Glass _^^ Book CG_ CdyrigteS ? jgig'^ 0OF»»GHT DEPOam THE WORKS OF BRET HARTR COLLECTED AND REVISED BY THE AUTHOR. CONDENSED NOVELS AND STORIES BY BRET HARTE ao BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY NEW YORK: II EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET 1882 P2- C4 Copyright, 187I5 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1879, By BRET HARTE, SUN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO. AND HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. Copyright, 1882, By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved CONTENTS. STORIES. rAOE THE STORY OF A MINE .,..,.,. 3 THANKFUL BLOSSOM : A ROMANCE OF THE JERSEYS . . .128 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN 1 92 JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY 252 CONDENSED NOVELS. MUCK- A-MUCK : A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL .... 339 SELINA SEDILIA 347 THE NINETY-NINE GUARDSMEN 356 MISS MIX , 364 MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY : A NAVAL OFFICER . . , . 375 CfUY HEAVYSTONE ; OR, ** ENTIRE:" A MUSCULAR NOVEL . 385 JOHN JENKINS ; OR, THE SMOKER REFORMED .... 393 FANTINE. AFTER THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO . . . 399 •'LAFEMME." AFTER THE FRENCH OF M. MICHELET . . 405 viii Contents, PAGtt THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD 4IO N N : BEING A NOVEL IN THE FRENCH PARAGRAPHIC STYLE . 416 NO TITLE 421 HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES . . . , . . 430 LOTHAW ; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION 44 1 THE HAUNTED MAN : A CHRISTMAS STORY .... 452 THE HOODLUM BAND J OR, THE BOY CHIEF, THE INFANT POLITICIAN, AND THE PIRATE PRODIGY .... 461 STORIES. VOL. V. Cfie ©tors of a 9@me» CHAPTER I. WHO SOUGHT IT. It was a steep trail leading over the Mofiterey Coast Range. Concho was very tired, Concho was very dusty, Concho was very much disgusted. To Concho's mind there was but one relief for these insurmountable diffi- culties, and that lay in a leathern bottle slung over the machillas of his saddle. Concho raised the bottle to his lips, took a long draught, made a wry face, and ejaculated — « Carajo ! " It appeared that the bottle did not contain aguardiente, but had lately been filled in a tavern near Tres Pinos by an Irishman who sold bad American whisky under that pleasing Castilian title. Nevertheless Concho had already nearly emptied the bottle, and it fell back against the saddle as yellow and flaccid as his own cheeks. Thus reinforced, Concho turned to look at the valley behind him, from which he had climbed since noon. It was a sterile waste bordered here and there by arable fringes and valdas of meadow land, but in the main dusty, dry, and forbidding. His eye rested for a moment on a low white cloud-line on the eastern horizon, but so mocking and unsubstantial that it seemed to come and go as he gazed. Concho struck his forehead and winked his hot eyelids. Was it the Sierras or the cursed American whisky ? 4 The Story of a Mine. Again he recommenced the ascent. At times the half- worn, half-visible trail became utterly lost in the bare black out-crop of the ridge, but his sagacious mule soon found it again, until, stepping upon a loose boulder, she slipped and fell. In vain Concho tried to Hft her from out the ruin of camp kettles, prospecting pans and picks; she remained quietly recumbent, occasionally raising her head as if to contemplatively glance over the arid plain below. Then he had recourse to useless blows. Then he essayed pro- fanity of a secular kind, such as "Assassin," '* Thief," "Beast with a pig's head," "Food for the bull's horns," but with no effect. Then he had recourse to the curse ecclesiastic — "Ah, Judas Iscariot ! is it thus, renegade and traitor, thou leavest me, thy master, a league from camp, and supper waiting ? Stealer of the Sacrament, get up ! " Still no effect. Concho began to feel uneasy; never before had a mule of pious lineage failed to respond to this kind of exhortation. He made one more desperate attempt — "Ah, defiler of the altar! lie not there! Look!" he threw his hand into the air, extending the fingers suddenly. " Behold, fiend ! I exorcise thee ! Ha ! tremblest ! Look but a little now — see ! Apostate 1 I— •! — excommunicate thee— Mula 1 " " What are you kicking up such a devil of a row down there for ? " said a gruff voice from the rocks above. Concho shuddered. Could it be that the devil was really going to fly away with his mule ? He dared not look up. "Come now," continued the voice, "you just let up on that mule, you d— d old Greaser. Don't you see she's slipped her shoulder?" Alarmed as Concho was at the information, he could not help feeling to a certain extent relieved. She was lamed, but had not lost her standing as ^ good CathoHc. The Story of a Mi7ie. 5 He ventured to lift his eyes. A stranger — an Americano from his dress and accent — was descending the rocks toward him. He was a slight-built man with a dark, smooth face, that would have been quite commonplace and inex- pressive but for his left eye, in which all that was villanous in him apparently centred. Shut that eye, and you had the features and expression of an ordinary man ; cover up those features, and the eye shone out like Eblis' own. Nature had apparently observed this too, and had, by a paralysis of the nerve, ironically dropped the corner of the upper lid over it like a curtain, laughed at her handiwork, and turned him loose to prey upon a credulous world. " What are you doing here ? " said the stranger after he had assisted Concho in bringing the mule to her feet, and a helpless halt. " Prospecting, Senor." The stranger turned his respectable right eye toward Concho, while his left looked unutterable scorn and wicked- ness over the landscape. " Prospecting, what for ? " "Gold and silver, Seiior; yet for silver most." "Alone?" " Of us there are four." The stranger looked around. " In camp — a league beyond," explained the Mexican. " Found anything ? " " Of this — much." Concho took from his saddle-bags a lump of greyish iron ore, studded here and there with star points of pyrites. The stranger said nothing, but his eye looked a diabolical suggestion. "You are lucky, friend Greaser." " Eh ? " " It is silver." " How know you this ? " 6 The Story of a Mine, " It is my business. I'm a metallurgist." " And you can say what shall be silver and what is not." " Yes — see here ! " The stranger took from his saddle- bags a little leather case containing some half-dozen phials. One, enwrapped in dark-blue paper, he held up to Concho. " This contains a preparation of silver." Concho's eyes sparkled, but he looked doubtingly at the stranger. " Get me some water in your pan." Concho emptied his water bottle in his prospecting pan and handed it to the stranger. He dipped a dried blade of grass in the bottle, and then let a drop fall from its tip in the water. The water remained unchanged. " Now throw a little salt in the water," said the stranger. Concho did so. Instantly a white film appeared on the surface, and presently the whole mass assumed a milky hue. Concho crossed himself hastily, " Mother of God, it is magic ! " " It is chloride of silver, you darned fool." Not content with this cheap experiment, the stranger then took Concho's breath away by reddening some litmus paper with the nitrate, and then completely knocked over the simple Mexican by restoring its colour by dipping it in the salt water. " You shall try me this," said Concho, offering his iron ore to the stranger ; " you shall use the silver and the salt." " Not so fast, my friend," answered the stranger. " In the first place this ore must be melted, and then a chip taken and put in shape like this ; and that is worth something, my Greaser cherub. No, sir, a man don't spend all his youth at Freiburg and Heidelberg to throw away his science- gratuitously on the first Greaser he meets." The Story of a Mine. 7 " It will cost — eh — how much ! " said the Mexican eagerly. "Well, I should say it would take about a hundred dollars and expenses to — to — find silver in that ore. But once you've got it there, you're all right for tons of it." "You shall have it," said the now excited Mexican. "You shall have it of us — the four! You shall come to our camp and shall melt it — and show the silver and— enough ! Come," and in his feverishness he clutched the hand of his companion as if to lead him forth at once. " What are you going to do with your mule ? " said the stranger. " True, Holy Mother ! what, indeed ? " " Look yer," said the stranger, with a grim smile, " she won't stray far, I'll be bound. I've an extra pack-mule above here ; you can ride on her, and lead me into camp, and to-morrow come back for your beast." Poor honest Concho's heart sickened at the prospect of leaving behind the tired servant he had objurgated so strongly a moment before, but the love of gold was upper- most. " I will come back to thee, little one, to-morrow, a rich man. Meanwhile, wait thou here, patient one. Adios, thou smallest of mules, AdiosI^* And seizing the stranger's hand he clambered up the rocky ledge until they reached the summit. Then the stranger turned and gave one sweep of his malevolent eye over the valley. Wherefore, in after years, when their story was related, with the devotion of true Catholic pioneers, they named the mountain " La Canada de la Visitacion del Diablo^'' " The Gulch of the Visitation of the Devil," the same being now the boundary lines of one of the famous Mexican land grants. 8 The Story of a Mine. CHAPTER II. WHO FOUND IT. Concho was so impatient to reach the camp and deliver his good news to his companions that more than once the stranger was obhged to command him to slacken his pace. '* Is it not enough, you infernal Greaser, that you lame your own mule, but you must try your hand on mine ? Or am I to put Jinny down among the expenses ? " he added with a grin and a shght lifting of his baleful eyelid. When they had ridden a mile along the ridge they began to descend again toward the valley. Vegetation now spar- ingly bordered the trail, clumps of chimisal, an occasional Manzanita bush, and one or two dwarfed? "buckeyes" rooted their way between the interstices of the black-grey rock. Now and then, in crossing some dry gully worn by the overflow of winter torrents from above, the greyish rock gloom was relieved by dull red and brown masses of colour, and almost every overhanging rock bore the mark of a miner's pick. Presently, as they rounded the curving flank of the mountain, from a rocky bench below them, a thin ghost-like stream of smoke seemed to be steadily drawn by invisible hands into the invisible ether. " It is the camp," said Concho gleefully ; " I will myself forward to prepare them for the stranger ; " and before his companion could detain him he had disappeared at a sharp canter around the curve of the trail. Left to himself, the stranger took a more leisurely pace, which left him ample time for reflection. Scamp as he was, there was something in the simple credulity of poor Concho that made him uneasy. Not that his moral con- sciousness was touched, but he feared that Concho's companions might, knowing Concho's simplicity, instantly The Story of a Mine, 9 suspect him of trading upon it. He rode on in a deep study. Was he reviewing his past life ? A vagabond by birth and education, a swindler by profession, an outcast by reputa- tion, without absolutely turning his back upon respectability, he had trembled on the perilous edge of criminality ever since his boyhood. He did not scruple to cheat these Mexicans, they were a degraded race ; and for a moment he felt almost an accredited agent of progress and civilisa- tion. We never really understand the meaning of enlighten- ment until we begin to use it aggressively. A few paces farther on four figures appeared in the now gathering darkness of the trail. The stranger quickly recog- nised the beaming smile of Concho, foremost of the- party. A quick glance at the faces of the others satisfied him that, while they lacked Concho's good humour, they certainly did not surpass him in intellect. " Pedro " was a stout vaquero. " Manuel " was a slim half-breed and ex-convert of the Mission of San Carmel, and " Miguel " a recent butcher of Monterey. Under the benign influences of Concho that suspicion with which the ignorant regard strangers died away, and the whole party escorted the stranger — ^who had given his name as Mr. Joseph Wiles — to their camp-fire. So anxious were they to begin their experiments that even the instincts of hospitality were forgotten, and it was not until Mr. Wiles — now known as " Don Jose " — sharply re- minded them that he wanted some " grub," that they came to their senses. When the frugal meal oi tortillas, frijolesy salt pork, and chocolate was over, an oven was built of the dark red rock brought from the ledge before them, and an earthenware jar, glazed by some peculiar local process, tiglitly fitted over it, and packed with clay and sods. A fire was speedily built of pine boughs continually brought from a wooded ravine below, and in a few moments the furnace was in full blast. Mr. Wiles did not participate in TO The Story of a Mine. these active preparations, except to give occasional direc- tions between his teeth, which were contemplatively fixed over a clay pipe as he lay comfortably on his back on the gromid. Whatever enjoyment the rascal may have had in their useless labours he did not show it, but it was observed that his left eye often followed the broad figure of the ex- vaquero, Pedro, and often dwelt on that worthy's beetling brows and half-savage face. Meeting that baleful glance once Pedro growled out an oath, but could not resist a hideous fascination that caused him again and again to seek it. The scene was weird enough without Wiles' eye to add to its wild picturesqueness. The mountain towered above — a heavy Rembrandtish mass of black shadow — sharply cut here and there against a sky so inconceivably remote that the world-sick soul must have despaired of ever reach- ing so far, or of climbing its steel-blue walls. The stars were large, keen, and brilliant, but cold and steadfast. They did not dance nor twinkle in their adamantine setting. The furnace fire painted the faces of the men an Indian red, glanced on brightly coloured blanket and scrape, but was eventually caught and absorbed in the waiting shadows of the black mountain, scarcely twenty feet from the furnace door. The low, half-sung, half-whispered foreign speech of the group, the roaring of the furnace, and the quick, sharp yelp of a coyote on the plain below, were the only sounds that broke the awful silence of the hills. It was almost dawn when it was announced that the ore had fused. And it was high time, for the pot was slowly sinking into the fast-crumbling oven. Concho uttered a jubilant " God and Liberty," but Don Jose Wiles bade him be silent and bring stakes to support the pot. Then Don Jos6 bent over the seething mass. It was for a moment only. But in that moment this accomplished. metallurgist, The Story of a Mine. i r Mr. Joseph Wiles, had quietly dropped a silver half dollar into the pot ! Then he charged them to keep up the fires and went to sleep — all but one eye. Dawn came with dull beacon fires on the near hill-tops, and far in the east, roses over the Sierran snow. Birds twittered in the alder fringes a mile below, and the creak- ing of waggon wheels — the waggon itself a mere fleck of dust in the distant road — was heard distinctly. Then the melt- ing-pot was solemnly broken by Don Jose, and the glowing incandescent mass turned into the road to cool. And then the metallurgist chipped a small fragment from the mass and pounded it, and chipped another smaller piece and pounded that, and then subjected it to acid, and then treated it to a salt bath which became at once milky, and at last produced a white something — mirabile dictu ! — two cents' worth of silver ! Concho shouted with joy, the rest gazed at each other doubtingly and distrustfully ; companions in poverty, they began to diverge and suspect each other in prosperity. Wiles' left eye glanced ironically from the one to the other. " Here is the hundred dollars, Don Jose," said Pedro, handing the gold to Wiles with a decidedly brusque intima- tion that the services and presence of a stranger were no longer required. Wiles took the money with a gracious smile and a wink that sent Pedro's heart into his boots, and was turning away, when a cry from Manuel stopped him. " The pot — the pot — it has leaked ! look ! behold ! see ! " He had been cleaning away the crumbled fragments of the furnace to get ready for breakfast, and had disclosed a shining pool of quicksilver ! Wiles started, cast a rapid glance around the group, saw 12 The Story of a Mine. in a flash that the metal was unknown to them, and then said quietly — " It is not silver." *' Pardon, Seiior ; it is, and still molten." Wiles stooped and ran his fingers through the shining metal. " Mother of God ! what is it then, m.agic?" "No, only base metal." But then Concho, emboldened by Wiles' experiment, attempted to seize a handful of the glittering mass, that instantly broke through his fingers in a thousand tiny spherules, and even sent a few globules up his shirt sleeves, until he danced around in mingled fear and childish pleasure. " And it is not worth the taking? " queried Pedro of Wiles. Wiles' right eye and bland face were turned toward the speaker, but his malevolent left was glancing at the dull red-brown rock on the hill-side. " No ! " — and, turning abruptly away, he proceeded to saddle his mule. Manuel, Miguel, and Pedro, left to themselves, began talking earnestly together; while Concho, now mindful of his crippled mule, made his way back to the trail where he had left her. But she was no longer there. Constant to her master through beatings and bullyings, she could not stand incivility and inattention. There are certain quaUties of the sex that belong to all animated nature. Inconsolable, footsore, and remorseful, Concho returned to the camp and furnace, three miles across the rocky ridge. But what was his astonishment on arriving to find the place deserted of man, mule, and camp equipage. Concho called aloud. Only the echoing rocks grimly answered him. Was it a trick ? Concho tried to laugh. Ah — yes — a good one — a joke — no — no — they had deserted him ! And then poor Concho bowed his head to the ground, and, falling on his face, cried as if his honest heart would break. The Story of a Mine. 1 3 The tempest passed in a moment ; it was not Concho's nature to suffer long nor brood over an injury. As he raised his head again his eye caught the shimmer of the quicksilver — that pool of merry antic metal that had so de- lighted him an hour before. In a few moments Concho was again disporting with it ; chasing it here and there, rolling it in his palms, and laughing with boylike glee at its elusive freaks and fancies. "Ah, sprightly one — skipjack — there thou goest — come here. This way — now I have thee, little one — come muchacha — come and kiss me," until he had quite forgotten the defection of his companions. And even when he shouldered his sorry pack he was fain to carry his playmate away with him in his empty leathern flask. And yet I fancy the sun looked kindly on him as he strode cheerily down the black mountain side, and his step was none the less free nor light that he carried with him neither the silver nor the crime of his late comrades. CHAPTER III. WHO CLAIMED IT. The fog had already closed in on Monterey and was now rolling, a white, billowy sea, above, that soon shut out the blue breakers below. Once or twice in descending the mountain Concho had overhung the cliff and looked down upon the curving horseshoe of a bay below him, distant yet many miles. Earlier in the afternoon he had seen the gilt cross on the whitefaced Mission flare in the sunlight, but now all was gone. By the time he reached the highway of the town it was quite dark, and he plunged into the first fonda at the wayside, and endeavoured to forget his woes and his weariness in aguardiente. But Concho's head ached, and his back ached, and he was so generally distressed that 14 The Story of a Mine. he bethought him of a medico — an American doctor — lately come into the town, who had once treated Concho and his mule with apparently the same medicine and after the same heroic fashion. Concho reasoned, not illogically, that if he were to be physicked at all he ought to get the worth of his money. The grotesque extravagance of life, of fruit and vegetable, in California was inconsistent with infinitesimal doses. In Concho^s -previous illness the Doctor had given him a dozen 4-gr. quinine powders. The following day the grateful Mexican walked into the Doctor's office — cured. The Doctor was gratified until, on examination, it appeared that to save trouble, and because his memory was poor, Concho had taken all the powders in one dose. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and — altered his practice. "Well," said Dr. Guild, as Concho sank down ex- haustedly in one of the Doctor's two chairs, " what now ? Have you been sleeping again in the tule marshes, or are you upset with commissary whisky ? Come, have it out." But Concho declared that the devil was in his stomach, that Judas Iscariot had possessed himself of his spine, that imps were in his forehead, and that his feet had been scourged by Pontius Pilate. "That means 'blue mass,'" said the Doctor. And gave it to him, a bolus as large as a musket ball and as heavy. Concho took it on the spot and turned to go. " I have no money, Senor Medico." "Never mind. It's only a dollar, the price of the medicine." Concho looked guilty at having gulped- down so much cash. Then he said timidly — " I have no money, but I have got here that which is fine and jolly. It is yours," and he handed over the The Story of a Mme. 1 5 contents of the precious tin can he had brought with him. The Doctor took it, looked at the shivering volatile mass, and said, "Why, this is quicksilver !" Concho laughed, "Yes, very quick silver, so !" and he snapped his fingers to show its sprightliness. The Doctor's face grew earnest. "Where did you get this, Concho ? " he finally asked. " It ran from the pot in the mountains beyond." The Doctor looked incredulous. Then Concho related the whole story. " Could you find that spot again ? " " Madre de Dios^ yes. I have a mule there j may the devil fly away with her ! " " And you say your comrades saw this ? " « Why not ? " " And you say they afterwards left you — deserted you ? " " They did, ingrates ! " The Doctor arose and shut his office door. " Hark ye, Concho," he said, " that bit of medicine I gave you just now was worth a dollar. It was worth a dollar because the material of which it was composed was made from the stuff you have in that can — quicksilver or mercury. It is one of the most valuable of metals, especially in a gold- mining country. My good fellow, if you know where to find enough of it, your fortune is made." Concho rose to his feet. " Tell me, was the rock you built your furnace of, red ? " "Si, Seiior." " And brown." "Si, Senor." " And crumbled under the heat ? " "As to nothing." "And did you see much of this red rock ? " 1,6 The Story of a Mine, , " The mountain mother is in travail with it." "Are you sure that your comrades have not taken possession of the mountain mother ? " "As how?" " By claiming its discovery under the mining laws, or by pre-emption ? " " They shall not." " But how will you. singlehanded, fight the four 1 for I doubt not your scientific friend has a hand in it." "I will fight." " Yes, my Concho ; but suppose I take the fight ofi" your hands. Now, here's a proposition : I will get half a dozen Americanos to go in with you. You will have to get money to work the mine — you will need funds. You shall share half with them. They will take the risk, raise the money, and protect you." " I see," said Concho, nodding his head and winking his eyes rapidly. " Bueno ! " "I will return in ten minutes," said the Doctor, taking his hat. He was as good as his word. In ten minutes he returned with six original locaters, a board of directors, a president, secretary, and a deed of incorporation of the " Blue Mass Quicksilver Mining Co." This latter was a delicate compliment to the Doctor, who was popu- lar. The President added to these necessary articles a revolver. " Take it," he said, handing over the weapon to Concho, " take it ; my horse is outside ; take that, ride like h — 1 and hang on until we come ! " In another moment Concho was in the saddle. Then the raining director lapsed into the physician. " I hardly know," said Dr. Guild doubtfully, " if in your present condition you ought to travel. You have just The Story of a Mine, 1 7 taken a powerful medicine," and the Doctor looked hypo- critically concerned. "Ah — the devil ! " laughed Concho -, ''what is the quick- silver that is in to that which is out ? Hoopa la ! Mula ! " and with a clatter of hoofs and jingle of spurs, he was presently lost in the darkness. "You were none too soon, gentlemen/' said the American alcalde, as he drew up before the Doctor's door ; " another company has just been incorporated for the same location, I reckon." "Who are they?" " Three Mexicans : Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel, headed by that d — d cockeyed Sydney Duck, Wiles." " Are they here ? " " Manuel and Miguel only. The others are over at Tres Pinos lally-gagging Roscommon and trying to rope him in to pay off their whisky bills at his grocery." " If that's so we needn't start before sunrise, for they're sure to get roaring drunk." And this legitimate successor of the grave Mexican alcaldes, having thus delivered his impartial opinion, rode away. Meanwhile, Concho the redoubtable, Concho the fortu- nate, spared neither riata nor spur. The way was dark, the trail obscure and at times even dangerous, and Concho, familiar as he was with these mountain fastnesses, often regretted his surefooted " Francisquita." " Care not, O Concho," he would say to himself, " 'tis but a little while, only a Httle while, and thou shalt have another Francis- quita to bless thee. EH, skipjack, there was fine music to thy dancing. A dollar for an ounce — 'tis as good as silver, and merrier." Yet for all his good spirits he kept a sharp look-out at certain bends of the mountain trail ; not foi assassins or brigands, for Concho was physically courageous, VOL. v. B 1 8 The Story of a Mine, but for the Evil One, who, in various forms, was said to lurk in the Santa Cruz Range, to the great discomfort of all true Catholics. He recalled the incident of Ignacio, a muleteer of the Franciscan Friars, who, stopping at the " Angelus " to repeat the " Credo," saw Luzbel plainly in the likeness of a monstrous grizzly bear, mocking him by sitting on his haunches and lifting his paws, clasped together, as if in prayer. Nevertheless, with one hand grasping his reins and his rosary, and the other clutching his whisky flask and revolver, he fared on so excellently that he reached the summit as the earlier streaks of dawn were outlining the far-off Sierran peaks. Tethering his horse on a strip of tableland, he descended cautiously afoot until he reached the bench, the wall of red rock, and the crumbled and dismantled furnace. It was as he had left it that morning j there was no trace of recent human visitation. Revolver in hand, Concho examined every cave, gully, and recess, peered behind trees, penetrated copses of buckeye and Manzanita, and listened. There was no sound but the faint soughing of the wind over the pines below him. For a while he paced backward and forward with a vague sense of being a sentinel, but his mercurial nature soon rebelled against this monotony, and soon the fatigues of the day began to tell upon him. Recourse to his whisky flask only made him the drowsier, until at last he was fain to lie down and roll himself up tightly in his blanket. The next moment he was sound asleep. His horse neighed twice from the summit, but Concho heard him not. Then the brush crackled on the ledge above him, a small fragment of rock rolled near his feet; but he stirred not. And then two black figures were out- lined on the crags beyond. "St-t-t !" whispered avoice. "There is one lying beside the furnace." The speech was Spanish, but the voice was Wiles. The Story of a Mine. 19 The other figure crept cautiously to the edge of the crag and looked over. " It is Concho, the imbecile," said Pedro contemptuously. " But if he should not be alone, or if he should waken ? " " I will watch and wait. Go you and affix the notifica- tion." Wiles disappeared. Pedro began to creep down the face of the rocky ledge, supporting himself by chimisal and brushwood. The next moment Pedro stood beside the unconscious man. Then he looked cautiously around. The figure of his companion was lost in the shadow of the rocks above ; only a slight crackle of brush betrayed his whereabouts. Suddenly Pedro flung his serape over the sleeper's head, and then threw his powerful frame and tremendous weight full upon Concho's upturned face, while his strong arms clasped the blanket^pinioned limbs of his victim. There was a momentary upheaval, a spasm, and a struggle ; but the tightly-roUed blanket clung to the unfortunate man like cerements. There was no noise, no outcry, no sound of struggle. There was nothing to be seen but the peaceful, prostrate figures of the two men darkly outlined on the ledge. They might have been sleeping in each other's arms. In the black silence the stealthy tread of Wiles in the bush above was distinctly audible. Gradually the struggles grew fainter. Then a whisper from the crags — *' I can't see you. What are you doing ? " <*Watching!" « Sleeps he?" " He sleeps ! " "Soundly?" " Soundly." 20 The Story of a Mine. " After the manner of the dead ? " " After the fashion of the dead ! " The last tremor had ceased. Pedro rose as Wiles descended. " All is ready," said Wiles j " you are a witness of my placing the notifications ? " *'I am a witness." " But of this one ? " pointing to Concho. '' Shall we leave him here ? " "A drunken imbecile — why not ? " Wiles turned his left eye on the speaker. They chanced to be standing nearly in the same attitude they had stood the preceding night. Pedro uttered a cry and an impreca. tion, " Carramba ! Take your devil's eye from me ! What see you ? Eh — what ? " "Nothing, good Pedro," said Wiles, turning his bland right cheek to Pedro. The infuriated and half-frightened ex-vaquero returned the long knife he had half drawn from its sheath, and growled surlily — " Go on, then ! But keep thou on that side and I will on this." And so, side by side, listening, watching, distrustful of all things, but mainly of each other, they stole back and up into those shadows from which they might have been evoked. A half hour passed, in which the east brightened, flashed, and again melted into gold. And then the sun came up haughtily, and a fog that had stolen across the summit in the night arose and fled up the mountain side, tearing its white robes in its guilty haste, and leaving them fluttering from tree and crag and scar. A thousand tiny blades, nestling in the crevices of rocks, nurtured in storms, and rocked by the trade-winds, stretched their wan and feeble arms toward him ; but Concho the strong, Concho the brave, Concho the lighthearted, spake not nor stirred. The Story of a Mine. 2 1 CHAPTER IV. WHO TOOK IT. There was persistent neighing in the summit. Concho's horse wanted his breakfast. This protestation reached the ears of a party ascending the mountain from its western face. To one of the party it was famihar. " Why, blank it all, that's Chiquita. That d— d Mexi- can's lying drunk somewhere," said the President of the B, M. Co. " I don't like the look of this at all," said Dr. Guild, as they rode up beside the indignant animal. "If it had been an American it might have been carelessness, but no Greaser ever forgets his beast. Drive ahead, boys ; we may be too late." In half an hour they came in sight of the ledge below, the crumbled furnace, and the motionless figure of Concho, wrapped in a blanket, lying prone in the sunlight. " I told you so — drunk," said the President. The Doctor looked grave, but did not speak. They dis- mounted and picketed their horses. Then crept on all fours to the ledge above the furnace. There was a cry from Secretary Gibbs, " Look yer. Some fellar has been jumping us, boys. See these notices." There were two notices on canvas affixed to the rock, claiming the ground, and signed by Pedro, Manuel, Miguel, Wiles, and Roscommon. " This was done, Doctor, while your trustworthy Greaser locater — d — n him — lay there drunk. What's to be done now ?" But the Doctor was making his way to the unfortunate 2 2 The Story of a Mine, cause of their defeat lying there quite mute to their re- proaches. The others followed him. The Doctor knelt beside Concho, unrolled him, placed his hand upon his waist, his ear over his heart, and then said — *' Dead." *' Of course. He got medicine of you last night. This comes of your d — d heroic practice." But the Doctor was too much occupied to heed the speakers raillery. He had peered into Concho's protu- berant eye, opened his mouth, and gazed at the swollen tongue, and then suddenly rose to his feet. " Tear down those notices, boys, but keep them. Put up your own. Don't be alarmed, you will not be interfered with, for here is murder added to robbery." " Murder ! '^ " Yes," said the Doctor excitedly, " I'll take my oath on any inquest that this man was strangled to death. He was surprised while asleep. Look here." He pointed to the revolver still in Concho's stiffening hand, which the mur- dered man had instantly cocked, but could not use in the struggle. " That's so," said the President, " no man goes to sleep with a cocked revolver. What's to be done ? " *' Everything," said the Doctor. " This deed was com- mitted within the last two hours ; the body is still warm. The murderer did not come our way, or we should have met him on the trail. He is, if anywhere, between here and Tres Pinos." " Gentlemen," said the President with a slight prepara- tory and half-judicial cough, '' two of you will stay here and stick ! The others will follow me to Tres Pinos. The law has been outraged. You understand the Court ! " By some odd influence the little group of half-cynical. The Story of a Mine. 23 half-trifling, and wholly reckless men had become suddenly sober, earnest citizens. They said, " Go on," nodded their heads, and betook themselves to their horses. " Had we not better wait for the inquest and swear out a warrant ? " said the Secretary cautiously. " How many men have we ? " " Five ! " " Then," said the President, summing up the Revised Statutes of the State of California in one strong sentence ; *' then we don't want no d — d warrant." CHAPTER V. WHO HAD A LIEN ON IT. It was high noon at Tres Pinos. The three pines from which it gained its name, in the dusty road and hot air, seemed to smoke from their balsamic spires. There was a glare from the road, a glare from the sky, a glare from the rocks, a glare from the white canvas roofs of the few shanties and cabins which made up the village. There was even a glare from the unpainted red-wood boards of Ros- common's grocery and tavern, and a tendency on the warp- ing floor of the veranda to curl up beneath the feet of the intruder. A few mules, near the watering-trough, had shrunk within the scant shadow of the corral. The grocery business of Mr. Roscommon, although ade- quate and sufficient for the village, was not exhausting nor overtaxing to the proprietor ; the refilling of the pork and flour barrel of the average miner was the work of a brief hour on Saturday nights, but the daily replenishment of the average miner with whisky was arduous and incessant. Roscommon spent more time behind his bar than his grocer's counter. Add to this the fact that a long shed- 24 Th% Story of a Mine. like extension or wing bore the legend, " Cosmopolitan Hotel, Board or Lodging by the Day or Week. M. Ros- common," and you got an idea of the variety of the pro- prietor's functions. The "hotel," however, was more directly under the charge of Mrs. Roscommon, a lady of thirty years, strong, truculent^ and goodhearted. Mr. Roscommon had early adopted the theory that most of his customers were insane, and were to be alternately bullied or placated, as the case might be. Nothing that occurred, no extravagance of speech or act, ever ruffled his equilibrium, which was as dogged and stubborn as it was outwardly calm. When not serving liquors, or in the interval while it was being drunk, he was always wiping his counter with an exceedingly dirty towel, or, indeed, any- thing that came handy. Miners, noticing this purely per- functory habit, occasionally supplied him slyly with articles inconsistent with their service — fragments of their shirts and underclothing, floursacking, tow, and once with a flannel petticoat of his wife's, stolen from the line in the backyard. Roscommon would continue his wiping without looking up, but yet conscious of the presence of each customer. "And it's not another dhrop ye'll git, Jack Brown, until ye've wiped out the black score that stands agin ye." "And it's there ye are, darlint, and it's here's the bottle that's been lukin' for ye sins Saturday." " And fwhot hev ye done with the last I sent ye, ye divil of a M'Corkle, and here's me back that's bruk entoirely wid dipping intil the pork barl to give ye the best sides — and ye spending yur last cint on a tare into Gilroy. Whist ! and if it's fer foighting ye are, boys, there's an illigant bit o' sod'beyant the corral, and its maybe meself '11 come out wid a shtick and be sociable." On this particular day, however, Master Roscommon was not in his usual spirits, and when the clatter of horses' The Story of a Mine. 25 hoofs before the door announced the approach of strangers, he absolutely ceased wiping his counter, and looked up, as Dr. Guild, the President and Secretary of the new com- pany, strode into the shop. " We are looking," said the President, " for a man by the name of Wiles, and three Mexicans known as Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel." " Ye are ? " "We are!" " Faix, and I hope ye'll foind 'em. And if ye'll git from *em the score Pve got agin 'em, darlint, Til add a blessing to it." There was a laugh at this from the bystanders, who, somehow, resented the intrusion of these strangers. " I fear you will find it no laughing matter, gentlemen," said Dr. Guild a litde stiffly, "when I tell you that a murder has been committed, and the men I am seeking within an hour of that murder put up that notice signed by their names," and Dr. Guild displayed the paper. There was a breathless silence among the crowd as they eagerly pressed around the Doctor, Only Roscommon kept on wiping his counter. " You will observe, gentlemen, that the name of Ros- common also appears on this paper as one of the original locaters." "And sure, darlint," said Roscommon without looking up, if ye've no better ividince agin them boys then you have forninst me, it's home ye'd bether be riding to wanst. For it's meself as hasn't sturred fut out of the store the day and noight — more betoken as the boys I've sarved kin testify." " That's so, Ross," chorused the crowd ; " we've been running the old man all night." "Then how comes your name on this paper?" " Oh, murdher ! will ye listin to him, boys. As if every 26 The Story of a Mine. felly that owed me a whisky bill didn't come to me and say, ' Ah, l\Iisther Roscommon,' or ' Moike,' as the case moight be, sure it's an illigant sthrike I've made this day, and it's meself that has put down your name as an original locater, and yer fortune's made, Mr. Roscommon, and will yer fill me up another quart for the good luck betune you and me. Ah, but ask Jack Brown over yan if it isn't sick that I am of his original locations." The laugh that followed this speech, and its practical apphcation, convinced the party that they had blundered, that they could obtain no clue to the real culprits here, and that any attempt by threats would meet violent opposi- tion. Nevertheless the Doctor was persistent. " When di-d you see these men last ? " " When did I see them is it ? Bedad, what with sarvin' up the liquor and keeping me counters dry and swate I never see them at all." "That's so, Ross ! " chorused the crowd again, to whom the whole proceeding was delightfully farcical. " Then I can tell you, gentlemen," said the Doctor stiffly, "that they were in Monterey last night, that they did not return on that trail this morning, and that they must have passed here at daybreak." With these words, which the Doctor regretted as soon as delivered, the party rode away. Mr. Roscommon resumed his service and counterwiping. But late that night, when the bar was closed and the last loiterer summarily ejected, Mr. Roscommon, in the con- jugal privacy* of his chamber, produced a legal-looking paper. " Read it, Maggie, darlint \ for it's meself never had the larnin' nor the parts." Mrs. Roscommon took the paper. " Shure, it's law papers, making over some property to yis. O Moike ! ye havn't been spekilating ! " The Sto7y of a Mine. 27' " Whist ! and fwhotz that durty grey paper wid the sales and flourishes ? '' *' Faix, it bothers me intoirely. Shure it oin't in Eng- lish." " Whist ! Maggie, it's a Spanish grant ! " *' A Spanish grant ? O Moike, and what did ye giv for it?" Mr. Roscommon laid his finger beside his nose and said softly, "Whishky!" CHAPTER VI. HOW A GRANT WAS GOT FOR IT. While the Blue Mass Company, with more zeal than dis- cretion, were actively pursuing Pedro and Wiles over the road to Tres Pinos, Senores Miguel and Manuel were com- fortably seated in a fonda at Monterey, smoking cigarritos and discussing their late discovery. But they were in no better mood than their late companions, and it appeared from their conversation that in an evil moment they had sold out their interest in the alleged silver mine to Wiles and Pedro for a few hundred dollars, succumbing to what they were assured would be an active opposition on the part of the Americanos. The astute reader will easily^ understand that the accomplished Mr. Wiles did not inform them of its value as a quicksilver mine, although he was obliged to impart his secret to Pedro as a necessary accomplice and reckless coadjutor. That Pedro felt no qualms of conscience in thus betraying his two comrades may be inferred from his recent direct and sincere treat- ment of Concho ; and that he would, if occasion offered or policy made it expedient, as calmly obliterate Mr. Wiles — that gentleman himself never for a moment doubted. 28 ^ The Story of a Mine. " If we had waited but a little he would have given more, this cockeye ! " regretted Manuel querulously. "Not 2.peso^' said Miguel firmly. " And why, my Miguel ? Thou knowest we could have worked the mine ourselves." "Good, and lost even that labour. Look you, little brother. Show to me now the Mexican that has ever made a real of a mine in California. How many, eh? None ! Not a one. Who owns the Mexican's mine, eh ? America7ios I Who takes money from the Mexican's mine ? Ainericanos. Thou remembrest Briones, who spent a gold mine to make a silver one? Who has the lands and house of Briones? Americanos! Who has the cattle of Briones? Aj?tericanos / Who has the mine of Briones ? Amei'icanos / Who has the silver Briones never found ? Amei'icanos ! Always the same ! For- ever ! Ah ! carramba ! " Then the Evil One evidently took it into his head and horns to worry and toss these men — comparatively inno- cent as they were — still further, for a purpose. For presently to them appeared one Victor Garcia, whilom a clerk 01 the Ayuntemiento, who rallied them over aguar- diente, and told them the story of the quicksilver discovery, and the two mining claims taken out that night by Concho and Wiles. Whereat Manuel exploded with profanity and burnt blue with sulphurous malediction ; but Miguel, the recent ecclesiastic, sat livid and thoughtful. Finally came a pause in Manuel's bombardment, and something like this conversation took place between the cooler actors — Miguel (thoughtfully). When was it thou didst petition lor lands in the valley, friend Victor? Victor (amazedly). Never ! It is a sterile waste. Am I a fool? The Story of a Mine. 29 Miguel (softly). Thou didst. Of thy Governor, Michel- torena. I have seen the application. Victor (beginning to appreciate a rodential odor). Si ! I had forgotten. Art thou sure it was in the valley ? Miguel (persuasively). In the valley and up th.Qfalda.^ Victor (with decision). Certainly. Of a verity — the falda likewise. Miguel (eyeing Victor). And yet thou hadst not the grant. Painful is it that it should have been burned with the destruction of the other archives by the Americanos at Monterey. Victor (cautiously, feeling his way). Possibkfnente. Miguel. It might be wise to look into it. Victor (bluntly). As why ? Miguel. For our good and thine, friend Victor. We bring thee a discovery ; thou bringest us thy skill, thy experience, thy government knowledge — thy Custom.- House paper.t Manuel (breaking in drunkardly). But for what ? We are Mexicans. Are we not fated ? We shall lose. Who shall keep the Americanos off? Miguel. We shall take one American in ! Ha ! seest thou ? This American comrade shall bribe his courts, his corregidores. After a little he shall supply the men who invent the machine of steam, the mill, the furnace, eh ? Victor. But who is he — not to steal ? Miguel. He is that man of Ireland, a good Catholic at Tres Pinos. Victor and Manuel (omnes). Roscommon ? * Falda, or valda, i.e., that part of the skirt of a woman's robe that breaks upon the ground, and is also apphed to the final slope of a hill, from the angle that it makes upon the level plain. t Grants, applications, and official notifications, under the Spanish Government, vv'ere drawn on a stamped paper known as Custom- House paper. 