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diff --git a/2180.txt b/2180.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13df4fe --- /dev/null +++ b/2180.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4520 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In a Hollow of the Hills, by Bret Harte + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In a Hollow of the Hills + +Author: Bret Harte + +Posting Date: October 28, 2008 [EBook #2180] +Release Date: May, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS + + +by + +Bret Bret Harte + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had been +preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side, which +continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed +into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as +of stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness +seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of +this sightless and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur's +rowels, the dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of +a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a +voice, which in spite of its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent +a certain mystery to, said:-- + +"I can't make out anything! Where the devil have we got to, anyway? +It's as black as Tophet, here ahead!" + +"Strike a light and make a flare with something," returned a second +voice. "Look where you're shoving to--now--keep your horse off, will +ye." + +There was more muffled plunging, a silence, the rustle of paper, the +quick spurt of a match, and then the uplifting of a flickering flame. +But it revealed only the heads and shoulders of three horsemen, framed +within a nebulous ring of light, that still left their horses and even +their lower figures in impenetrable shadow. Then the flame leaped up +and died out with a few zigzagging sparks that were falling to the +ground, when a third voice, that was low but somewhat pleasant in its +cadence, said:-- + +"Be careful where you throw that. You were careless last time. With +this wind and the leaves like tinder, you might send a furnace blast +through the woods." + +"Then at least we'd see where we were." + +Nevertheless, he moved his horse, whose trampling hoofs beat out the +last fallen spark. Complete darkness and silence again followed. +Presently the first speaker continued:-- + +"I reckon we'll have to wait here till the next squall clears away the +scud from the sky? Hello! What's that?" + +Out of the obscurity before them appeared a faint light,--a dim but +perfectly defined square of radiance,--which, however, did not appear +to illuminate anything around it. Suddenly it disappeared. + +"That's a house--it's a light in a window," said the second voice. + +"House be d--d!" retorted the first speaker. "A house with a window on +Galloper's Ridge, fifteen miles from anywhere? You're crazy!" + +Nevertheless, from the muffled plunging and tinkling that followed, +they seemed to be moving in the direction where the light had appeared. +Then there was a pause. + +"There's nothing but a rocky outcrop here, where a house couldn't +stand, and we're off the trail again," said the first speaker +impatiently. + +"Stop!--there it is again!" + +The same square of light appeared once more, but the horsemen had +evidently diverged in the darkness, for it seemed to be in a different +direction. But it was more distinct, and as they gazed a shadow +appeared upon its radiant surface--the profile of a human face. Then +the light suddenly went out, and the face vanished with it. + +"It IS a window, and there was some one behind it," said the second +speaker emphatically. + +"It was a woman's face," said the pleasant voice. + +"Whoever it is, just hail them, so that we can get our bearings. Sing +out! All together!" + +The three voices rose in a prolonged shout, in which, however, the +distinguishing quality of the pleasant voice was sustained. But there +was no response from the darkness beyond. The shouting was repeated +after an interval with the same result: the silence and obscurity +remained unchanged. + +"Let's get out of this," said the first speaker angrily; "house or no +house, man or woman, we're not wanted, and we'll make nothing waltzing +round here!" + +"Hush!" said the second voice. "Sh-h! Listen." + +The leaves of the nearest trees were trilling audibly. Then came a +sudden gust that swept the fronds of the taller ferns into their faces, +and laid the thin, lithe whips of alder over their horses' flanks +sharply. It was followed by the distant sea-like roaring of the +mountain-side. + +"That's a little more like it!" said the first speaker joyfully. +"Another blow like that and we're all right. And look! there's a +lightenin' up over the trail we came by." + +There was indeed a faint glow in that direction, like the first +suffusion of dawn, permitting the huge shoulder of the mountain along +whose flanks they had been journeying to be distinctly seen. The sodden +breath of the stirred forest depths was slightly tainted with an acrid +fume. + +"That's the match you threw away two hours ago," said the pleasant +voice deliberately. "It's caught the dry brush in the trail round the +bend." + +"Anyhow, it's given us our bearings, boys," said the first speaker, +with satisfied accents. "We're all right now; and the wind's lifting +the sky ahead there. Forward now, all together, and let's get out of +this hell-hole while we can!" + +It was so much lighter that the bulk of each horseman could be seen as +they moved forward together. But there was no thinning of the +obscurity on either side of them. Nevertheless the profile of the +horseman with the pleasant voice seemed to be occasionally turned +backward, and he suddenly checked his horse. + +"There's the window again!" he said. "Look! There--it's gone again." + +"Let it go and be d--d!" returned the leader. "Come on." + +They spurred forward in silence. It was not long before the wayside +trees began to dimly show spaces between them, and the ferns to give +way to lower, thick-set shrubs, which in turn yielded to a velvety +moss, with long quiet intervals of netted and tangled grasses. The +regular fall of the horses' feet became a mere rhythmic throbbing. +Then suddenly a single hoof rang out sharply on stone, and the first +speaker reined in slightly. + +"Thank the Lord we're on the ridge now! and the rest is easy. Tell you +what, though, boys, now we're all right, I don't mind saying that I +didn't take no stock in that blamed corpse light down there. If there +ever was a will-o'-the-wisp on a square up mountain, that was one. It +wasn't no window! Some of ye thought ye saw a face too--eh?" + +"Yes, and a rather pretty one," said the pleasant voice meditatively. + +"That's the way they'd build that sort of thing, of course. It's lucky +ye had to satisfy yourself with looking. Gosh! I feel creepy yet, +thinking of it! What are ye looking back for now like Lot's wife? +Blamed if I don't think that face bewitched ye." + +"I was only thinking about that fire you started," returned the other +quietly. "I don't see it now." + +"Well--if you did?" + +"I was wondering whether it could reach that hollow." + +"I reckon that hollow could take care of any casual nat'rel fire that +came boomin' along, and go two better every time! Why, I don't believe +there was any fire; it was all a piece of that infernal ignis fatuus +phantasmagoriana that was played upon us down there!" + +With the laugh that followed they started forward again, relapsing into +the silence of tired men at the end of a long journey. Even their few +remarks were interjectional, or reminiscent of topics whose freshness +had been exhausted with the day. The gaining light which seemed to +come from the ground about them rather than from the still, overcast +sky above, defined their individuality more distinctly. The man who +had first spoken, and who seemed to be their leader, wore the virgin +unshaven beard, mustache, and flowing hair of the Californian pioneer, +and might have been the eldest; the second speaker was close shaven, +thin, and energetic; the third, with the pleasant voice, in height, +litheness, and suppleness of figure appeared to be the youngest of the +party. The trail had now become a grayish streak along the level +table-land they were following, which also had the singular effect of +appearing lighter than the surrounding landscape, yet of plunging into +utter darkness on either side of its precipitous walls. Nevertheless, +at the end of an hour the leader rose in his stirrups with a sigh of +satisfaction. + +"There's the light in Collinson's Mill! There's nothing gaudy and +spectacular about that, boys, eh? No, sir! it's a square, honest +beacon that a man can steer by. We'll be there in twenty minutes." He +was pointing into the darkness below the already descending trail. +Only a pioneer's eye could have detected the few pin-pricks of light in +the impenetrable distance, and it was a signal proof of his leadership +that the others accepted it without seeing it. "It's just ten o'clock," +he continued, holding a huge silver watch to his eye; "we've wasted an +hour on those blamed spooks yonder!" + +"We weren't off the trail more than ten minutes, Uncle Dick," protested +the pleasant voice. + +"All right, my son; go down there if you like and fetch out your Witch +of Endor, but as for me, I'm going to throw myself the other side of +Collinson's lights. They're good enough for me, and a blamed sight +more stationary!" + +The grade was very steep, but they took it, California fashion, at a +gallop, being genuinely good riders, and using their brains as well as +their spurs in the understanding of their horses, and of certain +natural laws, which the more artificial riders of civilization are apt +to overlook. Hence there was no hesitation or indecision communicated +to the nervous creatures they bestrode, who swept over crumbling stones +and slippery ledges with a momentum that took away half their weight, +and made a stumble or false step, or indeed anything but an actual +collision, almost impossible. Closing together they avoided the latter, +and holding each other well up, became one irresistible wedge-shaped +mass. At times they yelled, not from consciousness nor bravado, but +from the purely animal instinct of warning and to combat the +breathlessness of their descent, until, reaching the level, they +charged across the gravelly bed of a vanished river, and pulled up at +Collinson's Mill. The mill itself had long since vanished with the +river, but the building that had once stood for it was used as a rude +hostelry for travelers, which, however, bore no legend or invitatory +sign. Those who wanted it, knew it; those who passed it by, gave it no +offense. + +Collinson himself stood by the door, smoking a contemplative pipe. As +they rode up, he disengaged himself from the doorpost listlessly, +walked slowly towards them, said reflectively to the leader, "I've been +thinking with you that a vote for Thompson is a vote thrown away," and +prepared to lead the horses towards the water tank. He had parted with +them over twelve hours before, but his air of simply renewing a +recently interrupted conversation was too common a circumstance to +attract their notice. They knew, and he knew, that no one else had +passed that way since he had last spoken; that the same sun had swung +silently above him and the unchanged landscape, and there had been no +interruption nor diversion to his monotonous thought. The wilderness +annihilates time and space with the grim pathos of patience. + +Nevertheless he smiled. "Ye don't seem to have got through coming down +yet," he continued, as a few small boulders, loosened in their rapid +descent, came more deliberately rolling and plunging after the +travelers along the gravelly bottom. Then he turned away with the +horses, and, after they were watered, he reentered the house. His +guests had evidently not waited for his ministration. They had already +taken one or two bottles from the shelves behind a wide bar and helped +themselves, and, glasses in hand, were now satisfying the more imminent +cravings of hunger with biscuits from a barrel and slices of smoked +herring from a box. Their equally singular host, accepting their +conduct as not unusual, joined the circle they had comfortably drawn +round the fireplace, and meditatively kicking a brand back at the fire, +said, without looking at them:-- + +"Well?" + +"Well!" returned the leader, leaning back in his chair after carefully +unloosing the buckle of his belt, but with his eyes also on the +fire,--"well! we've prospected every yard of outcrop along the Divide, +and there ain't the ghost of a silver indication anywhere." + +"Not a smell," added the close-shaven guest, without raising his eyes. + +They all remained silent, looking at the fire, as if it were the one +thing they had taken into their confidence. Collinson also addressed +himself to the blaze as he said presently: "It allus seemed to me that +thar was something shiny about that ledge just round the shoulder of +the spur, over the long canyon." + +The leader ejaculated a short laugh. "Shiny, eh? shiny! Ye think THAT +a sign? Why, you might as well reckon that because Key's head, over +thar, is gray and silvery that he's got sabe and experience." As he +spoke he looked towards the man with a pleasant voice. The fire +shining full upon him revealed the singular fact that while his face +was still young, and his mustache quite dark, his hair was perfectly +gray. The object of this attention, far from being disconcerted by the +comparison, added with a smile:-- + +"Or that he had any silver in his pocket." + +Another lapse of silence followed. The wind tore round the house and +rumbled in the short, adobe chimney. + +"No, gentlemen," said the leader reflectively, "this sort o' thing is +played out. I don't take no more stock in that cock-and-bull story +about the lost Mexican mine. I don't catch on to that Sunday-school +yarn about the pious, scientific sharp who collected leaves and +vegetables all over the Divide, all the while he scientifically knew +that the range was solid silver, only he wouldn't soil his fingers with +God-forsaken lucre. I ain't saying anything agin that fine-spun theory +that Key believes in about volcanic upheavals that set up on end +argentiferous rock, but I simply say that I don't see it--with the +naked eye. And I reckon it's about time, boys, as the game's up, that +we handed in our checks, and left the board." + +There was another silence around the fire, another whirl and turmoil +without. There was no attempt to combat the opinions of their leader; +possibly the same sense of disappointed hopes was felt by all, only +they preferred to let the man of greater experience voice it. He went +on:-- + +"We've had our little game, boys, ever since we left Rawlin's a week +ago; we've had our ups and downs; we've been starved and parched, +snowed up and half drowned, shot at by road-agents and horse-thieves, +kicked by mules and played with by grizzlies. We've had a heap o' fun, +boys, for our money, but I reckon the picnic is about over. So we'll +shake hands to-morrow all round and call it square, and go on our ways +separately." + +"And what do you think you'll do, Uncle Dick?" said his close-shaven +companion listlessly. + +"I'll make tracks for a square meal, a bed that a man can comfortably +take off his boots and die in, and some violet-scented soap. +Civilization's good enough for me! I even reckon I wouldn't mind 'the +sound of the church-going bell' ef there was a theatre handy, as there +likely would be. But the wilderness is played out." + +"You'll be back to it again in six months, Uncle Dick," retorted the +other quickly. + +Uncle Dick did not reply. It was a peculiarity of the party that in +their isolated companionship they had already exhausted discussion and +argument. A silence followed, in which they all looked at the fire as +if it was its turn to make a suggestion. + +"Collinson," said the pleasant voice abruptly, "who lives in the hollow +this side of the Divide, about two miles from the first spur above the +big canyon?" + +"Nary soul!" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Sartin! Thar ain't no one but me betwixt Bald Top and +Skinner's--twenty-five miles." + +"Of course, YOU'D know if any one had come there lately?" persisted the +pleasant voice. + +"I reckon. It ain't a week ago that I tramped the whole distance that +you fellers just rode over." + +"There ain't," said the leader deliberately, "any enchanted castle or +cabin that goes waltzing round the road with revolving windows and +fairy princesses looking out of 'em?" + +But Collinson, recognizing this as purely irrelevant humor, with +possibly a trap or pitfall in it, moved away from the fireplace without +a word, and retired to the adjoining kitchen to prepare supper. +Presently he reappeared. + +"The pork bar'l's empty, boys, so I'll hev to fix ye up with jerked +beef, potatoes, and flapjacks. Ye see, thar ain't anybody ben over +from Skinner's store for a week." + +"All right; only hurry up!" said Uncle Dick cheerfully, settling +himself back in his chair, "I reckon to turn in as soon as I've rastled +with your hash, for I've got to turn out agin and be off at sun-up." + +They were all very quiet again,--so quiet that they could not help +noticing that the sound of Collinson's preparations for their supper +had ceased too. Uncle Dick arose softly and walked to the kitchen +door. Collinson was sitting before a small kitchen stove, with a fork +in his hand, gazing abstractedly before him. At the sound of his +guest's footsteps he started, and the noise of preparation recommenced. +Uncle Dick returned to his chair by the fire. Leaning towards the +chair of the close-shaven man, he said in a lower voice:-- + +"He was off agin!" + +"What?" + +"Thinkin' of that wife of his." + +"What about his wife?" asked Key, lowering his voice also. + +The three men's heads were close together. + +"When Collinson fixed up this mill he sent for his wife in the States," +said Uncle Dick, in a half whisper, "waited a year for her, hanging +round and boarding every emigrant wagon that came through the Pass. +She didn't come--only the news that she was dead." He paused and +nudged his chair still closer--the heads were almost touching. "They +say, over in the Bar"--his voice had sunk to a complete whisper--"that +it was a lie! That she ran away with the man that was fetchin' her +out. Three thousand miles and three weeks with another man upsets some +women. But HE knows nothing about it, only he sometimes kinder goes +off looney-like, thinking of her." He stopped, the heads separated; +Collinson had appeared at the doorway, his melancholy patience +apparently unchanged. + +"Grub's on, gentlemen; sit by and eat." + +The humble meal was dispatched with zest and silence. A few +interjectional remarks about the uncertainties of prospecting only +accented the other pauses. In ten minutes they were out again by the +fireplace with their lit pipes. As there were only three chairs, +Collinson stood beside the chimney. + +"Collinson," said Uncle Dick, after the usual pause, taking his pipe +from his lips, "as we've got to get up and get at sun-up, we might as +well tell you now that we're dead broke. We've been living for the +last few weeks on Preble Key's loose change--and that's gone. You'll +have to let this little account and damage stand over." + +Collinson's brow slightly contracted, without, however, altering his +general expression of resigned patience. + +"I'm sorry for you, boys," he said slowly, "and" (diffidently) "kinder +sorry for myself, too. You see, I reckoned on goin' over to Skinner's +to-morrow, to fill up the pork bar'l and vote for Mesick and the +wagon-road. But Skinner can't let me have anything more until I've +paid suthin' on account, as he calls it." + +"D'ye mean to say thar's any mountain man as low flung and mean as +that?" said Uncle Dick indignantly. + +"But it isn't HIS fault," said Collinson gently; "you see, they won't +send him goods from Sacramento if he don't pay up, and he CAN'T if I +DON'T. Sabe?" + +"Ah! that's another thing. They ARE mean--in Sacramento," said Uncle +Dick, somewhat mollified. + +The other guests murmured an assent to this general proposition. +Suddenly Uncle Dick's face brightened. + +"Look here! I know Skinner, and I'll stop there-- No, blank it all! I +can't, for it's off my route! Well, then, we'll fix it this way. Key +will go there and tell Skinner that I say that I'LL send the money to +that Sacramento hound. That'll fix it!" + +Collinson's brow cleared; the solution of the difficulty seemed to +satisfy everybody, and the close-shaven man smiled. + +"And I'll secure it," he said, "and give Collinson a sight draft on +myself at San Francisco." + +"What's that for?" said Collinson, with a sudden suffusion on each +cheek. + +"In case of accident." + +"Wot accident?" persisted Collinson, with a dark look of suspicion on +his usually placid face. + +"In case we should forget it," said the close-shaven man, with a laugh. + +"And do you suppose that if you boys went and forgot it that I'd have +anything to do with your d--d paper?" said Collinson, a murky cloud +coming into his eyes. + +"Why, that's only business, Colly," interposed Uncle Dick quickly; +"that's all Jim Parker means; he's a business man, don't you see. +Suppose we got killed! You've that draft to show." + +"Show who?" growled Collinson. + +"Why,--hang it!--our friends, our heirs, our relations--to get your +money, hesitated Uncle Dick. + +"And do you kalkilate," said Collinson, with deeply laboring breath, +"that if you got killed, that I'd be coming on your folks for the worth +of the d--d truck I giv ye? Go 'way! Lemme git out o' this. You're +makin' me tired." He stalked to the door, lit his pipe, and began to +walk up and down the gravelly river-bed. Uncle Dick followed him. +From time to time the two other guests heard the sounds of alternate +protest and explanation as they passed and repassed the windows. +Preble Key smiled, Parker shrugged his shoulders. + +"He'll be thinkin' you've begrudged him your grub if you don't--that's +the way with these business men," said Uncle Dick's voice in one of +these intervals. Presently they reentered the house, Uncle Dick saying +casually to Parker, "You can leave that draft on the bar when you're +ready to go to-morrow;" and the incident was presumed to have ended. +But Collinson did not glance in the direction of Parker for the rest of +the evening; and, indeed, standing with his back to the chimney, more +than once fell into that stolid abstraction which was supposed to be +the contemplation of his absent wife. + +From this silence, which became infectious, the three guests were +suddenly aroused by a furious clattering down the steep descent of the +mountain, along the trail they had just ridden! It came near, +increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter the fine gravel of +the river-bed against the sides of the house, and then passed in a gust +of wind that shook the roof and roared in the chimney. With one common +impulse the three travelers rose and went to the door. They opened it +to a blackness that seemed to stand as another and an iron door before +them, but to nothing else. + +"Somebody went by then," said Uncle Dick, turning to Collinson. "Didn't +you hear it?" + +"Nary," said Collinson patiently, without moving from the chimney. + +"What in God's name was it, then?" + +"Only some of them boulders you loosed coming down. It's touch and go +with them for days after. When I first came here I used to start up +and rush out into the road--like as you would--yellin' and screechin' +after folks that never was there and never went by. Then it got kinder +monotonous, and I'd lie still and let 'em slide. Why, one night I'd a' +sworn that some one pulled up with a yell and shook the door. But I +sort of allowed to myself that whatever it was, it wasn't wantin' to +eat, drink, sleep, or it would come in, and I hadn't any call to +interfere. And in the mornin' I found a rock as big as that box, lying +chock-a-block agin the door. Then I knowed I was right." + +Preble Key remained looking from the door. + +"There's a glow in the sky over Big Canyon," he said, with a meaning +glance at Uncle Dick. + +"Saw it an hour ago," said Collinson. "It must be the woods afire just +round the bend above the canyon. Whoever goes to Skinner's had better +give it a wide berth." + +Key turned towards Collinson as if to speak, but apparently changed his +mind, and presently joined his companions, who were already rolling +themselves in their blankets, in a series of wooden bunks or berths, +ranged as in a ship's cabin, around the walls of a resinous, sawdusty +apartment that had been the measuring room of the mill. Collinson +disappeared,--no one knew or seemed to care where,--and, in less than +ten minutes from the time that they had returned from the door, the +hush of sleep and rest seemed to possess the whole house. There was no +light but that of the fire in the front room, which threw flickering +and gigantic shadows on the walls of the three empty chairs before it. +An hour later it seemed as if one of the chairs were occupied, and a +grotesque profile of Collinson's slumbering--or meditating--face and +figure was projected grimly on the rafters as though it were the +hovering guardian spirit of the house. But even that passed presently +and faded out, and the beleaguering darkness that had encompassed the +house all the evening began to slowly creep in through every chink and +cranny of the rambling, ill-jointed structure, until it at last +obliterated even the faint embers on the hearth. The cool fragrance of +the woodland depths crept in with it until the steep of human warmth, +the reek of human clothing, and the lingering odors of stale human +victual were swept away in that incorruptible and omnipotent breath. +An hour later--and the wilderness had repossessed itself of all. + +Key, the lightest sleeper, awoke early,--so early that the dawn +announced itself only in two dim squares of light that seemed to grow +out of the darkness at the end of the room where the windows looked out +upon the valley. This reminded him of his woodland vision of the night +before, and he lay and watched them until they brightened and began to +outline the figures of his still sleeping companions. But there were +faint stirrings elsewhere,--the soft brushing of a squirrel across the +shingled roof, the tiny flutter of invisible wings in the rafters, the +"peep" and "squeak" of baby life below the floor. And then he fell +into a deeper sleep, and awoke only when it was broad day. + +The sun was shining upon the empty bunks; his companions were already +up and gone. They had separated as they had come together,--with the +light-hearted irresponsibility of animals,--without regret, and +scarcely reminiscence; bearing, with cheerful philosophy and the +hopefulness of a future unfettered by their past, the final +disappointment of their quest. If they ever met again, they would +laugh and remember; if they did not, they would forget without a sigh. +He hurriedly dressed himself, and went outside to dip his face and +hands in the bucket that stood beside the door; but the clear air, the +dazzling sunshine, and the unexpected prospect half intoxicated him. + +The abandoned mill stretched beside him in all the pathos of its +premature decay. The ribs of the water-wheel appeared amid a tangle of +shrubs and driftwood, and were twined with long grasses and straggling +vines; mounds of sawdust and heaps of "brush" had taken upon themselves +a velvety moss where the trickling slime of the vanished river lost +itself in sluggish pools, discolored with the dyes of redwood. But on +the other side of the rocky ledge dropped the whole length of the +valley, alternately bathed in sunshine or hidden in drifts of white and +clinging smoke. The upper end of the long canyon, and the crests of +the ridge above him, were lost in this fleecy cloud, which at times +seemed to overflow the summits and fall in slow leaps like lazy +cataracts down the mountain-side. Only the range before the ledge was +clear; there the green pines seemed to swell onward and upward in long +mounting billows, until at last they broke against the sky. + +In the keen stimulus of the hour and the air Key felt the mountaineer's +longing for action, and scarcely noticed that Collinson had +pathetically brought out his pork barrel to scrape together a few +remnants for his last meal. It was not until he had finished his +coffee, and Collinson had brought up his horse, that a slight sense of +shame at his own and his comrades' selfishness embarrassed his parting +with his patient host. He himself was going to Skinner's to plead for +him; he knew that Parker had left the draft,--he had seen it lying in +the bar,--but a new sense of delicacy kept him from alluding to it now. +It was better to leave Collinson with his own peculiar ideas of the +responsibilities of hospitality unchanged. Key shook his hand warmly, +and galloped up the rocky slope. But when he had finally reached the +higher level, and fancied he could even now see the dust raised by his +departing comrades on their two diverging paths, although he knew that +they had already gone their different ways,--perhaps never to meet +again,--his thoughts and his eyes reverted only to the ruined mill +below him and its lonely occupant. + +He could see him quite distinctly in that clear air, still standing +before his door. And then he appeared to make a parting gesture with +his hand, and something like snow fluttered in the air above his head. +It was only the torn fragments of Parker's draft, which this homely +gentleman of the Sierras, standing beside his empty pork barrel, had +scattered to the four winds. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Key's attention was presently directed to something more important to +his present purpose. The keen wind which he had faced in mounting the +grade had changed, and was now blowing at his back. His experience of +forest fires had already taught him that this was too often only the +cold air rushing in to fill the vacuum made by the conflagration, and +it needed not his sensation of an acrid smarting in his eyes, and an +unaccountable dryness in the air which he was now facing, to convince +him that the fire was approaching him. It had evidently traveled +faster than he had expected, or had diverged from its course. He was +disappointed, not because it would oblige him to take another route to +Skinner's, as Collinson had suggested, but for a very different reason. +Ever since his vision of the preceding night, he had resolved to +revisit the hollow and discover the mystery. He had kept his purpose a +secret,--partly because he wished to avoid the jesting remarks of his +companions, but particularly because he wished to go alone, from a very +singular impression that although they had witnessed the incident he +had really seen more than they did. To this was also added the +haunting fear he had felt during the night that this mysterious +habitation and its occupants were in the track of the conflagration. +He had not dared to dwell upon it openly on account of Uncle Dick's +evident responsibility for the origin of the fire; he appeased his +conscience with the reflection that the inmates of the dwelling no +doubt had ample warning in time to escape. But still, he and his +companions ought to have stopped to help them, and then--but here he +paused, conscious of another reason he could scarcely voice then, or +even now. Preble Key had not passed the age of romance, but like other +romancists he thought he had evaded it by treating it practically. + +Meantime he had reached the fork where the trail diverged to the right, +and he must take that direction if he wished to make a detour of the +burning woods to reach Skinner's. His momentary indecision +communicated itself to his horse, who halted. Recalled to himself, he +looked down mechanically, when his attention was attracted by an +unfamiliar object lying in the dust of the trail. It was a small +slipper--so small that at first he thought it must have belonged to +some child. He dismounted and picked it up. It was worn and shaped to +the foot. It could not have lain there long, for it was not filled nor +discolored by the wind-blown dust of the trail, as all other adjacent +objects were. If it had been dropped by a passing traveler, that +traveler must have passed Collinson's, going or coming, within the last +twelve hours. It was scarcely possible that the shoe could have +dropped from the foot without the wearer's knowing it, and it must have +been dropped in an urgent flight, or it would have been recovered. +Thus practically Key treated his romance. And having done so, he +instantly wheeled his horse and plunged into the road in the direction +of the fire. + +But he was surprised after twenty minutes' riding to find that the +course of the fire had evidently changed. It was growing clearer +before him; the dry heat seemed to come more from the right, in the +direction of the detour he should have taken to Skinner's. This seemed +almost providential, and in keeping with his practical treatment of his +romance, as was also the fact that in all probability the fire had not +yet visited the little hollow which he intended to explore. He knew he +was nearing it now; the locality had been strongly impressed upon him +even in the darkness of the previous evening. He had passed the rocky +ledge; his horse's hoofs no longer rang out clearly; slowly and +perceptibly they grew deadened in the springy mosses, and were finally +lost in the netted grasses and tangled vines that indicated the +vicinity of the densely wooded hollow. Here were already some of the +wider spaced vanguards of that wood; but here, too, a peculiar +circumstance struck him. He was already descending the slight +declivity; but the distance, instead of deepening in leafy shadow, was +actually growing lighter. Here were the outskirting sentinels of the +wood--but the wood itself was gone! He spurred his horse through the +tall arch between the opened columns, and pulled up in amazement. + +The wood, indeed, was gone, and the whole hollow filled with the +already black and dead stumps of the utterly consumed forest! More +than that, from the indications before him, the catastrophe must have +almost immediately followed his retreat from the hollow on the +preceding night. It was evident that the fire had leaped the +intervening shoulder of the spur in one of the unaccountable, but by no +means rare, phenomena of this kind of disaster. The circling heights +around were yet untouched; only the hollow, and the ledge of rock +against which they had blundered with their horses when they were +seeking the mysterious window in last evening's darkness, were calcined +and destroyed. He dismounted and climbed the ledge, still warm from +the spent fire. A large mass of grayish outcrop had evidently been the +focus of the furnace blast of heat which must have raged for hours in +this spot. He was skirting its crumbling debris when he started +suddenly at a discovery which made everything else fade into utter +insignificance. Before him, in a slight depression formed by a fault +or lapse in the upheaved strata, lay the charred and incinerated +remains of a dwelling-house leveled to the earth! Originally half +hidden by a natural abattis of growing myrtle and ceanothus which +covered this counter-scarp of rock towards the trail, it must have +stood within a hundred feet of them during their halt! + +Even in its utter and complete obliteration by the furious furnace +blast that had swept across it, there was still to be seen an +unmistakable ground plan and outline of a four-roomed house. While +everything that was combustible had succumbed to that intense heat, +there was still enough half-fused and warped metal, fractured iron +plate, and twisted and broken bars to indicate the kitchen and tool +shed. Very little had, evidently, been taken away; the house and its +contents were consumed where they stood. With a feeling of horror and +desperation Key at last ventured to disturb two or three of the +blackened heaps that lay before him. But they were only vestiges of +clothing, bedding, and crockery--there was no human trace that he could +detect. Nor was there any suggestion of the original condition and +quality of the house, except its size: whether the ordinary unsightly +cabin of frontier "partners," or some sylvan cottage--there was nothing +left but the usual ignoble and unsavory ruins of burnt-out human +habitation. + +And yet its very existence was a mystery. It had been unknown at +Collinson's, its nearest neighbor, and it was presumable that it was +equally unknown at Skinner's. Neither he nor his companions had +detected it in their first journey by day through the hollow, and only +the tell-tale window at night had been a hint of what was even then so +successfully concealed that they could not discover it when they had +blundered against its rock foundation. For concealed it certainly was, +and intentionally so. But for what purpose? + +He gave his romance full play for a few minutes with this question. +Some recluse, preferring the absolute simplicity of nature, or perhaps +wearied with the artificialities of society, had secluded himself here +with the company of his only daughter. Proficient as a pathfinder, he +had easily discovered some other way of provisioning his house from the +settlements than by the ordinary trails past Collinson's or Skinner's, +which would have betrayed his vicinity. But recluses are not usually +accompanied by young daughters, whose relations with the world, not +being as antagonistic, would make them uncertain companions. Why not a +wife? His presumption of the extreme youth of the face he had seen at +the window was after all only based upon the slipper he had found. And +if a wife, whose absolute acceptance of such confined seclusion might +be equally uncertain, why not somebody else's wife? Here was a reason +for concealment, and the end of an episode, not unknown even in the +wilderness. And here was the work of the Nemesis who had overtaken +them in their guilty contentment! The story, even to its moral, was +complete. And yet it did not entirely satisfy him, so superior is the +absolutely unknown to the most elaborate theory. + +His attention had been once or twice drawn towards the crumbling wall +of outcrop, which during the conflagration must have felt the full +force of the fiery blast that had swept through the hollow and spent +its fury upon it. It bore evidence of the intense heat in cracked +fissures and the crumbling debris that lay at its feet. Key picked up +some of the still warm fragments, and was not surprised that they +easily broke in a gritty, grayish powder in his hands. In spite of his +preoccupation with the human interest, the instinct of the prospector +was still strong upon him, and he almost mechanically put some of the +pieces in his pockets. Then after another careful survey of the +locality for any further record of its vanished tenants, he returned to +his horse. Here he took from his saddle-bags, half listlessly, a +precious phial encased in wood, and, opening it, poured into another +thick glass vessel part of a smoking fluid; he then crumbled some of +the calcined fragments into the glass, and watched the ebullition that +followed with mechanical gravity. When it had almost ceased he drained +off the contents into another glass, which he set down, and then +proceeded to pour some water from his drinking-flask into the ordinary +tin cup which formed part of his culinary traveling-kit. Into this he +put three or four pinches of salt from his provision store. Then +dipping his fingers into the salt and water, he allowed a drop to fall +into the glass. A white cloud instantly gathered in the colorless +fluid, and then fell in a fine film to the bottom of the glass. Key's +eyes concentrated suddenly, the listless look left his face. His +fingers trembled lightly as he again let the salt water fall into the +solution, with exactly the same result! Again and again he repeated +it, until the bottom of the glass was quite gray with the fallen +precipitate. And his own face grew as gray. + +His hand trembled no longer as he carefully poured off the solution so +as not to disturb the precipitate at the bottom. Then he drew out his +knife, scooped a little of the gray sediment upon its point, and +emptying his tin cup, turned it upside down upon his knee, placed the +sediment upon it, and began to spread it over the dull surface of its +bottom with his knife. He had intended to rub it briskly with his +knife blade. But in the very action of spreading it, the first stroke +of his knife left upon the sediment and the cup the luminous streak of +burnished silver! + +He stood up and drew a long breath to still the beatings of his heart. +Then he rapidly re-climbed the rock, and passed over the ruins again, +this time plunging hurriedly through, and kicking aside the charred +heaps without a thought of what they had contained. Key was not an +unfeeling man, he was not an unrefined one: he was a gentleman by +instinct, and had an intuitive sympathy for others; but in that instant +his whole mind was concentrated upon the calcined outcrop! And his +first impulse was to see if it bore any evidence of previous +examination, prospecting, or working by its suddenly evicted neighbors +and owners. There was none: they had evidently not known it. Nor was +there any reason to suppose that they would ever return to their hidden +home, now devastated and laid bare to the open sunlight and open trail. +They were already far away; their guilty personal secret would keep +them from revisiting it. An immense feeling of relief came over the +soul of this moral romancer; a momentary recognition of the Most High +in this perfect poetical retribution. He ran back quickly to his +saddle-bags, drew out one or two carefully written, formal notices of +preemption and claim, which he and his former companions had carried in +their brief partnership, erased their signatures and left only his own +name, with another grateful sense of Divine interference, as he thought +of them speeding far away in the distance, and returned to the ruins. +With unconscious irony, he selected a charred post from the embers, +stuck it in the ground a few feet from the debris of outcrop, and +finally affixed his "Notice." Then, with a conscientiousness born +possibly of his new religious convictions, he dislodged with his +pickaxe enough of the brittle outcrop to constitute that presumption of +"actual work" upon the claim which was legally required for its +maintenance, and returned to his horse. In replacing his things in his +saddle-bags he came upon the slipper, and for an instant so complete +was his preoccupation in his later discovery, that he was about to +throw it away as useless impedimenta, until it occurred to him, albeit +vaguely, that it might be of service to him in its connection with that +discovery, in the way of refuting possible false claimants. He was not +aware of any faithlessness to his momentary romance, any more than he +was conscious of any disloyalty to his old companions, in his +gratification that his good fortune had come to him alone. This +singular selection was a common experience of prospecting. And there +was something about the magnitude of his discovery that seemed to point +to an individual achievement. He had made a rough calculation of the +richness of the lode from the quantity of precipitate in his rude +experiment; he had estimated its length, breadth, and thickness from +his slight knowledge of geology and the theories then ripe; and the +yield would be colossal! Of course, he would require capital to work +it, he would have to "let in" others to his scheme and his prosperity; +but the control of it would always be HIS OWN. + +Then he suddenly started as he had never in his life before started at +the foot of man! For there was a footfall in the charred brush; and +not twenty yards from him stood Collinson, who had just dismounted from +a mule. The blood rushed to Key's pale face. + +"Prospectin' agin?" said the proprietor of the mill, with his weary +smile. + +"No," said Key quickly, "only straightening my pack." The blood +deepened in his cheek at his instinctive lie. Had he carefully thought +it out before, he would have welcomed Collinson, and told him all. But +now a quick, uneasy suspicion flashed upon him. Perhaps his late host +had lied, and knew of the existence of the hidden house. Perhaps--he +had spoken of some "silvery rock" the night before--he even knew +something of the lode itself. He turned upon him with an aggressive +face. But Collinson's next words dissipated the thought. + +"I'm glad I found ye, anyhow," he said. "Ye see, arter you left, I saw +ye turn off the trail and make for the burning woods instead o' goin' +round. I sez to myself, 'That fellow is making straight for Skinner's. +He's sorter worried about me and that empty pork bar'l,'--I hadn't +oughter spoke that away afore you boys, anyhow,--'and he's takin' risks +to help me.' So I reckoned I'd throw my leg over Jenny here, and look +arter ye--and go over to Skinner's myself--and vote." + +"Certainly," said Key with cheerful alacrity, and the one thought of +getting Collinson away; "we'll go together, and we'll see that that +pork barrel is filled!" He glowed quite honestly with this sudden idea +of remembering Collinson through his good fortune. "Let's get on +quickly, for we may find the fire between us on the outer trail." He +hastily mounted his horse. + +"Then you didn't take this as a short cut," said Collinson, with dull +perseverance in his idea. "Why not? It looks all clear ahead." + +"Yes," said Key hurriedly, "but it's been only a leap of the fire, it's +still raging round the bend. We must go back to the cross-trail." His +face was still flushing with his very equivocating, and his anxiety to +get his companion away. Only a few steps further might bring Collinson +before the ruins and the "Notice," and that discovery must not be made +by him until Key's plans were perfected. A sudden aversion to the man +he had a moment before wished to reward began to take possession of +him. "Come on," he added almost roughly. + +But to his surprise, Collinson yielded with his usual grim patience, +and even a slight look of sympathy with his friend's annoyance. "I +reckon you're right, and mebbee you're in a hurry to get to Skinner's +all along o' MY business, I oughtn't hev told you boys what I did." As +they rode rapidly away he took occasion to add, when Key had reined in +slightly, with a feeling of relief at being out of the hollow, "I was +thinkin', too, of what you'd asked about any one livin' here +unbeknownst to me." + +"Well," said Key, with a new nervousness. + +"Well; I only had an idea o' proposin' that you and me just took a look +around that holler whar you thought you saw suthin'!" said Collinson +tentatively. + +"Nonsense," said Key hurriedly. "We really saw nothing--it was all a +fancy; and Uncle Dick was joking me because I said I thought I saw a +woman's face," he added with a forced laugh. + +Collinson glanced at him, half sadly. "Oh! You were only funnin', +then. I oughter guessed that. I oughter have knowed it from Uncle +Dick's talk!" They rode for some moments in silence; Key preoccupied +and feverish, and eager only to reach Skinner's. Skinner was not only +postmaster but "registrar" of the district, and the new discoverer did +not feel entirely safe until he had put his formal notification and +claims "on record." This was no publication of his actual secret, nor +any indication of success, but was only a record that would in all +probability remain unnoticed and unchallenged amidst the many other +hopeful dreams of sanguine prospectors. But he was suddenly startled +from his preoccupation. + +"Ye said ye war straightenin' up yer pack just now," said Collinson +slowly. + +"Yes!" said Key almost angrily, "and I was." + +"Ye didn't stop to straighten it up down at the forks of the trail, did +ye?" + +"I may have," said Key nervously. "But why?" + +"Ye won't mind my axin' ye another question, will ye? Ye ain't +carryin' round with ye no woman's shoe?" + +Key felt the blood drop from his cheeks. "What do you mean?" he +stammered, scarcely daring to lift his conscious eyelids to his +companion's glance. But when he did so he was amazed to find that +Collinson's face was almost as much disturbed as his own. + +"I know it ain't the square thing to ask ye, but this is how it is," +said Collinson hesitatingly. "Ye see just down by the fork of the +trail where you came I picked up a woman's shoe. It sorter got me! +For I sez to myself, 'Thar ain't no one bin by my shanty, comin' or +goin', for weeks but you boys, and that shoe, from the looks of it, +ain't bin there as many hours.' I knew there wasn't any wimin +hereabouts. I reckoned it couldn't hev bin dropped by Uncle Dick or +that other man, for you would have seen it on the road. So I allowed +it might have bin YOU. And yer it is." He slowly drew from his +pocket--what Key was fully prepared to see--the mate of the slipper Key +had in his saddle-bags! The fair fugitive had evidently lost them both. + +But Key was better prepared now (perhaps this kind of dissimulation is +progressive), and quickly alive to the necessity of throwing Collinson +off this unexpected scent. And his companion's own suggestion was +right to his hand, and, as it seemed, again quite providential! He +laughed, with a quick color, which, however, appeared to help his lie, +as he replied half hysterically, "You're right, old man, I own up, it's +mine! It's d--d silly, I know--but then, we're all fools where women +are concerned--and I wouldn't have lost that slipper for a mint of +money." + +He held out his hand gayly, but Collinson retained the slipper while he +gravely examined it. + +"You wouldn't mind telling me where you mought hev got that?" he said +meditatively. + +"Of course I should mind," said Key with a well-affected mingling of +mirth and indignation. "What are you thinking of, you old rascal? +What do you take me for?" + +But Collinson did not laugh. "You wouldn't mind givin' me the size and +shape and general heft of her as wore that shoe?" + +"Most decidedly I should do nothing of the kind!" said Key half +impatiently. "Enough, that it was given to me by a very pretty girl. +There! that's all you will know." + +"GIVEN to you?" said Collinson, lifting his eyes. + +"Yes," returned Key sharply. + +Collinson handed him the slipper gravely. "I only asked you," he said +slowly, but with a certain quiet dignity which Key had never before +seen in his face, "because thar was suthin' about the size, and shape, +and fillin' out o' that shoe that kinder reminded me of some 'un; but +that some 'un--her as mought hev stood up in that shoe--ain't o' that +kind as would ever stand in the shoes of her as YOU know at all." The +rebuke, if such were intended, lay quite as much in the utter ignoring +of Key's airy gallantry and levity as in any conscious slur upon the +fair fame of his invented Dulcinea. Yet Key oddly felt a strong +inclination to resent the aspersion as well as Collinson's gratuitous +morality; and with a mean recollection of Uncle Dick's last evening's +scandalous gossip, he said sarcastically, "And, of course, that some +one YOU were thinking of was your lawful wife." + +"It war!" said Collinson gravely. + +Perhaps it was something in Collinson's manner, or his own +preoccupation, but he did not pursue the subject, and the conversation +lagged. They were nearing, too, the outer edge of the present +conflagration, and the smoke, lying low in the unburnt woods, or +creeping like an actual exhalation of the soil, blinded them so that at +times they lost the trail completely. At other times, from the intense +heat, it seemed as if they were momentarily impinging upon the burning +area, or were being caught in a closing circle. It was remarkable that +with his sudden accession of fortune Key seemed to lose his usual frank +and careless fearlessness, and impatiently questioned his companion's +woodcraft. There were intervals when he regretted his haste to reach +Skinner's by this shorter cut, and began to bitterly attribute it to +his desire to serve Collinson. Ah, yes! it would be fine indeed, if +just as he were about to clutch the prize he should be sacrificed +through the ignorance and stupidity of this heavy-handed moralist at +his side! But it was not until, through that moralist's guidance, they +climbed a steep acclivity to a second ridge, and were comparatively +safe, that he began to feel ashamed of his surly silence or surlier +interruptions. And Collinson, either through his unconquerable +patience, or possibly in a fit of his usual uxorious abstraction, +appeared to take no notice of it. + +A sloping table-land of weather-beaten boulders now effectually +separated them from the fire on the lower ridge. They presently began +to descend on the further side of the crest, and at last dropped upon a +wagon-road, and the first track of wheels that Key had seen for a +fortnight. Rude as it was, it seemed to him the highway to fortune, +for he knew that it passed Skinner's and then joined the great +stage-road to Marysville,--now his ultimate destination. A few rods +further on they came in view of Skinner's, lying like a dingy forgotten +winter snowdrift on the mountain shelf. + +It contained a post-office, tavern, blacksmith's shop, "general store," +and express-office, scarcely a dozen buildings in all, but all +differing from Collinson's Mill in some vague suggestion of vitality, +as if the daily regular pulse of civilization still beat, albeit +languidly, in that remote extremity. There was anticipation and +accomplishment twice a day; and as Key and Collinson rode up to the +express-office, the express-wagon was standing before the door ready to +start to meet the stagecoach at the cross-roads three miles away. This +again seemed a special providence to Key. He had a brief official +communication with Skinner as registrar, and duly recorded his claim; +he had a hasty and confidential aside with Skinner as general +storekeeper, and such was the unconscious magnetism developed by this +embryo millionaire that Skinner extended the necessary credit to +Collinson on Key's word alone. That done, he rejoined Collinson in high +spirits with the news, adding cheerfully, "And I dare say, if you want +any further advances Skinner will give them to you on Parker's draft." + +"You mean that bit o' paper that chap left," said Collinson gravely. + +"Yes." + +"I tore it up." + +"You tore it up?" ejaculated Key. + +"You hear me? Yes!" said Collinson. + +Key stared at him. Surely it was again providential that he had not +intrusted his secret to this utterly ignorant and prejudiced man! The +slight twinges of conscience that his lie about the slippers had caused +him disappeared at once. He could not have trusted him even in that; +it would have been like this stupid fanatic to have prevented Key's +preemption of that claim, until he, Collinson, had satisfied himself of +the whereabouts of the missing proprietor. Was he quite sure that +Collinson would not revisit the spot when he had gone? But he was +ready for the emergency. + +He had intended to leave his horse with Skinner as security for +Collinson's provisions, but Skinner's liberality had made this +unnecessary, and he now offered it to Collinson to use and keep for him +until called for. This would enable his companion to "pack" his goods +on the mule, and oblige him to return to the mill by the wagon-road and +"outside trail," as more commodious for the two animals. + +"Ye ain't afeared o' the road agents?" suggested a bystander; "they +just swarm on galloper's Ridge, and they 'held up' the down stage only +last week." + +"They're not so lively since the deputy-sheriff's got a new idea about +them, and has been lying low in the brush near Bald Top," returned +Skinner. "Anyhow, they don't stop teams nor 'packs' unless there's a +chance of their getting some fancy horseflesh by it; and I reckon thar +ain't much to tempt them thar," he added, with a satirical side glance +at his customer's cattle. But Key was already standing in the +express-wagon, giving a farewell shake to his patient companion's hand, +and this ingenuous pleasantry passed unnoticed. Nevertheless, as the +express-wagon rolled away, his active fancy began to consider this new +danger that might threaten the hidden wealth of his claim. But he +reflected that for a time, at least, only the crude ore would be taken +out and shipped to Marysville in a shape that offered no profit to the +highwaymen. Had it been a gold mine!