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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Devil's Ford, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Devil's Ford
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2006 [EBook #2286]
+Last Updated: March 4, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL'S FORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL'S FORD
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL'S FORD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was a season of unequalled prosperity in Devil's Ford. The half a
+dozen cabins scattered along the banks of the North Fork, as if by some
+overflow of that capricious river, had become augmented during a week of
+fierce excitement by twenty or thirty others, that were huddled together
+on the narrow gorge of Devil's Spur, or cast up on its steep sides. So
+sudden and violent had been the change of fortune, that the dwellers
+in the older cabins had not had time to change with it, but still kept
+their old habits, customs, and even their old clothes. The flour pan in
+which their daily bread was mixed stood on the rude table side by side
+with the “prospecting pans,” half full of gold washed up from their
+morning's work; the front windows of the newer tenements looked upon
+the one single thoroughfare, but the back door opened upon the uncleared
+wilderness, still haunted by the misshapen bulk of bear or the nightly
+gliding of catamount.
+
+Neither had success as yet affected their boyish simplicity and the
+frankness of old frontier habits; they played with their new-found
+riches with the naive delight of children, and rehearsed their glowing
+future with the importance and triviality of school-boys.
+
+“I've bin kalklatin',” said Dick Mattingly, leaning on his long-handled
+shovel with lazy gravity, “that when I go to Rome this winter, I'll get
+one o' them marble sharps to chisel me a statoo o' some kind to set up
+on the spot where we made our big strike. Suthin' to remember it by, you
+know.”
+
+“What kind o' statoo--Washington or Webster?” asked one of the Kearney
+brothers, without looking up from his work.
+
+“No--I reckon one o' them fancy groups--one o' them Latin goddesses that
+Fairfax is always gassin' about, sorter leadin', directin' and bossin'
+us where to dig.”
+
+“You'd make a healthy-lookin' figger in a group,” responded Kearney,
+critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's trousers. “Why
+don't you have a fountain instead?”
+
+“Where'll you get the water?” demanded the first speaker, in return.
+“You know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a week's washing
+for the camp--to say nothin' of its color.”
+
+“Leave that to me,” said Kearney, with self-possession. “When I've built
+that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and bring the water over the ridge
+from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for that.”
+
+“Better mix it up, I reckon--have suthin' half statoo, half fountain,”
+ interposed the elder Mattingly, better known as “Maryland Joe,” “and set
+it up afore the Town Hall and Free Library I'm kalklatin' to give. Do
+THAT, and you can count on me.”
+
+After some further discussion, it was gravely settled that Kearney
+should furnish water brought from the Union Ditch, twenty miles away,
+at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, to feed a memorial fountain
+erected by Mattingly, worth a hundred thousand dollars, as a crowning
+finish to public buildings contributed by Maryland Joe, to the extent
+of half a million more. The disposition of these vast sums by gentlemen
+wearing patched breeches awakened no sense of the ludicrous, nor did any
+doubt, reservation, or contingency enter into the plans of the charming
+enthusiasts themselves. The foundation of their airy castles lay already
+before them in the strip of rich alluvium on the river bank, where the
+North Fork, sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for
+centuries swept the detritus of gulch and canyon. They had barely
+crossed the threshold of this treasure-house, to find themselves rich
+men; what possibilities of affluence might be theirs when they had fully
+exploited their possessions? So confident were they of that ultimate
+prospect, that the wealth already thus obtained was religiously expended
+in engines and machinery for the boring of wells and the conveyance of
+that precious water which the exhausted river had long since ceased to
+yield. It seemed as if the gold they had taken out was by some ironical
+compensation gradually making its way back to the soil again through
+ditch and flume and reservoir.
+
+Such was the position of affairs at Devil's Ford on the 13th of August,
+1860. It was noon of a hot day. Whatever movement there was in the
+stifling air was seen rather than felt in a tremulous, quivering,
+upward-moving dust along the flank of the mountain, through which the
+spires of the pines were faintly visible. There was no water in the
+bared and burning bars of the river to reflect the vertical sun, but
+under its direct rays one or two tinned roofs and corrugated zinc cabins
+struck fire, a few canvas tents became dazzling to the eye, and the
+white wooded corral of the stage office and hotel insupportable. For
+two hours no one ventured in the glare of the open, or even to cross the
+narrow, unshadowed street, whose dull red dust seemed to glow between
+the lines of straggling houses. The heated shells of these green
+unseasoned tenements gave out a pungent odor of scorching wood and
+resin. The usual hurried, feverish toil in the claim was suspended;
+the pick and shovel were left sticking in the richest “pay gravel;”
+ the toiling millionaires themselves, ragged, dirty, and perspiring, lay
+panting under the nearest shade, where the pipes went out listlessly,
+and conversation sank to monosyllables.
+
+“There's Fairfax,” said Dick Mattingly, at last, with a lazy effort. His
+face was turned to the hillside, where a man had just emerged from
+the woods, and was halting irresolutely before the glaring expanse of
+upheaved gravel and glistening boulders that stretched between him and
+the shaded group. “He's going to make a break for it,” he added, as the
+stranger, throwing his linen coat over his head, suddenly started into
+an Indian trot through the pelting sunbeams toward them. This strange
+act was perfectly understood by the group, who knew that in that
+intensely dry heat the danger of exposure was lessened by active
+exercise and the profuse perspiration that followed it. In another
+moment the stranger had reached their side, dripping as if rained upon,
+mopping his damp curls and handsome bearded face with his linen coat, as
+he threw himself pantingly on the ground.
+
+“I struck out over here first, boys, to give you a little warning,” he
+said, as soon as he had gained breath. “That engineer will be down here
+to take charge as soon as the six o'clock stage comes in. He's an oldish
+chap, has got a family of two daughters, and--I--am--d----d if he is not
+bringing them down here with him.”
+
+“Oh, go long!” exclaimed the five men in one voice, raising themselves
+on their hands and elbows, and glaring at the speaker.
+
+“Fact, boys! Soon as I found it out I just waltzed into that Jew shop at
+the Crossing and bought up all the clothes that would be likely to suit
+you fellows, before anybody else got a show. I reckon I cleared out the
+shop. The duds are a little mixed in style, but I reckon they're clean
+and whole, and a man might face a lady in 'em. I left them round at the
+old Buckeye Spring, where they're handy without attracting attention.
+You boys can go there for a general wash-up, rig yourselves up without
+saying anything, and then meander back careless and easy in your store
+clothes, just as the stage is coming in, sabe?”
+
+“Why didn't you let us know earlier?” asked Mattingly aggrievedly;
+“you've been back here at least an hour.”
+
+“I've been getting some place ready for THEM,” returned the new-comer.
+“We might have managed to put the man somewhere, if he'd been alone, but
+these women want family accommodation. There was nothing left for me to
+do but to buy up Thompson's saloon.”
+
+“No?” interrupted his audience, half in incredulity, half in
+protestation.
+
+“Fact! You boys will have to take your drinks under canvas again, I
+reckon! But I made Thompson let those gold-framed mirrors that used to
+stand behind the bar go into the bargain, and they sort of furnish the
+room. You know the saloon is one of them patent houses you can take to
+pieces, and I've been reckoning you boys will have to pitch in and help
+me to take the whole shanty over to the laurel bushes, and put it up
+agin Kearney's cabin.”
+
+“What's all that?” said the younger Kearney, with an odd mingling of
+astonishment and bashful gratification.
+
+“Yes, I reckon yours is the cleanest house, because it's the newest, so
+you'll just step out and let us knock in one o' the gables, and clap it
+on to the saloon, and make ONE house of it, don't you see? There'll be
+two rooms, one for the girls and the other for the old man.”
+
+The astonishment and bewilderment of the party had gradually given way
+to a boyish and impatient interest.
+
+“Hadn't we better do the job at once?” suggested Dick Mattingly.
+
+“Or throw ourselves into those new clothes, so as to be ready,” added
+the younger Kearney, looking down at his ragged trousers. “I say,
+Fairfax, what are the girls like, eh?”
+
+All the others had been dying to ask the question, yet one and all
+laughed at the conscious manner and blushing cheek of the questioner.
+
+“You'll find out quick enough,” returned Fairfax, whose curt
+carelessness did not, however, prevent a slight increase of color on his
+own cheek. “We'd better get that job off our hands before doing anything
+else. So, if you're ready, boys, we'll just waltz down to Thompson's and
+pack up the shanty. He's out of it by this time, I reckon. You might
+as well be perspiring to some purpose over there as gaspin' under this
+tree. We won't go back to work this afternoon, but knock off now, and
+call it half a day. Come! Hump yourselves, gentlemen. Are you ready?
+One, two, three, and away!”
+
+In another instant the tree was deserted; the figures of the five
+millionaires of Devil's Ford, crossing the fierce glare of the open
+space, with boyish alacrity, glistened in the sunlight, and then
+disappeared in the nearest fringe of thickets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil's Spur had crossed the river,
+and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the Pioneer coach,
+leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated bulk in the long
+shadows of the descent. Conspicuous among the dusty passengers, the
+two pretty and youthful faces of the daughters of Philip Carr, mining
+superintendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little
+anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below,
+that occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zigzagging road.
+A slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they
+gazed upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that
+stood equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble
+and inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed
+through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the preparation of
+that long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and pastoral
+glades and canyons, that, as the coach swept down the last incline,
+and the remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out before them,
+furrowed by ditches and indented by pits, under cover of shielding their
+cheeks from the impalpable dust that rose beneath the plunging
+wheels, they buried their faces in their handkerchiefs, to hide a few
+half-hysterical tears. Happily, their father, completely absorbed in a
+practical, scientific, and approving contemplation of the topography
+and material resources of the scene of his future labors, had no time
+to notice their defection. It was not until the stage drew up before
+a rambling tenement bearing the inscription, “Hotel and Stage Office,”
+ that he became fully aware of it.
+
+“We can't stop HERE, papa,” said Christie Carr decidedly, with a shake
+of her pretty head. “You can't expect that.”
+
+Mr. Carr looked up at the building; it was half grocery, half saloon.
+Whatever other accommodations it contained must have been hidden in the
+rear, as the flat roof above was almost level with the raftered ceiling
+of the shop.
+
+“Certainly,” he replied hurriedly; “we'll see to that in a moment. I
+dare say it's all right. I told Fairfax we were coming. Somebody ought
+to be here.”
+
+“But they're not,” said Jessie Carr indignantly; “and the few that were
+here scampered off like rabbits to their burrows as soon as they saw us
+get down.”
+
+It was true. The little group of loungers before the building had
+suddenly disappeared. There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing in an
+adjacent doorway; the fading apparition of a pair of high boots and blue
+overalls in another; the abrupt withdrawal of a curly blond head from a
+sashless window over the way. Even the saloon was deserted, although
+a back door in the dim recess seemed to creak mysteriously. The
+stage-coach, with the other passengers, had already rattled away.
+
+“I certainly think Fairfax understood that I--” began Mr. Carr.
+
+He was interrupted by the pressure of Christie's fingers on his arm and
+a subdued exclamation from Jessie, who was staring down the street.
+
+“What are they?” she whispered in her sister's ear. “Nigger minstrels, a
+circus, or what?”
+
+The five millionaires of Devil's Ford had just turned the corner of the
+straggling street, and were approaching in single file. One glance was
+sufficient to show that they had already availed themselves of the new
+clothing bought by Fairfax, had washed, and one or two had shaved. But
+the result was startling.
+
+Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the only
+one who had achieved an entire new suit. But it was of funereal black
+cloth, and although relieved at one extremity by a pair of high riding
+boots, in which his too short trousers were tucked, and at the other
+by a tall white hat, and cravat of aggressive yellow, the effect was
+depressing. In agreeable contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was
+attired in a thin fawn-colored summer overcoat, lightly worn open, so as
+to show the unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of
+nankeen trousers and pumps.
+
+The Kearney brothers had divided a suit between them, the elder wearing
+a tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock-coat and a pair of pink
+striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly displayed the
+trousers of his brother's suit, as a harmonious change to a shining
+black alpaca coat and crimson neckerchief. Fairfax, who brought up the
+rear, had, with characteristic unselfishness, contented himself with a
+French workman's blue blouse and a pair of white duck trousers. Had they
+shown the least consciousness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they
+would have seemed despicable. But only one expression beamed on the five
+sunburnt and shining faces--a look of unaffected boyish gratification
+and unrestricted welcome.
+
+They halted before Mr. Carr and his daughters, simultaneously removed
+their various and remarkable head coverings, and waited until Fairfax
+advanced and severally presented them. Jessie Carr's half-frightened
+smile took refuge in the trembling shadows of her dark lashes; Christie
+Carr stiffened slightly, and looked straight before her.
+
+“We reckoned--that is--we intended to meet you and the young ladies at
+the grade,” said Fairfax, reddening a little as he endeavored to
+conceal his too ready slang, “and save you from trapesing--from dragging
+yourselves up grade again to your house.”
+
+“Then there IS a house?” said Jessie, with an alarming frank laugh
+of relief, that was, however, as frankly reflected in the boyishly
+appreciative eyes of the young men.
+
+“Such as it is,” responded Fairfax, with a shade of anxiety, as he
+glanced at the fresh and pretty costumes of the young women, and
+dubiously regarded the two Saratoga trunks resting hopelessly on the
+veranda. “I'm afraid it isn't much, for what you're accustomed to. But,”
+ he added more cheerfully, “it will do for a day or two, and perhaps
+you'll give us the pleasure of showing you the way there now.”
+
+The procession was quickly formed. Mr. Carr, alive only to the actual
+business that had brought him there, at once took possession of
+Fairfax, and began to disclose his plans for the working of the mine,
+occasionally halting to look at the work already done in the ditches,
+and to examine the field of his future operations. Fairfax, not
+displeased at being thus relieved of a lighter attendance on Mr.
+Carr's daughters, nevertheless from time to time cast a paternal glance
+backwards upon their escorts, who had each seized a handle of the two
+trunks, and were carrying them in couples at the young ladies' side. The
+occupation did not offer much freedom for easy gallantry, but no sign
+of discomfiture or uneasiness was visible in the grateful faces of the
+young men. The necessity of changing hands at times with their burdens
+brought a corresponding change of cavalier at the lady's side, although
+it was observed that the younger Kearney, for the sake of continuing a
+conversation with Miss Jessie, kept his grasp of the handle nearest the
+young lady until his hand was nearly cut through, and his arm worn out
+by exhaustion.
+
+“The only thing on wheels in the camp is a mule wagon, and the mules are
+packin' gravel from the river this afternoon,” explained Dick Mattingly
+apologetically to Christie, “or we'd have toted--I mean carried--you and
+your baggage up to the shant--the--your house. Give us two weeks more,
+Miss Carr--only two weeks to wash up our work and realize--and we'll
+give you a pair of 2.40 steppers and a skeleton buggy to meet you at the
+top of the hill and drive you over to the cabin. Perhaps you'd prefer
+a regular carriage; some ladies do. And a nigger driver. But what's the
+use of planning anything? Afore that time comes we'll have run you up
+a house on the hill, and you shall pick out the spot. It wouldn't take
+long--unless you preferred brick. I suppose we could get brick over from
+La Grange, if you cared for it, but it would take longer. If you
+could put up for a time with something of stained glass and a mahogany
+veranda--”
+
+In spite of her cold indignation, and the fact that she could understand
+only a part of Mattingly's speech, Christie comprehended enough to make
+her lift her clear eyes to the speaker, as she replied freezingly that
+she feared she would not trouble them long with her company.
+
+“Oh, you'll get over that,” responded Mattingly, with an exasperating
+confidence that drove her nearly frantic, from the manifest kindliness
+of intent that made it impossible for her to resent it. “I felt that way
+myself at first. Things will look strange and unsociable for a while,
+until you get the hang of them. You'll naturally stamp round and cuss a
+little--” He stopped in conscious consternation.
+
+With ready tact, and before Christie could reply, Maryland Joe had put
+down the trunk and changed hands with his brother.
+
+“You mustn't mind Dick, or he'll go off and kill himself with shame,” he
+whispered laughingly in her ear. “He means all right, but he's picked
+up so much slang here that he's about forgotten how to talk English, and
+it's nigh on to four years since he's met a young lady.”
+
+Christie did not reply. Yet the laughter of her sister in advance with
+the Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she tried to
+crush further familiarity only ridiculous.
+
+“Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?”
+
+She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her
+own, and hesitated. After all, why should she add to her other real
+disappointments by taking this absurd creature seriously?
+
+“In what way?” she returned, with a half smile.
+
+“To play. On the piano, of course. There isn't one nearer here than
+Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You
+couldn't do anything on a banjo?” he added doubtfully; “Kearney's got
+one.”
+
+“I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those
+mountains,” said Christie laughingly, to avoid the collateral of the
+banjo.
+
+“We got a billiard-table over from Stockton,” half bashfully interrupted
+Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to recover his
+composure, “and it had to be brought over in sections on the back of a
+mule, so I don't see why--” He stopped short again in confusion, at a
+sign from his brother, and then added, “I mean, of course, that a piano
+is a heap more delicate, and valuable, and all that sort of thing, but
+it's worth trying for.”
+
+“Fairfax was always saying he'd get one for himself, so I reckon it's
+possible,” said Joe.
+
+“Does he play?” asked Christie.
+
+“You bet,” said Joe, quite forgetting himself in his enthusiasm. “He can
+snatch Mozart and Beethoven bald-headed.”
+
+In the embarrassing silence that followed this speech the fringe of pine
+wood nearest the flat was reached. Here there was a rude “clearing,” and
+beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently joined tenements. There
+was no attempt to conceal the point of junction between Kearney's
+cabin and the newly-transported saloon from the flat--no architectural
+illusion of the palpable collusion of the two buildings, which seemed
+to be telescoped into each other. The front room or living room occupied
+the whole of Kearney's cabin. It contained, in addition to the necessary
+articles for housekeeping, a “bunk” or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to
+leave the second building entirely to the occupation of his daughters as
+bedroom and boudoir.
+
+There was a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude
+utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the
+two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor
+Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept these young
+men from accompanying them into the room they had but a few moments
+before decorated and arranged with their own hands, and it was not until
+they turned to thank their strange entertainers that they found that
+they were gone.
+
+The arrangement of the second room was rude and bizarre, but not without
+a singular originality and even tastefulness of conception. What had
+been the counter or “bar” of the saloon, gorgeous in white and gold,
+now sawn in two and divided, was set up on opposite sides of the room as
+separate dressing-tables, decorated with huge bunches of azaleas, that
+hid the rough earthenware bowls, and gave each table the appearance of a
+vestal altar.
+
+The huge gilt plate-glass mirror which had hung behind the bar still
+occupied one side of the room, but its length was artfully divided by
+an enormous rosette of red, white, and blue muslin--one of the surviving
+Fourth of July decorations of Thompson's saloon. On either side of the
+door two pathetic-looking, convent-like cots, covered with spotless
+sheeting, and heaped up in the middle, like a snow-covered grave, had
+attracted their attention. They were still staring at them when Mr. Carr
+anticipated their curiosity.
+
+“I ought to tell you that the young men confided to me the fact that
+there was neither bed nor mattress to be had on the Ford. They have
+filled some flour sacks with clean dry moss from the woods, and put half
+a dozen blankets on the top, and they hope you can get along until
+the messenger who starts to-night for La Grange can bring some bedding
+over.”
+
+Jessie flew with mischievous delight to satisfy herself of the truth
+of this marvel. “It's so, Christie,” she said laughingly--“three
+flour-sacks apiece; but I'm jealous: yours are all marked 'superfine,'
+and mine 'middlings.'”
+
+Mr. Carr had remained uneasily watching Christie's shadowed face.
+
+“What matters?” she said drily. “The accommodation is all in keeping.”
+
+“It will be better in a day or two,” he continued, casting a longing
+look towards the door--the first refuge of masculine weakness in an
+impending domestic emergency. “I'll go and see what can be done,” he
+said feebly, with a sidelong impulse towards the opening and freedom.
+“I've got to see Fairfax again to-night any way.”
+
+“One moment, father,” said Christie, wearily. “Did you know anything of
+this place and these--these people--before you came?”
+
+“Certainly--of course I did,” he returned, with the sudden testiness of
+disturbed abstraction. “What are you thinking of? I knew the geological
+strata and the--the report of Fairfax and his partners before I
+consented to take charge of the works. And I can tell you that there is
+a fortune here. I intend to make my own terms, and share in it.”
+
+“And not take a salary or some sum of money down?” said Christie, slowly
+removing her bonnet in the same resigned way.
+
+“I am not a hired man, or a workman, Christie,” said her father sharply.
+“You ought not to oblige me to remind you of that.”
+
+“But the hired men--the superintendent and his workmen--were the only
+ones who ever got anything out of your last experience with Colonel
+Waters at La Grange, and--and we at least lived among civilized people
+there.”
+
+“These young men are not common people, Christie; even if they have
+forgotten the restraints of speech and manners, they're gentlemen.”
+
+“Who are willing to live like--like negroes.”
+
+“You can make them what you please.”
+
+Christie raised her eyes. There was a certain cynical ring in her
+father's voice that was unlike his usual hesitating abstraction. It both
+puzzled and pained her.
+
+“I mean,” he said hastily, “that you have the same opportunity to direct
+the lives of these young men into more regular, disciplined channels
+that I have to regulate and correct their foolish waste of industry and
+material here. It would at least beguile the time for you.”
+
+Fortunately for Mr. Carr's escape and Christie's uneasiness, Jessie, who
+had been examining the details of the living-room, broke in upon this
+conversation.
+
+“I'm sure it will be as good as a perpetual picnic. George Kearney says
+we can have a cooking-stove under the tree outside at the back, and as
+there will be no rain for three months we can do the cooking there,
+and that will give us more room for--for the piano when it comes;
+and there's an old squaw to do the cleaning and washing-up any
+day--and--and--it will be real fun.”
+
+She stopped breathlessly, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes--a
+charming picture of youth and trustfulness. Mr. Carr had seized the
+opportunity to escape.
+
+“Really, now, Christie,” said Jessie confidentially, when they were
+alone, and Christie had begun to unpack her trunk, and to mechanically
+put her things away, “they're not so bad.”
+
+“Who?” asked Christie.
+
+“Why, the Kearneys, and Mattinglys, and Fairfax, and the lot, provided
+you don't look at their clothes. And think of it! they told me--for they
+tell one EVERYTHING in the most alarming way--that those clothes were
+bought to please US. A scramble of things bought at La Grange, without
+reference to size or style. And to hear these creatures talk, why, you'd
+think they were Astors or Rothschilds. Think of that little one with
+the curls--I don't believe he is over seventeen, for all his baby
+moustache--says he's going to build an assembly hall for us to give
+a dance in next month; and apologizes the next breath to tell us that
+there isn't any milk to be had nearer than La Grange, and we must do
+without it, and use syrup in our tea to-morrow.”
+
+“And where is all this wealth?” said Christie, forcing herself to smile
+at her sister's animation.
+
+“Under our very feet, my child, and all along the river. Why, what
+we thought was pure and simple mud is what they call 'gold-bearing
+cement.'”
+
+“I suppose that is why they don't brush their boots and trousers, it's
+so precious,” returned Christie drily. “And have they ever translated
+this precious dirt into actual coin?”
+
+“Bless you, yes. Why, that dirty little gutter, you know, that ran along
+the side of the road and followed us down the hill all the way here,
+that cost them--let me see--yes, nearly sixty thousand dollars. And
+fancy! papa's just condemned it--says it won't do; and they've got to
+build another.”
+
+An impatient sigh from Christie drew Jessie's attention to her troubled
+eyebrows.
+
+“Don't worry about our disappointment, dear. It isn't so very great. I
+dare say we'll be able to get along here in some way, until papa is rich
+again. You know they intend to make him share with them.”
+
+“It strikes me that he is sharing with them already,” said Christie,
+glancing bitterly round the cabin; “sharing everything--ourselves, our
+lives, our tastes.”
+
+“Ye-e-s!” said Jessie, with vaguely hesitating assent. “Yes, even
+these:” she showed two dice in the palm of her little hand. “I found 'em
+in the drawer of our dressing-table.”
+
+“Throw them away,” said Christie impatiently.
+
+But Jessie's small fingers closed over the dice. “I'll give them to the
+little Kearney. I dare say they were the poor boy's playthings.”
+
+The appearance of these relics of wild dissipation, however, had lifted
+Christie out of her sublime resignation. “For Heaven's sake, Jessie,”
+ she said, “look around and see if there is anything more!”
+
+To make sure, they each began to scrimmage; the broken-spirited Christie
+exhibiting both alacrity and penetration in searching obscure corners.
+In the dining-room, behind the dresser, three or four books were
+discovered: an odd volume of Thackeray, another of Dickens, a
+memorandum-book or diary. “This seems to be Latin,” said Jessie, fishing
+out a smaller book. “I can't read it.”
+
+“It's just as well you shouldn't,” said Christie shortly, whose ideas
+of a general classical impropriety had been gathered from pages of
+Lempriere's dictionary. “Put it back directly.”
+
+Jessie returned certain odes of one Horatius Flaccus to the corner, and
+uttered an exclamation. “Oh, Christie! here are some letters tied up
+with a ribbon.”
+
+They were two or three prettily written letters, exhaling a faint odor
+of refinement and of the pressed flowers that peeped from between the
+loose leaves. “I see, 'My darling Fairfax.' It's from some woman.”
+
+“I don't think much of her, whosoever she is,” said Christie, tossing
+the intact packet back into the corner.
+
+“Nor I,” echoed Jessie.
+
+Nevertheless, by some feminine inconsistency, evidently the circumstance
+did make them think more of HIM, for a minute later, when they had
+reentered their own room, Christie remarked, “The idea of petting a
+man by his family name! Think of mamma ever having called papa 'darling
+Carr'!”
+
+“Oh, but his family name isn't Fairfax,” said Jessie hastily; “that's
+his FIRST name, his Christian name. I forget what's his other name, but
+nobody ever calls him by it.”
+
+“Do you mean,” said Christie, with glistening eyes and awful
+deliberation--“do you mean to say that we're expected to fall in with
+this insufferable familiarity? I suppose they'll be calling US by our
+Christian names next.”
+
+“Oh, but they do!” said Jessie, mischievously.
+
+“What!”
+
+“They call me Miss Jessie; and Kearney, the little one, asked me if
+Christie played.”
+
+“And what did you say?”
+
+“I said that you did,” answered Jessie, with an affectation of cherubic
+simplicity. “You do, dear; don't you? . . . There, don't get angry,
+darling; I couldn't flare up all of a sudden in the face of that poor
+little creature; he looked so absurd--and so--so honest.”
+
+Christie turned away, relapsing into her old resigned manner, and
+assuming her household duties in a quiet, temporizing way that was,
+however, without hope or expectation.
+
+Mr. Carr, who had dined with his friends under the excuse of not adding
+to the awkwardness of the first day's housekeeping returned late at
+night with a mass of papers and drawings, into which he afterwards
+withdrew, but not until he had delivered himself of a mysterious package
+entrusted to him by the young men for his daughters. It contained a
+contribution to their board in the shape of a silver spoon and battered
+silver mug, which Jessie chose to facetiously consider as an affecting
+reminiscence of the youthful Kearney's christening days--which it
+probably was.