30 The Story of a Mine, Miguel. Of the same. We shall give him a share for the provisions, for the tools, for the aguardiente. It is of the Irish that the Americanos have great fear. It is of them that the votes are made, that the President is chosen. It is of him that they make the alcalde in San Francisco. And we are of the Church, like him. They said " Bueno" all together, and for the moment appeared to be upheld by a religious enthusiasm — a joint confession of faith that meant death, destruction, and possibly forgery, as against the men who thought other- wise. This spiritual harmony did away with all practical con- sideration and doubt. " I have a little niece," said Victor, " whose work with the pen is marvellous. If one says to her, * Carmen, copy me this, or the other one ' — even if it be copperplate — look you it is done, and you cannot know of which is the original. Madre de Dios ! the other day she makes me a rubric* of the Governor, Pio Pico — the same, identical. Thou knowest her, Miguel. She asked concerning thee yesterday." With the embarrassment of an underbred man, Miguel tried to appear unconcerned, but failed dismally. Indeed, I fear that the black eyes of Carmen had already done their perfect and accepted work, and had partly induced the apphcation for Victor's aid. He, however, dissembled so far as to ask — " But will she not know ? " *' She is a child." " But will she not talk ? " " Not if I say nay, and if thou — eh, Miguel ? " / This bit of flattery — which, by the way, was a lie, for Victor's niece did not incline favourably to Miguel — had * The Spanish " rubric " is the complicated flourish attached tea signature, and is as individual and characteristic as the handwriting. The Story of a Mine. 31 its effect. They shook hands over the table. " But," said Miguel, "what is to be done must be done now." "At the moment," said Victor, "and thou shalt see it done. Eh ! Does it content thee ? then come ! " Miguel nodded to Manuel. " We will return in an hour ; wait thou here." They filed out into the dark, irregular street. Fate led them to pass the office of Dr. Guild at the moment that Concho mounted his horse. The shadows concealed them from their rival, but they overheard the last injunctions of the President to the unlucky Concho. " Thou hearest ? " said Miguel, clutching his companion's arm. " Yes," said Victor. "But let him ride, my friend; in one hour we shall have that that shall arrive years before him," and with a complacent chuckle they passed unseen and unheard until, abruptly turning a corner, they stopped before a low adobe house. It had once been a somewhat pretentious dwelling, but had evidently followed the. fortunes of its late owner, Don Juan Briones, who had offered it as a last sop to the three- headed Cerberus that guarded the El Refugio Plutonian treasures, and who had swallowed it in a single gulp. It was in a very bad case. The furrows of its red-tiled roof looked as if they were the results of age and decrepitude. Its best room had a musty smell ; there was the dampness of deliquescence in its slow decay, but the Spanish Calir'or- nians were sensible architects, and its massive walls and partitions defied the earthquake thrill, and all the year round kept an even temperature within. Victor led Miguel through a low anteroom into a plainly furnished chamber, where Carmen sat painting. Now Mistress Carmen was a bit of a painter, in a pretty little way, \\ath all the vague longings of an artist, but with- 32 The Story of a Mine, out, I fear, the artist's steadfast soul. She recognised beauty and form as a child might, without understanding their meaning, and somehow failed to make them even interpret her woman's moods, which surely were nature's too. So she painted everything with this innocent lust of the eye — flowers, birds, insects, landscapes, and figures — with a joyous fidelity, but no particular poetry. The bird never sang to her but one song, the flowers or trees spake but one language, and her skies never brightened except in colour. She came out strong on the Catholic saints, and would toss you up a cleanly-shaven Aloysius, sweetly destitute of expression, or a dropsical, lethargic Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old master, so bad it was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed itself in fanciful lettering, and latterly in the imita- tion of rubrics and signatures. Indeed, with her eye for beauty of form she had always excelled in penmanship at the Convent, an accomplishment which the good Sisters held in great repute. In person she was petite^ with a still unformed girlish figure, perhaps a little too flat across the back, and with possibly a too great tendency to a boyish stride in walking. Her brow, covered by blueblack hair, was low and frank and honest; her eyes, a very dark hazel, were not particu- larly large, but rather heavily freighted in their melancholy lids with slipping passion ; her nose was of that unimpor- tant character which no man remembers ; her mouth was small and straight, her teeth white and regular. The whole expression of her face was piquancy that might be subdued by tenderness or made malevolent by anger. At present it was a salad in which the oil and vinegar were deftly com- bined. The astute feminine reader will of course under- stand that this is the ordinary superficial masculine criti- cism, and at once make up her mind both as to the char- The Story of a Mine. 12) acter of the young lady and the competency of the critic. I only know that / rather liked her. And her functions are somewhat important in this veracious history. She looked up, started to her feet, levelled her black brows at the intruder, but at a sign from her uncle, showed her white teeth and spake. It was only a sentence, and a rather common-place one at that ; but if she could have put her voice upon her can- vas she might have retrieved the Garcia fortunes. For it was so musical, so tender, so sympathising, so melodious, so replete with the graciousness of womanhood, that she seemed to have invented the language. And yet that sentence was only an exaggerated form of the "How d'ye do," whined out, doled out, lisped out, or shot out from the pretty mouths of my fair countrywomen. jMiguel admired the paintings. He was struck particu- larly with a crayon drawing of a mule — " Mother of God ! it is the mule itself — observe how it will not go." Then the crafty Victor broke in with, "But it is nothing to her writing ; look, you shall tell to me which is the handwriting of Pio Pico," and from a drawer in the secretary he drew forth two signatures. One was affixed to a yellowish paper, the other drawn on plain white foolscap. Of course Miguel ook the more modern one with lover-like gallantry. "It is this is genuine ! " Victor laughed triumphantly. Carmen echoed the laugh melodiously in childlike glee, and added, with a slight toss of her piquant head, " It is mine ! " The best of the sex will not refuse a just and overdue compli- ment from even the man they dislike. It's the principle they're after, not the sentiment. But Victor was not satisfied with this proof of his niece's skill. " Say to her," he demanded of Miguel, " what name thou lik'st and it shall be done before thee here." Miguel was not so much in love but he perceived the drift of VOL. v. c 34 The Story of a Mine, Victor's suggestion, and remarked that the rubric of Governor Micheltorena was exceedingly complicated and difficult. " She shall do it ! " responded Victor, with decision. From a file of old departmental papers the Governor's signature and that involved rubric, which must have cost his late Excellency many youthful days of anxiety, was produced and laid before Carmen. Carmen took her pen in her hand, looked at the brownish looking document and then at the virgin whiteness of the foolscap before her. " But," she said, pouting prettily, " I should have to first paint this white paper brown. And it will absorb the ink more quickly than that. When I painted the San Antonio of the Mission San Gabriel, for Father Acolti, I had to put the decay in with my oils and brushes before the good Padre would accept it." The two scamps looked at each other. It was their supreme moment. " I think I have," said Victor, with assumed carelessness, " I think I have some of the old Custom-House paper." He produced from the secretary a sheet of brown paper with a stamp. " Try it on that." Carmen smiled with childish delight, tried it, and pro- duced a marvel ! " It is as magic," said Miguel, feigning to cross himself. Victor's role was more serious : he affected to be deeply touched; took the paper, folded it and placed it in his breast, " I shall make a good fool of Don Jose Castro," he said, " he will declare it is the Governor's own signature, for he was his friend ; but have a care. Carmen ! that you spoil it not by the opening of your red lips. When he is fooled I will tell him of this marvel — this niece of mine, and he shall buy her pictures. Eh, little one ? " and he gave her the avuncular caress, i.e., a pat of the hand on either cheek, and a kiss. Miguel envied him, but cupidity The Story of a Mine. 35 out-generaled Cupid, and presently the conversation flagged, until a convenient recollection of Victor's — that himself and comrade were due at the Posada del Toros at 10 o'clock — gave them the opportunity to retire. But not without a chance shot from Carmen. " Tell to me," she said, half to Victor and half to Miguel, " what has chanced with Concho ? He was ever ready to bring to me flowers from the mountain, and insects and birds. Thou knowest how he would sit, O my uncle, and talk to me of the rare rocks he had seen, and the bears and the evil spirits, and now he comes no longer, my Concho ! How is this ? Nothing evil has befallen him, surely ? " and her drooping lids closed half-pathetically. Miguel's jealousy took fire. " He is drunk, Senorita, doubtless, and has forgotten not only thee, but mayhap his mule and pack ! It is his custom, ha ! ha ! " The red died out of Carmen's ripe lips, and she shut them together with a snap'Hke a steel purse. The dove had suddenly changed to a hawk ; the child-girl into an antique virago ; the spirit hitherto dimly outlined in her face, of some shrewish Garcia ancestress, came to the fore. She darted a quick look at her uncle, and then, with her little hands on her rigid hips, strode with two steps up to Miguel. *' Possibly, O Senor Miguel Dominguez Perez (a profound courtesy here), it is as thou sayest. Drunkard Concho may be ; but drunk or sober, he never turned his back on his friend — or — (the words grated a Httle here) — his enemy." Miguel would have replied, but Victor was ready. " Fool," he said, pinching his arm, " 'tis an old friend. And — and— the application is stih to be filled up. Are you crazy ? " But on this point Miguel was not, and with the revenge of a rival added to his other instincts, he permitted Victor to lead him away. 36 The Story of a Mine. On their return to the fonda they found Master Manuel too far gone with aguardie?ite, and a general animosity to the average Americano, to be of any service. So they worked alone, with pen, ink and paper, in the stuffy, cigarrito-clouded back room of \\\t fonda. It was midnight, two hours after Concho had started, that Miguel clapped spurs to his horse for the village of Tres Pinos, with an application to Governor Micheltorena for a grant to the " Rancho of the Red Rocks," comfortably bestowed in his pocket. CHAPTER VII. WHO PLEAD FOR IT. There can be little doubt the Coroner's jury of Fresno would have returned a verdict of "death from alcoholism," as the result of their inquest into the cause of Concho's death, had not Dr. Guild fought nobly in support of the law and his own convictions. A majority of the jury objected to there being any inquest at all. A sincere juryman thought it hard that whenever a Greaser pegged out in a sneakin' kind o' way, American citizens should be taken from their busi- ness to find out what ailed him. " 'Spose he was killed," said another, " thar ain't no time this thirty year he weren't, so to speak, just sufferin' for it, ez his nat'ral right ez a Mexican." The jury at last compromised by bringing in a verdict of homicide against certain parties unknown. Yet it was understood tacitly that these unknown parties were severally Wiles and Pedro ; Manuel, Miguel, and Roscom- mon proving an unmistakable alibi. Wiles and Pedro had fled to Lower California, and Manuel, Miguel, and Ros- common deemed it advisable, in the then excited state of the public mind, to withhold the forged application and The Story of a Mine. 2>7 claim from the courts and the public comment. So that for a year after the murder of Concho and the flight of his assassins "The Blue Mass Mining Company" remained in undisturbed and actual possession of the mine, and reigned in their stead. But the spirit of the murdered Concho would not down any more than that of the murdered Banquo, and so wrought, no doubt, in a quiet, Concho-like way, sore trouble with the " Blue Mass Company." For a great Capitalist and Master of Avarice came down to the mine and found it fair, and taking one of the Company aside, offered to lend his name and a certain amount of coin for a control- ling interest, accompanying the generous offer with a suggestion that if it were not acceded to he would be com- pelled to buy up various Mexican mines and flood the market with quicksilver to the great detriment of the " Blue Mass Company," which thoughtful suggestion, offered by a man frequently alluded to as one of '' California's great mining princes," and as one who had " done much to develop the resources of the State," was not to be lightly considered, and so, after a cautious nonconsultation with the Company, and a commendable secrecy, the stockholder sold out. Whereat it was speedily spread abroad that the great Capitalist had taken hold of " Blue Mass," and the stock went up and the other stockholders rejoiced — until the Great Capitalist found that it was necessary to put up expensive mills, to employ a high salaried superintendent, in fact, to develop the mine by the spending of its earnings, so that the stock quoted at 112 was finally saddled with an assessment of $50 per share. Another assessment of $50 to enable the superintendent to proceed to Russia and Spain and examine into the workings of the quicksilver mines there, and also a general commission to the gifted and scientific Pillasjeman to examine into the various com- 38 The Sto7y of a Mme. ponent parts of quicksilver, and report if it could not be manufactured from ordinary sandstone by steam or electri- city, speedily brought the other stockholders to their senses. It- was at this time that the good fellow " Tom," the serious- minded " Dick," and the speculative but fortunate " Harry," brokers of the Great Capitalist, found it convenient to buy up, for the Great Capitalist aforesaid, the various other shares at great sacrifice. I fear that I have bored my readers in thus giving the tiresome details of that ingenuous American pastime, which my countrymen dismiss in their epigrammatic way as the " freezing-out process." And lest any reader should question the ethics of the proceeding, I beg him to remember that one gentleman accomplished in this art was always a sincere and direct opponent of the late Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler. But for once the Great Master of Avarice had not taken into sufficient account the avarice of others, and was sud- denly and virtuously shocked to learn that an application for a patent for certain lands, known as the " Red Rock Rancho," was about to be offered before the United States Land Commission. This claim covered his mining pro- perty. But the information came quietly and secretly, as all of the Great Master's information was obtained, and he took the opportunity to sell out his clouded title and his proprietorship to the only remaining member of the original " Blue Mass " Company, a young fellow of pith, before many-tongued rumour had voiced the news far and wide. The blow was a heavy one to the party left in possession. Saddled by the enormous debts and expenses of the Great Capitalist, with a credit now further injured by the defec- tion of this lucky magnate, who was admired for his skill in anticipating a loss, and whose relinquishment of any project meant ruin to it, the single-handed, impoverished The Story of a Mine, 39 possessor of the mine, whose title was contested and whose reputation was yet to be made — poor Biggs, first secretary and only remaining officer of the " Blue Mass Company," looked ruefully over his books and his last transfer, and, sighed ! But I have before intimated that he was built of good stuff, and that he believed in his work — which was well — and in himself, which was better, and so, having faith even as a grain of mustard seed, I doubt not he would have been able to remove that mountain of quicksilver beyond the over- lapping of fraudulent grants. And, again, "Providence — having disposed of these several scamps — raised up to him a friend. But that friend is of sufficient importance to this veracious history to deserve a paragraph to himself. The Pylades of this Orestes was known of ordinary mortals as Royal Thatcher. His genealogy, birth and education are, I take it, of little account to this chronicle, which is only concerned with his friendship for Biggs and the result thereof. He had known Biggs a year or two previously ; they had shared each other's purses, bunks, cabins, provisions and often friends, with that perfect freedom from obligation which belonged to the pioneer life. The varying tide of fortune had just then stranded Thatcher on a desert sand-hill in San Francisco, with an uninsured cargo of Expectations, while to Thatcher's active but not curious fancy it had apparently lifted his friend's bark, over the bar in the Monterey mountains, into an open quicksilver sea. So that he was considerably sur- prised on receiving a note from Biggs to this purport "Dear Roy, — Run down here and help a fellow. I've too much of a load for one. Maybe we can make a team and pull * Blue Mass ' out yet. BiGSEY." Thatcher, sitting in his scantily furnished lodgings, doubtful of his next meal and in arrears for rent, heard this Macedonian cry as St. Paul did. He wrote a promis- 40 The Story of a Mi ne. sory and soothing note to his landlady, but fearing the *' sweet "sorrow " of a personal parting, let his collapsed valise down from his window by a cord, and by means of an economical combination of stage riding and pedes- trianism, he presented himself, at the close of the third day, at Biggs' door. In a few moments he was in posses- sion of the story ; ' half an hour later in possession of half the mine, its infelix past and its doubtful future, equally with his friend. Business over. Biggs turned to look at his partner. " You've aged some since I saw you last," he said. " Star- vation luck, I 'spose. I'd know your eyes, old fellow, if I saw them among ten thousand, but four lips are parched and your mouth's grimmer than it used to be." Thatcher smiled to show that he could still do so, but did not say, as he might have said, that self-control, suppressed resent- ment, disappointment and occasional hunger had done something in the way of correcting Nature's obvious mis- takes, and shutting up a kindly mouth. He only took off his threadbare coat, rolled up his sleeves, and saying, " We've got lots of work and some fighting before us," pitched into the " affairs " of the Blue Mass Company on the instant. CHAPTER VIII. OF COUNSEL FOR IT. Meanwhile Roscommon had waited. Then, in Garcia's name and backed by him, he laid his case before the Land Commission, filing the application (with forged indorse- ments) to Governor Micheltorena, and alleging that the original grant was destroyed by fire. And why? It seemed there was a Umit to Miss Carmen's imitative The Story of a Mine. 41 talent. Admirable as it was, it did not reach to the repro- duction of that official seal, which would have been a necessary appendage to the Governor's grant But there were letters written on stamped paper by Governor ^Michel- torena, to himself, Garcia and to ^liguel, and to Manuel's father, all of which were duly signed by the sign manual and rubric of Mrs.-Governor-Micheltorena-Carmen-de-Haro. And then there was " parol " evidence and plenty of it ; witnesses who remembered ever}-thing about it — namely, Manuel, Miguel, and the all-recollecting De Haro ; here were details, poetical and suggestive j and Dame-Quicklyish, as when his late Excellency, sitting, not " by a sea-coal fire," but with aguardiente and cigarros, had sworn to him, the ex-ecclesiastic Miguel, that he should grant and had granted Garcia's request There were clouds of witnesses, conversations, letters and records, glib and pat to the occasion. In brief, there was nothing wanted but the seal of his Excellency. The only copy of that was in the possession of a rival school of renaissant art and the restor- ation of antiques, then doing business before the Land Commission. And yet the claim was rejected ! Having lately recom- mended two separate claimants to a patent for the same land, the Land Commission became cautious and con- servative. Roscommon was at first astounded, then indignant, and then warlike — he was for an " appale to onst ! " With the reader's previous knowledge of Roscommon's disposition this may seem somewhat inconsistent ; but there are certain natures to whom litigation has all the excitement of gambling, and it should be borne in mind that this was his first lawsuit So that his lawyer, Mr. Saponaceous Wood, found him in that belligerent mood to which counsel are obliged to hypocritically bring all the sophistries of 42 The Story of a Mine. their profession. " Of course you have your right to an appeal, but calm yourself, my dear sir, and consider. The case was presented strongly, the evidence overwhelming on our side, but we happened to be fighting previous decisions of the Land Commission that had brought thefu i7ito trouble ; so that if Micheltorena had himself appeared in Court and testified to his giving you the grant it would have made no difference — no Spanish grant had a show then, nor will it have for the next six months. You see, my dear sir, the Government sent out one of its big Washington lawyers to look into this business, and he reported frauds, sir, frauds, in a majority of the Spanish claims. And why, sir; why? He was bought, sir, bought — body and soul — by the Ring!" " And fwhot's the Ring ? " asked his client, sharply. " The Ring is — ahem ! a combination of unprincipled but wealthy persons to defeat the ends of justice." " And sure, fwhot's the Ring to do wid me grant as that thaving Mexican gave me as the collatherals fer the bourd he was owin' me ? Eh, mind that now ! " " The Ring, my dear sir, is the other side. It is — ahem ! always the Other Side." *'And why the divil haven't we a Ring too? And ain't I payin' ye five hundred dollars — and the divil of Ring ye have — at all, at all? Fwhot am I payin' ye fur, eh?" "That a judicious expenditure of money," began Mr. Wood, "outside of actual disbursements, may not be of infinite service to you I am not prepared to deny — but" "Look ye, Mr. Sappy Wood, it's the 'appale' I want, and the grant I'll have, more betoken as the old woman's har-rut and me own is set on it entoirely. Get me the land and I'll give ye the half of it — and it's a bargain !" " But, my dear sir, there are some rules in our profession — technical though they may be " The Story of a Mine. 43 " The divil fly away wid yer profession. Shure is it better nor me own ? If I've risked me provisions and me whisky, that cost me solid go old in Frisco, on the thafe Garcia's claim, bedad ! the loikes of ye can risk yer law." " Well," said Wood, with an awkward smile, " I suppose that a deed for one half, on the consideration of friendship, my dear sir, and a dollar in hand paid by me, might be re- concilable." "Now it's talkin' ye are. But who's the felly we're foighten, that's got the Ring ? " " Ah, my dear sir, it's the United States," said the lawyer, with gravity. " The States ! the Government is it ? And is't that ye'r afeard of? Sure it's the Gov'ment that I fought in me own counthree, it was the Gov'ment that druv me to Ameriky, and is it now that I'm goin' back on me principles ? " " Your political sentiments do you great credit," began Mr. Wood. " But fwhot's the Gov'ment to do wid the appale ? " " The Government," said Mr. Wood significantly, " will be represented by the District Attorney." "And who's the spalpeen?" "It is rumoured," said Mr. Wood, slowly, "that a new one is to be appointed. /, myself, have had some ambition that way." His client bent a pair of cunning but not overwise grey eyes on his American lawyer. But he only said, "Ye have, eh?" "Yes," said Wood, answering the look boldly, "and if I had the support of a number of your prominent countrymen, who are so powerful with all parties — men like you, my dear sir — why I think you might in time become a Conser- vative, at least more resigned to the Government." Then the lesser and the greater scamp looked at each 44 The Story of a Mine. other, and for a moment or two felt a warm, sympathetic, friendly emotion for each other, and quietly shook hands. Depend upon it there is a great deal more kindly human sympathy between two openly confessed scamps than there is in that calm, respectable recognition that you and I, dear reader, exhibit when we happen to oppose each other with our respective virtues. " And ye'U get the appale ? " " I will.'' And he did ! And by a singular coincidence, got the District Attorneyship also. And with a deed for one half of the " Red Rock Rancho " in his pocket, sent a brother lawyer in court to appear for his client, the United States, as against himself, Roscommon, Garcia et al. Wild horses could not have torn him from this noble resolution. There is an indescribable delicacy in the legal profession which we literary folk ought to imitate. The United States lost ! Which meant ruin and destruc- tion to the Blue Mass Company, who had bought from a paternal and beneficent Government lands which didn't belong to it. The Mexican grant, of course, antedated the occupation of the mine by Concho, Wiles, Pedro, et al., as well as by the '' Blue Mass Company," and the soHtary partners, Biggs and Thatcher. More than that, it swallowed up their improvements — it made Biggs and Thatcher respon- sible to Garcia for all the money the Grand Master of Avarice had made out of it. Mr. District Attorney was apparently distressed, but resigned. Messrs. Biggs and Thatcher were really distressed and combative. And then, to advance a few years in this chronicle, began real litigation with earnestness, vigour, courage, zeal and belief on the part of Biggs and Thatcher, and technicalities, delay, equivocation and a general Fabian-Hke policy on the part of Garcia, Roscommon, et al. Of all these tedious The Story of a Mine. 45 processes I note but one, which for originality and audacity of conception appears to me to indicate more clearly the temper and civilisation of the epoch. A subordinate officer of the District Court refused to obey the mandate ordering a transcript of the record to be sent up to the United States Supreme Court. It is to be regretted that the name of this Ephesian youth, who thus fired the dome of our constitutional liberties, should have been otherwise so unimportant as to be confined to the dusty records of that doubtful court of which he was a doubtful servitor, and that his claim to immortality ceased with his double-fee'd service. But there still stands on record a letter by this young gentle- man arraigning the legal wisdom of the land, which is not entirely devoid of amusement or even instruction to young men desirous of obtaining publicity and capital. Howbeit the Supreme Court was obliged to protect itself by procuring the legislation of his functions out of his local fingers into the larger palm of its own attorney. These various processes of law and equity, which, when exercised practically in the affairs of ordinary business, might have occupied a few months' time, dragged, clung, retrograded or advanced slowly during a period of eight or nine years. But the strong arms of Biggs and Thatcher held Possession, and, possibly by the same tactics employed on the other side, arrested or delayed ejectment, and so made and sold quicksilver, while their opponents were spending gold, until Biggs, sorely hit in the interlacings of his armour, fell in the hsts, his cheek growing waxen and his strong arm feeble, and finding himself in this sore condition, and passing, as it were, made over his share in trust to his comrade, and died. Whereat, from that time henceforward, Royal Thatcher reigned in his stead. And so, having anticipated the legal record, we will go back to the various human interests that helped to make it up. 46 The Story of a Mine, To begin with Roscommon. To do justice to his later conduct and expressions, it must be remembered that when he accepted the claim for the "Red Rock Rancho," yet unquestioned, from the hands of Garcia, he was careless, or at least unsuspicious of fraud. It was not until he had experienced the intoxication of litigation that he felt, some- how, that he was a wronged and defrauded man, but with the obstinacy of defrauded men, preferred to arraign some one fact or individual as the impelling cause of his wrong, rather than the various circumstances that led to it. To his simple mind it was made patent that the " Blue Mass Company" were making money out of a mine which he claimed, and which was not yet adjudged to them. Every dollar they took out was a fresh count in this' general indictment. Every delay toward this adjustment of rights — although made by his own lawyer-^was a personal wrong. The mere fact that there never was or had been any quid pro quo for this immense property — that it had fallen to him for a mere song — only added zest to his struggle. The possibiHty of his losing this mere speculation affected him more strongly than if he had already paid down the million he expected to get from the mine. I don't know that I have indicated as plainly as I might that universal preference on the part of mankind to get something from nothing, and to acquire the largest return for the least possible expenditure, but I question my right to say that Roscommon was much more reprehensible than his fellows. But it told upon him as it did upon all whom the spirit of the murdered Concho brooded — upon all whom Avarice alternately flattered and tortured. From his quiet gains in his legitimate business, from the little capital accumu- lated through industry and economy, he lavished thousands on this chimera of his fancy. He grew grizzled and worn The Story of a Mine. 47 over his self-imposed delusion ; he no longer jested with his customers, regardless of quality or station or importance ; he had cliques to mollify, enemies to placate, friends to reward. The grocery suffered ; through giving food and lodgment to clouds of unimpeachable witnesses before the Land Commission and the District Court, "Mrs. Ros." found herself losing money. Even the bar failed ; there was a party of Blue Mass employees who drank at the op- posite fonda and cursed the Roscommon claim over the liquor. The calm, mechanical indifference with which Roscommon had served his customers was gone. The towel was no longer used after its perfunctory fashion ; the counter remained unwiped ; the disks of countless glasses marked its surface, and indicated other pre-occupation on the part of the proprietor. The keen grey eye of the claimant of the Red Rock Rancho was always on the look- out for friend or enemy. Garcia comes next : that gentleman's inborn talent for historic misrepresentation, culminated unpleasantly through a defective memory ; a year or two after he had sworn in his apphcation for the Rancho, being engaged in another case, some trifling inconsistency was discovered in his statements, which had the effect of throwing the weight of evidence to the party who had paid him most, but was instantly detected by the weaker party. Garcia's pre- eminence as a witness, an expert and general historian, began to decline. He was obHged to be corroborated, and this required a liberal outlay of his fee. With the loss of his credibility as a witness bad habits supervened. He was frequently drunk, he lost his position^ he lost his house, and Carmen, removed to San Francisco, supported him with her brush. And this brings us once more to that pretty painter and innocent forger, whose unconscious act bore such baleful 45 The Story of a Mine. fruit on the barren hill-sides of the Red Rock Rancho, and also to a later blossom of her life, that opened, however, in kindlier sunshine. CHAPTER IX. WHAT THE FAIR HAD TO DO ABOUT IT. The house that Royal Thatcher so informally quitted in his exodus to the promised land of Biggs, was one of those over-sized, under-calculated dwellings conceived and erected in the extravagance of the San Francisco builder's hopes, and occupied finally to his despair. Intended originally as the palace of some inchoate Californian Aladdin, it usually ended as a lodging-house in which some helpless widow, or hopeless spinster, managed to combine respect- abihty with the hard task of bread-getting. Thatcher's landlady was one of the former class. She had unfortunately survived not only her husband, but his property, and living in some deserted chamber, had, after the fashion of the Italian nobihty, let out the rest of the ruin. A tendency to dwell upon these facts gave her conversation a peculiar significance on the first of each month. Thatcher had noticed this with the sensitiveness of an impoverished gentleman. But when, a few days after her lodger's sudden disappearance, a note came from him containing a draft in noble excess of all arrears and charges, the widow's heart was lifted, and the rock smitten with the golden wand gushed beneficence, that shone in a new gown for the widow, and a new suit for " Johnny," her son, a new oil- cloth in the hall, better service to the lodgers, and, let us be thankful, a kindlier consideration for the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, then dreadfully behind in her room rent. For, to tell the truth, the calls upon Miss The Story of a Mine. 49 de Haro's scant purse by her uncle had lately been frequent, perjury having declined in the Monterey market, through excessive and injudicious supply, until the line of demarca- tion between it and absolute verity was so finely drawn that Victor Garcia had remarked that "he might as well tell the truth at once and save his soul, since the devil was in the market ! " IMistress Plodgitt, the landlady, could not resist the desire to acquaint Carmen de Haro with her good fortune. *' He was always a friend of yours, my dear — and I know him to be a gentleman that would never let a poor widow suffer ; and see what he says about you ! " Here she pro- duced Thatcher's note and read: "Tell my little neighbour that I shall come back soon to carry her and her sketching- tools off by force, and I shall not let her return until she has caught the black mountains and the red rocks she used to talk about, and put the Blue Mass Mill in the foreground of the picture I shall order." What is this, little one? Surely, Carmen, thou needst not blush at this, thy first grand offer. Holy Virgin ! Is it of a necessity that thou shouldst stick the wrong end of thy brush in thy mouth, and then drop it in thy lap? Or was it taught thee by the good Sisters at the convent to stride in that boyish fashion to the side of thy elders and snatch from their hands the missive thou wouldst read? More of this we would know, O Carmen — smallest of brunettes — speak, little one, even in thine own melodious speech, that I may commend thee and thy rare discretion to my own fair countrywomen. Alas ! neither the present chronicler nor Mistress Plodgitt got any further information from the prudent Carmen, and must fain speculate upon certain facts that were already known. Mistress Carmen's little room was opposite to Thatcher's, VOL. v. D 50 The Story of a Aline, and once or twice, the doors being open, Thatcher had a glimpse across the passage of a black-haired head and a sturdy, boyish little figure in a great blue apron, perched on a stool before an easel, and, on the other hand, Carmen had often been conscious of the fumes of a tobacco pipe penetrating her cloistered seclusion, and had seen across the passage, vaguely enveloped in the same nicotine cloud, an American Olympian, in a rocking-chair, with his feet on the mantel-shelf. They had once or twice met on the staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy — a courtesy which never really offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to recognise the fact that the great and more dan- gerous passions are always serious, and may be excused ii in self-respect she is often induced to try if there be not somewhere under the skin of this laughing Mercutio the flesh and blood of a Romeo. Thatcher was by nature a defender and protector; weakness, and weakness alone, stirred the depths of his tenderness — often, I fear, only through its half humorous aspects — and on this plane he was pleased to place women and children. I mention this fact for the benefit of the more youthful members of my species, and am satisfied that an unconditional surrender, and the complete laying down at the feet of Beauty of all strong masculinity, is a cheap Gallicism that is untranslat- able to most women worthy the winning. For a woman must always look up to the man she truly loves — even if she has to go down on her knees to do it. Only the masculine reader will infer from this that Carmen was in love with Thatcher; the more critical and analytical feminine eye will see nothing herein that might not have happened consistently with friendship. For The Story of a Mine. 5 1 Thatcher was no sentimentalist ; he had hardly paid a compliment to the girl — even in the unspoken but most dehcate form of attention. There were days when his room door was closed ; there were days succeeding these blanks when he met her as frankly and naturally as if he had seen her yesterday. Indeed on those days following his flight the simple-minded Carmen, being aware — heaven knows how — that he had not opened his door during that period, and fearing sickness, sudden death, or perhaps suicide, by her appeals to the landlady, assisted unwittingly in discovering his flight and defection. As she was for a few moments as indignant as Mrs. Plodgitt, it is evident that she had but little sympathy with the delinquent. And besides, hitherto she had known only Concho — her earliest friend — and was true to his memory — as against all Ameri- canos, whom she firmly believed to be his murderers. So she dismissed the offer and the man from her mind, and went back to her painting — a fancy portrait of the good Padre Junipero Serra, a great missionary, who, haply for the integrity of his bones and character, died some hundred years before the Americans took possession of California. The picture was fair but unsaleable, and she began to think seriously of sign-painting, which was then much more popular and marketable. An unfinished head of San Juan de Bautista, artificially framed in clouds, she disposed of to a prominent druggist for I50, where it did good service as exhibiting the effect of four bottles of "Jones' Freckle Eradicator," and in a pleasant and unob- trusive way revived the memory of the saint. Still she felt weary and was growing despondent, and had a longing for the good Sisters and the blameless lethargy of conventual life, and then He came ! But not as the Prince should come, on a white charger, 52 The Story of a Mine. to carry away this cruelly abused and enchanted damsel. He was sun- burned, he was bearded " like the pard ; " he was a little careless as to his dress, and preoccupied in his ways. But his mouth and eyes were the same, and when he repeated in his old frank, half-mischievous way the invitation of his letter, poor little Carmen could only hesi- tate and blush. A thought struck him and sent the colour to his face. Your gentleman born is always as modest as a woman. He ran downstairs, and seizing the widowed Plodgitt, said hastily — "You're just killing yourself here. Take a change. Come down to Monterey for a day or two with me, and bring Miss De Haro with you for company." The old lady recognised the situation. Thatcher was now a man of vast possibilities. In all maternal daughters of Eve there is the slightest bit of the chaperone and match-maker. It is the last way of reviving the past. She consented, and Carmen De Haro could not well refuse. The ladies found the Blue Mass Mills very much as Thatcher ha.d previously described it to them, "a trifle rough and mannish." But he made over to them the one tenement reserved for himself, and slept with his men, or more likely under the trees. At first Mrs. Plodgitt missed gas and running water, and the several conveniences of civihsation, among which I fear may be mentioned sheets and pillow cases; but the balsam of the mountain air soothed her neuralgia and her temper. As for Carmen, she rioted in the unlimited license of her absolute freedom from conventional restraint and the indulgence of her childlike impulses. She scoured the ledges far and wide alone ; she dipped into dark copses and scrambled over sterile patches of chimisal, and came back laden with the spoil of buckeye The Story of a Mine. 53 blossoms, Manzanita berries and laurel. But she would not make a sketch of the Blue Mass Company's mills on a Mercators projection; something that could be afterwards lithographed or chromoed, with the mills turning out tons of quicksilver through the energies of a happy and pictur- esque assemblage of miners — even to please her padrone^ Don Royal Thatcher. On the contrary, she made a study of the ruins of the crumbled and decayed Red Rock furnace, with the black mountain above it, and the light of a dying camp fire shining upon it and the dull red excava- tions in the ledge. But even this did not satisfy her until she had made some alterations, and when she finally brought her finished study to Don Royal she looked at him a little defiantly. Thatcher admired honestly and then criticised a little humorously and dishonestly. " But couldn't you, for a consideration, put up a signboard on that rock with the inscription, ' Road to the Blue Ivlass Company's new mills to the right,' and combine business with art? That's the fault of you geniuses. But what's this blanketed figure doing here, lying before the furnace ? You never saw one of my miners there — and a Mexician, too, by his serap'e ! " " That," quoth Mistress Carmen coolly, " was put in to fill up the foreground ; I wanted something there to balance the picture." " But," continued Thatcher, dropping into unconscious admiration again, " it's drawn to the Ufe. Tell me, Miss De Haro, before I ask the aid and counsel of ISIrs. Plodgitt, who is my hated rival and your lay figure and model ? " " Oh," said Carmen, with a little sigh, "it's only poor Concho." "And where is Concho ?" (a little impatiently.) " He's dead, Don Royal." " Dead ? " " Of a verity — very dead — murdered here by your countrymen." " I see — and you knew him ? " " He was my friend." " Oh ! " 54 The Story of a Mine. '' Truly." " But " (wickedly), " isn't this a rather ghastly advertise- ment — outside of an illustrated newspaper — of my pro- perty ? " *' Ghastly, Don Royal. Look you, he sleeps." "Ay" (in Spanish), "as the dead." Carmen — (crossing herself hastily) — "After the fashion of the dead." They were both feeling uncomfortable. Carmen was shivering. But being a woman and tactful, she recovered her head first. " It is a -study for myself, Don Royal ; I shall make to you another." And she sHpped away, as she thought, out of the subject and his presence. But she was mistaken : in the evening he renewed the conversation. Carmen began to fence, not from cowardice or deceit, as the masculine reader would readily infer, but from some wonderful feminine instinct that told her to be cautious. But he got from her the fact, to him before unknown, that she was the niece of his main antagonist, and being a gentleman, so redoubled his attentions and his courtesy that Mrs. Plodgitt made up her mind that it was a foregone conclusion, and seriously reflected as to what she should wear on the momentous occasion. But that night poor Carmen cried herself to sleep, resolving that she would hereafter cast aside her wicked uncle for this good-hearted Americano, yet never once connected her innocent pen- manship with the deadly feud between them. Women — the best of them- — are strong as to collateral facts, swift of de- duction, but vague as children are to the exact statement or recognition of premises. It is hardly necessary to say that Carmen had never thought of connecting any act of hers with the claims of her uncle, and the circumstance of the signature she had totally forgotten. The masculine reader will now understand Carmen's con- The Story of a Mine. 55 fusion and blushes, and believe himself an ass to have thought them a confession of original affection. The feminine reader will, by this time, become satisfied that the deceitful minx's sole idea was to gain the affections of Thatcher. xA.nd really I don't know who is right. Nevertheless she painted a sketch for Thatcher — which now adorns the Company's office in San Francisco — in which the property is laid out in pleasing geometrical lines, and the rosy promise of the future instinct in every touch of the brush. Then, having earned her "wage," as she believed, she became somewhat cold and shy to Thatcher. Whereat that gentleman redoubled his attentions, seeing only in her presence a certain meprt'se, which concerned her more than himself. The niece of his enemy meant nothing more to him than an interesting girl — to be protected always — to be feared, never. But even suspicion may be insidiously placed in noble minds. Mistress Plodgitt, thus early estopped of match-making, of course put the blame on her own sex, and went over to the stronger side — the man's. " It's a great pity gals should be so curious," she said, sotto voce, to Thatcher, when Carmen was in one of her sullen moods. "Yet I 'spose it's in her blood. Them Spaniards is always revengeful — like the Eyetalians." Thatcher honestly looked his surprise. " Why, don^t you see, she's thinking how all these lands might have been her uncle's but for you. And instead of trying to be sweet and " here she stopped to cough. " Good God ! " said Thatcher in great concern, " I never thought of that." He stopped for a moment and then added with decision, " I can't believe it; it isn't like her." Mrs. P. was piqued. She walked away, delivering^ how- ever, this Parthian arrow : " Well, I hope 'tai?it not/wig wo?'se." 56 The Story of a Mine, Thatcher chuckled, then felt uneasy. When he next met Carmen she found his grey eyes fixed on hers with a curious, half-inquisitorial look she had never noticed before. This only added fuel to the fire. Forgetting their relations of host and guest, she was absolutely rude. Thatcher was quiet but watchful ; got the Plodgitt to bed early, and under cover of showing a moonlight view of the " Lost Chance Mill," decoyed Carmen out of ear-shot, as far as the dismantled furnace. '^ What is the matter. Miss De Haro ; have I offended you?" Miss Carmen was not aware that anything was the matter. If Don Royal preferred old friends, whose loyalty of course he knew, who 'we7'e above speaking ill agai7ist a gentleman in his adversity — (O Carmen ! fie !) if he preferred their company to later friends — why — (the masculine reader will observe this tremendous climax and tremble) — why she didn't know why he should blame her. They turned and faced each other. The conditions for a perfect misunderstanding could not have been better arranged between two people. Thatcher was a masculine reasoner. Carmen a feminine feeler — if I may be pardoned the expression. Thatcher wanted to get at certain facts, and argue therefrom. Carmen wanted to get at certain feelings and then fit the facts to them. " But I am not blaming you, Miss Carmen," he said gravely. " It was stupid in me to confront you here with the property claimed by your uncle and occupied by me, but it was a mistake — no ! (he added hastily) — it was not a mistake. You knew it and I didn't. You overlooked it before you came, and I was too glad to overlook it after you were here." " Of course," said Carmen, pettishly, " I am the only one to be blamed. It's like you men I " (Mem. She was The Story of a Mine. 57 just fifteen, and uttered this awful resume of experience just as if it hadn't been taught to her in her cradle.) Feminine generalities always stagger a man. Thatcher said nothing. Carmen became more enraged. " Why did you want to take Uncle Victor's property, then ? " she asked triumphantly. " I don't know that it is your uncle's property." "^ "You — don't — know? Have you seen the application with Governor Micheltorena's indorsement? Have you heard the witnesses ? " she said passionately. " Signatures may be forged and witnesses lie," said Thatcher, quietly. " What is it you call ' forged ? ' " Thatcher instantly recalled the fact that the Spanish language held no synonym for " forgery." The act was apparently an invention of El Diable Aitiericano. So he said, with a slight smile in his kindly eyes — "Anybody wicked enough and dexterous enough can imitate another's handwriting. When this is used to benefit fraud we call it ' forgery.' I beg your pardon — Miss De Haro, Miss Carmen — what is the matter?" She had suddenly lapsed against a tree, quite helpless, nerveless, and with staring eyes fixed on his. As yet an embryo woman, inexperienced and ignorant, the sex's instinct was potential ; she had in one plunge fathomed all that his reason had been years groping for. Thatcher saw only that she was pained, that she was helpless ; that was enough. " It is possible that your uncle may have been deceived," he began, '' many honest men have been fooled by clever but deceitful tricksters, men and women " " Stop ! Madre de Dios! Will you stop ? " Thatcher for an instant recoiled from the flashing eyes and white face of the little figure that had, with menacing -58 The Stoiy of a Mine. and clenched baby fingers, strode to his side. He stopped. *' Where is this appUcation — this forgery?" she asked., " Show it to me ! " Thatcher felt relieved, and smiled the superior smile of our sex over feminine ignorance. " You could hardly expect me to be trusted with your uncle's vouchers. His papers of course are in the hands of his counsel." "And when can I leave this place?" she asked, pas- sionately. "If you consult my wishes you will stay, if only long enough to forgive me. But if I have offended you, unknow- ingly, and you are implacable" " I can go to-morrow, at sunrise, if I like ?" " As you will," returned Thatcher, gravely. " Gracias, Senor." They walked slowly back to the house. Thatcher with a masculine sense of being unreasonably afflicted, Carmen with a woman's instinct of being hopelessly crushed. No word was spoken until they reached the door. Then Carmen suddenly, in her old, impulsive way, and in a childlike treble, sang out merrily, "Good-night, O Don Royal, and pleasant dreams. Hasta Mariana^ Thatcher stood dumb and astonished at this capricious girl. She saw his mystification instantly. "It is for the old Cat!" she whispered, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the sleeping Mrs. P. " Good- night — go ! " He went to give orders for a peon to attend the ladies and their equipage the next day. He awoke to find Miss De Haro gone, with her escort, towards Monterey. And without the Plodgitt. He could not conceal his surprise from the latter lady. She, left alone — a not altogether unavailable victim to the wiles of our sex — was embarrassed. But not so much that The Story of a Mine. 59 she could not say to Thatcher : '' I told you so — gone to her uncle ... To tell him all !