--but here again was the +interposition of Providence! + +A week later Preble Key returned to Skinner's with a foreman and ten +men, and an unlimited credit to draw upon at Marysville! Expeditions of +this kind created no surprise at Skinner's. Parties had before this +entered the wilderness gayly, none knew where or what for; the sedate +and silent woods had kept their secret while there; they had +evaporated, none knew when or where--often, alas! with an unpaid +account at Skinner's. Consequently, there was nothing in Key's party +to challenge curiosity. In another week a rambling, one-storied shed +of pine logs occupied the site of the mysterious ruins, and contained +the party; in two weeks excavations had been made, and the whole face +of the outcrop was exposed; in three weeks every vestige of former +tenancy which the fire had not consumed was trampled out by the alien +feet of these toilers of the "Sylvan Silver Hollow Company." None of +Key's former companions would have recognized the hollow in its +blackened leveling and rocky foundation; even Collinson would not have +remembered this stripped and splintered rock, with its heaps of fresh +debris, as the place where he had overtaken Key. And Key himself had +forgotten, in his triumph, everything but the chance experiment that +had led to his success. + +Perhaps it was well, therefore, that one night, when the darkness had +mercifully fallen upon this scene of sylvan desolation, and its still +more incongruous and unsavory human restoration, and the low murmur of +the pines occasionally swelled up from the unscathed mountain-side, a +loud shout and the trampling of horses' feet awoke the dwellers in the +shanty. Springing to their feet, they hurriedly seized their weapons +and rushed out, only to be confronted by a dark, motionless ring of +horsemen, two flaming torches of pine knots, and a low but distinct +voice of authority. In their excitement, half-awakened suspicion, and +confusion, they were affected by its note of calm preparation and +conscious power. + +"Drop those guns--hold up your hands! We've got every man of you +covered." + +Key was no coward; the men, though flustered, were not cravens: but +they obeyed. "Trot out your leader! Let him stand out there, clear, +beside that torch!" + +One of the gleaming pine knots disengaged itself from the dark circle +and moved to the centre, as Preble Key, cool and confident, stepped +beside it. + +"That will do," said the immutable voice. "Now, we want Jack Riggs, +Sydney Jack, French Pete, and One-eyed Charley." + +A vivid reminiscence of the former night scene in the hollow--of his +own and his companions voices raised in the darkness--flashed across +Key. With an instinctive premonition that this invasion had something +to do with the former tenant, he said calmly:-- + +"Who wants them?" + +"The State of California," said the voice. + +"The State of California must look further," returned Key in his old +pleasant voice; "there are no such names among my party." + +"Who are you?" + +"The manager of the 'Sylvan Silver Hollow Company,' and these are my +workmen." + +There was a hurried movement, and the sound of whispering in the +hitherto dark and silent circle, and then the voice rose again: + +"You have the papers to prove that?" + +"Yes, in the cabin. And you?" + +"I've a warrant to the sheriff of Sierra." + +There was a pause, and the voice went on less confidently:-- + +"How long have you been here?" + +"Three weeks. I came here the day of the fire and took up this claim." + +"There was no other house here?" + +"There were ruins,--you can see them still. It may have been a +burnt-up cabin." + +The voice disengaged itself from the vague background and came slowly +forwards:-- + +"It was a den of thieves. It was the hiding-place of Jack Riggs and +his gang of road agents. I've been hunting this spot for three weeks. +And now the whole thing's up!" + +There was a laugh from Key's men, but it was checked as the owner of +the voice slowly ranged up beside the burning torch and they saw his +face. It was dark and set with the defeat of a brave man. + +"Won't you come in and take something?" said Key kindly. + +"No. It's enough fool work for me to have routed ye out already. But I +suppose it's all in my d--d day's work! Good-night! Forward there! +Get!" + +The two torches danced forwards, with the trailing off of vague shadows +in dim procession; there was a clatter over the rocks and they were +gone. Then, as Preble Key gazed after them, he felt that with them had +passed the only shadow that lay upon his great fortune; and with the +last tenant of the hollow a proscribed outlaw and fugitive, he was +henceforth forever safe in his claim and his discovery. And yet, oddly +enough, at that moment, as he turned away, for the first time in three +weeks there passed before his fancy with a stirring of reproach a +vision of the face that he had seen at the window. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +Of the great discovery in Sylvan Silver Hollow it would seem that +Collinson as yet knew nothing. In spite of Key's fears that he might +stray there on his return from Skinner's, he did not, nor did he +afterwards revisit the locality. Neither the news of the registry of +the claim nor the arrival of Key's workmen ever reached him. The few +travelers who passed his mill came from the valley to cross the Divide +on their way to Skinner's, and returned by the longer but easier detour +of the stage-road over Galloper's Ridge. He had no chance to +participate in the prosperity that flowed from the opening of the mine, +which plentifully besprinkled Skinner's settlement; he was too far away +to profit even by the chance custom of Key's Sabbath wandering workmen. +His isolation from civilization (for those who came to him from the +valley were rude Western emigrants like himself) remained undisturbed. +The return of the prospecting party to his humble hospitality that +night had been an exceptional case; in his characteristic simplicity he +did not dream that it was because they had nowhere else to go in their +penniless condition. It was an incident to be pleasantly remembered, +but whose nonrecurrence did not disturb his infinite patience. His +pork barrel and flour sack had been replenished for other travelers; +his own wants were few. + +It was a day or two after the midnight visit of the sheriff to Silver +Hollow that Key galloped down the steep grade to Collinson's. He was +amused, albeit, in his new importance, a little aggrieved also, to find +that Collinson had as usual confounded his descent with that of the +generally detached boulder, and that he was obliged to add his voice to +the general uproar. This brought Collinson to his door. + +"I've had your hoss hobbled out among the chickweed and clover in the +green pasture back o' the mill, and he's picked up that much that he's +lookin' fat and sassy," he said quietly, beginning to mechanically +unstrap Key's bridle, even while his guest was in the act of +dismounting. "His back's quite healed up." + +Key could not restrain a shrug of impatience. It was three weeks since +they had met,--three weeks crammed with excitement, energy, +achievement, and fortune to Key; and yet this place and this man were +as stupidly unchanged as when he had left them. A momentary fancy that +this was the reality, that he himself was only awakening from some +delusive dream, came over him. But Collinson's next words were +practical. + +"I reckoned that maybe you'd write from Marysville to Skinner to send +for the hoss, and forward him to ye, for I never kalkilated you'd come +back." + +It was quite plain from this that Collinson had heard nothing. But it +was also awkward, as Key would now have to tell the whole story, and +reveal the fact that he had been really experimenting when Collinson +overtook him in the hollow. He evaded this by post-dating his +discovery of the richness of the ore until he had reached Marysville. +But he found some difficulty in recounting his good fortune: he was +naturally no boaster, he had no desire to impress Collinson with his +penetration, nor the undaunted energy he had displayed in getting up +his company and opening the mine, so that he was actually embarrassed +by his own understatement; and under the grave, patient eyes of his +companion, told his story at best lamely. Collinson's face betrayed +neither profound interest nor the slightest resentment. When Key had +ended his awkward recital, Collinson said slowly:-- + +"Then Uncle Dick and that other Parker feller ain't got no show in this +yer find." + +"No," said Key quickly. "Don't you remember we broke up our +partnership that morning and went off our own ways. You don't +suppose," he added with a forced half-laugh, "that if Uncle Dick or +Parker had struck a lead after they left me, they'd have put me in it?" + +"Wouldn't they?" asked Collinson gravely. + +"Of course not." He laughed a little more naturally, but presently +added, with an uneasy smile, "What makes you think they would?" + +"Nuthin'!" said Collinson promptly. + +Nevertheless, when they were seated before the fire, with glasses in +their hands, Collinson returned patiently to the subject: + +"You wuz saying they went their way, and you went yours. But your way +was back on the old way that you'd all gone together." + +But Key felt himself on firmer ground here, and answered deliberately +and truthfully, "Yes, but I only went back to the hollow to satisfy +myself if there really was any house there, and if there was, to warn +the occupants of the approaching fire." + +"And there was a house there," said Collinson thoughtfully. + +"Only the ruins." He stopped and flushed quickly, for he remembered +that he had denied its existence at their former meeting. "That is," +he went on hurriedly, "I found out from the sheriff, you know, that +there had been a house there. But," he added, reverting to his +stronger position, "my going back there was an accident, and my picking +up the outcrop was an accident, and had no more to do with our +partnership prospecting than you had. In fact," he said, with a +reassuring laugh, "you'd have had a better right to share in my claim, +coming there as you did at that moment, than they. Why, if I'd have +known what the thing was worth, I might have put you in--only it wanted +capital and some experience." He was glad that he had pitched upon that +excuse (it had only just occurred to him), and glanced affably at +Collinson. But that gentleman said soberly:-- + +"No, you wouldn't nuther." + +"Why not?" said Key half angrily. + +Collinson paused. After a moment he said, "'Cos I wouldn't hev took +anything outer thet place." + +Key felt relieved. From what he knew of Collinson's vagaries he +believed him. He was wise in not admitting him to his confidences at +the beginning; he might have thought it his duty to tell others. + +"I'm not so particular," he returned laughingly, "but the silver in +that hole was never touched, nor I dare say even imagined by mortal man +before. However, there is something else about the hollow that I want +to tell you. You remember the slipper that you picked up?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I lied to you about that; I never dropped it. On the contrary, +I had picked up the mate of it very near where you found yours, and I +wanted to know to whom it belonged. For I don't mind telling you now, +Collinson, that I believe there WAS a woman in that house, and the same +woman whose face I saw at the window. You remember how the boys joked +me about it--well, perhaps I didn't care that you should laugh at me +too, but I've had a sore conscience over my lie, for I remembered that +you seemed to have some interest in the matter too, and I thought that +maybe I might have thrown you off the scent. It seemed to me that if +you had any idea who it was, we might now talk the matter over and +compare notes. I think you said--at least, I gathered the idea from a +remark of yours," he added hastily, as he remembered that the +suggestion was his own, and a satirical one--"that it reminded you of +your wife's slipper. Of course, as your wife is dead, that would offer +no clue, and can only be a chance resemblance, unless"-- He stopped. + +"Have you got 'em yet?" + +"Yes, both." He took them from the pocket of his riding-jacket. + +As Collinson received them, his face took upon itself an even graver +expression. "It's mighty cur'ous," he said reflectively, "but looking +at the two of 'em the likeness is more fetchin'. Ye see, my wife had a +STRAIGHT foot, and never wore reg'lar rights and lefts like other +women, but kinder changed about; ye see, these shoes is reg'lar rights +and lefts, but never was worn as sich!" + +"There may be other women as peculiar," suggested Key. + +"There MUST be," said Collinson quietly. + +For an instant Key was touched with the manly security of the reply, +for, remembering Uncle Dick's scandal, it had occurred to him that the +unknown tenant of the robbers' den might be Collinson's wife. He was +glad to be relieved on that point, and went on more confidently:-- + +"So, you see, this woman was undoubtedly in that house on the night of +the fire. She escaped, and in a mighty hurry too, for she had not time +to change her slippers for shoes; she escaped on horseback, for that is +how she lost them. Now what was she doing there with those rascals, +for the face I saw looked as innocent as a saint's." + +"Seemed to ye sort o' contrairy, jist as I reckoned my wife's foot +would have looked in a slipper that you said was GIV to ye," suggested +Collinson pointedly, but with no implication of reproach in his voice. + +"Yes," said Key impatiently. + +"I've read yarns afore now about them Eyetalian brigands stealin' +women," said Collinson reflectively, "but that ain't California +road-agent style. Great Scott! if one even so much as spoke to a +woman, they'd have been wiped outer the State long ago. No! the woman +as WAS there came there to STAY!" + +As Key's face did not seem to express either assent or satisfaction at +this last statement, Collinson, after a glance at it, went on with a +somewhat gentler gravity: "I see wot's troublin' YOU, Mr. Key; you've +bin thinkin' that mebbee that poor woman might hev bin the better for a +bit o' that fortin' that you discovered under the very spot where them +slippers of hers had often trod. You're thinkin' that mebbee it might +hev turned her and those men from their evil ways." + +Mr. Key had been thinking nothing of the kind, but for some obscure +reason the skeptical jeer that had risen to his lips remained unsaid. +He rose impatiently. "Well, there seems to be no chance of discovering +anything now; the house is burnt, the gang dispersed, and she has +probably gone with them." He paused, and then laid three or four large +gold pieces on the table. "It's for that old bill of our party, +Collinson," he said. "I'll settle and collect from each. Some time +when you come over to the mine, and I hope you'll give us a call, you +can bring the horse. Meanwhile you can use him; you'll find he's a +little quicker than the mule. How is business?" he added, with a +perfunctory glance around the vacant room and dusty bar. + +"Thar ain't much passin' this way," said Collinson with equal +carelessness, as he gathered up the money, "'cept those boys from the +valley, and they're most always strapped when they come here." + +Key smiled as he observed that Collinson offered him no receipt, and, +moreover, as he remembered that he had only Collinson's word for the +destruction of Parker's draft. But he merely glanced at his +unconscious host, and said nothing. After a pause he returned in a +lighter tone: "I suppose you are rather out of the world here. Indeed, +I had an idea at first of buying out your mill, Collinson, and putting +in steam power to get out timber for our new buildings, but you see you +are so far away from the wagon-road, that we couldn't haul the timber +away. That was the trouble, or I'd have made you a fair offer." + +"I don't reckon to ever sell the mill," said Collinson simply. Then +observing the look of suspicion in his companion's face, he added +gravely, "You see, I rigged up the whole thing when I expected my wife +out from the States, and I calkilate to keep it in memory of her." + +Key slightly lifted his brows. "But you never told us, by the way, HOW +you ever came to put up a mill here with such an uncertain +water-supply." + +"It wasn't onsartin when I came here, Mr. Key; it was a full-fed stream +straight from them snow peaks. It was the earthquake did it." + +"The earthquake!" repeated Key. + +"Yes. Ef the earthquake kin heave up that silver-bearing rock that you +told us about the first day you kem here, and that you found t'other +day, it could play roots with a mere mill-stream, I reckon." + +"But the convulsion I spoke of happened ages on ages ago, when this +whole mountain range was being fashioned," said Key with a laugh. + +"Well, this yer earthquake was ten years ago, just after I came. I +reckon I oughter remember it. It was a queer sort o' day in the fall, +dry and hot as if thar might hev bin a fire in the woods, only thar +wasn't no wind. Not a breath of air anywhar. The leaves of them +alders hung straight as a plumb-line. Except for that thar stream and +that thar wheel, nuthin' moved. Thar wasn't a bird on the wing over +that canyon; thar wasn't a squirrel skirmishin' in the hull wood; even +the lizards in the rocks stiffened like stone Chinese idols. It kept +gettin' quieter and quieter, ontil I walked out on that ledge and felt +as if I'd have to give a yell just to hear my own voice. Thar was a +thin veil over everything, and betwixt and between everything, and the +sun was rooted in the middle of it as if it couldn't move neither. +Everythin' seemed to be waitin', waitin', waitin'. Then all of a +suddin suthin' seemed to give somewhar! Suthin' fetched away with a +queer sort of rumblin', as if the peg had slipped outer creation. I +looked up and kalkilated to see half a dozen of them boulders come, +lickity switch, down the grade. But, darn my skin, if one of 'em +stirred! and yet while I was looking, the whole face o' that bluff +bowed over softly, as if saying 'Good-by,' and got clean away somewhar +before I knowed it. Why, you see that pile agin the side o' the +canyon! Well, a thousand feet under that there's trees, three hundred +feet high, still upright and standin'. You know how them pines over on +that far mountain-side always seem to be climbin' up, up, up, over each +other's heads to the very top? Well, Mr. Key, I SAW 'EM climbin'! And +when I pulled myself together and got back to the mill, everything was +quiet; and, by G--d, so was the mill-wheel, and there wasn't two inches +of water in the river!" + +"And what did you think of it?" said Key, interested in spite of his +impatience. + +"I thought, Mr. Key-- No! I mustn't say I thought, for I knowed it. I +knowed that suthin' had happened to my wife!" + +Key did not smile, but even felt a faint superstitious thrill as he +gazed at him. After a pause Collinson resumed: "I heard a month after +that she had died about that time o' yaller fever in Texas with the +party she was comin' with. Her folks wrote that they died like flies, +and wuz all buried together, unbeknownst and promiscuous, and thar +wasn't no remains. She slipped away from me like that bluff over that +canyon, and that was the end of it." + +"But she might have escaped," said Key quickly, forgetting himself in +his eagerness. + +But Collinson only shook his head. "Then she'd have been here," he +said gravely. + +Key moved towards the door still abstractedly, held out his hand, shook +that of his companion warmly, and then, saddling his horse himself, +departed. A sense of disappointment--in which a vague dissatisfaction +with himself was mingled--was all that had come of his interview. He +took himself severely to task for following his romantic quest so far. +It was unworthy of the president of the Sylvan Silver Hollow Company, +and he was not quite sure but that his confidences with Collinson might +have imperiled even the interests of the company. To atone for this +momentary aberration, and correct his dismal fancies, he resolved to +attend to some business at Skinner's before returning, and branched off +on a long detour that would intersect the traveled stage-road. But +here a singular incident overtook him. As he wheeled into the +turnpike, he heard the trampling hoof-beats and jingling harness of the +oncoming coach behind him. He had barely time to draw up against the +bank before the six galloping horses and swinging vehicle swept heavily +by. He had a quick impression of the heat and steam of sweating +horse-hide, the reek of varnish and leather, and the momentary vision +of a female face silhouetted against the glass window of the coach! +But even in that flash of perception he recognized the profile that he +had seen at the window of the mysterious hut! + +He halted for an instant dazed and bewildered in the dust of the +departing wheels. Then, as the bulk of the vehicle reappeared, already +narrowing in the distance, without a second thought he dashed after it. +His disappointment, his self-criticism, his practical resolutions were +forgotten. He had but one idea now--the vision was providential! The +clue to the mystery was before him--he MUST follow it! + +Yet he had sense enough to realize that the coach would not stop to +take up a passenger between stations, and that the next station was the +one three miles below Skinner's. It would not be difficult to reach +this by a cut-off in time, and although the vehicle had appeared to be +crowded, he could no doubt obtain a seat on top. + +His eager curiosity, however, led him to put spurs to his horse, and +range up alongside of the coach as if passing it, while he examined the +stranger more closely. Her face was bent listlessly over a book; there +was unmistakably the same profile that he had seen, but the full face +was different in outline and expression. A strange sense of +disappointment that was almost a revulsion of feeling came over him; he +lingered, he glanced again; she was certainly a very pretty woman: +there was the beautifully rounded chin, the short straight nose, and +delicately curved upper lip, that he had seen in the profile,--and +yet--yet it was not the same face he had dreamt of. With an odd, +provoking sense of disillusion, he swept ahead of the coach, and again +slackened his speed to let it pass. This time the fair unknown raised +her long lashes and gazed suddenly at this persistent horseman at her +side, and an odd expression, it seemed to him almost a glance of +recognition and expectation, came into her dark, languid eyes. The +pupils concentrated upon him with a singular significance, that was +almost, he even thought, a reply to his glance, and yet it was as +utterly unintelligible. A moment later, however, it was explained. He +had fallen slightly behind in a new confusion of hesitation, wonder, +and embarrassment, when from a wooded trail to the right, another +horseman suddenly swept into the road before him. He was a powerfully +built man, mounted on a thoroughbred horse of a quality far superior to +the ordinary roadster. Without looking at Key he easily ranged up +beside the coach as if to pass it, but Key, with a sudden resolution, +put spurs to his own horse and ranged also abreast of him, in time to +see his fair unknown start at the apparition of this second horseman +and unmistakably convey some signal to him,--a signal that to Key's +fancy now betrayed some warning of himself. He was the more convinced +as the stranger, after continuing a few paces ahead of the coach, +allowed it to pass him at a curve of the road, and slackened his pace +to permit Key to do the same. Instinctively conscious that the +stranger's object was to scrutinize or identify him, he determined to +take the initiative, and fixed his eyes upon him as they approached. +But the stranger, who wore a loose brown linen duster over clothes that +appeared to be superior in fashion and material, also had part of his +face and head draped by a white silk handkerchief worn under his hat, +ostensibly to keep the sun and dust from his head and neck,--and had +the advantage of him. He only caught the flash of a pair of steel-gray +eyes, as the newcomer, apparently having satisfied himself, gave rein +to his spirited steed and easily repassed the coach, disappearing in a +cloud of dust before it. But Key had by this time reached the +"cut-off," which the stranger, if he intended to follow the coach, +either disdained or was ignorant of, and he urged his horse to its +utmost speed. Even with the stranger's advantages it would be a close +race to the station. + +Nevertheless, as he dashed on, he was by no means insensible to the +somewhat quixotic nature of his undertaking. If he was right in his +suspicion that a signal had been given by the lady to the stranger, it +was exceedingly probable that he had discovered not only the fair +inmate of the robbers' den, but one of the gang itself, or at least a +confederate and ally. Yet far from deterring him, in that ingenious +sophistry with which he was apt to treat his romance, he now looked +upon his adventure as a practical pursuit in the interests of law and +justice. It was true that it was said that the band of road agents had +been dispersed; it was a fact that there had been no spoliation of +coach or teams for three weeks; but none of the depredators had ever +been caught, and their booty, which was considerable, was known to be +still intact. It was to the interest of the mine, his partners, and +his workmen that this clue to a danger which threatened the locality +should be followed to the end. As to the lady, in spite of the +disappointment that still rankled in his breast, he could be +magnanimous! She might be the paramour of the strange horseman, she +might be only escaping from some hateful companionship by his aid. And +yet one thing puzzled him: she was evidently not acquainted with the +personality of the active gang, for she had, without doubt, at first +mistaken HIM for one of them, and after recognizing her real accomplice +had communicated her mistake to him. + +It was a great relief to him when the rough and tangled "cut-off" at +last broadened and lightened into the turnpike road again, and he +beheld, scarcely a quarter of a mile before him, the dust cloud that +overhung the coach as it drew up at the lonely wayside station. He was +in time, for he knew that the horses were changed there; but a sudden +fear that the fair unknown might alight, or take some other conveyance, +made him still spur his jaded steed forward. As he neared the station +he glanced eagerly around for the other horseman, but he was nowhere to +be seen. He had evidently either abandoned the chase or ridden ahead. + +It seemed equally a part of what he believed was a providential +intercession, that on arriving at the station he found there was a +vacant seat inside the coach. It was diagonally opposite that occupied +by the lady, and he was thus enabled to study her face as it was bent +over her book, whose pages, however, she scarcely turned. After her +first casual glance of curiosity at the new