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TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS 
 
 AND 
 
 INAHOLLOWOFTHE HILLS 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
 BY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 1921 
 
A 'i ^CB^3 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1878, 1879, BY HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1S96, 1906, AND I907, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN 4r Co. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1894, 1895, AND 1896, BY BRET HAUTE 
 
 CQPYRXGHT| 1920, BY ANNA BRET HARTE. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ETHEL BRET HARTE 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Pass 
 
 Introduction ....ix 
 
 The Iliau of Sandy Bar , . ■. 1 
 
 Mr. Thompson's Prodigai. 14 
 
 The Romance of Madrono Hollow 24 
 
 The Poet ot Sierra Flat 38 
 
 The Princess Bok and her Friends 51 
 
 IIow Santa Glaus came to Simpson's Bar .... 68 
 
 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands ........ 84 
 
 An Episode of Fiddletown 121 
 
 A Passage in the Life of Mr. John Oakhurst . . . 171 
 
 The Rose of Tuolumne 197 
 
 A Monte Flat Pastoral : How Old Man Pluhkett went 
 
 Home 224 
 
 Baby Sylvester . . 244 
 
 Wan Lee, the Pagan . 262 
 
 An Heiress of Red Dog . 28u 
 
 The Man on the Beach 298 
 
 Roger Catron's Friend 335 
 
 "Jinny" 351 
 
 Two Saints op the Foot-Hillb 361 
 
 "Who was my Quiet Friend" . 375 
 
 " A Tourist from Injianny " 385 
 
 The Fool of Five Forks « . . 397 
 
 The Man from Solano ....... • 423 
 
 A Ghost of the Sierras ..•••••• 432 
 
ESTTRODUCTION ^ 
 
 As so mueh of my writing has dealt with the Argonauts 
 of '49, I propose, hy way of introduction, to discourse briefly 
 on an episode of American life as quaint and typical as 
 that of the Greek adventurers whose name I have bor- 
 rowed. It is a crusade without a cross, an exodus with- 
 out a prophet. It is not a pretty story ; I do not know 
 that it is even instructive. It is of a life of which, per- 
 haps, the best that can he said is that it exists no longer. 
 
 Let nie first give an idea of the country which these 
 people re-created, and the civilization they displaced. 
 Eor more than three hundred years California was of all 
 Christian countries the least known. The glow and gla- 
 mour of Spanish tradition and discovery hung about it. 
 There was an English map in which it was set down as an 
 island. There was the Rio de Los Reyes — a kind of 
 gorgeous Mississippi — leading directly to the heart of the 
 Continent, which De Fonte claimed to have discovered. 
 There was the Anian passage — a prophetic forecast of the 
 Pacific Railroad — through which Maldonado declared that 
 he sailed to the North Atlantic. Another Spanish discov- 
 erer brought his mendacious personality directly from the 
 Pacific, by way of Columbia River, to Lake Ontario; on 
 which, I am rejoiced to say, he found a Yankee vessel from 
 Boston, whose captain informed him that he had come up 
 from the Atlantic only a few days before him ! Along the 
 long line of iron-bound coast the old freebooters chased the 
 
 I This Introduction, in its original use, was a lecture to English and 
 ilmevican audiences. 
 
X , INTRODUCTION 
 
 timid Philippine galleons, and in its largest bay, beside 
 the present gateway of the West, — San Francisco, — Sir 
 Francis Drake lay for two weeks and scraped the barnacles 
 from his adventurous keels. It is only within the past 
 twenty-five years, that a company of gold-diggers, turning 
 up the ocean sands near Port Umpqua, came upon some 
 large cakes of wax deeply imbedded in the broken and fire- 
 scarred ribs of a wreck of ancient date. The Californian 
 heart was at once fired at the discovery, and ij? a few 
 weeks a hundred men or more were digging, burrowing, 
 and scraping for the lost treasure of the Philippine gal- 
 leon. At last they found — what think you 1 — a few 
 cutlasses with an English stamp upon their blades. The 
 enterprising and gallant — and slightly piratical — Sir 
 Francis- Drake had been there before them! 
 
 Yet they were peaceful, pastoral days for California. 
 Through the great central valley the Sacramento poured 
 an unstained current into a majestic bay, ruffled by no 
 keels and fretted by no wharves. The Angelus bell rung 
 at San Bernardino, and, taken up by every Mission tower 
 along the darkening coast, called the good people to prayer 
 and sleep before nine o'clock every night. Leagues of 
 wild oats, progenitors of those great wheat fields that now 
 drug the markets, hung their idle heads on the hillsides; 
 vast herds of untamed cattle, whose hides and horns alone 
 made the scant commerce of those days, wandered over the 
 illimitable plains, knowing no human figure but that of 
 the yearly riding vaquero on his unbroken mustang, which 
 they regarded as the early aborigines did the Spanish 
 cavalry, as one individual creation. Around the white 
 walls of the Mission buildings were clustered the huts of 
 the Indian neophytes, who dressed neatly, but not expen- 
 sively, in mud. Presidios garrisoned by a dozen raw 
 militiamen kept the secular order, and in the scattered 
 pueblos rustic alcaldes dispensed, like Sancho Panza, pro- 
 
INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 rerbial wisdom and practical equity to the bucolic litigants. 
 In looking over some Spanish law papers, one day, I came 
 upon a remarkable instance of the sagacity of Alcalde 
 Pelipe Gomez of Santa Barbara. An injured wife accused 
 her husband of serenading the wife of another. The faith- 
 less husband and his too seductive guitar were both produced 
 in court. "Play," said the alcalde to the gay Lothario. 
 The unfortunate man was obliged, to repeat his amorous per- 
 formance of the preceding night. "I find nothing here," 
 said the excellent alcalde after a moment's pause, "but 
 an infamous voice and an execrable style. I dismiss the 
 complaint of the Senora, but I shall hold the Seiior on the 
 charge of vilely disturbing the peace of Santa Barbara." 
 
 They were happy, tranquil days. The proprietors of 
 the old ranchos ruled in a patriarchal style, and lived to 
 a patriarchal age. On a soil half tropical in its character, 
 in a climate wholly original in its practical conditions, a 
 soft-handed Latin race slept and smoked the half year's 
 sunshine away, and believed that they had discovered a 
 new Spain! They awoke from their dream only to find 
 themselves strangers on their own soil, foreigners in their 
 own country, ignorant even of the treasure they had been 
 sent to guard. A political and social earthquake, more 
 powerful than any physical convulsions they had ever 
 known, shook the foundation of the land, and in the dis- 
 rupted strata and rent fissures the treasure suddenly glit- 
 tered before their eyes. 
 
 Though the change came upon them suddenly, it had 
 been prefigured by a chain of circumstances whose logical 
 links future historians will not overlook. It was not the 
 finding of a few grains of gold by a day laborer at Sutter's 
 Mill, but that for years before the way had been slowly 
 opened and the doors unlocked to the people who were to 
 profit by this discovery. The real pioneers of the lawless, 
 irreligious band whose. story I am repeating were the oldest 
 
Xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and youngest religions known. Do Americans ever think 
 that they owe their right to California to the Catholic 
 Church and the Mormon brotherhood 1 Yet Father Juni- 
 pero Serra ringing his bell in the heathen wilderness of 
 Upper California, and Brigham Young leading his half 
 famished legions from Nauvoo to Salt Lake, were the two 
 great commanders of the Argonauts of '49. All that 
 western emigration which, prior to the gold discovery, 
 penetrated the Oregon and California valleys and half 
 Americanized the Coast, would have perished by the way, 
 but for the providentially created oasis of Salt Lake City. 
 The halting trains of alkali-poisoned oxen, the footsore 
 and despairing teamsters, gathered rest and succor from the 
 Mormon settlement. The British frigate that sailed into 
 the port of Monterey a day or two late, saw the American 
 flag that had, under this providence, crossed the continent, 
 flying from the Cross of the Cathedral ! A day sooner, 
 and this story might have been an English record. 
 
 Were our friends, the Argonauts, at all affected by these 
 coincidences? I think not. They had that lordly con- 
 tempt for a southern, soft-tongued race which belonged to 
 their Anglo-Saxon lineage. They were given to no super- 
 stitious romance, exalted by no special mission, stimulated 
 by no high ambition ; they were skeptical of even the exist- 
 ence of the golden fleece until they saw it. Equal to their 
 fate, they accepted with a kind of heathen philosophy 
 whatever it might bring. "If there isn't any gold, what 
 ate you going to do with these sluice-boxes 1 " said a 
 newly arrived emigrant to his friend. "They will make 
 first-class coffins," answered the friend, with the simple 
 directness of a man who has calculated all his chances. If 
 they did not burn their vessels behind them, like Pizarro, 
 they at least left the good ship Argo dismantled and rot- 
 ting at their Colchian wharf. Sailors were shipped only 
 for the outward voyage; nobody expected to return, even 
 
INTRODUCTION xiil 
 
 those who anticipated failure. Fertile in expedients, they 
 twisted their failures into a certain sort of success. Until 
 recently, there stood in San Francisco a house of the early 
 days whose foundations were built entirely of plug tobacco 
 in boxes. The consignee had found a glut in the tobacco 
 market, hut lumber for foundations was at a tremendous 
 premium! An Argonaut just arriving was amazed at rec- 
 ognizing in the boatman wlio pulled him ashore, and who 
 charged him the modest sum of fifty dollars for the per- 
 formance, a brother classmate of Cambridge. " Were you 
 not," he asked eagerly, " senior wrangler in '43 '( " " Yes," 
 said the other siguilicautly, " but I also pulled stroke oar 
 against Oxfortl." If the special training of years sometimes 
 failed to procure pecuniary recognition, an idle .accomplish- 
 ment, sometimes even a physical peculiarity, succeeded. 
 At my first breakfast in a restaurant on Long Wharf, I 
 was haunted during the meal by a shadowy resemblance 
 which the waiter who took my order bore to a gentleman 
 to whom in my boyhood I had looked up as a mirror of 
 elegance, urbanity, and social accomplishment. Fearful 
 lest I should insult the waiter — who carried a revolver — ^ 
 by this reminiscence, I said nothing to him; but a later 
 inquiry of the proprietor proved that my suspicions were 
 correct. "He's mighty handy," said the man, "and kin 
 talk elegant to a customer as is waiting for his cakes, and 
 make him kinder forget' he ain't sarved." With an earnest 
 desire to restore my old friend to his former position, I 
 asked if it would not be possible to fill his place. "I 'm 
 afraid not," said the proprietor with a sudden suspicion, 
 and he added significantly, "I don't think you'd suit." 
 It was this wonderful adaptability, perhaps influenced by a 
 climate that produced fruit out of season, that helped the 
 Argonauts to success, or mitigated their defeats. A now 
 distinguished lawyer, remarkable for his Herculean build, 
 found himself on landing without a cent — rather \e ' me 
 
iiV INTRODUCTION 
 
 day without twenty dollars — to pay the porterage of hii 
 trunk to the hotel. Shouldering it, he was staggering from 
 the landing, when a stranger stepped towards him, remark- 
 ing he liad not "half a load," quietly added his own valise 
 to the lawyer's hurden, and handing him ten dollars and 
 his address, departed before the legal gentleman could re- 
 cover from his astonishment. The valise, however, was 
 punctually delivered, and the lawyer often congratulated 
 hiinself on the comparative ease with which he won his 
 hrst fee. 
 
 Much of the easy adaptability was due to the character 
 of the people. What that character was, perhaps it would 
 not be well to say. At least I should prefer to defer criti- 
 cism until I could add to the calmness the safe distance of 
 the historian. You will find some of their peculiarities 
 described in the frank autobiographies of those two gentle ■ 
 men who executed a little commission for Macbeth in 
 which Banquo was concerned. In distant parts of the 
 continent they had left families, creditors, and in some 
 instances even officers of justice, perplexed and lamenting. 
 There were husbands who had deserted their own wives, 
 — and in some extreme cases even the wives of others, — 
 for this haven of refuge. Nor was it possible to tell from 
 their superficial exterior, or even their daily walk and 
 action, whether they were or were not named in the counts 
 of this general indictment. Some of the best men had the 
 worst antecedents, some of the worst rejoiced in a spotless 
 puritan pedigree. " The boys seem to have taken a fresh 
 deal all round," said Mr. John Oakhurst one day to me, 
 with the easy confidence of a man who was conscious of 
 his ability to win my money, "and there is no knowing 
 whether a man will turn up knave or king." It is rele- 
 vant to this anecdote that Mr. John Oakhurst hinuelf 
 came of a family whose ancestors regarded games of chance 
 as sinful, because they were trifling and amusing, but who 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 had never conceived they might be made the instruments 
 of successful speculation and even tragic earnestness. "To 
 think," said Mr. Oakhurst, as he rose from a ten minutes' 
 sitting with a gain of five thousand dollars, — " to think 
 there 's folks as believes that keerds is a waste of time." 
 
 Such were the character and the antecedents of the men 
 who gave the dominant and picturesque coloring to the 
 life of that period. Doubtless the papers of the ancient 
 Argo showed a cleaner bill of moral health, but doubtless 
 no type of adventure more distinct or original. I would 
 not have it inferred that there was not a class, respectable 
 in numbers as in morals, among and yet distinct from 
 tbese. But they have no place here save as a background 
 to the salient outlines and deeply etched figures of the 
 Argonauts. Character ruled, and the strongest was not 
 always the best. Let me bring them a little nearer. Let 
 me sketch two pictures of them: one in their gathered con- 
 course in their city by the sea, one in their lonely scattered 
 cabins in the camps of the Sierras. 
 
 It is the memorable winter of '52, a typical Calif ornian 
 winter — unlike anything known to most of my readers ; 
 a winter from whose snowy nest in the Sierras the flutter- 
 ing, new-fledged Spring freed itself without a struggle. 
 It is a season of falling rains and springing grasses, of long 
 nights of shower, and days of cloud and sunshine. There 
 are hours when the quickening earth seems to throb be- 
 neath one's feet, and the blue eyes of heaven to twinkle 
 through its misty lashes. High up in the Sierras, unsunned 
 depths of snow form the vast reservoirs that later will flood 
 the plains, causing the homesick wanderers on the low- 
 lands to look with awe upon a broad expanse of overflow, 
 a lake that might have buried the State of Massachusetts 
 in its yellow depths. The hillsides are gay with flowers, 
 and, as in the old fairy story, every utterance of the kindly 
 Spring fails from her lips to the ground in rubies and 
 
Xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 emeralds. And yet it is called " a hard season," and flour Is 
 fifty dollars a barrel. In San Francisco it has been raining 
 steadily for two weeks. The streets are almost impas- 
 sable with mud, and over some of the more dangerous 
 depths planks are thrown. There are few street lamps, 
 but the shops are still lighted, and the streets are full of 
 long-bearded, long-booted men, eager for some new ex- 
 citement, their only idea of recreation from the feverish 
 struggle of the day. Perhaps it is a passing carriage — 
 a phenomenal carriage, one of the half dozen known in 
 the city — that becoming helplessly mired is instantly sur- 
 rounded by a score of willing hands whose owners are only 
 too happy to be rewarded by a glimpse of a female face 
 through the window, even though that face be haggard, 
 painted, or gratuitously plain. Perhaps it is in the little 
 theatre, where the cry of a baby in the audience brings 
 down a tumultuous encore from the whole house. Per- 
 haps it is in the gilded drinking saloon, into which some 
 one rushes with arms extended at right angles, and con- 
 veys in that one pantomimic action the signal of the sema- 
 phore telegraph on Telegraph Hill that a sidewheel steamer 
 has arrived, and that there are "letters from home.'' 
 Perhaps it is the long queue that afterwards winds and 
 stretches from the Post Office half a mile away. Perhaps 
 it is the eager men who, following it rapidly down, bid 
 fifty, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, and five 
 hundred dollars for favored places in the line. Ppr- 
 haps it is the haggard man who nervously tears open his 
 letter and after a moment's breathless pause faints and falls 
 senseless beside his comrades. Or perhaps it is a row 
 and a shot in the streets, but in '62 this was hardly an 
 excitement. 
 
 The gambling-saloon is always the central point of inter- 
 est. There are four of them, — the largest public buildings 
 in the city, — thronged and crowded all night. They are 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 approached by no mysterious passage or guarded entrance, 
 I nit are frankly open to the street, with the further invita- 
 tion of gilding, lights, warmth, and music. Strange to 
 say, there is a quaint decorum about them. They are 
 the quietest halls in San Francisco. There is no drunken- 
 ness, no quarreling, scarcely any exultation or disappoint- 
 ment. Men who have already staked their health and 
 fortune in this emigration are but little affected by the 
 lesser stake on red or black, or the turn of a card. Busi- 
 ness men who have gambled all day in their legitimate 
 enterprise find nothing to excite them unduly here. In 
 the intervals of music, a thoughtful calm pervades the vast 
 assembly ; people move around noiselessly from table to 
 table, as if Fortune were nervous as. well as fickle ; a cane 
 falling upon the floor causes every one to look up, a loud 
 laugh or exclamation excites a stare of virtuous indigna- 
 tion. The most respectable citizens, though they might 
 not play, are to be seen here of an evening. Old friends, 
 ■tvho perhaps parted at the church door in the States,- meet 
 here without fear and without reproach. Even among 
 the players are represented all classes and conditions of 
 men. One night at a faro table a player suddenly slipped 
 from his seat to the floor, a dead man. Three doctors, 
 also players, after a brief examination, pronounced it dis- 
 ease of the heart. The coroner, sitting at the right of the 
 dealer, instantly impaneled the rest of the players, who, 
 laying down their cards, briefly gave a verdict in accordance 
 with the facts, and wfint on with their game ! 
 
 I do not mean to say that, under this surface calm, 
 there was not often the intensest feeling. There was a 
 Western man, who, having made a few thousands in the 
 mines, came to San Francisco to take the Eastern steamer 
 home. The night before he was to sail, he entered the 
 Arcade saloon, and seating himself at a table in sheer list- 
 lessness, staked a twenty -dollar gold piece on the game 
 
XVlU INTRODUCTION 
 
 He won. He won again without removing his stake. It 
 was, in short, that old story told so often — how in two 
 liours he won a fortune, how an hour later he rose from 
 the table a ruined man. Well — the steamer sailed with- 
 out him. He was a simple man, knowing little of the 
 world, and his sudden fortune and equally sudden reverse 
 almost crazed him. He dared not write to the wife who 
 awaited him; he had not pluck enough to return to the 
 mines and build his fortune up anew. A fatal fascination 
 held him to the spot. He took some humble occupation 
 in the city, and regularly lost his scant earnings where his 
 wealth had gone before. His ragged figure and haggard 
 face appeared as regularly as the dealer at the table. So, 
 a year passed. But if he had forgotten the waiting wife, 
 she had not forgotten him. With infinite toil she at last 
 procured a passage to San Francisco, and was landed with 
 her child penniless upon its wharf. In her sore extremity 
 she told her story to a passing stranger — the last man, 
 perhaps, to have met — Mr. John Oakhurst, a gambler ! 
 He took her to a hotel, and quietly provided for her im- 
 mediate wants. Two or three evenings after this, the 
 Western man, still playing at the same table, won some 
 trifling stake three times in succession, as if Fortune were 
 about to revisit him. At this moment, Mr. Oakhurst 
 clapped him on the shoulder. "I will give you," he said, 
 quietly, "three thousand dollars for your next play." The 
 man hesitated. "Your wife is at the door," continued 
 Mr. Oakhurst sotto voce. " Will you take it ? Quick ! " 
 The man accepted. But the spirit of the gambler was 
 strong within him, and as Mr. Oakhurst perhaps fully 
 expected, he waited to see the result of the play. Mr, 
 Oakhurst lost ! With a look of gratitude the man turned 
 to Oakhurst and seizing the three thousand dollars hurried 
 a Ji^ay, as if fearful he might change his mind. " That was 
 a bad spurt of yours. Jack," said a friend innocently, not 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 observing the smile that had passed between the dealer and 
 Jack. "Yes,'' said Jack coolly, "but I got tired of seein' 
 that chap around." "But," said his friend in alarm, 
 "you don't mean to say that you" — and he hesitated. 
 ■' I mean to say, my dear boy, " said Jack, " that this yer 
 little deal was a put-up job betwixt the dealer and me. 
 It 's the first time," he added seriously, with an oath which 
 I think the recording angel instantly passed to Jack's 
 credit, "it's the first time as I ever played a game that 
 wasn't on the square." 
 
 The social life of that day was peculiar. Gentlemen 
 made New Year's calls in long boots and red flannel shirts. 
 In later days the wife of an old pioneer used to show a 
 chair with a hole through its cushion made by a gentleman 
 caller who, sitting down suddenly in bashful confusion, had 
 exploded his revolver. The best-dressed men were gam- 
 blers; the best-dressed ladies had no right to that title. 
 At balls and parties dancing was tabooed, owing to the 
 unhappy complications which arose from the disproportion- 
 ate number of partners to the few ladies that were present. 
 The ingenious device of going through a quadrille with 
 a different partner for each figure sprang from the fertile 
 brain of a sorely beset San Francisco belle. The wife of 
 an army officer told me that she never thought of return- 
 ing home with the same escort, and not unfrequently was 
 accompanied with what she called a "full platoon." "I 
 never knew before," she said, "what they meant by ' the 
 pleasure of your company. ' " In the multiplicity of such 
 attentions surely there was safety. 
 
 Such was the urban life of the Argonauts — its salient 
 peculiarities softened and subdued by the constant accession 
 of strangers from the East and the departure of its own 
 citizens for the interior. As each succeeding ocean steamer 
 brought fresh faces from the East, a corresponding change 
 took place in the type and in the manners and morals. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 When fine clothes appeared upon the streets and men 
 swore less frequently, people hegan to put locks on their 
 doors and portable property was no longer out at night. 
 As fine houses were built, real estate rose, and the dwellers 
 in the old tents were pushed from the contiguity of their 
 richer brothers. San Francisco saw herself naked, and 
 was ashamed. The old Argonautic brotherhood, with its 
 fierce sincerity, its terrible directness, its pathetic simpli- 
 city, was broken up. Some of the members were content to 
 remain in a Circean palace of material and sensuous delight, 
 but the type was transferred to the mountains, and thither 
 I propose to lead you. 
 
 It is a country unlike any other. Nature here is as 
 rude, as inchoate, as unfinished, as the life. The people 
 seem to have come here a thousand years too soon, and 
 before the great hostess was ready to receive them. The 
 forests, vast, silent, damp with their undergrowth of gigan- 
 tic ferns, recall a remote carboniferous epoch. The trees 
 are monstrous, soinbre, and monotonously alike. Every- 
 thing is new, crude, and strange. The grass ' blades are 
 enormous and far apart, there is no carpet to the soil; even 
 the few Alpine flowers are odorless and bizarre. There is 
 nothing soft, tender, or pastoral in the landscape. Nature 
 affects the heroics rather than the bucolics. Theocritus 
 himself could scarcely have given melody to the utterance 
 of these jEtnean herdsmen, with their brierwood pipes, and 
 their revolvers slung at their backs. There are vast 
 spaces of rock and cliflF, long intervals of ravine and canon, 
 and sudden and awful lapses of precipice. The lights and 
 .shadows are Eembrandtish, and against this background 
 the faintest outline of a human figure stands out starkly. 
 
 They lived at first in tents, and then in cabins. The 
 climate was gracious, and except for the rvidest purposes of 
 shelter from the winter rains, they could have slept out of 
 doors the year round, as many preferred to do. As they 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 grew more ambitious, perhaps a small plot of ground was 
 inclosed and cultivated; but for the first few years they 
 looked upon themselves as tenants at will, and were afraid 
 of putting down anything they could not take away. 
 Chimneys to their cabins were for a long time avoided as 
 having this objectionable feature. Even at this day, de- 
 serted mining-camps are marked by the solitary adobe 
 chimneys still left standing where the frame of the original 
 cabin was moved to some newer location. Their house- 
 keeping was of the rudest kind. For many months the 
 frying-pan formed their only available cooking-utensil. It 
 was lashed to the wandering miner's back, like the trouba- 
 dour's guitar. He fried his bread, his beans, his bacon, 
 -ind occasionally stewed his coffee, in this single vessel. 
 3ut that Nature worked for him with a balsamic air and 
 breezy tonics, he would have succumbed. Happily his 
 meals were few and infrequent ; happily the inventions of 
 his mother East were equal to his needs. His progressive 
 track through these mountain solitudes was marked with 
 tin cans bearing the inscriptions: "Cove Oysters," "Shaker 
 Sweet Corn," "Yeast Powder," "Boston Crackers," and 
 the like. But in the hour of adversity and the moment of 
 perplexity, his main reliance was beans! It was the sole 
 legacy of the Spanish California. The conqueror and the 
 conquered fraternized over their frijoles. 
 
 The Argonaut's dress was peculiar. He was ready if 
 not' skillful with his needle, and was fond of patching his 
 clothes until the original material disappeared beneath a 
 cloud of amendments. The flour-sack was his main depen- 
 dence. When its contents had sustained and comforted 
 the inner man, the husk clothed the outer one. Two 
 gentlemen of respectability in earlier days lost their iden- 
 tity in the labels somewhat conspicuously borne on the 
 seats of their trousers, and were known to the camp in all 
 aeriousness as "Genesee Mills" and "Eagle Brand." In 
 
xxii INTKODUCTION 
 
 the Southern mines a quantity of seamen's clothing, con- 
 demned by the Navy Department and sold at auction, was 
 bought up, and for a year afterwards the sombre woodland 
 shades of Stanislaus and Merced were lightened by the 
 white ducks and blue and white shirts of sailor lands- 
 men. It was odd that the only picturesque bit of color 
 in their dress was accidental, and owing to a careless, lazy 
 custom. Their handkerchiefs of coarse blue, green, or yel- 
 low .bandanna were for greater convenience in hot weather 
 knotted at the ends and thrown shawlwise around the 
 shoulders. Against a background of olive foliage, the effect 
 was always striking and kaleidoscopic. The soft felt, 
 broad-brimmed hat, since known as the California hat, was 
 their only head-covering. A tall hat on anybody but a 
 clergyman or a gambler would have justified a blow. 
 
 They were singularly handsome, to a man. Not solely 
 in the muscvilar development and antique grace acquired 
 through opeii-air exercise and unrestrained freedom of 
 limb, but often in color, expression, and even softness of 
 outline. They were mainly young men, whose beards were 
 virgin, soft, silken, and curling. They had not always 
 time to cut their hair, and this often swept their shoulders 
 with the lovelocks of Charles II. There were faces that 
 made one think of Delaroche's Saviour. There were dash- 
 ing figures, bold-eyed, jauntily insolent, and cavalierly 
 reckless, that would have delighted Meissonier. Add to 
 this the foreign element of Chilian and Mexican, and you 
 have a combination of form and light and color unknown 
 to any other modern English-speaking community. At 
 sunset on the red mountain road, a Mexican pack-train 
 perhaps slowly winds- its way toward the plain. Each 
 animal wears a gayly colored blanket beneath its pack 
 saddle ; the leading mule is musical with bells, and brightly 
 caparisoned; the muleteers wear the national dress, with 
 striped serape of red' and black, • deerskin trousers open 
 
INTRODUCTION Xxiii 
 
 from the knee, and fringes with bullion buttons, and have 
 on each heel a silver spur with rowels three inches in 
 diameter. If they were thus picturesque in external 
 magnificence, no less romantic were they in expression 
 and character. Their hospitality was barbaric, their gen- 
 erosity spontaneous. Their appreciation of merit always 
 took the form of pecuniary testimonials, whether it was 
 a church and parsonage given to a favorite preacher, or 
 the Danae-like shower of gold they rained upon the pretty 
 person of a popular actress. No mendicant had to beg; a 
 sympathizing bystander took up a subscription in his hat. 
 Their generosity was emulative and cumulative. During 
 the great War of the Eebellion, the millions gathered in 
 the Treasury of the Sanitary Commission had their source 
 in a San Francisco bar-room. "It's mighty rough on 
 those chaps who are wounded," said a casual drinker, 
 "and I 'm sorry for them." "How much are you sorry! " 
 asked a gambler. "Five hundred dollars," said the first 
 speaker aggressively. "I '11 see that five hundred dollars, 
 and go a thousand better ! " said the gambler, putting 
 down the money. In half an hour fifteen thousand dol- 
 lars was telegraphed to Washington from San Francisco, 
 and this great national charity — open to North and South 
 alike, afterwards reinforced by three millions of Califor- 
 nia gold — sprang into life. 
 
 In their apparently thoughtless free-handedness there 
 was often a vein of practical sagacity. It is a well-known 
 fact that after the great fire in Sacramento, the first sub- 
 scription to the rebuilding of the Methodist Church came 
 from the hands of a noted gambler. The good pastor, 
 while accepting the gift, could not help asking the giver 
 why he did not keep the money to build another gambling- 
 house. "It would be making things a little monotonoics 
 out yer, ole man," responded the gambler graively, "and 
 it 's variety that 'a wanted for a big town." 
 
XXIV INTEODTJCTION 
 
 They were splendidly loyal in their friendships. Per- 
 haps the absence of female society and domestic ties turned 
 the current of their tenderness and sentiment towards each 
 other. To be a man's "partner" signified something more 
 than a common pecuniary or business interest; it was to 
 be his friend through good or ill report, in adversity or 
 fortune, to cleave to him and none other — to be ever jeal- 
 ous of him! There were Argonauts who were more faith- 
 ful to their partners than, I fear, they had ever been to 
 their wives ; there were partners whom even the grave 
 could not divide — who remained solitary and loyal to a 
 dead man's memory. To insult a man's partner was to 
 insult him ; to step between two partners in a quarrel waa 
 attended with the same danger and uncertainty that in- 
 volves the peacemaker in a conjugal dispute. The heroic 
 possibilities of a Damon and a Pythias were always present ; 
 there were men who had fulfilled all those conditions, and 
 better still without a knowledge or belief that they were 
 classical, with no mythology to lean their backs against, 
 and hardly a conscious appreciation of a later faith that is 
 symbolized by sacrifice. In these unions there were the 
 same odd combinations often seen in the marital relations: 
 a tall and a short man, a delicate sickly youth and a middle- 
 aged man of powerful frame, a grave reticent nature and 
 a spontaneous exuberant one. Yet in spite of these in- 
 congruities there was always the same blind unreasoning 
 fidelity to each other. It is true that their zeal sometimes 
 outran their discretion. There is a story extant that a 
 San Francisco stranger, indulging in some free criticism of 
 religious denominations, suddenly found himself sprawling 
 upon the floor with an irate Kentuckian, revolver in hand, 
 standing over him. When an explanation was demanded 
 by the crowd, the Kentuckian pensively returned his re- 
 volver to his belt. "Well, T ain't got anythin' agin the 
 stranger, but he said somethin' a minit ago agin Quakers, 
 
INTKODUCTION XXV 
 
 and I w^ant him to understand that my pardner is a Quak- 
 er, and — a peaceful man ! " 
 
 I should like to give some pictures of their domestic 
 life, but the women were few and the family hearthstones 
 and domestic altars still fewer. Of housewifely virtues the 
 utmost was made; the model spouse invariably kept a 
 boarding-house, and served her husband's guests. In rare 
 cases, the woman who was a crown to her husband took 
 in washing also. 
 
 There was a woman of this class who lived in a little 
 mining-camp in the Sierras. Her husband was a Texan 
 — a good-humored giant, who had won the respect of the 
 camp probably quite as much by his amiable weakness as 
 by his great physical power. She was an Eastern woman ; 
 had been, I think, a schoolmistress, and had lived in cities 
 up to the time of her marriage and emigration. She was 
 not, perhaps, personally attractive; she was plain and 
 worn beyond her years, and her few personal accomplish- 
 ments — a slight knowledge of French and Italian, music, 
 the Latin classification of plants, natural philosophy and 
 Blair's Rhetoric — did not tell upon the masculine inhabi- 
 tants of Ringtail Canon. Yet she. was universally loved, 
 and Aunt Ruth, as she was called, or "Old Ma'am Rich- 
 ards," was lifted into an idealization of the aunt, mother, 
 or sister of every miner in the camp. She reciprocated in 
 a thousand kindly ways, mending the clothes, ministering 
 to the sick, and even answering the long home letters of 
 the men. 
 
 Presently she fell ill. Nobody knew exactly what was 
 tlie matter with her, but she pined slowly away. When 
 the burthen of her household tasks was lifted from her 
 shoulders, she took to long walks, wandering over the hills, 
 and was often seen upon the highest ridge at sunset, look- 
 ing toward the east. Here at last she was found sense- 
 less, — the result, it was said, of over exertion, and she 
 
SXVi INTEODUCTION 
 
 ■was warned to keep her house. So she kept her house, 
 and even went so far as to keep her hed. One day, to 
 everybody's astonishment, she died. "Do you know what 
 they say Ma'am Eichards died of 1 " said Yuba Bill to his 
 partner. "The doctor says she died of nostalgia," said 
 Bill. " What blank thing is nostalgia ? " asked the other. 
 ''Well, it 's a kind o' longin' to go to heaven! " Perhaps 
 he was right. 
 
 As a general thing the Argonauts were not burthened 
 with sentiment, and were utterly free from its more dan- 
 gerous ally, sentimentalism. They took a sardonic delight 
 in stripping all meretricious finery from their speech; they 
 had a sarcastic fashion of eliminating everything but the 
 facts from poetic or imaginative narrative. With all that 
 terrible directness of statement which was habitual to 
 them, when they indulged in innuendo it was significantly 
 cruel and striking. In the early days. Lynch law pun- 
 ished horse-stealing with death. A inan one day was 
 arrested and tried for this ofiense. After hearing the evi- 
 dence, the jury duly retired to consult upon their verdict. 
 For some reason — perhaps from an insufficiency of proof, 
 perhaps from motives of humanity, perhaps because the 
 census was already showing an alarming decrease in the 
 male population — the jury showed signs of hesitation. 
 The crowd outside became impatient. After waiting an 
 hour, the ringleader put his head into the room and asked 
 if the jury had settled upon a verdict. "No," said the 
 foreman. "Well," answered the leader, "take your own 
 time, gentlemen ; only remember that we 're waitin' for 
 this yer room to lay out the corpse in ! " 
 
 Their humor was frequent, although never exuberant or 
 spontaneous, and always contained a certain percentage of 
 rude justice or morality under its sardonic exterior. The 
 only ethical teaching of those days was through a joke or 
 a sarcasm. While camps were moved by an epigram, the 
 
INTKODUCTION XXVU 
 
 rude equity of Judge Lynch was swayed by a witticism. 
 Even their pathos, which was more or less dramatic, partook 
 of this quality. The odd expression, the quaint fancy, or 
 even the grotesque gesture that rippled the surface con- 
 sciousness with a smile, a moment later touched the depths 
 of the heart with a sense of infinite sadness. They indulged 
 sparingly in poetry and illustration, using only its rude, 
 inchoate form of slang. Unlike the meaningless cues and 
 catch-words of an older civilization, their slang was the 
 condensed epigrammatic illustration of some fact, fancy, or 
 perception. Generally it had some significant local deriva- 
 tion. The half-yearly drought brought forward the popu- 
 lar adjuration " dry up " to express the natural climax of 
 evaporated fluency. " Played out " was a reminiscence of 
 the gambling-table, and expressed that hopeless condition 
 of affairs when even the operations of chance are suspended. 
 To " take stock " in any statement, theory, or suggestion 
 indicates a pecuniary degree of trustful credulity. One 
 can hardly call that slang, even though it came from a 
 gambler's lips, which gives such a vivid condensation of 
 death and the reckoning hereafter as was conveyed in the 
 expression, "handing in your checks." In those days the 
 slang was universal; there was no occasion to which it 
 seemed inconsistent. Thomas Starr King once told me 
 that, after delivering a certain controversial sermon, he 
 overheard the following dialogue between a parishioner and 
 his friend.. "Well," said the enthusiastic parishioner, 
 referring to the sermon, "what do you think of King 
 now ? " " Think of him 1 " responded the friend, " why, 
 he took every trick ! " 
 
 Sometimes, through the national habit of amusing exag- 
 geration or equally grotesque understatement, certain words 
 acquired a new significance. I remember the first night 
 I spent in Virginia City was at a new hotel which had 
 been but recently opened. After I had got comfortably 
 
XXVlll INTRODUCTION 
 
 to bed, I was aroused by the noise of scuffling and shout- 
 ing below, punctuated by occasional pistol shots. In the 
 morning I made my way to the bar-room, and found the 
 landlord behind his counter with a bruised eye, a piece of 
 court plaster extending from his cheek to his forehead, yet 
 withal a pleasant smile upon his face. Taking my cue 
 from this I said to him: "Well, landlord, you had rather 
 a lively time here last night." "Yes," he replied, pleas- 
 antly. "It was rather a lively time!" "Do you often 
 have such lively times in Virginia City ? " I added, embold- 
 ened by his cheerfulness. "Well, no," he said, reflec- 
 tively; "the fact is we've only just opened yer, and last 
 night was about the first time that the boys seemed to be 
 gettin' really acquainted ! " 
 
 The man who objected to join in a bear hunt because 
 "he hadn't lost any bears lately," and the man who 
 replied to the tourist's question "if they grew any corn in 
 that locality " by saying " not a d — d bit, in fact scarcely 
 any," offered easy examples of this characteristic anti- 
 climax and exaggeration. Often a flavor of gentle philoso- 
 phy mingled with it. "In course I 'd rather not drive a 
 mule team," said a teamster to me. "In course I 'd rather 
 run a bank or be President: but when you 've lived as long 
 as I have, stranger, you '11 find that in this yer world a 
 man don't always get his 'drathers.'" Often a man's 
 trade or occupation lent a graphic power to his speech. 
 On one occasion an engineer was relating to me the par- 
 ticulars of a fellow workman's death by consumption. 
 "Poor Jim," he said, "he got to running slower and 
 slower, until one day — he stopped on his centre ! " What 
 a picture of the helpless hitch in this weary human 
 machine ! Sometimes the expression was borrowed from 
 another's profession. At one time there was a difficulty 
 in a surveyor's camp between the surveyor and a China- 
 man. "If I was you," said a sympathizing teamster to the 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 surveyor, "I 'd jest take that chap and theodolite him out 
 o' camp." Sometimes the slang was a mere echo of the 
 formulas of some popular excitement or movement. Dur- 
 ing a camp-meeting in the moTintains, a teamster who had 
 been swearing at his cattle was rebuked for his impiety by 
 a young woman who had just returned from the meeting. 
 "Why, Miss," said the astonished teamster, "you don't 
 call that swearing, do you? Why, you ought to hear 
 Bill Jones exhort the impenitent mule ! " 
 
 But can we entirely forgive the Argonaut for making hi"? 
 slang gratuitously permanent, for foisting upon posterity, 
 who may forget these extenuating circumstances, such titles 
 as "One Horse Gulch," "Poker Flat," "Greaser Canon," 
 "Fiddletown," "Murderer's Bar," "and "Dead Broke"? 
 The map of California is still ghastly with this unhallowed 
 christening. A tourist may well hesitate to write " Dead 
 Broke, " at the top of his letter, and any stranger would be 
 justified in declining an invitation to "Murderer's Bar." 
 It seemed as if the early Californian took a sardonic delight 
 in the contrast which these names oifered to the euphony of 
 the old Spanish titles. It is fortunate that with few excep- 
 tions the counties of the State still bear the soft Castilian 
 labials and gentle vowels. Tuolumne, Tulare, Ydlo, Cala- 
 veras, Sonoma, Tehema, Siskyou, and Mendocino, to say 
 nothing of the glorious company of the Apostles who per- 
 petually praise California through the Spanish Catholic 
 calendar. Yet wherever a saint dropped a blessing, some 
 sinner afterwards squatted with an epithet. Extremes 
 often meet. The omnibuses in San Francisco used to run 
 from Happy Valley to the Mission Dolores. You had to 
 go to Blaises first before you could get to Purissima. 
 Yet I think the ferocious directness of these titles was 
 preferable to the pinchbeck elegance of " Copperopolis, " 
 " Argentinia," the polyglot monstrosities of "Oroville," of 
 "Placerville," or the remarkable sentiment of "Komeos- 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 burgh" and " Julietstown. " Sometimes the national tend- 
 ency to abbreviation was singularly shown. "Jamestown," 
 near Sonora, 'was always known as "Jimtown," and 
 "Moquelumne Hill," after first suffering phonetic torture 
 by being spelt with a "k," was finally drawn and quartered 
 and now appears on the stage-coach as "Mok Hill." There 
 were some names that defied all conjecture. The Pioneer 
 coaches changed horses at a place called "Paradox." Why 
 Paradox 1 No one could tell. 
 
 I wish I could say that the Spaniard fared any better 
 than his language at the hands of the Argonauts. He was 
 dalled a "Greaser," an unctuous reminiscence of the Mexi- 
 can war, and applied erroneously to the Spanish Califor- 
 nian, who was not a Mexican. The pure blood of Castile 
 ran in his veins. He held his lands sometimes by royal 
 patent of Charles V. He was grave, simple, and confiding. 
 He accepted the Argonaut's irony as sincere, he permitted 
 him to squat on his lands, he allowed him to marry his 
 daughter. He found himself, in a few years, laughed at, 
 landless, and alone. In his sore extremity he entered into 
 a defensive alliance with some of his persecutors, and 
 avenged himself after an extraordinary fashion. In all 
 matters relating to early land grants he /was the evergreen 
 witness; his was the only available memory, his the only 
 legal testimony, on the Coast. Perhaps strengthened by 
 this repeated exercise, his memory became one of the most 
 extraordinary, his testimony the most complete and corro- 
 borative, known to human experience. He recalled conver- 
 sations, official orders, and precedents of fifty years ago as 
 if they were matters of yesterday. He produced grants, 
 desenos, signatures, and letters with promptitude and 
 despatch. He evolved evidence from his inner conscious- 
 ness, and in less than three years Spanish land titles were 
 lost in hopeless confusion and a cloud of witnesses. The 
 wily Argonauts cursed the aptness of their pupil. 
 
INTRODUCTION XX2a 
 
 Socially he clung to his old customs. He had his regu- 
 lar fandango, strummed his guitar, and danced the semi- 
 euaea. He had his regular Sunday bull-fights after. Mass. 
 But the wily Argonaut introduced "breakdowns" in the 
 fandango, substituted the banjo for the guitar, and Bour- 
 bon whiskey for aguardiente. He even went so far as 
 to interfere with the bull - fights, not so much from a 
 sense of moral ethics as with a view to giving the bulls a 
 show. On one or two occasions he substituted a grizzly 
 bear, who not only instantly cleared the arena, but play- 
 fully wiped out the first two rows of benches beyond. He 
 learned horsemanship from the Spaniard and — ran off his 
 cattle. 
 
 Yet, before taking leave of the Spanish American, it is 
 well to recall a single figure. It is that of the earliest 
 pioneer known to Californian history. He comes to us 
 toiling over a southern plain — an old man, weak, ema- 
 ciated, friendless, and alone. He has left his weary mule- 
 teers and acolytes a league behind him, and has wandered 
 on without scrip or wallet, bearing only a crucifix and a 
 bell. It is a characteristic plain, one that tourists do not 
 usually penetrate : scorched yet bleak, windswept, blasted 
 and baked to its very foundations, and cracked into gaping 
 chasms. As the pitiless sun goes down, the old man stag- 
 gers forward and falls utterly exhausted. He lies there 
 all night. Towards morning he is found by some Indians, 
 a feeble, simple race, who in uncouth kindness offer 
 him food and drink. But before he accepts either, he 
 rises to his knees, and there says matins and baptizes 
 them in the Catholic faith. And then it occurs to him 
 to ask them where he is, and he finds that he has pene- 
 trated into the unknown land. This was Padre Junipero 
 Serra, and the sun arose that morning on Christian Califor- 
 nia. Weighed by the usual estimates of success, his mis- 
 sion was a failure. The heathen stole his provisions and 
 
Xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 massacred his acolytes. It is said that the good fathers 
 themselves sometimes confounded haptism and hondage, 
 and laid the foundation of peonage ; hut in the hloodstained 
 .■md tear-hlotted chronicle of early California, there is no 
 more heroic figure than the thin, travel- worn, self-centred, 
 s elf-denying Franciscan friar. 
 
 If I have thus far refrained from eulogizing the virtues 
 of another characteristic figure, it is hecause he came later. 
 The Heathen Chinee was not an Argonaut. But he 
 brought into the Argonaut's new life an odd conservatism. 
 Quiet, calm, almost philosophic, hut never obtrusive or 
 aggressive, he never flaunted his three thousand years 
 in the face of the men of to-day ; he never obtruded his 
 extensive mythology before men who were skeptical of 
 even one God. He accepted at once a menial position 
 with dignity and self-respect. He washed for the whole 
 community, and made cleanliness an accessible virtue. 
 He brought patience and novelty into the kitchen; he 
 brought silence, obedience, and a certain degree of intelli- 
 gence into the whole sphere of domestic service. He stood 
 behind your chair, quiet, attentive, but uncommunicative. 
 He waited upon you at table with the air of the man who, 
 knowing himself superior, could not jeopardize his posi- 
 tion. He worshipped the devil in your household with 
 a frank sincerity and openness that shamed your own 
 covert and feeble attempts in that direction. Although he 
 wore your clothes, spoke your language, and imitated your 
 vices, he was always involved in his own Celestial atmos- 
 phere. He consorted only with his fellows, consumed 
 his own peculiar provisions, bought his goods of the 
 Chinese companies, and when he died, his bones were sent 
 to China! He left no track, trace, or imprint on the civi- 
 lization. He claimed no civil right; he wanted no fran- 
 chise. He took his regular beatings calmly ; he submitted 
 to scandalous extortion from state and individual with 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 tranquillity ; he bore robbery and even murder with stoical 
 fortitude. Perhaps it was well that he did. Christian 
 civilization, which declared by statute that his testimony 
 yas valueless; which intimated by its practice that the 
 same vices in a pagan were worse than in a Christian; 
 which regarded the frailty of his women as being especially 
 abominable and his own gambling propensities as some- 
 thing originally bad, taught him at least the Christian 
 virtues of patience and resignation. 
 
 Did he ever get even with the Christian Argonauts? 
 I am inclined to think that he did. Indeed, in some 
 instances I may say that I know that he did. He had a 
 universal, simple way of defrauding the customs. He 
 filled the hollows of bamboo chairs with opium, and, sit- 
 ting calmly on them, conversed with dignity with custom- 
 house officials. He made the amplitude of his sleeve and 
 trouser useful as well as ornamental on similar occasions. 
 He evaded the state poll tax by taking the name and 
 assuming the exact facial expression of some brother Celes- 
 tial who had already paid. He turned his skill as a horti- 
 culturist to sinful account by investing rose bushes with 
 imitations of that flower made out of carrots and turnips. 
 He acquired Latin and Greek with peculative rather than 
 scholastic intent, and borrowed fifty dollars from a Cali- 
 fornian clergyman while he soothed his ear with the 
 Homeric accents. But perhaps his most successful attempt 
 at balancing his account with a Christian civilization was 
 his career as a physician. 
 
 One day he opened a doctor's office in San Francisco. 
 By the aid of clever confederates, miraculous cures were 
 trumpeted through the land, until people began to flock 
 to his healing ministration. His doorways were beset 
 by an army of invalids. Two interpreters, like the angels 
 in the old legend, listened night and day to the ills told 
 by the people that crowded this Hygeian temple. They 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 translated into the common tongue the words of wisdom 
 that fell from the oracular lips of this slant-eyed Apollo. 
 Doctor Lipotai was eminently successful. Presently, how- 
 ever, there were Chinese doctors on every corner. A sign 
 with the proper monosyllables, a pigtail and an interpreter, 
 were the only stock in trade required. The pagan knew 
 that no one would stop to reason. The ignorant heathen 
 was aware that no one would stop to consider what superior 
 opportunities the Chinese had for medical knowledge over 
 the practitioners of his own land. This debased old idolater 
 knew that these intelligent Christians would think that it 
 might be magic, and so would come. And they did come. 
 And he gave them green tea for tubercular consumption, 
 ginger for aneurism, and made them smell punk for dropsy. 
 The treatment was harmless, but wearisome. Suddenly, 
 a well known Oriental scholar published a list of the reme- 
 dies ordinarily used in the Chinese medical practice. I 
 regret to say that for obvious reasons I cannot repeat the 
 unsavory list here. It was enough, however, to produce 
 the ordinary symptoms of sea-sickness among the doctor's 
 patients. The celestial star at once began to wane. The 
 oracle ceased to be questioned. The sibyls got off their 
 tripods. And Doctor Lipotai, with a half million in his 
 pocket, returned to his native rice and the naive simplicity 
 of Chinese Camp. 
 
 And with this receding figure bringing up the rear of 
 the procession, I close my review of the Argonauts of '49. 
 In their rank and file there may be ma,ny who are pejson- 
 ally known to some of my hearers. There may be gaps 
 which the memory of others can supply. There are 
 homes all over the world whose vacant places never can be 
 filled; there are graves all over California on whose name- 
 less mounds no one shall weep. I have said that it is not 
 a pretty story. I should like to end it with a flourish of 
 trumpets, but the band has gone on before, and the dust 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 of the highway is beginning to hide them from my view. 
 They are marching on to their city by the sea — to that 
 great lodestone hill that Sindbad saw, which they call 
 "Lone Mountain." There, waiting at its base, one may 
 fancy the Argo is still lying, and that when the last Argo- 
 naut shall have passed in, she too will spread her white 
 wings and slip unnoticed through the Golden Gate that 
 opens in the distance. 
 
TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS 
 
 THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 
 
 Befoke nine o'clock it was pretty well known all along 
 the river that the two parties of the " Amity' Claim " had 
 quarreled and separated at daybreak. At that time the 
 attention of their nearest neighbor had been attracted by 
 the sounds of altercations and two' consecutive pistol-shots. 
 Running out, he had seen dimly in the gray mist that rose 
 from the river the tall form of Scott, one of the partners, 
 descending the hill toward the cafion; a moment later, 
 York, the other partner, had appeared from the cabin, and 
 walked in an opposite direction toward the river, passing 
 within a few feet of the curious watcher. Later it was dis- 
 covered that a serious Chinaman, cutting wood before the 
 cabin, had witnessed part of the quarrel. But John was 
 stolid, indifferent, and reticent. "Me choppee wood, me 
 no fightee," was his serene response to all anxious queries. 
 " But what did they say, John ? " John did not sabe. 
 Colonel Starbottle deftly ran over the various popular 
 epithets which a generous 'public sentiment might accept as 
 reasonable provocation for an assault. But : John did not 
 recognize them. " And this yer 's the cattle," said the 
 Colonel, with some severity, "that some thinks oughter 
 be allowed to testify agin a White Man! Git — you hea- 
 then ! " 
 
 Still the quarrel remained inexplicable. That two men, 
 
2 THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 
 
 whose amiability and grave tact had earned for them the 
 title of " The Peacemakers," in a community not greatly 
 given to the passive virtues, — that these men, singularly 
 devoted to each other, should suddenly and violently quar- 
 rel, might well excite the curiosity of the camp. A few of 
 the more inquisitive visited the late scene of conflict, now 
 deserted by its former occupants. There was no trace of 
 disorder or confusion in the neat cabin. The rude table 
 was arranged as if for breakfast ; the pan of yellow biscuit 
 still sat upon that hearth whose dead embers might have 
 typified the evil passions that had raged there but an hour 
 before. But Colonel Starbottle's eye, albeit somewhat 
 bloodshot and rheumy, was more intent on practical details. 
 On examination, a bullet-hole was found in the doorpost, 
 and another nearly opposite in the casing of the window. 
 The Colonel called attention to the fact that the one 
 " agreed with " the bore of Scott's revolver, and the other 
 with that of York's derringer. " They must hev stood 
 about yer," said the Colonel, taking position ; " not more'n 
 three feet apart, and — missed ! " There was a fine touch 
 of pathos in the falling inflection of the Colonel's voice, 
 which was not without effect. A delicate perception of 
 wasted opportunity thrilled his auditors. 
 
 But the Bar was destined to experience a greater dis- 
 appointment. The two antagonists had not met since the 
 quarrel, and it was vaguely rumored that, on the occasion 
 of a second meeting, each had determined to kill the other 
 •■' on sight." There was, consequently, some excitement — 
 and, it is to be feared, no little gratification — when, at ten 
 o'clock, York stepped from the Magnolia Saloon into the 
 one long straggling street of the camp, at the same moment 
 that Scott left the blacksmith's shop at the forks of the 
 road. It was evident, at a glance, that a meeting could 
 only be avoided by the actual retreat of one or the other. 
 
 In an instant the doors and windows of the adjacent 
 
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 3 
 
 saloons were filled with faces. Heads unaccountably ap- 
 peared above the river banks and from behind boulders. 
 An empty wagon at the cross-road was suddenly crowded 
 with people, who seemed to have sprung from the earth. 
 There was much running and confusion on the hillside. 
 On the mountain-road, Mr. Jack Hamlin had reined up his 
 horse and was standing upright on the seat of his buggy. 
 And the two objects of this absorbing attention approached 
 each other. 
 
 " York 's got the sun," " Scott '11 line him on that tree," 
 " He 's waiting to draw his fire," came from the cart ; and 
 then it was silent. But above this human breathlessness 
 the river rushed and sang, and the wind rustled the tree- 
 tops with an indiffe-rence that seemed obtrusive. Colonel 
 Starbottle felt it, and in a moment of sublime preoccupa- 
 tion, without looking around, waved his cane behind him 
 warningly to all Nature, and said, " Shu ! " 
 
 The men were now within a few feet of each other. A 
 hen ran across the road before one of them. A feathery 
 seed vessel, wafted from a wayside tree, fell at the feet of 
 the other. And, unheeding this irony of Nature, the two 
 opponents came nearer, erect and rigid, looked in each 
 other's eyes, and — passed ! 
 
 Colonel Starbottle had to be lifted from the cart. " This 
 yer camp is played out," he said gloomily, as he affected to 
 be supported into the Magnolia. With what further expres- 
 sion he might have indicated his feelings it was impossible 
 to say, for at that moment Scott joined the group. "Did 
 you speak to me ? " he asked of the Colonel, dropping his 
 hand, as if with accidental familiarity, on that gentleman's 
 shoulder. The Colonel, recognizing some occult quality in 
 the touch, and some unknown quantity in the glance of his 
 questioner, contented himself by replying, " No, sir," with 
 dignity. A few rods away, York's conduct was as charac- 
 teristic and peculiar. "You had a mighty fine chance ,• 
 
4 THB ILIAD or SANDY BAR 
 
 ■why did n't you plump him ? " said Jact Hamlin, as York 
 drew near the buggy. " Beeause I hate him," was the 
 reply, heard only by Jack. Contrary to popular belief, 
 this reply was not hissed between the lips of the speaker, 
 but was said in an ordinary tone. But Jack Hamlin, who 
 was an observer of mankind, noticed that the speaker's 
 hands were cold and his lips dry, as he helped him into the 
 buggy, aaid- accepted the seeming paradox with a smile. 
 
 When Sandy Bar became convinced that the quarrel' 
 between York and Seott could not be settled after the usual 
 local methods, it gave no further concern thereto. But 
 presently it was rumored that the " Amity Claim " was in 
 litigation, and that its possession would be expensively dis- 
 puted by each of the pairtners. As it was well known that 
 ihe claim in question was " worked out " and worthless, and 
 that the partners whom it had already enriched had talked 
 of abandoning it but a day or two before the quarrel, this 
 proceeding could only be accounted for as gratuitous spite. 
 Later, two San Francisco lawyers made their appearance in 
 this guileless Arcadia, and were eventually taken into the 
 saloons, and — what was pretty much the same thing — th« 
 confidences of the inhabitants'. The results of this unhal- 
 lowed intimacy were many subpeenas ; and, indeed, when 
 the "Amity Claim" came to trial, all of Sandy Bar that 
 was not in compulsory attendance at the county seat came 
 there from curiosity. The gulches and ditches for miles 
 around were deserted. 1 do not propose to describe that 
 already famous trial. Enough that, iii the language of the 
 plaintiff's counsel, " it was one of no ordinary significance,, 
 involving the inherent rights of that untiring industry 
 which had developed the Pactolian resources of this golden 
 land ; " and, in the homelier phrase of Colonel Starbottle, 
 " a fuss that gentlemen might hev settled in ten niinutesf 
 over a social glass, ef they meant business ; or in ten 
 seconds with ai revolver, ef they meant fun.'* Seott got a 
 
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 5 
 
 -verdict, from which York instantly appealed. It was said 
 that he had sworn to spend his last dollar in the struggle. 
 
 In this way Sandy Bar hegan to accept the enmity of the 
 former partners as a lifelong feud, and the fact that they 
 had ever been friends was forgotten. The few who expected 
 to learn from the trial the origin of the quarrel were dis- 
 appointed. Among the various conjectures, that which 
 ascribed some occult feminine influence as the cause was 
 naturally popular in a camp given to dubious compliment 
 of the sex. " My word for it, gentlemen," said Colonel 
 Starbottle, who had been known in Sacramento as a Gentle- 
 man of the Old School, " there 's some lovely creature at 
 the bottom of this." The gallant Colonel then proceeded 
 to illustrate his theory by divers sprightly stories, such as 
 Gentlemen of the Old School are in the habit of repeating, 
 but which, from deference to th« prejudices of gentlemen 
 of a more recent school, I refrain from transcribing here. 
 But it would appear that even the Colonel's theory was 
 fallacious. The only woman who personally might have 
 exercised any influence over the partners was the pretty 
 daughter of " old man Folinsbee," of Povertj' Flat, at 
 whose hospitable house — which exhibited some comforts 
 and refinements rare in that crude civilization — both York 
 and Scott were frequent visitors. Yet into this charming 
 retreat York strode one evening a month after the quarrel, 
 and, beholding Scott sitting there, turned to the fair hostess 
 with the abrupt query, " Do you love this man ? " The 
 young woman thus addressed returned that answer — at 
 once spirited and evasive — which would occur to most of 
 my fair readers in such an emergency. Without another 
 word, York left the house. " Miss Jo " heaved the least 
 possible sigh as the door closed on York's curls and squarp 
 shoulders, and then, like a good girl, turned to her insulted 
 guest. " But would you believe it, dear ? " she afterwards 
 related to an intimate friend, "the other creature, aft9« 
 
6 THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 
 
 glowering at me for a moment, got upon its hind legs, 
 took its hat, and left too ; and that 's the last I 've seen of 
 either." 
 
 The same hard disregard of all other interests or feelings 
 in the gratification of their hlind rancor characterized all 
 their actions. When York purchased the land below Scott's 
 new claim, and obliged the latter, at a great expense, to 
 make a long detour to carry a " tail-race " around it, Scott 
 retaliated by building a dam that overflowed York's claim 
 on the river. It was Scott who, in conjunction with Colonel 
 Starbottle, first organized that active opposition to the China- 
 men which resulted in the driving off of York's Mongolian 
 laborers ; it was York who built the wagon-road and estab- 
 lished the express which rendered Scott's mules and pack- 
 trains obsolete ; it was Scott who called into life the Vigi- 
 lance Committee which expatriated York's friend. Jack 
 Hamlin ; it was York who created the " Sandy Bar Her- 
 ald," which characterized the act as " a lawless outrage " 
 and Scott as a " Border KuflSan ; " it was Scott, at the head 
 of twenty masked men, who, one moonlight night, threw the 
 offending " forms " into the yellow river, and scattered the 
 types in the dusty road. These proceedings were received 
 in the distant and more civilized outlying towns as vague 
 . indications of progress and vitality. I have before me a 
 copy of the " Poverty Flat Pioneer " for the week ending 
 August 12, 1856, in which the editor, under the head of 
 " County Improvements," says : " The new Presbyterian 
 Church on C Street, at Sandy Bar, is completed. It stands 
 upon the lot formerly occupied by the Magnolia Saloon, 
 which was so mysteriously burnt last month. The temple, 
 which now rises like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Mag- 
 nolia, is virtually the free gift of H. J. York, Esq., of 
 Sandy Bar, who purchased the lot and donated the lumber. 
 Other buildings are going up in the vicinity, but the most 
 noticeable is the ' Sunny South Saloon,' erected by Captain 
 
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 7 
 
 Mat. Scott, nearly opposite the church. Captain Scotfc has 
 spared no expense in the furnishing of this saloon, which 
 promises to be one of the most agreeable places of resort 
 in old Tuolumne. He has recently imported two new first- 
 class billiard-tables with cork cushions. Our old friend, 
 ' Mountain Jimmy,' will dispense liquors at the bar. We 
 refer our readers to the advertisement in another column. 
 Visitors to Sandy Bar cannot do better than give ' Jimmy ' 
 a call." Among the local items occurred the following : 
 " H. J. York, Esq., of Sandy Bar, has offered a reward of 
 $100 for the detection of the parties who hauled away the 
 steps of the new Presbyterian Church, C Street, Sandy Bar, 
 during divine service on Sabbath evening last. Captain 
 Scott adds another hundred for the capture of the mis- 
 creants who broke the magnificent plate-glass windows of 
 the new saloon on the following evening. There is some 
 talk of reorganizing the old Vigilance Committee at Sandy 
 Bar." 
 
 When, for many months of cloudless weather, the hard, 
 unwinking sun of Sandy Bar had regularly gone down on 
 the unpacified wrath of these men, there was some talk of 
 mediation. In particular, the pastor of the church to which 
 I have just referred — a sincere, fearless, but perhaps not 
 fully enlightened man — seized gladly upon the occasion of 
 York's liberality to attempt to reunite the former partners. 
 He preached an earnest sermon on the abstract sinfulness of 
 discord and rancor. But the excellent sermons of the Kev. 
 Mr. Daws were directed to an ideal congregation that did 
 not exist at Sandy Bar, — a congregation of beings of un- 
 mixed vices and virtues, of single impulses, and perfectly 
 logical motives, of preternatural simplicity, of childlike 
 faith, and grown-up responsibilities. As unfortunately the 
 people who actually attended Mr. Daws's church were mainly 
 very human, somewhat artful, more self- excusing than 
 Belf-accusing, rather good-natured, and decidedly weak, they 
 
3 THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAK 
 
 quietly shed that portion of the sermon which referred to 
 themselves, and accepting York and Scott — who were 
 both in defiant attendance — as curious examples of those 
 ideal beings above referred to, felt a certain satisfaction — 
 which, I fear, was not altogether Christian-like — in their 
 " raking-down." If Mr. Daws expected York and Scott to 
 shake hands after the sermon, he was disappointed. But 
 he did not relax his purpose. With that quiet fearlessness 
 and determination which had won for him the respect of 
 men who were too apt to regard piety as synonymous with 
 effeminacy, he attacked Scott in his own house. What he 
 said has not been recorded, but it is to be feared that it was 
 part of his sermon. When he had concluded, Scott looked 
 at him, not unkindly, over the glasses of his bar, and said, 
 less irreverently than the words might convey, " Young 
 man, I rather like your style ; but when you know York 
 and me as well as you do God Almighty, it '11 be time to 
 talk." 
 
 And so the feud progressed ; and so, as in more illus- 
 trious examples, the private and personal enmity of two 
 representative men led gradually to the evolution of some 
 crude, half^expressed principle or belief. It was not long 
 before it was made evident that those beliefs were identical 
 with certain broad principles laid down by the founders of 
 the American Constitution, as expounded by the statesmanlike 
 A., or were the fatal quicksands on which the ship of state 
 might be wrecked, warningly pointed out by the eloquent 
 B. The practical result of all which was the nomination of 
 York and Scott to represent the opposite factions of Sandy 
 Bar in legislative councils. 
 
 For some weeks past the voters of Sandy Bar and the 
 adjacent camps had been called upon, in large type, to 
 " Eallt ! " In vain the great pines at the cross-roads — 
 whose trunks were compelled to bear this and other legends 
 
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 9 
 
 — moaned and protested from their windy watch-towers. 
 But one' day, with fife and drum and flaming transparency, 
 a procession filed into the triangular grove at the head of 
 the gulch. The meeting was called to order by Colonel 
 Starbottle, who, having once enjoyed legislative functions, 
 and being vaguely known as " war-horse," was considered to 
 tie a. valuable partisan of York. He concluded an appeal 
 for his friend with an enunciation of principles, interspersed 
 with one or two anecdotes so gratuitously coarse that the 
 very pines might have been moved to pelt him with their 
 cast-off cones as he stood there. But he created a laugh, on 
 which his candidate rode into popular notice ; and when 
 York rose to speak, he was greeted with cheers. But, to 
 the general astonishment, the new speaker at once launched 
 into bitter denunciation of his rival. He not only dwelt 
 upon Scott's deeds and example as known to Sandy Bar, 
 but spoke of facts connected with his previous career 
 hitherto unknown to his auditors. To great precision of 
 epithet and directness of statement, the speaker added the 
 fascination of revelation and exposure. The crowd cheered, 
 yelled, and were delighted; but when this astounding 
 philippic was concluded, there was a unanimous call for 
 " Scott ! " Colonel Starbottle would have resisted this 
 manifest impropriety, but in vain. Partly from a crude 
 sense of justice, partly from a meaner craving for excitement, 
 the assemblage was inflexible ; and Scott was dragged, 
 pushed, and pulled upon the platform. As his frowsy head 
 and unkempt beard appeared above the railing, it was 
 evident that he was drunk. But it was also evident, before 
 he opened his lips, that the orator of Sandy Bar -— the one 
 man who could touch their vagabond sympathies (perhaps 
 because he was not above appealing to them) — stood before 
 them. A consciousness of this power lent a certain dignity 
 to his figure, and I am not sure but that his very phy- 
 sical condition irapresse'-'' *hem as a kind of regal unberding 
 
10 THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 
 
 and large condescension. Howbeit, when this unexpected 
 Hector arose from this ditch, York's myrmidons trembled. 
 "There's naught, gentlemen," said Scott, leaning forward 
 on the railing, — " there 's naught as that man hez said as 
 is n't true. I was run outer Cairo ; I did belong to the 
 Regulators ; I did desert from the army ; I did leave a 
 wife in Kansas. But thar's one thing he didn't charge 
 me with, and maybe he 's forgotten. For three years, 
 gentlemen, I was that man's pardner ! " Whether he 
 intended to say more, I cannot tell ; a burst of applause 
 artistically rounded and enforced the climax, and virtually 
 elected the speaker. That fall he went to Sacramento, 
 York went abroad, and for the first time in many years 
 distance and a new atmosphere isolated the old antagonists. 
 
 With little of change in the green wood, gray rock, and 
 yellow river, but with much shifting of human landmarks 
 and new faces in its habitations, three years passed over 
 Sandy Bar. The two men, once so identified with its 
 character, seemed to have been quite forgotten. " You 
 will never return to Sandy Bar," said Miss Folinsbee, the 
 " Lily of Poverty Flat," on meeting York in Paris, " for 
 Sandy Bar is no more. They call it Eiverside now ; and 
 the new town is built higher up on the river bank. By the 
 bye, ' Jo ' says that Scott has won his suit about the ' Amity 
 Claim,' and that he lives in the old cabin, and is drunk half 
 his time. Oh, I beg your pardon," added the lively lady, 
 as a flush crossed York's sallow cheek ; " but, bless me, I 
 really thought that old grudge was made up. I 'm sure it 
 ought to be." 
 
 It was three months after this conversation, and a pleasant 
 summer evening, that the Poverty Flat coach drew up be- 
 fore the veranda of the Union Hotel at Sandy Bar. Among 
 its passengers was one, apparently a stranger, in the local 
 distinction of well-fitting clothes "and closely shaven face, 
 who demanded a private room and retired early to rest 
 
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAK 11 
 
 But before sunrise next morning he arose, and, drawing 
 some clothes from his carpet-bag, proceeded to array himself 
 in a pair of white duck trousers, a white duck overshirt, 
 and straw hat. When his toilet was completed, he tied a 
 red bandana handkerchief in a loop and threw it loosely 
 over his shoulders. The transformation was complete. As 
 he crept softly down the stiiirs and stepped into the road, 
 no one would have detected in him the elegant stranger of 
 the previous night, and but few have recognized the face 
 and figure of Henry York, of Sandy Bar. 
 
 In the uncertain light of that early hour, and in the 
 change that had come over the settlement, he had to pause 
 for a moment to recall where he stood. The Sandy Bar of 
 his recollection lay below him, nearer the river ; the build- 
 ings around him were of later date and newer fashion. As 
 he strode toward the river, he noticed here a schoolhouse 
 and there a church. A little farther on, the " Sunny 
 South" came in view, transformed into a restaurant, its 
 gilding faded and its paint rubbed off. He now knew 
 where he was ; and running briskly down a declivity, 
 crossed a ditch, and stood upon the lower boundary of the 
 " Amity Claim." 
 
 The gray mist was rising slowly from the river, clinging 
 to the tree-tops and drifting up the mountain-side until it 
 was caught among these rocky altars, and held a sacrifice to 
 the ascending sun. At his feet the earth, cruelly gashed 
 and scarred by his forgotten engines, had, since the old 
 days, put on a show of greenness here and there, and now 
 smiled forgivingly up at him, as if things were not so bad 
 after all. A few birds were bathing in the ditch with a 
 pleasant suggestion of its being a new and special provision 
 of Nature, and a hare ran into an inverted sluice-box as he 
 approached, as if it were put there for that purpose. 
 
 He had not yet dared to look in a certain direction. 
 But the sun was now high enough to paint the little emi' 
 
12 THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAE 
 
 nence on which the cabin stood. In spite of his self-control, 
 his heart beat faster as he raised his eyes toward it. Its 
 window and door were closed, no smoke came from its adobe 
 chimney, but it was else unchanged. When within a few 
 yards of it, he picked up a broken shovel, and shouldering 
 it with a smile, he strode toward the door and knocked. 
 There was no sound from within. The smile died upon his 
 lips as he nervously pushed the door open. 
 
 A figure started up angrily and came toward him, — a 
 figure whose bloodshot eyes suddenly fixed into a vacant 
 stare, whose arms were at first outstretched and then thrown 
 up in warning gesticulation, — a figiire that suddenly gasped, 
 choked, and then fell forward in a fit. 
 
 But before he touched the ground, York had him out 
 into the open air and sunshine. In the struggle, both fell 
 and rolled over on the ground. But the next moment York 
 was sitting up, holding the convulsed frame of his former 
 partner on his knee, and wiping the foam from his inarticu- 
 late lips. Gradually the tremor became less frequent and 
 then ceased, and the strong man lay unconscious in his 
 arms. 
 
 Por some moments York held him quietly thus, looking 
 in his face. Afar, the stroke of a woodman's axe — a mere 
 phantom of sound — was all that broke the stillness. High 
 up the mountain, a wheeling hawk hung breathlessly above 
 them. And then came voices, and tw^o men joined them. 
 
 " A fight ? " No, a fit ; and would they help him bring 
 the sick man to the hotel ? 
 
 And there for a week the stricken partner lay, uncon- 
 scious of aught but the visions wrought by disease and fear. 
 On the eighth day at sunrise he rallied, and opening his 
 eyes, looked upon York and pressed his hand ; and then he 
 spoke : — 
 
 "And it 's you. I thought it was only whiskey." 
 
 York replied by only taking both of his hands, boyishly 
 
THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR 18 
 
 working them backward and forward, as his elhow rested on 
 the bed, with a pleasant smile. 
 
 " And you 've been abroad. How did you like Paris ? " 
 
 " So, so ! How did you like Sacramento ? " 
 
 " Bully ! " 
 
 And that was all they could think to say. Presently 
 Scott opened his eyes again. 
 
 " I 'm mighty weak." 
 
 "You '11 get better soon." 
 
 "Not much." 
 
 A long silence followed, in which they could hear the 
 sounds of wood-chopping, and that Sandy Bar was already 
 astir for the coming day. Then Scott slowly and with 
 difficulty turned his face to York and said, — 
 
 " I might hev killed you once." 
 
 " I wish you had." 
 
 They pressed each other's hands again, but Scott's grasp 
 was evidently failing. He seemed to summon his energies 
 for a special effort. 
 
 " Old man ! " 
 , " Old chap." 
 
 " Closer ! " 
 
 York bent his head toward the slowly fading face. 
 
 " Do ye mind that morning ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 A gleam of fun slid into the comer of Scott's blue eye as 
 he whispered, — 
 
 " Old man, thar was too much saleratus in that bread ! " 
 
 It is said that these were his last words. For when the 
 sun, which had so often gone down upon the idle wrath 
 of these foolish men, looked again upon them reunited, it 
 saw the hand of Scott fall cold and irresponsive from the 
 yearning clasp of his former partner, and it knew that the 
 feud of Sandy Bar was at an end. 
 
MR. THOMPSON'S PEODIGAL 
 
 We all knew that Mr. Thompson was looking for his 
 son, and a pretty bad one at that. That he was coming to 
 California for this sole object was no secret to his fellow- 
 passengers ; and the physical peculiarities as well as the 
 moral weaknesses of the missing prodigal were made equally 
 plain to us through the frank volubility of the parent. 
 " You was speaking of a young man which was hung at Red 
 Peg for sluice-robbing," said Mr. Thompson to a steerage- 
 passenger one day ; " be you aware of the color of his eyes ? " 
 " Black," responded the passenger. " Ah ! " said Mr. 
 Thompson, referring to some mental memoranda, " Char-les's 
 eyes was blue." He then walked away. Perhaps it was 
 from this unsympathetic mode of inquiry, perhaps it was 
 from that Western predilection to take a humorous view of 
 any principle or sentiment persistently brought before them, 
 that Mr. Thompson's quest was the subject of some satire 
 aniong the passengers. A gratuitous advertisement of the 
 missing Charles, addressed to " Jailers and Guardians," 
 circulated privately among them ; everybody remembered to 
 have met Charles under distressing circumstances. Yet it 
 is but due to my countrymen to state that when it was known 
 that Thompson had embarked some wealth in this visionary 
 project, but little of this satire found its way to his ears, 
 and nothing was uttered in his hearing that might bring a 
 pang to a father's heart or imperil a possible pecuniary ad- 
 vantage of the satirist. Indeed, Mr. Bracy Tibbets' jocular 
 proposition to form a joint-stock company to " prospect " for 
 the missing youth received at one time quite serious enter- 
 tainment. 
 
MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 15 
 
 Perhaps to superficial criticism Mr. Thompson's nature 
 was not picturesque nor lovable. His history, as imparted 
 at dinner one day by himself, was practical even in its 
 singularity. After a hard and willful youth and maturity, 
 in which he had buried a broken-spirited wife and driven 
 his son to sea, he suddenly experienced religion. " I got 
 it in New Orleans in '59," said Mr. Thompson, with the 
 general suggestion of referring to an epidemic. " Enter ye 
 iilie narrer gate. Parse me the beans." Perhaps this prac- 
 tical quality upheld him in his apparently hopeless search. 
 He had no clue to the whereabouts of his runaway son ; 
 indeed, scarcely a proof of his present existence. From his 
 indifferent recollection of the boy of twelve he now expected 
 to identify the man of twenty-five. 
 
 , It would seem that he was successful. How he succeeded 
 was one of the few things he did not tell. There are, I 
 believe, two versions of the story. One, that Mr. Thompson, 
 visiting a hospital, discovered his son by reason of a peculiar 
 hymn, chanted by the sufferer in a delirious dream of his 
 boyhood. This version, giving as it did wide range to the 
 finer feelings of the heart, was quite popular ; and as told 
 by the Rev. Mr. Gushington on his return from his Cali- 
 fornia tour, never failed to satisfy an audience. The other 
 was less simple, and, as I shall adopt it here, deserves more 
 elaboration. 
 
 It was after Mr. Thompson had given up searching for 
 his son among the living, and had taken to the examination 
 of cemeteries and a careful inspection of the " cold hie 
 Jacets of the dead." At this time he was a frequent visi- 
 tor of " Lone Mountain," a dreary hill-top, bleak enough 
 in its original isolation, and bleaker for the white-faced 
 marbles by which San Francisco anchored her departed 
 citizens, and kept them down in a shifting sand that refused 
 to cover them, and against a fierce and persistent wind that 
 strove to blow them utterly away. Against this wind thb 
 
16 ME. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 
 
 old man opposed a will quite as persistent, a grizzled hard 
 face, and a tall crape-bound hat drawn tightly over his eyes, 
 — and so spent days in reading the mortuary inscriptions 
 audibly to himself. The frequency of Scriptural- quotation 
 pleased him, and he was fond of corroborating them by a 
 pocket Bible. " That 's from Psalms," he said one day to 
 an adjacent gravedigger. The man made no reply. Not 
 at all rebuffed, Mr. Thompson at once slid down into the 
 open grave with a more practical inquiry, "Did' you ever, 
 in your profession, come across Char-les Thompson ? " 
 " Thompson be d — d ! " said the' gravedigger, with great 
 directness. " Which, if he had n't religion, I think he is,'' 
 responded the old man, as he clambered out of the- grave. 
 
 It was perhaps on this occasion that Mr. • Thompson 
 stayed later than usual. As he turned his face toward the 
 city, lights were beginning to twinkle ahead, and a fierce 
 wind, made visible by fog, drove him forward, or, lying in 
 wait, charged him angrily from the corners of deserted sub- 
 urban streets. It was at one of these corners that something 
 else, quite as indistinct and malevolent, leaped upon him 
 with an oath, a presented pistol, and a demand for money. 
 But it was met by a will of iron and a grip of steel. The 
 assailant and assailed rolled together on the ground. But 
 the next moment the old man was erect ; one hand grasp- 
 ing the captured pistol, the other clutching at arm's length 
 the throat of a figure, surly, youthful, and savage. 
 
 " Young man," said Mr. Thompson, setting his thin dips 
 together, " what might be your name ? " 
 
 « Thompson ! " 
 
 The old man's hand slid from the throat to the arm of 
 his prisoner without relaxing its firmness. 
 
 " Char-les Thompson, come with me," he said presently, 
 and marched his captive to the hotel. What took place 
 there has not transpired, but it was known the next morn 
 ing that Mr. Thompson had found his son. 
 
ME. THOMPSON'S PEDDIQAL 17 
 
 It is proper to add to the above improbable story, that 
 there was nothing in the young man's appearance or man- 
 ners to justify it. Grave, reticent, and handsome, devoted 
 to his newly found parent, he assumed tlie emoluments and 
 responsibilities of his new condition with a certain serious 
 ease that more nearly approached that which San Francisco 
 society lacked ^and — rejected. Some, chose to despise this 
 quality as a tendency to " psalm singing ; " others saw in 
 it the inherited qualities of the parent, and were ready to 
 prophesy for the son tlie same hard old age. But all agreed 
 that it was not inconsistent with the habits of money- 
 getting for which father and son were respected. 
 
 And yet the old man did not seem to be happy. Per- 
 haps it was that the consummation of his' wishes left him 
 without a practical mission ; perhaps — and it is the more 
 probable — he had little love for the son he had regained. 
 The obedience he exacted was freely given, the reform he 
 had set his heart upon was complete ; and yet somehow it 
 did not seem to please him. In reclaiming his son he had 
 fulfilled all the requirements that his religious duty required 
 of him, and yet the act seemed to lack sanctification. In 
 this perplexity he read again the parable of the Prodigal 
 Son, which he had long ago adopted for his guidance, and 
 found that he had omitted the final feast of reconciliation. 
 This seemed to offer the proper quality of ceremoniousness 
 in the sacrament between himself and his son and so, a year 
 after the appearance of Charles, he set about giving him a 
 party. " Invite everybody, Char-les," he said dryly ; 
 " everybody who knows that I brought you out of the swine- 
 husks of iniquity and the company of harlots, and bid them 
 eat, drink, and be merry." 
 
 Perhaps the old man had another reason, not yet clearly 
 analyzed. The fine house he had built on the sandhills 
 sometimes seemed lonely and bare. He often found him- 
 self trying to reconstruct, from the grave features (f Charles, 
 
18 ME. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 
 
 the little boy whom he but dimly remembered in the pasf^ 
 and of whom lately he had been thinking a great deal. 
 He believed this to be a sign of impending old age and 
 childishness ; but coming one day, in his formal drawing- 
 room, upon a child of one of the servants, who had strayed 
 therein, he would have taken him in his arms, but the child 
 fled from before his grizzled face. So that it seemed emi- 
 nently proper to invite a number of people to his house, 
 and from the array of San Francisco maidenhood to select 
 a daughter-in-law. And then there would be a child — a 
 boy, whom he could " rare up " from the beginning, and 
 love — as he did not love Charles. 
 
 We were all at the party. The Smiths, Joneses, Browns, 
 and Robinsons also came, in that fine flow of animal spirits, 
 unchecked by any respect for the entertainer, which most 
 of us are apt to find so fascinating. The proceedings would 
 have been somewhat riotous but for the social position of 
 the actors. In fact, Mr. Bracy Tibbets, having naturally 
 a fine appreciation of a humorous situation, but further 
 impelled by the bright eyes of the Jones girls, conducted 
 himself so remarkably as to attract the serious regard of Mr. 
 Charles Thomj)son, who approached him, saying quietly, 
 " You look ill, Mr. Tibbets ; let me conduct you to your 
 carriage. Resist, you hound, and I '11 throw you through 
 the window. This way, please ; the room is close and dis- 
 tressing." It is hardly necessary to say that but a part of 
 this speech was audible to the company, and that the rest 
 was not divulged by Mr. Tibbets, who afterwards regretted 
 the sudden illness which kept him from witnessing a certain 
 amusing incident, which the fastest Miss Jones characterized 
 as the " richest part of the blow-out," and which I hasten 
 to record. 
 
 It was at supper. It was evident that Mr. Thompson 
 had overlooked much lawlessness in the conduct of the 
 younger people in his abstract contemplation of some im- 
 
MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 19 
 
 peiiding event. When the cloth was removed, he rose to 
 his feet and grimly tapped upon the tahle. A titter, that 
 broke out among the Jones girls, became epidemic on one 
 side of the board. Charles Thompson, from the foot of 
 the table, looked up in tender perplexity. " He 's going 
 to sing a Doxology," " He 's going to pray," " Silence for, 
 a speech," ran round the room. 
 
 " It 's one year to-day, Christian brothers and sister:/'' 
 said Mr. Thompson with grim deliberation, — " one yec^r 
 to-day since my son came home from eating of swine-husks 
 and spending of his substance on harlots." (The tittering 
 suddenly ceased.) " Look at him now. Charles Thomp- 
 son, stand up." (Charles Thompson stood up.) " One year 
 ago to-day, — and look at him now." 
 
 He was certainly a handsome prodigal, standing there in 
 his cheerful evening-dress, — a repentant prodigal, with sad 
 obedient eyes turned upon the harsh and unsympathetic 
 glance of his father. The youngest Miss Smith, from the 
 pure depths of her foolish little heart, moved unconsciously 
 toward him. 
 
 " It 's fifteen years ago since he left my house," said Mr. 
 Thompson, " a rovier and a prodigal. I was myself a man 
 of sin, O Christian friends, — a man of wrath and bitter- 
 ness " — (" Amen," from the eldest Miss Smith) — " but 
 praise be God, I 've fled the wrath to come. It 's five 
 years ago since I got the peace that passeth understanding. 
 Have you got it, friends ? " (A general sub-chorus of 
 " No, no," from the girls, and, " Pass the word for it," 
 from Midshipman Coxe, of the U. S. sloop Wethersfield.) 
 " Knock, and it shall be opened to you. 
 
 " And when I found the error of my ways, and the 
 preciousness of grace," continued Mr. Thompson, " I came 
 to give it to my son. By sea and land I sought him far, 
 and fainted not. I did not wait for him to come to me^ 
 which the same I might have done, and justified myself bj 
 
20 MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 
 
 the Book of books, but I sought him out among his husks, 
 and " (the rest of the sentence was lost, in the rustling 
 withdrawal of the ladies). " Works, Christian friends, is 
 my motto. By their works shall ye know them, and there 
 is mine." 
 
 The particular and accepted work to which Mr. Thomp- 
 son was alluding had turned quite pale, and was looking 
 fixedly toward an open door leading to the veranda, lately 
 filled by gaping servants, and now the scene of some vague 
 tumult. As the noise continued, a man, shabbily dressed 
 and evidently in liquor, broke through the opposing guar- 
 dians and staggered into the room. The transition from 
 the fog and darkness without to the glare and heat within 
 evidently, dazzled and stupefied him. He removed his bat- 
 tered hat, and passed it once or twice before his eyes, as he 
 steadied himself, but imsuccessfully, by the back of a chair. 
 Suddenly his wandering glance fell upon the pale face of 
 Charles Thompson; and with a gleam of childlike recog- 
 nition, and a weak falsetto laugh, he darted forward, caught 
 at the table, upset the glasses, and literally fell upon the 
 Drodigal's breast. 
 
 " Sha'ly ! yo' d — d ol' scoun'rel, hoo rar ye ! " 
 
 " Hush ! — sit down ! — hush ! " said Charles Thomp- 
 son, hurriedly endeavoring to extricate himself from the 
 ambrace of his unexpected guest. 
 
 " Look at 'm ! " continued the stranger, unheeding the 
 admonition, but suddenly holding the unfortunate Charles 
 at arm's length, in loving and undisguised admiration of 
 his festive appearance. " Look at 'm ! Ain't he nasty ? 
 Sha'ls I 'm prow of yer ! " 
 
 " Leave the house ! " said Mr. Thompson, rising, with a 
 dangerous look in his cold gray eye. " Char-les, how dare 
 you ? " 
 
 " Simmer down, ole man ! Sha'ls, who 's th' ol' bloat ? 
 Eh ? " 
 
ME. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 21 
 
 " Hush, man ; here, take this ! " With nervous handsj 
 Charles Thompson filled a glass with liquor. " Drink it 
 and go — until to-morrow — arjy time, but — leave us ! — 
 go now ! " But even then, ere the miserable wretch could 
 drink, the old man, pale with passion, was upon him. 
 Half carrying him in his powerful arms, half dragging 
 him through the circling crowd of frightened guests, he 
 had reached the door, swung open by the waiting servants, 
 when Charles Thompson started from a seeming stupor, 
 crying — 
 '" Stop ! » 
 
 The old man stopped. Through the open door the fog 
 and wind drove chilly. " What does this mean ? " he 
 asked, turning a baleful face on Charles. 
 
 " Nothing — but stop — for God's sake. Wait till to^ 
 morrow, but not to-night. Do not, I implore you — do 
 this thing." 
 
 There was something in the tone of the young man's 
 voice, something, perhaps, in the contact of the struggling 
 wretch he held in his powerful arms ; but a dim, indefinite 
 fear took possession of the old man's heart. " Who," he 
 whispered hoarsely, " is this man ? " 
 
 Charles did not answer. 
 
 " Stand back, there, all of you," thundered Mr. Thomp- 
 son, to the crowding guests around him. " Char-les — come 
 here ! I command you — I — I — I — beg you — tell me 
 who is this man ? " 
 
 Only two persons heard the answer that came faintly 
 from the lips of Charles Thompson — 
 
 " Your son." 
 
 When day broke over the bleak sandhills, the guests had , 
 departed from Mr. Thompson's banquet-hall. The lights 
 still burned dimly and coldly in the deserted rooms, — de- 
 serted by all but three figures, that huddled together in the 
 ehill drawing-room, as if for warmth. One lay in drunken 
 
22 MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 
 
 slumber on a couch ; at his feet sat he who had been known 
 as Charles Thompson ; and beside them, haggard and 
 shrunken to half his size, bowed the figure of Mr. Thomp- 
 son, his gray eye fixed, his elbows upon his knees, and his 
 hands clasped over his ears, as if to shut out the sad, en- 
 treating voice that seemed to fill the room. 
 
 " God knows, I did not set about to willfully deceive. 
 The name I gave that night was the first that came into my 
 thought, — the name of one whom I thought dead, — the 
 dissolute companion of my shame. And when you ques- 
 tioned further, I used the knowledge that I gained from 
 him to touch your heart to set me free ; only, I swear, for 
 that ! But when you told me who you were, and I first 
 saw the opening of another life before me — then — then — 
 sir, if I was hungry, homeless, and reckless when I 
 would have robbed you of your gold, I was heart-sick, help- 
 less, and desperate when I would have robbed you of your 
 iove ! " 
 
 The old man stirred not. From his luxurious couch the 
 newly found prodigal snored peacefully. 
 
 " I had no father I could claim. I never knew a home 
 but this. I was tempted. I have been happy, — very 
 happy." 
 
 He rose and stood before the old man. 
 
 " Do not fear that I shall come between your son and his 
 inheritance. To-day I leave this place, never to return. 
 The world is large, sir, and, thanks to your kindness, I now 
 see the way by which an honest livelihood is gained. G-ood- 
 by. You will not take my hand ? Well, well ! Good- 
 hj." 
 
 He turned to go. But when he had reached the door he 
 suddenly came back, and, raising with both hands the griz' 
 zled head, he kissed it once and twice. 
 
 " Char-les ! " 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
ME. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL 23 
 
 « Char-les ! " 
 
 The old man rose with a frightened air, and tottered 
 feebly to the door. It was open. There came to him the 
 awakened tumult of a great city, in which the prodigal's 
 footsteps were lost forever. 
 
THE EOMANCE OF MADEOS"0 HOLLOW 
 
 The latch on the garden gate of the Folinsbee Eanch 
 clicked twice. The gate itself was so much in shadow that 
 lovely night, that " old man Folinsbee," sitting on his porch, 
 could distinguish nothing but a tall white hat and beside it 
 a few fluttering ribbons, under the pines that marked the en- 
 trance. Whether because of this fact, or that he considered 
 a sufficient time had elapsed since the clicking of the latch 
 for more positive disclosure, I do not know ; but after a 
 few moments' hesitation he quietly laid aside his pipe and 
 walked slowly down the winding path toward the gate. 
 At the Ceanothus hedge he stopped and listened. 
 
 There was not much to hear. The hat was saying to the 
 ribbons that it was a fine night, and remarking generally 
 upon the clear outline of the Sierras against the blue-black 
 sky. The ribbons, it so appeared, had admired this all the 
 way home, and asked the hat if it had ever seen anything 
 half so lovely as the moonlight on the summit. The hat 
 never had ; it recalled some lovely nights in the South in 
 Alabama (" in the South in Ahlabahm " was the way the 
 old man heard it), but then there were other things that 
 made this night seem so pleasant. The ribbons could not 
 possibly conceive what the hat could be thinking about. 
 At this point there was a pause, of which Mr. Folinsbee 
 availed himself to walk very grimly and craunchingly down 
 the gravel-walk toward the gate. Then the hat was lifted, 
 and disappeared in the shadow, and Mr. Folinsbee con- 
 fronted only the half-foolish, half-mischievous, but wholly 
 pretty face of his daughter. 
 
THE KOMANCE OF MADEOjfO HOLLOW 25 
 
 It was afterwards known to Madrono Hollow that sharp 
 words passed between " Miss Jo " and the old man, and 
 that the latter coupled the names of one Culpepper Star- 
 bottle and his uncle, Colonel Starbottle, with certain Tin- 
 complimentary epithets, and that Miss Jo retaliated sharply. 
 "Her father's blood before her father's face boiled up and 
 proved her truly of his race," quoted the blacksmith, who 
 leaned toward the noble verse of Byron. " She saw the 
 old man's bluff and raised him," was the direct comment of 
 the college-bred Masters. 
 
 Meanwhile the subject of these animadversions proceeded 
 slowly along the road to a point where the Folinsbee man- 
 sion came in view, — a long, narrow, white building, unpre- 
 tentious, yet superior to its neighbors, and bearing some 
 evidences of taste and refinement in the vines that clambered 
 over its porch, in its French windows, and the white mus- 
 lin curtains that kept out the fierce California sun by day, 
 and were now touched with silver in the gracious moon- 
 light. Culpepper leaned against the low fence, and gazed 
 long and earnestly at the building. Then the moonlight 
 vanished ghostlike from one of the windows, a material glow 
 took its place, and a girlish figure, holding a candle, drew 
 the white curtains together. To Culpepper it was a vestal 
 virgin standing before a hallowed shrine ; to the prosaic ob- 
 server I fear it was only a dark-haired young woman, whose 
 wicked blade eyes still shone with unfilial warmth. How- 
 beit, when the figure had disappeared, he stepped out 
 briskly into the moonlight of the highroad. Here he took 
 off his distinguishing hat to wipe his forehead, and the moon 
 shone full upon his face. 
 
 It was not an unprepossessing one, albeit a trifle too thin 
 and lank and bilious to be altogether pleasant. The cheek- 
 bones were prominent, and the black eyes sunken in their 
 orbits. Straight black hair fell slantwise off a high but 
 narrow forehead, and swept part of a hollow cheek. A long 
 
26 THE ROMANCE OF MADROSfO HOLLOW 
 
 black mustache followed the perpendicular curves of his 
 mouth. It was on the whole a serious, even Quixotic face, 
 but at times it was relieved by a rare smile of such tender 
 and even pathetic sweetness, that Miss Jo is reported to 
 have said that, if it would only last through the ceremony, 
 she would have married its possessor on the spot. " I once 
 told him so," added that shameless young woman ; " but the 
 man instantly fell into a settled melancholy, and has n't 
 smiled since." 
 
 A half mile below the Polinsbee Kanch the white road 
 dipped and was crossed by a trail that ran through Madrono 
 Hollow. Perhaps because it was a near cut-off to the set- 
 tlement, perhaps from some less practical reason, Culpepper 
 took this trail, and in a few moments stood among the rarely 
 beautiful trees that gave their name to the valley. Even 
 in that uncertain light, the weird beauty of these harlequin 
 masqueraders was apparent ; their red trunks — a blush in 
 the moonlight, a deep blood-stain in the shadow — stood 
 out against the silvery green foliage. It was as if Nature 
 in some gracious moment had here caught and crystallized 
 the gypsy memories of the transplanted Spaniard, to cheer 
 him in his lonely exile. 
 
 As Culpepper entered the grove, he heard loud voices. 
 As he turned toward a clump of trees, a figure so bizarre 
 and characteristic that it might have been a resident 
 Daphne — a figure over-dressed in crimson silk and lace, 
 with bare brown arms and shoulders, and a wreath of 
 honeysuckle — stepped out of the shadow. It was fol- 
 lowed by a man. Culpepper started. To come, to the 
 point briefly, he recognized in the man the features of his 
 respected uncle. Colonel Starbottle ; in the female, a lady 
 who may be briefly described as one possessing absolutely 
 no claim to an introduction to the polite reader. To hurry 
 over equally unpleasant details, both were evidently undei 
 the influence of liquor. 
 
THE ROMANCE OF MADROSfO HOLLOW 27 
 
 From the exciting conversation that ensued, Culpepper 
 gathered that some insult had been put upon the lady at a 
 public ball which she had attended that evening ; that the 
 Colonel, her escort, had failed to resent it with the sangui- 
 nary completeness that she desired. I regret that, even in 
 a liberal age, I may not record the exact and even pictur- 
 esque language in which this was conveyed to her hearers. 
 Enough that at the close of a fiery peroration, with femi- 
 nine inconsistency she flew at the gallant Colonel, and 
 would have visited her delayed vengeance upon his luck- 
 less head, but for the prompt interference of Culpepper. 
 Thwarted in this, she threw herself upon the ground, and 
 then into unpicturesque hysterics. There was a fine moral 
 lesson, not only in this grotesque performance of a sex 
 which cannot afford to be grotesque, but in the ludicrous 
 concern with which it inspired the two men. Culpepper, 
 to whom woman was more or less angelic, was pained and 
 sympathetic ; the Colonel, to whom she was more or less 
 improper, was exceedingly terrified and embarrassed. How- 
 beit the storm was soon over, and after Mistress Dolores 
 had returned a little dagger to its sheath (her garter), she 
 quietly took herself out of Madrono Hollow, and happily 
 out of these pages forever. The two men, left to them- 
 selves, conversed in low tones. Dawn stole upon them 
 before they separated : the Colonel quite sobered and in 
 full possp<!sion of his usual jaunty self-assertion ; Culpepper 
 with a baleful glow in his hollow cheek, and in his dark 
 eyes a rising fire. 
 
 The next morning the general ear of Madrono Hollow 
 was filled with rumors of the Colonel's mishap. It was 
 asserted that he had been invited to withdraw his female 
 companion from the floor of the Assembly Ball at the 
 Independence Hotel, and that, failing to do this, both were 
 expelled. It is to be regretted that in 1854 public opinion 
 was divided in regard to the propriety of this step, and 
 
28 THE ROMANCE OF MADEOSfO HOLLOW 
 
 that there was some discussion as to the comparative virtue 
 pf the ladies who were not expelled ; but it was generally 
 conceded that the real casus belli was political. " Is this a 
 dashed Puritan meeting ? " had asked the Colonel savagely. 
 " It 's no Pike County shindig," had responded the floor- 
 manager cheerfully. " You 're a Yajik ! " had screamed 
 the Colonel, profanely qualifying the noun. " Get ! you 
 border ruffian," was the reply. Such at least was the 
 substance of the reports. As, at that sincere epoch, ex- 
 pressions like the above were usually followed by prompt 
 action, a fracas was confidently looked for. 
 
 Nothing, however, occurred. Colonel Starbottle made 
 his appearance next day upon the streets with somewhat of 
 his usual pomposity, a little restrained by the presence of 
 his nephew, who accompanied him, and who, as a universal 
 favorite, also exercised some restraint upon the curious and 
 impertinent. But Culpepper's face wore a look of anxiety 
 quite at variance with his usual grave repose. " The 
 Don don't seem to take the old man's set-back kindly," 
 observed the sympathizing blacksmith. " P'r'aps he was 
 sweet on Dolores himself," suggested the skeptical express- 
 man. 
 
 It was a bright morning, a week after this occurrence, 
 that Miss Jo Folinsbee stepped from her garden into the 
 road. This time the latch did not click as she cautiously 
 closed the gate behind her. After a moment's irresolu- 
 tion, which would have been awkward but that it was 
 charmingly employed, after the manner of her sex, in 
 adjusting a bow under a dimpled but rather prominent 
 chin, and in pulling down the fingers of a neatly fitting 
 glove, she tripped toward the settlement. Small wonder 
 that a passing teamster drove six mules into the wayside 
 ditch and imperiled his load to keep the dust from her 
 spotless garments ; small wonder that the " Lightning Ex- 
 press" withheld its speed and flash to let her pass, and 
 
THE ROMANCE OF MADEOSfO HOLLOW 29 
 
 that the expressman, who had never been known to ex- 
 change more than rapid monosyllables with his fellow-man, 
 gazed after her with breathless admiration. For she was 
 certainly attractive. In a country where the ornamental 
 sex followed the example of youthful Naturej and were 
 prone to overdress and glaring efflorescence, Miss Jo's 
 simple and tasteful raiment added much to the physical 
 charm of, if it did not actually suggest a sentiment to, her 
 presence. It is said that Euchre-deck Billy, workiing in 
 the gulch at the crossing, never saw Miss Folinsbee pass 
 but that he always remarked apologetically to his partner, 
 that " he believed he TKUst write a letter home." Even 
 Bill Masters, who saw her in Paris presented to the favor- 
 able criticism of that most fastidious man, the late Emperor, 
 said that she was stunning, but a big discount on what she 
 was at Madrono Hollow. 
 
 It was still early morning, but the sun, with California 
 extravagance, had already begun to beat hotly on the little 
 chip hat and blue ribbons, and Miss Jo was obliged to 
 seek the shade of a bypath. Here she received the timid 
 advances of a vagabond yellow dog graciously, until, em- 
 boldened by his success, he insisted upon accompanying 
 her, and, becoming slobberingly demonstrative, threatened 
 her spotless- skirt with his dusty paws, when she drove him 
 from her with some slight acerbity, and a stone which 
 haply fell within fifty feet of its destined mark. Having 
 thus proved her ability to defend herself, with character- 
 istic inconsistency she took a small panic, and, gathering 
 her white skirts in one hand, and holding the brim of her 
 hat over her eyes with the other, she ran swiftly at^ least a 
 hundred yards before she stopped. Then she began pick- 
 ing some ferns and a few wild flowers still spared to the 
 withered field's, and then a sudden distrust of her small 
 ankles seized her, and she inspected them narrowly foi 
 those burrs and bugs and snakes which are supposed to lie 
 
30 THE ROMANCE OF MADfiOlfO HOLLOW 
 
 in wait for helpless womanhood. Then she plucked some 
 golden heads of wild oats, and with a sudden inspiration 
 placed them in her hlack hair, and then came quite uncon- 
 sciously upon the trail leading to Madrono Hollow. 
 
 Here she hesitated. Before her ran the little trail, 
 vanishing at last into the bosky depths below. The sun 
 was very hot. She must be very far from home. Why 
 should she not rest awhile under the shade of a madrono ? 
 
 She answered these questions by going there at once. 
 After thoroughly exploring the grove, and satisfying herself 
 that it contained no other living human creature, she sat 
 down under one of the largest trees with a satisfactory little 
 sigh. Miss Jo loved the madrono. It was a cleanly tree ; 
 no dust ever lay upon its varnished leaves ; its immaculate 
 shade never was known to harbor grub or insect. 
 
 She looked up at the rosy arms interlocked and arched 
 above her head. She looked down at the delicate ferns 
 and cryptogams at her feet. Something glittered at the 
 root of the tree. She picked it up ; it was a bracelet. 
 She examined it carefully for cipher or inscription ; there 
 was none. She could not resist a natural desire to clasp it 
 on her arm, and to survey it from that advantageous view- 
 point. This absorbed her attention for some moments ; 
 and when she looked up again she beheld at a little distance 
 Culpepper Starbottle. 
 
 He was standing where he had halted, with instinctive 
 delicacy, on first discovering her. Indeed, he had even 
 deliberated whether he ought not to go away without dis- 
 turbing her. But some fascination held him to the spot. 
 Wonderful power of humanity ! Far beyond jutted an out- 
 lying spur of the Sierra, vast, compact, and silent. Scarcely 
 a hundred yards away, a league-long chasm dropped its 
 sheer walls of granite a thousand feet. On every side rose 
 up the serried ranks of pine-trees, in whose close-set files 
 centuries of storm and change had wrought no breach. 
 
THE EOMANCE OF MADEoSo HOLLOW 31 
 
 Yet all this seemed to Culpepper to have been planned by 
 an allwise Providence as the nati^ral background to the 
 figure of a pretty girl in a yellow dress. 
 
 Although Miss Jo had confidently expected to meet 
 Culpepper somewhere in her ramble, now that he came 
 upon her suddenly, she felt disappointed and embarrassed. 
 His manner, too, was more than usually grave and serious, 
 and more than ever seemed to jar upon that audacious 
 levity which was this giddy girl's power and security in a 
 society where all feeling was dangerous. As he approached 
 her she rose to her feet, but almost before she knew it he 
 had taken her hand and drawn her to a seat beside him. 
 This was not what Miss Jo had expected, but nothing is so 
 difficult to predicate as the exact preliminaries of a declara- 
 tion of love. 
 
 What did Culpepper say? Nothing, I fear, that will 
 add anything to the wisdom of the reader ; nothing, I fear, 
 that Miss Jo had not heard substantially from other lips 
 before. But there was a certain conviction, fire-speed, and 
 fury in the manner that was deliciously novel to the young 
 lady. It was certainly something to be courted in the 
 nineteenth century with all the passion and extravagance of 
 the sixteenth ; it was something to hear, amid the slang of 
 a frontier society, the language of knight-errantry poured 
 into her ear by this lantern-jawed, dark-browed descendant 
 of the Cavaliers. 
 
 I do not know that there was anything more in it. The 
 facts, however, go to show that at a certain point Miss Jo 
 dropped her glove, and that in recovering it Culpepper pos- 
 sessed himself first of her hand and then her lips. When 
 they stood up to go, Culpepper had his arm around her 
 waist, and her black hair, with its sheaf of golden oats, 
 rested against the breast-pocket of his coat. But even then 
 I do not think her fancy was entirely captive. She took a 
 certain satisfaction in this demonstration of Culpepper's 
 
32 THE ROMANCE OF MADSoSfO HOLLOW 
 
 splendid height, and mentally comJ)ared it with a former 
 flame, one Lieutenant McMirk, an active hut under-sized 
 Hector, who subsequently fell a victim to the incautiously 
 composed and monotonous beverages of a frontier garrison. 
 Nor was she so much preoccupied but that her quick eyes, 
 even while absorbing Culpepper's glances, were yet able to 
 detect, at a distance, the figure of a man approaching. In 
 an instant she slipped out of Culpepper's arm, and, whip- 
 ping her hands behind her, said, " There 's that horrid 
 jnan ! " 
 
 Culpepper looked up and beheld his respected uncle 
 panting and blowing over the hill. His brow contracted as 
 he turned to Miss Jo : " You don't like my uncle ! " 
 
 " I hate him ! " Miss Jo was recovering her ready 
 tongue. 
 
 Culpepper blushed. He would have liked to enter upon 
 some details of the Colonel's pedigree and exploits, but 
 there was not time. He only smiled sadly. The smile 
 melted Miss Jo. She held out her hand quickly, and said 
 with even more than her usual effrontery, " Don't let that 
 main get you into any trouble. Take care of yourself, dear, 
 and don't let anything happen to you." 
 
 Miss Jo intended this speech to be pathetic ; the tenure 
 of life among her lovers had hitherto been very uncertain. 
 Culpepper turned toward her, but she had already vanished 
 in the thicket. 
 
 The Colonel came up panting. " I 've looked all over 
 town for you, and he dashed to you, sir. Who was that 
 with you ? " 
 
 " A lady." (Culpepper never lied, but he was discreet.) 
 
 " D — n 'em all ! Look yar. Gulp, I 've spotted the 
 man who gave the order to put me off the floor " (" flo " 
 was what the Colonel said) " the other night ! " 
 
 " Who was it ? " asked Culpepper listlessly. 
 
 " Jack Folinsbee." 
 
THE ROMANCE OF MADROSfO HOLLOW 33 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " Why, the son of that dashed, nigger-worshiping, psalm- 
 singing, Puritan Yankee. What 's the matter now ? Look 
 yar. Gulp, you ain't goin' back on your blood, are ye ? You 
 ain't goin' back on your word ? Ye ain't going down at 
 the feet of this trash, like a whipped hound ? " 
 
 Culpepper was silent. He was very white. Presently 
 he looked up and said quietly, " No." 
 
 Culpepper Starbottle had challenged Jack Folinsbee, 
 and the challenge was accepted. The cause alleged was 
 the expelling of Culpepper's uncle from the floor of the 
 Assembly Ball by the order qf Folinsbee. This much 
 Madrono Hollow knew and could swear to ; but there were 
 other strange rumors afloat, of which the blacksmith was 
 an able expounder. "You see, gentlemen," he said to the 
 crowd gathered around his anvil, " I ain't got no theory of 
 this affair ; I only give a few facts as have come to my 
 knowledge. Culpepper and Jack meets quite accidental 
 like in Bob's saloon. Jack goes up to Culpepper and says, 
 ' A word with you.' Culpepper bows and steps aside in 
 this way, Jack standing about here." (The blacksmith de- 
 monstrates the position of the parties with two old horse- 
 shoes on the anvil.) "Jack pulls a bracelet from his 
 pocket and says, ' Do you know that bracelet ? ' Culpepper 
 says, * I do not,' quite cool-like ar(d easy. Jack says, ' You 
 gave it to my sister.' Culpepper says, still cool as you 
 please, ' I did not.' Jack says, ' You lie, G — d d — n 
 you,' and draws his derringer. Culpepper jumps forward 
 about here " (reference is made to the diagram) " and Jack 
 fires. Nobody hit. It's a mighty cur'o's thing, gentle- 
 men," continued the blacksmith, dropping suddenly into 
 the abstract, and leaning meditatively on his anvil, — " it 's 
 a mighty cur'o's thing that nobody gets hit so often. 
 You and me empties our revolvers sociably at eac]'. other 
 
S4 THE KOMANC? OF MADEoSo HOLLOMT 
 
 over a little game, and the room full, and nobody gets hit ! 
 That 's what gets me." 
 
 "Never mind, Thotnpson," chimed in Bill Masters; 
 *' there 's anothel; and a better world where we shall know 
 All that, and ^become better *hots. Go on with yoYi* 
 story." 
 
 " W6li, some g'ra\)S Cul'pepper and s6m6 gtabs Jack, and 
 so separates them. Then Jack tells *em as how he had 
 seen his sister wear a bracelet which he knew was one that 
 had been given Dolores by Colonel Starbottle. That Miss 
 Jo would n't say where she got it, but bwired up to having 
 seeta Culpepper that day. Then, the most cut'o's thing of 
 it yet, what do^es CulpeppiEir do but Hse up and takes all 
 back that he said, and allows that he diA give her the 
 bta'celet. Now nly opinion, 'gentlettien, iS that he lied ; it 
 ain't like that man to giVe a gal that he respects anything 
 off of that piece, Dolores. Btft it 's all the same now, and 
 there 's but 6ne thing to be done." 
 
 The way this one th'ing was doiie belongs to the re^cord 
 of Madrono Hollow. The morning was bright and 'dear ; 
 the ait Vas slightly chill, but that was from the mist which 
 arose alohg the banlcs of the river. As early as six o'clock 
 the designated groilnd — a little Opening in the madtofid 
 gtove — was occupied by Ctilpepper Starbottte, Oolon^l 
 Starbottle, his second, and the sur^ebn. The Cololiel was 
 feStalted aiid excited, albeit in a rather impo'sing, dignified 
 Hiv^jf, a^d pbinted but to the sVirgeon the excellence bf the 
 ground, which at that hbu^r was -frhoHy 'shaded from the 
 sun, *svho'se steady stare is mote Or less diiscbmpofeihg to 
 ybiir duelist. The Surgeott threw himself On the grass ahd 
 sitioked his cigai". Chlpeppei", quiet land thoughtful, leaned 
 kgkinst a tteie and gatzed up the river. Tliere was a strange 
 ^ggestlon of a picnic about the group, which was height^ 
 ehed when the Cblonfel drew a bottle from his coat-tails. 
 and, taking a preliminary draught, offered it to thfe others,. 
 
THE ROMANCE OF MADROSfO HOLLOW 33 
 
 "Cocktails, sir," he explaihed with dignified precision. 
 "A gentleman, sir, should never go out without 'em. 
 Keeps off the morning chill. I remember going out in '53 
 with Hahk Boom pointer. Good ged, sir, the man had to 
 put On his overcoat, and was shot in it. Fact ! " 
 
 But the noise of wheels drowned the Colonel's remi- 
 niscences, and a rapidly driven buggy, -containing Jack 
 Folinsbee, Calhoun Bungstarter, his second, and Bill Mas-- 
 ters, drew up on the ground. Jack Folinsbee leaped out 
 gayly. ■*' I hiwi the joUiest work %o get away without the 
 governor's hearing," he began, addressing th« group before 
 him with the greatest volubility. Calhoun Bungstarter 
 touched his arm, and the young mail blushed. It was his 
 first duel. 
 
 " If you are ready, gentlemen," said Mr. Bungstarter, 
 " we had better proceed to business. I believe it is under- 
 stood that no apology will be offered Or accepted. We 
 may as well settle preliminaries at once, or I fear we shall 
 be interrupted. There is a rumor in town that the Vigi- 
 lance Committee are seeking our friends the Starbottles, 
 ■and I believe, as their fellow-countryman, I have the honor 
 to be included in their warrant." 
 
 At this probability of interruption, that gravity which 
 had hitherto been wanting fell upon the group. The pre- 
 liminaries were soon arranged and the principals placed in 
 posiHon. Then there was a silenfee. 
 
 To a spectator from the hill, impress'ed with the picnic 
 suggestion, what might have been the popping of two 
 champagne corks broke th* stillness. 
 
 Culpepper had fired in the air. Colonel Starbottle 
 uttered a low Curse. Jack Folinsbee sulkily demanded 
 ianother shrtt. 
 
 Again the parties stood opposed to each other. Again 
 the word was given, tod what seemed to be the simulta- 
 neous report of both pistols rose upon the air. But after 
 
36 THE EOMANCE OF MADROSfO HOLLOW 
 
 an interval of a few seconds all were surprised to see 
 Culpepper slowly raise his unexploded weapon and fire it 
 harmlessly above his head. Then throwing the pistol upon 
 the ground, he walked to a tree and leaned silently against 
 it. Jack Folinsbee flew into a paroxysm of fury. Colonel 
 Starbottle raved and swore. Mr. Bungstarter was properly 
 shocked at their conduct. " Really, gentlemen, if Mr: 
 Culpepper Starbottle declines another shot, I do not see 
 how we can proceed." 
 
 But the Colonel's blood was up, and Jack Polinsbee 
 was equally implacable. A hurried consultation ensued, 
 which ended by Colonel Starbottle taking his nephew's 
 place as principal, Bill Masters acting as second, vice Mr. 
 Bungstarter, who declined all further connection with the 
 aifair. 
 
 Two distinct reports rang through the Hollow. Jack 
 Folinsbee dropped his smoking pistol, took a step forward, 
 and then dropped heavily upon his face. 
 
 In a moment the surgeon was at his side. The confusion 
 was heightened by the trampling of hoofs, and the voice 
 of the blacksmith bidding them flee for their lives before 
 the coming storm. A moment more and the ground was 
 cleared, and the surgeon, looking up, beheld only the white 
 face of Culpepper bending over him. 
 
 " Can you save him ? " 
 
 " I cannot say. Hold up his head a moment while I 
 run to the buggy." 
 
 Culpepper passed his arm tenderly around the neck of 
 the insensible man. Presently the surgeon returned with 
 some stimulants. 
 
 "There, that will do, Mr. Starbottle, thank you. Now 
 my advice is to get away from here while you can. I 'U 
 look after Folinsbee. Do you hear ? " 
 
 Culpepper's arm was still round the neck of his late foe, 
 but his head had dropped and fallen on the wounded 
 
THE ROMANCE OF MADEOSo HOLLOW 37 
 
 man's shoulder. The surgeon looked down, and catching 
 sight of his face, stooped and lifted him gently in his arms. 
 IJe opened his coat and waistcoat. There was hlood upon 
 his shirt and a hullet-hole in his breast. He had been shot 
 ■^nto death at the first fire 1 
 
THE POET OF SIEKEA FLAT 
 
 As the enterprising editor of the " Sierra Flat Record " 
 stood at his case setting type for his next week's paper, he 
 could not help hearing the woodpeckers who were husy on 
 the roof above his head. It occurred to him that possibly 
 the birds had not yet learned to recognize in the rude struc- 
 ture any improvement on Nature, and this idea pleased him 
 so much that he incorporated it in the editorial article which 
 he was then doubly composing. For the editor was also 
 printer of the " Record ; " and although that remarkable 
 journal was reputed to exert a power felt through all Cala- 
 veras and a great part of Tuolumne County, strict economy 
 was one of the conditions of its beneficent existence. 
 
 Thus preoccupied, he was startled by the sudden irrup- 
 tion of a small roll of manuscript, which was thrown 
 through the open door and fell at his feet. He walked 
 quickly to the threshold and looked down the tangled trail 
 which led to the highroad. But there was nothing to sug- 
 gest the presence of his mysterious contributor. A hare 
 limped slowly away, a green-and-gold lizard paused upon a 
 pine stump, the woodpeckers ceased their work. So com- 
 plete had been his sylvan seclusion, that he found it difficult 
 to connect any human agency with the act ; rather the hare 
 seemed to have an inexpressibly guilty look, the wood- 
 peckers to maintain a significant silence, and the lizard to 
 be conscience-stricken into stone. 
 
 An examination of the manuscript, however, corrected 
 this injustice to defenseless Nature. It was evidently of 
 human origin, — being verse, and of exceeding bad quality. 
 
THE POET OF SIERKA FLAT 3^ 
 
 The editor laid it aside. As he did so he thought, he saw a 
 face at the window, Sa.Uying out in some indignation, he 
 penetrated the surrounding thicket in every direction, but, 
 his search was as ftuitlesg as before. The poet., if it were 
 he^ was gone. 
 
 A few days after this the editorial sec^lusion was invaded 
 by voices of alternate e^^po^stulation and entreaty. Stepping 
 ta the door, the editor wag ^piazed at beholdijxg Mr. Morgan 
 MeCerkle, a well-known citjzen of Angel's and ^ subscriber 
 to. the " EecQrd," in the act of urging, partly by force apfi 
 partly by argument, aji awkward young man toward t^p, 
 building. When he had finally effected his objept, and, as 
 it were, safely landed his. prize in a. chair, Mr. McCqrkla 
 took off his hat, carefully wiped the narrow istljinvis of fore- 
 head which divided his black brows frpm his stubby hair, 
 and, with an e^cplajiatory wave of his hand toward his re-- 
 luctant companion, said, *' A borned poet, and the cussedest 
 fool you ever seed ! "• 
 
 Accepting the editor's smile as a recognition of the in- 
 troduction, Mr. McCorkle panted and went on : " Did n't 
 want to come ! ' Mister Editor don't want to see me, 
 Morg,' sez he. ' Mjilt,' sez I, ' he do ; a borned poet like 
 you and a gifted genius like he oughter come together 
 sociable, ! ' And I fetched him. Ah, will yer ? " The 
 born poet had, after exhibiting signs of great distress, 
 started to run. But Mr- McCorkle was dovpn upon hiva in^ 
 stantly, seizing hiw by his long linen coat, and settled him 
 hack in his chair. " 'T ain't no use stampeding, Yer ye are 
 and yer ye stays. For yer a borned poet, -^ ef ye a,re as 
 ^hy as. a jacka^ rabbit JiOok at 'im now ! " 
 
 He certainly was not an attractive picture. There was 
 hardly a notable feature in his weak faice, except h^s eyes, 
 which were moist s^nd shy, and not unlike the animal to 
 which Mr. McCorkle had compared him. It was the face 
 that the editor had seen a,t the window. 
 
40 THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT 
 
 " Knowed him for fower year, — since he war a boy," 
 continued Mr. McCorkle in a loud whisper. " Allers the 
 same, bless you ! Can jerk a rhyme as easy as turnin' jack. 
 Never had any eddication ; lived out in Missooray all his 
 life. But he 's chock full o' poetry. On'y this mornin' 
 £>ez I to him, — he camps along o' me, — 'Milt!' sez I, 
 'are breakfast ready ? ' and he up and answers back quite 
 peart and chipper, ' The breakfast it is ready, and the birds 
 is singing free, and it's risin' in the dawnin' light is happi- 
 ness to me ! ' When a man," said Mr. McCorkle, dropping 
 his voice with deep solemnity, " gets off things like them, 
 without any call to do it, and handlin' flapjacks over a cook- 
 stove at the same time^ — that man's a horned poet." 
 
 There was an awkward pause. Mr. McCorkle beamed 
 patronizingly on his protege. The born poet looked as if 
 he were meditating another flight, — not a metaphorical 
 one. The editor asked if he could do anything for them. 
 
 " In course you can," responded Mr. McCorkle, " that 's 
 jest it. Milt, where 's that poetry ? " 
 ' The editor's countenance fell as the poet produced from 
 his pocket a roll of manuscript. Hf., however, took it 
 mechanically and glanced over it. It was evidently a 
 duplicate of the former mysterious contribution. 
 
 The editor then spoke briefly but earnestly. I regret 
 that I cannot recall his exact words, but it appeared that 
 never before, in the history of the " Record," had the press- 
 ure been so great upon its columns. Matters of paramount 
 importance, deeply aff'ecting the material progress of Sierra, 
 questions touching the absolute integrity of Calaveras and 
 Tuolumne as social communities, were even now waiting 
 expression. Weeks, nay, months, must elapse before that 
 pressure would be removed, and the "Record" could grap- 
 ple with any but the sternest of topics. Again, the editor 
 had noticed with pain the absolute decline of poetry in the 
 foothills of the Sierras. Even the works of Byron and 
 
THE POET OF SIEREA FLAT 41 
 
 Moore attracted no attention in Dutch Elat, and a prejudice 
 seemed to exist against Tennyson in Grass Valley. But 
 the editor was not without hope for the future. In the 
 course of four or five years, when the country was settled — 
 
 " What would be the cost to print this yer ? " inter- 
 rupted Mr. McCorkle quietly. 
 
 " About fifty dollars, as an advertisement," responded 
 the .editor with cheerful alacrity. 
 
 Mr. McCorkle placed the sum in the editor's hand 
 " Yer see thet 's what I sez to Milt. ' Milt,', sez I, ' pay 
 as you go, for y-ou are a horned, poet. Hevin' no call tp 
 write, but doin' it free and spontaneous like, in course you 
 pays. Thet 's why Mr. Editor never printed your poetry.' '^ 
 
 '\ What name shall I put to it ? " asked the editor. 
 
 " Milton." 
 
 It was the first word that the born poet had spoken during 
 the interview, and his voice was so very sweet and musical 
 that the editor looked at him curiously, and wondered if he 
 had a sister. 
 
 « Milton ! is that all ? " 
 
 f* That's his furst name," exclaimed Mr. McCorkle. 
 
 The editor here suggested that as there had been another 
 poet of that name — 
 
 " Milt might be took for him ! . Thet 's bad," reflected 
 Mr, McCorkle with simple gravity. " Well, put down his 
 full name, — Milton Chubbuek." 
 
 The editor made a note of the fact. " I '11 set it up 
 now,'' he said. This was also a hint that the interview 
 was ended. The poet and patron, arm in arm, drew 
 towards the door. " In next weelc's paper," said the 
 editor smilingly, in answer to the childlike look of inquiry 
 in the eyes of the poet, and in another moment they were 
 gone. 
 
 The editor was as good as his word. He straightway 
 betook himself to his case, and, unrolling the manuRcriptj 
 
42 THE 1*0ET OF. SIERRA FLAT 
 
 b^gan his Msk-. The woodpeckers on the toof recommenced 
 theirs, and in a few moments the former sylVan seclusion 
 *as restored. There was no sound in the barren, barn-like 
 room but the birds abbve, and below the click of the com- 
 posing- rule as the editor marshaled the types into lines in 
 his stiok, and arrayed them in solid column on the galley. 
 Whatever might have bfeen his opinitn bf the copy before 
 him, there was no indication of it in his face, which wore 
 the stolid indifference of his craft. Perhaps this was un- 
 fortunate^ for as the day vfore oh and the level r^ys bf the 
 Sim began to piferce the adjacent thicket, they sought out 
 and discovered an anxious ambUsh figure drawn up beside 
 the editor's window^ ^^ a iigure that had Sat there motioh- 
 less for hours. Within, the editor worked on as steadily 
 and impassively as Fate. And without, the born poet of 
 Sierra Flat sat and wdtdhed him as waiting its decree. 
 
 I'he effect of the poem on Sierra Flat was remarkabte 
 «nd unprecedented. The absolute vileness of its doggerel, 
 the gratuitous imbecility of its thought, and above all the 
 crowning audacity of the fabt that it was the wotk of a citi- 
 zen and published in the cbiinty papfer, brought it instantly 
 into popularity. For many months Calaveras had lan- 
 guished for a sensation ; since the last Vigilance Committee 
 nothing had transpired to dispel the listless ehnui begotten 
 of stagnant business and growing iivilization. In morte 
 ■pJosperoUs moments the oifice of the " Kecord " wOiild have 
 been simply gutted and the editor deported ; at present thie 
 paper was in su6h demand that the edition was speedily ex- 
 hausted. In brief, the pOem of Mr. MiltOn Chiibbuck came 
 like a special providence to Sierra Flat. It was read by 
 camp-fires, in lonely cabins, in flaring bar-rooms and noisy 
 saloons, and declaimed from the boxes of stage-coaches. It 
 *fas sung in Poker Flat -ivith the addition of a local chorus, 
 and danced as an unhallowed rhythmic dance by the Pyrrhio 
 
TUt FOET OF SIERKA FLAT 48 
 
 phalanx of One Horse Crulch, known as " The Festive Stags 
 of Calaveras." Some unhappy ambiguities of expression 
 gave rise to many new readings, notes, and commentariesj 
 ■which, I regret to state, were more often marked by inge- 
 nuity than delicacy of thought or expression. 
 
 Never before did poet acquire such sudden local reputa- 
 tion. From the seclusion of McCorkle's cabin and the 
 obscurity of culinary labors he was haled forth into the 
 glowing sunshine of Fame. The name of Chubbuck was 
 written in letters of ohalk on unpainted walls and carved with 
 a pick on the sides of tunnels. A drink known variously 
 as " The Chubbuck Tranquilizer " or " The Chubbuck Ex- 
 alter " was dispensed at the bars. For some weeks a rude 
 design for a Chubbuck statue, made up of illustrations from 
 circus and melodeon posters, representing the genius of Cala>- 
 veras in brief skirts on a flying steed in the act of crowning 
 the poet Chubbuck, was visible at Keeler's Ferry. The 
 poet himself was overborne with invitations to drink and 
 extravagant congratulations. The meeting between Colonel 
 Starbottle of Siskiyou and Chubbuck, as previously arranged 
 by Our " Boston," late of Roaring Camp, is said to have 
 been indescribably affecting. The Colonel embraced him 
 unsteadily. " I could not return to my constituents at Sis- 
 kiyou, sir, if this hand, which has grasped that of the gifted 
 Prentice and the lamented Poe, should not have been hon- 
 ored by the touch of the godlike Chubbuck. Gentlemen, 
 American literature is looking up. Thank you ! 1 will 
 take sugar in mine." It was " Boston " who indited letters 
 of congratulations from H. W. Longfellow, Tennyson, and 
 Browning to Mr. Chubbuck, deposited them in the Sierra 
 Flat post-office, and obligingly consented to dictate the re- 
 plies. 
 
 The simple faith and unaffected delight with which these 
 manifestations were received by the poet and his patron 
 might have touched the hearts of these grim masters of irony, 
 
44 THE POET OF SIEKKA. FLAT 
 
 but for the sudden and equal development in both of the 
 vanity of weak natures. Mr. MeCorkle basked in the 
 popularity of his proteg^ and became alternately supercil- 
 ious or patronizing toward the dwellers of Sierra Flat ; while 
 the poet, with hair carefully oiled and curled, and bedecked 
 with cheap jewelry and flaunting neck-handkerchief, paraded 
 himself before the single hotel. , As may be imagined, this 
 new disclosure of weakness afforded intense satisfaction to 
 Sierra Flat, gave another lease of popularity to the poet, 
 and suggested another idea, to the facetious " Boston." 
 
 At that time a young lady popularly and professionally 
 known as the " California Pet " was performing to enthusi- 
 astic audiences in the interior. Her specialty lay in the 
 personation of youthful masculine character ; as a gamin of 
 the street she was irresistible, as a negro-dancer she carried 
 the honest miner's heart by storm. A saucy, pretty bru- 
 nette, phe had preserved a wonderful moral repiitation even 
 under the Jove-like advances of showers of gold that greeted 
 her appearance on the stage at Sierra Flat. A prominent 
 and delighted member of that audience was Milton Chubbuck. 
 He attended every night. Every day he lingered at the 
 door of the Union Hotel for a glimpse of the " California 
 Pet." It was not long before he received a note from her, 
 
 — in " Boston's " most popular and approved female hand, 
 
 — acknowledging his admiration. It was not long before 
 " Boston " was called upon to indite a suitable reply. At 
 last, in furtherance of his facetious design, it became neces- 
 sary for "Boston" to call upon the young actress herself 
 and secure her personal participation. To her he unfolded 
 a plan, the successful carrying out of which he felt would 
 secure his fame to posterity as a practical humorist. The 
 "California Pet's " black eyes sparkled approvingly and 
 mischievously. She only stipulated that she should see the 
 man first, — a concession to her feminine weakness which 
 years of dancing Juba and wearing trousers and boots had 
 
THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT 45 
 
 not wholly eradicated from her willful breast. By all means, 
 it should be done. And the interview was arranged for 
 the next week. 
 
 It must not be supposed that during this interval of 
 popularity Mr. Chubbuok had been unmindful of his poetic 
 qualities. A certain portion of each day he was absent 
 from town, — " a-communin' with natur'," as Mr. McCorkle 
 expressed it, — and actually wandering in the mountain 
 trails, or lying on his back under the trees, or gathering 
 fragrant herbs and the bright-colored berries of the Man- 
 zanita. These and his company he generally brought to 
 the editor's office late in the afternoon, often to that enter- 
 prising journalist's infinite wearinesis. Quiet and uncom- 
 municative, he would sit there patiently watching him at 
 his work until the hour for closing the office arrived, when 
 he would as quietly depart. There was something so hum- 
 ble and unobtrusive in these visits, that the editor could not • 
 find it in his heart to deny them, and accepting them, like 
 the woodpeckers, as a part of his sylvan surroundings, often 
 forgot even his presence. Once or' twice, moved by some 
 beauty of expression in the moist, shy eyes, he feft like 
 seriously admonishing his visitor of his idle folly-; but his 
 glance falling upon the oiled hair and the gorgeous necktie 
 he invariably thought better' of it. The case was evidently 
 hopeless. 
 
 The interview between Mr. Chubbuck and the "Cali- 
 fornia Pet " took place in a private room of the Union 
 Hotel ; propriety being respected by the presence of that 
 arch-humorist, "Boston." To this gentleman we are in- 
 debted for the only true account of the meeting. However 
 reticent Mr. Chubbuck might have been in the presence of 
 his own sex, toward the fairer portion of humanity he was, 
 like most poets, exceedingly voluble. Accustomed as the 
 " California Pet " had been to excessive compliment, she 
 was fairly embarrassed by the extravagant praises of he 
 
46 THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT 
 
 visitor, Her personation of boy ehara,cter8, her dancing of 
 the "champion jig," were particularly dwelt upon with 
 fervid but unmistakable admiration. At last, recovering hej 
 audacity and emboldened by the presence of " Boston," 
 the " California Pet " electrified her hearers by demanding, 
 half jestingly, half viciously, if it were as a boy or a girl 
 that she was the subject of his flattering admiration, 
 
 '* That knocked him out o' time," said the delighted 
 "Boston," in his subsequent account pf the intervie-w. 
 " But do you bplieve the d-,-^ fool actually asked her to 
 take him vith her ; wanted to engage in tiie eompany," 
 
 The plan, as briefly unfolded by "• Boston," was to prevail 
 upon Mr, Chubbuck to make his appearance in costume 
 (already designed and prepared by the inventor) before a 
 Sierra Flat audience, and recite an original poem at the 
 Hall immediately on the conclusion of the " California 
 Pet's " performance. At a given signal the audience were 
 to rise and deliver a volley of unsavory articles (previously 
 provided by the originator of the scheme) ; then a select 
 few were to rush on the stage, seize the poet, and, after 
 marching him in triumphal procession through the town, 
 ■were to deposit him beyond its uttermost limits, with strict 
 injunctions never to enter it again. To the first part of the 
 plan the poet was committed ; for the latter portion it was 
 easy enough to find participants. 
 
 The eventful night came, and with it an audience that 
 packed the long narrow room with one dense mass of human 
 beings. The " California Pet " never had been so joyous, 
 80 reckless, so fascinating and audacious before. But the 
 applause was tame and weak compared to the ironical out- 
 burst that greeted the second rising of the curtain and the 
 entrance of the born poet of Sierra Flat. Then there was a 
 hush of expectancy, and the poet stepped to the footlights 
 and stood with his manuscript in his hand. 
 
 His face was deadly pale. Either there was some sug' 
 
THE POET 0? SIPKRA FLAT 4? 
 
 gestion ef tjs fs^te in the faces of his amiipnce, or some 
 Hiysterioi^s instincj; t»ld hina of his danger. He attempted 
 to speak, but faltered, tott6re4, and staggered U> the winga. 
 Fearful of losing bia prey, " Boston " gave tlje signal 
 and leaped upofl thP stage. But at the same moi)ie^t a 
 light figure 4Mte4 from fcehin^ the scenes, and delivering a 
 kick that sent the discomfited humorist back among tlie 
 mu^QiajnSj cnt # pigeon^^ving, executed a 49»ihieTshuffie, and 
 thei> advancing to the footlights vith that ininiitable look, 
 that a^^dacious swaggej: and ntter abaiidon which had so 
 thrilled an4 fascinated them a monjent before, uttej:ed the 
 characteristic speech, " Wot are you goin' tp Wt a ipan fur 
 ■vyhen he 's down, ^-^^-^'^ ? " 
 
 Ihe look, the drayfl, t^he miction, the readiness, and abovft 
 a},\ the dpwjiright cpurage of the little wopiafl, had an effect. 
 4- roar of sympathetic applause followed the act. "Cut 
 apd run while ypu can," she w^hispeT^d hurriedly over her 
 one ^hpuld^r, without altering the other's attitude of pert 
 a^d saucy defiance toward the audience. But even as she 
 Lipgke, the poet t^qttei'ed an4 sank fainting upon the ^tage. 
 Then shp thre^ a despairing whisper h^bipd the scenes, 
 '* Ring (ipwn the curtain," 
 
 There was a slight mpvem^nt pf oppasition in the audi- 
 ence, biit among theni rpse the burly ghPuWe^? pf Yuba 
 Bill, t^e tall, eject figiire of Henry Yorlc, of Sandy Bar, 
 and the cplorle^s, deterinined. face of John Oakhurst. The 
 curtain came down. 
 
 Behind it knelt the "California Pet" beside the pro* 
 tii^te pp^t. " Priijg me some water. Run fpr a doctor. 
 Qtop ! ! Cleae ouTj a^-i. of you ! '' 
 
 She had unloosed the gaudy cravat and opened the shirt- 
 cpllar of the insensible figure befpire her. T^en she burst 
 into an hysterical laugh. 
 
 " Manueja ! " 
 
 Her tiring-woman, a Mexican half-breed, came toward hei, 
 
48 THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT 
 
 " Help me with him to my dressing-room, quick ; then 
 stand outside and wait. If any one questions you, tell 
 them he 's gone. Do you hear ? He 's gone." 
 
 The old woman did as she was bade. In a few moments 
 the audience had "(departed. Before mornfhg so also had 
 the "California Pet," Manuela, and the poet of Sierra 
 Flat. .. . / ■■! 
 
 But, alas! with them also' had departed; the fair fame of 
 the "California Pet." Only a few, and these, it is t6 be 
 feared, of not the best moral character themselves, still had 
 faith in the stainless honor of their favorite actress. " It 
 was a mighty foolish thing to do, but it '11 all come out 
 right yet." On the other hand, a majority gave her full 
 (iredit and approbation for her undoubted pluck and gal- 
 lantry, but deplored that she should haVe' thrown it away 
 upon a worthless object.- To elect for a lover the despised 
 and ridiculed vagrant of Sierra Flat, who had' not even the 
 manliness to stand up in his own defense, was not only 
 evidence of inherent moral' depravity, but was an insult to 
 the community. Colonel Starbottle saw in it only another 
 instance of extreme frailty of the sex'; he had known 
 similar cases ; and remembered distinctly, sir, how a well 
 known Philadelphia heiress, one of the finest women that 
 ever rode in her kerridge, that, gad, sir!' had thrown over 
 a Southern member of Congress to consort with a d^ — d 
 nigger. The Colonel had. also noticed a singular look in 
 the dog's eye which he did not entirely fancy. He would 
 not say anything against the lady,' sir, but he had noticed — 
 And here, haply, the Colonel became so inysterious and 
 darkly confidential as to be unintelligible and inaudible to 
 the bystanders. 
 
 A few days after the disappearance of Mr. Chubbuck a 
 singular report reached Sierra Plat, and it was noticed that 
 " Boston," who since the failure of his elabora,te joke had 
 been even more depressed in spirits than is habitual with 
 
THE POET OF SIEBKA FLAT 49 
 
 great humorists, suddenly found that his presence was 
 required in San Francisco. But as yet nothing but the 
 vaguest surmises were afloat, and ' nothing definite was 
 known. 
 
 It was a pleasant afternoon when the editor of the 
 " Sierra Flat Record " looked up ffom his case and heheld 
 the figure of Mr. Morgan McCorkle standing in the door- 
 way. There was a distressed look on the face of that 
 worthy gentleman that at once enlisted the editor's sym- 
 pathizing attention. He held an open letter in his hand as 
 he advanced toward the middle of the room. 
 
 " As a man as has allers borne a fair reputation," began 
 Mr. McCorkle slowly, " I should like, if so be as I could, 
 Mister Editor, to make a correction in the columns of your 
 valooable paper." 
 
 Mr. Editor begged him to proceed. 
 
 " Ye may not disremember that about a month ago I 
 fetched here what so be as we '11 call a young man whose 
 name might be as it were Milton — Milton Chubbuck." 
 
 Mr. Editor remembered perfectly. 
 
 " Thet same party I 'd knowed better nor fower year, 
 two on 'em campin' out together. Not that I 'd known 
 him all the time, fur he war shy and strange at spells, and 
 had odd ways that I took war nat'ral to a horned poet. 
 Ye may remember that I said he was a horned poet ? " 
 
 The editor distinctly did. 
 
 " I picked this same party up in St. Jo., taking a fancy 
 to his face, and kinder calklating he 'd runned away from 
 home ; for I 'm a married man, Mr. Editor, and hev chil- 
 dren of my own, — and thinkin' belike he was a horned 
 poet." 
 
 " Well," said the editor. 
 
 " And as I said before, I should like now to make a 
 Borrection in the columns of your valooable paper." 
 
 " What correction ? " asked the editor. 
 
5Q THj: POIt OF SPRBVl FLAT 
 
 "I said, ^f you lemembei. B>y 'Word^J' as hQ'V? be wa* n 
 b@rue4 poet." 
 
 " From statements in this yer letter it seems as }\Qyf I 
 war wrong." 
 " Well ? " 
 " She war a womftn." 
 
THE PRO^CESa BOB AND HER FRIEI^DS 
 
 Sh5 was a, Klamath Indis^n. Her title wajs, I think, a 
 compromise between her claim as daughter of a chief and 
 gratitude tp her earliest white protector, whose name, after 
 the Indian fashion, she had adopted. "Bob" Walker 
 had taken her from the breast of her dead mother at a 
 time when the sincere volunteer soldiery of the California 
 frontier were impressed with the belief that epctej-mination 
 was the manifest destiny pf the Indian race. He had with 
 difficulty restrained the noble zeal of his compatriots long 
 enough to convince them that the exemption of one Indian 
 baby would not invalidate this theory. And he took her to 
 his home, a pastoral clearing on the banks of the Salmon 
 River, where she wa§ cared for after a frontier fasl|ion. 
 
 Before she was nine years old, she had exhausted the 
 scant kindliness pf thp thin, overworked Mrs. Walker. As 
 a, playfellow of the youpg Walkers she wa§ unreliable ; 
 as a nurse for the baby she was inefRqient, She lost the 
 former in the trackless depths of a redwood forest ; she 
 basely abandoned the latter in an extemporized cradle, 
 hanging like a chrysalis tp a convenient bough. She lied 
 and she stole, — two unpardonable sins in a frontier com- 
 munity, where truth was a necessity and provisions were 
 the only pfoperty. Worse than this, the outskirts of the 
 clearing were sometimes haunted by blanketed tatterdema- 
 lions with whom she had mysterious confidences. Mr, 
 Walker more than once regretted his indiscreet humanity ; 
 but she presently relieved him of responsibility, and posr 
 sibly of blood-guiltiness, by disappearing entirely. 
 
52 THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS 
 
 When she reappeared, it was at the adjacent village of 
 Logport, in the capacity of housemaid to a trader's wife; 
 who, joining some little culture to considerable conscien- 
 tiousness, attempted to instruct her charge. But the 
 Princess proved an unsatisfactory pupil to even so liberal 
 a teacher. She accepted the alphabet with great good- 
 humor, but always as a pleasing and recurring novelty, in 
 which all interest expired at the completion of each lesson. 
 She found a thousand uses for her books and writing 
 materials other than those known to civilized children. 
 She made a curious necklace of bits of slate pencil; she 
 constructed a miniature canoe from the pasteboard covers 
 of her primer ; she bent her pens into fish-hooks, and 
 tattooed the faces of her younger companions with blue ink. 
 Religious instruction she received as good-humoredly, and 
 learned to pronounce the name of the Deity with a cheerful 
 familiarity that shocked her preceptress. Nor could her 
 reverence be reached through analogy ; she knew nothing 
 of the Great Spirit, and professed entire ignorance of the 
 Happy Hunting Grounds. Yet she attended divine service 
 regularly, and as regularly asked for a hymn-book ; and 
 it was only through the discovery that she had collected 
 twenty-five of these volumes and had hidden them behind 
 the woodpile, that her connection with the First Baptist 
 Church of Logport ceased. She would occasionally abandon 
 these civilized and Christian privileges, and disappear from 
 her home, returning after several days of absence with an 
 odor of bark and fish, and a peace-offering to her mistress in 
 the shape of venison or game. 
 
 To add to her troubles, she was now fourteen, and, 
 according to the laws of her race, a woman. I do not think 
 the most romantic fancy . would have called her pretty. 
 Her complexion defied most of those amhiguous similes 
 through which poets unconsciously apologize for any deviac 
 tion from the Caucasian standard. It was not wine noB 
 
THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS 53 
 
 amber colored ; if anything, it was smoky. Her facf vas 
 tattooed with red and white lines on one cheeky as if a fine- 
 toothed comb had been drawn from cheekbone to jaw, and, 
 but for the good-humor that beamed from her small berry- 
 like eyes and shone in her white teeth, would have been 
 repulsive. She was short and stout. In her scant drapery 
 and unrestrained freedom she was hardly statuesque, and 
 her more unstudied attitudes were marred by a simian habit 
 of softly scratching her left ankle with the toes of her 
 right foot in moments of contemplation. 
 
 I think I have already shown enough to indicate the 
 incongruity of her existence with even the low standard 
 of civilization that obtained at Logport in the year 1860. 
 It needed but one more fact to prove the far-sighted polit- 
 ical sagacity and prophetic ethics of those sincere advocates 
 of extermination, to whose virtues I have done but scant 
 justice in the beginning of this article. This fact was 
 presently furnished by the Princess. After one of her 
 periodical disappearances, — this time unusually prolonged^ 
 ■ — she astonished Logport by returning with a half-breed 
 baby of a week old in her arms. That night a meeting 
 of the hard-featured serious matrons of Logport was held 
 at Mrs. Brown's. The immediate banishment of the Prin- 
 cess was demanded. Soft-hearted Mrs. Brown endeavored 
 vainly to get a mitigation or suspension of the sentence. 
 But, as on a former occasion, the Princess took matter? 
 into her own hands. A few mornings afterwards, a wickei 
 cradle containing an Indian baby was found hanging on the 
 handle of the door of the First Baptist Church. It was 
 the Parthian arrow of the flying Princess. From that day 
 Logport knew her no more. 
 
 It had been a bright clear day on the upland, so clear 
 that the ramparts of Fort Jackson and the flagstaff were 
 plainly visible twelve miles away from the long, curving 
 
54 THE PftiNCESS BOB AND HES FEIENOS 
 
 peninsula that stretched a bared Ivhite arm atound th& 
 peaceful waters of Logport Bay* It had been a cleat day 
 upon the seashore, albeit the air was filled with the flyin| 
 spume and shifting sand of a straggling beach, whose lo^V 
 dunes were dragged down by the long surges of the Pacifis 
 and thrown up again by the tumultuous trade-winds. But 
 the sun had gone down in a bank of fleecy fog that was be- 
 gitining to roll in ilpon the beach. Gradually the headland 
 at the entrance oi the harbor and the lighthouse disap^ 
 peared, then the willow fringe that tnarked the line of 
 Salmon River vanished, and the ocean was gone. A few 
 sails still gleamed on the waters of the hky ; but the ad- 
 vancing fog wiped them out one by one, erept across the 
 steel-blue expanse, swallowed up the white mills and single 
 spire of Logport, and, joining with reinforcements from the 
 marshes, moved solemnly upon the hill& Ten minutes 
 more and the landscape was utterly blotted out ; simulta>- 
 neously the wind died away and a death-like silence stole 
 over sea and shore. The faint clang, high overhead^ of 
 unseen btant, the nearer Call of invisible plover, the lap and 
 wash of undistinguishable waters, and the monotonous toll 
 bf the vanished ocean, were the only sounds. As night 
 deepened, the far-off booming of the fog-bell on the head- 
 land at intervals stirred the thick ait. 
 
 Hard by the shore of the bay^ and half hidden by a 
 drifting sandhill, stood a low, nondescript structure, to 
 whose composition sea and shore had equally contributed. 
 It was built partly of logs and partly of driftwood and 
 tarred canvas. Joined to one end of the main building ^^ 
 the ordinary log-cabin of the settler — ■■ was the half-round 
 pilot-house of some wrecked steamer, while the other gabl6 
 terminated in half of a broken whaleboat. Nailed against 
 the boat were the dried skins of wild animals, and scattered 
 about lay the flotsam and jetsam of many years' gathering, 
 — bamboo orates, casks, hatches, blocks, oats, boxes part 
 
Tttte PBINCESS BOB AND HER FfilEKbS 55 
 
 6i & whale's v^rtebrtej atid the blades of ewoidflsh. DraWh 
 up on the beach of a little cove befoi'e the house lay a canoe. 
 As the night thickened and the fog grew more dense, these 
 details greiV iftipetc^ptible) ahd ohly the windows of the 
 pilot-housftj lit Up by a roaring iire within the hut, gleamed 
 redly through the tniat. 
 
 By this fife, beheath a ship's lafnp that swung from the 
 roof, two figures Were sealed, a man and a woman. Thb 
 jna'nj hcoad-shouldeted aiid heayily beafdedj Stretched his 
 listless powerful length beyohd a broken bamboo Chair with 
 his eyes fixed on the fire. The Woman cfonohed crosS- 
 legged upon the broad earthen hearth, with her eyes blink- 
 ihgly fixed on her companion. They were Small, black, 
 round, betfy-like eyes, and as the firelight shone upon her 
 smoky facCj with its one striped cheek of gorgeous brilliancy, 
 it was pMnly the Princess Bob and no other. 
 
 Not a word Was Spoken. They had been Sitting thus 
 for ttiore than an hour, and there Was about their attitude a 
 suggestibn that silence was habitual; Once or twice the 
 man rose and walked up and down the narrow room, or 
 gazed absently from the windows of the pHot-hoUse, but 
 tt«ver by look Or sign betrayed the slightest consciousness 
 of his coftipanion. At such tiineS the Princess from her 
 nest by the fite followed him with eyeS of canine expectancy 
 and wistfulneSSi But he would as inevitably retUfn to his 
 contemplation of the fire, and the Princess to her blinking 
 watchfulness of his facC; 
 
 They had sat there silent and uhdistutbed folr many ah 
 evening in fair weather and foul, '^hey had spent many a 
 day in sunshine ahd storm, gathering the unclaimed spoil 
 of sea and Shore. They had kept these mute relations, 
 varied only by the incidents of the hunb or meagre house- 
 hold duties, for three years, ever since the man, wandering 
 moodily over the lonely Sands, had fallen upon the half- 
 starved woman lying in the little holloW where she had 
 
56 THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS 
 
 crawled to die. It had seemed as if they would never h" 
 disturbed, until now, wheni the Princess started, and, with 
 the instinct of her race, bent her ear to the ground. 
 
 The wind had risen and was rattling the tarred canvas. 
 But in another moment there plainly came from without 
 the hut the sound of voices. Then, followed a rap at the 
 door ; then another rap ; and then, before they Qould rise 
 to their feet, the door was. flung, briskly open. t 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said a pleasant but somewhat 'de- 
 cided contralto voice, "but I. don't think you heard me 
 knock. Ah ! I see you did not. May I come in ? " 
 
 There was no reply. Hgd the battered figurehead of 
 the Goddess of Liberty, which lay deeply embedded in the 
 sand on the beach, suddenly appeared at the door demand- 
 ing .admittance, the occupa/nts of the cabin could not have 
 been more speechlessly and hopelessly astonished than at 
 the form which stood in the open doorway. 
 
 It was that of a slim, shapely, elegantly dressed young 
 woman. A scarlet-lined silken .hood was half thrown back 
 from the shining mass of the black hair that covered her 
 small head ; from her pretty shoulders dropped a fur cloak, 
 only restrained by a cord and tassel in -,her small gloved 
 hand. Around her full throat was a double necklace of 
 large white beads, that by some cunning feminine trick 
 relieved with its infantile suggestion the strong decision of 
 her. lower face. , , , • 
 
 " Did you say yes ? Ah ! thank you. We may come 
 in. Barker." (Here a shadow in a blue army overcoat fol- 
 lowed her into the cabin, touched its cap respectfully, and 
 then stood silent and erect against the wall.) " Don't 
 disturb yourself in the least, I beg. What a distressingly 
 unpleasant night ! Is this your usual climate ? " 
 
 Half graciously, half absently overlooking the still 
 embarrassed silence of the group, she went on : " We 
 atartpd from the fort over thvee hours ago, — three hours 
 
THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS 57 
 
 ago, was n't it, Barker ? " — (the erect Barker touched his 
 cap) — " to go to Captain Emmons's quarters on Indian 
 Island, — I think you call it Indian Island, don't you ? " — 
 (she was appealing to the awe-stricken Princess) — " and 
 we got into the fog and lost our way ; that is. Barker lost 
 his way " — (Barker touched- his cap deprecatingly) — ■ 
 " and goodness knows where we did n't wander to until 
 we' mistook your light for the lighthouse and pulled up 
 here. No, no, pray keep your seat, do ! Keally, I must 
 insist." 
 
 Nothing could exceed the languid grace of the latter part 
 of this speech, — nothing except the easy unconsciousness 
 with which she glided by the offered chair of her stammer- 
 ing, embarrassed host, and stood beside the open hearth. 
 
 " Barker will tell you," she continued, warming her feefc 
 by the fire, " that I am Miss Portfire, daughter of Major 
 Portfire, commanding the post. Ah, excuse me, child ! " 
 (She had accidentally trodden upon the bare yellow toes of 
 the Princess.) " Eeally, I did not know you were there. 
 I am very near-sighted." (In confirmation of her statement, 
 she put to her eyes a dainty double eyeglass that dangled 
 from her neck.) " It's a shocking thing to be near-sighted, 
 is n't it ? " 
 
 If the shamefaced uneasy man to whom this remark was 
 addressed could have found words to utter the thought 
 that even in his confusion struggled uppermost in his mind, 
 he would, looking at the bold, dark eyes that questioned 
 him, have denied the fact. But he only stammered, " Yes." 
 The next moment, however. Miss Portfire had apparently 
 forgotten him and was examining the Princess through her 
 glass. 
 
 " And what is your name, child ? " 
 
 The Princess, beatified by the eyes and eyeglass, showed 
 iall her white teeth at once, and softly scratched her leg. 
 
 " Bob." 
 
58 THE PRIN^JiSS ?0B ANiP HBE FRIENDS 
 
 " Bob ? What a singular name ! '■' 
 
 Miss Portfire's host here, hasteneol. to explain the origin 
 of the Princess's title» 
 
 ** Then you are Bob.'' (Eyeglass.) 
 
 " Nq, my pame is (Jiey, -^. John Grey." And he aotflally 
 aehieved a bow where awkwardness was rather the, air of 
 imperfeetly- recalling a forgotten habit. 
 
 " Grey ? ttt^ ah ! let me s^e, Yes, certainly- You are, 
 Mr. Grey, the recluse, the he?wit, the philosQ,pher, and all 
 that sort of thing. Why, certainly, Dr. Jones, our surgeon,, 
 -las told me all about you. Diear me, hpw intei^esting a 
 ^ncontre ! Lived all alone here fpj? seyen — r was it sgven 
 years ? -?:=- yes, I remeniber now, Ejcisted qfuite cm naturel, 
 one might say. How odd ! Not that I know anything 
 about, that sort of thing> you know. I've lived always 
 among people, and am really quite a ?tjange¥, I assure you. 
 But honestly, Mr. -^ I beg y«»r pardQu — Mr. Grey, how 
 do you like it ?" 
 
 She had quietly taken hia chair and thrown her- cloak; 
 and hood over its back, and was now thoughtfully removing 
 her gloves. Whatever were the arguments, — and they 
 were doubtless many and profound, — . whatever the expe- 
 rience, — and it was doubtless hard and satisfying enough, 
 ^^ by which this unfortunate man had justified his life for 
 the last seven years, somehow they suddenly beoante trivial 
 and terribly ridiculous before this simple but practical 
 question. 
 
 "Well, you shall tell me all about it after you have 
 given me something to eat. We wiU. have time enough ; 
 Barker cannot find his way back in this fog to-rnight. Now 
 don't put yourselves to any trouble on my account. Barker 
 will assist." 
 
 Barker came forward. Glad to escape the scrutiny of 
 his guest, the hermit gave a few rapid directions to the 
 Princess in her native tongue, and (disappeared in the shed. 
 
THE PRINCESS BQB AND HER FRIENDS 5.9 
 
 Left a moment alone, Miss Portfire took a quick, half- 
 audible, feminine inventory of the cabin. " Books, guns, 
 skins, one ohair, one bed, na pietures, and no looking- 
 glass ! " She took a book from the swinging shelf and 
 resumed her seat by the fire as the Princess reentered with 
 fresh fuel. But while kneeling on the hearth the Princess 
 chanced to look up, and met Miss Portfire's dark eyes over 
 the edge of her book. 
 
 <'Bob!'^ 
 
 The Princess showed her teeth. 
 
 " Listen ! Would you like to h^ve fine clothes, rings, 
 and heads like these, to have your hair nicely combed and 
 put up so ? Would you ? " 
 
 The Princess nodded violently. 
 
 " Would you like to live with me and have them ? 
 Answer quickly. Don't look round for him. Speak for 
 yourself. Would you ? Hush ! never mind now.''' 
 
 The hermit reentered, and the Princess, blinking, re, 
 treated into the shadow of the whaleboat shed, from which 
 she did not emerge even when the homely repast of cold 
 venison, ship-biscuit, and tea was served. Miss Portfire 
 noticed her absence. " You really must not let me interfere 
 with your usual simple ways. Do, you know this is exceed- 
 ingly interesting to me, so pastoral and patriarchal, and all 
 that sort of thing. I must insist upon the Princess coming 
 back ; really- I mast," 
 
 But the Princess was not to be found in the shed, ^nd 
 Miss Portfire, who the next minute seemed to have for- 
 gotten all about her, took her place in the single chair be* 
 fore an extemporized table. Barker stood behind her, and 
 the hermit leaned against the fireplace. Miss Portfire's ap- 
 petite did not come up to her protestations. For the first 
 time in seven years it occurred to the hermit that his ordi-i 
 nary victual might be improved. He stammered out some- 
 thing to that efiect. 
 
60 THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS 
 
 "I have eaten better and worse," said Miss Portfiie 
 quietly. 
 
 " But I thought you — that is, you said " — 
 
 " I spent a year in the hospitals, when father was on the 
 Potomac," returned Miss Portfire composedly. After a 
 pause she continued : " You remember after the second Bull 
 Run — but, dear me! I beg your pardon ; of course you 
 know nothing about the war, and all that sort of thing, and 
 don't care." (She put np her eyeglass and quietly sur- 
 veyed his broad, muscular figure against the chimney.) 
 "Or perhaps your prejudices. — but then, as a hermit, you 
 know, you have no politics, of course. Please don't let me 
 bore you." 
 
 To have been strictly consistent, the hermit should have 
 exhibited no interest in this topic. Perhaps it was owing 
 to some quality in the narrator, but he was constrained to 
 beg her to continue in such phrases as his unfamiliar lips 
 could command. So that, little by little. Miss Portfire 
 yielded up incident and personal observation of the contest 
 then raging ; with the same half-abstracted, half-uncon- 
 cerned air that seemed habitual to her, she told the stories 
 of privation, of suffering, of endurance, and of sacrifice. 
 With the same assumption of timid deference that concealed 
 her great self-control, she talked of principles and rights. 
 Apparently without enthusiasm and without effort, of which 
 his morbid nature would have been suspicious, she sang the 
 great American Iliad in a way that stirred the depths of her 
 solitary auditor to its massive foundations. Then she 
 stopped and asked quietly, " Where is Bob ? " 
 
 The hermit started. He would look for her. But Bob, 
 for some reason, was not forthcoming. Search was made 
 within and without the hut, but in vain. For the first 
 time that evening Miss Portfire showed some anxiety. 
 " Go," she said to Barker, " and find her. She rmcst be 
 found ; stay, give me your overcoat, I '11 go myself." She 
 
THE PRINCESS BOB AND HEK FRIENDS 61 
 
 threw the overcoat over her shoulders and stepped out into 
 the night. In the thick veil of fog that seemed suddenly 
 to enwrap her, she stood for a moment irresolute, and then 
 walked toward the beach, guided by the low wash of waters 
 on the sand. She had not taken many steps before she 
 stumbled over some dark, crouching object. Keaching down 
 her hand, she felt the coarse, wiry mane of the Princess. 
 
 " Bob ! " 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 "Bob. I've been looking for you, come." 
 
 " Go 'way." 
 
 "Nonsense, Bob. I want you to stay with me to-night, 
 come." 
 
 " Injin squaw no good for waugee woman. Go 'way." 
 
 " Listen, Bob. You are daughter of a chief : so am I. 
 Your father had many warriors : so has mine. It is good 
 that you stay with me. Come." 
 
 The Princess chuckled and suffered herself to be lifted 
 up. A few moments later and they reentered the hut, 
 hand in hand. 
 
 With the iirst red streaks of dawn the next day the erect 
 Barker touched his cap at the door of the hut. Besidp 
 him stood the hermit, also just risen from his blanketed 
 nest in the sand. Forth from the hut, fresh as the morning 
 air, stepped Miss Portfire, leading the Princess by the hand. 
 Hand in hand also they walked to the shore, and when the 
 Princess had been safely bestowed in the stern sheets, Miss 
 Portfire turned and held out her own to her late host. 
 
 " I shall , take the best of care of her, of course. You 
 will come and see her often. I should ask you to come 
 ind see me, but you are a hermit, you know, and all that 
 sort of thing. But if it 's the correct anchorite thjng, and 
 can be done, my father will be glad to requite you for this 
 night's hospitality. But don't do anything on my account 
 that. interferes with your simple habits. Good-by " 
 
6^ f HE psiNCEss -Bob and her friends 
 
 She handed hiiii a fcard, Which he took mechanically. 
 
 •" Good-hy." 
 
 The sail was hoisted, and the hoat shoved off. As th* 
 tresh morning breeze caught the white cantas it seemed to 
 bow a parting salutation. There was a. rosy flush of ptom- 
 lete on the Water, and as the light craft daited forward 
 toward the ascending san, it seemed for a ifioment uplifted 
 in its glory. 
 
 Miss Portfire kfept het ■WWd. If ihdSttghtful care and in- 
 telligent kindness could regenerate the PrinceSBj het future 
 was Seeftre. Awd it really seemed as if slie Were for the 
 first time inclined to heed the lessons of civilizatioti, and. 
 profit by lier new conditioa. An agreeafele change was first 
 -noticed ifl her appearance. Het lawless hair was caught in 
 ■A net, and nb longer strayed over her low forehead. Her 
 unstable bust was stayed and uipheld by I'renth corsets; 
 ^er plantigrade shuffle Was limited by heeled boots. -Her 
 dresses were neat and clean, and she wore 'a double necklace 
 of glass beads With this physical improvement there also 
 ■seemed some tnoral awakening. She no longer stole nor 
 lied. With the possession of personal property came a 
 •respeet for that of others. With increased dependence on 
 the word of those about her came a thoughtful consideration 
 of her own. Intellectually she was still feeble^ although she 
 'grappled sturdily with the simple lessons which Miss Port^ 
 fire set before her. Biit her zeal and simple vanity outran 
 her disc!retion, and she would often sit for hours with ah 
 itfpen book before her. Which she could not read. She was a 
 favorite with the officers at tile fort, from the Major, who 
 ■shared his daughter's 'prejudices and often yielded to her 
 powerful self-will, to the subalterns, who liked her none the 
 less that their natural enemies, the frontier volunteers, had 
 deelared Wat against her helpless sisterhood. The only 
 restraint put upon her was the limitation of her liberty to 
 
THE PKINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS 63 
 
 th* mclosilre of the fort and patade ; and only olice did sh« 
 break this parole, and was stopped by the sentry as shia 
 stepped into a btfat at the lahding^ 
 
 The Vecluse did not aVail himself of Miss Portfire's invi- 
 tation. But after the departure of the Princess he spent 
 less of his time ifl the hut, and was more frequently seen in 
 the distant marshes of Eel River and on the upland hills. 
 A. •feverish restlessness, quite opposed to his usual phlegm, 
 led him into singular frea;ks strattgrfy inconsistent with his 
 usual habits and reputation. The puree* of the occasionai 
 'steattier which stbpped 'at Logport with the mails reported 
 to have been boarded, just inside the bar, by a sti-ange^ 
 bearded man, who asked for a newspaper containing the last 
 war telagralm^. He tore his red shirt into narrow strips, 
 and spent two days with his needle over the pieces and the 
 tattered remnant of his only white garment ; and a few days 
 afterward the fishermen on the bay were surprised to see 
 what, on nearer approach, iproved to be a rude imitation o£ 
 the national flag floating frohi a spar above the hut. 
 
 One evening, as the fog began to drift ovet the sand-hills', 
 the irecluse 6&it alone in his hut. The fire was dying un- 
 heeded on the hearth, for he had been sitting thete for ft 
 long time, completely absorbed in the blurred pages of ai> 
 old newspaper. Presently he aroSe, and, refolding it, — ^ aft 
 operation of great care and delicacy in its tattered condition 
 -^^ placed it under the Mahkets of his bed. He resura-ec! 
 his seat by the fire, but soon began drumming with his fin«- 
 •gers on the aim «f bis chair. E'^entu^lly this assumed the 
 time and aiccent of some air. Then he began to whistle 
 iBoftiy and hesitatingly, as if trying to tetall a forgotten tune. 
 Finally this took shape in a tude tesemblance, not unlike 
 ■that which his flag bore to the national standard, to Yankee 
 Doodle. Suddenly he stopped. 
 
 There was an unmistakable rapping at the door. The 
 blood which bad at first rushed to his face now forsook it 
 
64 THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS 
 
 and settled slowly around his heart. He tried to rise, but 
 could not. Then the door was flung open, and a figure 
 with a scarlet-lined hood and fur mantle stood on the 
 threshold. With a mighty effort he took one stride tr 
 the door. The next moment he saw the wide mouth and 
 white teeth of the Princess, and was greeted by a kiss that 
 felt like a baptism. , 
 
 To tear the hood and mantle from her figure in the 
 sudden fury that seized him, and to fiercely demand the 
 reason of this masquerade, was his only return to her greet- 
 ing. " Why are you here ? did you steal these garments ? " 
 he again demanded in her guttural language, as he shook 
 her roughly by the arm. The Princess hung her head. 
 " Did you ? " he screamed, as he reached wildly for his 
 rifle. > 
 
 " I did." 
 
 His hold relaxed, and he staggered back against the wall; 
 The Princess began to whimper. Between her sobs, she 
 was trying to explain that the Major and his daughter 
 were going away, and that they wanted to send her to 
 the Reservation ; but he cut her short. " Take off those 
 things ! " The Princess tremblingly obeyed. He rolled 
 them up, placed them in the canoe she had just left, and 
 then leaped into the frail craft. She would have followed^ 
 but with a great oath he threw her from him, and with 
 one stroke of his paddle swept out into the fog, and was 
 gone. 
 
 " Jessamy," said the Major, a few days after, as he sat 
 at dinner with his daughter, '.' I think I can tell you some- 
 thing to match the mysterious disappearance and return of 
 your wardrobe. Your crazy friend, the recluse, has enlisted 
 this morning in the. Fourth Artillery. He's a splendid- 
 looking animal, and thexe 's the right stuff for a soldier in 
 him, if I 'm not mistaken. He 's in earnest too, for he 
 enlists in the regiment ordered back to Washingtoa. Bless 
 
THE PRINCESS BOB AND HEK FRIENDS 65 
 
 me, child, another goblet broken ! you '11 ruin the mess in 
 glassware, at this rate." 
 
 " Have you heard anything more of the Princess, papa ? " 
 
 " Nothing ; but perhaps it 's as well that she has gone. 
 These cursed settlers are at their old complaints again 
 about what they call 'Indian depredations,' and I have 
 just received orders from headquarters to keep the settle- 
 ment clear of all vagabond aborigines. I am afraid, my 
 dear, that a strict construction of the term would include 
 your prot^g^e." 
 
 The time for the departure of the Fourth Artillery had 
 come. The night before was thick and foggy. At one 
 o'clock a shot on the ramparts called out the guard and 
 roused the sleeping garrison. The new sentry, Private 
 Grey, had challenged a dusky figure creeping on the glacis, 
 and, receiving no answer, had fired. The guard sent out 
 presently returned, bearing a lifeless figure in their arms. 
 The new sentry's zeal, joined with an ex-frontiersman's 
 aim, was fatal. 
 
 They laid the helpless, ragged form before the guard- 
 house door, and then saw for the first time that it was the 
 Princess. Presently she opened her eyes. They fell upon 
 the agonized face of her innocent slayer, but haply without 
 intelligence or reproach. 
 
 " Georgy ! " she whispered. 
 
 " Bob ! " 
 
 " All 's same now. Me get plenty well soon. Me make 
 no more fuss. Me go to Reservation." 
 
 Then she stopped, a tremor ran through her limbs, and 
 she lay still. She had gone to the Reservation. Not that 
 devised by the wisdom of man, but that one set apart from 
 the foundation of the world, for the wisest as well as the 
 meanest of His creatures. 
 
HOW SAIifTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S 
 BAR 
 
 It had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento. 
 The North Fork had overflowed its banks, and Rattlesnake 
 Creek was impassable. The few boulders that had marked 
 the summer ford at Simpson's Crossing were obliterated 
 by a vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The 
 up-stage was stopped at Granger's ; the last mail had been 
 abandoned in the tules, the rider swimming for his life. 
 " An area," remarked the " Sierra Avalanche," with pensive 
 local pride, " as large as the State of Massachusetts is now 
 under water." 
 
 Nor was the weather any better in the foothills. The 
 mud lay deep on the mountain road ; wagons that neither 
 physical force nor moral objurgation could move from the 
 evil ways into which they had fallen encumbered the track, 
 and the way to Simpson's Bar was indicated by broken- 
 down teams and hard swearing. And further on, cut off 
 and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled, smitten by 
 high winds and threatened by high water, Simpson's Bar, 
 on the eve of Christmas Day, 1862, clung like a swallow's 
 nest to the rocky entablature and splintered capitals of 
 Table Mountain, and shook in the blast. 
 
 As night shut down on the settlement, a few lights 
 gleamed through the mist from the windows of cabins on 
 either side of the highway, now crossed and gullied by 
 lawless streams and swept by marauding winds. Happily 
 most of the population were gathered at Thompson's store, 
 clustered around a redhot stove, at which they silently spat 
 
HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAE 67 
 
 in some accepted sense of social communion that perhaps 
 rendered conversation unnecessary. Indeed, most methods 
 of diversion had long since been exhausted on Simpson's 
 Bar ; high vrater had suspended the regular occupations on ' 
 gulch and on river, and a consequent lack of money and 
 \»fhiskey had taken the zest from most illegitimate recrea- 
 tion. Even Mr. Hamlin was fain to leave the Bar with 
 fifty dollars in his pocket — the only amount actually real- 
 ized of the large sums won by him in the successful ex- 
 ercise of his arduous profession. " Ef I was asked," he 
 remarked somewhat later, — " ef I was asked to pint out 
 a purty little village where a retired sport as did n't care 
 for money could exercise hisself, frequent and lively, I 'd 
 say Simpson's Bar ; bvit for a young man with a large 
 family depending on his exertions, it don't pay." As Mr. 
 Hamlin's family consisted mainly of female adults, this 
 remark is quoted rather to show the breadth of his humor 
 than the exact extent of his responsibilities. 
 
 Howbeit, the unconscious objects of this satire sat that 
 evening in the listless apathy begotten of idleness and lack 
 of excitement. Even the sudden splashing of hoofs before 
 the door did not arouse them. Dick Bullen alone paused 
 in the act of scraping out his pipe, and lifted his head, hut- 
 no other one of the group indicated any interest in, or 
 recognition of, the man who entered. 
 
 It was a figure familiar enough to the company, and 
 known in Simpson's Bar as " The Old Man." A man of 
 perhaps fifty years ; grizzled and scant of hair, but still 
 fresh and youthful of complexion. A face full of ready 
 but not very powerful sympathy, with a chameleon-lik« 
 aptitude for taking on the shade and color of contiguous 
 moods and feelings. He had evidently just left some 
 hilarious companions, and did not at first notice the gravity 
 of the group, but clapped the shoulder of the nearest man 
 jocularly, and threw himself into a vacant chair. 
 
68 HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 
 
 " Jest heard the best thing out, boys ! Ye know Smiley, 
 over yar — Jim Smiley — funniest man in the Bar ? Well, 
 Jim was jest telling the richest yarn about " — 
 
 " Smiley 's a fool," interrupted a gloomy voice. 
 
 " A particular skunk," added another in sepulchral 
 
 accents. 
 
 A silence followed these positive statements. The Old 
 Man glanced quickly around the group. Then his face 
 slowly changed. "That's so," he said reflectively, after a 
 pause, " certainly a sort of a skunk and suthin' of a fool. 
 In course." He was silent for a moment, as in painful 
 contemplation of the unsavoriness and folly of the un- 
 popular Smiley. " Dismal weather, ain't it ? " he added, 
 now fully embarked on the current of prevailing sentiment. 
 " Mighty rough papers on the boys, and no show for money 
 this season. And to-morrow 's Christmas." 
 
 There was a movement among the men at this announce- 
 ment, but whether of satisfaction or disgust was not plain. 
 " Yes," continued the Old Man in the lugubrious tone he 
 had, within the last few moments, unconsciously adopted, 
 — "yes, Christmas, and. to-night's Christmas Eve. Ye see, 
 boys, I kinder thought — that is, I sorter had an idee, jest 
 passin' like, you know — that maybe ye 'd all like to come 
 over to my house to-night and have a sort of tear round. 
 But I suppose, now, you would n't ? Don't feel like it, 
 maybe ? " he added with anxious sympathy, peering into 
 the faces of his companions. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," responded Tom Flynn with some 
 cheerfulness. " P'r'aps we may. But how about your wife, 
 Old Man ? What does she say to it ? " 
 
 The Old Man hesitated. His conjugal experience had 
 not been a happy one, and the fact was known to Simpson's 
 Bar. His first wife, a delicate, pretty little woman, had 
 suffered keenly and secretly from the jealous suspicions of 
 her husband, until one day he invited the whole Bar to his 
 
HO"W SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 69 
 
 house to expose her ^fidelity. On arriving, the party found 
 the shy, petite creature quietly engaged in her household 
 duties, and retired abashed and discomfited. But the sensi- 
 tive woman did not easily recover from the shock of this 
 extraordinary outrage. It was with difficulty she regained 
 her equanimity sufficiently to release her lover from the 
 closet in which he was concealed, and escape with him. 
 She left a boy of three years to comfort her bereaved hus- 
 band. The Old Man's present wife had been his cook. 
 She was large, loyal, and aggressive. 
 
 Before he could reply, Joe Dimmick suggested with 
 great directness that it was the " Old Man's house," and 
 that, invoking the Divine Power, if the case were his own, 
 he would invite whom he pleased, even if in so doing he 
 imperiled his salvation. The Powers of Evil, he further 
 remarked, should contend against him vainly. All this 
 delivered with a terseness and vigor lost in this necessary 
 translation. 
 
 " In course. Certainly. Thet 's it," said the Old Man 
 with a sympathetic frown. " Thar 's no trouble about thet. 
 It 's my own house, built every stick on it myself. Don't 
 you be afeard o' her, boys. She Tnay cut up a trifle rough 
 — ez wimmin do — but she '11 come round." , Secretly 
 the Old Man trusted to the exaltation of liquor and the 
 power of courageous example to sustain him in such an 
 emergency. 
 
 As yet, Dick Bullen, the oracle and leader of Simpson's 
 Bar, had not spoken. He now took his pipe from his lips. 
 " Old Man, how 's that yer Johnny gettin' on ? Seems to 
 me he did n't look so peart last time I seed him on the 
 bluff heavin' rocks at Chinamen. Did n't seem to take 
 much interest in it. Thar was a gang of 'em by yar yester. 
 day — drownded out up the river — and I kinder thought 
 o' Johnny, and how he 'd miss 'em ! Maybe now,, we 'd ba 
 in the way ef he wus sick ? " 
 
70 HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 
 
 The father, evidently touched not only by this pathetic 
 picture of Johnny's deprivation, but by the considerate deli- 
 cacy of the speaker, hastened to assure him that Johnny 
 was better, and that a "little fun might 'liven him up." 
 Whereupon Dick arose, shook himself, and saying, " I 'm 
 ready. Lead the way, Old Man : here goes," himself led 
 the way with a leap, a characteristic howl, and darted out 
 into the night. As he passed through the outer room he 
 caught up a blazing brand from the hearth. The action 
 was repeated by the rest of the party, closely following 
 and elbowing each other, and before the astonished propri- 
 etor of Thompson's grocery was aware of the intention of 
 his guests, the room was deserted. 
 
 The night was pitchy dark. In the first gust of wind 
 their temporary torches were extinguished, and only the red 
 brands dancing and flitting in the gloom like drunken will- 
 o'-the-wisps indicated their whereabouts. Their way led 
 up Pine-Tree Caiion, at the head of which a broad, low, 
 bark-thatched cabin burrowed in the mountain-side. It 
 was the home of the Old Man, and the entrance to the 
 tunnel in which he worked when he worked at all. Here 
 the crowd paused for a moment, out of delicate deference 
 to their h,ost, who came up panting in the rear. 
 
 " P'r'aps ye 'd better hold on a second out yer, whilst I 
 go in and see that things is all right," said the Old Man, 
 with an indifference he was far from feeling. The sugges- 
 tion was graciously accepted, the door opened and closed on 
 the host, and the crowd, leaning their backs against the 
 wall and cowering under the eaves, waited and listened. 
 
 For a few moments there was no sound but the dripping 
 of water from the eaves, and the stir and rustle of wrestling 
 boughs above them. Then the men became uneasy, and 
 whispered suggestion and suspicion passed from the one to 
 the other. " Reckon she 's caved in his head the first 
 lickl" "Decoyed him inter the tunnel and barred him 
 
HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 71 
 
 up, likely." "Gothim down and sittin' on him." "Prob'ly 
 biling suthin' to heave on us : stand clear the door, boys ! " 
 For just then the latch clicked, the door slowly opened, 
 and a voice said, " Come in out o' the wet." 
 
 The voice was neither that of the Old Man nor of his 
 wife. It was the voice of a small boy, its weak treble 
 broken by that preternatural hoarseness which only vaga- 
 bondage and the habit of premature self-assertion can give. 
 It was the face of a small boy that looked up at theirs, — 
 a face that might have been pretty, and even refined, but 
 that it was darkened by evil knowledge from within, and 
 dirt and hard experience from without. He had a blanket 
 around his shoulders^ and had evidently just risen from his 
 bed. " Come in," he repeated, " and don't make no noise. 
 The Old Man 's in there talking to mar," he continued, 
 pointing to an adjacent room which seemed to be a kitchen, 
 from which the Old Man's voice came in deprecating ac- 
 cents. " Let me be," he added querulously, to Dick Bul- 
 len, who had caught him up, blanket and all, and was 
 affecting to toss him into the fire, " let go o' me, you d — d 
 old fool, d' ye hear ? " 
 
 Thus adjured, Dick Bullen lowered Johnny to the 
 ground with a smothered laugh, while the men, entering 
 quietly, ranged themselves around a long table of rough 
 boards which occupied the centre of the room. Johnny 
 then gravely proceeded to a cupboard and brought out sev- 
 eral articles, which he deposited on the table. " Thar 's 
 whiskey. And crackers. And red herons. And cheese." 
 He took a bite of the latter on his way to the table. " And 
 sugar." He scooped up a mouthful en route with a small 
 and very dirty hand. " And terbacker. Thar 's dried 
 appils too on the shelf, but I don't admire 'em. Appils is 
 swellin'. Thar," he concluded, " now wade in, and don't 
 be afeard. / don't mind the old woman. She don't b'long 
 to me. S'lons." 
 
72 HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAE 
 
 He had stepped to the threshold of a small room, scarcely 
 larger than a closet, partitioned off ■fifcm the main apart- 
 ment, and holding in its dim recess a small bed. He stood 
 there a moment looking at the company, his bare feet peep- 
 ing from the blanket, and nodded. 
 
 " Hello, Johnny ! You ain't goin' to turn in agin, are 
 ye ? " said Dick. 
 
 " Yes, I are," responded Johnny decidedly. 
 
 " Why, Tvot 's up, old fellow ? " 
 
 " I 'm sick." 
 
 " How sick ? " 
 
 " I 've got a fevier. And childblains. And roomatiz," 
 returned Johnny, and vanished within. After a moment's 
 pause, he added in the dark, apparently from under the 
 bedclothes, — " And biles ! " 
 
 There was an embarrassing silence. The men looked at 
 each other and at the fire. Even with the a-ppetizing ban- 
 quet before them, it seemed as if they might again fall into 
 the despondency of Thompson's grocery, when the voice of 
 the Old Man, incautiously lifted, came deprecatimgly from 
 the kitchen. , 
 
 " Certainly ! Thet 's bo. In course they is. A gang 
 o' lazy, drunken loafers, and that ar Dick Bnllen 's the 
 ornariest of all. Did n't hev no more sabe than to come 
 round yar with sickness in the house and no provision. 
 Thet's what I said : 'Bullen,' sez I, ' it's crazy drunk you 
 are, or a fool,' sez I, ' to think o' such a thing.' ' Staples,' 
 I sez, 'be you a man, Staples, and 'spect to raise h — 11' 
 under my roof and invalids lyin' round ? ' But they would 
 come, — they would. Thet 's wot you must 'spect o' such 
 trash as lays round the Bar." 
 
 A burst of laughter from the men followed this unfortu- 
 nate exposure. Whether it was overheard in the kitchen, 
 or whether the Old Man's irate companion had just then 
 exhausted all other modes of expressing her contemptuous 
 
HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME Xa SIMPSON'S BAR 73 
 
 indignation, I cannot say, but a back door was suddenly- 
 slammed with great violence. A moment later and tile 
 Old Man reappeared, haply unconscious of the cause of the 
 late hilarious outburst, and smiled blandly. 
 
 " The old woman thought she 'd jest run over to Mrs. 
 MacFadden's for a sociable call," he explained with jaunty 
 indifference, as he took a seat at the board. 
 
 Oddly enough it needed this untoward incident to re- 
 lieve the embarrassment that was beginning to be felt by 
 the party, and their natural audacity returned with their 
 host. I do not propose to record the convivialities of that 
 evening. The inquisitive reader will accept the statement 
 that the conversation was characterized by the same intel- 
 lectual exaltation, the same cautious reverence, the same 
 fastidious delicacy, the same rhetorical precision, and the 
 same logical and coherent discourse somewhat later in the 
 evening, which distinguish similar gatherings of the mascu- 
 line sex in more civilized localities and under more favor- 
 able auspices. No glasses were broken in the absence of 
 any ; no liquor was uselessly spilt on the floor or table in 
 the scarcitj' of that article. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when the festivities^ were inter- 
 rupted. " Hush," said Dick BuUen, holding up his hand. 
 It was the querulous voice of Johnny from his adjacent 
 closet: "Odad!" 
 
 The Old Man arose hurriedly and disappeared in the 
 closet. Presently he reappeared. " His rheumatiz is com- 
 ing on agin bad," he explained, "and he wants rubbin'." 
 He lifted the demijohn of whiskey from the table and 
 shook it. It was empty. Dick BuUen put down his tin 
 cup with an embarrassed laugh. So did the others. The 
 Old Man examined their contents and said hopefully, " 1 
 reckon that 's enough ; he don't need much. You hold on 
 all o' you for a spell, and I '11 be back ; " and vanished Id 
 the closet with, an old flannel shirt i»ni the whiskey. The 
 
74 HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 
 
 door closed but imperfectly, and the following dialogue was 
 distinctly audible : 
 
 " Now, sonny, whar does she ache worst ? " 
 
 " Sometimes over yar and sometimes under yer ; but it 's 
 most powerful from yer to yer. Eub yer, dad." 
 
 A silence seemed to indicate a brisk rubbing. Then 
 Johnny : 
 
 " Hevin' a good time out yer, dad ? " 
 
 " Yes, sonny." 
 
 " To-morrer 's Chrismiss, — ain't it ? " 
 
 " Yes, sonny. How does she feel now ? " 
 
 " Better. Eub a little furder down. Wot 's Chrismiss, 
 anyway ? Wot 's it all about ? " 
 
 " Oh, it 's a day." 
 
 This exhaustive definition was apparently satisfactory, for 
 there was a silent interval of rubbing. Presently Johnny 
 again : 
 
 " Mar sez that everywhere else but yer everybody gives 
 things to everybody Chrismiss, and then she jist waded inter 
 you. She sez thar 's a man they call Sandy Claws, not a 
 white man, you know, but a kind o' Chinemin, comes down 
 the chimbley night afore Chrismiss and gives things to 
 chillern, — boys like me. Puts 'em in their butes ! Thet 's 
 what she tried to play upon me. Easy now, pop, whar ar( 
 you rubbin' to, — thet's a mile from the place. She jes- 
 made that up, did n't she, jest to aggrewate me and you ? 
 Don't rub thar. . . . Why, dad ! " 
 
 In the great quiet that seemed to have fallen upon th( 
 house the sigh of the near pines and the drip of leaves 
 without was very distinct. Johnny's voice, too, was 
 lowered as he went on, " Don't you take on now, for I 'm 
 gettin' all right fast. Wot 's the boys doin' out thar ? " 
 
 The Old Man partly opened the door and peered through. 
 His guests were sitting there sociably enough, and there 
 were a few silver coins and a lean buckskin purse on the 
 
HOW SANTA OLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAB 75 
 
 table. " Bettin' on suthin' — some little game or 'nother 
 They 're all right," he replied to Johnny, and recommenced 
 his rubbing. 
 
 " I 'd like to take a hand and win some money," said 
 Johnny reflectively after a pause. 
 
 The Old Man glibly repeated what was evidently a 
 familiar formula, that if Johnny would wait until he struck 
 it rich in the tunnel he 'd have lots of money, etc., etc. 
 
 " Yes," said Johnny, " but you don't. And whether 
 you strike it or I win it, it 's about the same. It 's all 
 luck. But it 's mighty cur'o's about Chrismiss — ain't it ? 
 Why do they call it Chrismiss ? " 
 
 Perhaps from some instinctive deference to the overhear- 
 ing of his guests, or from some vague sense of incongruity, 
 the Old Man's reply was so low as to be inaudible beyond 
 the room. 
 
 " Yes," said Johnny, with some slight abatement of 
 interest, " I 've heerd o' him, before. Thar, that '11 do, 
 dad. I don't ache near so bad as I did. Now wrap me 
 tight in this yer blanket. So. Now," he added in a 
 muffled whisper, " sit down yer by me till I go asleep." 
 To assure himself of obedience, he disengaged one hand 
 from the blanket, and, grasping his father's sleeve, again 
 composed himself to rest. 
 
 For some moments the Old Man waited patiently. Then 
 the unwonted stillness of the house excited his curiosity, 
 and without moving from the bed he cautiously opened the 
 door with his disengaged hand, and looked into the main 
 room. To his infinite surprise it was dark and deserted. 
 But even then a smouldering log on the hearth broke, and 
 by the upspringing blaze he saw the figure of Dick Bullen 
 sitting by the dying embers. 
 
 " Hello ! " 
 
 Dick started, rose, and came somewhat unsteadily toward 
 bim. 
 
?6 HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 
 
 <•■ Whar 's the boys ? " said the Old Man. 
 
 " Gone up the eanom on a little pasear. They 're 
 coming back for me in a minit. I 'm waitin' round for 'em. 
 What are you starin' at, Old Man ? " he added, with a 
 forced laugh ; " do you think I 'm drunk ? " 
 
 The Old Man might have been pardoned the supposition, 
 for Dick's eyes were humid and his face flushed. He 
 loitered and lounged back to the chimney, yawned, shook 
 himself, buttoned up his coat and laughed. " Liquor ain't 
 so plenty as that, Old Man. Now don't you git up/' he 
 continued, as the Old Man made a movement to release his 
 sleeve from Johnny's hand. " Don't you mind manners. 
 Sit jest whar you be ; I 'm goin' in a jiffy. Thar, that 's 
 them now." 
 
 There was a low tap at the door. Dick BuUen opened 
 it quickly, nodded "Good-night" to his host, and disap- 
 peared. The Old Man would have followed him but for 
 the hand that still unconsciously grasped his sleeve. He 
 could have easily disengaged it : it was small, weak, and' 
 emaciated. But perhaps because it was small, weak, and 
 emaciated he changed his mind, and, drawing his chair 
 closer to the bed^ rested his head upon it. In this defense- 
 less attitude the potency of his earlier potations surprised 
 him. The room flickered and faded before his eyes, reap- 
 peared, faded again, went out, and left him — asleep. 
 
 Meantime Dick Bullen, closing the door, confronted his 
 companions. " Are you ready ? " said Staples. " Ready," 
 said Dick ; "what's the time ? " " Past twelve," was the 
 reply ; " can you make it ? — it 's nigh on fifty miles, the 
 round trip hither and yon." "I reckon," returned Dick 
 shortly. " Whar 's the mare ? " " Bill and Jack 's 
 holdm' her at the crossin'." " Let 'em hold on a minit 
 longer," said Dick. 
 
 He turned and reentered the house softly. By the light 
 of the guttering candle and dying fire he saw that the d-oor 
 
HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAK 77 
 
 of the little room was open. He stepped toward it on tip- 
 toe and looked in. The Old Man had fallen back in his 
 chair, snoring, his helpless feet thrust out in a line with his 
 collapsed shoulders, and his hat pulled over his eyes. 
 Beside him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay Johnny, 
 muffled tightly in a blanket that hid all save a strip of 
 forehead and a few curls damp with perspiration. Dick 
 Bullen miiJe a step forward, hesitated, and glanced over his 
 shoulder into the deserted room. Everything was quiet. 
 With a sudden resolution he parted his huge mustaches 
 with both hands and stooped over the sleeping boy. But 
 even as he did so a mischievous blast, lying in wait, swooped 
 down the chimney, rekindled the hearth, and lit up the 
 room with a shameless glow from which Dick fled in bash- 
 ful terror. 
 
 His companions were already waiting for him at the 
 crossing. Two of them were struggling in the darkness 
 with some strange misshapen bulk, which as Dick came 
 nearer took the semblance of a great yellow horse. 
 
 It was the mare. She was not a pretty picture. Prom 
 her Eoman nose to her rising haunches, from her arched 
 spine hidden by the stiff m.achillas of a Mexican saddle, to 
 her thick, straight bony legs, there was not a line of equine 
 grace. In her half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in 
 her protruding under-lip, in her monstrous color, there was 
 nothing but ugliness and vice. 
 
 " Now then," said Staples, " stand cl'ar of her heels, 
 boys, and up with you. Don't miss your first holt of her 
 mane, and mind ye get your off stirrup quick. Eeady ! " 
 
 There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a bound, a wild 
 retreat of the crowd, a circle of flying hoofs, two springless 
 leaps that jarred the earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, 
 a plunge, and then the voice of Dick somewhere in the 
 darkness. " All right ! " 
 
 "Don't take the lower road back onless you're hard 
 
78 HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAE 
 
 pushed for time ! Don't hold her in down hill We '11 be 
 at the ford at five. G'lang ! Hoopa ! Mula ! GO ! " 
 
 A splash, a spark struck from the ledge in the road, a 
 clatter in the rocky cut beyond, and Dick was gone. 
 
 Sing, Muse, the ride of Eichard BuUen ! Sing, 
 Muse, of chivalrous men ! the sacred quest, the doughty 
 deeds, the battery of low churls, the fearsome ride and grue- 
 some perils of the Flower of Simpson's Bar ! Alack ! she 
 is dainty, this Muse ! She will have none of this bucking 
 brute and swaggering, ragged rider, and I must fain follow 
 him in prose, afoot ! 
 
 It was one o'clock, and yet he had only gained Rattle- 
 snake Hill. For in that time Jovita had rehearsed to him 
 all her imperfections and practiced all her vices. Thrice 
 had she stumbled. Twice had she thrown up her Boman 
 nose in a straight line with the reins, and, resisting bit and 
 spur, struck out madly across country. Twice had she 
 reared, and, rearing, fallen backward ; and twice had the 
 agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat before she found 
 her vicious legs again. And a mile beyond them, at the 
 foot of a long hill, was Rattlesnake Creek. Dick knew that 
 here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his enter- 
 prise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her 
 flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression. 
 Bullied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill. 
 Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with 
 ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm. 
 It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away. 
 Nor need I state the time made in the descent ; it is written 
 in the chronicles of Simpson's Bar. Enough that in another 
 moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing on the 
 overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek. As Dick expected, 
 the momentum she had acquired carr'ed her beyond the 
 point of balking, and, holding her well together for a 
 
HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 79 
 
 mighty leap, they dashed into the middle of the swiftly 
 flowing current. A few moments of kicking, wading, and 
 swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the opposite 
 hank. 
 
 The road from Eattlesnake Creek to Eed Mountain was 
 tolerably level. Either the plunge in Eattlesnake Creek 
 had dampened her baleful fire, or the art which led to it 
 had shown her the superior wickedness of her rider, for 
 Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton con- 
 ceits. Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; 
 once she shied, but it was from a new, freshly painted meet- 
 ing-house at the crossing of the county road. Hollows, 
 ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly springing grasses, 
 flew from beneath her rattling hoofs. She began to smell 
 unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but there 
 ■was no abatement of her strength or speed. By two o'clock 
 he had passed Eed Mountain and begun the descent to 
 the plain. Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer 
 coach was overtaken and passed by a " man on a Pinto 
 boss," — an event sufficiently notable for remark. At half 
 past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout. Stars 
 ■were glittering through the rifted clouds, and beyond him, 
 out of the plain, rose two spires, a flagstaff, and a straggling 
 line of black objects. Dick jingled his spurs and swung 
 his riata, Jovita bounded forward, and in another moment 
 they swept into Tuttleville, and drew up before the wooden 
 piazza of " The Hotel of All Nations." 
 
 What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a 
 part of this record. Briefly I may state, however, that after 
 Jovita had been handed over to a sleepy ostler, whom she 
 at once kicked into unpleasant consciousness, Dick sallied 
 out with the barkeeper for a tour of the sleeping town. 
 Lights still gleamed from a few saloons and gambling-houses ; 
 but, avoiding these, they stopped before several closed shops, 
 and by persistent tapping and judicious outcry roused the 
 
80 HOW SANTA CLATTS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAK 
 
 proprietors from their beds, and made them nnbar the doors 
 of their magazines and expose their wares. Sometimes they 
 were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some con- 
 cern in their needs, and the interview was invariably con- 
 cluded by a drink. It was three o'clock before this pleas- 
 antry was given over, and with a small waterproof, bag of 
 India-rubber strapped on his shoulders, Dick returned to 
 the hotel. But here he was waylaid by Beauty, — Beauty 
 opulent in charms, affluent in dress, persuasive in speech, 
 and Spanish in accent ! In vain she repeated the invitation 
 in "Excelsior," happily scorned by all Alpine-climbing 
 youth, and rejected by this child of the Sierras, — a rejection 
 softened in this instance by a laugh and his last gold coin. 
 And then he sprang to the saddle and dashed down the 
 lonely street and out into the lonelier plain, where presently 
 the lights, the black line of houses, the spires, and the flag- 
 staff sank into the earth behind him again and were lost in 
 the distance. 
 
 The storm had cleared away, the air was brisk and cold, 
 the outlines of adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was 
 half-past four before Dick reached the meeting-house and 
 the crossing of the county road. To avoid the rising grade 
 he had taken a longer and more circuitous road, in whose 
 viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every bound. It 
 was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of five miles 
 more ; but Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it 
 with her usual blind, unreasoning fury, and a half-hour later 
 reached the long level that led to Rattlesnake Creek. 
 Another half -hour would bring him to the creek. He threw 
 the reins lightly upon the neck of the mare, chirruped to 
 her, and began to sing. 
 
 Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would have 
 unseated a less practiced rider. Hanging to her rein was a 
 figure that had leaped from the bank, and at the same time 
 from the road before her arose a shadowy horsf and riden 
 
HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO BIMPSON'S BAR 81 
 
 " Throw wp your hands," comtnanded the second appari. 
 tion, -with an oath. 
 
 Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently sink 
 under him. He knew what it meant and was prepared. 
 
 " Stand aside. Jack Simpson. I. know you, you d — d 
 thief ! Let me pass, or " — 
 
 He did not finish the sentence. Jovita rose straight in 
 the air with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her 
 bit with a single shake of her vicious head, and charged 
 with deadly imalevolence down on the impediment before 
 her. An oath, a pistol-shot, horse and highwayman rolled 
 over in the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred 
 yards away. But the good right arm of her rider, shattered 
 by a bullet, dropped helplessly at his side. 
 
 Without slacking his speed he shifted the reins to his left 
 hand. But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and 
 tighten the .saddle-girths that had slipped in the onset. 
 This in his crippled condition took some time. He had 
 no fear of pursuit, but looking up he saw that the eastern 
 stars were already paling, and that the distant peaks had 
 lost their ghostly whiteness, and now stood out blackly 
 against a lighter sky. Day was upon, him. Then com- 
 pletely absorbed in a single idea, he forgot the pain of his 
 wound, and mounting again dashed on toward Rattlesnake 
 Creek. But now Jovita's breath came broken by gasps, 
 Dick reeled in his saddle, and brighter and brighter grew 
 the sky. 
 
 Ride, Richard ; run, Jovita 5 linger, day ! 
 
 For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears. 
 Was it exhaustion from loss of blood, or what ? He was 
 dazed and giddy as he swept down the hill, and did not 
 recognize his surroundings. Had he taken the wrong road, 
 or was this Rattlesnake Creek ? 
 
 It was. But the brawling creek he had swam a few 
 h'^urs before had risen, more than doubled its volume, and 
 
82 HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 
 
 now rolled a swift and resistless river between him and 
 Rattlesnake Hill. For the first time that night Richard's 
 heart sank within him. The river, the mountain, the 
 quickening east, swam before bis eyes. He shut them to 
 recover his self-control. In that brief interval, by some 
 fantastic mental process, the little room at Simpson's Bar 
 and the figures of the sleeping father and son rose upon 
 him. He opened his eyes wildly, cast off his coat, pistol, 
 boots, and saddle, bound his precious pack tightly to his 
 shoulders, grasped the bare flanks of Jovita with his bared 
 knees, and with a shout dashed into the yellow water. A 
 cry rose from the opposite bank as the head of a man and 
 horse struggled for a few moments against the battling nur- 
 rent, and then were swept away amidst uprooted trees and 
 whirling driftwood. 
 
 The Old Man started and woke. The fire on the hearth 
 was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering in its 
 socket, and somebody was rapping at the door. He opened 
 it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping, half-naked 
 figure that reeled against the doorpost. 
 
 " Dick ? " 
 
 " Hush ! Is he awake yet ? " 
 
 "No; but, Dick" — 
 
 " Dry up, you old fool ! Get me some whiskey, quick ! " 
 The Old Man flew and returned with — an empty bottle ! 
 Dick would have sworn, but his strength was not equal to 
 the occasion. He staggered, caught at the handle of the 
 door, and motioned to the Old Man. 
 
 " Thar 's suthin' in my pack yer for Johnny. Take it 
 off. I can't." 
 
 The Old Man unstrapped the pack, and laid it before 
 the exhausted man. 
 
 " Open it, quick." 
 
 He did so with trembling fingers. It contained only a 
 
HOW SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR 83 
 
 few poor toys, — cheap and barbaric enough, goodness 
 knows, but bright with paint and tinsel. One of them was 
 broken ; another, I fear, was irretrievably ruined by water, 
 and on the third — ah me ! there was a cruel spot. 
 
 " It don't look like much, that 's a fact," said Dick rue- 
 fully. . . . "But it's the best we could do. . . . Take 
 'em. Old Man, and put 'em in his stocking, and tell him — 
 tell him, you know — hold me. Old Man" — The Old 
 Man caught at his sinking figure. " Tell him," said Dick, 
 with a weak little laugh, — " tell him Sandy Glaus has 
 come." 
 
 And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, 
 with one arm hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Glaus 
 came to Simpson's Bar and fell fainting on the first thresh- 
 old. The Ghristmas dawn came slowly after, touching the 
 remoter peaks with the rosy warmth of ineffable love. And 
 it looked so tenderly on Simpson's Bar that the whole moun- 
 tain, as if caught in a generous action, blushed to the skie? 
 
MES. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 PART I. — WEST 
 
 The snn was rising in the foothills. But for an hour 
 the black mass of Sierra eastward of Angel's had been out- 
 lined with fire, and the conventional morning had come 
 two hours before with the down coach from Placerville. 
 The dry, cold, dewless California night still lingered in the 
 long canons and folded skirts of Table Mountain. Even 
 on the mountain road the air was still sharp, and that 
 urgent necessity for something to keep out the chill, which 
 sent the barkeeper sleepily among his bottles and wine- 
 glasses at the station, obtained all along the road. 
 
 Perhaps it might be said that the first stir of life was in 
 the bar-rooms. A few birds twittered in the sycamores at 
 the roadside, but long before that glasses had clicked and 
 bottles gurgled in the saloon of the Mansion House. This 
 was still lit by a dissipated looking hanging-lamp, which 
 was evidently the worse for having been up all night, and 
 bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveler of Angel's, 
 who even then sputtered and flickered in his socket in an 
 armchair below it, — a resemblance so plain that when the 
 first level sunbeam pierced the window-pane, the barkeeper, 
 moved by a sentiment of consistency and compassion, put 
 them both out together. 
 
 Then the sun came up haughtily. When it had passed 
 the eastern ridge it began, after its habit, to lord it over 
 Angel's, sending the thermometer up twenty degrees iii as 
 many minutes, driving the mules to the sparse shade of 
 corrals and fences, making the red dust incandescent, and 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 85 
 
 renewing its old imperious aggression on the spiked bosses 
 of the convex shield of pines that defended Table Mountain. 
 Thither by nine o'clock all coolness had retreated, and the 
 " outsides " of the up stage plunged their hot faces in its 
 aromatic shadows as in water. 
 
 It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam coach 
 to whip up his horses and enter Angel's at that remarkable 
 pace which the woodcuts in the hotel bar-room represented 
 tO' credulous humanity as the usual rate of speed of that 
 conveyance. At such times the habitual expression of dis- 
 dainful reticence and lazy official severity which he wore on 
 the box became intensified as the loungers gathered about 
 the vehicle, and only the boldest ventured to address him. 
 It was the Hon. Judge Beeswiuger, Member of Assembly, 
 who to-day presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength oi 
 his official position. 
 
 " Any political news from below. Bill ? " he asked, as the 
 latter slowly descended from his lofty perch, without, how' 
 ever, any perceptible coming down of mien or manner. 
 
 " Not much," said Bill, with deliberate gravity. " The 
 President o' the United States hez n't bin hisself sens you 
 refoosed that seat in the Cabinet. The ginral feelin' in 
 perlitical circles is one o' regret." 
 
 Irony, even of this outrageous quality, was too common 
 in Angel's to excite either a smile or a frown. Bill slowly 
 entered the bar-room during a dry, dead silence, in which 
 only a faint spirit of emulation survived. 
 
 " Ye did n't bring up that agint o' Eothschild's this 
 trip?" asked the barkeeper slowly, by way of vague con- 
 tribution to the prevailing tone of conversation. 
 
 " No," responded Bill, with thoughtful exactitude. " Ha 
 said he could n't look inter that claim o' Johnson's without 
 first consultin' the Bank o' England." 
 
 The Mr. Johnson here alluded to being present as the 
 faded reveler the barkeeper had lately put out, and as the 
 
86 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 alleged claim notoriously possessed no attractions whatevei 
 to capitalists, expectation naturally looked to him for some 
 response to this evident challenge. He did so by simply 
 stating that he would "take sugar" in his, and by walking 
 unsteadily towards the bar, as if accepting a festive invita- 
 tion. To the credit of Bill be it recorded that he did not 
 attempt to correct the mistake, but gravely touched glasses 
 with him, and after saying "Here's another nail in your 
 coffin," — a cheerful sentiment, to which " And the hair all 
 off your head " was playfully added by the others, — he 
 threw oif his liquor with a single dexterous movement of 
 head and elbow, and stood refreshed. 
 