^^ " All. D — n it, what can she tell him ? " roared Thatcher, stung out of his self-control. "Nothing, I hope, that she should not," said Mrs. P., and chastely retired. She was right. Miss Carmen posted to Monterey, run- ning her horse nearly off its legs to do it, and then sent back her beast and escort, saying she would rejoin Mrs. Plodgitt by steamer at San Francisco. Then she went boldly to the law office of Saponaceous Wood, District Attorney and whilom solicitor of her uncle. With the majority of masculine Monterey Miss Carmen was known and respectfully admired, despite the infelix reputation of her kinsman. Mr. Wood was glad to see her, and awkwardly gallant. Miss Carmen was cool and busi- ness-like ; she had come from her uncle to "regard" the papers in the Red Rock Rancho case. They were instantly produced. Carmen turned to the application for the grant. Her cheek paled slightly. With her clear memory and wonderful fidelity of perception she could not be mistaken. The signature of Micheltorena was in her own handwriting ! Yet she looked up to the lawyer with a smile : " May I take these papers for an hour to my uncle ? " Even an older and better man than the District Attorney could not have resisted those drooping lids and that gentle voice. " Certainly." " I will return them in an hour." She was as good as her word, and within the hour dropped the papers and a little courtesy to her uncle's legal advo- cate, and that night took the steamer to San Francisco. The next morning Victor Garcia, a little the worse for the previous night's dissipation, reeled into Wood's office. *' I 6o The Story of a Mine. have fears for my niece, Carmen. She is with the enemy/' he said thickly. " Look you at this." It was an anonymous letter (in Mrs. Plodgitt's own awk- ward fist), advising him of the fact that his niece was bought by the enemy, and cautioning him against her. " Impossible," said the lawyer, " it was only last week she sent thee $ 50." Victor blushed, even through his ensanguined cheeks, and made an impatient gesture with his hand. " Besides," added the lawyer coolly, " she has been here to examine the papers at thy request, and returned them of yesterday." Victor gasped — " And — you — you — gave them to her ? " "Of course!" " All ? Even the application and the signature ? " " Certainly — you sent her." " Sent her ? The devil's own daughter ? " shrieked Garcia. " No ! A hundred million times, no ! Quick, before it is too late. Give to me the papers." Mr. Wood reproduced the file. Garcia ran over it with trembling fingers, until at last he clutched the fateful docu- ment. Not content with opening it and glancing at its text and signature, he took it to the window. " It is the same," he muttered with a sigh of relief " Of course it is," said Mr. Wood sharply. " The papers are all there. You're a fool, Victor Garcia ! " And so he was. And, for the matter of that, so was Mr. Saponaceous Wood, of counsel. Meanwhile Miss De Haro returned to San Francisco and resumed her work. A day or two later she was joined by her landlady. Mrs. P. has too large a nature to permit an anonymous letter, written by her own hand, to stand be- tween her and her demeanour to her little lodger. So she coddled her and flattered her, and depicted in slightly ex-v The Story of a Mine. 6 1 aggerated colours the grief of Don Royal at her sudden de- parture. All of which Miss Carmen received in a demure- kitten-like way, but still kept quietly at her work. In due time Don Royal's order was completed ; still she had leisure and inclination enough to add certain touches to her ghastly sketch of the crumbling furnace. Nevertheless, as Don Royal did not return, through excess of business, Mrs. Plodgitt turned an honest penny by letting his room, temporarily, to two quiet Mexicans, who, but for a beastly habit of cigarrito smoking which tainted the whole house, were fair enough lodgers. If they failed in making the acquaintance of this fair country- woman, Miss De Haro, it was through that lady's preoccu- pation in her over work, and not through their ostentatious endeavours. "Miss De Haro is peculiar," explained the poHtic Mrs. P. to her guests, " she makes no acquaintances, which I consider bad for her business. If it had not been for me she would not have known Royal Thatcher, the great quicksilver miner — and had his order for a picture of his mine ! " The two foreign gentlemen exchanged glances. One said, " Ah, God ! this is bad," and the other, " It is not pos- sible ! " and then, when the landlady's back was turned, introduced themselves with a skeleton key into the then vacant bedroom and studio of their fair countrywoman, who was absent sketching. "Thou observest," said Mr. Pedro, refugee, to Miguel, ex-ecclesiastic, " that this Ameri- cano is all powerful, and that this Victor, drunkard as he is, is right in his suspicions." " Of a verity, yes," replied Miguel, " thou dost remember it was Jovita Castro who, for her Americano lover, betrayed the Sobriente claim. It is only with us, my Pedro, that Mexican spirit, the real God and Liberty, yet lives ! " 62 The Story of a Mine. They shook hands nobly and with sentimental fervour, and then went to work, i.e., the rummaging over of the trunks, drawers and portmanteaus of the poor little painter, Carmen De Haro, and even ripped up the mattress of her virginal cot. But they found not what they sought. " What is that yonder on the easel, covered with a cloth? " said Miguel; "it is a trick of these artists to put their valuables together." Pedro strode to the easel and tore away the muslin cur- tain that veiled it ; then uttered a shriek that appalled his comrade and brought him to his side. *'In the name of God," said Miguel hastily, " are you try- ing to alarm the house ? " The ex-vaquero was trembling like a child. '' Look," he said hoarsely, " look, do you see ? It is the hand of God," and fainted on the floor ! Miguel looked. It was Carmen's partly finished sketch of the deserted furnace. The figure of Concho, thrown out strongly by the camp fire, occupied the left foreground. But to balance her picture she had evidently been obliged to introduce another : the face and figure of Pedro, on all fours, creeping toward the sleeping man. CHAPTER X. WHO LOBBIED FOR IT. It was a midsummer's day in Washington. Even at early morning, while the sun was yet level with the faces of pedestrians in its broad, shadeless avenues, it was insuffer- ably hot. Later the avenues themselves shone like the diverging rays of another sun — the Capitol — a thing to be feared by the naked eye. Later yet it grew hotter, and then a mist arose from the Potomac, and blotted out the blazing The Story of a Mine. 63 arch above, and presently piled up along the horizon de- lusive thunder-clouds, that spent their strength and substance elsewhere and left it hotter than before. Towards evening the sun came out invigorated — having cleared the heavenly brow of perspiration, but leaving its fever unabated. The city was deserted. The few who remained appar- ently buried themselves from the garish light of day in some dim cloistered recess of shop, hotel or restaurant, and the perspiring stranger, dazed by the outer glare, who broke in upon their quiet, sequestered repose, confronted collarless and coatless spectres of the past with fans in their hands, who, after dreamily going through some perfunctory business, immediately retired to sleep after the stranger had gone. Congressmen and Senators had long since returned to their several constituencies with the various information that the country was going to ruin, or that the outlook never was more hopeful and cheering, as the tastes of their constituency indicated. A few Cabinet officers still lingered, having by this time become convinced that they could do nothing their own way, or indeed in any way but the old way, and getting gloomily resigned to their situation. A body of learned, cultivated men, representing the highest legal tribunal in the land, still lingered in a vague idea of earning the scant salary bestowed upon them by the economical founders of the Government, and listened patiently to the arguments of Counsel, whose fees for advocacy of claims before them would have paid the life income of half the bench. There was Mr. Attorney General and his assistants still protecting the Government's milUons from rapacious hands, and drawing the yearly public pittance that their wealthier private antagonists would have scarce given as a retainer to their junior counsel. The little standing army of departmental employees — the helpless victims of the most senseless and idiotic form of discipline the world has known 64 The Story of a Mine. — a discipline so made up of Caprice, Expediency, Cowardice and Tyranny that its reform meant Revolution, not to be tolerated by legislators and lawgivers, or a Des- potism in which half a dozen accidentally chosen men in- terpreted their prejudices or preferences as being that Re- form. Administration after Administration and Party after Party had persisted in their desperate attempts to fit the youthful colonial garments, made by our fathers after by- gone fashion, over the expanded limits and generous out- line of a matured nation. There were patches here and there, there were grievous rents and holes here and there, there were ludicrous and painful exposures of growing limbs everywhere, and the Party in Power and the Party out of Power could do nothing but mend and patch, and revamp and cleanse and scour, and occasionally, in the wildness of despair, suggest even the cutting off the rebellious limbs that persisted in growing beyond the swaddling clothes of its infancy. It was a capital of Contradictions and Inconsistencies. At one end of the Avenue sat the responsible High Keeper of the Military Honour, Valour and Warlike Prestige of a Great Nation, without the power to pay his own troops their legal dues until some selfish quarrel between Party and Party was settled. Hard by sat another secretary, whose established functions seemed to be the misrepresentation of the nation abroad by the least char- acteristic of its classes — the politicians — and only then when they had been defeated as politicians, and when their constituents had declared them no longer worthy to be even their representatives. This National Absurdity was only equalled by another, wherein an Ex-Politician was for four years expected to uphold the honour of a flag of a great nation over an ocean he had never tempted, with a discipline the rudiments of which he could scarcely The Story of a Mine. 65 acquire before he was removed, or his term of office expired, receiving his orders from a superior officer as ignorant of his special duties as himself, and subjected to the revision of a Congress cognisant of him only as a poHtician. At the further end of the Avenue was another department, so vast in its extent and so varied in its func- tions that few of the really Great Practical Workers of the land would have accepted its responsibility for ten times its salary, but which the most perfect Constitution in the World handed over to men who were obliged to make it a stepping stone to future preferment. There was another department, more suggestive of its financial functions from the occasional extravagances or economies exhibited in its pay-roUs — successive Congresses having taken other matters out of its hands — presided over by an official who bore the title and responsibility of the Custodian and Disburser of the Nation's Purse, and received a salary that a bank president would have sniffed at. For it was part of this Constitutional Inconsistency and Administrative Absurdity that in the matter of Honour, Justice, Fidelity to Trust, and even Business Integrity, the official was always expected to be the superior of the Government he represented. Yet the crowning Inconsistency was that, from time to time, it was submitted to the sovereign people :to declare if these various Inconsistencies were not really the perfect expression of the most perfect Govern- ment the world had known. And it is to be recorded that the unanimous voices of Representative, Orator and Unfettered Poetry were that it was. Even the public press lent itself to the Great Inconsis- tency. It was as clear as crystal to the journal on one side of the Avenue that the country was going to the dogs unless the spirit of the fathers once more reanimated the public ; it was equally clear to the journal on the other VOL. v. E 66 The Story of a Mine. side of the Avenue that only a rigid adherence to the letter of the fathers would save the nation from decline. It was obvious to the first-named journal that the "letter" meant Government patronage to the other journal ; it was potent to that journal that the "Shekels" of Senator X. really animated the spirit of the fathers. Yet all agreed it was a great and good and perfect government — subject only to the predatory incursions of a hydra-headed monster known as a " Ring." The Ring's origin was wrapped in secrecy, its fecundity was alarming ; but although its rapacity was preternatural, its digestion was perfect and easy. It cir- cumvolved all affairs in an atmosphere of mystery; it clouded all things with the dust and ashes of distrust. All disappointment of place, of avarice, of incompetency or ambition, was clearly attributable to it. It even per- meated private and social life : there were Rings in our kitchen and household service ; in our public schools, that kept the active intelligences of our children passive ; there were Rings of engaging, handsome, dissolute young fellows, who kept us moral but unengaging seniors from the favours of the Fair ; there were subtle, conspiring Rings among our creditors, which sent us into bank- ruptcy and restricted our credit. In fact, it would not be . hazardous to say that all that was calamitous in public and private experience was clearly traceable to that combina- tion of power in a minority over weakness in a majority — known as a " Ring." Haply there was a body of demigods, as yet uninvoked, who should speedily settle all that. When Smith of Minnesota, Robinson of Vermont, and Jones of Georgia, returned to Congress from those rural seclusions, so potent with information and so freed from local prejudices, it was understood, vaguely, that great things would be done. This was always understood. There never was a time The Story of a Mine. 67 in the history of American politics when, to use the expression of the journals before alluded to, " the present session of Congress " did not " bid fair to be the most momentous in our history," and did not, as far as the facts go, leave a vast amount of unfinished important business lying hopelessly upon its desks, having "bolted" the rest as rashly and with as little regard to digestion or assimi- lation as the American traveller has for his railway refreshment. In this capital, on this languid midsummer day, in an upper room of one of its second rate hotels, the Honour- able Mr. Pratt C. Gashwiler sat at his writing-table. There are certain large, fleshy men with whom the omission of even a necktie or collar has all the effect of an indecent exposure. The Honourable Mr. Gashwiler, in his trousers and shirt, was a sight to be avoided by the modest eye. There were such palpable suggestions of vast extents of unctuous flesh in the slight glimpse offered by his open throat, that his dishabille should have been as private as his business. Nevertheless, when there was a knock at his door he unhesitatingly said, " Come in ! " — pushing away a goblet crowned with a certain aromatic herb with his right hand, while he drew towards him with his left a' few proof slips of his forthcoming speech. The Gashwiler brow became, as it were, intelligently abstracted. The intruder regarded Gashwiler with a glance of familiar recognition from his right eye, while his left took in a rapid survey of the papers on the table, and gleamed sardoni- cally. " You are at work, I see," he said apologetically. " Yes," replied the Congressman, with an air of perfunc- tory weariness — " one of my speeches. Those d — d printers make such a mess of it, I suppose I don't write a very fine hand." 6S The Story of a Mine, If the gifted Gashwiler had added that he did not write a very intelligent hand, or a very grammatical hand, and that his spelling was faulty, he would have been truthful, although the copy and proof before him might not have borne him out. The near fact was, that the speech was composed and written by one Expectant Dobbs, a poor retainer of Gashwiler, and the honourable member's labour as a proof-reader was confined to the introduction of such words as " Anarchy," " Oligarchy," " Satrap," " Palladium " and " Argus-eyed," in the proof, with little relevancy as to position or place, and no perceptible effect as to argument. The stranger saw all this with his wicked left eye, but continued to beam mildly with his right. Removing the coat and waistcoat of Gashwiler from a chair, he drew it towards the table, pushing aside a portly, loud-ticking watch — the very image of Gashwiler — that lay beside him, and resting his elbows on the proofs, said — "Well?" " Have you anything new ? " asked the Parliamentary Gashwiler. "Much! a woman !" replied the stranger. The astute Gashwiler, waiting further information, con- cluded to receive this fact gaily and gallantly. "A woman ? — my dear Mr. Wiles — of course ! The dear creatures," he continued, with a fat, offensive chuckle, "somehow are always making their charming presence felt. Ha ! Ha ! A man, sir, in public life becomes accustomed to that sort of thing, and knows when he must be agreeable — agreeable, sir, but firm ! I've had my experience, sir — my own experience," — and the Congressman leaned back in his chair, not unlike a robust St. Anthony, who had with- stood one temptation to thrive on another. "Yes," said Wiles impatiently, "but d — n it, she's on the other side." * The Story of a Mine. 69 *' The other side ! " repeated Gashwiler vacantly. *' Yes. She's a niece of Garcia's. A little she-deviL" *' But Garcia is on our side," rejoined Gashwiler. *' Yes ; but she is bought by the Ring." "A woman," sneered Mr. Gashwiler, "what can she do with men who won't be made fools of? Is she so hand- some ? " " I never saw any great beauty in her," said Wiles, shortly, ''although they say that she's rather caught that d — d Thatcher, in spite of his coldness. At any rate she is his p-otegee. But she isn't the sort you're thinking of, Gash- wiler. They say she knows or pretends to know something about the grant. She may have got hold of some of her uncle's papers. Those Greasers were always d — d fools, and if he did anything foolish, like as not he bungled or didn't cover up his tracks. And with his knowledge and facilities too ! Why if I'd " — but here Mr. Wiles stopped to sigh over the inequality of fortune that wasted oppor- tunities on the less skilful scamp. Mr. Gashwiler became dignified. "She can do nothing with us," he said potentially. Wiles turned his wicked eye on him. "Manuel and Miguel, who sold out to our man, are afraid of her. They were our witnesses. I verily believe they'd take back every- thing if she got after them. And as for Pedro, he thinks she holds the power of life and death over him." " Pedro ! Life and death — what's all this ? " said the astonished Gashwiler. Wiles saw his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to stop. " Pedro," he said, " was strongly suspected of having murdered Concho, one of the original locaters." Mr. Gashwiler turned white as a sheet, and then flushed again into an apoplectic glow. " Do you dare to say," he began as soon as he could find his tongue and his legs, for 70 The Story of a Mine. in the exercise of his congressional functions these extreme members supported each other, " do you mean to say," he stammered in rising rage, " that you have dared to deceive an American lawgiver into legislating upon a measure con- nected with a capital offence ? Do I understand you to say, sir, that murder stands upon the record — stands upon the record, sir — of this cause to which, as a representative of Remus, I have lent my official aid ? Do you mean to say that you have deceived my constituency, whose sacred trust I hold, in inveigling me to hiding a crime from the Argus eyes of Justice ? " And Mr. Gashwiler looked towards the bell-pull as if about to summon a servant to witness this outrage against the established judiciary. "The murder, if it ivas a murder, took place before Garcia entered upon this claim or had a footing in this court," returned Wiles blandly, " and is no part of the record." " You are sure it is not spread upon the record ! " " I am. ■ You can judge for yourself." Mr. Gashwiler walked to the window, returned to the table, finished his liquor in a single gulp, and then with a slight resumption of dignity, said — " That alters the case." Wiles glanced with his left eye at the Congressman. The right placidly looked out of the window. Presently he said quietly, " I've brought you the certificates of stock ; do you wish them made out in your own name ? " Mr. Gashwiler tried hard to look as if he were trying to recall the meaning of Wiles' words. " Oh ! — ah ! — umph ! — let me see — Oh yes, the certificates — certainly ! Of course you will make them out in the name of my secretary, Mr. Expectant Dobbs. They will perhaps repay him for the extra clerical labour required in the prosecution of your claim. He is a worthy young man. Although not a public The Stoiy of a Mine. 71 officer, yet he is so near to me that perhaps I am wrong in permitting him to accept a fee for private interests. An American representative cannot be too cautious, Mr. Wiles. Perhaps you had better have also a blank transfer. The stock is, I understand, yet in the future. Mr. Dobbs, though talented and praiseworthy, is poor; he may wish to realise. If some — ahem ! some friend — better circum- stanced should choose to advance the cash to him and run the risk — why it would only be an act of kindness." "You are proverbially generous, Mr. Gashwiler," said Wiles, opening and shutting his left eye, like a dark lantern, on the benevolent representative. " Youth, when faithful and painstaking, should be encouraged," replied Mr. Gashwiler. " I lately had occasion to point this out in a few remarks I had to make before the Sabbath school reunion at Remus. Thank you, I will see that they are — ahem — conveyed to him. I shall give them to him with my own hand," he concluded, falling back in his chair, as if the better to contemplate the perspective of his own generosity and condescension. Mr. Wiles took his hat and turned to go. Before he reached the door Mr. Gashwiler returned to the social level with a chuckle — " You say this woman, this Garcia's niece, is handsome and smart?" "Yes." "I can set another woman on the track that'll euchre her every time ! " Mr. Wiles was too clever to appear to notice the sudden lapse in the Congressman's dignity, and only said, with his right eye — " Can you ? " "By G — d I will, or I don't know how to represent Remus." 72 The Story of a Mine. Mr. Wiles thanked him with his right eye, looked a dagger with his left. "Good," he said, and added per- suasively : '' Does she live here ? " The Congressman nodded assent. " An awfully hand- some woman — a particular friend of mine ! " Mr. Gashwiler here looked as if he would not mind to have been raUied a little over his intimacy with the fair one, but the astute Mr. Wiles was at the same moment making up his mind, after interpreting the Congressman's look and manner, that he must know this fair incognito if he wished to sway Gashwiler. He determined to bide his time. The door was scarcely closed upon him when another knock diverted Mr. Gashwiler's attention from his proofs. The door opened to a young man with sandy hair and anxious face. He entered the room deprecatingly, as if conscious of the presence of a powerful being, to be supplicated and feared. Mr. Gashwiler did not attempt to disabuse his mind. " Busy, you see," he said shortly, '' correcting your work ! " " I hope it is acceptable ! " said the young man, timidly. "Well — yes — it will do," said Gashwiler, "indeed I may say it is satisfactory on the whole," he added with the appearance of a large generosity, "quite satisfactory." " You have no news, I suppose," continued the young man with a slight flush, born of pride or expectation. " No, nothing as yet." Mr. Gashwiler paused as if a thought had struck him. " I have thought," he said finally, " that some position — such as a secretaryship with me — would help you to a better appointment. Now, supposing that I make you my private secretary, giving you some important and confidevi- tial business. Eh ? " Dobbs looked at his patron with a certain wistful, dog- like expectancy, moved himself excitedly on his chair seat The Story of a Mine. 73 in a peculiar canine-like anticipation of gratitude, strongly suggesting that he would have wagged his tail if he had had one. At which Mr. Gashwiler became more impressive. '' Indeed, I may say I anticipated it by certain papers I have put in your charge and in your name, only taking from you a transfer — that might enable me to satisfy my conscience hereafter in recommending you as my — ahem — private secretary. Perhaps as a mere form you might now, while you are here, put your name to these transfers, and, so to speak, begin your duties at once." The glow of pride and hope that mantled the cheek of poor Dobbs might have melted a harder heart than Gashwiler's. But the Senatorial toga had invested Mr. Gashwiler with a more than Roman stoicism towards the feelings of others, and he only fell back in his chair in the pose of conscious rectitude as Dobbs hurriedly signed the paper. " I shall place them in my portman-tell," said Gashwiler, suiting the word to the action, " for safe keeping. I need not inform you, who are now, as it were, on the threshold of official life, that perfect and inviolable secrecy in all affairs of State " — Mr. G., here motioned toward his port- manteau as if it contained a treaty at least — "is most essential and necessary." Dobbs assented; "Then my duties will keep me with you here ? " he asked doubtfully. "No — no," said Gashwiler, hastily; then, correcting him- self, he added : " that is — for the present — no ! " Poor Dobbs' face fell. The near fact was that he had lately had notice to quit his present lodgings in consequence of arrears in his rent, and he had a hopeful reliance that his confidential occupation would carry bread and lodging with it. But he only asked if there were any new papers to make out. 74 The Story of a Mine. " Ahem ! not at present ; the fact is that I am obliged to give so much of my time to callers — I have to-day been obliged to see half-a-dozen — that I must lock myself up and say ' Not at home ' for the rest of the day." Feeling that this was an intimation that the interview was over, the new private secretary, a little dashed as to his near hopes, but still sanguine of the future, humbly took his leave. But here a certain Providence, perhaps mindful of poor Dobbs, threw into his simple hands — to be used or not, if he were worthy or capable of using it — a certain power and advantage. He had descended the staircase, and was passing through the lower corridor, when he was- made the unwilling witness of a remarkable assault. It appeared that Mr. Wiles, who had quitted Gashwiler's presence as Dobbs was announced, had other business in the hotel, and in pursuance of it had knocked at room No. 90. In response to the gruff voice that bade him enter, Mr. Wiles opened the door and espied the figure of a tall, muscular, fiery-bearded man extended on the bed, with the bed-clothes carefully tucked under his chin and his arms lying flat by his side. Mr. Wiles beamed with his right cheek, and advanced to the bed as if to take the hand of the stranger, who, how- ever, neither by word nor sign, responded to his salutation. " Perhaps I'm intruding ? " said Mr. Wiles blandly. " Perhaps you are," said Red Beard drily. Mr. Wiles forced a smile on his right cheek, which he turned to the smiter, but permitted the left to indulge in unlimited malevolence. " I wanted merely to know if you have looked into that matter?" he said meekly. " I've looked into it and round it, and across it and over it and through it," responded the man gravely, with his eyes fixed on Wiles. The Story of a Mine, 75 "And you have perused all the papers?" continued Mr. Wiles. " I've read every paper, every speech, every affidavit, every decision, every argument," said the stranger, as if repeating a formula. Mr. Wiles attempted to conceal his embarrassment by an easy, right-handed smile, that went off sardonically on the left, and continued, " Then I hope, my dear sir, that, having thoroughly mastered the case, you are inclined to be favourable to us ? " The gentleman in the bed did not reply, but apparently nestled more closely beneath the coverlids. "I have brought the shares I spoke of," continued Mr. Wiles insinuatingly. "Hev you a friend within call?" interrupted the recum- bent man gently. " I don't quite understand ! " smiled Mr. Wiles. " Of course any name you might suggest " " Hev you a friend — any chap that you might waltz in here at a moment's call?" continued the man in bed. "No? Do you know any of them waiters in the house? Thar's a bell over yan ! " and he motioned with his eyes towards the wall, but did not otherwise move his body. " No," said Wiles, becoming slightly suspicious and wrathful. " Mebbe a stranger might do ? I reckon thar's one passin' in the hall. Call him in — he'll do ! " Wiles opened the door a little impatiently, yet inquisi- tively, as Dobbs passed. The man in bed called out, " O stranger!" and as Dobbs stopped, said, "Come 'y^r." Dobbs entered a little timidly, as was his habit with strangers. " I don't know who you be — nor care, I reckon," said the stranger. " This yer man " — pointing to Wiles — " is 76 The Story of a Mine, Wiles. I'm Josh Sibblee of Fresno, Member of Congress from the 4th Congressional District of Californy. I'm jist lying here, with a derringer into each hand — ^jist lying here kivered up and holdin' in on'y to keep from blowin' the top o' this d — d skunk's head off. I kinder feel I can't hold in any longer. What I want to say to ye, stranger, is that this yer skunk — which his name is Wiles — hez bin tryin' his d — dest to get a bribe onto Josh, and Josh, outo respect for his constituents, is jist waitin' for some stranger to waltz in and stop the d — dest fight " "But, my dear Mr. Sibblee, there must be some mis- take," said Wiles earnestly. " Mistake ? Strip me ! " " No ! no ! " said Wiles hurriedly, as the simple-minded Dobbs was about to draw down the coverlid. "Take him away," said the Honourable Mr. Sibblee, " before I disgrace my constituency. They said I'd be in jail 'afore I get through the session. Ef you've got any humanity, stranger, snake him out, and pow'ful quick too." Dobbs, quite white and aghast, looked at Wiles and hesitated. There was a slight movement in the bed. Both men started for the door, and the next minute it closed very decidedly on the member from Fresno. CHAPTER XI. HOW IT WAS LOBBIED FOR. The Honourable Pratt C. Gashwiler, M.C., was of course unaware of the incident described in the last chapter. His secret, even if it had been discovered by Dobbs, was safe in that gentleman's innocent and honourable hands, and cer- tainly was not of a quality that Mr. Wiles, at present, would have cared to expose. For, in spite of Mr. Wiles' discom- The Story of a Mine. yj fiture, he still had enough experience of character to know that the irate member from Fresno would be satisfied with his own peculiar manner of vindicating his own personal integrity, and would not make a public scandal of it. Again, Wiles was convinced that Dobbs was equally implicated with Gashwiler, and would be silent for his own sake. So that poor Dobbs, as is too often the fate of simple but weak natures, had full credit for duplicity by every rascal in the land. From which it may be inferred that nothing occurred to disturb the security of Gashwiler. When the door closed upon Mr. Wiles he indited a note, which, with a costly but exceedingly distasteful bouquet — re-arranged by his own fat fingers, and discord and incongruity visible in every combination of colour — he sent off by a special messenger. Then he proceeded to make his toilet — an operation rarely graceful or picturesque in our sex, and an insult to the spectator when obesity is superadded. When he had put on a clean shirt, of which there was grossly too much, and added a white waistcoat, that seemed to accent his rotun- dity, he completed his attire with a black frock coat of the latest style, and surveyed himself complacently before a mirror. It is to be recorded that, however satisfactory the result may have been to Mr. Gashwiler, it was not so to the disinterested spectator. There are some men on whom " that deformed thief, Fashion," avenges himself by making their clothes appear perennially new. The gloss of the tailor's iron never disappears ; the creases of the shelf perpetually rise in judgment against the wearer. Novelty was the general suggestion of Mr. Gashwiler's full dress — it was never his habitude — and " Our own Make," "Nobby," and the "Latest Style, only $15," was as patent on the legislator's broad back as if it still retained the shopman's ticket. 78 The Story of a Mine, Thus arrayed, within an hour he complacently followed the note and his floral offering. The house he sought had been once the residence of a foreign ambassador, who had loyally represented his government in a single unimportant treaty, now forgotten, and in various receptions and dinners, still actively remembered by occasional visitors to its salon, now the average dreary American parlour. " Dear me," the fascinating Mr. X. would say, " but do you know, love, in this very room I remember meeting the distinguished Marquis of Monte Pio," or perhaps the fashionable Jones of the State Department instantly crushed the decayed friend he was perfunctorily visiting, by saying, " Ton my soul, you here — why the last time I was in this room I gos- siped for an hour with the Countess de Castenet in that very corner." For with the recall of the aforesaid Ambas- sador the mansion had become a boarding-house, kept by the wife of a departmental clerk. Perhaps there was nothing in the history of the house more quaint and philosophic than the story of its present occupant. Rogar Fauquier had been a departmental clerk for forty years. It was at once his practical good luck and his misfortune to have been early appointed to a position which required a thorough and complete knowledge of the formulas and routine of a department that expended milHons of the public funds. Fauquier, on a poor salary, diminish- ing instead of increasing with his service, had seen suc- cessive Administrations bud and blossom and decay, but had kept his position through the fact that his knowledge was a necessity to the successive chiefs and employees. Once it was true that he had been summarily removed by a new Secretary, to make room for a camp follower, whose exhaustive and intellectual services in a political campaign had made him eminently fit for anything, but the alarming discovery that the new clerk's knowledge of grammar and The Story of a Mine. 79 etymology was even worse than that of the Secretary him- self, and that, through ignorance of detail, the business of that department was retarded to a damage to the Govern- ment of over half a million of dollars, led to the reinstate- ment of Mr. Fauquier — at a lower salary. For it was felt that something was wrong somewhere, and as it had always been the custom of Congress and the Administra- tion to cut down salaries as the first step to reform, they made of Mr. Fauquier a moral example. A gentleman born, of somewhat expensive tastes, having lived up to his former salary, this change brought another bread-winner into the field, Mrs. Fauquier, who tried, more or less un- successfully, to turn her old Southern habits of hospitahty to remunerative account. But as poor Fauquier could never be prevailed upon to present a bill to a gentleman, Sir, and as some of the scions of the best Southern families were still waiting for, or had been recently dismissed from a position, the experiment was a pecuniary failure. Yet the house was of excellent repute and well patronised ; indeed, it was worth something to see old Fauquier sitting at the head in his ancestral style, relating anecdotes of great men now dead and gone, interrupted only by occa- sional visits from importunate tradesmen. Prominent among what Mr. Fauquier called his "little family," was a black-eyed lady of great powers of fascina- tion, and considerable local reputation as a flirt. Never- theless, these social aberrations were amply condoned by a facile and complacent husband, who looked with a lenient and even admiring eye upon the little lady's amusement, and to a certain extent lent a tacit indorsement to her conduct. Nobody minded Hopkinson ; in the blaze of Mrs. Hopkinson's fascinations he was completely lost sight of. A few married women with unduly sensitive husbands, and several single ladies of the best and longest standing. 