+
+The young girls retired early to their white snow-drifts: Jessie not
+without some hilarious struggles with hers, in which she was, however,
+quickly surprised by the deep and refreshing sleep of youth; Christie to
+lie awake and listen to the night wind, that had changed from the first
+cool whispers of sunset to the sturdy breath of the mountain. At times
+the frail house shook and trembled. Wandering gusts laden with the
+deep resinous odors of the wood found their way through the imperfect
+jointure of the two cabins, swept her cheek and even stirred her long,
+wide-open lashes. A broken spray of pine needles rustled along the roof,
+or a pine cone dropped with a quick reverberating tap-tap that for an
+instant startled her. Lying thus, wide awake, she fell into a dreamy
+reminiscence of the past, hearing snatches of old melody in the moving
+pines, fragments of sentences, old words, and familiar epithets in the
+murmuring wind at her ear, and even the faint breath of long-forgotten
+kisses on her cheek. She remembered her mother--a pallid creature, who
+had slowly faded out of one of her father's vague speculations in a
+vaguer speculation of her own, beyond his ken--whose place she had
+promised to take at her father's side. The words, “Watch over him,
+Christie; he needs a woman's care,” again echoed in her ears, as if
+borne on the night wind from the lonely grave in the lonelier cemetery
+by the distant sea. She had devoted herself to him with some little
+sacrifices of self, only remembered now for their uselessness in
+saving her father the disappointment that sprang from his sanguine and
+one-idea'd temperament. She thought of him lying asleep in the other
+room, ready on the morrow to devote those fateful qualities to the new
+enterprise that with equally fateful disposition she believed would end
+in failure. It did not occur to her that the doubts of her own practical
+nature were almost as dangerous and illogical as his enthusiasm, and
+that for that reason she was fast losing what little influence she
+possessed over him. With the example of her mother's weakness before her
+eyes, she had become an unsparing and distrustful critic, with the sole
+effect of awakening his distrust and withdrawing his confidence from
+her.
+
+He was beginning to deceive her as he had never deceived her mother.
+Even Jessie knew more of this last enterprise than she did herself.
+
+All that did not tend to decrease her utter restlessness. It was already
+past midnight when she noticed that the wind had again abated. The
+mountain breeze had by this time possessed the stifling valleys and
+heated bars of the river in its strong, cold embraces; the equilibrium
+of Nature was restored, and a shadowy mist rose from the hollow. A
+stillness, more oppressive and intolerable than the previous commotion,
+began to pervade the house and the surrounding woods. She could hear the
+regular breathing of the sleepers; she even fancied she could detect the
+faint impulses of the more distant life in the settlement. The far-off
+barking of a dog, a lost shout, the indistinct murmur of some nearer
+watercourse--mere phantoms of sound--made the silence more irritating.
+With a sudden resolution she arose, dressed herself quietly and
+completely, threw a heavy cloak over her head and shoulders, and opened
+the door between the living-room and her own. Her father was sleeping
+soundly in his bunk in the corner. She passed noiselessly through the
+room, opened the lightly fastened door, and stepped out into the night.
+
+In the irritation and disgust of her walk hither, she had never noticed
+the situation of the cabin, as it nestled on the slope at the fringe of
+the woods; in the preoccupation of her disappointment and the mechanical
+putting away of her things, she had never looked once from the window of
+her room, or glanced backward out of the door that she had entered. The
+view before her was a revelation--a reproach, a surprise that took away
+her breath. Over her shoulders the newly risen moon poured a flood of
+silvery light, stretching from her feet across the shining bars of the
+river to the opposite bank, and on up to the very crest of the
+Devil's Spur--no longer a huge bulk of crushing shadow, but the steady
+exaltation of plateau, spur, and terrace clothed with replete and
+unutterable beauty. In this magical light that beauty seemed to be
+sustained and carried along by the river winding at its base, lifted
+again to the broad shoulder of the mountain, and lost only in the
+distant vista of death-like, overcrowning snow. Behind and above where
+she stood the towering woods seemed to be waiting with opened ranks
+to absorb her with the little cabin she had quitted, dwarfed into
+insignificance in the vast prospect; but nowhere was there another sign
+or indication of human life and habitation. She looked in vain for
+the settlement, for the rugged ditches, the scattered cabins, and the
+unsightly heaps of gravel. In the glamour of the moonlight they had
+vanished; a veil of silver-gray vapor touched here and there with ebony
+shadows masked its site. A black strip beyond was the river bank. All
+else was changed. With a sudden sense of awe and loneliness she turned
+to the cabin and its sleeping inmates--all that seemed left to her in
+the vast and stupendous domination of rock and wood and sky.
+
+But in another moment the loneliness passed. A new and delicious sense
+of an infinite hospitality and friendliness in their silent presence
+began to possess her. This same slighted, forgotten, uncomprehended,
+but still foolish and forgiving Nature seemed to be bending over her
+frightened and listening ear with vague but thrilling murmurings of
+freedom and independence. She felt her heart expand with its wholesome
+breath, her soul fill with its sustaining truth.
+
+She felt--
+
+What was that?
+
+An unmistakable outburst of a drunken song at the foot of the slope:--
+
+     “Oh, my name it is Johnny from Pike,
+     I'm h-ll on a spree or a strike.” . . .
+
+She stopped as crimson with shame and indignation as if the viewless
+singer had risen before her.
+
+     “I knew when to bet, and get up and get--”
+
+“Hush! D--n it all. Don't you hear?”
+
+There was the sound of hurried whispers, a “No” and “Yes,” and then a
+dead silence.
+
+Christie crept nearer to the edge of the slope in the shadow of a
+buckeye. In the clearer view she could distinguish a staggering
+figure in the trail below who had evidently been stopped by two other
+expostulating shadows that were approaching from the shelter of a tree.
+
+“Sho!--didn't know!”
+
+The staggering figure endeavored to straighten itself, and then slouched
+away in the direction of the settlement. The two mysterious shadows
+retreated again to the tree, and were lost in its deeper shadow.
+Christie darted back to the cabin, and softly reentered her room.
+
+“I thought I heard a noise that woke me, and I missed you,” said Jessie,
+rubbing her eyes. “Did you see anything?”
+
+“No,” said Christie, beginning to undress.
+
+“You weren't frightened, dear?”
+
+“Not in the least,” said Christie, with a strange little laugh. “Go to
+sleep.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The five impulsive millionaires of Devil's Ford fulfilled not a few of
+their most extravagant promises. In less than six weeks Mr. Carr and
+his daughters were installed in a new house, built near the site of the
+double cabin, which was again transferred to the settlement, in order
+to give greater seclusion to the fair guests. It was a long, roomy,
+one-storied villa, with a not unpicturesque combination of deep veranda
+and trellis work, which relieved the flat monotony of the interior and
+the barrenness of the freshly-cleared ground. An upright piano, brought
+from Sacramento, occupied the corner of the parlor. A suite of gorgeous
+furniture, whose pronounced and extravagant glories the young girls
+instinctively hid under home-made linen covers, had also been spoils
+from afar. Elsewhere the house was filled with ornaments and decorations
+that in their incongruity forcibly recalled the gilded plate-glass
+mirrors of the bedroom in the old cabin. In the hasty furnishing of
+this Aladdin's palace, the slaves of the ring had evidently seized
+upon anything that would add to its glory, without reference always to
+fitness.
+
+“I wish it didn't look so cussedly like a robber's cave,” said George
+Kearney, when they were taking a quiet preliminary survey of the
+unclassified treasures, before the Carrs took possession.
+
+“Or a gambling hell,” said his brother reflectively.
+
+“It's about the same thing, I reckon,” said Dick Mattingly, who was
+supposed, in his fiery youth, to have encountered the similarity.
+
+Nevertheless, the two girls managed to bestow the heterogeneous
+collection with tasteful adaptation to their needs. A crystal
+chandelier, which had once lent a fascinating illusion to the game of
+Monte, hung unlighted in the broad hall, where a few other bizarre and
+public articles were relegated. A long red sofa or bench, which had done
+duty beside a billiard-table found a place here also. Indeed, it is to
+be feared that some of the more rustic and bashful youths of Devil's
+Ford, who had felt it incumbent upon them to pay their respects to
+the new-comers, were more at ease in this vestibule than in the arcana
+beyond, whose glories they could see through the open door. To others,
+it represented a recognized state of probation before their re-entree
+into civilization again. “I reckon, if you don't mind, miss,” said the
+spokesman of one party, “ez this is our first call, we'll sorter hang
+out in the hall yer, until you'r used to us.” On another occasion, one
+Whiskey Dick, impelled by a sense of duty, paid a visit to the new house
+and its fair occupants, in a fashion frankly recounted by him afterwards
+at the bar of the Tecumseh Saloon.
+
+“You see, boys, I dropped in there the other night, when some of you
+fellers was doin' the high-toned 'thankee, marm' business in the parlor.
+I just came to anchor in the corner of the sofy in the hall, without
+lettin' on to say that I was there, and took up a Webster's dictionary
+that was on the table and laid it open--keerless like, on my knees, ez
+if I was sorter consultin' it--and kinder dozed off there, listenin' to
+you fellows gassin' with the young ladies, and that yer Miss Christie
+just snakin' music outer that pianner, and I reckon I fell asleep.
+Anyhow, I was there nigh on to two hours. It's mighty soothin', them
+fashionable calls; sorter knocks the old camp dust outer a fellow, and
+sets him up again.”
+
+It would have been well if the new life of the Devil's Ford had shown
+no other irregularity than the harmless eccentricities of its original
+locaters. But the news of its sudden fortune, magnified by report, began
+presently to flood the settlement with another class of adventurers.
+A tide of waifs, strays, and malcontents of old camps along the river
+began to set towards Devil's Ford, in very much the same fashion as the
+debris, drift, and alluvium had been carried down in bygone days and
+cast upon its banks. A few immigrant wagons, diverted from the highways
+of travel by the fame of the new diggings, halted upon the slopes of
+Devil's Spur and on the arid flats of the Ford, and disgorged their
+sallow freight of alkali-poisoned, prematurely-aged women and children
+and maimed and fever-stricken men. Against this rude form of domesticity
+were opposed the chromo-tinted dresses and extravagant complexions of
+a few single unattended women--happily seen more often at night behind
+gilded bars than in the garish light of day--and an equal number of
+pale-faced, dark-moustached, well-dressed, and suspiciously idle men.
+A dozen rivals of Thompson's Saloon had sprung up along the narrow
+main street. There were two new hotels--one a “Temperance House,” whose
+ascetic quality was confined only to the abnegation of whiskey--a rival
+stage office, and a small one-storied building, from which the “Sierran
+Banner” fluttered weekly, for “ten dollars a year, in advance.”
+ Insufferable in the glare of a Sabbath sun, bleak, windy, and flaring in
+the gloom of a Sabbath night, and hopelessly depressing on all days of
+the week, the First Presbyterian Church lifted its blunt steeple from
+the barrenest area of the flats, and was hideous! The civic improvements
+so enthusiastically contemplated by the five millionaires in the earlier
+pages of this veracious chronicle--the fountain, reservoir, town-hall,
+and free library--had not yet been erected. Their sites had been
+anticipated by more urgent buildings and mining works, unfortunately
+not considered in the sanguine dreams of the enthusiasts, and, more
+significant still, their cost and expense had been also anticipated by
+the enormous outlay of their earnings in the work upon Devil's Ditch.
+
+Nevertheless, the liberal fulfilment of their promise in the new house
+in the suburbs blinded the young girls' eyes to their shortcomings in
+the town. Their own remoteness and elevation above its feverish life
+kept them from the knowledge of much that was strange, and perhaps
+disturbing to their equanimity. As they did not mix with the immigrant
+women--Miss Jessie's good-natured intrusion into one of their
+half-nomadic camps one day having been met with rudeness and
+suspicion--they gradually fell into the way of trusting the
+responsibility of new acquaintances to the hands of their original
+hosts, and of consulting them in the matter of local recreation. It thus
+occurred that one day the two girls, on their way to the main street for
+an hour's shopping at the Villa de Paris and Variety Store, were stopped
+by Dick Mattingly a few yards from their house, with the remark that, as
+the county election was then in progress, it would be advisable for
+them to defer their intention for a few hours. As he did not deem it
+necessary to add that two citizens, in the exercise of a freeman's
+franchise, had been supplementing their ballots with bullets, in front
+of an admiring crowd, they knew nothing of that accident that removed
+from Devil's Ford an entertaining stranger, who had only the night
+before partaken of their hospitality.
+
+A week or two later, returning one morning from a stroll in the forest,
+Christie and Jessie were waylaid by George Kearney and Fairfax, and,
+under pretext of being shown a new and romantic trail, were diverted
+from the regular path. This enabled Mattingly and Maryland Joe to cut
+down the body of a man hanged by the Vigilance Committee a few hours
+before on the regular trail, and to remonstrate with the committee
+on the incompatibility of such exhibitions with a maidenly worship of
+nature.
+
+“With the whole county to hang a man in,” expostulated Joe, “you might
+keep clear of Carr's woods.”
+
+It is needless to add that the young girls never knew of this act of
+violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it. Mr. Carr
+was too absorbed in business to give heed to what he looked upon as
+a convulsion of society as natural as a geological upheaval, and too
+prudent to provoke the criticism of his daughters by comment in their
+presence.
+
+An equally unexpected confidence, however, took its place. Mr. Carr
+having finished his coffee one morning, lingered a moment over his
+perfunctory paternal embraces, with the awkwardness of a preoccupied
+man endeavoring by the assumption of a lighter interest to veil another
+abstraction.
+
+“And what are we doing to-day, Christie?” he asked, as Jessie left the
+dining-room.
+
+“Oh, pretty much the usual thing--nothing in particular. If George
+Kearney gets the horses from the summit, we're going to ride over to
+Indian Spring to picnic. Fairfax--Mr. Munroe--I always forget that man's
+real name in this dreadfully familiar country--well, he's coming to
+escort us, and take me, I suppose--that is, if Kearney takes Jessie.”
+
+“A very nice arrangement,” returned her father, with a slight nervous
+contraction of the corners of his mouth and eyelids to indicate
+mischievousness. “I've no doubt they'll both be here. You know they
+usually are--ha! ha! And what about the two Mattinglys and Philip
+Kearney, eh?” he continued; “won't they be jealous?”
+
+“It isn't their turn,” said Christie carelessly; “besides, they'll
+probably be there.”
+
+“And I suppose they're beginning to be resigned,” said Carr, smiling.
+
+“What on earth are you talking of, father?”
+
+She turned her clear brown eyes upon him, and was regarding him with
+such manifest unconsciousness of the drift of his speech, and, withal,
+a little vague impatience of his archness, that Mr. Carr was feebly
+alarmed. It had the effect of banishing his assumed playfulness, which
+made his serious explanation the more irritating.
+
+“Well, I rather thought that--that young Kearney was paying considerable
+attention to--to--to Jessie,” replied her father, with hesitating
+gravity.
+
+“What! that boy?”
+
+“Young Kearney is one of the original locators, and an equal partner in
+the mine. A very enterprising young fellow. In fact, much more advanced
+and bolder in his conceptions than the others. I find no difficulty with
+him.”
+
+At another time Christie would have questioned the convincing quality
+of this proof, but she was too much shocked at her father's first
+suggestion, to think of anything else.
+
+“You don't mean to say, father, that you are talking seriously of these
+men--your friends--whom we see every day--and our only company?”
+
+“No, no!” said Mr. Carr hastily; “you misunderstand. I don't suppose
+that Jessie or you--”
+
+“Or ME! Am I included?”
+
+“You don't let me speak, Christie. I mean, I am not talking seriously,”
+ continued Mr. Carr, with his most serious aspect, “of you and Jessie
+in this matter; but it may be a serious thing to these young men to be
+thrown continually in the company of two attractive girls.”
+
+“I understand--you mean that we should not see so much of them,” said
+Christie, with a frank expression of relief so genuine as to utterly
+discompose her father. “Perhaps you are right, though I fail to
+discover anything serious in the attentions of young Kearney to
+Jessie--or--whoever it may be--to me. But it will be very easy to
+remedy it, and see less of them. Indeed, we might begin to-day with some
+excuse.”
+
+“Yes--certainly. Of course!” said Mr. Carr, fully convinced of his
+utter failure, but, like most weak creatures, consoling himself with the
+reflection that he had not shown his hand or committed himself. “Yes;
+but it would perhaps be just as well for the present to let things go on
+as they were. We'll talk of it again--I'm in a hurry now,” and, edging
+himself through the door, he slipped away.
+
+“What do you think is father's last idea?” said Christie, with, I fear,
+a slight lack of reverence in her tone, as her sister reentered the
+room. “He thinks George Kearney is paying you too much attention.”
+
+“No!” said Jessie, replying to her sister's half-interrogative,
+half-amused glance with a frank, unconscious smile.
+
+“Yes, and he says that Fairfax--I think it's Fairfax--is equally
+fascinated with ME.”
+
+Jessie's brow slightly contracted as she looked curiously at her sister.
+
+“Of all things,” she said, “I wonder if any one has put that idea into
+his dear old head. He couldn't have thought it himself.”
+
+“I don't know,” said Christie musingly; “but perhaps it's just as well
+if we kept a little more to ourselves for a while.”
+
+“Did father say so?” said Jessie quickly.
+
+“No, but that is evidently what he meant.”
+
+“Ye-es,” said Jessie slowly, “unless--”
+
+“Unless what?” said Christie sharply. “Jessie, you don't for a moment
+mean to say that you could possibly conceive of anything else?”
+
+“I mean to say,” said Jessie, stealing her arm around her sister's waist
+demurely, “that you are perfectly right. We'll keep away from these
+fascinating Devil's Forders, and particularly the youngest Kearney.
+I believe there has been some ill-natured gossip. I remember that the
+other day, when we passed the shanty of that Pike County family on
+the slope, there were three women at the door, and one of them said
+something that made poor little Kearney turn white and pink alternately,
+and dance with suppressed rage. I suppose the old lady--M'Corkle, that's
+her name--would like to have a share of our cavaliers for her Euphemy
+and Mamie. I dare say it's only right; I would lend them the cherub
+occasionally, and you might let them have Mr. Munroe twice a week.”
+
+She laughed, but her eyes sought her sister's with a certain
+watchfulness of expression.
+
+Christie shrugged her shoulders, with a suggestion of disgust.
+
+“Don't joke. We ought to have thought of all this before.”
+
+“But when we first knew them, in the dear old cabin, there wasn't any
+other woman and nobody to gossip, and that's what made it so nice. I
+don't think so very much of civilization, do you?” said the young lady
+pertly.
+
+Christie did not reply. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing. It
+certainly had been very pleasant to enjoy the spontaneous and chivalrous
+homage of these men, with no further suggestion of recompense or
+responsibility than the permission to be worshipped; but beyond that she
+racked her brain in vain to recall any look or act that proclaimed the
+lover. These men, whom she had found so relapsed into barbarism that
+they had forgotten the most ordinary forms of civilization; these
+men, even in whose extravagant admiration there was a certain loss of
+self-respect, that as a woman she would never forgive; these men, who
+seemed to belong to another race--impossible! Yet it was so.
+
+“What construction must they have put upon her father's acceptance of
+their presents--of their company--of her freedom in their presence? No!
+they must have understood from the beginning that she and her sister
+had never looked upon them except as transient hosts and chance
+acquaintances. Any other idea was preposterous. And yet--”
+
+It was the recurrence of this “yet” that alarmed her. For she remembered
+now that but for their slavish devotion they might claim to be her
+equal. According to her father's account, they had come from homes as
+good as their own; they were certainly more than her equal in fortune;
+and her father had come to them as an employee, until they had taken him
+into partnership. If there had only been sentiment of any kind
+connected with any of them! But they were all alike, brave, unselfish,
+humorous--and often ridiculous. If anything, Dick Mattingly was funniest
+by nature, and made her laugh more. Maryland Joe, his brother, told
+better stories (sometimes of Dick), though not so good a mimic as the
+other Kearney, who had a fairly sympathetic voice in singing. They were
+all good-looking enough; perhaps they set store on that--men are so
+vain.
+
+And as for her own rejected suitor, Fairfax Munroe, except for a kind of
+grave and proper motherliness about his protecting manner, he absolutely
+was the most indistinctive of them all. He had once brought her some
+rare tea from the Chinese camp, and had taught her how to make it; he
+had cautioned her against sitting under the trees at nightfall; he had
+once taken off his coat to wrap around her. Really, if this were the
+only evidence of devotion that could be shown, she was safe!
+
+“Well,” said Jessie, “it amuses you, I see.”
+
+Christie checked the smile that had been dimpling the cheek nearest
+Jessie, and turned upon her the face of an elder sister.
+
+“Tell me, have YOU noticed this extraordinary attention of Mr. Munroe to
+me?”
+
+“Candidly?” asked Jessie, seating herself comfortably on the table
+sideways, and endeavoring, to pull her skirt over her little feet.
+“Honest Injun?”
+
+“Don't be idiotic, and, above all, don't be slangy! Of course,
+candidly.”
+
+“Well, no. I can't say that I have.”
+
+“Then,” said Christie, “why in the name of all that's preposterous, do
+they persist in pairing me off with the least interesting man of the
+lot?”
+
+Jessie leaped from the table.
+
+“Come now,” she said, with a little nervous laugh, “he's not so bad as
+all that. You don't know him. But what does it matter now, as long as
+we're not going to see them any more?”
+
+“They're coming here for the ride to-day,” said Christie resignedly.
+“Father thought it better not to break it off at once.”
+
+“Father thought so!” echoed Jessie, stopping with her hand on the door.
+
+“Yes; why do you ask?”
+
+But Jessie had already left the room, and was singing in the hall.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The afternoon did not, however, bring their expected visitors. It
+brought, instead, a brief note by the hands of Whiskey Dick from
+Fairfax, apologizing for some business that kept him and George Kearney
+from accompanying the ladies. It added that the horses were at the
+disposal of themselves and any escort they might select, if they would
+kindly give the message to Whiskey Dick.
+
+The two girls looked at each other awkwardly; Jessie did not attempt to
+conceal a slight pout.
+
+“It looks as if they were anticipating us,” she said, with a half-forced
+smile. “I wonder, now, if there really has been any gossip? But no! They
+wouldn't have stopped for that, unless--” She looked curiously at her
+sister.
+
+“Unless what?” repeated Christie; “you are horribly mysterious this
+morning.”
+
+“Am I? It's nothing. But they're wanting an answer. Of course you'll
+decline.”
+
+“And intimate we only care for their company! No! We'll say we're sorry
+they can't come, and--accept their horses. We can do without an escort,
+we two.”
+
+“Capital!” said Jessie, clapping her hands. “We'll show them--”
+
+“We'll show them nothing,” interrupted Christie decidedly. “In our place
+there's only the one thing to do. Where is this--Whiskey Dick?”
+
+“In the parlor.”
+
+“The parlor!” echoed Christie. “Whiskey Dick? What--is he--”
+
+“Yes; he's all right,” said Jessie confidently. “He's been here before,
+but he stayed in the hall; he was so shy. I don't think you saw him.”
+
+“I should think not--Whiskey Dick!”
+
+“Oh, you can call him Mr. Hall, if you like,” said Jessie, laughing.
+“His real name is Dick Hall. If you want to be funny, you can say Alky
+Hall, as the others do.”
+
+Christie's only reply to this levity was a look of superior resignation
+as she crossed the hall and entered the parlor.
+
+Then ensued one of those surprising, mystifying, and utterly
+inexplicable changes that leave the masculine being so helpless in the
+hands of his feminine master. Before Christie opened the door her face
+underwent a rapid transformation: the gentle glow of a refined woman's
+welcome suddenly beamed in her interested eyes; the impulsive courtesy
+of an expectant hostess eagerly seizing a long-looked-for opportunity
+broke in a smile upon her lips as she swept across the room, and stopped
+with her two white outstretched hands before Whiskey Dick.
+
+It needed only the extravagant contrast presented by that gentleman to
+complete the tableau. Attired in a suit of shining black alpaca, the
+visitor had evidently prepared himself with some care for a possible
+interview. He was seated by the French window opening upon the veranda,
+as if to secure a retreat in case of an emergency. Scrupulously washed
+and shaven, some of the soap appeared to have lingered in his eyes and
+inflamed the lids, even while it lent a sleek and shining lustre, not
+unlike his coat, to his smooth black hair. Nevertheless, leaning back
+in his chair, he had allowed a large white handkerchief to depend
+gracefully from his fingers--a pose at once suggesting easy and elegant
+langour.
+
+“How kind of you to give me an opportunity to make up for my misfortune
+when you last called! I was so sorry to have missed you. But it was
+entirely my fault! You were hurried, I think--you conversed with others
+in the hall--you--”
+
+She stopped to assist him to pick up the handkerchief that had fallen,
+and the Panama hat that had rolled from his lap towards the window
+when he had started suddenly to his feet at the apparition of grace and
+beauty. As he still nervously retained the two hands he had grasped,
+this would have been a difficult feat, even had he not endeavored at the
+same moment, by a backward furtive kick, to propel the hat out of the
+window, at which she laughingly broke from his grasp and flew to the
+rescue.
+
+“Don't mind it, miss,” he said hurriedly. “It is not worth your
+demeaning yourself to touch it. Leave it outside thar, miss. I wouldn't
+have toted it in, anyhow, if some of those high-falutin' fellows hadn't
+allowed, the other night, ez it were the reg'lar thing to do; as if,
+miss, any gentleman kalkilated to ever put on his hat in the house afore
+a lady!”
+
+But Christie had already possessed herself of the unlucky object, and
+had placed it upon the table. This compelled Whiskey Dick to rise again,
+and as an act of careless good breeding to drop his handkerchief in it.
+He then leaned one elbow upon the piano, and, crossing one foot over the
+other, remained standing in an attitude he remembered to have seen
+in the pages of an illustrated paper as portraying the hero in some
+drawing-room scene. It was easy and effective, but seemed to be more
+favorable to revery than conversation. Indeed, he remembered that he had
+forgotten to consult the letterpress as to which it represented.
+
+“I see you agree with me, that politeness is quite a matter of
+intention,” said Christie, “and not of mere fashion and rules. Now, for
+instance,” she continued, with a dazzling smile, “I suppose, according
+to the rules, I ought to give you a note to Mr. Munroe, accepting his
+offer. That is all that is required; but it seems so much nicer, don't
+you think, to tell it to YOU for HIM, and have the pleasure of your
+company and a little chat at the same time.”
+
+“That's it, that's just it, Miss Carr; you've hit it in the centre this
+time,” said Whiskey Dick, now quite convinced that his attitude was not
+intended for eloquence, and shifting back to his own seat, hat and all;
+“that's tantamount to what I said to the boys just now. 'You want an
+excuse,' sez I, 'for not goin' out with the young ladies. So, accorden'
+to rules, you writes a letter allowin' buzziness and that sorter thing
+detains you. But wot's the facts? You're a gentleman, and as gentlemen
+you and George comes to the opinion that you're rather playin' it for
+all it's worth in this yer house, you know--comin' here night and day,
+off and on, reg'lar sociable and fam'ly like, and makin' people talk
+about things they ain't any call to talk about, and, what's a darned
+sight more, YOU FELLOWS ain't got any right YET to allow 'em to talk
+about, d'ye see?” he paused, out of breath.
