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diff --git a/2280-h/2280-h.htm b/2280-h/2280-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65fb545 --- /dev/null +++ b/2280-h/2280-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4447 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready, by Bret Harte +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: smaller ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready, 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: A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready + +Author: Bret Harte + +Posting Date: October 28, 2008 [EBook #2280] +Release Date: August, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY *** + + + + + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BRET HARTE +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<P> +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap00">PROLOGUE</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap00"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PROLOGUE +</H3> + +<P> +There was no mistake this time: he had struck gold at last! +</P> + +<P> +It had lain there before him a moment ago—a misshapen piece of +brown-stained quartz, interspersed with dull yellow metal; yielding +enough to have allowed the points of his pick to penetrate its +honeycombed recesses, yet heavy enough to drop from the point of his +pick as he endeavored to lift it from the red earth. +</P> + +<P> +He was seeing all this plainly, although he found himself, he knew not +why, at some distance from the scene of his discovery, his heart +foolishly beating, his breath impotently hurried. Yet he was walking +slowly and vaguely; conscious of stopping and staring at the landscape, +which no longer looked familiar to him. He was hoping for some +instinct or force of habit to recall him to himself; yet when he saw a +neighbor at work in an adjacent claim, he hesitated, and then turned +his back upon him. Yet only a moment before he had thought of running +to him, saying, "By Jingo! I've struck it," or "D—n it, old man, I've +got it"; but that moment had passed, and now it seemed to him that he +could scarce raise his voice, or, if he did, the ejaculation would +appear forced and artificial. Neither could he go over to him coolly +and tell his good fortune; and, partly from this strange shyness, and +partly with a hope that another survey of the treasure might restore +him to natural expression, he walked back to his tunnel. +</P> + +<P> +Yes; it was there! No mere "pocket" or "deposit," but a part of the +actual vein he had been so long seeking. It was there, sure enough, +lying beside the pick and the debris of the "face" of the vein that he +had exposed sufficiently, after the first shock of discovery, to assure +himself of the fact and the permanence of his fortune. It was there, +and with it the refutation of his enemies' sneers, the corroboration of +his friends' belief, the practical demonstration of his own theories, +the reward of his patient labors. It was there, sure enough. But, +somehow, he not only failed to recall the first joy of discovery, but +was conscious of a vague sense of responsibility and unrest. It was, +no doubt, an enormous fortune to a man in his circumstances: perhaps it +meant a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or more, judging from the +value of the old Martin lead, which was not as rich as this, but it +required to be worked constantly and judiciously. It was with a +decided sense of uneasiness that he again sought the open sunlight of +the hillside. His neighbor was still visible on the adjacent claim; +but he had apparently stopped working, and was contemplatively smoking +a pipe under a large pine-tree. For an instant he envied him his +apparent contentment. He had a sudden fierce and inexplicable desire +to go over to him and exasperate his easy poverty by a revelation of +his own new-found treasure. But even that sensation quickly passed, +and left him staring blankly at the landscape again. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as he had made his discovery known, and settled its value, he +would send for his wife and her children in the States. He would build +a fine house on the opposite hillside, if she would consent to it, +unless she preferred, for the children's sake, to live in San +Francisco. A sense of a loss of independence—of a change of +circumstances that left him no longer his own master—began to perplex +him, in the midst of his brightest projects. Certain other relations +with other members of his family, which had lapsed by absence and his +insignificance, must now be taken up anew. He must do something for +his sister Jane, for his brother William, for his wife's poor +connections. It would be unfair to him to say that he contemplated +those things with any other instinct than that of generosity; yet he +was conscious of being already perplexed and puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime, however, the neighbor had apparently finished his pipe, and, +knocking the ashes out of it, rose suddenly, and ended any further +uncertainty of their meeting by walking over directly towards him. The +treasure-finder advanced a few steps on his side, and then stopped +irresolutely. +</P> + +<P> +"Hollo, Slinn!" said the neighbor, confidently. +</P> + +<P> +"Hollo, Masters," responded Slinn, faintly. From the sound of the two +voices a stranger might have mistaken their relative condition. "What +in thunder are you mooning about for? What's up?" Then, catching +sight of Slinn's pale and anxious face, he added abruptly, "Are you +sick?" +</P> + +<P> +Slinn was on the point of telling him his good fortune, but stopped. +The unlucky question confirmed his consciousness of his physical and +mental disturbance, and he dreaded the ready ridicule of his companion. +He would tell him later; Masters need not know WHEN he had made the +strike. Besides, in his present vagueness, he shrank from the brusque, +practical questioning that would be sure to follow the revelation to a +man of Masters' temperament. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a little giddy here," he answered, putting his hand to his head, +"and I thought I'd knock off until I was better." +</P> + +<P> +Masters examined him with two very critical gray eyes. "Tell ye what, +old man!—if you don't quit this dog-goned foolin' of yours in that +God-forsaken tunnel you'll get loony! Times you get so tangled up in +follerin' that blind lead o' yours you ain't sensible!" +</P> + +<P> +Here was the opportunity to tell him all, and vindicate the justice of +his theories! But he shrank from it again; and now, adding to the +confusion, was a singular sense of dread at the mental labor of +explanation. He only smiled painfully, and began to move away. "Look +you!" said Masters, peremptorily, "ye want about three fingers of +straight whiskey to set you right, and you've got to take it with me. +D—n it, man, it may be the last drink we take together! Don't look so +skeered! I mean—I made up my mind about ten minutes ago to cut the +whole d—d thing, and light out for fresh diggings. I'm sick of +getting only grub wages out o' this bill. So that's what I mean by +saying it's the last drink you and me'll take together. You know my +ways: sayin' and doin' with me's the same thing." +</P> + +<P> +It was true. Slinn had often envied Masters' promptness of decision +and resolution. But he only looked at the grim face of his +interlocutor with a feeble sense of relief. He was GOING. And he, +Slinn, would not have to explain anything! +</P> + +<P> +He murmured something about having to go over to the settlement on +business. He dreaded lest Masters should insist upon going into the +tunnel. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you want to mail that letter," said Masters, drily. "The +mail don't go till to-morrow, so you've got time to finish it, and put +it in an envelope." +</P> + +<P> +Following the direction of Masters' eyes, Slinn looked down and saw, to +his utter surprise, that he was holding an unfinished pencilled note in +his hand. How it came there, when he had written it, he could not +tell; he dimly remembered that one of his first impulses was to write +to his wife, but that he had already done so he had forgotten. He +hastily concealed the note in his breast-pocket, with a vacant smile. +Masters eyed him half contemptuously, half compassionately. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't forget yourself and drop it in some hollow tree for a +letter-box," he said. "Well—so long!—since you won't drink. Take +care of yourself," and, turning on his heel, Masters walked away. +</P> + +<P> +Slinn watched him as he crossed over to his abandoned claim, saw him +gather his few mining utensils, strap his blanket over his back, lift +his hat on his long-handled shovel as a token of farewell, and then +stride light-heartedly over the ridge. +</P> + +<P> +He was alone now with his secret and his treasure. The only man in the +world who knew of the exact position of his tunnel had gone away +forever. It was not likely that this chance companion of a few weeks +would ever remember him or the locality again; he would now leave his +treasure alone—for even a day perhaps—until he had thought out some +plan and sought out some friend in whom to confide. His secluded life, +the singular habits of concentration which had at last proved so +successful had, at the same time, left him few acquaintances and no +associates. And in all his well-laid plans and patiently-digested +theories for finding the treasure, the means and methods of working it +and disposing of it had never entered. +</P> + +<P> +And now, at the hour when he most needed his faculties, what was the +meaning of this strange benumbing of them! +</P> + +<P> +Patience! He only wanted a little rest—a little time to recover +himself. There was a large boulder under a tree in the highway of the +settlement—a sheltered spot where he had often waited for the coming +of the stage-coach. He would go there, and when he was sufficiently +rested and composed he would go on. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, on his way he diverged and turned into the woods, for no +other apparent purpose than to find a hollow tree. "A hollow tree." +Yes! that was what Masters had said; he remembered it distinctly; and +something was to be done there, but what it was, or why it should be +done, he could not tell. However, it was done, and very luckily, for +his limbs could scarcely support him further, and reaching that boulder +he dropped upon it like another stone. +</P> + +<P> +And now, strange to say, the uneasiness and perplexity which had +possessed him ever since he had stood before his revealed wealth +dropped from him like a burden laid upon the wayside. A measureless +peace stole over him, in which visions of his new-found fortune, no +longer a trouble and perplexity, but crowned with happiness and +blessing to all around him, assumed proportions far beyond his own +weak, selfish plans. In its even-handed benefaction, his wife and +children, his friends and relations, even his late poor companion of +the hillside, met and moved harmoniously together; in its far-reaching +consequences there was only the influence of good. It was not strange +that this poor finite mind should never have conceived the meaning of +the wealth extended to him; or that conceiving it he should faint and +falter under the revelation. Enough that for a few minutes he must +have tasted a joy of perfect anticipation that years of actual +possession might never bring. +</P> + +<P> +The sun seemed to go down in a rosy dream of his own happiness, as he +still sat there. Later, the shadows of the trees thickened and +surrounded him, and still later fell the calm of a quiet evening sky +with far-spaced passionless stars, that seemed as little troubled by +what they looked upon as he was by the stealthy creeping life in the +grasses and underbrush at his feet. The dull patter of soft little +feet in the soft dust of the road, the gentle gleam of moist and +wondering little eyes on the branches and in the mossy edges of the +boulder, did not disturb him. He sat patiently through it all, as if +he had not yet made up his mind. +</P> + +<P> +But when the stage came with the flashing sun the next morning, and the +irresistible clamor of life and action, the driver suddenly laid his +four spirited horses on their haunches before the quiet spot. The +express messenger clambered down from the box, and approached what +seemed to be a heap of cast-off clothes upon the boulder. +</P> + +<P> +"He don't seem to be drunk," he said, in reply to a querulous +interrogation from the passengers. "I can't make him out. His eyes +are open, but he cannot speak or move. Take a look at him, Doc." +</P> + +<P> +A rough unprofessional-looking man here descended from the inside of +the coach, and, carelessly thrusting aside the other curious +passengers, suddenly leant over the heap of clothes in a professional +attitude. +</P> + +<P> +"He is dead," said one of the passengers. +</P> + +<P> +The rough man let the passive head sink softly down again. "No such +luck for him," he said curtly, but not unkindly. "It's a stroke of +paralysis—and about as big as they make 'em. It's a toss-up if he +ever speaks or moves again as long as he lives." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P> +When Alvin Mulrady announced his intention of growing potatoes and +garden "truck" on the green slopes of Los Gatos, the mining community +of that region, and the adjacent hamlet of "Rough-and-Ready," regarded +it with the contemptuous indifference usually shown by those +adventurers towards all bucolic pursuits. There was certainly no +active objection to the occupation of two hillsides, which gave so +little promise to the prospector for gold that it was currently +reported that a single prospector, called "Slinn," had once gone mad or +imbecile through repeated failures. The only opposition came, +incongruously enough, from the original pastoral owner of the soil, one +Don Ramon Alvarado, whose claim for seven leagues of hill and valley, +including the now prosperous towns of Rough-and-Ready and Red Dog, was +met with simple derision from the squatters and miners. "Looks ez ef +we woz goin' to travel three thousand miles to open up his d—d old +wilderness, and then pay for the increased valoo we give it—don't it? +Oh, yes, certainly!" was their ironical commentary. Mulrady might have +been pardoned for adopting this popular opinion; but by an equally +incongruous sentiment, peculiar, however, to the man, he called upon +Don Ramon, and actually offered to purchase the land, or "go shares" +with him in the agricultural profits. It was alleged that the Don was +so struck with this concession that he not only granted the land, but +struck up a quaint reserved friendship for the simple-minded +agriculturist and his family. It is scarcely necessary to add that +this intimacy was viewed by the miners with the contempt that it +deserved. They would have been more contemptuous, however, had they +known the opinion that Don Ramon entertained of their particular +vocation, and which he early confided to Mulrady. +</P> + +<P> +"They are savages who expect to reap where they have not sown; to take +out of the earth without returning anything to it but their precious +carcasses; heathens, who worship the mere stones they dig up." "And +was there no Spaniard who ever dug gold?" asked Mulrady, simply. "Ah, +there are Spaniards and Moors," responded Don Ramon, sententiously. +"Gold has been dug, and by caballeros; but no good ever came of it. +There were Alvarados in Sonora, look you, who had mines of SILVER, and +worked them with peons and mules, and lost their money—a gold mine to +work a silver one—like gentlemen! But this grubbing in the dirt with +one's fingers, that a little gold may stick to them, is not for +caballeros. And then, one says nothing of the curse." +</P> + +<P> +"The curse!" echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine superstition. +"What is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"You knew not, friend Mulrady, that when these lands were given to my +ancestors by Charles V., the Bishop of Monterey laid a curse upon any +who should desecrate them. Good! Let us see! Of the three Americanos +who founded yonder town, one was shot, another died of a +fever—poisoned, you understand, by the soil—and the last got himself +crazy of aguardiente. Even the scientifico,[1] who came here years ago +and spied into the trees and the herbs: he was afterwards punished for +his profanation, and died of an accident in other lands. But," added +Don Ramon, with grave courtesy, "this touches not yourself. Through +me, YOU are of the soil." +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, it would seem as if a secure if not a rapid prosperity was the +result of Don Ramon's manorial patronage. The potato patch and market +garden flourished exceedingly; the rich soil responded with magnificent +vagaries of growth; the even sunshine set the seasons at defiance with +extraordinary and premature crops. The salt pork and biscuit consuming +settlers did not allow their contempt of Mulrady's occupation to +prevent their profiting by this opportunity for changing their diet. +The gold they had taken from the soil presently began to flow into his +pockets in exchange for his more modest treasures. The little cabin, +which barely sheltered his family—a wife, son, and daughter—was +enlarged, extended, and refitted, but in turn abandoned for a more +pretentious house on the opposite hill. A whitewashed fence replaced +the rudely-split rails, which had kept out the wilderness. By degrees, +the first evidences of cultivation—the gashes of red soil, the piles +of brush and undergrowth, the bared boulders, and heaps of +stone—melted away, and were lost under a carpet of lighter green, +which made an oasis in the tawny desert of wild oats on the hillside. +Water was the only free boon denied this Garden of Eden; what was +necessary for irrigation had to be brought from a mining ditch at great +expense, and was of insufficient quantity. In this emergency Mulrady +thought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope beside his +house; not, however, without serious consultation and much objection +from his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don Ramon pointed out +that this trifling with the entrails of the earth was not only an +indignity to Nature almost equal to shaft-sinking and tunneling, but +was a disturbance of vested interests. "I and my fathers, San Diego +rest them!" said Don Ramon, crossing himself, "were content with wells +and cisterns, filled by Heaven at its appointed seasons; the cattle, +dumb brutes though they were, knew where to find water when they wanted +it. But thou sayest truly," he added, with a sigh, "that was before +streams and rain were choked with hellish engines, and poisoned with +their spume. Go on, friend Mulrady, dig and bore if thou wilt, but in +a seemly fashion, and not with impious earthquakes of devilish +gunpowder." +</P> + +<P> +With this concession Alvin Mulrady began to sink his first artesian +shaft. Being debarred the auxiliaries of steam and gunpowder, the work +went on slowly. The market garden did not suffer meantime, as Mulrady +had employed two Chinamen to take charge of the ruder tillage, while he +superintended the engineering work of the well. This trifling incident +marked an epoch in the social condition of the family. Mrs. Mulrady at +once assumed a conscious importance among her neighbors. She spoke of +her husband's "men"; she alluded to the well as "the works"; she +checked the easy frontier familiarity of her customers with pretty Mary +Mulrady, her seventeen-year-old daughter. Simple Alvin Mulrady looked +with astonishment at this sudden development of the germ planted in all +feminine nature to expand in the slightest sunshine of prosperity. +"Look yer, Malviny; ain't ye rather puttin' on airs with the boys that +want to be civil to Mamie? Like as not one of 'em may be makin' up to +her already." "You don't mean to say, Alvin Mulrady," responded Mrs. +Mulrady, with sudden severity, "that you ever thought of givin' your +daughter to a common miner, or that I'm goin' to allow her to marry out +of our own set?" "Our own set!" echoed Mulrady feebly, blinking at her +in astonishment, and then glancing hurriedly across at his +freckle-faced son and the two Chinamen at work in the cabbages. "Oh, +you know what I mean," said Mrs. Mulrady sharply; "the set that we move +in. The Alvarados and their friends! Doesn't the old Don come here +every day, and ain't his son the right age for Mamie? And ain't they +the real first families here—all the same as if they were noblemen? +No, leave Mamie to me, and keep to your shaft; there never was a man +yet had the least sabe about these things, or knew what was due to his +family." Like most of his larger minded, but feebler equipped sex, +Mulrady was too glad to accept the truth of the latter proposition, +which left the meannesses of life to feminine manipulation, and went +off to his shaft on the hillside. But during that afternoon he was +perplexed and troubled. He was too loyal a husband not to be pleased +with this proof of an unexpected and superior foresight in his wife, +although he was, like all husbands, a little startled by it. He tried +to dismiss it from his mind. But looking down from the hillside upon +his little venture, where gradual increase and prosperity had