the driver. 
 " The kernel would have issued his orders to bring in Bill 
 dead or alive, and the 30th would have managed to bring 
 him in dead ! Then your jury might have sat on him ! 
 Tell you what, chaps of the Bill stripe don't care overmuch 
 to tackle the yaller braid." 1 
 
 " But what 's this yer Congressman interferin' for, any- 
 way ? " 
 
 " He 's a rich Californian. Thinks he 's got a ' call,' I 
 reckon, to look arter Injins, just as them Abolitionists looked , 
 arter slaves. And get hated just as they was by the folks 
 here, — and as we are, too, for the matter of that." 
 
 "Well, I dunno," rejoined the farrier, "it don't seem 
 nateral for white men to quarrel with each other about the 
 way to treat an Injin, and that Injin lyin' in ambush to 
 shoot 'em both. And ef gov'ment would only make up its 
 mind how to treat 'em, instead of one day pretendin' to be 
 their ' Great Father' and treatin' 'em like babies, and the 
 next makin' treaties with 'em like as they wos forriners, and 
 the next sendin' out a handful of us to lick ten thousand 
 of 'em — Wot 's the use of one regiment — even two — ■ 
 agin a nation — on their own ground ? " 
 
 " A nation, — and on their own ground, — that 's just 
 whar you 've hit it, Softy. That 's the argument of that 
 Congressman Atherly, as I 've heard him talk with the 
 kernel." 
 
 " And what did the kernel say ? " 
 
 " The kernel reckoned it was his business to obey orders, 
 
 — and so should you. So shut your head ! If ye wanted 
 
 to talk about gov'ment ye might say suthin' about its usin' 
 
 us to convoy picnics and excursion parties around, who come 
 
 1 Characteristic trimming of cavalry jacket. 
 
30 THE ANCESTOES OF PETEE ATHEELT 
 
 out here to have a day's shootin', under some big-wig of a 
 political boss or a railroad president, with a letter to the gen- 
 eral. And we 're told off to look arter their precious skins, 
 and keep the Injins off 'em, — and they shootin' or skeerin' 
 off the Injins' nat'ral game, and our provender ! Darn my 
 skin ef there '11 be much to scout for ef this goes on. And 
 b'gosh! — ef they are n't now ringin' in a lot of titled for- 
 riners to hunt ' big game,' as they call it, — Lord This-and- 
 That and Count So-and-So, — all of 'em with letters to the 
 general from the Washington cabinet to show ' hospitality,' 
 or from millionaires who 've bin hobnobbin' with 'em in the 
 old country. And darn my skin ef some of 'em ain't bring- 
 in' their wives and sisters along too. There was a lord and 
 lady passed through here under escort last week, and we 're 
 goin' to pick up some more of 'em at Eort Biggs to-morrow, 
 — and I reckon some of us will be told off to act as ladies' 
 maids or milliners. Nothiu' short of a good Injin scare, I 
 reckon, would send them and us about our reg'lar business. 
 Whoa, then, will ye ? At it again, are ye ? What 's gone 
 of the d— d critter ? " 
 
 Here the fractious near horse was again beginning to 
 show signs of disturbance and active terror. His quiver- 
 ing nostrils were turned towards the wind, and he almost 
 leaped the centre pole in his frantic effort to avoid it. The 
 eyes of the two men were turned instinctively in that direc- 
 tion. Nothing was to be seen, — the illimitable plain and 
 the sinking sun were all that met the eye. But the horse 
 continued to struggle, and the wagon stopped. Then it 
 was discovered that the horse of an adjacent trooper was 
 also laboring under the same mysterious excitement, and at 
 the same moment wagon No. 3 halted. The infection of 
 Bome inexplicable terror was spreading among them. Then 
 two non-commissioned officers came riding down the line 
 at a sharp canter, and were joined quickly by the young 
 lieutenant, who gave an order. The trumpeter instinc* 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETES ATHERLY 81 
 
 tively raised his instrument to his lips, but was stopped by 
 another order. 
 
 And then, as seen by a distant observer, a singular spec- 
 tacle was unfolded. The straggling train suddenly seemed 
 to resolve itself into a large, widening circle of horsemen, 
 revolving round and partly hiding the few heavy wagons 
 that were being rapidly freed from their struggling teams. 
 These, too, joined the circle, and were driven before the 
 whirling troopers. Gradually the circle seemed to grow 
 smaller under the " winding-up " of those evolutions, until 
 the horseless wagons reappeared again, motionless, fronting 
 the four points of the compass, thus making the radii of a 
 smaller inner circle, into which the teams of the wagons 
 as well as the troopers' horses were closely " wound up " 
 and densely packed together in an immovable mass. As 
 the circle became smaller the troopers leaped from their 
 horses, — which, however, continued to blindly follow each 
 other in the narrower circle, — and ran to the wagons, car- 
 bines in hand. In five minutes from the time of giving 
 the order the straggling train was a fortified camp, the 
 horses corralled in. the centre, the dismounted troopers 
 securely posted with their repeating carbines in the angles 
 of the rude bastions formed by the deserted wagons, and 
 ready for an attack. The stampede, if such it was, was 
 stopped. 
 
 And yet no cause for it was to be seen ! Nothing in 
 earth or sky suggested a reason for this extraordinary panic, 
 or the marvelous evolution that suppressed it. The guide, 
 with three men in open order, rode out and radiated across 
 the empty plain, returning as empty of result. In an hour 
 the horses were sufficiently calmed and fed, the camp slowly 
 unwound itself, the teams were set to and were led out of 
 the circle, and as the rays of the setting sun began to expand 
 fanlike across the plain, the cavalcade moved on. But be- 
 tween them and the sinking sun, and visible through its last 
 
32 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHERLY 
 
 rays, was a faint line of haze parallel with their track. Ye* 
 even this, too, quickly faded away. 
 
 Had the guide, however, penetrated half a mile further 
 to the west, he would have come upon the cause of the 
 panic, and a spectacle more marvelous than that he had just 
 witnessed. For the illimitable plain with its monotonous 
 prospect was far from being level ; a hundred yards further 
 on he would have slowly and imperceptibly descended into 
 a depression nearly a mile in width. Here he not only 
 would have completely lost sight of his own cavalcade, but 
 have come upon another thrice its length. For here was 
 a trailing line of jog-trotting dusky shapes, some crouching 
 on dwarf ponies half their size, some trailing lances, lodge- 
 poles, rifles, women and children after them, all moving 
 with a monotonous rhythmic motion as marked as the mili- 
 tary precision of the other cavalcade, and always on a par- 
 allel line with it. They had done so all day, keeping touch 
 and distance by stealthy videttes that crept and crawled 
 along the imperceptible slope towards the unconscious white 
 men. It was, no doubt, the near proximity of one of those 
 watchers that had touched the keen scent of the troopers' 
 horses. 
 
 The moon came up ; the two cavalcades, scarcely a mile 
 apart, moved on in unison together. Then suddenly the 
 dusky caravan seemed to arise, stretch itself out, and swept 
 away like a morning mist towards the west. The bugles 
 of Fort Biggs had just rung out. 
 
 Peter Atherly was up early the next morning pacing the 
 veranda of the commandant's house at Fort Biggs. It had 
 been his intention to visit the new Indian Reservation that 
 day, but he had just received a letter announcing an unex- 
 pected visit from his sister, who wished to join him. He 
 had never told her the secret of their Indian paternity, as 
 it had been revealed to him from the scornful lips of Gray 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 33 
 
 Eagle a year before ; he knew her strangely excitable nature ; 
 besides, she was a wife now, and the secret would have to 
 be shared with her husband. When he himself had recov- 
 ered from the shock of the revelation, two things had im- 
 pressed themselves upon his reserved and gloomy nature : 
 a horror of his previous claim upon the Atherlys, and an 
 infinite pity and sense of duty towards his own race. He 
 had devoted himself and his increasing wealth to this one 
 object ; it seemed to him at times almost providential that 
 his position as a legislator, which he had accepted as a whim 
 or fancy, should have given him this singular opportunity. 
 Yet it was not an easy task or an enviable position. He 
 was obliged to divorce himself from his political party as 
 well as keep clear of the wild schemes of impractical enthu- 
 siasts, too practical " contractors," and the still more help- 
 less bigotry of Christian civilizers, who would have regen- 
 erated the Indian with a text which he did not understand 
 and they were unable to illustrate by example. He had 
 expected the opposition of lawless frontiersmen and igno- 
 rant settlers — as roughly indicated in the conversation 
 already recorded ; indeed, he had felt it difficult to argue 
 his humane theories under the smoking roof of a raided 
 settler's cabin, whose owner, however, had forgotten his 
 own repeated provocations, or the trespass of which he was 
 proud. But Atherly's unaffected and unobtrusive zeal, his 
 fixity of purpose, his undoubted courage, his self-abnegation, 
 and above all the gentle melancholy and half-philosophical 
 wisdom of this new missionary, won him the respect and 
 assistance of even the most callous or the most skeptical 
 of officials. The Secretary of the Interior had given him 
 carte blanche ; the President trusted him, and it was said 
 had granted him extraordinary powers. Oddly enough it 
 was only his own Californian constituency, who had once 
 laughed at what they deemed his early aristocratic preten- 
 Bions, who now found fault with his democratic philan- 
 
34 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHEELY 
 
 thropy. That a man who had been so well received in 
 England — the news of his visit to Ashley Grange had been 
 duly recorded — should sink so low as " to take up with 
 the Injins " of his own country galled their republican 
 pride. A few of his personal friends regretted that he 
 had not brought back from England more conservative and 
 fashionable graces, and had not improved his opportunities. 
 Unfortunately there was no essentially English policy of 
 trusting aborigines that they knew of. 
 
 In his gloomy self-scrutiny he had often wondered if he 
 ought not to openly proclaim his kinship with the despised 
 race, but he was always deterred by the thought of his sis- 
 ter and her husband, as well as by the persistent doubt 
 whether his advocacy of Indian rights with his fellow coun- 
 trymen would be as well served by such a course. And 
 here again he was perplexed by a singular incident of his 
 early missionary efforts which he had at first treated with 
 cold surprise, but to which later reflection had given a new 
 significance. After Gray Eagle's revelation he had made a 
 pilgrimage to the Indian country to verify the statements 
 regarding his dead father, — the Indian chief Silver Cloud. 
 Despite the confusion of tribal dialects he was amazed to 
 find that the Indian tongue came back to him almost as 
 a forgotten boyish memory, so that he was soon able to do 
 without an interpreter, but not until that functionary, who 
 knew his secret, appeared one day as a more significant 
 ambassador. " Gray Eagle says if you want truly to be a 
 brother to his people, you must take a wife among them. 
 He loves you — take one of his ! " Peter, through whose 
 veins — albeit of mixed blood — ran that Puritan ice so 
 often found throughout the Great West, was frigidly amazed. 
 In vain did the interpreter assure him that the wife in ques- 
 tion, Little Daybreak, was a wife only in name, a prudent 
 reserve kept by Gray Eagle in the orphan daughter of a 
 brother brave. But Peter was adamant. Whatever answer 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETEK ATHEKLY 35 
 
 the interpreter returned to Gray Eagle, he never knew. But 
 to his alarm he presently found that the Indian maiden 
 Little Daybreak had been aware of Gray Eagle's offer, and 
 had with pathetic simplicity already considered herself 
 Peter's spouse. During his stay at the encampment he 
 found her sitting before his lodge every morning. A girl 
 of sixteen in years, a child of six in intellect, she flashed 
 her little white teeth upon him when he lifted his tent flap, 
 content to receive his grave, melancholy bow, or patiently 
 trotted at his side carrying things he did not want, which 
 she had taken from the lodge. When he sat down to work, 
 she remained seated at a distance, looking at him with glis- 
 tening beady eyes like blackberries set in milk, and softly 
 scratching the little bare brown ankle of one foot with the 
 turned-in toes of the other, after an infantine fashion. Yet 
 after he had left, — a still single man, solely through his 
 interpreter's diplomacy, as he always believed, — he was 
 very worried as to the wisdom of his course. Why should 
 he not in this way ally himself to his unfortunate race irre- 
 vocably ? Perhaps there was an answer somewhere in his 
 consciousness which he dared not voice to himself. Since 
 his visit to the English Atherlys, he had put resolutely 
 aside everything that related to that episode, which he now 
 considered was an unhappy imposture. But there were 
 times when a vision of Lady Elfrida, gazing at him with 
 wondering, fascinated eyes, passed across his fancy ; even 
 the contact with his own race and his thoughts of their 
 wrongs recalled to him the tomb of the soldier Atherly and 
 the carven captive savage supporter. He could not pass 
 the upright supported bier of an Indian brave — slowly 
 desiccating in the desert air — without seeing in the dead 
 warrior's paraphernalia of arms and trophies some resem- 
 blance to the cross-legged crusader on whose marble effigy 
 she had girlishly perched herelf as she told the story of hei 
 ancestors. Yet only the peaceful gloom and repose of the 
 
36 THE ANCESTOES OF PETEE ATHERLY 
 
 old church touched him now ; even she, too, with all her 
 glory of English girlhood, seemed to belong to that remote 
 past. She was part of the restful quiet of the church ; the 
 yews in the quaint old churchyard might have waved over 
 her as well. 
 
 Still, he was eager to see his sister, and if he should 
 conclude to impart to her his secret, she might advise him. 
 At all events, he decided to delay his departure until her 
 arrival, a decision with which the commanding officer con- 
 curred, as a foraging party had that morning discovered 
 traces of Indians in the vicinity of the fort, and the lately 
 arrived commissary train had reported the unaccountable 
 but promptly prevented stampede. 
 
 Unfortunately, his sister Jenny appeared accompanied by 
 her husband, who seized an early opportunity to take Peter 
 aside and confide to him his anxiety about her health, and 
 the strange fits of excitement under which she occasionally 
 labored. Remembering the episode of the Californian woods 
 three years before, Peter stared at this good-natured, good- 
 looking man, whose life he had always believed she once im- 
 periled, and wondered more than ever at their strange union. 
 
 " Do you ever quarrel ? " asked Peter bluntly. 
 
 " No," said the good-hearted fellow warmly, " never ! 
 We have never had a harsh word ; she 's the dearest girl, 
 — the best wife in the world to me, but " — he hesitated, 
 " you know there are times when I think she confounds 
 me with somebody else, and is strange ! Sometimes when 
 we are in company she stands alone and stares at every- 
 body, without saying a word, as if she did n't understand 
 them. Or else she gets painfully excited and dances all 
 night until she is exhausted. I thought, perhaps," he 
 added timidly, " that you might know, and would tell me 
 if she had any singular experience as a child, — any illness, 
 or," he went on still more gently, " if perhaps her mother 
 or father " — 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 37 
 
 "No," interrupted Peter almost brusquely, with the 
 sudden conviction that this was no time for revelation of 
 his secret, " no, nothing." 
 
 "The doctor says," continued Lascelles with that hesi- 
 tating, almost mystic delicacy with which most gentlemen 
 approach a subject upon which their wives talk openly, 
 " that it may be owing to Jenny's peculiar state of health 
 just now, you know, and that if — all went well, you know, 
 and there should be — don't you see — a little child " — 
 
 Peter interrupted him with a start. A child ! Jenny's 
 child ! Silver Cloud's grandchild ! This was a complica- 
 tion he had not thought of. No ! It was too late to tell 
 his secret now. He only nodded his head abstractedly and 
 said coldly, " I dare say he is right." 
 
 Nevertheless, Jenny was looking remarkably well. Per- 
 haps it was the excitement of travel and new surroundings ; 
 but her tall, lithe figure, nearly half a head taller than her 
 husband's, was a striking one among the officers' wives in 
 the commandant's sitting-room. Her olive cheek glowed 
 with a faint illuminating color ; there was something even 
 patrician in her slightly curved nose and high cheek bones, 
 and her smile, rare even in her most excited moments, was, 
 like her brother's, singularly fascinating. The officers evi- 
 dently thought so too, and when the young lieutenant of 
 the commissary escort, fresh from West Point and Flirta- 
 tion Walk, gallantly attached himself to her, the ladies 
 were slightly scandalized at the naive air of camaraderie 
 with which Mrs. Lascelles received his attentions. Even 
 Peter was a little disturbed. Only Lascelles, delighted 
 with his wife's animation, and pleased at her success, gazed 
 at her with unqualified admiration. Indeed, he was so sat- 
 isfied with her improvement, and so sanguine of her ulti- 
 mate recovery, that he felt justified in leaving her with her 
 brother and returning to Omaha by the regular mail wagon 
 next day. There was no danger to be apprehended in hea 
 
38 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 accompanying Peter ; they would have a full escort ; the 
 reservation lay in a direction unfrequented by marauding 
 tribes ; the road was the principal one used by the govern- 
 ment to connect the fort with the settlements, and well 
 traveled ; the officers' wives had often journeyed thither. 
 
 The childish curiosity and high spirits which Jenny 
 showed on the journey to the reservation were increased 
 when she reached it and drew up before the house of the 
 Indian agent. Peter was relieved ; he had been anxious 
 and nervous as to any instinctive effect which might be pro- 
 duced on her excitable nature by a first view of her own 
 kinsfolk, although she was still ignorant of her relationship. 
 Her interest, her curiosity, however, had nothing abnor- 
 mal in it. But he was not prepared for the effect produced 
 upon them at her first appearance. A few of the braves 
 gathered eagerly around her, and one even addressed her 
 in his own guttural tongue, at which she betrayed a slight 
 feeling of alarm ; and Peter saw with satisfaction that 
 she drew close to him. Knowing that his old interpreter 
 and Gray Eagle were of a different and hostile tribe a hun- 
 dred miles away, and that his secret was safe with them, 
 he simply introduced her as his sister. But he presently 
 found that the braves had added to their curiosity a certain 
 suspiciousness and sullen demeanor, and he was glad to 
 resign his sister into the hands of the agent's wife, while 
 he prosecuted his business of examination and inspection. 
 Later, on his return to the cabin, he was met by the agent, 
 who seemed to be with difficulty suppressing a laugh. 
 
 " Your sister is exciting quite a sensation here," he said. 
 " Do you know that some of. these idiotic braves and the 
 Medicine Man insist upon it that she 's a squaw, and that 
 you 're keeping her in captivity against your plighted faith 
 to them ! You '11 excuse me," he went on with an attempt 
 to recover his gravity, " troubling you with their d — d 
 fool talk, and you won't say anything to her about it, but 
 
THE ANCESTOES OF PETER ATHEELY 89 
 
 I thought you ought to know it on account of your posi- 
 tion among 'em. You don't want to lose their confidence, 
 and you know how easily their skeery faculties are stam- 
 peded with an idea ! " 
 
 " "Where is she now ? " demanded Peter, with a darken- 
 ing face. 
 
 " Somewhere with the squaws, I reckon. I thought she 
 might be a little skeered of the braves, and I 've kept them 
 away. She 's all right, you know ; only if you intend to 
 stay here long, I 'd " — 
 
 But Peter was already striding away in the direction of 
 a thicket of cottonwood where he heard the ripple of 
 women's and children's voices. When he had penetrated 
 it, he found his sister sitting on a stump, surrounded by a 
 laughing,-gesticulating crowd of young girls and old women, 
 with a tightly swaddled papoose in her lap. Some of them 
 had already half mischievously, half curiously possessed 
 themselves of her dust cloak, hat, parasol, and gloves, and 
 were parading before her in their grotesque finery, appar- 
 ently as much to her childish excited amusement as their 
 own. She was even answering their gesticulations with 
 equivalent gestures in her attempt to understand them, and 
 trying amidst shouts of laughter to respond to the monoto- 
 nous chant of the old women who were zigzagging a dance 
 before her. With the gayly striped blankets lying on the. 
 ground, the strings of beads, wampum, and highly colored 
 feathers hanging from the trees, and the flickering lights 
 and shadows, it was an innocent and even idyllic picture, 
 but the more experienced Peter saw in the performances 
 only the uncertain temper and want of consecutive idea of 
 playing animals, and the stolid, unwinking papoose in his 
 sister's lap gave his sentiment a momentary shock. 
 
 Seeing him approach she ran to meet him, the squaws 
 and children slinking away from his grave face. " I have 
 had such a funny time, Peter ! Only to think of it, I he- 
 
40 THE ANCESTOES OF PETEE ATHEBLY 
 
 lievs they 've never seen men or women with decent clothe* 
 hefore, — of course the settlers' wives don't dress much, — • 
 and I helievc they 'd have had everything I possess if you 
 had n't come. But they 're too funny for anything. It 
 was killing tc see them put on my hat wrong side hefore, 
 and try to make one out of my parasol. But I like them 
 a great deal hetter than those gloomy chiefs, and I think I 
 understand them almost. And do you know, Peter, some- 
 how I seem to have known them all hefore. And those 
 dear little papooses, are n't they ridiculously lovely. I 
 only wish " — She stopped, for Peter had somewhat hur- 
 riedly taken the Indian hoy from her arms and restored it 
 to the frightened mother. A singular change came over 
 her face, and she glanced at him quickly. But she resumed, 
 with a heightened color, " I like it ever so much hetter 
 here than down at the fort. And ever so much better than 
 New York. I don't wonder that you like them so much, 
 Peter, and are so devoted to them. Don't he angry, dear, 
 because I let them have my things ; I 'm sure I never cared 
 particularly for them, and I think it would be such fun to 
 dress as they do." Peter remembered keenly his sudden 
 shock at her precipitate change to bright colors after leav- 
 ing her novitiate at the Sacred Heart. " I do hope," she 
 went on eagerly, " that we are going to stay a long time 
 here." 
 
 " We are leaving to-morrow," he said curtly. " I find 
 I have urgent business at the fort." 
 
 And they did leave. None too soon, thought Peter and 
 the Indian agent, as they glanced at the faces of the dusky 
 chiefs who had gathered around the cabin. Luckily the 
 presence of their cavalry escort rendered any outbreak im- 
 possible, and the stoical taciturnity of the race kept Peter 
 from any verbal insult. But Mrs. Lascelles noticed their 
 lowering dissatisfaction, and her eyes flashed. " I wonder 
 you don't punish them," she said simply. 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHEKLY 41 
 
 For a few days after their return she did not allude to 
 '-">• visit, and Peter was beginning to think that her late 
 impressions were as volatile as they were childlike. He 
 devoted himself to his government report, and while he kept 
 up his communications with the reservation and the agent, 
 for the present domiciled himself at the fort. 
 
 Colonel Carter, the commandant, though doubtful of civil- 
 ians, was not slow to appreciate the difference of playing 
 host to a man of Atherly's wealth and position, and even 
 found in Peter's reserve and melancholy an agreeable relief 
 to the somewhat boisterous and material recreations of garri- 
 son life, and a gentle check upon the younger officers. For, 
 while Peter did not gamble or drink, there was yet an un- 
 obtrusive and gentle dignity in his abstention that relieved 
 him from the attitude of a prig or an " example." Mrs. 
 Lascelles was popular with the officers, and accepted more 
 tolerantly by the wives, since they recognized her harmless- 
 ness. Once or twice she was found apparently interested 
 in the gesticulations of a few " friendlies " who had pene- 
 trated the parade ground of the fort to barter beads and 
 wampum. The colonel was obliged at last to caution her 
 against this, as it was found that in her inexperience she 
 had given them certain articles that were contraband of the 
 rules, and finally to stop them from an intrusion which was 
 becoming more frequent and annoying. Left thus to her- 
 self, she relieved her isolation by walks beyond the precincts 
 of the garrison, where she frequently met those " friendly " 
 wanderers, chiefly squaws and children. Here she was again 
 cautioned by the commander, — 
 
 " Don't put too much faith in those creatures, Mrs. Las- 
 celles." 
 
 Jenny elevated her black brows and threw up her arched 
 nose like a charger. " I 'ni not afraid of old women and 
 children," she said loftily. 
 
 " But i" am," said the colonel gravely. " It 's a horrible 
 
42 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 thing to think of, but these feeble old women and innocent 
 children are always selected to torture the prisoners taken 
 by the braves, and, by Jove, they seem to like it." 
 
 Thus restricted, Mrs. Lascelles fell back upon the atten- 
 tions of Lieutenant Forsyth, whose gallantry was always 
 as fresh as his smart cadet-like tunics, and they took some 
 rides together. Whether it was military caution or the 
 feminine discretion of the colonel's wife, — to the quiet 
 amusement of the other officers, — a trooper was added to 
 the riding party by the order of the colonel, and thereafter 
 it consisted of three. One night, however, the riders did 
 not appear at dinner, and there was considerable uneasiness 
 mingled with some gossip throughout the garrison. It was 
 already midnight before they arrived, and then with horses 
 blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party 
 bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel 
 said a few sharp, decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale 
 and reticent, plucked at his little mustache, but took the 
 whole blame upon himself. He and Mrs. Lascelles had, he 
 said, outridden the trooper and got lost ; it was late when 
 Oassidy (the trooper) found them, but it was no fault of his, 
 Mid they had to ride at the top of their speed to cover the 
 ground between them and the fort. It was noticed that Mrs. 
 Lascelles scarcely spoke to Forsyth, and turned abruptly 
 away from the colonel's interrogations and went to her room. 
 
 Peter, absorbed in his report, scarcely noticed the incident, 
 1 or the singular restraint that seemed to fall upon the little 
 military household for a day or two afterwards. He had 
 accepted the lieutenant's story without comment or ques- 
 tion ; he knew his own sister too well to believe that she 
 had lent herself to a flirtation with Forsyth ; indeed, he 
 had rather pitied the young officer when he remembered 
 Lascelles' experience in his early courtship. But he was 
 somewhat astonished one afternoon to find the trooper Cas- 
 Bidy alone in his office. 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 43 
 
 " Oi thought Oi 'd make bould to have a word wid ye, 
 sorr," he said, recovering from a stiff salute with his fingers 
 nipping the cord of his trousers. " It 's not for meeself, 
 sorr, although the ould man was harrd on me, nor for the 
 leddy, your sister, but for the sake of the leftenant, sorr, 
 who the ould man was harrdest on of all. Oi was of the 
 parrty that rode with your sister." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I remember, I heard the story," said Peter. 
 " She and Mr. Forsyth got lost." 
 
 " Axin' your pardin, sorr, she did n't. Mr. Forsyth loid. 
 Loid like an officer and a jintleman — as he is, God bless 
 him — to save a leddy, more betoken your sister, sorr. They 
 never got lost, sorr. We was all three together from the 
 toime we shtarted till we got back, and it's the love av 
 God that we ever got back at all. And it 's breakin' me 
 hearrt, sorr, to see Mm goin' round with the black looks of 
 everybody upon him, and he a-twirlin' his mustache and 
 purtending not to mind." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said Peter uneasily. 
 
 " Oi mane to be tellin' you what happened, sorr," said 
 Cassidy stoutly. "When we shtarted out Oi fell three 
 files to the rear, as became me, so as not to be in the way 
 o' their colloguing, but sorra a bit o' stragglin' was there, 
 and Oi kept them afore me all the toime. When we got 
 to Post Oak Bottom the leddy p'ints her whip off to the 
 roight, and sez she : ' It 's a fine bit of turf there, Misther 
 Forsyth,' invitin' like, and with that she gallops away to 
 the right. The leftenant follys her, and Oi closed up the 
 rear. So we rides away innoshent like amongst the trees, 
 me thinkin' only it wor a mighty queer place for manoo- 
 vrin', until we seed, just beyond us in the hollow, the smoke 
 of an Injin camp and a lot of women and childer. And 
 Mrs. Lascelles gets off and goes to discoursin' and blarney- 
 ing wid 'em ; and Oi sees Mr. Forsyth glancin' round and 
 lookin' oneasy. Then he goes up and sez something tfl 
 
44 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLT 
 
 your sister, and she won't give him a hearin'. And then 
 he tells her she must mount and he off. And she turns 
 upon him, bedad, like a tayger, and bids him be off him- 
 self. Then he comes to me and sez he, ' Oi don't like the 
 look o' this, Cassidy,' sez he ; ' the woods behind is full of 
 braves,' sez he. ' Thrue for you, leftenant,' sez Oi, ' it 's 
 into a trap that the leddy hez led us, God save her ! ' 
 ' Whisht,' he sez, ' take my horse, it 's the strongest. Go 
 beside her, and when Oi say the word lift her up into the 
 saddle before ye, and gallop like blazes. Oi '11 bring up 
 the rear and the other horse.' Wid that we changed horses 
 and cantered up to where she was standing, and he gives 
 the word when she is n't lookin', and Oi grabs her up — 
 she sthrugglin' like mad but not utterin' a cry — and Oi 
 lights out for the trail agin. And sure enough the braves 
 made as if they would folly, but the leftenant throws the 
 reins of her horse over the horn of his saddle, and whips 
 out his revolver and houlds 'em back till I 've got well 
 away to the trail again. And then they let fly their arrows, 
 and begorra the next thing a bullet whizzes by him. And 
 then he knows they have arrms wid 'em and are ' hostiles,' 
 and he rowls the nearest one over, wheelin' and fightin' and 
 coverin' our retreat till we gets to the road agin. And 
 they daren't folly us out of cover. Then the lady gets 
 more sinsible, and the leftenant pershuades her to mount 
 her horse agin. But before we comes to the fort, he sez to 
 me : ' Cassidy,' sez he, ' not a word o' this on account of 
 the leddy.' And I was mum, sorr, while he was shootin' 
 off his mouth about him bein' lost and all that, and him 
 bein' bully-ragged by the kernel, and me knowin' that but 
 for him your sister would n't be between these walls here, 
 and Oi would n't be talkin' to ye. And shure, sorr, ye 
 might be tellin' the kernel as how the leddy was took by the 
 hysterics, and was that loony that she didn't know what- 
 ever she was sayin', and so get the leftenant in favor again." 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHEELY 45 
 
 "I will speak with the colonel to-night," said Peter 
 gloomily. 
 
 " Lord save yer honor," returned the trooper gratefully, 
 " and if ye could be sayin' that the leddy tould you, — 
 it would only be the merest taste of a loi ye 'd be tellin', 
 — and you 'd save me from breakin' me word to the lef- 
 tenant." 
 
 " I shall of course speak to my sister first," returned 
 Peter, with a guilty consciousness that he had accepted the 
 trooper's story mainly from his previous knowledge of his 
 sister's character. Nevertheless, in spite of this foregone 
 conclusion, he did speak to her. To his surprise she did not 
 deny it. Lieutenant Forsyth — a vain and conceited fool, 
 . — whose silly attentions she had accepted solely that she 
 might get recreation beyond the fort — had presumed to 
 tell her what she must do ! As if she was one of those 
 stupid officers' wives or sisters ! And it never would have 
 happened if he — Peter — had let her remain at the reser- 
 vation with the Indian agent's wife, or if " Charley " (the 
 gentle Lascelles) were here ! He would have let her go, 
 or taken her there. Besides, all the while she was among 
 friends ; his, Peter's own friends, — the people whose cause 
 he was championing ! In vain did Peter try to point out 
 to her that these " people " were still children in mind 
 and impulse, and capable of vacillation or even treachery. 
 He remembered he was talking to a child in mind and im- 
 pulse, who had shown the same qualities, and in trying to 
 convince her of her danger he felt he was only voicing the 
 common arguments of his opponents. 
 
 He spoke also to the colonel, excusing her through her 
 ignorance, her trust in his influence with the savages, and 
 the general derangement of her health. The colonel, re- 
 lieved of his suspicions of a promising young officer, was 
 gentle and sympathetic, but firm as to Peter's future 
 course. In a moment of caprice and willfulness she might 
 
46 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEK ATHERLT 
 
 imperil the garrison as she had her escort, and, more than 
 that, she was imperiling Peter's influence with the Indians. 
 Absurd stories had come to his ears regarding the attitude 
 of the reservation towards him. He thought she ought to 
 return home as quickly as possible. Fortunately, an oppor- 
 tunity offered. The general commanding had advised him 
 of the visit to the fort of a party of English tourists who had 
 been shooting in the vicinity, and who were making the 
 fort the farthest point of their western excursion. There 
 were three or four ladies in the party, and as they would 
 be returning to the line of railroad under escort, she could 
 easily accompany them. This, added Colonel Carter, was 
 also Mrs. Carter's opinion, — she was a woman of experi- 
 ence, and had a married daughter of her own. In the 
 mean time Peter had better not broach the subject to his 
 sister, but trust to the arrival of the strangers, who would 
 remain for a week, and who would undoubtedly divert 
 Mrs. Lascelles' impressible mind, and eventually make the 
 proposition more natural and attractive. 
 
 In the interval Peter revisited the reservation, and en- 
 deavored to pacify the irritation that had sprung from his 
 previous inspection. The outrage at Post Oak Bottom he 
 was assured had no relation to the incident at the reserva- 
 tion, but was committed by some stragglers from other tribes 
 who had not yet accepted the government bounty, yet had 
 not been thus far classified as " hostile." There had been 
 no " Ghost Dancing " nor other indication of disturbance. 
 The colonel had not deemed it necessary to send out an 
 exemplary force, or make a counter demonstration. The 
 incident was allowed to drop. At the reservation Peter 
 had ignored the previous conduct of the chiefs towards him ; 
 had with quiet courage exposed himself fully — unarmed 
 and unattended — amongst them, and had as fully let it be 
 known that this previous incident was the reason that his 
 Bister had not accompanied him on his second visit. He 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 47 
 
 left them at the close of the second day more satisfied in 
 his mind, and perhaps in a more enthusiastic attitude towards 
 his report. 
 
 As he came within sound of the sunset bugles, he struck 
 a narrower trail which led to the fort, through an oasis of 
 oaks and cottonwoods and a small stream or " branch," 
 which afterwards lost itself in the dusty plain. He had 
 already passed a few settlers' cabins, a sutler's shop, and 
 other buildings that had sprung up around this armed nu- 
 cleus of civilization — which, in due season, was to become 
 a frontier town. But as yet the brief wood was wild and 
 secluded ; frequented only by the women and children of the 
 fort, within whose protecting bounds it stood, and to whose 
 formal " parade," and trim white and green cottage " quar- 
 ters," it afforded an agreeable relief. As he rode abstract- 
 edly forward under the low cotton wood vault he felt a strange 
 influence stealing over him, an influence that was not only 
 a present experience, but at the same time a far-off memory. 
 The concave vault above deepened ; the sunset light from 
 the level horizon beyond streamed through the leaves as 
 through the checkers of stained glass windows; through the 
 two shafts before him stretched the pillared aisles of Ashley 
 Church ! He was riding as in a dream, and when a figure 
 suddenly slipped across his pathway from a column-like tree 
 trunk, he woke with the disturbance and sense of unreality 
 of a dream. For he saw Lady Elfrida standing before him ! 
 
 It was not a mere memory conjured up by association, for 
 although the figure, face, and attitude were the same, there 
 were certain changes of costume which the eye of recollec- 
 tion noticed. In place of the smart, narrow-brimmed sailor 
 hat he remembered, she was wearing a slouched cavalry hat 
 with a gold cord around its crown, that, with all its becom- 
 ingness and picturesque audacity, seemed to become charac- 
 teristic and respectable, as a crest to her refined head, and 
 as historic as a Lely canvas. She wore a flannel shirt, belted 
 
48 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHEELT 
 
 in at her slight waist with a band of yellow leather, defining 
 her small hips, and short, straight, pleatless skirts that fell 
 to her trim ankles and buckled leather shoes. She was fresh 
 and cool, wholesome and clean, free and unfettered ; indeed, 
 her beauty seemed only an afterthought or accident. So 
 much so that when Peter saw her afterwards, amidst the 
 billowy, gauzy, and challenging graces of the officers' wives, 
 who were dressed in their best and prettiest frocks to wel- 
 come her, the eye turned naturally from that suggestion 
 of enhancement to the girl who seemed to defy it. She 
 was clearly not an idealized memory, a spirit or a ghost, 
 but naturalistic and rosy ; he thought a trifle rosier, as she 
 laughingly addressed him. 
 
 " I suppose it is n't quite fair to surprise you like that," 
 she said, with an honest girlish hand-shake, " for you see I 
 know all about you now, and what you are doing here, and 
 even when you were expected ; and I dare say you thought 
 we were still in England, if you remembered us at all. And 
 we have n't met since that day at Ashley Church when I 
 put my foot in it, — or rather on your pet protege's, the 
 Indian's : you remember Major Atherly's tomb ? And to 
 think that all the while we did n't know that you were a 
 public man and a great political reformer, and had a fad like 
 this. Why, we 'd have got up meetings for you, and my 
 father would have presided, — he's always fond of doing 
 these things, — and we 'd have passed resolutions, and given 
 you subscriptions, and Bibles, and flannel shirts, and revolv- 
 ers — but I believe you draw the line at that. My brother 
 was saying only the other day that you were n't half praised 
 enough for going in for this sort of thing when you were so 
 rich, and needn't care. And so that's why you rushed 
 away from Ashley Grange, — just to come here and work 
 out your mission ? " 
 
 His whole life, his first wild Californian dream, his Eng- 
 lish visit, the revelation of Gray Eagle, the final collapse of 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETEK ATHEELY 4S 
 
 his old beliefs, were whirling through his brain to the music 
 of this clear young voice. And by some cruel irony of cir- 
 cumstance it seemed now to even mock his later dreams of 
 expiation as it also called back his unhappy experience of 
 the last week. 
 
 " Have you — have you " — he stammered with a faint 
 smile, " seen my sister ? " 
 
 "Not yet," said Lady Elfrida. "I believe she is not 
 well and is confined to her room ; you will introduce me, 
 won't you ? " she added eagerly. " Of course, when we 
 heard that there was an Atherly here, we inquired about 
 you ; and I told them you were a relation of ours," she went 
 on with a half-mischievous shyness, — " you remember the 
 De Brecys, — and they seemed surprised and rather curious. 
 I suppose one does not talk so much about these things over 
 here, and I dare say you have so much to occupy your mind 
 you don't talk of us in England." With the quickness of 
 a refined perception she saw a slight shade in his face, and 
 changed the subject. " And we have had such a jolly time ; 
 we have met so many pleasant people; and they 've all been 
 &o awfully good to us, from the officials and officers down 
 to the plainest workingman. And all so naturally, too — 
 bo different from us. I sometimes think we have to work 
 ourselves up to be civil to strangers." " No," she went on 
 gayl}', in answer to his protesting gesture, and his stammered 
 reminder of his own reception, — " no ; you came as a sort 
 of kinsman, and Sir Edward knew all about you before he 
 asked you down to the Grange — or even sent over for me 
 from th<? Towers. No ! you Americans take people on their 
 ' face value,' as my brother Eeggy says, and we always want 
 to know what are the ' securities.' And then American men 
 are more gallant, though," she declared mischievously, " I 
 think you are an exception in that way. Indeed," she went 
 on, " the more I see of your countrymen, the less you seem 
 like them. You are more like us, — more like an English- 
 
50 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 man ; indeed, more like an Englishman than most English- 
 men, — I mean in the matter of reserve and all that sort of 
 thing, you know. It 's odd, — is n't it ? Is your sister like 
 you ? " 
 
 " You shall judge for yourself," said Peter with a gayety 
 that was forced in proportion as his forebodings became more 
 gloomy. Would his sister's peculiarities — even her secret 
 — be safe from the clear eyes of the young girl ? 
 
 " I know I shall like her," said Lady Elfrida simply. 
 " I mean to make friends with her before we leave, and I 
 hope to see a great deal of her ; and," she said with a naive 
 non sequitur, that, however, had its painful significance to 
 Peter, " I do want you to show me some Indians ■ — your 
 Indians, you know — your friends. I 've seen some of them, 
 of course; I am afraid I am a little prejudiced, for I did 
 not like them. You see my taste has to be educated, I sup- 
 pose ; but I thought them so foolishly vain and presuming." 
 
 " That is their perfect childishness," said Peter quickly. 
 " It is not, I believe, considered a moral defect," he added 
 bitterly. 
 
 Lady Elfrida laughed, and yet at the same moment a look 
 of appeal that was in itself quite as childlike shone in her 
 blue eyes. " There, I have blundered again, I know ; but 
 I told you I have such ridiculous prejudices ! And I really 
 want to like them as you do. Only," she laughed again, 
 " it seems strange that you, of all men, should have inter- 
 ested yourself in people so totally different to you. But 
 what will be the result if your efforts are successful ? Will 
 they remain a distinct race ? Will you make citizens, sol- 
 diers, congressmen, governors of them ? Will they inter- 
 marry with the whites ? Is that a part of your plan ? I 
 hope not ! " 
 
 It was a part of Peter's sensitive excitement that even 
 through the unconscious irony of this speech he was notic 
 ing the difference between the young English girl's evident 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 51 
 
 interest in a political problem and the utter indifference of 
 his own countrywomen. Here was a girl scarcely out of 
 her teens, with no pretension to being a blue stocking, with 
 half the aplomb of an American girl of her own age, gravely 
 considering a question of political economy. Oddly enough, 
 it added to his other irritation, and he said almost abruptly, 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 She took the question literally and with a little youthful 
 timidity. " But these mixed races never attain to anything, 
 do they ? I thought that was understood. But," she 
 added with feminine quickness, " and I suppose it 's again 
 only & personal argument, you would n't like your sister to 
 have married an Indian, would you ? " 
 
 The irony of the situation had reached its climax to 
 Peter. It did not seem to be his voice that said, " I can 
 answer by an argument still more personal. I have even 
 thought myself of marrying an Indian woman." 
 
 It seemed to him that what he said was irrevocable, but 
 he was desperate. It seemed to him that in a moment more 
 he would have told her his whole secret. But the young girl 
 drew back from him with a slight start of surprise. There 
 may have been something in the tone of his voice and in 
 his manner that verged upon a seriousness she was never 
 contemplating in her random talk; it may have been an 
 uneasiness of some youthful imprudence in pressing the sub- 
 ject upon a man of his superiority, and that his abrupt 
 climax was a rebuke. But it was only for a moment ; her 
 youthful buoyancy, and, above all, a certain common sense 
 that was not incompatible to her high nature, came to hei 
 rescue. " But that," she said, with quick mischievousness, 
 '■' would be a sacrifice taken in the interest of these people, 
 don't you see ; and being a sacrifice, it 's no argument." 
 
 Peter saw his mistake, but there was something so inno- 
 cent and delightful in the youthful triumph of this red- 
 lipped logician that he was forced to smile. I have said 
 
£2 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 that his smile was rare and fascinating, a concession wrung 
 from his dark face and calm, beardless lips that most people 
 found irresistible, but it was odd, nevertheless, that Lady 
 Klfiiila now for the first time felt a sudden and not alto- 
 gether unpleasant embarrassment over the very subject she 
 had approached with such innocent fearlessness. There 
 was a new light in her eyes, a fresher color in her cheeks, 
 as she turned her face — she knew not why — away from 
 him. But it enabled her to see a figure approaching them 
 from the fort. And I grieve to say that, perhaps for the 
 first time in her life, Lady Elfrida was guilty of an affected 
 start. 
 
 " Oh, here 's Reggy coming to look for me. I 'd quite 
 forgotten, but I 'm so glad. I want you to know my bro- 
 ther Peggy. He was always so sorry he missed you at the 
 Grange." 
 
 The tall, young, good-looking brown Englishman who 
 had sauntered up bestowed a far more critical glance upon 
 Peter's horse than upon Peter, but nevertheless grasped his 
 hand heartily as his sister introduced him. Perhaps both 
 men were equally undemonstrative, although the reserve of 
 one was from temperament and the other from education. 
 Nevertheless, Lord Reginald remarked, with a laugh, that 
 it was awfully jolly to be there, and that it had been a 
 beastly shame that he was in Scotland when Atherly was 
 at the Grange. That none of them had ever suspected till 
 they came to the fort that he, Atherly, was one of those 
 government chappies, and so awfully keen on Indian poli- 
 tics. " Friddy " had been the first to find it out, but they 
 thought she was chaffing. At which " Friddy," who had 
 suddenly resolved herself into the youthfulest of schoolgirls 
 in the presence of her brother, put her parasol like an In- 
 dian club behind her back, and still rosy, beamed admir- 
 ingly upon Eeggy. Then the three, Peter leading his horse, 
 moved on towards the fort, presently meeting " Georgy," 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 53 
 
 the six-foot Guardsman cousin in extraordinary tweeds and 
 flannel shirt; Lord Eunny broke, uncle of Friddy, mid- 
 dle-aged and flannel-shirted, a mighty hunter ; Lady Eun- 
 uybroke, in a brown duster, but with a stately head that 
 suggested ostrich feathers ; Moyler-Spence, M. P., with an 
 eyeglass ; and the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, closely attended by 
 the always gallant Lieutenant Forsyth. Peter began to 
 feel a nervous longing to be alone on the burning plain and 
 the empty horizon beyond them, until he could readjust 
 himself to these new conditions, and glanced half wearily 
 around him. But his eye met Friddy's, who seemed to 
 have evoked this gathering with a wave of her parasol, like 
 the fairy of a pantomime, and he walked on in silence. 
 
 A day or two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. 
 In these new surroundings he found he could separate Lady 
 Elfrida from his miserable past, and the conventional re- 
 straint of Ashley Grange. Again, the revelation of her 
 familiar name Friddy seemed to make her more accessible 
 and human to him than her formal title, and suited the 
 girlish simplicity that lay at the foundation of her character, 
 of which he had seen so little before. At least so he fan- 
 cied, and so excused himself ; it was delightful to find her 
 referring to him as an older friend ; pleasant, indeed, to see 
 that her family tacitly recognized it, and frequently ap- 
 pealed to him with the introduction " Friddy says you can 
 tell us," or " You and Friddy had better arrange it between 
 you." Even the dreaded introduction of his sister was an 
 agreeable surprise, owing to Lady Elfrida's frank and sym- 
 pathetic prepossession, which Jenny could not resist. In 
 a few moments they were walking together in serious and 
 apparently confidential conversation. For to Peter's won- 
 der it was the " Lady Elfrida " side of the English girl's 
 nature that seemed to have attracted Jenny, and not the 
 playfulness of " Friddy," and he was delighted to see that 
 the young girl had assumed a grave chaperonship of the tall 
 
54 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles that would have done credit to Mrs. Cartel 
 or Lady Runnybroke. Had he been less serious he might 
 have been amused, too, at the importance of his own posi- 
 tion in the military outpost, through the arrival of the 
 strangers. That this grave political enthusiast and civilian 
 should be on familiar terms with a young Englishwoman of 
 rank was at first inconceivable to the officers. And that he 
 had never alluded to it before seemed to them still more 
 remarkable. 
 
 Nevertheless, there was much liveliness and good fellow- 
 ship at the fort. Captains and lieutenants down to the 
 youngest " cub," Forsyth, vied with each other to please the 
 Englishmen, supplied them with that characteristic American 
 humor and anecdote which it is an Englishman's privilege 
 to bring away with him, and were picturesquely and chival- 
 rously devoted in their attentions to the ladies, who were 
 pleased and amused by it, though it is to be doubted if it 
 increased their respect for the giver, although they were 
 more grateful for it than the average American woman. Lady 
 Elfrida found the officers very entertaining and gallant. Ac- 
 customed to the English officer, and his somewhat bored way 
 of treating his profession and his duties, she may have been 
 amused at the zeal, earnestness, and enthusiasm of these 
 youthful warriors who aspired to appear as nothing but sol- 
 diers, when she contrasted them with her Guardsmen relatives 
 who aspired to be everything else but that ; but she kept it 
 to herself. It was a recognized, respectable, and even supe- 
 rior occupation for gentlemen in England ; what it might 
 be in America, — who knows ? She certainly found Peter, 
 the civilian, more attractive, for there really was nothing 
 English to compare him with, and she had something of the 
 same feeling in her friendship for Jenny, except the patron- 
 age which Jenny seemed to solicit, and perhaps require, as 
 a foreigner. 
 
 One afternoon the English guests, accompanied by a few 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 55 
 
 of their hosts and a small escort, were making a shooting 
 expedition to the vicinity of Green Spring, when Peter, 
 plunged in his report, looked up to find his sister entering 
 his office. Her face was pale, and there was something in 
 her expression which reawakened his old anxiety. Never- 
 theless, he smiled, and said gently : — 
 
 " Why are you not enjoying yourself with the others ? " 
 
 " I have a headache," she said languidly ; " but," lifting 
 her eyes suddenly to his, " why are you not ? You are 
 their good friend, you know, — even their relation." 
 
 "No more than you are," he returned, with affected gay- 
 ety. " But look at the report — it is only half finished ! I 
 have already been shirking it for them." 
 
 " You must n't let your devotion to the Indians keep you 
 from your older friends," said Mrs. Lascelles, with an odd 
 laugh. " But you never told me about these people before, 
 Peter ; tell me now. They were very kind to you, were n't 
 they, on account of your relationship ? " 
 
 " Entirely on account of that," said Peter, with a sudden 
 bitterness he could not repress. " But they are very plea- 
 sant," he added quickly, " and very simple and unaffected, 
 in spite of their rank ; perhaps I ought to say, because 
 of it." 
 
 " You mean they are kind to us because they feel them- 
 selves superior, — just as you are kind to the Indians, Peter." 
 
 " I am afraid they have no such sense of political equality 
 towards us, Jenny, as impels me to be just to the Indian," 
 he said, with affected lightness. " But Lady Elfrida sympa- 
 thizes with the Indians — very much." 
 
 " She ! " The emphasis which his sister put upon the 
 personal pronoun was unmistakable, but Peter ignored it, 
 and so apparently did she, as she said the next moment in 
 a different voice, " She 's very pretty, don't you think ? " 
 
 " Very," said Peter coldly. 
 
 There was a long pause. Peter slightly fingered one of 
 
56 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLT 
 
 the sheets of his delayed report on his desk. His sistet 
 looked up. " I 'm afraid I 'm as had as Lady Elfrida in 
 keeping you from your Indians ; hut I had something to say 
 to you. No matter, another time will do when you 're not 
 so busy." 
 
 " Please go on now," said Peter, with affected unconcern, 
 yet with a feeling of uneasiness creeping over him. 
 
 " It was only this," said Jenny, seating herself with her 
 elbow on the desk and her chin in a cup-like hollow of her 
 hand, " did you ever think that in the interests of these 
 poor Indians, you know, purely for the sake of your belief 
 in them, and just to show that you were above vulgar pre- 
 judices, — did you ever think you could marry one of them ? " 
 
 Two thoughts flashed quickly on Peter's mind, — first, 
 that Lady Elfrida had repeated something of their conver- 
 sation to his sister ; secondly, that some one had told her 
 of Little Daybreak. Each was equally disturbing. But he 
 recovered himself quickly and said, " I might if I thought 
 it was required. But even a sacrifice is not always an ex- 
 ample." 
 
 " Then you think it would be a sacrifice ? " she said, 
 slowly raising her dark eyes to his. 
 
 " If I did something against received opinion, against pre- 
 cedent, and for aught I know against even the prejudices of 
 those I wish to serve, however lofty my intention was and 
 however great the benefit to them in the end, it would still 
 be a sacrifice in the present." He saw his own miserable 
 logic and affected didactics, but he went on lightly, " But 
 why do you ask such a question ? You have n't any one 
 in your mind for me, have you ? " 
 
 She had risen thoughtfully and was moving towards the 
 door. Suddenly she turned with a quick, odd vivacity : 
 " Perhaps I had. Oh, Peter, there was such a lovely littlt 
 squaw I saw the last time I was at Oak Bottom ! She was 
 Do darker than I am, but so beautiful. Even in her little 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETEK ATHEKLY 57 
 
 cotton gown and blanket, with only a string of beads around 
 her throat, she was as pretty as any one here. And I dare 
 say she could be educated and appear as well as any white 
 woman. I should so like to have you see her. I would 
 have tried to bring her to the fort, but the braves are very 
 jealous of their wives or daughters seeing white men, you 
 know, and I was afraid of the colonel." 
 
 She had spoken volubly and with a strange excitement, 
 but even at the moment her face changed again, and as she 
 left the office, with a quick laugh and parting gesture, there 
 were tears in her eyes. 
 
 Accustomed to her moods and caprices, Peter thought lit- 
 tle of the intrusion, relieved as he was of his first fears. 
 She had come to him from loneliness and curiosity, and, per- 
 haps, he thought with a sad smile, from a little sisterly jeal- 
 ousy of the young girl who had evinced such an interest in 
 him, and had known him before. He took up his pen and 
 continued the interrupted paragraph of his report. 
 
 " I am satisfied that much of the mischievous and extrav- 
 agant prejudice against the half-breed and all alliances of 
 the white and red races springs from the ignorance of the 
 frontiersman and his hasty generalization of facts. There 
 is no doubt that an intermixture of blood brings out purely 
 superficial contrasts the more strongly, and that against the 
 civilizing habits and even costumes of the half-breed, cer- 
 tain Indian defects appear the more strongly as in the case 
 of the color line of the quadroon and octoroon, but it must 
 not be forgotten that these are only the contrasts of specific 
 improvement, and the inference that the borrowed defects 
 of a half-breed exceed the original defects of the full-blooded 
 aborigine is utterly illogical." He stopped suddenly and 
 laid down his pen with a heightened color ; the bugle had 
 blown, the guard was turning out to receive the command- 
 ant and his returning party, among whom was Friddy. 
 
58 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 Through the illusions of depression and distance the 
 " sink " of Butternut Creek seemed only an incrustation of 
 blackish moss on the dull gray plain. It was not until one 
 approached within half a mile of it that it resolved itself 
 into a copse of butternut-trees sunken below the distant 
 levels. Here once, in geological story, the waters of Butter- 
 nut Creek, despairing of ever crossing the leagues of arid 
 waste before them, had suddenly disappeared in the provi- 
 dential interposition of an area of looser soil, and so given 
 up the effort and the ghost forever, their grave being marked 
 by the butternut copse, chance-sown by bird or beast in the 
 saturated ground. In Indian legend the " sink " commem- 
 orated the equally providential escape of a great tribe who, 
 surrounded by enemies, appealed to the Great Spirit for 
 protection, and were promptly conveyed by subterraneous 
 passages to the banks of the Great River a hundred miles 
 away. Its outer edges were already invaded by the dust 
 of the plain, but within them ran cool recesses, a few open* 
 ings, and the ashes of some long-forgotten camp-fires. To- 
 day its sombre shadows were relieved by bright colored 
 dresses, the jackets of the drivers of a large sutler's wagon, 
 whose white canvas head marked the entrance of the copse, 
 and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. It was a party got- 
 ten up by the foreign guests to the ladies of the fort, pre- 
 pared and arranged by the active Lady Elfrida, assisted by 
 the only gentleman of the party, Peter Atherly, who, from 
 his acquaintance with the locality, was allowed to accom- 
 pany them. The other gentlemen, who with a large party 
 of officers and soldiers were shooting in the vicinity, were 
 sufficiently near for protection. They would rejoin the 
 ladies later. 
 
 " It does not seem in the least as if we were miles away 
 from any town or habitation,'' said Lady Runnybroke, com- 
 placently seating herself on a stump, "and I shouldn't be 
 surprised to see a church tower through those trees. It's 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 59 
 
 very like the hazel copse at Longworth, you know. Hot 
 at all what I expected." 
 
 " For the matter of that, neither are the Indians," said 
 the Hon. Evelyn Kayne. " Did you ever see such grotesque 
 creatures in their cast-off boots and trousers ? They 're no 
 better than gypsies. I wonder what Mr. Atherly can find 
 in them." 
 
 " And. he a rich man, too, — they say he 's got a mine 
 in California worth a million, — to take up a craze like 
 this," added the lively Mrs. Captain Joyce ; " that 's what 
 gets me ! You know," she went on confidentially, " that 
 cranks and reformers are always poor — it 's quite natural ; 
 but I don't see what he, a rich man, expects to make by his 
 reforms, I 'm sure." 
 
 " He '11 get over it in time," said the Hon. Evelyn 
 Kayne, " they all do. At least, he expects to get the re- 
 forms he wants in a year, and then he 's coming over to 
 England again." 
 
 " Indeed, how very nice," responded Lady Runnybroke 
 quickly. " Did he say so ? " 
 
 " ISTo. But Eriddy says he is." 
 
 The two officers' wives glanced at each other. Lady 
 Runnybroke put up her eyeglass in default of ostrich feath- 
 ers, and said didactically, "I'm sure Mr. Atherly is very 
 much in earnest and sincerely devoted to his work. And 
 in a man of his wealth and position here it 's most estimable. 
 My dear," she said, getting up and moving towards Mrs. 
 Lascelles, " we were just saying how good and unselfish 
 your brother was in his work for these poor people." 
 
 But Jenny Lascelles must have been in one of those 
 abstracted moods which so troubled her husband, for she 
 seemed to be staring straight before her into the recesses of 
 the wood. In her there was a certain resemblance to the 
 attitude of a listening animal. 
 
 " I wish Mr. Atherly was a little more unselfish to us 
 
60 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEK ATHEELY 
 
 poor people," said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, " for he and 
 Friddy have been nearly an hour looking for a place to 
 spread our luncheon baskets. I wish they 'd leave the fu- 
 ture of the brown races to look after itself, and look a little 
 more after us. I 'm famished." 
 
 " I fancy they find it difficult to select a clear space for 
 so large a party as we will be when the gentlemen come in," 
 returned Lady Runnybroke, glancing in the direction of 
 Jenny's abstracted eyes. 
 
 " I suppose you must feel like chicken and salad, too, 
 Lady Runnybroke," suggested Mrs. Captain Joyce. 
 
 " I don't think I quite know how chicken and salad feel, 
 dear," said Lady Runnybroke, with a puzzled air, " but if 
 that 's one of your husband's delightful American stories, 
 do tell us. I never can get Runnybroke to tell me any, 
 although he roars over them all. And I dare say he gets 
 them all wrong. But look, here comes our luncheon." 
 
 Peter and Lady Elfrida were advancing towards them. 
 The scrutiny of a dozen pairs of eyes — wondering, mis- 
 chievous, critical, impertinent, or resentful — would have 
 been a trying ordeal to any errant couple ; but there was 
 little if any change in Peter's grave and gentle demeanor, 
 albeit his dark eyes were shining with a peculiar light, 
 and Lady Elfrida had only the animation, color, and slight 
 excitability that became the responsible leader of the little 
 party. They neither apologized nor alluded to their delay. 
 They had selected a spot on the other side of the copse, 
 and the baskets could be sent around by the wagon ; they 
 had seen a slight haze on the plain towards the east which 
 betokened the vicinity of the rest of the party, and they 
 were about to propose that as the gentlemen were so near 
 they had better postpone the picnic until they came up. 
 Lady Runnybroke smiled affably ; the only thing she had 
 noticed was that Lady Elfrida in joining them had gone 
 directly to the side of the abstracted Jenny, and placed her 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 61 
 
 arm around her waist. At which Lady Eunnybroke airily 
 joined them. 
 
 The surmises of Peter and Eriddy appeared to be correct. 
 The transfer of the provisions and the party to the other 
 side was barely concluded before they could see the gentle- 
 men coming ; they were riding a little more rapidly than 
 when they had set out, and were arriving fully three hours 
 before their time. They burst upon the ladies a little bois- 
 terously but gayly ; they had had a glorious time, but little 
 sport ; they had hurried back to join the ladies so as to be 
 able to return with them betimes. They were ravenously 
 hungry ; they wanted to fall to at "once. Only the officers' 
 wives noticed that the two files of troopers did not dis- 
 mount, but filed slowly before the entrance to the woods. 
 Lady Elfrida as hostess was prettily distressed by it, but 
 was told by Captain Joyce that it was " against rules," 
 and that she could " feed " them at the fort. The officers' 
 wives put a few questions in whispers, and were promptly 
 frowned down. Nevertheless, the luncheon was a successful 
 festivity : the gentlemen were loud in the praises of their 
 gracious hostess ; the delicacies she had provided by ex- 
 press from distant stations, and much that was distinctly 
 English and despoiled from her own stores, were gratefully 
 appreciated by the officers of a remote frontier garrison. 
 Lady Elfrida's health was toasted by the gallant colonel 
 in a speech that was the soul of chivalry. Lord Eunny- 
 broke responded, perhaps without the American abandon, 
 but with the steady conscientiousness of an hereditary legis- 
 lator, but the M. P. summed up a slightly exaggerated but 
 well-meaning episode by pointing out that it was on occa- 
 sions like this that the two nations showed their common 
 ancestry by standing side by side. Only one thing troubled 
 the rosy, excited, but still clear-headed Friddy ; the plates 
 were whisked away like magic after each delicacy, by the 
 military servants, and vanished ; the tables were in the saiaa 
 
62 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 mysterious way cleared as rapidly as they were set, and any 
 attempt to recall a dish was met by the declaration that it 
 was already packed away in the wagon. As they at last 
 rose from the actually empty board, and saw even the tables 
 disappear, Lady Elfrida plaintively protested that she felt 
 as if she had been presiding over an Arabian Nights enter- 
 tainment, served by genii, and she knew that they would 
 all awaken hungry when they were well on their way back. 
 Nevertheless, in spite of this expedition, the officers lounged 
 ' about smoking until every trace of the festivity had van- 
 ished. Eeggy found himself standing near Peter. " You 
 know," he said confidentially, " I don't think the colonel 
 has a very high opinion of your pets, — the Indians. And, 
 by Jove, if the ' friendlies ' are as nasty towards you as 
 they were to us this morning, I wonder what you call the 
 ' hostile ' tribes.'' 
 
 " Did you have any difficulty with them ? " said Peter 
 quickly. 
 
 " No, not exactly, don't you know, — we were too many, 
 I fancy ; but, by Jove, the beggars whenever we met them, 
 — and we met one or two gypsy bands of them, — you 
 know, they seemed to look upon us as trespassers, don't 
 you know." 
 
 " And you were, in point of fact," said Peter, smiling 
 grimly. 
 
 " Oh, I say, come now ! " said Peggy, opening his eyes. 
 After a moment he laughed. " Oh, yes, I see — of course, 
 looking at it from their point of view. By Jove, I dare 
 say the beggars were right, you know ; all the same, — 
 don't you see, — your people were poaching, too." 
 
 " So we were," said Peter gravely. 
 
 But here, at a word from the major, the whole party 
 debouched from the woods. Everything appeared to be 
 awaiting them, — the large covered carryall for the guests, 
 and two saddle horses for Mrs. Lascelles and Lady Elfrida, 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 63 
 
 who had ridden there together. Peter, also mounted, ac- 
 companied the carryall with two of the officers ; the troop- 
 ers and wagons brought up the rear. 
 
 It was very hot, with little or no wind. On this part 
 of the plain the dust seemed lighter and finer, and rose 
 with the wheels of the carryall and the horses of the escort, 
 trailing a white cloud over the cavalcade like the smoke of 
 an engine over a train. It was with difficulty the troopers 
 could be kept from opening out on both sides of the high- 
 way to escape it. The whole atmosphere seemed charged 
 with it ; it even appeared in a long bank to the right, ris- 
 ing and obscuring the declining sun. But they were already 
 within sight of the fort and the little copse beside it. Then 
 trooper Cassidy trotted up to the colonel, who was riding 
 in a dusty cloud beside the carryall, " Captain Fleetwood's 
 compliments, sorr, and there are two sthragglers, — Mrs. 
 Lascelles and the English lady." He pointed to the rap- 
 idly flying figures of Jenny and Friddy making towards the 
 wood. 
 
 The colonel made a movement of impatience. " Tell 
 Mr. Forsyth to bring them back at once," he said. 
 
 But here a feminine chorus of excuses and expostulations 
 rose from the carryall. " It 's only Mrs. Lascelles going to 
 show Friddy where the squaws and children bathe," said 
 Lady Bunny broke ; " it 's near the fort, and they '11 be there 
 as quick as we shall." 
 
 " One moment, colonel," said Peter, with mortified con- 
 cern. " It 's another folly of my sister's ! pray let me take 
 it upon myself to bring them back." 
 
 " Very well, but see you don't linger, and," turning to 
 Cassidy, as Peter galloped away, he added, " you follow him." 
 
 Peter kept the figures of the two women in view, but 
 presently saw them disappear in the wood. He had no fear 
 for their safety, but he was indignant at this last untimely 
 caprice of his sister. He knew the idea had originated with 
 
64 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHEELY 
 
 her, and that the officers knew it, and yet she had made 
 Lady Elfrida hear an equal share of the blame. He reached 
 the edge of the copse, entered the first opening, hut he had 
 scarcely plunged into its shadow and shut out the plain he- 
 hind him before he felt his arms and knees quickly seized 
 from behind. So sudden and unexpected was the attack 
 that he first thought his horse had stumbled against a coil 
 of wild grapevine and was entangled, but the next moment 
 he smelled the rank, characteristic odor and saw the brown 
 limbs of the Indian who had leaped on his crupper, while 
 another rose at his horse's head. Then a warning voice in 
 his ear said in the native tongue : — 
 
 " If the great white medicine man calls to his fighting 
 men, the pale-face girl and the squaw he calls his sister 
 die ! They are here, he understands." 
 
 But Peter had neither struggled nor uttered a cry. At 
 that touch, and with the accents of that tongue in his ears, 
 all his own Indian blood seemed to leap and tingle through 
 his veins. His eyes flashed ; pinioned as he was, he drew 
 himself erect and answered haughtily in his captor's own 
 speech : — 
 
 " Good ! The great white medicine man obeys, for he 
 and his sister have no fear. But if the pale-face girl is not 
 sent back to her people before the sun sets, then the yel- 
 low jackets will swarm the woods, and they will follow her 
 trail to the death. My brother is wise ; let the girl go. 
 I have spoken." 
 
 " My brother is very cunning, too. He would call to 
 his fighting men through the lips of the pale-face girl." 
 
 " He will not. The great white medicine man does not 
 lie to his red brother. He will tell the pale-face girl to 
 say to the chief of the yellow jackets that he and his sister 
 are with his brothers, and all is peace. But the pale-face 
 girl must not see the great white medicine man in these 
 bonds, nor as a captive ! I have spoken." 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 65 
 
 The two Indians fell back. There was so much of force 
 and dignity in the man, so much of their own stoic calm- 
 ness, that they at once mechanically loosened the thongs of 
 plaited deer hide with which they had bound him, and side 
 by side led him into the recesses of the wood. 
 
 There was some astonishment, although little alarm, at 
 the fort, when Lady Elfrida returned accompanied by the 
 orderly who had followed Peter to the wood, but without 
 Peter and his sister. The reason given was perfectly nat- 
 ural and conceivable. Mrs. Lascelles had preceded Lady 
 Elfrida in entering the wood and taken another opening, so 
 that Lady Elfrida had found herself suddenly lost, and sur- 
 rounded by two or three warriors in dreadful paint. They 
 motioned her to dismount, and said something she did not 
 understand, but she declined, knowing that she had heard 
 Mr. Atherly and the orderly following her, and feeling 
 no fear. And sure enough Mr. Atherly presently came up 
 with a couple of braves, apologized to her for their mistake, 
 but begged her to return to the fort at once and assure the 
 colonel that everything was right, and that he and his 
 sister were safe. He was perfectly cool and collected and 
 like himself ; she blushed slightly, as she said she thought 
 that he wished to impress upon her, for some reason she 
 could not understand, that he did not want the colonel to 
 send any assistance. She was positive of that. She told 
 her story unexcitedly ; it was evident that she had not been 
 frightened, but Lady Runnybroke noticed that there was. a 
 shade of anxious abstraction in her face. 
 
 When the officers were alone, the colonel took hurried 
 counsel of them. "I think," said Captain Fleetwood, 
 " that Lady Elfrida's story quite explains itself. I believe 
 this affair is purely a local one, and has nothing whatever 
 to do with the suspicious appearances we noticed this after- 
 noon, or the presence of so large a body of Indians neai 
 
66 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEK ATHEELY 
 
 Butternut. Had this been a hostile movement they would 
 scarcely have allowed so valuable a capture as Lady Elfrida 
 to escape them." 
 
 " Unless they kept Atherly and his sister as hostages," 
 said Captain Joyce. 
 
 " But Atherly is one of their friends ; indeed, he is their 
 mediator and apostle, a non-combatant, and has their con- 
 fidence," returned the colonel. " It is much more reason- 
 able to suppose that Atherly has noticed some disaffection 
 among these ' friendlies,' and he fears that our sending a 
 party to his assistance might precipitate a collision. Or he 
 may have reason to believe that this stopping of the two 
 women under the very walls of the fort is only a feint to 
 draw our attention from something more serious. Did he 
 know anything of our suspicions of the conduct of those 
 Indians this morning ? " 
 
 " Not unless he gathered it from what Lord Reginald 
 foolishly told him. We said nothing, of course," returned 
 Captain Fleetwood, with a soldier's habitual distrust of the 
 wisdom of the civil arm. 
 
 " That will do, gentlemen," said the colonel, as the offi- 
 cers dispersed ; "send Cassidy here." 
 
 The colonel was alone on the veranda as Cassidy came up. 
 
 "You followed Mr. Atherly to-day ?" 
 
 " Yes, sorr." 
 
 "And you saw him when he gave the message to the 
 young lady ? " 
 
 " Yes, sorr." 
 
 " Did you form any opinion from anything else you saw, 
 of his object in sending that message ? " 
 
 " Only from what I saw of Mm." 
 
 " Well, what was that ? " 
 
 "I saw him look afther the young leddy as she rode 
 away, and then wheel about and go straight back into the 
 wood." 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLT 67 
 
 " And what did you think of that ? " said the colonel, 
 with a half smile. 
 
 " I thought it was shacrifice, sorr." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said the colonel sharply. 
 
 " I mane, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly, " that he was givin' 
 up hisself and his sister for that young leddy." 
 
 The colonel looked at the sergeant. " Ask Mr. Forsyth, 
 to come to me privately, and return here with him." 
 
 As darkness fell, some half a dozen dismounted troop- 
 ers, headed by Forsyth and Cassidy, passed quietly out of 
 the lower gate and entered the wood. An hour later the 
 colonel was summoned from the dinner table, and the guests 
 heard the quick rattle of a wagon turning out of the road 
 gate — but the colonel did not return. An indefinable un- 
 easiness crept over the little party, which reached its climax 
 in the summoning of the other officers, and the sudden 
 flashing out of news. The reconnoitring party had found the 
 dead bodies of Peter Atherly and his sister on the plains at 
 the edge of the empty wood. 
 
 The women were gathered in the commandant's quarters, 
 and for the moment seemed to have been forgotten. The 
 officers' wives talked with professional sympathy and dis- 
 ciplined quiet ; the English ladies were equally sympathetic, 
 but collected. Lady Elfrida, rather white, but patient, 
 asked a few questions in a voice whose contralto was rather 
 deepened. One and all wished to "do something" — 
 anything "to help" — and one and all rebelled that the 
 colonel had begged them to remain within doors. There 
 was an occasional quick step on the veranda, or the clatter 
 of a hoof on the parade, a continued but subdued murmur 
 from the whitewashed barracks, but everywhere a sense of 
 keen restraint. 
 
 When they emerged on the veranda again, the whole 
 aspect of the garrison seemed to have changed in that brief 
 time. In the faint moonlight they could see motionless 
 
68 THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 
 
 files of troopers rilling the parade, the officers in belted 
 tunics and slouched hats — but apparently not the same 
 men ; the half-lounging ease and lazy dandyism gone, a 
 grim tension in all their faces, a set abstraction in all their 
 acts. Then there was the rolling of heavy wheels in the 
 road, and the two horses of the ambulance appeared. The 
 sentries presented arms ; the colonel took off his hat ; the 
 officers uncovered ; the wagon wheeled into the parade ; 
 the surgeon stepped out. He exchanged a single word with 
 the colonel, and lifted the curtain of the ambulance. 
 
 As the colonel glanced within, a deep but embarrassed 
 voice fell upon his ear. He turned quickly. It was Lord 
 Reginald, flushed and sympathetic. 
 
 " He was a friend, — a relation of ours, you know," he 
 stammered. " My sister would like — to look at him 
 again." 
 
 " Not now," said the colonel, in a low voice. The sur- 
 geon added something in a voice still lower, which scarcely 
 reached the veranda. 
 
 Lord Reginald turned away with a white face. 
 
 " Fall back there ! " Captain Fleetwood rode up. 
 
 " All ready, sir." 
 
 " One moment, captain," said the colonel quietly. " File 
 your first half company before that ambulance, and bid the 
 men look in." 
 
 The singular order was obeyed. The men filed slowly 
 forward, each in turn halting before the motionless wagon 
 and its immobile freight. They were men inured to frontier 
 bloodshed and savage warfare ; some halted and hurried on ; 
 others lingered, others turned to look again. One man burst 
 into a short laugh, but when the others turned indignantly 
 upon him, they saw that in his face that held them in awe. 
 What they saw in the ambulance did not transpire ; what 
 they felt was not known. Strangely enough, however, what 
 they repressed themselves was mysteriously communicated 
 
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY 69 
 
 to their horses, who snorted and quivered with eagerness 
 and impatience as they rode back again. The horse of the 
 trooper who had laughed almost leaped into the air. Only 
 Sergeant Cassidy was communicative ; he took a larger cir- 
 cuit in returning to his place, and managed to lean over and 
 whisper hoarsely in the ear of a camp follower spectator, 
 " Tell the young leddy that the torturin' divvils could n't 
 take the smile off him ! " 
 
 The little column filed out of the gateway into the road. 
 As Captain Fleetwood passed Colonel Carter, the two men's 
 eyes met. The colonel said quietly, " Good-night, captain. 
 Let us have a good report from you." 
 
 The captain replied only with his gauntleted hand against 
 the brim of his slouched hat, but the next moment his voice 
 was heard strong and clear enough in the road. The little 
 column trotted away as evenly as on parade. But those 
 who climbed the roof of the barracks a quarter of an hour 
 later saw, in the moonlight, a white cloud drifting rapidly 
 across the plain towards the west. It was a small cloud in 
 *,hat bare, menacing, cruel, and illimitable waste ; but in its 
 breast was crammed a thunderbolt. 
 
 It fell thirty miles away, blasting and scattering a thou- 
 sand warriors and their camp, giving and taking no quarter, 
 vengeful, exterminating, and complete. Later, there were 
 different opinions about it and the horrible crime that had 
 provoked it : the opposers of Peter's policy jubilant over 
 the irony of the assassination of the Apostle of Peace, 
 Peter's disciples as actively deploring the merciless and 
 indiscriminating vengeance of the military ; and so the 
 problem that Peter had vainly attempted to solve was left 
 an open question. There were those, too, who believed that 
 Peter had never sacrificed himself and his sister for the 
 sake of another, but had provoked and incensed the savages 
 by the blind arrogance of a reformer. There were wild 
 stories by scouts and interpreters how he had challenged 
 
70 THE ANCESTORS OF PETEE ATHERLY 
 
 his fate by an Indian bravado ; how himself and his sister 
 had met torture with an Indian stoicism, and how the In- 
 dian braves themselves at last in a turmoil of revulsion had 
 dipped their arrows and lances in the heroic heart's blood 
 of their victims, and worshiped their still palpitating flesh. 
 But there was one honest, loyal little heart that carried 
 back — three thousand miles — to England the man as it 
 had known and loved him. Lady Elfrida Runnybroke 
 never married ; neither did she go into retirement, but 
 lived her life and fulfilled her duties in her usual clear- 
 eyed fashion. She was particularly kind to all Americans, 
 — barring, I fear, a few pretty faced, finely frocked title- 
 hunters, — told stories of the Far West, and had theories 
 of a people of which they knew little, cared less, and be- 
 lieved to be vulgar. But I think she found a new pleasure 
 in the old church at Ashley Grange, and loved to linger 
 over the effigy of the old Crusader, — her kinsman, the 
 swashbuckler De Brecy, — with a vague but pretty belief 
 that devotion and love do not die with brave men, but live 
 and flourish even in lands beyond the seas. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 "When Enriquez Saltillo ran away with Miss Mannersley s 
 as already recorded in these chronicles, 1 her relatives and 
 friends found it much easier to forgive that ill-assorted 
 union than to understand it. For, after all, Enriquez was 
 the scion of an old Spanish-Californian family, and in due 
 time would have his share of his father's three square 
 leagues, whatever incongruity there was hetween his lively 
 Latin extravagance and Miss Mannersley's Puritan preci- 
 sion and intellectual superiority. They had gone to Mexico ; 
 Mrs. Saltillo, as was known, having an interest in Aztec 
 antiquities, and he being utterly submissive to her wishes. 
 For myself, from my knowledge of Enriquez's nature, I had 
 grave doubts of his entire subjugation, although I knew the 
 prevailing opinion was that Mrs. Saltillo's superiority would 
 speedily tame him. Since his brief and characteristic note 
 apprising me of his marriage, I had not heard from him. 
 It was, therefore, with some surprise, a good deal of remi- 
 niscent affection, and a slight twinge of reproach that, two 
 years after, I looked up from some proofs, in the sanctum 
 of the " Daily Excelsior," to recognize his handwriting on 
 a note that was handed to me by a yellow Mexican boy. 
 
 A single glance at its contents showed me that Mrs.. Sal- 
 tillo's correct Bostonian speech had not yet subdued Enri- 
 quez's peculiar Spanish-American slang : — 
 
 " Here we are again, — right side up with care, — at 
 1110 Dupont Street, Telegraph Hill. Second floor from 
 top. 'Ring and push.' 'ISTo book agents need apply.' 
 
 1 See "The Devotion of Enriquez," in In a Bellow of the Hills and 
 Other Tales. 
 
72 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 How 's your royal nibs ? I kiss your hand! Come at six, 
 — the band shall play at seven, — and regard your friend 
 ' Mees Boston,' who will tell you about the little old 
 nigger boys, and your old Uncle : Ennery." 
 
 Two things struck me : Enriquez had not changed ; Mrs. 
 Saltillo had certainly yielded up some of her peculiar pre- 
 judices. For the address given, far from being a fashion- 
 able district, was known as the " Spanish quarter," which, 
 while it still held some old Spanish families, was chiefly 
 given over to half-castes and obscurer foreigners. Even 
 poverty cpuld not have driven Mrs. Saltillo to such a 
 refuge against her will ; nevertheless, a good deal of con- 
 cern for Enriquez's fortune mingled with my curiosity, as I 
 impatiently waited for six o'clock to satisfy it. 
 