+
+It was Miss Christie's turn to move about. In changing her seat to the
+piano-stool, so as to be nearer her visitor, she brushed down some loose
+music, which Whiskey Dick hastened to pick up.
+
+“Pray don't mind it,” she said, “pray don't, really--let it be--”
+ But Whiskey Dick, feeling himself on safe ground in this attention,
+persisted to the bitter end of a disintegrated and well-worn
+“Travatore.” “So that is what Mr. Munroe said,” she remarked quietly.
+
+“Not just then, in course, but it's what's bin on his mind and in his
+talk for days off and on,” returned Dick, with a knowing smile and a nod
+of mysterious confidence. “Bless your soul, Miss Carr, folks like you
+and me don't need to have them things explained. That's what I said to
+him, sez I. 'Don't send no note, but just go up there and hev it out
+fair and square, and say what you do mean.' But they would hev the note,
+and I kalkilated to bring it. But when I set my eyes on you, and heard
+you express yourself as you did just now, I sez to myself, sez I, 'Dick,
+yer's a young lady, and a fash'nable lady at that, ez don't go foolin'
+round on rules and etiketts'--excuse my freedom, Miss Carr--'and you and
+her, sez I, 'kin just discuss this yer matter in a sociable, off-hand,
+fash'nable way.' They're a good lot o' boys, Miss Carr, a square
+lot--white men all of 'em; but they're a little soft and green, may be,
+from livin' in these yer pine woods along o' the other sap. They just
+worship the ground you and your sister tread on--certain! of course!
+of course!” he added hurriedly, recognizing Christie's half-conscious,
+deprecating gesture with more exaggerated deprecation. “I understand.
+But what I wanter say is that they'd be willin' to be that ground,
+and lie down and let you walk over them--so to speak, Miss Carr, so to
+speak--if it would keep the hem of your gown from gettin' soiled in the
+mud o' the camp. But it wouldn't do for them to make a reg'lar curderoy
+road o' themselves for the houl camp to trapse over, on the mere chance
+of your some time passin' that way, would it now?”
+
+“Won't you let me offer you some refreshment, Mr. Hall?” said Christie,
+rising, with a slight color. “I'm really ashamed of my forgetfulness
+again, but I'm afraid it's partly YOUR fault for entertaining me to the
+exclusion of yourself. No, thank you, let me fetch it for you.”
+
+She turned to a handsome sideboard near the door, and presently faced
+him again with a decanter of whiskey and a glass in her hand, and a
+return of the bewitching smile she had worn on entering.
+
+“But perhaps you don't take whiskey?” suggested the arch deceiver, with
+a sudden affected but pretty perplexity of eye, brow, and lips.
+
+For the first time in his life Whiskey Dick hesitated between two forms
+of intoxication. But he was still nervous and uneasy; habit triumphed,
+and he took the whiskey. He, however, wiped his lips with a slight wave
+of his handkerchief, to support a certain easy elegance which he firmly
+believed relieved the act of any vulgar quality.
+
+“Yes, ma'am,” he continued, after an exhilarated pause. “Ez I said
+afore, this yer's a matter you and me can discuss after the fashion o'
+society. My idea is that these yer boys should kinder let up on you and
+Miss Jessie for a while, and do a little more permiskus attention round
+the Ford. There's one or two families yer with grown-up gals ez oughter
+be squared; that is--the boys mighter put in a few fancy touches among
+them--kinder take 'em buggy riding--or to church--once in a while--just
+to take the pizen outer their tongues, and make a kind o' bluff to the
+parents, d'ye see? That would sorter divert their own minds; and even if
+it didn't, it would kinder get 'em accustomed agin to the old style and
+their own kind. I want to warn ye agin an idea that might occur to you
+in a giniral way. I don't say you hev the idea, but it's kind o' nat'ral
+you might be thinkin' of it some time, and I thought I'd warn you agin
+it.”
+
+“I think we understand each other too well to differ much, Mr. Hall,”
+ said Christie, still smiling; “but what is the idea?”
+
+The delicate compliment to their confidential relations and the slight
+stimulus of liquor had tremulously exalted Whiskey Dick. Affecting to
+look cautiously out of the window and around the room, he ventured
+to draw nearer the young woman with a half-paternal, half-timid
+familiarity.
+
+“It might have occurred to you,” he said, laying his handkerchief as if
+to veil mere vulgar contact, on Christie's shoulder, “that it would be a
+good thing on YOUR side to invite down some of your high-toned gentlemen
+friends from 'Frisco to visit you and escort you round. It seems quite
+nat'ral like, and I don't say it ain't, but--the boys wouldn't stand for
+it.”
+
+In spite of her self-possession, Christie's eyes suddenly darkened,
+and she involuntarily drew herself up. But Whiskey Dick, guiltily
+attributing the movement to his own indiscreet gesture, said, “Excuse
+me, miss,” recovered himself by lightly dusting her shoulder with his
+handkerchief, as if to remove the impression, and her smile returned.
+
+“They wouldn't stand for it,” said Dick, “and there'd be some shooting!
+Not afore you, miss--not afore you, in course! But they'd adjourn to the
+woods some morning with them city folks, and hev it out with rifles at
+a hundred yards. Or, seein' ez they're city folks, the boys would do the
+square thing with pistols at twelve paces. They're good boys, as I
+said afore; but they're quick and tetchy--George, being the youngest,
+nat'rally is the tetchiest. You know how it is, Miss Carr; his pretty,
+gal-like face and little moustaches haz cost him half a dozen scrimmages
+already. He'z had a fight for every hair that's growed in his moustache
+since he kem here.”
+
+“Say no more, Mr. Hall!” said Christie, rising and pressing her hands
+lightly on Dick's tremulous fingers. “If I ever had any such idea, I
+should abandon it now; you are quite right in this as in your other
+opinions. I shall never cease to be thankful to Mr. Munroe and Mr.
+Kearney that they intrusted this delicate matter to your hands.”
+
+“Well,” said the gratified and reddening visitor, “it ain't perhaps
+the square thing to them or myself to say that they reckoned to have me
+discuss their delicate affairs for them, but--”
+
+“I understand,” interrupted Christie. “They simply gave you the letter
+as a friend. It was my good fortune to find you a sympathizing and
+liberal man of the world.” The delighted Dick, with conscious vanity
+beaming from every feature of his shining face, lightly waved the
+compliment aside with his handkerchief, as she continued, “But I am
+forgetting the message. We accept the horses. Of course we COULD do
+without an escort; but forgive my speaking so frankly, are YOU engaged
+this afternoon?”
+
+“Excuse me, miss, I don't take--” stammered Dick, scarcely believing his
+ears.
+
+“Could you give us your company as an escort?” repeated Christie with a
+smile.
+
+Was he awake or dreaming, or was this some trick of liquor in his
+often distorted fancy? He, Whiskey Dick! the butt of his friends, the
+chartered oracle of the barrooms, even in whose wretched vanity there
+was always the haunting suspicion that he was despised and scorned; he,
+who had dared so much in speech, and achieved so little in fact! he,
+whose habitual weakness had even led him into the wildest indiscretion
+here; he--now offered a reward for that indiscretion! He, Whiskey Dick,
+the solicited escort of these two beautiful and peerless girls! What
+would they say at the Ford? What would his friends think? It would be
+all over the Ford the next day. His past would be vindicated, his future
+secured. He grew erect at the thought. It was almost in other voice,
+and with no trace of his previous exaggeration, that he said, “With
+pleasure.”
+
+“Then, if you will bring the horses at once, we shall be ready when you
+return.”
+
+In another instant he had vanished, as if afraid to trust the reality of
+his good fortune to the dangers of delay. At the end of half an hour
+he reappeared, leading the two horses, himself mounted on a half-broken
+mustang. A pair of large, jingling silver spurs and a stiff sombrero,
+borrowed with the mustang from some mysterious source, were donned to do
+honor to the occasion.
+
+The young girls were not yet ready, but he was shown by the Chinese
+servant into the parlor to wait for them. The decanter of whiskey and
+glasses were still invitingly there. He was hot, trembling, and flushed
+with triumph. He walked to the table and laid his hand on the decanter,
+when an odd thought flashed upon him. He would not drink this time.
+No, it should not be said that he, the selected escort of the elite of
+Devil's Ford, had to fill himself up with whiskey before they started.
+The boys might turn to each other in their astonishment, as he proudly
+passed with his fair companions, and say, “It's Whiskey Dick,” but he'd
+be d----d if they should add, “and full as ever.” No, sir! Nor when
+he was riding beside these real ladies, and leaning over them at some
+confidential moment, should they even know it from his breath! No. . . .
+Yet a thimbleful, taken straight, only a thimbleful, wouldn't be much,
+and might help to pull him together. He again reached his trembling
+hand for the decanter, hesitated, and then, turning his back upon it,
+resolutely walked to the open window. Almost at the same instant he
+found himself face to face with Christie on the veranda.
+
+She looked into his bloodshot eyes, and cast a swift glance at the
+decanter.
+
+“Won't you take something before you go?” she said sweetly.
+
+“I--reckon--not, jest now,” stammered Whiskey Dick, with a heroic
+effort.
+
+“You're right,” said Christie. “I see you are like me. It's too hot for
+anything fiery. Come with me.”
+
+She led him into the dining-room, and pouring out a glass of iced
+tea handed it to him. Poor Dick was not prepared for this terrible
+culmination. Whiskey Dick and iced tea! But under pretence of seeing if
+it was properly flavored, Christie raised it to her own lips.
+
+“Try it, to please me.”
+
+He drained the goblet.
+
+“Now, then,” said Christie gayly, “let's find Jessie, and be off!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Whatever might have been his other deficiencies as an escort, Whiskey
+Dick was a good horseman, and, in spite of his fractious brute,
+exhibited such skill and confidence as to at once satisfy the young
+girls of his value to them in the management of their own horses,
+to whom side-saddles were still an alarming novelty. Jessie, who
+had probably already learned from her sister the purport of Dick's
+confidences, had received him with equal cordiality and perhaps a more
+unqualified amusement; and now, when fairly lifted into the saddle by
+his tremulous but respectful hands, made a very charming picture of
+youthful and rosy satisfaction. And when Christie, more fascinating than
+ever in her riding-habit, took her place on the other side of Dick, as
+they sallied from the gate, that gentleman felt his cup of happiness
+complete. His triumphal entree into the world of civilization and
+fashion was secure. He did not regret the untasted liquor; here was
+an experience in after years to lean his back against comfortably in
+bar-rooms, to entrance or defy mankind. He had even got so far as
+to formulate in fancy the sentence: “I remember, gentlemen, that one
+afternoon, being on a pasear with two fash'nable young ladies,” etc.,
+etc.
+
+At present, however, he was obliged to confine himself to the functions
+of an elegant guide and cicerone--when not engaged in “having it out”
+ with his horse. Their way lay along the slope, crossing the high-road at
+right angles, to reach the deeper woods beyond. Dick would have lingered
+on the highway--ostensibly to point out to his companions the new flume
+that had taken the place of the condemned ditch, but really in the hope
+of exposing himself in his glory to the curious eyes of the wayfaring
+world.
+
+Unhappily the road was deserted in the still powerful sunlight, and he
+was obliged to seek the cover of the woods, with a passing compliment to
+the parent of his charges. Waving his hands towards the flume, he
+said, “Look at that work of your father's; there ain't no other man in
+Californy but Philip Carr ez would hev the grit to hold up such a bluff
+agin natur and agin luck ez that yer flume stands for. I don't say it
+'cause you're his daughters, ladies! That ain't the style, ez YOU know,
+in sassiety, Miss Carr,” he added, turning to Christie as the more
+socially experienced. “No! but there ain't another man to be found
+ez could do it. It cost already two hundred thousand; it'll cost five
+hundred thousand afore it's done; and every cent of it is got out of the
+yearth beneath it, or HEZ got to be out of it. 'Tain't ev'ry man, Miss
+Carr, ez hev got the pluck to pledge not only what he's got, but what he
+reckons to git.”
+
+“But suppose he don't get it?” said Christie, slightly contracting her
+brows.
+
+“Then there's the flume to show for it,” said Dick.
+
+“But of what use is the flume, if there isn't any more gold?” continued
+Christie, almost angrily.
+
+“That's good from YOU, miss,” said Dick, giving way to a fit of
+hilarity. “That's good for a fash'nable young lady--own daughter of
+Philip Carr. She sez, says she,” continued Dick, appealing to the sedate
+pines for appreciation of Christie's rare humor, “'Wot's the use of a
+flume, when gold ain't there?' I must tell that to the boys.”
+
+“And what's the use of the gold in the ground when the flume isn't there
+to work it out?” said Jessie to her sister, with a cautioning glance
+towards Dick.
+
+But Dick did not notice the look that passed between the sisters. The
+richer humor of Jessie's retort had thrown him into convulsions of
+laughter.
+
+“And now SHE says, wot's the use o' the gold without the flume? 'Xcuse
+me, ladies, but that's just puttin' the hull question that's agitatin'
+this yer camp inter two speeches as clear as crystal. There's the
+hull crowd outside--and some on 'em inside, like Fairfax, hez their
+doubts--ez says with Miss Christie; and there's all of us inside, ez
+holds Miss Jessie's views.”
+
+“I never heard Mr. Munroe say that the flume was wrong,” said Jessie
+quickly.
+
+“Not to you, nat'rally,” said Dick, with a confidential look at
+Christie; “but I reckon he'd like some of the money it cost laid out for
+suthin' else. But what's the odds? The gold is there, and WE'RE bound to
+get it.”
+
+Dick was the foreman of a gang of paid workmen, who had replaced the
+millionaires in mere manual labor, and the WE was a polite figure of
+speech.
+
+The conversation seemed to have taken an unfortunate turn, and both the
+girls experienced a feeling of relief when they entered the long gulch
+or defile that led to Indian Spring. The track now becoming narrow, they
+were obliged to pass in single file along the precipitous hillside,
+led by this escort. This effectually precluded any further speech,
+and Christie at once surrendered herself to the calm, obliterating
+influences of the forest. The settlement and its gossip were far behind
+and forgotten. In the absorption of nature, her companions passed out of
+her mind, even as they sometimes passed out of her sight in the windings
+of the shadowy trail. As she rode alone, the fronds of breast-high
+ferns seemed to caress her with outstretched and gently-detaining hands;
+strange wildflowers sprang up through the parting underbrush; even the
+granite rocks that at times pressed closely upon the trail appeared as
+if cushioned to her contact with star-rayed mosses, or lightly flung
+after her long lassoes of delicate vines. She recalled the absolute
+freedom of their al-fresco life in the old double cabin, when she
+spent the greater part of her waking hours under the mute trees in
+the encompassing solitude, and, half regretting the more civilized
+restraints of this newer and more ambitious abode, forgot that she had
+ever rebelled against it. The social complication that threatened her
+now seemed to her rather the outcome of her half-civilized parlor than
+of the sylvan glade. How easy it would have been to have kept the cabin,
+and then to have gone away entirely, than for her father to have allowed
+them to be compromised with the growing fortunes of the settlement!
+The suspicions and distrust that she had always felt of their fortunes
+seemed to grow with the involuntary admission of Whiskey Dick that
+they were shared by others who were practical men. She was fain to have
+recourse to the prospect again to banish these thoughts, and this opened
+her eyes to the fact that her companions had been missing from the trail
+ahead of her for some time. She quickened her pace slightly to reach
+a projecting point of rock that gave her a more extended prospect. But
+they had evidently disappeared.
+
+She was neither alarmed nor annoyed. She could easily overtake them
+soon, for they would miss her, and return or wait for her at the spring.
+At the worst she would have no difficulty in retracing her steps home.
+In her present mood, she could readily spare their company; indeed she
+was not sorry that no other being should interrupt that sympathy with
+the free woods which was beginning to possess her.
+
+She was destined, however, to be disappointed. She had not proceeded a
+hundred yards before she noticed the moving figure of a man beyond her
+in the hillside chaparral above the trail. He seemed to be going in the
+same direction as herself, and, as she fancied, endeavoring to avoid
+her. This excited her curiosity to the point of urging her horse forward
+until the trail broadened into the level forest again, which she now
+remembered was a part of the environs of Indian Spring. The stranger
+hesitated, pausing once or twice with his back towards her, as if
+engaged in carefully examining the dwarf willows to select a switch.
+Christie slightly checked her speed as she drew nearer; when, as if
+obedient to a sudden resolution, he turned and advanced towards her. She
+was relieved and yet surprised to recognize the boyish face and figure
+of George Kearney. He was quite pale and agitated, although attempting,
+by a jaunty swinging of the switch he had just cut, to assume the
+appearance of ease and confidence.
+
+Here was an opportunity. Christie resolved to profit by it. She did not
+doubt that the young fellow had already passed her sister on the trail,
+but, from bashfulness, had not dared to approach her. By inviting his
+confidence, she would doubtless draw something from him that would deny
+or corroborate her father's opinion of his sentiments. If he was really
+in love with Jessie, she would learn what reasons he had for expecting
+a serious culmination of his suit, and perhaps she might be able
+delicately to open his eyes to the truth. If, as she believed, it was
+only a boyish fancy, she would laugh him out of it with that camaraderie
+which had always existed between them. A half motherly sympathy, albeit
+born quite as much from a contemplation of his beautiful yearning eyes
+as from his interesting position, lightened the smile with which she
+greeted him.
+
+“So you contrived to throw over your stupid business and join us,
+after all,” she said; “or was it that you changed your mind at the
+last moment?” she added mischievously. “I thought only we women were
+permitted that!” Indeed, she could not help noticing that there was
+really a strong feminine suggestion in the shifting color and slightly
+conscious eyelids of the young fellow.
+
+“Do young girls always change their minds?” asked George, with an
+embarrassed smile.
+
+“Not, always; but sometimes they don't know their own mind--particularly
+if they are very young; and when they do at last, you clever creatures
+of men, who have interpreted their ignorance to please yourselves, abuse
+them for being fickle.” She stopped to observe the effect of what she
+believed a rather clear and significant exposition of Jessie's and
+George's possible situation. But she was not prepared for the look
+of blank resignation that seemed to drive the color from his face and
+moisten the fire of his dark eyes.
+
+“I reckon you're right,” he said, looking down.
+
+“Oh! we're not accusing you of fickleness,” said Christie gayly;
+“although you didn't come, and we were obliged to ask Mr. Hall to join
+us. I suppose you found him and Jessie just now?”
+
+But George made no reply. The color was slowly coming back to his face,
+which, as she glanced covertly at him, seemed to have grown so much
+older that his returning blood might have brought two or three years
+with it.
+
+“Really, Mr. Kearney,” she said dryly, “one would think that some silly,
+conceited girl”--she was quite earnest in her epithets, for a sudden,
+angry conviction of some coquetry and disingenuousness in Jessie had
+come to her in contemplating its effects upon the young fellow at her
+side--“some country jilt, had been trying her rustic hand upon you.”
+
+“She is not silly, conceited, nor countrified,” said George, slowly
+raising his beautiful eyes to the young girl half reproachfully. “It is
+I who am all that. No, she is right, and you know it.”
+
+Much as Christie admired and valued her sister's charms, she thought
+this was really going too far. What had Jessie ever done--what was
+Jessie--to provoke and remain insensible to such a blind devotion as
+this? And really, looking at him now, he was not so VERY YOUNG for
+Jessie; whether his unfortunate passion had brought out all his latent
+manliness, or whether he had hitherto kept his serious nature in the
+background, certainly he was not a boy. And certainly his was not a
+passion that he could be laughed out of. It was getting very tiresome.
+She wished she had not met him--at least until she had had some clearer
+understanding with her sister. He was still walking beside her, with his
+hand on her bridle rein, partly to lead her horse over some boulders in
+the trail, and partly to conceal his first embarrassment. When they had
+fairly reached the woods, he stopped.
+
+“I am going to say good-by, Miss Carr.”
+
+“Are you not coming further? We must be near Indian Spring, now; Mr.
+Hall and--and Jessie--cannot be far away. You will keep me company until
+we meet them?”
+
+“No,” he replied quietly. “I only stopped you to say good-by. I am going
+away.”
+
+“Not from Devil's Ford?” she asked, in half-incredulous astonishment.
+“At least, not for long?”
+
+“I am not coming back,” he replied.
+
+“But this is very abrupt,” she said hurriedly, feeling that in some
+ridiculous way she had precipitated an equally ridiculous catastrophe.
+“Surely you are not going away in this fashion, without saying good-by
+to Jessie and--and father?”
+
+“I shall see your father, of course--and you will give my regards to
+Miss Jessie.”
+
+He evidently was in earnest. Was there ever anything so perfectly
+preposterous? She became indignant.
+
+“Of course,” she said coldly, “I won't detain you; your business must
+be urgent, and I forgot--at least I had forgotten until to-day--that
+you have other duties more important than that of squire of dames. I am
+afraid this forgetfulness made me think you would not part from us in
+quite such a business fashion. I presume, if you had not met me just
+now, we should none of us have seen you again?”
+
+He did not reply.
+
+“Will you say good-by, Miss Carr?”
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+“One moment, Mr. Kearney. If I have said anything which you think
+justifies this very abrupt leave-taking, I beg you will forgive and
+forget it--or, at least, let it have no more weight with you than the
+idle words of any woman. I only spoke generally. You know--I--I might be
+mistaken.”
+
+His eyes, which had dilated when she began to speak, darkened; his
+color, which had quickly come, as quickly sank when she had ended.
+
+“Don't say that, Miss Carr. It is not like you, and--it is useless. You
+know what I meant a moment ago. I read it in your reply. You meant that
+I, like others, had deceived myself. Did you not?”
+
+She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty.
+She knew that Jessie did not love him--would not marry him--whatever
+coquetry she might have shown.
+
+“I did not mean to offend you,” she said hesitatingly; “I only half
+suspected it when I spoke.”
+
+“And you wish to spare me the avowal?” he said bitterly.
+
+“To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it. I could not tell what ideas
+you might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of Jessie--or my
+father,” she added, with almost equal bitterness.
+
+“I have never spoken to either,” he replied quickly. He stopped, and
+added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, “I've been brought up in
+the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed my feelings, instead
+of the etiquette of society.”
+
+Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's truthfulness
+to notice the full significance of his speech.
+
+“Good-by,” he said again, holding out his hand.
+
+“Good-by!”
+
+She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile. He held it for a
+moment, with his eyes fixed upon hers. Then suddenly, as if obeying
+an uncontrollable impulse, he crushed it like a flower again and again
+against his burning lips, and darted away.
+
+Christie sank back in her saddle with a little cry, half of pain and
+half of frightened surprise. Had the poor boy suddenly gone mad, or was
+this vicarious farewell a part of the courtship of Devil's Ford? She
+looked at her little hand, which had reddened under the pressure, and
+suddenly felt the flush extending to her cheeks and the roots of her
+hair. This was intolerable.
+
+“Christie!”
+
+It was her sister emerging from the wood to seek her. In another moment
+she was at her side.
+
+“We thought you were following,” said Jessie. “Good heavens! how you
+look! What has happened?”
+
+“Nothing. I met Mr. Kearney a moment ago on the trail. He is going away,
+and--and--” She stopped, furious and flushing.
+
+“And,” said Jessie, with a burst of merriment, “he told you at last he
+loved you. Oh, Christie!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The abrupt departure of George Kearney from Devil's Ford excited
+but little interest in the community, and was soon forgotten. It was
+generally attributed to differences between himself and his partners
+on the question of further outlay of their earnings on mining
+improvements--he and Philip Carr alone representing a sanguine minority
+whose faith in the future of the mine accepted any risks. It was alleged
+by some that he had sold out to his brother; it was believed by others
+that he had simply gone to Sacramento to borrow money on his share,
+in order to continue the improvements on his own responsibility. The
+partners themselves were uncommunicative; even Whiskey Dick, who since
+his remarkable social elevation had become less oracular, much to his
+own astonishment, contributed nothing to the gossip except a suggestion
+that as the fiery temper of George Kearney brooked no opposition,
+even from his brother, it was better they should separate before the
+estrangement became serious.
+
+Mr. Carr did not disguise his annoyance at the loss of his young
+disciple and firm ally. But an unlucky allusion to his previous remarks
+on Kearney's attentions to Jessie, and a querulous regret that he had
+permitted a disruption of their social intimacy, brought such an ominous
+and frigid opposition, not only from Christie, but even the frivolous
+Jessie herself, that Carr sank back in a crushed and terrified silence.
+“I only meant to say,” he stammered after a pause, in which he, however,
+resumed his aggrieved manner, “that FAIRFAX seems to come here still,
+and HE is not such a particular friend of mine.”
+
+“But she is--and has your interest entirely at heart,” said Jessie,
+stoutly, “and he only comes here to tell us how things are going on at
+the works.”
+
+“And criticise your father, I suppose,” said Mr. Carr, with an
+attempt at jocularity that did not, however, disguise an irritated
+suspiciousness. “He really seems to have supplanted ME as he has poor
+Kearney in your estimation.”
+
+“Now, father,” said Jessie, suddenly seizing him by the shoulders in
+affected indignation, but really to conceal a certain embarrassment
+that sprang quite as much from her sister's quietly observant eye as her
+father's speech, “you promised to let this ridiculous discussion drop.
+You will make me and Christie so nervous that we will not dare to
+open the door to a visitor, until he declares his innocence of any
+matrimonial intentions. You don't want to give color to the gossip that
+agreement with your views about the improvements is necessary to getting
+on with us.”
+
+“Who dares talk such rubbish?” said Carr, reddening; “is that the kind
+of gossip that Fairfax brings here?”
+
+“Hardly, when it's known that he don't quite agree with you, and DOES
+come here. That's the best denial of the gossip.”
+
+Christie, who had of late loftily ignored these discussions, waited
+until her father had taken his departure.
+
+“Then that is the reason why you still see Mr. Munroe, after what you
+said,” she remarked quietly to Jessie.
+
+Jessie, who would have liked to escape with her father, was obliged to
+pause on the threshold of the door, with a pretty assumption of blank
+forgetfulness in her blue eyes and lifted eyebrows.
+
+“Said what? when?” she asked vacantly.
+
+“When--when Mr. Kearney that day--in the woods--went away,” said
+Christie, faintly coloring.
+
+“Oh! THAT day,” said Jessie briskly; “the day he just gloved your
+hand with kisses, and then fled wildly into the forest to conceal his
+emotion.”
+
+“The day he behaved very foolishly,” said Christie, with reproachful
+calmness, that did not, however, prevent a suspicion of indignant
+moisture in her eyes--“when you explained”--
+
+“That it wasn't meant for ME,” interrupted Jessie.
+
+“That it was to you that MR. MUNROE'S attentions were directed. And then
+we agreed that it was better to prevent any further advances of this
+kind by avoiding any familiar relations with either of them.”
+
+“Yes,” said Jessie, “I remember; but you're not confounding my seeing
+Fairfax occasionally now with that sort of thing. HE doesn't kiss my
+hand like anything,” she added, as if in abstract reflection.
+
+“Nor run away, either,” suggested the trodden worm, turning.
+
+There was an ominous silence.
+
+“Do you know we are nearly out of coffee?” said Jessie choking, but
+moving towards the door with Spartan-like calmness.