not been +beyond his faculties to control and understand, he found himself +haunted by the more ambitious projects of his helpmate. From his own +knowledge of men, he doubted if Don Ramon, any more than himself, had +ever thought of the possibility of a matrimonial connection between the +families. He doubted if he would consent to it. And unfortunately it +was this very doubt that, touching his own pride as a self-made man, +made him first seriously consider his wife's proposition. He was as +good as Don Ramon, any day! With this subtle feminine poison instilled +in his veins, carried completely away by the logic of his wife's +illogical premises, he almost hated his old benefactor. He looked down +upon the little Garden of Eden, where his Eve had just tempted him with +the fatal fruit, and felt a curious consciousness that he was losing +its simple and innocent enjoyment forever. +</P> + +<P> +Happily, about this time Don Ramon died. It is not probable that he +ever knew the amiable intentions of Mrs. Mulrady in regard to his son, +who now succeeded to the paternal estate, sadly partitioned by +relatives and lawsuits. The feminine Mulradys attended the funeral, in +expensive mourning from Sacramento; even the gentle Alvin was forced +into ready-made broadcloth, which accented his good-natured but +unmistakably common presence. Mrs. Mulrady spoke openly of her "loss"; +declared that the old families were dying out; and impressed the wives +of a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own family +was contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was +far from perfect. She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned Don +Caesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still +more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the shyness +of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely availed himself +of her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he carried out the +intentions of his father by consenting to sell to Mulrady, for a small +sum, the property he had leased. The idea of purchasing had originated +with Mrs. Mulrady. +</P> + +<P> +"It'll be all in the family," had observed that astute lady, "and it's +better for the looks of the things that we shouldn't he his tenants." +</P> + +<P> +It was only a few weeks later that she was startled by hearing her +husband's voice calling her from the hillside as he rapidly approached +the house. Mamie was in her room putting on a new pink cotton gown, in +honor of an expected visit from young Don Caesar, and Mrs. Mulrady was +tidying the house in view of the same event. Something in the tone of +her good man's voice, and the unusual circumstance of his return to the +house before work was done, caused her, however, to drop her dusting +cloth, and run to the kitchen door to meet him. She saw him running +through the rows of cabbages, his face shining with perspiration and +excitement, a light in his eyes which she had not seen for years. She +recalled, without sentiment, that he looked like that when she had +called him—a poor farm hand of her father's—out of the brush heap at +the back of their former home, in Illinois, to learn the consent of her +parents. The recollection was the more embarrassing as he threw his +arms around her, and pressed a resounding kiss upon her sallow cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"Sakes alive! Mulrady!" she said, exorcising the ghost of a blush that +had also been recalled from the past with her housewife's apron, "what +are you doin', and company expected every minit?" +</P> + +<P> +"Malviny, I've struck it; and struck it rich!" +</P> + +<P> +She disengaged herself from his arms, without excitement, and looked at +him with bright but shrewdly observant eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I've struck it in the well—the regular vein that the boys have been +looking fer. There's a fortin' fer you and Mamie: thousands and tens +of thousands!" +</P> + +<P> +"Wait a minit." +</P> + +<P> +She left him quickly, and went to the foot of the stairs. He could +hear her wonderingly and distinctly. "Ye can take off that new frock, +Mamie," she called out. +</P> + +<P> +There was a sound of undisguised expostulation from Mamie. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm speaking," said Mrs. Mulrady, emphatically. +</P> + +<P> +The murmuring ceased. Mrs. Mulrady returned to her husband. The +interruption seemed to have taken off the keen edge of his enjoyment. +He at once abdicated his momentary elevation as a discoverer, and +waited for her to speak. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye haven't told any one yet?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No. I was alone, down in the shaft. Ye see, Malviny, I wasn't +expectin' of anything." He began, with an attempt at fresh enjoyment, +"I was just clearin' out, and hadn't reckoned on anythin'." +</P> + +<P> +"You see, I was right when I advised you taking the land," she said, +without heeding him. +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady's face fell. "I hope Don Caesar won't think"—he began, +hesitatingly. "I reckon, perhaps, I oughter make some sorter +compensation—you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Stuff!" said Mrs. Mulrady, decidedly. "Don't be a fool. Any gold +discovery, anyhow, would have been yours—that's the law. And you +bought the land without any restrictions. Besides, you never had any +idea of this!"—she stopped, and looked him suddenly in the face—"had +you?" +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady opened his honest, pale-gray eyes widely. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Malviny! You know I hadn't. I could swear!" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't swear, and don't let on to anybody but what you DID know it was +there. Now, Alvin Mulrady, listen to me." Her voice here took the +strident form of action. "Knock off work at the shaft, and send your +man away at once. Put on your things, catch the next stage to +Sacramento at four o'clock, and take Mamie with you." +</P> + +<P> +"Mamie!" echoed Mulrady, feebly. +</P> + +<P> +"You want to see Lawyer Cole and my brother Jim at once," she went on, +without heeding him, "and Mamie wants a change and some proper. +clothes. Leave the rest to me and Abner. I'll break it to Mamie, and +get her ready." +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady passed his hands through his tangled hair, wet with +perspiration. He was proud of his wife's energy and action; he did not +dream of opposing her, but somehow he was disappointed. The charming +glamour and joy of his discovery had vanished before he could fairly +dazzle her with it; or, rather, she was not dazzled with it at all. It +had become like business, and the expression "breaking it" to Mamie +jarred upon him. He would have preferred to tell her himself; to watch +the color come into her delicate oval face, to have seen her soft eyes +light with an innocent joy he had not seen in his wife's; and he felt a +sinking conviction that his wife was the last one to awaken it. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't got any time to lose," she said, impatiently, as he +hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it was her impatience that struck harshly upon him; perhaps, if +she had not accepted her good fortune so confidently, he would not have +spoken what was in his mind at the time; but he said gravely, "Wait a +minit, Malviny; I've suthin' to tell you 'bout this find of mine that's +sing'lar." +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," she said, quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Lyin' among the rotten quartz of the vein was a pick," he said, +constrainedly; "and the face of the vein sorter looked ez if it had +been worked at. Follering the line outside to the base of the hill +there was signs of there having been an old tunnel; but it had fallen +in, and was blocked up." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" said Mrs. Mulrady, contemptuously. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," returned her husband, somewhat disconnectedly, "it kinder +looked as if some feller might have discovered it before." +</P> + +<P> +"And went away, and left it for others! That's likely—ain't it?" +interrupted his wife, with ill-disguised intolerance. "Everybody knows +the hill wasn't worth that for prospectin'; and it was abandoned when +we came here. It's your property and you've paid for it. Are you +goin' to wait to advertise for the owner, Alvin Mulrady, or are you +going to Sacramento at four o'clock to-day?" +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady started. He had never seriously believed in the possibility of +a previous discovery; but his conscientious nature had prompted him to +give it a fair consideration. She was probably right. What he might +have thought had she treated it with equal conscientiousness he did not +consider. "All right," he said simply. "I reckon we'll go at once." +</P> + +<P> +"And when you talk to Lawyer Cole and Jim, keep that silly stuff about +the pick to yourself. There's no use of putting queer ideas into other +people's heads because you happen to have 'em yourself." +</P> + +<P> +When the hurried arrangements were at last completed, and Mr. Mulrady +and Mamie, accompanied by a taciturn and discreet Chinaman, carrying +their scant luggage, were on their way to the high road to meet the up +stage, the father gazed somewhat anxiously and wistfully into his +daughter's face. He had looked forward to those few moments to enjoy +the freshness and naivete of Mamie's youthful delight and enthusiasm as +a relief to his wife's practical, far-sighted realism. There was a +pretty pink suffusion in her delicate cheek, the breathless happiness +of a child in her half-opened little mouth, and a beautiful absorption +in her large gray eyes that augured well for him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mamie, how do we like bein' an heiress? How do we like layin' +over all the gals between this and 'Frisco?" +</P> + +<P> +"Eh?" +</P> + +<P> +She had not heard him. The tender beautiful eyes were engaged in an +anticipatory examination of the remembered shelves in the "Fancy +Emporium" at Sacramento; in reading the admiration of the clerks; in +glancing down a little criticisingly at the broad cowhide brogues that +strode at her side; in looking up the road for the stage-coach; in +regarding the fit of her new gloves—everywhere but in the loving eyes +of the man beside her. +</P> + +<P> +He, however, repeated the question, touched with her charming +preoccupation, and passing his arm around her little waist. +</P> + +<P> +"I like it well enough, pa, you know!" she said, slightly disengaging +his arm, but adding a perfunctory little squeeze to his elbow to soften +the separation. "I always had an idea SOMETHING would happen. I +suppose I'm looking like a fright," she added; "but ma made me hurry to +get away before Don Caesar came." +</P> + +<P> +"And you didn't want to go without seeing him?" he added, archly. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't want him to see me in this frock," said Mamie, simply. "I +reckon that's why ma made me change," she added, with a slight laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Well I reckon you're allus good enough for him in any dress," said +Mulrady, watching her attentively; "and more than a match for him NOW," +he added, triumphantly. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about that," said Mamie. "He's been rich all the time, +and his father and grandfather before him; while we've been poor and +his tenants." +</P> + +<P> +His face changed; the look of bewilderment, with which he had followed +her words, gave way to one of pain, and then of anger. "Did he get off +such stuff as that?" he asked, quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"No. I'd like to catch him at it," responded Mamie, promptly. "There's +better nor him to be had for the asking now." +</P> + +<P> +They had walked on a few moments in aggrieved silence, and the Chinaman +might have imagined some misfortune had just befallen them. But +Mamie's teeth shone again between her parted lips. "La, pa! it ain't +that! He cares everything for me, and I do for him; and if ma hadn't +got new ideas—" She stopped suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"What new ideas?" queried her father, anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing! I wish, pa, you'd put on your other boots! Everybody can +see these are made for the farrows. And you ain't a market gardener +any more." +</P> + +<P> +"What am I, then?" asked Mulrady, with a half-pleased, half-uneasy +laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a capitalist, I say; but ma says a landed proprietor." +Nevertheless, the landed proprietor, when he reached the boulder on the +Red Dog highway, sat down in somewhat moody contemplation, with his +head bowed over the broad cowhide brogues, that seemed to have already +gathered enough of the soil to indicate his right to that title. +Mamie, who had recovered her spirits, but had not lost her +preoccupation, wandered off by herself in the meadow, or ascended the +hillside, as her occasional impatience at the delay of the coach, or +the following of some ambitious fancy, alternately prompted her. She +was so far away at one time that the stage-coach, which finally drew up +before Mulrady, was obliged to wait for her. +</P> + +<P> +When she was deposited safely inside, and Mulrady had climbed to the +box beside the driver, the latter remarked, curtly,— +</P> + +<P> +"Ye gave me a right smart skeer, a minit ago, stranger." +</P> + +<P> +"Ez how?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, about three years ago, I was comin' down this yer grade, at just +this time, and sittin' right on that stone, in just your attitude, was +a man about your build and years. I pulled up to let him in, when, +darn my skin! if he ever moved, but sorter looked at me without +speakin'. I called to him, and he never answered, 'cept with that +idiotic stare. I then let him have my opinion of him, in mighty strong +English, and drove off, leavin' him there. The next morning, when I +came by on the up-trip, darn my skin! if he wasn't thar, but lyin' all +of a heap on the boulder. Jim drops down and picks him up. Doctor +Duchesne, ez was along, allowst it was a played-out prospector, with a +big case of paralysis, and we expressed him through to the County +Hospital, like so much dead freight. I've allus been kinder +superstitious about passin' that rock, and when I saw you jist now, +sittin' thar, dazed like, with your head down like the other chap, it +rather threw me off my centre." +</P> + +<P> +In the inexplicable and half-superstitious uneasiness that this +coincidence awakened in Mulrady's unimaginative mind, he was almost on +the point of disclosing his good fortune to the driver, in order to +prove how preposterous was the parallel, but checked himself in time. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you find out who he was?" broke in a rash passenger. "Did you +ever get over it?" added another unfortunate. +</P> + +<P> +With a pause of insulting scorn at the interruption, the driver +resumed, pointedly, to Mulrady: "The pint of the whole thing was my +cussin' a helpless man, ez could neither cuss back nor shoot; and then +afterwards takin' you for his ghost layin' for me to get even." He +paused again, and then added, carelessly, "They say he never kem to +enuff to let on who he was or whar he kem from; and he was eventooally +taken to a 'Sylum for Doddering Idjits and Gin'ral and Permiskus +Imbeciles at Sacramento. I've heerd it's considered a first-class +institooshun, not only for them ez is paralyzed and can't talk, as for +them ez is the reverse and is too chipper. Now," he added, languidly +turning for the first time to his miserable questioners, "how did YOU +find it?" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[1] Don Ramon probably alluded to the eminent naturalist Douglas, who +visited California before the gold excitement, and died of an accident +in the Sandwich Islands. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P> +When the news of the discovery of gold in Mulrady shaft was finally +made public, it created an excitement hitherto unknown in the history +of the country. Half of Red Dog and all Rough-and-Ready were emptied +upon the yellow hills surrounding Mulrady's, until their circling camp +fires looked like a besieging army that had invested his peaceful +pastoral home, preparatory to carrying it by assault. Unfortunately +for them, they found the various points of vantage already garrisoned +with notices of "preemption" for mining purposes in the name of the +various members of the Alvarado family. This stroke of business was due +to Mrs. Mulrady, as a means of mollifying the conscientious scruples of +her husband and of placating the Alvarados, in view of some remote +contingency. It is but fair to say that this degradation of his +father's Castilian principles was opposed by Don Caesar. "You needn't +work them yourself, but sell out to them that will; it's the only way +to keep the prospectors from taking it without paying for it at all," +argued Mrs. Mulrady. Don Caesar finally assented; perhaps less to the +business arguments of Mulrady's wife than to the simple suggestion of +Mamie's mother. Enough that he realized a sum in money for a few acres +that exceeded the last ten years' income of Don Ramon's seven leagues. +</P> + +<P> +Equally unprecedented and extravagant was the realization of the +discovery in Mulrady's shaft. It was alleged that a company, hastily +formed in Sacramento, paid him a million of dollars down, leaving him +still a controlling two-thirds interest in the mine. With an obstinacy, +however, that amounted almost to a moral conviction, he refused to +include the house and potato-patch in the property. When the company +had yielded the point, he declined, with equal tenacity, to part with +it to outside speculators on even the most extravagant offers. In vain +Mrs. Mulrady protested; in vain she pointed out to him that the +retention of the evidence of his former humble occupation was a green +blot upon their social escutcheon. +</P> + +<P> +"If you will keep the land, build on it, and root up the garden." But +Mulrady was adamant. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the only thing I ever made myself, and got out of the soil with +my own hands; it's the beginning of my fortune, and it may be the end +of it. Mebbee I'll be glad enough to have it to come back to some day, +and be thankful for the square meal I can dig out of it." +</P> + +<P> +By repeated pressure, however, Mulrady yielded the compromise that a +portion of it should be made into a vineyard and flower-garden, and by +a suitable coloring of ornament and luxury obliterate its vulgar part. +Less successful, however, was that energetic woman in another effort to +mitigate the austerities of their earlier state. It occurred to her to +utilize the softer accents of Don Caesar in the pronunciation of their +family name, and privately had "Mulrade" take the place of Mulrady on +her visiting card. "It might be Spanish," she argued with her husband. +"Lawyer Cole says most American names are corrupted, and how do you +know that yours ain't?" Mulrady, who would not swear that his +ancestors came from Ireland to the Carolinas in '98, was helpless to +refute the assertion. But the terrible Nemesis of an un-Spanish, +American provincial speech avenged the orthographical outrage at once. +When Mrs. Mulrady began to be addressed orally, as well as by letter, +as "Mrs. Mulraid," and when simple amatory effusions to her daughter +rhymed with "lovely maid," she promptly refused the original vowel. But +she fondly clung to the Spanish courtesy which transformed her +husband's baptismal name, and usually spoke of him—in his absence—as +"Don Alvino." But in the presence of his short, square figure, his +orange tawny hair, his twinkling gray eyes, and retrousse nose, even +that dominant woman withheld his title. It was currently reported at +Red Dog that a distinguished foreigner had one day approached Mulrady +with the formula, "I believe I have the honor of addressing Don Alvino +Mulrady?" "You kin bet your boots, stranger, that's me," had returned +that simple hidalgo. +</P> + +<P> +Although Mrs. Mulrady would have preferred that Mamie should remain at +Sacramento until she could join her, preparatory to a trip to "the +States" and Europe, she yielded to her daughter's desire to astonish +Rough-and-Ready, before she left, with her new wardrobe, and unfold in +the parent nest the delicate and painted wings with which she was to +fly from them forever. "I don't want them to remember me afterwards in +those spotted prints, ma, and like as not say I never had a decent +frock until I went away." There was something so like the daughter of +her mother in this delicate foresight that the touched and gratified +parent kissed her, and assented. The result was gratifying beyond her +expectation. In that few weeks' sojourn at Sacramento, the young girl +seemed to have adapted and assimilated herself to the latest modes of +fashion with even more than the usual American girl's pliancy and +taste. Equal to all emergencies of style and material, she seemed to +supply, from some hitherto unknown quality she possessed, the grace and +manner peculiar to each. Untrammeled by tradition, education, or +precedent, she had the Western girl's confidence in all things being +possible, which made them so often probable. Mr. Mulrady looked at his +daughter with mingled sentiments of pride and awe. Was it possible that +this delicate creature, so superior to him that he seemed like a +degenerate scion of her remoter race, was his own flesh and blood? Was +she the daughter of her mother, who even in her remembered youth was +never equipped like this? If the thought brought no pleasure to his +simple, loving nature, it at least spared him the pain of what might +have seemed ingratitude in one more akin to himself. "The fact is, we +ain't quite up to her style," was his explanation and apology. A vague +belief that in another and a better world than this he might +approximate and understand this perfection somewhat soothed and +sustained him. +</P> + +<P> +It was quite consistent, therefore, that the embroidered cambric dress +which Mamie Mulrady wore one summer afternoon on the hillside at Los +Gatos, while to the critical feminine eye at once artistic and +expensive, should not seem incongruous to her surroundings or to +herself in the eyes of a general audience. It certainly did not seem +so to one pair of frank, humorous ones that glanced at her from time to +time, as their owner, a young fellow of five-and-twenty, walked at her +side. He was the new editor of the "Rough-and-Ready Record," and, +having been her fellow-passenger from Sacramento, had already once or +twice availed himself of her father's invitation to call upon them. +Mrs. Mulrady had not discouraged this mild flirtation. Whether she +wished to disconcert Don Caesar for some occult purpose, or whether, +like the rest of her sex, she had an overweening confidence in the +unheroic, unseductive, and purely platonic character of masculine +humor, did not appear. +</P> + +<P> +"When I say I'm sorry you are going to leave us, Miss Mulrady," said +the young fellow, lightly, "you will comprehend my unselfishness, since +I frankly admit your departure would be a positive relief to me as an +editor and a man. The pressure in the Poet's Corner of the 'Record' +since it was mistakingly discovered that a person of your name might be +induced to seek the 'glade' and 'shade' without being 'afraid,' +'dismayed,' or 'betrayed,' has been something enormous, and, +unfortunately, I am debarred from rejecting anything, on the just +ground that I am myself an interested admirer." +</P> + +<P> +"It's dreadful to be placarded around the country by one's own full +name, isn't it?" said Mamie, without, however, expressing much horror +in her face. +</P> + +<P> +"They think it much more respectful than to call you 'Mamie,'" he +responded, lightly; "and many of your admirers are middle-aged men, +with a mediaeval style of compliment. I've discovered that amatory +versifying wasn't entirely a youthful passion. Colonel Cash is about +as fatal with a couplet as with a double-barreled gun, and scatters as +terribly. Judge Butts and Dr. Wilson have both discerned the +resemblance of your gifts to those of Venus, and their own to Apollo. +But don't undervalue those tributes, Miss Mulrady," he added, more +seriously. "You'll have thousands of admirers where you are going; but +you'll be willing to admit in the end, I think, that none were more +honest and respectful than your subjects at Rough-and-Ready and Red +Dog." He stopped, and added in a graver tone, "Does Don Caesar write +poetry?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has something better to do," said the young lady, pertly. +</P> + +<P> +"I can easily imagine that," he returned, mischievously; "it must be a +pallid substitute for other opportunities." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you come here for?" she asked, suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"To see you." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense! You know what I mean. Why did you ever leave Sacramento to +come here? I should think it would suit you so much better than this +place." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I was fired by your father's example, and wished to find a +gold mine." +</P> + +<P> +"Men like you never do," she said, simply. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that a compliment, Miss Mulrady?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. But I think that you think that it is." +</P> + +<P> +He gave her the pleased look of one who had unexpectedly found a +sympathetic intelligence. "Do I? This is interesting. Let's sit +down." In their desultory rambling they had reached, quite +unconsciously, the large boulder at the roadside. Mamie hesitated a +moment, looked up and down the road, and then, with an already opulent +indifference to the damaging of her spotless skirt, sat herself upon +it, with her furled parasol held by her two little hands thrown over +her half-drawn-up knee. The young editor, half sitting, half leaning, +against the stone, began to draw figures in the sand with his cane. +</P> + +<P> +"On the contrary, Miss Mulrady, I hope to make some money here. You are +leaving Rough-and-Ready because you are rich. We are coming to it +because we are poor." +</P> + +<P> +"We?" echoed Mamie, lazily, looking up the road. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. My father and two sisters." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry. I might have known them if I hadn't been going away." At +the same moment, it flashed across her mind that, if they were like the +man before her, they might prove disagreeably independent and critical. +"Is your father in business?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head. After a pause, he said, punctuating his sentences +with the point of his stick in the soft dust, "He is paralyzed, and out +of his mind, Miss Mulrady. I came to California to seek him, as all +news of him ceased three years since; and I found him only two weeks +ago, alone, friendless—an unrecognized pauper in the county hospital." +</P> + +<P> +"Two weeks ago? That was when I went to Sacramento." +</P> + +<P> +"Very probably." +</P> + +<P> +"It must have been very shocking to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was." +</P> + +<P> +"I should think you'd feel real bad?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do, at times." He smiled, and laid his stick on the stone. "You now +see, Miss Mulrady, how necessary to me is this good fortune that you +don't think me worthy of. Meantime I must try to make a home for them +at Rough-and-Ready." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Mulrady put down her knee and her parasol. "We mustn't stay here +much longer, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, the stage-coach comes by at about this time." +</P> + +<P> +"And you think the passengers will observe us sitting here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course they will." +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Mulrady, I implore you to stay." +</P> + +<P> +He was leaning over her with such apparent earnestness of voice and +gesture that the color came into her cheek. For a moment she scarcely +dared to lift her conscious eyes to his. When she did so, she suddenly +glanced her own aside with a flash of anger. He was laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"If you have any pity for me, do not leave me now," he repeated. "Stay +a moment longer, and my fortune is made. The passengers will report us +all over Red Dog as engaged. I shall be supposed to be in your +father's secrets, and shall be sought after as a director of all the +new companies. The 'Record' will double its circulation; poetry will +drop out of its columns, advertising rush to fill its place, and I +shall receive five dollars a week more salary, if not seven and a half. +Never mind the consequences to yourself at such a moment. I assure you +there will be none. You can deny it the next day—I will deny it—nay, +more, the 'Record' itself will deny it in an extra edition of one +thousand copies, at ten cents each. Linger a moment longer, Miss +Mulrady. Fly, oh fly not yet. They're coming—hark! oh! By Jove, +it's only Don Caesar!" +</P> + +<P> +It was, indeed, only the young scion of the house of Alvarado, +blue-eyed, sallow-skinned, and high-shouldered, coming towards them on +a fiery, half-broken mustang, whose very spontaneous lawlessness seemed +to accentuate and bring out the grave and decorous ease of his rider. +Even in his burlesque preoccupation the editor of the "Record" did not +withhold his admiration of this perfect horsemanship. Mamie, who, in +her wounded amour propre, would like to have made much of it to annoy +her companion, was thus estopped any ostentatious compliment. +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar lifted his hat with sweet seriousness to the lady, with +grave courtesy to the gentleman. While the lower half of this Centaur +was apparently quivering with fury, and stamping the ground in his +evident desire to charge upon the pair, the upper half, with natural +dignity, looked from the one to the other, as if to leave the privilege +of an explanation with them. But Mamie was too wise, and her companion +too indifferent, to offer one. A slight shade passed over Don Caesar's +face. To complicate the situation at that moment, the expected +stagecoach came rattling by. With quick feminine intuition, Mamie +caught in the faces of the driver and the expressman, and reflected in +the mischievous eyes of her companion, a peculiar interpretation of +their meeting, that was not removed by the whispered assurance of the +editor that the passengers were anxiously looking back "to see the +shooting." +</P> + +<P> +The young Spaniard, equally oblivious of humor or curiosity, remained +impassive. +</P> + +<P> +"You know Mr. Slinn, of the 'Record," said Mamie, "don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar had never before met the Senor Esslinn. He was under the +impression that it was a Senor Robinson that was of the "Record." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, HE was shot," said Slinn. "I'm taking his place." +</P> + +<P> +"Bueno! To be shot too? I trust not." +</P> + +<P> +Slinn looked quickly and sharply into Don Caesar's grave face. He +seemed to be incapable of any double meaning. However, as he had no +serious reason for awakening Don Caesar's jealousy, and very little +desire to become an embarrassing third in this conversation, and +possibly a burden to the young lady, he proceeded to take his leave of +her. From a sudden feminine revulsion of sympathy, or from some +unintelligible instinct of diplomacy, Mamie said, as she extended her +hand, "I hope you'll find a home for your family near here. Mamma +wants pa to let our old house. Perhaps it might suit you, if not too +far from your work. You might speak to ma about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you; I will," responded the young man, pressing her hand with +unaffected cordiality. +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar watched him until he had disappeared behind the wayside +buckeyes. +</P> + +<P> +"He is a man of family—this one—your countryman?" +</P> + +<P> +It seemed strange to her to have a mere acquaintance spoken of as "her +countryman"—not the first time nor the last time in her career. As +there appeared no trace or sign of jealousy in her questioner's manner, +she answered briefly but vaguely: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; it's a shocking story. His father disappeared some years ago, +and he has just found him—a helpless paralytic—in the Sacramento +Hospital. He'll have to support him—and they're very poor." +</P> + +<P> +"So, then, they are not independent of each other always—these fathers +and children of Americans!" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Mamie, shortly. Without knowing why, she felt inclined to +resent Don Caesar's manner. His serious gravity—gentle and high-bred +as it was, undoubtedly—was somewhat trying to her at times, and seemed +even more so after Slinn's irreverent humor. She picked up her +parasol, a little impatiently, as if to go. +</P> + +<P> +But Don Caesar had already dismounted, and tied his horse to a tree +with a strong lariat that hung at his saddle-bow. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us walk through the woods towards your home. I can return alone +for the horse when you shall dismiss me." +</P> + +<P> +They turned in among the pines that, overcrowding the hollow, crept +partly up the side of the hill of Mulrady's shaft. A disused trail, +almost hidden by the waxen-hued yerba buena, led from the highway, and +finally lost itself in the undergrowth. It was a lovers' walk; they +were lovers, evidently, and yet the man was too self-poised in his +gravity, the young woman too conscious and critical, to suggest an +absorbing or oblivious passion. +</P> + +<P> +"I should not have made myself so obtrusive to-day before your friend," +said Don Caesar, with proud humility, "but I could not understand from +your mother whether you were alone or whether my company was desirable. +It is of this I have now to speak, Mamie. Lately your mother has seemed +strange to me; avoiding any reference to our affection; treating it +lightly, and even as to-day, I fancy, putting obstacles in the way of +our meeting alone. She was disappointed at your return from Sacramento +where, I have been told, she intended you to remain until you left the +country; and since your return I have seen you but twice. I may be +wrong. Perhaps I do not comprehend the American mother; I have—who +knows?—perhaps offended in some point of etiquette, omitted some +ceremony that was her due. But when you told me, Mamie, that it was +not necessary to speak to HER first, that it was not the American +fashion—" +</P> + +<P> +Mamie started, and blushed slightly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said hurriedly, "certainly; but ma has been quite queer of +late, and she may think—you know—that since—since there has been so +much property to dispose of, she ought to have been consulted." +</P> + +<P> +"Then let us consult her at once, dear child! And as to the property, +in Heaven's name, let her dispose of it as she will. Saints forbid that +an Alvarado should ever interfere. And what is it to us, my little +one? Enough that Dona Mameta Alvarado will never have less state than +the richest bride that ever came to Los Gatos." +</P> + +<P> +Mamie had not forgotten that, scarcely a month ago, even had she loved +the man before her no more than she did at present, she would still +have been thrilled with delight at these words! Even now she was +moved—conscious as she had become that the "state" of a bride of the +Alvarados was not all she had imagined, and that the bare adobe court +of Los Gatos was open to the sky and the free criticism of Sacramento +capitalists! +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear," she murmured with a half childlike pleasure, that lit up +her face and eyes so innocently that it stopped any minute +investigation into its origin and real meaning. "Yes, dear; but we +need not have a fuss made about it at present, and perhaps put ma +against us. She wouldn't hear of our marrying now; and she might +forbid our engagement." +</P> + +<P> +"But you are going away." +</P> + +<P> +"I should have to go to New York or Europe FIRST, you know," she +answered, naively, "even if it were all settled. I should have to get +things! One couldn't be decent here." +</P> + +<P> +With the recollection of the pink cotton gown, in which she had first +pledged her troth to him, before his eyes, he said, "But you are +charming now. You cannot be more so to me. If I am satisfied, little +one, with you as you are, let us go together, and then you can get +dresses to please others." +</P> + +<P> +She had not expected this importunity. Really, if it came to this, she +might have engaged herself to some one like Slinn; he at least would +have understood her. He was much cleverer, and certainly more of a man +of the world. When Slinn had treated her like a child, it was with the +humorous tolerance of an admiring superior, and not the didactic +impulse of a guardian. She did not say this, nor did her pretty eyes +indicate it, as in the instance of her brief anger with Slinn. She +only said gently,— +</P> + +<P> +"I should have thought you, of all men, would have been particular +about your wife doing the proper thing. But never mind! Don't let us +talk any more about it. Perhaps as it seems such a great thing to you, +and so much trouble, there may be no necessity for it at all." +</P> + +<P> +I do not think that the young lady deliberately planned this charmingly +illogical deduction from Don Caesar's speech, or that she calculated +its effect upon him; but it was part of her nature to say it, and +profit by it. Under the unjust lash of it, his pride gave way. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, do you not see why I wish to go with you?" he said, with sudden +and unexpected passion. "You are beautiful; you are good; it has +pleased Heaven to make you rich also; but you are a child in +experience, and know not your own heart. With your beauty, your +goodness, and your wealth, you will attract all to you—as you do +here—because you cannot help it. But you will be equally helpless, +little one, if THEY should attract YOU, and you had no tie to fall back +upon." +</P> + +<P> +It was an unfortunate speech. The words were Don Caesar's; but the +thought she had heard before from her mother, although the deduction +had been of a very different kind. Mamie followed the speaker with +bright but visionary eyes. There must be some truth in all this. Her +mother had said it; Mr. Slinn had laughingly admitted it. She HAD a +brilliant future before her! Was she right in making it impossible by +a rash and foolish tie? He himself had said she was inexperienced. +She knew it; and yet, what was he doing now but taking advantage of +that inexperience? If he really loved her, he would be willing to +submit to the test. She did not ask a similar one from him; and was +willing, if she came out of it free, to marry him just the same. There +was something so noble in this thought that she felt for a moment +carried away by an impulse of compassionate unselfishness, and smiled +tenderly as she looked up in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you consent, Mamie?" he said, eagerly, passing his arm around her +waist. +</P> + +<P> +"Not now, Caesar," she said, gently disengaging herself. "I must think +it over; we are both too young to act upon it rashly; it would be +unfair to you, who are so quiet and have seen so few girls—I mean +Americans—to tie yourself to the first one you have known. When I am +gone you will go more into the world. There are Mr. Slinn's two +sisters coming here—I shouldn't wonder if they were far cleverer and +talked far better than I do—and think how I should feel if I knew that +only a wretched pledge to me kept you from loving them!" She stopped, +and cast down her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +It was her first attempt at coquetry, for, in her usual charming +selfishness, she was perfectly frank and open; and it might not have +been her last, but she had gone too far at first, and was not prepared +for a recoil of her own argument. +</P> + +<P> +"If you admit that it is possible—that it is possible to you!" he +said, quickly. +</P> + +<P> +She saw her mistake. "We may not have many opportunities to meet +alone," she answered, quietly; "and I am sure we would be happier when +we meet not to accuse each other of impossibilities. Let us rather see +how we can communicate together, if anything should prevent our +meeting. Remember, it was only by chance that you were able to see me +now. If ma has believed that she ought to have been consulted, our +meeting together in this secret way will only make matters worse. She +is even now wondering where I am, and may be suspicious. I must go +back at once. At any moment some one may come here looking for me." +</P> + +<P> +"But I have so much to say," he pleaded. "Our time has been so short." +</P> + +<P> +"You can write." +</P> + +<P> +"But what will your mother think of that?" he said, in grave +astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +She colored again as she returned, quickly, "Of course, you must not +write to the house. You can leave a letter somewhere for me—say, +somewhere about here. Stop!" she added, with a sudden girlish gayety, +"see, here's the very place. Look there!" +</P> + +<P> +She pointed to the decayed trunk of a blasted sycamore, a few feet from +the trail. A cavity, breast high, half filled with skeleton leaves and +pine-nuts, showed that it had formerly been a squirrel's hoard, but for +some reason had been deserted. +</P> + +<P> +"Look! it's a regular letter-box," she continued, gayly, rising on +tip-toe to peep into its recesses. Don Caesar looked at her +admiringly; it seemed like a return to their first idyllic love-making +in the old days, when she used to steal out of the cabbage rows in her +brown linen apron and sun-bonnet to walk with him in the woods. He +recalled the fact to her with the fatality of a lover already seeking +to restore in past recollections something that was wanting in the +present. She received it with the impatience of youth, to whom the +present is all sufficient. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder how you could ever have cared for me in that holland apron," +she said, looking down upon her new dress. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I tell you why?" he said, fondly, passing his arm around her +waist, and drawing her pretty head nearer his shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"No—not now!" she said, laughingly, but struggling to free herself. +"There's not time. Write it, and put it in the box. There," she added, +hastily, "listen!—what's that?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's only a squirrel," he whispered reassuringly in her ear. +</P> + +<P> +"No; it's somebody coming! I must go! Please! Caesar, dear! There, +then—" +</P> + +<P> +She met his kiss half-way, released herself with a lithe movement of +her wrist and shoulder, and the next moment seemed to slip into the +woods, and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar listened with a sigh as the last rustling ceased, cast a +look at the decayed tree as if to fix it in his memory, and then slowly +retraced his steps towards his tethered mustang. +</P> + +<P> +He was right, however, in his surmise of the cause of that +interruption. A pair of bright eyes had been watching them from the +bough of an adjacent tree. It was a squirrel, who, having had serious +and prior intentions of making use of the cavity they had discovered, +had only withheld examination by an apparent courteous discretion +towards the intruding pair. Now that they were gone he slipped down +the tree and ran towards the decayed stump. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P> +Apparently dissatisfied with the result of an investigation, which +proved that the cavity was unfit as a treasure hoard for a discreet +squirrel, whatever its value as a receptacle for the love-tokens of +incautious humanity, the little animal at once set about to put things +in order. He began by whisking out an immense quantity of dead leaves, +disturbed a family of tree-spiders, dissipated a drove of patient +aphides browsing in the bark, as well as their attendant dairymen, the +ants, and otherwise ruled it with the high hand of dispossession and a +contemptuous opinion of the previous incumbents. It must not be +supposed, however, that his proceedings were altogether free from +contemporaneous criticism; a venerable crow sitting on a branch above +him displayed great interest in his occupation, and, hopping down a few +moments afterwards, disposed of some worm-eaten nuts, a few larvae, and +an insect or two, with languid dignity and without prejudice. Certain +incumbrances, however, still resisted the squirrel's general eviction; +among them a folded square of paper with sharply defined edges, that +declined investigation, and, owing to a nauseous smell of tobacco, +escaped nibbling as it had apparently escaped insect ravages. This, +owing to its sharp angles, which persisted in catching in the soft +decaying wood in his whirlwind of house-cleaning, he allowed to remain. +Having thus, in a general way, prepared for the coming winter, the +self-satisfied little rodent dismissed the subject from his active mind. +</P> + +<P> +His rage and indignation a few days later may be readily conceived, +when he found, on returning to his new-made home, another square of +paper, folded like the first, but much fresher and whiter, lying within +the cavity, on top of some moss which had evidently been placed there +for the purpose. This he felt was really more than he could bear, but +it was smaller, and with a few energetic kicks and whisks of his tail +he managed to finally dislodge it through the opening, where it fell +ignominiously to the earth. The eager eyes of the ever-attendant crow, +however, instantly detected it; he flew to the ground, and, turning it +over, examined it gravely. It was certainly not edible, but it was +exceedingly rare, and, as an old collector of curios, he felt he could +not pass it by. He lifted it in his beak, and, with a desperate +struggle against the superincumbent weight, regained the branch with +his prize. Here, by one of those delicious vagaries of animal nature, +he apparently at once discharged his mind of the whole affair, became +utterly oblivious of it, allowed it to drop without the least concern, +and eventually flew away with an abstracted air, as if he had been +another bird entirely. The paper got into a manzanita bush, where it +remained suspended until the evening, when, being dislodged by a +passing wild-cat on its way to Mulrady's hen-roost, it gave that +delicately sensitive marauder such a turn that she fled into the +adjacent county. +</P> + +<P> +But the troubles of the squirrel were not yet over. On the following +day the young man who had accompanied the young woman returned to the +trunk, and the squirrel had barely time to make his escape before the +impatient visitor approached the opening of the cavity, peered into it, +and even passed his hand through its recesses. The delight visible +upon his anxious and serious face at the disappearance of the letter, +and the apparent proof that it had been called for, showed him to have +been its original depositor, and probably awakened a remorseful +recollection in the dark bosom of the omnipresent crow, who uttered a +conscious-stricken croak from the bough above him. But the young man +quickly disappeared again, and the squirrel was once more left in +undisputed possession. +</P> + +<P> +A week passed. A weary, anxious interval to Don Caesar, who had +neither seen nor heard from Mamie since their last meeting. Too +conscious of his own self-respect to call at the house after the +equivocal conduct of Mrs. Mulrady, and too proud to haunt the lanes and +approaches in the hope of meeting her daughter, like an ordinary lover, +he hid his gloomy thoughts in the monastic shadows of the courtyard at +Los Gatos, or found relief in furious riding at night and early morning +on the highway. Once or twice the up-stage had been overtaken and +passed by a rushing figure as shadowy as a phantom horseman, with only +the star-like point of a cigarette to indicate its humanity. It was in +one of these fierce recreations that he was obliged to stop in early +morning at the blacksmith's shop at Rough-and-Ready, to have a loosened +horseshoe replaced, and while waiting picked up a newspaper. Don +Caesar seldom read the papers, but noticing that this was the "Record," +he glanced at its columns. A familiar name suddenly flashed out of the +dark type like a spark from the anvil. With a brain and heart that +seemed to be beating in unison with the blacksmith's sledge, he read as +follows:— +</P> + +<P> +"Our distinguished fellow-townsman, Alvin Mulrady, Esq., left town day +before yesterday to attend an important meeting of directors of the Red +Dog Ditch Company, in San Francisco. Society will regret to hear that +Mrs. Mulrady and her beautiful and accomplished daughter, who are +expecting to depart for Europe at the end of the month, anticipated the +event nearly a fortnight, by taking this opportunity of accompanying +Mr. Mulrady as far as San Francisco, on their way to the East. Mrs. +and Miss Mulrady intend to visit London, Paris, and Berlin, and will be +absent three years. It is possible that Mr. Mulrady may join them +later at one or other of those capitals. Considerable disappointment +is felt that a more extended leave-taking was not possible, and that, +under the circumstances, no opportunity was offered for a 'send off' +suitable to the condition of the parties and the esteem in which they +are held in Rough-and-Ready." +</P> + +<P> +The paper dropped from his hands. Gone! and without a word! No, that +was impossible! There must be some mistake; she had written; the +letter had miscarried; she must have sent word to Los Gatos, and the +stupid messenger had blundered; she had probably appointed another +meeting, or expected him to follow to San Francisco. "The day before +yesterday!" It was the morning's paper—she had been gone scarcely two +days—it was not too late yet to receive a delayed message by post, by +some forgetful hand—by—ah—the tree! +</P> + +<P> +Of course it was in the tree, and he had not been there for a week! Why +had he not thought of it before? The fault was his, not hers. Perhaps +she had gone away, believing him faithless, or a country boor. +</P> + +<P> +"In the name of the Devil, will you keep me here till eternity!" +</P> + +<P> +The blacksmith stared at him. Don Caesar suddenly remembered that he +was speaking, as he was thinking—in Spanish. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten dollars, my friend, if you have done in five minutes!" +</P> + +<P> +The man laughed. "That's good enough American," he said, beginning to +quicken his efforts. Don Caesar again took up the paper. There was +another paragraph that recalled his last interview with Mamie:— +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Harry Slinn, Jr., the editor of this paper, has just moved into +the pioneer house formerly occupied by Alvin Mulrady, Esq., which has +already become historic in the annals of the county. Mr. Slinn brings +with him his father—H. J. Slinn, Esq.,—and his two sisters. Mr. +Slinn, Sen., who has been suffering for many years from complete +paralysis, we understand is slowly improving; and it is by the advice +of his physicians that he has chosen the invigorating air of the +foothills as a change to the debilitating heat of Sacramento." +</P> + +<P> +The affair had been quickly settled, certainly, reflected Don Caesar, +with a slight chill of jealousy, as he thought of Mamie's interest in +the young editor. But the next moment he dismissed it from his mind; +all except a dull consciousness that, if she really loved him—Don +Caesar—as he loved her, she could not have assisted in throwing into +his society the young sisters of the editor, who she expected might be +so attractive. +</P> + +<P> +Within the five minutes the horse was ready, and Don Caesar in the +saddle again. In less than half an hour he was at the wayside boulder. +Here he picketed his horse, and took the narrow foot-trail through the +hollow. It did not take him long to reach their old trysting-place. +With a beating heart he approached the decaying trunk and looked into +the cavity. There was no letter there! +</P> + +<P> +A few blackened nuts and some of the dry moss he had put there were +lying on the ground at its roots. He could not remember whether they +were there when he had last visited the spot. He began to grope in the +cavity with both hands. His fingers struck against the sharp angles of +a flat paper packet: a thrill of joy ran through them and stopped his +beating heart; he drew out the hidden object, and was chilled with +disappointment. +</P> + +<P> +It was an ordinary-sized envelope of yellowish-brown paper, bearing, +besides the usual government stamp, the official legend of an express +company, and showing its age as much by this record of a now obsolete +carrying service as by the discoloration of time and atmosphere. Its +weight, which was heavier than that of any ordinary letter of the same +size and thickness, was evidently due to some loose enclosures, that +slightly rustled and could be felt by the fingers, like minute pieces +of metal or grains of gravel. It was within Don Caesar's experience +that gold specimens were often sent in that manner. It was in a state +of singular preservation, except the address, which, being written in +pencil, was scarcely discernible, and even when deciphered appeared to +be incoherent and unfinished. The unknown correspondent had written +"dear Mary," and then "Mrs. Mary Slinn," with an unintelligible scrawl +following for the direction. If Don Caesar's mind had not been lately +preoccupied with the name of the editor, he would hardly have guessed +the superscription. +</P> + +<P> +In his cruel disappointment and fully aroused indignation, he at once +began to suspect a connection of circumstances which at any other +moment he would have thought purely accidental, or perhaps not have +considered at all. The cavity in the tree had evidently been used as a +secret receptacle for letters before; did Mamie know it at the time, +and how did she know it? The apparent age of the letter made it +preposterous to suppose that it pointed to any secret correspondence of +hers with young Mr. Slinn; and the address was not in her handwriting. +Was there any secret previous intimacy between the families? There was +but one way in which he could connect this letter with Mamie's +faithlessness. It was an infamous, a grotesquely horrible idea, a +thought which sprang as much from his inexperience of the world and his +habitual suspiciousness of all humor as anything else! It was that the +letter was a brutal joke of Slinn's—a joke perhaps concocted by Mamie +and himself—a parting insult that should at the last moment proclaim +their treachery and his own credulity. Doubtless it contained a +declaration of their shame, and the reason why she had fled from him +without a word of explanation. And the enclosure, of course, was some +significant and degrading illustration. Those Americans are full of +those low conceits; it was their national vulgarity. +</P> + +<P> +He had the letter in his angry hand. He could break it open if he +wished and satisfy himself; but it was not addressed to HIM, and the +instinct of honor, strong even in his rage, was the instinct of an +adversary as well. No; Slinn should open the letter before him. Slinn +should explain everything, and answer for it. If it was nothing—a +mere accident—it would lead to some general explanation, and perhaps +even news of Mamie. But he would arraign Slinn, and at once. He put +the letter in his pocket, quickly retraced his steps to his horse, and, +putting spurs to the animal, followed the high road to the gate of +Mulrady's pioneer cabin. +</P> + +<P> +He remembered it well enough. To a cultivated taste, it was superior +to the more pretentious "new house." During the first year of +Mulrady's tenancy, the plain square log-cabin had received those +additions and attractions which only a tenant can conceive and actual +experience suggest; and in this way the hideous right angles were +broken with sheds, "lean-to" extensions, until a certain +picturesqueness was given to the irregularity of outline, and a +home-like security and companionship to the congregated buildings. It +typified the former life of the great capitalist, as the tall new house +illustrated the loneliness and isolation that wealth had given him. +But the real points of vantage were the years of cultivation and +habitation that had warmed and enriched the soil, and evoked the +climbing vines and roses that already hid its unpainted boards, rounded +its hard outlines, and gave projection and shadow from the pitiless +glare of a summer's long sun, or broke the steady beating of the winter +rains. It was true that pea and bean poles surrounded it on one side, +and the only access to the house was through the cabbage rows that once +were the pride and sustenance of the Mulradys. It was this fact, more +than any other, that had impelled Mrs. Mulrady to abandon its site; she +did not like to read the history of their humble origin reflected in +the faces of their visitors as they entered. +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar tied his horse to the fence, and hurriedly approached the +house. The door, however, hospitably opened when he was a few paces +from it, and when he reached the threshold he found himself +unexpectedly in the presence of two pretty girls. They were evidently +Slinn's sisters, whom he had neither thought of nor included in the +meeting he had prepared. In spite of his preoccupation, he felt +himself suddenly embarrassed, not only by the actual distinction of +their beauty, but by a kind of likeness that they seemed to bear to +Mamie. +</P> + +<P> +"We saw you coming," said the elder, unaffectedly. "You are Don Caesar +Alvarado. My brother has spoken of you." +</P> + +<P> +The words recalled Don Caesar to himself and a sense of courtesy. He +was not here to quarrel with these fair strangers at their first +meeting; he must seek Slinn elsewhere, and at another time. The +frankness of his reception and the allusion to their brother made it +appear impossible that they should be either a party to his +disappointment, or even aware of it. His excitement melted away before +a certain lazy ease, which the consciousness of their beauty seemed to +give them. He was able to put a few courteous inquiries, and, thanks +to the paragraph in the "Record," to congratulate them upon their +father's improvement. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, pa is a great deal better in his health, and has picked up even in +the last few days, so that he is able to walk round with crutches," +said the elder sister. "The air here seems to invigorate him +wonderfully." +</P> + +<P> +"And you know, Esther," said the younger, "I think he begins to take +more notice of things, especially when he is out-of-doors. He looks +around on the scenery, and his eye brightens, as if he knew all about +it; and sometimes he knits his brows, and looks down so, as if he was +trying to remember." +</P> + +<P> +"You know, I suppose," exclaimed Esther, "that since his seizure his +memory has been a blank—that is, three or four years of his life seem +to have been dropped out of his recollection." +</P> + +<P> +"It might be a mercy sometimes, Senora," said Don Caesar, with a grave +sigh, as he looked at the delicate features before him, which recalled +the face of the absent Mamie. +</P> + +<P> +"That's not very complimentary," said the younger girl, laughingly; +"for pa didn't recognize us, and only remembered us as little girls." +</P> + +<P> +"Vashti!" interrupted Esther, rebukingly; then, turning to Don Caesar, +she added, "My sister, Vashti, means that father remembers more what +happened before he came to California, when we were quite young, than +he does of the interval that elapsed. Dr. Duchesne says it's a +singular case. He thinks that, with his present progress, he will +recover the perfect use of his limbs; though his memory may never come +back again." +</P> + +<P> +"Unless— You forget what the doctor told us this morning," +interrupted Vashti again, briskly. +</P> + +<P> +"I was going to say it," said Esther, a little curtly. "UNLESS he has +another stroke. Then he will either die or recover his mind entirely." +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar glanced at the bright faces, a trifle heightened in color by +their eager recital and the slight rivalry of narration, and looked +grave. He was a little shocked at a certain lack of sympathy and +tenderness towards their unhappy parent. They seemed to him not only +to have caught that dry, curious toleration of helplessness which +characterizes even relationship in its attendance upon chronic +suffering and weakness, but to have acquired an unconscious habit of +turning it to account. In his present sensitive condition, he even +fancied that they flirted mildly over their parent's infirmity. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother Harry has gone to Red Dog," continued Esther; "he'll be +right sorry to have missed you. Mrs. Mulrady spoke to him about you; +you seem to have been great friends. I s'pose you knew her daughter, +Mamie; I hear she is very pretty." +</P> + +<P> +Although Don Caesar was now satisfied that the Slinns knew nothing of +Mamie's singular behavior to him, he felt embarrassed by this +conversation. "Miss Mulrady is very pretty," he said, with grave +courtesy; "it is a custom of her race. She left suddenly," he added +with affected calmness. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon she did calculate to stay here longer—so her mother said; +but the whole thing was settled a week ago. I know my brother was +quite surprised to hear from Mr. Mulrady that if we were going to +decide about this house we must do it at once; he had an idea himself +about moving out of the big one into this when they left." +</P> + +<P> +"Mamie Mulrady hadn't much to keep her here, considerin' the money and +the good looks she has, I reckon," said Vashti. "She isn't the sort of +girl to throw herself away in the wilderness, when she can pick and +choose elsewhere. I only wonder she ever come back from Sacramento. +They talk about papa Mulrady having BUSINESS at San Francisco, and THAT +hurrying them off! Depend upon it, that 'business' was Mamie herself. +Her wish is gospel to them. If she'd wanted to stay and have a +farewell party, old Mulrady's business would have been nowhere." +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't you a little rough on Mamie," said Esther, who had been quietly +watching the young man's face with her large languid eyes, "considering +that we don't know her, and haven't even the right of friends to +criticise?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't call it rough," returned Vashti, frankly, "for I'd do the same +if I were in her shoes—and they're four-and-a-halves, for Harry told +me so. Give me her money and her looks, and you wouldn't catch me +hanging round these diggings—goin' to choir meetings Saturdays, church +Sundays, and buggy-riding once a month—for society! No—Mamie's head +was level—you bet!" +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar rose hurriedly. They would present his compliments to their +father, and he would endeavor to find their brother at Red Dog. He, +alas! had neither father, mother, nor sister, but if they would receive +his aunt, the Dona Inez Sepulvida, the next Sunday, when she came from +mass, she should be honored and he would be delighted. It required all +his self-possession to deliver himself of this formal courtesy before +he could take his leave, and on the back of his mustang give way to the +rage, disgust and hatred of everything connected with Mamie that filled +his heart. Conscious of his disturbance, but not entirely appreciating +their own share in it, the two girls somewhat wickedly prolonged the +interview by following him into the garden. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if you MUST leave now," said Esther, at last, languidly, "it +ain't much out of your way to go down through the garden and take a +look at pa as you go. He's somewhere down there, near the woods, and +we don't like to leave him alone too long. You might pass the time of +day with him; see if he's right side up. Vashti and I have got a heap +of things to fix here yet; but if anything's wrong with him, you can +call us. So-long." +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar was about to excuse himself hurriedly; but that sudden and +acute perception of all kindred sorrow which belongs to refined +suffering, checked his speech. The loneliness of the helpless old man +in this atmosphere of active and youthful selfishness touched him. He +bowed assent, and turned aside into one of the long perspectives of +bean-poles. The girls watched him until out of sight. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Vashti, "don't tell ME. But if there wasn't something +between him and that Mamie Mulrady, I don't know a jilted man when I +see him." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you needn't have let him SEE that you knew it, so that any +civility of ours would look as if we were ready to take up with her +leavings," responded Esther, astutely, as the girls reentered the house. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime, the unconscious object of their criticism walked sadly down +the old market-garden, whose rude outlines and homely details he once +clothed with the poetry of a sensitive man's first love. Well, it was a +common cabbage field and potato patch after all. In his disgust he +felt conscious of even the loss of that sense of patronage and +superiority which had invested his affection for a girl of meaner +condition. His self-respect was humiliated with his love. The soil +and dirt of those wretched cabbages had clung to him, but not to her. +It was she who had gone higher; it was he who was left in the vulgar +ruins of his misplaced passion. +</P> + +<P> +He reached the bottom of the garden without observing any sign of the +lonely invalid. He looked up and down the cabbage rows, and through +the long perspective of pea-vines, without result. There was a newer +trail leading from a gap in the pines to the wooded hollow, which +undoubtedly intersected the little path that he and Mamie had once +followed from the high road. If the old man had taken this trail he +had possibly over-tasked his strength, and there was the more reason +why he should continue his search, and render any assistance if +required. There was another idea that occurred to him, which +eventually decided him to go on. It was that both these trails led to +the decayed sycamore stump, and that the older Slinn might have +something to do with the mysterious letter. Quickening his steps +through the field, he entered the hollow, and reached the intersecting +trail as he expected. To the right it lost itself in the dense woods +in the direction of the ominous stump; to the left it descended in +nearly a straight line to the highway, now plainly visible, as was +equally the boulder on which he had last discovered Mamie sitting with +young Slinn. If he were not mistaken, there was a figure sitting there +now; it was surely a man. And by that half-bowed, helpless attitude, +the object of his search! +</P> + +<P> +It did not take him long to descend the track to the highway and +approach the stranger. He was seated with his hands upon his knees, +gazing in a vague, absorbed fashion upon the hillside, now crowned with +the engine-house and chimney that marked the site of Mulrady's shaft. +He started slightly, and looked up, as Don Caesar paused before him. +The young man was surprised to see that the unfortunate man was not as +old as he had expected, and that his expression was one of quiet and +beatified contentment. +</P> + +<P> +"Your daughters told me you were here," said Don Caesar, with gentle +respect. "I am Caesar Alvarado, your not very far neighbor; very happy +to pay his respects to you as he has to them." +</P> + +<P> +"My daughters?" said the old man, vaguely. "Oh, yes! nice little +girls. And my boy Harry. Did you see Harry? Fine little fellow, +Harry." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad to hear that you are better," said Don Caesar, hastily, "and +that the air of our country does you no harm. God benefit you, senor," +he added, with a profoundly reverential gesture, dropping unconsciously +into the religious habit of his youth. "May he protect you, and bring +you back to health and happiness!" +</P> + +<P> +"Happiness?" said Slinn, amazedly. "I am happy—very happy! I have +everything I want: good air, good food, good clothes, pretty little +children, kind friends—" He smiled benignantly at Don Caesar. "God +is very good to me!" +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, he seemed very happy; and his face, albeit crowned with white +hair, unmarked by care and any disturbing impression, had so much of +satisfied youth in it that the grave features of his questioner made +him appear the elder. Nevertheless, Don Caesar noticed that his eyes, +when withdrawn from him, sought the hillside with the same visionary +abstraction. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a fine view, Senor Esslinn," said Don Caesar. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a beautiful view, sir," said Slinn, turning his happy eyes upon +him for a moment, only to rest them again on the green slope opposite. +</P> + +<P> +"Beyond that hill which you are looking at—not far, Senor Esslinn—I +live. You shall come and see me there—you and your family." +</P> + +<P> +"You—you—live there?" stammered the invalid, with a troubled +expression—the first and only change to the complete happiness that +had hitherto suffused his face. "You—and your name is—is Ma—" +</P> + +<P> +"Alvarado," said Don Caesar, gently. "Caesar Alvarado." +</P> + +<P> +"You said Masters," said the old man, with sudden querulousness. +</P> + +<P> +"No, good friend. I said Alvarado," returned Don Caesar, gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"If you didn't say Masters, how could I say it? I don't know any +Masters." +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar was silent. In another moment the happy tranquillity +returned to Slinn's face; and Don Caesar continued:— +</P> + +<P> +"It is not a long walk over the hill, though it is far by the road. +When you are better you shall try it. Yonder little trail leads to the +top of the hill, and then—" +</P> + +<P> +He stopped, for the invalid's face had again assumed its troubled +expression. Partly to change his thoughts, and partly for some +inexplicable idea that had suddenly seized him, Don Caesar continued:— +</P> + +<P> +"There is a strange old stump near the trail, and in it a hole. In the +hole I found this letter." He stopped again—this time in alarm. +Slinn had staggered to his feet with ashen and distorted features, and +was glancing at the letter which Don Caesar had drawn from his pocket. +The muscles of his throat swelled as if he was swallowing; his lips +moved, but no sound issued from them. At last, with a convulsive +effort, he regained a disjointed speech, in a voice scarcely audible. +</P> + +<P> +"My letter! my letter! It's mine! Give it me! It's my fortune—all +mine! In the tunnel—hill! Masters stole it—stole my fortune! Stole +it all! See, see!" +</P> + +<P> +He seized the letter from Don Caesar with trembling hands, and tore it +open forcibly: a few dull yellow grains fell from it heavily, like +shot, to the ground. +</P> + +<P> +"See, it's true! My letter! My gold! My strike! My—my—my God!" +</P> + +<P> +A tremor passed over his face. The hand that held the letter suddenly +dropped sheer and heavy as the gold had fallen. The whole side of his +face and body nearest Don Caesar seemed to drop and sink into itself as +suddenly. At the same moment, and without a word, he slipped through +Don Caesar's outstretched hands to the ground. Don Caesar bent quickly +over him, but no longer than to satisfy himself that he lived and +breathed, although helpless. He then caught up the fallen letter, and, +glancing over it with flashing eyes, thrust it and the few specimens in +his pocket. He then sprang to his feet, so transformed with energy and +intelligence that he seemed to have added the lost vitality of the man +before him to his own. He glanced quickly up and down the highway. +Every moment to him was precious now; but he could not leave the +stricken man in the dust of the road; nor could he carry him to the +house; nor, having alarmed his daughters, could he abandon his +helplessness to their feeble arms. He remembered that his horse was +still tied to the garden fence. He would fetch it, and carry the +unfortunate man across the saddle to the gate. He lifted him with +difficulty to the boulder, and ran rapidly up the road in the direction +of his tethered steed. He had not proceeded far when he heard the +noise of wheels behind him. It was the up stage coming furiously +along. He would have called to the driver for assistance, but even +through that fast-sweeping cloud of dust and motion he could see that +the man was utterly oblivious of anything but the speed of his rushing +chariot, and had even risen in his box to lash the infuriated and +frightened animals forward. +</P> + +<P> +An hour later, when the coach drew up at the Red Dog Hotel, the driver +descended from the box, white, but taciturn. When he had swallowed a +glass of whiskey at a single gulp, he turned to the astonished express +agent, who had followed him in. +</P> + +<P> +"One of two things, Jim, hez got to happen," he said, huskily. "Either +that there rock hez got to get off the road, or I have. I've seed HIM +on it agin!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P> +No further particulars of the invalid's second attack were known than +those furnished by Don Caesar's brief statement, that he had found him +lying insensible on the boulder. This seemed perfectly consistent with +the theory of Dr. Duchesne; and as the young Spaniard left Los Gatos +the next day, he escaped not only the active reporter of the "Record," +but the perusal of a grateful paragraph in the next day's paper +recording his prompt kindness and courtesy. Dr. Duchesne's prognosis, +however, seemed at fault; the elder Slinn did not succumb to this +second stroke, nor did he recover his reason. He apparently only +relapsed into his former physical weakness, losing the little ground he +had gained during the last month, and exhibiting no change in his +mental condition, unless the fact that he remembered nothing of his +seizure and the presence of Don Caesar could be considered as +favorable. Dr. Duchesne's gravity seemed to give that significance to +this symptom, and his cross-questioning of the patient was +characterized by more than his usual curtness. +</P> + +<P> +"You are sure you don't remember walking in the garden before you were +ill?" he said. "Come, think again. You must remember that." The old +man's eyes wandered restlessly around the room, but he answered by a +negative shake of his head. "And you don't remember sitting down on a +stone by the road?" +</P> + +<P> +The old man kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the bedclothes before +him. "No!" he said, with a certain sharp decision that was new to him. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor's eye brightened. "All right, old man; then don't." +</P> + +<P> +On his way out he took the eldest Miss Slinn aside. "He'll do," he +said, grimly: "he's beginning to lie." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, he only said he didn't remember," responded Esther. +</P> + +<P> +"That was because he didn't want to remember," said the doctor, +authoritatively. "The brain is acting on some impression that is +either painful and unpleasant, or so vague that he can't formulate it; +he is conscious of it, and won't attempt it yet. It's a heap better +than his old self-satisfied incoherency." +</P> + +<P> +A few days later, when the fact of Slinn's identification with the +paralytic of three years ago by the stage-driver became generally +known, the doctor came in quite jubilant. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all plain now," he said, decidedly. "That second stroke was +caused by the nervous shock of his coming suddenly upon the very spot +where he had the first one. It proved that his brain still retained +old impressions, but as this first act of his memory was a painful one, +the strain was too great. It was mighty unlucky; but it was a good +sign." +</P> + +<P> +"And you think, then—" hesitated Harry Slinn. +</P> + +<P> +"I think," said Dr. Duchesne, "that this activity still exists, and the +proof of it, as I said before, is that he is trying now to forget it, +and avoid thinking of it. You will find that he will fight shy of any +allusion to it, and will be cunning enough to dodge it every time." +</P> + +<P> +He certainly did. Whether the doctor's hypothesis was fairly based or +not, it was a fact that, when he was first taken out to drive with his +watchful physician, he apparently took no notice of the boulder—which +still remained on the roadside, thanks to the later practical +explanation of the stage-driver's vision—and curtly refused to talk +about it. But, more significant to Duchesne, and perhaps more +perplexing, was a certain morose abstraction, which took the place of +his former vacuity of contentment, and an intolerance of his +attendants, which supplanted his old habitual trustfulness to their +care, that had been varied only by the occasional querulousness of an +invalid. His daughters sometimes found him regarding them with an +attention little short of suspicion, and even his son detected a +half-suppressed aversion in his interviews with him. +</P> + +<P> +Referring this among themselves to his unfortunate malady, his +children, perhaps, justified this estrangement by paying very little +attention to it. They were more pleasantly occupied. The two girls +succeeded to the position held by Mamie Mulrady in the society of the +neighborhood, and divided the attentions of Rough-and-Ready. The young +editor of the "Record" had really achieved, through his supposed +intimacy with the Mulradys, the good fortune he had jestingly +prophesied. The disappearance of Don Caesar was regarded as a virtual +abandonment of the field to his rival: and the general opinion was that +he was engaged to the millionaire's daughter on a certain probation of +work and influence in his prospective father-in-law's interests. He +became successful in one or two speculations, the magic of the lucky +Mulrady's name befriending him. In the superstition of the mining +community, much of this luck was due to his having secured the old +cabin. +</P> + +<P> +"To think," remarked one of the augurs of Red Dog, French Pete, a +polyglot jester, "that while every fool went to taking up claims where +the gold had already been found no one thought of stepping into the old +man's old choux in the cabbage-garden!" Any doubt, however, of the +alliance of the families was dissipated by the intimacy that sprang up +between the elder Slinn and the millionaire, after the latter's return +from San Francisco. +</P> + +<P> +It began in a strange kind of pity for the physical weakness of the +man, which enlisted the sympathies of Mulrady, whose great strength had +never been deteriorated by the luxuries of wealth, and who was still +able to set his workmen an example of hard labor; it was sustained by a +singular and superstitious reverence for his mental condition, which, +to the paternal Mulrady, seemed to possess that spiritual quality with +which popular ignorance invests demented people. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you mean to say that during these three years the vein o' your +mind, so to speak, was a lost lead, and sorter dropped out o' sight or +follerin'?" queried Mulrady, with infinite seriousness. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," returned Slinn, with less impatience than he usually showed to +questions. +</P> + +<P> +"And durin' that time, when you was dried up and waitin' for rain, I +reckon you kinder had visions?" +</P> + +<P> +A cloud passed over Slinn's face. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, of course!" said Mulrady, a little frightened at his +tenacity in questioning the oracle. "Nat'rally, this was private, and +not to be talked about. I meant, you had plenty of room for 'em +without crowdin'; you kin tell me some day when you're better, and kin +sorter select what's points and what ain't." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I may some day," said the invalid, gloomily, glancing in the +direction of his preoccupied daughters; "when we're alone." +</P> + +<P> +When his physical strength had improved, and his left arm and side had +regained a feeble but slowly gathering vitality, Alvin Mulrady one day +surprised the family by bringing the convalescent a pile of letters and +accounts, and spreading them on a board before Slinn's invalid chair, +with the suggestion that he should look over, arrange, and docket them. +The idea seemed preposterous, until it was found that the old man was +actually able to perform this service, and exhibited a degree of +intellectual activity and capacity for this kind of work that was +unsuspected. Dr. Duchesne was delighted, and divided with admiration +between his patient's progress and the millionaire's sagacity. "And +there are envious people," said the enthusiastic doctor, "who believe +that a man like him, who could conceive of such a plan for occupying a +weak intellect without taxing its memory or judgment, is merely a lucky +fool! Look here. May be it didn't require much brains to stumble on a +gold mine, and it is a gift of Providence. But, in my experience, +Providence don't go round buyin' up d—d fools, or investin' in dead +beats." +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Slinn, finally, with the aid of crutches, was able to hobble +every day to the imposing counting-house and the office of Mr. Mulrady, +which now occupied the lower part of the new house, and contained some +of its gorgeous furniture, he was installed at a rosewood desk behind +Mr. Mulrady's chair, as his confidential clerk and private secretary. +The astonishment of Red Dog and Rough-and-Ready at this singular +innovation knew no bounds; but the boldness and novelty of the idea +carried everything before it. Judge Butts, the oracle of +Rough-and-Ready, delivered its decision: "He's got a man who's +physically incapable of running off with his money, and has no memory +to run off with his ideas. How could he do better?" Even his own son, +Harry, coming upon his father thus installed, was for a moment struck +with a certain filial respect, and for a day or two patronized him. +</P> + +<P> +In this capacity Slinn became the confidant not only of Mulrady's +business secrets, but of his domestic affairs. He knew that young +Mulrady, from a freckle-faced slow country boy, had developed into a +freckle-faced fast city man, with coarse habits of drink and gambling. +It was through the old man's hands that extravagant bills and shameful +claims passed on their way to be cashed by Mulrady; it was he that at +last laid before the father one day his signature perfectly forged by +the son. +</P> + +<P> +"Your eyes are not ez good ez mine, you know, Slinn," said Mulrady, +gravely. "It's all right. I sometimes make my Y's like that. I'd +clean forgot to cash that check. You must not think you've got the +monopoly of disremembering," he added, with a faint laugh. +</P> + +<P> +Equally through Slinn's hands passed the record of the lavish +expenditure of Mrs. Mulrady and the fair Mamie, as well as the +chronicle of their movements and fashionable triumphs. As Mulrady had +already noticed that Slinn had no confidence with his own family, he +did not try to withhold from them these domestic details, possibly as +an offset to the dreary catalogue of his son's misdeeds, but more often +in the hope of gaining from the taciturn old man some comment that +might satisfy his innocent vanity as father and husband, and perhaps +dissipate some doubts that were haunting him. +</P> + +<P> +"Twelve hundred dollars looks to be a good figger for a dress, ain't +it? But Malviny knows, I reckon, what ought to be worn at the +Tooilleries, and she don't want our Mamie to take a back seat before +them furrin' princesses and gran' dukes. It's a slap-up affair, I +kalkilate. Let's see. I disremember whether it's an emperor or a king +that's rulin' over thar now. It must be suthin' first class and A1, +for Malviny ain't the woman to throw away twelve hundred dollars on any +of them small-potato despots! She says Mamie speaks French already +like them French Petes. I don't quite make out what she means here. +She met Don Caesar in Paris, and she says, 'I think Mamie is nearly off +with Don Caesar, who has followed her here. I don't care about her +dropping him TOO suddenly; the reason I'll tell you hereafter. I think +the man