 It was a breezy climb to 1110 Dupont Street ; and 
 although the street had been graded, the houses retained 
 their airy elevation, and were accessible only by successive 
 flights of wooden steps to the front door, which still gave 
 perilously upon the street, sixty feet below. I now pain- 
 fully appreciated Enriquez's adaptation of the time-honored 
 joke about the second floor. An invincible smell of garlic 
 almost took my remaining breath away as the door was 
 opened to me by a swarthy Mexican woman, whose loose 
 vamisa seemed to be slipping from her unstable bust, and 
 was held on only by the mantua-like shawl which supple- 
 mented it, gripped by one brown hand. Dizzy from my 
 ascent to that narrow perch, which looked upon nothing 
 but the distant bay and shores of Contra Costa, I felt as 
 apologetic as if I had landed from a balloon ; but the 
 woman greeted me with a languid Spanish smile and a lazy 
 display of white teeth, as if my arrival was quite natural. 
 Don Enriquez, " of a fact," was not himself in the casa, 
 but was expected " on the instant." " Donna Urania " 
 was at home. 
 
 " Donna Urania " ? For an instant I had forgotten 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 73 
 
 that Mrs. Saltillo's first name was Urania, so pleasantly 
 and spontaneously did it fall from the Spanish lips. Nor 
 was I displeased at this chance of learning something of 
 Don Enriquez's fortunes and the Saltillo menage before 
 confronting my old friend. The servant preceded me to 
 the next floor, and, opening a door, ushered me into the 
 lady's presence. 
 
 I had carried with me, on that upward climb, a lively 
 recollection of Miss Mannersley as I had known her two 
 years before. I remembered her upright, almost stiff, slight 
 figure, the graceful precision of her poses, the faultless sym- 
 metry and taste of her dress, and the atmosphere of a fas- 
 tidious and wholesome cleanliness which exhaled from her. 
 In the lady I saw before me, half reclining in a rocking- 
 chair, there was none of the stiffness and nicety. Habited 
 in a loose gown of some easy, flexible, but rich material, 
 worn with that peculiarly indolent slouch of the Mexican 
 woman, Mrs. Saltillo had parted with half her individ- 
 uality. Even her arched feet and thin ankles, the close- 
 fitting boots or small slippers of which were wont to accent 
 their delicacy, were now lost in a short, low-quartered kid 
 shoe of the Spanish type, in which they moved loosely. 
 Her hair, which she had always worn with a certain Greek 
 simplicity, was parted at one side. Yet her face, with its 
 regularity of feature, and small, thin, red-lipped mouth, 
 was quite unchanged ; and her velvety brown eyes were as 
 beautiful and inscrutable as ever. 
 
 With the same glance I had taken in her surroundings, 
 quite as incongruous to her former habits. The furni- 
 ture, though of old and heavy mahogany, had suffered from 
 careless alien hands, and was interspersed with modern and 
 unmatchable makeshifts, yet preserving the distinctly scant 
 and formal attitude of furnished lodgings. It was certainly 
 unlike the artistic trifles and delicate refinements of her 
 ancle's drawing-room, which we all knew her taste had 
 
74 THE PASSING OF ENKIQUEZ 
 
 dictated and ruled. The black and white engravings, the 
 outlined heads of Minerva and Diana, were excluded from 
 the walls for two cheap colored Catholic prints, — a 
 soulless Virgin, and the mystery of the Bleeding Heart. 
 Against the wall, in one corner, hung the only object 
 which seemed a memento of their travels, — a singular- 
 looking upright Indian " papoose-case " or cradle, glaringly 
 decorated with beads and paint, probably an Aztec relic. 
 On a round table, the velvet cover of which showed marks 
 of usage and abusage, there were scattered books and writ- 
 ing materials ; and my editorial instinct suddenly recog- 
 nized, with a thrill of apprehension, the loose leaves of an 
 undoubted manuscript. This circumstance, taken with the 
 fact of Donna Urania's hair being parted on one side, and 
 Hie general negligee of her appearance, was a disturbing 
 revelation. 
 
 My wandering eye apparently struck her, for after the 
 first greeting she pointed to the manuscript with a smile. 
 
 " Yes ; that is the manuscript. I suppose Enriquez told 
 you all about it ? He said he had written." 
 
 I was dumfounded. I certainly had not understood all 
 of Enriquez's slang ; it was always so decidedly his own, 
 and peculiar. Yet I could not recall any allusion to this. 
 
 " He told me something of it, but very vaguely," I ven- 
 tured to say deprecatingly ; " but I am afraid that I thought 
 more of seeing my old friend again than of anything else." 
 
 " During our stay in Mexico," continued Mrs. Saltillo, 
 with something of her old precision, " I made some re- 
 searches into Aztec history, a subject always deeply inter- 
 esting to me, and I thought I would utilize the result by 
 throwing it on paper. Of course it is better fitted for a 
 volume of reference than for a newspaper, but Enriquez 
 thought you might want to use it for your journal." 
 
 I knew that Enriquez had no taste for literature, and 
 lad even rather depreciated it in the old days, with hia 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 75 
 
 usual extravagance ; but I managed to say very pleasantly 
 that I was delighted with his suggestion and should be glad 
 to read the manuscript. After all, it was not improba- 
 ble that Mrs. Saltillo, who was educated and intelligent, 
 should write well, if not popularly. " Then Enriquez does 
 not begrudge you the time that your work takes from him," 
 I added laughingly. "You seem to have occupied your 
 honeymoon practically." 
 
 " We quite comprehend our respective duties," said Mrs. 
 Saltillo dryly ; " and have from the first. We have our own 
 lives to live, independent of my uncle and Enriquez's father. 
 We have not only accepted the responsibility of our own 
 actions, but we both feel the higher privilege of creating our 
 own conditions without extraneous aid from our relatives." 
 
 It struck me that this somewhat exalted statement was 
 decidedly a pose, or a return of Urania Mannersley's old 
 ironical style. I looked quietly into her brown, near-sighted 
 eyes ; but, as once before, my glance seemed to slip from 
 their moist surface without penetrating the inner thought 
 beneath. " And what does Enriquez do for his part ? " I 
 asked smilingly. 
 
 I fully expected to hear that the energetic Enriquez was 
 utilizing his peculiar tastes and experiences by horsebreaking, 
 stock-raising, professional bull-fighting, or even horse-racing, 
 but was quite astonished when she answered quietly : — 
 
 " Enriquez is giving himself up to geology and practi- 
 cal metallurgy, with a view to scientific, purely scientific, 
 mining." 
 
 Enriquez and geology ! In that instant all I could re- 
 member of it were his gibes at the "geologian," as be was 
 wont to term Professor Dobbs, a former admirer of Miss 
 Mannersley's. To add to my confusion, Mrs. Saltillo at the 
 same moment absolutely voiced my thought. 
 
 " You may remember Professor Dobbs," she went on 
 calmly, " one 01 the most eminent scientists over here, and 
 
76 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 a very old Boston friend. He has taken Enriquez in hand. 
 His progress is most satisfactory ; we have the greatest hopes 
 of him." 
 
 " And how soon do you hoth hope to have some practical 
 results of his study ? " I could not help asking a little mis- 
 chievously ; for I somehow resented the plural pronoun in 
 her last sentence. 
 
 " Very soon," said Mrs. Saltillo, ignoring everything hut 
 the question. " You know Enriquez's sanguine tempera- 
 ment. Perhaps he is already given to evolving theories 
 without a sufficient hasis of fact. Still, he has the daring 
 of a discoverer. His ideas of the oolitic fqrmation are not 
 without originality, and Professor Dobhs says that in his 
 conception of the Silurian heach there are gleams that are 
 distinctly precious." 
 
 I looked at Mrs. Saltillo, who had reinforced her eyes 
 with her old piquant pince-nez, but could detect no irony 
 in them. She was prettily imperturbable, that was all. 
 There was an awkward silence. Then it was broken by a 
 hounding step on the stairs, a wide-open fling of the door, 
 and Enriquez pirouetted into the room : Enriquez, as of old, 
 unchanged from the crown of his smooth, coal-black hair to 
 the tips of his small, narrow Arabian feet ; Enriquez, with 
 his thin, curling mustache, his dancing eyes set in his im- 
 movable face, just as I had always known' him ! 
 
 He affected to lapse against the door for a minute, as if 
 staggered by a resplendent vision. Then he said : — 
 
 " What do I regard ? Is it a dream, or have I again got 
 them — thees jimjams ? My best friend and my best — I 
 mean my only — wife ! Embrace me ! " 
 
 He gave me an enthusiastic embrace and a wink like 
 sheet-lightning, passed quickly to his wife, before whom he 
 dropped on one knee, raised the toe of her slipper to his 
 lips, and then sank on the sofa in simulated collapse, mur- 
 muring, " Thees is too mooch of white stone for one day ! * 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 77 
 
 Through all this I saw his wife regarding him with exactly 
 the same critically amused expression with which she had 
 looked upon him in the days of their strange courtship. She 
 evidently had not tired of his extravagance, and yet I feel 
 as puzzled by her manner as then. She rose and said : " I 
 suppose you have a good deal to say to each other, and I 
 will leave you by yourselves." Turning to her husband, 
 she added, " I have already spoken about the Aztec manu- 
 script." 
 
 The word brought Enriquez to his feet again. " Ah ! 
 The leetle old nigger — you have read ? " I began to un- 
 derstand. " My wife, my best friend, and the leetle old 
 nigger, all in one day. Eet is perfect ! " Nevertheless, in 
 spite of this ecstatic and overpowering combination, he hur- 
 ried to take his wife's hand ; kissing it, he led her to a door 
 opening into another room, made her a low bow to the 
 ground as she passed out, and then rejoined me. 
 
 " So these are the little old niggers you spoke of in your 
 note," I said, pointing to the manuscript. " Deuce take me 
 if I understood you ! " 
 
 " Ah, my leetle brother, it is you who have changed ! " 
 said Enriquez dolorously. " Is it that you no more under- 
 stand American, or have the ' big head ' of the editor ? Re- 
 gard me ! Of these Aztecs my wife have made study. She 
 have pursued the leetle nigger to his cave, his grotto, where 
 he is dead a thousand year. I have myself assist, though I 
 like it not, because thees mummy, look you, Pancho, is not 
 lively. And the mummy who is not dead, believe me ! even 
 the young lady mummy, you shall not take to your heart. 
 But my wife " — he stopped, and kissed his hand toward the 
 door whence she had flitted — "ah, she is wonderful ! She 
 has made the story of them, the peecture of them, from the 
 life and on the instant ! You shall take them, my leetle 
 brother, for your journal ; you shall announce in the big let- 
 ter :' Mooch Importance. The Aztec, He is Eound.' 'How 
 
78 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 He Look and Lif.' ' The Everlasting Nigger.' You shall 
 sell many paper, and Urania shall have scoop in much spon- 
 dulics and rocks. Hoop-la ! For — you comprehend ? — 
 my wife and I have settled that she shall forgif her oncle ; 
 I shall forgif my father ; but from them we take no cent, not 
 a red, not a scad ! We are independent ! Of ourselves we 
 make a Fourth of July. United we stand ; divided we shall 
 fall over ! There you are ! JBueno I " 
 
 It was impossible to resist his wild, yet perfectly sincere 
 extravagance, his dancing black eyes and occasional flash of 
 white teeth in his otherwise immovable and serious counte. 
 nance. Nevertheless, I managed to say : — 
 
 " But how about yourself, Enriquez, and this geology 
 you know ? " 
 
 His eyes twinkled. " Ah, you shall hear. But first yom 
 shall take a drink. I have the very old Bourbon. He is 
 not so old as the Aztec, but, believe me, he is very mucl; 
 liflier. Attend ! HoF on ! " He was already rummaging 
 on a shelf, but apparently without success ; then he explore* 
 a buffet, with no better results, and finally attacked a large 
 drawer, throwing out on the floor, with his old impetuosity, 
 a number of geological specimens, carefully labeled. I pickec" 
 up one that had rolled near me. It was labeled " Conglom^ 
 erate sandstone." I picked up another : it had the samo 
 label. 
 
 " Then you are really collecting ? " I said, with astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Ciertamente," responded Enriquez, — " what other foo* 
 shall I look ? I shall relate of this geology when I shall 
 have found this beast of a bottle. Ah, here he have hide ! " 
 He extracted from a drawer a bottle nearly full of spirits, — 
 tippling was not one of Enriquez' s vices. " You shall saj 
 ' when.' 'Ere 's to our noble selfs ! " 
 
 When he had drunk, I picked up another fragment of 
 his collection. It had the same label. " You are very rich 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 79 
 
 in ' conglomerate sandstone,' " I said. " Where do you 
 find it ? " 
 
 " In the street," said Enriquez, with great calmness. 
 
 " In the street ? " I echoed. 
 
 " Yes, my friend ! He ees call the ' cobblestone,' also 
 the ' pouding-stone,' when he ees at his home in the country. 
 He ees also a small ' boulder.' I pick him up ; I crack 
 him ; he made three separate piece of conglomerate sand- 
 stone. I bring him home to my wife in my pocket. She 
 rejoice ; we are happy. When comes the efening, I sit down 
 and make him a label ; while my wife, she sit down and 
 write of the Aztec. Ah, my friend, you shall say of the 
 geology it ees a fine, a beautiful study ; but the study of 
 the wife, and what shall please her, believe me, ees much 
 finer ! Believe your old Uncle 'Ennery every time ! On 
 thees question he gets there ; he gets left, nevarre ! " 
 
 " But Professor Dobbs, your geologian, what does he say 
 to this frequent recurrence of the conglomerate sandstone 
 period in your study ? " I asked quickly. 
 
 " He say nothing. You comprehend ? He ees a pro- 
 found geologian, but he also has the admiration excessif 
 for my wife Urania." He stopped to kiss his hand again 
 toward the door, and lighted a cigarette. " The geologian 
 would not that he should break up the happy efening of his 
 friends by thees small detail. He put aside his head"— so ; 
 he say, ' A leetle freestone, a leetle granite, now and then, 
 for variety ; they are building in Montgomery Street.' I 
 take the hint, like a wink to the horse that has gone blind. 
 I attach to myself part of the edifice that is erecting himself 
 in Montgomery Street. I crack him ; I bring him home. 
 I sit again at the feet of my beautiful Urania, and I label 
 him ' Freestone,' ' Granite ; ' but I do not say ' from Par- 
 rott's Bank ' — eet is not necessary for our happiness." 
 
 " And you do this sort of thing only because you think 
 it pleases your wife ? " I asked bluntly. 
 
80 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 " My friend," rejoined Enriquez, perching himself on the 
 back of the sofa, and caressing his knees as he puffed his 
 cigarette meditatively, " you have ask a conundrum. Gif 
 to me an easier one ! It is of truth that I make much of 
 these things to please Urania. But I shall confess all. Be- 
 hold, I appear to you, my leetle brother, in my camisa — 
 my shirt ! I blow on myself ; I gif myself away." 
 
 He rose gravely from the sofa, and drew a small box from 
 one of the drawers of the wardrobe. Opening it, he dis- 
 covered several specimens of gold-bearing quartz, and one or . 
 two scales of gold. " Thees," he said, "friend Pancho, is 
 my own geology ; for thees I am what you see. But I say 
 nothing to Urania ; for she have much disgust of mere gold, 
 
 — of what she calls 'vulgar mining,' — and believe me, a 
 fear of the effect of ' speculation ' upon my temperamento 
 
 — you comprehend my complexion, my brother ? Reflect 
 upon it, Pancho ! /, who am the filosofo, if that I am any- 
 thing ! " He looked at me with great levity of eye and 
 supernatural gravity of demeanor. " But eet ees the jealous 
 affection of the wife, my friend, for which I make play to 
 her with the humble leetle pouding-stone rather than the 
 gold quartz that affrights." 
 
 " But what do you want with them, if you have no shares 
 in anything and do not speculate ? " I asked. 
 
 " Pardon ! That ees where you slip up, my leetle friend." 
 He took from the same drawer a clasped portfolio, and un- 
 locked it, producing half a dozen prospectuses and certificates 
 of mining shares. I stood aghast as I recognized the names 
 of one or two extravagant failures of the last ten years, — 
 " played-out " mines that had been galvanized into deceptive 
 life in London, Paris, and New York, to the grief of share- 
 holders abroad and the laughter of the initiated at home. 
 I could scarcely keep my equanimity. " You do not mean 
 to say that you have any belief or interest in this rubbish ? * 
 I said quickly. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 81 
 
 "What you call ' rubbish,' my good Pancho, ees the rub- 
 bish that the American speculator have dump himself upon 
 them in the shaft, the rubbish of the advertisement, of the 
 extravagant expense, of the salary, of the assessment, of the 
 ' freeze-out.' For thees, look you, is the old Mexican mine. 
 My grandfather and hees father have both seen them work 
 before you were born, and the American knew not there 
 was gold in California." 
 
 I knew he spoke truly. One or two were original silver 
 mines in the south, worked by peons and Indian slaves, a 
 rope windlass, and a venerable donkey. 
 
 " But those were silver mines," I said suspiciously, " and 
 these are gold specimens." 
 
 " They are from the same mother," said the imperturbable 
 Enriquez, — " the same mine. The old peons worked him 
 for silver, the precious dollar that buy everything, that he 
 send in the galleon to the Philippines for the silk and spice ! 
 That is good enough for him ! For the gold he made no- 
 thing, even as my leetle wife Urania. And regard me here ! 
 There ees a proverb of my father's which say that 'it shall 
 take a gold mine to work a silver mine,' so mooch more he 
 cost. You work him, you are lost ! Naturalmente, if you 
 turn him round, if it take you only a silver mine to work a 
 gold mine, you are gain. Thees ees logic ! " 
 
 The intense gravity of his face at this extraordinary de- 
 duction upset my own. But as I was never certain that 
 Enriquez was not purposely mystifying me, with some ulte- 
 rior object, I could not help saying a little wickedly : — 
 
 " Yes, I understand all that ; but how about this geolo- 
 gian - ? Will he not tell your wife ? You know he was a 
 great admirer of hers." 
 
 "That shall show the great intelligence of him, my 
 Pancho. He will have the four ' S's,' especially the 
 secreto ! " 
 
 There could be no serious discussion in his present mood. 
 
82 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 I gathered up the pages of his wife's manuscript, saying 
 lightly that, as she had the first claim upon my time, I 
 should examine the Aztec material and report in a day 01 
 two. As I knew I had little chance in the hands of these 
 two incomprehensibles together, I begged him not to call 
 his wife, but to convey my adieus to her, and, in spite of 
 his embraces and protestations, I managed to get out of the 
 room. But I had scarcely reached the front door when I 
 heard Enriquez's voice and his bounding step on the stairs. 
 In another moment his arm was round my neck. 
 
 " You must return on the instant ! Mother of God ! I 
 haf forget, she haf forget, we all haf forget ! But you have 
 not seen him ! " 
 
 " Seen whom ? " 
 
 " El nino, the baby ! You comprehend, pig ! The cna- 
 turica, the leetle child of ourselfs ! " 
 
 " The baby ? " I said confusedly. " Is there — is there 
 a baby ? " 
 
 " You hear him ? " said Enriquez, sending an appealing 
 voice upward. " You hear him, Urania ? You compre- 
 hend. This beast of a leetle brother demands if there ess 
 one ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," I said, hurriedly reascending the 
 stairs. On the landing I met Mrs. Saltillo, but as calm, 
 composed, and precise as her husband was extravagant and 
 vehement. " It was an oversight of Enriquez's," she said 
 quietly, reentering the room with us ; " and was all the 
 more strange, as the child was in the room with you all 
 the time." 
 
 She pointed to the corner of the wall, where hung what 
 I had believed to be an old Indian relic. To my consterna- 
 tion, it was a bark " papoose-case," occupied by a living 
 child, swathed and bandaged after the approved Indian 
 fashion. It was asleep, I believe, but it opened a pair of 
 bright huckleberry eyes, set in the smallest of features, that 
 
THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 83 
 
 were like those of a carved ivory idol, and uttered a " coo " 
 at the sound of its mother's voice. She stood on one side 
 with unruffled composure, while Enriquez threw himself 
 into an attitude before it, with clasped hands, as if it had 
 been an image of the Holy Child. For myself, I was too 
 astounded to speak ; luckily, my confusion was attributed 
 to the inexperience of a bachelor. 
 
 " I have adopted," said Mrs. Saltillo, with the faintest 
 touch of maternal pride in her manner, " what I am con- 
 vinced is the only natural and hygienic mode of treating 
 the human child. It may be said to be a reversion to the 
 aborigine, but I have yet to learn that it is not superior 
 to our civilized custom. By these bandages the limbs of 
 the infant are kept in proper position until they are strong 
 enough to support the body, and such a thing as malforma- 
 tion is unknown. It is protected by its cradle, which takes 
 the place of its incubating-shell, from external injury, the 
 injudicious coddling of nurses, the so-called ' dancings ' and 
 pernicious rockings. The supine position, as in the adult, 
 is imposed only at night. By the aid of this strap it may 
 be carried on long journeys, either by myself or by Enriquez, 
 who thus shares with me, as he fully recognizes, its equal 
 responsibility and burden." 
 
 " It — certainly does not — cry," I stammered. 
 
 " Crying," said Mrs. Saltillo, with a curve of her pretty 
 red lip, " is the protest of the child against insanitary and 
 artificial treatment. In its upright, unostentatious cradle 
 it is protected against that injudicious fondling and danger- 
 ous promiscuous osculation to which, as an infant in human 
 arms, it is so often subjected. Above all, it is kept from 
 that shameless and mortifying publicity so unjust to the 
 weak and unformed animal. The child repays this consid- 
 eration by a gratifying silence. It cannot be expected to 
 understand our thoughts, speech, or actions ; it cannot par- 
 ticipate in our pleasures. Why should it be forced into 
 
84 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 premature contact with them, merely to feed our -vanity 61 
 selfishness ? Why should we assume our particular parental 
 accident as superior to the common lot ? If we do not give 
 our offspring that prominence before our visitors so common 
 to the young wife and husband, it is for that reason solely ; 
 and this may account for what seemed the forgetfulness of 
 Enriquez in speaking of it or pointing it out to you. And 
 I think his action in calling you back to see it was some- 
 what precipitate. As one does not usually introduce an 
 unknown and inferior stranger without some previous intro- 
 duction, he might have asked you if you wished to see the 
 baby before he recalled you." 
 
 I looked from Urania's unfathomable eyes to Enriquez's 
 impenetrable countenance. I might have been equal to 
 either of them alone, but together they were invincible. 
 I looked hopelessly at the baby. With its sharp little eyes 
 and composed face, it certainly was a marvelous miniature 
 of Enriquez. I said so. 
 
 " It would be singular if it was not," said Mrs. Saltillo 
 dryly ; " and as I believe it is by no means an uncommon 
 fact in human nature, it seems to me strange that people 
 should insist upon it as a discovery. It is an inheritance, 
 however, that in due time progress and science will no 
 doubt interrupt, to the advancement of the human race. 
 I need not say that both Enriquez and myself look forward 
 to it with confident tranquillity." 
 
 There was clearly nothing for me to do now but to shake 
 hands again and take my leave. Yet I was so much im- 
 pressed with the unreality of the whole scene that when 
 I reached the front door I had a strong impulse to return 
 suddenly and fall in upon them in their relaxed and nat- 
 ural attitudes. They could not keep up this pose between 
 themselves ; and I half expected to see their laughing faces 
 at the window, as I glanced up before wending my perilous 
 way to the street. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 85 
 
 I found Mrs. Saltillo's manuscript well written and, in 
 the narrative parts, even graphic and sparkling. I sup- 
 pressed some general remarks on the universe, and some 
 correlative theories of existence, as not appertaining partic- 
 ularly to the Aztecs, and as not meeting any unquenchable 
 thirst for information on , the part of the readers of the 
 " Daily Excelsior." I even promoted my fair contributor 
 to the position of having been commissioned, at a great 
 expense, to make the Mexican journey especially for the 
 " Excelsior." This, with Mrs. Saltillo's somewhat precise 
 preraphaelite drawings and water-colors, vilely reproduced 
 by woodcuts, gave quite a sensational air to her production, 
 which, divided into parts, for two or three days rilled a 
 whole page of the paper. I am not aware of any particu- 
 lar service that it did to ethnology ; but, as I pointed out 
 in the editorial column, it showed that the people of Cali- 
 fornia were not given over by material greed to the exclu- 
 sion of intellectual research ; and as it was attacked in- 
 stantly in long communications from one or two scientific 
 men, it thus produced more copy. 
 
 Briefly, it was a boom for the author and the " Daily 
 Excelsior." I should add, however, that a rival newspaper 
 intimated that it was also a boom for Mrs. Saltillo's husband, 
 and called attention to the fact that a deserted Mexican 
 mine, known as " El Bolero," was described graphically 
 in the Aztec article among the news, and again appeared 
 in the advertising columns of the same paper. I turned 
 somewhat indignantly to the file of the " Excelsior," and, 
 singularly enough, found in the elaborate prospectus of a 
 new gold-mining company the description of the El Bolero 
 mine as a quotation from the Aztec article, with extraordi- 
 nary inducements for the investment of capital in the pro- 
 jected working of an old mine. If I had had any difficulty 
 in recognizing in the extravagant style the flamboyant hand 
 of Enriquez in English writing, I might have read his nam6 
 
86 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 plainly enough displayed as president of the company. It 
 was evidently the prospectus of one of the ventures he had 
 shown me. I was more amused than indignant at the little 
 trick he had played upon my editorial astuteness. After 
 all, if I had thus henefited the young couple I was satisfied. 
 I had not seen them since my first visit, as I was very busy, 
 — my communications with Mrs. Saltillo had been carried 
 on by letters and proofs, — and when I did finally call at 
 their house, it was only to find that they were visiting 
 at San Jose. I wondered whether the baby was still hang- 
 ing on the wall, or, if he was taken with them, who carried 
 him. 
 
 A week later the stock of El Bolero was quoted at 
 par. More than that, an incomprehensible activity had 
 been given to all the deserted Mexican mines, and people 
 began to look up scrip hitherto thrown aside asvworthless. 
 Whether it was one of those extraordinary fevers which 
 attacked Californian speculation in the early days, or 
 whether Enriquez Saltillo had infected the stock-market 
 with his own extravagance, I never knew ; but plans as 
 wild, inventions as fantastic, and arguments as illogical as 
 ever emanated from his own brain, were set forth " on 
 'Change " with a gravity equal to his own. The most 
 reasonable hypothesis was that it was the effect of the well- 
 known fact that the Spanish Californian hitherto had not 
 been a mining speculator, nor connected in any way with 
 the gold production on his native soil, deeming it incon- 
 sistent with his patriarchal life and landed dignity, and 
 that when a "son of one of the oldest Spanish families, 
 identified with the land and its peculiar character for cen- 
 turies, lent himself to its mineral exploitations,'' — I beg to 
 say that I am quoting from the advertisement in the " Ex- 
 celsior," — " it was a guerdon of success.'' This was so 
 far true that in a week Enriquez Saltillo was rich, and in 
 a fair way to become a millionaire. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 87 
 
 It was a hot afternoon when I alighted from the stifling 
 Wingdam coach, and stood upon the cool, deep veranda of 
 the Carquinez Springs Hotel. After I had shaken off the 
 dust which had lazily followed us, in our descent of the 
 mountain road, like a red smoke, occasionally overflowing 
 the coach windows, I went up to the room I had engaged 
 for my brief holiday. I knew the place well, although I 
 could see that the hotel itself had lately been redecorated 
 and enlarged to meet the increasing requirements of fash- 
 ion. T knew the forest of enormous redwoods where one 
 might lose one's self in a five minutes' walk from the ve- 
 randa. I knew the rocky trail that climbed the mountain to 
 the springs, twisting between giant boulders. I knew the 
 arid garden, deep in the wayside dust, with its hurriedly 
 planted tropical plants, already withering in the dry autumn 
 sunshine, and washed into fictitious freshness, night and 
 morning, by the hydraulic irrigating-hose. I knew, too, 
 the cool, reposeful winds that swept down from invisible 
 snow-crests beyond, with the hanging out of monstrous 
 stars, that too often failed to bring repose to the feverish 
 guests. For the overstrained neurotic workers who fled 
 hither from the baking plains of Sacramento, or from the 
 chill sea-fogs of San Francisco, never lost the fierce unrest 
 that had driven them here. Unaccustomed to leisure, their 
 enforced idleness impelled them to seek excitement in the 
 wildest gayeties ; the bracing mountain air only reinvigo- 
 rated them to pursue pleasure as they had pursued the occu- 
 pations they had left behind. Their sole recreations were 
 furious drives over break-neck roads ; mad, scampering caval- 
 cades through the sedate woods ; gambling parties in private 
 rooms, where large sums were lost by capitalists on leave ; 
 champagne suppers ; and impromptu balls that lasted through 
 the palm, reposeful night to the first rays of light on the 
 distant snow-line. Unimaginative men, in their temporary 
 sojourn they more often outraged or dispossessed Nature in 
 
88 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 her own fastnesses than courted her for sympathy or soli 
 tude. There were playing-cards left lying behind boulders, 
 and empty champagne bottles forgotten in forest depths. 
 
 I remembered all this when, refreshed by a bath, I 
 leaned from the balcony of my room and watched the pull- 
 ing up of a brake, drawn by six dusky, foam-bespattered 
 horses, driven by a noted capitalist. As its hot, perspiring, 
 closely-veiled yet burning-faced fair occupants descended, 
 in all the dazzling glory of summer toilets, and I saw the 
 gentlemen consult their watches with satisfaction, and con- 
 gratulate their triumphant driver, I knew the characteristic 
 excitement they had enjoyed from a "record run," prob- 
 ably for a bet, over a mountain road in a burning sun. 
 
 " Not bad, eh ? Forty-four minutes from the sum- 
 mit ! " 
 
 The voice seemed at my elbow. I turned quickly to 
 recognize an acquaintance, a young San Francisco broker, 
 leaning from the next balcony to mine. But my attention 
 was just then preoccupied by the face and figure, which 
 seemed familiar to me, of a woman who was alighting from 
 the brake. 
 
 " Who is that? " I asked ; " the straight, slim woman in 
 gray, with the white veil twisted round her felt hat ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Saltillo," he answered; "wife of 'El Bolero' 
 Saltillo, don't you know. Mighty pretty woman, if she is 
 a little stiffish and set up." 
 
 Then I had not been mistaken ! " Is Enriquez — is her 
 husband — here ? " I asked quickly. 
 
 The man laughed. " I reckon not. This is the place 
 for other people's husbands, don't you know.'' 
 
 Alas ! I did know ; and as there flashed upon me all 
 the miserable scandals and gossip connected with this reck- 
 less, frivolous caravansary, I felt like resenting his sugges- 
 tion. But my companion's next words were more signify 
 cant : — 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 89 
 
 " Besides, if what they say is true, Saltillo would n't be 
 very popular here." 
 
 " I don't understand," I said quickly. 
 
 "Why, after all that row he had with the El Bolero 
 Company." 
 
 " I never heard of any row," I said, in astonishment. 
 
 The broker laughed incredulously. " Come ! and you a 
 newspaper man ! Well, maybe they did try to hush it up, 
 and keep it out of the papers, on account of the stock. But 
 it seems he got up a reg'lar shindy with the board, one 
 day ; called 'em thieves and swindlers, and allowed he was 
 disgracing himself as a Spanish hidalgo by having anything 
 to do with 'em. Talked, they say, about Charles V. of 
 Spain, or some other royal galoot, giving his ancestors the 
 land in trust ! Clean off his head, I reckon. Then shunted 
 himself off the company, and sold out. You can guess he 
 would n't be very popular around here, with Jim Bestley, 
 there," pointing to the capitalist who had driven the brake, 
 " who used to be on the board with him. No, sir. He 
 was either lying low for something, or was off his head. 
 Think of his throwing up a place like that ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " I said indignantly. " He is mercurial, 
 and has the quick impulsiveness of his race, but I believe 
 him as sane as any who sat with him on the board. There 
 must be some mistake, or you have n't got the whole 
 story." Nevertheless, I did not care to discuss an old 
 friend with a mere acquaintance, and I felt secretly puzzled 
 to account for his conduct, in the face of his previous clever- 
 ness in manipulating the El Bolero, and the undoubted fas- 
 cination he had previously exercised over the stockholders. 
 The story had, of course, been garbled in repetition. I had 
 never before imagined what might be the effect of Enriquez's 
 peculiar eccentricities upon matter-of-fact people, — I had 
 found them only amusing, — and the broker's suggestion 
 annoyed me. However, Mrs. Saltillo was here in the hotel, 
 
90 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 and I should, of course, meet her. Would she be as frank 
 with me ? 
 
 I was disappointed at not finding her in the drawing- 
 room or on the veranda ; and the heat being still unusually 
 oppressive, I strolled out towards the redwoods, hesitating 
 for a moment in the shade before I ran the fiery gauntlet 
 of the garden. To my surprise, I had scarcely passed the 
 giant sentinels on its outskirts before I found that, from 
 some unusual condition of the atmosphere, the cold under- 
 current of air which generally drew through these pillared 
 aisles was withheld that afternoon ; it was absolutely hotter 
 than in the open, and the wood was charged throughout 
 with the acrid spices of the pine,. I turned back to the 
 jfiotel, reascended to my bedroom, and threw myself in an 
 armchair by the open window. My room was near the end 
 pf a wing ; the corner room at the end was next to mine, on 
 the same landing. Its closed door, at right angles to my 
 open one, gave upon the staircase, but was plainly visible 
 from where I sat. I remembered being glad that it was shut, 
 as it enabled me without offense to keep my own door open. 
 
 The house was very quiet. The leaves of a catalpa, 
 across the roadway, hung motionless. Somebody yawned 
 on the veranda below. I threw away my half-finished 
 cigar, and closed my eyes. I think 1 had not lost con- 
 sciousness for more than a few seconds before I was awak- 
 ened by the shaking and thrilling of the whole building. 
 As I staggered to my feet, I saw the four pictures hanging 
 against the wall swing outwardly from it on their cords, 
 and my door swing back against the wall. At the same 
 moment, acted upon by the same potential impulse, the 
 door of the end room in the hall, opposite the stairs, also 
 swung open. In that brief moment I had a glimpse of the 
 interior of the room, of two figures, a man and a woman, 
 the latter clinging to her companion in abject terror. It 
 Was only for an instant, for a second thrill passed through 
 
THE PASSING OF ENKIQUEZ 91 
 
 the house, the pictures clattered back against the wall, the 
 door of the end room closed violently on its strange revela- 
 tion, and my own door swung back also. Apprehensive of 
 what might happen, I sprang toward it, but only to arrest 
 it an inch or two before it should shut, when, as my ex- 
 perience had taught me, it might stick by the subsidence 
 of the walls. But it did stick ajar, and remained firmly 
 fixed in that position. Prom the clattering of the knob of 
 the other door, and the sound of hurried voices behind it, 
 I knew that the same thing had happened there when th" J 
 door had fully closed. 
 
 I was familiar enough with earthquakes to know that, 
 with the second shock or subsidence of the earth, the imme- 
 diate danger was passed, and so I was able to note more 
 clearly what else was passing. There was the usual sudden 
 stampede of hurrying feet, the solitary oath and scream, 
 the half-hysterical laughter, and silence. Then the tumult 
 was reawakened to the sound of high voices, talking all 
 together, or the impatient calling of absentees in halls 
 and corridors. Then I heard the quick swish of female 
 skirts on the staircase, and one of the fair guests knocked 
 impatiently at the door of the end room, still immovably 
 fixed. At the first knock there was a sudden cessation of 
 the hurried whisperings and turning of the door-knob. 
 
 " Mrs. Saltillo, are you there ? Are you frightened ? " 
 she called. 
 
 " Mrs. Saltillo " ! It was she, then, who was in the 
 room ! I drew nearer my door, which was still fixed ajar. 
 Presently a voice, — Mrs. Saltillo's voice, — with a con- 
 strained laugh in it, came from behind the door : " Not a 
 bit. I'll come down in a minute." 
 
 "Do," persisted the would-be intruder. "It's all over 
 now, but we 're all going out into the garden ; it 's safer." 
 
 "All right," answered Mrs. Saltillo. " Don't wait, dear. 
 I '11 follow. Bun away, now." 
 
92 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 The visitor, who was evidently still nervous, was glad to 
 hurry away, and I heard her retreating step on the stair- 
 case. The rattling of the door began again, and at last it 
 seemed to yield to a stronger pull, and opened sufficiently 
 to allow Mrs. Saltillo to squeeze through. I withdrew be- 
 hind my door. I fancied that it creaked as she passed, as 
 if, noticing it ajar, she had laid an inquiring hand upon 
 it. I waited, but she was not followed by any one. I 
 wondered if I had been mistaken. I was going to the 
 bell-rope to summon assistance to move my own door when 
 a sudden instinct withheld me. If there was any one still 
 in that room, he might come from it just as the servant 
 answered my call, and a public discovery would be un- 
 avoidable. I was right. In another instant the figure of 
 a man, whose face I could not discern, slipped out of the 
 room, passed my door, and went stealthily down the stair- 
 case. 
 
 Convinced of this, I resolved not to call public attention 
 to my being in my own room at the time of the incident ; 
 so I did not summon any one, but, redoubling my efforts, 
 I at last opened the door sufficiently to pass out, and at 
 once joined the other guests in the garden. Already, with 
 characteristic recklessness and audacity, the earthquake was 
 made light of ; the only dictate of prudence had resolved 
 itself into a hilarious proposal to " camp out " in the woods 
 all night, and have a " torch-light picnic." Even then pre- 
 parations were being made for carrying tents, blankets, and 
 pillows to the adjacent redwoods ; dinner and supper, cooked 
 at camp-fires, were to be served there on stumps of trees and 
 fallen logs. The convulsion of nature had been used as an 
 excuse for one of the wildest freaks of extravagance that 
 Carquinez Springs had ever known. Perhaps that quick 
 sense of humor. which dominates the American male in 
 exigencies of this kind kept the extravagances from being 
 merely bizarre and grotesque, and it was presently known 
 
THE PASSING OF ENKIQUEZ 93 
 
 that the hotel and its menage were to be appropriately bur- 
 lesqued by some of the guests, who, attired as Indians, 
 would personate the staff, from the oracular hotel proprie- 
 tor himself down to the smart hotel clerk. 
 
 During these arrangements I had a chance of drawing 
 near Mrs. Saltillo. I fancied she gave a slight start as she 
 recognized me ; but her greetings were given with her usual 
 precision. " Have you been here long ? " she asked. 
 
 " I have only just come," I replied laughingly ; " in time 
 for the shock." 
 
 "Ah, you felt it, then ? I was telling these ladies that 
 our eminent geologist, Professor Dobbs, assured me that 
 these seismic disturbances in California have a very remote 
 centre, and are seldom serious." 
 
 " It must be very satisfactory to have the support of 
 geology at such a moment," I could not help saying, though 
 I had not the slightest idea whose the figure was that I had 
 seen, nor, indeed, had I recognized it among the guests. 
 She did not seem to detect any significance in my speech, 
 and I added : " And where is Enriquez ? He would enjoy 
 this proposed picnic to-night." 
 
 "Enriquez is at Salvatierra Eancho, which he lately 
 kought from his cousin." 
 
 " And the baby ? Surely, here is a chance for you to 
 hang him up on a redwood to-night, in his cradle." 
 
 " The boy," said Mrs. Saltillo quickly, " is no longer in 
 his cradle ; he has passed the pupa state, and is now free to 
 develop his own perfected limbs. He is with his father. 
 I do not approve of children being submitted to the indis- 
 criminate attentions of a hotel. I am here myself only for 
 that supply of ozone indicated for brain exhaustion." 
 
 She looked so pretty and prim in her gray dress, so like 
 her old correct self, that I could not think of -anything but 
 her mental attitude, which did not, by the way, seem much 
 like mental depression. Yet I was aware that I was getting 
 
94 THE PASSING OF ENBIQTJEZ 
 
 no information of Enriquez's condition or affairs, unless the 
 whole story told by the broker was an exaggeration. I did 
 not, however, dare to ask more particularly. 
 
 " You remember Professor Dobbs ? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 This recalled a suspicion awakened by my vision, so sud- 
 denly that I felt myself blushing. She did not seem to 
 notice it, and was perfectly composed. 
 
 " I do remember him. Is he here ? " 
 
 " He is ; that is what makes it so particularly unfortu- 
 nate for me. You see, after that affair of the board, and 
 Enriquez's withdrawal, although Enriquez may have been 
 a little precipitate in his energetic way, I naturally took my 
 husband's part in public ; for although we preserve our own 
 independence inviolable, we believe in absolute confedera- 
 tion as against society." 
 
 " But what has Professor Dobbs to do with the board ? " 
 I interrupted. 
 
 " The professor was scientific and geological adviser to the 
 board, and it was upon some report or suggestion of his that 
 Enriquez took issue, against the sentiment of the board. It 
 was a principle affecting Enriquez's Spanish sense of honor." 
 
 " Do tell me all about it," I said eagerly ; "I am very 
 anxious to know the truth." 
 
 " As I was not present at the time," said Mrs. Saltillo, 
 rebuking my eagerness with a gentle frigidity, "I am unable 
 to do so. Anything else would be mere hearsay, and more 
 or less ex parte. I do not approve of gossip.?' 
 
 " But what did Enriquez tell you ? You surely know 
 that." 
 
 " That, being purely confidential, as between husband 
 and wife, — perhaps I should say partner and partner, — of 
 course you do not expect me to disclose. Enough that J was 
 satisfied with it. I should not have spoken to you about it 
 at all, but that, through myself and Enriquez, you are an 
 acquaintance of the professor's, and I might save you the 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 95 
 
 awkwardness of presenting, yourself with him. Otherwise, 
 although you are a friend of Enriquez, it need not affect 
 your acquaintance with the professor." 
 
 " Hang the professor ! " I ejaculated. " I don't care a 
 rap for him." 
 
 " Then I differ with you," said Mrs. Saltillo, with pre- 
 cision. " He is distinctly an able man, and one cannot 
 but miss the contact of his original mind and his liberal 
 teachings." 
 
 Here she was joined by one of the ladies, and I lounged 
 away. I dare say it was very mean and very illogical, but 
 the unsatisfactory character of this interview made me revert 
 again to the singular revelation I had seen a few hours be- 
 fore. I looked anxiously for Professor Dobbs ; but when I 
 did meet him, with an indifferent nod of recognition, I found 
 I could by no means identify him with the figure of her 
 mysterious companion. And why should I suspect him at 
 all, in the face of Mrs. Saltillo's confessed avoidance of him ? 
 Who, then, could it have been ? I had seen them but an 
 instant, in the opening and the shutting of a door. It was 
 merely the shadowy bulk of a man that flitted past my door, 
 after all. Could I have imagined the whole thing ? Were 
 my perceptive faculties — just aroused from slumber, too — 
 sufficiently clear to be relied upon ? Would I not have 
 laughed bad Urania, or even Enriquez himself, told me such 
 a story ? 
 
 As I reentered the hotel the clerk handed me a telegram. 
 "There's been a pretty big shake all over the country," he 
 said eagerly. " Everybody is getting news and inquiries 
 from their friends. Anything fresh ? " He paused inter- 
 rogatively as I tore open the envelope. The dispatch had 
 been redirected from the office of the " Daily Excelsior." 
 It was dated, " Salvatierra Eancho," and contained a single 
 line : " Come and see your old uncle 'Ennery." 
 
 There was nothing in the wording of the message that 
 
96 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 ■was unlike Enriquez's usual light-hearted levity, but the fact 
 that he should have telegraphed it to me struck me uneasily. 
 That I should have received it at the hotel where his wife 
 and Professor Dobbs were both staying, and where I had had 
 such a singular experience, seemed to me more than a mere 
 coincidence. An instinct that the message was something 
 personal to Enriquez and myself kept me from imparting 
 it to Mrs. Saltillo. After worrying half the night in our 
 bizarre camp in the redwoods, in the midst of a restless fes- 
 tivity which was scarcely the repose I had been seeking at 
 Carquinez Springs, I resolved to leave the next day for Sal- 
 vatierra Rancho. I remembered the rancho, — a low, golden- 
 brown, adobe-walled quadrangle, sleeping like some monstrous 
 ruminant in a hollow of the Contra Costa Range. I recalled, 
 in the midst of this noisy picnic, the slumberous coolness of 
 its long corridors and soundless courtyard, and hailed it as a 
 relief. The telegram was a sufficient excuse for my abrupt 
 departure. In the morning I left, but without again seeing 
 either Mrs. Saltillo or the professor. 
 
 It was late the next afternoon when I rode through the 
 cariada that led to the rancho. I confess my thoughts were 
 somewhat gloomy, in spite of my escape from the noisy 
 hotel ; but this was due to the sombre scenery through which 
 I had just ridden, and the monotonous russet of the leagues 
 of wild oats. As I approached the rancho, I saw that En- 
 riquez had made no attempt to modernize the old casa, and 
 that even the garden was left in its lawless native luxuri- 
 ance, while the rude tiled sheds near the walled corral con- 
 tained the old farming implements, unchanged for a century, 
 even to the ox-carts, the wheels of which were made of a 
 single block of wood. A few peons, in striped shirts and 
 velvet jackets, were sunning themselves against a wall, and 
 near them hung a half-drained pellejo, or goatskin water- 
 bag. The air of absolute shiftlessness must have been re- 
 pellent to Mrs. Saltillo's orderly precision, and for a moment 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 97 
 
 I pitied her. But it was equally inconsistent with Enriquez's 
 enthusiastic ideas of American progress, and the extravagant 
 designs he had often imparted to me of the improvements 
 he would make when he had a fortune. I was feeling un- 
 easy again, when I suddenly heard the rapid clack of unshod 
 hoofs on a rocky trail that joined my own. At the same 
 instant a horseman dashed past me at full speed. I had 
 barely time to swerve my own horse aside to avoid a collision, 
 yet in that brief moment I recognized the figure of Enriquez. 
 But his face I should have scarcely known. It was hard 
 and fixed. His upper lip and thin, penciled mustache were 
 drawn up over his teeth, which were like a white gash in 
 his dark face. He turned into the courtyard of the rancho. 
 I put spurs to my horse, and followed, in nervous expecta- 
 tion. He turned in his saddle as I entered. But the next 
 moment he bounded from his horse, and, before I could 
 dismount, flew to my side and absolutely lifted me from the 
 saddle to embrace me. It was the old Enriquez again ; 
 his face seemed to have utterly changed in that brief mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " This is all very well, old chap," I said ; " but do you 
 know that you nearly ran me down, just now, with that 
 infernal half-broken mustang ? Do you usually charge the 
 casa at that speed ? " 
 
 " Pardon, my leetle brother ! But here you shall slip up. 
 The mustang is not half broken ; he is not broke at all ! 
 Look at his hoof — never have a shoe been there. Eor my- 
 self — attend me ! When I rride alone, I think mooch ; 
 when I think mooch, I think fast ; my idea he go like a 
 cannon-ball ! Consequent, if I rride not thees horse like the 
 cannon-ball, my thought he arrive first, and where are you ? 
 You get left ! Believe me that I fly thees horse, thees old 
 Mexican plug, and your de' uncle 'Ennery and his leetle old 
 idea arrive all the same time, and on the instant." 
 
 It was the old Enriquez ! I perfectly understood hi"} 
 
98 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 extravagant speech and illustration, and yet for the first tima 
 I wondered if others did. 
 
 " Tak'-a-drink ! " he said, all in one word. " You shall 
 possess the old Bourbon or the rhum from the Santa Cruz ! 
 Name your poison, gentlemen ! " 
 
 He had already dragged me up the steps from the patio 
 to the veranda, and seated me before a small round table 
 still covered with the chocolate equipage of the morning. 
 A little dried-up old Indian woman took it away, and brought 
 the spirits and glasses. 
 
 " Mirar the leetle old one ! " said Enriquez, with unflinch- 
 ing gravity. " Consider her, Pancho, to the bloosh ! She 
 is not truly an Aztec, but she is of years one hundred and 
 one, and lifs ! Possibly she haf not the beauty which rav- 
 ishes, which devastates. But she shall attent you "to the 
 hot water, to the bath. Thus shall you be protect, my 
 leetle brother, from scandal." 
 
 " Enriquez," I burst out suddenly, " tell me about your- 
 self. Why did you leave the El Bolero board ? What was 
 the row about ? " 
 
 Enriquez's eyes for a moment glittered ; then they danced 
 as before. 
 
 " Ah," he said, " you have heard ? " 
 
 " Something ; but I want to know the truth from you." 
 
 He lighted a cigarette and lifted himself backward into a 
 grass hammock, on which he sat, swinging his feet. Then, 
 pointing to another hammock, he said : " Tranquilize your- 
 self there. I will relate ; but, truly, it ees nothing." 
 
 He took a long pull at his cigarette, and for a few moments 
 seemed quietly to exude smoke from his eyes, ears, nose, 
 even his finger-ends, — everywhere, in fact, but his mouth. 
 That and his mustache remained fixed. Then he said slowly, 
 flicking away the ashes with his little finger : — 
 
 " First you understand, friend Pancho, that / make no 
 (ow. The other themself make the row, the shindig. They 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 99 
 
 make the dance, the howl, the snap of the finger, the oath, 
 the 'Helen blazes,' the 'Wot the devil,' the 'That be d— d,' 
 the bad language ; they themselves finger the revolver, ad- 
 vance the bowie-knife, throw off the coat, square off, and 
 say ' Come on.' I remain as you see me now, leetle brother 
 — tranquil." He lighted another cigarette, made his posi- 
 tion more comfortable in the hammock, and resumed: "The 
 Professor Dobbs, who is the geologian of the company, made 
 a report for which he got two thousand dollar. But thees 
 report — look you, friend Pancho — he is not good for the 
 mine. For in the hole in the ground the Professor Dobbs 
 have found a 'hoss.' " 
 
 " A what ? " I asked. 
 
 " A hoss," repeated Enriquez, with infinite gravity. " But 
 not, leetle Pancho, the hoss that run, the hoss that buck- 
 jump, but what the miner call a ' hoss,' a something that 
 rear up in the vein and stop him. You pick around the 
 hoss ; you pick under him ; sometimes you find the vein, 
 sometimes you do not. The hoss rear up, and remain ! Eet 
 
 ees not good for the mine. The board say, ' D the 
 
 hoss ! ' ' Get rid of the hoss.' ' Chuck out the hoss.' Then 
 they talk together, and one say to the Professor Dobbs : ' Eef 
 you cannot thees hoss remove from the mine, you can take 
 him out of the report.' He look to me, thees professor. I 
 see nothing ; I remain tranquil. Then the board say : ' Thees 
 report with the hoss in him is worth two thousand dollar, 
 but without the hoss he is worth five thousand dollar. For 
 the stockholder is frighted of the rearing hoss. It is of a 
 necessity that the stockholder should remain tranquil. With- 
 out the hoss the report is good ; the stock shall errise ; the 
 director shall sell out, and leave the stockholder the hoss 
 to play with.' The professor he say, ' Al-right; ' he scratch 
 out the hoss, sign his name, and get a check for three thou- 
 sand dollar." 
 
 " Then I errise — so ! " He got up from the hammock. 
 
1 00 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 suiting the action to the word, and during the rest of hia 
 narrative, I honestly believe, assumed the same attitude and 
 deliberate intonation he had exhibited at the board. I 
 could even fancy I saw the reckless, cynical faces of his 
 brother directors turned upon his grim, impassive features. 
 " I am tranquil ; I smoke my cigarette. I say that for 
 three hundred year my family have held the land of thees 
 mine ; that it pass from father to son, and from son to son ; 
 it pass by gift, it pass by grant, but that nevarre there pass 
 a lie with it ! I say it was a gift by a Spanish Christian 
 king to a Christian hidalgo for the spread of the gospel, and 
 not for the cheat and the swindle ! I say that this mine was 
 worked by the slave, and by the mule, by the ass, but never 
 by the cheat and swindler. I say that if they have struck 
 the hoss in the mine, they have struck a hoss in the land, 
 a Spanish hoss ; a hoss that have no bridle worth five thou- 
 sand dollar in his mouth, but a hoss to rear, and a hoss that 
 cannot be struck out by a Yankee geologian ; and that hoss 
 is Enriquez Saltillo ! " 
 
 He paused and laid aside his cigarette. " Then they 
 say, ' Dry up,' and ' Sell out ; ' and the great bankers say, 
 'Name your own price for your stock, and resign.' And 
 I say, ' There is not enough gold in your bank, in your San 
 Francisco, in the mines of California, that shall buy a Span- 
 ish gentleman. When I leave, I leave the stock at my back ; 
 I shall take it, nevarre ! ' Then the banker he say, ' And 
 you will go and blab, I suppose ? ' And then, Pancho, I 
 smile, I pick up my mustache — so ! and I say : ' Pardon, 
 sefior, you haf mistake. The Saltillo haf for three hundred 
 year no stain, no blot upon him. Eet is not now — the 
 last of the race — who shall confess that he haf sit at a 
 board of disgrace and dishonor ! ' And then it is that the 
 band begin to play, and the. animals stand on their hind leg 
 and waltz, and behold, the row he haf begin ! " 
 
 I ran over to him, and fairly hugged him. But he put 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 101 
 
 me aside with a gentle and philosophical calm. " Ah, eet 
 is nothing, Pancho. It is, believe me, all the same a hun- 
 dred years to come, and where are you, then ? The earth 
 he turn round, and then come el temblor, the earthquake, 
 and there you are ! Bah ! eet is not of the board that I 
 have asked you to come ; it is something else I would tell 
 you. Go and wash yourself of thees journey, my leetle 
 brother, as I have " — looking at his narrow, brown, well- 
 bred hands — " wash myself of the board. Be very care- 
 ful of the leetle old woman, Pancho ; do not wink to her of 
 the eye ! Consider, my leetle brother, for one hundred and 
 one year she haf been as a nun, a saint ! Disturb not her 
 tranquillity." 
 
 Yes, it was the old Enriquez ; but he seemed graver, — 
 if I could use that word of one of such persistent gravity ; 
 only his gravity heretofore had suggested a certain irony 
 rather than a melancholy which I now fancied I detected. 
 And what was this " something else " he was to " tell me 
 later " ? Did it refer to Mrs. Saltillo ? I had purposely 
 waited for him to speak of her, before I should say any- 
 thing of my visit to Carquinez Springs. I hurried through 
 my ablutions in the hot water, brought in a bronze jar on 
 the head of the centenarian handmaid ; and even while I 
 was smiling over Enriquez's caution regarding this aged 
 Ruth, I felt I was getting nervous to hear his news. 
 
 I found him in his sitting-room, or study, — a long, low 
 apartment with small, deep windows like embrasures in the 
 outer adobe wall, but glazed in lightly upon the veranda. 
 He was sitting quite abstractedly, with a pen in his hand, 
 before a table, on which a number of sealed envelopes were 
 lying. He looked so formal and methodical for Enriquez. 
 
 " You like the old casa, Pancho ? " he said, in reply to 
 my praise of its studious and monastic gloom. " Well, my 
 leetle brother, some day that is fair — who knows ? — it 
 may be at your disposition ; not of our politeness, but of 
 
102 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 a truth, friend Pancho. For, if I leave it to my wife " — 
 it was the first time he had spoken of her — " for my leetle 
 child," he added quickly, " I shall put in a bond, an obli- 
 gation, that my friend Pancho shall come and go as he 
 will." 
 
 " The Saltillos are a long-lived race," I laughed. " I 
 shall be a gray-haired man, with a house and family of my 
 own, by that time." But I did not like the way he had 
 spoken. 
 
 " Quien sale ? " he only said, dismissing the question 
 with the national gesture. After a moment he added : " I 
 shall tell you something that is strrange, so strrange that 
 you shall say, like the banker say, ' Thees Enriquez, he ees 
 off his head ; he ees a crank, a lunatico ; ' but it ees a 
 fact; believe me, I have said ! " 
 
 He rose, and, going to the end of the room, opened a 
 door. It showed a pretty little room, femininely arranged 
 in Mrs. Saltillo's refined taste. " Eet is pretty ; eet is the 
 room of my wife. Bueno ! attend me now." He closed 
 the door, and walked back to the table. " I have sit here 
 and write when the earthquake arrive. I have feel the 
 shock, the grind of the walls on themselves, the tremor, the 
 stagger, and — that — door — he swing open ! " 
 
 " The door ? " I said, with a smile that I felt was 
 ghastly. 
 
 "Comprehend me," he said quickly; "it ees not that 
 which ees strrange. The wall lift, the lock slip, the door 
 he fell open ; it is frequent ; it comes so ever when the 
 earthquake come. But eet is not my wife's room I see ; it 
 is another room, a room I know not. My wife Urania, she 
 stand there, of a fear, of a tremble ; she grasp, she cling to 
 some one. The earth shake again ; the door shut. I jump 
 from my table ; I shake and tumble to the door. I fling 
 him open. Maravilloso ! it is the room of my wife again. 
 She is not there ; it is empty ; it is nothing I " 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIODEZ 103 
 
 I felt myself turning hot and cold by turns. I was 
 horrified, and — and I blundered. "And who was the 
 other figure ? " I gasped. 
 
 " Who ? " repeated Enriquez, with a pause, a fixed look 
 at me, and a sublime gesture. " Who should it be, but 
 myself, Enriquez Saltillo ? " 
 
 A terrible premonition that this was a chivalrous lie, 
 that it was not himself he had seen, but that our two 
 visions were identical, came upon me. " After all," I said, 
 with a fixed smile, " if you could imagine you saw your 
 wife, you could easily imagine you saw yourself, too. In 
 the shock of the moment you thought of her naturally, for 
 tren she would as naturally seek your protection. You 
 Lave written for news of her ? " 
 
 " No," said Enriquez quietly. 
 
 " No ? " I repeated amazedly. 
 
 " You understand, Pancho ! Eef it was the trick of my 
 eyes, why should I affright her for the thing that is not ? 
 If it is the truth, and it arrive to me, as a warning, why 
 shall I affright her before it come ? " 
 
 " Before what comes ? What is it a warning of ? " I 
 asked impetuously. 
 
 " That we shall be separated ! That / go, and she do 
 not." 
 
 To my surprise, his dancing eyes had a slight film over 
 them. " I don't understand you," I said awkwardly. 
 
 " Your head is not of a level, my Pancho. Thees earth- 
 quake he remain for only ten seconds, and he fling open 
 the door. If he remain for twenty seconds, he fling open 
 the wall, the hoose toomble, and your friend Enriquez is 
 feenish." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " I said. " Professor — I mean the geo- 
 logists — say that the centre of disturbance of these Cali- 
 fornian earthquakes is some far-away point in the Pacific, 
 and there never will be any serious convulsions here." 
 
104 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 " Ah, the geologist," said Enriquez gravely, " understand 
 the hoss that rear in the mine, and the five thousand dol- 
 lar, believe me, no more. He haf lif here three year. My 
 family haf lif here three hundred. My grandfather saw 
 the earth swallow the church of San Juan Baptista." 
 
 I laughed, until, looking up, I was shocked to see for 
 the first time that his dancing eyes were moist and shining. 
 But almost instantly he jumped up, and declared that I had 
 not seen the garden and the corral, and, linking his arm in 
 mine, swept me like a whirlwind into the patio. For an 
 hour or two he was in his old invincible spirits. I was 
 glad I had said nothing of my visit to Carquinez Springs 
 and of seeing his wife ; I determined to avoid it as long as 
 possible ; and as he did not again refer to her, except in the 
 past, it was not difficult. At last he infected me with his 
 extravagance, and for a while I forgot even the strangeness 
 of his conduct and his confidences. We walked and 
 talked together as of old. I understood and enjoyed him 
 perfectly, and it was not strange that in the end I began to 
 believe that this strange revelation was a bit of his extrav- 
 agant acting, got up to amuse me. The coincidence of 
 his story with my own experience was not, after all, such a 
 wonderful thing, considering what must have been the ner- 
 vous and mental disturbance produced by the earthquake. 
 We dined together, attended only by Pedro, an old half- 
 caste body-servant. It was easy to see that the household 
 was carried on economically, and, from a word or two casu- 
 ally dropped by Enriquez,' it appeared that the rancho and 
 a small sum of money were all that he retained from his 
 former fortune when he left the El Bolero. The stock he 
 kept intact, refusing to take the dividend upon it until 
 that collapse of the company should occur which he confi- 
 dently predicted, when he would make good the swindled 
 stockholders. I had no reason to doubt his perfect faitb 
 in this. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 105 
 
 The next morning we were up early for a breezy gallop 
 over the three square miles of Enriquez's estate. I was 
 astounded, when I descended to the patio, to find Enriquez 
 already mounted, and carrying before him, astride of the 
 horn of his saddle, a small child, — the identical papoose 
 of my memorable first visit. But the boy was no longer 
 swathed and bandaged, although, for security, his plump 
 little body was engirt by the same sash that encircled his 
 father's own waist. I felt a stirring of self-reproach ; I 
 had forgotten all about him ! To my suggestion that the 
 exercise might be fatiguing to him, Enriquez shrugged 
 his shoulders : — 
 
 " Believe me, no ! He is ever with me when I go on 
 the pasear. He is not too yonge. Eor he shall learn ' to 
 rride, to shoot, and to speak the truth,' even as the Persian 
 chile. Eet ees all I can gif to him." 
 
 Nevertheless, I think the boy enjoyed it, and I knew he 
 was safe with such an accomplished horseman as his father. 
 Indeed, it was a fine sight to see them both careering over 
 1he broad plain, Enriquez with jingling spurs and whirling 
 i-lata, and the boy, with a face as composed as his father's, 
 and his tiny hand grasping the end of the flapping rein 
 \sith a touch scarcely lighter than the skillful rider's own. 
 It was a lovely morning ; though warm and still, there 
 was a faint haze — a rare thing in that climate — on the 
 distant range. The sun-baked soil, arid and thirsty from 
 the long summer drought, and cracked into long fissures, 
 broke into puffs of dust, with a slight detonation like a 
 pistol-shot, at each stroke of our pounding hoofs. Suddenly 
 my horse swerved in full gallop, almost lost his footing, 
 " broke," and halted with braced forefeet, trembling in 
 every limb. I heard a shout from Enriquez at the same 
 instant, and saw that he too had halted about a hundred 
 paces from me, with his hand uplifted in warning, and be- 
 tween us a long chasm in the dry earth, extending across 
 
106 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 the whole field. But the trembling of the horse continued 
 until it communicated itself to me. I was shaking, too, 
 and looking about for the cause, when I beheld the most 
 weird and remarkable spectacle I had ever witnessed. The 
 whole llano, or plain, stretching to the horizon-line, was 
 distinctly undulating ! The faint haze of the hills was 
 repeated over its surface, as if a dust had arisen from some 
 grinding displacement of the soil. I threw myself from 
 my horse, but the next moment was fain to cling to him, 
 as I felt the thrill under my very feet. Then there was a 
 pause, and I lifted my head to look for Enriquez. He was 
 nowhere to be seen ! With a terrible recollection of the 
 fissure that had yawned between us, I sprang to the saddle 
 again, and spurred the frightened beast toward that point. 
 But it was gone, too ! I rode backward and forward re- 
 peatedly along the line where I had seen it only a moment 
 before. The plain lay compact and uninterrupted, without 
 a crack or fissure. The dusty haze that had arisen had 
 passed as mysteriously away ; the clear outline of the valley 
 returned ; the great field was empty ! 
 
 Presently I was aware of the sound of galloping hoofs. 
 I remembered then — what I had at first forgotten — that 
 a few moments before we had crossed an arroyo, or dried 
 bed of a stream, depressed below the level of the field. 
 How foolish that I had not remembered ! He had evi- 
 dently sought that refuge ; there were his returning hoofs. 
 I galloped toward it, but only to meet a frightened vaquero, 
 who had taken that avenue of escape to the rancho. 
 
 " Did you see Don Enriquez ? " I asked impatiently. 
 
 I saw that the man's terror was extreme, and his eyes 
 were staring in their sockets. He hastily crossed him- 
 self : — 
 
 "Ah, God, yes!" 
 
 " Where is he ? " I demanded. 
 
 " Gone ! " 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 107 
 
 " Where ? " ' 
 
 He looked at me with staring, vacant eyes, and, pointing 
 to the ground, said in Spanish : " He has returned to the 
 land of his fathers ! " 
 
 We searched for him that day and the next, when the 
 country was aroused and his neighbors joined in a quest 
 that proved useless. Neither he nor his innocent burden 
 was ever seen again of men. Whether he had been en- 
 gulfed by mischance in some unsuspected yawning chasm 
 in that brief moment, or had fulfilled his own prophecy by 
 deliberately erasing himself for some purpose known only 
 to himself, no one ever knew. His country-people shook 
 their heads and said " it was like a Saltillo." And the few 
 among his retainers who knew him and loved him whis- 
 pered still more ominously : " He will yet return to his 
 land to confound the Americanos." 
 
 Yet the widow of Enriquez did not marr} r Professor 
 Dobbs. But she too disappeared from California, and years 
 afterward I was told that she was well known to the ingen- 
 uous Parisians as the usual wealthy widow " from South 
 America." 
 
AN ESMEEALDA OF EOCKY CANON 
 
 It is to be feared that the hero of this chronicle began 
 life as an impostor. He was offered to the credulous and 
 sympathetic family of a San Francisco citizen as a lamb 
 who, unless bought as a playmate for the children, would 
 inevitably pass into the butcher's hands. A combination 
 of refined sensibility and urban ignorance of nature pre- 
 vented them from discerning certain glaring facts that 
 betrayed his caprid origin. So a ribbon was duly tied 
 round his neck, and in pleasing emulation of the legendary 
 " Mary," he was taken to school by the confiding children. 
 Here, alas ! the fraud was discovered, and history was 
 reversed by his being turned out by the teacher, because 
 he was not " a lamb at school." Nevertheless, the kind- 
 hearted mother of the family persisted in retaining him, on 
 the plea that he might yet become " useful." To her hus- 
 band's feeble suggestion of " gloves," she returned a scorn- 
 ful negative, and spoke of the weakly infant of a neighbor, 
 who might later receive nourishment from this providential 
 animal. But even this hope was destroyed by the eventual 
 discovery of his sex. Nothing remained now but to accept 
 him as an ordinary kid, and to find amusement in his 
 accomplishments, — eating, climbing, and butting. It must 
 be confessed that these were of a superior quality ; a capa- 
 city to eat everything from a cambric handkerchief to an 
 election poster, an agility which brought him even to the 
 roofs of houses, and a power of overturning by a single 
 push the chubbiest .child who opposed him, made him a 
 fearful joy to the nursery. This last quality was incau- 
 tiously developed in him by a negro boy-servant, who, later, 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 109 
 
 was hurriedly propelled down a flight of stairs hy his too 
 proficient scholar. Having once tasted victory, " Billy " 
 needed no further incitement to his performances. The 
 small wagon which he sometimes consented to draw for the 
 benefit of the children never hindered his attempts to butt 
 the passer-by. On the contrary, on well-known scientific 
 principles he added the impact of the bodies of the children 
 projected over his head in his charge, and the infelicitous 
 pedestrian found himself not only knocked off his legs by 
 Billy, but bombarded by the whole nursery. 
 
 Delightful as was this recreation to juvenile limbs, it 
 was felt to be dangerous to the adult public. Indignant 
 protestations were made, and as Billy could not be kept in 
 the house, he may be said to have at last butted himself 
 out of that sympathetic family and into a hard and unfeel- 
 ing world. One morning he broke his tether in the small 
 back yard. For several days thereafter he displayed him- 
 self in guilty freedom on the tops of adjacent walls and 
 outhouses. The San Francisco suburb where his credulous 
 protectors lived was still in a volcanic state of disruption, 
 caused by the grading of new streets through rocks and 
 sandhills. In consequence the roofs of some houses were 
 on the level of the doorsteps of others, and were especially 
 adapted to Billy's performances. One afternoon, to the 
 admiring and perplexed eyes of the nursery, he was discov- 
 ered standing on the apex of a neighbor's new Elizabethan 
 chimney, on a space scarcely larger than the crown of a hat, 
 calmly surveying the world beneath him. High infantile 
 voices appealed to him in vain ; baby arms were out- 
 stretched to him in hopeless invitation ; he remained ex- 
 alted and obdurate, like Milton's hero, probably by his 
 own merit " raised to that bad eminence." Indeed, there 
 was already something Satanic in his budding horns and 
 pointed mask as the smoke curled softly around him. Then 
 he appropriately vanished, and San Francisco knew him no 
 
110 AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 
 
 more. At the same time, however, one Owen M'Ginnis, 
 a neighboring sandhill squatter, also disappeared, leaving 
 San Francisco for the southern mines, and he was said to 
 have taken Billy with him, — for no conceivable reason 
 except for companionship. Howbeit, it was the turning- 
 point of Billy's career ; such restraint as kindness, civiliza- 
 tion, or even policemen had exercised upon his nature was 
 gone. He retained, I fear, a certain wicked intelligence, 
 pinked up in San Francisco with the newspapers and theat- 
 rical and election posters he had consumed. He reappeared 
 at Rocky Canon among the miners as an exceedingly agile 
 chamois, with the low cunning of a satyr. That was al) 
 that civilization had done for him ! 
 
 If Mr. M'Ginnis had fondly conceived that he would 
 make Billy " useful," as well as companionable, he was 
 singularly mistaken. Horses and mules were scarce in 
 Rocky Canon, and he attempted to utilize Billy by making 
 him draw a small cart, laden with auriferous earth, from 
 his claim to the river. Billy, lapidly gaining strength, was 
 quite equal to the task, but alas ! not his inborn propensity. 
 An incautious gesture from the first passing miner Billy 
 chose to construe into the usual challenge. Lowering his 
 head, from which his budding horns had been already 
 pruned by his master, he instantly went for his challenger, 
 cart and all. Again the scientific law already pointed out 
 prevailed. With the shock of the onset the entire con- 
 tents of the cart arose and poured over the astonished 
 miner, burying him from sight. In any other but a Cali- 
 fornian mining-camp such a propensity in a draught animal 
 would have been condemned, on account of the damage and 
 suffering it entailed, but in Rocky Canon it proved unpro- 
 fitable to the owner from the very amusement and interest 
 it excited. Miners lay in wait for Billy with a " green- 
 horn," or new-comer, whom they would put up to challenge 
 the animal by some indiscreet gesture. In this way hardly 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 111 
 
 a cartload of " pay-gravel " ever arrived safely at its desti- 
 nation, and the unfortunate M'Ginnis was compelled to 
 ■withdraw Billy as a beast of burden. It was whispered 
 that so great had his propensity become, under repeated 
 provocation, that M'Ginnis himself was no longer safe. 
 Going ahead of his cart one day to remove a fallen bough 
 from the trail, Billy construed the act of stooping into a 
 playful challenge from his master, — with the inevitable 
 result. 
 
 The next day M'Ginnis appeared with a wheelbarrow, 
 but without Billy. Prom that day he was relegated to the 
 rocky crags above the camp, from whence he was only lured 
 occasionally by the mischievous miners, who wished to ex- 
 hibit his peculiar performances. For although Billy had 
 ample food and sustenance among the crags, he had still 
 a civilized longing for posters ; and whenever a circus, a 
 concert, or a political meeting was " billed " in the settle- 
 ment, he was on hand while the paste was yet fresh and 
 succulent. In this way it was averred that he once removed 
 a gigantic theatre bill setting forth the charms of the " Sac- 
 ramento Pet," and being caught in the act by the advance 
 agent, was pursued through the main street, carrying the 
 damp bill on his horns, eventually affixing it, after his own 
 peculiar fashion, on the back of Judge Boompointer, who 
 was standing in front of his own court-house. 
 
 In connection with the visits of this young lady another 
 story concerning Billy survives in the legends of Rocky 
 Cafion. Colonel Starbottle was at that time passing through 
 the settlement on election business, and it was part of his 
 chivalrous admiration for the sex to pay a visit to the pretty 
 actress. The single waiting-room of the little hotel gave 
 upon the veranda, which was also level with the street. 
 After a brief yet gallant interview, in which he oratorically 
 expressed the gratitude of the settlement with old-fashioned 
 Southern courtesy, Colonel Starbottle lifted the chubby little 
 
112 AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 
 
 hand of the " Pet " to his lips, and, with a low bow, backed 
 out upon the veranda. But the Pet was astounded by his 
 instant reappearance, and by his apparently casting himself 
 passionately and hurriedly at her feet ! It is needless to 
 say that he was followed closely by Billy, who from the 
 street had casually noticed him, and construed his novel 
 exit into an ungentlemanly challenge. 
 
 Billy's visits, however, became less frequent, and as 
 Rocky Canon underwent the changes incidental to mining 
 settlements, he was presently forgotten in the invasion of 
 a few Southwestern families, and the adoption of amuse- 
 ments less practical and turbulent than he had afforded. 
 It was alleged that he was still seen in the more secluded 
 fastnesses of the mountains, having reverted to a wild state, 
 and it was suggested by one or two of the more adventurous 
 that he might yet become edible, and a fair object of chase. 
 A traveler through the Upper Pass of the canon related how 
 he had seen a savage-looking, hairy animal like a small elk 
 perched upon inaccessible rocks, but always out of gunshot. 
 But these and other legends were set at naught and over- 
 thrown by an unexpected incident. 
 
 The Pioneer Coach was toiling up the long grade towards 
 Skinners Pass when Yuba Bill suddenly pulled up, with his 
 feet on the brake. 
 
 " Jimminy ! " he ejaculated, drawing a deep breath. 
 
 The startled passenger beside him on the box followed 
 the direction of his eyes. Through an opening in the way- 
 side pines he could see, a few hundred yards away, a cup- 
 like hollow in the hillside of the vividest green. In the 
 centre a young girl of fifteen or sixteen was dancing and 
 keeping step to the castanet " click " of a pair of " bones," 
 such as negro minstrels use, held in her hands above her 
 head. But, more singular still, a few paces before her a 
 large goat, with its neck roughly wreathed with flowers and 
 vines, was taking ungainly bounds and leaps in imitation 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF KOCKY CANON 113 
 
 of its companion. The wild background of the Sierras, the 
 pastoral hollow, the incongruousness of the figures, and 
 the vivid color of the girl's red flannel petticoat showing 
 beneath her calico skirt, that had been pinned around her 
 waist, made a striking picture, which by this time had at- 
 tracted all eyes. Perhaps the dancing of the girl suggested 
 a negro " break-down " rather than any known sylvan mea- 
 sure ; but all this, and even the clatter of the bones, was 
 made gracious by the distance. 
 
 " Esmeralda ! by the living Harry ! " shouted the excited 
 passenger on the box. 
 
 Yuba Bill took his feet off the brake, and turned a look 
 of deep scorn upon his companion as he gathered the reins 
 again. 
 
 " It 's that blanked goat, outer Rocky Cafion beyond, 
 and Polly Harkness ! How did she ever come to take up 
 with him ? " 
 
 Nevertheless, as soon as the coach reached Eocky Canon, 
 the story was quickly told by the passengers, corroborated 
 by Yuba Bill, and highly colored by the observer on the 
 box-seat. Harkness was known to be a new-comer who 
 lived with his wife and only daughter on the other side of 
 Skinners Pass. He was a " logger " and charcoal-burner, 
 who had eaten his way into the serried ranks of pines below 
 the pass, and established in these efforts an almost insur- 
 mountable cordon of fallen trees, stripped bark, and char- 
 coal pits around the clearing where his rude log hut stood, 
 — which kept his seclusion unbroken. He was said to be 
 a half-savage mountaineer from Georgia, in whose rude fast- 
 nesses he had distilled unlawful whiskey, and that his tastes 
 and habits unfitted him for civilization. His wife chewed 
 and smoked ; he was believed to make a fiery brew of. his 
 own from acorns and pine nuts ; he seldom came to Eocky 
 Canon except for provisions ; his logs were slipped down 
 a " shoot " or slide to the river, where they voyaged once 
 
114 AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 
 
 a month to a distant mill, but he did not accompany them. 
 The daughter, seldom seen at Rocky Canon, was a half- 
 grown girl, brown as autumn fern, wild-eyed, disheveled, 
 in a homespun skirt, sunbonnet, and boy's brogans. Such 
 were the plain facts which skeptical Rocky Canon opposed 
 to the passengers' legends. Nevertheless, some of the 
 younger miners found it not out of their way to go over 
 Skinners Pass on the journey to the river, but with what 
 success was not told. It was said, however, that a cele- 
 brated New York artist, making a tour of California, was 
 on the coach one day going through the pass, and preserved 
 the memory of what he saw there in a well-known picture 
 entitled " Dancing Nymph and Satyr," said by competent 
 critics to be " replete with the study of Greek life." This 
 did not affect Rocky Canon, where the study of mythology 
 was presumably displaced by an experience of more wonder- 
 iul flesh-and-blood people, but later it was remembered with 
 some significance. 
 
 Among the improvements already noted, a zinc and 
 wooden chapel had been erected in the main street, where 
 a certain popular revivalist preacher of a peculiar South- 
 western sect regularly held exhortatory services. His rude 
 emotional power over his ignorant fellow-sectarians was well 
 known, while curiosity drew others. His effect upon the 
 females of his flock was hysterical and sensational. Wo- 
 men prematurely aged by frontier drudgery and child-bear- 
 ing, girls who had known only the rigors and pains of a 
 half-equipped, ill-nourished youth in their battling with the 
 hard realities of nature around them, all found a strange 
 fascination in the extravagant glories and privileges of the 
 unseen world he pictured to them, which they might have 
 found in the fairy tales and nursery legends of civilized chil- 
 dren had they known them. Personally he was not attractive ; 
 his thin, pointed face, and bushy hair rising on either side 
 of his square forehead in two rounded knots, and his long, 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 115 
 
 straggling, wiry beard dropping from a strong neck and 
 shoulders were indeed of a common Southwestern type ; 
 yet in him they suggested something more. This was 
 voiced by a miner who attended his first service, and as the 
 Reverend Mr. Withholder rose in the pulpit, the former was 
 heard to audibly ejaculate, " Dod blasted ! — if it ain't 
 Billy ! " But when on the following Sunday, to every- 
 body's astonishment, Polly Harkness, in a new white mus- 
 lin frock and broad-brimmed Leghorn hat, appeared before 
 the church door with the real Billy, and exchanged con- 
 versation with the preacher, the likeness was appalling. 
 