+
+“Yes. And something must be done this very day about the washing,” said
+Christie, with suppressed emotion, going towards the opposite entrance.
+
+Tears stood in each other's eyes with this terrible exchange of domestic
+confidences. Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, they deliberately
+turned again, and, facing each other with frightful calmness, left
+the room by purposeless and deliberate exits other than those they
+had contemplated--a crushing abnegation of self, that, to some extent,
+relieved their surcharged feelings.
+
+Meantime the material prosperity of Devil's Ford increased, if a
+prosperity based upon no visible foundation but the confidences and
+hopes of its inhabitants could be called material. Few, if any, stopped
+to consider that the improvements, buildings, and business were simply
+the outlay of capital brought from elsewhere, and as yet the settlement
+or town, as it was now called, had neither produced nor exported capital
+of itself equal to half the amount expended. It was true that some
+land was cultivated on the further slope, some mills erected and lumber
+furnished from the inexhaustible forest; but the consumers were the
+inhabitants themselves, who paid for their produce in borrowed capital
+or unlimited credit. It was never discovered that while all roads led to
+Devil's Ford, Devil's Ford led to nowhere. The difficulties overcome
+in getting things into the settlement were never surmounted for getting
+things out of it. The lumber was practically valueless for export to
+other settlements across the mountain roads, which were equally rich in
+timber. The theory so enthusiastically held by the original locators,
+that Devil's Ford was a vast sink that had, through ages, exhausted and
+absorbed the trickling wealth of the adjacent hills and valleys, was
+suffering an ironical corroboration.
+
+One morning it was known that work was stopped at the Devil's Ford
+Ditch--temporarily only, it was alleged, and many of the old workmen
+simply had their labor for the present transferred to excavating the
+river banks, and the collection of vast heaps of “pay gravel.” Specimens
+from these mounds, taken from different localities, and at different
+levels, were sent to San Francisco for more rigid assay and analysis.
+It was believed that this would establish the fact of the permanent
+richness of the drifts, and not only justify past expenditure, but a
+renewed outlay of credit and capital. The suspension of engineering work
+gave Mr. Carr an opportunity to visit San Francisco on general business
+of the mine, which could not, however, prevent him from arranging
+further combinations with capital. His two daughters accompanied him. It
+offered an admirable opportunity for a shopping expedition, a change of
+scene, and a peaceful solution of their perplexing and anomalous social
+relations with Devil's Ford. In the first flush of gratitude to their
+father for this opportune holiday, something of harmony had been
+restored to the family circle that had of late been shaken by discord.
+
+But their sanguine hopes of enjoyment were not entirely fulfilled. Both
+Jessie and Christie were obliged to confess to a certain disappointment
+in the aspect of the civilization they were now reentering. They at
+first attributed it to the change in their own habits during the last
+three months, and their having become barbarous and countrified in
+their seclusion. Certainly in the matter of dress they were behind the
+fashions as revealed in Montgomery Street. But when the brief solace
+afforded them by the modiste and dressmaker was past, there seemed
+little else to be gained. They missed at first, I fear, the chivalrous
+and loyal devotion that had only amused them at Devil's Ford, and were
+the more inclined, I think, to distrust the conscious and more civilized
+gallantry of the better dressed and more carefully presented men they
+met. For it must be admitted that, for obvious reasons, their criticisms
+were at first confined to the sex they had been most in contact with.
+They could not help noticing that the men were more eager, annoyingly
+feverish, and self-asserting in their superior elegance and external
+show than their old associates were in their frank, unrestrained habits.
+It seemed to them that the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, in their
+radical simplicity and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type of
+true gentlemanhood than these citizens who imitated a civilization they
+were unable yet to reach.
+
+The women simply frightened them, as being, even more than the men,
+demonstrative and excessive in their fine looks, their fine dresses,
+their extravagant demand for excitement. In less than a week they found
+themselves regretting--not the new villa on the slope of Devil's Ford,
+which even in its own bizarre fashion was exceeded by the barbarous
+ostentation of the villas and private houses around them--but the double
+cabin under the trees, which now seemed to them almost aristocratic in
+its grave simplicity and abstention. In the mysterious forests of masts
+that thronged the city's quays they recalled the straight shafts of the
+pines on Devil's slopes, only to miss the sedate repose and infinite
+calm that used to environ them. In the feverish, pulsating life of the
+young metropolis they often stopped oppressed, giddy, and choking; the
+roar of the streets and thoroughfares was meaningless to them, except to
+revive strange memories of the deep, unvarying monotone of the evening
+wind over their humbler roof on the Sierran hillside. Civic bred and
+nurtured as they were, the recurrence of these sensations perplexed and
+alarmed them.
+
+“It seems so perfectly ridiculous,” said Jessie, “for us to feel as out
+of place here as that Pike County servant girl in Sacramento who had
+never seen a steamboat before; do you know, I quite had a turn the other
+day at seeing a man on the Stockton wharf in a red shirt, with a rifle
+on his shoulder.”
+
+“And you wanted to go and speak to him?” said Christie, with a sad
+smile.
+
+“No, that's just it; I felt awfully hurt and injured that he did not
+come up and speak to ME! I wonder if we got any fever or that sort of
+thing up there; it makes one quite superstitious.”
+
+Christie did not reply; more than once before she had felt that
+inexplicable misgiving. It had sometimes seemed to her that she had
+never been quite herself since that memorable night when she had
+slipped out of their sleeping-cabin, and stood alone in the gracious and
+commanding presence of the woods and hills. In the solitude of night,
+with the hum of the great city rising below her--at times even in
+theatres or crowded assemblies of men and women--she forgot herself,
+and again stood in the weird brilliancy of that moonlight night in
+mute worship at the foot of that slowly-rising mystic altar of piled
+terraces, hanging forests, and lifted plateaus that climbed forever to
+the lonely skies. Again she felt before her the expanding and opening
+arms of the protecting woods. Had they really closed upon her in some
+pantheistic embrace that made her a part of them? Had she been baptized
+in that moonlight as a child of the great forest? It was easy to believe
+in the myths of the poets of an idyllic life under those trees, where,
+free from conventional restrictions, one loved and was loved. If she,
+with her own worldly experience, could think of this now, why might
+not George Kearney have thought? . . . She stopped, and found herself
+blushing even in the darkness. As the thought and blush were the usual
+sequel of her reflections, it is to be feared that they may have been at
+times the impelling cause.
+
+Mr. Carr, however, made up for his daughters' want of sympathy with
+metropolitan life. To their astonishment, he not only plunged into the
+fashionable gayeties and amusements of the town, but in dress and manner
+assumed the role of a leader of society. The invariable answer to their
+half-humorous comment was the necessities of the mine, and the policy
+of frequenting the company of capitalists, to enlist their support and
+confidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, that
+what at any other time they would have hailed as a relief to
+his habitual abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was not
+dissipated--he did not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seem
+any harm in his frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry that
+appeared to be forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes was
+certainly apocryphal. He did not drag his daughters into the mixed
+society of that period; he did not press upon them the company of those
+he most frequented, and whose accepted position in that little world of
+fashion was considered equal to their own. When Jessie strongly objected
+to the pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual present
+wealth and pecuniary influence condoned for a more uncertain prehistoric
+past, Mr. Carr did not urge a further acquaintance. “As long as you're
+not thinking of marrying again, papa,” Jessie had said finally, “I don't
+see the necessity of our knowing her.” “But suppose I were,” had replied
+Mr. Carr with affected humor. “Then you certainly wouldn't care for any
+one like her,” his daughter had responded triumphantly. Mr. Carr smiled,
+and dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters' want of
+sympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least interfere with
+his social prestige. A gentleman in all his relations and under all
+circumstances, even his cold scientific abstraction was provocative;
+rich men envied his lofty ignorance of the smaller details of
+money-making, even while they mistrusted his judgment. A man still well
+preserved, and free from weakening vices, he was a dangerous rival to
+younger and faster San Francisco, in the eyes of the sex, who knew how
+to value a repose they did not themselves possess.
+
+Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to Sacramento,
+on further business of the mine, leaving his two daughters in the family
+of a wealthy friend until he should return for them. He opposed their
+ready suggestion to return to Devil's Ford with a new and unnecessary
+inflexibility: he even met their compromise to accompany him to
+Sacramento with equal decision.
+
+“You will be only in my way,” he said curtly. “Enjoy yourselves here
+while you can.”
+
+Thus left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice. Possibly some
+slight reaction to their previous disappointment may have already set
+in; perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to their anxiety
+about their father. They went out more; they frequented concerts and
+parties; they accepted, with their host and his family, an invitation to
+one of those opulent and barbaric entertainments with which a noted San
+Francisco millionaire distracted his rare moments of reflection in his
+gorgeous palace on the hills. Here they could at least be once more in
+the country they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a
+little degraded by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of the
+palace.
+
+It was a three days' fete; the style and choice of amusements left to
+the guests, and an equal and active participation by no means necessary
+or indispensable. Consequently, when Christie and Jessie Carr proposed
+a ride through the adjacent canyon on the second morning, they had no
+difficulty in finding horses in the well-furnished stables of their
+opulent entertainers, nor cavaliers among the other guests, who were
+too happy to find favor in the eyes of the two pretty girls who were
+supposed to be abnormally fastidious and refined. Christie's escort
+was a good-natured young banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrative
+attentions, and lucky enough to interest her during the ride with his
+clear and half-humorous reflections on some of the business speculations
+of the day. If his ideas were occasionally too clever, and not always
+consistent with a high sense of honor, she was none the less interested
+to know the ethics of that world of speculation into which her father
+had plunged, and the more convinced, with mingled sense of pride and
+anxiety, that his still dominant gentlemanhood would prevent his coping
+with it on equal terms. Nor could she help contrasting the conversation
+of the sharp-witted man at her side with what she still remembered of
+the vague, touching, boyish enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil's
+Ford. Had her escort guessed the result of this contrast, he would
+hardly have been as gratified as he was with the grave attention of her
+beautiful eyes.
+
+The fascination of a gracious day and the leafy solitude of the canyon
+led them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit, and it became
+necessary towards sunset for them to seek some shorter cut home.
+
+“There's a vaquero in yonder field,” said Christie's escort, who was
+riding with her a little in advance of the others, “and those fellows
+know every trail that a horse can follow. I'll ride on, intercept him,
+and try my Spanish on him. If I miss him, as he's galloping on, you
+might try your hand on him yourself. He'll understand your eyes, Miss
+Carr, in any language.”
+
+As he dashed away, to cover his first audacity of compliment, Christie
+lifted the eyes thus apostrophized to the opposite field. The vaquero,
+who was chasing some cattle, was evidently too preoccupied to heed the
+shouts of her companion, and wheeling round suddenly to intercept one
+of the deviating fugitives, permitted Christie's escort to dash past him
+before that gentleman could rein in his excited steed. This brought the
+vaquero directly in her path. Perceiving her, he threw his horse back on
+its haunches, to prevent a collision. Christie rode up to him, suddenly
+uttered a cry, and halted. For before her, sunburnt in cheek and throat,
+darker in the free growth of moustache and curling hair, clad in the
+coarse, picturesque finery of his class, undisguised only in his boyish
+beauty, sat George Kearney.
+
+The blood, that had forsaken her astonished face, rushed as quickly
+back. His eyes, which had suddenly sparkled with an electrical glow,
+sank before hers. His hand dropped, and his cheek flushed with a dark
+embarrassment.
+
+“You here, Mr. Kearney? How strange!--but how glad I am to meet you
+again!”
+
+She tried to smile; her voice trembled, and her little hand shook as she
+extended it to him.
+
+He raised his dark eyes quickly, and impulsively urged his horse to her
+side. But, as if suddenly awakening to the reality of the situation,
+he glanced at her hurriedly, down at his barbaric finery, and threw a
+searching look towards her escort.
+
+In an instant Christie saw the infelicity of her position, and its
+dangers. The words of Whiskey Dick, “He wouldn't stand that,” flashed
+across her mind. There was no time to lose. The banker had already
+gained control over his horse, and was approaching them, all unconscious
+of the fixed stare with which George was regarding him. Christie hastily
+seized the hand which he had allowed to fall at his side, and said
+quickly:--
+
+“Will you ride with me a little way, Mr. Kearney?”
+
+He turned the same searching look upon her. She met it clearly and
+steadily; he even thought reproachfully.
+
+“Do!” she said hurriedly. “I ask it as a favor. I want to speak to you.
+Jessie and I are here alone. Father is away. YOU are one of our oldest
+friends.”
+
+He hesitated. She turned to the astonished young banker, who rode up.
+
+“I have just met an old friend. Will you please ride back as quickly as
+you can, and tell Jessie that Mr. Kearney is here, and ask her to join
+us?”
+
+She watched her dazed escort, still speechless from the spectacle of the
+fastidious Miss Carr tete-a-tete with a common Mexican vaquero, gallop
+off in the direction of the canyon, and then turned to George.
+
+“Now take me home, the shortest way, as quick as you can.”
+
+“Home?” echoed George.
+
+“I mean to Mr. Prince's house. Quick! before they can come up to us.”
+
+He mechanically put spurs to his horse; she followed. They presently
+struck into a trail that soon diverged again into a disused logging
+track through the woods.
+
+“This is the short cut to Prince's, by two miles,” he said, as they
+entered the woods.
+
+As they were still galloping, without exchanging a word, Christie began
+to slacken her speed; George did the same. They were safe from intrusion
+at the present, even if the others had found the short cut. Christie,
+bold and self-reliant a moment ago, suddenly found herself growing weak
+and embarrassed. What had she done?
+
+She checked her horse suddenly.
+
+“Perhaps we had better wait for them,” she said timidly.
+
+George had not raised his eyes to hers.
+
+“You said you wanted to hurry home,” he replied gently, passing his hand
+along his mustang's velvety neck, “and--and you had something to say to
+me.”
+
+“Certainly,” she answered, with a faint laugh. “I'm so astonished at
+meeting you here. I'm quite bewildered. You are living here; you have
+forsaken us to buy a ranche?” she continued, looking at him attentively.
+
+His brow colored slightly.
+
+“No, I'm living here, but I have bought no ranche. I'm only a hired man
+on somebody else's ranche, to look after the cattle.”
+
+He saw her beautiful eyes fill with astonishment and--something else.
+His brow cleared; he went on, with his old boyish laugh:
+
+“No, Miss Carr. The fact is, I'm dead broke. I've lost everything since
+I saw you last. But as I know how to ride, and I'm not afraid of work, I
+manage to keep along.”
+
+“You have lost money in--in the mines?” said Christie suddenly.
+
+“No”--he replied quickly, evading her eyes. “My brother has my interest,
+you know. I've been foolish on my own account solely. You know I'm
+rather inclined to that sort of thing. But as long as my folly don't
+affect others, I can stand it.”
+
+“But it may affect others--and THEY may not think of it as folly--” She
+stopped short, confused by his brightening color and eyes. “I mean--Oh,
+Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me. I know nothing of business,
+but I know there has been trouble about the mine at Devil's Ford. Tell
+me honestly, has my father anything to do with it? If I thought that
+through any imprudence of his, you had suffered--if I believed that
+you could trace any misfortune of yours to him--to US--I should never
+forgive myself”--she stopped and flashed a single look at him--“I should
+never forgive YOU for abandoning us.”
+
+The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, which
+never concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed her
+feminine anticlimax.
+
+“Miss Carr,” he said, with boyish eagerness, “if any man suggested to me
+that your father wasn't the brightest and best of his kind--too wise and
+clever for the fools about him to understand--I'd--I'd shoot him.”
+
+Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had NOT
+intended to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush upon
+what she really intended to say, with what she felt was shameful
+precipitation.
+
+“One word more, Mr. Kearney,” she began, looking down, but feeling the
+color come to her face as she spoke. “When you spoke to me the day you
+left, you must have thought me hard and cruel. When I tell you that I
+thought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you had for her--”
+
+“For Jessie!” echoed George.
+
+“You will understand that--that--”
+
+“That what?” said George, drawing nearer to her.
+
+“That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to her
+of me,” added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away from
+him.
+
+But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an
+imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to her
+side. “He will go now,” she had thought, but he didn't.
+
+“We must ride on,” she suggested faintly.
+
+“No,” he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slight
+lifting of his head. “We must ride together no further, Miss Carr. I
+must go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on with
+your party, whom I hear coming. But when we part here you must bid me
+good-by--not as Jessie's sister--but as Christie--the one--the only
+woman that I love, or that I ever have loved.”
+
+He held out his hand. With the recollection of their previous parting,
+she tremblingly advanced her own. He took it, but did not raise it to
+his lips. And it was she who found herself half confusedly retaining his
+hand in hers, until she dropped it with a blush.
+
+“Then is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have deserted
+Devil's Ford?” she said coldly.
+
+He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile, and said, “Yes,” wheeled
+his horse, and disappeared in the forest.
+
+He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, and
+indignant. He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and indignant.
+Yet she was so self-possessed when the party joined her, that the
+singular rencontre and her explanation of the stranger's sudden
+departure excited no further comment. Only Jessie managed to whisper in
+her ear,--
+
+“I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn't me he meant?”
+
+“Not at all,” said Christie coldly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A few days after the girls had returned to San Francisco, they received
+a letter from their father. His business, he wrote, would detain him in
+Sacramento some days longer. There was no reason why they should return
+to Devil's Ford in the heat of the summer; their host had written to
+beg him to allow them a more extended visit, and, if they were enjoying
+themselves, he thought it would be well not to disoblige an old friend.
+He had heard they had a pleasant visit to Mr. Prince's place, and that a
+certain young banker had been very attentive to Christie.
+
+“Do you know what all this means, dear?” asked Jessie, who had been
+watching her sister with an unusually grave face.
+
+Christie whose thoughts had wandered from the letter, replied
+carelessly,--
+
+“I suppose it means that we are to wait here until father sends for us.”
+
+“It means a good deal more. It means that papa has had another reverse;
+it means that the assay has turned out badly for the mine--that the
+further they go from the flat the worse it gets--that all the gold they
+will probably ever see at Devil's Ford is what they have already found
+or will find on the flat; it means that all Devil's Ford is only a
+'pocket,' and not a 'lead.'” She stopped, with unexpected tears in her
+eyes.
+
+“Who told you this?” asked Christie breathlessly.
+
+“Fairfax--Mr. Munroe,” stammered her sister, “writes to me as if we
+already knew it--tells me not to be alarmed, that it isn't so bad--and
+all that.”
+
+“How long has this happened, Jessie?” said Christie, taking her hand,
+with a white but calm face.
+
+“Nearly ever since we've been here, I suppose. It must be so, for he
+says poor papa is still hopeful of doing something yet.”
+
+“And Mr. Munroe writes to you?” said Christie abstractedly.
+
+“Of course,” said Jessie quickly. “He feels interested in--us.”
+
+“Nobody tells ME anything,” said Christie.
+
+“Didn't--”
+
+“No,” said Christie bitterly.
+
+“What on earth DID you talk about? But people don't confide in you
+because they're afraid of you. You're so--”
+
+“So what?”
+
+“So gently patronizing, and so 'I-don't-suppose-you-can-help-it,
+poor-thing,' in your general style,” said Jessie, kissing her. “There!
+I only wish I was like you. What do you say if we write to father that
+we'll go back to Devil's Ford? Mr. Munroe thinks we will be of service
+there just now. If the men are dissatisfied, and think we're spending
+money--”
+
+“I'm afraid Mr. Munroe is hardly a disinterested adviser. At least, I
+don't think it would look quite decent for you to fly back without your
+father, at his suggestion,” said Christie coldly. “He is not the only
+partner. We are spending no money. Besides, we have engaged to go to Mr.
+Prince's again next week.”
+
+“As you like, dear,” said Jessie, turning away to hide a faint smile.
+
+Nevertheless, when they returned from their visit to Mr. Prince's, and
+one or two uneventful rides, Christie looked grave. It was only a few
+days later that Jessie burst upon her one morning.
+
+“You were saying that nobody ever tells you anything. Well, here's your
+chance. Whiskey Dick is below.”
+
+“Whiskey Dick?” repeated Christie. “What does he want?”
+
+“YOU, love. Who else? You know he always scorns me as not being
+high-toned and elegant enough for his social confidences. He asked for
+you only.”
+
+With an uneasy sense of some impending revelation, Christie descended to
+the drawing-room. As she opened the door, a strong flavor of that toilet
+soap and eau de Cologne with which Whiskey Dick was in the habit of
+gracefully effacing the traces of dissipation made known his presence.
+In spite of a new suit of clothes, whose pristine folds refused to
+adapt themselves entirely to the contour of his figure, he was somewhat
+subdued by the unexpected elegance of the drawing-room of Christie's
+host. But a glance at Christie's sad but gracious face quickly reassured
+him. Taking from his hat a three-cornered parcel, he unfolded a
+handsome saffrona rose, which he gravely presented to her. Having
+thus reestablished his position, he sank elegantly into a tete-a-tete
+ottoman. Finding the position inconvenient to face Christie, who had
+seated herself on a chair, he transferred himself to the other side of
+the ottoman, and addressed her over its back as from a pulpit.
+
+“Is this really a fortunate accident, Mr. Hall, or did you try to find
+us?” said Christie pleasantly.
+
+“Partly promiskuss, and partly coincident, Miss Christie, one up and
+t'other down,” said Dick lightly. “Work being slack at present at
+Devil's Ford, I reck'ned I'd take a pasear down to 'Frisco, and dip into
+the vortex o' fash'nable society and out again.” He lightly waved a
+new handkerchief to illustrate his swallow-like intrusion. “This yer
+minglin' with the bo-tong is apt to be wearisome, ez you and me knows,
+unless combined with experience and judgment. So when them boys up
+there allows that there's a little too much fash'nable society and San
+Francisco capital and high-falutin' about the future goin' on fer square
+surface mining, I sez, 'Look yere, gentlemen,' sez I, 'you don't see the
+pint. The pint is to get the pop'lar eye fixed, so to speak, on Devil's
+Ford. When a fash'nable star rises above the 'Frisco horizon--like Miss
+Carr--and, so to speak, dazzles the gineral eye, people want to know
+who she is. And when people say that's the accomplished daughter o' the
+accomplished superintendent of the Devil's Ford claim--otherwise known
+as the Star-eyed Goddess o' Devil's Ford--every eye is fixed on the
+mine, and Capital, so to speak, tumbles to her.' And when they sez that
+the old man--excuse my freedom, but that's the way the boys talk of your
+father, meaning no harm--the old man, instead o' trying to corral rich
+widders--grass or otherwise--to spend their money on the big works for
+the gold that ain't there yet--should stay in Devil's Ford and put all
+his sabe and genius into grindin' out the little gold that is there, I
+sez to them that it ain't your father's style. 'His style,' sez I, 'ez
+to go in and build them works.' When they're done he turns round to
+Capital, and sez he--'Look yer,' sez he, 'thar's all the works you
+want, first quality--cost a million; thar's all the water you want,
+onlimited--cost another million; thar's all the pay gravel you want
+in and outer the ground--call it two millions more. Now my time's too
+vally'ble; my professhun's too high-toned to WORK mines. I MAKE 'em.
+Hand me over a check for ten millions and call it square, and work it
+for yourself.' So Capital hands over the money and waltzes down to run
+the mine, and you original locators walks round with yer hands in yer
+pockets a-top of your six million profit, and you let's Capital take the
+work and the responsibility.”
+
+Preposterous as this seemed from the lips of Whiskey Dick, Christie
+had a haunting suspicion that it was not greatly unlike the theories
+expounded by the clever young banker who had been her escort. She did
+not interrupt his flow of reminiscent criticism; when he paused for
+breath, she said, quietly:
+
+“I met Mr. George Kearney the other day in the country.”
+
+Whiskey Dick stopped awkwardly, glanced hurriedly at Christie, and
+coughed behind his handkerchief.
+
+“Mr. Kearney--eh--er--certengly--yes--er--met him, you say. Was
+he--er--er--well?”
+
+“In health, yes; but otherwise he has lost everything,” said Christie,
+fixing her eyes on the embarrassed Dick.
+
+“Yes--er--in course--in course--” continued Dick, nervously glancing
+round the apartment as if endeavoring to find an opening to some less
+abrupt statement of the fact.
+
+“And actually reduced to take some menial employment,” added Christie,
+still regarding Dick with her clear glance.
+
+“That's it--that's just it,” said Dick, beaming as he suddenly found his
+delicate and confidential opportunity. “That's it, Miss Christie; that's
+just what I was sayin' to the boys. 'Ez it the square thing,' sez I,
+'jest because George hez happened to hypothecate every dollar he has,
+or expects to hev, to put into them works, only to please Mr. Carr, and
+just because he don't want to distress that intelligent gentleman by
+letting him see he's dead broke--for him to go and demean himself and
+Devil's Ford by rushing away and hiring out as a Mexican vaquero
+on Mexican wages? Look,' sez I, 'at the disgrace he brings upon a
+high-toned, fash'nable girl, at whose side he's walked and danced, and
+passed rings, and sentiments, and bokays in the changes o' the cotillion
+and the mizzourka. And wot,' sez I, 'if some day, prancing along in a
+fash'nable cavalcade, she all of a suddents comes across him drivin' a
+Mexican steer?' That's what I said to the boys. And so you met him, Miss
+Christie, as usual,” continued Dick, endeavoring under the appearance
+of a large social experience to conceal an eager anxiety to know the
+details--“so you met him; and, in course, you didn't let on yer knew
+him, so to speak, nat'rally, or p'raps you kinder like asked him to fix
+your saddle-girth, and give him a five-dollar piece--eh?”
+
+Christie, who had risen and gone to the window, suddenly turned a very
+pale face and shining eyes on Dick.
+
+“Mr. Hall,” she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, “we are old
+friends, and I feel I can ask you a favor. You once before acted as our
+escort--it was for a short but a happy time--will you accept a larger
+trust? My father is busy in Sacramento for the mine: will you, without
+saying anything to anybody, take Jessie and me back at once to Devil's
+Ford?”
+
+“Will I? Miss Christie,” said Dick, choking between an intense
+gratification and a desire to keep back its vulgar exhibition, “I shall
+be proud!”
+
+“When I say keep it a secret”--she hesitated--“I don't mean that I
+object to your letting Mr. Kearney, if you happen to know where he is,
+understand that we are going back to Devil's Ford.”
+
+“Cert'nly--nat'rally,” said Dick, waving his hand gracefully;
+“sorter drop him a line, saying that bizness of a social and delicate
+nature--being the escort of Miss Christie and Jessie Carr to Devil's
+Ford--prevents my having the pleasure of calling.”
+
+“That will do very well, Mr. Hall,” said Christie, faintly smiling
+through her moist eyelashes. “Then will you go at once and secure
+tickets for to-night's boat, and bring them here? Jessie and I will
+arrange everything else.”
+
+“Cert'nly,” said Dick impulsively, and preparing to take a graceful
+leave.
+
+“We'll be impatient until you return with the tickets,” said Christie
+graciously.
+
+Dick shook hands gravely, got as far as the door, and paused.
+
+“You think it better to take the tickets now?” he said dubiously.
+
+“By all means,” said Christie impetuously. “I've set my heart on going
+to-night--and unless you secure berths early--”
+
+“In course--in course,” interrupted Dick nervously. “But--”
+
+“But what?” said Christie impatiently.