might be a dangerous enemy.' Now, what do you make of this? I +allus thought Mamie rather cottoned to him, and it was the old woman +who fought shy, thinkin' Mamie would do better. Now, I am agreeable +that my gal should marry any one she likes, whether it's a dook or a +poor man, as long as he's on the square. I was ready to take Don +Caesar; but now things seem to have shifted round. As to Don Caesar's +being a dangerous enemy if Mamie won't have him, that's a little too +high and mighty for me, and I wonder the old woman don't make him climb +down. What do you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who is Don Caesar?" asked Slinn. +</P> + +<P> +"The man what picked you up that day. I mean," continued Mulrady, +seeing the marks of evident ignorance on the old man's face,—"I mean a +sort of grave, genteel chap, suthin' between a parson and a +circus-rider. You might have seen him round the house talkin' to your +gals." +</P> + +<P> +But Slinn's entire forgetfulness of Don Caesar was evidently unfeigned. +Whatever sudden accession of memory he had at the time of his attack, +the incident that caused it had no part in his recollection. With the +exception of these rare intervals of domestic confidences with his +crippled private secretary, Mulrady gave himself up to money-getting. +Without any especial faculty for it—an easy prey often to unscrupulous +financiers—his unfailing luck, however, carried him safely through, +until his very mistakes seemed to be simply insignificant means to a +large significant end and a part of his original plan. He sank another +shaft, at a great expense, with a view to following the lead he had +formerly found, against the opinions of the best mining engineers, and +struck the artesian spring he did NOT find at that time, with a volume +of water that enabled him not only to work his own mine, but to furnish +supplies to his less fortunate neighbors at a vast profit. A league of +tangled forest and canyon behind Rough-and-Ready, for which he had paid +Don Ramon's heirs an extravagant price in the presumption that it was +auriferous, furnished the most accessible timber to build the town, at +prices which amply remunerated him. The practical schemes of +experienced men, the wildest visions of daring dreams delayed or +abortive for want of capital, eventually fell into his hands. Men +sneered at his methods, but bought his shares. Some who affected to +regard him simply as a man of money were content to get only his name +to any enterprise. Courted by his superiors, quoted by his equals, and +admired by his inferiors, he bore his elevation equally without +ostentation or dignity. Bidden to banquets, and forced by his position +as director or president into the usual gastronomic feats of that +civilization and period, he partook of simple food, and continued his +old habit of taking a cup of coffee with milk and sugar at dinner. +Without professing temperance, he drank sparingly in a community where +alcoholic stimulation was a custom. With neither refinement nor an +extended vocabulary, he was seldom profane, and never indelicate. With +nothing of the Puritan in his manner or conversation, he seemed to be +as strange to the vices of civilization as he was to its virtues. That +such a man should offer little to and receive little from the +companionship of women of any kind was a foregone conclusion. Without +the dignity of solitude, he was pathetically alone. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime, the days passed; the first six months of his opulence were +drawing to a close, and in that interval he had more than doubled the +amount of his discovered fortune. The rainy season set in early. +Although it dissipated the clouds of dust under which Nature and Art +seemed to be slowly disappearing, it brought little beauty to the +landscape at first, and only appeared to lay bare the crudenesses of +civilization. The unpainted wooden buildings of Rough-and-Ready, +soaked and dripping with rain, took upon themselves a sleek and shining +ugliness, as of second-hand garments; the absence of cornices or +projections to break the monotony of the long straight lines of +downpour made the town appear as if it had been recently submerged, +every vestige of ornamentation swept away, and only the bare outlines +left. Mud was everywhere; the outer soil seemed to have risen and +invaded the houses even to their most secret recesses, as if outraged +Nature was trying to revenge herself. Mud was brought into the saloons +and barrooms and express offices, on boots, on clothes, on baggage, and +sometimes appeared mysteriously in splashes of red color on the walls, +without visible conveyance. The dust of six months, closely packed in +cornice and carving, yielded under the steady rain a thin yellow paint, +that dropped on wayfarers or unexpectedly oozed out of ceilings and +walls on the wretched inhabitants within. The outskirts of +Rough-and-Ready and the dried hills round Los Gatos did not appear to +fare much better; the new vegetation had not yet made much headway +against the dead grasses of the summer; the pines in the hollow wept +lugubriously into a small rivulet that had sprung suddenly into life +near the old trail; everywhere was the sound of dropping, splashing, +gurgling, or rushing waters. +</P> + +<P> +More hideous than ever, the new Mulrady house lifted itself against the +leaden sky, and stared with all its large-framed, shutterless windows +blankly on the prospect, until they seemed to the wayfarer to become +mere mirrors set in the walls, reflecting only the watery landscape, +and unable to give the least indication of light or heat within. +Nevertheless, there was a fire in Mulrady's private office that +December afternoon, of a smoky, intermittent variety, that sufficed +more to record the defects of hasty architecture than to comfort the +millionaire and his private secretary, who had lingered after the early +withdrawal of the clerks. For the next day was Christmas, and, out of +deference to the near approach of this festivity, a half-holiday had +been given to the employees. "They'll want, some of them, to spend +their money before to-morrow; and others would like to be able to rise +up comfortably drunk Christmas morning," the superintendent had +suggested. Mr. Mulrady had just signed a number of checks indicating +his largess to those devoted adherents with the same unostentatious, +undemonstrative, matter-of-fact manner that distinguished his ordinary +business. The men had received it with something of the same manner. A +half-humorous "Thank you, sir"—as if to show that, with their patron, +they tolerated this deference to a popular custom, but were a little +ashamed of giving way to it—expressed their gratitude and their +independence. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon that the old lady and Mamie are having a high old time in +some of them gilded pallises in St. Petersburg or Berlin about this +time. Them diamonds that I ordered at Tiffany ought to have reached +'em about now, so that Mamie could cut a swell at Christmas with her +war-paint. I suppose it's the style to give presents in furrin' +countries ez it is here, and I allowed to the old lady that whatever +she orders in that way she is to do in Californy style—no +dollar-jewelry and galvanized-watches business. If she wants to make a +present to any of them nobles ez has been purlite to her, it's got to +be something that Rough-and-Ready ain't ashamed of. I showed you that +pin Mamie bought me in Paris, didn't I? It's just come for my +Christmas present. No! I reckon I put it in the safe, for them kind +o' things don't suit my style: but s'pose I orter sport it to-morrow. +It was mighty thoughtful in Mamie, and it must cost a lump; it's got no +slouch of a pearl in it. I wonder what Mamie gave for it?" +</P> + +<P> +"You can easily tell; the bill is here. You paid it yesterday," said +Slinn. There was no satire in the man's voice, nor was there the least +perception of irony in Mulrady's manner, as he returned quietly,— +</P> + +<P> +"That's so; it was suthin' like a thousand francs; but French money, +when you pan it out as dollars and cents, don't make so much, after +all." There was a few moments' silence, when he continued, in the same +tone of voice, "Talkin' o' them things, Slinn, I've got suthin' for +you." He stopped suddenly. Ever watchful of any undue excitement in +the invalid, he had noticed a slight flush of disturbance pass over his +face, and continued carelessly, "But we'll talk it over to-morrow; a +day or two don't make much difference to you and me in such things, you +know. P'raps I'll drop in and see you. We'll be shut up here." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you're going out somewhere?" asked Slinn, mechanically. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Mulrady, hesitatingly. It had suddenly occurred to him that +he had nowhere to go if he wanted to, and he continued, half in +explanation, "I ain't reckoned much on Christmas, myself. Abner's at +the Springs; it wouldn't pay him to come here for a day—even if there +was anybody here he cared to see. I reckon I'll hang round the shanty, +and look after things generally. I haven't been over the house +upstairs to put things to rights since the folks left. But YOU needn't +come here, you know." +</P> + +<P> +He helped the old man to rise, assisted him in putting on his overcoat, +and than handed him the cane which had lately replaced his crutches. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by, old man! You musn't trouble yourself to say 'Merry +Christmas' now, but wait until you see me again. Take care of +yourself." +</P> + +<P> +He slapped him lightly on the shoulder, and went back into his private +office. He worked for some time at his desk, and then laid his pen +aside, put away his papers methodically, placing a large envelope on +his private secretary's vacant table. He then opened the office door +and ascended the staircase. He stopped on the first landing to listen +to the sound of rain on the glass skylight, that seemed to echo through +the empty hall like the gloomy roll of a drum. It was evident that the +searching water had found out the secret sins of the house's +construction, for there were great fissures of discoloration in the +white and gold paper in the corners of the wall. There was a strange +odor of the dank forest in the mirrored drawing-room, as if the rain +had brought out the sap again from the unseasoned timbers; the blue and +white satin furniture looked cold, and the marble mantels and centre +tables had taken upon themselves the clamminess of tombstones. Mr. +Mulrady, who had always retained his old farmer-like habit of taking +off his coat with his hat on entering his own house, and appearing in +his shirt-sleeves, to indicate domestic ease and security, was obliged +to replace it, on account of the chill. He had never felt at home in +this room. Its strangeness had lately been heightened by Mrs. +Mulrady's purchase of a family portrait of some one she didn't know, +but who, she had alleged, resembled her "Uncle Bob," which hung on the +wall beside some paintings in massive frames. Mr. Mulrady cast a +hurried glance at the portrait that, on the strength of a high +coat-collar and high top curl—both rolled with equal precision and +singular sameness of color—had always glared at Mulrady as if HE was +the intruder; and, passing through his wife's gorgeous bedroom, entered +the little dressing-room, where he still slept on the smallest of cots, +with hastily improvised surroundings, as if he was a bailiff in +"possession." He didn't linger here long, but, taking a key from a +drawer, continued up the staircase, to the ominous funeral marches of +the beating rain on the skylight, and paused on the landing to glance +into his son's and daughter's bedrooms, duplicates of the bizarre +extravagance below. If he were seeking some characteristic traces of +his absent family, they certainly were not here in the painted and +still damp blazoning of their later successes. He ascended another +staircase, and, passing to the wing of the house, paused before a small +door, which was locked. Already the ostentatious decorations of wall +and passages were left behind, and the plain lath-and-plaster partition +of the attic lay before him. He unlocked the door, and threw it open. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P> +The apartment he entered was really only a lumber-room or loft over the +wing of the house, which had been left bare and unfinished, and which +revealed in its meagre skeleton of beams and joints the hollow sham of +the whole structure. But in more violent contrast to the fresher +glories of the other part of the house were its contents, which were +the heterogeneous collection of old furniture, old luggage, and +cast-off clothing, left over from the past life in the old cabin. It +was a much plainer record of the simple beginnings of the family than +Mrs. Mulrady cared to have remain in evidence, and for that reason it +had been relegated to the hidden recesses of the new house, in the hope +that it might absorb or digest it. There were old cribs, in which the +infant limbs of Mamie and Abner had been tucked up; old +looking-glasses, that had reflected their shining, soapy faces, and +Mamie's best chip Sunday hat; an old sewing-machine, that had been worn +out in active service; old patchwork quilts; an old accordion, to whose +long drawn inspirations Mamie had sung hymns; old pictures, books, and +old toys. There were one or two old chromos, and, stuck in an old +frame, a colored print from the "Illustrated London News" of a +Christmas gathering in an old English country house. He stopped and +picked up this print, which he had often seen before, gazing at it with +a new and singular interest. He wondered if Mamie had seen anything of +this kind in England, and why couldn't he have had something like it +here, in their own fine house, with themselves and a few friends? He +remembered a past Christmas, when he had bought Mamie that now headless +doll with the few coins that were left him after buying their frugal +Christmas dinner. There was an old spotted hobby-horse that another +Christmas had brought to Abner—Abner, who would be driving a fast +trotter to-morrow at the Springs! How everything had changed! How +they all had got up in the world, and how far beyond this kind of +thing—and yet—yet it would have been rather comfortable to have all +been together again here. Would THEY have been more comfortable? No! +Yet then he might have had something to do, and been less lonely +to-morrow. What of that? He HAD something to do: to look after this +immense fortune. What more could a man want, or should he want? It +was rather mean in him, able to give his wife and children everything +they wanted, to be wanting anything more. He laid down the print +gently, after dusting its glass and frame with his silk handkerchief, +and slowly left the room. +</P> + +<P> +The drum-beat of the rain followed him down the staircase, but he shut +it out with his other thoughts, when he again closed the door of his +office. He set diligently to work by the declining winter light, until +he was interrupted by the entrance of his Chinese waiter to tell him +that supper—which was the meal that Mulrady religiously adhered to in +place of the late dinner of civilization—was ready in the dining-room. +Mulrady mechanically obeyed the summons; but on entering the room the +oasis of a few plates in a desert of white table-cloth which awaited +him made him hesitate. In its best aspect, the high dark Gothic +mahogany ecclesiastical sideboard and chairs of this room, which looked +like the appointments of a mortuary chapel, were not exhilarating; and +to-day, in the light of the rain-filmed windows and the feeble rays of +a lamp half-obscured by the dark shining walls, it was most depressing. +</P> + +<P> +"You kin take up supper into my office," said Mulrady, with a sudden +inspiration. "I'll eat it there." +</P> + +<P> +He ate it there, with his usual healthy appetite, which did not require +even the stimulation of company. He had just finished, when his Irish +cook—the one female servant of the house—came to ask permission to be +absent that evening and the next day. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose the likes of your honor won't be at home on the Christmas +Day? And it's me cousins from the old counthry at Rough-and-Ready that +are invitin' me." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you ask them over here?" said Mulrady, with another vague +inspiration. "I'll stand treat." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord preserve you for a jinerous gintleman! But it's the likes of +them and myself that wouldn't be at home here on such a day." +</P> + +<P> +There was so much truth in this that Mulrady checked a sigh as he gave +the required permission, without saying that he had intended to remain. +He could cook his own breakfast: he had done it before; and it would be +something to occupy him. As to his dinner, perhaps he could go to the +hotel at Rough-and-Ready. He worked on until the night had well +advanced. Then, overcome with a certain restlessness that disturbed +him, he was forced to put his books and papers away. It had begun to +blow in fitful gusts, and occasionally the rain was driven softly +across the panes like the passing of childish fingers. This disturbed +him more than the monotony of silence, for he was not a nervous man. +He seldom read a book, and the county paper furnished him only the +financial and mercantile news which was part of his business. He knew +he could not sleep if he went to bed. At last he rose, opened the +window, and looked out from pure idleness of occupation. A splash of +wheels in the distant muddy road and fragments of a drunken song showed +signs of an early wandering reveller. There were no lights to be seen +at the closed works; a profound darkness encompassed the house, as if +the distant pines in the hollow had moved up and round it. The silence +was broken now only by the occasional sighing of wind and rain. It was +not an inviting night for a perfunctory walk; but an idea struck +him—he would call upon the Slinns, and anticipate his next day's +visit! They would probably have company, and be glad to see him: he +could tell the girls of Mamie and her success. That he had not thought +of this before was a proof of his usual self-contained isolation, that +he thought of it now was an equal proof that he was becoming at last +accessible to loneliness. He was angry with himself for what seemed to +him a selfish weakness. +</P> + +<P> +He returned to his office, and, putting the envelope that had been +lying on Slinn's desk in his pocket, threw a serape over his shoulders, +and locked the front door of the house behind him. It was well that +the way was a familiar one to him, and that his feet instinctively +found the trail, for the night was very dark. At times he was warned +only by the gurgling of water of little rivulets that descended the +hill and crossed his path. Without the slightest fear, and with +neither imagination nor sensitiveness, he recalled how, the winter +before, one of Don Caesar's vaqueros, crossing this hill at night, had +fallen down the chasm of a landslip caused by the rain, and was found +the next morning with his neck broken in the gully. Don Caesar had to +take care of the man's family. Suppose such an accident should happen +to him? Well, he had made his will. His wife and children would be +provided for, and the work of the mine would go on all the same; he had +arranged for that. Would anybody miss him? Would his wife, or his +son, or his daughter? No. He felt such a sudden and overwhelming +conviction of the truth of this that he stopped as suddenly as if the +chasm had opened before him. No! It was the truth. If he were to +disappear forever in the darkness of the Christmas night there was none +to feel his loss. His wife would take care of Mamie; his son would +take care of himself, as he had before—relieved of even the scant +paternal authority he rebelled against. A more imaginative man than +Mulrady would have combated or have followed out this idea, and then +dismissed it; to the millionaire's matter-of-fact mind it was a +deduction that, having once presented itself to his perception, was +already a recognized fact. For the first time in his life he felt a +sudden instinct of something like aversion towards his family, a +feeling that even his son's dissipation and criminality had never +provoked. He hurried on angrily through the darkness. +</P> + +<P> +It was very strange; the old house should be almost before him now, +across the hollow, yet there were no indications of light! It was not +until he actually reached the garden fence, and the black bulk of +shadow rose out against the sky, that he saw a faint ray of light from +one of the lean-to windows. He went to the front door and knocked. +After waiting in vain for a reply, he knocked again. The second knock +proving equally futile, he tried the door; it was unlocked, and, +pushing it open, he walked in. The narrow passage was quite dark, but +from his knowledge of the house he knew the "lean-to" was next to the +kitchen, and, passing through the dining-room into it, he opened the +door of the little room from which the light proceeded. It came from a +single candle on a small table, and beside it, with his eyes moodily +fixed on the dying embers of the fire, sat old Slinn. There was no +other light nor another human being in the whole house. +</P> + +<P> +For the instant Mulrady, forgetting his own feelings in the mute +picture of the utter desolation of the helpless man, remained +speechless on the threshold. Then, recalling himself, he stepped +forward and laid his hand gayly on the bowed shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"Rouse up out o' this, old man! Come! this won't do. Look! I've run +over here in the rain, jist to have a sociable time with you all." +</P> + +<P> +"I knew it," said the old man, without looking up; "I knew you'd come." +</P> + +<P> +"You knew I'd come?" echoed Mulrady, with an uneasy return of the +strange feeling of awe with which he regarded Slinn's abstraction. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; you were alone—like myself—all alone!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then, why in thunder didn't you open the door or sing out just now?" +he said, with an affected brusquerie to cover his uneasiness. "Where's +your daughters?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gone to Rough-and-Ready to a party." +</P> + +<P> +"And your son?" +</P> + +<P> +"He never comes here when he can amuse himself elsewhere." +</P> + +<P> +"Your children might have stayed home on Christmas Eve." +</P> + +<P> +"So might yours." +</P> + +<P> +He didn't say this impatiently, but with a certain abstracted +conviction far beyond any suggestion of its being a retort. Mulrady did +not appear to notice it. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't see why us old folks can't enjoy ourselves without +them," said Mulrady, with affected cheerfulness. "Let's have a good +time, you and me. Let's see—you haven't any one you can send to my +house, hev you?" +</P> + +<P> +"They took the servant with them," said Slinn, briefly. "There is no +one here." +</P> + +<P> +"All right," said the millionaire, briskly. "I'll go myself. Do you +think you can manage to light up a little more, and build a fire in the +kitchen while I'm gone? It used to be mighty comfortable in the old +times." +</P> + +<P> +He helped the old man to rise from his chair, and seemed to have +infused into him some of his own energy. He then added, "Now, don't +you get yourself down again into that chair until I come back," and +darted out into the night once more. +</P> + +<P> +In a quarter of an hour he returned with a bag on his broad shoulders, +which one of his porters would have shrunk from lifting, and laid it +before the blazing hearth of the now lighted kitchen. "It's something +the old woman got for her party, that didn't come off," he said, +apologetically. "I reckon we can pick out enough for a spread. That +darned Chinaman wouldn't come with me," he added, with a laugh, +"because, he said, he'd knocked off work 'allee same, Mellican man!' +Look here, Slinn," he said, with a sudden decisiveness, "my pay-roll of +the men around here don't run short of a hundred and fifty dollars a +day, and yet I couldn't get a hand to help me bring this truck over for +my Christmas dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said Slinn, gloomily. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course; so it oughter be," returned Mulrady, shortly. "Why, it's +only their one day out of 364; and I can have 363 days off, as I am +their boss. I don't mind a man's being independent," he continued, +taking off his coat and beginning to unpack his sack—a common "gunny +bag"—used for potatoes. "We're independent ourselves, ain't we, +Slinn?" +</P> + +<P> +His good spirits, which had been at first labored and affected, had +become natural. Slinn, looking at his brightened eye and fresher +color, could not help thinking he was more like his own real self at +this moment than in his counting-house and offices—with all his +simplicity as a capitalist. A less abstracted and more observant +critic than Slinn would have seen in this patient aptitude for real +work, and the recognition of the force of petty detail, the dominance +of the old market-gardener in his former humble, as well as his later +more ambitious, successes. +</P> + +<P> +"Heaven keep us from being dependent upon our children!" said Slinn, +darkly. +</P> + +<P> +"Let the young ones alone to-night; we can get along without them, as +they can without us," said Mulrady, with a slight twinge as he thought +of his reflections on the hillside. "But look here, there's some +champagne and them sweet cordials that women like; there's jellies and +such like stuff, about as good as they make 'em, I reckon; and +preserves, and tongues, and spiced beef—take your pick! Stop, let's +spread them out." He dragged the table to the middle of the floor, and +piled the provisions upon it. They certainly were not deficient in +quality or quantity. "Now, Slinn, wade in." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't feel hungry," said the invalid, who had lapsed again into a +chair before the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"No more do I," said Mulrady; "but I reckon it's the right thing to do +about this time. Some folks think they can't be happy without they're +getting outside o' suthin', and my directors down at 'Frisco can't do +any business without a dinner. Take some champagne, to begin with." +</P> + +<P> +He opened a bottle, and filled two tumblers. "It's past twelve +o'clock, old man, so here's a merry Christmas to you, and both of us ez +is here. And here's another to our families—ez isn't." +</P> + +<P> +They both drank their wine stolidly. The rain beat against the windows +sharply, but without the hollow echoes of the house on the hill. "I +must write to the old woman and Mamie, and say that you and me had a +high old time on Christmas Eve." +</P> + +<P> +"By ourselves," added the invalid. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Mulrady coughed. "Nat'rally—by ourselves. And her provisions," +he added, with a laugh. "We're really beholden to HER for 'em. If she +hadn't thought of having them—" +</P> + +<P> +"For somebody else, you wouldn't have had them—would you?" said Slinn, +slowly, gazing at the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Mulrady, dubiously. After a pause he began more +vivaciously, and as if to shake off some disagreeable thought that was +impressing him, "But I mustn't forget to give you YOUR Christmas, old +man, and I've got it right here with me." He took the folded envelope +from his pocket, and, holding it in his hand with his elbow on the +table, continued, "I don't mind telling you what idea I had in giving +you what I'm goin' to give you now. I've been thinking about it for a +day or two. A man like you don't want money—you wouldn't spend it. A +man like you don't want stocks or fancy investments, for you couldn't +look after them. A man like you don't want diamonds and jewellery, nor +a gold-headed cane, when it's got to be used as a crutch. No, sir. +What you want is suthin' that won't run away from you; that is always +there before you and won't wear out, and will last after you're gone. +That's land! And if it wasn't that I have sworn never to sell or give +away this house and that garden, if it wasn't that I've held out agin +the old woman and Mamie on that point, you should have THIS house and +THAT garden. But, mebbee, for the same reason that I've told you, I +want that land to keep for myself. But I've selected four acres of the +hill this side of my shaft, and here's the deed of it. As soon as +you're ready, I'll put you up a house as big as this—that shall be +yours, with the land, as long as you live, old man; and after that your +children's." +</P> + +<P> +"No; not theirs!" broke in the old man, passionately. "Never!" +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady recoiled for an instant in alarm at the sudden and unexpected +vehemence of his manner, "Go slow, old man; go slow," he said, +soothingly. "Of course, you'll do with your own as you like." Then, +as if changing the subject, he went on cheerfully: "Perhaps you'll +wonder why I picked out that spot on the hillside. Well, first, because +I reserved it after my strike in case the lead should run that way, but +it didn't. Next, because when you first came here you seemed to like +the prospect. You used to sit there looking at it, as if it reminded +you of something. You never said it did. They say you was sitting on +that boulder there when you had that last attack, you know; but," he +added, gently, "you've forgotten all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"I have forgotten nothing," said Slinn, rising, with a choking voice. +"I wish to God I had; I wish to God I could!" +</P> + +<P> +He was on his feet now, supporting himself by the table. The subtle +generous liquor he had drunk had evidently shaken his self-control, and +burst those voluntary bonds he had put upon himself for the last six +months; the insidious stimulant had also put a strange vigor into his +blood and nerves. His face was flushed, but not distorted; his eyes +were brilliant, but not fixed; he looked as he might have looked to +Masters in his strength three years before on that very hillside. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen to me, Alvin Mulrady," he said, leaning over him with burning +eyes. "Listen, while I have brain to think and strength to utter, why +I have learnt to distrust, fear, and hate them! You think you know my +story. Well, hear the truth from ME to-night, Alvin Mulrady, and do +not wonder if I have cause." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped, and, with pathetic inefficiency, passed the fingers and +inward-turned thumb of his paralyzed hand across his mouth, as if to +calm himself. "Three years ago I was a miner, but not a miner like +you! I had experience, I had scientific knowledge, I had a theory, and +the patience and energy to carry it out. I selected a spot that had +all the indications, made a tunnel, and, without aid, counsel or +assistance of any kind, worked it for six months, without rest or +cessation, and with scarcely food enough to sustain my body. Well, I +made a strike; not like you, Mulrady, not a blunder of good luck, a +fool's fortune—there, I don't blame you for it—but in perfect +demonstration of my theory, the reward of my labor. It was no pocket, +but a vein, a lead, that I had regularly hunted down and found—a +fortune! +</P> + +<P> +"I never knew how hard I had worked until that morning; I never knew +what privations I had undergone until that moment of my success, when I +found I could scarcely think or move! I staggered out into the open +air. The only human soul near me was a disappointed prospector, a man +named Masters, who had a tunnel not far away. I managed to conceal +from him my good fortune and my feeble state, for I was suspicious of +him—of any one; and as he was going away that day I thought I could +keep my secret until he was gone. I was dizzy and confused, but I +remember that I managed to write a letter to my wife, telling her of my +good fortune, and begging her to come to me; and I remember that I saw +Masters go. I don't remember anything else. They picked me up on the +road, near that boulder, as you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I know," said Mulrady, with a swift recollection of the stage-driver's +account of his discovery. +</P> + +<P> +"They say," continued Slinn, tremblingly, "that I never recovered my +senses or consciousness for nearly three years; they say I lost my +memory completely during my illness, and that by God's mercy, while I +lay in that hospital, I knew no more than a babe; they say, because I +could not speak or move, and only had my food as nature required it, +that I was an imbecile, and that I never really came to my senses until +after my son found me in the hospital. They SAY that—but I tell you +to-night, Alvin Mulrady," he said, raising his voice to a hoarse +outcry, "I tell you that it is a lie! I came to my senses a week after +I lay on that hospital cot; I kept my senses and memory ever after +during the three years that I was there, until Harry brought his cold, +hypocritical face to my bedside and recognized me. Do you understand? +I, the possessor of millions, lay there a pauper. Deserted by wife and +children—a spectacle for the curious, a sport for the doctors—AND I +KNEW IT! I heard them speculate on the cause of my helplessness. I +heard them talk of excesses and indulgences—I, that never knew wine or +woman! I heard a preacher speak of the finger of God, and point to me. +May God curse him!" +</P> + +<P> +"Go slow, old man; go slow," said Mulrady, gently. +</P> + +<P> +"I heard them speak of me as a friendless man, an outcast, a +criminal—a being whom no one would claim. They were right; no one +claimed me. The friends of others visited them; relations came and +took away their kindred; a few lucky ones got well; a few, equally +lucky, died! I alone lived on, uncared for, deserted. +</P> + +<P> +"The first year," he went on more rapidly, "I prayed for their coming. +I looked for them every day. I never lost hope. I said to myself, +'She has not got my letter; but when the time passes she will be +alarmed by my silence, and then she will come or send some one to seek +me.' A young student got interested in my case, and, by studying my +eyes, thought that I was not entirely imbecile and unconscious. With +the aid of an alphabet, he got me to spell my name and town in +Illinois, and promised by signs to write to my family. But in an evil +moment I told him of my cursed fortune, and in that moment I saw that +he thought me a fool and an idiot. He went away, and I saw him no +more. Yet I still hoped. I dreamed of their joy at finding me, and +the reward that my wealth would give them. Perhaps I was a little weak +still, perhaps a little flighty, too, at times; but I was quite happy +that year, even in my disappointment, for I had still hope!" +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and again composed his face with his paralyzed hand; but his +manner had become less excited, and his voice was stronger. +</P> + +<P> +"A change must have come over me the second year, for I only dreaded +their coming now and finding me so altered. A horrible idea that they +might, like the student, believe me crazy if I spoke of my fortune made +me pray to God that they might not reach me until after I had regained +my health and strength—and found my fortune. When the third year +found me still there—I no longer prayed for them—I cursed them! I +swore to myself that they should never enjoy my wealth; but I wanted to +live, and let them know I had it. I found myself getting stronger; but +as I had no money, no friends, and nowhere to go, I concealed my real +condition from the doctors, except to give them my name, and to try to +get some little work to do to enable me to leave the hospital and seek +my lost treasure. One day I found out by accident that it had been +discovered! You understand—my treasure!—that had cost me years of +labor and my reason; had left me a helpless, forgotten pauper. That +gold I had never enjoyed had been found and taken possession of by +another!" +</P> + +<P> +He checked an exclamation from Mulrady with his hand. "They say they +picked me up senseless from the floor, where I must have fallen when I +heard the news—I don't remember—I recall nothing until I was +confronted, nearly three weeks after, by my son, who had called at the +hospital, as a reporter for a paper, and had accidentally discovered me +through my name and appearance. He thought me crazy, or a fool. I +didn't undeceive him. I did not tell him the story of the mine to +excite his doubts and derision, or, worse (if I could bring proof to +claim it), have it perhaps pass into his ungrateful hands. No; I said +nothing. I let him bring me here. He could do no less, and common +decency obliged him to do that." +</P> + +<P> +"And what proof could you show of your claim?" asked Mulrady, gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"If I had that letter—if I could find Masters," began Slinn, vaguely. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you any idea where the letter is, or what has become of Masters?" +continued Mulrady, with a matter-of-fact gravity, that seemed to +increase Slinn's vagueness and excite his irritability. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know—I sometimes think—" He stopped, sat down again, and +passed his hands across his forehead. "I have seen the letter +somewhere since. Yes," he went on, with sudden vehemence, "I know it, +I have seen it! I—" His brows knitted, his features began to work +convulsively; he suddenly brought his paralyzed hand down, partly +opened, upon the table. "I WILL remember where." +</P> + +<P> +"Go slow, old man; go slow." +</P> + +<P> +"You asked me once about my visions. Well, that is one of them. I +remember a man somewhere showing me that letter. I have taken it from +his hands and opened it, and knew it was mine by the specimens of gold +that were in it. But where—or when—or what became of it, I cannot +tell. It will come to me—it MUST come to me soon." +</P> + +<P> +He turned his eyes upon Mulrady, who was regarding him with an +expression of grave curiosity, and said bitterly, "You think me crazy. +I know it. It needed only this." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is this mine," asked Mulrady, without heeding him. +</P> + +<P> +The old man's eyes swiftly sought the ground. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a secret, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"You have spoken of it to any one?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Not to the man who possesses it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I wouldn't take it from him." +</P> + +<P> +"Why wouldn't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because that man is yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +In the instant of complete silence that followed they could hear that +the monotonous patter of rain on the roof had ceased. +</P> + +<P> +"Then all this was in MY shaft, and the vein I thought I struck there +was YOUR lead, found three years ago in YOUR tunnel. Is that your +idea?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I don't sabe why you don't want to claim it." +</P> + +<P> +"I have told you why I don't want it for my children. I go further, +now, and I tell you, Alvin Mulrady, that I was willing that your +children should squander it, as they were doing. It has only been a +curse to me; it could only be a curse to them; but I thought you were +happy in seeing it feed selfishness and vanity. You think me bitter and +hard. Well, I should have left you in your fool's paradise, but that I +saw to-night, when you came here, that your eyes had been opened like +mine. You, the possessor of my wealth, my treasure, could not buy your +children's loving care and company with your millions, any more than I +could keep mine in my poverty. You were to-night lonely and forsaken, +as I was. We were equal, for the first time in our lives. If that +cursed gold had dropped down the shaft between us into the hell from +which it sprang, we might have clasped hands like brothers across the +chasm." +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady, who in a friendly show of being at his ease had not yet +resumed his coat, rose in his shirt-sleeves, and, standing before the +hearth, straightened his square figure by drawing down his waistcoat on +each side with two powerful thumbs. After a moment's contemplative +survey of the floor between him and the speaker, he raised his eyes to +Slinn. They were small and colorless; the forehead above them was low, +and crowned with a shock of tawny reddish hair; even the rude strength +of his lower features was enfeebled by a long, straggling, goat-like +beard; but for the first time in his life the whole face was impressed +and transformed with a strong and simple dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"Ez far ez I kin see, Slinn," he said, gravely, "the pint between you +and me ain't to be settled by our children, or wot we allow is doo and +right from them to us. Afore we preach at them for playing in the +slumgullion, and gettin' themselves splashed, perhaps we mout ez well +remember that that thar slumgullion comes from our own sluice-boxes, +where we wash our gold. So we'll just put THEM behind us, so," he +continued, with a backward sweep of his powerful hand towards the +chimney, "and goes on. The next thing that crops up ahead of us is +your three years in the hospital, and wot you went through at that +time. I ain't sayin' it wasn't rough on you, and that you didn't have +it about as big as it's made; but ez you'll allow that you'd hev had +that for three years, whether I'd found your mine or whether I hadn't, +I think we can put THAT behind us, too. There's nothin' now left to +prospect but your story of your strike. Well, take your own proofs. +Masters is not here; and if he was, accordin' to your own story, he +knows nothin' of your strike that day, and could only prove you were a +disappointed prospector in a tunnel; your letter—that the person you +wrote to never got—YOU can't produce; and if you did, would be only +your own story without proof! There is not a business man ez would +look at your claim; there isn't a friend of yours that wouldn't believe +you were crazy, and dreamed it all; there isn't a rival of yours ez +wouldn't say ez you'd invented it. Slinn, I'm a business man—I am +your friend—I am your rival—but I don't think you're lyin'—I don't +think you're crazy—and I'm not sure your claim ain't a good one! +</P> + +<P> +"Ef you reckon from that that I'm goin' to hand you over the mine +to-morrow," he went on, after a pause, raising his hand with a +deprecating gesture, "you're mistaken. For your own sake, and the sake +of my wife and children, you've got to prove it more clearly than you +hev; but I promise you that from this night forward I will spare +neither time nor money to help you to do it. I have more than doubled +the amount that you would have had, had you taken the mine the day you +came from the hospital. When you prove to me that your story is +true—and we will find some way to prove it, if it IS true—that amount +will be yours at once, without the need of a word from law or lawyers. +If you want my name to that in black and white, come to the office +to-morrow, and you shall have it." +</P> + +<P> +"And you think I'll take it now?" said the old man passionately. "Do +you think that your charity will bring back my dead wife, the three +years of my lost life, the love and respect of my children? Or do you +think that your own wife and children, who deserted you in your wealth, +will come back to you in your poverty? No! Let the mine stay, with +its curse, where it is—I'll have none of it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Go slow, old man; go slow," said Mulrady, quietly, putting on his +coat. "You will take the mine if it is yours; if it isn't, I'll keep +it. If it is yours, you will give your children a chance to sho what +they can do for you in your sudden prosperity, as I shall give mine a +chance to show how they can stand reverse and disappointment. If my +head is level—and I reckon it is—they'll both pan out all right." +</P> + +<P> +He turned and opened the door. With a quick revulsion of feeling, +Slinn suddenly seized Mulrady's hand between both of his own, and +raised it to his lips. Mulrady smiled, disengaged his hand gently, and +saying soothingly, "Go slow, old man; go slow," closed the door behind +him, and passed out into the clear Christmas dawn. +</P> + +<P> +For the stars, with the exception of one that seemed to sparkle +brightly over the shaft of his former fortunes, were slowly paling. A +burden seemed to have fallen from his square shoulders as he stepped +out sturdily into the morning air. He had already forgotten the lonely +man behind him, for he was thinking only of his wife and daughter. And +at the same moment they were thinking of him; and in their elaborate +villa overlooking the blue Mediterranean at Cannes were discussing, in +the event of Mamie's marriage with Prince Rosso e Negro, the +possibility of Mr. Mulrady's paying two hundred and fifty thousand +dollars, the gambling debts of that unfortunate but deeply +conscientious nobleman. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P> +When Alvin Mulrady reentered his own house, he no longer noticed its +loneliness. Whether the events of the last few hours had driven it +from his mind, or whether his late reflections had repeopled it with +his family under pleasanter auspices, it would be difficult to +determine. Destitute as he was of imagination, and matter-of-fact in +his judgments, he realized his new situation as calmly as he would have +considered any business proposition. While he was decided to act upon +his moral convictions purely, he was prepared to submit the facts of +Slinn's claim to the usual patient and laborious investigation of his +practical mind. It was the least he could do to justify the ready and +almost superstitious assent he had given to Slinn's story. +</P> + +<P> +When he had made a few memoranda at his desk by the growing light, he +again took the key of the attic, and ascended to the loft that held the +tangible memories of his past life. If he was still under the +influence of his reflections, it was with very different sensations +that he now regarded them. Was it possible that these ashes might be +warmed again, and these scattered embers rekindled? His practical sense +said No! whatever his wish might have been. A sudden chill came over +him; he began to realize the terrible change that was probable, more by +the impossibility of his accepting the old order of things than by his +voluntarily abandoning the new. His wife and children would never +submit. They would go away from this place, far away, where no +reminiscence of either former wealth or former poverty could obtrude +itself upon them. Mamie—his Mamie—should never go back to the cabin, +since desecrated by Slinn's daughters, and take their places. No! Why +should she?—because of the half-sick, half-crazy dreams of an old +vindictive man? +</P> + +<P> +He stopped suddenly. In moodily turning over a heap of mining +clothing, blankets, and india-rubber boots, he had come upon an old +pickaxe—the one he had found in the shaft; the one he had carefully +preserved for a year, and then forgotten! Why had he not remembered it +before? He was frightened, not only at this sudden resurrection of the +proof he was seeking, but at his own fateful forgetfulness. Why had he +never thought of this when Slinn was speaking? A sense of shame, as if +he had voluntarily withheld it from the wronged man, swept over him. +He was turning away, when he was again startled. +</P> + +<P> +This time it was by a voice from below—a voice calling him—Slinn's +voice. How had the crippled man got here so soon, and what did he +want? He hurriedly laid aside the pick, which, in his first impulse, +he had taken to the door of the loft with him, and descended the +stairs. The old man was standing at the door of his office awaiting +him. +</P> + +<P> +As Mulrady approached, he trembled violently, and clung to the doorpost +for support. +</P> + +<P> +"I had to come over, Mulrady," he said, in a choked voice; "I could +stand it there no longer. I've come to beg you to forget all that I +have said; to drive all thought of what passed between us last night +out of your head and mine forever! I've come to ask you to swear with +me that neither of us will ever speak of this again forever. It is not +worth the happiness I have had in your friendship for the last +half-year; it is not worth the agony I have suffered in its loss in the +last half-hour." +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady grasped his outstretched hand. "P'raps," he said, gravely, +"there mayn't be any use for another word, if you can answer one now. +Come with me. No matter," he added, as Slinn moved with difficulty; "I +will help you." +</P> + +<P> +He half supported, half lifted the paralyzed man up the three flights +of stairs, and opened the door of the loft. The pick was leaning +against the wall, where he had left it. "Look around, and see if you +recognize anything." +</P> + +<P> +The old man's eyes fell upon the implement in a half-frightened way, +and then lifted themselves interrogatively to Mulrady's face. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know that pick?" +</P> + +<P> +Slinn raised it in his trembling hands. "I think I do; and yet—" +</P> + +<P> +"Slinn! is it yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said hurriedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Then what makes you think you know it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It has a short handle like one I've seen." +</P> + +<P> +"And is isn't yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. The handle of mine was broken and spliced. I was too poor to buy +a new one." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you say that this pick which I found in my shaft is not yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Slinn!" +</P> + +<P> +The old man passed his hand across his forehead, looked at Mulrady, and +dropped his eyes. "It is not mine," he said simply. +</P> + +<P> +"That will do," said Mulrady, gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"And you will not speak of this again?" said the old man, timidly. +</P> + +<P> +"I promise you—not until I have some more evidence." +</P> + +<P> +He kept his word, but not before he had extorted from Slinn as full a +description of Masters as his imperfect memory and still more imperfect +knowledge of his former neighbor could furnish. He placed this, with a +large sum of money and the promise of a still larger reward, in the +hands of a trustworthy agent. When this was done he resumed his old +relations with Slinn, with the exception that the domestic letters of +Mrs. Mulrady and Mamie were no longer a subject of comment, and their +bills no longer passed through his private secretary's hands. +</P> + +<P> +Three months passed; the rainy season had ceased, the hillsides around +Mulrady's shaft were bridal-like with flowers; indeed, there were +rumors of an approaching fashionable marriage in the air, and vague +hints in the "Record" that the presence of a distinguished capitalist +might soon be required abroad. The face of that distinguished man did +not, however, reflect the gayety of nature nor the anticipation of +happiness; on the contrary, for the past few weeks, he had appeared +disturbed and anxious, and that rude tranquillity which had +characterized him was wanting. People shook their heads; a few +suggested speculations; all agreed on extravagance. +</P> + +<P> +One morning, after office hours, Slinn, who had been watching the +careworn face of his employer, suddenly rose and limped to his side. +</P> + +<P> +"We promised each other," he said, in a voice trembling with emotion; +"never to allude to our talk of Christmas Eve again unless we had other +proofs of what I told you then. We have none; I don't believe we'll +ever have any more. I don't care if we ever do, and I break that +promise now because I cannot bear to see you unhappy and know that this +is the cause." +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady made a motion of deprecation, but the old man continued— +</P> + +<P> +"You are unhappy, Alvin Mulrady. You are unhappy because you want to +give your daughter a dowry of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, +and you will not use the fortune that you think may be mine." +</P> + +<P> +"Who's been talking about a dowry?" asked Mulrady, with an angry flush. +</P> + +<P> +"Don Caesar Alvarado told my daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"Then that is why he has thrown off on me since he returned," said +Mulrady, with sudden small malevolence, "just that he might unload his +gossip because Mamie wouldn't have him. The old woman was right in +warnin' me agin him." +</P> + +<P> +The outburst was so unlike him, and so dwarfed his large though common +nature with its littleness, that it was easy to detect its feminine +origin, although it filled Slinn with vague alarm. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind him," said the old man, hastily; "what I wanted to say now +is that I abandon everything to you and yours. There are no proofs; +there never will be any more than what we know, than what we have +tested and found wanting. I swear to you that, except to show you that +I have not lied and am not crazy, I would destroy them on their way to +your hands. Keep the money, and spend it as you will. Make your +daughter happy, and, through her, yourself. You have made me happy +through your liberality; don't make me suffer through your privation." +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you what, old man," said Mulrady, rising to his feet, with an +awkward mingling of frankness and shame in his manner and accent, "I +should like to pay that money for Mamie, and let her be a princess, if +it would make her happy. I should like to shut the lantern jaws of +that Don Caesar, who'd be too glad if anything happened to break off +Mamie's match. But I shouldn't touch that capital—unless you'd lend +it to me. If you'll take a note from me, payable if the property ever +becomes yours, I'd thank you. A mortgage on the old house and garden, +and the lands I bought of Don Caesar, outside the mine, will screen +you." +</P> + +<P> +"If that pleases you," said the old man, with a smile, "have your way; +and if I tear up the note, it does not concern you." +</P> + +<P> +It did please the distinguished capitalist of Rough-and-Ready; for the +next few days his face wore a brightened expression, and he seemed to +have recovered his old tranquillity. There was, in fact, a slight +touch of consequence in his manner, the first ostentation he had ever +indulged in, when he was informed one morning at his private office +that Don Caesar Alvarado was in the counting-house, desiring a few +moments' conference. "Tell him to come in," said Mulrady, shortly. +The door opened upon Don Caesar—erect, sallow, and grave. Mulrady had +not seen him since his return from Europe, and even his inexperienced +eyes were struck with the undeniable ease and grace with which the +young Spanish-American had assimilated the style and fashion of an +older civilization. It seemed rather as if he had returned to a +familiar condition than adopted a new one. +</P> + +<P> +"Take a cheer," said Mulrady. +</P> + +<P> +The young man looked at Slinn with quietly persistent significance. +</P> + +<P> +"You can talk all the same," said Mulrady, accepting the significance. +"He's my private secretary." +</P> + +<P> +"It seems that for that reason we might choose another moment for our +conversation," returned Don Caesar, haughtily. "Do I understand you +cannot see me now?" +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady hesitated, he had always revered and recognized a certain +social superiority in Don Ramon Alvarado; somehow his son—a young man +of half his age, and once a possible son-in-law—appeared to claim that +recognition also. He rose, without a word, and preceded Don Caesar +up-stairs into the drawing-room. The alien portrait on the wall seemed +to evidently take sides with Don Caesar, as against the common +intruder, Mulrady. +</P> + +<P> +"I hoped the Senora Mulrady might have saved me this interview," said +the young man, stiffly; "or at least have given you some intimation of +the reason why I seek it. As you just now proposed my talking to you +in the presence of the unfortunate Senor Esslinn himself, it appears +she has not." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you're driving at, or what Mrs. Mulrady's got to do +with Slinn or you," said Mulrady, in angry uneasiness. +</P> + +<P> +"Do I understand," said Don Caesar, sternly, "that Senora Mulrady has +not told you that I entrusted to her an important letter, belonging to +Senor Esslinn, which I had the honor to discover in the wood six months +ago, and which she said she would refer to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Letter?" echoed Mulrady, slowly; "my wife had a letter of Slinn's?" +</P> + +<P> +Don Caesar regarded the millionaire attentively. "It is as I feared," +he said, gravely. "You do not know or you would not have remained +silent." He then briefly recounted the story of his finding Slinn's +letter, his exhibition of it to the invalid, its disastrous effect upon +him, and his innocent discovery of the contents. "I believed myself at +that time on the eve of being allied with your family, Senor Mulrady," +he said, haughtily; "and when I found myself in the possession of a +secret which affected its integrity and good name, I did not choose to +leave it in the helpless hands of its imbecile owner, or his sillier +children, but proposed to trust it to the care of the Senora, that she +and you might deal with it as became your honor and mine. I followed +her to Paris, and gave her the letter there. She affected to laugh at +any pretension of the writer, or any claim he might have on your +bounty; but she kept the letter, and, I fear, destroyed it. You will +understand, Senor Mulrady, that when I found that my attentions were no +longer agreeable to your daughter, I had no longer the right to speak +to you on the subject, nor could I, without misapprehension, force her +to return it. I should have still kept the secret to myself, if I had +not since my return here made the nearer acquaintance of Senor +Esslinn's daughters. I cannot present myself at his house, as a suitor +for the hand of the Senorita Vashti, until I have asked his absolution +for my complicity in the wrong that has been done to him. I cannot, as +a caballero, do that without your permission. It is for that purpose I +am here." +</P> + +<P> +It needed only this last blow to complete the humiliation that whitened +Mulrady's face. But his eye was none the less clear and his voice none +the less steady as he turned to Don Caesar. +</P> + +<P> +"You know perfectly the contents of that letter?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have kept a copy of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Come with me." +</P> + +<P> +He preceded his visitor down the staircase and back into his private +office. Slinn looked up at his employer's face in unrestrained +anxiety. Mulrady sat down at his desk, wrote a few hurried lines, and +rang a bell. A manager appeared from the counting-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Send that to the bank." +</P> + +<P> +He wiped his pen as methodically as if he had not at that moment +countermanded the order to pay his daughter's dowry, and turned quietly +to Slinn. +</P> + +<P> +"Don Caesar Alvarado has found the letter you wrote your wife on the +day you made your strike in the tunnel that is now my shaft. He gave +the letter to Mrs. Mulrady; but he has kept a copy." +</P> + +<P> +Unheeding the frightened gesture of entreaty from Slinn, equally with +the unfeigned astonishment of Don Caesar, who was entirely unprepared +for this revelation of Mulrady's and Slinn's confidences, he continued, +"He has brought the copy with him. I reckon it would be only square +for you to compare it with what you remember of the original." +</P> + +<P> +In obedience to a gesture from Mulrady, Don Caesar mechanically took +from his pocket a folded paper, and handed it to the paralytic. But +Slinn's trembling fingers could scarcely unfold the paper; and as his +eyes fell upon its contents, his convulsive lips could not articulate a +word. +</P> + +<P> +"P'raps I'd better read it for you," said Mulrady, gently. "You kin +follow me and stop me when I go wrong." +</P> + +<P> +He took the paper, and, in dead silence, read as follows:— +</P> + +<P> +"DEAR WIFE,—I've just struck gold in my tunnel, and you must get ready +to come here with the children, at once. It was after six months' hard +work; and I'm so weak I . . . It's a fortune for us all. We should be +rich even if it were only a branch vein dipping west towards the next +tunnel, instead of dipping east, according to my theory—" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop!" said Slinn, in a voice that shook the room. +</P> + +<P> +Mulrady looked up. +</P> + +<P> +"It's wrong, ain't it?" he asked, anxiously; "it should be EAST towards +the next tunnel." +</P> + +<P> +"No! IT'S RIGHT! I am wrong! We're all wrong!" +</P> + +<P> +Slinn had risen to his feet, erect and inspired. "Don't you see," he +almost screamed, with passionate vehemence, "it's MASTERS' ABANDONED +TUNNEL your shaft has struck? Not mine! It was Masters' pick you +found! I know it now!" +</P> + +<P> +"And your own tunnel?" said Mulrady, springing to his feet in +excitement. "And YOUR strike?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is still there!" +</P> + +<P> +The next instant, and before another question could be asked, Slinn had +darted from the room. In the exaltation of that supreme discovery he +regained the full control of his mind and body. Mulrady and Don Caesar, +no less excited, followed him precipitately, and with difficulty kept +up with his feverish speed. Their way lay along the base of the hill +below Mulrady's shaft, and on a line with Masters' abandoned tunnel. +Only once he stopped to snatch a pick from the hand of an astonished +Chinaman at work in a ditch, as he still kept on his way, a quarter of +a mile beyond the shaft. Here he stopped before a jagged hole in the +hillside. Bared to the sky and air, the very openness of its +abandonment, its unpropitious position, and distance from the strike in +Mulrady's shaft had no doubt preserved its integrity from wayfarer or +prospector. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't go in there alone, and without a light," said Mulrady, +laying his hand on the arm of the excited man. "Let me get more help +and proper tools." +</P> + +<P> +"I know every step in the dark as in the daylight," returned Slinn, +struggling. "Let me go, while I have yet strength and reason! Stand +aside!" +</P> + +<P> +He broke from them, and the next moment was swallowed up in the yawning +blackness. They waited with bated breath until, after a seeming +eternity of night and silence, they heard his returning footsteps, and +ran forward to meet him. As he was carrying something clasped to his +breast, they supported him to the opening. But at the same moment the +object of his search and his burden, a misshapen wedge of gold and +quartz, dropped with him, and both fell together with equal immobility +to the ground. He had still strength to turn his fading eyes to the +other millionaire of Rough-and-Ready, who leaned over him. +</P> + +<P> +"You—see," he gasped, brokenly, "I was not—crazy!" +</P> + +<P> +No. He was dead! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY *** + +***** This file should be named 2280-h.htm or 2280-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/2280/ + + + +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. 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