 I grieve to say that the goat was at once christened by 
 Rocky Canon as " The Reverend Billy,'' and the minister 
 himself was Billy's "brother." More than that, when an 
 attempt was made by outsiders, during the service, to in- 
 veigle the tethered goat into his old butting performances, 
 and he took not the least notice of their insults and chal- 
 lenges, the epithet " blanked hypocrite " was added to his 
 title. 
 
 Had he really reformed ? Had his pastoral life with his 
 nymph-like mistress completely cured him of his pugnacious 
 propensity, or had he simply found it was inconsistent 
 with his dancing, and seriously interfered with his " fancy 
 steps " ? Had he found tracts and hymn-books were as 
 edible as theatre posters ? These were questions that Rocky 
 Canon discussed lightly, although there was always the more 
 serious mystery of the relations of the Reverend Mr. With- 
 holder, Polly Harkness, and the goat towards each other. 
 The appearance of Polly at church was no doubt due to the 
 minister's active canvass of the districts. But had he ever 
 heard of Polly's dancing with the goat ? And where in 
 this plain, angular, badly dressed Polly was hidden that 
 beautiful vision of the dancing nymph which had enthralled 
 so many ? And when had Billy ever given any suggestion 
 of his Terpsichorean abilities — before or since'' Were 
 
11G AN ESMERALDA OF KOOKY CANON 
 
 there any " points " of the kind to he discerned in him 
 now ? None ! Was it not more prohable that the Rever- 
 end Mr. Withholder had himself been dancing with Polly, 
 and been mistaken for the goat ? Passengers who could 
 have been so deceived with regard to Polly's beauty might 
 have as easily mistaken the minister for Billy. About 
 this time another incident occurred which increased the 
 mystery. 
 
 The only male in the settlement who apparently dis- 
 sented from the popular opinion regarding Polly was a new- 
 comer, Jack Filgee. While discrediting her performance 
 with the goat, — which he had never seen, — he was evi- 
 dently greatly prepossessed with the girl herself. Unfortu- 
 nately, he was equally addicted to drinking, and as he was 
 exceedingly shy and timid when sober, and quite unpresent- 
 able at other times, his wooing, if it could be so called, pro- 
 gressed but slowly. Yet when he found that Polly went 
 to church, he listened so far to the exhortations of the 
 Reverend Mr. Withholder as to promise to come to " Bible 
 class " immediately after the Sunday service. It was a 
 hot afternoon, and Jack, who had kept sober for two days, 
 incautiously fortified himself for the ordeal by taking a 
 drink before arriving. He was nervously early, and imme- 
 diately took a seat in the empty church near the open door. 
 The quiet of the building, the drowsy buzzing of flies, and 
 perhaps the soporific effect of the liquor caused his eyes to 
 close and his head to fall forward on his breast repeatedly. 
 He was recovering himself for the fourth time when he 
 suddenly received a violent cuff on the ear, and was knocked 
 backward off the bench on which he was sitting. That was 
 all he knew. 
 
 He picked himself up with a certain dignity, partly new 
 to him, and partly the result of his condition, and stag- 
 gered, somewhat bruised and disheveled, to the nearest 
 saloon. Here a few frequenters who had seen him pass, 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANOS 117 
 
 who knew his errand and the devotion to Polly which had 
 induced it, exhibited a natural concern. 
 
 " How 's things down at the gospel shop ? " said one. 
 " Look as ef you 'd been wrastlin' with the Sperit, Jack ! " 
 
 " Old man must hev exhorted pow'ful," said another, 
 glancing at bis disordered Sunday attire. 
 
 "Ain't be'n hevin' a row with Polly? I'm toid she 
 slings an awful left." 
 
 Jack, instead of replying, poured out a dram of whiskey, 
 drank it, and putting down his glass, leaned heavily against 
 the counter as he surveyed his questioners with a sorrow 
 chastened by reproachful dignity. 
 
 " I 'm a stranger here, gentlemen," he said slowly ; 
 " ye 've known me only a little ; but ez ye 've seen me both 
 blind drunk and sober, I reckon ye've caught on to my 
 gin'ral gait ! Now I wanter put it to you, ez fair-minded 
 men, ef you ever saw me strike a parson ? " 
 
 " No," said a chorus of sympathetic voices. The bar- 
 keeper, however, with a swift recollection of Polly and the 
 Reverend Withholder, and some possible contingent jeal- 
 ousy in Jack, added prudently, " Not yet." 
 
 The chorus instantly added reflectively, " Well, no ; not 
 yet." 
 
 " Did ye ever," continued Jack solemnly, " know me to 
 cuss, sass, bully-rag, or say anything agin parsons, or the 
 church ? " 
 
 " No," said the crowd, overthrowing prudence in curios- 
 ity, " ye never did, — we swear it ! And now, what 's 
 up?" 
 
 " I ain't what you call 'a member in good standin',' " 
 he went on, artistically protracting his climax. " I ain't 
 be'n convicted o' sin ; I ain't ' a meek an' lowly follower ; ' 
 I ain't be'n exactly what I orter be'n ; I hev n't lived any- 
 where up to my lights ; but is thet a reason why a parson 
 should strike me ? " 
 
118 AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 
 
 " Why ? What ? When did he ? Who did ? " asked 
 the eager crowd, with one voice. 
 
 Jack then painfully related how he had been invited by 
 the Reverend Mr. Withholder to attend the Bible class. 
 How he had arrived early, and found the church empty. 
 How he had taken a seat near the door to be handy when 
 the parson came. How he just felt " kinder kam and good," 
 listenin' to the flies buzzing, and must have fallen asleep, — 
 only he pulled himself up every time, — though, after all, 
 it war n't no crime to fall asleep in an empty church ! How 
 " all of a suddent " the parson came in, " give him a clip 
 side o' the head," and knocked him off the bench, and left 
 him there ! 
 
 " But what did he say ? " queried the crowd. 
 
 "Nuthin'. Afore I could get up, he got away." 
 
 " Are you sure it was him ? " they asked. " You know 
 you say you was asleep." 
 
 " Am I sure ? " repeated Jack scornfully. " Don't I 
 know thet face and beard ? Did n't I feel it hangin' over 
 me?" 
 
 "What are you going to do about it ? " continued the 
 crowd eagerly. 
 
 " Wait till he comes out — and you '11 see," said Jack, 
 with dignity. 
 
 This was enough for the crowd ; they gathered excitedly 
 at the door, where Jack was already standing, looking 
 towards the church. The moments dragged slowly ; it 
 might be a long meeting. Suddenly the church door opened 
 and a figure appeared, looking up and down the street. Jack 
 colored — he recognized Polly - — and stepped out into the 
 road. The crowd delicately, but somewhat disappointedly, 
 drew back in the saloon. They did not care to interfere in 
 that sort of thing. 
 
 Polly saw him, and came hurriedly towards him. She 
 was holding something in her hand. 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 119 
 
 " I picked this up on the church floor," she said shyly, 
 " so I reckoned you had be'n there, — though the parson 
 said you hadn't, — and I just excused myself and ran out 
 to give it ye. It 's yourn, ain't it ? " She held up a gold 
 specimen pin, which he had put on in honor of the occasion. 
 " I had a harder time, though, to git this yer, — it 's yourn 
 too, — for Billy was laying down in the yard, back o' the 
 church, and just comf'bly swallerin' it." 
 
 " Who ? " said Jack quickly. 
 
 " Billy, — my goat." 
 
 Jack drew a long breath, and glanced back at the saloon. 
 " Ye ain't goin' back to class now, are ye ? " he said hur- 
 riedly. " Ef you ain't, I '11 — I '11 see ye home." 
 
 " I don't mind," said Polly demurely, " if it ain't takin' 
 ye outer y'ur way." 
 
 Jack offered his arm, and hurrying past the saloon, the 
 happy pair were soon on the road to Skinners Pass. 
 
 Jack did not, I regret to say, confess his blunder, but left 
 the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of 
 having committed an unprovoked assault arid battery. It • 
 was characteristic of Rocky Canon, however, that this sus- 
 picion, far from injuring his clerical reputation, incited a 
 respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who 
 could hit out straight from the shoulder had, in the language 
 of the critics, " suthin' in him." Oddly enough, the crowd 
 that had at first sympathized with Jack now began to admit 
 provocations. His subsequent silence, a disposition when 
 questioned on the subject to smile inanely, and, later, when 
 insidiously asked if he had ever seen Polly dancing with the 
 goat, his bursting into uproarious laughter completely turned 
 the current of opinion against him. The public mind, how- 
 ever, soon became engrossed by a more interesting incident. 
 
 The Eeverend Mr. Withholder had organized a series of 
 Biblical tableaux at Skinnerstown for the benefit of his 
 
120 AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 
 
 church. Illustrations were to he given of " Rebecca at the 
 Well," " The Finding of Moses," "Joseph and his Breth- 
 ren ; " but Rocky Canon was more particularly excited by 
 the announcement that Polly Harkness would personate 
 " Jephthah's Daughter." On the evening of the perform- 
 ance, however, it was found that this tableau had been 
 withdrawn and another substituted, for reasons not given. 
 Rocky Canon, naturally indignant at this omission to repre- 
 sent native talent, indulged in a hundred wild surmises. 
 But it was generally believed that Jack Filgee's revengeful 
 animosity to the Reverend Mr. Withholder was at the bot- 
 tom of it. Jack, as usual, smiled inanely, but nothing was 
 to be got from him. It was not until a few days later, when 
 another incident crowned the climax of these mysteries, that 
 a full disclosure came from his lips. 
 
 One morning a flaming poster was displayed at Rocky 
 Canon, with a charming picture of the " Sacramento Pet" 
 in the briefest of skirts, disporting with a tambourine before 
 a goat garlanded with flowers, who bore, however, an un- 
 doubted likeness to Billy. The text in enormous letters, 
 and bristling with points of admiration, stated that the 
 " Pet " would appear as " Esmeralda," assisted by a per- 
 forming goat, especially trained by the gifted actress. The 
 goat would dance, play cards, and perform those tricks of 
 magic familiar to the readers of Victor Hugo's beautiful 
 story of the " Hunchback of Notre Dame," and finally knock 
 down and overthrow the designing seducer, Captain Phcebus. 
 The marvelous spectacle would be produced under the pat- 
 ronage of the Hon. Colonel Starbottle and the Mayor of 
 Skinnerstown. 
 
 As all Rocky Canon gathered open-mouthed around the 
 poster, Jack demurely joined the group. Every eye was 
 turned upon him. 
 
 " It don't look as if yer Polly was in this show, any more 
 than she was in the tablows," said one, trying to conceal 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANOX 121 
 
 his curiosity under a slight sneer. " She don't seem to be 
 doin' any dancin' ! " 
 
 " She never did any dancin'," said Jack, with a smile. 
 
 " Never did ! Then what was all these yarns about her 
 dancin' up at the pass ? " 
 
 " It was the Sacramento Pet who did all the dancin' ; 
 Polly only lent the goat. Ye see, the Pet kinder took a 
 shine to Billy arter he bowled Starbottle over thet day at 
 the hotel, and she thought she might teach him tricks. So 
 she did, doing all her teachin' and stage-rehearsin' up there 
 at the pass, so 's to be outer sight, and keep this thing dark. 
 She bribed Polly to lend her the goat and keep her secret, 
 and Polly never let on a word to anybody but me." 
 
 " Then it was the Pet that Yuba Bill saw dancin' from 
 the coach ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And that yer artist from New York painted as an ' Imp 
 and Satire ' ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then that 's how Polly did n't show up in them tab- 
 lows at Skinnerstown ? It was Withholder who kinder 
 smelt a rat, eh ? and found out it was only a theayter gal 
 all along that did the dancin' ? " 
 
 " Well, you see," said Jack, with affected hesitation, 
 " thet 's another yarn. I don't know mebbe ez I oughter 
 tell it. Et ain't got anything to do with this advertise- 
 ment o' the Pet, and might be rough on old man With- 
 holder ! Ye must n't ask me, boys." 
 
 But there was that in his eye, and above all in this lazy 
 procrastination of the true humorist when he is approach- 
 ing his climax, which rendered the crowd clamorous and 
 unappeasable. They tvould have the story ! 
 
 Seeing which, Jack leaned back against a rock with great 
 gravity, put his hands in his pockets, looked discontentedly 
 at the ground, and began : " You see, boys, old Parson 
 
122 AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 
 
 Withholder had heard all these yarns about Polly and thet 
 trick-goat, and he kinder reckoned that she might do for 
 some one of his tablows. So he axed her if she 'd mind stand- 
 in' with the goat and a tambourine for Jephthah's Daugh- 
 ter, at about the time when old Jeph comes home, sailin' 
 in and vowin' he '11 kill the first thing he sees, — jest as it 
 is in the Bible story. Well, Polly did n't like to say it 
 ■was n't her that performed with the goat, but the Pet, for 
 thet would give the Pet dead away ; so Polly agrees to 
 come thar with the goat and rehearse the tablow. Well, 
 Polly's thar, a little shy ; and Billy, — you bet he's all 
 thar and ready for the fun ; but the darned fool who plays 
 Jephthah ain't worth shucks, and when he comes in he 
 does nothin' but grin at Polly and seem skeert at the goat. 
 This makes old Withholder jest wild, and at last he goes 
 on the platform hisself to show them how the thing oughter 
 be done. So he comes bustlin' and prancin' in, and ketches 
 sight o' Polly dancin' in with the goat to welcome him ; and 
 then he clasps his hands — so — and drops on his knees, 
 and hangs down his head — so — and sez, ' Me chyld ! me 
 vow ! Oh, heavens ! ' But jest then Billy — who 's gettin' 
 rather tired o' all this foolishness — kinder slues round on 
 his hind legs, and ketches sight o' the parson ! " Jack 
 paused a moment, and thrusting his hands still deeper in 
 his pockets said lazily, " I don't know if you fellers have 
 noticed how much old Withholder looks like Billy ? " 
 
 There was a rapid and impatient chorus of " Yes ! yes ! " 
 and " Go on ! " 
 
 " Well," continued Jack, " when Billy sees Withholder 
 kneelin' thar with his head down, he gives a kind o' joyous 
 leap and claps his hoofs together, ez much ez to say, ' I 'm 
 on in this scene,' drops his own head, and jest lights out 
 for the parson ! " 
 
 " And butts him clean through the side scenes into the 
 street," interrupted a delighted auditor. 
 
AN ESMERALDA OF ROCKY CANON 123 
 
 But Jack's face never changed. " Ye think so ? " he 
 said gravely. " But thet 's jest whar ye slip up ; and thet 's 
 jest whar Billy slipped up ! " he added slowly. " Mebbe 
 ye 've noticed, too, thet the parson 's built kinder solid 
 about the head and shoulders. It mought hev be'n thet, 
 or thet Billy did n't get a fair start, but thet goat went 
 down on his fore legs like a shot, and the parson gave one 
 heave, and jest scooted him off the platform ! Then the 
 parson reckoned thet this yer ' tablow ' had better be left 
 out, as thar did n't seem to be any other man who could 
 play Jephthah, and it was n't dignified for him to take the 
 part. But the parson allowed thet it might he a great moral 
 lesson to Billy I " 
 
 And it was, for from that moment Billy never attempted 
 to butt again. He performed with great docility later on 
 in the Pet's engagement at Skinnerstown ; he played a dis- 
 tinguished r61e throughout the provinces ; he had had the 
 advantages of Art from " the Pet," and of Simplicity from. 
 Polly, but only Rocky Canon knew that his real education 
 had come with his first rehearsal with the Reverend Mr. 
 Withholder. 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHOEF 
 
 In the early days of the Califoruian immigration, on 
 the extremest point of the sandy peninsula, where the hay 
 of San Francisco debouches into the Pacific, there stood 
 a semaphore telegraph. Tossing its black arms against 
 the sky, — with its back to the Golden Gate and that vast 
 expanse of sea whose nearest shore was Japan, — it signi- 
 fied to another semaphore further inland the "rigs" of 
 incoming vessels, by certain uncouth signs, which were 
 again passed on to Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, where 
 they reappeared on a third semaphore, and read to the ini- 
 tiated " schooner," " brig," " ship," or " steamer." But 
 all homesick San Francisco had learned the last sign, and 
 on certain days of the month every eye was turned to wel- 
 come those gaunt arms widely extended at right angles, 
 which meant " sidewheel steamer " (the only steamer which 
 carried the mails) and " letters from home." In the joyful 
 reception accorded to that herald of glad tidings, very few 
 thought of the lonely watcher on the sand dunes who dis- 
 patched them, or even knew of that desolate station. 
 
 For desolate it was beyond description. The Presidio, 
 with its voiceless, dismounted cannon and empty embra- 
 sures hidden in a hollow, and the Mission Dolores, with its 
 crumbling walls and belfry tower lost in another, made the 
 ultima thule of all San Francisco wandering. The Cliff 
 House and Fort Point did not then exist ; from Black Point 
 the curving line of shore of " Yerba Buena " — or San 
 Francisco — showed only a stretch of glittering wind-swept 
 sand dunes, interspersed with straggling gullies of half- 
 buried black " scrub oak." The long six months' summer 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 125 
 
 sun fiercely beat upon it from the cloudless sky above ; the 
 long six months' trade winds fiercely beat upon it from the 
 west ; the monotonous roll-call of the long Pacific surges 
 regularly beat upon it from the sea. Almost impossible to 
 face by day through sliding sands and buffeting winds, at 
 night it was impracticable through the dense sea-fog that 
 stole softly through the Golden Gate at sunset. Thence, 
 until morning, sea and shore were a trackless waste, bounded 
 only by the warning thunders of the unseen sea. The station 
 itself, a rudely built cabin, with two windows, — one fur- 
 nished with a telescope, — looked like a heap of driftwood, 
 or a stranded wreck left by the retiring sea ; the semaphore, 
 
 — the only object for leagues, — lifted above the undulating 
 dunes, took upon itself various shapes, more or less gloomy, 
 according to the hour or weather, — a blasted tree, the 
 masts and clinging spars of a beached ship, a dismantled 
 gallows ; or, with the background of a golden sunset across 
 the Gate, and its arms extended at right angles, to a more 
 hopeful fancy it might have seemed the missionary Cross, 
 which the enthusiast Portala lifted on that heathen shore a 
 hundred years before. 
 
 Not that Dick Jarman — the solitary station keeper — 
 ever indulged this fancy. An escaped convict from one of her 
 Britannic Majesty's penal colonies, a" stowaway" in the 
 hold of an Australian ship, he had landed penniless in San 
 Francisco, fearful of contact with his more honest country- 
 men already there, and liable to detection at any moment. 
 Luckily for him, the English immigration consisted mainly 
 of gold-seekers en route to Sacramento and the southern 
 mines. He was prudent enough to resist the temptation 
 to follow them, and accepted the post of semaphore keeper, 
 
 — the first work offered him, — which the meanest immi- 
 grant, filled with dreams of gold, would have scorned. His 
 employers asked him no questions, and demanded no refer- 
 ences ; his post could be scarcely deemed one of trust, — 
 
126 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE' 
 
 there was no property for him to abscond with but the tele- 
 scope ; he was removed from temptation and evil company 
 in his lonely waste ; his duties were as mechanical as the 
 instrument he worked, and interruption of them would be 
 instantly known at San Francisco. For this he would re- 
 ceive his board and lodging and seventy-five dollars a month, 
 1 — a sum to be ridiculed in those " flush days," but which 
 seemed to the broken-spirited and half-famished stowaway 
 a princely independence. 
 
 And then there was rest and security ! He was free 
 from that torturing anxiety and fear of detection which 
 had haunted him night and day for three months. The 
 eeaseless vigilance and watchful dread he had known since 
 his escape, he could lay aside now. The rude cabin on the 
 sand dune was to him as the long-sought cave to some 
 hunted animal. It seemed impossible that any one would 
 seek him there. He was spared alike the contact of his 
 enemies or the shame of recognizing even a friendly face, 
 until by each he would be forgotten. From his coign c' 
 vantage on that desolate waste, and with the aid of his tele- 
 scope, no stranger could approach within two or three miles 
 of his cabin without undergoing his scrutiny. And at the 
 worst, if he was pursued here, before him was the trackless 
 shore and the boundless sea ! 
 
 And at times there was a certain satisfaction in watching, 
 unseen and in perfect security, the decks of passing ships. 
 With the aid of his glass he could mingle again with the 
 world from which he was debarred, and gloomily wonder 
 who among those passengers knew their solitary watcher, 
 or had heard of his deeds ; it might have made him gloom- 
 ier had he known that in those eager faces turned towards 
 the golden haven there was little thought of anything but 
 themselves. He tried to read in faces on board the few 
 outgoing ships the record of their success with a strange 
 envy. They were returning home ! Home ! For some- 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 127 
 
 times — but seldom — he thought of his own home and his 
 past. It was a miserable past of forgery and embezzlement 
 that had culminated a career of youthful dissipation and 
 self-indulgence, and shut him out forever from the staid 
 old English cathedral town where he was born. He knew 
 that his relations believed and wished him dead. He 
 thought of this past with little pleasure, but with little 
 remorse. Like most of his stamp, he believed it was ill- 
 luck, chance, somebody else's fault, but never his own 
 responsible action. He would not repent ; he would be 
 wiser only. And he would not be retaken — alive ! 
 
 Two or three months passed in this monotonous duty, in 
 which he partly recovered his strength and his nerves. He 
 lost his furtive, restless, watchful look ; the bracing sea air 
 and the burning sun put into his face the healthy tan and 
 the uplifted frankness of a sailor. His eyes grew keener 
 from long scanning of the horizon ; he knew where to look 
 for sails, from the creeping coastwise schooner to the far- 
 rounding merchantman from Cape Horn. He knew the 
 faint line of haze that indicated the steamer long before 
 her masts and funnels became visible. He saw no soul 
 except the solitary boatman of the little " plunger," who 
 landed his weekly provisions at a small cove hard by. The 
 boatman thought his secretiveness and reticence only the 
 surliness of his nation, and cared little for a man who never 
 asked for the news, and to whom he brought no letters. 
 The long nights which wrapped the cabin in sea-fog, and at 
 first seemed to heighten the exile's sense of security, by 
 degrees, however, became monotonous, and incited an odd 
 restlessness, which he was wont to oppose by whiskey, — 
 allowed as a part of his stores, — which, while it dulled his 
 sensibilities, he, however, never permitted to interfere with 
 his mechanical duties. 
 
 He had been there five months, and the hills on the 
 opposite shore between Tamalpais were already beginning 
 
128 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 
 
 to show their russet yellow sides. One bright morning he 
 was watching the little fleet of Italian fishing-boats hover- 
 ing in the bay. This was always a picturesque spectacle, 
 perhaps the only one that relieved the general monotony 
 of his outlook. The quaint lateen sails of dull red, or 
 yellow, showing against the sparkling waters, and the red 
 caps or handkerchiefs of the fishermen, might have attracted 
 even a more abstracted man. Suddenly one of the larger 
 boats tacked, and made directly for the little cove where 
 his weekly plunger used to land. In an instant he was 
 alert and suspicious. But a close examination of the boat 
 through his glass satisfied him that it contained, in addition 
 to the crew, only two or three women, apparently the family 
 of the fisherman. As it ran up on the beach and the entire 
 party disembarked, he could see it was merely a careless, 
 peaceable invasion, and he thought no more about it. The 
 strangers wandered about the sands, gesticulating and laugh- 
 ing ; they brought a pot ashore, built a fire, and cooked a 
 homely meal. He could see that from time to time the 
 semaphore — evidently a novelty to them — had attracted 
 *heir attention ; and having occasion to signal the arrival 
 of a bark, the working of the uncouth arms of the instru-- 
 ment drew the children in half -frightened curiosity towards 
 it, although the others held aloof, as if fearful of trespass- 
 ing upon some work of the government, no doubt secretly 
 guarded by the police. A few mornings later he was sur- 
 prised to see upon the beach, near the same locality, a small 
 heap of lumber which had evidently been landed in the 
 early morning fog. The next day an old tent appeared on 
 the spot, and the men, evidently fishermen, began the erec- 
 tion of a rude cabin beside it. Jarman had been long 
 enough there to know that it was government land, and 
 that these manifestly humble " squatters " upon it would 
 not be interfered with for some time to come. He began 
 to be uneasy again ; it was true they were fully half a mile 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 129 
 
 from him, and they were foreigners ; hut might not their 
 reckless invasion of the law attract others, in this lawless 
 country, to do the same ? It ought to he stopped. For 
 once Richard Jarman sided with legal authority. 
 
 But when the cabin was completed, it was evident from 
 what he saw of its rude structure that it was only a tem- 
 porary shelter for the fisherman's family and the stores, and 
 refitting of the fishing-boat, more convenient to them thaD 
 the San Francisco wharves. The beach was utilized for 
 the mending of nets and sails, and thus became half pictur- 
 esque. In spite of the keen northwestern trades, the cloud- 
 less, sunshiny mornings tempted these southerners back to 
 their native al fresco existence ; they not only basked in 
 the sun, but many of their household duties, and even the 
 mysteries of their toilet, were performed in the open air. 
 They did not seem to care to penetrate into the desolate 
 region behind them ; their half-amphibious habit kept them 
 near the water's edge, and Richard Jarman, after taking 
 his limited walks for the first few mornings in another 
 direction, found it no longer necessary to avoid the locality, 
 and even forgot their propinquity. 
 
 But one morning, as the fog was clearing away and the 
 sparkle of the distant sea was beginning to show from his 
 window, he rose from his belated breakfast to fetch water 
 from the " breaker " outside, which had to be replenished 
 weekly from Sancelito, as there was no spring in his vicin- 
 ity. As he opened the door, he was inexpressibly startled 
 by the figure of a young woman standing in front of it, 
 who, however, half fearfully, half laughingly withdrew 
 before him. But his own manifest disturbance apparently 
 gave her courage. 
 
 " I jess was looking at that thing," she said bashfully, 
 jointing to the semaphore. 
 
 He was still more astonished, for, looking at her dark 
 eyes and olive complexion, he had expected her to speak 
 
130 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 
 
 Italian or broken English. And, possibly because for a long 
 time he had seen and known little of women, he was quite 
 struck with her good looks. He hesitated^ stammered, and 
 then said : — 
 
 " Won't you come in ? " 
 
 She drew back still farther and made a rapid gesture of 
 negation with her head, her hand, and even her whole lithe 
 figure. Then she said, with a decided American intona- 
 tion : — 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " Why not ? " said Jarman mechanically. 
 
 The girl sidled up against the cabin, keeping her eyes 
 fixed on Jarman with a certain youthful shrewdness. 
 
 " Oh, you know ! " she said. : 
 
 " I really do not. Tell me why." 
 
 She drew herself up against the wall a little proudly, 
 though still youthfully, with her hands behind her. 
 
 "I ain't that kind of girl," she said simply. 
 
 The blood rushed to Jarman's cheeks. Dissipated and 
 abandoned as his life had been, small respecter of women as 
 he was, he was shocked and shamed. Knowing too, as he 
 did, how absorbed he was in other things, he was indignant, 
 because not guilty. 
 
 " Do as you please, then," he said shortly, and reentered 
 the cabin. But the next moment he saw his error in be- 
 traying an irritation that was open to misconstruction. He 
 came out again, scarcely looking at the girl, who was loun- 
 ging away. 
 
 " Do you want me to explain to you how the thing 
 works ? " he said indifferently. " I can't show you unless 
 a ship comes in." 
 
 The girl's eyes brightened softly as she turned to him. 
 
 " Do tell me," she said, with an anticipatory smile and 
 flash of white teeth. " Won't you ? " 
 
 She certainly was very pretty and simple, in spite of her 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 131 
 
 late speech. Jarman briefly explained to her the move- 
 ments of the semaphore arms and their different significance. 
 She listened with her capped head a little on one side like 
 an attentive bird, and her arms unconsciously imitating thG 
 signs. Certainly, for all that she spoke like an American, 
 her gesticulation was Italian. 
 
 " And then," she said triumphantly when he paused, 
 " when the sailors see that sign up they know they are com- 
 ing in the harbor." 
 
 Jarman smiled, as he had not smiled since he had been 
 there. He corrected this mistake of her eager haste to show 
 her intelligence, and, taking the telescope, pointed out the 
 other semaphore, — a thin black outline on a distant inland 
 hill. He then explained how his signs were repeated by 
 that instrument to San Francisco. 
 
 " My ! Why, I always allowed that was only the cross 
 stuck up in the Lone Mountain Cemetery," she said. 
 
 " You are' a Catholic ? " 
 
 "I reckon." 
 
 " And you are an Italian ? " 
 
 "Father is, but mother was a 'Merikan, same as me. 
 Mother *8 dead." 
 
 " And your father is the fisherman yonder ? " 
 
 " Yes, — but," with a look of pride, " he 7 s got the big- 
 gest boat of any." 
 
 " And only you and your family are ashore here ? " 
 
 " Yes, and sometimes Mark." She laughed an odd little 
 laugh. 
 
 " Mark ? Who '& he ? " he asked quickly. 
 
 He had not noticed the sudden coquettish pose and half- 
 affected bashfulness of the girl ; he was thinking only of 
 the possibility of detection by strangers. 
 
 " Oh, he is Marco Franti, but I call him ' Mark.' It 's 
 the same name, you know, and it makes him mad," said the 
 girl, with the same suggestion of archness and coquetry. 
 
132 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 
 
 But all this was lost on Jarman. 
 
 "Oh, another Italian," he said, relieved. She turned 
 away a little awkwardly when he added, " But you have n't 
 told me your name, you know." 
 
 "Cara." 
 
 " Cara, — that 's ' dear ' in Italian, is n't it ? " he said, 
 ■with a reminiscence of the opera and a half smile. 
 
 " Yes," she said a little scornfully, " hut it means Car- 
 lotta, — Charlotte, you know. Some girls call me Charley," 
 she said hurriedly. 
 
 "I see — Cara — or Carlotta Franti." 
 
 To his surprise she burst into a peal of laughter. 
 
 " I reckon not yet. Franti is Mark's name, not mine. 
 Mine is Murano, — Carlotta Murano. Good-by." She 
 moved away, then stopped suddenly and said, " I 'm comin' 
 again some time when the thing is working," and with a 
 nod of her head ran away. He looked after her ; could 
 see the outlines of her youthful figure in her slim cotton 
 gown, — limp and clinging in the damp sea. air, and the 
 sudden revelation of her bare ankles thrust stockingless into 
 canvas shoes. 
 
 He went back into his cabin, when presently his attention 
 was engrossed by an incoming vessel. He made the signals, 
 half expecting, almost hoping, that the girl would return to 
 watch him. But her figure was already lost in the sand 
 dunes. Yet he fancied he still heard the echoes of her voice 
 and his own in this cabin which had so long been dumb and 
 voiceless, and he now started at every sound. For the first 
 time he became aware of the dreadful disorder and untidiness 
 of its uninvaded privacy. He could scarcely believe he had 
 been living with his stove, his bed, and cooking utensils, all 
 in one corner of the barnlike room, and he began to put 
 them " to rights " in a rough, hard formality, strongly sug- 
 gestive of his convict experience. He rolled up his blankets 
 into a hard cylinder at the head of his cot. He scraped out 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 133 
 
 his kettles and saucepans, and even " washed down " the 
 floor, afterwards sprinkling clean dry sand, hot with the 
 noonday sunshine, on its half-dried boards. In arranging 
 these domestic details he had to change the position of a 
 little mirror ; and glancing at it for the first time in many 
 days, he was dissatisfied with his straggling beard, — grown 
 during his voyage from Australia, — and although he had 
 retained it as a disguise, he at once shaved it off, leaving 
 only a mustache, and revealing a face from which a healthier 
 life and out-of-door existence had removed the last traces of 
 vice and dissipation. But he did not know it. 
 
 All the next day he thought of his fair visitor, and found 
 himself often repeating her odd remark that she was " not 
 that kind of girl," with a smile that was alternately sig- 
 nificant or vacant. Evidently she could take care of her- 
 self, he thought, although her very good looks no doubt 
 had exposed her to the rude attentions of fishermen or the 
 common drift of San Francisco wharves. Perhaps this was 
 why her father brought her here. When the day passed 
 and she came not, he began vaguely to wonder if he had 
 been rude to her. Perhaps he had taken her simple remark 
 too seriously ; perhaps she had expected he would only 
 laugh, and had found him dull and stupid. Perhaps he 
 had thrown away an opportunity. An opportunity for 
 what ? To renew his old life and habits ? No, no ! The 
 horrors of his recent imprisonment and escape were still 
 too fresh in his memory ; he was not safe yet. Then he 
 wondered if he had not grown spiritless and pigeon-livered 
 in his solitude and loneliness. The next day he searched 
 for her with his glass, and saw her playing with one of the 
 children on the beach, — a very picture of child or nymph 
 like innocence. Perhaps it was because she was not " that 
 kind of girl " that she had attracted him. He laughed 
 bitterly. Yes ; that was very funny ; he, an escaped con- 
 vict, drawn towards honest, simple innocence ! Yet ho 
 
134 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 
 
 knew — he was positive — he had not thought of any ill 
 when he spoke to her. He took a singular, a ridiculous 
 pride in and credit to himself for that. He repeated it in- 
 cessantly to himself. Then what made her angry ? Him- 
 self ! The devil ! Did he carry, then, the record of his 
 past life forever in his face — in. his speech — in his man- 
 ners ? The thought made him sullen. The next day he 
 would not look towards the shore ; it was wonderful what 
 excitement and satisfaction he got out of that strange act 
 of self-denial ; it made the day seem full that had been so 
 vacant before ; yet he could not tell why or wherefore. 
 He felt injured, but he rather liked it. Yet in the night 
 he was struck with the idea that she might have gone back 
 to San Francisco, and he lay awake longing for the morn- 
 ing light to satisfy him. Yet when the fog cleared, and 
 from a nearer point, behind a sand dune, he discovered, 
 by the aid of his glass, that she was seated on the sun- 
 warmed sands combing out her long hair like a mermaid, 
 he immediately returned to the cabin, and that morning 
 looked no more that way. In the afternoon, there being 
 no sails in sight, he turned aside from the bay and walked 
 westward towards the ocean, halting only at the league-long 
 line of foam which marked the breaking Pacific surges. 
 Here he was surprised to see a little child, half-naked, fol- 
 lowing barefooted the creeping line of spume, or running 
 after the detached and quivering scraps of foam that chased 
 each other over th'i wet sand, and only a little further on, 
 to come upon Cara herself, sitting with her elbows on her 
 knees and her round chin in her hands, apparently gazing 
 over the waste of waters before her. A sudden and inex- 
 plicable shyness overtook him. He hesitated, and stepped 
 half-hidden into a gully between the sand dunes. 
 
 As yet he had not been observed ; the young girl called 
 to the child and, suddenly rising, threw off her red cap and 
 shawl and quietly began to disrobe herself. A couple of 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE ]35 
 
 eoarse towels were at her feet. Jarman instantl}' compre- 
 nended that she was going to bathe with the child. She 
 undoubtedly knew as well as he did that she was safe in 
 that solitude; that no one could intrude upon her privacy 
 from the bay shore, nor from the desolate inland trail to 
 the sea, without her knowledge. Of his own contiguity she 
 had evidently taken no thought, believing him safely housed 
 in his cabin beside the semaphore. She lifted her hands, 
 and with a sudden movement shook out her long hair and 
 let it fall down her back at the same moment that her un- 
 loosened blouse began to slip from her shoulders. Richard 
 Jarman turned quickly and walked noiselessly and rapidly 
 away, until the little hillock had shut out the beach. 
 
 His retreat was as sudden, unreasoning, and unpremedi- 
 tated as his intrusion. It was not like himself, he knew, 
 and yet it was as perfectly instinctive and natural as if he 
 had intruded upon a sister. In the South Seas he had seen 
 native girls diving beside the vessels for coins, but they had 
 provoked no such instinct as that which possessed him now. 
 More than that, he swept a quick, wrathful glance along 
 the horizon on either side, and then, mounting a remote 
 hillock which still hid him from the beach, he sat there 
 and kept watch and ward. From time to time the strong 
 sea-breeze brought him the sound of infantine screams and 
 shouts of girlish laughter from the unseen shore ; he only 
 looked the more keenly and suspiciously for any wandering 
 trespasser, and did not turn his head. He lay there nearly 
 half an hour, and when the sounds had ceased, rose and 
 made his way slowly back to the cabin. He had not gone 
 many yards before he heard the twitter of voices and smoth- 
 ered laughter behind him. He turned ; it was Cara and 
 the child, — a girl of six or seven. Cara's face was rosy. 
 — possibly from her bath, and possibly from some shame- 
 faced consciousness. He slackened his pace, and as they 
 ranged beside him said, " Good-morning ! " 
 
136 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 
 
 " Lord ! " said Cara, stifling another laugh, " we did n't 
 know you were around ; we thought you were always tend- 
 ing your telegraph, did n't we, Lucy ? " (to the child, who 
 was convulsed with mirth and sheepishness). " Why, we ' ve 
 been taking a wash in the sea." She tried to gather up 
 her long hair, which had been left to stray over her shoul- 
 ders and dry in the sunlight, and even made a slight pre- 
 tense of trying to conceal the wet towels they were carrying. 
 
 Jarman did not laugh. " If you had told me." he said 
 gravely, " I could have kept watch for you with my glass 
 while you were there. I could see further than you." 
 
 " Tould you see us ? " asked the little girl, with hopeful 
 vivacity. 
 
 " No ! " said Jarman, with masterly evasion. " There 
 are little sandhills between this and the beach." 
 
 " Then how tould other people see us ? " persisted the 
 child. 
 
 Jarman could see that the older girl was evidently em- 
 barrassed, and changed the subject. " I sometimes go out," 
 he said, " when I can see there are no vessels in sight, and 
 I take my glass with me. I can always get back in time 
 to make signals. I thought, in fact," he said, glancing at 
 Cara's brightening face, " that I might get as far as your 
 house on the shore some day." To his surprise, her em- 
 barrassment suddenly seemed to increase, although she had 
 looked relieved before, and she did not reply. After a mo- 
 ment she said abruptly : — 
 
 " Did you ever see the sea-lions ? " 
 
 " No," said Jarman. 
 
 " Not the big ones on Seal Rock, beyond the cliffs ? " 
 continued the girl, in real astonishment. 
 
 " No," repeated Jarman. " I never walked in that di- 
 rection." He vaguely remembered that they were a curi- 
 osity which sometimes attracted parties thither, and foi 
 that reason he had avoided the spot. 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 137 
 
 " Why, I have sailed all around the rock in father's 
 boat," continued Cara, with importance. " That 's the best 
 way to see 'em, and folks from 'Frisco sometimes takes a 
 sail out there just on purpose, — it's too sandy to walk or 
 drive there. But it 's only a step from here. Look here ! " 
 she said suddenly, and frankly opening her fine eyes upon 
 him. "I'm going to take Lucy there to-morrow, and I '11 
 show you." Jarman felt his cheeks flush quickly with a 
 pleasure that embarrassed him. " It won't take long," 
 added Cara, mistaking his momentary hesitation, " and you 
 can leave your telegraph alone. Nobody will be there, so 
 no one will see you and nobody know it." 
 
 He would have gone then, anyway, he knew, yet in his 
 absurd self-consciousness he was glad that her last sug- 
 gestion had relieved him of a sense of reckless compliance. 
 He assented eagerly, when with a wave of her hand, a flash 
 of her white teeth, and the same abruptness she had shown 
 at their last parting, she caught Lucy by the arm and 
 darted away in a romping race to her dwelling. Jarman 
 started after her. He had not wanted to go to her father's 
 house particularly, but why was she evidently as averse to 
 it ? With the subtle pleasure that this admission gave 
 him there was a faint stirring of suspicion. 
 
 It was gone when he found her and Lucy the next morn- 
 ing, radiant with the sunshine, before his door. The re- 
 straint of their previous meetings had been removed in some 
 mysterious way, and they chatted gayly as they walked 
 towards the cliffs. She asked him frankly many questions 
 about himself, why he had come there, and if he " was n't 
 lonely ; " she answered frankly — I fear much more frankly 
 than he answered her — the many questions he asked her 
 about herself and her friends. When they reached the 
 cliffs they descended to the beach, which they found de- 
 serted. Before them — it seemed scarce a pistol shot from 
 the shore — arose a high, broad rock, beaten at its base by 
 
138 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHOEE 
 
 the long Pacific surf, on which a number of shapeless ani- 
 mals were uncouthly disporting. This was Seal Kock, the 
 goal of their journey. 
 
 Yet after a few moments they no longer looked at it, 
 but seated on the sand, with Lucy gathering shells at the 
 water's edge, they continued their talk. Presently the talk 
 became eager confidences, and then, — there were long and 
 dangerous lapses of silence, when both were fain to make 
 perfunctory talk with Lucy on the beach. After one of 
 those silences Jarman said : — 
 
 " Do you know I rather thought yesterday you did n't 
 want me to come to your father's house. Why was 
 that ? " 
 
 " Because Marco was there," said the girl frankly. 
 
 " What had he to do with it ? " said Jarman abruptly. 
 
 " He wants to marry me." 
 
 "And do you want to marry him?" said Jarman 
 quickly. 
 
 " No," said the girl passionately. 
 
 "Why don't you get rid of him, then ? " 
 
 " I can't, he 's hiding here, — he 's father's friend." 
 
 " Hiding ? What 's he been doing ? " 
 
 " Stealing. Stealing gold-dust from miners. I never 
 cared for him anyway. And I hate a thief ! " 
 
 She looked up quickly. Jarman had risen to his feet, 
 his face turned to sea. 
 
 " What are you looking at ? " she said wonderingly. 
 
 " A ship," said Jarman in a strange, hoarse voice. " I 
 must hurry back and signal. I 'm afraid I have n't even 
 ►ime to walk with you, — I must run for it. Good-by ! " 
 
 He turned without offering his hand and ran hurriedly in 
 the direction of the semaphore. 
 
 Cara, discomfited, turned her black eyes to the sea. But 
 it seemed empty as before, no sail, no ship on the horizon 
 line, only a little schooner slowly beating out of the Gate. 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 139 
 
 All, well ! It no doubt was there, — that sail, — though 
 she could not see it ; how keen and far-seeing his handsome, 
 honest eyes were ! She heaved a little sigh, and, calling 
 Lucy to her side, began to make her way homeward. But 
 she kept her eyes on the semaphore ; it seemed to her the 
 next thing to seeing him, — this man she was beginning to 
 love. She waited for the gaunt arms to move with the 
 signal of the vessel he had seen. But, strange to say, it 
 was motionless. He must have been mistaken. 
 
 All this, however, was driven from her mind in the ex- 
 citement that she found on her return thrilling her own 
 family. They had been warned that a police boat with 
 detectives on board had been dispatched from San Francisco 
 to the cove. Luckily, they had managed to convey the fugi- 
 tive Franti on board a coastwise schooner, — Cara started 
 as she remembered the one she had seen beating out of the 
 Gate, — and he was now safe from pursuit. Cara felt re- 
 lieved ; at the same time she felt a strange joy at her heart, 
 which sent the conscious blood to her cheek. She was not 
 thinking of the escaped Marco, but of Jarman. Later, 
 when the police boat arrived, — whether the detectives had 
 been forewarned of Marco's escape or not, — they contented 
 themselves with a formal search of the little fishing-hut and 
 departed. But their boat remained lying off the shore. 
 
 That night Cara tossed sleeplessly on her bed ; she was 
 sorry she had ever spoken of Marco to Jarman. It was 
 unnecessary now ; perhaps he disbelieved her and thought 
 she loved Marco ; perhaps that was the reason of his strange 
 and abrupt leave-taking that afternoon. She longed for 
 the next day ; she could tell him everything now. 
 
 Towards morning she slept fitfully, but was awakened 
 by the sound of voices on the sands outside the hut. Its 
 flimsy structure, already warped by the fierce day-long sun, 
 illowed her through chinks and crevices not only to recog- 
 nize the voices of the detectives, but to hear distinctly what 
 
140 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 
 
 they said. Suddenly the name of Jarman struck upon her 
 ear. She sat upright in bed, breathless. 
 
 " Are you sure it 's the same man ? " asked a second 
 voice. 
 
 " Perfectly," answered the first. " He was tracked to 
 'Frisco, but disappeared the day he landed. We knew 
 from our agents that he never left the bay. And when we 
 found that somebody answering his description got the post 
 of telegraph operator out here, we knew that we had spotted 
 our man and the £250 sterling offered for his capture." 
 
 " But that was five months ago. Why did n't you take 
 him then ? " 
 
 " Could n't ! For we could n't hold him without the ex- 
 tradition papers from Australia. We sent for 'em; they're 
 due to-day or to-morrow on the mail steamer." 
 
 " But he might have got away at any time ! " 
 
 " He could n't without our knowing it. Don't you see ? 
 Every time the signals went up, we in San Francisco knew 
 he was at his post. We had him safe, out here on these 
 sandhills, as if he 'd been under lock and key in 'Frisco. 
 He was his own keeper, and reported to us." 
 
 " But since you 're here and expect the papers to-morrow, 
 why don't you ' cop ' him now ? " 
 
 " Because there is n't a judge in San Francisco that would 
 hold him a moment unless he had those extradition papers 
 before him. He 'd be discharged, and escape." 
 
 " Then what are you going to do ? " 
 
 " As soon as the steamer is signaled in 'Frisco, we '11 
 board her in the hay, get the papers, and drop down upon 
 him." 
 
 " I see ; and as he 's the signal man, the darned fool " — 
 
 " Will give the signal himself." 
 
 The laugh that followed was so cruel that the young girl 
 shuddered. But the next moment she slipped from the 
 bed, erect, pale, and determined. 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 141 
 
 The voices seemed gradually to retreat. She dressed 
 herself hurriedly, and passed noiselessly through the room 
 of her still sleeping parent, and passed out. A gray fog 
 was lifting slowly over the sands and sea, and the police 
 boat was gone. She no longer hesitated, but ran quickly 
 in the direction of Jarman's cabin. As she ran, her mind 
 seemed to be swept clear of all illusion and fancy ; she saw 
 plainly everything that had happened ; she knew the mys- 
 tery of Jarman's presence here, — the secret of his life, — 
 the dreadful cruelty of her remark to him, — the man that 
 she knew now she loved. The sun was painting the black 
 arms of the semaphore as she toiled over the last stretch of 
 sand and knocked loudly at the door. There was no reply. 
 She knocked again ; the cabin was silent. Had he already 
 fled ? — and without seeing her and knowing all ! She 
 tried the handle of the door ; it yielded ; she stepped boldly 
 into the room, with his name upon her lips. He was lying 
 fully dressed upon his couch. She ran eagerly to his side 
 and stopped. It needed only a single glance at his con- 
 gested face, his lips parted with his heavy breath, to see 
 that the man was hopelessly, helplessly drunk ! 
 
 Yet even then, without knowing that it was her thought, 
 less speech which had driven him to seek this foolish obliv- 
 ion of remorse and sorrow, she saw only his helplessness. 
 She tried in vain to rouse him ; he only muttered a few 
 incoherent words and sank back again. She looked de- 
 spairingly around. Something must be done ; the steamer 
 might be visible at any moment. Ah, yes, — the tele- 
 scope ! She seized it and swept the horizon. There was 
 a faint streak of haze against the line of sea and sky, abreast 
 the Golden Gate. He had once told her what it meant. 
 It was the steamer ! A sudden thought leaped into her 
 clear and active brain. If the police boat should chance to 
 see that haze too, and saw no warning signal from the sema- 
 phore, they would suspect something. That signal must 
 
142 THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 
 
 be made, but not the right one ! She remembered quickly 
 how he had explained to her the difference between the 
 signals for a coasting steamer and the one that brought the 
 mails. At that distance the police boat could not detect 
 whether the semaphore's arms were extended to perfect 
 right angles for the mail steamer, or if the left arm slightly 
 deflected for a coasting steamer. She ran out to the wind- 
 lass and seized the crank. For a moment it defied her 
 strength ; she redoubled her efforts : it began to creak and 
 groan, the great arms were slowly uplifted and the signal 
 made. 
 
 But the familiar sounds of the moving machinery had 
 pierced through Jarman's sluggish consciousness as no other 
 sound in heaven or earth could have done, and awakened 
 him to the one dominant sense he had left, — the habit 
 of duty. She heard him roll from the bed with an oath, 
 stumble to the door, and saw him dash forward with an 
 affrighted face, and plunge his head into a bucket of water. 
 He emerged from it pale and dripping, but with the full 
 light of reason and consciousness in his eyes. He started 
 when he saw her ; even then she would have fled, but he 
 caught her firmly by the wrist. 
 
 Then with a hurried, trembling voice she told him all 
 and everything. He listened in silence, and only at the 
 end raised her hand gravely to his lips. 
 
 " And now," she added tremulously, " you must fly — 
 quick — at once ; or it will be too late ! " 
 
 But Bichard Jarman walked slowly to the door of his 
 cabin, still holding her hand, and said quietly, pointing to 
 his only chair : — 
 
 " Sit down ; we must talk first." 
 
 What they said was never known, but a few moments 
 later they left the cabin, Jarman carrying in a small bag all 
 his possessions, and Cara leaning on his arm. An hour 
 later the priest of the Mission Dolores was called upon to 
 
THE MAN AT THE SEMAPHORE 143 
 
 unite in matrimony a frank, honest-looking sailor and an 
 Italian, gypsy-looking girl. There were many hasty unions 
 in those days, and the Holy Church was only too glad to 
 be able to give them its legal indorsement. But the good 
 Padre was a little sorry for the honest sailor, and gave the 
 girl some serious advice. 
 
 The San Francisco. papers the next morning threw some 
 dubious light upon the matter in a paragraph headed, " An- 
 other Police Fiasco." 
 
 " We understand that the indefatigable police of San 
 Francisco, after ascertaining that Marco Franti, the noted 
 gold-dust thief, was hiding on the shore near the Presidio, 
 proceeded there with great solemnity, and arrived, as usual, 
 a few hours after their man had escaped. But the climax 
 of incapacity was reached when, as it is alleged, the sweet- 
 heart of the absconding Franti, and daughter of a brother 
 fisherman, eloped still later, and joined her lover under the 
 very noses of the police. The attempt of the detectives to 
 excuse themselves at headquarters by reporting that they 
 were also on the track of an alleged escaped Sydney Duck 
 was received with the derision and skepticism it deserved, 
 as it seemed that these worthies mistook the mail steamer, 
 which they should have boarded to get certain extradition 
 papers, for a coasting steamer." 
 
 It was not until four years later that Murano was de- 
 lighted to recognize in the husband of his long-lost daughter 
 a very rich cattle-owner in Southern California, called Jar- 
 man ; but he never knew that he had been an escaped con- 
 vict from Sydney, who had lately received a full pardon 
 through the instrumentality of divers distinguished people 
 in Australia. 
 
SEE YUP 
 
 I don't suppose that his progenitors ever gave him that 
 name, or, indeed, that it was a name at all ; hut it was cur- 
 rently believed that — as pronounced " See Up" — it meant 
 that lifting of the outer angle of the eye common to the 
 Mongolian. On the other hand, I had been told that there 
 was an old Chinese custom of affixing some motto or legend, 
 or even a sentence from Confucius, as a sign above their 
 shops, and that two or more words, which might be merely 
 equivalent to "Virtue is its own reward," or "Riches are 
 deceitful," were believed by the simple Californian miner to 
 be the name of the occupant himself. Howbeit, " See Yup" 
 accepted it with the smiling patience of his race, and never 
 went by any other. If one of the tunnelmen always adr 
 dressed him as " Brigadier-General," " Judge," or " Commo- 
 dore," it was understood to be only the American fondness 
 for ironic title, and was never used except in personal con- 
 versation. In appearance he looked like any other China- 
 man, wore the ordinary blue cotton blouse and white drawers 
 of the Sampan coolie, and, in spite of the apparent cleanliness 
 and freshness of these garments, always exhaled that singular 
 medicated odor — half opium, half ginger — which we rec- 
 ognized as the common " Chinese smell." 
 
 Our first interview was characteristic of his patient quality. 
 He had done my washing for several months, but I had never 
 yet seen him. A meeting at last had become necessary to 
 correct his impressions regarding "buttons" — which he had 
 seemed to consider as mere excrescences, to be removed like 
 superfluous dirt from soiled linen. I had expected him to 
 call at my lodgings, but he had not yet made his appearance. 
 
SEE YTJP 145 
 
 One day, during the noontide recess of the little frontier 
 school over which I presided, I returned rather early. Two 
 or three of the smaller boys, who were loitering about the 
 school-yard, disappeared with a certain guilty precipitation 
 that I suspected for the moment, but which I presently dis- 
 missed from my mind. I passed through the empty school- 
 room to my desk, sat down, and began to prepare the coming 
 lessons. Presently I heard a faint sigh. Looking up, to 
 my intense concern, I discovered a solitary Chinaman whom 
 I had overlooked, sitting in a rigid attitude on a bench with 
 his back to the window. He caught my eye and smiled 
 sadly, but without moving. 
 
 " What are you doing here ? " I asked sternly. 
 " Me washee shilts ; me talkee ' buttons.' " 
 " Oh ! you 're See Yup, are you ? " 
 " Allee same, John." 
 "Well, come. here." 
 
 I continued my work, but he did not move. 
 " Come here, hang it ! Don't you understand ? " 
 "Me shabbee, ' comme yea.' But me no shabbee Melli- 
 can boy, who catchee me, allee same. You ' comme yea ' — 
 you shabbee ? " 
 
 Indignant, but believing that the unfortunate man was 
 still in fear of persecution from the mischievous urchins 
 whom I had evidently just interrupted, I put down my pen 
 and went over to him. Here I discovered, to my surprise 
 and mortification, that his long pigtail was held hard and 
 fast by the closed window behind him, which the young 
 rascals had shut down upon it, after having first noiselessly 
 fished it outside with a hook and line. I apologized, opened 
 the window, and released him. He did not complain, al- 
 though he must have been fixed in that uncomfortable posi- 
 tion for some minutes, but plunged at once into the business 
 that brought him there. 
 
 "But why didn't you come to my lodgings?" I asked. 
 
146 SEE YUP 
 
 He smiled sadly but intelligently. 
 
 "Mishtel Bally [Mr. Barry, my landlord] he owee me 
 five dollee fo washee, washee. He no payee me. He say he 
 knock hellee outee me allee time I come fo payee. So me 
 no come housee, me come schoolee. Shabbee ? Mellican 
 boy no good, but not so big as Mellican man. No can hurtee 
 Chinaman so much. Shabbee ? " 
 
 Alas ! I knew that this was mainly true. Mr. James 
 Barry was an Irishman, whose finer religious feelings re- 
 volted against paying money to a heathen. I could not find 
 it in my heart to say anything to See Yup about the but- 
 tons ; indeed, I spoke in complimentary terms about the 
 gloss of my shirts, and I think I meekly begged him to come 
 again for my washing. When I went home I expostulated 
 with Mr. Barry, but succeeded only in extracting from him 
 the conviction that I was one of " thim black Republican 
 fellys that worshiped naygurs." I had simply made an 
 enemy of him. But I did not know that, at the same time, 
 I had made a friend of See Yup ! 
 
 I became aware of this a few days later, by the appearance 
 on my desk of a small pot containing a specimen of camellia 
 japonica in flower. I knew the school-children were in the 
 habit of making presents to me in this furtive fashion, — 
 leaving their own nosegays of wild flowers, or perhaps a 
 cluster of roses from their parents' gardens, — but I also 
 knew that this exotic was too rare to come from them. I 
 remembered that See Yup had a Chinese taste for gardening, 
 and a friend, another Chinaman, who kept a large nursery 
 in the adjoining town. But my doubts were set at rest by 
 the discovery of a small roll of red rice-paper containing my 
 washing-bill, fastened to the camellia stalk. It was plain 
 that this mingling of business and delicate gratitude was 
 clearly See Yup's own idea. As the finest flower was the 
 topmost one, I plucked it for wearing, when I found, to my 
 astonishment, that it was simply wired to the stalk. This 
 
SEE YUP 147 
 
 led me to look at the others, which I found also wired ! 
 More than that, they seemed to be an inferior flower, and 
 exhaled that cold, earthy odor peculiar to the camellia, even, 
 as I thought, to an excess. A closer examination resulted 
 in the discovery that, with the exception of the first flower 
 I had plucked, they were one and all ingeniously constructed 
 of thin slices of potato, marvelously cut to imitate the vege- 
 table waxiness and formality of the real flower. The work 
 showed an infinite and almost pathetic patience in detail, 
 yet strangely incommensurate with the result, admirable as 
 it was. Nevertheless, this was also like See Yup. But 
 whether he had tried to deceive me, or whether he only 
 wished me to admire his skill, I could not say. And as his 
 persecution by my scholars had left a balance of considera- 
 tion in his favor, I sent him a warm note of thanks, and 
 said nothing of my discovery. 
 
 As our acquaintance progressed, I became frequently the 
 recipient of other small presents from him : a pot of pre- 
 serves of a quality I could not purchase in shops, and whose 
 contents in their crafty, gingery dissimulation so defied de- 
 finition that I never knew whether they were animal, vege- 
 table, or mineral ; two or three hideous Chinese idols, " for 
 luckee," and a diabolical firework with an irregular spas- 
 modic activity that would sometimes be prolonged until the 
 next morning. In return, I gave him some apparently 
 hopeless oral lessons in English, and certain sentences to be 
 copied, which he did with marvelous precision. I remember 
 one instance when this peculiar faculty of imitation was 
 disastrous in result. In setting him a copy, I had blurred 
 a word, which I promptly erased, and then traced the letters 
 more distinctly over the scratched surface. To my surprise, 
 See Yup triumphantly produced his copy with the erasion 
 itself carefully imitated, and, in fact, much more neatly done 
 than mine. 
 
 In our confidential intercourse, I never seemed to reaily 
 
148 SEE YUP 
 
 get nearer to him. His sympathy and simplicity appeared 
 like his flowers — to be a good-humored imitation of my 
 own. I am satisfied that his particularly soulless laugh was 
 not derived from any amusement he actually felt, yet I 
 could not say it was forced. In his accurate imitations, 
 I fancied he was only trying to evade any responsibility of 
 his own. That devolved upon his taskmaster ! In the 
 attention he displayed when new ideas were presented to 
 him, there was a slight condescension, as if he were looking 
 down upon them from his three thousand years of history. 
 
 " Don't you think the electric telegraph wonderful ? " I 
 asked one day. 
 
 " Velly good for Mellican man," he said, with his aimless 
 laugh ; " plenty makee him jump ! " 
 
 I never could tell whether he had confounded it with 
 electro-galvanism, or was only satirizing our American haste 
 and feverishness. He was capable of either. For that mat- 
 ter, we knew that the Chinese themselves possessed som« 
 means of secretly and quickly communicating with one 
 another. Any news of good or ill import to their race was 
 quickly disseminated through the settlement before we knew 
 anything about it. An innocent basket of clothes from the 
 wash, sent up from the river-bank, became in some way a 
 library of information ; a single slip of rice-paper, aimlessly 
 fluttering in the dust of the road, had the mysterious effect 
 of diverging a whole gang of coolie tramps away from our 
 settlement. 
 
 When See Yup was not subject to the persecutions of the 
 more ignorant and brutal, he was always a source of amuse- 
 ment to all, and I cannot recall an instance when he was 
 ever taken seriously. The miners found diversions even 
 in his alleged frauds and trickeries, whether innocent or 
 retaliatory, and were fond of relating with great gusto his 
 evasion of the Foreign Miners' Tax. This was an oppress- 
 ive measure aimed principally at the Chinese, who humbly 
 
SEE YUP 149 
 
 worked the worn-out " tailings " of their Christian fellow 
 miners. It was stated that See Yup, knowing the difficulty 
 — already alluded to — of identifying any particular China- 
 man by name, conceived the additional idea of confusing 
 recognition by intensifying the monotonous facial expression. 
 Having paid his tax himself to the collector, he at once 
 passed the receipt to his fellows, so that the collector found 
 himself confronted in different parts of the settlement with 
 the receipt and the aimless laugh of, apparently, See Yup 
 himself. Although we all knew that there were a dozen 
 Chinamen or more at work at the mines, the collector never 
 was able to collect the tax from more than two, — See Yup 
 and one See Yin, — and so great was their facial resem- 
 blance that the unfortunate official for a long time hugged 
 himself with the conviction that he had made See Yup pay 
 twice, and withheld the money from the government ! It 
 is very probable that the Calif ornian's recognition of the 
 sanctity of a joke, and his belief that " cheating the govern- 
 ment was only cheating himself," largely accounted for the 
 sympathies of the rest of the miners. 
 
 But these sympathies were not always unanimous. 
 
 One evening I strolled into the bar-room of the principal 
 saloon, which, so far as mere upholstery and comfort went, 
 was also the principal house in the settlement. The first 
 rains had commenced ; the windows were open, for the in- 
 fluence of the southwest trades penetrated even this far-off 
 mountain mining settlement, but, oddly enough, there was 
 a fire in the large central stove, around which the miners 
 had collected, with their steaming boots elevated on a pro- 
 jecting iron railing that encircled it. They were not at- 
 tracted by the warmth, but the stove formed a social pivot 
 for gossip, and suggested that mystic circle dear to the gre- 
 garious instinct. Yet they were decidedly a despondent 
 group. For some moments the silence was broken only by 
 a gasp, a sigh, a muttered oath, or an impatient change of 
 
150 SEE YUP 
 
 position. There was nothing in the fortunes of the settle- 
 ment nor in their own individual affairs to suggest this 
 gloom. The singular truth was that they were, one and all, 
 suffering from the pangs of dyspepsia. 
 
 Incongruous as such a complaint might seem to their 
 healthy environment, — their outdoor life, their daily exer- 
 cise, the healing balsam of the mountain air, their enforced 
 temperance in diet, and the absence of all enervating plea- 
 sures, — it was nevertheless the incontestable fact. Whether 
 it was the result of the nervous, excitable temperament 
 which had brought them together in this feverish hunt for 
 gold ; whether it was the quality of the tinned meats or 
 half-cooked provisions they hastily bolted, begrudging the 
 time it took to prepare and to consume them ; whether they 
 too often supplanted their meals by tobacco or whiskey, the 
 singular physiological truth remained that these young, finely 
 selected adventurers, living the lives of the natural, abori- 
 ginal man, and looking the picture of health and strength, 
 actually suffered more from indigestion than the pampered 
 dwellers of the cities. The quantity of " patent medicines," 
 "bitters,'' "pills," "panaceas," and "lozenges" sold in the 
 settlement almost exceeded the amount of the regular pro- 
 visions whose effects they were supposed to correct. The 
 sufferers eagerly scanned advertisements and placards. There 
 were occasional " runs " on new " specifics," and general 
 conversation eventually turned into a discussion of their 
 respective merits. A certain childlike faith and trust in each 
 new remedy was not the least distressing and pathetic of the 
 symptoms of these grown-up, bearded men. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said Cyrus Parker, glancing around 
 at his fellow sufferers, " ye kin talk of your patent medi- 
 cines, and I 've tackled 'em all, but only the other day I 
 struck suthin' that I 'm goin' to hang on to, you bet." 
 
 Every eye was turned moodily to the speaker, but no one 
 said anything. 
 
SEE YUP 151 
 
 " And I did n't get it out er advertisements, nor off of 
 circulars. I got it out er my head, just by solid thinking," 
 continued Parker. 
 
 " What was it, Cy ? " said one unsophisticated and inex- 
 perienced sufferer. 
 
 Instead of replying, Parker, like a true artist, knowing 
 he had the ear of his audience, dramatically flashed a ques- 
 tion upon them. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of a Chinaman having dyspepsy ?" 
 
 " Never heard he had sabe enougli to hev anything," 
 said a scorner. 
 
 " No, but did ye ? " insisted Parker. 
 
 " Well, no ! " chorused the group. They were evidently- 
 struck with the fact. 
 
 " Of course you did n't," said Parker triumphantly. 
 " 'Cos they ain't. Well, gentlemen, it did n't seem to me 
 the square thing that a pesky lot o' yellow-skinned hea- 
 thens should be built different to a white man, and never 
 know the tortur' that a Christian feels ; and one day, arter 
 dinner, when I was just a-lyin' flat down on the bank, 
 squirmin', and clutching the short grass to keep from yellin', 
 who should go' by but that pizened See Yup, with a grin 
 on his face. 
 
 " ' Mellican man plenty playee to him Joss after eatin',' 
 sez he ; ' but Chinaman smellee . punk, allee same, and no 
 hab got.' 
 
 " I knew the slimy cuss was just purtendin' he thought 
 I was prayin' to my Joss, but I was that weak I had n't 
 stren'th, boys, to heave a rock at him. Yet it gave me an 
 idea." 
 
 " What was it ? " they asked eagerly. 
 
 " I went down to his shop the next day, when he was 
 alone, and I was feeling mighty bad, and I got hold of his 
 pigtail, and I allowed I 'd stuff it down his throat if he 
 did n't tell me what he meant. Then he took a piece of 
 
152 SEE YUP 
 
 punk and lit it, and put it under my nose, and, darn my 
 skin, gentlemen, you migh' n't believe me, but in a minute 
 I felt better, and after a whiff or two I was all right." 
 
 "Was it pow'ful strong, Cy ? " asked the inexperienced 
 one. 
 
 "No," said Parker, "and that's just what's got me. 
 It was a sort o' dreamy, spicy smell, like a hot night. But 
 as I could n't go 'round 'mong you boys with a lighted piece 
 o' punk in my hand, ez if I was settin' off Fourth of July 
 firecrackers, I asked him if he could n't fix me up suthin' 
 in another shape that would be handier to use when I was 
 took bad, and I 'd reckon to pay him for it like ez I 'd pay 
 for any other patent medicine. So he fixed me up this." 
 
 He put his hand in his pocket, and drew out a small red 
 paper which, when opened, disclosed a pink powder. It 
 was gravely passed around the group. 
 
 " Why, it smells and tastes like ginger," said one. 
 
 " It is only ginger ! " said another scornfully. 
 
 " Mebbe it is, and mebbe it is n't," returned Cy Parker 
 stoutly. " Mebbe it 's only my fancy. But if it 's the 
 sort o' stuff to bring on that fancy, and that fancy cures me, 
 it 's all the same. I 've got about two dollars' worth o' that 
 fancy or that ginger, and I 'm going to stick to it. You 
 hear me ! " And ho carefully put it back in his pocket. 
 
 At which criticisms and gibes broke forth. If he (Cy 
 Parker), a white man, was going to " demean himself " by 
 consulting a Chinese quack, he 'd better buy up a lot o' 
 idols and stand 'em up around his cabin. If he had that 
 sort o' confidences with See Yup, he ought to go to work 
 with him on his cheap tailings, and be fumigated all at the 
 same time. If he 'd been smoking an opium pipe, instead 
 of smelling punk, he ought to be man enough to confess it. 
 Yet it was noticeable that they were all very anxious to 
 examine the packet again, but Cy Parker was alike indiffer* 
 ent to demand or entreaty. 
 
SEE YUP 153 
 
 A few days later I saw Abe Wynford, one of the party, 
 coming out of See Yup's wash-house. He muttered some- 
 thing in passing about the infamous delay in sending home 
 his washing, but did not linger long in conversation. The 
 next day I met another miner at the wash-house, but he 
 lingered so long on some trifling details that I finally left 
 him there alone with See Yup. When I called upon Poker 
 Jack of Shasta, there was a singular smell of incense in 
 his cabin, which he attributed to the very resinous quality 
 of the fir logs he was burning. I did not attempt to probe 
 these mysteries by any direct appeal to See Yup himself : 
 I respected his reticence ; indeed, if I had not, I was quite 
 satisfied that he would have lied to me. Enough that his 
 wash-house was well patronized, and he was decidedly " get- 
 ting on." 
 
 It might have been a month afterwards that Dr. 
 Duchesne was setting a broken bone in the settlement, and 
 after the operation was over, had strolled into the Palmetto 
 Saloon. He was an old army surgeon, much respected and 
 loved in the district, although perhaps a little feared for the 
 honest roughness and military precision of his speech. 
 After he had exchanged salutations with the miners in his 
 usual hearty fashion, and accepted their invitation to drink, 
 Cy Parker, with a certain affected carelessness which did not, 
 however, conceal a singular hesitation in his speech, began : 
 
 "I've been wantin' to ask ye a question, Doc, — a sort 
 o' darned fool question, ye know, — nothing in the way of 
 consultation, don't you see, though it 's kinder in the way 
 o' your purfeshun. Sabe ? " 
 
 " Go on, Cy," said the doctor good-humoredly, "this is 
 my dispensary hour." 
 
 " Oh ! it ain't anything about symptoms, Doc, and there 
 ain't anything the matter with me. It's only just to ask 
 ye if ye happened to know anything about the medical 
 practice of these yer Chinamen ? " 
 
154 SEE YUP 
 
 " / don't know," said the doctor bluntly, " and I don't 
 know anybody who does k " 
 
 There was a sudden silence in the bar, and the doctor, 
 putting down his glass, continued with slight professional 
 precision : — 
 
 " You see, the Chinese know nothing of anatomy from 
 personal observation. Autopsies and dissection are against 
 their superstitions, which declare the human body sacred, 
 and are consequently never practiced." 
 
 There was a slight movement of inquiring interest among 
 the party, and Cy Parker, after a meaning glance at the 
 others, went on half aggressively, half apologetically : — 
 
 " In course, they ain't surgeons like you, Doc, but that 
 don't keep them from having their own little medicines, 
 just as dogs eat grass, you know. Now I want to put it 
 to you, as a fa'r-minded man, if you mean ter say that, jest 
 because those old women who sarve out yarbs and spring 
 medicines in families don't know anything of anatomy, they 
 ain't fit to give us their simple and nat'ral medicines ? " 
 
 " But the Chinese medicines are not simple or natural," 
 said the doctor coolly. 
 
 " Not simple ? " echoed the party, closing round him 
 
 " I don't mean to say," continued the doctor, glancing 
 around at their eager, excited faces with an appearance of 
 wonder, " that they are positively noxious, unless taken in 
 large quantities, for they are not drugs at all, but I certainly 
 should not call them ' simple.' Do you know what they 
 principally are ? " 
 
 "Well, no," said Parker cautiously, "perhaps not 
 exactly." 
 
 " Come a little closer, and I '11 tell you." 
 
 Not only Parker's head but the others were bent over 
 the counter. Dr. Duchesne uttered a few words in a tone 
 inaudible to the rest of the company. There was a profound 
 silence, broken at last by Abe Wynford's voice : — 
 
SEE YUP 155 
 
 " Ye kin pour me out about three fingers o' whiskey, 
 Barkeep. I '11 take it straight." 
 
 " Same to me," said the others. 
 
 The men gulped down their liquor ; two of them quietly 
 passed out. The doctor wiped his lips, buttoned his coat, 
 and began to draw on his riding-gloves. 
 
 "I've heerd," said Poker Jack of Shasta, with a faint 
 smile on his white face, as he toyed with the last drops of 
 liquor in his glass, " that the darned fools sometimes smel] 
 punk as a medicine, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, that 's comparatively decent," said the doctor 
 reflectively. " It 's only sawdust mixed with a little gum 
 and formic acid." 
 
 " Formic acid ? Wot 's that ? " 
 
 " A very peculiar acid secreted by ants. It is supposed 
 to be used by them offensively in warfare — just as the 
 skunk, eh ? " 
 
 But Poker Jack of Shasta had hurriedly declared that 
 he wanted to speak to a man who was passing, and had dis- 
 appeared. The doctor walked to the door, mounted his 
 horse, and rode away. I noticed, however, that there was 
 a slight smile on his bronzed, impassive face. This led 
 me to wonder if he was entirely ignorant of the purpose 
 for which he had been questioned, and the effect of his 
 information. I was confirmed in the belief by the remark- 
 able circumstance that nothing more was said of it ; the 
 incident seemed to have terminated there, and the victims 
 made no attempt to revenge themselves on See Yup. That 
 they had one and all, secretly and unknown to one another, 
 patronized him, there was no doubt ; but, at the same time, 
 as they evidently were not sure that Dr. Duchesne had 
 not hoaxed them -in regard to the quality of See Yup's 
 medicines, they knew that an attack on the unfortunate 
 Chinaman would in either case reveal their secret and 
 expose them to the ridicule of their brother miners. So 
 
156 SEE YUP 
 
 the matter dropped, and See Yup remained master of the 
 situation. 
 
 Meantime he was prospering. The coolie gang he worked 
 on the river, when not engaged in washing clothes, were 
 " picking over " the " tailings,''' or refuse of gravel, left on 
 abandoned claims by successful miners. As there was no 
 more expense attending this than in stone-breaking or rag- 
 picking, and the feeding of the coolies, which was ridicu- 
 lously cheap, there was no doubt that See Yup was reaping 
 a fair weekly return from it; but as he sent his receipts to 
 San Francisco through coolie messengers, after the Chinese 
 custom, and did not use the regular express company, there 
 was no way of ascertaining the amount. Again, neither 
 See Yup nor his fellow countrymen ever appeared to have 
 any money about them. In ruder times and more reckless 
 camps, raids were often made by ruffians on their cabins or 
 their traveling gangs, but never with any pecuniary result. 
 This condition, however, it seemed was destined to change. 
 
 One Saturday See Yup walked into Wells, Fargo & Co.'s 
 Express office with a package of gold-dust, which, when 
 duly weighed, was valued at five hundred dollars. It was 
 consigned to a Chinese company in San Francisco. When 
 the clerk handed See Yup a receipt, he remarked casually : — 
 
 " Washing seems to pay, See Yup." 
 
 " Washee velly good pay. You wantee washee, John ? " 
 said See Yup eagerly. 
 
 " No, no," said the clerk, with a laugh. " I was only 
 thinking five hundred dollars would represent the washing 
 of a good many shirts." 
 
 " No leplesent washee shilts at all ! Catchee gold-dust 
 when washee tailings. Shabbee ? " 
 
 The clerk did " shabbee," and lifted his eyebrows. The 
 next Saturday See Yup appeared with another package, 
 worth about four hundred dollars, directed to the same con- 
 signee. 
 
SEE YUP 157 
 
 " Did n't pan out quite so rich this week, eh ? " said the 
 clerk engagingly. 
 
 " No," returned See Yup impassively ; " next time he 
 payee more." 
 
 When the third Saturday came, with the appearance of 
 See Yup and four hundred and fifty dollars' worth of gold- 
 dust, the clerk felt he was no longer bound to keep the 
 secret. He communicated it to others, and in twenty-four 
 hours the whole settlement knew that See Yup's coolie 
 company were taking out an average of four hundred dol- 
 lars per week from the refuse and tailings of the old aban- 
 doned Palmetto claim ! 
 
 The astonishment of the settlement was profound. In 
 earlier days jealousy and indignation at the success of these 
 degraded heathens might have taken a more active and 
 aggressive shape, and it would have fared ill with See Yup 
 and his companions. But the settlement had become more 
 prosperous and law-abiding ; there were one or two Eastern 
 families and some foreign capital already there, and its jeal- 
 ousy and indignation were restricted to severe investigation 
 and legal criticism. Fortunately for See Yup, it was an 
 old-established mining law that an abandoned claim and 
 its tailings became the property of whoever chose to work 
 it. But it was alleged that See Yup's company had in 
 reality " struck a lead," — discovered a hitherto unknown 
 vein or original deposit of gold, not worked by the previous 
 company, — and, having failed legally to declare it by pre- 
 emption and public registry, in their foolish desire for 
 secrecy, had thus forfeited their right to the property. 
 A surveillance of their working, however, did not establish 
 this theory ; the gold that See Yup had sent away was of 
 the kind that might have been found in the tailings over- 
 looked by the late Palmetto owners. Yet it was a very 
 large yield for mere refuse. 
 
 " Them Palmetto boys were mighty keerless after they 'd 
 
158 SEE YUP 
 
 made their big ' strike ' and got to work on the vein, and 
 I reckon they threw a lot of gold away," said Cy Parker, 
 who remembered their large-handed recklessness in the 
 "flush days." " On'y that we did n't think it was white 
 man's work to rake over another man's leavin's, we might 
 hev had what them derned Chinamen hev dropped into. 
 Tell ye what, boys, we 've been a little too ' high and 
 mighty,' and we '11 hev to climb down." 
 
 At last the excitement reached its climax, and diplomacy 
 ■was employed to effect what neither intimidation nor es- 
 pionage could secure. Under the pretense of desiring to 
 buy out See Yup's company, a select committee of the 
 miners was permitted to examine the property and its work- 
 ings. They found the great bank of stones and gravel, 
 representing the cast-out debris of the old claim, occupied 
 by See Yup and four or five plodding, automatic coolies. 
 At the end of two hours the committee returned to the 
 saloon bursting with excitement. They spoke under their 
 breath, but enough was gathered to satisfy the curious crowd 
 that See Yup's pile of tailings was rich beyond their expec- 
 tations. The committee had seen with their own eyes gold 
 taken out of the sand and gravel to the amount of twenty 
 dollars in the two short hours of their examination. And 
 the work had been performed in the stupidest, clumsiest, 
 yet patient Chinese way. What might not white men do 
 with better appointed machinery ! A syndicate was at once 
 formed. See Yup was offered twenty thousand dollars if 
 he would sell out and put the syndicate in possession of 
 the claim in twenty-four hours. The Chinaman received 
 the offer stolidly. As he seemed inclined to hesitate, I am 
 grieved to say that it was intimated to him that if he de- 
 clined he might be subject to embarrassing and expensive 
 legal proceedings to prove his property, and that companies 
 would be formed to " prospect " the ground on either side 
 of his heap of tailings. See Yup at last consented, with 
 
SEE YUP 159 
 
 the proviso that the money should be paid in gold into the 
 hands of a Chinese agent in San Francisco on the day of 
 the delivery of the claim. The syndicate made no opposi- 
 tion to this characteristic precaution of the Chinaman. It 
 was like them not to travel with money, and the implied 
 uncomplimentary suspicion of danger from the community 
 was overlooked. See Yup departed the day that the syndi- 
 cate took possession. He came to see me before he went. 
 I congratulated him upon his good fortune ; at the same 
 time, I was embarrassed by the conviction that he was 
 unfairly forced into a sale of his property at a figure far 
 below its real value. 
 