 " Hello, old major ! " said Bill, suddenly setting down 
 his glass. " Are you there ? " 
 
 It was a boy, who, becoming bashfully conscious that this 
 epithet was addressed to him, retreated sideways to the door- 
 way, where he stood beating his hat against the doorpost 
 with an assumption of indifi'erence that his downcast but 
 mirthful dark eyes and reddening cheek scarcely bore out. 
 Perhaps it was owing to his size, perhaps it was to a certain 
 cherubic outline of face and figure, perhaps to a peculiar 
 trustfulness of expression, that he did not look half his age, 
 ■flrhich was really fourteen. 
 
 Everybody in Angel's knew the boy. Either under the 
 venerable title bestowed by Bill, or as " Tom Islington," 
 after his adopted father, his was a familiar presence in the 
 settlement, and the theme of much local criticism and com- 
 ment. His waywardness, indolence, and unaccountable ami- 
 ability — a quality at once suspicious and gratuitous in a 
 pioneer community like Angel's — had often been the sub- 
 ject of fierce discussion. A large and reputable majority 
 believed him destined for the gallows ; a minority not quite 
 so reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling them- 
 selves much about his future; to one or two the evil pre- 
 dictions of the majority possessed neither novelty nor terror. 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 87 
 
 " Anything for me, Bill ? " asked the hoy half mechani- 
 cally, with the air of repeating some jocular formulary per- 
 fectly understood by Bill. 
 
 "Anythin' for you!" echoed Bill, with an overacted 
 severity equally well understood by Tommy, — " anythin' 
 for you ? No ! And it 's my opinion there won't be any- 
 thin' for you ez long ez you hang around bar-rooms and spend 
 your valooable time with loafers and bummers. Git ! " 
 
 The reproof was accompanied by a suitable exaggeration 
 of gesture (Bill had seized a decanter), before which the 
 boy retreated still good-humoredly. Bill followed him to 
 the door. " Dern my skin, if he hez n't gone off with that 
 bummer Johnson," he added, as he looked down the road. 
 
 " What 's he expectin', Bill ? " asked the barkeeper. 
 
 " A letter from his aunt. Reckon he '11 hev to take it 
 out in expectin'. Likely they 're glad to get shut o' him." 
 
 " He 'a leadin' a shiftless, idle life here," interposed the 
 Member of Assembly. 
 
 "Well," said Bill, who never allowed any one but him- 
 self to abuse his protege, " seein' he ain't expectin' no offis 
 from the hands of an enlightened constitooency, it i,? rayther 
 a shiftless life." After delivering this Parthian arrow with 
 a gratuitous twanging of the bow to indicate its offensive 
 personality. Bill winked at the barkeeper, slowly resumed a 
 pair of immense, bulgy buckskin gloves, which gave his fin- 
 gers the appearance of being painfully sore and bandaged, 
 strode to the door without looking at anybody, called out, 
 " All aboard," with a perfunctory air of supreme indiffer- 
 ence whether the invitation was heeded, remounted his box, 
 and drove stolidly away. 
 
 Perhaps it was well that he did so, for the conversation 
 at once assumed a disrespectful attitude toward Tom and his 
 relatives. It was more than intimated that Tom's alleged 
 aunt was none other than Tom's real mother, while it was 
 
88 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 also asserted that Tom's alleged uncle did not himself pai. 
 ticipate in this intimate relationship to the boy to an extent 
 which the fastidious taste of Angel's deemed moral and 
 necessary. Popular opinion also Believed that Islington, 
 the adopted father, who received a certain stipend ostensibly 
 for the boy's support, retained it as a reward for his reti- 
 cence regarding these facts. " He ain't ruinin' hisself by 
 wastin' it on Tom," sa'id the' barkeeper, who possibly pos,- 
 sessed positive knowledge of much of Islington's disburse- 
 ments. But at this point exhausted nature languished 
 among some of the debaters, and he turned from the fri- 
 volity of conversation to his severer professional duties. 
 
 It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude of didac- 
 tic propriety was not further excited by the subsequent con- 
 duct of his prote'ge. For by this time Tom,.half supporting 
 the unstable Johnson, who developed a tendency to occa- 
 sionally dash across the glaring road, but checked himself 
 midway each time, reached the corral which adjoined the 
 Mansion House. At its farther extremity was a pump and 
 horse-trough. Here, without a word being spoken, but evi- 
 dently in obedience to some habitual custom, Tom led his 
 companion. With the boy's assistance, Johnson removed 
 his coat and neckcloth,' turned back the collar of his shirt, 
 and gravely placed his head beneath the pump-spout. 
 With equal gravity and deliberation, Tom took his place at 
 the handle. For a few moments only the splashing of 
 water and regular strokes of the pump broke the solemnly 
 ludicrous silence. Then there was a pause in which John- 
 son put his hands to his dripping head, felt it critically as 
 if it belonged to somebody else, and raised his eyes to his 
 companion. "That ought to fetch it," said Tom, in answer 
 to the look. " Ef it don't," replied Johnson doggedly, 
 with an air of relieving himself of all further responsibility 
 in the matter, " it 's got to, thet 's all ! " 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 89 
 
 If " it " referred to some change in the physiognomy of 
 Johnson, "it" had probably been "fetched" by the pro- 
 cess just indicated. The head that went under the pump 
 was large, and clothed with bushy, uncertain-colored hair ; 
 the face was flushed, puffy, and expressionless, the eyes in- 
 jected and full. The head that came out from under the 
 pump was of smaller size and different shape, the hair 
 straight, dark, and sleek, the face pale and hollow-cheeked, 
 the eyes bright and restless. In the haggard, nervous as- 
 cetic that rose from the horse-trough there was very little 
 trace of the Bacchus that had bowed there a moment before. 
 Familiar as Tom must have been with the spectacle, he 
 could not help looking inquiringly at the trough, as if ex- 
 pecting to see some traces of the previous Johnson in its 
 shallow depths. 
 
 A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye — a mere 
 rlusty, raveled fringe of the green mantle that swept the 
 high shoulders of Table Mountain — lapped the edge of 
 the corral. The silent pair were quick to avail themselves 
 of even its scant shelter from the overpowering sun. They 
 had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking 
 quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up, and 
 turned to his companion with an interrogative " Eh ? " 
 
 " I did n't speak," said Tommy quietly. 
 
 " Who said you spoke ? " said Johnson, with a quick look 
 of cunning. " In course you did n't speak, and I did n't speak 
 neither. Nobody spoke. Wot makes you think you spoke ? " 
 he continued, peering curiously into Tommy's eyes. 
 
 The smile which habitually shone there quickly vanished 
 as the boy stepped quietly to his companion's side, and took 
 his arm -without a word. 
 
 " In course you did n't speak. Tommy," said Johnson 
 deprecatingly. " You ain't a boy to go for to play an ole 
 soaker like me. That 's wot I like you for. Thet 's wot I 
 seed in you from the first. I sez, 'Thet 'ere boy ain't 
 
90 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 going to play you, Johnson ! You can go your whole pile 
 on him, when you can't trust even a barkeep'.' Thet 's 
 wot I said. Eh ? " 
 
 This time Tommy prudently took no notice of the inter- 
 rogation, and Johnson went on : " Ef I M'as to ask you 
 another question, you would n't go to play me neither — 
 would you, Tommy ? " 
 
 " No," said the boy. 
 
 "Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, without 
 heeding the reply, but with a growing anxiety of eye and a 
 nervous twitching of his lips, — " ef I was to ask you, fur 
 instance, ef that was a jackass rabbit that jest passed, — 
 eh ? — you 'd say it was or was not, ez the case may be. 
 You would n't play the ole man on thet ? " 
 
 " No," said Tommy quietly, " it was a jackass rabbit." 
 
 " Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, " ef it wore, 
 say, fur instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you 
 would n't play me, and say it did, onless " — he added, 
 with intensified cunning — " onless it did ? " 
 
 "No," said Tommy, "of course I wouldn't; but then, 
 you see, it did." 
 
 " It did ? " 
 
 " It did ! " repeated Tommy stoutly ; " a green hat with 
 yellow ribbons — and — and — a red rosette." 
 
 " I did n't get to see the ros-ette," said Johnson, with 
 slow and conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident 
 sense of relief ; " but that ain't sayin' it wa'n't there, you 
 know. Eh ? " 
 
 Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There were 
 great beads of perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead, and 
 or. the ends of his lank hair; the hand which tv^itched 
 spasmodically in his was cold and clammy, the other, which 
 was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as if 
 attached to some deranged mechanism. Without any 
 apparent concern in these phenomena, Tommy halted, and. 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 91 
 
 seating himself on a log, motioned his companion to a place 
 beside him. Johnson obeyed without a word. Slight as 
 was the act, perhaps no other incident of their singular com- 
 panionship indicated as completely the dominance of this 
 careless, half-effeminate, but self-possessed boy over this dog- 
 gedly self-willed, abnormally excited man. 
 
 " It ain't the square thing," said Johnson, after a pause, 
 with a laugh that was neither mirthful nor musical, and 
 frightened away a lizard that had been regarding the pair 
 with breathless suspense, — " it ain't the square thing for 
 jackass rabbits to wear hats. Tommy, — is it, eh ? " 
 
 " Well," said Tommy, with unmoved composure, " some- 
 times they do and sometimes they don't. Animals are 
 mighty queer." And here Tommy went off in an animated, 
 but, I regret to say, utterly untruthful and untrustworthy 
 account of the habits of California fauna, until he was 
 interrupted by Johnson. 
 
 " And snakes, eh, Tommy ? " said the man, with an 
 abstracted air, gazing intently on the ground before him. 
 
 " And snakes," said Tommy, " but they don't bite, — at 
 least not that kind you see. There ! — don't move. Uncle 
 Ben, don't move ; they 're gone now. And it 's about 
 time you took your dose." 
 
 Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon the log, 
 but Tommy had as quickly caught his arm with one hand 
 while he drew a bottle from his pocket with the other. 
 Johnson paused and eyed the bottle. " Ef you say so, my 
 boy," he faltered, as his fingers closed nervously around 
 it ; " say ' when,' then." He raised the bottle to his lips 
 and took a long draught, the boy regarding him critically. 
 " When," said Tommy suddenly. Johnson started, flushed, 
 and returned the bottle quickly. But the color that had 
 risen to his cheek stayed there, his eye grew less restless, 
 and as they moved away again the hand that rested on 
 Tommy's shoulder was steadier. 
 
92 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain, — a 
 wandering trail through a tangled solitude that might have 
 seemed virgin and unbroken but for a few oyster-cans, 
 yeast-powder tins, and empty bottles that had been appar- 
 ently stranded by the " first low wash " of pioneer waves. 
 On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few tnfts 
 cf gray hair caught from a passing grizzly, but in strange 
 iuxtaposition at its foot lay an empty bottle of incomparable 
 bitters, — the chef d' oeuvre of a hygienic civilization, and 
 blazoned with the arms of an all-healing republic. The 
 head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had contained 
 tobacco, which was still brightly placarded with the high- 
 colored efiigy of a popular danseuse. And a little beyond 
 this the soil was broken and fissured, there was a confused 
 mass of roughly hewn timber, a straggling line of sluicing, 
 a heap of gravel and dirt, a rude cabin, and the claim of 
 Johnson. 
 
 Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from rain and 
 cold, the cabin possessed but little advantage over the sim- 
 ple savagery of surrounding nature. It had all the prac- 
 tical directness of the habitation of some animal, without 
 its comfort or picturesque quality ; the very birds that 
 haunted it for food must have felt their own superiority as 
 architects. It was inconceivably dirty, even with its scant 
 capacity for accretion ; it was singularly stale, even in its 
 newness and freshness of material. Unspeakably dreary as 
 it was in shadow, the sunlight vnsited it in a blind, aching, 
 purposeless way, as if despairing of mellowing its outlines 
 or of even tanning it into color. 
 
 The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals of sobriety 
 was represented by half a dozen rude openings in the 
 mountain-side, with the heaped-up dt^bris of rock and 
 gravel before the mouth of each. They gave very little 
 evidence of engineering skill or constructive purpose, or 
 indeed showed anything but the vague, successively aban- 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 93 
 
 doned essays of their projector. To-day they served 
 another purpose, for as the sun had heated the little cabin, 
 almost to the point of combustion, curling up the long dry 
 shingles, and starting aromatic tears from the green pine 
 beams, Tommy led Johnson into one of the larger openings, 
 and with a sense of satisfaction threw himself panting upon 
 its rocky floor. Here and there the grateful dampness was 
 condensed in quiet pools of water, or in a monotonous and 
 soothing drip from the rocks above. Without lay the star- 
 ing sunlight — colorless, clarified, intense. 
 
 For a few moments they lay resting on their elbows in 
 blissful contemplation of the heat they had escaped. " Wot 
 do you say," said Johnson slowly, without looking at his 
 companion, but abstractedly addressing himself to the land- 
 scape beyond, — " wot do you say to two straight games 
 fur one thousand dollars ? " 
 
 " Make it five thousand," replied Tommy reflectively 
 also to the landscape, " and I 'm in." 
 
 " Wot do I owe you now ? " said Johnson, after a 
 lengthened silence. 
 
 " One hundred and seventy-five thousand two hundred 
 and fifty dollars," replied Tommy with business-like 
 gravity. 
 
 " Well," said Johnson after a deliberation commensurate 
 with the magnitude of the transaction, " ef you win, call it 
 a hundred and eighty thousand, round. War 's the 
 keerds ? " 
 
 They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a rock above 
 his head. They were greasy and worn with service. 
 Johnson dealt, albeit his right hand was still uncertain, — 
 hovering, after dropping the cards, aimlessly about Tommy, 
 and being only recalled by a strong nervous effort. Yet, 
 notwithstanding this incapacity for even honest manipula- 
 tion, Mr. Johnson covertly turned a knave from the bottom 
 of the pack with such shameless inefficiency and gratuitous 
 
94 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 unskillfulness, that even Tommy was obliged to cough and 
 look elsewhere to hide his embarrassment. Possibly for 
 this reason the young gentleman was himself constrained, 
 by way of correction, to add a valuable card to his own 
 hand, over and above the number he legitimately held. 
 
 Nevertheless the game was unexciting and dragged list- 
 lessly. Johnson won. He recorded the fact and the 
 amount with a stub of pencil and shaking fingers in wander- 
 ing hieroglyphics all over a, pocket diary. Then there was 
 a long pause, when Johnson slowly drew something from 
 his pocket and held it up before his companion. It was 
 apparently a dull red stone. 
 
 "Ef," said Johnson slowly, with his old look of simple 
 cunning, — " ef you happened to pick up sich a rock ez 
 that. Tommy, what might you say it was ? " 
 
 " Don't know," said Tommy. 
 
 " Might n't you say," continued Johnson cautiously, 
 " that it was gold or silver ? " 
 
 "Neither," said Tommy promptly. 
 
 " Might n't you say it was quicksilver ? Might n't you 
 say that ef thar was a friend o' yourn ez knew war to go 
 and turn out ten ton of it a day, and every ton worth two 
 thousand dollars, that he had a soft thing, a very soft thing, 
 — allovvin'. Tommy, that you used sich language, which 
 you don't ? " 
 
 "But," said the boy, coming to the point with great 
 directness, " do you know where to get it ? have you struck 
 it. Uncle Ben ? " 
 
 Johnson looked carefully round. "I hev. Tommy. 
 Listen. I know whar thar 's cartloads of it. But thar's 
 only one other specimen — the mate to this yer — thet 's 
 above ground, and thet's in 'Frisco. Thar's an agint 
 coniin' up in a day or two to look into it. I sent for him 
 Eh ? " 
 
 His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on Tommy's 
 
MRS. SKAGGSS HUSBANDS 95 
 
 face now, but the boy showed neither surprise noi interest. 
 Least of all did he betray any recollection of Bill's ironical 
 and gratuitous corroboration of this part of the story. 
 
 " Nobody knows it," continued Johnson in a nervous 
 whisper, — " nobody knows it but you and the agint in 
 'Frisco. The boys workin' round yar passes by and sees 
 the old man grubbin' away, and no signs o' color, not even 
 rotten quartz ; the boys loafin' round the Mansion House 
 sees the old man lyin' round free in bar-rooms, and they 
 laughs and sez, ' Played out,' and spects nothin'. Maybe 
 ye think they spects suthin' now, eh ? " queried Johnson 
 suddenly, with a sharp look of suspicion. 
 
 Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone at a 
 passing rabbit, biit did not reply. 
 
 " When I fust set eyes on you. Tommy," continued 
 Johnson, apparently reassured, " the fust day you kem and 
 pumped for me, an entire stranger, and hevin' no call to do 
 it, I sez, ' Johnson, Johnson,' sez I, ' yer 's a boy you kin 
 trust. Yer 's a boy that won't play you ; yer 's a chap 
 that 's white and square,' — white and square. Tommy : 
 them 's the very words I used." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and then went on in a confiden- 
 tial whisper, " ' You want capital, Johnson,' sez I, ' to 
 develop your resources, and you want a pardner. Capital 
 you can send for, but your pardner, Johnson, — your pard- 
 ner is right yer. And his name, it is Tommy Islington ' 
 Them 's the very words I used." 
 
 He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon his 
 knees. " It 's six months ago sens I made you my pardner. 
 Thar ain't a lick I 've struck sens then, Tommy, thar ain't 
 a han'ful o' yearth I 've washed, thar ain't a shovelful o' 
 rook I 've turned over, but I tho't o' you. ' Share, and 
 share alike,' sez I. When I wrote to my agint, I wrote 
 ekal for my pardner, Tommy Islington, he hevin' no call 
 to know ef the same was man or boy." 
 
96 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have 
 laid his hand caressingly upon him, but even in his mani- 
 fest affection there was a singular element of awed restraint 
 and even fear, — a suggestion of something withheld even 
 his fullest confidences, a hopeless perception of some vague 
 barrier that never could be surmounted. He may have 
 been at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which 
 Tommy raised to his, there was thorough intellectual ap- 
 preciation, critical good-humor, even feminine softness, but 
 nothing more. His nervousness somewhat heightened by 
 his embarrassment, he went on with an attempt at calmness 
 which his twitching white lips and unsteady fingers made 
 pathetically grotesque. " Thar 's a bill o' sale in my bunk, 
 made out accordin' to law, of an ekal ondivided half of the 
 claim, and the consideration is two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand dollars — gambling debts — gambling debts from me 
 to you, Tommy, you understand?" — nothing could ex- 
 ceed the intense cunning of his eye at this moment — " and 
 then thar 's a will." 
 
 " A will ? " said Tommy in amused surprise. 
 Johnson looked frightened. 
 
 " Eh ? " he said hurriedly, " wot will ? Who said any- 
 thin' 'bout a will. Tommy ? " 
 
 " Nobody," replied Tommy with unblushing calm. 
 Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead, viTung 
 the damp ends of his hair with his fingers, and went on : 
 " Times when I 'm took bad ez I was to-day, the boys about 
 yer sez — you sez, maybe. Tommy — it 's whiskey. It ain't, 
 Tommy. It 'spizen — quicksilver pizen. That 's what 's the 
 matter with me. I 'm salivated ! Salivated with merkery. 
 
 " I 've heerd o' it before," continued Johnson, appealing 
 to the boy, "and ez a boy o' permiskus reading, I reckon 
 you hev too. Them men as works in cinnabar sooner or 
 later gets salivated. It's bound to fetch 'em some time. 
 Salivated by merkery." 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 97 
 
 " What are you goin' to do for it ? " asked Tommy. 
 
 "When the'agint comes up, and I begins to realize on 
 this yer mine," said Johnson contemplatively, " I goes to 
 New York. I sez to the barkeep' o' the hotel, ' Show me 
 the biggest doctor here.' He shows me. I sez to him, 
 * Salivated by merkery — a year's standin' — how much ? ' 
 He sez, ' Five thousand dollars, and take two o' these pills 
 at bedtime, and an ekil number o' powders at meals, and 
 come back in a week.' And I goes back in a week, cured, 
 and signs a certifikit to that effect." 
 
 Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's eye, he 
 went on. 
 
 " So I gets cured. I goes to the barkeep', and I sez, 
 ' Show me the biggest, fashionblest house thet 's for sale 
 yer.' And he sez, ' The biggest nat'rally b'longs to John 
 Jacob Astor.' And I sez, ' Show him,' and he show* him. 
 And I sez, ' Wot might you ask for this yer house ? ' And 
 he looks at me scornful, and sez, 'Go 'way, old man; you 
 must be sick.' And I fetches him one over the left eye 
 and he apologizes, and I gives him his own price for the 
 house. I stocks that house with mahogany furniture and 
 pervisions, and thar we lives, — you and me, Tommy, you 
 and me ! " 
 
 The sun no longer shone upon the hillside. The sha- 
 dows of the pines were beginning to creep over Johnson's 
 claim, and the air within the cavern was growing chill. In 
 the gathering darkness his eyes shone brightly as he went 
 on : " Then thar comes a day when we gives a big spread. 
 We invites gov'ners, members o' Congress, gentlemen o' 
 fashion, and the like. And among ^em I invites a Man 
 as holds his head very high, a Man I once knew ; but he 
 does n't know I knows him, and he does n't remember me. 
 And he comes and he sits opposite me, and I watches him. 
 And he 's very airy, this Man, and very chipper, and he 
 wipes his mouth with a white hankercher, and he smiles, 
 
98 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 and he ketches my eye. And he sez, 'A glass o' wine 
 with you, Mr. Johnson ; ' and he fills his glass and I fills 
 mine, and we rises. And I heaves that wine, glass and 
 all, right into his damned grinnin' face. And he jumps 
 for me — for he is very game this Man, very game — but 
 some on 'em grabs him, and he sez, ' Who be you ? ' And 
 I sez, ' Skaggs ! Damn you, Skaggs ! Look at me ! Gimme 
 back my wife and child, gimme back the money you stole, 
 gimme back the good name you took away, gimme back the 
 health you ruined, gimme back the last twelve years ! Give 
 'em to me, damn you, quick, before I cuts your heart out ! ' 
 And naterally, Tommy, he can't do it. And so I cuts his 
 heart out, my boy ; I cuts his heart out." 
 
 The purely animal fury of his eye suddenly changed 
 again to cunning. "You think they hangs me for it, 
 Tommy, but they don't. Not much. Tommy. I goes to 
 the biggest lawyer there, and I says to him, ' Salivated by 
 merkery — you hear me — salivated by merkery.' And he 
 winks at me, and he goes to the judge, and he sez, ' This 
 yer unfortnet man is n't responsible — he 's been salivated 
 by merkery.' And he brings witnesses ; you comes. Tommy, 
 and you sez ez how you 've seen me took bad afore ; and 
 the doctor, he comes, and he sez as how he 's seen me 
 frightful ; and the jury, without leavin' their seats, brings 
 in a verdict o' justifiable insanity, — salivated by merkery." 
 
 In the excitement of his climax he had risen to his feet, 
 but would have fallen had not Tommy caught him and led 
 him into the open air. In this sharper light there was 
 an odd change visible in his yellow-white face, — a change 
 which caused Tommy to hurriedly support him, half lead- 
 ing, half dragging him toward the little cabin. "When they 
 had reached it. Tommy placed him on a rude " bunk," or 
 shelf, and stood for a moment in anxious contemplation of 
 the tremor-stricken man before him. Then he said rapidly, 
 " Listen, Uncle Ben. I 'm goin' to town — to town, you 
 
MKS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 99 
 
 understand — for the doctor. You 're not to get up or 
 move on any account until I return. Do you hear ? " 
 Johnson nodded violently. " I '11 be back in two hours." 
 In another moment he was gone. 
 
 For an hour Johnson kept his word. Then he suddenly 
 sat up, and began to gaze fixedly at a corner of the cabin. 
 From gazing at it he began to smile, from smiling at it he 
 began to talk, from talking at it he began to scream, from 
 screaming he passed to cursing and sobbing wildly. Then 
 he lay quiet again. 
 
 He was so still that to merely human eyes he might 
 have seemed asleep or dead. But a squirrel, that, emboldr 
 ened by the stillness, had entered from the roof, stopped 
 short upon a beam above the bunk, for he saw that the man's 
 foot was slowly and cautiously moving towards the floor, 
 and that the man's eyes were as intent and watchful as his 
 own. Presently, still without a sound, both feet were upon 
 the floor. And then the bunk creaked, and the squirrel 
 whisked into the eaves of the roof. When he peered forth 
 again, everything was quiet, and the man was gone. 
 
 An hour later two muleteers on the Placerville Road 
 passed a man with disheveled hair, glaring, bloodshot eyes, 
 and clothes torn with bramble and stained with the red 
 dust of the mountain. They pursued him, when he turned 
 fiercely on the foremost, wrested a pistol from his grasp, 
 and broke away. Later still, when the sun had dropped 
 behind Payne's Ridge, the underbrush on Deadwood Slope 
 crackled with a stealthy but continuous tread. It must 
 have been an animal whose dimly outlined bulk, in the 
 .gathering darkness, showed here and there in vague but 
 incessant motion ; it could be nothing but an animal whose 
 utterance was at once so incoherent, monotonous, and un- 
 remitting. Yet, when the sound came nearer, and the 
 chaparral was parted, it seemed to be a man, and that man 
 Johnson. 
 
100 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 Above the baying of phantasmal hounds that pressed him 
 hard and drove him on, with never rest or mercy ; above 
 the lashing of a spectral virhip that curled about his limbs, 
 sang in his ears, and continually stung him forward ; above 
 the outcries of the unclean shapes that thronged about 
 him, — he could still distinguish one real sound, the rush 
 and sweep of hurrying waters. The Stanislaus Eiver ! 
 A thousand feet below him drove its yellowing current. 
 Through all the vacillations of his unseated mind he had 
 clung to one idea — to reach the river, to lave ih it, to 
 swim it if need be, but to put it forever between him and 
 the harrying shapes, to drown forever in its turbid depths 
 the thronging spectres, to wash away in its yellow flood all 
 stains and color of the past. And now he was leaping from 
 boulder to boulder, from blackened stump to stump, from 
 gnarled bush to bush, caught for a moment and withheld by 
 clinging vines, or plunging downward into dusty hollows, 
 until, rolling, dropping, sliding, and stumbling, he reached 
 the river-bank, whereon he fell, rose, staggered forward, and 
 fell again with outstretched arms upon a rock that breasted 
 the swift current. And there he lay as dead. 
 
 A few stars came out hesitatingly above Deadwood 
 Slope. A cold wind that had sprung up with the going 
 down of the sun fanned them into momentary brightness, 
 swept the heated flanks of the mountain, and rufBed the 
 river. Where the fallen man lay there was a sharp curve 
 in the stream, so that in the gathering shadows the rushing 
 water seemed to leap out of the darkness and to vanish 
 again. Decayed driftwood, trunks of trees, fragments of 
 broken sluicing — the wash and waste of many a mile — 
 swept into sight a moment, and were gone. All of decay, 
 wreck, and foulness gathered in the long circuit of mining- 
 camp and settlement, all the dregs and refuse of a crude 
 and wanton civilization, reappeared for an instant, and then 
 were hurried away in the darkness and lost. No wonder 
 
MRS. RKAars's HrsBAxns 101 
 
 that, as the wind ruffled the yellow waters, the waves 
 seemed to lift their unclean hands toward the rock whereon 
 the fallen man lay, as if eager to snatch him from it, too, 
 and hurry him toward the sea. 
 
 It was very still. In the clear air a horn blown a mile 
 away was heard distinctly. The jingling of a spur and a 
 laugh on the highway over Payne's E.idge sounded clearly 
 across the river. The rattling of harness and hoofs fore- 
 told for many minutes the approach of the "Wingdam coach, 
 that at last, with flashing lights, passed within a few feet 
 of the rock. Then for an hour all again was quiet. Pre- 
 sently the moon, round and full, lifted herself above the 
 serried ridge and looked down upon the river. At first the 
 bared peak of Deadwood Hill gleamed white and skull-like. 
 Then the shadows of Payne's Ridge cast on the slope 
 slowly sank away, leaving the unshapely stumps, the dusty 
 fissures, and clinging outcrop of Deadwood Slope to stand 
 out in black and silver. Still stealing softly downward, 
 the moonlight touched the bank and the rook, and then 
 glittered brightly on the river. The rock was bare and the 
 man was gone, but the river still hurried swiftly to the sea. 
 
 " Is there anything for me ? " asked Tommy Islington, 
 as, a week after, the stage drew up at the Mansion House, 
 and Bill slowly entered the bar-room. Bill did not reply, 
 but, turning to a stranger who had entered with him, indi- 
 cated with a jerk of his finger the boy. The stranger 
 turned with an air half of business, half of curiosity, and 
 looked critically at Tommy. " Is there anything for me ? " 
 repeated Tommy, a little confused at the silence and scru- 
 tiny. Bill ^valked deliberately to the bar, and, placing 
 his back against it, faced Tommy with a look of demure 
 enjoyment. 
 
 " Ef," he remarked slowly, — " ef a hundred thousand 
 dollars down and half a million in perspektive is enny 
 thing, Major, theee is ! " 
 
102 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 PART II. — EAST 
 
 It was characteristic of Angel's that the disappearance of 
 Johnson, and the fact that he had left his entire property to 
 Tommy, thrilled the community but slightly in comparison 
 with the astoundiog discovery that he had anything to leave. 
 The finding of a cinnabar lode at Angel's absorbed all col- 
 lateral facts or subsequent details. Prospectors from adjoin- 
 ing camps thronged the settlement ; the hillside for a mile 
 on either side of Johnson's claim was staked out and pre- 
 empted ; trade received a sudden stimulus ; and, in the 
 excited rhetoric of the " Weekly Kecord," " a new era had 
 broken upon Angel's." " On Thursday last," added that 
 paper, " over five hundred dollars were taken in over the 
 bar of the Mansion House." 
 
 Of the fate of Johnson there was little doubt. He had 
 been last seen lying on a boulder on the river-bank by out- 
 side passengers of the Wingdam night coach, and when Finn 
 of Robinson's Ferry admitted to have tired three shots frorii 
 a revolver at a dark object struggling in the water near the 
 ferry, which he " suspicioned " to be a bear, the question 
 seemed to be settled. Whatever might have been the falli- 
 bility of his judgment, of the accuracy of his aim there 
 could be no doubt. The general belief that Johnson, after 
 possessing himself of the muleteer's pistol, could have run 
 amuck gave a certain retributive justice to this story, which 
 rendered it acceptable to the camp. 
 
 It was also characteristic of Angel's that no feeling of 
 envy or opposition to the good fortune of Tommy Islington 
 prevailed there. That he was thoroughly cognizant, from 
 the first, of Johnson's discovery, that his attentions to him 
 were interested, calculating, and speculative, was, however, 
 the general belief of the majority, — a belief that, singu- 
 larly enough, awakened the first feelings of genuine respect 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 103 
 
 for Tommy ever shown by the camp. " He ain't no fool ; 
 Yuba Bill seed thet from the first," said the barkeeper. It 
 was Yuba Bill who applied for the guardianship of Tommy 
 after his accession to Johnson's claim, and on whose bonds 
 the richest men of Calaveras were represented. It was 
 Yuba Bill, also, when Tommy was sent East to finish his 
 education, who accompanied him to San Francisco, and, be- 
 fore parting with his charge on the steamer's deck, drew him 
 aside, and said, " Ef at eimy time you want enny money, 
 Tommy, over and 'bove your 'lowance, you kin write ; but 
 ef you '11 take my advice," he added, with a sudden huski- 
 ness mitigating the severity of his voice, " you '11 forget 
 every derned ole spavined, string-halted bummer, as you 
 ever met or knew at Angel's, — ev'ry one, Tommy, — ev'ry 
 one ! And so — boy — take care of yourself — and — and 
 God bless ye, and pertikerly d — n me for a first-class A 1 
 fool." It was Yuba Bill, also, after this speech, who glared 
 savagely around, walked down the crowded gang-plank with 
 a rigid and aggressive shoulder, picked a quarrel with his, 
 cabman, and, after bundling that functionary into his own 
 vehicle, took the reins himself, and drove furiously to hia 
 hotel. " It cost me," said Bill, recounting the occurrence 
 somewhat later at Angel's, — " it cost me a matter o' twenty 
 dollars afore the jedge the next mornin' ; but you kin bet 
 high thet I taught them 'Frisco chaps suthin' new about 
 drivin'. I did n't make it lively in Montgomery Street for 
 about ten minutes — oh no ! " 
 
 And so by degrees the two original locators of the great 
 Cinnabar Lode faded from the memory of Angel's, and 
 Calaveras knew them no more. In five years their vevy 
 names had been forgotten ; in seven the name of the town 
 was changed ; in ten the town itself was transported bodily 
 to the hillside, and the chimney of the Union Smelting 
 Works by night fiickered like a corpse-light over the site of 
 Johnson's cabin, and by day poisoned the pure spices of the, 
 
104 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 pines. Even the Mansion House was dismantled, and the 
 Wingdam stage deserted the highway for a shorter cut by 
 Quicksilver City. Only the bared crest of Deadwood Hill, 
 as of old, sharply cut the clear blue sky, and at its base, as of 
 old, the Stanislaus Eiver, unwearied and unresting, babbled 
 whispered, and hurried away to the sea. 
 
 A midsummer's day was breaking lazily on the Atlantic. 
 There was not wind enough to move the vapors in the 
 foggy offing, but when the vague distance heaved against a 
 violet sky there were dull red streaks that, growing brighter, 
 presently painted out the stars. Soon the brown rocks of 
 Greyport appeared faintly suffused, and then the whole 
 ashen line of dead coast was kindled, and the lighthouse 
 beacons went out one by one. And then a hundred sail, 
 before invisible, started out of tlie vapory horizon, and 
 pressed toward the shore. It was morning, indeed, and 
 some of the best society in Greyport, having been up all 
 night, were thinking it was time to go to bed. 
 
 For as the sky flashed brighter it fired the clustering red 
 roofs of a picturesque house by the sands that had all that 
 night, from open lattice and illuminated balcony, given 
 light and music to the shore. It glittered on the broad 
 crystal spaces of a great conservatory that looked upon an 
 exquisite lawn, where all night long the blended odors of 
 sea and shore had swooned under the summer moon. But 
 it wrought confusion among the colored lamps on the long 
 veranda, and startled a group of ladies and gentlemen who 
 had stepped from the drawing-room window to gaze upon 
 it. It was so searching and sincere in its way, that, as the 
 carriage of the fairest Miss Gillyflower rolled away, that 
 peerless young woman, catching sight of her face in the 
 oval mirror, instantly pulled down the blinds, and, nest- 
 ling the whitest shoulders in Greyport against the crimson 
 cushions, went to sleep. 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 105 
 
 " How haggard everybody is ! Eose, dear, you look 
 almost intellectual," said Blanche Masterman. 
 
 " I hope not," said Rose simply. " Sunrises are very 
 trying. Look how that pink regularly puts out Mrs. 
 Brown-Robinson, hair and all ! " 
 
 " The angels," said the Count de Nugat, with a polite 
 gesture toward the sky, "must have find these celestial 
 combinations very bad for the toilette." 
 
 " They 're safe in white, — except when they sit for 
 their pictures in Venice," said Blanche. " How fresh Mr. 
 Islington looks ! It 's really uncomplimentary to us." 
 
 " I suppose the sun recognizes in me no rival," said the 
 young man demurely. " But," he added, " I have lived 
 much in the open air and require very little sleep." 
 
 " How delightful ! " said Mrs. Brown-Robinson in a low, 
 enthusiastic voice, and a manner that held the glowing 
 sentiment of sixteen and the practical experiences of thirty- 
 two in dangerous combination; — "how perfectly delightful ! 
 What sunrises you must have seen, and in such wild, 
 romantic places ! How I envy you ! My nephew was a 
 classmate of yours, and has often repeated to me those 
 charming stories you tell of your adventures. Won't you 
 tell some now ? Do ! How you must tire of us and this 
 artificial life here, so frightfully artificial, you know " (in a 
 confidential whisper) ; " and then to think of the days 
 when you roamed the great West with the Indians, and 
 the bisons, and the grizzly bears ! Of course, you have 
 seen grizzly bea^s and bisons ? " 
 
 " Of course he has, dear," said Blanche a little pettishly, 
 throwing a cloak over her shoulders, and seizing her chaperon 
 by the arm ; " his earliest infancy was soothed by bisons, 
 and he proudly points to the grizzly bear as the playmate 
 of his youth. Come with me, and I '11 tell you all about it. 
 How good it is of you," she added, sotto voce, to Islington 
 as he stood by the carriage, — " how perfectly good it is of 
 
106 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 you to be like those animals you tell us of, and not know 
 your full power. Think, with your experiences and our 
 credulity, what stories you might tell ! And you are going 
 to walk ? Good-night, then." A slim, gloved hand was 
 frankly extended from the window, and the next moment 
 the carriage rolled away. 
 
 " Is n't Islington throwing away a chance there ? " said 
 Captain Merwin on the veranda. 
 
 " Perhaps he could n't stand my lovely aunt's super- 
 added presence. But then, he 's the guest of Blanche's 
 father, and I daresay they see enough of each other as 
 it is." 
 
 " But is n't it a rather dangerous situation ? " 
 
 " For him, perhaps ; although he 's awfully old, and very 
 queer. For her, with an experience that takes in all the 
 available men in both hemispheres, ending with Nugat 
 over there, I should say a man more or less would n't alfect 
 jtier much, anyway. Of course," he laughed, " these are 
 the accents of bitterness. But that was last year." 
 
 Perhaps Islington did not overhear the speaker ; perhaps, 
 if he did, the criticism was not new. He turned carelessly 
 away, and sauntered out on the road to the sea. Thence 
 he strolled along the sands toward the cliffs, where, meeting 
 an impediment in the shape of a garden wall, he leaped it 
 with a certain agile, boyish ease and experience, and struck 
 across an open lawn toward the rocks again. The best 
 society of Greyport were not early risers, and the spectacle 
 of a trespasser in an evening dress excited only the criticism 
 of grooms hanging about the stables, or cleanly housemaids 
 on the broad verandas that in Greyport architecture dutifully 
 gave upon the sea. Only once, as he entered the boundaries 
 of Cliffwood Lodge, the famous seat of Benwyck Masterman, 
 was he aware of suspicious scrutiny ; but a slouching figure 
 that vanished quickly in the lodge offered no opposition to 
 his progress. Avoiding the pathway to the lodge, Islington 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 107 
 
 kept along the rocks until, reaching a little promontory and 
 rustic pavilion, he sat down and gazed upon the sea. 
 
 And presently an infinite peace stole upon him. Except 
 where the waves lapped lazily the crags below, the vast 
 expanse beyond seemed unbroken by ripple, heaving only 
 in broad ponderable sheets, and rhythmically, as if still in 
 sleep. The air was filled with a luminous haze that caught 
 and held the direct sunbeams. In the deep calm that lay 
 upon the sea, it seemed to Islington that all the tenderness 
 of culture, magic of wealth, and spell of refinement that for 
 years had wrought upon that favored shore had extended 
 its gracious influence even here. What a pampered and 
 caressed old ocean it was ; cajoled, flattered, and feted where 
 it lay ! An odd recollection of the turbid Stanislaus hurry- 
 ing by the ascetic pines, of the grim outlines of Deadwood 
 Hill, swam before his eyes, and made the yellow green of 
 the velvet lawn and graceful foliage seem almost tropical by 
 contrast. And, looking up, a few yards distant he beheld a 
 tall slip of a girl gazing upon the sea — Blanche Masterman. 
 
 She had plucked somewhere a large fan-shaped leaf, 
 which she held parasol-wise, shading the blonde masses of 
 her hair, and hiding her gray eyes. She had changed her 
 festal, dress, with its amplitude of flounce and train, for a 
 closely fitting, half-antique habit whose scant outlines would 
 have been trying to limbs less shapely, but which prettily 
 accented the graceful curves and sweeping lines of this 
 Greyport goddess. As Islington rose, she came toward 
 him with a frankly outstretched hand and unconstrained 
 manner. Had she observed him first ? I don't know. 
 
 They sat down together on a rustic seat. Miss Blanche 
 facing the sea and shading her eyes with the leaf. 
 
 " I don't really know how long I have been sitting here," 
 said Islington, "or whether I have not been. actually asleep 
 and dreaming, It seemed too lovely a morning to go to 
 bed. But you ? " 
 
108 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 From behind the leaf, it appeared that Miss Blanche, on 
 retiring, had been pursued by a hideous four-winged insect 
 which defied the efforts of herself and maid to dislodge. 
 Odin, the Spitz dog, had insisted upon scratching at the door. 
 And it made her eyes red to sleep in the morning. And 
 she had an early call to make. And the sea looked lovely. 
 
 " I 'm glad to find you here, whatever be the cause," 
 said Islington, with his old directness. " To-day, as you 
 know, is my last day in Greyport, and it is much pleasanter 
 to say good-by under this blue sky than even beneath your 
 father's wonderful frescoes yonder. I want to remember 
 you, too, as part of this pleasant prospect which belongs to us 
 all, rather than recall you in anybody's particular setting." 
 
 " I know," said Blanche, with equal directness, " that 
 houses are one of the defects of our civilizatioii ; but I 
 don't think I ever heard the idea as elegantly expre.^sed 
 before. Where do you go ? " 
 
 " I don't know yet. I have several plans. I may go to 
 South America and become president of one of the re- 
 publics, — I am not particular which. I am rich, but in that 
 part of America which lies outside of Greyport it is neces- 
 sary for every man to have some work. My friends think 
 I should have some great aim in life, with a capital A. But 
 I was born a vagabond, and a vagabond I shall probably 
 die." 
 
 " I don't know anybody in South America," said Blanche 
 languidly. " There were two girls here last season, but 
 they did n't wear stays in the house, and their white frocks 
 never were properly done up. If you go to South America, 
 you must write to me." 
 
 " I will. Can you tell me the name of this flower which 
 I found in your greenhouse ? It looks much like a Cali- 
 fornia blossom." 
 
 "Perhaps it is. Father bought it of a half-crazy old man 
 who came here one day. Do you know him ? " 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 109 
 
 Islington laughed. " I am afraid not. But let me pre- 
 sent this in a less business-like fashion." 
 
 " Thank you. Eemind me to give you one in return be- 
 fore you go, — or will you choose yourself ? " 
 
 They had both risen as by a common instinct. 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 The cool, flower-like hand lay in his for an instant. 
 
 " Will you oblige me by putting aside that leaf a moment 
 before I go ? " 
 
 " But my eyes are red, and I look like a perfect fright." 
 
 Yet, after a long pause, the leaf fluttered down, and a 
 pair of very beautiful but withal very clear and critical eyes 
 met his. Islington was constrained to look away. When 
 he turned again she was gone. 
 
 " Mr. Hislington, — sir ! " 
 
 It was Chalker, the English groom, out of breath with 
 running. 
 
 " Seein' you alone, sir — b?^ your pardon, sir — but 
 there 's a person " — 
 
 " A person ! what the devil do you mean ? Speak Eng- 
 lish — no, damn it, I mean don't," said Islington snappishly. 
 
 " I said a person, sir. Beg pardon — no offense — but 
 not a gent, sir. In the lib'ry." 
 
 A little amused even through the utter dissatisfaction 
 with himself and vague loneliness that had suddenly come 
 upon him, Islington, as he walked toward the lodge, asked, 
 " Why is n't he a gent ? " 
 
 " No gent — beggin' your pardin, sir — 'ud guy a man in 
 sarvis, sir. Takes me 'ands so, sir, as I sits in the rumble 
 at the gate, and puts 'em downd so, sir, and sez, ' Put 'em 
 in your pocket, young man, — or is it a road agint you ex- 
 pects to see, that you 'olds hup your 'ands, hand crosses 
 'em like to that ? ' sez he. ' 'Old 'ard,' sez he, ' on the short 
 curves, or you'll bust your precious crust,' sez he. And 
 hasks for you, sir. This way, sir." 
 
110 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 They entered the lodge. Islington hurried down the long 
 Gothic hall and opened the library door. 
 
 In an armchair, in the centre of the room, a man sat 
 apparently contemplating a large, stiff, yellow hat with an 
 anormous brim, that was placed on the floor before him. 
 His hands rested lightly between his knees, but one foot 
 was drawn up at the side of his chair in a peculiar manner. 
 In the first glance that Islington gave, the attitude in some 
 odd, irreconcilable way suggested a brake. In another 
 moment he dashed across the room, and, holding out both 
 hands, cried, " Yuba Bill ! " 
 
 The man rose, caught Islington by the shoulders, wheeled 
 him round, hugged him, felt of his ribs like a good-natured 
 ogre, shook his hands violently, laughed, and then said 
 somewhat ruefully, " And however did you know me ? " 
 
 Seeing that Ytiba Bill evidently regarded himself as in 
 some elaborate disguise, Islington laughed, and suggested 
 that it must have been instinct. 
 
 " And you ? " said Bill, holding him at arm's length and 
 surveying him critically, — " you ! — toe think — toe think 
 — a little cuss no higher nor a trace, a boy as I 've flicked 
 outer the road with a whip time in agin, a boy ez never hed 
 much clothes to speak of, turned into a sport ! " 
 
 Islington remembered, with a thrill of ludicrous terror, 
 that he still wore his evening dress. 
 
 " Turned," continued Yuba Bill severely, — "turned into 
 a restyourant waiter, — a garsong ! Eh, Alfouse, bring me 
 a patty de foy grass and an omelet, demme ! " 
 
 "Dear old chap! " said Islington, laughing, and trying 
 to put his hand over Bill's bearded mouth, " but you — you 
 don't look exactly like yourself! You're not well. Bill." 
 And indeed, as he turned toward the light. Bill's eyes 
 appeared cavernous, and his hair and beard thickly streaked 
 with gray. 
 
 " Maybe it 's this yer harness," said Bill a little anxiously. 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 111 
 
 "When I Pitches on thisyer curb" (he indicated a massive 
 gold watch-chain with enormous links), " and mounts, 
 this ' morning star ' " (he pointed to a very large solitaire' 
 pin which had the appearance of blistering his whole shirt-, 
 front), "it kinder weighs heavy on me. Tommy. Other- 
 wise I'm all right, my boy — all right." But he evaded 
 Islington's keen eye and turned from the light. 
 
 " You have something to tell me. Bill," said Islington 
 suddenly and >vith almost brusque directness ; " out with 
 
 it." 
 
 Bill djd not speak, but moved uneasily to^yard his hat. 
 
 " You didn't come three thousand miles, without a word 
 of warning, to talk to me of old' times," said Islington 
 more kindly, " glad as I would have been to see you. It 
 isn't your way. Bill, and you know it. We shall not be 
 disturbed here," he added, in reply to an inquiring glance 
 that Bill directed to the door, " and I am ready to hear 
 you." 
 
 " Firstly, then," said Bill, drawing his chair nearer 
 Islington, " answer me one question, Tommy, fair and 
 square, and up and down." 
 
 " Go on," said Islington with a slight smile. 
 
 " Ef I should say to you. Tommy — say .to you to-day, 
 right here, you must come with me — you must leave this 
 place for a month, a year, two years, maybe, perhaps for 
 ever — is there anything that 'ud keep you — anything, my 
 boy, ez you could n't leave ? ," 
 
 "No," said Tommy quietly ; " I am only visiting here. 
 I thought of leaving Greyport to-day." 
 
 ." But if I should say to you. Tommy, come with me on 
 a pasear to Chiny, to Japan, to South Ameriky, p'r'aps, 
 could you go ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Islington after a slight pause. 
 
 "Thar isn't enny thing," said Bill, drawing a little closer, 
 and lowering his voice confidentially, — " ennything in the 
 
112 MKS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 way of a young woman — you understand, Tommy — ez 
 would keep you ? They 're mighty sweet about here ; and 
 whether a man is young or old, Tommy, there's always 
 some woman as is brake or whip to him ! " 
 
 In a certain excited bitterness that characterized the 
 delivery of this abstract truth. Bill did not see that the 
 young man's face flushed slightly as he answered "No." 
 
 " Then listen. It 's seven years ago. Tommy, thet I was 
 ■working one o' the Pioneer coaches over from Gold Hill. 
 Ez I stood in front o' the stage-oiRce, the sheriff o' the 
 county comes to me, and he sez, ' Bill,' sez he, ' I've got a 
 looney chap, as I 'm in charge of, taking 'im down to the 
 'sylum in Stockton. He'z quiet and peaceable, but the 
 insides don't like to ride with him. Hev you enny objec- 
 tion to give him a lift on the box beside you ? ' I sez, 
 ' No ; put him up.' When I came to go and get up on 
 that box beside him, that man, Tommy — that man sittin' 
 there, quiet and peaceable, was — Johnson ! 
 
 "He didn't know me, my boy," Yuba Bill continued, 
 rising and putting his hands on Tommy's shoulders, — " he 
 didn't know me. He didn't know nothing about you, nor 
 Angel's, nor the quicksilver lode, nor even his own name. 
 He said his name was Skaggs, but I knowed it was Johnson. 
 Thar was times. Tommy, you might have knocked me off 
 that box with a feather ; thar was times when if the twenty- 
 seven passengers o' that stage bed found theirselves swim- 
 ming in the American River five hundred feet below the 
 road, I never could have explained it satisfactorily to the 
 company, — never. 
 
 " The sheriff said," Bill continued hastily, as if to pre- 
 clude any interruption from the young man, — "the sheriff 
 said he had been brought into Murphy's Camp three years 
 before, dripping with water, and sufferin' from perkussion 
 of the brain, and had been cared for generally by the boys 
 'round. When I told the sheriff I knowed 'im, I got him 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 113 
 
 to leave him in my care ; and I took him to 'Frisco, Tommy, 
 to 'Frisco, and I put him in charge o' the best doctors 
 there, and paid his board myself. There was nothin' he 
 didn't have ez he wanted. Don't look that way, my dear 
 boy, for God's sake don't ! " 
 
 " Bill ! " said Islington, rising and staggering to the 
 window, " why did you keep this from me ? " 
 
 " Why ? " said Bill, turning on him savagely, — " why ? 
 because I wa'n't a fool. Thar was you, winnin' your way 
 in college ; thar was you, risin' in the world, and of some 
 account to it. Yer was an old bummer, ez good ez dead to 
 it — a man ez oughter been dead afore ! a man ez never 
 denied it ! But you alius liked him better nor me," said 
 Bill bitterly. 
 
 "Forgive me. Bill," said the young man, seizing both 
 his hands. " I know you did it for the best ; but go on." 
 
 " Thar ain't much more to tell, nor much use to tell it, 
 as I can see," said Bill moodily. " He never could be 
 cured, the doctors said, for he had what they called mono- 
 mania — was always talking about his wife and darter that 
 somebody had stole away years ago, and plannin' revenge 
 on that somebody. And six months ago he was missed. 
 I tracked him to Carson, to Salt Lake City, to Omaha, to 
 Chicago, to New York, — and here ! " 
 
 " Here ! " echoed Islington. 
 
 " Here ! And that 's what brings me here to-day. 
 Whether he 's crazy or well, whether he 's huntin' you or 
 lookin' up that other man, you must get away from here. 
 You mustn't see him. You and me. Tommy, will go away 
 on a cruise. In three or four years he '11 be dead or miss- 
 ing, and then we '11 come back. Come." And he rose to 
 hie feet. 
 
 " Bill," said Islington, rising also, and taking the hand 
 of his friend with the same quiet obstinacy that in the old 
 days had endeared him to Bill, " wherever he is, here oi 
 
114 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBAND3 
 
 elsewhere, sane or crazy, I shall seek and find him/ Every 
 dollar that I have shall be his, every dollar that I have 
 spent shall be returned to him. I am young yet, thank 
 God, and can work ; and if there is a way out of this mis- 
 erable business, I shall find it." 
 
 •" I knew," said Bill with a surliness that ill concealed 
 his evident admiration of the calm figure before him — "I 
 knew the partikler style of d — n fool that you was, and 
 expected no better. Good -by, then — God Almighty! 
 who 's that ? " 
 
 He was on his way to the open French window, but had 
 started back, his face quite white and bloodless, and his 
 eyes staring. Islington ran to the window and looked out. 
 A white skirt vanished around the corner of the veranda. 
 When he returned. Bill had dropped into a chair. 
 
 " It must have been Miss Masterman, I think ; but 
 what 's the matter ? " 
 
 "Nothing," said Bill faintly; "have you got any whiskey 
 handy ? " 
 
 Islington brought a decanter and, pouring out some 
 spirits, handed the glass to Bill. Bill drained it, and then 
 said, " Who is Miss Masterman ? " 
 
 " Mr. Masterman's daughter ; that is, an adopted daugh- 
 ter, I believe." 
 
 " Wot name ? " 
 
 " I really don't know," said Islington pettishly, more 
 vexed than he cared to own at this questioning. 
 
 Yuba Bill rose and walked to the window, closed it, 
 walked back- again to the door, glanced at Islington, hesi- 
 tated, and then returned to his chair. 
 
 " I did n't tell you I was married — did I ? " he said 
 suddenly, looking up in Islington's face with an unsuccess-, 
 ful attempt at a reckless laugh. 
 
 "No," said Islington, more pained at the manner than 
 the words. 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 115 
 
 *'Fact," said Yuba Bill. "Three years ago it was, 
 Tommy, — three years ago ! " 
 
 He looked so hard at Islington that, feeling he was 
 expected to say something, he asked vaguely, " Whom did 
 you marry ? " 
 
 " Thet 's it ! " said Yuba Bill ; " I can't ezactly say ; 
 partikly, though a she-devil ! generally, the wife of half a 
 dozen other men." 
 
 Accustomed, apparently, to have his conjugal infelicities 
 a theme of mirth among men, and seeing no trace of amuse^ 
 ment on Islington's grave face, his dogged, reckless manner 
 softened, and, drawing his chair closer to Islington, he went 
 on : " It all began outer this : we was coming down Wat- 
 son's grade one night pretty free, when the expressman 
 turns to me and says, ' There 's a row inside, and you 'd 
 better pull up ! ' I pulls up, and out hops, first a woman, 
 and then two or three chaps swearin' and cursin', and try- 
 in' to drag some one arter them. Then it 'peered. Tommy, 
 thet it was this woman's drunken husband they was going 
 to put out for abusin' her and strikin' her in the coach ; 
 and if it had n't been for me, my boy, they 'd have left 
 that chap thar in the road. But I fixes matters up by j>ut- 
 tiiig her alongside o' me on the box, and we drove on. She 
 was very white. Tommy, — for the matter o' that, she was 
 always one o' these very white women, that never got red 
 in the face, — but she never cried a whimper. Most women 
 would have cried. It was queer, but she never cried. I 
 thought so at the time. 
 
 " She was very tall, with a lot o' light hair meandering 
 down the back of her head, as long as a deerskin whiplash, 
 and about the color. She bed eyes thet 'd bore ye through 
 at fifty yards, and pooty hands and feet. And when she 
 kinder got out o' that stiff, narvous state she was in, and 
 warmed up a little, and got chipper, by G — d, sir, she was 
 handsome, — she was that ! " 
 
116 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 A little flushed and embarrassed at his own enthusiasm, 
 he stopped, and then said carelessly, " They got off at 
 Murphy's." 
 
 "Well," said Islington. 
 
 " Well, I used to see her often arter thet, and when she 
 was alone she alius took the box-seat. She kinder confided 
 her troubles to me, how her husband got drunk and abused 
 her ; and I did n't see much o' him, for he was away in 
 'Frisco arter thet. But it was all square, Tommy, — all 
 square 'twixt me and her. 
 
 " I got a-going there a good deal, and then one day I 
 sez to mj'self, 'Bill, this won't do,' and I got changed 
 to another route. Did you ever know Jackson Klltree, 
 Tommy ? " said Bill, breaking off suddenly. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Might have heerd of him, p'r'aps ? " 
 
 " No," said Islington impatiently. 
 
 " Jackson Filltree ran the express from White's out to 
 Summit, 'cross the North Fork of the Yuba. One day he 
 sez to me, ' Bill, that 's a mighty bad ford at the North 
 Fork.' I sez, 'I believe you, Jackson.' 'It'll git me some 
 day, Bill, sure,' sez he. I sez, 'Why don't you take the 
 lower ford ? ' 'I don't know,' sez he, ' but I can't.' So 
 ever after, when I met him, he sez, ' That North Fork ain't 
 got me yet.' One day I was in Sacramento, and up comes 
 Filltree. He sez, ' I 've sold out the express business on 
 account of the North Fork, but it 's bound to get me yet, 
 Bill, sure ; ' and he laughs. Two weeks after they finds his 
 body below the ford, whar he tried to cross, comin' down, 
 from the summit way. Folks said it was foolishness ; 
 Tommy, I sez it was Fate ! The second day arter I was 
 changed to the Placerville route, thet woman comes outer 
 the hotel above the stage-office. Her husband, she said, 
 was lying sick in Placerville ; that 's what she said ; but it 
 was Fate, Tommy, Fate. Three months afterward, her 
 
MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 117 
 
 husband takes an overdose of morphine for delirium tre- 
 mens, and dies. There 's folks ez sez she gave it to him, 
 but it 's Fate. A year after that I married her, — Fate, 
 Tommy, Fate ! 
 
 "I lived with her jest three months," he went on, after 
 a long breath, — " three months ! It ain't much time for 
 a happy man. I 've seen a good deal o' hard life in my 
 day, but there was days in that three months longer than 
 any day in my life, — days. Tommy, when it was a toss-up 
 whether I should kill her or she me. But thar, I 'm done. 
 You are a young man, Tommy, and I ain't goin' to tell 
 things thet, old as I am, three years ago I could n't have 
 believed." 
 
 When at last, with his grim face turned toward the win- 
 dow, he sat silently with his clenched hands on his knees 
 before him, Islington asked where his wife was now. 
 
 " Ask me no more, my boy, — no more. I 've said my 
 say." With a gesture as of throwing down a pair of reins 
 before him, he rose, and walked to the window. 
 
 " You kin understand. Tommy, why a little trip around 
 the world 'ud do me good. Ef you can't go with me, well 
 and good. But go I must." 
 
 "Not before luncheon, I hope," said a very sweet 
 voice, as Blanche Masterman suddenly stood before them. 
 " Father would never forgive me if in his absence I per- 
 mitted one of Mr. Islington's friends to go iu this way. 
 You will stay, won't you ? Do ! And you will give me 
 your arm now ; and when Mr. Islington has done staring, 
 he will follow us into the dining-room and introduce 
 you." 
 
 " I have quite fallen in love with your friend," said 
 Miss Blanche, as they stood in the drawing-room looking at 
 the figure of Bill, strolling, with his short pipe in his mouth, 
 through the distant shrubbery. " He asks very queer ques- 
 
118 MKS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 tions, though. He wanted to know my mother's maiden 
 name." 
 
 " He is an honest fellow," said Islington gravely. 
 
 " You are very much subdued. You don't thank me, I 
 daresay, for keeping you and your friend here ; but you 
 could n't go, you know, until father returned." 
 
 Islington smiled, but not very gayly. 
 
 " And then I think it much better for us to part here 
 under these frescoes, don't you ? Good-by." 
 
 She extended her long, slim hand. 
 
 " Out in the sunlight there, when my eyes were red, you 
 were very anxious to look at me," she added in a dangerous 
 voice. 
 
 Islington raised his sad eyes to hers. Something glitter- 
 ing upon her own sweet lashes trembled and fell. 
 
 " Blanche ! " 
 
 She was rosy enough now, and would have withdrawn 
 her hand, but Islington detained it. She was not quite cer- 
 tain but that her waist was also in jeopardy. Yet she 
 could not help saying, " Are you sure that there is n't any- 
 thing in the way of a young woman that would keep you ? " 
 
 " Blanche!" said Islington in reproachful horror. 
 
 " If gentlemen will roar out their secrets before an open 
 ■window, with a young woman lying on a sofa on the ve- 
 randa, reading a stupid French novel, they must not be sur- 
 prised if she gives more attention to them than to her book." 
 
 " Then you know all, Blanche ? " 
 
 "I know," said Blanche, "let's see — I know the par- 
 tikler style of — ahem ! — fool you was, and expected no 
 better. Good-by." And, gliding like a lovely and inno- 
 cent milk snake out of his grasp, she slipped away. 
 
 To the pleasant ripple of waves, the sound of music and 
 light voices, the yellow midsummer moon again rpse over 
 Greyport. It looked upon formless masses of rock and 
 
MKS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 119 
 
 ehrubbery, wide spaces of lawn and beach, and a shimmer- 
 ing expanse of water. It singled out particular objects, — a 
 white sail in shore, a crystal globe upon the lawn, and 
 flashed upon something held between the teeth of a crouch- 
 ing figure scaling the low wall of Cliffwood Lodge. Then, 
 as a man and woman passed out from under the shadows of 
 the foliage into the open moonlight of the garden path, the 
 figure leaped from the wall, and stood erect and waiting in 
 the shadow. 
 
 It was the figure of an old man, with rolling eyes, his 
 trembling hand grasping a long, keen Imife, — a figure more 
 pitiable than pitiless, more pathetic than terrible. But the 
 next moment the knife was stricken from his hand, and he 
 struggled in the firm grasp of another figure that apparently 
 sprang from the wall beside him. 
 
 " D — n you, Masterman ! " cried the old man hoarsely ; 
 " give me fair play, and I '11 kill you yet ! " 
 
 " Which my name is Yuba Bill," said Bill quietly, " and 
 it 's time this d — n fooling was stopped." 
 
 The old man glared in Bill's face savagely. "I know 
 you. You 're one of Masterman's friends, — d — n you, 
 — let me go till I cut his heart out, -^ let me go ! Where 
 is my Mary ? — where is my wife ? — there she is ! there ! 
 — there! — there! Mary!" He would have screamed, 
 but Bill placed his powerful hand upon his mouth as he turned 
 in the direction of the old man's glance. Distinct in the 
 moonlight the figures of Islington and Blanche, arm in arm, 
 stood out upon the garden path. 
 
 " Give me my wife ! " muttered the old man hoarsely 
 between Bill's fingers. " Where is she ? " 
 
 A sudden fury passed over Yuba Bill's face. " Where is 
 your wife ? " he echoed, pressing the old man back against 
 the garden wall, and holding him there as in a vise. 
 "Where is your wife?" he repeated, thrusting his grim 
 sai-dofiift jaw and savage eyes into the old man's frightened 
 
120 MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS 
 
 face. " Where is Jack Adam's wife ? Where is my wife ? 
 Where is the she-devil that drove one man mad, that sent 
 another to hell by his own hand, that eternally broke and 
 ruined me ? Where ! Where ! Do you ask where ? In 
 jail in Sacramento, — in jail, do you hear ? — in jail for 
 murder, Johnson, — murder ! " 
 
 The old man gasped, stiffened, and then, relaxing, sud- 
 denly slipped, a mere inanimate mass, at Yuba Bill's feet. 
 With a sudden revulsion of feeling, Yuba Bill dropped at 
 his side, and, lifting him tenderly in his arms, whispered, 
 " Look up, old man, Johnson ! look up, for God's sake ! — 
 it 's me, — Yuba Bill ! and yonder is your daughter, and — 
 Tommy — don't you know — Tommy, little Tommy Isling- 
 ton ? " 
 
 Johnson's eyes slowly opened. He whispered, " Tom- 
 my ! yes. Tommy ! Sit by me, Tommy. But don't sit so 
 near the bank. Don't you see how the river is rising and 
 beckoning to me — hissing, and boilin' over the rocks? 
 It 's gittin' higher ! — hold me, Tommy, — hold me, and 
 don't let me go yet. We '11 live to cut his heart out. Tom- 
 my, ■^- we '11 live — we '11 " — 
 
 His head sank, and the rushing river, invisible to all eyes 
 save his, leaped toward him out of the darkness, and bore 
 him away, no longer to the darkness, but through it to the 
 distant, peaceful, shining sea. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 In 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very pretty woman. 
 She had a quantity of light chestnut hair, a good figure, a 
 dazzling complexion, and a certain languid grace which 
 passed easily for gentlewomanliness. She always dressed 
 becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted as the latest 
 fashion. She had only two blemishes : one of her velvety 
 eyes, when examined closely, had a slight cast, and her left 
 cheek bore a small scar left by a single drop of vitriol — 
 happily the only drop of an entire phial thrown upon her 
 by one of her own jealous sex that reached the pretty face 
 it was intended to mar. But when the observer had studied 
 the eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was generally 
 incapacitated for criticism, and even the scar on her cheek 
 was thought by some to add piquancy to her smile. The 
 youthful editor of the Fiddletown " Avalanche " had said 
 privately that it was " an exaggerated dimple." Colonel 
 Starbottle was instantly " reminded of the beautifying 
 patches of the days of Queen Anne, but more particularly, 
 sir, of the blankest beautiful woman, that, blank you, you 
 ever laid your two blank eyes upon. A Creole woman, sir, 
 in New Orleans. And this woman had a sear — a line ex- 
 tending, blank me, from her eye to her blank chin. And 
 this woman, sir, thrilled you, sir, maddened you, sir, 
 absolutely sent your blank soul to perdition with her blank 
 fascination. And one day I said to her, ' Celeste, how in 
 blank did you come by that beautiful scar, blank you ? ' 
 And she said to me, ' Star, there is n't another white man 
 that I 'd confide in but you, but I made that scar myseH^ 
 
122 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 purposely, I did, blank me.' These were lier very words, 
 sir, and perhaps you think it a blank lie, sir, but I '11 put 
 up any blank sum you can name and prove it, blank me." 
 
 Indeed, most of the male population of Fiddletown were 
 or had been in love with her. Of this number about one 
 half believed that their love was returned, with the excep- 
 tion, possibly, of her own husband. He alone had been 
 known to express skepticism. 
 
 The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this infelicitous 
 distinction was Tretherick. He had been divorced from 
 an excellent wife to marry this Fiddletown enchantress. 
 She also had been divorced, but it was hinted that some 
 previous experiences of hers in that legal formality had 
 made it perhaps less novel and probably less sacrificial. I 
 would not have it inferred from this that she was deficient 
 in sentiment or devoid of its highest moral expression. Her 
 intimate friend had written (on the occasion of her second 
 divorce), " The cold world does not understand Clara yet," 
 and Colonel Starbottle had remarked, blankly, that ^ith 
 the exception of a single woman in Opelousas Parish, 
 Louisiana, she had more soul than the whole caboodle of 
 them put together. Few indeed could read those lines 
 entitled " Infelissimus," commencing, " Why waves no 
 cypress o'er this brow," originally published in the 
 " Avalanche " over the signature of " The Lady Clare," 
 without feeling the tear of sensibility tremble on his eye- 
 lids, or the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his cheek 
 at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity of the " Dutch 
 Flat Intelligencer," which the next week had suggested the 
 exotic character of the cypress and its entire absence from 
 Fiddletown as a reasonable answer to the query. 
 
 Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her feelings in 
 a metrical manner, and deliver them to the cold world 
 through the medium of the newspapers, that first attracted 
 the attention of Tretherick. Several poems descriptive of 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 123 
 
 the effects of California scenery upon a too sensitive soul, 
 and of the vague yearnings for the infinite which an en- 
 forced study of the heartlessness of California society pro- 
 duced in the poetic breast, impressed Mr. Tretherick, who 
 was then driving a six-mule freight wagon between Knight's 
 Ferry and Stockton, to seek out the unknown poetess. 
 Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly conscious of a certain 
 hidden sentiment in his own nature, and it is possible that 
 some reflections on the vanity of his pursuit — he supplied 
 several mining camps with whiskey and tobacco — in con- 
 junction with the dreariness of the dusty plain on which he 
 habitually drove, may have touched some chord in sym- 
 pathy with this sensitive woman. Howbeit, after a brief 
 courtship — as brief as was consistent with some previous 
 legal formalities — they were married, and Mr. Tretherick 
 brought his blushing bride to Fiddletown, or " Fideletown," 
 as Mrs. T. preferred to call it in her poems. 
 
 The union was not a felicitous one. It was not long 
 before Mr. Tretherick discovered that the sentiment he had 
 fostered while freighting between Stockton and Knight's 
 Ferry was different from that which his wife had evolved 
 from the contemplation of California scenery and her own 
 soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this caused him to 
 beat her, and she, being equally faulty in deduction, was 
 impelled to a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same 
 premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. 
 T. to contribute regularly to the columns of the " Ava- 
 lanche." It was at this time that Colonel Starbottle dis- 
 covered a similarity in Mrs. T.'s verse to the genius of 
 Sappho, and pointed it out to the citizens of Fiddletown in 
 a two-columned criticism, signed " A. S.," also published in 
 the " Avalanche " and supported by extensive quotation. 
 As the " Avalanche " did not possess a font of Greek type, 
 the editor was obliged to reproduce the Leucadian numbers 
 in the ordinary Roman letter, to the intense disgust of 
 
124 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLEl'OWN 
 
 Colonel Starbottle, and the vast delight of Fiddletown, who 
 saw fit to accept the text as an excellent imitation of 
 Choctaw — a language with which the Colonel, as a whilom 
 resident of the Indian territories, was supposed to be 
 familiar. Indeed, the next week's " Intelligencer " con- 
 tained some vile doggerel, supposed to be an answer to 
 Mrs. T.'s poem, ostensibly written by the wife of a Digger 
 Indian chief, accompanied by a glowing eulogium signed 
 " A. S. S." 
 
 The result of this jocularity was briefly given in a later 
 copy of the " Avalanche." " An unfortunate rencontre 
 took place on Monday last between the Hon. Jackson Hash, 
 of the ' Dutch" Flat Intelligencer,' and the well-known 
 Colonel Starbottle of this place, in front of the Eureka 
 Saloon. Two shots were fired by the parties without 
 injury to either, although it is said that a passing Chinaman 
 received fifteen buckshot in the calves of his legs from the 
 Colonel's double-barreled shotgun which were not intended 
 for him. John will learn to keep out of the way of 
 Melican man's firearms hereafter. The cause of the affray 
 is not known, although it is hinted that there is a lady in 
 the case. The rumor that points to a well-known and 
 beautiful poetess, whose lucubrations have often graced our 
 columns, seems to gain credence from those that are 
 posted." 
 
 Meanwhile the passiveness, displayed by Tretherick under 
 these trying circumstances was fully appreciated in the 
 gulches. " The old man's head is level," said one long- 
 booted philosopher. " Ef the Colonel kills Flash, Mrs. 
 Tretherick is avenged ; if Flash drops the Colonel, Treth- 
 erick is all right. Either way he 's got a sure thing." 
 During this delicate condition of affairs Mrs. Tretherick one 
 day left her husband's home and took refuge at the Fiddle- 
 town Hotel, with only the clothes she had on her back. 
 Here she stayed for several weeks, during which period it 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN I'/rf 
 
 is only justice to say that she bore herself with the strictest 
 piopriety. 
 
 It was a clear morning in early spring that Mrs. Trether- 
 ick, unattended, left the hotel and walked down the narrow 
 street toward the fringe of dark pines which indicated the 
 extreme limits of Piddletown. The few loungers at that 
 early hour were preoccupied with the departure of the 
 Wingdam coach at the other extremity of the street, and 
 Mrs. Tretlierick reached the suburbs of the settlement with- 
 out discomposing observation. Here she took a cross street 
 or road running at right angles with the main thoroughfare 
 of Fiddletown, and passing through a belt of woodland. It 
 was evidently the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of the 
 town ; the dwellings were few, ambitious, and uninterrupted 
 by shops. And here she was joined by Colonel Starbottle. 
 
 The gallant Colonel, notwithstanding that he bore the 
 swelling port which usually distinguished him, — that his coat 
 was tightly buttoned and his boots tightly fitting, and that 
 his cane, hooked over his arm, swung jauntily, — was not 
 entirely at his ease. Mrs. Tretherick, however, vouchsafed 
 him a gracious smile and a glance of her dangerous eyes, 
 and the Colonel, with an embarrassed cough and a slight 
 strut, took his place at her side. 
 
 " The coast is clear," said the Colonel, " and Tretherick 
 is over at Dutch Flat on a spree ; there is no one in the 
 house but a Chinaman, and you need fear no trouble from 
 him. /," he continued, with a slight inflation of the chest 
 that imperiled the security of his button, — " I will see that 
 you are protected in the removal of your property." 
 
 "I'm sure it's very kind of you, and so disinterested," 
 simpered the lady as they walked along. " It 's so pleasant 
 to meet some one who has a soul — some one to sympathize 
 with in a community so hardened and heartless as this." 
 And Mrs. Tretherick cast down her eyes, but not until they 
 had wrought their perfect and accepted work upon her com- 
 panion. 
 
126 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 " Yes, certainly, of course," said the Colonel, glancing 
 nervously up and down the street ; " yes, certainly." Per- 
 ceiving, however, that there was no one in sight or hearing, 
 he proceeded at once to inform Mrs. Tretheriok that the 
 great trouble of his life, in fact, had been the possession of 
 too much soul. That many women — as a gentleman she 
 would excuse him, of course, from mentioning names — but 
 many beautiful women had often sought his society, but, 
 being deficient, madam, absolutely deficient in this quality, 
 he could not reciprocate. But when two natures thoroughly 
 in sympathy — despising alike the sordid trammels of a low 
 and vulgar community and the conventional restraints of a 
 hypocritical society — when two souls in perfect accord met 
 and mingled in poetical union, then — but here the Colonel's 
 speech, which had been remarkable for a certain whiskey- 
 and - watery fluency, grew husky, almost inaudible, and 
 decidedly incoherent. Possibly Mrs. Tretheriok may have 
 heard something like it before, and was enabled to fill the 
 hiatus. Nevertheless, the cheek that was on the side of the 
 Colonel was quite virginal and bashfully conscious until they 
 reached their destination. 
 
 It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and warm with 
 paint, very pleasantly relieved against a platoon of pines, 
 some of whose foremost files had been displaced to give 
 freedom to the fenced inclosure in which it sat. In the 
 vivid sunlight and perfect silence it had a new, uninhabited 
 look, as if the carpenters and painters had just left it. At 
 the farther end of the lot a Chinaman was stolidly digging, 
 but there was no other sign of occupancy. " The coast," 
 as the Colonel had said, was indeed " clear." Mrs. Treth- 
 erick paused at the gate. The Colonel would have entered 
 with her, but was stopped by a gesture. " Come for me in 
 a couple of hours, and I shall have everything packed," she 
 said, as she smiled and extended her hand. The Colonel 
 seized and pressed it with great fervor. Perhaps the pres- 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 127 
 
 sure was slightly returned, for the gallani; Colonel was 
 impelled to inflate his chest and trip away as smartly as his 
 stubby -toed, high -heeled boots would permit. When he 
 had gone, Mrs. Tretheriek opened the door, listened a mo- 
 ment in the deserted hall, and then ran quickly upstairs to 
 what had been her bedroom. 
 
 Everything there was unchanged as on the night she 
 left it. Ou the dressing-table stood her bandbox, as she 
 remembered to have left it when she took out her bonnet. 
 On the mantel lay the other glove she had forgotten in 
 her flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau were 
 half open, — she had forgotten to shut them, — and on its 
 marble top lay her shawl-pin and a soiled cuff. What other 
 recollections came upon her I know not, but she suddenly 
 grew quite white, shivered, and listened with a beating 
 heart and her hand upon the door. Then she stepped to 
 the mirror, and half fearfully, half curiously, parted with 
 her fingers the braids of her blonde hair above her little 
 "pink ear, until she came upon an ugly, half-healed scar. 
 She gazed at this, moving her pretty head up and down to 
 get a better light upon it, until the slight cast in her vel- 
 vety eyes became very strongly marked indeed. Then she 
 turned away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and ran 
 to the closet where hung her precious dresses. These she 
 inspected nervously, and, missing suddenly a favorite black 
 silk froTn its accustomed peg for a moment, thought she 
 should have fainted. But discovering it the next instant, 
 lying upon a trunk where she had thrown it, a feeling of 
 thankfulness to a Superior Being who protects the friend- 
 less for the first time sincerely thrilled her. Then, albeit 
 she was hurried for time, she could not resist trying the 
 effect of a certain lavender neck-ribbon, upon the dress she 
 was wearing, before the mirror. Suddenly she became 
 aware of a child's voice close beside her and' she stopped. 
 And then the child's voice repeated, " Is it mamma ? " 
 
128 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Standing in the 
 doorway was a little girl of six or seven. Her dress had 
 been originally fine, but was torn and dirty, and her hair, 
 which was a very violent red, was tumbled serio-comically 
 about her forehead. For all this she was a picturesque 
 little thing, even through whose childish timidity there 
 was a certain self-sustained air which is apt to come upon 
 children who are left much to themselves. She was hold- 
 ing under her arm a rag doll, apparently of her own work- 
 manship and nearly as large as herself — a doll with a 
 cylindrical head and features roughly indicated with char- 
 coal. A long shawl, evidently belonging to a grown person, 
 dropped from her shoulders and swept the floor. 
 
 The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Tretherick's delight. 
 Perhaps she had but a small sense of humor. Certainly, 
 when the child, still standing in the doorway, again asked, 
 "Is it mamma?" she answered sharply, "No, it isn't," 
 and turned a severe look upon the intruder. 
 
 The child retreated a step, and then, gaining courage 
 with the distance, said, in deliciously imperfect speech, — 
 
 " Dow 'way, then ; why don't you dow away ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Tretherick was eyeing the shawl. Suddenly 
 she whipped it off the child's shoulders and said angrily, — 
 
 "How dared you take my things, you bad child ? " 
 
 " Is it yours ? Then you are my mamma ! ain't you ? 
 You are mamma ! " she continued gleefully, and before 
 Mrs. Tretherick could avoid her she" had dropped her doll, 
 and, catching the woman's skirts with both hands, was 
 dancing up and down before her. 
 
 " What 's your name, child ? " said Mrs. Tretherick 
 coldly, removing the small and not very white hands from 
 her garments. 
 
 "Tarry." 
 
 " Tarry ?• " 
 
 " Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline." 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 129 
 
 " Caroline ? " 
 
 " Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick." 
 
 " Whose child are you ? " demanded Mrs. Tretherick 
 still more coldly, to keep down a rising fear. 
 
 "Why, yours," said the little creature with a laugh. 
 " I 'm your little durl. You 're my mamma — my new 
 mamma — don't you know my ole mamma's dorn away, 
 never to turn back any more. I don't live wid my ole 
 mamma now. I live wid you and papa." 
 
 " How long have you been here ? " asked Mrs. Trether- 
 ick snappishly. 
 
 "I think it's free days," said Carry reflectively. 
 
 " You think ! don't you know ? " sneered Mrs. Trether- 
 ick. " Then where did you come from ? " 
 
 Carry's lip began to work under this sharp cross-exami- 
 nation. With a great effort and a small gulp she got the 
 better of it, and answered, — 
 
 " Papa — papa fetched me — from Miss Simmons — from 
 Sacramento, last week." 
 
 " Last week ! you said three days just now," returned 
 Mrs. Tretherick with severe deliberation. 
 
 " I mean a monf," said Carry, now utterly adrift in sheer 
 helplessness and confusion. 
 
 " Do you know what you are talking about ? " demanded 
 Mrs. T. shrilly, restraining an impulse to shake the little 
 figure before her and precipitate the truth by specific 
 gravity. 
 
 But the flaming red head here suddenly disappeared in 
 the folds of Mrs. Tretherick's dress, as if it were trying to 
 extinguish itself forever. 
 
 -'There now, stop that sniffling," said Mrs. Tretherick, 
 extricating her dress from the moist embraces of the child, 
 and feeling exceedingly uncomfortable. " Wipe your face 
 now and run away and don't bother. Stop," she contin.' 
 ued, as Carry moved away, " where 's your papa ? " 
 
130 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 " He 's dorn away too. He 's sick. He 's been dorn " — - 
 she hesitated — " two — free — days." 
 
 "Who takes care of you, child?" said Mrs. T., eyeing 
 her curiously. 
 
 " John, the Chinaman. I tresses myselth ; John tooks 
 and makes the beds." 
 
 " Well, now, run away and behave yourself, and don't 
 bother me any more," said Mrs. Tretherick, remembering 
 the object of her visit. " Stop, where are you going ? " she 
 added, as the child began to ascend the stairs, dragging the 
 long doll after her by one helpless leg. 
 
 " Doin' upstairs to play and be dood, and not bother 
 mamma." 
 
 " I ain't youT mamma," shouted Mrs. Tretherick, and 
 then she swiftly reentered her bedroom and slammed the door. 
 
 Once inside, she drew forth a large trunk from the closet, 
 and set to work with querulous and fretful haste to pack 
 her wardrobe. She tore her best dress in taking it from 
 the hook on which it hung ; she scratched her soft hands 
 twice with an ambushed pin. All the while she kept up 
 an indignant commentary on the events of the past few 
 moments. She said to herself she saw it all. Tretherick 
 had sent for this child of his first wife — this child for 
 whose existence he had never seemed to care — just to 
 insult her — to fill her place. Doubtless the first wife 
 herself would follow soon, or perhaps there would be a 
 third. Eed hair — not auburn, but red — of course the 
 child — this Caroline — looked like its mother, and if so 
 she was anything but pretty. Or the whole thing had 
 been prepared — this red-haired child — the image of its 
 mother — had been kept at a convenient distance at Sacra- 
 mento, ready to be sent for when needed. She remembered 
 his occasional visits there — on business, as he said. Per- 
 haps the mother already was there — but no — she had 
 gone east. Nevertheless Mrs. Tretherick, in her then 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 131 
 
 state of mind, preferred to dwell upon the fact that she 
 might be there. She was dimlj' conscious also of a certain 
 satisfaction in exaggerating her feelings. Surely no woman 
 had ever been so shamefully abused. In fancy she sketched 
 a picture of herself sitting alone and deserted, at sunset, 
 among the fallen columns of a ruined temple, in a melan- 
 choly yet graceful attitude, while her husband drove rapidly 
 away in a luxurious coach and four, with a red-haired 
 woman at his side. Sitting upon the trunk she had just 
 packed, she partly composed a lugubrious poem, describing 
 her sufferings as, wandering alone and poorly clad, she 
 came upon her husband and "another" flaunting in silks 
 and diamonds. She pictured herself dying of consumption, 
 brought on by sorrow — a beautiful wreck, yet still fasci- 
 nating, gazed upon adoringly by the editor of the " Ava- 
 lanche " and Colonel Starbottle. And where was Colonel 
 Starbottle all this while ? why did n't he come ? He at 
 least understood her. He — she laughed the reckless, light 
 laugh of a few moments before, and then her face suddenly 
 grew grave, as it had not a few moments before. 
 
 What was that little red-haired imp doing all this time ? 
 Why was she so quiet? She opened the door noiselessly 
 and listened. She fancied that she heard, above the multi- 
 tudinous small noises and creakings and warpings of the 
 vacant house, a smaller voice singing on the floor above. 
 This, as she remembered, was only an open attic that had 
 been used as a store-room. With a half-guilty conscious- 
 ness she crept softly upstairs, and, pushing the door partly 
 open, looked within. 
 
 Athwart the long, low-studded attic a slant sunbeam 
 from a single small window lay, filled with dancing motes 
 and only half illuminating the barren, dreary apartment. 
 In the ray of this sunbeam she saw the child's glowing hair, 
 as if crowned by a red aureole, as she sat upon the floor 
 with her exaggerated doll between her knees. She appeared 
 
132 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 to be talking to it, and it was not long before Mrs. 
 Tretherick observed that she was rehearsing the interview 
 of a half-hour before. She catecliised the doll severely, 
 cross-examining it in regard to the duration of its stay there, 
 and generally on the measure of time. The imitation of 
 Mrs. T.'s manner was exceedingly successful, and the co:i- 
 versation almost a literal reproduction, with a single excep- 
 tion. After she had informed the doll that she was not her 
 mother, at the close of the interview, she added pathetically, 
 " That if she was dood — very dood — she might be her 
 mamma and love her very much." 
 
 I have already hinted that Mrs. Tretherick was deficient 
 in a sense of humor. Perhaps it was for this reason that 
 this whole scene affected her most unpleasantly, and the 
 conclusion sent the blood tingling to her cheek. There 
 was something, too, inconceivably lonely in the situation ; 
 the unfurnished vacant room, half light, the monstrous 
 doll, whose very size seemed to give a pathetic significance 
 to its speechlessness, the smallness of the one animate self- 
 centred figure — all these touched more or less de(?.ply the 
 half -poetic sensibilities of the woman. She could not help 
 utilizing the impression as she stood there, and thought 
 what a fine poem might be constructed from this material, 
 if the room were a little darker, the child lonelier — say, 
 sitting beside a dead mother's bier and the wind wailing in 
 the turrets. And then she suddenly heard footsteps at the 
 door below, and recognized the sound of the Colonel's cane. 
 
 She flew swiftly down the stairs and encountered the 
 Colonel in the hall. Here she poured into his astonished 
 ear a voluble and exaggerated statement of her discovery 
 and indignant recital of her wrongs. " Don't tell me the 
 whole thing was n't arranged beforehand ; for I know it 
 was ! " she almost screamed. " And think," she added, 
 " of the heartlessness of the wretch — leaving his own child 
 alone here in that way." 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 133 
 
 " It 'a a blank shame ! " stammered tlie Colonel, without 
 the least idea of what he was talking about. In fact, utterly 
 unable as he was to comprehend a reason for the woman's 
 excitement with his estimate of her character, I fear he 
 showed it more plainly than he intended. He stammered, 
 expanded his chest, looked stern, gallant, tender, but all 
 unintelligently. Mrs. Tretherick for an instant experienced 
 a sickening doubt of the existence of natures in perfect 
 affinity. ' 
 
 " It 's of no use," said Mrs. Tretherick with sudden 
 vehemence, in answer to some inaudible remark of the 
 Colonel's, and withdrawing her hand from the fervent grasp 
 of that ardent and sympathetic man. " It 's of no use ; my 
 mind is made up. You can send for my trunk as soon as 
 you like, but I shall stay here and confront that man with 
 the proof of his vileness. I will put him face to face with 
 his infamy." 
 
 I do not know whether Colonel Starbottle thoroughly 
 appreciated the convincing proof of Tretheriok's unfaithful- 
 ness and malignity afforded by the damning evidence of the 
 existence of Tretherick'.s own child in his own house. He 
 was dimly aware, however, of some unforeseen obstacle to 
 the perfect expression of the infinite longing of his own sen- 
 timental nature. But before he could say anything, Carry 
 appeared on the landing above them, looking timidly and 
 yet half critically at the pair. 
 
 "That's her," said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly. In her 
 deepest emotions, either in verse or prose, she rose above 
 a consideration of grammatical construction. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Colonel, with a sudden assumption of 
 parental affection and jocularity that was glaringly unreal 
 and affected. "Ah! pretty little girl, pretty little girl! 
 how do you do? how are you? you find yourself pretty 
 well, do you, pretty little girl ? " The Colonel's impulse 
 also was to expand his chest and swing his cane, until it 
 
134 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 occurred to him that this action might be ineffective with 
 a child of six or seven. Carry, however, took no immediate 
 notice of this advance, but further discomposed the chival- 
 rous Colonel by running quickly to Mrs. Tretherick, and 
 hiding herself, as if for protection, in the folds of her gown. 
 Nevertheless, the Colonel was not vanquished. Falling 
 back into an attitude of respectful admiration, he pointed 
 out a marvelous resemblance to the " Madonna and Child." 
 Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but did not dislodge Carry as 
 before. There was an awkward pause for a moment, and 
 then Mrs. Tretherick, motioning significantly to the child, 
 said in a whisper, " Go, now. Don't come here again, 
 but meet me to-night at the hotel." She extended her 
 hand ; the Colonel bent over it gallantly, and, raising his 
 hat, the next moment was gone. 
 
 " Do you think," said Mrs. Tretherick, with an embar- 
 rassed voice and a prodigious blush, looking down and 
 addressing the fiery curls just visible in the folds of her 
 dress, — " do you think you will be ' dood ' if I let you 
 stay in here and sit with me ? " 
 
 " And let me call you mamma ? " queried Carry, looking 
 up. 
 
 " And let you call me mamma ! " assented Mrs. Treth- 
 erick with an embarrassed laugh. 
 
 " Yeth," said Carry promptly. 
 
 They entered the bedroom together. Carry's eye in- 
 stantly caught sight of the trunk. 
 
 " Are you doin' away adain, mamma ? " she said with 
 a quick, nervous look, and a clutch at the woman's dress. 
 
 " No-o,'' said Mrs. Tretherick, looking out of the window. 
 
 " Only playing you 're doin' away," suggested Carry with 
 a laugh. " Let me play too." 
 
 Mrs. T. assented. Carry flew into the next room, 
 and presently reappeared, dragging a small trunk, into 
 which she gravely proceeded to pack her clothes. Mrs. T. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 135 
 
 noticed that they were not many. A question or two 
 regarding them brought out some further replies from the 
 child, and before many minutes had elapsed Mrs. Treth- 
 erick was in possession of all her earlier history. But 
 to do this Mrs. Tretherick had been obliged to take 
 Carry upon her lap, pending the most confidential dis- 
 closures. They sat thus a long time after Mrs. Tretherick 
 had apparently ceased to be interested in Carry's dis- 
 closures, and, when lost in thought, she allowed the child 
 to rattle on unheeded, and ran her fingers through the 
 scarlet curls. 
 
 " You don't hold me right, mamma," said Carry at last, 
 after one or two uneasy shiftings of position. 
 
 " How should I hold you ? " asked Mrs. Tretherick, with 
 a half-amused, half-embarrassed laugh. 
 
 " This way," said Carry, curling up into position with one 
 arm around Mrs. Tretherick's neck and her cheek resting 
 on her bosom ; " this way — there ! " After a little pre- 
 paratory nestling, not unlike some small animal, she closed 
 her eyes and went to sleep. 
 
 For a few moments the woman sat silent, scarcely daring 
 to breathe, in that artificial attitude. And then, whether 
 from some occult sympathy in the touch, or God best knows 
 what, a sudden fancy began to thrill her. She began by 
 remembering an old pain that she had forgotten, an old 
 horror that she had resolutely put away all these years. 
 She recalled days of sickness and distrust, days of an over- 
 shadowing fear, days of preparation for something that was 
 to be prevented — that ivas prevented, with mortal agony 
 and fear. She thought of a life that might have been — 
 she dared not say had been — and wondered ! It was six 
 years ago ; if it had lived it would have been as old as 
 Carry. The arms which were folded loosely around the 
 sleeping child began to tremble and tighten their clasp. 
 And then the deep potential impulse came, and with a half- 
 
136 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out and drew the body 
 of the sleeping child down, down into her breast, — down 
 again and again as if she would hide it in the grave dug 
 there years before. And the gust that shook her passed, 
 and then, ah me ! the rain. 
 
 A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry, and she 
 moved uneasily in her sleep. But the woman soothed her 
 again, — it was so easy to do it now, — and they sat there 
 quiet and undisturbed, — so quiet that they might have 
 seemed incorporate of the lonely silent house, the slowly 
 declining sunbeams, and the general air of desertion and 
 abandonment, yet a desertion that had in it nothing of age, 
 decay, or despair. 
 
 Colonel Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown Hotel all 
 that night in vain. And the next morning when Mr. 
 Tretherick returned to his husks, he found the house 
 vacant and untenanted except by motes and sunbeams. 
 
 When it was fairly known that Mrs. Tretherick had run 
 away, taking Mr. Tretherick's own child with her, there was 
 some excitement and much diversity of opinion in Fid- 
 dletown. The " Dutch Flat Intelligencer " openly alluded 
 to the "forcible abduction" of the child with the same 
 freedom and, it is to be feared, the same prejudice with 
 which it had criticised the abductor's poetry. All of Mrs. 
 Tretherick's own sex, and perhaps a few of the opposite 
 sex whose distinctive quality was not, however, very strongly 
 indicated, fully coincided in the views of the " Intelligencer." 
 The majority, however, evaded the moral issue ; that Mrs. 
 Tretherick had shaken the red dust of Fiddletown from 
 her dainty slippers was enough for them to know. They 
 mourned the loss of the fair abductor more than hei 
 offense. They promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured 
 husband and disconsolate father, and even went so far as 
 to openly cast discredit in the sincerity of his grief. They 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 137 
 
 reserved an ironical condolence for Colonel Starbottle, 
 overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demon- 
 strative sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons, and other localities 
 not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. 
 " She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympa- 
 thizer, with a iine affectation of gloomy concern and great 
 readiness of illustration, " and it 's kinder nat'ril thet she 'd 
 get away some day and stampede that theer colt ; but thet 
 she should shake you, Kernel, thet she should just shake 
 you — is what gits me. And they do say thet you jist hung 
 around thet hotel all night, and paytrolled them corridors, 
 and histed yourself up and down them stairs, and meandered 
 in and out o' thet piazzy, and all for nothing ! " It was an- 
 other generous and tenderly commiserating spirit that poured 
 additional oil and wine on the Colonel's wounds. " The 
 boys yer let on thet Mrs. Tretherick prevailed on ye to 
 pack her trunk and a baby over from the house to the stage 
 offis, and that the chap ez did go off with her thanked yon 
 and offered you two short bits, and sed ez how he liked your 
 looks and 'ud employ you agin — and now you say it ain't 
 so ? Well — I '11 tell the boys it ain't so, and I 'm glad I 
 met you, for stories do get round." 
 
 Happily for Mrs. Tretherick's reputation, however, the 
 Chinaman in Tretherick's employment, who was the only 
 eye-witness of her flight, stated that she was unaccom- 
 panied except by the child. He further deposed that obey- 
 ing her orders he had stopped the Sacramento coach and 
 secured a passage for herself and child to San Francisco. 
 It was true that Ah Fe's testimony was of no legal value. 
 But nobody doubted it. Even those who were skeptical of 
 the Pagan's ability to recognize the sacredness of the truth 
 admitted his passionless, unprejudiced unconcern. But it 
 would appear from an hitherto unrecorded passage of this 
 veracious chronicle that herein they were mistaken. 
 
 It was about six months after the disappearance of Mrs 
 
138 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 Tretherick that Ah Ee, while working in Tretherick's lot, 
 was hailed by two passing Chinamen. They were the 
 ordinary mining coolies, equipped with long poles and 
 baskets for their usual pilgrimages. An animated conver- 
 sation at once ensued between Ah Fe and his brother 
 Mongolians, — a conversation characterized by that usual 
 shrill volubility and apparent animosity which was at once 
 the delight and scorn of the intelligent Caucasian who did 
 not understand a word of it. Such, at least, was the feeling 
 with which Mr. Tretherick on his veranda, and Colonel Star- 
 bottle, who was passing, regarded their heathenish jargon. 
 The gallant Colonel simply kicked them out of his way ; 
 the irate Tretherick with an oath threw a stone at the group 
 and dispersed them — but not before one or two slips of 
 yellow rice paper marked with hieroglyphics were exchanged, 
 and a small parcel put into Ah Fe's hand. When Ah Ee 
 opened this, in the dim solitude of his kitchen, he found a 
 little girl's apron, freshly washed, ironed, and folded. On 
 the corner of the hem were the initials " C. T." Ah Fe 
 tucked it away in a corner of his blouse, and proceeded to 
 wash his dishes in the sink with a smile of guileless satis- 
 faction. 
 
 Two days after this Ah Fe confronted his master. " Me 
 no likee Fiddletown. Me belly sick. Me go now." Mr. 
 Tretherick violently suggested a profane locality. Ah Fe 
 gazed at him placidly, and withdrew. 
 
 Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he accidentally met 
 Colonel Starbottle and dropped a few incoherent phrases 
 which apparently interested that gentleman. When he con- 
 cluded, the Colonel handed him a letter and a twenty-dollar 
 gold-piece. "If you bring me an answer I'll double that. 
 Sahe, John ? " Ah Fe nodded. An interview equally acci- 
 dental, with precisely the same result, took place between Ah 
 Fe and another gentleman, whom I suspect to have been the 
 youthful editor of the " Avalanche." Yet I regret to state 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 139 
 
 that after proceeding some distance on his journey, Ah Fe 
 calmly broke the seals of both letters, and after trying to 
 read them upside down and sideways, finally divided them 
 into accurate squares, and in this condition disposed of them 
 to a brother Celestial whom he met on the road for a tri- 
 fling gratuity. The agony of Colonel Starbottle on finding 
 his wash-bill made out on the unwritten side of one of these 
 squares, and delivered to him with his weekly clean clothes, 
 and the subsequent discovery that the remaining portions of 
 his letter were circulated by the same method from the 
 Chinese laundry of one Eung Ti of Kddletown, has been 
 described to me as peculiarly affecting. Yet I am satisfied 
 that a higher nature, rising above the levity induced by the 
 mere contemplation of the insignificant details of this breach 
 of trust, would find ample retributive justice in the difficul- 
 ties that subsequently attended Ah Fe's pilgrimage. 
 
 On the road to Sacramento he was twice playfully thrown 
 from the top of the stage-coach by an intelligent but deeply 
 intoxicated Caucasian, whose moral nature was shocked at 
 riding with one addicted to opium smoking. At Hangtown 
 he was beaten by a passing stranger, purely an act of 
 Christian supererogation. At Dutch Plat he was robbed 
 by well-known hands from unknown motives. At Sacra- 
 mento he was arrested on suspicion of being something or 
 other, and discharged with a severe reprimand — possibly for 
 not being it, and so delaying the course of justice. At San 
 Francisco he was freely stoned by children of the public 
 schools ; but by carefully avoiding these monuments of en- 
 lightened progress, he at last reached in comparative safety 
 the Chinese quarters, where his abuse was confined to the 
 police and limited by the strong arm of the law. 
 
 The next day he entered the wash-house of Chy Fook as 
 an assistant, and on the following Friday was sent with a 
 basket of clean clothes to Chy Fook's several clients. 
 
 It was the usual foggy afternoon as he climbed the long 
 
14(. AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 wind-swept hill of California Street, one of those bleak gray 
 intervals that made the summer a misnomer to any but the 
 liveliest San Franciscan fancy. There was no warmth nor 
 color in earth or sky ; no light nor shade within or without, 
 only one monotonous, universal neutral tint over everything. 
 There was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets, there 
 was a dreary vacant quiet in the gray houses. When Ah 
 Pe reached the top of the hill the Mission ridge was already 
 hidden, and the chill sea-breeze made him shiver. As he 
 put down his basket to rest himself, it is possible that to his 
 defective intelligence and heathen experience this " God's 
 own climate," as it was called, seemed to possess but scant 
 tenderness, softness, or mercy. But it is possible that Ah 
 Fe illogically confounded this season with his old persecu- 
 tors, the school-children, who, being released from studious 
 confinement, at this hour were generally most aggressive. 
 So he hastened on, and, turning a corner, at last stopped 
 before a small house. 
 
 It was the usual San Franciscan urban cottage. There 
 was the little strip of cold green shrubbery before it, the 
 chilly bare veranda, and above this again the grim balcony 
 on which no one sat. Ah Fe rang the bell ; a servant 
 appeared, glanced at his basket, and reluctantly admitted 
 him as if he were some necessary domestic animal. Ah 
 Fe silently mounted the stairs, and, entering the open door 
 of the front chamber, put down the basket and stood pas- 
 sively on the threshold. 
 
 A woman, who was sitting in the cold gray light of the 
 window, with a child in her lap, rose listlessly and came 
 toward him. Ah Fe instantly recognized Mrs. Tretherick, 
 but not a muscle of his immobile face changed, nor did 
 his slant eyes lighten as he met her own placidly. She evi- 
 dently did not recognize him as she began to count the 
 clothes. But the child, curiously examining him, suddenly 
 littered a short glad cry : — 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 141' 
 
 "Why, it's John ! Mamma, it's our old John what we 
 had in Fiddletown." 
 
 For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electrically 
 lightened. The child clapped her hands and caught at 
 his blouse. Then he said shortly, "Me John — Ah Fe — 
 allee same. Me Icnow you. How do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick dropped the clothes nervously and looked 
 hard at Ah Fe. Wanting the quick-witted instinct of affec- 
 tion that sharpened Carry's perception, she even then could 
 not distinguish him above his fellows. With a recollection 
 of past pain and an obscure suspicion of impending danger, 
 she asked him when he had left Fiddletown. 
 
 " Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee Tlevelick.- 
 Likee San Flisco. Likee washee. Likee Tally." 
 
 Ah Fe's laconics pleased Mrs. Tretherick. She did not 
 stop to consider how much an imperfect knowledge of 
 English added to his curt directness and sincerity. But she 
 said, " Don't tell anybody you have seen me," and took out 
 her pocket-book. 
 
 Ah Fe, without looking at it, saw that it was nearly 
 empty. Ah Fe, without examining the apartment, saw^ that 
 it was scantily furnished. Ah Fe, without removing his 
 eyes from blank vacancy, saw that both Mrs. Tretherick 
 and Carry were poorly dressed. Yet it is my duty to state 
 that Ah Fe's long fingers closed promptly and firmly over 
 the half-dollar which Mrs. Tretherick extended to him. 
 
 Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a series oi- 
 extraordinary contortions. After a few moments he ex- 
 tracted from apparently no particular place a child's apron, 
 which he laid upon the basket with the remark — 
 
 " One piece washman flagittee." 
 
 Then he began anew his fumblings and contortions. 
 At last his efforts were rewarded by his producing, appar- 
 ently from his right ear, a many-folded piece of tissue- 
 paper. Unwrapping this carefully, he at last disclosed two 
 
142 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWJf 
 
 twenty-dollar gold-pieces, which he handed to Mrs. Treth~ 
 erick. 
 
 " You leavee money top side of blulow, Fiddletown, me 
 findee money. Me fetchee money to you. All lightee." 
 
 " But I left no money on the top of the bureau, John," 
 said Mrs. Tretherick earnestly. " There must be some mis- 
 take ; it belongs to some other person. Take it back, John." 
 
 Ah Fe's brow darkened. He drew away from Mrs. 
 Tretherick's extended hand and began hastily to gather up 
 his basket. 
 
 "Me no takee back. No, no. Bimeby pleesman he 
 catchee me ! He say, ' God damn thief — catchee flowty 
 dollar — come to jailee.' Me no takee back. You leavee 
 money top side blulow, Fiddletown. Me fetchee money 
 you. Me no takee back." 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick hesitated. In the confusion of her flight 
 she might have left the money in the manner he had said. 
 In any event she had no right to jeopardize this honest 
 Chinaman's safety by refusing it. So she said, " Very 
 well, John, I will keep it. But you must come again and 
 see me " — here Mrs. T. hesitated with a new and sudden 
 revelation of the fact that any man could wish to see any 
 other than herself — " and, and — Carry ! " 
 
 Ah Fe's face lightened. He even uttered a short ven- 
 triloquistic laugh without moving his mouth. Then shoul- 
 dering his basket he shut the door carefully, and slid quietly 
 downstairs. In the lower hall he, however, found an unex- 
 pected difficulty in opening the front door, and after fum- 
 bling vainly at the lock for a moment, looked around for 
 some help or instruction. But the Irish handmaid who 
 had let him in was contemptuously oblivious of his needs 
 and did not appear. 
 
 There occurred a mysterious and painful incident which 
 I shall simply record without attempting to explain. On 
 the hall table a scarf, evidently the property of the servant 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 143 
 
 before alluded to, was lying. As Ah Fe tried the lock with 
 one hand, the other rested lightly on the table. Suddenly, 
 and apparently of its own volition, the scarf began to creep 
 slowly towards Ah Fe's hand. From Ah Fe's hand it 
 began to creep up his sleeve, slowly and with an insinuating, 
 snake-like motion, and then disappeared somewhere in the 
 recesses of his blouse. Without betraying the least mterest 
 or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated his 
 experiments upon the lock. A moment later the tablecloth 
 of red damask, moved by apparently the same mysterious 
 impulse, slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe's fingers, and 
 sinuously disappeared by the same hidden channel. What 
 further mystery might have followed I cannot say, for at 
 this moment Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and 
 was enabled to open the door coincident with the sound of 
 footsteps upon the kitchen stairs. Ah Fe did not hasten his 
 movements, but, patiently shouldering his basket, closed the 
 door carefully behind him again, and stepped forth into the 
 thick encompassing fog that now shrouded earth and sky. 
 
 From her high casement window Mrs. Tretherick watched 
 Ah Fe's figure until it disappeared in the gray cloud. In 
 her present loneliness she felt a keen sense of gratitude 
 towards him, and may have ascribed to the higher emotions 
 and the consciousness of a good deed that certain expansive- 
 ness of the chest and swelling of the bosom that was really 
 due to the hidden presence of the scarf and tablecloth under 
 his blouse ; for Mrs. Tretherick was still poetically sensitive. 
 As the gray fog deepened into night she drew Carry closer 
 towards her, and above the prattle of the child pursued a 
 vein of sentimental and egotistic recollection at once bitter 
 and dangerous. The sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked 
 her again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the 
 dreary interval between she was now wandering, — a journey 
 so piteous, willful, thorny, and useless that it was no 
 wonder that at last Carry stopped suddenly in the midst of 
 
144 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 her voluble confidences to throw her small arras around the 
 woman's neck and bid her not to cry. 
 
 Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that should be 
 ever dedicated to an exposition of unalterable moral principle 
 to transcribe Mrs. Tretherick's own theory of this interval 
 and episode, with its feeble palliations, its illogical deduc- 
 tions, its fond excuses and weak apologies. It would seem, 
 however, that her experience had been hard. Her slender 
 stock of money was soon exhausted. At Sacramento she 
 found that the composition of verse, although appealing to ' 
 the highest emotion of the human heart, and compelling 
 the editorial breast to the noblest commendation in the 
 editorial pages, was singularly inadequate to defray the 
 expenses of herself and Carry. Then she tried the stage, 
 but failed signally. Possibly her conception of the passions 
 was different from that which obtained with a Sacramento 
 audience, but it was certain that her charming presence, so 
 effective at short range, was not sufticiently pronounced for 
 the footlights. She had admirers enough in the green- 
 room, but awakened no abiding affection among the audi- 
 ence. In this strait it occurred to her that she had a voice 
 — a contralto of no very great compass or cultivation, but 
 singularly sweet and touching, and she finally obtained a 
 position in a church choir. She held it for three months, 
 greatly to her pecuniary advantage, and, it is said, much 
 to the satisfaction of the gentlemen in the back pews who 
 faced towards her during the singing of the last hymn. 
 
 I remember her quite distinctly at this time. The light 
 that slanted through the oriel of St. Dives's choir was wont 
 to fall tenderly on her beautiful head with its stacked 
 masses of deerskin-colored hair, on the low black arches 
 of her brows, and to deepen the pretty fringes that shaded 
 her eyes of Genoa velvet. Very pleasant it was to watch 
 the opening and shutting of that small straight mouth, with 
 its quick revelation of the little white teeth, and to .see the 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN' 145 
 
 foolish blood faintly deepen her satin cheek as you watched ; 
 for Mrs. Tretherick was very sweetly conscious of admira- 
 tion, and, like most pretty women, gathered herself under 
 your eye like a racer under the spur. 
 
 And then, of course, there came trouble. I have it from 
 the soprano — a little lady who possessed even more than 
 the usual unprejudiced judgment of her sex — that Mrs. 
 Tretherick's conduct was simply shameful ; that her conceit 
 was unbearable ; that if she considered the rest of the choir 
 as slaves, she, the soprano, would like to know it ; that her 
 conduct on Easter Sunday with the basso had attracted the 
 attention of the whole congregation, and that she herself 
 had noticed Dr. Cope twice look up during the service ; 
 that her — the soprano's — friends had objected to her sing- 
 ing in the choir with a person who had been on the stage, 
 but she had waived this. Yet she had it from the best 
 authority that Mrs. Tretherick had run away from her 
 husband, and that this red-haired child who sometimes 
 came in the choir was not her own. The tenor confided 
 to me, behind the organ, that Mrs. Tretherick had a way 
 of sustaining a note at the end of a line, in order that her 
 voice might linger longer with the congregation, — an act 
 that could be attributed only to a defective moral nature ; 
 that as a man, — he was a very popular dry-goods clerk on 
 week-days, and sang a good deal from apparently behind 
 his eyebrows on the Sabbath, — that as a man, sir, he would 
 put up with it no longer. The basso alone — a short Ger- 
 man with a heavy voice, for which he seemed reluctantly 
 responsible, and rather grieved at its possession — stood up 
 for Mrs. Tretherick and averred that they were jealous of 
 her because she was " bretty." The climax was at last 
 reached in an open quarrel, wherein Mrs. Tretherick used 
 her tongue with such precision of statement and epithet that 
 the soprano burst into hysterical tears, and had to be sup- 
 ported from the choir by her husband and the tenor. This 
 
146 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 act was marked intentionally to the congregation by the 
 omission of the usual soprano solo. Mrs. Tretherick went 
 home flushed with triumph, but on reaching her room fran- 
 tically told Carry that they were beggars henceforward ; that 
 she — her mother — had just taken the very bread out of 
 her darling's mouth, and ended by bursting into a flood of 
 penitent tears. They did not come so quickly as in her 
 old poetical days, but when they came they stung deeply. 
 She was roused by a formal visit from a vestryman, — one 
 of the Music Committee. Mrs. Tretherick dried her long 
 lashes, put on a new neck ribbon, and went down to the 
 parlor. She stayed there two hours, — a fact that might 
 have occasioned some remark but that the vestryman was 
 married and had a family of grown-up daughters. When 
 Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she sang to herself 
 in the glass and scolded Carry. But she retained her place 
 in the choir. 
 
 It was not long, however. In due course of time her 
 enemies received a powerful addition to their forces in the 
 committeeman's wife. That lady called upon several of 
 the church members and on Dr. Cope's family. The result 
 was that at a later meeting of the Music Committee Mrs. 
 Tretherick's voice was declared inadequate to the size of 
 the building, and she was invited to resign. She did so. 
 She had been out of a situation for two months, and her 
 scant means were almost exhausted when Ah Fe's unex- 
 pected treasure was tossed into her lap. 
 
 The gray fog deepened into night, and the street lamps 
 started into shivering life, as, absorbed in these unprofitable 
 memories, Mrs. Tretherick still sat drearily at her window. 
 Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed, and her abrupt 
 entrance with the damp evening paper in her hand roused 
 Mrs. Tretherick, and brought her back to an active realiza- 
 tion of the present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan 
 the advertisements, in the faint hope of finding some avenue 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN H7 
 
 of employment — she knew not what — open to her needs, 
 and Carry had noted this habit. 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shutters, lit the 
 lights, and opened the paper. Her eye fell instinctively on 
 the following paragraph in the telegraphic column : — 
 
 " Fiddletown, 7th. Mr. James Tretherick, an old resi- 
 dent of this place, died last night of delirium tremens. 
 Mr. Tretherick was addicted to intemperate habits, said to 
 have been induced by domestic trouble." 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick did not start. She quietly turned over 
 another page of the paper and glanced at Carry. The child 
 was absorbed in a book. Mrs. Tretherick uttered no word, 
 but during the remainder of the evening was unusually silent 
 and cold. When Carry was undressed and in bed, Mrs. 
 Tretherick suddenly dropped on her knees beside the bed, 
 and, taking Carry's flaming head between her hands, said, — 
 
 " Should you like to have another papa. Carry, darling ? " 
 
 " No," said Carry, after a moment's thought. 
 
 " But a papa to help mamma take care of you, — to love 
 you, to give you nice clothes, to make a lady of you when 
 you grow up ? " 
 
 Carry turned her sleepy eyes toward the questioner. 
 " Should you, mamma ? " 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots of her 
 hair. " Go to sleep," she said sharply, and turned away. 
 
 But at midnight the child felt two white arms close 
 tightly around her, and was drawn down into a bosom that 
 heaved, fluttered, and at last was broken up by sobs. 
 
 "Don't ky, mamma," whispered Carry, with a vague 
 retrospect of their recent conversation. "Don't ky. I 
 fink I should like a new papa if he loved you very much — 
 Very, very much ! " 
 
 A month afterwards, to everybody's astonishment, Mrs. 
 Tretherick was married. The happy bridegroom was one 
 Colonel Starbottle, recently elected to represent Calaveras 
 
148 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 County in the legislative councils of the State. As I cannot 
 record the event in finer language than that used by the 
 correspondent of the " Sacramento Globe," I venture to 
 quote some of his graceful periods. " The relentless shafts 
 of the sly god have been lately busy among our gallant 
 Scions. We quote 'one more unfortunate.' The latest 
 victim is the Hon. C. Statbottle of Calaveras. The fair' 
 enchantress in the case is a beautiful widow, — a former 
 votary of Thespis, and latelj' a fascinating St. Cecilia of one 
 of the most fashionable churches of San Francisco, where 
 she commanded a high salary." 
 
 The " Dutch Flat Intelligencer " saw fit, however, to 
 comment upon the fact with that humorous freedom char- 
 acteristic of an unfettered press. " The new democratic 
 war-horse from Calaveras has lately advented in the Legis- 
 lature with a little bill to change the name of Tretherick to 
 Starbottle. They call it a marriage certificate down there. 
 Mr. Tretherick has been dead just one month, but we pre- 
 sume the gallant Colonel is not afraid of ghosts." 
 
 It is but just to Mrs. Tretherick to state that the Colonel's 
 victory was by no means an easy one. To a natural degree 
 of coyness on the part of the lady was added the impediment 
 of a rival, — a prosperous undertaker from Sacramento, who 
 had first seen and loved Mrs. Tretherick at the theatre and 
 church ; his professional habits debarring him from ordi- 
 nary social intercourse, and indeed any other than the most 
 formal public contact with the sex. As this gentleman had 
 made a snug fortune during the felicitous prevalence of a 
 severe epidemic, the Colonel regarded him as a dangerous 
 rival. Fortunately, however, the undertaker was called in 
 professionally to lay out a brother senator who had un- 
 happily fallen by the Colonel's pistol in an affair of honor, 
 and either deterred by physical consideration from rivalry, 
 or wisely concluding that the Colonel was professionally 
 valuable, he withdrew from the field. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 149 
 
 The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a close by an 
 untoward incident. During their bridal trip Carry had been 
 placed in the charge of Colonel Starbottle's sister. On 
 their return to the city, immediately on reaching their 
 lodgings, Mrs. Starbottle announced her intention of at 
 once proceeding to Mrs. Culpepper's to bring the child 
 home. Colonel Starbottle, who had been exhibiting for 
 some time a certain uneasiness which he had endeavored 
 to overcome by repeated stimulation, finally buttoned his 
 coat tightly across his breast, and, after walking unsteadily 
 once or twice up and down the room, suddenly faced his 
 wife with his most imposing manner. 
 
 " I have deferred," said the Colonel, with an exaggera- 
 tion of port that increased with his inward fear, and a 
 growing thickness of speech, — " I have deferr — I may say 
 poshponed statement o' fack thash my duty ter dishclose 
 ter ye. I did no wish to mar su'shine mushal happ'ness 
 
 — to bligh' bud o' promise, to darken conjuglar sky by 
 unpleasht revelashun. Musht be done — by G — d, m'm, 
 niusht do it now. The chile is gone ! " 
 
 " Gone ! " echoed Mrs. Starbottle. 
 
 There was something in the tone of her voice, in fhe 
 sudden drawing together of the pupils of her eyes, that for 
 a moment nearly sobered the Colonel and partly collapsed 
 his chest. 
 
 " I '11 'splain all in a minit," he said, with a deprecating 
 wave of the hand ; " everything shall be 'splained. The- 
 the-the-melencholly event wish preshipitate our happ'ness 
 
 — the myster'as prov'nice wish releash you — releash chile ! 
 hunestan' ? — releash chile. The mom't Tretheriok die — 
 all claim you have in chile through him — die too. Thash 
 law. Whose chile b'long to ? Tretherick ? Tretherick 
 dead. Chile can't b'long dead man. Damn nonshense 
 b'long dead man. Ish your chile ? No ! Whos' chile then ? 
 Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Uijnerstan' ? " 
 
150 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 " Where is she ? " said Mrs. Starbottle, with a very 
 white face and a very low voice. 
 
 "I'll 'splain all. Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Thasb 
 law. I 'm lawyer, lesh'lator, and American sis'n. Ish mj 
 duty as lawyer, as lesh'lator, and 'Merikan sis'n to reshton 
 chile to suff'rin' mother at any coss — any coss." 
 
 " Where is she ? " repeated Mrs. Starbottle, with her 
 eyes still fixed on the Colonel's face. 
 
 " Gone to 'ts m'o'r. Gone East on shteamer yesserday. 
 Waffed by fav'rin' gales to sufif 'rin p'rent. Thash so ! " 
 
 Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The Colonel felt his 
 chest slowly collapsing, but steadied himself against a 
 chair, and endeavored to beam with chivalrous gallantry 
 not unmixed with magisterial firmness upon her as she, sat. 
 
 " Your feelin's, m'm, do honor to yer sex ; but conshider 
 situashun. Conshider m'or's feelin's — conshider mi?/ feel- 
 in's." The Colonel paused, and flourishing a white hand- 
 kerchief placed it negligently in his breast, and then smiled 
 tenderly above it, as over laces and ruffles, on the woman 
 before him. " Why should dark shedder cass bligh' on 
 two shouls with single beat ? Chile 's fine chile, good chile, 
 but summonelse chile ! Chile 's gone; Clar' ; but all ish n't 
 gone, Clar'. Conshider, dearesht, you all's have me ! " 
 
 Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. " You ! " she cried, 
 
 'bringing out a chest note that made the chandeliers ring. 
 
 " You, that I married to give my darling food and clothes. 
 
 You / a dog that I whistled to my side to keep the men ofi 
 
 me ! You I " 
 
 She choked up, and then dashed past him into the inner 
 room, which had been Carry's ; then she swept by him 
 again into her own bedroom, and then suddenly reappeared 
 before him erect, menacing, with a burning fire over her 
 cheek-bones, a quick straightening of her arched brows and 
 mouth, a squaiing of her jaw, and an ophidian flattening of 
 tne head. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 151 
 
 " Listen ! " she said, in a hoarse, half-grown hoy's voice. 
 " Hear me ! If you ever expect to set eyes on me again 
 you must find the child. If you ever expect to speak to 
 rae again — to touch me — you must bring her back. For 
 where she goes, I go — you hear me ! — where she has 
 gone, loolt for me ! " 
 
 She struck out past him again, with a quick feminine 
 throwing out of her arms from the elbows down, as if 
 freeing herself from some imaginary bonds, and, dashing 
 into her chamber, slammed and locked the door. Colonel 
 Starbottle, although no coward, stood in superstitious fear 
 of an angry woman, and recoiling as she swept by, lost his 
 unsteady foothold and rolled helplessly on the sofa. Here, 
 after one or two unsuccessful attempts to regain his foot- 
 hold, he remained, uttering from time to time profane but 
 not entirely coherent or intelligible protests, until at last he 
 succumbed to the exhausting quality of his emotions, and 
 the narcotic quantity of his potations. 
 
 Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excitedly gather- 
 ing her valuables and packing her trunk, even as she had 
 done once before in the course of this remarkable history. 
 Perhaps some recollection of this was in her mind, for she 
 stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon her hand, as if 
 she saw again the figure of the child standing in the door- 
 way, and heard once more a childish voice asking, " Is it 
 mamma ? " But the epithet now stung her to the quick, 
 and with a q\iick, passionate gesture, she dashed it away 
 with a tear that had gathered in her eye. And then it 
 chanced that in turning over some clothes she came upon 
 the child's slipper with a broken sandal-string. She uttered 
 a great cry here, — the first she had uttered, — and caught it 
 to her breast, kissing it passionately again and again, and 
 rocking from side to side with a motion peculiar to her sex. 
 And then she took it to the window, the better to see it 
 through her now streaming eyes. Here she was taken with 
 
152 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 a sudden fit of coughing that she could not stifle with the 
 handkerchief she put, to her feverish lips. And then she 
 suddenly grew very faint, the window seemed to recede 
 before her, the flpor to sink beneath her feet, and staggering 
 to the bed, she fell prone upon it with the sandal and hand- 
 kerchief pressed to her breast. Her face was quite pale, 
 the orbit of her eyes dark, and there was a spot upon her 
 lip, another on .her handkerchief, and still another on the 
 white counterpane of the bed. 
 
 The wind had risen, rattling the window sashes and 
 swaying the white curtains in a ghostly way. Later,, a gray 
 fog stole softly over the roofs, soothing the wind-roughened 
 surfaces, and enwrapping all things in ah uncertain light 
 and a measureless peace. She lay there very quiet — for 
 all her troubles, still a very pretty bride. And on the other 
 side of the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from his 
 temporary couch, snored peacefully. 
 
 A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the little town of 
 Oeiioa, in the State of New York, exhibited, perhaps more 
 strongly than at any other time, the bitter irony of its foun- 
 ders and sponsors. A driving snowstorm, that had whitened 
 every windward hedge, bush, wall, and telegraph pole, 
 played around this soft Italian capital, whirled in and out 
 of the great, staring, wooden Doric columns of its post-office 
 and hotel, beat upon the cold green shutters of its best 
 houses, and powdered the angular, stiff, dark figures in its 
 streets. From the level of the street the four principal 
 churches of the town stood out starkly, even while their 
 misshapen spires were kindly hidden in the low driving 
 storm. Near the railroad station the new Methodist chapel, 
 whose resemblance to an enormous locomotive was further 
 heightened by the addition of a pyramidal row of front 
 steps, like a cowcatcher, stood as if waiting for a few more 
 houses to be hitched on to proceed to a pleasanter location. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 153 
 
 But the pride of Genoa — the great Crammer Institute foi 
 Young Ladies — stretched its bare brick length and reared 
 its cupola plainly from the bleak Parnassian hill above the 
 principal avenue. There was no evasion in the Crammer 
 Institute of the fact that it was a public institution. A 
 visitor upon its doorstep, a pretty face at its window, were 
 clearly visible all over the township. 
 
 The shriek of the engine of the four o'clock N'orthern 
 Express brought but few of the usual loungers to the depot. 
 Only a single passenger alighted and was driven away in the 
 solitary waiting sleigh towards the Genoa Hotel. And then 
 the train sped away again, — with that passionate indifference 
 to human sympathies or curiosity peculiar to express trains, — 
 the one baggage truck was wheeled into the station again, the 
 station door was locked, and the station master went home. 
 
 The locomotive whistle, however, awakened the guilty 
 consciousness of three young ladies of the Crammer Institute, 
 who were even then surreptitiously regaling themselves in 
 the bake-shop and confectionery saloon of Mrs. Phillips, in a 
 by-lane. For even the admirable regulations of the Institute 
 failed to entirely develop the physical and moral natures of 
 its pupils : they conformed to the excellent dietary rules in 
 public, and in private drew upon the luxurious rations of 
 their village caterer ; they attended church with exemplary 
 formality, and flirted informally during service with the vil- 
 lage beaux ; they received the best and most judicious 
 instruction during school hours, and devoured the trashiest 
 novels during recess. The result of which was an aggrega- 
 tion of quite healthy, quite human, and very charming 
 young creatures, that reflected infinite credit on the Insti- 
 tute. Even Mrs. Phillips, to whom they owed vast sums, 
 exhilarated by the exuberant spirits and youthful freshness 
 of her guests, declared that the sight of " them young 
 things " did her good, and had even been known to shield 
 them by shameless equivocation. 
 
154 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 " Four o'clock, girls ! and if we 're not back to prayers by 
 five we '11 be missed," said the tallest of these foolish virgins, 
 ivith an aquiline nose and certain quiet elan that bespoke 
 the leader, as she rose from her seat. " Have you got the 
 books, Addy ? " Addy displayed three dissipated-looking 
 novels under her waterproof. " And the provisions, Carry ? " 
 Carry showed a suspicious parcel filling the pocket of her 
 sack. " All right, then. Come, girls, trudge. Charge it," 
 she added, nodding to her host, as they passed towards the 
 door. " I '11 pay you when my quarter's allowance comes." 
 
 " No, Kate," interposed Carry, producing her purse ; 
 " let me pay — it 's my turn." 
 
 " Never ! " said Kate, arching her black brows loftily ; 
 " even if you do have rich relatives and regular remittances 
 from California. Never. Come, girls — forward, march ! " 
 
 As they opened the door a gust of wind nearly took them 
 off their feet. Kindhearted Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. 
 " Sakes alive ! gals, ye must n't go out in sich weather ; 
 better let me send word to the Institoot and make ye up a 
 nice bed to-night in my parlor." But the last sentence was 
 lost in a chorus of half-suppressed shrieks as the girls, hand 
 in hand, ran down the steps into the storm, and were at 
 once whirled away. 
 
 The short December day, unlit by any sunset glow, was 
 failing fast. It was quite dark already, and the air was 
 thick with driving snow. For some distance their high 
 spirits, youth, and even inexperience kept them bravely up, 
 but in ambitiously attempting a short cut from the high- 
 road across an open field their strength gave out, the laugh 
 grew less frequent, and tears began to stand in Carry's 
 brown eyes. When they reached the road again they were 
 utterly exhausted. " Let us go back," said Carry. 
 
 " We 'd never get across that field again," said Addy. 
 
 " Let's stop at the first house, then," said Carry. 
 
 ■*' The first house," said Addy, peering through the 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 155 
 
 gathering darkness, "is Squire Kobinson's." She darted ai 
 mischievous glance at Carry that even in her discomfort 
 and fear brought the quick blood to her cheek. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Kate with gloomy irony, " certainly, stop 
 at the Squire's, by all means, and be invited to tea, and be 
 driven home after tea by your dear friend Mr. Harry, with 
 a formal apology from Mrs. Eobinson, and hopes that the 
 young ladies may be excused this time. No," continued 
 Kate with sudden energy, " that may suit you ; but I 'm 
 going back as I came, — by the window, — or not at all." 
 Then she pounced suddenly, like a hawk, on Carry, who 
 was betraying a tendency to sit down on a snowbank and 
 whimper, and shook her briskly. " You '11 be going to sleep 
 next. Stay — hold your tongues, all of you — what 's 
 that ? » 
 
 It was the sound of sleigh-bells.' Coming down toward 
 them out of the darkness was a sleigh with a single 
 occupant. " Hold down your heads, girls, if it 's anybody 
 that knows us — we 're lost." But it was not, for a voice 
 strange to their ears, but withal very kindly and pleasant, 
 asked if its owner could be of any help to them. As they 
 turned toward him they saw it was a man wrapped in a 
 handsome sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap, his face, 
 half concealed by a muffler of the same material, disclosing 
 only a pair of long mustaches and two keen dark eyes. 
 " It 's a son of old Santa Glaus," whispered Addy. The 
 girls tittered audibly as they tumbled into the sleigh — they 
 had regained their former spirits. " Where shall I take 
 you ? " said the stranger quietly. There was a hurried 
 whispering, and then Kate said boldly, " To the Institute." 
 They drove silently up the hill until the long ascetic build- 
 ing loomed up before them. The stranger reined up 
 suddenly. " You know the way better than I," he .said ; 
 " where do you go in ? " " Through the back window," 
 said Kate with sudden and appalling frankness. " I see ' " 
 
156 AN EI'ISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 responded their strange driver quietly, and alighting quickly 
 removed the bells from the horses. "We can drive as 
 near as you please now," he added by way of explanation. 
 " He certainly is a son of Santa Glaus," whispered Addy ; 
 " had n't we better ask after his father ? " " Hush," said 
 Kate decidedly. " He is an angel, I dare say." She added 
 with a delicious irrelevance, which was, however, perfectly 
 understood by her feminine auditors, " We are looking 
 like three frights." 
 
 Cautiously skirting the fences, they at last pulled wp 
 a few feet from a dark wall. The stranger proceeded to 
 assist them to alight. There was still some light from the 
 reflected snow, and as he handed his fair companions to the 
 ground each was conscious of undergoing an intense though 
 respectful scrutiny. He assisted them gravely to open the 
 window, and then discreetly retired to the sleigh until the 
 difficult and somewhat discomposing ingress was made. 
 He then walked to the window. " Thank you and good- 
 night," whispered three voices. A single figure still lin- 
 gered. The stranger leaned over the window-sill. " Will 
 you permit me to light my cigar here ? it might attract 
 attention if I struck a match outside." By the upspringing 
 light he saw the figure of Kate very charmingly framed in 
 by the window. The match burned slowly out in his 
 fingers. Kate smiled mischievously. The astute young 
 woman had detected the pitiable subterfuge. For what else 
 did she stand at the head of her class, and for what else 
 had doting parents paid three years' tuition ? 
 
 The storm had passed, and the sun was shining quite 
 cheerily in the eastern recitation-room the next morning, 
 when Miss Kate, whose seat was nearest the window, 
 placing her hand pathetically upon her heart, aff'ected to 
 fall in bashful and extreme agitation upon the shoulder of 
 Carry, her neighbor. " He has come ! " she gasped in a 
 thrilling whisper. " Who ? " asked Carry sympathetically, 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 157 
 
 ■who never clearly understood when Kate was in earnest. 
 " Who ? — why, the man who rescued us last night ! I saw 
 him drive to the door this moment. Don't speak — I shall 
 he better in a moment ; there ! " she said, and the shameless 
 hypocrite passed her hand pathetically across her forehead 
 ■with a tragic air. 
 
 " What can he want ?" asked Carry, whose curiosity was 
 excited. 
 
 " I don't know," said Kate, suddenly relapsing into 
 gloomy cynicism. "Possibly to put his five daughters to- 
 Bchool. Perhaps to finish his young wife and warn her 
 against us." 
 
 " He didn't look old, and he did n't seem like a married 
 man," rejoined Addy thoughtfully. 
 
 " That was his art, you poor creature ! " returned Kate 
 scornfully; "you can never tell anything of these men — 
 they are so deceitful. Besides, it 's just my fate ! " 
 
 " Why, Kate " — began Carry, in serious concern. 
 
 " Hush, Miss Walker is saying something," said Kate, 
 laughing. 
 
 " The young ladies will please give attention," said a 
 slow perfunctory voice. " Miss Carry Tretherick is wanted 
 in the parlor." 
 
 Meantime Mr. Jack Prince, the name given on the card 
 and various letters and credentials submitted to the Rev. 
 Mr. Crammer, paced the somewhat severe apartment known 
 publicly as the "Reception Parlor," and privately to the 
 pupils as " Purgatory." His keen eyes had taken in the 
 various rigid details, from the flat steam "radiator" like 
 an enormous japanned soda-cracker, that heated one end of 
 the room, to the monumental bust of Dr. Crammer that 
 hopelessly chilled the other ; from the Lord's Prayer 
 executed by a former writing-master in such gratuitous 
 variety of elegant caligraphic trifling as to considerably 
 abate the serious value of the composition, to three views 
 
158 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 of Genoa from the Institute, which nobody ever recognized, 
 taken on the spot by the drawing teacher ; from two illu- 
 minated texts of Scripture in an English letter, so gratui- 
 tously and hideously remote as to chill all human interest, 
 to a large photograph of the senior class, in which the 
 prettiest girls were Ethiopian in complexion, and sat (appar- 
 ently) on each other's heads and shoulders ; — his fingers 
 had turned liitlessly the leaves of school catalogues, the 
 Sermons of Dr. Crammer, the Poems of Henry Kirke 
 White, the " Lays of the Sanctuary," and " Lives of Cele- 
 brated Women ; " — his fancy, and it was a nervously active 
 one, had gone over the partings and greetings that must 
 have tak°,n place here, and wondered why the apartment 
 had yet caught so little of the flavor of humanity ; — 
 indeed^ I am afraid he had almost forgotten the object of 
 his visit when the door opened and Carry Tretherick stood 
 h^iove him. 
 
 It was one of those faces he had seen the night before, — 
 prettier even than it had seemed then, — and yet I think 
 he was conscious of some disappointment, without knowing 
 exactly why. Her abundant waving hair was of a guinea- 
 golden tint, her complexion of a peculiar flower-like deli- 
 cacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed in deep water. 
 It certainly was not her beauty that disappointed him. 
 
 Without possessing his sensitiveness to impression, Carry 
 was, on her part, quite as vaguely ill at ease. She saw 
 before her one of those men whom the sex would vaguely 
 generalize as " nice," — that is to say, correct in all the 
 superficial appointments of style, dress, manners, and fea- 
 ture ; yet there was a decidedly unconventional quality 
 about him — he was totally unlike anything or anybody 
 that she could remember, and, as the attributes of origi- 
 nality are often as apt to alarm as to attract people, she 
 was not entirely prepossessed in his favor. 
 
 ** I can hardly hope," he began pleasantly, " that you 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 159 
 
 remember me. It is eleven years ago, and you were a very 
 little girl. I am afraid I cannot even claim to have enjoyed 
 that familiarity that might exist betvircen a child of six and 
 a young man of tvrenty-one. I don't think I was fond of 
 children. But I knew your mother very well. I was 
 editor of the ' Avalanche ' in Fiddletown when she took 
 yoa to San Francisco." 
 
 " You mean my stepmother ; she was n't my mother, you 
 know," interposed Carry hastily. 
 
 Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. " I mean your step- 
 mother," he said gravely. " I never had the pleasure of 
 meeting your mother." 
 
 " No, mother has n't been in California these twelve 
 years." 
 
 There was an intentional emphasizing of the title and of 
 its distinction, that began to coldly interest Prince after his 
 first astonishment was past. 
 
 "As I come from your stepmother now," he went on, 
 with a slight laugh, " I must ask you to go back for a few 
 moments to that point. After your father's death, your 
 mother — I mean your stepmother — recognized the fact 
 that your mother, the first Mrs. Tretherick, was legally and 
 morally your guardian, and, although much against her' 
 inclination and affections, placed you again in her charge." 
 
 " My stepmother married again within a month after 
 father died, and sent me home," said Carry with great 
 •directness, and the faintest toss of her head. 
 
 Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly, and apparently so sym- 
 pathetically, that Carry began to like him. With no other 
 notice of the interruption he went on : " After your step- 
 mother had performed this act of simple justice, she entered 
 into an agreement with your mother to defray the expenses 
 of your education until your eighteenth year, when you 
 were to elect and choose which of the two should thereafter 
 be your guardian, and with whom yod would make yout 
 
160 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWlir 
 
 home. This agreement, I think, you are already aware of, 
 and I helieve knew at the time." 
 
 " I was a mere child tlien," said Carry. 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Prince with the same smile ; " still 
 the conditions, I think, have never heen oppressive to you 
 nor your mother, and the only time they are likely to give 
 you the least uneasiness will be when you come to make up 
 your mind in the choice of your guardian. That will be on 
 your eighteenth birthday, — the 20th, I think, of the present 
 month." 
 
 Carry was silent. 
 
 " Pray do not think that I am here to receive your 
 decision, even if it be already made. I only came to 
 inform you that your stepmother, Mrs. Starbottle, will be in 
 town to-morrow, and will pass a few days at the hotel. If 
 it is your wish to see her before you make up your mind, she 
 will be glad to meet you. She does not, however, wish to 
 do anything to influence your judgment." 
 
 " Does mother know she is coming ? " said Carry hastily. 
 
 "I do not know," said Prince gravely. "I only know 
 that if you conclude to see Mrs. Starbottle, it will be with 
 your mother's permission. Mrs. Starbottle will keep sa- 
 credly this part of the agreement, made ten years ago. But 
 her health is very poor, and the change and country quiet of 
 a few days may benefit her." Mr. Prince bent his keen, 
 bright eyes upon the young girl, and almost held his breath 
 until she spoke again. 
 
 " Mother 's coming up to-day or to-morrow," she said, 
 looking up. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mr. Prince, with a sweet and languid smile. 
 
 " Is Colonel Starbottle here too ? " asked Carry after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Colonel Starbottle is dead ; your stepmother is again a 
 widow." 
 
 " Dead ! " repeated Carry. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 161 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr. Prince, "your stepmother has been 
 singularly unfortunate in surviving her affections." 
 
 Carry did not know what he meant, and looked so. Mr. 
 Prince smiled reassuringly. 
 
 Presently Carry began to whimper. 
 
 Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair. 
 
 " I am afraid," he said, with a very peculiar light in his 
 eye, and a singular dropping of the corners of his mustache, 
 — "I am afraid you are taking this too deeply. It will be 
 some days before you are called upon to make a decision, 
 Let us talk of something else. I hope you caught no cold 
 last evening." 
 
 Carry's face shone out again in dimples. 
 
 " You must have thought us so queer ! It was too bad 
 to give you so much trouble." 
 
 " None whatever, I assure you. My sense of propriety," 
 he added demurely, " which might have been outraged had 
 I been called upon to help three young ladies out of a 
 schoolroom window at night, was deeply gratified at being 
 able to assist them in again." The door-bell rang loudly, 
 and Mr. Prince rose. "Take your own time, and think 
 ■well before you make your decision." But Carry's ear and 
 attention were given to the sound of voices in the hall. At 
 the same moment the door was thrown open and a servant 
 announced, "Mrs. Tretherick and Mr. Robinson." 
 
 The afternoon train had just shrieked out its usual 
 indignant protest at stopping at Genoa at all, as Mr. Jack 
 Prince entered the outskirts of the town and drove towards 
 his hotel. He was wearied and cynical ; a drive of a dozen 
 miles through unpicturesque outlying villages, past small 
 economic farmhouses and hideous villas that violated his 
 fastidious taste, had, I fear, left that gentleman in a captious 
 state of mind. He would have even avoided his taciturn 
 landlord as he drove up to the door, but that functionary 
 waylaid him on the steps. " There 's a lady in the sittin'- 
 
162 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 room waitin' for ye." Mr. Prince hurried upstairs and 
 entered the room as Mrs. Starbottle lew towards him. 
 
 She had changed sadly in the last ten years. Her figure 
 was wasted to half its size ; the beautiful curves of her bust 
 and shoulders were broken or inverted ; the once full, 
 rounded arm was shrunken in its sleeve, and the golden 
 hoops that encircled her wan wrists almost slipped from 
 her hands as her long, scant fingers closed convulsively 
 around Jack's. Her cheek-bones were painted that after- 
 noon with the hectic of fever ; somewhere in the hollows of 
 those cheeks were buried the dimples of long ago, but their 
 graves were forgotten ; her lustrous eyes were still beautiful, 
 though the orbits were deeper than before; her mouth was 
 still sweet, although the lips parted more easily over the 
 little teeth, and even in breathing, and showed more of 
 them than she was wont to do before. The glory of her 
 blonde hair was still left ; it was finer, more silken and 
 ethereal, yet it failed even in its plenitude to cover the hol- 
 lows of the blue-veined temples. 
 
 "Clara," said Jack reproachfully. 
 
 " Oh, forgive me. Jack," she said, falling into a chair, but 
 still clinging to his hand, — " forgive me, dear, but I could 
 not wait longer. I should have died, Jack, died before an- 
 other night. Bear with me a little longer, — it will not be 
 long, — but let me stay. I may not see her, I know — I 
 shall not speak to her — but it's so sweet to feel that I am 
 at last near her — that I breathe the same air with my 
 darling — I am better already, Jack, I am indeed. And 
 you have seen her to-day ? How did she look ? what did 
 she say ? — tell me all — everything. Jack. AVas she beau- 
 tiful ? they say she is ! Has she grown ? Would you have 
 known her again ? Will she come. Jack ? Perhaps she has 
 been here already — perhaps " — she had risen with tremu- 
 lous excitement, and was glancing at the door, — " perhaps 
 she is here now. Why don't you speak. Jack ? tell me all." 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 163 
 
 The keen eyes that looked down into hers were glisten- 
 ing with an infinite tenderness that none perhaps but she 
 would have deemed them capable of. " Clara," he said 
 gently and cheerily, " try and compose yoiirself. You are 
 trembling now with the fatigue and excitement of your 
 journey. I have seen Carry — she is well and beautiful! 
 Let that suffice you now." 
 
 His gentle firmness composed and calmed her now as it 
 had often done before. Stroking her thin hand, he said 
 after a pause, " Did Carry ever write to you ? " 
 
 "Twice — thanking me for some presents; they were 
 only schoolgirl letters," she added, nervously answering the 
 interrogation of his eyes. 
 
 " Did she ever know of your own troubles ? of your pov- 
 erty ? of the sacrifices you made to pay her bills ? of your 
 pawning your clothes and jewels ? of your " — 
 
 " No, no," interrupted the woman quickly, " no ! How 
 could she ? I have no enemy cruel enough to tell her 
 that." 
 
 " But if she — or if Mrs. Tretherick — had heard of it ? 
 If Carry thought you were poor and unable to support her 
 properly, it might influence her decision. Young girls are 
 fond of the position that wealth can give. She may have 
 rich friends — maybe a lover." 
 
 Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence. " But," she 
 said eagerly, grasping Jack's hand, " when you found me 
 sick and helpless at Sacramento ; when you — God bless 
 you for it, Jack ! — offered to help me to the East, you said 
 you knew of something — you had some plan — that would 
 make me and Carry independent." 
 
 " Yes," said Jack hastily, " but I want you to get strong 
 and well first. And now that you are calmer, you shall 
 listen to my visit to the school." 
 
 It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded to describe 
 the interview already recorded with a singular felicity and 
 
164 AN EPISODE 07 FIDDLETOWN 
 
 discretion that shames my own account of that proceeding. 
 Without suppressing a single fact, without omitting a word 
 or detail, he yet managed to throw a poetic veil over that 
 prosaic episode, — to invest the heroine with a romantic 
 roseate atmosphere, which, though not perhaps entirely 
 imaginary, still I fear exhibited that genius which ten years 
 ago had made the columns of the " Fiddletown Avalanche " 
 at once fascinating and instructive. It was not until he saw 
 the heightening color, and heard the quick breathing of his 
 eager listener, that he felt a pang of self-reproach. " God 
 help her and forgive me," he muttered between his clenched 
 teeth, " but how can I tell her all now ! " 
 
 That night when Mrs. Starbottle laid her weary head 
 upon her pillow she tried to picture to herself Carry at the 
 same moment sleeping peacefully in the great schoolhouse 
 on the hill, and it was a rare comfort to this yearning, fool- 
 ish woman to know that she was so near. But at this 
 moment Carry was sitting on the edge of her bed, half 
 undressed, pouting her pretty lips, and twisting her long, 
 leonine locks between her fingers, as Miss Kate Van Corlear, 
 dramatically wrapped in a long white counterpane, her 
 black eyes sparkling, and her thoroughbred nose thrown 
 high in the air, stood over her like a wrathful and indig- 
 nant ghost ; for Carry had that evening imparted her woes 
 and her history to Miss Kate, and that young lady had 
 " proved herself no friend," by falling into a state of fiery 
 indignation over Carry's "ingratitude," and openly and 
 shamelessly espousing the claims of Mrs. Starbottle. 
 " Why, if the half you tell me is true, yopr mother and 
 those Robinsons are making of you not only a little coward, 
 but a little snob, miss. Respectability, forsooth! Look 
 you ! my family are centuries before the Trethericks, but if 
 my family had ever treated me in this way, and then asked 
 me to turn my back on my best friend, I 'd whistle them 
 down the wind ! " and here Kate snapped her fingers, bent 
 
AN EPISODE 0¥ FIDDLETOWN 165 
 
 her Hack brows, and glared around the room, as if in search 
 of a recreant Van Corlear. 
 
 " You just talk this way because you have taken a fancy 
 to that Mr. Prince," said Carry. 
 
 In the debasing slang of the period that had even found 
 its way into the virgin cloisters of the Crammer Institute, 
 Miss Kate, as she afterwards expressed it, instantly " went 
 for her." 
 
 First, with a shake of her head she threw her long black 
 hair over one shoulder, then dropping one end of the coun- 
 terpane from the other like a vestal tunic, she stepped 
 before Carry with a purposely exaggerated classic stride. 
 " And what if I have, miss ? What if I happen to know a 
 gentleman when I see him ? What if I happen to know 
 that among a thousand such traditional, conventional, feeble 
 editions of their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you 
 cannot find one original, independent, individualized gentle- 
 man like your Prince ! Go to bed, miss ! and pray to Hea- 
 ven that he may be your Prince indeed ! Ask to have a 
 contrite and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in particular 
 for having sent you such a friend as Kate Van Corlear ! " 
 Yet, after an imposing dramatic exit, she reappeared the 
 next moment as a straight white flash, kissed Cany between 
 the brows, and was gone. 
 
 The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince. He was 
 convinced in his mind that Carry would not come, yet to 
 keep this consciousness from Mrs. Starbottle, to meet her 
 simple hopefulness with an equal degree of apparent faith, 
 was a hard and difficult task. He would have tried to 
 divert her mind by taking her on a long drive, but she was 
 fearful that Carry might come during her absence, and her 
 strength, he was obliged to admit, had failed greatly. As 
 he looked into her large and awe-inspiring clear eyes, a 
 something he tried to keep from his mind — to put oif day 
 by day from contemplation — kept asserting itself directly 
 
166 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 to his inner consciousness. He began to doubt the expe- 
 diency and wisdom of his management ; he recalled every 
 incident of his interview with Carry, and half believed 
 that its failure was due to himself. Yet Mrs. Starbottle was 
 very patient and confident ; her very confidence shook his 
 faith in his own judgment. When her strength was equal 
 to the exertion, she was propped up in her chair by the 
 window, where she could see the school and the entrance 
 to the hotel. In the intervals she would elaborate pleasant 
 plans for the future, and would sketch a country home. 
 She had taken a strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to 
 the present location, but it was notable that the future 
 always thus outlined was one of quiet and repose. She 
 believed she would get well soon ; in fact she thought she 
 was now much better than she had been, but it might be 
 long before she should be quite strong again. She would 
 whisper on in this way until Jack would dash madly down 
 into the bar-room, order liquors that he did not drink, 
 light cigars that he did not smoke, talk with men that he 
 did not listen to, and behave generally as our stronger sex 
 is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and perplexity. 
 
 The day closed with a clouded sky and a bitter searching 
 wind. With the night fell a few wandering flakes of snow. 
 She was still content and hopeful, and as Jack wheeled her 
 from the window to the fire, she explained to him how that, 
 as the school-term was drawing near its close, Carry was 
 probably kept closely at her lessons during the day, and 
 could only leave the school at night. So she sat up the 
 greater part of the evening and combed her silken hair, and 
 as far as her strength would allow made an undress toilette 
 to receive her guest. " We must not frighten the child. 
 Jack," she said apologetically and with something of her 
 old coquetry. 
 
 It was with a feeling of relief that, at ten o'clock, Jack 
 received a message from the landlord, saying that the 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 167 
 
 doctor would like to see him for a moment downstairs. As 
 Jack entered the grim, dimly lighted parlor, he observed 
 the hooded figure of a woman near the fire. He was about 
 to withdraw again, when a voice that he remembered very 
 pleasantly said, — 
 
 " Oh, it's all right. I'm the doctor." 
 
 The hood was thrown back, and Prince saw the shin- 
 ing black hair, and black, audacious eyes, of Kate Van 
 Corlear. 
 
 "Don't ask any question. I*m the doctor, and there's 
 my prescription," and she pointed to the half-frightened, 
 half-sobbing Carry in the corner ; " to be taken at once ! " 
 
 " Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her permission ? " 
 
 "Not much, if I know the sentiments of that lady," 
 replied Kate saucily. 
 
 " Then how did you get away ? " asked Prince gravely. 
 
 " By the window." 
 
 When Mr. Prince had left Carry in the arms of her 
 stepmother, he returned to the parlor. 
 
 " Well ? " demanded Kate. 
 
 " She will stay — you will, I hope, also, to-night." 
 
 " As I shall not be eighteen and my own mistress on the 
 20th, and as I haven't a sick stepmother, I won't." 
 
 " Then you will give me the pleasure of seeing you safely 
 through the window again ? " 
 
 When Mr. Prince returned an hour later, he found Carry 
 sitting on a low stool at Mrs. Starbottle's feet. Her head 
 was in her stepmother's lap, and she had sobbed herself to 
 sleep. Mrs. Starbottle put her finger to her lip. " I told 
 you she would come. God bless you, Jack, and good- 
 night." 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Tretherick, indignant, the Eev. 
 Asa Crammer, Principal, injured, and Mr. Joel Eobinson, 
 Senior, complacently respectable, called upon Mr. Prince. 
 There was a stormy meeting, ending in a demand fol 
 
168 AK EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 Carry. " We certainly cannot admit of this interference," 
 said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashionably dressed indistinctive- 
 looking woman ; " it is several days before the expiration of 
 our agreement, and we do not feel, under the circumstances, 
 justified in releasing Mrs. Starbottle from its conditions." 
 " Until the expiration of the school-term, we must consider 
 Miss Tretherick as complying entirely with its rules and 
 discipline," interposed Dr. Crammer. " The whole proceed- 
 ing is calculated to injure the prospects and compromise 
 the position of Miss Tretherick in society," suggested Mr. 
 Kobinson. 
 
 In vain Mr. Prince urged the failing condition of Mrs. 
 Starbottle, her absolute freedom from complicity with Carry's 
 flight, the pardonable and natural instincts of the girl, and 
 his own assurance that they were willing to abide by her 
 decision. And then, with a rising color in his cheek, a 
 dangerous look in his eye, but a singular calmness in his 
 speech, he added, — 
 
 " One word more. It becomes my diaty to inform you 
 of a circumstance which would certainly justify me, as an 
 executor of the late Mr. Tretherick, in fully resisting your 
 demands. A few months after Mr. Tretherick's death, 
 through the agency of a Chinaman in his employment it 
 was discovered that he had made a will, which was subse- 
 quently found among his papers. The insignificant value of 
 his bequest — mostly laud, then quite valueless — prevented 
 his executors from carrying out his wishes, or from even 
 proving the will, or making it otherwise publicly known, 
 until within the last two or three years, when the property 
 has enormously increased in value. The provisions of that 
 bequest are simple, but unmistakable. The property is 
 divided between Carry and her stepmother, with the explicit 
 •condition that Mrs. Starbottle shall become her legal guard- 
 ian, provide for her education, and in all details stand to her 
 in loco parentis." 
 
AN EPISODE OF FJDDLETOWN 169 
 
 " What is the value of this bequest ? " asked Mr. Eobin- 
 Bon. " I cannot tell exactly, but not far from half a million, 
 I should say," returned Prince. " Certainly, with this 
 knowledge, as a friend of Miss Tretherick, I must say that 
 her conduct is as judicious as it is honorable to her," re- 
 sponded Mr. Robinson. " I shall not presume to question 
 the wishes or throw any obstacles in the way of carrying out 
 the intentions of my dead husband," added Mrs. Tretherick, 
 and the interview was closed. 
 
 When its result was made known to Mrs. Starbottle, she 
 raised Jack's hand to her feverish lips. " It cannot add to 
 my happiness now, Jack ; but tell me, why did you keep it 
 from her ? " Jack smiled, but did not reply. 
 
 Within the next week the necessary legal formalities were 
 concluded, and Carry was restored to her stepmother. At 
 Mrs. Starbottle's request a small house in the outskirts of 
 the town was procured, and thither they removed to wait 
 the spring and Mrs. Starbottle's convalescence. Both came 
 tardily that year. 
 
 Yet she was happy and patient. She was fond of watching 
 the budding of the trees beyond her window, — a novel sight 
 to her Californian experience, — and of asking Carry their 
 names and seasons. Even at this time she projected for 
 that summer, which seemed to her so mysteriously withheld, 
 long walks with Carry through the leafy woods whose gray, 
 misty ranks she could see along the hilltop. She even 
 thought she could write poetry about them, and recalled 
 the fact as evidence of her gaining strength ; and there is, I 
 believe, still treasured by one of the members of this little 
 houseliold, a little carol, so joyous, so simple, and so innocent 
 that it might have been an echo of the robin that called to 
 her from the window, as perhaps it was. 
 
 And then, without warning, there dropped from heaven 
 a day so tender, so mystically soft, so dreamily beautiful, so 
 throbbing and alive with the fluttering of invisible wingSj so 
 
170 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 replete and bounteously overflowing with an awakening and 
 joyous resurrection not taught by man or limited by creed, 
 that they thought it fit to bring her out and lay her in that 
 glorious sunshine that sprinkled like the droppings of a 
 bridal torch the hajipy lintels and doors. And there she 
 lay, beatified and calm. 
 
 Wearied by watching, CaiTy had fallen asleep by her 
 side, and Mrs. Starbottle's thin fingers lay like a benedic- 
 tion on her head. Presently she called Jack to her side. 
 
 " Who was that ? " she whispered ; " who just came in ? " 
 
 " Miss Van Corlear," said Jack, answering the look in 
 her great hollow eyes. 
 
 " Jack," she said after a moment's silence, " sit by me a 
 moment, dear Jack ; I 've something I must say. If I ever 
 seemed hard or cold or coquettish to you in the old days, it 
 was because I loved you. Jack, too well to mar your future 
 by linking it with my own. I always loved you, dear Jack, 
 even when I seemed least worthy of you. That is gone 
 now ; but I had a dream lately. Jack, a foolish woman's 
 dream, that you might find what I lacked in her" and she 
 glanced lovingly at the sleeping girl at her side ; " that 
 jou might love her as you have loved me. But even that 
 is not to be. Jack — is it ? " and she glanced wistfully in 
 his face. Jack pressed her hand, but did not speak. After 
 a few moments' silence she again said, " Perhaps you are 
 right in your choice. She is a good-hearted girl, Jack — 
 but a little bold." 
 
 And with this last flicker of foolish, weak humanity in 
 her struggling spirit, she spoke no more. When they came 
 to her a moment later, a tiny bird that had lit upon her 
 breast flew away, and the hand that they lifted from Carry's 
 head fell lifeless at her side. 
 
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OE ME. JOHN 
 OAKHURST 
 
 He always thought it must have been Fate. Certainly 
 nothing could have been more inconsistent with his habits 
 than to have been in the Plaza at seven o'clock of that 
 midsummer morning. The sight of his colorless face in 
 Sacramento was rare at that season, and indeed at any 
 season, anywhere, publicly, before two o'clock in the after~ 
 noon. Looking back upon it in after years, in the light of 
 a chanceful life, he determined, with the characteristic 
 philosophy of his profession, that it must have been Fate. 
 
 Yet it is my duty, as a strict chronicler of facts, to state 
 that Mr. Oakhurst's presence there that morning was due 
 to a very simple cause. At exactly half past six, the bank 
 being then a winner to the amount of twenty thousand 
 dollars, he had risen from the faro-table, relinquished his 
 seat to an accomplished assistant, and withdrawn quietly, 
 without attracting a glance from the silent, anxious faces 
 bowed over the table. But when he entered his luxurious 
 sleeping -room, across the passageway, he was a little 
 shocked at finding the sun streaming through an inadvert- 
 ently opened window. Something in the rare beauty of 
 the morning, perhaps something in the novelty of the idea, 
 struck him as he was about to close the blinds, and he 
 hesitated. Then, taking his hat from the table, he stepped 
 down a private staircase into the street. 
 
 The people who were abroad at that early hour were of 
 a class quite unknown to Mr. Oakhurst. There were 
 milkmen and hucksters delivering their wares, small 
 
172 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHUKST 
 
 tradespeople opening their shops, housemaids sweeping 
 doorsteps, and occasionally a child. These Mr. OaKhurst 
 regarded with a certain cold curiosity, perhaps quite free 
 from the cynical disfavor with ■which he generally looked 
 upon the more pretentious of his race whom he was in the 
 habit of meeting. Indeed, I think he was not altogether 
 displeased with the admiring glances which these humble 
 ■women threw after his handsome face and figure, conspic- 
 uous even in a country of fine-looking men. While it is 
 very probable that this wicked vagabond, in the pride of 
 his social isolation, ■would have been coldly indifferent to 
 the advances of a fine lady, a little girl who ran admiringly 
 by his side in a ragged dress had the power to call a faint 
 flush into his colorless cheek. He dismissed her at last, 
 but not until she had found out — what sooner or later hex 
 large-hearted and discriminating sex inevitably did — that 
 he was exceedingly free and open-handed with his money, 
 and also — what perhaps none other of her sex ever did — 
 that the bold black eyes of this fine gentleman were in 
 reality of a brownish and even tender gray. 
 
 There was a small garden before a white cottage in a 
 side-street that attracted Mr. Oakhurst's attention. It was 
 filled with roses, heliotrope, and verbena, — flowers familiar 
 enough to him in the expensive and more portable form of 
 bouquets, but, as it seemed to him then, never before so 
 notably lovely. Perhaps it was because the dew ■was yet 
 fresh upon them, perhaps it was because they were un- 
 plucked, but Mr. Oakhurst admired them, not as a possible 
 future tribute to the fascinating and accomplished Miss 
 Ethelinda, then performing at the Varieties, for Mr. Oak- 
 hurst's especial benefit, as she had often assured him ; nor 
 yet as a douceur to the enthralling Miss Montmorrissy, with 
 whom Mr. Oakhurst expected to sup that evening, but 
 simply for himself, and mayhap for the flowers' sake. How- 
 beit, he passed on, and so out into the open plaza, where, 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST ITS, 
 
 finding a bench under a cottonwood-tree, he first dusted 
 the seat with liis handkerchief, and then sat down. 
 
 It was a fine morning. The air was so still and calm 
 that a sigh from the sycamores seemed like the deep-drawn 
 breath of the just awakening tree, and the faint rustle of its 
 boughs as the outstretching of crampjed and reviving limbs. 
 Far away the Sierras stood out against a sky so remote as 
 to be of no positive color, — so remote that even the sun 
 despaired of ever reaching it, and so expended its strength 
 recklessly on the whole landscape, until it fairly glittered ia 
 a white and vivid contrast. With a very rare impulse, Mr. 
 Oakhurst took off his hat, and half reclined on the bench, 
 with his face to the sky. Certain birds who had taken a 
 critical attitude on a spray above him apparently began an 
 animated discussion regarding his possible malevolent in- 
 tentions. One or two, emboldened by the silence, hopped 
 on the ground at his feet, until the sound of wheels on the 
 gravel walk frightened them away. 
 
 Looking up, he saw a man coming slowly towards him, 
 wheeling a nondescript vehicle in which a woman was partly 
 sitting, partly reclining. Without knowing why, Mr. Oak- 
 hurst instantly conceived that the carriage was the invention 
 and workmanship of the man, partly from its oddity, partly 
 from the strong, mechanical hand that grasped it, and partly 
 from a certain pride and visible consciousness in the manner 
 in which the man handled it. Then Mr. Oakhurst saw 
 something more, — the man's face was familiar. With that 
 regal faculty of not forgetting a face that had ever given 
 him professional audience, he instantly classified it under 
 the following mental formula : " At 'Frisco, Polka Saloon. 
 Lost his week's wages. I reckon seventy dollars — on 
 red. Never came again." There was, however, no trace 
 of this in the calm eyes and unmoved face that he turned 
 upon the stranger, who, on the contrary, blushed, looked 
 embarrassed, hesitated, and then stopped with an involun 
 
174 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MK. JOHN OAKHUKST 
 
 tary motion that brought the carriage and its fair occupant 
 face to face with Mr. Oakhurst. 
 
 I should hardly do justice to the position she will occupy 
 in this veracious chronicle by describing the lady now — if, 
 indeed, I am able to do it at all. Certainly, the popular 
 estimate was conflicting. The late Colonel Starbottle — to 
 whose large experience of a charming sex I have before 
 been indebted for many valuable suggestions — had, I re- 
 gret to say, depreciated her fascinations. " A yellow-faced 
 cripple, by dash — a sick woman, with mahogany eyes. One 
 of your blanked spiritual creatures, with no flesh on her 
 bones." On the other hand, however, she enjoyed later 
 much complimentary disparagement from her own sex. 
 Miss Celestina Howard, second leader in the ballet at the 
 Varieties, had, with great alliterative directness, in after 
 years, denominated her as an " aquiline asp." Mile. 
 Brimborion remembered that she had always warned " Mr. 
 Jack " that this woman would " empoison " him. But Mr. 
 Oakhurst, whose impressions are perhaps the most impor- 
 tant, only saw a pale, thin, deep-eyed woman, raised above 
 the level of her companion by the reflnement of long suffer- 
 ing and isolation, and a certain shy virginity of manner. 
 There was a suggestion of physical purity in the folds of her 
 fresh-looking robe, and a certain picturesque tastefulness in 
 the details, that, without knowing why, made him think 
 that the robe was her invention and handiwork, even as the 
 sarriage she occupied was evidently the work of her com- 
 panion. Her own hand, a trifle too thin, but well-shaped, 
 subtle-fingered, and gentlewomanly, rested on the side of 
 the carriage, the counterpart of the strong mechanical grasp 
 of her companion's. 
 
 There was some obstruction to the progress of the vehicle, 
 avid Mr. Oakhurst stepped forward to assist. While the 
 wheel was being lifted over the curbstone, it was necessary 
 that she should hold his arm, and for a moment her thin 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST 175 
 
 hand rested there, light and cold as a snowflake, and then 
 
 — as it seemed to him — like a snowflake melted away. 
 Then there was a pause, and then conversation — the lady- 
 joining occasionally and shyly. 
 
 It appeared that they were man and wife. That for the 
 past two years she had been a great invalid, and had lost 
 the use of her lower limbs from rheumatism. That until 
 lately she had been confined to her bed, until her husband 
 
 — who was a master carpenter — had bethought himself to 
 make her this carriage. He took her out regularly for an 
 airing before going to work, because it was his only time, 
 and — they attracted less attention. They had tried many 
 doctors, but without avail. They had been advised to go 
 to the Sulphur Springs, but it was expensive. Mr. Decker, 
 the husband, had once saved eighty dollars for that purpose, 
 but while in San Francisco had his pocket picked — Mr. 
 Decker was so senseless. (The intelligent reader need not 
 be told that it is the lady who is speaking.) They had 
 never been able to make up the sum again, and they had 
 given up the idea. It was a dreadful thing to have one's 
 pocket picked. Did he not think so ? 
 
 Her husband's face was crimson, but Mr. Oakhurst's 
 countenance was quite calm and unmoved, as he gravely 
 agreed with her, and walked by her side until they passed 
 the little garden that he had admired. Here Mr. Oakhurst 
 coHHnanded a halt, and, going to the door, astounded the 
 proprietor by a preposterously extravagant offer for a choice 
 of the flowers. Presently he returned to the carriage with 
 his arms full of roses, heliotrope, and verbena, and cast 
 them in the lap of the invalid. While she was bending 
 over them with childish delight, Mr. Oakhurst took the 
 opportunity of drawing her husband aside. 
 
 " Perhaps," he said in a low voice, and a manner quite 
 free from any personal annoyance, — "perhaps it's just as 
 well that you lied to her as you did. You can say now that 
 
176 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF ME. JOHN OAKHURST 
 
 tne pickpocket was arrested the other day, and you got 
 your money back." Mr. Oakhurst quietly slipped four 
 twenty-dollar gold -pieces into the broad hand of the be- 
 wildered Mr. Decker. " Say that — or anything you like — 
 but the truth. Promise me you won't say that ! " 
 
 The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly returned to 
 the front of the little carriage. The sick woman was still 
 eagerly occupied with the flowers, and as she raised her 
 eyes to his, her faded cheek seemed to have caught some 
 color from the roses, and her eyes some of their dewy fresh- 
 ness. But at that instant Mr. Oakhurst lifted his hat, and 
 before she could thank him was gone. 
 
 I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly broke his 
 promise. That night, in the very goodness of his heart and 
 uxorious self-abnegation, he, like all devoted husbands, not 
 only offered himself, but his friend and benefactor, as a 
 sacrifice on the family altar. It is only fair, however, to 
 add that he spoke with great fervor of the generosity of 
 Mr. Oakhurst, and dealt with an enthusiasm quite common 
 with his class on the mysterious fame and prodigal vices of 
 the gambler. 
 
 " And now, Elsie, dear, say that you '11 forgive me," said 
 Mr. Decker, dropping on one knee beside his wife's couch. 
 " I did it for the best. It was for you, dearey, that I put 
 that money on them cards that night in 'Frisco. I thought 
 to win a heap, — enough to take you away, and enough left 
 to get you a new dress." 
 
 Mrs. Decker smiled and pressed her husband's hand. 
 " I do forgive you, Joe, dear," she said, still smiling, with 
 eyes abstractedly fixed on the ceiling ; " and you ought to be 
 whipped for deceiving me so, you bad boy, and making me 
 make such a speech. There, say no more about it. If 
 you '11 be very good hereafter, and will just now hand me 
 that cluster of roses, I'll forgive you." She took the 
 branch in her fingers, lifted the roses to her face, and pre- 
 sently said, behind their leaves, — 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST 177 
 
 " Joe ! " 
 
 " What is it, lovey ? " 
 
 " Do you think that this Mr. — what do you call him ? 
 — Jack Oakhurst would have given that money back to 
 you if I had n't made that speech ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " If he had n't seen me at all ? " 
 
 Mr. Decker looked up. His wife had managed in some 
 way to cover up her whole face with the roses, except her 
 eyes, which were dangerously bright. 
 
 " No ; it was you, Elsie — it was all along of seeing you 
 that made him do it." 
 
 " A poor sick woman like me ? " 
 
 " A sweet, little, lovely, pooty Elsie — Joe's own little 
 wifey ! How could he help it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Decker fondly cast one arm around her husband's 
 neck, still keeping the roses to her face with the other. 
 From behind them she began to murmur gently and idiot- 
 ically, "Dear, ole square Joey. Elsie's oney booful big 
 bear." But, really, I do not see that my duty as a chroni- 
 cler of facts compels me to continue this little lady's speech 
 any further, and out of respect to the unmarried reader I 
 stop. 
 
 Nevertheless, the next morning Mrs. Decker betrayed 
 some slight and apparently uncalled-for irritability on reach- 
 ing the plaza, and presently desired her husband to wheel 
 her back home. Moreover, she was very much astonished 
 at meeting Mr. Oakhurst just as they were returning, and 
 even doubted if it were he, and questioned her husband as 
 to his identity with the stranger of yesterday as he ap- 
 proached. Her manner to Mr. Oakhurst, also, was quite in 
 contrast with her husband's frank welcome. Mr. Oakhurst 
 instantly detected it. " Her husband has told her all, and 
 she dislikes me," he said to himself, with that fatal appre- 
 •iation of the half-truths of a woman's motives that causes 
 
178 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHUEST 
 
 the wisest masculine critic to stumble. He lingered only 
 long enough to take the business address of the husband, 
 and then, lifting his hat gravely, -without looking at the 
 lady, went his way. It struck the honest master carpenter 
 as one of the charming anomalies of his wife's character 
 that, although the meeting was evidently very much con- 
 strained and unpleasant, instantly afterward his wife's spir- 
 its began to rise. " You was hard on him — a leetle hard, 
 was n't you, Elsie ? " said Mr. Decker deprecatingly. " I 'm 
 afraid he may think I've broke my promise." "Ah, in- 
 deed," said the lady indifferently. Mr. Decker instantly 
 stepped round to the front of the vehicle. " You look like 
 an A 1 first-class lady riding down Broadway in her own 
 carriage, Elsie," said he ; "I never seed you lookin' so 
 peart and sassy before." 
 
 A few days later the proprietor of the San Isabel Sulphur 
 Springs received the following note iu Mr. Oakhurst's well- 
 known dainty hand : — 
 
 Deak Steve, — I 've been thinking over your propo- 
 sition to buy Nichols's quarter interest and have concluded 
 to go in. But I don't see how the thing will pay until you 
 have more accommodation down there, and for the best class 
 •^ I mean my customers. What we want is an extension to 
 the main building, and two or three cottages put up. I 
 send down a builder to take hold of the job at once. He 
 takes his sick wife with him, and you are to look after them 
 as you would for one of us. 
 
 I may run down there myself, after the races, just to 
 look after things ; but I sha'n't set upon any game this sea- 
 son. Yours always, 
 
 John Oakhuest. 
 
 It was only the last sentence of this letter that provoked 
 criticism. "I can understand," said Mr. Hamlin, a pro- 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. J.OHN OAKHURST 179 
 
 fessional brother, to whom Mr. Oakhurst's letter was 
 shown, — "I can understand why Jack goes in heavy and 
 builds, for it 's a sure spec, and is bound to be a mighty 
 soft thing in time, if he comes here regularly. But why in- 
 blank he don't set up a bank this season and take the 
 chance of getting some of the money back that he puts into 
 circulation in building, is what gets me. I wonder now," 
 he mused deeply, " what is his little game." 
 
 The season had been a prosperous one to Mr. Oakhurst, 
 and proportionally disastrous to several members of the 
 Legislature, judges, colonels, and others who had enjoyed 
 but briefly the pleasure of Mr. Oakhurst's midnight society. 
 And yet Sacramento had become very dull to him. He 
 had lately formed a habit of early morning walks, — so un- 
 usual and startling to his friends, both male and female, as 
 to occasion the intensest curiosity. Two or three of the 
 latter set spies upon his track, but the inquisition resulted 
 only in the discovery that Mr. Oakhurst walked to the 
 plaza, sat down upon one particular bench for a few mo- 
 ments, and then returned without seeing anybody, and the 
 theory that there was a woman in the case was abandoned. 
 A few superstitious gentlemen of his own profession believed 
 that he did it for' "luck." Some others, more practical, 
 declared that he went out to "study points." 
 
 After the races at Marysville, Mr. Oakhurst went to San 
 Francisco ; from that place he returned to Marysville, but 
 a few days after was seen at San Jose, Santa Cruz, and 
 Oakland. Those who met him declared that his manner 
 was restless and feverish, and quite unlike his ordinary 
 calmness and phlegm. Colonel Starbottle pointed out the 
 fact that at San Francisco,' at the Club, Jack had declined to 
 deal. "Hand shaky, sir — depend upon it; don't stimu- 
 late enough — blank him ! " 
 
 From San Jose he started vo go to Oregon by land with 
 a' rather expensive outfit of horses and camp equipage, but 
 
180 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF ME. JOHN OARHUEST 
 
 on reaching Stockton he suddenly diverged, and four hours 
 later found him, with a single horse, entering the canon ■ of 
 the San Isahel Warm Sulphur Springs. 
 ■ It was a pretty triangular valley lying at the foot of three 
 sloping mountains, dark with pines and fantastic with ma- 
 drono and manzanita. Nestling against the mountain-side, 
 the straggling buildings and long piazza of the hotel glit- 
 tered through the leaves ; and here and there shone a white 
 toy-like cottage. Mr. Oakhurst was not an admirer of 
 nature, but he felt something of the same novel satisfac- 
 tion in the view that he experienced in his first morning 
 walk in Sacramento. And now carriages began to pass 
 him on the road filled with gayly dressed women, and the 
 cold California outlines of the landscape began to take 
 upon themselves somewhat of a human warmth and color. 
 And then the long hotel piazza came in view, efflorescent 
 with the full-toileted fair. Mr. Oakhurst, a good rider 
 after the California fashion, did not check his speed as 
 he approached his destination, but charged the hotel at a 
 gallop, threw his horse on his haunches within a foot of the 
 piazza, and then quietly emerged from the cloud of dust 
 that veiled his dismounting. 
 
 Whatever feverish excitement might have raged within, 
 all his habitual calm returned as he stepped upon the 
 piazza. With the instinct of long habit he turned and faced 
 the battery of eyes with the same cold indifference with 
 which he had for years encountered the half-hidden sneers 
 of men and the half-frightened admiration of women. Only 
 one person stepped forward to welcome him. Oddly 
 enough, it was Dick Hamilton, perhaps the only one pre- 
 sent who, by birth, education, and position, might have 
 satisfied the most fastidious social critic. Happily for Mr. 
 Oakhurst's reputation, he was also a very rich banker and 
 social leader. " Do you know who that is you spoke to ? " 
 asked young Parker, with an alarmed expression. " Yes," 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF ME. JOHN OAKHURST 181 
 
 replied Hamilton, with characteristic effrontery ; " the man 
 you lost a thousand dollars to last week. / only know him 
 socially." " But is n't he a gambler ? " queried the young- 
 est Miss Smith. " He is," replied Hamilton ; " but I wish, 
 my dear young lady, that we all played as open and honest 
 a game as our friend yonder, and were as willing as he is to 
 abide by its fortunes." 
 
 But Mr. Oakhurst was happily out of hearing of this 
 colloquy, and was even then lounging listlessly, yet watch- 
 fully, along the upper hall. Suddenly he heard a light 
 footstep behind him, and then his name called in a familiar 
 voice that drew the blood quickly to his heart. He turned, 
 and she stood before him. 
 
 But how transformed ! If I have hesitated to describe 
 the hollow-eyed cripple. ■ — • the quaintly dressed artisan's 
 v/ife, a few pages ago, — what shall I do with this graceful, 
 shapely, elegantly attired gentlewoman into whom she has 
 been merged within these two months ? In good faith, 'she 
 was very pretty. You and I, my dear madam, would have 
 been quick to see that those charming dimples were mis- 
 placed for true beauty, and too fixed in their quality for 
 honest mirthfulness ; that the delicate lines around those 
 aquiline nostrils were cruel and selfish ; that the sweet, 
 virginal surprise of those lovely eyes was as apt to be 
 opened on her plate as upon the gallant speeches of her 
 dinner partner ; that her sympathetic color came and went 
 more with her own spirits than yours. But you and I are 
 not in love with her, dear madam, and Mr. Oakhurst is. 
 And even in the folds of her Parisian gown, I am afraid 
 this poor fellow saw the same subtle strokes of puritj that 
 he had seen in her homespun robe. And then there was 
 the delightful revelation that she could walk, and that she 
 had dear little feet of her own in the tiniest slippers of her 
 French shoemaker, with such preposterous blue bows, and 
 Chappell's own stamp, Eue de something or other, Paris, 
 on the narrow sole. 
 
182 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MK. JOHN OAKHUKST 
 
 He ran towards her with a heightened color and out 
 stretched hands. But she whipped her own behind her, 
 glanced rapidly up and down the long hall, and stood 
 looking at him with a half-audacious, half-mischievous 
 admiration in utter contrast to her old reserve. 
 
 " I've a great mind not to shake hands with you at all. 
 You passed me just now on the piazza without speaking, 
 and I ran after you, as I suppose many another poor woman 
 has done." 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst stammered that she was so changed. 
 
 " The more reason why you should know me. Who 
 changed me ? You. You have re-created me. You found 
 a helpless, crippled, sick, poverty-stricken woman, with one 
 dress to her back, and that her own make, and you gave 
 her life, health, strength, and fortune. You did, and you 
 know it, sir. How do you like your work ? " She caught 
 the side seams of her gown in either hand and dropped him 
 a playful courtesy. Then, with a sudden, relenting gesture, 
 she gave him both her hands. 
 
 Outrageous as this speech was, and unfeminine, as I trust 
 every fair reader will deem it, I fear it pleased Mr. Oak- 
 hurst. Not but that he was accustomed to a certain frank 
 female admiration ; but then it was of the coulisses and 
 not of the cloister, with which he always persisted in 
 associating Mrs. Decker. To be addressed in this way by 
 an invalid Puritan, a sick saint, with the austerity of suffer- 
 ing still clothing her, — a woman who had a Bible on the 
 dressing-table, who went to church three times a day, and 
 was devoted to her husband, completely bowled him over. 
 He stjll held her hands as she went on, — 
 
 " Why did n't you come before ? What were you doing 
 in Marysville, in San Jos(5, in Oakland ? You see I have 
 followed you. I saw you as you came down the carion, 
 and knew you at once. I saw your letter to Joseph, and 
 knew you were coming. Why did n't you write to me ? 
 You will some time ! Good-evening, Mr. Hamilton." 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MK. JOHN OAKHURST 183 
 
 She had withdrawn her hands, but not until Hamilton, 
 ascending the staircase, was nearly abreast of them. He 
 raised his hat to her with well-bred composure, nodded 
 familiarly to Oakhurst, and passed on. When he had gone 
 Mrs. Decker lifted her eyes to Mr. Oakhurst. '■' Some day 
 I shall ask a great favor of you ! " 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst begged that it should be now. " No, not 
 until you know me better. Then, some day, I shall want 
 you to — kill that man ! " 
 
 She laughed, such a pleasant little riixging laugh, such a 
 display of dimples, — albeit a little iixed in the corners of 
 her mouth, — such an innocent light in her brown eyes, and 
 such a lovely color in her cheeks, that Mr. Oakhurst — who 
 seldom laughed — was fain to laugh too. It was as if 
 a lamb had proposed to a fox a foray into a neighboring 
 sheepfold. 
 
 A few evenings after this, Mrs. Decker arose from a 
 charmed circle of her admirers on the hotel piazza, excused 
 herself for a few moments, laughingly declined an escort, 
 and ran over to her little cottage — one of her husband's 
 creation — across the road. Perhaps from the sudden and 
 unwonted exercise in her still convalescent state, she 
 breathed hurriedly and feverishly as she entered her boudoir, 
 and once or twice placed her hand upon her breast. She 
 was startled on turning up the light to find her husband 
 lying on the sofa. 
 
 "You look hot and excited, Elsie, love," said Mr. 
 Decker ; " you ain't took worse, are you ? " 
 
 Mrs. Decker's face had paled, but now flushed again. 
 "No," she said, "only a little pain here," as she again 
 placed her hand upon her corsage. 
 
 " Can I do anything for you ? " said Mr. Decker, rising 
 with affectionate concern. , 
 
 "Eun over to the hotel and get me some brandy, 
 quick ! " 
 
184 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF ME. JOHN OAKHURST 
 
 Mr. Decker ran. Mrs. Decker closed and bolted the 
 door, and then putting her hand to her bosom, drew out 
 the pain. It was folded foursquare, and was, I grieve to 
 say, in Mr. Oakhurst's handwriting. 
 
 She devoured it with burning eyes and cheeks until there 
 came a step upon the porch. Then she hurriedly replaced 
 it in her bosom and unbolted the door. Her husband 
 entered ; she raised the spirits to her lips and declared her- 
 self better. 
 
 " Are you going over there again to-night ? " asked Mr. 
 Decker submissively. 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Decker, with her eyes fixed dreamily 
 on the floor. 
 
 " I would n't if I was you," said Mr. Decker with a sigh 
 of relief. After a pause he took a seat on the sofa, and 
 drawing his wife to his side, said, " Do you know what I 
 was thinking of when you came in, Elsie ? " Mrs. Decker 
 ran her fingers through his stiff black hair, and could n't 
 imagine. 
 
 " I was thinking of old times, Elsie ; I was thinking of 
 the days when I built that kerridge for you, Elsie — when I 
 used to take you out to ride, and was both boss and driver ! 
 We was poor then, and you was sick, Elsie, but we was 
 happy. We 've got money now, and a house, and you 're 
 quite another woman. I may say, dear, that you 're a nev 
 woman. And that 's where the trouble comes in. I coulu 
 build you a kerridge, Elsie ; I could build you a house, 
 Elsie — but there I stopped. I could n't build up you. 
 You're strong and pretty, Elsie, and fresh and new. But 
 somehow, Elsie, you ain't no work of mine ! " 
 
 He paused. With one hand laid gently on his forehead 
 and the other pressed upon her bosom as if to feel certain 
 of the presence of her pain, she said sweetly and sooth- 
 ingly : — 
 
 " But it was your work, dear." 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHUEST 185 
 
 Mr. Decker shook his head sorrowfully. " No, Elsie, 
 not mine. I had the chance to do it once and I let it go. 
 It 's done now ; but not by me." 
 
 Mrs. Decker raised her surprised, innocent eyes to his. 
 He kissed her tenderly, and then went on in a more cheer- 
 ful voice. 
 
 " That ain't all I was thinking of, Elsie. I was thinking 
 that maybe you give too much of your company to that Mr. 
 Hamilton. Not that there 's any wrong in it, to you or him. 
 But it might make people talk. You 're the only one here, 
 Elsie," said the master carpenter, looking fondly at his wife, 
 " who is n't talked about ; whose work ain't inspected or 
 condemned." 
 
 Mrs. Decker was glad he had spoken, about it. She had 
 thought so, too, but she could not well be uncivil to Mr. 
 Hamilton, who was a fine gentleman, without making a 
 powerful enemy. " A.nd he 's always treated me as if I was 
 a born lady in his own circle," added the little woman, with 
 a certain pride that made her husband fondly smile. " But 
 I have thought of a plan. He will not stay here if I 
 should go away. If, for instance, I went to San Francisco 
 to visit ma for a few days, he would be gone before I 
 should return." 
 
 Mr. Decker was delighted. " By all means," he said ; " go 
 to-morrow. Jack Oakhurst is going down, and I '11 put you 
 in his charge." 
 
 Mrs. Decker did not think it was prudent. " Mr. Oak- 
 hurst is our friend, Joseph, but you know his reputation." 
 In fact, she did not know that she ought to go now, knowing 
 that he was going the same day ; but with a kiss Mr. Decker 
 overcame her scruples. She yielded gracefully. Few women, 
 in fact, knew how to give up a point as charmingly as she. 
 
 She stayed a week in San Francisco. When she returned 
 she was a trifle thinner and paler than she had been. This 
 «he explained as the result of perhaps too active exercise and 
 
186 PASSAGE IN, THE LIFE OF MK. JOHN OAKHURST 
 
 excitement. " I was out of doors nearly all the time, as ma 
 will tell you," she said to her husband, " and always alone. 
 I am getting quite independent now," she added gayly. " I 
 don't want any escort — I believe, Joey dear, I could get 
 along even without you — I'm so brave ! " 
 
 But her visit, apparently, had not been productive of her 
 impelling design. Mr. Hamilton had not gone, but had 
 remained, and called upon them that very evening. " I 've 
 thought of a plan, Joey, dear," said Mrs. Decker when he 
 had departed. " Poor Mr. Oakhurst has a miserable room 
 at the hotel — suppose you ask him when he returns from San 
 Francisco to stop with us. He can have our spare room. 
 I don't think," she added archly, " that Mr. Hamilton will 
 call often." Her husband laughed, intimated that she was 
 a little coquette, pinched her cheek, and complied. " The 
 queer thing about a woman," he said afterwards confidentially 
 to Mr. Oakhurst, " is, that without having any plan of her 
 own, she '11 take anybody's and build a house on it entirely 
 different to suit herself. And dern my skin, if you '11 be able 
 to say whether or not you did n't give the scale and measure- 
 ments yourself. That 's what gets me." 
 
 The next week Mr. Oakhurst was installed in the Deckers' 
 cottage. The business relations of her husband and himself 
 were known to all, and her own reputation was above sus- 
 picion. Indeed, few women were more popular. She was 
 domestic, she was prudent, she was pious. In a country 
 of great feminine freedom and latitude, she never rode or 
 walked with anybody but her husband ; in an epoch of 
 slang and ambiguous expression, she was always precise and 
 formal in her speech ; in the midst of a fashion of ostenta- 
 tious decoration she never wore a diamond, nor a single 
 valuable jewel. She never permitted an indecorum in public ; 
 she never countenanced the familiarities of California society. 
 She declaimed against the prevailing tone of infidelity and 
 skepticism in religion. Few people who were present will 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST 187 
 
 ever forget the dignified yet stately manner with which she 
 rebuked Mr. Hamilton in the public parlor for entering 
 upon the discussion of a work on materialism, lately pub- 
 lished ; and some among them, also, will not forget the 
 expression of amused surprise on Mr. Hamilton's face, that 
 gradually changed to sardonic gravity as he courteously 
 waived his point. Certainly, not Mr. Oakhurst, who from 
 that moment began to be uneasily impatient of his friend, 
 and even — if such a term could be applied to any moral 
 quality in Mr. Oakhurst — to fear him. 
 
 For, during this time, Mr. Oakhurst had begun to show 
 symptoms of a change in his usual habits. He was seldom, 
 if ever, seen in his old haunts, in a bar-room, or with his old 
 associates. Pink and white notes, in distracted handwriting, 
 accumulated on the dressing-table in his rooms at Sacra- 
 mento. It was given out in San Francisco that he had some 
 organic disease of the heart, for which his physician had 
 prescribed perfect rest. He read more, he took long walks, 
 he sold his fast horses, he went to church. 
 
 I have a very vivid recollection of his first appearance 
 there. He did not accompany the Deckers, nor did he go 
 into their pew, but came in as the service commenced, and 
 took a seat quietly in one of the back pews. By some mys- 
 terious instinct his presence became presently known to the 
 congregation, some of whom so far forgot themselves, in 
 their curiosity, as to face around and apparently address 
 their responses to him. Before the service was over it was 
 pretty well understood that " miserable sinners " meant Mr. 
 Oakhurst. Nor did this mysterious influence fail to affect 
 the officiating clergyman, who introduced an allusion to Mr. 
 Oakhurst's calling and habits in a sermon on the architecture 
 of Solomon's Temple, and in a manner so pointed and yet 
 labored as to cause the youngest of us to flame with indig- 
 nation. Happily, however, it was lost upon Jack ; I do not 
 think he even heard it. His handsome, colorless face — 
 
188 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHUEST 
 
 albeit a trifle worn and thoughtful — was inscrutable. Only 
 once, during the singing of a hymn, at a certain note in the 
 contralto's voice, there crept into his dark eyes a look of 
 wistful tenderness, so yearning and yet so hopeless that those 
 who were watching him felt their own glisten. Yet I retain 
 a very vivid remembrance of his standing up to receive the 
 benediction, with the suggestion, in his manner and tightly 
 buttoned coat, of taking the fire of his adversary at ten 
 paces. After church he disappeared as quietly as he had 
 entered, and fortunately escaped hearing the comments on 
 his rash act. His appearance was generally considered as 
 an impertinence — attributable only to some wanton fancy — • 
 or possibly a bet. One or two thought that the sexton was 
 exceedingly remiss in not turning him out after discovering 
 who he was ; and a prominent pewholder remarked that if 
 he could n't take his wife and daughters to that chvirch 
 without exposing them to such an influence, he would try 
 to find some church where he could. Another traced Mr. 
 Oakhurst's presence to certain Broad Church radical ten- 
 dencies, which he regretted to say he had lately noted in 
 their pastor. Deacon Sawyer, whose delicately organized, 
 sickly wife had already borne him eleven children, and died 
 in an ambitious attempt to complete the dozen, avowed that 
 the presence of a person of Mr. Oakhurst's various and in- 
 discriminate gallantries was an insult to the memory of the 
 deceased that, as a man, he could not brook. 
 
 It was about this time that Mr. Oakhurst, coiitrasting 
 himself with a conventional world in which he had hitherto 
 rarely mingled, became aware that there was something in 
 his face, figure, and carriage quite unlike other men, — 
 something that if it did not betray his former career, at 
 least showed an individnality and originality that was 
 suspicious. In this belief he shaved off his long, silken 
 mustache, and religiously brushed out his clustering curls 
 every morning. He even went so far as to afiect a negli- 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST 189 
 
 gence of dress, and hid his small, slim, arched feet in the 
 largest and heaviest walking-shoes. There is a story told 
 that he went to his tailor in Sacramento, and asked him to 
 make him a suit of clothes like everybody else. The tailor, 
 familiar with Mr. Oakhurst's fastidiousness, did not know 
 what he meant. " I mean," said Mr. Oakhurst savagely, 
 " something respectable, — something that does n't exactly 
 fit me, you know." But however Mr. Oakhurst might hide 
 his shapely limbs in homespun and home-made garments, 
 there was something in his carriage, something in the pose 
 of his beautiful head, something in the strong and fine 
 manliness of his presence, something in the perfect and 
 utter discipline and cotitrol of his muscles, something in 
 the high repose of his nature — a repose not so much a 
 matter of intellectual ruling as of his very nature — that go 
 where he would, and with whom, he was always a notable 
 man in ten thousand. Perhaps this was never so clearly 
 intimated to Mr. Oakhurst as when, emboldened by Mr. 
 Hamilton's advice and assistance and his predilections, 
 he became a San Francisco broker. Even before objection 
 was made to his presence in the Board — the objection, I 
 remember, was urged very eloquently by Watt Sanders, 
 who was supposed to be the inventor of the "freezing-out" 
 system of disposing of poor stockholders, and who also 
 enjoyed the reputation of having been the impelling cause 
 of Briggs of Tuolumne's ruin and suicide — even before 
 this formal protest of respectability against lawlessness, the 
 aquiline suggestions of Mr. Oakhurst's mien and counte- 
 nance not only prematurely fluttered the pigeons, but abso- 
 lutely occasioned much uneasiness among the fish-hawks, 
 who circled below him with their booty. "Dash me! 
 but he's as likely to go after us as anybody," said Joe 
 Fielding. 
 
 It wanted but a few days before the close of the brief 
 summer season at San Isabel Warm Springs, ilready 
 
190 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHUEST 
 
 there had been some migration of the more fashionable, 
 and there was an uncomfortable suggestion of dregs and 
 lees in the social life that remained. Mr. Oakhurst was 
 moody ; it was hinted that even the secure reputation of 
 Mrs. Decker could no longer protect her from the gossip 
 which his presence excited. It is but fair to her to say that 
 during the last few weeks of this trying ordeal she looked 
 like a sweet, pale martyr, and conducted herself toward her 
 traducers with the gentle, forgiving manner of one who 
 relied not upon the idle homage of the crowd, but upon 
 the security of a principle that was dearer than popular 
 favor. " They talk about myself and Mr. Oakhurst, my 
 dear," she said to a friend, " but Heaven and my husband 
 can best answer their calumny. It never shall be said that 
 my husband ever turned his back upon a friend in the 
 moment of his adversity because the position was changed, 
 because his friend was poor and he was rich." Thi? 
 was the first intimation to the public that Jack had 
 lost money, although it was known generally that the 
 Deckers had lately bought some valuable property in San 
 Francisco. 
 
 A few evenings after this an incident occurred which 
 seemed to unpleasantly discord with the general social 
 harmony that had always existed at San Isabel. It was 
 at dinner, and Mr. Oakhurst and Mr. Hamilton, who sat 
 together at a separate table, were observed to rise in some 
 agitation. When they reached the hall, by a common 
 instinct they stepped into a little breakfast-room wbich was 
 vacant, and closed the door. Then Mr. Hamilton turned, 
 with a half-amused, half-serious smile, toward his Mend, 
 and said, — 
 
 " If we are to quarrel, Jack Oakhurst, — you and 1, — in 
 the name of all that is ridiculous, don't let it be about 
 a" — 
 
 I do not know what was the epithet intended. It- was 
 
PASSAGE IN. THE LIFE OF MK. JOHN OAKHURST 191 
 
 either unspoken or lost. For at that very instant Mr. 
 Oakhurst raised a wine-glass and dashed its contents into 
 Hamilton's face. 
 
 As they faced each other the men seemed to have 
 changed natures. Mr. Oakhurst was trembling with excite- 
 ment, and the wine-glass that he returned to the table 
 shivered between his iingers. Mr. Hamilton stood there, 
 grayish white, erect, and dripping. After a pause he said 
 coldly, — 
 
 " So be it. But remember ! our quarrel commences 
 here. If I fall by your hand, you shall not use it to clear 
 her character ; if you fall by mine, you shall not be called 
 a martyr. I am sorry it has come to this, but amen ! — the 
 sooner now the better." 
 
 He turned proudly, dropped his lids over his cold steel- 
 blue eyes, as if sheathing a rapier, bowed, and passed coldly 
 out. 
 
 They met twelve hours later in a little hollow two miles 
 from the hotel, on the Stockton road. As Mr. Oakhurst 
 received his pistol from Colonel Starbottle's hands he said 
 to him in a low voice, " Whatever turns up or down I shall 
 not return to the hotel. You will find some directions in 
 my room. Go there" — but bis voice suddenly faltered, 
 and he turned his glistening eyes away, to his second's 
 intense astonishment. " I 've been out a dozen times with 
 Jack Oakhurst," said Colonel Starbottle afterwards, " and 1 
 never saw him anyways cut before. Blank me if I did n't 
 think he was losing his sand, till he walked to position." 
 
 The two reports were almost simultaneous. Mr. Oak- 
 hurst's right arm dropped suddenly to his side, and his 
 pistol would have fallen from his paralyzed fingers, but the 
 discipline of trained nerve and muscle prevailed, and he kept 
 his grasp until he had shifted it to the other hand, with- 
 out changing his position. Then there was a silence that 
 seemed interminable, a gathering of two or three dark fig- 
 
192 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHUKST 
 
 ures where a smoke curl still lazily floated, and then the 
 hurried, husky, panting voice of Colonel Starbottle in his 
 ear, " He 's hit hard — through the lungs — you must run 
 for it ! " 
 
 Jack turned his dark, questioning eyes upon his second, 
 but did not seem to listen ; rather seemed to hear some 
 other voice, remoter in the distance. He hesitated, and 
 then made a step forward- in the direction of the distant 
 group. Then he paused again as the figures separated, and 
 the surgeon came hastily toward him. 
 
 " He would like to speak with you a moment," said the 
 man. " You have little time to lose, I know ; but," he 
 added in a lower voice, " it is my duty to tell you he has 
 ttill less." 
 
 A look of despair so hopeless in its intensity swept over 
 Mr. Oakhurst's usually impassive face that the surgeon 
 started. " You are hit," he said, glancing at Jack's help- 
 less arm. 
 
 " Nothing — a mere scratch," said Jack hastily. Then he 
 added, with a bitter laugh, " I 'm not in luck to-day. But 
 come ! We '11 see what he Avants." 
 
 His long feverish stride outstripped the surgeon's, and in 
 another moment he stood where the dying man lay — like 
 most dying men — the one calm, composed, central iigure of 
 an anxious group. Mr. Oakhurst's face was less calm as he 
 dropped on one knee beside him and took his hand. " I 
 want to speak with this gentleman alone," said Hamilton, 
 with something of his old imperious manner, as he turned 
 to those about him. When they drew back, he looked up 
 in Oakhurst's face. 
 
 "I've something to tell you, Jack." 
 
 His own face was white, but not so white as that which 
 Mr. Oakhurst bent over him — a face so ghastly, with haunt- 
 ing doubts and a hopeless presentiment of coming evil, a 
 face so piteous in its infinite weariness and envy of death, 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MK. JOHN OAKHUEST 193 
 
 that the dying man was touched, even in the languor of 
 dissolution, with a pang of compassion, and the cynical 
 smile faded from his lips. 
 
 "Forgive me, Jack," he whispered more feebly, "for 
 what I have to say. I don't say it in anger, but only 
 because it must be said. I could not do my duty to you — 
 I could not die contented until you knew it all. It's a 
 miserable business at best, all around. But it can't be 
 helped now. Only I ought to have fallen by Decker's 
 pistol and not yours." 
 
 A flush like fire came into Jack's cheek, and he would 
 have risen, but Hamilton held him fast. 
 
 " Listen ! in my pocket you will find two letters. Take 
 them — there ! You will know the handwriting. But 
 promise you will not read them until you are in a place 
 of safety. Promise me ! " 
 
 Jack did not speak, but held the letters between his 
 fingers as if they had been burning coals. 
 
 " Promise me," said Hamilton faintly. 
 
 " Why ? " asked Oakhurst, dropping his friend's hand 
 coldly. 
 
 " Because," said the dying man with a bitter smile, — 
 " because — when you have read them — you — will — gg 
 back — to capture — and death ! " 
 
 They were his last words. He pressed Jack's hand 
 faintly. Then his grasp relaxed, and he fell back a corpse. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and Mrs. Decker 
 reclined languidly upon the sofa with a novel in her hand, 
 while her husband discussed the politics of the country in 
 the bar-room of the hotel. It vfas a warm night, and the 
 French window looking out upon a little balcony was partly 
 open. Suddenly she heard a foot upon the balcony, and 
 she raised her eyes from the book with a slight start. The 
 next moment the window was hurriedly thrust wide and a 
 man entered. 
 
194 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST 
 
 Mrs. Decker rose to her feet with a little cry of alarm. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Jack, are you mad ? He has only 
 gone for a little while — he may return at any moment. 
 Come an hour later — to-morrow — any time when I can get 
 rid of him — but go, now, dear, at once." 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst walked toward the door, bolted it, and 
 then faced her without a word. His face was haggard, his 
 coat-sleeve hung loosely over an arm that was bandaged 
 and bloody. 
 
 Nevertheless, her voice did not falter as she turned again 
 toward him. " What has happened, Jack ? Why are you 
 here ? " 
 
 He opened his coat, and threw two letters in her lap. 
 
 " To return your lover's letters — to kill you — and then 
 myself," he said in a voice so low as to be almost 
 inaudible. 
 
 Among the many virtues of this admirable woman was 
 invincible courage. She did not faint, she did not cry out. 
 She sat quietly down again, folded her hands in her lap, 
 and said calmly, — 
 
 " And why should you not ? " 
 
 Had she recoiled, had she shown any fear or contrition, 
 had she essayed an explanation or apology, Mr. Oakhurst 
 would have looked upon it as an evidence of guilt. But 
 there is no quality that courage recognizes so quickly as 
 courage, there is no condition that desperation bows before 
 but desperation ; and Mr. Oakhurst's power of analysis was 
 not so keen as to prevent him from confounding her 
 courage with a moral quality. Even in his fury he could 
 not help admiring this dauntless invalid. 
 
 " Why should you not ? " she repeated with a smile. 
 " You gave me life, health, and happiness. Jack. You gave 
 me your love. Why should you not take what you have 
 given ? Go on. I am ready." 
 
 She held out her hands with that same infinite giace of 
 
PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MK. JOHN OAKHUKST 195 
 
 yielding with which she had taken his own on the iirst day 
 of their meeting at the hotel. Jack raised his head, looked 
 it her for one wild moment, dropped upon his knees beside 
 her, and raised the folds of her dress to his feverish lips. 
 But she was too clever not to instantly see her victory ; she 
 was too much of a woman, with all her cleverness, to refrain 
 from pressing that victory home. At the same moment, as 
 with the impulse of an outraged and wounded woman, she 
 rose, and with an imperious gesture pointed to the window. 
 Mr. Oakhurst rose in his turn, cast one glance upon her, and 
 without another word passed out of her presence forever. 
 
 When he had gone, she closed the window and bolted 
 it, and going to the chimneypiece placed the letters, one 
 by one, in the flame of the candle until they were consumed. 
 I would not have the reader think that during this painful 
 operation she was unmoved. Her hand trembled and — 
 not being a brute — for some minutes (perhaps longer) she 
 felt very badly, and the corners of her sensitive mouth were 
 depressed. When her husband arrived it was with a 
 genuine joy that she ran to him, and nestled against his 
 broad breast with a feeling of security that thrilled the 
 honest fellow to the core. 
 
 "But I've heard dreadful news to-night, Elsie," said 
 Mr. Decker, after a few endearments were exchanged. 
 
 " Don't tell me anything dreadful, dear ; I 'm not well 
 to-night," she pleaded sweetly. 
 
 " But it 's about Mr. Oakhurst and Hamilton." 
 
 " Please ! " Mr. Decker could not resist the petitionary 
 grace of those white hands and that sensitive mouth, and 
 took her to his arms. Suddenly he said, " What 's that ? " 
 
 He was pointing to the bosom of her white dress. 
 Where Mr. Oakhurst had touched her there was a spot 
 of blood. 
 
 It was nothing ; she had slightly cut her hand in closing 
 the window ; it shut so hard ! If Mr. Decker had remem- 
 
196 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF ME. JOHN OAKHUEST 
 
 bered to close and bolt the shutter before he went out, he 
 yflight have saved her this. There was such a genuine 
 irritability and force in this remark that Mr. Decker was 
 quite overcome by remorse. But Mrs. Decker forgave him 
 with that graciousness which I have before pointed out in 
 these pages, and with the halo of that forgiveness and 
 marital confidence still lingering above the pair, with the 
 reader's permission we will leave them and return to Mr. 
 Oakhurst. 
 
 But not for two weeks. At the end of that time he 
 walked into his rooms in Sacramento, and in his old manner 
 took his seat at the faro-table. 
 
 " How 's your arm. Jack ? " asked an incautious player. 
 
 There was a smile followed the question, which, however, 
 ceased as Jack looked up quietly at the speaker. 
 
 " It bothers my dealing a little, but I can shoot as well 
 with my left." 
 
 The game was continued in that decorous silence which 
 usually distinguished the table at which Mr. John Oakhurst 
 presided. 
 
THE EOSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. The lights 
 were out in Robinson's Hall, where there had been dancing 
 and revelry, and the moon, riding high, painted the black 
 windows with silver. The cavalcade that an hour ago had 
 shocked the sedate pines with song and laughter were all 
 dispersed ; one enamored swain had ridden east, another 
 west, another north, another south, and the object of their 
 adoration, left within her bower at Ohemisal Kidge, was 
 calmly going to bed. 
 