8o The Story of d Mine. reflected severely on her conduct. The younger men of course admired her, but I think she got her chief support from old fogies like ourselves. For it is your quiet, self- conceited, complacent, philosophic, broad-waisted pater- familias who, after all, is the one to whom the gay and giddy of the proverbially impulsive, unselfish sex owe their place in the social firmament. We are not inclined to be captious j we. laugh at as a folly what our wives and daughters condemn as a fault ; our " withers are unwrung," yet we still confess to the fascinations of a pretty face. We know, bless us, from dear experience, the exact value of one woman's opinion of another j we want our brilliant little friend to shine ; it is only the moths who will burn their two-penny immature wings in the flame ! And why should they not ? Nature has been pleased to supply more moths than candles ! Go to ! — give the pretty creature — be she maid, wife or widow, a show ! And so, my dear sir, while materfainilias bends her black brows in disgust, we smile our superior little smile, and extend to Mistress Anonyma our gracious indorsement. And if Giddiness is grateful, or if Folly is friendly — well, of course, we can't help that. Indeed it rather proves our theory. I had intended to say something about Hopkinson, but really there is very little to say. He was invariably good- humoured. A few ladies once tried to show him that he really ought to feel worse than he did about the conduct of his wife, and it is recorded that Hopkinson, in an excess of good-humour and kindliness, promised to do so. Indeed the good fellow was so accessible that it is said that young De Lancy of the Tape Department confided to Hopkinson his jealousy of a rival, and revealed the awful secret that he (De Lancy) had reason to expect more loyalty from his (Hopkinson's) wife. The good fellow is reported to have been very sympathetic, and to have promised De Lancy to The Story of a Mine. 8i lend whatever influence he had with Mrs. Hopkinson in his favour. "You see," he said explanatorily to De Lancy, " she has a good deal to attend to lately, and I suppose has got rather careless — that's women's ways. But if / can't bring her round I'll speak to Gashwiler — I'll get him to use his influence with Mrs. Hop. So cheer up, my boy, he'll make it all right." " The appearance of a bouquet on the table of Mrs. Hopkinson was no rare event ; nevertheless ]Mr. Gashwiler's was not there. Its hideous contrasts had offended her woman's eye — it is observable that good taste survives the wreck of all the other feminine virtues — and she had dis- tributed it to make boutonnieres for other gentlemen. Yet when he appeared she said to him hastily, putting her little hand over the cardiac region — '^ I'm so glad you came. But you gave me such a fright an hour ago." Mr. Gashwiler was both pleased and astounded. "What have I done, my dear Mrs. Hopkinson?" he began. " Oh, don't talk," she said sadly. " What have you done ? indeed ! Why, you sent me that beautiful bouquet. I could not mistake your taste in the arrangement of the flowers — but my husband was here. You know his jealousy. I was obliged to conceal it from him. A^ever — promise me now — never do it again." Mr. Gashwiler gallantly protested. " No ! I am serious ! I was so agitated ; he must have seen me blush." Nothing but the gross flattery of this speech could have clouded its manifest absurdity to the Gashwdler conscious- ness. But Mr. Gashwiler had already succumbed to the girlish half-timidity with which it was uttered. Neverthe- less, he could not help saying — "But why should he be so jealous now? Only day VOL. V. F ' 82 The Story of a Mine, before yesterday I saw Simpson of Duluth hand you a nose- gay right before him ! " "Ah," returned the lady, "he was outwardly calm then^ but you know nothing of the scene that occurred between us after you left." "But," gasped the practical Gashwiler, "Simpson had given your husband that contract — a cool fifty thousand in his pocket ! " Mrs. Hopkinson looked as dignifiedly at Gashwiler as was consistent with five feet three (the extra three inches being a pyramidal structure of straw-coloured hair), a frond of faint curls, a pair of laughing blue eyes and a small belted waist. Then she said, with a casting down of her lids — "You forget that my husband loves me." And for once the minx appeared to look penitent. It was becoming, but as it had been originally practised in a simple white dress, relieved only with pale blue ribbons, it was not entirely in keeping with befiounced lavender and rose-coloured trim- mings. Yet the woman who hesitates between her moral expression and the harmony of her dress is lost. And Mrs. Hopkinson was victrix by her very audacity. Mr. Gashwiler was flattered. The most dissolute man likes the appearance of virtue. " But graces and accom- plishments like yours, dear Mrs. Hopkinson," he said oleaginously, "belong to the whole country." Which, with something between a courtesy and a strut, he endeav- oured to represent. "And I shall want to avail myself of all," he added, " in the matter of the Castro claim. A Httle supper at Welcker's, a glass or two of champagne, and a single flash of those bright eyes, and the thing is done." " But," said Mrs. Hopkinson, " I've promised Josiah that I would give up all those frivolities, and although my con- science is clear, you know how people talk ! Josiah hears it. Why, only last night, at a reception at the Patagonian The Story of a Mhie. 8 o Minister's, every woman in the room gossiped about me because I led the German with him. As if a married woman, whose husband was interested in the Government, could not be civil to the representative of a friendly- power?" Mr. Gashwiler did not see how Mr. Hopkinson's late contract for supplying salt pork and canned provisions to the army of the United States should make his wife suscep- tible to the advances of foreign princes, but he prudently kept that to himself. Still, not being himself a diplomate, he could not help saying — " But I understood that Mr. Hopkinson did not object to your interesting yourself in this claim, and you know some of the stock" The lady started, and said — " Stock ! Dear Mr. Gashwiler, for heaven's sake don't mention that hideous name to me. Stock ! I am sick of it ! Have you gentlemen no other topic for a lady ? " She punctuated her sentence with a mischievous look at her interlocutor. For a second time, I regret to say that Mr. Gashwiler succumbed. The Roman constituency at Remus, it is to be hoped, were happily ignorant of this last defection of their great legislator. Mr. Gashwiler instantly forgot his theme — began to ply the lady with a certain bovine-like gallantry, which, it is to be said to her credit, she parried with a playful, terrier-like dexterity, when the servant suddenly announced, " Mr. Wiles." Gashwiler started. Not so Mrs. Hopkinson, who, how- ever, prudently and quietly removed her own chair several inches from Gashwiler's. "Do you know Mr. Wiles?" she asked pleasantly. " No ! That is, I — ah — yes, I may say I have had some business relations with him," responded Gashwiler, rising. " Won't you stay ? " she added pleadinglf. " Do ! " 84 The Story of a Mine. Mr. Gashwiler's prudence always got the better of his gallantry. " Not now," he responded, m some nervousness. " Perhaps I had better go now, in view of what you have just said about gossip. You need not mention my name to this-er — this — Mr. Wiles." And with one eye on the door and an awkward dash of his at the lady's fingers, he withdrew. There was no introductory formula to Mr. Wiles' inter- view. He dashed at once in medias res. " Gashwiler knows a woman that, he says, can help us against that Spanish girl who is coming here with proofs, prettiness, fascinations and what not? You must find her out." "Why?" asked the lady laughingly. " Because I don't trust that Gashwiler. A woman with a pretty face and an ounce of brains could sell him out ; ay, and us with him." " Oh, say two ounces of brains. Mr. Wiles, Mr. Gash- wiler is no fool." *' Possibly, except when your sex is concerned, and it is very likely that this woman is his superior." " I should think so," said Mrs. Hopkinson with a mis- chievous look. " Ah, you know her, then ? " "Not so well as I know him," said Mrs. H., quite seriously. "I wish I did." " Well, you'll find out if she's to be trusted ! You are laughing — it is a serious matter ! This woman " Mrs. Hopkinson dropped him a charming courtsey and said — '' Cestmoi!'' The Story of a Mine. 85 CHAPTER XII. A RACE FOR IT. Royal Thatcher worked hard. That the boyish little painter who shared his hospitality at the "Blue Mass" mine should afterward have little part in his active life, seemed not inconsistent with his habits. At present the mine was his only mistress, claiming his entire time, exasperating him with fickleness, but still requiring that supreme devotion of which his nature was capable. It is possible that Miss Carmen saw this too, and so set about with feminine tact, if not to supplement, at least to make her rival less pertinacious and absorbing. Apart from this object she zealously laboured in her profession, yet with small pecuniary result, I fear. Local art was at a discount in California. The scenery of the country had not yet become famo^jis ; rather it was reserved for a certain Eastern artist, already famous, to make it so, and people cared little for the reproduction, under their very noses, of that which they saw continually with their own eyes and valued not. So that little Mistress Carmen was fain to divert her artist soul to support her plump little material body, and made divers excursions into the region of ceramic art, painting on velvet, illuminating missals, decor- ating china, and the like. I have in my possession some wax-flowers — a startling fuchsia, and a bewildering dahlia — sold for a mere pittance by this little lady, whose pictures lately took the prize at a foreign exhibition, shortly after she had been half-starved by a California public, and claimed by a California press as its fostered child of genius. Of these struggles and triumphs Thatcher had no know- ledge, yet he was perhaps more startled than he would 86 The Story of a Mine. own to himself, when, one December day, he received this despatch : " Come to Washington at once. Carmen de Haro." " Carmen de Haro ! " I grieve to state that such was the pre-occupation of this man, elected by fate to be the hero of the solitary amatory episode of this story, that for a moment he could not recall her. When the honest little figure that had so manfully stood up against him, and had proved her sex by afterwards running away from him, came back at last to his memory, he was at first mystified and then self-reproachful. He had been, he felt vaguely, untrue to himself. He had been remiss to the self-con- fessed daughter of his enemy. Yet why should she tele- graph to him, and what was she doing in Washington ? To all these speculations, it is to be said to his credit, that he looked for no sentimental or romantic answer. Royal Thatcher was naturally modest and self-depreciating in his relations to the other sex, as indeed most^men, who are apt to be successful with women, generally are — despite a vast degree of superannuated bosh to the contrary. In the half-dozen women who are startled by sheer audacity into submission, there are scores who are piqued by a self- respectful patience. And where a woman has to do half the wooing, she generally makes a pretty sure thing of it. In his bewilderment Thatcher had overlooked a letter lying on his table. It was from his Washington lawyer. The concluding paragraph caught his eye — "Perhaps it would be well if you came here yourself; Roscommon is here, and they say there is a niece of Garcia's, lately appeared, who is likely to get up a strong social sympathy for the old Mexican. I don't know that they expect to prove anything by her, but Tm told she is attractive and clever, and has enUsted the sympathies of the delegation." Thatcher laid the letter down a little indignantly. Strong The Story of a Mine, Sy men are quite as liable as weak women are to sudden inconsistencies on any question they may have in common. What right had this poor little bud he had cherished — he was quite satisfied now that he had cherished her, and really had suffered from her absence — what right had she to suddenly blossom in the sunshine of power, to be, per- haps, plucked and worn by one of his enemies. He did not agree with his lawyer that she was in any way connected with his enemies ; he trusted to her masculine loyalty that far. But here was something vaguely dangerous to the feminine mind — position, flattery, power. He was almost as firmly satisfied now that he had been wronged and neglected as he had been positive a few moments before that he had been remiss in his attention. The irritation, although momentary, was enough to decide this strong man ; he telegraphed to San Francisco, and having missed the steamer, secured an overland passage to Washington ; thought better of it, and partly changed his mind an hour after the ticket was purchased — but, manlike, having once made a practical step in a wrong direction, he kept on rather than admit an inconsistency to himself. Yet he was not entirely satisfied that his journey was a business one. The impulsive, weak little Mistress Carmen had evidently scored one against the strong man. Only a small part of the present great transcontinental railway at this time had been built, and was but piers at either end of a desolate and wild expanse as yet unbridged. When the overland traveller left the rail at Reno, he left, as it were, civilisation with it, and until he reached the Nebraska frontier, the rest of his road was only the old emigrant trail traversed by the coaches of the Overland Company. Excepting a part of " Devil's Canon," the way was unpicturesque and flat, and the passage of the Rocky Mountains, far from suggesting the alleged poetry of that 88 The Story of a Mine, region, was only a reminder of those sterile distances of a level New England landscape. The journey was a dreary monotony, that was scarcely enlivened by its discomforts, never amounting to actual accident or incident, but utterly destructive to all nervous tissue. Insanity often super- vened. " On the third day out," said Hank Monk, driver, speaking casually but charitably of a "fare" — "on the third day out, after axing no end of questions and getting no answers, he took to chewing straws that he picked outer the cushion, and kinder cussin' to hisself. From that very day I knew it was all over with him, and I handed him over to his friends at ' Shy Ann,' strapped to the back seat, and ravin' and cussin' at Ben Holliday, the gent'manly proprietor." It is presumed that the unfortunate tourist's indignation was excited at the late Mr. Benjamin Holliday, then the proprietor of the line — an evidence of his insanity that no one who knew that large-hearted, fastidious, and elegantly cultured Californian, since allied to foreign nobility, will for a moment doubt. Mr. Royal Thatcher was too old and experienced a mountaineer to do aught but accept patiently and cynically his brother Californian's method of increasing his profits. As it was generally understood that any one who came from California by that route had some dark design, the victim received little sympathy. Thatcher's equable tem- perament and indomitable will stood him in good stead, and helped him cheerfully in this emergency. He ate his scant meals, and otherwise took care of the functions of his weak human nature, when and where he could, v/ithout grumbling, and at times earned even the praise of his driver by his ability to "rough it." Which "roughing it," by the way, meant the abiUty of the passenger to accept the incompetency of the company. It is true there were times when he regretted that he had not taken the steamer, The Story of a Mine. 89 but then he reflected that he was one of a Vigilance Committee, sworn to hang that admirable man, the late Commodore William H. Vanderbilt, for certain practices and cruelties done upon the bodies of certain steerage passengers by his line, and for divers irregularities in their transportation. I mention this fact merely to show how so practical and stout a voyager as Thatcher might have confounded the perplexities attending the administration of a great steamship company with selfish greed and brutality, and that he, with other Californians, may not have known the fact, since recorded by the Commodore's family clergyman, that the great milHonaire was always true to the hymns of his childhood. Nevertheless Thatcher found time to be cheerful and helpful to his fellow passengers, and even to be so far interesting to " Yuba Bill," driver, as to have the box seat placed at his disposal. " But," said Thatcher, in some concern, " the box seat was purchased by that other gentle- man in Sacramento. He paid extra for it, and his name's on your way-bill!" "That," said Yuba Bill, scornfully, ''don't fetch me even ef he'd chartered the whole shebang. Look yar, do you reckon I'm goin' to spile my temper by setting next to a man with a game eye. And such an eye ! Gewhillikins ! Why, darn my skin, the other day when we war watering at Webster's, he got down and passed in front of the off leader — that ^^i pinto colt that's bin accustomed to injins, grizzlies and buffalo, and I'm blest ef, when her eye tackled his, ef she didn't jist git up and rar 'round, that I reckoned I'd hev to go down and take them blinders off from her eyes and clap 'em on his." "But he paid his money and is entitled to his seat," persisted Thatcher. "Mebbe he is — in the office of the kempeny," growled Yuba Bill, "but it's time some folks knowed that out in the plains I run this yer team myself" A fact which was go The Story of a Mine, self-evident to most of the passengers. " I suppose his authority is as absolute on this dreary waste as the captain of a ship's in mid-ocean," explained Thatcher to the baleful- eyed stranger. Mr. Wiles — whom the reader has recognised — assented with the public side of his face, but looked vengeance at Yuba Bill with the other, while Thatcher, innocent of the presence of one of his worst enemies, placated Bill so far as to restore Wiles to his rights. Wiles thanked him. " Shall I have the pleasure of your company far? " Wiles asked insinuatingly. " To Washington," replied Thatcher frankly. "Washington is a gay city during the session," again suggested the stranger. " I'm going on busi- ness," said Thatcher bluntly. A trifling incident occurred at Pine Tree Crossing which did not heighten Yuba Bill's admiration of the stranger. As Bill opened the double-locked box in the "boot" of the coach — sacred to Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express and the Overland Company's treasures — Mr. Wiles perceived a small, black morocco portmanteau among the parcels. " Ah, you carry baggage there too ? " he said sweetly. " Not often," responded Yuba Bill shortly. " Ah, this then contains valuables?" " It belongs to that man whose seat you've got," said Yuba Bill, who, for insulting purposes of his own, preferred to establish the fiction that Wiles was an interloper, " and ef he reckons, in a sorter mixed kempeny like this, to lock up his portmantle, I don't know who's business it is. Who? " continued Bill, lashing himself into a simulated rage, " who, in blank, is running this yer team ? Hey ? Mebbe you think, sittin' up thar on the box-seat, you are. Mebbe you think you kin see 'round corners with that thar eye, and kin pull up for teams 'round corners, on down grades, a mile ahead ? " But here Thatcher, who with some- thing of Launcelot's concern for Modred, had a noble pity for all infirmities, interfered so sternly that Yuba Bill stopped. The Story of a Mine, 91 On the fourth day they struck a bhnding snow storm while ascending the dreary plateau that henceforward for six hundred miles was to be their road bed. The horses, after floundering through the drift, gave out completely on reaching the next station, and the prospects ahead, to all but the experienced eye, looked doubtful. A few passengers advised taking to sledges, others a postponement of the journey until the weather changed. Yuba Bill alone was for pressing forward as they w^ere. " Two miles more and we're on the high grade, whar the wind is strong enough to blow you through the windy and jist peart enough to pack away over them cliffs every inch of snow- that falls. I'll jist skirmish round in and out o' them drifts on these four wheels, whar ye can't drag one o' them flat-bottomed dry goods boxes through a drift." Bill had a Cahfornia whip's contempt for a sledge. But he was warmly seconded by Thatcher, who had the next best thing to experience, the instinct that taught him to read character, and take advan- tage of another man's experience. " Them that wants to stop kin do so," said Bill, authoritatively, cutting the Gordian knot, " them as wants to take a sledge can do so — thar's one in the barn. Them as wants to go on with me and the relay will come on." Mr. Wiles selected the sledge and a driver, a few remained for the next stage, and Thatcher, with two others, decided to accompany Yuba Bill. These changes took up some valuable time, and the storm continuing, the stage was run under the shed, the passengers gathering around the station fire, and not until after midnight did Yuba Bill put in the relays. '' I wish you a good journey," said Wiles, as he drove from the shed as Bill entered. Bill vouchsafed no reply, but addressing himself to the driver, said curtly, as if giving an order for the delivery of goods, " Shove him out at RawUngs," passed 92 The Story of a Mine. contemptuously around to the tail-board of the sled and returned to the harnessing of his relay. The moon came out and shone high as Yuba Bill once more took the reins in his hands. The wind, which in- stantly attacked them- as they reached the level, seemed to make the driver's theory plausible, and for half a mile the road bed was swept clean and frozen hard. Farther on a tongue of snow extending from a boulder to the right, reached across their path to the height of two or three feet. But Yuba Bill dashed through a part of it, and by skilful manoeuvring circumvented the rest. But even as the obstacle was passed the coach dropped with an ominous lurch on one side, and the off fore wheel flew off in the darkness. Bill threw the horses back on their haunches, but before their momentum could be checked the rear hind wheel slipped away, the vehicle rocked violently, plunged backwards and forwards, and stopped. Yuba Bill was on the road in an instant with his lantern. Then followed an outbreak of profanity which I regret, for artistic purposes, exceeds that generous limit which a sympathising pubHc has already extended to me in the exphcation of character. Let me state, therefore, that in a very few moments he succeeded in disparaging the charac- ters of his employers, their male and female relatives, the coach builder, the station keeper, the road on which he travelled and the travellers themselves, with occasional broad expletives addressed to himself and his own relatives. For the spirit of this and a more cultivated poetry of expression, I beg to refer the temperate reader to the 3d chapter of Job. The passengers knew Bill, and sat, conservative, patient and expectant. As yet the cause of the catastrophe was not known. At last Thatcher's voice came from the box-seat — "What's up, Bill?'' The Story of a Mine. 93 " Not a blank linch-pin in the whole blank coach," was the answer. There was a dead silence. Yuba Bill executed a wild war dance of helpless rage. '•' Blank the blank enchanted thing to blank ! " (I beg here to refer the fastidious and cultivated reader to the only adjective I have dared transcribe of this actual oath which I once had the honour of hearing. He will, I trust, not fail to recognise the old classic dcemon in this wild Western objurgation.) " Who did it ? " asked Thatcher. Yuba Bill did not reply, but dashed up again to the box, unlocked the " boot," and screamed out — " The man that stole your portmantle — Wiles ! " Thatcher laughed — " Don't worry about that. Bill. A ' biled' shirt, an extra collar and a few papers. Nothing more." Yuba Bill slowly descended. When he reached the ground he plucked Thatcher aside by his coat sleeve — " Ye don't mean to say ye had nothing in that bag ye waz trj'ing to get away with ? " " No," said the laughing Thatcher frankly. "And that Wiles warn't one '0 them detectives?" " Not to my knowledge, certainly." Yuba Bill sighed sadly and returned to assist in the replacing of the coach on its wheels again. *' Never mind. Bill," said one of the passengers sympathis- ingly, '■ we'll catch that man Wiles at ' Rawlings ' sure," and he looked around at the inchoate vigilance committee already " rounding into form " about him. " Ketch him ! " returned Yuba Bill derisively, " why we've got to go back to the station, and afore we're off agin he's pinted fur Clarmont on the relay we lose. Ketch him ! H— ll's full of such ketches !" 94 The Story of a Mine. There was clearly nothing to do but to go back to the station to await the repairing of the coach. While this was being done Yuba Bill again drew Thatcher aside — "I allers suspected that chap's game eye, but I didn't somehow allow for anything like this. I reckoned it was only the square thing to look arter things generally, and 'specially your traps. So, to purvent troubil and keep things about 'ekal, ez he was goin' away, I sorter lifted this yer bag of hiz outer the tail-board of his sleigh. I don't know as its any ex-change or compensation, but it may give ye a chance to spot him agin, or him you. It strikes me as bein' far-minded and squar," and with these words he deposited at the feet of the astounded Thatcher the black travelling bag of Mr. Wiles. " But, Bill — see here ! I can't take this ! " interrupted Thatcher hastily. " You can't swear that he's taken my bag — and — and — blank it all — this won't do, you know. I've no right to this man's things, even if" " Hold your bosses," said Bill gravely, " I ondertook to take charge o' your traps. I didn't — at least that d — d wall eyed — Thar's a portmantle. I don't know who's it is. Take it." Half amused, half embarrassed, yet still protesting, Thatcher took the bag in his hands. "Ye might open it in my presence," suggested Yuba Bill gravely. Thatcher, half-laughingly, did so. It was full of papers and semi-legal looking documents. Thatcher's own name on one of them caught his eye ; he opened the paper hastily and perused it. The smile faded from his lips. " Well," said Yuba Bill," suppose we call it a fair exchange at present." Thatcher was still examining the papers. Suddenly this cautious, strong-minded man looked up into Yuba Bill's The Story of a Mine. 95 waiting face, and said quietly, in the despicable slang of the epoch and region — " It's a go ! Suppose we do." CHAPTER XIIi; HOW IT BECAME FAMOUS. Yuba Bill was right in believing that Wiles would lose no time at Ravvhngs. He left there on a fleet horse before Bill had returned with the broken-down coach to the last station, and distanced the telegram sent to detain him two hours. Leaving the stage road and its dangerous tele- graphic stations, he pushed southward to Denver over the army trail, in company with a half-breed packer, crossing the Missouri before Thatcher had reached Julesburg. When Thatcher was at Omaha, Wiles was already in St, Louis, and as the Pullman car containing the hero of the " Blue Mass Mine " rolled into Chicago, Wiles was already walking the streets of the National Capital. Nevertheless he had time en route to sink in the waters of the North Platte, with many expressions of disgust, the little black portmanteau belonging to Thatcher, containing his dressing case, a few unimportant letters and an extra shirt, to wonder why simple men did not travel with their important documents and valuables, and to set on foot some prudent and cautious inquiries regarding his own lost carpet-bag and its important contents. But for these trifles he had every reason to be satisfied with the progress of his plans. " It's all right," said Mrs. Hopkinson merrily, " while you and Gashwiler have been working with your 'stock' and treating the whole world as if it could be bribed, I've done more with that earnest, self-believing, self-deceiving and perfectly pathetic Ros- gd The Story of a Mine, common than all you fellows put together. Why I've told his pitiful story and drawn tears from the eyes of senators and cabinet ministers. More than that, I've introduced him into society, put him in a dress coat — such a figure — and you know how the best folk worship everything that is oiUre as the sincere thing ; I've made him a complete suc- cess. Why, only the other night, when Senator Misnancy and Judge Fitzdawdle were here, after making him tell his story — which you know I think he really believes — I sang, * There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,' and my husband told me afterwards it was worth at least a dozen votes." " But about this rival of yours — this niece of Garcia's ? " " Another of your blunders — you men know nothing of women. Firstly, she's a swarthy little brunette, with dots for eyes, and strides like a man, dresses like a dowdy, don't wear stays and has no style. Then she's a single woman and alone, and although she affects to be an artist and has Bohemian ways, don't you see she can't go into society with- out a chaperon or somebody to go with her. Nonsense." "But," persisted Wiles, "she must have some power; there's Judge Mason and Senator Peabody, who are con- stantly talking about her, and Dinwiddle of Virginia escorted her through the Capitol the other day." Mistress Hopkinson laughed. " Mason and Peabody aspire to be thought literary and artistic, and. Dinwiddle wanted to pique 7?ie ! " " But Thatcher is no fool" " Is Thatcher a lady's man ? " queried the lady sud- denly. " Hardly, I should say," responded Wiles. " He pre- tends to be absorbed in his swindle and devoted to his mine, and I don't think that even you " — he stopped with a slight sneer. The Story of a Mine, 97 " There, you are misunderstanding me again, and what is worse, you are misunderstanding your case. Thatcher is pleased with her because he has probably seen no one else. Wait till he comes to Washington and has an opportunity for comparison," and she cast a frank glance at her mirror, where Wiles, with a sardonic bow, left her standing. Mr. Gashwiler was quite as confident of his own success with Congress. "We are within a few days of the end of the session. We will manage to have it taken up ana rushed through before that fellow Thatcher knows what he is about." *' If it could be done before he gets here," said Wiles, " it's a reasonably sure thing. He is delayed two days — he might have been delayed longer.'^ Here Mr. Wiles sighed ; if the accident had happened on a mountain road., and the stage had been precipitated over the abyss ? What valuable time would have been saved and success become a surety. But Mr. Wiles' functions as an advocate did not include murder; at least he was doubtful if it could be taxed as costs. " We need have no fears, sir," resumed Mr. Gashwiler, *' the matter is now in the hands of the highest tribunal of appeal in the country. It will meet, sir^ with infle?:ible justice. I have already prepared some remarks " " By the way," interrupted Wiles infelicitously, " where's your young man — your private secretary — Dobbs ? " The Congressman for a moment looked confused. "He is not here. And I must correct your error in applying that term to him, I have never put my confidence in the hands of any one." " But you introduced him to me as your secretary ? " " A mere honorary title, sir. A brevet rank. I might, it is true, have thought to repose such a trust in him. But I was deceived, sir, as I fear I am too apt to be when I VOL. v. G 98 The Story of a Mine. permit my feelings as a man to overcome my duty as an American legislator. Mr. Dobbs enjoyed my patronage and the opportunity it gave me to introduce him into public life only to abuse it. He became, 1 fear, deeply indebted. His extravagance was unlimited, his ambition unbounded, but without, sir, a cash basis. I advanced money to him from time to time upon the Httle property you so generously extended to him for his services. But it was quietly dissipated. Yet, sir, such is the ingratitude of man that his family lately appealed to me for assistance. I felt it was necessary to be stern, and I refused. I would not for the sake of his family say anything, but I have missed, sir, books from my library. On the day after he left two volumes of Patent Office reports and a Blue Book of Congress, purchased that day by me at a store on Pennsylvania avenue, were missing — missing ! I had difficulty, sir, great difficulty in keeping it from the papers ! " As Mr. Wiles had heard the story already from Gashwiler's acquaintance, with more or less free comment on the gifted legislator's economy, he could not help thinking that the difficulty had been great indeed. But he only fixed his malevolent eye on Gashwiler and said — " So he is gone, eh ? " *' Yes." "And you've made an enemy of him ? That's bad." Mr. Gashwiler tried to look dignifiedly unconcerned, but something in his visitor's manner made him uneasy. " I say it's bad, if you have. Listen. Before I left here I found at a boarding-house where he had boarded, and still owed a bill, a trunk which the landlord retained. Opening it I found some letters and papers of yours, with certain memoranda of his, which I thought ought to be in your possession. As an alleged friend of his I redeemed The Story of a Mine. 99 the trunk by paying the amount of his bill, and secured the more valuable papers." Gashwiler's face, which had grown apoplectically suffused as Wiles went on, at last gasped — " But you got the trunk and have the papers ? " " Unfortunately no j and that's why it's bad." "But good God ! what have you done with them ?" " I've lost them somewhere on the Overla Koad." Mr. Gashwiler sat for a few moments speechless, vacillat- ing between a purple rage and a pallid fear. Then he said hoarsely — "They are all blank forgeries — every one of them." " Oh no ! " said Wiles, smiling blankly on his dexter side, and enjoying the whole scene malevolently with his sinister aye. " Your papers are all genuine, and I won't say are .lot all right, but unfortunately I had in the same bag some memoranda of my own for the use of my client, that, you understand, might be put to some bad use if found by a clever man." The two rascals looked at each other. There is, on the whole, really very little " honour among thieves " — at least great ones — and the inferior rascal succumbed at the reflec- tion of what he might do if he were in the other rascal's place. " See here. Wiles," he said, relaxing his dignity with the perspiration that oozed from every pore, and made the collar of his shirt a mere limp rag. "See here, We^^ — this first use of the plural was equivalent to a confession — ^^we must get them papers." "Of course," said Wiles coolly, "if we can, and if Thatcher don't get wind of them." " He cannot." " He was on the coach when I lost them, coming East." Mr. Gashwiler paled again. In the emergency he had lOO The Story of a Mine. recourse to the sideboard and a bottle, forgetting Wiles. Ten minutes before, Wiles would have remained seated ; but it is recorded that he rose, took the bottle from the gifted Gashwiler's fingers, helped himself ^^j-/ and then sat down. " Yes, but, my boy," said Gashwiler, now rapidly changing situations with the cooler Wiles, "yes, but, old fellow/' he added, poking Wiles with a fat fore-finger, " don't you see the whole thing will be up before he gets here." *' Yes," said Wiles gloomily, ''but those lazy, easy, honest men have a way of popping up just at the nick of time. They never need hurry; all things wait for them. Why, don't you remember that on the very day Mrs. Hopkinson and me and you got the President to sign that patent, that very day one of them d — n fellows turns up from San Francisco or Australia, having taken his own time to get here ; gets here about half an hour after the President had signed the patent and sent it over to the office, finds the right man to introduce him to the President, has a talk with him, makes him sign an order countermanding its issuance, and undoes all that has been done in six years in one hour." "Yes, but Congress is a tribunal that does not revoke its decrees," said Gashwiler with a return of his old manner ; " at least," he added, observing an incredulous shrug in the shoulders of his companion, "at least during the session^^ " We shall see," said Wiles, quietly taking his hat. " We shall see, sir," said the member from Remus with dignity. The Story of a Mine. ^ loi CHAPTER XIV. WHO INTRIGUED FOR IT. There was at this time in the Senate of the United States an eminent and respected gentleman, scholarly, orderly, honourable and radical— the fit representative of a scholarly, orderly, honourable and radical commonwealth. For many years he had held his trust with conscious rectitude, and a slight depreciation of other forms of merit, and for as many years had been as regularly returned to his seat by his con- stituency with equally conscious rectitude in themselves, and an equal scepticism regarding others. Removed by his nature beyond the reach of certain temptations, and by circumstances beyond even the knowledge of others, his social and political integrity was spotless. An orator and practical debater, his refined tastes kept him from person- ality, and the public recognition of the complete unselfish- ness of his motives and the magnitude of his dogmas, protected him from scurrility. His principles had never been appealed to by a bribe ; he had rarely been approached by an emotion. A man of poUshed taste in art and literature, and pos- sessing the means to gratify it, his luxurious home was filled with treasures he had himself collected, and further enhanced by the stamp of his own appreciation. His library had not only the elegance of adornment that his wealth could bring and his taste approve, but a certain refined negligence of habitual use and the easy disorder of the artist's workshop. All this was quickly noted by a young girl who stood on its threshold at the close of a dull January day. The card that had been brought to the Senator bore the name of "Carmen de Haro," and modestly, in the right- I02 The Story of a Mine, hand corner, in almost microscopic script, the further de- scription of herself as "Artist." Perhaps the picturesque- ness of the name and its historic suggestion caught the scholar's taste, for, when to his request, through his servant, that she would be kind enough to state her business, she replied as frankly that her business was personal to himself, he directed that she should be admitted. Then, entrench- ing himself behind his library table, overlooking a bastion of books, and a glacis of pamphlets and papers, and throwing into his forehead and eyes an expression of utter disqualification for anything but the business before him, he calmly awaited the intruder. She came, and for an instant stood, hesitatingly, framing herself as a picture in the door. Mrs. Hopkinson was right — she had "no style," unless an original and half foreign quaintness could be called so. There was a desperate attempt visible to combine an American shawl with the habits of a mantilla, and it was always slipping from one shoulder, that was so supple and vivacious as to betray the deficiencies of an education in stays. There was a cluster of black curls around her low forehead, fitting her so closely as to seem to be a part of the seal-skin cap she wore. Once, from the force of habit, she attempted to put her shawl over her head and talk through the folds gathered under her chin, but an astonished look from the Senator checked her. Nevertheless, he felt relieved, and, rising, motioned her to a chair with a heartiness he would have scarcely shown to a Parisian toilleta. And when, with two or three quick, long steps, she reached his side, and showed a frank, innocent, but strong and determined little face, feminine only in its flash of eye and beauty of lip and chin curves, he put down the pamphlet he had taken up some- what ostentatiously, and gently begged to know her business. I think I have once before spoken of her voice — an The Story of a Mine. 103 organ more often cultivated by my fair countrywomen for singing than for speaking, which, considering that much of our practical relations with the sex are carried on with- out the aid of an opera score, seems a mistaken notion of theirs — and of its sweetness, gentle inflexion and musical emphasis. She had the advantage of having been trained in a musical language, and came of a race with whom catarrhs and sore throats were rare. So that in a few brief phrases she sang the Senator into acquiescence as she imparted the plain libretto of her business — namely, a "desire to see some of his rare engravings." Now the engravings in question were certain etchings of the early great apprentices of the art, and were, I am happy to believe, extremely rare. From my unprofessional view they were exceedingly bad — showing the mere genesis of something since perfected, but dear, of course, to the true collector's soul. I don't believe that Carmen really admired them either. But the minx knew that the Senator prided himself on having the only "pot-hooks" of the great '•' A " or the first artistic efiforts of " B " — I leave the real names to be filled in by the connoisseur — and the Senator became interested. For the last year two or three of these abominations had been hanging in his study, utterly ignored by the casual visitor. But here was appre- ciation ! •'• She was," she added, " only a poor young artist, unable to purchase such treasures, but equally unable to resist the opportunity afi"orded her, even at the risk of seeming bold, or of obtruding upon a great man's privacy," &c., &c. This flattery, which, if ofl"ered in the usual legal tender of the country, would have been looked upon as counter- feit, delivered here in a foreign accent, with a slightly tropical warmth, was accepted by the Senator as genuine. These children of the Sun are so impulsive ! We, of I04 The Story of a Mine. course, feel a little pity for the person who thus transcends our standard of good taste and violates our conventional canons — but they are always sincere. The cold New Englander saw nothing wrong in one or two direct and extravagant compliments, that would have insured his visitor's early dismissal if tendered in the clipped metalUc phrases of the commonwealth he represented. So that in a few moments the black, curly head of the little artist and the white, flowing locks of the Senator were close together bending over the rack that contained the engravings. It was then that Carmen, listening to a graphic description of the early rise of Art in the Nether- lands, forgot herself and put her shawl around her head, holding its folds in her little brown hand. In this situation they were, at different times during the next two hours, interrupted by five Congressmen, three Senators, a Cabinet officer, and a Judge of the Supreme Bench — each of whom were quickly but courteously dismissed. Popular sentiment, however, broke out in the hall. "Well, I'm blanked, but this gets me." (The speaker was a Territorial delegate.) "At his time o' life, too, lookin' over pictures with a gal young enough to be his grandchild. (This from a venerable official, since suspected of various erotic irregularities.) "She don't handsome any." (The honourable member from Dakotah.) "This accounts for his protracted silence during the session." (A serious colleague from the Senator's own State.) "Oh, blank it all!" {Omnes.) Four went home to tell their wives. There are few things- more touching in the matrimonial compact than the superb frankness with which each confide to each the various irregularities of their friends. It is upon these sacred con- The Story of a Mine. 105 fidences that the firm foundations of marriage rest un- shaken. Of course the objects of this comment, at least one of them, were quite oblivious. " I trust," said Carmen timidly, when they had for the fourth time regarded in rapt admira- tion an abominable something by some Dutch wood- chopper, " I trust I am not keeping you from your great friends " — her pretty eyelids were cast down in tremulous distress — "I should never forgive myself. Perhaps it is important business of the State ? " " Oh dear, no ! They will come again — it's their business." The Senator meant it kindly. It was as near the perilous edge of a compliment as your average cultivated Boston man ever ventures, and Carmen picked it up, femininely, by its sentimental end. "And I suppose / shall not trouble you again ? " " I shall always be proud to place the portfolio at your disposal. Command me at any time," said the Senator, with dignity. "You are kind. You are good," said Carmen, "and I — I am but — look you — only a poor girl from California, that you know not." " Pardon me. I know your country well." And indeed he could have told her the exact number of bushels of wheat to the acre in her own county of Monterey, its voting population, its political bias. Yet of the more important product before him, after the manner of book-read men, he knew nothing. Carmen was astonished, but respectful. It transpired presently that she was not aware of the rapid growth of the silk -worm in her own district, knew nothing of the Chinese question, and very little of the American mining laws. Upon these questions the senator enlightened her fully. io6 The Story of a Mine. "Your name is historic, by the way," he said pleasantly ; " there was a Knight of Alcantara, a ' de Haro,' one of the emigrants with Las Casas." Carmen nodded her head quickly, " Yes \ my great-great- great-g-r-e-a-t grandfather ! " The Senator stared. " Oh yes. I am the niece of Victor Castro, who married my father's sister." "The Victor Castro of the Blue Mass Mine?" asked the Senator abruptly. "Yes," quietly. Had the Senator been of the Gashwiler type he would have expressed himself, after the average masculine fashion, by a long-drawn whistle. But his only perceptible appre- ciation of a sudden astonishment and suspicion in his mind was a lowering of the social thermometer of the room so decided that poor Carmen looked up innocently, chilled, and drawing her shawl closer around her shoulders. " I have something more to ask," said Carmen, hanging her head — '' it is a great, oh, a very great favour." The Senator had retreated behind his bastion of books again, and was visibly preparing for an assault. He saw it all now. He had been, in some vague way, deluded. He had given confidential audience to the niece of one of the Great Claimants before Congress. The inevitable axe had come to the grindstone. What might not this woman dare ask of him ? He was the more implacable that he felt he had already been prepossessed — and honestly prepossessed — in her favour. He was angry with her for having pleased him. Under the icy polish of his manner there were certain Puritan callosities caused by early