 I think differently now. 
 
 At the end of the week it was said that the new com- 
 pany cleared up about three hundred dollars. This was 
 not so much as the community had expected, but the syndi- 
 cate was apparently satisfied, and the new machinery was 
 put up. At the end of the next week the syndicate were 
 silent as to their returns. One of them made a hurried 
 visit to San Francisco. It was said that he was unable to 
 see either See Yup or the agent to whom the money was 
 paid. It was also noticed that there was no Chinaman re- 
 maining in the settlement. Then the fatal secret was out. 
 
 The heap of tailings had probably never yielded the 
 See Yup company more than twenty dollars a week, the 
 ordinary wage of such a company. See Yup had conceived 
 the brilliant idea of " booming " it on a borrowed capital 
 of five hundred dollars in gold-dust, which he openly trans- 
 mitted by express to his confederate and creditor in San 
 Francisco, who in turn secretly sent it back to See Yup by 
 coolie messengers, to be again openly transmitted to San 
 Francisco. The package of gold-dust was thus passed back- 
 wards and forwards between debtor and creditor, to the 
 grave edification of the express company and the fatal 
 curiosity of the settlement. When the syndicate had gorged 
 
160 SEE YUP 
 
 the bait thus thrown out, See Yup, on the day the self- 
 invited committee inspected the claim, promptly " salted " 
 the tailings by conscientiously distributing the gold-dust 
 over it so deftly that it appeared to be its natural compo- 
 sition and yield. 
 
 I have only to bid farewell to See Yup, and close this 
 reminiscence of a misunderstood man, by adding the opin- 
 ion of an eminent jurist in San Francisco, to whom the 
 facts were submitted : " So clever was this alleged fraud, 
 that it is extremely doubtful if an action would lie against 
 See Yup in the premises, there being no legal evidence of 
 the ' salting,' and none whatever of his actual allegation 
 that the gold-dust was the ordinary yield of the tailings, 
 that implication resting entirely with the committee who 
 examined it under false pretense, and who subsequently 
 forced the sale by intimidation." 
 
THE BOOM IN THE " CALAVEEAS CLAEION •" 
 
 The editorial sanctum of the " Calaveras Clarion " 
 opened upon the " composing-room " of that paper on the 
 one side, and gave apparently upon the rest of Calaveras 
 County upon the other. For, situated on the very out- 
 skirts of the settlement and the summit of a very steep 
 hill, the pines sloped away from the editorial windows to 
 the long valley of the South Fork and — infinity. The 
 little wooden building had invaded Nature without subdu- 
 ing it. It was filled night and day with the murmur of 
 pines and their fragrance. Squirrels scampered over its 
 roof when it was not preoccupied by woodpeckers, and a 
 printer's devil had once seen a nest-building blue jay enter 
 a window in the composing-room, flutter before one of the 
 slanting type-cases with an air of deliberate selection, and 
 then fly off with a vowel in its bill. 
 
 Amidst these sylvan surroundings the temporary editor 
 of the " Clarion " sat at his sanctum, reading the proofs of 
 an editorial. As he was occupying that position during a, 
 six weeks' absence of the bona fide editor and proprietor, 
 he was consequently reading the proof with some anxiety 
 and responsibility. It had been suggested to him by cer- 
 tain citizens that the " Clarion " needed a firmer and more 
 aggressive policy towards the Bill before the Legislature 
 for the wagon road to the South Fork. Several Assembly 
 men had been " got at " by the rival settlement of Liberty 
 Hill, and a scathing exposure and denunciation of such 
 methods was necessary. The interests of their own town- 
 ship were also to be " whooped up." All this had been 
 vigorously explained to him, and he had grasped the spirit, 
 
162 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 
 
 if not always the facts, of his informants. It is to be feared, 
 therefore, that he was perusing his article more with refer- 
 ence to its vigor than his own convictions. And yet he 
 was not so greatly absorbed as to be unmindful of the mur- 
 mur of the pines without, his half-savage environment, and 
 the lazy talk of his sole companions, — the foreman and 
 printer in the adjoining room. 
 
 " Bet your life ! I 've always said that a man inside a 
 newspaper office could hold his own agin any outsider that 
 wanted to play rough or tried to raid the office ! Thar 's 
 the press, and thar 's the printin' ink and roller ! Folks 
 talk a heap o' the power o' the Press ! — I tell ye, ye don't 
 half know it. Why, when old Kernel Fish was editin' the 
 ' Sierra Banner,' one o' them bullies that he 'd lampooned in 
 the ' Banner ' fought his way past the Kernel in the office, 
 into the composin'-room, to wreck everythin' and ' pye ' all 
 the types. Spoffrel — ye don't remember Spoffrel ? — little 
 red-haired man ? — was foreman. Spoffrel fended him off 
 with the roller and got one good dab inter his eyes that 
 blinded him, and then Spoffrel sorter skirmished him over 
 to the press, — a plain lever just like ours, — whar the 
 locked-up form of the inside was still a-lyin ' ! Then, quick 
 as lightnin', Spoffrel tilts him over agin it, and he throws 
 out his hand and ketches hold o' the form to steady him- 
 self, when Spoffrel just runs the form and the hand under 
 the press and down with the lever ! And that held the 
 feller fast as grim death ! And when at last he begs off, 
 and Spoff lets him loose, the hull o' that 'ere lampooning 
 article he objected to was printed right onto the skin o' 
 his hand ! Fact, and it would n't come off, either." 
 
 " Gosh, but I 'd like to hev seen it," said the printer. 
 " There ain't any chance, I reckon, o' such a sight here. 
 The boss don't take no risks lampoonin', and he " (the 
 editor knew he was being indicated by some unseen gesture 
 of the unseen workman) " ain't that style." 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 163 
 
 " Ye never kin tell," said the foreman didactically, 
 " what might happen ! I 've known editors to get into a 
 fight jest for a little innercent bedevilin' o' the opposite 
 party. Sometimes for a misprint. Old man Pritchard of 
 the ' Argus ' oncet had a hole blown through his arm be- 
 cause his proof-reader had called Colonel Starbottle's speech 
 an ' ignominious ' defense, when the old man hed written 
 ' ingenuous ' defense." 
 
 The editor paused in his proof-reading. He had just 
 come upon the sentence : " We cannot congratulate Liberty 
 Hill — in its superior elevation — upon the ignominious 
 silence of the representative of all Calaveras when this 
 infamous Bill was introduced." He referred to his copy. 
 Yes ! He had certainly written " ignominious," — that 
 was what his informants had suggested. But was he sure 
 they were right ? He had a vague recollection, also, that 
 the representative alluded to — Senator Bradley — had 
 fought two duels, and was a " good " though somewhat 
 impulsive shot ! He might alter the word to " ingenu- 
 ous " or " ingenious," either would be finely sarcastic, 
 but then — there was his foreman, who would detect it ! 
 He would wait until he had finished the entire article. In 
 that occupation he became oblivious of the next room, of a 
 silence, a whispered conversation, which ended with a rap- 
 ping at the door and the appearance of the foreman in the 
 doorway. 
 
 " There 's a man in the office who wants to see the 
 editor," he said. 
 
 " Show him in," replied the editor briefly. He was, 
 however, conscious that there was a singular significance in 
 his foreman's manner, and an eager apparition of the other 
 printer over the foreman's shoulder. 
 
 " He 's carryin' a shot-gun, and is a man twice as big as 
 you be," said the foreman gravely. 
 
 The editor quickly recalled his own brief and as yet 
 
164 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 
 
 blameless record in the " Clarion." " Perhaps," he said 
 tentatively, with a gentle stt.ile, " he 's looking for Captain 
 Brush " (the absent editor). 
 
 " I told him all that," said the foreman grimly, " and 
 he said he wanted to see the man in charge." 
 
 In proportion as the editor's heart sank his outward crest 
 arose. " Show him in," he said loftily. 
 
 '■ We kin keep him out," suggested the foreman, linger- 
 ing a moment ; " me and him," indicating the expectant 
 printer behind him, " is enough for that." 
 
 " Show him up," repeated the editor firmly. 
 
 The foreman withdrew ; the editor seated himself and 
 again took up his proof. The doubtful word " ignomin- 
 ious " seemed to stand out of the paragraph before him ; 
 it certainly was a strong expression ! He was about to run 
 his pencil through it when he heard the heavy step of 
 his visitor approaching. A sudden instinct of belligerency 
 took possession of him, and he wrathfully threw the pencil 
 down. 
 
 The burly form of the stranger blocked the doorway. 
 He was dressed like a miner, but his build and general 
 physiognomy were quite distinct from the local variety. 
 His upper lip and chin were clean-shaven, still showing the 
 blue-black roots of the beard which covered the rest of his 
 face and depended in a thick fleece under his throat. He 
 carried a small bundle tied up in a silk handkerchief in 
 one hand, and a " shot-gun " in the other, perilously at 
 half-cock. Entering the sanctum, he put down his bundle 
 and quietly closed the door behind him. He then drew 
 an empty chair towards him and dropped heavily into it, 
 with his gun on his knees. The editor's heart dropped 
 almost as heavily, although he quite composedly held out 
 his hand. 
 
 " Shall I relieve you of your gun ? " 
 
 " Thank ye, lad — noa. It 's moor coomfortable wi' 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 165 
 
 me, and it 's main dangersome to handle on the half-cock. 
 That 's why I did n't leave 'im on the horse outside ! " 
 
 At the sound of his voice and occasional accent a flash 
 of intelligence relieved the editor's mind. He remembered 
 that twenty miles away, in the illimitable vista from his 
 windows, lay a settlement of English north-country miners, 
 who, while faithfully adopting the methods, customs, and 
 even slang of the Californians, retained many of their native 
 peculiarities. The gun he carried on his knee, however, 
 was evidently part of the Californian imitation. 
 
 " Can I do anything for you ? " said the editor blandly. 
 
 "Ay ! I've coom here to bill ma woife." 
 
 "I — don't think I understand," hesitated the editor, 
 with a smile. 
 
 " I 've coom here to get ye to put into your paper a 
 warnin', a notiss, that onless she returns to my house in 
 four weeks, I '11 have nowt to do wi' her again." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the editor, now perfectly reassured, " you 
 want an advertisement ? That 's the business of the fore- 
 man ; I '11 call him." He was rising from his seat when 
 the stranger laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and gently 
 forced him down again. 
 
 " Nda, lad ! I don't want noa foreman nor understrap- 
 pers to take this job, I want to talk it over wi' you. 
 Sabe ? My woife she bin up and awaa these six months. 
 We had a bit of difference, that ain't here nor there, but 
 she skedaddled outer my house. I want to give her fair 
 warning, and let her know I ain't payin' any debts o' hers 
 arter this notiss, and I ain't takin' her back arter four weeks 
 from date." 
 
 " I see," said the editor glibly. " What 's your wife's 
 
 name 
 
 ■?" 
 
 " Eliza Jane Dimmidge." 
 
 " Good," continued the editor, scribbling on the papei 
 before him; "something like this will do: 'Whereas my 
 
166 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 
 
 wife, Eliza Jane Dimmidge, having left my bed and board 
 without just cause or provocation, this is to give notice that 
 I shall not be responsible for any debts of her contracting 
 on or after this date.' " 
 
 " Ye must be a lawyer," said Mr. Dimmidge admiringly. 
 
 It was an old enough form of advertisement, and the re- 
 mark showed incontestably that Mr. Dimmidge was not a 
 native ; but the editor smiled patronizingly and went on : 
 " ' And I further give notice that if she does not return 
 within the period of four weeks from this date, I shall take 
 such proceedings for relief as the law affords.' " 
 
 " Coom, lad, I did n't say that." 
 
 " But you said you would n't take her back." 
 
 " Ay." 
 
 " And you can't prevent her without legal proceedings. 
 She 's your wife. But you need n't take proceedings, you 
 know. It 's only a warning." 
 
 Mr. Dimmidge nodded approvingly. " That 's so." 
 
 " You '11 want it published for four weeks, until date ? " 
 asked the editor. 
 
 " Mebbe longer, lad." 
 
 The editor wrote " till forbid " in the margin of the 
 paper and smiled. 
 
 " How big will it be ? " said Mr. Dimmidge. 
 
 The editor took up a copy of the " Clarion " and in- 
 dicated about an inch of space. Mr. Dimmidge's face 
 fell. 
 
 " I want it bigger, — in large letters, like a play-card," 
 he said. " That 's no good for a warning." 
 
 " You can have half a column or a whole column if you 
 like," said the editor airily. 
 
 " I '11 take a whole one," said Mr. Dimmidge simply. 
 
 The editor laughed. " Why ! it would cost you a hun« 
 dred dollars." 
 
 " I '11 take it," repeated Mr. Dimmidge. 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 167 
 
 '' But," said the editor gravely, " the same notice in a 
 small space will serve your purpose and be quite legal." 
 
 " Never you mind that, lad ! It 's the looks of the 
 thing I 'm arter, and not the expense. I '11 take that 
 column." 
 
 The editor called in the foreman and showed him the 
 copy. " Can you display that so as to fill a column ? " 
 
 The foreman grasped the situation promptly. It would 
 be big business for the paper. " Yes," he said meditatively, 
 " that bold-faced election type will do it." 
 
 Mr. Dimmidge's face brightened. The expression " bold- 
 faced " pleased him. " That 's it ! I told you. I want to 
 bill her in a portion of the paper." 
 
 " I might put in a cut," said the foreman suggestively ; 
 " something like this." He took a venerable woodcut from 
 the case. I grieve to say it was one which, until the mid- 
 dle of the present century, was common enough in the news- 
 paper offices in the Southwest. It showed the running 
 figure of a negro woman carrying her personal property in 
 a knotted handkerchief slung from a stick over her shoul- 
 der, and was supposed to represent " a fugitive slave." 
 
 Mr. Dimmidge's eyes brightened. " I '11 take that, too. 
 It 's a little dark-complected for Mrs. D., but it will do. 
 Now roon away, lad," he said to the foreman, as he quietly 
 pushed him into the outer office again and closed the door. 
 Then, facing the surprised editor, he said, " Theer 's another 
 notiss I want ye to put in your paper ; but that 's atween 
 ms. Not a word to them,''' he indicated the banished fore- 
 man with a jerk of his thumb. " Sabe ? I want you to 
 put this in another part o' your paper, quite innocent-like, 
 ye know." He drew from his pocket a gray wallet, and 
 taking out a slip of paper read from it gravely, " ' If this 
 should meet the eye of E. B., look out for M. J. D. He is 
 on your track. When this you see write a line to E. J. D., 
 Elktown Post Office.' I want this to go in as ' Personal 
 
168 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 
 
 and Private ' — sabe? — like them notisses in the big 'Frisco 
 papers." 
 
 " I see," said the editor, laying it aside. " It shall go 
 in the same issue in another column." 
 
 Apparently Mr. Dimmidge expected something more 
 than this reply, for after a moment's hesitation he said 
 with an odd smile : — 
 
 " Ye ain't seein' the meanin' o' that, lad ? " 
 " No," said the editor lightly ; " but I suppose R. B. 
 does, and it is n't intended that any one else should." 
 
 " Mebbe it is, and mebbe it is n't," said Mr. Dimmidge, 
 with a self-satisfied air. " I don't mind saying atween us 
 that E. B. is the man as I 've suspicioned as havin' some 
 thing to do with my wife goin' away ; and ye see, if he 
 writes to E. J. D. — that 's my wife's initials — at Elk- 
 town, I'll get that letter and so make sure." 
 
 " But suppose your wife goes there first, or sends ? " 
 " Then I '11 ketch her or her messenger. Ye see ? " 
 The editor did not see fit to oppose any argument to this 
 phenomenal simplicity, and Mr. Dimmidge, after settling 
 his bill with the foreman, and enjoining the editor to the 1 * 
 strictest secrecy regarding the origin of the " personal no- 
 tice," took up his gun and departed, leaving the treasury 
 of the " Clarion " unprecedentedly enriched, and the editor 
 to his proofs. 
 
 The paper duly appeared the next morning with the col- 
 umn advertisement, the personal notice, and the weighty 
 editorial on the wagon road. There was a singular demand 
 for the paper, the edition was speedily exhausted, and the 
 editor was proportionately flattered, although he was sur- 
 prised to receive neither praise nor criticism from his sub- 
 scribers. Before evening, however, he learned to his as- 
 tonishment that the excitement was caused by the column 
 advertisement. Nobody knew Mr. Dimmidge, nor his do- 
 mestic infelicities, and the editor and foreman, being equally 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVEKAS CLARION 169 
 
 in the dark, took refuge in a mysterious and impressive 
 evasion of all inquiry. Never since the last San Francisco 
 Vigilance Committee had the office been so besieged. The 
 editor, foreman, and even the apprentice were button- 
 holed and " treated " at the bar, but to no effect. All that 
 could be learned was that it was a bona fide advertisement, 
 for which one hundred dollars had been received ! There 
 were great discussions and conflicting theories as to whether 
 the value of the wife, or the husband's anxiety to get rid of 
 her, justified the enormous expense and ostentatious display. 
 She was supposed to be an exceedingly beautiful woman by 
 some, by others a perfect Sycorax ; in one breath Mr. Dim- 
 midge was a weak, uxorious spouse, wasting his substance 
 on a creature who did not care for him, and in another a 
 maddened, distracted, henpecked man, content to purchase 
 peace and rest at any price. Certainly, never was adver- 
 tisement more effective in its publicity, or cheaper in pro- 
 portion to the circulation it commanded. It was copied 
 throughout the whole Pacific slope ; mighty San Francisco 
 papers described its size and setting under the attractive 
 headline, " How they Advertise a Wife in the Mountains ! " 
 It reappeared in the Eastern journals, under the title of 
 " Whimsicalities of the Western Press." It was believed 
 to have crossed to England as a specimen of " Transatlantic 
 Savagery." The real editor of the " Clarion " awoke one 
 morning, in San Francisco, to find his paper famous. Its 
 advertising columns were eagerly sought for ; he at once 
 advanced the rates. People bought successive issues to gaze 
 upon this monumental record of extravagance. A singular 
 idea, which, however, brought further fortune to the paper, 
 was advanced by an astute critic at the Eureka Saloon. 
 " My opinion, gentlemen, is that the whole blamed thing 
 is a bluff ! There ain't no Mr. Dimmidge ; there ain't no 
 Mrs. Dimmidge ; there ain't no desertion ! The whole rot- 
 ten thing is an advertisement o' suthin' ! Ye '11 find afore 
 
170 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 
 
 ye get through with it that that there wife won't come back 
 until that blamed husband buys Somebody's Soap, or treats 
 her to Somebody's particular Starch or Patent Medicine ! 
 Ye jest watch and see ! " The idea was startling, and 
 seized upon the mercantile mind. The principal merchant 
 of the town, and purveyor to the mining settlements be- 
 yond, appeared the next morning at the office of the "Clar- 
 ion." " Ye would n't mind puttin' this ' ad ' in a column 
 alongside o' the Dimmidge one, would ye ? " The young 
 editor glanced at it, and then, with a serpent-like sagacity, 
 veiled, however, by the suavity of the dove, pointed out 
 that the original advertiser might think it called his bona 
 fides into question and withdraw his advertisement. " But 
 if we secured you by an offer of double the amount per 
 column ? " urged the merchant. " That," responded the 
 locum tenens, " was for the actual editor and proprietor in 
 San Francisco to determine. He would telegraph." He 
 did so. The response was, " Put it in." Whereupon in 
 the next issue, side by side with Mr. Dimniidge's protracted 
 warning, appeared a column with the announcement, in 
 large letters, " WIS have n't lost ant wife, but WE 
 are prepared to furnish the following goods at a lower rate 
 than any other advertiser in the county," followed by the 
 usual price list of the merchant's wares. There was an un- 
 precedented demand for that issue. The reputation of the 
 " Clarion," both as a shrewd advertising medium and a 
 comic paper, wa3 established at once. For a few days the 
 editor waited with some apprehension for a remonstrance 
 from the absent Dimmidge, but none came. Whether Mr. 
 Dimmidge recognized that this new advertisement gave 
 extra publicity to his own, or that he was already on the 
 track of the fugitive, the editor did not know. The few 
 curious citizens who had, early in the excitement, pene- 
 trated the settlement of the English miners twenty miles 
 away in search of information, found that Mr. Dimmidge 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 171 
 
 had gone away, and that Mrs. Dimmidge had never resided 
 there with him ! 
 
 Six weeks passed. The limit of Mr. Dimmidge's adver- 
 tisement had been reached, and, as it was not renewed, it 
 had passed out of the pages of the " Clarion," and with it 
 the merchant's advertisement in the next column. The 
 excitement had subsided, although its influence was still 
 felt in the circulation of the paper and its advertising popu- 
 larity. The temporary editor was also nearing the limit 
 of his incumbency, but had so far participated in the good 
 fortune of the " Clarion " as to receive an offer from one of 
 the San Francisco dailies. 
 
 It was a warm night, and he was alone in his sanctum. 
 The rest of the building was dark and deserted, and his sol- 
 itary light, flashing out through the open window, fell upon 
 the nearer pines and was lost in the dark, indefinable slope 
 below. He had reached the sanctum by the rear, and a door 
 which he also left open to enjoy the freshness of the aro- 
 matic air. Nor did it in the least mar his privacy. Eather 
 the solitude of the great woods without seemed to enter 
 through that door and encompassed him with its protecting 
 loneliness. There was occasionally a faint " peep " in the 
 scant eaves, or a " pat-pat," ending in a frightened scurry 
 across the roof, or the slow flap of a heavy wing in the dark- 
 ness below. These gentle disturbances did not, however, 
 interrupt his work on " The True Functions of the County 
 Newspaper," the editorial on which he was engaged. 
 
 Presently a more distinct rustling against the straggling 
 blackberry bushes beside the door attracted his attention, 
 [t was followed by a light tapping against the side of the 
 house. The editor started and turned quickly towards the 
 open door. Two outside steps led to the ground. Stand- 
 ing upon the lower one was a woman. The upper part of 
 her figure, illuminated by the light from the door, was 
 thrown into greater relief by the dark background of the 
 
172 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLAKION 
 
 pines. Her face was unknown to him, but it was a pleasant 
 one, marked by a certain good-humored determination. 
 
 " May I come in ? " she said confidently. 
 
 " Certainly," said the editor. " I am working here alone 
 because it is so quiet." He thought he would precipitate 
 some explanation from her by excusing himself. 
 
 " That 's the reason why I came," she said, with a quiet 
 smile. 
 
 She came up the next step and entered the room. She 
 was plainly but neatly dressed, and now that her figure was 
 revealed he saw that she was wearing a linsey-woolsey rid- 
 ing-skirt, and carried a serviceable raw-hide whip in her cot- 
 ton-gauntleted hand. She took the chair he offered her and 
 sat down sideways on it, her whip hand now also holding 
 up her skirt, and permitting a hem of clean white petticoat 
 and a smart, well-shaped boot to be seen. 
 
 " I don't remember to have had the pleasure of seeing you 
 in Calaveras before," said the editor tentatively. 
 
 " No. I never was here before," she said composedly, 
 "but you've heard enough of me, I reckon. I'm Mrs. 
 Dimmidge." She threw one hand over the back of the 
 chair, and with the other tapped her riding-whip on the 
 floor. 
 
 The editor started. Mrs. Dimmidge ! Then she was not 
 a myth. An absurd similarity between her attitude with 
 the whip and her husband's entrance with his gun six weeks 
 before forced itself upon him and made her an invincible 
 presence. 
 
 " Then you have returned to your husband ? " he said 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 " Not much ! " she returned, with a slight curl of her lip. 
 
 " But you read his advertisement ? " 
 
 " I saw that column of fool nonsense he put in your paper 
 ■ — ef that's what you mean," she said with decision, "but 
 I did n't come here to see him — but you." 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVEKAS CLARION 173 
 
 The editor looked at her with a forced smile, but a vague 
 misgiving; He was alone at night in a deserted part of the 
 settlement, with a plump, self-possessed woman who had a 
 contralto voice, a horsewhip, and — he could not help feel- 
 ing — an evident grievance. 
 
 " To see me ? " he repeated, with a faint attempt at gal- 
 lantry. " You are paying me a great compliment, but 
 really " — 
 
 " When I tell you I 've come three thousand miles from 
 Kansas straight here without stopping, ye kin reckon it's 
 so," she replied firmly. 
 
 " Three thousand miles ! " echoed the editor wonderingly. 
 
 " Yes. Three thousand miles from my own folks' home 
 in Kansas, where six years ago I married Mr. Dimmidge, — 
 a British f urriner as could scarcely make himself understood 
 in any Christian language ! Well, he got round me and dad, 
 allowin' he was a reg'lar out-and-out profeshnal miner, — 
 had lived in mines ever since he was a boy ; and so, not 
 knowin' what kind o' mines, and dad just bilin' over with 
 the gold fever, we were married and kem across the plains 
 to Californy. He was a good enough man to look at, but 
 it warn't three months before I discovered that he allowed 
 a wife was no better nor a nigger slave, and he the master. 
 That made me open my eyes ; but then, as he did n't drink, 
 and did n't gamble, and did n't swear, and was a good pro- 
 vider and laid by money, why, I stiifted along with him as 
 best I could. We drifted down the first year to Sonora, at 
 Red Dog, where there was n't another woman. Well, I did 
 the nigger slave business, — never stirring out o' the settle- 
 ment, never seein' a town or a crowd o' decent people, — 
 and he did the lord and master ! We played that game for 
 two years, and I got tired. But when at last he allowed 
 he 'd go up to Elktown Hill, where there was a passel o' 
 his countrymen at work, with never a sign o' any other folks, 
 and leave me alone at Red Dog until he fixed up a placa 
 
174 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 
 
 for me at Elktown Hill, — I kicked ! I gave him fail 
 warning ! I did as other nigger slaves did, — I ran away ! " 
 
 A recollection of the wretched woodcut which Mr. Dim- 
 midge had selected to personify his wife flashed upon the 
 editor with a new meaning. Yet perhaps she had not seen 
 it, and had only read a copy of the advertisement. What 
 could she want? The "Calaveras Clarion," although a 
 " Palladium " and a " Sentinel upon the Heights of Free- 
 dom " in reference to wagon roads, was not a redresser of 
 domestic wrongs, — except through its advertising columns ! 
 Her next words intensified that suggestion. 
 
 "I've come here to put an advertisement in your paper." 
 
 The editor heaved a sigh of relief, as once hefore. 
 " Certainly," he said hriskly. " But that 's another de- 
 partment of the paper, and the printers have gone home. 
 Come to-morrow morning early." 
 
 " To-morrow morning I shall be miles away," she said 
 decisively, " and what I want done has got to be done now ! 
 I don't want to see no printers ; I don't want anybody 
 to know I 've been here but you. That 's why I kem here 
 at night, and rode all the way from Sawyer's Station, and 
 would n't take the stagecoach. And when we 've settled 
 about the advertisement, I 'm going to mount my horse, 
 out thar in the bushes, and scoot outer the settlement." 
 
 " Very good," said the editor "resignedly. " Of course I 
 can deliver your instructions to the foreman. And now — 
 let me see — I suppose you wish to intimate in a personal 
 notice to your husband that you 've returned." 
 
 " Nothin' o' the kind ! " said Mrs. Dimmidge coolly. 
 " I want to placard him as he did me. I 've got it all 
 written out here. Sabe ? " 
 
 She took from her pocket a folded paper, and spreading 
 it out on the editor's desk, with a certain pride of authorship, 
 read as follows : — 
 
 " Whereas my husband, Micah J. Dimmidge, having 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLAEION 175 
 
 given out that I have left his bed and board, — the same 
 being a bunk in a log cabin and pork and molasses three 
 times a day, — and having advertised that he 'd pay no 
 debts of my contracting — which, as thar ain't any, might 
 be easier collected than debts of his own contracting — this 
 is to certify that unless he returns from Elktown Hill to his 
 only home in Sonora in one week from date, payin' the 
 cost of this advertisement, I '11 know the reason why. — 
 Eliza Jane Dimmidge." 
 
 " Thar," she added, drawing a long breath, " put that in 
 a column of the ' Clarion,' same size as the last, and let it 
 work, and that 's all I want of you." 
 
 " A column ? " repeated the editor. " Do you know 
 the cost is very expensive, and I could put it in a single 
 paragraph ? " 
 
 " I reckon I kin pay the same as Mr. Dimmidge did 
 for his," said the lady complacently. " I did n't see your 
 paper myself, but the paper as copied it — one of them big 
 New York dailies — said that it took up a whole column." 
 
 The editor breathed more freely ; she had not seen tho 
 infamous woodcut which her husband had selected. At 
 the same moment he was struck with a sense of retribution, 
 justice, and compensation. 
 
 "Would you," he asked hesitatingly, — "would you 
 like it illustrated — by a cut ? " 
 
 " With which ? " 
 
 " Wait a moment ; I '11 show you." 
 
 He went into the dark composing-room, lit a candle, and 
 rummaging in a drawer sacred to weather-beaten, old-fash- 
 ioned electrotyped advertising symbols of various trades, 
 finally selected one and brought it to Mrs. Dimmidge. It 
 represented a bare and exceedingly stalwart arm wielding a 
 large hammer. 
 
 " Your husband being a miner, — a quartz miner, — . 
 would that do ? " he asked. (It had been previously used 
 
176 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARIOli 
 
 to advertise a blacksmith, a gold-beater, and a stone-ma 
 son.) 
 
 The lady examined it critically. 
 
 " It does look a little like Micah's arm," she said medi- 
 tatively. " Well — you kin put it in." 
 
 The editor was so well pleased with his success that 
 he must needs make another suggestion. " I suppose," 
 he said ingenuously, " that you don't want to answer the 
 ' Personal ' ? " 
 
 " ' Personal ' ? " she repeated quickly, " what 's that ? 
 I ain't seen no ' Personal.' " 
 
 The editor saw his blunder. She, of course, had never 
 seen Mr. Dimmidge's artful " Personal ; " that the big 
 dailies naturally had not noticed nor copied. But it was 
 too late to withdraw now. He brought out a file of the 
 " Clarion," and snipping out the paragraph with his scissors, 
 laid it before the lady. 
 
 She stared at it with wrinkled brows and a darkening 
 face. 
 
 " And this was in the same paper ? — put in by Mr. 
 Dimmidge ? " she asked breathlessly. 
 
 The editor, somewhat alarmed, stammered "Yes." But 
 the next moment he was reassured. The wrinkles disap- 
 peared, a dozen dimples broke out where they had been, and 
 the determined, matter-of-fact Mrs. Dimmidge burst into a 
 fit of rosy merriment. Again and again she laughed, shaking 
 the building, startling the sedate, melancholy woods beyond, 
 until the editor himself laughed in sheer vacant sympathy. 
 
 " Lordy ! " she said at last, gasping, and wiping the 
 laughter from her wet eyes. " I never thought of that." 
 
 " No," explained the editor smilingly ; " of course you 
 did n't. Don't you see, the papers that copied the big ad- 
 vertisement never saw that little paragraph, or if they did, 
 they never connected the two together." 
 
 " Oh, it ain't that," said Mrs. Dimmidge, trying to regain 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 177 
 
 her composure and holding her sides. " It 's that blessed 
 dear old dunderhead of a Dimmidge I 'm thinking of. That 
 gets me. I see it all now. Only, sakes alive ! I never 
 thought that of him. Oh, it 's just too much ! " and she 
 again relapsed behind her handkerchief. 
 
 " Then I suppose you don't want to reply to it," said 
 the editor. 
 
 Her laughter instantly ceased. " Don't I ? " she said, 
 ■wiping her face into its previous complacent determination. 
 " Well, young man, I reckon that 's just what I want to 
 do ! Now, wait a moment ; let 's see what he said," she 
 went on, taking up and reperusing the " Personal " para- 
 graph. " Well, then," she went on, after a moment's 
 silent composition with moving lips, " you just put these 
 lines in." 
 
 The editor took up his pencil. 
 
 "To Mr. M. J. Dimmidge. — Hope you 're still on 
 H. B.'s tracks. Keep there ! — E. J. D." 
 
 The editor wrote down the line, and then, remembering 
 Mr. Dimmidge's voluntary explanation of his " Personal," 
 waited with some confidence for a like frankness from Mrs. 
 Dimmidge. But he was mistaken. 
 
 " You think that he — E. B. — or Mr. Dimmidge — will 
 understand this ? " he at last asked tentatively. " Is it 
 enough ? " 
 
 " Quite enough," said Mrs. Dimmidge emphatically. 
 She took a roll of greenbacks from her pocket, selected a 
 hundred-dollar bill and then a five, and laid them before 
 the editor. " Young man," she said, with a certain demure 
 gravity, " you 've done me a heap o' good. I never spent 
 money with more satisfaction than this. I never thought 
 much o' the ' power o' the Press,' as you call it, afore. 
 But this has been a right comfortable visit) and I 'in glad 
 I ketched you alone. But you understand one thing : this 
 yer visit, and who I am, is betwixt you and me only." 
 
178 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 
 
 " Of course I must say that the advertisement waa 
 authorised," returned the editor. " I 'm only the tempo- 
 rary editor. The proprietor is away." 
 
 " So much the better," said the lady complacently. 
 " You just say you found it on your desk with the money ; 
 but don't you give me away." 
 
 " I can promise you that the secret of your personal visit 
 is safe with me," said the young man, with a bow, as Mrs. 
 Dimmidge rose. " Let me see you to your horse," he 
 added. " It 's quite dark in the woods." 
 
 " I can see well enough alone, and it 's just as well you 
 should n't know how I kem or how I went away. Enough 
 for you to know that I '11 be miles away before that paper 
 comes out. So stay where you are." 
 
 She pressed his hand frankly and firmly, gathered up her 
 riding-skirt, slipped backwards to the door, and the next 
 moment rustled away into the darkness. 
 
 Early the next morning the editor handed Mrs. Dim- 
 midge's advertisement, and the woodcut he had selected, 
 to his foreman. He was purposely brief in his directions, 
 so as to avoid inquiry, and retired to his sanctum. In the 
 space of a few moments the foreman entered with a slight 
 embarrassment of manner. 
 
 " You '11 excuse my speaking to you, sir," he said, with 
 a singular mixture of humility and cunning. " It 's no 
 business of mine, I know ; but I thought I ought to tell 
 you that this yer kind o' thing won't pay any more, — it 's 
 about played out ! " 
 
 " I don't think I understand you," said the editor loftily, 
 but with an inward misgiving. " You don't mean to say 
 that a regular, actual advertisement " — 
 
 " Of course, I know all that," said the foreman, with a 
 peculiar smile ; " and I 'm ready to back you up in it, and 
 *o 's the boy ; but it won't pay." 
 
 " It has paid a hundred and five dollars," said the editor, 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLARION 179 
 
 taking the notes from his pocket ; "so I 'd advise you to 
 simply attend to your duty and set it up." 
 
 A look of surprise, followed, however, by a kind of pity- 
 ing smile, passed over the foreman's face. " Of course, sir, 
 that 's all right, and you know your own business ; but if 
 you think that the new advertisement will pay this time 
 as the other one did, and whoop up another column from 
 an advertiser, I 'm afraid you '11 slip up. It 's a little ' off 
 color ' now, — not ' up to date,' — if it ain't a regular 
 ' back number,' as you '11 see." 
 
 " Meantime I '11 dispense with your advice," said the 
 editor curtly, " and I think you had better let our sub- 
 scribers and advertisers do the same, or the ' Clarion ' 
 might also be obliged to dispense with your services." 
 
 " I ain't no blab," said the foreman, in an aggrieved 
 manner, " and I don't intend to give the show away even 
 if it don't pay. But I thought I 'd tell you, because I 
 know the folks round here better than you do." 
 
 He was right. No sooner had the advertisement ap- 
 peared than the editor found that everybody believed it 
 to be a sheer invention of his own to " once more boom " 
 the " Clarion." If they had doubted Mr. Dimmidge, they 
 utterly rejected Mrs. Dimmidge as an advertiser ! It was 
 a stale joke that nobody would follow up ; and on the heels 
 of this came a letter from the editor-in-chief. 
 
 My dear Boy, — You meant well, I know, but the 
 second Dimmidge " ad " was a mistake. Still, it was a big 
 bluff of yours to show the money, and I send you back 
 your hundred dollars, hoping you won't " do it again." 
 Of course you '11 have to keep the advertisement in the 
 paper for two issues, just as if it were a real thing, and it 's 
 lucky that there 's just now no pressure in our columns. 
 You might have told a better story than that hogwash 
 about your finding the " ad " and a hundred dollars lying 
 
180 THE BOOM IN THE CALAVEEAS CLARION 
 
 loose on your desk one morning. It was rather thin, and 
 I don't wonder the foreman kicked. 
 
 The young editor was in despair. At first he thought 
 of writing to Mrs. Dimmidge at the Elktown Post-Office, 
 asking her to relieve him of his vow of secrecy ; but his 
 pride forbade. There was a humorous concern, not with- 
 out a touch of pity, in the faces of his contributors as he 
 passed ; a few affected to believe in the new advertisement, 
 and asked him vague, perfunctory questions about it. His 
 position was trying, and he was not sorry when the term 
 of his engagement expired the next week, and he left Cala- 
 veras to take his new position on the San TTranciseo paper. 
 
 He was standing in the saloon of the Sacramento boat 
 when he felt a sudden heavy pressure on his shoulder, and 
 looking round sharply, beheld not only the black-bearded 
 face of Mr. Dimmidge, lit up by a smile, but beside it the 
 beaming, buxom face of Mrs. Dimmidge, overflowing with 
 good-humor. Still a little sore from his past experience, 
 he was about to address them abruptly, when he was utterly 
 vanquished by the hearty pressure of their hands and the 
 unmistakable look of gratitude in their eyes. 
 
 " I was just saying to 'Lizy Jane," began Mr. Dimmidge 
 breathlessly, " if I could only meet that young man o' the 
 ' Clarion ' what brought us together again " — 
 
 " You 'd be willin' to pay four times the amount we both 
 paid him," interpolated the laughing Mrs. Dimmidge. 
 
 " But I did n't bring you together," burst out the dazed 
 young man, " and I 'd like to know, in the name of Hea- 
 ven, what brought you together now ? " 
 
 " Don't you see, lad," said the imperturbable Mr. Dim- 
 midge, " 'Lizy Jane and myself had qua'led, and we just 
 unpacked our fool nonsense in your paper and let the 
 hull world know it ! And we both felt kinder skeert and 
 shamed like, and it looked such small hogwash, and of so 
 
THE BOOM IN THE CALAVERAS CLAEION 181 
 
 little account, for all the talk it made, that we kinder felt 
 lonely as two separated fools that really ought to share their 
 foolishness together." 
 
 " And that ain't all," said Mrs. Dimmidge, with a sly 
 glance at her spouse, " for I found out from that ' Personal ' 
 you showed me that this particular old fool was actooally 
 jealous ! — jealous ! " 
 
 " And then ? " said the editor impatiently. 
 
 "And then I knew he loved me all the time."' 
 
THE SECRET OP SOBRIENTE'S WELL 
 
 Even to the eye of the most inexperienced traveler there 
 was no doubt that Buena Vista was a " played-out " mining 
 camp. There, seamed and scarred by hydraulic engines, 
 was the old hillside, over whose denuded surface the grass 
 had begun to spring again in fitful patches ; there were the 
 abandoned heaps of tailings already blackened by sun and 
 rain, and worn into mounds like ruins of masonry ; there 
 were the waterless ditches, like giant graves, and the pools 
 of slumgullion, now dried into shining, glazed cement. 
 There were two or three wooden " stores," from which the 
 windows and doors had been taken and conveyed to the 
 newer settlement of "Wynyard's Gulch. Four or five build- 
 ings that still were inhabited — the blacksmith's shop, the 
 post-office, a pioneer's cabin, and the old hotel and stage- 
 office — only accented the general desolation. The latter 
 building had a remoteness of prosperity far beyond the 
 others, having been a wayside Spanish-American posada, 
 with adobe walls of two feet in thickness, that shamed the 
 later shells of half-inch plank, which were slowly warping 
 and cracking like dried pods in the oven-like heat. 
 
 The proprietor of this building, Colonel Swinger, had 
 been looked upon by the community as a person quite as 
 remote, old-fashioned, and inconsistent with present pro- 
 gress as the house itself. He was an old Virginian, who 
 had emigrated from his decaying plantation on the James 
 River only to find the slaves, which he had brought with 
 him, freed men when they touched Californian soil ; to be 
 driven by Northern progress and " smartness " out of the 
 larger cities into the mountains, to fix himself at last, with 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 183 
 
 the hopeless fatuity of his race, upon an already impoverished 
 settlement ; to sink his scant capital in hopeless shafts and 
 ledges, and finally to take over the decaying hostelry of 
 Buena Vista, with its desultory custom and few, lingering, 
 impecunious guests. Here, too, his old Virginian ideas of 
 hospitality were against his financial success ; he could not 
 dun nor turn from his door those unfortunate prospectors 
 whom the ebbing fortunes of Buena Vista had left stranded 
 by his side. 
 
 Colonel Swinger was sitting in a wicker-work rocking- 
 chair on the veranda of his hotel, — sipping a mint julep 
 which he held in his hand, while he gazed into the dusty 
 distance. Nothing could have convinced him that he was 
 not performing a serious part of his duty as hotel-keeper in 
 this attitude, even though there were no travelers expected, 
 and the road at this hour of the day was deserted. On a 
 bench at his side Larry Hawkins stretched his lazy length, 
 — one foot dropped on the veranda, and one arm occasion- 
 ally groping under the bench for his own tumbler of refresh- 
 ment. Apart from this community of occupation, there 
 was apparently no interchange of sentiment between the 
 pair. The silence had continued for some moments, when 
 the colonel put down his glass and gazed earnestly into the 
 distance. 
 
 " Seein' anything ? " remarked the man on the bench, who 
 had sleepily regarded him. 
 
 " No," said the colonel, " that is — it 's only Dick Bug- 
 gies crossin' the road." 
 
 " Thought you looked a little startled, ez if you 'd seen 
 that ar wanderin' stranger." 
 
 "When I see that wandering stranger, sah," said the 
 colonel decisively, " I won't be sittin' long in this yer chyar. 
 I '11 let him know in about ten seconds that I don't harbor 
 any vagrants prowlin' about like poor whites or free niggers 
 on my propahty, sah ! " 
 
184 THE SECRET OF SOBEIENTE'S WELL 
 
 " All the same, I kinder wish ye did see him, for you 'd 
 be settled in your mind and I 'd be easier in mine, ef you 
 found out what he was doin' round yer, or ye had to admit 
 that it was n't no livin' man." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said the colonel testily, facing 
 around in his chair. 
 
 His companion also altered his attitude by dropping his 
 other foot to the floor, sitting up, and leaning lazily forward 
 with his hands clasped. 
 
 " Look yer, colonel. "When you took this place, I felt 
 I did n't have no call to tell ye all I know about it, nor to 
 pizen yer mind by any darned fool yarns I mout hev heard. 
 Ye know it was one o' them old Spanish haciendas ? " 
 
 " I know," said the colonel loftily, " that it was held by 
 a grant from Charles the Fifth of Spain, just as my propahty 
 on the James River was given to my people by King James 
 of England, sah ! " 
 
 "That ez as may be," returned his companion, in lazy 
 indifference ; " though I reckon that Charles the Fifth of 
 Spain and King James of England ain't got much to do 
 with what I 'm goin' to tell ye. Ye see, I was here long 
 afore your time, or any of the boys that hev now cleared 
 out ; and at that time the hacienda belonged to a man named 
 Juan Sobriente. He was that kind o' fool that he took no 
 stock in mining. When the boys were whoopin' up the 
 place and finding the color everywhere, and there was a hun- 
 dred men working down there in the gulch, he was either 
 ridin' round lookin' up the wild horses he owned, or sittin' 
 with two or three lazy peons and Injins that was fed and 
 looked arter by the priests. Gosh ! now I think of it, it 
 was mighty like you when you first kem here with your 
 niggers. That 's curious, too, ain't it ? " 
 
 He had stopped, gazing with an odd, superstitious won- 
 derment at the colonel, as if overcome by this not very re- 
 markable coincidence. The colonel, overlooking or totally 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBEIENTE'S WELL 185 
 
 oblivious to its somewhat uncomplimentary significance, 
 simply said, " Go on. What about him ? " 
 
 " Well, ez I was sayin', he warn't in it nohow, but kept 
 on his reg'lar way when the boom was the biggest. Some 
 of the boys allowed it was mighty oncivil for him to stand 
 off like that, and others — when he refused a big pile for 
 his hacienda and the garden, that ran right into the gold- 
 bearing ledge — war for lynching him and driving him outer 
 the settlement. But as he had a pretty darter or niece livin' 
 with him, and, except for his partickler cussedness towards 
 mining, was kinder peaceable and perlite, they thought bet- 
 ter of it. Things went along like this, until one day the 
 boys noticed — particklerly the boys that had slipped up on 
 their luck — that old man Sobriente was gettin' rich, — had 
 stocked a ranch over on the Divide, and had given some 
 gold candlesticks to the mission church. That would have 
 been only human nature and business, ef he 'd had any dur- 
 ing them flush times ; but he had n't. This kinder puzzled 
 them. They tackled the peons, — his niggers, — but it was 
 all ' No sabe.' They tackled another man, — a kind of half- 
 breed Kanaka, who, except the priest, was the only man who 
 came to see him, and was supposed to be mighty sweet on 
 the darter or niece, — but they did n't even get the color 
 outer him. Then the first thing we knowed was that old 
 Sobriente was found dead in the well ! " 
 
 " In the well, sah ! " said the colonel, starting up. " The 
 well on my propahty ? " 
 
 " No," said his companion. " The old well that was 
 afterwards shut up. Yours was dug by the last tenant, Jack 
 Eaintree, who allowed that he did n't want to ' take any 
 Sobriente in his reg'lar whiskey and water.' Well, the half- 
 breed Kanaka cleared out after the old man's death, and 
 so did that darter or niece ; and the church, to whom old 
 Sobriente had left this house, let it to Kaintree for next to 
 nothin'," 
 
186 THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 
 
 "I don't see what all that has got to do with that wark 
 flering tramp," said the colonel, who was by no means pleased 
 with this history of his property. 
 
 " I '11 tell ye. A few days after Eaintree took it over, 
 he was lookin' round the garden, which old Sobriente had 
 always kept shut up agin strangers, and he finds a lot of 
 dried-up ' slumgullion ' * scattered all about the borders and 
 beds, just as if the old man had been using it for fertilizing. 
 Well, Eaintree ain't no fool ; he allowed the old man was n't 
 one, either ; and he knew that slumgullion was n't worth no 
 more than mud for any good it would do the garden. So he 
 put this yer together with Sobriente's good luck, and allowed 
 to himself that the old coyote had been secretly gold-washin' 
 all the while he seemed to be standin' off agin it ! But where 
 was the mine ? Whar did he get the gold ? That 's what 
 got Eaintree. He hunted all over the garden, prospected 
 every part of it, — ye kin see the holes yet, — but he never 
 even got the color ! " 
 
 He paused, and then, as the colonel made an impatient 
 gesture, he went on. 
 
 " Well, one night just afore you took the place, and when 
 Eaintree was gettin' just sick of it, he happened to be walkin' 
 in the garden. He was puzzlin' his brain agin to know how 
 old Sobriente made his pile, when all of a suddenst he saw 
 suthin' a-movin' in the brush beside the house. He calls 
 out, thinkin' it was one of the boys, but got no answer. 
 Then he goes to the bushes, and a tall figger, all in black, 
 starts out afore him. He could n't see any face, for its head 
 was covered with a hood, but he saw that it held suthin' like 
 a big cross clasped agin its breast. This made him think it 
 was one o' them priests, until he looks agin and sees that it 
 was n't no cross it was carryin', but a pickaxe ! He makes 
 a jump towards it, but it vanished ! He traipsed over the 
 hull garden, — went through ev'ry bush, — but it was clean 
 1 That is, a viscid cement-like refuse of gold-washing. 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 187. 
 
 gone. Then the hull thing flashed upon him with a cold 
 shiver. The old man bein' found dead in the well ! the 
 goin' away of the half-breed and the girl ! the findin' o' that 
 slumgullion ! The old man had made a strike in that garden, 
 the half-breed had discovered his secret and murdered him, 
 throwin' him down the well ! It war no' livin' man that 
 he had seen, but the ghost of old Sobriente ! " 
 
 The colonel emptied the remaining contents of his glass 
 at a single gulp, and sat up. " It 's my opinion, sah, that 
 Eaintree had that night more than his usual allowance of 
 corn-juice on board ; and it 's only a wonder, sah, that he 
 did n't see a few pink alligators and sky-blue snakes at the 
 same time. But what 's this got to do with that wanderin' 
 tramp ? " 
 
 " They 're all the same thing, colonel, and in my opinion 
 that there tramp ain't no more alive than that figger was." 
 
 " But you were the one that saw this tramp with your 
 own eyes," retorted the colonel quickly, " and you never 
 before allowed it was a spirit ! " 
 
 " Exactly ! I saw it whar a minit afore nothin' had 
 been standin', and a minit after nothin' stood," said Larry 
 Hawkins, with a certain serious emphasis; "but I warn't 
 goin' to say it to anybody, and I warn't goin' to give you 
 and the hacienda away. And ez nobody knew Raintree's 
 story, I jest shut up my head. But you kin bet your life 
 that the man I saw warn't no livin' man ! " 
 
 " We '11 see, sah ! " said the colonel, rising from his 
 chair with his fingers in the armholes of his nankeen waist- 
 coat, " ef he ever intrudes on my propahty again. But look 
 yar ! don't ye go sayin' anything of this to Polly, — you 
 know what women are ! " 
 
 A faint color came into Larry's face ; an animation quite 
 different from the lazy deliberation of his previous mono- 
 logue shone in his eyes, as he said, with a certain rough 
 respect he had not shown before to his companion, " That-*s 
 
J88 THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 
 
 why I 'm tellin' ye, so that ef she happened to see anything 
 and got skeert, ye 'd know how to reason her out of it." 
 
 " 'Sh ! " said the colonel, with a warning gesture. 
 
 A young girl had just appeared in the doorway, and now 
 stood leaning against the central pillar that supported it, 
 with one hand above her head, in a lazy attitude strongly 
 suggestive of the colonel's Southern indolence, yet with a 
 grace entirely her own. Indeed, it overcame the negligence 
 of her creased and faded yellow cotton frock and unbut- 
 toned collar, and suggested — at least to the eyes of one 
 man — the curving and clinging of the jasmine vine against 
 the outer column of the veranda. Larry Hawkins rose 
 awkwardly to his feet. 
 
 "Now what are you two men mumblin' and confidin' 
 to each other ? You look for all the world like two old 
 women gossips," she said, with languid impertinence. 
 
 It was easy to see that a privileged and recognized auto- 
 crat spoke. No one had ever questioned Polly Swinger's 
 right to interrupting, interfering, and saucy criticisms. 
 Secure in the hopeless or chivalrous admiration of the men 
 around her, she had repaid it with a frankness that scorned 
 any coquetry ; with an indifference to the ordinary feminine 
 effect or provocation in dress or bearing that was as natural 
 as it was invincible. No one had ever known Polly to 
 " fix up " for anybody, yet no one ever doubted the effect 
 if she had. No one had ever rebuked her charming petu- 
 lance, or wished to. 
 
 Larry gave a weak, vague laugh. Colonel Swinger as 
 ineffectively assumed a mock parental severity. " When you 
 see two gentlemen, miss, discussin' politics together, it ain't 
 behavin' like a lady to interrupt. Better run away and tidy 
 yourself before the stage comes." 
 
 The young lady replied to the last innuendo by taking 
 two spirals of soft hair, like " corn-silk," from her oval 
 cheek, wetting them with her lips, and tucking them behind 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 189 
 
 her ears. Her father's ungentlemanly suggestion being 
 thus disposed of, she returned to her first charge. 
 
 " It ain't no politics ; you ain't been swearing enough for 
 that ! Come, now ! It 's the mysterious stranger ye 've 
 been talking about ! " 
 
 Both men stared at her with unaffected concern. 
 
 " What do you know about any mysterious stranger ? " 
 demanded her father. 
 
 " Do you suppose you men kin keep a secret," scoffed 
 Polly. " Why, Dick Buggies told me how skeert ye all 
 were over an entire stranger, and he advised me not to 
 wander down the road after dark. I asked him if he 
 thought I was a pickaninny to be frightened by bogies, and 
 that if he hadn't a better excuse for wantin' 'to see me 
 home ' from the Injin spring, he might slide." 
 
 Larry laughed again, albeit a little bitterly, for it 
 seemed to him that the excuse was fully justified ; but the 
 colonel said promptly, " Dick 's a fool, and you might have 
 told him there were worse things to be met on the road 
 than bogies. Bun away now, and see that the niggers are 
 on hand when the stage comes." 
 
 Two hours later the stage came with a clatter of hoofs 
 and a cloud of red dust, which precipitated itself and a 
 dozen thirsty travelers upon the veranda before the hotel 
 bar-room ; it brought also the usual " express " newspapers 
 and much talk to Colonel Swinger, who always received 
 his guests in a lofty personal fashion at the door, as he 
 might have done in his old Virginian home ; but it brought 
 likewise — marvelous to relate — an actual guest, who had 
 two trunks and asked for a room ! He was evidently a 
 stranger to the ways of Buena Vista, and particularly to 
 those of Colonel Swinger, and at first seemed inclined to 
 resent the social attitude of his host, and his frank and free 
 curiosity. When he, however, found that Colonel Swinger 
 was even better satisfied to give an account of his own 
 
190 THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 
 
 affairs, his family, pedigree, and his present residence, he 
 began to betray some interest. The colonel told him all 
 the news, and would no doubt have even expatiated on his 
 ghostly visitant, had he not prudently concluded that his 
 guest might decline to remain in a haunted inn. The 
 stranger had spoken of staying a week ; he had some pri- 
 vate mining speculations to watch at Wynyard's Gulch, — 
 the next settlement, but he did not care to appear openly 
 at the " Gulch Hotel." He was a man of thirty, with soft, 
 pleasing features and a singular litheness of movement, 
 which, combined with a nut-brown, gypsy complexion, at 
 first suggested a foreigner. But his dialect, to the colonel's 
 ears, was distinctly that of New England, and to this was 
 added a puritanical and sanctimonious drawl. " He looked," 
 said the colonel in after years, " like a blank light mulatter, 
 but talked like a blank Yankee parson." For all that, he 
 was acceptable to his host, who may have felt that his remi- 
 niscences of his plantation on the James River were palling 
 on Buena Vista ears, and was glad of his new auditor. It 
 was an advertisement, too, of the hotel, and a promise of 
 its future fortunes. " Gentlemen having propahty inters 
 ests at the Gulch, sah, prefer to stay at Buena Vista with 
 another man of propahty, than to trust to those new-fangled 
 papah-collared, ginger-bread booths for traders that they 
 call ' hotels ' there," he had remarked to some of " the 
 boys." In his preoccupation with the new guest, he also 
 became a little neglectful of his old chum and dependent, 
 Larry Hawkins. Nor was this the only circumstance that 
 filled the head of that shiftless loyal retainer of the colonel 
 with bitterness and foreboding. Polly Swinger — the 
 scornfully indifferent, the contemptuously inaccessible, the 
 coldly capricious and petulant — was inclined to be polite 
 to the stranger ! 
 
 The fact was that Polly, after the fashion of her sex, 
 took it into her pretty head, against all consistency and 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBEIENTE'S WELL 191 
 
 logic, suddenly to make an exception to her general attitude 
 towards mankind in favor of one individual. The reason- 
 seeking masculine reader will rashly conclude that this 
 individual was the cause as well as the object; but I am 
 satisfied that every fair reader of these pages will instinc- 
 tively know better. Miss Polly had simply selected the 
 new guest, Mr. Starbuck, to show others, particularly 
 Larry Hawkins, what she could do if she were inclined 
 to be civil. For two days she " fixed up " her distracting 
 hair at him so that its silken floss encircled her head like 
 a nimbus ; she tucked her oval chin into a white fichu 
 instead of a buttonless collar ; she appeared at dinner in 
 a newly starched yellow frock ! She talked to him with 
 " company manners ; " said she would " admire to go to 
 San Francisco," and asked if he knew her old friends the . 
 Fauquier girls from " Faginia." The colonel was some- 
 what disturbed ; he was glad that his daughter had become 
 less negligent of her personal appearance ; he could not but 
 see, with the others, how it enhanced her graces ; but he 
 was, with the others, not entirely satisfied with her reasons. 
 And he could not help observing — what was more or less 
 patent to all — that Starbuck was far from being equally 
 responsive to her attentions, and at times was indifferent 
 and almost uncivil. Nobody seemed to be satisfied with 
 Polly's transformation but herself. 
 
 But eventually she was obliged to assert herself. The 
 third evening after Starbuck's arrival she was going over 
 to the cabin of Aunt Chloe, who not only did the washing 
 for Buena Vista, but assisted Polly in dressmaking. It 
 was not far, and the night was moonlit. As she crossed 
 the garden she saw Starbuck moving in the manzanita 
 bushes beyond ; a mischievous light came into her eyes ; 
 she had not expected to meet him, but she had seen him 
 go out, and there were always possibilities. To her sur- 
 prise, however, he merely lifted his hat as she passed, and 
 
192 THE SECEET OF SOBEIENTE's WELL 
 
 turned abruptly in another direction. This was more than 
 the little heart-breaker of Buena Vista was accustomed to ! 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Starbuck ! " she called, in her laziest voice. 
 
 He turned almost impatiently. 
 
 " Since you 're so civil and pressing, I thought I 'd tell 
 you I was just runnin' over to Aunt Chloe's," she said 
 dryly. 
 
 " I should think it was hardly the proper thing for a 
 young lady to do at this time of night," he said supercil- 
 iously. " But you know best, — you know the people 
 here." 
 
 Polly's cheeks and eyes flamed. " Yes, I reckon I do," 
 she said crisply ; " it 's only a stranger here would think 
 of being rude. Good-night, Mr. Starbuck ! " 
 
 She tripped away after this Parthian shot, yet feeling, 
 even in her triumph, that the conceited fool seemed actually 
 relieved at her departure ! And for the first time she now 
 thought that she had seen something in his face that she 
 did not like ! But her lazy independence reasserted itself 
 soon, and half an hour later, when she had left Aunt Chloe's 
 cabin, she had regained her self-esteem. Yet, to avoid meet- 
 ing him again, she took a longer route home, across the 
 dried ditch and over the bluff, scarred by hydraulics, and 
 so fell, presently, upon the old garden at the point where 
 it adjoined the abandoned diggings. She was quite sure 
 she had escaped a meeting with Starbuck, and was gliding 
 along under the shadow of the pear-trees, when she sud- 
 denly stopped. An indescribable terror overcame her as 
 she stared at a spot in the garden, perfectly illuminated 
 by the moonlight, not fifty yards from where she stood. For 
 she saw on its surface a human head — a man's head ! — 
 seemingly on the level of the ground, staring in her direc- 
 tion. A hysterical laugh sprang from her lips, and she 
 caught at the branches above her or she would have fallen ! 
 Yet in that moment the head had vanished ! The moon- 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBEIENTE's WELL 193 
 
 light revealed the empty garden, — the ground she had 
 gazed at, — but nothing more ! 
 
 She had never been superstitious. As a child she had 
 heard the negroes talk of "the hants," — that is, "the 
 haunts " or spirits, — but had believed it a part of their 
 ignorance, and unworthy a white child, — the daughter of 
 their master ! She had laughed with Dick Kuggles over 
 the illusions of Larry, and had shared her father's contemp- 
 tuous disbelief of the wandering visitant being anything 
 but a living man ; yet she would have screamed for assist- 
 ance now, only for the greater fear of making her weakness 
 known to Mr. Starbuck, and being dependent upon him for 
 help. And with it came the sudden conviction that he 
 had seen this awful vision, too. This would account for 
 his impatience of her presence and his rudeness. She felt 
 faint and giddy. Yet after the first shock had passed, her 
 old independence and pride came to her relief. She would 
 go to the spot and examine it. If it were some trick or 
 illusion, she would show her superiority and have the laugh 
 on Starbuck. She set her white teeth, clenched her little 
 hands, and started out into the moonlight. But alas ! for 
 women's weakness. The next moment she uttered a scream 
 and almost fell into the arms of Mr. Starbuck, who had 
 stepped out of the shadows beside her. 
 
 " So you see you have been frightened," he said, with a 
 strange, forced laugh ; " but I warned you about going out 
 alone ! " 
 
 Even in her fright she could not help seeing that he, too, 
 seemed pale and agitated, at which she recovered her tongue 
 and her self-possession. 
 
 "Anybody would be frightened by being dogged about 
 under the trees," she said pertly. 
 
 " But you called out before you saw me," he said bluntly, 
 " as if something had frightened you. That was why I 
 tame towards you." 
 
194 THE SECRET OF SOBKIENTE'S WELL 
 
 She knew it was the truth ; but as she would not confess 
 to her vision, she fibbed, outrageously. 
 
 " Frightened," she said, with pale but lofty indignation. 
 " What was there to frighten me ? I 'm not a baby, to 
 think I see a bogie in the dark ! " This was said in the 
 faint hope that he had seen something too. If it had been 
 Larry or her father who had met her, she would have con- 
 fessed everything. 
 
 " You had better go in," he said curtly. " I will see 
 you safe inside the house." 
 
 She demurred at this, but as she could not persist in her 
 first bold intention of examining the locality of the vision 
 without admitting its existence, she permitted him to walk 
 with her to the house, and then at once fled to her own 
 room. Larry and her fatheT noticed their entrance together 
 and their agitated manner, and were uneasy. Yet the colo- 
 nel's paternal pride and Larry's lover's respect kept the 
 two men from communicating their thoughts to each other. 
 
 " The confounded pup has been tryin' to be familiar, and 
 Polly 's set him down," thought Larry, with glowing satis- 
 faction. 
 
 " He 's been trying some of his sanctimonious- Yankee 
 abolition talk on Polly, and she shocked him ! " thought 
 the colonel exultingly. 
 
 But poor Polly had other things to think of in the si- 
 lence of her room. Another woman would have unburdened 
 herself to a confidante ; but Polly was too loyal to her 
 father to shatter his beliefs, and too high-spirited to take 
 another and a lesser person into her confidence. She was 
 certain that Aunt Chloe would be full of sympathetic belief 
 and speculations, but she would not trust a. nigger with what 
 she could n't tell her own father. Por Polly really and truly 
 believed that she had seen a ghost, no doubt the ghost of 
 the murdered Sobriente, according to Larry's story. Why 
 he should appear with only his head above ground puzzled 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 195 
 
 her, although it suggested the Catholic idea of purgatory, 
 and he was a Catholic ! Perhaps he would have risen en- 
 tirely but for that stupid Starbuck's presence ; perhaps he 
 had a message for her alone. The idea pleased Polly, albeit 
 it was a "fearful joy " and attended with some cold shiver- 
 ing. Naturally, as a gentleman, he would appear to her — 
 the daughter of a gentleman — the successor to his house — 
 rather than to a Yankee stranger. What was she to do ? 
 Por once her calm nerves were strangely thrilled ; she could 
 not think of undressing and going to bed, and two o'clock 
 surprised her, still meditating, and occasionally peeping from 
 her window upon the moonlit but vacant garden. If she 
 saw him again, would she dare to go down alone ? Sud- 
 denly she started to her feet with a beating heart ! There 
 was the unmistakable sound of a stealthy footstep in the pas- 
 sage, coming towards her room. Was it he ? In spite of 
 her high resolves she felt that if the door opened she should 
 scream ! She held her breath — the footsteps came nearer 
 — were before her door — and passed ! 
 
 Then it was that the blood rushed back to her cheek with 
 a flush of indignation. Her room was at the end of the 
 passage ; there was nothing beyond but a private staircase, 
 long disused, except by herself, as a short cut through the 
 old patio to the garden. No one else knew of it, and no 
 one else had the right of access to it ! This insolent human 
 intrusion — as she was satisfied it was now — overcame her 
 fear, and she glided to the door. Opening it softly, she 
 could hear the stealthy footsteps descending. She darted 
 back, threw a shawl over her head and shoulders, and tak- 
 ing the small Derringer pistol which it had always been part 
 of her ostentatious independence to place at her bed-head, 
 she as stealthily followed the intruder. But the footsteps 
 had died away before she reached the patio, and she saw 
 only the small, deserted, grass-grown courtyard, half hidden 
 in shadows, in whose centre stood the fateful and long sealed- 
 
196 THE SECRET OF SOBKIENTE'S WELL 
 
 up well ! A shudder came over her at again being brought 
 into contact with the cause of her frightful vision, but as her 
 eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she saw something 
 more real and appalling ! The well was no longer sealed ! 
 Fragments of bricks and boards lay around it ! One end of 
 a rope, coiled around it like a huge snake, descended its foul 
 depths ; and as she gazed with staring eyes, the head and 
 shoulders of a man emerged slowly from it ! But it was 
 not the ghostly apparition of last evening, and her terror 
 changed to scorn and indignation as she recognized the face 
 of Starbuck ! 
 
 Their eyes met ; an oath broke from his lips. He made 
 a movement to spring from the well, but as the girl started 
 back, the pistol held in her hand was discharged aimlessly 
 in the air, and the report echoed throughout the courtyard. 
 With a curse Starbuck drew back, instantly disappeared in 
 the well, and Polly fell fainting on the steps. When she 
 came to, her father and Larry were at her side. They had 
 been alarmed at the report, and had rushed quickly to the 
 patio, but not in time to prevent the escape of Starbuck and 
 his accomplice. By the time she had recovered her con- 
 sciousness, they had learned the full extent of that extraor- 
 dinary revelation which she had so innocently precipitated. 
 Sobriente's well had really concealed a rich gold ledge, — 
 actually tunneled and galleried by him secretly in the past, 
 — and its only other outlet was an opening in the garden 
 hidden by a stone which turned on a swivel. Its existence 
 had been unknown to Sobriente's successor, but was known 
 to the Kanaka who had worked with Sobriente, who fled 
 with his daughter after the murder, but who no doubt was 
 afraid to return and work the mine. He had imparted the 
 secret to Starbuck, another half-breed, son of a Yankee mis- 
 sionary and Hawaiian wife, who had evidently conceived 
 this plan of seeking Buena Vista with an accomplice, and 
 secretly removing such gold as was still accessible. The 
 
THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL 197 
 
 accomplice, afterwards identified by Larry as the wandering 
 tramp, failed to discover the secret entrance from the gar- 
 den, and Starbuck was consequently obliged to attempt it 
 from the hotel — for which purpose he had introduced him- 
 self as a boarder — by opening the disused well secretly at 
 night. These facts were obtained from papers found in the 
 otherwise valueless trunks, weighted with stones for ballast, 
 which Starbuck had brought to the hotel to take away his 
 stolen treasure in, but which he was obliged to leave in his 
 hurried flight. The attempt would have doubtless succeeded 
 but for Polly's courageous and timely interference ! 
 
 And now that they had told her all, they only wanted 
 to know^what had first excited her suspicions, and driven 
 her to seek the well as the object of Starbuck's machina- 
 tions ? They had noticed her manner when she entered 
 the house that night, and Starbuck's evident annoyance. 
 Had she taxed him with her suspicions, and so discovered 
 a clue ? 
 
 It was a terrible temptation to Polly to pose as a more 
 perfect heroine, and one may not blame her if she did not 
 rise entirely superior to it. Her previous belief, that the 
 head of the accomplice at the opening of the garden was 
 that of a ghost, she now felt was certainly in the way, as. 
 was also her conduct to Starbuck, whom she believed to be 
 equally frightened, and whom she never once suspected ! 
 So she said, with a certain lofty simplicity, that there were 
 some things which she really did not care to talk about, 
 and Larry and her father left her that night with the firm 
 conviction that the rascal Starbuck had tried to tempt her 
 to fly with him and his riches, and had been crushingly 
 foiled. Polly never denied this, and once, in later days, 
 when admiringly taxed with it by Larry, she admitted with 
 dove-like simplicity that she may have been too foolishly 
 polite to her father's guest for the sake of her father's 
 hotel. 
 
198 THE SECRET OF SOBEIENTE'S WELL 
 
 However, all this was of small account to the thrilling 
 news of a new discovery and working of the " old gold 
 ledge " at Buena Vista ! As the three kept their secret 
 from the world, the discovery was accepted in the neigh- 
 borhood as the result of careful examination and prospect- 
 ing on the part of Colonel Swinger and his partner, Larry 
 Hawkins. And when the latter gentleman afterwards boldly 
 proposed to Polly Swinger, she mischievously declared that 
 she accepted him only that the secret might not go " out of 
 the family." 
 
WHEN THE WATEES WERE UP AT "JULES'" 
 
 When the waters were up at " Jules' " there was little 
 else up on that monotonous level. For the few inhabitants 
 who calmly and methodically moved to higher ground, 
 camping out in tents until the flood had subsided, left no 
 distracting wreckage behind them. A dozen half-submerged 
 log cabins dotted the tranquil surface of the waters, with- 
 out ripple or disturbance, looking in the moonlight more 
 like the ruins of centuries than of a few days. There was 
 no current to sap their slight foundations or sweep them 
 away ; nothing stirred that silent lake but the occasional 
 shot-like indentations of a passing raindrop, or, still more 
 rarely, a raft, made of a single log, propelled by some citi- 
 zen on a tour of inspection of his cabin roof-tree, where 
 seme of his goods were still stored. There was no sense of 
 terror in this bland obliteration of the little settlement ; 
 the ruins of a single burnt-up cabin would have been more 
 impressive than this stupid and even grotesquely placid 
 effect of the rival destroying element. People took it 
 naturally ; the water went as it had come, — slowly, impas- 
 sively, noiselessly ; a few days of fervid Californian sun- 
 shine dried the cabins, and in a week or two the red dust 
 lay again as thickly before their doors as the winter mud had 
 lain. The waters of Rattlesnake Creek dropped below its 
 banks, the stagecoach from Marysville no longer made a 
 detour of the settlement. There was even a singular com- 
 pensation to this amicable invasion : the inhabitants some- 
 times found gold in those breaches in the banks made by 
 the overflow. To wait for the " old Rattlesnake sluicing " 
 was a vernal hope of the trusting miner. 
 
200 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES' " 
 
 The history of " Jules'," however, was once destined to 
 offer a singular interruption of this peaceful and methodi- 
 cal process. The winter of 1859-60 was an exceptional 
 one. But little rain had fallen in the valleys, although the 
 snow lay deep in the high Sierras. Passes were choked, 
 ravines filled, and glaciers found on their slopes. And 
 when the tardy rains came with the withheld southwesterly 
 "trades," the regular phenomenon recurred; Jules' Flat 
 silently, noiselessly, and peacefully went under water ; the 
 inhabitants moved to the higher ground, perhaps a little 
 more expeditiously from an impatience born of the delay. 
 The stagecoach from Marysville made its usual detour and 
 stopped before the temporary hotel, express offices, and gen- 
 eral store of " Jules'," under canvas, bark, and the limp 
 leaves of a spreading alder. It deposited a single passenger, 
 — Miles Hemmingway of San Francisco, but originally 
 of Boston, — the young secretary of a mining company, 
 dispatched to report upon the alleged auriferous value of 
 " Jules'." Of this he had been by no means impressed as 
 he looked down upon the submerged cabins from the box- 
 seat of the coach and listened to the driver's lazy recital 
 of the flood, and of the singularly patient acceptance of it 
 by the inhabitants. 
 
 It was the old story of the southwestern miner's indo- 
 lence and incompetency, — utterly distasteful to his north- 
 ern habits of thought and education. Here was their old 
 fatuous endurance of Nature's wild caprices, without that 
 struggle against them which brought others strength and 
 success ; here was the old philosophy which accepted the 
 prairie fire and cyclone, and survived them without advance- 
 ment, yet without repining. Perhaps in different places 
 and surroundings a submission so stoic might have impressed 
 him ; in gentlemen who tucked their dirty trousers in their 
 muddy boots and lived only for the gold they dug, it did 
 Bot seem to him heroic. Nor was he mollified as he stood 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES' " 201 
 
 beside the rude refreshment bar — a few planks laid on tres- 
 tles — and drank his coffee beneath the dripping canvas roof, 
 •with an odd recollection of his boyhood and an inclement 
 Sunday-school picnic. Yet these men had been living in 
 this shiftless fashion for three weeks ! It exasperated him 
 still more to think that he might have to wait there a few 
 days longer for the water to subside sufficiently for him to 
 make his examination and report. As he took a proffered 
 seat on a candle-box, which tilted under him, and another 
 survey of the feeble makeshifts around him, his irascibility 
 found vent. 
 
 " Why, in the name of God, did n't you, after you had 
 been flooded out once, build your cabins permanently on 
 higher ground ? " 
 
 Although the tone of his voice was more disturbing than 
 his question, it pleased one of the loungers to affect to take 
 it literally. 
 
 " Well, ez you 've put it that way, — ' in the name of 
 God ! ' " — returned the man lazily, " it mout hev struck 
 us that ez He was bossin' the job, so to speak, and handlin' 
 things round here generally, we might leave it to Him. It 
 was n't our flood to monkey with." 
 
 " And as He did n't coven-ant, so to speak, to look arter 
 this higher ground 'speshally, and make an Ararat of it for 
 us, ez far ez we could see, we did n't see any reason for 
 settlin' yer," put in a second speaker, with equal laziness. 
 
 The secretary saw his mistake instantly, and had expe- 
 rience enough of Western humor not to prolong the dis- 
 advantage of his unfortunate adjuration. He colored 
 slightly and said, with a smile, " You know what I mean ; 
 you could have protected yourselves better. A levee on the 
 bank would have kept you clear of the highest watermark." 
 
 " Hev you ever heard what the highest watermark 
 was ? " said the first speaker, turning to another of the 
 loungers without looking at the secretary. 
 
202 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES'" 
 
 " Never heard it, — did n't know there was a limit be- 
 fore," responded the man. 
 
 The first speaker turned back to the secretary. " Did you 
 ever know what happened at ' Bulger's,' on the North Fork ? 
 They had one o' them levees." 
 
 " No. What happened ? " asked the secretary impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "They was fixed suthin' like us," returned the first 
 speaker. " They allowed they 'd build a levee above their 
 highest watermark, and did. It worked like a charm at 
 first ; but the water hed to go somewhere, and it kinder 
 collected at the first bend. Then it sorter raised itself on 
 its elbows one day, and looked over the levee down upon 
 whar some of the boys was washin' quite comf'ble. Then 
 it paid no sorter attention to the limit o' that high water- 
 mark, but went six inches better ! Not slow and quiet like 
 ez it useter to, ez it does here, kinder fillin' up from below, 
 but went over with a rush and a current, hevin' of course 
 the whole height of the levee to fall on t' other side where 
 the boys were sluicing." He paused, and amidst a profound 
 silence added, " They say that ' Bulger's ' was scattered pro- 
 miscuous-like all along the fork for five miles. I only know 
 that one of his mules and a section of sluicing was picked 
 up at Red Flat, eight miles away ! " 
 
 Mr. Hemmingway felt that there was an answer to this, 
 but, being wise, also felt that it would be unavailing. He 
 smiled politely and said nothing, at which the first speaker 
 turned to him : — 
 
 " Thar ain't anything to see to-day, but to-morrow, ez 
 things go, the water oughter be droppin'. Mebbe you 'd like 
 to wash up now and clean yourself," he added, with a glance 
 at Hemmingway's small portmanteau. "Ez we thought 
 you'd likely be crowded here, we 've rigged up a corner for 
 you at Stanton's shanty with the women." 
 
 The young man's cheek flushed slightly at some possible 
 
"WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP aT " JULES'" 203 
 
 irony in this, and he protested with considerable stress that 
 he was quite ready " to rough it " where he was. 
 
 " I reckon it 's already fixed," returned the man decisively, 
 " so you 'd better come and I'll show you the way." 
 
 " One moment," said Hemmingway, with a smile ; " my 
 credentials are addressed to the manager of the Boone Ditch 
 Company at ' Jules'.' Perhaps I ought to see him first." 
 
 " All right ; he 's Stanton." 
 
 " And " — hesitated the secretary, " you, who appear to 
 understand the locality so well, — I trust I may have the 
 pleasure " — 
 
 " Oh, I 'm Jules." 
 
 The secretary was a little startled and amused. So 
 "Jules" was a person, and not a place ! 
 
 " Then you 're a pioneer ? " asked Hemmingway, a little 
 less dictatorially, as they passed out under the dripping 
 trees. 
 
 " I struck this creek in the fall of '49, tomin' over Liver- 
 more's Pass with Stanton," returned Jules, with great brev- 
 ity of speech and deliberate tardiness of delivery. " Sent 
 for my wife and two children the next year ; wife died same 
 winter, change bein' too sudden for her, and contractin' chills 
 and fever at Sweetwater. When I kem here first thar was n't 
 six inches o' water in the creek ; but there was a heap of it 
 over there where you see them yallowish-green patches and 
 strips o' brush and grass ; all that war water then, and all 
 that growth hez sprung up since." 
 
 Hemmingway looked around him. The " higher ground " 
 where they stood was in reality only a mound-like elevation 
 above the dead level of the flat, and the few trees were 
 merely recent young willows and alders. The area of actual 
 depression was much greater than he had imagined, and its 
 resemblance to the bed of some prehistoric inland sea struck 
 him forcibly. A previous larger inundation than Jules' brief 
 experience had ever known had been by no means improb- 
 
204 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES'" 
 
 able. His cheek reddened at his previous hasty indictment 
 of the settlers' ignorance and shiftlessness, and the thought 
 that he had probably committed his employers to his own 
 rash confidence and superiority of judgment. However, 
 there was no evidence that this diluvial record was not of 
 the remote past. He smiled again with greater security as 
 he thought of the geological changes that had since tempered 
 these cataclysms, and the amelioration brought by settlement 
 and cultivation. Nevertheless, he would make a thorough 
 examination to-morrow. 
 