 I regret that I am not able to indicate the exact stage of 
 that process. Two chairs were already filled with delicate 
 enwrappings and white confusion, and the young lady her- 
 self, half hidden in the silky threads of her yellow hair, had 
 at one time borne a faint resemblance to a partly husked 
 ear of Indian corn. But she was now clothed in that one 
 long, formless garment that makes all women equal, and 
 the round shoulders and neat waist that an hour ago had 
 been so fatal to the peace of mind of Four Forks had utterly 
 disappeared. The face above it was very pretty ; the foot 
 below, albeit shapely, was not small. " The flowers, as a 
 general thing, don't raise their heads Tmioh to look after 
 me," she had said with superb frankness to one of her 
 lovers. 
 
 The expression of " The Eose " to-night was contentedly 
 placid. She walked slowly to the window, and, making the 
 smallest possible peep-hole through the curtain, looked out. 
 The motionless figure of a horseman still lingered on tho 
 
198 THE BOSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 road, with an excess of devotion that only a coquette or a 
 woman very much in love could tolerate. " The Eose " at 
 that moment was neither, and after a reasonable pause 
 turned away, saying, quite audibly, that it was " too ridicu- 
 lous for anything." As she came back to her dressing-table 
 it was noticeable that she walked steadily and erect, without 
 that slight aifectation of lameness common to people with 
 whom bare feet are only an episode. Indeed, it was only 
 four years ago that, without shoes or stockings, a long- 
 limbed, colty girl, in a waistless calico gown, she had leaped 
 from the tail-board of her father's emigrant wagon when 
 it first drew up at Chemisal Eidge. Certain wild habits 
 of The Rose had outlived transplanting and cultivation. 
 
 A knock at the door surprised her. In another moment 
 she had leaped into bed, and, with darkly frowning eyes, 
 from its secure recesses demanded, " Who 's there ? " 
 
 An apologetic murmur on the other side of the door was 
 the response. 
 
 " Why, father, is that you ? " 
 
 There were further murmurs, affirmative, deprecatory, 
 and persistent. 
 
 " Wait," said The Eose. She got up, unlocked the door, 
 leaped nimbly into bed again, and said, " Come." 
 
 The door opened timidly. The broad, stooping shoulders 
 and grizzled head of a man past the middle age appeared ; 
 after a moment's hesitation a pair of large, diffident feet, 
 shod with canvas slippers, concluded to follow. When the 
 apparition was complete it closed the door softly, and stood 
 there — a very shy ghost indeed, with apparently more than 
 the usual spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation. 
 The Eose resented this impatiently, though I fear not alto- 
 gether intelligibly : — 
 
 " Do, father, I declare ! " 
 
 "You was abed, Jinny," said Mr. M'Closky slowly, 
 glancing with a singular mixture of masculine awe and 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 199 
 
 paternal pride upon the two chairs and their contents, 
 " You was abed and ondressed." 
 
 " I was." 
 
 " Surely," said Mr. M'Closky, seating himself on the 
 extreme edge of the bed, and painfully tucking his feet 
 away under it, — " surely," After a pause he rubbed a 
 short, thick, stumpy beard, that bore a general resemblance 
 to a badly worn blacking-brush, with the palm of his hand, 
 and went on, " You had a good time, Jinny ? " 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " They was all there ? " 
 
 " Yes ; Ranee and York and Eyder and Jack." 
 
 "And Jack! " Mr, M'Closky endeavored to throw an 
 expression of arch inquiry into his small, tremulous eyes, but 
 meeting the unabashed, widely opened lid of his daughter, 
 he winked rapidly and blushed to the roots of his hair. 
 
 " Yes, Jack was there," said Jinny, without change of 
 color, or the least self-consciousness in her great gray eyes, 
 " and he came home with me." She paused a moment, 
 locking her two hands under her head, and assuming a 
 more comfortable position on the pillow. " He asked me 
 that same question again, father, and I said, ' Yes.' It 's to 
 be — soon. We 're going to live at Four Forks, in his own 
 house, and next winter we 're going to Sacramento. I 
 suppose it 's all right, father, eh ? " She emphasized the 
 question with a slight kick through the bedclothes as the 
 parental M'Closky had fallen into an abstract reverie. 
 
 " Yes, surely," said Mr. M'Closky, recovering himself 
 with some confusion. After a pause he looked down at the 
 bedclothes, and, patting them tenderly, continued. "You 
 could n't have done better, Jinny. They is n't a girl in Tuo- 
 lumne ez could strike it ez rich ez you hev — even if they 
 got the chance." He paused again and then said, " Jinny ? '" 
 
 "Yes, father." 
 
 " You 'se in bed and ondressed ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
200 THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 "You couldn't," said Mr. M'Closky, glancing hopelessly 
 at the two chairs and slowly rubbing his chin, — " you 
 could n't dress yourself again, could yef ? " 
 
 " Why, father ? " 
 
 " Kinder get yourself into them things again ? " he 
 added hastily. "Not all of 'em, you know, but some of 
 'em. Not if I helped you ? — sorter stood by and lent a 
 hand now and then with a strap or a buckle, or a necktie 
 or a shoe-string," he continued, still looking at the chairs, 
 and evidently trying to boldly familiarize himself with their 
 contents. 
 
 "Are you crazy, father?" demanded Jinny, suddenly 
 sitting up with a portentous switch of her yellow mane. 
 Mr. M'Closky rubbed one side of his beard, which already 
 had the appearance of having been quite worn away by that 
 process, and faintly dodged the question. 
 
 " Jinny," he said, tenderly stroking the bedclothes as he 
 spoke, " this yer 's what 's the matter. Thar is a strangei- 
 downstairs — a stranger to you, lovey, but a man ez I've 
 knowed a long time. He 's been here about an hour, and 
 he '11 be here ontil fower o'clock, when the up stage passes. 
 Now I wants ye. Jinny, dear, to get up and come down- 
 s^oairs and kinder help me pass the time with him. It's no 
 use, Jinny," he went on, gently raising his hand to depre- 
 cate any interruption, — " it 's no use, he won't go to bed ! 
 He won't play keerds ; whiskey don't take no eifect on him. 
 Ever since I knowed him he was the most onsatisfactory 
 critter to hev round " — 
 
 " What do you have him round for, then ? " interrupted 
 Miss Jinny sharply. 
 
 Mr. M'Closky's eyes fell. "Ef he hedn't kem out of 
 his way to-night to do me a good turn, I wouldn't ask ye, 
 Jinny. I would n't, so help me ! But I thought ez I 
 could n't do anything with him, you might come down and 
 sorter fetch him. Jinny, as you did the others." 
 
THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE 201 
 
 Miss Jinny shrugged her pretty shoulders. 
 
 " Is he old or young ? " 
 
 " He 's young enough, Jinny, but he knows a power of 
 things." 
 
 " What does he do ? " 
 
 "Not much, I reckon. He's got money in the mill at 
 Four Forks. He travels round a good deal. I 've heard. 
 Jinny, that he 's a poet — writes them rhymes, you know." 
 Mr. M'Closky here appealed submissively, but directly to his 
 daughter. He remembered that she had frequently been 
 in receipt of printed elegiac couplets known as " mottoes," 
 containing inclosures equally saccharine. 
 
 Miss Jinny slightly curled her pretty lip. She had that 
 fine contempt for the illusions of fancy which belongs to 
 the perfectly healthy young animal. 
 
 "Not," continued Mr. M'Closky, rubbing his head re- 
 flectively, — " not ez I 'd advise ye. Jinny, to say anything 
 to him about poetry. It ain't twenty minutes ago ez / did. 
 I, set the whiskey afore him in the parlor. I wound up the 
 music-box and set it goin'. Then I sez to him, sociable- 
 like and free, ' Jest consider yourself in your own house, 
 and repeat what you allow to be your finest production,' 
 — and he raged. That man, Jinny, jest raged. Thar's no 
 end of the names he called me. You see, Jinny," con- 
 tinued Mr. M'Closky apologetically, " he 's known me a 
 long time." 
 
 But his daughter had already dismissed the question with 
 her usual directness. " I '11 be down in a few moments, 
 father," she said after a pause, " but don't say anything to 
 him about it — don't say I was abed." 
 
 Mr. M'Closky's face beamed. " You was allers a good 
 girl, Jinny," he said, dropping on one knee the better to 
 imprint a respectful kiss on her forehead. But Jinny 
 caught him by the wrists and for a moment held him cap- 
 tive. " Father," said she, trying to fix his shy eyes with 
 
202 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 the clear, steady glance of her own, " all the girls that 
 were there to-night had some one with them. Mame Roh- 
 inson had her aunt, Lucy Eance had her mother, Kate Pier- 
 son had her sister — all except me had some other woman. 
 Father, dear," — her lip trembled just a little, — "1 wish 
 mother hadn't died when I was so small. I wish there 
 was some other woman in the family besides me. I ain't 
 lonely with you, father, dear ; but if there was only some 
 one, you know, when the time comes for John and me " — 
 
 Her voice here suddenly gave out, but not her brave 
 eyes, that were still fixed earnestly upon his face, Mr. 
 M'Closky, apparently 'tracing out a pattern on the bed-quilt, 
 essayed words of comfort. 
 
 " There ain't one of them gals ez you 've named. Jinny, 
 ez could do what you 've done with a whole Noah's ark of 
 relations at their backs ! Thar ain't one ez would n't sacri- 
 fice her nearest relation to make the strike that you hev. 
 Ez to mothers, maybe, my dear, you 're doin' better without 
 one." He rose suddenly, and walked toward the door. 
 When he reached it he turned, and in his old deprecating 
 manner, said, " Don't be long. Jinny," smiled, and van- 
 ished from the head downward, his canvas slippers asserting 
 themselves resolutely to the last. 
 
 When Mr. M'Closky reached his parlor again his trouble- 
 some guest was not there. The decanter stood on the table 
 untouched, three or four books lay upon the floor, a number 
 of photographic views of the Sierras were scattered over 
 the sofa ; two sofa pillows, a newspaper, and a Mexican 
 blanket lay on the carpet, as if the late occupant of 
 the room had tried to read in a recumbent position. A 
 French window, opening upon a veranda, which never 
 before in the history of the house had been unfastened, 
 now betrayed by its waving lace curtain the way that the 
 fugitive had escaped. Mr. M'Closky heaved a sigh of 
 despair ; he looked at the gorgeous carpet purchased in 
 
THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE 203 
 
 Sacramento at a fabulous price, at the crimson satin and 
 rosewood furniture unparalleled in the history of Tuo- 
 lumne, at the massively framed pictures on the walls, and 
 looked beyond it, through the open window, to the reckless 
 man who, fleeing these sybaritic allurements, was smoking 
 a cigar upon the moonlit road. This room, which had so 
 often awed the youth of Tuolumne into filial respect, was 
 evidently a failure. It remained to be seen if The Eose 
 herself had lost her fragrance. " I reckon Jinny will fetct 
 him yet," said Mr. M'Closky, with parental faith. 
 
 He stepped from the window upon the veranda. But he 
 had scarcely done this before his figure was detected by the 
 stranger, who at once crossed the road. When within a 
 few feet of M'Closky he stopped. " You persistent old 
 plantigrade," he said in a low voice, audible only to the ' 
 person addressed, and a face full of affected anxiety, " why 
 don't you go to bed ? Did n't I tell you to go and leave 
 me here alone ? In the name of all that 's idiotic and 
 imbecile, why do you continue to shuffle about here ? Or 
 are you trying to drive me crazy with your presence, as you 
 have with that wretched music-box that I 've just dropped 
 under yonder tree ? It 's an hour and a half yet before the 
 stage passes ; do you think, do you imagine for a single 
 moment, that I can tolerate you until then — eh ? Why 
 don't you speak ? Are you asleep ? You don't mean to 
 say that you have the audacity to add somnambulism to 
 your other weaknesses ; you 're not low enough to repeat 
 yourself under any such weak pretext as that — eh ? " 
 
 A fit of nervous coughing ended this extraordinary exor- 
 dium, and half sitting, half leaning against the veranda, 
 Mr. M'Closky's guest turned his face, and part of a slight, 
 elegant figure, towards his host. The lower portion of this 
 upturned face wore an habitual expression of fastidious dis- 
 content, with an occasional line of physical suffering. But 
 the brow above was frank and critical, and a pair of dark 
 
304 THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 mirthful eyes satin playful judgment over the supersensitive 
 riouth and its suggestion. 
 
 " I allowed to go to bed, Eidgeway," said Mr. M'Closky 
 meekly, " but my girl Jinny 's jist got back from a little tear 
 up at Robinson's, and ain't inclined to turn in yet. You 
 know what girls is. So I thought we three would jist have 
 a sotial chat together to pass away the time." 
 
 " You mendacious old hypocrite ! she got back an hour 
 ago," said Eidgeway, " as that savage-looking escort of hers, 
 who has been haunting the house ever since, can testify. 
 My belief is, that, like an enterprising idiot as. you are, 
 you 've dragged that girl out of her bed that we might 
 mutually bore each other." 
 
 Mr. M'Closky was too much stunned by this evidence 
 of Ridgeway's apparently superhuman penetration to reply. 
 After enjoying his host's confusion for a moment with his 
 eyes, Ridgeway's mouth asked grimly, — 
 
 " And who is this girl, anyway ? " 
 
 "Nancy's." 
 
 " Your wife's ? " 
 
 " Yes. But look yar, Ridgeway," said M'Closky, laying 
 one hand imploringly on Ridgeway's sleeve, " not a word 
 about her to Jinny. She thinks her mother 's dead — died 
 in Missouri. Eh ! " 
 
 Ridgeway nearly rolled from the veranda in an excess of 
 rage. " Good God ! Do you mean to say that you have 
 been concealing from her a fact that any day, any moment, 
 may come to her ears ? That you 've been letting her grow- 
 up in ignorance of something that by this time she might 
 have outgrown and forgotten ? That you have been, like a 
 besotted old ass, all these years slowly forging a thunder- 
 bolt that any one may crush her with ? That " — but here 
 Ridgeway's cough took possession of his voice, and even put 
 a moisture into his dark eyes, as he looked at M'Closky's 
 aimless hand feebly employed upon his beard. 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 205 
 
 " But," said M'Closky, " look, how she 's done. She 's 
 held her head as high as any of 'em. She 's to be married 
 in a month to the richest man in the county, and," he added 
 cunningly, " Jack Ashe ain't the kind o' man to sit by 
 and hear anything said of his wife or her relations, you 
 bet. But hush — that 's her foot on the stairs. She 's cum^ 
 min'." 
 
 She came. I don't think the French window ever held a 
 finer view than when she put aside the curtains and stepped 
 out. She had dressed herself simply and hurriedly, but with 
 a woman's knowledge of her best points, so that you got 
 the long curves of her shapely limbs, the shorter curves 
 of her round waist and shoulders, the long sweep of her 
 yellow braids, the light of her gray eyes, and even the 
 delicate rose of her complexion, without knowing how it 
 was delivered to you. 
 
 The introduction by Mr. M'Closky was brief. When 
 Ridgeway had got over the fact that it was two o'clock in 
 the morning, and that the cheek of this Tuolumne goddess 
 nearest him was as dewy and fresh as an infant's, — that she 
 looked like Marguerite, without probably ever having heard 
 of Goethe's heroine, — he talked, I dare say, very sensibly , 
 When Miss Jinny, who from her childhood had been brought 
 up among the sons of Anak, and who was accustomed to 
 have a supremacy of our noble sex presented to her as a 
 physical fact, found herself in the presence of a new and 
 strange power, in the slight and elegant figure beside her, 
 she was at first frightened and cold. But finding that 
 this power, against which the weapons of her own physical 
 charms were of no avail, was a kindly one, albeit general, 
 she fell to worshiping it, after the fashion of woman, and 
 casting before it the fetiches and other idols of her youth. 
 She even confessed to it. So that in half an hour Eidge- 
 way was in possession of all the facts connected with her 
 life, and a great many, I fear, of her fancies — except one. 
 
206 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 When Mr. M'Closky found the young people thus amicably 
 disposed, he calmly went to sleep. 
 
 It was a pleasant time to each. To Miss Jinny it had 
 the charm of novelty, and she abandoned herself to it for 
 that reason much more freely and innocently than her com- 
 panion, who knew something more of the inevitable logic 
 of the position. I do not think, however, he had any 
 intention of love-making. I do not think he was at all 
 conscious of being in the attitude. I am quite positive 
 he would have shrunk from the suggestion of disloyalty 
 to the one woman whom he admitted to himself he loved. 
 But, like most poets, he was much more true to an idea 
 than a fact, and, having a very lofty conception of woman- 
 hood, with a very sanguine nature, he saw in each new face 
 the possibilities of a realization of his ideal. It was, per- 
 haps, an unfortunate thing for the women, particularly as 
 he brought to each trial a surprising freshness which was 
 very deceptive, and quite distinct from the hlase familiarity 
 of the man of gallantry. It was this perennial virginity of 
 the affections that most endeared him to the best women, 
 who were prone to exercise towards him a chivalrous pro- 
 tection, — as of one likely to go astray unless looked after, 
 — and indulged in the dangerous combination of sentiment 
 with the highest maternal instincts. It was this quality 
 which caused Jinny to recognize in him a certain boyishness 
 that required her womanly care, and even induced her to 
 offer to accompany him to the cross-roads when the time of 
 his departure arrived. With her superior knowledge of 
 woodcraft and the locality, she would have kept him from 
 being lost. I wot not but that she would have protected 
 him from bears or wolves, but chiefly, I think, from the 
 feline fascinations of Mame Eobinson and Lucy Kance, 
 who might be lying in wait for this tender young poet. 
 Kor did she cease to be thankful that Providence had, so ta 
 speak, delivered him as a trust into her hands. 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 207 
 
 It was a lovely night. The moon swung low and 
 languished softly on the snowy ridge beyond. There were 
 quaint odors in the still air, and a strange incense from the 
 woods perfimied their young blood and seemed to swoon 
 in their pulses. Small wonder that they lingered on the 
 white road, that their feet climbed unwillingly the little 
 hill where they were to part, and that when they at last 
 reached it, even the saving grace of speech seemed to have 
 forsaken them. 
 
 For there they stood, alone. There was no sound nor 
 motion in earth, or woods, or heaven. They might have 
 been the one man and woman for whom this goodly earth 
 that lay at their feet, rimmed with the deepest azure, was 
 created. And seeing this, they turned towards each other 
 with a sudden instinct, and their hands met, and then their 
 lips in one long kiss. 
 
 And then out of the mysterious distance came the sound 
 of voices and the sharp clatter of hoofs and wheels, and 
 Jinny slid away — a white moonbeam — from the hill. 
 For a moment she glimmered through the trees, and then, 
 reaching the house, passed her sleeping father on the 
 veranda, and, darting into her bedroom, locked the door, 
 threw open the window, and, falling on her knees beside it, 
 leaned her hot cheeks upon her hands and listened. In a 
 few moments she was rewarded by the sharp clatter of hoofs 
 on the stony road, but it was only a horseman, whose dark 
 figure was swiftly lost in the shadows of the lower road. 
 At another time she might have recognized the man, but 
 her eyes and ears were now all intent on something else. 
 It came presently, with dancing lights, a musical rattle of 
 harness, a cadence of hoof-beats, that set her heart to beat- 
 ing in unison, and was gone. A sudden sense of loneliness 
 came over her, and tears gathered in her sweet eyes. 
 
 She arose and looked around her. There was the little 
 led the dressing-table, the roses that she had worn last 
 
208 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 night, still fresh and blooming in the littls vase. Every- 
 thing was there, but everything looked strange ; the roses 
 should have been withered, for the party seemed so long 
 ago ; she could hardly remember when she had worn this 
 dress that lay upon the chair. So she came back to the 
 window and sank down ' beside it, with her cheek, a trifle 
 paler, leaning on her hand, and her long braids reaching to 
 the floor. The stars paled slowly, like her cheek, yet with 
 eyes that saw not she still looked from her window for the 
 coming dawn. 
 
 It came, with violet deepening into purple, with purple 
 flushing into rose, with rose shining into silver and glowing 
 into gold. The straggling line of black picket fence' below, 
 that had faded away with the stars, came back with the siin. 
 What was that object moving by the fence ? Jinny raised 
 her head and looked intently. It was a man endeavoring 
 to climb the pickets, and falling backward with each attempt. 
 Suddenly she started to her feet, as if the rosy flushes of 
 the dawn had crimsoned her from forehead to shoulders ; 
 ;ben she stood, white as the wall, with her hands clasped 
 hpon bier bosom. Then, with a single bound she reached 
 the door, and, with flying braids and fluttering skirt, sprang 
 down the stairs and out in the garden walk. When within 
 a few feet of the fence she uttered a cry — the first she had 
 ^^ven — the cry of a mother over her stricken babe, of a 
 tigress over her mangled cub, and in another moment she 
 had leaped the fence and knelt beside Eidgeway, with his 
 fainting head upon her breast. 
 
 " My boy — my poor, poor boy ! who has done this ? " 
 
 Who, indeed ? His clothes were covered with dust, his 
 ft aistcoat was torn open ; and his handkerchief, wet with 
 the blood it could not stanch, fell from a cruel stab beneath 
 liis shoulder. 
 
 "Eidgeway! — my poor boy — tell me what has hap 
 g,ened." 
 
THE BOSE OF TUOLUMNE 209 
 
 Eidgeway slowly opened his heavy, hlue-veined lids and 
 gazed upon her. Presently a gleam of mischief came into 
 his dark eyes, a smile stole over his lips as he whispered 
 slowly, — 
 
 " It — was — your kiss — did it — Jinny, dear ! I had 
 forgotten — how high-priced — the article was here. Never 
 mind. Jinny ! " — he feebly raised her hand to his white 
 lips — " it was — worth it," and fainted away. 
 
 Jinny started to her feet and looked wildly around her. 
 Then, with a sudden resolution, she stooped over the insen- 
 sible man, and, with one strong effort, lifted him in her 
 arms as if he had been a child. When her father, a moment 
 later, rubbed his eyes and awoke from his sleep upon the 
 veranda, it was to see a goddess, erect and triumphant, 
 striding toward the house, with the helpless body of a man 
 lying across that breast where man had never lain before, — 
 a goddess at whose imperious mandate he arose and east 
 open the doors before her. And then when she had laid 
 her unconscious burden on the sofa, the goddess fled, and 
 a woman, helpless and trembling, ftood before him, — a 
 woman that cried out that she had " killed him," that she 
 was " wicked ! wicked ! " and that, even saying so, stag- 
 gered and fell beside her late burden. And all that Mr. 
 M'Closky could do was to feebly rub his beard, and say 
 to himself, vaguely and incoherently, that " Jinny had 
 fetched him." 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Before noon the next day it was generally believed 
 throughout Four Forks that Ridgeway Dent had been at- 
 tacked and wounded at Chemisal Eidge by a highwayman, 
 who fled on the approach of the Wingdam coach. It is to 
 be presumed that this statement met with Eidgeway's ap- 
 proval, as he did not contradict it, nor supplement it with 
 
210 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 any details. His wound was severe, but not dangerous. 
 After the first excitement had subsided, there was, I think, 
 a prevailing impression, common to the provincial mind, 
 that his misfortune was the result of the defective moral 
 quality of his being a stranger, and was in a vague sort 
 of a way a warning to others and a lesson to him. " Did 
 you hear how that San Francisco feller was took down the 
 other night ? " was the average tone of introductory remark. 
 Indeed, there was a general suggestion that Eidgeway's 
 presence was one that no self-respecting, high-minded high- 
 wayman, honorably conservative of the best interests of 
 Tuolumne County, could for a moment tolerate. 
 
 Except for the few words spoken on that eventful morn- 
 ing, E/idgeway was reticent of the past. "When Jinny strove 
 to gather some details of the affray that might offer a clue 
 to his unknown assailant, a subtle twinkle in his brown 
 eyes was the only response. When Mr. M'Closky attempted 
 the same process, the young gentleman threw abusive epi- 
 thets, and eventually slippers, teaspoons, and other lighter 
 articles within the reach of an invalid, at the head of his 
 questioner. " I think he 's coming round. Jinny," said Mr. 
 M'Closky ; " he laid for me this morning with a candlestick." 
 
 It was about this time that Miss Jinny, having sworn her 
 father to secrecy regarding the manner in which Eidgeway 
 had been carried into the house, conceived the idea of 
 addressing the young man as " Mr. Dent," and of apologiz- 
 ing for intruding whenever she entered the room in the 
 discharge of her household duties. It was about this time 
 that she became more rigidly conscientious to those duties, 
 and less general in her attentions ; it was at this time that 
 the quality of the invalid's diet improved, and that she con- 
 sulted him less frequently about it. It was about this time 
 that she began to see more company, that the house was 
 greatly frequented by her former admirers, with whom she 
 rode, walked, and danced. It was at about this time, also, 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 211 
 
 and when Ridgeway was able to be brought out on the 
 veranda in a chair, that, with great archness of manner, she 
 introduced to him Miss Lucy Ashe, the sister of her be- 
 trothed — a flashing brunette and terrible heart-breaker of 
 Four Forks. And in the midst of this gayety she concluded 
 that she would spend a week with the Eobinsons, to whom 
 she owed a visit. She enjoyed herself greatly there, so 
 much, indeed, that she became quite hollow-eyed, the result, 
 as she explained to her father, of a too frequent indulgence 
 in festivity. " You see, father, I won't have many chances 
 after John and I are married, — you know how queer he is, 
 — and I must make the most of my time," and she laughed 
 an odd little laugh, which had lately become habitual to her. 
 " And how is Mr. Dent getting on ? " Her father replied 
 that he was getting on very well indeed, so well, in fact, 
 that he was able to leave for San Erancisco two days ago. 
 " He wanted to be remembered to you. Jinny — ' remem- 
 bered kindly,' — yes, they is the very words he used," said 
 Mr. M'Closky, looking down and consulting one of his large 
 shoes for corroboration. Miss Jinny was glad to hear that 
 he was so much better. Miss Jinny could not imagine 
 anything that pleased her more than to know that he was so 
 strong as to be able to rejoin his friends again, who must 
 love him so much and be so anxious about him. Her father 
 thought, she would be pleased, and now that he was gone 
 there was really no necessity for her to hurry back. Miss 
 Jinny, in a high, metallic voice, did not know that she had 
 expressed any desire to stay ; still if her presence had be- 
 come distasteful at home — if her own father was desirous 
 of getting rid of her — if, when she was so soon to leave his 
 roof forever, he still begrudged her those few days remain- 
 ing if— "My God, Jinny, so help me!" said Mr. 
 
 M'Closky, clutching despairingly at his beard ; " I did n't 
 
 go for to say anything of the kind. I thought that you " — 
 
 " Never mind, father," interrupted Jinny magnanimously. 
 
212 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 " you misunderstood me ; of course you did, you could n't 
 help it — you're a Man! " Mr. M'Closky, sorely crushed, 
 would have vaguely protested, but his daughter, having 
 relieved herself, after the manner of her sex, with a mental 
 personal application of an abstract statement, forgave him 
 with a kiss. 
 
 Nevertheless, for two or three days after her return, Mr. 
 M'Closky followed his daughter about the house with yearn- 
 ing eyes, and occasionally with timid, diffident feet. Some- 
 times he came upon her suddenly at her household tasks 
 with an excuse so palpably false, and a careless manner so 
 outrageously studied, that she was fain to be embarrassed 
 for him. Later he took to rambling about the house at 
 night, and was often seen noiselessly passing and repassing 
 through the hall after she had retired. On one occasion he 
 was surprised first by sleep and then by the early rising 
 Jinny as he lay on the rug outside her chamber door. 
 " You treat me like a child, father," said Jinny. " I 
 thought, Jinny," said the father apologetically, — "I thought 
 I heard sounds as if you was takin' on inside, and listenin' 
 I fell asleep." " You dear, old, simple-minded baby," 
 said Jinny, looking past her father's eyes, and lifting his 
 <:rizzled locks one by one with meditative fingers ; " what 
 jihould I be takin' on for ? Look how much taller I am 
 than you," she said, suddenly lifting herself up to the 
 extreme of her superb figure. Then rubbing his head 
 rapidly with both hands, as if she were anointing his hair 
 with some rare unguent, she patted him on the back and 
 returned to her room. The result of this and one or two 
 other equally sympathetic interviews was to produce a 
 change in Mr; M'Closky's manner, which was, if possible, 
 still more discomposing. He grew unjustifiably hilarious, 
 cracked jokes with the servants, and repeated to Jinny 
 humorous stories, with the attitude of facetiousness carefully 
 preserved throughout the entire narration, and the point 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 213 
 
 ntterly ignored and forgotten. Certain incidents reminded 
 him of funny things, which invariably turned out to have 
 not the slightest relevancy or application. He occasionally 
 brought home with him practical humorists, with a san- 
 guine hope of setting them going, like the music-box, for 
 his daughter's edification. He essayed the singing of melo- 
 dies with great freedom of style and singular limitation of 
 note. He sang " Come, Haste to the Wedding, ye Lasses 
 and Maidens," of which he knew a single line, and that 
 incorrectly, as being peculiarly apt and appropriate. Yet 
 away from the house and his daughter's presence he was 
 silent and distraught. His absence of mind was particu- 
 larly noted by his workmen at the Empire Quartz Mill. 
 " Ef the old man don't look out and wake up," said his 
 foreman, " he '11 hev them feet of his yet under the stamps. 
 When he ain't givin' his mind to 'em, they is altogether 
 too promiskuss." 
 
 A few nights later. Miss Jinny recognized her father's 
 hand in a timid tap at the door. She opened it, and he 
 stood before her, with a valise in his hand, equipped as for 
 a journey. " I takes the stage to-night. Jinny, dear, from 
 Four Forks to 'Frisco. Maybe I may drop in on Jack 
 afore I go. I'll be back in a week. Good-by." 
 
 " Good-by." He still held her hand. Presently he drew 
 her back into the room, closing the door carefully, and glan- 
 cing around. There was a look of profound cunning in his 
 eye as he said slowly, — 
 
 " Bear up and keep dark. Jinny, dear, and trust to the 
 old man. Various men has various ways. Thar is ways 
 as is common and ways as is oncomnion, ways as is easy 
 and ways as is oneasy. Bear up and keep dark.'' With 
 this Delphic utterance he put his finger to his lips and 
 vanished. 
 
 It was ten o'clock when he reached Four Forks. A few 
 minutes later he stood on the threshold of that dwelling 
 
214 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 described by the Four Forks " Sentitiel " as " the palatial 
 residence of John Ashe," and known to the local satirist as 
 the " ash-box." " Hevin' to lay by two hours, John," he 
 said to his prospective son-in-law, as he took his hand at 
 the door, " a few words of social converse, not on business, 
 but strictly private, seems to be about as nat'ral a thing as 
 a man can do." Tliis introduction, evidently the result of 
 some study and plainly committed to memory, seemed so 
 satisfactory to Mr. M'Closky that he repeated it again, after 
 John Ashe had led him into his private office, where, 
 depositing his valise in the middle of the floor, and sitting 
 down before it, he began carefully to avoid the eye of his 
 host. John Ashe, a tall, dark, handsome Kentuckian — 
 with whom even the trifles of life were evidently full of 
 serious import — waited with a kind of chivalrous respect 
 the further speech of his guest. Being utterly devoid of 
 any sense of the ridiculous, he always accepted Mr. 
 M'Closky as a grave fact, singular only from his own want 
 of experience of the class. 
 
 "Ores is running light now," said Mr. M'Closky, with 
 easy indifference. 
 
 John Ashe returned that he had noticed the same fact in 
 the receipts of the mill at Four Forks. 
 
 Mr. M'Closky rubbed his beard and looked at his valise, 
 as if for sympathy and suggestion. 
 
 " You don't reckon on having any trouble with any of 
 them chaps ez you cut out with Jinny ? " 
 
 John Ashe, rather haughtily, had never thought of that, 
 "I saw Ranee hanging round your house the other night 
 when I took your daughter home, but he gave me a wide 
 berth," he added carelessly. 
 
 " Surely," said Mr. M'Closky, with a peculiar winking of 
 the eye, After a pause, he took a fresh departure from his 
 valise. 
 
 "A few words, John, ez between man and man, ez 
 
THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE 215 
 
 between my daughter's father and her husband who expects 
 to be, is about the thing, I take it, as is fair and square. I 
 kem here to say them. They 're about Jinny, my gal." 
 
 Ashe's grave face brightened, to Mr. M'Closky's evident 
 discomposure. 
 
 " Maybe I should have said, about her mother ; but the 
 same bein' a stranger to you, I says, nat'rally, ' Jinny.' " 
 
 Ashe nodded courteously. Mr. M'Closky, with his eyes 
 on his valise, went on : — 
 
 " It is sixteen year ago as I married Mrs. M'Closky in 
 the State of Missouri. She let on, at the time, to be a 
 widder, — a widder with one child. When I say let on, I 
 mean to imply that I subsequently found out that she was 
 not a widder, nor a wife, and the father of the child was, 
 so to speak, onbeknownst. Thet child was Jinny — my 
 gal." 
 
 With his eyes on his valise, and quietly ignoring the 
 wholly crimsoned face and swiftly darkening brow of his 
 host, he continued, — 
 
 " Many little things sorter tended to make our home in 
 Missouri onpleasant. A disposition to smash furniture and 
 heave knives around, an inclination to howl when drunk, 
 and that frequent ; a habitooal use of vulgar language, and 
 a tendency to cuss the casooal visitor, seemed to pint," 
 added Mr. M'Closky with submissive hesitation — "thet — 
 she — was — so to speak — quite onsuited to the marriage 
 relation in its holiest aspeck." 
 
 "Damnation! Why didn't" — burst out John Ashe, 
 erect and furious. 
 
 " At the end of two year," continued Mr. M'Closky, 
 still intent on the valise, "I allowed I'd get a diworce. 
 Et about thet time, however. Providence sends a circus into 
 thet town and a feller ez rode three bosses to onct. Hevin' 
 allez a taste for athletic sports, she left town with this 
 feller, leavin' me and Jinny behind. I sent word to hex 
 
216 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 thet if she would give Jinny to me we'd call it quita 
 And she did." 
 
 " Tell me," gasped Ashe, " did you ask your daughter to 
 keep this from me, or did she do it of her own accord ? " 
 
 " She does n't know it," said Mr. M'Closky ; " she thinks 
 I 'm her father and that her mother 's dead." 
 
 " Then, sir, this is your " — 
 
 " I don't know," said Mr. M'Closky slowly, " ez I 've 
 asked any one to marry my Jinny. I don't know ez I 've 
 persood that ez a biziness, or even taken it up as a healthful 
 recreation." 
 
 John Ashe paced the room furiously. Mr. M'Closky's 
 eyes left the valise and followed him curiously. " Where 
 is this woman ? " demanded Ashe suddenly. M'Closky's 
 eyes sought the valise again. 
 
 " She went to Kansas ; from Kansas she went into Texas, 
 From Texas she eventooally came to Californy. Being 
 here, I 've purvided her with money — when her business 
 was slack — through a friend." 
 
 John Ashe groaned. " She 's gettin' rather old and shaky 
 for bosses, and now does the tight-rope business and flying- 
 trapeze. Never hevin' seen her perform," continued Mr. 
 M'Closky, with conscientious caution, " I can't say how she 
 gets on. On the bills she looks well. Thar is a poster," 
 said Mr. M'Closky, glancing at Ashe, and opening his 
 valise, — " thar is a poster givin' her performance at Marys- 
 ville next month." Mr. M'Closky slowly unfolded a large 
 yellow and blue printed poster, profusely illustrated. " She 
 calls herself ' Mam'selle J. Miglawski, — the great Eussian 
 Trapeziste.' " 
 
 John Ashe tore it from his hand. " Of course," he said, 
 suddenly facing Mr. M'Closky, " you don't expect me to 
 go on with this ? " 
 
 Mr. M'Closky picked up the poster, carefully refolded il^ 
 and returned it to his valise. " When you break off with 
 
THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE 217 
 
 ■Tinny," he said quietly, " I don't want anything said 'bout 
 this. She does n't know it. She 's a woman, and I reckon 
 you 're a white man." 
 
 " But what am I to say ? How am I to go back of my 
 word ? " 
 
 "Write her a note. Say something hez come to your 
 knowledge — don't say what — that makes you break it off. 
 You need n't be afeard Jinny '11 ever ask you what." 
 
 John Ashe hesitated. He felt he had been cruelly 
 wronged. No gentleman — no Ashe — could go on further 
 in this affair. It was preposterous to think of it. But some- 
 how he felt at the moment very unlike a gentleman or an 
 Ashe, and was quite sure he should break down under 
 Jinny's steady eyes. But then — he could write to her. 
 
 " So ores is about as light here as on the Eidge. "Well, 
 I reckon they '11 come up before the rains. Good-night." 
 Mr. M'Closky took the hand that his host mechanically 
 extended, shook it gravely, and was gone. 
 
 When Mr. M'Closky, a week later, stepped again upon 
 his own veranda, he saw through the French window the 
 figure of a man in his parlor. Under his hospitable roof 
 the sight was not unusual, but for an instant a subtle sense 
 of disappointment thrilled him. When he saw it was not the 
 face of Ashe turned toward him he was relieved ; but when 
 he saw the tawny beard and quick, passionate eyes of Henry 
 Ranee he felt a new sense of apprehension, so that he fell 
 to rubbing his beard almost upon his very threshold. 
 
 Jinny ran into the hall, and seized her father with a little 
 cry of joy. " Father," said Jinny, in a hurried whisper, 
 " don't mind him " — indicating Eance with a toss of her 
 yellow braids ; " he 's going soon, and I think, father, I 've 
 done him wrong. But it 's all over with John and me now ; 
 read that note, and see how he 's insulted me." Her lip 
 quivered, but she went on : " It 's Eidgeway that he means, 
 father, and I believe it was his hand struck Eidgeway down, 
 
218 THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 or that he knows who did. But hush, now ; not a 
 word." 
 
 She gave him a feverish kiss, and glided back into the 
 parlor, leaving Mr. M'Closky perplexed and irresolute with 
 the note in his hand. He glanced at it hurriedly and saw 
 that it was couched in almoA the very words he had sug- 
 gested. But a sudden apprehensive recollection came over 
 him ; he listened, and with an exclamation of dismay he 
 seized his hat and ran out of the house. But too late ; at 
 the same moment a quick, nervous footstep was heard upon 
 the veranda, the French window flew open, and with a light 
 laugh of greeting Ridgeway stepped into the room. 
 
 Jinny's finer ear first caught the step, Jinny's swifter feel- 
 ings had sounded the depths of hope, of joy, of despair 
 before he entered the room. Jinny's pale face was the 
 only one that met his, self-possessed and self-reliant, when 
 he stood before them. An angry flush suffused even the 
 pink roots of Ranee's beard as he rose to his feet ; an omi- 
 nous fire sprang into Eidgeway's eyes, and a spasm of hate 
 and scorn passed over the lower part of his face and left 
 the mouth and jaw immobile and rigid. 
 
 Yet he was the first to speak. " I owe you an apology," 
 he said to Jinny, with a suave scorn that brought the indig- 
 nant tlood back to her cheek, " for this intrusion, but I ask 
 no pardon for withdrawing from the only spot where that 
 man dare confront me with safety." 
 
 With an exclamation of rage, Eance sprang toward him. 
 But as quickly Jinny stood between them, erect and mena' 
 cing. " There must be no quarrel here," she said to Eance. 
 " While I protect your right as my guest, don't oblige me 
 to remind you of mine as your hostess." She turned with 
 a half-deprecatory air to Eidgeway, but he was gone. So 
 was her father. Only Eance remained, with a look of ill- 
 concealed triumph on his face. 
 
 Without looking at him she passed toward the door. 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 219 
 
 When She reached it she turned. " You asked one a question 
 an hour ago. Come to me in the garden at nine o'clock 
 to-night and I will answer yon. But promise me first to 
 keep away from Mr. Dent ; give me your word not to seek 
 him — to avoid him if he seeks you. Do you promise ? 
 It is well." 
 
 He would have taken her hand, hut she waved him away. 
 In another moment he heard the swift rustle of her dress 
 in the hall, the sound of her feet upon the stair, the sharp 
 closing of her bedroom door, and all was quiet. 
 
 And even thus quietly the day wore away, and the night 
 . rose slowly from the valley and overshadowed the mountains 
 with purple wings that fanned the still air into a breeze, until 
 the moon followed it and lulled everything to rest as with 
 the laying on of white and benedictory hands. It was a 
 lovely night, but Henry Kance, waiting impatiently beneath 
 a sycamore at the foot of the garden, saw no beauty in earth 
 or air or sky. A thousand suspicions common to a jealous 
 nature, a vague superstition of the spot, filled his mind with 
 distrust and doubt. " If this should be a trick to keep my 
 hands off that insolent pup ! " he muttered — but even as the 
 thought passed his tongue, a white figure slid from the shrub- 
 bery near the house, glided along the line of picket fence, 
 and then stopped, midway, motionless in the moonlight. 
 
 It was she. But he scarcely recognized her in the white 
 draperj"^ that covered her head and shoulders and breast. 
 He approached her with a hurried whisper. " Let us with- 
 draw from the moonlight. Everybody can see us here." 
 
 " We have nothing to say that cannot be said in the moon- 
 light, Henry Eance," she replied, coldly receding from his 
 proffered hand. She trembled for a moment, as if with a 
 chill, and then suddenly turned upon him : " Hold up 
 your head, and let me look at you ! I 've known only what 
 men are ; let me see what a traitor looks like ! " 
 
 He recoiled more from her wild face than her words. 
 
220 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 He saw fov the first time that her hollow cheeks and hollow 
 eyes were blazing with fever. He was no coward, but he 
 would have fled. 
 
 " You are ill, Jinny," he said ; " you had best return to 
 the house. Another time " — 
 
 " Stop ! " she cried hoarsely ; " move from this spot, and 
 I '11 call for help ! Attempt to leave me now, and I '11 pro- 
 claim you the assassin that you are ! " 
 
 " It was a fair fight," he said doggedly. 
 
 " Was it a fair fight to creep behind an unarmed and 
 unsuspecting man ? Was it a fair fight to try to throw 
 suspicion on some one else ? Was it a fair fight to deceive 
 me ? Liar and coward that you are ! " 
 
 He made a stealthy step toward her with evil eyes, and 
 a wickeder hand that crept within his breast. She saw the 
 motion, but it only stung her to newer fury. 
 
 " Strike ! " she said, with blazing eyes, throwing her hands 
 open before him. " Strike ! Are you afraid of the woman 
 who dares you ? or do you keep your knife for the backs of 
 unsuspecting men ? Strike ! I tell you ! No ? Look then ! " 
 With a sudden movement she tore from her head and 
 shoulders the thick lace shawl that had concealed her figure 
 and stood before him. " Look ! " she cried passionately, 
 pointing to the bosom and shoulders of her white dress, 
 darkly streaked with faded stains and ominous discoloration. 
 " Look ! This is the dress I wore that morning when I 
 found him lying here — here — bleeding from your cowardly 
 knife. Look ! Do you see ? This is his blood — my darling 
 boy's blood ! — one drop of which, dead and faded as it is, 
 is more precious to me than the whole living pulse of any 
 other man ! Look ! I come to you to-night christened with 
 his blood and dare you to strike — dare you to strike him 
 again through me and mingle my blood with his ! Strike, 
 I implore you ! Strike ! if you have any pity on me -^ for 
 God's sake ! Strike ! if you are a man ! Look ! Hera 
 
THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE ^21 
 
 lay his head on my shoulder ; here I held him to my breast, 
 where never — so help me, my God ! — another man — 
 Ah ! " — 
 
 She reeled against the fence, and something that had 
 flashed in Eance's hand dropped at her feet ; for another 
 flash and report rolled him over in the dust, and across 
 his writhing body two men strode and caught her ere she 
 fell. 
 
 "She has only fainted," said Mr. M'Closky. "Jinny, 
 dear, my girl, speak to me ! " 
 
 " What is this on her dress ? " said Eidgeway, kneeling 
 beside her, and lifting his set and colorless face. At the 
 sound of his voice the color came faintly back to her cheek ; 
 she opened her eyes and smiled. 
 
 " It 's only your blood, dear boy," she said ; " but look a 
 little deeper and you '11 find my own." 
 
 She put up her two yearning hands and drew his face 
 and lips down to her own. When Eidgeway raised his head 
 again her eyes were closed, but her mouth still smiled as 
 with the memory of a kiss. 
 
 They bore her to the house, still breathing, but uncon- 
 scious. That night the road was filled with clattering 
 horsemen, and the summoned skill of the country-side for 
 leagues away gathered at her couch. The wound, they said, 
 was not essentially dangerous, but they had grave fears of 
 the shock to a system that already seemed suffering from 
 some strange and unaccountable nervous exhaustion. The 
 best medical skill of Tuolumne happened to be young and 
 observing, and waited patiently an opportunity to account 
 for it. He was presently rewarded. 
 
 For toward morning she rallied and looked feebly around. 
 Then she beckoned her father toward her, and whispered, 
 « Where is he ? " 
 
 " They took him away, Jinny, dear, in a cart. He won't 
 trouble you ngin " He stopped, for Miss Jinny had raised 
 
222 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 
 
 herself on her elbow, and was leveling her black brows at 
 him. But two kicks from the young surgeon, and a sig- 
 nificant motion toward the door, sent Mr. M'Closky away, 
 muttering, "How should I know that 'he' meant Ridge- 
 way ? " he said apologetically, as he went and returned 
 with the young gentleman. The surgeon, who was still hold- 
 ing her pulse, smiled, and thought that with a little care — 
 and attention — the stimulants — might be — diminished — 
 and — he — might leave — the patient for some hotirs, with 
 perfect safety. He would give further directions to Mr. 
 M'Closky — downstairs. 
 
 It was with great archness of manner that half an hour 
 later Mr. M'Closky entered the room with a preparatory 
 cough, and it was with some disappointment that he found 
 Eidgeway standing quietly by the window, and his daughter 
 apparently fallen into a light doze. He was still more 
 concerned when, after Eidgeway had retired, noticing a 
 pleasant smile playing about her lips, he said softly, — 
 
 " You was thinking of some one. Jinny ? " 
 
 " Yes, father " — the gray eyes met his steadily — " of 
 poor John Ashe ! " 
 
 Her recovery was swift. Nature, that had seemed to 
 stand jealously aloof from her in her mental anguish, was 
 kind to the physical hurt of her favorite child. The superb 
 physique which had been her charm and her trial now stood 
 her in good stead. The healing balsam of the pine, the balm 
 of resinous gums, and the rare medicaments of Sierran alti- 
 tudes touched her, as it might have touched the wounded 
 doe. So that in two weeks she was able to walk about, and 
 when at the end of the month Eidgeway returned from a 
 flying visit to San Francisco, and jumped from the Wingdara 
 coach at four o'clock in the morning. The Rose of Tuolumne, 
 with the dewy petals of either cheek fresh as when first un- 
 folded to his kiss, confronted him on the road. 
 
 With a common instinct their young feet both climbed 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 223 
 
 the little hill now sacred to their thought. When they 
 reached its summit they, were hoth, I think, a little disap- 
 pointed. There is a fragrance in the unfolding of a passion 
 that escapes the perfect flower. Jinny thought the night 
 was not as beautiful ; Eidgeway, that the long ride had 
 blunted his perceptions. But they had the frankness to 
 confess it to each other, with the rare delight of such a con- 
 fession and the comparison of details which they thought 
 each had forgotten. And with this and an occasional pity- 
 ing reference to the blank period when they had not known 
 each other, hand in hand, they reached the house. 
 
 Mr. M'Glosky was awaiting them impatiently upon the 
 veranda. When Miss Jinny had slipped upstairs to re- 
 place a collar that stood somewhat suspiciously awry, Mr. 
 M'Closky drew Eidgeway solemnly aside. He held a large 
 theatre poster in one hand, and an open newspaper in the 
 other. 
 
 " I alius said," he remarked slowly, with the air of merely 
 renewing a suspended conversation, — "I alius said that 
 riding three bosses to onct was n't exactly in her line. It 
 would seem that it ain't. From remarks in this yer paper, 
 it would appear that she tried it on at Marysville last week 
 and broke her neck." 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTOEAL 
 
 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME 
 
 I THINK we all loved him. Even after he mismanaged 
 the aifairs of the Amity Ditch Company, we commiserated 
 him, although most of us were stockholders and lost 
 heavily. I rememher that the blacksmith went so far as 
 to say that " them chaps as put that responsibility on the 
 old man oughter be lynched." But the blacksmith was not 
 a stockholder, and the expression was looked upon as the 
 excusable extravagance of a large sympathizing nature, that, 
 when combined with a powerful frame, was unworthy of 
 notice. At least, that was the way they put it. Yet I 
 think there was a general feeling of regret that this misfor- 
 tune would interfere with the old man's long-cherished plan 
 of " going home." 
 
 Indeed, for the last ten years he had been "going home." 
 He was going home after a six months' sojourn at Monte 
 Flat. He was going home after the first rains. He was 
 going home when the rains were over. He was going home 
 when he had cut the timber on Buckeye Hill, when there 
 was pasture on Dow's Flat, when he struck pay-dirt on 
 Eureka Hill, when the Amity Company paid its first divi- 
 dend, when the election was over, when he had received 
 an answer from his wife. And so the years rolled by ; the 
 spring rains oame and went, the woods of Buckeye Hill 
 were level with the ground, the pasture of Dow's Flat grew 
 sere and dry, Eureka Hill yielded its pay-dirt and swamped 
 its owner, the first dividends of the Amity Company were 
 made from the assessments of stockholders, there were 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 225 
 
 new county officers at Monte Flat, his wife's answer had 
 changed into a persistent question, — and still old man 
 Plunketfc remained. 
 
 It is only fair to say that he had made several distinct 
 essays towards going. Five years before he had bidden 
 good-by to Monte Hill with much effusion and hand-shak- 
 ing. But he never got any farther than the next town. 
 Here he was induced to trade the sorrel colt he was riding 
 for a bay mare, — a transaction that at once opened to his 
 lively fancy a vista of vast and successful future speculation, 
 A few days after, Abner Dean of Angel's received a letter 
 from him stating that he was going to Visalia to buy 
 horses. " I am satisfied," wrote Plunkett, with that ele- 
 vated rhetoric for which his correspondence was remarka- 
 ble, — "I am satisfied that we are at last developing the 
 real resources of California. The world will yet look to 
 Dow's Flat as the great stock-raising centre. In view of 
 the interests involved I have deferred my departure for a 
 month." It was two months before he again returned to 
 us, penniless. Six months later he was again enabled to 
 start for the Eastern States, and this time he got as far as 
 San Francisco. I have before me a letter which I received 
 a few days after his arrival, from which I venture to give 
 an extract : " You know, my dear boy, that I have always 
 believed that gambling, as it is absurdly called, is still in 
 its infancy in California. I have always maintained that a 
 perfect system might be invented, by which the game of 
 poker may be made to yield a certain percentage to the 
 intelligent player. I am not at liberty at present to dis- 
 close the system, but before leaving this city I intend to 
 perfect it." He seems to have done so, and returned to 
 Monte Flat with two dollars and thirty-seven cents, the 
 absolute remainder of his capital after such perfection. 
 
 It was not until 1868 that he appeared to have finally 
 succeeded in going home. He left us by the overland route; 
 
226 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 — a route which he declared would giVe great opportunity 
 for the discovery of undeveloped resources. His last letter 
 was dated Virginia City. He was absent three years. At 
 the close of a very hot day in midsummer he alighted from 
 the Wingdam stage with hair and heard powdered with dust 
 and age. There was a certain shyness about his greeting, 
 quite different from his usual frank volubility, that did not, 
 however, impress us as any accession of character. For 
 some days he was reserved regarding his recent visit, eon- 
 tenting himself with asserting, with more or less aggressive- 
 ness, that he had " always said he Was going home, arid 
 now he had been there." Later, he grew more communi- 
 cative, and spoke freely and critically of the manners and 
 customs of New York and Boston, commented on the social 
 changes in the years of his absence, and, I remember, was 
 very hard upon what he deemed the follies incidental to a 
 high state of civilization. Still later, he darkly alluded to 
 the moral laxity of the higher planes of Eastern society, 
 but it was not long before he completely tore away the veil 
 and revealed the naked wickedness of New York social life 
 in a way I even now shudder to recall. Vinous intoxica- 
 tion, it appeared, was a common habit of the first ladies of 
 the city ; immoralities which he scarcely dared name were 
 daily practiced by the refined of both sexes ; niggardliness 
 and greed were the common vices of the rich. "I have 
 always asserted," he continued, " that corruption must exist 
 where luxury and riches are rampant, and capital is not 
 used to develop the natural resources of the country. 
 
 — Thank you, I will take mine without sugar. " It is pos- 
 sible that some of these painful details crept into the local 
 journals. I remember an editorial in the " Monte Flat 
 Monitor," entitled " The Effete East," in which the fatal 
 decadence of New York and New England was elaborately 
 stated, and California offered as a means of natural salva- 
 tion. " Perhaps," said the " Monitor," " we might add 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 227 
 
 that Calaveras County offers superior inducements to the 
 Eastern visitor with capital." 
 
 Later he spoke of his family. The daughter he had left 
 a child had grown into heautiful womanhood ; the son was 
 already taller and larger than his father, and in a playful 
 trial of strength, " the young rascal," added Plunkett, with 
 a voice broken with paternal pride and humorous objurga- 
 tion, had twice thrown his doting parent to the ground. 
 But it was of his daughter he chiefly spoke. Perhaps 
 emboldened by the evident interest which masculine Monte 
 Flat held in feminine beauty, he expatiated at some length 
 on her various charms and accomplishments, and finally 
 produced her photograph — that of a very pretty girl — to 
 their infinite peril. But his account of his first meeting 
 with her was so peculiar that I must fain give it after his 
 own methods, which were, perhaps, some shades less precise 
 and elegant than his written style. 
 
 " You see, boys, it 's always been my opinion that a man 
 oughter be able to tell his own flesh and blood by instinct. 
 It 's ten years since I 'd seen my Melindy, and she was 
 then only seven, and about so high. So when I went to 
 New York, what did I do ? Did I go straight to my house 
 and ask for my wife and daughter, like other folks ? No, 
 sir ! I rigged myself up as a peddler, — as a peddler, sir, - — 
 and I rung the bell. When the servant came to the door, 
 I wanted, don't you seCj to show the ladies some trinkets. 
 Then there was a voice over the banister, says, ' Don't want 
 anything — send him away.' ' Some nice laces, ma'am, 
 smuggled,' I says, looking up. ' Get out, you wretch,' says 
 she. I knew the voice, boys, — it was my wife ; sure as a 
 gun — tharwasn't any instinct thar. ' Maybe the young 
 ladies want somethin',' I said. ' Did you hear me ? ' says 
 she, and with that she jumps forward, and I left. It 's ten 
 years, boys, since I 've seen the old woman, but somehow, 
 when she fetched that leap, I naterally left." 
 
228 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 He had been standing 'beside the bar — his usual attitude 
 — when he made this speech, but at this point he half-faced 
 his auditors with a look that was very effective. Indeed, a 
 few, who had exhibited some signs of skepticism and lack 
 of interest, at once assumed an appearance of intense grati- 
 fication and curiosity as he went on. 
 
 " Well, by hangin' round there for a day or two, I found 
 out at last it was to be Melindy's birthday next week, and 
 that she was goin' to have a big party. I tell ye what, boys, 
 it were n't no slouch of a reception. The whole house wa& 
 bloomin' with flowers, and blazin' with lights, and there 
 was no end of servants and plate and refreshments and 
 fixin's " — 
 
 " Uncle Joe." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Where did they get the money ? " 
 
 Plunkett faced his interlocutor with a severe glance. 
 " I always said," he replied slowly, " that when I went 
 home, I 'd send on ahead of me a draft for ten thousand 
 dollars. I always said that, didn't I ? Eh? 'And I said 
 I was goin' home — and I've been home — haven't I? 
 Well ? " 
 
 Either there was something irresistibly conclusive in this 
 logic, or else the desire to hear the remainder of Plunkett's 
 story was stronger, but there was no more interruption. 
 His ready good humor quickly returned, and, with a slight 
 chuckle, he went on. 
 
 "I went to the biggest jewelry shop in town, and I 
 bought a pair of diamond earrings and put them in my 
 pocket, and went to the house. ' What name ? ' says the 
 chap who opened the door, and he looked like a cross 
 'twixt a restaurant waiter and a parson. ' Skeesicks,' said 
 I. He takes me in, and pretty soon my wife comes sailin' 
 into the parlor, and says, 'Excuse me, but I don't think 
 I recognize the name.' She was mighty polite, for I had 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 22S» 
 
 on a red wig and side-whiskers. ' A friend of your husband's 
 from California, ma'am, with a present for your daughter, 
 Miss ' — and I made as I had forgot the name. But all 
 of a sudden a voice said, ' That 's too thin,' and in walked 
 Melindy. ' It 's playin' it rather low down, father, to pre- 
 tend you don't know your daughter's name — ain't it now ? 
 How are you, old man ? ' And with that she tears off my 
 wig and whiskers, and throws her arms around my neck, 
 — instinct, sir, pure instinct ! " 
 
 Emboldened by the laughter which followed his descrip- 
 tion of the filial utterances of Melinda, he again repeated 
 her speech, with more or less elaboration, joining in with, 
 and indeed often leading, the hilarity that accompanied it, 
 and returning to it with more or less incoherency, several 
 times during the evening. 
 
 And so at various times, and at various places — but 
 chiefly in bar-rooms — did this Ulysses of Monte Flat 
 reconnt the story of his wanderings. There were several 
 discrepancies in his statement, there was sometimes con- 
 siderable prolixity of detail, there was occasional change 
 of character and scenery, there was once or twice an' 
 absolute change in the denouement, but always the fact 
 of his having visited his wife and children remained. Of 
 course in a skeptical community like that of Monte Flat — 
 a community accustomed to great expectation and small 
 realization — a community wherein, to use the local dialect, 
 " they got the color and struck hardpan " more frequently 
 than any other mining camp — in such a community the 
 fullest credence was not given to old man Plunkett's facts. 
 There was only one exception to the general unbelief, — 
 Henry York of Sandy Bar. It was he who was always an 
 attentive listener ; it was his scant purse that had often 
 furnished Plunkett with means to pursue his unprofitable 
 speculations ; it was to him that the charms of Melinda 
 were more frequently rehearsed ; it was he that had bor- 
 
230 A MONTE FLAT PASTOEAL 
 
 rowed her photograph ; and it was he that, sitting alone in 
 his little cabin one night, kissed that photograph until his 
 honest, handsome face glowed again in the firelight. 
 
 It was dusty in Monte Flat. The ruins of the long, dry 
 season were crumbling everywhere ; everywhere the dying 
 summer had strewn its red ashes a foot deep, or exhaled its 
 last breath in a red cloud above the troubled highways. The 
 alders and cottonwoods that marked the line of the water- 
 courses were grimy with dust, and looked as if they might 
 have taken root in the open air ; the gleaming stones of the 
 parched water-courses themselves were dry as bones in the 
 valley of death. The dusty sunset at times painted the 
 flanks of the distant hills a dull, coppery hue ; on other 
 days there was an odd, indeiinable earthquake halo on the 
 volcanic cones of the farther coast - spurs ,■ again, an acid, 
 resinous smoke from the burning wood on Heavytree Hill 
 smarted the eyes and choked the free breath of Monte Flat, 
 or a fierce wind, driving everything — including the shriv- 
 eled summer like a curled leaf — before it, swept down the 
 flanks of the Sierras and chased the inhabitants to the doors 
 of their cabins, and shook its red fist in at their windows. 
 And on such a night as this — - the dust having, in some 
 way, choked the wheels of material progress in Monte Flat 
 — most of the inhabitants were gathered listlessly in the 
 gilded bar-room of the Moquelumne Hotel, spitting silently 
 at the red-hot stove that tempered the mountain winds to 
 the shorn lambs of Monte Flat, and waiting for the rain. 
 
 Every method known to the Flat of beguiling the time 
 until the advent of this long-looked-for phenomenon ha(i 
 been tried. It is true the methods were not many, being 
 limited chiefly to that form of popular facetiae known as 
 practical joking ; and even this had assumed the seriousness 
 of a business pursuit. Tommy Roy, who had spent two 
 hours in digging a ditch in front of his own door — into 
 which a few friends casually dropped during the evening — 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 231 
 
 looked ennuyi and dissatisfied ; the four prominent citizens, 
 who, disguised as footpads, had stopped the County 
 Treasurer on the Wingdam road, were jaded from their 
 playful efforts next morning ; the principal physician and 
 lawyer of Monte Flat, who had entered into an unhallowed 
 conspiracy to compel the Sheriff of Calaveras and his posse 
 to serve a writ of ejectment on a grizzly hear, feebly dis- 
 guised under the name of " one Major Ursus," who haunted 
 the groves of Heavytree Hill, wore an expression of resigned 
 weariness. Even the editor of the " Monte Flat Monitor," 
 who had that morning written a glowing account of a battle 
 with the Wipneck Indians for the benefit of Eastern 
 readers — even he looked grave and worn. When, at last, 
 Abner Dean of Angel's, who had been on a visit to San 
 Francisco, walked into the room, he was, of course, victim- 
 ized in the usual way by one or two apparently honest 
 questions which ended in his answering them, and then 
 falling into the trap of asking another to his utter and com- 
 plete shame and mortification — but that was all. Nobody 
 laughed, and Abner, although a victim, did not lose his 
 good humor. He turned quietly on his tormentors and 
 said, — 
 
 " I 've got something better than that — you know old 
 man Plunkett ? " 
 
 Everybody simultaneously spat at the stove and nodded 
 his head. 
 
 " You know he went home three years ago ? " Two or 
 three changed the position of their legs frqm the backs of 
 different chairs, and one man said, " Yes." 
 
 " Had a good time home ? " 
 
 Everybody looked cautiously at the man who had said 
 " Yes," and he, accepting the responsibility with a faint- 
 hearted smile, said, " Yes," again, and breathed hard. 
 
 " Saw his wife and child, — purty gal ? " said Abner 
 cautiously. 
 
232 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 " Yes," answered the man doggedly. 
 
 " Saw her photograph, perhaps ? " continued Abner Dean 
 quietly. 
 
 The man looked hopelessly around for support. Two or 
 three who had , been sitting near him, and evidently encour- 
 aging him with a look of interest, now shamelessly aban- 
 doned him and looked another way. Henry York flushed 
 a little and veiled his brown eyes. The man hesitated, and 
 then with a sickly smile that was intended to convey the 
 fact that he was perfectly aware of the object of this 
 questioning, and was only humoring it from abstract good 
 feeling, returned, " Yes," again. 
 
 " Sent home — let 's see — ten thousand dollars, was n't 
 it ? " Abner Dean went on. 
 
 "Yes," reiterated the man, with the same smile. 
 
 " Well, I thought so," said Abner quietly ; " but the 
 fact is, you see, that he never went home at all — nary 
 time." 
 
 Everybody stared at Abner in genuine surprise and inter- 
 est, as with provoking calmness and a half-lazy manner he 
 went on. 
 
 " You see, thar was a man down in 'Frisco as knowed 
 him and saw him in Sonora during the whole of that three 
 years. He was herding sheep or tending cattle, or spekilat- 
 ing all that time, and had n't a red cent. Well, it 'mounts 
 to this, — that 'ar Plunketi ain't been east of the Rocky 
 Mountains since '49." 
 
 The laugh which Abner Dean had the right to confidently 
 expect came, but it was bitter and sardonic. I think indig- 
 nation was apparent in the minds of his hearers. It was 
 felt, for the first time, that there was a limit to practical 
 joking. A deception carried on for a year, compromising 
 the sagacity of Monte Flat, was deserving the severest 
 reprobation. Of course nobody had believed Plunkett; but 
 then the supposition that it might be believed in adjacent 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 233 
 
 camps that they had believed him was gall and bitterness. 
 The lawyer thought that an indictment for obtaining money 
 Tinder false pretenses might be found; the physician had 
 long suspected him of insanity, and was not certain but that 
 he ought to be confined. The four prominent merchants 
 thought that the business interests of Monte Flat demanded 
 that something should be done. In the midst of an excited 
 and angry discussion the door slowly opened, and old man 
 Plunkett staggered into the room. 
 
 He had changed pitifully in the last six months. His 
 hair was a dusty yellowish-gray, like the chemisal on the 
 flanks of Heavytree Hill ; his face was waxen-white and 
 blue and puffy under the eyes ; his clothes were soiled and 
 shabby, — streaked in front with the stains of hurried lunch- 
 eons eaten standing, and fluffy behind with the wool and 
 hair of hurriedly extemporized couches. In obedience to 
 that odd law, that the more seedy and soiled a man's gar- 
 ments become the less does he seem inclined to part with 
 them, even during that portion of the twenty-four hours 
 when they are deemed least essential, Plunkett's clothes 
 had gradually taken on the appearance of a kind of bark, or 
 an outgrowth from within, for which their possessor was 
 not entirely responsible. Howbeit, as he entered the room 
 he attempted to button his coat over a dirty shirt, and 
 passed his fingers, after the manner of some animal, over 
 his cracker-strewn beard — in recognition of a cleanly public 
 sentiment. But even as he did so the weak smile faded 
 from his lips, and his hand, after fumbling aimlessly around 
 a button, dropped helplessly at his side. For, as he leaned 
 his back against the bar and faced the group, he for the first 
 time became aware that every eye but one was fixed upon him. 
 His quick, nervous apprehension at once leaped to the truth. 
 His miserable secret was out and abroad in the very air about 
 him. As a last resort, he glanced despairingly at Henry 
 York, but his flushed face was turned toward the windows. 
 
234 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 No word was spoken. As the barkeisper sileutly swung 
 a decanter and glass before him, he took a cracker from a 
 dish and mumbled it with affected unconcern. He lingered 
 over his liquor, until its potency stiffened his relaxed sinews 
 and dulled the nervous edge of his apprehension, and then 
 he suddenly faced around. " It don't look as if we were 
 goin' to hev any rain much afore Christmas," he said with 
 defiant ease. 
 
 No one made any reply. 
 
 " Just like this in '52 and again in '60. It 's always 
 been my opinion that these dry seasons come reg'lar. I 've 
 said it afore. I say it again. It 's jist as I said about go- 
 ing home, you know," he added with desperate recklessness. 
 
 "Thar's a man," said Abner Dean lazily, " ez sez you 
 never went home. Thar 's a man ez sez you 've been three 
 years in Sonora. Thar 's a man ez sez you hain't seen your 
 wife and daughter since '49. Thar 's a man ez sez you 've 
 been playin' this camp for six months." 
 
 There was a dead silence. Then a voice said, quite as 
 quietly, — 
 
 " That man lies." 
 
 It was not the old man's voic6. Everybody turned as 
 Henry York slowly rose, stretching out his six feet of length, 
 and, brushing away the ashes that had fallen from his pipe 
 upon his breast, deliberately placed himself beside Plunkett, 
 and faced the others. 
 
 " That man ain't here," continued Abner Dean with list- 
 less indifference of voice and a gentle preoccupation of 
 manner, as he carelessly allow^ed his right hand to rest oh 
 his hip near his revolver. " That man ain't here, but if 
 I 'm called upon to make good what he says, why, I 'm on 
 hand." 
 
 All rose as the two men — perhaps the least externally 
 agitated of them all — approached each other. The lawyer 
 stepped in between them. 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 235 
 
 " Perhaps there 's some mistake here. York, do you 
 know that the old man has been home ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 '' How do you know it ? " 
 
 York turned his clear, honest, frank eyes on his questioner, 
 and withovit a tremor told the only direct and unmitigated 
 lie of his life. "Because I've seen him there." 
 
 The answer was conclusive. It was known that York 
 had been visiting the East during the old man's absence. 
 The colloquy had diverted attention from Plunkett, who, 
 pale and breathless, was staring at his unexpected deliverer. 
 As he turned again toward his tormentors, there was some- 
 thing in the expression of his eye that caused those that 
 were nearest to him to fall back, and sent a strange, indefin- 
 able thrill through the boldest and most reckless. As he 
 made a step forward the physician almost unconsciously 
 raised his hand with a warning gesture, and old man Plun- 
 kett, with his eyes fixed upon the red-hot stove, and an odd 
 smile playing about his mouth, began, — 
 
 " Yes — of course you did. Who says you did n't ? It 
 ain't no lie ; I said I was goin' home, and I 've been home 
 Have n't I ? My God ! I have. Who says I 've been 
 lyin' ? Who says I 'm dreamin' ? Is it true — why don't 
 you speak ? It is true, after all. You say you saw me 
 there — why don't you speak again ? Say ! Say ! — is it 
 true ? It 's going now, my God — it 's going again. 
 It 's going now. Save me ! " and with a fierce cry he fell 
 forward in a fit upon the floor. 
 
 When the old man regained his senses he found himself 
 in York's cabin. A flickering fire of pine boughs lit up the 
 rude rafters, and fell upon a photograph tastefully framed 
 with fir-cones, and hung above the brush whereon he lay. 
 It was the portrait of a young girl. It was the first object 
 to meet the old man's gaze, and it brought with it a flush 
 of such painful consciousness that he started and glanced 
 
236 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 quickly around. But his eyes only encountered those oi 
 York, — clear, brown, critical, and patient, and they fell 
 again. 
 
 " Tell me, old man," said York, not unkindly, but with . 
 the same cold, clear tone in his voice that his eye betrayed a 
 moment ago, — " tell me, is that a lie too ? " and he pointed 
 to the picture. 
 
 The old man closed his eyes, and did not reply. Two 
 hours before the question would have stung him into some 
 evasion or bravado. But the revelation contained in the 
 question, as well as the tone of York's voice, was to him 
 now, in his pitiable condition, a relief. It was plain even 
 to his confused brain that York had lied when he had 
 indorsed his story in the bar-room ; it was clear to him 
 now that he had not been home — that he was not, as he 
 had begun to fear, going mad. It was such a relief that, 
 with characteristic weakness, his former recklessness and 
 extravagance returned. He began to chuckle — finally, to 
 laugh uproariously. 
 
 York, with his eyes still fixed on the old man, withdrew 
 the hand with which he had taken his. 
 
 " Did n't we fool 'em nicely, eh, Yorky ? He ! he ! The 
 biggest thing yet ever played in this camp ! I always said 
 I 'd play 'em all some day, and I have — played 'em for six 
 months. Ain't it rich — ain't it the richest thing you ever 
 seed ? Did you see Abner's face when he spoke 'bout that 
 man as seed me in Sonora ? — wa'n't it good as the min- 
 strels ? Oh, it 's too much ! " and striking his leg with the 
 palm of his hand, he almost threw himself from the bed in 
 a paroxysm of laughter — a paroxysm that, nevertheless, 
 appeared to be half real and half affected. 
 
 " Is that photograph hers ? " said York in a low voice, 
 after a slight pause. 
 
 " Hers ? No ! It 's one of the San Francisco actresses. 
 He ! he ! Don't you see — I bought it for two bits in one of 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 237 
 
 the bookstores, I never thought they 'd swaller that too ! 
 but they did ! Oh, but the old man played 'em this time, 
 did n't he — eh ? " and he peered curiously in York's face. 
 
 " Yes, and he played me too," said York, looking steadily 
 in the old man's eye. 
 
 " Yes, of course," interposed Plunkett hastily ; " but you 
 know, Yorky, you got out of it well ! You 've sold 'em too. 
 We 've both got 'em on a string now — you and me — got 
 to stick together now. You did it well, Yorky, you did it 
 well. Why, when you said you 'd seen me in York city, 
 I'm d— d if I didn't" — 
 
 " Did n't what ? " said York gently, for the old man had 
 stopped with a pale face and wandering eye. 
 
 " Eh ? " 
 
 " You say when I said I had seen you in New York you 
 thought " — 
 
 " You lie ! " said the old man fiercely ; " I did n't say I 
 thought anything. What are you trying to go back on me 
 for ? Eh ? " His hands were trembling as he rose, mut- 
 tering, from the bed, and made his way toward the hearth. 
 
 " Gimme some whiskey,'' he said presently, " and dry up. 
 You oughter treat, anyway. Them fellows oughter treated 
 last night. By hookey, I 'd made 'em — only I fell sick." 
 
 York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the table beside 
 him, and going to the door turned his back upon his guest 
 and looked out on the night. Although it was clear moon- 
 light the familiar prospect never to him seemed so dreary. 
 The dead waste of the broad Wingdam highway never 
 seemed so monotonous — so like the days that he had passed 
 and were to come to him — so like the old man in its 
 suggestion of going somewhere and never getting there. 
 He turned, and going up to Plunkett put his hand upon 
 his shoulder, and said, — 
 
 " I want you to answer one question fairly and squarely." 
 
 The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid blood iji 
 
238 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 the old man's veins and softened his acerbity, for the face 
 he turned up to York was mellowed in its rugged outline 
 and more thoughtful in expression as he said, — 
 
 " Go on, my boy." 
 
 " Have you a wife and — daughter ? " 
 
 " Before God, I have ! " 
 
 The two men were silent for a moment, both gazing at 
 the fire. Then Plunkett began rubbing his knees slowly. 
 
 " The wife, if it comes to that, ain't much," he began 
 cautiously, " being a little on the shoulder, you know, and 
 wantin', so to speak, a liberal California education — which 
 makes, you know, a bad combination. It 's always been 
 my opinion that there ain't any worse. Why, she 's as ready 
 with her tongue as Abner Dean is with his revolver, only 
 with the difference that she shoots from principle, as she 
 calls it, and the consequence is she 's always layin' for you. 
 It 's the effete East, my boy, that 's ruinin' her ; it 's them 
 ideas she gets in New York and Boston that's made her 
 and me what we are. I don't mind her havin' 'em if she 
 did n't shoot. But bavin' that propensity, them principles 
 ought n't to be lying round loose no more 'n firearms." 
 
 " But your daughter ? " said York. 
 
 The old man's hands went up to his eyes here, and then 
 both hands and head dropped forward on the table. " Don't 
 say anything 'bout her, my boy ; don't ask me now." With 
 one hand concealing his eyes he fumbled about with the 
 other in his pockets for his handkerchief — but vainly. 
 Perhaps it was owing to this fact that he repressed his tears, 
 for when he removed his hand from his eyes they were 
 quite dry. Then he found his voice. 
 
 " She 's a beautiful girl, — beautiful, though I say it ; and 
 you shall see her, my boy, — you shall see her, sure. I 've 
 got things about fixed now. I shall have my plan for redu- 
 ciu' ores perfected in a day or two, and I 've got proposals 
 from all the smeltin' works here " — here he hastily produced 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 239 
 
 ft bundle of papers that fell upon the floor — " and I 'm go in' 
 to send for 'em. I 've got the papers here as will give me 
 ten thousand dollars clear in the next month," he added, as 
 he strove to collect the valuable documents again. " I '11 
 have 'em here by Christmas, if I live, and you shall eat 
 your Christmas dinner with me, York, my boy — you shall, 
 sure." 
 
 With his tongue now fairly loosened by liquor and the 
 suggestive vastness of his prospects, he rambled on more 
 or less incoherently, elaborating and amplifying his plans — 
 occasionally even speaking of them as already accomplished, 
 until the moon rode high in the heavens, and York led him 
 again to his couch. Here he lay for some time muttering 
 to himself, until at last he sank into a heavy sleep. When 
 York had satisfied himself of the fact, he gently took down 
 the picture and frame, and, going to the hearth, tossed 
 them on the dying embers, and sat down to see them burn. 
 
 The fir-cones leaped instantly into flame ; then the 
 features that had entranced San Francisco audiences nightly 
 flashed up and passed away, — as such things are apt to 
 pass, — and even the cynical smile on York's lips faded too. 
 And then there came a supplemental and unexpected flash 
 as the embers fell together, and by its light York saw a 
 paper upon the floor. It was one that had fallen from the 
 old man's pocket. As he picked it up listlessly a photo- 
 graph slipped from its folds. It was the portrait of a young 
 girl, and on its reverse was written, in a scrawling hand, 
 " Melinda to Father." 
 
 It was at best a cheap picture ; but, ah me ! I fear even 
 the deft graciousness of the highest art could not have 
 softened the rigid angularities of that youthful figure, its 
 self-complacent vulgarity, it^ cheap finery, its expressionless 
 ill favor. York did not look at it the second time. He 
 turned to the letter for relief. 
 
 It was misspelled, it was unpunctuated, it was almost 
 
240 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 illegible, it was fretful in tone and selfish in sentiment. It 
 was not, I fear, even original in the story of its woes. It 
 was the harsh recital of poverty, of suspicion, of mean 
 makeshifts and compromises, of low pains and lower long- 
 ings, of sorrows that were degrading, of a grief that was 
 pitiable. Yet it was sincere in a certain kind of vague 
 yearning for the presence of the degraded man to whom it 
 was written — an affection that was more like a confused 
 instinct than a sentiment. 
 
 York folded it again carefully, and placed it beneath the 
 old man's pillow. Then he returned to his seat by the fire. 
 A smile that had been playing upon his face, deepening the 
 curves behind his mustache and gradually overrunning his 
 clear brown eyes, presently faded away. It was last to go 
 from his eyes, and it left there — oddly enough to those 
 who did not know him — - a tear. 
 
 He sat there for a long time, leaning forward, his head 
 upon his hands. The wind that had been striving with the 
 canvas roof all at once lifted its edges, and a moonbeam 
 slipped suddenly in, and lay for a moment like a shining 
 blade upon his shoulder. And knighted by its touch, 
 straightway plain Henry York arose — sustained, high- 
 purposed, and self-reliant ! 
 
 The rains had come at last. There was already a visible 
 greenness on the slopes of Heavytree Hill, and the long 
 white track of the Wingdam road was lost in outlying 
 pools and ponds a hundred rods from Monte Flat. The 
 spent water-courses, whose white bones had been sinuously 
 trailed over the flat, like the vertebrae of some forgotten 
 saurian, were full again ; the dry bones moved once more 
 in the valley, and there was joy in the ditches, and a par- 
 donable extravagance in the columns of the " Monte Flat 
 Monitor." "Never before in the history of the county- 
 has the yield been so satisfactory. Our contemporary of 
 the ' Hillside Beacon,' who yesterday facetiously alluded to 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 241 
 
 the fact (?) that our hest citizens were leaving town, in 
 * dug-outs,' on account of the flood, will he glad to hear 
 that our distinguished fellow-townsman, Mr. Henry York, 
 now on a visit to his relatives in the East, lately took with 
 him, in his ' dug-out,' the modest sum of fifty thousand 
 dollars, the result of one week's clean-up. We can im- 
 agine," continued that sprightly' journal, " that no such 
 misfortune is. likely to overtake Hillside- this season. And 
 yet we believe the ' Beacon ' ' man wants a railroad." A 
 few journals broke out into poetry. The operator at Simp- 
 son's Crossing telegraphed to' the Sacramento " Universe : " 
 " All day the low clouds have shook their garnered fullness 
 down." A San Francisco journal lapsed into noble verse, 
 thinly distinguished as editorial prose: "Rejoice! the gentle 
 rain has come, the bright and pearly rain, which scatters 
 blessings on the hills, and sifts them o'er the plain. 
 Rejoice," etc. Indeed, there was only one to whom the 
 rain had not brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In 
 some mysterious and darksome way, it had interfered with 
 the perfection of his new method of reducing ores, and 
 thrown the advent of that invention back' another season. 
 It had brought him down to an habitual seat in the bar- 
 room, where, to heedless and inattentive ears, he sat and 
 discoursed of the East and his family. 
 
 No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was rumored that 
 some funds had been lodged with the landlord, by a person 
 or persons unknown, whereby his few wants were provided 
 for. His mania — for that was the charitable construction 
 which Monte Flat put upon his conduct — was indulged, 
 even to the extent of Monte Flat's accepting his invitation 
 to dine with his family on Christmas Day, — an invitation 
 extended frankly to every one with whom the old man 
 drank or talked. But one day, to everybody's astonish- 
 ment, he burst into the bar-room, holding an open letter in 
 his hand. It read as follows : — 
 
242 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 
 
 Be ready to meet your family at the new cottage on 
 Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends 
 you. choose. Hbnby York. 
 
 The letter was handed round in silence. The old man, 
 with a look alternating between hope and fear, gazed in the 
 faces of the group. The Doctor looked up significantly, 
 after a pause. " It 's a forgery, evidently," he said in a 
 low voice ; " he 's cunning enough to conceive it, — they 
 always are, — but you'll find he'll fail in executing it. 
 Watch his face ! Old man," he said suddenly, in a loud, 
 peremptory tone, "this is a trick — a forgery — and you 
 know it. Answer me squarely, and look me in the eye. 
 Is n't it so ? " 
 
 The eyes of Plunkett stared a moment, and then dropped 
 weakly. Then, with a feebler smile, he said, " You 're too 
 many for me, boys. The Doc 's right. The little game 's 
 ■up. You can take the old man's hat," and so, tottering, 
 trembling, and chuckling, he dropped into silence and his. 
 accustomed seat. But the next day he seemed to have for- 
 gotten this episode, and talked as glibly as ever of the 
 approaching festivity. 
 
 And so the days and weeks passed, until Christmas — a 
 bright, clear day, warmed with south winds, and joyous with 
 the resurrection of springing grasses — broke upon Monte 
 Flat. And then there was a sudden commotion in the 
 hotel bar-room, and Abner Dean stood beside the old 
 man's chair, and shook him out of a slumber to his feet. 
 " House up, old man ! York is here, with your wife and 
 daughter at the cottage on Heavytree. Come, old man. 
 Here, boys, give him a lift," and in another moment a 
 dozen strong and willing hands had raised the old man, and 
 bore him in triumph to the street, up the steep grade of. 
 Heavytree Hill, and deposited him, struggling and confused, 
 in the porch of a little cottage. At the same instant, two 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL 245 
 
 women rushed forward, but were restrained by a gesture 
 from Henry York. The old man was struggling to his feet. 
 With an effort, at last, he stood erect, trembling, his eye 
 fixed, a gray pallor on his cheek, and a deep resonance in 
 his voice. 
 
 " It 's all a trick, and a lie ! They ain't no flesh and 
 blood or kin o' mine. It ain't my wife, nor child. My 
 daughter 's a beautiful girl — a beautiful girl — d' ye hear ? 
 She 's in New York, with her mother, and I 'm going to 
 fetch her here. I said I 'd go home, and I 've been home 
 — d' ye hear me ? — I've been home ! It's a mean trick 
 you 're playin' on the old man. Let me go, d' ye hear ? 
 Keep them women off me ! Let me go ! I 'm going — 
 I 'm going home ! " 
 
 His hands were thrown up convulsively in the air, and, 
 half turning round, he fell sideways on the porch, and so to 
 the ground. They picked him up hurriedly ; but too late. 
 He had gone home. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 It was at a little mining camp in the California Sierras 
 that he first dawned upon me in all his grotesque sweetness. 
 
 I had arrived early in the morning, but not in time to 
 intercept the friend who was the object of my visit. He 
 had gone " prospecting," — so they told me on the river, — 
 and would not probably return until late in the afternoon. 
 They could not say what direction he had taken ; they could 
 not suggest that I would be likely to find him if I followed. 
 But it was the general opinion that I had better wait. 
 
 I looked around me. I was standing upon the bank of 
 the river ; and, apparently, the only other human beings in 
 the world were my interlocutors, who were even then 
 just disappearing from my horizon down the steep bank 
 toward the river's dry bed. I approached the edge of the 
 bank. 
 
 Where could I wait ? 
 
 Oh, anywhere ; down with them on the river-bar, where 
 they were working, if I liked ! Or I could make myself at 
 home in any of those cabins that I found lying round loose. 
 Or, perhaps it would be cooler and pleasanter for me in my 
 friend's cabin on the hill. Did I see those three large sugar- 
 pines ? And, a little to the right, a canvas roof and chimney 
 over the bushes ? Well that was my friend's — that was 
 Dick Sylvester's cabin. I could stake my horse in that little 
 hollow, and just hang round there till he came. I would 
 find some books in the shanty ; I could amuse myself with 
 them. Or I could play with the baby. 
 
 Do what ? 
 
BABY SYLVESTER 245 
 
 But they had already gone. I leaned over the hank and 
 called after their vanishing figures, — 
 
 " What did you say I could do ? " 
 
 The answer floated slowly up on the hot sluggish air, — 
 
 " Pla-a-y with the ha-by." 
 
 The lazy echoes took it up and tossed it languidly from 
 hill to hill, until Bald Mountain opposite made some inco- 
 herent remark about the baby, and then all was still. 
 
 I must have been mistaken. My friend was not a man 
 of family ; there was not a woman within forty miles of 
 ihe river-camp ; he never was so passionately devoted to 
 children to import a luxury so expensive. I must have 
 'been mistaken. 
 
 I turned my horse's head toward the hill. As we slowly 
 climbed the narrow trail, the little settlement might have 
 been some exhumed Pompeian suburb, so deserted and 
 silent were its habitations. The open doors plainly disclosed 
 each rudely furnished interior, — the rough pine table, with 
 the scant equipage of the morning meal still standing ; the 
 wooden bunk, with its tumbled and disheveled blankets. 
 A golden lizard — the very genius of desolate stillness — had 
 stopped breathless upon the threshold of one cabin ; a 
 squirrel peeped impudently into the window of another ; a 
 woodpecker, with the general flavor of undertaking which 
 distinguishes that bird, withheld his sepulchral hammer 
 from the coffin-lid of the roof on which he was profes- 
 sionally engaged, as we passed. Per a moment, I half 
 regretted that I had not accepted the invitation to the river- 
 bed ; but, the next moment, a breeze swept up the long, 
 dark canon, and the waiting files of the pines beyond bent 
 toward me in salutation. I think my horse understood as 
 well as myself that it was the cabins that made the solitude 
 human, and therefore unbearable, for he quickened his 
 pace, and with a gentle trot brought me to the edge of the 
 wood and the three pines that stood like videttes before the 
 Sylvester outpost. 
 
246 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, I unslung the 
 long riata from the saddlehow, and tethering him to a young 
 sapling, turned toward the cabin. But I had gone only a 
 few steps when I heard a quick trot behind me, and poor 
 Pomposo, with every fibre tingling with fear, was at my heels. 
 I looked hurriedly around. The breeze had died away, and 
 only an occasional breath from the deep-chested woods, 
 more like a long sigh than any articulate sound, or the dry 
 singing of a cicala in the heated canon, were to be heard. 
 I examined the ground carefully for rattlesnakes, but in vain. 
 Yet here was Pomposo shivering from his arched neck to 
 his sensitive haunches, his very flanks pulsating with terror. 
 I soothed him as well as I could, and then walked to the 
 edge of the wood and peered into its dark recesses. The 
 bright flash of a bird's wing, or the quick dart of a squirrel, 
 was all I saw. I confess it was with something of super- 
 stitious expectation that I again turned toward the cabin. 
 A fairy child, attended by Titania and her train, lying in 
 an expensive cradle, would not have surprised me ; a Sleep- 
 ing Beauty, whose awakening would have re-peopled these 
 solitudes with life and energy, I am afraid I began to con- 
 fidently look for, and would have kissed without hesitation^. 
 
 But 1 found none of these. Here was the evidence of 
 my friend's taste and refinement in the hearth swept scru- 
 pulously clean, in the picturesque arrangement of the fur 
 skins that covered the floor and furniture, and the serape ^ 
 lying on the wooden couch. Here were the walls fanci- 
 fully papered with illustrations from the "London News ; " 
 here was the wood-cut portrait of Mr. Emerson over the 
 chimney, quaintly framed with bluejays' wings ; here were 
 his few favorite books on the swinging-shelf ; and here, lying 
 upon the couch, the latest copy of " Punch." Dear Dick ! 
 The flour-sack was sometimes empty, but the gentle satirist 
 seldom missed his weekly visit. 
 
 1 A fine Mexican blanket, used as an outer garment for riding. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER 247 
 
 I threw myself on the couch and tried to read. But I 
 soon exhausted my interest in my friend's library, and lay 
 there staring through the open door on the green hillside 
 beyond. The breeze again sprang up, and a delicious 
 coolness, mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stole 
 through the cabin. The slumbrous droning of bumblebees 
 outside the canvas roof, the faint cawing of rooks on the 
 opposite mountain, and the fatigue of my morning ride, 
 began to droop my eyelids. I pulled the serape over me 
 as a precaution against the freshening mountain breeze, and 
 in a few moments was asleep. 
 
 I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been 
 conscious, however, during my slumber, of my inability to 
 keep myself covered by the serajye, for I awoke once or twice 
 clutching it with a despairing hand as it was disappearing 
 over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly 
 aroused to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted 
 by some equally persistent force, and letting it go, I was 
 horrified at seeing it swiftly drawn under the couch. At 
 this point I sat up, completely awake ; for immediately after, 
 what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to emerge 
 from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, drag- 
 ging the serape after it. There was no mistaking it now — 
 it was a baby bear. A mere suckling, it was true — a help- 
 less roll of fat and fur — but unmistakably, a grizzly cub ! 
 
 I cannot recall anything more irresistibly ludicrous than 
 its aspect as it slowly raised its small wondering eyes to 
 mine. It was so much taller in its haunches than its 
 shoulders — its fore legs were so disproportionately small — 
 that in walking its hind feet invariably took precedence. It 
 was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed, inoffensive 
 nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary 
 somersaults, with the gravest astonishment. To add to its 
 preposterous appearance, one of its hind feet was adorned 
 by a shoe of Sylvester's, into which it had accidentally and 
 
248 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 inextricably stepped. As this somewhat impeded its first 
 impulse to fly, it turned to me ; and then, possibly recog- 
 nizing in the stranger the same species as its master, it 
 paused. Presently, it slowly raised itself on its hind legs, 
 and vaguely and deprecatingly waved a baby paw, fringed 
 with little hooks of steel. I took the paw and shook it 
 gravely. From that moment we were friends. The little 
 affair of the serape was forgotten. 
 
 Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship 
 by an act of delicate courtesy. Following the direction of 
 his eyes, I had no difficulty in finding, on a shelf near the 
 ridge-pole, the sugar-box and the square lumps of white 
 sugar that even the poorest miner is never without. While 
 he was eating them I had time to examine him more closely. 
 His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely modulated gray, 
 deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was 
 excessively long, thick, and soft as eider-down, the cushions 
 of flesh beneath perfectly infantine in their texture and con- 
 tour. He was so very young that the palms of his half- 
 human feet were still tender as a baby's. Except for the 
 bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little toes, 
 there was not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump 
 figure. He was as free from angles as one of Leda's off- 
 spring. Your caressing hand sank away in his fur with 
 dreamy languor. To look at him long was an intoxication 
 of the senses ; to pat him was a wild delirium ; to embrace 
 him, an utter demoralization of the intellectual faculties. 
 
 When he had finished the sugar he rolled out of the door 
 with a half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eye, as if he 
 expected me to follow. I did so, but the sniffing and 
 snorting of the keen-scented Pomposo in the hollow, not 
 only revealed the cause of his former terror, but decided me 
 to take another direction. After a moment's hesitation he 
 concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a 
 certain impish look in his eye, that he fully understood and 
 
BABY SYLVESTER 249 
 
 rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo. As he rolled along 
 at my side, with a gait not unlike a drunken sailor, I dis- 
 covered that his long hair concealed a leather collar around 
 his neck, which bore for its legend the single word, " Baby ! " 
 I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two miners. 
 This, then, was the " baby " with whom I was to " play." 
 
 How we " played ; " how Baby allowed me to roll him 
 down-bill, crawling and puffing up again each time, with 
 perfect good humor ; how he climbed a young sapling after 
 my Panama hat, which I had " shied " into one of the 
 topmost branches ; how after getting it he refused to de- 
 scend until it suited his pleasure ; how when he did come 
 down he persisted in walking about on three legs, carrying 
 my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his 
 breast with the remaining one ; how I missed him at last, 
 and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the 
 tenantless cabins, with a bottle of syrup between his paws, 
 vainly endeavoring to extract its contents — these a.nd 
 other details of that eventful day I shall not weary the 
 reader with now. Enough, that when Dick Sylvester re- 
 turned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled 
 up, an immense bolster at the foot of the couch, asleep. 
 Sylvester's first words after our greeting were, — 
 
 " Is n't he delicious ? " 
 
 " Perfectly. Where did you get him ? " 
 
 "Lying under his dead mother, five miles from here," 
 said Dick, lighting his pipe. " Knocked her over at fifty 
 yards ; perfectly clean shot — never moved afterwards ! 
 Baby crawled out, scared but unhurt. She must have been 
 carrying him in her mouth, and dropped him when she 
 faced me, for he was n't more than three days old, and not 
 steady on his pins. He takes the only milk that comes to 
 the settlement — brought up by Adams' Express at seven 
 o'clock every morning. They say he looks like me. Do 
 you think so ? " asked Dick, with perfect gravity, stroking 
 
250 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 his hay-colored mustaches, and evidently assuming his hest 
 expression. 
 
 I took leave of the baby early the next morning in 
 Sylvester's cabin, and, out of respect for Pomposo's feelings, 
 rode by without any postscript of expression. But the night 
 before I had made Sylvester solemnly swear that, in the 
 event of any separation between himself and Baby, it should 
 revert to me. " At the same time," he had added, " it 's 
 only fair to say that I don't think of dying just yet, old 
 fellow, and I don't know of anything else that would part 
 the cub and me." 
 
 Two months after this conversation, as I was turning 
 over the morning's mail at my office in San Francisco, I 
 noticed a letter bearing Sylvester's familiar hand. But it 
 was postmarked " Stockton," and I opened it with some 
 anxiety at once. Its contents were as follows : — 
 
 Frank ! don't you remember what we agreed upon 
 anent the baby ? Well, consider me as dead for the next 
 six months, or gone where cubs can't follow me — East. I 
 know you love the baby ; but do you think, dear boy — 
 now, really, do you think you eould be a father to it ? 
 Consider this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-mean- 
 ing enough ; but dare you take upon yourself the functions 
 of guide, genius, or guardian to one so young and guileless ? 
 Could you be the Mentor to this Telemachus ? Think of 
 the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question 
 well, and let me know speedily, for I 've got him as far as 
 this place, and he 's kicking up an awful row in the hotel- 
 yard and rattling his chain like a maniac. Let me know 
 by telegraph at once. Sylvester. 
 
 P. S. Of course he's grown a little, and doesn't take 
 things always as quietly as he did. He dropped rather 
 heavily on two of Watson's "purps" last week, and 
 snatched old Watson himself, bald-headed, for interfering. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER 251 
 
 £ovL remember Watson : for an intelligent man, he knows 
 very little of California fauna. How are you fixed for 
 bears on Montgomery Street — I mean in regard to corrals 
 and things ? S. 
 
 P. P. S. He 's got some new tricks. The boys have 
 been teaching him to put up his hands with them. He 
 slings an ugly left. S. 
 
 I am afraid that my desire to possess myself of Baby 
 overcame all other considerations, and I telegraphed an af- 
 firmative at once to Sylvester. When I reached my lodg- 
 ings late that afternoon, my landlady was awaiting me with 
 a telegram. It was two lines from Sylvester : — 
 
 All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a father 
 to him. S. 
 
 It was due, then, at one o'clock that night. For a 
 moment I was staggered at my own precipitation. I had 
 as yet made no preparations — had said nothing to my 
 landlady about her new guest. I expected to arrange 
 everything in time ; and now, through Sylvester's indecent 
 haste, that time had been shortened twelve hours. 
 
 Something, however, must be done at once. I turned 
 to Mrs. Brown. I had great reliance in her maternal 
 instincts ; I had that still greater reliance, common to our 
 sex, in the general tender-heartedness of pretty women. 
 But I confess I was alarmed. Yet, with a feeble smile, I tried 
 to introduce the subject with classical ease and lightness. 
 I even said, " If Shakespeare's Athenian clown, Mrs. 
 Brown, believed that a lion among ladies was a dreadful 
 thing, what must " — But here I broke down, for Mrs. 
 Brown, with the awful intuition of her sex, I saw at once 
 was more occupied with my manner than my speech. So 
 I tried a business bricsquerie, and, placing the telegram ia 
 
.?52 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 her hand, said hurriedly, "We must do something about 
 this at once. It 's perfectly absurd, but he will be here at one 
 to-night. Beg thousand pardons, but business prevented 
 my speaking before " — and paused, out of breath and 
 courage. 
 
 Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted her pretty 
 eyebrows, turned the paper over and looked on the other 
 side, and then, in a remote and chilling voice, asked me if 
 she understood me to say that the mother was coming also, 
 
 " Oh, dear no," I exclaimed, with considerable relief ; " the 
 mother is dead, you know. Sylvester — that is my friend, 
 who sent this — shot her when the baby was only three days 
 old " — But the expression of Mrs. Brown's face at this 
 moment was so alarming that I saw that nothing but the 
 fullest explanation would save me. Hastily, and I fear not 
 very coherently, I told her all. 
 
 She relaxed sweetly. She said I had frightened her with 
 my talk about lions. Indeed, I think my picture of poor 
 Baby — albeit a-triile highly colored — touched her motherly 
 heart. She was even a little vexed at what she called 
 Sylvester's " hard-heartedness." Still, I was not without 
 some apprehension. It was two months since I had seen 
 him, and Sylvester's vague allusion to his " slinging an ugly 
 left " pained me. I looked at sympathetic little Mrs. Brown, 
 and the thought of Watson's pups covered me with guilty 
 confusion. 
 
 Mrs. Brown had agreed to sit up with me until he arrived. 
 One o'clock came, but no Baby. Two o'clock — three 
 o'clock passed. It was almost four when there was a wild 
 clatter of horses' hoofs outside, and "with a jerk a wagon 
 stopped at the door. In an instant I had opened it and 
 confronted a stranger. Almost at the same moment the 
 horses attempted to run away with the wagon. 
 
 The stranger's appearance was, to say the least, discon- 
 serting. His clothes were badly torn and frayed ; his linec 
 
BABY SYLVESTEK 253 
 
 Back hung from his shoulders like a herald's apron ; one of 
 his hands was bandaged ; his face scratched, and there was 
 no hat on his disheveled head. To add to the general 
 effect, he had evidently sought relief from his woes in drink, 
 and he swayed from, side to side as he clung to the door 
 handle, and in a very thick voice stated that he had 
 " suthin' " for me outside. When he had finished the 
 horses made another plunge. 
 
 Mrs. Brown thought they must be frightened at some- 
 thing. 
 
 " Frightened ! " laughed the stranger with bitter irony. 
 " Oh no ! Hossish ain't frightened ! On'y ran away four 
 timesh comin' here. Oh no ! Nobody 's frightened. Every- 
 thin' 's all ri'. Ain't it, Bill ? " he said, addressing thu 
 driver. " On'y been overboard twish ; knocked down a 
 hatchway once. Thash nothin' ! On'y two men unner 
 doctor's ban's at Stockton. Thash nothin' ! Six hunner 
 dollarsh cover all dammish." 
 
 I was too much disheartened to reply, but moved toward 
 the wagon. The stranger eyed me with an astonishment 
 that almost sobered him. 
 
 " Do you reckon to tackle that animile yourself ? " he 
 asked, as he surveyed me from head to foot. 
 
 I did not speak, but, with an appearance of boldness 
 I was far from feeling, walked to the wagon and called 
 " Baby ! " 
 
 "All ri'. Cash loosh them straps, Bill, and stan' clear." 
 
 The straps were cut loose, and Baby — the remorseless, 
 the terrible — quietly tumbled to the ground, and rolling to 
 my side, rubbed his foolish head against me. 
 
 I think the astonishment of the two men was beyond any 
 vocal expression. Without a word the drunken stranger 
 got into the wagon and drove away. 
 
 And Baby ? He had grown, it is true, a trifle larger ; 
 but he was thin, and bore the marks of evident ill usage 
 
254 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 His beautiful coat was matted and unkempt, and his claws 
 — those bright steel hooks — had been ruthlessly pared to 
 the quick. His eyes were furtive and restless, and the old 
 expression of stupid good humor had changed to one of 
 intelligent distrust. His intercourse with mankind had 
 evidently quickened his intellect without broadening his 
 moral nature. 
 
 I had great difficulty in keeping Mrs. Brown from 
 smothering him in blankets and ruining his digestion with 
 the delicacies of her larder ; but I at last got him completely 
 rolled up in the corner of my room and asleep. I lay 
 awake some time later with plans for his future. I finally 
 determined to take him to Oakland, where I had built a 
 little cottage and always spent my Sundays, the very next 
 day. And in the midst of a rosy picture of domestic 
 felicity I fell asleep. 
 
 When I awoke it was broad day. My eyes at once 
 sought the corner where Baby had been lying. But he was 
 gone. I sprang from the bed, looked under it, searched 
 the closet, but in vain. The door was still locked ; but 
 there were the marks of his blunted claws upon the sill of 
 the window that I had forgotten to close. He had evi- 
 dently escaped that way — but where ? The window opened 
 upon a balcony, to which the only other entrance was 
 through the hall. He must be still in the house. 
 
 My hand was already upon the bell-rope, but I stayed it 
 in time. If he had not made himself known, why should I 
 disturb the house ? I dressed myself hurriedly and slipped 
 into the hall. The first object that met my eyes was a 
 boot lying upon the stairs. It bore the marks of Baby's 
 teeth, and as I looked along the hall I saw too plainly 
 that the usual array of freshly blackened boots and shoes 
 before the lodgers' doors was not there. As I ascended 
 the stairs I found another, but with the blacking carefully 
 licked off. On the third floor were two or three more 
 
BABY SYLVESTER 255 
 
 boots slightly mouthed ; but at this point Baby's taste for 
 blacking had evidently palled. A little farther on was a 
 ladder leading to an open scuttle. I mounted the ladder, 
 and reached the flat roof that formed a continuous level 
 over the row of houses to the corner of the street. Behind 
 the chimney on the very last roof something was lurking. 
 It was the fugitive Baby. He was covered with dust and 
 dirt and fragments of glass. But he was sitting on his 
 hind legs, and was eating an enormous slab of peanut 
 candy with a look of mingled guilt and infinite satisfaction. 
 He even, I fancied, slightly stroked his stomach with his 
 disengaged fore paw as I approached. He knew that I 
 vras looking for him, and the expression of his eyes said 
 p.lainly, " The past, at least, is secure." 
 
 I hurried him, with the evidences of his guilt, back to 
 the scuttle, and descended on tiptoe to the floor beneath. 
 Providence favored us ; I met no one on the stairs, and 
 liis own cushioned tread was inaudible. I think he was 
 conscious of the dangers of detection, for he even forbore 
 to breathe, or much less chew the last mouthful he had 
 taken ; and he skulked at my side, with the syrup dropping 
 from his motionless jaws. I think he would have silently 
 choked to death just then for my sake, and it was not 
 until I had reached my room again, and threw myself 
 panting on the sofa, that I saw how near strangulation he 
 had been. He gulped once or twice, apologetically, and 
 then walked to the corner of his own accord, and rolle<l 
 himself up like an immense sugar-plum, sweating remorse 
 and treacle at every pore. 
 
 I locked him in when 1 went to breakfast, when I found 
 Mrs. Brown's lodgers in a state of intense excitement over 
 certain mysterious events of the night before, and the 
 dreadful revelations of the morning. It appeared that 
 burglars had entered the block from the scuttles; that, 
 being suddenly alarmed, they had quitted our house with- 
 
256 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 out committing any depredation, dropping even the boots 
 they had collected in the halls ; but that a desperate attempt 
 had been made to force the till in the confectioner's shop 
 on the corner, and that the glass show-case had been ruth- 
 lessly smashed. A courageous servant in No. 4 had seen 
 a masked burglar, on bis hands and knees, attempting to 
 enter their scuttle ; but on, her shouting, " Away wid yees," 
 he instantly fled. 
 
 I sat through this recital with cheeks that burned un- 
 comfortably ; nor was I the less embarrassed on raising my 
 eyes to meet Mrs. Brown's fixed curiously and mischievously 
 on mine. As soon as I could make my escape from the 
 table I did' so, and, running rapidly upstairs, sought refuge 
 from any possible inquiry in my own room. Baby was still 
 asleep in the corner. It would not be safe to remove him 
 \intil the lodgers had gone down-tqwn, and I was revolving 
 in my mind the expediency of keeping him until night 
 veiled his obtrusive eccentricity from the public eye, when 
 there came a cautious tap at my door. I opened it. Mrs. 
 Brown slipped in quietly, closed the door softly, stood with 
 her back against it and her hand on the knob, and beckoned 
 me mysteriously toward her. Then she asked, in a low 
 voice, — 
 
 " Is hair-dye poisonous ? " 
 
 I was too confounded to speak. 
 
 " Oh, do ! you know what I mean," she said impatiently. 
 " This stuff." She produced suddenly from behind her a 
 bottle with a Greek label — so long as to run two or three 
 times spirally around it from top to bottom. " He says it 
 is n't a dye ; it 's a vegetable preparation, for invigorat- 
 ing " — 
 
 " Who says ? " I asked despairingly. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Parker, of course," said Mrs. Brown severely, 
 with the air of having repeated the name a great many 
 . times, — " the old gentleman, in the room above. The 
 
BABY SYLVESTEE 25?" 
 
 simple question I want to ask," she continued, with the 
 calm manner of one who had just convicted another of 
 gross ambiguity of language, is only this': If some of this 
 stuif were put in a saucer and left carelessly on the table, 
 and a child, or a baby, or a cat, or any young animal, should 
 come in at the window and drink it up — a whole saucer 
 f ul — because it had a sweet taste, would it be likely tc 
 hurt them ? " 
 
 I cast an anxious glance at Baby, sleeping peacefully in 
 ■the corner, and a very grateful one at Mrs. Brpwn, and 
 said I didn't think it would. 
 
 " Because," said Mrs. Brown loftily, as she opened the 
 door, " I thought if it was poisonous, remedies might be 
 used in time. Because," she added suddenly, abandoning 
 her lofty manner and wildly rushing to the corner, with a 
 frantic embrace of the unconscious Baby, — " because if any 
 nasty stuff should turn its booful hair & horrid green or a 
 naughty pink, it would break his own muzzer's heart, it 
 would ! " 
 
 But before I could assure Mrs. Brown of the ineificiency 
 of hair-dye as an internal application, she had darted from 
 the room. 
 
 That night, with the secrecy of defaulters, Baby and I 
 decamped from Mrs. Brown's. Distrusting the too emo- 
 tional nature of that noble animal, the horse, I had recourse 
 to a hand-cart, drawn by a stout Irishman, to convey my 
 charge to the ferry. Even then Baby refused to go unless 
 I walked by the cart, and at times rpde in it. 
 
 "I wish," said Mrs. Brown, as she stood by the door, 
 wrapped in an immense shawl, and saw us depart, — "I wish 
 it looked less solemn — less like a pauper's funeral." 
 
 I must admit that, as I walked by the cart that night, I 
 felt very much as if I were accompanying the remains of 
 some humble friend to his last resting-place ; and that, when 
 I was obliged to ride in it, I never could . entirely convince 
 
258 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 myself that I was not helplessly overcome by liquor, or the 
 victim of an accident, en route to the hospital; But at last 
 we reached the ferry. On the boat I think no one discov- 
 ered Baby except a drunken man, who approached me to 
 ask for a light for hio cigar, bat who suddenly dropped it 
 and filed in dismay to the gentlemen's cabin, where his inco- 
 herent ravings were luckily taken for the earlier indications 
 of deliriiim tremens. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when I reached my little cottage 
 on the outskirts of Oakland ; and it was with a feeling of 
 relief and security that I entered, locked the door, and 
 turned him loose in the hall, satisfied that henceforward his 
 depredations would be limited to my own property. He 
 was very quiet that night, and after he had tried to mount 
 the hat-rack, under the mistaken impression that it was in- 
 tended for his own gymnastic exercise, and knocked all the 
 hats off, he went peaceably to sleep on the rug. 
 
 In a week, with the exercise afforded him by the run of 
 a large, carefully boarded inclosure, he recovered his health, 
 strength, spirits, and much of his former beauty. His 
 presence was unknown to my neighbors, although it was 
 noticeable that horses invariably " shied " in passing to the 
 windward of my house, and that the baker and milkman 
 had great difficulty in the delivery of their wares in the 
 morning, and indulged in unseemlj' and unnecessary pro- 
 fanity in so doing. 
 
 At the end of the week, I determined to invite a few 
 friends to see the Baby, and to that purpose wrote a num- 
 ber of formal invitations. After descanting, at some length, 
 on the great expense and danger attending his capture and 
 training, I ofifered a programme of the performances of the 
 " Infant Phenomenon of Sierran Solitudes," drawn up into 
 the highest professional profusion of alliteration and capital 
 letters. A few extracts will give the reader some idea of 
 his educational progress : — 
 
BABY SYLVESTEK 259 
 
 1. He will, rolled up in a Eound Ball, roll down the Wood 
 
 Shed, Eapidly, illustrating His manner of Escaping 
 from His Enemy in his Native Wilds. 
 
 2. He will Ascend the Well-Pole, and remove from the 
 
 Very Top a Hat, and as much of the Crown and 
 Brim thereof as May be Permitted. 
 
 3. He will perform in a pantomime, descriptive of the 
 
 Conduct of the Big Bear, The Middle-Sized Bear, and 
 The Little Bear of the Popular Nursery Legend. 
 
 4. He will shake his chain Rapidly, showing his Manner 
 
 of striking Dismay and Terror in the Breasts of 
 Wanderers in Ursine Wildernesses. 
 
 The morning of the exhibition came, but an hour before 
 the performance the wretched Baby was missing. The 
 Chinese cook could not indicate his whereabouts. I 
 searched the premises thoroughly, and then, in despair, 
 took my hat and hurried out into the narrow lane that led 
 toward the open fields and the woods beyond. But I found 
 no trace nor track of Baby Sylvester. I retvirned, after an 
 hour's fruitless search, to find my guests already assembled 
 on the rear veranda. I briefly recounted my disappoint- 
 ment, my probable loss, and begged their assistance. 
 
 " Why," said a Spanish friend, who prided himself on 
 his accurate knowledge of English, io Barker, who seemed 
 to be trying vainly to rise from his reclining position on 
 the veranda, — " why do you not disengage yourself from the 
 veranda of our friend ? and why, in the name of Heaven 
 do you attach to yourself so much of this thing, and make Ui 
 yourself such unnecessary contortion ? Ah," he continued, 
 suddenly withdrawing one of his own feet from the veranda 
 with an evident eifort, " I am myself attached ! Surely, it 
 is something here ! " 
 
 It evidently was. My guests were all rising with diffi- 
 culty, — the floor of the veranda was covered with some 
 glutinous substance. It was — syrup ! 
 
260 BABY SYLVESTER 
 
 I saw it all in a flash. I ran to the barn ; the keg of 
 " golden syrup," purchased only the day before, lay empty 
 upon the floor. There were sticky tracks all over the in- 
 closure, but still no Baby. 
 
 " There 's something moving the ground over there by 
 that pile of dirt," said Barker. 
 
 He was right; the earth was shaking in one corner of 
 the inclosure like an earthquake. I approached cautiously. 
 I saw, what I had not before noticed, that the ground was 
 thrown up ; and there, in the middle of an immense gravfi- 
 like cavity, crouched Baby Sylvester, still digging, and 
 slowly, but surely, sinking from sigiit in a mass of dust and 
 clay. 
 
 What were his intentions ? Whether be was stung by 
 remorse, and wished to hide himself from my reproachful 
 eyes, or whether he was simply trying to dry his syrup- 
 besmeared coat, I never shall know, for that day, alas ! was 
 his last with me. 
 
 He was pumped upon for two hours, at the end of which 
 time he still yielded a thin treacle. He was then taken and 
 carefully enwrapped in blankets and locked up in the 
 storeroom. The next morning he was gone ! The lower 
 portion of the window sash and pane were gone too. His 
 successful experiments on the fragile texture of glass at the 
 confectioner's, on the first day of his entrance to civilization, 
 had not been lost upon him. His first essay at combining 
 cause and efiect ended in his escape. 
 
 Where be went, where he hid, who captured him if he 
 did not succeed in reaching the foothills beyond Oakland, 
 even the ofier of a large reward, backed by the efibrts of an 
 intelligent police, could not discover. I never saw him 
 again from that day until — 
 
 Did I see him ? I was in a horse-car on Sixth Avenue, 
 a few days ago, when the horses suddenly became unmanage- 
 able and left the track for the sidewalk, amid the oaths and 
 
BABY SYLVESTER 261 
 
 execrations of the driver. Immediately in front of the car 
 a crowd had gathered around two performing bears and a 
 showman. One of the animals — thin, emaciated, and the 
 mere wreck of his native strength — attracted my attention. 
 I endeavored to attract his. He turned a pair of bleared, 
 sightless eyes in my direction, but there was no sign of 
 recognition. I leaned from the car window and called 
 softly, " Baby ! " But he did not heed. I closed the win- 
 dow. The car was just moving on, when he suddenly 
 turned, and, either by accident or design, thrust a callous 
 paw through the glass. 
 
 " It 's worth a dollar and a half to put in a new pane," 
 said the conductor, " if folks will play with bears ! " — 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 As I opened Hop Sing's letter there fluttered to the 
 ground a square strip of yellow paper covered -with hiero- 
 glyphics, which at first glance I innocently took to be the 
 label from a pack of Chinese fire-crackers. But the same 
 envelope also contained a smaller strip of rice paper, with 
 two Chinese characters traced in India ink, that I at once 
 knew to be Hop Sing's visiting card. The whole, as after- 
 wards literally translated, ran as follows : — 
 
 To the stranger the gates of my house are not closed ; 
 the rice-jar is on the left, and the sweetmeats on the 
 right, as you enter. 
 Two sayings of the Master : 
 
 Hospitality is the virtue of the son and the wisdom 
 
 of the ancestor. 
 The superior man is ligh1>hearted after the crop- 
 gathering ; he makes a festival. 
 When the stranger is in your melon patch observe him 
 not too closely ; inattention is often the highest form 
 of civility. 
 Happiness, Peace, and Prosperity. Hop Sing. 
 
 Admirable, certainly, as was this morality and proverbial 
 wisdom, and although this last axiom was very characteristic 
 of my friend Hop Sing, who was that most sombre of all 
 humorists, a Chinese philosopher, I must confess that, even 
 after a very free translation, I was at a loss to make any 
 immediate application of the message. Luckily I discovered 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 263 
 
 a third inclosure in the shape of a little note in English and 
 Hop Sing's own commercial hand. It ran thus : — 
 
 The pleasure of your company is requested at No. — ^ 
 Sacramento Street, on Friday evening at eight o'clock. A 
 cup of tea at nine — sharp. Hop Sing. 
 
 This explained all. It meant a visit to Hop Sing's ware- 
 house, the opening and exhibition of some rare Chinese 
 novelties and curios, a chat in the back office, a cup of tea 
 of a perfection unknown beyond these sacred precincts, 
 cigars, and a visit to the Chinese Theatre or Temple. This 
 was in fact the favorite programme of Hop Sing when he 
 exercised his functions of hospitality as the chief factor or 
 superintendent of the Mng Foo Company. 
 
 At eight o'clock on Friday evening I entered the ware- 
 house of Hop Sing. There was that deliciously commingled 
 mysterious foreign odor that I had so often noticed ; there 
 was the old array of uncouth-looking objects, the long pro- 
 cession of jars and crockery, the same singular blending of 
 the grotesque and the mathematically neat and exact, the 
 same endless suggestions of frivolity and fragility, the same 
 want of harmony in colors that were each, in themselves, 
 beautiful and rare. Kites in the shape of enormous dragons 
 and gigantic butterflies ; kites so ingeniously arranged as to 
 utter at intervals, when facing the wind, the cry of a hawk ; 
 kites so large as to be beyond anj^ boy's power of restraint 
 — so large that you understood why kite-flying in China was 
 an amusement for adults ; gods of china and bronze so 
 gratuitously ugly as to be beyond any human interest or 
 sympathy from their very impossibility ; jars of sweetmeats 
 covered all over with moral sentiments from Confucius ; 
 hats that looked like baskets, and baskets that looked like 
 hats ; silk so light that I hesitate to record the incredible 
 number of square yards that you might pass through the 
 
264 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 ring oil your little finger — these and a great many other inde-- 
 scrihable objects were all familiar to me. I pushed my way 
 through the dimly lighted warehouse until I reached the 
 back office or parlor, where I found Hop Sing waiting to 
 receive me. 
 
 Before I describe him I want the average reader to dis- 
 charge from his mind any idea of a Chinaman that ho 
 may have gathered from the pantomime. He did not 
 wear beautifully scalloped drawers fringed with little bells 
 — I never met a Chinaman who did ; he did not habitually 
 carry his forefinger extended before him at right angles with 
 his body, nor did I ever hear him utter the mysterious sen- 
 tence, " Ching a ring a ring chaw," nor dance under any pro- 
 Vocation. He was, on the whole, a rather grave, decorous, 
 handsome gentleman. His coniplexion, which extended 
 all over his head except where his long pig- tail grew, was 
 like a Very nice piece of glazed brown paper-muslin. His 
 eyes were black and bright, and his eyelids set at an angle 
 of 15° ; his nose straight and delicately formed, his mouth 
 small, and his teeth white and clean. He wore a dark blue 
 silk blouse, and in the streets on cold days a short jacket 
 of Astrakhan fur. He wore also a pair of drawers of blue 
 brocade gathered tightly over his calves and ankles, offering 
 a general sort of suggestion that he had forgotten his trousers 
 that morning, but that, So gentlemanly were his manners, 
 his friends had forborne t6 mention the fact to him. His 
 manner was urbane, although quite serioiis. He spoke 
 French and English fluently. In brief, I doubt if you 
 could have found the equal of this Pagan shopkeeper 
 among the Christian traders of San Francisco. 
 
 There were a few others present : a Judge of the Federal 
 Court, an editor, a high government official, and a promi- 
 nent merchant. After we had drunk our tea, and tasted 
 a few sweetmeats from a mysterious jar, that looked as if it 
 might contain a preserved mouse among its other nonde- 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 2b5 
 
 fccript treasures, Hop Sing arose, and gravely beckoning us 
 to follow him, began to descend to the basement. When 
 we got there, we were amazed at finding it brilliantly lighted, 
 and that a number of chairs were arranged in a half-circle 
 on the asphalt pavement. When he had courteously seated 
 us, he said, — 
 
 " I have invited you to witness a performance which I 
 can at least promise you no other foreigners but yourselves 
 have ever seen. Wang, the court juggler, arrived here 
 yesterday morning. He has never given a performance 
 outside of the palace before. I have asked him to entertain 
 my friends this evening. He requires no theatre, stage, ac- 
 cessories, or any confederate — nothing more than you see 
 here. Will you be pleased to examine the ground your- 
 selves, gentlemen." 
 
 Of course we examined the premises. It was the 
 ordinary basement or cellar of the San Prancisco store- 
 house, cemented to keep out the damp. We poked our 
 sticks into the pavement and rapped on the walls to satisfy 
 our polite host, but for no other purpose. We were quite 
 content to be the victims of any clever deception. For 
 myself, I knew I was ready to be deluded to any extent, 
 and if I had been offered an explanation of what followed, 
 I should have probably declined it. 
 
 Although I am satisfied that Wang's general performance 
 was the first of that kind ever given on American soil, it has 
 probably since become so familiar to many of my readers 
 that I shall not bore them with it here. He began by se>/- 
 ting to flight, with the aid of his fan, the usual number of 
 butterflies made before our eyes of little bits of tissue-paper, 
 and kept them in the air during the remainder of the per- 
 formance. I have a vivid recollection of the judge trying 
 to catch one that had lit on his knee, and of its evading 
 him with the pertinacity of a living insect. And even at 
 this time Wang, still plying bis fan, was taking chickens 
 
266 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 out of hats, making oranges disappear, pulling endless yards 
 of silk from his sleeve, apparently filling the whole area of 
 the basement with goods that appeared mysteriously from 
 the ground, from his own sleeves, from nowhere ! He 
 swallowed knives to the ruin of his digestion for years to 
 come ; he dislocated every limb of his body ; he reclined in 
 the air, apparently upon nothing. But his crowning per- 
 formance, which I have never yet seen repeated, was tlie 
 most weird, mysterious, and astounding. It is my apology 
 for this long introduction, my sole excuse for writing this 
 article, the genesis of this veracious history. 
 
 He cleared the ground of its encumbering articles for 
 a space of about fifteen feet square, and then invited us all 
 to walk forward and again examine it. We did so gravely ; 
 there was nothing but the cemented pavement below to be 
 seen or felt. He then asked for the loan of a handkerchief, 
 and, as I chanced to be nearest him, I offered mine. He 
 took it and spread it open upon the floor. Over this he 
 spread a large square of silk, and over this again a large 
 shawl nearly covering the space he had cleared. He then 
 took a position at one of the points of this rectangle, and 
 began a monotonous chant, rocking his body to and fro iii 
 time with the somewhat lugubrious air. 
 
 We sat still and waited. Above the chant we could hear 
 the striking of the city clocks, and the occasional rattle of 
 a cart in the street overhead. The absolute watchfulness 
 and expectation, the dim, mysterious half-light of the cellar, 
 falling in a gruesome way upon the misshapen bulk of a 
 Chinese deity in the background, a faint smell of opium 
 smoke mingling with spice, and the dreadful uncertainty 
 of what we were really waiting for, sent an uncomfortable 
 thrill down our backs, and made us look at each other with 
 a forced and unnatural smile. This feeling was heightened 
 when Hop Sing slowly rose, and, without a word, pointed 
 with his finger to the centre of the shawl. 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 267 
 
 There was something beneath the shawl ! Surely — and 
 something that was not there before.' At first a mere sug- 
 gestion in relief, a faint outline, but growing more and 
 more distinct and visible every moment. The chant still 
 continued, the perspiration began to roll from the singer's 
 face, gradually the hidden object took upon itself a shape 
 and bulk that raised the shawl in its centre some five or six 
 inches. It was now unmistakably the outline of a small 
 but perfect human figure, with extended arms and legs. 
 One or two of us turned pale ; there was a feeling of general 
 uneasiness, until the editor broke the silence by a gibe that, 
 poor as it was, was received with spontaneous enthusiasm. 
 Then the chant suddenly ceased, Wang arose, and, with a 
 quick, dexterous movement, stripped both shawl and silk 
 away, and discovered, sleeping peacefully upon my hand- 
 kerchief, a tiny Chinese baby ! 
 
 The applause and uproar which followed this revelation 
 ought to have satisfied Wang, even if his audience was a 
 small one ; it was loud enough to awaken the baby — a 
 pretty little boy about a year old, looking like a Cupid cut 
 out of sandalwood. He was whisked away almost as 
 mysteriously as he appeared. When Hop Sing returned 
 my handkerchief to me with a bow, I asked if the juggler 
 was the father of the baby. " No sabe ! " said the imper- 
 turbable Hop Sing, taking refuge in that Spanish form of 
 noncommittalism so common in California. 
 
 " But does he have a new baby for every performance ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " Perhaps ; who knows ? " 
 
 " But what will become of this one ? " 
 
 " Whatever you choose, gentlemen," replied Hop Sing, 
 with a courteous inclination; "it was born here — you 
 are its godfathers." 
 
 There were two characteristic peculiarities of any Cali- 
 foruian assemblage in 1856 : it was quick to take a huit. 
 
268 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 and generous to the point of prodigality in its response to 
 any charitable appeal. No matter how sordid or avaricious 
 the individual, he could not resist the infection of sympathy. 
 I doubled the points of my handkerchief into a bag, dropped 
 a coin into it, and, without a word, passed it to the judge. 
 He quietly added a tweuty-doUar gold-piece, and passed it 
 to the next j when it was returned to me it contained over 
 a hundred dollars. I knotted the money in the handker- 
 chief, and gave it to Hop Sing. 
 
 " For the baby, from its godfathers." 
 
 " But what name ? " said the judge. There was a run- 
 ning fire of " Erebus," " Nox," « Plutus," " Terra Cotta," 
 " Antaeus," etc., etc. Finally the question was referred to 
 our host. 
 
 " Why not keep his own name," he said quietly, — 
 "Wan Lee?" And he did. 
 
 And thus was Wan Lee, on the night of Friday the 5th 
 of March, 1856, born into this veracious chronicle. 
 
 The last form of the " Northern Star " for the 19th of 
 July, 1865, — the only daily paper published in Klamath 
 County, — had just gone to press, and at three a. m. I was 
 putting aside my proofs and manuscripts, preparatory to 
 going home, when I discovered a letter lying under some 
 sheets of paper which I must have overlooked. The enve- 
 lope was con-siderably soiled, it had no postmark, but I had 
 no difficulty in recognizing the hand of my friend Hop 
 Sing. I opened it hurriedly, and read as follows : — 
 
 My deae Sir, — I do not know whether the bearer 
 ■will suit you, but unless the office of " devil " in your news- 
 paper is a purely technical one, I think he has all the 
 qualities required. He is very quick, active, and intelli- 
 gent ; understands English better than he speaks it, and 
 makes up for any defect by his habits of observation and 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 269 
 
 imitation. You have only to show him how to do a thing 
 once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an oifense or a 
 virtue. But you certainly know him already ; you are one 
 of his godfathers, for is he not Wan Lee, the reputed son of 
 Wang the conjurer, to whose performances I had the honor 
 to introduce you ? But perhaps you have forgotten it. 
 
 I shall send him with a gang of coolies to Stockton, 
 thence by express to your town. If you can use him 
 there, you will do me a favor, and probably save his life, 
 which is at present in great peril from the hands of the 
 younger members of your Christian and highly civilized race 
 who attend the enlightened schools in San Francisco. 
 
 He has acquired some singular habits and customs from 
 his experience of Wang's profession, which he followed for 
 some years, until he became too large to go in a hat, or 
 be produced from his father's sleeve. The money you left 
 with me has been expended on his education ; he has gone 
 through the Tri-literal Classics, but, I think, without much 
 benefit. He knows but little of Confucius, and absolutely 
 nothing of Mencius. Owing to the negligence of his 
 father, he associated, perhaps, too much with American 
 children. 
 
 I should have answered your letter before, by post, but 
 I thought that Wan Lee himself would be a better mes- 
 senger for this. Yours respectfully. 
 
 Hop Sing. 
 
 And this was the long-delayed answer to my letter to 
 Hop Sing. But where was " the bearer " ? How was the 
 letter delivered ? I summoned hastily the foreman, printers, 
 and office boy, but without eliciting anything ; no one had 
 jeen the letter delivered, nor knew anything of the bearer. 
 A few days later I had a visit from my laundryman, 
 A.hEi. 
 
 •' You wantee debbil ? All lightee ; me catchee him." 
 
270 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 He returned in a few moments with a bright-looking 
 Chinese boy, about ten years old, with whose appearance 
 and general intelligence I was so greatly impressed that I 
 engaged him on the spot. When the business was con- 
 cluded, I asked his name. 
 
 " Wan Lee," said the boy. 
 
 " What ! Are you the boy sent out by Hop Sing ? 
 What the devil do you mean by not coming here before, 
 and how did you deliver that letter ? " 
 
 Wan Lee looked at me and laughed. " Me pitchee in 
 top side window." 
 
 I did not understand. He looked for a moment per- 
 plexed, and then, snatching the letter out of my hand, ran 
 down the stairs. After a moment's pause, to my great 
 astonishment, the letter came flying in at the window, 
 circled twice around the room, and then dropped gently like 
 a bird upon my table. Before I had got over my surprise 
 Wan Lee reappeared, smiled, looked at the letter and then 
 at me, said, " So, John," and then remained gravely silent. 
 I said nothing further, but it was understood that this was 
 his first official act. 
 
 His next performance, I grieve to say, was not attended 
 with equal success. One of our regular paper-carriers fell 
 sick, and, at a pinch. Wan Lee was ordered to fill his place. 
 To prevent mistakes he was shown over the route the 
 previous evening, and supplied at about daylight with the 
 usual number of subscribers' copies. He returned after an 
 hour, in good spirits and without the papers. He had 
 delivered them all he said. 
 
 Unfortunately for Wan Lee, at about eight o'clock indig- 
 nant subscribers began to arrive at the office. They had 
 received their copies ; but how ? In the form of hard- 
 pressed cannon-balls, delivered by a single shot and a mere 
 tour de force through the glass of bedroom windows. 
 They had received them full in the face, like a baseball, 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 271 
 
 if they happened to he iip and stirring ; they had received 
 them in quarter sheets, tucked in at separate windows ; 
 they had found them in the chimney, pinned against' the 
 door, shot through attic windows, delivered in long slips 
 through convenient keyholes, stuffed into ventilators, and 
 occupying the same can with the morning's milk. One 
 subscriber, who waited for some time at the office door, to 
 have a personal interview with Wan Lee (then comfortably 
 locked in my bedroom), told me, with tears of, rage in his 
 eyes, that he had been awakened at five o'clock by a most 
 hideous yelling below his windows ; that on rising, in great 
 agitation, he was startled by the sudden appearance of the 
 " Northern Star," rolled hard and bent into the form of 
 a boomerang or East Indian club, that sailed into the 
 window, described a number of fiendish circles in the room, 
 knocked over the light, slapped the baby's face, " took " 
 him (the subscriber) " in the jaw," and then returned out 
 of the window, and dropped helplessly in the area. During 
 the rest of the day wads and strips of soiled paper, purport- 
 ing to be copies of the " Northern Star " of that morning's 
 issue, were brought indignantly to the office. An admirable 
 editorial on " The Resources of Humboldt County," which 
 I had constructed the evening before, and which, I have 
 reason to believe, might have changed the whole balance of 
 trade during the ensuing year, and left San Francisco bank- 
 rupt at her wharves, was in this way lost to the public. 
 
 It was deemed advisable for the next three weeks to 
 keep Wan Lee closely confined to the printing-office and 
 the purely mechanical part of the business. Here he 
 developed a surprising quickness and adaptability, winning 
 even the favor and good will of the printers and foreman, 
 who at first looked upon his introduction into the secrets of 
 their trade as fraught with the gravest political significance. 
 He learned to set t3'pe readily and neatly, his wonderful 
 skill in manipulation aiding him in the mere mechanicpj 
 
272 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 act, and his ignorance of the language confining him simply 
 to the mechanical effort — confirming the printer's axiom 
 that the printer who considers or follows the ideas of his 
 copy makes a poor compositor. He would set up deliber- 
 ately long diatribes against himself, composed by his fellow 
 printers, and hung on his hook as copy, and even such short 
 sentences as " Wan Lee is the devil's own imp," " Wan 
 Lee is a Mongolian rascal," and bring the proof to me with 
 happiness beaming from every tooth and satisfaction shining 
 in his huckleberry eyes. 
 
 It was not long, however, before he learned to retaliate 
 on his mischievous persecutors. I remember one instance 
 in which his reprisal came very near involving me in a 
 serious misunderstanding. Our foreman's name was Web- 
 ster, and Wan Lee presently learned to know and recog- 
 nize the individual and combined letters of his name. It 
 was during a political campaign, and the eloquent and fiery 
 Colonel Starbottle of Siskiyou had delivered an effective 
 speech, which was reported especially for the "Northern 
 Star." In a very sublime peroration Colonel Starbottle 
 had said, " In the language of the godlike Webster, I 
 repeat " — and here followed the quotation, which I have 
 forgotten. Now, it chanced that Wan Lee, looking over 
 the galley after it had been revised, saw the name of his 
 chief persecutor, and, of course, imagined the quotation his. 
 After the form was locked up. Wan Lee took advantage 
 of Webster's absence to remove the quotation, and substi- 
 tute a thin piece of lead, of the same size as the type, en- 
 graved with Chinese characters, making a sentence which, 
 I had reason to believe, was an utter and abject confession 
 of the incapacity and offensiveness of the Webster family 
 generally, and exceedingly eulogistic of Wan Lee himself 
 personally. 
 
 The next morning's paper contained Colonel Starbottle's 
 speech in full, in which it appeared that the " godlike" 
 
■WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 273 
 
 Webster had on one occasion uttered his thoughts in 
 excellent but perfectly enigmatical Chinese. The rage of 
 Colonel Starbottle knew no bounds. I have a vivid recol- 
 lection of that admirable man walking into my office and 
 demanding a retraction of the statement. 
 
 " But, my dear sir," I asked, " are you willing to deny, 
 over your own signature, that Webster ever uttered such a 
 sentence ? Dare you deny that, -with Mr. Webster's well- 
 known attainments, a knowledge of Chinese might not have 
 been among the number ? Are you willing to submit a 
 translation suitable to the capacity of our readers, and deny, 
 upon your honor as a gentleman, that the late Mr. Web' 
 ster ever uttered such a sentiment ? If you are, sir, I am 
 willing to publish your denial." 
 
 The Colonel was not, and left, highly indignant. 
 
 Webster, the foreman, took it more coolly. Happily he 
 was unaware that for two days after, Chinamen from the 
 laundries, from the gulches, from the kitchens, looked in 
 the front office door with faces beaming with sardonic de- 
 light ; that three hundred extra copies of the " Star " were 
 ordered for the wash-houses on the river. He only knew 
 that during the day Wan Lee occasionally went off into 
 convulsive spasms, and that he was obliged to kick him into 
 consciousness again. A week after the occurrence I called 
 Wan Lee into my office. 
 
 " Wan," I said gravely, " I should like you to give 
 me, for my own personal satisfaction, a translation of that 
 Chinese sentence which my gifted countryman, the late 
 godlike Webster, uttered upon a public occasion." Wan 
 Lee looked at me intently, and then the slightest possible 
 twinkle crept into his black eyes. Then he replied, with 
 equal gravity, — 
 
 " Mishtel Webstel, — he say : ' China boy makee me 
 belly much foolee. China boy makee me heap sick.' " 
 Which I have reason to think was true. 
 
274 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 But 1 fear I am giving but one side^ and not the best, of 
 Wan Lee's character. As he imparted it to me, his had 
 been a hard life. He had known scarcely any childhood — 
 he had no recollection of a father or mother. The conjurer 
 Wang had brought him up. He had spent the first seven 
 years of his life in appearing from baskets, in dropping out 
 of hats, in climbing ladders, in putting his little limbs out 
 of joint in posturing. He had lived in an atmosphere of 
 trickery and deception ; he had learned to look upon man- 
 kind as dupes of their senses ; in fine, if he had thought 
 at all, he would have been a skeptic ; if he had been a little 
 older, he would have been a cynic ; if he had been older 
 still, he would have been a philosopher. As it was, he was 
 a little imp! A good-natured imp it was, too, — an imp 
 whose moral nature had never been awakened, an imp up 
 for a holiday, and willing to try virtue as a diversion. I 
 don't know that he had any spiritual nature ; he was very 
 superstitious ; he carried about with him a hideous little 
 porcelain god, which he was in the habit of alternately 
 reviling and propitiating. He was too intelligent for the 
 commoner Chinese vices of stealing or gratuitous lying. 
 Whatever discipline he practiced was taught by his intel- 
 lect. 
 
 I am inclined to think that his feelings were not alto- 
 gether unimpressible, — although it was almost impossible 
 to extract an expression from him, — and I conscientiously 
 believe he became attached to those that were good to him. 
 What he might have become under more favorable con- 
 ditions than the bondsman of an overworked, underpaid 
 literary man, I don't know ; I only know that the scant, 
 irregular, impulsive kindnesses that I showed him were 
 gratefully received. He was very loyal and patient — two 
 qualities rare in the average American servant. He was 
 like Malvolio, " sad and civil " with me ; only once, and 
 then under great provocation, do I remember of his exhibit- 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 275 
 
 ing any impatience. It was my habit, after leaving the 
 office at night, to take him with me to my rooms, as 
 the bearer of any supplemental or happy afterthought in 
 the editorial way, that might occur to me before the paper 
 went to press. One night I had been scribbling away past 
 the usual hour of dismissing Wan Lee, and had become 
 quite oblivious of his presence in a chair near my door, 
 when suddenly I became aware of a voice saying, in plain= 
 tive accents, something that sounded like " Chy Lee." 
 
 I faced around sternly. 
 
 " What did you say ? " 
 
 " Me say, ' Chy Lee.' " 
 
 " Well ? " I said impatiently. 
 
 " You sabe, ' How do, John ' ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You sabe, ' So long, John ' ? " 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " Well, ' Chy Lee ' allee same ! " 
 
 I understood him quite plainly. It appeared that " Chy 
 Lee " was a form of " good-night," and that Wan Lee was 
 anxious to go home. But an instinct of mischief which I 
 fear I possessed in common with him, impelled me to act as 
 if oblivious of the hint. I muttered something about not 
 understanding him, and again bent over my work. In a 
 few minutes I heard his wooden shoes pattering patheti- 
 cally over the floor. I looked up. He was standing near 
 the door. 
 
 « You no sabe, « Chy Lee ' ? " 
 
 " No," I said sternly. 
 
 " You sabe muthee big foolee ! — allee same ! " 
 
 And with this audacity upon his lips' he fled. The next 
 morning, however, he was as meek and patient as before, 
 and I did not recall his offense. As a probable peace- 
 offering, he blacked all my boots, — a duty never required 
 sf him, — including a pair of buff deerskin slippers and 
 
276 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 an immense pair of horseman's jack-boots, on which he 
 indulged his remorse for two hours. 
 
 I have spoken of his honesty as being a quality of his 
 intellect rather than his principle, but I recall about this 
 time two exceptions to the rule. I was anxious to get 
 some fresh eggs, as a change to the heavy diet of a mining 
 town, and knowing that Wan Lee's countrymen were great 
 poultry-raisers, I applied to him. He furnished me with 
 them regularly every morning, but refused to take any pay, 
 saying that the man did not sell them, — a remarkable 
 instance of self-abnegation, as eggs were then worth half a 
 dollar apiece. One morning, my neighbor, Foster, dropped 
 in upon me at breakfast, and took occasion to bewail his 
 own ill fortune, as his hens had lately stopped laying, or 
 wandered oif in the bush. Wan Lee, who was present 
 during our colloquy, preserved his characteristic sad taci- 
 turnity. When my neighbor had gone, he turned to me 
 with a slight chuckle — " Flostel's hens — Wan Lee's hens 
 — allee same ! " His other oifense was more serious and 
 ambitious. It was a season of great irregularities in the 
 mails, and Wan Lee had heard me deplore the delay in the 
 delivery of my letters and newspapers. On arriving at my 
 office one day, I was amazed to find my table covered with 
 letters, evidently just from the post-office, but unfortunately 
 not one addressed to me. I turned to Wan Lee, who was 
 surveying them with a calm satisfaction, and demanded an 
 explanation. To my horror he pointed to an empty mail- 
 bag in the corner, and said, "Postman he say, 'No lettee, 
 John — no lettee, John.' Postman plentee lie ! Postman 
 no good. Me catchee lettee last night — allee same ! " 
 Luckily it was still early ; the mails had not been dis- 
 tributed ; I had a hurried interview with the postmaster, 
 and Wan Lee's bold attempt at robbing the TJ. S. Mail was 
 finally condoned, by the purchase of a new mail-bag, and 
 the whole affair thus kept a secret. 
 
"WA.N LEE, THE PAGAN 277 
 
 If my liking for my little pagan page had not been suf- 
 ficient, my duty to Hop Sing was enough to cause me to 
 take Wan Lee with me when I returned to San Francisco, 
 after my two years' experience with the " Northern Star." 
 I do not think he contemplated the change with pleasure. 
 I attributed his feelings to a nervous dread of crowded 
 public streets — when he had to go across town for me on 
 an errand, he always made a long circuit of the outskirts ; 
 to his dislike for the discipline of the Chinese and English 
 school to which I proposed to send him ; to his fondness 
 for the free, vagrant life of the mines ; to sheer willfulness ! 
 That it might have been a superstitious premonition did 
 not occur to me until long after. 
 
 Nevertheless it really seemed as if the opportunity I had 
 long looked for and confidently expected had come, — the 
 opportunity of placing Wan Lee under gently restraining 
 influences, of subjecting him to a life and experience that 
 would draw out of him what good my superficial care and 
 ill-regulated kindness could not reach. Wan Lee was 
 placed at the school of a Chinese missionary, — an intel- 
 ligent and kind-hearted clergyman, who had shown great 
 interest in the boy, and who, better than all, had a won- 
 derful faith in him. A home was found for him in the 
 family of a widow, who had a bright and interesting 
 daughter about two years younger than Wan Lee. It 
 was this bright, cheery, innocent, and artless child that 
 touched and reached a depth in the boy's nature that 
 hitherto had been unsuspected — that awakened a moral 
 susceptibility which had lain for years insensible alike to 
 the teachings of society or the ethics of the theologian. 
 
 These few brief months, bright with a promise that we 
 never saw fulfilled, must have been happy ones to Wan Lee. 
 He worshiped his little friend with something of the same 
 superstition, but without any of the caprice, that he bestowed 
 apon his porcelain Pagan god. It was his delight to walk 
 
278 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 
 
 behind her to school, carrying her books, — ■. a service always 
 fraught with danger to him from the little hands of his 
 Caucasian Christian brothers. He made her the most 
 marvelous toys; he would cut out of carrots and turnips 
 the most astonishing roses and tulips ; he made lifelike 
 chickens out of melon-seeds ; he constructed fans and kites, 
 and was singularly proficient in the making of dolls' paper 
 dresses. On the other hand she played and sang to him ; 
 taught him a thousand little prettinesses and refinements 
 only known to girls ; gave him a yellow ribbon for his 
 pigtail, as best suiting his complexion ; read to him ; showed 
 him wherein he was original and valuable ; took him to 
 Sunday - school with her, against the precedents of the 
 school, and, small-womanlike, triumphed. I wish I could 
 add here, that she effected his conversion, and made him 
 give up his porcelain idol, but I am telling a true story, and 
 this little girl was quite content to fill him with her own 
 Christian goodness, without letting him know that he was 
 changed. So they got along very well together — this little 
 Christian girl, with her shining cross hanging around her 
 plump, white, little neck, and this dark little Pagan, with 
 his hideous porcelain god hidden away in his blouse. 
 
 There were two days of that eventful year which will 
 long be remembered in San Francisco, — two days when a 
 mob of her citizens set upon and killed unarmed, defenser 
 less foreigners, because they were foreigners and of another 
 race, religion, and color, and worked for what wages 
 they could get. There were some public men so timid 
 that, seeing this, they thought that the end of the world 
 had come ; there were some eminent statesmen, whose 
 names I am ashamed to write here, who began to think 
 that the passage in the Constitution which guarantees 
 civil and religious liberty to every citizen or foreigner was 
 a mistake. But there were also some men who were not 
 6e> "(asily frightened, and in twenty-four hours we had 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 279 
 
 things so arranged that the timid men could wring theii 
 hands in safety, and the eminent statesmen ntter their 
 doubts without hurting anybody or anything. . And in the 
 midst of this I got a note from Hop Sing, asking me to 
 come to him immediately. 
 
 I found his warehouse closed and strongly guarded by 
 the police against any possible attack of the rioters. Hop 
 Sing admitted me through a barred grating with his usual 
 imperturbable calm, but, as it seemed to me, with more 
 than his usual seriousness. Without a word he took my 
 hand and led me to the rear of the room, and thence down- 
 stairs into the basement. It was dimly lighted, but there 
 was something lying on the floor covered by a shawl. As 
 I approached, he drew the shawl away with a sudden ges- 
 ture, and revealed Wan Lee, the Pagan, lying there dead ! 
 
 Dead, my reverend friends, dead ! Stoned to death in 
 the streets of San Francisco, in the year of grace, eighteen 
 hundred and sixty-nine, by a mob of half-grown boys and 
 Christian school-children ! 
 
 As I put my hand reverently upon his breast, I felt some- 
 thing crumbling beneath his blouse. I looked inquiringly 
 at Hop Sing. He put his hand between the folds of silk, 
 and drew out something with the first bitter smile I had 
 ever seen on the face of that Pagan gentleman. 
 
 It was Wan Lee's porcelain god, crushed by a stone from 
 the hands of those Christian iconoclasts ! 
 
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 
 
 The first intimation given of the eccentricity of the tes- 
 tator was, I thinky in the spring of 1854. He was at 
 that time in possession of a considerable property, heavily 
 mortgaged to one friend, and a wife of some attraction, 
 on whose affections another friend held an encumbering 
 lien. One daj' it was found that he had secretly dug, or 
 caused to be dug, a deep trap before the front door of 
 his dwelling, into which a few friends, in the course of the 
 evening, casually and familiarly dropped. This circum- 
 stance, slight in itself, seemed to point to the existence of 
 a certain humor in the man, which might eventually get 
 into literature, although his wife's lover — a man of quick 
 discernment, whose leg was broken by the fall — took other 
 views. It was some weeks later that, while dining with 
 certain other friends of his wife, he excused himself from 
 the table to quietly reappear at the front window with a 
 three-quarter-inch hydraulic pipe, and a stream of water 
 projected at the assembled company. An attempt was 
 made to take public cognizance of this, but a majority of 
 the citizens of Red Dog who were not at the dinner, 
 decided that a man had a right to choose his own methods 
 of diverting his company. Nevertheless, there were some 
 hints of his insanity ; his wife recalled other acts clearly 
 attributable to dementia ; the crippled lover argued from 
 his own experience that the integrity of her limbs could 
 only be secured by leaving her husband's house ; and the 
 mortgagee, fearing a further damage to his property, fore- 
 closed. But here the cause of all this anxiety took matters 
 into his own hands, and disappeared. 
 
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 281 
 
 When we next heard from him, he had, in some myste- 
 rious way, been relieved alike of his wife and property, and 
 was living alone at Rockville, fifty miles away, and editing 
 a newspaper. But that originality he had displayed when 
 dealing with the problems of his own private life, when 
 applied to politics in the columns of the " Eockville Van- 
 guard " was singularly unsuccessful. An amusing exagger- 
 ation, purporting to be an exact account of the manner in 
 which the opposing candidate had murdered his Chinese 
 laundryman, was, I regret to say, answered only by assault 
 and battery. A gratuitous and purely imaginative descrip- 
 tion of a great religious revival in Calaveras, in which the 
 sheriff of the county — a notoriously profane skeptic — was 
 alleged to have been the chief exhorter, resulted only in the 
 withdrawal of the county advertising from the paper. In 
 the midst of this practical confusion he suddenly died. It 
 was then discovered, as a crowning proof of his absurdity, 
 that he had left a will, bequeathing his entire effects to a 
 freckle-faced maid servant at the Rockville Hotel. But that 
 absurdity became serious when it was also discovered that 
 among these effects were a thousand shares in the Rising 
 Sun Mining Co., which, a day or two after his demise, and 
 while people were still laughing at his grotesque benefaction, 
 suddenly sprang into opulence and celebrity. Three mil- 
 lions of dollars was roughly estimated as the value of the 
 estate thus wantonly sacrificed ! For it is only fair to state, 
 as a just tribute to the enterprise and energy of that young 
 and thriving settlement, that there was not probably a 
 single citizen who did not feel himself better able to control 
 the deceased humorist's property. Some haid expressed a 
 doubt of their ability to support a family ; others had felt 
 perhaps too keenly the deep responsibility resting upon them 
 when chosen from the panel as jurors, and had evaded their 
 public duties ; a few had declined office and a low salary ; 
 but no one shrank from the possibility of having been called 
 upon to assume the functions of Peggy Moffat — the heiress. 
 
282 AN HEIRESS OF EED DOG 
 
 The will was contested. First by the widow, who, it now 
 appeared, had never been legally divorced from the deceased ; 
 next by four of his cousins, who awoke, only too late, to a 
 consciousness of his moral and pecuniary worth. But the 
 humble legatee — a singularly plain, unpretending, uned- 
 ucated Western girl — exhibited a dogged pertinacity in 
 claiming her rights. She rejected, all compromises. A 
 rough sense of justice in the community, while doubting 
 her ability to take care of the whole fortune, suggested that 
 she ought to be content with three hundred thousand dol- 
 lars. " She 's bound to throw even that away on some 
 derned skunk of a man, natoorally ; but three millions is 
 too much to give a chap for makin' her onhappy. It 's 
 offering a temptation to cussedness." The only opposing 
 voice to this counsel came from the sardonic lips of Mr. 
 </ack Hamlin. " Suppose," suggested that gentleman, turn- 
 ing abruptly on the speaker, — " suppose, when you won 
 twenty thousand dollars of me last Friday night — suppose 
 that instead of handing you over the money as I did — 
 suppose I 'd got up on my hind legs and said, ' Look yer, 
 Bill Wethersbee, you 're a damned fool. If I give ye that 
 twenty thousand you '11 throw it away in the first skin game 
 m 'Frisco, and hand it over to the first short card-sharp 
 you '11 meet. There 's a thousand — enough for you to 
 fling away — take it and get ! ' Suppose what I 'd said to 
 you was the frozen truth, and you'd know'd it — would 
 that have been the square thing to play on you ? " But 
 here Wethersbee quickly pointed out the ineificiency of the 
 comparison by stating that he had won the money fairly 
 •yith a stake. " And how do you know," demanded Hamlin 
 savagely, bending his black eyes on the astounded casuist, — 
 " how do you know that the gal hez n't put down a stake ? " 
 The man stammered an unintelligible reply. The gambler 
 iaid his white hand on Wethersbee's shoulder. " Look yer, 
 old man," he said, " every gal stakes her whole pile — you 
 
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 283 
 
 can bet your life on that — whatever 's her little game. If 
 she took to keerds instead of her feelings — if she 'd put up 
 ' chips ' instead o' body and soul, she 'd bust every bank 
 'twixt this and 'Frisco ! You hear me ? " 
 
 Somewhat of this idea was conveyed, I fear not quite 
 as sentimentally, to Peggy Moffat herself. The best legal 
 wisdom of San Francispo retained by the widow and rela- 
 tives took occasion, in a private interview with Peggy, to 
 point out that she stood in the quasi-criminal attitude of 
 having unlawfully practiced upon the affections of an insane 
 elderly gentleman, with a view of getting possession of his 
 property, and suggested to her that no vestige of her moral 
 character would remain after the trial — if she persisted in 
 forcing her claims to that issue. It is said that Peggy, on 
 hearing this, stopped washing the plate she had in her 
 hands, and, twisting the towel around her fingers, fixed her 
 small pale blue eyes at the lawyer. 
 
 " And ez that the kind o' chirpin' the critters keep 
 up?" 
 
 " I regret to say, my dear young lady," responded the 
 lawyer, " that the world is censorious. I must add," he 
 continued, with engaging frankness, "that we professional 
 lawyers are apt to study the opinion of the world — and 
 that such will be the theory of — our side." 
 
 " Then," said Peggy stoutly, " ez I allow I 've got to go 
 into court to defend my character, I might as well pack 
 in them three millions too." 
 
 There is hearsay evidence that Peg added to this speech 
 a wish and desire to " bust the crust " of her traducers, and, 
 remarking that " that was the kind of hairpin " she was, 
 closed the conversation with an unfortunate accident to the 
 plate, that left a severe contusion on the legal brow of her 
 companion. But this story, popular in the bar-rooms and 
 gulches, lacked confirmation in higher circles. Better au- 
 thenticated was the legend related of an interview with her 
 
284 AN HEIKESS OF RED POG 
 
 own lawyer. That gentleman had pointed out to her the 
 advantage of being able to show some reasonable cause for 
 the singular generosity of the testator. 
 
 " Although," he continued, " the law does not go back 
 of the Will for reason or cause for its provisions, it would be 
 a strong point with the judge and jury — particularly if the 
 theory of insanity were set up — for us to show tliat the 
 act was logical and natural. Of course you have — I speak 
 confidentially. Miss Moffat — certain ideas of your own why 
 the late Mr. Byways was so singularly generous to you." 
 
 " No, I have n't," said Peg decidedly. 
 
 " Think again. Had he not expressed to you — you 
 understand that this is confidential between us, although I 
 protest, my dear young lady, that I see no reason why it 
 should not be made public — had he not given utterance 
 to sentiments of a nature consistent with some future 
 matrimonial relations ? " But here Miss Peg's large mouth, 
 which had been slowly relaxing over her irregular teeth, 
 stopped him. 
 
 " If you mean he wanted to marry me — no ! " 
 
 " I see. Bvit were there any conditions — of course you 
 know the law takes no cognizance of any not expressed in 
 the will ; but still, for the sake of mere corroboration of 
 the bequest — do you know of any conditions on which he 
 gave you the property ? " 
 
 " You mean, did he want anything in return ? " 
 
 "Exactly, my dear young lady." 
 
 Peg's face on one side turned a deep magenta color, on 
 the other a lighter cherry, while her nose was purple, and 
 her forehead an Indian red. To add to the effect of this 
 awkward and discomposing dramatic exhibition of embar- 
 rassment, she began to wipe her hands on her dress, and 
 sat silent. 
 
 "I understand," said the lawyer hastily. "No- matter^ 
 the conditions were fulfilled." 
 
AN HEIRESS OF EED DOG 285 
 
 ''No," said Peg amazedly; "how could they be until he 
 was dead ? " 
 
 It was the lawyer's turA to color and grow embarrassed. 
 
 " He did say something, and make some conditions," con- 
 tinued Peg, with a certain firmness through her awkward- 
 ness ; " but that 's nobody's business but mine and his'n. 
 And it 's no call o' yours or theirs." 
 
 "But, my dear Miss Moffat, if these very conditions 
 were proofs of his right mind, you surely would not object 
 to make them known, if only to enable you to put yourself 
 in a condition to carry them out." 
 
 " But," said Peg cunningly, " 'spose you and the Court 
 did n't think 'em satisfactory ? 'Spose you thought 'em 
 queer ? Eh ? " 
 
 With this helpless limitation on the part of the defense, 
 the case came to trial. Everybody remembers it : how for 
 six weeks it was the daily food of Calaveras County ; how 
 for six weeks the intellectual and moral and spiritual com- 
 petency of Mr. James Byways to dispose of his property 
 was discussed with learned and formal obscurity in the 
 Court, and with unlettered and independent prejudice by 
 camp-fires and in bar-rooms. At the end of that time, 
 when it was logically established that at least nine tenths 
 of the population of Calaveras were harmless lunatics, and 
 everybody else's reason seemed to totter on its tlirone, an 
 exhausted jury succumbed one day to the presence of Peg 
 in the court-room. It was not a prepossessing presence at 
 any time ; but the excitement, and an injudicious attempt 
 to ornament herself, brought her defects into a glaring relief 
 that was almost unreal. Every. freckle on her face stood 
 out and asserted itself singly ; her pale blue eyes, that gave 
 no indication of her force of character, were weak and 
 wandering, or stared blankly at the judge; her over-sized 
 Lead, broad at the base, terminating in the scantiest pos- 
 sible light-colored braid in the middle of her narrow shoul' 
 
286 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 
 
 ders, was as hard and uninteresting as the wooden spheres 
 that topped the railing against which she sat. The jury, 
 who for six weeks had had her described to them by the 
 plaintiffs as an arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped the 
 failing reason of Jim Byways, revolted to a man. There 
 was something so appallingly gratuitous in her plainness, 
 that it was felt that three millions was scarcely a compen- 
 sation for it. " Ef that money was give to her, she earned 
 it sure, boys ; it was n't no softness of the old man," said 
 the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that she 
 had cleared her character. When they reentered the room 
 with their verdict, it was known that she had been awarded 
 three millions damages for its defamation. 
 
 She got the money. But those who had confidently ex- 
 pected to see her squander it were disappointed. On the 
 contrary, it was presently whispered that she was exceed- 
 ingly penurious. That admirable woman, Mrs. Stiver of 
 Red Dog, who accompanied her to San Francisco to assist 
 her in making purchases, was loud in her indignation. 
 " She cares more for two bits ^ than I do for five dollars. 
 She would n't buy anything at the ' City of Paris ' because 
 it was * too expensive,' and at last rigged herself out, a per- 
 fect guy, at some cheap slop-shops in Market Street. And 
 after all the care Jane and me took of her, giving up our 
 time and experience to her, she never so much as made Jane 
 a single present." Popular opinion, which regarded Mrs 
 Stiver's attention as purely speculative, was not shocked at 
 this unprofitable d&ouement ; but when Peg refused to give 
 anything to clear the mortgage off the Presbyterian Church, 
 and even declined to take shares in the Union Ditch, con- 
 sidered by many as an equally sacred and safe investment, 
 she began to lose favor. Nevertheless, she seemed to be 
 as regardless of public opinion as she had been before the 
 trial ; took a small house, in which she lived with an old 
 I That is, twenty-five cents. 
 
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 287 
 
 woman, who had once been a fellow servant, on, apparently, 
 terms of perfect equality, and looked after her money. I 
 wish I could say that she did this discreetly, but the fact 
 ia, she blundered. The same dogged persistency she had 
 displayed in claiming her rights was visible in her unsuc- 
 cessful ventures. She sunk two hundred thousand dollars 
 in a worn-out shaft originally projected by the deceased 
 testator. She prolonged the miserable existence of the 
 " Rockville 'Vanguard " long after it had ceased to interest 
 even its enemies ; she kept the doors of the Eockville 
 Hotel open when its custom had departed ; she lost the 
 cooperation and favor of a fellow capitalist through a trifling 
 misunderstanding in which she was derelict and impeni- 
 tent j she had three lawsuits on her hands that could have 
 been settled for a trifle. I note these defects to show that 
 she was by no means a heroine. I quote her affair with 
 Jack Folinsbee to show that she was scarcely the average 
 woman. 
 
 That handsome, graceless vagabond had struck the out- 
 skirts of Ked Dog in a cyclone of dissipation, which left him 
 a stranded but still rather interesting wreck in a ruinous 
 cabin not far from Peg Moffat's virgin bower. Pale, crip- 
 pled from excesses, with a voice quite tremulous from sym- 
 pathetic emotion more or less developed by stimulants, ho 
 lingered languidly, with much time on his hands, and only 
 a few neighbors. In this fascinating kind of general des- 
 habille of morals, dress, and the emotions, he appeared 
 before Peg Moff'at. More than that, he occasionally limped 
 with her through ths settlement. The critical eye of Red 
 Dog took in the singular pair, — Jack, voluble, suffering, 
 apparently overcome by remorse, conscience, vituperation, 
 and disease ; and Peg, open-mouthed, high-colored, awkward, 
 yet delighted ; and the critical eye of Red Dog, seeing this, 
 winked meaningly at Eockville. No one knew what passed 
 between them. But all observed that one summer day Jack 
 
£88 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 
 
 drove down the main street of Red Dog in an open buegy, 
 with the heiress of that town beside him. Jack, albeit a 
 trifle shaky, held the reins with something of his old dash ; 
 and Mistress Peggy, in an enormous bonnet with pearl- 
 colored ribbons, a shade darker than her hair, holding in 
 her short pink-gloved fingers a bouquet of yellow roses, 
 absolutely glowed crimson in distressful gratiijoation over 
 the dashboard. So these two fared on — out of the busy 
 settlement, into the woods, against the rosy sunset. Pos- 
 sibly it was not a pretty picture ; nevertheless, as the dim 
 aisles of the solemn pines opened to receive them, miners 
 leaned upon their spades, and mechanics stopped in their 
 toil to look after them. The critical eye of Red Dog, per- 
 haps from the sun, perhaps from the fact that it had itself 
 once been young and dissipated, took on a kindly moisture 
 as it gazed. 
 
 The moon was high when they returned- Those who 
 had waited to congratulate Jack on this near prospect of a 
 favorable change in his fortunes were chagrined to find 
 that, having seen the lady safe home, he had himself de- 
 parted from Red Dog. Nothing was to be gained from 
 Peg, who, on the next day and ensuing days, kept the even 
 tenor of her way, sunk a thousand or two more in unsuc- 
 cessful speculation, and made no change in her habits of 
 personal economy. Weeks passed without any apparent 
 sequel to this romantic idyl. Nothing was known definitely 
 until Jack, a month later, turned up in Sacramento, with a 
 billiard-cue in his hand, and a heart overcharged with 
 indignant emotion. "I don't mind saying to you gentle- 
 men, in confidence, " said Jack, to a circle of sympathizing 
 players, — "I don't mind telling you regarding this thing, 
 tliat I was as soft on that freckled-faced, red-eyed, tallow- 
 haired gal as if she'd been — a — a — an actress. And I 
 don't mind saying, gentlemen, that, as far as I understand 
 women, she W3S just as soft on me ! You kin laugh, but 
 
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 289 
 
 it 's SO. One day I took her out buggy-riding, — in style, 
 too, — and out on the road I offered to do the square thing 
 — just as if she 'd been a lady — offered to marry her then 
 and there ! And what did she do ? " said Jack with an 
 hysterical laugh. " Why, blank it all ! offered me twenty- 
 five dollars a week allowance — pay to he stopped when I 
 was n't at home 1 " The roar of laughter that greeted this 
 frank confession was broken by a quiet voice asking, "And 
 ■what did you say ? " " Say ? " screamed Jack. " I just 
 told her to — with her money." " They say," continued 
 the quiet voice, " that you asked her for the loan of two 
 hundred and fifty dollars to get you to Sacramento — and 
 that you got it." "Who says so?" roared Jack ; "show 
 me the blank liar." There was a dead silence. Then the 
 possessor of the quiet voice, Mr. Jack Hamlin, languidly 
 reached under the table, took the chalk, and rubbing the 
 end of his billiard-cue, began with gentle gravity : " It was 
 an old friend of mine in Sacramento, — a man with a wooden 
 leg, a game eye, three fingers on his right hand, and a con- 
 sumptive cough. Being unable naturally to back himself, 
 he leaves things to me. So for the sake of argument," 
 continued Hamlin, suddenly laying down his cue, and fixing 
 his wicked black eyes on the speaker, " say it 's me .' " 
 
 I am afraid that this story, whether truthful or not, did 
 not tend to increase Peg's popularity in a community where 
 recklessness or generosity condoned for the absence of all 
 the other virtues ; and it is possible also that Red Dog was 
 no more free from prejudice than other more civilized but 
 equally disappointed match-makers. Likewise, during the 
 following years, she made several more foolish ventures, and 
 lost heavily. In fact, a feverish desire to increase her store 
 at almost any risk seemed to possess her. At last it was 
 announced that she intended to reopen the infelix Kock- 
 ville Hotel, and keep it herself. Wild as this scheme ap- 
 peared in theory, when put into practical operation . there 
 
290 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 
 
 seemed to be some chance of success. Much, doubtless, was 
 owing to her practical knowledge of hotel-keeping, but more 
 to her rigid economy and untiring industry. The mistress 
 of millions, she cooked, washed, waited on table, made the 
 beds, and labored like a common menial. Visitors were 
 attracted by this novel spectacle. The income of the house 
 increased as their respect for the hostess lessened. No 
 anecdote of her avarice was too extravagant for current 
 belief. It was even alleged that she had been known to 
 carry the luggage of guests to their rooms, that she might 
 anticipate the usual porter's gratuity. She denied herself 
 the ordinary necessaries of life. She was poorly clad, she 
 was ill fed — but the hotel was making money. 
 
 A few hinted at insanity ; others shook their heads, and 
 said a curse was entailed on the property. It was believed 
 also, from her appearance, that she could not long survive 
 this tax on her energies, and already there was discussion as 
 to the probable final disposition of her property. It was 
 the particular fortune of Mr. Jack Hamlin to be able to set 
 the world right on this and other questions regarding her. 
 
 A stormy December evening had Set in when he chanced 
 to be a guest of the Eockville Hotel. He had during the 
 past week been engaged in the prosecution of his noble 
 profession at Red Dog, and had, in the graphic language of 
 a coadjutor, "cleared out the town, except his fare in the 
 pockets of the stage-driver." The Red Dog " Standard " 
 had bewailed his departure in playful obituarj' verse, begin- 
 ning, " Dear Johnny, thou hast left us," wherein the rhymes 
 "bereft us," and "deplore" carried a vague allusion to 
 "a thousand dollars more." A quiet contentment naturally 
 suffused his personality, and he was more than usually lazy 
 and deliberate in his speech. At midnight, when he was 
 about to retire, he was a little surprised, however, by a tap 
 on his door, followed by the presence of Mistress Peg 
 Moffat, heiress, and landlady of Rockville Hotel. 
 
AN HEIRESS OF BED DOG 29 J 
 
 Mr, Hamlin, despite his previous defense of Peg, had no 
 liking for her. His fastidious taste rejected her uncomeli- 
 ness ; his habits of thought and life were all antagonistic to 
 what he had heard of her niggardliness and greed. As she 
 stood there, in a dirty calico wrapper, still redolent with the 
 day's cuisine, crimson with embarrassment and the recent 
 heat of the kitchen range, she certainly was not an alluring 
 apparition. Happily for the lateness of the hour, her lone- 
 liness, and the infelix reputation of the man before her, she 
 was at least a safe one. And I fear the very consciousness 
 of this scarcely relieved her embarrassment. 
 
 " I wanted to say a few words to ye alone, Mr. Hamlin," 
 she began, taking an unoffered seat on the end of his port- 
 manteau, " or I should n't hev intruded. But it's the only 
 time I can ketch you, or you me, for I'm down in the 
 kitchen from sun-up tiU now." 
 
 She stopped awkwardly, as if to listen to the wind which 
 was rattling against the windows, and spreading a film of 
 rain against the opaque darkness without. Then, smooth- 
 ing her wrapper over her knees, she remarked, as if opening 
 a desultory conversation, " Thar 's a power of rain out- 
 side." 
 
 Mr. Hamlin's only response to this meteorological obser- 
 vation was a yawn, and a preliminary tug at his coat as he 
 began to remove it. 
 
 " I thought ye could n't mind doin' me a favor," con- 
 tinued Peg, with a hard, awkward laugh ; " partik'ly seein' 
 ez folks allowed you 'd sorter been a friend o' mine, and bed 
 stood up for me at times when you bed n't any partikler call 
 to do it. I hev n't," she continued, looking down on her 
 lap, and following with her finger and thumb a seam of her 
 gown, — "I hev n't so many friends ez slings a kind word 
 for me these times that I disremember them." Her under 
 lip quivered a little here, and after vainly hunting for a for- 
 gotten handkerchief, she finally lifted the hem of her gown. 
 
292 AN HEIRESS OF EED DOG 
 
 ■wiped her snub nose upon it, but left the tears still in her 
 eyes as she raised them to the man. 
 
 Mr. Hamlin, who had by this time divested himself of 
 his coat, stopped unbuttoning his waistcoat, and looked at 
 her. 
 
 " Like ez not thar '11 be high water on the North I"ork, ef 
 this rain keeps on," said Peg, as if apologetically, looking 
 toward the window. 
 
 The other rain having ceased, Mr. Hamlin began to un- 
 button his waistcoat again. 
 
 " I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr. — about — Jack 
 Folinsbee," began Peg again, hurriedly. " He 's ailin' agin', 
 and is mighty low. And he 's losin' a heap o' money here 
 and thar, and mostly to you. You cleaned him out of two 
 thousand dollars last night — all he had." 
 
 " Well," said the gambler coldly. 
 
 " Well, I thought ez you woz a friend o' mine, I 'd ask ye 
 to let up a little on him," said Peg, with an aifected laugh. 
 " You kin do it. Don't let him play with ye." 
 
 " Mistress Margaret Moffat," said Jack, with lazy delibera- 
 tion, taking off his watch and beginning to wind it up ; " ef 
 you 're that much stuck after Jack Polinsbee you kin keep 
 him off of me much easier than I kin. You 're a rich wo- 
 man ! Give him enough money to break my bank, or break 
 himself for good and all ; but don't keep him foolin' round 
 me, in hopes to make a raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat, 
 —it don't pay ! " 
 
 A finer nature than Peg's would have misunderstood or 
 resented the gambler's slang, and the miserable truths that 
 underlay it. But she comprehended him instantly, and sat 
 hopelessly silent. 
 
 " Ef you '11 take my advice," continued Jack, placing his 
 watch and chain under his pillow, and quietly unloosing his 
 cravat, "you'll quit this yer foolin', marry that chap, and 
 hand over to him the money and the money-makin' that's 
 
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 293 
 
 killin' you. He '11 get rid of it soon enough. I don't say 
 this because /expect to git it, for when he 's got that much of 
 a raise, he '11 make a break for 'Frisco, and lose it to some 
 first-class sport there. I don't say neither that you may n't 
 be in luck enough to reform him. I don't say neither — and 
 it 's a derned sight more likely — that you may n't be luckier 
 yet — and he '11 up and die afore he gits rid of your money. 
 But I do say you '11 make him happy now ; and ez I reckon 
 you 're about ez badly stuck after that chap ez I ever 
 , saw any woman, you won't be hurtin' your own feelin's 
 either!" 
 
 The blood left Peg's face as she looked up. " But that 's 
 why I can't give him the money — and he won't marry me 
 without it." 
 
 Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the last button of his 
 waistcoat. " Can't — give — him — the — money ? " he 
 repeated slowly. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Because — because I love him." 
 
 Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat, and sat down 
 patiently on the bed. Peg rose, and awkwardly drew the 
 portmanteau a little bit nearer to him. 
 
 " When Jim Byways left me this yer property," she 
 began, looking cautiously around, " he left it to me on 
 conditions. Not conditions ez was in his written will — 
 but conditions ez was spoken. A promise I made him in 
 this very room, Mr. Hamlin, — this very room, and on that 
 very bed you 're sittin' on, in which he died." 
 
 Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superstitious. He 
 rose hastily from the bed, and took a chair beside the 
 window. The wind shook it as if the discontented spirit of 
 Mr. Byways were without, reinforcing his last injunction. 
 
 " I don't know if you remember him," said Peg feverishly. 
 " He was a man ez hed suffered. All that he loved — wife. 
 
294 AN HEIRESS OF EED DOG 
 
 fammerly, friends — had gone back on him ! H« tried to 
 tnake light of it afore folk ; but with me, being a poor gal, 
 he let himself out. I never told anybody this — I don't 
 know why he told me — I don't know," continued Peg with 
 a sniffle, " why he wanted to make me unhappy too. But 
 he made me promise that if he left me his fortune I 'd never 
 — never, so help me, God — never share it with any man or 
 woman that I loved I I did n't think it would be hard to 
 keep that promise then, Mr. Hamlin, for I was very poor, 
 aiid bed n't a friend nor a living bein' that was kind to me 
 but 1dm." 
 
 " But you 've as good as broken your promise already," 
 said Hamlin ; " you 've given Jack money — as I know." 
 
 " Only what I made myself ! Listen to me, Mr. Hamlin, 
 When Jack proposed to me, I offered him about what I kal- 
 kilated I could earn myself. When he went away, and was 
 sick and in trouble, I came here and took this hoteL I knew 
 that by hard work I could make it pay. Don't laugh at me, 
 please. I did work hard, and did make it pay — without 
 takin' one cent of the fortin'. And all I made, workin' by 
 night and day, I gave to him. I did, Mr. Hamlin. I ain't 
 so hard to him as you think ; though I might be kinder, I 
 know." 
 
 Mr. Hamlin rose, deliberately resumed his coat, watch, 
 hat, and overcoat. When he was completely dressed again, 
 he turned to Peg. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you 've been givin' all the 
 money you make here to this A 1 first-class cherubim ? " 
 
 " Yes, but hte did n't know where I got it. Mr. Hamlin^ 
 he did n't know that ! " 
 
 *■' Do I understand you that he 's bin bucking agin faro 
 with the money that you raised on hash ? And you makin' 
 the hash ? " 
 
 ' But he did n't know that — he would n't hev took it if 
 1 'd told him." 
 
AN HEIRESS OF EEE DOG 295 
 
 " Ko ; he 'd hev died fust ! " said Mr. Hamlin gravely. 
 " Why, he 's that sensitive — is Jack Folinsbee -^ that it 
 nearly kills him to' take money even of we. But where 
 does this angel reside when he is n't fightin' the tiger, and 
 is, so to speak, visible to the naked eye ? " 
 
 "He — he — stops here," said Peg, with an awkward 
 blush. 
 
 " I see. Might I ask the number of his room, or should 
 I be a — disturbing him in his meditations ? " continued 
 Jack Hamlin with grave politeness. 
 
 " Oh, then you '11 promise ? And you '11 talk to him, 
 and make him promise? " 
 
 " Of course," said Hamlin quietly. 
 
 " And you '11 remeipber he '& sick — very sick ? His 
 room's No. 44, at the end of the hall. Perhaps I had 
 better go with you ? " 
 
 " I '11 find it." 
 
 " And you won't be too hard on him ? " 
 
 " I '11 be a father to him," said Hamlin demurely, as he 
 opened the door and stepped into the hall. But he hesi- 
 tated a moment, and then turned and gravely held out his 
 hand. Peg took it timidly; he did not seem quite in 
 earnest — and his black eyes, vainly questioned, indicated 
 nothing. But he shook her hand warmly, and the next 
 moment was gone. 
 
 He found the room with no difficulty. A faint cough 
 from within, and a querulous protest, answered his knock. 
 Mr. Hamlin ente.red without further ceremony. A sicken- 
 ing smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of stale dissipation, 
 and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half dressed, 
 extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was, 
 for an instant, startled. There were hollow circles round 
 the sick man's eyes, there was palsy in his trembling limbs^ 
 there was dissolution in his feverish breath. 
 
 " What 's up ? " he asked huskily and nervously. 
 
296 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 
 
 " I am ; and I want you to get up too." 
 
 " I can't, Jack. I 'm regularly done up." He reached 
 his shaking hand towards a glass half filled with suspicious, 
 pungent-smelling liquid, but Mr. Hamlin stayed it. 
 
 " Do you want to get back that two thousand dollars you 
 lost ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, get up and marry that woman downstairs." 
 
 Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half sardonically. 
 
 " She won't give it to me." 
 
 "No, but J will." 
 
 " You ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Tolinsbee, with an attempt at a reckless laugh, rose, 
 trembling and with difficulty, to his swollen feet. Hamlin 
 eyed him narrowly, and then bade him lie down again. 
 " To-morrow will do," he said, " and then " — 
 
 " If I don't " — 
 
 " If you don't," responded Hamlin, " why, I '11 just 
 wade in and cut you out ! " 
 
 But on the morrow Mr. Hamlin was spared that pos- 
 sible act of disloyalty. For in the night the already 
 hesitating spirit of Mr. Jack Folinsbee took flight on the 
 wifigs of the southeast storm. When or how it happened, 
 nobody knew. Whether this last excitement and the near 
 prospect of matrimony, or whether an over-dose of ano- 
 dyne had hastened his end was never known. I onl^ 
 know that when they came to awaken him the next morn- 
 ing, the best that was left of him — a face still beautiful 
 and boylike — looked up tearful at the eyes of Peg Mofiat. 
 " It serves me right — it 's a judgment," she said in a low 
 whisper to Jack Hamlin ; " for God knew that I 'd broken 
 my word and willed all my property to him." 
 
 She did not long survive him. Whether Mr. Hamlin 
 ever clothed with action the suggestion indicated in his 
 
AN HEIRESS OF KED DOG 297 
 
 speech to the lamented Jack that night is not on record. 
 He was always her friend, and on her demise became her 
 executor. But the bulk of her property was left to a dis- 
 tant relation of handsome Jack Folinsbee, and so passed 
 out of the control of Ked Dog forever. 
 
THE Man 0» THE BEACH 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 He liyed beside a river that emptied into a great ocean. 
 The narrow strip of land that lay between him and the 
 estuary was covered at high tide by a shining film of water, 
 at low tide with the cast-up offerings of sea and shore. Logs 
 yet green, and saplings washed away from inland banks, 
 battered fragments of wrecks and orange crates of bamboo, 
 broken into tiny rafts, yet odorous with their lost freight, 
 lay in long successive curves — the fringes and over-lappings 
 of the sea. At high noon the shadow of a sea-gull's wing, 
 or a sudden flurry and gray squall of sandpipers, themselves 
 but shadows, was all that broke the monotonous glare of 
 the level sands. 
 
 He had lived there alone for a twelvemonth. Although 
 but a few miles from a thriving settlement, during that time 
 his retirement had never been intruded upon, his seclusion 
 remained unbroken. In any other community he might 
 have been the subject of rumor or criticism, but the miners 
 at Camp Kogue and the traders at Trinidad Head, themselves 
 individual and eccentric, were profoundly indifferent to all 
 other forms of eccentricity or heterodoxy that did not come 
 in contact with their own. And certainly there was no form 
 of eccentricity less aggressive than that of a hermit, had they 
 chosen to give him that appellation. But they did not 
 even do that, probably from lack of interest or perception. 
 To the various traders who supplied his small wants he was 
 known as "Kernel," "Judge," and "Boss." To the 
 general public " The Man on the Beach " was considered a. 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 299 
 
 sufficiently distinguishing title. His name, his occupation, 
 rank, or antecedents, nobody cared to inquire. Whether 
 this arose from a fear of reciprocal inquiry and interest, or 
 from the profound indifference before referred to, I cannot say» 
 
 He did not look like a hermit. A man yet young, erect, 
 well dressed, clean shaven, with a low voice, and a smile 
 half melancholy, half cynical, was scarcely the conventional 
 idea of a solitary. His dwelling, a rude improvement on a 
 fisherman's cabin, had all the severe exterior simplicity of 
 frontier architecture, but within it was comfortable and 
 wholesome. Three rooms — a kitchen, a living-room, and 
 a bedroom — were all it contained. 
 
 He had lived there long enough t« see the dull monotony 
 of one season lapse into the dull monotony of the other. 
 The bleak northwest trade-winds had brought him mornings 
 of staring sunlight and nights of fog and silence. The 
 warmer southwest trades had brought him clouds, rain, and 
 the transient glories of quick grasses and odorous beach 
 blossoms. But summer or winter, wet or dry season, on 
 one side rose always the sharply defined hills with theii 
 changeless background of evergreens ; on the other side 
 stretched always the illimitable ocean, as sharply defined 
 against the horizon and as unchanging in its hue. The 
 onset of spring and autumn tides, some changes among his 
 feathered neighbors, the footprints of Certain wild animals 
 along the river's bank, and the hanging out of parti-colored 
 signals from the wooded hillside far inland helped him to 
 record the slow months. On summer afternoons, when the 
 sun sank behind a bank of fog that, moving solemnly shore- 
 ward, at last encompassed him and blotted out sea and sky, 
 his isolation was complete. The damp gray sea that flowed 
 above and around and about him always seemed to shut 
 out an intangible world beyond, and to be the only real 
 presence. The booming of breakers scarce a dozen rods 
 from his dwelling was but a vague and unintelligible sound. 
 
300 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 or the echo of something past forever. Every morning 
 when the sun tore away the misty curtain he awoke, dazed 
 and bewildered, as upon a new world. The first sense of 
 oppression over, he came to love at last this subtle spirit 
 of oblivion ; and at night, when its cloudy wings were folded 
 over his cabin, he would sit alone with a sense of security 
 he had never felt before. On such occasions he was apt 
 to leave his door open, and listen as for footsteps ; for what 
 might not come to him out of this vague, nebulous world 
 bej'ond ? Perhaps even she ; for this strange solitary was 
 not insane nor visionary. He was never in spirit alone. 
 For night and day, sleeping or waking, pacing the beach 
 or crouching over his driftwood fire, a woman's face was 
 always before him, — the face for whose sake and for cause 
 of whom he sat there alone. He saw it in the morning 
 sunlight ; it was her white hands that were lifted from the 
 crested breakers ; it was the rustling of her skirt when the 
 sea -wind swept through the beach - grasses ; it was the 
 loving whisper of her low voice when the long waves sank 
 and died among the sedge and rushes. She was as 
 omnipresent as sea and sky and level sand. Hence, when 
 the fog wiped them away, she seemed to draw closer to 
 him in the darkness. On one or two more gracious nights 
 in midsummer, when the influence of the fervid noonday 
 sun was still felt on the heated sands, the warm breath of 
 the fog touched his cheeks as if it had been hers, and the 
 tears started to his eyes. 
 
 Before the fogs came — for he arrived there in winter — 
 he had found surcease and rest in the steady glow of a 
 lighthouse upon the little promontory a league below his 
 habitation. Even on the darkest nights, and in the 
 tumults of storm, it spoke to him of a patience that was 
 enduring and a steadfastness that was immutable. Later 
 on he found a certain dumb companionship in an uprooted 
 tree, which, floating down the river, had stranded hopelessly 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 301 
 
 upon his beach, but in the evening had again drifted away. 
 Rov^'ing across the estuary a day or two afterward, he 
 recognized the tree again from a "blaze" of the settler's axe 
 still upon its trunk. He was not surprised a week later to 
 find ;he same tree in the sands before his dwelling, or that 
 the next morning it should be again launched on its pur- 
 poseless wanderings. And so, impelled by wind or tide, 
 but always haunting his seclusion, he would meet it 
 voyaging up the river at the flood, or see it tossing among 
 the breakers on the bar, but always with the confidence of 
 its returning sooner or later to an anchorage beside him. 
 After the third month of his self-imposed exile, he was 
 forced into a more human companionship, that was brief 
 but regular. He was obliged to have menial assistance. 
 While he might have eaten his bread " in sorrow " carelessly 
 and mechanically, if it had been prepared for him, the oc- 
 cupation of cooking his own food brought the vulgarity and 
 materialness of existence so near to his morbid sensitiveness 
 that he could not eat the meal he had himself prepared. 
 He did not yet wish to die, and when starvation or society 
 seemed to be the only alternative, he chose the latter. An 
 Indian woman, so hideous as to scarcely suggest humanity, 
 at stated times performed for him these offices. When she 
 did not come, which was not infrequent, he did not eat. 
 
 Such was the mental and physical condition of The Man 
 on the !Beach on January 1, 1869. 
 
 It was a still, bright day, following a week of rain and 
 wind. Low down the horizon still lingered a few white 
 flecks — the flying squadrons of the storm — ■ as vague as 
 distant sails. Southward the harbor-bar whitened occa- 
 sionally but lazily ; even the turbulent Pacific swell stretched 
 its length wearily upon the shore. And toiling from the 
 settlement over the low sand-dunes, a carriage at last halted 
 iialf a mile from the solitary's dwelling. 
 
302 THE MAK ON THE BEACH 
 
 " I reckon ye '11 hev to git out here," said the driver, 
 pulling up to breathe his panting horses. " Ye can't git 
 any nigher." 
 
 There was a groan of execration from the interior of the 
 vehicle, a hysterical little shriek, and one or two shrill 
 expressions of feminine disapprobation, but the driver 
 moved not. At last a masculine head expostulated from 
 the window : " Look here ; you agreed to talce us to the 
 house. Why, it 's a mile away at least ! " 
 
 " Thar, or tharabouts, I reckon," said the driver, cooUy 
 crossing his legs on the box. 
 
 " It's no use talking ; Jean never walk through this sand 
 and horrid glare," said a female voice quickly and im- 
 peratively. Then, apprehensively. " Well, of all the 
 places ! " 
 
 " Well, I never ! " 
 
 " This does exceed everything." 
 
 " It 's really too idiotic for anything." 
 
 It was noticeable that while the voices betrayed the 
 difference of age and sex, they bore a singular resemblance 
 to each other, and a certain quemlousness of pitch that was 
 dominant. 
 
 " I reckon I 've gone about as fur as I allow to go with 
 them bosses," continued the driver suggestively ; " and as 
 time 's vallyble, ye 'd better onload." 
 
 "The wretch does not mean to leave us here alone?" 
 said a female voice in shrill indignation. " You '11 wait for 
 us, driver ? " said a masculine voice confidently. 
 
 " How long ? " asked the driver. 
 
 There was a hurried consultation within. The words 
 " Might send ns packing," " May take all night to get him 
 to listen to reason," " Bother ! whole thing over in ten 
 minutes," came from the window. The driver meanwhile 
 had settled himself back in his seat, and whistled in patient 
 contempt of a fashionable fare that didn't know its own 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH' 303 
 
 mind nor destination. Finally, the masculine head was 
 thrust out, and, with a certain potential air of judicially 
 ending a difficulty, said, — 
 
 " You 're to follow us slowly, and put up your horses in 
 the stable or barn until we want you." 
 
 An ironical laugh burst from the driver. " Oh yes — in 
 the stable or barn — in course. But, my eyes sorter fail in' 
 me, mebbee, now, some ev you younger folks will kindly 
 pint out the stable or bam of the Kernel's. Woa ! — will 
 ye ? — woa ! Give me a chance to pick out that there bam 
 or stable to put ye in ! " This in arch coniidence to the 
 horses, wiio ihad not moved. 
 
 Here the previous speaker, rotund, dignified, and elderly, 
 alighted indignantly, closely followed by the rest of the 
 party, two ladies and a gentleman. One of the ladies was 
 past the age, but not the fashion, of youth, and her Parisian 
 dress clung" over her wasted figure and well-bred bones 
 artistically if not gracefully ; the younger lady, evidently 
 her daughter, was crisp and pretty, and carried off the 
 aquiline nose and aristocratic emaciation of :her mother with 
 a certain piquancy and a dash that was charming. The 
 gentleman was young, thin, with the family characteristics, 
 ]Dut otherwise indistinctive. 
 
 With one accord they all faced directly toward the spot 
 indicated by the driver's whip. Nothing but the bare, 
 bleak, rectangular outlines of the cabin of The Man on the 
 Beach met their eyes. All else was a desolate expanse, 
 unrelieved by any structure higher than the tussocks of scanl; 
 beach-grass that clothed it. They were so utterly helpless 
 that the driver's derisive laughter gave way at last to good 
 humor and suggestion. " Look yer," he said finally, " I 
 don't know ez it 's your fault you don't know this kentry ez 
 well ez you do Yurup ; so I '11 drag this yer team over to 
 Eobinson's on the river, give the horses a bite, and then 
 meander down this yer ridge, and wait for ye. Ye '11 sea 
 
SU4 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 me from the Kernel's." And without waiting for a reply, 
 he swung his horses' heads toward the river, and rolled 
 away. 
 
 The same querulous protest that had come from the 
 windows arose from the group, hut vainly. Then followed 
 accusations and recrimination. " It 's your fault ; you 
 might have written, and had him meet us at the settlement." 
 "You wanted to take him hy surprise!" "I didn't." 
 " You know if I 'd written that we were coming, he 'd have 
 taken good care to run away from us." " Yes, to some 
 more inaccessihle place." " There can he none worse than 
 this," etc., etc. But it was so clearly evident that nothing 
 was to he done hut to go forward, that even in the midst of 
 their wrangling they straggled on in Indian file toward the 
 distant cahin, sinking ankle-deep in the yielding sand, 
 punctuating their verhal altercation ■ with sighs, and only 
 Ahating it at a scream from the elder lady. 
 
 " Where 's Maria ? " 
 
 " Gone on ahead ! " grunted the younger 'gentleman, in 
 a hass voice, so incongruously large for him that it seemed 
 to have heen a ventriloquistic contribution hy • somebody 
 else. 
 
 It was too true. Maria, after adding her pungency to 
 the general conversation, had darted on ahead. But alas ! 
 that swift Camilla, after scouring the plain some two 
 hundred feet with her demi-train, came to grief on an 
 unbending tussock and sat down, panting but savage. As 
 they plodded wearily toward her, she bit her red lips, 
 smacked them on her cruel little white teeth like a festive 
 and sprightly ghoul, and lisped : — 
 
 " You do look so like guys ! For all the world like 
 those English shopkeepers we met on the Highi, doing the 
 three-guinea excursion in their Sunday clothes ! " 
 
 Certainly the spectacle of those exotically plumed bipeds, 
 whose fine feathers were already bedrabbled by sand and 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH' 305 
 
 growing limp in the sea-breeze, was somewhat dissonant 
 with the rudeness of sea and sky and shore. A few gulls 
 screamed at them ; a loon, startled from the lagoon, arose 
 shrieking and protesting, with painfully extended legs, in 
 obvious burlesque of the younger gentleman. The elder 
 lady felt the justice of her gentle daughter's criticism, and 
 retaliated with simple directness, — 
 
 " Your skirt is ruined, your hair is coming down, your 
 hat is half off your head, and your shoes — in Heaven's 
 name, Maria ! what have you done with your shoes ? " 
 
 Maria had exhibited a slim stockinged foot from under 
 her skirt. It was scarcely three fingers broad, with an arch 
 as patrician as her nose. "Somewhere between here and 
 the carriage," she answered. "Dick can run back and find 
 it, while he is looking for your brooch, mamma. Dick 's so 
 obliging." 
 
 The robust voice of Dick thundered, but the wasted 
 figure of Dick feebly ploughed its way back, and returned 
 with the missing buskin. 
 
 " I may as well carry them in my hand like the market 
 girls at Saumur, for we have got to wade soon," said Miss 
 Maria, sinking her own terrors in the delightful contempla- 
 tion of the horror in her parent's face, as she pointed to a 
 shining film of water slowly deepening in a narrow swale in 
 the sands between them and the cabin. 
 
 " It 's the tide," said the elder gentleman. " If we 
 intend to go on we must hasten. Permit me, my dear 
 madam " — and before she could reply he had lifted the 
 astounded matron in his arms and made gallantly for the 
 ford. The gentle Maria cast an ominous eye on her brother, 
 who, with manifest reluctance, performed for her the same 
 office. But that acute young lady kept her eyes upon the 
 preceding figure of the elder gentleman, and seeing him 
 suddenly and mysteriously disappear to his armpits, unhesi- 
 tatingly threw herself from her brother's protecting arms, -^ 
 
306 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 an action which instantly precipitated him into the water, — 
 and paddled hastily to the opposite bank, where she even- 
 tually assisted in pulling the elderly gentleman out of the 
 hollow into which he had fallen, and in rescuing her 
 mother, who floated helplessly on the surface, upheld by 
 her skirts, like a gigantic and variegated water-lily. Dick 
 followed with a single gaiter. In another minute they were 
 safe on the opposite bank. 
 
 The elder lady gave way to tears ; Maria laughed hyster- 
 ically ; Dick mingled a bass oath with the ,now audible 
 surf ; the elder gentleman, whose florid face the salt water 
 had bleached, and whose dignity seemed to have been 
 washed away, accounted for both by saying he thought it 
 was a quicksand. 
 
 " It might have been," said a quiet voice, behind them ; 
 "yciu should have followed the sand-dunes half a mile 
 farther to the estuary.'' 
 
 They turned instantly at the voice. It was that of The 
 Man on the Beach. They all rose to their feet and uttered 
 together, «ave one, the single exclamation, " James ! " 
 The elder gentleman said, "Mr. North," and, with a slight 
 resumption of his former dignity, buttoned his coat over 
 bis damp shirt-front. 
 
 There was a silence, in which the Man on the Beach 
 looked gravely down upon them. If they had intended to 
 impress him by any suggestion of a gay, brilliant, and sen- 
 suous world beyond in their own persons, they had failed, 
 and they knew it. Keenly alive as they had always been 
 to external prepossession, they felt that they looked forlorn 
 and ludicrous, and that the situation lay in his hands. The 
 elderly lady again burst into tears of genuine distress, 
 Maria colored over her cheek-bones, and Dick stared at the 
 ground in sullen disquiet. 
 
 " You had better get up," said The Man on the Beach, 
 after a moment's thought, " and come up to the cabin. I 
 
THE M'AN ON THE BEACH 307 
 
 cannot offer you a change of gaTments, but you can dry 
 them by the fire." 
 
 They all rose together, and again said in chorus, " James ! " 
 but this time with an evident effort to recall some speech or 
 action previously resolved upon and committed to memory. 
 The elder lady got so far as to clasp her hands, and add, 
 " You have not forgotten us, James, James ! " the 
 younger gentleman to attempt a brusque " Why, Jim, old 
 boy," that ended in querulous incoherence 5 the young 
 lady to cast a half-searching, half- coquettish look at him ; 
 and the old gentleman to begin, " Our desire, Mr. North " 
 
 — but the effort was futile. Mr. James North, standing 
 before them with folded arms, looked from the one to the 
 other. 
 
 " I have not thought much of you for a twelvemonth," 
 he said quietly, " but I have not forgotten you. Come ! " 
 
 He led the way a few steps in ady^nce^ they following 
 silently. In this brief interview they felt he had resumed 
 the old dominance and independence against which they 
 had rebelled ; more than that, in this half-failure of their 
 first concerted action they had changed their querulous 
 bickerings to a sullen distrust of each other, and walked 
 moodily apart as they followed James North into his house. 
 A fire blazed brightly on the hearth ; a few extra seats were 
 quickly extemporized from boxes and ohests, and the elder 
 lady, with the «kirt of her dress folded over her knees, — 
 looking not unlike an exceedingly overdressed jointed doll, 
 
 — dried her flounces and her tears together. Miss Maria 
 took in the scant appointments of the house in one single 
 glance, and then fixed her eyes upon James North, who, 
 the least concerned of the party, stood before them, grave 
 and patiently expectant. 
 
 " Well," began the elder lady in a high key, " after all 
 this worry and trouble you have given us, James, liave n't 
 you anything to say ? Do you know — have you the least 
 
308 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 idea what you are doing ? what egregious folly you are com- 
 mitting ? what everybody is saying ? Eh ? Heavens and 
 earth ! do you know who I am ? " 
 
 " You are my father's brother's widow, Aunt Mary," re- 
 turned James quietly. " If I am committing any folly it 
 only concerns myself ; if 1 cared for what people said I 
 should not be hero ; if I loved society enough to appreciate 
 its good report I should Stay with it." 
 
 " But they say you have run away from society to pine 
 alone for a worthless creature — ■ a woman who has used you, 
 as she has used and thrown away others — a " — 
 
 " A woman," chimed in Dick, who had thrown himself 
 on James's bed while his patent leathers were drying, — "a 
 woman that all the fellers know never intended " — Here, 
 however, he met James North's eye, and, muttering some- 
 thing about " whole thing being too idiotic to talk about," 
 relapsed into silence. 
 
 " You know," continued Mrs. North, " that while we and 
 all our set shut our eyes to your very obvious relations with 
 that woman, and while I myself often spoke of it to others 
 as a simple flirtation, and averted a scandal for your sake, 
 and when the climax was reached, and she herself gave you 
 an opportunity to sever your relations, and nobody need 
 have been wiser — and she 'd have had all the blame — and 
 it 's only what she 'a accustomed to — you — you ! you, 
 James North ! — you must nonsensically go, and, by this 
 extravagant piece of idiocy and sentimental tomfoolery, let 
 everybody see how serious the whole affair was, and how 
 deep it hurt you ! and here in this awful place — alone — 
 where you 're half drowned to get to it, and are willing to 
 be wholly drowned to get away ! Oh, don't talk to me,' 
 I won't hear it — it 's just too idiotic for anything ! " 
 
 The subject of this outburst neither spoke nor moved a 
 single muscle. 
 
 " Your aunt, Mr. North, speaks exci' 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 309 
 
 gentleman ; " yet I think she does not overestimate the 
 unfortunate position in which your odd fancy places you. 
 I know nothing of the reasons that have impelled you to 
 this step ; I only know that the popular opinion is that the 
 cause is utterly inadequate. You are still young, with a 
 future before you. I need not say how your present con- 
 duct may imperil that. If you expected to achieve any 
 good — even to your own satisfaction — by this conduct " — 
 
 "Yes — if there was anything to be gained by it!" 
 broke in Mrs. North. 
 
 " If you ever thought she 'd come back ! — but that kind 
 of woman don't. They must have change. Why " — be- 
 gan Dick suddenly, and as suddenly lying down again. 
 
 " Is this all you have come to say ? " asked James North, 
 after a moment's patient silence, looking from one to the 
 other. 
 
 " All ! " screamed Mrs. North ; " is it not enough ? " 
 
 " Not to change my mind nor my residence at present," 
 replied North coolly. 
 
 " Do you mean to continue this folly all your life ? " 
 
 " And have a coroner's inquest, and advertisements and 
 all the facts in the papers ? " 
 
 " And have her read the melancholy details, and know 
 that you were faithful and she was not ? " 
 
 This last shot was from the gentle Maria, who bit her 
 lips as it glanced from the immovable man. 
 
 " I believe there is nothing more to say," continued 
 North quietly. " I am willing to believe your intentions 
 are as worthy as your zeal. Let us say no more," he added 
 with grave weariness ; " the tide is rising, and your coach- 
 man is signaling you from the bank." 
 
 There was no mistaking the unshaken positiveness of the 
 man, which was all the more noticeable from its gentle but 
 utter indifference to the wishes of the party. He turned 
 his back upon them as they gathered hurriedly around the 
 
310 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 elder gentleman, while the words, " He cannot be in h« 
 right mind," " It 's your duty to do it," " It 's sheer insan, 
 ity," " Look at his eye ! " all fell unconsciously upon his 
 ear. 
 
 " One word more, Mr. North," said the elder gentleman 
 a little portentously, to conceal an evident embarrassment. 
 " It may be that your conduct might suggest to minds more 
 practical than your own the existence of some aberration of 
 the intellect — some temporary mania — that might force 
 your best friends into a quasi-legal attitude of " — 
 
 " Declaring me insane," interrupted James North, with 
 the slight impatience of a, man more anxious, to end a pro- 
 lix interview than to combat an argument. " I think dif- 
 ferently. As my aunt's lawyer, you know that within the 
 last year I have deeded most of my property to her and her 
 family. I cannot believe that so shrewd an adviser as Mr, 
 Edmund Carter would ever permit proceedings that would 
 invalidate that conveyance." 
 
 Maria burst into a laugh of such wicked gratification that 
 James North, for the fifst time, raised his eyes with some- 
 thing of interest to her face. She colored under them, 
 but returned his glance with another like a bayonet flash. 
 The party slowly moved toward the door, James North 
 following. 
 
 " Then this is your final answer ? " asked Mrs. North, 
 stopping imperiously on the threshold. 
 
 " 1 beg your pardon ? " queried North, half abstractedly. 
 
 " Your final answer ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly." 
 
 Mrs. North flounced away a dozen rods in rage. This 
 was unfortunate for North. It gave them the final attack 
 in detail. Dick began : " Come along ! You know you 
 can advertise for her with a personal down there, and the 
 old woman would n't object as long as you were careful and 
 put in an appearance now and then ! " 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 311 
 
 As Dick limped away, Mr. Carter thought, in confidence, 
 that the whole matter — even to suit Mr. North's sensitive 
 nature — might be settled there. " She evidently expects 
 you to return. My opinion is that she never left San 
 Francisco. You can't tell anything about these women." 
 
 With this last sentence on his indifferent ear, James 
 North seemed to be left free. Maria had rejoined her 
 mother ; but as they crossed the ford, and an intervening 
 sand-hill hid the others from sight, that piquant young lady 
 suddenly appeared on the hill and stood before him. 
 
 " And you 're not coming ba<;k ? " she said directly, 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Never ? " 
 
 " I cannot say." 
 
 "Tell me! what is there about some women to makb 
 men love them so ? " 
 
 " Love," replied North quietly. 
 
 " No, it cannot be — it is not that ! " 
 
 North looked over the hill and round the hill, and looked 
 bored. 
 
 " Oh, I 'm going now. But one moment, Jim ! I did n't 
 want to come. They dragged me here. G-ood-by." She 
 raised a burning face and eyes to his. He leaned forward 
 and imprinted the perfunctory, cousinly kiss of the period 
 upon her cheek. 
 
 " Not that way," she said angrily, clutching his wrists 
 with her long, thin fingers ; " you sha'n't kiss me in that 
 way, James North." 
 
 With the faintest, ghost-like passing of a twinkle in the 
 corners of his sad eyes, he touched his lips to hers. With 
 the contact, she caught him round the neck, pressed her 
 burning lips and face to his forehead, his cheeks, the very 
 curves of his chin and throat, and — with a laugh was 
 gone. 
 
812 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Had the kinsfolk of James North any hope that their 
 visit might revive some lingering desire he still combated 
 to enter once more the vcorld they represented, that hope 
 ■would have soon died. Whatever eiFect this episode had 
 upon the solitary — and he had become so self-indulgent of 
 his sorrow, and so careless of all that came between him 
 and it, as to meet opposition with profound indifference — 
 the only appreciable result yvaLS a greater attraction for the 
 solitude that protected him, and he grew even to love the 
 bleak shore and barren sands that had proved so inhospit- 
 able to others. There was a new meaning to the roar of 
 the surges, an honest, loyal sturdiness in the unchanging 
 persistency of the uncouth and blustering trade-winds, and 
 a mute fidelity in the shining sands, treacherous to all but 
 him. With such bandogs to lie in wait for trespassers, 
 should he not be grateful ? 
 
 If no bitterness was awakened by the repeated avowal of 
 the unfaithfulness of the woman he loved, it was because he 
 had always made the observation and experience of others 
 give way to the dominance of his own insight. No array of 
 contradictory facts ever shook his belief or unbelief ; like 
 all egotists, he accepted them as truths controlled by a larger 
 truth of which he alone was cognizant. His simplicity, 
 which was but another form of his egotism, was so complete 
 as to baiHe ordinary malicious cunning, and so he was 
 spared the experience and knowledge that come to a lower 
 nature, and help to debase it. 
 