+
+Dick hesitated, shut the door carefully, and, looking round the
+room, lightly shook out his handkerchief, apparently flicked away an
+embarrassing suggestion, and said, with a little laugh:
+
+“It's ridiklous, perfectly ridiklous, Miss Christie; but not bein' in
+the habit of carryin' ready money, and havin' omitted to cash a draft on
+Wells, Fargo & Co.--”
+
+“Of course,” said Christie rapidly. “How forgetful I am! Pray forgive
+me, Mr. Hall. I didn't think. I'll run up and get it from our host; he
+will be glad to be our banker.”
+
+“One moment, Miss Christie,” said Dick lightly, as his thumb and finger
+relaxed in his waistcoat pocket over the only piece of money in the
+world that had remained to him after his extravagant purchase of
+Christie's saffrona rose, “one moment: in this yer monetary transaction,
+if you like, you are at liberty to use MY name.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+As Christie and Jessie Carr looked from the windows of the coach, whose
+dust-clogged wheels were slowly dragging them, as if reluctant, nearer
+the last stage of their journey to Devil's Ford, they were conscious
+of a change in the landscape, which they could not entirely charge upon
+their changed feelings. The few bared open spaces on the upland, the
+long stretch of rocky ridge near the summit, so vivid and so velvety
+during their first journey, were now burnt and yellow; even the brief
+openings in the forest were seared as if by a hot iron in the scorching
+rays of a half year's sun. The pastoral slopes of the valley below were
+cloaked in lustre-leather: the rare watercourses along the road had
+faded from the waiting eye and ear; it seemed as if the long and dry
+summer had even invaded the close-set ranks of pines, and had blown a
+simoom breath through the densest woods, leaving its charred red ashes
+on every leaf and spray along the tunnelled shade. As they leaned out
+of the window and inhaled the half-dead spices of the evergreens, they
+seemed to have entered the atmosphere of some exhausted passion--of some
+fierce excitement that was even now slowly burning itself out.
+
+It was a relief at last to see the straggling houses of Devil's Ford far
+below come once more into view, as they rounded the shoulder of Devil's
+Spur and began the long descent. But as they entered the town a change
+more ominous and startling than the desiccation of the landscape
+forced itself upon them. The town was still there, but where were
+the inhabitants? Four months ago they had left the straggling street
+thronged with busy citizens--groups at every corner, and a chaos
+of merchandise and traders in the open plaza or square beside the
+Presbyterian church. Now all was changed. Only a few wayfarers lifted
+their heads lazily as the coach rattled by, crossing the deserted square
+littered with empty boxes, and gliding past empty cabins or vacant shop
+windows, from which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes
+themselves, were gone. The great unfinished serpent-like flume, crossing
+the river on gigantic trestles, had advanced as far as the town,
+stooping over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked its life
+blood and was gorged with its prey.
+
+Whiskey Dick, who had left the stage on the summit to avail himself of
+a shorter foot trail to the house, that would give him half an hour's
+grace to make preparations, met them at the stage office with a buggy.
+A glance at the young girls, perhaps, convinced him that the graces of
+elegant worldly conversation were out of place with the revelation he
+read on their faces. Perhaps, he, too, was a trifle indisposed. The
+short journey to the house was made in profound silence.
+
+The villa had been repainted and decorated, and it looked fresher, and
+even, to their preoccupied minds, appeared more attractive than ever.
+Thoughtful hands had taken care of the vines and rose-bushes on the
+trellises; water--that precious element in Devil's Ford--had not been
+spared in keeping green through the long drought the plants which the
+girls had so tenderly nurtured. It was the one oasis in which the summer
+still lingered; and yet a singular sense of loss came over the girls as
+they once more crossed its threshold. It seemed no longer their own.
+
+“Ef I was you, Miss Christie, I'd keep close to the house for a day or
+two, until--until--things is settled,” said Dick; “there's a heap o'
+tramps and sich cattle trapsin' round. P'raps you wouldn't feel so
+lonesome if you was nearer town--for instance, 'bout wher' you useter
+live.”
+
+“In the dear old cabin,” said Christie quickly; “I remember it; I wish
+we were there now.”
+
+“Do you really? Do you?” said Whiskey Dick, with suddenly twinkling
+eyes. “That's like you to say it. That's what I allus said,” continued
+Dick, addressing space generally; “if there's any one ez knows how
+to come square down to the bottom rock without flinchin', it's your
+high-toned, fash'nable gals. But I must meander back to town, and let
+the boys know you're in possession, safe and sound. It's right mean that
+Fairfax and Mattingly had to go down to Lagrange on some low business
+yesterday, but they'll be back to-morrow. So long.”
+
+Left alone, the girls began to realize their strange position. They had
+conceived no settled plan. The night they left San Francisco they had
+written an earnest letter to their father, telling him that on learning
+the truth about the reverses of Devil's Ford, they thought it their duty
+to return and share them with others, without obliging him to prefer the
+request, and with as little worry to him as possible. He would find them
+ready to share his trials, and in what must be the scene of their work
+hereafter.
+
+“It will bring father back,” said Christie; “he won't leave us here
+alone; and then together we must come to some understanding with
+him--with THEM--for somehow I feel as if this house belonged to us no
+longer.”
+
+Her surmise was not far wrong. When Mr. Carr arrived hurriedly from
+Sacramento the next evening, he found the house deserted. His daughters
+were gone; there were indications that they had arrived, and, for some
+reason, suddenly departed. The vague fear that had haunted his guilty
+soul after receiving their letter, and during his breathless journey,
+now seemed to be realized. He was turning from the empty house, whose
+reproachful solitude frightened him, when he was confronted on the
+threshold by the figure of Fairfax Munroe.
+
+“I came to the stage office to meet you,” he said; “you must have left
+the stage at the summit.”
+
+“I did,” said Carr angrily. “I was anxious to meet my daughters quickly,
+to know the reason of their foolish alarm, and to know also who had been
+frightening them. Where are they?”
+
+“They are safe in the old cabin beyond, that has been put up ready to
+receive them again,” said Fairfax quietly.
+
+“But what is the meaning of this? Why are they not here?” demanded Carr,
+hiding his agitation in a burst of querulous rage.
+
+“Do YOU ask, Mr. Carr?” said Fairfax sadly. “Did you expect them to
+remain here until the sheriff took possession? No one knows better than
+yourself that the money advanced you on the deeds of this homestead has
+never been repaid.”
+
+Carr staggered, but recovered himself with feeble violence.
+
+“Since you know so much of my affairs, how do you know that this claim
+will ever be pressed for payment? How do you know it is not the advance
+of a--a--friend?”
+
+“Because I have seen the woman who advanced it,” said Fairfax
+hopelessly. “She was here to look at the property before your daughters
+came.”
+
+“Well?” said Carr nervously.
+
+“Well! You force me to tell you something I should like to forget. You
+force me to anticipate a disclosure I expected to make to you only when
+I came to ask permission to woo your daughter Jessie; and when I tell
+you what it is, you will understand that I have no right to criticise
+your conduct. I am only explaining my own.”
+
+“Go on,” said Carr impatiently.
+
+“When I first came to this country, there was a woman I loved
+passionately. She treated me as women of her kind only treat men like
+me; she ruined me, and left me. That was four years ago. I love your
+daughter, Mr. Carr, but she has never heard it from my lips. I would not
+woo her until I had told you all. I have tried to do it ere this, and
+failed. Perhaps I should not now, but--”
+
+“But what?” said Carr furiously; “speak out!”
+
+“But this. Look!” said Fairfax, producing from his pocket the packet of
+letters Jessie had found; “perhaps you know the handwriting?”
+
+“What do you mean?” gasped Carr.
+
+“That woman--my mistress--is the woman who advanced you money, and who
+claims this house.”
+
+
+The interview, and whatever came of it, remained a secret with the two
+men. When Mr. Carr accepted the hospitality of the old cabin again, it
+was understood that he had sacrificed the new house and its furniture
+to some of the more pressing debts of the mine, and the act went far to
+restore his waning popularity. But a more genuine feeling of relief was
+experienced by Devil's Ford when it was rumored that Fairfax Munroe had
+asked for the hand of Jessie Carr, and that some promise contingent upon
+the equitable adjustment of the affairs of the mine had been given
+by Mr. Carr. To the superstitious mind of Devil's Ford and its few
+remaining locators, this new partnership seemed to promise that unity
+of interest and stability of fortune that Devil's Ford had lacked. But
+nothing could be done until the rainy season had fairly set in; until
+the long-looked-for element that was to magically separate the gold from
+the dross in those dull mounds of dust and gravel had come of its own
+free will, and in its own appointed channels, independent of the feeble
+auxiliaries that had hopelessly riven the rocks on the hillside, or hung
+incomplete and unfinished in lofty scaffoldings above the settlement.
+
+The rainy season came early. At first in gathered mists on the higher
+peaks that were lifted in the morning sun only to show a fresher field
+of dazzling white below; in white clouds that at first seemed to be mere
+drifts blown across from those fresh snowfields, and obscuring the
+clear blue above; in far-off murmurs in the hollow hills and gulches;
+in nearer tinkling melody and baby prattling in the leaves. It came
+with bright flashes of sunlight by day, with deep, monotonous shadow at
+night; with the onset of heavy winds, the roar of turbulent woods,
+the tumultuous tossing of leafy arms, and with what seemed the silent
+dissolution of the whole landscape in days of steady and uninterrupted
+downfall. It came extravagantly, for every canyon had grown into a
+torrent, every gulch a waterspout, every watercourse a river, and all
+pouring into the North Fork, that, rushing past the settlement, seemed
+to threaten it with lifted crest and flying mane. It came dangerously,
+for one night the river, leaping the feeble barrier of Devil's Ford,
+swept away houses and banks, scattered with unconscious irony the
+laboriously collected heaps of gravel left for hydraulic machinery, and
+spread out a vast and silent lake across the submerged flat.
+
+In the hurry and confusion of that night the girls had thrown open their
+cabin to the escaping miners, who hurried along the slope that was now
+the bank of the river. Suddenly Christie felt her arm grasped, and she
+was half-led, half-dragged, into the inner room. Her father stood before
+her.
+
+“Where is George Kearney?” he asked tremulously.
+
+“George Kearney!” echoed Christie, for a moment believing the excitement
+had turned her father's brain. “You know he is not here; he is in San
+Francisco.”
+
+“He is here--I tell you,” said Carr impatiently; “he has been here ever
+since the high water, trying to save the flume and reservoir.”
+
+“George--here!” Christie could only gasp.
+
+“Yes! He passed here a few moments ago, to see if you were all safe,
+and he has gone on towards the flume. But what he is trying to do is
+madness. If you see him, implore him to do no more. Let him abandon the
+accursed flume to its fate. It has worked already too much woe upon us
+all; why should it carry his brave and youthful soul down with it?”
+
+The words were still ringing in her ears, when he suddenly passed away,
+with the hurrying crowd. Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran out,
+vaguely intent only on one thought, seeking only the one face, lately
+so dear in recollection that she felt she would die if she never saw it
+again. Perplexed by confused voices in the woods, she lost track of
+the crowd, until the voices suddenly were raised in one loud outcry,
+followed by the crashing of timber, the splashing of water, a silence,
+and then a dull, continuous roar. She ran vaguely on in the direction of
+the reservoir, with her father's injunction still in her mind, until a
+terrible idea displaced it, and she turned at right angles suddenly, and
+ran towards the slope leading down to the submerged flat. She had barely
+left the shelter of the trees behind her before the roar of water
+seemed to rise at her very feet. She stopped, dazed, bewildered, and
+horror-stricken, on the edge of the slope. It was the slope no longer,
+but the bank of the river itself!
+
+Even in the gray light of early morning, and with inexperienced eyes,
+she saw all too clearly now. The trestle-work had given way; the curving
+mile of flume, fallen into the stream, and, crushed and dammed against
+the opposite shore, had absolutely turned the whole river through the
+half-finished ditch and partly excavated mine in its way, a few rods
+further on to join the old familiar channel. The bank of the river was
+changed; the flat had become an island, between which and the slope
+where she stood the North Fork was rolling its resistless yellow
+torrent. As she gazed spellbound, a portion of the slope beneath her
+suddenly seemed to sink and crumble, and was swallowed up in the rushing
+stream. She heard a cry of warning behind her, but, rooted to the spot
+by a fearful fascination, she heeded it not.
+
+Again there was a sudden disruption, and another part of the slope sank
+to rise no more; but this time she felt herself seized by the waist and
+dragged back. It was her father standing by her side.
+
+He was flushed and excited, gazing at the water with a strange
+exultation.
+
+“Do you see it? Do you know what has happened?” he asked quickly.
+
+“The flume has fallen and turned the river,” said Christie hurriedly.
+“But--have you seen him--is he safe?”
+
+“He--who?” he answered vacantly.
+
+“George Kearney!”
+
+“He is safe,” he said impatiently. “But, do you see, Christie? Do you
+know what this means?”
+
+He pointed with his tremulous hand to the stream before them.
+
+“It means we are ruined,” said Christie coldly.
+
+“Nothing of the kind! It means that the river is doing the work of the
+flume. It is sluicing off the gravel, deepening the ditch, and altering
+the slope which was the old bend of the river. It will do in ten minutes
+the work that would take us a year. If we can stop it in time, or
+control it, we are safe; but if we can not, it will carry away the bed
+and deposit with the rest, and we are ruined again.”
+
+With a gesture of impotent fury, he dashed away in the direction of an
+equally excited crowd, that on a point of the slope nearer the island
+were gesticulating and shouting to a second group of men, who on the
+opposite shore were clambering on over the choked debris of the flume
+that had dammed and diverted the current. It was evident that the same
+idea had occurred to them, and they were risking their lives in the
+attempt to set free the impediments. Shocked and indignant as Christie
+had been at the degrading absorption of material interests at such
+a moment, the element of danger lifted the labors of these men into
+heroism, and she began to feel a strange exultation as she watched them.
+Under the skilful blows of their axes, in a few moments the vast body
+of drift began to disintegrate, and then to swing round and move towards
+the old channel. A cheer went up, but as suddenly died away again. An
+overlapping fringe of wreckage had caught on the point of the island and
+arrested the whole mass.
+
+The men, who had gained the shore with difficulty, looked back with a
+cry of despair. But the next moment from among them leaped a figure,
+alert, buoyant, invincible, and, axe in hand, once more essayed the
+passage. Springing from timber to timber, he at last reached the point
+of obstruction. A few strokes of the axe were sufficient to clear it;
+but at the first stroke it was apparent that the striker was also losing
+his hold upon the shore, and that he must inevitably be carried away
+with the tossing debris. But this consideration did not seem to affect
+him; the last blow was struck, and as the freed timbers rolled on,
+over and over, he boldly plunged into the flood. Christie gave a little
+cry--her heart had bounded with him; it seemed as if his plunge had
+splashed the water in her eyes. He did not come to the surface until he
+had passed the point below where her father stood, and then struggling
+feebly, as if stunned or disabled by a blow. It seemed to her that he
+was trying to approach the side of the river where she was. Would he do
+it? Could she help him? She was alone; he was hidden from the view of
+the men on the point, and no succor could come from them. There was a
+fringe of alder nearly opposite their cabin that almost overhung the
+stream. She ran to it, clutched it with a frantic hand, and, leaning
+over the boiling water, uttered for the first time his name:
+
+“George!”
+
+As if called to the surface by the magic of her voice, he rose a few
+yards from her in mid-current, and turned his fading eyes towards the
+bank. In another moment he would have been swept beyond her reach, but
+with a supreme effort he turned on one side; the current, striking him
+sideways, threw him towards the bank, and she caught him by his sleeve.
+For an instant it seemed as if she would be dragged down with him. For
+one dangerous moment she did not care, and almost yielded to the spell;
+but as the rush of water pressed him against the bank, she recovered
+herself, and managed to lift him beyond its reach. And then she sat
+down, half-fainting, with his white face and damp curls upon her breast.
+
+“George, darling, speak to me! Only one word! Tell me, have I saved
+you?”
+
+His eyes opened. A faint twinkle of the old days came to them--a boyish
+smile played upon his lips.
+
+“For yourself--or Jessie?”
+
+She looked around her with a little frightened air. They were alone.
+There was but one way of sealing those mischievous lips, and she found
+it!
+
+
+“That's what I allus said, gentlemen,” lazily remarked Whiskey Dick,
+a few weeks later, leaning back against the bar, with his glass in
+his hand. “'George,' sez I, 'it ain't what you SAY to a fash'nable,
+high-toned young lady; it's what you DOES ez makes or breaks you.' And
+that's what I sez gin'rally o' things in the Ford. It ain't what Carr
+and you boys allows to do; it's the gin'ral average o' things ez IS done
+that gives tone to the hull, and hez brought this yer new luck to you
+all!”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Devil's Ford, by Bret Harte
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL'S FORD ***
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Devil's Ford, by Bret Harte
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Devil's Ford, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Devil's Ford
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2006 [EBook #2286]
+Last Updated: March 4, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL'S FORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      DEVIL'S FORD
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by Bret Harte
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>DEVIL'S FORD</b></big> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      DEVIL'S FORD
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was a season of unequalled prosperity in Devil's Ford. The half a dozen
+      cabins scattered along the banks of the North Fork, as if by some overflow
+      of that capricious river, had become augmented during a week of fierce
+      excitement by twenty or thirty others, that were huddled together on the
+      narrow gorge of Devil's Spur, or cast up on its steep sides. So sudden and
+      violent had been the change of fortune, that the dwellers in the older
+      cabins had not had time to change with it, but still kept their old
+      habits, customs, and even their old clothes. The flour pan in which their
+      daily bread was mixed stood on the rude table side by side with the
+      &ldquo;prospecting pans,&rdquo; half full of gold washed up from their morning's work;
+      the front windows of the newer tenements looked upon the one single
+      thoroughfare, but the back door opened upon the uncleared wilderness,
+      still haunted by the misshapen bulk of bear or the nightly gliding of
+      catamount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither had success as yet affected their boyish simplicity and the
+      frankness of old frontier habits; they played with their new-found riches
+      with the naive delight of children, and rehearsed their glowing future
+      with the importance and triviality of school-boys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've bin kalklatin',&rdquo; said Dick Mattingly, leaning on his long-handled
+      shovel with lazy gravity, &ldquo;that when I go to Rome this winter, I'll get
+      one o' them marble sharps to chisel me a statoo o' some kind to set up on
+      the spot where we made our big strike. Suthin' to remember it by, you
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What kind o' statoo&mdash;Washington or Webster?&rdquo; asked one of the
+      Kearney brothers, without looking up from his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I reckon one o' them fancy groups&mdash;one o' them Latin
+      goddesses that Fairfax is always gassin' about, sorter leadin', directin'
+      and bossin' us where to dig.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd make a healthy-lookin' figger in a group,&rdquo; responded Kearney,
+      critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's trousers. &ldquo;Why don't
+      you have a fountain instead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where'll you get the water?&rdquo; demanded the first speaker, in return. &ldquo;You
+      know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a week's washing for the
+      camp&mdash;to say nothin' of its color.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave that to me,&rdquo; said Kearney, with self-possession. &ldquo;When I've built
+      that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and bring the water over the ridge
+      from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better mix it up, I reckon&mdash;have suthin' half statoo, half
+      fountain,&rdquo; interposed the elder Mattingly, better known as &ldquo;Maryland Joe,&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;and set it up afore the Town Hall and Free Library I'm kalklatin' to
+      give. Do THAT, and you can count on me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After some further discussion, it was gravely settled that Kearney should
+      furnish water brought from the Union Ditch, twenty miles away, at a cost
+      of two hundred thousand dollars, to feed a memorial fountain erected by
+      Mattingly, worth a hundred thousand dollars, as a crowning finish to
+      public buildings contributed by Maryland Joe, to the extent of half a
+      million more. The disposition of these vast sums by gentlemen wearing
+      patched breeches awakened no sense of the ludicrous, nor did any doubt,
+      reservation, or contingency enter into the plans of the charming
+      enthusiasts themselves. The foundation of their airy castles lay already
+      before them in the strip of rich alluvium on the river bank, where the
+      North Fork, sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for
+      centuries swept the detritus of gulch and canyon. They had barely crossed
+      the threshold of this treasure-house, to find themselves rich men; what
+      possibilities of affluence might be theirs when they had fully exploited
+      their possessions? So confident were they of that ultimate prospect, that
+      the wealth already thus obtained was religiously expended in engines and
+      machinery for the boring of wells and the conveyance of that precious
+      water which the exhausted river had long since ceased to yield. It seemed
+      as if the gold they had taken out was by some ironical compensation
+      gradually making its way back to the soil again through ditch and flume
+      and reservoir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the position of affairs at Devil's Ford on the 13th of August,
+      1860. It was noon of a hot day. Whatever movement there was in the
+      stifling air was seen rather than felt in a tremulous, quivering,
+      upward-moving dust along the flank of the mountain, through which the
+      spires of the pines were faintly visible. There was no water in the bared
+      and burning bars of the river to reflect the vertical sun, but under its
+      direct rays one or two tinned roofs and corrugated zinc cabins struck
+      fire, a few canvas tents became dazzling to the eye, and the white wooded
+      corral of the stage office and hotel insupportable. For two hours no one
+      ventured in the glare of the open, or even to cross the narrow, unshadowed
+      street, whose dull red dust seemed to glow between the lines of straggling
+      houses. The heated shells of these green unseasoned tenements gave out a
+      pungent odor of scorching wood and resin. The usual hurried, feverish toil
+      in the claim was suspended; the pick and shovel were left sticking in the
+      richest &ldquo;pay gravel;&rdquo; the toiling millionaires themselves, ragged, dirty,
+      and perspiring, lay panting under the nearest shade, where the pipes went
+      out listlessly, and conversation sank to monosyllables.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's Fairfax,&rdquo; said Dick Mattingly, at last, with a lazy effort. His
+      face was turned to the hillside, where a man had just emerged from the
+      woods, and was halting irresolutely before the glaring expanse of upheaved
+      gravel and glistening boulders that stretched between him and the shaded
+      group. &ldquo;He's going to make a break for it,&rdquo; he added, as the stranger,
+      throwing his linen coat over his head, suddenly started into an Indian
+      trot through the pelting sunbeams toward them. This strange act was
+      perfectly understood by the group, who knew that in that intensely dry
+      heat the danger of exposure was lessened by active exercise and the
+      profuse perspiration that followed it. In another moment the stranger had
+      reached their side, dripping as if rained upon, mopping his damp curls and
+      handsome bearded face with his linen coat, as he threw himself pantingly
+      on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I struck out over here first, boys, to give you a little warning,&rdquo; he
+      said, as soon as he had gained breath. &ldquo;That engineer will be down here to
+      take charge as soon as the six o'clock stage comes in. He's an oldish
+      chap, has got a family of two daughters, and&mdash;I&mdash;am&mdash;d&mdash;&mdash;d
+      if he is not bringing them down here with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, go long!&rdquo; exclaimed the five men in one voice, raising themselves on
+      their hands and elbows, and glaring at the speaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fact, boys! Soon as I found it out I just waltzed into that Jew shop at
+      the Crossing and bought up all the clothes that would be likely to suit
+      you fellows, before anybody else got a show. I reckon I cleared out the
+      shop. The duds are a little mixed in style, but I reckon they're clean and
+      whole, and a man might face a lady in 'em. I left them round at the old
+      Buckeye Spring, where they're handy without attracting attention. You boys
+      can go there for a general wash-up, rig yourselves up without saying
+      anything, and then meander back careless and easy in your store clothes,
+      just as the stage is coming in, sabe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you let us know earlier?&rdquo; asked Mattingly aggrievedly; &ldquo;you've
+      been back here at least an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been getting some place ready for THEM,&rdquo; returned the new-comer. &ldquo;We
+      might have managed to put the man somewhere, if he'd been alone, but these
+      women want family accommodation. There was nothing left for me to do but
+      to buy up Thompson's saloon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No?&rdquo; interrupted his audience, half in incredulity, half in protestation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fact! You boys will have to take your drinks under canvas again, I
+      reckon! But I made Thompson let those gold-framed mirrors that used to
+      stand behind the bar go into the bargain, and they sort of furnish the
+      room. You know the saloon is one of them patent houses you can take to
+      pieces, and I've been reckoning you boys will have to pitch in and help me
+      to take the whole shanty over to the laurel bushes, and put it up agin
+      Kearney's cabin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's all that?&rdquo; said the younger Kearney, with an odd mingling of
+      astonishment and bashful gratification.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I reckon yours is the cleanest house, because it's the newest, so
+      you'll just step out and let us knock in one o' the gables, and clap it on
+      to the saloon, and make ONE house of it, don't you see? There'll be two
+      rooms, one for the girls and the other for the old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The astonishment and bewilderment of the party had gradually given way to
+      a boyish and impatient interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hadn't we better do the job at once?&rdquo; suggested Dick Mattingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or throw ourselves into those new clothes, so as to be ready,&rdquo; added the
+      younger Kearney, looking down at his ragged trousers. &ldquo;I say, Fairfax,
+      what are the girls like, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All the others had been dying to ask the question, yet one and all laughed
+      at the conscious manner and blushing cheek of the questioner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll find out quick enough,&rdquo; returned Fairfax, whose curt carelessness
+      did not, however, prevent a slight increase of color on his own cheek.
+      &ldquo;We'd better get that job off our hands before doing anything else. So, if
+      you're ready, boys, we'll just waltz down to Thompson's and pack up the
+      shanty. He's out of it by this time, I reckon. You might as well be
+      perspiring to some purpose over there as gaspin' under this tree. We won't
+      go back to work this afternoon, but knock off now, and call it half a day.
+      Come! Hump yourselves, gentlemen. Are you ready? One, two, three, and
+      away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In another instant the tree was deserted; the figures of the five
+      millionaires of Devil's Ford, crossing the fierce glare of the open space,
+      with boyish alacrity, glistened in the sunlight, and then disappeared in
+      the nearest fringe of thickets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil's Spur had crossed the river,
+      and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the Pioneer coach,
+      leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated bulk in the long
+      shadows of the descent. Conspicuous among the dusty passengers, the two
+      pretty and youthful faces of the daughters of Philip Carr, mining
+      superintendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little
+      anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below, that
+      occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zigzagging road. A
+      slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they gazed
+      upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that stood
+      equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble and
+      inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed
+      through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the preparation of that
+      long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and pastoral glades
+      and canyons, that, as the coach swept down the last incline, and the
+      remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out before them, furrowed by
+      ditches and indented by pits, under cover of shielding their cheeks from
+      the impalpable dust that rose beneath the plunging wheels, they buried
+      their faces in their handkerchiefs, to hide a few half-hysterical tears.
+      Happily, their father, completely absorbed in a practical, scientific, and
+      approving contemplation of the topography and material resources of the
+      scene of his future labors, had no time to notice their defection. It was
+      not until the stage drew up before a rambling tenement bearing the
+      inscription, &ldquo;Hotel and Stage Office,&rdquo; that he became fully aware of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can't stop HERE, papa,&rdquo; said Christie Carr decidedly, with a shake of
+      her pretty head. &ldquo;You can't expect that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Carr looked up at the building; it was half grocery, half saloon.