 Stanton's cabin was the furthest of these temporary habi- 
 tations, and was partly on the declivity which began to slope 
 to the river's bank. It was, like the others, a rough shanty 
 of unplaned boards, but, unlike the others, it had a base of 
 logs laid lengthwise on the ground and parallel with each 
 other, on which the flooring and structure were securely 
 fastened. This gave it the appearance of a box slid on run- 
 ners, or a Noah's Ark whose bulk had been reduced. Jules 
 explained that the logs, laid in that manner, kept the shanty 
 warmer and free from damp. In reply to Hemmingway's 
 suggestion that it was a great waste of material, Jules simply 
 replied that the logs were the " flotsam and jetsam " of the 
 creek from the overflowed mills below. 
 
 Hemmingway again smiled. It was again the old story 
 of Western waste and prodigality. Accompanied by Jules, 
 however, he climbed up the huge, slippery logs which made 
 a platform before the door, and entered. 
 
 The single room was unequally divided ; the larger part 
 containing three beds, by day rolled in a single pile in one 
 corner to make room for a table and chairs. A few dresses 
 hanging from nails on the wall showed that it was the 
 women's room. The smaller compartment was again sub- 
 divided by a hanging blanket, behind which was a rude bunk 
 or berth against the wall, and a table made of a packing- 
 box, containing a tin basin and a can of water. This was 
 his apartment. 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT "JULES'" 205 
 
 " The women-folks are down the creek, bakin', to-day," 
 said Jules explanatorily ; " but I reckon that one of 'em will 
 be up here in a jiffy to make supper, so you just take it easy 
 till they come. I 've got to meander over to the claim afore 
 i" turn in, but you just lie by to-night and take a rest." 
 
 He turned away, leaving Hemmingway standing in the 
 doorway still distraught and hesitating. Nor did the young 
 man recognize the delicacy of Jules' leave-taking until he 
 had unstrapped his portmanteau and found himself alone, 
 free to make his toilet, unembarrassed by company. But 
 even then he would have preferred the rough companionship 
 of the miners in the common dormitory of the general store 
 to this intrusion upon the half-civilization of the women, 
 their pitiable little comforts and secret makeshifts. His 
 disgust of his own indecision which brought him there nat- 
 urally recoiled in the direction of his host and hostesses, and 
 after a hurried ablution, a change of linen, and an attempt 
 to remove the stains of travel from his clothes, he strode 
 out impatiently into the open air again. 
 
 It was singularly mild even for the season. The south- 
 west trades blew softly, and whispered to him of San Fran- 
 cisco and the distant Pacific, with its long, steady swell. 
 He turned again to the overflowed Flat beneath him, and 
 the sluggish yellow water that scarcely broke a ripple 
 against the walls of the half-submerged cabins. And 
 this was the water for whose going down they were waiting 
 with an immobility as tranquil as the waters themselves ! 
 What marvelous incompetency, — or what infinite patience ! 
 He knew, of course, their expected compensation in this 
 " ground sluicing " at Nature's own hand ; the long rifts 
 in the banks of the creek which so often showed " the 
 color" in the sparkling scales of river gold disclosed by 
 the action of the water ; the heaps of reddish mud left after 
 its subsidence around the walls of the cabins, — a deposit 
 that often contained a treasure a dozen times more valuable 
 
206 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES"* 
 
 than the cabin itself ! And then he heard behind him a 
 laugh, a short and panting breath, and turning, beheld a 
 young woman running towards him. 
 
 In his first astounded sight of her, in her limp nankeen 
 sunbonnet, thrown back from her head by the impetus of 
 her flight, he saw only too much hair, too much white 
 teeth, too much eye-flash, and, above all, — as it appeared 
 to him, — too much confidence in the power of these quali- 
 ties. Even as she ran, it seemed to him that she was pull- 
 ing down ostentatiously the rolled-up sleeves of her pink 
 calico gown over her shapely arms. I am inclined to think 
 that the young gentleman's temper was at fault, and his 
 conclusion hasty ; a calmer observer would have detected 
 nothing of this in her frankly cheerful voice. Neverthe- 
 less, her evident pleasure in the meeting seemed to him 
 only obtrusive coquetry. 
 
 " Lordy ! I reckoned to git here afore you 'd get through 
 fixin' up, and in time to do a little prinkin' myself, and 
 here you 're out already." She laughed, glancing at his 
 clean shirt and damp hair. " But all the same, we kin have 
 a talk, and you kin tell me all the news afore the other 
 wimmen get up here. It 's a coon's age since I was at Sac- 
 ramento and saw anybody or anything." She stopped and, 
 instinctively detecting some vague reticence in the man 
 before her, said, still laughing, " You 're Mr. Hemming- 
 way, ain't you ? " 
 
 Hemmingway took off his hat quickly, with a slight start 
 at his forgetfulriess. " I beg your pardon ; yes, certainly." 
 
 " Aunty Stanton thought it was ' Hummingbird,' " said 
 the girl, with a laugh, " but I reckoned not. I 'm Jinney 
 Jules, you know ; folks call me ' J. J.' It would n't do 
 for a Hummingbird and a Jay Jay to be in the same camp, 
 would it ? It would be just too funny ! " 
 
 Hemmingway did not find the humor of this so singu- 
 larly exhaustive, but he was already beginning to be 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WEEE UP AT " JULES' " 207 
 
 ashamed of his attitude towards her. " I 'm very sorry to 
 be giving you all this trouble by my intrusion, for I was 
 quite willing to stay at the store yonder. Indeed," he added, 
 with a burst of frankness quite as sincere as her own, " if 
 you think your father will not be offended, I would gladly 
 go there now." 
 
 If he still believed in her coquetry and vanity, he would 
 have been undeceived and crushed by the equal and sincere 
 frankness with which she met this ungallant speech. 
 
 " No ! I reckon he would n't care, if you 'd be as cornf- 
 ble and fit for to-morrow. But ye would n't," she said 
 reflectively. " The boys thar sit up late over euchre, and 
 swear a heap, and Simpson, who M sleep alongside of ye, 
 snores pow'ful, I 've heard. Aunty Stanton kin do her 
 level at that, too, and they say " — with a laugh — " that 
 I kin, too, but you 're away off in that corner, and it won't 
 reach you. So, takin' it all, by the large, you 'd better stay 
 whar ye are. We wimmen, that is, the most of us, will be 
 off and away down to Rattlesnake Bar shoppin' afore sun 
 up, so ye '11 sleep ez long ez ye want to, and find yer break- 
 fast ready when ye wake. So I '11 jest set to and get ye 
 some supper, and ye kin tell me all the doin's in Sacra- 
 mento and 'Frisco while I 'm workin'." 
 
 In spite of her unconscious rebuff to his own vanity, 
 Hemmingway felt a sense of relief and less constraint in 
 his relations to this decidedly provincial hostess. 
 
 " Can I help you in any way ? " he asked eagerly. 
 
 " Well, ye might bring nie an armful o' wood from the 
 pile under the alders, ef ye ain't afraid o' dirtyin' your 
 coat," she said tentatively. 
 
 Mr. Hemmingway was not afraid ; he declared himself 
 delighted. He brought a generous armful of small cut 
 willow boughs, and deposited them before a small stove, 
 which seemed a temporary substitute for the usual large 
 adobe chimney that generally occupied the entire gable of 
 
208 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT "JULES 
 
 a miner's cabin. An elbow and short length of stovepipe 
 carried the smoke through the cabin side. But he also 
 noticed that his fair companion had used the interval to 
 put on a pair of white cuffs and a collar. However, she 
 brushed the green moss from his sleeve with some toweling, 
 and although this operation brought her so near to him that 
 her breath — as soft and warm as the southwest trades — 
 stirred his hair, it was evident that this contiguity was 
 only frontier familiarity, as far removed from conscious 
 coquetry as it was, perhaps, from educated delicacy. 
 
 "The boys gin'rally kem to take up enough wood for m«s 
 to begin with," she said, "but I reckon they didn't know 
 I was comin' up so soon." 
 
 Hemniingway's distrust returned a little at this obvious 
 suggestion that he was only a substitute for their general 
 gallantry, but he smiled and said somewhat bluntly, " I 
 don't suppose you lack for admirers here." 
 
 The girl, however, took him literally. " Lordy, no ! 
 Me and Mamie Robinson are the only girls for fifteen miles 
 along the creek. Admirin' ! I call it jest pesteriri 1 some- 
 times ! I reckon I '11 hev to keep a dog ! " 
 
 Hemmingway shivered. Yes, she was not only conscious, 
 but spoilt already. He pictured to himself the uncouth 
 gallantries of the settlement, the provincial badinage, the 
 feeble rivalries of the young men whom he had seen at the 
 general store. Undoubtedly this was what she was expect- 
 ing in him I 
 
 " Well," she said, turning from the fire she had kindled 
 " while I 'm settin' the table, tell me what 's a-doin' in 
 Sacramento ! I reckon you 've got heaps of lady friends 
 thar, — I 'm told there 's lots of fashions just from the 
 States." 
 
 " I 'm afraid I don't know enough of them to interest 
 you," he said dryly. 
 
 " Go on and talk," she replied. " Why, when Tom 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES' " 209 
 
 Flynn kern back from Sacramento, and he warn't thar 
 more nor a week, he jest slung yarns about his doin's thar 
 to last the hull rainy season." 
 
 Half amused and half annoyed, Hemmingway seated him- 
 self on the little platform beside the open door, and began 
 a conscientious description of the progress of Sacramento, 
 its new buildings, hotels, and theatres, as it had struck him 
 on his last visit. For a while he was somewhat entertained 
 by the girl's vivacity and eager questioning, but presently 
 it began to pall. He continued, however, with a grim 
 sense of duty, and partly as a reason for watching her in. 
 her household duties. Certainly she was graceful ! Her 
 tall, lithe, but beautifully moulded figure, even in its char- 
 acteristic southwestern indolence, fell into poses as pictur- 
 esque as they were unconscious. She lifted the big mo- 
 lasses-can from its shelf on the rafters with the attitude of 
 a Greek water-bearer. She upheaved the heavy flour-sack 
 to the same secure shelf with the upraised palms of an 
 Egyptian caryatid. Suddenly she interrupted Hemming- 
 way's perfunctory talk with a hearty laugh. He started, 
 looked up from his seat on the platform, and saw that she 
 was standing over him and regarding him with a kind of 
 mischievous pity. 
 
 " Look here," she said, " I reckon that '11 do ! You kin 
 pull up short ! I kin see what 's the matter with you ; 
 you 're jest plumb tired, tuckered out, and want to turn in ! 
 So jest you sit thar quiet until I get supper ready and never 
 mind me." In vain Hemmingway protested, with a rising 
 color. The girl only shook her head. " Don't tell me ! 
 You ain't keerin' to talk, and you 're only playin' Sacra- 
 mento statistics on me," she retorted, with unfeigned cheer- 
 fulness. " Anyhow, here 's the wimmen comin', and supper 
 is ready." 
 
 There was a sound of weary, resigned ejaculations and 
 pantings, and three gaunt women in lustreless alpaca gowns 
 
210 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES' " 
 
 appeared before the cabin. They seemed prematurely aged 
 and worn with labor, anxiety, and ill-nourishment. Doubt- 
 less somewhere in these ruins a flower like Jay Jules had 
 once flourished ; doubtless somewhere in that graceful nymph 
 herself the germ of this dreary maturity was hidden. Hem- 
 mingway welcomed them with a seriousness equal to their 
 own. The supper was partaken with the kind of joyless 
 formality which in the Southwest is supposed to indicate 
 deep respect, even the cheerful Jay falling under the in- 
 fluence, and it was with a feeling of relief that at last the 
 young man retired to his fenced-off corner for solitude and 
 repose. He gathered, however, that before " sun up " the 
 next morning the elder women were going to Rattlesnake 
 Bar for the weekly shopping, leaving Jay as before to pre- 
 pare his breakfast and then join them later. It was already 
 a change in his sentiments to find himself looking forward 
 to that tete-a-tete with the young girl, as a chance of re- 
 deeming his character in her eyes. He was beginning to 
 feel he had been stupid, unready, and withal prejudiced. 
 He undressed himself in his seclusion, broken only by the 
 monotonous voices in the adjoining apartment. From time 
 to time he heard fragments and scraps of their conversation, 
 always in reference to affairs of the household and settle- 
 ment, but never of himself, — not even the suggestion of a 
 prudent lowering of their voices, — and fell asleep. He 
 woke up twice in the night with a sensation of cold, so 
 marked and distinct from his experience of the early even- 
 ing that he was fain to pile his clothes over his blankets 
 to keep warm. He fell asleep again, coming once more to 
 consciousness with a sense of a slight jar, but relapsing again 
 into slumber for he knew not how long. Then he was fully 
 awakened by a voice calling him, and, opening his eyes, 
 beheld the blanket partition put aside, and the face of Jay 
 thrust forward. To his surprise it wore a look of excited 
 fcstonishment dominated by irrepressible laughter. 
 
WHEN THE WATEES WERE UP AT " JULES' " 211 
 
 " Get up quick as you kin," she said gaspingly ; " this 
 is ahout the killingest thing that ever happened ! " 
 
 She disappeared, hut he could still hear her laughing, 
 and to his utter astonishment with her disappearance the 
 floor seemed to change its level. A giddy feeling seized 
 him ; he put his feet to the floor : it was unmistakably wet 
 and oozing. He hurriedly clothed himself, still accom- 
 panied by the strange feeling of oscillation and giddiness, 
 and passed through the opening into the next room. Again 
 his step produced the same effect upon the floor, and he 
 actually stumbled against her shaking figure, as she wiped 
 the tears of uncontrollable mirth from her eyes with her 
 apron. The contact seemed to upset her remaining gravity. 
 She dropped into a chair, and, pointing to the open door, 
 gasped, " Look thar ! Lordy ! How 's that for high ? " 
 threw her apron over her head, and gave way to an uproar- 
 ious fit of laughter. 
 
 Hemmingway turned to the open door. A lake was be- 
 fore him on the level of the cabin. He stepped forward 
 on the platform ; the water was right and left, all around 
 him. The platform dipped slightly to his step. The cabin 
 was afloat, — afloat upon its base of logs like a raft, the 
 whole structure upheld by the floor on which the logs were 
 securely fastened. The high ground had disappeared — the 
 river — its banks — the green area beyond. They, and 
 they alone, were afloat upon an inland sea. 
 
 He turned an astounded and serious face upon her mirth. 
 " When did it happen ? " he demanded. She checked her 
 laugh, more from a sense of polite deference to his mood 
 than any fear, and said quietly, "That gets me. Every- 
 thing was all right two hours ago when the wimmen left. 
 It was too early to get your breakfast and rouse ye out, 
 and I fell asleep, I reckon, until I felt a kind o' slump and 
 a jar." Hemmingway remembered his own half-conscious 
 sensation. " Then I got up and saw we was adrift. I 
 
212 WHEN THE WATERS WEEE UP AT " JULES'" 
 
 did n't waken ye, for I thought it was only a sort of wave 
 that would pass. It was n't until I saw we were movin' 
 and the hull rising ground gettin' away, that I thought o' 
 callin' ye." 
 
 He thought of the vanished general store, of her father, 
 the workers on the hank, the helpless women on their way 
 to the Bar, and turned almost savagely on her. 
 
 " But the others, — where are they ? " he said indig- 
 nantly. " Do you call that a laughing matter ? " 
 
 She stopped at the sound of his voice as at a blow. Her 
 face hardened into immobility, yet when she replied it was 
 with the deliberate indolence of her father. " The wimmen 
 are up on the hills by this time. The boys hev bin drowned 
 out many times afore this and got clear off, on sluice boxes 
 and timber, without squealing. Tom Flynn went down ten 
 miles to Sayer's once on two bar'ls, and I never heard that 
 he was cryin' when they picked him up." 
 
 A flush came to Hemmingway's cheek, but with it a gleam 
 of intelligence. Of course the inundation was known to 
 them first, and there was the wreckage to support them. 
 They had clearly saved themselves. If they had abandoned 
 the cabin, it was because they knew its security, perhaps 
 had even seen it safely adrift. 
 
 " Has this ever happened to the cabin before ? " he asked, 
 as he thought of its peculiar base. 
 
 "No." 
 
 He looked at the water again. There was a decided cur- 
 rent. The overflow was evidently no part of the original 
 inundation. He put his hand in the water. It was icy 
 cold. Yes, he understood it now. It was the sudden melt- 
 ing of snow in the Sierras which had brought this volume 
 down the canon. But was there more still to come ? 
 
 "Have you anything like a long pole or stick in the 
 cabin ? " 
 
 " Nary," said the girl, opening her big eyes and shaking 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES'" 213 
 
 her head with a simulation of despair, which was, however, 
 flatly contradicted by her laughing mouth. 
 
 " Nor any cord or twine ? " he continued. 
 
 She handed him a ball of coarse twine. 
 
 " May I take a couple of these hooks ? " he asked, point- 
 ing to some rough iron hooks in the rafters, on which bacon 
 and jerked beef were hanging. 
 
 She nodded. He dislodged the hooks, greased them with 
 the bacon rind, and affixed them to the twine. 
 
 " Fishin' ? " she asked demurely. 
 
 " Exactly," he replied gravely. 
 
 He threw the line in the water. It slackened at about 
 six feet, straightened, and became taut at an angle, and then 
 dragged. After one or two sharp jerks he pulled it up. 
 A few leaves and grasses were caught in the hooks. He 
 examined them attentively. 
 
 " We 're not in the creek," he said, " nor in the old over- 
 flow. There 's no mud or gravel on the hooks, and these 
 grasses don't grow near water." 
 
 " Now, that 's mighty cute of you," she said admiringly, 
 as she knelt beside him on the platform. " Let 's see what 
 you 've caught. Look yer ! " she added, suddenly lifting a 
 limp stalk, " that 's ' old man,' and thar ain't a scrap of it 
 grows nearer than Springer's Rise, — four miles from home." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " he asked quickly. 
 
 " Sure as pop ! I used to go huntin' it for smellidge." 
 
 " For what ? " he said, with a bewildered smile. 
 
 " For this," — she thrust the leaves to his nose and then 
 to her own pink nostrils ; " for — for " — she hesitated, and 
 then with a mischievous simulation of correctness added, 
 "for the perfume." 
 
 He looked at her admiringly. For all her five feet ten 
 inches, what a mere child she was, after all ! What a fool 
 he was to have taken a resentful attitude towards her ! How 
 charming and graceful she looked, kneeling there beside himl 
 
214 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JtTLES' " 
 
 " Tell me," he siid suddenly, in a gentler voice, " what 
 were you laughing at just now ? " 
 
 Her brown eyes wavered for a moment, and then brimmed 
 with merriment. She threw herself sideways, in a leaning 
 posture, supporting herself on one arm, while with her other 
 hand she slowly drew out her apron string, as she said, in 
 a demure voice : — 
 
 " Well, I reckoned it was jest too killin' to think of you, 
 who did n't want to talk to me, and would hev given your 
 hull pile to hev skipped out o' this, jest stuck here along- 
 side o' me, whether you would or no, for Lord knows how 
 long ! " 
 
 " But that was last night," he said, in a tone of raillery. 
 u I was tired, and you said so yourself, you know. But I 'm 
 ready to talk now. What shall I tell you ? " 
 
 "Anything," said the girl, with a laugh. 
 
 "What I am thinking of? " he said, with frankly admir- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Everything ? " 
 
 " Yes, everything." She stopped, and leaning forward, 
 suddenly caught the brim of his soft felt hat, and drawing 
 it down smartly over his audacious eyes, said, " Everything 
 but that." 
 
 It was with some difficulty and some greater embarrass- 
 ment that he succeeded in getting his eyes free again. When 
 he did so, she had risen and entered the cabin. Disconcerted 
 as lie was, he was relieved to see that her expression, of 
 amusement was unchanged. Was her act a piece of rustic 
 coquetry, or had she resented his advances ? Nor did her 
 next words settle the question. 
 
 " Ye kin do yer nice talk and philanderin' after we 've 
 settled whar we are, whar we 're goin', and what 's goin' to 
 happen. Jest now it 'pears to me that ez these yere logs 
 are the only thing betwixt us and ' kingdom come,' ye 'd 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES' " 215 
 
 better be hustlin' round with a few spikes to clinch 'em to 
 the floor." 
 
 She handed him a hammer and a few spikes. He obe- 
 diently set to work, with little confidence, however, in the 
 security of the fastening. There was neither rope nor chain 
 for lashing the logs together ; a stronger current and a col- 
 lision with some submerged stump or wreckage would loosen 
 them and wreck the cabin. But he said nothing. It was 
 the girl who broke the silence. 
 
 " What 's your front name ? " 
 
 "Miles." 
 
 " Miles, — that 's a funny name. I reckon that 's why 
 you war so far off and distant at first." 
 
 Mr. Hemmingway thought this very witty, and said so. 
 " But," he added, " when I was a little nearer a moment 
 ago, you stopped me." 
 
 " But you was moving faster than the shanty was. I 
 reckon you don't take that gait with your lady friends at 
 Sacramento ! However, you kin talk now." 
 
 " But you forget I don't know ' where we are ' nor ' what 's 
 going to happen.' " 
 
 " But I do," she said quietly. " In a couple of hours 
 we '11 be picked up, so you '11 be free again." 
 
 Something in the confidence of her manner made him go 
 to the door again and look out. There was scarcely any 
 current now, and the cabin seemed motionless. Even the 
 wind, which might have acted upon it, was wanting. They 
 were apparently in the same position as before, but his sound- 
 ing-line showed that the water was slightly falling. He 
 came back and imparted the fact with a certain confidence 
 born of her previous praise of his knowledge. To his sur- 
 prise she only laughed and said lazily, " We '11 he all right, 
 and you '11 be free, in about two hours." 
 
 " I see no sign of it," he said, looking through the door 
 
216 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES*" 
 
 " That 's because you 're looking in the water and the 
 sky and the mud for it," she said, with a laugh. " I reckon 
 you 've been trained to watch them things a heap better 
 than to study the folks about here." 
 
 " I dare say you 're right," said Hemmingway cheerfully, 
 " but I don't clearly see what the folks about here have to 
 do with our situation just now." 
 
 " You '11 see," she said, with a smile of mischievous 
 mystery. " All the same," she added, with a sudden and 
 dangerous softness in her eyes, " I ain't sayin' that you 
 ain't kinder right neither." 
 
 An hour ago he would have laughed at the thought that 
 a mere look and sentence like this from the girl could have 
 made his heart beat. " Then I may go on and talk ? " 
 
 She smiled, but her eyes said, " Yes," plainly. 
 
 He turned to take a chair near her. Suddenly the 
 cabin trembled, there was a sound of scraping, a bump, and 
 then the whole structure tilted to one side and they were 
 both thrown violently towards the corner, with a swift in- 
 rush of water. Hemmingway quickly caught the girl by 
 the waist ; she clung to him instinctively, yet still laugh- 
 ing, as with a desperate effort he succeeded in dragging her 
 to the upper side of the slanting cabin, and momentarily 
 restoring its equilibrium. They remained for an instant 
 breathless. But in that instant he had drawn her face to 
 his and kissed her. 
 
 She disengaged herself gently with neither excitement 
 nor emotion, and, pointing to the open door, said, " Look 
 there ! " 
 
 Two of the logs which formed the foundation of their 
 floor were quietly floating in the water before the cabin ! 
 The submerged obstacle or snag which had torn them from 
 their fastening was still holding the cabin fast. Hemming- 
 way saw the danger. He ran along the narrow ledge to 
 the point of contact and unhesitatingly leaped into the icy 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT "JULES'" 217 
 
 cold water. It reached his armpits before his feet struck 
 the obstacle, — evidently a stump with a projecting branch. 
 Bracing himself against it, he shoved off the cabin. But 
 when he struck out to follow it, he found that the log 
 nearest him was loose and his grasp might tear it away. 
 At the same moment, however, a pink calico arm fluttered 
 above his head, and a strong grasp seized his coat collar. 
 The cabin half revolved as the girl dragged him into the 
 open door. 
 
 " You bantam ! " she said, with a laugh, " why did n't 
 you let me do that ? I 'm taller than you ! But," she 
 added, looking at his dripping clothes and dragging out a 
 blanket from the corner, " I could n't dry myself as quick 
 as you kin ! " To her surprise, however, Hemmingway 
 tossed the blanket aside, and pointing to the floor, which 
 was already filmed with water, ran to the still warm stove, 
 detached it from its pipe, and threw it overboard. The 
 sack of flour, bacon, molasses, and sugar, and all the heav- 
 ier articles followed it into the stream. Believed of their 
 weight the cabin base rose an inch or two higher. Then 
 he sat down and said, " There ! that may keep us afloat for 
 that ' couple of hours ' you speak of. So I suppose I may 
 talk now ! " 
 
 " Ye have n't no time," she said in a graver voice. " It 
 won't be as long as a couple of hours now. Look over 
 thar ! " 
 
 He looked where she pointed across the gray expanse of 
 water. At first he could see nothing. Presently he saw 
 a mere dot on its face which at times changed to a single 
 black line. 
 
 " It 's a log, like these," he said. 
 
 "It 's no log. It's an Injun dugout — comin' for me." 
 
 " Your father ? " he said joyfully. 
 
 She smiled pityingly. " It 's Tom Flynn. Father 'a 
 got suthin' else to look arter. Tom Flynn has n't." 
 
218 WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES' " 
 
 " And who 's Tom Mynn ? " he asked, with an odd 
 sensation. 
 
 " The man I 'm engaged to," she said gravely, with a 
 slight color. 
 
 The rose that blossomed on her cheek faded in his. 
 There was a moment of silence. Then he said frankly, " I 
 owe you some apology. Forgive my folly and impertinence 
 a moment ago. How could I have known this ? " 
 
 " You took no more than you deserved, or that Tom 
 would have objected to," she said, with a little laugh. 
 "You've been mighty kind and handy." 
 
 She held out her hand ; their fingers closed together in 
 a frank pressure. Then his mind went back to his work, 
 which he had forgotten, — to his first impressions of the 
 camp and of her. They both stood silent, watching the 
 canoe, now quite visible, and the man that was paddling it, 
 with an intensity that both felt was insincere. 
 
 " I 'm afraid," he said, with a forced laugh, " that I was 
 a little too hasty in disposing of your goods and possessions. 
 We could have kept afloat a little longer." 
 
 " It 's all the same," she said, with a slight laugh ; " it 's 
 jest as well we did n't look too comf'ble — to him." 
 
 He did not reply ; he did not dare to look at her. Yes ! 
 It was the same coquette he had seen last night. His first 
 impressions were correct. 
 
 The canoe came on rapidly now, propelled by a powerful 
 arm. In a few moments it was alongside, and its owner 
 leaped on the platform. It was the gentleman with his 
 trousers tucked in his boots, the second voice in the gloomy 
 discussion in the general store last evening. He nodded 
 simply to the girl, and shook Hemmingway's hand warmly. 
 
 Then he made a hurried apology for his delay : it was so 
 difficult to find " the lay " of the drifted cabin. He had 
 struck out first for the most dangerous spot, — the " old 
 clearing," on the right bank, with its stumps and new 
 
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT " JULES' 219 
 
 growths, — and it seemed he was right. And all the rest 
 were safe, and " nobody was hurt." 
 
 " All the same, Tom," she said, when they were seated 
 and paddling off again, " you don't know how near you 
 came to losing me." Then she raised her beautiful eyes 
 and looked significantly, not at him, but at Hemmingway. 
 
 When the water was down at " Jules' " the next day, 
 they found certain curious changes and some gold, and the 
 secretary was able to make a favorable report. But he 
 made none whatever of his impressions when the water 
 was up at "Jules'," though he often wondered if they 
 were strictly trustworthy. 
 
THE YOUNGEST PEOSPECTOE IN CALAVEEAS 
 
 He was scarcely eight when it was believed that he could 
 have reasonably laid claim to the above title. But he never 
 did. He was a small boy, intensely freckled to the roots 
 of his tawny hair, with even a suspicion of it in his almond- 
 shaped but somewhat full eyes, which were the greenish hue 
 of a ripe gooseberry. All this was very unlike his parents, 
 from whom he diverged in resemblance in that fashion so 
 often seen in the Southwest of America, as if the youth of 
 the boundless West had struck a new note of independence 
 and originality, overriding all conservative and established 
 rules of heredity. Something of this was also shown in a 
 singular and remarkable reticence and firmness of purpose, 
 quite unlike his family or schoolfellows. His mother was 
 the wife of a teamster, who had apparently once " dumped " 
 his family, consisting of a boy and two girls, on the roadside 
 at Burnt Spring, with the canvas roof of his wagon to cover 
 them, while he proceeded to deliver other freight, not so 
 exclusively his own, at other stations along the road, re- 
 turning to them on distant and separate occasions with slight 
 additions to their stock, habitation, and furniture. In this 
 way the canvas roof was finally shingled and the hut en- 
 larged, and, under the quickening of a smiling California 
 sky and the forcing of a teeming California soil, the chance- 
 sown seed took root and became known as Medliker's Ranch, 
 or " Medliker's," with its bursting garden patch and its three 
 sheds or " lean-to's." 
 
 The girls helped their mother in a childish, imitative 
 way ; the boy, John Bunyan, after a more desultory and 
 original fashion — when he was not " going to " or ostensi- 
 
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 221 
 
 bly " coming from " school, for he was seldom actually there. 
 Something of this fear was in the mind of Mrs. Medliker one 
 morning as she looked up from the kettle she was scrubbing, 
 with premonition of " more worriting," to behold the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Staples, the local minister, hale John Bunyan 
 Medliker into the shanty with one hand. Letting Johnny 
 go, lie > placed his back against the door and wiped his face 
 with p, red handkerchief. Johnny dropped into a chair, 
 furtively glancing at the arm by which Mr. Staples had 
 dragged him, and feeling it with the other hand to see if it 
 was really longer. 
 
 " I 've been requested by the schoolmaster," said the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Staples, putting his handkerchief back into his 
 broad felt hat with a gasping smile, " to bring our young 
 friend before you for a matter of counsel and discipline. I 
 have done so, Sister Medliker, with some difficulty," — he 
 looked down at John Bunyan, who again felt his arm and 
 was satisfied that it was longer, — " but we must do our 
 dooty, even with difficulty to ourselves, and, perhaps, to 
 others. Our young friend, John Bunyan, stands on a giddy 
 height — on slippery places, and," continued Mr. Staples, 
 with a lofty disregard to consecutive metaphor, " his feet 
 are taking fast hold of destruction." Here the child drew 
 a breath of relief, possibly at the prospect of being on firm 
 ground of any kind at last ; but Sister Medliker, to whom 
 the Staples style of exordium had only a Sabbath signifi- 
 cance, turned to her offspring abruptly : — 
 
 " And what 's these yer doin's now, John ? and me a 
 slavin' to send ye to school ? " 
 
 Thus appealed to, Johnny looked for a reply at his feet, 
 at his arm, and at the kettle. Then he said : " I ain't done 
 nothin', but he " — indicating Staples — " hez been nigh 
 onter pullin' off my arm." 
 
 " It 's now almost a week ago," continued Mr. Staples, 
 waving aside the interruption with a smile of painful Chris< 
 
222 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 
 
 tian tolerance, " or perhaps ten days — I won't be too sure 
 — that the schoolmaster discovered that Johnny had in his 
 possession two or three flakes of fine river gold — each of 
 the value of half a dollar, or perhaps sixty-two and one-half 
 cents. On being questioned where he got them he refused 
 to say ; although subsequently he alleged that he had ' found ' 
 them. It being a single instance, he was given the benefit 
 of the doubt, and nothing more was said about it. But a 
 few days after he was found trying to pass off, at Mr. Smith's 
 store, two other flakes of a different size, and a small nugget 
 of the value of four or five dollars. At this point I was 
 called in ; he repeated to me, I grieve to say, the same un- 
 truthfulness, and when I suggested to him the obvious fact 
 that he had taken it from one of the miner's sluice boxes 
 and committed the grievous sin of theft, he wickedly denied 
 it — so that we are prevented from carrying out the Christian 
 command of restoring it even one fold, instead of four or 
 five fold as the Mosaic Law might have required. We were, 
 alas ! unable to ascertain anything from the miners them- 
 selves, though I grieve to say they one and all agreed that 
 their ' take ' that week was not at all what they had expected. 
 I even went so far as to admit the possibility of his own 
 statement, and besought him at least to show me where he. 
 had found it. He at first refused with great stubbornness 
 of temper, but later consented to accompany me privately 
 this afternoon to the spot." Mr. Staples paused, and sink- 
 ing his voice gloomily, and with his eyes fixed upon Johnny, 
 continued slowly : " When I state that, after several times 
 trying to evade me on the way, he finally led me to the top 
 of Bald Hill, where there is not a scrap of soil, and not the 
 slightest indication, and still persisted that he found it there, 
 you will understand, Sister Medliker, the incorrigibility of 
 his conduct, and how he has added the sin of ' false witness ' 
 to his breaking the Eighth Commandment. But I leave him 
 to your Christian discipline ! Let us hope that if, through 
 
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 223 
 
 his stiff-necked obduracy, he has haply escaped the vengeance 
 of man's law, he will not escape the rod of the domestic 
 tabernacle." 
 
 " Ye kin leave him to me," said Mrs. Medliker, in her 
 anxiety to get rid of the parson assuming a confidence she 
 was far from feeling. 
 
 " So be it, Sister Medliker," said Staples, drawing a long, 
 satisfactory breath ; " and let us trust that when you have 
 rastled with his flesh and spirit, you will bring us joyful 
 tidings to Wednesday's Mothers' Meeting." 
 
 He clapped his soft hat on his head, cast another glance 
 at the wicked Johnny, opened the door with his hand behind 
 him, and backed himself into the road. 
 
 "Now, Johnny," said Mrs. Medliker, setting her lips 
 together as the door closed, "look me right in the face, 
 and say where you stole that gold." 
 
 But Johnny evidently did not think that his mother's 
 face at that moment offered any moral support, for he did 
 not look at her, but, after gazing at the kettle, said slowly, 
 " I did n't steal no gold." 
 
 " Then," said Mrs. Medliker triumphantly, " if ye did n't 
 steal it, you 'd say right off how ye got it." 
 
 Children are often better logicians than their elders. 
 To John Bunyan the stealing of gold and the mere refusal 
 to say where he got it were two distinct and separate things ; 
 that the negation of the second proposition meant the affir- 
 mation of the first he could not accept. But then children 
 are also imitative, and fearful of the older intellect. It 
 struck Johnny that his mother might be right, and that 
 to her it really meant the same thing. So after a mo- 
 ment's silence he replied more confidently, " I suppose I 
 stoled it." 
 
 But he was utterly unprepared for the darkening change is 
 his mother's face, and her furious accents. " You stole it ' 
 — you stole it, you limb ! And you sit there and brazenly 
 
224 THE YOUNGEST PEOSPECTOE IN CALA.VEEAS 
 
 tell me ! "Who did you steal it from ? Tell me quick, 
 afore I wring it out of you ! " 
 
 Completely astounded and bewildered at this new turn 
 of affairs, Johnny again fell back upon the dreadful truth, 
 and gasped, " I don't know." 
 
 " You don't know, you devil ! Did you take it from 
 Frazer's ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " From the Simmons Brothers ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " From the Blazing Star Company ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " From a store ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then, in created goodness ! — where did you get it ? " 
 
 Johnuy raised his brown-gooseberry eyes for a single 
 instant to his mother's and said, " I found it." 
 
 Mrs. Medliker gasped again and stared hopelessly at the 
 ceiling. Yet she was conscious of a certain relief. After 
 all, it was possible that he had found it — liar as he un- 
 doubtedly was. . 
 
 " Then why don't you say where, you awful child ? " 
 
 " Don't want to ! " 
 
 Johnny would have liked to add that he saw no reason 
 why he should tell. Other people who found gold were not 
 obliged to tell. There was Jim Brody, who had struck a 
 lead and kept the locality secret. Nobody forced him to 
 tell. Nobody called him a thief ; nobody had dragged him 
 about by the arm until he showed it. Why was it wrong 
 that a little boy should find gold ? It was n't agin the 
 Commandments. Mr. Staples had never got up and said, 
 " Thou shalt not find gold ! " His mother had never made 
 him pray not to find it ! The schoolmaster had never read 
 him awful stories of boys who found gold and never said 
 anything about it, and so came to a horrid end. All this 
 
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 225 
 
 crowded his small boy's mind, and, crowding, choked his 
 small boy's utterance. 
 
 " You jest wait till your father comes home," said Mrs. 
 Medliker, " and he '11 see whether you ' want to ' or not. 
 And now get yourself off to bed and stay there." 
 
 Johnny knew that his father — whose teams had in- 
 creased to five wagons, and whose route extended forty 
 miles further — was not due for a week, and that the 
 catastrophe was yet remote. His present punishment he 
 had expected. He went into the adjoining bedroom, which 
 he occupied with his sister, and began to undress. He lin- 
 gered for some time over one stocking, and finally cau- 
 tiously removed from it a small piece of flake gold which 
 he had kept concealed all day under his big toe, to the great 
 discomfort of that member. But this was only a small, 
 ordinary self-martyrdom of boyhood. He scratched a boy- 
 ish hieroglyphic on the metal, and when his mother's back 
 was turned scraped a small hole in the adobe wall, inserted 
 the gold in it, and covered it up with a plaster made of the 
 moistened debris. It was safe, — so was his secret, — for 
 it need not, perhaps, be stated here that Johnny had told 
 the truth and had honestly found the gold ! But where ? 
 — yes, that was his own secret ! And now, Johnny, with 
 the instinct of all young animals, dismissed the whole sub- 
 ject from his mind, and, reclining comfortably upon his arm, 
 fell into an interesting study of the habits of the red ant 
 as exemplified in a crack of the adobe wall, and with the 
 aid of a burnt match succeeded in diverting for the rest of 
 the afternoon the attention of a whole laborious colony. 
 
 The next morning, however, brought trouble to him in 
 the curiosity of his sisters, heightened by their belief that 
 he could at any moment be taken off to prison, — which 
 was their understanding of their mother's story. I grieve 
 to say that to them this invested him with a certain roman- 
 tic heroism, from the gratification of which the hero himself 
 
226 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 
 
 was not exempt. Nevertheless, he successfully evaded thei* 
 questioning, and on broader impersonal grounds. As girls, 
 it was none of their business ! He was n't a-going to tell 
 them his secrets ! And what did they know about gold, 
 anyway ? They could n't tell it from brass ! The attitude 
 of his mother was, however, still perplexing. She was no 
 longer actively indignant, but treated him with a mysteri- 
 ous reserve that was the more appalling. The fact was that 
 she no longer believed in his theft, — indeed, she had never 
 seriously accepted it, — but his strange reticence and secre- 
 tiveness piqued her curiosity, and even made her a little 
 afraid of him. The capacity for keeping a secret she be- 
 lieved was manlike, and reminded her — for no reason in 
 the world — of Jim Medliker, her husband, whom she feared. 
 Well, she would let them fight it out between them. More 
 than that, she was finally obliged to sink her reserve in 
 employing him in the necessary " chores " for the house, 
 and he was sent on an errand to the country store at the 
 cross-roads. But he first extracted his gold-flake from the 
 wall, and put it in his pocket. 
 
 On arriving at the store, it was plain even to his boyish 
 perceptions that the minister had circulated his miserable 
 story. Two or three of the customers spoke to each other 
 in a whisper, and looked at him. More than that, when 
 he began his homeward journey he saw that two of the 
 loungers were evidently following him. Half in timidity 
 and half in boyish mischief he once or twice strayed from 
 the direct road, and snatched a fearful joy in observing 
 their equal divergence. As he passed Mr. Staples's house 
 he saw that reverend gentleman sneak out of his back gate, 
 and, without seeing the two others, join in the inquisitorial 
 procession. But the events of the past day had had their 
 quickening effect upon Johnny's intellect. A brilliantly 
 wicked thought struck him. As he was passing a perfectly 
 bare spot on the road he managed, without being noticed, 
 
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 227 
 
 io cast his glittering flake of gold on the sterile ground at 
 the other side of the road, where the minister's path would 
 lie. Then, at a point where the road turned, he concealed 
 himself in the brush. The Eeverend Mr. Staples hurried 
 forward as he lost sight of the boy in the sweep of the road, 
 but halted suddenly. Johnny's heart leaped. The minis- 
 ter looked around him, stooped, picked up the piece of gold, 
 thrust it hurriedly in his waistcoat pocket, and continued 
 his way. When he reached the turn of the road, before 
 passing it, he availed himself of his solitude to pause and 
 again examine the treasure, and again return it to his 
 pocket. But, to Johnny's surprise, he here turned back, 
 walked quickly to the spot where he had found it, and care- 
 fully examined the locality, kicking the loose soil and stones 
 around with his feet until he had apparently satisfied him- 
 self that there was no more, and no gold-bearing indications 
 in the soil. At this moment, however, the two other in- 
 quisitors came in sight, and Mr. Staples turned quickly and 
 hurried on. Before he had passed the brush where Johnny 
 was concealed, the two men overtook him and exchanged 
 greetings. They both spoke of " Johnny " and his crime ; 
 of having followed him with a view of finding out where 
 he went to procure his gold, and of his having again evaded 
 them. Mr. Staples agreed with their purpose, but, to 
 Johnny's intense astonishment, said nothing about his own 
 find ! When they had passed on, the boy slipped from 
 his place of concealment and followed them at a distance 
 until his own house came in view. Here the two men 
 diverged, but the minister continued on towards the other 
 " store " and post-office on the main road. 
 
 He would have told his mother what he had seen, and 
 his surprise that the minister had not spoken of finding the 
 gold to the other men, but he was checked, first by his mo- 
 ther's attitude towards him, which was clearly the same as 
 the minister's, and, second, by the knowledge that she 
 
228 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 
 
 would have condemned his dropping the gold in the min- 
 ister's path, — though he knew not why, — or asked his 
 reason for it, which he was equally sure he could not formu- 
 late, though he also knew not why. But that evening, as 
 he was returning from the spring with water, he heard the 
 minister's voice in the kitchen. It had heen a day of sur- 
 prises and revelations to Johnny, hut the climax seemed to 
 be reached as he entered the room ; and he now stood trans- 
 fixed and open-mouthed as he heard Mr. Staples say : — 
 
 " It 's all very well, Sister Medliker, to comfort your 
 heart with vain hopes and delusions. A mother's leanin's 
 is the soul's deceivin's, — and ye 're leanin' on a broken reed. 
 If the boy truly found that gold he 'd have come to ye and 
 said : ' Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways 
 and byways ; rejoice and be exceedin' glad ! ' and hev 
 poured it inter yer lap. Yes," continued Mr. Staples ag- 
 gressively to the boy, as he saw him stagger back with his 
 pail in hand, " yes, sir, that would have been the course of 
 a Christian child ! " 
 
 For a moment Johnny felt the blood boiling in his ears, 
 and a thousand words seemed crowding in his throat. 
 " Then " — he gasped and choked. " Then " — he began 
 again, and stopped with the suffocation of indignation. 
 
 But Mr. Staples saw in his agitation only an awakened 
 conscience, and, nudging Mrs. Medliker, leaned eagerly for- 
 ward for a reply. " Then," he repeated, with suave en- 
 couragement, " go on, Johnny ! Speak it out ! " 
 
 " Then," said Johnny, in a high, shrill falsetto that 
 startled them, " then wot for did you pick up that piece 
 o' gold in the road this arternoon, and say nothin' of it to 
 the men who followed ye ? Ye did ; I seed yer ! And ye 
 did n't say nothin' of it to anybody ; and ye ain't sayin' 
 nothin' of it now ter maw ! and ye 've got it in yer vest' 
 And it 's mine, and I dropped it! Gimme it." 
 
 Astonishment, confusion, and rage swelled and empur 
 
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 229 
 
 pled Staples's face. It was his turn to gasp for breath. 
 Yet in the same moment he made an angry dash at the boy. 
 But Mrs. Medliker interfered. This was an entirely new 
 feature in the case. Great is the power of gold. A single 
 glance at the minister's confusion had convinced her that 
 Johnny's accusation was true, and it was Johnny's money 
 — constructively hers — that the minister was concealing. 
 His mere possession of that gold had more effect in straight- 
 ening out her loose logic than any sense of hypocrisy. 
 
 " You leave the boy be, Brother Staples," said Mrs. 
 Medliker sharply. " I reckon wot 's his is his'n, spite of 
 whar he got it." 
 
 Mr. Staples saw his mistake, and smiled painfully as he 
 fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. " I believe I did pick 
 up something," he said, " that may or may not have been 
 gold, but I have dropped it again or thrown it away ; and 
 really it is of little concern in our moral lesson. For we 
 have only his word that it was really his ! How do we 
 know it ? " 
 
 " Cos it has my marks on it," said Johnny quickly ; " it 
 has a criss-cross I scratched on it. I kin tell it good enuf." 
 
 Mr. Staples turned suddenly pale and rose. " Of course," 
 he said to Mrs. Medliker with painful dignity, " if you set 
 so much value upon a mere worldly trifle, I will endeavor 
 to find it. It may be in my other pocket." He backed out 
 of the door in his usual fashion, but instantly went over 
 to the post-office, where, as he afterwards alleged, he had 
 changed the ore for coin in a moment of inadvertence. But 
 Johnny's hieroglyphics were found on it, and in some mys- 
 terious way the story got about. It had two effects that 
 Johnny did not dream of. It had forced his mother into 
 an attitude of complicity with him ; it had raised up for 
 him a single friend. Jake Stielitzer, quartz miner, had de- 
 clared that Burnt Spring was " playing it low down " on 
 Johnny ! That if they really believed that the boy took 
 
230 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 
 
 gold from their sluice boxes, it was their duty to watch 
 their claims and not the boy. That it was only their ex- 
 cuse for " snooping " after him, and they only wanted to 
 find his "strike," which was as much his as their claims 
 were their own ! All this with great proficiency of epi- 
 thet, but also a still more recognized proficiency with the 
 revolver, which made the former respected. 
 
 " That 's the real nigger in the fence, Johnny," said 
 Jake, twirling his huge mustache, " and they only want to 
 know where your lead is, — and don't yer tell 'em ! Let 
 'em bile over with waitin' first, and that '11 put the fire out. 
 Does yer pop know ? " 
 
 " No," said Johnny. 
 
 " Nor yer mar ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 Jake whistled. " Then it 's only you, yourself ? " 
 
 Johnny nodded violently, and his brown eyes glistened. 
 
 " It 's a heap of information to be packed away in a chap 
 of your size, Johnny. Makes you feel kinder crowded 
 inside, eh ? Must keep it to yourself, eh ? " 
 
 " Have to," said Johnny, with a gasp that was a little 
 like a sigh. 
 
 It caused Jake to look at him attentively. " See here, 
 Johnny," he said, "now ef ye wanted to tell somebody 
 about it, — somebody as was a friend of yours, — ■. me, f 'r 
 instance ? " 
 
 Johnny slowly withdrew the freckled, warty little hand 
 that had been resting confidingly in Jake's and gently 
 sidled away from him. Jake burst into a loud laugh. 
 
 "All right, Johnny boy," he said, with. a hearty slap 
 upon the boy's back, " keep yer head shut ef yer wanter I 
 Only ef anybody else comes bummin' round ye, like this, 
 jest turn him over to me, and I '11 lift him outer his 
 boots I " 
 
 Jake kept his word, and his distance thereafter. Indeed, 
 
THE YOUNGEST PEOSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 231 
 
 it was after this first and last conversation with him that 
 the influence of his powerful protection was so strong that 
 all active criticisms of Johnny ceased, and only a respectful 
 surveillance of his movements lingered in the settlement. 
 I do not know that this was altogether distasteful to the 
 child ; it would have been strange, indeed, if he had not 
 felt at times exalted by this mysterious influence that he 
 seemed to have acquired over his fellow creatures. If he 
 were merely hunting blackberries in the brush, he was al- 
 ways sure, sooner or later, to find a ready hand offered to 
 help and accompany him ; if he trapped a squirrel or 
 tracked down a wild bees' hoard, he generally found a 
 smiling face watching him. Prospectors sometimes stopped 
 him with : " Well, Johnny, as a chipper and fa'r-minded boy, 
 now whar would you advise us to dig ? " 1 grieve to say 
 that Johnny was not above giving his advice, — and that 
 it was invariably of not the smallest use to the recipient. 
 
 And so the days passed. Mr. Medliker's absence was 
 protracted, and the hour of retribution and punishment still 
 seemed faraway. The blackberries ripened and dried upon 
 the hillside, and the squirrels had gathered their hoards ; 
 the bees no longer came and went through the thicket, but 
 Johnny was still in daily mysterious possession of his grains 
 of gold ! And then one day — after the fate of all heroic 
 humanity — his secret was imperiled by the blandishments 
 and machinations of the all-powerful sex. 
 
 Florry Fraser was a little playmate of Johnny's. Why, 
 with his doubts of his elder sister's intelligence and integ- 
 rity, he should have selected a child two years younger, and 
 of singular simplicity, was, like his other secret, his own. 
 What she saw in him to attract her was equalty strange ; 
 possibly it may have been his brown-gooseberry eyes or his 
 warts ; but she was quite content to trot after him, like a 
 young squaw, carrying his " bow-arrow," or his " trap," 
 supremely satisfied to share his woodland knowledge or his 
 
232 THE YOUNGEST PEOSPECTOE IN OALAVEEAS 
 
 scanter confidences. For nobody who knew Johnny sus» 
 pected that she was privy to his great secret. Howbeit, 
 wherever his ragged straw hat, thatched with his tawny hair, 
 was detected in the brush, the little nankeen sunbonnet of 
 Florry was sure to be discerned not far behind. For two 
 weeks they had not seen each other. A fell disease, nurtured 
 in ignorance, dirt, and carelessness, was striking right and 
 left through the valleys of the foothills, and Florry, whose 
 sister had just recovered from an attack, had been seques- 
 tered with her. But one morning, as Johnny was bringing 
 his wood from the stack behind the house, he saw, to his 
 intense delight, a picket of the road fence slipped aside by 
 a small red hand, and a moment after Florry squeezed her- 
 self through the narrow opening. Her round cheeks were 
 slightly flushed, and there was a scrap of red flannel around 
 her plump throat that heightened the whiteness of her skin. 
 
 " My ! " said Johnny, with half-real, half-affected admi- 
 ration, " how splendiferous ! " 
 
 " Sore froat," said Florry in a whisper, trying to insert 
 her two chubby fingers between the bandage and her chin. 
 " I mussent go outer the garden patch ! I mussent play in 
 the woods, for I '11 be seed ! I mussent stay long, for 
 they '11 ketch me outer bed ! " 
 
 " Outer bed ? " repeated Johnny, with intense admira- 
 tion, as he perceived for the first time that Florry was in a 
 flannel nightgown, with bare legs and feet. 
 
 " Ess." 
 
 Whereupon these two delightful imps chuckled and 
 wagged their heads with a sincere enjoyment that this mere 
 world could not give ! Johnny slipped off his shoes and 
 stockings and hurriedly put them on the infant Florry, se- 
 curing them from falling off with a thick cord. This added 
 to their enjoyment. 
 
 " We can play cubby house in the stone heap," whispered 
 Florry. 
 
THE YOUNGEST PEOSPECTOE IN CALAVEEAS 233 
 
 " Hoi' on till I tote in this wood," said Johnny. " You 
 hide till I come hack." 
 
 Johnny swiftly delivered his load with an alacrity he had 
 never shown before. Then they played " cubby house " — 
 not fifty feet from the cabin, with a hushed but guilty sat- 
 isfaction. But presently it palled. Their domain was too 
 circumscribed for variety. " Eobinson Crusoe up the tree " 
 was impossible, as being visible from the house windows. 
 Johnny was at his wits' end. Florry was fretful and fas- 
 tidious. Then a great thought struck him and left him 
 cold. " If I show you a show, you won't tell ? " he said 
 suddenly. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Wish-yer-ma-die ? " 
 
 " Ess." 
 
 " Got any penny ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Got any slate pencil ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Ain't got any pins nor nuthin' ? You kin go in for a 
 pin." 
 
 But Morry had none of childhood's fluctuating currency 
 with her, having, so to speak, no pockets. 
 
 " Well," said Johnny, brightening up, " ye kin go in for 
 luv." 
 
 The child clipped him with her small arms and smiled, 
 and, Johnny leading the way, they crept on all fours through 
 the thick ferns until they paused before a deep fissure in the 
 soil half overgrown with bramble. In its depths they could 
 hear the monotonous trickle of water. It was really the 
 source of the spring that afterwards reappeared fifty yards 
 nearer the road, and trickled into an unfailing pool known 
 as the Burnt Spring, from the brown color of the surround- 
 ing bracken. It was the water supply of the ranch, and 
 the reason for Mr. Medliker's original selection of that site. 
 
234 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 
 
 Johnny lingered for an instant, looked carefully around, 
 and then lowered himself into the fissure. A moment latei 
 he reached up his arms to Florry, lowered her also, and hoth 
 disappeared from view. Yet from time to time their voices 
 came faintly from below — with the gurgle of water — as 
 of festive gnomes at play. 
 
 At the end of ten minutes they reappeared, a little muddy, 
 a little bedraggled, but flushed and happy. There were two 
 pink spots on Florry's cheeks, and she clasped something 
 tightly in her little red fist. 
 
 " There," said Johnny, when they were seated in the 
 straw again, " now mind you don't tell." 
 
 But here suddenly Florry's lips began to quiver, and she 
 gave vent to a small howl of anguish. 
 
 " You ain't bit by a trant'ler nor nuthin' ? " said Johnny 
 anxiously. " Hush up ! " 
 
 « N_o— o ! But " — 
 
 " But what ? " said Johnny. 
 
 " Mar said I must tell ! Mar said I was to fin' out where 
 you get the truly gold ! Mar said I was to get you to take 
 me," howled Florry, in an agony of remorse. 
 
 Johnny gasped. " You Injin ! " he began. 
 
 " But I won't — Johnny ! " said Florry, clutching his leg 
 frantically. " I won't and I shan't ! I ain't no Injin ! " 
 
 Then, between her sobs, she told him how her mother 
 and Mr. Staples had said that she was to ask Johnny the 
 next time they met to take her where they found the "truly 
 gold," and she was to remember where it was and to tell 
 them. And they were going to give her a new dolly and a 
 hunk of gingerbread. " But I won't — and I shan't ! " she 
 said passionately. She was quite pale again. 
 
 Johnny was convinced, but thoughtful. " Tell 'em," he 
 said hoarsely, — " tell 'em a big whopper ! They won't know 
 no better. They '11 never guess where." And he briefly 
 tecounted the wild-goose chase he had given the minister. 
 
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 235 
 
 " And get the dolly and the cake," said Florry, her eyes 
 chining through her tears. 
 
 " In course," said Johnny. " They '11 get the dolly hack, 
 but you kin have eated the cake first." They looked at 
 each other, and their eyes danced together over this heaven- 
 sent inspiration. Then Johnny took off her shoes and 
 stockings, rubbed her cold feet with his dirty handkerchief, 
 and said : " Now you trot over to your mar ! " 
 
 He helped her through the loose picket of the fence, and 
 was turning away when her faint voice again called him. 
 
 " Johnny ! " 
 
 He turned back ; she was standing on the other side of 
 the fence holding out her arms to him. He went to her 
 with shining eyes, lifted her up, and from her hot but lov- 
 ing little lips took a fatal kiss. 
 
 For only an hour later Mrs. Fraser found Florry in her 
 bed, tossing with a high fever and a light head. She was 
 talking of " Johnny " and " gold," and had a flake of the 
 metal in her tiny fist. When Mr. Staples was sent for, and 
 with the mother and father hung anxiously above her bed, 
 to their eager questioning they could only find out that 
 Florry had been to a high mountain, ever so far away, and 
 on the top of it there was gold lying around, and a shining 
 figure was giving it away to the people. 
 
 " And who were the people, Florry dear," said Mr. 
 Staples persuasively ; " anybody ye know here ? " 
 
 " They woz angels," said Florry, with a frightened glance 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 I grieve to say that Mr. Staples did not look as pleased 
 at the celestial vision as he might have, and poor Mrs. 
 Fraser probably saw that in her child's face which drove 
 other things from her mind. Yet Mr. Staples persisted : — 
 
 " And who led you to this beautiful mountain ? Was 
 it Johnny ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
236 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 
 
 "Who then?" 
 
 Florry opened her eyes on the speaker. " I fink it was 
 Dod," she said, and closed them again. 
 
 But here Dr. Duchesne hurried in, and after a single 
 glance at the child hustled Mr. Staples from the room. 
 For there were grave complications that puzzled him. 
 Florry seemed easier and quieter under his kindly voice and 
 touch, but . did not speak again, — and so, slowly sinking, 
 passed away that night in a dreamless sleep. This was 
 followed by a mad panic at Burnt Spring the next day, and 
 Mrs. Medliker fled with her two girls to Sacramento, leav- 
 ing Johnny, ostensibly strong and active, to keep house 
 until his father's return. But Mr. Medliker's return was 
 again delayed, and in the epidemic, which had now taken a 
 fast hold of the settlement, Johnny's secret — and indeed 
 the boy himself — was quite forgotten. Only on Mr. Med- 
 liker's arrival was it known that Johnny had been lying 
 dangerously ill, alone, in the abandoned house. In his 
 strange reticence and firmness of purpose he had kept his 
 sufferings to himself, — as he had his other secret, — and 
 they were revealed only in the wasted, hollow figure that 
 feebly opened the door to his father. 
 
 On which intelligence Mr. Staples was, as usual, promptlj 
 on the spot with his story of Johnny's secret to the father 
 and his usual eager questioning to the fast-sinking boy. 
 
 " And now, Johnny," he said, leaning over the bed 
 " tell us all. There is One from whom no secrets are hid. 
 Remember, too, that dear Florry, who is now with the 
 angels, has already confessed." 
 
 Perhaps it was because Johnny, even at that moment, 
 hated the man ; perhaps it was because at that moment he 
 loved and believed in Florry, or perhaps it was only that 
 because at that moment he was nearer the greater Truth than 
 his questioner, but he said, in a husky voice, " You lie ! " 
 
 Staples drew back with a flushed face, but lips that 
 
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS 237 
 
 writhed in a pained and still persistent eagerness. " But, 
 Johnny, at least tell us where — wh — wow — wow.'' 
 
 I am obliged to admit that these undignified accents 
 came from Mr. Staples's own lips, and were due to the sud- 
 den pressure of Mr. Medliker's arm around his throat. 
 The teamster was irascible and prompt through much mule- 
 driving, and his arm was, from the same reason, strong and 
 sinewy. Mr. Staples felt himself garroted and dragged 
 from the room, and only came to under the stars outside, 
 with the hoarse voice of Mr. Medliker in his ears : — 
 
 " You 're a minister of the gospel, I know, but ef ye say 
 another word to my Johnny, I '11 knock the gospel stuffin' 
 out of ye. Ye hear me ! / 've driven -mules afore ! " 
 
 He then strode back into the room. " Ye need n't 
 answer, Johnny, he 's gone." 
 
 But so, too, had Johnny, for he never answered the 
 question in this world, nor, please God, was he required to 
 in the next. He lay still and dead. The community was 
 scandalized the next day when Mr. Medliker sent for a 
 minister from Sacramento to officiate at his child's funeral, 
 in place of Mr. Staples, and then the subject was dropped. 
 
 But the influence of Johnny's hidden treasure still re- 
 mained as a superstition in the locality. Prospecting par- 
 ties were continually made up to discover the unknown 
 claim, but always from evidence and data altogether apo- 
 cryphal. It was even alleged that a miner had one night 
 seen the little figures of Johnny and Florry walking over 
 the hilltop, hand in hand, but that they had vanished 
 among the stars at the very moment he thought he had 
 discovered their secret. And then it was forgotten; the 
 prosperous Mr. Medliker, now the proprietor of a stagecoach 
 route, moved away to Sacramento ; Medliker's Ranch be- 
 came a station for changing horses, and, as the new rail- 
 way in time superseded even that, sank into a blacksmith's 
 
238 THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOK IN CALAVERAS 
 
 shop on the outskirts of the new town of Burnt Spring. 
 And then one day, six years after, news fell as a bolt from 
 the blue ! 
 
 It was thus recorded in the county paper : " A piece of 
 rare good fortune, involving, it is said, the development of a 
 lead of extraordinary value, has lately fallen to the lot of 
 Mr. John Silsbee, the popular blacksmith, on the site of the 
 old Medliker Ranch. In clearing out the failing water-course 
 known as Burnt Spring, Mr. Silsbee came upon a rich ledge 
 or pocket at the actual source of the spring, — a fissure in 
 the ground a few rods from the road. The present yield 
 has been estimated to be from eight to ten thousand dollars. 
 But the event is considered as one of the most remarkable 
 instances of the vagaries of ' prospecting ' ever known, as 
 this valuable ' pot-hole ' existed undisturbed for eight years 
 not fifty yards from the old cabin that was in former times 
 the residence of J. Medliker, Esq., and the station of the 
 Pioneer Stage Company, and was utterly unknown and un- 
 suspected by the previous inhabitants ! Verily truth is 
 stranger than fiction J " 
 
A TALE OF THEEE TEUANTS 
 
 The schoolmaster at Hemlock Hill was troubled that 
 morning. Three of his boys were missing. This was not only 
 a notable deficit in a roll-call of twenty, but the absentees 
 were his three most original and distinctive scholars. He 
 had received no preliminary warning or excuse. Nor could 
 he attribute their absence to any common local detention 
 or difficulty of travel. They lived widely apart and in 
 different directions. Neither were they generally known 
 as " chums," or comrades, who might have entered into an 
 unhallowed combination to " play hookey." 
 
 He looked at the vacant places before him with a con- 
 cern which his other scholars little shared, having, after 
 their first lively curiosity, not unmixed with some envy of 
 the derelicts, apparently forgotten them. He missed the 
 cropped head and inquisitive glances of Jackson Tribbs on 
 the third bench, the red hair and brown eyes of Providence 
 Smith in the corner, and there was a blank space in the 
 first bench where Julian Fleming, a lanky giant of seven- 
 teen, had sat. Still, it would not do to show his concern 
 openly, and, as became a man who was at least three years the 
 senior of the eldest, Julian Fleming, he reflected that they 
 were " only boys," and that their friends were probably igno- 
 rant of the good he was doing them, and so dismissed the 
 subject. Nevertheless, it struck him as wonderful how the 
 little world beneath him got on without them. Hanky 
 Eogers, bully, who had been kept in wholesome check by 
 Julian Fleming, was lively and exuberant, and his conduct 
 was quietly accepted by the whole school ; Johnny Steb- 
 bins, Tribbs's bosom friend, consorted openly with Tribbs's 
 
240 A TALE OF THEEE TRUANTS 
 
 particular enemy ; some of the girls were singularly gay 
 and conceited. It was evident that some superior mascu- 
 line oppression had been removed. 
 
 He was particularly struck by this last fact when, the 
 next morning, no news coming of the absentees, he was 
 impelled to question his flock somewhat precisely concern- 
 ing them. There was the usual shy silence which follows 
 a general inquiry from the teacher's desk ; the children 
 looked at one another, giggled nervously, and said nothing. 
 
 " Can you give me any idea as to what might have kept 
 them away ? " said the master. 
 
 Hanky Eogers looked quickly around, began, "Playin' 
 hook — " in a loud voice, but stopped suddenly without 
 finishing the word, and became inaudible. The master saw 
 fit to ignore him. 
 
 " Bee-huntin'/' said Annie Roker vivaciously. 
 
 " Who is ? " asked the master. 
 
 "Provy Smith, of course. Allers bee-huntin'. Gety 
 lots o' honey. Got two full combs in his desk last week. 
 He 's awful on bees and honey.' Ain't he, Jinny ? " This 
 in a high voice to her sister. 
 
 The younger Miss Eoker, thus appealed to, was heard to 
 murmur that of all the sneakin' bee-hunters she had ever 
 seed, Provy Smith was the worst. " And squirrels — for 
 nuts," she added. 
 
 The master became attentive, — a clue seemed probable 
 here. " Would Tribbs and Fleming be likely to go with 
 him ? " he asked. 
 
 A significant silence followed. The master felt that the 
 children recognized a doubt of this, knowing the boys were 
 not " chums ; " possibly they also recognized something 
 incriminating to them, and with characteristic freemasonry 
 looked at one another and were dumb. 
 
 He asked no further questions, but, when school was 
 dismissed, mounted his horse and started for the dwelling 
 
A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 241 
 
 of the nearest culprit, Jackson Tribbs, four miles distant. 
 He had often admired the endurance of the boy, who had 
 accomplished the distance, including the usual meanderings 
 of a country youth, twice a day, on foot, in all weathers, 
 with no diminution of spirits or energy. He was still 
 more surprised when he found it a mountain road, and that 
 the house lay well up on the ascent of the pass. Autumn 
 was visible only in a few flaming sumacs set among the 
 climbing pines, and here, in a little clearing to the right, 
 appeared the dwelling he was seeking. 
 
 "Tribbses," or " Tribbs's Kun," was devoted to the 
 work of cutting down the pines midway on a long regularly 
 sloping mountain-side, which allowed the trunks, after 
 they were trimmed and cut into suitable lengths, to be slid 
 down through rude runs, or artificial channels, into the 
 valley below, where they were collected by teams and con- 
 veyed to the nearest mills. The business was simple in 
 the extreme, and was carried on by Tribbs senior, two men 
 with saws and axes, and the natural laws of gravitation. 
 The house was a long log cabin ; several sheds roofed with 
 bark or canvas seemed consistent with the still lingering 
 summer and the heated odors of the pines, but were strangely 
 incongruous to those white patches on the table-land and 
 the white tongue stretching from the ridge to the valley. 
 But the master was familiar with those Sierran contrasts, 
 and as he had never ascended the trail before, it might be 
 only the usual prospect of the dwellers there. At this 
 moment Mr. Tribbs appeared from the cabin, with his axe 
 on his shoulder. Nodding carelessly to the master, he was 
 moving away, when the latter stopped him. 
 
 " Is Jackson here ? " he asked. 
 
 " No," said the father half impatiently, still moving on. 
 " Hain't seen him since yesterday." 
 
 " Nor has he been at school," said the master, " eithel 
 yesterday or to-day." 
 
242 A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 
 
 Mr. Tribbs looked puzzled and grieved. " Now I reck- 
 oned you had kep' him in for some devilment of his'n, or 
 lessons." 
 
 "Not all night!" said the master, somewhat indignant 
 at this presumption of his arbitrary functions. 
 
 " Humph ! " said Mr. Tribbs. " Mariar ! " Mrs. Tribbs 
 made her appearance in the doorway. " The schoolmaster 
 allows that Jackson ain't bin to school at all." Then, 
 turning to the master, he added, " Thar ! you settle, it be- 
 tween ye," and quietly walked away. 
 
 Mrs. Tribbs looked by no means satisfied with or inter- 
 ested in the proposed tete-a-tete. " Hev ye looked in the 
 bresh " (i. e., brush or underwood) " for him ? " she said 
 querulously. 
 
 " No," said the master, " I came here first. There are 
 two other boys missing, — Providence Smith and Julian 
 Fleming. Did either of them " — 
 
 But Mrs. Tribbs had interrupted him with a gesture of 
 impatient relief. " Oh, that 's all, is it ? Playin' hookey 
 together, in course. 'Scuse me, I must go back to my 
 bakin'." She turned away, but stopped suddenly, touched, 
 as the master fondly believed, by some tardy maternal soli- 
 citude. But she only said : " When he does come back, 
 you just give him a whalin', will ye ? " and vanished into 
 her kitchen. 
 
 The master rode away, half ashamed of his foolish con- 
 cern for the derelicts. But he determined to try Smith's 
 father, who owned a small rancho lower down on a spur of 
 the same ridge. But the spur was really nearer Hemlock 
 Hill, and could have been reached more directly by a road 
 from there. He, however, kept along the ridge, and after 
 half an hour's ride was convinced that Jackson Tribbs 
 could have communicated with Provy Smith without com- 
 ing nearer Hemlock Hill, and this revived his former 
 belief that they were together. He found the paternal 
 
A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 243 
 
 Smith engaged in hoeing potatoes in a stony field. The 
 look of languid curiosity with which he had regarded the 
 approach of the master changed to one of equally languid 
 aggression as he learned the object of his visit. 
 
 " Wot are ye comin' to me for ? I ain't runnin' your 
 school," he said slowly and aggressively. " I started Pro- 
 vidence all right for it mornin' afore last, since when I 
 never set eyes on him. That lets me out. My business, 
 young feller, is lookin' arter the ranch. Yours, I reckon, 
 is lookin' arter your scholars." 
 
 " I thought it my business to tell you your son was 
 absent from school," said the master coldly, turning away. 
 " If you are satisfied, I have nothing more to say." Nev- 
 ertheless, for the moment he was so startled by this remark- 
 able theory of his own responsibility in the case that he 
 quite accepted the father's callousness, — or rather it 
 seemed to him that his unfortunate charges more than ever 
 needed his protection. There was still the chance of his 
 hearing some news from Julian Fleming's father ; he lived 
 at some distance, in the valley on the opposite side of 
 Hemlock Hill ; and thither the master made his way. 
 Luckily he had not gone far before he met Mr. Fleming, 
 who was a teamster, en route. Like the fathers of the 
 other truants, he was also engaged in his vocation. But, 
 unlike the others, Fleming senior was jovial and talkative. 
 He pulled up his long team promptly, received the master's 
 news with amused interest, and an invitation to spirituous 
 refreshment from a demijohn in his wagon. 
 
 " Me and the ole woman kind o' spekilated that Jule 
 might hev been over with Aunt Marthy; but don't you 
 worry, Mr. Schoolmaster. They 're limbs, every one o' 
 them, but they '11 fetch up somewhere, all square ! Just 
 you put two fingers o' that corn juice inside ye, and let 
 'em slide. Ye did n't hear what the 'lekshun news was 
 when ye was at Smith's, did ye ? " 
 
844 A TALE OF THREE TKUANTS 
 
 The master had not inquired. He confessed he had heen 
 worried about the boys. He had even- thought that Julian 
 might have met with an accident. 
 
 Mr. Fleming wiped his mouth, with a humorous affecta- 
 tion of concern. " Met with an accident ? Yes, I reckon 
 not one accident, but two of 'em. These yer accidents 
 Jule 's met with had two legs, and were mighty lively acci- 
 dents, you bet, and took him off with 'em ; or mebbe they 
 had four legs, and he 's huntin' 'em yet. Accidents ! 
 Now I never thought o' that ! Well, when you come across 
 him and them accidents, you just whale 'em, all three ! 
 And ye won't take another drink ? Well, so long, then ! 
 Gee up ! " He rolled away, with a laugh, in the heavy 
 dust kicked up by his plunging mules, and the master made 
 his way back to the schoolhouse. His quest for that day 
 was ended. 
 
 But the next morning he was both' astounded and 
 relieved, at the assembling of school, to find the three tru- 
 ants back in their places. His urgent questioning of them 
 brought only the one and same response from each : " Got 
 lost on the ridge." He further gathered that they had 
 slept out for two nights, and were together all the time, 
 but nothing further, and no details were given. The mas- 
 ter was puzzled. They evidently expected punishment ; 
 that was no doubt also the wish of their parents ; but if 
 their story was true, it was a serious question if he ought 
 to inflict it. There was no means of testing their state- 
 ment ; there was equally none by which he could contro- 
 vert it. It was evident that the whole school accepted it 
 without doubt ; whether they were in possession of details 
 gained from the truants themselves which they had with- 
 held from him, or whether from some larger complicity 
 with the, culprits, he could not say. He told them gravely 
 that he should withhold equally their punishment and their 
 pardon until he could satisfy himself of their veracity, and 
 
A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 245 
 
 that there had heen no premeditation in their act. They 
 seemed relieved, but here, again, he could not tell whether 
 it sprung from confidence in their own integrity, or merely 
 from youthful hopefulness that delayed retribution never 
 arrived ! 
 
 It was a month before their secret was fully disclosed. 
 It was slowly evolved from corroborating circumstances, but 
 always with a shy reluctance from the boys themselves, and 
 a surprise that any one should think it of importance. It 
 was gathered partly from details picked up at recess or on 
 the playground, from the voluntary testimony of teamsters 
 and packers, from a record in the county newspaper, but 
 always shaping itself into a consecutive and harmonious 
 narrative. 
 
 It was a story so replete with marvelous escape and 
 adventure that the master hesitated to accept it in its 
 entirety until after it had long become a familiar history, 
 and was even forgotten by the actors themselves. And 
 even now he transcribes it more from the circumstances that 
 surrounded it than from a hope that the story will be 
 believed. 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED 
 
 Master Provy Smith had started out that eventful morn- 
 ing with the intention of fighting Master Jackson Tribbs 
 for the " Kingship " of Table Ridge, — a trifling territory 
 of ten leagues square, — Tribbs having infringed on his 
 boundaries and claimed absolute sovereignty over the whole 
 mountain range. Julian Fleming was present as referee 
 and bottle-holder. The battle-ground selected was the high- 
 est part of the ridge. The hour was six o'clock, which 
 would allow them time to reach school before its opening, 
 with all traces of their conflict removed. The air was crisp 
 and cold, — a trifle colder than usual, — and there was a 
 singular thickening of the sun's rays on the ridge, which 
 
246 A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 
 
 made the distant peaks indistinct and ghostlike. However, 
 the two combatants stripped "to the buff," and Fleming 
 patronizingly took position at the " corner," leaning upon 
 a rifle, which, by reason of his superior years, and the wil- 
 derness he was obliged to traverse in going to school, his 
 father had lent him to carry. It was that day a providen- 
 tial weapon. 
 
 Suddenly Fleming uttered the word " Sho ! " The two 
 combatants paused in their first "squaring off" to see, to 
 their surprise, that their referee had faced round, with his 
 gun in his hand, and was staring in another direction. 
 
 " B'ar ! " shouted the three voices together. A huge 
 bear, followed by her cubs, was seen stumbling awkwardly 
 away to the right, making for the timber below. In an 
 instant the boys had hurried into their jackets again, and 
 the glory of fight was forgotten in the fever of the chase. 
 Why should they pound each other when there was some- 
 thing to really kill? They started in instant pursuit, 
 Julian leading. 
 
 But the wind was now keen and bitter in their faces, and 
 that peculiar thickening of the air which they had noticed 
 had become first a dark blue and then a whitening pall, in 
 which the bear was lost. They still kept on. Suddenly 
 Julian felt himself struck between the eyes by what seemed 
 a snowball, and his companions were as quickly spattered by 
 gouts of monstrous clinging snowflakes. Others as quickly 
 followed, — it was not snowing, it was snowballing. They 
 at first laughed, affecting to retaliate with these whirling, 
 flying masses shaken like clinging feathers from a pillow ; 
 but in a few seconds they were covered from head to foot 
 by snow, their limbs impeded or pinioned against them by 
 its weight, their breath gone. They stopped blindly, breath- 
 lessly. Then, with a common instinct, they turned back. 
 But the next moment they heard Julian cry, " Look out ! " 
 Coming towards them out of the storm was the bear, who 
 
A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 247 
 
 had evidently turned back by the same instinct. An un- 
 governable impulse seized the younger boys, and they fled. 
 But Julian stopped with leveled rifle. The bear stopped 
 too, with, sullen, staring eyes. But the eyes that glanced 
 along the rifle were young, true, and steady. Julian fired. 
 The hot smoke was swept back by the gale into his face, 
 but the bear turned and disappeared in the storm again. 
 Julian ran on to where his companions had halted at the 
 report, a little ashamed of their cowardice. " Keep on that 
 way ! " he shouted hoarsely. " No use tryin' to go where 
 the b'ar could n't. Keep on ! " 
 
 " Keep on — whar ? There ain't no trail — no nuthin' ! " 
 said Jackson querulously, to hold down a rising fear. It 
 was true. The trail had long since disappeared ; even their 
 footprints of a moment before were filled up by the piling 
 snow ; they were isolated in this stony upland, high in air, 
 without a rock or tree to guide them across its vast white 
 level. They were bitterly cold and benumbed. The stimu- 
 lus of the storm and chase had passed, but Julian kept driv- 
 ing them before him, himself driven along by the furious 
 blast, yet trying to keep some vague course along the waste. 
 So an hour passed. Then the wind seemed to have changed, 
 or else they had traveled in a circle, — they knew not which, 
 but the snow was in their faces now. But, worst of all, the 
 snow had changed too ; it no longer fell in huge blue flakes, 
 but in millions of stinging gray granules. Julian's face 
 grew hard and his eyes bright. He knew it was no longer 
 a snow-squall, but a lasting storm. He stopped ; the boys 
 tumbled against him. He looked at them with a strange 
 smile. 
 
 " Hev you two made up ? " he said. 
 
 "No— o!" 
 
 " Make up, then." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Shake hands." 
 
248 A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 
 
 They clasped each other's red, benumbed fingers and 
 laughed, albeit a little frightened at Julian. " Go on ! " he 
 said curtly. 
 
 They went on dazedly, stupidly, for another hour. 
 