 Exercise and the stimulus of the few wants that sent him 
 hunting or fishing kept up his physical health. Never a 
 lover of rude freedom or outdoor life, his sedentary predi- 
 lections and nice tastes kept him from lapsing into barbarian 
 excess ; never a sportsman, he followed the chase with no 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 313 
 
 feverish exultation. Even dumb creatures found out his 
 secret, and at times, stalking moodily over the upland, the 
 brown deer and elk would cross his path without fear or 
 molestation, or, idly lounging in his canoe within the river- 
 bar, flocks of wild fowl would settle within stroke of his 
 listless oar. And so the second winter of his hermitage 
 drew near its close, and with it came a storm that passed 
 into local history, and is still remembered. It uprooted 
 giant trees along the river, and with them the tiny rootlets 
 of the life he was idly fostering. 
 
 The morning had been fitfully turbulent, the wind veer- 
 ing several points south and west, with suspicious lulls, 
 dnlike the steady onset of the regular southwest trades, 
 fligh overhead the long manes of racing cirro - stratus 
 streamed with flying gulls and hurrying water-fowl ; plover 
 piped incessantly, and a flock of timorous sandpipers sought 
 the low ridge of his cabin, while a wrecking crew of curlew 
 hastily manned the uprooted tree that tossed wearily beyond 
 the bar. By noon the flying clouds huddled together in 
 masses, and then were suddenly exploded in one vast opaque 
 sheet over the heavens. The sea became gray, and sud- 
 denly wrinkled and old. There was a dumb, half-articulate 
 cry in the air — rather a confusion of many sounds, as of 
 the booming of distant guns, the clangor of a bell, the 
 trampling of many waves, the creaking of timbers and 
 soughing of leaves, that sank and fell ere you could yet 
 distinguish them. And then it came on to Mow. For two 
 hours it blew strongly. At the time the sun should have 
 set, the wind had increased ; in fifteen minutes darkness 
 shut down — even the white sands lost their outlines, and 
 sea and shore and sky lay in the grip of a relentless and ag- 
 gressive power. 
 
 Within his cabin, by the leaping light of his gusty fire, 
 North sat alone. His first curiosity passed, the turmoil 
 without no longer carried his thought beyond its one con- 
 
314 THE MAN ON THE BEAOH 
 
 verging centre. She had come to him on the wings of the 
 storm, even as she had been borne to him on the summer 
 fog-cloud. Now and then the wind shook the cabin, but 
 he heeded it not. He had no fears for its safety ; it pre- 
 sented its low gable to the full fury of the wind that year 
 by year had piled, and was even now piling, protecting 
 buttresses of sand against it. With each succeeding gust it 
 seemed to nestle more closely to its foundations in the 
 whirl of flying sand that rattled against its roof and win- 
 dows. It was nearly midnight when a sudden thought 
 brought him to his feet. What if she were exposed to the 
 fury of such a night as this ? What could he do to help 
 her ? Perhaps even now, as he sat there idle, she — Hark J 
 was not that a gun — No ? Yes, surely ! 
 
 He hurriedly unbolted the door, but the strength of the 
 wind and the impact of drifted sand resisted his efforts. 
 With a new and feverish strength possessing him he forced 
 it open wide enough to permit his egress, when the wind 
 caught him as a feather, rolled him over and over, and then, 
 grappling him again, held him down hard and fast against 
 the drift. Unharmed, but unable to move, he lay there, 
 hearing the multitudinous roar of the storm, but unable to 
 distinguish one familiar sound in the savage medley. At 
 last he managed to crawl flat on his face to the cabin, and, 
 refastening the door, threw himself upon his bed. 
 
 He was awakened from a fitful dream of his cousin 
 Maria. She with a supernatural strength seemed to be 
 holding the door against some unseen, unknown power thatl 
 moaned and strove without, and threw itself in despairing 
 force against the cabin. He could see the lithe undulations 
 of her form as she alternately yielded to its power, and 
 again drew the door against it, coiling herself around the 
 log-hewn doorpost with a hideous, snake-like suggestion. 
 And then a struggle and a heavy blow, which shook the 
 very foundations of the structure, awoke him. He leaped 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 315 
 
 to his feet, and into an inch of water ! By the flickering 
 firelight he could see it oozing and dripping from the 
 crevices of the logs and broadening into a pool by the 
 chimney. A scrap of paper torn from an envelope was 
 floating idly on its current. Was it the overflow of the 
 backed-up waters of the river ? He was not left long in 
 doubt. Another blow upon the gable of the house, and a 
 torrent of spray leaped down the chimney, scattered the 
 embers far and wide, and left him in utter darkness. Some 
 of the spray clung to his lips ; it was salt. The great 
 ocean had beaten down the river-bar and was upon him ! 
 
 Was there aught to fly to ? No ! The cabin stood 
 upon the highest point of the sand-spit, and the low swale 
 on one side crossed by his late visitors was a seething mass 
 of breakers, while the estuary behind him was now the 
 ocean itself. There was nothing to do but to wait. 
 
 The very helplessness of his situation was, to a man of 
 his peculiar temperament, an element of patient strength. 
 The instinct of self-preservation was still strong in him, but 
 he had no fear of death, nor, indeed, any presentiment of it ; 
 yet if it came, it was an easy solution of the problem that 
 had been troubling him, and it wiped off the slate ! He 
 thought of the sarcastic prediction of his cousin, and death 
 in the form that threatened him was the obliteration of his 
 home and even the ground upon which it stood. There 
 would be nothing to record ; no stain could come upon the 
 living. The instinct that kept him true to Aer would tell 
 her how he died ; if it did not, it was equally well. And 
 with this simple fatalism, his only belief, this strange man 
 groped his way to his bed, lay down, and in a few moments 
 was asleep. The storm still roared without. Once again 
 the surges leaped against the cabin, but it was evident that 
 the wind was abating with the tide. 
 
 When he awoke it was high noon, and the sun was shining 
 brightly. For some time he lay in a delicious languor, 
 
316 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 doubting if he was alive or dead, but feeling through every 
 nerve and fibre an exquisite sense of peace — a rest he had 
 not known since his boyhood — a relief he scarcely knew 
 from what. He felt that he was smiling, and yet his pillow 
 was wet with the tears that glittered still on his lashes. The 
 sand blocking up his doorway, he leaped lightly from his 
 window. A few clouds were still sailing slowly in the 
 heavens, the trailing plumes of a great benediction that 
 lay on sea and shore. He scarcely recognized the familiar 
 landscape ; a new bar had been formed in the river, and a 
 narrow causeway of sand that crossed the lagoon and marshes 
 to the river-bank and the upland trail seemed to bring him 
 nearer to humanity again. He was conscious of a fresh, 
 childlike delight in all this, and when, a moment later, he 
 saw the old uprooted tree, now apparently forever moored 
 and imbedded in the sand beside his cabin, he ran to it 
 with a sense of joy. 
 
 Its trailing roots were festooned with clinging seaweed 
 and the long, snaky, undulating stems of the sea-turnip ; 
 and fixed between two crossing roots was a bamboo orange 
 crate, almost intact. As he walked toward it he heard a 
 strange cry, unlike anything the barren sands had borne 
 before. Thinking it might be some strange sea-bird caught 
 in the meshes of the seaweed, he ran to the crate and looked 
 within. It was half filled with sea-moss and feathery algse. 
 The cry was repeated. He brushed aside the weeds with 
 his hands. It was not a wounded sea-bird, but a living 
 human child ! 
 
 As he lifted it from its damp enwrappings he saw that it 
 was an infant eight or nine months old. How and when it 
 had been brought there, or what force had guided that elfish 
 cradle to his very door, he could not determine ; but it 
 must have been left early, for it was quite warm, and its 
 clothing almost dried by the blazing morning sun. To 
 wrap his coat about it, to run to his cabin with it, to start 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 317 
 
 out again with the appalling conviction that nothing could 
 be done for it there, occupied some moments. His nearest 
 neighbor was Trinidad Joe, a " logger," three miles up the 
 river. He remembered to have heard vaguely that he was 
 a man of family. To half strangle the child with a few 
 drops from his whiskey flask, to extricate his canoe from the 
 marsh, and strike out into the river with his waif, was at 
 least to do something. In half an hour he had reached the 
 straggling cabin and sheds of Trinidad Joe, and from the few 
 scanty flowers that mingled with the brushwood fence, and 
 a surplus of linen fluttering on the line, he knew that his sur- 
 mise as to Trinidad Joe's domestic establishment was correct 
 
 The door at which he knocked opened upon a heat, 
 plainly furnished room, and the figure of a buxom woman 
 of twenty-five. With an awkwardness new to him, North 
 stammered out the circumstances of his finding the infant, 
 and the object of his visit. Before he had finished, the 
 woman by some feminine trick had taken the child from 
 his hands ere he knew it ; and when he paused, out of 
 breath, burst into a fit of laughter. North tried to laugh, 
 too, but failed. 
 
 When the woman had wiped the tears from a pair of 
 very frank blue eyes, and hidden two rows of very strong 
 white teeth again, she said : — 
 
 " Look yar ! You 're that looney sort o' chap that lives 
 alone over on the spit yonder, ain't ye ? " 
 
 North hastened to admit all that the statement might 
 imply. 
 
 " And so ye 've had a baby left ye to keep you company ? 
 Lordy ! " Here she looked as if dangerously near a relapse, 
 and then added, as if in explanation of her conduct, — 
 
 "When I saw ye paddlin' down here — you thet ez shy 
 as elk in summer — I sez, ' He 's sick.' But a baby — 
 Lordy ! " 
 
 For a moment North almost hated her. A woman who. 
 
318 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 in this pathetic, perfiaps almost tragic, picture saw only a 
 ludicrous image, and that image himself, was of another 
 race than he had ever mingled with. Profoundly indifferent 
 as he had always been to the criticism of his equals in 
 station, the mischievous laughter of this illiterate woman 
 jarred upon him worse than his cousin's sarcasm. It was 
 with a little dignity that he pointed out the fact that at 
 present the child needed nourishment. " It 's very young," 
 he added. " I 'm afraid it wants its natural nourishment." 
 
 " Whar is it to get it ? " asked the woman. 
 
 James North hesitated, and looked around. There 
 should be a baby somewhere ! there mMst be a baby some- 
 where ! " I thought that you," he stammered, conscious of 
 an awkward coloring ^- " I — that is — I " — He stopped 
 short, for she was already cramming her apron into her 
 mouth, too late, however, to stop the laugh that overflowed 
 it. When she found her breath again, she said, — 
 
 "Look yar ! I don't wonder they said you was looney ! 
 I 'm Trinidad Joe's onmarried darter, and the only woman 
 in this house. Any fool could have told you that. Now, 
 ef you can rig us up a baby out o' them facts, I 'd like to 
 see it done." 
 
 Inwardly furious but outwardly polite, James North 
 begged her pardon, deplored his ignorance, and, with a 
 courtly bow, made a movement to take the child. But the 
 woman as quickly drew it away. 
 
 "Not much," she said hastily. "What! trust that poor 
 critter to you ? No, sir ! Thar 's more ways of feeding a 
 baby, young man, than you knows on, with all your ' nat'ral 
 nourishment.' But it looks kinder logy and stupid." 
 
 North freezingly admitted that he had given the infant 
 whiskey as a stimulant. 
 
 " You did ? Come, now, that ain't so looney after all. 
 Well, I '11 take the baby, and when dad comes home we '11 
 Bee what can be done." 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 319 
 
 North hesitated. His dislike of the woman was intense, 
 and yet he knew no one else, and the baby needed instant 
 care. Besides, he began to see the ludicrousness of his 
 making a first call on his neighbors with a foundling to 
 dispose of. She saw his hesitation, and said, — 
 
 " Ye don't know me, in course. Well, I 'm Bessy Rob- 
 inson, Trinidad Joe Robinson's daughter. I reckon dad 
 will give me a character if you want references, or any of 
 the boys on the river." 
 
 " I 'm only thinking of the trouble I 'ni giving you. Miss 
 Robinson, I assure you. Any expense you may incur " — 
 
 " Young man," said Bessy Robinson, turning sharply on 
 her heel, and facing him with her black brows a little con- 
 tracted, " if it comes to expenses, I reckon I '11 pay you for 
 that baby, or not take it at all. But I don't know you 
 well enough to quarrel with you on sight. So leave the 
 child to me, and if you choose, paddle down here to-morrow, 
 after sun-up, — the ride will do you good, — and see it, and 
 dad thrown in. Good-by ! " and with one powerful but 
 well-shaped arm thrown around the child, and the other 
 crooked at the dimpled elbow a little aggressively, she 
 Swept by James North and entered a bedroom, closing the 
 door behind her. 
 
 When Mr. James North reached his cabin it was dark. 
 As he rebuilt his fire, and tried to rearrange the scattered 
 and disordered furniture, and remove the debris of last 
 night's storm, he was conscious for the first time of feeling 
 lonely. He did not miss the child. Beyond the instincts 
 of humanity and duty he had really no interest in its wel- 
 fare or future. He was rather glad to get rid of it — he 
 would have preferred to some one else ; and yet she looked 
 as if she were competent. And then came the reflection 
 that since the morning he had not once thought of the 
 woman he loved. The like had never occurred in his 
 twelvemonth's solitude. So he set to work, thinking of 
 
320 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 her and of his sorrows, until the WGrd " looney," in con' 
 nection with his suffeiing, flashed across his memory. 
 " Looney " ! It was not a nice word. It suggested some 
 thing less than insanity ; something that might happen to 
 a common, unintellectual sort of person. He remembered 
 the loon, an ungainly feathered neighbor, that was popu- 
 larly supposed to have lent its name to the adjective. 
 Could it be possible that people looked upon him as one 
 too hopelessly and uninterestingly afflicted for sympathy or 
 companionship, too unimportant and common for even 
 x'idicule ; or was this but the coarse interpretation of that 
 vulgar girl ? 
 
 Nevertheless, the next morning " after sun-up " James 
 North was at Trinidad Joe's cabin. That worthy proprie- 
 tor himself — a long, lank man, with even more than the 
 ordinary rural Western characteristics of ill health, ill feed- 
 ing, and melancholy — met him on the bank, clothed in a 
 manner and costume that was a singiilar combination of the 
 frontiersman and the sailor. When North had again related 
 the story of his finding the child, Trinidad Joe pondered. 
 
 " It mout hev been stowed away in one of them crates 
 for safe-keeping," he said musingly, " and washed off the 
 deck o' one o' them Tahiti brigs goin' down fer oranges. 
 Leastways, it never got thar from these parts." 
 
 " But it 's a miracle its life was saved at all. It must 
 have been some hours in the water." 
 
 " Them brigs lays their course well inshore, and it was 
 just mebbee a toss up if the vessel clawed off the reef at 
 all ! And ez to the child keepin' up, why, dog my skin ! 
 that 's just the contrariness o' things," continued Joe, in 
 sententious cynicism. " Ef an able seaman had fallen 
 from the yard-arm that night he 'd been sunk in sight o' 
 the ship ; and thet baby ez can't swim a stroke sails ashore 
 sound asleep, with the waves for a baby-jumper." 
 
 North, who was half relieved, yet half awkwardly dis' 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 321 
 
 appointed at not seeing Bessy, ventured to ask how the 
 child was doing. 
 
 " She '11 do all right now," said a frank voice above, 
 and, looking up. North discerned the round arms, blue eyes, 
 and white teeth of the daughter at the window. " She's 
 all hunkey, and has an appetite — ef she hezn't got her 
 'nat'ral nourishment.' Come, dad! heave ahead, and tell 
 the stranger what you and me allow we '11 do, and don't 
 stand there swappin' lies with him." 
 
 " Weel," said Trinidad Joe dejectedly, " Bess allows she 
 can rar that baby and do justice to it. And I don't say — 
 though I'm her father — that she can't. But when Bess 
 wants anything she wants it all, clean down ; no half ways 
 nor leavin's for her." 
 
 "That's me ! go on, dad — you're chippin' in the same 
 notch every time," said Miss Robinson with cheerful direct- 
 ness. 
 
 " Well, we agree to put the job up this way. We '11 take 
 the child and you'll give us a paper or writin' makin' over 
 all your right and title. How 's that ? " 
 
 Without knowing exactly why he did, Mr. North objected 
 decidedly. 
 
 " Do you think we won't take good care of it ? " asked 
 Miss Bessy sharply. 
 
 " That is not the question," said North a little hotly. 
 " In the first place, the child is not mine to give. It has 
 fallen into my hands as a trust — the first hands that 
 received it from its parents. I do not think it right to 
 allow any other hands to come between theirs and mine." 
 
 Miss Bessy left the window. In another moment she 
 appeared from the house, and, walking directly toward 
 North, held out a somewhat substantial hand. " Good ! " 
 she said, as she gave his fingers an honest squeeze. " You 
 ain't so looney after all. Dad, he 's right ! He sha'n't gin 
 it up, but we '11 go halves in it, he and me. He '11 bfl 
 
'322 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 : father and I '11 be mother till death do as part, or thfl 
 reg'lar family turns up. Well — what do you say ? " 
 
 More pleased than he dared confess to himself with 
 the praise of this common girl, Mr. James North assented. 
 Then would he see the baby ? He would, and Trinidad 
 Joe, having already seen the baby, and talked of the baby, 
 and felt the baby, and indeed had the baby offered to hitii 
 in every way during the past night, concluded to give some 
 jf his valuable time to logging, and left them together. 
 
 Mr. North was obliged to admit that the baby was thriv- 
 ing. He, moreover, listened with polite interest to the 
 statement that the baby's eyes were hazel, like his own'; 
 that it had five teeth ; that she was, for a girl of that 
 probable age, a robust child ; and yet Mr. North lingered ? 
 Finally, with his hand on the door-lock, he turned to Bess.-- 
 Biid said, — 
 
 " May I ask you an odd question, Miss Eobinson ? " 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " Why did you think I was — ' looney ' ? " ' 
 
 The frank Miss Robinson bent her head over the baby. ■ 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Yes," why ? " ' . 
 
 " Because you were looney." 
 
 " Oh ! » 
 
 " But" — 
 
 " Yes " — 
 
 " You '11 get over it." ' - ■ 
 
 And under the shallow pretext of getting the baby's 
 food, she retired to the kitchen, where Mr. North had the 
 supreme satisfaction of seeing her, as he passed the window, 
 sitting on a chair with her apron over her head, shaking 
 with laughter. 
 
 For the next two or three days he did not visit the 
 Robinsons, but gave himself up to past memories. On 
 the third, day he had — it must be confessed not without 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 323 
 
 some eflfort — brought himself into that condition of patient 
 Borrow which had been his habit. The episode of the 
 storm and the finding of the baby began to fade, as had 
 faded the visit of his relatives. It had been a dull wet 
 day, and he was sitting by his fire, when there came a tap 
 at his door. " Flora," by which juvenescent name his 
 aged Indian handmaid was known, usually announced her 
 presence with an imitation of a curlew's cry : it could not 
 !be she.. He fancied he heard the trailing of a woman's 
 dress against the boards, and started to his feet, deathly 
 pale, with a name upon his lips. But the door was impa- 
 tiently thrown open, and showed Bessy Eobinson ! — and 
 the baby ! 
 
 With a feeling of relief he could not understand, he 
 offered her a seat. She turned her frank eyes on him 
 curiously; 
 
 " You look skeert ! " 
 
 " I was startled. You know I see nobody here ! " 
 
 " Thet 's so. But look yar, do you ever use a doctor ? " 
 
 Not clearly understanding her, he in turn asked, 
 "Why?" 
 
 " 'Cause you must rise up and get one now — thet 's why. 
 This yer baby of ours is sick. We don't use a doctor at 
 our house, ^-we don't beleeve in 'em, hain't no call for 'em, 
 — but this yer baby's parents mebbee did. So rise up out 
 o' that cheer, and get one." 
 
 James North looked at Miss Eobinson and rose, albeit a 
 little in doubt, and hesitating. 
 
 Miss Robinson saw it. " I should n't hev troubled ye, 
 nor ridden three mile to do it, if therhed been any one 
 else to send. But dad 's over at Eureka, buying logs, and 
 : I 'm alone. Hello — wher' yer goin' ? " 
 
 North had seized his hat, and opened the door. "For a 
 doctor," he replied amazedly. 
 
 " Did. ye kalkilate to walk six miles and back ? " 
 
824 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 " Certainly — I have no horse." 
 
 " But I have, and you '11 find her tethered outside. She 
 ain't much to look at, but when you strike the trail she '11 
 go." 
 
 " But you — how will you return ? " 
 
 "Well," said Miss Robinson, drawing her chair to the 
 nre, taking off her hat and shawl, and warming her knees 
 by the blaze ; " I did n't reckon to return. You '11 find 
 me here when you come back with the doctor. Go ! 
 Skedaddle quick." 
 
 She did not have to repeat the command. In another 
 instant James North was in Miss Bessy's seat, ^ — a man's 
 dragoon saddle, — and pounding away through the sand. 
 Two facts were in his mind : one was that he, the " looney," 
 was about to open communication with the wisdom and 
 contemporary criticism of the settlement, by going for a 
 doctor to administer to a sick and anonymous infant in his 
 possession ; the other was that his solitary house was in 
 the hands of a self-invited, large-limbed, illiterate, but 
 rather comely young woman. These facts he could not 
 gallop away from, but to his credit be it recorded that he 
 fulfilled his mission zealously, if not coherently, to the 
 doctor, who during the rapid ride gathered the idea that 
 North had rescued a young married woman from drowning, 
 who had since given birth to a child. 
 
 The few words that set the doctor right when he arrived 
 at the cabin might in any other community have required 
 further explanation, but Dr. Duchesne, an old army surgeon, 
 was prepared for everything and indifferent to all. " The 
 infant," he said, " was threatened with inflammation of 
 the lungs ; at present there was no danger, but the greatest 
 care and caution must be exercised. Particularly exposure 
 should be avoided." "That settles the whole matter 
 then," said Bessy potentially. Both gentlemen looked 
 their surprise. "It means," she condescended to further 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 325 
 
 expkin, " tliat you mugt ride that filly home, wait for the 
 old man to come to-morrow, and then ride back here with 
 some of my duds, for thar 's no ' day-days ! nor picnicking 
 for that baby ontil she's better. And I reckon to stay 
 with her ontil she is." 
 
 " She certainly is unable to bear any exposure at present," 
 said the doctor, with an amused side glance at North's per- 
 plexed face. "Miss Eobinson is right. I'll ride with 
 you over the sands as far as the trail." 
 
 " I'm afraid," said North, feeling ii incumbent upon him 
 to say something, " that you '11 hardly find it as comfortable 
 here as " — ■ 
 
 "I reckon not," she s&id simply, " but) I didn't e^fpect 
 much." 
 
 North turned a little wearily away. " Good-night," she 
 said suddenly, extending her hand, with a gentler smile of 
 lip and eye than he had ever before noticed, " good-night. 
 Take good care of dad." 
 
 The doctor and North rode together some moments in 
 silence. North had another fact presented to him, that is, 
 that he was going a-visiting, and that he had virtually aban- 
 doned his former life ; also that it would be profanation to 
 think of his sacred woe in the house of a stranger. 
 
 " I dare say," said the doctor suddenly, " you are not 
 familiar with the type of woman Miss Bessy presents sb 
 perfectly. Your life has been spent among the conventional 
 class." 
 
 North froze instantly at what seemed to be a probing of 
 his secret. Disregarding the last suggestion, he made 
 answer simply and truthfully that he had never met any 
 Western girl like Bessy. 
 
 " That 's your bad luck," said the doctor. " You think 
 her coarse and illiterate ? " 
 
 Mr. North had been so much struck with her kindness 
 that really he had not thought of it. 
 
%26 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 , " That 's not so," said the doctor cuitly ; " although even . 
 if you told her so she would not think any the less of you 
 — nor of herself. If she spoke rustic Greek instead of bad 
 English, and wore a cestus in place of an ill-fitting corset, 
 you 'd swear she was a goddess. There 's your trail. 
 Good-night." 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 James North did not sleep well that night. He had 
 taken Miss Bessy's bedroom, at her suggestion, there being 
 but two, and " dad never using sheets and not bein' keerf ul 
 in his habits." It was neat, but that was all. The scant 
 ornamentation was atrocious ; two or three highly-colored 
 prints, a shell work-box, a ghastly winter bouquet of skeleton 
 leaves and mosses, a starfish, and two china vases hideous 
 enough to have been worshiped as Buddhist idols, exhibited 
 the gentle recreation of the fair occupant, and the possible 
 future education of the child. In the morning he was met 
 by Joe, who received the message of his daughter with his 
 usual dejection, and suggested that North stay with him 
 until the child was better. That event was still romote ; 
 North found, on his return to his cabin, that the child had 
 been worse ; but he did not know, until Miss Bessy dropped 
 a casual remark, that she had not closed her own eyes that 
 night. It was a week before he regained his own quarters, 
 but an active week — indeed, on the whole, a rather pleasant 
 week. For there was a delicate flattery in being domi- 
 neered by a wholesome and handsome woman, and Mr. - 
 James North had by this time made up his mind that she 
 was both. Once or twice he found himself contemplating 
 her splendid figure with a recollection of the doctor's com- 
 pliment, and later, emulating her own frankness, told hel,; 
 of it. 
 
 " And what did you say ? " ; 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 327. 
 
 ' "Oh, I laughed, and said — nothing." ' 
 
 And so did she. 
 
 ' A month after this interchange of frankness, she asked 
 him if he could spend the next evening at her house. 
 " You see," she said, " there 's to be a dance down at the 
 hall at Eureka, and I have n't kicked a fut since last spring. 
 Hank Fisher 's comin' up to take me over, and I 'm goin' 
 to let the shanty slide for the night." 
 
 " But what 's to become of the baby ? " asked North, a 
 little testily. 
 
 ' " Well," said Miss Eobinson, facing him somewhat ag- 
 gressively, " I reckon it won't hurt ye to take care of it for 
 a night. Dad can't — and if he could, he don't know how. 
 Liked to have pizened me after mar died. No, young man, 
 I don't propose to ask Hank Fisher to tote thet child over 
 to Eureka and back, and spile his fun." 
 
 "Then I suppose I must make way for Mr. Hank — 
 Hank — Fisher ? " said North, with the least tinge of 
 sarcasm in his speech. 
 
 " Of course. You 've got nothing else to do, you know." 
 
 • North would have given worlds to have pleaded a pre- 
 vious engagement on business of importance, but he knew 
 that Bessy spoke truly. He had nothing to do. " And 
 Fisher has, I suppose ? " he asked. 
 
 ' " Of course — to look after me .' " 
 
 ' A more unpleasant evening James North had not spent 
 since the first day of his solitude. He almost began to hate 
 the unconscious cause of his absurd position, as he paced 
 up and down the floor with it. "Was there ever such 
 egregious folly ? " he began ; but remembering he was quot- 
 ing Maria North's favorite r&um^ of his own conduct, h*; 
 stopped. The child cried, missing, no doubt, the full 
 rounded curves and plump arm of its nurse. North danced 
 it violently, with an inward accompaniment that was' not 
 musical, and thought of the other dancers. " Doubtlea^' 
 
828 THE MAN Oif THE BEACH 
 
 he mused, " she has told this, beau of hers that she has left 
 the baby with the ' looney ' Man on the Beach. Perhaps 
 I may be offered a permanent engagement as a harmless 
 simpleton accustomed to the care of children. Mothers 
 may cry for me. The doctor is at Eureka. Of course, he 
 will be there to see his untranslated goddess, and condole 
 with her over the imbecility of The Man on the Beach." 
 Once he carelessly asked Joe who the company were. 
 
 " Well," said Joe mournfully, " thar 's Widder Higsby 
 and darter ; the four Stubbs gals ; in course Polly Doble 
 will be on hand with that feller that 's clerking over at the 
 Head for Jones, and Jones's wife. Then thar 's French 
 Pete,, and Whiskey Ben, and that chap that shot Archer, — I 
 disremember his name, — and the barber — what 's that little 
 mulatto's name — that ar Kanaka ? I swow ! " continuedi 
 Joe drearily, " I '11 be forgettin' my own next — and." — 
 
 " That will do," interrupted North, only half concealing 
 Ids disgust as he rose and carried the baby to the other 
 room, beyond the reach of names that might shock its lady.- 
 like ears. The next morning he met the from-dance-return- 
 ing Bessie abstractedly, and soon took his leave, full of a 
 disloyal plan, conceived in the sleeplessness of her own 
 bedchamben He was satisfied, that he owed a duty to its 
 unknown parents to remove the child from the degrading 
 influences of the barber Kanaka, and Hank Fisher especially, 
 and he resolved to write to- his relatives, stating the case, 
 asking a home for the waif and assistance to find its parents. 
 He addressed this letter to his cousin Maria, partly in con- 
 sideration of the dramatic farewell of that young lady, and 
 its possible influence ia turning her susceptible heart towards 
 his protdgtje. He then quietly settled back to his old solitary 
 habits, and for a week left the Robinsons unvisited. The 
 result was a morning call by Trinidad Joe on the hermit. 
 " It 's a. whim of my gal's, Mr. North," he said dejectedly ; 
 " and ez 1' told you. before and warned ye, when that gal hez 
 
THE MAN ON THE BEACH 329 
 
 an idee, fower yoke of oxen and seving men can't drag -it 
 outer her. She 's got a idee o' larnin', — never hevin' hed 
 much schoolin', and we on'ytakin' the papers, permiskiss- 
 like, — and she says you can teach her — not hevin' anythin' 
 else to do. Do you folly me ? " 
 
 " Yes," said North, " certainly." 
 
 "Well, she allows ez mebbee you're proud, and didn't 
 like her takin' care of the baby for nowt; and she reckons 
 that ef you'll gin. her some book larnin', and gether to sling 
 some fancy talk in fash'n'ble style — why, she'll call it 
 squar." 
 
 " You can tell her," said North, very honestly, " that I 
 shall be only too glad to help her in any way, \^^ithout ever 
 hoping to cancel my debt of obligation to her." 
 
 " Then it 's a go ? " said the mystified Joe, with a desperate 
 attempt to convey the foregoing statement to his own in- 
 tellect in three Saxon words. 
 • "It's a-,go," replied North cheerfully. 
 
 And he felt relieved. For he was not quite satisfied with 
 his own want of frankness to her. But here was a way to 
 pay off the debt he owed her, and yst retain his own dignity. 
 And now he could tell her what he had done, and he trusted 
 to the ambitious instinct that prompted her' to seeka better 
 education to explain his reasons for it. 
 
 He saw her that evening and confessed all to her frankly. 
 She kept her head avected, but when she turned her blue 
 eyes to him they were wet with honest tears. North had a 
 man's horror of a ready feminine lachrymal gland ; but it 
 was not like Bessy to cry, and it meant something; and then 
 she did it in a large, goddess-like way, without sniffling, or 
 choking, or getting her nose red, but rather with a gentle 
 deliquescence, a harmonious melting, so that he was fain to 
 comfort her with nearer contact, gentleness in his own sad 
 eyes, and a pressure of her large hand. 
 
 " It 's all right, I s?pose," she said sadly ; " but I didn't 
 
("ISSO ' THE MAN ON THE BEAC^H 
 
 • reckon on yer havin' any relations, but thought you was 
 alone, like me.'' 
 
 James North, thinking of Hank Fisher and the " mul- 
 
 '. later," could not help intimating that his relations were 
 
 very wealthy and fashionable people, and had visited him 
 
 last summer. A recollection of the manner in which they 
 
 .'had so visited him, and his own reception of them, pre- 
 
 • vented his saying more. But Miss Bessy could not forego 
 a certain feminine curiosity, and asked, — 
 
 " Did they come with Sam Baker's team ? " 
 
 " Yes." • 
 
 "Last July?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And Sam drove the horses here for a bite ? " 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " And them 's your relations ? " 
 
 '^They are." 
 
 Miss Eobinson reached over the cradle and enfolded the 
 sleeping infant in her powerful arms. Then she lifted her 
 : eyes, wrathful through her still glittering tears, and said, 
 slowly, " They don't — have — this — child — then ! " 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " Oh, why ? /saw them ! That 's why, and enough ! 
 You can't play any such gay and festive skeletons on this 
 poor baby for flesh and blood parents. No, sir ! " 
 
 " I think you judge them hastily, Miss Bessy," said 
 ■ North, secretly amused ; " my aunt may not, at first, favora- 
 bly impress strangers, yet she has many friends. But surely 
 you do not object to my cousin Maria, the young lady ? "' 
 
 " What ! that dried cuttlefish, with nothing livin' about 
 her but her eyes ? James North, ye may be a fool like 
 the old woman, — perhaps it's in the family, — but ye ain't 
 ,a devil like that gal ! That ends it." 
 
 And it did. North dispatched a second letter to Maria, 
 :Baying. that he, had already made other arrangements for the 
 
:the man on the beach 3^1 
 
 \ baby. Pleased with her easy victory, Miss Bessy becams 
 more than usually gracious, and the next day bowed her 
 shapely neck meekly to the yoke of her teacher, and became 
 
 • a docile pupil. James North could not have helped noti- 
 cing her ready intelligence, even had he been less prejudiced 
 in her favor than he was fast becoming now. If he had 
 found it pleasant before to be admonished by her, there was 
 still more delicious flattery in her perfect trust in his omni- 
 scient skill as a pilot over this unknown sea. There was a 
 certain enjoyment in guiding her hand over the writing 
 book, that I fear he could not have obtained from an intel- 
 lect less graciously sustained by its physical nature. The 
 weeks flew quickly by on gossamer wings, and when she 
 placed a bunch of larkspurs and poppies in his hand one 
 morning, he remembered for the first time that it was 
 spring. 
 
 I cannot say that there was more to record of Miss 
 Bessy's education than this. Once North, half jestingly, 
 remarked that he had never yet seen her admirer, Mr. 
 Hank Fisher. Miss Bessy (coloring, but cool) : " You 
 never will ! " North (v^hite, but hot) : " Why ? " Miss 
 Bessy (faintly): "I'd rather not." (North resolutely): 
 " I insist." Bessy (yielding) : " As my teacher ? " North 
 (hesitatingly, at the limitation of the epithet) : " Y-e-e-s ! " 
 Bessy : " And you '11 promise never to speak of it again ? " 
 North : " Never;" Bessy (slowly) : " Well, he said I did 
 an awful thing to go over to your cabin and stay." North 
 (in the genuine simplicity of a refined nature) : " But how ? " 
 Miss Bessy (half piqued, but absolutely admiring that na- 
 ture) : " Quit ! and keep your promise ! " 
 
 They were so happy in these new relations that it oc- 
 curred to Miss Bessy one day to take James North to task 
 for obliging her to ask to be his pupil. " You knew how 
 ignorant I was," she added ; and Mr. North retorted by 
 relating to her the doctor's criticism on her independence. 
 
332 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 "To tell you the truth," he added, "I was afraid you 
 ■would not take it as kindly as he thought." 
 
 " That is, you thought me as vain as yourself. It seems 
 to me you and the doctor had a great deal to say to each 
 other." 
 
 "On the contrary," laughed North, "that was all we 
 said." 
 
 " And you did n't make fun of me ? " 
 
 Perhaps it was not necessary for North to take her hand 
 to emphasize his denial, but he did. 
 
 Miss Bessy, being still reminiscent, perhaps did-notnotice 
 it. " If it had n't been for that ar — I mean that thar — 
 no, that baby — I would n't have known you ! " she said 
 dreamily. 
 
 "No," returned North .mischievously; ■" but you still 
 would have known Hank Fisher." 
 
 No woman is perfect. Miss Bessy Jooked at him with a 
 sudden — her first and last. — flash of coquetry. Then 
 stooped and kissed — the baby. 
 
 James North was a simple gentleman, but not altogether 
 a fool. He returned the kiss, but not vicariously. 
 
 There was a footstep on the porch. These two turned 
 the hues of a dying dolphin, and then laughed. It was 
 Joe. He held a newspaper in his hand. " I reckon ye woz 
 right, Mr. North, about my takin' these yar papers reg'lar. 
 For I allow here 's suthin' that may clar up the mystery o' 
 that baby's parents." With the hesitation of a slowly 
 grappling intellect, Joe sat down on the table and read 
 from the San Francisco "Herald" as follows: "'It is 
 now ascertained beyond doubt that the wreck reported by 
 the " ^olus " was the American brig " Pompare," bound 
 hence to Tahiti. The worst surmises are found correct. 
 The body of the woman has been since identified as that 
 of the beauti-ful daughter of — ^ of — of — Terp — Terp — 
 Terpish ' — Well ! I swow that name just tackles me." 
 
THE MA.N ON THE BEACH 333 
 
 "Gin it to me, dad," said Bessy pertly. "You nevei 
 had any education, anyway. Hear your accomplished 
 daughter." With a mock bow to the new schoolmaster, 
 and a capital burlesque of a confident schoolgirl, she strode 
 to the middle of the room, -th'e paper held and folded bobk^ 
 vise in her hands. " Ahem ! Where did you leave off ? 
 Oh, ' the beautiful daughter of Terpsichore — whose name 
 was prom-i-nently connected with a mysterious social 
 scandal of last year — the gifted but unfortunate Grace 
 Chatterton ' — No — don't stop me — there 's some more ! 
 ' The body of her child, a lovely infant of six months, 
 has not been recovered, and it is supposed was washed 
 overboard.' There ! maybe that ^s the child, Mr. North. 
 Why, dad ! Look, my God ! He 's falling. Catch him, 
 dad ! Quick ! " 
 
 But her strong arm had anticipated her father's. She 
 caught him, lifted him to the bed, on which he lay hence- 
 forth for many days unconscious. Then fever supervened, 
 and delirium, and Dr. Duchesne telegraphed for his friends ; 
 but at the end of a week and the opening of a summer day 
 the storm passed, as the other storm had passed, and he 
 awoke, enfeebled, but at peace. Bessy was at his side — 
 he was glad to see — alone. " Bessy, dear," he said hesi- 
 tatingly, " when I am stronger I have something to tell 
 you." 
 
 " I know it all, Jem," she said with a trembling lip ; " I 
 heard it all — no, not from them, but from your own lips 
 in your delirium. I'm glad it came from you — even 
 then." 
 
 " Do you forgive me, Bessy ? " 
 
 She pressed her lips to his forehead, and said hastily, and 
 then falteringly, as if afraid of her impulse, — 
 
 " Yes — yes." 
 
 " And you will still be mother to the child ? "' 
 
 "« Her child ? " 
 
334 THE MAN ON THE BEACH 
 
 " No, dear, not hers, but mine ! " , 
 
 She started, cried a little, and then putting her arm 
 around him, said, " Yes." 
 
 And as there was but one way of fulfilling that sacred 
 piomise, they were married in the autumn. 
 
ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 I THINK that, from the heginning, we all knew how it 
 would end. He had always been so quiet and conventional, 
 although by nature, an impulsive man ; always so temperate 
 and abstemious, although a man with a quick appreciation 
 of pleasure ; always so cautious and practical, although an 
 imaginative man, that when, at last, one by one he loosed 
 these bands, and gave himself up to a life perhaps not 
 worse than other lives, which the world has accepted as the 
 natural expression of their various owners, we at once decided 
 that the case was a hopeless one. And when one night we' 
 picked him up out of the Union Ditch, a begrimed and 
 weather-worn drunkard, a hopeless debtor, a self-confessed 
 spendthrift, and a half-conscious maudlin imbecile, we knew 
 that the end had come. The wife he had abandoned had 
 in turn deserted him ; the woman he had misled had al- 
 ready realized her folly, and left him with her reproaches ; 
 the associates of his reckless life, who had used and abused 
 him, had found him no longer of service, or even amuse- 
 ment, and clearly there was nothing left to do but to hand 
 him over to the State, and we took him to the nearest 
 penitential asylum. Conscious of the Samaritan deed, we 
 went back to our respective wives, and told his story. It is 
 only just to say that these sympathetic creatures were more 
 interested in the philanthropy of their respective husbands 
 than in its miserable object. " It was good and kind in 
 you, dear," said loving Mrs. Maston to her spouse, as re- 
 turning home that night he flung his coat on a chair with 
 an air of fatigued righteousness ; " it was like your kind 
 
336 ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 heart to care for that heast ; but after he left that good wife 
 of his — that perfect saint — to take up with that awful wo- 
 man, I think I 'd have left him to die in the ditch. Only to 
 think of it, dear, a woman that you would n't speak to ! " 
 Here Mr. Maston coughed slightly, colored a little, mumbled • 
 something about " women not understanding some things," 
 "that men were men," etc., and then went comfortably to 
 sleep, leaving the outcast happily oblivious of all thingsj 
 and especially this criticism, locked up in Hangtown jail. 
 
 For the next twelve hours he lay there, apathetic and 
 half-conscious. Recovering from this after a while, he 
 became furious^ vengeful, and unmanageable, filling the cell 
 and corridor with maledictions of friend and enemy ; and 
 again sullen, morose, and watchful. Then he refused food, 
 and did not sleep, pacing his limits with the incessant 
 feverish tread of a caged tiger. Two physicians, diagnosing • 
 his case from the scant facts, pronounced him insane, and 
 he was accordingly transported to Sacramento. But on the 
 way thither he managed to elude the vigilance of 'his guards, 
 and escaped. The alarm was given, a hue and cry followed 
 him, the best detectives of San Francisco were on his track, 
 and finally recovered his d^ad body — emaciated and wasted 
 by exhaustion and fever- — in the Stanislaus Marshes, identi- 
 fied it, and, receiving the reWard of $1000 offered by his 
 surviving relatives and family, assisted in legally establish- 
 ing the end we had predicted. 
 
 Unfortunately for the moral, the facts were somewhat 
 inconsistent with the theory. A day or two after the remains 
 were discovered and identified, the real body of " Roger Ca- 
 tron, aged fifty-two years, slight, iron-gray hair, and shabby 
 in' apparel," as the advertisement read, dragged itself, travel- 
 worn, trembling, and disheveled, up the steep slope of 
 Deadwood Hill. How he should do it he had long since 
 determined — ever since he had hidden his derringer, a 
 mere baby pistol, from the vigilance of his keepers. Wheift 
 
ROGER CATEON'S FRISND 337 
 
 he should do it, he had settled within his mind only within 
 the last few moments. Deadwood Hill was seldom fre- 
 quented ; his body might lie there for months before it was 
 discovered. He had once thought of the river, but he 
 remembered it had an ugly way of exposing its secrets on 
 sand-bar and shallow, and that the body of Whiskey Jim, 
 bloated and disfigured almost beyond recognition, had been 
 once delivered to the eyes of Sandy Bar, before breakfast, 
 on the left bank of the' Stanislaus; He toiled i up through 
 the chemisal that 'clothed the southern slope of the hill until 
 he reached the bald, storm-scarred cap of the mountain, iron- 
 ically decked with the • picked, f eatherless plumes of a few 
 dying pines. One, stripped of' all but two lateral branches, 
 brought a boyish recollection to his fevered brain. Against 
 a background of dull sunset fire, it extended two gaunt 
 arms — black, rigid,- and pathetic. Calvary ! 
 
 With the very word upon his lips, he threw himself, face 
 downwards, on the ground beneath it, and, with his fingers 
 clutched in the soil, lay there for some moments, silent and 
 still. In this attitude, albeit a skeptic and unorthodox man, 
 he prayed. I cannot say — indeed, I dare not say — that his 
 prayer was heard, or that God visited him thus. Let us 
 rather hope that all there was of God in him, in this crucial 
 moment of agony and shame, strove outward and upward. 
 Howbeit, when the moon rose he rose too, perhaps a trifle 
 less steady than the planet, and began to descend the hill 
 with feverish haste, yet with this marked difference between 
 his present haste and his former recklessness, that it seemed ■ 
 to have a well-defined purpose. When he reached the road 
 again, he struck into a well-worn trail,' where, in the distance, 
 a light faintly twinkled. Following this beacon, he kept on, 
 ind at last flung himself heavily against the door of the 
 little cabin from whose window the light had shone. As he 
 did so, it opened upon the figure of a square, thickset man, 
 who, in the impetuosity of Catron's onset, received him, 
 literally, in his arms. 
 
33.8 ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 /'Captain Dick," Sijid Eoger Catron hoarsely, — '^Cap- 
 tain Dick, save me ! For God's sake, save me ! " 
 
 .Captain Dick, without a word, placed a large, protect: 
 ing hand upon Catron's shoulder, allowed it to slip to his 
 waist, and then drew his visitor quietly, but firmly, within 
 the cabin. Yet, in the very movement, he had managed 
 to., gently and unobtrusively possess himself of Catron's 
 pistol. 
 
 " Save ye ! From which ? " asked Ciptain Dick, as 
 quietly and unobtrusively dropping the derringer in a 
 flour sack. : 
 
 -"From everything," gasped Catron ;." from the men that 
 are hounding me, from my family, from my friends, but 
 most of all — from, from — myself ! " 
 
 ,:He had, in turn, grasped Captain Dick, and forced him 
 
 frenziedly against the wall. The Captain released himself, 
 
 and, taking the hands of his excited visitor, said slowly, — 
 
 " Ye want some blue mass — suthin' to onload your 
 
 liyer. I '11 get it up for ye." 
 
 " But, Captain Dick, I 'm an outcast, shamed, disr 
 graced " — 
 
 " Two on them pills taken now, and two in the morning," 
 continued the Captain gravely, rolling a bolus in his 
 fingers, " will bring yer head to the wind again. Yer 
 fallin' to leeward all the time, and ye want to brace up." 
 
 " But, Captain," continued the agonized man, again 
 clutching the sinewy arms of his host, and forcing his livid 
 fade and fixed eyes within a few inches of Captain Dick's; 
 " hear me ! You must and shall hear me. ■ I 've been in 
 jail — do you hear ? — in jail, like a common felon. I 've 
 been sent to the asylum, like a demented pauper. I 've " — ; 
 
 ." Two now, and two in the morning," continued the 
 Captain quietly, releasing one hand only to place two enor- 
 mous pills in the mouth of the excited Catron. " Thar now 
 — ,a drink o' whiskey ^-thar, that '11 do — just enough to take, 
 
BOGER CATRON'S FRIEND 339 , 
 
 tjie taste out of.yer mouth, wash it down, and belay it, so 
 to speak. And how are the mills running, gin'rally, over at 
 the Bar?" 
 
 " Captain Dick, hear me — if you are my friend, for God's 
 sake hear me ! An hour ago I should have been a dead 
 man " — 
 
 " They say that Sam Bolin hez sold out of the 'Excel- 
 sior ' " — 
 
 " Captain Dick ! Listen, for God'p sake ; I have 
 suffered " — 
 
 But Captain Dick was engaged in critically examining 
 his man. " I guess T '11 ladle ye out some o' that sootbiu' 
 mixture I bought down at Simpson's t' other day," he said 
 reflectively. " And I onderstood the boys up on the Bar, 
 thinks the rains will set in airly." 
 
 , But here Nature was omnipotent. Worn by exhaus- 
 tion, excitement, and fever, and possibly a little affected 
 by Captain Dick's later potion, Roger Catron turned white, 
 and lapsed against the wall. In an instant Captain Dick 
 had caught him, as a child, lifted him in his stalwart arms, 
 wrapped a blanket around him, and deposited him in his 
 bunk. Yet, even in his prostration, Catron made one more 
 despairing appeal for mental sympathy from his host. 
 
 I "I know I 'm sick — dying,, perhaps," he gasped, from 
 under- the blankets ; " but promise me, whatever comes, 
 tell my wife — say to " — 
 
 "It has been lookin' consid'ble like rain, lately, here : 
 abouts," continued the , Captain coolly, in a kind of am- 
 phibious slang, characteristic of the man; "but in these' 
 yer latitudes no man kin set up to be a weather-sharp." 
 
 " Captain ! will you hear me ? " 
 
 " Yer goin' to sleep now," said the Captain potentially. 
 
 "But, Captain, they are pursuing me! If they should^ -. 
 track me here ? " 
 
 " Thar is a rifle over thar, and yer 's my navy revolver, 
 
340 EOGEE CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 When I've emptied them, and want you to bear a hand 
 I '11 call ye. Just now your lay is to turn in. It 's my 
 watch." 
 
 There was something so positive, strong; assuring, and 
 Br little awesome in the Captain's manner that the trembling, 
 nervously prostrated man beneath the blankets forbore to 
 question further. In a few minutes his breathing, albeit 
 hurried and irregular, announced that he slept. The Cap- 
 tain th€n arose, for a moment critically examined the 
 sleeping man, holding his head a little on one sidfe,' whistling 
 softly, and stepping backwards to get a good perspective, 
 but always with contemplative good humorj as if Catron 
 were a work of art, which he (the Captain) had created, yet 
 one that he was not yet entirely satisfied with. Then he 
 put a large pea-jacket over his flannel blouse, dragged a 
 Mexican serape from the comer, and putting it over his 
 shoulders, opened the cabin door, sat down on the door- 
 step, and leaning back against the doorpost, composed 
 himself to meditation. The moon lifted herself slowly 
 over the crest of Deadwood Hill, and looked down, not 
 unkindly, on his broad, white, shaven face, round and 
 sihooth as her own disc, encircled with a thin fringe of 
 white hair and whiskers. Indeed, he looked so like the 
 prevailing caricatures in a comic almanac of planets; with 
 dimly outlined features, that the moon would have been 
 quite justified in flirting with him, as she clearly did, 
 insinuating a twinkle into his keen, gray eyes, making the 
 shadow of a dimple on his broad, fat chin, and otherwise 
 idealizing him after the fashion of her hero-worshiping 
 sex. Touched by these benign influences. Captain Dick 
 presently broke forth in melody. His song was various, 
 but chiefly, I think, confined to the recital of the exploits 
 of one "Lorenzo," who, as related by himself — 
 
 " Shipped on hoard of a Liner, 
 'Renzo, boys, 'Renzo," — 
 
ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 341 
 
 a fact that seemed to have deprived him at once of all 
 metre, grammar, or even the power of coherent narrative. 
 At times a groan or a half-articulate cry would come from 
 the "bunk" whereon Roger Catron lay, — a circumstance 
 that always seemed to excite Captain Dick- to greater effort 
 and more rapid vocalization. Toward morning, in the midst 
 of a prolonged howl from the Captain, who was finishing 
 the "Starboard Watch, Ahoy!" in three different keys, 
 Roger Catron's voice broke suddenly and sharply from his 
 enwrappings, — 
 
 " Dry up, you d— d old fool, will you ? " 
 Captain Dick .stopped instantly. Rising to his feet, and 
 looking over the landscape, he took all Nature into his con- 
 fidence in one inconceivably arch and crafty wink. " He 'a 
 coming up to the wind," he said softly, rubbing his hands. 
 "The pills is fetchin' him. Steady now, boys, steady. 
 Steady as she goes on her course," and with another wink 
 of ineffable wisdom, he entered the cabin and locked the 
 door. 
 
 Meanwhile, the best society of Sandy Bar was kind to 
 the newly made widow. Without being definitely expressed, 
 it was generally felt that sympathy with her was now safe, 
 and carried no moral responsibility with it. Even practical 
 and pecuniary aid, which before had been withheld, lest it 
 should be diverted from its proper intent, and perhaps, 
 through the weakness of the wife, made to minister to the 
 wickedness of the husband — even that was now openly 
 suggested. Everybody felt that somebody should dc some- 
 thing for the widow. A few did it. Her own sex rallied 
 to her side, generally with large sympathy, but, unfor- 
 tunately, small pecuniary or practical result. At last, when 
 the feasibility of her taking a boarding-house in San Fran 
 Cisco, and identifying herself with thatlarge class of Ameri- 
 can gentlewomen who have seen better days, but clearly ' 
 
■342 ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 are on the road never to see them again, was suggested,. 8 
 few of her own and her husband's rich relatives came to 
 the front to rehabilitate her. It was easier to take her into 
 their homes as an equal, than to refuse to call upon her as 
 the mistress of a lodging-house in the adjoining street. And 
 upon inspection it was found that she was still quite an 
 eligible partie, prepossessing, and withal, in her widow's 
 weeds, a kind of poetical and sentimental presence, as ne- 
 cessary in a wealthy and fashionable American family as 
 a work of art. " Yes, poor Caroline has had a sad, sad his- 
 tory," the languid Mrs. Walker Catron would say, " and 
 we all sympathize with her deeply ; Walker always regards 
 her as a sister." What was this dark history never came 
 out, but its very mystery always thrilled the visitor, and 
 seemed to indicate plainly the respectability of the hostess. 
 An American family without a genteel skeleton in its 
 closet could scarcely add to that gossip which keeps society 
 from forgetting its members. Nor was it altogether unnat- 
 ural that presently Mrs. Eoger Catron lent herself to this 
 sentimental deception, and began to think that she really 
 was a more exquisitely aggrieved woman than she imagined. 
 At times, when this vague load of iniquity put upon her 
 dead hvisband assumed, through the mystery of her friends, 
 the rumor of murder and highway robbery, and even an 
 attempt upon her own life, she went to her room, a little 
 frightened, and had " a good cry," reappearing more mourn- 
 ful and pathetic than ever, and corroborating the suspicions 
 of her friends. Indeed, one or two impulsive gentlemen, 
 fired by her pathetic eyelids, openly regretted that the 
 deceased had not' been hanged ; to which Mrs. Walker Catron 
 responded that, " Thank Heaven, they were spared at least 
 that disgrace ! " and so sent conviction into the minds of 
 her hearers. 
 
 It was scarcely two months after this painful close of 
 •her matrimonial life that one rainy February morning the 
 
EOGEK CATRON'S FRIEND 3'43 
 
 servant brought a card to Mrs. Eoger Catron, bearing the 
 following inscription : — 
 
 " Richard Graeme Macleod." 
 
 Women are more readily affected by names than we are, 
 and there was a certain Highland respectability about this 
 that, albeit not knowing its possessor, impelled Mrs. Catron 
 to send word that she " would be down in a few moments." 
 At the end of this femininely indefinite period — a quarter 
 of an hour by the French clock on the mantlepiece — Mrs. 
 Roger Catron made her appearance in the reception-room. 
 It was a dull, wet day, as I have said before, but on the 
 Contra Costa hills the greens and a few flowers were already 
 showing a promise of rejuvenescence and an early spring. 
 There was something of this, I think, in Mrs. Catron's 
 presence, shown perhaps in the coquettish bow of a ribbon, 
 in a larger and more delicate ruche, in a tighter belting of 
 her black cashmere gown ; but still there was a suggestion 
 of recent rain in the eyes, and threatening weather. As 
 she entered the room, the sun came out, too, and revealed 
 the prettiness and delicacy of her figure, and I regret to 
 state, also, the somewhat obtrusive plainness of her visitor. 
 
 "I knew ye'd be sorter disapp'inted at first, not gettin' 
 the regular bearings o' my name, but I 'm ' Captain Dick.' 
 Mebbee ye 've heard your husband — that is, your husband 
 ez waz, Eoger Catron — speak o' me ? " 
 
 Mrs. Catron, feeling herself outraged and deceived in 
 belt, ruche, and ribbon, freezingly admitted that she had 
 heard of him before. 
 
 " In course," said the Captain ; " why. Lord love ye, Mrs. 
 Catron — ez waz — he used to be all the time talkin' of 
 ye. And allers in a free, easy, confidential way. Why, one 
 night — don't ye remember ? — when he came home, car- 
 ryin', mebbee, more canvas than was seamanlike, and you 
 shet him out the house, and laid for him with a broomstick, 
 or one o' them crokay mallets, I disremember which, and 
 
844 EOGEK CATEON'S FRIEND 
 
 he kem over to me, ole Captain Dick, and I sez to him, sea 
 I, ' Why, Roger, them ''s only love pats, and yer condishun 
 is such ez to make any woman mad-like.' Why, Lord 
 hless ye ! there ain't enny of them mootool differences you 
 and him hed ez I doesn't knows on, and didn't always 
 stand by, and lend ye a hand, and heave in a word or two 
 of advice when called on." 
 
 Mrs. Catron, ice everywhere but in her pink cheeks, was 
 glad that Mr. Catron seemed to have always a friend to 
 whom he confided everything, even ithe base falsehoods he 
 had invented. 
 
 " Mebbee now they w;a« falsehoods," said theCaptain 
 thoughtfully. " But don't ye go to think,'' he added con- 
 scientiously, " that he kept on that tack all the time. Why 
 that day he made a raise, gambling, I think, over at Dutch 
 Flat, and give ye them bracelets — regular solid gold — 
 why, it would have done your heart good to have heaid 
 him talk about you — said you had the prettiest arm in 
 Californy. Well," said the Captain, looking around for a 
 suitable climax, — " well, you 'd have thought that he was 
 sorter proud of ye ! Why, I woz with him in' 'Frisco when 
 he bought that K 1 prize bonnet for ye for $75, and not 
 hevin' over $50 in his pocket, borryed the other $25 outer 
 me. Mebbee it was a little fancy for a bonnet ; but I 
 allers thought he took it a little too much to heart when 
 you swopped it off for that Dollar Varden dress, just 
 because that Lawyer Maxwell said the Dollar Vardens was 
 becomin' to ye. Ye know, I reckon, he was always sorter 
 jealous of that thar shark " — 
 
 " May I venture to ask what your business is with me ? '* 
 interrupted Mrs. Catron sharply. 
 
 " In courpe," said the Captain, rising. " Ye -see," he 
 said apologetically, " we got to talking o' Roger and ole 
 times, and I got a little out o' my course. It 's a matter 
 of " — ^^he began io fumble in ;his pockets, and finally pro- 
 
E'OGER CATKOIT'S FRIEND 345 
 
 duced a small memorandiim-book, which he glanced over 
 — " it 's a matter of $260." 
 
 "I don't understand you," said Mrs. Catron, in indig- 
 nant astonishment. 
 
 " On the 15th of July," said the Captain, consulting his 
 memorandum-book, " Roger sold his claim at Nye's Ford 
 for $1500. Now, le' 's see. Thar was nigh on $350 ez he 
 admitted to me he lost at poker, and we '11 add $50 to that 
 for treating, supper, and drinks gin'rally — put Roger down 
 for $400. Then there was you. Now you spent $250 on 
 your trip to 'Frisco thet summer ; then $200 went for them 
 presents you sent your Aunt Jane, and thar was $400 for 
 house expenses. Well, thet foots up $1250; Now, what 's 
 become of thet other $250 ? " 
 
 Mrs. Catron's woman's impulse to retaliate sharply over:- 
 came her first natural indignation at her visitor's impudenca 
 Therein she lost, womanlike, her vantage. 
 
 "Perhaps the woman he fled with can tell you," she said 
 savagely. 
 
 " Thet," said the' Captain slowly, " is a good, a reason- 
 able idee. But it ain't true ; from all I can gather she lent 
 him money. It did n't go thar." 
 
 " Roger. Catron left me penniless," said Mrs. Gatron 
 hotly. 
 
 " Thet 's jist what gets me. You oughter have $250 
 somewhar lying' round." 
 
 Mrs. Catron saw her error. " May I ask what right yon 
 have to question me ? If you have any, I must, refer you 
 to my lawyer or my brother-in-law ; if you have none, I 
 hope you will not oblige me to call the servants to put you 
 from the house." 
 
 " Thet sounds reasonable and square, too," said the 
 Captain thoughtfully. "I've a power of attorney from 
 Roger Catron to settle up his affairs and pay his debts, 
 given a week afore them detectives handed ye over hia 
 
B46 ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 dead body. But 1 thought that you and me might save' 
 lawyer's fees and all fuss and feathers, ef, in a sociable, sad--- 
 like way — lookin' back sorter on Roger ez you and: me 
 once knew him — we had a quiet talk together." 
 
 " Good - morning, sir," said Mrs. Catron, rising stiffly. 
 The Captain hesitated a moment ; a slight flush of color 
 came in his face as he at last rose as the lady backed out^ 
 of the room. " Good-morning, ma'am," said the Captain, 
 and departed. 
 
 Very little was known of this interview except the general 
 impression in the family that Mrs. Catron had successfully 
 resisted a vague attempt at blackmail from one of her 
 husband's former dissolute companions. Yet it is only fair 
 to say that Mrs. Catron snapped up, quite savagely, two 
 male sympathizers on this subject, and cried a good deal 
 for two days afterward, and once, in the hearing of her 
 sister-in-law, to that lady's great horror, " wished she was 
 dead." 
 
 A week after this interview, as Lawyer Phillips sat in his 
 cffice, he was visited by Macleod. Recognizing, possibly, 
 some practical difference between the widow and the 
 lawyer, Captain Dick this time first produced his creden- , 
 tials, — a " power of attorney." " I need not tell you," said 
 Phillips, " that the death of your principal renders this ; 
 instrument invalid, and I suppose you know that, leaving 
 no will and no property, his estate has not been admin- 
 istered upon." 
 
 " Mebbee it is, and mebbee it isn't. But I hain't askin' 
 for anythin' but information. There was a bit o' prop'ty 
 and a mill onto it, over at Heavytree, ez sold for $10,000. 
 E don't see," said the Captain, consulting his memorandum- 
 book, " ez he got anything out of it." 
 
 " It was mortgaged for $7000," said the lawyer quickly, 
 ** and the interest and fees amount to about $3000 more." 
 '; " The mortgage was given as security for a note ? " j 
 
EOGEE CATKON'S FRIEND 347' 
 
 " Yes, a gambling debt," said the lawyer sharply. 
 
 " Thet 's so, and my belief ez that it was n't a squai€ 
 game. He shouldn't hev given no note. Why, don't ye 
 mind, 'way back in '60, when you and me waz in Marys- 
 ville, that night that you buckgd agin faro, and lost seving 
 hundred dollars, and then refoosed to take up your checks, 
 saying it was a fraud and gambling debt ? And don't ye 
 mind when that chap kicked ye, and I helped to- drag him ■ 
 off ye — and " — 
 
 " I 'm busy now, Mr. Macleod," said Phillips hastily ; 
 ". my clerk will give you all the information you require. 
 Crood-morning." 
 
 " It 's mighty queer," said the Captain thoughtfully, as 
 he descended the stairs, " but the moment the conversation 
 gets limber and sociable-like, and I gets to runnin' free 
 under easy sail, it 's always ' Good-morning, Captain,' and 
 we 're becalmed." 
 
 By some occult influence, however, all the foregoing con- 
 versation, slightly exaggerated, and the whole interview of . 
 the Captain with the widow, with sundry additions, became 
 the common property of Sandy Bar, to the great delight of 
 the boys. There was scarcely a person who had ever 
 had business or social relation with Roger Catron, whom. 
 " The Frozen Truth," as Sandy Bar delighted to designate 
 the Captain, had not " interviewed," as simply and directly. 
 It is said that he closed a conversation with one of the San 
 Francisco detectives, who had found Eoger Catron's body, 
 in these words : " And now hevin' got throo bizness, I was 
 goin' to ask ye what 's gone of Mat Jones, who was with 
 ye in the bush in Austraily. Lord, how he got me quite 
 interested in ye, telling me how you and him got out on a 
 ticket-of-leave, and was chased by them milishy guards, and 
 at last swam out to a San Francisco bark and escaped ; " - 
 hut here the inevitable pressure of previous business always, 
 stopped the Captain's conversational flow. The natural; 
 
WS ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 result of this was a singular reaction in favoT of the late 
 Roger Catron in the public sentiment of Sandy Bar, so 
 strong, indeed, as to induce the E,ev. Mr. Joshua M'Snagly, 
 the next Sunday, to combat it with the moral of Catron's 
 life. After the service, he was approached in the vestibule, 
 and in the hearing of some of his audience, by Captain 
 Dick, with the following compliment : " In many p'ints ye 
 bed jess got Koger Catron down to a hair. I knew ye 'd 
 do it. Why, Lord love ye, you and him- had p'ints in 
 common; and when he giv' ye that hundred dollars arter 
 the fire in Sacramento, to help ye rebuild the parsonage, 
 he said to me — me not likin' ye on account o' my being 
 on the committee that invited ye to resign from Marysville 
 all along o' that affeiir with Deacon Pursell's diarter ; and a 
 piece she was, parson' ! eh ? — well, Koger, he ups and sez 
 to me, ' Every man hez- his faults,? sez he ; and, sez he, 
 * there 's no reason why a parson ain't a human being like 
 us, and that gal o' Pursell 's iis pizen, ez I know.' So ye 
 see, I seed that ye was hittin' yourself over Catron's 
 shoulder, like them early martyrs." But here, as Captain 
 Dick was clearly blocking up all egress from the church, 
 the sexton obliged him to move on, and again he was 
 stopped in his conversational career. 
 
 But only for a time. Before long, it was whispered 
 that Captain Dick had ordered a meeting of the creditors, 
 debtors,, and friends of Roger Catron at Robinson's Hall. 
 It was suggested, with some show of reason, that this had 
 been done at the instigation of various practical jokers of 
 Sandy Bar, who had imposed on the simple' directness of 
 the Captain, and the attendance that night certainly indi- 
 cated something more than a mere business meeting; All of 
 Sandy Bar crowded into Robinson's Hall, and' long before 
 Captain Dick made his appearance on the platform, with 
 his inevitable memorandum-book, every inch of floor was 
 crowded. 
 
ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 349 
 
 The Captain began to read the expenditures of Roger 
 Catron witli relentless fidelity of detail. The several losses 
 by poker, the whiskey bills, and the record of a," jamboree " 
 at Tooley's, the vague expenses whereof footed up $275, 
 were received with enthusiastic cheers by the audience. A 
 single milliner's bill for $125 was hailed with delight; 
 $100 expended in treating the Vestal Virgin Combination 
 Troupe almost canonized hia memory ; $50 for a simple 
 Duggy ride with Deacon Fisk brought down the house; 
 $500 advanced, without security and unpaid, for the elec- 
 tioneering expenses of Assemblyman Jones, who had re- 
 cently introduced a bill to prevent gambling and the sale 
 of lager beer on Sundays, was received with an ominous 
 groan. One or two other items of money loaned occasioned 
 the withdrawal of several gentlemen from the audience 
 amidst the hisses or ironical cheers of the others. 
 
 At last Captain Dick stopped and advanced to the foot- 
 lights. 
 
 " Gentlemen and friends," he said slowly ; "I foots up 
 $25,000 as Roger Catron hez made, fa'r and square, in this 
 yer county. I foots up $27,000 ez he has spent in this yer 
 county. I puts it to you ez men — fa'r-minded men — ef 
 this man was a pauper and debtor ? I put it to you ez fa'r- 
 minded men — ez free and easy men — ez political economists 
 — ez this the kind of men to impoverish a county ? " 
 
 An overwhelming and instantaneous " No ! " almost 
 drowned the last utterance of the speaker. 
 
 " Thar is only one item," said Captain Dick slowly, 
 " only one item, that ez men — ez fa'r-minded men — ez 
 political economists — it seems to me we hez the right to 
 question. It 's this : Thar is an item, read to you by me, 
 . of $2000 paid to certing San Francisco detectives, paid out 
 o' the assets o' Roger Catron, for the finding of Roger 
 Catron's body. Gentlemen of Sandy Bar and friends, 1 
 found that body, and yer it is ! " 
 
350 ROGER CATRON'S FRIEND 
 
 And Koger Catron, a little pale and nervous, but pal- 
 pably in the flesh, stepped upon the platform. • 
 
 Of course the newspapers were full of it the next day. 
 Of course, in due time, it appeared as a garbled and romantic 
 item in the San Francisco press. Of course Mrs. Catron, 
 on reading it, fainted, and for two days said that this last 
 cruel blow ended all relations between her husband and 
 herself.' On the third day she expressed her belief that, if 
 he had had the slightest feeling for her he would long since, 
 for the sake of mere decency, have communicated with her. 
 On the fourth day she thought she had been, perhaps, badly 
 advised, had an open quarrel with her relatives, and inti- 
 mated that a wife had certain obligations, etc. On the sixth 
 day, still not hearing from him, she quoted Scripture, spoke 
 of a seventy-times-seven forgiveness, and went generally into 
 mild hysterics. On the seventh, she left in the morning 
 train for Sandy Bar. 
 
 And really I don't know as I have anything more to tell, 
 I dined with them recently, and, upon my word, a more 
 decorous, correct, conventional, and dull dinner I never ate 
 in my life. 
 
"JINNY" 
 
 I THINK that the few who were permitted to know an^ 
 love the object of this sketch spent the rest of their days, 
 not only in an attitude of apology for having at first failed 
 to recognize her higher nature, but of remorse that they 
 should have ever lent a credulous ear to a priori tradition 
 concerning her family characteristics. She had not escaped 
 that calumny which she shared with the rest of her sex for 
 those youthful follies, levities, and indiscretions which be- 
 long to immaturity. It is very probable that the firmness 
 , that distinguished her maturer will in youth might have 
 been taken for obstinacy, that her nice discrimination might 
 at the same period have been taken for adolescent caprice, 
 and that the positive expression of her quick intellect might 
 have been thought youthful impertience before her years 
 had won respect for her j udgment. 
 
 She was foaled at Indian Creek, and one month later, 
 when she was brought over to Sawyer's Bar, was considered 
 the smallest donkey ever seen in the foothills. The legend 
 that she was brought over in one of " Dan the Quart" 
 Crusher's " boots required corroboration from that gentle 
 man ; but his denial being evidently based upon a masculinu 
 vanity regarding the size of his foot rather than a desire to 
 be historically accurate, it went for nothing. It is certain 
 that for the next two months she occupied the cabin of 
 Dan, until, perhaps incensed at this and other scandals, she 
 one night made her way out. " I had n't the least idee wot 
 woz cpniin'," said Dan ; " but about midnight I seemed to 
 hear hail onto the roof, and a shower of rocks and stones 
 
352 "JINNY" 
 
 like to a blast started in the canon. When I got up and 
 struck a light, thar was suthin' like onto a cord o' kindlin' 
 wood and splinters Avhar she 'd stood asleep, and a hole in 
 the side o' the shanty, and — no Jinny ! Lookin' at them 
 hoofs o' hern — and mighty porty they is to look at, too — 
 you would allow she could do it ! " I fear that this per- 
 formance laid the foundation of her later infelicitous reputa- 
 tion, and perhaps awakened in her youthful brea^ a mis- 
 placed ambition, and an emulation which might at that time 
 have been diverted into a nobler channel. For the fame of 
 this juvenile performance — and its possible promise in the 
 future — brought at once upon her the dangerous flattery 
 and attention of the whole camp. Under intelligently di- 
 rected provocation she would repeat her misguided exercise, 
 until most of the scanty furniture of the cabin was reduced 
 to a hopeless wreck, and sprains and callosities were devel- 
 oped upon the limbs of her admirers. Yet even at this 
 early stage of her history, that penetrating intellect which 
 was in after years her dominant quality was evident to all. 
 She could not be made to kick at quartz tailings, at a barrel 
 of Boston crackers, or at the head or shin of "Nigger Pete." 
 An artistic discrimination economized her surplus energy. 
 " Ef you '11 notiss," said Dan, with a large parental softnes.s, 
 " she never lets herself out to oust like them mules or any 
 jackass ez I 've heerd of, but kinder holds herself in, and, 
 BO to speak, takes her bearings — sorter feels round gently 
 with that off foot, takes her distance and her rest, and then 
 with that ar foot hoverin' round in the air softly, like an 
 angel's wing, and a gentle, dreamy kind o' look in them 
 eyes, she lites out ! Don't ye. Jinny ? Thar ! jist ez I 
 told ye," continued Dan, with an artist's noble forgetful- 
 ness of self, as he slowly crawled from the splintered ruin 
 of the barrel on which he had been sitting. " Thar ! did 
 ye ever see the like ? Did ye dream that all the while I 
 was talkin' she was a-meditatin' that ? " 
 
"jinny" 353 
 
 The same artistic perception and noble reticence distin- 
 guished her bray. It was one of which a less sagaciout 
 animal would have been foolishly vain or osteutatiouslj 
 prodigal. It was a contralto of great compass and pro- 
 fundity — reaching from a low G to high C — perhaps a 
 trifle stronger in the lower register, and not altogether free 
 from a nasal falsetto in the upper. Daring and brilliant as 
 it was in the middle notes, it was perhaps more musically 
 remarkable for its great sustaining power. The element of 
 surprise always entered into the hearer's enjoyment; long 
 after any ordinary strain of human origin would have 
 ceased, faint echoes of Jinny's last note were perpetually 
 recurring. But it was as an intellectual and moral expres- 
 sion that her bray was perfect. As far beyond her size as 
 were her aspirations, it was a free and running commentary 
 of scorn at all created things extant, with ironical and sar- 
 donic additions that were terrible. It reviled all human 
 endeavor, it quenched all sentiments, it suspended frivolity, 
 it scattered reverie, it paralyzed action. It was omnipotent. 
 More wonderful and characteristic than all, the very exist- 
 ence of this tremendous organ was unknown to the camp 
 for six months after the arrival of its modest owner, and 
 only revealed to them under circumstances that seemed to 
 point more conclusively than ever to her rare discretion. 
 
 It was the beginning of a warm night and the middle of 
 a heated political discussion. Sawyer's Bar had gathered 
 in force at the Crossing, and by the light of flaring pine 
 torches, cheered and applauded the rival speakers who from 
 a rude platform addressed the excited multitude. Partisan 
 spirit at that time ran high in the foothills ; crimination 
 and recrimination, challenge, reply, accusation, and retort had 
 already inflamed the meeting, and Colonel Bungstarter, after 
 a withering review of his opponent's policy, culminated 
 with a personal attack upon the career and private char- 
 acter of the eloquent and chivalrous Colonel Culpeppei 
 
354 " JINNY " 
 
 Starbottle of Siskiyou. That eloquent and chivalrous gen- 
 tleman was known to be present ; it was rumored that the 
 attack was expected to provoke a challenge from Colonel 
 Starbottle which would give Bungstartsr the choice of 
 weapons, and deprive Starbottle of his advantage as a dead- 
 shot. It was whispered also that the sagacious Starbottle, 
 aware of this fact, would retaliate in kind so outrageously 
 as to leave Bungstarter no recourse but to demand satisfac- 
 tion on the spot. As Colonel Starbottle rose, the eager 
 crowd drew together, elbowing each other in rapt and 
 ecstatic expectancy. " He can't get even on Bungstarter, 
 onless he allows his sister ran off with a nigger, or that he 
 put up his grandmother at draw-poker and lost her," whis- 
 pered the Quartz Crusher ; " kin he ? " All ears wera 
 alert, particularly the very long and hairy ones just rising 
 above the railing of the speaker's platform ; for Jinny, hav- 
 ing a feminine distrust of solitude and a fondness for show, 
 had followed her master to the meeting, and had insinuated 
 herself upon the platform, where way was made for her 
 with that frontier courtesy always extended to her age and 
 sex. 
 
 Colonel Starbottle, stertorous and purple, advanced to 
 the railing. There he unbuttoned his collar and laid his 
 neckcloth aside ; then with his eye fixed on his antagonist 
 he drew off his blue frock-coat, and thrusting one hand into 
 his ruffled shirt-front, and raising the other to the dark can- 
 opy above him, he opened, his vindictive lips. The action, 
 the attitude, were Starbottle's. But the voice was not. 
 For at that supreme moment, a bray — so profound, so ap- 
 palling, so utterly soul-subduing, so paralyzing that every- 
 thing else sank to mere insignificance beside it — filled 
 woods and sky and air. For a moment only the multitude 
 gasped in speechless astonishment, — it was a moment only, 
 — and then the welkin roared with their shouts. In vain- 
 silence was commanded, in vain Colonel Starbottle, with a 
 
" JINNY " 353 
 
 ghastly smile, remarked that he recognized in the interrup 
 tion the voice and intellect of the opposition ; the laugh 
 continued, the more as it was discovered that Jinny had 
 not yet finished, and was still recurring to her original 
 theme. " Gentlemen," gasped Starbottle, " any attempt by 
 [Hee-haw! from Jinny] brutal buffoonery to restrict the 
 right of free speech to all [a prolonged assent from Jinny] 
 is worthy only the dastardly " — but here a diminuendo so 
 long drawn as to appear a striking imitation of the Colonel's 
 own apoplectic sentences drowned his voice with shrieks of 
 laughter. 
 
 It must not be supposed that during this performance a 
 vigorous attempt was not made to oust Jinny from the 
 platform. But all in vain. Equally demoralizing in either 
 extremity, Jinny speedily cleared a circle with her flying 
 hoofs, smashed the speaker's table and water pitcher, sent 
 the railing flying in fragments over the cheering crowd, and 
 only succumbed to two blankets, in which, with her head 
 concealed, she was finally dragged, half captive, half victor, 
 from the field. Even then a muffled and supplemental 
 bray that came from the woods at intervals drew half the 
 crowd away and reduced the other half to mere perfunc- 
 tory hearers. The demoralized meeting was adjourned ; 
 Colonel Starbottle's withering reply remained unuttered, 
 and the Bungstarter party were triumphant. 
 
 Por the rest of the evening Jinny was the heroine of the 
 hour, but no cajolery nor flattery could induce her to again 
 exhibit her powers. In vain did Dean of Angel's extem- 
 porize a short harangue in the hope that Jinny would be 
 tempted to reply ; in vain was every provocation offered 
 that might sting her sensitive nature to eloquent revolt. 
 She replied only with her heels. Whether or not this was 
 simple caprice, or whether she was satisfied with her maiden 
 effort, or indignant at her subsequent treatment, she re- 
 mained silent. " She made her little game," said Danj 
 
356 "JINNY" 
 
 who was a political adherent of Starbottle's, and who yet 
 from that day enjoyed the great speaker's undying hatred ; 
 " and even if me and her don't agree on politics — you let 
 her alone." Alas, it would have been well for Dan if he 
 could have been true to his instincts, hut the offer of one 
 hundred dollars from the Bungstarter party proved too 
 tempting. She passed irrevocably from his hands into 
 those of the enemy. But any reader of these lines will, I 
 trust, rejoice to hear that this attempt to restrain free 
 political expression in the foothills failed signally. For, 
 although she was again covertly introduced on the platform 
 by the Bungstarters, and placed face to face with Colonel 
 Starbottle at Murphy's Camp, she was dumb. Even a 
 brass band failed to excite her emulation. Either she had 
 become disgusted with politics, or the higher prices paid by 
 the party to other and less effective speakers aroused her 
 jealousy and shocked her self-esteem, but she remained a 
 passive spectator. When the Hon. Sylvester Roui'back, 
 who received, for the use of his political faculties for a 
 single night, double the sum for which she was purchased 
 outright, appeared on the same platform with herself, she 
 forsook it hurriedly and took to the woods. Here she 
 might have starved but for the intervention of one M'Carty, 
 a poor market-gardener, who found her, and gave her food 
 and shelter under the implied contract that she should 
 forsake politics and go to work. The latter she for a long 
 time resisted, but as she was considered large enough by 
 this time to draw a cart, M'Carty broke her to single 
 harness, with a severe fracture of his leg and the loss of 
 four teeth and a small spring wagon. At length, when she 
 could be trusted to carry his wares to Murphy's Camp, and 
 could be checked from entering a shop with the cart at- 
 tached to her — a fact of which she always affected perfect 
 disbelief — her education was considered as complete as 
 that of the average Californian donkey. It was still unsafe 
 
" JINNY " 357 
 
 to leave her alone, as she disliked solitude, and always 
 made it a point to join any group of loungers with her un- 
 necessary cart, and even to follow some good-looking miner 
 to his cabin. The first time this peculiarity was discovered 
 by her owner was on his return to the street after driving 
 a bargain within the walls of the Temperance Hotel. Jinny 
 was nowhere to be seen. Her devious course, however, 
 was pleasingly indicated by vegetables that strewed the 
 road until she was at last tracked to the veranda of the 
 Arcade saloon, where she was found looking through the 
 window at a game of euchre, and only deterred by the 
 impeding cart from entering the building. A visit one 
 Sunday to the little Catholic chapel at French Camp, where 
 she attempted to introduce an antiphonal service and the 
 cart, brought shame and disgrace upon her unlucky master. 
 For the cart contained freshly gathered vegetables, and the 
 fact that M'Carty had been Sabbath-breaking was painfully 
 evident. Father Sullivan was quick to turn an incident 
 that provoked only the risibilities of his audience into a 
 moral lesson. " It 's the poor dumb beast that has a 
 more Christian sowl than Michael," he commented ; but 
 here Jinny assented so positively that they were fain to 
 drag her away by main force. 
 
 To her eccentric and thoughtless youth succeeded a calm, 
 maturity, in which her conservative sagacity was steadily 
 developed. She now worked for her living, subject, how- 
 ever, to a nice discrimination by which she limited herself 
 to a certain amount of work, beyond which neither threats, 
 beatings, nor cajoleries would force her. At certain hours 
 she would start for the stable with or without the in- 
 cumbrances of the cart or Michael, turning two long and deaf 
 ears on all expostulation or entreaty. " Now, God be good to 
 me," said Michael, one day, picking himself out from a djtch 
 as he gazed sorrowfully after the flying heels of Jinny, " but 
 it 's only the second load of cabbages I 'm bringin' the day,- 
 
358 "JINNY" 
 
 and if she 's shtruck now, it 's ruined I am entoirely." But 
 he was mistaken ; after two hours of rumination Jinny 
 returned of her own free will, having evidently mistaken the 
 time, and it is said even consented to draw an extra load to 
 make up the deficiency. It may be imagined from this and 
 other circumstances that Michael stood a little in awe of 
 Jinny's superior intellect, and that Jinny occasionally, with 
 the instinct of her sex, presumed upon it. After the 
 Sunday episode, already referred to, she was given her 
 liberty on that day, a privilege .she gracefully recognized by 
 somewhat unbending her usual austerity in the indulgence 
 of a satyrnine humor. She would visit the mining camps, 
 and, grazing lazily and thoughtfully before the cabins, 
 would, by various artifices and coquetries known to the 
 female heart, induce some credulous stranger to approach 
 her with the intention of taking a ride. She would submit 
 hesitatingly to a halter, allow him to mount her hack, and, 
 with every expression of timid and fearful reluctance, at 
 last permit him to guide her in a laborious trot out of sight 
 of human habitation. What happened then was never 
 clearly known. In a few moments the camp would be 
 aroused by shouts and execrations, and the spectacle of 
 Jinny tearing by at a frightful pace, with the stranger 
 clinging with his arms around her neck, afraid to slip off, 
 from terror of her circumvolving heels, and vainly implor- 
 ing assistance. Again and again she would dash by the 
 a{)plauding groups, adding the aggravation of her voice to 
 the danger of her heels, until, suddenly wheeling, 'she would 
 gallop to Carter's Pond and deposit her luckless freight in the 
 muddy ditch. This practical joke was repeated until one 
 Sunday she was approached by Juan Ramirez, a Mexican 
 vaquero, booted and spurred, and carrying a riata. A 
 crowd was assembled to see her discomfiture. But, to the 
 intense disappointment of the camp. Jinny, after quietly 
 surveying the stranger, uttered a sardonic bray, and ambled 
 
" JINNY " 359 
 
 away to the little cemetery on the hill, whose tangled 
 chaparral effectually prevented all pursuit by her skilled 
 antagonist. From that day she forsook the camp, and 
 spent her Sabbaths in mortuary reflection among the pine 
 head-boards and cold " hie jaoets " of the dead. 
 
 Happy would it have been if this circumstance, which 
 resulted in the one poetic episode of her life, had occurred 
 earlier; for the cemetery was the favorite resort of Miss 
 Jessie Lawton, a gentle invalid from San Francisco, who 
 had sought the foothills for the balsam of pine and fir, and 
 in the faint hope that the freshness of the wind roses might 
 call back her own. The extended views from the cemetery 
 satisfied Miss Lawton's artistic taste, and here frequently, 
 with her sketch-book in hand, she indulged that taste and 
 a certain shy , reserve which kept her from contact with 
 strangers. On one of the leaves of that sketch-book appears 
 a study of a donkey's head, being none other than the grave 
 features of Jinny, as once projected timidly over the artist's 
 shoulder. The preliminaries of this intimacy have never 
 transpired, nor is it a settled fact if Jinny made the first 
 advances. The result was only known to the men of 
 Sawyer's Bar by a vision which remained fresh in their 
 memories long after the gentle lady and her four-footed 
 friend had passed beyond their yoices. As two of the 
 tunnel-men were returning from work one evening, they 
 chanced to look up the little trail, kept sacred from secular 
 intrusion, that led from the cemetery to the settlement. In 
 the dim twilight, against a sunset sky, they beheld a pale- 
 faced girl riding slowly toward them. With a delicate 
 instinct, new to these rough men, they drew closer in the 
 shadow of the bushes until she passed. There was no mis- 
 taking the familiar grotesqueness of Jinny ; there was no 
 mistaking the languid grace of Miss Lawton. But a wreath 
 of wild roses was around Jinny's neck, from her long ears 
 floated Miss Jessie's hat ribbons, and a mischievous, girlish 
 
360 "JINNY" 
 
 smile was upon Miss Jessie's face, as fresh as the azaleas in 
 her hair. By the next day the story of this gentle apparition 
 was known to a dozen miners in camp, and all were sworn to 
 secrecy. But the next evening, and the next, from the safe 
 shadows of the woods they watched and drank in the heauty 
 of that fanciful and all unconscious procession. They kept 
 their secret, and never a whisper or footfall from these rough 
 men broke its charm or betrayed their presence. The man 
 who could have shocked the sensitive reserve of the young 
 girl would have paid for it with his life. 
 
 And then one day the character of the procession changed, 
 and this little incident having been told, it was permitted 
 that Jinny should follow her friend, caparisoned even as be- 
 fore, but this time by the rougher but no less loving hands of 
 men. When the cortege reached the ferry where the dead 
 girl was to begin her silent journey to the sea. Jinny broke 
 from those who held her, and after a frantic effort to mount 
 the barge fell into the swiftly rushing Stanislaus. A dozen 
 stout arms were stretched to save her, and a rope, skillfully 
 thrown, was caught around her feet. For an instant she was 
 passive, and, as it seemed, saved. But the next moment 
 her dominant instinct returned, and with one stroke of her 
 powerful heel she snapped the rope in twain and so drifte* 
 with her mistress to the sea. 
 
TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 
 
 It never was clearly ascertained how long they had been 
 there. The first settler of Eough-and-Eeady — one Low, 
 playfully known to his familiars as " The Poor Indian " — 
 declared that the Saints were afore his time, and occupied 
 a cabin in the brush when he " blazed " his way to the 
 North Fork. It is certain that the two were present when 
 the water was first turned on the Union Ditch, and then 
 and there received the designation of Daddy Downey and 
 Mammy Downey, which they kept to the last. As they 
 tottered toward the refreshment tent, they were welcomed 
 with the greatest enthusiasm by the boys ; or, to borroV 
 the more refined language of the "Union Recorder," 
 "Their gray hairs and bent figures, recalling as they did 
 the happy paternal eastern homes of the spectators, and the 
 blessings that fell from venerable lips when they left those 
 homes to journey in quest of the Golden Fleece on Occi- 
 dental Slopes, caused many to burst into tears." The 
 nearer facts, that many of these spectators were orphans, 
 that a few were unable, to establish any legal parentage 
 whatever, tliat others had enjoyed a State's guardianship 
 and discipline, and that a majority had left their parental 
 roofs without any embarrassing preliminary formula, were 
 mere passing clouds that diil not dim the golden imagery 
 of the writer. From that day the Saints were adopted as 
 historical lay figures, and entered at once into possession of 
 uninterrupted gratuities and endowment. 
 
 It was not strange that, in a country largely made up of 
 
362 TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 
 
 ambitious and reckless youth, these two — types of conser- 
 vative and settled forms — should be thus celebrated. Apart 
 from any sentiment of veneration, they were admirable foils 
 to the community's youthful progress and energy. They 
 were put forward at every social gathering, occupied promi- 
 nent seats on the platform at every public meeting, walked 
 first in every procession, were conspicuous at the frequent 
 funeral and rarer Wedding, and were godfather and god- 
 mother to the first baby born in Rough-and-Keady. At the 
 first poll opened in that precinct. Daddy Downey cast th« 
 first vote, and, as was his custom on all momentous occa- 
 sions, became volubly reminiscent. " The first vote I ever 
 cast," said Daddy, " was for Andrew Jackson — the father 
 o' some on you peart young chaps was n't bom then ; he ! 
 he ! — that was 'way long in '33, was n't it ? I disremem- 
 ber now, but if Mammy was here, she bein' a school-gal at 
 the time, she could say. But my memory 's failin' me. 
 I 'm an old man, boys ; yet I likes to see the young ones 
 go ahead. I recklect that thar vote from a suckuihstance. 
 Squire Adams was present, and seein' it was iny first vbte, 
 he put a goold piece into my hand, and, sez he, sez Squire 
 Adams, ' Let that always be a reminder of the exercise of 
 a glorious freeman's privilege ! ' He did ; he ! he ! Lord, 
 boys ! I feel so proud of ye, that I wish I had a hundred 
 votes to cast for ye all." 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that the memorial tribute of 
 Squire Adams was incrfeased tenfold by the judges, inspec- 
 tors, and clerks, and that the old man tottered back to 
 Mammy considerably heavier than he came. As both of 
 the rival candidates were equally sure of his vote, and each 
 had called upon him and offered a conveyance, it is but fair 
 to presume they were equally beneficent. But Daddy 
 insisted upon walking to the polls, — a distance of two 
 miles, — as a moral example, and a text for the Californian 
 
TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 363 
 
 paragraphers, who hastened to record that such was the 
 influence of the foot-hill climate, that " a citizen of Eough- 
 and-Ready, aged eighty-four, rose at six o'clock, and, after 
 milking two cows, walked a distance of twelve miles to the 
 polls, and returned in time to chop a cord of wood before 
 dinner." Slightly exaggerated as this statement may have 
 been, the fact that Daddy was always found by the visitor 
 to be engaged at his wood-pile, which seemed neither to 
 increase nor diminish under his axe, a fact, doubtless, 
 owing to the activity of Mammy, who was always at the 
 same time making pies, seemed to give some credence to 
 the story. Indeed, the wood-pile of Daddy Downey was 
 a standing reproof to the indolent and sluggish miner. 
 
 " Ole Daddy must use up a pow'ful sight of wood ; every 
 time I 've passed by his shanty he 's been makin' the chips 
 fly. But what gets me is, that the pile don't seem to come 
 down," said Whiskey Dick to his neighbor. 
 
 "Well, you derned fool!" growled his neighbor, "spose 
 some chap happens to pass by thar, and sees the ole man 
 doin' a man's work at eighty, and slouches like you and me 
 lying round drunk, and that chap, feelin' kinder humped, 
 goes up some dark might and heaves a load of cut pine over 
 his fence, who 's got anything to say about it ? — say ? " 
 
 Certainly not the speaker, who had done the act suggested, 
 nor the penitent and remorseful hearer, who repeated it 
 next day. 
 
 The pies and cakes made by the old woman were, I think, 
 remarkable rather for their inducing the same loyal and 
 generous spirit than for their intrinsic excellence, and, it mny 
 be said, appealed more strongly to the nobler aspirations of 
 humanity than its vulgar appetite. Howbeit, everybody 
 ate Mammy Downey's pies, and thought of his childhood. 
 " Take 'em, dear boys," the old lady would say ; " it does 
 me good to see you eat 'em ; reminds me kinder of my poor 
 
864 TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 
 
 Sammy, that ef he 'd lived, would hev been ez strong and big 
 ez you be, but was taken down with lung fever at Sweet- 
 water. I kin see him yet ; that 's forty years ago, dear ! 
 comin' out o' the lot to the bakehouse, and smilin' such a 
 beautiful smile, like yours, dear boy, as I handed him a 
 mince or a lemming turnover. Dear, dear, how I do run on ! 
 and those days is past ! but I seems to live in you again ! " 
 The wife of the hotel-keeper, actuated by a low jealousy, 
 had suggested that she " seemed to live off them ; " but as 
 that person tried to demonstrate the truth of her statement 
 by reference to the cost of the raw material used by the old 
 lady, it was considered by the camp as too practical and 
 economical for consideration. " Besides," added Cy Perkins, 
 " ef old Mammy wants to turn an honest penny in her old 
 age, let her do it. How would you like your old motlier 
 to make pies on grub wages, eh ? " — a suggestion that so 
 aflfected his hearer (who had no mother) that he bought 
 three on the spot. The quality of these pies had never been 
 discussed but once. It is related that a young lawyer from 
 San Francisco, dining at the Palmetto restaurant, pushed 
 away one of Mammy Downey's pies with every expression 
 of disgust and dissatisfaction. At this juncture. Whiskey 
 Dick, considerably affected by his favorite stimulant, ap- 
 proached the stranger's table, and, drawing up a chair, sat 
 uninvited before him. 
 
 " Mebbee, young man," he began gravely, " ye don't like 
 Mammy Downey's pies ? " 
 
 The stranger replied curtly, and in some astonishment, 
 that he did not, as a rule, " eat pie." 
 
 " Yoimg man," continued Dick with drunken gravity, 
 " mebbee you 're accustomed to Charlotte rusks and blue 
 mange ; mebbee ye can't eat unless your grub is got up by 
 one o' them French cooks ? Yet we — us boys yar in this 
 eamp — calls that pie, — a good — com-pe-tent pie ! " 
 
TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS £65 
 
 The stranger again disclaimed anything but a general 
 dislike of that form of pastry. 
 
 " Young man," continued Dick, utterly unheeding the 
 explanation, — " young man, mebbee you onc't had an ole, 
 a very ole mother, who, tottering down the vale o' years, 
 made pies. Mebbee — and it 's like your blank epicurean 
 soul — ye turned up your nose on the ole woman, and went 
 back on the pies, and on her ! She that dandled ye when 
 ye woz a baby, — a little baby ! Mebbee ye went back on 
 her, and shook her, and played off on her, and gave her 
 away — dead away ! And now, mebbee, young man, — I 
 would n't hurt ye for the world, — but mebbee, afore ye 
 leave this yar table, ye 'll bat that pie ! " 
 
 The stranger rose to his feet, but the muzzle of a dragoon 
 revolver in the unsteady hands of Whiskey Dick caused him^ 
 to sit down again. He ate the pie, and lost his case like- 
 wise before a Eough-and-Eeady jury. 
 
 Indeed, far from exhibiting the cynical doubts and dis- 
 trusts of age. Daddy Downey received always with child- 
 like delight the progress of modern improvement and' 
 energy. " In my day, long back in the twenties, it took us 
 nigh a week — a week, boys — to get up a barn, and all 
 the young ones — I was one then — for miles round at the 
 raisin' ; and yer 's you boys — rascals ye are, too — runs 
 up this yer shanty for Mammy and me 'twixt sun-up and 
 dark ! Eh, eh, you 're teachin' the old folks new tricks, 
 are ye ? Ah, get along, you ! " and in playful simulation 
 of anger he would shake his white hair and his hickory 
 staff at the " rascals." The only indication of the conserva- 
 tive tendencies of age was visible in his continual protest 
 against the extravagance of the boys. " Why," he would 
 say, " a family, a hull family, — leavin' alone me and the 
 old woman, — might be supported on what you young ras- 
 cals throw away in a single spree. Ah, you young dogs, 
 did n't I hear about your scattering half-dollars on the 
 
366 TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 
 
 stage the other night when that Eyetalian Papist was 
 siugin'. And that money goes out of Ameriky — ivry 
 cent ! " 
 
 There was little doubt that the old couple were sav- 
 ing, if not avaricious. But when it was known, through 
 the indiscreet volubility of Mammy Downey, that Daddy 
 Downey sent the bulk of their savings, gratuities, and gifts, 
 to a dissipated and prodigal son in the East, — whose 
 photograph the old man always carried with him, — it 
 rather elevated him in their regard. " When ye write to 
 that gay and festive son o' your'n, Daddy," said Joe Robin- 
 son, " send him this yer specimen. G-ive him my compli- 
 ments, and tell him, ef he kin spend money faster than 1 
 can, I call him ! Tell him, ef he wants a first-class jam 
 boree, to kem out here, and me and the boys will show him 
 what a square drunk is ! " In vain would the old man 
 continue to protest against the spirit of the gift ; the miner 
 generally returned with his pockets that much the lighter, 
 and it is not improbable a little less intoxicated than he 
 otherwise might have been. It may be premised that 
 Daddy Downey was strictly temi>erate. The only way he 
 managed to avoid hurting the feelings of the camp was by 
 accepting the frequent donations of whiskey to be used for 
 the purposes of liniment. 
 
 " Next to snake-oil, my son," he would say, " and 
 dilberry-juice, — and ye don't seem to pro-duce 'em here 
 abouts, — whiskey is good for rubbin' onto old bones tc 
 make 'em limber. But pure cold water, ' sparklin' and 
 bright in its liquid light,' and, so to speak, refiectin' oi 
 God's own linyments on its surfiss, is the best, onless, like 
 poor oF Mammy and me, ye gets the dumb-agur from over- 
 use." 
 
 The fame of the Downey couple was not confined to the 
 ()ot-hills. The Eev. Henry Gushington, D. D., of Boston, 
 making a bronchial tour of California, wrote to the " Chris. 
 
TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 36? • 
 
 tian Pathfinder " an affecting account of his visit to theni, 
 placed Daddy Downey's age at 1Q2, and attributed the 
 recent conversions in E<ough-and-Keady to their influence. 
 That gifted literary Hessian, Bill Smith, traveling in the 
 interests of various capitalists, and the trustworthy corre- 
 spondent of four " only independent American journals," 
 quoted him as an evidence of the longevity superinduced 
 by the climate, offered him as an example of the security 
 of helpless life and property in the mountains, used him as 
 an advertisement of the Union Ditch, and it is said, in 
 some vague way, cited him as proving the collateral facts of 
 a timber and ore producing region existing in the foot-hills 
 worthy the attention of Eastern capitalists. 
 
 Praised thus by the lips of distinguished report, fostered 
 by the care and sustained by the pecuniary offerings of 
 their fellow-citizens, the Saints led for two years a peaceful 
 life of gentle absorption. To relieve them from the embar- 
 rassing appearance of eleemosynary receipts, — an embarrass- 
 ment felt more by the givers than the recipients, — the 
 postmastership of Rough-and-Ready was procured for Daddy, 
 and the duty of receiving and delivering the United States 
 mails performed by him, with the advice and assistance of 
 the boys. If a few letters went astray at this time, it was 
 easily attributed to this undisciplined aid, and the boys 
 themselves were always ready to make up the value of a 
 missing money-letter and " keep the old man's accounts 
 square." To these functions presently were added the trea- 
 surerships of the Masons' and Odd Pellows' charitable 
 funds, — the old man being far advanced in their respec- 
 tive degrees, — and even the position of almoner of their 
 bounties was superadded. Here, unfortunately, Daddy's 
 habits of economy and avaricious propensity came near mak- 
 ing him unpopular, and very often needy brothers were 
 forced to object to the quantity and quality of the help 
 extended. They always met with more generous relief 
 
868 TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 
 
 from the private hands of the hrothers themselves, and the 
 remark that " the ol' man was trying to set an example, — 
 that he meant well," — and that they would yet be thank- 
 ful for his zealous care and economy. A few, I think, 
 suffered in noble silence, rather than bring the old man's 
 infirmity to the public notice. 
 
 And so with this honor of Daddy and Mammy, the days 
 of the miners were long and profitable in the land of the 
 foot-hills. The mines yielded their abundance, the winters 
 were singularly open, and yet there was no drouth nor lack 
 of water, and peace and plenty smiled on the Sierran foot- 
 hills, from their highest sunny upland to the trailing falda 
 of wild oats and poppies. If a certain superstition got 
 abroad among the other camps, connecting the fortunes of 
 Eough-and-Keady with Daddy and Mammy, it was a gentle, 
 harmless fancy, and was not, I think, altogether rejected 
 by the old people. A certain large, patriarchal, bountiful 
 manner, of late visible in Daddy, and the increase of much 
 white hair and beard, kept up the poetic allusion, while 
 Mammy, day by day, grew more and more like somebody's 
 fairy godmother. An attempt was made by a rival camp 
 to emulate these paying virtues of reverence, and an aged 
 mariner was procured from the Sailor's Snug Harbor in- 
 San Francisco on trial. But the unfortunate seaman was 
 more or less diseased, was not always presentable, through 
 a weakness for ardent spirits, and finally, to use the power- 
 ful idiom of one of his disappointed foster-children, " up 
 and died in a week, without slinging ary blessin'." 
 
 But vicissitude reaches young and old alike. Youthful 
 Rough-and-Keady and the Saints had climbed to their 
 meridian together, and it seemed fit that they should to- 
 gether decline. The first shadow fell with the immigration 
 to Eough-and-Ready of a second aged pair. The land- 
 lady of the Independence Hotel had not abated her male- 
 volence towards the Saints, and had imported at consider-' 
 
TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 369- 
 
 able expense her grand-aunt and grand-uncle, who had 
 been enjoying for some years a sequestered retirement in 
 the poorhouse at East Machias. They were indeed very 
 old. By what miracle, even as anatomical specimens, they 
 had been preserved during their long journey, was a mys- 
 tery to the camp. In some respects they had superior 
 memories and reminiscences. The old man — Abner Trix 
 — had shouldered a musiet in the war of 1812 ; his wife, 
 Abigail, had seen Lady Washington. She could sing 
 hymns ; he knew every text between " the leds " of a 
 Bible. There is little doubt but that in many respects, to 
 the superficial and giddy crowd of youthful spectators, they 
 ■were the more interesting spectacle. 
 
 Whether it was jealousy, distrust, or timidity that over- 
 came th^ Saints, was never known-, but they studiously 
 declined to meei the strangers. When directly approached ' 
 upon the subject. Daddy Downey pleaded illness, kept him- 
 self in close seclusion, and the Sunday that the Trixes 
 attended church in the schoolhouse on the hill, the triumph 
 of the Trix party was mitigated by the fact that the 
 Downeys were not in their accustomed pew. " You bet 
 that Daddy and Mammy is lying low jest to ketch them 
 old mummies yet," explained a Downeyite. For by this 
 time schism and division had crept into the camp; the 
 younger and later members of the settlement adhering to 
 the Trixes, while the older pioneers stood not only loyal 
 to their own favorites, but even, in the true spirit of par- 
 tisanship, began to seek for a principle underlying their 
 personal feelings. " I tell ye what, boys," observed Sweet- 
 water Joe, " if this yer camp is goin' to be run by green- 
 horns, and old pioneers, like Daddy and the rest of us, 
 must take back seats, it 's time we emigrated and shoved 
 out, and tuk Daddy with us. Why, they 're talkin' of rota- 
 tion in oifiss, and of putting that skeleton that Ma'am 
 Decker sets up at the table to take her boarders' appetites 
 
370 TWO SAINTS OF THE KOOT-HILLS 
 
 away, into the post-office in place o' Daddy." And, indeed, 
 there were some fears of such a conclusion ; the newer men 
 of Eough-and-Ready were in the ijjiajority, and wielded a 
 more than equal influence of wealth and outside enterprise. 
 " Frisco," as a Downeyite bitterly remarked, " already 
 owned half the town." The old friends that rallied around 
 Daddy and Mammy were, like most loyal friends in adver- 
 sity, in bad case themselves, and were beginning to look 
 and act, it was observed, not unlike their old favorites. 
 
 At this juncture Mammy died. 
 
 The sudden blow for a few days seemed to reunite dis- 
 severed Eough-and-Eeady. Both factions hastened to the 
 bereaved Daddy with condolements, and oifers of aid and 
 assistance. But the old man received them sternly. A 
 change had come over the weak and yielding octogenarian. 
 Those who expected to find him maudlin, helpless, disconso- 
 late, shrank from the cold, hard eyes and truculent voice 
 that bade them " begone," and " leave him with his dead." 
 Even his own friends failed to majce him respond to their 
 sympathy, and were fain to content themselves with his cold 
 intimation that both the wishes of his dead wife and his 
 own instincts were against any display, or the reception 
 of any favor from the camp that might tend to keep up 
 the divisions they had innocently created. The refusal of 
 Daddy to accept any service ofiered was so unlike him as 
 to have but one dreadful meaning ! The sudden shock 
 had turned his brain ! Yet So impressed were they with his 
 resolution that they permitted him to perform the last sad 
 offices himself, and only a select few of his nearer neighbors 
 assisted him in carrying the plain deal coffin from his lonely 
 cabin in the woods to the still lonelier cemetery on the hill- 
 top. When the shallow grave was filled, he dismissed even 
 these curtly, shut himself up in his cabin, and for days re- 
 mained unseen. It was evident that he was no longer in 
 his right mind. 
 
TWO SAINTS OP THE FOOT-HILLS 871 
 
 His haimless aberration was accepted and treated with 
 a degree of intelligent delicacy hardly to be believed of so 
 rough a community. During his wife's sudden and severe 
 illness, the safe containing the funds intrusted to his care 
 by the various benevolent associations was broken into and 
 robbed, and although the act was clearly attributable to his 
 carelessness and preoccupation, all allusion to the fact was 
 withheld from him in his severe affliction. When he 
 appeared again before the camp, and the circumstances 
 were considerately explained to him, with the remark that 
 " the boys had made it all right," the vacant, hopeless, 
 unintelligent eye that he turned upon the speaker showed 
 too plainly that he had forgotten all about it. " Don't 
 trouble the old man," said Whiskey Dick, with a burst of 
 honest poetry. " Don't ye see his memory 's dead, and 
 lying there in the coffin with Mammy ? " Perhaps the 
 speaker was nearer right than he imagined. 
 
 Failing in religious consolation, they took various means 
 of diverting his mind with worldly amusements, and one 
 was a visit to a traveling variety troupe, then performing 
 in the town. The result of the visit was briefly told by 
 Whiskey Dick. " Well, sir, we went in, and I sot the old 
 man down in a front seat, and kinder propped him up with 
 some other of the fellers round liim, and there he sot as 
 silent and awful ez the grave. And then that fancy dancer. 
 Miss Grace Somerset, comes in, and dern my skin, ef the 
 old man did n't get to trembling and fidgeting all over, as 
 she cut them pidgin wings. I tell ye what, boys, men is 
 men, way down to their boots, — whether they 're crazy or 
 not ! Well, he took on so, that I 'm blamed if at last that 
 gal herself did n't notice him ! and she ups, suddenly, and 
 blows him a kiss — so ! with her fingers ! " 
 
 Whether this narration were exaggerated or not, it is 
 certain that the old man Downey every succeeding night of 
 the performance was a spectator. That he may have aspired 
 
372 TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 
 
 to more than that was suggested a day or two later in the 
 following incident : A number of the boys were sitting 
 around the stove in the Magnolia saloon, listening to the 
 onset of a winter storm against the windows, when Whiskey 
 Dick, tremulous, excited, and bristling with rain-drops and 
 information, broke in upon them, 
 
 "Well, boys, I 've got just the biggest thing out. Ef I 
 had n't seed it myself, I would n't hev believed it ! " 
 
 " It ain't thet ghost ag'in ? " growled Robinson, from 
 the depths of his arm-chair ; " thet ghost 's about played." 
 
 " Wot ghost ? " asked a new-comer. 
 
 " Why, ole Mammy's ghost, that every feller about yer 
 sees when he 's half full and out late o' nights." 
 
 « Where ? " 
 
 " Where ? Why, where should a ghost be ? Mean- 
 derin' round her grave on the hill, yander, in course." 
 
 " It 's suthin bigger nor thet, pard," said Dick confi- 
 dently ; " no ghost kin rake down the pot ag'in the keerds 
 I 've got here. This ain't no bluff! " 
 
 " Well, go on ! " said a dozen excited voices. 
 
 Dick paused a moment diffidently, with the hesitation of 
 \u artistic raconteur. 
 
 " Well," he said, with affected deliberation, " let 's see ! 
 It 's nigh onto an hour ago ez I was down thar at the vari- 
 ety show. When the curtain was down betwixt the ax, I 
 looks round fer Daddy. No Daddy thar ! I goes out and 
 asks some o' the boys. ' Daddy was there a minnit ago,' 
 they say ; ' must hev gone home.' Bein' kinder responsible 
 for the old man, I hangs around, and goes out in the hall 
 and sees a passage leadin' behind the scenes. Now the 
 queer thing about this, boys, ez that suthin in my bones 
 tells me the old man is thar. I pushes in, and, sure as a 
 gun, I hear his voice. Kinder pathetic, kinder pleadin', 
 kinder " — 
 
 " Love-makin' ! " broke in the impatient Robinson. 
 
TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 373 
 
 " You 've hit it, pard, — you 've rung the bell every time I 
 But she says, ' I want thet money down, or I'll ' — and here 
 I could n't get to hear the rest. And then he kinder coaxes, 
 and she says, sorter sassy, hut listenin' all the time, — woman 
 like, ye know, Eve and the sarpint ! — and she says, ' I '11 
 see to-morrow.' And he says, ' You won't blow on me ? ' 
 and I gets excited and peeps in, and may I be teetotally 
 durned ef I didn't see " — 
 
 " What ? " yelled the crowd. 
 
 " Why, Daddy on ,his knees to that there fancy dancer, 
 Grace Somerset ! Now, if Mammy's Ghost is meanderin' 
 round, why, et 's about time she left the cemetery and put 
 in an appearance in Jackson's Hall. Thet 's all ! " 
 
 " Look yar, boys," said Robinson, rising, " I doii't know 
 ez it 's the square thing to spile Daddy's fun. I don't object 
 to it, provided she ain't takin' in the old man, and givin' 
 him dead away. But ez we 're his guardeens, I propose that 
 we go down thar and see the lady, and find out ef her inten- 
 tions is honorable. If she means marry^ and the old man 
 persists, why, I reckon we kin give the young couple a send- 
 off thet won't disgrace this yer camp ! Hey, boys ? " 
 
 It i.s unnecessary to say that the proposition was received 
 with acclamation, and that the crowd at once departed on 
 their discreet mission. But the result was never known, for 
 the next morning brought a shock to Eough-and-Eeady 
 before which all other interests paled to nothingness. 
 
 The grave of Mammy Downey was found violated and 
 despoiled ; the coffin opened, and half filled with the papers 
 and accounts of the robbed benevolent associations ; but 
 the body of Mammy was gone ! Nor, on examination, did 
 it appear that the sacred and ancient form of that female 
 had ever reposed in its recesses ! 
 
 Daddy Downey was not to be found, nor is it necessary 
 to say that the ingenuous Grace Somerset was also missing. 
 
 For three days the reason of Eough-and-Eeady trembled 
 
874 TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS 
 
 in the balance. No work was done in the ditches, in the 
 flume, nor in the mills. Groups of men stood by the grave 
 of the lamented relict of Daddy Downe}', as open-mouthed 
 and vacant as that sepulchre. H'ever since the great earth- 
 quake of '52 had Eough-and-Eeady been so stirred to its 
 deepest foundations. 
 
 On the third day the sheriff of Calaveras — a quiet, 
 gentle, thoughtful man — arrived in town, and passed from 
 one to the other of excited groups, dropping here and there 
 detached but concise and practical information. 
 
 " Yes, gentlemen, you are right ; Mrs. Downey is not 
 dead, because there was n't any Mrs. Downey ! Her part 
 was played by George F. Fenwick, of Sydney, — a ' ticket- 
 of-leave-man,' who was, they say, a good actor. Downey ? 
 Oh yes ! Downey was Jem Flanigan, who, in '62, used to 
 run the variety troupe in Australia, where Miss Somerset 
 made her debut. Stand back a little, boys. Steady ! The 
 money ? Oh yes, they 've got away with that, sure ! How 
 are ye, Joe ? Why, you 're looking well and hearty ! I 
 rather expected ye court week. How 's things your way ? " 
 
 " Then they were only play-actors, Joe Hall ? " broke in 
 a dozen voices. 
 
 " I reckon ! " returned the sheriff coolly. 
 
 " And for a matter o' five blank years," said Whiskey 
 Dick sadly, " they played this camp ! " 
 
"WHO WAS MY QUIET FEIEND?" 
 
 " Stranger ! " 
 
 The voice was not. loud, but clear and penetrating. I 
 looked vainly up and down the narrow, darkening trail. 
 No one in the fringe of alder ahead ; no one on the gullied 
 slope behind. 
 
 " Oh, stranger ! " 
 
 This time a littte impatiently. The Californian classical 
 vocative, " Oh," always meant business. 
 
 I looked up, and perceived for the first time on the ledge, 
 thirty feet above me, another trail parallel with my own, 
 and looking down upon me through the buckeye bushes a 
 small man on a black horse. 
 
 rive things to be here noted by the circumspect moun- 
 taineer. First, the locality, — lonely and inaccessible, and 
 away from the regular faring of teamsters and miners. 
 Secondly, the ptranger's superior knowledge of the road, 
 from the fact that the other trail was unknown to the or- 
 dinary traveler. Thirdly, that he was well armed and 
 equipped. Fourthly, that he was better mounted. Fifthly, 
 that any distrust or timidity arising from the contemplation 
 of these facts had better be kept to one's self. 
 
 All this passed rapidly through my mind as I returned 
 his salutation. 
 
 " Got any tobacco ? " he asked. 
 
 I had, and signified the fact, holding up the pouch in- 
 quiringly. 
 
 " All right, I '11 come down. Eide on, and I '11 jine yo 
 on the c?'de." 
 
876 "WHO WAS MY QUIET FEIEJSTD?" 
 
 " The slide ! " Here was a new geographical discovery 
 B.S odd as the second trail. I had ridden over the trail a 
 dozen times, and seen no communication between the ledge 
 and trail. Nevertheless, I went on a hundred yards or so, 
 when there was a sharp crackling in the underbrush, a 
 shower of stones on the trail, and my friend plunged through 
 the bushes to my side, down a grade that I should scarcely 
 have dared to lead my horse. There was no doubt he was 
 an accomplished rider, — another fact to be noted. As he 
 ranged beside me, I found I was not mistaken as to his 
 size ; he was quite under the medium height, and but for 
 a pair of cold, gray eyes, was rather commonplace in feature. 
 
 " You 've got a good horse there," I suggested. 
 
 He was filling his pipe from my pouph, but looked up a 
 little surprised, and said, "Of course." He then puffed 
 away with the nervous eagerness of a man long deprived of 
 that sedative. Finally, between the puifs, he asked me 
 whence I came. 
 
 I replied, " From Lagrange." 
 
 He looked at me a few moments curiously, but on my 
 adding that I had only halted there for a few hours, he 
 said : " I thought I knew every man between Lagrange and 
 Indian Spring, but somehow I sorter disremember your face 
 and your name." 
 
 Not particularly caring that he should remember either, 
 I replied half laughingly that, as I lived the other side of 
 Indian Spring, it was quite natural. He took the rebuff, if 
 such it was, so quietly that as an act of mere perfunctory 
 politeness I asked him where he came from. 
 
 " Lagrange." 
 
 " And are you going to " — 
 
 " Well ! that depends pretty much on how things pan 
 out, and whether I can make the riffle." He let his hand 
 rest quite unconsciously on the leathern holster of his dra- 
 goon revolver, yet with a strong suggestion to me of his 
 
"WHO WAS. MY QUIET FRIEND?" 377 
 
 ability " to make the riffle " if he wanteil to, and added ; 
 "But just now I was reck'nin' on taking a little paseai 
 with you." 
 
 There was nothing offensive in his speech save its fami- 
 liarity, and the reflection, perhaps, that whether I objected 
 or not, he was quite able to do as he said. I only replied 
 that if our pasear was prolonged beyond Heavytree Hill, I 
 should have to borrow his beast. To my surprise he replied 
 quietly, " That 's so," adding that the horse was at my dis- 
 posal when he was n't using it, and half of it when he was. 
 " Dick has carried double many a time before this," he con- 
 tinued, " and kin do it again ; when your mustang gives 
 out I '11 give you a lift and room to spare." 
 
 I could not help smiling at the idea of appearing before 
 the boys at Eed Gulch en croupe with the stranger ; but 
 neither could I help being oddly affected by the suggestion 
 that his horse had done double duty before. " On what 
 occasion, and why ? " was a question I kept to myself. 
 We were ascending the long, rocky flank of the divide ; the 
 narrowness of the trail obliged us to proceed slowly, and in 
 file, so that there was little chance for conversation, had he 
 been disposed to satisfy my curiosity. 
 
 We toiled on in silence, the buckeye giving way to chemi- 
 sal, the westering sun, reflected again from the blank walls 
 beside us, blinding our eyes with its glare. The pines in 
 the canon below were olive gulfs of heat, over which a hawk 
 here and there drifted lazily, or, rising to our level, cast a 
 weird and gigantic shadow of slowly moving wings on the 
 mountain side. The superiority of the stranger's horse led 
 him often far in advance, and made me hope that he might 
 forget me entirely, or push on, growing weary of waiting. 
 But regularly he would halt by a boulder, or reappear from 
 some cbemisal, where he had patiently halted. I was begin- 
 ning to hate him mildly, when at one of those reappearances 
 he drew up to my side, and asked .me how I liked Dickens ! 
 
878 " WHO WAS MY QUIET FRIEND ? " 
 
 Had he asked my opinion of Huxley or Darwin, I could 
 not have heen more astonished. Thinking it were possible 
 that he referred to some local celebrity of Lagrange, I said,, 
 hesitatingly: "You mean" — 
 
 " Charles Dickens. Of course you 've read him ? Which 
 of his books do you like best ? " 
 
 I replied with considerable embarrassment that I liked 
 them all, — as I certainly did. 
 
 He grasped my hand for a moment with a fervor quite 
 unlike his usual phlegm and said, " That 's me, old man. 
 Dickens ain't no slouch. Yon can' count on him pretty 
 much all the time." 
 
 With this rough preface, he launched into a criticism of 
 the novelist, which for intelligent sympathy and hearty 
 appreciation I had rarely heard equaled. Not only did he 
 dwell upon the exuberance of his humour, but upon the 
 power of his pathos and the all-pervading element of his 
 poetry. I looked at the man in astonishment. I had con- 
 sidered myself a rather diligent student of the great master 
 of fiction, but the stranger's felicity of quotation and illus- 
 tration staggered me. It is true, that his thought was not 
 always clothed in the best language, and often appeared in 
 the slouching, slangy undress of the place and period, yet 
 it never was rustic nor homespun, and sometimes struck 
 me with its precision and fitness. Considerably softened 
 toward him, I tried him with other literature. But vainly. 
 Beyond a few of the lyrical and emotional poets, he knew 
 nothing. Under the influence and enthusiasm of his own 
 speech, he himself had softened considerably ; offered to 
 change horses with me, readjusted my saddle with profes- 
 sional skill, transferred my pack to his own horse, insisted 
 upon my sharing the contents of his whiskey flask, and 
 noticing that I was unarmed, pressed upon me a silver- 
 mounted Derringer, which he assured me he could " warrant." 
 These various offices of good will and the diversion of his 
 
"WHO WAS Mr QUIET FRIEND?" 379 
 
 talk beguiled me from noticing the fact that the trail waa 
 beginning to become obscure and unrecognizable. We were 
 evidently pursuing a route unknown before to me. I 
 pointed out the fact to my companion, a little impatiently. 
 He instantly resumed his old manner and dialect. 
 
 " Well, I reckon one trail 's as good as another, and 
 what hev ye got to say about it ? " 
 
 I pointed out, with some dignity, that I preferred the old 
 trail. 
 
 " Mebbe you did. But you 're jiss now takin' a pasear 
 with me. This yer trail will bring you right into Indian 
 Spring, and onnoticed, and no questions asked. Don't you 
 mind now, I '11 see you through." 
 
 It was necessary here to make some stand against my 
 strange companion. I said firmly, yet as politely as I 
 could, that I had proposed stopping overnight with a 
 friend. 
 
 " Wbar ? " 
 
 I hesitated. The friend was an eccentric Eastern man, 
 well known in the locality for his fastidiousness and his 
 habits as a recluse. A misanthrope, of ample family and 
 ample means, he had chosen a secluded but picturesque 
 valley in the Sierras where he could rail against the world 
 without opposition. '" Lone Valley," or " Boston Eanch," 
 as it was familiarly called, was the one spot that the average 
 miner both respected and feared. Mr. Sylvester, its pro- 
 prietor, had never affiliated with " the boys," nor had he 
 ever lost their respect by any active opposition to their ideas, 
 If seclusion had been his object, he certainly was gratified. 
 Nevertheless, in the darkening shadows of the night, and 
 on a lonely and unknown trail, I hesitated a little at re- 
 peating his name to a stranger of whom I knew so little. 
 But my mysterious companion took the matter out of my 
 hands. 
 
 " Look yar," he said suddenly, " thar ain't but one place 
 
880 " WHO WAS MY QUIET FRIEND ? " 
 
 'twixt yer and Indian Spring whar ye can stop, and that is 
 Sylvester's." 
 
 I assented, a little sullenly. 
 
 "Well," said the stranger quietly, and with a slight 
 suggestion of conferring a favor on me, " ef yer pointed 
 for Sylvester's — why — / donH m,ind stopping thar with 
 ye. It 's a little oflf the road, — I '11 lose some time, — but 
 taking it by and large, I don't much mind." 
 
 I stated, as rapidly and as strongly as I could, that my 
 acquaintance with Mr. Sylvester did not justify the intro- 
 duction of a stranger to his hospitality ; that he was unlike 
 most of the people here ; in short, that he was a queer 
 man, etc., etc. 
 
 To my surprise my companion answered quietly : " Oh, 
 that 's all right. I 've heerd of him. Ef you don't feel like 
 checking me through, or if you 'd rather put ' C. 0. D. ' on 
 my back, why, it 's all the same to me. I '11 play it alone. 
 Only you just count me in. Say ' Sylvester ' all the time. 
 That 's me ! " 
 
 What could I oppose to this man's quiet assurance ? I 
 felt myself growing red with anger and nervous with embar- 
 rassment. What would the correct Sylvester say to me ? 
 What would the girls, — I was a young man then, and had 
 won an entree to their domestic circle by my reserve, 
 known by a less complimentary adjective among " the 
 boys," — what would they say to my new acquaintance ? 
 Yet I certainly could not object to his assuming all risks on 
 his own personal recognizances, nor could I resist a certain 
 feeling of shame at my embarrassment. 
 
 We were beginning to descend. In the distance below 
 us already twinkled the lights in the solitary rancho of 
 Lone Valley. I turned to my companion. " But you 
 have forgotten that I don't even know your name. What 
 am I to call you ? " 
 
 "That's so," he said, musingly. "Now, let's see. 
 
"WHO WAS MY QUIET FKIEND ? " 381 
 
 'Kearney' would be a good name. It's short and easj 
 like. Thar 's a street in 'Frisco the same title ; Kearnej 
 it is." 
 
 " But " — I began impatiently. 
 
 "Now you leave all that to me," he interrupted, with a 
 superb self-confidence that I could not but admire. '•' The 
 name ain't no account. It 's the man that 's responsible. 
 Ef I was to lay for a man that I reckoned was named 
 Jones, and after I fetched him I found out on the inquest 
 that his real name was Smith, that would n't make no 
 matter, as long as I got the man." 
 
 The illustration, forcible as it was, did not strike me as 
 oifering a prepossessing introduction, but we were already 
 at the rancho. The barking of dogs brought Sylvester to 
 the door of the pretty little cottage which his taste had 
 adorned. 
 
 I briefly introduced Mr. Kearney. " Kearney will do — 
 Kearney 's good enough for me," commented the soi-disant 
 Kearney half-aloud, to my own horror and Sylvester's evi- 
 dent mystification, and then he blandly excused himself 
 for a moment that he might personally supervise the care 
 of his own beast. When he was out of ear-shot I drew the 
 puzzled Sylvester aside. 
 
 "I have picked up — I mean I have been picked up on 
 the road by a gentle maniac, whose name is not Kearney. 
 He is well armed and quotes Dickens. With care, acquies- 
 cence in his views on all subjects, and general submission 
 to his commands, he may be placated. Doubtless the spec- 
 tacle of your helpless family, the contemplation of your 
 daughter's beauty and innocence, may touch his fine sense 
 of humor and pathos. Meanwhile, Heaven help you, and 
 forgive me." 
 
 I ran up stairs to the little den that my hospitable host 
 had kept always reserved for me in my wanderings. I 
 lingered some time over my ablutions, hearing the languid^ 
 
882 "WHO WAS MT QUIET FRIEND?" 
 
 gentlemanly drawl of Sylvester below, mingled with the 
 equally cool, easy slang of my mysterious acquaintance. 
 When I came down to the sitting-room I was surprised, 
 however, to find the self-styled Kearney quietly seated on 
 the sofa, the gentle May Sylvester, the "Lily of Lone 
 Valley," sitting with maidenly awe and unaffected interest 
 on one side of him, while on the other that arrant flirt, her 
 cousin Kate, was practicing the pitiless archery of her eyes, 
 with an excitement that seemed almost real. 
 
 " Who is your deliciously cool friend ? " she managed 
 to whisper to me at supper, as I sat utterly dazed and be* 
 wildered between the enrapt May Sylvester, who seemed 
 to hang upon his words, and this giddy girl of the period, 
 who was emptying the battery of her charms in active 
 rivalry upon him. " Of course we know his name is n't 
 Kearney. But how romantic ! And is n't he perfectly 
 lovely ? And who is he ? " 
 
 I replied with severe irony that I was not aware what 
 foreign potentate was then traveling incognito in the Sierras 
 of California, but that, when his royal highness was pleased 
 to inform me, I should be glad to introduce him properly. 
 " Until then," I added, " I fear the acquaintance must be 
 Morganatic." 
 
 " You 're only jealous of him," she said pertly. " Look 
 at May, — she is completely fascinated. And her father, 
 too." 
 
 And actually the languid, world-sick, cynical Sylvester 
 was regarding him with a boyish interest and enthusiasm 
 almost incompatible with his nature. Yet I submit hon- 
 estly to the cleari-headed reason of my own sex, that I 
 eould see nothing more in the man than I have already 
 delivered to the reader. 
 
 In the middle of an exciting story of adventure, of which 
 he, to the already prejudiced mind of his fair auditors, was 
 evidently the hero, he stopped suddenly. 
 
" WHO WAS MY QUIET FRIEND ? '' 383 
 
 " It 's only some pack train passing the bridge on the 
 lower trail," explained Sylvester ; " go on." 
 
 " It may he my horse is a trifle oneasy in the stable/' 
 said the alleged Kearney ; " he ain't used to boards and 
 covering." Heaven only knows what wild and delicious 
 revelation lay in the statement of this fact, but the girls 
 looked at each other with oheeka pink with excitement as 
 Kearney arose, and with quiet absence of ceremony quitted 
 the table. 
 
 " Ain't he just lovely ? " said Kate, gasping for breath, 
 " and so witty ! " 
 
 " Witty ! " said the gentle May, with just the slight- 
 est trace of defiance in her sweet voice ; " witty, my dear ? 
 why, don't you see that his heart is just breaking with 
 pathos ? Witty, indeed ; why, when he was speaking of 
 that poor Mexican woman that was hung, I saw the tears 
 gather in his eyes. Witty, indeed ! " 
 
 " Tears," laughed the cynical Sylvester, " tears, idle tears. 
 Why, you silly children, the man is a man of the world, a 
 philosopher, quiet, observant, unassuming." 
 
 " Unassuming ! " Was Sylvester intoxicated, or had the 
 mysterious stranger mixed the " insane verb " with the 
 family pottage ? He returned before I could answer this 
 self-asked inquiry, and resumed coolly his broken narrative. 
 Finding myself forgotten in the man I had so long hesitated 
 to introduce to my friends, I retired to rest early, only to 
 hear, through the thin pai'iitions, two hours later, enthusi- 
 astic praises of the new guest from the voluble lips of the 
 girls, as they chatted in the next room before retiring. 
 
 At midnight I was startled by the sound of horses' hoofs 
 and the jingling of spurs below. A conversation between 
 my host and some mysterious personage in the darkness 
 was carried on in such a low tone that I could not learn its 
 import. As the cavalcade rode away I raised the window. 
 
 « What 's the matter ? " 
 
S84 " WHO WAS MY QUIET FRIEND ? " 
 
 "Nothing," said Sylvester coolly; "only another one oi 
 those playful homicidal freaks peculiar to the country. A 
 man was shot by Cherokee Jack over at Lagrange this 
 morning, and that was the sheriff of Calaveras and his 
 posse hunting him. I told him I 'd seen nobody but you 
 and your friend. By the way, I hope the cursed noise 
 hasn't disturbed him. The poor fellow looked as if he 
 wanted rest." 
 
 I thought so too. Nevertheless, I went softly to his 
 room. It was empty. My impression was that he had 
 ilista-wsed the sheriff of Calavsras about two hours. 
 
"A TOURIST FEOM INJIANNY" 
 
 We first saw him from the deck of the Unser Fritz, as 
 that gallant steamer was preparing to leave the port of 
 New York for Plymouth, Havre, and Hamburg. Perhaps 
 it was that all objects at that moment became indelibly 
 impressed on the memory of the departing voyager ; per- 
 haps it was that mere interrupting trivialities always as- 
 sume undue magnitude to us when we are waiting for 
 something really important ; hut I retain a vivid impres- 
 sion of him as he appeared on the gangway in apparently 
 hopeless, yet, as it afterwards appeared, really triumphant, 
 altercation with the German-speaking deck-hands and stew- 
 ards. He was not an heroic figure. Clad in a worn linen 
 duster, his arms filled .with bags and parcels, he might have 
 been taken for a hackman carrying the luggage of his fare. 
 But it was noticeable that, although he calmly persisted 
 in speaking English and ignoring the voluble German of 
 his antagonists, he in some rude fashion accomplished his 
 object, without losing his temper or increasing his tempera- 
 ture, while his foreign enemy was crinison with rage and 
 perspiring with heat ; and that presently, having violated a 
 dozen of the ship's regulations, he took his place by the 
 side of a very pretty girl, apparently his superior in station, 
 who addressed him as " father." As the great ship swung 
 out into the stream he was still a central figure on our 
 deck, getting into everybody's way, addressing all with 
 equal familiarity, imperturbable to affront or snub, but 
 always doggedly and consistently adhering to one purpose, 
 however trivial or inadequate to the means employed. 
 
386 "A TOURIST FROM INJIANNY " 
 
 " You 're sittin' on sutbin' o' mine, miss," he began for the 
 third or fourth time to the elegant Miss Montmorris, who 
 was revisiting Europe under high social conditions. " Jist 
 rise up while I get it, — 't won't take a rainit." Not only 
 was that lady forced to rise, but to make necessary the ris- 
 ing and discomposing of the whole Montmorris party who 
 were congregated around her. The missing " suthin' " was 
 discovered to be a very old and battered newspaper. " It 's 
 the Cincinnatty * Times,' " he explained, as he quietly took 
 it up, oblivious to the indignant glances of the party. " It 's 
 a little squoshed by your sittin' on it, but it'll do to re-fer 
 to. It 's got a letter from Payris, showin' the prices o' 
 them thar hotels and rist'rants, and I allowed to my darter 
 we might want it on the other side. Thar 's one or two 
 French names thar that rather gets me, — mebbee your 
 eyes is stronger 5" but here the entire Montmorris part}' 
 rustled away, leaving him with the paper in one hand — 
 the other pointing at the paragraph. Not at all discomfited, 
 he glanced at the vacant bench, took possession of it with 
 his hat, " duster," and umbrella, disappeared, and presently 
 appeared again with his daughter, a lank-looking young 
 man, and an angular elderly female, and — so replaced the 
 Montmorrises. 
 
 When we were fairly at sea he was missed. A pleasing 
 belief tliat he had fallen overboard, or had been left behind, 
 was dissipated by his appearance one morning, with his 
 daughter on one arm, and the elderly female before alluded 
 to on the other. The Unser Fritz was rolling heavily at 
 the time, but with his usual awkward pertinacity he insisted 
 upon attempting to walk toward the best part of the deck, 
 as he always did, as if it were a right and a duty. A lurch 
 brought him and his uncertain freight in contact with the 
 Montmorrises, there was a moment of wild confusion, two 
 or three seats were emptied, and he finally was led away by 
 the stevvardj an obviously and obtrusively sick man. But 
 
"A TOUEIST FROM INJIANNY " 387 
 
 when he had disappeared below it was noticed that he had 
 secured two excellent seats for his female companions. 
 Nobodjf dared to disturb the elder, nobody cared to disturb 
 the younger, — who it may be here recorded had a certain 
 shy reserve which checked aught but the simplest civilities 
 from the male passengers. 
 
 A few days later it was discovered that he was not an 
 inmate of the first, but of the second cabin ; that the 
 elderly female was not his wife, as popularly supposed, but 
 the room-mate of his daughter in the first cabin. These 
 facts made his various intrusions on the saloon deck the 
 more exasperating to the Montmorrises, yet the more 
 difficult to deal with. Eventually, however, he had, as 
 usual, his own way ; no place was sacred, or debarred 
 his slouched hat and duster. They were turned out of 
 the engine-room to reappear upon the bridge, they were 
 forbidden the forecastle to rise a ghostly presence beside 
 the officer in his solemn supervision of the compass. They 
 would have been lashed to the rigging on their way to the 
 maintop, but for the silent protest of his daughter's presence 
 on the deck. Most of his interrupting familiar conversation 
 was addressed to the interdicted " man at the wheel." 
 
 Hitherto I had contented myself with the fascination of 
 his presence from afar, — wisely, perhaps, deeming it dan- 
 gerous to a true picturesque perspective to alter my dis- 
 tance, and perhaps, like the best of us, I fear, preferring 
 to keep my own idea of him than to run the risk of alter- 
 ing it by a closer acquaintance. But one day when I was 
 lounging by the stern rail, idly watching the dogged ostenta- 
 tion of the screw, thatr had been steadily intimating, after 
 the fashion of screws, that it was the only thing in the 
 ship with a persistent purpose, the ominous shadow of the 
 slouched hat and the trailing duster fell upon me. There 
 was nothing to do but accept it meekly. Indeed, my 
 theory of the man made me helpless. 
 
888 "A TOURIST FROM INJIANNY " 
 
 " I did n't know till yesterday who you be," he began 
 deliberately, " or I should n't hev' been so onsocial. But 
 I 've allers told my darter that in permiskiss trav'lin' a man 
 oughter be keerful of who he meets. I've read some of 
 ypur writin's, — read 'em in a paper in Injianny, but I 
 never reckoned I 'd meet ye. Things is queer, and trav'lin' 
 brings all sorter people together. My darter Looeze sus- 
 pected ye from the first, and she worried over it, and kinder 
 put me up to this." 
 
 The most delicate flattery could not have done more. 
 To have been in the thought of this reserved, gentle girl, 
 who scarcely seemed to notice even those who had paid her 
 attention, was — 
 
 " She put me up to it," he continued calmly, " though 
 she, herself, hez a kind o' pre-judise again you and your 
 writin's, — thinkin' them sort o' low down, and the folks 
 talked about not in her style ; and ye know that 's woman's 
 nater, and she and Miss Montmorris agree on that point. 
 But thar 's a few friends with me round yer ez would Ijjje 
 to see ye." He stepped aside and a dozen men appeared 
 in Indian file from behind the round-house, and, with a 
 solemnity known only to the Anglo-Saxon nature, shook 
 ray hand deliberately, and then dispersed themselves in 
 various serious attitudes against the railings. They were 
 honest, well-meaning countrymen of mine, but I could not 
 recall a single face. 
 
 There was a dead silence ; the screw, however, osten- 
 tatiously went on. " You see what I told you," it said. 
 " This is all vapidity and trifling. I 'm the only fellow 
 here with a purpose. Whiz, whiz, whiz ; chug, chug, 
 chug ! " 
 
 I was about to make some remark of a general nature, 
 when I was greatly relieved to observe my companion's 
 friends detach themselves from the railings, and, with a 
 slight bow and another shake of the hand, severally retire, 
 
"A TOUKIST FROM INJIANNY " 389 
 
 apparently as much relieved as myself. My companion, who 
 had in the mean time acted as if he had discharged himself 
 of a duty, said, " Thar oilers must be some one to tend to 
 this kind o' thing, or thar 's no sociableness. I took a 
 deppytation into the cap'n's room yesterday to make some 
 proppysitions, and thar 's a minister of the Gospel aboard ez 
 orter be spoke to afore next Sunday, and I reckon it 's my 
 dooty, onless," he added with deliberate and formal polite- 
 ness, "you'd prefer to do it, — bein' so to speak a public 
 man." 
 
 But the public man hastily deprecated any interference 
 with the speaker's functions, and to change the conversation 
 remarked that he had heard that there were a party of 
 Cook's tourists on board, and — were not the preceding 
 gentlemen of the number ? But the question caused the 
 speaker to lay aside his hat, take a comfortable position on 
 the deck, against the rail, and, drawing his knees up under 
 his chin, to begin as follows : — 
 
 " Speaking o' Cook and Cook's tourists, I 'm my own 
 Cook ! I reckon I calkilate and know every cent that I '11 
 spend 'twixt Evansville, Injianny, and E.ome and Naples, 
 and everything I '11 see.'' He paused a moment, and, lay- 
 ing his hand familiarly on my knee, said, " Did I ever tell 
 ye how I kem to go abroad ? " 
 
 As we had never spoken together before, it was safe to 
 reply that he had not. He rubbed his head softly with 
 his hand, knitted his iron-gray brows, and then said medi- 
 tatively, "No! it must hev been that head waiter. He 
 sorter favors you in the musstache and gen'ral get up. I 
 guess it war him I spoke to." 
 
 I thought it must have been. 
 
 " Well, then, this is the way it kem about. I was sittin' 
 one night, about three months ago, with my darter Looeze, 
 — my wife bein' dead some four year, — and I was reading 
 to her out of th° paper about the Exposition. She sez to 
 
390 " A TOURIST FROM INJIANNY " 
 
 me, quiet-like, — she 's a quiet sort o' gal if you ever notissed 
 her, — ' I should like to go thar ; ' I looks at her, — it was 
 the first time sense her mother died that that gal had ever 
 asked for anything, or had, so to speak, a wish. It vias n't 
 her way. She took everything ez it kem, and durn my 
 skin ef I ever could tell whether she ever wanted it to kem 
 in any other way. I never told ye this afore, did I ? " 
 
 « No," I said hastily. " Go on." 
 
 He felt his knees for a moment, and then drew a long 
 breath. " Perhaps," he began deliberately, " ye don't know 
 that I'm a poor man. Seein' me here among these rich 
 folks, goin' abroad to Paree with the best o' them, and 
 Looeze that — in the first cabin — a lady, ez she is — ye 
 would n't b'leeve it, but I 'm poor ! I am. Well, sir, 
 when that gal looks up at me and sez that, — I had n't but 
 twelve dollars in my pocket, and I ain't the durned fool that 
 I look, — but suthin' in me — suthin', you know, away 
 back in me — sez, You shall ! Loo-ey, you shall ! and 
 then I sez, — repeatin' it, and looking up right in her eyes, 
 — ' You shall go, Loo-ey ' — did you ever look in my ' gal's 
 eyes ? " 
 
 I parried that somewhat direct question by another, " But 
 the twelve dollars, — how did you increase that ? " 
 
 " I raised it to two hundred and fifty dollars. I got odd 
 jobs o' work here and there, overtime — I 'ra a machinists 
 I used to keep this yer over-work from Loo — saying I had 
 to see men in the evenin' to get p'ints about Europe — and 
 that — and getting a little money raised on my life insur- 
 ance I shoved her through. And here we is, chipper and 
 first class — all through — that is. Loo is ! " 
 
 " But two hundred and fifty dollars ! And Home and 
 N'aples and return ? You can't do it." 
 
 He looked at me cunningly a moment. " Can't do it ? 
 f 've done it ! " 
 
 "Done it?" 
 
"A TOURIST FEOM INJUNNY " 391 
 
 " Wal, about the same, I reckon : I 've figgered it out. 
 Figgers don't lie. I ain't no Cook's tourist : I kin see 
 Cook and give him p'ints. I tell you I've figgered it out 
 to a cent, and I 've money to spare. Of course I don't 
 reckon to travel with Loo. She '11- go first class. But I '11 
 be near her if it 's in the steerage of a ship, or in the 
 baggage car of a railroad. I don't need much in the way 
 of grub or clothes, and now and then I kin pick up a job. 
 Perhaps you disremember that row I had down in the 
 engine-room, when they chucked me out of it ? " 
 
 I could not help looking at him with astonishment ; 
 there was evidently only a pleasant memory in his mind. 
 Yet I recalled that I had felt indignant for him and his 
 daughter. 
 
 " Well, that derned fool of a Dutchman, that chief 
 engineer, gives me a job the other day. And ef I had n't 
 just forced my way down there, and talked sassy at him, 
 and criticised his macheen, he 'd hev never knowed I 
 knowed a eccentric from a wagon wheel. Do you see the 
 p'int ? " 
 
 I thought I began to see. But I could not help asking 
 what his daughter thought of his traveling in this inferior 
 way. 
 
 He laughed. " When I was gettin' up some p'ints from 
 them books of travel I read her a proverb or saying outer 
 one o' them, that ' only princes and fools and Americans 
 traveled first-class.' You see I told her it did n't say 
 ' women,' for they naterally would ride first-class — and 
 Amerikan gals being princesses, did 'nt count. Don' you 
 see ? " 
 
 If I did not quite follow his logic, nor see my way 
 clearly into his daughter's acquiescence through this speech, 
 some light may be thrown upon it by his next utterance. 
 I had risen with some vague words of congratulation on his 
 Siuccess, and was about to leave him, when he called me back. 
 
392 "A TOURIST FROM INJIANNY" 
 
 " Did I tell ye," he said, cautiously looking around, yefe 
 •vrith a smile of stifled enjoyment in his face, — " did I tell 
 ye what that gal — my darter — said to me ? No, I did 'nt 
 tell ye — nor no one else afore. Come here ! " 
 
 He made me draw down closely into the shadow and 
 secrecy of the round-house. 
 
 " That night that I told my gal she should go ahroad, 
 I sez to her quite chipper-like and free, ' I say. Looey,' 
 sez I, ' ye '11 be goin' for to marry some o' them counts 
 or dukes, or poten-tates, I reckon, and ye '11 leave the old 
 man.' Arid she sez, sez she, lookin' me squar in the eye 
 — did ye ever notiss that gal's eye ? " 
 
 " She has fine eyes," I replied cautiously. 
 
 " They is ez clean as a fresh milk-pan and ez bright. 
 Nothin' sticks to 'em. Eh ? " 
 
 " You are right." 
 
 " Well, she looks up at me this way," — here he achieved 
 a vile imitation of his daughter's modest glance, not at all 
 like her, — " and, looking at me, she sez quietly, ' That 's 
 what I 'm goin' for, and to improve my mind.' He ! he ! 
 he ! It 's a fack ! To marry a nobleman, and im-prove 
 her mind ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 The evident enjoyment that he took in this, and the 
 quiet ignoring of anything of a moral quality in his 
 daughter's sentiments, or in his thus confiding them to a 
 stranger's ear, again upset all my theories. I may say here 
 that it is one of the evidences of original character that it 
 is apt to baffle all prognosis from a mere observer's stand- 
 point. But I recalled it some months after. 
 
 We parted in England. It is not necessary, in this brief 
 chronicle, to repeat the various stories of " Uncle Joshua," 
 as the younger and more frivolous of our passengers called 
 him, nor that two thirds of the stories repeated were utterly 
 at variance with my estimate of the character of the man, 
 although I may add that I was also doubtful of the accuracy 
 
"A TOURIST FROM INJIANNY " 393 
 
 of my own estimate. But one quality was always dominant, 
 
 — his resistless, dogged pertinacity and calm imperturba- 
 bility ! " He asked Miss Montmorris if she ' minded ' 
 singin' a little in the second cabin to liven it up, and added, 
 as an inducement, that they did n't know good music from 
 bad," said Jack Walker to me. " And when he mended 
 the broken lock of my trunk, he abtholutely propothed to 
 me to athk couthin Grath if thee did n't want a ' koorier ' 
 to travel with her to •' do mechanics,' provided thee would 
 take charge of that dreadfully deaf-and-dumb daughter of 
 his. Wath n't it funny ? Really he 'th one of your char- 
 acters," said the youngest Miss Montmorris to me as we 
 made our adieu on the steamer. 
 
 I am afraid he was not, although he was good enough 
 afterwards to establish one or two of my theories regarding 
 him. I was enabled to assist him once in an altercation he 
 had with a cabman regarding the fare of his daughter, thp 
 cabman retaining a dis^tinct impression that the father had 
 also ridden in some obscure way in or upon the same cab, 
 
 — as he undoubtedly had, — and, I grieve to say, foolishly. 
 I heard that he had . forced his way into a certain great 
 house in England, and thai he was ignominiously ejected, 
 but I also heard that ample apologies had been made to 
 a certain quiet, modest daughter of his who was without 
 on the lawn, and that also a certain Personage, whom I 
 approach, even in this vague way, with a capital letter, had 
 graciously taken a fancy to the poor child, and had invited 
 her to a reception. 
 
 But this is only hearsay evidence. So also is the story 
 which met me in Paris, that he had been up with his 
 daughter in the captive balloon, and that at an elevation of 
 several thousand feet from the earth he had made some 
 remarks upon the attaching cable and the drum on which 
 the cable revolved, which not only excited the interest of 
 the passengers, but attracted the attention of the authorities, 
 
594 "A TOUEIST FKOM INJIANNY " 
 
 SO that he was not only given a gratuitous ascent afterwards, 
 but was, I am told, offered some gratuity. But I shall 
 restrict this narrative to the few facts of which I was person- 
 ally cognizant in the career of this remarkable man. 
 
 I was at a certain entertainment given in Paris by the 
 heirs, executors, and assignees of an admirable man, long 
 since gathered to his fathers in Pfere la Chaise, but whose 
 Shakespeare-like bust still looks calmly and benevolently 
 down on the riotous revelry of absurd wickedness of which 
 he was, when living, the patron saint. The entertainment 
 was of such a character that, while the performers were 
 chiefly women, a majority of the spectators were men. The 
 few exceptions were foreigners, and among them I quickly 
 recognized my fair fellow-countrywomen, the Montmorrises. 
 " Don't thay that you *ve theen us here," said the young- 
 est Miss Montmorris, "for ith only a lark. Ith awfullj' 
 funny ! And that friend of yourth from Injianny ith here 
 with hith daiighter." It did not take me long to find my 
 friend " Uncle Joshua's " serious, practical, unsympathetic 
 face in the front row of tables aiid benches. But beside 
 him, to my utter consternation, was his shy and modest 
 datighter. In another moment I was at his side. " I 
 really think — I am afraid," I began in a whisper, " that 
 you have made a mistake. I don't think you can be aware 
 of the character of this place. Your daughter " — 
 
 " Kem here with Miss Montmorris. She 's yer. It 's 
 all right." 
 
 I was at my wits' end. Happily, at this moment Mdlle. 
 Eochefort from the Orangerie skipped out in the quadrille 
 immediately before us, caught her light skirts in either 
 hand, and executed a pas that lifted the hat from the eyes 
 of some of the front spectators and pulled it down over the 
 eyes of others. The Montmorrises fluttered away with a 
 half-hysterical giggle and a half-confounded escort. The 
 modest-looking Miss Loo, who had been staring at every- 
 
"A TOURIST FROM INJIANNY " 395 
 
 thing quite indifferently, suddenly stepped forward, took 
 her father's arm, and said sharply, " Come." 
 
 At this moment, a voice in English, hut unmistakably 
 belonging to the politest nation in the world, rose from 
 behind the girl, mimickingly. " My God ! it is schocking. 
 I bloosh ! dammit ! " 
 
 In an instant he was in the hands of " Uncle Joshua," 
 and forced hack clamoring against the railing, his hat 
 smashed over his foolish, furious face, and half his shirt 
 and cravat in the old man's strong grip. Several students 
 rushed to the rescue of their compatriot, hut one or two 
 Englishmen and half a dozen Americans had managed in 
 some mysterious way to bound into the arena. I looked 
 hurriedly for Miss Louise, but she was gone. When we 
 had extricated the old man from the mel^e, I asked him 
 where she was. 
 
 " Oh, I reckon she 's gone off with Sir Arthur. I saw 
 him here just as I pitched into that domed fool." 
 
 " Sir Arthur ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, an acquaintance o' Loo's." 
 
 " She 's in my carriage, just outside," interrupted a hand- 
 some young fellow, with the shovilders of a giant and the 
 blushes of a girl. " It 's all over now, you know. It was 
 rather a foolish lark, you coming here with her without 
 knowing — you know — anything about it, you know. But 
 this way — thank you. She's waiting for you," and in 
 another instant he and the old man had vanished. 
 
 Nor did I see him again until he stepped into the rail- 
 way carriage with me on his way to Liverpool. " You see 
 I 'm trav'lin' first-class now," he said, " but goin' home I 
 don't mind a trifle extry expense." 
 
 " Then you 've made your tour," I asked, " and are suc- 
 cessful ? " 
 
 "Wall, yes, we saw Switzerland and Italy, and if I 
 hed n't been short o' time we 'd hev gone to Egypt. 
 
896 "A TOURIST FEOM INJIANNY" 
 
 Mebbee next winter I '11 run over again to see Loo, and 
 do it." 
 
 " Then your daughter does not return with you ? " I 
 continued in some astonishment. 
 
 " Wall, no ; she 's visiting some of Sir Arthur's relatives 
 in Kent. Sir Arthur is there — perhaps you recollect 
 him ? " He paused a moment, looked cautiously around, 
 and, with the same enjoyment he had shown on shipboard, 
 said, " Do you remember the joke I told you on Loo, when 
 she was at sea ? " 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " Well, don't ye say anything about it now. But dem 
 SDy skin, if it does n't look like coming true." 
 
 And it did. 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 He lived alone. I do not think this peculiarity arose 
 from any wish to withdraw his foolishness from the rest of 
 the camp, nor was it probable that the combined wisdom 
 of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My impression is, 
 that he lived alone from choice, — a choice he made long 
 before the camp indulged in any criticism of his mental 
 capacity. He was much given to moody reticence, and, 
 although to outward appearances a strong man, was always 
 complaining of ill-health. Indeed, one theory of his iso- 
 lation was that it afforded him better opportunities for 
 taking medicine, of which he habitually consumed large 
 quantities. 
 
 His folly first dawned upon Five Forks through the Post 
 Office windows. He was for a long time the only man who 
 wrote home by every mail, his letters being always directed 
 to the same person, — a woman. Now it so happened that 
 the bulk of the Five Forks' correspondence was usually the 
 other way ; there were many letters received — the majority 
 being in the female hand — but very few answered. 
 
 The men received them indifferently, or as a matter of 
 tourse ; a few opened and read them on the spot with 
 a barely repressed smile of self-conceit, or quite as fre- 
 quently glanced over them with undisguised impatience. 
 Some of the letters began with " My dear husband," and 
 some were never called for. But the fact that the only 
 regular correspondent of Five Forks never received any 
 reply became at last quite notorious. Consequently, when 
 an envelope was received bearing the stamp of the " Dead 
 
398 THE FOOL OF FIYE FOEKS 
 
 Letter Ofi&ce," addressed to the Fool under the more con- 
 ventional title of " Cyrus Hawkins," there was quite a 
 fever of excitement. I do not know how the secret leaked 
 out, hut it was eventually known to the camp that the 
 envelope contained Hawkins' own letters returned. This 
 was the first evidence of his weakness ; any man who re- 
 peatedly wrote to a woman who did not reply must he a 
 fool. I think Hawkins suspected that his folly was known 
 to the camp, but he took refuge in symptoms of chills and 
 fever, which he at once developed, and effected a diversion 
 with three hottles of Indian cholagogue and two boxes of 
 pills. At all events, at the end of a week he resumed a 
 pen, stiffened by tonics, with all his old epistolatory perti- 
 nacity. This time the letters had a new address. 
 
 In those days a popular belief obtained in the mines 
 that Luck particularly favored the foolish and unscientific. 
 Consequently, when Hawkins struck a " pocket " in the 
 nillside near his solitary cabin, there was but little surprise. 
 "He will sink it all in the next hole," was the prevail- 
 ing belief, predicted upon the usual manner in which the 
 possessor of " nigger luck " disposed of his fortune. To 
 everybody's astonishment, Hawkins, after taking out about 
 eight thousand dollars and exhausting the pocket, did not 
 prospect for another. The camp then waited patiently to 
 see what he would do with his money. I think, however, 
 that it was with the greatest difficulty their indignation was 
 ^ept from taking the form of a personal assault when it 
 became known that he had purchased a draft for eight 
 thousand dollars in favor of "that woman." More than 
 this, it was finally whispered that the draft was returned to 
 him as his letters had been, and that he was ashamed to 
 reclaim the money at the express office. " It would n't be 
 a bad speckilation to go East, get some smart gal for a 
 hundred dollars to dress herself up and represent that hag, 
 and jest freeze on to that eight thousand," suggested a far- 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FQRKS 399 
 
 seeing financier. I may state here that we always alluded 
 to Hawkins' fair unknown as " The Hag," without having, 
 I am confident, the least justification for that epithet. 
 
 That the Fool should gamble seemed eminently fit and 
 proper. That he should occasionally win a large stake, 
 Recording to that popular theory which I have recorded in 
 the preceding paragraph, appeared also a not improbably 
 or inconsistent fact. That he should, however, break the 
 faro bank which Mr. John Hamlin had set up in Five 
 Forks, and carry off a sum variously estimated at from ten 
 to twenty thousand dollars, and not return the next day 
 and lose the money at the same table, really appeared in- 
 credible. Yet such was the fact. A day or two passed^ 
 without any known investment of Mr. Hawkins' recently 
 acquired capital. " Ef he allows to send it to that Hag," 
 said one prominent citizen, " suthin' ought to be done ! It 's 
 jest ruinin' the reputation of this yer camp — this sloshin' 
 around o' capital on non-residents ez don't claim it ! " " It 's 
 settin' an example o' extravagance," said another, "ez is 
 little better nor a swindle. Thar 's more 'n five men in this 
 camp thet, hearin' thet Hawkins had sent home eight 
 thousand dollars, must jest rise up and send home their 
 hard earnings, too ! And then to think thet that eight 
 thousand was only a bluff, after all, and thet it 's lyin' there 
 on call in Adams & Co.'s bank ! Well ! I say it 's one o' 
 them things a vigilance committee oughter look into ! " 
 
 When there seemed no possibility of this repetition of 
 Hawkins' folly, the anxiety to know what he had really 
 done with his money became intense. At last a self- 
 appointed committee of four citizens dropped artfully, but 
 to outward appearances carelessly, upon him in his seclu- 
 sion. When some polite formalities had been exchanged, 
 and some easy vituperation of a backward season offered by 
 each of the parties, Tom Wingate approached the .subject : — 
 
 " Sorter dropped heavy on Jack Hamlin the other night, 
 
4O0 THE FOOL OF FIVE FOBKS 
 
 did n't ye ? He allows you did n't give him no show for 
 revenge. I said you was n't no such d — d fool — did n't I, 
 Dick ? " continued the artful Wingate, appealing to a con- 
 federate. 
 
 " Yes," said Dick promptly. " You said twenty thou- 
 sand dollars was n't goin' to he throwii around recklessly. 
 You said Cyrus had suthin' hetter to do with his capital," 
 superadded Dick, with gratuitous mendacity. " I disre- 
 memher now what partickler investment you said he was 
 goin' to make with it," he continued, appealing with easy 
 indifference to his friend. 
 
 Of course Wingate did not reply, but looked at the 
 fool who with a troubled face was rubbing his legs softly. 
 After a pause he turned deprecatingly toward his visitors. 
 
 "Ye didn't enny of ye ever hev a sort of tremblin' in 
 your legs, — a kind o' shakiness from the knee down ? 
 Suthin'," he continued, slightly brightening with his topic, 
 "suthin' that begins like chills, and yet ain't chills. A 
 kind o' sensation of goneness here, and a kind o' feelin' 
 as if you might die siiddent ! When Wright's Pills don't 
 somehow reach the spot, and Quinine don't fetch you ? " 
 
 " No ! " said Wingate, with a curt directness, and the 
 air of authoritatively responding for his friends. " No, 
 never had. You was speakin' of this yer investment." 
 
 " And your bowels all the time irregular ! " continued 
 Hawkins, blushing under Wingate's eye, and yet clinging 
 despairingly to his theme like a shipwrecked mariner to his 
 plank. 
 
 Wingate did not reply, but glanced significantly at the 
 rest. Hawkins evidently saw this recognition of his mental 
 deficiency, and said apologetically, " You was saying suthin' 
 about my investment ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost take Haw- 
 kins' breath away, — " the investment you made in " — 
 
 "Eafferty's Ditch," said the Fool, timidly. 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 401 
 
 For a moment the visitors could only stare blankly at 
 each other. " Rafferty's Ditch," the one notorious failure 
 of Five Forks ! Rafferty's Ditch, the impracticable scheme 
 of an utterly unpractical man ; Rafferty's Ditch, a ridiculous 
 plan for taking water that could not be got to a place where 
 it was n't wanted ! Rafferty's Dittih, that had buried the 
 fortunes of Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in 
 its muddy depths ! 
 
 " And thet 's it '■ — is it ? " said Wingate, after a gloomy 
 pause. " Thet 's it ! I see it all now, boys. Thet 's how 
 ragged Pat Rafferty went down to San Francisco yesterday 
 in store clothes, and his wife and four children went off in 
 a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet 's why them ten workmen 
 of his, ez hed 't a cent to bless themselves with, was playin' 
 billiards last night and eatin' isters. Thet's whar that 
 money kum frum — one- hundred dollars — to pay for thet 
 long advertisement of the new issue of Ditch stock in the 
 ' Times ' yesterday. Thet 's why them six strangers were 
 booked at the Magnolia Hotel yesterday. Don't you see — 
 it 's thet money and thet Fool ! " 
 
 The Fool sat silsnt. The visitors rose without a word. 
 
 " You never took any of them Indian Vegetable Pills ? " 
 asked Hawkins timidly, of Wingate. 
 
 " No," roared Wingate, as he opened the door. 
 
 *' They tell me that took with the Panacea — they was 
 out o' the Panacea when I went to the drug store last week 
 — they say that, took with the Panacea, they always effect 
 a certing cure." — But by this time Wingate and his dis- 
 gusted friends had retreated, slamming the door on the Fool 
 and his ailments. 
 
 Nevertheless in six months the whole affair was forgotten, 
 the money had been spent — the " Ditch " had been pur- 
 chased by a company of Boston capitalists, fired by the 
 glowing description of an Eastern tourist, who had spent 
 one drunken n'ght at Five Forks — and I think even the 
 
402 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 mental condition of Hawkins might have remained undisi 
 turbed by criticism, but for a singular incident. 
 
 It was during an exciting political campaign, when party 
 feeling ran high, that the irascible Captain McFadden, of 
 Sacramento, visited Five Forks. During a heated discussion 
 in the Prairie Rose Saloon, words passed between the Cap- 
 tain and the Honorable Calhoun Buugstarter, ending in a 
 challenge. The Captain bore the infelix reputation of being 
 a notorious duellist and a dead shot: the Captain was un- 
 popular ; the Captain was believed to have been sent by 
 the opposition for a deadly purpose ; and the Captain was, 
 moreover, a stranger. I am sorry to say that with Five 
 Forks this latter condition did not carry the quality of sanc- 
 tity or reverence that usually obtains among other nomads. 
 There was consequently some little hesitation when the 
 Captain turned upon the crowd and asked for some one to 
 act as his friend. To everybody's astonishment, and to the 
 indignation of many, the Fool stepped forward and offered 
 himself in that capacity. I do not know whether Captain 
 McFadden would have chosen him voluntarily, but he was 
 constrained, in the absence, of a better man, to accept his 
 services. 
 
 The duel never took place ! The preliminaries were all 
 arranged, the spot indicated, the men were present with 
 their seconds, there was no interruption from without, there 
 was no explanation or apology passed — but the duel did 
 not take place. It may be readily imagined that these facts, 
 which were all known to Five Forks, threw the whole com- 
 munity into a fever of curiosity. The principals, the sur- 
 geon, and one second left town the next day. Only the 
 Fool remained. He resisted all questioning — declaring 
 himself held in honor not to divulge — in short, conducted 
 himself with consistent but exasperating folly. It was not 
 until six months had passed that Colonel Starbottle, the 
 second of Calhoun Bungstarter, in a moment of weakness 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 403 
 
 superinduced by the social glass, condescended to explain. 
 I should not do justice to the parties if I did not give that 
 explanation in the Colonel's own words. I may remark, in 
 passing, that the characteristic dignity of Colonel Starbottle 
 always became intensified by stimulants, and that by the 
 same process all sense of humor was utterly eliminated. 
 
 " With the understanding that I am addressing myself 
 confidentially to men of honor," said the Colonel, elevating 
 his chest above the bar-room counter of the Prairie Rose 
 Saloon, " I trust that it will not be necessary for me to pro- 
 tect myself from levity, as I was forced to do in Sacramento 
 on the only other occasion when I entered into an explana- 
 tion of this delicate affair by — er — er — calling the indi- 
 vidual to a personal account — er ! I do not believe," 
 added the Colonel, slightly waving his glass of liquor in 
 the air with a graceful gesture of courteous deprecation — 
 " knowing what I do of the present company — that such 
 a course of action is required here. Certainly not — Sir — 
 in the home of Mr. Hawkins — er — the gentleman who 
 represented Captain McFadden, whose conduct, ged. Sir, is 
 worthy of praise, blank me ! 
 
 Apparently satisfied with the gravity and respectful atten- 
 tion of his listeners. Colonel Starbottle smiled relentingly 
 and sweetly, closed his eyes half dreamily, as if to recall 
 his wandering thoughts, and began : — 
 
 " As the spot selected was nearest the tenement of Mr. 
 Hawkins, it was agreed that the parties should meet there. 
 They did so promptly at half past six. The morning being 
 chilly, Mr. Hawkins extended the hospitalities of his house 
 with a bottle of Bourbon whiskey — of which all partook 
 but myself. The reason for that exception is, I believe,, 
 well known. It is my invariable custom to take brandy — 
 a wine-glassful in a cup of strong coffee — immediately on 
 rising. It stimulates the functions, sir, without producing 
 any blank derangement of the nerves." 
 
404 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 The barkeeper, to whom, as an expert, the Colonel had 
 graciously imparted this information, nodded approvingly, 
 and the Colonel, amid a breathless silence, went on : — 
 
 " We were about twenty minutes in reaching the spot. 
 The ground was measured, the weapons were loaded, when 
 Mr. Bungstarter confided to me the information that he 
 was unwell and in great pain/ On consultation with Mr. 
 Hawkins, it appeared that his principal in a distant part of 
 the field was also suffering and in great pain. The symp' 
 toms were such as a medical man would pronounce * chol- 
 eraic' I say would have pronounced, for on examination 
 the surgeon was also found to be — er — in pain, and, I 
 regret to say, expressing himself in language unbecoming 
 the occasion. His impression was that some powerful 
 drug had been administered. On referring the question to 
 Mr. Hawkins, he remembered that the bottle of whiskey 
 partaken by them contained a medicine which he had been 
 in the habit of taking, but which, having failed to act upon 
 him, he had concluded to be generally ineffective, and had 
 forgotten. His perfect willingness to hold himself person- 
 ally responsible to each of the parties, his genuine concern 
 at the disastrous effect of the mistake, mingled with his 
 own alarm at the state of his system, which — er — failed 
 to — er — respond to the peculiar qualities of the medicine, 
 was most becoming to him as a man of honor and a gentle- 
 man ! After an hour's delay, both principals being com- 
 pletely exhausted, and abandoned by the surgeon, who was 
 unreasonably alarmed at his own condition, Mr. Hawkins 
 and I agreed to remove our men to Markleville. There, 
 after a further consultation with Mr. Hawkins, an amicable 
 adjustment of all difficulties, honorable to both parties, 
 and governed by profound secrecy, was arranged. I be- 
 lieve," added the Colonel, looking around and setting 
 down his glass, " no gentleman has yet expressed himself 
 other than satisfied with the result." 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKKS 405 
 
 Perhaps it was the Colonel's manner, but whatever was 
 the opinion of Five Forks regarding the intellectual display 
 of Mr. Hawkins in this affair, there was very little outspoken 
 criticism at the moment. In a few weeks the whole thing 
 was forgotten, except as part of the necessary record of 
 Hawkins' blunders, which was already a pretty full one. 
 Again some later follies conspired to obliterate the past, 
 until, a year later, a valuable lead was discovered in the 
 " Blazing Star " Tunnel, in the hill where he lived, and a 
 large sum was offered him for a portion of his land on the 
 hill-top. Accustomed as Five Forks had become to the 
 exhibition of his folly, it was with astonishment that they 
 learned that he resolutely and decidedly refused the offer. 
 The reason that he gave was still more astounding. He 
 was about to build ! 
 
 To build a house upon property available for mining pur- 
 poses was preposterous ; to build at all, with a roof already 
 covering him, was an act of extravagance ; to build a house 
 of the style he proposed was simply madness ! 
 
 Yet here were facts. The plans were made and the 
 lumber for the new building was already on the ground, 
 while the shaft of the " Blazing Star " was being sunk 
 below. The site was, in reality, a very picturesque one, — 
 the building itself of a style and quality hitherto unknown 
 in Five Forks. The citizens, at first skeptical, during their 
 moments of recreation and idleness gathered doubtingly 
 about the locality. Day by day, in that climate of rapid 
 growths, the building, pleasantly known in the slang of Five 
 Forks as " the Idiot Asylum," rose beside the green oaks 
 and clustering firs of Hawkins Hill, as if it were part of 
 the natural phenomena. At last it was completed. Then 
 Mr. Hawkins proceeded to furnish it with an expensiveness 
 and extravagance of outlay quite in keeping with his former 
 idiocy. Carpets, sofas, mirrors, and finally a piano — the 
 only one known in the county, and brought at great expense 
 
406 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 from Sacramento — kept curiosity at a fever heat. More 
 than that, there were articles and ornaments which a few 
 married experts declared only fit for women. When the 
 furnishing of the house was complete — it had occupied 
 two months of the speculative and curious attention of the 
 camp — Mr. Hawkins locked the front door, put the key in 
 his pocket, and quietly retired to his more humble roof, 
 lower on the hillside ! 
 
 I have not deemed it necessary to indicate to the intelli- 
 gent reader all of the theories which obtained in Five Forks 
 during the erection of the building. Some of them may be 
 readily imagined. That " the Hag " had by artful coyness 
 and systematic reticence at last completely subjugated the 
 Fool, and that the new house Avas intended for the nuptial 
 bower of the (predestined) unhappy pair, was of course the 
 prevailing opinion. But when, after a reasonable time had 
 elapsed, and the house still remained untenanted, the more 
 exasperating conviction forced itself upon the general mind 
 that the Fool had been for the third time imposed upon. 
 When two months had elapsed and there seemed no pros- 
 pect of a mistress for the new house, I think public indig- 
 nation became so strong that, had " the Hag " arrived, the 
 marriage would have been publicly prevented. But no one 
 appeared that seemed to answer to this idea of an available 
 tenant, and all inquiry of Mr. Hawkins, as to his intention 
 in bviilding a house and not renting it or occupying it, failed 
 to elicit any further information. The reasons that he gave 
 were felt to be vague, evasive, and unsatisfactory. He was 
 in no hurry to move, he said ; when he was ready, it surely 
 was not strange that he should like to have his house all 
 ready to receive him. He was often seen upon the veranda 
 of a summer evening smoking a cigar. It is reported that 
 one night the house was observed to be brilliantly lighted 
 from garret to basement ; that a neighbor, observing this, 
 crept toward the open parlor window, and, looking in, 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 407 
 
 espied the Fool, accurately dressed in evening costume, 
 lounging upon a sofa in the drawing-room, with the easy 
 air of socially entertaining a large party. Notwithstanding 
 this, the house was unmistakably vacant that evening, save 
 for the presence of the owner, as the witnesses afterward 
 testified. When this story was first related, a few practical 
 men suggested the theory that Mr. Hawkins was simply 
 drilling himself in the elaborate duties of hospitality against 
 a probable event in his history. A few ventured the belief 
 that the house was haunted. The imaginative editor of the 
 Five Forks " Kecord " evolved from the depths of his prd- 
 fessional consciousness a story that Hawkins' sweetheart 
 had died, and that he regularly entertained her spirit in this 
 beautifully furnished mausoleum. The occasional spectacle 
 of Hawkins' tall figure pacing the veranda on moonlight 
 nights lent some credence to this theory, until an unlooked- 
 for incident diverted all speculation into another channel. 
 
 It was about this time that a certain wild, rude valley, 
 in the neighborhood of Five Forks, had become famous 
 as a picturesque resort. Travelers had visited it, and 
 declared that there were more cubic yards of rough stone 
 cliif, and a waterfall of greater height, than any they had 
 visited. Correspondents had written it up with extrava- 
 gant rhetoric and inordinate poetical quotation. Men and 
 women who had never enjoyed a sunset, a tree, or a flower 
 
 — who had never appreciated the graciousness or meaning 
 of the yellow sunlight that flecked their homely doorways, 
 or the tenderness of a midsummer's night, to whose moon- 
 light they "bared their shirt-sleeves or their tulle dresses 
 
 — came from thousands of miles away to calculate the 
 height of this rock, to observe the depth of this chasm, to 
 remark upon the enormous size of this unsightly tree, ami 
 to believe with ineffable self-complacency that they really 
 admired nature. And so it came to pass that, in accord- 
 ance with the tastes or weaknesses of the individual, the 
 
408 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 more prominent and salient points of the valley were 
 christened, and there was a " Lace Handkerchief Fall," 
 and the " Tears of Sympathy Cataract," and one distin- 
 guished orator's " Peak," and several " Mounts " of various 
 noted people, living or dead ; and an " Exclamation Point," 
 and a " Valley of Silent Adoration." And, in course of 
 time, empty soda-water bottles were found at the base of 
 the cataract, and greasy newspapers and fragments of ham 
 sandwiches lay at the dusty roots of giant trees. With this, 
 there were frequent irruptions of closely shaven and tightly 
 cravated men and delicate-faced women in the one long 
 street of Five Forks, and a scampering of mules, and an 
 occasional procession of dusty brown-linen cavalry. 
 
 A year after " Hawkins' Idiot Asylum " was completed, 
 one day there drifted into the valley a riotous cavalcade 
 of " school-marms," teachers of the San Francisco public 
 schools, out for a holiday. Not severely-spectacled Miner- 
 vas and chastely armed and mailed Pallases, but, I fear 
 for the security of Five Fork, very human, charming, and 
 mischievous young women. At least, so the men thought, 
 working in the ditches and tunneling on the hillside ; and 
 when, in the interests of Science and the mental advance- 
 ment of Juvenile Posterity, it was finally settled that they 
 should stay in Five Forks two or three days for the sake 
 of visiting the various mines, and particularly the " Blazing 
 Star " Tunnel, there was some flutter of masculine anxiety. 
 There was a considerable inquiry for " store clothes," a 
 hopeless overhauling of old and disused raiment, and a 
 general demand for " boiled shirts " and the barber. 
 
 Meanwhile, with that supreme audacity and impudent 
 hardihood of the sex when gregarious, the school-marms 
 rode through the town, admiring openly the handsome 
 faces and manly figures that looked up from the ditches or 
 rose behind the cars of ore at the mouths of tunnels. 
 Indeed, it is alleged that Jenny Forester^ backed and 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 409 
 
 supported by seven other equally shameless young women, 
 had opmly and publicly waved her handkerchief to the 
 florid Hercules of Five Forks, — one Tom Flynn, formerly 
 of Virginia, — leaving that good-natured but not over-bright 
 giant pulling his blonde moustaches in bashful amazement. 
 It was a pleasant June afternoon that Miss Nelly Arnot, 
 Principal of the primary department of one of the public 
 schools of San Francisco, having evaded her companions, 
 resolved to put into operation a plan which had lately 
 sprung up in her courageous and mischief-loving fancy. 
 With that wonderful and mysterious instinct of her sex, 
 from whom no secrets of the afifections are hid and to 
 whom all hearts are laid open, she had heard the story of 
 Hawkins' folly and the existence of the " Idiot Asylum." 
 Alone, on Hawkins Hill, she had determined to penetrate 
 its seclusion. Skirting the underbrush at the foot of the 
 hill, she managed to keep the heaviest timber between 
 herself and the " Blazing Star" Tunnel at its base, as well 
 as the cabin of Hawkins, halfway up the ascent, until, by 
 a circuitous route, at last she reached, unobserved, the 
 summit. Before her rose, silent, darkened, and motion- 
 less, the object of her search. Here her courage failed 
 her, with all the characteristic inconsequence of her sex. 
 A sudden fear of all the dangers she had safely passed 
 — bears, tarantulas, drunken men, and lizards — came upon 
 her. For a moment, as she afterwards expressed it, " slie 
 thought she should die." With this belief, probably, she 
 gathered three large stones, which she could hardly lift, for 
 the purpose of throwing a great distance ; put two hair- 
 pins in her mouth, and carefully readjusted with both 
 hands two stray braids of her lovely blue-black mane 
 which had fallen in gathering the stones. Then she felt 
 in the pockets of her linen duster for her card-case, hand- 
 kerchief, pocket-book, and smelling-bottle, and, finding 
 them intact, suddenly assumed an air of easy, ladylike 
 
410 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 unconcern, went up the steps of the veranda, and demurely 
 pulled the front door-bell, which she knew would not be 
 answered. After a decent pause, she walked around the 
 encompassing veranda, examining the closed shutters of the 
 French windows until she found one that yielded to her 
 touch. Here she paused again to adjust her coquettish 
 hat by the mirror-like surface of the long sash window that 
 reflected the full length of her pretty figure. And then 
 she opened the window and entered the room. 
 
 Although long closed, the house had a smell of newness 
 and of fresh paint that was quite unlike the mouldiness of 
 the conventional haunted house. The bright carpets, the 
 cheerful walls, the glistening oilcloths were quite incon- 
 sistent with the idea of a ghost. With childish curiosity 
 she began to explore the silent house, at first timidly, — 
 opening the doors with a violent push, and then stepping 
 back from the threshold to make good a possible retreat, 
 — and then more boldly, as she became convinced of her 
 security and absolute loneliness. In one of the chambers, 
 the largest, there were fresh flowers in a vase, — evidently 
 gathered that morning ; and, what seemed still more re- 
 markable, the pitchers and ewers were freshly filled with 
 water. This obliged Miss Nelly to notice another singular 
 fact, namely, that the house was free from dust, — the one 
 most obtrusive and penetrating visitor of Five Forks. The 
 floors and carpets had been recently swept, the chairs and 
 furniture carefully wiped and dusted. If the house vias 
 haunted, it was possessed by a spirit who had none of the 
 usual indifference to decay and mould. And yet the beds 
 had evidently never been slept in, the very springs of the 
 chair in which she sat creaked stiffly at the novelty, the 
 closet doors opened with the reluctance of fresh paint and 
 varnish, and, in spite of the warmth, cleanliness, and cheer- 
 fulness of furniture and decoration, there was none of the 
 tase of tenancy and occupation. As Miss Nelly afterwards 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 4U 
 
 confessed, she tonged to " tumble things around," and, 
 when she reached the parlor or drawing-room again, she 
 could hardly resist the desire. Particularly was she tempted 
 by a closed piano that stood mutely against the wall. She 
 thought she would open it just to see who was the maker. 
 That done, it would be no harm to try its tone. She did 
 so, with one little foot on the soft pedal. But Miss Nelly 
 was too good a player, and too enthusiastic a musician, to 
 stop at half measures. She tried it again, — this time so 
 sincerely that the whole house seemed to spring into voice. 
 Then she stopped and listened. There was no response, — ■ 
 the empty rooms seemed to have relapsed into their old 
 stillness. She stepped out on the veranda ; a woodpecker 
 recommenced his tapping on an adjacent tree, the rattle of 
 a cart in the rocky gulch below the hill came faintly up. 
 No one was to be seen far or near. Miss Nelly, reassured, 
 returned. She again ran her fingers over the keys, — 
 stopped, caught at a melody running in her mind, half 
 played it, and then threw away all caution. Before five 
 minutes had elapsed she had entirely forgotten herself, and 
 with her linen duster thrown aside, her straw hat flung 
 on the piano, her white hands bared, and a black loop of 
 her braided hair hanging upon her shoulder, was fairlj 
 embarked upon a flowing sea of musical recollection. 
 
 She had played perhaps half an hour, when, having jusi 
 finished an elaborate symphony and resting her hands on 
 the keys, she heard very distinctly and unmistakably the 
 sound of applause from without. In an instant the fires of 
 shame and indignation leaped into her cheeks, and she rose 
 from the instrument and ran to the window, only in time to 
 catch sight of a dozen figures in blue and red flannel shirts 
 vanishing hurriedly through the trees below. 
 
 Miss Nelly's mind was instantly made up. I think I 
 have already intimated that under the stimulus of excite- 
 ment she was not wanting in courage, and, as she quietly 
 
412 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 resumed her gloves, hat, and duster, she was not perhaps 
 exactly the young person that it would he entirely safe for 
 the timid, emharrassed, or inexperienced of my sex to meet 
 alone. She shut down the piano, and, having carefully 
 reclosed all the windows and doors, and restored the house 
 to its former desolate condition, she stepped from the 
 veranda, and proceeded directly to the cabin of the unin- 
 tellectual Hawkins, that reared its adobe chimney above 
 the umbrage a quarter of a mile below. 
 
 The door opened instantly to her impulsive knock, and 
 the Fool of Five Forks stood before her. Miss Nelly had 
 never before seen the man designated by this infelicitous 
 title, and as he stepped backward in half courtesy and half 
 astonishment she was for the moment disconcerted. He 
 was tall, finely formed, and dark -bearded. Above cheeks a 
 little hollowed by care and ill-health shone a pair of hazel 
 eyes, very large, very gentle, but inexpressibly sad and 
 mournful. This was certainly not the kind of man Miss 
 Nelly had expected to see, yet, after her first embarrassment 
 had passed, the very circumstance, oddly enough, added 
 to her indignation, and stung her wounded pride still more 
 deeply. Nevertheless the arch hypocrite instantly changed 
 her tactics with the swift intuition of her sex. 
 
 " I have come," she said with a dazzling smile, infinitely 
 more dangerous than her former dignified severity, — "I 
 have come to ask your pardon for a great liberty I have 
 just taken. I believe the new house above us on the hill 
 is yours. I was so much pleased with its exterior that I 
 left my friends for a moment below here," she continued 
 artfully, with a slight wave of the hand, as if indicating a 
 band of fearless Amazons without, and waiting to avenge 
 any possible insult offered to one of their number, " and 
 ventured to enter it. Finding it unoccupied, as I had been 
 told, I am afraid I had the audacity to sit down and amuse 
 myself for a few moments at the piano — while waiting foi 
 my friends." 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 41S 
 
 Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to hers. He saw a 
 very pretty girl, with frank gray eyes glistening with excite- 
 ment, with two red, slightly freckled cheeks, glowing a 
 little under his eyes, with a short scarlet upper lip turned 
 back, like a rose-leaf, over a little line of white teeth, as she 
 breathed somewhat hurriedly in her nervous excitement. 
 He saw all this calmly, quietly, and, save for the natural 
 uneasiness of a shy, reticent man, I fear without a quicken- 
 ing of his pulse. 
 
 " I knowed it," he said simply. " I heerd ye as I kem 
 up." 
 
 Miss Nelly was furious at his grammar, his dialect, his 
 coolness, and still more at the suspicion that he was an 
 active member of her invisib'.e claque. 
 
 ■'Ah," she said, still smiling, "then I think I heard 
 you " — 
 
 " I reckon not," he interrupted gravely. " I did n't stay 
 long. I found the boys hanging round the house, and I 
 allowed at first I 'd go in and kinder warn you, but they 
 promised to keep still, and you looked so comfortable and 
 wrapped up in your music that I had n't the heart to dis- 
 turb you, and kem away. I hope," he added earnestly, 
 " " they did n't let on ez they heerd you. They ain't a bad 
 lot — them Blazin' Star boys — though they 're a little hard 
 at times. But they 'd no more hurt ye then they would 
 a — a — a cat ! " continued Mr. Hawkins, blushing with 
 a faint apprehension of the inelegance of his simile. 
 
 " No ! no ! " said Miss Nelly, feeling suddenly very 
 angry with herself, the Fool, and the entire male population 
 of Five Forks. " No ! I have behaved foolishly, I suppose, 
 .— and if they had it would have served me right. "But I 
 only wanted to apologize to you. You '11 find everything as 
 you left it. Good (lay ! " 
 
 She turned to go. Mr. Hawkins began to feel embar- 
 rassed, " I 'd have asked ye to sit down," he said, finally^ 
 
414 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 " if it hed been a place fit for a lady. I oughter done so, 
 enny way. I don't know what kept me from it. But I 
 ain't well, Miss. Times I get a sort o' dumb ager — it's 
 the ditches, I think, Miss — and I don't seem to hev my 
 wits about me." 
 
 Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy, — her quick 
 woman's heart was touched. 
 
 " Can I — can anything be done ? " she asked, more 
 timidly than she had before spoken. 
 
 " No ! — not onless ye remember suthin' about these 
 pills." He exhibited a box containing about half a dozen. 
 " I forget the direction — I don't seem to remember much, 
 any way, these times — they 're ' Jones' Vegetable Com- 
 pound.' If ye 've ever took 'em ye '11 remember whether 
 the reg'lar dose is eight. They ain't but six here. But 
 perhaps ye never tuk any," he added deprecatingly. 
 
 " No," said Miss Nelly, curtly. She had usually a keen 
 sense of tbe ludicrous, but somehow Mr. Hawkins' eccen- 
 tricity only pained her. 
 
 " WiV ■"ou let me see you to the foot of the hill ? " he 
 said again, after another embarrassing pause. 
 
 Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act would con- 
 done her trespass in the eyes of the world. She might 
 meet some of her invisible admirers, — or even her compan- 
 ions, — and, with, all her erratic impulses, she was never- 
 theless a woman, and did not entirely despise the verdict of 
 conventionality. She smiled sweetly and assented, and in 
 another moment the two were lost in the shadows of the 
 wood. 
 
 Like many other apparently trivial acts in an uneventful 
 life, it was decisive. As she expected, she met two or 
 three of her late applauders, whom, she fancied, looked 
 sheepish and embarrassed ; she met also her companions 
 looking for her in some alarm, who really appeared aston- 
 ished at her escort, and, she fancied, a trifle envious of hei 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKKS 415 
 
 evident success. I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to 
 their anxious inquiries, did not state entirely the truth, but, 
 without actual assertion, led them to believe that she had 
 at a very early stage of the proceeding completely subju- 
 gated this weak-minded giant, and had brought him trium- 
 phantly to her feet. From telling this story two or three 
 times, she got finally to believing that she had some founda- 
 tion for it ; then to a vague sort of desire that it would 
 eventually prove to be true, and then to an equally vague 
 yearning to hasten that consummation. That it would 
 redound to any satisfaction of the Fool she did not stop to 
 doubt. That it would cure him of his folly she was quite 
 confident. Indeed, there are very few of us — men or 
 women — who do not believe that even a hopeless love for 
 ourselves is more conducive to the salvation of the lover 
 than a requited affection for another. 
 
 The criticism of Five Forks was, as the reader may 
 imagine, swift and conclusive. When it was found out that 
 Miss Arnot was not " the Hag " masquerading as a young 
 and pretty girl, to the ultimate deception of Five Forks in 
 general and the Fool in particular, it was decided at once 
 that nothing but the speedy' union of the Fool and the 
 " pretty school-marm " was consistent with ordinary com 
 mon sense. The singular good fortune of Hawkins was 
 quite in accordance with the theory of his luck as pro 
 pounded by the camp. That after " the Hag " failed tc 
 make her appearance he should " strike a lead " in his own 
 house, without the trouble of " prospectin'," seemed to 
 these casuists as a wonderful but inevitable law. To add 
 to these fateful probabilities. Miss Arnot fell and sprained 
 her ankle in the ascent of Mount Lincoln, and was confined 
 for some weeks to the hotel after her companions had de- 
 parted. During this period Hawkins was civilly but gro- 
 tesquely attentive. When, after a reasonable time had 
 elapsed, there still appeared to be no immediate prospect of 
 
416 THF FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 the occupancy of the new house, public opinion experienced 
 a singular change in regard to its theories of Mr. Hawkins' 
 conduct. " The Hag " was looked upon as a saint-like and 
 long-suffering martyr to the weaknesses and inoonsisteBcy 
 of the Fool. That, after erecting this new house at her 
 request, he had suddenly " gone back " on her ; that his 
 celibacy was the result of a long habit of weak proposal and 
 subsequent shameless rejection, and that he was now trying 
 his hand on the helpless school-marm, — was perfectly plain 
 to Five Forks. That he should be frustrated in his 
 attempts at any cost was equally plain. Miss Nelly sud- 
 denly found herself invested with a rude chivalry that 
 would have been amusing had it not been at times embarrass- 
 ing ; that would have been impertinent but for the almost 
 superstitious respect with which it was proffered. Every 
 day somebody from Five Forks rode out to inquire the 
 health of the fair patient. " Hez Hawkins bin over yer 
 to-day ? " queried Tom Flynn, with artful ease and in- 
 difference as he leaned over Miss Nelly's easy-chair on 
 the veranda. Miss Nelly, with a faint pink flush on her 
 cheek, was constrained to answer " No." " Well, he sorter 
 sprained his foot agin a rock yesterday," continued Flynn, 
 with shameless untruthfulness. " You mus' n't think any- 
 thing o' that. Miss Arnot. He '11 be over yer to-morrer, 
 and meantime he told me to hand this yer bookay with 
 regards, and this yer specimen ! " And Mr. Flynn laid 
 down the flowers he had picked en route against such 
 an emergency, and presented respectfully a piece of quartz 
 and gold which he had taken that morning from his own 
 sluice-box. " You mus' n't mind Hawkins' ways. Miss 
 Nelly," said another sympathizing miner. " There ain't a 
 better man in camp than that theer Cy Hawkins ! — but 
 he don't understand the ways o' the world with wimen. 
 He has n't mixed as much with society as the rest of us," 
 he added, with an elaborate Chesterfieldian ease of manner, 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 417 
 
 " but he means well." Meanwhile a few other sympa- 
 thetic tunnel-men were impressing upon Mr. Hawkins the 
 necessity of the greatest attention to the invalid. " It 
 won't do, Hawkins," they explained, "to let that there 
 gal go back to San Francisco and say that when she was 
 sick and alone, the only man in Five Forks under whose 
 roof she had rested, and at whose table she had sat " — 
 this was considered a natural but pardonable exaggeration 
 of rhetoric — " ever threw off on her ; and it shan't be done. 
 It ain't the square thing to Five Forks." And then the 
 Fool would rush away to the valley, and be received by 
 Miss Nelly with a certain reserve of manner that finally 
 disappeared in a flush of color, some increased vivacity, and 
 a pardonable coquetry. And so the days passed; Miss 
 Nelly grew better in health and more troubled in mind, 
 and Mr. Hawkins became more and more embarrassed, and 
 Five Forks smiled and rubbed its hands, and waited for the 
 approaching denouement. And then it came. But not 
 perhaps in the manner that Five Forks had imagined. 
 
 It was a lovely afternoon in July that a party of Eastern 
 tourists rode into Five Forks. They had just "done "the 
 Valley of Big Things, and, there being one or two Eastern 
 capitalists among the party, it was deemed advisable that 
 a proper knowledge of the practical mining resources of 
 California should be added to their experience of the 
 merely picturesque in Nature. Thus far everything had 
 been satisfactory ; the amount of water which passed over 
 the Fall was large, owing to a backward season ; some 
 snow still remained in the caiions near the highest peaks ; 
 they had ridden round one of the biggest trees, and through 
 the prostrate trunk of another. To say that they were 
 delighted is to express feebly the enthusiasm of these 
 ladies and gentlemen, drunk with the champagny hospi- 
 tality of their entertainers, the utter novelty of scene, and 
 the dryj exhilarating air of the valley. One oi two had 
 
418 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 already expressed themselves ready to live and die there; 
 another had written a glowing account to the Eastern press, 
 depreciating all other scenery in Europe and America ; and 
 under these circumstances it was reasonably expected that 
 Five Forks would do its duty, and equally impress the 
 stranger after its own fashion. 
 
 Letters to this effect were sent from San Francisco by 
 prominent capitalists there, and, under the able superin- 
 tendence of one of their agents, the visitors were taken 
 in hand, shown " what was to be seen," carefully restrained 
 from observing what ought not to be visible, and so kept 
 in a blissful and enthusiastic condition. And so the grave- 
 yard of Five Forks, in which but two of the occupants had 
 died natural deaths, the dreary, ragged cabins on the hill- 
 sides, with their sad-eyed, cynical, broken-spirited occu- 
 pants, toiling on, day by day, for a miserable pittance and 
 a fare that a self-respecting Eastern mechanic would have 
 scornfully rejected, were not a part of the Eastern visitors' 
 recollection. But the hoisting works and machinery of the 
 " Blazing Star Tunnel Company " was, — the Blazing Star 
 Tunnel Company, whose "gentlemanly Superintendent" 
 had received private information from San Francisco to do 
 the " proper thing " for the party. Wherefore the valua- 
 ble heaps of ore in the company's works were shown, the 
 oblong bars of gold — ready for shipment — were playfully 
 offered to the ladies who could lift and carry them away 
 unaided, and even the tunnel itself, gloomy, fateful, and 
 peculiar, was shown as part of the experience ; and, in the 
 noble language of one correspondent, " the wealth of Five 
 Forks and the peculiar inducements that it offered to 
 Eastern capitalists " were established beyond a doubt. 
 And then occurred a little incident which, as an unbiased 
 spectator, I am free to say offered no inducements to any- 
 body whatever, but which, for its bearing upon the central 
 figure of this veracious chronicle, I cannot pass over. 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 419 
 
 It had become apparent to one or two more practical 
 and sober-minded in the party that certain portions of the 
 " Blazing Star " Tunnel — (owing, perhaps, to the exigen- 
 cies of a flattering annual dividend) — were economically 
 and imperfectly " shored " and supported, and were conse- 
 quently unsafe, insecure, and to be avoided. Nevertheless, 
 at a time when champagne corks were popping in dark 
 corners, and enthusiastic voices and happy laughter rang 
 through the half-lighted levels and galleries, there came 
 a sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights dashed 
 swiftly by in the direction of a distant part of the gallery, 
 and then there was a sudden sharp issuing of orders and 
 a dull, ominous rumble. Some of the visitors turned pale 
 — one woman fainted ! 
 
 Something had happened. What ? " Nothing " — the 
 speaker is fluent but uneasy — " one of the gentlemen in 
 trying to dislodge a ' specimen ' from the wall had knocked 
 away a support. There had been a ' cave ' — the gentle- 
 man was caught and buried below his shoulders. It was 
 all right — they 'd get him out in a moment — only it 
 required great care to keep from extending the ' cave.' 
 Did n't know his name — it was that little man — the hus- 
 band of that lively lady with the black eyes. Eh ! Hullo 
 there ! Stop her. Por God's sake ! — not that way ! 
 She '11 fall from that shaft. She '11 be killed ! " 
 
 But the lively lady was already gone. With staring 
 black eyes, imploringly trying to pierce the gloom, with 
 hands and feet that sought to batter and break down the 
 thick darkness, with incoherent cries and supplications, 
 following the moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she ran 
 and ran swiftly ! Ean over treacherous foundations, ran 
 by yawning gulfs, ran past branching galleries and arches, 
 ran wildly, ran despairingly, ran blindly, and at last ran 
 into the arms of the Fool of Five Forks. 
 
 In an instant she caught at his hand. " Oh, save him ! " 
 
420 THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKKS 
 
 she cried ; " you belong here — you know this dreadful 
 place ; bring me to him. Tell me where to go and what 
 to do, I implore you ! Quick, he is dying. Come ! " 
 
 He raised his eyes to hers, and then, with a sudden cry, 
 dropped the rope and crowbar he was carrying, and reeled 
 against the wall. " Annie ! " he gasped, slowly, " is it 
 you ? " 
 
 She caught at both his hands, brought her face to his 
 with staring eyes, murmured " Good God, Cyrus ! " and 
 sank upon her knees before him. 
 
 He tried to disengage the hand that she wrung with 
 passionate entreaty. 
 
 "No, no ! Cyrus, you will forgive me — you will forget 
 the past ! God has sent you here to-day. You will come 
 with me. You will — you must — save him ! " 
 
 " Save who ? " cried Cyrus hoarsely. 
 
 " My husband ! " 
 
 The blow was so direct — so strong and overwhelming — 
 that even through her own stronger and more selfish absorp- 
 tion she saw it in the face of the man, and pitied him. 
 
 " I thought — you — knew — it ! " she faltered. He did 
 not speak, but looked at her with fixed, dumb eyes. And 
 then the sound of distant voices and hurrying feet started 
 her again into passionate life. She once more caught his 
 hand. 
 
 " Cyrus ! hear me ! If you have loved me through 
 all these years, you will not fail me now. You must save 
 him ! You can ! You are brave and strong — you always 
 were, Cyrus ! You will save him, Cyrus, for my sake — for 
 the sake of your love for me ! You will — I know it ! 
 God bless you ! " 
 
 She rose as if to follow him, but at a gesture of com- 
 mand she stood still. He picked up the rope and crowbar 
 slowly, and in a dazed, blinded way that, in her agony of 
 impatience and alarm, seemed protracted to cruel iufinity, 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 421 
 
 Then he turned, and, raising her hand to his lips, he kissed 
 it slowly, looked at her again — and the next moment was 
 gone. 
 
 He did not return. Por at the end of the next half 
 hour, when they laid hefore her the half-conscious breath- 
 ing body of her husband, safe and unharmed but for 
 exhaustion and some slight bruises, she learned that the 
 worst fears of the workmen had been realized. In releas- 
 ing him a second " cave " had taken place. They had barely 
 time to snatch away the helpless body of her husband 
 before the strong frame of his rescuer, Cyrus Hawkins, was 
 struck and smitten down in his place. 
 
 For two hours he lay there, crushed and broken-limbed, 
 with a heayy beam lying across his breast, in sight of all, 
 conscious and patient. For two hours they had labored 
 around him, wildly, despairingly, hopefully, with the wills 
 of gods and the strength of giants, and at the end of that 
 time they came to an upright timber, which rested its base 
 upon the beam. There was a cry for axes, and one was 
 already swinging in the air, when the dying man called to 
 them feebly : — 
 
 " Don't cut that upright ! " 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " It will bring down the whole gallery with it." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 "It 's one of the foundations of my house." 
 
 The axe fell from the workman's hand, and with a 
 blanched face he turned to his fellows. It was too true. 
 They were in the uppermost gallery, and the '' cave " had 
 taken place directly below the new house. After a pause 
 the Fool spoke again more feebly. 
 
 " The lady ! — quick." 
 
 They brought her — a wretched, fainting creature, with 
 pallid face and streaming eyes — and fell back as she bent 
 her face above him, 
 
422 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 
 
 " It was built for you, Annie, darling," he said in a hur 
 ried whisper, " and has been waiting up there for you and 
 me all these long days. It's deeded to you, Annie, and 
 you must — live there — with him ! He will not mind 
 that I shall be always near you — ^ for it stands above — my 
 grave ! " 
 
 And he was right. In a few minutes later, when he had 
 passed away, they did not move him, but sat by his body 
 all night with a torch at his feet and head. And the next 
 day they walled up the gallery as a vault, but they put no 
 mark or any sign thereon, trusting rather to the monument 
 that, bright and cheerful, rose above him in the sunlight of 
 the hill. For they said : "This is not an evidence of death 
 and gloom and sorrow, as are other monuments, but is a 
 sign of Life and Light and Hope, wherefore shall all men 
 know that he who lies under it — is a Fool ! " 
 
THE MAN FROM SOLAJSTO 
 
 He came toward me out of an opera lobby, between the 
 acts, — a figure as remarkable as anything in the perform- 
 ance. His clothes, no two articles of which were of the 
 same color, had th* appearance of having been purchased 
 and put on only an hour or two before, — a fact more 
 directly established by the clothes-dealer's ticket which still 
 adhered to his coat-collar, giving the number, size, and gen- 
 eral dimensions of that garment somewhat obtrusively to 
 an uninterested public. His trousers had a straight line 
 down each leg, as if he had been born flat but had since 
 developed ; and there was another crease down his back, 
 like those figures children cut out of folded paper. I may 
 add that there was no consciousness of this in his face, 
 which was good-natured, and, but for a certain squareness 
 in the angle of his lower jaw, utterly uninteresting and 
 commonplace. 
 
 " You disremember me," he said briefly, as he extended 
 his hand, " but I 'm from Solano, in Californy. I met you 
 there in the spring of '57. I was tendin' sheep, and you 
 was burnin' charcoal." 
 
 There was not the slightest trace of any intentional rude- 
 ness in the reminder. It was simply a statement of fact, 
 and as such to be accepted. 
 
 "What I hailed ye for was only this," he said, after I 
 had shaken hands with him. " I saw you a minnit ago 
 standin' over in yon box, chirpin' with a lady, — a young 
 lady, peart and pretty. Might you be telling m» her 
 name ? " 
 
424 THE MAN FROM SOLANO 
 
 I gave him the name of a certain noted helle of a neigh« 
 boring city, who had lately stirred the hearts of the metrop- 
 olis, and who was especially admired by the brilliant and 
 fascinating young Dashboard, who stood beside me. 
 
 The Man from Solano mused for a moment, and then 
 said, " Thet 's so ! thet 's the name ! It 's the same gal ! " 
 
 " You have met her, then ? " I asked in surprise. 
 
 " Ye-es," he responded slowly ; " I jnet her about fower 
 months ago. She 'd bin makin' a tour of Californy with 
 some friends, and I first saw her aboard the cars this side 
 of Reno. She lost her baggage checks, and I found them 
 on the floor and gave 'em back to her, and she thanked me. 
 I reckon now it would be about the square thing to go over 
 thar and sorter recognize her." He stopped a moment, and 
 looked at us inquiringly. 
 
 " My dear sir," struck in the brilliant and fascinating 
 young Dashboard, " if your hesitation proceeds from any 
 doubt as to the propriety of your attire, I beg you to dis- 
 miss it from your mind at once. The tyranny of custom, 
 it is true, compels your friend and myself to dress pecu- 
 liarly, but I assure you nothing could be finer than the way 
 that the olive green of your coat melts in the delicate yellow 
 of your cravat, or the pearl gray of your trousers blends 
 with the bright blue of your waistcoat, and lends additional 
 brilliancy to that massive oroid watch-chain which yo* 
 wear." 
 
 To my surprise, the Man from Solano did not strike him. 
 He looked at the ironical Dashboard with grave earnest- 
 ness, and then said quietly : — 
 
 "Then I reckon you wouldn't mind showin' me in 
 thar ? " 
 
 Dashboard was, I admit, a little staggered at this. But 
 he recovered himself, and, bowing ironically, led the way to 
 the box. I followed him and the Man from Solano. 
 
 Now the belle in question happened to be a gentlewoman, 
 
THE MAN FROM SOLANO 42ft 
 
 — descended from gentlewomen, — and after Dashboard's 
 ironical introduction, in which the Man from Solano was 
 not spared, she comprehended the situation instantly. To 
 Dashboard's surprise she drew a chair to her side, made the 
 Man from Solano sit down, quietly turned her back on 
 Dashboard, and, in full view of the brilliant audience and 
 the focus of a hundred lorgnettes, entered into conversation 
 with him. 
 
 Here, for the sake of romance, I should like to say he 
 became animated, and exhibited some trait of excellence, — 
 some rare wit or solid sense. But the fact is he was dull 
 and stupid to the last degree. He persisted in keeping the 
 conversation upon the subject of the lost baggage-checks, 
 and every bright attempt of the lady to divert him failed 
 signally. At last, to everybody's relief, he rose, and, leaning 
 over her chair, said : — 
 
 " I calklate to stop over here some time, miss, and you 
 and me bein' sorter strangers here, maybe when there 's any 
 show like this goin' on you '11 let me " — 
 
 Miss X. said somewhat hastily that the multiplicity of 
 her engagements and the brief limit of her stay in New 
 York she feared would, etc., etc. The two other ladies had 
 their handkerchiefs over their mouths, and were staring 
 intently on the stage, when the Man from Solano con- 
 tinued : — 
 
 " Then, maybe, miss, whenever there is a show goin' on 
 that you'll attend, you'll just drop me word to Earle's 
 Hotel, to this yer address," and he pulled from his pocket 
 a dozen well-worn letters, and, taking the buff envelope 
 from one, handed it to her with something like a bow. 
 