straight-lacing. He was not yet quite free from his ancestor's cheerful ethics, that Nature, as represented by an Impulse, was as much to be restrained as Order represented by a Quaker. The Story of a Mine. 107 Without apparently noticing his manner, Carmen went on, with a certain potential freedom of style, gesture and manner scarcely to be indicated in her mere words. " You know, then, I am of Spanish blood, and that, in what was my adopted country, our motto was, ^God and Liberty.' It was of you, sir — the great Emancipator — the apostle of that Liberty — the friend of the down-trodden and oppressed — that I, as a child, first knew. In the histories of this great country I have read of you, I have learned your ora- tions. I have longed to hear you in your own pulpit deliver the creed of my ancestors. To hear you, of your- self, speak, ah ! Madre de Dios I what shall I say — speak the oration eloquent to make the — what you call — the de- bate, that is what I have for so long hoped. Eh ! Pardon — you are thinking me foolish — wild, eh — a small child —eh ? " Becoming more and more dialectical as she went on, she said suddenly, " I have you of myself oftended. You are mad of me as a bold, bad child ? Is it so ? " The Senator, as visibly becoming limp and weak again behind his entrenchments, managed to say, " Oh no !" then, "really ! " and finally, " Tha-a-nks ! " " I am here but for a day. I return to California in a day, as it were to-morrow. I shall never — never hear you speak in your place in the Capitol of this great country ? " The Senator said, hastily, that he feared, he in fact was convinced, that his duty during this session was required more at his desk, in the committee work, than in speaking, &c., &c. "Ah," said Carmen, sadly, "it is true, then, all this that I have heard. It is true that what they have told me — that you have given up the great party — that your voice is not longer heard in the old — what you call this — eh — the old issues ? " io8 The Story of a Mine. "If any one has told you that, Miss De Haro," responded the Senator, sharply, " he has spoken foolishly. You have been misinformed. May I ask who " " Ah ! " said Carmen, " I know not ! It is in the air ! I am a stranger. Perhaps I am de-ceived. But it is of all. I say to them, When shall I hear him speak ? I go day after day to the Capitol, I watch him — the great Emanci- pator — but it is of business, eh ? — it is the claim of that one, it is the Tax, eh } it is the Impost, it is the Post-office, but it is the great speech of Human Rights — never, never. I say, * How arrives all this ? ' And some say and shake their heads, ' never again he speaks.' He is what you call 'played ' — yes, it is so, eh ? ' played out.' I know it not — it is a word from Bos-ton perhaps ? They say he has — eh, I speak not the English well — the party he has * shaken,' ' shook ' — yes — he has the Party ' shaken,' eh ? It is right — it is the language of Boston, eh ? " "Permit me to say. Miss De Haro," returned the Senator, rising with some asperity, "that you seem to have been unfortunate in your selection of acquaintances, and still more so in your ideas of the deriva-tions of the Enghsh tongue. The — er — the — er — expressions you have quoted are not common to Boston, but emanate, I believe, from the West." Carmen De Haro contritely buried everything but her black eyes in her shawl. " No one," he continued, more gently, sitting down again, " has the right to forecast from my past what I intend to do in the future, or designate the means I may choose to serve the principles I hold or the Party I repre- sent. Those are my functions. At the same time, should occasion — or opportunity — for we are within a day or two of the close of the Session " "Yes," interrupted Carmen sadly, "I see — it will be The Story of a Mine, 109 some .business, some claim, something for somebody — ah ! Madre de Dios — you will not speak, and I " "When do you think of returning?" asked the Senator, with grave politeness, '* when are we to lose you ? " "I shall stay to the last — to the end of the Session," said Carmen. " And now I shall go." She got up and pulled her shawl viciously over her shoulders with a pretty pettish- ness, perhaps the most feminine thing she had done that evening. Possibly, the most genuine. The Senator smiled affably : " You do not deserve to be disappointed in either case ; but it is later than you imagine ; let me help you on the shorter distance with my carriage ; it is at the door." He accompanied her gravely to the carriage. As it rolled away she buried her little figure in its ample cushions and chuckled to herself, albeit a little hysterically. When she had reached her destination she found herself crying, and hastily, and somewhat angrily, dried her eyes as she drew up at the door of her lodgings. '* How have you prospered ? " asked Mr. Harlowe, of counsel for Royal Thatcher, as he gallantly assisted her from the carriage. "I have been waiting here for two hours j your interview must have been prolonged — that was a good sign." "Don't ask me now," said Carmen, a little savagely, "I'm worn out and tired." Mr. Harlowe bowed. "I trust you will be better to-morrow, for we expect our friend, Mr. Thatcher." Carmen's brown cheek flushed slightly. " He should have been here before. Where is he ? What was he doing ? " " He was snowed up on the plains. He is coming as fast as steam can carry him, but he may be too late." no The Story of a Mine. Carmen did not reply. The lawyer lingered. " How did you find the great New England Senator ? " he asked, with a slight profes- sional levity. Carmen was tired, Carmen was worried, Carmen was a little self-reproachful, and she kindled easily. Consequently she said icily — *' I found him a gentleman I " CHAPTER XV. HOW IT BECAME UNFINISHED BUSINESS. The closing of the LXIX Congress was not unlike the closing of the several preceding Congresses. There was the same unbusiness like, impractical haste ; the same hurried, unjust and utterly inadequate adjustment of un- finished, ill-digested business, that would not have been tolerated for a moment by the sovereign people in any private interest they controlled. There were frauds rushed through ; there were long-suffering, righteous demands shelved ; there were honest, unpaid debts dishonoured by scant appropriations ; there were closing scenes which only the saving sense of American humour kept from being utterly vile. The actors, the legislators themselves, knew it and laughed at it ; the commentators, the Press, knew it and laughed at it ; the audience, the great American people, knew it and laughed at it. And nobody for an instant conceived that it ever, under any circumstances, might be otherwise. The claim of Roscommon was among the Unfinished Business. The claimant himself, haggard, pathetic, impor- tunate and obstinate, was among the Unfinished Business. The Story of a Mine. 1 1 1 Various Congressmen, more or less interested in the success of the claim, were among the Unfinished Business. The member from Fresno, who had changed his derringer for a speech against the claimant, was among the Unfinished Business. The gifted Gashwiler, uneasy in his soul over certain other unfinished business in the shape of his missing letters, but dropping oil and honey as he mingled with his brothers, was King of Misrule and Lord of the Unfinished Business. Pretty Mrs Hopkinson, prudently escorted by her husband, but imprudently ogled by admiring Congress- men, lent the charm of her presence to the finishing of Un- finished Business. One or two editors, who had dreams of a finished financial business, arising out of unfinished business, were there also, like ancient bards, to record with paean or threnody the completion of Unfinished Business. Various unclean birds, scenting carrion in Unfinished Busi- ness, hovered in the halls or roosted in the Lobby. The lower house, under the tutelage of the gifted Gash- wiler, drank deeply of Roscommon and his intoxicating claim, and passed the half empty bottle to the Senate as Unfinished Business. But alas ! in the very rush and storm and tempest of the finishing business, an unlooked-for inter- ruption arose in the person of a great Senator whose power none could oppose, whose right to free and extended utter- ance at all times none could gainsay. A claim for poultry, violently seized by the army of Sherman during his march through Georgia, from the hen-coop of an alleged loyal Irishman, opened a constitutional question, and with it the lips of the great Senator. For seven hours he spoke eloquently, earnestly, con- vincingly. For seven hours the old issues of party and policy were severally taken up and dismissed in the old forcible rhetoric that had early made him famous. Inter- ruption from other Senators, now forgetful of Unfinished 112 The Story of a Mine. Business and wild with reanimated party zeal; interruptions from certain Senators mindful of Unfinished Business, and unable to pass the Roscommon bottle, only spurred him to fresh exertion. The tocsin sounded in the Senate was heard in the lower house. Highly excited members congre- gated at the doors of the Senate, and left Unfinished Busi- ness to take care of itself. Left to itself for seven hours, Unfinished Business gnashed its false teeth and tore its wig in impotent fury in corridor and hall. For seven hours the gifted Gashwiler had con- tinued the manufacture of oil and honey, whose sweetness, however, was slowly palling upon the Congressional lip ; for seven hours Roscommon and friends beat with impatient feet the lobby and shook fists, more or less discoloured, at the distinguished senator. For seven hours the one or two editors were obliged to sit and calmly compliment the great speech which that night flashed over the wires of a continent vvith the old electric thrill. And, worse than all, they were obhged to record with it the closing of the LXIX Congress, v;ith more than the usual amount of Unfinished Business. A little group of friends surrounded the great Senator with hymns of praise and congratulations. Old adversaries saluted him courteously as they passed by, with the respect of strong men. A little woman with a shawl drawn over her shoulders, and held with one small brown hand, approached him timidly — "I speak not the English well," she said gently, "but I have read much. I have read in the plays of your Shakspeare. I would like to say to you the words of Rosalind to Orlando, when he did fight : ' Sir, you have wrestled well, and have overthrown more than your enemies.'" And with these words she was gone. Yet not so quickly but that pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, coming — as Victrix always comes to Victor — to thank thfi The Story of a Mine. 113 great Senator, albeit the faces of her escorts were shrouded in gloom, saw the shawled figure disappear. *' There," she said, pinching Wiles mischievously, " there ! that's the wonia-n you were afraid of. Look at her. Look at that dress. Ah, Heavens ; look at that shawl. Didn't I tell you she had no style } " " Who is she ? " said Wiles sullenly. " Carmen de Haro, of course," said the lady vivaciously. " What are you hurrying away so for ? You're absolutely pulling me along." Mr. Wiles had just caught sight of the travel-worn face of Royal Thatcher among the crowd that thronged the stair- case. Thatcher appeared pale and distrait ; Mr Harlowe, his counsel, at his side, rallied him. " No one would think you had just got a new lease of your property, and escaped a great swindle. What's the matter with you ? Miss De Haro passed us just now. It was she who spoke to the Senator. Why did you not recognise her ? " " I was thinking," said Thatcher gloomily. " Well, you take things coolly ! And certainly you are not very demonstrative towards the woman who saved you to-day. For as sure as you live it was she who drew that speech out of the Senator." Thatcher did not reply, but moved away. He had noticed Carmen De Haro, and was about to greet her with mingled pleasure and embarrassment. But he had heard her comphment to the Senator, and this strong, preoccupied, automatic man, who only ten days before had no thought beyond his property, was now thinking more of that compli- ment to another than of his success — and was beginning to hate the Senator who had saved him, the lawyer who stood beside him, and even the little figure that had tripped down the steps unconscious of him. VOL. v. H 114 '^^^ Story of a Mine, CHAPTER XVI. AND WHO FORGOT IT. It was somewhat inconsistent with Royal Thatcher's embar- rassment and sensitiveness that he should, on leaving the Capitol, order a carriage and drive directly to the lodgings of Miss De Haro. That on finding she was not at home he should .become again sulky and suspicious, and even be ashamed of the honest impulse that led him there, was, I suppose, man-like and natural. He felt that he had done all that courtesy required j he had promptly answered her despatch with his presence. If she chose to be absent at such a moment, he had at least done his duty. In short, there was scarcely any absurdity of the imagination which this once practical man did not permit himself to indulge in, yet always with a certain consciousness that he was al- lowing his feelings to run away with him — a fact that did not tend to make him better humoured, and rather incHned him to place the responsibility of the elopement on some- body else. If Miss De Haro had been home, &c., &c., and not going into ecstacies over speeches, &c., &c., and had attended to her business — /. ^., being exactly what he had supposed her to be — all this would not have happened. I am aware that this will not heighten the reader's respect for my hero. But I fancy that the imperceptible progress of a sincere passion in the matured strong man is apt to be marked with even more than the usual haste and absurdity of callous youth. The fever that runs riot in the veins of the robust is apt to pass your ailing weakling by. Possibly there may be some immunity in inoculation. It is Lothario who is always self-possessed and does and says the right thing, while poor honest Csekbs becomes ridiculous with genuine emotion. The Story of a Mine. 115 He rejoined his lawyer in no very gracious mood. The chambers occupied by Mr. Harlowe were in the basement of a private dwelling once occupied and made historic by an Honourable Somebody, who, however, was remembered only by the landlord and the last tenant. There were various shelves in the walls divided into compartments, sarcastically known as "pigeon-holes," in which the dove of peace had never rested, but which still perpetuated, in their legends, the feuds and animosities of suitors now but common dust together. There was a portrait, apparently of a cherub, which on nearer inspection turned out to be a famous Eng- lish Lord Chancellor in his flowing wig. There were books with dreary, unenlivening titles — egotistic always, as record- ing Smith's opinions on this, and Jones' commentaries on that. There was a handbill tacked on the wall, which at first offered hilarious suggestions of a circus or a steamboat excursion, but which turned out only to be a sheriff's sale. There were several oddly-shaped packages in newspaper wrappings, mysterious and awful in dark corners, that might have contained forgotten law papers or the previous week's washing of the eminent counsel. There were one or two newspapers, which at first offered entertaining prospects to the waiting client, but always proved to be a law record or a Supreme Court decision. There was the bust of a late distinguished jurist, which apparently had never been dusted since he himself became dust, and had already grown a per- ceptibly dusty moustache on his severely-judicial upper lip. It was a cheerless place in the sunshine of day \ at night, when it ought, by every suggestion of its dusty past, to have been left to the vengeful ghosts, the greater part of whose hopes and passions were recorded and gathered there — when in the dark the dead hands of forgotten men were stretched from their dusty graves to fumble once more for their old title deeds — at night, when it was lit up by 1 1 6 The Story of a Mine. flaring gaslight, the hollow mockery of this dissipation was so apparent that people in the streets, looking through the illuminated windows, felt as if the privacy of a family vault had been intruded upon by body-snatchers. Royal Thatcher glanced around the room, took in all its dreary suggestions in a half-weary, half-indifferent sort of way, and dropped into the lawyer's own revolving chair as that gentleman entered from the adjacent room. " Well, you got back soon, I see," said Harlowe briskly. " Yes," said his chent without looking up, and with this notable distinction between himself and all other previous clients, that he seemed absolutely less interested than the lawyer. " Yes, Fm here, and upon my soul I don't exactly know why." "You told me of certain papers you had discovered," said the lawyer suggestively. " Oh yes," returned Thatcher with a slight yawn. " I've got here some papers somewhere " — he began to feel in his coat-pocket languidly — " but, by the way, this is a rather dreary and God-forsaken sort of place ! Let's go up to Welcker's, and you can look at them over a bottle of champagne." " After I've looked at them, I've something to show you myself," said Harlowe, "and as for the champagne, we'll have that in the other room, by and by. At present I want to have my head clear, and yours too — if you'll oblige me by becoming sufficiently interested in your own affairs to talk to me about them." Thatcher was gazing abstractedly at the fire. He started. " I dare say," he began, " I'm not very interesting ; yet it's possible that my affairs have taken up a little too much of my time. However — " he stopped, took from his pocket an envelope and threw it on the desk — " there are some papers. I don't know what value they may be ; that is for you to The Story of a Mine. 1 1 7 determine. I don't know that IVe any legal right to their possession — that's for you to say, too. They came to me in a queer way. On the overland journey here I lost my bag, containing my few traps and some letters and papers ' of no value,' as the advertisements always say, ' to any but the owner.' Well, the bag was lost, but the stage-driver declares that it was stolen by a fellow passenger, a — man by the name of Giles, or Stiles, or Biles " " Wiles," said Harlowe earnestly. " Yes," continued Thatcher, suppressing a yawn ; " yes, I guess you're right — Wiles. Well, the stage-driver, firmly believing this, goes to work and quietly and unostentatiously steals — I say, have you got a cigar ? " 'Til get you one." Harlowe disappeared in the adjoining room. Thatcher dragged Harlowe's heavy revolving desk chair, which never before had been removed from his sacred position, to the fire, and began to poke the coals abstractedly. Harlowe reappeared with cigars and matches. Thatcher lit one mechanically, and said, between the puffs — " Do you — ever — talk — to yourself? " "No!— why?" "I thought I heard your voice just now in the other room. Anyhow, this is an awful spooky place. If I stayed here alone half an hour I'd fancy that the Lord Chancellor up there would step down in his robes, out of his frame, to keep me company." " Nonsense ! When I'm busy I often sit here and write until after midnight. It's so quiet ! " " D mnably so ! " " Well, to go back to the papers. Somebody stole your bag, or you lost it. You stole " "The driver stole," suggested Thatcher, so languidly that it could hardly be called an interruption. 1 1 8 The Story of a Mine, " Well, we'll say the driver stole, and passed over to you as his accomplice, confederate, or receiver, certain papers belonging " " See here, Harlowe, I don't feel like joking in a ghostly law office after midnight. Here are your facts. Yuba Bill, the driver, stole a bag from this passenger, Wiles, or Smiles, and handed it to me to insure the return of my own. I found in it some papers concerning my case. There they are. Do with them what you like." Thatcher turned his eyes again abstractedly to the fire. Harlowe took out the first paper — " A-w, this seems to be a telegram. Yes, eh ? * Come to Washington at once. Carmen de Haro. ' " Thatcher started, blushed like a girl, and hurriedly reached for the paper. *' Nonsense. That's a mistake. A despatch I mislaid in the envelope." " I see," said the lawyer drily. " I thought I had torn it up," continued Thatcher, after an awkward pause. I regret to say that here that usually truthful man elaborated a fiction. He had consulted it a dozen times a day on the journey, and it was quite worn in its enfoldings. Harlowe's quick eye had noticed this, but he speedily became interested and absorbed in the other papers. Thatcher lapsed into contemplation of the fire. " Well," said Harlowe, finally turning to his client, " here's enough to unseat Gashwiler, or close his mouth. As to the rest, it's good reading — but I needn't tell you — no legal evidence. But it's proof enough to stop them from ever trying it again — when the existence of this record is made known. Bribery is a hard thing to fix on a man; the only witness is naturally /^;'//V^j- criiJiinis — but it would not be easy for them to explain away this rascal's record. One or two things I don't understand : What's this The Story of a Mine. \ 19 opposite the Hon. X.'s name, ' Took the medicine nicely, and feels better? ' and here — just in the margin, after Y.'s, * Must be laboured with ? ' " " I suppose our California slang borrows largely from the medical and spiritual professions," returned Thatcher. " But isn't it odd that a man should keep a conscientious record of his own villany ? " Harlowe, a little abashed at his want of knowledge of American metaphor, now felt himself at home. " Well, no. It's not unusual. In one of those books yonder there is the record of a case where a man, who had committed a series of nameless atrocities, extending over a period of years, absolutely kept a memorandum of them in his pocket diary. It was produced in Court. Why, my dear fellow, one half our business arises from the fact that men and women are in the habit of keeping letters and documents that they might — I don't say, you know, that they ought^ that's a question of sentiment or ethics — but that they viight destroy." Thatcher, half-mechanically, took the telegram of poor Carmen and threw it in the fire. Harlowe noticed the act and smiled. " I'll venture to say, however, that there's nothing in the bag th3.t you lost that need give you a moment's uneasiness. It's only your rascal or fool who carries with him that which makes him his own detective. " I had a friend," continued Harlowe, " a clever fellow enough, but who was so foolish as to seriously complicate himself with a woman. He was himself the soul of honour, and at the beginning of their correspondence he proposed that they should each return the other's letters with their answer. They did so for years, but it cost him ten thousand dollars and no end of trouble, after all." " Why ? " asked Thatcher simply. I20 The Story of a Mine. " Because he was such an egotistical ass as to keep the letter proposing it, which she had duly returned, among his papers as a sentimental record. Of course somebody eventually found it." "Good-night," said Thatcher, rising abruptly. "If I stayed here much longer I should begin to disbelieve my own mother." "I have known of such hereditary traits," returned Har- lowe, with a laugh. " But come, you must not go without the champagne." He led the way to the adjacent room, which proved to be only the antechamber of another, on the threshold of which Thatcher stopped with genuine sur- prise. It was an elegantly furnished library. " Sybarite ! Why was I never here before?" "Because you came as a cUent; to-night you are my guest. All who enter here leave their business, with their hats, in the hall. Look ; there isn't a law-book on those shelves j that table never was defaced by a title-deed or parchment. You look puzzled ? Well, it was a whim of mine to put my residence and my workshop under the same roof, yet so distinct that they would never interfere with each other. You know the house above is let out to lodgers. I occupy the first floor with my mother and sister, and this is my parlour. I do my work in that severe room that fronts the street ; here is where I play. A man must have something else in life than mere business. I find it less harmful and expensive to have my pleasure here." Thatcher had sunk moodily in the embracing arms of an easy chair. He was thinking deeply ; he was fond of books too, and like all men who have fared hard and led wander- ing lives, he knew the value of cultivated repose. Like all men who have been obhged to sleep under blankets and in the open air, he appreciated the luxuries of linen sheets and a frescoed roof. It is, by the way, only your sick city clerk The Story of a Mine. 1 2 1 or your dyspeptic clergyman, who fancy that they have found in the bad bread, fried steaks and frowzy flannels of mountain picnicing the true art of living. And it is a somewhat notable fact that your true mountaineer or your gentleman who has been obUged to honestly " rough it," do not, as a general thing, write books about its advantages or implore their fellow mortals to come and share their solitude and their discomforts. Thoroughly appreciating the taste and comfort of Har- lowe's library, yet half envious of its owner, and half suspi- cious that his own earnest life for the past few years might have been different, Thatcher suddenly started from his seat and walked towards a parlour easel, whereon stood a picture. It was Carmen de Haro's first sketch of the furnace and the Mine. " I see you are taken with that picture," said Harlowe, pausing with the champagne bottle in his hand. "You show your good taste. It's been much admired. Observe how splendidly that firelight plays over the sleeping face of that figure, yet brings out by very contrast its almost death-like repose. Those rocks are powerfully handled ; what a suggestion of mystery in those shadows ? You know the painter ? " Thatcher murmured " Miss de Haro," with a new and rather odd self-consciousness in speaking her name. "Yes. And you know the story of the picture, of course ? " Thatcher thought he didn't — well no, in fact, he did not remember. "Why, this recumbent figure was an old Spanish lover of hers, whom she believed to have been murdered there. It's a ghastly fancy, ain't it ? " Two things annoyed Thatcher; first, the epithet "lover," as applied to Concho by another man ; second, that the 12 2 The Story of a Mine. picture belonged to him ; and what the d — 1 did she mean by" "Yes," he broke out finally, "but how did you get it?" " Oh, I bought it of her. I've been a sort of patron of hers ever since I found out how she stood towards us. As she was quite alone here in Washington, my mother and sister have taken her up, and have been doing the social thing." " How long since?" asked Thatcher. " Oh, not long. The day she telegraphed you she came here to know what she could do for us, and when I said nothing could be done except to keep Congress off — why, she went and d/d it. For she, and she alone, got that speech out of the Senator. But," he added, a little mis- chievously, "you seem to know very little about her?" " No ! — I^that is — I've been very busy lately," returned Thatcher, staring at the picture, " does she come here often ? " "Yes, lately, quite often — she was here this evening with mother; was here, I think, when you came." Thatcher looked intently at Harlowe. But that gentle- man's face betrayed no confusion. Thatcher refilled his glass a little awkwardly, tossed off the liquor at a draught, and rose to his feet. "Come, old fellow, you're not going now, I shan't permit it," said Harlowe, laying his hand kindly on his client's shoulder. " You're out of sorts ! Stay here with me to- night. Our accommodations are not large, but are elastic. I can bestow you comfortably until morning. Wait here a moment while I give the necessary orders." Thatcher was not sorry to be left alone. In the last half-hour he had become convinced that his love for Carmen de Haro had been in some way most dreadfully abused. While he was hard at work in California, she was The Story of a Mine, . 123 being introduced in Washington society by parties with eligible brothers who bought her paintings. It is a relief to the truly jealous mind to indulge in plurals. Thatcher liked to think that she was already beset by hundreds of brothers. He still kept staring at the picture. By and by it faded away in part, and a very vivid recollection of the misty, midnight, moonlit walk he had once taken with her came back and refilled the canvas with its magic. He saw the ruined furnace ; the dark, overhanging masses of rock, the trembling intricacies of foliage, and, above all, the flash of dark eyes under a mafiiilla at his shoulder. What a fool he had been ! Had he not really been as senseless and stupid as this very Concho, lying here like a log. And she had loved that man. What a fool she must have thought him that evening? What a snob she must think him now? He was startled by a slight rustling in the passage, that ceased almost as he turned. Thatcher looked towards the door of the outer office, as if half expecting that the Lord Chancellor, like the commander in Don Juan, might have accepted his thoughtless invitation. He listened again; everything was still. He was conscious of feeling ill at ease and a trifle nervous. What a long time Harlowe took to make his preparations. He would look out in the hall. To do this it was necessary to turn up the gas. He did so, and in his confusion turned it out ! Where were the matches ? He remembered that there was a bronze Something on the table that, in the irony of modern decorative taste, might hold ashes or matches, or anything of an unpicturesque character. He knocked something over, evidently the ink, something else — this time a champagne glass. Becoming reckless and now groping at random in the ruins, he overturned the bronze 124 . The Story of a Mine. Mercury on the centre table, and then sat down hopelessly in his chair. And then a pair of velvet fingers slid into his with the matches, and this audible, musical state- ment — "It is a match you are seeking? Here is of them." Thatcher flushed, embarrassed, nervous — feeling the ridiculousness of saying " Thank you " to a dark Some- body — struck the match, beheld by its brief, uncertain glimmer, Carmen de Haro beside him, burned his fingers, coughed, dropped the match, and was cast again into outer darkness. " Let me try ! " Carmen struck a match, jumped briskly on the chair, lit the gas, jumped lightly down again and said — "You do like to sit in the dark — eh ? So am I — sometimes, alone." "Miss de Haro," said Thatcher, with sudden, honest earnestness, advancing with outstretched hands, -"believe me, I am sincerely delighted, overjoyed again to meet" She had, however, quickly retreated as he approached, esconcing herself behind the high back of a large antique chair, on the cushion of which she knelt. I regret to add also that she slapped his outstretched fingers a little sharply with her inevitable black fan as he still advanced. "We are not in California. It is Washington. It is- after midnight. I am a poor girl, and I have to lose — what you call — 'a character.' You shall sit over there," she pointed to the sofa, "and I shall sit here," she rested her boyish head on the top of the chair, "and we shall talk, for I have to speak to you — Don Royal." Thatcher took the seat indicated, contritely, humbly, submissively. Carmen's little heart was touched. But she still went on over the back of the chair. " Don Royal," she said, emphasising each word with her an at him, " before I saw you — ever knew of you — I was The Story of a Mine. 125 a child. Yes, I was but a child ! I was a bold, bad child —and I was what you call a — a — 'forgaire ! ' " " A what ? " asked Thatcher, hesitating between a smile and a sigh. " A forgaire ! " continued Carmen demurely. " I did of myself write the names of ozzer peoples," when Carmen was excited she lost the control of the English tongue, " I did write just to please myself — it was my onkle that did make of it money — you understand, eh? Shall you not speak ? Must I again hit you ? " " Go on," said Thatcher, laughing. " I did find out, when I came to you at the Mine, that I had forged against you the name of Micheltorena. I to the lawyer went, and found that it was so — of a verity — so ! so ! all the time. Look at me not now, Don Royal — it is a ' forgaire ' you stare at ! " " Carmen ! " " Hoosh ! Shall I have to hit you again ? I did over- look all the papers. I found the application; it was written by me. There.'"' She tossed over the back of her chair an envelope to Thatcher. He opened it. "I see," he said gently, "you repossessed yourself of it!" *' What is that — ' r-r-r-e — possess } ' " " Why ! " Thatcher hesitated — " You got possession of this paper — this innocent forgery — again." " Oh ! You think me a thief as well as a ' forgaire.' Go away ! Get up. Get out." " My dear girl " " Look at the paper ! Will you ? Oh, you Silly ! " Thatcher looked at the paper. In paper, handwriting, age and stamp it was identical with the formal, clerical application of Garcia for the grant. The indorsement of 126 The Story of a Mine, Micheltorena was unquestionably genuine. But the appli- cation was made for Royal Thatcher. And his own signa- ture was imitated to the life. " I had but one letter of yours wiz your name," said Carmen apologetically — "and it was the best poor me could do." " Why, you blessed little goose and angel," said Thatcher, with the bold, mixed metaphor of amatory genius, " don't you see " " Ah, you don't like it — it is not good ? " " My darling ! " " Hoosh ! There is also an old cat upstairs. And now I have, here, a character. Will you. sit down ? Is it of a necessity that up and down you should walk and awaken the whole house. There ! " she had given him a vicious dab with her fan as he passed. He sat down. "And you have not seen me nor written to me for a year ? " "Carmen!" " Sit down, you bold, bad boy. Don't you see it is of business that you and I talk down here, and it is of business that ozzer people upstairs are thinking. Eh ? " " D — n business ! See here, Carmen, my darling, tell me " — I regret to say he had by this time got hold of the back of Carmen's chair — "tell me, my own little girl — about — about that Senator. You remember what you said to him ? " " Oh, the old man ? Oh, that was business. And you say of business d — n." "Carmen !" " Don Royal ! " Although Miss Carmen had recourse to her fan fre- quently during this interview, the air must have been chilly. The Story of a Mine. 1 27 For, a moment later, on his way downstairs, poor Harlowe, a sufiferer from bronchitis, was attacked with a violent fit of coughing, which troubled him all the way down. "Well," he said, as he entered the room, " I see you have found Mr. Thatcher and shown those papers. I trust you have, for you've certainly had time enough. I am sent by mother to dismiss you all to bed." Carmen, still in the arm-chair, covered with her mantilla^ did not speak. "I suppose you are by this time lawyer enough to know," continued Harlowe, " that Miss De Haro's papers, though ingenious, are not legally available, unless " " I chose to make her a witness. Harlowe ! you're a good fellow ! I don't mind saying to you that these are papers I prefer that my wife should not use. We'll leave it for the present — Unfinished Business." They did. But one evening our hero brought Mrs. Royal Thatcher a paper containing a touching and beauti- ful tribute to the dead Senator. " There, Carmen, love, read that. Don't you feel a little ashamed of your — your — your lobbying " " No," said Carmen promptly. " It was business — and, if all lobbying business was as honest — well ? " Cftanfeful TBIossom: A ROMANCE OF THE JERSEYS. (I779-) PART I. The time was the year of grace 1779; the locality, Morris- town, New Jersey. It was bitterly cold. A north-easterly wind had been stiffening the mud of the morning's thaw into a rigid record of that day's wayfaring on the Baskingridge road. The hoof prints of cavalry, the deep ruts left by baggage waggons, and the deeper channels worn by artillery lay stark and cold in the waning light of an April day. There were icicles on the fences, a rime of silver on the windward bark of maples, and occasional bare spots on the rocky protuber- ances of the road, as if nature had worn herself out at the knees and elbows through long waiting for the tardy spring. A few leaves, disinterred by the thaw, became crisp again, and rustled in the wind, making the summer a thing so remote that all human hope and conjecture fled before them. Here and there the wayside fences and walls were broken down or dismantled, and beyond them fields of snow, down- trodden and discoloured and strewn with fragments of leather, camp equipage, harness, and cast-off clothing, showed traces of the recent encampment and congregation of men. On some there were still standing the ruins of Thankful Blossom. 129 rudely-constructed cabins, or the semblance of fortifications equally rude and incomplete. A fox stealing along a half- filled ditch, a wolf slinking behind an earthwork, typified the human abandonment and desolation. One by one the faint sunset tints faded from the sky, the far-off crests of the Orange hills grew darker, the nearer files of pines on the Whatnong mountain became a mere black background, and with the coming on of night, came, too, an icy silence that seemed to stiffen and arrest the very wind itself; the crisp leaves no longer rustled, the waving whips of alder and willow snapped no longer, the icicles no longer dropped a cold fruitage from barren branch and spray, and the roadside trees relapsed into stony quiet. So that the sound of horse's hoofs breaking through the thin, dull, lustreless films of ice that patched the furrowed road might have been heard by the nearest Continental picket a mile away. Either a knowledge of this or the difficulties of the road evidently irritated the viewless horseman. Long before he became visible his voice was heard in half-suppressed objurgation of the road, of his beast, of the country folk, and the country generally. " Steady, you jade ! " " Jump, you devil, jump ! " " Curse the road and the beggarly farmers that durst not mend it." And then the moving bulk of horse and rider suddenly arose above the hill, floundered and splashed, and then as suddenly disappeared, and the rattling hoof beats ceased. The stranger had turned into a deserted lane, still cushioned wdth untrodden snow. A stone wall on one hand — in better keeping and condition than the boundary monu- ments of the outlying fields — bespoke protection and exclu- siveness. Half-way up the lane the rider checked his speed, and dismounting, tied his horse to a wayside sapling. This done he went cautiously forward toward the end of the lane, VOL. v. I 1 30 Thankful Blossom, and a farmhouse from whose gable window a hght twinkled through the deepening night. Suddenly he stopped, hesi- tated, and uttered an impatient ejaculation. The light had disappeared. He turned sharply on his heel, and retraced his steps until opposite a farm-shed that stood a i^^N paces from the wall. Hard by a large elm cast the gaunt shadow of its leafless limbs on the wall and surrounding snow. The stranger stepped into this shadow, and at once seemed to become a part of its trembling intricacies. At the present moment it was certainly a bleak place for a tryst. There was snow yet clinging to the trunk of the tree, and a film of ice on its bark ; the adjacent wall was slippery with frost and fringed with icicles. Yet in all there was a ludicrous suggestion of some sentiment past and unseasonable — several dislodged stones of the wall were so disposed as to form a bench and seats, and under the elm tree's film of ice could still be seen carved on its bark the effigy of a heart, divers initials, and the legend, " Thine for ever." The stranger, however, kept his eyes fixed only on the farm-shed, and the open field beside it. Five minutes passed in fruitless expectancy. Ten minutes ! And then the rising moon slowly lifted herself over the black range of the Orange hills, and looked at him, blushing a little, as if the appointment were her own. The face and figure thus illuminated was that of a strongly-built, handsome man of thirty, so soldierly in bearing that it needed not the buff epaulets and facings to show his captain's rank in the Continental army. Yet there was something in his facial expression that contra- dicted the manliness of his presence — an irritation and querulousness, that were inconsistent with his size and strength. This fretfulness increased as the moments went by without sign or motion in the faintly Ht field beyond, Thankful Blossom. 1 3 1 until, in peevish exasperation, he began to kick the nearer stones against the wall. " Moo-oo-w ! " The soldier started. Not that he was frightened, nor that he had failed to recognise in these prolonged syllables the deep-chested, half-drowsy low of a cow, but that it was so near him — evidently just beside the wall. If an object so bulky could have approached him so near without his knowledge, might not she " Moo-00 ! " He drew near the wall cautiously. " So, Cushy ! •Mooly ! " " Come up. Bossy ! " he said persuasively. " Moo — " but here the low unexpectedly broke down, and ended in a very human and rather musical little laugh. " Thankful ! " exclaimed the soldier, echoing the laugh a trifle uneasily and affectedly as a hooded little head arose above the wall. "Well," replied the figure supporting a prettily-rounded chin on her hands, as she laid her elbows complacently on the wall. "Well, what did you expect? Did you want me to stand here all night while you skulked moonstruck under a tree ? or did you look for me to call you by name ; did you expect me to shout out Captain Allan Brewster?" "Thankful, hush!" " Captain Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent," continued the girl with an affected raising of a low pathetic voice that was, however, inaudible beyond the tree. " Captain Brewster, behold me — your obleeged and humble servant, and sweetheart to command." Captain Brewster succeeded, after -a slight skirmish at the wall, in possessing himself of the girl's hand. At which, although still struggling, she relented slightly. " It isn't every lad that I'd low for," she said, with an affected pout, "and there may be others that would not 132 Thankful Blossom, take it amiss. Though there be fine ladies enough at the Assembly balls at Morristown as might thmk it hoydenish.'* "Nonsense, love," said the Captain, who had by this time mounted the wall and encircled the girl's waist with his arm. " Nonsense ! you startled me only. But," he added, suddenly taking her round chin in his hand and turning her face toward the moon, with an uneasy half suspicion, "why did you take that light from the window! What has happened ? " " We had unexpected guests, sweetheart," said Thankful ; "the Count just arrived." " That infernal Hessian ! " He stopped and gazed ques- tioningly into her face. The moon looked upon her at the same time — the face was as sweet, as placid, as truthful as her own. Possibly these two inconstants understood each other. " Nay, Allan, he is not a Hessian ; but an exiled gentle- man from abroad. A nobleman " " There are no noblemen, now," sniffed the trooper con- temptuously. " Congress has so decreed it. All men are born free and equal." " But they are not, Allan," said Thankful, with a pretty trouble in her brows. "Even cows are not born equal. Is yon calf that was dropped last night by Brindle the equal of my red heifer whose mother came by herself in a ship from Surrey ? Do they look equal ? " "Titles are but breath," said Captain Brewster doggedly. There was an ominous pause. " Nay, there is one nobleman left," said Thankful, " and he is my own — my nature's nobleman." Captain Brewster did not reply. From certain arched gestures and wreathed smiles with which this forward young woman accompanied her statement, it would seem to be implied that the gentleman who stood before her was the Thankful Blossom. 133 nobleman alluded to. At least he so accepted it, and em- braced her closely, her arms and part of her mantle clinging around his neck. In this attitude they remained quiet for some moments, slightly rocking from side to side, hke a metronome — a movement, I fancy, peculiarly bucolic, pas- toral, and idyllic, and as such, I wot, observed by Theocritus and Virgil. At these supreme moments weak woman usually keeps her wits about her much better than your superior reasoning masculine animal, and while the gallant Captain was losing himself upon her perfect lips. Miss Thankful distinctly heard the farm gate click, and otherwise noticed that the moon was getting high and obtrusive. She half-released herself from the Captain's arms, thoughtfully and tenderly, but firmly. " Tell me all about yourself, Allan dear," she said quietly, making room for him on the wall, "all, every- thing." She turned upon him her beautiful eyes j eyes habitually earnest and even grave in expression, yet holding in their brave brown depths a sweet, child-like reliance and depend- ency ; eyes with a certain tender deprecating droop in the brown fringed Hd, and yet eyes that seemed to say to every man that looked upon them, " I am truthful, be frank with me." Indeed, I am convinced there is not one of my im- pressible sex, who, looking in those pleading eyes, would not have perjured himself on the spot rather than have dis- appointed their fair owner. Captain Brewster's mouth resumed its old expression of discontent. " Everything is growing worse. Thankful, and the cause is lost. Congress does nothing, and Washington is not the man for the crisis. Instead of marching to Philadelphia and forcing that wretched rabble of Hancock and Adams at the point of the bayonet, he writes letters." 