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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY + +by BRET HARTE + + + + +PROLOGUE + + +There was no mistake this time: he had struck gold at last! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Hollo, Slinn!" said the neighbor, confidently. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +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!" + +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." + +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! + +He murmured something about having to go over to the settlement on +business. He dreaded lest Masters should insist upon going into +the tunnel. + +"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." + +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. + +"Don't forget yourself and drop it in some hollow tree for a +letter-box," be said. "Well--so long!--since you won't drink. +Take care of yourself," and, turning on his heel, Masters walked +away. + +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. + +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. + +And now, at the hour when he most needed his faculties, what was +the meaning of this strange benumbing of them! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"He is dead," said one of the passengers. + +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." + + +CHAPTER I + + +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. + +"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." + +"The curse!" echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine +superstition. "What is that?" + +"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,* 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." + + +* 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. + + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Malviny, I've struck it; and struck it rich!" + +She disengaged herself from his arms, without excitement, and +looked at him with bright but shrewdly observant eyes. + +"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!" + +"Wait a minit." + +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. + +There was a sound of undisguised expostulation from Mamie. + +"I'm speaking," said Mrs. Mulrady, emphatically. + +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. + +"Ye haven't told any one yet?" she asked. + +"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'." + +"You see, I was right when I advised you taking the land," she +said, without heeding him. + +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." + +"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?" + +Mulrady opened his honest, pale-gray eyes widely. + +"Why, Malviny! You know I hadn't. I could swear!" + +"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." + +"Mamie!" echoed Mulrady, feebly. + +"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." + +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. + +"You ain't got any time to lose," she said, impatiently, as he +hesitated. + +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." + +"Go on," she said, quickly. + +"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." + +"Well?" said Mrs. Mulrady, contemptuously. + +"Well," returned her husband, somewhat disconnectedly, "it kinder +looked as if some feller might have discovered it before." + +"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?" + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Well, Mamie, how do we like bein' an heiress? How do we like +layin' over all the gals between this and 'Frisco?" + +"Eh?" + +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. + +He, however, repeated the question, touched with her charming +preoccupation, and passing his arm around her little waist. + +"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." + +"And you didn't want to go without seeing him?" he added, archly. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"No. I'd like to catch him at it," responded Mamie, promptly. +"There's better nor him to be had for the asking now." + +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. + +"What new ideas?" queried her father, anxiously. + +"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." + +"What am I, then?" asked Mulrady, with a half-pleased, half-uneasy +laugh. + +"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. + +When she was deposited safely inside, and Mulrady had climbed to +the box beside the driver, the latter remarked, curtly,-- + +"Ye gave me a right smart skeer, a minit ago, stranger." + +"Ez how?" + +"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." + +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. + +"Did you find out who he was?" broke in a rash passenger. "Did you +ever get over it?" added another unfortunate. + +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?" + + +CHAPTER II + + +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. + +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. + +"If you will keep the land, build on it, and root up the garden." +But Mulrady was adamant. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"He has something better to do," said the young lady, pertly. + +"I can easily imagine that," he returned, mischievously; "it must +be a pallid substitute for other opportunities." + +"What did you come here for?" she asked, suddenly. + +"To see you." + +"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." + +"I suppose I was fired by your father's example, and wished to find +a gold mine." + +"Men like you never do," she said, simply. + +"Is that a compliment, Miss Mulrady?" + +"I don't know. But I think that you think that it is." + +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. + +"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." + +"We?" echoed Mamie, lazily, looking up the road. + +"Yes. My father and two sisters." + +"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. + +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." + +"Two weeks ago? That was when I went to Sacramento." + +"Very probably." + +"It must have been very shocking to you?" + +"It was." + +"I should think you'd feel real bad?" + +"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." + +Miss Mulrady put down her knee and her parasol. "We mustn't stay +here much longer, you know." + +"Why?" + +"Why, the stage-coach comes by at about this time." + +"And you think the passengers will observe us sitting here?" + +"Of course they will." + +"Miss Mulrady, I implore you to stay." + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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." + +The young Spaniard, equally oblivious of humor or curiosity, +remained impassive. + +"You know Mr. Slinn, of the 'Record," said Mamie, "don't you?" + +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." + +"Oh, HE was shot," said Slinn. "I'm taking his place." + +"Bueno! To be shot too? I trust not." + +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." + +"Thank