 " Certainly," broke in the facetious Dashboard ; " Miss 
 X. goes to the Charity Ball to-morrow night. The tickets 
 are but a trifle to an opulent Californian, and a man of 
 your evident means, and the object a worthy one- Yob 
 will, no doubt, easily secure an invitation." 
 
426 THE MAN FROM SOLANO 
 
 Miss X. raised her handsome eyes for a moment to 
 Dashboard. " By all means," she said, turning to the Man 
 from Solano ; " and as Mr. Dashboard is one of the man' 
 agers, and yon are a stranger, he will, of course, send you 
 a complimentary ticket. I have known Mr. Dashboard 
 long enough to know that he is invariably courteous to 
 strangers and a gentleman." She settled herself in her 
 chair again and fixed her eyes upon the stage. 
 
 The Man from Solano thanked the Man of New York, 
 and then, after shaking hands with everybody in the box, 
 turned to go. When he had reached the door he looked 
 back to Miss X. and said : — 
 
 " It was one of the queerest things in the world, miss, 
 that my findin' them checks " — 
 
 But the curtain had just then risen on the garden scene 
 in " Faust," and Miss X. was absorbed. The Man from 
 Solano carefully shut the box door and retired. I followed 
 him. He was silent until he reached the lobby, and then 
 he said, as if renewing a previous conversation, " She is a 
 mighty peart gal, — that 's so. She 's jpst my kind, an(J 
 will make a stavin' good wife." 
 
 I thought I saw danger ahead for the Man from Solano, 
 so I hastened to tell him that she was beset by attentions, 
 that she could have her pick and choice of the best of 
 society, and finally, that she was, most probably, engaged 
 to Dashboard. 
 
 " That 's so," he said quietly, without the slightest trace 
 of feeling. " It would be mighty queer if she was n't. 
 But I reckon I '11 steer down to the ho-tel. I don't care 
 much for this yellin'." (He was alluding to a cadenza of 
 that famous cantatrice, Signora Batti Batti.) "What's 
 the time ? " 
 
 He pulled out his watch. It was such a glaring chain, 
 BO obviously bogus, that my eyes were fascinated by it. 
 •' You 're looking at that watch," he said ; " it 's purtj to 
 
THE MAN FROM SOLANO 427 
 
 look at, but she don't go worth a cent. And yet her pric& 
 was $125 gold. I gobbled her up in Chatham Street day 
 before yesterday, where they were selling 'em very cheap 
 at auction." 
 
 " You have been outrageously swindled," I said indig- 
 nantly. " Watch and chain are not worth twenty dollars." 
 
 " Are they worth fifteen ? " he asked gravely. 
 
 "Possibly." 
 
 " Then I reckon it 's a fair trade. Ye see, I told 'em I 
 was a Californian from Solano, and had n't anything about 
 me of greenbacks. I had three slugs with me. Ye remem- 
 ber them slugs ? " (I did ; the " slug " was a " token " 
 issued in the early days, — a hexagonal piece of gold a 
 little over twice the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece, — 
 worth and accepted for fifty dollars.) 
 
 "Well, I handed them that, and they handed me the 
 watch. You see them slugs I had made myself outer brass 
 filings and iron pyrites, and used to slap 'em down on the 
 boys for a bluff in a game of draw poker. You see, not 
 being reg'lar gov'ment money, it was n't counterfeiting. I 
 reckon they cost me, counting time and anxiety, about 
 fifteen dollars. So, if this yer watch is worth that, it's 
 about a square game, ain't it ? " 
 
 I began to understand the Man from Solano, and said it 
 was. He returned his watch to his pocket, toyed playfully 
 with the chain, and remarked, " Kinder makes a man look 
 fash'nable and wealthy, don't it ? " 
 
 I agreed with him. " But what do you intend to do 
 here ? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, I 've got a cash capital of nigh on seven hundred 
 dollars. I guess until I get into reg'lar business I '11 
 skirmish round Wall Street, and sorter lay low." I was 
 about to give him a few words of warning, but I remem- 
 bered his watch and desisted. We shook hands and 
 parted. 
 
428 THE MAN FROM SOLANO 
 
 A few days after I met him on Broadway He was 
 attired in another new suit, but I think I saw a slight im- 
 provement in his general appearance. Only five distinct 
 colors were visible in his attire. But this, I had reason to 
 believe afterwards, was accidental. 
 
 I asked him if he had been to the ball. He said he had. 
 " That gal, and a mighty peart gal she was too, was there, 
 but she sorter fought shy of me. I got this new suit to gc 
 in, but those waiters sorter run me into a private box, and 
 I did n't get much chance to continner our talk about them 
 checks. But .that young feller. Dashboard, was mighty 
 perlite. He brought lots of fellers and young women 
 round to the box to see me, and he made up a party that 
 night to take me round Wall Street and in them Stock 
 Boards. And the next day he called for me, and took me, 
 and I invested about five hundred dollars in them stocks, — 
 maybe more. You see, we sorter swopped stocks. You 
 know I had ten shares in the Peacock Copper Mine, that 
 you was once secretary of." 
 
 " But those shares are not worth a cent. The whole 
 thing exploded ten years ago." 
 
 " That 's so, maybe ; you say so. But then I did n't 
 know anything more about Communipaw Central, or the 
 Naphtha Gaslight Company, and so I thought it was a square 
 game. Only I realized on the stocks I bought, and I kem 
 up outer Wall Street about four hundred dollars better. 
 You see it was a sorter risk, after all, for them Peacock 
 stocks might come up ! " 
 
 I looked into his face : it was immeasurably serene and 
 commonplace. I began to be a little afraid of the man, or, 
 rather, of my want of judgment of the man ; and after a 
 few words we shook hands and parted. 
 
 It was some months before I again saw the Man from 
 Solano. When I did, I found that he had actually become 
 a member of the Stock Board, and had a little office on 
 
THE MAN FROM SOLANO 429 
 
 Broad Street, where he transacted a fair husiness. My 
 remembrance going back to the first night I met him, I 
 inquired if he had renewed his acquaintance with Miss X. 
 
 " I heerd that she was in Newport this summer, and I 
 ran down there fur a week." 
 
 " And you talked with her about the baggage-checks ? " 
 
 " No," he said seriously ; " she gave me a commission 
 to buy some stocks for her. You see, I guess them fash'- 
 nable fellers sorter got to runnin' her about me, and so she 
 put our acquaintance on a square business footing. I tell 
 you, she 's a right peart gal. Did ye hear of the accident 
 that happened to her ? " 
 
 I had not. 
 
 " Well, you see, she was out yachting, and I managed 
 through one of those fellers to get an invite, too. The 
 whole thing was got up by a man that they say is going to 
 marry her. Well, one afternoon the boom swings round in 
 a little squall and knocks her overboard. There was an 
 awful excitement, — you 've heard about it, maybe ? " 
 
 " No ! " But I saw it all with a romancer's instinct in 
 a flash of poetry ! This poor fellow, debarred through un- 
 couthness from expressing his affection for her, had at last 
 found his fitting opportunity. He had — 
 
 " Thar was an awful row," he went on. " I ran out on 
 the tafirail, and there a dozen yards away was that purty 
 creature, that peart gal, and — I " — 
 
 " You jumped for her," I said hastily. 
 
 " No ! " he said gravely. " I let the other man do the 
 jumping. I sorter looked on." 
 
 I stared at him in astonishment. 
 
 "No," he' went on seriously. " He was the man who 
 jumped; that was just then his 'put,' — his line of busi- 
 ness. You see if I had waltzed over the side of that ship, 
 and cavoorted in, and flummuxed round, and finally flopped 
 to the bottom, that other man would have jumped nateral 
 
430 THE MAN FROM SOLANO 
 
 like and saved her ; and ez he was going to marry her any 
 way, I don't exactly see where I'd hev been represented in 
 the transaction. But don't you see, ef, after he 'd jumped 
 and had n't got her, he 'd gone down himself, I 'd hev had 
 the next best chance, and the advantage of having him 
 outer the way. You see, you don't understand me, — I 
 don't think you did in Californy." 
 
 " Then he did save her ? " 
 
 " Of course. Don't you see, she was all right. If he'd 
 missed her, I 'd have chipped in. Thar war n't no sense in 
 my doing his duty onless he failed." 
 
 Somehow the story got out. The Man from Solano as a 
 butt became more popular than ever, and of course received 
 invitations to burlesque receptions, and naturally met a 
 great many people whom otherwise he would not have seen. 
 It was observed also that his seven hundred dollars were 
 steadily growing, and that he seemed to be getting on in 
 his business. Certain Californian stocks which I had seen, 
 quietly interred in the old days in the tombs of theii 
 fathers were magically revived ; and I remember, as one 
 who has seen a ghost, to have been shocked as I looked 
 over the quotations, cne morning, to see the ghastly face 
 of the " Dead Beach Mining Co.," rouged and plastered, 
 looking out from the columns of the morning paper. At 
 last a few people began to respect, or suspect, the Man 
 from Solano. At last suspicion culminated with thi^ inci- 
 dent : — 
 
 He had long expressed a wish to belong to a certain 
 " fash'nable " club, and with a view of burlesque he was 
 invited to visit the club, where a series of ridiculous enter- 
 tainments were given him, winding up with a card party. 
 As I passed the steps of the club-house early next morning, 
 I overheard two or three members talking excitedly. 
 
 "He cleaned everybody out." — "Why, he must have 
 raked in nigh on $40,000." 
 
THE MAN FROM SOLANO 431 
 
 « Who ? " I asked. 
 
 " The Man from Solano." 
 
 As I turned away, one of the gentlemen, a victim, noted 
 for his sporting propensities, followed me, and, laying his 
 hand on my shoulder, asked, — 
 
 "Tell me fairly now. What business did your friend 
 follow in California ? " 
 
 " He was a shepherd," 
 
 " A what ? " 
 
 " A shepherd. Tended his flocks on the honey-scented 
 hills of Solano." 
 
 " Well, all I ean say is, d — ^n your Californian pasto- 
 rals 1" 
 
A GHOST OF THE SIEKEAS 
 
 It was a vast silence of pines, redolent with balsamic 
 breath, and muffled with the dry dust of dead bark and 
 matted mosses. Lying on our backs, we looked upward 
 through a, hundred feet of clear, unbroken interval to the 
 first lateral branches that formed the flat canopy above us. 
 Here and there the fierce sun, from whose active persecution 
 we had just escaped, searched for us through the woods, but 
 its keen blade was dulled and turned aside by intercostal 
 boughs, and its brightness dissipated in nebulous mists 
 throughout the roofing of the dim, brown aisles around us. 
 We were in another atmosphere, under another sky ; indeed, 
 in another world than the dazzling one we had just quitted. 
 The grave silence seemed so much a part of the grateful 
 coolness, that we hesitated to speak, and for some moments 
 lay quietly outstretched on the pine tassels where we had first 
 thrown ourselves. Finally a voice broke the silence : — 
 " Ask the old Major; he knows all about it ! " 
 The person here alluded to under that military title was 
 myself. I hardly need explain to any Calif ornian that it by 
 no means followed that I was a " Major," or that I was 
 " old," or that I knew anything about " it," or indeed what 
 " it " referred to. The whole remark was merely one of 
 the usual conventional feelers to conversation, — a kind of 
 social preamble, quite common to our slangy camp inter- 
 course. Nevertheless, as I was always known as the Major, 
 perhaps for no better reason than that the speaker, an old 
 journalist, was always called Doctor, I recognized the fact 
 so far as to kick aside an intervening saddle, so that I could 
 
A GHOST OF THE SIERBAS 433 
 
 see the speaker's face on a level with my own, and said 
 nothing. 
 
 " About ghosts ! " said the Doctor, after a pause, which 
 nobody broke or was expected to break. " Ghosts, sir \ 
 That 's what we want to know. What are we doing here in 
 this blank old mausoleum of Calaveras County, if it is n't 
 to find out something about 'em, eh ? " 
 
 Nobody replied. 
 
 " Thar 's that haunted house at Cave City. Can't be more 
 than a mile or two away, anyhow. Used to be just off the 
 trail." 
 
 A dead silence. 
 
 The Doctor (addressing space generally) : "Yes, sir; it 
 was a mighty queer story." 
 
 Still the same reposeful indifference. We all knew the 
 Doctor's skill as a raconteur ; we all knew that a story was 
 coming, and we all knew that any interruption would be 
 fatal. Time and time again, in our prospecting experience, 
 had a word of polite encouragement, a rash expression of 
 interest, even a too eager attitude of silent expectancy, 
 brought the Doctor to a sudden change of subject. Time 
 and time again have we seen the unwary stranger stand 
 amazed and bewildered between our own indifference and 
 the sudden termination of a promising anecdote, through 
 his own unlucky interference. So we said nothing. " The 
 Judge " — another instance of arbitrary nomenclature — pre- 
 tended to sleep. Jack began to twist a cigarrito. Thorn- 
 ton bit off the ends of pine needles reflectively. 
 
 " Yes, sir," continued the Doctor, coolly resting the back 
 of his head on the palms of his hands, " it was rather 
 curious. All except the murder. That 's what gets me, 
 for the murder had no new points, no fancy touches, no 
 sentiment, no mystery. Was just one of the old style, 
 * sub-head' paragraphs. Old-fashioned miner scrubs along 
 on hardtack and beans, and saves up a little money to go' 
 
434 A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 home and see relations. Old-fashioned assassin sharpens 
 up knife, old style ; loads old flint-lock, brass-mounted 
 pistols ; walks in on old-fashioned miner one dark night, 
 sends him home to his relations away back to several 
 generations, and walks off with the swag. No mystery 
 there ; nothing to clear up ; subsequent revelations only 
 impertinence. Nothing for any ghost ■ to do — who meant 
 business. More than that, over forty murders, same old 
 kind, committed every year in Calaveras, and no spiritual 
 post obits coming due every anniversary ; no assessments 
 made on the peace and quiet of the surviving community. 
 I tell you what, boys, I 've always been inclined to throw 
 off on the Cave City ghost for that alone. It's a bad pre- 
 cedent, sir. If that kind o' thing is going to obtain in the 
 f oot>hills, we '11 have the trails full of chaps formerly knocked 
 over by Mexicans and road agents ; every little camp and 
 grocery will have stock enough on hand to go into business, 
 and where 's there any security for surviving. life and prop- 
 erty, eh ? What 's your opinion, Judge, as a fair-minded 
 legislator ? " 
 
 Of course there was no response. Yet it was part of 
 the Doctor's system of aggravation to become discursive at 
 these moments, in the hope of interruption, and he con- 
 tinued for some moments to dwell on the terrible possibility 
 of a state of affairs in which a gentleman could no longer 
 settle a dispute with an enemy without being subjected to 
 succeeding spiritual embarrassment. But all this digression 
 fell upon apparently inattentive ears. 
 
 " Well, sir, after the murder, the cabin stood for a long 
 time deserted and tenantless. Popular opinion was against 
 it. One day a ragged prospector, savage with hard labor 
 and harder luck, came to the camp, looking for a place to 
 live and a chance to prospect. After the boys had taken 
 his measure, they concluded that he 'd already tackled so 
 much in the way of difficulties that a ghost more or less 
 
A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS 433 
 
 would n't be of much account. So they sent him to the 
 haunted cabin. He had a big yellow dog with him, about 
 as ugly and as savage as himself ; and the boys sort o' con- 
 gratulated themselves, from a practical view point, that, 
 while they were giving the old ruffian a shelter, they 
 were helping in the cause of Christianity against ghosts 
 and goblins. They had little faith in the old man, but 
 went their whole pile on that dog. That 's where they 
 were mistaken. 
 
 " The house stood almost three hundred feet from the 
 nearest cave, and on dark nights, being in a hollow, was as 
 lonely as if it had been on the top of Shasta. If you ever 
 saw the spot when there was just moon enough to bring 
 out the little surrounding clumps of chaparral until they 
 looked like crouching figures, and make the bits of broken 
 quartz glisten like skulls, you 'd begin to understand how 
 big a contract that man and that yellow dog undertook. 
 
 " They went into possession that afternoon, and old Hard 
 Times set out to cook his supper. When it was over he 
 sat down by the embers and lit his pipe, the yellow dog 
 lying at his feet. Suddenly ' Eap ! rap ! ' comes from the 
 door. ' Come in,' says the man gruffly. ' Eap ! ' again. 
 ' Come in and be d — d to you,' says the man, who had no 
 idea of getting up to open the door. But no one responded, 
 and the next moment smash goes the only sound pane in 
 the only window. Seeing this, old Hard Times gets up, 
 with the devil in his eye, and a revolver in his hand, fol- 
 lowed by the yellow dog, with every tooth showing, and 
 swings open the door. No one there ! But as the man 
 opened the door, that yellow dog, that had been so chipper 
 before, suddenly begins to crouch and step backward, step 
 by step, trembling and shivering, and at last crouches down 
 in the chimney, without even so much as looking at his 
 master. The man slams the door shut again, but there 
 comes another smash. This time it seems to come from 
 
436 A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 inside the cabin, and it is n't until the man looks around 
 and sees everything quiet that he gets up, without speaking, 
 and makes a dash for the door, and tears round outside the 
 cabin like mad, but finds nothing but silence and darkness. 
 Then he comes back swearing and calls the dog. But that 
 great yellow dog that the boys would have staked all their 
 money on is crouching under the bunk, and has to be 
 dragged out like a coon from a hollow tree, and lies there, 
 his eyes starting from their sockets ; every limb and muscle 
 quivering with fear, and his very hair drawn up in bristling 
 ridges. The man calls him to the door. He drags him- 
 self a few steps, stops, sniffs, and refuses to go farther. 
 The man calls him again, with an oath and a threat. Then 
 what does that yellow dog do ? He crawls edgewise to- 
 wards the door, crouching himself against the bunk, till he 's 
 flatter than a knife blade ; then, halfway, he stops. Then 
 that d — -d yellow dog begins to walk gingerly, — lifting each 
 foot up in the air, one after the other, still trembling in 
 every limb. Then he stops again. Then he crouches. 
 Then he gives one little shuddering leap, — not straight 
 forward, but up, — clearing the floor about six inches, 
 as if " — 
 
 " Over something," interrupted the Judge hastily, lift- 
 ing himself on his elbow. 
 
 The Doctor stopped instantly. " Juan," he said coolly 
 to one of the Mexican packers, " quit foolin' with that 
 riata. You '11 have that stake out and that mule loose in 
 another minute. Come over this way ! " 
 
 The Mexican turned a scared, white face to the Doctor, 
 muttering something, and let go the deerskin hide. We 
 all upraised our voices with one accord, the Judge most 
 penitently and apologetically, and implored the Doctor to 
 go on. " I '11 shoot the first man who interrupts you 
 again," added Thornton persuasively. 
 
 But the Doctor, with his hands languidly under his head, 
 
A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS 437 
 
 had lost his interest. "Well, the dog ran off to the 
 hills, and neither the threats nor cajoleries of his master 
 could ever make him enter the cabin again. The next 
 day the man left the camp. What time is it ? Getting 
 on to sundown, ain't it ? Keep off my leg, will you, 
 you d — d Greaser, and stop stumbling round there ! Lie 
 down ! " 
 
 But we knew that the Doctor had not completely finished 
 his story, and we waited patiently for the conclusion. 
 Meanwhile the old, gray silence of the woods again asserted 
 itself, but shadows were now beginning to gather in the 
 heavy beams of the roof above, and the dim aisles seemed 
 to be narrowing and closing in around us. Presently the 
 Doctor recommenced lazily, as if no interruption had 
 occurred. 
 
 " As I said before, I never put much faith in that story, 
 and should n't have told it, but for a rather curious experi- 
 ence of my own. It was in the spring of '62, and I was 
 one of a party of four, coming up from O'Neill's, where we 
 had been snowed up. It was awful weather ; the snow had 
 changed to sleet and rain after we crossed the divide, and 
 the water was out everywhere ; every ditch was a creek, 
 every creek a river. We had lost two horses on the North 
 Fork, we were dead beat, off the trail, and sloshing round, 
 with night coming on, and the level hail like shot in our 
 faces. Things were looking bleak and scary when, riding 
 a little ahead of the party, I saw a light twinkling in a 
 hollow beyond. My horse was still fresh, and, calling out 
 to the boys to follow me and bear for the light, I struck 
 out for it. In another moment I was before a little cabin 
 that half burrowed in the black chaparral ; I dismounted 
 and rapped at the door. There was no response. I then 
 tried to force the door, but it was fastened securely from 
 within. I was all the more surprised when one of the 
 boys, who had overtaken me, told me that he had just seen 
 
438 A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 through a window a mau reading by the fire. Indignant 
 at this inhospitality, we both made a resolute onset against 
 the door, at the same time raising our angry voices to a 
 yell. Suddenly there was a quick response, the hurried 
 withdrawing of a bolt, and the door opened. 
 
 " The occupant was a short, thick-set man, with a pale, 
 careworn face, whose prevailing expression was one of gen- 
 tle- good-humor and patient suffering. When we entered, 
 he asked us hastily why we had not ' sung out ' before. 
 
 " ' But we knocked ! ' I said impatiently, ' and almost 
 drove your door in.' 
 
 " ' That 's nothing,' he said patiently. ' I 'm used to 
 that.' 
 
 " I looked again at the man's patient, fateful face, and 
 then around the cabin. In an instant the whole situa- 
 tion flashed before me. ' Are we not near Cave City ? ' 1 
 asked. 
 
 " ' Yes,' he replied, ' it 's just below. You must have 
 passed it in the storm.' 
 
 " ' 1 see.' I again looked around the cabin. ' Is n't 
 this what they call the haunted house ? ' 
 
 " He looked at me curiously. ' It is,' he said simply. 
 
 " You can imagine my delight ! Here was an oppor- 
 tunity to test the whole story, to work down to the bed- 
 rock, and see how it would pan out ! We were too many 
 and too well armed to fear tricks or dangers from outsiders. 
 If — as one theory had been held — the disturbance was 
 kept up by a band of concealed marauders or road agents, 
 whose purpose was to preserve their haunts from intrusion, 
 we were quite able to pay them back in kind for any 
 assault. I need not say that the boys were delighted with 
 this prospect when the fact was revealed to them. The only 
 one doubtful and apathetic spirit there was our host, who 
 quietly resumed his seat and his book, with his old expres- 
 sion of patient martyrdom. It would have been easy foi 
 
A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS 43» 
 
 me to have drawn him out, but I felt that I did not want 
 to corroborate anybody else's experience ; only to record my 
 own. And I thought it better to keep the boys from any 
 predisposing terrors.' 
 
 " We ate our supper, and then sat, patiently and expec- 
 tant, around the fire. An hour slipped away, but no dis- 
 turbance ; another hour passed as monotonously. Our host 
 read his book ; only the dash of hail against the roof broke 
 the silence. But " — 
 
 The Doctor stopped. Since the last interruption, I 
 noticed he had changed the easy slangy style of his story 
 to a more perfect, artistic, and even studied manner. Ho 
 dropped now suddenly into his old colloquial speech, and 
 quietly said, " If you don't quit stumbling over those riatas, 
 Juan, I '11 hobble you. Come here ; there, lie down, will 
 you ? " 
 
 We all turned fiercely on the cause of this second 
 dangerous interruption, but a sight of the poor fellow's 
 pale and frightened face withheld our vindictive tongues. 
 And the Doctor, happily, of his own accord, went on : — 
 
 " But I had forgotten that it was no easy matter to keep 
 these high-spirited boys, bent on a row, in decent subjec- 
 tion ; and after the third hour passed without a supernatural 
 exhibition, I observed, from certain winks and whispers, 
 that they were determined to get up indications of their 
 own. In a few moments violent rappings were heard from 
 all parts of the cabin ; large stones (adroitly thrown up the 
 chimney) fell with a heavy thud on the roof. Strange groans 
 and ominous yells seemed to come from the outside (where 
 the interstices between the logs were wide enough). Yet, 
 through all this uproar, our host sat still and patient, with 
 no sign of indignation or reproach upon his good-humored 
 but haggard features. Before long it became evident that 
 this exhibition was exclusively for his benefit. Under the 
 thin disguise of asking hiin to assist them in discovering 
 
440 A GHOST OF THE SIEREAS 
 
 the disturbers outside the cabin, those inside took advantage 
 of his absence to turn the cabin topsy-turvy. 
 
 " ' You see what the spirits have done, old man,' said 
 the arch leader of this mischief. ' They 've upset that 
 there flour barrel while we was n't looking, and then kicked 
 over the water-jug and spilled all the water ! ' 
 
 " The patient man lifted his head and looked at the 
 flour-strewn walls. Then he glanced down at the floor, but 
 drew back with a slight tremor. 
 
 " ' It ain't water ! ' he said quietly. 
 
 "'What is it, then?' 
 
 " ' It 's Blood ! Look ! ' 
 
 "The nearest man gave a sudden start and sank back 
 white as a sheet. 
 
 " For there, gentlemen, on the floor, just before the door, 
 where the old man had seen the dog hesitate and lift his 
 feet, there ! there ! — gentlemen — upon my honor, slowly 
 widened and broadened a dark red pool of human blood ! 
 Stop him ! Quick ! Stop him, I say I " 
 
 There was a blinding flash that lit up the dark woods, 
 and a sharp report 1 When we reached the Doctor's side 
 he was holding the smoking pistol, just disch^trged, in one 
 hand, while with the other he was pointing to the rapidly 
 disappearing figure of Juan, our Mexican vaquero 1 
 
 " Missed him ! by G— d ! " said the Doctor. " But did 
 you hear him ? Did you see his livid face as he rose up 
 at the name of blood ? Did you see his guilty conscience 
 in his face ? Eh ? Why don't you speak ? What are you 
 staring at ? " 
 
 " Was it the murdered man's ghost, Doctor ? " we all 
 panted in one quick breath. 
 
 " Ghost be d — d ! No ! But in that Mexican vaquero 
 ■ — that cursed Juan Eamirez ! — I saw and shot at his 
 murderer ! " 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
'.O-IJOf' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 rAox 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills 1 
 
 The Mystery of the Hacienda 126 
 
 An Episode of West Woodlands 166 
 
 The Home-Coming of Jim Wilkes 197 
 
 A PROTifiG^E of Jack Hamlin's . 210 
 
 The Reformation of James Keddy 244 
 
 A Convert of the Mission . . . • ^ . . . 281 
 
 Chu Chu 306 
 
 The Devotion op Enriquez 332 
 
 Bulger's Reputation 363 
 
 In the Tules 378 
 
 Barker's Luck . <> . 401 
 
 My First Book 427 
 
 A Yellow Dob • . -< o . 436 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS AND 
 OTHER TALES 
 
 m A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The 
 last gust had been preceded by an ominous roaring down 
 the whole mountain-side, which continued for some time 
 after the trees in the little valley had lapsed into silence. 
 The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of 
 stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the 
 darkness seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost 
 palpable. Yet out of this sightless and soundless void now 
 came the tinkle of a spur's rowels, the dry crackling of sad- 
 dle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick 
 carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which 
 in spite of its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent a cer- 
 tain mystery to, said : — 
 
 " I can't make out anything ! Where the devil have 
 we got to, anyway ? It 's as black as Tophet here 
 ahead ! " 
 
 " Strike a light and make a flare with something," 
 returned a second voice. " Look where you 're shoving 
 to — now — keep your horse off, will ye ? " 
 
 There was more muffled plungingj a silence, the rustle of 
 paper, the quick spurt of a match, and then the uplifting of 
 
2 IN A HOLLOW OF THE IrfLLS 
 
 a flickering flame. But it revealed only the heads and 
 shoulders of three horsemen, framed within a nebulous ring 
 of light, that still left their horses and even their lower fig- 
 ures in impenetrable shadow. Then the flame leaped up 
 and died out with a few zigzagging sparks that were falling 
 to the ground, when a third voice, that was low but some- 
 what pleasant in its cadence^ said : — 
 
 " Be careful where you throw that. You were careless 
 last time. With this wind and the leaves like tinder, you 
 might send a furnace blast through the woods." 
 
 " Then at least we 'd see where we are." 
 
 Nevertheless, he moved his horse, whose trampling hoofs 
 beat out the last fallen spark. Complete darkness and si- 
 lence again followed. Presently the first speaker contin- 
 ued : — 
 
 " I reckon we '11 have to wait here till the next squall 
 clears away the scud from the sky. Hello ! What 's 
 that ? " 
 
 Out of the obscurity before them appeared a faint light, 
 — a dim but perfectly defined square of radiance, — which, 
 however, did not appear to illuminate anything around it. 
 Suddenly it disappeared. 
 
 " That 's a house — it 's a light in a window," said the 
 second voice. 
 
 " House be d — d ! " retorted the first speaker. " A 
 house with a window on Galloper's Kidge, fifteen miles 
 from anywhere ? You 're crazy ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, from the muffled plunging and tinkling 
 that followed, they seemed to be moving in the direction 
 where the light had appeared. Then there was a pause. 
 
 " There 's nothing but a rocky outcrop here, where a 
 house could n't stand, and we 're off the trail again," said 
 the first speaker impatiently. 
 
 " Stop ! — there it is again ! " 
 
 The same square of light appeared once more, but the 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 3 
 
 horsemen had evidently diverged in the darkness, for it 
 seemed to he in a different direction. But it was more dis- 
 tinct, and as they gazed a shadow appeared upon its radi- 
 ant surface — the profile of a human face. Then the light 
 suddenly went out, and the face vanished with it. 
 
 "It is a window, and there was some one hehind it," 
 said the second speaker emphatically. 
 
 " It was a woman's face/' said the pleasant voice. 
 
 " Whoever it is, just hail them, so that we can get our 
 hearings. Sing out ! All together ! " 
 
 The three voices rose in a prolonged shout, in which, 
 however, the distinguishing qiiality of the pleasant voice 
 was sustained. But there was no response from the dark- 
 ness beyond. The shouting was repeated after an interval 
 with the same result : the silence and obscurity remained 
 unchanged. 
 
 " Let 's get out of this ! " said the first speaker angrily. 
 " House or no house, man or woman, we 're not wanted, 
 and we '11 make nothing waltzing round here." 
 
 " Hush ! " said the second voice. " Sh-h ! Listen." 
 
 The leaves of the nearest trees were trilling audibly. 
 Then came a sudden gust that swept the fronds of the taller 
 ferns into their faces, and laid the thin, lithe whips of alder 
 over their horses' flanks sharply. It was followed by the 
 distant sea-like roaring of the mountain-side. 
 
 " That 's a little more like it ! " said the first speaker 
 joyfully. " Another blow like that and we 're all right. 
 And look ! there 's a lightenin' up over the trail we came 
 by." 
 
 There was indeed a faint glow in that direction, like the 
 first suffusion of dawn, permitting the huge shoulder of the 
 mountain along whose flanks they had been journeying to 
 be distinctly seen. The sodden breath of the stirred forest 
 depths was slightly tainted with an acrid fume. 
 
 " That 's the match you threw away two hours ago," 
 
4 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 said the pleasant voice deliberately. " It 's caught the dry 
 brush in the trail round the bend." 
 
 " Anyhow, it 's given us our bearings, boys," said the 
 first speaker, with satisfied accents. " We 're all right 
 now ; and the wind 's lifting the sky ahead there. For- 
 ward now, all together, and let 's get out of this hell-hole 
 while we can ! " 
 
 It was so much lighter that the bulk of each horseman 
 could be seen as they moved forward together. But there 
 was no thinning of the obscurity on either side of them. 
 Nevertheless the profile of the horseman with the pleasant 
 voice seemed to be occasionally turned backward, and he 
 suddenly checked his horse. 
 
 " There 's the window again ! " he said. " Look ! There 
 — it 's gone again." 
 
 " Let it go and be d — d ! " returned the leader. " Come 
 on." 
 
 They spurred forward in silence. It was not long before 
 the wayside trees began to dimly show spaces between 
 them, and the ferns to give way to lower, thick-set shrubs, 
 which in turn yielded to a velvety moss, with long quiet 
 intervals of netted and tangled grasses. The regular fall 
 of the horses' feet became a mere rhythmic throbbing. 
 Then suddenly a single hoof rang out sharply on stone, 
 and the first speaker reined in slightly. 
 
 " Thank the Lord we 're on the ridge now ! and the rest 
 is easy. Tell you what, though, boys, now we 're all right, 
 I don't mind saying that I did n't take no stock in that 
 blamed corpse light down there. If there ever was a wUl- 
 o'-the-wisp on a square up mountain, that was one. It 
 was n't no window ! Some of ye thought ye saw a face 
 too — eh?" 
 
 " Yes, and a rather pretty one," said the pleasant voice 
 meditatively. 
 
 " That 's the way they 'd build that sort of thing, of 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS . 5 
 
 course. It 's lucky ye had to satisfy yourself with looking. 
 Gosh ! I feel creepy yet, thinking of it ! What are ye 
 looking back for now, like Lot's wife ? Blamed if I don't 
 think that face bewitched ye." 
 
 " I was only thinking about that fire you started," re- 
 turned the other quietly. " I don't see it now." 
 
 « Well — if you did ? " 
 
 " I was wondering whether it could reach that hollow." 
 
 " I reckon that hollow could take care of any casual 
 nat'rel fire that came boomin' along, and go two better 
 every time ! Why, I don't believe there was any fire ; it 
 was all a piece of that infernal ignis fatuus phantasmagori- 
 ana that was played upon us down there ! " 
 
 With the laugh that followed they started forward again, 
 relapsing into the silence of tired men at the end of a long 
 journey. Even their few remarks were interjectional, or 
 reminiscent of topics whose freshness had been exhausted 
 with the day. The gaining light, which seemed to come 
 from the ground about them rather than from the still 
 overcast sky above, defined their individuality more dis- 
 tinctly. The man who had first spoken, and who seemed 
 to be their leader, wore the virgin unshaven beard, mus- 
 tache, and flowing hair of the Californian pioneer, and 
 might have been the eldest ; the second speaker was close- 
 shaven, thin, and energetic; the third, with the pleasant 
 voice, in height, litheness, and suppleness of figure appeared 
 to be the youngest of the party. The trail had now be- 
 come a grayish streak along the level tableland they were 
 following, which also had the singular effect of appearing 
 lighter than the surrounding landscape, yet of plunging 
 into utter darkness on either side of its precipitous walls. 
 Nevertheless, at the end of an hour the leader rose in his 
 stirrups with a sigh of satisfaction. 
 
 " There 's the light in Collinson's mill ! There 's nothing 
 gaudy and spectacular about that, boys, eh ? No, sir ! it 's a 
 
6 • is A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 squaie, honest beacon that a man can steer by. We '11 be 
 there in twenty minutes." He was pointing into the dark- 
 ness below the already descending trail. Only a pioneer's 
 eye could have detected the few pin-pricks of light in the 
 impenetrable distance, and it was a signal proof of his leader- 
 ship that the others accepted it without seeing it. " It 's 
 just ten o'clock," he continued, holding a huge silver watch 
 to his eye ; " we 've wasted an hour on those blamed spooks 
 yonder." 
 
 " We were n't off the trail more than ten minutes, Uncle 
 Dick," protested the pleasant voice. 
 
 " All right, my son ; go down there if you like and fetch 
 out your Witch of Endor, but as for me, I 'm going to throw 
 myself the other side of CoUinson's lights. They 're good 
 enough for me, and a blamed sight more stationary." 
 
 The grade was very steep, but they took it, California 
 fashion, at a gallop, being genuinely good riders, and using 
 their brains as well as their spurs in the understanding of 
 their horses, and of certain natural laws which the more 
 artificial riders of civilization are apt to overlook. Hence 
 there was no hesitation or indecision communicated to the 
 nervous creatures they bestrode, who swept over crumbling 
 stones and slippery ledges with a momentum that took away 
 half their weight, and made a stumble or false step, or in- 
 deed anything but an actual collision, almost impossible. 
 Closing together they avoided the latter, and, holding each 
 other well up, became one irresistible wedge-shaped mass. 
 
 At times they yelled, not from consciousness nor bravado, 
 but from the purely animal instinct of warning and to com- 
 bat the breathlessness of their descent, until, reaching the 
 level, they charged across the gravelly bed of a vanished 
 river, and pulled up at CoUinson's mill. The mill itself 
 had long since vanished with the river, but the building 
 that had once stood for it was used as a rude hostelry for 
 travelers, which, however, bore no legend or invitatory 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 7 
 
 sign. Those who wanted it, knew it; those, who passed it 
 by, gave it no offense. 
 
 Collin son himself stood by the door, smoking a contem- 
 plative pipe. As they rode up, he disengaged himself from 
 the doorpost listlessly, walked slowly toward them, said re- 
 flectively to the leader, " I 've been thinking with you that 
 a vote for Thompson is a vote thrown away,'* and prepared 
 to lead the horses toward the water tank. He had parted 
 with them over twelve hours before, but his air of simply 
 renewing a recently interrupted conversation was too com- 
 mon a circumstance to attract their notice. They knew, 
 and he knew, that no one else had passed that way since he 
 had last spoken ; that the same sun had swung silently 
 above him and the unchanged landscape, and there had been 
 no interruption nor diversion to his monotonous thought. 
 The wilderness annihilates time and space with the grim 
 pathos of patience. 
 
 Nevertheless he smiled. "Ye don't seem to have got 
 through coming down yet," he continued, as a few small 
 boulders, loosened in their rapid descent, came more delib- 
 erately rolling and plunging after the travelers along the 
 gravelly bottom. Then he turned away with the horses, 
 and, after they were watered, he reentered the house. His 
 guests had evidently not waited for his ministration. They 
 had already taken one or two bottles from the shelves be- 
 hind a wide bar and helped themselves, and, glasses in hand, 
 were now satisfying the more imminent cravings of hunger 
 with biscuits from a barrel and slices of smoked herring 
 from a box. Their equally singular host, ■ accepting their 
 conduct as not unusual, joined the circle they had comfort- 
 ably drawn round the fireplace, and meditatively kicking a 
 brand back at the fire, said, without looking at them : — 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well ! " returned the leader, leaning back in his chair 
 after carefully unloosing the buckle of his belt, but with 
 
8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 his eyes also on the fire, — " well ! we 've prospected every 
 yard of outcrop along the Divide, and there ain't the ghost 
 of a silver indication anywhere." 
 
 " Not a smell," added the close-shaven guest, without 
 raising his eyes. 
 
 They all remained silent, looking at the fire, as if it were 
 the one thing they had taken into their confidence. Collin- 
 son also addressed himself to the blaze as he said presently : 
 
 " It alius seemed to me that thar was something shiny 
 about that ledge just round the shoulder of the spur, over 
 the long canon." 
 
 The leader ejaculated a short laugh. " Shiny, eh ? 
 shiny ! Ye think that a sign ? Why, you might as well 
 reckon that because Key's head, over thar, is gray and 
 silvery that he 's got sabe and experience." As he spoke 
 he looked toward the man with a pleasant voice. The fire 
 shining full upon him revealed the singular fact that while 
 his face was still young and his mustache quite dark, his 
 hair was perfectly gray. The object of this attention, far 
 from being disconcerted by the comparison, added with a 
 smile : — '■ 
 
 " Or that he had any silver in his pocket." 
 
 Another lapse of silence followed. The wind tore round 
 the house and rumbled in the short adobe chimney. 
 
 " No, gentlemen," said the leader reflectively, " this sort 
 o' thing is played out. I don't take no more stock in that 
 cock-and-bull story about the lost Mexican mine.' I don't 
 catch on to that Sunday-school yarn about the pious, scien- 
 tific sharp who collected leaves and vegetables all over the 
 Divide, all the while he scientifjeally knew that the range was 
 solid silver, only he wouldn't soil his fingers with God- 
 forsaken lucre. I ain't saying anything agin that fine-spun 
 theory that Key believes in about volcanic upheavals that 
 set up on end argentiferous rock, but I simply say that I 
 don't see it — with the naked eye. And I reckon it's 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 9 
 
 about time, boys, as the game 's up, that we handed in our 
 checks, and left the board." 
 
 There was another silence around the fire, another whirl 
 and turmoil without. There was no attempt to combat the 
 opinions of their leader ; possibly the same sense of dis- 
 appointed hopes was felt by all, only they preferred to let 
 the man of greater experience voice it. He went on : — 
 
 " We 've had our little game, boys, ever since we left 
 Eawlin's a week ago ; we 've had our ups and downs ; 
 we've been starved and parched, snowed up and half 
 drowned, shot at by road-agents and horse-thieves, kicked 
 by iiiules and played with by grizzlies. We've had a heap 
 o' fun, boys, for our money, but I reckon the picnic is about 
 over. So we '11 shake hands to-morrow all round and call 
 it square, and go on our ways separately." 
 
 "And what do you think you '11 do. Uncle Dick ? " said 
 iiis close-shaven companion listlessly. 
 
 " I '11 make tracks for a square meal, a bed that a man 
 can comfortably take off his boots and die in, and some 
 violet-scented soap. Civilization 's good enough for me ! 
 I even reckon I would n't mind ' the sound of the church- 
 going bell ' ef there was a theatre handy, as there likely 
 ■would be. But the wilderness is played out." 
 
 " You '11 be back to it again in six months, Uncle Dick," 
 retorted the other quickly. 
 
 Uncle Dick did not reply. It was a peculiarity of the 
 party that in their isolated companionship they had already 
 exhausted discussion and argument. A silence followed, 
 in which they all looked at the fire as if it was its turn to 
 make a suggestion. 
 
 " Collinson," said the pleasant voice abruptly, " who 
 lives in the hollow this side of the Divide, about two miles 
 from the first spur above the big canon ? " 
 
 " Nary soul ! " 
 
 " Are you sure ? " 
 
10 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " Sartin ! Thar ain't no one but me betwixt Bald Top 
 and Skinner's — twenty-five miles." 
 
 " Of course, you 'd know if any one had come there 
 lately ? " persisted the pleasant voice. 
 
 " I reckon. It ain't a week ago that I tramped the 
 whole distance that you fellers just rode over." 
 
 " There ain't," said the leader deliberately, " any en- 
 chanted castle or cabin that goes waltzing round the road 
 with revolving windows and fairy princesses looking out 
 of 'era ? " 
 
 But CoUinson, recognizing this as purely irrelevant 
 humor, with possibly a trap or pitfall in it, moved away 
 from the fireplace without a word, and retired to the ad- 
 joining kitchen to prepare supper. Presently he reap- 
 peared. 
 
 " The pork bar'l 's empty, boys, so I '11 hev to fix ye up 
 with jerked beef, potatoes, and flapjacks. Ye see, thar 
 ain't anybody ben over from Skinner's store for a week." 
 
 " All right ; only hurry up ! " said Uncle Dick cheer- 
 fully, settling himself back in his chair. " I reckon to turn 
 in as soon as I 've rastled with your hash, for I 've got to 
 turn out agin and be off at sun-up." 
 
 They were all very quiet again, — so quiet that they 
 could not help noticing that the sound of CoUinson's pre- 
 parations for their supper had ceased too. Uncle Dick 
 arose softly and walked to the kitchen door. Collinson was 
 sitting before a small kitchen stove, with a fork in his hand, 
 gazing abstractedly before him. At the sound of his 
 guest's footsteps he started, and the noise of preparation re- 
 commenced. Uncle Dick returned to his chair by the fire. 
 Leaning towards the chair of the close-shaven man, he said 
 in. a lower voice : — 
 
 " He was off' agin ! " 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Thinkin' of that wife of his." 
 
IN A. HOLLOW OJ THE HILLS 11 
 
 " What about his wife ? " asked Key, lowering his voicfi 
 also. 
 
 The three men's heads were close together. 
 
 " When CoUinson fixed up this mill he sent for his wife m 
 the States," said Uncle Dick, in a half whisper, " waited a 
 year for her, hanging round and boarding every emigrant 
 wagon that came through the Pass. She did n't come, — 
 only the news that she was dead." He paused and nudged 
 his chair still closer — the heads were almost touching. 
 " They say, over in the Bar," — his voice had sunk to a 
 complete whisper, — " that it, was a lie ! That she ran 
 away with the man that was fetchin' her out. Three thou- 
 sand miles and three weeks with another man upsets some 
 w^omen. But he knows nothing about it, only he sometimes 
 kinder goes off loony-like, thinking of her." He stopped, 
 the heads separated ; Collinson had appeared at the door- 
 way, his melancholy patience apparently unchanged. 
 
 " Grub 's on, gentlemen ; sit by and eat." 
 
 The humble meal was dispatched with zest and silence. 
 A few interjectional remarks about the uncertainties of pro- 
 specting only accented the other pauses. In ten minutes 
 they were out again by the fireplace with their lit pipes. 
 As there were only three chairs, Collinson stood beside the 
 chimney. 
 
 " Collinson," said Uncle Dick, after the usual pause, 
 taking his pipe from his lips, " as we 've got to get up and 
 get at sun-up, we might as well tell you now that we 're 
 dead broke. We 've been living for the last few weeks on 
 Preble Key's loose change — and that 's gone. You '11 
 have to let this little account and damage stand over." 
 
 Collinson's brow slightly contracted, without, however, 
 altering his general expression of resigned patience. 
 
 "I'm sorry for you, boys," he said slowly, "and" 
 (diffidently) " kinder sorry for myself, too. You see, I 
 reckoned on goin' over to Skinner's to-morrow, to fill up, 
 
12 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 the pork bar'l and vote for Mesick and the wagon-road. 
 But Skinner can't let me have anything more until I 've 
 paid suthin' on account, as he calls it." 
 ' " D' ye mean to say thar 's any mountain man as low 
 flung and mean as that ? " said Uncle Dick indignantly. 
 
 " But it is n't his fault," said Collinson gently ; " you 
 see, they won't send him goods from Sacramento if he don't 
 pay up, and he can't if I don't. Sabe ? " 
 
 "Ah ! that's another thing. They are mean — in Sacra- 
 mento," said Uncle Dick, somewhat mollified. 
 
 The other guests murmured an assent to this general' 
 proposition. Suddenly Uncle Dick's face brightened. 
 
 " Look here ! I know Skinner, and I '11 stop there — 
 No, blank it all ! I can't, for it 's off my route ! Well, 
 then, we '11 fix it this way r Key will go there and tell 
 Skinner that I say that I '11 send the money to that Sacra- 
 mento hound. That '11 fix it." 
 
 Collinson's brow cleared ; the solution of the diificulty 
 seemed to satisfy everybody, and the close-shaven man 
 smiled. 
 
 " And I '11 secure it,'' he said, " and give Collinson a 
 sight draft on myself at San Francisco." 
 
 " What 's that for ? " said Collinson, with a sudden 
 suffusion on each cheek. 
 
 " In case of accident." 
 
 " Wot accident ? " persisted Collinson, with a dark look 
 of suspicion on his usually placid face. 
 
 " In case we should forget it," said the close-shaven man, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 " And do you suppose that if you boys went and forgot 
 it that I 'd have anything to do with your d — d paper ? " 
 said Collinson, a murky cloud coming into his eyes. 
 
 " Why, that 's only business, Colly," interposed Uncle 
 Dick quickly ; " that 's all Jim Parker means ; he 's a 
 business man, don't you see. Suppose we got killed I 
 You 've that draft to show." 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 13 
 
 " Show who ? " growled Collinson. 
 
 " WViy, — hang it ! — our friends, our heirs, our rela- 
 tions — to get your money," hesitated Uncle Dick. 
 
 "And do you kalkilate," said Collinson, with deeply labor- 
 ing breath, " that if you got killed, that I 'd be coming on 
 your folks for the worth of the d — d truck I giv ye ? Go 
 'way ! Lemme git out o' this. You 're makin' me tired." 
 
 He stalked to the door, lit his pipe, and began to walk up 
 and down the gravelly river-bed. Uncle Dick followed 
 him. From time to time the two other guests heard the 
 sounds of alternate protest and explanation as they passed 
 and repassed the windows. Preble Key smiled, Parker 
 shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " He '11 be thinkin' you 've begrudged him your grub if 
 you don't — that 's the way with these business men," said 
 Uncle Dick's voice in one of these intervals. Presently 
 they reentered the house, Uncle Dick saying casually to 
 Parker, " You can leave that draft on the bar when you 're 
 ready to go to-morrow ; " and the incident was presumed to 
 have ended. But Collinson did not glance in the direction 
 of Parker for the rest of the evening ; and, indeed, stand- 
 ing with his back to the cliimney, more than once fell into 
 that stolid abstraction which was supposed to be the con- 
 templation of his absent wife. 
 
 From tliis silence, which became infectious, the three 
 guests were suddenly aroused by a furious clattering down 
 .the steep descent of the mountain, along the trail they had 
 just ridden ! It came near, increasing in sound, until it 
 even seemed to scatter the fine gravel of the river-bed 
 against the sides of the house, and then passed in a gust of 
 wind that shook the roof and roared in the chimney. With 
 one common impulse the three travelers rose and went 
 to the door. They opened it to a blackness that seemed 
 to stand as another and an iron door before them, but to 
 nothins else. 
 
14 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " Somebody went by then," said Uncle Dick, turning to 
 Collinson. " Did n't you hear it ? " 
 
 "Nary," said Collinson patiently, without moving from 
 the chimney. 
 
 " What in God's name was it then ? " 
 
 " Only some of them boulders you loosed coming down. 
 It 's touch and go with them for days after. When I first 
 calne here I used to start up and rush out into the road — 
 like as you would — yellin' and screechin' after folks that 
 never was there and never went by. Then it got kinder 
 monotonous, and I 'd lie still and let 'era slide. Why, one 
 night I 'd 'a' sworn that some one pulled wp with a yell 
 and shook the door. But I sort of allowed to myself that 
 whatever it was, it was n't wantin' to eat, drink, sleep, or it 
 would come in, and I had n't any call to interfere. And in 
 the mornin' I found a rock as big as that box, lying chock- 
 a-block agin the door. Then I knowed I was right." 
 
 Preble Key remained looking from the door. 
 
 " There 's a glow in the sky over Big Canon," he said, 
 with a meaning glance at Uncle Dick. 
 
 " Saw it an hour ago," said Collinson. " It must be the 
 woods afire just round the bend above the canon. Whoever 
 goes to Skinner's had better give it a wide berth." 
 
 Key turned towards Collinson as if to speak, but appar- 
 ently changed his mind, and presently joined his com- 
 panions, who were already rolling themselves in their 
 blankets, in a series of wooden bunks or berths, ranged as 
 in a ship's cabin, around the walls of a resinous, sawdusty 
 apartment that had been the measuring room of the mill. 
 Collinson disappeared, — no one knew or seemed to care 
 where, — and in less than ten minutes from the time that 
 they had returned from the door the hush of sleep and 
 rest seemed to possess the whole house. There was no light 
 but that of the fire in the front room, which threw flicker- 
 ing and gigantic shadows on the walls of the three empty 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 15 
 
 chairs before it. An hour later it seemed as if one of the 
 chairs were occupied, and a grotesque profile of Collinson's 
 slumbering — or meditating — face and figure was projected 
 grimly on the rafters as though it were the hovering guar- 
 dian spirit of the house. But even that passed presently 
 and faded out, and the beleaguering darkness that had en- 
 compassed the house all the evening began to slowly creep 
 in through every chink and cranny of the rambling, ill- 
 jointed structure, until it at last obliterated even the faint 
 embers on the hearth. The cool fragrance of the woodland 
 depths crept in with it until the steep of human warmth, 
 the reek of human clothing, and the lingering odors of stale 
 human victual were swept away in that incorruptible and 
 omnipotent breath. An hour later — and the wilderness 
 had repossessed itself of all. 
 
 Key, the lightest sleeper, awoke early, — so early that 
 the dawn announced itself only in two dim squares of light 
 that seemed to grow out of the darkness at the end of the 
 room where the windows looked out upon the valley. This 
 reminded him of his woodland vision of the night before, 
 and he lay and watched them until they brightened and 
 began to outline the figures of his still sleeping companions. 
 But there were faint stirrings elsewhere, — the soft brush- 
 ing of a squirrel across the shingled roof, the tiny flutter 
 of invisible wings in the rafters, the " peep " and " squeak " 
 of baby life below the floor. And then he fell into a deeper 
 sleep, and awoke only when it was broad day. 
 
 The sun was shining upon the empty bunks ; his com- 
 panions were already up and gone. They had separated 
 as they had come together, — with the light-hearted irre- 
 sponsibility of animals, — without regret, and scarcely 
 reminiscence ; bearing, with cheerful philosophy and the 
 hopefulness of a future unfettered by their past, the final 
 disappointment of their quest. If they ever met again, 
 they would laugh and remember; if they did not, they 
 
16 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 would forget without a sigh. He hurriedly dressed him- 
 self, and went outside to dip his face and hands in the 
 bucket that stood beside the door ; but the clear air, the 
 dazzling sunshine, and the unexpected prospect half intoxi- 
 cated him. 
 
 The abandoned mill stretched beside him in all the pathos 
 of its premature decay. The ribs of the water-wheel ap- 
 peared amid a tangle of shrubs and driftwood, and were 
 twined with long grasses and straggling vines ; mounds of 
 sawdust and heaps of " brush " had taken upon themselves 
 a velvety moss where the trickling slime of the vanished 
 river lost itself in sluggish pools, discolored with the dyes 
 of redwood. But on the other side of the rocky ledge 
 dropped the whole length of the valley, alternately bathed 
 in sunshine or hidden in drifts of white and clinging smoke. 
 The upper end of the long canon, and the crests of the ridge 
 above him, were lost in this fleecy cloud, which at times 
 seemed to overflow the summits and fall in slow leaps like 
 lazy cataracts down the mountain-side. Only the range 
 before the ledge was clear ; there the green pines seemed to 
 swell onward and upward in long mounting billows, until 
 at last they broke against the sky. 
 
 In the keen stimulus of the hour and the air Key felt 
 the mountaineer's longing for action, and scarcely noticed 
 that Collinson had pathetically brought out his pork barrel 
 to scrape together a few remnants for his last meal. It was 
 not until he had finished his coffee, and Collinson had 
 brought up his horse, that a slight sense of shame at his 
 own and his comrades' selfishness embarrassed his parting 
 with his patient host. He himself was going to Skinner's 
 to plead for him ; he knew that Parker had left the draft, 
 — he had seen it lying on the bar, — but a new sense of 
 delicacy kept him from alluding to it now. It was better 
 to leave Collinson with his own peculiar ideas of the respon- 
 sibilities of hospitality unchanged. Key shook his hand 
 
m A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 17 
 
 warmly, and galloped up the rocky slope. But when he 
 had finally reached the higher level, and fancied he could 
 even now see the dust raised by his departing comrades on 
 their two diverging paths, although he knew that they had 
 already gone their different ways, — perhaps never to meet 
 again, — his thoughts and his eyes reverted only to the 
 ruined mill below him and its lonely occupant. 
 
 He could see him quite distinctly in that clear air, still 
 standing before his door. And then he appeared to make a 
 parting gesture with his hand, and something like snow 
 fluttered in the air above his head. It was only the torn 
 fragments of Parker's draft, which this homely gentleman 
 of the Sierras, standing beside his empty pork barrel, had 
 scattered to the four winds. 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 Kirr's attention was presently directed to something 
 more important to his present purpose. The keen wind 
 which he had faced in mounting the grade had changed, and 
 was now blowing at his back. His experience of forest 
 fires had already taught him that this was too often only 
 the cold air rushing in to fill the vacuum made by the 
 conflagration, and it needed not his sensation of an acrid 
 smarting in his eyes, and an unaccountable dryness in the 
 air which he was now facing, to convince him that the fire 
 was approaching him. It had evidently traveled faster 
 than he had expected, or had diverged from its course. 
 He was disappointed, not because it would oblige him to 
 take another route to Skinner's, as Collinson had suggested, 
 but for a very different reason. Ever since his vision of 
 the preceding night, he had resolved to revisit the hollow 
 and discover the mystery. He had kept his purpose a 
 secret, — partly because he wished to avoid the jesting re- 
 marks of his companions, but particularly because he wished 
 to go alone, from a very singular impression that although 
 they had witnessed the incident he had really seen more 
 than they did. To this was also added the haunting fear 
 he had felt during the night that this mysterious habitation 
 and its occupants were in the track of the conflagration. 
 He had not dared to dwell upon it openly on account of 
 Uncle Dick's evident responsibility for the origin of the 
 fire ; he appeased his conscience with the reflection that 
 the inmates of the dwelling no doubt had ample warning 
 in time to escape. But still, he and his companions ought 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 19 
 
 to have stopped to help them, and then — But here he 
 paused, conscious of another reason he could scarcely voice 
 then, or even now. i?reble Key had not passed the age of 
 romance, but like other romancists he thought he had 
 evaded it by treating it practically. 
 
 Meantime he had reached the fork vrhere the trail di- 
 verged to the right, and he must take that direction if he 
 wished to make a detour of the burning woods to reach 
 Skinner's. His momentary indecision communicated itself 
 to his horse, who halted. Eecalled to himself, he looked 
 down mechanically, when his attention was attracted by an 
 unfamiliar object lying in the dust of the trail. It was a 
 small slipper — so small that at first he thought it must 
 have belonged to some child. He dismounted and picked 
 it up. It was worn and shaped to the foot. It could not 
 have lain there long, for it was not filled nor discolored by 
 the wind-blown diist of the trail, as all other adjacent ob- 
 jects were. If it had been dropped by a passing traveler, 
 that traveler must have passed Collinson's going or coming, 
 within the last twelve hours. It was scarcely possible that 
 the shoe could have dropped from the foot without the 
 wearer's knowing it, and it must have been dropped in an 
 urgent flight, or it would have been recovered. Thus 
 practically Key treated his romance. And having done so, 
 he instantly wheeled his horse and plunged into the road 
 in the direction of the fire. 
 
 But he was surprised after twenty minutes' riding to find 
 that the course of the fire had evidently changed. It was 
 growing clearer before him ; the dry heat seemed to come 
 more from the right, in the direction of the detour he 
 should have taken to Skinner's. This seemed almost pro- 
 vidential, and in keeping with his practical treatment of 
 his romance, as was also the fact that in all probability 
 the fire had not yet visited the little hollow which he 
 intended to explore. He knew he was nearing it now; 
 
20 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 the locality had been strongly impressed upon him even in 
 the darkness of the previous evening. He had passed the 
 rocky ledge ; his horse's hoofs no longer rang out clearly ; 
 slowly and perceptibly they grew deadened in the springy 
 mosses, and were finally lost in the netted grasses and 
 tangled vines that indicated the vicinity of the densely 
 wooded hollow. Here were already some of the wider- 
 spaced vanguards of that wood ; but here, too, a peculiar 
 circumstance struck him. He was already descending the 
 slight declivity ; but the distance, instead of deepening in 
 leafy shadow, was actually growing lighter. Here were 
 the outskirting sentinels of the wood — but the wood itself 
 was gone ! He spurred his horse through the tall arch 
 between the opened columns, and pulled up in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 The wood, indeed, was gone, and the whole hollow filled 
 with the already black and dead stumps of the utterly con- 
 sumed forest ! More than that, from the indications before 
 him, the catastrophe must have almost immediately followed 
 his retreat from the hollow on the preceding night. It 
 was evident that the fire had leaped the intervening shoul- 
 der of the spur in one of the unaccountable, but by no 
 means rare, phenomena of this kind of disaster. The cir- 
 cling heights around were yet untouched ; only the hollow, 
 and the ledge of rock against which they had blundered 
 with their horses when they were seeking the mj'sterious 
 window in last evening's darkness, were calcined and de- 
 stroyed. He dismounted and climbed the ledge, still 
 warm from the spent fire. A large mass of grayish out- 
 crop had evidently been the focus of the furnace blast of 
 heat which must have raged for hours in this spot. He 
 was skirting its crumbling debris when he started suddenly 
 at a discovery which made everything else fade into utter 
 insignificance. Before him, in a slight depression formed 
 by a fault or lapse in the upheaved strata, lay the charred 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 21 
 
 and incinerated remains of a dwelling-house leveled to the 
 earth ! Originally half hidden by a natural abatis of 
 growing myrtle and ceanothus which covered this counter- 
 scarp of rock towards the trail, it must have stood within a 
 hundred feet of them during their halt ! 
 
 Even in its utter and complete obliteration by the furi- 
 ous furnace blast that had swept across it, there was still 
 to be seen an unmistakable ground-plan and outline of a 
 four-roomed house. While everything that was combusti- 
 ble had succumbed to that intense heat, there was still 
 enough half-fused and warped metal, fractured iron plate, 
 and twisted and broken bars to indicate the kitchen and 
 tool shed. Very little had, evidently, been taken away ; 
 the house and its contents were consumed where they 
 stood. With a feeling of horror and desperation Key at 
 last ventured to disturb two or three of the blackened heaps 
 that lay before him. But they were only vestiges of cloth- 
 ing, bedding, and crockery — there was no human trace that 
 he could detect. Nor was there any suggestion of the original 
 condition and quality of the house, except its size : whether 
 the ordinary unsightly cabin of frontier " partners," or some 
 sylvan cottage — there was nothing left but the usual igno- 
 ble and unsavory ruins of burnt-out human habitation. 
 
 And yet its very existence was a mystery. It had been 
 unknown at Collinson's, its nearest neighbor, and it was 
 presumable that it was equally unknown at Skinner's. 
 Neither he nor his companions had detected it in their 
 first journey by day through the hollow, and only the tell- 
 tale window at night had been a hint of what was even 
 then so successfully concealed that they could not discover 
 it when they had blundered against its rock foundation. 
 For concealed it certainly was, and intentionally so. But 
 for what purpose ? 
 
 He gave his romance full play for a few minutes with 
 this question. Some recluse, preferring the absolute sim- 
 
22 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 plicity of nature, or perhaps wearied with the artificialities 
 of society, had secluded himself here with the company o : 
 his only daughter. Proficient as a pathfinder, he ha'l 
 easily discovered some other way of provisioning his hous^ 
 from the settlements than hy the ordinary trails past Col- 
 linson's or Skinner's, which would have betrayed his vicin- 
 ity. But recluses are not usually accompanied by youiig 
 daughters, whose relations with the world, not being as 
 antagonistic, would make them uncertain companions. 
 Why not a wife ? His presumption of the extreme youth 
 of the face he had seen at the window was after all only 
 based upon the slipper he had found. And if a wife, whose 
 absolute acceptance of such confined seclusion might be 
 equally uncertain, why not somebody else's wife ? Here 
 was a reason for concealment, and the end of an episode, 
 not unknown even in the wilderness. And here was the 
 work of the Nemesis who had overtaken them in their 
 guilty contentment ! The story, even to its moral, was 
 complete. And yet it' did not entirely satisfy him, so 
 superior is the absolutely unknown to the most elaborate 
 theory. 
 
 His attention had been once or twice drawn towards the 
 crumbling wall of outcrop, which during the conflagration 
 must have felt the full force of the fiery blast that had 
 swept through the hollow and spent its fury upon it. It 
 bore evidence of the intense heat in cracked fissures and 
 the crumbling debris that lay at its feet. Key picked up 
 some of the still warm fragments, and was not surprised 
 that they easily broke in a gritty, grayish powder in his 
 hands. In spite of his preoccupation with the human in- 
 terest, the instinct of the prospector was still strong upon 
 him, and he almost mechanically put some of the pieces in 
 his pockets. Then after another careful survey of the 
 localitj' for any further record of its vanished tenants, he 
 returned to his horse. Here he took from his saddle-bags, 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 23 
 
 half listlessly, a precious phial encased in wood, and, open- 
 ing it, poured into another thick glass vessel 'part of a 
 smoking fluid ; he then crumbled some of the calcined 
 fragments into the glass, and watched the ebullition that 
 followed with mechanical gravity. When it had almost 
 ceased he drained off the contents into another glass, which 
 he set down, and then proceeded to pour some water from 
 his drinking-flask into the ordinary tin cup which formed 
 part of his culinary traveling-kit. Into this he put three 
 or four pinches of salt from his provision store. Then 
 dipping his fingers into the salt and water, he allowed a 
 drop to fall into the glass. A white cloud instantly 
 gathered in the colorless fluid, and then fell in a fine film 
 to the bottom of the glass. Key's eyes concentrated sud- 
 denly, the listless look left his face. His fingers trembled 
 lightly as he again let the salt water fall into the solution, 
 with exactly the same result ! Again and again he repeated 
 it, until the bottom of the glass was quite gray with the 
 fallen precipitate. And his own face grew as gray. 
 
 His hand trembled no longer as he carefully poured off 
 the solution so as not to disturb the precipitate at the 
 bottom. Then he drew out his knife, scooped a little of 
 the gray sediment upon its point, and emptying his tin cup, 
 turned it upside down upon his knee, placed the sediment 
 upon it, and began to spread it over the dull surface of its 
 bottom with his knife. He had intended to rub it briskly 
 with his knife-blade. But in the very action of spreading 
 it, the first stroke of his knife left upon the sediment and 
 the cup the luminous streak of burnished silver ! 
 
 He stood up and drew a long breath to still the beatings^ 
 of his heart. Then he rapidly re-climbed the rock, and 
 passed over the ruins again, this time plunging hurriedly 
 through, and kicking aside the charred heaps without a 
 thought of what they had contained. Key was not an 
 I : if ieling man, he was not an unrefined one : he was a 
 
24 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 gentleman by instinct, and had an intuitive sympathy foi 
 others ; but in that instant his whole mind was concen- 
 trated upon the calcined outcrop ! And his first impulse 
 was to see if it bore any evidence of previous examination, 
 prospecting, or working by its suddenly evicted neighbors 
 and owners. There was none : they had evidently not 
 known it. Nor was there any reason to suppose that they 
 would ever return to their hidden home, now devastated 
 and laid bare to the open sunlight and open trail. They 
 were already far away ; their guilty personal secret would 
 keep them from revisiting it. An immense feeling of relief 
 came over the soul of this moral romancer ; a momentary 
 recognition of the Most High in this perfect poetical retri- 
 bution. He ran back quickly to his saddle-bags, drew out 
 one or two carefully written, formal notices of preemption 
 and claim, which he and his former companions had carried 
 in their brief partnership, erased their signatures and left 
 onl}' his own name, with another grateful sense of Divine 
 interference, as he thought of them speeding far away in 
 the distance, and returned to the ruins. With unconscious 
 irony, he selected a charred post from the embers, stuck it 
 in the ground a few feet from the debris of outcrop, and 
 finally affixed his " Kotice." Then, with a conscientiousness 
 born possibly of his new religious convictions, he dislodged 
 with his pickaxe enough of the brittle outcrop to constitute 
 that presumption of " actual work " upon the claim which 
 was legally required for its maintenance, and returned to his 
 horse. In replacing his things in his saddle-bags he came 
 upon the slipper, and for an instant so complete was his 
 preoccupation in his later discovery, that he was about to 
 throw it away as useless impedimenta, until it occurred to 
 him, albeit vaguely, that it might be of service to him in 
 its connection with that discovery, in the way of refuting 
 possible false claimants. He was not aware of any faith- 
 lessness to his momentary romance, any more than he was 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 25 
 
 conscious of any disloyalty to his old . companions, in his 
 gratification that his good fortune had come to him alone. 
 This singular selection was a common experience of pro- 
 specting. And there was something about the magnitude 
 of his discovery that seemed to point to an individual 
 achievement. He had made a rough calculation of the 
 richness of the lode from the quantity of precipitate in his 
 rude experiment; he had estimated its length, breadth^ 
 and thickness from his slight knowledge of geology and 
 the theories then ripe ; and the yield would be colossal ! 
 Of course, he would require capital to work it, he would 
 have to " let in " others to his scheme and his prosperity ; 
 but the control of it would always be his own. 
 
 Then he suddenly started as he had never in his life 
 before started at the foot of man ! For there was a footfall 
 in the charred brush; and not twenty yards from him stood 
 Collinson, who had just dismounted from a mule. The 
 blood rushed to Key's pale face. 
 
 " Prospectin' agin ? " said the proprietor of the mill, with 
 his weary smile. 
 
 " No," said Key quickly, " only straightening my pack.'' 
 The blood deepened in his cheek at his instinctive lie. 
 Had he carefully thought it out before, he would have 
 welcomed Collinson, and told him all. But now a quick, 
 uneasy suspicion flashed upon him. Perhaps his late host 
 had lied, and knew of the existence of the hidden house. 
 Perhaps — he had spoken of some " silvery rock " the night 
 before — he knew something of the lode itself. He turned 
 upon him an aggressive face. But Collinson's next words 
 dissipated the thought. 
 
 "I'm glad I found ye, anyhow," he said. " Ye see, arter 
 y& a. left, I saw ye turn off the trail and make for the burn- 
 ing woods instead o' goin' round. I sez to myself, ' That 
 fellow is making straight for Skinner's. He 's sorter worried 
 about me and that empty pork bar'l,' — I had n't oughter 
 
26 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 spoke that away afore you boys, anyhow, — ' and he 'a takin' 
 risks to help me.' So I reckoned I'd throw iny leg over 
 Jenny here, and look arter ye — and go over to Skinner's 
 myself — and vote." 
 
 " Certainly," said Key with cheerful alacrity, and the one 
 thought of getting CoUinson away ; " we 'II go together, 
 and we '11 see that that pork barrel is filled ! " He glowed 
 quite honestly with this sudden idea of remembering Collinson 
 through his good fortune. " Let 's get on quickly, for we 
 may find the -fire between us on the outer trail." He hastily 
 mounted his horse. 
 
 " Then you did n't take this as a short cut," said Collinson, 
 with dull perseverance in his idea. " Why not ? It looks 
 all clear ahead." 
 
 " Yes," said Key hurriedly, " but it 's been only a leap 
 of the fire, it 's still raging round the bend. "VVe must go 
 back to the cross-trail." His face was still flushing with 
 his very equivocating, and his anxiety to get his companion 
 away. Only a few steps further might bring Collinson 
 before the ruins and the " Notice," and that discovery must 
 not be made by him until Key's plans were perfected. A 
 sudden aversion to the man he had a moment before wished 
 to reward began to take possession of him. " Come on," he 
 added almost roughly. 
 
 But to his surprise, Collinson yielded with his usual grim 
 patience, and even a slight look of sympathy with his friend's 
 annoyance. " I reckon you 're right, and mebbee you 're in 
 a hurry to get to Skinner's all along o' my business. I 
 oughtn't hev told you boys what I did." As they rode 
 rapidly away he took occasion to add, when Key had reined 
 in slightly, with a feeling of relief at being out of the 
 hollow, " 1 was thinkin', too, of what you 'd asked about 
 any one livin' here unbeknownst to me." 
 
 " Well," said Key, with a new nervousness. 
 
 " Well ; I only had an idea o' proposin' that you and me 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 27 
 
 just took a look around that holler whar you thought you 
 saw suthin' ! " said CoUinson tentatively. 
 
 "Nonsense," said Key hurriedly. "We really saw 
 nothing — it was all a fancy ; and Uncle Dick was joking 
 me because I said I thought I saw a woman's face," he added 
 with a forced laugh. 
 
 Colliuson glanced at him, half sadly. " Oh ! You were 
 only funnin', then. I oughter guessed that. I oughter have 
 knowed it from Uncle Dick's talk ! " They rode for some 
 moments in silence ; Key preoccupied and feverish, and 
 eager only to reach Skinner's. Skinner was not only 
 postmaster but " registrar " of the district, and the new 
 discoverer did not feel entirely safe until he had put his 
 formal notification and claims " on record." This was no 
 publication of his actual secret, nor any indication of success, 
 but was only a record that would in all probability remain 
 unnoticed and unchallenged amidst the many other hopeful 
 dreams of sanguine prospectors. But he was suddenly 
 startled from his preoccupation. 
 
 " Ye said ye war straightenin' up yer pack just now," 
 said Collinson slowly. 
 
 " Yes ! " said Key almost angrily, " and I was." 
 
 '.' Ye did n't stop to straighten it up down at the forks 
 of the trail, did ye ? " 
 
 " I may have," said Key nervously. " But why ? " 
 
 " Ye won't mind my axin' ye another question, will ye ? 
 Ye ain't carryin' round with ye no woman's shoe ? " 
 
 Key felt the blood drop from his cheeks. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he stammered, scarcely daring 
 to lift his conscious eyelids to his companion's glance. But 
 when he did so he was amazed to find that Collinson's face 
 was. almost as much disturbed as his own. 
 
 ■ I know it ain't the square thing to ask ye, but this is 
 how it is," said Collinson hesitatingly. " Ye see just 
 down by the fork of the trail where you came I picked up 
 
28 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 a woman's shoe. It sorter got me ! For I sez to myself, 
 ' Thar ain't no one bin by my shanty, comin' or goin', for 
 weeks but you boys, and that shoe, from the looks of it, 
 ain't bin there as many hours.' I knew there was n't any 
 wimin hereabouts. I reckoned it could n't hev bin dropped 
 by Uncle Dick or that other man, for you would have seen 
 it on the road. So I allowed it might have bin you. And 
 yer it is." He slowly drew from his pocket — what Key 
 was fully prepared to see — the mate of the slipper Key 
 had in his saddle-bags I The fair fugitive had evidently 
 lost them both. 
 
 But Key was better prepared now (perhaps this kind of 
 dissimulation is progressive), and quickly alive to the neces- 
 sity of throwing CoUinson off this unexpected scent. And 
 his companion's own suggestion was right to his band, and, 
 as it seemed, again quite providential ! He laughed, with 
 a quick color, which, however, appeared to help his lie, as 
 he replied half hysterically, "You're right, tld man, I 
 own up, it 's mine ! It 's d — d silly, I know — but then, 
 we 're all fools where women are concerned — and I would 
 n't have lost that slipper for a mint of money." 
 
 He held out his hand gayly, but Collinson retained the 
 slipper while he gravely examined it. 
 
 " You would n't mind telling me where you mought hev 
 got that ? " he said meditatively. 
 
 " Of course I should mind," said Key with a well- 
 affected mingling of mirth and indignation. " What are 
 you thinking of, you old rascal ? What do you take me 
 for ? " 
 
 But Collinson did not laugh. "You wouldn't mind 
 givin' me the size and shape and general heft of her as wore 
 that shoe ? " 
 
 " Most decidedly I should do nothing of the kind ! " 
 said Key half impatiently. " Enough, that it was given to 
 me by a very pretty girl. There ! that 's all you will know," 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 29 
 
 " Given to you ? " said CoUinson, lifting his eyes. 
 
 " Yes," returned Key sharply. 
 
 Collinson handed him the slipper gravely. " I only 
 asked you," he said slowly, but with a certain quiet dig- 
 nity which Key had never before seen in his face, " because 
 thar was suthin' about the size, and shape, and fillin' out 
 o' that shoe that kinder reminded me of some 'un ; but 
 that some 'un — her as mought hev stood up in that shoe 
 — ain't o' that kind as would ever stand in the shoes of her 
 as you know at all." 
 
 The rebuke, if such were intended, lay quite as much in 
 the utter ignoring of Key's airy gallantry and levity as in 
 any conscious slur upon the fair fame of his invented Dul- 
 cinea. Yet Key oddly felt a strong inclination to resent 
 the aspersion as well as Collinson's gratuitous morality ; 
 and with a mean recollection of Uncle Dick's last evening's 
 scandalous gossip, he said sarcastically, " And, of course, 
 that some one you were thinking of was your lawful wife." 
 
 " It war ! " said Collinson gravely. 
 
 Perhaps it was something in Collinson's manner, or his 
 own preoccupation, but' he did not pursue the subject, and 
 the conversation lagged; They were nearing, too, the 
 outer edge of the present conflagration, and the smoke, ly- 
 ing low in the unburnt woods, or creeping like an actual 
 exhalation of the soil, blinded them so that at times they 
 lost the trail completely. At other times, from the intense 
 heat, it seemed as if they were momentarily impinging 
 upon the burning area, or were being caught in a closing 
 circle. It was remarkable that with his sudden accession 
 of fortune "Key seemed to lose his usual frank and careless 
 fearlessness, and impatiently questioned his companion's 
 wood-craft. There were intervals when he regretted his 
 haste to reach Skinner's by this shorter cut, and began to 
 bitterly attribute it to his desire to serve Collinson. Ah, 
 yes ! it would be fine indeed, if just as he were about to 
 
30 IN A HOLLOW. OF THE HILLS 
 
 clutch the .prize he should be sacrificed through the igno- 
 rance and stupidity of this heavy-handed moralist at his 
 side ! But it was not until, through that moralist's guid- 
 ance, they climbed a steep acclivity to a second ridge, and 
 were comparatively safe, that he began to feel ashamed of 
 his surly silence or surlier interruptions. And Collinson, 
 either through his unconquerable patience, or possibly in a 
 fit of his usual uxorious abstraction, appeared to take no 
 notice of it. 
 
 A sloping table-land of weather-beaten, boulders now 
 effectually separated them from the fire on the lower ridge. 
 They presently began to descend on the further side of the 
 crest, and at last dropped upon a wagon-road, and the first 
 track of wheels that Key had seen for a fortnight. Kude 
 as it was, it seemed to him the highwaj' to fortune, for he 
 knew that it passed Skinner's and then joined the great 
 stage-road to Marysville, — now his ultimate destination. 
 A few rods further on they came in view of Skinner's, lying 
 like a dingy forgotten winter snowdrift on the mountain 
 shelf. 
 
 It contained a post-office, tavern, blacksmith's shop, 
 " general store," and express-ofiice, scarcely a dozen build- 
 ings in all, but all difTering from CoUinson's Mill in some 
 vague suggestion of vitality, as if the daily regular pulse 
 of civilization still beat, albeit languidly, in that remote 
 extremity. There was anticipation and accomplishment 
 twice a day ; and as Key and Collinson rode up to the 
 express-office, the express-wagon was standing before the 
 door ready to start to meet the stagecoach at the cross-roads 
 three miles away. This again seemed a special providence 
 to Key. He had a brief official communication with Skin- 
 ner as registrar, and duly recorded his claim ; he had a 
 hasty and confidential aside with Skinner as general store- 
 keeper, and such was the unconscious magnetism developed 
 by this embryo millionaire that Skinner extended the neces- 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 31 
 
 sary credit to Collinson on Key's word alone. That donoj 
 he rejoined Collinson in high spirits with the news, adding 
 cheerfully, " And I dare say, if you want any further ad 
 vances Skinner will give them to you on Parker's draft," 
 
 " You mean that bit o' paper that chap left," said 
 Collinson gravely. 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " I tore it up," 
 
 " You tore it up ? " ejaculated Key. 
 
 " You hear me ? Yes ! " said Collinson. 
 
 Key stared at him. Surely it was again providential 
 that he had not intrusted his secret to this utterly ignorant 
 and prejudiced man ! The slight twinges of conscience that 
 his lie about the slippers had caused him disappeared at 
 once. He could not have trusted him even in that; it 
 would have been like this stupid fanatic to have prevented 
 Key's preSraption of that claim, until he, Collinson, had sat 
 isfied himself of the whereabouts of the missing proprietor. 
 Was he quite sure that Collinson would not revisit the spot 
 when he had gone ? But he was ready for the emergency. 
 
 He had intended to leave his horse with Skinner as 
 security for Collinson's provisions, but Skinner's liberality 
 had made this unnecessary, and he now oifered it to Collin- 
 son to use and keep for him until called for. This would 
 enable his companion to " pack " his goods on the mule, 
 and oblige him to return to the mill by the wagon-road and 
 " outside trail," as more commodious for the two animals, 
 
 " Ye ain't afeard o' the road-agents ? " suggested a by- 
 stander ; "they just swarm on Galloper's Eidge, and ther 
 ' held up ' the down stage only last week." 
 
 "They're not so lively since the deputy-sheriff's got > 
 new idea about them, and has been lying low in the brush 
 near Bald Top," returned Skinner. " Anyhow, they don't 
 stop teams nor ' packs ' unless there 's a chance of theii 
 getting some fancy horseflesh by it ; and I reckon thar ain't 
 
32 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 much to tempt them thar," he added, with a satirical side 
 glance at his customer's cattle. But Key was already stand- 
 ing in the express-wagon, giving a farewell shake to his 
 patient companion's hand, and this ingenuous pleasantry 
 passed unnoticed. Nevertheless, as the express-wagon rolled 
 away, his active fancy began to consider this new danger 
 that might threaten the hidden wealth of his claim. But 
 he reflected that for a time, at least, only the crude ore 
 would be taken out and shipped to Marysville in a shape 
 that oEfered no profit to the highwaymen. Had it been a 
 gold mine ! — but here again was the interposition of Prov- 
 idence ! 
 
 A week later Preble Eey returned to Skinner's with a 
 foreman and ten men, and an unlimited credit to draw 
 upon at Marysville ! Expeditions of this kind created no 
 surprise at Skinner's. Parties had before this entered the 
 wilderness gayly, none knew where or what for ; the sedate 
 and silent woods had kept their secret "wbile there ; they 
 had evaporated, none knew when or where — often, alas ! 
 with an unpaid account at Skinner's. Consequently, there 
 was nothing in Key's party to challenge curiosity. In 
 another week a rambling, one-storied shed of pine logs occu- 
 pied the site of the mysterious ruins, and contained the 
 party ; in two weeks excavations had been made, and the 
 whole face of the outcrop was exposed ; in three weeks 
 every vestige of former tenancy which the fire had not con- 
 sumed was trampled out by the alien feet of these toilers 
 of the " Sylvan Silver Hollow Company." None of Key's 
 former companions would have recognized the hollow in its 
 blackened leveling and rocky foundation ; even CoUinson 
 would not have remembered this stripped and splintered 
 rock, with its heaps of fresh debris, as the place where he 
 had overtaken Key. And Key himself had forgotten, in 
 his triumph, everything but the chance experiment that had 
 led to his success. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 33 
 
 Perhaps it was well, therefore, that one night, when the 
 darkness had mercifully fallen upon this scene of sylvan 
 desolation, and its still more incongruous and unsavory 
 human restoration, and the low murmur of the pines occa- 
 sionally swelled up from the unscathed mountain-side, a 
 loud shout and the trampling of horses' feet awoke the 
 dwellers in the shanty. Springing to their feet, they 
 hurriedly seized their weapons and rushed out, only to be 
 confronted by a dark, motionless ring of horsemen, tVi'o 
 flaming torches of pine knots, and a low but distinct voice 
 of authority. In their excitement, half-awakened suspicion, 
 and confusion, they were affected by its note of calm pre- 
 paration and conscious power. 
 
 " Drop those guns — hold up your hands ! We 've got 
 every man of you covered." 
 
 Key was no coward ; the men, though flustered, were 
 not cravens : but they obeyed. 
 
 " Trot out your leader ! Let him stand out there, clear, 
 beside that torch ! " 
 
 One of the gleaming pine knots disengaged itself from 
 the dark circle and moved to the centre, as Preble Key, 
 cool and confident, stepped beside it. 
 
 " That will do," said the immutable voice. " Now, we 
 want Jack Kiggs, Sydney Jack, French Pete, and One-eyed 
 Charley." 
 
 A vivid reminiscence of the former night scene in the 
 hollow — of his own and his companions' voices raised in 
 the darkness — flashed across Key. With an instinctive 
 premonition that this invasion had something to do with 
 the former tenant, he said calmly : — 
 
 " Who wants them ? " 
 
 " The State of California," said the voice. 
 
 " The State of California must look further," returned 
 Key in his old pleasant voice ; " there are no such names 
 among my party." 
 
34 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " Who are. you ? " 
 
 "The manager of the Sylvan Silver Hollow CompaLy, 
 and these are my workmen." 
 
 There was a hurried movement, and the sound of whis- 
 pering in the hitherto dark and silent circle, and then the 
 voice rose again : — 
 
 " You have the papers to prove that ? " 
 
 " Yes, in the cabin. And you ? " 
 
 " I 've a warrant to the sheriif of Sierra." 
 
 There was a pause, and the voice went on less aonfi- 
 dently : — 
 
 " How long have you been here ? " 
 
 " Three weeks. I came here the day of the fire and took 
 up this claim." 
 
 " There was no other house here ? " 
 
 " There were ruins, — you can see them still. It may 
 have been a burnt-up cabin." 
 
 The voice disengaged itself from the vague backgrvyund, 
 and came slowly forwards : — 
 
 " It was a den of thieves. It was the hiding-place of 
 Jack Riggs and his gang of road-agents. I 've been hunt- 
 ing this spot for three weeks. And now the whole thing 's 
 up!" 
 
 There was a laugh from Key's men, but it was checked 
 as the owner of the voice slowly ranged up beside the burn- 
 ing torch and they saw his face. It was dark and set with 
 the defeat of a brave man. 
 
 " Won't you come in and take something ? " said Key 
 kindly. 
 
 " No. It 's enough fool work for me to have routed ye 
 out already. But I suppose it 's all in my d — d day's 
 work ! Good-night ! Forward there ! Get ! " 
 
 The two torches danced forwards, with the trailing off of 
 vague shadows in dim procession ; there was a clatter over 
 the rocks and they were gone. TheUj as Preble Key gazed 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 35 
 
 after them, he felt that with them had passed the onlj' 
 shadow that lay upon his great fortune ; and with the lasi 
 tenant of the hollow a proscribed outlaw and fugitive, he 
 was henceforth forever safe in his claim and his discovery. 
 And yet, oddly enough, at that moment, as he turned away, 
 for the first time in three weeks there passed before his 
 fancy with a stirring of reproach a vision of the face that he 
 had seen at the window. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Of the great discovery in Sylvan Silver Hollow it would 
 seem that CoUinson as yet knew nothing. In spite of Key's 
 fears that he might stray there on his return from Skinner's, 
 he did not, nor did he afterwards revisit the locality. 
 Neither the news of the registry of the claim nor the arrival 
 of Key's workmen ever reached him. The few travelers 
 who passed his mill came from the valley to cross the 
 Divide on their way to Skinner's, and returned by the 
 longer but easier detour of the stage-road over Galloper's 
 Eidge. He had no chance to participate in the prosperity 
 that flowed from the opening of the mine, which plentifully 
 besprinkled Skinner's settlement ; he was too far away to 
 profit even by the' chance custom of Key's Sabbath-wander- 
 ing workmen. His isolation from civilization (for tl.'ose 
 who came to him from the valley were rude Western emi- 
 grants like himself) remained undisturbed. The return of 
 the prospecting party to his humble hospitality that night 
 had been an exceptional case ; in his characteristic sim- 
 plicity he did not dream that it was because they had no- 
 where else to go in their penniless condition. It was an 
 incident to be pleasantly remembered, but whose nonre- 
 currence did not disturb his infinite patience. His pork 
 barrel and flour sack had been replenished for other trav- 
 elers ; his own wants were few. 
 
 It was a day or two after the midnight visit of the sheriff 
 to Silver Hollow that Key galloped down the steep grade to 
 Collinson's. He was amused, albeit, in his new importance, 
 a little aggrieved also, to find that Collinson had as usual 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 37 
 
 confounded his descent :with that of the generally detached 
 boulder, and that he was obliged to add his voice to the 
 general uproar. This brought Collinson to his door. 
 
 " I 've had your boss hobbled out among the chickweed 
 and clover in the green pasture back o' the mill, and he 's 
 picked up that much that he 's lookin' fat and sassy," he 
 said quietly, beginning to mechanically unstrap Key's bri- 
 dle, even while his guest was in the act of dismounting, 
 " His back 's quite healed up." 
 
 Key could not restrain a shrug of impatience. It was 
 three weeks since they had met, • — three weeks crammed 
 with excitement, energy, achievement, and fortune to Key ; 
 and yet this place and this man were as stupidly unchanged 
 as when he had left them. A momentary fancy that this 
 was the reality, that he himself was only awakening from 
 some delusive dream, cami? over him. But CoUinson's 
 next words were practical. 
 
 " I reckoned that maybe you 'd write from Marysville to 
 Skinner to send for the boss, a,nd forward him to ye, for I 
 never kalkilated you 'd come back." 
 
 It was quite plain from this that Collinson had heard 
 nothing. But it was also awkward, as Key would now 
 have to tell the whole story, and reveal the fact that he 
 had been really experimenting when Collinson overtook 
 him in the hollow. He evaded this by post-dating his 
 discovery of the richness of the ore until he had reached 
 Marysville. But he found some difficulty in recounting 
 his good fortune : he was naturally no boaster, he had no 
 desire to impress Collinson with his penetration, nor the unr 
 daunted energy he had displayed in getting up his company 
 and opening the mine, so that he was actually embarrassed 
 by his own understatement ; and under the grave, patient 
 eyes of bis companion, told his story at best lamely. Coir 
 linson's face betrayed neither profound interest nor the 
 slightest resentment. When' Key had ended his awkward 
 recital, Collinson said slowly : — 
 
38 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " Then Uncle Dick and that other Parker feller ain't 
 got no show in this yer lind ? " 
 
 " No," said Key quickly. " Don't you remember we 
 broke up our partnership that morning and went off our 
 own ways. You don't suppose," he added with a forced 
 half-laugh, " that if Uncle Dick or Parker had struck a lead 
 after they had left me, they 'd have put me in it ? " 
 
 " Would n't they ? " asked CoUinson gravely. 
 
 " Of course not." He laughed a little more naturally, 
 but presently added, with an uneasy smile, " What makes 
 you think they would ? " 
 
 " Nuthin' ! " said Collinson promptly. 
 
 Nevertheless, when they were seated before the fire, 
 with glasses in their hands, Collinson returned patiently to 
 the subject : — 
 
 " You wuz saying they went their way, and you went 
 yours. But your way was back on the old way that you 'd 
 all gone together." 
 
 But Key felt himself on firmer ground here, and an- 
 swered deliberately and truthfully, " Yes, but I only went 
 back to the liollow to satisfy myself if there really was any 
 house there, and if there was, to warn the occupants of the 
 approaching fire." 
 
 " And there was a house there," said Collinson thought- 
 fully. 
 
 ''Only the ruins." He stopped and flushed quickly, for 
 he remembered that he had denied its existence at their 
 former meeting. "That is," he went on hurriedly, "I 
 found out from the sheriff, you know, that there had been 
 a house there. But," he added, reverting to his stronger 
 position, "my going back there was an accident, and my 
 picking up the outcrop was an accident, and had no more 
 to do with our partnership prospecting than you had. In 
 fact," he said, with a reassuring laugh, " you 'd have had a 
 btiter right to share in my claim, coming there as you did 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 39 
 
 at that moment, than they. Why, if I'd have known 
 what the thing was worth, I might have put you in — only 
 it wanted capital and some experience." He was glad that 
 he had pitched upon that excuse (it had only just occurred 
 to him), and glanced afifably at Collinson. But that gen- 
 t'gman said soberly : — 
 
 " No, you would n't nuther." 
 
 " "Why not ? " said Key half angrily. 
 
 Collinson paused. After a moment he said, "'Cos I 
 would n't hev took anything outer thet place." 
 
 Key felt relieved. From what he knew of Collinson's 
 vagaries he believed him. He was wise in not admitting 
 him to his confidences at the beginning ; he might have 
 thought it his duty to tell others. 
 
 " I 'm not so particular," he returned laughingly, " but 
 the silver in that hole was never touched,, nor I dare say 
 even imagined by mortal man before. However, there is 
 something else about the hollow that I want to tell you. 
 You remember the slipper that you picked up ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, I lied to you about that ; I never dropped it. 
 On the contrary, I had picked up the mate of it very near 
 where you found yours, and I wanted to know to whom it 
 belonged. For I don't mind telling you now, Collinson, 
 that I believe there was a woman in that house, and the 
 same woman whose face I saw at the window. You remem- 
 ber how the boys joked me about it — well, perhaps I 
 did n't care that you should laugh at me too, but I 've had 
 a sore conscience over my lie, for I remembered that you 
 seemed to have some interest in the matter too, and I 
 thought that maybe I might have thrown you off the scent. 
 It seemed to me that if you had any idea who it was, we 
 might now talk the matter over and compare notes. I 
 think you said — at least, I gathered the idea from a re- 
 mark of yours," be added hastily, as he remembered that the 
 
40 IN A HOLLOW OF THi' HILLS 
 
 suggestion was his own, and a satirical one ■ — " that it re= 
 minded you of your wife's slipper. Of course, as your wife 
 is dead, that would offer no clue, and can only be a chance 
 resemblance, unless " — He stopped. 
 
 " Have you got 'em yet ? " 
 
 " Yes, both." He took them from the pocket of his 
 riding-jacket. 
 
 As Collinson received them, his face took upon itself an 
 even graver expression. " It 's mighty cur'ous," he said 
 reflectively, " but looking at the two of 'em the likeness is 
 more fetchin'. Ye see, my wife had a straight foot, and 
 never wore reg'lar rights and lefts like other women, but 
 kinder changed about ; ye see, these shoes is reg'lar rights 
 and lefts, but never was worn as sich ! " 
 
 " There may be other women as peculiar," suggested 
 Key. 
 
 " There must be," said Collinson quietly. 
 
 For an instant Key was touched with the manly security 
 of the reply, for, remembering Uncle Dick's scandal, it had 
 occurred to him that the unknown tenant of the robbers' 
 den might be CoUinson's wife. He was glad to be relieved 
 on that point, and went on more confidently : — 
 
 " So, you see, this woman was undoubtedly in that house 
 on the night of the fire. She escaped, and in a mighty 
 hurry too, for she had not time to change her slippers for 
 shoes ; she escaped on horseback, for that is how she lost 
 them. Now what was she doing there with those rascals, 
 for the face I saw looked as innocent as a saint's." 
 
 " Seemed to ye sort o' contrairy, jist as I reckoned my 
 wife's foot would have looked in a slipper that you said was 
 giv to ye," suggested Collinson pointedly, but with no im' 
 plication of reproach in his voice. 
 
 " Yes," said Key impatiently. 
 
 " I 've read yarns afore now about them Eyetalian bri. 
 gands stealin' women," said Collinson reflectively, " but that 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 41 
 
 ain't California road-agent style. Great Scott ! if one even 
 so much as spoke to a woman, they 'd have been wiped 
 outer the State long ago. No ! the woman as was there 
 came there to stay ! " 
 
 As Key's face did not seem to express either assent or 
 satisfaction at this last statement, Collinson, after a glance 
 at it, went on with a somewhat gentler gi'avity : " I see 
 wot 's troublin' you, Mr. Key ; you 've bin thinkin' that 
 raebbee that poor woman might hev bin the better for a bit 
 o' that fortin' that you discovered under the very spot where 
 them slippers of hers had often trod. You 're thinkin' that 
 mebbee it might hev turned her and those men from their 
 evil ways." 
 
 Mr. Key had been thinking nothing of the kind, but for 
 some obscure reason the skeptical jeer that had risen to his 
 lips remained unsaid. He rose impatiently. " Well, there 
 seems to be no chance of discovering anything now ; the 
 house is burnt, the gang dispersed, and she has probably 
 gone with them." He paused, and then laid three or four 
 large gold-pieces on the table. " It 's for that old bill of 
 our party, Collinson," he said. " I '11 settle and collect 
 from each. Some time when you come over to the mine, 
 and I hope you '11 give us a call, you can bring the horse. 
 Meanwhile you can use him ; you '11 find he 's a little 
 quicker than the mule. How is business ? " he added, with 
 a perfunctory glance around the vacant room and dusty 
 bar. 
 
 " Thar ain't much passin' this way," said Collinson with 
 equal carelessness, as he gathered up the money, " 'cept those 
 boys from the valley, and they 're most always strapped when 
 they come here." 
 
 Key smiled as he observed that Collinson offered him no 
 receipt, and, moreover, as he remembered that he had only 
 Collinson's word for the destruction of Parker's draft. But 
 he merely glanced at his unconscious host, and said nothing. 
 
42 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 After a pause he returned in a lighter tone : " T suppose 
 you are rather out of the world here. Indeed, I had an 
 idea at first of buying out your mill, CoUinson, and putting 
 in steam power to get out timber for our new buildings, but 
 you see you are so far away from the wagon-road that we 
 could n't haul the timber away. That was the trouble, or 
 I 'd have made you a fair offer." 
 
 " I don't reckon to ever sell the mill," said Collinson 
 simply. Then observing the look of suspicion in his com- 
 panion's face, he added gravely, " You see, I rigged up the 
 whole thing when I expected my wife out from the States, 
 and I calkilate to keep it in memory of her." 
 
 Key slightly lifted his brows. " But you never told us, 
 by the way, how you ever came to put up a mill here with 
 such an uncertain water-supply." 
 
 " It was n't onsartin when I came here, Mr. Key ; it 
 was a full-fed stream straight from them snow peaks. It 
 was the earthquake did it." 
 
 " The earthquake ! " repeated Key. 
 
 " Yes. Ef the earthquake kin heave up that silver-bear- 
 ing rock that you told us about the first day you kem here, 
 and that you found t' other day, it could play roots with a 
 mere mill-stream, I reckon." 
 
 " But the convulsion I spoke of happened ages on ages 
 ago, when this whole mountain range was being fashioned," 
 said Key with a laugh. 
 
 " Well, this yer earthquake was ten years ago, just after 
 I came. I reckon I oughter remember it. It was a queer 
 sort o' day in the fall, dry and hot as if thar might hev 
 bin a fire in the woods, only thar was n't no wind. Not a 
 breath of air anywhar. 'The leaves of them alders hung 
 straight as a plumb-line. Except for that thar stream and 
 that thar wheel, nuthin' moved. Thar was n't a bird on 
 the wing over that canon ; thar was n't a squirrel skir- 
 mishin' in. the hull wood ; even the lizards in the rocks 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 43 
 
 stiffened like stone Chinese idols. It kept gettin' quieter 
 and qnieter, ontil I walked out on that ledge and felt as if 
 [ 'd have to give a yell just to hear my own voice. Thar 
 was a thin veil over everything, and hetwixt and between 
 everything, and the sun was rooted in the middle of it as if 
 it couldn't move neither. Every thin' seemed to be waitin', 
 waitin', waitin'. Then all of a suddin suthin' seemed to 
 give somewhar ! Suthin' fetched away with a queer sort of 
 rumblin', as if the peg had slipped outer creation. I looked 
 up and kalkilated to see half a dozen of them boulders 
 come, lickity switch, down the grade. But, darn my skin, 
 if one of 'em stirred ! and yet while I was looking, the 
 whole face o' that bluff bowed over softly, as if saying 
 ' Good-by,' and got clean awaj somewhar before I knowed 
 it. Why, you see that pile agin the side o' the carion ? 
 Well, a thousand feet under that there 's trees, three 
 hundred feet high, still upright and standin'. You know 
 how them pines over on that far mountain-side always 
 seem to be clirabin' up, up, up, over each other's heads, to 
 the very top ? Well, Mr. Key, I saw 'em climbin' ! And 
 when I pulled myself together and got back to the mill, 
 everything was quiet ; and, by G- — d, so was the mill-wheel, 
 and there was n't two inches of water in the river ! " 
 
 " And what did you think of it ? " said Key, interested 
 in spite of his impatience. 
 
 " I thought, Mr. Key — no ! I must n't say I thought, 
 for I knowed it, — I knowed that suthin' had happened to 
 my wife ! " 
 
 Key did not smile, but even felt a faint superstitious 
 thrill as he gazed at him. After a pause Collinson resumed : 
 " I heard a month after that she had died about that time 
 o' yaller fever in Texas with the party she was comin' with. 
 Her folks wrote that they died like flies, and wuz all buried 
 fogether, unbeknownst and promiscuous, and thar wasn't 
 no remains. She slipped away from me like that bluff 
 over that canon, and that was the end of it." 
 
44 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " But she might have escaped," said Key quickly, forgefc 
 ting himself in his eagerness. 
 
 But Gollinson only shook his head. " Then she 'd have' 
 been here," he said gravely. 
 
 Key moved tovpards the door still ahstractedly, held out 
 his hand, shook that of his companiop warmly, and then, 
 saddling his horse himself, departed. A sense of disap- 
 pointment — in M'hich a vague dissatisfaction with himself 
 was mingled — was all that had come of his interview. He 
 took himself severely to task for following his romantic 
 quest so far. It was unworthy of the president of the 
 Sylvan Silver Hollow Company, and he was not quite sure 
 but that his confidences with Gollinson might have imper- 
 iled even the interests of the company. To atone for this 
 momentary aberration, and correct his dismal fancies, he 
 resolved to attend to some business at Skinner's before 
 returning, and branched off on a long detour that would 
 intersect the traveled stage-road. But here a singular inci- 
 dent overtook him. As he wheeled into the turnpike, he 
 heard the trampling hoof-beats and jingling harness of the 
 oncoming coach behind him. He had barely time to draw 
 up against the bank before the six galloping horses and 
 swinging vehicle swept heavily by. He had a quick 
 impression of the heat and steam of sweating horse-hide, 
 the reek of varnish and leather, and the momentary vision 
 of a female face silhouetted against the glass window of the 
 coach ! Bat even in that flash of perception he recognized 
 the profile that he had seen at the window of the mysteri- 
 ous hut ! 
 
 He halted for an instant dazed and bewildered in the 
 dust of the departing wheels. Then, as the bulk of the 
 vehicle reappeared, already narrowing in the distance, with- 
 out a second thought he dashed after it. His disappoint- 
 ment, his self-criticism, his practical resolutions were for- 
 gotten. He had but one idea now — the vision was 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 45 
 
 providential ! The clue to the mystery was before him — 
 he must follow it ! 
 
 Yet he had sense enough to realize that the coach would 
 not stop to take up a passenger between stations, and that 
 the next station was the one three miles below Skinner's. 
 It would not be difficult to reach this by a cut-off in time, 
 and although the vehicle had appeared to be crowded, he 
 could no doubt obtain a seat on top. 
 
 His eager curiosity, however, led him to put spurs to his 
 horse, and range up alongside of the coach as if passing it, 
 while he examined the stranger more closely. Her face was 
 bent listlessly over a book; there was unmistakably the 
 same profile that he had seen, but the full face was different 
 in outline and expression. A strange sense of disappoint- 
 ment that was almost a revulsion of feeling came over him; 
 he lingered, he glanced again ; she was certainly a very 
 pretty woman : there was the beautifully rounded chin, the 
 short straight nose, and delicately curved upper lip, that he 
 had seen in the profile, — and yet — yet it was not the 
 same face he had dreamt of. With an odd, provoking 
 sense of disillusion, he swept ahead of the coach, and again 
 slackened his speed to lot it pass. This time the fair un- 
 known raised her long lashes and gazed suddenly at this 
 persistent horseman at her side, and an odd expression, it 
 seemed to him almost a glance of recognition and expecta- 
 tion, came into her dark, languid eyes. The pupils con- 
 centrated upon him with a singular significance, that was 
 almost, he even thought, a reply to his glance, and yet it 
 was as utterly unintelligible. A moment later, however, it 
 was explained. He had fallen slightly behind in a new 
 confusion of hesitation, wonder, and embarrassment, when 
 from a wooded trail to the right another horseman suddenly 
 swept into the road before him. He was a powerfully 
 built man, mounted on a thoroughbred horse of a quality 
 far superior to the ordinary roadster. Without looking at 
 
46 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 Key he easily ranged up beside the coach as if to paf» it, 
 but Key, with a sudden resolution, put spurs to his own 
 horse and ranged also abreast of him, in time to see his 
 fair unknown start at the apparition of this second horse- 
 man and unmistakably convey some signal to him, — a sig- 
 nal that to Key's fancy now betrayed some warning of him 
 self. He was the more convinced as the stranger, aftei 
 continuing a few paces ahead of the coach, allowed it to 
 pass him at a curve of the road, and slackened his pace to 
 permit Key to do the same. Instinctively conscious that 
 the stranger's object was to scrutinize or identify him, he 
 determined to take the initiative, and fixed his eyes upon 
 him as they approached. But the stranger, who wore a 
 loose brown linen duster over clothes that appeared to be 
 superior in fashion and material, also had part of his face 
 ;ind head draped by a white silk handkerchief worn under 
 his hat, ostensibly to keep the sun and dust from his head 
 and neck, — and had the advantage of him. He only 
 caught the flash of a pair of. steel-gray eyes, as the new- 
 comer, apparently having satisfied himself, gave rein to his 
 spirited steed and easily repassed the coach, disappearing in 
 a cloud of dust before it. But Key had by this time 
 reached the cut-off, which the stranger, if he intended 
 to follow the coach, either disdained or was ignorant of, and 
 he urged his horse to its utmost speed. Even with the 
 stranger's advantages it would be a close race to the sta- 
 tion. 
 
 Nevertheless, as he dashed on, he was by no means 
 insensible to the somewhat quixotic nature of his undertak- 
 ing. If he was right in his suspicion that a signal had been 
 given by the lady to the stranger, it was exceedingly probable 
 that he had discovered not only the fair inmate of the rob- 
 bers' den, but one of the gang itself, or at least a confederate 
 and ally. Yet far from deterring him, in that ingenious 
 sophistry with which he was apt to treat his romance, he 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 47 
 
 now looked upon his adventure as a practical pursuit in the 
 interests of law and justice. It was true that it was said 
 that the band of road-agents had been dispersed ; it was a 
 fact that there had been no spoliation of coach or teams for 
 three weeks ; but none of the depredators had ever beet 
 caught, and their booty, which was considerable, was knows 
 to be still intact. It was to the interest of the mine, hia 
 partners, and his workmen that this clue to a danger which 
 threatened the locality should be followed to the end. As 
 to the lady, in spite of the disappointment that still rankled 
 in his breast, he could be magnanimous ! She might be the 
 paramour of the strange horseman, she might be only escap- 
 ing from some hateful companionship by his aid. And yet 
 one thing puzzled him : she was evidently not acquainted 
 with the personality of the active gang, for she had, without 
 doubt, at first mistaken Jiim for one of them, and after 
 recognizing her real accomplice had communicated her mis- 
 take to him. 
 
 It was a great relief to him when the rough and tangled 
 cut-off at last broadened and lightened into the turnpike 
 road again, and he beheld, scarcely a quarter of a mile before 
 him, the dust cloud that overhung the coach as it drew iip 
 at the lonely wayside station. He was in time, for he knew 
 that the horses were changed there ; but a sudden fear that 
 the fair unknown might alight, or take some other convey- 
 ance, made him still spur his jaded steed forward. As he 
 neared the station he glanced eagerly around for the other 
 horseman, but he was nowhere to be seen. He had evidently 
 either abandoned the chase or ridden ahead. 
 
 It seemed equally a part of what he believed was a 
 providential intercession, that on arriving at the station he 
 found there was a vacant seat inside the coach. It was 
 diagonally opposite that occupied by the lady, and he was 
 thus enabled to study her face as it was bent over her book, 
 whose pages, however, she scarcely turned. After her first 
 
48 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 casual glance of curiosity at the new passenger, she seemed 
 to take no more notice of him, and Key began to wonder if 
 he had not mistaken her previous interrogating look. Nor 
 was it his only disturbing query ; he was conscious of the 
 same disappointment now that he could examine her face 
 more attentively, as in his first cursory glance. She was 
 certainly handsome ; if there was no longer the freshness of 
 youth, there was still the indefinable charm of the woman 
 of thirty, and with it the delicate curves of matured 
 muliebrity and repose. There were lines, particularly 
 around the mouth and fringed eyelids, that were deepened 
 as by pain ; and the chin, even in its rounded fullness, had 
 the angle of determination. From what was visible, below 
 the brown linen duster that she wore, she appeared to be 
 tastefully although not richly dressed. 
 
 As the coach at last drove away from the station, a griz- 
 zled, farmer-looking man seated beside her uttered a sigh of 
 relief, so palpable as to attract the general attention. 
 Turning to his fair neighbor with a smile of uncouth but 
 good-humored apology, he said in explanation : — 
 
 "You'll excuse me, miss! I don't know ezactly how 
 you 're feelin', — for judging from your looks and gin'ral 
 gait, you're a stranger in these parts, — but ez for me, I 
 don't mind sayin' that I never feel ezactly safe from these 
 yer road-agents and stage-robbers ontil arter we pass Skinner's 
 station. All along thet Galloper's Eidge it's jest tech and 
 go like ; the woods is swarmin' with 'em. But once past 
 Skinner's, you 're all right. They never dare go below that. 
 So ef you don't mind, miss, for it 's bein' in your presence, 
 I '11 jest pull off my butes and ease my feet for a spell." 
 
 Neither the inconsequence of this singular request, nor 
 the smile it evoked on the faces of the other passengers, 
 seemed to disturb the lady's abstraction. Scarcely lifting 
 her eyes from her book, she bowed a grave assent. 
 
 " You see, miss," he continued, " and you, gents," he 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 49 
 
 added, taking the whole coach into his confidence, " I 've 
 got over forty ounces of clean gold-dust in them butes, be- 
 tween the upper and lower sole, — and it 's mighty tight 
 packing for my feet. Ye kin heft it," he said, as he re- 
 moved one boot and held it up before them. " I put the 
 dust there for safety — kalkilatin' that while these road 
 gentry alius goes for a man's pockets and his body belt, 
 they never thinks of his butes, or have n't time to go 
 through 'em." He looked around him with a smile of self- 
 satisfaction. 
 
 The murmur of admiring comment was, however, broken 
 by a burly-bearded miner who sat in the middle seat. 
 " Thet 's pretty fair, as far as it goes," he said smilingly, 
 " but I reckon it would n't go far ef you started to run. 
 I 've got a simpler game than that, gentlemen, and ez 
 we 're all friends here, and the danger 's over, I don't mind 
 tellin' ye. The first thing these yer road-agents do, after 
 they 've covered the driver with their shot-guns, is to 
 make the passengers get out and hold up their hands. 
 That, ma'am," — explanatorily to the lady, who betrayed 
 only a languid interest, — " is to keep 'em from drawing 
 their revolvers. A revolver is the last thing a road-agent 
 wants, either in a man's hand or in his holster. So I sez 
 to myself, ' Ef a six-shooter ain't of no account, wot 's the 
 iise of carry in' it ? ' So I just put my shooting-iron 
 in my valise when I travel, and fill my holster with 
 my gold-dust, so ! It 's a deuced sight heavier than a 
 revolver, but they don't feel its weight, and don't keer to 
 come nigh it. And I've been held up twice on t'other 
 side of the Divide this year, and I passed free every 
 time ! " 
 
 The applause that followed this revelation and the exhi- 
 bition of the holster not only threw the farmer's exploits 
 into the shade, but seemed to excite an emulation among 
 the passengers. Other methods of securing their property 
 
50 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 were freely discussed ; but the excitement culminated in 
 the leaning forward of a passenger who had, up to that 
 moment, maintained a reserve almost equal to the fair un- 
 known. His dress and general appearance were those of a 
 professional man ; his voice and manner corroborated the 
 presumption. 
 
 " I don't think, gentlemen," he began with a pleasant 
 smile, " that any man of us here would like to be called a 
 coward ; but in fighting with an enemy who never attacks, 
 or even appears, except with a deliberately prepared advan-. 
 tage on his side, it is my opinion that a man is not only 
 justified in avoiding an unequal encounter with him, but in 
 circumventing by every means the object of his attack. 
 You have all been frank in telling your methods. I will 
 be equally so in telling mine, even if I have perhaps to 
 confess to a little more than you have ; for I have not 
 only availed myself of a well-known rule of the robbers who 
 infest these mountains, to exempt all women and children 
 from their spoliation, — a rule which, of course, they per- 
 fectly understand gives them a sentimental consideration 
 with all Californians, — but I have, I confess, also availed 
 myself of the innocent kindness of one of that charming 
 and justly exempted sex." He paused and bowed cour- 
 teously to the fair unknown. " When I entered this coach 
 I had with me a bulky parcel which was manifestly too 
 large for my pockets, yet as evidently too small and too 
 valuable to be intrusted to the ordinary luggage. Seeing 
 my difficulty, our charming companion opposite, out of the 
 very kindness and innocence of her heart, ofiered to make 
 a place for it in her satchel, which was not fulL I ac- 
 cepted the offer joyfully. When I state to you, gentlemen, 
 that that package contained valuable government bonds to 
 a considerable amount, I do so, not to claim your praise 
 for any originality of my own, but to make this public 
 avowal to our fair fellow passenger for securing to me thia 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 51 
 
 most perfect security and immunity from the road-agent 
 that has been yet recorded." 
 
 With his eyes riveted on the lady's face, Key saw a fainV 
 color rise to her otherwise impassive face, which migbli 
 have been called out by the enthusiastic praise that fol- 
 lowed the lawyer's confession. But he was painfully con- 
 scious of what now seemed to him a monstrous situatipn ! 
 Here was, he believed, the actual accomplice of the road- 
 agents calmly receiving the complacent and puerile confes- 
 sions of the men who were seeking to outwit them. Could 
 he, in ordinary justice to them, to himself, or the mission 
 he conceived he was pursuing, refrain from exposing her, 
 or warning them privately ? But was he certain ? Was a 
 vague remembrance of a profile momentarily seen — and, as 
 he must even now admit, inconsistent with the full face he 
 was gazing at — sufficient for such an accusation ? More 
 than that, was the protection she had apparently afforded 
 the lawyer consistent with the function of an accomplice ! 
 
 " Then, if the danger 's over," said the lady gently, 
 reachiug down to draw her satchel from under the seat, " I 
 suppose I may return it to you." 
 
 " By no means ! Don't trouble yourself ! Pray allow 
 me to still remain your debtor, — at least as far as the next 
 station," said the lawyer gallantly. 
 
 The lady uttered a languid sigh, sank back in her seat, 
 and calmly settled herself to the perusal of her book. 
 Key felt his cheeks beginning to burn with the embarrass- 
 ment and shame of his evident misconception. And here 
 he was on his way to Marysville, to follow a woman for 
 whom he felt he no longer cared, and for whose pursuit he 
 had no longer the excuse of justice. 
 
 " Then I understand that you have twice seen these 
 road-agents," said the professional man, turning to the 
 miner. " Of course, you would be able to identify 
 them?" 
 
52 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " Nary a man ! You see they 're all masked, and only 
 one of 'em ever speaks." 
 
 " The leader or chief ? " 
 
 "No, the orator." 
 
 " The orator ? " repeated the professional man in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Well, you see, I call him the orator, for he 's mighty 
 glib with his tongue, and reels off all he has to say like as 
 if he had it by heart. He 's mighty rough on you, too, 
 sometimes, for all his high-toned style. Ef he thinks a 
 man is hidin' anything he jest scalps him with his tongue, 
 and blamed if I don't think he likes the chance of doin' it. 
 He 's got a regular set speech, and he 's bound to go 
 through it all, even if he makes everything wait, and runs 
 the risk of capture. Yet he ain't the chief — -and even 
 I 've heard folks say ain't got any responsibility if he is 
 took, for he don't tech anybody or anybody's money, and 
 could n't be prosecuted. I reckon he 's some sort of a 
 broken-down lawyer — d' ye see ? " 
 
 " Not much of a lawyer, I imagine," said the profes- 
 sional man, smiling, " for he '11 find himself quite mistaken 
 as to his share of responsibility. But it's a rather clever 
 way of concealing the identity of the real leader." 
 
 "It's the smartest gang that was ever started in the Si- 
 erras. They fooled the sheriff of Sierra the other day. 
 They gave him a sort of idea that they had a kind of 
 hidin'-place in the woods whar they met and kept their 
 booty, and by jinks ! he goes down thar with his hull 
 posse, — just spiliu' for a fight, — and only lights upon a 
 gang of innocent greenhorns, who were boring for silver on 
 the very spot where he allowed the robbers had their den ! 
 He ain't held up his head since." 
 
 Key cast a quick glance at the lady to see the effect of 
 this revelation. But her face — if the same profile he had 
 seen at the window — betrayed neither concern nor curios- 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 53 
 
 ity. He let his eyes drop to the smart boot that peeped 
 from below her gown, and the thought of his trying to 
 identify it with the slipper he had picked up seemed to 
 him as ridiculous as his other misconceptions. He sank 
 hack gloomily in his seat ; by degrees the fatigue and excite- 
 ment of the day began to mercifully benumb his senses ; 
 twilight had fallen and the talk had ceased. The lady had 
 allowed her book to drop in her lap as the darkness gath- 
 ered, and had closed her eyes ; he closed his own, and 
 slipped away presently into a dream, in which he saw the 
 profile again as he had seen it in the darkness of the hol- 
 low, only that this time it changed to a full face, unlike " 
 the lady's or any one he had ever seen. Then the window 
 seemed to open with a rattle, and he again felt the cool 
 odors of the forest ; but he awoke to find that the lady had 
 only opened her window for a breath of fresh air. It was 
 nearly eight o'clock ; it would be an hour yet before the 
 coach stopped at the next station for supper ; the passen- 
 gers were drowsily nodding ; he closed his eyes and fell 
 into a deeper sleep, from which he awoke with a start. 
 The coach had stopped I 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 
 " It can't be Three Pines yet," said a passenger's voice, 
 in which the laziness of sleep still lingered, " or else we 've 
 snoozed over five mile. I don't see no lights ; wot are we 
 stoppin' for ? " The other passengers struggled to an up- 
 right position. One nearest the window opened it ; its 
 place was instantly occupied by the double muzzle of a 
 shot-gun ! No one moved. In the awe-stricken silence 
 the voice of the driver rose in drawling protestation. 
 
 " It ain't no business o' mine, but it sorter strikes me 
 that you chaps are a-playin' it just a little too fine this 
 time ! It ain't three miles from Three Pine Station and 
 forty men ! Of course, that 's your lookout, — not mine ! " 
 
 The audacity of the thing had evidently struck even the 
 usually taciturn and phlegmatic driver into his first expos- 
 tulation on record. 
 
 " Your thoughtful consideration does you great credit," 
 said a voice from the darkness, "and shall be properly 
 presented to our manager ; but at the same time we wish 
 it understood that we do not hesitate to take any risks in 
 strict attention to our business and our clients. In the 
 mean time you will expedite matters, and give your pas- 
 sengers a chance to get an early tea at Three Pines, by 
 handing down that treasure-box and mail-pouch. Be care- 
 ful in handling that blunderbuss you keep beside it ; the 
 last time, it unfortunately went ofl^, and I regret to say 
 slightly wounded one of your passengers. Accidents of this 
 kind, interfering, as they do, with the harmon}' and pleasure 
 of our chance meetings, cannot be too highly deplored." 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 55 
 
 " By gosh ! " ejaculated an outside passenger in an au- 
 dible whisper. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said the voice quietly ; " but as I 
 overlooked you, I will trouble you now to descend with 
 '".he others." 
 
 The voice moved nearer ; and, by the light of .a flaming 
 bull's-eye cast upon the coach, it could be seen to come 
 from a stout, medium-sized man with a black mask, which, 
 however, showed half of a smooth, beardless face, and an 
 affable yet satirical mouth. The speaker cleared his throat 
 with the slight preparatory cough of the practiced orator, 
 and, approaching the window, to Key's intense surprise, 
 actually began in the identical professional and rhetorical 
 style previously indicated by the miner. 
 
 " Circumstances over which we have no control, gentle- 
 men, compel us to oblige you to alight, stand in a row on 
 one side, and hold up your hands. You will find the atti- 
 tude not unpleasant after your cramped position in the 
 coach, while the change from its confined air to the whole- 
 some night-breeze of the Sierras cannot but prove salutary 
 and refreshing. It will also enable us to relieve you of 
 such so-called valuables and treasures in the way of gold- 
 dust and coin, which I regret to say too often are misapplied 
 in careless hands, and which the teachings of the highest 
 morality distinctly denominate as the root of all evil ! I 
 need not inform you, gentlemen, as business men, that 
 promptitude and celerity of compliance will insure dispatch, 
 and shorten an interview which has been sometimes need- 
 lessly, and, I regret to say, painfully protracted." 
 
 He drew back deliberately with the same monotonous 
 precision of habit, and disclosed the muzzles of his confeder- 
 ates' weapons still leveled at the passengers. In spite of 
 their astonishment, indignation, and discomfiture, his prac- 
 ticed effrontery and deliberate display appeared in some 
 way to touch their humorous sense, and one or two smi^'id 
 
66 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 hysterically, as they rose and hesitatingly filed out of the 
 vehicle. It is possible, however, that the leveled shot-guns 
 contributed more or less directly to this result. 
 
 Two masks began to search the passengers under the com- 
 bined focus of the bull's-eyes, the shining gun-barrels, and 
 a running but still carefully prepared commentary from the 
 spokesman. 
 
 " It is to be regretted that business men, instead of in- 
 trusting their property to the custody of the regularly con- 
 stituted express-agent, still continue to secrete it on their 
 persons ; a custom that, without enhancing its security, is 
 not only an injustice to the express-company, but a great 
 detriment to dispatch.. We also wish to point out that 
 while we do not as a rule interfere -with the possession of 
 articles of ordinary personal use or adornment, such as sim- 
 ple jewelry or watches, we reserve our right to restrict by 
 confiscation the vulgarity and unmanliness of diamonds and 
 enormous fob-chains." 
 
 The act of spoliation was apparently complete, yet it was 
 evident that the orator was restraining himself for a more 
 effective climax. Clearing his throat again and stepping 
 before the impatient but still mystified file of passengers, 
 he reviewed them gravely. Then in a perfectly pitched 
 tone of mingled pain and apology, he said slowly : — 
 
 " It would seem that, from no wish of our own, we are 
 obliged on this present occasion to suspend one or two of 
 our usual rules. We are not in the habit of interfering 
 with the wearing apparel of our esteemed clients ; but in 
 the interests of ordinary humanity we are obliged to remove 
 the boots of the gentleman on the extreme left, which evi- 
 dently give him great pain and impede his locomotion. We 
 also seldom deviate from our rule of obliging our clients to 
 hold up their hands during this examination ; but we gladly 
 make an exception in favor of the gentleman next to him, 
 and permit him to hand us the altogether too heavily 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 57 
 
 weighted holster which presses upon his hip. Gentlemen," 
 said the orator, slightly raising his voice, with a deprecating 
 gesture, "you need not be alarmed ! The indignant move- 
 ment of our friend, just now, was not to draw his revolver, 
 — for it is n't there ! " He paused while his companions 
 ijpeedily removed the farmer's boots and the miner's holster, 
 and with a still more apologetic air approached the coach, 
 where only the lady remained erect and rigid in her corner. 
 " And now," he said with simulated hesitation, " we come 
 to the last and to us the most painful suspension of our 
 rules. On those very rare occasions when we have been 
 honored with the presence of the fair sex, it has been our 
 invariable custom not only to leave them in the undisturbed 
 possession of their property, but even of their privacy as 
 well. It is with deep regret that on this occasion we are 
 obliged to make an exception. For in the present instance, 
 the lady, out of the gentleness of her heart and the polite- 
 ness of her sex, has burdened herself not only with the 
 weight but the responsibility of a package forced upon her 
 by one of the passengers. We feel, and we believe, gentle- 
 men, that most of you will agree with us, that so scandalous 
 and unmanly an attempt to evade our rules and violate the 
 sanctity of the lady's immunity will never be permitted. 
 For your own sake, madam, we are compelled to ask you 
 for the satchel under your seat. It will be returned to yon 
 when the package is removed." 
 
 " One moment," said the professional man indignantly 
 " there is a man here whom you have spared, — a man who 
 lately joined us. Is that man," pointing to the astonished 
 Key, " one of your confederates ? " 
 
 " That man," returned the spokesman with a laugh, " is 
 the owner of th* Sylvan Hollow Mine. We have spared 
 liim because we owe him some consideration for having been 
 turned out of his house at the dead of night while the 
 sheriff of Sierra was seeking us." 
 
58 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 He stopped, and then in an entirely different voice, and in 
 a totally changed manner, said roughly, " Tumble in there, 
 all of you, quick ! And you, sir " (to Key), — " I 'd advise 
 you to ride outside. Now, driver, raise so much as a rein or 
 a whiplash until you hear the signal — and by God ! you '11 
 know what next." 
 
 He stepped back, and seemed to be instantly swallowed up 
 in the darkness ; but the light of a solitary bull's-eye — 
 the holder himself invisible — still showed the muzzles of 
 the guns covering the driver. There was a momentary stir 
 of voices within the closed coach, but an angry roar of 
 " Silence ! " from the darkness hushed it. 
 
 The moments crept slowly by ; all now were breathlesB. 
 Then a clear whistle rang from the distance, the light 
 suddenly was extinguished, the leveled muzzles vanished 
 with it, the driver's lash fell simultaneously on the backs of 
 his horses, and the coach leaped forward. 
 
 The jolt nearly threw Key from the top, but a moment 
 later it was still more difficult to keep his seat in the head- 
 long fury of their progress. Again and again the lash de- 
 scended upon the maddened horses, until the whole coach 
 seemed to leap, bound, and swerve with every stroke. Crieg 
 of protest and even distress began to come from the interior, 
 but the driver heeded it not. A window was suddenly let 
 down ; the voice of the professional man saying, " Wliat 's 
 the matter ? We 're not followed. You are imperiling our 
 lives by this speed," was answered only by, " Will some 
 of ye throttle that d — d fool ? " from the driver, and the 
 renewed fall of the lash. 
 
 The wayside trees appeared a solid plateau before them, 
 opened, danced at their side, closed up again behind them, 
 - — but still they sped along. Rushing down grades with 
 the speed of an avalanche, they ascended again without 
 drawing rein, and as if by sheer momentum ; for the heavy 
 vehicle now seemed to have a diabolical energy of its owa 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 59 
 
 It ground scattered rocks to powder with its crushing 
 wheels, it swayed heavily on ticklish corners, recovering 
 itself with the resistless forward propulsion of the strain- 
 ing teams, until the lights of Three Pine Station began to 
 glitter through the trees. Then a succession of yells broke 
 from the driver, so strong and dominant that they seemed 
 to outstrip even the speed of the unabated cattle. Lesser 
 lights were presently seen running to and fro, and on the 
 outermost fringe of the settlement the stage pulled up be- 
 fore a crowd of wondering faces, and the driver spoke. 
 
 " We 've been held up on the open road, by G — d, not 
 three miles from whar ye men are sittin' here yawpin' ! 
 If thar 's a man among ye that has n't got the soul of a 
 skunk, he '11 foller and close in upon 'em before they have 
 a chance to get into the brush." 
 
 Having thus relieved himself of his duty as an enforced 
 noncombatant, and allowed all further responsibility to de- 
 volve upon his recreant fellow employees, he relapsed into 
 his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less recklessly to 
 the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and dis- 
 comfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could 
 not help perceiving that neither the late " orator's " expla- 
 nation of his exemption from their fate, nor the driver's 
 surly corroboration of his respectability, had pacified them. 
 For a time this amused him, particularly as he could not 
 help remembering that he first appeared to them beside the 
 mysterious horseman who some one thought had been iden 
 tified as one of the masks. But he was not a little piqued 
 to find that the fair unknown appeared to participate in 
 their feelings, and his first civility to her met with a chill- 
 ing response. Even then, in the general disillusion of his 
 romance regarding her, this would have been only a mo- 
 mentary annoyance ; but it strangely revived all his previ- 
 ous suspicions, and set him to thinking. Was the singular 
 sagacity displayed by the orator in his search purely intui- 
 
60 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 tive ? Could any one have disclosed to him the secret of 
 the passengers' hoards? Was it possible for Aer while sit- 
 ting alone in the coach to have communicated with the 
 band ? Suddenly the remembrance flashed across him of 
 her opening the window for fresh air! She could have 
 easily then dropped some signal. If this were so, and she 
 really was the culprit, it was quite natural for her own 
 safety that she should encourage the passengers in the ab- 
 surd suspicion of himself ! His dying interest revived ; a 
 few moments ago he had half resolved to abandon his quest 
 and turn back at Three Pines. Now he determined to fol- 
 low her to the end. But he did not indulge in any further 
 sophistry regarding his duty ; yet, in a new sense of honor, 
 he did not dream of retaliating upon her by communicating 
 his suspicions to his fellow passengers. When the coach 
 started again, he took his seat on the top, and remained 
 there until they reached Jamestown in the early evening. 
 Here a number of his despoiled companions were obliged 
 to wait, to communicate with their friends. Happily, the 
 exemption that had made them indignant enabled him to 
 i;ontinue his journey with a full purse. But he was con- 
 tent with a modest surveillance of the lady from the top of 
 the coach. 
 
 On arriving at Stockton this surveillance became less 
 easy. It was the terminus of the stage-route, and the 
 divergence of others by boat and rail. If he were lucky 
 enough to discover which one the lady took, his presence 
 now would be more marked, and might excite her suspicion. 
 But here a circumstance, which he also believed to be pro- 
 vidential, determined him. As the luggage was being re- 
 moved from the top of the coach, he overheard the agent 
 tell the expressman to check the " lady's " trunk to San 
 Luis. Key was seized with an idea which seemed to solve 
 the difficulty, although it involved a risk of losing the clue 
 lintirely. There were two routes to San Luis, one was by 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 61 
 
 stage, and direct, though slower; the other by steamboat 
 and rail, via San Francisco. If he took the boat, there 
 was less danger of her discovering him, even if she chose 
 the same conveyance ; if she took the direct stage, — and 
 he trusted to a woman's avoidance of the hurry of change 
 and transshipment for that choice, — he would still arrive 
 at San Luis, via San Francisco, an hour before her. He. 
 resolved to take the boat ; a careful scrutiny from a state- 
 room window of the arriving passengers on the gang-plank 
 satisfied him that she had preferred the stage. There was 
 still the chance that in losing sight of her she might 
 escape him, but the risk seemed small. And a trifling cir- 
 cumstance had almost unconsciously influenced him — after 
 his romantic and superstitious fashion — as to this final 
 step. 
 
 He had been singularly moved when he heard that San 
 Luis was the lady's probable destination. It did not seem 
 to bear any relation to the mountain wilderness and the 
 wild life she had just quitted ; it was apparently tne most 
 antipathetic, incongruous, and inconsistent refuge she could 
 have taken. It offered no opportunity for the disposal of 
 booty, or for communication with the gang. It was less 
 secure than a crowded town. An old Spanish mission and 
 monastery college in a sleepy pastoral plain, it had even 
 retained its old-world flavor amidst American improvements 
 and social revolution. He knew it well. From the quaint 
 college cloisters, where the only reposeful years of his adven- 
 turous youth had been spent, to the long Alameda, or doublo 
 avenues of ancient trees, which connected it with the Con., 
 vent of Santa Luisa, and some of his youthful " devotions," 
 — it had been the nursery of his romance. He was amused 
 at what seemed to be the irony of fate, in now linking it 
 with this folly of his maturer manhood ; and yet he was 
 uneasily conscious of being more seriously affected by it. 
 And it was with a greater anxiety than this adventure had. 
 
62 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 ever yet cost him that he at last arrived at the San Jose 
 hotel, and from a balcony corner awaited the coming of the 
 coach. His heart beat rapidly as it approached. She was 
 there ! But at her side, as she descended from the coach, 
 was the mysterious horseman of the Sierra road. Key 
 could not mistake the well-built figure, whatever doubt 
 there had been about the features, which had been so care- 
 fully concealed. With the astonishment of this rediscovery, 
 there flashed across him again the fatefulness of the inspi- 
 ration which had decided him not to go in the coach. His 
 presence there would no doubt have warned the stranger, 
 and so estopped this convincing denouement. It was quite 
 possible that her companion, by relays of horses and the 
 advantage of bridle cut-offs, could have easily followed 
 the Three Pine coach and joined her at Stockton. But 
 for what purpose ? The lady's trunk, which had not been 
 disturbed during the first part of the journey, and had been 
 forwarded at Stockton untouched before Key's eyes, could 
 not have contained booty to be disposed of in this forgotten 
 old town. 
 
 The register of the hotel bore simply the name of " Mrs. 
 Barker," of Stockton, but no record of her companion, who 
 seemed to have disappeared as mysteriously as he came. 
 That she occupied a sitting-room on the same floor as his 
 own — in which she was apparently secluded during the 
 rest of the day — was all he knew. Nobody else seemed 
 to know her. Key felt an odd hesitation, that might have 
 been the result of some vague fear of implicating her pre- 
 maturely, in making any marked inquirj', or imperiling his 
 secret by the bribed espionage of servants. Once when he 
 was passing her door he heard the sounds of laughter, — 
 albeit innocent and heart-free, — which seemed so incon- 
 sistent with the gravity of the situation and his own thoughts 
 that he was strangely shocked. But he was still more dis- 
 turbed by a later occurrence. In his watchfulness of the 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 63 
 
 movements of his neighbor he had been equally careful of 
 his own, and had not only refrained from registering his 
 name, but had enjoined secrecy upon the landlord, whom he 
 knew. Yet the next morning after his arrival, the porter 
 not answering his bell promptly enough, he so far forgot him- 
 self as to walk to the staircase, which was near the lady's 
 room, and call to the employee over the balustrade. As he 
 was still leaning over the railing, the faint creak of a door, 
 and a singular magnetic consciousness of being overlooked, 
 caused him to turn slowly, but only in time to hear the rustle 
 of a withdrawing skirt as the door was quickly closed. In 
 an instant he felt the full force of his foolish heedlessness, 
 but it was too late. Had the mysterious fugitive recognized 
 him ?. Perhaps not ; their eyes had not met, and his face 
 had been turned away. 
 
 He varied his espionage by subterfuges, which his know- 
 ledge of the old town made easy. He watched the door of 
 the hotel, himself unseen, from the windows of a billiard 
 saloon opposite, which he had frequented in former days. 
 Yet he was surprised the same afternoon to see her, from 
 his coigne of vantage, reentering the hotel, where he was 
 sure he had left her a few moments ago. Had she gone 
 out by some other exit, — or had she been disguised ? But 
 on entering his room that evening he was confounded by 
 an incident that seemed to him as convincing of her identity 
 as it was audacious. Lying on his pillow were a few dead 
 leaves of an odorous mountain fern, known only to the 
 Sierras. They were tied together by a narrow blue ribbon, 
 and had evidently been intended to attract his attention. 
 As he took them in his hand, the distinguishing subtle 
 aroma of the little sylvan hollow in the hills came to him 
 like a memory and a revelation ! He summoned the cham- 
 bermaid ; she knew nothing of them, or indeed of any one 
 who had entered his room. He walked cautiously into the 
 hall ; the lady's sitting-room door was open, the room was 
 
64 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 empty. " The occupant/' said the charahermaid, " had left 
 that afternoon." He held the proof of her identity in his 
 hand, but she herself had vanished ! That she had recog> 
 nized him there was now no doubt : had she divined the 
 real object of his quest, or had she accepted it as a mere 
 sentimental gallantry at the moment when she knew it was 
 hopeless, and she herself was perfectly safe from pursuit ? 
 In either event he had been duped. He did not know 
 whether to be piqued, angry, — or relieved of his irresolute 
 quest. 
 
 Nevertheless, he spent the rest of the twilight and the 
 early evening in fruitlessly wandering through the one long 
 thoroughfare of the town, until it merged into the bosky 
 Alameda, or spacious grove, that connected it with Santa 
 Luisa. By degrees his chagrin and disappointment were 
 forgotten in the memories of the past, evoked by the 
 familiar pathway. The moon was slowly riding overhead, 
 and silvering the carriageway between the straight ebony 
 lines of trees, while the footpaths were diapered with black 
 and white checkers. The faint tinkling of a tram-car bell 
 in tbe distance apprised him of one of the few innovations 
 of the past. The car was approaching him, overtook him, 
 and was passing, with its faintly illuminated windows, 
 when, glancing carelessly up, he beheld at one of them the 
 profile of the face which he had just thought he had lost 
 forever ! 
 
 He stopped for an instant, not in indecision this time, 
 but in a grim resolution to let no chance escape him now. 
 The car was going slowly ; it was easy to board it nowj, 
 but again the tinkle of the bell indicated that it was 
 stopping at the corner of a road beyond. He checked his 
 pace, — a lady alighted, — it was she ! She turned into 
 the cross-street, darkened with the shadows of some low 
 suburban tenement houses, and he boldly followed. He 
 was fully determined to find out her secret, and even, if 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 65 
 
 necessary, to accost her for that purpose. He was per- 
 fectly aware what he was doing, and all its risks and penal- 
 ties ; he knew the audacity of such an introduction, but he 
 felt in his left-hand pocket for the sprig of fern which 
 was an excuse for it ; he knew the danger of following a 
 possible confidante of desperadoes, but he felt in his right- 
 hand pocket for the derringer that was equal to it. They 
 were both there ; he was ready. 
 
 He was nearing the convent and the oldest and most 
 ruinous part of the town. He did not disguise from him- 
 self the gloomy significance of this ; even in the old days 
 the crumbling adobe buildings that abutted on the old 
 garden wall of the convent were the haunts of lawless 
 Mexicans and vagabond peons. As the roadway began to 
 be rough and uneven, and the gaunt outlines of the sagging 
 roofs of tiles stood out against the sky above the lurking 
 shadows of ruined doorways, he was prepared for the worst. 
 As the crumbling but still massive walls of the convent 
 garden loomed ahead, the tall, graceful, black-gowned figure 
 he was following presently turned into the shadow of the 
 wall itself. He quickened his pace, lest it should again 
 escape him. Suddenly it stopped, and remained motion- 
 less. He stopped, too. At the same moment it vanished ! 
 
 He ran quickly forward to where it had stood, and found 
 himself before a large iron gate, with a smaller one in the 
 centre, that had just clanged to on its rusty hinges. He 
 rubbed his eyes ! — the place, the gate, the wall, were all 
 strangely familiar ! Then he stepped back into the road 
 way, and looked at it again. He was not mistaken. 
 
 He was standing before the porter's lodge of the Convent 
 of the Sacred Heart. 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 The day following the great stagecoach rohbery found 
 the patient proprietor of Collinson's Mill calm and un- 
 troubled in his usual seclusion. The news that had thrilled 
 the length and breadth of Galloper's Eidge had not 
 touched the leafy banks of the dried-up river ; the hue 
 and cry had followed the stage-road, and no courier had 
 deemed it worth his while to diverge as far as the rocky 
 ridge which formed the only pathway to the mill. That 
 day Collinson's solitude had been unbroken even by the 
 haggard emigrant from the valley, with his old monotonous 
 story of hardship and privation. The birds had flown 
 nearer to the old mill, as if emboldened by the unwonted 
 quiet. That morning there had been the half-human im- 
 print of a bear's foot in the ooze beside the mill-wheel ; 
 and coming home with his scant stock from the woodland 
 pasture, he had found a golden squirrel — a beautiful, airy 
 embodiment of the brown woods itself — calmly seated on 
 his bar-counter, with a biscuit between its baby hands. He 
 was full of his characteristic reveries and abstractions that 
 afternoon ; falling into them even at his wood-pile, leaning 
 on his axe — so still that an emerald-throated lizard, who 
 had slid upon the log, went to sleep under the forgotten 
 stroke. 
 
 But at nightfall the wind arose, — at first as a distant 
 murmur along the hillside, that died away before it reached 
 the rocky ledge ; then it rocked the tops of the tall red- 
 woods behind the mill, but left the mill and the dried 
 leaves that lay in the river-bed undisturbed. Then the 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 67 
 
 murmur was prolonged, until it became the continuous 
 trouble of some far-off sea, and at last the wind possessed 
 the ledge itself, driving the smoke down the stumpy 
 chimney of the mill, rattling the sun-warped shingles on 
 the roof, stirring the inside rafters with cool breaths, and 
 singing over the rough projections of the outside eaves. At 
 nine o'clock he rolled himself up in his blankets before the 
 fire, as was his wont, and fell asleep. 
 
 It was past midnight when he was awakened by the fa- 
 miliar clatter of boulders down the grade, the usual simula- 
 tion of a wild rush from without that encompassed the 
 whole mill, even to that heavy impact against the door, 
 which he had heard once before. In this he recognized 
 merely the ordinary phenomena of his experience, and only 
 turned over to sleep again. But this time the door rudely 
 fell in upon him, and a figure strode over his prostrate 
 body, with a gun leveled at his head. 
 
 He sprang sideways for his own weapon, which stood by 
 the hearth. In another second that action would have been 
 his last, and the solitude of Seth Collinson might have re- 
 mained henceforward unbroken by any mortal. But the 
 gun of the first figure was knocked sharply upward by a 
 second man, and the one and only shot fired that night sped 
 harmlessly to the roof. With the report he felt his arms 
 gripped tightly behind him ; through the smoke he saw 
 dimly that the room was filled with masked and armed 
 men, and in another moment he was pinioned and thrust 
 into his empty armchair. At a signal three of the men 
 left the room, and he could hear them exploring the other 
 rooms and outhouses. Then the two men who had been 
 standing beside him fell back with a certain disciplined 
 orecision, as a smooth-chinned man advanced from the 
 apen door. Going to the bar, he poured out a glass of 
 whiskey, tossed it off deliberately, and, standing in front of 
 Collinson, with his shoulder against the chimney and his 
 
68 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 hand resting lightly on his hip, cleared his throat. Hai! 
 Collinson been an observant man, he would have noticed 
 that the two men dropped their eyes and moved their feet 
 with a half-impatient, perfunctory air of waiting. Had he 
 witnessed the stage-robbery, he would have recognized in 
 the smooth-faced man the presence of " the orator. " But 
 he only gazed at him with his dull, imperturbable patience, 
 
 " We regret exceedingly to have to use force to a gentle- 
 man, in his own house," began the orator blandly ; " but 
 we feel it our duty to prevent a repetition of the unhappy 
 incident which occurred as we entered. We desire that 
 you should answer a few questions, and are deeply grateful 
 that you are still able to do so, — which seemed extremely 
 improbable a moment or two ago." He paused, coughed, 
 and leaned back against the chimney. " How many men 
 have you here besides yourself ? " 
 
 "Nary one," said Collinson. 
 
 The interrogator glanced at the other men, who had re- 
 entered. They nodded significantly. 
 
 " Good ! " he resumed. " You have told the truth — an 
 excellent habit, and one that expedites business. Now, is 
 there a room in this house with a door that locks ? Your 
 front door does n't." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " No cellar nor outhouse ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " We regret that ; for it will compel us, much against 
 our wishes, to keep you bound as you are for the present. 
 The matter is simply this : circumstances of a very pressing 
 nature oblige us to occupy this house for a few days, — 
 possibly for an indefinite period. We respect the sacred 
 rites of hospitality too much to turn you out of it ; indeed, 
 nothing could be more distasteful to our feelings than to 
 have you, in your own person, spread such a disgraceful 
 report through the chivalrous Sierras., We. must tlierefore 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 69 
 
 keep you a close prisoner, — open, however, to an offer. 
 It is this : we propose to give you five hundred dollars for 
 this property as it stands, provided that you leave it and 
 accompany a pack-train which will start to-morrow morn- 
 ing for the lower valley as far as Thompson's Pass, binding 
 yourself to quit the State for three months and keep this 
 matter a secret. Three of these gentlemen will go with 
 you. They will point out to you your duty ; their shot- 
 guns will apprise you of any dereliction from it. What do 
 you say ? " 
 
 " Who yer talking to ? " said CoUinson in a dull voice. 
 
 " You remind us," said the orator suavely, " that we have 
 not yet the pleasure of knowing." 
 
 " My name 's Seth Collinson." 
 
 There was a dead silence in the room, and every eye was 
 fixed upon the two men. The orator's smile slightly 
 stiffened. 
 
 " Where from ? " he continued blandly. 
 
 " Mizzouri." 
 
 " A very good place to go back to, — through Thompson's 
 Pass. But you have n't answered our proposal." 
 
 " I reckon I don't intend to sell this house, or leave it," 
 said Collinson simply. 
 
 " I trust you will not make us regret the fortunate termi- 
 nation of your little accident, Mr. Collinson," said the orator 
 with a singular smile. " May I ask why you object to 
 selling out ? Is it the figure ? " 
 
 " The house is n't mine," said Collinson deliberately. 
 " I built this yer house for my wife wot I left in Mizzouri. 
 It's hers. I kalkilate to keep it, and live in it ontil she 
 comes fur it ! And when I tell ye that she is dead, ye kin 
 reckon just what chance ye have of ever gettin' it." 
 
 There was an unmistakable start of sensation in the room, 
 followed by a silence so profound that the moaning of the 
 wind on the mountain-side was distinctly heard. A well- 
 
70 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 built man, with a mask that scarcely concealed his heavy 
 mustachios, who had been standing with his back to the 
 orator in half-contemptuous patience, faced around suddenly 
 and made a step forward as if to come between the ques 
 tioner and questioned. A voice from the corner ejaculated, 
 "By G— d!" 
 
 " Silence," said the orator sharply. Then still more 
 harshly he turned to the others : " Pick him up, and stand 
 him outside with a guard ; and then clear out, all of you ! " 
 
 The prisoner was lifted up and carried out ; the room 
 was instantly cleared ; only the orator and the man who had 
 stepped forward remained. Simultaneously they drew the 
 masks from their faces, and stood looking at each other. 
 The orator's face was smooth and corrupt ; the full, sensual 
 lips wrinkled at the corners with a sardonic humor ; the 
 man who confronted him appeared to be physically and even 
 morally his superior, albeit gloomy and discontented in 
 expression. He cast a rapid glance around the room, to 
 assure himself that they were alone ; and then, straightening 
 his eyebrows as he backed against the chimney, said : — 
 
 " D — d if I like this, Chivers ! It 's your affair ; but it 's 
 mighty low-down work for a man ! " 
 
 " You might have made it easier if you had n't knocked 
 up Bryce's gun. That would have settled it, though no 
 one guessed that the cur was her husband," said Chivers 
 hotly. 
 
 " If you want it settled that way, there 's still time," 
 returned the other with a slight sneer. " You 've only to 
 tell him that you 're the man that ran away with his wife, 
 and you '11 have it out together, right on the ledge at twelve 
 paces. The boys will see you through. In fact," he added, 
 his sneer deepening, " I rather think it 's what they 're 
 expecting." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Jack Riggs," said Chivers sardonically. 
 *' I dare say it would be more convenient to some people, 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 71 
 
 just before our booty is divided, if I were drilled through 
 by a blundering shot from that hayseed ; or it would seem 
 right to your high-toned chivalry if a dead-shot as I am 
 knocked over a man who may have never fired a revolver 
 before ; but I don't exactly see it in that light, either as a 
 man or as your equal partner. I don't think you quite 
 understand me, my dear Jack. If you don't value the only 
 man who is identified in all California as the leader of this 
 gang (the man whose style and address has made it popular 
 — yes, popular, by G — d ! — to every man, woman, and 
 child who has heard of him ; whose sayings and doings are 
 quoted by the newspapers ; whom people run risks to see ; 
 who has got the sympathy of the crowd, so that judges 
 hesitate to issue warrants and constables to serve them), — 
 if you don't see the use of such a man, I do. Why, there 's 
 a column and a half in the ' Sacramento Union ' about our 
 last job, calling me the ' Claude Duval ' of the Sierras, and 
 speaking of my courtesy to a lady ! A lady ! — his wife, 
 by G — d ! our confederate ! My dear Jack, you not only 
 don't know business values, but, 'pon my soul, you don't 
 seem to understand humor ! Ha, ha ! " 
 
 For all his cynical levity, for all his affected exaggera- 
 tion, there was the ring of an unmistakable and even pitiable 
 vanity in his voice, and a self-consciousness that suffused 
 his broad cheeks and writhed his full mouth, but seemed 
 to deepen the frown on Eiggs's face. 
 
 " You know the woman hates it, and would bolt if she 
 could, — even from you," said Eiggs gloomily. " Think 
 what she might do if she knew her husband were here. 
 I tell you she holds our lives in the hollow of her hand." 
 
 " That 's your fault, Mr. Jack Eiggs ; you would bring 
 your sister with her infernal convent innocence and sim- 
 plicity into our hut in the hollow. She was meek enough 
 before that. But this is sheer nonsense. I have no fear 
 of her. The woman don't live who would go back on 
 
72 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 Godfrey Chivers — for a husband ! Besides, she went off 
 to see your sister at the Convent of Santa Luisa as soon 
 as she passed those bonds off on Charley to get rid of ! 
 Ihink of her traveling with that d — d fool lawyer all the 
 way to Stockton, and his bonds (which we had put back in 
 her bag) alongside of them all the time, and he telling her 
 he was going to stop their payment, and giving her the let- 
 ter to mail for him ! — eh ? Well, we '11 have time to get 
 rid of her husband before she gets back. If he don't go 
 easy — well " — 
 
 " None of that, Chivers, you understand, once for all ! " 
 interrupted Kiggs peremptorily. " If you cannot see that 
 your making away with that woman's husband would damn 
 that boasted reputation you make so much of and set every 
 man's hand against us, J do, and I won't permit it. It's 
 a rotten business enough, — our coming on him as we have ; 
 and if this was n't the only God-forsaken place where we 
 could divide our stuff without danger and get it away off 
 the highroads, I 'd pull up stakes at once." 
 
 "Let her stay at the convent, then, and be d — d to her," 
 said Chivers roughly. " She 'II be glad enough to be with 
 your sister again ; and there 's no fear of her being touched 
 there." 
 
 " But I want to put an end to that, too," returned Eiggs 
 sharply. " I do not choose to have my sister any longer 
 implicated with our confederate or your mistress. No 
 more of that — you understand me ? " 
 
 The two men had been standing side by side, leaning 
 against the chimney. Chivers now faced his companion, 
 his full lips wreathed into an evil smile. 
 
 " I think I understand you, Mr. Jack Eiggs, or — I beg 
 your pardon — Rivers, or whatever your real name may 
 be," he began slowly. " Sadie Collinson, the mistress of 
 Judge Godfrey Chivers, formerly of Kentucky, was good 
 enough company for you the day you dropped down upon 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 73 
 
 US in our little house in the hollow of Galloper's Ridge. 
 We were living quite an idyllic, pastoral life there, were n't 
 we ? — she and me ; hidden from the censorious eye of 
 society and — Collinson, oheying only the voice of Nature 
 and the little birds. It was a happy time," he went ou 
 with a grimly affected sigh, disregarding his companion's 
 impatient gesture. "You were young then, waging your 
 fight against society, and fresh — uncommonly fresh, I may 
 say — from your first exploit. And a very stupid, clumsy, 
 awkward exploit, too, Mr. Riggs, if you will pardon my 
 freedom. You wanted money, and you had an ugly tem- 
 per, and you had lost both to a gambler ; so you stopped 
 the coach to rob him, and had to kill two men to get back 
 your paltry thousand dollars, after frightening a whole 
 coach-load of passengers, and letting Wells, Fargo & Co.'s 
 treasure-box with fifty thousand dollars in it slide. It was 
 a stupid, a blundering, a cruel act, Mr. Riggs, and I think 
 I told you so at the time. It was a waste of energy and 
 material, and made you, not a hero, but a stupid outcast ,' 
 I think I proved this to you, and showed you how it might 
 have been done." 
 
 " Dry up on that, " interrupted Riggs impatiently. 
 " You offered to become my partner, and you did." 
 
 " Pardon me. Observe, my impetuous friend, that my con- 
 tention is that you — yoii, — poisoned our blameless Eden 
 in the hollow ; that you were our serpent, and that this 
 Sadie Collinson, over whom you have become so fastidious, 
 whom you knew as my mistress, was obliged to become our 
 confederate. You did not object to her when we formed 
 our gang, and her house became our hiding-place and refuge. 
 You took advantage of her woman's wit and fine address in 
 disposing of our booty ; you availed yourself, with the rest, 
 of the secrets she gathered as my mistress, just as you were 
 willing to profit by the superior address of her paramour — ■ 
 your humble servant — when your own face was known to 
 
74 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 the sheriff, and your old methods pronounced brutal and 
 vulgar. Excuse me, but I must insist upon this, and that 
 you dropped down upon me and Sadie Collinson exactly as 
 you have dropped down here upon her husband." 
 
 " Enough of this ! " said Kiggs angrily. " I admit the 
 woman is part and parcel of the gang, and gets her share, 
 
 — or you get it for her," he added sneeringly ; " but that 
 does n't permit her to mix herself with my family affairs." 
 
 " Pardon me again," interrupted Chivers softly. " Your 
 memory, my dear Riggs, is absurdly defective. We knew 
 that you had a young sister in the mountains, from whom 
 you discreetly wished to conceal your real position. We 
 respected, and I trust shall always respect, your noble reti- 
 cence. But do you remember the night you were taking 
 her to school at Santa Luisa, — two nights before the fire, 
 
 — when you were recognized on the road near Skinner's, 
 and had to fly with her for your life, and brought her to 
 us, — your two dear old friends, ' Mr. and Mrs. Barker of 
 Chicago,' who had a pastoral home in the forest ? You 
 remember how we took her in, — yes, doubly took her in, 
 
 — and kept your secret from her ? And do you remember 
 how this woman (this mistress of m,me and our confeder- 
 ate), while we were away, saved her from the fire on our 
 only horse, caught the stagecoach, and brought her to the 
 convent ? " 
 
 Riggs walked towards the window, turned, and coming 
 back, held out his hand. " Yes, she did it ; and I thanked 
 her, as I thank you." He stopped and hesitated, as the 
 other took bis hand. " But, blank it all, Chivers, don't 
 you see that Alice is a young girl, and this woman is — 
 you know what I mean. Somebody might recognize her, 
 and that would be worse for Alice than even if it were 
 known what Alice's brother was. G — d ! if these two 
 things were put together, the girl would be ruined forever." 
 
 " Jack," said Chivers suddenly, " yo'i want this woman 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 75 
 
 out of the way. Well — dash it all ! — she nearly separated 
 us, and I '11 be frank with you as between man and man. 
 I '11 give her up ! There are women enough in the worldj 
 and hang it, we 're partners after all ! " 
 
 " Then you '11 abandon her ? " said Eiggs slowly, his 
 eyes fixed on his companion. 
 
 "Yes. She's getting a little too maundering lately. 
 It will be a ticklish job to manage, for she knows too 
 much ; but it will be done. There 's my hand on it." 
 
 E/iggs not only took no notice of the proffered hand, but 
 his former look of discontent came back with an ill-con- 
 cealed addition of loathing and contempt. 
 
 " We '11 drop that now," he said shortly ; " we 've talked 
 here alone long enough already. The men are waiting for 
 us." He turned on his heel into the inner room. Chivers 
 remained standing by the chimney until his stiffened smile 
 gave way under the working of his writhing lips ; then he 
 turned to the bar, poured out and swallowed another glass 
 of whiskey at a single gulp, and followed his partner with 
 half-closed lids that scarcely veiled his ominous eyes. 
 
 The men, with the exception of the sentinels stationed 
 on the rocky ledge and the one who was guarding 
 the unfortunate Collinson, were drinking and gambling 
 away their prospective gains around a small pile of port- 
 manteaus and saddle-bags, heaped in the centre of the room. 
 They contained the results of their last successes, but one 
 pair of saddle-bags bore the mildewed appearance of having 
 been cached, or buried, some time before. Most of their 
 treasure was in packages of gold-dust ; and from the con- 
 versation that ensued, it appeared that, owing to the diffi- 
 culties of disposing of it in the mountain towns, the plan 
 was to convey it by ordinary pack-mule to the unfrequented 
 valley, and thence by an emigrant wagon, on the old emi- 
 grant trail, to the southern counties, where it could be no 
 longer traced. Since the recent robberies, the local express 
 
76 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 companies and bankers had refused to receive it, except the 
 owners were known and identified. There had been buft 
 one box of coin, which had already been speedily divided 
 up among the band. Drafts, bills, bonds, and valuable 
 papers had been usually intrusted to one " Charley," who 
 acted as a flying messenger to a corrupt broker in Sacrar 
 mento, who played the r61e of the band's " fence." 
 
 It had been the duty of Chivers to control this delicate 
 business, even as it had been his peculiar function to open 
 all the letters and documents. This he had always light- 
 ened by characteristic levity and sarcastic comments on the 
 private revelations of the contents. The rough, ill-spelt 
 letter of th6 miner to his wife, inclosing a draft, or the 
 more sentimental effusion of an emigrant swain to his 
 sweetheart, with the gift of a " specimen," had always re- 
 ceived due attention at the hands of this elegant humorist. 
 But the operation was conducted to-night with business 
 severity and silence. The two leaders sat opposite to each 
 other, in what migVit have appeared to the rest of the band 
 a scarcely veiled surveillance of each other's actions. 
 When the examination was concluded, and the more valu- 
 able inclosures put aside, the despoiled letters were carried 
 to the fire and heaped upon the coals. Presently the 
 chimney added its roar to the moaning of the distant hill- 
 side, a few sparks leaped up and died out in the midnight 
 aii', as if the pathos and sentiment of the unconscious cor- 
 respondents had exhaled with them. 
 
 " That 's a d — d foolish thing to do," growled French 
 Pete over his cards. 
 
 " Why ? " demanded Chivers sharply. 
 
 " Why ? — why, it makes a flare in the sky that any 
 scout can see, and a scent for him to follow." 
 
 "We're four miles from any traveled road," returned 
 Chivers contemptuously, " and the man who could see that 
 glare and smell that smoke would be on his way here already." 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 77 
 
 " That reminds me that that chap you 've tied up — that 
 CoUinson — allows he wants to see you," continued Trench 
 Pete. 
 
 " To see me / " repeated Chivers. " You mean the cap- 
 tain ? " 
 
 " I reckon he means you" returned "French Pete ; " he 
 said the man who talked so purty." 
 
 The men looked at each other with a smile of anticipa- 
 tion, and put down their cards. Chivers walked towards 
 the door ; one or two rose to their feet as if to follow, but 
 Eiggs stopped them peremptorily. " Sit down," he said 
 roughly ; then, as Chivers passed him, he added to him in 
 a lower tone, " Remember." 
 
 Slightly squaring his shoulders and opening his coat, to 
 permit a rhetorical freedom, which did not, however, pre- 
 vent him from keeping touch with the butt of his revolver, 
 Chivers stepped into the open air. CoUinson had been 
 moved to the shelter of an overhang of the roof, probably 
 more for the comfort of the guard, who sat cross-legged on 
 the ground near him, than for his own. Dismissing the 
 man with a gesture, Chivers straightened himself before his 
 captive. 
 
 " We deeply regret that your unfortunate determination, 
 my dear sir, has been the means of depriving us of the 
 pleasure of your company, and you of your absolute free- 
 dom ; but may we cherish the hope that your desire to see 
 me may indicate some change in your opinion ? " 
 
 By the light of the sentry's lantern left upon the ground, 
 Chivers could see that Collinson's face wore a slightly 
 troubled and even apologetic expression. 
 
 " I 've bin thiukin'," said CoUinson, raising his eyes to 
 his captor with a singularly new and shy admiration in 
 them, " mebbee not so much of wot you said, ez how you 
 said it, and it's kinder bothered me, sittin' here, that I 
 ain't bin actin' to you boys quite on the square. I 've said 
 
78 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 to myself, ' Collinson, thar ain't another house betwixK 
 Bald Top and Skinner's whar them fellows kin get a bite 
 or a drink to help themselves, and you ain't oifered 'em 
 neither. It ain't no matter who they are or how they 
 came ; whether they came crawling along the road from the 
 valley, or dropped down upon you like them rocks from 
 the grade ; yere they are, and it 's your duty, ez long ez 
 you keep this yer house for your wife in trust, so to speak, 
 for wanderers.' And I ain't forgettin' yer ginerel soft 
 style and easy gait with me when you kem here. It ain't 
 every man as could walk into another man's house arter 
 the owner of it had grabbed a gun, ez soft-speakin', ez 
 overlookin', and ez perlite ez you. I 've acted mighty 
 rough and low-down, and I know it. And I sent for you 
 to say that you and your folks kin use this house and all 
 that 's in it ez long ez you 're in trouble. I 've told you 
 why I could n't sell the house to ye, and why I could n't ■ 
 leave it. But ye kin use it, and while ye 're here, and 
 when you go, Collinson don't tell nobody. I don't know 
 what ye mean by ' binding myself ' to keep your secret j 
 when Collinson says a thing he sticks to it, and when he 
 passes his word with a man, or a man passes his word with 
 him, it don't need no bit of paper." 
 
 There was no doubt of its truth. In the grave, upraised 
 eyes of his prisoner, Chivers saw the certainty that he could 
 trust him, even far more than he could trust any one 
 within the house he had just quitted. But this very cer- 
 tainty, for all its assurance of safety to himself, filled him, 
 not with remorse, which might have been an evanescent 
 emotion, but with a sudden alarming and terrible con- 
 sciousness of being in the presence of a hitherto unknown 
 and immeasurable power ! He had no pity for the man 
 who trusted him ; he had no sense of shame in taking ad- 
 vantage of it ; he even felt an intellectual superiority in 
 this want of sagacity in his dupe ; but he still felt in 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 79 
 
 some way defeated, insulted, shocked, and frightened. At 
 first, like all scoundrels, he had measured the man by him- 
 self ; was suspicious and prepared for rivalry ; but the 
 grave truthfulness of Collinson's eyes left him helpless. 
 He was terrified by this unknown factor. The right that 
 contends and fights often stimulates its adversary ; the 
 right that yields leaves the victor vanquished. Chivers 
 could even have killed Collinson in his vague discomfiture, 
 but he had a terrible consciousness that there was some- 
 thing behind him that he could not make way with. That 
 was why this accomplished rascal felt his flaccid cheeks 
 grow purple and his glib tongue trip before his captive. 
 
 But Collinson, more occupied with his own shortcom- 
 ings, took no note of this, and Chivers quickly recovered 
 his wits, if not his former artificiality. " All right," he 
 said quickly, with a hurried glance at the door behind him. 
 " Now that you think better of it, I '11 be frank with you, 
 and tell you I 'm your friend. You understand, — your 
 friend. Don't talk much to those men — don't give your- 
 self away to them ; " he laughed this time in absolute 
 natural embarrassment. " Don't talk about your wife, and 
 this house, but just say you 've made the thing up with 
 me, — with me, you know, and I '11 see you through." 
 An idea, as yet vague, that he could turn Collinson's unex- 
 pected docility to his own purposes, possessed him even in 
 his embarrassment, and he was still more strangely con- 
 scious of his inordinate vanity gathering a fearful joy from 
 Collinson's evident admiration. It was heightened by his 
 captive's next words. 
 
 " Ef I was n't tied I 'd shake hands with ye on that. 
 You 're the kind o' man, Mr. Chivers, that I cottoned to 
 from the first. Ef this house was n't hers, I 'd 'a' bin 
 tempted to cotton to yer offer, too, and mebbee made yev 
 one myself, for it seems to me your style and mine would 
 sorter jibe together. But I see you sabe what 's in my 
 
BO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 mind, and make allowance. We don't want no bit o' 
 paper to shake hands on that. Your secret and your folk's 
 Becret is mine, and I don't blab that any more than I'd 
 blab to them wot you 've just told me." 
 
 Under a sudden impulse, Chivers leaned forward, and, 
 albeit with somewhat unsteady hands and an embarrassed 
 will, untied the cords that held CoUinson in his chair. As 
 the freed man stretched himself to his full height, he 
 'ooked gravely down into the bleared eyes of his captor, 
 and held out his strong right hand. Chivers took it. 
 Whether there was some occult power in Collinson's hon- 
 est grasp, I know not ; but there sprang up in Chivers's 
 agile mind the idea that a good way to get rid of Mrs. 
 Collinson was to put her in the way of her husband's find- 
 ing her, and for an instant, in the contemplation of that 
 idea, this supreme rascal absolutely felt an embarrassing 
 glow of virtue. 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 The astonishment of Preble Key on recognizing the gate- 
 way into which the mysterious lady had vanished was so 
 ^reat that he was at first inclined to believe her entry there 
 a mere trick of his fancy. That the confederate of a gang 
 of robbers should be admitted to the austere recesses of the 
 convent, with a celerity that bespoke familiarity, was in- 
 credible. He again glanced up and down the length of the 
 shadowed but still visible wall. There was no one there. 
 The wall itself contained no break or recess in which one 
 could hide, and this was the only gateway. The opposite 
 side of the street in the full moonlight stared emptily. No ! 
 Unless she were an illusion herself and his whole chase a 
 dream, she must have entered here. 
 
 But the chase was not hopeless. He had at least tracked 
 her to a place where she could be identified. It was not a 
 liotel, which she could leave at any moment unobserved. 
 Though he could not follow her and penetrate its seclusion 
 now, he could later — thanks to his old associations with 
 the padres of the contiguous college — gain an introduction 
 to the Lady Superior on some pretext. She was safe there 
 that night. He turned away with a feeling of relief. The 
 incongruity of her retreat assumed a more favorable aspect 
 to his hopes. He looked at the hallowed walls and the 
 slumbering peacefulness of the gnarled old trees that hid 
 the convent, and a gentle reminisctnoe of his youth stole 
 over him. It was not the first time that he had gazed 
 wistfully upon that chaste refuge where, perhaps, the bright 
 eyes that he had followed in the quaint school procession 
 
82 IN A HOLLOW OF. THE HILLS 
 
 under the leafy Alameda in the afternoon, were at last closed 
 in gentle slumber. There was the very grille through which 
 the wicked Conchita — or, was it Dolores ? — had shot her 
 Parthian glance at the lingering student. And the man of 
 thirty-five, prematurely gray and settled in fortune, smiled 
 as he turned away, and forgot the adventuress of thirty who 
 had brought him there. 
 
 The next morning he was up betimes and at the college 
 of San Josd. Father Cipriano, a trifle more snufify and aged, 
 remembered with delight his old pupil. Ah ! it was true, 
 then, that he had become a mining president, and that was 
 why his hair was gray ; but he trusted that Don Preble 
 had not forgot that this was not all of life, and that fortune 
 brought great responsibilities and cares. But what was this, 
 then ? He had thought of bringing out some of his rela- 
 tions from the States, and placing a niece in the convent. 
 That was good and wise. Ah, yes.. For education in this 
 new country, one must turn to the church. And he would 
 see the Lady Superior ? Ah ! that was but the twist of 
 one's finger and the lifting of a latch to a grave superin- 
 tendent and a gray head like that. Of course, he had not 
 forgotten the convent and the young senoritas, nor the dis- 
 cipline and the suspended holidays. Ah ! it was a special 
 grace of our Lady that he, Father Cipriano, had not been 
 worried into his grave by those foolish muchachos. Yet, 
 when he had extinguished a snuffy chuckle in his red ban- 
 dana handkerchief. Key knew that he would accompany 
 him to the convent that noon. 
 
 It was with a slight stirring of shame over his elaborate 
 pretext that he passed the gate of the Sacred Heart with 
 the good father. But it is to be feared that he speedily 
 forgot that in the unexpected information that it elicited. 
 The Lady Superior was gracious, and even enthusiastic. 
 Ah, yes, it was a growing custom of the American caballeros 
 — who had no homes, nor yet time to create any, — to bring 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 83 
 
 their sisters, wards, and nieces here, and — with a dove-like 
 side-glance towards Key — even tlie young senoritas they 
 wished to fit for their Christian brides ! Unlike the cabal- 
 lero, there were many business men so immersed in their 
 affairs that they could not find time for a personal exami- 
 nation of the convent, — which was to be regretted, — but 
 who, trusting to the reputation of the Sacred Heart and its 
 good friends, simply sent the young lady there by some 
 trusted female companion. Notably this was the case of the 
 Seiior Rivers, — did Don Preble ever know him ? — a great 
 capitalist in the Sierras, whose sweet young sister, a naive, 
 ingenuous creature, was the pride of the convent. Of 
 course, it was better that it was so. Discipline and seclusion 
 had to be maintained. The young girl should look upon 
 this as her home. The rules for visitors were necessarily 
 severe. It was rare indeed — except in a case of urgency, 
 such as happened last night — that even a lady, unless the 
 parent of a scholar, was admitted to the hospitality of the 
 convent. And this lady was only the friend of that same 
 sister of the American capitalist, although she was the one 
 who had brought her there. No, she was not a relation. 
 Perhaps Don Preble had heard of a Mrs. Barker, — the 
 friend of Rivers of the Sierras. It was a queer combination 
 of names. But what will you ? The names of Americanos 
 mean nothing. And Don Preble knows them not. Ah ! 
 possibly ? — good ! The lady would be remembered, being 
 tall, dark, and of fine presence, though sad. A few hours 
 earlier and Don Preble could have judged for himself, for, 
 as it were, she might have passed through this visitors' room. 
 But she was gone — departed by the coach. It was from 
 a telegram — those heathen contrivances that blurt out 
 things to you, with never an excuse, nor a smile, nor a kiss 
 of the hand ! For her part, she never let her scholars 
 receive them, but opened them herself, and translated them 
 in a Christian spirit, after due preparation, at her leisure. 
 
84 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 And it was this telegram that made the Sefiora Barker go 
 or, without doubt, she would have of herself told to the Don 
 Preble, her compatriot of the Sierras, how good the convent 
 was for his niece. 
 
 Stung by the thought that this woman had again evaded 
 him, and disconcerted and confused by the scarcely intelli- 
 gible information he had acquired. Key could with difficulty 
 aiaintain his composure. " The caballero is tired of his 
 long pasear," said the Lady Superior gently. "We will 
 have a glass of wine in the lodge waiting-room." She led 
 the way from the reception room to the outer door, but 
 stopped at the sound of approaching footsteps and rustling 
 muslin along the gravel-walk. " The second class are going 
 out," she said, as a gentle procession of white frocks, led by 
 two nuns, filed before the gateway. " We will wait until 
 they have passed. But the sefior can see that my children 
 do not look unhappy." 
 
 They certainly looked very cheerful, although they had 
 halted before the gateway with a little of the demureness 
 of young people who know they are overlooked by authority, 
 and had bumped against each other with affected gravity. 
 Somewhat ashamed of his useless deception, and the guile- 
 less simplicity of the good Lady Superior, Key hesitated 
 and began : " I am afraid that I am really giving you too 
 much trouble," and suddenly stopped. 
 
 For as his voice broke the demure silence, one of the 
 nearest — a young girl of apparently seventeen — turned 
 towards him with a quick and an apparently irresistible im- 
 pulse, and as quickly turned away again. But in that 
 instant Key caught a glimpse of a face that might not only 
 have thrilled him in its beauty, its freshness, but in some 
 vague suggestiveness. Yet it was not that which set his 
 pulses beating ; it was the look of joyous recognition set 
 in the parted lips and sparkling eyes, the glow of childlike 
 innocent pleasure that mantled the sweet young facCj the 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 85 
 
 frank confusion of suddenly realized expectancy and long- 
 ing. A great truth gripped his throbbing heart, and held 
 it still. It was the face that he had seen in the hollow ! 
 
 The movement of the young girl was too marked to escape 
 the eye of the Lady Superior, though she had translated it 
 differently. " You must not believe our young ladies are 
 all so rude, Don Preble," she said dryly ; " though our dear 
 child has still some of the mountain freedom. And this is 
 the Senor Eivers's sister. But possibly — who knows ? " 
 she said gently, yet with a sudden sharpness in her clear 
 eyes, — " perhaps she recognized in your voice a companion 
 of her brother." 
 
 Luckily for Key, the shock had been so sudden and 
 overpowering that he showed none of the lesser symptoms 
 of agitation or embarrassment. In this revelation of a 
 secret, that he now instinctively felt was bound up with his 
 own future happiness, he exhibited none of the signs of a 
 discovered intriguer or unmasked Lothario. He said quietly 
 and coldly : " I am afraid I have not the pleasure of know- 
 ing the young lady, and certainly have never before ad- 
 dressed her." Yet he scarcely heard his companion's voice, 
 and answered mechanically, seeing only before him the 
 vision of the girl's bewitching face, in its still more bewitch- 
 ing consciousness of his presence. With all that he now 
 knew, or thought he knew, came a strange delicacy of asking 
 further questions, a vague fear of compromising her, a 
 quick impatience of his present deception ; even his whole 
 quest of her seemed now to be a profanation, for which he 
 must ask her forgiveness. He longed to be alone to re- 
 cover himself. Even the temptation to linger on some 
 pretext, and wait for her return and another glance from her 
 joyous eyes, was not as strong as his conviction of the ne- 
 cessity of cooler thought and action. He had met his fate 
 that morning, for good or ill ; that was all he knew. As 
 soon as he could decently retire, he thanked the Lady Supe- 
 
86 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 rior, promised to communicate with her later, and talcing 
 leave of Father Cipriano, found himself again in the street. 
 Who was she, what was she, and what meant her joyous 
 recognition of him ? It is to be feared that it was the last 
 question that affected him most, now that he felt that he 
 must have really loved her from the first. Had she really 
 seen him before, and had been as mysteriously impressed 
 as he was ? It was not the reflection of a conceited man, 
 for Key had not that kind of vanity, and he had already 
 touched the humility that is at the base of any genuine 
 passion. But he would not think of that now. He had 
 established the identity of the other woman, as being her 
 companion in the house in the hollow on that eventful 
 night ; but it was her profile that he had seen at the 
 window. The mysterious brother Rivers might have been 
 one of the robbers, — perhaps the one who accompanied 
 Mrs. Barker to San Josd. But it was plain that the young 
 girl had no complicity with the actions of the gang, what- 
 ever might have been her companion's confederation. In 
 the prescience of a true lover, he knew that she must have 
 been deceived and kept in utter ignorance of it. There 
 was no look of it in her lovely, guileless eyes ; her very 
 impulsiveness and ingenuousness would have long since be- 
 trayed the secret. Was it left for him, at this very out- 
 set of his passion, to be the one to tell her ? Could he 
 bear to see those frank, beautiful eyes dimmed with shame 
 and sorrow ? His own grew moist. Another idea began 
 to haunt him. Would it not be wiser, even more manly, 
 for him — a man over twice her years — to leave her alone 
 with her secret, and so pass out of her innocent young life 
 as chancefully as he had entered it ? But was it altogether 
 chanceful ? Was there not in her innocent happiness in 
 him a recognition of something in him better than he had 
 dared to think himself ? It was the last conceit of the 
 humility of love. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 87 
 
 He reached his hotel at last, unresolved, perplexed, yet 
 singularly happy. The clerk handed him, in passing, a 
 husiness-looking letter, formally addressed. Without open- 
 ing it, he took it to his room, and throwing himself list- 
 lessly on a chair by the window again tried to think. But 
 the atmosphere of his room only recalled to him the mys- 
 terious gift he had found the day before on his pillow. He 
 felt now with a thrill that it must have been from her. 
 How did she convey it there ? She would not have in- 
 trusted it to Mrs. Barker. The idea struck him now as 
 distastefully as it seemed improbable. Perhaps she had 
 been here herself with her companion — the convent some- 
 times made that concession to a relative or well-known 
 friend. He recalled the fact that he had seen Mrs. Barker 
 enter the hotel alone, after the incident of the opening 
 door, while he was leaning over the balustrade. It was she 
 who was alone then, and had recognized his voice ; and he 
 had not known it. She was out again to-day with the pro- 
 cession. A sudden idea struck him. He glanced quickly 
 at the letter in his hand, and hurriedly opened it. It con- 
 tained only three lines, in a large formal hand, but they 
 sent the swift blood to his cheeks. 
 
 " I heard your voice to-day for the third time. I want 
 to hear it again. I will come at dusk. Do not go out 
 until then." 
 
 He sat stupefied. Was it madness, audacity, or a trick ? 
 He summoned the waiter. The letter had been left by a 
 boy from the confectioner's shop in the next block. He 
 remembered it of old, — a resort for the young ladies of the 
 convent. Kothing was easier than conveying a letter in 
 that way. He remembered with a shock of disillusion and 
 disgust that it was a common device of silly but innocent 
 assignation. Was he to be the ridiculous accomplice of a 
 schoolgirl's extravagant escapade, or the deluded victim of 
 some infamous plot of her infamous companion ? He could 
 
88 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 not believe either ; yet he could not check a certain revul- 
 sion of feeling towards her, which only a moment ago he 
 would have believed impossible. 
 
 Yet whatever was her purpose, he must prevent he, 
 coming there at any hazard. Her visit would be the cul~ 
 mination of her folly, or the success of any plot. Even 
 while he was fully conscious of the material effect of any 
 scandal and exposure to her, even while he was incensed 
 and disillusionized at her unexpected audacity, he was un- 
 usually stirred with the conviction that she was wronging 
 herself, and that more than ever she demanded his help 
 and his consideration. Still she must not come. But 
 how was he to prevent her ? It wanted hut an hour of 
 dusk. Even if he could again penetrate the convent on 
 some pretext at that inaccessible hour for visitors, — twi- 
 light, — how could he communicate with her ? He might 
 intercept her on the way, and persuade her to return ; but 
 she must be kept from entering the hotel. 
 
 He seized his hat and rushed downstairs. But here 
 another difficulty beset him. It was easy enough to take 
 the ordinary road to the convent, but would she follow 
 that public one in what must be a surreptitious escape ? 
 And might she not have eluded the procession that morn- 
 ing, and even now be concealed somewhere, waiting for the 
 darkness to make her visit. He concluded to patrol the 
 block next to the hotel, yet near enough to intercept her 
 before she reached it, until the hour came. The time 
 passed slowly. He loitered before shop windows, or en- 
 tered and made purchases, with his eye on the street. The 
 figure of a pretty girl, — and there were many, — the 
 fl.uttering ribbons on a distant hat, or the flashing of a 
 cambric skirt around the corner sent a nervous thrill 
 through him. The reflection of his grave, abstracted face 
 against a shop window, or the anouncement of the work- 
 ings of his own mine on a bulletin board, in its incongru- 
 
IN A HOLLOW as THE HILLS 89 
 
 ity with his present occupation, gave him an hystericai 
 impulse to laugh. The shadows were already gathering, 
 when he saw a slender, graceful figure disappear in the 
 confectioner's shop on the block below. In his elaborate 
 precautions, he had overlooked that common trysting-spot. 
 He hurried thither, and entered. The object of his search 
 was not there, and he was compelled to make a shame- 
 faced, awkward survey of the tables in an inner refresh- 
 ment saloon to satisfy himself. Any one of the pretty 
 girls seated there might have been the one who had just 
 entered, but none was the one he sought. He hurried into 
 the street again, — he had wasted a precious moment, — 
 and resumed his watch. The sun had sunk, the Angelus 
 had rung out of a chapel belfry, and shadows were darken- 
 ing the vista of the Alameda. She had not come. Per- 
 haps she had thought better of it ; perhaps she had been 
 prevented ; perhaps the whole appointment had been only 
 a trick of some day-scholars, who were laughing at him 
 behind some window. In proportion as he became con- 
 vinced that she was not coming, he was conscious of a keen 
 despair growing in his heart, and a sickening remorse that 
 he had ever thought of preventing her. And when he at 
 last reluctantly reentered the hotel, he was as miserable 
 over the conviction that she was not coming as he had 
 been at her expected arrival. The porter met him hur- 
 riedly in the hall. 
 
 " Sister Seraphina of the Sacred Heart has been here, 
 in a hurry to see you on a matter of importance," he said, 
 eyeing Key somewhat curiously. " She would not wait in 
 the public parlor, as she said her business was confidential, 
 so I have put her in a private sitting-room on your floor." 
 
 Key felt the blood leave his cheeks. The secret was 
 out for all his precaution^ The Lady Superior had dis- 
 covered the girl's flight, — or her attempt. One of the 
 governing sisterhood was here to arraign him for it, or at 
 
90 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 least prevent an open scandal. Yet he was resolved ; and 
 seizing this last straw, he hurriedly mounted the stairs, 
 determined to do battle at any risk for the girl's safety, 
 and to injure himself to any extent. 
 
 She was standing in the room by the window. The 
 light fell upon the coarse serge dress with its white facings, 
 on the single girdle that scarcely defined the formless 
 waist, on the huge crucifix that dangled ungracefully almost 
 to her knees, on the hideous, white-winged coif that, with 
 the coarse but dense white veil, was itself a renunciation 
 of all human vanity. It was a figure he remembered well 
 as a boy, and even in his excitement and half resentment 
 touched him now, as when a boy, with a sense of its pa- 
 thetic isolation. His head bowed with boyish deference as 
 she approached gently, passed him a slight salutation, and 
 closed the door that he had forgotten to shut behind him. 
 
 Then with a rapid movement, so quick that he could 
 scarcely follow it, the coif, veil, rosary, and crucifix were 
 swept off, and the young pupil of the convent stood before 
 him. 
 
 For all the sombre suggestiveness of her disguise and its 
 ungraceful contour, there was no mistaking the adorable 
 little head, tumbled all over with silky tendrils of hair 
 from the hasty withdrawal of her coif, or the blue eyes 
 that sparkled with frank delight beneath them. Key 
 thought her more beautiful than ever. Yet the very effect 
 of her frankness and beauty was to recall him to all the 
 danger and incongruity of her position. 
 
 " This is madness," he said quickly. " You may be fol- 
 lowed here and discovered in this costume at any moment ! " 
 Nevertheless, he caught the two little hands that had been 
 extended to him, and held them tightly, and with a frank 
 familiarity that he would have wondered at an instant be- 
 fore. 
 
 " But I won't," she said simply. " You see I 'm doing 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 91 
 
 a ' half-retreat ; ' and I stay with Sister Seraphina in her 
 room ; and she always sleeps two hours after the Angelas ; 
 and I got out without anybody knowing me, in her clothes. 
 I see what it is," she said, suddenly bending a reproachful 
 glance upon him, " you don't like me in them. I know 
 they 're just horrid ; but it was the only way I coidd get 
 out." 
 
 " You don't understand me," he said eagerly. " I don't 
 like you to run these dreadful risks and dangers for " — 
 he would have said "for me," but added with sudden hu- 
 mility — " for nothing. Had I dreamed that you cared to 
 see me, I would have arranged it easily without this indis- 
 cretion, which might make others misjudge you. Every 
 instant that you remain here — worse, every moment that 
 you are away from the convent in that disguise, is fraught 
 with danger. I know you never thought of it." 
 
 " But I did," she said quietly ; " I thought of it, and 
 thought that if Sister Seraphina woke up, and they sent for 
 me, you would take me away with you to that dear little 
 hollow in the hills, where I first heard your voice. You 
 remember it, don't you ? You were lost, I think, in the 
 darkness, and I used to say to myself afterwards that 1 
 found you. That was the first time. Then the second 
 time I heard you, was here in the hall. I was alone in 
 the other room, for Mrs. Barker had gone out. I did not 
 know you were here, but I knew your voice. And the 
 third time was before the convent gate, and then I knew 
 you knew me. And after that I did n't think of anything 
 but coming to you ; for I knew that if I was found out, 
 you would take me back with you, and perhaps send word 
 to ray brother where we were, and then " — She stopped 
 suddenly, with her eyes fixed on Key's blank face. Her 
 own grew blank, the joy faded out of her clear eyes, she 
 gently withdrew her hand from his, and without a word 
 began to resume her' disguise. 
 
92 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " Listen to me," said Key passionately. " I am thinking 
 only of you. I want to, and will, save you from any 
 blame, — blame you do not understand even now. There 
 is still time. I will go back to the convent with you at 
 once. You shall tell me everything ; I will tell you every- 
 thing on the way." 
 
 She had already completely resumed her austere garb, 
 and drew the veil across her face. With the putting on of 
 her coif she seeemed to have extinguished all the joyous 
 youthfulness of her spirit, and moved with the deliberate- 
 ness of renunciation toward the door. They descended 
 the staircase without a word. Those who saw them pass 
 made way for them with formal respect. 
 
 When they were in the street, she said quietly, " Don't 
 give me your arm — Sisters don't take it." When they 
 had reached the street corner, she turned it, saying, " This 
 is the shortest way." 
 
 It was Key who was now restrained, awkward, and em- 
 barrassed. The fire of his spirit, the passion he had felt a 
 moment before, had gone out of him, as if she were really 
 the character she had assumed. He said at last desper- 
 ately : — 
 
 " How long did you live in the hollow ? " 
 
 " Only two days. My brother was bringing me here to 
 school, but in the stagecoach there was some one with 
 whom he had quarreled, and he did n't want to meet him 
 with me. So we got out at Skinner's, and came to the 
 hollow, where his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Barker, lived." 
 
 There was no hesitation nor affectation in her voice. 
 Again he felt that he would as soon have doubted the 
 words of the Sister she represented as her own. 
 
 " And your brother — did you live with him ? " 
 
 " ~Eo. I was at school at Marysville until he took me 
 jiway. I saw little of him for the past two years, for he 
 had business in the mountains — very rough business, where 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 93 
 
 he could n't take me, for it kept him away from the settle- 
 ments for weeks. I think it had something to do with 
 cattle, for he was always having a new horse. I was all 
 alone before that, too ; I had no other relations ; I had no 
 friends. We had always been moving about so much, my 
 brother and I. I never saw any one that I liked, except 
 you, and until yesterday I had only heard you." 
 
 Her perfect naivete alternately thrilled him with pain 
 and doubt. In his awkwardness and uneasiness he was 
 brutal. 
 
 " Yes, but you must have met somebody — other men — 
 here even, when you were out with your schoolfellows, or 
 perhaps on an adventure like this." 
 
 Her white coif turned towards him quickly. " I never 
 wanted to know anybody else. I never cared to see any- 
 body else. I never would have gone out in this way but 
 for you," she said hurriedly. After a pause she added in 
 a frightened tone : " That did n't sound like your voic» 
 then. It did n't sound like it a moment ago either." 
 
 " But you are sure that you know my voice," he said, 
 with affected gayety. " There were two others in the hol- 
 low with me that night." 
 
 " I know that, too. But I know even what you said. 
 You reproved them for throwing a lighted match in the 
 dry grass. You were thinking of us then. I know it." 
 
 " Of us ? " said Key quickly. 
 
 " Of Mrs. Barker and myself. We were alone in the 
 house, for my brother and her husoand were both away. 
 What you said seemed to forewarn me, and I told her. So 
 we were prepared when the fire came nearer, and we both 
 escaped on the same horse." 
 
 " And you dropped your shoes in your flight," said Key 
 laughingly, " and I picked them up the next day, when I 
 cami to search for you. I have kept them still." 
 
 « They were Aer shoes," said the girl quickly. " I 
 
94 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 could n't find mine in our hurry, and hers were too large 
 for me, and dropped off." She stopped, and with a faint 
 return of her old gladness said, " Then you did come back ? 
 I knew you would." 
 
 " I should have stayed then, but we got no reply when 
 we shouted. Why was that ? " he demanded suddenly. 
 
 " Oh, we were warned against speaking to any stranger, 
 or even being seen by any one while we were alone," re- 
 turned the girl simply. 
 
 " But why ? " persisted Key. 
 
 " Oh, because there were so many highwaymen and horse- 
 stealers in the woods. Why, they had stopped the coach 
 only a few weeks before, and only a day or two ago, when 
 Mrs. Barker came down. She saw them ! " 
 
 Key with difficulty suppressed a groan. They walked 
 on in silence for some moments, he scarcely daring to lift 
 his eyes to the decorous little figure hastening by his side. 
 Alternately touched by mistrust and pain, at last an infinite 
 pity, not unmingled with a desperate resolution, took pos- 
 session of him. 
 
 " I must make a confession to you, Miss Kivers," he 
 began with the bashful haste of a very boy, " that is " — 
 he stammered with a half-hysteric laugh, — " that is — a 
 confession as if you were really a Sister or a priest, you 
 know — a sort of confidence to you — to your dress. I 
 have seen you, or thought I saw you before. It was that 
 which brought me here, that which made me follow Mrs. 
 Barker — my only clue to you — to the door of that con- 
 vent. That night, in the hollow, I saw a profile at the 
 lighted window, which I thought was yours." 
 
 " / never was near the window," said the young girl 
 quickly. " It must have been Mrs. Barker." 
 
 " I know that now," returned Key. " But remember, 
 it was my only clue to you. I mean," he added awk- 
 wardly, " it was the means of my finding you." 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 95 
 
 " I don't see how it made you think of me, whom you 
 never saw, to see another woman's profile," she retorted, 
 with the faintest touch of asperity in her childlike voice. 
 " But," she added, more gently and with a relapse into her 
 adorable naivetd, " most people's profiles look alike." 
 
 " It was not that," protested Key, still awkwardly, " it 
 was only that I realized something — only a dream, 
 perhaps." 
 
 She did not reply, and they continued on in silence. The 
 gray wall of the convent was already in sight. Key felt he 
 had achieved nothing. Except for information that was 
 hopeless, he had come to no nearer understanding of the 
 beautiful girl beside him, and his future appeared as vague 
 as before ; and, above all, he was conscious of an inferiority 
 of character and purpose to this simple creature, who had 
 obeyed him so submissively. Had he acted wisely ? 
 Would it not have been better if he had followed her own 
 frankness, and — 
 
 " Then it was Mrs. Barker's profile that brought you 
 here ? " resumed the voice beneath the coif. " You know 
 she has gone back. I suppose you will follow ? " 
 
 " You will not understand me," said Key desperately. 
 " But," he added in a lower voice, " I shall remain here 
 nntil you do." 
 
 He drew a little closer to her side. 
 
 " Then you must not begin by walking so close to me," 
 she said, moving slightly away ; " they may see you from 
 the gate. And you must not go with me beyond that cor- 
 ner. If I have been missed already they will suspect you." 
 
 " But how shall I know ? '' he said, attempting to take 
 her hand. " Let me walk past the gate. I cannot leave 
 you in this uncertainty." 
 
 " You will know soon enough," she said gravely, evading 
 his hand. " You must not go further now. Good-night." 
 
 She had stopped at the corner of the wall. He again 
 
96 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 held out his hand. Her little fingers slid coldly between 
 his. 
 
 " Good-night, Miss Eivers." 
 
 " Stop ! " she said suddenly, withdrawing her veil and 
 lifting her clear eyes to his in the moonlight. " You must 
 not say that — it is n't the truth. I can't hear to hear it 
 from your lips, in your voice. My name is not Eivers ! " 
 
 " Not Rivers — why ? " said Key astounded. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know why," she said half despairingly ; 
 " only my hrcther did n't want me to use my name and his 
 here, and I promised. My name is ' Eiggs ' — there ! It 's 
 a secret — you must n't tell it ; but I could not hear to 
 hear you say a lie." 
 
 " Good-night, Miss Eiggs," said Key sadly. 
 
 " No, nor that either," she said softly. " Say Alice." 
 
 " Good-night, Alice." 
 
 She moved on before him. She reached the gate. For a 
 moment her figure, in its austere, formless garments, seemed 
 to him to even stoop and bend forward in the humility of 
 age and self-renunciation, and she vanished within as into a 
 living tomb. 
 
 Forgetting all precaution, he pressed eagerly forward, and 
 stopped before the gate. There was no sound from within ; 
 there had evidently been no challenge nor interruption. 
 She was safe. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 The reappearance of Chivers in the mill with Collinson, 
 and the brief announcement that the prisoner had consented 
 to a satisfactory compromise, were received at first with a 
 half-contemptuous smile by the party ; but for the com- 
 mands of their leaders, and possibly a conviction that Col- 
 linson's fatuous cooperation with Chivers would be safer 
 than his wrath, which might not expend itself only on 
 Chivers, but imperil the safety of all, it is probable that 
 they would have informed the unfortunate prisoner of his 
 real relations to his captor. In these circumstances, 
 Chivers'a half-satirical suggestion that Collinson should be 
 added to the sentries outside, and guard his own property, 
 was surlily assented to by Riggs, and complacently accepted 
 by the others. Chivers offered to post him himself^ — not 
 without an interchange of meaning glances with Riggs, — 
 CoUinson's own gun was returned to him, and the strangely 
 assorted pair left the mill amicably together. 
 
 But however humanly confident Chivers was in his com- 
 panion's faithfulness, he was not without a rascal's precau- 
 tion, and determined to select a position for Collinson 
 where he could do the least damage in any aberration of 
 trust. At the top of the grade, above the mill, was the 
 only trail by which a party in force could appioaeh it. This 
 was to Chivers obviously too strategic a position to intrust 
 to his prisoner, and the sentry who guarded its approach, 
 five hundred yards away, was left unchanged. But there 
 was another " blind " trail, or cut-off, to the left, through 
 the thickest undergrowth of the woods, known only to his 
 
93 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 party. To place CoUinsoa there was to insure him perfect 
 immunity from the approach of an enemy, as well as from 
 any confidential advances of his fellow sentry. This done, 
 he drew a cigar from his pocket, and handing it to Collin- 
 son, lighted another for himself, and leaning back comfort- 
 ably against a large boulder, glanced complacently at his 
 companion. 
 
 " You may smoke until I go, Mr. Collinson, and even 
 afterwards, if you keep the bowl of your pipe behind a 
 rock, so as tobe out of sight of your fellow sentry, whose 
 advances, by the way, if I were you, I should not encour- 
 age. Your position here, you see, is a rather peculiar one. 
 You were saying, I think, that a lingering affection for 
 your wife impelled you to keep this place for her, although 
 you were convinced of her death ? " 
 
 Collinson's unaffected delight in Chivers's kindliness had 
 made his eyes shine in the moonlight with a doglike wist- 
 fulness. " I reckon I did say that, Mr. Chivers," he said 
 apologetically, " though it ain't goin' to interfere with you 
 usin' the shanty jest now." 
 
 " I .was n't alluding to that, Collinson," returned Chiv- 
 ers, with a large rhetorical wave of the hand, and an equal 
 enjoyment in his companion's evident admiration of him, 
 " but it struck me that your remark, nevertheless, implied 
 some doubt of your wife's death, and I don't know but 
 that your doubts are right." 
 
 " Wot 's that ? " said Collinson, with a dull glow in his 
 face. 
 
 Chivers blew the smoke of his cigar lazily in the still 
 air. " Listen," he said. " Since your miraculous conver- 
 sion a few moments ago, I have made some friendly 
 inquiries about you, and I find that you lost all trace of 
 your wife in Texas in '52, where a number of her fellow 
 emigrants died of yellow fever. Is that so ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Collinson quickly. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 99 
 
 " Well, it so happens that a friend of mine," continued 
 Chivers slowly, " was in a train which followed that one, 
 and picked up and brought on some of the survivors." 
 
 " That was the train wot brought the news," said Collin- 
 son, relapsing into his old patience. "That's how I 
 knowed she had n't come." 
 
 " Did you ever hear the names of any of its passen- 
 gers ? " said Chivers, with a keen glance at his companion. 
 
 " Nary one ! I only got to know it was a small train 
 of only two wagons, and it sorter melted into Californy 
 through a southern pass, and kinder petered out, and no 
 one ever heard of it agin, and that was all." 
 
 " That was not all, Collinson," said Chivers lazily. " 1 
 saw the train arrive at South Pass. I was awaiting a friend 
 and his wife. There was a lady with them, one of the 
 survivors. I did n't hear her name, but I think my 
 friend's wife called her ' Sadie.' I remember her as a 
 rather pretty woman — tall, fair, with a straight nose and 
 a full chin, and small slim feet. I saw her only a moment, 
 for she was on her way to Los Angeles, and was, I believe, 
 going to join her husband somewhere in the Sierras." 
 
 The rascal had been enjoying with intense satisfaction 
 the return of the dull glow in CoUinson's face, that even 
 seemed to animate the whole length of his angular frame as 
 it turned eagerly towards him. So he went on, experienc- 
 ing a devilish zest in this description of his mistress to her 
 husband, apart from the pleasure of noting the slow awak- 
 ening of this apathetic giant, with a sensation akin to hav- 
 ing warmed him into life. Yet his triumph was of short 
 duration. The fire dropped suddenly out of CoUinson's 
 eyes, the glow from his face, and the dull look of un- 
 wearied patience returned. 
 
 " That 's all very kind and purty of yer, Mr. Chivers," 
 lie said gravely ; " you 've got all my wife's p'ints thar to a 
 dot, and it seems to fit her jest like a shoe I picked up 
 
100 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 t' other day. But it was n't my Sadie, for ef she 's living 
 or had lived, she 'd hin just yere ! " 
 
 The same fear and recognition of some unknown reserve 
 in this trustful man came over Chivers as before. In his 
 angry resentment of it he would have liked to blurt out the 
 infidelity of the wife before her husband, but he knew Col- 
 linson would not believe him, and he had another purpose 
 now. His full lips twisted into a suave smile. 
 
 " While I would not give you false hopes, Mr. Collin- 
 son," he said, with a bland smile, "my interest in you 
 compels me to say that you may be over confident and 
 wrong. There are a thousand things that may have pre- 
 vented your wife from coming to you, — illness, possibly 
 the result of her exposure, poverty, misapprehension of 
 your place of meeting, and, above all, perhaps some false 
 report of your own death. Has it ever occurred to you 
 that it is as possible for her to have been deceived in that 
 way as for you ? " 
 
 " Wot yer say ? " said CoUinson, with a vague sus- 
 picion. 
 
 " What I mean. You think yourself justified in believ- 
 ing your wife dead, because she did not seek you here ; 
 may she not feel herself equally justified in believing the 
 same of you, because you had not sought her elsewhere ? " 
 
 " But it was writ that she was comin' yere, and — I 
 boarded every train that come in that fall," said Collinson, 
 with a new irritation, unlike his usual calm. 
 
 " Except one, my dear Collinson, — except one," returned 
 Cliivers, holding up a fat forefinger smilingly. " And that 
 may be the clue. Now, listen ! There is still a chance of 
 following it, if you will. The names of my friends were 
 Mr. and Mrs. Barker. I regret," he added, with a per- 
 functory cough, " that poor Barker is dead. He was not 
 such an exemplary husband as you are, my dear Collinson, 
 and I fear was not all that Mrs. Barker could have wished ; 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 101 
 
 enough that he succumbed from various excesses, and did 
 not leave me Mrs. Barker's present address. But she has 
 a young friend, a ward, living at the Convent of Santa Luisa, 
 whose name is Miss Rivers, who can put you in communi- 
 cation with her. Now, one thing more : I can understand 
 your feelings, and that you would wish at once to satisfy 
 your mind. It is not, perhaps, to my interest nor the 
 interest of my party to advise you, but," he continued, 
 glancing around him, "you have an admirably secluded 
 position here, on the edge of the trail, and if you are miss- 
 ing from your post to-morrow morning, I shall respect your 
 feelings, trust to your honor to keep this secret, and — con- 
 sider it useless to pursue you ! " 
 
 There was neither shame nor pity in his heart as the 
 deceived man turned towards him with tremulous eagerness, 
 and grasped his hand in silent gratitude. But the old rage 
 and fear returned, as Collinson said gravely : — 
 
 " You kinder put a new life inter me, Mr. Chivers, and 
 I wish I had yer gift o' speech to tell ye so. But I 've 
 passed my word to the capting thar and to the rest o' you 
 folks that I'd stand guard out yere, and I don't go back o' 
 my word. I mout, and I mout n't find my Sadie ; but she 
 would n't think the less o' me, arter these years o' waitin', 
 ef I stayed here another night, to guard the house I keep 
 in trust for her, and the strangers I 've took in on her 
 account." 
 
 " As you like, then," said Chivers, contracting his lips, 
 " but keep your own counsel to-night. There may be those 
 who would like to deter you from your search. And now 
 I will leave you alone in this delightful moonlight. I 
 quite envy you your unrestricted communion with nature. 
 Adios, amigo, adios ! " 
 
 He leaped lightly on a large rock that overhung the edge 
 of the grade, and waved his hand. 
 
 " I would n't do that, Mr. Chivers," said Collinson, with 
 
102 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 a concerned face ; " them rocks are mighty ticklish, and 
 that one in partiklar. A tech sometimes sends 'em scoot- 
 ing." 
 
 Mr. Chirers leaped quickly to the ground, turned, waved 
 his hand again, and disappeared down the grade. 
 
 But CoUinson was no longer alone. Hitherto his char- 
 acteristic reveries had been of the past, — reminiscences in 
 which there was only recollection, no imagination, and very 
 little hope. Under the spell of Chivers's words his fancy 
 seemed to expand ; he began to think of his wife as she 
 might be now, — perhaps ill, despairing, wandering hope- 
 lessly, even ragged and footsore, or — believing him dead 
 — relapsing into the resigned patience that had been his 
 own ; but always a new Sadie, whom he had never seen or 
 known before. 
 
 A faint dread, the lightest of misgivings (perhaps coming 
 from his very ignorance), for the first time touched his 
 steadfast heart, and sent a chill through it. He shouldered 
 his weapon, and walked briskly toward the edge of the 
 thick-set woods. There were the fragrant essences of the 
 kurel and spruce — bftked in the long-day sunshine that 
 had encomp&ssed their recesses — still coming warm to his 
 face ; there were the strange shiftings of tempeTatU're through- 
 out the openings, that alternately warmed and chilled him 
 as he walked. It seemed so odd that he should now have 
 to seek her instead of her coming to him ; it would never 
 be the same meeting to him, away from the house that he 
 had built for her ! He strolled back, and looked down upon 
 it, nestling on the ledge. The white moonlight that lay 
 upon it dulled the glitter of lights in its windows, but the 
 sounds of laughter and singing came to even his unfastidious 
 ears with a sense of vague discord. He walked back again, 
 and began to pace before the thick-set wood. Suddenly he 
 stopped and listened. 
 