+      Whatever other accommodations it contained must have been hidden in the
+      rear, as the flat roof above was almost level with the raftered ceiling of
+      the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; he replied hurriedly; &ldquo;we'll see to that in a moment. I dare
+      say it's all right. I told Fairfax we were coming. Somebody ought to be
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they're not,&rdquo; said Jessie Carr indignantly; &ldquo;and the few that were
+      here scampered off like rabbits to their burrows as soon as they saw us
+      get down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was true. The little group of loungers before the building had suddenly
+      disappeared. There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing in an adjacent
+      doorway; the fading apparition of a pair of high boots and blue overalls
+      in another; the abrupt withdrawal of a curly blond head from a sashless
+      window over the way. Even the saloon was deserted, although a back door in
+      the dim recess seemed to creak mysteriously. The stage-coach, with the
+      other passengers, had already rattled away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly think Fairfax understood that I&mdash;&rdquo; began Mr. Carr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was interrupted by the pressure of Christie's fingers on his arm and a
+      subdued exclamation from Jessie, who was staring down the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they?&rdquo; she whispered in her sister's ear. &ldquo;Nigger minstrels, a
+      circus, or what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The five millionaires of Devil's Ford had just turned the corner of the
+      straggling street, and were approaching in single file. One glance was
+      sufficient to show that they had already availed themselves of the new
+      clothing bought by Fairfax, had washed, and one or two had shaved. But the
+      result was startling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the only
+      one who had achieved an entire new suit. But it was of funereal black
+      cloth, and although relieved at one extremity by a pair of high riding
+      boots, in which his too short trousers were tucked, and at the other by a
+      tall white hat, and cravat of aggressive yellow, the effect was
+      depressing. In agreeable contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was attired
+      in a thin fawn-colored summer overcoat, lightly worn open, so as to show
+      the unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of nankeen
+      trousers and pumps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Kearney brothers had divided a suit between them, the elder wearing a
+      tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock-coat and a pair of pink
+      striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly displayed the trousers
+      of his brother's suit, as a harmonious change to a shining black alpaca
+      coat and crimson neckerchief. Fairfax, who brought up the rear, had, with
+      characteristic unselfishness, contented himself with a French workman's
+      blue blouse and a pair of white duck trousers. Had they shown the least
+      consciousness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they would have seemed
+      despicable. But only one expression beamed on the five sunburnt and
+      shining faces&mdash;a look of unaffected boyish gratification and
+      unrestricted welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They halted before Mr. Carr and his daughters, simultaneously removed
+      their various and remarkable head coverings, and waited until Fairfax
+      advanced and severally presented them. Jessie Carr's half-frightened smile
+      took refuge in the trembling shadows of her dark lashes; Christie Carr
+      stiffened slightly, and looked straight before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We reckoned&mdash;that is&mdash;we intended to meet you and the young
+      ladies at the grade,&rdquo; said Fairfax, reddening a little as he endeavored to
+      conceal his too ready slang, &ldquo;and save you from trapesing&mdash;from
+      dragging yourselves up grade again to your house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there IS a house?&rdquo; said Jessie, with an alarming frank laugh of
+      relief, that was, however, as frankly reflected in the boyishly
+      appreciative eyes of the young men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such as it is,&rdquo; responded Fairfax, with a shade of anxiety, as he glanced
+      at the fresh and pretty costumes of the young women, and dubiously
+      regarded the two Saratoga trunks resting hopelessly on the veranda. &ldquo;I'm
+      afraid it isn't much, for what you're accustomed to. But,&rdquo; he added more
+      cheerfully, &ldquo;it will do for a day or two, and perhaps you'll give us the
+      pleasure of showing you the way there now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The procession was quickly formed. Mr. Carr, alive only to the actual
+      business that had brought him there, at once took possession of Fairfax,
+      and began to disclose his plans for the working of the mine, occasionally
+      halting to look at the work already done in the ditches, and to examine
+      the field of his future operations. Fairfax, not displeased at being thus
+      relieved of a lighter attendance on Mr. Carr's daughters, nevertheless
+      from time to time cast a paternal glance backwards upon their escorts, who
+      had each seized a handle of the two trunks, and were carrying them in
+      couples at the young ladies' side. The occupation did not offer much
+      freedom for easy gallantry, but no sign of discomfiture or uneasiness was
+      visible in the grateful faces of the young men. The necessity of changing
+      hands at times with their burdens brought a corresponding change of
+      cavalier at the lady's side, although it was observed that the younger
+      Kearney, for the sake of continuing a conversation with Miss Jessie, kept
+      his grasp of the handle nearest the young lady until his hand was nearly
+      cut through, and his arm worn out by exhaustion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only thing on wheels in the camp is a mule wagon, and the mules are
+      packin' gravel from the river this afternoon,&rdquo; explained Dick Mattingly
+      apologetically to Christie, &ldquo;or we'd have toted&mdash;I mean carried&mdash;you
+      and your baggage up to the shant&mdash;the&mdash;your house. Give us two
+      weeks more, Miss Carr&mdash;only two weeks to wash up our work and realize&mdash;and
+      we'll give you a pair of 2.40 steppers and a skeleton buggy to meet you at
+      the top of the hill and drive you over to the cabin. Perhaps you'd prefer
+      a regular carriage; some ladies do. And a nigger driver. But what's the
+      use of planning anything? Afore that time comes we'll have run you up a
+      house on the hill, and you shall pick out the spot. It wouldn't take long&mdash;unless
+      you preferred brick. I suppose we could get brick over from La Grange, if
+      you cared for it, but it would take longer. If you could put up for a time
+      with something of stained glass and a mahogany veranda&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of her cold indignation, and the fact that she could understand
+      only a part of Mattingly's speech, Christie comprehended enough to make
+      her lift her clear eyes to the speaker, as she replied freezingly that she
+      feared she would not trouble them long with her company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you'll get over that,&rdquo; responded Mattingly, with an exasperating
+      confidence that drove her nearly frantic, from the manifest kindliness of
+      intent that made it impossible for her to resent it. &ldquo;I felt that way
+      myself at first. Things will look strange and unsociable for a while,
+      until you get the hang of them. You'll naturally stamp round and cuss a
+      little&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped in conscious consternation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With ready tact, and before Christie could reply, Maryland Joe had put
+      down the trunk and changed hands with his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mustn't mind Dick, or he'll go off and kill himself with shame,&rdquo; he
+      whispered laughingly in her ear. &ldquo;He means all right, but he's picked up
+      so much slang here that he's about forgotten how to talk English, and it's
+      nigh on to four years since he's met a young lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie did not reply. Yet the laughter of her sister in advance with the
+      Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she tried to crush
+      further familiarity only ridiculous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her own,
+      and hesitated. After all, why should she add to her other real
+      disappointments by taking this absurd creature seriously?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way?&rdquo; she returned, with a half smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To play. On the piano, of course. There isn't one nearer here than
+      Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You
+      couldn't do anything on a banjo?&rdquo; he added doubtfully; &ldquo;Kearney's got
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those
+      mountains,&rdquo; said Christie laughingly, to avoid the collateral of the
+      banjo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We got a billiard-table over from Stockton,&rdquo; half bashfully interrupted
+      Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to recover his
+      composure, &ldquo;and it had to be brought over in sections on the back of a
+      mule, so I don't see why&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped short again in confusion, at a
+      sign from his brother, and then added, &ldquo;I mean, of course, that a piano is
+      a heap more delicate, and valuable, and all that sort of thing, but it's
+      worth trying for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fairfax was always saying he'd get one for himself, so I reckon it's
+      possible,&rdquo; said Joe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he play?&rdquo; asked Christie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet,&rdquo; said Joe, quite forgetting himself in his enthusiasm. &ldquo;He can
+      snatch Mozart and Beethoven bald-headed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the embarrassing silence that followed this speech the fringe of pine
+      wood nearest the flat was reached. Here there was a rude &ldquo;clearing,&rdquo; and
+      beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently joined tenements. There
+      was no attempt to conceal the point of junction between Kearney's cabin
+      and the newly-transported saloon from the flat&mdash;no architectural
+      illusion of the palpable collusion of the two buildings, which seemed to
+      be telescoped into each other. The front room or living room occupied the
+      whole of Kearney's cabin. It contained, in addition to the necessary
+      articles for housekeeping, a &ldquo;bunk&rdquo; or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to leave
+      the second building entirely to the occupation of his daughters as bedroom
+      and boudoir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude utensils
+      of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the two girls
+      entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor Jessie
+      could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept these young men from
+      accompanying them into the room they had but a few moments before
+      decorated and arranged with their own hands, and it was not until they
+      turned to thank their strange entertainers that they found that they were
+      gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrangement of the second room was rude and bizarre, but not without a
+      singular originality and even tastefulness of conception. What had been
+      the counter or &ldquo;bar&rdquo; of the saloon, gorgeous in white and gold, now sawn
+      in two and divided, was set up on opposite sides of the room as separate
+      dressing-tables, decorated with huge bunches of azaleas, that hid the
+      rough earthenware bowls, and gave each table the appearance of a vestal
+      altar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The huge gilt plate-glass mirror which had hung behind the bar still
+      occupied one side of the room, but its length was artfully divided by an
+      enormous rosette of red, white, and blue muslin&mdash;one of the surviving
+      Fourth of July decorations of Thompson's saloon. On either side of the
+      door two pathetic-looking, convent-like cots, covered with spotless
+      sheeting, and heaped up in the middle, like a snow-covered grave, had
+      attracted their attention. They were still staring at them when Mr. Carr
+      anticipated their curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought to tell you that the young men confided to me the fact that there
+      was neither bed nor mattress to be had on the Ford. They have filled some
+      flour sacks with clean dry moss from the woods, and put half a dozen
+      blankets on the top, and they hope you can get along until the messenger
+      who starts to-night for La Grange can bring some bedding over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jessie flew with mischievous delight to satisfy herself of the truth of
+      this marvel. &ldquo;It's so, Christie,&rdquo; she said laughingly&mdash;&ldquo;three
+      flour-sacks apiece; but I'm jealous: yours are all marked 'superfine,' and
+      mine 'middlings.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Carr had remained uneasily watching Christie's shadowed face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What matters?&rdquo; she said drily. &ldquo;The accommodation is all in keeping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be better in a day or two,&rdquo; he continued, casting a longing look
+      towards the door&mdash;the first refuge of masculine weakness in an
+      impending domestic emergency. &ldquo;I'll go and see what can be done,&rdquo; he said
+      feebly, with a sidelong impulse towards the opening and freedom. &ldquo;I've got
+      to see Fairfax again to-night any way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment, father,&rdquo; said Christie, wearily. &ldquo;Did you know anything of
+      this place and these&mdash;these people&mdash;before you came?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly&mdash;of course I did,&rdquo; he returned, with the sudden testiness
+      of disturbed abstraction. &ldquo;What are you thinking of? I knew the geological
+      strata and the&mdash;the report of Fairfax and his partners before I
+      consented to take charge of the works. And I can tell you that there is a
+      fortune here. I intend to make my own terms, and share in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And not take a salary or some sum of money down?&rdquo; said Christie, slowly
+      removing her bonnet in the same resigned way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not a hired man, or a workman, Christie,&rdquo; said her father sharply.
+      &ldquo;You ought not to oblige me to remind you of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the hired men&mdash;the superintendent and his workmen&mdash;were the
+      only ones who ever got anything out of your last experience with Colonel
+      Waters at La Grange, and&mdash;and we at least lived among civilized
+      people there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These young men are not common people, Christie; even if they have
+      forgotten the restraints of speech and manners, they're gentlemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are willing to live like&mdash;like negroes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can make them what you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie raised her eyes. There was a certain cynical ring in her father's
+      voice that was unlike his usual hesitating abstraction. It both puzzled
+      and pained her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; he said hastily, &ldquo;that you have the same opportunity to direct
+      the lives of these young men into more regular, disciplined channels that
+      I have to regulate and correct their foolish waste of industry and
+      material here. It would at least beguile the time for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately for Mr. Carr's escape and Christie's uneasiness, Jessie, who
+      had been examining the details of the living-room, broke in upon this
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sure it will be as good as a perpetual picnic. George Kearney says we
+      can have a cooking-stove under the tree outside at the back, and as there
+      will be no rain for three months we can do the cooking there, and that
+      will give us more room for&mdash;for the piano when it comes; and there's
+      an old squaw to do the cleaning and washing-up any day&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;it
+      will be real fun.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped breathlessly, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes&mdash;a
+      charming picture of youth and trustfulness. Mr. Carr had seized the
+      opportunity to escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, now, Christie,&rdquo; said Jessie confidentially, when they were alone,
+      and Christie had begun to unpack her trunk, and to mechanically put her
+      things away, &ldquo;they're not so bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; asked Christie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the Kearneys, and Mattinglys, and Fairfax, and the lot, provided you
+      don't look at their clothes. And think of it! they told me&mdash;for they
+      tell one EVERYTHING in the most alarming way&mdash;that those clothes were
+      bought to please US. A scramble of things bought at La Grange, without
+      reference to size or style. And to hear these creatures talk, why, you'd
+      think they were Astors or Rothschilds. Think of that little one with the
+      curls&mdash;I don't believe he is over seventeen, for all his baby
+      moustache&mdash;says he's going to build an assembly hall for us to give a
+      dance in next month; and apologizes the next breath to tell us that there
+      isn't any milk to be had nearer than La Grange, and we must do without it,
+      and use syrup in our tea to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where is all this wealth?&rdquo; said Christie, forcing herself to smile at
+      her sister's animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Under our very feet, my child, and all along the river. Why, what we
+      thought was pure and simple mud is what they call 'gold-bearing cement.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose that is why they don't brush their boots and trousers, it's so
+      precious,&rdquo; returned Christie drily. &ldquo;And have they ever translated this
+      precious dirt into actual coin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless you, yes. Why, that dirty little gutter, you know, that ran along
+      the side of the road and followed us down the hill all the way here, that
+      cost them&mdash;let me see&mdash;yes, nearly sixty thousand dollars. And
+      fancy! papa's just condemned it&mdash;says it won't do; and they've got to
+      build another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An impatient sigh from Christie drew Jessie's attention to her troubled
+      eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't worry about our disappointment, dear. It isn't so very great. I
+      dare say we'll be able to get along here in some way, until papa is rich
+      again. You know they intend to make him share with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It strikes me that he is sharing with them already,&rdquo; said Christie,
+      glancing bitterly round the cabin; &ldquo;sharing everything&mdash;ourselves,
+      our lives, our tastes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye-e-s!&rdquo; said Jessie, with vaguely hesitating assent. &ldquo;Yes, even these:&rdquo;
+       she showed two dice in the palm of her little hand. &ldquo;I found 'em in the
+      drawer of our dressing-table.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Throw them away,&rdquo; said Christie impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jessie's small fingers closed over the dice. &ldquo;I'll give them to the
+      little Kearney. I dare say they were the poor boy's playthings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The appearance of these relics of wild dissipation, however, had lifted
+      Christie out of her sublime resignation. &ldquo;For Heaven's sake, Jessie,&rdquo; she
+      said, &ldquo;look around and see if there is anything more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To make sure, they each began to scrimmage; the broken-spirited Christie
+      exhibiting both alacrity and penetration in searching obscure corners. In
+      the dining-room, behind the dresser, three or four books were discovered:
+      an odd volume of Thackeray, another of Dickens, a memorandum-book or
+      diary. &ldquo;This seems to be Latin,&rdquo; said Jessie, fishing out a smaller book.
+      &ldquo;I can't read it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's just as well you shouldn't,&rdquo; said Christie shortly, whose ideas of a
+      general classical impropriety had been gathered from pages of Lempriere's
+      dictionary. &ldquo;Put it back directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jessie returned certain odes of one Horatius Flaccus to the corner, and
+      uttered an exclamation. &ldquo;Oh, Christie! here are some letters tied up with
+      a ribbon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were two or three prettily written letters, exhaling a faint odor of
+      refinement and of the pressed flowers that peeped from between the loose
+      leaves. &ldquo;I see, 'My darling Fairfax.' It's from some woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think much of her, whosoever she is,&rdquo; said Christie, tossing the
+      intact packet back into the corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; echoed Jessie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, by some feminine inconsistency, evidently the circumstance
+      did make them think more of HIM, for a minute later, when they had
+      reentered their own room, Christie remarked, &ldquo;The idea of petting a man by
+      his family name! Think of mamma ever having called papa 'darling Carr'!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but his family name isn't Fairfax,&rdquo; said Jessie hastily; &ldquo;that's his
+      FIRST name, his Christian name. I forget what's his other name, but nobody
+      ever calls him by it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean,&rdquo; said Christie, with glistening eyes and awful deliberation&mdash;&ldquo;do
+      you mean to say that we're expected to fall in with this insufferable
+      familiarity? I suppose they'll be calling US by our Christian names next.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but they do!&rdquo; said Jessie, mischievously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They call me Miss Jessie; and Kearney, the little one, asked me if
+      Christie played.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what did you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said that you did,&rdquo; answered Jessie, with an affectation of cherubic
+      simplicity. &ldquo;You do, dear; don't you? . . . There, don't get angry,
+      darling; I couldn't flare up all of a sudden in the face of that poor
+      little creature; he looked so absurd&mdash;and so&mdash;so honest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie turned away, relapsing into her old resigned manner, and assuming
+      her household duties in a quiet, temporizing way that was, however,
+      without hope or expectation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Carr, who had dined with his friends under the excuse of not adding to
+      the awkwardness of the first day's housekeeping returned late at night
+      with a mass of papers and drawings, into which he afterwards withdrew, but
+      not until he had delivered himself of a mysterious package entrusted to
+      him by the young men for his daughters. It contained a contribution to
+      their board in the shape of a silver spoon and battered silver mug, which
+      Jessie chose to facetiously consider as an affecting reminiscence of the
+      youthful Kearney's christening days&mdash;which it probably was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girls retired early to their white snow-drifts: Jessie not
+      without some hilarious struggles with hers, in which she was, however,
+      quickly surprised by the deep and refreshing sleep of youth; Christie to
+      lie awake and listen to the night wind, that had changed from the first
+      cool whispers of sunset to the sturdy breath of the mountain. At times the
+      frail house shook and trembled. Wandering gusts laden with the deep
+      resinous odors of the wood found their way through the imperfect jointure
+      of the two cabins, swept her cheek and even stirred her long, wide-open
+      lashes. A broken spray of pine needles rustled along the roof, or a pine
+      cone dropped with a quick reverberating tap-tap that for an instant
+      startled her. Lying thus, wide awake, she fell into a dreamy reminiscence
+      of the past, hearing snatches of old melody in the moving pines, fragments
+      of sentences, old words, and familiar epithets in the murmuring wind at
+      her ear, and even the faint breath of long-forgotten kisses on her cheek.
+      She remembered her mother&mdash;a pallid creature, who had slowly faded
+      out of one of her father's vague speculations in a vaguer speculation of
+      her own, beyond his ken&mdash;whose place she had promised to take at her
+      father's side. The words, &ldquo;Watch over him, Christie; he needs a woman's
+      care,&rdquo; again echoed in her ears, as if borne on the night wind from the
+      lonely grave in the lonelier cemetery by the distant sea. She had devoted
+      herself to him with some little sacrifices of self, only remembered now
+      for their uselessness in saving her father the disappointment that sprang
+      from his sanguine and one-idea'd temperament. She thought of him lying
+      asleep in the other room, ready on the morrow to devote those fateful
+      qualities to the new enterprise that with equally fateful disposition she
+      believed would end in failure. It did not occur to her that the doubts of
+      her own practical nature were almost as dangerous and illogical as his
+      enthusiasm, and that for that reason she was fast losing what little
+      influence she possessed over him. With the example of her mother's
+      weakness before her eyes, she had become an unsparing and distrustful
+      critic, with the sole effect of awakening his distrust and withdrawing his
+      confidence from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was beginning to deceive her as he had never deceived her mother. Even
+      Jessie knew more of this last enterprise than she did herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that did not tend to decrease her utter restlessness. It was already
+      past midnight when she noticed that the wind had again abated. The
+      mountain breeze had by this time possessed the stifling valleys and heated
+      bars of the river in its strong, cold embraces; the equilibrium of Nature
+      was restored, and a shadowy mist rose from the hollow. A stillness, more
+      oppressive and intolerable than the previous commotion, began to pervade
+      the house and the surrounding woods. She could hear the regular breathing
+      of the sleepers; she even fancied she could detect the faint impulses of
+      the more distant life in the settlement. The far-off barking of a dog, a
+      lost shout, the indistinct murmur of some nearer watercourse&mdash;mere
+      phantoms of sound&mdash;made the silence more irritating. With a sudden
+      resolution she arose, dressed herself quietly and completely, threw a
+      heavy cloak over her head and shoulders, and opened the door between the
+      living-room and her own. Her father was sleeping soundly in his bunk in
+      the corner. She passed noiselessly through the room, opened the lightly
+      fastened door, and stepped out into the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the irritation and disgust of her walk hither, she had never noticed
+      the situation of the cabin, as it nestled on the slope at the fringe of
+      the woods; in the preoccupation of her disappointment and the mechanical
+      putting away of her things, she had never looked once from the window of
+      her room, or glanced backward out of the door that she had entered. The
+      view before her was a revelation&mdash;a reproach, a surprise that took
+      away her breath. Over her shoulders the newly risen moon poured a flood of
+      silvery light, stretching from her feet across the shining bars of the
+      river to the opposite bank, and on up to the very crest of the Devil's
+      Spur&mdash;no longer a huge bulk of crushing shadow, but the steady
+      exaltation of plateau, spur, and terrace clothed with replete and
+      unutterable beauty. In this magical light that beauty seemed to be
+      sustained and carried along by the river winding at its base, lifted again
+      to the broad shoulder of the mountain, and lost only in the distant vista
+      of death-like, overcrowning snow. Behind and above where she stood the
+      towering woods seemed to be waiting with opened ranks to absorb her with
+      the little cabin she had quitted, dwarfed into insignificance in the vast
+      prospect; but nowhere was there another sign or indication of human life
+      and habitation. She looked in vain for the settlement, for the rugged
+      ditches, the scattered cabins, and the unsightly heaps of gravel. In the
+      glamour of the moonlight they had vanished; a veil of silver-gray vapor
+      touched here and there with ebony shadows masked its site. A black strip
+      beyond was the river bank. All else was changed. With a sudden sense of
+      awe and loneliness she turned to the cabin and its sleeping inmates&mdash;all
+      that seemed left to her in the vast and stupendous domination of rock and
+      wood and sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in another moment the loneliness passed. A new and delicious sense of
+      an infinite hospitality and friendliness in their silent presence began to
+      possess her. This same slighted, forgotten, uncomprehended, but still
+      foolish and forgiving Nature seemed to be bending over her frightened and
+      listening ear with vague but thrilling murmurings of freedom and
+      independence. She felt her heart expand with its wholesome breath, her
+      soul fill with its sustaining truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An unmistakable outburst of a drunken song at the foot of the slope:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Oh, my name it is Johnny from Pike,
+     I'm h-ll on a spree or a strike.&rdquo; . . .
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      She stopped as crimson with shame and indignation as if the viewless
+      singer had risen before her.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;I knew when to bet, and get up and get&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! D&mdash;n it all. Don't you hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was the sound of hurried whispers, a &ldquo;No&rdquo; and &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; and then a dead
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie crept nearer to the edge of the slope in the shadow of a buckeye.
+      In the clearer view she could distinguish a staggering figure in the trail
+      below who had evidently been stopped by two other expostulating shadows
+      that were approaching from the shelter of a tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sho!&mdash;didn't know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The staggering figure endeavored to straighten itself, and then slouched
+      away in the direction of the settlement. The two mysterious shadows
+      retreated again to the tree, and were lost in its deeper shadow. Christie
+      darted back to the cabin, and softly reentered her room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I heard a noise that woke me, and I missed you,&rdquo; said Jessie,
+      rubbing her eyes. &ldquo;Did you see anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Christie, beginning to undress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You weren't frightened, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least,&rdquo; said Christie, with a strange little laugh. &ldquo;Go to
+      sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The five impulsive millionaires of Devil's Ford fulfilled not a few of
+      their most extravagant promises. In less than six weeks Mr. Carr and his
+      daughters were installed in a new house, built near the site of the double
+      cabin, which was again transferred to the settlement, in order to give
+      greater seclusion to the fair guests. It was a long, roomy, one-storied
+      villa, with a not unpicturesque combination of deep veranda and trellis
+      work, which relieved the flat monotony of the interior and the barrenness
+      of the freshly-cleared ground. An upright piano, brought from Sacramento,
+      occupied the corner of the parlor. A suite of gorgeous furniture, whose
+      pronounced and extravagant glories the young girls instinctively hid under
+      home-made linen covers, had also been spoils from afar. Elsewhere the
+      house was filled with ornaments and decorations that in their incongruity
+      forcibly recalled the gilded plate-glass mirrors of the bedroom in the old
+      cabin. In the hasty furnishing of this Aladdin's palace, the slaves of the
+      ring had evidently seized upon anything that would add to its glory,
+      without reference always to fitness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish it didn't look so cussedly like a robber's cave,&rdquo; said George
+      Kearney, when they were taking a quiet preliminary survey of the
+      unclassified treasures, before the Carrs took possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or a gambling hell,&rdquo; said his brother reflectively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's about the same thing, I reckon,&rdquo; said Dick Mattingly, who was
+      supposed, in his fiery youth, to have encountered the similarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the two girls managed to bestow the heterogeneous collection
+      with tasteful adaptation to their needs. A crystal chandelier, which had
+      once lent a fascinating illusion to the game of Monte, hung unlighted in
+      the broad hall, where a few other bizarre and public articles were
+      relegated. A long red sofa or bench, which had done duty beside a
+      billiard-table found a place here also. Indeed, it is to be feared that
+      some of the more rustic and bashful youths of Devil's Ford, who had felt
+      it incumbent upon them to pay their respects to the new-comers, were more
+      at ease in this vestibule than in the arcana beyond, whose glories they
+      could see through the open door. To others, it represented a recognized
+      state of probation before their re-entree into civilization again. &ldquo;I
+      reckon, if you don't mind, miss,&rdquo; said the spokesman of one party, &ldquo;ez
+      this is our first call, we'll sorter hang out in the hall yer, until you'r
+      used to us.&rdquo; On another occasion, one Whiskey Dick, impelled by a sense of
+      duty, paid a visit to the new house and its fair occupants, in a fashion
+      frankly recounted by him afterwards at the bar of the Tecumseh Saloon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, boys, I dropped in there the other night, when some of you
+      fellers was doin' the high-toned 'thankee, marm' business in the parlor. I
+      just came to anchor in the corner of the sofy in the hall, without lettin'
+      on to say that I was there, and took up a Webster's dictionary that was on
+      the table and laid it open&mdash;keerless like, on my knees, ez if I was
+      sorter consultin' it&mdash;and kinder dozed off there, listenin' to you
+      fellows gassin' with the young ladies, and that yer Miss Christie just
+      snakin' music outer that pianner, and I reckon I fell asleep. Anyhow, I
+      was there nigh on to two hours. It's mighty soothin', them fashionable
+      calls; sorter knocks the old camp dust outer a fellow, and sets him up
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It would have been well if the new life of the Devil's Ford had shown no
+      other irregularity than the harmless eccentricities of its original
+      locaters. But the news of its sudden fortune, magnified by report, began
+      presently to flood the settlement with another class of adventurers. A
+      tide of waifs, strays, and malcontents of old camps along the river began
+      to set towards Devil's Ford, in very much the same fashion as the debris,
+      drift, and alluvium had been carried down in bygone days and cast upon its
+      banks. A few immigrant wagons, diverted from the highways of travel by the
+      fame of the new diggings, halted upon the slopes of Devil's Spur and on
+      the arid flats of the Ford, and disgorged their sallow freight of
+      alkali-poisoned, prematurely-aged women and children and maimed and
+      fever-stricken men. Against this rude form of domesticity were opposed the
+      chromo-tinted dresses and extravagant complexions of a few single
+      unattended women&mdash;happily seen more often at night behind gilded bars
+      than in the garish light of day&mdash;and an equal number of pale-faced,
+      dark-moustached, well-dressed, and suspiciously idle men. A dozen rivals
+      of Thompson's Saloon had sprung up along the narrow main street. There
+      were two new hotels&mdash;one a &ldquo;Temperance House,&rdquo; whose ascetic quality
+      was confined only to the abnegation of whiskey&mdash;a rival stage office,
+      and a small one-storied building, from which the &ldquo;Sierran Banner&rdquo;
+       fluttered weekly, for &ldquo;ten dollars a year, in advance.&rdquo; Insufferable in
+      the glare of a Sabbath sun, bleak, windy, and flaring in the gloom of a
+      Sabbath night, and hopelessly depressing on all days of the week, the
+      First Presbyterian Church lifted its blunt steeple from the barrenest area
+      of the flats, and was hideous! The civic improvements so enthusiastically
+      contemplated by the five millionaires in the earlier pages of this
+      veracious chronicle&mdash;the fountain, reservoir, town-hall, and free
+      library&mdash;had not yet been erected. Their sites had been anticipated
+      by more urgent buildings and mining works, unfortunately not considered in
+      the sanguine dreams of the enthusiasts, and, more significant still, their
+      cost and expense had been also anticipated by the enormous outlay of their
+      earnings in the work upon Devil's Ditch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the liberal fulfilment of their promise in the new house in
+      the suburbs blinded the young girls' eyes to their shortcomings in the
+      town. Their own remoteness and elevation above its feverish life kept them
+      from the knowledge of much that was strange, and perhaps disturbing to
+      their equanimity. As they did not mix with the immigrant women&mdash;Miss
+      Jessie's good-natured intrusion into one of their half-nomadic camps one
+      day having been met with rudeness and suspicion&mdash;they gradually fell
+      into the way of trusting the responsibility of new acquaintances to the
+      hands of their original hosts, and of consulting them in the matter of
+      local recreation. It thus occurred that one day the two girls, on their
+      way to the main street for an hour's shopping at the Villa de Paris and
+      Variety Store, were stopped by Dick Mattingly a few yards from their
+      house, with the remark that, as the county election was then in progress,
+      it would be advisable for them to defer their intention for a few hours.