you; I will," responded the young man, pressing her hand +with unaffected cordiality. + +Don Caesar watched him until he had disappeared behind the wayside +buckeyes. + +"He is a man of family--this one--your countryman?" + +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: + +"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." + +"So, then, they are not independent of each other always--these +fathers and children of Americans!" + +"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. + +But Don Caesar had already dismounted, and tied his horse to a tree +with a strong lariat that hung at his saddle-bow. + +"Let us walk through the woods towards your home. I can return +alone for the horse when you shall dismiss me." + +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. + +"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--" + +Mamie started, and blushed slightly. + +"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." + +"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." + +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! + +"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." + +"But you are going away." + +"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." + +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." + +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,-- + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Then you consent, Mamie?" he said, eagerly, passing his arm around +her waist. + +"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. + +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. + +"If you admit that it is possible--that it is possible to you!" he +said, quickly. + +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." + +"But I have so much to say," he pleaded. "Our time has been so +short." + +"You can write." + +"But what will your mother think of that?" he said, in grave +astonishment. + +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!" + +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. + +"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. + +"I wonder how you could ever have cared for me in that holland +apron," she said, looking down upon her new dress. + +"Shall I tell you why?" he said, fondly, passing his arm around her +waist, and drawing her pretty head nearer his shoulder. + +"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?" + +"It's only a squirrel," he whispered reassuringly in her ear. + +"No; it's somebody coming! I must go! Please! Caesar, dear! +There, then--" + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +CHAPTER III + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 loosend 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:-- + +"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." + +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! + +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. + +"In the name of the Devil, will you keep me here till eternity!" + +The blacksmith stared at him. Don Caesar suddenly remembered that +he was speaking, as he was thinking--in Spanish. + +"Ten dollars, my friend, if you have done in five minutes!" + +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:-- + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"We saw you coming," said the elder, unaffectedly. "You are Don +Caesar Alvarado. My brother has spoken of you." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"That's not very complimentary," said the younger girl, laughingly; +"for pa didn't recognize us, and only remembered us as little +girls." + +"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." + +"Unless-- You forget what the doctor told us this morning," +interrupted Vashti again, briskly. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +"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." + +"My daughters?" said the old man, vaguely. "Oh, yes! nice little +girls. And my boy Harry. Did you see Harry? Fine little fellow, +Harry." + +"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!" + +"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!" + +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. + +"It is a fine view, Senor Esslinn," said Don Caesar. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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--" + +"Alvarado," said Don Caesar, gently. Caesar Alvarado." + +"You said Masters," said the old man, with sudden querulousness. + +"No, good friend. I said Alvarado," returned Don Caesar, gravely. + +"If you didn't say Masters, how could I say it? I don't know any +Masters." + +Don Caesar was silent. In another moment the happy tranquillity +returned to Slinn's face; and Don Caesar continued:-- + +"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--" + +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:-- + +"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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"See, it's true! My letter! My gold! My strike! My--my--my +God!" + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + + +CHAPTER IV + + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +The doctor's eye brightened. "All right, old man; then don't." + +On his way out he took the eldest Miss Slinn aside. "He'll do," he +said, grimly: "he's beginning to lie." + +"Why, he only said he didn't remember," responded Esther. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"And you think, then--" hesitated Harry Slinn. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Yes," returned Slinn, with less impatience than he usually showed +to questions. + +"And durin' that time, when you was dried up and waitin' for rain, +I reckon you kinder had visions?" + +A cloud passed over Slinn's face. + +"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." + +"Perhaps I may some day," said the invalid, gloomily, glancing in +the direction of his preoccupied daughters; "when we're alone." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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 A 1, 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?" + +"Who is Don Caesar?" asked Slinn. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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,-- + +"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." + +"Then you're going out somewhere?" asked Slinn, mechanically. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + + +CHAPTER V + + +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. + +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. + +"You kin take up supper into my office," said Mulrady, with a +sudden inspiration. "I'll eat it there." + +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. + +"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." + +"Why don't you ask them over here?" said Mulrady, with another +vague inspiration. "I'll stand treat." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I knew it," said the old man, without looking up; "I knew you'd +come." + +"You knew I'd come?" echoed Mulrady, with an uneasy return of the +strange feeling of awe with which he regarded Slinn's abstraction. + +"Yes; you were alone--like myself--all alone!" + +"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?" + +"Gone to Rough-and-Ready to a party." + +"And your son?" + +"He never comes here when he can amuse himself elsewhere." + +"Your children might have stayed home on Christmas Eve." + +"So might yours." + +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. + +"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?" + +"They took the servant with them," said Slinn, briefly. "There is +no one here." + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +"Of course," said Slinn, gloomily. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Heaven keep us from being dependent upon our children!" said +Slinn, darkly. + +"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." + +"I don't feel hungry," said the invalid, who had lapsed again into +a chair before the fire. + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +"By ourselves," added the invalid. + +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--" + +"For somebody else, you wouldn't have had them--would you?" said +Slinn, slowly, gazing at the fire. + +"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." + +"No; not theirs!" broke in the old man, passionately. "Never!" + +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." + +"I have forgotten nothing," said Slinn, rising, with a choking +voice. "I wish to God I had; I wish to God I could!" + +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. + +"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." + +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! + +"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." + +"I know," said Mulrady, with a swift recollection of the stage- +driver's account of his discovery. + +"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!" + +"Go slow, old man; go slow," said Mulrady, gently. + +"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. + +"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!" + +He paused, and again composed his face with his paralyzed hand; but +his manner had become less excited, and his voice was stronger. + +"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!" + +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." + +"And what proof could you show of your claim?" asked Mulrady, +gravely. + +"If I had that letter--if I could find Masters," began Slinn, +vaguely. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Go slow, old man; go slow." + +"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." + +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." + +"Where is this mine," asked Mulrady, without heeding him. + +The old man's eyes swiftly sought the ground. + +"It is a secret, then?" + +"No." + +"You have spoken of it to any one?" + +"No." + +"Not to the man who possesses it?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"Because I wouldn't take it from him." + +"Why wouldn't you?" + +"Because that man is yourself!" + +In the instant of complete silence that followed they could hear +that the monotonous patter of rain on the roof had ceased. + +"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?" + +"Yes." + +"Then I don't sabe why you don't want to claim it." + +"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." + +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. + +"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! + +"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." + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + +CHAPTER VI + + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +As Mulrady approached, he trembled violently, and clung to the +doorpost for support. + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +The old man's eyes fell upon the implement in a half-frightened +way, and then lifted themselves interrogatively to Mulrady's face. + +"Do you know that pick?" + +Slinn raised it in his trembling hands. "I think I do; and yet--" + +"Slinn! is it yours?" + +"No," he said hurriedly. + +"Then what makes you think you know it?" + +"It has a short handle like one I've seen." + +"And is isn't yours?" + +"No. The handle of mine was broken and spliced. I was too poor to +buy a new one." + +"Then you say that this pick which I found in my shaft is not +yours?" + +"Yes." + +"Slinn!" + +The old man passed his hand across his forehead, looked at Mulrady, +and dropped his eyes. "It is not mine," he said simply. + +"That will do," said Mulrady, gravely. + +"And you will not speak of this again?" said the old man, timidly. + +"I promise you--not until I have some more evidence." + +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. + +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. + +One morning, after office hours, Slinn, who had been watching the +careworn face of his employer, suddenly rose and limped to his +side. + +"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." + +Mulrady made a motion of deprecation, but the old man continued-- + +"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." + +"Who's been talking about a dowry?" asked Mulrady, with an angry +flush. + +"Don Caesar Alvarado told my daughter." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Take a cheer," said Mulrady. + +The young man looked at Slinn with quietly persistent significance. + +"You can talk all the same," said Mulrady, accepting the +significance. "He's my private secretary." + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"Letter?" echoed Mulrady, slowly; "my wife had a letter of +Slinn's?" + +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." + +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. + +"You know perfectly the contents of that letter?" + +"I have kept a copy of it." + +"Come with me." + +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. + +"Send that to the bank." + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +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'raps I'd better read it for you," said Mulrady, gently. "You +kin follow me and stop me when I go wrong." + +He took the paper, and, in dead silence, read as follows:-- + +"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--" + +"Stop!" said Slinn, in a voice that shook the room. + +Mulrady looked up. + +"It's wrong, ain't it?" he asked, anxiously; "it should be EAST +towards the next tunnel." + +"No! IT'S RIGHT! I am wrong! We're all wrong!" + +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!" + +"And your own tunnel?" said Mulrady, springing to his feet in +excitement. "And YOUR strike?" + +"Is still there!" + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +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. + +"You--see," he gasped, brokenly, "I was not--crazy!" + +No. He was dead! + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg etext of A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready. + |