 Suddenly Provy Smith's keen eyes sparkled. He pointed 
 to a singular irregular mound of snow before them, plainly 
 seen above the dreary level. Julian ran to it with a cry, 
 and began wildly digging. " I knew I hit her," he cried, 
 as he brushed the snow from a huge and hairy leg. It was 
 the bear, — dead, but not yet cold. She had succumbed with 
 her huge back to the blast, the snow piling a bulwark be- 
 hind her, where it had slowly roofed her in. The half- 
 frozen lads threw themselves fearlessly against the furry 
 coat and crept between the legs, nestling themselves beneath 
 the still warm body with screams of joy. The snow they 
 had thrown back increased the bulwark, and, drifting over 
 it, in a few moments inclosed them in a thin shell of snow. 
 Thoroughly exhausted, after a few grunts of satisfaction, a 
 deep sleep fell upon them, from which they were awakened 
 only by the pangs of hunger. Alas ! their dinners — the 
 school dinners — had been left on the inglorious battlefield. 
 Nevertheless, they talked of eating the bear if it came to 
 the worst. They would have tried it even then, but they 
 were far above # the belt of timber ; they had matches — what 
 boy has not ? — but no wood. Still, they were reassured, 
 and even delighted, with this prospect, and so fell asleep 
 again, stewing with the dead bear in the half -impervious 
 snow, and woke up in the morning ravenous, yet to see the 
 sun shining in their faces through the melted snow, and 
 for Jackson Tribbs to quickly discover, four miles away as 
 the crow flies, the cabin of his father among the flaming 
 sumacs. 
 
 They started up in the glare of the sun, which at first 
 almost blinded them. They then discovered that they were 
 in a depression of the table-land that sloped before them te 
 
A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 249 
 
 a deep gully in the mountain-side, which again dropped into 
 the canon below. The trail they had lost, they now re- 
 membered, must be near this edge. But it was still hidden, 
 and in seeking it there was danger of some fatal misstep in 
 the treacherous snow. Nevertheless, they sallied out bravely, 
 although they would fain have stopped to skin the bear, but 
 Julian's mandate was peremptory. They spread themselves 
 along the ridge, at times scraping the loose snow away in 
 their search for the lost trail. 
 
 Suddenly they all slipped and fell, but rose again quickly, 
 laughing. Then they slipped and fell again, but this time 
 with the startling consciousness that it was not they who 
 had slipped, but the snow ! As they regained their feet 
 they could plainly see now that a large crack on the white 
 field, some twenty feet in width, extended between them 
 and the carcass of the bear, showing the glistening rock 
 below. Again they were thrown down with a sharp shock. 
 Jackson Tribbs, who had been showing a strange excite- 
 ment, suddenly gave a cry of warning. " Lie flat, fellers ! 
 but keep a-crawlin' and jumpin'. We 're goin' down a 
 slide ! " And the next moment they were sliding and toss- 
 ing, apparently with the whole snow-field, down towards 
 the gullied precipice. 
 
 What happened after this, and how long it lasted, they 
 naver knew. For, hurried along with increasing momen- 
 tum, but always mechanically clutching at the snow, and 
 bounding from it as they swept on, they sometimes lost 
 breath, and even consciousness. At times they were half 
 suffocated in rolling masses of drift, and again free and 
 skimming over its arrested surface, but always falling, as 
 it seemed to them, almost perpendicularly. In one of these 
 shocks they seemed to be going through a thicket of under- 
 brush ; but Provy Smith knew that they were the tops of 
 pine-trees. At last there was one shock longer and lasting, 
 followed by a deepening thunder below them. The ava* 
 
250 A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 
 
 lancke had struck a ledge in the mountain side, and pre- 
 cipitated its lower part into the valley. 
 
 Then everything was still, until Provy heard Julian's 
 voice calling. He answered, but there was no response 
 from Tribbs. Had he gone over into the valley ? They 
 set up a despairing shout ! A voice — a smothered one — 
 that might be his, came apparently from the snow beneath 
 them. They shouted again ; the voice, vague and hollow, 
 responded, but it was now surely his. 
 
 " Where are you ? " screamed Provy. 
 
 " Down the chimbley." 
 
 There was a black square of adobe sticking out of the 
 snow near them. They ran to it. There was a hole. 
 They peered down, but could see nothing at first but a 
 faint glimmer. 
 
 "Come down, fellers! It ain't far!" said Tribbs's voice. 
 
 "Wot yer got there ? " asked Julian cautiously. 
 
 " Suthin' to eat." 
 
 That was enough. In another instant Julian and Provy 
 vent down the chimney. What was a matter of fifteen 
 feet after a thousand ? Tribbs had already lit a candle, 
 by which they could see that they were in the cabin of 
 some tunnel-man at work on the ridge. He had probably 
 been in the tunnel when the avalanche fell, and escaped, 
 though bis cabin was buried. The three discoverers helped 
 themselves to his larder. They laughed and ate as at a 
 picnic, played cards, pretended it was a robber's cave, and 
 finally, wrapping themselves in the miner's blankets, slept 
 soundly, knowing where they were, and confident also that 
 they could find the trail early the next morning. They 
 did so, and without going to their homes came directly to 
 school — having been absent about fifty hours. They were 
 in high spirits, except for the thought of approaching pun- 
 ishment, never dreaming to evade it by anything miraculous 
 tn their adventures. 
 
A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS 251 
 
 Such was briefly their story. Its truth was corroborated 
 by the discovery of the bear's carcass, by the testimony of 
 the tunnel-man, who found his larder mysteriously ran- 
 sacked in his buried cabin, and, above all, by the long 
 white tongue that for many months hung from the ledge 
 into the valley. Nobody thought the lanky Julian a hero ; 
 — least of all himself. Nobody suspected that Jackson 
 Tribbs's treatment of a " slide " had been gathered from 
 experiments in his father's "runs," — and he was glad they 
 did not. The master's pardon obtained, the three truants 
 cared little for the opinion of Hemlock Hill. They knew 
 themselves — that was enough. 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 He was such a large, strong man that, when he first 
 set foot in the little parallelogram I called my garden, it 
 seemed to shrink to half its size and become preposterous. 
 But I noticed at the same time that he was holding in the 
 palm of his huge hand the roots of a violet, with such in- 
 finite tenderness and delicacy that I would have engaged 
 him as my gardener on the spot. But this could not be, 
 as he was already the proud proprietor of a market-garden 
 and nursery on the outskirts of the suburban Californian 
 town where I lived. He would, however, come for two 
 days in the week, stock and look after my garden, and im- 
 part to my urban intellect such horticultural hints as were 
 necessary. His name was " Kiitli," which I presumed to 
 be German, but which my neighbors rendered as " Boot- 
 ieigh," possibly from some vague connection with his occu- 
 pation. His own knowledge of English was oral and pho- 
 netic. I have a delightful recollection of a bill of his in 
 which I was charged for " fioletz," with the vague addition 
 of " maine cains." Subsequent explanation proved it to be 
 " many kinds." 
 
 Nevertheless, my little garden bourgeoned and blossomed 
 under his large, protecting hand. I became accustomed to 
 walk around his feet respectfully when they blocked the 
 tiny paths, and to expect the total eclipse of that garden- 
 bed on which he worked, by his huge bulk. For the tini- 
 est and most reluctant rootlet seemed to respond to his 
 caressing paternal touch ; it was a pretty sight to see his 
 huge fingers tying up some slender stalk to its stick with 
 the smallest thread, and he had a reverent way of laying 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 253 
 
 a bulb or seed in the ground, and then gently shaping and 
 smoothing a small mound over it, which made the little 
 inscription on the stick above more like an affecting epitaph 
 than ever. Much of this gentleness may have been that 
 apology for his great strength, common with large men ; 
 but his face was distinctly amiable, and his very light blue 
 eyes were at times wistful and doglike in their kindliness. 
 I was soon to learn, however, that placability was not en- 
 tirely his nature. 
 
 The garden was part of a fifty vara lot of land, on which 
 I was simultaneously erecting a house. But the garden 
 was finished before the house was, through certain circum- 
 stances very characteristic of that epoch and civilization. 
 I had purchased the Spanish title, the only legal one, to 
 the land, which, however, had been in possession of a 
 " squatter." But he had been unable to hold that posses- 
 sion against a " jumper," — another kind of squatter who 
 had entered upon it covertly, fenced it in, and marked it 
 out in building sites. Neither having legal rights, they 
 could not invoke the law ; the last man held possession. 
 There was no doubt that in due course of litigation and 
 time both these ingenuous gentlemen would have been dis- 
 possessed in favor of the real owner, — myself, — but that 
 course would be a protracted one. Following the usual 
 custom of the locality, I paid a certain sum to the jumper 
 to yield up peaceably his possession of the land, and began 
 to build upon it. It might be reasonably supposed that 
 the question was settled. But it was not. The house was 
 nearly finished when, one morning, I was called out of my 
 editorial sanctum by a pallid painter, looking even more 
 white-leaded than usual, who informed me that my house 
 was in the possession of five armed men ! The entry had 
 been made peaceably during the painters' absence to dinner 
 under a wayside tree. When they returned, they had 
 found their pots and brushes in the road, and an intimation 
 
254 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 from the windows that their reentrance would be forcibly 
 resisted as a trespass. 
 
 I honestly believe that Riitli was more concerned thar» 
 myself over this dispossession. While he loyally believed 
 that I would get back my property, he was dreadfully 
 grieved over the inevitable damage that would be done to 
 the garden during this interval of neglect and carelessness. 
 I even think he would have made a truce with my enemies, 
 if they would only have let him look after his beloved 
 plants. As it was, he kept a passing but melancholy sur- 
 veillance of them, and was indeed a better spy of the ac- 
 tions of the intruders than any. I could have employed. 
 One day, to my astonishment, he brought me a moss-rose 
 bud from a bush which had been trained against a column 
 of the veranda. It appeared that he had called, from over 
 the fence, the attention of one of the men to the neglected 
 condition of the plant, and had obtained permission to 
 " come in and tie it up." The men, being merely hire- 
 lings of the chief squatter, had no personal feeling, and 
 I was not therefore surprised to hear that they presently 
 allowed Rtitli to .come in occasionally and look after his 
 precious " slips." If they had any suspicion of his great 
 strength, it was probably offset by his peaceful avocation 
 and his bland, childlike face. Meantime, I had begun the 
 usual useless legal proceeding, but had also engaged a few 
 rascals of my own to be ready to take advantage of any want 
 of vigilance on the part of my adversaries. I never thought 
 of Riitli in that connection any more than they had. 
 
 A few Sundays later I was sitting in the little tea-arbor 
 of Riitli's nursery, peacefully smoking with him. Presently 
 he took his long china-bowled pipe from his mouth, and, 
 looking at me blandly over his yellow mustache, said : — 
 
 " You vonts sometimes to go in dot house, eh ? " 
 
 I said, " Decidedly." 
 
 " Mit a revolver, and keep dot house dose men out ? " 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 255 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 " Veil ! I put you in dot house — to-day ! " 
 
 " Sunday ? " 
 
 " Shoost so ! It is a goot day ! On der Suntay dree 
 men vill out go to valk mit demselluffs, and visky trinken. 
 Two," holding up two gigantic fingers, apparently only a 
 shade or two smaller than his destined victims, " stay dere. 
 Dose I lift de fence over." 
 
 I hastened to inform him that any violence attempted 
 against the parties while in possession, although that pos- 
 session was illegal, would, by a fatuity of the law, land 
 him in the county jail. I said I would not hear of it. 
 
 " But suppose dere vos no fiolence ? Suppose dose men 
 vos villin', eh ? How vos dot for high ? " 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 " So ! You shall not understand ! Dot is better. Go 
 away now and dell your men to coom dot house arount 
 at halluff past dree. But you coom, mit yourselluff alone, 
 shoost as if you vos spazieren gehen, for a valk, by dat 
 fence at dree ! Ven you shall dot front door vide open see, 
 go in, and dere you vos ! You vill der rest leef to me ! " 
 
 ' It was in vain that I begged Riitli to divulge his plan, 
 and pointed out again the danger of his technically break- 
 ing the law. But he was firm, assuring me that I my- 
 self would be a witness that no assault would be made. I 
 looked into his clear, good-humored eyes, and assented. 
 I had a burning desire to right my wrongs, but I think 
 I also had considerable curiosity. 
 
 I passed a miserable quarter of an hour after I had 
 warned my partisans, and then walked alone slowly down 
 the broad leafy street towards the scene of contest. I have 
 a very vivid recollection of my conflicting emotions. I did 
 not believe that I would be killed ; I had no distinct in- 
 tention of killing any of my adversaries ; but I had some 
 considerable concern for my loyal friend Riitli, who I 
 
256 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 foresaw might be in some peril from the revolver in my 
 unpracticed hand. If I could only avoid shooting him, 
 I would be satisfied. I remember that the bells were ring- 
 ing for church, — a church of which my enemy, the chief 
 squatter, was a deacon in good standing, — and I felt guiltily 
 conscious of my revolver in my hip-pocket, as two or three 
 church-goers passed me with their hymn-books in their 
 hands. I walked leisurely, so as not to attract attention, 
 and to appear at the exact time, a not very easy task in my 
 youthful excitement. At last I reached the front gate with 
 a beating heart. There was no one on the high veranda, 
 which occupied three sides of the low one-storied house, nor 
 in the garden before it. But the front door was open ; I 
 softly passed through the gate, darted up the veranda and 
 into the house. A single glance around the hall and bare, 
 deserted rooms, still smelling of paint, showed me it was 
 empty, and, with my pistol in one hand and the other on 
 the lock of the door, I stood inside, ready to bolt it against 
 any one but Rlitli. But where was he ? 
 
 The sound of laughter and a noise like skylarking came 
 from the rear of the house and the back yard. Then I 
 suddenly heard B.iitli's heavy tread on the veranda, but it 
 was slow, deliberate, and so exaggerated in its weight that 
 the whole house seemed to shake with it. Then from the 
 window I beheld an extraordinary sight ! It was Elitli, 
 swaying from side to side, but steadily carrying with out- 
 stretched arms two of the squatter party, his hands tightly 
 grasping their collars. Yet I believe his touch was as gen- 
 tle as with the violets. His face was preternaturally grave ; 
 theirs, to my intense astonishment, while they hung passive 
 from his arms, wore that fatuous, imbecile smile seen on 
 the faces of those who lend themselves to tricks of acrobats 
 and strong men in the arena. He slowly traversed the 
 whole length of one side of the house, walked down the 
 steps to the gate, and then gravely deposited them outside. 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 257 
 
 I heard him say, " Dot vins der pet, ain't it ? " and immedi- 
 ately after the sharp click of the gate-latch. 
 
 Without understanding a thing that had happened, I 
 rightly conceived this was the cue for my appearance with 
 my revolver at the front door. As I opened it I still heard 
 the sound of laughter, which, however, instantly stopped at 
 a sentence from Riitli, which I could not hear. There was 
 an oath, the momentary apparition of two furious and indig- 
 nant faces over the fence ; but these, however, seemed to be 
 instantly extinguished and put down by the enormous palms 
 of EUtli clapped upon their heads. There was a pause, 
 and then Eiitli turned around and quietly joined me in the 
 doorway. But the gate was not again opened until tha 
 arrival of my partisans, when the house was clearly in my 
 possession. 
 
 Safe inside with the door bolted, I turned eagerly to Rtttlj 
 for an explanation. It then appeared that during his occa- 
 sional visits to the garden he had often been an object of 
 amusement and criticism to the men on account of his size, 
 which seemed to them ridiculously inconsistent with his 
 great good humor, gentleness, and delicacy of touch. They 
 had doubted his strength and challenged his powers. He 
 had responded once or twice before, lifting weights or even 
 carrying one of his critics at arm's length for a few steps. 
 But he had reserved his final feat for this day and this pur- 
 pose. It was for a bet, which they had eagerly accepted, 
 secure in their belief in his simplicity, the sincerity of his 
 motives in coming there, and glad of the opportunity of a 
 little Sunday diversion. In their security they had not 
 locked the door when they came out, and had not noticed 
 that he had opened it. This was his simple story ; his 
 only comment, " I haf von der pet, but I dinks I shall nod 
 gollect der money." The two men did not return that after- 
 noon, nor did their comrades. Whether they wisely con- 
 ceived that a man who was so powerful in plav might be 
 
258 THK MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 terrible in earnest; whether they knew that his act, in 
 which they had been willing performers, had been witnessed 
 by passing citizens, who supposed it was skylarking ; or 
 whether their employer got tired of his expensive occupa- 
 tion, I never knew. The public believed the latter ; Rlitli, 
 myself, and the two men he had evicted alone kept our 
 secret. 
 
 Prom that time Rtitli and I became firm friends, and, 
 long after I had no further need of his services in the recap- 
 tured house, I often found myself in the little tea-arbor of 
 his prosperous nursery. He was frugal, sober, and indus- 
 trious ; small wonder that in that growing town he waxed 
 rich, and presently opened a restaurant in the main street, 
 connected with his market-garden, which became famous. 
 His relations to me never changed with his changed for- 
 tunes ; he was always the simple market-gardener and florist 
 who had aided my first housekeeping, and stood by me in 
 an hour of need. Of all things regarding himself he was 
 singularly reticent ; I do not think he had any confidants or 
 intimates, even among his own countrymen, whom I believed 
 to be German. But one day he quite accidentally admitted 
 he was a Swiss. As a youthful admirer of the race I was 
 delighted, and told him so, with the enthusiastic addition 
 that I could now quite understand his independence, with 
 his devoted adherence to another's cause. He smiled sadly, 
 and astonished me by saying that he had not heard from 
 Switzerland since he left six years before. He did not want 
 to hear anything ; he even avoided his countrymen lest he 
 should. I was confounded. 
 
 " But," I said, " surely you have a longing to return to 
 your country ; all Swiss have ! You will go back some day 
 just to breathe the air of your native mountains." 
 
 "I shall go back some days," said Riitli, "after I have 
 made mooch, mooch money, but not for dot air." 
 
 " What for, then ? " 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 259 
 
 " For revenge — to get efen." 
 
 Surprised, and for a moment dismayed as 1 was, I could 
 not help laughing. " Eiitli and revenge ! " Impossible ! 
 And to make it the more absurd, he was still smoking gently 
 and regarding me with soft, complacent eyes. So unchanged 
 was his face and manner that he might have told me he was 
 going back to be married. 
 
 " You do not oonderstand," he said forgivingly. " Some 
 days I shall dell to you id. Id is a story. You shall make 
 it yourselluff for dose babers dot you write. It is not bretty, 
 berhaps, ain't it, but it is droo. And de endt is not yet." 
 
 Only that Eiitli never joked, except in a ponderous fash- 
 ion with many involved sentences, I should have thought 
 he was taking a good-humored rise out of me. But it was 
 not funny. I am afraid I dismissed it from my mind as a 
 revelation of something weak and puerile, quite inconsistent 
 with his practical common sense and strong simplicity, and 
 wished he had not alluded to it. I never asked him to tell 
 me the story. It was a year later, and only when he had 
 invited me to come to the opening of a new hotel, erected 
 by him at a mountain spa of great resort, that he himself 
 alluded to it. 
 
 The hotel was a wonderful affair, even for those days, and 
 Hiitli's outlay of capital convinced me that by this time he 
 must have made the " mooch money " he coveted. Some- 
 thing of this was in my mind when we sat by the window 
 of his handsomely furnished private office, overlooking the 
 pines of a Californian canon. I asked him if the scenery 
 was like Switzerland. 
 
 " Ach ! no ! " he replied; " but I vill puild a hotel shoost 
 like dis dare." 
 
 " Is that a part of your revenge ? " I asked, with a laugh. 
 
 " Ah ! so ! a bart." 
 
 I felt relieved ; a revenge so practical did not seem very 
 malicious or idiotic. After a pause he puffed contempia- 
 
260' THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 tively at his pipe, and then said, " I dell you somedings of 
 dot story now." 
 
 He began. I should like to tell it in his own particular' 
 English, mixed with American slang, but it would not con- 
 vey the simplicity of the narrator. He was the son of a 
 large family, who had lived for centuries in one of the high- 
 est villages in the Bernese Oberland. He attained his size 
 and strength early, but with a singular distaste to use them 
 in the rough regular work on the farm, although he was a 
 great climber and mountaineer, and, what was at first over- 
 looked as mere boyish fancy, had an insatiable love and cu- 
 rious knowledge of plants and flowers. He knew the haunts 
 of Edelweiss, Alpine rose, and blue gentian, and had brought 
 home rare and unknown blossoms from under the icy lips 
 of glaciers. But as he did this when his time was supposed 
 to be occupied in looking after the cows in the higher pas- 
 tures and making cheeses, there was trouble in that hard- 
 working, practical family. A giant with the tastes and 
 disposition of a schoolgirl was an anomaly in a Swiss village. 
 Unfortunately again, he was not studious ; his record in the 
 village school had been on a par with his manual work, and 
 the family had not even the consolation of believing that 
 they were fostering a genius. In a community where prac- 
 tical industry was the highest virtue, it was not strange, per- 
 haps, that he was called " lazy " and " shiftless ; " no one 
 knew the long climbs and tireless vigils he had undergone in 
 remote solitudes in quest of his favorites, or, knowing, for- 
 gave him for it. Abstemious, frugal, and patient as he was, 
 even the crusts of his father's table were given him grudg- 
 ingly. He often went hungry rather than ask the bread he 
 had failed to earn. How his great frame was nurtured in 
 those days he never knew ; perhaps the giant mountains 
 recognized some kin in him, and fed and strengthened him 
 after their own fashion. Even his gentleness was confounded 
 with cowardice. " Dot vos de hardtest," he said simply ; , 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN' 261; 
 
 " it is not goot to be opligit to half crush your brudder, ven 
 he would make a laugh of you to your sweetheart." The 
 end came sooner than he expected, and, oddly enough, 
 through this sweetheart. " Gottlieb," she said to him one 
 day, " the English Fremde who stayed here last night met 
 me when I was carrying some of those beautiful flowers you 
 gave me. He asked me where they were to be found, and 
 I told him only you knew. He wants to see you ; go to 
 him. It may be luck to you." Eiitli went. The stranger, 
 an English Alpine climber of scientific tastes, talked with 
 him for an hour. At the end of that time, to everybody's 
 astonishment, he engaged this hopeless idler as his personal 
 guide for three months, at the sum of five francs a day ! It 
 was inconceivable, it was unheard of ! The Englander was 
 as mad as Gottlieb, whose intellect had always been under 
 fuspicion ! The schoolmaster pursed up his lips, the pastor 
 shook his head ; no good could come of it ; the family looked 
 upon it as another freak of Gottlieb's, but there was one big 
 mouth less to feed and more room in the kitchen, and they 
 let him go. They parted from him as ungraciously as they 
 had endured his presence. 
 
 Then followed two months of sunshine in Rlitli's life, — ■ 
 association with his beloved plants, and the intelligent 
 sympathy and direction of a cultivated man. Even in 
 altitudes so dangerous that they had to take other and more 
 experienced guides, Eiitli was always at his master's side. 
 That savant's collection of Alpine flora excelled all previous 
 ones ; he talked freely with Kiitli of further work in the 
 future, and relaxed his English reserve so far as to confide, 
 to him that the outcome of their collection and observation 
 might be a book. He gave a flower a Latin name, in which 
 even the ignorant and delighted Eiitli could distinguish 
 some likeness to his own. But the book was never com- 
 piled. In one of their later and more difficult ascents they 
 and their two additional guides were overtaken by a sudder. 
 
262 THE MAN A.ND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 storm. Swept from their feet down an ice-bound slope, 
 Rtitli alone of the roped-together party kept a foothold on 
 the treacherous incline. Here this young Titan, with 
 bleeding fingers clenched in a rock cleft, sustained the 
 struggles and held up the lives of his companions by that 
 precious thread for more than an hour. Perhaps he might 
 have saved them, but in their desperate efforts to regain 
 their footing the rope slipped upon a jagged edge of outcrop 
 and parted as if cut by a knife. The two guides passed 
 without an outcry into obscurity and death ; Etitli, with a 
 last despairing exertion, dragged to his own level his un- 
 conscious master, crippled by a broken leg. 
 
 Your true hero is apt to tell his tale simply. Riitli did 
 not dwell upon these details, nor need I. Left alone upon 
 a treacherous ice slope in benumbing cold, with a helpless 
 man, eight hours afterwards he staggered, half blind, in- 
 coherent, and inarticulate, into a " shelter " hut, with the 
 dead body of his master in his stiffened arms. The shel- 
 ter-keepers turned their attention to Riitli, who needed it 
 most. Blind and delirious, with scarce a chance for life, he 
 was sent the next day to a hospital, where he lay for three 
 months, helpless, imbecile, and unknown. The dead body 
 of the Englishman was identified, and sent home ; the 
 bodies of the guides were recovered by their friends ; but 
 no one knew aught of Riitli, even his name. While the 
 event was still fresh in the minds of those who saw him 
 enter the hut with the body of his master, a paragraph 
 appeared in a Berne journal recording the heroism of this 
 nameless man. But it could not be corroborated nor ex- 
 plained by the demented hero, and was presently forgotten. 
 Six months from the day he had left his home he was dis- 
 charged cured. He had not a kreutzer in his pocket ; he 
 had never drawn his wages from his employer ; he had 
 preferred to have it in a lump sum that he might astonish 
 his family on his return. His eyes were still weak, his 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 263 
 
 memory feeble ; only his great physical strength remained 
 through his long illness. A few sympathizing travelers 
 furnished him the means to reach his native village, many 
 miles away. He found his family had heard of the loss of 
 the Englishman and the guides, and had believed he was 
 one of them. Already he was forgotten. 
 
 " Ven you vos once peliefed to be det," said Riitli, aftei 
 a philosophic pause and puff, " it vos not goot to ondeceif 
 beoples. You oopset somedings, soomdimes always. Dei 
 hole dot you hef made in der groant, among your frients and 
 your family, vos covered up alretty. You are loocky if you 
 vill not fint some vellars shtanding upon id ! My frent, ven 
 you vos dink det, shtay det, be det, and you vill lif happy ! " 
 
 " But your sweetheart ? " I said eagerly. 
 
 A slight gleam of satire stole into Rtitli's light eyes. 
 " My sweetheart, ven I vos dinks det, is der miller engaged 
 do bromply ! It is mooch better dan to a man dot vos boor 
 and pliut and grazy ! So ! Veil, der next day I pids dem 
 goot-py, und from der door I say, ' I am det now ; but ven 
 I next comes pack alife, I shall dis village py ! der lants, 
 der houses all togedders. And den for yourselluffs look 
 oudt ! ' " 
 
 " Then that 's your revenge ? That is what you really 
 intend to do ? " I said, half laughing, yet with an uneasy 
 recollection of his illness and enfeebled mind. 
 
 "Yes. Look here! I show you somedings." He opened 
 a drawer of his desk and took out what appeared to be 
 some diagrams, plans, and a small water-colored map, like a 
 surveyor's tracing. " Look," he said, laying his finger on 
 the latter, " dat is a map from my fillage. I hef myselluff 
 made it out from my memory. Dot," pointing to a blank 
 space, " is der mountain side high up, so far. It is no 
 goot until I vill a tunnel make or der grade lefel. Dere 
 vas mine fader's house, dere vos der church, der school- 
 house, dot vos de burgomaster's house," he went on, point- 
 
264 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 ing to the respective plots in this old curving parallelogram 
 of the mountain shelf. " So was the fillage when I leave 
 him on the 5th of March, eighteen hundred and feefty. 
 Now you shall see him shoost as I vill make him ven I go 
 back. " He took up another plan, beautifully drawn and col- 
 ored, and evidently done by a professional hand. It was a 
 practical yet almost fairylike transformation of the same spot ! 
 The narrow mountain shelf was widened by excavation, and a 
 boulevard stretched on either side. A great hotel, not un- 
 like the one in which we sat, stood in an open terrace, with 
 gardens and fountains, — the site of his father's house. 
 Blocks of pretty dwellings, shops, and cafds filled the inter- 
 mediate space. I laid down the paper. 
 " How long have you had this idea ? " 
 "Efer since I left dere, fifteen years ago." 
 " But your father and mother may be dead by this time ? " 
 " So, but dere vill be odders. Und der blace — it vill 
 remain." 
 
 " But all this will cost a fortune, and you are not sure " — 
 " I know shoost vot id vill gost, to a cend." 
 "And you think you can ever afford to carry out your 
 idea ? " 
 
 " I vill afford id. Ven you shall make yet some moneys 
 and go to Europe, you shall see. I vill infite you dere first. 
 Now coom and look der house around." 
 
 I did not make " some moneys," but I did go to Europe. 
 Three years after this last interview with RUtli I was com- 
 ing from Interlaken to Berne by rail. I had not heard 
 from him, and I had forgotten the name of his village, but 
 as I looked up from the paper I was reading, I suddenly 
 recognized him in the further end of the same compartment 
 I occupied. His, recognition of me was evidently as sudden 
 and unexpected. After our first hand-grasp and greeting, T 
 •said : — 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 265 
 
 " And how about our new village ? " 
 
 " Dere is no fillage." 
 
 " What ! You have given up the idea ? " 
 
 " Yes. There is no fillage, olt or new.'' 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 He looked at me a moment. " You have not heard ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 He gently picked up a little local guide-hook that lay in 
 my lap, and turning its leaves, pointed to a page, and read 
 as follows : — 
 
 " 5 m. beyond, the train passes a curve k., where a fine 
 view of the lake may be seen. A little to the b. rise the 
 
 steep slopes of the , the scene of a terrible disaster. 
 
 At three o'clock on March 5, 1850, the little village of , 
 
 lying midway of the slope, with its population of 950 souls, 
 was completely destroyed by a landslip from the top of the 
 mountain. So sudden was the catastrophe that not a single 
 escape is recorded. A large portion of the mountain crest, 
 as will be observed when it is seen in profile, descended to 
 the valley, burying the unfortunate village to a depth vari- 
 ously estimated at from 1000 ft. to 1800 ft. The geological 
 causes which produced this extraordinary displacement have 
 been fully discussed, but the greater evidence points to the 
 
 theory of subterranean glaciers. 5 m. beyond the train 
 
 crosses the e. bridge." 
 
 I laid down the guide-book in breathless astonishment. 
 
 " And you never heard of this in all these years ? " 
 
 " Nefer ! I asked no questions, I read no pooks. I have 
 no ledders from home." 
 
 "And yet you " — I stopped, I could not call him a fool; 
 neither could I, in the face of his perfect composure and 
 undisturbed eyes, exhibit a concern greater than his own. 
 An uneasy recollection of what he confessed had been his 
 mental condition immediately after his accident came over 
 me. Had he been the victim of a strange hallucination 
 
266 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 regarding his house and family all these years ? Were these 
 dreams of revenge, this fancy of creating a new village, only 
 an outcome of some shock arising out of the disaster itself, 
 which he had long since forgotten ? 
 
 He was looking from the window. " Coom," he said, 
 " ve are near der blace. I vill show id to you." He rose 
 and passed out to the rear platform. We were in the rear 
 car, and a new panorama of the lake and mountains flashed 
 upon us at every curve of the line. I followed him. Pre- 
 sently he pointed to what appeared to be a sheer wall of 
 rock and stunted vegetation towering two or three thousand 
 feet above us, which started out of a gorge we were passing. 
 " Dere it vos ! " he said. I saw the vast stretch of rock face 
 rising upward and onward, but nothing else. No debris, no 
 ruins, nor even a swelling or rounding of the mountain-flank 
 over that awful tomb. Yet, stay ! as we dashed across the 
 gorge, and the face of the mountain shifted, high up, the 
 sky-line was slightly broken as if a few inches, a mere hand- 
 ful, of the crest was crumbled away. And then — both 
 gorge and mountain vanished. 
 
 I was still embarrassed and uneasy, and knew not what 
 to say to this man at my side, whose hopes and ambitions 
 had been as quickly overthrown and buried, and whose life- 
 dream had as quickly vanished. But he himself, taking his 
 pipe from his lips, broke the silence. 
 
 " It vos a narrow esgabe ! " 
 
 " What was ? " 
 
 " Vy, dis dings. If I had stayed in my fader's house, I 
 vould haf been det for goot, and perried too ! Somedimes 
 dose dings cooms oudt apout right, don't id ? " 
 
 Unvanquished philosopher ! As we stood there looking 
 at the flying landscape and sinking lesser hills, one by one 
 the great snow peaks slowly arose behind them, lifting them- 
 selves, as if to take a last wondering look at the man they 
 had triumphed over, but had not subdued. 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 " Then it is n't a question of property or next of kin ? " 
 said the consul. 
 
 " Lord ! no," said the lady vivaciously. " Why, good- 
 ness me ! I reckon old Desborough could, at any time be- 
 fore he died, have ' bought up ' or ' bought out ' the whole 
 lot of his relatives on this side of the big pond, no matter 
 what they were worth. No, it 's only a matter of curiosity 
 and just sociableness." 
 
 The American consul at St. Kentigorn felt much relieved. 
 He had feared it was only the old story of delusive quests 
 for imaginary estates and impossible inheritances which he 
 had confronted so often in nervous, wan-eyed enthusiasts 
 and obstreperous claimants from his own land. Certainly 
 there was no suggestion of this in the richly dressed and 
 be-diamonded matron before him, nor in her pretty daugh- 
 ter, charming in a Paris frock, alive with the consciousness 
 of beauty and admiration, and yet a little ennuye from 
 gratified indulgence. He knew the mother to be the wealthy 
 widow of a New York millionaire, that she was traveling 
 for pleasure in Europe, and a chance meeting with her at 
 dinner a few nights before had led to this half-capricious, 
 half-confidential appointment at the consulate. 
 
 " No," continued Mrs. Desborough ; " Mr. Desborough 
 came to America, when a small boy, with an uncle who 
 died some years ago. Mr. Desborough never seemed to 
 hanker much after his English relatives as long as I knew 
 him, but now that I and Sadie are over here, why we 
 guessed we might look 'em up and sort of sample 'em ! 
 Desborough 's rather a good name," added the lady, with. 
 
268 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 a complacency that, however, had a suggestion of query 
 in it. 
 
 " Yes," said the consul ; " from the French, I fancy." 
 
 " Mr. Desborough was English — very English," cor- 
 rected the lady. 
 
 " I mean it may be an old Norman name," said the 
 consul. 
 
 " Norman 's good enough for me," said the daughter, 
 reflecting. " We '11 just settle it as Norman. I never 
 thought about that Des." 
 
 " Only you may find it called ' Debborough ' here, and 
 spelt so," said the consul, smiling. 
 
 Miss Desborough lifted her pretty shoulders and made 
 a charming grimace. "Then we won't acknowledge 'em. 
 No Debborough for me ! " 
 
 " You might put an advertisement in the papers, like 
 the ' next of kin ' notice, intimating, in the regular way, 
 that they would ' hear of something to their advantage,' — 
 as they certainly would," continued the consul, with a bow. 
 " It would be such a refreshing change to the kind of thing 
 I 'm accustomed to, don't you know, — this idea of one of 
 my countrywomen coming over just to benefit English rela- 
 tives ! By Jove ! I would n't mind undertaking the whole 
 thing for you — it 's such a novelty." He was quite car- 
 ried away with the idea. 
 
 But the two ladies were far from participating in this 
 joyous outlook. " No," said Mrs. Desborough promptly, 
 " that would n't do. You see," she went on with superb 
 frankness, " that would be just giving ourselves away, and 
 saying who we were before we found out what they were 
 like. Mr. Desborough was all right in his way, but we 
 don't know anything about his folks ! We ain't here on 
 a mission to improve the Desbbroughs, nor to gather in any 
 ' lost tribes.' " 
 
 It was evident that, in spite of the humor of the situa- 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 269 
 
 tion and the levity of the ladies, there was a characteristic 
 national practicalness about them, and the consul, with a 
 sigh, at last gave the address of one or two responsible ex- 
 perts in genealogical inquiry, as he had often done before. 
 He felt it was impossible to offer any advice to ladies a? 
 thoroughly capable of managing their own affairs as his fair 
 countrywomen, yet he was not without some curiosity tc 
 know the result of their practical sentimental quest. That 
 he should ever hear of them again he doubted. He knew 
 that after their first loneliness had worn off in their gre- 
 garious gathering at a London hotel they were not likely 
 to consort with their own country people, who indeed were 
 apt to fight shy of one another, and even to indulge in 
 invidious criticism of one another when admitted in that 
 society to which they were all equally strangers. So he 
 took leave of them on their way back to London with the 
 belief that their acquaintance terminated with that brief 
 incident. But he was mistaken. 
 
 In the year following he was spending his autumn vacation 
 at a country house. It was an historic house, and had always 
 struck him as being — even in that country of historic seats 
 — a singular example of the vicissitudes of English manorial 
 estates and the mutations of its lords. His host in his 
 prime had been recalled from foreign service to unexpect- 
 edly succeed to an uncle's title and estate. That estate, 
 however, had come into the possession of the uncle only 
 through his marriage with the daughter of an old family 
 whose portraits still looked down from the walls upon the 
 youngest and alien branch. There were likenesses, effigies, 
 memorials, and reminiscences of still older families who had 
 occupied it through forfeiture by war or the favoritism of 
 kings, and in its stately cloisters and ruined chapel was 
 still felt the dead hand of its evicted religious founders, 
 which could not be shaken off. 
 
 It was this strange individuality that affected all who 
 
270 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 saw it. For, however changed were those within its walls, 
 whoever were its inheritors or inhabiters, Scrooby Priory 
 never changed nor altered its own character. However 
 incongruous or ill-assorted the portraits that looked from 
 its walls, — so ill met that they might have flown at one 
 another's throats in the long nights when the family were 
 away, — the great house itself was independent of them 
 all. The be-wigged, be-laced, and be-furbelowed of one 
 day's gathering, the round-headed, steel-fronted, and prim- 
 kerchiefed congregation of another day, and even the black- 
 coated, bare-armed, and bare-shouldered assemblage of to- 
 day had no effect on the austerities of the Priory. Modem 
 houses might show the tastes and prepossessions of their 
 dwellers, might have caught some passing trick of the hour, 
 or have recorded the augmented fortunes or luxuriousness 
 of the owner, but Scrooby Priory never ! No one had 
 dared even to disturb its outer rigid integrity ; the breaches 
 of time and siege were left untouched. It held its calm 
 indifferent sway over all who passed its low-arched portals, 
 and the consul was fain to believe that he — a foreign 
 visitor — was no more alien to the house than its present 
 owner. 
 
 " I 'm expecting a very charming compatriot of yours 
 to-morrow," said Lord Beverdale, as they drove from the 
 station together. " You must tell me what to show her." 
 
 " I should think any countrywoman of mine would be 
 quite satisfied with the Priory," said the consul, glancing 
 thoughtfully towards the pile dimly seen through the 
 park. 
 
 " I should n't like her to be bored here," continued 
 Beverdale. " Algy met her at Rome, where she was occupy- 
 ing a palace with her mother, — they 're very rich, you 
 know. Pie found she was staying with Lady Minever at 
 Hedham Towers, and I went over and invited her with a 
 little party. She 's a Miss Desborough." 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 271 
 
 The consul gave a slight start, and was aware thai 
 Beverdale was looking at him. 
 
 " Perhaps you know her ? " said Beverdale. 
 
 " Just enough to agree with you that she is charming," 
 said the consul. " I dined with them, and saw them at 
 the consulate." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I always forget you are a consul. Then, of 
 course, you know all about them. I suppose they 're very 
 rich, and in society over there ? " said Beverdale, in a voice 
 that was quite animated. 
 
 It was on the consul's lips to say that the late Mr. 
 Desborough was an Englishman, and even to speak playfully 
 of their proposed quest, but a sudden instinct withheld 
 him. After all, perhaps it was only a caprice, or idea, 
 they had forgotten, — perhaps, who knows? — that they 
 were already ashamed of. They had evidently " got on " 
 in English society, if that was their real intent, and doubt- 
 less Miss Desborough, by this time, was quite as content 
 with the chance of becoming related to the Earl of Bever- 
 dale, through his son and heir, Algernon, as if they had 
 found a real Lord Desborough among their own relatives. 
 The consul knew that Lord Beverdale was not a rich man, 
 that like most men of old family he was not a slave to class 
 prejudice ; indeed, the consul had seen very few noblemen 
 off the stage or out of the pages of a novel who were. So 
 he said, with a slight affectation of authority, that there 
 was as little doubt of the young lady's wealth as there was 
 of her personal attractions. 
 
 They were nearing the house through a long avenue of 
 chestnuts whose variegated leaves were already beginning 
 to strew the ground beneath, and they could see the vista 
 open upon the mullioned windows of the Priory, lighted up 
 by the yellow October sunshine. In that sunshine stood a 
 tall, clean-limbed young fellow, dressed in a shooting-suit, 
 whom the consul recognized at once as Lord Algernon, the 
 
272 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 son of his companion. As if to accent the graces of this 
 vision of youth and vigor, near him, in the shadow, an old< 
 man had halted, hat in hand, still holding the rake with 
 which he had been gathering the dead leaves in the avenue ; 
 his back bent, partly with years, partly with the obeisance 
 of a servitor. There was something so marked in this 
 contrast, in this old man standing in the shadow of the 
 fading year, himself as dried and withered as the leaves he 
 was raking, yet pausing to make his reverence to this pass- 
 ing sunshine of youth and prosperity in the presence of his 
 coming master, that the consul, as they swept by, looked 
 after him with a stirring of pain. 
 
 " Rather an old man to be still at work," said the con- 
 sul. 
 
 Beverdale laughed. " You must not let him hear you 
 say so ; he considers himself quite as fit as any younger 
 man in the place, and, by Jove ! though he 's nearly eighty, 
 I 'm inclined to believe it. He 's not one of our people, 
 however ; he comes from the village, and is taken on at 
 odd times, partly to please himself. His great aim is to be 
 independent of his children, ^-he has a granddaughter who 
 is one of the maids at the Priory, — and to keep himself 
 out of the workhouse. He does not come from these parts, 
 — somewhere farther north, I fancy. But he 's a tough 
 lot, and has a deal of work in him yet." 
 
 " Seems to be going a bit stale lately," said Lord Alger- 
 non, " and I think is getting a little queer in his head. 
 He has a trick of stopping and staring straight ahead, at 
 times, when he seems to go off for a minute or two. 
 There ! " continued the young ■ man, with a light laugh, 
 " I say ! he 's doing it now ! " They both turned quickly 
 and gazed at the bent figure — not fifty yards away — stand- 
 ing in exactly the same attitude as before. But, even as 
 they gazed, he slowly lifted his rake and began his monoto- 
 nous work again. 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 273 
 
 At Scrooby Priory, the consul found that the fame of 
 his fair countrywoman had indeed preceded her, and that the 
 other guests were quite as anxious to see Miss Desborough 
 as he was. One of them had already met her in London ; 
 another knew her as one of the house party at the Duke 
 of Northforeland's, where she had been a central figure. 
 Some of her na'lve sallies and frank criticisms were repeated 
 with great unction by the gentlemen, and with some slight 
 trepidation and a " fearful joy " by the ladies. He was 
 more than ever convinced that mother and daughter had 
 forgotten their lineal Desboroughs, and he resolved to leave 
 any allusion to it to the young lady herself. 
 
 She, however, availed herself of that privilege the even- 
 ing after her arrival. " Who 'd have thought of meeting 
 you here ? " she said, sweeping her skirts away to mak6 
 room for him on the sofa. " It 's a coon's age since I saw 
 you, — not since you gave us that letter to those genealogi- 
 cal gentlemen in London." 
 •The consul hoped that it had proved successful. 
 
 " Yes, but maw guessed we did n't care to go back to 
 Hengist and Horsa, and when they let loose a lot of ' Deb- 
 boroughs ' and 'Daybrooks ' upon us, maw kicked ! We 've 
 got a drawing ten yards long, that looks like a sour apple 
 tree, with lots of Desboroughs hanging upon the branches 
 like last year's pippins, and I guess about as worm-eaten. 
 We took that well enough, but when it came to giving us a 
 map of straight lines and dashes with names written under 
 them like an old Morse telegraph slip, struck by lightning, 
 then maw and I guessed that it made us tired. 
 
 " You know," she went on, opening her clear gray eyes 
 on the consul, with a characteristic flash of shrewd good 
 sense through her quaint humor, "we never reckoned 
 where this thing would land us, and we found we were 
 paying a hundred pounds, not only for the Desboroughs, 
 but all they 'd married, and their children, and children's 
 
274 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 children, and there were a lot of outsiders we 'd never heard 
 of, nor wanted to hear of. Maw once thought she 'd got on 
 the trail of a Plantagenet, and followed it keen, until she 
 found she had been reading the dreadful thing upside down. 
 Then we concluded we would n't take any more stock in 
 the family until it had risen." 
 
 During this speech the consul could not help' noticing 
 that, although her attitude was playfully confidential to 
 him, her voice really was pitched high enough to reach the 
 ears of smaller groups around her, who were not only fol- 
 lowing her with the intensest admiration, but had shame- 
 lessly abandoned their own conversation, and had even 
 faced towards her. Was she really posing in her naivete - ? 
 There was a certain mischievous, even aggressive, conscious- 
 ness in her pretty eyelids. Then she suddenly dropped 
 both eyes and voice, and said to the consul in a genuine 
 aside, " I like this sort of thing much better." 
 
 The consul looked puzzled. " What sort of thing ? " 
 
 " Why, all these swell people, don't you see ? those pic- 
 tures on the walls ! this elegant room ! everything that has 
 come down from the past, all ready and settled for you, you 
 know — ages ago ! Something you have n't to pick up for 
 yourself and worry over." 
 
 But here the consul pointed out that the place itself was 
 not " ancestral " as regarded the present earl, and that even 
 the original title of his predecessors had passed away from 
 it. " In fact, it came into the family by one of those ' out- 
 siders ' you deprecate. But I dare say you 'd find the place 
 quite as comfortable with Lord Beverdale for a host as yen 
 would if you had found out he were a cousin," he added. 
 
 " Better," said the young lady frankly. 
 
 "I suppose your mother participates in these prefer- 
 ences ? " said the consul, with a smile. 
 
 "No," said Miss Desborough, with the same frankness, 
 " I think maw 's rather cut up at not finding a Desborough. 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 275 
 
 She was invited down here, but she 's rather independent, 
 you know, so she allowed I could take care of myself, while 
 she went off to stay with the old Dowager Lady Mistowe, 
 who thinks maw a very proper womanly person. I made 
 maw mad by telling her that 's just what old Lady Mistowe 
 would say of her cook — for I can't stand these people's 
 patronage. However, I should n't wonder if I was invited 
 here as a ' most original person.' " 
 
 But here Lord Algernon came up to implore her to sing 
 them one of " those plantation songs ; " and Miss Desbor- 
 ough, with scarcely a change of voice or manner, allowed 
 herself to be led to the piano. The consul had little chance 
 to speak with her again, but he saw enough that evening to 
 convince him not only that Lord Algernon was very much 
 in love with her, but that the fact had been equally and 
 complacently accepted by the family and guests. That her 
 present visit was only an opportunity for a formal engage- 
 ment was clear to every woman in the house, — not except- 
 ing, I fear, even the fair subject of gossip herself. Yet she 
 •.eemed so unconcerned and self-contained that the consul 
 wondered if she really cared for Lord Algernon. And hav- 
 ing thus wondered, he came to the conclusion that it did n't 
 much matter, for the happiness of so practically organized 
 a young lady, if she loved him or not. 
 
 It is highly probable that Miss Sadie Desborough had 
 not even gone so far as to ask herself that question. She 
 awoke the next morning with a sense of easy victory and 
 calm satisfaction that had, however, none of the transports 
 of affection. Her taste was satisfied by the love of a hand- 
 some young fellow, — a typical Englishman, — who, if not 
 exactly original or ideal, was, she felt, of an universally 
 accepted, '•'hall-marked" standard, the legitimate outcome 
 of a highly ordered, carefully guarded civilization, whose 
 repose was the absence of struggle or ambition ; a man whose 
 regular features were not yet differentiated from the rest of 
 
276 THE DESBOROTJGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 his class by any of those disturbing lines which people call 
 character. Everything was made ready for her, without 
 care or preparation ; she had not even an ideal to realize or 
 to modify. She could slip without any jar or dislocation 
 into this life which was just saved from self-indulgence and 
 sybaritic luxury by certain conventional rules of activity, 
 and the occupation of amusement which, as obligations of 
 her position, even appeared to suggest the novel aspect of a 
 duty ! She could accept all this without the sense of being 
 an intruder in an unbroken lineage, — thanks to the consul's 
 account of the Beverdales' inheritance. She already pictured 
 herself as the mistress of this fair domain, the custodian of 
 its treasures and traditions, and the dispenser of its hospi- 
 talities, but — as she conscientiously believed — without 
 pride or vanity, in her position ; only an intense and thought- 
 ful appreciation of it. Nor did she dream of ever displaying 
 it ostentatiously before her less fortunate fellow country- 
 women; on the contrary, she looked forward to their possi- 
 ble criticism of her casting off all transatlantic ties with an 
 uneasy consciousness that was perhaps her nearest approach 
 to patriotism. Yet, again, she reasoned th.at, as her father 
 was an Englishman, she was only returning to her old home. 
 As to her mother, she had already comforted herself by 
 noticing certain discrepancies in that lady's temperament, 
 which led her to believe that she herself alone inherited her 
 father's nature, — for her mother was, of course, distinctlj' 
 American ! So little conscious was she of any possible 
 snobbishness in this belief, that in her superb naivete she 
 would have argued the point with the consul, and employed 
 a wit and dialect that were purely American. 
 
 She had slipped out of the Priory early that morning that 
 she might enjoy alone, unattended and unciceroned, the 
 aspect of that vast estate which might be hers for the mere 
 accepting. Perhaps there was some instinct of delicacy in 
 her avoiding Lord Algernon that morning ; not wishing, as 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 277 
 
 she herself might have frankly put it, " to take stock " of 
 his inheritance in his presence. As she passed into the 
 garden through the low postern door, she turned to look 
 along the stretching facade of the main building, with the 
 high stained windows of its banqueting-hall and the state 
 chamber where a king had slept. Even in that crisp Octo- 
 ber air, and with the green of its ivied battlements against 
 the gold of the distant wood, it seemed to lie in the languid 
 repose of an eternal summer. She hurried on down the 
 other terrace into the Italian garden, a quaint survival of 
 past grandeur, passed the great orangery and numerous con- 
 servatories, making a crystal hamlet in themselves, -^ seeing 
 everywhere the same luxury. But it was a luxury that she 
 fancied was redeemed from the vulgarity of ostentation by 
 the long custom of years and generations, so unlike the mil- 
 lionaire palaces of her own land; and, in her enthusiasm, 
 she even fancied it was further sanctified by the grim mo- 
 nastic founders who had once been content with bread and 
 pulse in the crumbling and dismantled refectory. In the 
 plenitude of her feelings she felt a slight recognition of some 
 beneficent being who had rolled this golden apple at hei 
 feet, and felt as if she really should like to " do good " iD 
 her sphere. 
 
 It so chanced that, passing through a small gate in the 
 park, she saw walking, a little ahead of her, a young girl 
 whom she at once recognized as a Miss Amelyn, one of the 
 guests of the evening before. Miss Desborough remembered 
 that she played the accompaniment of one or two songs 
 upon the piano, and had even executed a long solo during 
 the general conversation, without attention from the others, 
 and apparently with little irritation to herself, subsiding 
 afterwards into an armchair, quite on the fringe of other 
 people's conversation. She had been called " my dear " by 
 one or two dowagers, and by her Christian name by the 
 earl, and had a way of impalpably melting out of sight at 
 
278 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 times. These trifles led Miss Desborough to conclude that 
 she was some kind of dependent or poor relation. Here 
 was an opportunity to begin her work of " doing good." She 
 quickened her pace and overtook Miss Amelyn. 
 
 " Let me walk with you," she said graciously. 
 
 The young English girl smiled assent, but looked her 
 surprise at seeing the cynosure of last night's eyes unat- 
 tended. 
 
 " Oh," said Sadie, answering the mute query, " I did n't 
 want to be ' shown round ' by anybody, and I 'm not going to 
 bore you with asking to see sights either. We '11 just walk 
 together ; wherever you 're going is good enough for me." 
 
 " I 'm going as far as the village," said Miss Amelyn, 
 looking down doubtfully at Sadie's smart French shoes, — 
 "if you care to walk so far." 
 
 Sadie noticed that her companion was more solidly 
 booted, and that her straight, short skirts, although less 
 stylish than her own, had a certain character, better fitted 
 to the freer outdoor life of the country. But she only said, 
 however, " The village will do," and gayly took her com- 
 panion's arm. 
 
 " But I 'm afraid you '11 find it very uninteresting, for 
 I am going to visit some poor cottages," persisted Miss 
 Amelyn, with a certain timid ingenuousness of manner 
 which, however, was as distinct as Miss Desborough's 
 bolder frankness. " I promised the rector's daughter to 
 take her place to-day." 
 
 " And I feel as if I was ready to pour oil and wine to 
 any extent," said Miss Desborough, " so come along ! " 
 
 Miss Amelyn laughed, and yet glanced around her tim- 
 idly, as if she thought that Miss Desborough ought to have 
 a larger and more important audience. Then she continued 
 more confidentially and boldly, "But it isn't at all like 
 'slumming,' you know. These poor people here are not 
 rery bad. and are not at all extraordinary." 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 279 
 
 " Never mind," said Sadie, hurrying her along. After 
 a pause she went on, " You know the Priory very well, I 
 guess ? " 
 
 " I lived there when I was a little girl, with my aunt, 
 the Dowager Lady Beverdale," said Miss Amelyn. " When 
 my cousin Fred, who was the young heir, died, and the 
 present Lord Beverdale succeeded, — he never expected it, 
 you know, for there were two lives, his two elder brothers, 
 besides poor Fred's, between, but they both died, — we 
 went to live in the Dower House." 
 
 " The Dower House ? " repeated Sadie. 
 
 " Yes, Lady Beverdale's separate property." 
 
 "But I thought all this property — the Priory — came 
 into the family through her." 
 
 " It did — this was the Amelyns' place ; but the oldest 
 son or nearest male heir always succeeds to the property and 
 title." 
 
 " Do you mean to say that the present Lord Beverdale 
 turned that old lady out ? " 
 
 Miss Amelyn looked shocked. " I mean to say," she 
 said gravely, " Lady Beverdale would have had to go when 
 her own son became of age, had he lived." She paused, 
 and then said timidly, " Is n't it that way in America ? " 
 
 " Dear, no ! " Miss Desborough had a faint recollection 
 that there was something in the Constitution or the Decla- 
 ration of Independence against primogeniture. " No ! the 
 men have n't it all their own way there — not much ! " 
 
 Miss Amelyn looked as if she did not care to discuss this 
 problem. After a few moments Sadie continued, " You 
 and Lord Algernon are pretty old friends, I guess ? " 
 
 "No," replied Miss Amelyn. "He came once or twice 
 to the Priory for the holidays, when he was quite a boy at 
 Marlborough, — for the family were n't very well off, and his 
 father was in India. He was a very shy. boy, and of course 
 no one ever thought of him succeeding." 
 
280; THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 Miss Desborough felt half inclined to be pleased with 
 this, and yet half inclined to resent -this possible snubbing 
 of her future husband. But they were nearing the village, 
 and Miss Amelyn turned the conversation to the object of 
 her visit. It was a new village, — an unhandsome village, 
 for all that it stood near one of the gates of the park. It 
 had been given over to some mines that were still worked 
 in its vicinity, and to the railway, which the uncle of the 
 present earl had resisted ; but the railway had triumphed, 
 and the station for Scrooby Priory was there. There was 
 a grim church, of a blackened or weather-beaten stone, on 
 the hill, with a few grim Amelyns reposing cross-legged 
 in the chancel, but the character of the village was as differ- 
 ent from the Priory as if it were in another county. They 
 stopped at the rectory, where Miss Amelyn provided her- 
 self with certain doles and gifts, which the American girl 
 would have augmented with a five-pound note but for Miss 
 Amelyn's horrified concern. " As many shillings would do, 
 and they would be as grateful," she said. " More they 
 would n't understand." 
 
 " Then keep it, and dole it out as you like," said Sadie 
 quickly. 
 
 "But I don't think that — that' Lord Beverdale would 
 quite approve," hesitated Miss Amelyn. 
 
 The pretty brow of her companion knit, and her gray- 
 eyes flashed vivaciously. " What has he to do with it ? " 
 she said pertly ; " besides, you say these are not his poor. 
 Take that five-pound note — or — I '11 double it, get it 
 changed into sovereigns at the station, and hand 'em round 
 to every man, woman, and child." 
 
 Miss Amelyn hesitated. The American girl looked capa- 
 ble of doing what she said ; perhaps it was a national way 
 of almsgiving ! She took the note, with the mental reser- 
 vation of making a full confession to the rector and Lord 
 Beverdale. 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 281 
 
 She was right in saying that the poor of Scrooby village 
 were not interesting. There was very little squalor or 
 degradation ; their poverty seemed not a descent, but a con- 
 dition to which they had been born ; the faces which Sadie 
 saw were dulled and apathetic rather than sullen or rebel- 
 lious ; they stood up when Miss Amelyn entered, paying 
 her the deference, but taking little note of the pretty but- 
 terfly who was with her, or rather submitting to her frank 
 curiosity with that dull consent of the poor, as if they had ' 
 lost even the sense of privacy, or a right to respect. It 
 seemed to the American girl that their poverty was more 
 indicated by what they were satisfied with than what she 
 thought they missed. It is to be feared that this did not 
 add to Sadie's sympathy ; all the beggars she had seen in 
 America wanted all they could get, and she felt as if she 
 were confronted with an inferior animal. 
 
 " There 's a wonderful old man lives here," said Miss 
 Amelyn, as they halted before a stone and thatch cottage 
 quite on the outskirts of the village. " We can't call him 
 one of our poor, for he still works, although over eighty, 
 and it 's his pride to keep out of the poorhouse, and, as 
 he calls it, 'off' the hands of his granddaughters. But 
 we manage to do something for them, and we hope he pro- 
 fits by it. One of them is at the Priory ; they 're trying 
 to make a maid of her, but her queer accent — they 're 
 from the north — is against her with the servants. I am 
 afraid we won't see old Debs, for he 's at work again to- 
 day, though the doctor has warned him." 
 
 " Debs ! What a funny name ! " 
 
 " Yes, but as many of these people cannot read or write, 
 the name is carried by the ear, and not always correctly. 
 Some of the railway navvies, who come from the north as 
 he does, call him ' Debbers.' " 
 
 They were obliged to descend into the cottage, which 
 was so low that it seemed to have sunk into the earth until 
 
282 THE DESBOKOOGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 its drooping eaves of thatch mingled with the straw heap 
 beside it. Debs was not at home. But his granddaughter 
 was there, who, after a preliminary " bob," continued the 
 stirring of the pot before the tire in tentative silence. 
 
 "lam sorry to find that your grandfather has gone to 
 work again in spite of the doctor's orders," said Miss 
 Amelyn. 
 
 The girl continued to stir the pot, and then said without 
 looking up, but as if also continuing a train of aggressive 
 thoughts with her occupation : " Eay, but 'e 's so set oop 
 in 'issen 'ee dban't take orders from nobbut — leastways 
 doctor. Mtiinds 'em now moor nor a floy. Says 'ee knaws 
 there nowt wrong wi' 'is 'eart. Mout be roight — how- 
 s'iver, sarten sewer, 'is 'ead 's a' in a muddle ! Toims 'ee 
 goes off stamrin' and starin' at nowt, as if 'ee a'nt a n'aporth 
 o' sense. Hows'iver I be doing my duty by 'em — and 
 'ere 's 'is porritch when a' cooms — 'gin a' be sick or maad." 
 
 What the American understood of the girl's speech and 
 manner struck her as having very little sympathy with 
 either her aged relative or her present visitor. And there 
 was a certain dogged selfish independence about her that 
 Miss Desborough half liked and half resented. However, 
 Miss Amelyn did not seem to notice it, and, after leaving 
 a bottle of port for the grandfather, she took her leave and 
 led Sadie away. As they passed into the village a carriage, 
 returning to the Priory, filled with their fellow guests, dashed 
 by, but was instantly pulled up at a word from Lord Alger- 
 non, who leaped from the vehicle, hat in hand, and implored 
 the fair truant and her companion to join them. 
 
 " We 're just making a tour around Windover Hill, and 
 back to luncheon," he said, with a rising color. " We 
 missed you awfully ! If we had known you were so keen 
 on ' good works,' and so early at it, by- Jove ! we 'd have 
 got up a ' slummin' party,' and all joined ! " 
 
 " And you have n't seen half," said Lord Bevordala 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 283 
 
 from the box. " Miss Amelyn 's too partial to the village. 
 There 's an old drunken retired poacher somewhere in a 
 hut in Crawley Woods, whom it 's death to approach, ex- 
 cept with a large party. There 's malignant diphtheria 
 over at the South Farm, eight down with measles at the 
 keeper's, and an old woman who has been bedridden for 
 years." 
 
 But Miss Desborough was adamant, though sparkling. 
 She thanked him, but said she had just seen an old woman 
 " who had been lying in bed for twenty years, and had n't 
 spoken the truth once ! " She proposed " going outside 
 of Lord Beverdale's own preserves of grain-fed poor," and 
 starting up her own game. She would return in time for 
 luncheon, — if she could ; if not, she " should annex the 
 gruel of the first kind incapable she met." 
 
 Yet, actually, she was far from displeased at being acci- 
 dentally discovered by these people while following out her 
 capricious whim of the morning. One or two elder ladies, 
 who had fought shy of her frocks and her frankness the 
 evening before, were quite touched now by this butterfly 
 ■who was willing to forego the sunlight of society, and soil 
 her pretty wings on the haunts of the impoverished, with 
 only a single companion, — of her own sex ! — and smiled 
 approvingly. And in her present state of mind, remember- 
 ing her companion's timid attitude towards Lord Bever- 
 dale's opinions, she was not above administering this slight 
 snub to him in her presence. 
 
 When they had driven away, with many regrets, Miss 
 Amelyn was deeply concerned. " I am afraid," she said, 
 with timid conscientiousness, " I have kept you from going 
 •with them. And you must be bored with what you have 
 seen, I know. I don't believe you really care one bit for 
 it, — and you are only doing it to please me." 
 
 " Trot out the rest of your show," said Sadie promptly, 
 " and we '11 wind up by lunching with the rector." 
 
284 THE DESBOKOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 " He 'd be too delighted," said Miss Amelyn, with dis« 
 aster written all over her girlish, truthful face, " but — but 
 
 — you know — it really would n't be quite right to Lord 
 Beverdale. You 're his principal guest — you know, and 
 
 — they 'd think I had taken you off." 
 
 " Well," said Miss Desborough impetuously, " what 's 
 the matter with that inn, — the Red Lion ? We can get 
 a sandwich there, I guess. I'm not very hungry." 
 
 Miss Amelyn looked horrified for a moment, and then 
 laughed ; but immediately became concerned again. " No ! 
 listen to me, really now ! Let me finish my round alone ! 
 You '11 have ample time if you go now to reach the Priory 
 for luncheon. Do, please ! It would be ever so much 
 better for everybody. I feel quite guilty as it is, and I 
 suppose I am already in Lord Beverdale's black books." 
 
 The trouble in the young girl's face was unmistakable, 
 and as it suited Miss Desborough's purpose just as well to 
 show her independence by returning, as she had set out, 
 alone, she consented to go. Miss Amelyn showed her a 
 short cut across the park, and they separated — to meet 
 at dinner. In this brief fellowship, the American girl had 
 kept a certain supremacy and half-fascination over the Eng- 
 lish girl, even while she was conscious of an invincible 
 character in Mi ss Amelyn entirely different from and supe- 
 rior to her own. Certainly there was a difference in the 
 two peoples. Why else this inherited conscientious rever- 
 ence for Lord Beverdale's position, shown by Miss Amelyn, 
 which she, an American alive to its practical benefits, could 
 not understand ? Would Miss Amelyn and Lord Algernon 
 have made a better match ? The thought irritated her, even 
 while she knew that she herself possessed the young man's 
 affections, the power to marry him, and, as she believed, 
 kept her own independence in the matter. 
 
 As she entered the iron gates at the lower end of the 
 park, and glanced at the interwoven cipher and crest of 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 285 
 
 the Amelyns still above, she was conscious that the wind 
 was blowing more chill, and that a few clouds had gathered. 
 As she walked on down the long winding avenue, the sky 
 became overcast, and, in one of those strange contrasts of 
 the English climate, the glory of the whole day went out 
 with the sunshine. The woods suddenly became wrinkled 
 and gray, the distant hills sombre, the very English turf 
 beneath her feet grew brown ; a mile and a half away, 
 through the opening of the trees, the west part of the 
 Priory looked a crumbling, ivy-eaten ruin. A few drops 
 of rain fell. She hurried on. Suddenly she remembered 
 that the avenue made a long circuit before approaching the 
 house, and that its lower end, where she was walking, was 
 but a fringe of the park. Consequently there must be a 
 short cut across some fields and farm buildings to the back 
 of the park and the Priory. She at once diverged to the 
 right, presently found a low fence, which she clambered 
 over, and again found a footpath which led to a stile. 
 Crossing that, she could see the footpath now led directly 
 to the Priory, — now a grim and austere looking pile in 
 the suddenly dejected landscape, — and that it was prob- 
 ably used only by the servants and farmers. A gust of 
 wind brought some swift needles of rain to her cheek ; she 
 could see the sad hills beyond the Priory already veiling 
 their faces ; she gathered her skirts and ran. The next 
 field was a long one, but beside the further stile was a small 
 clump of trees, the only ones between her and the park. 
 Hurrying on to that shelter, she saw that the stile was 
 already occupied by a tall but bent figure, holding a long 
 stick in his hand, which gave him the appearance, against 
 the horizon, of the figure of Time leaning on his scythe. 
 As she came nearer she saw it was, indeed, an old man, 
 half resting on his rake. He was very rugged and weather- 
 beaten, and, although near the shelter of the trees, appar- 
 ently unmindful of the rain that was falling on his baW 
 
286 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 head and the limp cap he was holding uselessly in one 
 hand. He was staring at her, yet apparently unconscious 
 of her presence. A sudden instinct came upon her, — it 
 was " Debs " ! 
 
 She went directly up to him, and, with that frank com- 
 mon sense which ordinarily distinguished her, took his cap 
 from his hand and put it on his head, grasped his arm firmly, 
 and led him to the shelter of the tree. Then she wiped 
 the raindrops from his face with her handkerchief, shook 
 out her own dress and her wet parasol, and, propping her 
 companion against the tree, said : — 
 
 " There, Mr. Debs ! I 've heard of people who did n't 
 know enough to come in when it rained, but I never met 
 one before." 
 
 The old man started, lifted his hairy, sinewy arm, bared 
 to the elbow, and wiped his bare throat with the dry side 
 of it. Then a look of intelligence — albeit half aggressive 
 — came into his face. " Wheer beest tha going ? " he asked. 
 
 Something in his voice struck Sadie like a vague echo. 
 Perhaps it was only the queer dialect, — or some resemblance 
 to his granddaughter's voice. She looked at him a little 
 more closely as she said : — 
 
 "To the Priory." 
 
 " Whaat ? " 
 
 She pointed with her parasol to the gray pile in the dis- 
 tance. It was possible that this demented peasant did n't 
 even understand English. 
 
 " The hall. Oh, ay ! " Suddenly his brows knit omi- 
 nously as he faced her. " An' wassist tha doin' drest oop 
 in this foinery ? Wheer gettist thee that goawn ? Thissen, 
 or thy maester ? Nowt even a napron, fit for thy wark as 
 maaid at serviss ; an' parson a gettin' tha plaace at Hall ! 
 So thou 'It be high and moity will tha ! thou 'It not walk 
 wi' maaids, but traipse by thissen like a slut in the to«t* ■ « 
 dang tha ! '' 
 
THE DESBOftOUGH CONNECTIONS 287 
 
 Although it was plain to Sadie that the old man, in his 
 wandering perception, had mistaken her for his granddaugh- 
 ter in service at the Priory, there was still enough rudeness 
 in his speech for her to have resented it. But, strange to 
 say, there was a kind of authority in it that touched her 
 with an uneasiness and repulsion that was stronger than any 
 other feeling. " I think you have mistaken me for some one 
 else," she said hurriedly, yet wondering why she had ad- 
 mitted it, and even irritated at the admission. "I am a 
 stranger here, a visitor at the Priory. I called with Miss 
 Amelyn at your cottage, and saw your other granddaughter ; 
 that 's how I knew your name." 
 
 The old man's face changed. A sad, senile smile of hope- 
 less bewilderment crept into his hard mouth ; he plucked 
 his limp cap from his head and let it hang submissively in 
 his fingers, as if it were his sole apology. Then he tried 
 to straighten himself, and said, "Naw offins, miss, naw 
 offins ! If tha knaws mea tha '11 knaw I 'm grandfeyther to 
 two galls as moight be tha owern age ; tha '11 tell 'ee that 
 old Debs at haaty years 'as warked and niver lost a day 
 as man or boy ; has niver coome oopen 'em for n'aporth. 
 An' 'ee '11 keep out o' warktis till he doy. An' 'ee 's put 
 by enow to loy wi' his own feythers in Lanksheer, an' not 
 liggen aloane in parson's choorchyard." 
 
 It was part of her uneasiness that, scarcely understand- 
 ing or, indeed, feeling any interest in these maundering de- 
 tails, she still seemed to have an odd comprehension of his 
 character and some reminiscent knowledge of him, as if she 
 were going through the repetition of some unpleasant dream. 
 Even his wrinkled face was becoming familiar to her. Some 
 weird attraction was holding her ; she wanted to get away 
 from it as much as she wanted to analyze it. She glanced 
 ostentatiously at the sky, prepared to open her parasol, and 
 began to edge cautiously away. 
 
 " Then tha beant from these pearts ? " he said suddenly. 
 
288 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 " ~No, no," she said quickly and emphatically, — " no, 
 I 'm an American." 
 
 The old man started and moved towards her, eagerly, his 
 keen eyes breaking through the film that at times obscured 
 them. " 'Merrikan ! tha baist 'Merrikan ? Then tha knaws 
 ma son John, 'ee war nowt but a bairn when brether Dick 
 took un to 'Merriky ! Naw ! Now ! that wor fifty years 
 sen ! — niver wroate to his old fey ther — niver coomed back. 
 'Ee wor tall-loike, an' thea said 'ee feavored mea." He 
 stopped, threw up his head, and with his skinny fingers 
 drew back his long, straggling locks from his sunken cheeks, 
 and stared in her face. The quick transition of fascination, 
 repulsion, shock, and indefinable apprehension made her 
 laugh hysterically. To her terror he joined in it, and 
 eagerly clasped her wrists. " Eh, lass ! tha knaws John — 
 tha coomes from un to ole grandfeyther. Who-rr-u ! Eay ! 
 but tha tho't to fool mea, did tha, lass ? Whoy, I knoawed 
 tha voice, for a' tha foine peacock feathers. So tha be John's 
 gell coom from Ameriky. Dear ! a dear ! Coom neaur, 
 lass ! let 's see what tha 's loike. Eh, but thou 'It kiss tha 
 grandfather, sewerly ? " 
 
 A wild terror and undefined consternation had completely 
 overpowered her ! But she made a desperate effort to free 
 her wrists, and burst out madly : — 
 
 " Let me go ! How dare you ! I don't know you or 
 yours ! I 'm nothing to you or your kin ! My name is 
 Desborough — do you understand — do you hear me, Mr. 
 Debs ? — Desborough ! " 
 
 At the word the old man's fingers stiffened like steel 
 around her wrists, as he turned upon her a hard, invincible 
 face. 
 
 " So thou 'It call thissen Des-borough, wilt tha ? Let me 
 tell tha, then, that ' Debs,' ' Debban,' ' Debbrook,' and ' Des- 
 borough ' are all a seame ! Ay ! thy feyther and thy 
 feyther' s feyther ! Thou 'It be S Des-borough, wilt tha 1 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 289 
 
 Dang tha ! and look doon on tha kin, and dress thissen 
 in silks o' shame ! Tell 'ee thou 'rt an ass, gell ! Don't 
 tha hear ? An ass ! for all tha bean John's bairn ! An ass ! 
 that 's what tha beast ! " 
 
 With flashing eyes and burning cheeks she made one 
 more supreme effort, lifting her arms, freeing her wrists, 
 and throwing the old man staggering from her. Then she 
 leaped the stile, turned, and fled through the rain. But 
 before she reached the end of the field she stopped ! She 
 had freed herself, — she was stronger than he, — what had 
 she to fear ? He was crazy ! Yes, he must be crazy, and 
 he had insulted her, but he was an old man, — and God 
 knows what ! Her heart was beating rapidly, her breath 
 was hurried, but she ran back to the stile. 
 
 He was not there. The field sloped away on either side 
 of it. But she could distinguish nothing in the pouring 
 rain above the wind-swept meadow. He must have gone 
 home. Relieved for a moment,, she turned and hurried on 
 towards the Priory. 
 
 But at every step she was followed, not by the old man's 
 presence, but by what he had said to her, which she could 
 not shake off as she had shaken off his detaining fingers. 
 Was it the ravings of insanity, or had she stumbled unwit- 
 tingly upon some secret, — was it after all a secret ? Perhaps 
 it was something they all knew, or would know later. And 
 she had come down here for this. For back of her indig- 
 nation, back even of her disbelief in his insanity, there was 
 an awful sense of truth ! The names he had flung out, of 
 " Debs," " Debban," and " Debbrook," now flashed upon 
 her as something she had seen before, but had not under- 
 stood. Until she satisfied herself of this, she felt she could 
 not live or breathe ! She loathed the Priory, with its 
 austere exclusiveness, as it rose before her ; she wished she 
 had never entered it ; but it contained that which she must 
 know, and know at once ! She entered the nearest door and 
 
290 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 ran up the grand staircase. Her flushed face and disordered 
 appearance were easily accounted for by her exposure to the 
 sudden storm. She went to her bedroom, sent her maid to 
 another room to prepare a change of dress, and, sinking 
 down before her traveling-desk, groped for a document. 
 Ah ! there it was — the expensive toy that she had played 
 with ! She hastily ran over its leaves to the page she al- 
 ready remembered. And there, among the dashes and per- 
 pendicular lines she had jested over last night, on which 
 she had thought was a collateral branch of the line, stood 
 her father's name and that of Richard, his uncle, with the 
 bracketed note in red ink, " see Debbrook, Daybrook, Deb- 
 bers, and Debs." Yes ! this gaunt, half-crazy, overworked 
 peasant, content to rake the dead leaves before the rolling 
 chariots of the Beverdales, was her grandfather ; that poorly 
 clad girl in the cottage, and even the menial in the scullery 
 of this very house that might be hers, were her cousins ! 
 She burst into a laugh, and .then refolded the document and 
 put it away. 
 
 At luncheon she was radiant and sparkling. Her 
 drenched clothes were an excuse for a new and ravishing 
 toilette. She had never looked so beautiful before, and 
 significant glances were exchanged between some of the 
 guests, who believed that the expected proposal had already 
 come. But those who were of the carriage party knew 
 otherwise, and of Lord Algernon's disappointment. Lord 
 Beverdale contented himself with rallying his fair guest on 
 the becomingness of "good works." But he continued, 
 " You 're offering a dreadful example to these ladies, Miss 
 Desborough, and I know I shall never hereafter be able to 
 content them with any frivolous morning amusement at the 
 Priory. For myself, when I am grown gouty and hideous, 
 I know I shall bloom again as a district visitor." 
 
 Yet under this surface sparkle and nervous exaltation 
 Sadie never lost consciousness of the gravity of the situa- 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 291 
 
 tion. If her sense of humor enabled her to see one side of 
 its grim irony ; if she experienced a wicked satisfaction in 
 accepting the admiration and easy confidence of the high- 
 born guests, knowing that her cousin had assisted in prepar- 
 ing the meal they were eating, she had never lost sight of 
 the practical effect of the discovery she had made. And 
 she had come to a final resolution. She should leave the 
 Priory at once, and abandon all idea of a matrimonial alli- 
 ance with its heir ! Inconsistent as this might seem to her 
 selfish, worldly nature, it was nevertheless in keeping with, 
 a certain pride and independence that was in her blood. 
 She did not love Lord Algernon, neither did she love her 
 grandfather ; she was equally willing to sacrifice either or 
 both ; she knew that neither Lord Algernon nor his father 
 would make her connections an objection, however they 
 might wish to keep the fact a secret, or otherwise dispose 
 of them by pensions or emigration, but she could not bear 
 to know it herself! She never could be happy as the 
 mistress of Scrooby Priory with that knowledge ; she did 
 not idealize it as a principle ! Carefully weighing it by 
 her own practical common sense, she said to herself that 
 "it wouldn't pay." The highest independence is often 
 akin to the lowest selfishness ; she did not dream that the 
 same pride which kept her grandfather from the workhouse 
 and support by his daughters, and had even kept him from 
 communicating with his own son, now kept her from ac- 
 knowledging them, even for the gift of a title and domain. 
 There was only one question before her : should she stay 
 long enough to receive the proposal of Lord Algernon, and 
 then decline it ? Why should she not snatch that single 
 feminine joy out of the ashes of her burnt-up illusion ? 
 She knew that an opportunity would be offered that after- 
 noon. The party were to take tea at Broxby Hall, and 
 Lord Algernon was to drive her there in his dog-cart. Miss 
 Desborough had gone up to her bedroom to put on a 
 
292 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 warmer cloak, and had rung twice or thrice impatiently for 
 her maid. 
 
 When the girl made her appearance, apologetic, voluhle, 
 and excited, Miss Desborough scarcely listened to her ex- 
 cuses, until a single word suddenly arrested her attention. 
 It was " old Debs." 
 
 " What are you talking about ? " said Sadie, pausing in 
 the adjustment of her hat on her brown hair. 
 
 " Old Debs, miss, — that 's what they call him ; an old 
 park-keeper, just found dead in a pool of water in the fields ; 
 the grandfather of one of the servants here ; and there 's 
 such an excitement in the servants' hall. The gentlemen 
 all knew it, too, for I heard Lord Algernon say that he was 
 looking very queer lately, and might have had a fit ; and. 
 Lord Beverdale has sent word to the coroner. And only 
 think, the people here are such fools that they dare n't 
 touch or move the poor man, and him lyin' there in the 
 rain all the time, until the coroner comes ! " 
 
 Miss Desborough had been steadily regarding herself in 
 the glass to see if she had turned pale. She had. She set 
 her teeth together until the color partly returned. But she 
 kept her face away from the maid. " That '11 do," she said 
 quietly. " You can tell me all later. I have some impor- 
 tant news myself, and I may not go out after all. I want 
 you to take a note for me." She went to her table, wrote 
 a line in pencil, folded it, scribbled an address upon it, 
 handed it to the girl, and gently pushed her from the 
 room. 
 