+      As he did not deem it necessary to add that two citizens, in the exercise
+      of a freeman's franchise, had been supplementing their ballots with
+      bullets, in front of an admiring crowd, they knew nothing of that accident
+      that removed from Devil's Ford an entertaining stranger, who had only the
+      night before partaken of their hospitality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week or two later, returning one morning from a stroll in the forest,
+      Christie and Jessie were waylaid by George Kearney and Fairfax, and, under
+      pretext of being shown a new and romantic trail, were diverted from the
+      regular path. This enabled Mattingly and Maryland Joe to cut down the body
+      of a man hanged by the Vigilance Committee a few hours before on the
+      regular trail, and to remonstrate with the committee on the
+      incompatibility of such exhibitions with a maidenly worship of nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the whole county to hang a man in,&rdquo; expostulated Joe, &ldquo;you might
+      keep clear of Carr's woods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is needless to add that the young girls never knew of this act of
+      violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it. Mr. Carr was
+      too absorbed in business to give heed to what he looked upon as a
+      convulsion of society as natural as a geological upheaval, and too prudent
+      to provoke the criticism of his daughters by comment in their presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An equally unexpected confidence, however, took its place. Mr. Carr having
+      finished his coffee one morning, lingered a moment over his perfunctory
+      paternal embraces, with the awkwardness of a preoccupied man endeavoring
+      by the assumption of a lighter interest to veil another abstraction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what are we doing to-day, Christie?&rdquo; he asked, as Jessie left the
+      dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, pretty much the usual thing&mdash;nothing in particular. If George
+      Kearney gets the horses from the summit, we're going to ride over to
+      Indian Spring to picnic. Fairfax&mdash;Mr. Munroe&mdash;I always forget
+      that man's real name in this dreadfully familiar country&mdash;well, he's
+      coming to escort us, and take me, I suppose&mdash;that is, if Kearney
+      takes Jessie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very nice arrangement,&rdquo; returned her father, with a slight nervous
+      contraction of the corners of his mouth and eyelids to indicate
+      mischievousness. &ldquo;I've no doubt they'll both be here. You know they
+      usually are&mdash;ha! ha! And what about the two Mattinglys and Philip
+      Kearney, eh?&rdquo; he continued; &ldquo;won't they be jealous?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't their turn,&rdquo; said Christie carelessly; &ldquo;besides, they'll
+      probably be there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I suppose they're beginning to be resigned,&rdquo; said Carr, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth are you talking of, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her clear brown eyes upon him, and was regarding him with such
+      manifest unconsciousness of the drift of his speech, and, withal, a little
+      vague impatience of his archness, that Mr. Carr was feebly alarmed. It had
+      the effect of banishing his assumed playfulness, which made his serious
+      explanation the more irritating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I rather thought that&mdash;that young Kearney was paying
+      considerable attention to&mdash;to&mdash;to Jessie,&rdquo; replied her father,
+      with hesitating gravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! that boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Young Kearney is one of the original locators, and an equal partner in
+      the mine. A very enterprising young fellow. In fact, much more advanced
+      and bolder in his conceptions than the others. I find no difficulty with
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At another time Christie would have questioned the convincing quality of
+      this proof, but she was too much shocked at her father's first suggestion,
+      to think of anything else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't mean to say, father, that you are talking seriously of these
+      men&mdash;your friends&mdash;whom we see every day&mdash;and our only
+      company?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; said Mr. Carr hastily; &ldquo;you misunderstand. I don't suppose that
+      Jessie or you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or ME! Am I included?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't let me speak, Christie. I mean, I am not talking seriously,&rdquo;
+       continued Mr. Carr, with his most serious aspect, &ldquo;of you and Jessie in
+      this matter; but it may be a serious thing to these young men to be thrown
+      continually in the company of two attractive girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand&mdash;you mean that we should not see so much of them,&rdquo; said
+      Christie, with a frank expression of relief so genuine as to utterly
+      discompose her father. &ldquo;Perhaps you are right, though I fail to discover
+      anything serious in the attentions of young Kearney to Jessie&mdash;or&mdash;whoever
+      it may be&mdash;to me. But it will be very easy to remedy it, and see less
+      of them. Indeed, we might begin to-day with some excuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;certainly. Of course!&rdquo; said Mr. Carr, fully convinced of his
+      utter failure, but, like most weak creatures, consoling himself with the
+      reflection that he had not shown his hand or committed himself. &ldquo;Yes; but
+      it would perhaps be just as well for the present to let things go on as
+      they were. We'll talk of it again&mdash;I'm in a hurry now,&rdquo; and, edging
+      himself through the door, he slipped away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think is father's last idea?&rdquo; said Christie, with, I fear, a
+      slight lack of reverence in her tone, as her sister reentered the room.
+      &ldquo;He thinks George Kearney is paying you too much attention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Jessie, replying to her sister's half-interrogative,
+      half-amused glance with a frank, unconscious smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and he says that Fairfax&mdash;I think it's Fairfax&mdash;is equally
+      fascinated with ME.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jessie's brow slightly contracted as she looked curiously at her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of all things,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I wonder if any one has put that idea into his
+      dear old head. He couldn't have thought it himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; said Christie musingly; &ldquo;but perhaps it's just as well if
+      we kept a little more to ourselves for a while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did father say so?&rdquo; said Jessie quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but that is evidently what he meant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye-es,&rdquo; said Jessie slowly, &ldquo;unless&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless what?&rdquo; said Christie sharply. &ldquo;Jessie, you don't for a moment mean
+      to say that you could possibly conceive of anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean to say,&rdquo; said Jessie, stealing her arm around her sister's waist
+      demurely, &ldquo;that you are perfectly right. We'll keep away from these
+      fascinating Devil's Forders, and particularly the youngest Kearney. I
+      believe there has been some ill-natured gossip. I remember that the other
+      day, when we passed the shanty of that Pike County family on the slope,
+      there were three women at the door, and one of them said something that
+      made poor little Kearney turn white and pink alternately, and dance with
+      suppressed rage. I suppose the old lady&mdash;M'Corkle, that's her name&mdash;would
+      like to have a share of our cavaliers for her Euphemy and Mamie. I dare
+      say it's only right; I would lend them the cherub occasionally, and you
+      might let them have Mr. Munroe twice a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed, but her eyes sought her sister's with a certain watchfulness
+      of expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie shrugged her shoulders, with a suggestion of disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't joke. We ought to have thought of all this before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when we first knew them, in the dear old cabin, there wasn't any
+      other woman and nobody to gossip, and that's what made it so nice. I don't
+      think so very much of civilization, do you?&rdquo; said the young lady pertly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie did not reply. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing. It
+      certainly had been very pleasant to enjoy the spontaneous and chivalrous
+      homage of these men, with no further suggestion of recompense or
+      responsibility than the permission to be worshipped; but beyond that she
+      racked her brain in vain to recall any look or act that proclaimed the
+      lover. These men, whom she had found so relapsed into barbarism that they
+      had forgotten the most ordinary forms of civilization; these men, even in
+      whose extravagant admiration there was a certain loss of self-respect,
+      that as a woman she would never forgive; these men, who seemed to belong
+      to another race&mdash;impossible! Yet it was so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What construction must they have put upon her father's acceptance of
+      their presents&mdash;of their company&mdash;of her freedom in their
+      presence? No! they must have understood from the beginning that she and
+      her sister had never looked upon them except as transient hosts and chance
+      acquaintances. Any other idea was preposterous. And yet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the recurrence of this &ldquo;yet&rdquo; that alarmed her. For she remembered
+      now that but for their slavish devotion they might claim to be her equal.
+      According to her father's account, they had come from homes as good as
+      their own; they were certainly more than her equal in fortune; and her
+      father had come to them as an employee, until they had taken him into
+      partnership. If there had only been sentiment of any kind connected with
+      any of them! But they were all alike, brave, unselfish, humorous&mdash;and
+      often ridiculous. If anything, Dick Mattingly was funniest by nature, and
+      made her laugh more. Maryland Joe, his brother, told better stories
+      (sometimes of Dick), though not so good a mimic as the other Kearney, who
+      had a fairly sympathetic voice in singing. They were all good-looking
+      enough; perhaps they set store on that&mdash;men are so vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as for her own rejected suitor, Fairfax Munroe, except for a kind of
+      grave and proper motherliness about his protecting manner, he absolutely
+      was the most indistinctive of them all. He had once brought her some rare
+      tea from the Chinese camp, and had taught her how to make it; he had
+      cautioned her against sitting under the trees at nightfall; he had once
+      taken off his coat to wrap around her. Really, if this were the only
+      evidence of devotion that could be shown, she was safe!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Jessie, &ldquo;it amuses you, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie checked the smile that had been dimpling the cheek nearest
+      Jessie, and turned upon her the face of an elder sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, have YOU noticed this extraordinary attention of Mr. Munroe to
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Candidly?&rdquo; asked Jessie, seating herself comfortably on the table
+      sideways, and endeavoring, to pull her skirt over her little feet. &ldquo;Honest
+      Injun?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be idiotic, and, above all, don't be slangy! Of course, candidly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, no. I can't say that I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Christie, &ldquo;why in the name of all that's preposterous, do
+      they persist in pairing me off with the least interesting man of the lot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jessie leaped from the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come now,&rdquo; she said, with a little nervous laugh, &ldquo;he's not so bad as all
+      that. You don't know him. But what does it matter now, as long as we're
+      not going to see them any more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're coming here for the ride to-day,&rdquo; said Christie resignedly.
+      &ldquo;Father thought it better not to break it off at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father thought so!&rdquo; echoed Jessie, stopping with her hand on the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; why do you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jessie had already left the room, and was singing in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The afternoon did not, however, bring their expected visitors. It brought,
+      instead, a brief note by the hands of Whiskey Dick from Fairfax,
+      apologizing for some business that kept him and George Kearney from
+      accompanying the ladies. It added that the horses were at the disposal of
+      themselves and any escort they might select, if they would kindly give the
+      message to Whiskey Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two girls looked at each other awkwardly; Jessie did not attempt to
+      conceal a slight pout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks as if they were anticipating us,&rdquo; she said, with a half-forced
+      smile. &ldquo;I wonder, now, if there really has been any gossip? But no! They
+      wouldn't have stopped for that, unless&mdash;&rdquo; She looked curiously at her
+      sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless what?&rdquo; repeated Christie; &ldquo;you are horribly mysterious this
+      morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I? It's nothing. But they're wanting an answer. Of course you'll
+      decline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And intimate we only care for their company! No! We'll say we're sorry
+      they can't come, and&mdash;accept their horses. We can do without an
+      escort, we two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Capital!&rdquo; said Jessie, clapping her hands. &ldquo;We'll show them&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll show them nothing,&rdquo; interrupted Christie decidedly. &ldquo;In our place
+      there's only the one thing to do. Where is this&mdash;Whiskey Dick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the parlor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The parlor!&rdquo; echoed Christie. &ldquo;Whiskey Dick? What&mdash;is he&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; he's all right,&rdquo; said Jessie confidently. &ldquo;He's been here before,
+      but he stayed in the hall; he was so shy. I don't think you saw him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think not&mdash;Whiskey Dick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you can call him Mr. Hall, if you like,&rdquo; said Jessie, laughing. &ldquo;His
+      real name is Dick Hall. If you want to be funny, you can say Alky Hall, as
+      the others do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie's only reply to this levity was a look of superior resignation as
+      she crossed the hall and entered the parlor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then ensued one of those surprising, mystifying, and utterly inexplicable
+      changes that leave the masculine being so helpless in the hands of his
+      feminine master. Before Christie opened the door her face underwent a
+      rapid transformation: the gentle glow of a refined woman's welcome
+      suddenly beamed in her interested eyes; the impulsive courtesy of an
+      expectant hostess eagerly seizing a long-looked-for opportunity broke in a
+      smile upon her lips as she swept across the room, and stopped with her two
+      white outstretched hands before Whiskey Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It needed only the extravagant contrast presented by that gentleman to
+      complete the tableau. Attired in a suit of shining black alpaca, the
+      visitor had evidently prepared himself with some care for a possible
+      interview. He was seated by the French window opening upon the veranda, as
+      if to secure a retreat in case of an emergency. Scrupulously washed and
+      shaven, some of the soap appeared to have lingered in his eyes and
+      inflamed the lids, even while it lent a sleek and shining lustre, not
+      unlike his coat, to his smooth black hair. Nevertheless, leaning back in
+      his chair, he had allowed a large white handkerchief to depend gracefully
+      from his fingers&mdash;a pose at once suggesting easy and elegant langour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How kind of you to give me an opportunity to make up for my misfortune
+      when you last called! I was so sorry to have missed you. But it was
+      entirely my fault! You were hurried, I think&mdash;you conversed with
+      others in the hall&mdash;you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped to assist him to pick up the handkerchief that had fallen, and
+      the Panama hat that had rolled from his lap towards the window when he had
+      started suddenly to his feet at the apparition of grace and beauty. As he
+      still nervously retained the two hands he had grasped, this would have
+      been a difficult feat, even had he not endeavored at the same moment, by a
+      backward furtive kick, to propel the hat out of the window, at which she
+      laughingly broke from his grasp and flew to the rescue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't mind it, miss,&rdquo; he said hurriedly. &ldquo;It is not worth your demeaning
+      yourself to touch it. Leave it outside thar, miss. I wouldn't have toted
+      it in, anyhow, if some of those high-falutin' fellows hadn't allowed, the
+      other night, ez it were the reg'lar thing to do; as if, miss, any
+      gentleman kalkilated to ever put on his hat in the house afore a lady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Christie had already possessed herself of the unlucky object, and had
+      placed it upon the table. This compelled Whiskey Dick to rise again, and
+      as an act of careless good breeding to drop his handkerchief in it. He
+      then leaned one elbow upon the piano, and, crossing one foot over the
+      other, remained standing in an attitude he remembered to have seen in the
+      pages of an illustrated paper as portraying the hero in some drawing-room
+      scene. It was easy and effective, but seemed to be more favorable to
+      revery than conversation. Indeed, he remembered that he had forgotten to
+      consult the letterpress as to which it represented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you agree with me, that politeness is quite a matter of intention,&rdquo;
+       said Christie, &ldquo;and not of mere fashion and rules. Now, for instance,&rdquo; she
+      continued, with a dazzling smile, &ldquo;I suppose, according to the rules, I
+      ought to give you a note to Mr. Munroe, accepting his offer. That is all
+      that is required; but it seems so much nicer, don't you think, to tell it
+      to YOU for HIM, and have the pleasure of your company and a little chat at
+      the same time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it, that's just it, Miss Carr; you've hit it in the centre this
+      time,&rdquo; said Whiskey Dick, now quite convinced that his attitude was not
+      intended for eloquence, and shifting back to his own seat, hat and all;
+      &ldquo;that's tantamount to what I said to the boys just now. 'You want an
+      excuse,' sez I, 'for not goin' out with the young ladies. So, accorden' to
+      rules, you writes a letter allowin' buzziness and that sorter thing
+      detains you. But wot's the facts? You're a gentleman, and as gentlemen you
+      and George comes to the opinion that you're rather playin' it for all it's
+      worth in this yer house, you know&mdash;comin' here night and day, off and
+      on, reg'lar sociable and fam'ly like, and makin' people talk about things
+      they ain't any call to talk about, and, what's a darned sight more, YOU
+      FELLOWS ain't got any right YET to allow 'em to talk about, d'ye see?&rdquo; he
+      paused, out of breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Miss Christie's turn to move about. In changing her seat to the
+      piano-stool, so as to be nearer her visitor, she brushed down some loose
+      music, which Whiskey Dick hastened to pick up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray don't mind it,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;pray don't, really&mdash;let it be&mdash;&rdquo;
+       But Whiskey Dick, feeling himself on safe ground in this attention,
+      persisted to the bitter end of a disintegrated and well-worn &ldquo;Travatore.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;So that is what Mr. Munroe said,&rdquo; she remarked quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not just then, in course, but it's what's bin on his mind and in his talk
+      for days off and on,&rdquo; returned Dick, with a knowing smile and a nod of
+      mysterious confidence. &ldquo;Bless your soul, Miss Carr, folks like you and me
+      don't need to have them things explained. That's what I said to him, sez
+      I. 'Don't send no note, but just go up there and hev it out fair and
+      square, and say what you do mean.' But they would hev the note, and I
+      kalkilated to bring it. But when I set my eyes on you, and heard you
+      express yourself as you did just now, I sez to myself, sez I, 'Dick, yer's
+      a young lady, and a fash'nable lady at that, ez don't go foolin' round on
+      rules and etiketts'&mdash;excuse my freedom, Miss Carr&mdash;'and you and
+      her, sez I, 'kin just discuss this yer matter in a sociable, off-hand,
+      fash'nable way.' They're a good lot o' boys, Miss Carr, a square lot&mdash;white
+      men all of 'em; but they're a little soft and green, may be, from livin'
+      in these yer pine woods along o' the other sap. They just worship the
+      ground you and your sister tread on&mdash;certain! of course! of course!&rdquo;
+       he added hurriedly, recognizing Christie's half-conscious, deprecating
+      gesture with more exaggerated deprecation. &ldquo;I understand. But what I
+      wanter say is that they'd be willin' to be that ground, and lie down and
+      let you walk over them&mdash;so to speak, Miss Carr, so to speak&mdash;if
+      it would keep the hem of your gown from gettin' soiled in the mud o' the
+      camp. But it wouldn't do for them to make a reg'lar curderoy road o'
+      themselves for the houl camp to trapse over, on the mere chance of your
+      some time passin' that way, would it now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you let me offer you some refreshment, Mr. Hall?&rdquo; said Christie,
+      rising, with a slight color. &ldquo;I'm really ashamed of my forgetfulness
+      again, but I'm afraid it's partly YOUR fault for entertaining me to the
+      exclusion of yourself. No, thank you, let me fetch it for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to a handsome sideboard near the door, and presently faced him
+      again with a decanter of whiskey and a glass in her hand, and a return of
+      the bewitching smile she had worn on entering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But perhaps you don't take whiskey?&rdquo; suggested the arch deceiver, with a
+      sudden affected but pretty perplexity of eye, brow, and lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time in his life Whiskey Dick hesitated between two forms of
+      intoxication. But he was still nervous and uneasy; habit triumphed, and he
+      took the whiskey. He, however, wiped his lips with a slight wave of his
+      handkerchief, to support a certain easy elegance which he firmly believed
+      relieved the act of any vulgar quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, ma'am,&rdquo; he continued, after an exhilarated pause. &ldquo;Ez I said afore,
+      this yer's a matter you and me can discuss after the fashion o' society.
+      My idea is that these yer boys should kinder let up on you and Miss Jessie
+      for a while, and do a little more permiskus attention round the Ford.
+      There's one or two families yer with grown-up gals ez oughter be squared;
+      that is&mdash;the boys mighter put in a few fancy touches among them&mdash;kinder
+      take 'em buggy riding&mdash;or to church&mdash;once in a while&mdash;just
+      to take the pizen outer their tongues, and make a kind o' bluff to the
+      parents, d'ye see? That would sorter divert their own minds; and even if
+      it didn't, it would kinder get 'em accustomed agin to the old style and
+      their own kind. I want to warn ye agin an idea that might occur to you in
+      a giniral way. I don't say you hev the idea, but it's kind o' nat'ral you
+      might be thinkin' of it some time, and I thought I'd warn you agin it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we understand each other too well to differ much, Mr. Hall,&rdquo; said
+      Christie, still smiling; &ldquo;but what is the idea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The delicate compliment to their confidential relations and the slight
+      stimulus of liquor had tremulously exalted Whiskey Dick. Affecting to look
+      cautiously out of the window and around the room, he ventured to draw
+      nearer the young woman with a half-paternal, half-timid familiarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might have occurred to you,&rdquo; he said, laying his handkerchief as if to
+      veil mere vulgar contact, on Christie's shoulder, &ldquo;that it would be a good
+      thing on YOUR side to invite down some of your high-toned gentlemen
+      friends from 'Frisco to visit you and escort you round. It seems quite
+      nat'ral like, and I don't say it ain't, but&mdash;the boys wouldn't stand
+      for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of her self-possession, Christie's eyes suddenly darkened, and
+      she involuntarily drew herself up. But Whiskey Dick, guiltily attributing
+      the movement to his own indiscreet gesture, said, &ldquo;Excuse me, miss,&rdquo;
+       recovered himself by lightly dusting her shoulder with his handkerchief,
+      as if to remove the impression, and her smile returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They wouldn't stand for it,&rdquo; said Dick, &ldquo;and there'd be some shooting!
+      Not afore you, miss&mdash;not afore you, in course! But they'd adjourn to
+      the woods some morning with them city folks, and hev it out with rifles at
+      a hundred yards. Or, seein' ez they're city folks, the boys would do the
+      square thing with pistols at twelve paces. They're good boys, as I said
+      afore; but they're quick and tetchy&mdash;George, being the youngest,
+      nat'rally is the tetchiest. You know how it is, Miss Carr; his pretty,
+      gal-like face and little moustaches haz cost him half a dozen scrimmages
+      already. He'z had a fight for every hair that's growed in his moustache
+      since he kem here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say no more, Mr. Hall!&rdquo; said Christie, rising and pressing her hands
+      lightly on Dick's tremulous fingers. &ldquo;If I ever had any such idea, I
+      should abandon it now; you are quite right in this as in your other
+      opinions. I shall never cease to be thankful to Mr. Munroe and Mr. Kearney
+      that they intrusted this delicate matter to your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the gratified and reddening visitor, &ldquo;it ain't perhaps the
+      square thing to them or myself to say that they reckoned to have me
+      discuss their delicate affairs for them, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; interrupted Christie. &ldquo;They simply gave you the letter as
+      a friend. It was my good fortune to find you a sympathizing and liberal
+      man of the world.&rdquo; The delighted Dick, with conscious vanity beaming from
+      every feature of his shining face, lightly waved the compliment aside with
+      his handkerchief, as she continued, &ldquo;But I am forgetting the message. We
+      accept the horses. Of course we COULD do without an escort; but forgive my
+      speaking so frankly, are YOU engaged this afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, miss, I don't take&mdash;&rdquo; stammered Dick, scarcely believing
+      his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could you give us your company as an escort?&rdquo; repeated Christie with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was he awake or dreaming, or was this some trick of liquor in his often
+      distorted fancy? He, Whiskey Dick! the butt of his friends, the chartered
+      oracle of the barrooms, even in whose wretched vanity there was always the
+      haunting suspicion that he was despised and scorned; he, who had dared so
+      much in speech, and achieved so little in fact! he, whose habitual
+      weakness had even led him into the wildest indiscretion here; he&mdash;now
+      offered a reward for that indiscretion! He, Whiskey Dick, the solicited
+      escort of these two beautiful and peerless girls! What would they say at
+      the Ford? What would his friends think? It would be all over the Ford the
+      next day. His past would be vindicated, his future secured. He grew erect
+      at the thought. It was almost in other voice, and with no trace of his
+      previous exaggeration, that he said, &ldquo;With pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, if you will bring the horses at once, we shall be ready when you
+      return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In another instant he had vanished, as if afraid to trust the reality of
+      his good fortune to the dangers of delay. At the end of half an hour he
+      reappeared, leading the two horses, himself mounted on a half-broken
+      mustang. A pair of large, jingling silver spurs and a stiff sombrero,
+      borrowed with the mustang from some mysterious source, were donned to do
+      honor to the occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girls were not yet ready, but he was shown by the Chinese
+      servant into the parlor to wait for them. The decanter of whiskey and
+      glasses were still invitingly there. He was hot, trembling, and flushed
+      with triumph. He walked to the table and laid his hand on the decanter,
+      when an odd thought flashed upon him. He would not drink this time. No, it
+      should not be said that he, the selected escort of the elite of Devil's
+      Ford, had to fill himself up with whiskey before they started. The boys
+      might turn to each other in their astonishment, as he proudly passed with
+      his fair companions, and say, &ldquo;It's Whiskey Dick,&rdquo; but he'd be d&mdash;&mdash;d
+      if they should add, &ldquo;and full as ever.&rdquo; No, sir! Nor when he was riding
+      beside these real ladies, and leaning over them at some confidential
+      moment, should they even know it from his breath! No. . . . Yet a
+      thimbleful, taken straight, only a thimbleful, wouldn't be much, and might
+      help to pull him together. He again reached his trembling hand for the
+      decanter, hesitated, and then, turning his back upon it, resolutely walked
+      to the open window. Almost at the same instant he found himself face to
+      face with Christie on the veranda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked into his bloodshot eyes, and cast a swift glance at the
+      decanter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you take something before you go?&rdquo; she said sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;reckon&mdash;not, jest now,&rdquo; stammered Whiskey Dick, with a
+      heroic effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're right,&rdquo; said Christie. &ldquo;I see you are like me. It's too hot for
+      anything fiery. Come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She led him into the dining-room, and pouring out a glass of iced tea
+      handed it to him. Poor Dick was not prepared for this terrible
+      culmination. Whiskey Dick and iced tea! But under pretence of seeing if it
+      was properly flavored, Christie raised it to her own lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try it, to please me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drained the goblet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, then,&rdquo; said Christie gayly, &ldquo;let's find Jessie, and be off!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Whatever might have been his other deficiencies as an escort, Whiskey Dick
+      was a good horseman, and, in spite of his fractious brute, exhibited such
+      skill and confidence as to at once satisfy the young girls of his value to
+      them in the management of their own horses, to whom side-saddles were
+      still an alarming novelty. Jessie, who had probably already learned from
+      her sister the purport of Dick's confidences, had received him with equal
+      cordiality and perhaps a more unqualified amusement; and now, when fairly
+      lifted into the saddle by his tremulous but respectful hands, made a very
+      charming picture of youthful and rosy satisfaction. And when Christie,
+      more fascinating than ever in her riding-habit, took her place on the
+      other side of Dick, as they sallied from the gate, that gentleman felt his
+      cup of happiness complete. His triumphal entree into the world of
+      civilization and fashion was secure. He did not regret the untasted
+      liquor; here was an experience in after years to lean his back against
+      comfortably in bar-rooms, to entrance or defy mankind. He had even got so
+      far as to formulate in fancy the sentence: &ldquo;I remember, gentlemen, that
+      one afternoon, being on a pasear with two fash'nable young ladies,&rdquo; etc.,
+      etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At present, however, he was obliged to confine himself to the functions of
+      an elegant guide and cicerone&mdash;when not engaged in &ldquo;having it out&rdquo;
+       with his horse. Their way lay along the slope, crossing the high-road at
+      right angles, to reach the deeper woods beyond. Dick would have lingered
+      on the highway&mdash;ostensibly to point out to his companions the new
+      flume that had taken the place of the condemned ditch, but really in the
+      hope of exposing himself in his glory to the curious eyes of the wayfaring
+      world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unhappily the road was deserted in the still powerful sunlight, and he was
+      obliged to seek the cover of the woods, with a passing compliment to the
+      parent of his charges. Waving his hands towards the flume, he said, &ldquo;Look
+      at that work of your father's; there ain't no other man in Californy but
+      Philip Carr ez would hev the grit to hold up such a bluff agin natur and
+      agin luck ez that yer flume stands for. I don't say it 'cause you're his
+      daughters, ladies! That ain't the style, ez YOU know, in sassiety, Miss
+      Carr,&rdquo; he added, turning to Christie as the more socially experienced.