1 34 Thankful Blosso^n. "A dignified, formal old fool," interrupted Mistress Thankful indignantly; "and look at his wife! Didn't Mistress Ford and Mistress Baily — ay, and the best blood of Morris county — go down to his Excellency's in their finest bibs and tuckers ; and didn't they find my lady in a pinafore doing chores? Vastly polite treatment, indeed. As if the whole world didn't 2no\v that the General was taken by surprise when my Lady came riding up from Virginia with all those fine cavaliers, just to see what his Excellency was doing at these Assembly balls. And fine doings, I dare say." " This is but idle gossip, Thankful," said Captain Brewster, with the faintest appearance of self-consciousness; "the Assembly balls are conceived by the General to strengthen the confidence of the townsfolk, and mitigate the rigours of the winter encampment. I go there myself rarely. I have but little taste for junketting and gaviotting with my country in such need. No, Thankful ! what we want is a leader ! And the men of Connecticut feel it keenly. If I have been spoken of in that regard," added, the Captain, with a slight inflation of his manly breast, "it is because they know of my sacrifices — because as New England yeomen they know my devotion to the cause. They know of my suffer- ing" The bright face that looked into his was suddenly afire with womanly sympathy, the pretty brow was knit, the sweet eyes overflowed with tenderness. " Forgive me, Allan. I forgot — perhaps, love — perhaps, dearest, you are hungry now." " No, not now," replied Captain Brewster, with gloomy stoicism; ''yet," he added, "it is nearly a week since I have tasted meat." "I — I — brought a few things with me," continued the girl, with a certain hesitating timidity. She reached down Thankful Blossom. 135 and produced a basket from the shadow of the wall. " These chickens," — she held up a pair of pullets — " the Commander-in-Chief himself could not buy. I kept them for my Commander ! And this pot of marmalade, which I know my Allan loves, is the same I put up last summer. I thought (very tenderly) you might like a piece of that bacon you liked so once, dear. Ah, sweetheart, shall we ever sit down to our little board ? Shall we ever see the end of this awful war ? Don't you think, dear (very plead- ingly), it would be best to give it up? King George is not such a very bad man, is he ? I've thought, sweetheart (very confidently), that mayhap, you and he might make it all up without the aid of those Washingtons, who do nothing but starve one to death. x\nd if the King only knew you, Allan — should see you as I do, sweetheart — he'd do just as you say." During this speech she handed him the several articles alluded to, and he received them, storing them away in such receptacles of his clothing as were convenient. With this notable difference ; that with her the act was graceful and pic- turesque ; with him there was a ludicrousness of suggestion that his broad shoulders and uniform only heightened. " I think not of myself, lass," he said, putting the eggs in his pocket, and buttoning the chickens within his martial breast. "I think not of myself, and perhaps I often spare that counsel which is but little heeded. But I have a duty to my men — to Connecticut. (He here tied the marmalade up^ in his handkerchief) I confess I have sometimes thought I might, under provocation, be driven to extreme measures for the good of the cause. I make no pretence to leadership, but " '' With you at the head of the army," broke in Thankful enthusiastically, "peace would be declared within a fort- night ! " 136 Thankful Blossom. There is no flattery, however outrageous, that a man will not accept from the woman whom he believes loves him. He will, perhaps, doubt its influence in the colder judgment of mankind, but he will consider that this poor creature, at least, understands him, and in some vague way represents the eternal but unrecognised verities. And when this is voiced by lips that are young, and warm, and red, it is somehow quite as convincing as the bloodless, remoter utterance of posterity. Wherefore the trooper complacently buttoned the com- pliment over his chest with the pullets. "I think you must go now, Allan," she said, looking at him with that pseudo-maternal air which the youngest of women sometimes assume to their lovers, as if the doll had suddenly changed sex and grown to man's estate. " You must go now, dear — for it may so chance that father is considering my absence over much. You will come again a' Wednesday, sweetheart, and you will not go to the assemblies, nor visit Mistress Judith, nor take any girl pick-a-back again on your black horse, and you will let me know when you are hungry ?" She turned her brown eyes lovingly, yet with a certain pretty trouble in the brow, and such a searching, pleading inquiry in her glance that the Captain kissed her at once. Then came the final embrace, performed by the Captain in a half-perfunctory quiet manner, with a due regard for the friable nature of part of his provisions. Satisfying himself of the integrity of the eggs by feeling for them in his pocket, he waved a military salute with the other hand to Miss Thankful, and was gone. A few minutes later the sound of his horse's hoofs rang sharply from the icy hill-side. But as he reached the summit, two horsemen wheeled suddenly from the shadow of the roadside, and bade him halt. Thankful Blossom. 137 " Captain Brewster — if this moon dpes not deceive me ? " queried the foremost stranger with grave civihty. "The same. ^lajor Van Zandt, I calculate?" returned Brewster querulously. "Your calculation is quite right. I regret, Captain Brewster, that it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest." " By whose orders ? '^ " The Commander-in-Chiefs." " For what ? " " Mutinous conduct, and disrespect of your superior officers." The sword that Captain Brewster had drawn at the sudden appearance of the strangers quivered for a moment in his strong hand. Then, sharply striking it across the pommel of his saddle, he snapped it in twain, and cast the pieces at the feet of the speaker. " Go on," he said doggedly. " Captain Brewster," said Major Van Zandt, with infinite gravity, "it is not for me to point out the danger to you of this outspoken emotion, except, practicahy, in its effect upon the rations you have in your pocket. If I mistake not, they have suffered equally with your steel. Forward, march ! " Captain Brewster looked down and then dropped to the rear, as the diseased yolks of Mistress ThankfuFs most precious gift slid slowly and pensively over his horse's flanks to the ground. 1 38 Thankful Blossom. PART 11. Mistress Thankful remained at the wall until her lover had disappeared. Then she turned, a mere lissom shadow- in that uncertain light, and glided under the eaves of the shed, and thence from tree to tree of the orchard, lingering a moment under each as a trout lingers in the shadow of the bank in passing a shallow, and so reached the farm- house and the kitchen door, where she entered. Thence by a back staircase she slipped to her own bower, from whose window half an hour before she had taken the signalling light. This she lit again and placed upon a chest of drawers, and taking off her hood and a shapeless, sleeveless mantle she had worn, went to the mirror and proceeded to readjust a high horn comb that had been somewhat displaced by the Captain's arm, and otherwise, after the fashion of her sex, to remove all traces of a pre- vious lover. It may be here observed that a man is very apt to come from the smallest encounter with his Dulcinea, distrait, bored, or shamefaced — to forget that his cravat is awry, or that a long blonde hair is adhering to his button. But as to Mademoiselle — well, looking at Miss Pussy's sleek paws and spotless face, would you ever know that she had been at the cream jug ? Thankful was, I think, satisfied with her appearance. Small doubt but she had reason for it. And yet her gown was a mere slip of flowered chintz, gathered at the neck, and falling at an angle of fifteen degrees to within an inch of a short petticoat of grey flannel. But so surely is the complete mould of symmetry indicated in the poise or line of any single member, that, looking at the erect carriage of her graceful brown head, or below to the curves that were lost in her shapely ankles, or the little feet that hid them- Thankful Blossom. * 139 selves in the broad-buckled shoes, you knew that the rest was as genuine and beautiful. Mistress Thankful, after a pause, opened the door and listened. Then she softly slipped down the back staircase to the front hall. It was dark, but the door of the " company room " or parlour was faintly indicated by the light that streamed beneath it. She stood still for a moment, hesitatingly, when suddenly a hand grasped her own, and half led, half dragged her into the sitting-room opposite. It was dark. There was a momentary fumbling for the tinder-box and flint, a muttered oath over one or two impeding articles of furniture, and Thankful laughed. And then the light was lit, and her father, a grey, wrinkled man of sixty, still holding her hand, stood before her. " You have been out, Mistress ? " *' I have," said Thankful. " And not alone," growled the old man angrily. " No," said Mistress Thankful, with a smile that began in the corners of her brown eyes, ran down into the dimpled curves • of her mouth, and finally ended in the sudden revelation of her white teeth ; "no, not alone." "With whom?" asked the old man, gradually weakening under her strong, saucy presence. "Well, father," said Thankful, taking a seat on a table, and swinging her little feet somewhat ostentatiously toward him, "I was with Captain Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent." "That man?" "That man!" " I forbid you seeing him again." Thankful gripped the table with a hand on each side of her, to emphasise the statement, and swinging her feet, replied — " I shall see him as often as I like, father ! " 140 Thankful Blossom, "Thankful Blossom!" "Abner Blossom !" "I see you know not," said Mr. Blossom, abandoning the severely paternal mandatory air for one of confidential disclosure, " I see you know not his reputation. He is accused of inciting his regiment to revolt — of being a traitor to the cause." "And since when, Abner Blossom, \i7iNQ, you felt such concern for the cause ? Since you refused to sell supplies to the Continental commissary, except at double profits? Since you told me you were glad I had not politics like Mistress Ford" "Hush !" said the father, motioning to the parlour. " Hush !" echoed Thankful indignantly, " I won't be hushed ! Everybody says ' hush ' to me. The Count says * hush ! ' Allan says ' hush ! ' You say ' hush ! ' I'm aweary of this hushing. Ah, if there was a man who didn't say it to me ! " and Mistress Thankful lifted her fine eyes to the ceihng. "You are unwise, Thankful; fooHsh, indiscreet. That is why you require much monition." Thankful swung her feet in silence for a few moments, then suddenly leaped from the table, and seizing the old man by the lappels of his coat, fixed her eyes upon him, and said, suspiciously — " Why did you keep me from going into the company room ? Why did you bring me in here ? " Blossom senior was staggered for a moment. " Because, you know, the Count" "And you were afraid the Count should know I had a sweetheart ? Well — I'll go in and tell him now," she said, marching toward the door. " Then why did you not tell him when you slipped out an hour ago? Eh, lass?" queried the old man, grasping Thankful Blossom. 1 4 1 her hand. " But 'tis all one, Thankful — 'twas not for him I stopped you. There is a young spark with him — ay, came even as you left, lass — a likely young gallant, and he and the Count are jabbering away in their own lingo — a kind of Italian, belike — eh, Thankful?" " I know not," she said thoughtfully. " Which way came the other ? " In fact, a fear that this young stranger might have witnessed the Captain's embrace, began to creep over her. "From town, my lass." Thankful turned to her father as if she had been waiting a reply to a long-asked question. "Well?" "Were it not well to put on a few furbelows and a tucker?" queried the old man. "'Tis a gallant young spark; none of your country folk." " No," said Thankful, with the promptness of a woman who was looking her best, and knew it. And the old man, looking at her, accepted her judgment, and without another w^ord led her to the parlour door, and opening it, said briefly, " My daughter, Mistress Thankful Blossom." With the opening of the door came the sound of earnest voices that instantly ceased upon the appearance of Mistress Thankful. Two gentlemen lolling before the fire arose instantly, and one came forward with an air of familiar yet respectful recognition. " Nay, this is far too great happiness. Mistress Thankful," he said, with a strongly-marked foreign accent and a still more strongly-marked foreign manner. " I have been in despair, and my friend here, the Baron Pomposo, likewise." The slightest trace of a smile and the swiftest of reproach- ful glances lit up the dark face of the Baron as he bowed low in the introduction. Thankful dropped the courtesy of the period — i.e., a duck, with semi-circular sweep of the right foot forward. But the right foot was so pretty and 142 Thankful Blossom. the grace of the little figure so perfect, that the Baron raised his eyes from the foot to the face in serious admiration. In the one rapid feminine glance she had given him she had seen that he was handsome ; in the second, which she could not help from his protracted silence, she saw that his beauty centred in his girlish, half fawn-like, dark eyes. " The Baron," explained Mr. Blossom, rubbing his hands together, as if, through mere friction, he was trying to im- part a warmth to the reception which his hard face dis- countenanced, "the Baron visits us under discouragement. He comes from far countries. It is the custom of gentle folk of — of — foreign extraction to wander through strange lands, commenting upon the habits and doings of the peoples. He will find in Jersey," continued Mr. Blossom, appealing to Thankful, yet really evading her contemptuous glance, " a hard-working yeomanry, ever ready to welcome the stranger, and account to him penny for penny, for all his necessary expenditure. For which purpose, in these troublous times, he will provide for himself gold or other moneys not affected by these local disturbances." ''He will find, good friend Blossom," said the Baron, in a rapid, voluble way, utterly at variance with the soft, quiet gravity of his eyes, " Beauty, Grace, Accom — plishment, and — eh — Santa Maria ! what shall I say ? " He turned appealingly to the Count. " Virtue," nodded the Count. " Truly, Birtoo ! all in the fair lady of thees countries. Ah, believe me, honest friend Blossom, there is mooch more in thees than in thoss ! " So much of this speech was addressed to Mistress Thankful that she had to show at least one dimple in reply, albeit her brows were slightly knit, and she had turned upon the speaker her honest questioning eyes. Thankful Blossom. 1 4 3 ** And then the General Washington has been kind enough to offer his protection," added the Count. " Any fool — any one," supplemented Thankful hastily, with a slight blush, " may have the General's pass — ay, and his good word. But what of Mistress Prudence Book- staver ? She that has a sweetheart in Knyphausen's Brigade — ay, I warrant a Hessian, but of gentle blood, as Mistress Prudence has often told me ; and look you, all her letters stopped by the General — ay, I warrant read by my Lady Washington, too — as if 'twere her fault that her lad was in arms against Congress. Riddle me that, now ? " '"Tis but prudence, lass," said Blossom, frowning on the girl. "'Tis that she might disclose some movement of the army tending to defeat the enemy." " And why should she not try to save her lad from cap- ture or ambuscade, such as befell the Hessian commissary with the provisions that you " Mr. Blossom, in an ostensible fatherly embrace, managed to pinch Mistress Thankful sharply. " Hush, lass," he said, with simulated playfulness ; " your tongue clacks like the Whippany mill. My daughter has small concern — 'tis the manner of women folk — in politics," he explained to his guests. " These dangersome days have given her sore affliction, by way of parting comrades of her childhood and others whom she has much affected. It has in some sort soured her." Mr. Blossom would have recalled this speech as soon as it escaped him, lest it should lead to a revelation from the truthful Mistress Thankful of her relations with the Con- tinental Captain. But to his astonishment, and I may add, to my own, she showed nothing of that disposition she had exhibited a few moments before. On the contrary, she blushed slightly, and said nothing. And then the conversation changed— upon the, weather, 144 Thankful Blossom. the hard winter, the prospects of the cause, a criticism upon the Commander-in-Chief's management of affairs, the attitude of Congress, &c., &c., between Mr. Blossom and the Count, characterised, I hardly need say, by that posi- tiveness of opinion that distinguishes the unprofessional. In another part of the room it so chanced that Mistress Thankful and the Baron were talking about themselves, the Assembly balls, who was the prettiest woman in Morristown,. and whether General Washington's attentions to Mistress Pyne were only perfunctory gallantry or what, and if Lady Washington's hair was really gray, and if that young aide-de- camp Major Van Zandt were really in love with Lady W., or whether his attentions were only the zeal of a subaltern. In the midst of which a sudden gust of wind shook the house, and Mr. Blossom, going to the front door, came back with the announcement that it was snowing heavily. And indeed, within that past hour, to their astonished eyes the whole face of nature had changed. The moon was gone, the sky hidden in a blinding, whirling swarm of stinging flakes. The wind, bitter and strong, had already fashioned white, feathery drifts upon the threshold, over the painted benches on the porch, and against the door posts. Mistress Thankful and the Baron had walked to the rear door — the Baron with a slight, tropical shudder — to view this meteorological change. As Mistress Thankful looked over the snowy landscape, it seemed to her that all record of her past experience had been effaced — her very foot- prints of an hour before were lost — the gray wall on which she leaned was white and spotless now ; even the familiar farm-shed looked dim and strange and ghostly. Had she been there — had she seen the Captain — was it all a fancy ? She scarcely knew. A sudden gust of wind closed the door behind them with Thankful Blossom, 145 a crash, and sent Mistress Thankful, with a slight feminine scream, forward into the outer darkness. But the Baron caught her by the waist, and saved her from Heaven knows what imaginable disaster, and the scene ended in a half hysterical laugh. But the wind then set upon them both with a malevolent fury, and the Baron was, I presume, obliged to draw her closer to his side. They were alone — save for the presence of those mischievous confederates, Nature and Opportunity. In the half obscurity of the storm she could not help turning her mischievous eyes on his ; but she was perhaps surprised to find them luminous, soft, and as it seemed to her at that moment, grave beyond the occasion. An embarrassment utterly new and singular seized upon her, and when, as she half feared yet half expected, he bent down and pressed his lips to hers, she was for a moment powerless ; but in the next instant she boxed his ears sharply and vanished in the darkness. When Mr. Blossom opened the door to the Baron he was surprised to find that gentleman alone, and still more surprised to find, when they re-entered the house, to see Mistress Thankful enter at the same moment, demurely, from the front door. When Mr. Blossom knocked at his daughter's door the next morning it opened upon her completely dressed, but withal somewhat pale, and if the truth must be told, a little surly. " And you were stirring so early. Thankful," he said ; "'twould have been but decent to have bidden Godspeed to the guests — especially the Baron, who seemed much concerned at your absence." Miss Thankful blushed slightly, but answered with savage celerity, " And since when is it necessary that I should dance attendance upon every foreign jack-in-the-box that may he at the house ? " VOL. V. K 1 46 Thankful Blossom. " He has shown great courtesy to you, mistress — and is a gentleman." " Courtesy, indeed ! " said Mistress Thankful. " He has not presumed ? " said Mr. Blossom suddenly, bringing his cold, gray eyes to bear upon his daughter's. "No, no," said Thankful hurriedly, flaming a bright scarlet; "but — nothing. But what have you there — a letter?" " Ay — from the Captain, I warrant ! " said Mr. Blossom, handing her a three-cornered bit of paper; "'twas left here by a camp-followen Thankful," he continued, with a meaning glance, "you will heed my counsel in season. The Captain is not meet for such as you." Thankful suddenly grew pale and contemptuous again as she snatched the letter from his hand. When his retiring footsteps were lost on the stairs, she regained her colour and opened the letter. It was slovenly written, grievously misspelled, and read as follows : — "Sweetheart, — A tyranous Act, begotten in Envy and Jealousie, keeps me here a prisoner. Last night I was Basely arrested by Servile Hands for that Freedom of Thought and Expression for which I have already Sacrifized so much — aye all that Man hath but Love and Honour. But the End is Near. When for the Maintenance of Power, the Liberties of the Peoples are subdued by Martial Supremacy and the Dictates of Ambition the State is Lost. I lie in vile Bondage here in Morristown under charge of Disrespeck — me that a twelvemonth past left a home and Respectable Connexions to serve my Country. Believe me still your own Love, albeit in the Power of Tyrants and condemned it may be to the scaffold. " The Messenger is Trustworthy and will speed safely to me such as you may deliver unto him. The Provender Thankful Blossom, 147 sanktified by your Hands and made precious by yr. Love was wrested from me by Servil Hands and the Eggs, Sweetheart, were somewhat Addled. The Bacon is, me- thinks, by this time on the Table of the Com'-in-chief. Such is Tyranny and Ambition. Sweetheart, farewell for the present. - Allan." Mistress Thankful read this composition once, twice, and then tore it up. Then, reflecting that it was the first letter of her lover's that she had not kept, she tried to put together again the torn fragments, but vainly — and then in a pet, new to her, cast them from the window. During the rest of the day she was considerably distraite, and even manifested more temper than she was wont to do, and later, when her father rode away on his daily" visit to Morristown, she felt strangely relieved. By noon the snow ceased, or rather turned into a driving sleet that again in turn gave way to rain. By this time she became absorbed in her household duties — in which she was usually skilful — and in her own thoughts that to-day had a novelty in their meaning. In the midst of this, at about dark, her room being in rear of the house, she was perhaps unmindful of the trampling of horse without, or the sound of voices in the hall below. Neither were uncommon at that time. Although protected by the Continental army, from forage or the rudeness of soldiery, the Blossom farm had always been a halting place for passing troopers, commissary team- sters, and reconnoitring officers. General Sullivan and Colonel Hamilton had watered their horses at its broad substantial wayside trough, and sat in the shade of its porch. Mistress Thankful was only awakened from her day dream by the entrance of the negro farm hand, Caesar. "Fo' God, Missy Thankful, them sogers is g'wine into camp in the road, I reckon, for they's jest makin' they 148 Thankful Blossom, seves free afo' the house, and they's an officer in the company room with his spurs cocked on the table, readin' a book." A quick flame leaped into Thankful's cheek, and her pretty brows knit themselves over darkening eyes. She arose from her work — no longer the moody girl, but an indignant goddess, and pushing the servant aside, swept down the stairs and threw open the door. An officer, sitting by the fire in an easy, lounging attitude that justified the servant's criticism, arose instantly, with an air of evident embarrassment and surprise that was, however, as quickly dominated and controlled by a gentle- man's breeding. " I beg your pardon," he said, with a deep inclination of his handsome head, '' but I had no idea that there was any member of this household at home — at least a lady." He hesitated a moment, catching in the raising of her brown- fringed lids a sudden revelation of her beauty, and partly losing his composure. " I am Major Van Zandt ; I have the honour of addressing " "Thankful Blossom," said Thankful, a little proudly, divining with a woman's swift instinct the cause of the Major's hesitation. But her triumph was checked by a new embarrassment, visible in the face of the officer at the mention of her name. " Thankful Blossom," repeated the officer quickly. **You are then the daughter of Abner Blossom ? " *' Certainly," said Thankful, turning her inquiring eyes upon him; "he will be here betimes. He has gone only to Morristown." In a new fear that had taken possession of her, her questioning eyes asked, " Has he not ? " The officer answering her eyes rather than her lips, came toward her gravely. " He will not return to-day, Mistress Thankful, nor perhaps even to-morrow. He is — a prisoner." Thankful Blossom. 149 Thankful opened her brown eyes aggressively on the Major. '^ A prisoner — for what ? " "For aiding and giving comfort to the enemy, and for harbouring spies," replied the Major, with military curtness. Mistress Thankful's cheek flushed slightly at the last sentence ; a recollection of the scene on the porch and the Baron's stolen kiss flashed across her, and for a moment she looked as guilty as if the man before her had been a witness to the deed. He saw it, and misinterpreted her confusion. " Belike, then," said Mistress Thankful, slightly raising her voice, and standing squarely before the Major, '• Belike, then, / should be a prisoner, too, for the guests of this house, if they be spies, were 7ny guests, and as my father's daughter, I was their hostess. Ay, man, and right glad to be the hostess of such gallant gentlemen. Gentlemen, I warrant, too fine to insult a defenceless girl — gentlemen spies that did not cock their boots on the table or turn an honest farmer's house into a tap-room." An expression of half pain, half amusement covered the face of the Major, but he made no other reply than by a profound and graceful bow. Courteous and deprecatory as it was, it apparently exasperated Mistress Thankful only the more. " And pray who are these spies, and who is the informer ? " said Mistress Thankful, facing the soldier, with one hand truculently placed on her flexible hip, and the other slipped behind her. " Methinks 'tis only honest we should know when and how we have entertained both." "Your father, Mistress Thankful," said Major Van Zandt gravely, " has long been suspected of favouring the enemy ; but it has been the policy of the Commander-in- Chief to overlook the political preferences of non-com- batants, and to strive to win their allegiance to the good 1 50 Thankful Blossom. cause by liberal privileges. But when it was lately dis- covered that two strangers, although bearing a pass from him, have been frequenters of this house under fictitious " You mean Count Ferdinand and the Baron Pomposo," said Thankful quickly j " two honest gentlefolk, and if they choose to pay their devoirs to a lass — although, perhaps, not a quality lady, yet an honest girl " " Dear Mistress Thankful," said the Major, with a pro- found bow and smile that, spite of its courtesy, drove Thankful to the verge of wrathful hysterics, "if you establish that fact — and from this slight acquaintance with your charms, I doubt not you will — your father is safe from further inquiry or detention. The Commander-in-Chief is a gentleman who has never underrated the influence of your sex, nor held himself averse to its fascinations." " What is the name of this informer ? " broke in Mistress Thankful angrily. " Who is it that has dared " " It is but King's evidence, mayhap. Mistress Thankful, for the informer is himself under arrest. It is on the information of Captain Allan Brewster, of the Connecticut Contingent." Mistress Thankful whitened, then flushed, and then whitened again. Then she stood up to the Major. " It's a lie — a cowardly lie ! " Major Van Zandt bowed. Mistress Thankful flew up- stairs, and in another moment swept back again into the room in riding hat and habit. " I suppose I can go and see — my fa,ther," she said, without lifting her eyes to the officer. ''You are free as air, Mistress Thankful. My orders and instructions, far from implicating you in your father's offences, do not even suggest your existence. Let me help you to your horse." Thankful Blossom. 151 The girl did not reply. During that brief interval, how- ever, Caesar had saddled her white mare and brought it to the door. Mistress Thankful, disdaining the offered hand of the Major, sprang to the saddle. The Major still held the reins, " One moment. Mistress Thankful." " Let me go," she said, with suppressed passion. "One moment, I beg." His hand still held the bridle-rein. The mare reared, nearly upsetting her. Crimson with rage and mortification, she raised her riding-whip and laid it smartly over the face of the man before her. He dropped the rein instantly. Then he raised to her a face, calm and colourless but for a red line extending from his eyebrow to his chin, and said quietly — " I had no desire to detain you. I only wished to say that when you see General Washington I know you will be just enough to tell him that Major Van Zandt knew nothing of your wrongs, or even your presence here, until you pre- sented them, and that since then he has treated you as became an ofl&cer and gentleman." Yet even as he spoke she was gone. At the moment that her fluttering skirt swept in a furious gallop down the hill-side, the Major turned and re-entered the house. The few lounging troopers who were witnesses of the scene prudently turned their eyes from the white face and blazing eyes of their officer as he strode by them. Nevertheless, when the door closed behind him, contemporary criticism broke out — "'Tis a Tory jade, vexed that she cannot befool the Major as she has the Captain," muttered Sergeant Tibbitts. "And going to try her tricks on the General," added Private Hicks. Howbeit, both these critics may have been wrong. For 152 Thankful Blossom, as Mistress Thankful thundered down the Morristown road she thought of many things. She thought of her sweet- heart, Allan, a prisoner, and pining for her help and her solicitude, and yet — how dared he — if he had really be- trayed or misjudged her ! And then she thought bitterly of the Count and the Baron — and burned to face the latter, and in some vague way charge the stolen kiss upon him as the cause of all her shame and mortification. And, lastly she thought of her father, and began to hate everybody. But, above all, and through all, in her vague fears for her father, in her passionate indignation against the Baron, in her fretful impatience of Allan, one thing was ever dominant and obtrusive — one thing she tried to put away, but could not — the handsome, colourless face of Major' Van Zandt with the red welt of her riding- whip overlying its cold outlines. PART III. The rising wind, which had ridden much faster than Mistress Thankful, had increased to a gale by the time it reached Morristown. It swept through the leafless maples, and rattled the dry bones of the elms. It whistled through the quiet Presbyterian churchyard, as if trying to arouse the sleepers it had known in days gone by. It shook the blank, lustreless windows of the Assembly Rooms over the Freemasons' Tavern, and wrought in their gusty curtains moving shadows of those amply-petticoated dames and tightly-hosed cavaliers who had swung in " Sir Roger," or jigged in " Money Musk " the night before. But, I fancy, it was around the isolated "Ford Mansion," better known as the " Head-quarters," that the wind wreaked its grotesque rage. It howled under its scant eaves, it sang under its bleak porch, it tweaked the peak Thankful Blossom. 153 of its front gable, it whistled through every chink and cranny of its square, solid, unpicturesque structure. Situ- ated on a hill-side that descended rapidly to the Whippany river, every summer zephyr that whispered through the porches of the Morristown farmhouses, charged as a stiff breeze upon the swinging half-doors and windows of the "Ford Mansion," every wintry wind became a gale that threatened its security. The sentry who paced^efore its front porch knew from experience when to linger under its lee and adjust his threadbare outer coat to the bitter north wind. Within the house something of this cheerlessness pre- vailed. It had an ascetic gloom, which the scant firelight of the reception-room, and the dying embers on the dining- room hearth failed to dissipate. The central hall was broad, and furnished plainly with a few rush-bottomed chairs, on one of which half dozed a black body servant of the Commander-in-Chief. Two officers in the dining-room, drawn close by the chimney corner, chatted in undertones, as if mindful that the door of the drawing-room was open, and their voices might break in upon its sacred privacy. The swinging light in the hall partly illuminated, or rather glanced gloomily from the black, polished furniture, the lustreless chairs, the quaint cabinet, the silent spinnet, the skeleton-legged centre table, and finally, upon the motion- less figure of a man seated by the fire. It was a figure, since so well-known to the civilised world, since so celebrated in print and painting as to need no description here. Its rare combination of gentle dignity with profound force — of a set resoluteness of purpose with a philosophical patience have been so frequently delivered to a people not particularly remarkable for these qualities, that I fear it has too often provoked a spirit of playful aggression, in which the deeper underlying meaning was 1 54 Thankful Blossom, forgotten. So let me add that in manner, physical equi- poise, and even in the mere details of dress, this figure indicated a certain aristocratic exclusiveness. It was the presentment of a King — a King who, by the irony of cir- cumstances was just. then waging war against all kingship : a ruler of men who just then was fighting for the right of these men to govern themselves, but whom, by his own inherent right, he dominated. From the crown of his powdered head to the silver buckle of his shoe, he was so royal that it was not strange that his brother, George of England and Hanover — ruling by accident, otherwise impiously known as the " Grace of God " — could find no better way of resisting his pr ,/er than by calling him " Mr. Washington." The sound of horses' hoofs, the formal challenge of sentry, the grave questioning of the officer of the guard, followed by footsteps upon the porch, did not apparently disturb his meditation. Nor did the opening of the outer door .and a charge of cold air into the hall that invaded even the privacy of the reception-room and brightened the dying embers on the hearth, stir his calm pre-occupation. But an instant later there was the distinct rustle of a femi- nine skirt in the hall, a hurried whispering of men's voices, and then the sudden apparition of a smooth, fresh-faced young officer over the shoulder of the unconscious figure. "I beg your pardon. General," said the officer doubt- ingly, "but" "You are not intruding, Colonel Hamilton," said the General quietly. " There is a young lady without who wishes an audience of your Excellency ; 'tis Mistress Thankful Blossom, the daughter of Abner Blossom — charged with treasonous prac- tice and favouring the enemy — now in the guard-house at Morristown." Thankful Blossom. 155 "Thankful Blossom?" repeated the General interroga- tively. " Your Excellency, doubtless, remembers a little pro- vincial beauty and a famous toast of the country side — the Cressida of our Morristown epic, who led our gallant Con- necticut Captain astray" "You have the advantages, besides the better memory of a younger man, Colonel," said Washington, with a play- ful smile that slightly reddened the cheek of his aide-de- camp. "Yet I think I have heard of this phenomenon. By all means admit her — and her escort." " She is alone. General," responded the subordinate. " Then the more reason wLy we should be polite," re- turned Washington, for the first time altering his easy posture, rising to his feet, and lightly grasping his ruffled hands before him. " We must not keep her waiting. Give her access, my dear Colonel, at once. And — even as she came — alone.'" The aide-de-camp bowed and withdrew. In another moment the half-opened door swung wide to Mistress Thankful Blossom. She was so beautiful in her simple riding dress, so quaint and original in that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming with a certain vital earnestness of purpose, just positive and audacious enough to set off that beauty, that the grave gentleman before her did not content himself with the usual formal inclination of courtesy, but actually advanced, and taking her cold little hand in his, graciously led her to the chair he had just vacated. " Even if your name were not known to me, Mistress Thankful," said the Commander-in-Chief, looking down upon her with grave politeness, "nature has, methinks, spared you the necessity of any introduction to the courtesy or a gentleman. But how can I especially serve you ? " 156 Thankful Blossom, Alack ! the blaze of Mistress Thankful's brown eyes had become somewhat dimmed in the grave half-lights of the room, in the graver, deeper dignity of the erect, soldier-like figure before her. The bright colour, born of the tempest within and without, had somehow faded from her cheek; the sauciness begotten from bullying her horse in the last half hour's rapid ride, was so subdued by the actual presence of the man she had come to bully, that I fear she had to use all her self-control to keep down her inclination to whimper and to keep back the tears that, oddly enough, rose to her sweet eyes as she lifted them to the quietly-critical yet placid glance of her interlocutor. " I can readily conceive the motive of this visit, Miss Thankful," continued Washington, with a certain dignified kindliness that was more reassuring than the formal gallantry of the period, "and it is, I protest, to your credit. A father's welfare — however erring and weak that father may be — is most seemly in a maiden." Thankful's eyes flashed again as she rose to her feet. Her upper lip, that had a moment before trembled in a pretty infantine distress, now stiflened and curled as she confronted the dignified figure before her. "It is not of my father I would speak," she said saucily, "I did not ride here alone to-night, in the weather, to talk of hiiri ; I warrant he can speak for himself. I came here to speak of myself — of lies — ay, lies, told of me, a poor girl — ay, of cowardly gossip about me and my sweetheart, Captain Brewster, now confined in prison, because he hath loved me, a lass without politics or adherence to the cause — as if 'twere necessary every lad should ask the confidence or permission of yourself or, belike, my Lady Washington in his preferences." She paused a moment, out of breath. With a woman's quickness of intuition she saw the change in Washington's Thankful Blossom. 157 face — saw a certain cold severity overshadowing it. With a woman's fateful persistency — a persistency which I humbly suggest might on occasion be honourably copied by our more politic sex — she went on to say what was in her, even if she were obhged, with a woman's honourable inconsis- tency, to unsay it an hour or two later — an inconsistency which I also humbly protest might be as honourably imi- tated by us — on occasion. '•'It has been said," said Thankful Blossom quickly, " that my father has given entertainment knowingly to two spies — two spies tliat, begging your Excellency's pardon, and the pardon of Congress, I know only as two honourable gentlemen, who have as honourably tendered me their affections. It is said, and basely and most falsely too, that my sweetheart, Captain Allan Brewster, has lodged this' information. I have ridden here to deny it. I have ridden here to demand of you that an honest woman's reputation shall not be sacrificed to the interests of politics. That a prying mob of ragamuffins shall not be sent to an honest farmer's house to spy and spy — and turn a poor girl out of doors that they might do it. 'Tis shameful — so it is — there ! 'Tis most scandalous — so it is — there now. Spies indeed — what are they^ pray?" In the indignation which the recollection of her wrongs had slowly gathered in her, from the beginning of this speech, she had advanced her face, rosy with courage, and beautiful in its impertinence, within a few inches of the dignified features and quiet grey eyes of the great com- mander. To her utter stupefaction, he bent his head and kissed her, with a grave benignity, full on the centre of her audacious forehead. ''Be seated, I beg, Mistress Blossom," he said, taking her cold hand in his, and quietly replacing her in the un- occupied chair. " Be seated, I beg, and give me, if you 158 Thankful Blossom, can, your attention for a moment. The officer entrusted with the ungracious task of occupying your father's house is a member of my military family and a gentleman. If he has so far forgotten himself — if he has so far disgraced him- self and me as " " No ! no ! " uttered Thankful, with feverish alacrity, " the gentleVnan was most considerate ! On the contrary — mayhap — I," she hesitated, and then came to a full stop, with a heightened colour, as a vivid recollection of that gentleman's face, with the mark of her riding whip lying across it, rose before her. " I was about to say that Major Van Zandt, as a gentle- man, has known how to fully excuse the natural impulses of a daughter," continued Washington, with a look of per- fect understanding, " but let me now satisfy you on another point, where, it would seem, we greatly differ." He walked to the door and summoned his servant, to whom he gave an order. In another moment the fresh- faced young officer, who had at first admitted her, re- appeared with a file of official papers. He glanced slyly at Thankful Blossom's face with an amused look, as if he had already heard the colloquy between her and his superior officer, and had appreciated that which neither of the earnest actors in the scene had themselves felt — a cer- tain sense of humour in the situation. Howbeit, standing before them, Colonel Hamilton gravely turned over the file of papers. Thankful bit her lips in embarrassment. A slight feeling of awe and a presenti- ment of some fast-coming shame ; a new and strange con- sciousness of herself, her surroundings, of the dignity of the two men before her, an uneasy feeling of the presence of two ladies who had in some mysterious way entered the room from another door, and who seemed to be intently regarding her from afar with a curiosity as if she were some Thankful Blossom. 