 To any other ears but those accustomed to mountain 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 103 
 
 solitude it would have seemed nothing. But, familiar as 
 he was with all the infinite disturbances of the woodland, 
 and even the simulation of intrusion caused by a falling 
 branch or lapsing pine-cone, he was arrested now by a 
 recurring sound, unlike any other. It was an occasional 
 muffled beat — interrupted at uncertain intervals, but always 
 returning in regular rhythm, whenever it was audible. He 
 knew it was made by a cantering horse ; that the intervals 
 were due to the patches of dead leaves in its course, and 
 that the varying movement was the effect of its progress 
 through obstacles and underbrush. It was therefore coming 
 through some " blind " cut-off in the thick-set wood. The 
 shifting of the sound also showed that the rider was unfa- 
 miliar with the locality, and sometimes wandered from the 
 direct course ; but the unfailing and accelerating persistency 
 of the sound, in spite of these difficulties, indicated haste 
 and determination. 
 
 He swung his gun from his shoulder, and examined its 
 caps. As the sound came nearer, he drew up beside a young 
 spruce at the entrance of the thicket. There was no necessity 
 to alarm the house, or call the other sentry. It was a single 
 horse and rider, and he was equal to that. He waited 
 quietly, and with his usual fateful patience. Even then 
 his thoughts still reverted to his wife ; and it was with a 
 singular feeling that he at last saw the thick underbrush 
 give way before a woman, mounted on a sweating but still 
 spirited horse, who swept out into the open. Nevertheless, 
 he stopped in 'ront of her, and called: — 
 
 « Hold up thar ! " • 
 
 The horse recoiled, nearly unseating her. Collinson 
 caught the reins. She lifted her whip mechanically, yet 
 remained holding it in the air, trembling, until she slipped, 
 half struggling, half helplessly, from ihe saddle to the 
 ground. Here she would have again fallen, but Collinson 
 caught her sharply by the waist. At his touch she started 
 
104 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 and uttered a frightened " No ! " At her voice Collinson 
 started. 
 
 " Sadie ! " he gasped. 
 
 " Seth ! " she half whispered. 
 
 They stood looking at each other. But Collinson Waii 
 already himself again. The man of simple directness and 
 no imagination saw only his wife before him — a little 
 breathless, a little flurried, a little disheveled from rapid 
 riding, as he had sometimes seen her before, but otherwise 
 unchanged. Nor had he changed ; he took her up where 
 he had left her years ago. His grave face only broadened 
 into a smile, as he held both her hands in his. 
 
 " Yes, it 's me — Lordy ! Why, I was comin' only to- 
 morrow to find ye, Sade ! " 
 
 She glanced hurriedly around her. " To — to find me ? " 
 she said incredulously. 
 
 " Sartain ! That ez, I was goin' to ask about ye, — goin' 
 to ask about ye at the convent." 
 
 " At the convent ? " she echoed with a frightened amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Yes, why, Lordy ! Sade — don't you see ? You thought 
 T was dead, and I thought you was dead, — that 's what 's 
 the matter. But I never reckoned that you 'd think me 
 dead until Chivers allowed that it must be so." 
 
 Her face whitened in the moonlight. " Chivers ? " she 
 iaid blankly. 
 
 " In course ; but nat'rally you don't know him, honey. 
 He only saw you ono't. But it was along o' that, Sade, 
 that he told me he reckoned you was n't dead, and told me 
 how to find you. He was mighty kind and consarned about 
 it, and he even allowed I 'd better slip off to you this very 
 night." 
 
 "Chivers," she repeated, gazing at her husband with 
 bloodless lips. 
 
 " Yes, an awful purty-apoken man. Ye '11 have to get to 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 105 
 
 know him, Sade. He 's here with some of his folks az 
 hez got inter trouble — I 'm forgettin' to tell ye. You 
 see " — 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ! " she interrupted hysterically ; " and 
 this is the mill ? " 
 
 " Yes, lovey, the mill — my mill — your mill — the 
 house I built for you, dear. I 'd show it to you now, but 
 you see, Sade, I 'm out here standin' guard." 
 
 " Are you one of them ? " she said, clutching his hand 
 desperately. 
 
 " No, dear," he said soothingly, — " no ; only, you see, 
 I giv' my word to 'em as I giv' my house to-night, and 
 I'm bound to protect them and see 'em through. Why, 
 Lordy ! Sade, you 'd have done the same — for Chivers." 
 
 " Yes, yes," she said, beating her hands together strangely, 
 "of course. He was so kind to bring me back to you. And 
 you might have never found me but for him." 
 
 She burst into an hysterical laugh, which the simple- 
 minded roan might have overlooked but for the tears that 
 coursed down her bloodless face. 
 
 "What's gone o' ye, Sadie?" he said in a sudden fear, 
 grasping her hands ; " that laugh ain't your'n — that voice 
 ain't your'n. You 're the old Sadie, ain't ye ? " He 
 stopped. For a moment his face blanched as he glanced 
 towards the mill, from which the faint sound of bacchana- 
 lian voices came to his quick ear. " Sadie, dear, ye ain't 
 thinkin' any thin' agin' me ? Ye ain't alio win' I 'm keep- 
 ing anythin' back from ye ? " 
 
 Her face stiffened into rigidity ; she dashed the tears 
 from her eyes. " No," she said quickly. Then after a 
 moment she added, with a faint laugh, " You see we 
 have n't seen each other for so long — it 's all so sudden — 
 so unexpected." 
 
 " But you kem here, just now, calkilatin' to find me ? " 
 said Collinson gravely. 
 
106 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said quickly, still grasping both hia 
 hands, but with her head slightly turned in the direction 
 of the mill. 
 
 " But who told ye where to find the mill ? " he said, 
 with gentle patience. 
 
 " A friend," she said hurriedly. " Perhaps," she added, 
 with a singular smile, " a friend of the friend who told you." 
 
 " I see," said Collinson, with a relieved face and a broad- 
 ening smile, " it 's a sort of fairy story. I '11 bet, now, it 
 was that old Barker woman that Chivers knows." 
 
 Her teeth gleamed rigidly together in the moonlight, like 
 a death's-head. " Yes," she said dryly, " it was that old 
 Barker woman. Say, Seth," she continued, moistening her 
 lips slowly, "you're guarding this place alone ?" 
 
 " Thar 's another feller up the trail, — a sentry, — but 
 don't you be afeard, he can't hear us, Sade." 
 
 " On this side of the mill ? " 
 
 " Yes ! Why, Lord love ye, Sadie ! t' other side o' the 
 mill it drops down straight to the valley ; nobody comes 
 yer that way but poor low-down emigrants. And it 's miles 
 round to come by the valley from the summit." 
 
 " You did n't hear your friend Chivers say that the sherifi 
 was out with his posse to-night hunting them ? " 
 
 "No. Did you?" 
 
 " I think I heard something of that kind at Skinner's, 
 but it may have been only a warning to me, traveling 
 alone." 
 
 " Thet 's so," said Collinson, with a tender solicitude, 
 " but none o' these yer road-agents would have teched a 
 woman. And this yer Chivers ain't the man to insult one, 
 either." 
 
 "No," she said, with a return of her hysteric laugh. 
 But it was overlooked by Collinson, who was taking hia 
 gun from beside the tree where he had placed it. " Where 
 are you going ? " she said suddenly. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 107 
 
 " I reckon them fellers ought to be warned o' what you 
 heard. I '11 be back in a minit." 
 
 " And you 're going to leave me now — when — when 
 we've only just met after these years?" she said, with a 
 faint attempt at a smile, which, however, did not reach the 
 cold glitter of her eyes. 
 
 " Just for a little, honey. Besides, don't you see, I 've 
 got to get excused ; for we '11 have to go off to Skinner's 
 or somewhere, Sadie, for we can't stay in thar along o' 
 them." 
 
 " So you and your wife are turned out of your home to 
 please Chivers," she said, still smiling. 
 
 " That 's whar you slip up, Sadie," said Collinson, with 
 a troubled face ; " for he 's that kind of a man thet it I 
 jest as much as hinted you was here, he 'd turn 'em all out 
 o' the house for a lady. Thet 's why I don't propose to 
 let on anything about you till to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow will do," she said, still smiling, but with 
 a singular abstraction in her face. " Pray don't disturb 
 them now. You say there is another sentinel beyond. 
 He is enough to warn them of any approach from the trail. 
 I 'm tired and ill — very ill ! Sit by me here, Seth, and 
 wait ! We can wait here together — we have waited so 
 long, Seth, — and the end has come now." 
 
 She suddenly lapsed against the tree, and slipped in a 
 sitting posture to the ground. Collinson cast himself at 
 her side, and put his arm around her. 
 
 " Wot 's gone o' ye, Sade ? You 're eold and sick. 
 Listen. Your hoss is just over thar feedin'. I '11 put you 
 back on him, run in and tell 'em I 'm off, and be with ye 
 in a jiffy, and take ye back to Skinner's." 
 
 " Wait," she said softly. " Wait." 
 
 " Or to the Silver Hollow — it 's not so far." 
 
 She had caught his hands again, her rigid face close to 
 his. " What hollow ? — speak ! " she said breathlessly. 
 
108 IN A HOLLOW Of the HILLS 
 
 " The hollow whar a friend o' mine struck silver. He '11 
 take yur in." 
 
 Her head sank against his shoulder. " Let me stay 
 here," she answered, "and wait." 
 
 He supported her tenderly, feeling the gentle brushing 
 of her hair against his cheek as in the old days. He was 
 content to wait, holding her thus. They were very silent ; 
 her eyes half closed, as if in exhaustion, yet with the 
 .strange suggestion of listening in the vacant pupils. 
 
 " Ye ain't hearin' anythin', deary ? " he said, with a 
 troubled face. 
 
 "No; but everything is so deathly still," she said in a 
 frightened whisper. 
 
 It certainly was very still. A singular hush seemed to 
 have slid over the landscape ; there was no longer any 
 sound from the mill ; there was an ominous rest in the 
 woodland, so perfect that the tiny rustle of an uneasy wing 
 in the tree above them had made them start; even the 
 moonlight seemed to hang suspended in the air. 
 
 " It 's like the lull before the storm," she said with her 
 strange laugh. 
 
 But the non-imaginative Collinson was more practical. 
 " It 's mighty like that earthquake weather before the big 
 shake thet dried up the river and stopped the mill. That 
 was just the time I got the news o' your bein' dead with 
 yellow fever. Lord ! honey, I alius allowed to myself 
 thet suthin' was happenin' to ye then." 
 
 She did not reply ; but he, holding her figure closer to 
 him, felt it trembling with a nervous expectation. Sud- 
 denly she threw him off, and rose to her feet with a cry. 
 " There ! " she screamed frantically, " they 've come 1 
 they 've come ! " 
 
 A rabbit had run out into the moonlight before them, a 
 gray fox had dashed from the thicket into the wood, but 
 nothing else. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 109 
 
 " Who 's come ? " said Collinson, staring at her. 
 
 " The sheriff and his posse ! They 're surrounding 
 them now. Don't you hear ? " she gasped. 
 
 There was a strange rattling in the direction of the mill, 
 a dull rumble, with wild shouts and outcries, and the 
 trampling of feet on its wooden platform. Collinson stag- 
 gered to his feet ; but at the same moment he was thrown 
 violently against his wife, and they both clung helplessly 
 to the tree, with their eyes turned toward the ledge. 
 There was a dense cloud of dust and haze hanging over it. 
 
 She uttered another cry, and ran swiftly towards the 
 rooky grade. Collinson ran quickly after her, but as she 
 leached the grade he suddenly shouted, with an awful 
 revelation in his voice, " Come back ! Stop, Sadie, for 
 God's sake ! " But it was too late. She had already dis- 
 appeared ; and as he reached the rock on which Chivers 
 had leaped, he felt it give way beneath him. 
 
 But there was no sound, only a rush of wind from the 
 valley below. Everything lapsed again into its awful 
 stillness. As the cloud lifted from where the mill had 
 stood, the moon shone only upon empty space. There 
 was a singular murmuring and whispering from the woods 
 beyond that increased in sound, and an hour later the dry 
 bed of the old mill-stream was filled with a rushing river. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 Prkblb Key returned to his hotel from the convent, it is 
 to be feared, with very little of that righteous satisfaction 
 ■which is supposed to follow the performance of a good 
 deed. He -was by no means certain that what he had done 
 was best for the young girl. He had only shown himself 
 to her as a worldly monitor of dangers, of which her inno- 
 cence was providentially unconscious. In his feverish haste 
 to avert a scandal, he had no chance to explain his real 
 feelings ; he had, perhaps, even exposed her thwarted im- 
 pulses to equally naive but more dangerous expression, 
 which he might not have the opportunity to check. He 
 tossed wakefuUy that night upon his pillow, tormented 
 with alternate visions of her adorable presence at the hotel, 
 and her bowed, renunciating figure as she reentered the con- 
 vent gate. He waited expectantly the next day for the 
 message she had promised, and which he believed she would 
 find some way to send. But no message was forthcoming. 
 The day passed, and he became alarmed. The fear that 
 her escapade had been discovered again seized him. If she 
 were in close restraint, she could neither send to him, nor 
 could he convey to her the solicitude and sympathy that 
 filled his heart. In her childish frankness she might have 
 confessed the whole truth, and this would not only shut ■ 
 the doors of the convent against him, under his former pre- 
 text, but compromise her still more if he boldly called. 
 He waylaid the afternoon procession ; she was not among 
 them. Utterly despairing, the wildest plans for seeing 
 her passed through his brain, — plans that recalled his hot- 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 111 
 
 headed youth, and a few moments later made him smile at 
 Lis extravagance, even while it half frightened him at the 
 reality of his passion. He reached the hotel heart-sick 
 and desperate. The porter met him on the steps. It was 
 with a thrill that sent the blood leaping to his cheeks that 
 he heard the man say : — 
 
 " Sister Seraphina is waiting for you in the sitting- 
 room." 
 
 There was no thought cf discovery or scandal in Preble 
 Key's mind now ; no doubt or hesitation as to what he 
 would do, as he sprang up the staircase. He only knew 
 that he had found her again, and was happy ! He burst 
 into the room, but this time remembered to shut the 
 door behind him. He looked eagerly towards the window 
 where she had stood the day before, but now she rose 
 quickly from the sofa in the corner, where she had been 
 seated, and the missal she had been reading rolled from her 
 lap to the floor. He ran towards her to pick it up. Her 
 name — the name she had told him to call her — was pas- 
 sionately trembling on his lips, when she slowly put her 
 veil aside, and displayed a pale, kindly, middle-aged face, 
 slightly marked by old scars of smallpox. It was not 
 Alice — it was the real Sister Seraphina 'Who stood before 
 him. 
 
 His first revulsion of bitter disappointment was so 
 quickly followed by a realization that all had been dis- 
 covered, and his sacrifice of yesterday had gone for naught, 
 that he stood before her, stammering, but without the 
 power to say a word. Luckily for him, his utter embar- 
 rassment seemed to reassure her, and to calm that timidity 
 which his brusque man-like irruption might well produce in 
 the inexperienced, contemplative mind of the recluse. Her 
 voice was very sweet, albeit sad, as she said gently : — 
 
 " I am afraid I have taken you by surprise ; but there 
 was no time to arrange for a meeting, and the Lady Superior 
 
112 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 thought that I, who knew all the facts, had better see you 
 confidentially. Father Cipriano gave us your address." 
 
 Amazed and wondering, Key bowed her to a seat. 
 
 " You will remember," she went on softly, " that the Lady 
 Superior failed to get any information from you regarding the 
 brother of one of our dear children, whom he committed to 
 our charge through a — a companion or acquaintance — a 
 Mrs. Barker. As she was armed with his authority by let- 
 ter, we accepted the dear child through her, permitted her 
 as his representative to have free access to his sister, and 
 even allowed her, as an unattended woman, to pass the 
 night at the convent. "We were therefore surprised this 
 morning to receive a letter from him, absolutely forbidding 
 any further intercourse, correspondence, or association of 
 his sister with this companion, Mrs. Barker. It was nece.s- 
 sary to inform the dear child of this at once, as she was on 
 the point of writing to this woman ; but we were pained 
 and shocked at her reception of her brother's wishes. I 
 ought to say, in justice to the dear child, that while she is 
 usually docile, intelligent, and tractable to discipline, and 
 a diivote in her religious feelings, she is singularly impul- 
 sive. But we were not prepared for the rash and sudden 
 step she has taken. At noon to-day she escaped from the 
 convent ! " 
 
 Key, who had been following her with relief, sprang to 
 his feet at this unexpected culmination. 
 
 " Escaped ! " he said. " Impossible ! I mean," he added, 
 hurriedly recalling himself, " your rules, your discipline, 
 your attendants are so perfect." 
 
 " The poor impulsive creature has added sacrilege to her 
 madness — a sacrilege we are willing to believe she did not 
 understand, for she escaped in a religious habit — my 
 own." 
 
 " But this would sufficiently identify her," he said, con- 
 trolling himself with an effort. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 113 
 
 " Alas, not so ! There are many of us who go abroad 
 on our missions in these garments, and they are made all 
 alike, so as to divert rather than to attract attention to any 
 individuality. We have sent private messengers in all di- 
 rections, and sought her everywhere, but without success. 
 You will understand that we wish to avoid scandal, which, 
 a more public inquiry would create." 
 
 " And you come to me," said Key, with a return of his 
 first suspicion, in spite of his eagerness to cut short the in- 
 terview and be free to act, — " to me, almost a stranger ? " 
 
 " Not a stranger, Mr. Key," returned the religieuse gen- 
 tly, " but to a well-known man — a man of affairs in the 
 country where this unhappy child's brother lives — a friend 
 who seems to be sent by Heaven to find out this brother 
 for us, and speed, this news to him. We come to the old 
 pupil of Father Cipi'iano, a friend of the Holy Church ; to 
 the kindly gentleman who knows what it is to have dear 
 relations of his own, and who only yesterday was seeking 
 the convent to " — 
 
 " Enough ! " interrupted Key hurriedly, with a slight 
 color. " I will go at once. I do not know this man, but 
 I will do my best to find him. And this — this — young 
 girl ? You say you have no trace of her ? May she not 
 still be here ? I should have some clue by which to seek 
 her — I mean that I could give to her brother." 
 
 " Alas ! we fear she is already far away from here. If 
 she went at once to San Luis, she could have easily taken 
 a train .to San Francisco before we discovered her flight. 
 We believe that it was the poor child's intent to join her 
 brother, so as to intercede for her friend — or, perhaps, 
 alas ! to seek her." 
 
 " And this friend left yesterday morning ? " he said 
 quickly, yet concealing a feeling of relief. " Well, you 
 may depend on me ! And now, as there is no time to be 
 lost, I will make my arrangements to take tlv, next train." 
 
114 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 He held out his hand, paused, and said in almost hoyish 
 embarrassment : " Bid me God speed, Sister Seraphina ! " 
 
 " May the Holy Virgin aid you," she said gently. Yet, 
 as she passed out of the door, with a grateful smile, a 
 characteristic reaction came over Key. His romantic be- 
 lief in the interposition of Providence was not without a 
 tendency to apply the ordinary rules of human evidence to 
 such phenomena. Sister Seraphina's application to him 
 seemed little short of miraculous interference ; but what if 
 it were only a trick to get rid of him, while the girl, whose 
 escapade had been discovered, was either under restraint in 
 the convent, or hiding in Santa Luisa ? Yet this did not 
 prevent him from mechanically continuing his arrangements 
 for departure. When they were completed, and he had 
 barely time to get to the station at San Luis, he again lin- 
 gered in vague expectation of some determining event. 
 
 The appearance of a servant with a telegraphic message 
 at this moment seemed to be an answer to this instinctive 
 feeling. He tore it open hastily. But it was only a single 
 line from his foreman at the mine, which had been repeated 
 to him from the company's office in San Francisco. It 
 read, "Come at once — important." 
 
 Disappointed as it left him, it determined his action ; 
 and as the train steamed out of San Luis, it for a while 
 diverted his attention from the object of his pursuit. In 
 any event, his destination would have been Skinner's or 
 the Hollow, as the point from which to begin his search. 
 He believed with Sister Seraphina that the young girl 
 would make her direct appeal to her brother ; but even if 
 she sought Mrs. Barker, it would still be at some of the 
 haunts of the gang. The letter to the Lady Superior had 
 been postmarked from " Bald Top," which Key knew to 
 be an obscure settlement less frequented than Skinner's. 
 Even then it was hardly possible that the chief of the road- 
 ageuts would present himself at the post-office, and it had 
 
IN A HOLLOW OS THE HILLS 115 
 
 probably been left by some less-known member of tbe gang. 
 A vague idea, that was hardly a suspicion, that the girl might 
 have a secret address of her brother's, without understand- 
 ing the reasons for its secrecy, came into his mind. A still 
 more vague hope, that he niiglit meet her before she found 
 her brother, upheld him. It would be an accidental meet- 
 ing on her part, for he no longer dared to hope that she 
 would seek or trust him again. And it was with very 
 little of his old sanguine quality that, travel-worn and 
 weary, he at last alighted at Skinner's. But his half care- 
 less inquiry if any lady passengers had lately arrived there, 
 to his embarrassment produced a broad smile on the face of 
 Skinner. 
 
 " You 're the second man that asked that question, Mr. 
 Key," he said. 
 
 " The second man ? " ejaculated Key nervously. 
 " Yes ; the first was the sheriff of Sierra. He wanted 
 to find a tall, good-looking woman, about thirty, with black 
 eyes. I hope that ain't the kind o' girl you 're looting 
 arter — is it ? for I reckon she 's gin you both the slip." 
 
 Key protested with a forced laugh that it was not, yet 
 suddenly hesitated to describe Alice ; for he instantly 
 recognized the portrait of her friend, the assumed Mrs. 
 Barker. Skinner continued in lazy confidence : — 
 
 " Ye see they say that the sheriff had sorter got the dead 
 wood on that gang o' road-agents, and had hemmed 'em in 
 somewhar betwixt Bald Top and CoUinson's. But that 
 woman was one o' their spies, and spotted his little game, 
 and managed to give 'em the tip, so they got clean away. 
 Anyhow, they ain't bin heard from since. But the big 
 shake has made scoutin' along the ledges rather stiff work 
 for the sheriff. They say the valley near Long Canon 's 
 chock full o' rock and slumgullion that 's slipped down." 
 
 " What do you mean by the big shake ? " asked Key ia 
 surprise. 
 
116 IN A HQLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " Great Scott ! you did n't hear of it ? Did n't hear of 
 the 'arthquake that shook us up all along Galloper's the 
 other night ? Well," he added disgustedly, " that 's jist 
 the conceit of them folks in the bay, that can't allow that 
 anythin' happens in the mountains ! " 
 
 The urgent telegrams of his foreman now flashed across 
 Key's preoccupied mind. Possibly Skinner saw his con- 
 cern. "I reckon your mine is all right, Mr. Key. One of 
 your men was over yere last night, and did n't say nothin'." 
 
 But this did not satisfy Key ; and in a few minutes he 
 had mounted his horse and was speeding towards the Hol- 
 low, with a remorseful consciousness of having neglected 
 his colleagues' interests. For himself, in the utter prepos- 
 session of his passion for Alice, he cared nothing. As he 
 dashed down the slope to the Hollow, he thought only of 
 the two momentous days that she had passed there, and the 
 fate that had brought them so nearly together. There was 
 nothing to recall its sylvan beauty in the hideous works 
 that now possessed it, or the substantial dwelling-house 
 that had taken the place of the old cabin. A few hurried 
 questions to the foreman satisfied him of the integrity of 
 the property. There had been some alarm in the shaft, 
 but there was no subsidence of the " seam," nor any diffi- 
 culty in the working. " What I telegraphed you for, Mr. 
 Key, was about something that has cropped up way back 
 p' the earthquake. We were served here the other day 
 with a legal notice of a claim to the mine, on account of 
 previous work done on the ledge by the last occupant." 
 
 " But the cabin was built by a gang of thieves, who used 
 it as a hoard for their booty," returned Key hotly, " and 
 every one of them are outlaws, and have no standing before 
 the law." He stopped with a pang as he thought of Alice. 
 And the blood rushed to his cheeks as the foreman quietly 
 continued : — 
 
 "But the claim ain't in any o' their names. It's 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 117 
 
 allowed to be the gift of their leader to his young sister, 
 afore the outlawry, and it 's in her name — Alice Eiggs or 
 something." 
 
 Of the half-dozen tumultuous thoughts that passed 
 through Key's mind, only one remained. It was purely 
 an act of the brother's to secure some possible future ben- 
 efit for his sister. And of this she was perfectly ignorant ! 
 He recovered himself quickly, and said with a smile : — 
 
 " But I discovered the ledge and its argentiferous char- 
 acter myself. There was no trace or sign of previous dis- 
 covery or mining occupation." 
 
 " So I jedged, and so I said, and thet puts ye all right. 
 But I thought I 'd tell ye ; for mining laws is mining laws, 
 and it 's the one thing ye can't get over," he added, with 
 the peculiar superstitious reverence of the Californian miner 
 for that vested authority. 
 
 But Key scarcely listened. All that he had heard seemed 
 only to link him more fatefully and indissolubly with the 
 young girl. He was already impatient of even this slight 
 delay in his quest. In his perplexity his thoughts had 
 reverted to Collinson's : the mill was a good point to begin 
 his search from ; its good-natured, stupid proprietor might 
 be his guide, his ally, and even his confidant. 
 
 When his horse was baited, he was again in the saddle. 
 " If yer going Collinson's way, yer might ask him if he 's 
 lost a horse," said the foreman. " The morning after the 
 shake, some of the boys picked up a mustang, with a make- 
 up lady's saddle on." Key started! While it was impos- 
 sible that it could have been ridden by Alice, it might have 
 been by the woman who had preceded her. 
 
 " Did you make any search ? " he inquired eagerly ; 
 " there may have been an accident." 
 
 " I reckon it was n't no accident," returned the foreman 
 soolly, " for the riata was loose and trailing, as if it had 
 •jeen staked out, and broken away." 
 
11-8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 Without another word, Key put spurs to his horse and 
 galloped away, leaving his companion staring after him. 
 Here was a clue : the horse could not have strayed far ; 
 the broken tether indicated a camp ; the gang had been 
 gathered somewhere in the vicinity where Mrs. Barker had 
 warned them, — perhaps in the wood beyond Collinson's. 
 He would penetrate it alone. He knew his danger; but 
 as a single unarmed man he might be admitted to the pres- 
 ence of the leader, and the alleged claim was a sufficient 
 excuse. What he would say or do afterwards depended 
 upon chance. It was a wild scheme — but he was reck- 
 less. Yet he would go to Collinson's first. 
 
 At the end of two hours he reached the thick-set wood 
 that gave upon the shelf at the top of the grade which 
 descended to the mill. As he emerged from the wood into 
 the bursting sunlight of the valley below, he sharply reined 
 in his horse and stopped. Another bound would have 
 been his last. For the shelf, the rocky grade itself, the 
 ledge below, and the mill upon it, were all gone ! The 
 crumbling outer wall of the rocky grade had slipped away 
 into immeasurable depths below, leaving only the sharp 
 edge of a cliff, which incurved towards the woods that had 
 once stood behind the mill, but which now bristled on the 
 very edge of a precipice. A mist was hanging over its 
 brink and rising from the valley ; it was a full-fed stream 
 that was coursing through the former dry bed of the river 
 and falling down the face of the bluff. He rubbed his 
 eyes, dismounted, crept along the edge of the precipice, 
 and looked below : whatever had subsided and melted 
 down into its thousand feet of depth, there was no trace 
 left upon its smooth face. Scarcely an angle of drift or 
 debris marred the perpendicular ; the burial of all ruin 
 was deep and compact ; the erasure had been swift and 
 sure — the obliteration complete. It might have been the 
 precipitation of ages, and not of a single night. At thai 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 119 
 
 remote distance it even seemed as if grass were already 
 growing over this enormous sepulchre, hut it was only the 
 tops of the buried pines. The absolute silence, the utter 
 absence of any mark of convulsive struggle, even the lull- 
 ing whimper of falling waters, gave the scene a pastoral re- 
 pose. 
 
 So profound was the impression upon Key and his human 
 passion that it at first seemed an ironical and eternal ending 
 of his quest. It was with difficulty that he reasoned that 
 the catastrophe occurred before Alice's flight, and that even 
 Collinson might have had time to escape. He slowly skirted 
 the edge of the chasm, and made his way back througli the 
 empty woods behind the old millrsite toward the place 
 where he had dismounted. His horse seamed to have strayed 
 into the shadows of this covert ; but as he approached him, 
 he was amazed to see tbat it was not his own, and that a 
 woman's scarf was lying over its side-saddle. A wild idea 
 seized him, and found expression in an impulsive cry : — 
 
 "Alice!" 
 
 The woods echoed it ; there was an interval of silence, 
 and then a faint response. But it was her voice. He ran 
 eagerly forward in that direction, and called again ; the 
 response was nearer this time, and then the tall ferns parted, 
 and her lithe, graceful figure came running, stumbling, and 
 limping toward him like a wounded fawn. Her face was 
 pale and agitated, the tendrils of her light hair were straying 
 over her shoulder, and one of the sleeves of her school-gown 
 was stained with blood and dust. He caught the white and 
 trembling hands that were thrust out to him eagerly. 
 
 " It is you ! " she gasped. " I prayed for some one to 
 come, but I did not dream it would be you. And then I 
 heard your voice — and I thought it could be only a dream 
 until you called a second time." 
 
 " But you are hurt," he exclaimed passionately. " Yoi' 
 have met with some accident ! " 
 
120 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " No, no ! " she said eagerly, " Not I — but a poor, 
 poor man I found lying on the edge of the cliff. I could 
 not help him much, I did not care to leave him. No one 
 would come ! I have been with him alone, all the morning ! 
 Gome quick, he may be dying." 
 
 He passed his arm around her waist unconsciously ; she 
 permitted it as unconsciously, as he half supported her figure 
 while they hurried forward. 
 
 " He had been crushed by something, and was just hang- 
 ing over the ledge, and could not move nor speak," she 
 went on quickly. " I dragged him away to a tree, — it 
 took me hours to move him, he was so heavy, — and I got 
 him some water from the stream and bathed his face, and 
 blooded all my sleeve." 
 
 " But what were you doing here ? " he asked quickly. 
 
 A faint blush crossed the pallor of her delicate cheek. 
 She looked away quickly. "I — was going to find my 
 brother at Bald Top," she replied at last hurriedly. " But 
 don't ask me now — only come quick, do." 
 
 " Is the wounded man conscious ? Did you speak with 
 him ? Does he know who you are ? " asked Key uneasily. 
 
 " No ! he only moaned a little and opened his eyes when 
 I dragged him. I don't think he even knew what had 
 happened." 
 
 They hurried on again. The wood lightened suddenly. 
 
 " Here ! " she said in a half whisper, and stepped timidly 
 into the open light. Only a few feet from the fatal ledge, 
 against the roots of a buckeye, with her shawl thrown over 
 him, lay the wounded man. 
 
 Key started back. It was CoUinson ! 
 
 His head and shoulders seemed uninjured ; but as Key 
 lifted the shawl, he saw that the long, lank figure appeared 
 to melt away below the waist into a mass of shapeless and 
 dirty rags. Key hurriedly replaced the shawl, and, bending 
 )ver him, listened to his hurried respiration and the beating 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 121 
 
 of his heart. Then he pressed a drinking-flask to his lips. 
 The spirit seemed to revive him ; he slowly opened his eyes. 
 They fell upon Key with quick recognition. But the look 
 changed ; one could see that he was trying to rise, but that 
 no movement of the limbs accompanied that effort of will, 
 and his old patient, resigned look returned. Key shuddered. 
 There was some injury to the spine. The man was paralyzed. 
 
 " I can't get up, Mr. Key," he said in a faint but un- 
 troubled voice, " nor seem to move my arms, but you '11 
 just allow that I 've shook hands with ye — all the same." 
 
 " How did this happen ? " said Key anxiously. 
 
 " Thet 's wot gets me ! Sometimes I reckon I know, 
 and sometimes I don't. Lyin' thar on thet ledge all last 
 night, and only jest able to look down into the old valley, 
 sometimes it seemed to me ez if I fell over and got caught 
 in the rocks trying to save my wife ; but then when I kern 
 to think sensible, and know my wife was n't there at all, 
 E get mystified. Sometimes I think I got ter thiukin' of 
 my wife only when this yer young gal thet 's bin like an 
 angel to me kem here and dragged me off the ledge, for 
 you see she don't belong here, and hez dropped on to me 
 like a sperrit." 
 
 " Then you were not in the house when the shock 
 came ? " said Key. 
 
 " No. You see the mill was filled with them fellers as 
 the sheriff was arter, and it went over with 'em — and I " ^ 
 
 "Alice," said Key, with a white face, "would you 
 mind going to my horse, which you will find somewhere 
 near yours, and bringing me a medicine case from my sad- 
 dle-bags ? " 
 
 The innocent girl glanced quickly at her companion, 
 saw the change in his face, and, attributing it to the im- 
 minent danger of the injured man, at once glided away. 
 When she was out of hearing. Key leaned gravely ovei 
 him: — 
 
IL'2 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 " CoUinson, I must trust you witli a secret. I am afraid 
 that this poor girl who helped you is the sister of the 
 leader of that gang the sheriff was in pursuit of. She ha? 
 been kept in perfect ignorance of her brother's crimes. 
 She must never know them — nor even know his fate ! 
 If he perished utterly in this catastrophe, as it would seem 
 
 — it was God's will to spare her that knowledge. I tell 
 you this, to warn you in anything you say before her. 
 She must believe, as I shall try to make her believe, that 
 he has gone back to the States — where she will perhaps, 
 hereafter, believe that he died. Better that she should 
 know nothing — and keep her thought of him unchanged." 
 
 "I see — I see — I see, Mr. Key," murmured the in- 
 jured man. " Thet's wot I 've been sayin' to myself lyin' 
 here all night. Thet 's wot I bin sayin' o' my wife Sadie, 
 
 — her that I actooally got to think kem back to me last 
 night. You see I 'd heerd from one o' those fellars that 
 a woman like unto her had been picked up in Texas and 
 brought on yere, and that mebbee she was somewhar in 
 Californy. I was that foolish — and that ontrue to her, 
 all the while knowin', as I once told you, Mr. Key, that 
 ef she 'd been alive she 'd bin yere — that I believed it 
 true for a minit ! And that was why, afore this happened, 
 I had a dream, right out yer, and dreamed she kem to me, 
 all white and troubled, through the woods. At first I 
 thought it war my Sadie ; but when I see she war n't like 
 her old self, and her voice was strange and her laugh was 
 .strange — then I knowed it was n't her, and I was dreamin'. 
 You 're right, Mr. Key, in wot you got off just now — wot 
 was it ? Better to know nothin' — and keep the old 
 thoughts unchanged." 
 
 " Have you any pain ? " asked Key after a pause. 
 
 " No ; I kinder feel easier now." 
 
 Key looked at his changing face. " Tell me," he said 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 123 
 
 gently, ' if it does not tax your strength, all that has 
 happened here, all you know. ' It is for her sake." 
 
 Thus adjured, with his eyes fixed on Key, CoUinson 
 narrated his story from the irruption of the outlaws to the 
 final catastrophe. Even then he palliated their outrage 
 Tvith his characteristic patience, keeping still his strange 
 fascination for Ghivers, and his hlind belief in his miserable 
 wife. The story Was at times broken by lapses of faintness, 
 by a singular return of his old abstraction and fprgetfulness 
 in the midst of a sentence, and at last by a fit of coughing, 
 that left a few crimson bubbles on the corners of his mouth. 
 Key lifted his eyes anxiously ; there was some grave inter- 
 nal injury, which the dying man's resolute patience had 
 suppressed. Yet, at the sound of Alice's returning step, 
 Collinson's eyes brightened, apparently as much at her 
 coming as from the effect of the powerful stimulant Key 
 had taken from his medicine case. 
 
 " I thank ye, Mr. Key," he said faintly ; "for I've got 
 an idea I ain't got no great time before me, and I 've got 
 suthin' to say to you afore witnesses " — his eyes sought 
 Alice's in half apology — " afore witnesses, you understand. 
 Would you mind standin' out thar, afore me, in the light, 
 so I kin see you both, and you, miss, rememberin', ez a 
 witness, suthin' I got to tell to him ? You might take his 
 hand, miss, to make it more regular and law-like." 
 
 The two did as he bade them, standing side by side, 
 painfully humoring what seemed to them to be wanderings 
 of a dying man. 
 
 " Thar was a young fellow," said Collinson in a steady 
 voice, " ez kem to my shanty a night ago on his way to the 
 — the — valley. He was a sprightly young fellow, gay 
 and chipper-like, and he sez to me, confidential-like, ' Col- 
 linson,' sez he, ' I 'm off to the States this very night on 
 business of importance ; mebbee I '11 be away a long time — 
 for years ! You know,' sez he, ' Mr. Key, in the Hollow 5 
 
124 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 Go to him/ sez he, ' and tell him ez how I had n't time to 
 get to see him; tell him,' sez he, 'that Rivers' — you've 
 got the name, Mr. Key ? — you 've got the name, miss ? — 
 ' that Rivers wants him to say this to his little sister from 
 her lovin' brother. And tell him,' sez he, this yer Rivers^ 
 ' to look arter her, being alone.' You remember that, Mr. 
 Key ? you remember it, miss ? You see, I remembered it, 
 too, being, so to speak, alone myself " — he paused, and 
 added in a faint whisper — " till now." 
 
 Then he was silent. That innocent lie was the first and 
 last upon his honest lips ; for as they stood there, hand in 
 hand, they saw his plain, hard face take upon itself, at first, 
 the gray, ashen hues of the rocks around him, and then and 
 thereafter something of the infinite tranquillity and peace of 
 that wilderness in which he had lived and died, and of 
 which he was a part. 
 
 Contemporaneous history was less kindly. The " Bald 
 Top Sentinel " congratulated its readers that the late seis- 
 mic disturbance was accompanied with very little loss of 
 life, if any. " It is reported that the proprietor of a low 
 ehebeen for emigrants in an obscure hollow had succumbed 
 from injuries ; but," added the editor, with a fine touch of 
 Western humor, " whether this was the result of his being 
 forcibly mixed up with his own tanglefoot whiskey or 
 not, we are unable to determine from the evidence before 
 us." 
 
 For all that, a small stone shaft was added later to the 
 rocks near the site of the old mill, inscribed to the mem- 
 ory of this obscure " proprietor," with the singular legend : 
 " Have ye faith like to him ? " And those who knew 
 only of the material catastrophe, looking around upon the 
 scene of desolation it commemorated, thought grimly 
 that it must be faith indeed, and — were wiser than they 
 knew. 
 
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS 125 
 
 " You smiled, Don Preble," said the Lady Superior to 
 Key a few weeks later, " when I told you that many cabal- 
 leros thought it most discreet to intrust their future brides 
 to the maternal guardianship and training of the Holy 
 Church ; yet, of a truth, I meant not you. And yet — eh ! 
 well, we shall see." 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 Dick Bkacy gazed agaia at the Hacienda.de los Osos, 
 and hesitated. There it lay — its low whitewashed walls 
 looking like a quartz outcrop of the long lazy hillside — 
 unmistakably hot, treeless, and staring broadly in the unin- 
 terrupted Californian sunlight. Yet he knew that behind 
 those blistering walls was a reposeful patio, surrounded by 
 low-pitched verandas ; that the casa was full of roomy cor- 
 ridors, nooks, and recesses, in which lurked the shadows of 
 a century, and that hidden by the further wall was a lonely 
 eld garden, hoary with gnarled pear-trees, and smothered 
 in the spice and dropping leaves of its baking roses. He 
 knew that, although the unwinking sun might glitter on 
 its red tiles, and the unresting trade-winds whistle around 
 its angles, it always kept one unvarying temperature and 
 untroubled calm, as if the dignity of years had triumphed 
 over the changes of ephemeral seasons. But would others 
 see it with his eyes ? Would his practical, housekeeping 
 aunt, and his pretty modern cousin — 
 
 " Well, what do you say ? Speak the word, and you 
 can go into it with your folks to-morrow. And I reckon 
 you won't want to take anything either, for you '11 find 
 everything there — just as the old Don left it. I don't 
 want it ; the land is good enough for me ; I shall have my 
 vaqueros and rancheros to look after the crops and the 
 cattle, and they won't trouble you, for their sheds and 
 barns will be two miles away. You can stay there as long 
 as you like, and go when you choose. You might like to 
 try it for a spell ; it 's all the same to me. But I should 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 127 
 
 think it the sort of thing a man like you would fancy, and 
 it seems the right thing to have you there. Well, — what 
 shall it be ? Is it a go ? " 
 
 Dick knew that the speaker was sincere. It was an 
 offer perfectly characteristic of his friend, the Western mil- 
 lionaire, who had halted by his side. And he knew also 
 that the slow lifting of his bridle-rein, preparatory to start- 
 ing forward again, was the business-like gesture of a man 
 who wasted no time even over his acts of impulsive liberal- 
 ity. In another moment he would dismiss the unaccepted 
 oifer from his mind — without concern and without resent- 
 ment. 
 
 " Thank you — it is a go," said Dick gratefully. 
 
 Nevertheless, when he reached his own little home in 
 the outskirts of San Francisco that night, he was a trifle 
 nervous in confiding to the lady who was at once his aunt 
 and housekeeper the fact that he was now the possessor 
 of a huge mansion in whose patio alone the little eight- 
 roomed villa where they had lived contentedly might be 
 casually dropped. " You see, aunt Viney," he hurriedly 
 explained, " it would have been so ungrateful to have re- 
 fused him — and it really was an offer as spontaneous as it 
 was liberal. And then, you see, we need occupy only a 
 part of the casa." 
 
 " And who will look after the other part ? " said aunt 
 Viney grimly. " That will have to be kept tidy, too ; and 
 the servants for such a house, where in heaven are they to 
 come from ? • Or do they go with it ? " 
 
 " No," said Dick quickly ; " the servants left with their 
 old master, when Ringstone bought the property. But 
 we '11 find servants enough in the neighborhood — Mexican 
 peons and Indians, you know." 
 
 Aunt Viney sniffed. " And you '11 have to entertain — 
 if it 's a big house. There are all your Spanish neighbors. 
 They 'U be gallivanting in and out all the time." 
 
/28 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 "They won't trouble us," he returned, with some hesita- 
 tion. " You see, they 're furious at the old Don for dispos- 
 ing of his lands to an American, and they won't be likely 
 to look upon the strangers in the new place as anything but 
 interlopers." 
 
 " Oh, that is it, is it ; " ejaculated aunt Viney, with a 
 slight puckering of her lips. " I thought there was some- 
 thing." 
 
 " My dear aunt," said Dick, with a sudden illogical heat 
 which he tried to suppress ; " I don't know what you mean 
 by ' it ' and * something.' Ringstone's offer was perfectly 
 unselfish ; he certainly did not suppose that I would be 
 affected, any more than he would be, by the childish senti- 
 mentality of these people over a legitima;te, every-day busi- 
 ness affair. The old Don made a good bargain, and simply 
 sold the land he could no longer make profitable with his 
 obsolete methods of farming, his gang of idle retainers, and 
 his Noah's Ark machinery, to a man who knew how to use 
 steam reapers, and hired sensible men to work on shares." 
 Nevertheless he was angry with himself for making any 
 explanation, and still more disturbed that he was conscious 
 of a certain feeling that it was necessary. 
 
 "I was thinking," said aunt Viney quietly, "that if 
 we invited anybody to stay with us — like Cecily, for 
 example — it might be rather dull for her if we had no 
 neighbors to introduce her to." 
 
 Dick started ; he had not thought of this. He had 
 been greatly influenced by the belief that his pretty cousin, 
 who was -to make them a visit, would like the change and 
 would not miss excitement. " We can always invite some 
 girls down there and make our own company," he answered 
 cheerfully. Nevertheless, he was dimly conscious that he 
 had already made an airy caStle of the old hacienda, in 
 which Cecily and her aunt moved alone. It was to Cecily 
 ^hat he would introduce the old garden, it was Cecily whom 
 
THE MYSTEKY OF THE HACIENDA 129 
 
 he would accompany through the dark corridors, and with 
 whom he would lounge under the awnings of the veranda. 
 All this innocently, and without prejudice or ulterior 
 thought. He was not yet in love with the pretty cousin 
 whom he had seen but once or twice during the past few 
 years, but it was a possibility not unpleasant to occasion- 
 ally contemplate. Yet it was equally possible that she 
 ■.night yearn for lighter companionship and accustomed 
 imusement ; that the passion-fringed garden and shadow- 
 haunted corridor might be profaned by hoydenish romping 
 and laughter, or by that frivolous flirtation which, in others, 
 he had always regarded as commonplace and vulgar. 
 
 Howbeit, at the end of two weeks he found himself 
 regularly installed in the Hacienda de los Osos. His little 
 household, reinforced by his cousin Cecily and three peons 
 picked up at Los Pinos, bore their transplantation with a 
 singular equanimity that seemed to him unaccountable. 
 Then occurred one of those revelations of character with 
 which Nature is always ready to trip up merely human 
 judgment. Aunt Viney, an unrelenting widow of calm 
 but unshaken Dutch prejudices, high but narrow in religious 
 belief, merged without a murmur into the position of chate- 
 laine of this unconventional, half-Latin household. Accept- 
 ing the situation without exaltation or criticism, placid but 
 unresponsive amidst the youthful enthusiasm of Dick and 
 Cecily over each quaint detail, her influence was neverthe- 
 less felt throughout the lingering length and shadowy 
 breadth of the strange old house. The Indian and Mexican 
 servants, at first awed by her practical superiority, suc- 
 cumbed to her half humorous toleration of their incapacity, 
 and became her devoted slaves. Dick was astonished, and 
 even Cecily was confounded. " Do you know," she said 
 confidentially to her cousin, " that when that brown Con- 
 chita thought to please aunty by wearing white stockings 
 instead of going round as usual with her cinnamon-colored 
 
130 TlIK MYSTEKY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 bare feet in yellow slippers — ■which I -vvas afraid would be 
 enough to send aunty into conniption fits — she actually 
 told her, very quietly, to take them off, and dress according 
 to her habits and her station ? And you remember that in 
 her big, square bedroom there is a praying-stool and a 
 ghastly crucifix, at least three feet long, in ivory and black, 
 quite too human for anything ? "Well, when I offered to 
 put them in the corridor, she said I ' need n't trouble ; ' 
 that really she had n't noticed them, and they would do 
 very well where they were. You 'd think she had been 
 accustomed to this sort of thing all her life. It 's just too 
 sweet of her, anyway, even if she 's shamming. And if 
 she is, she just does it to the life too, and could give those 
 Spanish women points. Why, she rode en pillion on 
 Manuel's mule, behind him, holding on by his sash, across 
 to the corral yesterday ; and you should have seen INlanuel 
 absolutely scrape the ground before her with his sombrero 
 when he let her down." Indeed, her tall, erect figure in 
 black lustreless silk, appearing in a heavily shadowed door- 
 way, or seated in a recessed window, gave a new and patri- 
 cian dignity to the melancholy of the hacienda. It was 
 pleasant to follow this quietly ceremonious shadow gliding 
 along the rose gaixlen at twilight, halting at times to beni1 
 stiffly over the bushes, garden-shears in hand, and carrying 
 a little basket tilled with withered but still odorous petals, 
 as if she were grimly gathering the faded roses of her 
 youth. 
 
 It was also probable that the lively Cecily's appreciation 
 of her aunt might have been based upon another virtue of 
 that lady — namely, her exquisite tact in dealing with the 
 delicate situation evolved from the always possible relations 
 of the two cousins. It was not to be supposed tliat tlie 
 servants would fail to invest the young people with 
 Southern romance, and even believe that the situation was 
 prearranged by the aunt with a view to their eventual 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA, 131 
 
 engagement. To deal with the problem openly, yet with- 
 out startling the consciousness of either Dick or Cecily ; to 
 allow them the privileges of children subject to the occa- 
 sional restraints of childhood ; to find certain household 
 duties for the young girl that kept them naturally apart 
 until certain hours of general relaxation ; to calmly ignore 
 the meaning of her retainers' smiles and glances, and yet to 
 good-humoredly accept their interest as a kind of feudal 
 loyalty, was part of aunt Viney's deep diplomacy. Cecily 
 enjoyed her freedom and companionship with Dick, as she 
 enjoyed the novel experiences of the old house, the quaint, 
 faded civilization that it represented, and the change and 
 diversion always acceptable to youth. She did not feel the 
 absence of other girls of her own age ; neither was she 
 aware that through this omission she was spared the neces- 
 sity of a confidante or a rival — both equally revealing to 
 her thoughtless enjoyment. They took their rides together 
 openly and without concealment, relating their adventures 
 afterwards to aunt Viny with a naivete and frankness that 
 dreamed of no suppression. The city-bred Cecily, accus- 
 tomed to horse-exercise solely as an ornamental and artificial 
 recreation, felt for the first time the fearful joy of a dash 
 across a league-long plain, with no onlookers but the scat- 
 tered wild horses she might startle up to scurry before her. 
 or race at her side. Small wonder that, mounted on her 
 fiery little mustang, untrammeled by her short gray riding- 
 habit, free as the wind itself that blew through the folds of 
 her flannel blouse, with her brown hair half loosed beneatli 
 her slouched felt hat, she seemed to Dick a more beautiful 
 and womanly figure than the stiff buckramed simulation of 
 man's angularity and precision he had seen in the parks. 
 Perhaps one day she detected this consciousness too plainly 
 in his persistent eyes. Up to that moment she had only 
 watched the glittering stretches of yellow grain, in which 
 occasional wind-shorn evergreen oaks stood mid-leg deep 
 
132 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 like cattle in water ; the distant silhouette of the Sierras 
 against the steely blue ; or perhaps the frankly happy face 
 of the good-looking young fellow at her side. But it seemed 
 to her now that an intruder had entered the field — a 
 stranger before whom she was impelled to suddenly fly, half 
 laughingly, half affrightedly ^- the anxious Dick following 
 wonderingly at her mustang's' heels, until she reached the 
 gates of the hacienda, where she fell into a gravity anc^ seri- 
 ousness that made him wonder still more. He did not dream 
 that his guileless cousin had discovered, with a woman's 
 instinct, a mysterious invader who sought to share their 
 guileless companionship, only to absorb it entirely, and 
 that its name was — love ! 
 
 The next day she was so greatly preoccupied with her 
 household duties that she could not ride with him. Dick 
 felt unaccountably lost. Perhaps this check to their daily 
 intercourse was no less accelerating to his feelings than the 
 vague motive that induced Cecily to withhold herself. He 
 moped in the corridor; he rode out alone, bullying his 
 mustang in proportion as he missed his cousin's gentle 
 companionship, and circling aimlessly, but still uncon- 
 sciously, around the hacienda- as a centre of attraction. 
 The sun at last was sinking to the accompaniment of a ris- 
 ing wind, which seemed to blow and scatter its broad rays 
 over the shimmering plain until every slight protuberance 
 was burnished into startling brightness ; the shadows of 
 the short green oaks grew disproportionally long, and all 
 seemed to point to the white-walled casa. Suddenly he 
 started and instantly reined up. 
 
 The figure of a young girl, which he had not before 
 noticed, was slowly moving down the half-shadowed lane 
 made by the two walls of the garden and the corral. Ce- 
 cily ! Perhaps she had come out to meet him. He spurred 
 forward ; but as he came nearer he saw that the figure and 
 its attire were surely not hers. He reined up again ab- 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA Vd3 
 
 ruptly, mortified at his disappointment, and a little ashamed 
 lest he should have seemed to have been following an evi- 
 dent stranger. He vaguely remembered, too, that there 
 was a trail to the highroad, through a little swale clothed 
 with myrtle and thorn bush which he had just passed, and 
 ■ that she was probably one of his reserved and secluded 
 neighbors — indeed, her dress, in that uncertain light, 
 looked half Spanish. This was more confusing, since his 
 rashness might have been taken for an attempt to force an 
 acquaintance. He wheeled and galloped towards the front 
 of the casa as the figure disappeared at the angle of the wall. 
 
 " I don't suppose you ever see any of our neighbors ? " 
 said Dick to his aunt casually. 
 
 " I really can't say," returned the lady with quiet equa- 
 nimity. " There were some extraordinary-looking foreign- 
 ers on the road to San Gregorio yesterday. Manuel, who 
 was driving me, may have known who they were — he is 
 a kind of Indian Papist himself, you know — but / did n't. 
 They might have been relations of his, for all I know." 
 
 At any other time Dick would have been amused at this 
 serene relegation of the lofty Estudillos and Peraltas to the 
 caste of the Indian convert, but he was worried to think 
 that perhaps Cecily was really being bored by the absence 
 of neighbors. After dinner, when they sought the rose 
 garden, he dropped upon the little lichen-scarred stone 
 bench by her side. It was still warm from the sun ; the 
 hot musk of the roses filled the air ; the whole garden, 
 shielded from the cool evening trade-winds by its high walls, 
 still kept the glowing memory of the afternoon sunshine. 
 Aunt Viney, with her garden basket on her arm, moved 
 ghost-like among the distant bushes. 
 
 " I hope you are not getting bored here ? " he said, 
 after a slight inconsequent pause. 
 
 " Does that mean that you are ? " she returned, raising 
 her mischievous eyes to his. 
 
134 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 "ITo ; but I thought you might find it lonely, without 
 neighbors." 
 
 " I stayed in to-day," she said, femininely replying to 
 the unasked question, " because I fancied aunt Viney might 
 think it selfish of me to leave her alone so much." 
 
 '' But you are pot lonely ? " 
 
 Certainly not ! The young lady was delighted with the 
 whole place, with the quaint old garden, the mysterious 
 corridors, the restful quiet of everything, tlie picture of 
 dear aunt Viney — who was just the sweetest soul in the 
 world — moving about like the genius of the casa. It was 
 such a change to all her ideas, she would never forget it. 
 It was so thoughtful of him, Dick, to have given them all 
 that pleasure. 
 
 " And the rides," continued Dick, with the untactful 
 pertinacity of the average man at such moments — " you are 
 not tired of them ? " 
 
 No ; she thought them lovely. Such freedom and 
 freshness in the exercise ; so different from riding in the 
 city or at watering-places, where it was one half show, and 
 one was always thinking of one's habit or one's self. Ona 
 quite forgot one's self on that lovely plain — with every- 
 thing so far away, and only the mountains to look at in the 
 distance. Nevertheless she did not lift her eyes from the 
 point 'of the little slipper which had strayed beyond her 
 skirt. 
 
 Dick was relieved, but not voluble ; he could only ad- 
 miringly follow the curves of her pretty arms and hands, 
 clasped lightly in her lap, down to the point of the little 
 slipper. But even that charming vanishing point was 
 presently withdrawn — possibly through some instinct, for 
 the young lady had apparently not raised her eyes. 
 
 " I 'm so glad you like it," said Dick earnestly, yet with 
 a nervous hesitation that made his speech seem artificial to 
 his own ears. "You see I — that is — I had an idea that 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 130 
 
 you might like an occasional change of company. It 's a 
 great pity we 're not on speaking terms with one of these 
 Spanish families. Some of the men, you know, are really 
 fine fellows, with an old-world courtesy that is very charm- 
 ing." 
 
 He was surprised to see that she had lifted her head 
 suddenly, with a quick look that, however, changed to an 
 amused and half coquettish smile. 
 
 " I am finding no fault with my present company," she 
 said demurely, dropping her head and eyelids until a faint 
 suffusion seemed to follow the falling lashes over her 
 cheek. " I don't think you ought to undervalue it." 
 
 If he had only spoken then ! The hot scent of the roses 
 hung suspended in the air, which seemed to be hushed 
 around them in mute expectancy ; the shadows which were 
 hiding aunt Viney from view were also closing round the 
 bench where they sat. He was very near her ; he had 
 only to reach out his hand to clasp hers, which lay idly in 
 her lap. He felt himself glowing with a strange emana- 
 tion ; he even fancied that she was turning mechanically 
 towards him, as a flower might turn towards the fervent 
 sunlight. But he could not speak ; he could scarcely col- 
 lect his thoughts, conscious though he was of the absurdity 
 of his silence. What was he waiting for ? what did he 
 expect ? He was not usually bashful, he was no coward ; 
 there was nothing in her attitude to make him hesitate to 
 give expression to what he believed was his first real pas- 
 sion. But he could do nothing. He even fancied that his 
 face, turned towards hers, was stiffening into a vacant 
 smile. 
 
 The young girl rose. " I think I heard aunt Viney call 
 me," she said constrainedly, and made a hesitating step 
 forward. The spell which had held Dick seemed to be 
 broken suddenly ; he stretched forth his arm to detain her. 
 But the next step appeared to carry her beyond his influ- 
 
136 THE MYSTEKY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 ence ; and it was even with a half movement of rejection 
 that she quickened her pace and disappeared down the path. 
 Dick fell hack dejectedly into his seat, yet conscious of a 
 feeling of relief that bewildered him. 
 
 But only for a moment. A recollection of the chance 
 that he had impotently and unaccountably thrown away 
 returned to him. He tried to laugh, albeit with a glowing 
 cheek, over the momentary bashfulness w^hich he thought 
 had overtaken him, and which must have made him ridica 
 J.ous in her eyes. He even took a few hesitating steps in 
 the direction of the path where she had disappeared. The 
 sound of voices came to his ear, and the light ring of 
 Cecily's laughter. The color deepened a little on his 
 cheek ; he reentered the house and went to his room. 
 
 The red sunset, still faintly showing through the heavily 
 recessed windows to the opposite wall, made two luminous 
 aisles through the darkness of the long, low apartment. 
 From his easy-chair he watched the color drop out of the 
 sky, the yellow plain grow pallid and seem to stretch itself 
 to infinite rest ; then a black line began to deepen and 
 creep towards him from the horizon edge ; the day was 
 done. It seemed to him a day lost.. He had no doubt 
 now but that he loved his cousin, and the opportunity of 
 telling her so — of profiting by her predisposition of the 
 moment — had passed. She would remember herself, she 
 would remember his weak hesitancy, she would despise 
 him. He rose and walked uneasily up and down. And 
 yet — - and it disgusted him with himself still more — he 
 was again conscious of the feeling of relief he had before 
 experienced. A vague formula, " It 's better as it is," 
 " Who knows what might have come of it ? " he found 
 himself repeating, without reason and without resignation. 
 
 Ashamed even of his seclusion, he rose to join the little 
 family circle, which now habitually gathered around a table 
 on (he veranda of the patio under the rays of a swinging 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 137 
 
 lamp to take their chocolate. To his surprise the veranda 
 was empty and dark ; a light shining from the inner 
 drawing-room showed him his aunt in her armchair reading, 
 alone. A slight thrill ran over him : Cecily might be still 
 in the garden ! He noiselessly passed the drawing-room 
 door, turned into a long corridor, and slipped through a 
 grating in the wall into the lane that separated it from the 
 garden. The gate was still open ; a few paces brought him 
 into the long alley of roses. Their strong perfume — con- 
 fined in the high, hot walls — at first made him giddy. 
 This was followed by an inexplicable languor ; he turned 
 instinctively towards the stone bench and sank upon it. 
 The long rows of calla lilies against the opposite wall looked 
 ghost-like in the darkness, and seemed to have turned their 
 white faces towards him. Then he fancied that one had 
 detached itself from the rank and was moving away. He 
 looked again : surely there was something gliding along the 
 wall ! A quick tremor of anticipation passed over him. 
 It was Cecily, who had lingered in the garden — perhaps 
 to give him one more opportunity ! He rose quickly, and 
 stepped towards the apparition, which had now plainly 
 resolved itself into a slight girlish figure ; it slipped on be- 
 neath the trees ; he followed quickly — his nervous hesi- 
 tancy had vanished before what now seemed to be a half- 
 coy, half-coquettish evasion of him. He called softly, 
 " Cecily ! " but she did not heed him ; he quickened his 
 pace — she increased hers. They were both running. She 
 reached the angle of the wall where the gate opened upon 
 the road. Suddenly she stopped, as if intentionally, in the 
 clear open space before it. He could see her distinctly. 
 The lace mantle slipped from her head and shoulders. It 
 was not Cecily ! 
 
 But it was a face so singularly beautiful and winsome 
 that he was as quickly arrested. It was a woman's deep, 
 passionate eyes and heavy hair, joined to a childish oval of 
 
138 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 cheek and chin, an infantine mouth, and a little nose whose 
 faintly curved outline redeemed the lower face from weak- 
 ness and brought it into charming harmony with the rest.. 
 A yellow rose was pinned in the lustrous black hair above 
 the little ear ; a yellow silk shawl or mantle, which had 
 looked white in the shadows, was thrown over one shoulder 
 and twisted twice or thrice around the plump but petite 
 bust. The large black velvety eyes were fixed on his in 
 half wonderment, half amusement ; the lovely lips were 
 parted in half astonishment and half a smile. And yet she 
 was like a picture, a dream, — a materialization of one's 
 most fanciful imaginings, — like anything, in fact, but the 
 palpable flesh and blood she evidently was, standing only 
 a few feet before him, whose hurried breath he could see 
 even now heaving her youthful breast. 
 
 His own breath appeared suspended, although his heart 
 -beat rapidly as he stammered out : " I beg your pardon — 
 I thought " — He stopped at the recollection that this 
 was the second time he had followed her. 
 
 She did not speak, although her parted lips still curved 
 with their faint coy smile. Then she suddenly lifted her 
 right hand, which had been hanging at her side, clasping 
 some long black object like a stick. Without any apparent 
 impulse from her fingers, the stick slowly seemed to broaden 
 in her little hand into the segment of an opening disk, that, 
 lifting to her face and shoulders, gradually eclipsed the upper 
 part of her figure, until, mounting higher, the beautiful eyes 
 and the yellow rose of her hair alone remained above — a 
 large unfurled fan ! Then the long eyelashes drooped, as 
 if in a mute farewell, and they too disappeared as the fan 
 was lifted higher. The half-hidden figure appeared to glide 
 to the gateway, lingered for an instant, and vanished. The 
 astounded Dick stepped quickly into the road, but fan and 
 figure were swallowed up in the darkness. 
 
 Amazed and bewildered, he stood for a moment breathless 
 
THE MYSTEKY OF THE HACIENDA 139 
 
 and irresolute. It was no doubt the same stranger that he 
 had seen before. But who was she, and what was she doing 
 there ? If she were one of their Spanish neighbors, drawn 
 simply by curiosity to become a trespasser, why had she 
 lingered to invite a scrutiny that would clearly identify her T 
 It was not the escapade of that giddy girl which the lower 
 part of her face had suggested, for such a one would have 
 giggled and instantly flown ; it was not the deliberate act of 
 a grave woman of the world, for its sequel was so purpose- 
 less. Why had she revealed herself to him alone ? Dick 
 felt himself glowing with a half-shamed, half-secret pleasure. 
 Then he remembered Cecily, and his own purpose in coming 
 into the garden. He hurriedly made a tour of the walks 
 and shrubbery, ostentatiously calling her, yet seeing, as in. 
 a dream, only the beautiful eyes of the stranger still before 
 him, and conscious of an ill-defined remorse and disloyalty 
 he had never known before. But Cecily was not there ; 
 and again he experienced the old sensation of relief ! , 
 
 He shut the garden gate, crossed the road, and found the 
 grille just closing behind a slim white figure. He started, 
 for it was Cecily ; but even in his surprise he was conscious 
 of wondering how he could have ever mistaken the stranger 
 foi- her. She appeared startled too ; she looked pale and 
 abstracted. Could she have been a witness of his strange 
 interview ? 
 
 Her first sentenoei dispelled the idea. 
 
 " I suppose you were in the garden ? " she said, with a 
 certain timidity. " I did n't go there — it seemed so close 
 and stufi'y — but walked a little down the lane." 
 
 A moment before he would have eagerly told her his 
 adventure ; but in the presence of her manifest embarrass- 
 ment his own increased. He concluded to tell her another 
 time. He murmured vaguely that he had been looking for 
 her in the garden, yet he had a flushing sense of falsehood 
 in his reserve ; and they passed silently along the corridor 
 
140 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 and entered the patio togeither. She lit the hanging lamp 
 mechanically. She certainly ivas pale ; her slim hand 
 trembled slightly. Suddenly her eyes met his, a faint coloi 
 came into her cheek, and she smiled. She put up her hand 
 with a girlish gesture towards the back of her head. 
 
 " What are you looking at ? Is my hair coming down ? " 
 
 "No," hesitated Dick, "but — I — thought — you were 
 iooking just a little pale." 
 
 An aggressive ray slipped into her blue eyes. 
 
 " Strange ! I thought you were. jMst now at the grille 
 you looked as if the roses had n't agreed with you." 
 
 They both laughed, a little nervously, and Conchita 
 brought the chocolate. When aunt Viney came from the 
 drawing-room she found the two young people together, and 
 Cecily in a gale of high spirits. 
 
 She had had such a wonderfully interesting walk, all 
 by herself, alone on the plain. It was really so queer and 
 elfish to find one's self where one could see nothing above 
 or around one anywhere but stars. Stars above one, to 
 right and left of one, and some so low down they seemed 
 as if they were picketed on the plain. It was so odd to 
 find the horizon line at one's very feet, like a castaway at 
 sea. And the wind ! it seemed to move one this way and 
 that way, for one could not see anything, and might really 
 be floating in the air. Only once she thought she saw 
 something, and was quite frightened. 
 
 " What was it ? " asked Dick quickly. 
 
 " Well, it was a large black object ; but — it turned out 
 only to be a horse." 
 
 She laughed, although she had evidently noticed her 
 cousin's eagerness, and her own eyes had a nervous bright- 
 ness. 
 
 " And where was Dick all this while ? " asked aunt 
 Viney quietly. 
 
 Cecily interrupted, and answered for him briskly. " Oh, 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 141 
 
 he was trying to make attar of rose of himself in the gar- 
 den. He 's still stupefied by his own sweetness." 
 
 •' If this means," said aunt Viney, with matter-of-fact 
 precision, " that you 've been gallivanting all alone, Ceeily, 
 on that common plain, where you're likely to meet all 
 sorts of foreigners and tramps and savages, and Heaven 
 knows what other vermin, I shall set my face against a 
 repetition of it. If you mxist go out, and Dick can't gc 
 with you — and I must say that even you and he going 
 out together there at night is n't exactly the kind of Amer- 
 ican Christian example to set to our neighbors — you had 
 better get Concepcion to go with you and take a lantern." 
 
 " But there is nobody one meets on the plain — at least, 
 nobody likely to harm one," protested Cecily. 
 
 " Don't tell me," said aunt Viney decidedly ; " have n't 
 I seen all sorts of queer figures creeping along by the brink 
 after nightfall between San Gregorio and the next rancho ? 
 Are n't they always skulking backwards and forwards to 
 mass and aguardiente ? " 
 
 " And I don't know why we should set any example to 
 our neighbors. We don't see much of them, or they of us." 
 
 " Of course not," returned aunt Viney ; " because all 
 proper Spanish young ladies are shut up behind their grilles 
 at night. You don't see them traipsing over the plain in 
 the darkness, with or witJiout cavaliers ! Why, Don Ea- 
 fael would lock one of Ids sisters up in a convent and con- 
 sider her disgraced forever, if he heard of it." 
 
 Dick felt his cheeks burning ; Cecily slightly paled. 
 Yet both said eagerly together, " Why, what do you know 
 about it, aunty ? " 
 
 " A great deal," returned aunt Viney quietly, holding 
 her tatting up to the light and examining the stitches witli 
 a critical eye. "I've got my eyes about me, thank Hea- 
 .vi-n ! even if my ears don't understand the language. And 
 there 's a great deal, my dears, that you young people 
 might learn from these Papists." 
 
142 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 " And do you m«an to say," continued Dick, with » 
 glowing cheek and an ■uneasy smile, " that Spanish girls 
 don't go out alone ? " 
 
 " No young lady goes out without her duenna," said 
 aunt Viney emphatically. " Of course there 's the Concha 
 variety, that go out without even stockings." 
 
 As the conversation flagged after this, and the young 
 people once or twice yawned nervously, aunt Yiney thought 
 they had hetter go to hed. 
 
 But Dick did not sleep. The beautiful face heamed out 
 again from the darkness of his room ; the light that glim- 
 mered through his deep-set curtainless windows had an odd 
 trick of bringing out certain hanging articles, or pieces of 
 furniture, into a resemblance to a mantled figure. The 
 deep, velvety eyes, fringed with long brown lashes, again 
 looked into his with amused, childlike curiosity. He 
 scouted the harsh criticisms of aunt Viney, even while he 
 shrank from proving to her her mistake in the quality of 
 his mysterious visitant. Of course she was a lady — far 
 superior to any of her race whom he had yet met. Yet 
 how should he find who she was ? His pride and a certain 
 chivalry forbade his questioning the servants — before 
 whom it was the rule of the household to avoid all refer- 
 ence to their neighbors. He Avould make the acquaintance 
 of the old padre — perhaps he might talk. He would ride 
 early along the trail in the direction of the nearest rancho. 
 — Don Jos^ Amador's, — a thing he had hitherto stu- 
 diously refrained from doing. It *as three miles away. 
 She must have come that distance, but not alone. Doubt- 
 less she had kept her duenna in waiting in the road. Per- 
 haps it was she who had frightened Cecily. Had Cecily 
 told all she had seen ? Her embarrassed manner certainly 
 suggested more than she had told. He felt himself turn- 
 ing hot with an indefinite uneasiness. Then he tried to 
 compose himself. After all, it was a thing of the past. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 143 
 
 The fair unknown had bribed the duenna for once, no 
 doubt — had satisfied her girlish curiosity. — she would not 
 come again ! But this thought brought with it such a 
 sudden sense of utter desolation, a deprivation so new and 
 startling, that it frightened him. Was his head turned by 
 the witcheries of some black-eyed schoolgirl whom he had 
 seen but once ? Or — he felt his cheeks glowing in the 
 darkness — was it really a case of love at first sight, and 
 she herself had been impelled by the same yearning that 
 now possessed him ? A delicious satisfaction followed, 
 that left a smile on his lips as if it had been a kiss. He 
 knew now why he had so strangely hesitated with Cecily. 
 He had never really loved her — he had never known 
 what love was till now ! 
 
 He was up early the next morning, skimming the plain 
 on the back of Chu Chu, before the hacienda was stir- 
 ring. He did not want any one to suspect his destination, 
 and it was even with a sense of guilt that he dashed along 
 the swale in the direction of the Amador rancho. A few 
 vaqueros, an old Digger squaw carrying a basket, two little 
 Indian acolytes on their way to mass passed him. He was 
 surprised to find that there were no ruts of carriage wheels 
 within three miles of the casa, and evidently no track for 
 carriages through the swale. She must have come on horse- 
 baclc ! A broader highway, however, intersected the trail 
 at a point where the low walls of the Amador rancho came 
 in view. Here he was startled by the apparition of an old- 
 fashioned family carriage drawn by two large piebald horses. 
 But it was unfortunately closed. Then, with a desperate 
 audacity new to his reserved nature, he ranged close beside 
 it, and even stared in the windows. A heavily mantled 
 old woman, whose brown face was in high contrast to her 
 snow-white hair, sat in the back s,eat. Beside her was a 
 younger companion, with the odd blond hair and blue eye? 
 sometimes seen in the higher Castilian type. For an instant 
 
144 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 the blue eyes caught his, half-coquettishly. But the girl 
 was not at all like his mysterious visitor, and he fell, dis- 
 cotnfited, uehind. 
 
 He iiad determined to explain his trespass on the grounds 
 of his neighbor, if questioned, by the excuse that he was 
 hunting a strayed mustang. But his presence, although 
 watched with a cold reserve by the few peons who were 
 lounging near the gateway, provoked no challenge from 
 them ; and he made a circuit of the low adobe walls, with 
 their barred windows and cinnamon-tiled roofs, without 
 molestation — but equally without satisfaction. He felt he 
 was a fool for imagining that he would see her in that way. 
 He turned his horse towards the little mission half a mile 
 away. There he had once met the old padre, who spoke 
 a picturesque but limited English ; now he was only a few 
 yards ahead of him, just turning into the church. The 
 padre was pleased to see Don Kicardo ; it was an unusual 
 thing for the Americanos, he observed, to be up so early ; 
 for himself, he had his functions, of course. No, the 
 ladies that the caballero had seen had not been to mass ! 
 They were Doiia Maria and her daughter, going to San 
 Gregorio. They comprised all the family at the rancho, -^ — 
 there were none others, unless the cabaDero, of a possibility, 
 meant Doiia Inez, a maiden aunt of sixty, — an admirable 
 woman, a saint on earth ! He trusted that he would find 
 his estray ; there was no doubt a mark upon it, otherwise 
 the plain was illimitable ; there were many horses — the 
 world was wide ! 
 
 Dick turned his face homewards a little less adventu- 
 rously, and it must be confessed, with a growing sense of 
 his folly. The keen, dry morning air brushed away his 
 fancies of the preceding night ; the beautiful' eyes that had 
 lured him thither seemed to flicker and be blown out by its 
 practical breath. He began to think remorsefully of his 
 cousin, of his aunt, — of his treachery to that reserve which 
 
■THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 145 
 
 the little alien household had maintained towards their 
 Spanish neighbors. He found aunt Viney and Cecily at 
 breakfast — Cecily, he thought, looking a trifle pale. Yet 
 (or was it only his fancy ?) she seemed curious about his 
 morning ride. And he became more reticent. 
 
 " You must see a good many of our neighbors when you 
 are out so early ? " 
 
 " Why ? " he asked shortly, feeling his color rise. 
 
 " Oh, because — because we don't see them at any othelf 
 time." 
 
 " I saw a very nice chap — I think the best of the lot," 
 he began, with assumed jocularity ; then, seeing Cecily's 
 eyes suddenly fixed on him, he added, somewhat lamely, 
 " the padre ! There were also two women in a queer 
 coach." 
 
 "Dona Maria Amador, and Dona Felipa Peralte — her 
 daughter by her first husband," said aunt Viney quietly. 
 " When you see the horses you think it 's a circus ; when 
 you look inside the carriage you know it 's a funeral." 
 
 Aunt Viney did not condesceni to explain how she had 
 acquired her genealogical knowledge of her neighbor's 
 family, but succeeded in breaking the restraint between the 
 young people. Dick proposed a ride in the afternoon, 
 which was cheerfully accepted by Cecily. Their intercourse 
 apparently recovered its old frankness and freedom, marred 
 only for a moment when they set out on the plain. Dick, 
 really to forget liis preoccupation of the morning, turned his 
 horse's head away hova. the trail, to ride in another direc- 
 tion ; but Cecily oddly, and with an exhibition of caprice 
 quite new to her, insisted upon taking the old trail. Never- 
 theless they met nothing, and soon became absorbed in the 
 exercise. Dick felt something of his old tenderness return 
 to this wholesome, pretty girl at his side ; perhaps he be- 
 trayed it in his voice, or in an unconscious lingering by her 
 bridle-rein, but she accepted it with a naive reserve which 
 
146 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 lie naturally attributed to the eiFect of his own previous 
 preoccupation. He bore it so gently, however, that it 
 awakened her interest, and, possibly, her pique. Her re- 
 serve relaxed, and by the time they returned to the hacienda 
 they had regained something of their former intimacy. The 
 dry, incisive breath of the plains swept away the last linger- 
 ing remnants of yesterday's illusions. Under this frankly- 
 open sky, in this clear perspective of the remote Sierras, 
 which admitted no fanciful deception of form or distance — 
 there remained nothing but a strange incident — to be later 
 explained or forgotten. Only he could not bring himself 
 to talk to her about it. 
 
 After dinner, and a decent lingering for coffee on the 
 veranda, Dick rose, and leaning half caressingly, half 
 mischievously, over his aunt's rocking-chair, but with hie 
 eyes on Cecily, said : — 
 
 "I've been deeply considering, dear aunty, what you 
 said last evening of the necessity of our offering a good ex- 
 ample to our neighbors. Now, although Cecily and I are 
 cousins, yet, as I am head of the house, lord of the manor, 
 and patron, according to the Spanish ideas I am her re- 
 cognized guardian and protector, and it seems to me it is my 
 positive duty to accompany her if she wishes to walk out 
 this evening." 
 
 A momentary embarrassment — which, however, changed 
 quickly into an answering smile to her cousin — came over 
 Cecily's face. She turned to her aunt. 
 
 " Well, don't go too far," said that lady quietly. 
 
 When they closed the grille behind them and stepped 
 into the lane, Cecily shot a quick glance at her cousin. 
 
 " Perhaps you 'd rather walk in the garden ? " 
 
 " I ? Oh, no," he answered honestly. " But " — he 
 hesitated — " would you ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said faintly. 
 
 He impulsively offered his arm ; her slim hand slipped 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 147 
 
 lightly through it and rested on his sleeve. They crossed 
 the lane together, and entered the garden. A load appeared 
 to he lifted from his heart ; the moment seemed propitious, 
 — here was a chance to recover his lost ground, to regain 
 his self-respect and perhaps his cousin's aifection. By a 
 common instinct, however, they turned to the right, and 
 away from the stone bench, and walked slowly down the 
 broad allee. 
 
 They talked naturally and confidingly of the days when 
 they had met before, of old friends they had known and 
 changes that had crept into their young lives ; they spoke 
 affectionately of the grim, lonely, but self-contained old 
 woman they had just left, who had brought them thus again 
 together. Cecily talked of Dick's studies, of the scientific 
 work on which he was engaged, that was to bring him, she , 
 was sure, fame, and fortune ! They talked of the thought- 
 ful charm of the old house, of its quaint old-world flavor. 
 They spoke of the beauty of the night, the flowers and the 
 stars, in whispers, as one is apt to do — as fearing to disturb 
 a supersensitiveness in nature. 
 
 They had come out later than on the previous night ; 
 and the moon, already risen above the high walls of the 
 garden, seemed a vast silver shield caught in the interlac- 
 ing tops of the old pear-trees, whose branches crossed its 
 bright field like dark bends or bars. As it rose higher, it 
 began to separate the lighter shrubbery, and open white 
 lanes through the olive-trees. Damp currents of air, alter- 
 nating with drier heats, on what appeared to be different 
 levels, moved across the whole garden, or gave way at 
 times to a breathless lull and hush of everything, in which 
 the long rose alley seemed to be swooning in its own spices. 
 They had reached the bottom of the garden, and had turned, 
 facing the upper moonlit extremity and the bare stone 
 bench. Cecily's voice faltered, her hand leaned more 
 heavily on his arm, as if she were overcome by the strong 
 
148 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 perfume. His right hand hegan to steal towai^s hers. 
 But she had stopped ; she was trembling. 
 
 " Go on," she said in a half whisper. " Leave me a 
 iaoment ; I '11 join yoii afterwards." 
 
 " You are ill, Cecily ! It 's those infernal flowers ! " 
 said Dick earnestly. " Let me help you to the bench.'' 
 
 "No — it's nothing. Go on, please. Do! Will you 
 go?" 
 
 She spoke with imperiousness, unlike herself. He walked 
 on mechanically a dozen paces, and turned. She had dis- 
 appeared. He remembered there was a smaller gate open- 
 ing upon the plain near where they had stopped. Perhaps 
 she had passed through that. He continued on, slo'wly, 
 towards the upper end of the garden, occasionally turning 
 to await her return. In this way he gradually approached 
 the stone bench. He was facing about to continue his 
 walk, when his heart seemed to stop beating. The beauti- 
 ful visitor of last night was sitting alone on the b6neh 
 before him ! 
 
 She had not been there a moment before ; he could -have 
 sworn it. Yet there was no illusion now of shade or dis- 
 tance. She was scarcely six feet from him, in the bright 
 moonlight. The whole of her exquisite little figure was 
 visible, from her lustrous hair down to the tiny, black satin, 
 low-quartered slipper, held as by two toes. Her face was 
 fully revealed ; he could see even the few minute freckles, 
 like powdered allspice, that heightened the pale satin sheen 
 of her beautifully rounded cheek ; he could detect even the 
 moist shining of her parted red lips, the white outlines of 
 her little teeth, the length of her curved lashes, and the 
 meshes of the black lace veil that fell from the yellow rose 
 above her ear to the black silk camisa ; he noted even the 
 thick yellow satin saya, or skirt, heavily flounced with 
 black lace and bugles, and that it was a different dress 
 feom that worn on the preceding night, a half-gala costume, 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 149 
 
 carried with the indescribable air of a woman looking her 
 best and pleased to do so : all this he had noted, drawing 
 nearer and nearer, until near enough to forget it all and 
 drown himself in the depths of her beautiful eyes. For 
 they were no longer childlike and wondering: they were 
 glowing with expectancy, anticipation — love ! 
 
 He threw himself passionately on the bench beside her. 
 Yet, even if he had known her language, he could not have 
 spoken. She leaned towards him ; their eyes seemed to 
 meet caressingly, as in an embrace. Her little hand slipped 
 from the yellow folds of her skirt to the bench. He eagerly 
 seized it. A subtle thrill ran through his whole frame. 
 There was no delusion here ; it was flesh and blood, warm, 
 quivering, and even tightening round his own. He was 
 about to carry it to his lips, when she rose and stepped 
 backwards. He pressed eagerly forward. Another back- 
 ward step brought her to the pear-tree, where she seemed to 
 plunge " into its shadow. Dick Bracy followed — and the 
 same shadow seemed to fold them in its embrace. 
 
 He did not return to the veranda and chocolate that even- 
 ihg, but sent word from his room that he had retired, not 
 feeling well. 
 
 Cecily, herself a little nervously exalted, corroborated 
 ihe fact of his indisposition by telling aunt Viney that the 
 close odors of the rose garden had affected them both. 
 Indeed, she had been obliged to leave before him. Perhaps 
 in waiting for her return — and she really was not well 
 enough to go back — he was exposed to the night air too 
 long. She was very sorry. 
 
 Aunt Viney heard this with a slight contraction of her 
 brows and a renewed scrutiny of her knitting ; and, having 
 satisfied herself by a personal visit to Dick's room that he 
 was not alarmingly ill, set herself to find out what was 
 really the matter with the young people ; for there was no 
 
150 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 doubt that Cecily was in some vague way as disturbed and 
 preoccupied as Dick. He rode out again early the next 
 morning, returning to his studies in the library directly 
 after breakfast ; and Cecily was equally reticent, except 
 when, to aunt Viney's perplexity, she found excuses for 
 Dick's manner on the ground of his absorption in his work, 
 and that he was probably being bored by want of society. 
 She proposed that she should ask an old schoolfellow tc 
 visit them. 
 
 " It would give Dick a change of ideas, and he would 
 not be perpetually obliged to look so closely after me." 
 She blushed slightly under aunt Viney's gaze, and added 
 hastily, " I mean, of coursej he would not feel it his 
 dutij." 
 
 She even induced her aunt to drive with- her to the old 
 mission church, where she displayed a pretty vivacity and 
 interest in the people they met, particularly a few youthful 
 and picturesque caballeros. Aunt Viney smiled gravely. 
 Was the poor child developing an unlooked-for coquetr}', 
 or preparing to make the absent-minded Dick jealous ? 
 Well, the idea was not a bad one. In the evening she as- 
 tonished the two cousins by offering ,to accompany them 
 into the garden — a suggestion accepted with eager and 
 effusive politeness by each, but carried out with great awk- 
 wardness by the distrait young people later. Aunt Viney 
 clearly saw that it was not her pi-esence that was required. 
 In this way two or three days elapsed without apparently 
 bringing the relations of Dick and Cecily to any more satis- 
 factory conclusion. The diplomatic aunt Viney confessed 
 herself puzzled. 
 
 One night it was very warm ; the usual trade-winds had 
 died away before sunset, leaving an unwonted hush in sky 
 and plain. There was something so portentous in this, 
 sudden withdrawal of that rude stimulus to the otherwise 
 xnonotonous level, that a recurrence of such phenomena was 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 151 
 
 always known as " earthquake weather." The wild cattle 
 moved uneasily in the distance without feeding ; herds of 
 unbroken mustangs approached the confines of the hacienda 
 in vague timorous squads. The silence and stagnation of 
 the old house was oppressive, as if the life had really gone 
 out of it at last ; and aunt Viney, after waiting impa- 
 tiently for the young people to come in to chocolate, rose 
 grimly, set her lips together, and went out into the lane. 
 The gate of the rose garden opposite was open. She 
 walked determinedly forward and entered. 
 
 In that doubly stagnant air the odor of the roses was so 
 suffocating and overpowering that she had to stop to take 
 breath. The whole garden, except a near cluster of pear- 
 trees, was brightly illuminated by the moonlight. No one 
 was to be seen along the length of the broad all($e, strewn 
 an inch deep with scattered red and yellow petals — color- 
 less in the moonbeams. She was turning away, when 
 Dick's familiar voice, but with a strange accent of entreaty 
 in it, broke the silence. It seemed to her vaguely to come 
 from within the pear-tree shadow. 
 
 " But we must understand one another, my darling ! 
 Tell me all. This suspense, this mystery, this brief mo- 
 ment of happiness, and these hours of parting and torment, 
 are killing me ! " 
 
 A slight cough broke from aunt Viney. She had heard 
 enough — she did not wish to hear more. The mystery 
 was explained. Dick loved Cecily ; the coyness or hesita- 
 tion was not on his part. Some idiotic girlish caprice, 
 quite inconsistent with what she had noticed at the mission 
 church, was keeping Cecily silent, reserved, and exasperat- 
 ing to her lover. She would have a talk with the young 
 lady, without revealing the fact that she had overheard 
 them. She was perhaps a little hurt that affairs should 
 have reached this point without some show of confidence 
 to her from the young people. Dick might naturally be 
 reticent — but Cecily ! 
 
152 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 She did not even look towards the pear-tree, but turnej 
 and walked stiffly out of the gate. As she was crossing 
 the lane she suddenly started back in titter dismay and 
 consternation ! For Cecily, her niece, — in her own proper 
 person, — was actually just coming out of the house ! 
 
 Aunt Viney caught her wrist. " Where have you 
 been ? " she asked quickly. 
 
 "In the house," stammered Cecily, with a frightened 
 face. 
 
 " You have not been in the garden with Dick ? " con» 
 tinted aunt Viney sharply — yet with a hopeless sense of 
 the impossibility of the suggestion. 
 
 " No, I was not even going there. I thought of just 
 strolling down the lane." 
 
 The girl's accents were truthful ; more than that, she 
 absolutely looked relieved by her aunt's question. " Do 
 you want me, aunty ? " she added quickly. 
 
 " Yes — no. Run away, then — but don't go far." 
 
 At any other time aunt Viney might have wondered at 
 the eagerness with which Cecily tripped away ; now she 
 was only anxious to get rid of her. She entered the casa 
 hurriedly. 
 
 " Send Josefa to me at once," she said to Manuel. 
 
 Josefa, the housekeeper, — a fat Mexican woman, — ap- 
 peared. " Send Concha and the other maids here." They 
 appeared, mutely wondering. Aunt Viney glanced hurriedly 
 over them — they were all there — a few comely, but not 
 too attractive, and all stupidly complacent. "Have you 
 girls any friends here this evening — or are you expecting 
 any ? " she demanded. Of a surety, no ! — as the patrona 
 knew — it was not night for church. " Very well," re- 
 turned aunt Viney ; " I thought I heard your voices in the 
 garden ; understand, I want no gallivanting there. Go to 
 bed." 
 
 She was relieved ! Dick certainly was not guilty of a 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 153 
 
 low intrigue with one of the maids. But who and what 
 was she ? 
 
 Dick was absent again from chocolate ; there was unfin- 
 ished work to do. Cecily came in later, just as aunt Viney 
 was beginning to be anxious. Had she appeared distressed 
 or piqued by her cousin's conduct, aunt Viney might have 
 spoken ; but there was a pretty color on her cheek — the 
 result, she said, of her rapid walking, and the fresh air ; 
 did aunt Viney know that a cool breeze had just risen ? — 
 and her delicate lips were wreathed at times in a faint retro- 
 spective smile. Aunt Viney stared ; certainly the girl was 
 not pining ! What young people were made of nowadays 
 she really could n't conceive. She shrugged her shoulders 
 and resumed her tatting. 
 
 Nevertheless, as Dick's unfinished studies seemed to have 
 whitened his cheek and impaired his appetite the next morn- 
 ing, she announced her intention of driving out towards the 
 mission alone. When she returned at luncheon she further 
 astonished the young people by casually informing them 
 they would have Spanish visitors to dinner — namely, their 
 neighbors, Doiia Maria Amador and the Dona Felipa Peralta. 
 
 Both faces were turned eagerly towards her ; both said 
 almost in the same breath, " But, aunt Viney ! you don't 
 know them ! However did you — What does it all 
 mean ? " 
 
 "My dears," said aunt Viney placidly, "Mrs. Amador 
 and I have always nodded to each other, and I knew they 
 were only waiting for the slightest encouragement. I gave 
 it, and they 're coming." 
 
 It was difficult to say whether Cecily's or Dick's face 
 betrayed the greater delight and animation. Aunt Viney 
 looked from the one to the other. It seemed as if her at- 
 tempt at diversion had been successful. 
 
 " Tell us all about it, you dear, clever, artful aunty ! " 
 said Cecily gayly. 
 
164 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 " There 's nothing whatever to tell, my love ! It seems, 
 however, that the young one. Dona Felipa, has seen Dick, 
 and remembers him." She shot a keen glance at Dick, 
 but was obliged to admit that the rascal's face remained 
 unchanged. "And I wanted to bring a cavalier for you, 
 dear, but Don Josh's nephew isn't at home now." Yet 
 here, to her surprise, Cecily was faintly blushing. 
 
 Early in the afternoon the piebald horses and dark brown 
 chariot of the Amadors drew up before the gateway. The 
 young people were delighted with Dona Felipaj and thought 
 her blue eyes and tawny hair gave an added piquancy to 
 her colorless satin skin and otherwise distinctively Spanish 
 face and figure. Aunt Viney, who entertained Dona 
 Maria, was nevertheless watchful of the others, but failed 
 to detect in Dick's effusive greeting, or the Dona's coquettish 
 smile of recognition, any suggestion of previous confidences. 
 It was rather to Cecily that Dona Felipa seemed to be 
 characteristically exuberant and childishly feminine. Both 
 mother and stepdaughter spoke a musical infantine English, 
 which the daughter supplemented with her eyes, her eye- 
 brows, her little brown fingers, her plump shoulders, a dozen 
 charming intonations of voice, and a complete vocabulary in 
 her active and emphatic fan. 
 
 The young lady went over the house with Cecily curi- 
 ously, as if recalling some old memories. " Ah, yes, I 
 remember it — but it was long ago and I was very leetle — 
 you comprehend, and I have not arrive mooch when the old 
 Don was alone. It was too — too — what you call melank 
 oaly. And the old man have not make mooch to himself 
 of company. " 
 
 " Then there were no young people in the house, I 
 suppose ? " said Cecily, smiling. 
 
 " No — not since the old man's father lif. Then there 
 were two. It is a good number, this two, eh ? " She gave 
 a single gesture, which took in, with Cecily, the distant 
 
THE MYSTEEY OF THE HACIENDA 155 
 
 Dick, and with a whole volume of suggestion in her 
 shoulders, and twirling fan, continued : " Ah ! two some- 
 time make one — is it not ? But not then in the old time 
 
 — ah, no ! It is a sad story. I shall tell it to you some 
 time, but not to him." 
 
 But Cecily's face betrayed no undue bashful conscious- 
 ness, and she only asked, with a quiet smile, " Why not to 
 
 — to my cousin ? " 
 
 " Ipib^cile ! " responded that lively young lady. 
 
 After dinner the young people proposed to take Dona 
 Felipa into the rose garden, while aunt Viney entertained 
 Dona Maria 'on the veranda. The young girl threw up 
 her hands with an affectation of horror. " Santa Maria ! — 
 in the rose garden ? After the Angelus, you and him ? 
 Have you not heard ? " 
 
 But here Dona Maria interposed. Ah ! Santa Maria ! 
 What was all that ! Was it not enough to talk old woman's 
 gossip and tell vaqueros' tales at home, without making un- 
 easy the strangers ? She would have none of it. "Vamos!" 
 
 Nevertheless Dona Felipa overcame her horror of the 
 rose garden at infelicitous hours so far as to permit herself 
 to be conducted by the cousins into it, and to be installed 
 like a rose queen on the stone bench, while Dick and Cecily 
 threw themselves in submissive and imploring attitudes 
 at her little feet. The young girl looked mischievously 
 from one to the other. 
 
 " It ees very pret-ty, but all the same I am not a rose : 
 I am what you call a big gooseberry ! Eh — is it not ? " 
 
 The cousins laughed, but without any embarrassed con- 
 sciousness. " Dofla Felipa knows a sad story of this 
 house," said Cecily ; " but she will' not tell it before you, 
 Dick." 
 
 Dick, looking up at the coquettish little figure, with 
 Heaven knows what other memories in his mind, implored 
 and protested. 
 
156 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 " Ah ! but this little story — she ees not so mooch sad 
 of herself as she ees str-r-r-ange ! " She gave an exagger- 
 ated little shiver under her lace shawl, and closed her eyes 
 meditatively. 
 
 " Go on," said Dick, smiling in spite of his interested 
 expectation. 
 
 Dona Felipa took her fan in both hands, spanning her 
 knees, leaned forward, and after a preliminary compressing 
 of her lips and knitting of her brows, said : — 
 
 " It was a long time ago. Don Gregorio he have his 
 daughter Eosita here, and for her he will fill all thees rose 
 garden and gif to her ; for she like mooch to lif with the 
 rose. She ees very pret-tj'. You shall have seen her pic- 
 ture here in the casa. No ? It have hang under the 
 crucifix in the corner room, turn around to the wall — why, 
 you shall comprehend when I have made finish thees storj'. 
 Comes to them here one day Don Vincente, Don Gregorio's 
 nephew, to lif when his father die. He was young, a pollio 
 — same as Eosita. They were mooch together ; they have 
 make lofe. What will you ? It ees always the same. The 
 Don Gregorio have comprehend ; the friends have all com- 
 prehend : in a year they will make marry. Dona Eosita she 
 go to Monterey to see his family. There ees an English war- 
 ship come there ; and Eosita she ees very gay with the officers, 
 and make the flirtation very mooch. Then Don Vincente he 
 is onhappy, and he revenge himself to make lofe with another. 
 When Eosita come back it is very miserable for them both, 
 but they say nossing. The warship he have gone away ; 
 the other girl Vincente he go not to no more. All the 
 same, Eosita and Vincente are very triste, and the family 
 will not know what to make. Then Eosita she is sick and 
 eat nossing, and walk to herself all day in the rose garden, 
 until she is as white and fade away as the rose. And Vin- 
 cente he eat nossing, but drink mooch aguardiente. Then 
 he have fever and go dead. And Eosita she have fainting 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 157 
 
 and fits ; and one day they have look for her in the rose 
 garden, and she is not ! And they poosh and poosh in the 
 ground for her, and they find her with so mooch rose-leaves 
 
 — so deep — on top of her. She has go dead. It is a 
 very sad story, and when you hear it you are very, very 
 mooch dissatisfied." 
 
 It is to he feared that the two Americans were not as 
 thrilled by this sad recital as the fair narrator had expected, 
 and even Dick ventured to point out that that sort of 
 thing happened also to his countrymen, and was not pecu- 
 liar to the casa. 
 
 " But you said that there was a terrible sequel," suggested 
 Cecily smilingly ; " tell us that. Perhaps Mr. Bracy may 
 receive it a little more politely." 
 
 An expression of superstitious gravity, half real, half 
 simulated, came over Dona Felipa's face, although her 
 vivacity of gesticulation and emphasis did not relax. She 
 cast a hurried glance around her, and leaned a little forward 
 towards the cousins. 
 
 " When there are no more young people in the casa 
 because they are dead," she continued, in a lower voice, 
 " Don Gregorio he is very melank-oaly, and he have no 
 more company for many years. Then there was a rodeo 
 near the hacienda, and there came five or six caballeros to 
 stay with him for the feast. Notabilimente comes then 
 Don Jorge Martinez. He is a bad man — so weeked — a 
 Don Juan for making lofe to the ladies. He lounge in 
 the garden, he smoke his cigarette, he twist the mustache 
 
 — so ! One day he came in, and he laugh and wink so 
 and say, ' Oh, the weeked, sly Don Gregorio ! He have 
 liid away in the casa a beautiful, pret-ty girl, and he will 
 nossing say.' And the other caballeros say, ' Mira ! what 
 is this ? there is not so mooch as one young lady in the 
 casa.' And Don Jorge he wink, and he say, ' Imbeciles ! 
 pigs ! ' And he walk in the garden and twist his mua- 
 
158 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 tache more than ever. And one day, behold ! he walk 
 into the casa, very white and angry, and he swear mooch 
 to himself ; and he orders his horse, and he ride away, and 
 never come back no more, never-r-r ! And one day another 
 caballero, Don Esteban Briones, he came in, and say, 
 ' Hola ! Don Jorge has forgotten his pret-ty girl : he have 
 left her over on the garden bench. Truly I have seen.' 
 A.nd they say, ' We will too.' And they go, and there is 
 nossing. And they say, , ' Imbecile and pig ! ' But he is 
 not imbecile and pig ; for he has seen, and Don Jorge has 
 seen ; and why ? For it is not a girl, but what you call 
 her — a ghost! And they will that Don Esteban should 
 make a picture of her — a design ; and he make one. And 
 old Don Gregorio he say, ' Madre de Dios ! it is Kosita ' — 
 the same that hung under the crucifix in the big room." 
 
 " And is that all ? " asked Dick, with a somewhat pro- 
 nounced laugh, but a face that looked quite white in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 " No, it ees not all. For when Don Gregorio got him- 
 self more company another time — it ees all yonge ladies, 
 and my aunt she is invite too ; for she was yonge then, and 
 she herself have tell to me this : — 
 
 " One night she is in the garden with the other girls, 
 and when they want to go in the casa one have say, ' Where 
 is Francisca Pacheco ? Look, she came here with us, and 
 now she is not.' Another one say, ' She have conceal 
 herself to make us affright.' And my aunt she say, ' I will 
 go seek that I shall find her.' And she go. And when 
 she came to the pear-tree, she heard Francisca's voice, and 
 it say to some one she see not, ' Fly ! vamos ! Some one 
 have come.' And then she come at the moment upon 
 Francisca very white and trembling, and — alone. And 
 Francisca she have run away and say nossing, and shut 
 herself in her room. And one of the other girls say : ' It 
 is the handsome caballero with the little black mustache 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 159 
 
 and sad white face that I have seen in the garden that 
 make this. It is truly that he is some poor relation of Don 
 Gregorio, or some mad kinsman that he will not we should 
 know.' And my aunt ask Don Gregorio, for she is yonge. 
 A.nd he have say : ' What silly fool ees thees ? There is 
 not one caballero here, but myself.' And when the other 
 young girl have tell to him how the caballero look, he say : 
 ' The saints save us ! I cannot more say. It ees Don 
 Vincente, who haf gone dead.' And he cross himself, and 
 — But look ! Madre de Dios ! — Mees Cecily, you are 
 ill — you are affrighted. I am a gabbling fool! Help 
 her, Don Kicardo ; she is falling ! " 
 
 But it was too late : Cecily had tried to rise to her feet, 
 had staggered forward, and fallen in a faint on the bench. 
 
 Dick did not remember how he helped to carry the in- 
 sensible Cecily to the casa, nor what explanation he had 
 given to the alarmed inmates of her sudden attack. He 
 recalled vaguely that something had been said of the over- 
 powering perfumes of the garden at that hour, that the 
 lively Felipa had become half hysterical in her remorseful 
 apologies, and that aunt Viney had ended the scene by 
 carrying Cecily into her own room, where she presently re- 
 covered a still trembling but reticent consciousness. But 
 the fainting of his cousin and the presence of a real emer- 
 gency had diverted his imagination from the vague terror 
 that had taken possession of it, and for the moment enabled 
 him to control himself. With a desperate effort he man- 
 aged to keep up a show of hospitable civility to his Spanish 
 friends until their early departure. Tfien he hurried to 
 his own room. So bewildered and horrified he had become, 
 and a prey to such superstitious terrors, that he could not 
 at that moment bring himself to the test of looking for the 
 picture of the alleged Rosita, which might still be hanging 
 in his aunt's room. If it were really the face of his. mys- 
 
160 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 terious visitant, — in his preseht terror — he felt that his 
 reason might not stand the shock. He would look at it 
 to-morrow, when he was calmer ! Until then he would be- 
 lieve that the story was some strange coincidence with what 
 must have been his hallucination, or a vulgar trick to which 
 he had fallen a credulous victim. Until then he would 
 believe that Cecily's fright had been only the effect of 
 Dona Felipa's story, acting upon a vivid imagination, and 
 not a terrible confirmation of something she had herself 
 seen. He threw himself, without undressing, upon his 
 bed, in a benumbing agony of doubt. 
 
 The gentle opening of his door and the slight rustle of a 
 skirt started him to his feet with a feeling of new and over- 
 powering repulsion. But it was a familiar figure that he 
 saw in the long aisle of light which led from his recessed 
 window, whose face was white enough to have been a 
 .spirit's, and whose finger was laid upon its pale lips, as it 
 ioftly closed the door behind it. 
 
 « Cecily ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " she said, in a distracted whisper ; " I felt I 
 must see you to-night. I could not wait until day — no, 
 not another hour ! I could not speak to you before them. 
 I could not go • into that dreadful garden again, or beyond 
 the walls of this house. Dick, I want to — I must tell 
 you something ! I would have kept it from every one — 
 from you most of all ! I know you will hate me, and de- 
 spise me ; but, Dick, listen ! " — she caught his hand 
 despairingly, drawing it towards her — " that girl's awful 
 iiuory was true ! " She threw his hand away. 
 
 " And you hav'e seen her / " said Dick frantically. 
 " Good God ! " 
 
 The young girl's manner changed. " Her ! " she said, 
 half scornfully ; " you don't suppose I believe that story ? 
 No. I — I — don't blame me, Dick, — I have seen him." 
 
 "Him?" 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 161 
 
 She pushed him nervously into a seat, and sat down be- 
 side him. In the half-light of the moon, despite her pallor 
 and distraction, she was still very human, womanly, and at- 
 tractive in her disorder. 
 
 " Listen to me, Dick. Do you remember one afternoon, 
 when we were riding together, I got ahead of you, and 
 dashed off to the casa. I don't know what possessed me, 
 or why I did it. I only know I wanted to get home 
 quiickly, and get away from you. No, I was not angry, 
 Dick, at you ; it did not seem to be that ; 1 — well, I con- 
 fess I was frightened — at something, I don't know what. 
 When I wheeled round into the lane, I saw — a man — a 
 young gentleman standing by the garden-wall. He was 
 very picturesque-looking, in his red sash, velvet jacket, and 
 round silver buttons ; handsome, but, oh, so pale and sad ! 
 He looked at me very eagerly, and then suddenly drew 
 back, and I heard you on Chu Chu coming at my heels. 
 You must have seen him and passed him too, I thought ; 
 but when you said nothing of it, I — I don't know why, 
 Dick, I said nothing of it too. Don't speak ! " , she added, 
 with a hurried gesture ; " I know now why you said no- 
 thing, — you had not seen him." 
 
 She stopped, and put back a wisp of her disordered 
 chestnut hair. 
 
 " The next time was the night you were so queer, Dick, 
 sitting on that stone bench. When I left you — I thought 
 you did n't care to have me stay -^ I went to seek aunt 
 Viney at the bottom of the garden. I was very sad, but 
 suddenly I found myself very gay, talking and laughing 
 with her in a way I could not account for. All at once, 
 looking up, I saw him standing by the little gate, looking 
 at me very sadly. I think I would have spoken to aunt 
 Viney, but he put his finger to his lips — his hand was so 
 slim and white, quite like a hand in one of those Spanish 
 pictures — and moved slowly backwards into the lane, as if 
 
162 THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 he wished to speak with me only — out there. I know I 
 ought to have spoken to aunty ; I knew it was wrong 
 what I did, but he looked so earnest, so appealing, so aw- 
 fully sad, Dick, that I slipped past aunty and went out of 
 the gate. Just then she missed me, and called. He made 
 a kind of despairing gesture, raising his hand Spanish fash- 
 ion to his lips, as if to say good-night. You '11 think me 
 bold, Dick, but I was so anxious to know what it all meant, 
 that I gave a glance behind to see if aunty was following, 
 before I should go right up to him and demand an explana- 
 tion. But when I faced round again, he was gone ! I 
 walked up and down the lane and out on the plain nearly 
 half an hour, seeking him. It was strange, I know ; but I 
 was not a bit frightened, Dick — that was so queer — but 
 I was only amazed and curious." 
 
 The look of spiritual terror in Dick's face here seemed 
 to give way to a less exalted disturbance, as he fixed his 
 eyes on Cecily's. 
 
 " You remember I met yov, coming in : you seemed so 
 queer then that I did not say anything to you, for I thought 
 you would laugh at me, or reproach me for my boldness ; 
 and I thought, Dick, that — that — that — this person 
 wished to speak only to me." She hesitated. 
 
 " Go on," said Dick, in a voice that had also undergone 
 a singular change. 
 
 The chestnut head was bent a little lower, as the young 
 girl nervously twisted her fingers in her lap. 
 
 " Then I saw him again — and — again," she went on hes- 
 itatingly. " Of course I spoke to him, to — to — find out 
 what he wanted; but you know, Dick, I cannot speak Span- 
 ish, and of course he didn't understand me, and didn't reply." 
 
 " But his manner, his appearance, gave you some idea of 
 his meaning ? " said Dick suddenly. 
 
 Cecily's head drooped a little lower. " I thought — 
 that is, I fancied I knew what he meant." 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 163 
 
 "No doubt," said Dick, in a voice which, but for the 
 superstitious horror of the situation, might have impressed 
 a casual listener as indicating a trace of human irony. 
 
 But Cecily did not seem to notice it. " Perhaps I was 
 excited that night, perhaps I was bolder because I knew 
 you were near me ; but I went up to him and touched 
 him ! And then, Dick ! — oh, Dick ! think how awful " — 
 
 Again Dick felt the thrill of superstitious terror creep 
 over him. " And he vanished ! " he said hoarsely. 
 
 " No — not at once," stammered Cecily, with her head 
 almost buried in her lap ; " for he — he — he took me in 
 his arms, and " — 
 
 "And kissed you?" said Dickj springing to his feet, 
 with every trace of his superstitious agony gone from his 
 indignant face. But Cecily, without raising her head, 
 caught at his gesticulating hand. 
 
 " Oh, Dick, Dick ! do you think he really did it ? The 
 horror of it, Dick ! to be kissed by a — a — man who has 
 been dead a hundred years ! " 
 
 " A hundred fiddlesticks ! " said Dick furiously. " We 
 have been deceived ! No," he stammered, " I mean you 
 have been deceived — insulted ! " 
 
 " Hush ! aunty will hear you," murmured the girl 
 despairingly. 
 
 Dick, who had thrown away his cousin's hand, caught 
 it again, and dragged her along the aisle of light to the 
 window. The moon shone upon his flushed and angry 
 face. 
 
 " Listen ! " he said ; " you have been fooled, tricked — 
 infamously tricked by these people, and some confederate, 
 whom — whom I shall horsewhip if I catch him. The 
 whole story is a lie ! " 
 
 " But you looked as if you believed it — about the girl," 
 said Cecily ; " you acted so strangely. I even thought, 
 Dick, — sometimes — you had seen him." 
 
164 THE MYSTKKY OF THE HACIENDA 
 
 Dick shuddered, trembled ; but it is to be feared that 
 the lower, more natural human element in him triumphed. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " he stammered ; " the girl was a foolish 
 farrago of absurdities, improbable on the face of things, 
 and impossible to prove. But that infernal, sneaking 
 rascal was flesh and blood." 
 
 It seemed to him to relieve the situation and establish 
 his own sanity to combat one illusion with another. 
 Cecily had already been deceived — another lie would n't 
 hurt her. But, strangely enough, he was satisfied that 
 Cecily's visitant was real, although he still had doubts 
 about his own. 
 
 " Then you think, Dick, it was actually some real 
 man ? " she said piteously. " Oh, Dick, I have been so 
 foolish ! " 
 
 Foolish she no , doubt had been ; pretty she certainly 
 was, sitting there in her loosened hair, and pathetic, ap- 
 pealing earnestness. Surely the ghostly Rosita's glances 
 were never so pleading as these actual honest eyes behind 
 their curving lashes. Dick felt a strange, new-born sym- 
 pathy of sulfering, mingled tantalizingly with a new doubt 
 and jealousy, that was human a;nd stimulating. 
 
 " Oh, Dick, what are we to do ? " 
 
 The plural struck him as deliciously sweet and subtle. 
 Had they really been singled out for this strange experi- 
 ence, or still stranger hallucination ? His arm crept 
 around her ; she gently withdrew from it. 
 
 " I must go now," she murmured ; " but I could n't 
 sleep until I told you all. You know, Dick, I have no one 
 else to come to, and it seemed to me that you ought to 
 know it first. I feel better for telling you. You will 
 tell me to-morrow what you think we ought to do." 
 
 They reached the door, opening it softly. She lingered 
 for a moment on the threshold. 
 
 " Tell me, Dick " (she hesitated), " if that — that really 
 
THE MYSTERY OF THE HACIENDA 165 
 
 were a spirit, and not a real man, — you don't think that 
 
 — that kiss " (she shuddered) " could do me harm ! " 
 
 He shuddered too, with a strange and sympathetic con- 
 sciousness that, happily, she did not even suspect. But he 
 quickly recovered himself and said, with something of bit- 
 terness in his Voice,' " I should be more afraid if it really 
 were a man." 
 
 « Oh, thank you, Dick ! " 
 
 Her lips parted in a smile of relief; the color came 
 faintly back to her cheek. 
 
 A wild thought crossed his fancy that seemed an inspira- 
 tion. They would share the risks alike. He leaned 
 towards her : theii lips met in their first kiss. 
 
 " Oh, Dick ! " 
 
 "Dearest!", 
 
 "I think — we are saved." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " It was n't at all like that." 
 
 He smiled as she flew swiftly down the corridor. Per- 
 haps he thought so too. 
 
 No picture of the alleged Eosita was ever found. Dofia 
 Felipa, when the story was again referred to, smiled dis- 
 creetly, but was apparently too preoccupied with the return 
 of Don Josd'a absent nephew for further gossiping visits to 
 the hacienda ; and Dick and Cecily, as Mr. and Mrs. Bracy, 
 would seem to have survived — if they never really solved 
 
 — the mystery of the Hacienda de los Osos. Yet in the 
 month of June, when the moon is high, one does, not sit on 
 the stone bench in the rose garden after the last stroke of 
 the Angelus. 
 
All EPISODE OE WEST WOODLAi^DS 
 I 
 
 The rain was dripping monotonously from the scant 
 eaves of the little church of the Sidon Brethren at West 
 Woodlands. Hewn out of the very lieart of a thicket of 
 buckeye spruce and alder, unsunned and unblown upon by 
 any wind, it was so green and ttnseasoned in its solitude 
 that it seemed a part of the arboreal growth, and on damp 
 Sundays to have taken root again and sprcnited. There 
 were moss and shining spots on the underside of the un- 
 planed rafters, little green pools of infusoria stood on the 
 ledge of the windows whose panes were at times suddenly 
 clouded by mysterious unknown breaths from w^tbout or 
 within. It was oppressed with an extravagance of leaves 
 at all seasons, whether in summer, when green and limp 
 they crowded the porch, doorways, and shutters, or when, 
 penetrating knot-boles and interstices of shingle and clap- 
 board, on some creeping vine, they iinexpectedly burst and 
 bourgeoned on the walls like banners ; or later, when they 
 rotted in brown heaps in corners, outlined the edges of the 
 floor with a thin yellow border, or invaded the ranks of the 
 high-backed benches which served as pews. 
 
 There had been a contiguous rustling at tbe porch and 
 tbe shaking out of waterproofs and closing of umbrellas 
 until the half-filled church was already redolent of damp 
 dyes and the sulphur of India rubber. The eyes of the 
 congregation were turned to the door with something more 
 than the usual curiosity and expectation. For the new 
 revivalist preacher from Horseshoe Bay was coming that 
 
ATS EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 167 
 
 morning. Already voices of authority were heard approach- 
 ing, and keeping up their conversation to the very door of 
 the sacred edifice in marked contrast with the awed and 
 bashful whisperings in the porch of the ordinary congrega- 
 tion. The worshipers recognized the voices of deacons 
 Shadwell and Bradley ; in the reverential hush of the 
 building they seemed charged with undue importance. 
 
 " It was set back in the road for quiet in the Lord'e 
 work," said Bradley. 
 
 " Yes, but it ought n't be hidden ! Let your light so 
 shine before men, you know. Brother Bradley," returned a 
 deep voice, unrecognized and unfamiliar — presumably that 
 of the new-comer. 
 
 " It would n't take much to move it — on skids and 
 rollers — nearer to the road," suggested Shadwell tenta- 
 tively. 
 
 " No, but if you left it stranded there in the wind and 
 sun, green and sappy as it is now, ye 'd have every seam 
 and crack startin' till the ribs shone through, and no amount 
 of calkin' would make it water-tight agin. No ; my idea 
 is — clear out the brush and shadder around it ! Let the 
 light shine in upon it ! Make the waste places glad around 
 it, but keep it there ! And that 's iny idea o' gen'ral 
 missionary work ; that 's how the gospel orter be rooted." 
 
 Here the bell, which from the plain open four-posted 
 belfry above had been clanging with a metallic sharpness 
 that had an odd impatient worldliness about it, suddenly 
 ceased. 
 
 " That bell," said Bradley's voice, with the same sugges- 
 tion of conveying important truths to the listening congre- 
 gation within, " was took from the wreck of the Tamalpais. 
 Brother Horley bought it at auction at Horseshoe Bay and 
 presented it. You know the Tamalpais ran ashore on 
 Skinner's Reef, jest off here." 
 
 " Ye§, with plenty of sea room, not half a gale o' wind 
 
168 AN EPISODE OF WEST -WOODLANDS 
 
 blowing, and her real course fifty miles to westward ! The 
 whole watch must have been drunk or sunk in slothful idle- 
 ness," returned the deep voice again. A momentary pause 
 followed, and then the two deacons entered the church 
 with the stranger. 
 
 He appeared to be a powerfully built man, with a square, 
 beardless chin ; a face that carried one or two scars of small- 
 pox and a deeper one of a less peaceful suggestion, set in a 
 complexion weather-beaten to the color of Spanish leather. 
 Two small, moist gray eyes, that glistened with every emo- 
 tion, seemed to contradict the hard expression of the other 
 features. He was dressed in cheap black, like the two 
 deacons, with the exception of a loose, black alpaca coat 
 and the usual black silk neckerchief tied in a large bow 
 Tinder a turn-down collar, — the general" sign and symbol of 
 a minister of his sect. He walked directly to the raised 
 platform at the end of the chapel, where stood a table on 
 which was a pitcher of water, a glass, and a hymn-book, and 
 a tall upright desk holding a Bible. Glancing over these 
 details, he suddenly paused, carefully lifted some hitherto 
 undetected object from the desk beside the Bible, and, 
 stooping gently, placed it upon the floor. As it hopped 
 away, the congregation saw that it was a small green frog. 
 The intrusion was by no means an unusual one, but some 
 odd contrast between this powerful man and the little ani- 
 mal affected them profoundly. No one — not even the 
 youngest — smiled; every one — even the youngest — be- 
 came suddenly attentive. Turning over the leaves of the 
 hymn-book, he then gave out the first two lines of a hynm. 
 The choir accordion in the front side bench awoke like an 
 infant into wailing life, and Cissy Appleby, soprano, took up 
 a little more musically the lugubrious chant. At the close 
 of the verse the preacher joined in, after a sailor fashion, 
 with a breezy bass that seemed to fill the little building with 
 the trouble of the sea. Then followed prayer from Deacon 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 169 
 
 Shadwell, broken by " Amens " from the preacher, with a 
 nautical suggestion of " Ay, ay," about them, and he began 
 his sermon. 
 
 It was, as those who knew his methods might have 
 expected, a suggestion of the conversation they had already 
 overheard. He likened the little chapel, choked with um- 
 brage and rotting in its dampness, to the gospel seed sown 
 in crowded places, famishing in the midst of plenty, and 
 sterile from the absorptions of the more active life around it. 
 He pointed out again the true work of the pioneer mission- 
 ary ; the careful pruning and elimination of those forces 
 that grew up with the Christian's life, which many people 
 foolishly believed were a part of it. " The World must 
 live and the Word must live," said they, and there were 
 easy-going brethren who thought they could live together. 
 But he warned them that the World was always closing 
 upon — " shaddering " — and strangling the Word, unless 
 kept down, and that " fair seemin' settlement," or city, 
 which appeared to be " bustin' and bloomin' " with life 
 and progress, was really " hustlin' and jostlin' " the Word 
 of God, even in the midst of these " fancy spires and stee- 
 ples" it had erected to its glory. It was the work of the 
 missionary pioneer to keep down or root out this carnal, 
 worldly growth as much in the settlement as in the wilder- 
 ness. Some were for getting over the difficulty by drag- 
 ging the mere wasted " letter of the Word," or the rotten 
 and withered husks of it, into the highways and byways, 
 where the " blazin' " scorn of the World would finish it. 
 A low, penitential groan from Deacon Shadwell followed 
 this accusing illustration. But the preacher would tell 
 them that the only way was to boldly attack this rankly 
 growing World around them ; to clear out fresh paths for 
 Che Truth, and let the sunlight of Heaven stream among 
 them. 
 
 There was little doubt that the congregation was moved 
 
170 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 Whatever they might have thought of the application, tlie 
 fact itself was patent. The rheumatic Beaseleys felt the 
 truth of it in their aching bones ; it came home to the fever- 
 and-ague-stricken Filgees in their damp seats against the 
 sappy wall ; it echoed plainly in the chronic cough of Sister 
 Mary Strutt and Widow Doddridge ; and Cissy Appleby, 
 with her round brown eyes fixed upon the speaker, remem- 
 bering how the starch had been taken out of her Sunday 
 frocks, how her long ringlets had become uncurled, her frills 
 limp, and even her ribbons lustreless, felt that indeed a 
 prophet had arisen in Israel ! 
 
 One or two, however, were disappointed that he had as 
 yet given no indication of that powerful exhortatory emotion 
 for which he was famed, and which had been said to excite 
 certain corresponding corybantic symptoms among his sensi- 
 tive female worshipers. When the service was over, and 
 the congregation crowded around him, Sister Mary Strutt, 
 on the outer fringe of the assembly, confided to Sister Evans 
 that she had " beam tell how that when he was over at 
 Soquel he prayed that pow'ful that all the wimmen got fits 
 and treniblin' spells, and ole Mrs. Jackson had to be hauled 
 off his legs that she wad kneelin' and claspin' while wrestling 
 with the Sperit." 
 
 " I reckon we seemed kinder strange to him this morning, 
 and he wanted to jest feel his way to our hearts first," 
 exclaimed Brother Jonas Steers politely. " He '11 be more 
 at home at evenin' service. It 's queer that some of the 
 best exhortin' work is done arter early candlelight. I reckon 
 iie 's goin' to stop over with Deacon Bradley to dinner." 
 
 But it appeared that the new preacher, now formally 
 introduced as Brother Seabright, was intending to walk over 
 to Hemlock Mills to dinner. He only asked to be directed 
 the nearest way ; he would not trouble Brother Shadwell or 
 Deacon Bradley to come with him. 
 
 " But here 's Cissy Appleby lives within a mile o' thar, 
 
AN EPISODE OE WEST WOODLANDS 171 
 
 and you could go along with her. She 'd jest admire to show 
 you the way," interrupted Brother Shadwell, " Would n'l' 
 you, Cissy ? " 
 
 Thus appealed to, the young chorister — a tall girl ot 
 sixteen or seventeen — timidly raised her eyes to Brother 
 Seabright as he was about to repeat his former protestation, 
 and he stopped. 
 
 " Ef the young lady is goin' that way, it 's only fair to 
 accept her kindness in a Christian sperit," he said gently. 
 
 Cissy turned with a mingling of apology and bashfulness 
 toward a young fellow who seemed to be acting as her escort, 
 but who was hesitating in an equal bashfulness, when Sea- 
 bright added : " And perhaps our young friend will come 
 too ? " 
 
 But the young friend drew back with a confused laugh, 
 and Brother Seabright and Cissy passed out from the porch 
 together. For a few moments they mingled with the stream- 
 and conversation of the departing congregation, but presently 
 Cissy timidly indicated a diverging bypath, and they both 
 turned into it. 
 
 It was much warmer in the open than it had been in the 
 chapel and thicket, and Cissy, by way of relieving a certain 
 awkward tension of silence, took off the waterproof cloak 
 and slung it on her arm. This disclosed her five long 
 brown cable-like curls that hung down her shoulders, reach- 
 ing below her waist in some forgotten fashion of girlhood. 
 They were Cissy's peculiar adornment, remarkable for their 
 length, thickness, and the extraordinary youthfulness im- 
 parted to a figure otherwise precociously matured. In some 
 wavering doubt of her actual years and privileges. Brother 
 Seabright offered to carry her cloak for her, but she declined 
 it with a rustic and youthful pertinacity that seemed to 
 settle the question. In fact. Cissy was as much embarrassed 
 as she was flattered by the company of this distinguished 
 stranger. However, it would be known to all West Wood' 
 
172 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 lands that he had walked home with her, while nobody but 
 heiself would know that they had scarcely exchanged a 
 word. She noticed how he lounged on with a heavy, roll- 
 ing gait, sometimes a little before or behind her as the path 
 narrowed. At such times when they accidentally came in 
 contact in passing, she felt a half uneasy physical conscious- 
 ness of him, 'Thich she referred to, his size, the scars on his 
 face, or some latent hardness of expression, but was relieved 
 to see that he had not observed it. Yet this was the man 
 that made grown women , cry ; she thought of old Mrs. 
 Jackson fervently grasping the plodding ankles before her, 
 and a hysteric desire to laugh, with the fear that he might 
 see it on her face, overcame her. Then she wondered if he 
 was going to walk all the way home without speaking, yet 
 she knew she would be more embarrassed if he began to 
 talk to her. 
 
 Suddenly he stopped, and she bumped up against him. 
 
 " Oh, excuse me ! " she stammered hurriedly. 
 
 " Eh ? " He evidently had not noticed the collision. 
 ■" Did you speak ? " 
 
 " No ! — that is — it was n't anything," returned the 
 girl, coloring. 
 
 But he had quite forgotten her, and was looking intently 
 before him. They had come to a break in the fringe of 
 woodland, and upon a sudden view of the ocean. At this 
 point the low line of coast-range which sheltered the valley 
 of West Woodlands was abruptly cloven by a gorge that 
 crumbled and fell away seaward to the shore of Horseshoe 
 Bay. On its northern trend stretched the settlement of 
 Horseshoe to the promontory of Whale Mouth Point, with 
 its outlying reef of rocks curved inward like the vast sub- 
 merged jaw of some marine monster, through whose blunt, 
 tooth-like projections the ship-long swell of the Paciiic 
 streamed and fell. On the southern shore the light yellow 
 8ands of Punta de la Concepcion glittered like sunshine all 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 173 
 
 the way to the olive-gardens and white domes of the mis- 
 sion. The two shores seemed to typify the two different 
 climates and civilizations separated by the bay. 
 
 The heavy woodland atmosphere was quickened by the 
 salt breath of the sea. The stranger inhaled it medita- 
 tively. 
 
 " That 's the reef where the Tamalpais struck," he said, 
 "and more 'n fifty miles out of her course — yes, more 'n 
 fifty miles from where she should have bin ! It don't look 
 nat'ral. No — it — don't — look — nat'ral ! " 
 
 As he seemed to be speaking to himself, the young girl, 
 who had been gazing with far greater interest at the foreign- 
 looking southern shore, felt confused and did not reply. 
 Then, as if recalling her presence, Brother Seabright turned 
 to her and said : — 
 
 " Yes, young lady ; and when you hear the old bell of the 
 Tamalpais, and think of how it came here, you may rejoice 
 in the goodness of the Lord that made even those who 
 strayed from the straight course and the true reckoning the 
 means of testifying onto Him." 
 
 But the young are quicker to detect attitudes and affecta- 
 tion than we are apt tp imagine ; and Cissy could distinguish 
 a certain other straying in this afterthought or moral of the 
 preacher called up by her presence, and knew that it was 
 not the real interest which the view had evoked. She had 
 heard that he had been a sailor, and, with the tact of her 
 sex, answered with what she thought would entertain 
 him : — 
 
 " I was a little girl when it happened, and I heard that 
 some sailors got ashore down there, and climbed up this 
 gully from the rocks below. And they camped that night 
 — for there were no houses at West Woodlands then — just 
 in the woods where our chapel now stands. It was funny, 
 was n't it ? — I mean," she corrected herself bashfully, " it 
 was strange they chanced to come just there." 
 
174 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 But she had evidently hit the point of interest. 
 
 " What became of them ? " he said quickly. " They 
 never came to Horseshoe Settlement, where the others 
 landed from the wreck. I never heard of that boat's crew 
 or of any landing here." 
 
 " No. They kept on over the range south to the mis- 
 sion. I reckon they did n't know there was a way down 
 on this side to Horseshoe," returned Cissy. 
 
 Brother Seabright moved on and continued his slow, 
 plodding march. But he kept a little nearer Cissy, and she 
 was conscious that he occasionally looked at her. Presently 
 he said : — 
 
 " You have a heavenly gift. Miss Appleby." 
 
 Cissy flushed, and her hand involuntarily went to one of 
 her long, distinguishing curls. It might be that. The 
 preacher continued : — 
 
 " Yes ; a voice like yours is a heavenly gift. And you 
 have properly devoted it to His service. Have you been 
 singing long ? " 
 
 " About two years. But I've got to study a heap yet." 
 
 " The little birds don't think it necessary to study to 
 praise Him," said the preacher sententiously. 
 
 It occurred to Cissy that this was very unfair argument. 
 She said quickly : — 
 
 " But the little birds don't have to follow words in the 
 hymn-books. You don't give out lines to larks and bobo- 
 links," and blushed. 
 
 The preacher smiled. It was a very engaging smile, 
 Cissy thought, that lightened his hard mouth. It enabled 
 her to take heart of grace, and presently to chatter like the 
 very birds she had disparaged. Oh, yes; she knew she 
 had to learn a great deal more. She had studied '•' some " 
 already. She was taking lessons over at Point Concepcion, 
 where her aunt had friends, and she went three times a 
 week. The gentleman who taught her was not a Catholic, 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 175 
 
 and, of course, he knew she was a Protestant. She would 
 have preferred to live there, but her mother and father were 
 both dead, and had left her with her aunt. She liked it 
 better because it was sunnier and brighter there. She loved 
 the sun and warmth. She had listened to what he had 
 said about the dampness and gloom of the chapel. It was 
 true. The dampness was that dreadful sometimes it just 
 ruined her clothes, and even made her hoarse. Did he 
 think they would really take his advice and clear out the 
 woods round the chapel ? 
 
 " Would you like it ? " he asked pleasantly, 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And you think you would n't pine so much for the 
 sunshine and warmth of the mission ? " 
 
 " I 'm not pining," said Cissy with a toss of her curls, 
 " for anything or anybody ; but I think the woods ought to 
 be cleared out. It 's just as it was when the runaways hid 
 there." 
 
 " When the runaways hid there ! " said Brother Sea- 
 bright quickly. " What runaways ? " 
 
 " Why, the boat's crew," said Cissy. 
 
 " Why do you call them runaways ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Did n't you ? " said Cissy simply. 
 " Did n't you say they never came back to Horseshoe Bay. 
 Perhaps I had it from aunty. But I know it 's damp and 
 creepy ; and when I was littler I used to be frightened to 
 be alone there practicing." 
 
 " Why ? " said the preacher quickly. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," hurried on Cissy, with a vague 
 impression that she had said too much. " Only my fancy, 
 I guess." 
 
 " Well," said Brother Seabright after a pause, "we '11 see 
 what can be done to make a clearing there. Birds sing 
 best in the sunshine, and you ought to have some say 
 about it." 
 
176 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 Cissy's dimples and blushes came together this time. 
 " That 's our house,'' she said suddenly, with a slight accent 
 of relief, pointing to a ■weather-beaten farmhouse on the 
 edge of the gorge. " I turn off here, but you keep straight 
 on for the Mills ; they 're back in the woods a piece. But," 
 she stammered with a sudden sense of forgotten hospitality, 
 " won't you come in and see aunty ? " 
 
 " No, thank you, not now." He stopped, turning his 
 gaze from the house to her. " How old is your house ? 
 Was it there at the .time of the wreck ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Cissy. 
 
 " It 's odd that the crew did not come there for help, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Maybe they overlooked it in the darkness and the 
 storm," said Cissy simply. " Good-by, sir." 
 
 The preacher held her hand for an instant in his power- 
 ful, but gently graduated grasp. " Good-by until evening 
 service." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Cissy. 
 
 The young girl tripped on towards her house a little 
 agitated and conscious, and yet a little proud as she saw the 
 faces of her aunt, her uncle, her two cousins, and even her 
 discarded escort, Jo Adams, at the windows, watching her. 
 
 " So," said her aunt, as she entered breathlessly, " ye 
 walked home with the preacher ! It was a speshal provi- 
 dence and manifestation for ye, Cissy. I hope ye was man- 
 nerly and humble — and profited by the words of grace." 
 
 " I don't know," said Cissy, putting aside her hat and 
 cloak listlessly. " He did n't talk much of anything — but 
 the old wreck of the Tamalpais." 
 
 " What ? " said her aunt quickly. 
 
 " The wreck of the Tamalpais, and the boat's crew that 
 came up the gorge," repeated the young girl. 
 
 " And what did he know about the boat's crew ? " said 
 her aunt hurriedly, fixing her black eyes on Cissy. 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 177 
 
 " Nothing except what I told him." 
 
 " What you told him ! " echoed her aunt, with an omi- 
 nous color filling the sallow hollows of her cheek. 
 
 " Yes ! He has heen a sailor, you know — and I 
 thought it would interest him ; and it did ! He thought 
 it strange." 
 
 " Cecilia Jane Appleby," said her aunt shrilly, " do you 
 mean to say that you threw away your chances of salvation 
 and saving grace just to tell gossiping tales that you knew 
 was lies, and evil report, and false witnesses ! " 
 
 " I only talked of what I 'd heard, aunt Vashti," said 
 Cecilia indignantly. " And he afterwards talked of — of 
 — my voice, and said I had a heavenly gift," she added, 
 with a slight quiver of her lip. 
 
 Aunt Vashti regarded the girl sharply. 
 
 " And you may thank the Lord for that heavenly gift," 
 she said, in a slightly lowered voice ; " for ef ye had n't to 
 use it to-night, I 'd shut ye up in your room, to make it 
 pay for yer foolish gaddin' tongue ! And I reckon I '11 
 escort ye to chapel to-night myself, miss, and get shut o' 
 some of this foolishness." 
 
 11 
 
 The broad plaza of the Mission de la Concepcion had 
 been baking in the day-long sunlight. Shining drifts from 
 the outlying sand dunes, blown across the ill-paved roadway, 
 radiated the heat in the faces of the few loungers like the 
 pricking of liliputian arrows, and invaded even the cactus 
 hedges. The hot air visibly quivered over the dark red 
 tiles of the tienda roof as if they were undergoing a second 
 burning. The black shadow of a chimney on the white- 
 washed adobe wall was like a door or cavernous opening in 
 the wall itself ; the tops of the olive and pear trees seen 
 above it were russet and sere already in the fierce light. 
 
178 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 Even the moist breath of the sea beyond had quite evapo- 
 rated before it crossed the plaza, and now rustled the leaves 
 in the mission garden with a dry, crepitant sound. 
 
 Nevertheless it seemed to Cissy Appleby, as she crossed 
 the plaza, a very welcome change from West Woodlands. 
 Although the late winter rains had ceased a month ago, — 
 a few days after the revivalist preacher had left, — the 
 woods around the chapel were still sodden and heavy, and 
 the threatened improvement in its site had not taken place. 
 Neither had the preacher himself alluded to it again ; his 
 evening sermon — the only other one he preached there — 
 was unexciting, and he had, in fact, left West Woodlands 
 without any display of that extraordinary exhortatory 
 faculty for which he was famous. Yet Cissy, in spite of 
 her enjoyment of the drj', hot mission, remembered him, 
 and also recalled, albeit poutingly, his blunt suggestion that 
 she was "pining for it." Nevertheless, she would have 
 liked to sing for him here — supposing it was possible to 
 conceive of a Sidon Brotherhood chapel at the mission. It 
 was a great pity, she thought, that the Sidon Brotherhood 
 and the Franciscan Brotherhood were not more brotherly 
 towards each other. Cissy belonged to the former by 
 hereditary right, locality, and circumstance, but it is to be 
 feared that her theology was imperfect. 
 
 She entered a lane between the mission wall and a lighter 
 iron-fenced inclosure, once a part of the garden, but now the 
 appurtenance of a private dwelling that was reconstructed 
 over the heavy adobe shell of some forgotten structure of 
 the old ecclesiastical founders. It was pierced by many 
 windows and openings, and that sunlight and publicity 
 which the former padres had jealously excluded was now 
 wooed from long balconies and verandas by the new pro- 
 prietor, a well-to-do American. Elisha Braggs, whose 
 name was generously and euphoniously translated by his 
 native neighborr into " Don Eliseo./' although a heretic, had 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 179 
 
 given largess to the church in the way of restoring its earth- 
 quake-shaken tower, and in presenting a new organ to its 
 dilapidated choir. He had further endeared himself to the 
 conservative Spanish population by introducing no obtrusive 
 improvements ; by distributing his means through the old 
 channels ; by apparently inciting no further alien immigra- 
 tion, but contenting himself to live alone among them, 
 adopting their habits, customs, and language. A harmless 
 musical taste and a disposition to instruct the young boy 
 choristers were equally balanced bj' great skill in horse- 
 manship and , the personal management of a ranch of wild 
 cattle on the inland plains. 
 
 Consciously pretty, find prettily conscious in her white- 
 starched, rose-sprigged muslin, her pink parasol, beribboned 
 gypsy hat, and the long mane-like curls that swung over 
 her shoulders, Cissy entered the house and was shown to 
 the large low drawing-room on the ground-floor. She once 
 more inhaled its hot potpourri fragrance, in which the spice 
 of the Castilian rose-leaves of the garden was dominant. 
 A few boys, whom she recognized as the choristers of the 
 mission and her fellow pupils, were already awaitiijg her 
 with some degree of anxiety and impatience. This fact, 
 and a certain quick animation that sprarig to the blue eyes 
 of the master of the house as the rose-sprigged frock and 
 long curls appeared at the doorway, showed that Cissy was 
 clearly the favorite pupil. 
 
 Elisha Braggs was a man of middle age, with a figure 
 somewhat rounded by the adipose curves of a comfortable 
 life, and an air of fastidiousness which was, however, oc- 
 casionally at variance with what seemed to be his original 
 condition. He greeted Cissy with a certain nervous over- 
 consciousness of his duties as host and teacher, and then 
 plunged abruptly into the lesson. It lasted an hour. Cissy 
 tactfully dividing his somewhat exclusive instruction with 
 the othfers, and even interpreting it to their slower compre- 
 
180 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 hension. When it was over, the choristers shyly departed, 
 according to their usual custom, leaving Cissy and Don 
 Eliseo — and occasionally one of the padres — to more in- 
 formal practicing and performance. Neither the ingenuous- 
 ness of Cissy nor the worldly caution of aunt Vashti had 
 ever questioned the propriety of these prolonged and se- 
 cluded seances ; and the young girl herself, although by 
 no means unaccustomed to the bashful attentions of the 
 youth of West Woodlands, had never dreamed of these 
 later musical interviews as being anything but an ordinary 
 recreation of her art. The feeling of gratitude and kind- 
 ness she had for Don Eliseo, her aunt's friend, had never 
 left her conscious or embarrassed when she was alone with 
 him. But to-day, possibly from his own nervousness and 
 preoccupation, she was aware of some vague uneasiness, 
 and at an early opportunity rose to go. But Don Eliseo 
 gently laid his hand on hers and said : — 
 
 " Don't go yet ; I want to talk to you." 
 
 His touch suddenly reminded her that once or twice be- 
 fore he had done the same thing, and she had been disa- 
 greeably impressed by it. But she lifted her brown eyes 
 to his with an unconsciousness that was more crushing than 
 a withdrawal of her hand, and waited for him to go on. 
 
 " It is such a long way for you to come, and you have 
 so little time to stay when you are here, that I am think- 
 ing of asking your aunt to let you live here at the mission, 
 as a pupil, in the house of the Senora Hernandez, until 
 your lessons are finished. Padre Jos^ will attend to the 
 rest of your education. Would you like it ? " 
 
 Poor CisSy's eyes leaped up in unalfected and sparkling 
 affirmation before her tongue replied. To bask in this 
 beloved sunshine for days together ; to have this quaint 
 Spanish life before her eyes, and those soft Spanish accents 
 in her ears ; to forget herself in wandering in the old-time 
 mission garden beyond ; to have daily access to Mr. Braggs'S 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 181 
 
 piano and the organ of the church — this was indeed the 
 realization of her fondest dreams ! Yet she hesitated. 
 Somewhere in her inherited Puritan nature was a vague 
 conviction that it was wrong, and it seemed even to find an 
 echo in the warning of the preacher : this was what she 
 was " pining for." 
 
 " I don't know," she stammered. " I must ask auntie ; 
 I should n't like to leave her ; and there 's the chapel." 
 
 "Isn't that revivalist preacher enough to run it for 
 a while ? " said her companion, half-sneeringly. 
 
 The remark was not a tactful one. 
 
 " Mr. Seabright has n't been here for a month," she 
 answered somewhat quickly. " But he 's coming next 
 Sunday, and I 'm glad of it. He 'a a very good man. 
 And there's nothing he don't notice. He saw how silly it 
 was to stick the chapel into the very heart of the woods, 
 and he told them so." 
 
 " And I suppose he '11 run up a brand-new meeting-house 
 out on the road," said Braggs, smiling. 
 
 " No, he 's going to open up the woods, and let the sun 
 and light in, and clear out the underbrush." 
 
 " And what 's that for ? " 
 
 There was such an utter and abrupt change in the 
 speaker's voice and manner — which until then had been 
 lazily fastidious and confident — that Cissy was startled. 
 And the change being rude and dictatorial, she was startled 
 into opposition. She had wanted to say that the improve- 
 ment had been suggested by her, but she took a more ag- 
 gressive attitude. 
 
 " Brother Seabright says it 's a question of religion and 
 morals. It 's a scandal and a wrong, and a disgrace to the 
 "Word, that the chapel should have been put there." 
 
 Don Eliseo's face turned so white and waxy that Cissy 
 would have noticed it had she not femininely looked away 
 while taking this attitude. 
 
182 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 "I suppose that 's a part of his sensation style, and very 
 effective," he said, resuming his former voice and manner. 
 " I must try to hear him some day. But now in regard 
 to your coming here, of course I shall consult your aunt, 
 although I imagine she will have no objection. I only 
 wanted to know how you felt about it." He again laid 
 his hand on hers. 
 
 " I should like to come very much," said Cissy timidly ; 
 "and it's very kind of you, I'm sure; but you'll see 
 what auntie says, won't you ? " She withdrew her hand 
 after momentarily grasping his, as if his own act had been 
 only a parting salutation, and departed. 
 
 Aunt Vashti received Cissy's account of her interview 
 with a grim satisfaction. She did not know what ideas 
 young gals had nowadays, but in her time she 'd been fit 
 to jump outer her skin at such an offer from such a good 
 man as Elisha Braggs. And he was a rich man, too. And 
 ef he was goin' to give her an edication free, it was n't 
 goin' to stop there. For her part, she didn't like to put 
 ideas in young girls' heads, — goodness knows they 'd 
 enough foolishness already ; but if Cissy made a Christian 
 use of her gifts, and 'tended to her edication and privileges, 
 and made herself a fit helpmeet for any man, she would 
 say that there were few men in these parts that was as 
 " comf'ble ketch " as Lish Braggs, or would make as good 
 a husband and provider. 
 
 The blood suddenly left Cissy's cheeks and then returned 
 with uncomfortable heat. Her aunt's words had suddenly 
 revealed to her the meaning of the uneasiness she had felt 
 in Braggs's house that morning — the old repulsion that 
 had come at his touch. She had never thought of him as 
 a suitor or a beau before, yet it now seemed perfectly plain 
 to her that this was the ulterior meaning of his generosity. 
 And yet she received that intelligence with the same mixed 
 emotions with which she had received his offer to educate 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 183 
 
 her. She did not conceal from herself the pride and satis- 
 faction she felt in this presumptive selection of her as his 
 wife ; the worldly advantages that it promised ; nor that it 
 was a destiny far heyond her deserts. Yet she was con- 
 scious of exactly the same sense of wropg-doing in her 
 preferences — something that seemed vaguely akin to that 
 " conviction of sin " of which she had heard so much — as 
 when she received his offer of education. It was this mix- 
 ture of fear and satisfaction that caused her alternate paling 
 and flushing, yet this time it was the fear that came first. 
 Perhaps she was becoming unduly sensitive. The secre- 
 tiveness of her sex came to her aid here, and she awkwardly 
 changed the subject. Aunt Vashti, complacently believing 
 that her words had fallen on fruitful soil, discreetly said 
 no more. 
 
 It was a hot morning when Cissy walked alone to chapel 
 early next Sunday. There was a dry i,rritation in the air 
 which even the northwest trades, blowing through the 
 seaward gorge, could not temper, and for the first time in 
 her life she looked forward to the leafy seclusion of the 
 buried chapel with a feeling of longing. She had avoided 
 her youthful escort, for she wished to practice alone for an 
 hour before the service with the new harmonium that had 
 taken the place of the old accordion and its unskillful per- 
 former. Perhaps, too, there was a timid desire to be at 
 her best on the return of Brother Seabright, and to show 
 him, with a new performance, that the "heavenly gift" 
 had not been neglected. She opened the chapel with the 
 key she always carried, " swished " away an intrusive 
 squirrel, left the door and window open for a moment, 
 until the beating of frightened wings against the rafters 
 had ceased, and, after carefully examining the floor for 
 spiders, mice, and other creeping things, brushed away a 
 few fallen leaves and twigs from the top of the harmonium. 
 Then, with her long curls tossed over her shoulders and 
 
184 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 hanging limply down the hack of her new maple-leaf yellow 
 frock, — which was also a timid recognition of Brother 
 Seabright's return, — and her brown eyes turned to the 
 rafters, thif rustic St. Cecilia of the Coast Range began to 
 sing. The shell of the little building dilated with the 
 melody ; the sashes of the windows pulsated ; the two 
 ejected linnets joined in timidly from their coigne of van- 
 tage in the belfry outside, and the limp vines above the 
 porch swayed like her curls. Once she thought she heard 
 stealthy footsteps without ; once she was almost certain 
 she felt the brushing of somebody outside against the thin 
 walls of the chapel ; and once she stopped to glance quickly 
 at the window with a strange instinct that some one was 
 looking at her. But she quickly reflected that Brother 
 Seabright would come there only when the deacons did, 
 and with them. Why she should think that it was 
 Brother Seabright, or why Brother Seabright should come 
 thus and at such a time, she could not have explained. 
 
 He did not, in fact, make his appearance until later, and 
 after the congregation had quite filled the chapel ; he did 
 not, moreover, appear to notice her as she sat there, and 
 when he gave out the hymn he seemed to have quietly 
 overlooked the new harmonium. She sang her best, how- 
 ever, and more than one of the audience thought that " lit- 
 tle Sister Appleby" had greatly improved. Indeed, it 
 would not have seemed strange to some — remembering 
 Brother Seabright's discursive oratory — if he had made 
 some allusion to it. But he did not. His heavy eyes 
 moved slowly over the congregation, and he began. 
 
 As usual he did not take a text. But he would talk to 
 them that morning about " The Conviction of Sin " and 
 the sense of wrong-doing that was innate in the sinner. 
 This included all form of temptation, for what was tempta- 
 tion but the inborn consciousness of something to struggle 
 against, and that was sin ! At this apparently concise ex- 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 185 
 
 position of her own feelings in regard to Don Eliseo's offer, 
 Uissy felt herself blushing to the roots of her curls. Could 
 it be possible that Brother Seabright had heard of her 
 temptation to leave West Woodlands, and that this warn- 
 ing was intended for her ? He did not even look in her 
 direction. Yet his next sentence seemed to be an answer 
 to her own mental query. " Folks might ask," he contin- 
 ued, " if even the young and inexperienced should feel 
 this — or was there a state of innocent guilt without con- 
 sciousness ? " "He would answer that question by telling 
 them what had happened to him that morning. He had 
 come to the chapel, not by the road, but through the tan- 
 gled woods behind them (Cissy started) — through the thick 
 brush and undergrowth that was choking the life out of 
 this little chapel — the wilderness that he had believed was 
 never before trodden by human feet, and was known only 
 to roaming beasts and vermin. But that was where he was 
 ■wrong. 
 
 In the stillness and listening silence, a sudden cough 
 from some one in one of the back benches produced that 
 instantaneous diversion of attention common to humanity 
 on such occasions. Cissy's curls swung round with the 
 others. But she was surprised to see that Mr. Braggs was 
 seated in one of the benches near the door, and from the 
 fact of his holding a handkerchief to his mouth, and being 
 gazed at by his neighbors, it was evident that it was he 
 who had coughed. Perhaps he had come to West Wood- 
 lands to talk to her aunt ! With the preacher before her, 
 and her probable suitor behind her, sue felt herself again 
 blushing. 
 
 Brother Seabright continued. Yes, he was wrong, for 
 there before him, in the depths of the forest, were two 
 children. They were looking at a bush of " pizon ber- 
 ries," — the deadly nightshade, as it was iitly called,— 
 and one was warning the other of its dangerous qualities. 
 
1£8 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 " But how do you know it 's the ' pizon berry ' ? " asked 
 the other. 
 
 " Because it 's larger, and nicer, and bigger, and easier 
 to get than the real good ones," returned the other. 
 
 And it was so. Thus was the truth revealed from the 
 mouths of babes and sucklings ; even they were conscious 
 of temptation and sin ! But here there was another inter- 
 ruption from the back benches, which proved, however, to 
 be only the suppressed giggle of a boy — evidently the 
 youthful hero of the illustration, surprised into nervous 
 hilarity. 
 
 The preacher then passed to the " Conviction of Sin " 
 in its more familiar phases. Many brothers confounded 
 this with discovery and publicity. It was not their own 
 sin " finding them out," but others discovering it. Until 
 that happened, they fancied themselves safe, stilling their 
 consciences, confounding the blinded eye of the world with 
 the all-seeing eye of the Lord. But were they safe even 
 then ? Did not sooner or later the sea deliver up its dead, 
 the earth what was buried in it, the wild woods what its 
 depths had hidden ? Was not the foolish secret, the guilty 
 secret, the forgotten sin, sure to be disclosed ? Then if they 
 could not fly from the testimony of His works, if they 
 could not evade even their fellow man, why did they not 
 first turn to Him ? Why, from the penitent child at his 
 mother's knee to the murderer on the scaffold, did they 
 only at the last confess unto Him ? 
 
 His voice and manner had suddenly changed. Erom the 
 rough note of accusation and challenge it had passed into 
 the equally rough, but broken and sympathetic, accents of 
 appeal. Why did they hesitate longer to confess their sin 
 — not to man — but unto Him ? Why did they delay ? 
 Now — that evening ! That very moment ! This was the 
 appointed time ! He entreated them in the name of re- 
 ligious faith, in the name of a human brotherly love. His 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 187 
 
 delivery was now no longer deliberate, but hurried and 
 panting ; his speech now no longer chosen, but made up of 
 reiterations and repetitions, ejaculations, and even inco- 
 herent epithets. His gestures and long intonations which 
 began to take the place of even that interrupted speech 
 affected them more thAn his reasoning ! Short sighs escaped 
 them ; they swayed to and fro with the rhythm of his voice 
 and movements. They had begun to comprehend this ex- 
 acerbation of emotion — this pardxysmal rhapsody. This 
 was the dithyrambic exaltation they had ardently waited 
 for. They responded quickly. First with groans, equally 
 inarticulate murmurs of assent, shouts of " Glory," and the 
 reckless invocation of sacred names. Then a wave of hys- 
 teria seemed to move the whole mass, and broke into tears 
 and sobs among the women. In her own excited conscious- 
 ness it seemed to Cissy that some actual struggle between 
 good and evil — like unto the casting out of devils — was 
 shaking the little burlding. She cast a hurried glance be- 
 hind her and saw Mr. Braggs sitting erect, white and scorn- 
 ful. She knew that she too was shrinking from the speaker, 
 — not from any sense of conviction, but because he was 
 irritating and disturbing her innate sense of fitness and 
 harmony, — and she was pained that Mr. Braggs should seo 
 him thus. Meantime the weird, invisible struggle con- 
 tinued, heightened, and, it seemed to her, incited by the 
 partisan groans and exultant actions of those around her, 
 until suddenly a wild despairing cry arose above the conflict. 
 A vague fear seized her — . the voice was familiar ! She 
 turned in time to see the figure of aunt Vashti rise in her 
 seat with a hysterical outburst, and fall convulsively for- 
 ward upon her knees i She would have rushed to her side, 
 but the frenzied woman was instantly caught by Deacon 
 Shadwell and surrounded by a group of her own sex and 
 became hidden. And when Cissy recovered herself she 
 ■was astonished to find Brother Seabright — with eVery trace 
 
188 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 of his past emotion vanished- from his hard-set face — 
 calmly taking up his coherent discourse in his ordinary 
 level tones. The furious struggle of the moment before 
 was over ; the chapel and its congregation had fallen back 
 into an exhausted and apathetic silence ! Then the preacher 
 gave out the hymn — the words were singularly jubilant 
 among that usually mournful collection in the book before 
 her — and Cissy began it with a tremulous voice. But it 
 gained strength, clearness, and volume as she went on, and 
 she felt thrilled throughout with a new human sympathy 
 she had never known before. The preacher's bass sup- 
 . ported her now for the first time not unmusically — and 
 the service was over. 
 
 Relieved, she turned quickly to join her aunt, but a hand 
 was laid gently upon her shoulder. It was Brother Sea- 
 bright, who had just stepped from the platform. The con- 
 gregation, knowing her to be the niece of the hysteric 
 woman, passed out without disturbing them. 
 
 " You have, indeed, improved your gift. Sister Cecilia," 
 he said gravely. " You must have practiced much." 
 
 " Yes — that is, no ! — only a little," stammered Cissy. 
 " But, excuse me, I must look after auntie," she added, 
 drawing timidly away. 
 
 " Your aunt is better, and has gone on with Sister Shad- 
 well. She is not in need of your help, and really would 
 do better without you just now. I shall see her myself 
 presently." 
 
 "But you made her sick already," said Cissy, with a 
 sudden, half-nervous audacity. " You even frightened 
 me." 
 
 " Frightened you ? " repeated Seabright, looking at her 
 quickly. 
 
 " Yes," said Cissy, meeting his gaze with brown, truth- 
 ful eyes. " Yes, when you — when you — made those 
 iacee. I like to hear you talk, but" — She stopped. 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 189 
 
 Brother Seabright's rare smile again lightened his face. 
 But it seemed sadder than when she had first seen it. 
 
 " Then you have been practicing again at the mission ? " 
 he said quietly ; " and you still prefer it ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Cissy. She wanted to appear as loyal to 
 the mission in Brother Seabright's presence as she was 
 faithful to West Woodlands in Mr. Braggs's. She had no 
 idea that this was dangerously near to coquetry. So she 
 ^aid a little archly, " I don't see why you don't like the 
 iflission. You 're a missionary yourself. The old padres 
 came here to spread the Word. So do you." 
 
 " But not in that way," he said curtly. " I 've seen 
 enough of them when I was knocking round the world a 
 seafaring man and a sinner. I knew them — receivers of 
 the ill-gotten gains of adventurers, fools, and scoundrels. 
 I knew them — enriched by the spoils of persecution and 
 oppression ; gathering under their walls outlaws and fugi- 
 tives from justice, and flinging an indulgence here and an 
 absolution there, as they were paid for it. Don't talk to 
 me of them — I know them." 
 
 They were passing out of the chapel together, and he 
 made an impatient gesture as if dismissing the subject. 
 Accustomed though she was to the sweeping criticism of 
 her Catholic friends by her West Woodlands associates, she 
 was nevertheless hurt by his brusqueness. She dropped a 
 little behind, and they separated at the porch. Notwith- 
 standing her anxiety to see her aunt, she felt she could not 
 now go to Deacon Shadwell's without seeming to follow 
 him — and after he had assured her that her help was not 
 required. She turned aside and made her way slowly 
 towards her home. 
 
 There she found that her aunt had not returned, gather- 
 ing from her uncle that she was recovering from a fit of 
 " high strikes " (hysterics), and would be better alone. 
 Whether he underrated her complaint, or had a oonsciousr- 
 
190 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 ness of his masculine helplessness in such disorders, he 
 evidently made light of it. And when Cissy, afterwards, 
 a little ashamed that she had allowed her momentary pique 
 against Brother Seabright to stand in the way of her duty, 
 determined to go to her aunt, instead of returning to the 
 chapel that evening, he did not oppose it. She learned also 
 that Mr. Braggs had called in the morning, but, finding 
 that her aunt Vashti was at chapel, he had followed her 
 there, intending to return with her. But he had not been 
 seen since the service, and had evidently returned to the 
 mission. 
 
 But when she reached Deacon Shadwell's house she 
 was received by Mrs. Shad well only. Her aunt, said 
 that lady, was physically better, but Brother Seabright 
 had left " partikler word " that she was to see nobody. 
 It was an extraordinary case of " findin' the Lord," the 
 like of which had never been known before in West 
 Woodlands, and she (Cissy) would yet be proud of one of 
 her " fammerly being speshally selected for grace." But 
 the " workin's o' salvation was not to be finicked away on 
 worldly things or even the affections of the flesh ; " and if 
 Cissy really loved her aunt, " she would n't interfere with 
 her w^hile she was, so to speak, still on the mourners' bench, 
 wrastlin' with the Sperret in their back sittin'-room." But 
 she might wait until Brother Seabright's return from even- 
 ing chapel after service. 
 
 Cissy waited. Nine o'clock came, but Brother Sea- 
 bright did not return. Then a small, but inconsequent 
 dignity took possession of her, and she slightly tossed her 
 long curls from her shoulders. She was not going to wait 
 for any man's permission to see her own aunt. If aimtie 
 did not want to see her, that was enough. She could go 
 home alone. She did n't want any one to go with her. 
 
 Lifted and sustained by these loftly considerations, with, 
 an erect head and slightly ruffled mane, well enwrapped in 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 191 
 
 a becoming white merino " cloud," the young girl stepped 
 out on her homeward journey. She had certainly enough 
 to occupy her mind and, perhaps, justify her independence. 
 To have a suitor for her hand in the person of the superior 
 and wealthy Mr. Braggs, — for that was what his visit that 
 morning to West Woodlands meant, — and to be personally 
 complimented on her improvement by the famous Brother 
 Seabright, all within twelve hours, was something to be 
 proud of, even although it was mitigated by her aunt's ill- 
 ness, her suitor's abrupt departure, and Brother Seabright's 
 momentary coldness and impatience. Oddly enough, this 
 last and apparently trivial circumstance occupied her 
 thoughts more than the others. She found herself looking 
 out for him in the windings of the moonlit road, and when, 
 at last, she reached the turning towards the little wood and 
 chapel, her small feet unconsciously lingered until she felt 
 herself blushing under her fleecy " cloud." She looked 
 down the lane. From the point where she was standing 
 the lights of the chapel should have been plainly visible ; 
 but now all was dark. It was nearly ten o'clock, and he 
 must have gone home by another road. Then a spirit of 
 adventure seized her. She had the key of the chapel in 
 her pocket. She remembered she had left a small black 
 Spanish fan — a former gift of Mr. Braggs — lying on the 
 harmonium. She would go and bring it away, and satisfy 
 herself that Brother Seabright was not there still. It was 
 but a step, and in the clear moonlight. 
 
 The lane wound before her like a silver stream, except 
 where it was interrupted and bridged over by jagged black 
 shadows. The chapel itself was black, the clustering trees 
 around it were black also ; the porch seemed to cover an 
 inky well of shadow ; the windows were rayless and dead, 
 and in the chancel one still left open showed a yawning 
 vault of obscurity within. Nevertheless, she opened the 
 door softly, glided into the dark depths, and made her way 
 
192 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 to the harmonium. But here the sound of footsteps without 
 startled her ; she glanced hurriedly through the open window, 
 and saw the figure of Elisha Braggs suddenly revealed in the 
 moonlight as he crossed the path behind the chapel. He 
 was closely followed by two peons, whom she recognized as 
 Iiis servants at the mission, and they each carried a pickaxe. 
 From their manner it was evident that they had no suspicion 
 of her presence in the chapel. But they had stopped and 
 were listening. Her heart beat quickly ; with a sudden 
 instinct she ran and bolted the door. But it was evidently 
 another intruder they were watching, for she presently saw 
 Brother Seabright quietly cross the lanie and approach the 
 chapel. The three men had disappeared ; but there was a 
 sudden shout, the sound of scufiling, the deep voice of 
 Brother Seabright saying, " Back, there, will you ! Hands 
 off ! " and a pause. She could see nothing ; she listened in 
 every pulse. Then the voice of Brother Seabright arose 
 again quite clearly, slowly, and as deliberately as if it had 
 risen from the platform in the chapel. 
 
 " Lish Barker ! I thought as much ! Lish Barker, first 
 mate of the Tamalpais, who was said to have gone down 
 with a boat's crew and the ship's treasure after she struck. 
 I thought I. knew that face to-day." 
 
 " Yes," said the voice of him whom she had known as 
 Elisha Braggs, — " yes, and I knew your face, Jim Sea- 
 bright, ex-whaler, slaver, pirate, and bo's'n of the Highflyer, 
 marooned in the South Pacific, where you found the Lord 
 — ha ! ha ! — and became the psalm-singing, converted 
 American sailor preacher ! " 
 
 " I am not ashamed before men of my past, which every 
 one knows," returned Seabright slowly. " But what of 
 yours, Elisha Barker — yours that has made you sham 
 death itself to hide it from them ? What of yours — spent 
 in the sloth of your ill-gotten gains ! Turn, sinner, turn I 
 Turn, Elisha Braggs, while there is yet time I " 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 193 
 
 " Belay there, Brother Seabright ; we 're not inside your 
 gospel-shop just now ! Keep your palaver for those that 
 need it. Let me pass, before I have to teach you that you 
 have n't to deal with a gang of hysterical old women to- 
 night." 
 
 " But not until you know that one of those women, — 
 Vttshti White, — by God's grace converted of her sins, has 
 confessed her secret and yours, Elisha Barker ! Yes ! She 
 has told me how her sister's husband — the father of the 
 young girl you are trying to lure away — helped you off 
 that night with your booty, took his miserable reward, and 
 lived and died in exile with the rest of your wretched crew, 
 
 — afraid to return to his home and country — whilst you 
 
 — shameless and impenitent — lived in slothful ease at the 
 mission ! " 
 
 " Liar ! Let me pass ! " 
 
 " Not until I know your purpose here to-night." 
 
 " Then take the consequences ! Here, Pedro ! Eamon ! 
 Seize him. Tie him head and heels together, and toss him 
 in the bush ! " 
 
 The sound of scuifling recommenced. The struggle 
 seemed fierce and long, with no breath wasted in useless 
 outcry. Then there was a bright flash, a muffled report, 
 and the stinging and fire of gunpowder at the window. 
 
 Transfixed with fear. Cissy cast a despairing glance around 
 her. Ah, the bell-rope ! In another instant she had 
 grasped it frantically in her hands. 
 
 All the fear, indignation, horror, sympathy, and wild ap- 
 peal for help that had arisen helplessly in her throat and 
 yet remained unuttered, now seemed to thrill through her 
 fingers and the tightened rope, and broke into frantic voice 
 in the clanging metal above her. The whole chapel, the 
 whole woodland, the clear, moonlit sky above were filled 
 with its alarming accents. It shrieked, implored, protested, 
 summoned, and threatened, in one ceaseless outcry, seeming 
 
194 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 to roll over and over — as, indeed, it did — in leaps and 
 bounds that shook the belfry. Never before, even in the 
 blows of the striking surges, had the bell of the Tamalpais 
 clamored like that! Once she heard above the turmoil the 
 shaking of the door against the bolt that still held firmly ; 
 once she thought she heard Seabright's voice calling to her ; 
 once she thought she smelled the strong smoke of burning 
 grass. But she kept on, until the window was suddenly 
 darkened by a figure, and Brother Seab right, leaping in, 
 caught her in his arms as she was reeling, fainting, but still 
 clinging to the rope. But his strong presence and some 
 powerful magnetism in his touch restored her. 
 
 " You have heard all ! " he said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then, for your aunt's sake, for your dead father's sake, 
 forget all. That wretched man has fled with his wounded 
 hirelings — let his sin go with him. But the village is 
 alarmed — the brethren may be here any moment ! Neither 
 question nor deny what I shall tell them. Pear nothing. 
 God will forgive the silence that leaves the vengeance to 
 His hands alone ! " Voices and footsteps were heard ap- 
 proaching the chapel. Brother Seabright significantly pressed 
 her 'hand and strode towaTd the ,door. Deacon Shadwell 
 was first to enter. 
 
 " You here — Brother Seabright ! What has happened ? " 
 
 " God be praised ! " said Brother Seabright cheerfully, 
 " nothing of consequence. The danger is over ! Yet, but 
 for the courage and presence of mind of Sister Appleby 
 a serious evil might have been done." He paused, and 
 with another voice turned half interrogatively towards her. 
 " Some children, or a passing tramp, had carelessly thrown 
 matches in the underbrush, and they were ignited beside the 
 chapel. Sister Appleby, chancing to return here for " — 
 
 " For my fan," said Cissy with a timid truthfulness of 
 accent. 
 
AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 195 
 
 '' Found herself unable to cope with it, and it occurred to 
 her to give the alarm you heard. I happened to be passing 
 and was first to respond. Happily the flames had made but 
 little headway, and were quickly beaten down. It is all 
 over now. But let us hope that the speedy clearing out of 
 the underbrush and the opening of the woods around the 
 chapel will prevent any recurrence of the alarm of to-night." 
 
 That the lesson thus reiterated by Brother Seabright was 
 effective, the following extract, from the columns of the 
 " Whale Point Gazette," may not only be offered as evi- 
 dence, but may even give the cautious reader further light 
 on the episode itself : — 
 
 Strange Discovery at West Woodlands. — The Tamal- 
 PAis Mystery Again. 
 
 The improvements in the clearing around the Sidon 
 Chapel at West Woodlands, undertaken by the Rev. James 
 Seabright, have disclosed another link in the mystery which 
 surrounded the loss of the Tamalpais some years ago at 
 Whale Mouth Point. It will be remembered that the boat 
 containing Adams & Co.'s treasure, the Tamalpais' first 
 officer, and a crew of four men was lost on the rocks shortly 
 after leaving the ill-fated vessel. None of the bodies were 
 ever recovered, and the treasure itself completely baffled the 
 search of divers and salvers. A lidless box bearing the 
 mark of Adams & Co., of the kind in which their treasure 
 was usually shipped, was yesterday found in the woods be- 
 hind the chapel, half buried in brush, bark, and windfalls. 
 There were no other indications, except the traces of a camp- 
 fire at some remote period, probably long before the building 
 of the chapel. But how and when the box was transported 
 to the upland, and by whose agency, still remains a matter 
 of conjecture. Our reporter who visited the Kev. Mr. Sear- 
 
1&6 AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS 
 
 bright, who has lately accepted the regular ministry of the 
 chapel, was offered every facility for information, but it was 
 evident that the early settlers who were cognizant of the 
 fact — if there were any — are either dead or have left the 
 vicinitj. 
 
THE HOME-COMING OE JIM WILKES 
 
 I 
 
 EoE many minutes there had been no sound but the 
 monotonous drumming of the rain on the roof of the coach, 
 the swishing of wheels through the gravelly mud, and the 
 momentary clatter of hoofs upon some rocky outcrop in the 
 road. Conversation had ceased ; the light-hearted young 
 editor in the front seat, more than suspected of dangerous 
 levity, had relapsed into silence since the heavy man in the 
 middle seat had taken to regarding the ceiling with osten- 
 tatious resignation, and the thin female beside him had 
 averted her respectable bonnet. An occasional lurch of the 
 coach brought down a fringe of raindrops from its eaves that 
 filmed the windows and shut out the sodden prospect 
 already darkening into night. There had been a momen- 
 tary relief in their hurried dash through Summit Springs, 
 and the spectacle of certain newly arrived county delegates 
 crowding the veranda of its one hotel ; but that was now 
 three miles behind. The young editor's sole resource was to 
 occasionally steal a glance at the face of the one passenger 
 who seemed to be in sympathy with him, but who was too 
 far away for easy conversation. It was the half-amused, 
 half-perplexed face of a young man who had been for some 
 time regarding him from a remote corner of the coach with 
 an odd mingling of admiring yet cogitating interest, which, 
 however, had never extended to any further encouragement 
 than a faint sad smile. Even this at last faded out in the 
 growing darkness ; the powerful coach lamps on either side 
 that flashed on the wayside objects gave no light to the 
 
198 THE HOME-COMING OP JIM WILKES 
 
 interior. Everybody was slowly falling asleep. Suddenly 
 everybody woke up to find that the coach was apparently 
 standing still ! When it had stopped no one knew ! Tlie 
 young editor lowered his window. The coach lamp on that 
 side was missing, but nothing was to be seen. In the dis- 
 tance there appeared to be a faint splashing. 
 
 " Well," called out an impatient voice from the box 
 above, " what do you make it ? " It was the authoritative 
 voice of Yuba Bill, the driver, and everybody listened 
 eagerly for the reply. 
 
 It came faintly from the distance and the splashing. 
 "Almost four feet here, and deepening as you go." 
 
 " Dead water ? " 
 
 " No — back water from the Fork." 
 
 There was a general movement towards the doors and 
 windows. The splashing came nearer. Then a light flashed 
 on the trees, the windows, and — two feet of yellow water 
 peacefully flowing beneath them ! The thin female gave a 
 slight scream. 
 
 " There 's no danger," said the expressman, now wading 
 towards them with the coach lamp in his hand. " But 
 we '11 have to pull round out of it and go back to the 
 Springs. There 's no getting past this break to-night." 
 
 " Why did n't you let us know this before? " said the 
 heavy man indignantly from the window. 
 
 " Jim," said the driver with that slow deliberation which 
 instantly enforced complete attention. 
 
 " Yes, Bill." 
 
 '•' Have you got a spare copy of that reg'Jar bulletin that 
 the Stage Kempany issoos every ten minutes to each pas- 
 senger to tell 'em where we are, how far it is to the next 
 place, and wot 's the state o' the weather gin'rally ? " 
 
 " No ! " said the expressman grimly, as he climbed to the 
 box, " there 's not one left. Why ? " 
 
 " Cos the Emperor of Chiny 's inside wantin' one ! 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 199 
 
 Hoop ! Keep your seats down there ! G'lang ! " — the 
 whip cracked, there was a desperate splashing, a backward 
 and forward jolting of the coach, the glistening wet flanks 
 and tossing heads of the leaders seen for a moment opposite 
 the windows, a sickening swirl of the whole body of the 
 vehicle as if parting from its axles, a long straight dragging 
 pull, and — presently the welcome sound of hoofs once 
 more beating the firmer ground. 
 
 "Hi! Hold up— driver!" 
 
 It was the editor's quiet friend who was leaning from 
 the window. 
 
 " Is n't Wilkes's ranch just off here ? " 
 
 " Yes, half a mile along the ridge, I reckon," returned 
 the driver shortly. 
 
 " Well, if you 're not going on to-night, I 'll get off and 
 stop there." 
 
 " I reckon your head 's level, stranger," said Bill approv- 
 ingly ; " for they 're about chock full at the Springs 
 House." 
 
 To descend, the passenger was obliged to pass out by the 
 middle seat and before the young editor. As he did so he 
 cast a shy look on him and, leaning over, said hesitatingly, 
 in a lower voice : " I don't think you will be able to get in 
 at the Springs Hotel. If — if — you care to come with 
 me to — to — the ranch, I can take care of you." 
 
 The young editor — a man of action — paused for an 
 instant only. Then seizing his bag, he said promptly : 
 " Thank you," and followed his newly found friend to the 
 ground. The whip cracked, the coach rolled away. 
 
 " You know Wilkes ? " he said. 
 
 " Ye-ee-s. He 's my father. " 
 
 "Ah," said the editor cheerfully, "then you're goin^ 
 home?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 It was quite light in the open, and the stpianger, after a 
 
200 THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 
 
 moment's survey of the prospect — a survey that, howevjr, 
 seemed to be characterized by his previous hesitation, — ■ 
 said : " This way," crossed the road, and began to follow 
 a quite plain but long disused wagon track along the slope. 
 His manner was still so embarrassed that the young editor, 
 after gayly repeating his thanks for his companion's thought- 
 ful courtesy, followed him in silence. At the end of ten 
 minutes they had reached some cultivated fields and orchards ; 
 the stranger brightened, although still with a preoccupied 
 air, quickened his pace, and then suddenly stopped. When 
 the editor reached his side he was gazing with apparently 
 still greater perplexity upon the level, half-obliterated, and 
 blackened foundations of what had been a large farmhouse. 
 
 " Why, it 's been burnt down ! " he said thoughtfully. 
 
 The editor stared at him ! Burnt down it certainly had 
 been, but by no means recently. Grasses were already 
 springing up from the charred beams in the cellar ; vines 
 were trailing over the fallen chimneys ; excavations, already 
 old, had been made among the ruins. 
 
 " When were you here last ? " the editor asked ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 " Five years ago," said the stranger abstractedly. 
 
 " Five years ! — and you knew nothing of this ? " 
 
 " No. I was in Tahiti, Australia, Japan, and China all 
 the time." 
 
 " And you nev«r heard from home ? " 
 
 "No. You see I quo'led with the old man, and ran 
 away." 
 
 " And you did n't write to tell them you were com- 
 
 ing r 
 
 ">>> 
 
 " No." He hesitated, and then added : '■' Never thought 
 
 coming till I saw you." 
 
 " Me ? " 
 
 " Yes ; you and — the high water." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," said the young editor sharply, 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 201 
 
 "that you brought me — an utter stranger to you — out of 
 that coach to claim the hospitality of a father you had 
 quarreled with — had n't seen for five years, and did n't 
 know if he would receive you ? " 
 
 " Yes, — you see that 's just lohy I did it. You see, I 
 reckoned my chances would be better to see him along with a 
 cheerful, chipper fellow like you. I did n't of course, kal- 
 kilate on this," he added, pointing dejectedly to the ruins. 
 
 The editor gasped ; then a sudden conception of the un- 
 rivaled absurdity of the situation flashed upon him, — of 
 his passively following the amiable idiot at his side in order 
 to contemplate, in the falling rain and lonely night, a heap 
 of sodden ruins, while the coach was speeding to Summit 
 Springs and shelter, and, above all, the reason why he was 
 invited, — until, putting down his bag, he leaned upon his 
 stick, and laughed until the tears came to his eyes. At 
 which his companion visibly brightened. 
 
 " I told you so," he said cheerfully ; " I knew you 'd be 
 able to take it — and the old man — in that way, and that 
 would have fetched him round." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake! don't talk any more," said the 
 editor, wiping his eyes, " but try to remember if you ever 
 had any neighbors about here where we can stay to-night. 
 We can't walk to Summit Springs, and we can't camp out 
 on these ruins." 
 
 " There did n't use to be anybody nearer than the 
 Springs." 
 
 " But that was five years ago, you say," said the editor 
 impatiently ; " and although your father probably moved 
 &,way after the house burned down, the country 's been 
 thickly settled since then. That field has been lately 
 planted. There must be another house beyond. Let's 
 follow the trail a little farther." 
 
 They tramped along in silence, this time the editor lead- 
 ii,\g. Presently he stopped. 
 
202 THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 
 
 " There, 's a house — in there — among the trees," he 
 said, pointing. " Whose is it ? " 
 
 The stranger shook his head dubiously. Although ap- 
 parently unaffected by any sentimental consideration of his 
 father's misfortune, the spectacle of the blackened ruins of 
 the homestead had evidently shaken his preconceived plans. 
 
 " It was n't there in tny time," he said musingly. 
 
 " But it is there in our time," responded the editor 
 briskly, " and / propose to go there. From what you have 
 told me of your father — even if his house were still stand- 
 ing — our chances of getting supper and a bed from him 
 would be doubtful ! I suppose," he continued as they 
 moved on together, " you left him in anger — live ye^rs 
 ago ? " 
 
 " Ye-es." 
 
 " Did he say anything as you left ? " 
 
 " I don't remember anything particular that he said." 
 
 "Well, what did he rfo .? " 
 
 " Shot at me from the window ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said the young editor softly. 
 
 Nevertheless they walked on for some time in silence. 
 Gradually a white picket-fence came into view at right 
 angles with the trail, and a man appeared walking leisurely 
 along what seemed to be the regularly traveled road, beside 
 it. The editor, who had taken matters in his own hands, 
 without speaking to his companion, ran quickly forward and 
 accosted the stranger, briefly stating that he had left the 
 stagecoach with a companion, because it was stopped by 
 high water, and asked, without entering into further details, 
 to be directed to some place where they could pass the 
 night. The man quite as briefly directed him to the house 
 among the trees, which he said was his own, and then 
 leisurely pursued his way along the road. The young editor 
 ran back to his companion, who had halted in the dripping 
 shadow of a sycamore, and recounted his good fortune. 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 203 
 
 " I did n't," he added, " say anything ahout your father. 
 You can make inquiries yourself later." 
 
 " I reckon there won't be much need of that," returned 
 his companion. " You did n't take much note o' that man, 
 did you ? " 
 
 "Not much," said the editor. 
 
 " Well, that 's my father, and I reckon that new house 
 must be his." 
 
 n 
 
 The young editor was a little startled. The man he had 
 just quitted certainly was not dangerous looking, and yet, 
 remembering what his son had said, there were homicidal 
 possibilities. 
 
 "Look here," he said quickly, "he's not there now. 
 Why don't you seize the opportunity to slip into the house, 
 make peace with your mother and sisters, and get them to 
 intercede with your father when he returns ? " 
 
 " Thar ain't any mother ; she died afore I left. My 
 sister Almiry 's a little girl — though that 's four years ago 
 and mebbee she 's growed. My brothers and me did n't pull 
 together much. But I was thinkin' that mebbee you might 
 go in thar for me first, and see how the. land lays; then 
 sorter tell 'em 'bout me in your takin', chipper, easy way ; 
 make 'em laugh, and when you 've squared 'em — I '11 be 
 hangin' round outside — you kin call me in. Don't you 
 see ? " 
 
 The young editor did see. Ridiculous as the proposal 
 would have seemed to him an hour ago, it now appeared 
 practical, and even commended itself to his taste. His 
 name was well known in the county and his mediation 
 might be effective. Perhaps his vanity was slightly flattered 
 by his companion's faith in him ; perhaps he was not free 
 from a certain human curiosity to know the rest ; perhaps 
 
204 THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 
 
 he was more interested than he cared to confess in the help- 
 less home-seeker beside him. 
 
 " But you must tell me something more of yourself, and 
 your forttine and prospects. They '11 he sure to ask 
 questions." 
 
 " Mebbee they won't. But you can say I 've done well 
 — made my pile over in Australia, and ain't comin' on 
 them. Remember — say I ' ain't comin' on them ' ! " 
 
 The editor nodded, and then, as if fearful of letting his 
 present impulse cool, ran off towards the house. 
 
 It was large and respectable looking, and augured well 
 for the present fortunes of the Wilkeses. The editor had 
 determined to attack the citadel on its weaker, feminine 
 side, and when the front door was opened to his knock, 
 asked to see Miss Almira Wilkes. The Irish servant 
 showed him into a comfortable looking sitting-room, and in 
 another moment with a quick rustle of skirts in the passage 
 a very pretty girl impulsively entered. Erom the first 
 flash of her keen blue eyes the editor — a fair student of 
 the sex — conceived the idea that she had expected some- 
 body else ; from the second that she was an arrant flirt, 
 and did not intend to be disappointed. This much was in 
 his favor. 
 
 Spurred by her provoking eyes and the novel situation, 
 he stated his business with an airy lightness and humor 
 that seemed to justify his late companion's estimate of his 
 powers. But even in his' cynical attitude he was unpre- 
 pared for the girl's reception of his news. He had ex- 
 pected some indignation or even harshness towards this 
 man whom he was beginning to consider as a kind of detri- 
 mental outcast or prodigal, but he was astounded at the 
 complete and utter indifference — the frank and heartless un- 
 concern — with which she heard of his return. When she 
 had followed the narrator rather than his story to the end, 
 she languidly called her brothers from the adjoining room. 
 
THE HOME-COJ.IING OF JIM WILKES 205 
 
 •' This gentleman, Mr. Grey, of the ' Argus,' has come 
 across Jim — and Jim is calculating to come here and sep 
 father." 
 
 The two brothers stared at Grey, slightly shrugged their 
 shoulders with the same utter absence of fraternal sym- 
 pathy or concern which the girl had shown, and said 
 nothing. 
 
 " One moment," said Grey a little warmiy ; " I have no 
 desire to penetrate family secrets, but would you mind 
 telling me if there is any grave reason why he should not 
 come ? Was there any scandalous conduct, unpardonable 
 offense — let us even say any criminal act on his part 
 which makes his return to this roof impossible ? " 
 
 The three looked at each other with a dull surprise that 
 ended in a vacant, wondering smile. 
 
 " No, no," they said in one voice, — " no ; only " — 
 
 " Only what ? " asked Grey impatiently. 
 
 " Dad just hates him ! " 
 
 " Like pizon," smiled Almira. 
 
 The young editor rose with a slight increase of color. 
 
 " Look here," said the girl, whose dimples had deepenea 
 as she keenly surveyed him, as if detecting some amorous 
 artifice under his show of interest for her brother, " Dad's 
 gone down to the sheepfold and won't be back for an hour, 
 Yo' might bring — yo' friend — in." 
 
 "He ain't wan tin', any thing ? Ain't dead broke — nor 
 nothin', eh ? " suggested one of the brothers dubiously. 
 
 Grey hastened to assure them of Jim's absolute solvency, 
 and even enlarged considerably on his Australian fortune. 
 They looked relieved, but not interested. 
 
 " Go and fetch him," said the witch, archly hovering near 
 Grey with dancing eyes ; " and mind yo' come back, too ! " 
 
 Grey hesitated a moment and then passed out in the 
 dark porch. A dripping figure emerged from the trees 
 opposite. It was Jim. 
 
206 THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 
 
 " Your sister and brothers will see you," said Grey 
 hastily, to avoid embarrassing details. " He won't be here 
 for an hour. But I 'd advise you to make the most of 
 your time, and get the good will of your sister." 
 
 He would have drawn back to let the prodigal pass in 
 alone, but the man appealingly seized his arm; and Grey 
 was obliged to reenter with him. He noticed, however, 
 that he breathed hard. 
 
 They turned slightly towards their relative, but did not 
 offer to shake hands with him, nor did he with them. He 
 sat down sideways on an unoffered chair. 
 
 " The old house got burnt ! " he said, wiping his lips, 
 and then drying his wet hair with his handkerchief. 
 
 As the remark was addressed to no one in particular it 
 was some seconds before the elder brother replied, " Yes." 
 
 " Almira 's growed." 
 
 Again no one felt called upon to answer, and Almira 
 glanced archly at the young editor as if he might have 
 added, " and improved." 
 
 " You 've done well ? " returned one of the brothers 
 tentatively. 
 
 " Yes, I 'm all right," said Jim. 
 
 There was another speechless interval. Even the con- 
 versational Grey felt under some unhallowed spell of silence 
 that he could not break. 
 
 " I see the old well is there yet," said Jim, wiping his 
 lips again. 
 
 " Where dad was once goin' to chuck you down for 
 givin' him back talk," said the younger brother casually. 
 
 To Mr. Grey's relief and yet astonishment, Jim burst 
 into a loud laugh and rubbed his legs. 
 
 " That 's so — how old times do come back ! " 
 
 " And," said the bright-eyed Almira, " there 's that old 
 butternut-tree that you shinned up one day when we set 
 the hounds on you. Goodness ! how you scooted J " 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 207 
 
 Again Jim laughed loudly and nodded. " Yes, the same 
 old butternut. How you do remember, Almira ! " This 
 admiringly. 
 
 " And don't you remember Delia Short ? " continued 
 Almira, pleased at the admiration, and perhaps a little 
 exalted at the singular attention which the young editor 
 was giving to those cheerful reminiscences. " She, you 
 know, you was reg'larly sick after, so that we always 
 allowed she kinder turned yo' brain afore you went away ! 
 Well ! all the while you were courtin' her it appears she 
 was secretly married to Jo — yo' friend — Jo Stacy. Lord ! 
 there was a talk about that ! and about yo' all along 
 thinkin' yo' had chances ! Yo' friend here," with an arch 
 glance at Grey, " who 's alius puttin' folks in the news- 
 papers, orter get a hold on that ! " 
 
 Jim again laughed louder than the others, and rubbed his 
 lips. Grey, however, offered only the tribute of a peculiar 
 smile and walked to the window. 
 
 " You say your father will return in an hour ? " he said, 
 turning to the elder brother. 
 
 " Yes, unless he kept on to Watson's." 
 
 " Where ? " said Jim suddenly. 
 
 It struck Grey that his voice had changed, or rather 
 that he was now speaking for the first time in his natural 
 tone. 
 
 " Watson's, just over the bridge," explained his brother. 
 " If he went there he won't be back till ten." 
 
 Jim picked up his India rubber cape and hat, said, " I 
 reckon I '11 just take a tiirn outside until he gets back," 
 and walked towards the door. 
 
 None of his relatives moved nor seemed to offer any 
 opposition. 
 
 Grey followed him quickly. " I '11 go with you," he 
 said. 
 
 " No," returned Jim with singular earnestness. " Yon 
 
208 THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 
 
 stay here and keep 'em np cheerful like this. They 're 
 doing all this for you, you know ; Almiry '& just this chipper 
 only on your account." 
 
 Seeing the young man was inflexible, Grey returned 
 grimly to the room, hut not until he had noticed, with some 
 surprise, that Jim, immediately on leaving the house, darted 
 off at a quick run through the rain and darkness. Preoc- 
 cupied with this, and perhaps still influenced by the tone of 
 the previous conversation, he did not respond readily to the 
 fair Almira's conversational advances, and was speedily left 
 to a seat by the fire alone. At the end of ten minutes he 
 regretted he had eyer come ; when half an hour had passed 
 he wondered if he had not better try to reach the Summit 
 alone. With a lapse of an hour he began to feel uneasy at 
 Jim's prolonged absence in spite of the cold indifierence of 
 the household. Suddenly he heard stamping in the porch, 
 a muttered exclamation, and the voices of the two brothers 
 in the hall. "Why, dad! what's up? Yo' look half 
 drowned ! " 
 
 The door opened upon the sodden, steaming figure of the 
 old man whom he had met on the road, followed by the 
 two sons. But he was evidently more occupied and pos 
 sessed by some mental passion than by his physical discom- 
 fort. Yet strong and dominant over both, he threw off his 
 wet coat and waistcoat as he entered, and marched directly 
 to the fire. Utterly ignoring the presence of a stranger, he 
 suddenly turned and faced his family. 
 
 " Half drowned — yes ! and I might have been hull 
 drowned for that matter. The back water of the Pork is 
 all over Watson's, and the bridge is gone. I stumbled 
 onto this end of it in the dark, and went off, head first into 
 twenty feet of water ! Tried to fight ray way out, but the 
 current was agin me. I 'd bin down twice, and was going 
 down for the third time, when somebody grabbed me by 
 the scruff o' my neck and under the arm — so ! — and 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES 209 
 
 swam me to the bank ! When I scrambled up I sez : ' I 
 can't see your face,' sez I, ' I don't know who you are/ sez 
 I, ' but I reckon you 're a white man and clear grit,' sez I, 
 ' and there 's my hand on it ! ' And he grabs it and sez, 
 ' We 're quits,' and scooted out o' my sight. And," con- 
 tinued the old man, staring at their faces and raising his 
 voice almost to a scream, " who do you think it was ? 
 Why, that sneahin' hound of a brother of yours — Jim ! 
 Jim ! the scallawag that I booted outer the ranch five years 
 ago, crawlin', writhin' back again after all these years to 
 insult his old father's gray hairs ! And some of you — by 
 God — once thought that / was hard on him ! " 
 
 The sun was shining brightly the next morning as the 
 young editor halted the up coach in the now dried hollow. 
 As he was clambering to a seat beside the driver, his elbow 
 was jogged at the window. Looking down he saw the face 
 of Jim. 
 
 " We had a gay talk last night, remembering old times, 
 did n't we ? " said the prodigal cheerfully. 
 
 " Yes, but — where are you going now ? " 
 
 " Back to Australia, I reckon ! But it was mighty good 
 to drop in on the old homestead once more ! " 
 
 " Rather," said the editor, clinging to the window and 
 lingering in mid-air to the manifest impatience of Yuba 
 Bill ; " but I say — look here ! — were you quite satis- 
 fied ? " 
 
 Jim's hand tightened around the young editor's as he 
 answered cheerfully, " Yes." But his face was turned 
 away from the window. 
 
A PEOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 I 
 
 The steamer Silveropolis was sharply and steadily cleav- 
 ing the broad, placid shallows of the Sacramento Eiver. 
 A large wave like an eagre, diverging from its bow, was 
 extending to either bank, swamping the tules and threaten- 
 ing to submerge the lower levees. The great boat itself — 
 a vast but delicate structure of airy stories, hanging galler- 
 ies, fragile colonnades, gilded cornices, and resplendent 
 frescoes — was throbbing throughout its whole perilous 
 length with the pulse of high pressure and the strong 
 monotonous beat of a powerful piston. Moods of foam 
 pouring from the high paddle-boxes on either side and re- 
 uniting in the wake of the boat left behind a track of 
 dazzling whiteness, over which trailed two dense black ban- 
 ners flung from its lofty smokestacks. 
 
 Mr. Jack Hamlin had quietly emerged from his state- 
 room on deck and was looking over the guards. His hands 
 were resting lightly on his hips over the delicate curves of 
 his white waistcoat, and he was whistling softly, possibly 
 some air to which he had made certain card-playing passen- 
 gers dance the night before. He was in comfortable case, 
 and his soft brown e}'es under their long lashes were veiled 
 with gentle tolerance of all things. He glanced lazily 
 along the empty hurricane deck forward ; he glanced lazily 
 down to the saloon deck below him. Far out against the 
 guards below him leaned a young girl. Mr. Hamlin knitted 
 his brows slightly. 
 
 He remembered her at once. She had come on board 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 211 
 
 that morning with one Ned Stratton, a brother gambler, but 
 neither a favorite nor intimate of Jack's. From certain 
 indications in the pair, Jack had inferred that she was 
 some foolish or reckless creature whom " Ed " had " got on 
 a string," and was spiriting away from her friends and 
 family. With the abstract morality of this situation Jack 
 was not in the least concerned. For himself he did not 
 indulge in that sort of game ; the inexperience and vacilla- 
 tions of innocence were apt to be bothersome, and besides, a 
 certain modest doubt of his own competency to make an 
 original selection had always made him prefer to confine 
 his gallantries to the wives of men of greater judgment 
 than himself who had. But it suddenly occurred to him 
 that he had seen Stratton quickly slip off the boat at the 
 last landing stage. Ah ! that was it ; he had cast away 
 and deserted her. It was an old story. Jack smiled. 
 But he was not greatly amused with Stratton. 
 
 She was very pale, and seemed to be clinging to the net- 
 work railing, as if to support herself, although she was gaz- 
 ing fixedly at the yellow glancing current below, which 
 seemed to be sucked down and swallowed in the paddle- 
 box as the boat swept on. It certainly was a fascinating 
 sight — this sloping rapid, hurrying on to bury itself under 
 the crushing wheels. For a brief moment Jack saw how 
 they would seize anything floating on that ghastly incline, 
 whirl it round in one awful revolution of the beating pad- 
 dles, and then bury it, broken and shattered out of all 
 recognition, deep in the muddy undercurrent of the stream 
 behind them. 
 
 She moved away presently with an odd, stiff step, chaf- 
 ing her gloved hands together as if they had become stiff- 
 ened, too, in her rigid grasp of the railing. Jack leisurely 
 watched her as she moved along the narrow strip of deck. 
 She was not at all to his taste, — a rather plump girl with 
 a rustic manner and a great deal of brown hair under her 
 
212 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 straw hat. She might have looked better had she not been 
 so haggard. When she reached the door of the saloon she 
 paused, and then, turning suddenly, began to walk quickly 
 back again. As she neared the spot where she had been 
 standing her pace slackened, and when she reached the rail- 
 ing she seemed to relapse against it in her former helpless 
 fashion. Jack became lazily interested. Suddenly she 
 lifted her head and cast a quick glance around and above 
 her. In that momentary lifting of her face Jack saw her 
 expression. Whatever it was, his own changed instantly ; 
 the next moment there was a crash on the lower deck. It 
 was Jack who had swung himself over the rail and dropped 
 ten feet, to her side. But not before she had placed one 
 foot in the meshes of the netting and had gripped the rail- 
 ing for a spring. 
 
 The noise of Jack's fall might have seemed to her be- 
 wildered fancy as a part of her frantic act, for she fell for- 
 ward vacantly on the railing. But by this time Jack had 
 grasped her arm as if to help himself to his feet. 
 
 " I might have killed myself by that foolin', might n't 
 I ? " he said cheerfully. 
 
 The sound of a voice so near her seemed to recall to her 
 dazed sense the uncompleted action his fall had arre-sted. 
 She made a convulsive bound towards the railing, but Jack 
 held her fast. 
 
 " Don't," he said in a low voice, — " don't, it won't pay. 
 It 's the sickest game that ever was played by man or 
 woman. Come here ! " 
 
 He drew her towards an empty state rooin whose door 
 was swinging on its hinges a few feet from them. She was 
 trembling violently; he half led, half pushed her into the 
 room, closed the door, and stood with his back against it as 
 she dropped into a chair. She looked at him vacantly ; 
 the agitation she was undergoing inwardly had left her no 
 sense of outward perception. 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 213 
 
 " You know Stratton would be awfully riled," continued 
 Jack easily. " He 's just stepped out to see a friend and 
 got left by the fool boat. He '11 be along by the next 
 steamer, and you 're bound to meet him in Sacramento." 
 
 Her staring eyes seemed suddenly to grasp his meaning. 
 But to his surprise she burst out with a certain hysterical 
 'lesperation, " No ! no ! Never ! never again ! Let me 
 pass ! I must go," and struggled to regain the door. 
 Jack, albeit singularly relieved to know that she shared his 
 private sentiments regarding Stratton, nevertheless resisted 
 her. Whereat she suddenly turned white, reeled back, 
 and sank in a dead faint in the chair. 
 
 The gambler turned, drew the key from the inside of the 
 door, passed out, locking it behind him, and walked lei- 
 surely into the main saloon. 
 
 " Mrs. Johnson," he said gravely, addressing the stew- 
 ardess, a tall mulatto, with his usual winsome supremacy 
 over dependents and children, " you '11 oblige me if you '11 
 corral a few smelling salts, vinaigrettes, hairpins, and vio- 
 let powder, and unload them in deck stateroom No. 257. 
 There 's a lady " — 
 
 " A lady, Marse Hamlin ? " interrupted the mulatto, 
 with an archly significant flash of her white teeth. 
 
 " A lady," continued Jack with unabashed gravity, " in 
 a sort of conniption fit. A relative of mine ; in fact, ^ 
 niece, my only sister's child. Had n't seen each other for 
 ten years, and it was too much for her." 
 
 The woman glanced at him with a mingling of incredu- 
 lous belief but delighted obedience, hurriedly gathered a 
 few articles from her cabin, and followed him to No. 257. 
 The young girl was still unconscious. The stewardess ap- 
 plied a few restoratives with the skill of long experience, 
 and the young girl opened her eyes. They turned vacantly 
 from the stewardess to Jack with a look of half recognition 
 and half frightened inquiry. 
 
214 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 " Yes," said Jack, addressing the eyes, although ostenta- 
 tiously speaking to Mrs. Johnson, " she 'd only just come 
 by steamer to 'Frisco and was n't expecting to see me, and 
 we dropped right into each other here on the boat. And 
 I have n't seen her since she was so high. Sister Mary 
 ought to have warned me by letter ; but she was always a 
 slouch at letter-writing. There, that '11 do, Mrs. Johnson. 
 She 's coming round ; I reckon I can manage the rest. 
 But you go now and tell the purser I want one of those 
 inside staterooms for my niece, ^ my niece, you hear, — 
 so that you can be near her and look after her." 
 
 As the stewardess turned obediently away the young girl 
 attempted to rise, but Jack checked her. 
 
 " No," he said, almost brusquely ; " you and I have 
 some talking to do before she gets back, and we 've no time 
 for foolin'. You heard what I told her just . now ! Well,, 
 it 's got to be as I said, you sabe. As long as you 're or. 
 this boat you 're my niece, and my sister Mary's child. As 
 I have n't got any sister Mary, you don't run any risk of 
 falling foul of her, and you ain't taking any one's place. 
 That settles that. Now, do you or do you not want to see 
 that man again ? Say yes, and if he 's anywhere above 
 ground I'll yank him over to you as soon as we touch 
 shore." He had no idea of interfering with his colleague's 
 amours, but he had determined to make Stratton pay for 
 the bother their slovenly sequence had caused him. Yet 
 he was relieved and astonished by her frantic gesture of 
 indignation and abhorrence. " No ? " he repeated grimly. 
 " Well, that settles that. Now, look here ; quick, before 
 she comes — do you want to go back home to your 
 friends ? " 
 
 But here occurred what he had dreaded most and proba- 
 bly thought he had escaped. She had stared at him, at 
 the stewardess, at the walls, with abstracted, vacant, and 
 bewildered, but always undimmed and unmoistened eyes. 
 
A PEOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 216 
 
 A sudden convulsion shook her whole frame, her blank ex- 
 pression broke like a shattered mirror, she threw her hands 
 over her eyes and fell forward with her face to the back of 
 her chair in an outburst of tears. 
 
 Alas for Jack ! with the breaking up of those sealed 
 fountains came her speech also, at first disconnected and 
 incoherent, and then despairing and passionate. No ! she 
 had no longer friends or home ! She had lost and dis- 
 graced them ! She had disgraced. /lej'seZ/.' There was no 
 home for her but the grave. Why had Jack snatched her 
 from it ? Then bit by bit, she yielded up her story, — a 
 story decidedly commonplace to Jack, uninteresting, and 
 even irritating to his fastidiousness. She was a schoolgirl 
 (not even a convent girl, but the inmate of a Presbyterian 
 female academy at Napa. Jack shuddered as he remem- 
 bered to have once seen certain of the pupils walking with 
 a teacher), and she lived with her married sister. She had 
 seen Stratton while going to and fro on the San Francisco 
 boat ; she had exchanged notes with him, had met him se- 
 cretly, and finally consented to elope with him to Sacra- 
 mento, only to discover when the boat had left the wharf 
 the real nature of his intentions. Jack listened with infi- 
 nite weariness and inward chafing. He had read all this 
 before in cheap novelettes, in the police reports, in the 
 Sunday papers ; he had heard a street preacher declaim 
 against it, and warn young women of the serpent-like wiles 
 of tempters of the Stratton variety. But even now 
 Jack failed to recognize Stratton as a serpent, or indeed 
 anything but a blundering cheat and clown, who had left 
 his dirty 'prentice work on his (Jack's) hands. But the 
 girl was helpless and, it seemed, homeless, all through a 
 certain desperation of feeling which, in spite of her tears, 
 he could not but respect. That momentary shadow of 
 death had exalted her. He stroked his mustache, pulled 
 down his white waistcoat, and let her cry, without saying 
 
216 A PROTEGEE 01 JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 anything. He did not know that this most ohjectionahle 
 phase of her misery was her salvation and his own. 
 
 But the stewardess would return in a moment. 
 
 " You 'd better tell me what to call you," he said quietly, 
 " I ought to know my niece's first name." 
 
 The girl caught her breath, and between two sobs said, 
 '• Sophonisba." 
 
 Jack winced. It seemed only to need this last senti- 
 mental touch to complete the idiotic situation. 
 
 " I '11 call you Sophy," he said hurriedly and with an 
 effort. " And now look here ! You are going in that cabin 
 with Mrs. Johnson where she can look after you, but I can't. 
 So I '11 have to take your word, for I 'm not going to give 
 you away before Mrs. Johnson, that you won't try that 
 foolishness — you know what I mean — before I see you 
 again. Can I trust you ? " 
 
 With her head still bowed over the chair back, she 
 murmured slowly somewhere from under her disheveled 
 hair: "Yes." 
 
 " Honest Injin ? " adjured Jack gravely. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The shuffling step of the stewardess was heard slowly 
 •pproaching. 
 
 " Yes," continued Jack abruptly, slightly lifting his voice, 
 as Mrs. Johnson opened the door, — " yes, if you 'd only 
 had some of those spearmint drops of your aunt Rachel's 
 that she always gave you when these fits came on you 'd 
 have been all right inside of five minutes. Aunty was no 
 slouch of a doctor, was she ? Dear me, it only seems 
 yesterday since I saw her. You were just playing round 
 her knee like a kitten on the back porch. ' How time does 
 fly ! But here 's Mrs. Johnson coming to take you iu. 
 How rouse up, Sophy, and just hook yourself on to Mrs. 
 Juhnson on that side, and we '11 toddle along." 
 
 The young girl put back her heavy hair, and with her 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMUN'S 217 
 
 face still averted submitted to be helped to her feet by 
 the kindly stewardess. Perhaps something homely sym- 
 pathetic and nurselike in the touch of the mulatto gave 
 her assurance and confidence, for her head lapsed quite 
 naturally against the vpoman's shoulder, and her face was 
 partly hidden as she moved slowly along the deck. Jack 
 accompanied them to the saloon and the inner stateroom 
 door. A few passengers gathered curiously near, as much 
 attracted by the unusual presence of Jack Hamlin in such 
 a procession as by the girl herself. 
 
 " You '11 look after her specially, Mrs. Johnson," said 
 Jack, in unusually deliberate terms. " She 's been a good 
 deal petted at home, and my sister perhaps has rather spoilt 
 her. She 's pretty much of a child still, and you '11 have 
 to humor her. Sophy," he continued, with ostentatious 
 playfulness, directing his voice into the dim recesses of the 
 stateroom, " you '11 just think Mrs. Johnson 's your old 
 nurse, won't you ? Think it 's old Katy, hey ? " 
 
 To his great consternation the girl approached trem- 
 blingly from the inner shadow. The faintest and saddest of 
 smiles for a moment played around the corners of her drawn 
 mouth and tear-dimmed eyes as she held out her hand and 
 
 " God bless you for being so kind." 
 
 Jack shuddered and glanced quickly round. But luckily 
 no one heard this crushing sentimentalism, and the next 
 moment the door closed upon her and Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 It was past midnight, and the moon was riding high over 
 the narrowing yellow river, when Jack again stepped out 
 on deck. He had just left the captain's cabin, and a small 
 social game with the officers, which had served to some 
 extent to vaguely relieve his irritation and their pockets. 
 He had presumably quite forgotten the incident of the 
 afternoon, as he looked about him, and complacently took 
 in the quiet beauty of the night. 
 
218 A PEOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 The low banks on either side offered no break to the 
 uninterrupted level of the landscape, through which the 
 river seemed to wind only as a race track for the rushing 
 boat. Every fibre of her vast but fragile bulk quivered 
 under the goad of her powerful engines. There was no 
 other movement but hers, no other sound but this mon- 
 strous beat and panting ; the whole tranquil landscape 
 seemed to breathe and pulsate with her ; dwellers in the 
 tules, miles away, heard and felt her as she passed, and it 
 seemed to Jack, leaning over the railing, as if the whole river 
 swept like a sluice through her paddle-boxes. 
 