passenger, she seemed to +take no more notice of him, and Key began to wonder if he had not +mistaken her previous interrogating look. Nor was it his only +disturbing query; he was conscious of the same disappointment now that +he could examine her face more attentively, as in his first cursory +glance. She was certainly handsome; if there was no longer the +freshness of youth, there was still the indefinable charm of the woman +of thirty, and with it the delicate curves of matured muliebrity and +repose. There were lines, particularly around the mouth and fringed +eyelids, that were deepened as by pain; and the chin, even in its +rounded fullness, had the angle of determination. From what was +visible, below the brown linen duster that she wore, she appeared to be +tastefully although not richly dressed. + +As the coach at last drove away from the station, a grizzled, +farmer-looking man seated beside her uttered a sigh of relief, so +palpable as to attract the general attention. Turning to his fair +neighbor with a smile of uncouth but good-humored apology, he said in +explanation:-- + +"You'll excuse me, miss! I don't know ezactly how YOU'RE feelin',--for +judging from your looks and gin'ral gait, you're a stranger in these +parts,--but ez for ME, I don't mind sayin' that I never feel ezactly +safe from these yer road agents and stage robbers ontil arter we pass +Skinner's station. All along thet Galloper's Ridge it's jest tech and +go like; the woods is swarmin' with 'em. But once past Skinner's, +you're all right. They never dare go below that. So ef you don't +mind, miss, for it's bein' in your presence, I'll jest pull off my +butes and ease my feet for a spell." + +Neither the inconsequence of this singular request, nor the smile it +evoked on the faces of the other passengers, seemed to disturb the +lady's abstraction. Scarcely lifting her eyes from her book, she bowed +a grave assent. + +"You see, miss," he continued, "and you gents," he added, taking the +whole coach into his confidence, "I've got over forty ounces of clean +gold dust in them butes, between the upper and lower sole,--and it's +mighty tight packing for my feet. Ye kin heft it," he said, as he +removed one boot and held it up before them. "I put the dust there for +safety--kalkilatin' that while these road gentry allus goes for a man's +pockets and his body belt, they never thinks of his butes, or haven't +time to go through 'em." He looked around him with a smile of +self-satisfaction. + +The murmur of admiring comment was, however, broken by a burly-bearded +miner who sat in the middle seat. "Thet's pretty fair, as far as it +goes," he said smilingly, "but I reckon it wouldn't go far ef you +started to run. I've got a simpler game than that, gentlemen, and ez +we're all friends here, and the danger's over, I don't mind tellin' ye. +The first thing these yer road agents do, after they've covered the +driver with their shot guns, is to make the passengers get out and hold +up their hands. That, ma'am,"--explanatorily to the lady, who betrayed +only a languid interest,--"is to keep 'em from drawing their revolvers. +A revolver is the last thing a road agent wants, either in a man's hand +or in his holster. So I sez to myself, 'Ef a six-shooter ain't of no +account, wet's the use of carryin' it?' So I just put my shooting-iron +in my valise when I travel, and fill my holster with my gold dust, so! +It's a deuced sight heavier than a revolver, but they don't feel its +weight, and don't keer to come nigh it. And I've been 'held up' twice +on t'other side of the Divide this year, and I passed free every time!" + +The applause that followed this revelation and the exhibition of the +holster not only threw the farmer's exploits into the shade, but seemed +to excite an emulation among the passengers. Other methods of securing +their property were freely discussed; but the excitement culminated in +the leaning forward of a passenger who had, up to that moment, +maintained a reserve almost equal to the fair unknown. His dress and +general appearance were those of a professional man; his voice and +manner corroborated the presumption. + +"I don't think, gentlemen," he began with a pleasant smile, "that any +man of us here would like to be called a coward; but in fighting with +an enemy who never attacks, or even appears, except with a deliberately +prepared advantage on his side, it is my opinion that a man is not only +justified in avoiding an unequal encounter with him, but in +circumventing by every means the object of his attack. You have all +been frank in telling your methods. I will be equally so in telling +mine, even if I have perhaps to confess to a little more than you have; +for I have not only availed myself of a well-known rule of the robbers +who infest these mountains, to exempt all women and children from their +spoliation,--a rule which, of course, they perfectly understand gives +them a sentimental consideration with all Californians,--but I have, I +confess, also availed myself of the innocent kindness of one of that +charming and justly exempted sex." He paused and bowed courteously to +the fair unknown. "When I entered this coach I had with me a bulky +parcel which was manifestly too large for my pockets, yet as evidently +too small and too valuable to be intrusted to the ordinary luggage. +Seeing my difficulty, our charming companion opposite, out of the very +kindness and innocence of her heart, offered to make a place for it in +her satchel, which was not full. I accepted the offer joyfully. When +I state to you, gentlemen, that that package contained valuable +government bonds to a considerable amount, I do so, not to claim your +praise for any originality of my own, but to make this public avowal to +our fair fellow passenger for securing to me this most perfect security +and immunity from the road agent that has been yet recorded." + +With his eyes riveted on the lady's face, Key saw a faint color rise to +her otherwise impassive face, which might have been called out by the +enthusiastic praise that followed the lawyer's confession. But he was +painfully conscious of what now seemed to him a monstrous situation! +Here was, he believed, the actual accomplice of the road agents calmly +receiving the complacent and puerile confessions of the men who were +seeking to outwit them. Could he, in ordinary justice to them, to +himself, or the mission he conceived he was pursuing, refrain from +exposing her, or warning them privately? But was he certain? Was a +vague remembrance of a profile momentarily seen--and, as he must even +now admit, inconsistent with the full face he was gazing at--sufficient +for such an accusation? More than that, was the protection she had +apparently afforded the lawyer consistent with the function of an +accomplice! + +"Then if the danger's over," said the lady gently, reaching down to +draw her satchel from under the seat, "I suppose I may return it to +you." + +"By no means! Don't trouble yourself! Pray allow me to still remain +your debtor,--at least as far as the next station," said the lawyer +gallantly. + +The lady uttered a languid sigh, sank back in her seat, and calmly +settled herself to the perusal of her book. Key felt his cheeks +beginning to burn with the embarrassment and shame of his evident +misconception. And here he was on his way to Marysville, to follow a +woman for whom he felt he no longer cared, and for whose pursuit he had +no longer the excuse of justice. + +"Then I understand that you have twice seen these road agents," said +the professional man, turning to the miner. "Of course, you could be +able to identify them?" + +"Nary a man! You see they're all masked, and only one of 'em ever +speaks." + +"The leader or chief?" + +"No, the orator." + +"The orator?" repeated the professional man in amazement. + +"Well, you see, I call him the orator, for he's mighty glib with his +tongue, and reels off all he has to say like as if he had it by heart. +He's mighty rough on you, too, sometimes, for all his high-toned style. +Ef he thinks a man is hidin' anything he jest scalps him with his +tongue, and blamed if I don't think he likes the chance of doin' it. +He's got a regular set speech, and he's bound to go through it all, +even if he makes everything wait, and runs the risk of capture. Yet he +ain't the chief,--and even I've heard folks say ain't got any +responsibility if he is took, for he don't tech anybody or anybody's +money, and couldn't be prosecuted. I reckon he's some sort of a +broken-down lawyer--d'ye see?" + +"Not much of a lawyer, I imagine," said the professional man, smiling, +"for he'll find himself quite mistaken as to his share of +responsibility. But it's a rather clever way of concealing the +identity of the real leader." + +"It's the smartest gang that was ever started in the Sierras. They +fooled the sheriff of Sierra the other day. They gave him a sort of +idea that they had a kind of hidin'-place in the woods whar they met +and kept their booty, and, by jinks! he goes down thar with his hull +posse,--just spilin' for a fight,--and only lights upon a gang of +innocent greenhorns, who were boring for silver on the very spot where +he allowed the robbers had their den! He ain't held up his head since." + +Key cast a quick glance at the lady to see the effect of this +revelation. But her face--if the same profile he had seen at the +window--betrayed neither concern nor curiosity. He let his eyes drop +to the smart boot that peeped from below her gown, and the thought of +his trying to identify it with the slipper he had picked up seemed to +him as ridiculous as his other misconceptions. He sank back gloomily +in his seat; by degrees the fatigue and excitement of the day began to +mercifully benumb his senses; twilight had fallen and the talk had +ceased. The lady had allowed her book to drop in her lap as the +darkness gathered, and had closed her eyes; he closed his own, and +slipped away presently into a dream, in which he saw the profile again +as he had seen it in the darkness of the hollow, only that this time it +changed to a full face, unlike the lady's or any one he had ever seen. +Then the window seemed to open with a rattle, and he again felt the +cool odors of the forest; but he awoke to find that the lady had only +opened her window for a breath of fresh air. It was nearly eight o' +clock; it would be an hour yet before the coach stopped at the next +station for supper; the passengers were drowsily nodding; he closed his +eyes and fell into a deeper sleep, from which he awoke with a start. + +The coach had stopped! + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +"It can't be Three Pines yet," said a passenger's voice, in which the +laziness of sleep still lingered, "or else we've snoozed over five +mile. I don't see no lights; wot are we stoppin' for?" The other +passengers struggled to an upright position. One nearest the window +opened it; its place was instantly occupied by the double muzzle of a +shot-gun! No one moved. In the awestricken silence the voice of the +driver rose in drawling protestation. + +"It ain't no business o' mine, but it sorter strikes me that you chaps +are a-playin' it just a little too fine this time! It ain't three +miles from Three Pine Station and forty men. Of course, that's your +lookout,--not mine!" + +The audacity of the thing had evidently struck even the usually +taciturn and phlegmatic driver into his first expostulation on record. + +"Your thoughtful consideration does you great credit," said a voice +from the darkness, "and shall be properly presented to our manager; but +at the same time we wish it understood that we do not hesitate to take +any risks in strict attention to our business and our clients. In the +mean time you will expedite matters, and give your passengers a chance +to get an early tea at Three Pines, by handing down that treasure-box +and mail-pouch. Be careful in handling that blunderbuss you keep +beside it; the last time it unfortunately went off, and I regret to say +slightly wounded one of your passengers. Accidents of this kind, +interfering, as they do, with the harmony and pleasure of our chance +meetings, cannot be too highly deplored." + +"By gosh!" ejaculated an outside passenger in an audible whisper. + +"Thank you, sir," said the voice quietly; "but as I overlooked you, I +will trouble you now to descend with the others." + +The voice moved nearer; and, by the light of a flaming bull's-eye cast +upon the coach, it could be seen to come from a stout, medium-sized man +with a black mask, which, however, showed half of a smooth, beardless +face, and an affable yet satirical mouth. The speaker cleared his +throat with the slight preparatory cough of the practiced orator, and, +approaching the window, to Key's intense surprise, actually began in +the identical professional and rhetorical style previously indicated by +the miner. + +"Circumstances over which we have no control, gentlemen, compel us to +oblige you to alight, stand in a row on one side, and hold up your +hands. You will find the attitude not unpleasant after your cramped +position in the coach, while the change from its confined air to the +wholesome night-breeze of the Sierras cannot but prove salutary and +refreshing. It will also enable us to relieve you of such so-called +valuables and treasures in the way of gold dust and coin, which I +regret to say too often are misapplied in careless hands, and which the +teachings of the highest morality distinctly denominate as the root of +all evil! I need not inform you, gentlemen, as business men, that +promptitude and celerity of compliance will insure dispatch, and +shorten an interview which has been sometimes needlessly, and, I regret +to say, painfully protracted." + +He drew back deliberately with the same monotonous precision of habit, +and disclosed the muzzles of his confederates' weapons still leveled at +the passengers. In spite of their astonishment, indignation, and +discomfiture, his practiced effrontery and deliberate display appeared +in some way to touch their humorous sense, and one or two smiled +hysterically, as they rose and hesitatingly filed out of the vehicle. +It is possible, however, that the leveled shot-guns contributed more or +less directly to this result. + +Two masks began to search the passengers under the combined focus of +the bull's-eyes, the shining gun-barrels, and a running but still +carefully prepared commentary from the spokesman. "It is to be +regretted that business men, instead of intrusting their property to +the custody of the regularly constituted express agent, still continue +to secrete it on their persons; a custom that, without enhancing its +security, is not only an injustice to the express company, but a great +detriment to dispatch. We also wish to point out that while we do not +as a rule interfere with the possession of articles of ordinary +personal use or adornment, such as simple jewelry or watches, we +reserve our right to restrict by confiscation the vulgarity and +unmanliness of diamonds and enormous fob chains." + +The act of spoliation was apparently complete, yet it was evident that +the orator was restraining himself for a more effective climax. +Clearing his throat again and stepping before the impatient but still +mystified file of passengers, he reviewed them gravely. Then in a +perfectly pitched tone of mingled pain and apology, he said slowly:-- + +"It would seem that, from no wish of our own, we are obliged on this +present occasion to suspend one or two of our usual rules. We are not +in the habit of interfering with the wearing apparel of our esteemed +clients; but in the interests of ordinary humanity we are obliged to +remove the boots of the gentleman on the extreme left, which evidently +give him great pain and impede his locomotion. We also seldom deviate +from our rule of obliging our clients to hold up their hands during +this examination; but we gladly make an exception in favor of the +gentleman next to him, and permit him to hand us the altogether too +heavily weighted holster which presses upon his hip. Gentlemen," said +the orator, slightly raising his voice, with a deprecating gesture, +"you need not be alarmed! The indignant movement of our friend, just +now, was not to draw his revolver,--for it isn't there!" He paused +while his companions speedily removed the farmer's boots and the +miner's holster, and with a still more apologetic air approached the +coach, where only the lady remained erect and rigid in her corner. +"And now," he said with simulated hesitation, "we come to the last and +to us the most painful suspension of our rules. On these very rare +occasions, when we have been honored with the presence of the fair sex, +it has been our invariable custom not only to leave them in the +undisturbed possession of their property, but even of their privacy as +well. It is with deep regret that on this occasion we are obliged to +make an exception. For in the present instance, the lady, out of the +gentleness of her heart and the politeness of her sex, has burdened +herself not only with the weight but the responsibility of a package +forced upon her by one of the passengers. We feel, and we believe, +gentlemen, that most of you will agree with us, that so scandalous and +unmanly an attempt to evade our rules and violate the sanctity of the +lady's immunity will never be permitted. For your own sake, madam, we +are compelled to ask you for the satchel under your seat. It will be +returned to you when the package is removed." + +"One moment," said the professional man indignantly, "there is a man +here whom you have spared,--a man who lately joined us. Is that man," +pointing to the astonished Key, "one of your confederates?" + +"That man," returned the spokesman with a laugh, "is the owner of the +Sylvan Hollow Mine. We have spared him because we owe him some +consideration for having been turned out of his house at the dead of +night while the sheriff of Sierra was seeking us." He stopped, and +then in an entirely different voice, and in a totally changed manner, +said roughly, "Tumble in there, all of you, quick! And you, sir" (to +Key),--"I'd advise you to ride outside. Now, driver, raise so much as +a rein or a whiplash until you hear the signal--and by God! you'll know +what next." He stepped back, and seemed to be instantly swallowed up +in the darkness; but the light of a solitary bull's-eye--the holder +himself invisible--still showed the muzzles of the guns covering the +driver. There was a momentary stir of voices within the closed coach, +but an angry roar of "Silence!" from the darkness hushed it. + +The moments crept slowly by; all now were breathless. Then a clear +whistle rang from the distance, the light suddenly was extinguished, +the leveled muzzles vanished with it, the driver's lash fell +simultaneously on the backs of his horses, and the coach leaped forward. + +The jolt nearly threw Key from the top, but a moment later it was still +more difficult to keep his seat in the headlong fury of their progress. +Again and again the lash descended upon the maddened horses, until the +whole coach seemed to leap, bound, and swerve with every stroke. Cries +of protest and even distress began to come from the interior, but the +driver heeded it not. A window was suddenly let down; the voice of the +professional man saying, "What's the matter? We're not followed. You +are imperiling our lives by this speed," was answered only by, "Will +some of ye throttle that d--d fool?" from the driver, and the renewed +fall of the lash. The wayside trees appeared a solid plateau before +them, opened, danced at their side, closed up again behind them,--but +still they sped along. Rushing down grades with the speed of an +avalanche, they ascended again without drawing rein, and as if by sheer +momentum; for the heavy vehicle now seemed to have a diabolical energy +of its own. It ground scattered rocks to powder with its crushing +wheels, it swayed heavily on ticklish corners, recovering itself with +the resistless forward propulsion of the straining teams, until the +lights of Three Pine Station began to glitter through the trees. Then +a succession of yells broke from the driver, so strong and dominant +that they seemed to outstrip even the speed of the unabated cattle. +Lesser lights were presently seen running to and fro, and on the +outermost fringe of the settlement the stage pulled up before a crowd +of wondering faces, and the driver spoke. + +"We've been held up on the open road, by G--d, not THREE MILES from +whar ye men are sittin' here yawpin'! If thar's a man among ye that +hasn't got the soul of a skunk, he'll foller and close in upon 'em +before they have a chance to get into the brush." Having thus relieved +himself of his duty as an enforced noncombatant, and allowed all +further responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow employees, +he relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less +recklessly to the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and +discomfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could not help +perceiving that neither the late "orator's" explanation of his +exemption from their fate, nor the driver's surly corroboration of his +respectability, had pacified them. For a time this amused him, +particularly as he could not help remembering that he first appeared to +them beside the mysterious horseman who some one thought had been +identified as one of the masks. But he was not a little piqued to find +that the fair unknown appeared to participate in their feelings, and +his first civility to her met with a chilling response. Even then, in +the general disillusion of his romance regarding her, this would have +been only a momentary annoyance; but it strangely revived all his +previous suspicions, and set him to thinking. Was the singular +sagacity displayed by the orator in his search purely intuitive? Could +any one have disclosed to him the secret of the passengers' hoards? +Was it possible for HER while sitting alone in the coach to have +communicated with the band? Suddenly the remembrance flashed across +him of her opening the window for fresh air! She could have easily +then dropped some signal. If this were so, and she really was the +culprit, it was quite natural for her own safety that she should +encourage the passengers in the absurd suspicion of himself! His dying +interest revived; a few moments ago he had half resolved to abandon his +quest and turn back at Three Pines. Now he determined to follow her to +the end. But he did not indulge in any further sophistry regarding his +duty; yet, in a new sense of honor, he did not dream of retaliating +upon her by communicating his suspicions to his fellow passengers. +When the coach started again, he took his seat on the top, and remained +there until they reached Jamestown in the early evening. Here a number +of his despoiled companions were obliged to wait, to communicate with +their friends. Happily, the exemption that had made them indignant +enabled him to continue his journey with a full purse. But he was +content with a modest surveillance of the lady from the top of the +coach. + +On arriving at Stockton this surveillance became less easy. It was the +terminus of the stage-route, and the divergence of others by boat and +rail. If he were lucky enough to discover which one the lady took, his +presence now would be more marked, and might excite her suspicion. But +here a circumstance, which he also believed to be providential, +determined him. As the luggage was being removed from the top of the +coach, he overheard the agent tell the expressman to check the "lady's" +trunk to San Luis. Key was seized with an idea which seemed to solve +the difficulty, although it involved a risk of losing the clue +entirely. There were two routes to San Luis, one was by stage, and +direct, though slower; the other by steamboat and rail, via San +Francisco. If he took the boat, there was less danger of her +discovering him, even if she chose the same conveyance; if she took the +direct stage,--and he trusted to a woman's avoidance of the hurry of +change and transshipment for that choice,--he would still arrive at San +Luis, via San Francisco, an hour before her. He resolved to take the +boat; a careful scrutiny from a stateroom window of the arriving +passengers on the gangplank satisfied him that she had preferred the +stage. There was still the chance that in losing sight of her she +might escape him, but the risk seemed small. And a trifling +circumstance had almost unconsciously influenced him--after his +romantic and superstitious fashion--as to this final step. + +He had been singularly moved when he heard that San Luis was the lady's +probable destination. It did not seem to bear any relation to the +mountain wilderness and the wild life she had just quitted; it was +apparently the most antipathic, incongruous, and inconsistent refuge +she could have taken. It offered no opportunity for the disposal of +booty, or for communication with the gang. It was less secure than a +crowded town. An old Spanish mission and monastery college in a sleepy +pastoral plain,--it had even retained its old-world flavor amidst +American improvements and social revolution. He knew it well. From +the quaint college cloisters, where the only reposeful years of his +adventurous youth had been spent, to the long Alameda, or double +avenues of ancient trees, which connected it with the convent of Santa +Luisa, and some of his youthful "devotions,"--it had been the nursery +of his romance. He was amused at what seemed to be the irony of fate, +in now linking it with this folly of his maturer manhood; and yet he +was uneasily conscious of being more seriously affected by it. And it +was with a greater anxiety than this adventure had ever yet cost him +that he at last arrived at the San Jose hotel, and from a balcony +corner awaited the coming of the coach. His heart beat rapidly as it +approached. She was there! But at her side, as she descended from the +coach, was the mysterious horseman of the Sierra road. Key could not +mistake the well-built figure, whatever doubt there had been about the +features, which had been so carefully concealed. With the astonishment +of this rediscovery, there flashed across him again the fatefulness of +the inspiration which had decided him not to go in the coach. His +presence there would have no doubt warned the stranger, and so estopped +this convincing denouement. It was quite possible that her companion, +by relays of horses and the advantage of bridle cut-offs, could have +easily followed the Three Pine coach and joined her at Stockton. But +for what purpose? The lady's trunk, which had not been disturbed +during the first part of the journey, and had been forwarded at +Stockton untouched before Key's eyes, could not have contained booty to +be disposed of in this forgotten old town. + +The register of the hotel bore simply the name of "Mrs. Barker," of +Stockton, but no record of her companion, who seemed to have +disappeared as mysteriously as he came. That she occupied a +sitting-room on the same floor as his own--in which she was apparently +secluded during the rest of the day--was all he knew. Nobody else +seemed to know her. Key felt an odd hesitation, that might have been +the result of some vague fear of implicating her prematurely, in making +any marked inquiry, or imperiling his secret by the bribed espionage of +servants. Once when he was passing her door he heard the sounds of +laughter,--albeit innocent and heart-free,--which seemed so +inconsistent with the gravity of the situation and his own thoughts +that he was strangely shocked. But he was still more disturbed by a +later occurrence. In his watchfulness of the movements of his neighbor +he had been equally careful of his own, and had not only refrained from +registering his name, but had enjoined secrecy upon the landlord, whom +he knew. Yet the next morning after his arrival, the porter not +answering his bell promptly enough, he so far forgot himself as to walk +to the staircase, which was near the lady's room, and call to the +employee over the balustrade. As he was still leaning over the +railing, the faint creak of a door, and a singular magnetic +consciousness of being overlooked, caused him to turn slowly, but only +in time to hear the rustle of a withdrawing skirt as the door was +quickly closed. In an instant he felt the full force of his foolish +heedlessness, but it was too late. Had the mysterious fugitive +recognized him? Perhaps not; their eyes had not met, and his face had +been turned away. + +He varied his espionage by subterfuges, which his knowledge of the old +town made easy. He watched the door of the hotel, himself unseen, from +the windows of a billiard saloon opposite, which he had frequented in +former days. Yet he was surprised the same afternoon to see her, from +his coigne of vantage, reentering the hotel, where he was sure he had +left her a few moments ago. Had she gone out by some other exit,--or +had she been disguised? But on entering his room that evening he was +confounded by an incident that seemed to him as convincing of her +identity as it was audacious. Lying on his pillow were a few dead +leaves of an odorous mountain fern, known only to the Sierras. They +were tied together by a narrow blue ribbon, and had evidently been +intended to attract his attention. As he took them in his hand, the +distinguishing subtle aroma of the little sylvan hollow in the hills +came to him like a memory and a revelation! He summoned the +chambermaid; she knew nothing of them, or indeed of any one who had +entered his room. He walked cautiously into the hall; the lady's +sitting-room door was open, the room was empty. "The occupant," said +the chambermaid, "had left that afternoon." He held the proof of her +identity in his hand, but she herself had vanished! That she had +recognized him there was now no doubt: had she divined the real object +of his quest, or had she accepted it as a mere sentimental gallantry at +the moment when she knew it was hopeless, and she herself was perfectly +safe from pursuit? In either event he had been duped. He did not know +whether to be piqued, angry,--or relieved of his irresolute quest. + +Nevertheless, he spent the rest of the twilight and the early evening +in fruitlessly wandering through the one long thoroughfare of the town, +until it merged into the bosky Alameda, or spacious grove, that +connected it with Santa Luisa. By degrees his chagrin and +disappointment were forgotten in the memories of the past, evoked by +the familiar pathway. The moon was slowly riding overhead, and +silvering the carriage-way between the straight ebony lines of trees, +while the footpaths were diapered with black and white checkers. The +faint tinkling of a tram-car bell in the distance apprised him of one +of the few innovations of the past. The car was approaching him, +overtook him, and was passing, with its faintly illuminated windows, +when, glancing carelessly up, he beheld at one of them the profile of +the face which he had just thought he had lost forever! + +He stopped for an instant, not in indecision this time, but in a grim +resolution to let no chance escape him now. The car was going slowly; +it was easy to board it now, but again the tinkle of the bell indicated +that it was stopping at the corner of a road beyond. He checked his +pace,--a lady alighted,--it was she! She turned into the cross-street, +darkened with the shadows of some low suburban tenement houses, and he +boldly followed. He was fully determined to find out her secret, and +even, if necessary, to accost her for that purpose. He was perfectly +aware what he was doing, and all its risks and penalties; he knew the +audacity of such an introduction, but he felt in his left-hand pocket +for the sprig of fern which was an excuse for it; he knew the danger of +following a possible confidante of desperadoes, but he felt in his +right-hand pocket for the derringer that was equal to it. They were +both there; he was ready. + +He was nearing the convent and the oldest and most ruinous part of the +town. He did not disguise from himself the gloomy significance of +this; even in the old days the crumbling adobe buildings that abutted +on the old garden wall of the convent were the haunts of lawless +Mexicans and vagabond peons. As the roadway began to be rough and +uneven, and the gaunt outlines of the sagging roofs of tiles stood out +against the sky above the lurking shadows of ruined doorways, he was +prepared for the worst. As the crumbling but still massive walls of +the convent garden loomed ahead, the tall, graceful, black-gowned +figure he was following presently turned into the shadow of the wall +itself. He quickened his pace, lest it should again escape him. +Suddenly it stopped, and remained motionless. He stopped, too. At the +same moment it vanished! + +He ran quickly forward to where it had stood, and found himself before +a large iron gate, with a smaller one in the centre, that had just +clanged to on its rusty hinges. He rubbed his eyes!--the place, the +gate, the wall, were all strangely familiar! Then he stepped back into +the roadway, and looked at it again. He was not mistaken. + +He was standing before the porter's lodge of the Convent of the Sacred +Heart. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +The day following the great stagecoach robbery found the patient +proprietor of Collinson's Mill calm and untroubled in his usual +seclusion. The news that had thrilled the length and breadth of +Galloper's Ridge had not touched the leafy banks of the dried-up river; +the hue and cry had followed the stage-road, and no courier had deemed +it worth his while to diverge as far as the rocky ridge which formed +the only pathway to the mill. That day Collinson's solitude had been +unbroken even by the haggard emigrant from the valley, with his old +monotonous story of hardship and privation. The birds had flown nearer +to the old mill, as if emboldened by the unwonted quiet. That morning +there had been the half human imprint of a bear's foot in the ooze +beside the mill-wheel; and coming home with his scant stock from the +woodland pasture, he had found a golden squirrel--a beautiful, airy +embodiment of the brown woods itself--calmly seated on his bar-counter, +with a biscuit between its baby hands. He was full of his +characteristic reveries and abstractions that afternoon; falling into +them even at his wood-pile, leaning on his axe--so still that an +emerald-throated lizard, who had slid upon the log, went to sleep under +the forgotten stroke. + +But at nightfall the wind arose,--at first as a distant murmur along +the hillside, that died away before it reached the rocky ledge; then it +rocked the tops of the tall redwoods behind the mill, but left the mill +and the dried leaves that lay in the river-bed undisturbed. Then the +murmur was prolonged, until it became the continuous trouble of some +far-off sea, and at last the wind possessed the ledge itself; driving +the smoke down the stumpy chimney of the mill, rattling the sun-warped +shingles on the roof, stirring the inside rafters with cool breaths, +and singing over the rough projections of the outside eaves. At nine +o'clock he rolled himself up in his blankets before the fire, as was +his wont, and fell asleep. + +It was past midnight when he was awakened by the familiar clatter of +boulders down the grade, the usual simulation of a wild rush from +without that encompassed the whole mill, even to that heavy impact +against the door, which he had heard once before. In this he +recognized merely the ordinary phenomena of his experience, and only +turned over to sleep again. But this time the door rudely fell in upon +him, and a figure strode over his prostrate body, with a gun leveled at +his head. + +He sprang sideways for his own weapon, which stood by the hearth. In +another second that action would have been his last, and the solitude +of Seth Collinson might have remained henceforward unbroken by any +mortal. But the gun of the first figure was knocked sharply upward by +a second man, and the one and only shot fired that night sped +harmlessly to the roof. With the report he felt his arms gripped +tightly behind him; through the smoke he saw dimly that the room was +filled with masked and armed men, and in another moment he was pinioned +and thrust into his empty armchair. At a signal three of the men left +the room, and he could hear them exploring the other rooms and +outhouses. Then the two men who had been standing beside him fell back +with a certain disciplined precision, as a smooth-chinned man advanced +from the open door. Going to the bar, he poured out a glass of whiskey, +tossed it off deliberately, and, standing in front of Collinson, with +his shoulder against the chimney and his hand resting lightly on his +hip, cleared his throat. Had Collinson been an observant man, he would +have noticed that the two men dropped their eyes and moved their feet +with a half impatient, perfunctory air of waiting. Had he witnessed +the stage-robbery, he would have recognized in the smooth-faced man the +presence of "the orator." But he only gazed at him with his dull, +imperturbable patience. + +"We regret exceedingly to have to use force to a gentleman in his own +house," began the orator blandly; "but we feel it our duty to prevent a +repetition of the unhappy incident which occurred as we entered. We +desire that you should answer a few questions, and are deeply grateful +that you are still able to do so,--which seemed extremely improbable a +moment or two ago." He paused, coughed, and leaned back against the +chimney. "How many men have you here besides yourself?" + +"Nary one," said Collinson. + +The interrogator glanced at the other men, who had reentered. They +nodded significantly. + +"Good!" he resumed. "You have told the truth--an excellent habit, and +one that expedites business. Now, is there a room in this house with a +door that locks? Your front door DOESN'T." + +"No." + +"No cellar nor outhouse?" + +"No." + +"We regret that; for it will compel us, much against our wishes, to +keep you bound as you are for the present. The matter is simply this: +circumstances of a very pressing nature oblige us to occupy this house +for a few days,--possibly for an indefinite period. We respect the +sacred rites of hospitality too much to turn you out of it; indeed, +nothing could be more distasteful to our feelings than to have you, in +your own person, spread such a disgraceful report through the +chivalrous Sierras. We must therefore keep you a close +prisoner,--open, however, to an offer. It is this: we propose to give +you five hundred dollars for this property as it stands, provided that +you leave it, and accompany a pack-train which will start to-morrow +morning for the lower valley as far as Thompson's Pass, binding +yourself to quit the State for three months and keep this matter a +secret. Three of these gentlemen will go with you. They will point out +to you your duty; their shotguns will apprise you of any dereliction +from it. What do you say?" + +"Who yer talking to?" said Collinson in a dull voice. + +"You remind us," said the orator suavely, "that we have not yet the +pleasure of knowing." + +"My name's Seth Collinson." + +There was a dead silence in the room, and every eye was fixed upon the +two men. The orator's smile slightly stiffened. + +"Where from?" he continued blandly. + +"Mizzouri." + +"A very good place to go back to,--through Thompson's Pass. But you +haven't answered our proposal." + +"I reckon I don't intend to sell this house, or leave it," said +Collinson simply. + +"I trust you will not make us regret the fortunate termination of your +little accident, Mr. Collinson," said the orator with a singular smile. +"May I ask why you object to selling out? Is it the figure?" + +"The house isn't mine," said Collinson deliberately. "I built this yer +house for my wife wot I left in Mizzouri. It's hers. I kalkilate to +keep it, and live in it ontil she comes fur it! And when I tell ye +that she is dead, ye kin reckon just what chance ye have of ever +gettin' it." + +There was an unmistakable start of sensation in the room, followed by a +silence so profound that the moaning of the wind on the mountain-side +was distinctly heard. A well-built man, with a mask that scarcely +concealed his heavy mustachios, who had been standing with his back to +the orator in half contemptuous patience, faced around suddenly and +made a step forward as if to come between the questioner and +questioned. A voice from the corner ejaculated, "By G--d!" + +"Silence," said the orator sharply. Then still more harshly he turned +to the others "Pick him up, and stand him outside with a guard; and +then clear out, all of you!" + +The prisoner was lifted up and carried out; the room was instantly +cleared; only the orator and the man who had stepped forward remained. +Simultaneously they drew the masks from their faces, and stood looking +at each other. The orator's face was smooth and corrupt; the full, +sensual lips wrinkled at the corners with a sardonic humor; the man who +confronted him appeared to be physically and even morally his superior, +albeit gloomy and discontented in expression. He cast a rapid glance +around the room, to assure himself that they were alone; and then, +straightening his eyebrows as he backed against the chimney, said:-- + +"D--d if I like this, Chivers! It's your affair; but it's mighty +low-down work for a man!" + +"You might have made it easier if you hadn't knocked up Bryce's gun. +That would have settled it, though no one guessed that the cur was her +husband," said Chivers hotly. + +"If you want it settled THAT WAY, there's still time," returned the +other with a slight sneer. "You've only to tell him that you're the +man that ran away with his wife, and you'll have it out together, right +on the ledge at twelve paces. The boys will see you through. In +fact," he added, his sneer deepening, "I rather think it's what they're +expecting." + +"Thank you, Mr. Jack Riggs," said Chivers sardonically. "I dare say it +would be more convenient to some people, just before our booty is +divided, if I were drilled through by a blundering shot from that +hayseed; or it would seem right to your high-toned chivalry if a +dead-shot as I am knocked over a man who may have never fired a +revolver before; but I don't exactly see it in that light, either as a +man or as your equal partner. I don't think you quite understand me, +my dear Jack. If you don't value the only man who is identified in all +California as the leader of this gang (the man whose style and address +has made it popular--yes, POPULAR, by G--d!--to every man, woman, and +child who has heard of him; whose sayings and doings are quoted by the +newspapers; whom people run risks to see; who has got the sympathy of +the crowd, so that judges hesitate to issue warrants and constables to +serve them),--if YOU don't see the use of such a man, I do. Why, +there's a column and a half in the 'Sacramento Union' about our last +job, calling me the 'Claude Duval' of the Sierras, and speaking of my +courtesy to a lady! A LADY!--HIS wife, by G--d! our confederate! My +dear Jack, you not only don't know business values, but, 'pon my soul, +you don't seem to understand humor! Ha, ha!" + +For all his cynical levity, for all his affected exaggeration, there +was the ring of an unmistakable and even pitiable vanity in his voice, +and a self-consciousness that suffused his broad cheeks and writhed his +full mouth, but seemed to deepen the frown on Riggs's face. + +"You know the woman hates it, and would bolt if she could,--even from +you," said Riggs gloomily. "Think what she might do if she knew her +husband were here. I tell you she holds our lives in the hollow of her +hand." + +"That's your fault, Mr. Jack Riggs; you would bring your sister with +her infernal convent innocence and simplicity into our hut in the +hollow. She was meek enough before that. But this is sheer nonsense. +I have no fear of her. The woman don't live who would go back on +Godfrey Chivers--for a husband! Besides, she went off to see your +sister at the convent at Santa Clara as soon as she passed those bonds +off on Charley to get rid of! Think of her traveling with that d--d +fool lawyer all the way to Stockton, and his bonds (which we had put +back in her bag) alongside of them all the time, and he telling her he +was going to stop their payment, and giving her the letter to mail for +him!--eh? Well, we'll have time to get rid of her husband before she +gets back. If he don't go easy--well"-- + +"None of that, Chivers, you understand, once for all!" interrupted +Riggs peremptorily. "If you cannot see that your making away with that +woman's husband would damn that boasted reputation you make so much of +and set every man's hand against us, I do, and I won't permit it. It's +a rotten business enough,--our coming on him as we have; and if this +wasn't the only God-forsaken place where we could divide our stuff +without danger and get it away off the highroads, I'd pull up stakes at +once." + +"Let her stay at the convent, then, and be d--d to her," said Chivers +roughly. "She'll be glad enough to be with your sister again; and +there's no fear of her being touched there." + +"But I want to put an end to that, too," returned Riggs sharply. "I do +not choose to have my sister any longer implicated with OUR confederate +or YOUR mistress. No more of that--you understand me?" + +The two men had been standing side by side, leaning against the +chimney. Chivers now faced his companion, his full lips wreathed into +an evil smile. + +"I think I understand you, Mr. Jack Riggs, or--I beg your +pardon--Rivers, or whatever your real name may be," he began slowly. +"Sadie Collinson, the mistress of Judge Godfrey Chivers, formerly of +Kentucky, was good enough company for you the day you dropped down upon +us in our little house in the hollow of Galloper's Ridge. We were +living quite an idyllic, pastoral life there, weren't we?--she and me; +hidden from the censorious eye of society and--Collinson, obeying only +the voice of Nature and the little birds. It was a happy time," he went +on with a grimly affected sigh, disregarding his companion's impatient +gesture. "You were young then, waging YOUR fight against society, and +fresh--uncommonly fresh, I may say--from your first exploit. And a +very stupid, clumsy, awkward exploit, too, Mr. Riggs, if you will +pardon my freedom. You wanted money, and you had an ugly temper, and +you had lost both to a gambler; so you stopped the coach to rob him, +and had to kill two men to get back your paltry thousand dollars, after +frightening a whole coach-load of passengers, and letting Wells, Fargo, +and Co.'s treasure-box with fifty thousand dollars in it slide. It was +a stupid, a blundering, a CRUEL act, Mr. Riggs, and I think I told you +so at the time. It was a waste of energy and material, and made you, +not a hero, but a stupid outcast! I think I proved this to you, and +showed you how it might have been done." + +"Dry up on that," interrupted Riggs impatiently. "You offered to +become my partner, and you did." + +"Pardon me. Observe, my impetuous friend, that my contention is that +you--YOU--poisoned our blameless Eden in the hollow; that YOU were our +serpent, and that this Sadie Collinson, over whom you have become so +fastidious, whom you knew as my mistress, was obliged to become our +confederate. You did not object to her when we formed our gang, and +her house became our hiding-place and refuge. You took advantage of +her woman's wit and fine address in disposing of our booty; you availed +yourself, with the rest, of the secrets she gathered as MY mistress, +just as you were willing to profit by the superior address of her +paramour--your humble servant--when your own face was known to the +sheriff, and your old methods pronounced brutal and vulgar. Excuse me, +but I must insist upon THIS, and that you dropped down upon me and +Sadie Collinson exactly as you have dropped down here upon her husband." + +"Enough of this!" said Riggs angrily. "I admit the woman is part and +parcel of the gang, and gets her share,--or you get it for her," he +added sneeringly; "but that doesn't permit her to mix herself with my +family affairs." + +"Pardon me again," interrupted Chivers softly. "Your memory, my dear +Riggs, is absurdly defective. We knew that you had a young sister in +the mountains, from whom you discreetly wished to conceal your real +position. We respected, and I trust shall always respect, your noble +reticence. But do you remember the night you were taking her to school +at Santa Clara,--two nights before the fire,--when you were recognized +on the road near Skinner's, and had to fly with her for your life, and +brought her to us,--your two dear old friends, 'Mr. and Mrs. Barker of +Chicago,' who had a pastoral home in the forest? You remember how we +took her in,--yes, doubly took her in,--and kept your secret from her? +And do you remember how this woman (this mistress of MINE and OUR +confederate), while we were away, saved her from the fire on our only +horse, caught the stage-coach, and brought her to the convent?" + +Riggs walked towards the window, turned, and coming back, held out his +hand. "Yes, she did it; and I thanked her, as I thank you." He stopped +and hesitated, as the other took his hand. "But, blank it all, +Chivers, don't you see that Alice is a young girl, and this woman +is--you know what I mean. Somebody might recognize HER, and that would +be worse for Alice than even if it were known what Alice's BROTHER was. +G--d! if these two things were put together, the girl would be ruined +forever." + +"Jack," said Chivers suddenly, "you want this woman out of the way. +Well--dash it all!--she nearly separated us, and I'll be frank with you +as between man and man. I'll give her up! There are women enough in +the world, and hang it, we're partners, after all!" + +"Then you abandon her?" said Riggs slowly, his eyes fixed on his +companion. + +"Yes. She's getting a little too maundering lately. It will be a +ticklish job to manage, for she knows too much; but it will be done. +There's my hand on it." + +Riggs not only took no notice of the proffered hand, but his former +look of discontent came back with an ill-concealed addition of loathing +and contempt. + +"We'll drop that now," he said shortly; "we've talked here alone long +enough already. The men are waiting for us." He turned on his heel +into the inner room. Chivers remained standing by the chimney until +his stiffened smile gave way under the working of his writhing lips; +then he turned to the bar, poured out and swallowed another glass of +whiskey at a single gulp, and followed his partner with half-closed +lids that scarcely veiled his ominous eyes. + +The men, with the exception of the sentinels stationed on the rocky +ledge and the one who was guarding the unfortunate Collinson, were +drinking and gambling away their perspective gains around a small pile +of portmanteaus and saddle-bags, heaped in the centre of the room. +They contained the results of their last successes, but one pair of +saddle-bags bore the mildewed appearance of having been cached, or +buried, some time before. Most of their treasure was in packages of +gold dust; and from the conversation that ensued, it appeared that, +owing to the difficulties of disposing of it in the mountain towns, the +plan was to convey it by ordinary pack mule to the unfrequented valley, +and thence by an emigrant wagon, on the old emigrant trail, to the +southern counties, where it could be no longer traced. Since the +recent robberies, the local express companies and bankers had refused +to receive it, except the owners were known and identified. There had +been but one box of coin, which had already been speedily divided up +among the band. Drafts, bills, bonds, and valuable papers had been +usually intrusted to one "Charley," who acted as a flying messenger to +a corrupt broker in Sacramento, who played the role of the band's +"fence." It had been the duty of Chivers to control this delicate +business, even as it had been his peculiar function to open all the +letters and documents. This he had always lightened by characteristic +levity and sarcastic comments on the private revelations of the +contents. The rough, ill-spelt letter of the miner to his wife, +inclosing a draft, or the more sentimental effusion of an emigrant +swain to his sweetheart, with the gift of a "specimen," had always +received due attention at the hands of this elegant humorist. But the +operation was conducted to-night with business severity and silence. +The two leaders sat opposite to each other, in what might have appeared +to the rest of the band a scarcely veiled surveillance of each other's +actions. When the examination was concluded, and, the more valuable +inclosures put aside, the despoiled letters were carried to the fire +and heaped upon the coals. Presently the chimney added its roar to the +moaning of the distant hillside, a few sparks leaped up and died out in +the midnight air, as if the pathos and sentiment of the unconscious +correspondents had exhaled with them. + +"That's a d--d foolish thing to do," growled French Pete over his cards. + +"Why?" demanded Chivers sharply. + +"Why?