 The consul was lingering on the terrace beside one of 
 the carriages ; at a little distance a groom was holding the 
 nervous thoroughbred of Lord Algernon's dog-cart. Sud- 
 denly he felt a touch on his shoulder, and Miss Desbor- 
 ough's maid put a note in his hand. It contained only a 
 line : — 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 293 
 
 Please come and see me in the library, but without mak' 
 ing any fuss about it — at once. S. D. 
 
 The consul glanced around him ; no one had apparently 
 noticed the incident. He slipped back into the house and 
 made his way to the library. It was a long gallery ; at 
 the further end Miss Desborough stood cloaked, veiled, and 
 coquettishly hatted. She was looking very beautiful and 
 animated. " I want you to please do me a great favor," 
 she said, with an adorable smile, " as your own country- 
 woman, you know, — for the sake of Fourth of July and 
 Pumpkin Pie and the Old Flag ! I don't want to go to 
 this circus to-day. I am going to leave here to-night ! I 
 am ! Honest Injin ! I want you to manage it. I want you 
 to say that as consul you 've received important news for me: 
 the death of some relative, if you like ; or better, something 
 affecting my property, you know," with a little satirical 
 laugh. " I guess that would fetch 'em ! So go at once." 
 
 " But really, Miss Desborough, do let us talk this 
 over before you decide ! " implored the bewildered consul. 
 " Think what a disappointment to your host and these 
 ladies. Lord Algernon expects to drive you there ; he is 
 already waiting ! The party was got up for you ! " Miss 
 Desborough made a slight grimace. " I mean you ought 
 to sacrifice something — but I trust there is really nothing 
 serious — to them ! " 
 
 " If you do not speak to them, I will ! " said Miss Des- 
 borough firmly. " If you say what I tell you, it will come 
 the more plausibly from you. Come ! My mind is made 
 up. One of us must break the news ! Shall it be you ol 
 I ? " She drew her cloak over her shoulders and made a 
 step forward. 
 
 The consul saw she was determined. " Then wait here 
 till I return, but keep yourself out of sight," he said, and 
 hurried away. Between the library and the terrace he con- 
 
294: THE DESBOKOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 ceived a plan. His perplexity lent him a seriousness which 
 befitted the gravity of the news he had to disclose. " I am 
 sorry to have to tell you," he said, taking Lord Beverdale 
 aside, " that I was the unlucky bearer of some sad news to 
 Miss Desborough this morning, through my consular letters, 
 — some matter concerning the death of a relation of hers, and 
 some wearisome question of property. I thought that it 
 was of little importance, and that she would not take it seri- 
 ously, but I find I was mistaken. It may even oblige her 
 to catch the London train to-night. I promised to make 
 her excuses to you for the present, and I 'm afraid I must 
 add my own to them, as she wishes me to stay and advise 
 her in this matter, which requires some prompt action." 
 
 Miss Desborough was right : the magic word " property " 
 changed the slight annoyance on the earl's face to a sym- 
 pathetic concern. " Dear me ! I trust it is nothing really 
 serious," he said. " Of course you will advise her, and, by 
 the way, if my solicitor, Withers, who '11 be here to-morrow, 
 can do anything, you know, call him in. I hope she '11 be 
 able to see me later. It could not be a near relation who 
 died, I fancy ; she has no brothers or sisters, I understand." 
 
 " A cousin, I think ; an old friend," said the consul 
 hastily. He heard Lord Beverdale say a few words to his 
 companions, and saw with a tinge of remorse a cloud settle 
 upon Lord Algernon's fresh face, as he appealed in a whis- 
 per to old Lady Mesthyn, who leaned forward from the 
 carriage, and said, " If the dear child thought i" could be of 
 any service, I should only be too glad to stay with her." 
 
 " I know she would appreciate Lady Mesthyn's sym- 
 pathy," said the ingenious consul quickly, " but I really 
 think the question is more a business one — and " — 
 
 " Ah, yes," said the old lady, shaking her head, " it 's 
 dreadful, of course, but we must all think of that 1 " 
 
 As the carriage drove away, the consul hurried back a 
 little viciously to his fair countrywoman. " There ! " he 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 295 
 
 said, " I have done it ! If I have managed to convey 
 either the idea that you are a penniless orphan, or that I 
 have official information that you are suspected of a dyna- 
 mite conspiracy, don't blame me ! And now," he said, "as 
 I have excused myself on the ground that I must devote 
 myself to this dreadful business of yours, perhaps you '11 
 tell me what it really is." 
 
 " Not a word more," said Miss Desborough ; " except," 
 she added, — checking her smile with a weary gesture, — 
 " except that I want to leave this dreadful place at once ! 
 There ! don't ask me any more ! " 
 
 There could be no doubt of the girl's sincerity. Nor 
 ■was it the extravagant caprice of a petted idol. What had 
 happened ? He might have believed in a lovers' quarrel, 
 but he knew that she and Lord Algernon could have had 
 no private interview that evening. He must perforce ac- 
 cept her silence, yet he could not help saying : — 
 
 " You seemed to like the place so much last night. I 
 say, you have n't seen the Priory ghost, have you ? " 
 
 " The Priory ghost," she said quickly. " What 's 
 that ? " 
 
 " The old monk who passes through the, cloisters with 
 the sacred oil, the bell, and the smell of incense whenever 
 any one is to die here. By Jove ! it would have been a 
 good story to tell instead of this cock-and-bull one about 
 your property. And there was a death here to-day. 
 You 'd have added the sibyl's gifts to your other charms." 
 
 " Tell me about that old man," she said, looking past 
 him oat of the window. " I was at his cottage this morn- 
 ing. But, no ! first let us go out. You can take me for a 
 walk, if you like. You see I am all ready, and I 'm just 
 stifling here." 
 
 They descended to the terrace together. " Where would 
 you like to go ? " he asked. 
 
 " To the village. I may want to telegraph, you know." 
 
296 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 They turned into the avenue, but Miss Desborough 
 stopped. 
 
 " Is there not a shorter cut across the fields," she asked, 
 " over there ? " 
 
 " There is," said the consul. 
 
 They both turned into the footpath which led to the 
 farm and stile. After a pause she said, " Did you ever talk 
 with that poor old man ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then you don't know if he really was crazy, as they 
 think?" 
 
 " No. But they may have thought an old man's forget- 
 fulness of present things and his habit of communing with 
 the past was insanity. For all that, he was a plucky, inde- 
 pendent old fellow, with a grim purpose that was certainly 
 rational." 
 
 " I suppose in his independence he would not have taken 
 favors from these people, or anybody ? " 
 
 " I should think not." 
 
 " Don't you think it was just horrid, — their leaving him 
 alone in the rain, when he might have been only in a fit ? " 
 
 " The doctpr says he died suddenly of heart disease," said 
 the consul. " It might have happened at any moment and 
 without warning." 
 
 " Ah, that was the coroner's verdict, then ? " said Miss 
 Desborough quickly. 
 
 " The coroner did not think it necessary to have any in- 
 quest after Lord Beverdale's statement. It would n't have 
 been very joyous for the Priory party. And I dare *ay he 
 thought it might not be very cheerful for you." 
 
 " How very kind ! " said the young girl, with a quick 
 laugh. "But do you know that it's about the only thing 
 human, original, and striking that has happened in this place 
 since I 've been here ! And so unexpected, considering how 
 jomfortably everything is ordered here beforehand." 
 
THE DESBOEOTJGH CONNECTIONS 297 
 
 <' Yet you seemed to like that kind of thing very well 
 last evening," said the consul mischievously. 
 
 "That was last night," retorted Miss Desborough; "and 
 you know the line, ' Colors seen by candlelight do not look 
 the same by day. ' But I 'm going to be very consistent 
 to-day, for I intend to go over to that poor man's cottage 
 again, and see if I can be of any service. Will you go with 
 me?" 
 
 " Certainly," said the consul, mystified by his compan- 
 ion's extraordinary conduct, yet apparent coolness of pur- 
 pose, and hoping for some further explanation. Was she 
 only an inexperienced flirt who had found herself on the 
 point of a serious entanglement she had not contemplated ? 
 Yet even then he knew she was clever enough to extricate 
 herself in some other way than this abrupt and brutal tear- 
 ing through the meshes. Or was it possible that she really 
 had any intelligence affecting her property ? He reflected 
 that he knew very little of the Desboroughs, but on the 
 ovher hand he knew that Beverdale knew them much better, 
 and was a prudent man. He had no right to demand her 
 confidence as a reward for his secrecy ; he must wait her 
 pleasure. Perhaps she would still explain ; women seldom 
 could resist the triumph of telling the secret that puzzled 
 others. 
 
 When they reached the village she halted before the low 
 roof of Debs's cottage. " I had better go in first," she said ; 
 " you can come in later, and in the mean time you might go 
 to the station for me and find out the exact time that the 
 express train leaves for the north." 
 
 " But," said the astonished consul, " I thought you were 
 gving to London ? " 
 
 "No," said Miss Desborough quietly, "I am going to 
 jtin some friends at Harrogate." 
 
 " But that train goes much earlier than the train south, 
 aTl< i — and I'm afraid Lord' Beverdale will not have returned 
 s« soon." 
 
298 THE DESBOKOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 " How sad ! " said Miss Desborough, with a faint smile, 
 " but we must bear up under it, and — I '11 write him. I 
 will be here until you return." 
 
 She turned away and entered the cottage. The grand-, 
 daughter she had already seen and her sister, the servant 
 at the Priory, were both chatting comfortably, but ceased as 
 she entered, and both rose with awkward respect. There 
 was little to suggest that the body of their grandfather, 
 already in a rough oak shell, was lying upon trestles beside 
 them. 
 
 " You have carried out my orders, I see," said Miss 
 Desborough, laying down her parasol. 
 
 " Ay, miss ; but it was main haard gettin' et dSoan so 
 ■ soon, and et cBoast " — 
 
 "Never mind the cost. I've given you money enough, 
 I think, and if I have n't, I guess I can give you more." 
 
 " Ay, miss ! Abbut the pa'son 'ead gi' un a funeral for 
 nowt." 
 
 " But I understood you to say," said Miss Desborough, 
 with an impatient flash of eye, " that your grandfather 
 wished to be buried with his kindred in the north ? " 
 
 " Ay, miss," said the girl apologetically, " an naw 'ees 
 savit th' munny. Abbut 'ee 'd bean tickled 'ad 'ee knowed 
 it ! Dear ! dear ! 'ee niver thowt et 'ud be gi'en by stranger 
 an' not 'es ownt fammaly." 
 
 " For all that, you need n't tell anybody it was given 
 by me," said Miss Desborough. " And you '11 be sure to 
 be ready to take the train this afternoon — without delay." 
 There was a certain peremptoriness in her voice very unlike 
 Miss Amelyn's, yet apparently much more effective with the 
 granddaughter. 
 
 " Ay, miss. Then, if tha '11 excoose mea, I '11 go streight 
 to 'oory oop sexten." 
 
 She bustled away. " Now," said Miss DesboTough, turn- 
 ing to the other girl, " I shall take the same train, and will 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 299 
 
 probably see you on the platform at York to give my final 
 directions. That 's all. Go and see if the gentleman who 
 came with me has returned from the station." 
 
 The girl obeyed. Left entirely alone, Miss Desborough 
 glanced around the room, and then went quietly up to the 
 unlidded coffin. The repose of death had softened the hard 
 lines of the old man's mouth and brow into a resemblance 
 she now more than ever understood. She had stood thua 
 only a few years before, looking at the same face in a gor- 
 geously inlaid mahogany casket, smothered amidst costly 
 flowers, and surrounded by friends attired in all the luxuri- 
 ous trappings of woe ; yet it was the same face that was 
 now rigidly upturned to the bare thatch and rafters of that 
 crumbling cottage, herself its only companion. She lifted 
 her delicate veil with both hands, and, stooping down, kissed 
 the hard, cold forehead, without a tremor. Then she 
 dropped her veil again over her dry eyes, readjusted it in 
 the little, cheap, black-framed mirror that hung against the 
 wall, and opened the door as the granddaughter returned. 
 The gentleman was just coming from the station. 
 
 " Remember to look out for me at York," said Miss Des- 
 borough, extending her gloved hand, " Good-by till then." 
 The young girl respectfully touched the ends of Miss Des- 
 borough's fingers, dropped a curtsy, and Miss Desborough. 
 rejoined the consul. 
 
 " You have barely time to return to the Priory and see 
 to your luggage," said the consul, " if you must go. But 
 let me hope that you have changed your mind." 
 
 " I have not changed my mind," said Miss Desborough 
 quietly, " and my baggage is already packed." After a 
 pause, she said thoughtfully, " I 've been wondering " — 
 
 " What ? " said the consul eagerly. 
 
 " I 've been wondering if people brought up to speak in 
 a certain dialect, where certain words have their own sig- 
 nificance and color, and sip part of their own lives and 
 
800 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 experience, — if, even when they understand another dialect, 
 they really feel any sympathy with it, or the person who 
 speaks it ? " 
 
 " Apropos of " — asked the consul. 
 
 " These people I 've just left ! I don't think I quite 
 felt with them, and I guess they did n't feel with me." 
 
 " But," said the consul laughingly, " you know that we 
 Americans speak with a decided dialect of our own, and 
 attach the same occult meaning to it. Yet, upon my word, 
 I think that Lord Beverdale — or shall I say Lord Alger- 
 non ? — would not only understand that American word 
 ' guess ' as you mean it, hut would perfectly sympathize 
 with you." 
 
 Miss Deshorough's eyes sparkled even through her veil 
 as she glanced at her companion and said, " I guess not." 
 
 As the " tea " party had not yet returned, it fell to the 
 consul to accompany Miss Deshorough and her maid to the 
 station. But here he was startled to find a collection of 
 villagers upon the platform, gathered round two young 
 women in mourning, and an ominous-looking hox. He 
 mingled for a moment with the crowd, and then returned 
 to Miss Deshorough's side. 
 
 " Really," he said, with a concern that was scarcely 
 assumed, "I ought not to let you go. The omens are 
 most disastrous ! You came here to a death ; you are going 
 away with a funeral ! " 
 
 " Then it 's high time I took myself off ! " said the lady 
 lightly. 
 
 " Unless, like the ghostly monk, you came here on a 
 mission, and have fulfilled it." 
 
 " Perhaps I have. Good-hy ! " 
 
 In spite of the hright and characteristic letter which 
 Miss Deshorough left for her host, — a letter which min- 
 gled her peculiar shrewd sense with her humorous extrava- 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 301 
 
 gance of expression, — the consul spent a somewhat uneasy 
 evening under the fire of questions that assailed him in 
 reference to the fair deserter. But he kept loyal faith with 
 her, adhering even to the letter of her instructions, and 
 only once was goaded into more active mendacity. The 
 conversation had turned upon " Debs," and the consul had 
 remarked on the singularity of the name. A guest from 
 the north observed, however, that the name was undoubt- 
 edly a contraction. " Possibly it might have been ' Deb- 
 borough,' or even the same name as our fair friend." 
 
 " But did n't Miss Desborough tell you last night that 
 she had been hunting up her people, with a family tree, 
 or something like that ? " said Lord Algernon eagerly. 
 " I just caught a word here and there, for you were both 
 laughing." 
 
 The consul smiled blandly. "You may well say so, for 
 it was all the most delightful piece of pure invention and 
 utter extravagance. It would have amused her still more 
 if she had thought you were listening and took it seri- 
 ously ! " 
 
 " Of course ! I see ! " said the young fellow, with a laugh 
 and a slight rise of color. " I knew she was taking some 
 kind of a rise out of you, and that remark reminded me 
 of it." 
 
 Nevertheless, within a year, Lord Algernon was happily 
 married to the daughter of a South African millionaire, 
 whose bridal offerings alone touched the sum of half a mil- 
 lion. It was also said that the mother was " impossible " 
 and the father " unspeakable," the relations " inextinguish- 
 able ; " but the wedding was an " occasion," and in the 
 succeeding year of festivity it is presumed that the names 
 of " Debs " and " Desborough " were alike forgotten. 
 
 But they existed still in a little hamlet near the edge of 
 a bleak northern moor, where they were singularly exalted 
 on a soaring shaft of pure marble above the submerged and 
 
302 THE DESBOKOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 moss-grown tombstones of a simple country churchyard. 
 So great was the contrast between the modern and preten- 
 tious monument and the graves of the humbler forefathers 
 of the village, that even the Americans who chanced to visit 
 it were shocked at what they believed was the ostentatious 
 and vulgar pride of one of their own countrywomen. For 
 on its pedestal was inscribed : — 
 
 SACRED TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN DEBS DESBOROUGH, 
 
 FORMERLY OF THIS PARISH, 
 
 WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE OCTOBER 20TH, 1892, 
 
 AT SCROOBY PRIORY, 
 
 AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-TWO YEARS. 
 
 THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED AS A LOVING TESTIMONY 
 
 BY HIS GRANDDAUGHTER, 
 
 SADIE DESBOROUGH, OF NEW YORK, U. S. A. 
 
 "AND EVENING BRINGS US HOME." 
 
TWO AMEEICANS 
 
 Perhaps if there was anything important in the migra- 
 tion of the Maynard family to Europe it rested solely upon 
 the singular fact that Mr. Maynard did not go there in the 
 expectation of marrying his daughter to a nobleman. A 
 Charleston merchant, whose house represented two honor- 
 able generations, had, thirty years ago, a certain self-respect 
 which did not require extraneous aid and foreign support, 
 and it is exceedingly probable that his intention of spend- 
 ing a few years abroad had no ulterior motive than pleasure- 
 seeking and the observation of many things — principally 
 of the past — which his own country did not possess. His 
 future and that of his family lay in his own land, yet with 
 practical common sense he adjusted himself temporarily to his 
 new surroundings. In doing so, he had much to learn of 
 others, and others had something to learn of him ; he found 
 that the best people had a high simplicity equal to his own ; 
 he corrected their impressions that a Southerner had more 
 or less negro blood in his veins, and that, although a slave 
 owner, he did not necessarily represent an aristocracy. 
 With a distinguishing dialect of which he was not ashamed,, 
 a frank familiarity of approach joined to an invincible 
 courtesy of manneT, which made even his republican " Sir " 
 equal to the ordinary address to royalty, he was always 
 respected and seldom misunderstood. When he was — it 
 was unfortunate for those who misunderstood him. His 
 type was as distinctive and original as his cousin's, the 
 Englishman, whom it was not the fashion then to imitate. 
 So that, whether in the hotel of a capital, the Kursaal of 
 a Spa, or the humbler pension of a Swiss village, he was 
 
304 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 always characteristic. Less so was his wife, who, with the 
 chameleon quality of her transplanted countrywomen, was 
 already Parisian in dress ; still less so his daughter, who 
 had by this time absorbed the peculiarities of her French, 
 German, and Italian governesses. Yet neither had yet 
 learned to evade their nationality — or apologize for it. 
 
 Mr. Maynard and his family remained for three years in 
 Europe, his stay having been prolonged by political excite- 
 ment in his own State of South Carolina. Commerce is apt 
 to knock the insularity out of people ; distance from one's 
 own distinctive locality gives a wider range to the vision, 
 and the retired merchant foresaw ruin in his State's politics, 
 and from the view-point of all Europe beheld, instead of the 
 usual collection of individual States, his whole country. But 
 the excitement increasing, he was finally impelled to return 
 in a faint hope of doing something to allay it, taking his 
 wife with him, but leaving his daughter at school in Paris. 
 At about this time, however, a single cannon shot fired at 
 the national flag on Fort Sumter shook the whole country, 
 and reverberated even in Europe, sending some earnest 
 hearts back to do battle for State or country, sending others 
 less earnest into inglorious exile, but, saddest of all ! knock- 
 ing over the school bench of a girl at the Paris pensionnat. 
 For that shot also sank Maynard's ships at the Charleston 
 wharves, scattered his piled cotton bales awaiting shipment 
 at the quays, and drove him, a ruined man, into the " Home 
 Guard " against his better judgment. Helen Maynard, like 
 a good girl, had implored her father to let her return and 
 share his risks. But the answer was " to wait " until this 
 nine days' madness of an uprising was over. That madness 
 lasted six years, outlived Maynard, whose gray, misdoubting 
 head bit the dust at Ball's Bluff, outlived his colorless 
 widow, and left Nelly a penniless orphan. 
 
 Yet enough of her country was left in hsr to make her 
 courageous and independent of her past. They say that 
 
TWO AMERICANS 305 
 
 when she got the news she cried a little, and then laid the 
 letter and what was left of her last monthly allowance in 
 Madame Ablas's lap. Madame was devastated. " But you, 
 impoverished and desolated angel, what of you ? " "I shall 
 get some of it back," said the desolated angel with ingenuous 
 candor, " for I speak better French and English than the 
 other girls, and I shall teach them until I can get into the 
 Conservatoire, for I have a voice. You yourself have told 
 papa so." From such angelic directness there was no appeal. 
 Madam Ablas had a heart, — more, she had a French man- 
 ageress's discriminating instinct. The American schoolgirl 
 was installed in a teacher's desk ; her bosom friends and 
 fellow students became her pupils. To some of the richest, 
 and they were mainly of her own country, she sold her 
 smartest, latest dresses, jewels, and trinkets at a very good 
 figure, and put the money away against the Conservatoire 
 in the future. She worked hard, she endured patiently 
 everything but commiseration. "I'd have you know, Miss," 
 she said to Miss De Laine, daughter of the famous house of 
 Musslin, De Laine & Co., of New York, " that whatever my 
 position here may be, it is not one to be patronized by a 
 tapeseller's daughter. My case is not such a very ' sad one,' 
 thank you, and I prefer not to be spoken of as having seen 
 ' better days ' by people who have n't. There ! Don't rap 
 your desk with your pencil when you speak to me, or I 
 shall call out ' Cash ! ' before the whole class." So regret- 
 table an exhibition of temper naturally alienated certain of 
 her compatriots who were unduly sensitive of their origin, 
 and, as they formed a considerable colony who were then 
 reveling in the dregs of the Empire and the last orgies of a 
 tottering court, eventually cost her her place. A republican 
 so aristocratic was not to be tolerated by the true-born 
 Americans who paid court to De Morny for the phosphores- 
 cent splendors of St. Cloud and the Tuileries, and Miss 
 Helen lost their favor. But she had already saved enough 
 
306 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 money for the Conservatoire and a little attic in a very tall 
 house in a narrow street that trickled into the ceaseless flow 
 of the Rue Lafayette. Here for four years she trotted back- 
 wards and forwards regularly to work with the freshness of 
 youth and the inflexible set purpose of maturity. Here, 
 rain or shine, summer or winter, in the mellow season when 
 the large cafes expanded under the white sunshine into an 
 overflow of little tables on the pavement, or when the red 
 glow of the Brasserie shone through frosty panes on the 
 turned-up collars of pinched Parisians who hurried by, she 
 was always to be seen. 
 
 Half Paris had looked into her clear gray eyes and passed 
 on ; a smaller and not very youthful portion of Paris had 
 turned and followed her with small advantage to itself and 
 happily no fear to her. For even in her young womanhood 
 she kept her child's loving knowledge of that great city ; 
 she even had an innocent camaraderie with street sweepers, 
 kiosk keepers, and lemonade venders, and the sternness of 
 'Tonciergedoin melted before her. In this wholesome, prac- 
 tical child's experience she naturally avoided or overlooked 
 what would not have interested a child, and so kept her 
 freshness and a certain national shrewd simplicity invincible. 
 There is a story told of her girlhood that, one day playing 
 in the Tuileries gardens, she was approached by a gentleman 
 with a waxed mustache and a still more waxen cheek beneath 
 his heavy-lidded eyes. There was an exchange of polite 
 amenities. 
 
 " And your name, ma petite ? " 
 
 "Helen," responded the young girl naively. "What's 
 yours ? " 
 
 " Ah," said the kind gentleman, gallantly pulling at his 
 mustache, " if you are Helen, I am Paris." 
 
 The young girl raised her clear eyes to his and said gravely, 
 "I reckon your majesty is France!" 
 
 She retained this childish fearlessness as the poor student 
 
TWO AMERICANS 307 
 
 of the Conservatoire ; went alone all over Paris with her 
 maiden skirts untarnished hy the gilded dust of the boule- 
 vards or the filth of by-ways ; knew all the best shops for 
 her friends, and the cheapest for her own scant purchases ; 
 discovered breakfasts for a few sous with pale sempstresses, 
 whose sadness she understood, and reckless chorus girls, 
 whose gayety she did n't ; she knew where the earliest chest- 
 nut buds were to be found in the Bois, when the slopes of 
 the Buttes Chaumont were green, and which was the old 
 woman who sold the cheapest flowers before the Madeleine. 
 Alone and independent, she earned the affection of Madame 
 Bibelot, the concierge, and, what was more, her confidence. 
 Her outgoings and incomings were never questioned. The 
 little American could take care of herself. Ah, if her son 
 Jacques were only as reasonable ! Miss Maynard might 
 have made more friends had she cared; she might have 
 joined hands with the innocent and light-hearted poverty of 
 the coterie of her own artistic compatriots, but something in 
 her blood made her distrust Bohemianism ; her poverty was 
 something to her too sacred for jest or companionship ; her 
 own artistic aim was too long and earnest for mere temporary 
 enthusiasms. She might have found friends in her own 
 profession. Her professor opened the sacred doors of his 
 family circle to the young American girl. She appreciated 
 the delicacy, refinement, and cheerful equal responsibilities 
 of that household, so widely different from the accepted 
 Anglo-Saxon belief, but there were certain restrictions that 
 rightly or wrongly galled her American habits of girlish 
 freedom, and she resolutely tripped past the first Stage four 
 or five flights higher to her attic, the free sky, and inde- 
 pendence! Here she sometimes met another kind of in- 
 dependence in Monsieur Alphonse, aged twenty-two, and she 
 who ought to have been Madame Alphonse, aged seventeen, 
 and they often exchanged greetings on the landing with 
 great respect towards each other, and, oddly enough, no con- 
 
808 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 fusion or distrait. Later they even borrowed each other's 
 matches without fear and without reproach, until one day 
 Monsieur Alphonse's parents took him away, and the deso- 
 lated soi-disant Madame Alphonse, in a cheerful burst of 
 confidence, gave Helen her private opinion of monsieur, and 
 from her seventeen years' experience warned the American 
 infant of twenty against possible similar complications. 
 
 One day — it was near the examination for prizes, and 
 her funds were running low — she was obliged to seek one 
 of those humbler restaurants she knew of for her frugal 
 breakfast. But she was not hungry, and after a few mouth- 
 fuls left her meal unfinished as a young man entered and 
 half abstractedly took a seat at her table. She had already 
 moved towards the comptoir to pay her few sous, when, 
 chancing to look up in a mirror which hung above the 
 counter, reflecting the interior of the c&ii, she saw the 
 stranger, after casting a hurried glance around him, remove 
 from her plate the broken roll and even the crumbs she had 
 left, and as hurriedly sweep them into his pocket-handker- 
 chief. There was nothing very strange in this ; she had 
 seen something like it before in these humbler cafds, — it 
 was a crib for the birds in the Tuileries Gardens, or the 
 poor artist's substitute for rubber in correcting his crayon 
 drawing ! But there was a singular flushing of his hand- 
 some face in the act that stirred her with a strange pity, 
 made her own cheek hot with sympathy, and compelled 
 her to look at him more attentively. The back that was 
 turned towards her was broad-shouldered and symmetrical, 
 and showed a frame that seemed to require stronger nourish- 
 ment than the simple coffee and roll he had ordered and was 
 devouring slowly. His clothes, well made though worn, 
 fitted him in a smart, soldier-like way, and accentuated his 
 decided military bearing. The singular use of his left hand 
 in lifting his cup made her uneasy, until a slight movement 
 revealed the fact that his right sleeve was empty and pinned 
 
TWO AMERICANS 309 
 
 to his coat. He was one-armed. She turned her compas- 
 sionate eyes aside, yet lingered to make a few purchases at 
 the counter, as he paid his bill and walked away. But she 
 was surprised to see that he tendered the waiter the unex- 
 ampled gratuity of a sou. Perhaps he was some eccentric 
 Englishman ; he certainly did not look like a Frenchman. 
 
 She had quite forgotten the incident, and in the after- 
 noon had strolled with a few fellow pupils into the galleries 
 of the Louvre. It was " copying-day," and as her friends 
 loitered around the easels of the different students with the 
 easy consciousness of being themselves " artists," she strolled 
 on somewhat abstractedly before them. Her own art was 
 too serious to permit her much sympathy with another, and 
 in the chatter of her companions with the young painters 
 a certain levity disturbed her. Suddenly she stopped. She 
 had reached a less frequented room ; there was a single easel 
 at one side, but the stool before it was empty, and its late 
 occupant was standing in a recess by the window, with his 
 back towards her. He had drawn a silk handkerchief from 
 his pocket. She recognized his square shoulders, she recog- 
 nized the handkerchief, and as he unrolled it she recognized 
 the fragments of her morning's breakfast as he began to eat 
 them. It was the one-armed man. 
 
 She remained so motionless and breathless that he fin- 
 ished his scant meal without noticing her, and even resumed 
 his place before the easel without being aware of her pre- 
 sence. The noise of approaching feet gave a fresh impulse 
 to her own, and she moved towards him. But he was evi- 
 dently accustomed to these interruptions, and worked on 
 steadily without turning his head. As the other footsteps 
 passed her she was emboldened to take a position behind 
 him and glance at his work. It was an architectural study 
 of one of Canaletto's palaces. Even her inexperienced eyes 
 were struck with its vigor and fidelity. But she was also 
 conscious of a sense of disappointment. Why was he not 
 
310 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 ■ — like the others — copying one of the masterpieces ? 
 Becoming at last aware of a motionless woman hehind him, 
 he rose, and with a slight gesture of courtesy and a half- 
 hesitating " Vous verrez mieux Ik, mademoiselle," moved to 
 one side. 
 
 " Thank you," said Miss Maynard in English, " hut I 
 did not want to disturb you." 
 
 He glanced quickly at her face for the first time. " Ah, 
 you are English ! " he said. 
 
 " No. I am American." 
 
 His face lightened. " So am I." 
 
 " I thought so," she said. 
 
 " From my bad French ? " 
 
 " No. Because you did not look up to see if the woman 
 you were polite to was old or. young." 
 
 He smiled. " And you, mademoiselle, — you did not 
 murmur a compliment to the copy over the artist's hack." 
 
 She smiled, too, — yet with a little pang over the bread. 
 But she was relieved to see that he evidently had not recog- 
 nized her. " You are modest," she said ; " you do not 
 attempt masterpieces." 
 
 " Oh, no ! The giants like Titian and Corregio must be 
 served with both hands. I have only one," he said half 
 lightly, half sadly. 
 
 " But you have been a soldier," she said, with quick 
 intuition. 
 
 " Not much. Only during our war, — until I was com- 
 pelled to handle nothing larger than a palette knife. Then 
 I came home to New York, and, as I was no use there, I 
 came here to study." 
 
 " I am from South Carolina," she said quietly, with a 
 rising color. 
 
 He put his palette down, and glanced at her black dress. 
 " Yes," she went on doggedly, " my father lost all his pro- 
 perty, and was killed in battle with the Northerners. I am 
 
TWO AMERICANS 311 
 
 an orphan, — a pupil of the Conservatoire." It was never 
 her custom to allude to her family or her lost fortunes ; 
 she knew not why she did it now, but something impelled 
 her to rid her mind of it to him at once. Yet she was 
 pained at his grave and pitying face. . 
 
 " I am very sorry," he said simply. Then, after a pause, 
 he added, with a gentle smile, "At all events you and I 
 ■will not quarrel here under the wings of the French eagles 
 that shelter us both." 
 
 " I only wanted to explain why I was alone in Paris," 
 she said, a little less aggressively. 
 
 He replied by unhooking his palette,, which was ingen- 
 iously fastened by a strap over his shoulder under the miss- 
 ing arm, and opened a portfolio of sketches at his side. 
 " Perhaps they may interest you more than the copy, which 
 I have attempted only to get at this man's method. They 
 are sketches I have done here." 
 
 There was a buttress of Notre Dame, a black arch of the 
 Pont ISTeuf, part of an old courtyard in the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, — all very fresh and striking. Yet, with the 
 recollection of his poverty in her mind, she could not help 
 saying, " But if you copied one of those masterpieces, you 
 know you could sell it. There is always a demand for that 
 work." 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " but these help me in my line, which 
 is architectural study. It is, perhaps, not very ambitious," 
 he added thoughtfully, " but," brightening up again, " I 
 sell these sketches, too. They are quite marketable, I as- 
 sure you." 
 
 Helen's heart sank again. She remembered now to have 
 seen such sketches — she doubted not they were his — in 
 the cheap shops in the Rue Poissoniere, ticketed at a few 
 francs each. She was silent as he patiently turned them 
 over. Suddenly she uttered a little cry. 
 
 He had just uncovered a little sketch of what seemed at 
 
812 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 first sight only a confused cluster of roof tops, dormer win- 
 dows, and chimneys, level with the sky-line. But it was 
 bathed in the white sunshine of Paris, against the blue sky 
 she knew so well. There, too, were the, gritty crystals and 
 rust of the tiles, the red, brown, and greenish mosses of the 
 gutters, and lower down the more vivid colors of geraniums 
 and pansies in flower-pots under the white dimity curtains 
 which hid the small panes of garret windows ; yet every 
 sordid detail touched and transfigured with the poetry anil 
 romance of youth and genius. 
 
 " You have seen this ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes ; it is a study from my window. One must go 
 high for such effects. You would be surprised if you could 
 see how different the air and sunshine " — 
 
 " No," she interrupted gently, " I have seen it." 
 
 " You ? " he repeated, gazing at her curiously. 
 
 Helen ran the point of her slim finger along the sketch 
 until it reached a tiny dormer window in the left-hand 
 corner, half-hidden by an irregular chimney-stack. The 
 curtains were closely drawn. Keeping her finger upon the 
 spot, she said, interrogatively, " And you saw that win- 
 dow ? " 
 
 " Yes, quite plainly. I remember it was always open, 
 and the room seemed empty from early morning to evening, 
 when the curtains were drawn." 
 
 " It is my room," she said simply. 
 
 Their eyes met with this sudden confession of their equal 
 poverty. " And mine," he said gayly, " from which this 
 view was taken, is in the rear and still higher up on the 
 other street." 
 
 They both laughed as if some singular restraint had been 
 removed ; Helen even forgot the incident of the bread in 
 her relief. Then they compared notes of their experiences, 
 of their different concierges, of their housekeeping, of the 
 eheap stores and the cheaper restaurants of Paris, — except 
 
TWO AMERICANS 313 
 
 one. She told him her name, and learned that his was 
 Philip, or, if she pleased, Major Ostrander. Suddenly 
 glancing at her companions, who were ostentatiously linger- 
 ing at a little distance, she became conscious for the first 
 time that she was talking quite confidentially to a very 
 handsome man, and for a brief moment wished, she knew 
 not why, that he had been plainer. This momentary 
 restraint was accented by the entrance of a lady and gentle- 
 man, rather distingue in dress and bearing, who had stopped 
 before them, and were eyeing equally the artist, his work, 
 and his companion with somewhat insolent curiosity. Helen 
 felt herself stiffening ; her companion drew himself up with 
 soldierly rigidity. For a moment it seemed as if, under 
 that banal influence, they would part with ceremonious 
 continental politeness, but suddenly their hands met in a 
 national handshake, and with a frank smile they separated. 
 
 Helen rejoined her companions. 
 
 " So you have made a conquest of the recently acquired 
 but unknown Greek statue ? " said Mademoiselle Eenee 
 lightly. " You should take up a subscription to restore his 
 arm, ma petite, if there is a modern sculptor who can do it. 
 You might suggest it to the two Russian cognoscenti, who 
 have been hovering around him as if they wanted to buy 
 him as well as his work. Madame La Princesse is rich 
 enough to indulge her artistic taste." 
 
 " It is a countryman of mine," said Helen simply. 
 
 "He certainly does not speak French," said mademoi- 
 selle mischievously. 
 
 " Nor think it," responded Helen with equal vivacity. 
 Nevertheless, she wished she had seen him alone. 
 
 She thought nothing more of him that day in her finish- 
 ing exercises. But the next morning, as she went to open 
 her window after dressing, she drew back with a new con- 
 sciousness, and then, making a peephole in the curtain, 
 looked over the opposite roofs. She had seen them many 
 
314 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 times before, but now they had acquired a new picturesque. 
 ness, which as her view was, of course, the reverse of the 
 poor painter's sketch, must have been a transfigured mem- 
 ory of her own. Then she glanced curiously along the line 
 of windows level with hers. All these, however, with their 
 occasional revelations of the menage behind them, were also 
 familiar to her, but now she began to wonder which was 
 his. A singular instinct at last impelled her to lift her 
 eyes. Higher in the corner house, and so near the roof 
 that it scarcely seemed possible for a grown man to stand 
 upright behind it, was an ceil de bceuf looking down upon 
 the other roofs, and framed in that circular opening like a 
 vignette was the handsome face of Major Ostrander. His 
 eyes seemed to be turned towards her window. Her first 
 impulse was to open it and recognize him with a friendly 
 nod. But an odd mingling of mischief and shyness made 
 her turn away quickly. 
 
 Nevertheless, she met him the next morning walking 
 slowly so near her house that their encounter might have 
 been scarcely accidental on his part. She walked with him 
 as far as the Conservatoire. In the light of the open street 
 she thought he looked pale and hollow-cheeked ; she won- 
 dered if it was from his enforced frugality, and was trying 
 to conceive some elaborate plan of obliging him to accept 
 her hospitality at least for a single meal, when he said : — 
 
 " I think you have brought me luck, Miss Maynard." 
 
 Helen opened her eyes wonderingly. 
 
 " The two Russian connoisseurs who stared at us so 
 rudely were pleased, however, to also stare at my work. 
 They offered me a fabulous sum for one or two of my 
 sketches. It did n't seem to me quite the square thing to 
 old Favel the picture-dealer, whom I had forced to take a lot 
 at one fifteenth the price, so I simply referred them to him." 
 
 " No ! " said Miss Helen indignantly ; " you were not 
 so foolish ? " 
 
TWO AMERICANS 315 
 
 Ostrander laughed. 
 
 " I 'm afraid what you call my folly did n't avail, for 
 they wanted what they saw in my portfolio." 
 
 " Of course," said Helen. " Why, that sketch of the 
 housetop alone was worth a hundred times more than what 
 you " — She stopped ; she did not like to reveal what 
 he got for his pictures, and added, " more than what any of 
 those usurers would give." 
 
 " I am glad you think so well of it, for I do not mean to 
 sell it," he said simply, yet with a significance that kept her 
 silent. 
 
 She did not see him again for several days. The prepa- 
 ration for her examination left her no time, and her earnest 
 concentration in her work fully preoccupied her thoughts. 
 She was surprised, but not disturbed, on the day of the 
 awards to see him among the audience of anxious parents 
 and relations. Miss Helen Maynard did not get the first 
 prize, nor yet the second ; an accessit was her only award. 
 She did not know until afterwards that this had long been 
 8. foregone conclusion of her teachers on account of some in- 
 trinsic defect in her voice. She did not know until long 
 afterwards that the handsome painter's nervousness on that 
 occasion had attracted even the sympathy of some of those 
 who were near him. For she herself had been calm and 
 collected. Ifo one else knew how crushing was the blow 
 which shattered her hopes and made her three years of labor 
 and privation a useless struggle. Yet though no longer a 
 pupil, she could still teach ; her master had found her a 
 small patronage that saved her from destitution. That night 
 she circled up quite cheerfully in her usual swallow flight 
 to her nest under the eaves, and even twittered on the land- 
 ing a little over the condolences of the concierge, — who 
 knew, mon Dieu / what a beast the director of the Conser- 
 vatoire was and how he could be bribed ; but when at last 
 her brown head sank on her pillow she cried — just a little. 
 
316 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 But what was all this to that next morning, — the glorious 
 spring morning which bathed all the roofs of Paris with 
 warmth and hope, rekindling enthusiasm and ambition in 
 the breast of youth, and gilding even much of the sordid 
 dirt below. It seemed quite natural that she should meet 
 Major Ostrander not many yards away as she sallied out. 
 In that bright spring sunshine and the hopeful spring of 
 their youth they even laughed at the previous day's disap- 
 pointment. Ah ! what a claque it was, after all ! For him- 
 self, he, Ostrander, would much rather see that satin-faced 
 Parisian girl who had got the prize smirking at the critics 
 from the boards of the Grand Opera than his countrywoman ! 
 The Conservatoire settled things for Paris, but Paris was n't 
 the world ! America would come to the fore yet in art of 
 all kinds — there was a free academy there now — there 
 should be a Conservatoire of its own. Of course, Paris 
 schooling and Paris experience were n't to be despised in art ; 
 but, thank Heaven ! she had that, and no directors could 
 take it from her !' This and much more, until, comparing 
 notes, they suddenly found that they were both free for that 
 day. Why should they not take advantage of that rare 
 weather and rarer opportunity to make a little suburban ex- 
 cursion ? But where ? There was the Bois, but that was 
 still Paris. Fontainebleau ? Too far ; there were always 
 artists sketching in the forest, and he would like for that day 
 to " sink the shop." Versailles ? Ah, yes ! Versailles ! 
 
 Thither they went. It was not new to either of them. 
 Ostrander knew it as an artist and as an American readei 
 of that French historic romance, — a reader who hurried over 
 the sham intrigues of the (Eil de JSceuf, the sham pastorals 
 of the Petit Trianon, and the sham heroics of a shifty 
 court, to get to Lafayette. Helen knew it as a child who 
 had dodged these lessons from her patriotic father, but had 
 enjoyed the woods, the parks, the terraces, and particularly 
 the restaurant at the park gates. That day they took it 
 
TWO AMERICANS 317 
 
 like a boy and girl, — with the amused, omniscient tolerance 
 of youth for a past so inferior to the present. Ostrander 
 thought this gray-eyed, independent American- French girl 
 far superior to the obsequious filles d'honneur, whose bro- 
 cades had rustled through those quinquonces, and Helen 
 vaguely realized the truth of her fellow pupil's mischievous 
 criticism of her companion that day at the Louvre. Surely 
 there was no classical statue here comparable to the one- 
 armed soldier-painter ! 
 
 All this was as yet free from either sentiment or passion, 
 and was only the frank pride of friendship. But, oddly 
 enough, their mere presence and companionship seemed to 
 excite in others that tenderness they had not yet felt them- 
 selves. Family groups watched the handsome pair in their 
 innocent confidences, and, with French exuberant recogni- 
 tion of sentiment, thought them the incarnation of Love. 
 Something in their manifest equality of condition kept even 
 the vainest and most susceptible of spectators from attempted 
 rivalry or cynical interruption. And when at last they 
 dropped side by side on a sun-warmed stone bench on the 
 terrace, and Helen, inclining her brown head towards her 
 companion, informed him of the difficulty she had experi- 
 enced in getting gumbo soup, rice and chicken, corn cakes, 
 or any of her favorite home dishes in Paris, an exhausted 
 but gallant boulevardier rose from a contiguous bench, and, 
 politely lifting his hat to the handsome couple, turned slowly 
 away from what he believed were tender confidences he would 
 not permit himself to hear. 
 
 But the shadow of the trees began to lengthen, casting 
 broad bars across the allee, and the sun sank lower to the 
 level of their eyes. They were quite surprised, on looking 
 around a few moments later, to discover that the gardens 
 were quite deserted, and Ostrander, on consulting his watch, 
 found that they had just lost a train which the other plea- 
 eure-seekers had evidently availed themselves of. No mafe 
 
318 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 ter ; there was another train an hour later ; they could still 
 linger for a few moments in the brief sunset and then dine 
 at the local restaurant before they left. They both laughed 
 at their forgetfulness, and then, without knowing why, sud- 
 denly lapsed into silence. A faint wind blew in their faces 
 and trilled the thin leaves above their heads. Nothing else 
 moved. The long windows of the palace in that sunset light 
 seemed to glisten again with the incendiary fires of the Re- 
 volution, and then went out blankly and abruptly. The 
 two companions felt that they possessed the terrace and all 
 its memories as completely as the shadows who had lived 
 and died there. 
 
 " I am so glad we have had this day together," said the 
 painter, with a very conscious breaking of the silence, " for 
 I am leaving Paris to-morrow." 
 
 Helen raised her eyes quickly to his. 
 
 " For a few days only," he continued. " My Russian 
 customers — perhaps I ought to say my patrons — have 
 given me a commission to make a study of an old chateau 
 which the princess lately bought." 
 
 A swift recollection of her fellow pupil's raillery regard- 
 ing the princess's possible attitude towards the painter came 
 over her and gave a strange artificiality to her response. 
 
 " I suppose you will enjoy it very much," she said dryly. 
 
 " No," he returned with the frankness that she had lacked. 
 " I 'd much rather stay in Paris, but," he added, with a 
 faint smile, "it's a question of money, and that is not to 
 be despised. Yet I — I — somehow feel that I am desert- 
 ing you, — leaving you here all alone in Paris." 
 
 " I 've been all alone for four years," she said, with a 
 bitterness she had never felt before, " and I suppose I 'm 
 accustomed to it." 
 
 Nevertheless, she leaned a little forward, with her fawn- 
 eolored lashes dropped over her eyes, which were bent upon 
 She ground and the point of the parasol she was holding 
 
TWO AMERICANS 319 
 
 with her little gloved hands between her knees. He won- 
 dered why she did not look up ; he did not know that it 
 was partly because there were tears in her eyes, and partly 
 for another reason. As she had leaned forward, his arm 
 had quite unconsciously moved along the back of the bench 
 where her shoulders had rested, and she could not have 
 resumed her position except in his half embrace. 
 
 He had not thought of it. He was lost in a greatei 
 abstraction. That infinite tenderness, — far above a wo- 
 man's, — the tenderness of strength and manliness towards 
 weakness and delicacy, the tenderness that looks down and 
 not up, was already possessing him. An instinct of pro- 
 tection drew him nearer this bowed but charming figure, 
 and if he then noticed that the shoulders were pretty, and 
 the curves of the slim waist symmetrical, it was rather with 
 a feeling of timidity and a half-consciousness of unchival- 
 rous thought. Yet why should he not try to keep the 
 brave and honest girl near him always ? Why should he 
 not claim the right to protect her ? Why should they not 
 — they who were alone in a strange land — join their two 
 lonely lives for mutual help and happiness ? 
 
 A sudden perception of delicacy, the thought that he 
 should have spoken before her failure at the Conservatoire 
 had made her feel her helplessness, brought a slight color 
 to his cheek. Would it not seem to her that he was tak- 
 ing an unfair advantage of her misfortune ? Yet it would 
 be so easy now to slip a loving arm around her waist, while 
 he could work for her and protect her with the other. 
 The other ! His eye fell on his empty sleeve. Ah, he 
 had forgotten that ! He had but one arm ! 
 
 He rose up abruptly, — so abruptly that Helen, rising 
 too, almost touched the arm that was hurriedly withdrawn. 
 Yet in that accidental contact, which sent a vague tremor 
 through the young girl's frame, there was still time for him 
 to have spoken. But he only said : — 
 
820 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 "Perhaps we had better dine." 
 
 She assented quickly, — she knew not why, — with a feel< 
 ing of relief. They walked very quietly and slowly towards 
 the restaurant. Not a word of love had been spoken ; not 
 even a glance of understanding had passed between them. 
 Yet they both knew by some mysterious instinct that a 
 crisis of their lives had come and gone, and that they never 
 again could be to each other as they were but a brief mo- 
 ment ago. They talked very sensibly and gravely during 
 their frugal meal ; the previous spectator of their confi- 
 dences would have now thought them only simple friends, 
 and have been as mistaken as before. They talked freely 
 of their hopes and prospects, — all save one ! They even 
 spoke pleasantly of repeating their little expedition after his 
 return from the country, while in their secret hearts they 
 had both resolved never to see each other again. Yet by 
 that sign each knew that this was love, and were proud of 
 each other's pride which kept it a secret. 
 
 The train was late, and it was past ten o'clock when they 
 at last appeared before the concierge of Helen's home. 
 During their journey, and while passing through the crowds 
 at the station and in the streets, Ostrander had exhibited 
 a new and grave guardianship over the young girl, and, on 
 the first landing, after a scrutinizing and an almost fierce 
 glance at one or two of Helen's odd fellow lodgers, he 
 had extended his protection so far as to accompany her up 
 the four flights to the landing of her apartment. Here he 
 took leave of her with a grave courtesy that half pained, 
 half pleased her. She watched his broad shoulders and 
 dangling sleeve as he went down the stairs, and then 
 quickly turned, entered her room, and locked the door. 
 The smile had faded from her lips. Going to the window, 
 she pressed her hot forehead against the cool glass and 
 looked out upon the stars nearly level with the black roofs 
 around her. She stood there some moments until another 
 
TWO AMERICANS 321 
 
 star appeared higher up against the roof ridge, the star she 
 was looking for. But here the glass pane before her eyes 
 became presently dim with moisture ; she was obliged to 
 rub it out with her handkerchief; yet, somehow, it soon 
 became clouded, at which she turned sharply away and 
 went to bed. 
 
 But Miss Helen did not know that when she had looked 
 after the retreating figure of her protector, as he descended 
 the stairs that night, he was really carrying away on those 
 broad shoulders the character she had so laboriously gained 
 during her four years' solitude. For when she came down 
 the next morning the concierge bowed to her with an air 
 of easy, cynical abstraction, the result of a long conversa- 
 tion with his wife the night before. He had taken Helen's 
 part with a kindly cynicism. " Ah ! what would you, — 
 it was bound to come. The affair of the Conservatoire had 
 settled that. The poor child could not starve ; penniless, 
 she could not marry. Only why consort with other swal- 
 lows under the eaves when she could have had a gilded 
 cage on the first etage ? " But girls were so foolish, — in 
 their first affair ; then it was always love ! The second 
 lime they were wiser. And this maimed warrior and painter 
 was as poor as she. A compatriot, too ; well, perhaps that 
 saved some scandal ; one could never know what the Amer- 
 icans were accustomed to do. The first floor, which had 
 been inclined to be civil to the young teacher, was more 
 so, but less respectful ; one or two young men were tenta- 
 tively familiar until they looked in her gray eyes and remem- 
 bered the broad shoulders of the painter. Oddly enough, 
 only Mademoiselle Fifine, of her own landing, exhibited 
 any sympathy with her, and for the first time Helen was 
 frightened. She did not show it, however, only she changed 
 her lodgings the next day. But before she. left she had a 
 few moments' conversation with the concierge and an ex- 
 change of a word or two with some of her fellow lodgers 
 
322 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 I have already hinted that the young lady had great pre- 
 cision of statement ; she had a pretty turn for handling 
 colloquial French and an incisive knowledge of French 
 character. She left No. 34, Rue de Frivole, working itself 
 into a white rage, but utterly undecided as to her real 
 character. 
 
 But all this and much more was presently blown away 
 in the hot breath that swept the boulevards at the outburst 
 of the Franco-German war, and Miss Helen Maynard dis- 
 appeared from Paris with many of her fellow countrymen. 
 The excitement reached even a quaint old chateau in Brit- 
 tany where Major Ostrander was painting. The woman 
 who was standing by his side as he sat before his easel on 
 the broad terrace observed that he looked disturbed. 
 
 " What matters ? " she said gently. " You have pro- 
 gressed so well in your work that you can finish it else- 
 where. I have no great desire to stay in France with a 
 frontier garrisoned by troops while I have a villa in Swit- 
 zerland where you could still be my guest. Paris can teach 
 you nothing more, my friend ; you have only to create now 
 
 — and be famous." 
 
 " I must go to Paris," he said quietly. " I have friends 
 
 — countrymen — there, who may want me now." 
 
 " If you mean the young singer of the Rue de Frivole, 
 you have compromised her already. You can do her no 
 good." 
 
 " Madame ! " 
 
 The pretty face which he had been familiar with for the 
 past six weeks somehow seemed to change its character. 
 Under the mask of dazzling skin he fancied he saw the 
 high cheek-bones and square Tartar angle ; the brilliant 
 eyes were even brighter than before, but they showed more 
 of the white than he had ever seen in them. 
 
 Nevertheless she smiled, with an equally stony revelation 
 «f her white teeth, yet said, still gently, " Forgive me if I 
 
TWO AMERICANS 323 
 
 thought our friendship justified me in being frank, — pep 
 haps too frank for my own good." 
 
 She stopped as if half expecting an interruption ; but as 
 he remained looking wonderingly at her, she hit her lip, 
 and went on : " You have a great career before you. Those 
 who help you must do so without entangling you ; a chain 
 of roses may be as impeding as lead. Until you are inde- 
 pendent, you — who may in time compass everything your- 
 self — will need to be helped. You know," she added 
 with a smile, " you have hut one arm." 
 
 " In your kindness and appreciation you have made me 
 forget it," he stammered. Yet he had a swift vision of the 
 little bench at Versailles where he had not forgotten it, and 
 as he glanced around the empty terrace where they stood, 
 he was struck with a fateful resemblance to it. 
 
 " And I should not remind you now of it," she went on, 
 " except to say that money can always take its place. As 
 in the fairy story, the prince must have a new arm made 
 of gold." She stopped, and then suddenly coming closer 
 to him said, hurriedly and almost fiercely, " Can you not 
 see that I am advising you against my interests, — against 
 myself ? Go, then, to Paris, and go quickly, before I 
 change my mind. Only if you do not find your friends 
 there, remember you have always one here." Before he 
 could reply, or even understand that white face, she was 
 gone. 
 
 He left for Paris that afternoon. He went directly to 
 the Rue de Privole ; his old resolution to avoid Helen was 
 blown to the winds in the prospect of losing her utterly. 
 But the concierge only knew that mademoiselle had left 
 a day or two after monsieur had accompanied her home. 
 And, pointedly, there was another gentleman who had in- 
 quired eagerly — and bountifully as far as money went — 
 for any trace of the young lady. It was a Russe. The 
 concierge smiled to himself at Ostrander's flushed cheek. 
 
824 TWO AMERICAN? 
 
 It served this one-armed, conceited American poseur right 
 Mademoiselle was wiser in this second affair. 
 
 Ostrander did not finish his picture. The princess sent 
 him a check, which he coldly returned. Nevertheless, he 
 had acquired through his Russian patronage a local fame 
 which stood him well with the picture-dealers, — in spite 
 of the excitement of the war. But his heart was no longer 
 in his work ; a fever of unrest seized him, which at another 
 time might have wasted itself in mere dissipation. Some 
 of his fellow artists had already gone into the army. After 
 the first great reverses he offered his one arm and his mili- 
 tary experience to that Paris which had given him a home. 
 The old fighting instinct returned to him with a certain 
 desperation he had never known before. In the sorties 
 from Paris the one-armed American became famous, until 
 a few days before the capitulation, when he was struck 
 down by a bullet through the lung, and left in a temporary 
 hospital. Here, in the whirl and terror of Commune days, 
 he was forgotten, and when Paris revived under the repub- 
 lic he had disappeared as completely as his compatriot 
 Helen. 
 
 But Miss Helen Maynard had been only obscured, and 
 not extinguished. At the first outbreak of hostilities a few 
 Americans had still kept giddy state among the ruins of 
 the tottering empire. A day or two after she left the Rue 
 de Privole she was invited by one of her wealthy former 
 schoolmates to assist with her voice and talent at one of 
 their extravagant entertainments. " You will understand, 
 dear," said Miss De Laine, with ingenious delicacy, as she 
 eyed her old comrade's well-worn dress, " that Poppa ex- 
 pects to pay you professional prices, and it may be an open- 
 ing for you among our other friends." 
 
 " I should not come otherwise, dear," said Miss Helen, 
 with equal frankness. But she played and sang very charm- 
 ingly to the fashionable assembly in the Champs Elysees, 
 
TWO AMEEICANS 325 
 
 — so charmingly, indeed, that Miss De Laine patronizingly 
 expatiated upon her worth and her better days in confidence 
 to some of the guests. 
 
 " A most deserving creature," said Miss De Laine to the 
 dowager duchess of Soho, who was passing through Paris 
 on her way to England; "you would hardly believe that 
 Poppa knew her father when he was one of the richest 
 men in South Carolina." 
 
 " Your father seems to have been very fortunate," said 
 the duchess quietly, " and so are you. Introduce me." 
 
 This not being exactly the reply that Miss De Laine 
 expected, she momentarily hesitated : but the duchess pro- 
 fited by it to walk over to the piano and introduce herself. 
 When she rose to go she invited Helen to luncheon with 
 her the next day. " Come early, my dear, and we '11 have 
 a long talk." Helen pointed out hesitatingly that she was 
 practically a guest of the De Laines. " Ah, well, that 's 
 true, my dear ; then you may bring one of them with you." 
 
 Helen went to the luncheon, but was unaccompanied. 
 She had a long talk with the dowager. " I am not rich, 
 my dear, like your friends, and cannot afford to pay ten 
 napoleons for a song. Like you, I have seen ' better days.' 
 But this is no place for you, child, and if you can bear with 
 an old woman's company for a while, I think I can find you 
 something to do." That evening Helen left for England 
 with the duchess, a piece of " ingratitude, indelicacy, and 
 shameless snobbery," which Miss De Laine was never weary 
 of dilating upon. " And to think i" introduced her, though 
 she was a professional ! " 
 
 It was three years after. Paris, reviving under the re- 
 public, had forgotten Helen and the American colony ; and 
 the American colony, emigrating to more congenial courts, 
 had forgotten Paris. 
 
 It was a bleak day of English summer when Helen, stand 
 
326 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 ing by the window of the breakfast-room at Hamley Court, 
 and looking over the wonderful lawn, kept perennially green 
 by humid English skies, heard the practical, masculine voice 
 of the duchess in her ear at the same moment that she felt 
 the gentle, womanly touch of her hand on her shoulder. 
 
 " We are going to luncheon at Moreland Hall to-day, my 
 dear." 
 
 " Why, we were there only last week ! " said Helen. 
 
 "Undoubtedly," returned the duchess dryly, "and we 
 may luncheon there next week and the next following. 
 And," she added, looking into her companion's gray eyes, 
 " it rests with you to stay there if you choose." 
 
 Helen stared at her protector. 
 
 " My dear," continued the duchess, slipping her arm 
 around Helen's waist, " Sir James has honored me — as 
 became my relations to you — with his confidences. As 
 you have n't given me yours, I suppose you have none, 
 and that I am telling you news when I say that Sir James 
 wishes to marry you." 
 
 The unmistakable astonishment in the girl's eyes satisfied 
 the duchess even before her voice. 
 
 " But he scarcely knows me or anything of me ! " said 
 the young girl quickly. 
 
 •' On the contrary, my dear, he knows everything about 
 you. I have been particular in telling him all / know — 
 and some things even you don't know and could n't tell him. 
 For instance, that you are a very nice person. Come, my 
 dear, don't look so stupefied, or I shall really think there 's 
 something in it that I don't know. It 's not a laughing nor 
 a crying matter yet ; at present it 's only luncheon again 
 with a civil man who has three daughters and a place in the 
 county. Don't make the mistake, however, of refusing him 
 before he offers, whatever you do afterwards." 
 
 " But " — stammered Helen. 
 
 " But — you are going to say that you don't love him and 
 
TWO AMERICANS 327 
 
 have never thought of him as a hushand," interrupted the 
 duchess ; " I read it in your face, — and it 's a very proper 
 thing to say." 
 
 " It is so unexpected," urged Helen. 
 
 " Everything is unexpected from a man in these matters," 
 said the duchess. " We women are the only ones that are 
 prepared." 
 
 " But," persisted Helen, " if I don't want to marry at 
 all ? " 
 
 " I should say, then, that it is a sign that you ought ; if 
 you were eager, my dear, I should certainly dissuade you." 
 She paused, and then drawing Helen closer to her, said, with 
 a certain masculine tenderness, " As long as I live, dear, you 
 know that you have a home here. But I am an old woman 
 living on the smallest of settlements. Death is as inevitable 
 to me as marriage should be to you." 
 
 Nevertheless, they did not renew the conversation, and 
 later received the greetings of their host at Moreland Hall 
 with a simplicity and frankness that were, however, perfectly 
 natural and unaffected in both women. Sir James, — a tall, 
 well-preserved man of middle age, with the unmistakable 
 bearing of long years of recognized and unchallenged posi- 
 tion, — however, exhibited on this occasion that slight con- 
 sciousness of weakness and susceptibility to ridicule which 
 is apt to indicate the invasion of the tender passion in the 
 heart of the average Briton. His duty as host towards the 
 elder woman of superior rank, however, covered his embar- 
 rassment, and for a moment left Helen quite undisturbed to 
 gaze again upon the treasures of the long drawing-room of 
 Moreland Hall, with which she was already familiar. There 
 were the half-dozen old masters, whose respectability had 
 been as recognized through centuries as their owner's ances- 
 tors ; there were the ancestors themselves, — wigged, ruffled, 
 and white-handed, by Vandyke, Lely Komney, and Gains- 
 borough ; there were the uniform, expressionless ancestresses 
 
328 TWO AMEEICANS 
 
 in stiff brocade or short-waisted, clinging draperies, but all 
 possessing that brilliant coloring which the gray skies out- 
 side lacked, and which seemed to have departed from the 
 dresses of their descendants. The American girl had some- 
 times speculated upon what might have been the appearance 
 of the lime-tree walk, dotted with these gayly plumaged 
 folk, and wondered if the tyranny of environment had at last 
 subdued their brilliant colors. And a new feeling touched 
 her. Like most of her countrywomen, she was strongly 
 affected by the furniture of life ; the thought that all that 
 she saw there might be hers ; that she might yet stand in 
 succession to these strange courtiers and stranger shepherd- 
 esses, and, like them, look down from the canvas upon the 
 intruding foreigner, thrilled her for a moment with a half- 
 proud, half-passive sense of yielding to what seemed to be 
 her fate. A narrow-eyed, stiff-haired Dutch maid of honor 
 before whom she was standing gazed at her with staring 
 vacancy. Suddenly she started. Before the portrait upon 
 a fanciful easel stood a small, elaborately framed sketch in 
 oils. It was evidently some recently imported treasure. 
 She had not seen it before. As she moved quickly forward, 
 she recognized at a glance that it was Ostrander's sketch 
 from the Paris grenier. 
 
 The wall, the room, the park beyond, even the gray sky, 
 seemed to fade away before her. She was standing once 
 more at her attic window looking across the roofs and chim- 
 ney stacks upward to the blue sky of Paris. Through a 
 gap in the roofs she could see the chestnut-trees trilling in 
 the little square ; she could hear the swallows twittering in 
 the leaden troughs of the gutter before her ; the call of the 
 chocolate vender or the cry of a gamin floated up to her 
 from the street below, or the latest song of the cafe chantant 
 was whistled by the blue-bloused workman on the scaffolding 
 hard by. The breath of Paris, of youth, of blended work 
 and play, of ambition, of joyous freedom, again filled her 
 
TWO AMERICANS 329 
 
 and mingled with the scent of the mignonette that ised to 
 stand on the old window-ledge. 
 
 " I am glad you like it. I have only just put it up." 
 It was the voice of Sir James, — a voice that had re- 
 gained a little of its naturalness, — a calm, even lazy Eng- 
 lish voice, — > confident from the experience of years of re- 
 spectful listeners. Yet it somehow jarred upon her nerves 
 with its complacency and its utter incongruousness to her 
 feelings. Nevertheless, the impulse to know more about 
 the sketch was the stronger. 
 
 " Do you mean you have just bought it ? " asked Helen. 
 " It 's not English ? " 
 
 "No," said Sir James, gratified with his companion's 
 interest. " I bought it in Paris just after the Commune." 
 " Erom the artist ? " continued Helen, in a slightly con- 
 strained voice. 
 
 " No," said Sir James, " although I knew the poor chap 
 well enough. You can easily see that he was once a painter 
 of great promise. I rather think it was stolen from him 
 while he was in hospital by those incendiary wretches. I 
 recognized it, however, and bought for a few francs from 
 them what I would have paid him a thousand for." 
 " In hospital ? " repeated Helen dazedly. 
 " Yes," said Sir James. " The fact is, it was the ending 
 of the usual Bohemian artistes life. Though in this case the 
 man was a real artist, — and I believe, by the way, was a 
 countryman of yours." 
 
 " In hospital ? " again repeated Helen. " Then he was 
 poor ? " 
 
 " Reckless, I should rather say ; he threw himself into 
 the righting before Paris and was badly wounded. But it 
 was all the result of the usual love affair, — the girl, they 
 say, ran off with the usual richer man. At all events, it 
 ruined him for painting ; he never did anything worth hav- 
 ing afterwards." 
 
330 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 " And now ? " said Helen, in the same unmoved voice. 
 
 Sir James shrugged his shoulders. " He disappeared, 
 Probably he '11 turn up some day on the London pavement 
 — with chalks. That sketch, by the way, was one that 
 had always attracted me to his studio, though he never 
 would part with it. I rather fancy, don't you know, that 
 the girl had something to do with it. It 's a wonderfully 
 realistic sketch, don't you see ; and I should n't wonder if 
 it was the girl herself who lived behind one of those queei 
 little windows in the roof there." 
 
 " She did live there," said Helen, in a low voice. 
 
 Sir James uttered a vague laugh. 
 
 Helen looked around her. The duchess had quietly and 
 unostentatiously passed into the library, and in full view, 
 though out of hearing, was examining, with her glass to her 
 eye, some books upon the shelves. 
 
 " I mean," said Helen, in a perfectly clear voice, " that 
 the young girl did not run away from the painter, and 
 that he had neither the right nor the cause to believe her 
 faithless or attribute his misfortunes to her." She hesi- 
 tated, not from any sense of her indiscretion, but to recover 
 from a momentary doubt if the girl were really her own 
 self, — but only for a moment. 
 
 " Then you knew the painter, as I did ? " he said, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Not as you did," responded Helen. She drew nearer 
 the picture, and, pointing a slim finger to the canvas, said : — 
 
 " Do you see that small window with the mignonette ? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " That was my room. His was opposite. He told me 
 so when I first saw the sketch. I am the girl you speak 
 of, for he knew no other, and I believe him to have been a 
 truthful, honorable man." 
 
 "But what were you doing there ? Surely you are jok< 
 ing ? " said Sir James, with a forced smile. 
 
TWO AMERICANS 331 
 
 " I was a poor pupil at the Conservatoire, and lived 
 ■where I could afford to live." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 " Alone." 
 
 " And the man was " — 
 
 " Major Ostrander was my friend. I even think I have 
 a better right to call him that than you had." 
 
 Sir James coughed slightly and grasped the lapel of his 
 coat. " Of course ; I dare say ; I had no idea of this, 
 don't you know, when I spoke." He looked around him 
 as if to evade a scene. " Ah ! suppose we ask the duchess 
 to look at the sketch ; I don't think she 's seen it." He 
 began to move in the direction of the library. 
 
 " She had better wait," said Helen quietly. 
 
 " For what ? " 
 
 " Until" — hesitated Helen smilingly. 
 
 "Until ? I am afraid I don't understand," said Sir 
 James stiffly, coloring with a slight suspicion. 
 
 " Until you have apologized." 
 
 "Of course," said Sir James, with a half -hysteric laugh. 
 "I do. You understand I only repeated a story that was 
 told me, and had no idea of connecting you with it. I beg 
 your pardon, I'm sure. I er — er — in fact," he added 
 suddenly, the embarrassed smile fading from his face as he 
 looked at her fixedly, " I remember now it must have been 
 the concierge of the house, or the opposite one, who told 
 me. He said it was a Russian who carried off that young 
 girl. Of course it was some made-up story." 
 
 " I left Paris with the duchess," said Helen quietly, 
 " before the war." 
 
 ' ' Of course. And she knows all about your friendship 
 with this man." 
 
 " I don't think she does. I have n't told her. Why 
 should I ? " returned Helen, raising her clear eyes to his. 
 
 "Really, I don't know," stammered Sir James. "But 
 
332 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 here she is. Of course, if you prefer it, I won't say any 
 thing of this to her." 
 
 Helen gave him her first glance of genuine emotion ; it 
 happened, however, to be scorn. 
 
 " How odd ! " she said, as the duchess leisurely ap- 
 proached them, her glass still in her eye. " Sir James, 
 quite unconsciously, has just been showing me a sketch of 
 my dear old mansards in Paris. Look ! That little win- 
 dow was my room. And only think of it, Sir James 
 bought it of an old friend of mine, who painted it from the 
 opposite attic, where he lived. And quite unconsciously, 
 too." 
 
 " How very singular ! " said the duchess ; " indeed, quite 
 romantic ! " 
 
 " Very ! " said Sir James. 
 
 " Very ! " said Helen. 
 
 The tone of their voices was so different that the duchess 
 looked from one to the other. 
 
 " But that is n't all," said Helen, with a smile. " Sir 
 James actually fancied " — 
 
 " Will you excuse me for a moment ? " said Sir James, 
 interrupting, and turning hastily to the duchess with a 
 forced smile and a somewhat heightened color. " I had 
 forgotten that I had promised Lady Harriet to drive you 
 over to Deep Hill after luncheon to meet that South 
 American who has taken such a fancy to your place, and 
 I must send to the stables." 
 
 As Sir James disappeared, the duchess turned to Helen. 
 " I see what has happened, dear ; don't mind me, for I 
 frankly confess I shall now eat my luncheon less guiltily 
 than I feared. But tell me, how did you refuse him ? " 
 , " I did n't refuse him," said Helen. " I only prevented 
 his asking me." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 Then Helen told her all, — everything except her first 
 
TWO AMERICANS 333 
 
 meeting with Ostrander at the restaurant. A true woman 
 respects the pride of those she loves more even than her 
 own, and while Helen felt that although that incident 
 might somewhat condone her subsequent romantic passion 
 in the duchess's eyes, she could not tell it. 
 
 The duchess listened in silence. 
 
 " Then you two incompetents have never seen each other 
 since ? " she asked. 
 
 " But you hope to ? " 
 
 " I cannot speak for him." said Helen. 
 
 " And you have never written to him, and don't know 
 whether he is alive or dead ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then I have been nursing in my bosom for three years 
 at one and the same time a brave, independent, matter-of- 
 fact young person and the most idiotic, sentimental heroine 
 that ever figured in a romantic opera or a country ballad." 
 Helen did not reply. " Well, my dear," said the duchess, 
 after a pause, " I see that you are condemned to pass your 
 days with me in some cheap hotel on the continent." 
 Helen looked up wonderingly. " Yes," she continued, " I 
 suppose I must now make up my mind to sell my place to 
 this gilded South American, who has taken a fancy to it. 
 But I am not going to spoil my day by seeing him now. 
 No ; we will excuse ourselves from going to Deep Hill 
 to-day, and we will go back home quietly after luncheon. 
 It will be a mercy to Sir James." 
 
 " But," said Helen earnestly, " I can go back to my old 
 life, and earn my own living." 
 
 " Not if I can help it," said the duchess grimly. " Your 
 independence has made you a charming companion to me, 
 I admit ; but I shall see that it does not again spoil your 
 chances of marrying. Here comes Sir James. Eeally, my 
 dear, I don't know which one of you looks the more relieved." 
 
334 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 On their way back through the park Helen again urged 
 the duchess to give up the idea of selling Hamley Court, 
 and to consent to her taking up her old freedom and inde- 
 pendence once more. " I shall never, never forget your 
 .loving kindness and protection," continued the young girl 
 tenderly. " You will let me come to you always when 
 you want me ; but you will let me also shape my life anew, 
 and work for my living." The duchess turned her grave, 
 half-humorous face towards her. " That means you have 
 determined to seek him. Well ! Perhaps if you give up 
 your other absurd idea of independence, I may assist you. 
 A.nd now I really believe, dear, that there is that dreadful 
 South American," pointing to a figure that was crossing the 
 lawn at Hamley Court, " hovering round like a vulture. 
 Well, I can't see him to-day if he calls, but you may. By 
 ihe way, they say he is not bad looking, was a famous 
 general in the South American war, and is rolling in money, 
 and comes here on a secret mission from his government. 
 But I forget — the rest of our life is to be devoted to 
 seeking another. And I begin to think I am not a good 
 matchmaker." 
 
 Helen was in no mood for an interview with the stranger, 
 whom, like the duchess, she was inclined to regard as a 
 portent of fate and sacrifice. She knew her friend's strait- 
 ened circumstances, which might make such a sacrifice 
 necessary to insure a competency for her old age, and, as 
 Helen feared also, a provision for herself. She knew the 
 strange tenderness of this masculine woman, which had 
 survived a husband's infidelities and a son's forgetfulness, 
 to be given to her, and her heart sank at the prospect of 
 separation, even while her pride demanded that she should 
 return to her old life again. Then she wondered if the 
 duchess was right ; did she still cherish the hope of meet- 
 ing Ostrander again ? The tears she had kept back all 
 that day asserted themselves as she flung open the library 
 
TWO AMERICANS 335 
 
 door and ran across the garden into the myrtle walk. 
 " In hospital ! " The words had been ringing in her ears 
 through Sir James's complacent speech, through the oddly 
 constrained luncheon, through the half-tender, half-mascu- 
 line reasoning of her companion. He had loved her ; he 
 had suffered and perhaps thought her false. Suddenly she 
 stopped. At the further end of the walk the ominous 
 stranger whom she wished to avoid was standing looking 
 towards the house. 
 
 How provoking ! She glanced again ; he was leaning 
 against a tree, and was obviously as preoccupied as she was 
 herself. He was actually sketching the ivy-covered gable 
 of the library. What presumption ! And he was sketch- 
 ing with his left hand. A sudden thrill of superstition 
 came over her. She moved eagerly forward for a better 
 view of him. No ! he had two arms ! 
 
 But his quick eye had already caught sight of her, and 
 before she could retreat she could see that he had thrown 
 away his sketch-book and was hastening eagerly toward 
 her. Amazed and confounded she would have flown, but 
 her limbs suddenly refused their office ; and as he at last 
 came near her with the cry of " Helen ! " upon his lips, 
 she felt herself staggering, and was caught in his arms. 
 
 " Thank God," he said. " Then she has let you come 
 to me ! " 
 
 She disengaged herself slowly and dazedly from him, and 
 stood looking at him with wondering eyes. He was 
 bronzed and worn ; there was the second arm : but still it 
 was he. And with the love, which she now knew he had 
 felt, looking from his honest eyes ! 
 
 "She has let me come ! " she repeated vacantly. " Whom 
 do you mean ? " 
 
 " The duchess." 
 
 "The duchess?" 
 
 " Yes." He stopped suddenly, gazing at her blank face, 
 
336 TWO AMERICANS 
 
 while his own grew ashy white. " Helen ! For God'a 
 sake tell me ! You have not accepted him ? " 
 
 " I have accepted no one," she stammered, with a faint 
 color rising to her cheeks. "1 do not understand you." 
 
 A look of relief came over him. " But," he said amaz- 
 edly, " has not the duchess told you how I happen to be 
 here ? How, when you disappeared from Paris long ago, 
 with my ambition crushed, and nothing left to me but 
 my old trade of the fighter, I joined a secret expedition 
 to help the Chilian revolutionists ? How I, who might 
 have starved as a painter, gained distinction as a partisan 
 general, and was rewarded with an envoyship in Europe ? 
 How I came to Paris to seek you ? How I found that even 
 the picture — your picture, Helen — had been sold ? How, 
 in tracing it here, I met the duchess at Deep Hill, and 
 learning you were with her, in a moment of impulse, told 
 her my whole story ? How she told me that though she 
 was your best friend, you had never spoken of me, and how 
 Bhe begged me not to spoil your chance of a good match by 
 revealing myself, and so awakening a past — which she be- 
 lieved you had forgotten ? How she implored me at least 
 to let her make a fair test of your affections and your mem- 
 ory, and until then to keep away from you — and to spare 
 you, Helen ; and for your sake, I consented ? Surely she 
 has told this, now ! " 
 
 " Not a word," said Helen blankly. 
 
 " Then you mean to say that if I had not haunted the 
 park to-day, in the hope of seeing you, believing that as you 
 would not recognize me with this artificial arm, I should 
 not break my promise to her, — you would not have known 
 I was even living." 
 
 " No ! — yes ! — stay ! " A smile broke over her pale 
 face and left it rosy. " I see it all now. Oh, Philip, don't 
 you understand ? She wanted only to try us ! " 
 
 There was a silence in the lonely wood, broken only 
 
TWO AMERICANS 337 
 
 by the trills of a frightened bird whose retreat was in- 
 vaded. 
 
 " Not now ! Please ! Wait ! Come with me ! " 
 The next moment she had seized Philip's left hand, and, 
 dragging him with her, was flying down the walk towards 
 the house. But as they neared the garden door it suddenly 
 opened on the duchess, with her glasses to her eyes, smil- 
 ing. 
 
 The General Don Pelipe Ostrander did not buy Hamley 
 Court, but he and his wife were always welcome guests 
 there. And Sir James, as became an English gentleman, 
 — amazed though he was at Philip's singular return, and 
 more singular incognito, — afterwards gallantly presented 
 Philip's wife with Philip's first picture. 
 
THE STEANGE EXPEEIENCE OE ALKALI DICK 
 
 He was a " cowboy." A reckless and dashing rider, yet 
 mindful of his horse's needs ; good-humored by nature, but 
 quick in quarrel ; independent of circumstance, yet shy and 
 sensitive of opinion ; abstemious by education and general 
 habit, yet intemperate in amusement ; self-centred, yet posn 
 sessed of a childish vanity, — taken altogether, a character- 
 istic product of the Western plains, which he never should 
 have left. 
 