 Jack had quite unconsciously lounged before that part of 
 the railing where the young girl had leaned a few hours 
 ago. As he looked down upon the streaming yellow mill- 
 race below him he noticed — what neither he nor the girl 
 had probably noticed before — that a space of the top bar 
 of the railing was hinged, and could be lifted by withdraw- 
 ing a small bolt, thus giving easy access to the guards. He 
 was still looking at it, whistling softly, when footsteps 
 approabhed. 
 
 " Jack," said a lazy voice, " how 's sister Mary ? " 
 
 " It 's a long time since you 've seen her only child. 
 Jack, ain't it ? " said a second voice ; " and yet it sort o' 
 seems to me somehow that I've seen her before." 
 
 Jack recognized the voice of two of his late companions 
 at the card-table. His whistling ceased ; so also dropped 
 every trace of color and expression from his handsome face. 
 But he did not turn, and remained quietly gazing at the 
 water. 
 
 " Aunt Rachel, too, must be getting on in years. Jack," 
 continued the first speaker, halting behind Jack. 
 
 " And Mrs. Johnson does not look so much like Sophy's 
 old nurse as she used to," remarked the second, following 
 his example. Still Jack remained unmoved. 
 
 " You don't seem to be interested,. Jack," continued the 
 first speaker. " What are you looking at ? " 
 
A PHOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 219 
 
 Without turning his head the gambler replied, " Looking 
 at the boat ; she 's booming along, just chawing up and 
 spitting, out the river, ain't she ? Look at that sweep of 
 water going under her paddle-wheels," he continued, unbolt- 
 ing the rail and lifting it to allow the two men to peer 
 curiously over the guards as he pointed to the murderous 
 incline beneath them ; " a man would n't stand much show 
 who got dropped into it. How these paddles would just 
 snatch him bald-headed, pick him up, and slosh him round 
 and round, and then sling him out down there in such a 
 shape that his own father would n't know him." 
 
 " Yes," said the first speaker, with an ostentatious little 
 laugh, " but all that ain't telling us how sister Mary is." 
 
 " No," said the gambler, slipping into the opening with 
 a white and rigid face in which nothing seemed living but 
 the eyes, — " no ; but it 's telling you how two d — d fools 
 who didn't know when to shut their mouths might get 
 them shut once and forever. It 's telling you what might 
 happen to two men who tried to ' play ' a man who did n't 
 care to be 'played,' — a man who didn't care much what 
 he did, when he did it, or how he did it, but would do 
 what he 'd set out to do — even if in doing it he went to 
 hell with the men he sent there." 
 
 He had stepped out on the guards, beside the two men, 
 closing the rail behind him. He had placed his hands on 
 their shoulders ; they had both gripped his arms ; yet, 
 viewed from the deck above, they seemed at that moment 
 an amicable, even fraternal group, albeit the faces of the 
 three were dead white in the moonlight. 
 
 " I don't think I 'm so very much interested in sister 
 Mary," said the first speaker quietly, after a pause. 
 
 "And I don't seem to think so much of aunt Kachel as 
 I did,"' said his companion. 
 
 " I thought you would n't," said Jack, coolly reopening 
 the rail and stepping back again. " It all depends upon the 
 way you look at those things. Good-night." 
 
22C A PKOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 The three men paused, shook each other's hands silently, 
 and separated, Jack sauntering slowly back to his state- 
 room. 
 
 II 
 
 The educational establishment of Mrs. Mix and Madame 
 Bance, situated in the best quarter of Sacramento and 
 patronized by the highest state oifioials and members of the 
 clergy, was a pretty if not an imposing edifice. Although 
 surrounded by a high white picket- fence and entered through 
 a heavily boarded gate, its balconies festooned with jasmine 
 and roses, and its spotlessly draped windows as often graced 
 ■with fresh, flower-like faces, were still plainly and provok- 
 ingly visible above the ostentatious spikes of the pickets. 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Jack Hamlin, who had six months before 
 placed his niece, Miss Sophonisba Brown, under its pro- 
 tecting care, felt a degree of uneasiness, even bordering on 
 timidity, which was new to that usually self-confident man. 
 Bemembering how his first appearance had fluttered this 
 dovecote and awakened a severe suspicion in the minds of 
 the two principals, he had discarded his usual fashionable 
 attire and elegantly fitting garments for a rough homespun 
 suit, supposed to represent a homely agriculturist, but which 
 had the effect of transforming him into an adorable Strephon, 
 infinitely more dangerous in his rustic shepherd-like sim- 
 plicity. He had also shaved off his silken mustache for the 
 same prudential reasons, but had only succeeded in uncov- 
 ering the delicate lines of his handsome mouth, and so 
 absurdly reducing his apparent years that his avuncular 
 pretensions seemed more preposterous than ever ; and when 
 he had rung the bell and was admitted by a severe Irish 
 waiting-maid, his momentary hesitation and half-humorous 
 diffidence had such an unexpected effect upon her, that it 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 221 
 
 seemed doubtful if he would be allowed to pass beyond the 
 vestibule. 
 
 " Shure, miss," she said in a whisper to an under teacher, 
 " there 's wan at the dhure who calls himself ' Mister ' 
 Hamlin, but av it is not a young lady maskeradin' in her 
 brother's clothes oim very much mistaken ; and av it 's a 
 boy, one of the pupil's brothers, shure ye might put a 
 dhress on him when you take the others out for a walk, 
 and he'd pass for the beauty of the whole school." 
 
 Meantime the unconscious subject of this criticism was 
 pacing somewhat uneasily tip and down the formal recep- 
 tion room into which he had been finally ushered. Its 
 farther end was filled by an enormous parlor organ, a 
 number of music books, and a cheerfully variegated globe. 
 A large presentation Bible, an equally massive illustrated 
 volume on the Holy Land, a few landscapes in cold, bluish 
 milk and water colors, and rigid heads in crayons — the 
 work of pupils — were presumably ornamental. An im- 
 posing mahogany sofa and what seemed to be a dispropor- 
 tionate excess of chairs somewhat coldly furnished the room. 
 Jack had reluctantly made up his mind that, if Sophy was 
 accompanied by any one, he would be obliged to kiss her 
 to keep up his assumed relationship. As she entered the 
 room with Miss Mix, Jack advanced and soberly saluted 
 her on the cheek. But so positive and apparent was the 
 gallantry of his presence, and perhaps so suggestive of some 
 pastoral flirtation, that Miss Mix, to Jack's surprise, winced 
 perceptibly and became stony. But he was still more sur- 
 prised that the young lady herself shrank half uneasily from 
 his lips, and uttered a slight exclamation. It was a new- 
 experience to Mr. Hamlin. 
 
 But this somewhat mollified Miss Mix, and she slightly 
 relaxed her austerity. She was glad to be able to give the 
 best accounts of Miss Brown, not only as regarded her 
 studies, but as to her conduct and deportment. Eeally, 
 
222 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 with the present freedom of manners and laxity of home 
 discipline in California, it was gratifying to meet a young 
 lady who seemed to value the importance of a proper de- 
 corum and hehavior, especially towards the opposite sex. 
 Mr. Hamlin, although her guardian, was perhaps too young 
 to understand and appreciate this. To this inexperience 
 she must also attribute the indiscretion of his calling dur- 
 ing school hours and without preliminary warning. She 
 trusted, however, that this informality could be overlooked 
 after consultation with Madame Bance, but in the mean 
 time, perhaps for half an hour, she must withdraw Miss 
 Brown and return with her to the class. Mr. Hamlin 
 could wait in this public room, reserved especially for 
 visitors, until they returned. Or, if he cared to accompany 
 one of the teachers in a formal inspection of the school, 
 she added doubtfully, with a glance at Jack's distracting 
 attractions, she would submit this also to Madame Bance. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," returned Jack hurriedly, as a 
 depressing vision of the fifty or sixty scholars rose before 
 his eyes, " but I 'd rather not. I mean, you know, I 'd 
 just as lief stay here alone. I would n't have called any- 
 way, don't you see, only I had a day off, — and — and — 
 I wanted to talk with my niece on family matters." 
 
 He did not say that he had received a somewhat dis- 
 tressful letter from her asking him to come ; a new instinct 
 made him cautious. 
 
 Considerably relieved by Jack's unexpected abstention, 
 which seemed to spare her pupils the distraction of his 
 graces. Miss Mix smiled more amicably and retired with her 
 charge. In the single glance he had exchanged with Sophy 
 he saw that, although resigned and apparently self-con- 
 trolled, she still appeared thoughtful and melancholy. She 
 bad improved in appearance and seemed more refined and 
 less rustic in her school dress, but he was conscious of the 
 eame distinct separation of her personality (which was un- 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLlN'S 223 
 
 interesting to him) from the sentiment that had impelled 
 him. to visit her. She was possibly still hankering after that 
 fellow Stratton, in spite of her protestations to the contrary ; 
 perhaps she wanted to go back to her sister, although a' 
 had declared she would die first, and had always refused to 
 disclose her real name or give any clue by which he could 
 have traced her relations. She would cry, of course ; he 
 almost hoped that she would not return alone ; he half re- 
 gretted he had come. She still held him only by a single 
 quality of her nature, — the desperation she had shown on 
 the boat; that was something he understood and respected. 
 
 He walked discontentedly to the window and looked out ; 
 he walked discontentedly to the end of the room and stopped 
 before the organ. It was a fine instrument ; he could see 
 that with an admiring and experienced eye. He was alone 
 in the room ; in fact, quite alone in that part of the house 
 which was separated from the class-rooms. He would dis- 
 turb no one by trying it. And if he did, what then ? He 
 smiled a little recklessly, slowly pulled off his gloves, and 
 sat down before it. 
 
 He played cautiously at first, with the soft pedal down. 
 The instrument had never known a strong masculine hand 
 before, having been fumbled and friveled over by softly 
 incompetent, feminine fingers. But presently it began to 
 thrill under the passionate hand of its lover, and carried 
 away by his one innocent weakness, Jack was launched 
 upon a sea of musical reminiscences. Scraps of church 
 music, Puritan psalms of his boyhood ; dying strains from 
 sad, forgotten operas, fragments of oratorios and symphonies, 
 but chiefly phrases from old masses heard at the missions of 
 San Pedro and Santa Isabel, swelled up from his loving and 
 masterful fingers. He had finished an Agnus Dei ; the for- 
 mal room was pulsating with divine aspiration ; the rascal's 
 hands were resting listlessly on the keys, his brown lashes 
 lifted, in an effort of memory, tenderly towards the ceiling. 
 
224 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 Suddenly, a subdued murmur of applause and a slight 
 rustle behind him recalled him to himself again. He 
 wheeled his chair quickly round. The two principals of 
 the school and half a dozen teachers were standing gravely 
 behind him, and at the open door a dozen curled and frizzled 
 youthful heads peered in eagerly, but half restrained by 
 their teachers. The relaxed features and apologetic attitude 
 of Madame Bance and Miss Mix showed that Mr. Hamlin 
 had unconsciously achieved a triumph. 
 
 He might not have been as pleased to know that his 
 extraordinary performance had solved a difficulty, effaced 
 his other graces, and enabled them to place him on the 
 moral pedestal of a mere musician, to whom these eccentri- 
 cities were allowable and privileged. He shared the admi- 
 ration extended by the young ladies to their music teacher, 
 ■which was always understood to be a sexless enthusiasm 
 and a contagious juvenile disoi'der. It was also a fine adver- 
 tisement for the organ. Madame Bance smiled blandly, 
 improved the occasion by thanking Mr. Hamlin for having 
 given the scholars a gratuitous lesson on the capabilities of 
 the instrument, and was glad to be able to give Miss Brown 
 a half-holiday to spend with her accomplished relative. 
 Miss Brown was even now upstairs, putting on her hat and 
 mantle. Jack was relieved. Sophy vi^ould not attempt to 
 cry on the street. 
 
 Nevertheless, when they reached it and the gate closed 
 behind them, he again became uneasy. The girl's clouded 
 face and melancholy manner were not promising. It also 
 occurred to him that he might meet some one who knew 
 him and thus compromise her. This was to be avoided at 
 all hazards. He began with forced gayety : — 
 
 " Well, now, where shall we go ? " 
 
 She slightly raised her tear-dimmed eyes. 
 
 " Where you please — I don't care." 
 
 " There is n't any show going on here, is there ? " 
 
A PEOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 225 
 
 He had a vague idea of a circus or menagerie — himself 
 behind her in the shadow of the box. 
 
 " I don't know of any." 
 
 " Or any restaurant — or cake shop ? " 
 
 " There 's a place where the girls go to get candy on 
 Main Street. Some of them are there now." 
 
 Jack shuddered ; this was not to be thought of. 
 
 " But where do you walk ? " 
 
 " Up and down Main Street." 
 
 " Where everybody can see you ? " said Jack, scandal- 
 ized. 
 
 The girl nodded. 
 
 They walked on in silence for a few moments. Then a 
 bright idea struck Mr. Hamlin. He suddenly remembered 
 that in one of his many fits of impulsive generosity and 
 largess he had given to an old negro retainer — whose wife 
 had nursed him through a dangerous illness — a house and 
 lot on the river bank. He had been told that they had 
 opened a small laundry or wash-house. It occurred to him 
 that a stroll there and a call upon " Uncle Hannibal and 
 Aunt Chloe " combined the propriety and respectability due 
 to the young person he was with, and the requisite secrecy 
 and absence of publicity due to himself. He at once sug- 
 gested it. 
 
 " You see she was a mighty good woman, and you ought 
 to know her, for she was my old nurse " — 
 
 The girl glanced at him with a sudden impatience. 
 
 " Honest Injin," said Jack solemnly ; " she did nurse 
 me through my last cough. I ain't playing old famiij 
 gags on you now." 
 
 " Oh, dear," burst out the girl impulsively, " I do wish 
 you would n't ever play them again. I wish you would n't 
 pretend to be my uncle ; I wish you would n't make me 
 pass for your niece. It is n't right. It 's all wrong. Oh, 
 don't you know it 's all wiong, and can't come righ^ any 
 
226 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 way ? It 's just killing me. I can't stand it. I 'd rathei 
 you 'd say what I am and how I came to you and how you 
 pitied me." 
 
 They had luckily entered a narrow side street, and the 
 sobs which shook the young girl's frame were unnoticed. 
 For a few moments Jack felt a horrible conviction stealing 
 over him, that in his present attitude towards her he was 
 not unlike that hound Stratton, and that, however innocent 
 his own intent, there was a sickening resemblance to the 
 situation on the boat in the base advantage he had taken of 
 her friendlessness. He had never told her that he was a 
 gambler like Stratton, and that his peculiar infelix reputa- 
 tion among women made it impossible for him to assist 
 her, except by stealth or the deception he had practiced, 
 without compromising her. He who had for years faced 
 the sneers and half-frightened opposition of the world dared 
 not tell the truth to this girl, from whom he expected 
 nothing and who did not interest him. He felt he was 
 almost slinking at her side. At last he said desperately : — 
 
 " But I snatched them bald-headed at the organ, Soph}', 
 did n't I ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said the girl, " you played beautifully and 
 grandly. It was so good of you, too. For I think, some- 
 how, Madame Banco had been a little suspicious of you, 
 but that settled it. Everybody thought it was fine, and 
 some thought it was your profession. Perhaps," she added 
 timidly, " it is." 
 
 " I play a good deal, I reckon," said Jack, with a grim 
 humor which did not, however, amuse him. 
 
 " I wish I could, and make money by it," said the girl 
 eagerly. Jack winced, but she did not notice it as she 
 went on hurriedly : " That 's what I wanted to talk to you 
 about. I want to leave the school and make my own 
 living. Anywhere where people won't know me and where 
 I can be alone and work. I shall die here among these 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 227 
 
 girls — with all their talk of their friends and their — 
 sisters, — and their questions about you." 
 
 " Tell 'em to dry up," said Jack indignantly. " Take 
 'em to the cake shop and load 'em up with candy and ice 
 cream. That '11 stop their mouths. You 've got money, — 
 you got my last remittance, did n't you ? " he repeated 
 quickly. " If you did n't, here's " — his hand was already 
 in his pocket when she stopped him with a despairing 
 gesture. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I got it all. I have n't touched it. I don't 
 want it. For I can't live on you. Don't you understand, 
 
 — I want to work. Listen, — I can draw and paint. 
 Madame Bance says I do it well ; my drawing-master says 
 I might in time take portraits and get paid for it. And 
 even now I can retouch photographs and make colored 
 miniatures from them. And," she stopped and glanced at 
 Jack half timidly, " I 've — done some already." 
 
 A glow of surprised relief suffused the gambler. Not so 
 much at this astonishing revelation as at the change it 
 seemed to effect in her. Her pale blue eyes, made paler 
 by tears, cleared and brightened under their swollen lids 
 like wiped steel ; the lines of her depressed mouth straight- 
 ened and became firm. Her voice had lost its hopeless 
 monotone. 
 
 " There 's a shop in the next street, — a photographer's, 
 
 — where they have one of mine in their windows," she 
 went on, reassured by Jack's unaffected interest. " It 'r 
 only round the corner, if you care to see." 
 
 ■ Jack assented ; a few paces farther brought them to the 
 corner of a narrow street, where they presently turned into 
 a broader thoroughfare and stopped before the window of 
 a photographer. Sophy pointed to an oval frame, contain- 
 ing a portrait painted on porcelain. Mr. Hamlin was 
 startled. Inexperienced as he was, a certain artistic incli- 
 nation told him it was good, although it is to be feared he 
 
228 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 would have been astonished even if it had been ■worse. 
 The mere fact that this headstrong country girl, who had 
 run away with a cur like Stratton, should be able to do 
 anything else took him by surprise. 
 
 " I got ten dollars for that," she said hesitatingly, " and 
 I could have got more for a larger one, but I had to do 
 that in my room, during recreation hours. If I had more 
 time and a place where I could work " — she stopped 
 timidly and looked tentatively at Jack. But he was al- 
 ready indulging in a characteristically reckless idea of com- 
 ing back after he had left Sophy, buying the miniature at 
 an extravagant price, and ordering half a dozen more at 
 extraordinary figures. Here, however, two passers-by, 
 stopping ostensibly to look in the window, but really at- 
 tracted by the picturesque spectacle of the handsome young 
 rustic and his schoolgirl companion, gave Jack such a fright 
 that he hurried Sophy away again into the side street. 
 
 " There 's nothing mean about that picture business," he 
 said cheerfully ; " it looks like a square kind of game," 
 and relapsed into thoughtful silence. 
 
 At which Sophy, the ice of restraint broken, again burst 
 into passionate appeal. If she could only go away somewhere 
 — where she saw no one but the people who would buy 
 her work, who knew nothing of her past nor cared to know 
 who were her relations ! She would work hard ; she knew 
 she could support herself in time. She would keep the 
 name he had given her, — it was not distinctive enough to 
 challenge any inquirj', — but nothing more. She need not 
 assume to be his niece ; .he would always be her kind 
 friend, to whom she owed everything, even her miserable 
 life. She trusted still to his honor never to seek to know 
 her real name, nor ever to speak to her of that man if he 
 ever met him. It would do no good to her or to them ; it 
 might drive her, for she was not yet quite sure of herself, 
 to do that which she had promised him never to do again. 
 
A PKOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 229 
 
 There was no threat, impatience, or acting in her voice, 
 but he recognized the same dull desperation he had once 
 heard in it, and her eyes, which a moment before were 
 quick and mobile, had become fixed and set. He had no 
 iflea of trying to penetrate the foolish secret of her name 
 and relations ; he had never had the slightest curiosity, but 
 it struck him now that Stratton might at any time force it 
 upon him. The only way that he could prevent it was to 
 let it be known that, for unexpressed reasons, he would 
 shoot Stratton " on sight." This would naturally restrict 
 any verbal communication between them. Jack's ideas of 
 morality were vague, but his convictions on points of honor 
 were singularly direct and positive. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Meantime Hamlin and Sophy were passing the outskirts 
 of the town ; the open lots and cleared spaces were giving 
 way to grassy stretches, willow copses, and groups of cotton- 
 wood and sycamore ; and beyond the level of yellowing 
 tules appeared the fringed and raised banks of the river. 
 Half tropical looking cottages with deep verandas — the 
 homes of early Southern pioneers — took the place of in- 
 complete blocks of modern houses, monotonously alike. In 
 these sylvan surroundings Mr. Hamlin's picturesque rus- 
 ticity looked less incongruous and more Arcadian ; the 
 young girl had lost some of her restraint with her confi- 
 dences, and lounging together side by side, without the 
 least consciousness of any sentiment in their words or ac- 
 tions, they nevertheless contrived to impress the spectator 
 with the idea that they were a charming pa,ir of pastoral 
 lovers. So strong was this impression that, as they ap- 
 proached aunt Chloe's laundry, a pretty rose-covered cottage 
 with an enormous whitewashed barn-like extension in the 
 rear, the black proprietress herself, standing at the door, 
 
230 A I'KOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 called her husband to come and look at them, and flashed 
 her white teeth in such unqualified commendation and pat- 
 ronage that Mr. Hamlin, withdrawing himself from Sophy's 
 side, instantly charged down upon them. 
 
 " If you don't slide the lid hack over that grinning box 
 of dominoes of yours and take it inside, I '11 just carry 
 Hannibal off with me," he said in a quick whisper, with a 
 half-wicked, half-mischievous glitter in his brown eyes. 
 " That young lady 's — a lady — do you understand ? No 
 riffraff friend of mine, but a regular nun — a saint — do 
 you hear ? So you just stand back and let her take a 
 good look round, and rest herself, until she wants you." 
 " Two black idiots. Miss Brown," he continued cheerfully 
 in a higher voice of explanation, as Sophy approached, 
 " who think because one of 'em used to shave me and the 
 other saved my life they 've got a right to stand at their 
 humble cottage door and frighten horses ! " 
 
 So great was Mr. Hamlin's ascendency over his former 
 servants that even this ingenious pleasantry was received 
 with every sign of affection and appreciation of the humor- 
 ist, and of the profound respect for his companion. Aunt 
 Chloe showed them effusively into her parlor, a small but 
 scrupulously neat and sweet-smelling apartment, inordi- 
 nately furnished with a huge mahogany centre-table and 
 chairs, and the most fragile and meretricious china and 
 glass ornaments on the mantel. But the three jasmine- 
 edged lattice windows opened upon a homely garden of 
 old-fashioned herbs and flowers, and their fragrance filled 
 the room. The cleanest and starchiest of curtains, the 
 most dazzling and whitest of tidies and chair-covers, be- 
 spoke the adjacent laundry ; indeed, the whole cottage 
 seemed to exhale the odors of lavender soap and freshly 
 ironed linen. Yet the cottage was large for the couple and 
 their assistants. 
 
 °' Dar was two front rooms on de next flo' dat dey never 
 
A PKJTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 231 
 
 used," explained Aunt Chloe ; " friends allowed dat dey 
 could let 'em to white folks, but dey had always been done 
 kep' for Marse Hamlin, ef he ever wanted to be wid his 
 old niggers again." 
 
 Jack looked up quickly with a brightened face, made a 
 sign to Hannibal, and the two 'left the room together. 
 
 When he came through the passage a few moments later, 
 there was a sound of laughter in the parlor. He recognized 
 the full, round, lazy, chuckle of Aunt Chloe, but there was a 
 higher girlish ripple that he did not know. He had never 
 heard Sophy laugh before. Nor, when he entered, had he 
 ever seen her so animated. She was helping Chloe set the 
 table, to that lady^s intense delight at " Missy's " girlish 
 housewifery. She was picking the berries fresh from the 
 garden, buttering the Sally Lunn, making the tea, and ar- 
 ranging the details of the repast with apparently no trace of 
 her former discontent and unhappiness in either face or 
 manner. He dropped quietly into a chair by the window, 
 and, with the homely scents of the garden mixing with the 
 honest odors of Aunt Chloe's cookery, watched her with an 
 amusement that was as pleasant and grateful as it was 
 strange and unprecedented. 
 
 " Now, den," said Aunt Chloe to her husband, as she 
 put the finishing touch to the repast in a plate of dough- 
 nuts as exquisitely brown and shining as Jack's eyes were 
 at that moment, " Hannibal, you just come away, and let 
 dem two white quality chillens have dey tea. Dey 's done 
 starved, shuah." And with an approving nod to Jack, she 
 bundled her husband from the room. 
 
 The door closed ; the young girl began to pour out the 
 tea, but Jack remained in his seat by the window. It was 
 a singular sensation which he did not care to disturb. It 
 was no new thing for Mr. Hamlin to find himself at a tete- 
 k-tgte repast with the admiring and complaisant fair ; there 
 was a cabinet . Darticulier in a certain San Francisco restau- 
 
232 A PEOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 rant which had listened to their various vanities and profes^ 
 sions of undying faith ; he might have recalled certain 
 festal rendezvous with a widow whose piety and impeccable 
 reputation made it a moral duty for her to come to him 
 only in disguise ; it was but a few days before that he had 
 been let privately into the palatial mansion of a high offi- 
 cial for a midnight supper with a foolish wife. It was not 
 strange, therefore, that he should be alone here, secretly, 
 with a member of that indirect, loving sex. But that he 
 should be sitting there in a cheap negro laundry with abso- 
 lutely no sentiment of any kind towards the heav3'-haired, 
 freckled-faced country schoolgirl opposite him, from whom 
 he sought and expected nothing, and enjoying it without 
 scorn of himself or his companion, to use his own expres- 
 sion, " got him." Presently he rose and sauntered to the 
 table with shining eyes. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of Aunt Chloe's shebang ? " 
 he asked smilingly. 
 
 " Oh, it 's so sweet and cles.i and homelike," said the 
 girl quickly. 
 
 At any other time he would have winced at the last ad- 
 jective. It struck him now as exactly the word. 
 
 " Would you like to live here, if you could ? " 
 
 Her face brightened. She put the teapot down and 
 gazed fixedly at Jack. 
 
 " Because you can. Look here. I spoke to Hannibal 
 about it. You can have the two front rooms if you want 
 to. One of 'em is big enough and light enough for a studio 
 to do your work in. You tell that nigger what you want 
 to put in 'em, and he 's got my orders to do it. I told him 
 about your painting ; said you were the daughter of an old 
 friend, you know. Hold on, Sophy ; d — n it all, I 've got 
 to do a little gilt-edged lying ; but I let you out of the 
 niece business this time. Yes, from this moment I 'm no 
 longer your uncle. I renounce the relationship. It's 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 233 
 
 hard," continued the rascal, " after all these years and con- 
 sidering sister Mary's feelings ; but, as you seem to wish 
 it, it must be done." 
 
 Sophy's steel-blue eyes softened. She slid her long brown 
 hand across the table and grasped Jack's. He returned the 
 pressure quickly and fraternally, even to that half-shamed 
 half-hurried evasion of emotion peculiar to all brothers. 
 This was also a new sensation ; but he liked it. 
 
 " You are too — too good, Mr. Haniliu," she said quietly. 
 
 " Yes," said Jack cheerfully, " that 's what 's the matter 
 with me. It is n't natural, and if I keep it up too long it 
 brings on my cough." 
 
 Nevertheless, they were happy in a boy and girl fashion, 
 eating heartily, and, I fear, not always decorously ; scram- 
 bling somewhat for the strawberries, and smacking their 
 lips over the Sally Lunii. Meantime, it was arranged that 
 Mr. Hamlin should inform Miss Mix that Sophy would 
 leave school at the end of the term, only a few days hence, 
 and then transfer herself to lodgings with some old family 
 servants, where she could more easily pursue her studies in 
 her own profession. She need not make her place of abode 
 a secret, neither need she court publicity. She would write 
 to Jack regularly, informing him of her progress, and he 
 would visit her whenever he could. Jack assented gravely 
 to the further proposition that he was to keep a strict 
 account of all the moneys he advanced her, and that she 
 was to repay him out of the proceeds of her first pictures. 
 He had promised also, with a slight mental reservation, not 
 to buy them all himself, but to trust to her success with the 
 public. They were never to talk of what had happened 
 before ; she was to begin life anew. Of such were their 
 confidences, spoken often together at the same moment, and 
 with their mouths full. Only one thing troubled Jack : he 
 had not yet told her frankly who he was and what was his 
 reputation. He had hitherto carelessly supposed she would 
 
234 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 learn it, and in truth had cared little if she did ; but it wai 
 evident from her conversation that day that by some miracle 
 she was still in ignorance. Unable to tell her himself, he 
 had charged Hannibal to break it to her casually after he 
 was gone. 
 
 " You can let me down easy if you like, but you 'd better 
 make a square deal of it while you 're about it. And," 
 Jack had added cheerfully, " if she thinks after that she 'd 
 better drop me entirely, you just say that if she wishes to 
 stay, you '11 see that I don't ever come here again. And 
 you keep your word about it too, you black nigger, or I '11 
 be the first to thrash you." 
 
 Nevertheless, when Hannibal and Aunt Chloe returned 
 
 to clear away the repast, they were a harmonious party ; 
 
 albeit Mr. Hamlin seemed more content to watch them 
 
 silently from his chair by the window, a cigar between his 
 
 lips, and the pleasant distraction of the homely scents and 
 
 sounds of the garden in his senses. Allusion having been 
 
 made again to the morning performance of the organ, he was 
 
 implored by Hannibal to diversify his talent by exercising 
 
 it on an old guitar which had passed ioto that retainer's 
 
 possession with certain clothes of his master's when they 
 
 separated. Mr. Hamlin accepted it dubiously ; it had 
 
 twanged under his volatile iingers in more pretentious but 
 
 less innocent halls. But presently he raised his tenor voice 
 
 and soft brown lashes to the humble ceiling and sang. 
 
 "Way down upon the Swanee River," 
 
 discoursed Jack plaintively, — 
 
 " Far, far away, 
 Thar 's whar my heart is turning ever, 
 Thar's whar the old folks stay." 
 
 The two dusky scions of an emotional race, that had been 
 wont to sweeten its toils and condone its wrongs with music, 
 sat wrapt and silent, swaying with Jack's voice until they 
 could burst in upon the chorus. The jasmine vines trilled 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 235 
 
 softly with the afternoon breeze ; a slender yellow-hammer^ 
 perhaps emulous of Jack, swung himself from an cute' 
 spray and peered curiously into the room ; and a few 
 neighbors, gathering at their doors and windows, remarked 
 that " after all, when it came to real singing, no one could 
 beat those d — d niggers." 
 
 The sun was slowly sinking in the rolling gold of the 
 river when Jack and Sophy started leisurely back through 
 the broken shafts of light, and across the far-stretching 
 shadows of the cottonwoods. In the midst of a lazy silence 
 they were presently conscious of a distant monotonous 
 throb, the booming of the up boat on the river. The 
 sound came nearer — passed them, the boat itself hidden 
 by the trees ; but a trailing cloud of smoke above cast a 
 momentary shadow upon their path. The girl looked up 
 at Jack with a troubled face. Mr. Hamlin smiled reassur- 
 ingly ; but in that instant he had made up his mind that it 
 was his moral duty to kill Mr. Edward Stratton. 
 
 IV 
 
 For the next two months Mr. Hamlin was profession- 
 ally engaged in San Francisco and Marysville, and the 
 transfer of Sophy from the school to her new home was 
 eflPected without his supervision. From letters received by 
 him during that interval, it seemed that the young girl had 
 entered energetically upon her new career, and that her 
 artistic efforts were crowned with success. There were a 
 few Indian-ink sketches, studies made at school and ex- 
 panded in her own " studio," which were eagerly bought 
 as soon as exhibited in the photographer's window, — 
 notably by a florid and inartistic bookkeeper, an old negro 
 woman, a slangy stable boy, a gorgeously dressed and 
 painted female, and the bearded second officer of a river 
 steamboat, without hesitation and without comment. This, 
 
236 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 as Mr. Hamlin intelligently pointed out in a letter to 
 Sophy, showed a general and diversified appreciation on the 
 part of the puhlic. Indeed, it emboldened her, in the 
 retouching of photographs, to oifer sittings to the subjects, 
 and to undertake even large crayon copies, which had re- 
 sulted in her getting so many orders that she was no longer 
 obliged to sell her drawings, but restricted herself solely to 
 profitable portraiture. The studio became known ; even 
 its quaint surroundings added to the popular interest, and 
 the originality and independence of the young painter 
 helped her to a genuine success. All this she wrote to 
 Jack. Meantime Hannibal had assured him that he had 
 carried out his instructions by informing " Missy " of his 
 old master's real occupation and reputation, but that the 
 young lady had n't " took no notice." Certainly there was 
 no allusion to it in her letters, nor any indication in 
 her manner. Mr. Hamlin was greatly, and it seemed to 
 him properly, relieved. And he looked forward with con- 
 siderable satisfaction to an early visit to old Hannibal's 
 laundry. 
 
 It must be confessed, also, that another matter, a simple 
 affair of gallantry, was giving him an equally unusual, un- 
 expected, and absurd annoyance, which he had never before 
 permitted to such trivialities. In a recent visit to a fash- 
 ionable watering-place he had attracted the attention of 
 what appeared to be a respectable, matter-of-fact woman, 
 the wife of a recently elected rural senator. She was, how- 
 ever, singularly beautiful, and as singularly cold. It was 
 perhaps this quality, and her evident annoyance at some 
 unreasoning prepossession which Jack's fascinations exer- 
 cised upon her, that heightened that reckless desire for risk 
 and excitement which really made up the greater part of 
 his gallantry. Nevertheless, as was his habit, he had 
 treated her always with a charming unconsciousness of his 
 own attentions, and a frankness that seemed inconsistent 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 237 
 
 with any insidious approach. In fact, Mr. Hamlin seldom 
 made love to anybody, but permitted it to be made to him 
 with good-humored deprecation and cheerful skepticism. 
 He had once, quite accidentally, while riding, come upon 
 her when she had strayed from her own riding party, and 
 had behaved with such unexpected circumspection and pro- 
 priety, not to mention a certain thoughtful abstraction, — 
 it was the day he had received Sophy's letter, — that she 
 was constrained to make the first advances. This led to a 
 later innocent rendezvous, in which Mrs. Camperly was 
 impelled to confide to Mr. Hamlin the fact that her hus- 
 band had really never understood her. Jack listened with 
 an understanding and sympathy quickened by long experi- 
 ence of such confessions. If anything had ever kept him 
 from marriage it was this evident incompatibility of the 
 conjugal relations with a just conception of the feminine 
 soul and its aspirations. 
 
 And so eventually this yearning for sympathy dragged 
 Mrs. Camperly's clean skirts and rustic purity after Jack's 
 heels into various places and various situations not so clean, 
 rural, or innocent ; made her miserably unhappy in his ab- 
 sence, and still more miserably happy in his presence ; 
 impelled her to lie, cheat, and bear false witness ; forced 
 her to listen with mingled shame and admiration to narrow 
 criticism of his faults, from natures so palpably inferior to 
 his own that her moral sense was confused and shaken ; 
 gave her two distinct lives, but so unreal and feverish that, 
 with a recklessness equal to his own, she was at last ready 
 to merge them both into his. For the first time in his life 
 Mr. Hamlin found himself bored at the beginning of an 
 affair, actually hesitated, and suddenly disappeared from San 
 Francisco. 
 
 He turned up a few days later at Aunt Chloe's door, 
 with various packages of presents and quite the air of a 
 returning father of a family, to the intense delight of that 
 
238 A PKOTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 lady and to Sophy's proud gratification. For he was lost 
 in a profuse, boyish admiration of her pretty studio, and in 
 wholesome reverence for her art and her astounding pro- 
 gress. They were also amused at his awe and evident 
 alarm at the portraits of two ladies, her latest sitters, that 
 were still on the easels, and, in consideration of his half- 
 assumed, half-real bashfulness, they turned their faces to 
 the wall. Then his quick, observant eye detected a photo- 
 graph of himself on the mantel. 
 
 " What 's that ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 Sophy and Aunt Chloe exchanged meaning glances. 
 Sophy had, as a surprise to Jack, just completed a hand- 
 some crayon portrait of himself from an old photograph 
 furnished by Hannibal, and the picture was a:t that moment 
 in the window of her former patron, — the photographer. 
 
 " Oh, dat ! Miss Sophy jus' put it dar fo' de lady sit- 
 ters to look at to gib 'em a pleasant 'spresshion," said Aunt 
 Chloe, chuckling. 
 
 Mr. Hamlin did not laugh, but quietly slipped the pho- 
 tograph into his pocket. Yet, perhaps, it had not been 
 recognized. 
 
 Then Sophy proposed to have luncheon in the studio ; it 
 was quite " Bohemian " and fashionable, and many artists 
 did it. But to her great surprise Jack gravely objected, 
 preferring the little parlor of Aunt Chloe, the vine-fringed 
 windows, and the heavy respectable furniture. He thought 
 it was profaning the studio, and then — anybody might 
 come in. This unusual circumspection amused them, and 
 was believed to be part of the boyish awe with which Jack 
 regarded the models, the draperies, and the studies on the 
 walls. Certain it was that he was much more at his ease 
 in the parlor, and when he and Sophy were once more alone 
 tt their Ineal, although he ate nothing, he had regained all 
 his old naivete. Presently he leaned forward and placed 
 his hand fraternally on her arm. Sophy looked up with an 
 equally frank smile. 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 239 
 
 " You know I promised to let bygones be bygones, eh ? 
 Well, I intended it, and more, — I intended to make 'ero 
 so. I told you I 'd never speak to you again of that man 
 who tried to run you off, and I intended that no one else 
 should. Well, as he was the only one who could talk -^ 
 that meant him. But the cards are out of my hands ; the 
 game 's been played without me. Tor he 's dead ! " 
 
 The girl started. Mr. Hamlin's hand passed caressingly 
 twice or thrice along her sleeve with a peculiar gentleness 
 that seemed to magnetize her. 
 
 " Dead," he repeated slowly. " Shot in San Diego by 
 another man, but not by me. I had him tracked as far as 
 that, and had my eyes on him, but it wasn't my deal. 
 But there," he added, giving her magnetized arm a gentle 
 and final tap as if to awaken it, " he 's dead, and so is the 
 whole story. And now we '11 drop it forever." 
 
 The girl's downcast eyes were fixed on the table. 
 
 " But there 's my sister," she murmured. 
 
 " Did she know you went with him ? " asked Jack. 
 
 " No ; but she knows I ran away." 
 
 " Well, you ran away from home to study how to be an 
 artist, don't you see ? Some day she '11 find out you are one. ; 
 that settles the whole thing." 
 
 They were both quite cheerful again when Aunt Chloe 
 returned to clear the table, especially Jack, who was in the 
 best spirits, with preternaturally bright eyes and a some- 
 what rare color on his cheeks. Aunt Chloe, who had 
 noticed that his breathing was hurried at times, watched 
 him narrowly, and when later he slipped from the room, 
 followed him into the passage. He was leaning against the 
 Tall. In an instant the negress was at his side. 
 
 " De Lawdy Gawd, Marse Jack, not agin ? " 
 
 He took his handkerchief, slightly streaked with blood, 
 from his lips and said faintly, " Yes, it came on — on the 
 boat ; but I . thought the d — d thing was over. Get me 
 
240 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLHT'S 
 
 out of this, quick, to some hotel, before she knows it. 
 You can tell her I was called away. Say that " — but his 
 "breath failed him, and when Aunt Chloe caught him like a 
 child in her strong arms he could make no resistance. 
 
 In another hour he was unconscious, with two doctors 
 at his bedside, in the little room that had been occupied 
 by Sophy. It was a sharp attack, but prompt attendance 
 and skillful nursing availed ; he rallied the next day, but 
 it would be weeks, the doctors said, before he could be re- 
 moved in safety. Sophy was transferred to the parlor, but 
 spent most of her time at Jack's bedside with Aunt Chloe, 
 or in the studio with the door open between it and the 
 bedroom. In spite of his enforced idleness and weakness, 
 it was again a singularly pleasant experience to Jack ; it 
 amused him to sometimes see Sophy at her' work through 
 the open door, and when sitters came, — for he had in- 
 sisted on her continuing her duties as before, keeping his 
 invalid presence in the house a secret, — he had all the 
 satisfaction of a mischievous boy in rehearsing to Sophy 
 such of the conversation as could be overheard through the 
 closed door, and speculating on the possible wonder and 
 chagrin of the sitters had they discovered him. Even 
 when he was convalescent and strong enough to be helped 
 into the parlor and garden, he preferred to remain propped 
 up in Sophy's little bedroom. It was evident, however, 
 that this predilection was connected with no suggestion nor 
 reminiscence of Sophy herself. It was true that he had 
 once asked her if it did n't make her " feel like home." 
 The decided negative from Sophy seemed to mildly surprise 
 him. " That 's odd," he said ; " now all these fixings and 
 things," pointing to the flowers in a vase, the little hanging 
 shelf of books, the knickknacks on the mantel-shelf, and 
 the few feminine ornaments that still remained, "look 
 rather like home to me." 
 
 So the days slipped by,. and although Mr. Hamlin was 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 241 
 
 BOon able to walk short distances, leaning on Sophy's arm, 
 in the evening twilight, along the river bank, he was still 
 missed from the haunts of dissipated men. A good many 
 people wondered, and others, chiefly of the more irrepres- 
 sible sex, were singularly concerned. Apparently one of 
 these, one sultry afternoon, stopped before the shadowed 
 window of a photographer's ; she was a handsome, well- 
 dressed woman, yet bearing a certain country-like simplicity 
 that was unlike the restless smartness of the more urban 
 promenaders who passed her. Nevertheless she had halted 
 before Mr. Hamlin's picture, which Sophy had not yet 
 dared to bring home and present to him, and was gazing at 
 it with rapt and breathless attention. Suddenly she shook 
 down her veil and entered the shop. Could the proprietor 
 kindly tell her if that portrait was the work of a local artist ? 
 
 The proprietor was both proud and pleased to say that 
 it was I It was the work of a Miss Brown, a young girl 
 student ; in fact, a mere schoolgirl, one might say. He 
 could show her others of her pictures. 
 
 Thanks. But could he tell her if this portrait was from 
 life? 
 
 No doubt ; the young lady had a studio, and he himself 
 had sent her sitters. 
 
 And perhaps this was the portrait of one that he had 
 sent her ? 
 
 No ; but she was very popular and becoming quite the 
 fashion. Very probably this gentleman, who, he under- 
 stood, was quite a public character, had heard of her, and 
 selected her on that account. 
 
 The lady's face flushed slightly. The photographer 
 continued. The picture was not for sale ; it was only there 
 on exhibition ; in fact it was to be returned to-morrow. 
 
 To the sitter ? 
 
 He could n't say. It was to go back to the studia 
 Perhaps the sitter would be there. 
 
242 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 
 
 And this studio ? Could she have its address ? 
 
 The man wrote a few lines on his card. Perhaps the 
 lady would he kind enough to say that he had sent her. 
 The lady, thanking him, partly lifted her veil to show a 
 charming smile, and gracefully withdrew. The photogra- 
 pher was pleased. Miss Brown had evidently got another 
 sitter, and, from that momentary glimpse of her face, it 
 would he a picture as heautiful and attractive as the man's. 
 But what was the odd idea that struck him ? She certainly 
 reminded him of some one ! There was the same heavy 
 hair, only this lady's was golden, and she was older and 
 more mature. And he remained for a moment with knitted 
 hrows musing over his counter. 
 
 Meantime the fair stranger was making her way towards 
 the river suhurb. When she reached Aunt Chloe's cottage, 
 she paused, with the unfamiliar curiosity of a new-comer, 
 over its quaint and incongruous exterior. She hesitated a 
 moment also when Aunt Chloe appeared in the doorway, and, 
 with a puzzled survey of her features, went upstairs to an- 
 nounce a visitor. There was the sound of hurried shutting 
 of doors, of the moving of furniture, quick footsteps across 
 the floor, and then a girlish laugh that startled her. She as- 
 cended the stairs breathlessly to Aunt Chloe's summons, 
 found the negress on the landing, and knocked at a door 
 which bore a card marked " Studio." The door opened ; 
 she entered ; there were two sudden outcries that might 
 have come from one voice. 
 
 " Sophonisba ! " 
 
 " Marianne ! " 
 
 " Hush." 
 
 The woman had seized Sophy by the wrist and dragged 
 her to the window. There was a haggard look of despera- 
 tion in her face akin to that which Hamlin had once seen 
 in her sister's eyes on the boat, as she said huskily : " I did 
 iiot know you were here. I came to see the woman who 
 
A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S 243 
 
 had painted Mr. Hamlin's portrait. I did not know it was 
 you. Listen ! Quick ! answer me one question. Tell me 
 — I implore you — for the sake of the mother who bore us 
 both ! — tell me — is this the man for whom you left 
 home ? " 
 
 " No ! No ! A hunared times no i ■' 
 
 Then there was a silence. Mr. Hamlin from the bedroom 
 heard no more. 
 
 An. hour later,, when the two women opened the studio 
 door, pale but composed, they were met by the anxious and 
 tearful face of Aunt Chloe. 
 
 " Lawdy Gawd, Missy, — but dey done gone ! — bof e 
 of 'em ! " 
 
 " Who is gone ? " demanded Sophy, as the woman beside 
 her trembled and grew paler still. 
 
 " Marse Jack and dat fool nigger, Hannibal." 
 
 " Mr. Hamlin gone ? " repeated Sophy incredulously. 
 " When ? Where ? " 
 
 " Jess now — on de down boat. Sudden business. Did 
 n't like to disturb yo' and yo' friend. Said he 'd write." 
 
 " But he was ill — almost helpless," gasped Sophy. 
 
 " Dat 's why he took dat old nigger. Lawdy, Missy, 
 bress yo' heart. Dey both knows aich udder, shuah ! It 's 
 all right. Dar now, dar dey are ; listen." 
 
 She held up her hand. A slow pulsation, that might 
 have been the dull, labored beating of their own hearts, was 
 making itself felt throughout the little cottage. It came 
 nearer, — a deep regular inspiration that seemed slowly to 
 fill and possess the whole tranquil summer twilight. It was 
 nearer still — was abreast of the house — passed — grew 
 fainter — and at last died away like a deep-drawn sigh. It 
 was the down boat, that was now separating Mr. Hamlin 
 and his prot^g^e, even as it had once brought them to- 
 i^ether. 
 
THE EEFORMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 
 
 It was a freshly furrowed field, so large that the eye at 
 first scarcely took in its magnitude. The irregular surface 
 of upturned, oily, wave-shaped clods took the appearance of 
 a vast, black, chopping sea, that reached from the actual 
 shore of San Francisco Bay to the low hills of the Coast' 
 Range. The sea-breeze that blew chilly over this bleak 
 expanse added to that fancy, and the line of straggling 
 whitewashed farm buildings, that halfway across lifted 
 themselves above it, seemed to be placed on an island in its 
 midst. Even the one or two huge, misshapen agricultural 
 machines, abandoned in the furrows, bore an odd resemblance 
 to hulks or barges adrift upon its waste. 
 
 This marine suggestion was equally noticeable from the 
 door of one of the farm buildings — a long, detached wooden 
 shed — into which a number of farm laborers were slowly 
 filing, although one man was apparently enough impressed 
 by it to linger and gaze over that rigid sea. Except in their 
 rough dress and the labor-stains of soil on their hands and 
 faces, they represented no particular type or class. They 
 were young and old, robust and delicate, dull and intelli- 
 gent ; kept together only by some philosophical, careless, or 
 humorous acceptance of equally enforced circumstance in 
 their labors, as convicts might have been. For they had 
 been picked up on the streets and wharves of San Francisco, 
 — discharged sailors, broken-down miners, helpless new- 
 comers, unemployed professional men, and ruined traders, — 
 to assist in ploughing and planting certain broad leagues of 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 245 
 
 rich alluN'ial soil for a speculative Joint Stock Company, at 
 a weekly wage that would have made a European peasant 
 independent for half a year. Yet there was no enthusiasm 
 in their labor, although it was seldom marked by absolute 
 laziness or evasion', and was more often hindered by ill- 
 regulated "■ spurts " and excessive effort, as if the laborer 
 was anxious to get through with it ; for in the few confi- 
 dences they exchanged there was little allusion to the 
 present, and they talked chiefly of what they were going to 
 do when their work was over. They were gregarious only 
 at their meals in one of the sheds, or when at night they 
 sought their bunks or berths together in the larger building. 
 
 The man who had lingered to look at the dreary prospect 
 had a somewhat gloomy, discontented face, whose sensitive 
 lines indicated a certain susceptibility to such impressions. 
 He was further distinguished by having also lingered longer 
 with the washing of his hands and face in the battered tin 
 basin on a stool beside the door, and by the circumstance 
 that the operation revealed the fact that they were whiter 
 than those of his companions. Drying his fingers slowly 
 on the long roller-towel, he stood gazing with a kind of hard 
 abstraction across the darkening field, the strip of faded 
 colorless shore, and the chill gray sea, to the dividing point 
 of land on the opposite coast, which in the dying daylight 
 was silhouetted against the cold horizon. 
 
 He knew tliat around that point and behind it lay the 
 fierce, half-grown, half-tamed city of yesterday that had 
 worked his ruin. It was scarcely a year ago that he had 
 plunged into its wildest excesses, — a reckless gambler 
 among speculators, a hopeless speculator among gamblers, — 
 until the little fortune he had brought thither had been 
 swept away. 
 
 From time to time he had kept up his failing spirit with 
 the feverish exaltation of dissipation, until, awakening from 
 a drunkard's dream one morning, he had found himself on 
 
246 THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 
 
 board a steamboat crossing the bay, in company with a gang 
 of farm laborers with whom he was hired. A bitter smile 
 crossed his lips as his eyes hovered over the cold, rugged 
 fields before him. Yet he knew that they had saved him. 
 The unaccustomed manual labor in the open air, the regula; 
 hours, the silent, heavy,, passionless nights, the plain but 
 wholesome food, were all slowly restoring his youth and 
 strength again. Temptation and passion had alike fled these 
 unlovely fields and this grim employment. Yet he was not 
 grateful. He nursed his dreary convalescence as he had 
 his previous dissipation, as part of a wrong done him bj' one 
 for whose sake, he was wont to believe, he had sacrificed 
 himself. That person was a woman. 
 
 Turning at last from the prospect and his bitter memo- 
 ries to join his companions, he found that they had all 
 passed in. The benches before the long table on which 
 supper was spread were already filled; and he stood in hesi- 
 tation, looking down the line of silent and hungrily pre- 
 occupied men on either side. A young girly who was 
 standing near a smaller serving-table, apparently assisting 
 an older woman in directing the operation of half a dozen 
 Chinese waiters, moved forward and cleared a place for 
 him at a side-table, pushing before it the only chair in the 
 room, — the one she had lately vacated. As she placed 
 some of the dishes before him with a timid ostentation, and 
 her large but well-shaped hands came suddenly in contact 
 with, and in direct contrast to his own whiter and more 
 delicate ones, she blushed faintly. He lifted his eyes to 
 hers. 
 
 He had seen her half a dozen times before, for she was 
 the daughter of the ranch superintendent, and occasionally 
 a.ssisted her mother in this culinary supervision — which 
 did not, however, bring her into any familiar association 
 with the men. Even the younger ones, perhaps from over- 
 consciousnejs of their inferior position or the preoccupation 
 
TliE REFORMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 247 
 
 of their labor, never indulged in any gallantry toward her. 
 and he himself, in his revulsion of feeling against tht. 
 whole sex, had scarcely noticed that she was good-looking„ 
 But this naive exhibition of preference could not be over- 
 looked, either by his companions, who smiled cynically 
 across the table, or by himself, from whose morbid fancy it 
 struck an ignoble suggestion. Ah, well ! the girl was 
 pretty — the daughter of his employer, who, rumor said, 
 owned a controlling share in the company ; why should he 
 not make this chance preference lead to something, if only 
 to ameliorate, in ways like this, his despicable position 
 here. He knew the value of his own good looks, his su- 
 perior education, and a certain recklessness which women 
 liked ; why should he not profit by them as well as the 
 one woman who had brought him to this ? He owed her 
 sex nothing ; if those among them who were not bad were 
 only fools, there was no reason why he should not deceive 
 them as they had him. There was all this small audacity 
 and cynical purpose in his brown eyes as he deliberately 
 fixed them on hers. And I grieve to say that these abom- 
 inable sentiments seemed only to impart to them a certain 
 attractive brilliancy, and a determination which the unde- 
 termining sex is apt tO' admire. 
 
 She blushed again, dropped her eyes, replied to his 
 significant thanks with a few indistinct words, and drew 
 away from the table with a sudden timidity that was half 
 confession. 
 
 She did not approach him again during the meal, but 
 seemed to have taken a sudden interest in the efficiency of 
 the waiters generally, which she had not shown before. 
 I do not know whether this was merely an effort at con- 
 cealment, or an awakened recognition of her duty ; but, 
 after the fashion of her sex, — and perhaps in contrast to 
 his, — she was kinder that evening to the average man on 
 account of him. He did not, however, notice it ; nor did 
 
248 THE KEFOEMATION OF JAMES KEDDY 
 
 her absence interfere with his now healthy appetite ; he 
 finished his meal, and only when he rose to take his hat 
 from the peg above him did he glance around the room. 
 Their eyes met again. As he passed out, although it was 
 dark, he put on his hat a little more smartly. 
 
 The air was clear and cold, but the outlines of the land- 
 scape had vanished. His companions, with the instinct of 
 tired animals, were already making their way in knots of 
 two or three, or in silent file, across the intervening space 
 between the building and their dormitory. A few had 
 already lit their pipes and were walking leisurely, but the 
 majority were hurrying from the chill sea-breeze to the 
 warmth and comfort of the long, well-lit room, lined with 
 blanketed berths, and set with plain wooden chairs and 
 tables. The young man lingered for a moment on the 
 wooden platform outside the dining-shed, — partly to evade 
 this only social gathering of his fellows as they retired for 
 the night, and partly attracted by a strange fascination to 
 the faint distant glow, beyond the point of land, which 
 indicated the lights of San Francisco. 
 
 There was a slight rustle behind him ! It was the 
 young girl who, with a white woolen scarf thrown over her 
 head and shoulders, had just left the room. She started 
 when she saw him, and for an instant hesitated. 
 
 " You are going home, Miss Woodridge ? " he said 
 pleasantly. 
 
 " Yes," she returned, in a faint, embarrassed voice. " I 
 thought I 'd run on ahead of ma." 
 
 " Will you allow me to accompany you ? " 
 
 " It 's only a step," she protested, indicating the light in 
 the window of the superintendent's house, — the most 
 remote of the group of buildings, yet scarcely a quarter of 
 3, mile distant. 
 
 " But it 's quite dark," he persisted smilingly. 
 
 She stepped from the platform to the ground ; he in- 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 249 
 
 stantly followed and ranged himself at a little distance from 
 her side. She protested still feebly against his " troubling 
 himself," but in another moment they were walking ov 
 quietly together. Nevertheless, a few paces from the plat 
 form they came upon the upheaved clods of the fresh fur- 
 rows, and their progress over them- was slow and difficult. 
 
 " Shall I help you ? Will you take my arm ? " he said 
 politely. 
 
 " No, thank you, Mr. Eeddy." 
 
 So ! she knew his name ! He tried to look into her eyes, 
 but the woolen scarf hid her head. After all, there was 
 nothing strange in her knowing him ; she probably had the 
 names of the men before her in the dining-room, or on the 
 books. After a pause he said : — 
 
 " You quite startled me. One becomes such a mcfe 
 working machine here that one quite forgets one's own name, 
 — especially with the prefix of 'Mr.' 
 
 " And if it don't happen to be one's real name either," 
 said the girl, with an odd, timid audacity. 
 
 He looked up quickly — more attracted by her manner 
 than her words ; more amused than angry. 
 
 " But Eeddy happens to be my real name." 
 
 « Oh ! " 
 
 " What made you think it was not ? " 
 
 The clods over which they were clambering were so 
 uneven that sometimes the young girl was mounting one at 
 the same moment that Eeddy was descending from another. 
 Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, was delivered over his 
 head. " Oh, because pa says most of the men here don't 
 give their real names — they don't care to be known after- 
 ward. Ashamed of their work, I reckon." 
 
 His face flushed a moment, even in the darkness. He 
 was ashamed of his work, and perhaps a little of the pitiful 
 sport he was beginning. But oddly enough, the aggressive 
 criticism only whetted his purpose. The girl was evidently 
 
250 THE EEFOKMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 
 
 quite able to take care of herself ; why should he be over- 
 chivalrous ? 
 
 " It is n't very pleasant to be doing the work of a horse, 
 an ox, or a machine, if you can do other things," he said 
 half seriously. 
 
 " But you never used to do anything at all, did you ? " 
 £tie asked. 
 
 He hesitated. Here was a chance to give her an affecting 
 history of his former exalted fortune and position, and per- 
 haps even to stir her evidently romantic nature with some 
 suggestion of his sacrifices to one of her own sex. Women 
 liked that sort of thing. It aroused at once their emula- 
 tion and their condemnation of each other. He seized the 
 opportunity, but — for some reason, he knew not why — 
 awkwardly and clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was 
 lachrymose, a self-assertion that was boastful, and a dramatic 
 manner that was unreal. Suddenly the girl stopped him. 
 
 " Yes, I know all that ; pa told me. Told me you 'd 
 been given away by some woman." 
 
 His face again flushed — this time with anger. The 
 utter failure of his story to excite her interest, and her per- 
 fect possession of herself and the situation, — so unlike her 
 conduct a few moments before, — made him savagely silent, 
 and he clambered on sullenly at her side. Presently she 
 stopped, balancing herself with a dexterity he could not 
 imitate on one of the larger upheaved clods, and said : — 
 
 " I was thinking that, as you can't do much with those 
 hands of yours, digging and shoveling, and not much with 
 your feet either, over ploughed ground, you might do some 
 inside work, that Vould pay you better, too. You might 
 help in the dining-room, setting table and washing up, 
 helping ma and me — though I don't do much except over- 
 ueeing. I could show you what to do at first, and you 'd 
 learn quick enough. If you say ' yes,' I '11 speak to pa 
 to-night. He '11 do whatever I say." 
 
THE EEFOKMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 251 
 
 The rage and shame that filled his breast choked even 
 the bitter laugh that first rose to his lips. If he could 
 have turned on his heel and left her with marked indigna- 
 tion, he would have done so, but they were scarcely half- 
 way across the field ; his stumbling retreat would have only 
 ■ippeared ridiculous, and he was by no means sure that she 
 would not have looked upon it as merely a confession of his 
 inability to keep up with her. And yet there was some- 
 thing peculiarly fascinating and tantalizing in the situation. 
 She did not see the sardonic glitter in his eye as he said 
 brutally : — 
 
 " Ha ! and that would give me the exquisite pleasure of 
 being near you." 
 
 She seemed a little confused, even under her enwrappings, 
 and in stepping down her foot slipped. Eeddy instantly 
 scrambled up to her and caught her as she was pitching 
 forward into the furrow. Yet in the struggle to keep his 
 own foothold he was aware that she was assisting him, and 
 although he had passed his arm around her waist, as if for 
 her better security, it was only through her firm grasp of 
 his wrists that he regained his own footing. The " cloud " 
 had fallen back from her head and shoulders, her heavy 
 hair had brushed his cheek and left its faint odor in his 
 nostrils ; the rounded outline of her figure had been slightly 
 drawn against his own. His mean resentment wavered ; 
 her proposition, which at first seemed only insulting, now 
 took a vague form of satisfaction ; his ironical suggestion, 
 seemed a natural expression. 
 
 " Well, I say ' yes ' then," he said, with an affected 
 laugh. " That is, if you think I can manage to do th( 
 work ; it is not exactly in my line, you know." Yet he 
 somehow felt that his laugh was feeble and unconvincing. 
 
 "Oh, it's easy enough," said the girl quietly. "You've 
 only got to be clean — and that 's in your line, I should 
 
252 THE KEFOEMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 
 
 '' And if I thought it would please you," he added, with 
 another attempt at gallantry. 
 
 She did not reply, but moved steadily on, he fancied a 
 little more rapidly. They were Hearing the house ; he felt 
 he was losing time and opportunity. The uneven nature 
 of the ground kept him from walking immediately beside 
 her, unless he held her hand or arm. Yet an odd timidity 
 was overtaking him. Surely this was the same girl whose 
 consciousness and susceptibility were so apparent a moment 
 ago ; yet her speech had been inconsistent, unsympathetic, 
 and coldly practical: 
 
 " It 's very kind of you," he began again, scrambling up 
 one side of the furrow as she descended on the other, " to 
 
 — to — take such an interest in — in a stranger, and I wish 
 you knew how " (she had mounted the ridge again, and 
 stood balancing herself as if waiting for him to finish his 
 sentence) " how — how deeply — I — I " — She dropped 
 quickly down again with the same movement of uneasy 
 consciousness, and he left the sentence unfinished. The 
 house was now only a few yards away ; he hurried forward, 
 but she reached the wooden platform and stoop upon it first. 
 He, however, at the same moment caught her hand. 
 
 "I want to thank you," he said, "and say good- 
 night." 
 
 " Good-night." Her voice was indistinct again, and she 
 was trembling. Emboldened and reckless, he sprang upon 
 the platform, and encircling her with one arm, with his 
 other hand he unloosed the woolen cloud around her head 
 and bared her faintly flushed cheek and half-open, hurriedly 
 breathing lips. But the next moment she threw her head 
 back with a single powerful movement, and, as it seemed to 
 him, with scarcely an effort cast him off with both hands, 
 and sent him toppling from the platform to the ground. 
 He scrambled quickly to his feet again, flushed, angry, and 
 
 — frightened ! Perhaps she would call her father ; he 
 
THK REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 253 
 
 would be insulted, or worse, — laughed at ! He had lost 
 even this pitiful chance of bettering his condition. But he 
 was as relieved as he was surprised to see that she was 
 standing quietly on the edge of the platform, apparently 
 waiting for him to rise. Her face was still uncovered, still 
 slightly flushed, but bearing no trace of either insult or 
 anger. When he stood erect again, she looked at him 
 gravely and drew the woolen cloud over her head, as she 
 said calmly, " Then I '11 tell pa you '11 take the place, and 
 I reckon you '11 begin to-morrow morning." 
 
 II 
 
 Angered, discomfited, and pliysically and morally beaten, 
 James Eeddy stumbled and clambered back across the field. 
 The beam of light that had streamed out over the dark 
 field as the door opened and shut on the girl left him 
 doubly confused and bewildered. In his dull anger and 
 mortification, there seemed only one course for him to pur- 
 sue. He would demand his wages in the morning, and cut 
 the whole concern. He would go back to San Francisco 
 and work there, where he at least had friends who respected 
 his station. Yet he ought to have refused the girl's ofifer 
 before she had repulsed him ; his retreat now meant nothing, 
 and might even tempt her, in her vulgar pique, to reveal 
 her rebuff of him. He raised his eyes mechanically, and 
 looked gloomily across the dark waste and distant bay to 
 the opposite shore. But the fog had already hidden the 
 glow of the city's lights, and, thickening around the hori- 
 zon, seemed to be slowly hemming him in with the dreary 
 rancho. In his present frame of mind there was a certain 
 fatefulness in this that precluded his once free agency, and 
 to that extent relieved and absolved him of any choice. 
 He reached the dormitory and its turned-down lights in 
 a state of tired and dull uncertainty, for which sleep seemed 
 
254 THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 
 
 to offer the only relief. He rolled himself in his blanket, 
 with an animal instinct of comfort, and shut his eyes, but 
 their sense appeared to open upon Nelly Woodridge as she 
 stood looking down upon him from the platform. Even 
 through the dull pain of his bruised susceptibili'ties he was 
 conscious of a strange satisfaction he had not felt before. 
 He fell asleep at last, to waken only to the sunlight stream- 
 ing through the curtainless windows on his face. To his 
 surprise the long shed was empty and deserted, except for a 
 single Chinaman who was sweeping the floor at the farther 
 end. As Reddy started up, the man turned and approached 
 him with a characteristic, vague, and patient smile. 
 
 " All lity, John, you sleepee heap ! Mistel Woodlidge he 
 say you no go wolkee field al'lee same Mellican man. You 
 stoppee inside housee allee same me. Shabbee ? You come 
 to glubbee [grub] now " (pointing to the distant dining- 
 shed), " and then you washee dish." 
 
 The full extent of his new degradation flashed upon 
 Eeddy with this added insult of his brother menial's impli- 
 cit equality. He understood it all. He had been detached 
 from the field-workers and was to come to a later breakfast, 
 perhaps the broken victuals of the first repast, and wash the 
 dishes. He remembered his new bargain. Very well ! he 
 would refuse positively, take his dismissal, and leave that 
 morning ! He hurriedly dressed himself, and followed the 
 Chinaman into the open air. 
 
 The fog still hung upon the distant bay and hid the op- 
 posite point. But the sun shone with dry Californian 
 brilliancy over the league-long field around him, revealing 
 every detail of the rancho with sharp, matter-of-fact direct- 
 ness, and without the least illusion of distance or romance. 
 The rough, unplaned, unpainted walls of the dinner-shed stood 
 out clearly before him '; the half-filled buckets of water on 
 the near platform, and the immense tubs piled with dirty 
 dishes. He scowled darkly as he walked forward, conscious. 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REEDY 255 
 
 nevertheless, of the invigorating discipline of the morning 
 air and the wholesome whip in the sky ahove him. He 
 entered sharply and aggressively. . To his relief, the room 
 at first sight seemed, like the dormitory he had just left, to 
 be empty. But a voice, clear, dry, direct, and practical as 
 the morning itself, spoke in his ear : — 
 
 "Mornin', Eeddy! My daughter says you 're willin' to 
 take an indoor job, and I reckon, speakin' square, as man to 
 man, it's more in your line than what you've bin doin'. 
 It may n't be high-toned work, but work 's work anyhow 
 yom can fix it ; and the only difference I kin see is in the 
 ■work that a man does squarely and the work that he shirks." 
 
 " But," said Reddy hurriedly, " there 's a mistake. I 
 came here only to " — 
 
 " Work like the others, I understand. Well, you see you 
 canH. You do your best, I know. I ain't findin' fault, 
 but it ain't in your line. This is, and the pay is better." 
 
 " But," stammered Reddy, " Miss Woodridge did n't un- 
 derstand " — 
 
 " Yes, she did," returned Woodridgfe impatiently, " and 
 she told me. She says she '11 show you round at first. 
 You '11 catch on all right. Sit down and eat your break- 
 fast, and she'll be along before you're through. Ez for 
 me, I must get up and get. So long ! " and before Reddy 
 had an opportunity to continue his protest, he turned away. 
 
 The young man glanced vexatiously around him. A 
 breakfast much better in service and quality than the on€ 
 he had been accustomed to smoked on the table. .There 
 was no one else in the room. He could hear the voices 
 of the Chinese waiters in the kitchen beyond. He was 
 healthily hungry, and after a moment's hesitation sat down 
 and began his meal. He could expostulate with her after- 
 ward, and withdraw his promise. He was entitled to his 
 breakfast, anyway ! 
 
 Once or twice, while thus engaged, he heard the door of 
 
256 THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 
 
 the kitchen open and the clipping tread of the Chinese 
 waiters, who deposited some rattling burden on the adja- 
 cent tables, but he thought it prudent not to seem to no- 
 tice them. When he had finished, the pleasant, hesitating, 
 boyish contralto of Miss Woodridge fell upon his ear. 
 
 " When you 're ready, I '11 show you how to begin your 
 work." 
 
 He turned quickly, with a flush of mortification at being 
 discovered at his repast, and his anger returned. But as 
 his eyes fell upon her delicately colored but tranquil face, 
 her well-shaped figure, coquettishly and spotlessly cufi'ed, 
 collared, and aproned, and her clear blue but half-averted 
 eyes, he again underwent a change. She certainly was 
 very pretty — that most seductive prettiness which seemed 
 to be warmed into life by her consciousness of himself. 
 Why should he take her or himself so seriously ? Why 
 not play out the farce, and let those who would criticise 
 him and think his acceptance of the work degrading under- 
 stand that it was only an affair of gallantry. He could 
 afford to serve Woodtidge at least a few weeks for the favor 
 of this Rachel ! Forgetful of his rebuff of the night be- 
 fore, he fixed his brown eyes on hers with an audacious 
 levity. 
 
 "Oh, yes — the work ! Let us see it. I 'm ready in 
 name and nature for anything that Miss Woodridge wants 
 of me. I 'm just dying to begin." 
 
 His voice was raised slightly, with a high comedy jaun- 
 tiness, for the benefit of the Chinese waiters who might be 
 lingering to see the " Mellican man " assume their func- 
 tions. But it failed in effect. With their characteristic 
 calm acceptance of any eccentricity in a " foreign devil," 
 they scarcely lifted their eyes. The young girl pointed to 
 a deep basket filled with dishes which had been placed on 
 the larger table, and said, without looking at Reddy : — 
 
 " You had better begin by ' checking ' the crockery ; 
 
THE KEFORMATION OF JAMES KEDDY 257 
 
 that is, counting the pieces separately and then arranging 
 them in sets as they come back from washing. There 's 
 the book to compare them with and to set down what is 
 broken, missing, or chipped. You '11 have a clean towel 
 with you to wipe the pieces that have not been cleaned 
 enough ; or, if they are too dirty, you '11 send them back 
 to the kitchen." 
 
 " Could n't I wash them myself ? " said Eeddy, contin- 
 uing his ostentatious levity. 
 
 " Not yet," said the girl, with grave hesitation ; " you 'd 
 break them." 
 
 She stood watching him, as with affected hilarity he be- 
 gan to take the dishes from the basket. B>it she noticed 
 that in spite of this jocular simulation his grasp was firm 
 and delicate, and that there was no clatter — ■■ which would 
 have affected her sensitive ear — as he put them down. 
 She laid a pencil and account book beside him and turned 
 away. 
 
 " But you are not going ? " he said, in genuine surprise. 
 
 " Yes," she said quietly, " until you get through ' check- 
 ing.' Then I '11 come back and show you what you have 
 to do next. You 're getting on very well." 
 
 " But that was because you were with me." 
 
 She colored slightly and, without looking at him, moved 
 slowly to the door and disappeared. 
 
 B.eddy went back to his work, disappointed but not dis- 
 comfited. He was getting accustomed to the girl's eccen- 
 tricities. Whether it was the freshness of the morning air 
 and sunlight streaming in at the open windows, the un- 
 looked-for solitude and security of the empty room, or that 
 there was nothing really unpleasant in his occupation, he 
 went on cheerfully " checking " the dishes, narrowly exam- 
 ining them for chips and cracks, and noting them in the 
 book. Again discovering that a few were imperfectly 
 cleaned and wiped, he repaired the defect with cold water 
 
258 THE KEFOUMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 
 
 and a towel without the least thought of the operation beiil^ 
 degrading. He had finished his task in half an hour ; she 
 had not returned ; why should he not go on and set the 
 table ? As he straightened and turned the coarse table- 
 cloth, he made the discovery that the long table was really 
 composed of half a dozen smaller ones, and that the hid- 
 !ous parallelogram which had always so offended him was 
 aierely the outcome of carelessness and want of taste. 
 Without a moment's hesitation he set at work to break up 
 the monotonous line and rearranged the tables laterally, with 
 small open spaces between them. The task was no light 
 one, even for a stronger man, but he persevered in it with 
 a new-found energy until he had changed the whole aspect 
 of the room. It looked larger, wider, and less crowded ; 
 its hard, practical, workhouse-like formality had disap- 
 peared. He had paused to survey it, panting still with his 
 unusual exertion, when a voice broke upon his solitude. 
 
 " Well, I wanter know ! " 
 
 The voice was not Nelly's, but that of her mother, — a 
 large-boned, angular woman of fifty, — who had entered 
 the room unperceived. The accents were simply those of 
 surprise, but on James Reddy's present sensitive mood, 
 coupled with the feeling that here was a new witness to his 
 degradation, he might have resented it ; but he detected 
 the handsome, reserved figure of the daughter a few steps 
 behind her. Their eyes met ; wonderful to relate, the 
 young girl's no longer evaded him, but looked squarely 
 into his with a bright expression of pleasure he had not 
 seen before. He checked himself with a sudden thrill of 
 gratification. 
 
 " Well, I declare," continued Mrs. Woodridge ; " is that 
 your idea — or yours, Helen ? " 
 
 Here Eeddy simply pointed out the advantages for serv- 
 ing afibrded by the new arrangement ; that all the tables 
 were equally and quickly accessible from the serving-table 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 259 
 
 and sidoboard, and that it was no longer necessary to go the 
 whole length of the room to serve the upper table. He 
 tactfully did not refer to the improved appearance of the 
 room. 
 
 " Well, as long as it ain't mere finikin'," said the lady 
 graciously, "and seems to bring the folks and their vit- 
 tles nearer together — we '11 try it to-day. It does look 
 kinder cityfied — and I reckoned that was all the good it 
 was. But I calkilated you were goin' to check the crock- 
 ery this morning." 
 
 " It 's done," said Eeddy, smilingly handing her the 
 account-book. 
 
 Mrs. Woodridge glanced over it, and then surveyed her 
 new assistant. 
 
 " And you did n't find any plates that were dirty and 
 that had to be sent back ? " 
 
 " Yes, two or three, but I cleaned them myself." 
 
 Mrs. Woodridge glanced at him with a look of approving 
 curiosity, but his eyes were just then seeking her daugh- 
 ter's for a more grateful sympathy. All of which the 
 good lady noted, and as it apparently answered the unasked 
 question in her own mind, she only uttered the single ex- 
 clamation " Humph ! " 
 
 But the approbation he received later at dinner, in the 
 satisfaction of his old companions with the new arrange- 
 ment, had also the effect of diverting from him the criticism 
 he had feared they would make in finding him installed as 
 an assistant to Mrs. Woodridge. On the contrary, they 
 appeared only to recognize in him some especial and supe- 
 rior faculty utilized for their comfort, and when the super- 
 intendent, equally pleased, said it was "^all Eeddy's own 
 idea," no one doubted that it was this particular stroke of 
 genius which had gained him the obvious promotion. If 
 he had still thought of offering his flirtation with Nelly as 
 an excuse, there was now no necessity for any. Having 
 
260 THE KEFOKMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 
 
 shown to his employers his capacity for the highest and 
 lowest work, they naturally preferred to use his hest abili- 
 ties — and he was kept from any menial service. His 
 accounts were so carefully and intelligently rendered that 
 the entire care of the building and its appointments was 
 intrusted to him. At the end of the week Mr. Woodridge 
 took him aside. 
 
 " I say, you ain't got any job in view arter you finish 
 up here, hev ye ? " 
 
 Eeddy started. Scarcely ten days ago he had a hundred 
 projects, schemes, and speculations, more or less wild and 
 extravagant, wherewith he was to avenge and recoup him- 
 self in San Francisco. Now they were gone — he knew 
 not where and how. He briefly said he had not. 
 
 " Because," continued Woodridge, "I 'ye got an idea of 
 startin' a hotel in the Oak Grove, just on the slope back o' 
 the rancho. The company 's bound to make some sort o' 
 settlement there for the regular hands, and the place is 
 pooty enough for 'Frisco people who want to run over here 
 and get set up for a day or two. Thar 's plenty of wood 
 and water up thar, and the company 's sure to have a wharf 
 down on the shore. I '11 provide the capital, if you will 
 put in your time. You can sling in ez much style as you 
 like there " (this was an allusion to Eeddy's attempt to 
 enliven the blank walls with colored pictures from the 
 illustrated papers and green ceanothus sprays from the 
 slope) ; " in fact, the more style the better for them city 
 folks. Well, you think it over." 
 
 He did. But meantime he seemed to make little pro- 
 gress in his court of the superintendent's daughter. He 
 tried to think it was because he had allowed himself to be 
 diverted by his work, but although she always betrayed the 
 same odd physical consciousness of his presence, it was 
 certain that she never encouraged him. She gave him the 
 few directions, that bis new o.Qciipa,tion still made necessary 
 
THE EEFOEMATION OF JAMES REDDY 261 
 
 and looked her approval of his success. But nothing more. 
 He was forced to admit that this was exactly what she 
 might have done as the superintendent's daughter to a 
 deserving employee. Whereat, for a few days he assumed 
 an air of cold and ceremonious politeness, until perceiving 
 that, far from piquing the girl, it seemed to gratify her, and 
 even to render her less sensitive in his company, he sulked 
 in good earnest. This proving ineffective also, — except to 
 produce a kind of compassionate curiosity, — fais former 
 dull rage returned. The planting of the rancho was nearly 
 over ; his service would he ended next week ; he had not 
 yet given his answer to Woodridge's proposition ; he would 
 decline it and cut the whole concern ! 
 
 It was a crisp Sunday morning. The breakfast hour 
 was later on that day to allow the men more time for their 
 holiday, which, however, they generally spent in cards, 
 gossip, or reading in their sleeping-sheds. It usually 
 delayed Keddy's work, but as he cared little for the com- 
 panionship of his fellows, it enabled him, without a show 
 of unsociability, to seclude himself in the dining-room. And 
 this morning he was early approached by his employer. 
 
 "I 'm goin' to take the women folks over to Oakdale to 
 church," said Mr. Woodridge ; " ef ye keer to join us thar 's 
 a seat in the wagon, and I '11 turn on a couple of China- 
 men to do the work for you, just now ; and Nelly or the 
 old woman will give you a lift this afternoon with the 
 counting up." 
 
 Eeddy felt instinctively that the invitation had been 
 instigated by the young girl. A week before he would 
 have rejoiced at it ; a month ago he would have accepted it 
 if only as a relief to his degraded position, but in the pique 
 of this new passion he almost rudely declined it. An hour 
 later he saw Nelly, becomingly and even tastefully dressed, 
 — with the American girl's triumphant superiority to her 
 condition and surroundings, — ride past in her father's 
 
262 THE SEFORMATION OF JAMES KEDDY 
 
 smart carryall. He was startled to see that she looked 
 so like a lady. Then, with a new and jealous inconsistency, 
 significant of the progress of his passion, he resolved to go 
 to church too. She should see that he was not going to 
 remain behind like a mere slave. He remembered that he 
 had still certain remnants of his past finery in his trunk ; 
 he would array himself in them, walk to Oakdale, and 
 make one of the congregation. He managed to change his 
 jlothes without attracting the attention of bis fellows, and 
 set out. 
 
 The air was pure but keen, with none of the languor of 
 spring in its breath, although a few flowers were beginning 
 to star the weedy wagon-tracked lane, and there was an 
 awakening spice in the wayside southern-wood and myrtle. 
 He felt invigorated, although it seemed only to whet his 
 jealous pique. He hurried on without even glancing 
 toward the distant coast-line of San Francisco or even think- 
 ing of it. The bitter memories of the past had been oblit- 
 erated by the bitterness of the present. He no longer 
 thought of " that woman ; " even when he had threatened 
 to himself to return to San Francisco he was vaguely con- 
 scious that it was not she who was again drawing him there, 
 but Nelly who was driving him away. 
 
 The service was nearly over when he arrived at the 
 chilly little corrugated-zinc church at Oakdale, but he 
 slipped into one of the back seats. A few worshipers 
 turned round to look at him. Among them were the 
 daughters of a neighboring miller, who were slightly exer- 
 cised over the unusual advent of a good-looking stranger 
 with certain exterior signs of elegance. Their excitement 
 was communicated by some mysterious instinct to their 
 neighbor, Nelly Woodridge. She also turned and caught 
 his eye. But to all appearances she not only showed no 
 signs ■ of her usual agitation at his presence, but did not 
 seem to even recognize him. In the acerbity of his pique 
 he was for a. moment cratified at what he believed to be the 
 
THE KEFORMATION OF JAMES REBDY 263 
 
 expression of her wounded pride, but his uneasiness quickly 
 returned, and at the conclusion of the service he slipped 
 out of the church with one or two of the more restless in 
 the congregation. As he passed through the aisle he heard 
 the escort of the miller's daughters, in response to a whis- 
 pered inquiry, say distinctly : " Only the head- waiter over 
 at the company's rancho." "Whatever hesitating idea 
 Keddy might have had of waiting at the church door for the 
 appearance of Nelly vanished before the brutal truth. His 
 brow darkened, and with iiushed cheeks he turned his back 
 upon the building and plunged into the woods. This time 
 there was no hesitation in his resolve ; he would leave the 
 rancho at the expiration of his engagement. Even in a 
 higher occupation he felt he could never live down his 
 reputation there. 
 
 In his morose abstraction he did not know how long or 
 how aimlessly he had wandered among the mossy live-oaks, 
 his head and shoulders often imperiled by the down-curving 
 of some huge knotted limb ; his feet straying blindly from 
 the faint track over the thickly matted carpet of chickweed 
 which hid their roots. But it was nearly an hour before 
 he emerged upon a wide, open, wooded slope, and, from the 
 distant view of field and shore, knew that he was at Oak 
 Grove, the site of Woodridge's projected hotel. And 
 there, surely, at a little distance, was the Woodridges' 
 wagon and team tied up to a sapling, while the superin- 
 tendent and his wife were slowly climbing the slope, and 
 apparently examining the prospect. Without waiting to 
 see if Nelly was with them, Eeddy instantly turned to 
 avoid meeting them. But he had not proceeded a hundred 
 yards before he came upon that young lady, who had evi- 
 dently strayed from the party, and who was now uncon- 
 sciously advancing toward him. A rencontre was inevitable. 
 
 She started slightly, and then stopped, with all her old 
 agitation and embarrassment. But, to his own surprise, he 
 was also embarrassed and even tongue-tied. 
 
264 THE EEFORMATION OF JAMES EBDDY 
 
 She spoke first. 
 
 " You were at church. I did n't quite know you in ->• 
 in — these clothes." 
 
 In her own finery she had undergone such a change to 
 Eeddy's consciousness that he, for the first time in their 
 acquaintance, now addressed her as on his own level, and as 
 if she had no understanding of his own feelings. 
 
 " Oh," he said, with easy hittemess, " others did, if you 
 did not. They all detected the ' head-waiter ' at the Union 
 Company's rancho. Even if I had accepted your kindness 
 in offering me a seat in your wagon it would have made no 
 difference." 
 
 He was glad to put this construction on his previous 
 refusal, for in the new relations which seemed to be estab- 
 lished by their Sunday clothes he was obliged to soften the 
 churlishness of that refusal also. 
 
 " I don't think you 'd look nice setting the table in kid 
 gloves," she said, glancing quickly at his finery as if ac- 
 cepting it as the real issue ; " but you can wear what you 
 like at other times. / never found fault with your work- 
 ing clothes." 
 
 There was such a pleasant suggestion in her emphasis 
 that his ill humor softened. Her eyes wandered over the 
 opposite grove, where her unconscious parents had just dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 "Papa's very keen about the hotel," she continued, 
 "and is going to have the workmen break ground to-mor- 
 row. He says he '11 have it up in two months and ready 
 to open, if he has to make the men work double time. 
 When you 're manager, you won't mind what folks say." 
 
 There was no excuse for his further hesitation. He must 
 speak out, but he did it in a half-hearted way. 
 
 "But if I simply go away — without being manager — 
 I won't hear their criticism either." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she said quickly. 
 
THE EEFOEMATION OF JAMES EEDDT 265 
 
 "I've — I've been thinking of — of going back to San 
 Francisco," he stammered awkwardly. 
 
 A slight flush of contemptuous indignation passed over 
 her face, and gave it a strength and expression he had never 
 seen there before. 
 
 " Oh, you 've not reformed yet, then ? " she said, under 
 her scornful lashes. 
 
 " I don't understand you," he said, flushing. 
 
 " Father ought to have told you," she v^ent on dryly, 
 " that that woman has gone off to the Springs with her 
 husband, and you won't see her at San Francisco." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean — and your father seems 
 to take an unwarrantable interest in my affairs," said 
 Eeddy, with an anger that he was conscious, however, was 
 half simulated. 
 
 " No more than he ought to, if he expects to trust you 
 with all his affairs," said the girl shortly ; " but you had 
 better tell hitu you have changed your mind at once, before 
 he makes any further calculations on your staying. He 's 
 just over the hill there, with mother." 
 
 She turued away coldly as she spoke, but moved slowly 
 and in the direction of the hill, although she took a less 
 direct trail than the one she had pointed to him. But he 
 followed her, albeit still embarrassedly, and with that new 
 sense of respect which had checked his former surliness. 
 There was her strong, healthy, well-developed figure moving 
 before him, but the modish gray dress seemed to give its 
 pronounced outlines something of the dignity of a goddess. 
 Even the firm hands had the distinguishment of character. 
 
 " You understand," he said apologetically, " that I mean 
 no discourtesy to your father or his offer. And " — he 
 hesitated — " neither is my reason what you would infer." 
 
 "Then what is it ?" she asked, turning to bim abruptly. 
 " You know you have no other place when you leave here, 
 nor any chance as good as the one father offers you. You 
 
266 THE REFORMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 
 
 are not fit for any other work, and you know it. You 
 have no money to speculate with, nor can you get any. If 
 you could, you would have never stayed here." 
 
 He could not evade the appalling truthfulness of her 
 clear eyes. He knew it was no use to lie to her ; she had 
 evidently thoroughly informed herself regarding his past ; 
 more than that, she seemed to read his present thoughts. 
 But not all of them ! No ! he could startle her still ! It 
 was desperate, but he had nothing now to lose. And she 
 liked the truth, — she should have it ! 
 
 " You are right," he said shortly ; " these are not my 
 reasons." 
 
 " Then what reason have you ? " 
 
 " You ! " 
 
 "Me?" she repeated incredulously, yet with a rising 
 color. 
 
 " Yes, you ! I cannot stay here, and have you look 
 down upon me." 
 
 " I don't look down on you," she said simply, yet with- 
 out the haste of repelling an unjust accusation. " Why 
 should I ? Mother and I have done the same work that 
 you are doing, — if that 's what you mean ; and father, 
 who is a man like yourself, helped us at first, until he could 
 do other things better." She paused. " Perhaps you think 
 so because you looked down on us when you first came 
 here." 
 
 " But I did n't," said Eeddy quickly. 
 
 " You did," said the young girl quietly. " That 's why 
 you acted toward me as you did the night you walked home 
 with me. You would not have behaved in that way to 
 any San Francisco young lady — and I 'm not one of your 
 — fast — married women." 
 
 Eeddy felt the hot blood mount to his cheek, and looked 
 away. 
 
 "I was foolish and rude — and I think you punished 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 267 
 
 me at tbe time," he stammered. " But you see I was right 
 in. saying you. looked down on me," he concluded trium- 
 phantly. 
 
 This was at best a feeble sequitur, but the argument of 
 the affections is not always logical. And it had its effect 
 on the girl. 
 
 " I was n't thinking of that" she said ; " it 's that you 
 don't know your own mind." 
 
 " If I said that I would stay and accept your father's 
 offer, would you think that I did ? " he asked quickly. 
 
 " I should wait and see what you actually did do," she 
 replied. 
 
 "But if I stayed — and — and — if I told you that I 
 stayed on your account — to be with you and near you 
 only — would you think that a proof ? " He spoke hesi- 
 tatingly, for his lips were dry with a nervousness he had 
 not known before. 
 
 " I might, if you told father you expected to be engaged 
 on those terms. For it concerns him as much as me. And 
 he engages you, and not I. Otherwise I 'd think it was 
 only your talk." 
 
 Eeddy looked at her in astonishment. There was not 
 the slightest trace of coyness, coquetry, or even raillery in 
 her clear, honest eyes, and yet it would seem as if she had 
 taken his proposition in its fullest sense as a matrimonial 
 declaration, and actually referred him to her father. He 
 was pleased, frightened, and utterly unprepared. 
 
 " But what would you say, Nelly ? " He drew closer 
 to her and held out both his hands. But she retreated a 
 step and slipped her own behind her. 
 
 " Better see what father says first," she said quietly. 
 " You may change your mind again and go back to San 
 Francisco." 
 
 He was confused, and reddened again. But he had 
 become accustomed to her ways ; rather, perhaps, he had 
 
268 THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 
 
 begun to recognize the quaint justice that underlay them, 
 or, possibly, some better self of his own, that had been 
 buried under bitterness and sloth, had struggled into life. 
 
 " But whatever he says," he returned eagerly, " cannot 
 alter my feelings to you. It can only alter my position 
 here, and you say you are above being influenced by that. 
 Tell me, Nelly — dear Nelly ! have you nothing to say to 
 me, as I am, or is it only to your father's manager that 
 you would speak ? " His voice had an unmistakable ring 
 of sincerity in it, and even startled him — half rascal as he 
 was. 
 
 The young girl's clear, scrutinizing eyes softened ; her red 
 resolute lips trembled slightly and then parted, the upper 
 one hovering a little to one side over her white teeth. It 
 was Nelly's own peculiar smile, and its serious piquancy 
 always thrilled him. But she drew a little farther back 
 from his brightening eyes, her hands still curled behind 
 her, and said, with the faintest coquettish toss of her head 
 toward the hill : " If you want to see father, you 'd better 
 hurry up." 
 
 With a sudden determination as new to him as it was 
 incomprehensible, Eeddy turned from her and struck for- 
 ward in the direction of the hill. He was not quite sure 
 what he was going for. Yet that he, who had only a 
 moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and 
 her, was now going to her father to demand her hand as a 
 contingency of his remaining did not strike him as so ex- 
 travagant and unexpected a denouement as it was a difficult 
 one. He was only concerned how, and in what way, he 
 should approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he 
 hesitated, turned, and looked behind him. 
 
 She was standing where he had left her, gazing after 
 him, leaning forward with her hands still held behind her. 
 Suddenly, as with an inspiration, she raised them both, 
 carried them impetuously to her lips, blew him a dozen 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 269 
 
 riotous kisses, and then, lowering her head like a colt, 
 whisked her skirt hehind her, and vanished in the cover. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was only May, hut the freshness of early summer 
 already clothed the great fields of the rancho. The old re- 
 semblance to a sea was still there, more accented, perhaps, by 
 the undulations of bluish-green grain that rolled from the 
 actual shore-line to the foothills. The farm buildings were 
 half submerged in this glowing tide of color and lost their 
 uncouth angularity with their hidden rude foundations. The 
 same sea-breeze blew chilly and steadily from the bay, yet 
 softened and subdued by the fresh odors of leaf and flower. 
 The outlying fringe of oaks were starred through their 
 underbrush with anemones and dog-roses ; there were lu- 
 pines growing rankly in the open spaces, and along the 
 gentle slopes of Oak Grove daisies were already scattered 
 And, as if it were part of this vernal efflorescence, the emi- 
 nence itself was crowned with that latest flower of pro- 
 gress and improvement, — the new Oak Grove Hotel ! 
 
 Long, low, dazzling with white colonnades, verandas, and 
 balconies which retained, however, enough of the dampness 
 of recent creation to make them too cool for loungers, 
 except at high noon, the hotel nevertheless had the charms 
 of freshness, youth, and cleanliness. Eeddy's fastidious 
 neatness showed itself in all the appointments, from the 
 mirrored and marbled bar-room, gilded parlors, and snowy 
 dining-room, to the chintz and maple furnishing of the 
 bedrooms above. Eeddy's taste, too, had selected the 
 pretty site ; his good fortune had afterward discovered in 
 an adjoining thicket a spring of blandly therapeutic quali- 
 ties. A complaisant medical faculty of San Francisco 
 attested to its merits ; a sympathetic press advertised the 
 excellence of the hotel; a novelty-seeking, fashionable 
 
270 THE EEFOKMATION OF JAMES REDDY 
 
 circle — - as yet without laws and blindly imitative — found 
 the new hotel an admirable variation to the vulgar ordinary 
 " across the bay " excursion, and an accepted excuse for a 
 novel social dissipation. A number of distinguished peo- 
 ple had already visited it; certain exclusive families had 
 secured the best rooms ; there were a score of pretty 
 women to be seen in its parlors ; there had already been a 
 slight scandal. Nothing seemed wanting to insure its suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Eeddy was passing through the little wood where four 
 months before he had parted from Nellie Woodridge to learn 
 his fate from her father. He remembered that interview to 
 which Nelly's wafted kiss had inspired him. He recalled 
 to-day, as he had many times before, the singular compla- 
 cency with which Mr. Woodridge had received his suit, as 
 if it were a slight and unimportant detail of the businesc 
 in hand, and how he had told hira that Nelly and her 
 mother were going to the " States " for a three months' 
 visit, but that after her return, if they were both "still 
 agreed," he, Woodridge, would make no objection. He 
 remembered the slight shock which this announcement of 
 Nelly's separation from him during his probationary labors 
 had given him, and his sudden suspicion that he had been 
 partly tricked of his preliminary intent to secure her com- 
 pany to solace him. But he had later satisfied himself that 
 she knew nothing of her father's intentions at the time, 
 and he was fain to content himself with a walk through 
 the fields at her side the day she departed, and a single 
 kiss — which left him cold. And now. in a few days she 
 would return to witness the successful fulfillment of his 
 labors, and — reward him ! 
 
 It was certainly a complacent prospect. He could look 
 forward to a sensible, prosperous, respectable future. He 
 had won back his good name, his fortune, and position, — 
 not perhaps exactly in the way he had expected, — and he 
 
THE EEFOEMATION OV JAMES EEDDY 271 
 
 had stilled the wanton, foolish cravings of his passionate 
 nature in the calm, virginal love of an honest, handsome 
 girl who would make him a practical helpmeet, and a com- 
 fortable, trustworthy wife. He ought to he very happy. 
 He had never known such perfect health before ; he had 
 lost his reckless habits ; his handsome, nervous face had 
 grown more placid and contented ; his long curls had been 
 conventionally clipped ; he had gained flesh unmistakably, 
 and the lower buttons of the slim waistcoat he had worn to 
 church that memorable Sunday were too tight for comfort 
 or looks. He was happy ; yet as he glanced over the 
 material spring landscape, full of practical health, blossom, 
 and promise of fruition, it struck him that the breeze that 
 blew over it was chilly, even if healthful ; and he shivered 
 slightly. 
 
 He reached the hotel, entered the office, glanced at the 
 register, and passed through into his private room. He 
 had been away for two days, and noticed with gratification 
 that the influx of visitors was still increasing. His clerk 
 followed into the room. 
 
 " There 's a lady in 56 who wanted to see you when you 
 returned. She asked particularly for the manager." 
 
 " Who is she ? " 
 
 " Don't know. It 's a Mrs. Merrydew, from Sacramento. 
 Expecting her husband on the next steamer." 
 
 " Humph ! You '11 have to be rather careful about 
 these solitary married women. We don't want another 
 scandal, you know." 
 
 " She asked for you by name, sir, and I thought you 
 might know her," returned the clerk. 
 
 " Very well. I '11 go up." 
 
 He sent a waiter ahead to announce him, and leisurely 
 mounted the stairs. No. 56 was the sitting-room of a pri- 
 vate suite on the first floor. The waiter was holding the 
 door open. As he approached it a faint perfume from the 
 
272 THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 
 
 interior made him turn pale. But he recovered his pres- 
 ence of mind sufficiently to close the door sharply upon 
 the waiter behind him. 
 
 " Jim," said a voice which thrilled him. 
 
 He looked up and beheld what any astute reader of 
 romance will have already suspected, — the woman to whom 
 he believed he owed his ruin in San Francisco. She was 
 as beautiful and alluring as ever, albeit she was thinner 
 and more spiritual than he had ever seen her. She was 
 tastefully dressed, as she had always been ; a certain style 
 of languorous silken deshabille which she was wont to 
 affect in better health now became her paler cheek and 
 feverishly brilliant eyes. There was the same opulence of 
 lace and ornament, and, whether by accident or design, 
 clasped around the slight wrist of her extended hand was 
 a bracelet which he remembered had swept away the last 
 dregs of his fortune. 
 
 He took her hand mechanically, yet knowing, whatever 
 rage was in his heart, he had not the strength to refuse it. 
 
 " They told me it was Mrs. Merrydew," he stammered. 
 
 " That was my mother's name," she said, with a little 
 laugh. " I thought you knew it. But perhaps you did n't. 
 When I got my divorce from Dick — you did n't know 
 that either, I suppose ; it 's three mouths ago — I did n't 
 care to take my maiden name again ; too many people 
 remembered it. So after the decree was made I called 
 myself Mrs. Merrydew. You had disappeared. They 
 said you had gone East." 
 
 " But the clerk says you are expecting your husband on 
 the steamer. What does this mean ? Why did you tell 
 him that ? " 
 
 He had so far collected himself that there was a ring of 
 inquisition in his voice. 
 
 " Oh, I had to give him some kind of reason for my being 
 alone when I did not find you as I expected," she said half 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 273 
 
 wearily. Then a change came over her tired face ; a smile 
 of mingled audacity and tentative coquetry lit up the small 
 features. " Perhaps it is true ; perhaps I may have a 
 husband coming on the steamer — that depends. Sit down, 
 Jim." 
 
 She let his hand drop, and pointed to an armchair from 
 ■which she had just risen, and sank down herself in a corner 
 of the sofa, her thin lingers playing with and drawing them- 
 selves through the tassels of the cushion. 
 
 " You see, Jim, as soon as I was free, Louis Sylvester — 
 you remember Louis Sylvester ? — wanted to marry me, and 
 even thought that he was the cause of Dick's divorcing me. 
 He actually went East to settle up some property he had 
 left him there, and he's coming on the steamer." 
 
 " Louis Sylvester ! " repeated Eeddy, staring at her. 
 " Why, he was a bigger fool than I was, and a worse man ! " 
 he added bitterly. 
 
 " I believe he was," said the lady, smiling, " and I think 
 he still is. But," she added, glancing at Eeddy under her 
 light fringed lids, " you — you 're regularly reformed, are n't 
 you ? You 're stouter, too, and altogether more solid and 
 commercial looking. Yet who 'd have thought of your keep- 
 ing a hotel or ever doing anything but speculate in wild-cat 
 or play at draw-poker. How did you drift into it ? Come, 
 tell me ! I 'ni not Mrs. Sylvester just yet, and maybe I 
 might like to go into the business too. You don't want a 
 partner, do you ? " 
 
 Her manner was light and irresponsible, or rather it 
 suggested a childlike putting of all responsibility for her 
 actions upon others, which he remembered now too well. 
 Perhaps it was this which kept him from observing that 
 the corners of her smiling lips, however, twitched slightly, 
 and that her fingers, twisting the threads of the tassel, were 
 occasionally stiffened nervously. For he burst out : Oh, yes ; 
 he had drifted into it when it was a toss up if it was n't hia 
 
274 THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 
 
 body instead that would be found drifting out to sea from 
 the first wharf of San Francisco. Yes, he had been a 
 commop. laborer, — a farm hand in those fields she had 
 passed, — a waiter in the farm kitchen, and but for luck he 
 might be taking her orders now in this very hotel. It was 
 not her fault if he was not in the gutter. 
 
 She raised her thin hand with a tired gesture as if to 
 ward off the onset of his words. 
 
 "The same old Jim," she repeated; "and yet I thought 
 you had forgotten all that now, and become calmer and 
 more sensible since you had taken flesh and grown so matter 
 of fact. You ought to have known then, as you know now, 
 that I never could have been anything to you as long as I 
 was tied to Dick. And you know you forced your presents 
 on me, Jim. I took them from you because I would take 
 nothing from Dick, for I hated him. And I never knew 
 positively that you were in straits then ; you know you 
 always .talked big, Jim, and were always going to make your 
 fortune with the next thing you had in hand ! " 
 
 It was true, and he remembered it. He had not intended 
 this kind of recrimination, but he was exasperated with her 
 wearied acceptance of his reproaches and by a sudden 
 conviction that his long-cherished grievance against her, now 
 that he had voiced it, was inadequate, mean, and trifling. 
 Yet he could not help saying : — 
 
 " Then you had presents from Sylvester, too. I presume 
 you did not hate him, either ? " 
 
 "He would have married me the day after I got my 
 divorce." 
 
 " And so would I," burst out Eeddy. 
 
 She looked at him fixedly. 
 
 " You would ? " she said with a peculiar emphasis, 
 " And now " — 
 
 He colored. It had been part of his revengeful purpose 
 on seeing her to tel! her of his engagement to Nelly, He 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 275 
 
 now found himself tongue-tied, irresolute, and ashamed. 
 Yet he felt she was reading his innermost thoughts. 
 
 She, however, only lowered her eyes, and with the same 
 tired expression said : — 
 
 " No matter now. Let us talk of something nearer. 
 That was two months ago. And so you have charge of this 
 hotel ! I like it so much. I mean the place itself. I 
 fancy I could live here forever. It is so far away and rest- 
 ful. I am so sick of towns and cities, and people. And 
 this little grove is so secluded. If one had merely a little 
 cottage here, one might be so happy." 
 
 What did she mean ? — what did she expect ? — what 
 did she think of doing ? She must be got rid of before 
 Nelly's arrival, and yet he found himself wavering under her 
 potent and yet scarcely exerted influence. The desperation 
 of weakness is apt to be more brutal than the determination 
 of strength. He remembered why he had come upstairs, 
 and blurted out : — 
 
 " But you can't stay here. The rules are very stringent 
 in regard to — to strangers like yourself. It will be known 
 who you really are and what people say of you. Even 
 your divorce will tell against you. It 's all wrong, I know 
 — but what can I do ? I did n't make the rules. I am 
 only a servant of the landlord, and must carry them out." 
 
 She leaned back against the sofa and laughed silently. 
 But she presently recovered herself, although with the 
 same expression of fatigue. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed, my poor Jim ! If you mean your 
 friend, Mr. Woodridge, I know him. It was he, himself, 
 who suggested my coming here. And don't misunderstand 
 him — nor me either. He 's only a good friend of Sylves- 
 ter's ; they had some speculation together. He 's coming 
 here to see me after Louis arrives. He 's waiting in San 
 Francisco for his wife and daughter, who come on the same 
 steamer. So yon see you won't get into trouble on my ac- 
 count Dop't- look so scared, my dear boy." 
 
276 THE EEFORMATION OF JAMES EEDDY 
 
 " Does he know that you knew me ? " said Keddy, with 
 a white face. 
 
 " Perhaps. But then that was three months ago," re- 
 turned the lady, smiling, "aui you know how you have 
 reformed since, and grown ever so much more steady and 
 respectable." 
 
 "Did he talk to you of me?" continued Reddy, still 
 aghast. 
 
 " A little — complimentary of course. Don't look so 
 frightened. I did n't give you away." 
 
 Her laugh suddenly ceased, and her face changed into a 
 more nervous activity as she rose and went toward the win- 
 dow. She had heard the sound of wheels outside — the 
 coach had just arrived. 
 
 " There 's Mr. Woodridge now," she said in a more 
 animated voice. " The steamer must be in. But I don't 
 see Louis ; do you ? " 
 
 She turned to where Reddy was standing, but he was 
 gone. 
 
 The momentary animation of her face changed. She 
 lifted her shoulders with a half gesture of scorn, but in the 
 midst of it suddenly threw herself on the sofa, and buried 
 her face in her hands. 
 
 A few moments elapsed with the bustle of arrival in the 
 hall and passages. Then there was a hesitating step at her 
 door. She quickly passed her handkerchief over her wet 
 eyes and resumed her former look of weary acceptation. 
 The door opened. But it was Mr. Woodridge who en- 
 tered. The rough shirt-sleeved ranchman had developed, 
 during the last four months, into an equally blunt but 
 soberly dressed proprietor. His keen, energetic face, how- 
 ever, wore an expression of embarrassment and anxiety, 
 with an added suggestion of a half humorous appreciation 
 of it. 
 
 " I would n't have disturbed you, Mrs. Merrydew," he 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 277 
 
 Baid, with a gentle bluntness, " if I had n't wanted to ask 
 your advice before I saw Eeddy. I 'm keeping out of his 
 way until I could see you. I left Nelly arid her mother 
 in 'Frisco. There 's been some queer goings-on on the 
 steamer coming home ; Nelly has sprung a new game on her 
 mother, and — and suthin' that looks as if there might be 
 a new deal. However," here a sense that he was, perhaps, 
 treating his statement too seriously, stopped him, and he 
 smiled reassuringly, " that is as may be." 
 
 "I don't know," he went on, "as I ever told you any- 
 thing about my Nelly and Keddy, partik'lerly about Nelly. 
 She 's a good girl, a square girl, but she 's got some all-fired 
 romantic ideas in her head. Mebbee it kem from her read- 
 ing, mebbee it kem from her not knowing other girls, or 
 seeing too much of a queer sort of men ; but she got an 
 interest in the bad ones, and thought it was her mission to 
 reform them, — reform them by pure kindness, attentive 
 little sisterly ways, and moral example. She first tried 
 her hand on Reddy. When he first kem to us he was — 
 well, he was a blazin' ruin ! She took him in hand, yanked 
 him outer himself, put his foot on the bed rock, and made 
 him what you see him now. Well — what happened ; 
 why, he got reg'larly soft on her ; wanted to marry her, 
 and I agreed conditionally, of course, to keep him up to 
 the mark. Did you speak ? " 
 
 " No," said the lady, with her bright eyes fixed upon 
 him. 
 
 " Well, that was all well and good, and I 'd liked to 
 have carried out my part of the contract, and was willing, 
 and am still. But you see, Nelly, after she 'd landed 
 Keddy on firm ground, got a little tired, I reckon, gal-like, 
 of the thing she 'd worked so easily, and when she went 
 Bast she looked around for some other wreck to try her 
 hand on, and she found it on the steamer coming back. 
 And who do you think it was ? Why, our friend Louis 
 Sylvester ' " 
 
278 THE REFOEMATXON OF JAMES KEDDY 
 
 Mrs. Merrydew smiled slightly, with her bright eyes still 
 on the speaker. 
 
 " Well, you know he is fast at times — if he ie a friend 
 of mine — and she reg'larly tackled him ; and as my old 
 woman says, it was a sight to see her go for him. But 
 then he did n't tumble to it. No ! Keformin' ain't in his 
 line, I 'm afeard. And what was the result ? Why, 
 Nelly only got all the more keen when she found she could 
 n't manage him like Eeddy, — and, between you and me, 
 she 'd have liked Reddy more if he had n't been so easy, — 
 and it 's ended, I reckon, in her now falling dead in love 
 with Sylvester. She swears she won't marry any one else, 
 and wants to devote her whole life to him ! Now, what 's 
 to be done ! Eeddy don't know it yet, and I don't know 
 how to tell him. Nelly says her mission was ended when 
 she made a new man of him, and he oughter be thankful 
 for that. Could n't you kinder break the news to him and 
 tell him there ain't any show for him ? " 
 
 " Does he love the girl so much, then ? " said the lady 
 gently. 
 
 " Yes ; but I am afraid there is no hope for Eeddy as long 
 as she thinks there 's a chance of her capturing Sylvester." 
 
 The lady rose and went to the writing-table. 
 
 " Would it be any comfort to you, Mr. Woodridge, if 
 you were told that she had not the slightest chance with, 
 Sylvester ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 She wrote a few lines on a card, put it in an envelope, 
 and handed it to Woodridge. 
 
 " Find out where Sylvester is in San Francisco, and give 
 him that card. I think it will satisfy you. And now as 
 I have to catch the return coach in ten minutes, I must 
 ask you to excuse me while I put my things together." 
 
 "And you won't first break the news to Eeddy fo» 
 jns?" 
 
THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY 279 
 
 " No ; and I advise you to keep the whole matter to 
 yourself for the present. Good-by ! " 
 
 She smiled again, fascinatingly as usual, but, as it seemed 
 to him, a trifle wearily, and then passed into the innei 
 room. Years after, in his practical, matter of-f act recollec- 
 tions of this strange woman, he always remembered her by 
 this smile. 
 
 But she had sufficiently impressed him by her parting 
 adjuration to cause him to answer Eeddy's eager inquiries 
 with the statement that Nelly and her mother were greatly 
 preoccupied with some friends in San Francisco, and to 
 speedily escape further questioning. Eeddy's disappoint- 
 ment was somewhat mitigated by the simultaneous an- 
 nouncement of Mrs. Merrydew's departure. But he was 
 still more relieved and gratified to hear, a few days later, 
 of the marriage of Mrs. Merrydew with Louis Sylvester. 
 If, to the general surprise and comment it excited, he con- 
 tributed only a smile of cynical toleration and superior self- 
 complacency, the reader will understand and not blame 
 him. Nor did the public, who knew the austere complete- 
 ness of his reform. Nor did Mr. Woodridge, who failed 
 to understand the only actor in this little comedy who 
 might perhaps have differed from them all. 
 
 A month later James Eeddy married Nelly Woodridge, 
 in the chilly little church at Oakdale. Perhaps by that time 
 it might have occurred to him that, although the freshness 
 and fruition of summer were everywhere, the building 
 seemed to be still unwarmed. And when he stepped forth 
 with his bride, and glanced across the prosperous landscape 
 toward the distant bay and headlands of San Francisco, he 
 shivered slightly at the dryly practical kiss of the keen 
 northwestern trades. 
 
 But he was prosperous and comfortable thereafter, as the 
 respectable owner of broad lands and paying shares. It 
 nas said that Mrs. Eeddy contributed much to the popular- 
 
280 THE REFORMATION OE JAMES KEDDY 
 
 ity of the hotel by her charming freedom from prejudice 
 and sympathy with mankind ; but this was perhaps only due 
 to the contrast to her more serious and at times abstracted 
 husband. At least this was the charitable opinion of the 
 proverbially tolerant and kind-hearted Baroness Streichhol- 
 zer (n^e Merrydew, and relict of the late lamented Louis 
 Sylvester, Esq.), whom I recently had the pleasure of meet- 
 ing at Wiesbaden, where the waters and reposeful surroimd'' 
 ingB strongly reminded her of Oakdale. 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 The largest tent of the Tasajara camp-meeting was 
 crowded to its utmost extent. The excitement of that 
 dense mass was at its highest pitch. The Reverend 
 Stephen Masterton, the single erect, passionate figure of 
 that confused medley of kneeling worshipers, had reached 
 the culminating pitch of his irresistible exhortatory power. 
 Sighs and groans were beginning to respond to his appeals, 
 when the reverend brother was seen to lurch heavily for- 
 ward and fall to the ground. 
 
 At first the effect was that of a part of his performance ; 
 the groans redoubled, and twenty or thirty brethren threw 
 themselves prostrate in humble imitation of the preacher. 
 But Sister Deborah Stokes, perhaps through some special 
 revelation of feminine intuition, grasped the fallen man, 
 tore loose his black silk necktie, and dragged him free of 
 the struggling, frantic crowd whose paroxysms he had just 
 evoked. Howbeit he was pale and unconscious, and unable 
 to continue the service. Even the next day, when he had 
 slightly recovered, it was found that any attempt to renew 
 his fervid exhortations produced the same disastrous result. 
 A council was hurriedly held by the elders. In spite of 
 the energetic protests of Sister Stokes, it was held that the 
 Lord " was wrestlin' with his sperrit," and he was sub- 
 jected to the same extraordinary treatment from the whole 
 congregation that he himself had applied to them. Propped 
 up pale and trembling in the " Mourners' Bench " by two 
 brethren, he was " striven with," exhorted, prayed over, 
 and admonished, until insensibility mercifully succeeded 
 
282 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 convulsions. Spiritual therapeutics having failed, he was 
 turned over to the weak and carnal nursing of " women- 
 folk." But after a month of incapacity he was obliged to 
 yield to " the flesh," and, in the local dialect, " to use a 
 doctor." 
 
 It so chanced that the medical practitioner of the district 
 was a man of large experience, of military training, and 
 plain speech. When, therefore, he one day found in his 
 surgery a man of rude Western type, strong-limbed and 
 sun-burned, but trembling, hesitating, and neurotic in move- 
 ment, after listening to hia symptoms gravely, he asked 
 abruptly : " And how much are you drinking now ? " 
 
 "I am a life-long abstainer," stammered his patient in 
 quivering indignation. But this was followed by another 
 qiiestion so frankly appalling to the hearer that he stag- 
 gered to his feet. 
 
 " I 'm Stephen Masterton — known of men as a circuit 
 preacher, of the Northern California district," he thundered 
 — " and an enemy of the flesh in all its forms." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," responded Doctor Duchesne, 
 grimly, " but as you are suffering from excessive and re- 
 peated excitation of the nervous system, and the depression 
 following prolonged artificial exaltation — it makes little 
 difference whether the cause be spiritual, as long as there is 
 a certain physical effect upon your body — which I believe 
 you have brought to me to cure. Now — as to diet ? you 
 look all wrong there." 
 
 " My food is of the simplest — I have no hankering for 
 fleshpots," responded the patient. 
 
 " I suppose you call saleratus bread and salt pork and 
 flapjacks simple ? " said the doctor coolly ; " they are 
 common enough, and if you were working with your muscles 
 instead of your nerves in that frame of yours they might 
 not hurt you ; but you are suffering as much from eating 
 more than you can digest as the veriest gourmand. You 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 283 
 
 must stop all that. Go down to a quiet watering-place for 
 two months " — 
 
 " / go to a watering-place ? " interrupted Masterton ; 
 " to the haunt of the idle, the frivolous, and wanton — 
 never ! " 
 
 " Well, I 'm not particular about a ' watering-place,' " 
 said the doctor, with a shrug, " although a little idleness 
 and frivolity with different food would n't hurt you ; but 
 you must go somewhere and change your habits and mode 
 of life completely. I will find you some sleepy old Spanish 
 town in the southern country where you can rest and diet. 
 If this is distasteful to you," he continued grimly, " you 
 can always call it ' a trial.' " 
 
 Stephen Masterton may have thought it so when, a week 
 later, he found himself issuing from a rocky gorge into a 
 rough, badly paved, hilly street, which seemed to be only 
 a continuation of the mountain road itself. It broadened 
 suddenly into a square or plaza, flanked on each side by an 
 irregular row of yellowing adobe houses, with the inevitable 
 verandaed tienda in each corner, and the solitary, galleried 
 fonda, with a half Moorish archway leading into an inner 
 patio or courtyard in the centre. 
 
 The whole street stopped as usual at the very door of the 
 mission church, a few hundred yards further on, and under 
 the shadow of the two belfry towers at each angle of the 
 facade, as if this were the Ultima Thule of every traveler. 
 But all that the eye rested on was ruined, worn, and crum- 
 bling. The adobe houses were cracked by the incessant 
 sunshine of the half-year-long summer, or the more inter- 
 mittent earthquake shock ; the paved courtyard of the fonda 
 was so uneven and sunken in the centre that the lumbering 
 wagon and faded diligencia stood on an incline, and the 
 mules with difficulty kept their footing while being unladen ; 
 the whitened plaster had fallen from the feet of the two 
 pillars that flanked the mission doorway, like bandages 
 
284 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 from a gouty limb, leaving the reddish core of adobe visible ; 
 there were apparently as many broken tiles in the streets 
 and alleys as there were on the heavy red roofs that every- 
 where asserted themselves — and even seemed to slide 
 down the crumbling walls to the ground. There were hope- 
 less gaps in grille and grating of doorways and windows, 
 where the iron bars had dropped helplessly out, or were 
 bent at different angles. The walls of the peaceful mission 
 garden and the warlike presidio were alike lost in the esca- 
 lading vines or leveled by the pushing boughs of gnarled 
 pear and olive trees that now surmounted them. The dust 
 lay thick and impalpable in hollow and gutter, and rose in 
 little vapory clouds with a soft detonation at every stroke 
 of his horse's hoofs. Over all this dust and ruin, idleness 
 seemed to reign supreme. From the velvet-jacketed figures 
 lounging motionless in the shadows of tlie open doorways 
 — so motionless that only the lazy drift of cigarette smoke 
 betokened their breathing — to the reclining peons in the 
 shade of a catalpa, or the squatting Indians in the arroyo — 
 all was sloth and dirt. 
 
 The Eeverend Stephen Masterton felt his throat swell 
 with his old exhortative indignation. A gaudy yellow fan 
 waved languidly in front of a black rose-crested head at a 
 white-curtained window. He knew he was stifling with 
 righteous wrath, and clapped his spurs to his horse. 
 
 Nevertheless, in a few days, by the aid of a letter to the 
 innkeeper, he was installed in a dilapidated adobe house, not 
 unlike those he had seen, but situated in the outskirts, and 
 overlooking the garden and part of the refectory of the old 
 mission. It had even a small garden of its own — if a strip 
 of hot wall, overburdened with yellow and white roses, a 
 dozen straggling callas, a bank of heliotrope, and an almond- 
 tree could be called a garden. It had an open doorway, but 
 so heavily recessed in the thick walls that it preserved 
 seclusion, a sitting-room, and an alcoved bedroom with deep 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 28? 
 
 embrasured windows, that, however, excluded the unwink 
 ing sunlight and kept an even monotone of shade. 
 
 Strange to say, he found it cool, restful, and, in spite ot 
 the dust, absolutely clean, and, but for the scent of helio- 
 trope, entirely inodorous. The dry air seemed to dissipate 
 all noxious emanations and decay — the very dust itself in 
 its fine impalpability was volatile with a spice-like piquancy, 
 and left no stain. 
 
 A wrinkled Indian woman, brown and veined like a 
 tobacco leaf, ministered to his simple wants. But these 
 wants had also been regulated by Dr. Duchesne. He found 
 himself, with some grave doubts of his effeminacy, break- 
 fasting on a single cup of chocolate instead of his usual 
 , bowl of molasses-sweetened coffee ; crumbling a crisp tortilla 
 instead of the heavy saleratus bread, greasy flapjack, or the 
 lard-fried steak, and, more wonderful still, completing his 
 repast with purple grapes from the mission wall. He could 
 not deny that it was simple — that it was even refreshing 
 and consistent with the climate and his surroundings. On 
 the other hand, it was the frugal diet of the commonest 
 peasant — and were not those peons slothful idolaters ? 
 
 At the end of the week — his correspondence being also 
 restricted by his doctor to a few lines to himself regarding 
 his progress — he wrote to that adviser : — 
 
 " The trembling and unquiet has almost ceased ; I have 
 less nightly turmoil and visions ; my carnal appetite seems 
 to be amply mollified and soothed by these viands, what- 
 ever may be their ultimate effect upon the weakness of our 
 common sinful nature. But I should not be truthful to 
 you if I did not warn you that I am viewing with the deep 
 est spiritual concern a decided tendency towards sloth, and 
 a folding of the hands over matters that often, I fear, are 
 spiritual as well as temporal. I would ask you to consider, 
 in a spirit of love, if it be not wise to rouse my apathetic 
 flesh, so as to strive, even with the feeblest exhortations — 
 
286 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 against this sloth in others — if only to keep one's self from 
 falling into the pit of easy indulgence." 
 
 AVhat answer he received is not known, but it is to be 
 presumed that he kept loyal faith with his physician, and 
 gave himself up to simple v\ralks and rides and occasional 
 meditation. His solitude was not broken upon ; curiosity 
 was too active a vice, and induced too much exertion for 
 his indolent neighbors, and the Americano's basking seclu- 
 sion, though unlike the habits of his countrymen, did not 
 affect them. The shopkeeper and innkeeper saluted him 
 always with a profound courtesy which awakened his slight 
 resentment, partly because he was conscious that it was 
 grateful to him, and partly that he felt he ought to have 
 provoked in them a less satisfied condition. 
 
 Once, when he had unwittingly passed the confines of 
 his own garden, through a gap in the mission orchard, a 
 lissome, black-coated shadow slipped past him with an obei- 
 sance so profound and gentle that he was startled at first 
 into an awkward imitation of it himself, and then into an 
 angry self-examination. He knew that he loathed that 
 long-skirted, woman-like garment, that dangling, ostentatious 
 symbol, that air of secrecy and mystery, and he inflated his 
 chest above his loosely tied cravat and unbuttoned waistcoat 
 with a contrasted sense of freedom. But he was conscious 
 the next day of weakly avoiding a recurrence of this meet- 
 ing, and in his self-examination put it down to his self-dis- 
 ciplined observance of his doctor's orders. But when he 
 was strong again, and fitted for his Master's work, how 
 strenuously he should improve the occasion this gave him 
 of attacking the Scarlet Woman among her slaves and wor- 
 shipers ! 
 
 His afternoon meditations and the perusal of his only 
 book — the Bible — were regularly broken in upon at about 
 Bunset by two or three strokes from the cracked bell that 
 hung in the open belfry which reared itself beyond the 
 
A CONVEET OF THE MISSION 287 
 
 gnarled pear-trees. He could not say that it was aggressive 
 or persistent, like his own church hells, nor that it even 
 expressed to him any religious sentiment. Moreover, it was 
 not a Sabbath bell, but a daily one, and even then seemed 
 bo be only a signal to ears easily responsive, rather than a 
 stern reminder. And the hour was always a singularly 
 vitching one. 
 
 It was when the sun had slipped from the glaring red 
 roofs, and the yellowing adobe of the mission walls and the 
 tall ranks of wild oats on the hillside were all of the one 
 color of old gold. It was when the quivering heat of the 
 arroyo and dusty expanse of plaza was blending with the 
 soft breath of the sea fog that crept through the clefts of 
 the coast range, until a refreshing balm seemed to fall like 
 a benediction on all nature. It was when the trade-wind- 
 swept and irritated surfaces of the rocky gorge beyond were 
 soothed with clinging vapors ; when the pines above nc 
 longer rocked monotonously, and the great undulating sea of 
 the wild oat plains had gone down and was at rest. It was 
 at this hour, one afternoon, that, with the released scents of 
 the garden, there came to him a strange and subtle perfume 
 that was new to his senses. He laid aside his book, went 
 into the garden, and half-unconscious of his trespass, passed 
 through the mission orchard and thence into the little 
 churchyard beside the church. 
 
 Looking at the strange inscriptions in an unfamiliar 
 tongue, he was singularly touched with the few cheap memori- 
 als lying upon the graves — like childish toys — and for the 
 moment overlooked the papistic emblems that accompanied 
 them. It struck him vaguely that Death, the common lev- 
 eler, had made even the symbols of a faith eternal inferior 
 to those simple records of undying memory and affection, 
 and he was for a moment startled into doubt. 
 
 He walked to the door of the church : to his surprise it 
 was open. Standing upon the threshold he glanced inside^ 
 
288 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 and stood for a moment utterly bewildered. In a man jf 
 refined taste and education that bizarre and highly colored 
 interior would have only provoked a smile or shrug ; to 
 Stephen Masterton's highly emotional nature, but artistic 
 jnexperience, strangely enough it was profoundly imprpfesive. 
 The heavily timbered, roughly hewn roof, barred with alter- 
 nate bands of blue and Indian red, the crimson hangings, 
 the gold and black drapcTies, affected this religious back- 
 woodsman exactly as they were designed to affect the 
 heathen and acolytes for whose conversion the temple had 
 been reared. He could scarcely take his eyes from the tin- 
 sel-crowned Mother of Heaven, resplendent in white and 
 gold and glittering with jewels ; the radiant shield before the 
 Host, illuminated by tall spectral candles in the mysterious 
 obscurity of the altar, dazzled him like the rayed disk of the 
 setting sun. 
 
 A gentle murmur, as of the distant sea, came from the 
 altar. In his naive bewilderment he had not seen the few 
 kneeling figures in the shadow of column and aisle ; it was 
 not until a man, whom he recognized as a muleteer he had 
 seen that afternoon gambling, and drinking in the fonda, 
 slipped by him like a shadow and sank upon his knees in 
 the centre of the aisle that he realized the overpowering 
 truth. 
 
 He, Stephen Masteiton, was looking upon some rite of 
 Popish idolatry ! He was turning quickly away when the 
 keeper of the tienda — a man of sloth and sin — gently ap- 
 proached him from the shadow of a column with a mutt 
 gesture, which he took to be one of invitation. A fierce 
 protest of scorn and indignation swelled to his throat, but 
 died upon his lips. Yet he had strength enough to erect 
 his gaunt, emaciated figure, throwing out his long arms and 
 extended palms in the attitude of defiant exorcism, and 
 then rush swiftly from the church. As he did so he 
 thought he saw a faint smile cross the shopkeeper's face^ 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 289 
 
 and a whispered exchange of words with a neighboring wor- 
 shiper of more exalted appearance came to his ears. But. it 
 was not intelligible to his comprehension. 
 
 The next day he wrote to his doctor in that quaint 
 grandiloquence of written speech with which the half- 
 educated man balances the slips of his colloquial phras- 
 ing:— 
 
 Do not let the purgation of my flesh be unduly pro- 
 tracted. What with the sloth and idolatries of Baal and 
 Ashteroth, which I see daily around me, I feel that with- 
 out a protest not only the flesh but the spirit is mortified. 
 But my bodily strength is mercifully returning, and I found 
 myself yesterday able to take a long ride at that hour which 
 they here keep sacred for an idolatrous rite, under the 
 beautiful name of " The Angelus." Thus do they bear 
 false witness to Him ! Can you tell me the meaning of 
 the Spanish words " Don Keyhotter " ? I am ignorant of 
 these sensuous Southern languages, and am aware that this 
 is not the correct spelling, but I have striven to give the 
 phonetic equivalent. It was used, I am inclined to think, 
 in reference to myself, by an idolater. 
 
 P. S. — You need not trouble yourself. I have just 
 ascertained that the words in question were simply the title 
 of an idle novel, and of course could not possibly refer to 
 me. 
 
 Howbeit it was as " Don Quixote " — that is, the com- 
 mon Spaniard's conception of the Knight of La Mancha, 
 merely the simple fanatic and madman — that Mr. Stephen 
 Masterton ever after rode all unconsciously through the 
 streets of the Mission, amid the half-pitying, half-smiling 
 glances of the people. 
 
 In spite of his meditations, his single volume, and his 
 habit of retiring early, he found his evenings were grow- 
 
290 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 ing lonely and tedious. He missed the prayer-meeting, 
 and, above all, the hymns. He had a fine baritone voice, 
 sympathetic, as may be imagined, but not cultivated. One 
 night, in the seclusion of his garden, and secure in his dis- 
 tance from other dwellings, he raised his voice in a familiar 
 camp-meeting hymn with a strong Covenanter's ring in the 
 chorus. Growing bolder as he went on, he at last filled 
 bhe quiet night with the strenuous sweep of his chant. 
 Surprised at his own fervor, he paused for a moment, listen- 
 ing, half frightened, half ashamed of his outbreak. But 
 there was only the trilling of the night wind in the leaves, 
 or the far-off yelp of a coyote. 
 
 For a moment he thought he heard the metallic twang 
 of a stringed instrument in the mission garden beyond his 
 own, and remembered his contiguity to the church with a 
 stir of defiance. But he was relieved, nevertlieless. His 
 pent-up emotion had found vent, and without the nervous 
 excitement that had followed his old exaltation. That 
 night he slept better. He had found the Lord again — 
 with psalmody ! 
 
 The next evening he chanced upon a softer hymn of the 
 same simplicity, but with a vein of human tenderness in its 
 aspirations, which his more hopeful mood gently rendered. 
 At the conclusion of the first verse he was, however, disr 
 tinctly conscious of being followed by the same twanging 
 sound he had heard on the previous night, and which even 
 his untutored ear could recognize as an attempt to accompany 
 him. But before he had finished the second verse the un- 
 known player, after an ingenious but ineffectual essay to 
 grasp the right chord, abandoned it with an impatient 
 and almost pettish flourish, and a loud bang upon the 
 sounding-board of the unseen instrument. Masterton 
 finished it alone. 
 
 With his curiosity excited, however, he tried to discover 
 tt" locality of the hidden player. The sound evidently 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 291 
 
 came from the mission garden ; but in his ignorance of the 
 language he could not even interrogate his Indian house- 
 keeper. On the third night, however, his hymn was unin- 
 terrupted by any sound from the former musician. A 
 sense of disappointment, he knew not why, came over him. 
 The kindly overture of the unseen player had been a relief 
 to his loneliness. Yet he had barely concluded the hymn 
 when the familiar sound again struck his ears. But this 
 time the musician played boldly, confidently, and with a 
 c' lingular skill on the instrument. 
 
 The brilliant prelude over, to his entire surprise and 
 some confusion, a soprano voice, high, childish, but infi- 
 nitely quaint and fascinating, was mischievously uplifted. 
 But alas ! even to his ears, ignorant of the language, it 
 ■was very clearly a song of levity and wantonness, of free- 
 dom and license, of coquetry and incitement ! Yet such 
 was its fascination that he fancied it was reclaimed by the 
 delightful childlike and innocent expression of the singer. 
 
 Enough that this tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered man 
 arose, and, overcome by a curiosity almost as childlike, 
 slipped into the garden and glided with an Indian softness 
 of tread towards the voice. The moon shone full upon the 
 ruined mission wall tipped with clusters of dark foliage. 
 Half hiding, half mingling with one of them — an indis 
 tinct bulk of light-colored huddled fleeces like an extrava- 
 gant bird's nest — hung the unknown musician. So intent 
 was the performer's preoccupation that Masterton actually 
 reached the base of the wall immediately below the figure 
 without attracting its attention. But his foot slipped on 
 the crumbling debris with a snapping of dry twigs. There 
 was a quick little cry from above. He had barely time to 
 recover his position before the singer, impulsively leaning 
 over the parapet, had lost hers, and fell outwards. But 
 iVEasterton was tall, alert, and self-possessed, and threw out 
 his long arms. The next moment they were full of soft 
 
292 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 flounces, a struggling figure was against his breast, and a 
 woman's frightened little hands around his neck. But he 
 had broken her fall, and almost instantly, yet with infin'te 
 gentleness, he released her unharmed, with hardly her crisp 
 flounces crumpled, in an upright position against the wall. 
 Even her guitar, still hanging from her shoulder by a yel- 
 low ribbon, had bounded elastic and resounding against the 
 wall, but lay intact at her satin-slippered feet. She caught 
 it up with another quick little cry, but this time more of 
 sauciness than fear, and drew her little hand across its 
 strings, half defiantly. 
 
 " I hope you are not hurt ? " said the circuit preacher 
 gravely. 
 
 She broke into a laugh so silvery that he thought it 
 no extravagance to liken it to the moonbeams that played 
 over her made audible. She was lithe, yet plump ; barred 
 with black and yellow and small waisted like a pretty 
 wasp. Her complexion in that light was a sheen of pearl 
 satin that made her eyes blacker and her little mouth 
 redder than any other color could. She was small, but, 
 remembering the fourteen-year-old wife of the shopkeeper, 
 he felt that, for all her childish voice and features, she was 
 a grown woman, and a sudden shyness took hold of him. 
 
 But she looked pertly in his face, stood- her guitar up- 
 right before her, and put her hands behind her back as she 
 leaned saucily against the wall and shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " It was the fault of you," she said, in a broken English 
 that seemed as much infantine as foreign. " What for you 
 not remain to yourself in your own casa ? So it come. 
 You creep so — in the dark — and shake my wall, and i 
 fall. And she," pointing to the guitar, " is a'most broke ! 
 And for all thees I have only make to you a serenade. 
 Ingrate ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Masterton quickly, " but I 
 was curious. I thought I might help you, and " — 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 293 
 
 " Make yourself another cat on the wall, eh ? No ; 
 one is enough, thank you ! " 
 
 A frown lowered on Masterton's brow. "You don't 
 understand nie," he said bluntly. " I did not know who 
 was here." 
 
 ' Ah, bueno ! Then it is Pepita Earairez, you see," 
 she said, tapping her bodice with one little finger, "all the 
 same ; the niece from Manuel Garcia, who keeps the mis- 
 sion garden and lif there. And you ? " 
 
 " My name is Masterton." 
 
 " How mooch ? " 
 
 "Masterton," he repeated. 
 
 She tried to pronounce it once or twice, desperately, and 
 then shook her little head so violently that a yellow rose 
 fastened over her ear fell to the ground. But she did not 
 heed it, nor the fact that Masterton had picked it up. 
 
 " Ah, I cannot ! " she said poutingly. " It is as deefee- 
 cult to make go as my guitar with your serenade." 
 
 " Can you not say ' Stephen Masterton ' ? " he asked, 
 more gently, with a returning and forgiving sense of her 
 childishness. 
 
 "Es-stefen? Ah, Esteban l Yes; Don Esteban ! 
 Bueno ! Then, Don Esteban, what for you sink so melank- 
 olly one night and one night so fierce ? The melank-olly, 
 he ees not so bad ; but the fierce — ah ! he is weeked ! 
 Ess it how the Americano make always his serenade ? " 
 
 Masterton's brow again darkened. And his hymn of 
 exultation had been mistaken by these people — by this — ■ 
 this wanton child ! 
 
 " It was no serenade," he replied curtly ; " it was in 
 praise of the Lord ! " 
 
 "Of how mooch?" 
 
 " Of the Lord of Hosts — of the Almighty in Heaven." 
 He lifted his long arms reverently on high. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, with a frightened look, slightly edging 
 
'294 A CONVERT or THE MISSION 
 
 away from the wall. At a secure distance she stopped. 
 " Then you are a soldier, Don Esteban ? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Then what for you sink, ' I am a soldier of the Lord,* 
 and you will make die ' in His army ' ? Oh, yes ; you 
 have said." She gathered up her guitar tightly under her 
 arm, shook her small finger at him gravely, and said, " You 
 are a hoombog, Don Esteban ; good a' night," — and began 
 to glide away. 
 
 " One moment, Miss — Miss Eamirez," called Masterton. 
 "I — that is you — you have — forgotten your rose," he 
 added feebly, holding up the flower. She halted. 
 
 " Ah, yes ; he have drop, you have pick him up, he is 
 yours. I have drop, you have pick me up, but T am not 
 yours. Good a' night, Comandante Don Esteban ! " 
 
 With a light laugh she ran along beside the wall for a 
 little distance, suddenly leaped up and disappeared in one 
 of the largest gaps in its ruined and helpless structure. 
 Stephen Masterton gazed after her stupidly, still holding 
 the rose in his hand. Then he threw it away, and reen- 
 tered his home. 
 
 Lighting his candle, he undressed himself, prayed fer- 
 vently — so fervently that all remembrance of the idle, 
 foolish incident was wiped from his mind, and went to bed. 
 He slept well and dreamlessly. The next morning, when 
 bis thoughts recurred to the previous night, this seemed to 
 him a token that he had not deviated from his spiritual 
 integrity ; it did not occur to him that the thought itself 
 was a tacit suspicion. 
 
 So his feet quite easily sought the garden again in the 
 early sunshine, even to the wall where she had stood. But 
 he had not taken into account the vivifying freshness of the 
 morning, the renewed promise of life and resurrection in 
 the pulsing air and potent sunlight, and as he stood there 
 he seemed to see the figure of the young girl again leaning 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 295 
 
 against the wall in all the charm of her irrepressible and 
 innocent youth. More than that, he found the whole scene 
 reenacting itself before him : the nebulous drapery half 
 hidden in the foliage, the cry, and the fall ; the momentary 
 soft contact of the girl's figure against his own, the cling- 
 ing arms around his neck, the brush and fragrance of her 
 flounces — all this came back to him with a strength he 
 had not felt when it occurred. 
 
 He was turning hurriedly away when his eyes fell upon 
 the yellow rose still lying in the debris where he had thrown 
 it — but still pure, fresh, and unfaded. He picked it up 
 again, with a singular fancy that it was the girl herself, and 
 carried it into the house. 
 
 As he placed it half shyly in a glass on his table a won- 
 derful thought occurred to him. Was not the episode of 
 last night a special providence ? Was not that young girl, 
 wayward and childlike, a mere neophyte in her idolatrous 
 religion, as yet unsteeped in sloth and ignorance, presented 
 to him as a brand to be snatched from the burning ? Was 
 not this the opportunity of conversion he had longed for ; 
 — this the chance of exercising his gifts of exhortation, 
 that he had been hiding in the napkin of solitude and 
 seclusion ? Nay, was not all this predestined ? His 
 illness, his consequent exile to this land of false gods — 
 this contiguity to the mission — was not all this part of a 
 supremely ordered plan for the girl's salvation — and was 
 he not elected and ordained for that service ? Nay, more, 
 was not the girl herself a mere unconscious instrument in 
 the hands of a higher power ; was not her voluntary attempt 
 to accompany him in his devotional exercise a vague stir- 
 ring of that predestined force within her ? Was not even 
 that wantonness and frivolity contrasted with her childish- 
 ness — which he had at first misunderstood — the stirrings 
 of the flesh and the spirit, and was he to abandon her in 
 that struggle of good and evil ? 
 
296 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 He lifted his bowed head, that had been resting on his 
 arm before the little flower on the table — as if it were a 
 shrine — with a flash of resolve in his blue eyes. The 
 wrinkled Concepcion coming to her duties in the morning 
 scarcely recognized her gloomily abstracted master in this 
 transfigured man. He looked ten years younger. 
 
 8he met his greeting, and the few direct inquiries that 
 his new resolve enabled him to make more freely, with 
 some information — which a later talk with the shopkeeper, 
 who had a fuller English vocabulary, confirmed in detail. 
 
 " Yes ! truly this was a niece of the mission gardener, 
 who lived with her uncle in the ruined wing of the pre- 
 sidio. She had taken her first communion four years ago. 
 Ah, yes, she was a great musician, and could play on the 
 organ. And the guitar, ah, yes — of a certainty. She was 
 gay, and flirted with the caballeros, young and old, but she 
 cared not for any." 
 
 Whatever satisfaction this latter statement gave Master- 
 ton, he believed it was because the absence of any disturb- 
 ing worldly affection would made her an easier convert. 
 
 But how continue this chance acquaintance and eff'ect her 
 conversion ? For the first time Masterton realized the value 
 of expediency ; while his whole nature impelled him to 
 frankly and publicly seek her society and openly exhort 
 her, he knew that this was impossible ; still more, he remem- 
 bered her unmistakable fright at his first expression of faith ; 
 he must " be wise as the serpent and harmless as the dove." 
 He must work upon her soul alone, and secretly. He, who 
 would have shruijk from any clandestine association with a 
 girl from mere human affection, saw^ no wrong in a covert 
 intimacy for the purpose of religious salvation. Ignorant 
 as he was of the ways of the world, and inexperienced in 
 the usages of society, he began to plan methods of secretly 
 meeting her with all the intrigue of a gallant. The per- 
 spicacity as well as the intuition of a true lover had de- 
 
A OONVfiKT OF THE MISSION 297 
 
 Bcended upon him in this effort of mere spiritual con- 
 quest. ■ 
 
 Armed with his information and a few Spanish words, 
 he took the yellow Concepcion aside and gravely suborned 
 her to carry a note to be delivered secretly to Miss Ea 
 mirez. To his great relief and some surprise the old woman 
 grinned with intelligence, and her withered hand closed 
 with a certain familiar dexterity over the epistle and the 
 accompanying gratuity. To a man less naively one-ideaed 
 it might have awakened some suspicion ; but to the more 
 sanguine hopefulness of Masterton it only suggested the 
 fancy that Concepcion herself might prove to be open to 
 conversion, and that he should in due season attempt her 
 salvation also. But that would be later. For Concepcion 
 was always with him and accessible ; the girl was not. 
 
 The note, which had. cost him some labor of composition, 
 simple and almost business-like as was the result, ran as 
 follows : — 
 
 " I wish to see you upon some matter of grave concern 
 to yourself. Will you oblige me by coming again to the 
 wall of the mission to-night at early candlelight ? It would 
 ftvert worldly suspicion if you brought also your guitar." 
 
 The afternoon dragged slowly on ; Concepcion returned ; 
 she had, with great difficulty, managed to see the seiiorita, 
 but not alone ; she had, however, slipped the note into her 
 hand, not daring to wait for an answer. 
 
 In his first hopefulness Masterton did not doubt what 
 the answer would be, but as evening approached he grew 
 concerned as to the girl's opportunities of coming, and re- 
 gretted that he had not givenher a choice of time. 
 
 Before his evening meal was finished he began to fear 
 fv/r her willingness, and doubt the potency of his note. He 
 was accustomed to exhort orally — perhaps he ought to have 
 waited for the chance of speaking to her directly without 
 writing. 
 
298 A COJJVEET OF THE MISSION 
 
 When the moon rose he was already in the garden. 
 Lingering at first in the shadow of an olive-tree, he waited 
 until the moonbeams fell on the wall and its crests of foli- 
 age. But nothing moved among that ebony tracery ; his 
 ear was strained for the familiar tinkle of the guitar — all 
 was silent. As the moon rose higher he at last boldly 
 walked to the waU, and listened for any movement on the 
 other side of it. But nothing stirred. She was evidently 
 not coming — his note had failed. 
 
 He was turning away sadly, but as he faced his home 
 Lgain he heard a light laugh beside him. He stopped. A 
 black shadow stepped out from beneath his own almond- 
 tree. He started, when, with a gesture that seemed familiar 
 to him, the upper part of the shadow seemed to fall away 
 with a long black mantilla and the face of the young girl 
 was revealed. 
 
 He could see now that she was clad in black lace from 
 head to foot. She looked taller, older, and he fancied even 
 prettier than before. A sudden doubt of his ability to 
 impress her, a swift realization of all the difficulties of the 
 attempt, and, for the first time, perhaps, a dim perception 
 of the incongruity of the situation came over him. 
 
 " I was looking for you on the wall," he stammered. 
 
 " Madre de Dios ! " she retorted, with a laugh and her old 
 audacity, " you would that I shall always hang there, and 
 drop upon you like a pear when you shake the tree ? No ! " 
 
 " You have n't brought your guitar," he continued, still 
 more awkwardly, as he noticed that she held only a long 
 black fan in her hand. 
 
 " For why ? You would that I play it, and when my 
 uncle say, ' Where go Pepita ? She is loss,' some one shall 
 say, ' Oh ! I have hear her tink-a-tink in the garden of the 
 Americano, who lif alone.' And then — it ess finish ! " 
 
 Masterton began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable. 
 There was something in this situation that he had not 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 299; 
 
 dreamed of. But with the persistency of an awkward man 
 he went on. 
 
 "But you played on the wall the other night, and tried 
 to accompany me." 
 
 " But that was lass night and on the wall. I had not 
 speak to you, you had not speak to me. ; ; You had not sent 
 me the leetle note by your peon." She stopped, and 
 suddenly opening her fan before her face, so that only her 
 mischievous eyes were visible, added : " You had not asked 
 me then to come to hear you make lof to me, Do^n Esteban. 
 That is the difference." 
 
 The circuit preacher felt the blood rush to his face. 
 Anger, shame, mortification, remorse, and fear alternately 
 strove with him, but above all and through all he was 
 conscious of a sharp, exquisite pleasure — that frightened 
 him still more. Yet he managed to exclaim : — 
 
 " No ! no ! You cannot think me capable of such a 
 cowardly trick ? " 
 
 The girl started, more at the unmistakable sincerity of 
 his utterance than at the words, whose full meaning she 
 may have only imperfectly caught. 
 
 " A treek ? A treek ? " she slowly and wonderingly 
 repeated. Then suddenly, as if comprehending him, she 
 turned her round black eyes full upon him and dropped her 
 fan from her face. 
 
 " And what for you ask me to come here then ? " 
 
 "I wanted to talk with you," he began, "on far more 
 serious matters. I wished to " — But he stopped. He 
 could not address this quaint child-woman, staring at him 
 in black-eyed wonder, in either the measured or the impetu- 
 ous terms with which he would have exhorted a maturer 
 responsible being. He made a step toward her ; she drew 
 back, striking at his extended hand half impatiently, half 
 mischievously with her fan. 
 
 He flushed — and then burft out bluntly, " I want to 
 talk with you about your soul." 
 
300 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 "My what?" 
 
 " Your immortal soul, unhappy girl." 
 
 " What have you to make with that ? Are you a devil ? " 
 Her eyes grew rounder, though she faced him boldly. 
 
 " I am a minister of the gospel," he said, in hurried 
 entreaty. " You must hear me for a moment. I would 
 save your soul." 
 
 " My immortal soul lif with the padre at the mission — you 
 moost seek her there ! My mortal body," she added, with 
 a mischievous smile, " say to you, ' Good a' night, Don Este- 
 ban.' " She dropped him a little curtsy and — ran away. 
 
 " One moment. Miss Ramirez," said Masterton eagerly ; 
 but she had already slipped beyond his reach. He saw her 
 little black figure passing swiftly beside the moonlit wall, 
 saw it suddenly slide into a shadowy fissure, and vanish. 
 
 In his blank disappointment he could not bear to reenter 
 the house he had left so sanguinely a few moments before, 
 but walked moodily in the garden. His discomfiture was 
 the more complete since he felt that his defeat was owing 
 to some mistake in his methods, and not the incorrigibility 
 of his subject. 
 
 Was it not a spiritual weakness in him to have resented 
 so sharply the girl's imputation that he wished to make 
 love to her ? He should have borne it as Christians had 
 even before now borne slander and false testimony for their 
 faith ! He might even have accepted it, and let the triumph 
 of her conversion in the end prove his innocence. Or was 
 his purpose incompatible with that sisterly affection he had 
 so often preached to the women of his flock ? He might 
 have taken her hand, and called her " Sister Pepita," even 
 as he had called Deborah "Sister." He recalled the fact 
 that he had for an instant held her struggling in his arms : 
 he remembered the thrill that the recollection had caused 
 him, and somehow it now sent a burning blush across his 
 face. He hurried back into the house. 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 301 
 
 The next day a thousand wild ideas took the place of his 
 former settled resolution. He would seek the padre, this 
 custodian of the young girl's soul ; he would convince him 
 of his error, or beseech him to give him an equal access to 
 her spirit ! He would seek the uncle of the girl, and work 
 upon his feelings. 
 
 Then for three or four days he resolved to put the young 
 girl from his mind, trusting after the fashion of his kind 
 for some special revelation from a supreme source as an in- 
 dication for his conduct. This revelation presently occurred, 
 as it is apt to occur when wanted. 
 
 One evening his heart leaped at the familiar sound of 
 Pepita's guitar in the distance. Whatever his ultimate 
 intention now, he hurriedly ran into the garden. The 
 sound came from the former direction, but as he unhesitat- 
 ingly approached the mission wall, he could see that she 
 was not upon it, and as the notes of her guitar were struck 
 again, he knew that they came from the other side. But 
 the chords were a prelude to one of his own hymns, and he 
 stood entranced as her sweet, child-like voice rose with the 
 very words that he had sung. The few defects were those 
 of purely oral imitation, the accents, even the slight reitera- 
 tion of the " s," were Pepita's own : — 
 
 " Cheeldren oof the Heavenly King, 
 As ye journey essweetly ssing; 
 Essing your great Redeemer's praise, 
 GLorioos in Heea worJts and ways." 
 
 He was astounded. Her recollection of the air and 
 
 ■words was the more wonderful, for he remembered now 
 
 that he had only sung that particular hymn once. But to 
 
 his still greater deliglit and surprise, her voice rose again in 
 
 the second verse, with a touch of plaintiveness that swelled 
 
 his throat : — 
 
 " We are traveling home to God, 
 In the way our farzers trod, 
 They are happy now, and we 
 Soon their happiness shall see." 
 
302 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 The simple, almost childish words — so childish tha'ii 
 they might have been the fitting creation of her own child- 
 ish lips — here died away with a sweep and crash of the 
 whole strings. Breathless silence followed, in which Ste- 
 phen Masterton could feel the beatings of his own heart. 
 
 " Miss Eamirez," he called, in a voice that scarcely 
 seemed his own. There was no reply. " Pepita ! " he 
 repeated ; it was strangely like the accent of a lover, but he 
 no longer cared. Still the singer's voice was silent. 
 
 Then he ran swiftly beside the wall, as he had seen her 
 run, until he came to the fissure. It was overgrown with 
 vines and brambles almost as impenetrable as an abatis, but 
 if she had pierced it in her delicate crape dress, so could 
 he ! He brushed roughly through, and found himself in a 
 glimmering aisle of pear-trees close by the white wall of the 
 mission church. 
 
 For a moment in that intricate tracing of ebony and 
 ivory made by the rising moon, he was dazzled, but evi- 
 dently his irruption into the orchard had not been as lithe 
 and silent as her own, for a figure in a parti-colored dress 
 suddenly started into activity, and running from the wall, 
 began to course through the trees until it became apparently 
 a part of that involved pattern. Nothing daunted, however, 
 Stephen Masterton pursued; his speed increased as he recog- 
 nized the flounces of Pepita's barred dress, but the young 
 girl had the advantage of knowing the locality, and could 
 evade her pursuer by unsuspected turns and doubles. 
 
 For some moments this fanciful sylvan chase was kept 
 up in perfect silence ; it might have been a woodland 
 nymph pursued by a wandering shepherd. Masterton pres- 
 ently saw that she was making towards a tiled roof that 
 jv^as now visible as projecting over the presidio wall, and 
 was evidently her goal of refuge. He redoubled his speed ; 
 with skillful audacity and sheer strength of his broad 
 shouldsrs J>e broke through a dense ceanothus hedge which 
 
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 303 
 
 Pepita was swiftly skirting, and suddenly appeared between 
 her and her house. 
 
 With her first cry, the young girl turned and tried to 
 bury herself in the hedge ; but in another stride the circuit 
 preacher was at her side, and caught her panting figure in 
 his arms. 
 
 While he had been running he had swiftly formulated 
 what he should do and what he should say to her. To his 
 simple appeal for her companionship and willing ear he 
 would add a brotherly tenderness, that should invite her 
 trustfulness in him ; he would confess his wrong and ask 
 her forgiveness of his abrupt solicitations ; he would pro- 
 pose to teach her more hymns, they would practice psal- 
 mody together ; even this priest, the custodian of her soul, 
 could not object to that ; but chiefly he would thank her : 
 he would tell her how she had pleased him, and this would 
 lead to more serious and thoughtful converse. All this 
 was in his mind w^hile he ran, was upon his lips as he 
 caught her, and for an instant she lapsed, exhausted, in his 
 arms. But, alas ! even in that moment he suddenly drew 
 her towards him, and kissed her as only a lover could ! 
 
 The wire grass was already yellowing on the Tasajara 
 plains with the dusty decay of the long, dry summer, when 
 Dr. Duchesne returned to Tasajara. He came to see the 
 wife of Deacon Sanderson, who, having for the twelfth 
 time added to the population of the settlement, was not 
 " doing as well " as everybody — except, possibly, Dr. Du 
 chesne — expected. After he had made tliis hollow-eyed, 
 over-burdened, under-nourished woman as comfortable as he 
 could in her rude, neglected surroundings, to change the 
 dreary chronicle of suffering, he turned to the husband, 
 and sajd : " And what has become of Mr. Masterton, who 
 used to be in your — vocation?" 
 
 A lofig groan came from the deacon, 
 
304 A CONVERT OF THE MISSION 
 
 " Hallo ! I hope he has not had a relapse," said the 
 doctor earnestly. " I thought I 'd knocked all that non- 
 sense out of him — I beg your pardon — I mean," he 
 added hurriedly, " he wrote to me only a few weeks ago 
 that he was picking up his strength again and doing 
 ■«rell ! " 
 
 " In his weak, gross, sinful flesh — yes, no doubt," 
 j.'eturned the deacon scornfully, "and, perhaps, even in a 
 worldly sense, for those who value the vanities of life ; but 
 he is lost to us, for all time, and lost to eternal life for- 
 ever. Not," he continued in sanctimonious vindictiveness, 
 " but that I often had my doubts of Brother Masterton's 
 steadfastness. He was too much given to imagery and 
 song." 
 
 " But what has he done ? " persisted Dr. Duchesne. 
 
 " Done ! He has embraced the Scarlet Woman ! " 
 
 " Dear me ! " said the doctor, " so soon ? Is it anybody 
 you knew here ? — not anybody's wife ? Eh ? " 
 
 " He has entered the Church of Rome," said the deacon 
 indignantly ; " he has forsaken the God of his fathers for 
 the tents of the idolaters ; he is the consort of Papists and 
 the slave of the Pope ! " 
 
 " But are you sure ? " said Dr. Duchesne, with perhaps 
 less concern than before. 
 
 " Sure ? " returned the deacon angrily. " Did n't Brother 
 Bulkley, on account of warning reports made by a God- 
 fearing and soul-seeking teamster, make a special pilgrimage 
 to this land of Sodom to inquire and spy out its wicked- 
 ness ? Did n't he find Stephen Masterton steeped in the 
 iniquity of practicing on an organ — he that scorned even 
 a violin or harmonium in the tents of the Lord — in an 
 idolatrous chapel, with a foreign female Papist for a teacher ? 
 Did n't he find him a guest at the board of a Jesuit .priest, 
 visiting the schools of the mission, where this young Jeze- 
 bel of a singer teaches the children to chant in nViknown 
 
A CONVKRT OF THE MISSION 305 
 
 tongues ? Did n't he find him living with a wrinkled In- 
 dian witch who called him ' Padrone,' — and speaking her 
 gibberish ? Did n't they find him, who left here a man 
 mortified in flesh and spirit and pale with striving with sin- 
 ners, fat and rosy from native wines and fleshpots, and 
 "-ven vain and gaudy in colored apparel ? And last of all, 
 lid n't Brother Bulkley hear that a rumor was spread far 
 and wide that this miserable backslider was to take to him- 
 self a wife — in one of these strange women — that very 
 Jezebel who seduced him ? What do you call that ? " 
 
 " It looks a good deal like human nature," said the doc- 
 tor musingly, " but I call it a cure ! " 
 
CHU CHTJ 
 
 I DO not believe that the most enthusiastic lover of that 
 " useful and noble animal," the horse, will claim for him 
 the charm of gepiality, humor, or expansive confidence. 
 Any creature who will not look you squarely in the eye — 
 whose only oblique glances are inspired by fear, distrust, or 
 a view to attack ; who has no way of returning caresses, 
 and whose favorite expression is one of head-lifting disdain, 
 may be " noble " or " useful," but can be hardly said to 
 add to the gayety of nations. Indeed it may be broadly 
 stated that, with the single exception of goldrfish, of all 
 animals kept for the recreation of mankind the horse is 
 alone capable of exciting a passion that shall be absolutely 
 hopeless. I deem these general remarks necessary to prove 
 that my unreciprocated affection for Chu Chu was not 
 purely individual or singular. And I may add that to 
 these general characteristics she brought the waywardness 
 of her capricious sex. 
 
 She came to me out of the rolling dust of an emigrant 
 wagon, behind whose tail-board she was gravely trotting. 
 She was a half-broken colt — in which character she had at 
 different times unseated everybody in the train — and, 
 although covered with dust, she had a beautiful coat, and 
 the most lambent gazelle-like eyes I had ever seen. I 
 think she kept these latter organs purely for ornament — 
 apparently looking at things with her nose, her sensitive 
 ears, and, sometimes, even a slight lifting of her slim near 
 fore leg. On our first interview I thought she favored me 
 with a coy glance, but as it was accompanied by an irrele- 
 
CHU CHU 307 
 
 vant " Look out ! " from her owner, the teamster, I was no( 
 certain. I only know that after some conversation, a good 
 deal of mental reservation, and the disbursement of consid- 
 erable coin, I found myself standing in the dust of the 
 departing emigrant wagon with one end of a forty -foot riata 
 in my hand, and Chu Chu at the other. 
 
 I pulled invitingly at my own end, and even advanced a 
 step or two toward her. She then broke into a long dis- 
 dainful pace, and began to circle round me at the extreme 
 limit of her tether. I stood admiring her free action for 
 some moments — not always turning with her, which was 
 tiring — until I found that she was gradually winding her- 
 self up on me ! Her frantic astonishment when she sud- 
 denly found herself thus brought up against me was one of 
 the most remarkable things I ever saw, and nearly took me 
 off my legs. Then, when she had pulled against the riata un- 
 til her narrow head and prettily arched neck were on a per- 
 fectly straight line with it, she as suddenly slackened the 
 tension and condescended to follow me, at an angle of her 
 own choosing. Sometimes it was on one side of me, some- 
 times on the other. Even then the sense of my dreadful 
 contiguity apparently would come upon her like a fresh 
 discovery, and she would become hysterical. But I do not 
 think that she really saw me. She looked at the riata and 
 sniffed it disparagingly ; she pawed some pebbles that were 
 near me tentatively with her small hoof ; she started back 
 with a Robinson Crusoe-like horror of my footprints in the 
 wet gully, but my actual personal presence she ignored. She 
 would sometimes pause, with her head thoughtfully between 
 her fore legs, and apparently say : " There is some extraordi- 
 nary presence here : animal, vegetable, or mineral — I can't 
 make out which — but it 's not good to eat, and I loathe 
 and detest it." 
 
 When I reached my house in the suburbs, before entering 
 the " fifty vara " lot inclosure, I deemed it prudent to leave 
 
308 CHU CHU 
 
 her outside while I informed the household of my purchase ; 
 and with this object I tethered her by the long riata to a 
 solitary sycamore which stood in the centre of the road, the 
 crossing of two frequented thoroughfares. It was not long, 
 however, before I was interrupted by shouts and screams 
 from that vicinity, and on returning thither I found that 
 Chu Chu,with the assistance of her riata, had securely 
 wound up two of my neighbors to the tree, where they 
 presented the appearance of early Christian martyrs. 
 When I released them it appeared that they had been at- 
 tracted by Chu Chu's graces, and had offered her overtures 
 of affection, to which she had characteristically rotated with 
 this miserable result. I led her, with some difficulty, 
 warily keeping clear of the riata, to the inclosure, from 
 whose fence I had previously removed several bars. Al- 
 though the space was wide enough to have admitted a troop 
 of cavalry she affected not to notice it, and managed to 
 kick away part of another section on entering. She re- 
 sisted the stable for some time, but after carefully examin- 
 ing it with her hoofs, and an affectedly meek outstretching 
 of her nose, she consented to recognize sortie oats in the 
 feed-box — without looking at them — and was formally 
 installed. -All this while she had resolutely ignored my 
 presence. As I stood watching her she sitddenly stopped 
 eating ; the same reflective look came over her. " Surely 
 I am not mistaken, but that same obnoxious creature is 
 somewhere about here ! " she seemed to say, and shivered 
 at the possibility. 
 
 It was probably this which made me confide my un- 
 reciprocated affection to one of my neighbors — a man sup- 
 posed to be an authority on horses, and particularly of that 
 ■wild species to which Chu Chu belonged. It was he who, 
 leaning over the edge of the stall where she was compla- 
 cently and, as usual, obliviously munching, absolutely dared 
 to toy with a pet lock of hair which she wore over the pretty 
 "tar on her forehey' 
 
CHU CHU 309 
 
 *' Ye see, captain," he said^ with jaunty easiness, " hosses 
 is like wimmen ; ye don't want ter use any standoffishness 
 or shyness with them ; a stiddy but keerless sort o' famiL 
 iarity, a kind o' free but firm handlin', jess like this, to let 
 her see who 's master " — 
 
 We never clearly knew how it happened ; but when I 
 picked up my neighbor from the doorway, amid the broken 
 splinters of the stall rail, and a quantity of- oats that mys- 
 teriously filled his hair and pockets, Chu Chu was found to 
 have faced around the other way, and was contemplating 
 her fore legs, with her hind ones in the other stall. My 
 neighbor spoke of damages while he was in the stall, and 
 of physical coercion when he was out of it again. But 
 here Chu Chu, in some marvelous way, righted herself, and 
 my neighbor departed hurriedly with a brimless hat and an 
 unfinished sentence. 
 
 My next intermediary was Enriquez Saltello — a youth 
 of my own age, and the brother of Consuelo Saltello, 
 whom I adored. As a Spanish Californian he was pre- 
 sumed, on account of Chu Chu's half-Spanish origin, to 
 have superior knowledge of her character, and I even 
 vaguely believed that his language and accent would fall 
 familiarly on her ear. There was the drawback, however, 
 that he always preferred to talk in a marvelous English, 
 combining Castilian precision with what he fondly believed 
 to be Californian slang. 
 
 "To confer then as to thees horse, which is not — ob- 
 serve me — a Mexican plug ! Ah, no ! you can your 
 boots bet on that. She is of Castilian stock — believe me 
 and strike me dead ! I will myself at different times over- 
 look and affront her in the stable, examine her as to the 
 assault, and why she should do thees thing. When she is 
 of the exercise I will also accost and restrain her. Remain 
 tranquil, my friend ! Wlien a few days shall pass much 
 shall be changed, and she will' be as another. Trust your 
 
310 CHU CHU 
 
 oncle to do thees thing ! Comprehend me ? Everything 
 shall be lovely, and the goose hang high ! " 
 
 Conformably with this he " overlooked " her the next 
 day, with a cigarette between his yellow-stained fingertips, 
 which made her sneeze in a silent pantomimic way, and 
 certain Spanish blandishments of speech which she received 
 with more complacency. But I don't think she ever even 
 'ooked at him. In vain he protested that she was the 
 'dearest" and "littlest" of his "little loves" — in vain 
 he asserted that she was his patron saint, and that it was 
 his soul's delight to pray to her ; she accepted the compli- 
 ment with her eyes fixed upon the manger. When he had 
 exhausted his whole stock of endearing diminutives, adding 
 a few playful and more audacious sallies, she remained 
 with her head down, as if inclined to meditate upon them. 
 This he declared was at least an improvement on her former 
 performances. It may have been my own jealousy, but I 
 fancied she was only saying to herself, " Gracious ! can 
 there be two of them ? " 
 
 " Courage and patience, my friend," he said, as we were 
 slowly quitting the stable. " Thees horse is yonge, and 
 has not yet the habitude of the person. To-morrow, at 
 another season, I shall give to her a foundling" ("fon- 
 dling," I have reason to believe, was the word intended by 
 Enriquez) — " and we shall see. It shall be as easy as to 
 fall away from a log. A leetle more of this chin music 
 which your friend Enriquez possesses, and some tapping of 
 the head and neck, and you are there. You are ever the 
 right side up. Houp la ! But let us not precipitate this 
 thing. The more haste, we do not so much accelerate 
 ourselves." 
 
 He appeared to be suiting the action to the word as 
 he lingered in the doorway of the stable. " Come on," I 
 said. 
 
 " Pardon," he returned, with a bow that was both elabo- , 
 
CHU CHU 311 
 
 Tate and evasive, " but you shall yourself precede me — the 
 st8,ble is yours." 
 
 " Oh, come along ! " I continued impatiently. To my 
 surprise he seemed to dodge back into the stable again. 
 After an instant he reappeared. 
 
 " Pardon ! but I am re-strain ! Of a truth, in this in- 
 stant I am grasp by the mouth of thees horse in the coat- 
 *ail of my dress ! She will that I should remain. It 
 could seem " — he disappeared again — " that " — he was 
 )Ut once more — " the experiment is a sooccess ! She 
 reciprocate ! She is, of a truth, gone on me. It is lofe ! " 
 — a stronger pull from Chu Chu here sent him in again — 
 " but " — he was out now triumphantly with half his 
 garment torn away — "I shall coquet." 
 
 Nothing daunted, however, the gallant fellow was back 
 next day with a Mexican saddle, and attired in the complete 
 outfit of a vaquero. Overcome though he was by heavy 
 deerskin trousers, open at the side from the knees down, 
 and fringed with bullion buttons, an enormous flat som- 
 brero, and a stiff, short embroidered velvet jacket, I was 
 more concerned at the ponderous saddle and equipments 
 intended for the slim Ohu Chu. That these would hide 
 and conceal her beautiful curves and contour, as well as 
 overweight her, seemed certain ; that she would resist 
 them all to the last seemed equally clear. NeverthelesSj 
 to my surprise, when she was led out, and the saddle 
 thrown deftly across her back, she was passive. Was it 
 possible that some drop of her old Spanish blood responded 
 to its clinging embrace ? She did not either look at it or 
 smell it. But when Enriquez began to tighten the cinch 
 or girth a more singular thing occurred. Chu Chu visibly 
 distended her slender barrel to twice its dimensions ; the 
 more he pulled the more she swelled, until I was actually 
 ashamed of her. Not so Enriquez. He smiled at us, and 
 complacently stroked his thin mustache. 
 
312 CHU CHU 
 
 " Eet is ever so ! She is the child of her grandmother! 
 Even when you shall make saddle thees old Castilian stock, 
 it will make large — it will become a balloon ! Eet is a 
 trick — eet is a leetle game. — believe me. For why ? " 
 
 I had not listened, as I was at that moment astonished 
 to see the saddle slowly slide under Chu Chu's belly, and 
 her figure resume, as if by magic, its former slim propor- 
 tions. Enriquez followed my eyes, lifted his shoulders, 
 shrugged them, and said smilingly, " Ah, you see ! " 
 
 When the girths were drawn in again with an extra pull 
 or two from the indefatigable Enriquez, I fancied that Chu 
 Chu nevertheless secretly enjoyed, it, as her sex is said to 
 appreciate tight lacing. She drew a deep sigh, possibly of 
 satisfaction, turned her neck, and apparently tried to glance 
 at her own figure — Enriquez promptly withdrawing to 
 enable her to do so easily. Then the dread moment 
 arrived. Enriquez, with his hand on her mane, suddenly 
 paused and, with exaggerated courtesy, lifted his hat and 
 made an inviting gesture. 
 
 " You will honor me to precede." 
 
 I shook my head laughingly. 
 
 " I see," responded Enriquez gravely. " You have to 
 attend the obsequies of your aunt who is dead, at two of 
 the clock. You have to meet your broker who has bought 
 you f eef ty share of the Comstock lode — at thees moment 
 — or you are loss ! You are excuse ! Attend ! Gentle- 
 men, make your bets ! The band has arrived to play ! 
 'Ere we are ! " 
 
 With a quick movement the alert young fellow had 
 vaulted into the saddle. But, to the astonishment of both 
 of us, the mare remained perfectly still. There was Enri- 
 quez bolt upright in the stirrups, completely overshadow- 
 ing by his saddle-flaps, leggings, and gigantic spurs the fine 
 proportions of Chu Chu, until she might have been a placid 
 Eosinante, bestridden by some youthful Quixote. She 
 
CHU CHU 313 
 
 closed her eyes, she was going to sleep ! We were dread- 
 fully disappointed. This clearly would not do. Enriquez 
 lifted the reins cautiously ! Chu Chu moved forward 
 slowly — then stopped, apparently lost in reflection. 
 
 " Affront her on thees side." 
 
 I approached her gently. She shot suddenly into the 
 air, coming down again on perfectly stiff legs with a spring- 
 less jolt. This she instantly followed by a succession of 
 other rocket-like propulsions, utterly unlike a leap, all over 
 the inclosure. The movements of the unfortunate Enri- 
 quez were equally unlike any equitation I ever saw. He 
 appeared occasionally over Chu Chu's head, astride of her 
 neck and tail, or in the free air, but never in the saddle. 
 His rigid legs, however, never lost the stirrups, but came 
 down regularly, accentuating her springless hops. More 
 than that, the disproportionate excess of rider, saddle, and 
 accoutrements was so great that he had, at times, the 
 appearance of lifting Chu Chu forcibly from the ground by 
 superior strength, and of actually contributing to her exer- 
 cise ! As they came toward me, a wild tossing and flying 
 mass of hoofs and spurs, it was not only difficult to distin- 
 guish them apart, but to ascertain how much of the jump- 
 ing was done by Enriquez separately. At last Chu Chu 
 brought matters to a close by making for the low-stretching 
 branches of an oak-tree which stood at the corner of the 
 lot. In a few moments she emerged from it — but without 
 Enriquez. 
 
 I found the gallant fellow disengaging himself from the 
 fork of a branch in which he had been firmly wedged, but 
 still smiling and confident, and his cigarette between his 
 teeth. Then for the first time he removed it, and seating 
 himself easily on the branch with his legs dangling down, 
 he blandly waved aside my anxious queries with a gentle 
 reassuring gesture. 
 
 " Remain tranquil, my friend. Thees does not count I 
 
314 CHU CHU 
 
 I have conquer — you observe — for why ? I have never 
 for once arrive at the ground! Consequent she is disap- 
 point ! She will ever that I should ! But I have got her 
 when the hair is not long ! Your oncle Henry " — with 
 an angelic wink — " is fly ! He is ever a bully boy, with 
 the eye of glass ! Believe me. Behold. ! I am here ! Big 
 Injun ! Whoop ! " 
 
 He leaped lightly to the ground. Chu Chu, standing 
 watchfully at a little distance, was evidently astonished at 
 his appearance. She threw out her hind hoofs violently, 
 shot up into the air until the stirrups crossed each other 
 high above the saddle, and made for the stable in a succes- 
 sion of rabbit-like bounds — taking the precaution to re- 
 move the saddle, on entering, by striking it against the 
 lintel of the door. 
 
 " You observe," said Enriquez blandly, " she would 
 make that thing of me. Not having the good occasion, 
 she ees dissatisfied. Where are you now ? " 
 
 Two or three days afterwards he rode her again with the 
 same result — accepted by him with the same heroic com- 
 placency. As we did not, for certain reasons, care to use 
 the open road for this exercise, and as it was impossible to 
 remove the tree, we were obliged to submit to the inev- 
 itable. On the following day I mounted her — undergoing 
 the same experience as Enriquez, with the individual sen- 
 sation of falling from a third-story window on top of a 
 counting-house stool, and the variation of being projected 
 over the fence. When I found that Chu Chu had not 
 accompanied me, I saw Enriquez at my side. 
 
 " More than ever it is become necessary that we should 
 do thees things again," he said gravely, as he assisted me to 
 my feet. " Courage, my noble General ! God and Liberty ! 
 Once more on to the breach ! Charge, Chestare, charge ! 
 Come on, Don Stanley ! 'Ere we are ! " 
 
 He helped me none too quickly to catch my seat again, 
 
CHU CHU 315 
 
 for it apparently had the effect of the turned peg on tha 
 enchanted horse in the Arabian Nights, and Chu Chu 
 Instantly rose into the air. But she came down this time 
 before the open window of the kitchen, and I alighted 
 easily on the dresser. The indefatigable Enriquez followed 
 •me. 
 
 " Won't this do ? " I asked meekly. 
 
 " It ees better — for you arrive not on the ground," he 
 said cheerfully ; " but you should not once but a thousand 
 times make trial ! Ha ! Go and win ! Nevare die and 
 say so ! 'Eave ahead ! 'Eave ! There you are ! " 
 
 Luckily, this time I managed to lock the rowels of my 
 long spurs under her girth, and she could not unseat me. 
 She seemed to recognize the fact after one or two plunges, 
 ■when, to my great surprise, she suddenly sank to the ground 
 and quietly rolled over me. The action disengaged my 
 spurs, but, righting herself without getting up, she turned 
 her beautiful head and absolutely looked at me ! — still in 
 the saddle. I felt myself blushing! But the voice of 
 Enriquez was at my side. 
 
 " Errise, my friend ; you have conquer ! It is she who 
 has arrive at the ground ! You are all right. It is done ; 
 believe me, it is feenish ! No more shall she make thees 
 thing. From thees instant you shall ride her as the cow — 
 as the rail of thees fence — and remain tranquil. Eor she 
 is a-broke ! Ta-ta ! Regain your hats, gentlemen ! Pass 
 in your checks ! It is ovar ! How are you now ? " He 
 lit a fresh cigarette, put his hands in his pockets, and smiled 
 at me blandly. 
 
 For all that, I ventured to point out that the habit of 
 alighting in the fork of a tree, or the disengaging of one's 
 self from the saddle on the ground, was attended with 
 inconvenience, and even ostentatious display. But Enriquez 
 swept the objections away with a single gesture. " It is the 
 preencipal — the bottom fact — at which you arrive. The 
 
316 OHU CHU 
 
 next come of himself! Many horse have achieve to mount 
 the rider hy the knees, and relinquish after thees same 
 fashion. My grandfather had a barb of thees kind — but 
 she has gone dead, and so have my grandfather. Which is 
 sad and strange ! Otherwise I shall make of them both an 
 instant example ! " 
 
 I ought to have said that although these performances 
 were never actually witnessed by Enriquez's sister — for 
 reasons which he and I thought sufficient — the dear girl 
 displayed the greatest interest in them, and, perhaps aided 
 by our mutually complimentary accounts of each other, 
 looked upon us both as invincible heroes. It is possible 
 also that she overestimated our success, for she suddenly 
 demanded that I should ride Chu Chu to her house, that 
 she might see her. It was not far ; by going through a 
 back lane I could avoid the trees which exercised such a 
 fatal fascination for Chu Chu. There was a pleading, child- 
 like entreaty in Consuelo's voice that I could not resist, 
 with a slight flash from her lustrous dark eyes that I did 
 not care to encourage. So I resolved to try it at all hazards. 
 
 My equipment for the performance was modeled after 
 Enriquez's previous costume, with the addition of a few 
 fripperies of silver and stamped leather out of compliment 
 to Consuelo, and even with a faint hope that it might 
 appease Chu Chu. She certainly looked beautiful in her 
 glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining 
 coat. With an air of demure abstraction she permitted me 
 to mount her, and even for a hundred yards or so indulged 
 in a mincing maidenly amble that was not without a touch 
 of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms 
 of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful 
 enthusiasm I even confided to her my love for Consuelo, 
 and begged her to be " good " and not disgrace herself and 
 me before my Dulcinea. In my foolish trustfulness T was 
 rash enough to add a caress, and to pat her soft neck. She 
 
CHU OHU 317 
 
 stopped instantly with an hysteric shudder. I knew what 
 was passing through her mind : she had suddenly become 
 aware of my baleful existence. 
 
 The saddle and bridle Chu Chu was becoming accustomed 
 to, but who was this living, bi'eathing object that had 
 actually touched her ? Presently her oblique vision was 
 attracted by the iluttering movement of a fallen oak-leaf in 
 the road before her. She had probably seen many oak -leaves 
 many times before ; her ancestors had no doubt been famil- 
 iar with them on the trackless hills and in field and paddock, 
 but this did not alter her profound conviction that I and the 
 leaf were identical, that our baleful touch was something 
 indissolubly connected. She reared before that innocent 
 leaf, she revolved round it, and then fled from it at the top 
 of her speed. 
 
 The lane passed before the rear wall of Saltello's garden. 
 Unfortunately, at the angle of the fence stood a beautiful 
 madroiio-tree, bi'illiant -with its scarlet berries, and endeared 
 to me as Oonsuelo's 'favorite haunt, under whose protecting 
 shade I had more than once avowed my youthful passion. 
 By the irony of fate Chu Chu caught sight of it, and with 
 a succession of spirited bounds instantly made for it. In 
 another moment I was beneath it, and Chu Chu shot like a 
 rocket into the air. I had barely time to withdraw my feet 
 from the stirrups, to throw up one arm to protect my glazed 
 sombrero and grasp an overhanging branch with the other, 
 before Chu Chu darted off. But to my consternation, as I . 
 gained a secure perch on the tree, and looked about me, I 
 saw her — instead of running away — quietly trot through 
 the open gate into Saltello's garden. 
 
 Need I say that it was to the beneficent Enriquez that I 
 acain owed my salvation ? Scarcely a moment elapsed before 
 his bland voice rose in a concentrated whisper from the cor- 
 ner of the garden below me. He had divined the dreadful 
 truth ! 
 
318 CH0 CHU 
 
 " For the love of God, collect to yourself many kinds o2 
 thees berry ! All you can ! Your full arms round ! Kest 
 tranquil. Leave to your ole oncle to make for you a deli- 
 cate exposure. At the instant ! " 
 
 He was gone again. I gathered, wonderingly, a few of 
 the larger clusters of parti-colored fruit, and patiently waited. 
 Presently he reappeared, and with him the lovely Consuelo, 
 — her dear eyes filled with an adorable anxiety. 
 
 "Yes," continued Enriquez to his sister, with a confiden- 
 tial lowering of tone but great distinctness of utterance, " it 
 is ever so with the American ! He will ever make first the 
 salutation of the flower or the fruit, picked to himself by his 
 own hand, to the lady where he .call. It is the custom of 
 the American hidalgo ! My God — what will you ? / 
 make it not — it is so ! Without doubt he is in this instant 
 doing thees thing. That is why he have let go his horse 
 to precede him here ; it is always the etiquette to offer these 
 things on the feet. Ah ! behold ! it is he ! — Don Francisco ! 
 Even now he will descend from thees tree ! Ah ! You 
 make the blush, little sister (archly) ! I will retire ! I am 
 discreet ; two is not company for the one ! I make tracks ! 
 I am gone ! " 
 
 How far Consuelo entirely believed and trusted her 
 ingenious brother I do not know, nor even then cared to, 
 inquire. For there was a , pretty mantling of her olive 
 cheek, as I came forward with my offering, and a certain 
 significant shyness in her manner that were enough to throw 
 me into a state of hopeless imbecility. And I was always 
 miserably conscious that Consuelo possessed an exalted sen- 
 timentality, and a predilection for the highest mediaeval 
 romance, in which I knew I was lamentably deficient. 
 Even in our most confidential moments I was always aware 
 that I weakly lagged behind this daughter of a gloomily 
 distinguished ancestry, in her frequent incursions into a 
 vague but poetic past. There was something of the dignity 
 
CHU CHU 319 
 
 of the Spanish ch§,telaine in the sweetly grave little figure 
 that advanced to accept my specious offering. I think I 
 should have fallen on my knees to present it, but for the 
 presence of the all-aeeing Enriquez. But why did I even at 
 that moment remember that he had early bestowed upon, 
 her the nickname of " Pomposa " ? This, as Enriquez him- 
 self might have observed, was " sad and strange." 
 
 I managed to stammer out something about the madrono 
 berries being at her " disposicion " (the tree was in her own 
 garden!), and she took the branches in her little brown 
 hand with a soft response to my unutterable glances. 
 
 But here Chu Chu, momentarily forgotten, executed a 
 happy diversion. To our astonishment she gravely walked 
 up to Consuelo and, stretching out her long slim neck, not 
 only sniffed curiously at the berries, but even protruded a 
 black under lip towards the young girl herself. In another 
 instant Consuelo's dignity melted. Throwing her arms 
 around Chu Chu's neck she embraced and kissed her. 
 Young as I was, I understood the divine significance of a 
 girl's vicarious efifusiveuess at such a moment, and felt 
 delighted. But I was the more astonished that the usually 
 sensitive horse not only submitted to these caresses, but 
 actually responded to the extent of affecting to nip my 
 mistress's little right ear. 
 
 This was enough for the impulsive Consuelo. She ran 
 hastily into the house, and in a few moments reappeared in 
 a bewitching riding-skirt gathered round her jimp waist. 
 In vain Enriquez and myself joined in earnest entreaty : 
 the horse was hardly broken for even a man's riding yet ; 
 the saints alone could tell what the nervous creature might 
 do with a woman's skirt flapping at her side ! We begged 
 for delay, for reflection, for at least time to change the 
 saddle — but with no avail ! Consuelo was determined, 
 indignant, distressingly reproachful ! Ah, well ! if Don 
 Pancho (an ingenious diminutive of my Christian name) 
 
320 GUV CHU 
 
 valued his horse so highly — if he were jealous of the evi- 
 dent devotion of the animal to herself, he would — But 
 fere I succumbed ! And then I had the felicity of holding 
 xhat little foot for one brief moment in the hollow of my 
 hand, of readjusting the skirt as she threw her knee over 
 the saddle-horn, of clasping her tightly — only half in fear 
 
 — as I surrendered the reins to her grasp. And to tell the 
 truth, as Enriquez and I fell back, although I had insisted 
 upon still keeping hold of the end of the riata, it was a 
 picture to admire. The petite figure of the young girl, and 
 the graceful folds of her skirt, admirably harmonized with 
 Chu Chu's lithe contour, and as the mare arched her slim 
 neck and raised her slender head under the pressure of the 
 reins, it was so like the lifted velvet-capped toreador crest 
 of Consuelo herself, that they seemed of one race. 
 
 I would not that you should hold the riata," said Con- 
 suelo petulantly. 
 
 "I hesitated — Chu Chu looked certainly very amiable 
 
 — I let go. She began to amble towards the gate, not 
 mincingly as before, but with a freer and fuller stride. In 
 spite of the incongruous saddle the young girl's seat was 
 admirable. As they neared the gate she cast a single mis- 
 chievous glance at me, jerked at the rein, and Chu Chu 
 rprang into the road at a rapid canter. I watched them fear- 
 fully and breathlessly, until at the end of the lane I saw 
 Consuelo rein in slightly, wheel easily, and come flying 
 back. There was no doubt about it ; the horse was under 
 perfect control. Her second subjugation was complete and 
 final! 
 
 Overjoyed and bewildered, T overwhelmed them with 
 congratulations ; Enriquez alone retaining the usual bro- 
 therly attitude of criticism, and a superior toleration of a 
 lover's enthusiasm. I ventured to hint to Consuelo (in 
 what I believed was a safe whisper) that Chu Chu only 
 showed my own feelings towards her. 
 
CHU CHU 321 
 
 " Without doubt," responded Enriquez gravely. " She 
 have of herself assist you to climb to the tree to pull to 
 yourself the berry for my sister." 
 
 But I felt Consuelo's little hand return my pressure, and 
 I forgave and even pitied him. 
 
 Erom that day forward, Chu Chu and Consuelo were not 
 only firm friends but daily companions. In my devotion I 
 ■would have presented the horse to the young girl, but with 
 flattering delicacy she preferred to call it mine. 
 
 " I shall erride it for you, Pancho," she said. " I shall 
 feel," she continued, with exalted although somewhat vague 
 poetry, " that it is of you 1 You lofe the beast — - it is there- 
 fore of a necessity you, my Pancho ! It is your soul I 
 •^hall erride like the wings of the wind — your lofe in this 
 Ijeast shall be my only cavalier forever." 
 
 I would have preferred something whose vicarious quali- 
 ties were less uncertain than I still felt Chu Chu's to be, 
 but I kissed the girl's hand submissively. It was only 
 when I attempted to accompany her in the flesh, on another 
 horse, that I felt the full truth of my instinctive fears. 
 Chu Chu would not permit any one to approach her mis- 
 tress's side. My mounted presence revived in her all hei 
 old blind astonishment and disbelief in my existence ; she 
 would start suddenly, face about, and back away from nie 
 in utter amazement as if I had been only recently created, 
 or with an affected modesty as if I had been just guilty of 
 some grave indecorum towards her sex which she really 
 could not stand. The frequency of these exhibitions in the 
 public highway were not only distressing to me as a simple 
 escort, but as it had the effect on the casnal spectators of 
 making Consuelo seem to participate in Chu Chu's objec- 
 tions, I felt that, as a lover, it could not be borne. Any 
 attempt to coerce Chu Chu ended in her running away. 
 And my frantic pursuit of her was open to equal miscon' 
 struction. 
 
322 CHU CHU 
 
 " Go it, miss, the little dude ih gainin' on you ! " 
 shouted by a drunken teamster to the frightened Consuelo, 
 once checked me in mid-career. 
 
 Even the dear girl herself saw the uselessness of my real 
 presence, and after a while was content to ride with " my 
 soul." 
 
 Notwithstanding this, I am not ashamed to say that it 
 was my custom, whenever she rode out, to keep a slinking 
 and distant surveillance of Chu Chu on another horse, until 
 she had fairly settled down to her pace. A little nod of 
 Consuelo's round hlack-and-red toreador hat, or a kiss tossed 
 from her riding-whip, was reward enough ! 
 
 I remember a pleasant afternoon when I was thus await- 
 ing her in the outskirts of the village. The eternal smile 
 of the Californian summer had begun to waver and grow 
 less fixed ; dust lay thick on leaf and blade ; the dry hills 
 were clothed in russet leather ; the trade-winds were shift- 
 ing to the south with an ominous warm humidity ; a few 
 days longer and the rains would be here. It so chanced 
 that this afternoon my seclusion on the roadside was acci- 
 dentally invaded by a village belle — a Western young 
 lady somewhat older than myself, and of flirtatious repu- 
 tation. As she persistently and — as I now have reason 
 to believe — mischievously lingered, I had only a passing 
 glimpse of Consuelo riding past at an unaccustomed speed 
 which surprised me at the moment. But as I reasoned later 
 that she was only trying to avoid a merely formal meeting, 
 I thought no more about it. It was not until I called at 
 the house to fetch Chu Chu at the usual hout, and found 
 that Consuelo had not yet returned, that a recollection of 
 Chu Chu's furious pace again troubled me. An hour 
 passed — it was getting towards sunset, but there were no 
 signs of Chu Chu or her mistress. I became seriously 
 alarmed. I did not care to reveal my fears to the family, 
 for I felt myself responsible for Chu Chu. At last I des- 
 
CHU CHU 323 
 
 perately saddled my horse, and galloped off in the direction 
 she had taken. It was the road to Rosario and the hac)- 
 enda of one of her relations, where she sometimes halted. 
 
 The road was a very unfrequented one, twisting like bi 
 mountain river ; indeed, it was the bed of an old water 
 course, between brown hills of wild oats, and debouching at 
 last into a broad blue lake-like expanse of alfalfa meadows. 
 In vain I strained my eyes over the monotonous level ; 
 nothing appeared to rise above or move across it. In the 
 ■ faint hope that she might have lingered at the hacienda, I was 
 spurring on again when I heard a slight splashing on my 
 left. I looked around. A broad patch of fresher-colored 
 herbage and a cluster of dwarfed alders indicated a hidden 
 spring. I cautiously approached its quaggy edges, when I 
 was shocked by what appeared to be a sudden vision! 
 Mid-leg deep in the centre of a greenish pool stood Chu 
 Chu ! But without a strap or buckle of harness upon her 
 
 — as naked as when she was foaled ! 
 
 For a moment I could only stare at her in bewildered 
 terror. Far from recognizing me, she seemed to be absorbed 
 in a nymph-like contemplation of her own graces in the 
 pool. Then I called " Consuelo ! " and galloped frantically 
 around the spring. But there was no response, nor was 
 there anything to be seen but the all-unconscious Chu Chu. 
 The pool, thank Heaven! was not deep enough to have 
 drowned any one ; there were no signs of a struggle on its 
 quaggy edges. The horse might have come from a dis- 
 tance ! I galloped on, still calling. A few hundred yards 
 further I detected the vivid glow of Chu Chu's scarlet sad- 
 dle-blanket, in the brush near the trail. My heart leaped 
 
 — I was on the track. I called again ; this time a faint 
 reply, in accents I knew too well, came from the field be- 
 side me ! 
 
 Consuelo Avas there ! reclining beside a manzanita bush, 
 which screened her from the road, in what struck me, even 
 
324 CHU CHU 
 
 at that supreme moment, as a judicious and picturesquely 
 selected couch of scented Indian grass and dry tussocks. 
 The velvet hat with its balls of scarlet plush was laid care- 
 fully aside ; her lovely blue-black hair retained its tight 
 coils undisheveled, her eyes were luminous and tender. 
 Shocked as I was at her apparent helplessness, I remember 
 being impressed with the fact that it gave so little indica- 
 tion of violent usage or disaster. 
 
 I threw myself frantically on the ground beside her. 
 
 " You are hurt, Consita ! For Heaven's sake, what has 
 happened ? " 
 
 She pushed my hat back with her little hand, and 
 tumbled my hair gently. 
 
 " Nothing. You are here, Pancho — eet is enofe ! 
 What shall come after thees — when I am perhaps gone 
 among the grave — make nothing ! You are here — I 
 am happy. For a little, perhaps — not mooch." 
 
 " But," I went on desperately, " was it an accident ? 
 Were you thrown ? Was it Chu Chu ? " — for somehow, 
 in spite of her languid posture and voice, I could not, even 
 in my fears, believe her seriously hurt. 
 
 " Beat not the poor beast, Pancho. It is not from her 
 comes thees thing. She have make nothing — believe me! 
 I have come upon your assignation with Miss Essmith ! 
 I make but to pass you — to fly — to never come back ! 
 1 have say to Chu Chu, ' Fly ! ' We fly many miles. 
 Sometimes together, sometimes not so mooch ! Sometimes 
 in the saddle, sometimes on the neck ! Many things re- 
 main in the road ; at the end, I myself remain ! I have 
 say, ' Courage, Pancho will come ! ' Then I say, ' No, he 
 is talk with Miss Essmith ! ' I remember not more. I 
 have creep here on the hands. Eet is feenish ! " 
 
 I looked at her distractedly. She smiled tenderly, and 
 slightly smoothed down and rearranged a fold of her dress 
 to cov^r her delicate little boot. 
 
CHU CHU 325 
 
 " But," I protested, " you are not much hurt, dearest. 
 You have broken no bones. Perhaps," I added, looking at 
 the boot, " only a slight sprain. Let me carry you to mj 
 horse ; I will walk beside you, home. Do, dearest Con. 
 sita ! " 
 
 She turned her lovely eyes towards me sadly. 
 
 " You comprehend not, my poor Pancho ! It is not of 
 the foot, the ankle, the arm, or the head that I can say, 
 ' She is broke ! ' I would it were even so. But" — she 
 lifted her sweet lashes slowly — "I have derrange my in- 
 side. It is an affair of my family. My grandfather have 
 once toomble over the bull at a rodeo. He speak no more ; 
 he is dead. For why ? He has derrange his inside. Be- 
 lieve me, it is of the family. You comprehend ? The 
 Saltellos are not as the other peoples for this. When I am 
 gone, you will bring to me the berry to grow upon my 
 tomb, Pancho ; the berry you have picked for me. The 
 little flower will come too, the little star will arrive, but 
 ■ Consuelo, who lofe you, she will come not more ! When 
 you are happy and talk in the road to the Essmith, you 
 will not think of me. You will not see my eyes, Pancho ; 
 thees little grass " — she ran her plump little fingers 
 through a tussock — " will hide them ; and the small 
 animals in the black coats that lif here will have much 
 sorrow — but you will not. It ees better so ! My father 
 will not that I, a Catholique, should marry into a camp- 
 meeting, and lif in a tent, and make howl like the coyote." 
 (It was one of Consuelo's bewildering beliefs that there was 
 only one form of dissent, — Methodism !) "He will not that 
 I should marry a man who possess not the many horses, ox,' 
 and cow, like him. But / care not. You are my only 
 religion, Pancho ! I have enofe of the horse, and ox, and 
 cow when you are with me ! Kiss me, Pancho. Perhaps 
 it is for the last time — the feenish ! Who knows ? " 
 
 There were tears in her lovely eyes ; I felt that my own 
 
326 CHU CHU 
 
 were growing dim ; the sun was sinking over the dreary 
 plain to the slow rising of the wind ; an infinite loneliness 
 had fallen upon us, and yet I was miserably conscious of 
 some dreadful unreality in it all. A desire to laugh, which I 
 felt must he hysterical, was creeping over me ; I dared not 
 speak. But her dear head was on my shoulder, and the 
 situation was not unpleasant. 
 
 Nevertheless, something must he done ! This was the 
 more difficult as it was by no means clear what had already 
 been done. Even while I supported her drooping figure I 
 was straining my eyes across her shoulder for succor of 
 some kind. Suddenly the figure of a rapid rider appeared 
 upon the road. It seemed familiar. I looked again — it 
 was the blessed Enriquez ! A sense of deep relief came 
 over me. I loved Consuelo ; but never before had lover 
 ever hailed the irruption of one of his beloved's family with 
 such complacency. 
 
 " You are safe, dearest ; it is Enriquez 1 " 
 
 I thought she received the information coldly. Suddenly 
 she turned upon me her eyes, now bright and glittering. 
 
 " Swear to me at the instant, Pancho, that you will not 
 again look upon Miss Essmith, even for once." 
 
 I was simple and literal. Miss Smith was my nearest 
 neighbor, and, unless I was stricken with blindness, compli- 
 ance was impossible. I hesitated — but swore. 
 
 " Enofe — you have hesitate — I will no more." 
 
 She rose to her feet with grave deliberation. Eor an in- 
 stant, with the recollection of the delicate internal organiza- 
 tion of the Saltellos on my mind, I was in agony lest she 
 should totter and fall, even then, yielding up her gentle 
 spirit on the spot. But when I looked again she had a 
 hairpin between her white teeth, and was carefully adjust- 
 ing her toreador hat. And beside us was Enriquez — cheer- 
 'ul, alert, voluble, and undaunted. 
 
 " Eureka ! I have found ! We are all here ! Eet 
 
CHU CHU 327 
 
 is a leetle public — eh ? a leetle to much of a front 
 seat for a tite-k-tgte, my yonge friend?," he said, glanc- 
 ing at the remains of Consuelo's bower, " but for the 
 accounting of taste there is none. What will you ? The 
 meat of the one man shall envenom the meat of the other. 
 But " (in a whisper to me) " as to thees horse — thees Chu 
 Chu, which I have just pass — why is she undress ? Surely 
 you would not make an exposition of her to the traveler to 
 suspect ! And if not, why so ? " 
 
 I tried to explain, looking at Consuelo, that Chu Chu had 
 run away, that Consuelo had met with a terrible accident, 
 had been thrown, and I feared had suffered serious internal 
 injury. But .to my embarrassment Consuelo maintained a 
 half-scornful silence, and an inconsistent freshness of health- 
 ful indifference, as Enriquez approached her with an engag- 
 ing smilie. 
 
 " Ah, yes, she have the headache, and the molligrubs. 
 She will sit on the damp stone when the gentle dew is fall- 
 ing. I comprehend. Meet me in the lane when the clock 
 strike nine ! But," in a lower voice, " of thees undress 
 horse I comprehend nothing ! Look you — it is sad and 
 strange." 
 
 Ho went off to fetch Chu Chu, leaving me and Consuelo 
 alone. I do not think I ever felt so utterly abject and be- 
 wildered before in my life. Without knowing why, I was 
 miserably conscious of having in some way offended the girl 
 for whom I believed I would have given my life, and I had 
 made her and myself ridiculous in the eyes of her brother. 
 I had again failed in my slower Western nature to under- 
 stand her high romantic Spanish soul ! Meantime she was 
 smoothing out her riding-habit, and looking as fresh and 
 pretty as when she first left her house. 
 
 " Consita," I said hesitatingly, " you are not angry with 
 
 me 
 
 ?;> 
 
 " Angry ? " she repeated haughtily, without looking at 
 
328 CHU CHU 
 
 me. " Oh, no ! Of a possibility eet is Mees Essraith who 
 is angry that I have interroopt her tgte-&rtgte with you, 
 ahd have send here my brother to make the same with 
 me." 
 
 " But," I said eagerly, " Miss Smith does not even know 
 Enriquez ! " 
 
 Consuelo turned on me a glance of unutterable signifi- 
 cance. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said darkly, " you tiiik / " 
 
 Indeed I knew. But here I believed I understood Con- 
 suelo, and was relieved. I even ventured to say gently, 
 " And you are better ? " 
 
 She drew herself up to her full height, which was not 
 much. 
 
 " Of my health, what is it ? A nothing. Yes ! Of 
 my soul let us not speak." 
 
 Nevertheless, when Enriquez appeared with Chu Chu she 
 ran towards her with outstretched arms. Chu Chu pro- 
 truded about six inches of upper lip in response — ap- 
 parently under the impression, which I could quite 
 understand, that her mistress was edible. And, I may have 
 been mistaken, but their beautiful eyes met in an absolute 
 and distinct glance of intelligence ! 
 
 During the home journey Consuelo recovered her spirits, 
 and parted from me with a magnanimous and forgiving 
 pressure of the hand. I do not know what explanation of 
 Chu Chu's original escapade was. given to Enriquez and the 
 rest of the family ; the inscrutable forgiveness extended to 
 me by Consuelo precluded any further inquiry on my part. 
 I was willing to leave it a secret between her and Chu Chu. 
 But, strange to say, it seemed to complete our own under- 
 standing, and precipitated, not only our love-making, but 
 the final catastrophe which culminated that romance. For 
 we had resolved to elope. I do not know that this heroic 
 remedy was absolutely necessary from the attitude of either 
 
CHU CHU 329 
 
 Consuelo's family or my own ; I am inclined to think we 
 preferred it, because it involved no previous explanation or 
 advice. Need I say that our confidant and firm ally was 
 Consuelo's brother — the alert, the linguistic, the ever 
 happy, ever ready Enriquez ! It was understood that his 
 presence would not only give a certain mature respectability 
 to our performance — but I do not think we would have con- 
 templated this step without it. During one of our riding 
 excursions we were to secure the services of a Methodist min. 
 ister in the adjoining county, and later, that of the mission 
 padre — when the secret was out. 
 
 " I will gif her away," said Enriquez confidently ; " it 
 will on the instant propitiate the old shad belly who shall 
 perform the affair, and withhold his jaw. A little chin 
 music from your oncle 'Arry shall finish it ! Eemain 
 tranquil and forget not a ring ! One does not always, in 
 the agony and dissatisfaction of the moment, a ring remem- 
 ber. I shall bring two in the pocket of my dress." 
 
 If I did not entirely participate in this roseate view it 
 may have been because Enriquez, although a few years my 
 senior, was much younger-looking, and with his demure 
 deviltry of eye, and his upper lip close shaven for this 
 occasion, he suggested a depraved acolyte rather than a 
 responsible member of a family. Consuelo had also con- 
 fided to me that her father — possibly owing to some ru- 
 mors of our previous escapade — had forbidden any further 
 excursions with me alone. The innocent man did not know 
 that Chu Chu had forbidden it also, and that even on this 
 momentous occasion both Enriquez and myself were 
 obliged to ride in opposite fields like out-flankers. But we 
 nevertheless felt the full guilt of disobedience added to our 
 desperate enterprise. Meanwhile, although pressed for 
 time, and subject to discovery at ai:y moment, I managed 
 at certain points of the road to dismount and walk beside 
 Chu Chu (who did not seem to recognize me on foof), hold- 
 
330 CHU CHU 
 
 ing Consuelo's hand in ray own, with the discreet Enriquea 
 leading my Iiorse in the distant field. I retain a very vivid 
 picture of that walk — the ascent of a gentle slope towards 
 a prospect as yet unknown, but full of glorious possibili- 
 yes ; the tender dropping light of an autumn sky, slightly 
 Aimed with the promise of the future rains, like foreshad- 
 owed tears, and the half-frightened, half-serious talk into 
 which Consuelo and I had insensibly fallen. And then, I 
 don't know how it happened, but as we reached the sum- 
 mit Chu Chu suddenly reared, wheeled, and the next mo- 
 ment was flying back along the road we had just traveled, 
 at the top of her speed ! It might have been that, after 
 her abstracted fashion, she only at that moment detected 
 my presence ; but so sudden and complete was her evolu- 
 tion that before I could regain my horse from the astonished 
 Enriquez she was already a quarter of a mile on the home- 
 ward stretch, with the frantic Consuelo pulling hopelessly 
 at the bridle. We started in pursuit. But a horrible 
 despair seized us. To attempt to overtake her, to even 
 follow at the same rate of speed, would only excite Chu Chu 
 and endanger Consuelo's life. There was absolutely no 
 help for it, nothing could be done ; the mare had taken 
 her determined long, continuous stride ; the road was a 
 straight, steady descent all the way back to the village ; Chu 
 Chu had the bit between her teeth, and there was no pro- 
 spect of swerving her. We could only follow hopelessly, 
 idiotically, furiously, until Chu Chu dashed triumphantly 
 into the Saltellos' courtyard, carrying the half-fainting Con- 
 suelo back to the arms of her assembled and astonished 
 family. 
 
 It was our last ride together. It was the last I ever saw 
 of Consuelo before her transfer to the safe seclusion of a 
 convent in Southern California. It was the last I ever saw 
 of Chu Chu, who in the confusion of that rencontre was 
 overlooked in her half-loosed harness, and allowed to escape 
 
CITU CHU 331 
 
 through the hack gate to the fields. Months afterwards it 
 was said that she had been identified among a hand of wild 
 horses in the Coast Range, as a strange and beautiful crea- 
 ture who had escaped the brand of the rodeo and had he- 
 come a myth. There was another legend that she had been 
 seen, sleek, fat, and gorgeously caparisoned, issuing from the 
 gateway of the Eosario patio, before a lumbering Spanish 
 cabriole in which a short, stout matron was seated — hut I 
 will have none of it. For there are days when she still 
 lives, and I can see her plainly still climbing the gentle 
 slope towards the summit, with Consuelo on her back, and 
 myself at her side, pressing eagerly forward towardfi tha 
 illimitable prospect that opens in the distance. 
 
THE DEVOTION OE ENRIQUEZ 
 
 Tn another chronicle which dealt with the exploits of 
 tOhu Chu, a Californian mustang, I gave some space to the 
 accomplishments of Enriquez Saltello, who assisted me in 
 training her, and who was also brother to Consuelo Saltello, 
 the young lady to whom I had freely given both the mus- 
 tang and my youthful affections. I consider it a proof of 
 the superiority of masculine friendship that neither the 
 subsequent desertion of the mustang nor the young lady 
 ever made the slightest difference to Enriquez or me in our 
 exalted amity. To a wondering doubt as to what I ever 
 could possibly have seen in his sister to admire he joined a 
 tolerant skepticism of the whole sex. This he was wont to 
 express in that marvelous combination of Spanish precision 
 and California slang for which he was justly famous. 
 