--why, it makes a flare in the sky that any scout can see, and a +scent for him to follow." + +"We're four miles from any traveled road," returned Chivers +contemptuously, "and the man who could see that glare and smell that +smoke would be on his way here already." + +"That reminds me that that chap you've tied up--that Collinson--allows +he wants to see you," continued French Pete. + +"To see ME!" repeated Chivers. "You mean the Captain?" + +"I reckon he means YOU," returned French Pete; "he said the man who +talked so purty." + +The men looked at each other with a smile of anticipation, and put down +their cards. Chivers walked towards the door; one or two rose to their +feet as if to follow, but Riggs stopped them peremptorily. "Sit down," +he said roughly; then, as Chivers passed him, he added to him in a +lower tone, "Remember." + +Slightly squaring his shoulders and opening his coat, to permit a +rhetorical freedom, which did not, however, prevent him from keeping +touch with the butt of his revolver, Chivers stepped into the open air. +Collinson had been moved to the shelter of an overhang of the roof, +probably more for the comfort of the guard, who sat cross-legged on the +ground near him, than for his own. Dismissing the man with a gesture, +Chivers straightened himself before his captive. + +"We deeply regret that your unfortunate determination, my dear sir, has +been the means of depriving US of the pleasure of your company, and YOU +of your absolute freedom; but may we cherish the hope that your desire +to see me may indicate some change in your opinion?" + +By the light of the sentry's lantern left upon the ground, Chivers +could see that Collinson's face wore a slightly troubled and even +apologetic expression. + +"I've bin thinkin'," said Collinson, raising his eyes to his captor +with a singularly new and shy admiration in them, "mebbee not so much +of WOT you said, ez HOW you said it, and it's kinder bothered me, +sittin' here, that I ain't bin actin' to you boys quite on the square. +I've said to myself, 'Collinson, thar ain't another house betwixt Bald +Top and Skinner's whar them fellows kin get a bite or a drink to help +themselves, and you ain't offered 'em neither. It ain't no matter who +they are or how they came: whether they came crawling along the road +from the valley, or dropped down upon you like them rocks from the +grade; yere they are, and it's your duty, ez long ez you keep this yer +house for your wife in trust, so to speak, for wanderers.' And I ain't +forgettin' yer ginerel soft style and easy gait with me when you kem +here. It ain't every man as could walk into another man's house arter +the owner of it had grabbed a gun, ez soft-speakin', ez overlookin', +and ez perlite ez you. I've acted mighty rough and low-down, and I +know it. And I sent for you to say that you and your folks kin use +this house and all that's in it ez long ez you're in trouble. I've +told you why I couldn't sell the house to ye, and why I couldn't leave +it. But ye kin use it, and while ye're here, and when you go, +Collinson don't tell nobody. I don't know what ye mean by 'binding +myself' to keep your secret; when Collinson says a thing he sticks to +it, and when he passes his word with a man, or a man passes his word +with him, it don't need no bit of paper." + +There was no doubt of its truth. In the grave, upraised eyes of his +prisoner, Chivers saw the certainty that he could trust him, even far +more than he could trust any one within the house he had just quitted. +But this very certainty, for all its assurance of safety to himself, +filled him, not with remorse, which might have been an evanescent +emotion, but with a sudden alarming and terrible consciousness of being +in the presence of a hitherto unknown and immeasurable power! He had +no pity for man who trusted him; he had no sense of shame in taking +advantage of it; he even felt an intellectual superiority in this want +of sagacity in his dupe; but he still felt in some way defeated, +insulted, shocked, and frightened. At first, like all scoundrels, he +had measured the man by himself; was suspicious and prepared for +rivalry; but the grave truthfulness of Collinson's eyes left him +helpless. He was terrified by this unknown factor. The right that +contends and fights often stimulates its adversary; the right that +yields leaves the victor vanquished. Chivers could even have killed +Collinson in his vague discomfiture, but he had a terrible +consciousness that there was something behind him that he could not +make way with. That was why this accomplished rascal felt his flaccid +cheeks grow purple and his glib tongue trip before his captive. + +But Collinson, more occupied with his own shortcomings, took no note of +this, and Chivers quickly recovered his wits, if not his former +artificiality. "All right," he said quickly, with a hurried glance at +the door behind him. "Now that you think better of it, I'll be frank +with you, and tell you I'm your friend. You understand,--your friend. +Don't talk much to those men--don't give yourself away to them;" he +laughed this time in absolute natural embarrassment. "Don't talk about +your wife, and this house, but just say you've made the thing up with +me,--with ME, you know, and I'll see you through." An idea, as yet +vague, that he could turn Collinson's unexpected docility to his own +purposes, possessed him even in his embarrassment, and he was still +more strangely conscious of his inordinate vanity gathering a fearful +joy from Collinson's evident admiration. It was heightened by his +captive's next words. + +"Ef I wasn't tied I'd shake hands with ye on that. You're the kind o' +man, Mr. Chivers, that I cottoned to from the first. Ef this house +wasn't HERS, I'd a' bin tempted to cotton to yer offer, too, and mebbee +made yer one myself, for it seems to me your style and mine would +sorter jibe together. But I see you sabe what's in my mind, and make +allowance. WE don't want no bit o' paper to shake hands on that. Your +secret and your folk's secret is mine, and I don't blab that any more +than I'd blab to them wot you've just told me." + +Under a sudden impulse, Chivers leaned forward, and, albeit with +somewhat unsteady hands and an embarrassed will, untied the cords that +held Collinson in his chair. As the freed man stretched himself to his +full height, he looked gravely down into the bleared eyes of his +captor, and held out his strong right hand. Chivers took it. Whether +there was some occult power in Collinson's honest grasp, I know not; +but there sprang up in Chivers's agile mind the idea that a good way to +get rid of Mrs. Collinson was to put her in the way of her husband's +finding her, and for an instant, in the contemplation of that idea, +this supreme rascal absolutely felt an embarrassing glow of virtue. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +The astonishment of Preble Key on recognizing the gateway into which +the mysterious lady had vanished was so great that he was at first +inclined to believe her entry THERE a mere trick of his fancy. That +the confederate of a gang of robbers should be admitted to the austere +recesses of the convent, with a celerity that bespoke familiarity, was +incredible. He again glanced up and down the length of the shadowed +but still visible wall. There was no one there. The wall itself +contained no break or recess in which one could hide, and this was the +only gateway. The opposite side of the street in the full moonlight +stared emptily. No! Unless she were an illusion herself and his whole +chase a dream, she MUST have entered here. + +But the chase was not hopeless. He had at least tracked her to a place +where she could be identified. It was not a hotel, which she could +leave at any moment unobserved. Though he could not follow her and +penetrate its seclusion now, he could later--thanks to his old +associations with the padres of the contiguous college--gain an +introduction to the Lady Superior on some pretext. She was safe there +that night. He turned away with a feeling of relief. The incongruity +of her retreat assumed a more favorable aspect to his hopes. He looked +at the hallowed walls and the slumbering peacefulness of the gnarled +old trees that hid the convent, and a gentle reminiscence of his youth +stole over him. It was not the first time that he had gazed wistfully +upon that chaste refuge where, perhaps, the bright eyes that he had +followed in the quaint school procession under the leafy Alameda in the +afternoon, were at last closed in gentle slumber. There was the very +grille through which the wicked Conchita--or, was it Dolores?--had shot +her Parthian glance at the lingering student. And the man of +thirty-five, prematurely gray and settled in fortune, smiled as he +turned away, and forgot the adventuress of thirty who had brought him +there. + +The next morning he was up betimes and at the college of San Jose. +Father Cipriano, a trifle more snuffy and aged, remembered with delight +his old pupil. Ah! it was true, then, that he had become a mining +president, and that was why his hair was gray; but he trusted that Don +Preble had not forgot that this was not all of life, and that fortune +brought great responsibilities and cares. But what was this, then? He +HAD thought of bringing out some of his relations from the States, and +placing a niece in the convent. That was good and wise. Ah, yes. For +education in this new country, one must turn to the church. And he +would see the Lady Superior? Ah! that was but the twist of one's +finger and the lifting of a latch to a grave superintendent and a gray +head like that. Of course, he had not forgotten the convent and the +young senoritas, nor the discipline and the suspended holidays. Ah! it +was a special grace of our Lady that he, Father Cipriano, had not been +worried into his grave by those foolish muchachos. Yet, when he had +extinguished a snuffy chuckle in his red bandana handkerchief, Key knew +that he would accompany him to the convent that noon. + +It was with a slight stirring of shame over his elaborate pretext that +he passed the gate of the Sacred Heart with the good father. But it is +to be feared that he speedily forgot that in the unexpected information +that it elicited. The Lady Superior was gracious, and even +enthusiastic. Ah, yes, it was a growing custom of the American +caballeros--who had no homes, nor yet time to create any--to bring +their sisters, wards, and nieces here, and--with a dove-like +side-glance towards Key--even the young senoritas they wished to fit +for their Christian brides! Unlike the caballero, there were many +business men so immersed in their affairs that they could not find time +for a personal examination of the convent,--which was to be +regretted,--but who, trusting to the reputation of the Sacred Heart and +its good friends, simply sent the young lady there by some trusted +female companion. Notably this was the case of the Senor Rivers,--did +Don Preble ever know him?--a great capitalist in the Sierras, whose +sweet young sister, a naive, ingenuous creature, was the pride of the +convent. Of course, it was better that it was so. Discipline and +seclusion had to be maintained. The young girl should look upon this +as her home. The rules for visitors were necessarily severe. It was +rare indeed--except in a case of urgency, such as happened last +night--that even a lady, unless the parent of a scholar, was admitted +to the hospitality of the convent. And this lady was only the friend +of that same sister of the American capitalist, although she was the +one who had brought her there. No, she was not a relation. Perhaps Don +Preble had heard of a Mrs. Barker,--the friend of Rivers of the +Sierras. It was a queer combination of names. But what will you? The +names of Americanos mean nothing. And Don Preble knows them not. Ah! +possibly?--good! The lady would be remembered, being tall, dark, and +of fine presence, though sad. A few hours earlier and Don Preble could +have judged for himself, for, as it were, she might have passed through +this visitors' room. But she was gone--departed by the coach. It was +from a telegram--those heathen contrivances that blurt out things to +you, with never an excuse, nor a smile, nor a kiss of the hand! For +her part, she never let her scholars receive them, but opened them +herself, and translated them in a Christian spirit, after due +preparation, at her leisure. And it was this telegram that made the +Senora Barker go, or, without doubt, she would have of herself told to +the Don Preble, her compatriot of the Sierras, how good the convent was +for his niece. + +Stung by the thought that this woman had again evaded him, and +disconcerted and confused by the scarcely intelligible information he +had acquired, Key could with difficulty maintain his composure. "The +caballero is tired of his long pasear," said the Lady Superior gently. +"We will have a glass of wine in the lodge waiting-room." She led the +way from the reception room to the outer door, but stopped at the sound +of approaching footsteps and rustling muslin along the gravel walk. +"The second class are going out," she said, as a gentle procession of +white frocks, led by two nuns, filed before the gateway. "We will wait +until they have passed. But the senor can see that my children do not +look unhappy." + +They certainly looked very cheerful, although they had halted before +the gateway with a little of the demureness of young people who know +they are overlooked by authority, and had bumped against each other +with affected gravity. Somewhat ashamed of his useless deception, and +the guileless simplicity of the good Lady Superior, Key hesitated and +began: "I am afraid that I am really giving you too much trouble," and +suddenly stopped. + +For as his voice broke the demure silence, one of the nearest--a young +girl of apparently seventeen--turned towards him with a quick and an +apparently irresistible impulse, and as quickly turned away again. But +in that instant Key caught a glimpse of a face that might not only have +thrilled him in its beauty, its freshness, but in some vague +suggestiveness. Yet it was not that which set his pulses beating; it +was the look of joyous recognition set in the parted lips and sparkling +eyes, the glow of childlike innocent pleasure that mantled the sweet +young face, the frank confusion of suddenly realized expectancy and +longing. A great truth gripped his throbbing heart, and held it still. +It was the face that he had seen in the hollow! + +The movement of the young girl was too marked to escape the eye of the +Lady Superior, though she had translated it differently. "You must not +believe our young ladies are all so rude, Don Preble," she said dryly; +"though our dear child has still some of the mountain freedom. And +this is the Senor Rivers's sister. But possibly--who knows?" she said +gently, yet with a sudden sharpness in her clear eyes,--"perhaps she +recognized in your voice a companion of her brother." + +Luckily for Key, the shock had been so sudden and overpowering that he +showed none of the lesser symptoms of agitation or embarrassment. In +this revelation of a secret, that he now instinctively felt was bound +up with his own future happiness, he exhibited none of the signs of a +discovered intriguer or unmasked Lothario. He said quietly and coldly: +"I am afraid I have not the pleasure of knowing the young lady, and +certainly have never before addressed her." Yet he scarcely heard his +companion's voice, and answered mechanically, seeing only before him +the vision of the girl's bewitching face, in its still more bewitching +consciousness of his presence. With all that he now knew, or thought +he knew, came a strange delicacy of asking further questions, a vague +fear of compromising HER, a quick impatience of his present deception; +even his whole quest of her seemed now to be a profanation, for which +he must ask her forgiveness. He longed to be alone to recover himself. +Even the temptation to linger on some pretext, and wait for her return +and another glance from her joyous eyes, was not as strong as his +conviction of the necessity of cooler thought and action. He had met +his fate that morning, for good or ill; that was all he knew. As soon +as he could decently retire, he thanked the Lady Superior, promised to +communicate with her later, and taking leave of Father Cipriano, found +himself again in the street. + +Who was she, what was she, and what meant her joyous recognition of +him? It is to be feared that it was the last question that affected +him most, now that he felt that he must have really loved her from the +first. Had she really seen him before, and had been as mysteriously +impressed as he was? It was not the reflection of a conceited man, for +Key had not that kind of vanity, and he had already touched the +humility that is at the base of any genuine passion. But he would not +think of that now. He had established the identity of the other woman, +as being her companion in the house in the hollow on that eventful +night; but it was HER profile that he had seen at the window. The +mysterious brother Rivers might have been one of the robbers,--perhaps +the one who accompanied Mrs. Barker to San Jose. But it was plain that +the young girl had no complicity with the actions of the gang, whatever +might have been her companion's confederation. In the prescience of a +true lover, he knew that she must have been deceived and kept in utter +ignorance of it. There was no look of it in her lovely, guileless +eyes; her very impulsiveness and ingenuousness would have long since +betrayed the secret. Was it left for him, at this very outset of his +passion, to be the one to tell her? Could he bear to see those frank, +beautiful eyes dimmed with shame and sorrow? His own grew moist. +Another idea began to haunt him. Would it not be wiser, even more +manly, for him--a man over twice her years--to leave her alone with her +secret, and so pass out of her innocent young life as chancefully as he +had entered it? But was it altogether chanceful? Was there not in her +innocent happiness in him a recognition of something in him better than +he had dared to think himself? It was the last conceit of the humility +of love. + +He reached his hotel at last, unresolved, perplexed, yet singularly +happy. The clerk handed him, in passing, a business-looking letter, +formally addressed. Without opening it, he took it to his room, and +throwing himself listlessly on a chair by the window again tried to +think. But the atmosphere of his room only recalled to him the +mysterious gift he had found the day before on his pillow. He felt now +with a thrill that it must have been from HER. How did she convey it +there? She would not have intrusted it to Mrs. Barker. The idea +struck him now as distastefully as it seemed improbable. Perhaps she +had been here herself with her companion--the convent sometimes made +that concession to a relative or well-known friend. He recalled the +fact that he had seen Mrs. Barker enter the hotel alone, after the +incident of the opening door, while he was leaning over the balustrade. +It was SHE who was alone THEN, and had recognized his voice; and he had +not known it. She was out again to-day with the procession. A sudden +idea struck him. He glanced quickly at the letter in his hand, and +hurriedly opened it. It contained only three lines, in a large formal +hand, but they sent the swift blood to his cheeks. + +"I heard your voice to-day for the third time. I want to hear it +again. I will come at dusk. Do not go out until then." + +He sat stupefied. Was it madness, audacity, or a trick? He summoned +the waiter. The letter had been left by a boy from the confectioner's +shop in the next block. He remembered it of old,--a resort for the +young ladies of the convent. Nothing was easier than conveying a +letter in that way. He remembered with a shock of disillusion and +disgust that it was a common device of silly but innocent assignation. +Was he to be the ridiculous accomplice of a schoolgirl's extravagant +escapade, or the deluded victim of some infamous plot of her infamous +companion? He could not believe either; yet he could not check a +certain revulsion of feeling towards her, which only a moment ago he +would have believed impossible. + +Yet whatever was her purpose, he must prevent her coming there at any +hazard. Her visit would be the culmination of her folly, or the +success of any plot. Even while he was fully conscious of the material +effect of any scandal and exposure to her, even while he was incensed +and disillusionized at her unexpected audacity, he was unusually +stirred with the conviction that she was wronging herself, and that +more than ever she demanded his help and his consideration. Still she +must not come. But how was he to prevent her? It wanted but an hour +of dusk. Even if he could again penetrate the convent on some pretext +at that inaccessible hour for visitors,--twilight,--how could he +communicate with her? He might intercept her on the way, and persuade +her to return; but she must be kept from entering the hotel. + +He seized his hat and rushed downstairs. But here another difficulty +beset him. It was easy enough to take the ordinary road to the +convent, but would SHE follow that public one in what must be a +surreptitious escape? And might she not have eluded the procession +that morning, and even now be concealed somewhere, waiting for the +darkness to make her visit. He concluded to patrol the block next to +the hotel, yet near enough to intercept her before she reached it, +until the hour came. The time passed slowly. He loitered before shop +windows, or entered and made purchases, with his eye on the street. +The figure of a pretty girl,--and there were many,--the fluttering +ribbons on a distant hat, or the flashing of a cambric skirt around the +corner sent a nervous thrill through him. The reflection of his grave, +abstracted face against a shop window, or the announcement of the +workings of his own mine on a bulletin board, in its incongruity with +his present occupation, gave him an hysterical impulse to laugh. The +shadows were already gathering, when he saw a slender, graceful figure +disappear in the confectioner's shop on the block below. In his +elaborate precautions, he had overlooked that common trysting spot. He +hurried thither, and entered. The object of his search was not there, +and he was compelled to make a shamefaced, awkward survey of the tables +in an inner refreshment saloon to satisfy himself. Any one of the +pretty girls seated there might have been the one who had just entered, +but none was the one he sought. He hurried into the street again,--he +had wasted a precious moment,--and resumed his watch. The sun had +sunk, the Angelus had rung out of a chapel belfry, and shadows were +darkening the vista of the Alameda. She had not come. Perhaps she had +thought better of it; perhaps she had been prevented; perhaps the whole +appointment had been only a trick of some day-scholars, who were +laughing at him behind some window. In proportion as he became +convinced that she was not coming, he was conscious of a keen despair +growing in his heart, and a sickening remorse that he had ever thought +of preventing her. And when he at last reluctantly reentered the +hotel, he was as miserable over the conviction that she was not coming +as he had been at her expected arrival. The porter met him hurriedly +in the hall. + +"Sister Seraphina of the Sacred Heart has been here, in a hurry to see +you on a matter of importance," he said, eyeing Key somewhat curiously. +"She would not wait in the public parlor, as she said her business was +confidential, so I have put her in a private sitting-room on your +floor." + +Key felt the blood leave his cheeks. The secret was out for all his +precaution. The Lady Superior had discovered the girl's flight,--or +her attempt. One of the governing sisterhood was here to arraign him +for it, or at least prevent an open scandal. Yet he was resolved; and +seizing this last straw, he hurriedly mounted the stairs, determined to +do battle at any risk for the girl's safety, and to perjure himself to +any extent. + +She was standing in the room by the window. The light fell upon the +coarse serge dress with its white facings, on the single girdle that +scarcely defined the formless waist, on the huge crucifix that dangled +ungracefully almost to her knees, on the hideous, white-winged coif +that, with the coarse but dense white veil, was itself a renunciation +of all human vanity. It was a figure he remembered well as a boy, and +even in his excitement and half resentment touched him now, as when a +boy, with a sense of its pathetic isolation. His head bowed with +boyish deference as she approached gently, passed him a slight +salutation, and closed the door that he had forgotten to shut behind +him. + +Then, with a rapid movement, so quick that he could scarcely follow it, +the coif, veil, rosary, and crucifix were swept off, and the young +pupil of the convent stood before him. + +For all the sombre suggestiveness of her disguise and its ungraceful +contour, there was no mistaking the adorable little head, tumbled all +over with silky tendrils of hair from the hasty withdrawal of her coif, +or the blue eyes that sparkled with frank delight beneath them. Key +thought her more beautiful than ever. Yet the very effect of her +frankness and beauty was to recall him to all the danger and +incongruity of her position. + +"This is madness," he said quickly. "You may be followed here and +discovered in this costume at any moment!" Nevertheless, he caught the +two little hands that had been extended to him, and held them tightly, +and with a frank familiarity that he would have wondered at an instant +before. + +"But I won't," she said simply. "You see I'm doing a 'half-retreat'; +and I stay with Sister Seraphina in her room; and she always sleeps two +hours after the Angelus; and I got out without anybody knowing me, in +her clothes. I see what it is," she said, suddenly bending a +reproachful glance upon him, "you don't like me in them. I know +they're just horrid; but it was the only way I could get out." + +"You don't understand me," he said eagerly. "I don't like you to run +these dreadful risks and dangers for"--He would have said "for me," but +added with sudden humility--"for nothing. Had I dreamed that you cared +to see me, I would have arranged it easily without this indiscretion, +which might make others misjudge you. Every instant that you remain +here--worse, every moment that you are away from the convent in that +disguise, is fraught with danger. I know you never thought of it." + +"But I did," she said quietly; "I thought of it, and thought that if +Sister Seraphina woke up, and they sent for me, you would take me away +with you to that dear little hollow in the hills, where I first heard +your voice. You remember it, don't you? You were lost, I think, in +the darkness, and I used to say to myself afterwards that I found you. +That was the first time. Then the second time I heard you, was here in +the hall. I was alone in the other room, for Mrs. Barker had gone out. +I did not know you were here, but I knew your voice. And the third +time was before the convent gate, and then I knew you knew me. And +after that I didn't think of anything but coming to you; for I knew +that if I was found out, you would take me back with you, and perhaps +send word to my brother where we were, and then"-- She stopped +suddenly, with her eyes fixed on Key's blank face. Her own grew blank, +the joy faded out of her clear eyes, she gently withdrew her hand from +his, and without a word began to resume her disguise. + +"Listen to me," said Key passionately. "I am thinking only of YOU. I +want to, and WILL, save you from any blame,--blame you do not +understand even now. There is still time. I will go back to the +convent with you at once. You shall tell me everything; I will tell +you everything on the way." + +She had already completely resumed her austere garb, and drew the veil +across her face. With the putting on her coif she seemed to have +extinguished all the joyous youthfulness of her spirit, and moved with +the deliberateness of renunciation towards the door. They descended the +staircase without a word. Those who saw them pass made way for them +with formal respect. + +When they were in the street, she said quietly, "Don't give me your +arm--Sisters don't take it." When they had reached the street corner, +she turned it, saying, "This is the shortest way." + +It was Key who was now restrained, awkward, and embarrassed. The fire +of his spirit, the passion he had felt a moment before, had gone out of +him, as if she were really the character she had assumed. He said at +last desperately:-- + +"How long did you live in the hollow?" + +"Only two days. My brother was bringing me here to school, but in the +stage coach there was some one with whom he had quarreled, and he +didn't want to meet him with me. So we got out at Skinner's, and came +to the hollow, where his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Barker, lived." + +There was no hesitation nor affectation in her voice. Again he felt +that he would as soon have doubted the words of the Sister she +represented as her own. + +"And your brother--did you live with him?" + +"No. I was at school at Marysville until he took me away. I saw +little of him for the past two years, for he had business in the +mountains--very rough business, where he couldn't take me, for it kept +him away from the settlements for weeks. I think it had something to +do with cattle, for he was always having a new horse. I was all alone +before that, too; I had no other relations; I had no friends. We had +always been moving about so much, my brother and I. I never saw any +one that I liked, except you, and until yesterday I had only HEARD you." + +Her perfect naivete alternately thrilled him with pain and doubt. In +his awkwardness and uneasiness he was brutal. + +"Yes, but you must have met somebody--other men--here even, when you +were out with your schoolfellows, or perhaps on an adventure like this." + +Her white coif turned towards him quickly. "I never wanted to know +anybody else. I never cared to see anybody else. I never would have +gone out in this way but for you," she said hurriedly. After a pause +she added in a frightened tone: "That didn't sound like your voice +then. It didn't sound like it a moment ago either." + +"But you are sure that you know my voice," he said, with affected +gayety. "There were two others in the hollow with me that night." + +"I know that, too. But I know even what you said. You reproved them +for throwing a lighted match in the dry grass. You were