1 59 strange animal, and a wild premonition that her whole future life and happiness depended upon the events of the next i^\N moments, so took possession of her that the brave girl trembled for a moment in her isolation and loneliness. In another instant, Colonel Hamilton speaking to his superior, but looking obviously at one of the ladies who had entered, handed a paper to Washington, and said, " Here are the charges." "Read them," said the General coldly. Colonel Hamilton with a manifest consciousness of another hearer than Mistress Blossom and his General, read the paper. It was couched in phrases of military and legal precision, and related briefly that upon the certain and personal knowledge of the writer, Abner Blossom of the *' Blossom Farm," was in the habit of entertaining two gentlemen, namely, the "Count Ferdinand" and the " Baron Pomposo," suspected enemies of the cause, and possible traitors to the Continental Army. It was signed by Allan Brewster, late Captain in the Connecticut Contingent. As Colonel Hamilton exhibited the sig- nature. Thankful Blossom had no difficulty in recognising the familiar bad hand, and equally familiar misspelling of her lover. She rose to her feet. With eyes that showed her present trouble and perplexity as frankly as they had a moment before blazed with her indignation, she met, one by one, the glances of the group who now seemed to be closing round her. Yet with a woman's instinct she felt, I am constrained to say, more unfriendliness in the silent presence of the two women than in the possible outspoken criticism of our much abused sex. " Of course," said a voice, which Thankful at once, by a woman's unerring instinct, recognised as the elder of the two ladies, and the legitimate keeper of the conscience of i6o Thankful Blossom. some one of the men who were present, "of course Mistress Thankful will be able to elect which of her lovers among her country's enemies she will be able to cling to for support in her present emergency. She does not seem to have been so special in her favours as to have positively excluded any one." " At least, dear Lady Washington, she will not give it to the man who has proven a traitor to her^^ said the younger woman impulsively. That is — I beg your lady- ship's pardon" — she hesitated, observing in the dead silence that ensued that the two superior male beings present looked at each other in lofty astonishment. " He that is trait'rous to his country," said Lady Wash- ington coldly, " is apt to be trait'rous elsewhere." " 'Twere as honest to say that he that was trait'rous to his King, was trait'rous to his country," said Mistress Thankful, with sudden audacity, bending her knit brows on Lady Washington. But that lady turned dignifiedly away, and Mistress Thankful again faced the General. "I ask your pardon," she said proudly, "for troubling you with my wrongs. But it seems to me that even if another and a greater wrong were done me by my sweetheart, through jealousy, it would not justify this accusation against me, even though," she added, darting a wicked glance at the placid brocaded back of Lady Washington, " even though that accusation came from one who knows that jealousy may belong to the wife of a patriot as well as a traitor." She was herself again, after this speech, although her face was white with the blow she had taken and returned. Colonel Hamilton passed his hand across his mouth and coughed slightly. General Washington standing by the fire with an impassive face turned to Thankful gravely — " You are forgetting. Mistress Thankful, that you have Thankful Blossom. 1 6 1 not told me how I can serve you. It cannot be that you are still concerned in Captain Brewster, who has given evid- ence against your other friends^ and tacitly against _>w/. Nor can it be on their account, for I regret to say they are still free and unknown. If you come with any information exculpating them, and showing they are not spies or nostile to the cause, your father's release shall be certain and speedy. Let me ask you a single question. Why do you believe them honest ? " " Because," said Mistress Thankful, " they were — were — gentlemen." " Many spies have been of excellent family, good address, and fair talents," said Washington gravely ; " but you have, mayhap, some other reason." " Because they talked only to me," said Mistress Thank- ful, blushing mightily ; " because they preferred my company to father's — because " she hesitated a moment — " be- cause they spoke not of politics, but — of — that whi:h lads mainly talk of — and — and," here she broke cown a little ; " and the Baron I only saw once, but he" here she broke down utterly — " I know they weren't spies — there now I" " I must ask you something more," said Washington, with grave kindness ; " whether you give me the information or not, you will consider that if what you believe is true, it cannot in any way injure the gentlemen you speak of, while, on the other hand, it may relieve your father of suspicion. Will you give to Colonel Hamilton, my secretary, a full de- scription of them ? That fuller description which Captain Brewster, for reasons best known to yourself, was unable to give." Mistress Thankful hesitated for a moment, and then, with one of her truthful glances at the Commander-in-Chief, began a detailed account of the outward semblance of the VOL. V. L 1 6 2 Thankful Blossom. Count. Why she began with him I am unable to say, but possibly, it was because it was easier, for when she came to describe the Baron, she was, I regret to say, somewhat vague and figurative. Not so vague, however, but that Colonel Hamilton suddenly started up with a look at his chief, who instantly checked it with a gesture of his ruffled hand. " I thank you. Mistress Thankful," he said, quite impas- sively, " but did this other gentleman, this Baron " *' Pomposo," said Thankful proudly. A titter originated in the group of ladies by the window, and became visible on the fresh face of Colonel Hamilton, but the dignified colour of Washington's countenance was unmoved. " May I ask if the Baron made an honourable tender of his affections to you," he continued, with respectful gravity — *' if his attentions were known to your father, and were such as honest Mistress Blossom could receive ? " " Father introduced him to me, and wanted me to be kind to him. He — he kissed me, and I slapped his face," said Thankful quickly, with cheeks as red, I warrant, as the Baron's might have been. The moment the words had escaped her truthful lips she would have given her life to recall them. To her astonishment, however. Colonel Hamilton laughed out- right, and the ladies turned and approached her, but were checked by a slight gesture from the otherwise impassive figure of the General. "It is possible, Mistress Thankful," he resumed, with undisturbed composure, " that one, at least, of these gentle- men may be known to us, and that your instincts may be correct. At least rest assured that we shall fully inquire into it, and that your father shall have the benefit of that inquiry," " I thank your Excellency," said Thankful, still redden- ing under the contemplation of her own late frankness, Thankful Blossom. 163 and retreating towards the door, " I — think — I — must — go — now. It is late, and I have far to ride." To her surprise, however, Washington stepped forward, and again taking her hands in his, said with a grave smile, " For that very reason, if for none other, you must be our guest to-night. Mistress Thankful Blossom. We still retain our Virginian ideas of hospitality, and are tyrannous enough to make strangers conform to them, even though we have but perchance the poorest of entertainment to offer them. Lady Washington will not permit Mistress Thankful Blossom to leave her roof to-night until she has partaken of her courtesy as well as her counsel." " Mistress Thankful Blossom will make us believe that she has, at least, in so far trusted our desire to serve her justly by accepting our poor hospitality for a single night," said Lady Washington, with a stately courtesy. Thankful Blossom still stood irresolutely at the door. But the next moment a pair of youthful arms encircled her, and the younger gentlewoman, looking into her brown eyes, with an honest frankness equal to her own, said, caressingly, " Dear Mistress Thankful, though I am but a guest in her ladyship's house, let me, I pray you, add my voice to hers. I am Mistress Schuyler of Albany, at your service. Mistress Thankful, as Colonel Hamilton here will bear me witness, did I need any interpreter to your honest heart. Believe me, dear Mistress Thankful, I sympathise with you, and only beg you to give me an opportunity to- night to serve you. You will stay, I know, and you will stay with me, and we shall talk over the faithlessness of that over-jealous Yankee Captain who has proved him- self, I doubt not, as unworthy of you as he is of his country." Hateful to Thankful as was the idea of being commiser- ated, she nevertheless could not resist the gentle courtesy 164 Thankful Blossom. and gracious sympathy of Miss Schuyler. Besides, it must be confessed that for the first time in her Hfe she felt a doubt of the power of her own independence, and a strange fascination for this young gentlewoman whose arms were around her, who could so thoroughly sympathise with her, and yet allow herself to be snubbed by Lady Washington ! " You have a mother, I doubt not ? " said Thankful, raising her questioning eyes to Miss Schuyler. Irrelevant as this question seemed to the two young gentlemen, Miss Schuyler answered it with feminine intui- tion. " And you, dear Mistress Thankful " " Have none," said Thankful ; and here, I regret to say, she whimpered slightly, at which Miss Schuyler, with tears in her own fine eyes, bent her head suddenly to Thankful's ear, put her arm about the waist of the pretty stranger, and then, to the astonishment of Colonel Hamilton, quietly swept her out of the august presence. When the door had closed upon them. Colonel Hamilton turned half-smilingly, half-inquiringly to his chief. Washington returned his glance kindly, but gravely, and then said quietly — " If your suspicions jump with mine. Colonel, I need not remind you that it is a matter so delicate that it would be as well if you locked it in your own breast for the present. At least that you should not intimate to the gentleman whom you may have suspected aught that has passed this evening." " As you will. General," said the subaltern respectfully ; "but may I ask," he hesitated, "if you believe that any- thing more than a passing fancy for a pretty girl " " When I asked your silence, Colonel," interrupted Washington kindly, laying his hand upon the shoulders of the younger man, "it was because I thought the matter Thankful Blossom. 165 sufficiently momentous to claim my own private and especial attention." " I ask your Excellency's pardon," said the young man, reddening through his fresh complexion like a girl j " I only meant " " That you would ask to be relieved to-night," inter- rupted Washington, with a benign smile, " forasmuch as you wished the more to show entertainment to our dear friend, Miss Schuyler, and her guest. A wayward girl. Colonel, but, methinks, an honest one. Treat her of your own quality. Colonel, but discreetly, and not too kindly ; lest we have Mistress Schuyler, another injured damsel, on our hands," and with a half playful gesture, peculiar to the man, and yet not inconsistent with his dignity, he half led, half pushed his youthful secretary from the room. When the door had closed upon the Colonel, Lady Washington rustled toward her husband, who stood still, quiet, and passive on the hearth-stone. "You surely see in this escapade nothing of political intrigue — no treachery ? " she said hastily. " No," said Washington quietly. " Nothing more than idle, wanton intrigue with a foolish, vain country girl ? " " Pardon me, my lady," said Washington gravely. " I doubt not we may misjudge her. ' Tis no common rustic lass that can thus stir the country side. ' Twere an insult to your sex to believe it. It is not yet sure that she has not captured even so high game as she has named. If she has, it would add another interest to a treaty of comity and alliance." " That creature ! " said Lady Washington — '' that light o' love with her Connecticut Captain lover? Pardon me, but this is preposterous," and with a stiff courtesy, she swept from the room, leaving the central figure of history — as such central figures usually are apt to be left — alone. 1 66 Thankful Blossom, Later in the evening, Mistress Schuyler so far subdued the tears and emotions of Thankful that she was enabled to dry her eyes and rearrange her brown hair in the quaint little mirror in Mistress Schuyler's chamber, Mistress Schuyler herself lending a touch and suggestion here and there after the secret freemasonry of her sex. " You are well rid of this forsworn Captain, dear Mistress Thankful, and methinks that with hair as beautiful as yours, the new style of wearing it — though a modish frivolity — is most becoming. I assure you, 'tis much affected in New York and Philadelphia — drawn straight back from the forehead, after this manner, as you see." The result was that in an hour later Mistress Schuyler and Mistress Blossom presented themselves to Colonel Hamilton in the reception-room with a certain freshness and elabor- ation of toilet that not only quite shamed the young officer's affaire negligence, but caused him to open his eyes in as- tonishment. " Perhaps she would rather be alone, that she might indulge her grief," he said doubtingly, in an aside to Miss Schuyler, " rather than appear in company." " Nonsense," quoth Mistress Schuyler. " Is a young woman to mope and sigh because her lover proves false ? " '' But her father is a prisoner," said Hamilton in amaze- ment. " Can you look me in the face," said Mistress Schuyler mischievously, "and tell me that you don't know that in twenty- four hours her father will be cleared of these charges ? Nonsense ! Do you think I have no eyes in my head ? Do you think I misread the General's face and your own ? " " But, my dear girl," said the officer in alarm. *' Oh, I told her so — but not why^^ responded Miss Schuyler, with a wicked look in her dark eyes, " though I had warrant enough to do so to serve you for keeping a secret from me I " Tha nkful Blossom, 167 And with this Parthian shot she returned to Mistress Thankful, who, with her face pressed against the window, was looking out on the moonlight slope beside the Whip- pany river. For by one of those freaks peculiar to the American springtide the weather had again marvellously changed. The rain had ceased, and the ground was covered with an icing of sleet and snow, that now glittered under a clear sky and a brilliant moon. The north-east wind that shook the loose sashes of the windows had transformed each dripping tree and shrub to icy stalactites that silvered under the moon's cold touch. "'Tis a beautiful sight, ladies," said a bluff, hearty, middle- aged man, joining the group by the window ; " but God send the spring to us quickly, and spare us any more such cruel changes. My lady moon looks fine enough, glittering in yonder tree tops, but I doubt not she looks down upon many a poor fellow shivering under his tattered blankets in the camp beyond. Had ye seen the Connecticut tattarde- malions file by last night, with arms reversed, showing their teeth at his Excellency and yet not daring to bite — had ye watched these fainthearts, these doubting Thomases, ripe for rebellion against his Excellency, against the cause, but chiefly against the weather, ye would pray for a thaw that would melt the hearts of these men as it would these stubborn fields around us. Two weeks more of such weather would raise up not one Allan Brewster, but a dozen such malcontent puppies ripe for a drum-head court-martial." "Yet 'tis a fine night. General Sullivan," said Colonel Ham- ilton, sharply nudging the ribs of his superior offioer with his elbow, " there would be little trouble on such a night, I fancy, to track our ghostly visitant." Both of the ladies becoming in- terested, and Colonel Hamilton having thus adroitly turned the flank of his superior officer, he went on : *' You should 1 6 8 Thankful Blossom, know that the camp, and indeed the whole locality here, is said to be haunted by the apparition of a gray-coated figure, whose face is muffled and hidden in his collar, but who has the password pat to his lips, and whose identity hath baffled the sentries. This figure, it is said, forasmuch as it has been seen just before an assault, an attack, or some tribu- lation of the army, is believed by many to be the genius or guardian spirit of the cause, and, as such, has incited sentries and guards to greater vigilance, and has to some seemed a premonition of disaster. Before the last outbreak of the Connecticut Militia, Master Graycoat haunted the outskirts of the weather-beaten and bedraggled camp, and, I doubt not, saw much of that preparation that sent that regiment of faint-hearted onion-gatherers to flaunt their woes and their wrongs in the face of the General himself." Here Colonel Hamilton, in turn, received a slight nudge from Mistress Schuyler, and ended his speech somewhat abruptly. Mistress Thankful was not unmindful of both these allusions to her faithless lover, but only a consciousness of mortification and wounded pride was awakened by them. In fact, during the first tempest of her indignation at his arrest, still later at the arrest of her father, and finally at the discovery of his perfidy to her, she had forgotten that he was her lover ; she had forgotten her previous tender- ness toward him; and now that her fire and indignation were spent, only a sense of numbness and vacancy remained. AU that had gone before seemed not something to be re- gretted as her own act, but rather as the act of another Thankful Blossom, who had been lost that night in the snow-storm ; she felt she had become within the last twenty- four hours not perhaps afiother woman, but for the first time a woman. Yet it was singular that she felt more confused when a Thankful Blossom. 1 69 few moments later, the conversation turned upon Major Van Zandt ; it was still more singular that she even felt considerably frightened at that confusion. Finally she found herself listening with alternate irritability, shame, and curiosity to praises of that gentleman, of his courage, his devotion, and his personal graces. For one wild moment Thankful felt like throwing herself on the breast of Mistress Schuyler and confessing her rudeness to the Major, but a conviction that Mistress Schuyler would share that secret with Colonel Hamilton, that Major Van Zandt might not like that revelation, and oddly enough associated with this, a feeling of unconquerable irritability toward that handsome and gentle young officer, kept her mouth closed. *' Besides," she said to herself, " he ought to know, if he is such a fine gentleman as they say, just how I was feeling, and that I didn't mean any rudeness to him," and with this unanswer- able feminine logic, poor Thankful, to some extent, stilled her own honest little heart. But 'not, I fear, entirely ; the night was a restless one to her ; like all impulsive natures the season of reflection and perhaps distrust came to her upon acts that were already committed, and when reason seemed to light the way only to despair. She saw the folly of her intrusion at the head- quarters, as she thought, only when it was too late to remedy it j she saw the gracelessness and discourtesy of her conduct to Major Van Zandt only when distance and time rendered an apology weak and ineffectual. I think she cried a little to herself, lying in the strange gloomy chamber of the healthfully sleeping Mistress Schuyler, the sweet security of whose manifest goodness and kindness she alternately hated and envied, and at last, unable to stand it longer, slipped noiselessly from her bed and stood very wretched and disconsolate before the window that looked out upon the slope towards the Whippany river. 1 70 Thankful Blossom. The moon on the new-fallen, frigid, and untrodden snow shone brightly. Far to the left it glittered on the bayonet of a sentry pacing beside the river bank, and gave a sense of security to the girl that perhaps strengthened another idea that had grown up in her mind. Since she could not sleep why should she not ramble about until she could ? She had been accustomed to roam about the farm in all weathers and at all times and seasons. She recalled to her- self the night — a tempestuous one — when she had risen in serious concern as to the lying-in of her favourite Alderney heifer, and how she had saved tlie life of the calf, a weak- ling, dropped apparently from the clouds in the tempest, as it lay beside the barn. With this in her mind she donned her dress again, and with Mistress Schuyler's mantle over her shoulders noiselessly crept down the narrow staircase, passed the sleeping servant on the settee, and opening the rear door, in another moment was inhaling the crisp air and tripping down the crisp snow of the hill-side. But Mistress Thankful had overlooked one difference between her own farm and a military encampment. She had not proceeded a dozen yards before a figure apparently started out of the ground beneath her, and levelling a bayonetted musket across her path called, " Halt !" The hot blood mounted to the girl's cheek at the first imperative command she had ever received in her life ; nevertheless she halted unconsciously, and without a word confronted the challenger with her old audacity. " Who goes there ? " reiterated, the sentry, still keeping his bayonet level with her breast. ''Thankful Blossom," she responded promptly. The sentry brought his musket to a " present." " Pass, Thankful Blossom, and God send it soon, and the spring with it, and good-night," he said, with a strong Milesian accent. And before the still amazed girl could comprehend Thankful Blossom. 1 7 1 the meaning of his abrupt challenge, or his equally abrupt departure, he had resumed his monotonous pace in the moonlight. Indeed, as she stood looking after him, the whole episode, the odd unreality of the moonlit landscape, the novelty of her position, the morbid play of her thoughts seemed to make it part of a dream which the morning light might dissipate but could never fully explain. With something of this feeling still upon her, she kept her way to the river. Its banks were still fringed with ice, through which its dark current flowed noiselessly. She knew it flowed through the camp where lay her faithless lover, and for an instant indulged the thought of following it and facing him with the proof of his guilt ; but even at the thought she recoiled with a new and sudden doubt in herself, and stood dreamily watching the shimmer of the moon on the icy banks, until another and it seemed to her equally unreal vision suddenly stayed her feet, and drove the blood from her feverish cheeks. A figure was slowly approaching from the direction of the sleeping encampment. Tall, erect, and habited in a gray surtout, with a hood partially concealing its face, it was the counterfeit presentment of the ghostly visitant she had heard described. Thankful scarcely breathed. The brave little heart that had not quailed before the sentry's levelled musket a moment before, now faltered and stood still as the phantom, with a slow and majestic tread, moved toward her. She had only time to gain the shelter of a tree before the figure, majestically unconscious of her pres- ence, passed slowly by. Through all her terror Thankful was still true to a certain rustic habit of practical perception to observe that the tread of the phantom was quite audible over the crust of snow, and was visible and palpable as the imprint of a military boot ! The blood came back to Thankful's cheek, and with it 172 Thankftd Blossom. her old audacity. In another instant she was out from the tree, and tracking with a light feline tread the appari- tion that now loomed up the hill before her. Slipping from tree to tree, she followed until it paused before the door of a low hut or farm-shed that stood midway up the hill. Here it entered, and the door closed behind it. With every sense feverishly alert, Thankful, from the secure advantage of a large maple, watched the door of the hut. In a few moments it re-opened to the same figure free of its gray enwrappings. Forgetful of everything now but detecting the face of the impostor, the fearless girl left the tree and placed herself directly in the path of the figure. At the same moment it turned toward her inquiringly, and the moonlight fell full upon the calm, composed features of General Washington. In her consternation Thankful could only drop an embarrassed courtesy and hang out two lovely signals of distress on her cheeks. The face of the pseudo ghost alone remained unmoved. " You are wandering late, Mistress Thankful," he said, at last, with a paternal gravity, " and I fear that the formal restraint of a mihtary household has already given you some embarrassment. Yonder sentry, for instance, might have stopped you." *0h, he did !" said Thankful quickly; "but it's all right, please your Excellency. He asked me ' who went there,' and I told him, and he was vastly polite, I assure you." The grave features of the Commander-in-Chief relaxed in a smile. " You are more happy than most of your sex in turning a verbal compliment to practical account. For know then, dear young lady, that in honour of your visit to the head-quarters, the pass-word to-night through this encampment was none other than your own pretty pat- ronymic — ' Thankful Blossom.' " Thankful Blossom. 173 The tears glittered in the girl's eyes, and her lip trembled. But with all her readiness of speech, she could only say, " Oh, your Excellency." " Then you did pass the sentry ? " continued Washing- ton, looking at her intently with a certain grave watchful- ness in his gray eyes. " And doubtless you wandered at the river bank. Although I myself, tempted by the night, sometimes extend my walk as far as yonder shed, it were a hazardous act for a young lady to pass beyond the protection of the line." " Oh, I met no one, your Excellency," said the usually truthful Thankful hastily, rushing to her first lie with grate- ful impetuosity. " And saw no one ? " asked Washington quietly. " No one," said Thankful, raising her brown eyes to the General's. They both looked at each other — the naturally most veracious young woman in the colonies and the subsequent allegorical impersonation of Truth in America — and knew each other lied, and, I imagine, respected each other for it. " I am glad to hear you say so, Mistress Thankful," said Washington quietly, " for 'twould have been natural for you to have sought an interview with your recreant lover in yonder camp, though the attempt would have been unwise and impossible." " I had no such thought, your Excellency," said Thank- ful, who had really quite forgotten her late intention, " yet if \iith your permission I could hold a few moments' converse with Captain Brewster, it would greatly ease my mind." " ' Twould not be well for the present," said Washington thoughtfully. " But in a day or two Captain Brewster will be tried by court-martial at Morristown. It shall be so ordered that when he is conveyed thither his guard shall halt at the Blossom Farm. I will see that the officer in 174 Thankful Blossom, command gives you an opportunity to see him. - And I think I can promise also, Mistress Thankful, that your father shall also be present under his own roof — a free man." They had reached the entrance to the mansion and entered the hall. Thankful turned impulsively and kissed the extended hand of the Commander. " You are so good. I have been so foolish — so very, very wrong," she said, with a shght trembling of her lip. " And your Excellency beheves my story, and those gentlemen were not spies, but even as they gave themselves to be." " I said not that much," replied Washington, with a kindly smile, " but no matter. Tell me rather, Mistress Thankful, how far your acquaintance with these gentlemen has gone, or did it end with the box on the ear that you gave the Baron ? " " He had asked me to ride with him to the Baskingridge, and I — had said — yes," faltered Mistress Thankful. " Unless I misjudge you. Mistress Thankful, you can, without such sacrifice, promise me that you will not see him until I give you my permission," said Washington, with grave playfulness. The swinging light shone full in Thankful's truthful eyes as she lifted them to his. " I do," she said quietly. " Good-night," said the Commander, with a formal bow. "Good-night, your Excellency." Thankful Blossom. 1 7 5 PART IV. The sun was high over the Short Hills when Mistress Thankful, the next day, drew up her sweating mare beside the Blossom Farm gate. She had never looked prettier, she had never felt more embarrassed as she entered her own house'. During her rapid ride she had already framed a speech of apology to Major Van Zandt, which, however, utterly fled from her lips as that officer showed himself respectfully on the threshold. Yet she permitted him to usurp the functions of^the grinning Caesar, and help her from her horse, albeit she was conscious of exhibiting the awkward timidity of a bashful rustic, until at last, with a stammering " Thank ye," she actually ran upstairs to hide her glowing face and far too conscious eyelids. During the rest of that day Major Van Zandt quietly kept out of her way, without obtrusively seeming to avoid her. Yet when they met casually in the performance of her household duties, the innocent Mistress Thankful noticed, under her downcast, penitential eyelids, that the eyes of the officer followed her intently. And thereat she fell unconsciously to imitating him, and so they eyed each other furtively like cats, and rubbed themselves along the walls of rooms and passages when they met, lest they should seem designedly to come near "each other, and enacted the gravest and most formal of genuflections, courtesies, and bows, when they accidentally did meet. And just at the close of the second day, as the elegant Major Van Zandt was feeling himself fast becoming a drivelling idiot and an awkward country booby, the arrival of a courier from head-quarters saved that gentleman his self-respect for ever. Mistress Thankful v/as in her sitting-room when he 176 Thankful Blossom. knocked at the door. She opened it in sudden, conscious trepidation. "I ask pardon for intruding, Mis.tress Thankful Blossom," he said gravely, " but I have here " — he held out a preten- tious document — " a letter for you from head- quarters. May I hope that it contains good news — the release of your father — and that it relieves you from my presence, and an espionage which I assure you cannot be more un- pleasant to you than it has been to myself." As he entered the room, Thankful had risen to her feet with the full intention of delivering to him her little set apology, but as he ended his speech she looked at him blandly — and burst out crying. Of course he was in an instant at her side and holding her cold little hand. Then she managed to say, between her tears, that she had been wanting to make an apology to him j that she had wanted to say ever since she arrived that she had been rude, very rude, and that she knew he never could forgive her; that she had been trying to say hat she never could forget his gentle forbearance, " only," she added, suddenly raising her tear-fringed brown lids to the astonished man, '•'' you wouldrit ever let me I " *'Dear Mistress Thankful," said the Major, in conscience- stricken horror, "if I have made myself distant to you, believe me it was only because I feared to intrude upon your sorrow. I really — dear Mistress Thankful — I " "When you took all the pains to go round the hall instead of through the dining-room lest I should ask you to forgive me," sobbed Mistress Thankful, "I thought — you — must — hate me, and preferred to "^ " Perhaps this letter may mitigate your sorrow. Mistress Thankful," said the officer, pointing to the letter she still held unconsciously in her hand. With a blush at her pre-occupation, Thankful opened Thankful Blossom, 177 the letter. It was a half-official document, and ran as follows : — "The Commander-in-Chief is glad to inform Mistress Thankful Blossom that the charges preferred against her father have, upon fair examination, been found groundless and trivial. The Commander-in-Chief further begs to inform Mistress Blossom that the gentleman known to her under the name of the 'Baron Pomposo,' was his Excellency Don Juan Morales, Ambassador and Envoy Extraordinary of the Court of Spain, and that the gentleman known to her as the ' Count Ferdinand,' was Senor Godoy, Secretary to the Embassy. The Commander-in-Chief wishes to add, that Mistress Thankful Blossom is relieved of any further obligation of hospitality toward these honourable gentle- men, as the Commander-in-Chief regrets to record the sudden and deeply-to-be-deplored death of his Excellency this morning by typhoid fever, and the possible speedy return of the Embassy. " In conclusion, the Commander-in-Chief wishes to bear testimony to the Truthfulness, Intuition, and Discretion of Mistress Thankful Blossom. *' By order of his Excellency, '' General George Washington "Alex. Hamilton, Secretary. **To Mistress Thankful Blossom, of Blossom Farm." Thankful Blossom was silent for a few moments, and then raised her abashed eyes to Major Van Zandt. A single glance satisfied her that he knew nothing of the imposture that had been practised upon her — knew noth- ing of the trap into which her vanity and self-will had led her. vol. v. m 178 Thankful Blossom. *'Dear Mistress Thankful," said the Major, seeing the distress in her face. " I trust the news is not ill. Surely I gathered from the Sergeant that " "What?" said Thankful, looking at him intently. " That in twenty- fours hours at furthest your father would be free, and that I should be relieved " "I know that you are aweary of your task, Major," said Thankful bitterly; "rejoice, then, to know your informa- tion is correct, and that my father is exonerated — unless — unless this is a forgery, and General Washington should turn out to be somebody else, 2Si^ you should turn out to be somebody else" — and she stopped short and hid her wet eyes in the window curtains. '' Poor girl ! " said Major Van Zandt to himself, " this trouble has undoubtedly frenzied her. Fool that I was, to lay up the insult of one that sorrow and excitement had bereft of reason and responsibiUty. 'Twere better I should retire at once and leave her to herself," and the young man slowly retreated toward the door. But at this moment there were alarming symptoms of distress in the window curtain, and the Major paused as a voice from its dimity depths said plaintively, " And you are going without forgiving me ! " "Forgiveji^^z/, Mistress Thankful," said the Major, striding to the curtain, and seizing a little hand that was obtruded from its folds, "forgive you; rather can you forgive me — for the folly — the cruelty of mistaking — of — of" and here the Major, hitherto famous for facile compHments, utterly broke down. But the hand he held was no longer cold, but warm and inteUigent, and in default of coherent speech he held fast by that as the thread of his discourse, until Mistress Thankful quietly withdrew it, thanked him for his forgiveness, and retired deeper behind the curtain. When he had gone, she threw herself in a chair and again Ihankful Blossom. 1 79 gave way to a passionate flood of tears. In the last twenty- four hours her pride had been utterly humbled ; the inde- pendent spirit of this self-willed little beauty had met for the first time with defeat. When she had got over her womanly shock at the news of the sham Baron's death, she had, I fear, only a selfish regret at his taking off — believing that if living he would in some way show the world, which just then consisted of the head-quarters and Major Van Zandt, that he had really made love to her, and possibly did honourably love her still, and might yet give her an opportunity to reject him. And now he was dead, and she was held up to the world as the conceited plaything of a fine gentleman's masquerading sport. That her father's cupidity and ambition made him sanction the imposture in her bitterness she never doubted. No ! Lover, friend, father — all had been false to her, and the only kindness she had received was from the men she had wantonly insulted. Poor little Blossom ! Indeed, a most premature Blossom ; I fear a most unthankful Blossom, sitting there, shivering in the first chill wind of adversity, rocking backward and forward with the skirt of her dimity short gown over her shoulders, and her little buckled shoes and clocked stockings pathetically crossed before her. But healthy youth is reactive, and in an hour or two Thankful was down at the cow-shed with her arms around the neck of her favourite heifer, to whom she poured out much of her woes, and from whom she won an intelligent sort of slobbering sympathy. And then she sharply scolded Caesar for nothing at all, and a moment after returned to the house with the air and face of a deeply-injured angel, who had been disappointed in some celestial idea of setting this world right, but was still not above forgiveness. A spectacle that sunk Major Van Zandt into the dark depths of remorse, and eventually sent him to smoke a pipe of 1 8o Thankful Blossom. Virginia with his men in the roadside camp. Seeing which, Thankful went early to bed and cried herself to sleep. And Nature, possibly, followed her example, for at sunset a great thaw set in, and by midnight the freed rivers and brooks were gurgling melodiously, and tree, and shrub, and fence were moist and dripping. The red dawn at last struggled through the vaporous veil that hid the landscape. Then occurred one of those magi- cal changes peculiar to the climate, yet perhaps pre- eminently notable during that historic winter and spring. By ten o'clock on that 3rd of May, 1780, a fervent June-like sun had rent that vaporous veil, and poured its direct rays upon the gaunt and haggard profile of the Jersey hills. The chilled soil responded but feebly to that kiss ; perhaps a few of the willows that yellowed the river banks took on a deeper colour. But the country folk were certain that spring had come at last, and even the correct and self- sustained Major Van Zandt came running in to announce to Mistress Thankful that one of his men had seen a violet in the meadow. In another moment Mistress Thankful had donned her cloak and pattens to view this firstling of the laggard summer. It was quite natural that Major Van Zandt should accompany her as she tripped on, and so with- out a thought of their past differences, they ran like very children down the moist and rocky slope that led to the quaggy meadow. Such was the influenc,e of the vernal season. But the violets were hidden. Mistress Thankful, regard- less of the wet leaves and her new gown, groped with her fingers among the withered grasses. Major Van Zandt leaned against a boulder and watched her with admiring eyes. " You'll never find flowers that way," she said at last, looking up to him impatiently. ^' Go down on your knees Thankful Blossom. 1 8 1 like an honest man. There are some things in this world worth stooping for." The Major instantly dropped on his knees beside her. But at that moment Mistress Thankful found her posies and rose to her feet. "Stay where you are," she said mis- chievously, as she stooped down and placed a flower in the lappel of his coat. "That is to make amends for my rude- ness. Now, get up." But the Major did not rise. He caught the two little hands that had seemed to flutter like birds against his breast, and, looking up into the laughing face above him, said, " Dear Mistress Thankful ; dare I remind you of your own words that ' there be some things worth stooping for.' Think of my love, Mistress Thankful, as a flower — mayhap, not as gracious to you as your violets, but as honest and — and — and — as " " Ready to spring up in a single night," laughed Thank- ful. "But, no; get up. Major! What would the fine ladies of Morristown say of your kneeling at the feet of a country girl, the play and sport of every fine gentleman ? What if Mistress Bolton should see her own cavalier, the modish Major Van Zandt, proffering his affections to the disgraced sweetheart of a perjured traitor? Leave go my hand, I pray you. Major — if you respect" She was free, yet she faltered a moment beside him, with tears quivering on her long brown lashes. Then she said, tremulously, "Rise up. Major. Let us think no more of this. I pray you forgive me, if I have again been rude." The Major struggled to rise to his feet. But he could not. And then I regret to have to record that the fact became obvious that one of his shapely legs was in a bog- hole, and that he was perceptibly sinking out of sight. Whereat Mistress Thankful trilled out a three-syllabled laugh, looked demure and painfully concerned at his con- 1 82 Thankful Blossom. dition, and then laughed agam. The Major joined in her mirth, albeit his face was crimson. And then, with a little cry of alarm, she flew to his side, and put her arms around him. " Keep away, keep away, for heaven's sake, Mistress Blossom," he said quickly, "or I shall plunge you into my mishap, and make you as ridiculous as myself." But the quick-witted girl had already leaped to an adjacent boulder. " Take off your sash," she said quickly, " fasten it to your belt, and throw it to me." He did so. She straightened herself back on the rock. "Now, alto- gether," she cried, with a preliminary strain on the sash, and then the cords of her well-trained muscles stood out on her rounded arms, and with a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together, she landed the Major upon the rock. And then she laughed. And then, inconsistent as it may appear, she became grave, and at once proceeded to scrape him off, and rub him down with dried leaves, with fern twigs, with her handkerchief, with the border of her mantle, as if he were a child, until he blushed with alter- nate shame and secret satisfaction. They spoke but little on their return to the farmhouse, for Mistress Thankful had again become grave. And yet the sun shone cheerily above them ; the landscape was filled with the joy of resurrection and new and awakened life; the breeze whispered gentle promises of hope and the frui- tion of their hopes in the summer to come. And these two fared on until they reached the porch with a half-pleased, half-frightened consciousness that they were not the same beings who had left it a half hour before. Nevertheless, at the porch Mistress Thankful regained something of her old audacity. As they stood together in the hall, she handed him back the sash she had kept with her. As she did so she could not help saying, " There are some things worth stooping for, Major Van Zandt." Thankf id Blossom. 183 But she had not calculated upon the audacity of the man, and as she turned to fly she was caught by his strong arm and pinioned to his side. She struggled, honestly, I think, and perhaps more frightened at her own feelings than at his strength, but it is to be recorded that he kissed her in a moment of comparative yielding, and then, frightened himself, released her quickly, whereat she fled to her room, and threw herself, panting and troubled, upon her bed. For an hour or two she lay there, with flushed cheeks and conflicting thoughts. " He must never kiss me again," she said, softly to herself, "unless " but the interrupting thought said, "I shall die if he kiss me not again; and I never can kiss another." And then she was roused by a footstep upon the stair — which, in that brief time, she had learned to know and look for — and a knock at the door. She opened it to Major Van Zandt, white and so colourless as to bring out once more the faint red line made by her riding whip two days before, as if it had risen again in accu- sation. The blood dropped out of her cheeks as she gazed at him in silence. "An escort of dragoons," said Major Van Zandt, slowly, and with military precision, "has just arrived, bringing with them one Captain Allan Brewster, of the Connecticut Con- tingent, on his way to Morristown to be tried for mutiny and treason. A private note from Colonel Hamilton instructs me to allow him to have a private audience with you — \i you so wish it.^' With a woman's swift and too often hopeless intuition, Thankful knew that this was not the sole contents of the letter, and that her relations with Captain Brewster were known to the man before her. But she drew herself up a little proudly, and turning her truthful eyes upon the Major, said, "I do so wish it." "It shall be done as you desire. Mistress Blossom," re- 184 Thankful Blossom, turned the officer, with cold poHteness, as he turned upon his heel. "One moment, Major Van Zandt," said Thankful swiftly. The Major turned quickly. But Thankful's eyes were gazing thoughtfully forward, and scarcely glanced at him. " I would prefer," she said timidly and hesitatingly, " that this interview should not take place under the roof where — where — where my father lives. Half way down the meadow there is a barn, and before it a broken part of the wall, fronting on a sycamore tree. He will know where it is. Tell him I will see him there in half an hour." A smile, which the Major had tried to make a careless one, curled his lip satirically as he bowed in reply. " It is the first time," he said drily, " that I believe I have been honoured with arranging a tryst for two lovers, but believe me, Mistress Thankful, I will do my best. In half an hour I will turn my prisoner over to you." In half an hour the punctual Mistress Thankful, with a hood hiding her pale face, passed the officer in the hall on the way to her rendezvous. An hour later, Caesar came with a message that Mistress Thankful would like to see him. When the Major entered the sitting-room he was shocked to find her lying pale and motionless on the sofa, but as the door closed she rose to her feet and confronted him. "I do not know," she said slowly, "whether you are aware that the man I just now parted from was, for a twelvemonth past, my sweetheart, and that I believed I loved him, and knew I was true to him. If you have not heard it I tell you now, for the time will come when you will hear part of it from the Hps of others, and I would rather you should take the whole truth from mine. This man was false to me. He betrayed two friends of mine as spies. ' I could have forgiven it had it been only foolish Thankful Blossom. 