 " As to thees women and their little game," he would 
 say, " believe me, my friend, your old oncle 'Enry is not in 
 it. No ; he will ever take a back seat when lofe is around. 
 Eor why ? Regard me here ! If she is a horse you shall 
 say, ' She will buck-jump,' ' She will ess-shy,' ' She will not 
 arrive,' or ' She will arrive too quick.' But if it is thees wo- 
 men, where are you ? For when you shall say, ' She will ess- 
 shy,' look you, she will walk straight ; or she will remain 
 tranquil when you think she buck-jump ; or else she will 
 arrive and, look you, you will not. You shall get left. It 
 is ever so. My father and the brother of my father have 
 both make court to my mother when she was but a seno- 
 rita. My father think she have lofe his brother more. So 
 he say to her : ' It is enofe ; tranquilize yourself. I will 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 333 
 
 go. I will efface myself. Adios ! Shake hands! Ta-taJ 
 So long ! See you again in the fall.' And what make my 
 .mother ? Kegard me ! She marry my father — on the in- 
 stant ! Of thees women, believe me, Pancho, you shall 
 know nothing. Not even if they shall make you the son of 
 your father or his nephew." 
 
 I have recalled this characteristic speech to show the 
 general tendency of Enriquez's convictions at the opening of 
 this little story. It is only fair to say, however, that his 
 usual attitude toward the sex he so cheerfully maligned 
 exhibited little apprehension or caution in dealing with 
 them. Among the frivolous and light-minded intermixture 
 of his race he moved with great freedom and popularity. 
 He danced well ; when we went to fandangoes together his 
 agility and the audacity of his figures always procured him 
 the prettiest partners, his professed sentiments, I presume, 
 shielding him from subsequent jealousies, heart-burnings, or 
 envy. I have a vivid recollection of him in the mysteries 
 of the semicuacua, a somewhat corybantic dance which left 
 much to the invention of the performers, and very little 
 to the imagination of the spectator. In one of the figures 
 a gaudy handkerchief, waved more or less gracefully by 
 dancer and danseuse before the dazzled eyes of each other, 
 acted as love's signal, and was used to express alternate ad- 
 miration and indifference, shyness and audacity, fear and 
 transport, coyness and coquetry, as the dance proceeded. 
 I need not say that Enriquez's pantomimic illustration of 
 these emotions was peculiarly extravagant ; but it was al- 
 ways performed and accepted with a gravity that was an 
 essential feature of the dance. At such times sighs would 
 escape him which were supposed to portray the incipient 
 stages of passion ; snorts of jealousy burst from him at the 
 suggestion of a rival ; he was overtaken by a sort of St. 
 Vitus's dance that expressed his timidity in making the first 
 advances of affection ; the scorn of his lady-love struck him 
 
334 THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 with something like a dumb ague ; and a single gesture of 
 invitation from her produced marked delirium. All this 
 ■was very like Enriquez ; but on the particular occasion to 
 which I refer, I think no one was prepared to see him be- 
 gin the figure with the waving of four handkerchiefs ! Yet 
 this he did, pirouetting, capering, brandishing his silken 
 signals like a ballerina's scarf in the languishment or fire of 
 passion, until, in a final figure, where the conquered and 
 submitting fair one usually sinks into the arms of her part- 
 ner, need it be said that the ingenious Enriquez was found 
 in the centre of the floor supporting four "of the dancers ! 
 Yet he was by no means unduly excited either by the plau- 
 dits of the crowd or by his evident success with the fair. 
 
 " Ah, believe me, it is nothing," he said quietly, rolling 
 a fresh cigarette as he leaned against the doorway. " Pos- 
 sibly, I shall have to offer the chocolate or the wine to 
 thees girls, or make to them a promenade in the moonlight 
 on the veranda. It is ever so. Unless, my friend," he 
 said, suddenly turning toward me in an excess of chivalrous 
 self-abnegation, " unless you shall yourself take my place. 
 Behold, I gif them to you ! I vamos ! I vanish 1 I 
 make track ! I skedaddle ! " 
 
 I think he would have carried his extravagance to the 
 point of summoning his four gypsy witches of partners, 
 and committing them to my care, if the crowd had not at 
 that moment parted before the remaining dancers, and left 
 one of the onlookers, a tall, slender girl, calmly surveying 
 them through gold-rimmed eye-glasses in complete critical 
 absorption. I stared in amazement and consternation ; 
 for I recognized in the fair stranger Miss Urania Manners- 
 ley, the Congregational minister's niece ! 
 
 Everybody knew Eainie Mannersley throughout the 
 length and breadth of the Encinal. She was at once the 
 envy and the goad of the daughters of those Southwestern 
 «nd Eastern immigrants who had settled in the valley. 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 335 
 
 She was correct, she was critical, she was faultless and 
 observant. She was proper, yet independent ; she was 
 highly educated ; she was suspected of knowing Latin and 
 Greek ; she even spelled correctly ! She could wither the 
 plainest field nosegay in the hands of other girls by giving 
 the flowers their botanical names. She never said, " Ain't 
 you ? " but " Are n't you ? " She looked upon " Did I 
 yhioh ? " as an incomplete and imperfect form of " What 
 did I do ? " She quoted from Browning and Tennyson, 
 and was believed to have read them. She was from 
 Boston. What could she possibly be doing at a free-and- 
 easy fandango ? 
 
 Even if these facts were not already familiar to every 
 one there, her outward appearance would have attracted 
 attention. Contrasted with the gorgeous red, black, and 
 yellow skirts of the dancers, her plain, tightly fitting gown 
 and hat, all of one delicate gray, were sufficiently notable 
 in themselves, even had they not seemed, like the girl her- 
 self, a kind of quiet protest to the glaring flounces before 
 her. Her small, straight waist and flat back brought intc 
 greater relief the corsetless, waistless, swaying figures o. 
 the Mexican girls, and her long, slim, well-booted feet 
 peeping from the stiff, white edges of her short skirt, made 
 their broad, low-quartered slippers, held on by the big toe, 
 appear more preposterous than ever. Suddenly she seemed 
 to realize that she was standing there alone, but without 
 fear or embarrassment. She drew back a little, glancing 
 carelessly behind her as if missing some previous compan- 
 ion, and then her eyes fell upon mine. She smiled an 
 easy recognition ; then, a moment later, her glance rested 
 more curiously upon Enriquez, who was still by my side. 
 I disengaged myself and instantly joined her, particularly 
 as I noticed that a few of the other bystanders were begin- 
 ¥\ing to stare at her with little reserve. 
 
 '' Is n't it the most extraordinary thing you ever saw ? " 
 
33'i THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 she said quietly. Then, presently noticing the look of 
 embarrassment on my face, she went on, more by way of 
 conversation than of explanation : " I just left uncle mak- 
 ing a call on a parishioner next door, and was going home 
 with Jocasta " (a peon servant of her uncle's), " when I heard 
 the music, and dropped in. I don't know what has become 
 of her," she added, glancing round the room again ; " she 
 seemed perfectly wild when she saw that creature over 
 there bounding about with his handkerchiefs. You were 
 speaking to him just now. Do tell me — is he real ? " 
 
 " I should think there was little doubt of that," I said 
 with a vague laugh, 
 
 "You know what I mean," she said simply. "Is he 
 quite sane ? Does he do that because he likes it, or is he 
 paid for it ? " 
 
 This was too much. I pointed out somewhat hurriedly 
 that he was a scion of one of the oldest Castilian families, 
 that the performance was a national gypsy dance which he 
 had joined in as a patriot and a patron, and that he was my 
 dearest friend. At the same time I was conscious that I 
 wished she had n't seen his last performance. 
 
 " You don't mean to say that all that he did was in the 
 dance ? " she said. " I don't believe it. It was only like 
 him." As I hesitated over this palpable truth, she went 
 on : " I do wish he 'd do it again. Don't you think you 
 could make him ? " 
 
 "Perhaps he might if you asked him," I said a little 
 maliciously. 
 
 " Of course I should n't do that," she returned quietly. 
 " All the same, I do believe he is really going to do it — or 
 something else. Do look ! " 
 
 I looked, and to my horror saw that Enriquez, possibly 
 incited by the delicate gold eye-glasses of Miss Mannersley, 
 had divested himself of his coat, and was winding the four 
 handkerchiefs, tied together, picturesquely around his waist, 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 337 
 
 preparatory to some new performance. I tried furtively to 
 give him a warning look, but in vain. 
 
 " Is n't he really too absurd for anything ! " said Mi.ss 
 Mannersley, yet with a certain comfortable anticipation in 
 her voice. "You know, I never saw anything like this 
 before. I would n't have believed such a creature could have 
 existed." 
 
 Even had I succeeded in warning him, I doubt if it would 
 have been of any avail. For, seizing a guitar from one of 
 the musicians, he struck a few chords, and suddenly began 
 to zigzag into the centre of the floor, swaying his body 
 languishingly from side to side in time with the music and 
 the pitch of a thin Spanish tenor. It was a gypsy love-song. 
 Possibly Miss Mannersley's lingual accomplishments did not 
 include a knowledge of Castilian, but she could not fail 
 to see that the gestures and illustrative pantomime were 
 addressed to her. Passionately assuring her that she was 
 the most favored daughter of the Virgin, that her eyes were 
 like votive tapers, and yet in the same breath accusing her 
 of being a " brigand " and " assassin " in her attitude toward 
 " his heart," he balanced with quivering timidity toward 
 her, threw an imaginary cloak in front of her neat boots 
 as a carpet for her to tread on, and with a final astonishing 
 pirouette and a languishing twang of his guitar, sank on one 
 knee, and blew, with a rose, a kiss at her feet. 
 
 If I had been seriously angry with him before for his 
 grotesque extravagance, I could have pitied him now for the 
 young girl's absolute unconsciousness of anything but his 
 utter ludicrousness. The applause of dancers and bystanders 
 was instantaneous and hearty ; her only contribution to it 
 was a slight parting of her thin red lips in a half-incredu- 
 lous smile. In the silence that followed the applause, as 
 Enriquez walked pantingly away, I heard her saying, half 
 to herself, " Certainly a most extraordinary creature ! " In 
 my indignation I could not help turning suddenly upon her 
 
338 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 and looking straight into her eyes. They were brown, with 
 that peculiar velvet opacity common to the pupils of near- 
 sighted persons, and seemed to defy internal scrutiny. She 
 only repeated carelessly, "Isn't he?" and added: "Please 
 see if you can find Jocasta. I suppose we ought to be 
 going now ; and I dare say he won't be doing it again. Ah ! 
 there she is. Good gracious, child ! what have you got 
 there?" 
 
 It was Enriquez's rose which Jocasta had picked up, and 
 was timidly holding out toward her mistress. 
 
 "Heavens! I don't want it. Keep it yourself." 
 
 I walked with them to the door, as I did not fancy a 
 certain glitter in the black eyes of the Senoritas Manuela 
 and Pepita, who were watching her curiously. But I think 
 she was as oblivious of this as she was of Enriquez's particular 
 attentions. As we reached the street I felt that I ought to 
 say something more. 
 
 "You know," I began casually, "that although those 
 poor people meet here in this public way, their gathering is 
 really quite a homely pastoral and a national custom ; and 
 these girls are all honest, hard-working peons or servants, 
 enjoying themselves in quite the old idyllic fashion." 
 
 " Certainly," said the young girl, half abstractedly. " Of 
 course it's a Moorish dance, originally brought over, I 
 suppose, by those old Andalusian immigrants two hundred 
 years ago. It 's quite Arabic in its suggestions. I have 
 got something like it in an old cancionero I picked up at a 
 bookstall in Boston. But," she added, with a gasp of 
 reminiscent satisfaction, " that 's not like him ! Oh, no ! 
 he is decidedly original. Heavens ! yes." 
 
 I turned away in some discomfiture to join Enriquez, who 
 was calmly awaiting me, with a cigarette in his mouth, out- 
 side the sala. Yet he looked so unconscious of any previous 
 absurdity that I hesitated in what I thought was a necessary 
 ■, Taming. He, however, quickly precipitated it. Glancing 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 339 
 
 after the retreating figures of the two women, he paid, 
 " Thees mees from Boston is return to her house. You do 
 not accompany her ? I shall. Behold me — I am there." 
 
 But I linked my arm firmly in his. Then I pointed 
 out, first, that she was already accompanied hy a servant ; 
 secondly, that if I, who knew her, had hesitated to offer 
 myself as an escort, it was hardly proper for him, a perfect 
 stranger, to take that liberty ; that Miss Mannersley was 
 very punctilious of etiquette, which he, as a Castilian gen- 
 tleman, ought to appreciate. 
 
 " But will she not regard lofe — the admiration ex- 
 cessif ? " he said, twirling his thin little mustache medi- 
 tatively. 
 
 " No ; she will not," I returned sharply ; " and you 
 ought to understand that she is on a different level from 
 your Manuelas and Carmens." 
 
 " Pardon, my friend," he said gravely ; " thees women 
 are ever the same. There is a proverb in my language. 
 Listen : ' Whether the sharp blade of the Toledo pierce the 
 satin or the goatskin, it shall find behind it ever the same 
 heart to wound.' I am that Toledo blade — possibly it is 
 you, my friend. Wherefore, let us together pursue this 
 girl of Boston on the instant." 
 
 But I kept my grasp on Enriquez's arm, and succeeded in 
 restraining his mercurial impulses for the moment. He 
 halted, and puffed vigorously at his cigarette ; but the next 
 instant he started forward again. 
 
 " Let us, however, follow with discretion in the rear ; we 
 shall pass her house ; we shall gaze at it ; it shall touch 
 her heart." 
 
 Kidiculous as was this following of the young girl we had 
 only just parted from, I nevertheless knew that Enriquez 
 was quite capable of attempting it alone, and I thought it 
 better to humor him by consenting to walk with him m 
 that direction ; but I felt it necessary to say : — 
 
340 THE DEVOTION OF ENKIQ0EZ 
 
 " I ought to warn you that Miss Mannersley already 
 looks upon your performances at the sala as something 
 outr^ and peculiar, and if I were you I should n't do any-' 
 thing to deepen that impression." 
 
 " You are saying she ees shock ? " said Enriquez 
 gravely. 
 
 I felt I could not conscientiously say that she was 
 shocked, and he saw my hesitation. 
 
 " Then she have jealousy of the sefioritas," he observed, 
 with insufferable complacency. " You observe ! I have 
 already said. It is ever so." 
 
 I could stand it no longer. 
 
 "Look here, Harry," I said, "if you must know it, she 
 looks upon you as an acrobat — a paid performer." 
 
 " Ah ! " — his black eyes sparkled — " the torero, the 
 man who fights the bull, he is also an acrobat." 
 
 " Yes ; but she thinks you a clown ! — a gracioso de 
 teatro, — there ! " 
 
 " Then I have make her laugh ? " he said coolly.' 
 
 I don't think he had ; but I shrugged my shoulders. 
 
 " Bueno ! " he said cheerfully. " Lofe, he begin with 
 a laugh, he make feenish with a sigh." 
 
 I turned to look at him in the moonlight. His face 
 presented its habitual Spanish gravity — a gravity that was 
 almost ironical. His small black eyes had their character- 
 istic irresponsible audacity — the irresponsibility of the 
 vivacious young animal. It could not be possible that he 
 was really touched with the placid frigidities of Miss Man- 
 nersley. I remembered his equally elastic gallantries with 
 Miss Pinky Smith, a blond Western belle, from which 
 both had harmlessly rebounded. As we walked on slowly 
 I continued more persuasively : — 
 
 " Of course this is only your nonsense ; but don't you 
 see. Miss Mannersley thinks it all in earnest and really your 
 nature ? " I hesitated, for it suddenly struck me that it 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 341 
 
 was really his nature. " And — hang it all ! — you don't 
 want her to helieve you a common buifoon, or some intoxi- 
 cated muchaco." 
 
 " Intoxicated ? " repeated Enriquez, with exasperating 
 languishment. "Yes; that is the word that shall express 
 Itself. My friend, you have made a shot in the centre — 
 you have ring the bell every time ! It is intoxication — 
 but not of aguardiente. Look ! I have long time an an- 
 ' :estor of whom is a pretty story. One day in church he 
 have seen a young girl — a mere peasant girl — pass to the 
 confessional. He look her in her eye, he stagger," — here 
 Enriquez wobbled pantomimically into the road, — " he 
 fall ! " — ; he would have suited the action to the word if I 
 had not firmly held him up. " They have take him home, 
 where he have remain without his clothes, and have dance 
 and sing. But it was the drunkenness of lofe. And, look 
 you, thees village girl was a nothing, not even pretty. 
 The name of my ancestor was " — 
 
 " Don Quixote de la Mancha," I suggested maliciously. 
 " I suspected as much. Come along. That will do." 
 
 " My ancestor's name," continued Enriquez gravely, 
 " was Antonio Hermenegildo de Salvatierra, which is not 
 the same. Thees Don Quixote of whom you speak exist 
 not at all." 
 
 " Never mind. Only, for Heaven's sake, as we are near- 
 ing the house, don't make a fool of yourself again." 
 
 It was a wonderful moonlight night. The deep redwood 
 porch of the Mannersley parsonage, under the shadow of a 
 great oak, • — the largest in the Encinal, — was diapered in 
 black and silver. As the women stepped upon the porch 
 their shadows were silhouetted against the door. Miss Man- 
 nersley paused for an instant, and turned to give a last look 
 at the beauty of the night as Jocasta entered. Her glance 
 fell upon us as we passed. She nodded carelessly and un- 
 affectedly to me, but as she recognized Enriquez she looked 
 
342 THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 a little longer at him with her previous cold and invincible 
 curiositj'. To my horror Enriquez began instantly to 
 afifect a slight tremulousness of gait and a difj&cultj of 
 breathing ; but I gripped his arm savagely, and managed to 
 get him past the house as the door closed finally on the 
 young lady. 
 
 " You do not comprehend, friend Pancho," he said 
 gravely, " but those eyes in their glass are as the espejo 
 ustorio, the burning mirror. They burn, they consume me 
 here like paper. Let us affix to ourselves thees tree. She 
 will, without doubt, appear at her window. We shall 
 ■alute her for good-night." 
 
 " We will do nothing of the kind," I said sharply. 
 
 Finding that I was determined, he permitted me to lead 
 him away. I was delighted to notice, however, that he 
 had indicated the window which I knew was the minister's 
 study, and that as the bedrooms were in the rear of the 
 house, this later incident was probably not overseen by 
 the young lady or the servant. But I did not part from 
 Enriquez until I saw him safely back to the sala, where I 
 left him sipping chocolate, his arm alternating around the 
 waists of his two previous partners in a delightful Arcadian 
 and childlike simplicity, and an apparent utter forgetfulness 
 of Miss Mamiersley. 
 
 The fandangoes were usually held on Saturday night, 
 and the next day, being Sunday, I missed Enriquez ; but 
 as he was a devout Catholic I remembered that he was at 
 mass in the morning, and possibly at the bullfight at San 
 Antonio in the afternoon. But I was somewhat, surprised 
 on tlie Monday morning following, as I was crossing the 
 plaza, to have my arm taken by the Keverend Mr. Man- 
 nersley in the nearest approach to familiarity that was con- 
 sistent with the reserve of this eminent divine. I looked 
 \t him inquiringly. Although ' scrupulously correct in 
 4ttire, his features always had a singular resemblance to the 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 343 
 
 national caricature known as " Uncle Sam," but with the 
 humorous expression left out. Softly stroking his goatee 
 with three fingers, he began condescendingly : — 
 
 " You are, I think, more or less familiar with the char- 
 acteristics and customs of the Spanish as exhibited by the 
 settlers here." 
 
 A thrill of apprehension went through me. Had he 
 heard of Enriquez's proceedings ? Had Miss Mannersley 
 cruelly betrayed him to her uncle ? 
 
 " I have not given that attention myself to their lan- 
 guage and social peculiarities," he continued, with a large 
 wave of the hand, " being much occupied with a study of 
 their religious beliefs and superstitions,'? — it struck me 
 that this was apt to be a common fault of people of, the 
 Mannersley type, — " but I have refijained from a personal 
 discussion of them ; on the contrary, I have held somewhat 
 broad views on the subject of their remarkable missionary 
 work, and have suggested a scheme of co{jperati<m with 
 them, quite independent of doctrinal teaching, to my bre- 
 thren of other Protestant Christian sects. These views I first 
 incorporated in a sermon last Sunday week, which I am. 
 told has created considerable attention." He stopped and 
 coughed slightly. " I have not yet heard from any of. the 
 Roman clergy, but I am led to believe that my remarks 
 were, not ungrateful to Catholics generally." 
 
 I was relieved, although still in some wonder w:hy he 
 should address me on this topic. I had a vague remem- 
 brance of having heard that he had said something on Sun- 
 day which had offended some Puritans of his flock, but 
 nothing more. 
 
 He continued : "I have just said that I was unac- 
 quainted with the characteristics of the Spanish-American 
 race. I presume, however, they have the impulsiveness of 
 their Latin origin. They gesticulate — eh ? They ex- 
 press their gratitude, their joy, their affection, their emo- 
 
344 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 tions generally, by spasmodic movements ? They naturally 
 dance — sing — eh ? " 
 
 A horrible suspicion crossed my mind ; I could only 
 stare helplessly at him. 
 
 " I see," he said graciously ; " perhaps it is a somewhat 
 general question. I will explain myself. A rather singu- 
 lar occurrence happened to me the other night. I had 
 i'eturned from visiting a parishioner, and was alone in my 
 study reviewing my sermon for the next day. It must 
 have been quite late before I concluded, for I distinctly 
 remember my niece had returned with her servant fully an 
 hour before. Presently I heard the sounds of a musical 
 instrument in the road, with the accents of some one sing- 
 ing or rehearsing some metrical composition in words that, 
 although couched in a language foreign to me, in expres- 
 sion and modulation gave me the impression of being dis- 
 tinctly adulatory. For some little time, in the greater 
 preoccupation of my task, I paid little attention to the per- 
 formance ; but its persistency at length drew me in no mere 
 idle curiosity to the window. From thence, standing in my 
 dressing-gown, and believing myself unperceived, I noticed 
 under the large oak in the roadside the figure of a young 
 man, who, by the imperfect light, appeared to be of Span- 
 ish extraction. But I evidently miscalculated my own 
 invisibility ; for he moved rapidly forward as I came to the 
 window, and in a series of the most extraordinary panto- 
 mimic gestures saluted me. Beyond my experience of a few 
 Greek plays in earlier days, I confess I am not an adept in 
 the understanding of gesticulation ; but it struck me that 
 the various phases of gratitude, fervor, reverence, and exal- 
 tation were successively portrayed. He placed his hands 
 upon his head, his heart, and even clasped them together in 
 this manner." 
 
 To my consternation the reverend gentleman here imi- 
 tated Enriquez's most extravagant pantomims. 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENKIQUEZ 345 
 
 " I am willing to confess," lie continued, " that I was 
 singularly moved by them, as well as by the highly credit, 
 able and Christian interest that evidently produced them. 
 At last I opened the window. Leaning out, I told him 
 that I regretted that the lateness of the hour prevented any 
 further response from me than a grateful though hurried 
 acknowledgment of his praiseworthy emotion, but that I 
 should be glad to see him for a few moments in the vestry 
 before service the next day, or at early candlelight, before 
 the meeting of the Bible class. I told him that as my sole 
 purpose had been the creation of an evangelical brother- 
 hood and the exclusion of merely doctrinal views, nothing 
 could be more gratifying to me than this spontaneous and 
 unsolicited testimony to my motives. He appeared for an 
 instant to be deeply affected, and, indeed, quite overcome 
 with emotion, and then gracefully retired, with some agility 
 and a slight saltatory movement." 
 
 He paused. A sudden and overwhelming idea took pos- 
 session of me, and I looked impulsively into his face. 
 Was it possible that for once Enriquez's ironical extrava- 
 gance had been understood, met, and vanquished by a mas- 
 ter hand ? But the Reverend Mr. Mannersley's self-satis- 
 lied face betrayed no ambiguity or lurking humor. He 
 was evidently in earnest ; he had complacently accepted 
 for himself the abandoned Enriquez's serenade to his niece. 
 I felt an hysterical desire to laugh, but it was checked by 
 my companion's next words. 
 
 " I informed my niece of the occurrence in the morning 
 at breakfast. She had not heard anything of the strange 
 performance, but she agreed with me as to its undoubted 
 origin in a grateful recognition of my liberal efforts toward 
 his co-religionists. It was she, in fact, who suggested that 
 your knowledge of these people might corroborate my im- 
 pressions." 
 
 I was dumfounded. Had Miss Mannersley, who must 
 
34e THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 have recognized Enriquez's hand in this, concealed the fact 
 in a desire to shield him ? But this was so inconsistent 
 with her utter indifference to him, except as a grotesque 
 study, that she would have been more likely to tell her 
 uncle all about his previous performance. Nor could it be 
 that she wished to conceal her visit to the fandango. She 
 was far too independent for that, and it was even possible 
 that the reverend gentleman, in his desire to know more of 
 Enriquez's compatriots, would not have objected. In my 
 confusion I meekly added my conviction to hers, congratu- 
 lated him upon his evident success, and slipped away. 
 
 But I was burning with a desire to see Enriquez and 
 know all. He was imaginative but not untruthful. Un- 
 fortunately, I learned that he was just then following one 
 of his erratic impulses, and had gone to a rodeo at his 
 cousin's, in the foothills, where he was alternately exercis- 
 ing his horsemanship in catching and breaking wild cattle, 
 and delighting his relatives with his incomparable grasp of 
 the American language and customs, and, of the airs of a 
 young man of fashion. Then my thoughts recurred to Miss 
 Mannersley. Had she really been oblivious that night to 
 Enriquez's serenade ? I resolved to find out, if I could, 
 without betraying Enriquez. Indeed, it was possible, after 
 all, that it might not have been he. 
 
 Chance favored me. The next evening I was at a party 
 where Miss Mannersley, by reason of her position and 
 quality, was a distinguished — I had almost written a pop- 
 ular — guest. But, as I have formerly stated, although the 
 youthful fair of the Encinal were flattered by her casual 
 attentions, and secretly admired her superior style and aris- 
 tocratic calm, they were more or less uneasy under the 
 dominance of her intelligence and education, and were 
 afraid to attempt either confidence or familiarity. They 
 were also singularly jealous of her, for although the average 
 young man was equally afraid of her cleverness and candor, 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENKIQUEZ 347 
 
 he was not above paying a tremulous and timid court to her 
 for its effect upon her humbler sisters. This evening she 
 was surrounded by her usual satellites, including, of course, 
 the local notables and special guests of distinction. She 
 had been discussing, I think, the existence of glaciers on 
 Mount Shasta with a spectacled geologist, and had partici- 
 pated with charming frankness in a conversation on anatomy 
 with the local doctor and a learned professor, when she was 
 asked to take a seat at the piano. She played with remark- 
 ible skill and wonderful precision, but coldly and brilliantly. 
 As she sat there in her subdued but perfectly fitting evening 
 dress, her regular profile and short but slender neck firmly 
 set upon her high shoulders, exhaling an atmosphere of 
 refined puritanism and provocative intelligence, the utter 
 incongruity of Enriquez's extravagant attentions, if ironical, 
 and their equal hopelessness if not, seemed to me plainer 
 than ever. What had this well-poised, coldly observant 
 spinster to do with that quaintly ironic i'uffler, that roman- 
 tic cynic, that rowdy Don Quixote, that impossible Enri- 
 quez ? Presently she ceased playing. Her slim, narrow 
 slipper, revealing her thin ankle, remained upon the pedal ; 
 her delicate fingers were resting idly on the keys ; her head 
 was slightly thrown back, and her narrow eyebrows prettily 
 knit toward the ceiling in an effort of memory. 
 
 " Something of Chopin's," suggested the geologist ar- 
 dently. 
 
 " That exquisite sonata ! " pleaded the doctor. 
 
 " Suthin' of Rubinstein. Heard him once," said a gen- 
 tleman of Siskiyou. "He just made that planner get up 
 and howl. Play Kube." 
 
 She shook her head with parted lips and a slight touch 
 of girlish coquetry in her manner. Then her fingers sud 
 denly dropped upon the keys with a glassy tinkle ; there 
 were a few quick pizzicato chords, down went the low pedal 
 with a monotonous strumming, and she presently began to 
 
348 THE DEVOTION OV ENEIQUEZ 
 
 hum to herself. I started, — as well I might, — for \ 
 recognized one of Enriquez's favorite and most extravagant 
 guitai solos. It vi'as audacious ; it vras barbaric ; it was, I 
 fear, vulgar. As I remembered it, — as he sang it, — it 
 recounted the adventures of one Don Francisco, a provincial 
 gallant and roisterer of the most objectionable type. It had 
 one hundred and four verses, which Enriquez never spared 
 me. I shuddered as in a pleasant, quiet voice the correct 
 Miss Mannersley warbled in musical praise of the pellejo, 
 or wine-skin, and a eulogy of the dice-box came caressingly 
 from her thin red lips. But the company waS far differ- 
 ently affected : the strange, wild air and wilder accompani- 
 ment were evidently catching ; people moved towards the 
 piano ; somebody whistled the air from a distant corner ; 
 even the faces of the geologist and doctor brightened. 
 
 " A tarantella, I presume ? " blandly suggested the 
 doctor. 
 
 Miss Mannersley stopped, and rose carelessly from the 
 piano. 
 
 " It is a Moorish gypsy song of the fifteenth century," 
 she said dryly. 
 
 "It seemed sorter familiar, too," hesitated one of the 
 young men timidly, " like as if — don't you know ? — you 
 had without knowing it, don't you know ? " — he blushed 
 slightly — " sorter picked it up somewhere." 
 
 "I 'picked it up,' as you call it, in the collection of 
 mediaeval manuscripts of the Harvard Library, and copied 
 it," returned Miss M[annersly coldly, as she turned away. 
 
 But I was not inclined to let her off so easily. I pres- 
 ently made my way to her side. 
 
 " Your uncle was complimentary enough to consult me 
 as to the meaning of the appearance of a certain exuberant 
 Spanish visitor at his house the other night." 
 
 I looked into her brown eyes, but my own slipped off her 
 velvety pupils without retaining anything. 
 
THK DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 349 
 
 Then she reinforced her gaze with a pince-nez, and said 
 carelessly : — 
 
 " Oh, it 's you ? How are you ? Well, could you give 
 him any information ? " 
 
 " Only generally," I returned, still looking into her eyes. 
 "These people are impulsive. The Spanish blood is a 
 mixture of gold and quicksilver." 
 
 She smiled slightly. " That reminds me of your volatile 
 friend. He was mercurial enough, certainly. Is he still 
 dancing ? " 
 
 " And singing sometimes," I responded pointedly. 
 
 But she only added casually, "A singular creature," 
 without exhibiting the least consciousness, and drifted 
 away, leaving me none the wiser. I felt that Enriquez 
 alone could enlighten me. • I must see him. 
 
 I did, but not in the way I expected. There was a bull- 
 fight at San Antonio the next Saturday afternoon, the usual 
 Sunday performance being changed in deference to the Sab- 
 batical habits of the Americans. An additional attraction 
 was offered in the shape of a bull and bear fight, also a con- 
 cession to American taste, which had voted the bullfight 
 " slow," and had averred that the bull " did not get a fair 
 show." I am glad that I am able to spare the reader the 
 usual realistic horrors, for in the Californian performances 
 there was very little of the brutality that distinguished 
 this function in the mother country. The horses were not 
 miserable, worn-out hacks, but young and alert mustangs ; 
 and the display of horsemanship by the picadors was not 
 only wonderful, but secured an almost absolute safety to 
 horse and rider. I never saw a horse gored ; although un- 
 skillful riders were sometimes thrown in wheeling quickly 
 to avoid the bull's charge, they generally regained their 
 animals without injury. 
 
 The Plaza de Toros was reached through the decayed and 
 41e-strewn outskirts of an old Spanish village. It was a 
 
350 THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 rudely built, oval amphitheatre, with crumbling, white- 
 washed adobe walls, and roofed only over portions of the 
 gallery reserved for the provincial " notables," but now 
 occupied by a few shopkeepers and their wives, with a 
 sprinkling of American travelers and ranchmen. The im- 
 palpable adobe-dust of the arena was being whirled into 
 the air by the strong onset of the afternoon trade-winds, 
 which happily, however, helped also to dissipate a reek of 
 garlic, and the acrid fumes of cheap tobacco rolled in corn- 
 husk cigarettes. I was leaning over the second barrier, 
 waiting for the meagre and circus-like procession to enter 
 with the keys of the bull-pen, when my attention was 
 attracted to a movement in the reserved gallery. A lady 
 and gentleman of a quality that was evidently unfamiliar 
 to the rest of the audience were picking their way along 
 the rickety benches to a front seat. I recognized the geol- 
 ogist with some surprise, and the lady he was leading with 
 still greater astonishment. For it was Miss Mannersley, in 
 her precise, well-fitting walking-costume — a monotone of 
 sober color among the parti-colored audience. 
 
 However, I was perhaps less surprised than the audience, 
 for I was not only becoming as accustomed to the yoving 
 girl's vagaries as I had been to Enriquez's extravagance, but 
 I was also satisfied that her uncle might have given her 
 permission to come, as a recognition of the Sunday conces- 
 sion of the management, as well as to conciliate his sup- 
 posed Catholic friends. I watched her sitting there until 
 the first bull had entered, and, after a rather brief play 
 with the picadors and banderilleros, was dispatched. At 
 the moment when the matador approached the bull with his 
 lethal weapon I was not sorry for an excuse to glance at 
 Miss Mannersley. Her hands were in her lap, her head 
 slightly bent forward over her knees. I fancied that she, 
 too, had dropped her eyes before the brutal situation ; to 
 my horror I saw that she had a drawing-book in her hand. 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQTJEZ 351 
 
 and was actually sketching it. I turned my eyes in prefer- 
 ence to the dying bull. 
 
 The second animal led out for this ingenious slaughter 
 was, however, more sullen, uncertain, and discomposing to 
 his butchers. He accepted the irony of a trial with 
 gloomy, suspicious eyes, and he declined the challenge of 
 whirling and insulting picadors. He bristled with bande- 
 rillas like a hedgehog, but remained with his haunches 
 backed against the barrier, at times almost hidden in the 
 fine dust raised by the monotonous stroke of his sullenly 
 pawing hoof — his one dull, heavy protest. A vague un- 
 easiness had infected his adversaries ; the picadors held 
 aloof, the banderilleros skirmished at a safe distance. The 
 audience resented only the indecision of the bull. Galling 
 epithets were flung at him, followed by cries of " Espada ! " 
 and, curving his elbow under his short cloak, the matador, 
 with his flashing blade in hand, advanced and — stopped. 
 The bull remained motionless. 
 
 Por at that moment a heavier gust of wind than usual 
 swept down upon the arena, lifted a sufi'ocating cloud of 
 dust, and whirled it around the tiers of benches and the 
 balcony, and for a moment seemed to stop the performance. 
 I heard an exclamation from the geologist, who had risen 
 to his feet. I fancied I heard even a faint cry from Miss 
 Mannersley ; but the next moment, as the dust was slowly 
 settling, we saw a sheet of paper in the air, that had been 
 caught up in this brief cyclone, dropping, dipping from 
 side to side on uncertain wings, until it slowly descended 
 in the very middle of the arena. It was a leaf from Miss 
 Mannersley's sketch-book, the one on which she had been 
 sketching. 
 
 In the pause that followed it seemed to be the one 
 object that at last excited the bull's growing but tardy ire. 
 ITe glanced at it with murky, distended eyes; he snorted 
 a; it witli vngue yet troubled fury. Whether he detected 
 
352 THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 his own presentment in Miss Mannersley's sketch, or 
 whether he recognized it as an unknown and unfamiliar 
 treachery in his surroundings, I could not conjecture ; for 
 the next moment the matador, taking advantage of the 
 bull's concentration, with a complacent leer at the audience, 
 advanced toward the paper. But at that instant a young 
 man cleared the harrier into the arena with a single hound, 
 shoved the matador to one side, caught up the paper, 
 ';urned toward the halcony and Miss Mannersley with a 
 gesture of apology, dropped gayly before the hull, knelt 
 down before him with an exaggerated humility, and held 
 up the drawing as if for his inspection. 
 
 A roar of applause broke from the audience, a cry of 
 warning and exasperation from the attendants, as the goaded 
 bull suddenly charged the stranger. But he sprang to one 
 side with great dexterity, made a courteous gesture to the 
 matador as if passing the bull over to him, and still hold- 
 ing the paper in his hand, re-leaped the barrier, and rejoined 
 the audience in safety. I did not wait to see the deadly, 
 dominant thrust with which the matador received the 
 charging bull ; my eyes were following the figure now 
 bounding up the steps to the balcony, where with an ex- 
 aggerated salutation he laid the drawing in Miss Manners- 
 ley's lap, and vanished. There was no mistaking that thin 
 lithe form, the narrow black mustache, and gravely dancing 
 eyes. The audacity of conception, the extravagance of 
 execution, the quaint irony of the sequel, could belong to 
 no one but Enriquez. 
 
 I hurried up to her as the six yoked mules dragged the 
 carcass of the bull away. She was placidly putting up her 
 book, the unmoved focus of a hundred eager and curious 
 eyes. She smiled slightly as she saw me. 
 
 "I was just telling Mr. Briggs what an extraordinary 
 creature it was, and how you knew him. He must have 
 Had great experience to do that sort of thing so cleverly 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENKIQUEZ 353 
 
 and safely. Does he do it often ? Of course, not just 
 that. But does he pick up cigars and things that I see 
 they throw to the matador ? Does he belong to the man- 
 agement ? Mr. Briggs thinks the whole thing was a feint 
 to distract the bull," she added, with a wicked glance at 
 the geologist, who, I fancied, looked disturbed. 
 
 " I am afraid," I said dryly, " that his act was as unpre- 
 meditated and genuine as it was unusual." 
 
 " Why afraid ? " 
 
 It was a matter-of-fact question, but I instantly saw my 
 mistake. What right had I to assume that Enriquez's 
 attentions were any more genuine than her own easy indif- 
 ference ; and if I suspected that they were, was it fair in 
 me to give my friend away to this heartless coquette ? 
 
 " You are not very gallant," she said, with a slight 
 laugh, as I was hesitating, and turned away with her escort 
 before I could frame a reply. 
 
 But at least Enriquez was now accessible, and I should 
 gain some information from him. I knew where to find 
 him, unless he were still lounging about the building, in- 
 tent upon more extravagance ; but I waited until I saw 
 Miss Mannersley and Briggs depart without further inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 The hacienda of Ramon Saltello, Enriquez's cousin, was 
 on the outskirts of the village. When I arrived there I 
 found Enriquez's pinto mustang steaming in the corral, and 
 although I was momentarily delayed by the servants at the 
 gateway, I was surprised to find Enriquez himself lying 
 languidly on his back in a hammock in the patio. His 
 arms were hanging down listlessly on each side as if in the 
 greatest prostration, yet I could not resist the impression 
 that the rascal had only just got into the hammock when 
 he heard of my arrival. 
 
 " You have arrived, friend Pancho, in time," he said, in 
 accents of exaggerated weakness. " I am absolutely ex- 
 
354 THE DEYOTION OF ENKIQUEZ 
 
 haust. I am bursted, caved in, kerflummoxed. I hav» 
 behold you, my friend, at the barrier. I speak not, I make 
 no sign at the first, because I was on fire ; I speak not at 
 the feenish — for I am exhaust." 
 
 " I see ; the bull made it lively for you." 
 
 He instantly bounded up in the hammock. 
 
 " The bull ! Caramba ! Not a thousand bulls ! And 
 thees one, look you, was a craven. I snap my fingers over 
 his horn ; I roll my cigarette under his nose." 
 
 " Well, then — what was it ? " 
 
 He instantly lay down again, pulling up the sides of the 
 hammock. Presently his voice came from its depths, ap- 
 pealing in hollow tones to the sky. 
 
 " He asks me — thees friend of my soul, thees brother 
 of my life, thees Pancho that I lofe — what it was ? He 
 would that I should tell him why I am game in the legs, 
 why I shake in the hand, crack in the voice, and am gener- 
 ally wipe out ! And yet he, my pardner — thees Prancisco 
 — know that I have seen the mees from Boston ! That I 
 have gaze into the eye, touch the hand, and for the instant 
 possess the picture that hand have drawn ! It was a sub- 
 lime picture, Pancho," he said, sitting up again suddenly, 
 " and have kill the bull before our friend Pepe's sword have 
 touch even the bone of hees back and make feenish of him." 
 
 " Look here, Enriquez," I said bluntly, " have you been 
 serenading that girl ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders without the least embarras?;- 
 meut, and said : — 
 
 "Ah, yes. What would you ? It is of a necessity." 
 
 "Well," I retorted, " then you ought to know that hrit 
 uncle took it all to himself — thought you some grateful 
 Catholic pleased with his religious tolerance." 
 
 He did not even smile. "Bueno," he said gravely. 
 " That make something, too. In thees affair it is well to 
 begin with the duenna. He is the duenna." 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 355 
 
 "And," I went on relentlessly, "her escort told her jusf 
 now that your exploit in the bull-ring was only a trick to 
 divert the bull, suggested by the management." 
 
 " Bah ! her escort is a geologian. Naturally, she is to 
 him as a stone." 
 
 I would have continued, but a peon interrupted us at 
 this moment with a sign to Enriquez, who leaped briskly 
 from the hammock, bidding me wait his return from a mes- 
 senger in the gateway. 
 
 Still unsatisfied of mind I waited, and sat down in the 
 hammock that Enriquez had quitted. A scrap of paper 
 was lying in its nieshes, which at first appeared to be of 
 the kind from which Enriquez rolled his cigarettes ; but as 
 I picked it up to throw it away, I found it was of much 
 firmer and stouter material. Looking at it more closely, I 
 was surprised to recognize it as a piece of the tinted 
 drawing-paper torn off the " block " that Miss Mannersley 
 had used. It had been deeply creased at right angles as if 
 it had been folded ; it looked as if it might have been the 
 outer half of a sheet used for a note. 
 
 It might have been a trifling circumstance, but it greatly 
 excited my curiosity. I knew that he had returned the 
 sketch to Miss Mannersley, for I had seen it in her hand. 
 Had she given hira another ? And if so, why had it been 
 folded to the destruction of the drawing ? Or was it part 
 of a note which he had destroyed ? In the first impulse 
 of discovery I walked quickly with it toward the gateway 
 where Enriquez had disappeared, intending to restore it to 
 him. He was just outside talking with a young girl. I 
 started, for it was Jocasta — Miss Mannersley's maid. 
 
 With this added discovery came that sense of uneasiness 
 and indignation with which we illogically are apt to resent 
 the withholding of a friend's confidence, even in matters 
 concerning only himself. It was no use for me to reason 
 that it was no business of mine, that he was right in keep- 
 
356 THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 ing a secret that concerned another — and a lady ; but I 
 was afraid I was even more meanly resentful because the 
 discovery quite upset my theory of his conduct and of Miss 
 Mannersley's attitude toward him. 
 
 I continued to walk on to the gateway, where I bade En- 
 riquez a hurried good-by, alleging the sudden remembrance 
 of another engagement, but without appearing to recognize 
 the girl, who was moving away, when, to my further dis- 
 jomiiture, the rascal stopped me with an appealing wink, 
 threw his arms around my neck, whispered hoarsely in 
 my ear, " Ah ! you see — you comprehend — but you are 
 the mirror of discretion ! " and returned to Jocasta. But 
 whether this meant that he had received a message from 
 Miss Mannersley, or that he was trying to suborn her maid 
 to carry one, was still uncertain. He was capable of either. 
 
 During the next two or three weeks I saw him frequently ; 
 but as I had resolved to try the effect of ignoring Miss 
 Mannersley in our conversation, I gathered little further of 
 their relations, and, to my surprise, after one or two char- 
 acteristic extravagances of allusion, Enriquez dropped the 
 subject, too. Only one afternoon, as we were parting, he 
 said carelessly : — 
 
 " My friend, you are going to the casa of Mannersley to- 
 night. I too have the honor of the invitation. But you 
 will be my Mercury — my Leporello — you will take of me 
 a message to thees Mees Boston, that I am crushed, deso- 
 lated, prostrate, and flabbergasted — that I cannot arrive, 
 for I have of that night to sit up with the grand-aunt of my 
 brother-in-law, who has a quinsy to the death. It is sad." 
 
 This was the first indication I had received of Miss Man- 
 nersley's advances. I was equally surprised at Enriquez's 
 refusal. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " I said bluntly. " Nothing keeps you 
 .*rom going." 
 
 " My friend," returned Enriquez, with a sudden lapse into 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 357 
 
 languishment that seemed to make him absolutely infirm 
 " it is everything that shall restrain me. I am not strong. 
 I shall become weak of the knee and tremble under the eye 
 of Mees Boston. I shall precipitate myself to the geologian 
 by the throat. Ask me another conundrum that shall be 
 easy." 
 
 He seemed idiotically inflexible, and did not go. But I 
 did. I found Miss Mannersley exquisitely dressed and look- 
 ing singularly animated and pretty. The lambent glow of 
 her inscrutable eye as she turned towards me might have 
 been flattering but for my uneasiness in regard to Enriquez. 
 I delivered his excuses as naturally as I could. She stiff'- 
 ened for an instant, and seemed an inch higher. 
 
 " I am so sorry," she said at last in a level voice. " I 
 thought he would have been so amusing. Indeed, I had 
 hoped we might try an old Moorish dance together which I 
 have found and was practicing." 
 
 " He would have been delighted, I know. It 's a great 
 pity he did n't come with me," I said quickly ; " but," I 
 could not help adding, with emphasis on her words, " he is 
 such an * extraordinary creature,' you know." 
 
 " I see nothing extraordinary in his devotion to an aged 
 relative," returned Miss Mannersley quietly, as she turned 
 away, " except that it justifies my respect for his charac- 
 ter." , 
 
 I do not know why I did not relate this to him. Pos- 
 sibly I had given up trying to understand them ; perhaps I 
 was beginning to have an idea that he could take care of 
 himself. But I was somewhat surprised a few days later 
 when, after asking me to go with him to a rodeo at his 
 uncle's he added composedly, "You will meet Mees Bos^ 
 ton." 
 
 I stared, and but for his manner would have thought it 
 part of his extravagance. For the rodeo — a yearly chase 
 of wild cattle for the purpose of lassoing and branding 
 
358 THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 them — was a rather brutal affair, and purely a man's func- 
 tion ; it was also a family affair — a property stock-taking 
 of the great Spanish cattle-owners — and strangers, particu- 
 larly Americans, found it difficult to gain access to its mys- 
 teries and the festa that followed. 
 
 " But how did she get an invitation ? " I asked. " You 
 did not dare to ask " — I began. 
 
 " My friend," said Enriquez, with a singular deliberation, 
 " the great and respectable Boston herself, and her serene, 
 venerable oncle, and other Boston magnificoes, have of a 
 truth done me the inexpressible honor to solicit of my de- 
 graded, papistical oncle that she shall come — that she shall 
 of her own superior eye behold the barbaric customs of our 
 race." 
 
 His tone and manner were so peculiar that I stepped 
 quickly before him, laid my hands on his shoulders, and 
 looked down into his face. But the actual devil which I 
 now for the first time saw in his eyes went out of them 
 suddenly, and he relapsed again in affected languishment iri 
 his chair. 
 
 " I shall be there, friend Pancho," he said, with a pre- 
 posterous gasp. " I shall nerve my arm to lasso the bull, 
 and tumble him before her at her feet. I shall throw the 
 ' buck-jump ' mustang at the same sacred spot. I shall 
 pluck for her the buried chicken at full speed from the 
 ground, and present it to her. You shall see it, friend 
 Pancho. I shall be there." 
 
 He was as good as his word. When Don Pedro Amador, 
 his uncle, installed Miss Mannersley, with Spanish courtesy, 
 on a raised platform in the long valley where the rodeo took 
 place, the gallant Enriquez selected a bull from the fright-' 
 entd and galloping herd, and, cleverly isolating him from the 
 band, lassoed his hind legs, and threw him exactly before 
 the platform where Miss Mannersley was seated. It was 
 Ertfiquez who caught the unbroken mustang, sprang from 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 359 
 
 his own saddle to the bare back of his captive, and with 
 only the lasso for a bridle, halted him on rigid haunches 
 at Miss Mannerslcy's feet. It was Enriquez who, in the 
 sports that followed, leaned from his saddle at full speed, 
 caught up the chicken buried to its head in the sand with- 
 out wringing its neck, and tossed it unharmed and flutter- 
 ing toward his mistress. As for her, she wore the same 
 look of animation that I had seen in her face at our previa 
 ous meeting. Although she did not bring her sketch-book 
 ■with her, as at the bullfight, she did not shrink from the 
 branding of the cattle, which took place under her very- 
 eyes. 
 
 Yet I had never seen her and Enriquez together ; they 
 had never, to my actual knowledge, even exchanged words. 
 And now, although she was the guest of his uncle, his 
 duties seemed to keep him in the field, and apart from her. 
 Nor, as far as I could detect, did either apparently make 
 any effort to have it otherwise. The peculiar circumstance 
 seemed to attract no attention from any one else. But for 
 what I alone knew — or thought I knew — of their actual 
 relations, I should have thought them strangers. 
 
 But I felt certain that the festa which took place in the 
 broad patio of Don Pedro's casa would bring them together. 
 And later in the evening, as we were all sitting on the 
 veranda watching the dancing of the Mexican women, whose 
 white-flounced sayas were monotonously rising and falling 
 to the strains of two melancholy harps. Miss Mannersley 
 rejoined us from the house. She seemed to be utterly 
 absorbed and abstracted in the barbaric dances, and scarcely 
 moved as she leaned over the railing with her cheek rest- 
 ing on her hand. Suddenly she arose with a little cry. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked two or three. 
 
 " Nothing — only I have lost my fan." 
 
 She had risen, and was looking abstractedly on the 
 floor. 
 
360 THE DEVOTION OF ENKIQOBZ 
 
 Half a dozen men jumped to their feet. "Let me fetcli, 
 it," they said. 
 
 " No, thank you. I think I know where it is, and will 
 go for it myself." She was moving away. 
 
 But Don Pedro interposed with Spanish gravity. Such 
 a thing was not to he heard of in his casa. If the senorita 
 would not permit him — an old man — to go for it, it 
 must be brought "by Enriquez, her cavalier of the day. 
 
 But Enriquez was not to be found. ' I glanced at Miss 
 Mannersley's somewhat disturbed face, and begged her to 
 let me fetch it. I thought I saw a flush of relief come into 
 her pale cheek as she said, in a lower voice, " On the stone 
 seat in the garden." 
 
 I hurried away, leaving Don Pedro still protesting. I 
 knew the gardens, and the stone seat at an angle of the 
 wall, not a dozen yards from the casa. The moon shone 
 full upon it. There, indeed, lay the little gray-feathered 
 fan, But close beside it, also, lay the crumpled, black, 
 go^ '•-embroidered riding-gauntlet that Enriquez had worn at 
 the rodeo. 
 
 I thrust it hurriedly into my pocket, and ran back. As 
 I passed through the gateway I asked a peon to send Enri- 
 quez to me. The man stared. Did I not know that Don 
 Enriquez had ridden away two minutes ago ? 
 
 When I reached the veranda, I handed the fan to Miss 
 Mannersley without a word. 
 
 " Bueno," said Don Pedro gravely ; " it is as well. 
 There shall be no bones broken over the getting of it, for 
 Enriquez, I hear, has had to return to the Encinal this very 
 evening." 
 
 Miss Mannersley retired early. I did not inform her of 
 my discovery, nor did I seek in any way to penetrate her 
 secret. There was no doubt that she and Enriquez had 
 been together, perhaps not for the first time ; but what was 
 the result of their interview ? From the young girl's 
 
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 861 
 
 demeanor and Enriquez's hurried departure, I could only fear 
 the worst for him. Had he been tempted into some further 
 extravagance and been angrily rebuked, or had he avowed a 
 real passion concealed under his exaggerated mask, and been 
 deliberately rejected ? I tossed uneasily half the night, 
 following in my dreams my poor friend's hurrying hoof- 
 beats, and ever starting from my sleep at what I thought 
 was the sound of galloping hoofs. 
 
 I rose early, and lounged into the patio ; but others were 
 there before me, and a small group of Don Pedro's family 
 were excitedly discussing something, and I fancied they 
 turned away awkwardly and consciously as I approached. 
 There was an air of indefinite uneasiness everywhere. A 
 strange fear came over me with the chill of the early morn- 
 ing air. Had anything happened to Enriquez ? I had 
 always looked upon his extravagance as part of his playful 
 humor. Could it be possible that under the sting of rejec- 
 tion he had made his grotesque threat of languishing efface- 
 ment real ? Surely Miss Mannersley would know or suspect 
 something, if it were the case. 
 
 I approached one of the Mexican women and asked if 
 the senorita had risen. The woman started, and looked 
 covertly round before she replied. Did not Don Pancho 
 know that Miss Mannersley and her maid had not slept in 
 their beds that night, but had gone, none knew where ? 
 
 For an instant I felt an appalling sense of my own re- 
 sponsibility in this suddenly serious situation, and hurried 
 after the retreating family group. But as I entered the 
 corridor a vaquero touched me on the shoulder. He had 
 evidently just dismounted, and was covered with the dust 
 of the road. He handed me a note written in pencil on a 
 leaf from Miss Mannersley's sketch-book. It was in Enri- 
 quez's hand, and his signature was followed by his most 
 extravagant rubric. 
 
362 THE DEVOTION OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 Friend Pancho. — When you read this line you shall of 
 a possibility think I am no more. That is where you shall 
 slip up, my little brother ! I am much more — I am two 
 times as much, for I have marry Miss Boston. At the 
 mission church, at five of the morning, sharp ! No cards 
 shall be left ! I kiss the hand of my venerable uncle-in- 
 law. You shall say to him that we fly to the South wil- 
 derness as the combined evangelical missionary to the hea- 
 then ! Miss Boston herself say this. Ta-ta ! How are 
 you now ? Your own 
 
 Enriquez. 
 
BULGEE'S REPUTATION 
 
 We all remembered very distinctly Bulger's advent in 
 Eattlesnake Camp. It was difring the rainy season — a 
 season singularly inducive to settled reflective impressions 
 as we sat and smoked around the stove in Mosby's grocery. 
 Like older and more civilized communities, we had our pe- 
 riodic waves of sentiment and opinion, with the exception 
 that they were more evanescent with us, and, as we had 
 just passed through a fortnight of dissipation and extrava- 
 gance, owing to a visit from some gamblers and speculators, 
 we were now undergoing a severe moral revulsion, partly 
 induced by reduced finances and partly by the arrival of 
 two families with grown-up daughters on the hill. It was 
 raining, with occasional warm breaths, through the open 
 window, of the southwest trades, redolent of the saturated 
 spices of the woods and springing grasses, which perhaps 
 were slightly inconsistent with the hot stove around which 
 we had congregated. But the stove was only an excuse 
 for our listless, gregarious gathering ; warmth and idleness 
 went well together, and it was currently accepted that we 
 had caught from the particular reptile which gave its name 
 to our camp much of it pathetic, life-long search for warmth, 
 and its habit of indolently basking in it. 
 
 A few of us still went through the affectation of attempt- 
 ing to dry our damp clothes by the stove, and sizzling our 
 wet boots against it ; but as the same individuals calmly 
 permitted the rain to drive in upon them through the open 
 window without moving, and seemed to take infinite delight 
 m the amount of steam they generated, even that pretense 
 
364 BULGER'S REPUTATION 
 
 dropped. Crotalus himself, with his tail in a muddy 
 ditch, and tha sun striking cold fire from his slit eyes as 
 he basked his head on a warm stone beside it, could not 
 have typified us better. 
 
 Percy Briggs took his pipe from' his mouth at last and 
 said, with reflective severity : — 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, if we can't get the wagon road over 
 here, and if we 're going to be left out by the stagecoach 
 company, we can at least straighten up the camp, and not 
 have it look like a cross between a tenement alley and a 
 broken-down circus. I declare, I was just sick when these- 
 two Baker girls started to make a short cut through the camp. 
 Darned if they did n't turn round and take to the woods 
 and the rattlers again afore they got half way. And that 
 benighted idiot, Tom Rollins, standin' there in the ditch^ 
 spattered all over with slumgullion till he looked like a 
 spotted tarrypin, wavin' his fins and sashaying backwards 
 and forrai-ds and sayin', ' This way, ladit's ; this way ! ' " 
 
 " / did n't," returned Tom Rollins, quite casually, with- 
 out looking up from his steaming boots, — "I did n't start 
 in night afore last to dance ' The Green Corn Dance ' outer 
 ' Hiawatha,' with feathers in my hair and a red blanket on 
 my shoulders, round that family's new potato patch, in 
 order that it might ' increase and multiply.' I did n't sing 
 ' Sabbath Morning Bells ' with an anvil accompaniment un* 
 til twelve o'clock at night over at the Crossing, so that they 
 might dream of their Happy Childhood's Home. It seems 
 to me that it was n't me did it. I might be mistaken — 
 it was late — but I have the impression that it was n't 
 
 From the silence that followed, this would seem to have 
 been clearly a recent performance of the previous speaker, 
 who, however, responded quite cheerfully : — 
 
 " An evenin' o' simple, childish gayety don't count. 
 We 've got to start in again fair. What we want here is 
 
BULGER'S EEPUTATION 365 
 
 to clear up and encourage decent immigration, and get rid 
 o' gamblers and blatherskites that are makin' this yer camp 
 their happy hunting ground. We don't want any more 
 permiskus shootin'. We don't want any more paintin' the 
 town red. We don't want any more swaggerin' galoots 
 fidiii' up to this grocery and emptyin' their six-shooters in 
 the air afore they 'light. We want to put a stop to it 
 peacefully and without a row — and we kin. We ain't 
 got no bullies of our own to fight back, and they know it, 
 so they know they won't get no credit buUyin' us ; they 'II 
 leave if we 're only firm. It 's all along of our cussed fool 
 good nature ; they see it amuses us, and they '11 keep it up 
 as long as the whiskey 's free. What we want to do isj 
 when the next man comes waltzin' along " — , 
 
 A distant clatter from the rocky hillside here mingled 
 with the puff of damp air through the window. 
 
 " Looks as ef we might hev a show even now," said Tom 
 Eollius, removing his feet from the stove as we all instinct- 
 ively faced towards the window. 
 
 " I reckon you 're in with us in this, Mosby ? " said 
 Briggs, turning towards the proprietor of the grocery, who 
 had been leaning listlessly against the wall behind his bar. 
 
 " Arter the man's had a fair show," said Mosby cau- 
 tiously. He deprecated the prevailing condition of things, 
 but it was still an open question whether the families would 
 prove as valuable customers as his present clients. " Every- 
 thing in moderation, gentlemen." 
 
 The sound of galloping hoofs came nearer, now swishing 
 in the soft mud of the highway, until the unseen rider 
 pulled up before the door. There was no shouting, how- 
 ever, nor did he announce himself with the usual salvo of 
 firearms. But when, after a singularly heavy tread and 
 the jingle of spurs on the platform, the door flew open to 
 trie new-comer, he seemed a realization of our worst ex- 
 pectations. Tall, broad, and muscular, he carried in one 
 
366 BULGER'S KEPUTATION 
 
 hand a shotgun, while from his Kip dangled a heavy navy 
 revolver. His long hair, unkempt hut oiled, swept a greasy 
 circle around his shoulders ; his enormous mustache, drip- 
 ping with wet, completely concealed his mouth. His cos- 
 tume of fringed buckskin was wild and outre even for our 
 frontier camp. But what was more confirmative of our 
 suspicions was that he was evidently in the habit of mak- 
 ing an impression, and after a distinct pause at the doorway, 
 with only a side glance at us, he strode toward the bar. 
 
 "As there don't seem to be no hotel hereabouts, I reckon 
 I kin put up my mustang here and have a shakedown some- 
 where behind that counter," he said. His voice seemed to 
 have added to its natural depth the hoarseness of frequent 
 overstraining. 
 
 " Ye ain't got no bunk to spare, you boys, hev ye ? " 
 asked Mosby evasively, glancing at Percy Briggs, without 
 looking at the stranger. We all looked at Briggs also ; it 
 was his affair after all — he had originated this opposition. 
 To our surprise he said nothing. 
 
 The stranger leaned heavily on the counter. 
 
 "I was speaking to you," he said, with his eyes on 
 Mosby, and slightly accenting the pronoun with a tap of 
 his revolver-butt on the bar. '' Ye don't seem to catch on." 
 
 Mosby smiled feebly, and again cast an imploring glance 
 at Briggs. To our greater astonishment, Briggs said 
 quietly : — 
 
 " Why don't you answer the stranger, Mosby ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Mosby suavely to the new-comer, while 
 an angry flush crossed his cheek as he recognized the position 
 in which Briggs had placed him. '■' Of course, you 're wel- 
 come to what doings /hev here, but I reckoned these 
 gentlemen over there," with a vicious glance at Briggs, 
 " might fix ye up suthin' better ; they 're so pow'ful kind 
 to your sort." 
 
 The stranger threw down a gold-piece on the counter and 
 
BULGER'S REPUTATION 367 
 
 said : "Fork out your whiskey, then," waited until his glass 
 was filled, took it in his hand, and then, drawing an empty 
 chair to the stove, sat down beside Briggs. " Seein' as 
 you 're that kind," he said, placing his heavy hand on 
 Briggs's knee, " mebbe ye kin tell me ef thar 's a shanty or 
 a cabin at Rattlesnake that I kin get for a couple o' weeks. 
 I saw an empty one at the head o' the hill. You see, 
 gennelmen," he added confidentially, as he swept the drops 
 of whiskey from his long mustache with his fingers, and 
 glanced around our group, " I 've got some business over at 
 Bigwood," — our nearest town, — " but ez a place to stay 
 at it ain't my style." 
 
 " What 's the matter with Bigwood ? " said Briggs 
 abruptly. 
 
 " It 's too howlin', too festive, too rough ; thar 's too 
 much yellin' and shootin' goin' day and night. Thar 's too 
 many card-sharps and gay gamboliers cavortin' about the 
 town to please me. Too much permiskus soakin' at the bar 
 and free jim-jams. What I want is a quiet place what 
 a man kin give his mind and elbow a rest from, betwixt 
 grippin' his shootin'-irons and crookin' in his whiskey, — a 
 sort o' slow, quiet, easy place like this." 
 
 We all stared at him, Percy Briggs as fixedly as any. 
 But there was not the slightest trace of irony, sarcasm, or 
 peculiar significance in his manner. He went on slowly : — 
 " When I struck this yer camp a minit ago ; when I seed ' 
 that thar ditch meanderin' peaceful-like through the street, 
 without a hotel or free saloon or express office on either 
 side ; with the smoke just a-cnrlin' over the chimbley of 
 that log shanty, and the bresh just set fire to and a-smoiil- 
 derin' in that potato patch with a kind o' oldtime stingin' 
 in your eyes and nose, and a few women's duds just a- 
 flutterin' on a line by the fence, I says to myself : ' Bulger — 
 this is peace ! This is wot you 're lookin' for, Bulger — this 
 js wot you 're wantin' — this is wot you 'II hev ! ' " 
 
368 BULGER'S EEPUTATION 
 
 " You say you 've business over at Bigwood. What 
 business ? " said Briggs. 
 
 " It 's a peculiar business, young fellow," returned the 
 stranger gravely. " Thar 's different men ez has different 
 opinions about it. Some allows it 's an easy business, some 
 lUows it 's a rough business ; some says it 's a sad business, 
 others says it's gay and festive. Some wonders ez how 
 I 've got into it, and others wonder how I '11 ever get out 
 of it. It's a payin' business — it's a peaceful sort o' 
 business when left to itself. . It 's a peculiar business — a 
 business that sort o' b'longs to me, though I ain't got no 
 patent from Washington for it. It 's my own business." 
 He paused, rose,, and saying, " Let 's meander over aud take 
 a look at that empty cabin, and ef she suits me, why, I '11 
 plank down a slug for her on the spot, and move in to- 
 morrow," walked toward the door. "I'll pick up suthin' 
 in the way o' boxes and blankets from the grocery," he 
 added, looking at Mosby, " and ef thar 's a corner whar I 
 kin stand my gun and a nail to hang up my revolver — 
 why, I 'm all thar ! " 
 
 By this time we were no longer astonished when Briggs 
 rose also, and not only accompanied the sinister-looking 
 stranger to the empty cabin, but assisted him in negotiating 
 with its owner for a fortnight's occupancy. Nevertheless, 
 we eagerly assailed Briggs on his return for some explana- 
 tion of this singular change in his attitude toward the 
 stranger. He coolly reminded us, however, that while his 
 intention of excluding ruffianly adventurers from the camp 
 remained the same, he had no right to go back on the 
 stranger's sentiments, which were evidently in accord with 
 our own, and although Mr. Bulger's appearance was incon- 
 sistent with them, that was only an additional reason why 
 ■we should substitute a mild firmness for that violence which 
 we all deprecated, but which might attend his abrupt dis- 
 missal. We v/etf, nil satisfied except .Mosby, who had not 
 
BULGER'S REPUTATION 369 
 
 yet recovered from Briggs's change of front, which he was 
 pleased to call " crawfishing." " Seemed to me his account 
 of his business was extraordinary satisfactory ! Sorter 
 filled the bill all round — no mistake thar," — he sug- 
 gested, with a malicious irony. " I like a man that 's out- 
 spoken." 
 
 " I understood him very well," said Briggs quietly. 
 
 " In course you did. Only when you 've settled in your 
 mind whether he was describing horse-stealing or tract- 
 distributing, mebbe you '11 let me know." 
 
 It would seem, however, that Briggs did not interrogate 
 the stranger again regarding it, nor did we, who were quite 
 content to leave matters in Briggs's hands. Enough that 
 Mr. Bulger moved into the empty cabin the next day, and, 
 with the aid of a few old boxes from the grocery, which he 
 quickly extemporized into tables and chairs, and the pur- 
 chase of some necessary cooking-utensils, soon made him- 
 self at home. The rest of the camp, now thoroughly 
 aroused, made a point of leaving their work in the ditches, 
 whenever they could, to stroll carelessly around Bulger's 
 tenement in the vague hope of satisfying a curiosity that 
 had become tormenting. But they could not find that he 
 was doing anything of a suspicious character — except, per- 
 haps, from the fact that it was not outwardly suspicious, 
 which I grieve to say did not lull them to security. He 
 seemed to be either fixing up his cabin or smoking in his 
 doorway. On the second day he checked this itinerant 
 curiosity by taking the initiative himself, and quietly walk- 
 ing from claim to claim, and from cabin to cabin, with a 
 pacific but by no means a satisfying interest. The shadow 
 of Iiis tall figure carrying his inseparable gun, which had 
 not yet apparently " stood in the corner," falling upon an 
 excavated bank beside the delving miners, gave them a 
 sense of uneasiness they could not explain ; a few charac- 
 teristic yells of boisterous hilarity from their noontile 
 
370 bulgek's keputation; 
 
 gathering under a cottonwood somehow ceased when Mr. 
 Bulger was seen gravely approaching, and his casual stop- 
 ping before a poker party in the gulch actually caused one of 
 the most reckless gamblers to weakly recede from "a blufif " 
 aud allow his adversary to sweep the board. After this it 
 was felt that matters were becoming serious. There was 
 uo subsequent patroling of the camp before the stranger's 
 cabin. Their curiosity was singularly abated. A general 
 feeliug of repulsion, kept within bounds partly by the abr 
 sence of any overt act from Bulger, and partly by an incon- 
 sistent over-consciousness of his shotgun, took its place. 
 But an unexpected occurrence revived it. 
 
 One evening, as the usual social circle were drawn around 
 Mosby's stove, the lazy, silence was brokein by the familiar 
 KDUiids of pistol-shots and a series of more familiar shrieks 
 and yells from the rocky hill road. The circle quickly 
 recognized the voices of their old friends the roisterers and 
 gamblers from Sawyer's Dam; they as quickly recognized 
 the returning shouts here and there from a few companions 
 who were welcoming them. I grieve to say that in spite of 
 their previous attitude of reformation a smile of gratified 
 expectancy lit up the faces of the younger members, and 
 oven the older ones glanced dubiously at Briggs. Mosby 
 made no attempt to conceal a sigh of relief as he carefully 
 laid out an extra supply of glasses in his bar. Suddenly 
 the oncoming yells ceased, the wild gallop of hoofs slack- 
 ened into a trot, arid finally halted, and even the responsive 
 shouts of the camp stopped also. We all looked vacantly 
 at each other ; Mosby leaped over his counter and went to 
 the door ; Briggs followed with the rest of us. The night 
 was dark, and it was a few minutes before we could dis- 
 tinguish a straggling, vague, but silent procession moving 
 through the moist, heavy air on the hill. But, to our sur- 
 prise, it was moving away from us — absolutely leaving 
 the camp ! We were still staring in expectancy when out 
 
BULGER'S REPUTATION 37l 
 
 of the darkness slowly emerged a figure which we recog- 
 iiized at once as Captain Jim, one of the most reckless mem- 
 bers of our camp. Pushing us back into the grocery he 
 entered without a word, closed the door behind, him, and 
 threw himself vacantly into a chair. We at once pressed 
 around him. He looked up at us dazedly, drew a long 
 breath, and said slowly : — 
 
 " It 's no use, gentlemen ! Suthin 's got to be done with 
 that Bulger, and mighty quick." 
 
 " What *s the matter ? " we asked eagerly. 
 
 " Matter ! " he repeated, passing his hand across his 
 forehead, — " matter ! Look yere ! Ye all of you heard 
 them boys from Sawyer's Dam coming over the hill ? Ye 
 heard their music — mebbe ye heard us join in the chorus ? 
 Well, on they came waltzing down the hill, like old times, 
 and we waitin' for 'em. Then, jest as they passed the old 
 cabin, who do you think they ran right into — shooting- 
 iron, long hair and mustache, and all that — standing there 
 plump in the road ? — why, Bulger ! " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well ! Whatever it was — don't ask me — but, dern 
 my skin, ef after a word or two from him -^ them boys 
 just stopped yellin', turned round like lambs, and rode 
 away, peacefuHike, along with him. We ran after them 
 a spell, still yellin', when that thar Bulger faced around, 
 said to us that he 'd ' come down here for quiet,' and ef he 
 could n't hev it he 'd have to leave with those gentlemen 
 who wanted it too ! And I 'm gosh darned ef those gen- 
 tlemen — you know 'em all — Patsey Carpenter, Snapshot 
 Harry, and the others — ever said a darned word, but kinder 
 nodded ' So long ' and went away ! " 
 
 Our astonishment and mystification were complete ; and 
 I regret to say, the indignation of Captain Jim and Mosby 
 equally so. 
 
 "If we're going to be bossed by the first new-comer," 
 
872 BULGER'S REPUTATION 
 
 said the former gloomily, " I reckon we might as well take 
 our chances with the Sawyer's Dam boys, whom we 
 know. " 
 
 " Ef we are going to hev the legitimate trade of Rattle- 
 Enake interfered with by the cranks of some hidin' horse- 
 thief or retired road-agent," said Mosby, "we might as 
 well invite the hull of Joaquin Murietta's gang here at 
 once ! But I suppose this is part o' Bulger's particular 
 ' business,' " he added, with a withering glance at Briggs. 
 
 " I understand it all," said Briggs quietly. " You know 
 I told you that bullies could n't live in the same camp to- 
 gether. That 's human nature — and that 's how plain 
 men like you and me manage to «cud along without getting 
 plugged. You see, Bulger was n't going to hev any of his 
 own kind jurapin' his claim here. And I reckon he was 
 pow'f ul enough to back down Sawyer's Dam. Anyhow, 
 the bluff told — and here we are in peace and quietness." 
 ' " Until he lets us know what is his little game," sneered 
 Mosby. 
 
 Nevertheless, such is the force of mysterious power that, 
 although it was exercised against what we firmly believed 
 was the independence of the camp, it extorted a certain 
 respect from us. A few thought it was not a bad thing to 
 have a professional bully, and even took care to relate the 
 discomfiture of the wicked youth of Sawyer's Dam for the 
 oenefit of a certain adjacent and powerful camp who had 
 looked down upon us. He, himself, returning the same 
 evening from his self-imposed escort, vouchsafed no other 
 reason than the one he had already given. Preposterous 
 as it seemed, we were obliged to accept it, and the still 
 more preposterous inference that he had sought Rattlesnake 
 Gamp solely for the purpose of acquiring and securing its 
 f sace and quietness. Certainly he had no other occupa- 
 tion ; the little work he did upon the tailings of the aban- 
 doned claim which went with his little cabin was scarcely 
 
BULGER'S REPUTATION 378 
 
 a pretense. He rode over on certain days to Bigwood on 
 account of his business, but no one liad ever seen him there, 
 nor could the description of his manner and appearance 
 evoke any information from the Bigwoodians. It rema-'ried 
 a mystery. 
 
 It had also been feared that the advent of Bulger would 
 intensify that fear and dislike of riotous Rattlesnake which 
 the two families had shown, and which was the origin of 
 Briggs's futile attempt at reformation. But it was discov- 
 ered that since his arrival the young girls had shown less 
 timidity in entering the camp, and had even exchanged 
 some polite conversation and good-humored badinage with 
 its younger and more impressible members. Perhaps 
 this tended to make these youths more observant, for a 
 few days later, when the vexed question of Bulger's busi- 
 ness was again under discussion, one of them remarked 
 gloomily : — 
 
 " I reckon there ain't no doubt what he 's here for ! " 
 
 The youthful prophet was instantly sat upon aftei' the 
 fashion of all elderly critics since Job's. Nevertheless, 
 after a pause he was permitted to explain. 
 
 " Only this morning, when Lance Forester and me were 
 chirping with them gals out on the hill, who should we see 
 hanging around in the bush but that cussed Bulger ! We 
 allowed at first that it might be only a new style of his 
 interferin', so we took no notice, except to pass a few re- 
 marks about listeners and that sort o' thing, and perhaps 
 to bedevil the girls a little more than we 'd hev done if 
 we 'd been alone. Well, they laughed, and we laughed — 
 and that was the end of it. But this afternoon, as Lance 
 and me were meandering down by their cabin, we sorter 
 turned into the woods to wait till they 'd come out. Then 
 all of a sudden Lance stopped as rigid as a pointer that 's 
 flushed somethin', and says, ' B'gosh ! ' And thar, under 
 a big redwood, sat that slimy hypocrite Bulger, twisting 
 
374 Bulger's reputation 
 
 his long mustaches and smiling like clockwork alongside o' 
 little Meely Baker — you know her, the pootiest of the 
 two sisters — and she srailin' back on him. Think of it ! 
 — that unknown, unwashed, long-haired tramp and bully, 
 who must be forty if a day, and that innocent gal of six- 
 teen. It was simply disgustin' ! " 
 
 I need not say that the older cynics and critics already- 
 alluded to at once improved the occasion. What more 
 could be expected ? Women, the world over, were noted 
 for this sort of thing ! This long-haired, swaggering bully, 
 with his air of mystery, had captivated them, as he always 
 had done since the days of Homer. Simple merit, which 
 sat lowly in bar-rooms, and conceived projects for the 
 public good around the humble, unostentatious stove, was 
 nowhere ! Youth could not too soon learn this bitter 
 lesson. And in this case youth too, perhaps, was right iu 
 its conjectures, for this was, no doubt, the little game of 
 the perfidious Bulger. We recalled the fact that his un- 
 hallowed appearance in camp was almost coincident with 
 the arrival of the two families. We glanced at Briggs ; to 
 pur amazement, for the first time he looked seriously con- 
 cerned. But Mosby in the mean time leaned his elbows 
 lazily over the counter and, in a slow voice, added fuel to 
 the flame. 
 
 " I would n't hev spoken of it before," he said, with a 
 sidelong glance at Briggs, " for it might be all in the line 
 o' Bulger's ' business,' but suthin' happened the other night 
 tliat, for a minit, got me ! I was passin' the Bakers' 
 shanty, and I heard one of them gals a-singing a camp- 
 meeting hymn. I don't calkilate to run agin you young 
 fellers in any sparkin' or canoodlin' th^t 's goiu' on, but 
 her voice sounded so pow'ful soothin' and pretty thet I 
 jest stood there and listened. Then the old woman — old 
 Mother Baker — she joined in, and I listened too. And 
 then — dern my skin ! — but a man's voice joined in — 
 
bulgek's keputation 375 
 
 jest belching outer that cabin ! — and I sorter lifted myself 
 up and kem away. 
 
 " That voice, gentlemen," said Mosby, lingering artisti- 
 cally as he took up a glass and professionally eyed it before 
 wiping it with his towel, " that voice, cumf'bly fixed thar 
 in thet cabin among them wimen-folks, was Bulger's ! " 
 
 Briggs got up, with his eyes looking the darker for his 
 flushed face. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said huskily, " thar 's only one thing 
 to be done. A lot of us have got to ride over to Sawyer's 
 Dam to-morrow morning and pick up as many square men 
 as we can muster ; there 's a big camp-meeting goin' on 
 there, and there won't be no diificulty in that. When 
 we 've got a big enough crowd to show we mean business, 
 we must march back here and ride Bulger out of this 
 camp ! I don't hanker arter Vigilance Committees, as a 
 rule — it 's a rough remedy — it 's like drinkin' a quart o' 
 whiskey agin rattlesnake poison — but it 's got to be done ! 
 We don't mind being sold ourselves — but when it comes 
 to our standin' by and seein' .the only innocent people in 
 Rattlesnake given away — we kick ! Bulger 's got to be 
 fired outer this camp ! And he will be ! " 
 
 But he was not. 
 
 For when, the next morning, a determined and thought- 
 ful procession of the best and most characteristic citizens 
 of Rattlesnake Camp tiled into Sawyer's Dam, they found 
 that their mysterious friends had disappeared, although 
 they met with a fraternal but subdued welcome from the 
 general camp. Any approach to the subject of their visit, 
 however, was received with a chilling disapproval. Did 
 they not know that lawlessness of any kind, even under 
 the rude mantle of frontier justice, was to be deprecated 
 and scouted when a " means of salvation, a power of regen- 
 eration," such as was now sweeping over Sawyer's Dam, 
 1V1R at hand ? Could they not induce this man who was 
 
376 Bulger's refutation 
 
 to be violently deported to accompany them willingly tvJ 
 Sawyer's Dam and subject himself to the powerful influence 
 of the " revival " then in full swing ? 
 
 The Rattlesnake boys laughed bitterly, and described th,"- 
 man of whom they talked so lightly ; but in vain. 
 
 " It 's no use, gentlemen," said a more worldly bystander^ 
 in a lower voice, " the camp-meetin 's got a strong grip 
 here, and betwixt you and me there ain't no wonder. For 
 the man that runs it — the big preacher — has got new 
 ways and methods that fetches the boys every time. He 
 don't preach no cut-and-dried gospel ; he don't carry around 
 ho slop-shop robes and clap 'em on you whether they fit or 
 not ; but he samples and measures the camp afore he wades 
 into it. He scouts and examines ; he ain't no mere Sunday 
 preacher with a comfortable house and once-a-week church, 
 but he gives up his days and nights to it, and makes his 
 family work with him, and even sends 'em forward to ex- 
 plore the field. And he ain't no white- choker shadbelly 
 either, but fits himself, like his gospel, to the men he 
 works among. Ye ought to hear him afore you go. His 
 tent is just'out your way. I '11 go with you." 
 
 Too dejected to offer any opposition, and perhaps a little 
 curious to see this man who had unwittingly frustrated 
 their design of lynching Bulger, they halted at the outer 
 fringe of worshipers who packed the huge inclosure. They 
 had not time to indulge their cynicisms over this swaying 
 mass of ' emotional, half-thinking, and almost irresponsible 
 beings, nor to detect any similarity between their extreme 
 methods and the scheme of redemption they themselves 
 were seeking, for in a few moments, apparently lifted to 
 his feet on a wave of religious exultation, the famous 
 preacher arose. The men of Rattlesnake gasped for breath. 
 
 It was Bulger ! 
 
 But Briggs quickly recovered himself. 
 
 " By what name," said he, turning passionately toward 
 
BULGEK'S REPUTATION 377 
 
 his guide, " does this man — this impostoi — call himself 
 here ? " 
 
 " Baker." 
 
 " Baker ? " echoed the Rattlesnake contingent. 
 
 " Baker ? " repeated Lance Porester, with a ghastij 
 smile. 
 
 " Yes," returned their guide. " You oughter know it 
 too ! For he sent his wife and daughters over, after his 
 usual style, to sample your camp, a week ago ! Comej 
 now what are you givin' us ? " 
 
IN THE TULES 
 
 He had never seen a steamboat in his life. Born and 
 reared in one of the western territories, far from a navi- 
 gable river, he had only known the " dug-out " or canoe as 
 a means of conveyance across the scant streams whose ford- 
 able waters made even those scarcely a necessity. The 
 long, narrow, hooded wagon, drawn by swaying oxen, 
 known familiarly as a " prairie schooner," in which he 
 journeyed across the plains to California in '53, did not 
 help his conception by that nautical figure. And when at 
 last he dropped upon the land of promise through one of 
 the Southern mountain passes he halted all unconsciously 
 upon the low banks of a great yellow river amidst a tan- 
 gled brake of strange, reed-like grasses that were unknown 
 to him. The river, broadening as it debouched through 
 many channels into a lordly bay, seemed to him the Ultima 
 Thule of his journeyings. Unyoking his oxen on the edge 
 of the luxuriant meadows which blended with scarcely any 
 line of demarcation into the great stream itself, he found 
 the prospect " good " according to his lights and prairial ex- 
 periences, and, converting his halted wagon into a tempo- 
 rary cabin, he resolved to rest here and " settle." 
 
 There was little dif&culty in so doing. The cultivated 
 clearings he had passed were few and far between ; the 
 land would be his by discovery and occupation ; his habits 
 of loneliness and self-reliance made him independent of 
 neighbors. He took his first meal in his new solitude under 
 a spreading willow, but so near his natural boundary that 
 the waters gurgled and oozed in the reeds but a few feet 
 
IN THE TDLES 379 
 
 from him. The sun sank, deepening the gold of the river 
 until it might have been the stream of Pactolus itself. But 
 Martin Morse had no imagination ; he was not even a gold- 
 seeker ; he had simply obeyed the roving instincts of the 
 frontiersman in coming hither. The land was virgin and 
 unoccupied ; it was his ; he was alone. These questions 
 settled, he smoked his pipe with less concern over his three 
 thousand miles' transference of habitation than the man of 
 cities who had moved into a next street. When the sun 
 sank, he rolled himself in his blankets in the wagon bed 
 and went quietly to sleep. 
 
 But he was presently awakened by something which at 
 first he could not determine to be a noise or an intangible 
 sensation. It was a deep throbbing through the silence of 
 the night — a pulsation that seemed even to be commu- 
 nicated to the rude bed whereon he lay. As it came nearer 
 it separated itself into a labored, monotonous panting, con- 
 tinuous, but distinct from an equally monotonous but 
 fainter beating of the waters, as if the whole track of the 
 river were being coursed . and trodden by a multitude of 
 swiftly trampling feet. A strange feeling took possession 
 of him — half of fear, half of curious expectation. It was 
 coming nearer. He rose, leaped hurriedly from the wagon, 
 and ran to the bank. The night was dark ; at first he saw 
 nothing before him but the steel-black sky pierced with far- 
 spaced, irregularly scattered stars. Then there seemed to be 
 approaching him, from the left, another and more symmet- 
 rical constellation — a few red and blue stars high above 
 the river, with three compact lines of larger planetary lights 
 flashing towards him and apparently on his own level. It 
 was almost upon him ; he involuntarily drew back as the 
 strange phenomenon swept abreast of where he stood, and 
 resolved itself into a dark yet airy bulk, whose vagueness, 
 topped by enormous towers, was yet illuminated by those 
 opeu squares of light that he had taken for stars, but which 
 he saw now were brilliantly lit windows. 
 
380 IN THE TULES 
 
 Their vivid ra3's shot through the reeds and sent broau 
 bands across the meadow, the stationary v^agon, and the 
 slumbering oxen. But all this was nothing to the inner life 
 they disclosed through lifted curtains and open blinds, 
 which was the crowning revelation of this strange and 
 wonderful spectacle. Elegantly dressed men and women 
 moved through brilliantly lit and elaborately gilt saloons 5 
 in one a banquet seemed to be spread, served by white- 
 jacketed servants ; in another were men playing cards 
 around marble-topped tables ; in another the light flashed 
 back, again from the mirrors and glistening glasses and 
 decanters of a gorgeous refreshment saloon ; in smaller open- 
 ings there was the shy disclosure of dainty white curtains 
 and velvet lounges of more intimate apartments. 
 
 Martin Morse stood enthralled and mystified. It was as 
 if some invisible Asmodeus had revealed to this simple 
 frontiersman a world of which he had never dreamed. It 
 was the world, — a world of which he knew nothing in his 
 simple, rustic habits and profound Western isolation, — 
 sweeping by hiiu with the rush of an unknown planet. In 
 another moment it was gone ; a shower of sparks shot u,p 
 from one of the towers and fell all around him, and then 
 vanished, even as he remembered the set piece of " Fourth 
 of July " fireworks had vanished in his own rural town 
 when he was a boy. The darkness fell with it too. But 
 such was his utter absorption and breathless preoccupation, 
 that only a cold chill recalled him to himself, and he found 
 he was standing mid-leg deep in the surge cast over the low 
 banks by this passage of the first steamboat he had ever 
 seen ! 
 
 He waited for it the next night, when it appeared a little 
 later from the opposite direction on its return trip. He 
 watched it the next night and the next. Hereafter he 
 never missed it, coming or going — whatever the hard and 
 weary preoccupations of his new and lonely life. He felt 
 
IN THE TULES 381 
 
 he could not have slept without seeing it go by. Oddl/ 
 enough, his interest and desire did not go further. Even 
 had he the time and money to spend in a passage on the 
 boat, and thus actively realize the great world of which he 
 had only these rare glimpses, a certain proud, rustic shyness 
 kept him from it. It was not his world; he could not 
 affront the snubs that his ignorance and inexperience would 
 have provoked, and he was dimly conscious, as so many of 
 as are in our ignorance, that in mingling with it he would 
 simply lose the easy privileges of ali«n criticism. For there 
 was much that he did not u]id«rstand, and some things that 
 grated upon his lonely independence. 
 
 One night, a lighter one than those previous, he lingered 
 a little longer in the moonlight to watch the phosphorescent 
 wake of the retreating boat. Suddenly it struck him that 
 there was a certain irregular splashing in the water, quite 
 different from the regular, diagonally crossing surges that 
 the boat swept upon the bank. Looking at it more intently, 
 he saw a black object turning in the water like a porpoise, 
 and then the unmistakable uplifting of a black arm in an 
 unskillful swimmer's overhand stroke. It was a struggling 
 man. But it was quickly evident that the current was too 
 strong and the turbulence of the shallow water too great for 
 his efforts. Without a moment's hesitation, clad as he was 
 in only his shirt and trousers, Morse strode into the reeds, 
 and the next moment, with a call of warning, was swimming 
 towards the now wildly struggling figure. But, from some 
 unknovirn reason, as Morse approached him nearer the man 
 uttered some incoherent protest and desperately turned away, 
 throwing off Morse's ex:tended arm. 
 
 Attributing this only to the vague convulsions of a 
 drowning man, Morse, a skilled swimmer, managed to clutch 
 his shoulder, and propelled him at arm's length, still strug- 
 gling, apparently with as much reluctance as incapacity, 
 owards the bank. As their feet touched the reeds and 
 
382 IN THE TULES 
 
 slimy bottom the man's resistance ceased, and he lapsed 
 quite listlessly in Morse's arms. Half lifting, half dragging 
 his burden, he succeeded at last in gaining the strip of 
 meadow, and deposited the unconscious man beneath the 
 willow-tree. Then he ran to his wagon for whiskey. 
 
 But, to his surprise, on his return the man was already 
 sitting up and wringing the water from his clothes. He 
 then saw for the first time, by the clear moonlight, that the 
 stranger was elegantly dressed and of striking appearance, 
 and was clearly a part of that bright and fascinating world 
 which Morse had been contemplating in his solitude. He 
 eagerly took the proffered tin cup and drank the whiskey. 
 Then he rose to his feet, staggered a few steps forward, and 
 glanced curiously around him at the still motionless wagon, 
 the few felled trees and evidence of " clearing," and even 
 at the rude cabin of logs and canvas just beginning to rise 
 from the ground a few paces distant, and said, impatiently : — 
 
 " Where the devil am I ? " 
 
 Morse hesitated. He was unable to name the locality of 
 his dwelling-place. He answered briefly : — 
 
 " On the right bank of the Sacramento." 
 
 The stranger turned upon him a look of suspicion not 
 dnmingled with resentment. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, with ironical gravity, " and I suppose 
 that this water you picked me out of was the Sacramento 
 Kiver. Thank you ! " 
 
 Morse, with slow Western patience, explained that he 
 had only settled there three weeks ago, and the place had 
 no name. 
 
 " What 's your nearest town, then ? " 
 
 " Thar ain't any. Thar 's a blacksmith's shop and grocery 
 at the cross-roads, twenty miles further on, but it 's got no 
 name as I've heard on." 
 
 The stranger's look of suspicion passed. 
 
 "Well," he said, in an imperative fashion, which, how- 
 
IN THE TITLES 383 
 
 ever, seemed as much the result of habit as the occasion, 
 "I want a horse, and mighty quick, too." 
 
 " Hain't got any." 
 
 " No horse ? How did you get to this place ? " 
 Morse pointed to the slumbering oxen. 
 The stranger again stared curiously at him. After a 
 pause he said, with a half-pitying, half-humorous smile : — 
 
 " Pike — are n't you ? " 
 
 Whether Morse did or did not know that this current 
 California slang for a denizen of the bucolic West implied 
 a certain contempt, he replied simply : — 
 
 " I 'm from Pike County, Mizzouri." 
 
 "Well," said the stranger, resuming his impatient manner 
 " you must beg or steal a horse from your neighbors." 
 
 " Thar ain't any neighbor nearer than fifteen miles." 
 
 " Then send fifteen miles ! Stop ! " He opened his 
 still clinging shirt and drew out a belt pouch, which he 
 threw to Morse. "There ! there 's two hundred and fifty 
 dollars in that. Now, I want a horse. Sabe ? " 
 
 " Thar ain't any one to send," said Morse quietly. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you are all alone here ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you fished me out — all by yourself ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The stranger again examined him curiously. Then he 
 suddenly stretched out his hand and grasped his companion's. 
 
 " All right ; if you can't send, I reckon I can manage to 
 walk over there to-morrow." 
 
 " I was goin' ort to say," said Morse simply, " that if 
 you '11 lie by to-night, I '11 start over sun-up, after puttin' 
 out the cattle, and fetch you back a horse afore noon." 
 
 " That 's enough." He, however, remained looking cu- 
 riously at Morse. " Did you never hear," he said, with a 
 singular smile, " that it was about the meanest kind of luck 
 that could happen to you to save a drowning man ? " 
 
384 IN THE TULES 
 
 " No," said Morse simply. " I reckon it orter be the 
 meanest if you did n't." 
 
 " That depends upon the man you save," said the 
 stranger, with the same ambiguous smile, " and whether 
 the saving him is only putting things oif. Look here," he 
 added, with an abrupt return to his imperative style, 
 " can't you give me some dry clothes ? " 
 
 Morse brought him a pair of' overalls and a " hickory 
 shirt," well worn, but smelling strongly of a recent wash 
 with coarse soap. The stranger put them on while his 
 companion busied himself in collecting a pile of sticks and 
 dry leaves. 
 
 " What 's that for ? " said the strangei suddenly. 
 
 " A fire to dry your clothes." 
 
 The stranger calmly kicked the pile aside. 
 
 " Not any fire to-night if I know it," he said brusquely. 
 Before Morse could resent his quickly changing moods he 
 continued, in another tone, dropping to an easy reclining 
 position beneath the tree, " Now, tell me all about yourself, 
 and what you are doing here." 
 
 Thus commanded, Morse patiently repeated his story 
 from the time he had left his backwoods cabin to his selec- 
 tion of the river-bank for a " location." He pointed out 
 the rich quality of this alluvial bottom and its adaptability 
 for the raising of stock, which he hoped soon to acquire. 
 The stranger smiled grimly, raised himself to a sitting posi- 
 tion, and, taking a penknife from his damp clothes, began 
 to clean his nails in the bright moonlight — an occupation 
 which made the simple Morse wander vaguely in his narra- 
 tion. 
 
 " And you don't know that this hole will give you chills 
 and fever till you '11 shake yourself out of your boots ? " 
 
 Morse had lived before in aguish districts, and had no 
 fear. 
 
 " And you never heard that some night the whole river 
 
IN THE TULES 385 
 
 will rise up and walk over you and your cabin and your 
 stock ? " 
 
 " No. For I reckon to move my shanty farther back." 
 
 The man shut up his penknife with a click, and rose. 
 
 " If you 've got to get up at sunrise, we 'd better be 
 turning in. I suppose you can give me a pair of blan- 
 kets ? " 
 
 Morse pointed to the wagon. 
 
 " Thar 's a shakedown in the wagon bed ; you kin lie 
 there." 
 
 Nevertheless he hesitated, and, with the inconsequence 
 and abruptness of a shy man, continued the previous con- 
 versation. 
 
 " I should n't like to move far away, for them steam- 
 boats is pow'ful kempany o' nights. I never seed one 
 afore I kem here," and then, with the inconsistency of a 
 reserved man, and without a word of further preliminary, 
 he launched into a confidential disclosure of his late experi- 
 ences. The stranger listened with a singular interest and 
 a quietly searching eye. 
 
 " Then you were watching the boat very closely just 
 now when you : saw me. What else did you see ? Any- 
 thing before that — before you saw me in the water ? " 
 
 " No — the boat had got well off before I saw you at 
 all." 
 
 " Ah," said the stranger. " Well, I 'm going to turn in." 
 
 He walked to the wagon, mounted it, and by the time 
 that Morse had- reached it with his wet clothes he was 
 already wrapped in the blankets. A moment later he 
 seemed to be in a profound slumber. 
 
 It was only then, when his guest was lying helplessly at 
 his mercy, that he began to realize his strange experiences. 
 The domination of this man had been so complete that 
 Morse, although by nature independent and self-reliant, 
 had not permitted himself to question his right or ,to resent 
 
386 IN THE TULES 
 
 his rudeness. He had accepted his guest's careless or pre- 
 meditated silence regarding the particulars of his accident 
 as a matter of course, and had never dreamed of question- 
 ing him. That it was a natural accident of that greal 
 world so apart from his own experiences he did not doubt, 
 and thought no more about it. The advent of the man 
 himself was greater to him than the causes which brought 
 him there. He was as yet quite unconscious of the com- 
 plete fascination this mysterious stranger held over him, 
 but he found himself shyly pleased with even the slight 
 interest he had displayed in his affairs, and his hand felt yet 
 warm and tingling from his sudden soft but expressive 
 grasp, as if it had been a woman's. There is a simple in- 
 tuition of friendship in some lonely, self-abstracted natures 
 that is nearly akin to love at first sight. Even the auda- 
 cities and insolence of this stranger afiected Morse as he 
 might have been touched and captivated by the coquetries 
 or imperiousness of some bucolic virgin. And this re- 
 served and shy frontiersman found himself that night sleep- 
 less, and hovering with an abashed timidity and conscious- 
 ness around the wagon that sheltered his guest, as if he 
 had been a very Corydon watching the moonlit couch of 
 some slumbering Amaryllis. 
 
 He was off by daylight — after having placed a rude 
 breakfast by the side of the still sleeping guest — and 
 before midday he had returned with a horse. When he 
 handed the stranger his pouch, less the amount he had 
 paid for the horse, the man said curtly, — 
 
 " What 's that for ? " 
 
 " Your change. I paid only fifty dollars for the horse.!' 
 
 The stranger regarded him with his peculiar smile. 
 Then, replacing the pouch in his belt, he shook Morse's 
 hand again and mounted the horse. 
 
 " So your name 's Martin Morse ! Well — good-by, 
 Morsey ! " 
 
IN THE TULES 387 
 
 Morse hesitated. A blush rose to his dark cheek. 
 
 " You did n't tell me your name," he said. " In 
 case " — 
 
 " In case I 'm wanted ? Well, you can call me Captain 
 Jack." 
 
 He smiled, and, nodding his head, put spurs to his mus- 
 tang and cantered away. 
 
 Morse did not do much work that day, falling into 
 abstracted moods and living over his experiences of the 
 previous night, until he fancied he could almost see his 
 strange guest again. The narrow strip of meadow was 
 haunted by him. There was the tree under which he had 
 first placed him, and that was where he had seen him sit- 
 ting up in his dripping but well-fitting clothes. In th6 
 rough garments he had worn and returned lingered a new 
 scent of some delicate soap, overpowering the strong alkali 
 flavor of his own. He was early by the riverside, having 
 a vague hope, he knew not why, that he should again see 
 him and recognize him among the passengers. He was 
 wading out among the reeds, in the faint light of the rising 
 moon, recalling the exact spot where he had first seen the 
 stranger, when he was suddenly startled by the rolling over 
 in the water of some black object that had caught against 
 the bank, but had been dislodged by his movements. To 
 his horror it bore a faint resemblance to his first vision of 
 the preceding night. But a second glance at the helplessly 
 floating hair and bloated outline showed him that it was a 
 dead man, and of a type and build far dififerent from his 
 former companion. There was a bruise upon his matted 
 forehead and an enormous wound in his throat alreadj 
 washed bloodless, white, and waxen. An inexplicable feai 
 came upon him, not at the sight of the corpse, for he had 
 been in Indian massacres and had rescued bodies mutilated 
 beyond recognition ; but from some moral dread that, 
 strangely enough, quickened and deepened with the far-off 
 
388 IN THE TULES 
 
 pant of the advancing steamboat. Scarcely knowing why, he 
 dragged the body hurriedly ashore, concealing it in the 
 reeds, as if he were disposing of the evidence of his own 
 crime. Then, to his preposterous terror, he noticed that 
 the panting of the steamboat and the beat of its paddles 
 were "slowing" as the vague bulk came in sight, until a 
 huge w^ave from the suddenly arrested wheels sent a surge 
 like an enormous heart-beat pulsating through the sedge 
 ihat half submerged him. The flashing of three or four 
 lanterns on deck and the motionless line of lights abreast of 
 him dazzled his eyes, but he knew that the low fringe of 
 willows hid his house and wagon completely from view. 
 A vague murmur of voices from the deck was suddenly 
 overridden by a sharp order, and to his relief the slowly re^ 
 volving wheels again sent a pulsation through the water, and 
 the great fabric moved solemnly away. A sense of relief 
 came over him, he knew not why, and he was conscious 
 that for the first time he had not cared to look at the boat. 
 When the moon arose he again examined the body, and 
 took from its clothing a few articles of identification and 
 some papers of formality and precision, which he vaguely 
 conjectured to be some law papers from their resemblance 
 to the phrasing of sheriffs' and electors' notices which he 
 had seen in the papers. He then buried the corpse in a 
 shallow trench, which he dug by the light of the moon. 
 He had no question of responsibility ; his pioneer training 
 had not included coroners' inquests in its experience ; in 
 giving the body a speedy and secure burial from predatory 
 animals he did what one frontiersman would do for another 
 — what he hoped might be done for him. If his previous 
 unaccountable feelings returned occasionally, it was not from 
 that ; but rather from some uneasiness in regard to his late 
 guest's possible feelings, and a regret that he had not been 
 here at the finding of the body. That it would in some 
 way have explained his own accident he did not doubt. 
 
IN THE TULES 389 
 
 The boat did not " slow up " the next night, but passed 
 as usual ; yet three or four days elapsed before he could 
 look forward to its coming with his old extravagant and 
 half-exalted curiosity, which was his nearest approach to 
 imagination. He was then able to examine it more closely, 
 for the appearance of the stranger, whom he now began to 
 call " his friend " in his verbal communings with himself, 
 but whom he did not seem destined to again discover ; un- 
 til one day, to his astonishment, a couple of fine horses 
 were brought to his clearing by a stock-drover. They had 
 been " ordered " to be left there. In vain Morse expostu- 
 lated and questioned. 
 
 " Your name 's Martin Morse, ain't it ? " said the 
 drover, with business brusqueness ; " and I reckon there 
 ain't no other man o' that name around here ? " 
 
 " No," said Morse. 
 
 " Well, then they 're yours." 
 
 " But who sent them ? " insisted Morse. " What was 
 his name, and where does he live ? " 
 
 " I did n't know ez I was called upon to give the pedi- 
 gree o' buyers," said the drover dryly ; " but the horses is 
 ' Morgan,' you can bet your life." He grinned as he rode 
 away. 
 
 That Captain Jack sent them, and that it was a natural 
 prelude to his again visiting him, Morse did not doubt, and 
 for a few days he lived in that dream. But Captain Jack 
 did not come. The animals were of great service to him in 
 " rounding up " the stock he now easily took in for pastur- 
 age, and saved him the necessity of having a partner or a 
 hired man. The idea that this superior gentleman in fine 
 clothes might ever appear to him in the former capacity had 
 even flitted through his brain, but he had rejected it with a 
 sigh. But the thought that, with luck and industry, he 
 himself might, in course of time, approximate to Captain 
 Jack's evident statioQj did occur to him, and was an incen- 
 
390 IN THE TDLES 
 
 tive to energy. Yet it was quite distinct from the ordinary 
 workingman's ambition of wealth and state. It was only that 
 it might make him more worthy of his friend. The great 
 world was still as it had appeared to him in the passing boat 
 • — a thing to wonder at — to be above — and to criticise. 
 
 Eor all that, he prospered in his occupation. But one 
 Jay he woke with listless limbs and feet that scarcely carried 
 him through his daily labors. At night his listlessness 
 changed to active pain and a feverishness that seemed to 
 impel him towards the fateful river, as if his one aim in 
 life was to drink up its waters and bathe in its yellow 
 stream. But whenever he seemed to attempt it, strange 
 dreams assailed him of dead bodies arising with swollen and 
 distorted lips to touch his own as he strove to drink, or of 
 his mysterious guest battling with him in its current, and 
 driving him ashore. Again, when he essayed to bathe his 
 parched and crackling limbs in its flood, he would be con- 
 fronted with the dazzling lights of the motionless steamboat 
 and the glare of stony eyes — until he fled in aimless terror. 
 How long this lasted he knew not, until one morning he 
 awoke in his new cabin with a strange man sitting by his 
 bed and a negress in the doorway. 
 
 " You 've had a sharp attack of ' tule fever,' " said the 
 stranger, dropping Morse's listless wrist and answering his 
 questioning eyes, " but you 're all right now, and will pull 
 through." 
 
 " Who are you ? " stammered Morse feebly. 
 
 " Dr. Duchesne, of Sacramento." 
 
 " How did you come here ? " 
 
 " I was ordered to come to you and bring a nurse, as you 
 were alone. There she is." He pointed to the smiling 
 negress. 
 
 " Who ordered you ? " 
 
 The doctor smiled with professional tolerance. "One of 
 your friends, of course." 
 
IN THE TULES 391 
 
 " But what was his name ? " 
 
 " Eeally, I don't rememher. But don't distiess yourself. 
 He has settled for everything right royally. You have 
 only to get strong now. My duty is ended, and I can 
 safely leave you with the nurse. Only when you are strong 
 again, I say — and he says — keep hack farther from the 
 ■"iver." 
 
 And that was all he knew. For even the nurse who 
 attended him through the first days of his brief conva- 
 lescence would tell him nothing more. He quickly got rid of 
 her and resumed his work, for a new and strange phase of 
 his simple, childish affection for his benefactor, partly super- 
 induced by his illness, was affecting him. He was begin- 
 ning to feel the pain of an unequal friendship ; he was dimly 
 conscious that his mysterious guest was only coldly re- 
 turning his hospitality and benefits, while holding aloof 
 from any association with him, and indicating the im- 
 measurable distance that separated their future intercourse. 
 He had withheld any kind message or sympathetic greeting ; 
 he had kept back even his name. The shy, proud, ignorant 
 heart of the frontiersman swelled beneath the fancied slight, 
 which left him helpless alike of reproach or resentment. 
 He could not return the horses, although in a fit of childish 
 indignation he had resolved not to use them ; he could not 
 reimburse him for the doctor's bill although he had sent 
 away the nurse. 
 
 He took a foolish satisfaction in not moving back from 
 the river, with a faint hope that his ignoring of Captain 
 Jack's advice might mysteriously be conveyed to him. He 
 even thought of selling out his location and abandoning it, 
 that he might escape the cold surveillance of his heartless 
 frifind. All this was undoubtedly childish, but there is 
 an jrrepressible simplicity of youth in all deep feeling, and 
 the worldly inexperience of the frontiersman left him as in- 
 nocent as a child. In this phase of his unrequited affection 
 
892 IN THE TULES 
 
 he even went so far as to seek some news of Captain Jack 
 at Sacramento, and, following out his foolish quest, to even 
 take the steamboat from thence to Stockton. 
 
 What happened to him then was perhaps the common 
 experience of such natures. Once upon the boat the illusion 
 of the great world it contained for him utterly vanished. 
 He found it noisy, formal, insincere, and — had he ever 
 understood or used the word in his limited vocabulary — 
 vulgar. Kather, perhaps, it seemed to him that the pre- 
 vailing sentiment and action of those who frequented it — 
 and for whom it was built — were of a lower grade than his 
 own. And, strangely enough, this gave him none of his 
 former sense of critical superiority, but only of his own utter 
 and complete isolation. He wandered in his rough fron- 
 tiersman's clothes from deck to cabin, from airy galleries to 
 long saloons, alone, unchallenged, unrecognized, as if he 
 were again haunting it only in spirit, as he had so often 
 done in his dreams. 
 
 His presence on the fringe of some voluble crowd caused 
 no interruption ; to him their speech was almost foreign in 
 its allusions to things he did not understand, or, worse, 
 seemed inconsistent with their eagerness and excitement. 
 How different from all this were his old recollections of 
 slowly oncoming teams, uplifted above the level horizon of 
 the plains in his former wanderings ; the few sauntering fig- 
 ures that met him as man to man and exchanged the chron- 
 icle of the road ; the record of Indian tracks ; the finding of 
 a spring ; the discovery of pasturage, with the lazy, restful 
 hospitality of the night ! And how fierce here this cour 
 tinual struggle for dominance and existence, even in this 
 lull of passage. For above all and through all he was con^- 
 Bcious of the feverish haste of speed and exertion. 
 
 The boat trembled, vibrated, and shook with every 
 stroke of the ponderous piston. The laughter of the 
 crowd, the exchange of gossip and news, the banquet at 
 
IN THE TULES 393 
 
 the Icng table, the newspapers and books in the reading- 
 room, even the luxurious couches in the staterooms, were 
 all dominated, thrilled, and pulsating with the perpetual 
 throb of the demon of hurry and unrest. And when at 
 last a horrible fascination dragged him into the engine- 
 room, and he saw the cruel, relentless machinery at work, 
 he seemed to recognize and understand some intelligent but 
 pitiless Moloch, who was dragging this feverish world at 
 its heels. 
 
 Later he was seated in a corner of the hurricane deck, 
 whence he could view the monotonous banks of the river ; 
 yet, perhaps by certain signs unobservable to others, he 
 knew he was approaching his own locality. He knew that 
 his cabin and clearing would be undiscernible behind the 
 fringe of willows on the bank, but he already distinguished 
 the points where a few cottonwoods struggled into a pro- 
 montory of lighter foliage beyond them. Here voices fell 
 upon his ear, and he was suddenly aware that two men had 
 lazily crossed over from the other side of the boat, and were 
 standing before him looking upon the bank. 
 
 " It was about here, I reckon," said one listlessly, as if 
 continuing a previous lagging conversation, " that it must 
 have happened. For it was after we were making for the 
 bend we 've just passed that the deputy, goin' to the state- 
 room below us, found the door locked and the window 
 open. But both men — Jack Despard and Seth Hall, the 
 sheriff — were n't to be found. Not a trace of 'em. The 
 boat was searched, but all for nothing. The idea is that 
 the sheriff, arter getting his prisoner comf'ble in the state- 
 room, took off Jack's handcuffs and locked the door ; that 
 Jack, who was mighty desp'rate, bolted through the win- 
 dow into the river, and the sheriff, who was no slouch, 
 arter him. Others allow — for the chairs and things was 
 all tossed about in the state room — that the two men 
 clinched thar, and Jack choked Hall and chucked him out, 
 
394 IN THE TULES 
 
 and then slipped cl'ar into the water himself, for the state- 
 room window was just ahead of the paddle-box, and the 
 cap'n allows that no man or men could fall afore the pad- 
 dles and live. Anyhow, that was all they ever knew of 
 it." 
 
 " And there was n't no trace of them found ? " said the 
 second man, after a long pause. 
 
 " No. Cap'n says them paddles would hev' just 
 snatched 'em and slung 'em round and round and buried 
 'em 'way down in the ooze of the river-bed, with all the 
 silt of the current atop of 'em, and they might n't come up 
 for ages ; or else the wheels might have waltzed 'em 'way 
 up to Sacramento until there was n't enough left of 'em to 
 float, and dropped 'em when the boat stopped." 
 
 " It was a mighty fool risk for a man like Despard to 
 take," resumed the second speaker as he turned away with 
 a slight yawn. 
 
 " Bet your life ! but he was desp'rate, and the sheriff 
 had got him sure ! And they do say that he was supersti- 
 tious, like all them gamblers, and allowed that a man who 
 was fixed to die by a rope or a pistol was n't to be washed 
 out of life by water." 
 
 The two figures drifted lazily away, but Morse sat rigid 
 and motionless. Yet, strange to say, only one idea came 
 to him clearly out of this awful revelation — the thought 
 that his friend was still true to him — and that his strange 
 absence and mysterious silence were fully accounted for and 
 explained. And with it came the more thrilling fancy that 
 this man was alive now to him alone. 
 
 He was the sole custodian of his secret. The morality 
 of the question, while it profoundly disturbed him, was 
 rather in reference to its effect upon the chances of Captain 
 Jack and the power it gave his enemies than his own con- 
 science. He would rather that his friend should have 
 proven the proscribed outlaw who retained an unseltitih in. 
 
IN THE TULES 395 
 
 terest in him than the superior gentleman who was coldly 
 wiping out his gratitude. He thought he understood now 
 the reason of his visitor's strange and varying moods — even 
 his bitter superstitious warning in regard to the probable 
 curse entailed upon one who should save a drowning man. 
 Of this he recked little ; enough that he fancied that Cap- 
 tain Jack's concern in his illness was heightened by that 
 fear, and this assurance of his protecting friendship thrilled 
 him with pleasure. 
 
 There was no reason now why he should not at once go 
 back to his farm, where, at least. Captain Jack would 
 always find him ; and he did so, returning on the same 
 boat. He was now fully recovered from his illness, and 
 calmer in mind ; he redoubled his labors to put himself in 
 a position to help the mysterious fugitive when the time 
 should come. The remote farm should always be a haven 
 of refuge for him, and in this hope he forbore to take any 
 outside help, remaining solitary and alone, that Captain 
 Jack's retreat should be inviolate. And so the long, dry 
 season passed, the hay was gathered, the pasturing herds 
 sent home, and the first rains dimpling like shot the broad- 
 ening surface of the river were all that broke his unending 
 solitude. In this enforced attitude of waiting and expec- 
 tancy he was exalted and strengthened by a new idea. He 
 was not a religious man, but, dimly remembering the exhor- 
 tations of some camp-meeting of his boyhood, he conceived 
 the idea that he might have been selected to work out the 
 regeneration of Captain Jack. What might not come of 
 this meeting and communing together in this lonely spot ? 
 That anything was due to the memory of the murdered 
 sheriff, whose bones were rotting in the trench that he 
 daily but unconcernedly passed, did not occur to him. Per- 
 haps his mind was not large enough for the double consid- 
 eration. Friendship and love — and, for the matter of 
 that, religion — are eminently one-ideaed. 
 
396 IN THE TULES 
 
 But one night he awakened with a start. His hand, 
 which was hanging out of his hunk, was dahhling idly in 
 water. He had barely time to spring to his middle in what 
 Seemed to be a slowly filling tank before the door fell out 
 as from that inward pressure, and his whole shanty collapsed 
 like a pack of cards. But it fell outwards, the roof sliding 
 from over his head like a withdrawn canopy ; and he was 
 swept from his feet against it, and thence out into what 
 might have been another world ! For the rain had ceased, 
 and the full moon revealed only one vast, illimitable expanse 
 3i water ! It was not an overflow, but the whole rushing 
 jiver magnified and repeated a thousand times, which, even 
 as he gasped for breath and clung to the roof, was bearing 
 him away he knew not whither. But it was bearing him 
 away upon its centre, for as he cast one swift glance toward 
 his meadows he saw they were covered by the same sweep- 
 ing torrent, dotted with his sailing hayricks and reaching 
 to the wooded foothills. It was the great flood of '54. In 
 its awe-inspiring completeness it might have seemed to him 
 the primeval Deluge. 
 
 As his frail raft swept under a cottonwood he caught at 
 one of the overhanging limbs, and, working his way desper- 
 ately along the bough, at last reached a secure position in 
 the fork of the tree. Here he was for the moment safe. 
 But the devastation viewed from this height was only the 
 more appalling. Every sign of his clearing, all evidence of 
 his past year's industry, had disappeared. He was now 
 conscious for the first time of the lowing of the few cattle 
 he had kept, as, huddled together on a slight eminence, they 
 one by one slipped over struggling into the flood. The 
 shining' bodies of his dead horses rolled by him as he gazed. 
 The lower-lying limbs of the sycamore near him were 
 bending with the burden of the lighter articles from his 
 overturned wagon and cabin which they had caught and 
 Mained, and a rake was securely lodged in a hough. The 
 
IN THE TULES 397 
 
 habitual solitude of his locality was now strangely invaded 
 by drifting sheds, agricultural implements, and fence raila 
 from unknown and remote neighbors, and he could faintly 
 hear the far-off calling of some unhappy farmer adrift upon 
 a spar of his wrecked and shattered house. When day broke 
 he was cold and hungry. 
 
 Hours passed in hopeless monotony, with no slackening 
 or diminution of the waters. Even the drifts became less, 
 and a vacant sea at last spread before him on which nothing 
 moved. An awful silence impressed him. In the afternoon 
 rain again began to fall on this gray, nebulous expanse, until 
 the whole world seemed made of aqueous vapor. He had 
 but one idea now — the coming of the evening boat, and he 
 would reserve his strength to swim to it. He did not know 
 until later that it could no longer follow the old channel 
 of the river, and passed far beyond his sight and hearing. 
 With his disappointment and exposure that night came a 
 return of his old fever. His limbs were alternately racked 
 with pain or benumbed and lifeless. He could scarcely 
 retain his position — at times he scarcely cared to — and 
 speculated upon ending his sufferings by a quick plunge 
 downwards. In other moments of lucid misery he was 
 conscious of having wandered in his mind ; of having seen 
 the dead face of the murdered sheriff, washed out of his 
 shallow grave by the flood, staring at him from the water ; 
 to this was added the hallucination of noises. He heard 
 voices, his own name called by a voice he knew — Captaii 
 Jack's ! 
 
 Suddenly he started, but in that fatal movement lost his 
 balance and plunged downwards. But before the water 
 closed above his head he had had a cruel glimpse of help 
 near him ; of a flashing light — of the black hull of a tug 
 not many yards away — of moving figures — the sensation 
 of a sudden plunge following his own, the grip of a strong 
 hand upon his collar, and — unconsciousness ! 
 
398 IN THE TULES 
 
 When he came to he was being lifted in a boat from tuo 
 tug and rowed through the deserted streets of a large city, 
 until he was taken in through the second-story window of 
 a half-submerged hotel, and cared for. But all his questions 
 yielded only the information that the tug — a privately 
 procured one, not belonging to the Public Relief Associa- 
 tion — had been dispatched for him with special directions, 
 by a man who acted as one of the crew, and who was the 
 one who had plunged in for him at the last moment. 
 The man had left the boat at Stockton. There was nothing 
 more ? Yes ! — he had left a letter. Morse seized it 
 feverishly. It contained only a few lines : — 
 
 We are quits now. You are all right. I have saved 
 you from drowning, and shifted the curse to my own shoul- 
 ders. Good-by. Captain Jack. 
 
 The astounded man attempted to rise — to utter an 
 exclamation — but fell back, unconscious. 
 
 Weeks passed before he was able to leave his bed, 
 and then only as an impoverished and physically shattered 
 man. He had no means to re-stock the farm left bare by 
 the subsiding water. A kindly train-packer offered him a 
 situation as muleteer in a pack-train going to the mountains, 
 for he knew tracks and passes, and could ride. The 
 mountains gave him back a little of the vigor he had lost 
 in the river valley, but none of its dreams and ambitions. 
 One day, while tracking a lost mule, he stopped to slaku 
 his thirst in a water-hole — all that the summer had left 
 of a lonely mountain torrent. Enlarging the hole to give 
 drink to his beast also, he was obliged to dislodge and 
 throw out with the red soil some bits of honeycomb rock, 
 which were so queer-looking and so heavy as to attract his 
 attention. Two of the largest he took back to camp with 
 him. They were gold ! From the locality he took out a 
 
IN THE TULES 399 
 
 fortune. Nobody wondered. To the Californian's super- 
 stition it was perfectly natural. It was " nigger luck " — 
 the luck of the stupid, the ignorant, the inexperienced, the 
 non-seeker — the irony of the gods ! 
 
 But the simple, bucolic nature that had sustained itself 
 against temptation with patient industry and lonely self- 
 concentration succumbed to rapidly acquired wealth. So 
 it chanced that one day, with a crowd of excitement-loving 
 spendthrifts and companions, he found himself on the out- 
 skirts of a lawless mountain town. An eager, frantic 
 crowd had already assembled there — a desperado was to 
 be lynched ! Pushing his way through the crowd for a 
 nearer view of the exciting spectacle, the changed and reck- 
 less Morse was stopped by armed men only at the foot of 
 a cart, which upheld a quiet, determined man, who, with 
 a rope around his neck, was scornfully surveying the mob, 
 that held the other end of the rope drawn across the limb 
 of a tree above him. The eyes of the doomed man caught 
 those of Morse — his expression changed — a kindly smile 
 lit his face — he bowed his proud head for the first time, 
 with an easy gesture of farewell. 
 
 And then, with a cry, Morse threw himself upon the 
 nearest armed guard, and a fierce struggle began. He had 
 overpowered one adversary and seized another in his hope- 
 less fight toward the cart when the half-astonished crowd 
 felt that something must be done. It was done with a 
 sharp report, the upward curl of smoke, and the falling 
 back of the guard as Morse staggered forward free — with 
 a bullet in his heart. Yet even then he did not fall until 
 he reached the cart, when he lapsed forward, dead, with his 
 arnis outstretched and his head at the doomed man's feet. 
 
 There was something so supreme and all-powerful in this 
 hopeless act of devotion that the heart of the multitude 
 thrilled and then recoiled aghast at its work, and a single 
 word or gesture from the doomed man himself would have 
 
400 IN THE TULES 
 
 Bet him free. But they say — and it is credibly recorded — 
 that as Captain Jack Despard looked down upon the hope- 
 less sacrifice at his feet his eyes blazed, and he flung upon 
 the crowd a curse so awful and sweeping that, hardened as 
 they were, their blood ran cold, and then leaped furiously 
 to their cheeks. 
 
 " And now," he said, coolly tightening the rope around 
 his neck with a jerk of his head, " go on, and be d — d to 
 you ! I 'm ready." 
 
 They did not hesitate this time. And Martin Morse and 
 Captain Jack Despard were buried in the same grave. 
 
BAEKER'S LUCK 
 
 A BiBD twittered ! The morning sun shining through 
 the open window was apparently more potent than the cool 
 mountain air, which had only caused the sleeper to curl a 
 little more tightly in his blankets. Barker's eyes opened 
 instantly upon the light and the bird on the window ledge. 
 Like all healthy young animals he would have tried to 
 sleep again, but with his momentary consciousness came the 
 recollection that it was his turn to cook the breakfast that 
 morning, and he regretfully rolled out of his bunk to the 
 floor. Without stopping to dress, he opened the door and 
 stepped outside, secure in the knowledge that he was over- 
 looked only by the Sierras, and plunged his head and 
 shoulders in the bucket of cold water that stood by the 
 door. Then he began to clothe himself, partly in the 
 cabin and partly in the open air, with a lapse between the 
 putting on of his trousers and coat which he employed in 
 bringing in wood. Raking together the few embers on 
 the adobe hearth, not without a prudent regard to the rat- 
 tlesnake which had once been detected in haunting the 
 warm ashes, he began to prepare breakfast. By this time 
 the other sleepers, his partners Stficy and Demorest, young 
 men of about his own age, were awake, alert, and lazily 
 critical of his progress. 
 
 " I don't care about my quail on toast being, underdone 
 for breakfast," said Stacy, with a yawn ; " and you need n't 
 serve with red wine. I 'm not feeling very peckish this 
 morning." 
 
 " And I reckon you can knock off the fried oysters after 
 
402 barker's luck 
 
 the Spanish mackerel for me" said Demorest gravely. 
 " The fact is, that last bottle of Veuve Clicquot we had for 
 supper was n't as dry as I am this morning." 
 
 Accustomed to these regular Barmecide suggestions, 
 Barker made no direct reply. Presently, looking up from 
 the fire, he said, " There 's no more saleratus, so you 
 must n't blame me if the biscuit is extra heavy. I told 
 you we had none when you went to the grocery yesterday." 
 
 " And I told you we had n't a red cent to buy any with," 
 said Stacy, who was also treasurer. " Put these two nega- 
 tives together and you make the affirmative — saleratus. 
 Mix freely and bake in a hot oven." 
 
 Nevertheless, after a toilet as primitive as Barker's 
 they sat down to what he had prepared, with the keen 
 appetite begotten of the mountain air and the regretful 
 fastidiousness born of the recollection of better things. 
 Jerked beef, frizzled with salt pork in a frying-pan, boiled 
 potatoes, biscuit, and coffee composed the repast. The 
 biscuits, however, proving remarkably heavy after the first 
 mouthful, were used as missiles, thrown through the open 
 door at an empty bottle, which had previously served as a 
 mark for revolver practice, and a few moments later pipes 
 were lit to counteract the effects of the meal and take the 
 taste out of their mouths. Suddenly they heard the sound 
 of horses' hoofs, saw the quick passage of a rider in the 
 open space before the cabin, and felt the smart impact \ipon 
 the table of some small object thrown by him. It was the 
 regular morning delivery of the county newspaper ! 
 
 " He 's getting to be a mighty sure shot," said Demorest 
 approvingly, looking at his upset can of cofi'ee as he picked 
 up the paper, rolled into a cylindrical wad as tightly as a 
 cartridge, and began to straighten it out. This was no 
 easy matter, as the sheet had evidently been rolled while 
 yet damp from the press ; but Demorest eventually opened 
 it and ensconced himself behind it. 
 
barker's luck 403 
 
 " Nary news ? " asked Stacy. 
 
 "No. There never is any," said Demorest scornfully. 
 " We ought to stop the paper." 
 
 " You mean the paper-man ought to. We don't pay 
 him," said Barker gently. 
 
 " Well, that 's the same thing, smarty. No news, no 
 pay. Hallo ! " he continued, his eyes suddenly riveted on 
 the paper. Then, after the fashion of ordinary humanity, 
 he stopped short and read the interesting item to himself. 
 When he had finished he brought his fist and the paper, 
 together, violently down upon the table. " Now look at 
 this ! Talk of luck, will you ? Just think of it. Here are 
 we — hard-working men with lots of sabe, too — grubbin' 
 away on this hillside like niggers, glad to get enough at the 
 end of the day to pay for our soggy biscuits and horse-bean 
 coifee, and just look what falls into the lap of some lazy 
 sneakin' greenhorn who never did a stroke of work in his 
 life ! Here are we, with no foolishness, no airs nor graces, 
 and yet men who would do credit to twice that amount of 
 luck — and seem born to it, too — and we 're set aside for 
 some long, lank, penwiping scrub who just knows enough 
 to sit down on his office stool and hold on to a bit of 
 paper." 
 
 " What 's up now ? " asked Stacy, with the carelessness 
 begotten of familiarity with his partner's extravagance. 
 
 "Listen," said Demorest, reading. "Another unpre- 
 cedented rise has taken place in the shares of the Yellow 
 Hammer First Extension Mine since the sinking of the 
 new shaft. It was quoted yesterday at ten thousand dollars 
 a foot. When it is remembered that scarcely two years 
 ago the original shares, issued at fifty dollars per share, had 
 dropped to only fifty cents a share, it will be seen that 
 ihose who were able to hold on have got a good thing." 
 
 " What mine did you say ? " asked Barker, looking up 
 meditatively from the dishes he was already washing. 
 
404 barkek's luck 
 
 " The Yellow Hammer Krst Extension," returned 
 Demorest shortly. 
 
 " I used to have some shares in that, and I think I have 
 them still," said Barker musingly. 
 
 " Yes," said Demorest promptly ; " the paper speaks of 
 it here. ' We understand,' " he continued, reading aloud, 
 ' that our eminent fellow citizen, George Barker, otherwise 
 known as " Get-Left Barker " and " Chucklehead," is one 
 of these fortunate individuals.' " 
 
 " No," said Barker, with a slight flush of innocent plea- 
 sure, " it can't say that. How could it know ? " 
 
 Stacy laughed, hut Demorest coolly continued : " You 
 did n't hear all. Listen ! ' We say was one of them ; hut 
 having already sold his apparently useless certificates to our 
 popular druggist, Jones, for corn-plasters, at a reduced rate, 
 he is unable to realize.' " 
 
 " You may laugh, boys," said Barker; with simple seri- 
 ousness ; " hut I really believe I have got 'em yet. Just 
 wait. I '11 see ! " He rose and began to drag out a well- 
 worn valise from under his bunk. " You see," he con- 
 tinued, "they were given to me by an old chap in re- 
 turn " — ' 
 
 " For saving his life by delaying the Stockton boat that 
 afterwards blew up," returned Demorest briefly. "We 
 know it all ! His hair was white, and his hand trembled 
 slightly as he laid these shares in yours, saying, — and 
 you never forgot the words, — ' Take ^ein, young man — 
 and'"— 
 
 "For lending him two thousand dollars then," con 
 tinned Barker, with a simple ignoring of the interruption, 
 as he quietly brought out the valise.' 
 
 " Two thousand dollars ! " repeated Stacy. " Whea 
 did you have two thousand dollars ? " 
 
 "When I first left Sacramento — three years ago," said 
 Barker, unstrapping the valise 
 
barker's luck 403 
 
 "How long did you have it?" said Demorest incredu- 
 lously. 
 
 " At least two days, I think," returned Barker quietly. 
 " Then I met that man. He was hard up, and I lent him 
 my pile and took those shares. He died afterwards." 
 
 " Of course he did," said Demorest severely. " They 
 always do. Nothing kills a man more quickly than an 
 action of that kind." 
 
 Nevertheless the two partners regarded Barker rummag- 
 ing among some loose clothes and papers with a kind of 
 paternal toleration. 
 
 " If you can't find them, bring out your government 
 bonds," suggested Stacy. But the next moment, flushed 
 and triumphant. Barker rose from his knees, and came 
 towards them carrying some papers in his hands. 
 
 Demorest seized them from him, opened them, spread 
 them on the table, examined hurriedly the date, signatures, 
 and transfers, glanced again quickly at the newspaper para- 
 graph, looked wildly at Stacy and then at Barker, and 
 gasped, — 
 
 " By the living hookey ! it is so ' " 
 ' B'gosh ! he has got 'em ! " echoed Stacy. 
 
 "Twenty shares," continued Demorest breathlessly, "at 
 ten thousand dollars a share — even if it 's only a foot — 
 is two hundred thousand dollars ! Jerusalem ! " 
 
 " Tell me, fair sir," said Stacy,' with sparkling eyes, 
 "hast still left in yonder casket any rare jewels, rubies, 
 sarcenet, or links of fine gold ? Peradventure a pearl or 
 two may have been overlooked ! " 
 
 "No — that's all," returned Barker simply. 
 
 " You hear him ! Eothschild says ' that 's all.' Prince 
 Esterhazy says he has n't another red cent — only two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars." 
 
 " What ought I to do, boys ? " asked Barker, timidly 
 glancing from one to the other: 
 
406 barker's luck 
 
 Yet. he remembered with delight all that day, and fo* 
 many a year afterwards, that he only saw in their faces un- 
 selfish joy and affection at that supreme moment. 
 
 " Do ? " said Demorest promptly. " Stand on your head 
 and yell ! No ! stop ! Come here ! " He seized hoth Bai-- 
 ker and Stacy by the hand, and ran out into the open air. 
 Here they danced violently with clasped hands around a 
 small buckeye, in perfect silence, and then returned to the 
 cabin, grave but perspiring. 
 
 " Of course," said Barker, wiping his forehead, " we 'U 
 just get some money on these certificates and buy up that 
 next claim which belongs to old Carter — where you know 
 we thought we saw the indication." 
 
 "We'll do nothing of the kind," said Demorest decided- 
 ly. " We ain't in it. That money is yours, old chap — 
 every cent of it — property acquired before marriage, you 
 know ; and the only thing we '11 do is to be d — d before 
 we '11 see you drop a dime of into this God-forsaken hole. 
 No!" 
 
 " But we 're partners," gasped Barker. 
 
 " Not in this ! The utmost we can do for you, opulent 
 sir, — though it ill becomes us horny-handed sons of toil to 
 rub shoulders with Dives, — is perchance to dine with you, 
 to take a pasty and a glass of Malvoisie, at some restaurant 
 in Sacramento ^- when you 've got things fixed, in honor 
 of your return to affluence. But more would ill become 
 us!" 
 
 " But what are you going to do ? " said Barker, with a 
 half-hysteric, half-frightened smile. 
 
 " We have not yet looked through our luggage," said 
 Demorest with invincible gravity, " and there 's a secret re- 
 cess — a double fond — to my portmanteau, known only 
 to a trusty page, which has not been disturbed since I left 
 my ancestral home in Faginia. There may be a few First 
 Debentures of Erie or what not still there." 
 
barker's luck 407 
 
 " I felt some strange, disk -like protuberances in my dress 
 suit the other day, but belike they are but poker chips," 
 said Stacy thoughtfully. 
 
 An uneasy feeling crept over Barker. The color which 
 had left his fresh cheek returned to it quickly, and he turned 
 his eyes away. Yet he had seen nothing in his companions' 
 eyes but affection — with even a certain kind of tender com- 
 miseration that deepened his uneasiness. 
 
 " I suppose," he said desperately, after a pause, " I ought 
 to go over to Boomville and make some inquiries." 
 
 " At the bank, old chap ; at the bank ! " said Demorest 
 emphatically. "Take my advice and don't go anywhere 
 else. Don't breathe a word of your luck to anybody. And 
 don't, whatever you Jo, be tempted to sell just now ; you 
 don't know how high that stock 's going to jump yet." 
 
 " I thought," stammered Barker, " that you boys might 
 like to go over with me." 
 
 " We can't afford to take another holiday on grub wages, 
 and we 're only two to work to-day," said Demorest, with a 
 slight increase of color and the faintest tremor in his voice. 
 " And it won't do, old chap, for us to be seen bumming 
 round with you on the heels of your good fortune. For 
 everybody knows we 're poor, and sooner or later every- 
 body '11 know you were rich even when you first came to 
 
 no " 
 us. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Barker indignantly. 
 
 " Gospel, my boy ! " said Demorest shortly. 
 
 " The frozen truth, old man ! " said Stacy. 
 
 Barker took up his hat with some stiffness and moved 
 towards the door. Here he stopped irresolutely, an irreso- 
 lution that seemed to communicate itself to his partners. 
 There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Demorest 
 suddenly seized him by the shoulders with a grip that was 
 half a caress, and waiked him rapidly to the door. 
 
 " And now don't stand foolin' with us. Barker boy ; but 
 
408 barker's luck 
 
 just trot off like a little man, and get your grip on that for- 
 tune ; and when you 've got your hooks in it hang on like 
 grim death. You '11 " — he hesitated for an instant only, 
 possibly to find the laugh that should have accompanied his 
 speech — " you 're sure to find vs here when you get back." 
 
 Hurt to the quick, but restraining his feelings, Barker 
 clapped his hat on his head and walked quickly away. The 
 two partners stood watching hira in silence until his figure 
 was lost in the underbrush. Then they spoke. 
 
 " Like him — was n't it ? " said Demorest. 
 
 " Just him all over," said Stacy. 
 
 " Think of him having that stock stowed away all these 
 years and never even bothering his dear old head about 
 »t ! " 
 
 " And think of his wanting to put the whole thing into 
 this rotten hillside with us ! " 
 
 " And he 'd have done it, by gosh ! and never thought 
 of it again. That 's Barker." 
 
 " Dear old man ! " 
 
 « Good old chap ! " 
 
 "I've been wondering if one of us oughtn't to have 
 gone with him ? He 's just as likely to pour his money 
 into the first lap that opens for it," said Stacy. 
 
 " The more reason why we should n't prevent him, or 
 seem to prevent him," said Demorest almost fiercely. 
 " There will be knaves and fools enough who will try and 
 put the idea of our using him into his simple heart with- 
 out that. No ! Let him do as he likes with it — but let 
 him be himself. I 'd rather have him come back to us even 
 after he 's lost the money — his old self and empty-handed 
 — than try to change the stuff God put into him and make 
 him more like others." 
 
 The tone and manner were so different from Demorest's 
 Usual levity that Stacy was silent. After a pause he said : 
 ' • Well t we shall miss him on the hillside — won't we ? " 
 
barker's luck 4or 
 
 Demorest did not reply. Reaching out his hand ab 
 Btractedly, he wrenched off a small slip from a sapling neai 
 him, and began slowly to pull the leaves off, one by one, 
 until they were all gone. Then he switched it in the air, 
 struck his boot-leg smartly with it, said roughly : " Come, 
 let 's get to work ! " and strode away. 
 
 Meantime Barker on his way to Boomville was no less 
 singular in his manner. He kept up his slightly affected 
 attitude until he had lost sight of the cabin. But, being 
 of a simple nature, his emotions were less complex. If he 
 had not seen the undoubted look of affection in the eyes of 
 his partners he would have imagined that they were jealous 
 of his good fortune. Yet why had they refused his offer 
 to share it with him ? Why had they so strangely assumed 
 that their partnership with him had closed ? Why had they 
 declined to go with him ? Why had this money — of which 
 he had thought so little, and for which he had cared so 
 little — changed , them towards him ? It had not changed 
 him — he was the same ! He remembered how they had 
 often talked and laughed over a prospective " strike " in 
 mining and speculated what they would do together with 
 the money ! And now that " luck " had occurred to one 
 of them individually, the effect was only to alienate them ! 
 He could not m&ke it out. He was hurt, wounded, yet 
 oddly enough he was conscious now of a certain power 
 within him to hurt and wound in retribution. He was 
 rich : he would let them see he, could do without them. 
 He was quite free now to think only of himself and 
 Kitty. 
 
 For it must be recorded that, with all this young gen- 
 tleman's simplicity and unselfishness, with all his loyal 
 attitude to his partners, his first thought at the moment he 
 grasped the fact of his wealth was of a young lady. It 
 was Kitty Carter, the daughter of the hotelkeeper at 
 Boomville. who owned the claim that the partners had 
 
tlO bakkee's luck 
 
 mutually coveted. That a pretty girl's face should flash 
 upon him with his conviction that he was now a rich man 
 meant perhaps no disloyalty to his partners, whom he would 
 still have helped. But it occurred to him now, in his half- 
 hurt, half-vengeful state, that they had often joked him 
 about Kitty, and perhaps further confidence with them was 
 debarred. And it was only due to his dignity that he 
 should now see Kitty at once. 
 
 This was easy enough, for, in the naive simplicity of 
 Boomville, and the economic arrangements of her father, 
 she occasionally waited upon the hotel table. Half the 
 town was always actively in love with her ; the other hall 
 had been, and was silent, cynical, but hopeless in defeat. 
 For Kitty was one of those singularly pretty girls occasion- 
 ally met with in Southwestern frontier civilization whose 
 distinct and original refinement of face and figure were so 
 lemarkable and original as to cast a doubt on the sagacity 
 and prescience of one parent and the morality of the other, 
 yet no doubt with equal injustice. But the fact remained 
 that she was slight, graceful, and self-contained, and moved 
 beside her stumpy, commonplace father, and her faded, 
 commonplace mother, in the dining-room of the Boomville 
 Hotel like some distinguished alien. The three partners, 
 by virtue, perhaps, of their college education and refined 
 manners, had been exceptionally noticed by Kitty. And 
 for some occult reason — the more serious, perhaps, because 
 it had no obvious or logical presumption to the world gen- 
 erally — Barker was particularly favored. 
 
 He quickened his pace, and as the flagstafi' of the Boom- 
 ville Hotel rose before him in the little hollow, he seriously 
 debated whether he had not better go to the bank first, 
 deposit his shares, and get a small advance on them to buy 
 a new necktie or a " boiled shirt " in which to present 
 himself to Miijs Kitty ; but, remembering that he had 
 partly given his word to Demorest that he would keep his 
 
barker's luck 411 
 
 shares intact for the present, he abandoned this project, 
 probably from the fact that his projected confidence with 
 Kitty was ah-eady a violation of Deniorest's injunctions of 
 secrecy, and his conscience was sufficiently burdened with 
 that breach of faith. 
 
 But when he reached the hotel, a strange trepidation 
 overcame him. The dining-room was at its slack water, 
 between the ebb of breakfast and before the flow of the 
 preparation for the midday meal. He could not have his 
 interview with Kitty in that dreary waste of reversed chairs 
 and bare trestle-like tables, and she was possibly engaged 
 in her household duties. But Miss Kitty had already seen 
 him cross the road, and had lounged into the dining-room 
 with an artfully simulated air of casually examining" it. 
 At the unexpected vision of his hopes, arrayed in the sweet- 
 est and freshest of rosebud-sprigged print, his heart fal- 
 tered. Then, partly with the desperation of a timid man, 
 and partly through the working of a half-formed resolution, 
 he met her bright smile with a simple inquiry for her 
 father. Miss Kitty bit her pretty lip, smiled slightly, and 
 preceded him with great formality to the office. Opening 
 the door, without raising her lashes to either her father or 
 the visitor, she said, with a mischievous accenting of the 
 professional manner, " Mr. Barker, to see you on business," 
 and tripped sweetly away. 
 
 And this slight incident precipitated the crisis. For 
 Barker instantly made up his mind that he must purchase 
 the next claim for his partners of this man Carter, and that 
 he would be obliged to confide to him the details of his 
 good fortune, and, as a proof of his sincerity and his ability 
 to pay for it, he did so bluntly. Carter was a shrewd busi- 
 ness man, and the well-known simplicity of Barker was a 
 proof of his truthfulness, to say nothing of the shares that 
 were shown to him. His selling price for his claim had 
 been two hundred dollars, but here was a rich customer 
 
412 barker's luck 
 
 who, from a mere foolish sentiment, would be no doubf 
 willing to pay more. He hesitated with a hland but supe 
 rior smile. 
 
 " Ah, that was my price at my last offer, Mr. Barker," 
 he said suavely ; " but, you see, things are going up since 
 then." 
 
 The keenest duplicity is apt to fail before absolute sim- 
 plicity. Barker, thoroughly believing him, and already a 
 little frightened at his own presumption — not for the 
 amount of the money involved, but from the possibility of 
 his partners refusing his gift utterly — quickly took advan- 
 tage of this locus penitentice. 
 
 " No matter, then," he said hurriedly ; " perhaps I had 
 better consult my partners first ; in fact," he added, with 
 a gratuitous truthfulness all his own, " I hardly know 
 whether they will take it of me, so I think I '11 wait." 
 
 Carter was staggered ; this would clearly not do ! He 
 recovered himself with an insinuating smile. 
 
 " You pulled me up too short, Mr. Barker ; I 'm a busi- 
 ness man, but hang it all ! what 's that among friends ? 
 If you reckoned I ffave my word at two hundred — why, 
 I 'm there ! Say no more about it — the claim 's yours. 
 I '11 make you out a bill of sale at once." 
 
 " But," hesitated Barker, " you see I have n't got the 
 money yet, and" — 
 
 " Money ! " echoed Carter bluntly, " what 's that among 
 friends ? Gimme your note at thirty days — that 's good 
 enough for me. An' we '11 settle the whole thing now, — ■ 
 nothing like finishing a job while you 're about it." And 
 before the bewildered and doubtful visitor could protest, 
 he had filled up a promissory note for Barker's signature 
 and himself signed a bill of sale for the property. " And 
 I reckon, Mr. Barker, you 'd like to take your partners by 
 surprise about this little gift of yours," he added smilingly. 
 " Well, my messenger is starting for the Gulch in five min- 
 
barker's luck 413 
 
 utes ; lie 's going by your cabin, and he can just drop this 
 bill o' sale, as a kind o' settled fact, on 'em afore they can 
 say anything, see ! There 's nothing like actin' on the spot 
 in these sort of things. And don't you hurry 'bout them 
 either ! You see, you sorter owe us a friendly call — 
 havin' always dropped inter the hotel only as a customer 
 — so ye '11 stop here over luncheon, and I reckon, as the 
 old woman is busy, why, Kitty will try to make the time 
 pass till then by playin' for you on her new pianner." 
 
 Delighted, yet bewildered by the unexpected invitation 
 and opportunity. Barker mechanically signed the promissory 
 note, and as mechanically addressed the envelope of the bill 
 of sale to Demorest, which Carter gave to the messenger. 
 Then he followed his host across the hall to the apartment 
 known as " Miss Kitty's parlor." He had often heard of it 
 as a sanctum impervious to the ordinary guest. Whatever 
 functions the young girl assumed at the hotel and among 
 her father's boarders, it was vaguely understood that she 
 dropped thera on crossing that sacred threshold, and became 
 " Miss Carter." The county judge had been entertained 
 there, and the wife of the bank manager. Barker's admis- 
 sion there was consequently an unprecedented honor. 
 
 He cast his eyes timidly round the room, redolent and 
 suggestive in various charming little ways of the young girl's 
 presence. There was the cottage piano which had been 
 brought up in sections on the backs of mules from the foot 
 of the mountain ; there was a crayon head of Minerva done 
 by the fair occupant at the age of twelve ; there was a profile 
 of herself done by a traveling artist ; there were pretty little 
 china ornaments and many flowers, notably a faded but still 
 scented woodland shrub which Barker had presented to her 
 two weeks ago, and over which Miss Kitty had discreetly 
 thrown her white handkerchief as he entered. A wave of 
 hope passed over him at the act, but it was quickly spent as 
 Mr. Carter's roughly playful voice introduced him : — 
 
414 barker's luck 
 
 " Ye kin give Mr. Barker a tune or two to pass time afore 
 lunch, Kitty. You kin let him see what you 're doing in 
 that line. But you'll have to sit up now, for this youn^^ 
 man 's come inter some property, and will be sasheyiiig 
 round in 'Frisco afore long with a biled shirt and a stove- 
 pipe, and be givin' the go-by to Boomville. Well ! you 
 young folks will excuse me for a while, as I reckon I '11 
 just toddle over and get the recorder to put that bill o' sale 
 on record. Nothiu' like squaring things to onct, Mr. 
 Barker.'' 
 
 As he slipped away. Barker felt his heart sink. Carter 
 had not only bluntly forestalled him with the news, and 
 taken away his excuse for a confidential interview, but had 
 put an ostentatious construction on his visit. What could 
 she think of him now ? He stood ashamed and embarrassed 
 before her. 
 
 But Miss Kitty, far from noticing his embarrassment in 
 a sudden concern regarding the " horrid " untidiness of the 
 room, which made her cheeks quite pink in one spot, and 
 obliged her to take up and set down in exactly the same 
 place several articles, was exceedingly delighted. In fact, 
 she did not remember ever having been so pleased before 
 in her life ! These things were always so unexpected ! 
 Just like the weather, for instance. It was quite cool last 
 night — and now it was just stifling. And so dusty ! Had 
 Mr. Barker noticed the heat coming from the Gulch ? Or 
 perhaps, being a rich man, he — with a dazzling smile — 
 was above walking now. It was so kind of him to come 
 here first and tell her father. 
 
 " I really wanted to tell only — you, Miss Carter," stam- 
 mered Barker. " You see " — He hesitated. But Miss 
 Kitty saw perfectly. He wanted to tell her, and, seeing 
 her, he asked for her father ! Not that it made the 
 slightest difference to her, for her father would have been 
 sure to have told her. It was also kind of her father to 
 
barker's luck 41 S 
 
 invite him to luncheon. Otherwise she might not have seen 
 him before he left Boomville. 
 
 But this was more than Barker could stand. With the 
 same desperate directness and simplicity with which he had 
 approached her father, he now blurted out his whole heart 
 to her. He told her how he had loved her hopelessly from 
 the first time that they had spoken togetlier at the church 
 picnic. Did she remember it ? How he had sat and 
 worshiped her^ and nothing else, at church ! How her voice 
 in the church choir had sounded like an angel's ; how his 
 poverty and his uncertain future had kept him from seeing 
 her often, lest he should be tempted to betray his hopeless 
 passion. How as soon as he realized that he had a position, 
 that his love for her need not make her ridiculous to the 
 world's eyes, he came to tell her all. He did not even dare 
 to hope ! But she would hear him at least, would she not ? 
 
 Indeed, there was no getting away from his boyish, simple, 
 outspoken declaration. In vain Kitty smiled, frowned, 
 glanced at lier pink cheeks in the glass, and stopped to look 
 out of the window. The room was filled with his love — 
 it was encompassing her — and, despite his shy attitude, 
 seemed to be almost embracing her. But she managed at 
 last to turn upon him a face that was now as white and 
 grave as his own was eager and glowing. 
 
 " Sit down," she said gently. 
 
 He did so obediently, but wonderingly. She then opened 
 the piano and took a seat upon the music stool before it, 
 placed some loose sheets of music in the rack, and ran her 
 fingers lightly over the keys. Thus intrenched, she let 
 her hands fall idly in her lap, and for the first time raised 
 her eyes to his. 
 
 " Now listen to me — be good and don't interrupt ! 
 There ! — not so near ; you can hear what I have to say 
 well enough where you are. That will do." 
 
 Barker had halted with the chair he was dragging towards 
 her and sat down. 
 
416 barker's luck 
 
 " Now," said Miss Kitty, withdrawing her eyes and look- 
 ing straight before her, " I believe everything you say ; 
 perhaps I ought n't to — or at least say it — but I do. 
 There ! But because I do believe you — it seems to me 
 all wrong ! For the very reasons that you give for not 
 having spoken to me before, if you really felt as you say 
 you did, are the same reasons why you should not speak to 
 me now. You see, all this time you have let nobody but 
 yourself know how you felt toward me. In everybody's 
 eyes yoxi and your partners have been only the three stuck- 
 up, exclusive, college-bred men who mined a poor claim in 
 the Gulch, and occasionally came here to this hotel as cus- 
 tomers. In everybody's eyes / have been only the rich 
 hotel-keeper's popular daughter, who sometimes waited 
 upon you — but nothing more. But at least we were then 
 pretty much alike, and one as good as the other. And now, 
 as soon as you have become suddenly rich, and, of course, 
 the superior, you rush down here to ask me to acknowledge 
 it by accepting you ! " 
 
 " You know I never meant that. Miss Kitty," burst out 
 Barker vehemently, but his protest was drowned in a rapid 
 roulade from the young lady's fingers on the keys. He 
 sank back in his chair. 
 
 " Of course you never meant it," she said with an odd 
 laugh ; " but everybody will take it in that way, and you 
 cannot go round to everybody in Boomville and make the 
 pretty declaration you have just made 'to me. Everybody 
 will say I accepted you for your money ; everybody will 
 say it was a put-up job of my father's. Everybody , will 
 say that you threw yourself away on me. And I don't 
 know but that they would be right. Sit down, please ! or 
 I shall play again. 
 
 " You see," she went on, without looking at him ; ''just 
 now you like to remember that you fell in love with me 
 first as a pretty waiter girl, but if I became your wife it 's 
 
barker's luck 417 
 
 just what you would like to forget. And I should n't, for 
 I should always like to think of the time when you came 
 here, whenever you could afford it, and sometimes when 
 you could ii't, just to see me ; and how we used to make 
 excuses to speak with each other over the dishes. You 
 don't know what these things mean to a woman who " — 
 She hesitated a moment, and then added abruptly, "But 
 what does that matter ? You would not care to be 
 reminded of it. So," she said, rising up with a grave smile 
 and grasping her hands tightly behind her, " it 's a good 
 deal better that you should begin to forget it now. Be a 
 good boy and take my advice. Go to San Francisco. You 
 will meet some girl there in a way you will not afterwards 
 regret. You are young, and your riches, to say nothing,'' 
 she added in a faltering voice that was somewhat inconsist-r 
 ent with the mischievous smile that played upon her lips, 
 " of your kind and simple heart, will secure that which the 
 world would call unselfish affection from one more equal to 
 you, but would always believe was only bought if it came 
 from me." 
 
 " I suppose you are right," he said simply. 
 
 She glanced quickly at him, and her eyebrows straight- 
 ened. He had risen, his face white and his gray eyes 
 widely opened. 
 
 " I suppose you are right," he went on, " because you 
 are saying to me what my partners said to me this morning, 
 when I offered to share my wealth with them, God knows 
 as honestly as I offered to share my heart with you. I 
 suppose that you are both right ; that there must be some 
 curse of pride or selfishness upon the money that I have 
 got ; but I have not felt it yet, and the fault does not lie 
 with me." 
 
 She gave her shoulders a slight shrug, and turned impa- 
 tiently toward the window. When she turned back again 
 he was gone. The room around her was empty ; this room, 
 
418 BAEKEK'S LUCK 
 
 ■which a moment before had seemed to be pulsating with ^is 
 boyish passion, was now empty, and empty of him. She 
 bit her lips, rose, and ran eagerly to the window. She saw 
 his straw hat and brown curls as he crossed the road. She 
 drew her handkerchief sharply away from the withered 
 shrub over which she had thrown it, and cast the once trea- 
 sured remains in the hearth. Then, possibly because she 
 had it ready in her hand, she clapped the handkerchief to 
 her eyes, and, sinking sideways upon the chair he had risen 
 from, put her elbows on its back, and buried her face in her 
 hands. 
 
 It is the characteristic and perhaps cruelty of a simple 
 nature to make no allowance for complex motives, or to 
 even understand them ! So it seemed to Barker that his 
 simplicity had been met with equal directness. It was the 
 possession of this wealth that had in some way hopelessly 
 changed his relations with the world. He did not love Kitty 
 any the less ; he did not even think she had wronged him ; 
 they, his partners and his sweetheart, were cleverer than 
 he ; there must be some occult quality in this wealth that 
 he would understand when he possessed it, and perhaps it 
 might even make him ashamed of his generosity ; not in the 
 way they had said, but in his tempting them so audaciously 
 to assume a wrong position. It behoved him to take pos- 
 session of it at once, and to take also upon himself alone 
 the knowledge, the trials, and responsibilities it would in- 
 cur. His cheeks flushed again as he thought he had tried 
 to tempt an innocent girl with it, and he was keenly hurt 
 that he had not seen in Kitty's eyes the tenderness that 
 had softened his partners' refusal. He resolved to wait no 
 longer, but sell his dreadful stock at once. He walked di- 
 rectly to the bank. 
 
 The manager, a shrewd but kindly man, to whom Barker 
 was known already, received him graciously in recognition 
 of his well-known simple honesty, and respectfully as a 
 
BARKER'S LUCK 419 
 
 representative of the equally well-known poor but " supe- 
 rior " partnership of the Gulch. He listened with marked 
 attention to Barker's hesitating but brief story, only re- 
 marking at its close : — 
 
 " You mean, of course, the ' Second Extension ' when 
 you say ' First ' ? " 
 
 " No," said Barker ; " I mean the 'First ' — and it said 
 First in the Boomville paper." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! — I saw it — it was a printer's error. The 
 stock of the ' First ' was called in two years ago. No ! 
 You mean the ' Second,' for, of course, you 've followed the 
 quotations, and are likely to know what stock you 're hold- 
 ing shares of. When you go back, take a look at them, and 
 you '11 see I am right." 
 
 " But I brought them with me," said Barker, with a 
 slight flushing as he felt in his pocket, " and I am quite 
 sure they are the ' First.' " He brought them out and laid 
 them on the desk before the manager. 
 
 The words " First Extension " were plainly visible. The 
 manager glanced curiously at Barker, and his brow dark- 
 ened. 
 
 " Did anybody put this up on you ? " he said sternly. 
 " Did your partners send you here with this stuif ? " 
 
 " No ! no ! " said Barker eagerly. " No one ! It 's all 
 my mistake. I see it now. I trusted to the newspaper." 
 
 " And you mean to say you never examined the stock or 
 (.he quotations, nor followed it in any way, since you had 
 .it ? " 
 
 " Never ! " said Barker. " Never thought about it at 
 all till I saw the newspaper. So it's not worth any- 
 thing ? " 
 
 And, to the infinite surprise of the manager, there was a 
 slight smile on his boyish face. 
 
 " I am afraid it is not worth the paper it 's written on," 
 said the manager gently. 
 
420 bakker's luck 
 
 The smile on Barker's face inereased to a little laugh, in 
 which his wondering companion could not help joining. 
 
 " Thank you," said Barker suddenly, and rushed away. 
 
 " He beats everything ! " said the manager, gazing after 
 hiiii! " D — d if he did n't seem even pleased," 
 
 He was pleased. The burden of wealth had fallen from 
 his shoulders ; the dreadful incubus that had weighed him 
 down and parted his friends from him was gone ! And he 
 had not got rid of it by spending it foolishly. It had not 
 ruined anybody yet ; it had not altered anybody in his eyes. 
 It was gone : and he was a free and happy man once more. 
 He would go directly back to his partners ; they would 
 laugh at him, of course, but they could not look at him 
 now with the same sad, commiserating eyes. Perhaps even 
 Kitty — But here a sudden chill struck him. He had 
 forgotten the bill of sale ! He had forgotten the dread- 
 ful promissory note given to her father in the rash pre- 
 sumption of his wealth ! How could it ever be paid ? 
 And more than that, it had been given in a fraud. He 
 had no money when he gave it, and no prospect of any 
 but what he was to get from those worthless shares. Would 
 anybody believe him that it was only a stupid blunder of 
 his own ? Yes, his partners might believe him ; but, horrible 
 thought, he had already implicated them in his fraud ! 
 Even now, while he was standing there hesitatingly in the 
 road, they were entering upon the new claim he had not 
 paid for — could not pay for — and in the guise of a bene- 
 factor he was dishonoring them. Yet it was Carter he 
 must meet first ; he must confess all to him. He must 
 go back to the hotel — that hotel where he had indignantly 
 left her, and tell the father he was a fraud. It was terrible 
 to think of ; perhaps it was part of that money curse that 
 he could not get rid of, and was now realizing ; but it must 
 be done. He was simple, but his very simplicity had that 
 unhesitating directness of conclusion which is the main fao 
 tor of what men call " pluck." 
 
bakkek's luck 4^1 
 
 He turned back to the hotel and entered the office. Bu'j 
 Mr. Carter had not yet returned. What was to be done ? 
 He could not wait there ; there was no time to be lost ; 
 there was only one other person who knew his expectations, 
 and to whom he could confide his failure — it was Kii y. 
 It was to taste the dregs of his humiliation, but it must be 
 done. He ran up the staircase and knocked timidly at the 
 sitting-room door. There was a momentary pause, and a 
 weak voice said, " Come in." Barker opened the door ; saw 
 the vision of a handkerchief thrown away, of a pair of tear, 
 f ul eyes that suddenly changed to stony indifference, and a 
 graceful but stiffening figure. But he was past all insult now. 
 
 " I would not intrude," he said simply, " but I came 
 only to see your father. I have made an awful blunder 
 — more than a blunder, I think — a fraud. Believing 
 that I was rich, I purchased your father's claim for my part- 
 ners, and gave him my promissory note. I came here to 
 give him back his claim — for that note can never be paid ! 
 I have just been to the bank ; I find I have made a stupid 
 mistake in the name of the shares upon which I based my 
 belief in my wealth. The ones I own are worthless — I 
 am as poor as ever — I am even poorer, for I owe your 
 father money I can never pay ! " 
 
 To his amazement he saw a look of pain and scorn come 
 into her troubled eyes which he had never seen before. 
 
 " This is a feeble trick," she said bitterly ; " it is unlike 
 you — it is unworthy of you ! " 
 
 " Good God ! You must believe me. Listen ! It was 
 all a mistake — a printer's error. I read in the paper that 
 the stock for the First Extension mine had gone up, when 
 it should have been the Second. I had some old stock of 
 the First, which I had kept for years, and only thought of 
 when I read the announcement in the paper this morning. 
 I swear to you " — 
 
 But it was unnecessary. There was no doubting the 
 
422 barker's luck 
 
 truth of that voice — that manner. The scorn fled from 
 Miss Kitty's eyes to give place to a stare, and then sud- 
 denly changed to two bubbling " blue wells of laughter. 
 She went to the window and laughed. She sat down to the 
 piano and laughed. She caught up the handkerchief, and 
 hiding half her rosy face in it, laughed. She finally col- 
 lapsed into an easy-chair, and, burying her brown head in 
 its cushions, laughed long and confidentially until she 
 brought up suddenly against a sob. And then was still. 
 
 Barker was dreadfully alarmed. He had heard of hys- 
 terics before. He felt he ought to do something. He 
 moved towards her timidly, and gently drew away her 
 handkerchief. Alas ! the blue wells were running over 
 now. He took her cold hands in his ; he knelt beside her 
 and passed his arm around her waist. He drew her head 
 upon his shoulder. He was not sure that any of these 
 things were effective until she suddenly lifted her eyes to 
 his with the last ray of mirth in them vanishing in a big 
 teardrop, put her arms round his neck, and sobbed : — 
 
 " Oh, George ! You blessed innocent ! " 
 
 An eloquent silence was broken by a remorseful start 
 from Barker. 
 
 "But I must go and warn my poor partners, dearest; 
 there yet may be time ; perhaps they have not yet taken 
 possession of your father's claim." 
 
 " Yes, George dear," said the young girl, with sparkling 
 eyes ; " and tell them to do so at once ! " 
 
 " What ? " gasped Barker. 
 
 " At once — do you hear ? — or it may be too late I 
 Go quick." 
 
 "But your father — Oh, I see, dearest, you will tell 
 him all yourself, and spare me." 
 
 " I shall do nothing so foolish, Georgey. Nor shall 
 you ! Don't you see the note is n't due for a month. 
 Stop ! Have you told anybody but paw and me ? " 
 
baeker's luck 423 
 
 " Only the bank manager." 
 
 She ran out of the room and returned in a ininute tying 
 he most enchanting of hats by a ribbon under her oval 
 ihin. 
 
 " I '11 run over and fix him," she said. 
 
 " Fix him ? " returned Barker, aghast. 
 
 " Yes, I '11 say your wicked partners have been playing 
 a practical joke on you, and he mustn't give you away. 
 He '11 do anything for me.'' 
 
 " But my partners did n't ! On the contrary " — 
 
 " Don't tell me, George," said Miss Kitty severely. 
 " They ought never to have let you come here with that 
 stuff. But come ! You must go at once. You must not 
 meet paw ; you '11 blurt out everything to him ; I know 
 you ! I '11 tell him you could not stay to luncheon. Quick, 
 now ; go. What ? "Well — there ! " 
 
 Whatever it represented, the exclamation was apparently 
 CO protracted that Miss Kitty was obliged to push her lover 
 to the front landing before she could disappear by the 
 back stairs. But, once in the street. Barker no longer 
 lingered. It was a good three miles back to the Gulch ; 
 he might still reach it by the time his partners were taking 
 their noonday rest, and he resolved that, although the mes- 
 senger had preceded him, they would not enter upon the 
 new claim until the afternoon. For Barker, in spite of 
 his mistress's injunction, had no idea of taking what he 
 could n't pay for ; he would keep the claim intact until 
 something could be settled. For the rest, he walked on 
 air ! Kitty loved him ! The accursed wealth no longer 
 stood between them. They were both poor now — every- 
 thing was possible. 
 
 The sun was beginning to send dwarf shadows towards 
 the east when he reached the Gulch. Here a new trepida- 
 tion seized him. How would his partners receive the news 
 of his utter failure ? He was happy, for he had gained 
 
424 barker's luck 
 
 Kitty through it. But they ? For a moment it seemed la 
 him that he had purchased his happiness through their loss. 
 He stopped, took off his hat, and ran his fingers remorse- 
 fully through his damp curls. 
 
 Another thing troubled him. He had reached the crest 
 of the Gulch, where their old working ground was spread 
 before him like a map. They were not there ; neither 
 were they lying under the four pines on the ridge where 
 they were wont to rest at midday. He turned with some 
 alarm to the new claim adjoining theirs, but there was no 
 sign of them there either. A sxidden fear that they had, 
 after parting from him, given up the claim in a fit of dis- 
 gust and depression, and departed, now overcame him. He 
 clapped his hat on his head and ran in the direction of 
 the cabin. 
 
 He had nearly reached it when the rough challenge of 
 " Who 's there ? " from the bushes halted him, and Demor- 
 est suddenly swung into the trail. But the singular look 
 of sternness and impatience which he was wearing vanished 
 as he saw Barker, and with a loud shout of " All right, 
 it 's only Barker ! Hooray ! " he ran toward him. In an 
 instant he was joined by Stacy from the cabin, and the two 
 men, catching hold of their returning partner, waltzed him 
 joyfully and breathlessly into the cabin. But the quick- 
 eyed Demorest suddenly let go his hold and stared at 
 Barker's face. 
 
 " Why, Barker, old boy, what 's up ? " 
 
 " Everything 's up," gasped the breathless Barker. 
 " It 's all up about these stocks. It 's all a mistake ; 
 all an infernal lie of that newspaper. I never had the 
 right kind of shares. The ones I have are worthless 
 rags ; " and the next instant he had blurted out his whole 
 interview with the bank manager. 
 
 The two partners looked at each other, and then, to 
 Barker's infinite perplexity, the same extraordinary convul- 
 
barker's luck 425 
 
 sion that had seized Miss Kitty fell upon them. They 
 laughed, holding on each other's shoulders ; they laughed, 
 clinging to Barker's struggling figure ; they went out and 
 laughed with their hacks against a tree. They laughed 
 separately and in different corners. And then they came 
 up to Barker with tears in their eyes, dropped their heads 
 on his shoulder, and murmured exhaustedly : — 
 
 " You blessed ass ! " 
 
 " But," said Stacy suddenly, " how did you manage to 
 buy the claim ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that 's the most awful thing, boys. I 've never 
 2} aid for it," groaned Barker. 
 
 " But Carter sent us the bill of sale," persisted Demor- 
 est, " or we should n't have taken it." 
 
 " I gave my promissory note at thirty days," said Barker 
 desperately, " and where 's the money to come from now ? 
 But," he added wildly, as the men glanced' at each other — 
 " you said ' taken it.' Good heavens ! you don't mean to 
 say that I'm too late — that you've — you've touched 
 it?" 
 
 " I reckon that 's pretty much what we have been doing," 
 drawled Demore.st. 
 
 " It looks uncommonly like it," drawled Stacy. 
 
 Barker glanced blankly from the one to the other. 
 
 " Shall we pass our young friend in to see the show ? " 
 said Demorest to Stacy. 
 
 " Yes, if he '11 be perfectly quiet and not breathe on the 
 glasses," returned Stacy. 
 
 They each gravely took one of Barker's hands and led 
 him to the corner of the cabin. There, on an old flour bar- 
 rel, stood a large tin prospecting pan, in which the partners 
 also occasionally used to knead their bread. A dirty towel 
 tiovered it. Demorest whisked it dexterously aside, and 
 disclosed three large fragments of decomposed gold and 
 quartz. Barker started back. 
 
426 baekee's luck 
 
 " Heft it ! " said Demorest grimly. 
 
 Barker could scarcely lift the pan ! 
 
 "Four thousand dollars' weight if a penny ! " said Stacy, 
 in short staccato sentences. " In a pocket ! Brought it out 
 the second stroke of the pick ! We 'd heen awfully blue 
 after you left. Awfully blue, too, when that bill of sale 
 came, for we thought you 'd been wasting your money on us. 
 Reckoned we ought n't to take it, but send it straight back 
 to you. Messenger gone ! Then Demorest reckoned as it 
 was done it could n't be undone, and we ought to make just 
 one ' prospect ' on the claim, and strike a single stroke for 
 you. And there it is. And there 's more on the hillside." 
 
 " But it is n't mine ! It is n't yours ! It 's Carter's. 
 I never had the money to pay for it — and I have n't got 
 it now." 
 
 " But you gave the note — and it is not due for thirty 
 days." 
 
 A recollection flashed upon Barker. 
 
 " Yes," he said with thoughtful simplicity, " that 's what 
 Kitty said." 
 
 " Oh, Kitty said so," said both partners gravely. 
 
 " Yes," stammered Barker, turning away with a height- 
 ened color, " and, as I did n't stay there to luncheon, I 
 think I 'd better be getting it ready." 
 
 He picked up the coifee-pot and turned to the hearth as 
 his two partners stepped beyond the door. 
 
 '■ Was n't it exactly like him ? " said Demorest. 
 
 " Him all over," said Stacy. 
 
 " And his worry over that note ? " said Demorest. 
 
 " And < what Kitty said ' ? " said Stacy. 
 
 " Look here ! I reckon that was n't all that Kitty said." 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 « What luck ! " 
 
MY FIRST BOOK 
 
 When I say that my " First Book " was not my own, 
 and contained beyond the title-page not one word of my 
 own composition, I trust that I will not be accused of tri- 
 fling with paradox, or tardily unbosoming myself of youth- 
 ful plagiary. But the fact remains that in priority of pub- 
 lication the first book for which I became responsible, and 
 which probably provoked more criticism than anything I 
 have written since, was a small compilation of Californian 
 poems indited by other hands. 
 
 A well-known bookseller of San Francisco one day 
 handed me a collection of certain poems which had already 
 appeared in Pacific Coast magazines and newspapers, with 
 the request that I should, if possible, secure further addi- 
 tions to them, and then make a selection of those which I 
 considered the most notable and characteristic, for a single 
 volume to be issued by him. I have reason to believe that 
 this unfortvinate man was actuated by a laudable desire to 
 publish a pretty Californian book — his first essay in pub- 
 lication — anil at the same time to foster Eastern immigra- 
 tion by an exhibit of the Californian literary product ; but, 
 looking back upon his venture, I am inclined to think that 
 the little volume never contained anything more poetical, 
 pathetic, or touchingly imaginative than that gentle concep- 
 tion. Equally simple and trustful was his selection of my- 
 self as compiler. It was based somewhat, I think, upon 
 the fact that " the artless Helicon " I boasted " was 
 Youth," but I imagine it was chiefly owing to the circum- 
 Btance that I had from the outset, with precocious fore- 
 
428 MY FIRST BOOK 
 
 siglit, confided to him my intention of not putting any of 
 my own verses in the volume. Publishers are apprecia- 
 tive ; and a self-abnegation so sublime, to say nothing of 
 its security, was not vrithout its eifect. 
 
 We settled to our vi'ork with fatuous self-complacency, 
 and no suspicion of the trouble in stora for us, or the storm 
 that was to presently hurtle around our devoted heads. I 
 winnowed the poems, and he exploited a preliminary an- 
 nouncement to an eager and waiting press, and we moved 
 together unwittingly to our doom. I remember to have 
 been early struck with the quantity of material coming in 
 — evidently the result of some popular misunderstanding 
 of the announcement. I found myself in daily and hourly 
 receipt of sere and yellow fragments, originally torn from 
 some dead and gone newspaper, creased and seamed from 
 long folding in wallet or pocketbook. Need I say that 
 most of them were of an emotional or didactic nature ; 
 need I add any criticism of these homely souvenirs, often 
 discolored by the morning coffee, the evening tobacco, or, 
 Heaven knows ! perhaps blotted by too easy tears ! Enough 
 that I knew now what had become of those original but 
 never recopied verses which filled the " Poet's Corner" of 
 every country newspaper on the coast. I knew now the 
 genesis of every didactic verse that " coldly furnished forth 
 the marriage table " in the announcement of weddings in 
 the rural press. I knew now who had read — and possibly 
 indited — the dreary hie jacets of the dead in their mourn- 
 ing columns. I knew now why certain letters of the 
 alphabet had been more tenderly considered than others, 
 and affectionately addressed. I knew the meaning of the 
 " Lines to Her who can best understand them," and I knew 
 that they had been iinderstood. The morning's post 
 buried my table beneath these withered leaves of post- 
 humous passion. They lay there like the pathetic nosegaya 
 of quickly fading wild flowery, gathered by school-children, 
 
MY FIKST BOOK 429 
 
 inconsistently abandoned upon roadsides, or as inconsist- 
 ently treasured as limp and flabby superstitions in their 
 desks. The chill wind from the Bay blowing in at the 
 window seemed to rustle them into sad articulate appeal. 
 I remember that when one of them was whisked from the 
 window by a stronger gust than usual, and was attaining a 
 circulation it had never known before, I ran a block or two 
 to recover it. I was young then, and in an exalted sense 
 of editorial responsibility, which I have since survived, I 
 think I turned pale at the thought that the reputation of 
 some unknown genius might have thus been swept out and 
 swallowed by the all-absorbing sea. 
 
 There were other difficulties arising from this unexpected 
 wealth of material. There were dozens of poems on the 
 same subject. "The Golden Gate," "Mount Shasta," 
 " The Yosemite," were especially provocative. A beauti-, 
 ful bird known as the " Californian Canary " appeared to 
 have been shot at and winged by every poet from Port- 
 land to San Diego. Lines to the Mariposa flower were as 
 thick as the lovely blossoms themselves in the Merced val- 
 ley, and the Madrono tree was as " berhymed " as Rosa- 
 lind. Again, by a liberal construction of the publisher's 
 announcement, manuscript poems, which had never known 
 print, began to coyly unfold their virgin blossoms in the 
 morning's mail. They were accompanied by a few lines 
 stating, casually, that their sender had found them lying 
 forgotten, in his desk, or, mendaciously, that they were 
 " thrown off " on the spur of the moment a few hours be- 
 fore. Some of the names appended to them astonished me. 
 Grave, practical business men, sage financiers, fierce specu- 
 lators, and plodding traders, never before suspected of 
 poetry, or even correct prose, were among the contributors. 
 It seemed as if most of the able-bodied inhabitants of the 
 Pacific Coast had been in the habit at some time of express- 
 ing themselves in verse. Some sought confidential inter- 
 
430 MY FIRST BOOK 
 
 views with the editor. The climax was reached when, in 
 Montgomery Street, one day, I was approached by a well- 
 known and venerable judicial magnate. After some seri- 
 ous preliminary conversation, the old gentleman finally 
 alluded to what he was pleased to call a task of "great 
 delicacy and responsibility " laid upon my " young shoul- 
 ders." 
 
 " In fact," he went on paternally, adding the weight of 
 his judicial hand to that burden, " I have thought of speak- 
 ing to you about it. In my leisure moments on the Bench 
 I have, from time to time, polished and perfected a certain 
 college poem begun years ago, but which may now be said 
 to have been finished in California, and thus embraced in 
 the scope of your proposed selection. If a few extracts, 
 selected by myself, to save you all trouble and responsibility, 
 _be of any benefit to you, my dear young friend, consider 
 them at your service." 
 
 In this fashion tlie contributions had increased to three 
 times the bulk of the original collection, and the difficulties . 
 of selection were augmented in proportion. The editor and 
 publisher eyed each other aghast. 
 
 " Never thought there were so many of the blamed things 
 alive," said the latter with great simplicity, " had you ? " 
 The editor had not. " Could n't you sorter shake 'em up 
 and condense 'em, you know ? keep their ideas — and their 
 names — separate, so that they 'd have proper credit. 
 See?" 
 
 The editor pointed out that this would infringe the rule 
 he had laid down. 
 
 '•' I see," said the publisher thoughtfully ; " well, 
 could n't you pare 'em down ; give the first verse entire, 
 and sorter sample the others ? " 
 
 The editor thought not. 
 
 There was clearly nothing to do but to make a more rigid 
 selection — a difficult performance when the material was 
 
MY FIRST BOOK 431 
 
 uniformly on a certain dead level, ■which it is not necessary 
 to define here. Among the rejections were, of course, the 
 usual plagiarisms from well-known authors imposed upon 
 an inexperienced country press ; several admirable pieces 
 detected as acrostics of patent medicines, and certain veiled 
 libels and indecencies such as mark the " first " publications 
 on blank walls and fences of the average youth. Still the 
 bulk remained too large, and the youthful editor set to work 
 reducing it still more with a sympathizing concern which 
 the good-natured, but unliterary, publisher failed to under- 
 stand, and which, alas ! proved to be equally unappreciated 
 by the rejected contributors. 
 
 The book appeared — a pretty little volume typographi- 
 cally, and externally a credit to pioneer bookmaking. 
 Copies were liberally supplied to the press, and authors and 
 publishers self-complacently awaited the result. To the 
 latter this should have been satisfactory ; the book sold 
 readily from his well-known counters to purchasers who 
 seemed to be drawn by a singular curiosity, unaccompanied, 
 however, by any critical comment. People would lounge 
 in to the shop, turn over the leaves of other volumes, say 
 carelessly, " Got a new book of California poetry out, 
 have n't you ? " purchase it, and quietly depart. There 
 were as yet no notices from the press ; the big dailies were 
 silent ; there was something ominous in this calm. 
 
 Out of it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, 
 which I here poetically veil under the title of the E.ed Dog 
 " Jay Hawk," was first to swoop down upon the tuneful 
 and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end of fastidious 
 and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to recall 
 the direct style of the Californian " sixties." 
 
 " The hogwash and ' purp ' stuff ladled out from the 
 slop-bucket of Messrs. and Co., of 'Frisco, by some lop- 
 eared Eastern apprentice, and called ' A Compilation of 
 Californian Verse,' might be passed over, so far as criticism 
 
432 MY FIRST BOOK 
 
 goes. A club in the hands of any able-bodied oitizen of 
 Red Dog, and a steamboat ticket to the Bay, cheerfully 
 contributed from this office, would be all-sufficient. But 
 when an imported greenllorn dares to call his flapdoodle 
 mixture ' Californian,' it is an insult to the State that has 
 produced the gifted ' Yellow Hammer,' whose lofty flights 
 have from time to time dazzled our readers in the columns 
 of the ' Jay Hawk.' That this complacent editorial jack- 
 ass, browsing among the dock and thistles which he has 
 served up in this volume, should make no allusion to Cali- 
 fornia's greatest bard is rather a confession of his idiocy 
 than a slur upon the genius of our esteemed contributor." 
 
 I turned hurriedly to my pile of rejected contributions 
 — the nom de plume of " Yellow Hammer " did not appear 
 among them ; certainly I had never heard of its existence. 
 Later, when a friend showed me one of that gifted bard's 
 pieces, I was inwardly relieved. It was so like the ma- 
 jority of the other verses, in and out of the volume, that 
 the mysterious poet might have written under a hundred 
 aliases. 
 
 But the Dutch Flat " Clarion," following with no un- 
 certain sound, left me small time for consideration. 
 
 " We doubt," said that journal, " if a more feeble collec- 
 tion of drivel could have been made, even if taken ex- 
 clusively from the editor's own verses, which we note he 
 has, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the 
 volume. When we add that, by a felicity of idiotic selec- 
 tion, this person has chosen only one, and the least charac- 
 teristic, of the really clever poems of Adoniram Skaggs, 
 which have so often graced these columns, we have said 
 enough to satisfy our readers." 
 
 The Mormon Hill " Quartz Crusher " relieved this simple 
 directness with more fancy : — 
 
 " We don't know why^ Messrs. and Co. send us, 
 
 under the title of ' Selections of Californian Poetry,' a 
 
MY FIRST BOOK 433 
 
 Ijuantity of slunigullion ■which really belongs to the sluices 
 of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the rural districts. 
 We have sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings 
 through our stamps, but never of the grade of the samples 
 offered, which, we should say, would average about 33^ 
 cents per ton. We have, however, come across a single 
 specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked by the serene 
 ass who has compiled this volume. We copy it with 
 pleasure, as it has already shone in the ' Poet's Corner ' of 
 the ' Crusher ' as the gifted effusion of the talented Manager 
 of the Excelsior Mill, otherwise known to our delighted 
 readers as ' Outcrop.' " 
 
 The Green Springs " Arcadian " was no less fanciful in. 
 imagery : ■ — 
 
 " Messrs. and Co, send us a gaudy green-and-yellow, 
 
 parrot-colored volume, which is supposed to contain the 
 first callow ' cheepings ' and ' peepings ' of Californiaa 
 songsters. From the flavor of the specimens before us we 
 should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. 
 There seems to be a good deal of the parrot inside as well 
 as outside the covers, and we congratulate our own sweet 
 singer ' Blue Bird,' who has so often made these columns 
 melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of being ex' 
 liibited in Messrs. and Co.'s aviary." 
 
 I should add that this simile of the aviary and its occu- 
 pants was ominous, for my tuneful choir was relentlessly 
 slaughtered ; the bottom of the cage was strewn with 
 feathers ! The big dailies collected the criticisms and pub- 
 lished them in their own columns with the grim irony of 
 exaggerated head-lines. The book sold tremendously on 
 account of this abuse, but I am afraid that the public was 
 disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms, 
 and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather 
 comnionplace collection, and I fear I cannot claim for it 
 even that merit. And it will be observed that the animus 
 
434 MY FIRST BOOK 
 
 of the criticism appeared to be the omission rather than the 
 retention of certain writers. 
 
 But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of 
 this singular demonstration. I do not think that the pub- 
 lishers were at all troubled by it ; I cannot conscientiously 
 say that / was ; I have every reason to believe that the 
 poets themselves, in and out of the volume, were not dis- 
 pleased at the notoriety they had not expected, and I have 
 long since been convinced that my most remorseless critics 
 were not in earnest, but were obeying some sudden impulse 
 started by the first attacking journal. The extravagance of 
 the Eed Dog " Jay Hawk " was emulated by others : it 
 was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal 
 in a peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. 
 
 And there still lingers, not unpleasantly, in my memory 
 the conclusion of a cheerfully scathing review of the book 
 which may make my meaning clearer : — 
 
 " If we have said anything in this article which might 
 cause a single pang to the poetically sensitive nature of the 
 youthful individual calling himself Mr. Francis Bret Harte, 
 — but who, we believe, occasionally parts his name and his 
 hair in the middle, — we will feel that we have not labored 
 in vain, and are ready to sing Nune Dimittis, and hand in 
 our checks. We have no doubt of the absolutely pellucid 
 and lacteal purity of Franky's intentions. He means well 
 to the Pacific Coast, and we return the compliment. But 
 he has strayed away from his parents and guardians while 
 he was too fresh. He will not keep without a little salt." 
 
 It was thirty years ago. The book and its Rabelaisian 
 criticisms have been long since forgotten. Alas ! I fear 
 that even the capacity for that Gargantuan laughter which 
 met them in those days exists no longer. The names I 
 have used are necessarily fictitious, but where I have been 
 obliged to quote the criticisms from memory I have, I be- 
 lieve, only softened their asperity. I do not know that 
 
MY FIRST BOOK 435 
 
 this story has any moral. The criticisms here recorded 
 never hurt a reputation nor repressed a single honest aspi- 
 ration. A few contributors to the volume, who were of 
 original merit, have made their mark, independently of it 
 or its critics. The editor, who was for two months the 
 most abused man on the Pacific slope, within the year be- 
 came the editor of its first successful magazine. Even the 
 publisher prospered, and died respected ! 
 
A YELLOW DOG 
 
 I isrB-VEE knew why in the Western States of America 
 a yellow dog should be proverbially considered the acrae 
 of canina degradation and incompetency, nor why the pos- 
 pession cf one should seriously affect the social standing of 
 its possessor. But the fact being established, I think we 
 accepted it at Rattlers Kidge without question. The mat- 
 ter of ownership was more difficult to settle; and although 
 the dog I have in my mind at the present writing attached 
 liiriiself impartially and equally to every one in camp, no 
 one ventured to exclusively claim him ; while, after the 
 nerpetration of any canine atrocity, everybody repudiated 
 him with indecent haste. 
 
 "Well, I can swear he hasn't been near our shanty for 
 weeks," or the retort, "He was last seen comin' out of 
 ■ijour cabin," expressed the eagerness with which Rattlers 
 Ridge washed its hands of any responsibility. Yet he 
 was by no means a common dog, nor even an unhandsome 
 dog ; and it was a singular fact that his severest critics 
 vied with. each other in narrating instances of his sagacity^ 
 insight, and agility which they themselves had witnessed. 
 
 He had been seen crossing the "jfiume" that spanned 
 Grizzly Canon, at a height of nine hundred feet, on a plank 
 six inches wide. He had tumbled down the "shoot" to 
 the South Fork, a thousand feet below, and was found 
 sitting on the river bank "without a scratch, 'cept that he 
 was lazily givin' himself with his off hind paw." He had 
 been forgotten in a snowdrift on a Sierran shelf, and had 
 come home in the early spring with the conceited compla- 
 
A YELLOW DOG 437 
 
 »eflcv of an Alpine traveler and a plumpness alleged to 
 have been the result of an exclusive diet of burifld mail 
 bags and their contents. He was generally believed to 
 read the advance election posters, and disappear a day or 
 two before the candidates and the brass band — which he 
 hated — came to the Ridge. He was suspected of lia^'ing 
 overlooked Colonel Johnson's hand at poker, and of having 
 conveyed to the Colonel's adversary, by a succession of 
 baiks, the danger of betting against four kings. 
 
 While these statements were supplied by wholly unsup- 
 ported witnesses, it was a very human weakness of Rattlers 
 Ridge that the responsibility of corroboration was passed 
 to the dog himself, and he was looked upon as a consum- 
 mate liar. 
 
 " Snoopin' round yere, and callin' yourself a poker 
 sharp, are ye ! Scoot, you yaller pizin ! " was a common 
 adjuration whenever the unfortunate animal intruded upon 
 a card party. "Ef thar was a spark, an atom of truth in 
 that dog, I 'd believe my own eyes that I saw him sittin' 
 up and trying to magnetize a jay bird off a tree. But wot 
 arp ye goin' to do with a yaller equivocator like that? " 
 
 I have said that he was yellow — or, to use the ordinary 
 expression, "yaller." Indeed, I am inclined to believe 
 that much of the ignominy attached to the epithet lay in 
 this favorite pronunciation. Men who habitually spoke of 
 a "yellow bird," a "yellow hammer," a "yellow leaf," 
 always alluded to him as a "yaller dog." 
 
 He certainly ivas yellow. After a bath — usually com- 
 pulsory — he presented a decided gamboge streak down his 
 back, from the top of his forehead to the stump of his 
 tail, fading in his sides and flank to a delicate straw color. 
 His breast, legs, and feet — when not reddened by "slum- 
 gullion, " in which he was fond of wading — were white. 
 A few attempts at ornamental decoration from the India- 
 ink pot of the storekeeper failed, partly through the yellow 
 
438 A YELLOW DOG 
 
 dog's excessive agility, which, would never give the paint 
 time to dry on him, and partly through his success in 
 transferring his markings to the trousers and blankets of 
 the camp. 
 
 The size and shape of his tail — which had been cut off 
 before his introduction to Battlers Ridge — were favorite 
 sources of speculation to the miners, both as determining 
 his breed and his moral responsibility in coming into camp 
 in that defective condition. There was a general opinion 
 that he could n't have looked worse with a taU, and its 
 removal was therefore a gratuitous effrontery. 
 
 His best feature was his eyes, which were a lustrous 
 Vandyke brown, and sparkling with intelligence ; but here 
 again he suffered from evolution through environment, and 
 their original trustful openness was marred by the experi- 
 ence of watching for flying stones, sods, and passing kicks 
 from the rear, so that the pupils were continually revert- 
 ing to the outer angle of the eyelid. 
 
 Nevertheless, none of these characteristics decided the 
 vexed question of his breed. His speed and scent pointed 
 to a "hound," and it is related that on one occasion he 
 was laid on the trail of a wildcat with such success that he 
 followed it apparently out of the State, returning at the 
 end of two weeks, footsore, but blandly contented. 
 
 Attaching himself to a prospecting party, he was sent 
 under the same belief " into the brush " to drive off a bear, 
 who was supposed to be haunting the camp-fire. He re- 
 turned in a few minutes with the bear, driving it into the 
 unaimed circle and scattering the whole party. After this 
 the theory of his being a hunting dog was abandoned. 
 Yet it was said — on the usual uncorroborated evidence — 
 that he had " put up " a quail ; and his qualities as a 
 retriever were for a long time accepted, until, during a 
 shooting expedition for wild ducks, it was discovered that 
 the one he had brought back had never been shot, and the 
 
A YELLOW DOG 439 
 
 party were obliged to compound damages with an adjacent 
 pettier. 
 
 His fondness for paddling in the ditches and "slumgul- 
 fion" at one time suggested a water spaniel. He could 
 iwim, and would occasionally bring out of the river sticks 
 ind pieces of bark that had been thrown in; but as he 
 always had to be thrown in with them, and was a good- 
 sized dog, his aquatic reputation faded also. He remained 
 simply "a yaller dog." What more could be said? His 
 actual name was " Bones " — given to him, no doubt, 
 through the provincial custom of confounding the occupa- 
 tion of the individual with his quality, for which it was 
 pointed out precedent could be found in some old English 
 family names. 
 
 But if Bones generally exhibited no preference for any 
 particular individual in camp, he always made an exception 
 in favor of drunkards. Even an ordinary roystering bac- 
 chanalian party brought him out from under a tree or a 
 shed in the keenest satisfaction. He would accompany 
 them through the long straggling street of the settlement, 
 barking his delight at every step or mis-step of the revel- 
 ers, and exhibiting none of that mistrust of eye which 
 marked his attendance upon the sane and the respectable. 
 He accepted even their uncouth play without a snarl or a 
 yelp, hypocritically pretending even to like it; and I con- 
 scientiously believe would have allowed a tin can to be 
 attached to his tail if the hand that tied it on were only 
 unsteady, and the voice that bade him "lie still" were 
 husky with liquor. He would "see" the party cheerfully 
 into a saloon, wait outside the door — his tongue fairly 
 lolling from his mouth in enjoyment — until they re- 
 appeared, permit them even to tumble over him with 
 pleasure, and then gambol away before them, heedless of 
 awkwardly projected stones and epithets. He would after- 
 wards accompany them separately home, or lie with them 
 
440 A YELLOW DOG 
 
 at cross roads until they were assisted to theii cabins. 
 Then he would trot rakishly to his own haunt by the 
 saloon stove, with the slightly conscious air of having been 
 a bad dog, yet of having had a good time. 
 
 We never could satisfy ourselves whether his enjoyment 
 arose from some merely selfish conviction that he was 
 more secure with the physically and mentally incompetent, 
 from some active sympathy with active wickedness, or from 
 a grim sense of this own mental superiority at such mo- 
 ments. But the general belief leant towards his Idndreii 
 sympathy as a " yaller dog " with all that was disreputable. 
 And this was supported by another very singular canine 
 manifestation — the " sincere flattery " of simulation or 
 imitation. 
 
 "Uncle Billy" Eiley for a short time enjoyed the posi- 
 tion of being the camp drunkard, and at once became an 
 object of Bones' greatest solicitude. He not only accom- 
 panied him everywhere, curled at his feet or head accord- 
 ing to Uncle Billy's attitude at the moment, but, it was 
 noticed, began presently to undergo a singular alteration in 
 his own habits and appearance. Erora being an active, 
 tireless scout and forager, a bold and nnovertakable ma- 
 rauder, he became lazy and apathetic; allowed gophers to 
 burrow under him without endeavoring to undermine the 
 settlem_ent in his frantic endeavors to dig them out, per- 
 mitted squirrels to flash their tails at him a hundred yards 
 away, forgot his usual caches, and left his favorite bones 
 unburied and bleaching in the sun. His eyes grew dull, 
 his coat lustreless, in proportion as his companion became 
 blear-eyed and ragged; in running, his usual arrow-like 
 directness began to deviate, and it was not unusual to meet 
 the pair together, zig-zagging up the hill. Indeed, Uncle 
 Billy's condition could be predetermined by Bones' appear- 
 ance at times when his temporary master was invisible. 
 "The old man must have an awful jag on to-day," was 
 
A YELLOW DOG 441 
 
 casually remarked when an extra fluffiness and imbecility 
 was noticeable in the passing Bones. At first it was be- 
 lieved that he drank also, but when careful investigation 
 proved this hypothesis untenable, be was freely called a 
 "derned time-servin', yaller hypocrite." Not a few ad- 
 vanced the opinion that if Bones did not actually lead 
 Uncle Billy astray, he at least "slavered him over and 
 coddled him until the old man got conceited in his wicked- 
 ness." This undoubtedly led to a compulsory divorce 
 between them, and Uncle Billy was happily despatched to 
 a neighboring town and a doctor. 
 
 Bones seemed to miss him greatly, ran away for two 
 days, and was supposed to have visited him, to have been 
 shocked at his convalescence, and to have been " cut " by 
 Uncle Billy in his reformed character ; and he returned to 
 his old active life again, and buried his past with his for- 
 gotten bones. It was said that he was afterwards detected 
 in trying to lead an intoxicated tramp into camp after the 
 methods employed by a blind man's dog, biit was discov- 
 ered in time by the — of course — uncorroborated narrator. 
 
 I should be tempted to leave him thus in his original 
 and picturesque sin, but the same veracity which compelled 
 me to transcribe his faults and iniquities obliges me to 
 describe his ultimate and somewhat monotonous reforma- 
 tion, which came from no fault of his own. 
 
 It was a joyous day at Rattlers Ridge that was equally 
 the advent of his change of heart and the first stagecoacli 
 that had been induced to diverge from the highroad and 
 stop regularly at our settlement. Flags were flying from 
 the post office and Polka saloon — and Bones was flying 
 before the brass band that he detested, when the sweetesi 
 girl in the county — Pinkey Preston — daughter of the 
 county judge and hopelessly beloved by all Rattlers Ridge, 
 stepped from the coach which she had glorified by occupying 
 as an invited guest. 
 
442 A YELLOW DOG 
 
 " What makes him run away ? " she asked quickly, 
 opening her lovely eyes in a possible innocent wonder that 
 anything could be found to run away from her. 
 
 "He don't like the brass band," we explained eagerly. 
 
 "How funny," murmured the girl; "is it as out of tune 
 as all that ? " 
 
 This irresistible witticism alone would have been enough 
 to satisfy us — we did nothing but repeat it to each other 
 all the next day — but we were positively transported 
 when we saw her suddenly gather her dainty skirts in one 
 hand and trip off through the red dust towards Bones, 
 who, with his eyes over his yellow shoulder, had halted in 
 the road, and half turned in mingled disgust and rage at 
 the spectacle of the descending trombone. We held our 
 breath as she approached him. Would Bones evade her 
 as he did us at such moments, or would he save our repu- 
 tation, and consent, for the moment, to accept her as a 
 new kind of inebriate 1 She came nearer ; he saw her ; he 
 began to slowly quiver with excitement — his stump of a 
 tail vibrating with such rapidity that the loss of the miss- 
 ing portion was scarcely noticeable. Suddenly she stopped 
 before him, took his yellow head between her little hands, 
 lifted it, and looked down in his handsome brown eyes 
 with her two lovely blue ones. What passed between 
 them in that magnetic glance no one ever knew. She 
 returned with him ; said to him casually : " We 're not 
 afraid of brass bands, are we ? " to which he apparently 
 acquiesced, at least stifling his disgust of them, while he 
 was near her — which was nearly all the time. 
 
 During the speech-making her gloved hand and his yel- 
 low head were always near together, and at the crowning 
 ceremony — her public checking of Yuba Bill's "waybill," 
 on behalf of the township, with a gold pencil, presented 
 to her by the Stage Company — Bones' joy, far from know- 
 ing no bounds, seemed to know nothing but them, and he 
 
A YELLOW DOG 443 
 
 ■witnessed it apparently in the air. No one dared to inter- 
 fere. For the first time a local pride in Bones sprang up 
 in our hearts — and we lied to each other in his praises 
 openly and shamelessly. 
 
 Then the time came for parting. We were standing hy 
 the door of the coach, hats in hand, as Miss Pinkey was 
 about to step into it; Bones was waiting by her side, confi- 
 dently looking into the interior, and apparently selecting 
 his own seat on the lap of Judge Preston in the corner, 
 when Miss Pinkey held up the sweetest of admonitory 
 fingers. Then, taking his head between her two hands, 
 she again looked into his brimming eyes, and said, simply, 
 " Good dog," with the gentlest of emj)hasis on the adjec- 
 tive, and popped into the coach. 
 
 The six bay horses started as one, the gorgeous green 
 and gold vehicle bounded forward, the red dust rose be- 
 hind, and the yellow dog danced in and out of it to the 
 very outskirts of the settlement. And then he soberly 
 returned. 
 
 A day or two later he was missed — but the fact was 
 afterwards known that he was at Spring Valley, the county 
 town where Miss Preston lived — and he was forgiven. 
 A week afterwards he was missed again, but this time fot 
 a longer period, and then a pathetic letter arrived from 
 Sacramento for the storekeeper's wife. 
 
 "Would you mind," wrote Miss Pinkey Preston, "ask- 
 ing some of your boys to come over here to Sacramento 
 and bring back Bones? I don't mind having the dear dog 
 walk out with me at Spring Valley, where every one knows 
 me ; but here he does make one so noticeable, on account 
 of his color. I 've got scarcely a frock that he agrees 
 with. He don't go with my pink muslin, and that lovely 
 buff tint he makes three shades lighter. You know yel- 
 low is so trying. " 
 
 A consultation was quickly held by the whole settle 
 
444 A YELLOW DOG 
 
 ment, and a deputation sent to Sacramento to relieve the 
 unfortunate girl. We were all quite indignant with Bones 
 
 — but, oddly enough, I think it was greatly tempered 
 with our new pride in him. While he was with us alone, 
 his peculiarities had been scarcely appreciated, but tlie 
 recurrent phrase, "that yellow dog that they keep at the 
 Battlers," gave us a mysterious importance along the coun- 
 try side, as if we had secured a " mascot " in some zoSlogi- 
 cal curiosity. 
 
 This was further indicated by a singular occurrence. A 
 new church had been built at the cross roads, and an emi- 
 nent divine had come from San Francisco to preach the 
 opening sermon. After a careful examination of the 
 camp's wardrobe, and some felicitous exchange of apparel, 
 a few of us were deputed to represent " Eattlers " at the 
 Sunday service. In our white ducks, straw hats, and 
 flannel blouses, we were sufficiently picturesque and dis- 
 tinctive as " honest miners " to be shown off in one of the 
 front pews. 
 
 Seated near the prettiest girls, who offered us their 
 hymn-books — in the cleanly odor of fresh pine shavings, 
 and ironed muslin, and blown over by the spices of our 
 own woods through the open windows, a deep sense of the 
 abiding peace of Christian communion settled upon us. 
 At this supreme moment some one murmured in an awe- 
 stricken whisper : — 
 
 " Will you look at Bones 1 " 
 
 We looked. Bones had entered the church and gone 
 up in the gallery through a pardonable ignorance and mod- 
 esty ; but, perceiving his mistake, was now calmly walking 
 along the gallery rail before the astounded worshipers. 
 Reaching the end, he paused for a moment, and carelessly 
 looked down. It was about fifteen feet to the floor below 
 
 — the simplest jump in the world for the mountain-bred 
 Bones. Daintily, gingerly, lazily, and yet with a conceited 
 
A YELLOW DOG 443 
 
 airiness of manner, as if, humanly speaking, he had one 
 leg in his pocket and were doing it on three, he cleared 
 the distance, dropping just in front of the chancel, without 
 a sound, turned himself around three times, and then lay- 
 comfortably down. 
 
 Three deacons were instantly in the aisle coming up be- 
 fore the eminent divine, who, we fancied, wore a restrained 
 smile. We heard the hurried whispers: "Belongs to 
 them." "Quite a local institution here, you know." 
 "Don't like to offend sensibilities;" and the minister's 
 prompt "By no means," as he went on with his service. 
 
 A short month ago we would have repudiated Bones; 
 to-day we sat there in slightly supercilious attitudes, as if 
 to indicate that any affront offered to Bones would be an 
 insult to ourselves, and followed by our instantaneous 
 withdrawal in a body. 
 
 All went well, however, until the minister, lifting the 
 large Bible from the communion table and holding it in 
 both hands before him, walked towards a reading-stand by 
 the altar rails. Bones uttered a distinct growl. The min- 
 ister stopped. 
 
 We, and we alone, comprehended in a flash the whole 
 situation. The Bible was nearly the size and .shape of one 
 of those soft clods o^ sod which we were in the playful 
 habit of launching at Bones'when he lay half asleep in tlie 
 sun, in order to see him cleverly evade it. 
 
 We held our breath. What was to be done ? But the 
 opportunity belonged to our leader, Jeff Briggs — a con- 
 foundedly good-looking fellow, with the golden mustache 
 of a northern viking and the curls of an Apollo. Secure 
 in his beauty and bland in his self-conceit, he rose from 
 the pew, and stepped before the chancel rails. 
 
 "I would wait a moment, if I were you, sir," he said, 
 respectfully, "and you will see that he will go out qui- 
 etly." 
 
446 A. YELLOW DOG 
 
 " What is wrong 1 " whispered the minister in some 
 concern. 
 
 " He thinks you are going to heave that book at him, 
 sir, without giving him a fair show, as we do." 
 
 The minister looked perplexed, but remained motionless, 
 with the book in his hands. Bones arose, walked half 
 way down the aisle, and vanished like a yellow flash! 
 
 With this justification of his reputation. Bones disap- 
 peared for a week. At the end of that time we received 
 a polite note from Judge Preston, saying that the dog had 
 become quite domiciled in their house, and begged that the 
 camp, without yielding up their valuable property in him, 
 would allow him to remain at Spring Valley for an indefi- 
 nite time; that both the judge and his daughter — with 
 whom Bones was already an old friend — would be glad if 
 the members of the camp would visit their old favorite 
 whenever they desired, to assure themselves that he was 
 well cared for. 
 
 I am afraid that the bait thus ingenuously thrown out 
 had a good deal to do with our ultimate yielding. How- 
 ever, the reports of those who visited Bones were wonder- 
 ful and marvelous. He was residing there in state, lying 
 on rugs in the drawing-room, coiled up under the judicial 
 desk in the judge's study, sleeping regularly on the mat 
 outside Miss Pinkey's bedroom door, or lazily snapping at 
 flies on the judge's lawn. 
 
 "He's as yaller as ever," said one of our informants, 
 "but it don't somehow seem to be the same back that wa 
 used to break clods over in the old time, just to see him 
 scoot out of the dust." 
 
 And now I must record a fact which I am aware all 
 lovers of dogs will indignantly deny, and which will be 
 furiously bayed at by every faithful hound since the days 
 of Ulysses. Bones not only forgot, but absolutely cut 
 us! Those who called upon the judge in "store clothes" 
 
A YELLOW DOG 447 
 
 lie would perhaps casually notice, but he would' sniff a', 
 them as if detecting and resenting them under their super- 
 ficial exterior. The rest he simply paid no attention to. 
 The more familiar term of " Bonesy " — formerly applied 
 to him, as in our rare moments of endearment — produced 
 no response. This pained, I think, some of the more 
 youthful of us; but, through some strange human weak- 
 ness, it also increased the camp's respect for him. Never- 
 theless, we spoke of him familiarly to strangers at the very 
 moment he ignored us. I am afraid that we also took 
 some pains to point out that he was getting fat and un- 
 wieldy, and losing his elasticity, implying covertly that his 
 choice was a mistake and his life a failure. 
 
 A year after he died, in the odor of sanctity and respec- 
 tability, being found one morning coiled up and stiff on 
 the mat outside Miss Pinkey's door. When the news was 
 conveyed to us, we asked permission, the camp being in 
 a prosperous condition, to erect a stone over his grave. 
 But when it came to the inscription we could only think 
 of the two words murmured to him by Miss Pinkey, which 
 we always believe effected his conversion: — 
 
 "GoodBogl"