 But reckless adventure after adventure had brought him 
 into difficulties, from which there was only one equally 
 adventurous escape : he joined a company of Indians en- 
 gaged by Buffalo Bill to simulate before civilized communi- 
 ties the sports and customs of the uncivilized. In divers 
 Christian arenas of the nineteenth century he rode as a 
 northern barbarian of the first might have disported before 
 the Roman populace, but harmlessly, of his own free will, 
 and of some little profit to himself. He threw his lasso 
 under the curious eyes of languid men and women of the 
 world, eager for some new sensation, with admiring plaudits 
 from them and a half-contemptuous egotism of his own. 
 But outside of the arena he was lonely, lost, and impatient 
 for excitement. 
 
 An ingenious attempt to " paint the town red " did not 
 commend itself as a spectacle to the householders who lived 
 in the vicinity of Earl's Court, London, and Alkali Dick 
 was haled before a respectable magistrate by a serious police- 
 man, and fined as if he had been only a drunken coster. 
 A later attempt at Paris to " incarnadine " the neighbor- 
 hood of the Cha*nps de Mars, and " round up " a number 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 339 
 
 of boulevardiers, met with a more disastrous result, — the 
 gleam of steel from mounted gendarmes, and a mandate to 
 his employers. 
 
 So it came that one night, after the conclusion of the 
 performance, Alkali Dick rode out of the corral gate of 
 the ■ Hippodrome with his last week's salary in his pocket 
 and an imprecation on his lips. He had shaken the saw- 
 dust of the sham arena from his high, tight-fitting hoots ; 
 he would shake off the white dust of France, and the effem- 
 inate soil of all Europe also, and embark at once for his 
 own country and the Far West ! 
 
 A more practical and experienced man would have sold 
 his horse at the nearest market and taken train to Havre, 
 but Alkali Dick felt himself incomplete on terra firma 
 without his mustang, — it would be bard enough to part 
 from it on embarking, — and he had determined to ride to 
 the seaport. 
 
 The spectacle of a lithe horseman, clad in a Rembrandt 
 sombrero, velvet jacket, turnover collar, almost Van Dyke 
 in its proportions, white trousers and high boots, with long 
 curling hair falling over his shoulders, and a pointed beard 
 and mustache, was a picturesque one, but still not a novelty 
 to the late-supping Parisians who looked up under the mid- 
 night gas as he passed, and only recognized one of those 
 men whom Paris had agreed to designate as " Booflo-bils," 
 going home. 
 
 At three o'clock he pulled up at a wayside cabaret, pre- 
 ferring it to the publicity of a larger hotel, and lay there 
 till morning. The slight consternation of the cabaret- 
 keeper and his wife over this long-haired phantom, with 
 glittering, deep-set eyes, was soothed by a royally-flung 
 gold coin, and a few words of French slang picked up in 
 the arena, which, with the name of Havre, comprised Dick's 
 whole knowledge of the language. But he was touched 
 with their ready and intelligent comprehension of his needs. 
 
840 THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 and their genial if not so comprehensive loquacity. Luck- 
 ily for his quick temper, he did not know that they had 
 taken him for a traveling quack-doctor going to the Fair of 
 Yvetot, and that madame had been on the point of asking 
 him for a magic balsam to prevent migraine. 
 
 He was up betimes and away, giving a wide berth to the 
 larger towns ; taking byways and cut-offs, yet always with 
 the Western pathfinder's instinct, even among these alien, 
 poplar-haunted plains, low-banked, willow-fringed rivers, 
 and cloverless meadows. The white sun shining every- 
 where, — on dazzling arbors, summer-houses, and trellises ; 
 on light green vines and delicate pea-rows ; on the white 
 trousers, jackets, and shoes of smart shopkeepers or holiday 
 makers ; on the white headdresses of nurses and the white- 
 winged caps of the Sisters of St. Vincent, — all this grew 
 monotonous to this native of still more monotonous wastes. 
 The long, black shadows of short, blue-skirted, sabotted 
 women and short, blue-bloused, sabotted men slowly work- 
 ing in the fields, with slow oxen, or still slower heavy 
 Norman horses ; the same horses gayly bedecked, dragging 
 slowly not only heavy wagons, but their own apparently 
 more monstrous weight over the white road, fretted his ner- 
 vous Western energy, and made him impatient to get on. 
 
 At the close of the second day he found some relief on 
 entering a trackless wood, — not the usual formal avenue 
 of equidistant trees, leading to nowhere, and stopping upon 
 the open field, — but apparently a genuine forest as wild as 
 one of his own " oak bottoms." Gnarled roots and twisted 
 branches flung themselves across his path ; his mustang's 
 hoofs sank in deep pits of moss and last year's withered 
 leaves ; trailing vines caught his heavy-stirruped feet, or 
 brushed his broad sombrero ; the vista before him seemed 
 only to endlessly repeat the same sylvan glade ; he was in 
 fancy once more in the primeval Western forest, and encom- 
 passed by its vast, dim silences. He did not know that he 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 341 
 
 had in fact only penetrated an ancient park which in former 
 days resounded to the winding fanfare of the chase, and was 
 still, on stated occasions, swept over by accurately green- 
 coated Parisians and green-plumed Dianes, who had come 
 down by train ! To him it meant only unfettered and un- 
 limited freedom. 
 
 He rose in his stirrups, and sent a characteristic yell ring- 
 ing down the dim aisles before him. But, alas ! at the same 
 moment, his mustang, accustomed to the firmer grip of the 
 prairie, in lashing out, stepped upon a slimy root, and fell 
 heavily, rolling over his clinging and still unlodged rider. 
 For a few moments both lay still. Then Dick extricated 
 himself with an oath, rose giddily, dragged up his horse, — - 
 who, after the fashion of his race, was meekly succumbing 
 to his reclining position, — and then became aware that the 
 unfortunate beast was badly sprained in the shoulder, and 
 temporarily lame. The sudden recollection that he was 
 some miles from the road, and that the sun was sinking, con- 
 centrated his scattered faculties. The prospect of sleeping 
 out in that summer woodland was nothing to the pioneer- 
 bred Dick ; he could make his horse and himself comfortable 
 anywhere, — but he was delaying his arrival at Havre. He 
 must regain the high-road, — or some wayside inn. He 
 glanced around him ; the westering sun was a guide for his 
 general direction ; the road must follow it north or south ; 
 he would find a " clearing " somewhere. But here Dick 
 was mistaken ; there seemed no interruption of, no encroach- 
 ment upon, this sylvan tract, as in his Western woods. There 
 was no track or trail to be found ; he missed even the ordi- 
 nary woodland signs that denoted the path of animals to 
 water. For the park, from the time a northern duke had 
 first alienated it from the virgin forest, had been rigidly 
 preserved. 
 
 Suddenly, rising apparently from the ground before him, 
 he saw the high roof-ridges and tourelles of a long, irregu* 
 
342 THK STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 lar, gloomy building. A few steps further showed him that 
 it lay in a cuplike depression of the forest, and that it was 
 still a long descent from where he had wandered to where 
 it stood in the gathering darkness. His mustang was mov- 
 ing witli great difficulty ; he uncoiled his lariat from the 
 saddle-horn, and, selecting the most open space, tied one end 
 to the trunk of a large tree, — the forty feet of horsehair 
 rope giving the animal a sufficient degree of grazing free- 
 dom. 
 
 Then he strode more quickly down the forest side towards 
 the building, which now revealed its austere proportions, 
 though Dick could see that they were mitigated by a strange, 
 formal flower garden, with quaint statues and fountains. 
 There were grim black allies of clipped trees, a curiously 
 wrought iron gate, and twisted iron espaliers. On one side 
 the edifice was supported by a great stone terrace, which 
 seemed to him as broad as a Parisian boulevard. Yet every- 
 where it appeared sleeping in the desertion and silence of 
 the summer twilight. The evening breeze swayed the lace 
 curtains at the tall windows, but nothing else moved. To 
 the unsophisticated Western man it looked like a scene on 
 the stage. 
 
 His progress was, however, presently checked by the first 
 sight of preservation he had met in the forest, — a thick 
 hedge, which interfered between him and a sloping lawn 
 beyond. It was up to his waist, yet he began to break his 
 way through it, when suddenly he was arrested by the sound 
 of voices. Before him, on the lawn, a man and woman, 
 evidently servants, were slowly advancing, peering into the 
 shadows of the wood which he had just left. He could not 
 understand what they were saying, but he was about to 
 speak and indicate by signs his desire to find the road when 
 the wc::?an, turning towards her companion, caught sight of 
 his face -od shoulders above the hedge. To his surprise 
 end con&ti. "nation, he saw the color drop out of her fresh 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OP ALKALI DICK 34a 
 
 cheeks, her round eyes fix in their sockets, and with a de- 
 spairing shriek she turned and fled towards the house. The 
 man turned at his companion's cry, gave the same horrified 
 glance at Dick's face, uttered a hoarse " Sacre ! " crossed 
 himself violently, and fled also. 
 
 Amazed, indignant, and for the first time in his life hu- 
 miliated, Dick gazed speechlessly after them. The man, of 
 course, was a sneaking coward ; but the woman was rather 
 pretty. It had not been Dick's experience to have women 
 run from, him ! Should he follow them, knock the silly 
 fellow's head against a tree, and demand an explanation ? 
 Alas, he knew not the language ! They had already reached 
 the house and disappeared in one of the offices. Well ! let 
 them go — for a mean " low-down" pair of country bump- 
 kins! — he wanted no favors from them ! 
 
 He turned back angrily into the forest to seek his unlucky 
 beast. The gurgle of water fell on his ear ; hard by was a 
 spring, where at least he could water the mustang. He 
 stooped to examine it ; there was yet light enough in the 
 sunset sky to throw back from that little mirror the reflec- 
 tion of his thin, oval face, his long, curling hair, and his 
 pointed beard and mustache. Yes ! this was his face, — 
 the face that many women in Paris had agreed was romantic 
 and picturesque. Had those wretched greenhorns never 
 seen a real man before ? Were they idiots, or insane ? A 
 sudden recollection of the silence and seclusion of the build- 
 ing suggested certainly an asylum, — but where were the 
 keepers ? 
 
 It was getting darker in the wood ; he made haste to re- 
 cover his horse, to drag it to the spring, and there bathe 
 its shoulder in the water mixed with whiskey taken from 
 his flask. His saddle-bag contained enough bread and meat 
 for his own supper ; he would camp for the night where he 
 was, and with the first light of dawn make his way back 
 through the wood whence he came. As the light slowly 
 
644 THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 faded from the wood, he rolled himself in his saddle-blanket 
 and lay down. 
 
 But not to sleep. His strange position, the accident to 
 his horse, an unusual irritation over the incident of the 
 frightened servants, — trivial as it might have been to any 
 other man, — and, above all, an increasing childish curios 
 ity, kept him awake and restless. Presently he could see 
 also that it was growing lighter beyond the edge of the wood, 
 and that the rays of a young crescent moon, while plunging 
 the forest into darkness and impassable shadow, evidently 
 were illuminating the hollow below. He threw aside his 
 blanket, and made his way to the hedge again. He was 
 right ; he could see the quaint, formal lines of the old gar- 
 den more distinctly, — the broad terrace, the queer, dark 
 bulk of the house, with lights now gleaming from a few of 
 its open windows. 
 
 Before one of these windows opening on the terrace was 
 a small, white, draped table with fruits, cups, and glasses, 
 and two or three chairs. As he gazed curiously at these 
 new signs of life and occupation, he became aware of a reg- 
 ular and monotonous tap upon the stone flags of the terrace. 
 Suddenly he saw three figures slowly turn the corner of the 
 terrace at the further end of the building, and walk towards 
 ihe table. The central figure was that of an elderly woman, 
 yet tall and stately of carriage, walking with a stick, whose 
 regular tap he had heard, supported on the one side by an 
 elderly cure in black soutaine, and on the other by a tall 
 and slender girl in white. 
 
 They walked leisurely to the other end of the terrace, 
 as if performing a regular exercise, and returned, stopping 
 before the open French window ; where, after remaining 
 in conversation a few moments, the elderly lady and her 
 ecclesiastical companion entered. The young girl saun- 
 tered slowly to the steps of the terrace, and, leaning against 
 a huge vase as she looked over the garden, seemed lost in 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 345 
 
 contemplation. Her face was turned towards the wood, but 
 in quite another direction from where he stood. 
 
 There was something so gentle, refined, and graceful in 
 her figure, jit dominated by a girlish youthfulness of move- 
 ment and gesture, that Alkali Dick was singularly interested. 
 He had probably never seen an ingenue before ; he had cer- 
 tainly never come in contact with a girl of that caste and 
 seclusion in his brief Parisian experience. He was sorely 
 tempted to leave his hedge and try to obtain a nearer view 
 of her. There was a fringe of lUac bushes running from 
 the garden up the slope ; if he could gain their shadows, he 
 could descend into the garden. What he should do after 
 his arrival, he had not thought ; but he had one idea — he 
 knew not why — that if he ventured to speak to her he 
 would not be met with the abrupt rustic terror he had expe- 
 rienced at the hands of the servants. She was not of that 
 kind ! He crept through the hedge, reached the lilacs, and 
 began the descent softly and securely in the shadow. But 
 at the same moment she arose, called in a youthful voice 
 towards the open window, and began to descend the steps. 
 A half-expostulating reply came from the window, but the 
 young girl answered it with the laughing, capricious confi- 
 dence of a spoiled child, and continued her way into the 
 garden. Here she paused a moment and hung over a rose- 
 tree, from which she gathered a flower, afterwards thrust into 
 her belt. Dick paused, too, half crouching, half leaning over 
 a lichen-stained, cracked stone pedestal from which the statue 
 had long been overthrown and forgotten. 
 
 To his surprise, however, the young girl, following the 
 path to the lilacs, began leisurely to ascend the hill, sway- 
 in<* from side to side with a youthful movement, and swing- 
 iiu the long stalk of a lily at her side. In another moment 
 he would be discovered ! Dick was frightened ; his conn- 
 tknce of the moment before had all gone ; he would fly, — 
 and yet, an exquisite and fearful joy kept him motionless 
 
346 THE STKANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 She was approaching him, full and clear in the moonlight. 
 He could see the grace of her delicate figure in the simple 
 white frock drawn at the waist with broad satin ribbon, and 
 its love-knots of pale blue ribbons on her shoulders ; he 
 could see the coils of her brown hair, the pale, olive tint of 
 her oval cheek, the delicate, swelling nostril of her straight, 
 clear-cut nose ; he could even smell the lily she carried in 
 her little hand. Then, suddenly, she lifted her long lashes, 
 and her large gray eyes met his. 
 
 Alas ! the same look of vacant horror came into her eyes, 
 and fixed and dilated their clear pupils. But she uttered 
 no outcry, — there was something in her blood that checked 
 it ; something that even gave a dignity to her recoiling fig- 
 ure, and made Dick flush with admiration. She put her 
 hand to her side, as if the shock of the exertion of her ascent 
 had set her heart to beating, but she did not faint. Then 
 her fixed look gave way to one of infinite sadness, pity, and 
 pathetic appeal. Her lips were parted ; they seemed to be 
 moving, apparently in prayer. At last heT voice came, won- 
 deringly, timidly, tenderly : " Mon Dieu ! c'est done vous ? 
 Ici ? C'est vous que Marie a crue voir ! Que venez-vous 
 faire ici, Armand de Fontonelles ? Repondez ! " 
 
 Alas, not a word was comprehensible to Dick ; nor could 
 he think of a word to say in reply. He made an uncouth, 
 half-irritated, half-despairing gesture towards the wood he 
 had quitted, as if to indicate his helpless horse, but he knew 
 it was meaningless to the frightened yet exalted girl before 
 him. Her little hand crept to her breast and clutched a 
 rosary within the folds of her dress, as her soft voice agair.. 
 arose, low but appealingly : — 
 
 " "Vous souffrez ! Ah, mon Dieu ! Peut-on vous secourir ? 
 Moi-m6me — mes prieres pourraient elles interceder pour 
 vous ? Je supplierai le ciel de prendre en pitie 1 l'ame de 
 mon ancltre. Monsieur le cure est la, — je lui parlerai. 
 Lui et ma mere vous viendront en aide." 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 347 
 
 She clasped her hands appealingly before him. 
 
 Dick stood bewildered, hopeless, mystified ; he had not 
 understood a word ; he could not say a word. For an in- 
 stant he had a wild idea of seizing her hand and leading her 
 to his helpless horse, and then came what he believed was 
 his salvation, — a sudden flash of recollection that he had 
 seen the word he wanted, the one word that would explain 
 all, in a placarded notice at the Cirque of a bracelet that had 
 been lost, — yes, the single word "perdu." He made a 
 step towards her, and in a voice almost as faint as her own 
 stammered, " Perdu ! " 
 
 With a little cry, that was more like a sigh than an 
 outcry, the girl's arms fell to her side; she took a step 
 backwards, reeled, and fainted away. 
 
 Dick caught her as she fell. What had he said ! — but, 
 more than all, what should he do now ? He could not 
 leave her alone and helpless, — yet how could he justify 
 another disconcerting intrusion ? He touched her hands ; 
 they were cold and lifeless ; her eyes were half closed ; her 
 face as pale and drooping as her lily. Well, he must brave 
 the worst now, and carry her to the house, even at the risk 
 of meeting the others and terrifying them as he had her. 
 He caught her up, — he scarcely felt her weight against his 
 breast and shoulder, — and ran hurriedly down the slope to 
 the terrace, which was still deserted. If he had time to 
 place her on some bench beside the window within their 
 reach, he might still fly undiscovered ! But as he panted 
 up the steps of the terrace with his burden, he saw that the 
 Frencb window was still open, but the light seemed to have 
 been extinguished. It would be safer for her if he could 
 place her inside the house, — if he but dared to enter. He 
 was desperate, — and he dared ! 
 
 He found himself alone, in a long salon of rich but faded 
 white and gold hangings, lit at the further end by two tall 
 sandles on either side of the high marble mantel, whose 
 
348 THE STKANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 rays, however, scarcely reached the window where he had 
 entered. He laid his burden on a high-backed sofa. In so 
 doing, the rose fell from her belt. He picked it up, put it 
 in his breast, and turned to go. But he was arrested by a 
 voice from the terrace : — 
 
 " Eenee ! " 
 
 It was the voice of the elderly lady, who, with the cure 1 
 at her side, had j ust appeared from the rear of the house, 
 and from the further end of the terrace was looking towards 
 the garden in search of the young girl. His escape in that 
 way was cut off. To add to his dismay, the young girl, per- 
 haps roused by her mother's voice, was beginning to show 
 signs of recovering consciousness. Dick looked quickly 
 around him. There was an open door, opposite the window, 
 leading to a hall which, no doubt, offered some exit on the 
 other side of the house. It was his only remaining chance ! 
 He darted through it, closed it behind him, and found him- 
 self at the end of a long hall or picture gallery, strangely 
 illuminated through high windows, reaching nearly to the 
 roof, by the moon, which on that side of the building threw 
 nearly level bars of light and shadows across the floor and 
 the quaint portraits on the wall. 
 
 But to his delight he could see at the other end a nar- 
 row, lance-shaped open postern door showing the moonlit 
 pavement without, — evidently the door through which the 
 mother and the cure had just passed out. He ran rapidly 
 towards it. As he did so he heard the hurried ringing 
 of bells and voices in the room he had quitted, — the 
 young girl had evidently been discovered, — and this would 
 give him time. He had nearly reached the door, when he 
 stopped suddenly — his blood chilled with awe ! It was 
 his turn to be terrified — he was standing, apparently, be- 
 fore himself ! 
 
 His first recovering thought was that it was a mirror, 
 bo accurately was every line and detail of his face and figure 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 349 
 
 reflected. But a second scrutiny showed some discrepancies 
 of costume, and he saw it was a paneled portrait on the 
 wall. It was of a man of his own age, height, beard, com- 
 plexion, and features, with long curls like his own, falling 
 over a lace Van Dyke collar, which, however, again simu- 
 lated the appearance of his own hunting-shirt. The broad- 
 brimmed hat in the picture, whose drooping plume was 
 lost in shadow, was scarcely different from Dick's sombrero. 
 But the likeness of the face to Dick was marvelous — con- 
 vincing ! As he gazed at it, the wicked black eyes seemed 
 to flash and kindle at his own, — its lip curled with Dick's 
 own sardonic humor ! 
 
 He was recalled to himself by a step in the gallery. It 
 was the cure, who had entered hastily, evidently in search 
 of one of the servants. Partly because it was a man and not 
 a woman, partly from a feeling of bravado, and partly 
 from a strange sense, excited by the picture, that he had 
 some claim to be there, he turned and faced the pale priest 
 with a slight dash of impatient devilry that would have 
 done credit to the portrait. But he was sorry for it the 
 next moment ! 
 
 The priest, looking up suddenly, discovered what seemed 
 to him to be the portrait standing before its own frame and 
 glaring at him. Throwing up his hands with an averted 
 head and an " Exorcis — ! " he wheeled and scuffled 
 away. Dick seized the opportunity, darted through the 
 narrow door on to the rear terrace, and ran, under cover of 
 the shadow of the house, to the steps into the garden. 
 Luckily for him, this new and unexpected diversion occu- 
 pied the inmates too much with what was going on in the 
 house to give them time to search outside. Dick reached 
 the lilac hedge, tore up the hill, and in a few moments 
 threw himself, panting, on his blanket. In the single look 
 he had cast behind, he had seen that the half-dark salon 
 was now brilliantly lighted, — where no doubt the whole 
 
350 THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 terrified household was now assembled. He had no fear of 
 being followed ; since his confrontation with his own like- 
 ness in the mysterious portrait, he understood everything. 
 The apparently supernatural character of his visitation was 
 made plain ; his ruffled vanity was soothed — his vindica- 
 tion was complete. He laughed to himself and rolled 
 about, until in his suppressed merriment the rose fell from 
 his bosom, and — he stopped ! Its freshness and fragrance 
 recalled the innocent young girl he had frightened. He 
 remembered her gentle, pleading voice, and his cheek 
 flushed. Well, he had done the best he could in bringing 
 her back to the house, — at the risk of being taken for a 
 burglar, — and she was safe now ! If that stupid French 
 parson did n't know the difference between a living man 
 and a dead and painted one, it was n't his fault. But he 
 #ell asleep with the rose in his fingers. 
 
 He was awake at the first streak of dawn. He again 
 bathed his horse's shoulder, and saddled but did not mount 
 him, as the beast, although better, was still stiff, and Dick 
 wished to spare him for the journey to still distant Havre, 
 although he had determined to lie over that night at the 
 first wayside inn. Luckily for him, the disturbance at 
 the chateau had not extended to the forest, for Dick had 
 to lead his horse, slowly and could not have escaped ; but 
 no suspicion of external intrusion seemed to have been 
 awakened, and the woodland was evidently seldom invaded. 
 
 By dint of laying his course by the sun and the exercise 
 of a little woodcraft, in the course of two hours he heard 
 the creaking of a hay cart, and knew that he was near a 
 traveled road. But to his discomfiture he presently came 
 to a high wall, which had evidently guarded this portion of 
 the woods from the public. Time, however, had made 
 frequent breaches in the stones ; these had been roughly 
 filled in with a rude abatis of logs and tree-tops pointing 
 towards the road. But as these were mainly designed to 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 351 
 
 prevent intrusion into the park rather than egress from it, 
 Dick had no difficulty in rolling them aside and emerging 
 at last with his limping steed upon the white high-road. 
 The creaking cart had passed ; it was yet early for traffic, 
 and Dick presently came upon a wine-shop, a bakery, a 
 blacksmith's shop, laundry, and a somewhat pretentious 
 cafe and hotel in a broader space which marked the junc- 
 tion of another road. 
 
 Directly before it, however, to his consternation, were the 
 massive but timeworn iron gates of a park, which Dick did 
 not doubt was the one in which he had spent the previous 
 night. But it was impossible to go further in his present 
 plight, and he boldly approached the restaurant. As he 
 was preparing to make his usual explanatory signs, to his 
 great delight he was addressed in a quaint, broken English, 
 mixed with forgotten American slang, by the white-trou- 
 sered, black-alpaca coated proprietor. More than that — 
 he was a Social Democrat and an enthusiastic lover of 
 America — had he not been to " Bos-town " and New York, 
 and penetrated as far west as " Booflo," and had much 
 pleasure in that beautiful and free country ? Yes ! it was 
 a " go-a-'ed " country — you " bet your Iif ." One had 
 reason to say so : there was your electricity — your street 
 cars — your " steambots " — ah ! such steambots — ah ! and 
 your " r-rail-r-roads." Ah ! observe ! compare your r-rail- 
 r-roads and the buffet of the Pullman with the line from 
 Paris, for example — and where is one ? Nowhere ! Actu- 
 ally, positively, without doubt, nowhere ! 
 
 Later, at an appetizing breakfast, — at which, to Dick's 
 great satisfaction, the good man had permitted and congrat- 
 ulated himself to sit at table with a free-born American, — 
 he was even more loquacious. For what then, he would 
 ask, was this incompetence, this imbecility, of France ? 
 He would tell. It was the vile corruption of Paris, the 
 grasping of capital and companies, the fatal influence of the 
 
352 THE STEANGE EXPERIENCE IF ALKALI DICK 
 
 still clinging noblesse, and the insidio\i3 Jesuitical power 
 of the priests. As for example, Monsieur the " Booflo-bil " 
 had doubtless noticed the great gates of the park before 
 the cafe ? It was the preserve, — the hunting-park of one 
 of the old grand seigneurs, still kept up by his descend- 
 ants, the Comtes de Fontonelles, — hundreds of acres that 
 had never been tilled, and kept as wild waste wilderness, 
 
 — kept for a day's pleasure in a year ! And, look you ! 
 the peasants starving around its walls in their small garden 
 patches and pinched farms ! And the present Comte de 
 Fontonelles cascading gold on his mistresses in Paris ; and 
 !he Comtesse, his mother, and her daughter living there to 
 feed and fatten and pension a brood of plotting, black- 
 cowled priests. Ah, bah ! where was your Republican 
 "France, then ? But a time would come. The " Booflo- 
 bil " had, without doubt, noticed, as he came along the 
 road, the breaches in the wall of the park ? 
 
 Dick, with a slight dry reserve, " reckoned that he had." 
 
 " They were made by the scythes and pitchforks of the 
 peasants in the Revolution of '93, when the count was 
 emigre, as one says with reason ' skedadelle,' to England. 
 Let them look the next time that they burn not the cha- 
 teau, — ' bet your lif ! ' " 
 
 "The chateau," said Dick, with affected carelessness. 
 "Wot's the blamed thing like ?'" 
 
 It was an old affair, — with armor and a picture gallery, 
 
 — and bricabrac. He had never seen it. Not even as a 
 boy, — it was kept very secluded then. As a man — you 
 understand — he could not ask the favor. The Comtes de 
 Fontonelles and himself were not friends. The family did 
 not like a cafe near their sacred gates, — where had stood 
 only the huts of their retainers. The American would ob- 
 serve that he had not called it " Cafe de Chdteau," nor 
 " Cafe de Fontonelles," — the gold of California would not 
 induce him. Why did he remain there ? Naturally, to 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OE ALKALI DICK 353 
 
 goad them ! It was a principle, one understood. To goad 
 them and hold them in check ! One kept a cafe", — why 
 not ? One had one's principles, — one's conviction, — that 
 was another thing ! That was the kind of " 'air-pin " — 
 was it not ? — that he, Gustav Kibaud, was like ! 
 
 Yet for all his truculent socialism, he was quick, obli- 
 ging, and charmingly attentive to Dick and his needs. As 
 to Dick's horse, he should have the best veterinary surgeon 
 — there was an incomparable one in the person of the 
 blacksmith — see to him, and if it were an affair of days, 
 and Dick must go, he himself would be glad to purchase 
 the beast, his saddle, and accoutrements. It was an affair 
 of business, — an advertisement for the cafe ! He would 
 ride the horse himself before the gates of the park. It 
 would please his customers. Ha ! he had learned a trick or 
 two in free America. 
 
 Dick's first act had been to shave off his characteristic 
 beard and mustache, and even to submit his long curls to 
 the village barber's shears, while a straw hat, which he 
 bought to take the place of his slouched sombrero, com- 
 pleted his transformation. His host saw in the change 
 only the natural preparation of a voyager, but Dick had 
 really made the sacrifice, not from fear of detection, for he 
 had recovered his old swaggering audacity, but from a quick 
 distaste he had taken to his resemblance to the portrait. 
 He was too genuine a Westerner, and too vain a man, to 
 feel flattered at his resemblance to an aristocratic bully, as 
 he believed the ancestral De TTontonelles to be. Even his 
 momentary sensation as he faced the cure in the picture 
 gallery was more from a vague sense that liberties had been 
 taken with his, Dick's, personality, than that he had bor- 
 rowed anything from the portrait. 
 
 But he was not so clear about the young girl. Her 
 tender, appealing voice, although he knew it had been 
 addressed only to a vision, still thrilled his fancy. The 
 
354 THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 pluck that had made her withstand her fear so long — until 
 he had uttered that dreadful word — still excited his admi- 
 ration. His curiosity to know what mistake he had made 
 — for he knew it must have been some frightful blunder — 
 was all the more keen, as he had no chance to rectify it. 
 What a brute she must have thought him — or did she 
 really think him a brute even then ? — for her look was 
 one more of despair and pity ! Yet she would remember 
 him only by that last word, and never know that he had 
 risked insult and ejection from her friends to carry her to 
 her place of safety. He could not bear to go across the 
 seas carrying the pale, unsatisfied face of that gentle girl 
 ever before his eyes ! A sense of delicacy — new to Dick, 
 but always the accompaniment of deep feeling — kept him 
 from even hinting his story to his host, though he knew — 
 perhaps because he knew — that it would gratify his enmity 
 to the family. A sudden thought struck Dick. He knew 
 her house, and her name. He would write her a note. 
 Somebody would be sure to translate it for her. 
 
 He borrowed pen, ink, and paper, and in the clean soli- 
 tude of his fresh chintz bedroom indited the following 
 letter : — 
 
 Dear Miss Fontonelles, — Please excuse me for hav- 
 ing skeert you. I had n't any call to do it ; I never reck- 
 oned to do it — it was all jest my derned luck ; I only 
 reckoned to tell you I was lost — in them blamed woods — 
 don't you remember ? — " lost " — perdoo ! — and then 
 you up and fainted ! I would n't have come into your gar- 
 den, only, you see, I 'd just skeered by accident two of 
 your helps, reg'lar softies, and I wanted to explain. I 
 reckon they allowed I was that man that that picture in 
 the hall was painted after. I reckon they took me for him 
 . — see ? But he ain't my style, nohow, and I never saw 
 the picture at all until after I 'd toted you, when you 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 355 
 
 fainted, up to your house, or I 'd have made my kalkila» 
 fcions and acted according. I 'd have laid low in the woods, 
 and got away without skeerin' you. You see what I mean ? 
 It was mighty mean of me, I suppose, to have tetched you 
 at all, without saying, " Excuse me, miss," and toted you 
 rat of the garden and up the steps into your own parlor 
 without asking your leave. But the whole thing tumbled 
 so suddent. And it did n't seem the square thing for me 
 to lite out and leave you lying there on the grass. That 's 
 why ! I 'm sorry I skeert that old preacher, but he came 
 upon me in the picture hall so suddent, that it was a 
 mighty close call, I tell you, to get off without a shindy. 
 Please forgive me, Miss Fontonelles. When you get this, 
 I shall be going back home to America, but you might write 
 to me at Denver City, saying you 're all right. I liked 
 your style ; I liked your grit in standing up to me in the 
 garden until you had your say, when you thought I was 
 the Lord knows what — though I never understood a word 
 you got off, not knowing French. But it 's all the same 
 now. Say ! I 've got your rose ! 
 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 Eichaed Fountains. 
 
 Dick folded the epistle and put it in his pocket. He 
 would post it himself on the morning before he left. When 
 he came downstairs he found his indefatigable host await- 
 ing him, with the report of the veterinary blacksmith. 
 There was nothing seriously wrong with the mustang, but 
 it would be unfit to travel for several days. The landlord 
 repeated his former offer. Dick, whose money was pretty 
 well exhausted, was fain to accept, reflecting that she had 
 never seen the mustang and would not recognize it. But 
 he drew the line at the sombrero, to which his host had 
 taken a great fancy. He had worn it before her ! 
 
 Later in the evening Dick was sitting on the low ve« 
 
356 THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 randa of the cafe, overlooking the white road. A round 
 white table was beside him, his feet were on the railing, 
 but his eyes were resting beyond on the high, mouldy iron 
 gates of the mysterious park. What he was thinking of 
 did not matter, but he was a little impatient at the sudden 
 appearance of his. host — whom he had evaded during the 
 afternoon — at his side. The man's manner was full of 
 bursting loquacity and mysterious levity. 
 
 Truly, it was a good hour when Dick had arrived at 
 Fontonelles, — "just in time." He could see now what 
 a world of imbeciles was France. What stupid ignorance 
 ruled, what low cunning and low tact could achieve, — in 
 effect, what jugglers and mountebanks, hypocritical priests, 
 and licentious and lying noblesse went to make up existing 
 society. Ah, there had been a fine excitement, a regular 
 coup de theatre at Fontonelles, — the ch&teau yonder ; here 
 at the village, where the news was brought by frightened 
 grooms and silly women ! He had been in the thick of it all 
 the afternoon ! He had examined it, — interrogated them 
 like a juge d! instruction, — winnowed it, sifted it. And 
 what was it all ? An attempt by these wretched priests and 
 noblesse to revive in the nineteenth century — the age of 
 electricity and Pullman cars — a miserable mediaeval legend 
 of an apparition, a miracle ! Yes, one is asked to believe 
 that at the chateau yonder was seen last night three times 
 the apparition of Armand de Fontonelles ! 
 
 Dick started. " Armand de Fontonelles ! " He remem- 
 bered that she had repeated that name. 
 
 " Who 's he ? " he demanded abruptly. 
 
 " The first Comte de Fontonelles ! When monsieur 
 knows that the first comte has been dead three hundred 
 years, he will see the imbecility of the affair ! " 
 
 " Wot did he come back for ? " growled Dick. 
 
 " Ah ! it was a legend. Consider its artfulness ! The 
 Comte Armand had been a hard liver, a dissipated scoun« 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 357 
 
 drel, a reckless beast, but a mighty hunter of the stag. It 
 was said that on one of these occasions he had been warned 
 by the apparition of St. Hubert ; but he had laughed, — 
 for, observe, he always jeered at the priests too ; hence this 
 story ! — and had declared that the flaming cross seen be- 
 tween the horns of the sacred stag was only the torch of a 
 poacher, and he would shoot it ! Good ! the body of the 
 comte, dead, but without a wound, was found in the wood 
 the next day, with his discharged arquebus in his hand. 
 The Archbishop of Rouen refused his body the rites of 
 the Church until a number of masses were said every year 
 and — paid for ! One understands ! one sees their ' little 
 game ; ' the count now appears, — he is in purgatory ! 
 More masses, — more money ! There you are. Bah ! 
 One understands, too, that the affair takes place, not in a 
 cafe like this, — not in a public place, - — ■ but at a chateau 
 of the noblesse, and is seen by " — the proprietor checked 
 the characters on his fingers — "two retainers; one young 
 demoiselle of the noblesse, daughter of the chatelaine her- 
 self ; and, my faith, it goes without saying, by a fat priest, 
 the cure - ! In effect, two interested ones ! And the priest, 
 his lie is magnificent ! Superb ! For he saw the comte in 
 the picture gallery, — in effect, stepping into his frame ! " 
 
 " Oh, come off the roof," said Dick impatiently ; " they 
 must have seen something, you know. The young lady 
 would n't lie ! " 
 
 Monsieur Ribaud leaned over, with a mysterious, cynical 
 smile, and lowering his voice said : — 
 
 " You have reason to say so. You have hit it, my 
 friend. There was a something! And if we regard the 
 young lady, you shall hear. The story of Mademoiselle de 
 Fontonelles is that she has walked by herself alone in the 
 garden, — you observe, alone, — in the moonlight, near the 
 edge of the wood. You comprehend ? The mother and 
 the cure" are in the house, — for the time effaced ! Here, at 
 
358 THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 the edge of the wood — though why she continues, a young 
 demoiselle, to the edge of the wood does not make itself 
 clear, — she beholds her ancestor, as on a pedestal, young, 
 pale, but very handsome and exalte, — pardon ! " 
 
 "Nothing," said Dick hurriedly ; "go on ! " 
 
 " She beseeches him why ! He says he is lost ! She 
 faints away, on the instant, there — regard me ! — on the 
 edge of the wood, she says. But her mother and Monsieur 
 le Curd find her pale, agitated, distressed, on the sofa in the 
 salon. One is asked to believe that she is transported 
 through the air — like an angel — by the spirit of Armand 
 de Fontonelles. Incredible ! " 
 
 " Well, wot do you think ? " said Dick sharply. 
 
 The cafe proprietor looked around him carefully, and then 
 lowered his voice significantly : — 
 
 " A lover ! " 
 
 " A what ? " said Dick, with a gasp. 
 
 "A lover!" repeated Eibaud. "You comprehend! 
 Mademoiselle has no dot, — the property is nothing, — the 
 brother has everything. A Mademoiselle de Fontonelles 
 cannot marry out of her class, and the noblesse are all poor. 
 Mademoiselle is young, — pretty, they say, of her kind. It 
 is an intolerable life at the old chateau ; mademoiselle 
 consoles herself ! " 
 
 Monsieur Eibaud never knew how near he was to the 
 white road below the railing at that particular moment. 
 Luckily, Dick controlled himself, and wisely, as Monsieur 
 Eibaud's next sentence showed him. 
 
 " A romance, — an innocent, foolish liaison, if you like, 
 — but, all the same, if known of a Mademoiselle de Eon- 
 tonelles, a compromising, a fatal entanglement. There you 
 are. Look ! for this, then, all this story of cock and bulls 
 and spirits ! Mademoiselle has been discovered with her 
 lover by some one. This pretty story shall stop their 
 mouths ! " 
 
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 359 
 
 " But wot," said Dick brusquely, " woe if the girl was 
 really skeert at something she 'd seen, and fainted dead 
 away, as she said she did, — and — and" — he hesitated 
 
 — " some stranger came along and picked her up ? " 
 Monsieur Ribaud looked at him pityingly. 
 
 " A Mademoiselle de Fontonelle is picked up by her 
 servants, by her family, but not by the young man in the 
 woods, alone. It is even more compromising ! " 
 
 " Do you mean to say," said Dick furiously, " that the 
 ragpickers and sneaks that wade around in the slumgullion 
 of this country would dare to spatter that young gal ? " 
 
 " I mean to say, yes, — assuredly, positively yes ! " said 
 Ribaud, rubbing his hands with a certain satisfaction at 
 Dick's fury. " For you comprehend not the position of la 
 jeune fille in all France ! Ah ! in America the young lady 
 she go everywhere alone ; I have seen her — pretty, charm- 
 ing, fascinating — alone with the young man. But here, 
 no, never ! Regard me, my friend. The French mother, 
 she say to her daughter's fiance^ ' Look ! there is my daugh- 
 ter. She has never been alone with a young man for five 
 minutes, — not even with you. Take her for your wife ! ' 
 It is monstrous ! it is impossible ! it is so ! " 
 
 There was a silence of a few minutes, and Dick looked 
 blankly at the iron gates of the park of Fontonelles. Then 
 he said : " Give me a cigar." 
 
 Monsieur Ribaud instantly produced his cigar case. Dick 
 took a cigar, but waved aside the proffered match, and enter- 
 ing the cafe, took from his pocket the letter to Mademoiselle 
 de Fontonelles, twisted it in a spiral, lighted it at a candle, 
 lit his cigar with it, and returning to the veranda, held it in 
 his hand until the last ashes dropped on the floor. Then 
 he said gravely to Ribaud : — 
 
 " You 've treated me like a white man, Frenchy, and I 
 ain't goin' back on yer — though your ways ain't my ways 
 
 — nohow; but I reckon in this yer matter at the shotto 
 
360 THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK 
 
 you're a little too previous ! For though I don't as a gin'ral 
 thing take stock in ghosts, I believe, every word that them, 
 folk said up thar. And," he added, leaning his hand 
 somewhat heavily on Ribaud' s shoulder, " if you 're the 
 man I take you for, you '11 believe it too ! And if that 
 chap, Armand de Fontonelles, had n't hev picked up that 
 gal at that moment, he would hev deserved to roast in hell 
 another three hundred years ! That 's why I believe her 
 story. So you '11 let these yer Fontonelles keep their ghosts 
 for all they 're worth ; and when you next feel inclined to 
 talk about that girl's lover, you '11 think of me, and shut 
 your head ! You hear me, Frenchy, I 'm shoutin' ! And 
 don't you forget it ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, early the next morning Monsieur Ribaud 
 accompanied his guest to the railway station, and parted 
 from him with great effusion. On his way back an old- 
 fashioned carriage with a postilion passed him. At a sign 
 from its occupant, the postilion pulled up, and Monsieur 
 Ribaud, bowing to the dust, approached the window, and 
 the pale, stern face of a dignified, white-haired woman of 
 sixty that looked from it. 
 
 " Has he gone ? " said the lady. 
 
 " Assuredly, madame ; I was with him at the station." 
 
 " And you think no one saw him ? " 
 
 " No one, madame, but myself." 
 
 " And — what kind of a man was he ? " 
 
 Monsieur Ribaud lifted his shoulders, threw out his hands 
 despairingly, yet with a world of significance, and said : — 
 
 " An American." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 The carriage drove on and entered the gates of the chateau. 
 And Monsieur Ribaud, caf^ proprietor and Social Democrat, 
 straightened himself in the dust and shook his fist after it. 
 
"UNSEE KARL" 
 
 Tke American consul for Sehlachtstadt had just turned 
 out of the broad Konig's Allee into the little square that 
 held his consulate. Its residences always seemed to him 
 to wear that singularly uninhabited air peculiar to a street 
 scene in a theatre. The facades, with their stiff, striped 
 wooden awnings over the windows, were of the regularity, 
 color, and pattern only seen on the stage, and conversation 
 carried on in the street below always seemed to be invested 
 with that perfect confidence and security -which surrounds 
 the actor in his painted desert of urban perspective. Yet it 
 ■was a peaceful change to the other byways and highways 
 of Sehlachtstadt, which were always filled with an equally 
 unreal and mechanical soldiery, who appeared to be daily 
 taken out of their boxes of " caserne " or " ddpot " and 
 loosely scattered all over the pretty linden-haunted German 
 town. There were soldiers standing on street corners ; sol- 
 diers staring woodenly into shop windows ; soldiers halted 
 suddenly into stone, like lizards, at the approach of Offizi- 
 ere ; Offiziere lounging stiffly four abreast, sweeping the 
 pavement with their trailing sabres all at one angle. There 
 were cavalcades of red hussars, cavalcades of blue hussars, 
 cavalcades of Uhlans, with glittering lances and pennons, — 
 with or without a band, — formally parading ; there were 
 straggling " fatigues " or " details " coming round the cor- 
 ners ; there were dusty, businesslike columns of infantry, 
 going nowhere and to no purpose. And they one and all 
 seemed to be wound up — for that service — and apparently 
 always in the same place. In the band of their caps — in- 
 variably of one pattern — was a button, in the centre oi 
 
362 TJNSEE KARL 
 
 which was a square opening or keyhole. The consul wag 
 always convinced that through this keyhole opening, by 
 means of a key, the humhlest caporal wound up his file, the 
 Hauptmann controlled his lieutenants and non-commissioned 
 officers, and even the general himself, wearing the same cap, 
 was subject through his cap to a higher moving power. In 
 the suburbs, when the supply of soldiers gave out, there 
 were sentry-boxes ; when these dropped off, there were 
 " caissons," or commissary wagons. And, lest the military 
 idea should ever fail from out the Schlachtstadt's burgher's 
 mind, there were police in uniform, street-sweepers in uni- 
 form ; the ticket-takers, guards, and sweepers at the Bahn- 
 hof were in uniform, — but all wearing the same, kind of 
 cap, with the probability of having been wound up freshly 
 each morning for their daily work. Even the postman de- 
 livered peaceful invoices to the consul with his side-arms 
 and the air of bringing dispatches from the field of battle ; 
 and the consul saluted, and felt for a few moments the whole 
 weight of his consular responsibility. 
 
 Yet, in spite of this military precedence, it did not seem 
 in the least inconsistent with the decidedly peaceful charac- 
 ter of the town, and this again suggested its utter unreality ; 
 wandering cows sometimes got mixed up with squadrons of 
 cavalry, and did not seem to mind it ; sheep passed singly 
 between files of infantry, or preceded them in a flock when 
 on the march ; indeed, nothing could be more delightful 
 and innocent than to see a regiment of infantry in heavy 
 marching order, laden with every conceivable thing they 
 could want for a week, returning after a cheerful search for 
 an invisible enemy in the suburbs, to bivouac peacefully 
 among the cabbages in the market-place. Nobody was ever 
 imposed upon for a moment by their tremendous energy and 
 severe display ; drums might beat, trumpets blow, dragoons 
 charge furiously all over the Exercier Platz, or suddenly 
 flash their naked swords in the streets to the guttural com« 
 
TJNSER KARL 363 
 
 mand of an officer, — nobody seemed to mind it. People 
 glanced up to recognize Rudolf or Max " doing their service," 
 nodded, and went about their business. And although the 
 officers always wore their side-arms, and at the most peace- 
 ful of social dinners only relinquished their swords in the 
 hall, apparently that they might be ready to buckle them 
 on again and rush out to do battle for the Fatherland be- 
 tween the courses, the other guests only looked upon theso 
 weapons in the light of sticks and umbrellas, and possessed', 
 their souls in peace. And when, added to this singular in- 
 congruity, many of these warriors were spectacled, studious 
 men, and, despite their lethal weapons, wore a slightly pro- 
 fessional air, and were — to a man — deeply sentimental 
 and singularly simple, their attitude in this eternal Kriegs- 
 spiel seemed to the consul more puzzling than ever. 
 
 As he entered his consulate he was confronted with another 
 aspect of Schlachtstadt quite as wonderful, yet already 
 familiar to him. For, in spite of these " alarums without," 
 which, however, never seemed to penetrate beyond the town 
 itself, Schlachtstadt and its suburbs were known all over 
 the world for the manufacture of certain beautiful textile 
 fabrics, and many of the rank and file of those warriors had 
 built up the fame and prosperity of the district over their 
 peaceful looms in wayside cottages. There were great dep6ts 
 and counting-houses, larger than even the cavalry barracks, 
 where no other uniform but that of the postman was known. 
 Hence it was that the consul's chief duty was to uphold the 
 flag of his own country by the examination and certification 
 of divers invoices sent to his office by the manufacturers. 
 But, oddly enough, these business messengers were chiefly 
 women, — not clerks, but ordinary household servants, and, 
 on busy days, the consulate might have been mistaken for a 
 female registry office, so filled and possessed it was by wait- 
 ing Madchen. Here it was that Gretchen, Lieschen, and 
 Clarchen, in the cleanest of blue gowns, and stoutly but 
 
364 UNSEE KARL 
 
 smartly shod, brought their invoices in a piece of clean paper, 
 or folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers 
 more or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the 
 consul for his signature. Once, in the case of a very young 
 Madchen, that signature was blotted by the sweep of a flaxen 
 braid upon it as the child turned to go ; but generally there 
 was a grave, serious business instinct and sense of responsi- 
 bility in these girls of ordinary peasant origin which, equally 
 with their sisters of France, were unknown to the English 
 or American woman of any class. 
 
 That morning, however, there was a slight stir among 
 those who, with their knitting, were waiting their turn in 
 the outer office as the vice-consul ushered the police in- 
 spector into the consul's private office. He was in uniform, 
 of course, and it took him a moment to recover from his 
 habitual stiff, military salute, — a little stiffer than that of 
 the actual soldier. 
 
 It was a matter of importance ! A stranger had that 
 morning been arrested in the town and identified as a mili- 
 tary deserter. He claimed to be an American citizen ; he 
 was now in the outer office, waiting the consul's interroga- 
 tion. 
 
 The consul knew, however, that the ominous accusation 
 had only a mild significance here. The term " military 
 deserter " included any one who had in youth emigrated to 
 a foreign country without first fulfilling his military duty 
 to his fatherland. His first experiences of these cases had 
 been tedious and difficult, — involving a reference to his 
 Minister at Berlin, a correspondence with the American 
 State Department, a condition of unpleasant tension, and 
 finally the prolonged detention of some innocent German 
 — naturalized — American citizen, who had forgotten to 
 bring his papers with him in revisiting his own native 
 country. It so chanced, however, that the consul enjoyed 
 the friendship and confidence of the General Adlerkreutz, 
 
TTNSER KARL 865 
 
 Who commanded the 20th Division, and it further chanced 
 that the same Adlerkreutz was as gallant a soldier as ever 
 cried " Vorw&rts ! " at the head of his men, as profound a 
 military strategist and organizer as ever carried his own and 
 his enemy's plans in his iron head and spiked helmet, and 
 yet with as simple and unaffected a soul breathing under his 
 gray mustache as ever issued from the lips of a child. So 
 this grim but gentle veteran had arranged with the consul 
 that in cases where the presumption of nationality was 
 strong, although the evidence was not present, he would 
 take the consul's parole for the appearance of the " de- 
 serter " or his papers, without the aid of prolonged diplo- 
 macy. In this way the consul had saved to Milwaukee 
 a worthy but imprudent brewer, and to New York an ex- 
 cellent sausage butcher and possible alderman ; but had 
 returned to martial duty one or two tramps or journeymen 
 who had never seen America except from the decks of the 
 ships in which they were " stowaways," and on which they 
 were returned, — and thus the temper and peace of two 
 great nations were preserved. 
 
 " He says," said the inspector severely, " that he is an 
 American citizen, but has lost his naturalization papers. 
 Yet he has made the damaging admission to others that 
 he lived several years in Rome ! And," continued the in- 
 spector, looking over his shoulder at the closed door as he 
 placed his finger beside his nose, " he says he has relations 
 living at Palmyra, whom he frequently visited. Ach i 
 Observe this unheard-of-and-not-to-be-trusted statement ! " 
 
 The consul, however, smiled with a slight flash of intelli- 
 gence. " Let me see him," he said. 
 
 They passed into the outer office ; another policeman and 
 A corporal of infantry saluted and rose. In the centre of 
 an admiring and sympathetic crowd of Dienstmadchen sat 
 the culprit, the least concerned of the party ; a stripling — 
 a boy — scarcely out of his teens ! Indeed, it was impos 
 
866 TJNSER KABL 
 
 Bible to conceive of a more innocent, bucolifc, and almost 
 angelic looking derelict. With a skin that had the peculiar 
 white and rosiness of fresh pork, he had blue eyes, celes- 
 tially wide open and staring, and the thick flocculent yellow 
 curls of the sun god ! He might have been an overgrown 
 and badly dressed Cupid, who had innocently wandered from 
 Paphian shores. He smiled as the consul entered, and 
 wiped from his full red lips with the back of his hand the 
 traces of a sausage he was eating. The consul recognized 
 the flavor at once, — he had smelled it before in Lieschen's 
 little hand-basket. 
 
 " You say you lived at Rome ? " began the consul pleas- 
 antly. " Did you take out your first declaration of your 
 intention of becoming an American citizen there ? " 
 
 The inspector cast an approving glance at the consul, 
 fixed a stern eye on the cherubic prisoner, and leaned back 
 in his chair to hear the reply to this terrible question. 
 
 " I don't remember," said the culprit, knitting his brows 
 in infantine thought. " It was either there, or at Madrid 
 or Syracuse." 
 
 The inspector was about to rise ; this was really trifling 
 with the dignity of the municipality. But the consul laid 
 his hand on the official's sleeve, and, opening an American 
 atlas to a map of the State of !New York, said to the pris- 
 oner, as he placed the inspector's hand on the sheet, " I 
 see you know the names of the towns on the Erie and New 
 York Central Eailroad. But " — 
 
 " I can tell you the number of people in each town and 
 what are the manufactures," interrupted the young fellow, 
 with youthful vanity. " Madrid has six thousand, and 
 there are over sixty thousand in " — 
 
 " That will do," said the consul, as a murmur of Wun< 
 derschbii ! went round the group of listening servant girls, 
 while glances of admiration 'were shot at the beaming ao 
 tused. " But you ought to remember the name of tha 
 
UNSEE KARL 367 
 
 town where your naturalization papers were afterwards 
 sent." 
 
 " But I was a citizen from the moment I made my de- 
 claration," said the stranger, smiling and looking trium- 
 phantly at his admirers, " and I could vote ! " 
 
 The inspector, since he had come to grief over American 
 geographical nomenclature, was grimly taciturn. The con- 
 sul, however, was by no means certain of his victory. His 
 alleged fellow citizen was too encyclopaedic in his know- 
 ledge : a clever youth might have crammed for this with 
 a text-book, but then he did not look at all clever ; indeed, 
 he had rather the stupidity of the mythological subject he 
 represented. " Leave him with me," said the consul. The 
 inspector handed him a precis of the case. The cherub's 
 name was Karl Schwartz, an orphan, missing from Schlacht- 
 stadt since the age of twelve. Relations not living, or in 
 emigration. Identity established by prisoner's admission 
 and record. 
 
 " Now, Karl," said the consul cheerfully, as the door of 
 his private office closed upon them, " what is your little 
 game ? Have you ever had any papers ? And if you were 
 clever enough to study the map of New York State, why 
 were n't you clever enough to see that it would n't stand 
 you in place of your papers ? " 
 
 " Dot 's joost it," said Karl in English ; " but you see 
 dot if I haf declairet mine intention of begomming a citizen, 
 it 's all the same, don't it ? " 
 
 " By no means, for you seem to have no evidence of the 
 declaration, ; no papers at all." 
 
 " Zo ! " said Karl. Nevertheless, he pushed his small, 
 rosy, pickled-pig's-feet of fingers through his fleecy curls 
 and beamed pleasantly at the consul. " Dot 's vot 's der 
 matter," he said, as if taking a kindly interest in some pri- 
 vate trouble of the consul's. " Dot 's vere you vos, eh ? ; ' 
 
 The consul looked steadily at him for a moment. Such 
 
868 UNSER KARL 
 
 ■stupidity was by no means phenomenal, nor at all inconsis- 
 tent with his appearance. " And," continued the consul 
 gravely. " I must tell you that, unless you have other 
 proofs than you have shown, it will be my duty to give 
 you up to the authorities." 
 
 " Dot means I shall serve my time, eh ? " said Karl, 
 with an unchanged smile. 
 
 " Exactly so," returned the consul. 
 
 " Zo ! " said Karl. " Dese town — dese Schlachtstadt — • 
 is fine town, eh ? Fine vomens. Goot men. Und beer 
 und sausage. Blenty to eat and drink, eh ? Und," look- 
 ing around the room, " you and te poys haf a gay times." 
 
 " Yes," said the consul shortly, turning away. But he 
 presently faced round again on the unfettered Karl, who 
 was evidently indulging in a gormandizing reverie. 
 
 " What on earth brought you here, anyway ? " 
 
 " Was ist das ? " 
 
 "What brought you here from America, or wherever 
 you ran away from ? " 
 
 " To see der volks." 
 
 " But you are an orphan, you know, and you have no 
 folks living here." 
 
 " But all Shermany is mine volks, — de whole gountry, 
 don't it ? Pet your poots ! How 's dot, eh ? " 
 
 The consul turned back to his desk and wrote a short 
 note to General Adlerkreutz in his own American German. 
 He did not think it his duty in the present case to inter- 
 fere with the authorities, or to offer his parole for Karl 
 Schwartz. But he would claim that, as the offender was 
 evidently an innocent emigrant and still young, any punish- 
 ment or military degradation be omitted, and he be allowed 
 to take his place like any other recruit in the ranks. If he 
 might have the temerity to the undoubted, far-seeing mili- 
 tary authority of suggestion making here, he would suggest 
 that Karl was for the commissariat fitted ! Of course, ha 
 
UNSKE KARL 369 
 
 still retained the right, on production of satisfactory proof, 
 his discharge to claim. 
 
 The consul read this aloud to Karl. The cherubic youth 
 smiled and said, " Zo ! " Then, extending his hand, he 
 added the word " Zshake ! " 
 
 The consul shook his hand a little remorsefully, and, 
 preceding him to the outer room, resigned him with the 
 note into the inspector's hands. A universal sigh went up 
 from the girls, and glances of appeal sought the consul j 
 hut he wisely concluded that it would be well, for a while, 
 that Karl — a helpless orphan — should be under some 
 sort of discipline ! And the securer business of certifying 
 invoices recommenced. 
 
 Late that afternoon he received a folded bit of blue paper 
 from the waist-belt of an orderly, which contained in Eng- 
 lish characters and as a single word " Alright," followed 
 by certain jagged pen-marks, which he recognized as Adler- 
 kreutz's signature. But it was not until a week later that 
 he learned anything definite. He was returning one night 
 to his lodgings in the residential part of the city, and, in 
 opening the door with his pass-key, perceived in the rear of 
 the hall his handmaiden Trudschen, attended by the usual 
 blue or yellow or red shadow. He was passing by them 
 with the local 'n' Abend ! on his lips when the soldier turned 
 his face and saluted. The consul stopped. It was the 
 cherub Karl in uniform. 
 
 But it had not subdued a single one of his characteris- 
 tics. His hair had been cropped a little more closely 
 under his cap, but there was its color and woolliness still 
 intact ; his plump figure was girt by belt and buttons, but 
 he only looked the more unreal, and more like a combina- 
 tion of pen-wiper and pincushion, until his puffy breast and 
 shoulders seemed to offer a positive invitation to any one 
 who had picked up a pin. But, wonderful! — according 
 to his brief story, — he had been so proficient in the goosa 
 
370 UNSEE' KAEL 
 
 step that he had been put in uniform already, and allowed 
 certain small privileges, — among them, evidently, the 
 present one. The consul smiled and passed on. But it 
 seemed strange to him that Trudschen, who was a tall, strap- 
 ping girl, exceedingly popular with the military, and who 
 had never looked lower than a corporal at least, should 
 accept the attentions of an Einjahriger like that. Later he 
 interrogated her. 
 
 Ach ! it was only Unser Karl ! And the consul knew 
 he was Amerikanisch ! 
 
 " Indeed ! " 
 
 " Yes ! It was such a tearful story ! " 
 
 " Tell me what it is," said the consul, with a faint hope 
 that Karl had volunteered some communication of his past. 
 
 " Ach Gott ! There in America he was a man, and 
 could ' vote,' make laws, and, God willing, become a town 
 councilor, — or Ober Intendant, — and here he was nothing 
 but a soldier for years. And this America was a fine coun- 
 try. WunderschBn ! There were such big cities, and one 
 — ' Booflo ' — could hold all Schlachtstadt, and had of 
 people five hundred thousand ! " 
 
 The consul sighed. Karl had evidently not yet got off 
 the line of the New York Central and Erie roads. " But 
 does he remember yet what he did with his papers ? " said 
 the consul persuasively. 
 
 " Ach ! What does he want with papers when he could 
 make the laws ? They were dumb, stupid things — these 
 papers — to him." 
 
 " But his appetite remains good, I hope ? " suggested 
 the consul. 
 
 This closed the conversation, although Karl came on 
 many other nights, and his toy figure quite supplanted the 
 tall corporal of huzzars in the remote shadows of the hall. 
 One night, however, the consul returned home from a visit 
 to a neighboring town a day earlier than he was expected. 
 
UNSEE KARL 371 
 
 As he neared his house he was a little surprised to find the 
 windows of his sitting-room lit up, and that there were no 
 signs of Trudschen in the lower hall or passages. He made 
 his way upstairs in the dark and pushed open the door of 
 his apartment. To his astonishment, Karl was sitting com- 
 fortably in his own chair, his cap off before a student-lamp 
 on the table, deeply engaged in apparent study. So pro- 
 found was his abstraction that it was a moment before he 
 looked up, and the consul had a good look at his usually 
 beaming and responsive face, which, however, now struck 
 him as wearing a singular air of thought and concentration. 
 "When their eyes at last met, he rose instantly and saluted, 
 and his beaming smile returned. But either from his nat- 
 ural phlegm or extraordinary self-control, he betrayed neither 
 embarrassment nor alarm. 
 
 The explanation he gave was direct and simple. Trud- 
 schen had gone out with the Corporal Fritz for a short 
 walk, and had asked him to " keep house " during their 
 absence. He had no books, no papers, nothing to read in 
 the barracks, and no chance to improve his mind. He 
 thought the Herr Consul would not object to his looking 
 at his books. The consul was touched ; it was really a 
 trivial indiscretion, and as much Trudschen's fault as Karl's ! 
 And if the poor fellow had any mind to improve, — his 
 recent attitude certainly suggested thought and reflection, — 
 the consul were a brute to reprove him. He smiled pleas- 
 antly as Karl returned a stubby bit of pencil and some 
 greasy memoranda to his breast pocket, and glanced at the 
 table. But to his surprise it was a large map that Karl 
 had been studying, and, to his still greater surprise, a map 
 of the consul's own district. 
 
 " You seem to be fond of map-studying," said the consul 
 pleasantly. " You are not thinking of emigrating again ? " 
 
 " Ach, no ! " said Karl simply ; " it is my cousine vot 
 haf lif near here. I find her." 
 
372 TJNSER KARL 
 
 But he left on Trudschen's return, and the consul was 
 surprised to see that, while Karl's attitude towards her had 
 not changed, the girl exhibited less effusiveness than before. 
 Believing it to be partly the effect of the return of the 
 corporal, the consul taxed her with faithlessness. But 
 Trudschen looked grave. 
 
 " Ah ! He has new friends, this Karl of ours. He cares 
 no more for poor girls like us. When fine ladies like the 
 old Frau von Wimpfel make much of him, what will you ? " 
 
 It appeared, indeed, from Trudschen's account, that the 
 widow of a wealthy shopkeeper had made a kind of protege 
 of the young soldier, and given him presents. Furthermore, 
 that the wife of his colonel had employed him to act as page 
 or attendant at an afternoon Gesellschaft, and that since 
 then the wives of other officers had sought him. Did not 
 the Herr Consul think it was dreadful that this American, 
 who could vote and macke laws, should be subjected to such 
 things ? 
 
 The consul did not know what to think. It seemed to 
 him, however, that Karl was " getting on," and that he was 
 not in need of his assistance. It was in the expectation of 
 hearing more about him, however, that he cheerfully accepted 
 an invitation from Adlerkreutz to dine at the Caserne one 
 evening with the staff. Here he found, somewhat to his 
 embarrassment, that the dinner was partly in his own honor, 
 and at the close of five courses, and the emptying of many 
 bottles, his health was proposed by the gallant veteran 
 Adlerkreutz in a neat address of many syllables containing 
 all the parts of speech and a single verb. It was to the 
 effect that in his soul-friend the Herr Consul and himself 
 was the never-to-be-severed union of Germania and Colum- 
 bia, and in their perfect understanding was the war-defying 
 alliance of two great nations, and that in the consul's noble 
 restoration of Unser Karl to the German army there was the 
 astute diplomacy of a great mind. He was satisfied that 
 
UNSEE KAKL 373 
 
 himself and the Herr Consul still united in the great future, 
 looking down upon a common brotherhood, — the great 
 Germanic- American Confederation, — would feel satisfied 
 with themselves and each other and their never-to-be-for- 
 gotten earth-labors. Cries of " Hoch ! Hoch ! " resounded 
 through the apartment with the grinding roll of heavy-bot- 
 tomed beer-glasses, and the consul, tremulous with emotion 
 and a reserve verb in his pocket, rose to reply. Fully em- 
 barked upon this perilous voyage, and steering wide and 
 clear of any treacherous shore of intelligence or fancied 
 harbor of understanding and rest, he kept boldly out at sea. 
 He said that, while his loving adversary in this battle of 
 compliment had disarmed him and left him no words to 
 reply to his generous panegyric, he could not but join with 
 that gallant soldier in his heartfelt aspirations for the peace- 
 ful alliance of both countries. But while he fully recipro- 
 cated all his host's broader and higher sentiments, he must 
 point out to this gallant assembly, this glorious brotherhood, 
 that even a greater tie of sympathy knitted him to the gen- 
 eral, — the tie of kinship ! For while it was well known 
 to the present company that their gallant commander had 
 married an Englishwoman, he, the consul, although always 
 an American, would now for the first time confess to them 
 that he himself was of Dutch descent on his mother's side ! 
 He would say no more, but confidently leave them in pos- 
 session of the tremendous significance of this until-then- 
 unknown fact ! He sat down, with the forgotten verb still 
 in his pocket, but the applause that followed this perfectly 
 conclusive, satisfying, and logical climax convinced him of 
 his success. His hand was grasped eagerly by successive 
 warriors ; the general turned and embraced him before the 
 breathless assembly ; there were tears in the consul's eyes. 
 As the festivities progressed, however, he found to his 
 surprise that Karl had not only become the fashion as a 
 military page, but that his naive stupidity and sublime sim- 
 
374 UNSEE KARL 
 
 plicity were the wondering theme and inexhaustible delight 
 of the whole barracks. Stories were told of his genius for 
 blundering which rivaled Handy Andy's ; old stories of 
 fatuous ignorance were rearranged and fitted to " our Karl." 
 It was "our Karl" who, on receiving a tip of two marks 
 from the hands of a young lady to whom he had brought 
 the bouquet of a gallant lieutenant, exhibited some hesita- 
 tion, and finally said, " Yes, but, gnadiges Fraulein, that 
 cost us nine marks ! " It was " our Karl " who, interrupt- 
 ing the regrets of another lady that she was unable to accept 
 his master's invitation, said politely, " Ah ! what matter, 
 Gnadigste ? I have still a letter for TTraulein Kopp [her 
 rival], and I was told that I must not invite you both." 
 '"jt was " our Karl " who astonished the hostess to whom he 
 eras sent at the last moment with apologies from an officer, 
 unexpectedly detained at barrack duty, by suggesting that 
 he should bring that unfortunate officer his dinner from the 
 just served table. Nor were these charming infelicities con- 
 fined to his social and domestic service. Although ready, 
 mechanical, and invariably docile in the manual and physical 
 duties of a soldier, — which endeared him to the German 
 drill-master, — he was still invincibly ignorant as to its 
 purport, or even the meaning and structure of the military 
 instruments he handled or vacantly looked upon. It was 
 " our Karl " who suggested to his instructors that in field- 
 firing it was quicker and easier to load his musket to the 
 muzzle at once, and get rid of its death-dealing contents at 
 a single discharge, than to load and fire consecutively. It 
 was " our Karl " who nearly killed the instructor at sentry 
 drill by adhering to the letter of his instructions when that 
 instructor had forgotten the password. It was the same 
 Karl who, severely admonished for his recklessness, the 
 next time added to his challenge the precaution, " Unless 
 you instantly say ' Fatherland,' I '11 fire ! " Yet his perfect 
 good humor and childlike curiosity were unmistakable 
 
UNSER KARL 375 
 
 throughout, and incited his comrades and his superiors to 
 show him everything in the hope of getting some character- 
 istic comment from him. Everything and everybody were 
 open to Karl and his good-humored simplicity. 
 
 That evening, as the general accompanied the consul down 
 to the gateway and the waiting carriage, a figure in uniform 
 ran spontaneously before them and shouted " Heraus ! " to 
 the sentries. But the general promptly checked " the turn- 
 ing out " of the guard with a paternal shake of his finger 
 to the over-zealous soldier, in whom the consul recognized 
 Karl. " He is my Bursche now," said the general explan- 
 atorily. " My wife has taken a fancy to him. Ach ! he 
 is very popular with these women." The consul was still 
 more surprised. The Frau Generalin A.dlerkreutz he kne-y 
 to be. a pronounced Englishwoman, — carrying out her Eng- 
 lish ways, proprieties, and prejudices in the very heart of 
 Schlachtstadt, uncompromisingly, without fear and without 
 reproach. That she should follow a merely foreign society 
 craze, or alter her English household so as to admit the 
 impossible Karl, struck him oddly. 
 
 A month or two elapsed without further news of Karl, 
 when one afternoon he suddenly turned up at the consulate. 
 He had again sought the consular quiet to write a few let- 
 ters home ; he had no chance in the confinement of the 
 barracks. 
 
 "But by this time you must be in the family of a field- 
 marshal, at least," suggested the consul pleasantly. 
 
 "Not to-day, but next week," said Karl, with sublime 
 simplicity ; " then I am going to serve with the governor 
 commandant of Bheinfestung." 
 
 The consul smiled, motioned him to a seat at a table in 
 the outer office, and left him undisturbed to his correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 Returning later, he found Karl, his letters finished, gaz- 
 ing with childish curiosity and admiration at some thick 
 
376 TJNSEE KAKL 
 
 official envelopes, bearing the stamp of the consulate, which 
 were lying on the table. He was evidently struck with the 
 contrast between them and the thin, flimsy affairs he was 
 holding in his hand. He appeared still more impressed 
 when the consul told him what they were. 
 
 " Are you writing to your friends ? " continued the con- 
 sul, touched by his simplicity. 
 
 " Ach ja ! " said Karl eagerly. 
 
 " Would you like to put your letter in one of these envel- 
 opes ? " continued the official. 
 
 The beaming face and eyes of Karl were a sufficient 
 answer. After all, it was a small favor granted to this odd 
 waif, who seemed to still cling to the consular protection. 
 He handed him the envelope and left him addressing it in 
 boyish pride. 
 
 It was Karl's last visit to the consulate. He appeared 
 to have spoken truly, and the consul presently learned that 
 he had indeed been transferred, through some high official 
 manipulation, to the personal service of the governor of 
 Rheinfestung. There was weeping among the Dienstmad- 
 chen of Schlachtstadt, and a distinct loss of originality and 
 lightness in the gatherings of the gentler Hausfrauen. His 
 memory still survived in the barracks through the later 
 editions of his former delightful stupidities, — many of 
 them, it is to be feared, were inventions, — and stories that 
 were supposed to have come from Rheinfestung were de- 
 scribed in the slang of the Offiziere as being " colossal." 
 But the consul remembered Rheinfestung, and could not 
 imagjne it as a home for Karl, or in any way fostering his 
 peculiar qualities. For it was eminently a fortress of for- 
 tresses, a magazine of magazines, a ddp6t of dep6ts. It was 
 the key of the Rhine, the citadel of Westphalia, the " Clap- 
 ham Junction " of German railways, but defended, fortified, 
 encompassed, and controlled by the newest as well as the 
 oldest devices of military strategy and science. Even in 
 
UNSEE KARL 377 
 
 the pipingest time of peace, whole railway trains went into 
 it like a rat in a trap, and might have never come out of 
 it ; it stretched out an inviting hand and arm across the 
 river that might in the twinkling of an eye be changed into 
 a closed fist of menace. You " defiled " into it, commanded 
 at every step by enfilading walls ; you " debouched " out 
 of it, as you thought, and found yourself only before the 
 walls ; you " reentered " it at every possible angle ; you did 
 everything, apparently, but pass through it. You thought 
 yourself well out of it, and were stopped by a bastion. Its 
 circumvallations haunted you until you came to the next 
 station. It had pressed even the current of the river into 
 its defensive service. There were secrets of its foundations 
 and mines that only the highest military despots knew and 
 kept to themselves. In a word — it was impregnable. 
 
 That such a place could not be trifled with or misunder- 
 stood in its right-and-acute-angled severities seemed plain to 
 every one. But set on by his companions, who were show- 
 ing him its defensive foundations, or in his own idle curi- 
 osity, Karl managed to fall into the Rhine and was fished 
 out with difficulty. The immersion may have chilled his 
 military ardor or soured his good humor, for later the con- 
 sul heard that he had visited the American consular agent 
 at an adjacent town with the old story of his American citi- 
 zenship. " He seemed," said the consul's colleague, " to 
 be well posted about American railways and American 
 towns, but he had no papers. He lounged.around the office 
 for a while and " — 
 
 " Wrote letters home ? " suggested the consul, with a 
 flash of reminiscence. 
 
 " Yes, the poor chap had no privacy at the barracks, and. 
 I reckon was overlooked or bedeviled." 
 
 This was the last the consul heard of Karl Schwartz 
 directly; for a week or two later he again fell into the 
 Rhine, this time so fatally and effectually that in spite of 
 
378 UNSER KAEL 
 
 the efforts of his companions he was swept away by the 
 rapid current, and thus ended his service to his country. 
 His body was never recovered. 
 
 A few months before the consul was transferred from 
 Schlachtstadt to another post, his memory of the departed 
 Karl was revived by a visit from Adlerkreutz. The gen- 
 eral looked grave. 
 
 " You remember Unser Karl ? " he said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you think he was an impostor ? " 
 
 " As regards his American citizenship, yes ! But I could 
 not say more." 
 
 " Zo ! " said the general. " A very singular thing has 
 happened," he added, twirling his mustache. " The in- 
 spector of police has notified us of the arrival of a Karl 
 Schwartz in this town. It appears he is the real Karl 
 Schwartz, identified by his sister as the only one. The 
 other, who was drowned, was an impostor. Hein ? " 
 
 " Then you have secured another recruit ? " said the 
 consul smilingly. 
 
 "No. For this one has already served his time in 
 Elsass, where he went when he left here as a boy. But, 
 Donnerwetter, why should that dumb fool take his name ? " 
 
 " By chance, I fancy. Then he stupidly stuck to it, 
 and had to take the responsibilities with it. Don't you 
 see ? " said the consul, pleased with his own cleverness. 
 
 " Zo — o ! " said the general slowly, in his deepest voice. 
 But the German exclamation has a variety of significance, 
 according to the inflection, and Adlerkreutz's ejaculation 
 seemed to contain them all. 
 
 It was in Paris, where the consul had lingered on his 
 way to his new post. He was sitting in a well-known cafe, 
 among whose habitues were several military officers of 
 high rank. A group of them were gathered round a table 
 
UNSER KARL 379 
 
 near him. He was idly watching them with an odd recol- 
 lection of Schlachtstadt in his mind, and as idly glancing 
 from them to the more attractive Boulevard without. The 
 consul was getting a little tired of soldiers. 
 
 Suddenly there was a slight stir in the gesticulating 
 group and a cry of greeting. The consul looked up me- 
 chanically, and then his eyes remained fixed and staring at 
 the newcomer. For it was the dead Karl ; Karl, surely ! 
 Karl ! — his plump figure belted in a French officer's tunic ; 
 his flaxen hair clipped a little closer, but still its fleece 
 showing under his kepi. Karl, his cheeks more cherubic 
 than ever, — unchanged but for a tiny yellow toy mustache 
 curling up over the corners of his full lips. Karl, beam- 
 ing at his companions in his old way, but rattling off French 
 vivacities without the faintest trace of accent. Could he 
 be mistaken ? Was it some phenomenal resemblance, or 
 had the soul of the German private been transmigrated to 
 the French officer. 
 
 The consul hurriedly called the gargon. "Who is that 
 officer who has just arrived ? " 
 
 " It is the Captain Christian, of the Intelligence Bureau," 
 eaid the waiter, with proud alacrity. " A famous officer, 
 brave as a rabbit, — un fier lapin, — and one of our best 
 clients. So drole, too, such a farceur and mimic. M'sieur 
 would be ravished to hear his imitations." 
 
 " But he looks like a German ; and his name ! " 
 
 " Ah, he is from Alsace. But not a German ! " said the 
 waiter, absolutely whitening with indignation. " He was 
 at Belfort. So was I. Mon Dieu ! No, a thousand times 
 
 no 
 
 I » 
 
 " But has he been living here long ? " said the consul. 
 
 "In Paris,. a few months. But his Department, M'sieur 
 understands, takes him everywhere ! Everywhere where 
 he can gain information." 
 
 The consul's eyes were still on the Captain Christian, 
 
380 UNSER KARL 
 
 Presently the officer, perhaps instinctively conscious of the 
 scrutiny, looked towards him. Their eyes met. To the 
 consul's surprise, the ci-devant Karl heamed upon him, and 
 advanced with outstretched hand. 
 
 But the consul stiffened slightly, and remained so with 
 his glass in his hand. At which Captain Christian brought 
 his own easily to a military salute, and said politely : — 
 
 " Monsieur le Consul has been promoted from his post. 
 Permit me to congratulate him." 
 
 " You have heard, then ? " said the consul dryly. 
 
 " Otherwise I should not presume. For our Department 
 makes it a business — in Monsieur le Consul's case it be- 
 comes a pleasure — to know everything." 
 
 " Did your Department know that the real Karl Schwartz 
 has returned ? " 
 
 Captain Christian shrugged his shoulders. " Then it ap- 
 pears that the sham Karl died none too soon," he said 
 lightly. " And yet " — he bent his eyes with mischievous 
 reproach upon the consul. 
 
 " Yet what ? " demanded the consul sternly. 
 
 " Monsieur le Consul might have saved the unfortunate 
 man by accepting him as an American citizen and not help- 
 ing to force him into the German service." 
 
 The consul saw in a flash the full military significance of 
 this logic, and could not repress a smile. At which Cap- 
 tain Christian dropped easily into a chair beside him, and 
 as easily into broken German English : — 
 
 " Und," he went on, " dese town — dese Schlachtstadt 
 is fine town, eh ? Fine vomens ? Goot men ? Und peer 
 und sausage ? Blenty to eat and trink, eh ? Und you und 
 te poys haf a gay times ? " 
 
 The consul tried to recover his dignity. The waiter be- 
 hind him, recognizing only the delightful mimicry of this 
 adorable officer, was in fits of laughter. Nevertheless, the 
 consul managed to say dryly : — 
 
UNSEB KAKL 381 
 
 " And the barracks, the magazines, the commissariat, the 
 details, the reserves of Schlachtstadt were very interesting ? " 
 
 " Assuredly." 
 
 " And Bheinfestung — its plans — its details, even its 
 dangerous foundations by the river — they were to a soldier 
 singularly instructive ? " 
 
 " You have reason to say so," said Captain Christian, 
 curling his little mustache. 
 
 " And the fortress — you think ? " 
 
 " Impregnable ! Mais " — 
 
 The consul remembered General Adlerkreutz's " Zo-o," 
 and wondered.