185 jealousy, but it was, I have since learned from his own lips, only that he might gratify his spite against the Commander- in-Chief by procuring their arrest and m.aking a serious diffi- culty in the American camp, by means of which he hoped to serve his own ends. He told me this, believing that I sympathised with him in his hatred of the Commander-in- Chief, and in his own wrongs and sufferings. I confess, to my shame, Major Van Zandt, that two days ago I did believe him, and that I looked upon you as a mere catch- poll or bailiff of the tyrant. That I found out how I was deceived when I saw the Commander-in-Chief, you. Major, who know him so well, need not be told. Nor was it necessary for me to tell this man that he had deceived me — for I felt — that — that — was — not — the — only reason — why I could no longer return — his love." She paused, as the Major approached her earnestly, and waved him back with her hand. " He reproached me bitterly with my want of feeling for his misfortunes," she went on again ; " he recalled my past protestations ! he showed me my love letters — and he told me that if I were still his true sweetheart I ought to help him. I told him if he would never call me by that name again ; if he would give up all claim to me ; if he would never speak, write to me, or see me again ; if he would hand me back my letters, I would help him." She stopped — the blood rushed into her pale face. *' You will remember. Major, that I accepted this man's love as a young, foolish, trustful girl; but when I made him this offer — he — he — accepted it." " The dog ! " said Major Van Zandt. " But in what way could you help this double traitor?" " I have helped him," said Thankful quietly. "But how?" said Major Van Zandt. " By becoming a traitor myself," she said, turning upon him almost fiercely. " Hear me ! While you were quietly 1 86 Thankful Blossom. pacing these halls, while your men were laughing and talking in the road, Caesar was saddling my white mare, the fleetest in the country. He led her to the lane below. That mare is now two miles away, with Captain Brewster on her back. Why do you not start, Major? Look at me. / am a traitor, and this is my bribe," and she drew a package of letters from her bosom, and flung them on the table. She had been prepared for an outbreak or exclamation from the man before her, but not for his cold silence. " Speak," she cried, at last, passionately, " speak. Open your lips if only to curse me ! Order in your men to arrest me. I will proclaim myself guilty, and save your honour. But only speak ! " *' May I ask," said Major Van Zandt coldly, " why you have twice honoured me with a blow ? " "Because I loved you ! Because when I first saw you I saw the only man that was my master, and I rebelled. Because when I found I could not help but love you, I knew I never had loved before, and I would wipe out with one stroke all the past that rose in judgment against me. Because I would not have you ever confronted with one endearing word of mine that was not meant for you ?" Major Van Zandt turned from the window where he had stood, and faced the girl with sad resignation. " If I have, in my foolishness. Mistress Thankful, shown you how great was your power over me, when you descended to this artifice to spare my feelings by confessing your own love for me, you should have remembered that you were doing that which for ever kept me from wooing or winning you. If you had really loved me, your heart, as a woman's, would have warned you against that which my heart, as a gentleman's, has made a law of honour. When I tell you, as much for the sake of relieving your own conscience as Thankful Blossom, 1 8 7 for the sake of justifying mine, that if this man, a traitor, my prisoner, and your recognised lover, had escaped from my custody without your assistance, connivance or even knowledge, I should have deemed it my duty to forsake you until I caught him, even if we had been standing before the altar." Thankful heard him, but only as a strange voice in the distance, as she stood with fixed eyes and breathless, parted lips before him. Yet even then I fear that, woman- like, she did not comprehend his rhetoric of honour, but only caught here and there a dull, benumbing idea that he despised her, and that in her effort to win his love she had killed it, and ruined him for ever. "If you think it strange," continued the Major, "that, believing as I do, I stand here only to utter moral axioms when my duty calls me to pursue your lover, I beg you to believe that it is only for your sake. I wish to allow a reasonable time between your interview with him and his escape, that shall save you from any suspicion of compli- city. Do not think," he added, with a sad smile, as the girl made an impatient step towards him, " do not think I am running any risk. The man cannot escape. A cordon of pickets surrounds the camp for many miles. He has not the countersign, and his face and crime are known." " Yes," said Thankful eagerly, " but a part of his own regiment guards the Baskingridge road." *' How know you this?" said the Major, seizing her hand. *' He told me." Before she could fall on her knees and beg his forgive- ness, he had darted from the room, given an order, and returned with cheeks and eyes blazing. " Hear me," he said rapidly, taking the girl's two hands, "you know not what you've done. I forgive you. But 1 88 Thankful Blossom. this is no longer a matter of duty, but of my personal honour. I shall pursue this man alone. I shall return with him, or not at all. Farewell ; God bless you ! " But before he reached the door she caught him again. " Only say you have forgiven me once more." " I do.'' '' Guert ! " There was something in the girl's voice more than this first utterance of his Christian name that made him pause. "I told — a — lie — ^just — now. There is a fleeter horse in the stable than my mare j 'tis the roan filly in the second stall." " God bless you." He was gone. She waited to hear the clatter of his horse's hoofs in the roadway. When Csesar came in a few moments later to tell the news of Captain Brewster's escape, the room was empty. But it was soon filled again by a dozen turbulent troopers. " Of course she's gone," said Sergeant Tibbitts ; " the jade flew with the Captain." " Ay, 'tis plain enough. Two horses are gone from the stable besides the Major's," said Private Hicks. Nor was this military criticism entirely a private one. When the courier arrived at head-quarters the next morn- ing, it was to bring the report that Mistress Thankful Blossom, after assisting her lover to escape, had fled with him. " The renegade is well off our hands," said General Sullivan gruffly. " He has saved us the public disgrace of a trial, but this is bad news of Major Van Zandt." "What news of the Major?" asked Washington quickly. "He pursued the vagabond as far as Springfield, killing his horse, and faUing himself insensible before Major Merton's quarters. Here he became speedily delirious, Thankful Blossom. 189 fever supervened, and the regimental surgeon, after a care- ful examination, pronounced his case one of small-pox." A whisper of horror and pity went round the room. " An- other gallant soldier who should have died leading a charge, laid by the heels by a beggar's filthy distemper," growled SuUivan ; " where will it end ? " " God knows," said Hamilton. " Poor Van Zandt. But whither was he sent ; to the hospital ? " " No. A special permit was granted in his case, and 'tis said he was removed to the Blossom Farm — it being remote from neighbours, and the house was placed under quaran- tine. Abner Blossom has prudently absented himself from the chances of infection, and the daughter has fled. The sick man is attended only by a black servant and an ancient crone, so that if the poor Major escapes with his life or without disfigurement, pretty Mistress Bolton of Morristown need not be scandalised or jealous." PART V. The ancient crone alluded to in the last chapter had been standing behind the window-curtains of that bedroom which had been Thankful Blossom's in the weeks gone by. She did not move her head, but stood looking demurely, after the manner of ancient crones, over the summer land- scape. For the summer had come before the tardy spring was scarce gone, and the elms before the window no longer lisped, but were eloquent in the softest zephyrs. There was the flash of birds in among the bushes, the occasional droning of bees in and out the open window, and a per- petually swinging censer of flower incense rising from below. The farm had put on its gayest bridal raiment, and, looking at the old farmhouse shadowed with foliage, and green with creeping vines, it was difficult to conceive 1 90 Thankful Blossom, that snow had ever lain on its porches or icicles swung from its mossy eaves. " Thankful ! " said a voice still tremulous with weakness. The ancient crone turned, drew aside the curtains, and showed the sweet face of Thankful Blossom, more beautiful even in its paleness. *' Come here, darling," repeated the voice. Thankful stepped to the sofa whereon lay the convales- cent Major Van Zandt. "Tell me, sweetheart," said the Major, taking her hand in his, "when you married me, as 3'ou told the chaplain, that you might have the right to nurse me, did you never think that if death had spared me, I might have been so disfigured that even you, dear love, would have turned from me with loathing ? " " That was why I did it, dear," said Thankful mischiev- ously. " I know that the pride, and the sense of honour, and self-devotion of some people would have kept them from keeping their promises to a poor girl." '*But, darling," continued the Major, raising her hand to his lips, " suppose the case had been reversed ; suppose you had taken the disease ; that I had recovered without disfigurement, but that this sweet face " " I thought of that too," interrupted Thankful. "Well, what would you have done, dear," said the Major, with his old mischievous smile. " I should have died," said Thankful gravely. "But how?" "Somehow. But you are to go to sleep, and not ask impertinent and frivolous questions, for father is coming to-morrow." " Thankful, dear, do you know what the trees and the birds said to me as I lay there tossing with the fever ? " "No, dear." Thankful Blossom. 191 " Thankful Blossom ! Thankful Blossom ! Thankful Blossom is coming !" "Do you know what I said, sweetheart, as I lifted your dear head from the ground when you reeled from your horse just as I overtook you at Springfield ? " " No, dear." *' There are some things in life worth stooping for." And she winged this Parthian arrow home with a kiss. They lived to a good old age, but she survived him. My mother met her in 1833, when she remembered much more of her interview with General Washington than I have dared to transcribe here. At that time the Spanish Ambassador had presented her with a trousseau of incal- culable richness. The marriage was to have taken place at the head-quarters, but his Excellency died on that very day. At other times she even hinted at a secret marriage. But it was observable that Major Van Zandt receded into the background with advancing years, and for that reason I have given him a prominent place in these pages. The worthy Allan Brewster reached Hartford, Connecticut, in safety, and after the peace, was elected a member of Con- gress from that district, where his troubles with the Com- mander-in-Chief were deemed by a patriotic community as simply an honest, though somewhat premature opposition to Federalism. Cfte Ctoins of Cable ^ountaim PART I. A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. They lived on the verge of a vast stony level, upheaved so far above the surrounding country that its vague outlines, viewed from the nearest valley, seemed a mere cloud-streak resting upon the lesser hills. The rush and roar of the turbulent river that washed its eastern base were lost at that height; the winds that strove with the giant pines that half-way climbed its flanks spent their fury below the summit. For, at variance with most meteorological specu- lation, an eternal calm seemed to invest this serene altitude. The few Alpine flowers seldom thrilled their petals to a passing breeze ; rain and snow fell alike perpendicularly, heavily, and monotonously over the granite boulders scat- tered along its brown expanse. Although by actual measurement an inconsiderable elevation of the Sierran range, and a mere shoulder of the nearest white-faced peak that glimmered in the west, it seemed to lie so near the quiet, passionless stars that at night it caught something of their calm remoteness. The articulate utterance of such a locality should have been a whisper ; a laugh or exclama- tion was discordant, and the ordinary tones of the human voice on the night of the 15th of May 1868, had a gro- tesque incongruity. The Twins of Table Mountain. 193 In the thick darkness that clothed the mountain that night, the human figure would have been lost or confounded with the outlines of outlying boulders, which at such times took upon themselves the vague semblance of men and animals. Hence the voices in the following colloquy seemed the more grotesque and incongruous from being the apparent expression of an upright monolith, ten feet high, on the right, and another mass of granite that, reclin- ing, peeped over the verge. " Hello ! " "Hello yourself!" "You're late." " I lost the trail, and climbed up the slide." Here followed a stumble, the clatter of stones down the mountain side, and an oath, so very human and undignified that it at once relieved the boulders of any complicity of expression. The voices, too, were close together now, and unexpectedly in quite another locality. " Anything up ? " " Looey Napoleon's declared war agin Germany ! " "Sho-0-0!" Notwithstanding this exclamation, the interest of the latter speaker was evidently only polite and perfunctory. What, indeed, were the political convulsions of the Old World to the dwellers in this serene, isolated eminence of the New? " I reckon it's so," continued the first voice ; " French Pete and that thar feller that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a row over it. Emptied their six-shooters into each other. The Dutchman's got two balls in his leg, and the Frenchman's got an onnessary button-hole in his shirt buzzum, and hez caved in." This concise, local corroboration of the conflict of remote nations, however confirmatory, did not appear to excite VOL. V. N 194 ^^^ Twins of Table Momitain, any further interest. Even the last speaker, now that he was in this calm, dispassionate atmosphere, seemed to lose his own concern in his tidings, and to have abandoned everything of a sensational and lower-worldly character in the pines below. There was a few moments of absolute silence, and then another stumble. But now the voices of both speakers were quite patient and philosophical. " Hold on, and I'll strike a light," said the second speaker. " I brought a lantern along, but I didn't light up. I kem out afore sundown, and you know how it allers is up yer. /didn't want it, and didn't keer to light up. I forgot you're always a little dazed and strange-like when you first come up." There was a crackle, a flash, and presently a steady glow which the surrounding darkness seemed to resent. The faces of the two men thus revealed were singularly alike. The same thin, narrow outhne of jaw and temple; the same dark, grave eyes ; the same brown growth of curly beard and moustache, which concealed the mouth, and hid what might have been any individual idiosyncrasy of thought or expression, showed them to be brothers, or better known as the " Twins of Table Mountain." A certain animation in the face of the second speaker — the first comer — a certain light in his eye, might have at first distinguished him ; but even this faded out in the steady glow of the lantern, and had no value as a permanent distinction, for by the time they had reached the western verge of the mountain, the two faces had settled into a homogeneous calmness and melancholy. The vague hori- zon of darkness that, a few feet from the lantern, still encompassed them, gave no indication of their progress until their feet actually trod the rude planks and thatch that formed the roof of their habitation. For their cabin half burrowed in the mountain, and half clung, like a The Twins of Table Mountain. 195 swallow's nest, to the side of the deep declivity that terminated the northern limit of the summit. Had it not been for the windlass of a shaft, a coil of rope, and a few heaps of stone and gravel, which were the only indications of human labour in that stony field, there was nothing to interrupt its monotonous dead level. And when they descended a dozen well-worn steps to the door of their cabin, they left the summit as before, lonely, silent, motion- less, uninterrupted, basking in the cold light of the stars. The simile of a " nest," as applied to the cabin of the brothers, was no mere figure of speech, as the light of the lantern first flashed upon it. The narrow ledge before the door was strewn with feathers. A suggestion that it might be the home and haunt of predatory birds was promptly checked by the spectacle of the nailed-up carcases of a dozen hawks against the walls, and the outspread wings of an extended eagle emblazoning the gable above the door, like an armorial bearing. Within the cabin the walls and chimney-piece were dazzingly bedecked with the parti- coloured wings of jays, yellow-birds, woodpeckers, king- fishers, and the poly-tinted wood-duck. Yet in that dry, highly rarefied atmosphere there was not the slightest suggestion of odour or decay. The first speaker hung the lantern upon a hook that dangled from the rafters, and going to the broad chimney, kicked the half-dead embers into a sudden resentful blaze. He then opened a rude cupboard, and without looking around, called ''Ruth!" The second speaker turned his head from the open door- way where he was leaning, as if listening to something in the darkness, and answered abstractedly — " Rand ! " " I don't believe you have touched grub to-day 1 " Ruth grunted out some indifferent reply. 196 The Twins of Table Mountain. "Thar hezent been a slice cut off that bacon since I left," continued Rand, bringing a side of bacon and some biscuits from the cupboard and applying himself to the discussion of them at the table. "You're gettin' off yer feed, Ruth. What's up ? " Ruth replied by taking an uninvited seat beside him, and resting his chin on the palms of his hands. He did not eat, but simply transferred his inattention from the door to the table. *' You're workin' too many hours in the shaft," continued Rand. " You're always up to some such d — n fool business when I'm not yer." " I dipped a little west to-day," Ruth went on, without heeding the brotherly remonstrance, " and struck quartz and pyrites." " Thet's you ! — allers dippin' west or east for quartz and the colour, instead of keeping on plumb down to the * cement ! ' " * " We've been three years digging for cement," said Ruth, more in abstraction than reproach ; " three years ! " " And we may be three years more — may be only three days. Why, you couldn't be more impatient if — if — if you lived in a valley." Delivering this tremendous comparison as an unanswer- able climax, Rand applied himself once more to his repast Ruth, after a moment's pause, without speaking or looking up, disengaged his hand from under his chin and slid it along, palm uppermost, on the table beside his brother. Thereupon Rand slowly reached forward his left hand, the right being engaged in conveying victual to his mouth, and laid it on his brother's palm. The act was evidently an habitual, half-mechanical one, for in a few moments the * The local name for gold-bearing alluvial drift — the bed of a pre- historic river. The Twins of Table Mountain. 197 hands were as gently disengaged, without comment or expression. At last Rand leaned back in his chair, laid down his knife and fork, and compla'cently loosening the belt that held his revolver, threw it and the weapon on his bed. Taking out his pipe, and chipping some tobacco on the table, he said carelessly, " I came a piece through the woods with Mornie just now." The face that Ruth turned upon his brother was very distinct in expression at that moment, and quite belied the popular theory that the twins could not be told apart. "Thet gal," continued Rand, without looking up, "is either flighty, or — or suthinV' he added, in vague disgust, pushing the table from him as if it were the lady in question. " Don't tell me ! " Ruth's eyes quickly sought his brother's, and were as quickly averted, as he asked hurriedly, " How ? " " What gets me," continued Rand in a petulant non sequitur, " is that yo?/, my own twin brother, never lets on about her comin' yer, permiskus like, when I ain't yer, and you and her gallivantin' and promanadin', and swoppin' sentiments and mottoes." Ruth tried to contradict his blushing face with a laugh of worldly indifference. " She came up yer on a sort oi pasear " " Oh yes ! — a short cut to the creek,'' interpolated Rand satirically. "Last Tuesday or Wednesday," continued Ruth, with affected forgetfulness. " Oh, in course, Tuesday or Wednesday, or Thursday ! You've so many folks climbing up this yer mountain to call on ye," continued the ironical Rand, " that you disre- member ; only you remembered enough not to tell me. She did ! She took me for you, or pretended to." The colour dropped from Ruth's cheek. " Took you for me ? " he asked, with an awkward laugh. 198 The Twins of Table Mountain, " Yes," sneered Rand ; " chirped and chattered away about our picnic, our nosegays, and lord knows what ! Said she'd keep them blue jay's wings, and wear 'em in her hat. Spouted poetry, too ; the same sort o' rot you get off now and then." Ruth laughed again, but rather ostentatiously and ner- vously. " Ruth, look yer ! " Ruth faced his brother. "What's your Uttle game? Do you mean to say you don't know what thet gal is? Do you mean to say you don't know that she's the laughing-stock of the Ferry ; thet her father's a d — d old fool, and her mother's a drunkard, and worse — thet she's got any right to be hanging round yer ? You can't mean to marry her, even if you kalkilate to turn me out to do it, for she wouldn't live alone with ye up here. 'Tain't her kind. And if I thought you was think- ing of"- — " What ? " said Ruth, turning upon his brother quickly. *' Oh, thet's right ! Holler ! Swear and yell, and break things, do ! Tear round," continued Rand, kicking his boots off in a corner, "just because I ask you a civil question. That's brotherly," he added, jerking his chair away against the side of the cabin, " ain't it ? " " She's not to blame because her mother drinks, and her father's a shyster," said Ruth, earnestly and strongly. " The men who make her the laughing-stock of the Ferry tried to make her something worse, and failed, and take this sneak's revenge on her. ' Laughing-stock ! ' Yes, they knew she could turn the tables on them." " Of course ; go on ! She's better than me ; I know I'm a fratricide, that's what I am," said Rand, throwing himself on the upper of the two berths that formed the bedstead of the cabin. The Twins of Table Mountain. 1 99 " I've seen her three times," continued Ruth. " And you've known me twenty years," interrupted his brother. Ruth turned on his heel, and walked towards the door. "That's right ; go on ! Why don't you get the chalk ? " Ruth made no reply. Rand descended from the bed, and taking a piece of chalk from the shelf, drew a line on the floor, dividing the cabin in two equal parts. ''You can have the east half," he said, as he climbed slowly back into bed. This mysterious rite was the usual termination of a quarrel between the twins. Each man kept his half of the cabin until the feud was forgotten. It was the mark of silence and separation, over which no words of recrimination, argument, or even explanation were delivered until it was effaced by one or the other. This was considered equiva- lent to apology or reconciliation, which each were equally bound in honour to accept. It may be remarked that the floor was much whiter at this Hne of demarcation, and under the fresh chalk line appeared the faint evidences of one recently effaced. Without apparently heeding this potential ceremony, Ruth remained leaning against the doorway, looking upon the night, the bulk of whose profundity and blackness seemed to be gathered below him. The vault above was serene and tranquil, with a few large far-spread stars ; the abyss beneath, untroubled by sight or sound. Stepping out upon the ledge, he leaned far over the shelf that sus- tained their cabin, and listened. A faint rhythmical roll, rising and falling in long undulations against the invisible horizon, to his accustomed ears told him the wind was blowing among the pines in the valley. Yet, mingling with this famiUar sound, his ear, now morbidly acute, seemed to detect a stranger inarticulate murmur, as of confused and 200 The Twins of Table Mountain, excited voices, swelling up from the mysterious depths to the stars above, and again swallowed up in the gulfs of silence below. He was roused from a consideration of this phenomena by a faint glow towards the east, which at last brightened, until the dark outline of the distant walls of the valley stood out against the sky. Were his other senses participating in the delusion of his ears ? For with the brightening light came the faint odour of burning timber. His face grew anxious as he gazed. At last he rose and re-entered the cabin. His eyes fell upon the faint chalk mark, and taking his soft felt hat from his head, with a few practical sweeps of the brim, he brushed away the ominous record of their late estrangement. Going to the bed, whereon Rand lay stretched, open-eyed, he would have laid his hand upon his arm lightly, but the brother's fingers sought and clasped his own. " Get up," he said quietly ; " there's a strange fire in the Canon head that I can't make out." Rand slowly clambered from his shelf, and, hand in hand, the brothers stood upon the ledge. "It's a right smart chance beyond the Ferry, and a piece beyond the Mill too," said Rand, shading his eyes with his hand from force of habit. " It's in the woods where " He would have added where he met Mornie, but it was a point of honour with the twins, after reconciliation, not to allude to any topic of their recent disagreement. Ruth dropped his brother's hand. "It doesn't smell like the woods," he said slowly. "Smell!" repeated Rand incredulously. "Why, it's twenty miles in a bee-line yonder. Smell, indeed !" Ruth was silent, but presently fell to listening again with his former abstraction. "You don't hear anything — do you ? " he asked, after a pause. The Twins of Table Mountain. 201 "It's blowin' in the pines on the river," said Rand shortly. " You don't hear anything else ? " "No." "Nothing like— like — like" Rand, who had been listening with an intensity that dis- torted the left side of his face, interrupted him impatiently. "Like what?" "Like a woman sobbin'?" " Ruth," said Rand, suddenly looking up in his brother's face, "what's gone of you?" Ruth laughed. "The fire's out," he said, abruptly re- entering the cabin. " I'm goin' to turn in." Rand, following his brother half reproachfully, saw him^ divest himself of his clothing and roll himself in the blankets of his bed. "Good-night, Randy." Rand hesitated. He would have liked to ask his brother another question ; but there was clearly nothing to be done but follow his example. " Good-night, Ruthy," he said, and put out the light. As he did so the glow in the eastern horizon faded too, and darkness seemed to well up from the depths below, and, flowing in the open door, wrapped them in deeper slumber. PART II. THE CLOUDS GATHER. Twelve months had elapsed since the quarrel and recon- ciliation, during which interval no reference was made by either of the brothers to the cause which had provoked it. Rand was at work in the shaft, Ruth having that morning undertaken the replenishment of the larder with game from 202 The Twins of Table Mountain, • the wooded skirt of the mountain. Rand had taken advantage of his brother's absence to "prospect" in the ** drift " — a proceeding utterly at variance with his previous condemnation of all such speculative essay; but Rand, despite his assumption of a superior practical nature, was not above certain local superstitions. Having that morning put on his grey flannel shirt wrong side out, an abstraction recognised among the miners as the sure forerunner of divination and treasure discovery, he could not forego that opportunity of trying his luck without hazarding a dangerous example. He was also conscious of feeling "chipper," another local expression for buoyancy of spirit, not common to men who work fifty feet below the surface, without the stimulus of air and sunshine, and not to be overlooked as an important factor in fortunate adventure. Nevertheless, noon came without the discovery of any treasure ; he had attacked the walls on either side of the lateral " drift," skil- fully, so as to expose their quality, without destroying their cohesive integrity, but had found nothing. Once or twice, returning to the shaft for rest and air, its grim silence had seemed to him pervaded with some vague echo of cheerful holiday voices above. This set him to thinking of his brother's equally extravagant fancy of the wailing voices in the air on the night of the fire, and of his attributing it to a lover's abstraction. "I laid it to his being struck after that gal, and yet," Rand continued to himself, " here's me, who haven't been foolin' round no gal, and dog my skin if I didn't think I heard one singin' up thar ! '^- He put his foot on the lower round of the ladder, paused, and slowly ascended a dozen steps. Here he paused again. All at once the whole shaft was filled with the musical vibrations of a woman's song. Seizing the rope that hung idly from the windlass, he half climbed, half swung himself to the surface. The Twins of Table Mountain. 203 The voice was there, but the sudden transition to the dazzling level before him at first blinded his eyes ; so that he took in, only by degrees, the unwonted spectacle of the singer — a pretty girl standing on tiptoe on a boulder, not a dozen yards from him, utterly absorbed in tying a gaily striped neckerchief, evidently taken from her own plump throat, to the halliards of a freshly cut hickory pole, newly reared as a flag-staff beside her. The hickory pole, the halliards, the fluttering scarf, the young lady herself, were all glaring innovations on the familiar landscape ; but Rand, with his hand still on the rope, silently and demurely enjoyed it. Tor the better understanding of the general reader, who does not live on an isolated mountain, it may be observed that the young lady's position on the rock exhibited some study oi pose, and a certain exaggeration of attitude that betrayed the habit of an audience ; also that her voice had an artificial accent that was not wholly unconscious even in this lofty solitude. Yet the very next moment, when she turned and caught Rand's eye fixed upon her, she started naturally, coloured slightly, uttered that feminine adjuration, *' Good Lord! gracious! goodness me !" which is seldom used in reference to its efl"ect upon the hearer, and skipped instantly from the boulder to the ground. Here, however, she alighted in a pose — brought the right heel of her neatly fitting left boot closely into the hollowed side of her right instep; at the same moment deftly caught her flying skirt, whipped it around her ankles, and slightly raising it behind, permitted the chaste display of an inch or two of frilled white petticoat. The most irreverent critic of the sex will, I think, admit that it has some movements that are auto- matic. " Hope I didn't disturb ye," said Rand, pointing to the flasf-stafl". 204 The Twins of Table Mount ain. The young lady, slightly turned her head. " No," she said ; "but I didn't know anybody was here, of course. Our party " — she emphasised the word, and accompanied it with a look toward the farther extremity of the plateau, to show she was not alone — " our party climbed this ridge, and put up this pole as a sign that they did it." The ridicu- lous self-complacency of this record in the face of a man who was evidently a dweller on the mountain, apparently struck her for the first time. "We didn't know," she stam- mered, looking at the shaft from which Rand had emerged, "that — that" She stopped, and glancing again to- wards the distant range where her friends had disappeared, began to edge away. " They can't be far off," interposed Rand quietly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the lady to be there ; '* Table Mountain ain't as big as all that. Don't you be scared ! So you thought nobody lived up here ? " She turned upon him a pair of honest hazel eyes, which not only contradicted the somewhat meretricious smartness of her dress, but was utterly inconsistent with the palpable artificial colour of her hair — an obvious imitation of a certain popular fashion then known in artistic circles as the " British Blonde," — and began to ostentatiously resume a pair of lemon-coloured kid gloves. Having, as it were, thus indi- cated her standing and respectability, and put an immeasu- rable distance between herself and her bold interlocutor, she said impressively, " We evidently made a mistake ; I will rejoin our party, who will, of course, apologise." "What's your hurry?" said the imperturbable Rand, disengaging himself from the rope and walking towards her. " As long as you're up here, you might stop a spell." " I have no wish to intrude — that is, our party certainly has not," continued the young lady, pulling the tight gloves. The Twins of Table Mountain. 205 and smoothing the plump, almost bursting fingers, with an affectation of fashionable ease. "Oh, I haven't anything to do just now," said Rand, *'and it's about grub time, I reckon. Yes, I live here, Ruth and me ; right here." The young woman glanced at the shaft. *' No, not down there," said Rand, following her eye, with a laugh. " Come here, and I'll show you." A strong desire to keep up an appearance of genteel reserve, and an equally strong inchnation to enjoy the adventurous company of this good-looking, hearty young fellow, made her hesitate. Perhaps she regretted having undertaken a role of such dignity at the beginning ; she could have been so perfectly natural with this perfectly natural man, whereas, any relaxation now might increase his familiarity. And yet she was not without a vague sus- picion that her dignity and her gloves were alike thrown away on him — a fact made the more evident when Rand stepped to her side, and without any apparent conscious- ness of disrespect or gallantry, laid his large hand, half persuasively, half fraternally upon her shoulder, and said, " Oh, come along, do." The simple act either exceeded the limits of her forbear- ance or decided the course of her subsequent behaviour. She instantly stepped back a single pace, and drew her left foot slowly and deliberately after her. Then she fixed her eyes and uplifted eyebrows upon the daring hand, and taking it by the ends of her thumb and forefinger, lifted it and dropped it in mid-air. She then folded her arms. It was the indignant gesture with which "Alice," the Pride of Dum- ballin Village, received the loathsome advances of the bloated aristocrat. Sir Parkyns Parkyn, and had at Marysville, a few nights before, brought down the house. This effect was, I think, however, lost upon Rand. The 2o6 . The Twins of Table Mountain. slight colour that rose to his cheek as he looked down upon his clay-soiled hands, was due to the beUef that he had really contaminated her outward superfine person. But his colour quickly passed, his frank, boyish smile returned, as he said, " It'll rub off. Lord, don't mind that. Thar, now — come on I » The young woman bit her lip. Then nature triumphed, and she laughed, although a little scornfully. And then Providence assisted her with the sudden presentation of two figures — a man and woman, slowly climbing up over the mountain verge, not far from them. With a cry of, " There's Sol, now," she forgot her dignity and her confusion, and ran towards them. Rand stood looking after her neat figure, less concerned in the advent of the strangers than in her sudden caprice. He was not so young and inexperienced but that he noted certain ambiguities in her dress and manner; he was by no means impressed by her dignity. But he could not help watching her as she appeared to be volubly recounting her late interview to her companions ; and still unconscious of any impropriety or obtrusiveness, he lounged down lazily towards her. Her humour had evidently changed, for she turned an honest pleased face upon him, as she girlishly attempted to drag the strangers forward. The man was plump and short ; unlike the natives of the locality, he was closely cropped and shaven, as if to keep down the strong blue-blackness of his beard and hair, which nevertheless asserted itself over his round cheeks and upper lip like a tattooing of Indian ink. The woman at his side was reserved and indistinctive, with that appear- ance of being an unenthusiastic family servant peculiar to some men's wives. When Rand was within a few feet of him, he started, struck a theatrical attitude, and shading his eyes with his hand, cried, " What, do me eyes deceive The Twins of Table Moitntain. 207 me ! " burst into a hearty laugh, darted forward, seized Rand's hand and shook it briskly. "Pinkney! Pinkney, my boy, how are you? And this is your little 'prop?' your quarter-section, your country seat, that we've been trespassing on — eh ? A nice little spot — cool, sequestered, remote ! A trifle unimproved : carriage road as yet unfinished — ha ! ha ! But to think of our making a discovery of this inaccessible mountain ; climbing it, sir, for two mortal hours ; christening it ' Sol's Peak ; ' getting up a flag-pole, unfurling our standard to the breeze, sir, and then, by Jingo, winding up by finding Pinkney — the festive Pinkney — living on it at home ! " Completely surprised, but still perfectly good-humoured, Rand shook one of the stranger's hands warmly, and received on his broad shoulders a welcoming thwack from the other, without question. "She don't mind her friends making free with me, evidently," said Rand to himself, as he tried to suggest that fact to the young lady in a meaning glance. The stranger noted his glance, and suddenly passed his hand thoughtfully over his shaven cheeks. " No ! " he said. " Yes, surely, I forget ! Yes, I see ; of course you don't. Rosy," turning to his wife, " of course, Pinkney doesn't know Phemie — eh ? " " No, nor me either, Sol," said that lady warningly. " Certainly," continued Sol. " It's his misfortune ! You weren't with me at Gold Hill. Allow me," he said, turning to Rand, " to present Mrs. Sol Saunders, wife of the under- signed, and Miss Euphemia Neville, otherwise known as the ' Marysville Pet,' the best variety-actress known on the provincial boards. Played Ophelia at Marysville, Friday; domestic drama at Gold Hill, Saturday; Sunday night, four songs in character, different dress each time, and a clog-dance. The best clog-dance on the Pacific Slope," he 2o8 The Twins of Table Mountain. added, in a stage aside, " The minstrels are crazy to get her in 'Frisco. But money can't buy her — prefers the legitimate drama to this sort of thing." Here he took a few steps of a jig, to which the Marysville Pet beat time with her feet, and concluded with a laugh and a wink — the combined expression of an artist's admiration for her abihty, and a man of the world's scepticism of feminine ambition. Miss Euphemia responded to the formal introduction by extending her hand frankly with a reassuring smile to Rand, and an utter obliviousness of her former hauteur. Rand shook it warmly, and then dropped carelessly on a rock beside them. " And you never told me you lived up here in the attic, you rascal," continued Sol with a laugh. " No," replied Rand simply. " How could I ? I never saw you before, that I remember." Miss Euphemia stared at Sol. Mrs. Sol looked up in her lord's face, and folded her arms in a resigned expres- sion. Sol rose to his feet again, and shaded his eyes with his hand, but this time quite seriously, and gazed at Rand's smiling face. " Good Lord ! Do you mean to say your name isn't Pinkney?" he asked, with a half-embarrassed laugh. " It is Pinkney," said Rand, " but I never met you before." " Didn't you come to see a young lady that joined my troupe at Gold Hill, last month, and say you'd meet me at Keeler's Ferry in a day or two ? " " No-o-o," said Rand, with a good-humoured laugh. "I haven't left this mountain for two months." He might have added more, but his attention was directed to Miss Euphemia, who during this short dialogue, having stuffed alternately her handkerchief, the corner of The Twins of Table Mountain. 209 her mantle, and her gloves into her mouth, restrained her- self no longer, but gave way to an uncontrollable fit of laughter. " O Sol," she gasped explanatorily, as she threw herself alternately against him, Mrs. Sol, and a boulder, " you'll kill me yet ! O Lord ! first we take possession of this man's property, then we claim him" The contemplation of this humorous climax affected her so that she was fain at last to walk away and confide the rest of her speech to space. Sol joined in the laugh until his wife plucked his sleeve, and whispered something in his ear. In an instant his face became at once mysterious and demure. " I owe you an apology," he said, turning to Rand, but in a voice ostentatiously pitched high enough for Miss Euphemia to overhear ; " I see I have made a mistake. A resemblance — only a mere resemblance, as I look at you now — led me astray. Of course you don't know any young lady in the profession t " " Of course he doesn't, Sol," said Miss Euphemia. " / could have told you that. He didn't even know me ! " The voice and mock-heroic attitude of the speaker was enough to relieve the general embarrassment with a laugh. Rand, now pleasantly conscious of only Miss Euphemia's presence, again offered the hospitality of his cabin — with the polite recognition of her friends in the sentence, *' and you might as well come along too ! " "But won't- we incommode the lady of the house?" said Mrs. Sol poHtely. " What lady of the house ? " said Rand, almost angrily. ** Why — Ruth, you know ! '* It was Rand's turn to become hilarious. " Ruth," he said, " is short for Rutherford, my brother." His laugh, however, was echoed only by Euphemia. *' Then you have a brother ? " said Mrs. Sol benignly. o 2IO The Twins of Table Mountain. " Yes," said Rand ; " he will be here soon." A sudden thought dropped the colour from his cheek. " Look here," he said, turning impulsively upon Sol. " I have a brother, a twin brother. It couldn't be him "- Sol was conscious of a significant feminine pressure on his right arm. He was equal to the emergency. "I think not," he said dubiously, " unless your brother's hair is much darker than yours. Yes ! now I look at you, yours is brown. He has a mole on his right cheek — hasn't he ? " The red came quickly back to Rand's boyish face. He laughed. " No, sir ; my brother's hair is, if anything, a shade lighter than mine; and nary mole ! Come along !" And leading the way, Rand disclosed the narrow steps winding down to the shelf on which the cabin hung. " Be careful," said Rand, taking the now unresisting hand of the Marysville Pet as they descended: "a step that way, and down you go, two thousand feet on the top of a pine-tree." But the girl's slight cry of alarm was presently changed to one of unaffected pleasure, as they stood on the rocky platform. " It isn't a house ; it's a nesf, and the loveliest !'* said Euphemia breathlessly. *'It's a scene! a perfect scene, sir!" said Sol enraptured. "I shall take the liberty of bringing my scene-painter to sketch it, some day. It would do for ^The Mountaineer's Bride ' superbly, or," continued the little man, warming through the blue-black border of his face with professional enthusiasm, "it's enough to make a play itself! 'The Cot on the Crags.' Last scene — moonlight — the struggle on the ledge ! — The Lady of the Crags — throws herself from the beetling heights ! — A shriek from the depths — a woman's wail!" " Dry up ! " sharply interrupted Rand, to whom this speech recalled his brother's half-forgotten strangeness. *' Look at the prospect." The Twins of Table Mountain, 2 1 1 In the full noon of a cloudless day, beneath them a tumultuous sea of pines surged, heaved, rode in giant crests, stretched and spent itself in the ghostly, snow-peaked horizon. The thronging woods choked every defile, swept every crest, filled every valley with its dark-green tilting spears, and left only Table Mountain sunlit and bare. Here and there were profound olive depths, over which the grey hawk hung lazily, and into which blue jays dipped. A faint, dull, yellowish streak marked an occasional water- course; a deeper reddish riband, the mountain road and its overhanging murky cloud of dust. " Is it quite safe here ? " asked Mrs. Sol, eyeing the little cabin. " I mean from storms ? " " It never blows up here," replied Rand, " and nothing happens." "It must be lovely!" said Euphemia, clasping her hands. "It is that," said Rand proudly. "It's four years since Ruth and I took up this yer claim, and raised this shanty. In that four years we haven't left it alone a night, or cared to. It's only big enough for two, and them two must be brothers. It wouldn't do for mere pardners to live here alone — they couldn't do it. It wouldn't be exactly the thing for. man and wife to shut themselves up here alone. But Ruth and me know each other's ways, and here we'll stay until we've made a pile. We sometimes — one of us — takes a pasear to the Ferry, to buy provisions, but we're glad to crawl up to the back of old ' Table ' at night." "You're quite out of the world here, then?" suggested Mrs. Sol. "That's it — ^just it ! We're out of the world, out of rows, out of liquor, out of cards, out of bad company, out of temptation. Cussedness and foolishness hez got to follow us up here to find us, and there's too many ready to climb