thinking of us +then. I know it." + +"Of US?" said Key quickly. + +"Of Mrs. Barker and myself. We were alone in the house, for my brother +and her husband were both away. What you said seemed to forewarn me, +and I told her. So we were prepared when the fire came nearer, and we +both escaped on the same horse." + +"And you dropped your shoes in your flight," said Key laughingly, "and +I picked them up the next day, when I came to search for you. I have +kept them still." + +"They were HER shoes," said the girl quickly, "I couldn't find mine in +our hurry, and hers were too large for me, and dropped off." She +stopped, and with a faint return of her old gladness said, "Then you +DID come back? I KNEW you would." + +"I should have stayed THEN, but we got no reply when we shouted. Why +was that?" he demanded suddenly. + +"Oh, we were warned against speaking to any stranger, or even being +seen by any one while we were alone," returned the girl simply. + +"But why?" persisted Key. + +"Oh, because there were so many highwaymen and horse-stealers in the +woods. Why, they had stopped the coach only a few weeks before, and +only a day or two ago, when Mrs. Barker came down. SHE saw them!" + +Key with difficulty suppressed a groan. They walked on in silence for +some moments, he scarcely daring to lift his eyes to the decorous +little figure hastening by his side. Alternately touched by mistrust +and pain, at last an infinite pity, not unmingled with a desperate +resolution, took possession of him. + +"I must make a confession to you, Miss Rivers," he began with the +bashful haste of a very boy, "that is"--he stammered with a half +hysteric laugh,--"that is--a confession as if you were really a sister +or a priest, you know--a sort of confidence to you--to your dress. I +HAVE seen you, or THOUGHT I saw you before. It was that which brought +me here, that which made me follow Mrs. Barker--my only clue to you--to +the door of that convent. That night, in the hollow, I saw a profile +at the lighted window, which I thought was yours." + +"I never was near the window," said the young girl quickly. "It must +have been Mrs. Barker." + +"I know that now," returned Key. "But remember, it was my only clue to +you. I mean," he added awkwardly, "it was the means of my finding you." + +"I don't see how it made you think of me, whom you never saw, to see +another woman's profile," she retorted, with the faintest touch of +asperity in her childlike voice. "But," she added, more gently and +with a relapse into her adorable naivete, "most people's profiles look +alike." + +"It was not that," protested Key, still awkwardly, "it was only that I +realized something--only a dream, perhaps." + +She did not reply, and they continued on in silence. The gray wall of +the convent was already in sight. Key felt he had achieved nothing. +Except for information that was hopeless, he had come to no nearer +understanding of the beautiful girl beside him, and his future appeared +as vague as before; and, above all, he was conscious of an inferiority +of character and purpose to this simple creature, who had obeyed him so +submissively. Had he acted wisely? Would it not have been better if he +had followed her own frankness, and-- + +"Then it was Mrs. Barker's profile that brought you here?" resumed the +voice beneath the coif. "You know she has gone back. I suppose you +will follow?" + +"You will not understand me," said Key desperately. "But," he added in +a lower voice, "I shall remain here until you do." + +He drew a little closer to her side. + +"Then you must not begin by walking so close to me," she said, moving +slightly away; "they may see you from the gate. And you must not go +with me beyond that corner. If I have been missed already they will +suspect you." + +"But how shall I know?" he said, attempting to take her hand. "Let me +walk past the gate. I cannot leave you in this uncertainty." + +"You will know soon enough," she said gravely, evading his hand. "You +must not go further now. Good-night." + +She had stopped at the corner of the wall. He again held out his hand. +Her little fingers slid coldly between his. + +"Good-night, Miss Rivers." + +"Stop!" she said suddenly, withdrawing her veil and lifting her clear +eyes to his in the moonlight. "You must not say THAT--it isn't the +truth. I can't bear to hear it from YOUR lips, in YOUR voice. My name +is NOT Rivers!" + +"Not Rivers--why?" said Key, astounded. + +"Oh, I don't know why," she said half despairingly; "only my brother +didn't want me to use my name and his here, and I promised. My name is +'Riggs'--there! It's a secret--you mustn't tell it; but I could not +bear to hear YOU say a lie." + +"Good-night, Miss Riggs," said Key sadly. + +"No, nor that either," she said softly. "Say Alice." + +"Good-night, Alice." + +She moved on before him. She reached the gate. For a moment her +figure, in its austere, formless garments, seemed to him to even stoop +and bend forward in the humility of age and self-renunciation, and she +vanished within as into a living tomb. + +Forgetting all precaution, he pressed eagerly forward, and stopped +before the gate. There was no sound from within; there had evidently +been no challenge nor interruption. She was safe. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +The reappearance of Chivers in the mill with Collinson, and the brief +announcement that the prisoner had consented to a satisfactory +compromise, were received at first with a half contemptuous smile by +the party; but for the commands of their leaders, and possibly a +conviction that Collinson's fatuous cooperation with Chivers would be +safer than his wrath, which might not expend itself only on Chivers, +but imperil the safety of all, it is probable that they would have +informed the unfortunate prisoner of his real relations to his captor. +In these circumstances, Chivers's half satirical suggestion that +Collinson should be added to the sentries outside, and guard his own +property, was surlily assented to by Riggs, and complacently accepted +by the others. Chivers offered to post him himself,--not without an +interchange of meaning glances with Riggs,--Collinson's own gun was +returned to him, and the strangely assorted pair left the mill amicably +together. + +But however humanly confident Chivers was in his companion's +faithfulness, he was not without a rascal's precaution, and determined +to select a position for Collinson where he could do the least damage +in any aberration of trust. At the top of the grade, above the mill, +was the only trail by which a party in force could approach it. This +was to Chivers obviously too strategic a position to intrust to his +prisoner, and the sentry who guarded its approach, five hundred yards +away, was left unchanged. But there was another "blind" trail, or +cut-off, to the left, through the thickest undergrowth of the woods, +known only to his party. To place Collinson there was to insure him +perfect immunity from the approach of an enemy, as well as from any +confidential advances of his fellow sentry. This done, he drew a cigar +from his pocket, and handing it to Collinson, lighted another for +himself, and leaning back comfortably against a large boulder, glanced +complacently at his companion. + +"You may smoke until I go, Mr. Collinson, and even afterwards, if you +keep the bowl of your pipe behind a rock, so as to be out of sight of +your fellow sentry, whose advances, by the way, if I were you, I should +not encourage. Your position here, you see, is a rather peculiar one. +You were saying, I think, that a lingering affection for your wife +impelled you to keep this place for her, although you were convinced of +her death?" + +Collinson's unaffected delight in Chivers's kindliness had made his +eyes shine in the moonlight with a doglike wistfulness. "I reckon I +did say that, Mr. Chivers," he said apologetically, "though it ain't +goin' to interfere with you usin' the shanty jest now." + +"I wasn't alluding to that, Collinson," returned Chivers, with a large +rhetorical wave of the hand, and an equal enjoyment in his companion's +evident admiration of him, "but it struck me that your remark, +nevertheless, implied some doubt of your wife's death, and I don't know +but that your doubts are right." + +"Wot's that?" said Collinson, with a dull glow in his face. + +Chivers blew the smoke of his cigar lazily in the still air. "Listen," +he said. "Since your miraculous conversion a few moments ago, I have +made some friendly inquiries about you, and I find that you lost all +trace of your wife in Texas in '52, where a number of her fellow +emigrants died of yellow fever. Is that so?" + +"Yes," said Collinson quickly. + +"Well, it so happens that a friend of mine," continued Chivers slowly, +"was in a train which followed that one, and picked up and brought on +some of the survivors." + +"That was the train wot brought the news," said Collinson, relapsing +into his old patience. "That's how I knowed she hadn't come." + +"Did you ever hear the names of any of its passengers?" said Chivers, +with a keen glance at his companion. + +"Nary one! I only got to know it was a small train of only two wagons, +and it sorter melted into Californy through a southern pass, and kinder +petered out, and no one ever heard of it agin, and that was all." + +"That was NOT all, Collinson," said Chivers lazily. "I saw the train +arrive at South Pass. I was awaiting a friend and his wife. There was +a lady with them, one of the survivors. I didn't hear her name, but I +think my friend's wife called her 'Sadie.' I remember her as a rather +pretty woman--tall, fair, with a straight nose and a full chin, and +small slim feet. I saw her only a moment, for she was on her way to +Los Angeles, and was, I believe, going to join her husband somewhere in +the Sierras." + +The rascal had been enjoying with intense satisfaction the return of +the dull glow in Collinson's face, that even seemed to animate the +whole length of his angular frame as it turned eagerly towards him. So +he went on, experiencing a devilish zest in this description of his +mistress to her husband, apart from the pleasure of noting the slow +awakening of this apathetic giant, with a sensation akin to having +warmed him into life. Yet his triumph was of short duration. The fire +dropped suddenly out of Collinson's eyes, the glow from his face, and +the dull look of unwearied patience returned. + +"That's all very kind and purty of yer, Mr. Chivers," he said gravely; +"you've got all my wife's pints thar to a dot, and it seems to fit her +jest like a shoe I picked up t'other day. But it wasn't my Sadie, for +ef she's living or had lived, she'd bin just yere!" + +The same fear and recognition of some unknown reserve in this trustful +man came over Chivers as before. In his angry resentment of it he +would have liked to blurt out the infidelity of the wife before her +husband, but he knew Collinson would not believe him, and he had +another purpose now. His full lips twisted into a suave smile. + +"While I would not give you false hopes, Mr. Collinson," he said, with +a bland smile, "my interest in you compels me to say that you may be +over confident and wrong. There are a thousand things that may have +prevented your wife from coming to you,--illness, possibly the result +of her exposure, poverty, misapprehension of your place of meeting, +and, above all, perhaps some false report of your own death. Has it +ever occurred to you that it is as possible for her to have been +deceived in that way as for you?" + +"Wot yer say?" said Collinson, with a vague suspicion. + +"What I mean. You think yourself justified in believing your wife +dead, because she did not seek you here; may she not feel herself +equally justified in believing the same of you, because you had not +sought her elsewhere?" + +"But it was writ that she was comin' yere, and--I boarded every train +that come in that fall," said Collinson, with a new irritation, unlike +his usual calm. + +"Except one, my dear Collinson,--except one," returned Chivers, holding +up a fat forefinger smilingly. "And that may be the clue. Now, listen! +There is still a chance of following it, if you will. The name of my +friends were Mr. and Mrs. Barker. I regret," he added, with a +perfunctory cough, "that poor Barker is dead. He was not such an +exemplary husband as you are, my dear Collinson, and I fear was not all +that Mrs. Barker could have wished; enough that he succumbed from +various excesses, and did not leave me Mrs. Barker's present address. +But she has a young friend, a ward, living at the convent of Santa +Luisa, whose name is Miss Rivers, who can put you in communication with +her. Now, one thing more: I can understand your feelings, and that you +would wish at once to satisfy your mind. It is not, perhaps, to my +interest nor the interest of my party to advise you, but," he +continued, glancing around him, "you have an admirably secluded +position here, on the edge of the trail, and if you are missing from +your post to-morrow morning, I shall respect your feelings, trust to +your honor to keep this secret, and--consider it useless to pursue you!" + +There was neither shame nor pity in his heart, as the deceived man +turned towards him with tremulous eagerness, and grasped his hand in +silent gratitude. But the old rage and fear returned, as Collinson +said gravely:-- + +"You kinder put a new life inter me, Mr. Chivers, and I wish I had yer +gift o' speech to tell ye so. But I've passed my word to the Capting +thar and to the rest o' you folks that I'd stand guard out yere, and I +don't go back o' my word. I mout, and I moutn't find my Sadie; but she +wouldn't think the less o' me, arter these years o' waitin', ef I +stayed here another night, to guard the house I keep in trust for her, +and the strangers I've took in on her account." + +"As you like, then," said Chivers, contracting his lips, "but keep your +own counsel to-night. There may be those who would like to deter you +from your search. And now I will leave you alone in this delightful +moonlight. I quite envy you your unrestricted communion with Nature. +Adios, amigo, adios!" + +He leaped lightly on a large rock that overhung the edge of the grade, +and waved his hand. + +"I wouldn't do that, Mr. Chivers," said Collinson, with a concerned +face; "them rocks are mighty ticklish, and that one in partiklar. A +tech sometimes sends 'em scooting." + +Mr. Chivers leaped quickly to the ground, turned, waved his hand again, +and disappeared down the grade. + +But Collinson was no longer alone. Hitherto his characteristic +reveries had been of the past,--reminiscences in which there was only +recollection, no imagination, and very little hope. Under the spell of +Chivers's words his fancy seemed to expand; he began to think of his +wife as she might be now,--perhaps ill, despairing, wandering +hopelessly, even ragged and footsore, or--believing HIM dead--relapsing +into the resigned patience that had been his own; but always a new +Sadie, whom he had never seen or known before. A faint dread, the +lightest of misgivings (perhaps coming from his very ignorance), for +the first time touched his steadfast heart, and sent a chill through +it. He shouldered his weapon, and walked briskly towards the edge of +the thick-set woods. There were the fragrant essences of the laurel +and spruce--baked in the long-day sunshine that had encompassed their +recesses--still coming warm to his face; there were the strange +shiftings of temperature throughout the openings, that alternately +warmed and chilled him as he walked. It seemed so odd that he should +now have to seek her instead of her coming to him; it would never be +the same meeting to him, away from the house that he had built for her! +He strolled back, and looked down upon it, nestling on the ledge. The +white moonlight that lay upon it dulled the glitter of lights in its +windows, but the sounds of laughter and singing came to even his +unfastidious ears with a sense of vague discord. He walked back again, +and began to pace before the thick-set wood. Suddenly he stopped and +listened. + +To any other ears but those accustomed to mountain solitude it would +have seemed nothing. But, familiar as he was with all the infinite +disturbances of the woodland, and even the simulation of intrusion +caused by a falling branch or lapsing pine-cone, he was arrested now by +a recurring sound, unlike any other. It was an occasional muffled +beat--interrupted at uncertain intervals, but always returning in +regular rhythm, whenever it was audible. He knew it was made by a +cantering horse; that the intervals were due to the patches of dead +leaves in its course, and that the varying movement was the effect of +its progress through obstacles and underbrush. It was therefore coming +through some "blind" cutoff in the thick-set wood. The shifting of the +sound also showed that the rider was unfamiliar with the locality, and +sometimes wandered from the direct course; but the unfailing and +accelerating persistency of the sound, in spite of these difficulties, +indicated haste and determination. + +He swung his gun from his shoulder, and examined its caps. As the +sound came nearer, he drew up beside a young spruce at the entrance of +the thicket. There was no necessity to alarm the house, or call the +other sentry. It was a single horse and rider, and he was equal to +that. He waited quietly, and with his usual fateful patience. Even +then his thoughts still reverted to his wife; and it was with a +singular feeling that he, at last, saw the thick underbrush give way +before a woman, mounted on a sweating but still spirited horse, who +swept out into the open. Nevertheless, he stopped in front of her, and +called:-- + +"Hold up thar!" + +The horse recoiled, nearly unseating her. Collinson caught the reins. +She lifted her whip mechanically, yet remained holding it in the air, +trembling, until she slipped, half struggling, half helplessly, from +the saddle to the ground. Here she would have again fallen, but +Collinson caught her sharply by the waist. At his touch she started +and uttered a frightened "No!" At her voice Collinson started. + +"Sadie!" he gasped. + +"Seth!" she half whispered. + +They stood looking at each other. But Collinson was already himself +again. The man of simple directness and no imagination saw only his +wife before him--a little breathless, a little flurried, a little +disheveled from rapid riding, as he had sometimes seen her before, but +otherwise unchanged. Nor had HE changed; he took her up where he had +left her years ago. His grave face only broadened into a smile, as he +held both her hands in his. + +"Yes, it's me--Lordy! Why, I was comin' only to-morrow to find ye, +Sade!" + +She glanced hurriedly around her, "To--to find me," she said +incredulously. + +"Sartain! That ez, I was goin' to ask about ye,--goin' to ask about ye +at the convent." + +"At the convent?" she echoed with a frightened amazement. + +"Yes, why, Lordy Sade--don't you see? You thought I was dead, and I +thought you was dead,--that's what's the matter. But I never reckoned +that you'd think me dead until Chivers allowed that it must be so." + +Her face whitened in the moonlight "Chivers?" she said blankly. + +"In course; but nat'rally you don't know him, honey. He only saw you +onc't. But it was along o' that, Sade, that he told me he reckoned you +wasn't dead, and told me how to find you. He was mighty kind and +consarned about it, and he even allowed I'd better slip off to you this +very night." + +"Chivers," she repeated, gazing at her husband with bloodless lips. + +"Yes, an awful purty-spoken man. Ye'll have to get to know him Sade. +He's here with some of his folks az hez got inter trouble--I'm +forgettin' to tell ye. You see"-- + +"Yes, yes, yes!" she interrupted hysterically; "and this is the Mill?" + +"Yes, lovey, the Mill--my mill--YOUR mill--the house I built for you, +dear. I'd show it to you now, but you see, Sade, I'm out here standin' +guard." + +"Are YOU one of them?" she said, clutching his hand desperately. + +"No, dear," he said soothingly,--"no; only, you see, I giv' my word to +'em as I giv' my house to-night, and I'm bound to protect them and see +'em through. Why, Lordy! Sade, you'd have done the same--for Chivers." + +"Yes, yes," she said, beating her hands together strangely, "of course. +He was so kind to bring me back to you. And you might have never found +me but for him." + +She burst into an hysterical laugh, which the simple-minded man might +have overlooked but for the tears that coursed down her bloodless face. + +"What's gone o' ye, Sadie," he said in a sudden fear, grasping her +hands; "that laugh ain't your'n--that voice ain't your'n. You're the +old Sadie, ain't ye?" He stopped. For a moment his face blanched as +he glanced towards the mill, from which the faint sound of bacchanalian +voices came to his quick ear. "Sadie, dear, ye ain't thinkin' anything +agin' me? Ye ain't allowin' I'm keeping anythin' back from ye?" + +Her face stiffened into rigidity; she dashed the tears from her eyes. +"No," she said quickly. Then after a moment she added, with a faint +laugh, "You see we haven't seen each other for so long--it's all so +sudden--so unexpected." + +"But you kem here, just now, calkilatin' to find me?" said Collinson +gravely. + +"Yes, yes," she said quickly, still grasping both his hands, but with +her head slightly turned in the direction of the mill. + +"But who told ye where to find the mill?" he said, with gentle patience. + +"A friend," she said hurriedly. "Perhaps," she added, with a singular +smile, "a friend of the friend who told you." + +"I see," said Collinson, with a relieved face and a broadening smile, +"it's a sort of fairy story. I'll bet, now, it was that old Barker +woman that Chivers knows." + +Her teeth gleamed rigidly together in the moonlight, like a +death's-head. "Yes," she said dryly, "it was that old Barker woman. +Say, Seth," she continued, moistening her lips slowly, "you're guarding +this place alone?" + +"Thar's another feller up the trail,--a sentry,--but don't you be +afeard, he can't hear us, Sade." + +"On this side of the mill?" + +"Yes! Why, Lord love ye, Sadie! t'other side o' the mill it drops down +straight to the valley; nobody comes yer that way but poor low-down +emigrants. And it's miles round to come by the valley from the summit." + +"You didn't hear your friend Chivers say that the sheriff was out with +his posse to-night hunting them?" + +"No. Did you?" + +"I think I heard something of that kind at Skinner's, but it may have +been only a warning to me, traveling alone." + +"Thet's so," said Collinson, with a tender solicitude, "but none o' +these yer road-agents would have teched a woman. And this yer Chivers +ain't the man to insult one, either." + +"No," she said, with a return of her hysteric laugh. But it was +overlooked by Collinson, who was taking his gun from beside the tree +where he had placed it, "Where are you going?" she said suddenly. + +"I reckon them fellers ought to be warned o' what you heard. I'll be +back in a minit." + +"And you're going to leave me now--when--when we've only just met after +these years," she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, which, +however, did not reach the cold glitter of her eyes. + +"Just for a little, honey. Besides, don't you see, I've got to get +excused; for we'll have to go off to Skinner's or somewhere, Sadie, for +we can't stay in thar along o' them." + +"So you and your wife are turned out of your home to please Chivers," +she said, still smiling. + +"That's whar you slip up, Sadie," said Collinson, with a troubled face; +"for he's that kind of a man thet if I jest as much as hinted you was +here, he'd turn 'em all out o' the house for a lady. Thet's why I don't +propose to let on anything about you till to-morrow." + +"To-morrow will do," she said, still smiling, but with a singular +abstraction in her face. "Pray don't disturb them now. You say there +is another sentinel beyond. He is enough to warn them of any approach +from the trail. I'm tired and ill--very ill! Sit by me here, Seth, +and wait! We can wait here together--we have waited so long, +Seth,--and the end has come now." + +She suddenly lapsed against the tree, and slipped in a sitting posture +to the ground. Collinson cast himself at her side, and put his arm +round her. + +"Wot's gone o' ye, Sade? You're cold and sick. Listen. Your hoss is +just over thar feedin'. I'll put you back on him, run in and tell 'em +I'm off, and be with ye in a jiffy, and take ye back to Skinner's." + +"Wait," she said softly. "Wait." + +"Or to the Silver Hollow--it's not so far." + +She had caught his hands again, her rigid face close to his, "What +hollow?--speak!" she said breathlessly. + +"The hollow whar a friend o' mine struck silver. He'll take yur in." + +Her head sank against his shoulder. "Let me stay here," she answered, +"and wait." + +He supported her tenderly, feeling the gentle brushing of her hair +against his cheek as in the old days. He was content to wait, holding +her thus. They were very silent; her eyes half closed, as if in +exhaustion, yet with the strange suggestion of listening in the vacant +pupils. + +"Ye ain't hearin' anythin', deary?" he said, with a troubled face. + +"No; but everything is so deathly still," she said in a frightened +whisper. + +It certainly was very still. A singular hush seemed to have slid over +the landscape; there was no longer any sound from the mill; there was +an ominous rest in the woodland, so perfect that the tiny rustle of an +uneasy wing in the tree above them had made them start; even the +moonlight seemed to hang suspended in the air. + +"It's like the lull before the storm," she said with her strange laugh. + +But the non-imaginative Collinson was more practical. "It's mighty +like that earthquake weather before the big shake thet dried up the +river and stopped the mill. That was just the time I got the news o' +your bein' dead with yellow fever. Lord! honey, I allus allowed to +myself thet suthin' was happenin' to ye then." + +She did not reply; but he, holding her figure closer to him, felt it +trembling with a nervous expectation. Suddenly she threw him off, and +rose to her feet with a cry. "There!" she screamed frantically, +"they've come! they've come!" + +A rabbit had run out into the moonlight before them, a gray fox had +dashed from the thicket into the wood, but nothing else. + +"Who's come?" said Collinson, staring at her. + +"The sheriff and his posse! They're surrounding them now. Don't you +hear?" she gasped. + +There was a strange rattling in the direction of the mill, a dull +rumble, with wild shouts and outcries, and the trampling of feet on its +wooden platform. Collinson staggered to his feet; but at the same +moment he was thrown violently against his wife, and they both clung +helplessly to the tree, with their eyes turned toward the ledge. There +was a dense cloud of dust and haze hanging over it. + +She uttered another cry, and ran swiftly towards the rocky grade. +Collinson ran quickly after her, but as she reached the grade he +suddenly shouted, with an awful revelation in his voice, "Come back! +Stop, Sadie, for God's sake!" But it was too late. She had already +disappeared; and as he reached the rock on which Chivers had leaped, he +felt it give way beneath him. + +But there was no sound, only a rush of wind from the valley below. +Everything lapsed again into its awful stillness. As the cloud lifted +from where the mill had stood, the moon shone only upon empty space. +There was a singular murmuring and whispering from the woods beyond +that increased in sound, and an hour later the dry bed of the old +mill-stream was filled with a rushing river. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Preble Key returned to his hotel from the convent, it is to be feared, +with very little of that righteous satisfaction which is supposed to +follow the performance of a good deed. He was by no means certain that +what he had done was best for the young girl. He had only shown himself +to her as a worldly monitor of dangers, of which her innocence was +providentially unconscious. In his feverish haste to avert a scandal, +he had no chance to explain his real feelings; he had, perhaps, even +exposed her thwarted impulses to equally naive but more dangerous +expression, which he might not have the opportunity to check. He +tossed wakefully that night upon his pillow, tormented with alternate +visions of her adorable presence at the hotel, and her bowed, +renunciating figure as she reentered the convent gate. He waited +expectantly the next day for the message she had promised, and which he +believed she would find some way to send. But no message was +forthcoming. The day passed, and he became alarmed. The fear that her +escapade had been discovered again seized him. If she were in close +restraint, she could neither send to him, nor could he convey to her +the solicitude and sympathy that filled his heart. In her childish +frankness she might have confessed the whole truth, and this would not +only shut the doors of the convent against him, under his former +pretext, but compromise her still more if he boldly called. He waylaid +the afternoon procession; she was not among them. Utterly despairing, +the wildest plans for seeing her passed through his brain,--plans that +recalled his hot-headed youth, and a few moments later made him smile +at his extravagance, even while it half frightened him at the reality +of his passion. He reached the hotel heart-sick and desperate. The +porter met him on the steps. It was with a thrill that sent the blood +leaping to his cheeks that he heard the man say:-- + +"Sister Seraphina is waiting for you in the sitting-room." + +There was no thought of discovery or scandal in Preble Key's mind now; +no doubt or hesitation as to what he would do, as he sprang up the +staircase. He only knew that he had found her again, and was happy! +He burst into the room, but this time remembered to shut the door +behind him. He looked eagerly towards the window where she had stood +the day before, but now she rose quickly from the sofa in the corner, +where she had been seated, and the missal she had been reading rolled +from her lap to the floor. He ran towards her to pick it up. Her +name--the name she had told him to call her--was passionately trembling +on his lips, when she slowly put her veil aside, and displayed a pale, +kindly, middle-aged face, slightly marked by old scars of smallpox. It +was not Alice; it was the real Sister Seraphina who stood before him. + +His first revulsion of bitter disappointment was so quickly followed by +a realization that all had been discovered, and his sacrifice of +yesterday had gone for naught, that he stood before her, stammering, +but without the power to say a word. Luckily for him, his utter +embarrassment seemed to reassure her, and to calm that timidity which +his brusque man-like irruption might well produce in the inexperienced, +contemplative mind of the recluse. Her voice was very sweet, albeit +sad, as she said gently:-- + +"I am afraid I have taken you by surprise; but there was no time to +arrange for a meeting, and the Lady Superior thought that I, who knew +all the facts, had better see you confidentially. Father Cipriano gave +us your address." + +Amazed and wondering, Key bowed her to a seat. + +"You will remember," she went on softly, "that the Lady Superior failed +to get any information from you regarding the brother of one of our +dear children, whom he committed to our charge through a--a companion +or acquaintance--a Mrs. Barker. As she was armed with his authority by +letter, we accepted the dear child through her, permitted her as his +representative to have free access to his sister, and even allowed her, +as an unattended woman, to pass the night at the convent. We were +therefore surprised this morning to receive a letter from him, +absolutely forbidding any further intercourse, correspondence, or +association of his sister with this companion, Mrs. Barker. It was +necessary to inform the dear child of this at once, as she was on the +point of writing to this woman; but we were pained and shocked at her +reception of her brother's wishes. I ought to say, in justice to the +dear child, that while she is usually docile, intelligent, and +tractable to discipline, and a devote in her religious feelings, she is +singularly impulsive. But we were not prepared for the rash and sudden +step she has taken. At noon to-day she escaped from the convent!" + +Key, who had been following her with relief, sprang to his feet at this +unexpected culmination. + +"Escaped!" he said. "Impossible! I mean," he added, hurriedly +recalling himself, "your rules, your discipline, your attendants are so +perfect." + +"The poor impulsive creature has added sacrilege to her madness--a +sacrilege we are willing to believe she did not understand, for she +escaped in a religious habit--my own." + +"But this would sufficiently identify her," he said, controlling +himself with an effort. + +"Alas, not so! There are many of us who go abroad on our missions in +these garments, and they are made all alike, so as to divert rather +than attract attention to any individuality. We have sent private +messengers in all directions, and sought her everywhere, but without +success. You will understand that we wish to avoid scandal, which a +more public inquiry would create." + +"And you come to me," said Key, with a return of his first suspicion, +in spite of his eagerness to cut short the interview and be free to +act,--"to me, almost a stranger?" + +"Not a stranger, Mr. Key," returned the religieuse gently, "but to a +well-known man--a man of affairs in the country where this unhappy +child's brother lives--a friend who seems to be sent by Heaven to find +out this brother for us, and speed this news to him. We come to the old +pupil of Father Cipriano, a friend of the Holy Church; to the kindly +gentleman who knows what it is to have dear relations of his own, and +who only yesterday was seeking the convent to"-- + +"Enough!" interrupted Key hurriedly, with a slight color. "I will go +at once. I do not know this man, but I will do my best to find him. +And this--this--young girl? You say you have no trace of her? May she +not still be here? I should have some clue by which to seek her--I +mean that I could give to her brother." + +"Alas! we fear she is already far away from here. If she went at once +to San Luis, she could have easily taken a train to San Francisco +before we discovered her flight. We believe that it was the poor +child's intent to join her brother, so as to intercede for her +friend--or, perhaps, alas! to seek her." + +"And this friend left yesterday morning?" he said quickly, yet +concealing a feeling of relief. "Well, you may depend on me! And now, +as there is no time to be lost, I will make my arrangements to take the +next train." He held out his hand, paused, and said in almost boyish +embarrassment: "Bid me God speed, Sister Seraphina!" + +"May the Holy Virgin aid you," she said gently. Yet, as she passed out +of the door, with a grateful smile, a characteristic reaction came over +Key. His romantic belief in the interposition of Providence was not +without a tendency to apply the ordinary rules of human evidence to +such phenomena. Sister Seraphina's application to him seemed little +short of miraculous interference; but what if it were only a trick to +get rid of him, while the girl, whose escapade had been discovered, was +either under restraint in the convent, or hiding in Santa Luisa? Yet +this did not prevent him from mechanically continuing his arrangements +for departure. When they were completed, and he had barely time to get +to the station at San Luis, he again lingered in vague expectation of +some determining event. + +The appearance of a servant with a telegraphic message at this moment +seemed to be an answer to this instinctive feeling. He tore it open +hastily. But it was only a single line from his foreman at the mine, +which had been repeated to him from the company's office in San +Francisco. It read, "Come at once--important." + +Disappointed as it left him, it determined his action; and as the train +steamed out of San Luis, it for a while diverted his attention from the +object of his pursuit. In any event, his destination would have been +Skinner's or the Hollow, as the point from which to begin his search. +He believed with Sister Seraphina that the young girl would make her +direct appeal to her brother; but even if she sought Mrs. Barker, it +would still be at some of the haunts of the gang. The letter to the +Lady Superior had been postmarked from "Bald Top," which Key knew to be +an obscure settlement less frequented than Skinner's. Even then it was +hardly possible that the chief of the road agents would present himself +at the post-office, and it had probably been left by some less known of +the gang. A vague idea, that was hardly a suspicion, that the girl +might have a secret address of her brother's, without understanding the +reasons for its secrecy, came into his mind. A still more vague hope, +that he might meet her before she found her brother, upheld him. It +would be an accidental meeting on her part, for he no longer dared to +hope that she would seek or trust him again. And it was with very +little of his old sanguine quality that, travel-worn and weary, he at +last alighted at Skinner's. But his half careless inquiry if any lady +passengers had lately arrived there, to his embarrassment produced a +broad smile on the face of Skinner. + +"You're the second man that asked that question, Mr. Key," he said. + +"The second man?" ejaculated Key nervously. + +"Yes the first was the sheriff of Sierra. He wanted to find a tall, +good-looking woman, about thirty, with black eyes. I hope that ain't +the kind o' girl you're looking arter--is it? for I reckon she's gin +you both the slip." + +Key protested with a forced laugh that it was not, yet suddenly +hesitated to describe Alice; for he instantly recognized the portrait +of her friend, the assumed Mrs. Barker. Skinner continued in lazy +confidence:-- + +"Ye see they say that the sheriff had sorter got the dead wood on that +gang o' road agents, and had hemmed 'em in somewhar betwixt Bald Top +and Collinson's. But that woman was one o' their spies, and spotted +his little game, and managed to give 'em the tip, so they got clean +away. Anyhow, they ain't bin heard from since. But the big shake has +made scoutin' along the ledges rather stiff work for the sheriff. They +say the valley near Long Canyon's chock full o' rock and slumgullion +that's slipped down." + +"What do you mean by the big shake?" asked Key in surprise. + +"Great Scott! you didn't hear of it? Didn't hear of the 'arthquake +that shook us up all along Galloper's the other night? Well," he added +disgustedly, "that's jist the conceit of them folks in the bay, that +can't allow that ANYTHIN' happens in the mountains!" + +The urgent telegrams of his foreman now flashed across Key's +preoccupied mind. Possibly Skinner saw his concern, "I reckon your +mine is all right, Mr. Key. One of your men was over yere last night, +and didn't say nothin'." + +But this did not satisfy Key; and in a few minutes he had mounted his +horse and was speeding towards the Hollow, with a remorseful +consciousness of having neglected his colleagues' interests. For +himself, in the utter prepossession of his passion for Alice, he cared +nothing. As he dashed down the slope to the Hollow, he thought only of +the two momentous days that she had passed there, and the fate that had +brought them so nearly together. There was nothing to recall its +sylvan beauty in the hideous works that now possessed it, or the +substantial dwelling-house that had taken the place of the old cabin. +A few hurried questions to the foreman satisfied him of the integrity +of the property. There had been some alarm in the shaft, but there was +no subsidence of the "seam," nor any difficulty in the working. "What +I telegraphed you for, Mr. Key, was about something that has cropped up +way back o' the earthquake. We were served here the other day with a +legal notice of a claim to the mine, on account of previous work done +on the ledge by the last occupant." + +"But the cabin was built by a gang of thieves, who used it as a hoard +for their booty," returned Key hotly, "and every one of them are +outlaws, and have no standing before the law." He stopped with a pang +as he thought of Alice. And the blood rushed to his cheeks as the +foreman quietly continued:-- + +"But the claim ain't in any o' their names. It's allowed to be the +gift of their leader to his young sister, afore the outlawry, and it's +in HER name--Alice Riggs or something." + +Of the half-dozen tumultuous thoughts that passed through Key's mind, +only one remained. It was purely an act of the brother's to secure +some possible future benefit for his sister. And of this she was +perfectly ignorant! He recovered himself quickly, and said with a +smile:-- + +"But I discovered the ledge and its auriferous character myself. There +was no trace or sign of previous discovery or mining occupation." + +"So I jedged, and so I said, and thet puts ye all right. But I thought +I'd tell ye; for mining laws is mining laws, and it's the one thing ye +can't get over," he added, with the peculiar superstitious reverence of +the Californian miner for that vested authority. + +But Key scarcely listened. All that he had heard seemed only to link +him more fatefully and indissolubly with the young girl. He was +already impatient of even this slight delay in his quest. In his +perplexity his thoughts had reverted to Collinson's: the mill was a +good point to begin his search from; its good-natured, stupid +proprietor might be his guide, his ally, and even his confidant. + +When his horse was baited, he was again in the saddle. "If yer going +Collinson's way, yer might ask him if he's lost a horse," said the +foreman. "The morning after the shake, some of the boys picked up a +mustang, with a make-up lady's saddle on." Key started! While it was +impossible that it could have been ridden by Alice, it might have been +by the woman who had preceded her. + +"Did you make any search?" he inquired eagerly; "there may have been an +accident." + +"I reckon it wasn't no accident," returned the foreman coolly, "for the +riata was loose and trailing, as if it had been staked out, and broken +away." + +Without another word, Key put spurs to his horse and galloped away, +leaving his companion staring after him. Here was a clue: the horse +could not have strayed far; the broken tether indicated a camp; the +gang had been gathered somewhere in the vicinity where Mrs. Barker had +warned them,--perhaps in the wood beyond Collinson's. He would +penetrate it alone. He knew his danger; but as a SINGLE unarmed man he +might be admitted to the presence of the leader, and the alleged claim +was a sufficient excuse. What he would say or do afterwards depended +upon chance. It was a wild scheme--but he was reckless. Yet he would +go to Collinson's first. + +At the end of two hours he reached the thick-set wood that gave upon +the shelf at the top of the grade which descended to the mill. As he +emerged from the wood into the bursting sunlight of the valley below, +he sharply reined in his horse and stopped. Another bound would have +been his last. For the shelf, the rocky grade itself, the ledge below, +and the mill upon it, were all gone! The crumbling outer wall of the +rocky grade had slipped away into immeasurable depths below, leaving +only the sharp edge of a cliff, which incurved towards the woods that +had once stood behind the mill, but which now bristled on the very edge +of a precipice. A mist was hanging over its brink and rising from the +valley; it was a full-fed stream that was coursing through the former +dry bed of the river and falling down the face of the bluff. He rubbed +his eyes, dismounted, crept along the edge of the precipice, and looked +below: whatever had subsided and melted down into its thousand feet of +depth, there was no trace left upon its smooth face. Scarcely an angle +of drift or debris marred the perpendicular; the burial of all ruin was +deep and compact; the erasure had been swift and sure--the obliteration +complete. It might have been the precipitation of ages, and not of a +single night. At that remote distance it even seemed as if grass were +already growing ever this enormous sepulchre, but it was only the tops +of the buried pines. The absolute silence, the utter absence of any +mark of convulsive struggle, even the lulling whimper of falling +waters, gave the scene a pastoral repose. + +So profound was the impression upon Key and his human passion that it +at first seemed an ironical and eternal ending of his quest. It was +with difficulty that he reasoned that the catastrophe occurred before +Alice's flight, and that even Collinson might have had time to escape. +He slowly skirted the edge of the chasm, and made his way back through +the empty woods behind the old mill-site towards the place where he had +dismounted. His horse seemed to have strayed into the shadows of this +covert; but as he approached him, he was amazed to see that it was not +his own, and that a woman's scarf was lying over its side saddle. A +wild idea seized him, and found expression in an impulsive cry:-- + +"Alice!" + +The woods echoed it; there was an interval of silence, and then a faint +response. But it was HER voice. He ran eagerly forward in that +direction, and called again; the response was nearer this time, and +then the tall ferns parted, and her lithe, graceful figure came +running, stumbling, and limping towards him like a wounded fawn. Her +face was pale and agitated, the tendrils of her light hair were +straying over her shoulder, and one of the sleeves of her school-gown +was stained with blood and dust. He caught the white and trembling +hands that were thrust out to him eagerly. + +"It is YOU!" she gasped. "I prayed for some one to come, but I did not +dream it would be YOU. And then I heard YOUR voice--and I thought it +could be only a dream until you called a second time." + +"But you are hurt," he exclaimed passionately. "You have met with some +accident!" + +"No, no!" she said eagerly. "Not I--but a poor, poor man I found lying +on the edge of the cliff. I could not help him much, I did not care to +leave him. No one WOULD come! I have been with him alone, all the +morning! Come quick, he may be dying." + +He passed his arm around her waist unconsciously; she permitted it as +unconsciously, as he half supported her figure while they hurried +forward. + +"He had been crushed by something, and was just hanging over the ledge, +and could not move nor speak," she went on quickly. "I dragged him +away to a tree, it took me hours to move him, he was so heavy,--and I +got him some water from the stream and bathed his face, and blooded all +my sleeve." + +"But what were you doing here?" he asked quickly. + +A faint blush crossed the pallor of her delicate cheek. She looked +away quickly. "I--was going to find my brother at Bald Top," she +replied at last hurriedly. "But don't ask me now--only come quick, do." + +"Is the wounded man conscious? Did you speak with him? Does he know +who you are?" asked Key uneasily. + +"No! he only moaned a little and opened his eyes when I dragged him. I +don't think he even knew what had happened." + +They hurried on again. The wood lightened suddenly. "Here!" she said +in a half whisper, and stepped timidly into the open light. Only a few +feet from the fatal ledge, against the roots of a buckeye, with HER +shawl thrown over him, lay the wounded man. + +Key started back. It was Collinson! + +His head and shoulders seemed uninjured; but as Key lifted the shawl, +he saw that the long, lank figure appeared to melt away below the waist +into a mass of shapeless and dirty rags. Key hurriedly replaced the +shawl, and, bending over him, listened to his hurried respiration and +the beating of his heart. Then he pressed a drinking-flask to his +lips. The spirit seemed to revive him; he slowly opened his eyes. +They fell upon Key with quick recognition. But the look changed; one +could see that he was trying to rise, but that no movement of the limbs +accompanied that effort of will, and his old patient, resigned look +returned. Key shuddered. There was some injury to the spine. The man +was paralyzed. + +"I can't get up, Mr. Key," he said in a faint but untroubled voice, +"nor seem to move my arms, but you'll just allow that I've shook hands +with ye--all the same." + +"How did this happen?" said Key anxiously. + +"Thet's wot gets me! Sometimes I reckon I know, and sometimes I don't. +Lyin' thar on thet ledge all last night, and only jest able to look +down into the old valley, sometimes it seemed to me ez if I fell over +and got caught in the rocks trying to save my wife; but then when I kem +to think sensible, and know my wife wasn't there at all, I get +mystified. Sometimes I think I got ter thinkin' of my wife only when +this yer young gal thet's bin like an angel to me kem here and dragged +me off the ledge, for you see she don't belong here, and hez dropped on +to me like a sperrit." + +"Then you were not in the house when the shock came?" said Key. + +"No. You see the mill was filled with them fellers as the sheriff was +arter, and it went over with 'em--and I"-- + +"Alice," said Key, with a white face, "would you mind going to my +horse, which you will find somewhere near yours, and bringing me a +medicine case from my saddle-bags?" + +The innocent girl glanced quickly at her companion, saw the change in +his face, and, attributing it to the imminent danger of the injured +man, at once glided away. When she was out of hearing, Key leaned +gravely over him:-- + +"Collinson, I must trust you with a secret. I am afraid that this poor +girl who helped you is the sister of the leader of that gang the +sheriff was in pursuit of. She has been kept in perfect ignorance of +her brother's crimes. She must NEVER know them--nor even know his +fate! If he perished utterly in this catastrophe, as it would seem--it +was God's will to spare her that knowledge. I tell you this, to warn +you in anything you say before her. She MUST believe, as I shall try +to make her believe, that he has gone back to the States--where she +will perhaps, hereafter, believe that he died. Better that she should +know nothing--and keep her thought of him unchanged." + +"I see--I see--I see, Mr. Key," murmured the injured man. "Thet's wot +I've been sayin' to myself lyin' here all night. Thet's wot I bin +sayin' o' my wife Sadie,--her that I actooally got to think kem back to +me last night. You see I'd heerd from one o' those fellars that a +woman like unto her had been picked up in Texas and brought on yere, +and that mebbe she was somewhar in Californy. I was that foolish--and +that ontrue to her, all the while knowin', as I once told you, Mr. Key, +that ef she'd been alive she'd bin yere--that I believed it true for a +minit! And that was why, afore this happened, I had a dream, right out +yer, and dreamed she kem to me, all white and troubled, through the +woods. At first I thought it war my Sadie; but when I see she warn't +like her old self, and her voice was strange and her laugh was +strange--then I knowed it wasn't her, and I was dreamin'. You're +right, Mr. Key, in wot you got off just now--wot was it? Better to +know nothin'--and keep the old thoughts unchanged." + +"Have you any pain?" asked Key after a pause. + +"No; I kinder feel easier now." + +Key looked at his changing face. "Tell me," he said gently, "if it +does not tax your strength, all that has happened here, all you know. +It is for HER sake." + +Thus adjured, with his eyes fixed on Key, Collinson narrated his story +from the irruption of the outlaws to the final catastrophe. Even then +he palliated their outrage with his characteristic patience, keeping +still his strange fascination for Chivers, and his blind belief in his +miserable wife. The story was at times broken by lapses of faintness, +by a singular return of his old abstraction and forgetfulness in the +midst of a sentence, and at last by a fit of coughing that left a few +crimson bubbles on the corners of his month. Key lifted his eyes +anxiously; there was some grave internal injury, which the dying man's +resolute patience had suppressed. Yet, at the sound of Alice's +returning step, Collinson's eyes brightened, apparently as much at her +coming as from the effect of the powerful stimulant Key had taken from +his medicine case. + +"I thank ye, Mr. Key," he said faintly; "for I've got an idea I ain't +got no great time before me, and I've got suthin' to say to you, afore +witnesses"--his eyes sought Alice's in half apology--"afore witnesses, +you understand. Would you mind standin' out thar, afore me, in the +light, so I kin see you both, and you, miss, rememberin', ez a witness, +suthin' I got to tell to him? You might take his hand, miss, to make +it more regular and lawlike." + +The two did as he bade them, standing side by side, painfully humoring +what seemed to them to be wanderings of a dying man. + +"Thar was a young fellow," said Collinson in a steady voice, "ez kem to +my shanty a night ago on his way to the--the--valley. He was a +sprightly young fellow, gay and chipper-like, and he sez to me, +confidential-like, 'Collinson,' sez he, 'I'm off to the States this +very night on business of importance; mebbe I'll be away a long +time--for years! You know,' sez he, 'Mr. Key, in the Hollow! Go to +him,' sez he, 'and tell him ez how I hadn't time to get to see him; +tell him,' sez he, 'that RIVERS'--you've got the name, Mr. Key?--you've +got the name, miss?--'that RIVERS wants him to say this to his little +sister from her lovin' brother. And tell him,' sez he, this yer +RIVERS, 'to look arter her, being alone.' You remember that, Mr. Key? +you remember it, miss? You see, I remembered it, too, being, so to +speak, alone myself"--he paused, and added in a faint whisper--"till +now." + +Then he was silent. That innocent lie was the first and last upon his +honest lips; for as they stood there, hand in hand, they saw his plain, +hard face take upon itself, at first, the gray, ashen hues of the rocks +around him, and then and thereafter something of the infinite +tranquillity and peace of that wilderness in which he had lived and +died, and of which he was a part. + +Contemporaneous history was less kindly. The "Bald Top Sentinel" +congratulated its readers that the late seismic disturbance was +accompanied with very little loss of life, if any. "It is reported +that the proprietor of a low shebeen for emigrants in an obscure hollow +had succumbed from injuries; but," added the editor, with a fine touch +of Western humor, "whether this was the result of his being forcibly +mixed up with his own tanglefoot whiskey or not, we are unable to +determine from the evidence before us." For all that, a small stone +shaft was added later to the rocks near the site of the old mill, +inscribed to the memory of this obscure proprietor, with the singular +legend: "Have ye faith like to him?" And those who knew only of the +material catastrophe looking around upon the scene of desolation it +commemorated, thought grimly that it must be faith indeed, and--were +wiser than they knew. + +"You smiled, Don Preble," said the Lady Superior to Key a few weeks +later, "when I told to you that many caballeros thought it most +discreet to intrust their future brides to the maternal guardianship +and training of the Holy Church; yet, of a truth, I meant not YOU. And +yet--eh! well, we shall see." + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In a Hollow of the Hills, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS *** + +***** This file should be named 2180.txt or 2180.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/8/2180/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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