+      &ldquo;No! but there ain't another man to be found ez could do it. It cost
+      already two hundred thousand; it'll cost five hundred thousand afore it's
+      done; and every cent of it is got out of the yearth beneath it, or HEZ got
+      to be out of it. 'Tain't ev'ry man, Miss Carr, ez hev got the pluck to
+      pledge not only what he's got, but what he reckons to git.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But suppose he don't get it?&rdquo; said Christie, slightly contracting her
+      brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there's the flume to show for it,&rdquo; said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of what use is the flume, if there isn't any more gold?&rdquo; continued
+      Christie, almost angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's good from YOU, miss,&rdquo; said Dick, giving way to a fit of hilarity.
+      &ldquo;That's good for a fash'nable young lady&mdash;own daughter of Philip
+      Carr. She sez, says she,&rdquo; continued Dick, appealing to the sedate pines
+      for appreciation of Christie's rare humor, &ldquo;'Wot's the use of a flume,
+      when gold ain't there?' I must tell that to the boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what's the use of the gold in the ground when the flume isn't there
+      to work it out?&rdquo; said Jessie to her sister, with a cautioning glance
+      towards Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dick did not notice the look that passed between the sisters. The
+      richer humor of Jessie's retort had thrown him into convulsions of
+      laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now SHE says, wot's the use o' the gold without the flume? 'Xcuse me,
+      ladies, but that's just puttin' the hull question that's agitatin' this
+      yer camp inter two speeches as clear as crystal. There's the hull crowd
+      outside&mdash;and some on 'em inside, like Fairfax, hez their doubts&mdash;ez
+      says with Miss Christie; and there's all of us inside, ez holds Miss
+      Jessie's views.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never heard Mr. Munroe say that the flume was wrong,&rdquo; said Jessie
+      quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to you, nat'rally,&rdquo; said Dick, with a confidential look at Christie;
+      &ldquo;but I reckon he'd like some of the money it cost laid out for suthin'
+      else. But what's the odds? The gold is there, and WE'RE bound to get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick was the foreman of a gang of paid workmen, who had replaced the
+      millionaires in mere manual labor, and the WE was a polite figure of
+      speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation seemed to have taken an unfortunate turn, and both the
+      girls experienced a feeling of relief when they entered the long gulch or
+      defile that led to Indian Spring. The track now becoming narrow, they were
+      obliged to pass in single file along the precipitous hillside, led by this
+      escort. This effectually precluded any further speech, and Christie at
+      once surrendered herself to the calm, obliterating influences of the
+      forest. The settlement and its gossip were far behind and forgotten. In
+      the absorption of nature, her companions passed out of her mind, even as
+      they sometimes passed out of her sight in the windings of the shadowy
+      trail. As she rode alone, the fronds of breast-high ferns seemed to caress
+      her with outstretched and gently-detaining hands; strange wildflowers
+      sprang up through the parting underbrush; even the granite rocks that at
+      times pressed closely upon the trail appeared as if cushioned to her
+      contact with star-rayed mosses, or lightly flung after her long lassoes of
+      delicate vines. She recalled the absolute freedom of their al-fresco life
+      in the old double cabin, when she spent the greater part of her waking
+      hours under the mute trees in the encompassing solitude, and, half
+      regretting the more civilized restraints of this newer and more ambitious
+      abode, forgot that she had ever rebelled against it. The social
+      complication that threatened her now seemed to her rather the outcome of
+      her half-civilized parlor than of the sylvan glade. How easy it would have
+      been to have kept the cabin, and then to have gone away entirely, than for
+      her father to have allowed them to be compromised with the growing
+      fortunes of the settlement! The suspicions and distrust that she had
+      always felt of their fortunes seemed to grow with the involuntary
+      admission of Whiskey Dick that they were shared by others who were
+      practical men. She was fain to have recourse to the prospect again to
+      banish these thoughts, and this opened her eyes to the fact that her
+      companions had been missing from the trail ahead of her for some time. She
+      quickened her pace slightly to reach a projecting point of rock that gave
+      her a more extended prospect. But they had evidently disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was neither alarmed nor annoyed. She could easily overtake them soon,
+      for they would miss her, and return or wait for her at the spring. At the
+      worst she would have no difficulty in retracing her steps home. In her
+      present mood, she could readily spare their company; indeed she was not
+      sorry that no other being should interrupt that sympathy with the free
+      woods which was beginning to possess her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was destined, however, to be disappointed. She had not proceeded a
+      hundred yards before she noticed the moving figure of a man beyond her in
+      the hillside chaparral above the trail. He seemed to be going in the same
+      direction as herself, and, as she fancied, endeavoring to avoid her. This
+      excited her curiosity to the point of urging her horse forward until the
+      trail broadened into the level forest again, which she now remembered was
+      a part of the environs of Indian Spring. The stranger hesitated, pausing
+      once or twice with his back towards her, as if engaged in carefully
+      examining the dwarf willows to select a switch. Christie slightly checked
+      her speed as she drew nearer; when, as if obedient to a sudden resolution,
+      he turned and advanced towards her. She was relieved and yet surprised to
+      recognize the boyish face and figure of George Kearney. He was quite pale
+      and agitated, although attempting, by a jaunty swinging of the switch he
+      had just cut, to assume the appearance of ease and confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was an opportunity. Christie resolved to profit by it. She did not
+      doubt that the young fellow had already passed her sister on the trail,
+      but, from bashfulness, had not dared to approach her. By inviting his
+      confidence, she would doubtless draw something from him that would deny or
+      corroborate her father's opinion of his sentiments. If he was really in
+      love with Jessie, she would learn what reasons he had for expecting a
+      serious culmination of his suit, and perhaps she might be able delicately
+      to open his eyes to the truth. If, as she believed, it was only a boyish
+      fancy, she would laugh him out of it with that camaraderie which had
+      always existed between them. A half motherly sympathy, albeit born quite
+      as much from a contemplation of his beautiful yearning eyes as from his
+      interesting position, lightened the smile with which she greeted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you contrived to throw over your stupid business and join us, after
+      all,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;or was it that you changed your mind at the last moment?&rdquo;
+       she added mischievously. &ldquo;I thought only we women were permitted that!&rdquo;
+       Indeed, she could not help noticing that there was really a strong
+      feminine suggestion in the shifting color and slightly conscious eyelids
+      of the young fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do young girls always change their minds?&rdquo; asked George, with an
+      embarrassed smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not, always; but sometimes they don't know their own mind&mdash;particularly
+      if they are very young; and when they do at last, you clever creatures of
+      men, who have interpreted their ignorance to please yourselves, abuse them
+      for being fickle.&rdquo; She stopped to observe the effect of what she believed
+      a rather clear and significant exposition of Jessie's and George's
+      possible situation. But she was not prepared for the look of blank
+      resignation that seemed to drive the color from his face and moisten the
+      fire of his dark eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon you're right,&rdquo; he said, looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! we're not accusing you of fickleness,&rdquo; said Christie gayly; &ldquo;although
+      you didn't come, and we were obliged to ask Mr. Hall to join us. I suppose
+      you found him and Jessie just now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But George made no reply. The color was slowly coming back to his face,
+      which, as she glanced covertly at him, seemed to have grown so much older
+      that his returning blood might have brought two or three years with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, Mr. Kearney,&rdquo; she said dryly, &ldquo;one would think that some silly,
+      conceited girl&rdquo;&mdash;she was quite earnest in her epithets, for a sudden,
+      angry conviction of some coquetry and disingenuousness in Jessie had come
+      to her in contemplating its effects upon the young fellow at her side&mdash;&ldquo;some
+      country jilt, had been trying her rustic hand upon you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is not silly, conceited, nor countrified,&rdquo; said George, slowly
+      raising his beautiful eyes to the young girl half reproachfully. &ldquo;It is I
+      who am all that. No, she is right, and you know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Much as Christie admired and valued her sister's charms, she thought this
+      was really going too far. What had Jessie ever done&mdash;what was Jessie&mdash;to
+      provoke and remain insensible to such a blind devotion as this? And
+      really, looking at him now, he was not so VERY YOUNG for Jessie; whether
+      his unfortunate passion had brought out all his latent manliness, or
+      whether he had hitherto kept his serious nature in the background,
+      certainly he was not a boy. And certainly his was not a passion that he
+      could be laughed out of. It was getting very tiresome. She wished she had
+      not met him&mdash;at least until she had had some clearer understanding
+      with her sister. He was still walking beside her, with his hand on her
+      bridle rein, partly to lead her horse over some boulders in the trail, and
+      partly to conceal his first embarrassment. When they had fairly reached
+      the woods, he stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to say good-by, Miss Carr.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not coming further? We must be near Indian Spring, now; Mr. Hall
+      and&mdash;and Jessie&mdash;cannot be far away. You will keep me company
+      until we meet them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he replied quietly. &ldquo;I only stopped you to say good-by. I am going
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not from Devil's Ford?&rdquo; she asked, in half-incredulous astonishment. &ldquo;At
+      least, not for long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not coming back,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is very abrupt,&rdquo; she said hurriedly, feeling that in some
+      ridiculous way she had precipitated an equally ridiculous catastrophe.
+      &ldquo;Surely you are not going away in this fashion, without saying good-by to
+      Jessie and&mdash;and father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall see your father, of course&mdash;and you will give my regards to
+      Miss Jessie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He evidently was in earnest. Was there ever anything so perfectly
+      preposterous? She became indignant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she said coldly, &ldquo;I won't detain you; your business must be
+      urgent, and I forgot&mdash;at least I had forgotten until to-day&mdash;that
+      you have other duties more important than that of squire of dames. I am
+      afraid this forgetfulness made me think you would not part from us in
+      quite such a business fashion. I presume, if you had not met me just now,
+      we should none of us have seen you again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you say good-by, Miss Carr?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment, Mr. Kearney. If I have said anything which you think
+      justifies this very abrupt leave-taking, I beg you will forgive and forget
+      it&mdash;or, at least, let it have no more weight with you than the idle
+      words of any woman. I only spoke generally. You know&mdash;I&mdash;I might
+      be mistaken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes, which had dilated when she began to speak, darkened; his color,
+      which had quickly come, as quickly sank when she had ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't say that, Miss Carr. It is not like you, and&mdash;it is useless.
+      You know what I meant a moment ago. I read it in your reply. You meant
+      that I, like others, had deceived myself. Did you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty. She
+      knew that Jessie did not love him&mdash;would not marry him&mdash;whatever
+      coquetry she might have shown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not mean to offend you,&rdquo; she said hesitatingly; &ldquo;I only half
+      suspected it when I spoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you wish to spare me the avowal?&rdquo; he said bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it. I could not tell what ideas you
+      might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of Jessie&mdash;or my
+      father,&rdquo; she added, with almost equal bitterness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never spoken to either,&rdquo; he replied quickly. He stopped, and
+      added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, &ldquo;I've been brought up in
+      the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed my feelings, instead
+      of the etiquette of society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's truthfulness
+      to notice the full significance of his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; he said again, holding out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile. He held it for a
+      moment, with his eyes fixed upon hers. Then suddenly, as if obeying an
+      uncontrollable impulse, he crushed it like a flower again and again
+      against his burning lips, and darted away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie sank back in her saddle with a little cry, half of pain and half
+      of frightened surprise. Had the poor boy suddenly gone mad, or was this
+      vicarious farewell a part of the courtship of Devil's Ford? She looked at
+      her little hand, which had reddened under the pressure, and suddenly felt
+      the flush extending to her cheeks and the roots of her hair. This was
+      intolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her sister emerging from the wood to seek her. In another moment
+      she was at her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We thought you were following,&rdquo; said Jessie. &ldquo;Good heavens! how you look!
+      What has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing. I met Mr. Kearney a moment ago on the trail. He is going away,
+      and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo; She stopped, furious and flushing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; said Jessie, with a burst of merriment, &ldquo;he told you at last he
+      loved you. Oh, Christie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The abrupt departure of George Kearney from Devil's Ford excited but
+      little interest in the community, and was soon forgotten. It was generally
+      attributed to differences between himself and his partners on the question
+      of further outlay of their earnings on mining improvements&mdash;he and
+      Philip Carr alone representing a sanguine minority whose faith in the
+      future of the mine accepted any risks. It was alleged by some that he had
+      sold out to his brother; it was believed by others that he had simply gone
+      to Sacramento to borrow money on his share, in order to continue the
+      improvements on his own responsibility. The partners themselves were
+      uncommunicative; even Whiskey Dick, who since his remarkable social
+      elevation had become less oracular, much to his own astonishment,
+      contributed nothing to the gossip except a suggestion that as the fiery
+      temper of George Kearney brooked no opposition, even from his brother, it
+      was better they should separate before the estrangement became serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Carr did not disguise his annoyance at the loss of his young disciple
+      and firm ally. But an unlucky allusion to his previous remarks on
+      Kearney's attentions to Jessie, and a querulous regret that he had
+      permitted a disruption of their social intimacy, brought such an ominous
+      and frigid opposition, not only from Christie, but even the frivolous
+      Jessie herself, that Carr sank back in a crushed and terrified silence. &ldquo;I
+      only meant to say,&rdquo; he stammered after a pause, in which he, however,
+      resumed his aggrieved manner, &ldquo;that FAIRFAX seems to come here still, and
+      HE is not such a particular friend of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she is&mdash;and has your interest entirely at heart,&rdquo; said Jessie,
+      stoutly, &ldquo;and he only comes here to tell us how things are going on at the
+      works.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And criticise your father, I suppose,&rdquo; said Mr. Carr, with an attempt at
+      jocularity that did not, however, disguise an irritated suspiciousness.
+      &ldquo;He really seems to have supplanted ME as he has poor Kearney in your
+      estimation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, father,&rdquo; said Jessie, suddenly seizing him by the shoulders in
+      affected indignation, but really to conceal a certain embarrassment that
+      sprang quite as much from her sister's quietly observant eye as her
+      father's speech, &ldquo;you promised to let this ridiculous discussion drop. You
+      will make me and Christie so nervous that we will not dare to open the
+      door to a visitor, until he declares his innocence of any matrimonial
+      intentions. You don't want to give color to the gossip that agreement with
+      your views about the improvements is necessary to getting on with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who dares talk such rubbish?&rdquo; said Carr, reddening; &ldquo;is that the kind of
+      gossip that Fairfax brings here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hardly, when it's known that he don't quite agree with you, and DOES come
+      here. That's the best denial of the gossip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie, who had of late loftily ignored these discussions, waited until
+      her father had taken his departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then that is the reason why you still see Mr. Munroe, after what you
+      said,&rdquo; she remarked quietly to Jessie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jessie, who would have liked to escape with her father, was obliged to
+      pause on the threshold of the door, with a pretty assumption of blank
+      forgetfulness in her blue eyes and lifted eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Said what? when?&rdquo; she asked vacantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When&mdash;when Mr. Kearney that day&mdash;in the woods&mdash;went away,&rdquo;
+       said Christie, faintly coloring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! THAT day,&rdquo; said Jessie briskly; &ldquo;the day he just gloved your hand
+      with kisses, and then fled wildly into the forest to conceal his emotion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day he behaved very foolishly,&rdquo; said Christie, with reproachful
+      calmness, that did not, however, prevent a suspicion of indignant moisture
+      in her eyes&mdash;&ldquo;when you explained&rdquo;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That it wasn't meant for ME,&rdquo; interrupted Jessie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That it was to you that MR. MUNROE'S attentions were directed. And then
+      we agreed that it was better to prevent any further advances of this kind
+      by avoiding any familiar relations with either of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Jessie, &ldquo;I remember; but you're not confounding my seeing
+      Fairfax occasionally now with that sort of thing. HE doesn't kiss my hand
+      like anything,&rdquo; she added, as if in abstract reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor run away, either,&rdquo; suggested the trodden worm, turning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an ominous silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know we are nearly out of coffee?&rdquo; said Jessie choking, but moving
+      towards the door with Spartan-like calmness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. And something must be done this very day about the washing,&rdquo; said
+      Christie, with suppressed emotion, going towards the opposite entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears stood in each other's eyes with this terrible exchange of domestic
+      confidences. Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, they deliberately
+      turned again, and, facing each other with frightful calmness, left the
+      room by purposeless and deliberate exits other than those they had
+      contemplated&mdash;a crushing abnegation of self, that, to some extent,
+      relieved their surcharged feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the material prosperity of Devil's Ford increased, if a
+      prosperity based upon no visible foundation but the confidences and hopes
+      of its inhabitants could be called material. Few, if any, stopped to
+      consider that the improvements, buildings, and business were simply the
+      outlay of capital brought from elsewhere, and as yet the settlement or
+      town, as it was now called, had neither produced nor exported capital of
+      itself equal to half the amount expended. It was true that some land was
+      cultivated on the further slope, some mills erected and lumber furnished
+      from the inexhaustible forest; but the consumers were the inhabitants
+      themselves, who paid for their produce in borrowed capital or unlimited
+      credit. It was never discovered that while all roads led to Devil's Ford,
+      Devil's Ford led to nowhere. The difficulties overcome in getting things
+      into the settlement were never surmounted for getting things out of it.
+      The lumber was practically valueless for export to other settlements
+      across the mountain roads, which were equally rich in timber. The theory
+      so enthusiastically held by the original locators, that Devil's Ford was a
+      vast sink that had, through ages, exhausted and absorbed the trickling
+      wealth of the adjacent hills and valleys, was suffering an ironical
+      corroboration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning it was known that work was stopped at the Devil's Ford Ditch&mdash;temporarily
+      only, it was alleged, and many of the old workmen simply had their labor
+      for the present transferred to excavating the river banks, and the
+      collection of vast heaps of &ldquo;pay gravel.&rdquo; Specimens from these mounds,
+      taken from different localities, and at different levels, were sent to San
+      Francisco for more rigid assay and analysis. It was believed that this
+      would establish the fact of the permanent richness of the drifts, and not
+      only justify past expenditure, but a renewed outlay of credit and capital.
+      The suspension of engineering work gave Mr. Carr an opportunity to visit
+      San Francisco on general business of the mine, which could not, however,
+      prevent him from arranging further combinations with capital. His two
+      daughters accompanied him. It offered an admirable opportunity for a
+      shopping expedition, a change of scene, and a peaceful solution of their
+      perplexing and anomalous social relations with Devil's Ford. In the first
+      flush of gratitude to their father for this opportune holiday, something
+      of harmony had been restored to the family circle that had of late been
+      shaken by discord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But their sanguine hopes of enjoyment were not entirely fulfilled. Both
+      Jessie and Christie were obliged to confess to a certain disappointment in
+      the aspect of the civilization they were now reentering. They at first
+      attributed it to the change in their own habits during the last three
+      months, and their having become barbarous and countrified in their
+      seclusion. Certainly in the matter of dress they were behind the fashions
+      as revealed in Montgomery Street. But when the brief solace afforded them
+      by the modiste and dressmaker was past, there seemed little else to be
+      gained. They missed at first, I fear, the chivalrous and loyal devotion
+      that had only amused them at Devil's Ford, and were the more inclined, I
+      think, to distrust the conscious and more civilized gallantry of the
+      better dressed and more carefully presented men they met. For it must be
+      admitted that, for obvious reasons, their criticisms were at first
+      confined to the sex they had been most in contact with. They could not
+      help noticing that the men were more eager, annoyingly feverish, and
+      self-asserting in their superior elegance and external show than their old
+      associates were in their frank, unrestrained habits. It seemed to them
+      that the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, in their radical simplicity
+      and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type of true gentlemanhood than
+      these citizens who imitated a civilization they were unable yet to reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The women simply frightened them, as being, even more than the men,
+      demonstrative and excessive in their fine looks, their fine dresses, their
+      extravagant demand for excitement. In less than a week they found
+      themselves regretting&mdash;not the new villa on the slope of Devil's
+      Ford, which even in its own bizarre fashion was exceeded by the barbarous
+      ostentation of the villas and private houses around them&mdash;but the
+      double cabin under the trees, which now seemed to them almost aristocratic
+      in its grave simplicity and abstention. In the mysterious forests of masts
+      that thronged the city's quays they recalled the straight shafts of the
+      pines on Devil's slopes, only to miss the sedate repose and infinite calm
+      that used to environ them. In the feverish, pulsating life of the young
+      metropolis they often stopped oppressed, giddy, and choking; the roar of
+      the streets and thoroughfares was meaningless to them, except to revive
+      strange memories of the deep, unvarying monotone of the evening wind over
+      their humbler roof on the Sierran hillside. Civic bred and nurtured as
+      they were, the recurrence of these sensations perplexed and alarmed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems so perfectly ridiculous,&rdquo; said Jessie, &ldquo;for us to feel as out of
+      place here as that Pike County servant girl in Sacramento who had never
+      seen a steamboat before; do you know, I quite had a turn the other day at
+      seeing a man on the Stockton wharf in a red shirt, with a rifle on his
+      shoulder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you wanted to go and speak to him?&rdquo; said Christie, with a sad smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, that's just it; I felt awfully hurt and injured that he did not come
+      up and speak to ME! I wonder if we got any fever or that sort of thing up
+      there; it makes one quite superstitious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie did not reply; more than once before she had felt that
+      inexplicable misgiving. It had sometimes seemed to her that she had never
+      been quite herself since that memorable night when she had slipped out of
+      their sleeping-cabin, and stood alone in the gracious and commanding
+      presence of the woods and hills. In the solitude of night, with the hum of
+      the great city rising below her&mdash;at times even in theatres or crowded
+      assemblies of men and women&mdash;she forgot herself, and again stood in
+      the weird brilliancy of that moonlight night in mute worship at the foot
+      of that slowly-rising mystic altar of piled terraces, hanging forests, and
+      lifted plateaus that climbed forever to the lonely skies. Again she felt
+      before her the expanding and opening arms of the protecting woods. Had
+      they really closed upon her in some pantheistic embrace that made her a
+      part of them? Had she been baptized in that moonlight as a child of the
+      great forest? It was easy to believe in the myths of the poets of an
+      idyllic life under those trees, where, free from conventional
+      restrictions, one loved and was loved. If she, with her own worldly
+      experience, could think of this now, why might not George Kearney have
+      thought? . . . She stopped, and found herself blushing even in the
+      darkness. As the thought and blush were the usual sequel of her
+      reflections, it is to be feared that they may have been at times the
+      impelling cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Carr, however, made up for his daughters' want of sympathy with
+      metropolitan life. To their astonishment, he not only plunged into the
+      fashionable gayeties and amusements of the town, but in dress and manner
+      assumed the role of a leader of society. The invariable answer to their
+      half-humorous comment was the necessities of the mine, and the policy of
+      frequenting the company of capitalists, to enlist their support and
+      confidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, that what
+      at any other time they would have hailed as a relief to his habitual
+      abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was not dissipated&mdash;he did
+      not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seem any harm in his
+      frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry that appeared to be
+      forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes was certainly
+      apocryphal. He did not drag his daughters into the mixed society of that
+      period; he did not press upon them the company of those he most
+      frequented, and whose accepted position in that little world of fashion
+      was considered equal to their own. When Jessie strongly objected to the
+      pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual present wealth and
+      pecuniary influence condoned for a more uncertain prehistoric past, Mr.
+      Carr did not urge a further acquaintance. &ldquo;As long as you're not thinking
+      of marrying again, papa,&rdquo; Jessie had said finally, &ldquo;I don't see the
+      necessity of our knowing her.&rdquo; &ldquo;But suppose I were,&rdquo; had replied Mr. Carr
+      with affected humor. &ldquo;Then you certainly wouldn't care for any one like
+      her,&rdquo; his daughter had responded triumphantly. Mr. Carr smiled, and
+      dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters' want of
+      sympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least interfere with his
+      social prestige. A gentleman in all his relations and under all
+      circumstances, even his cold scientific abstraction was provocative; rich
+      men envied his lofty ignorance of the smaller details of money-making,
+      even while they mistrusted his judgment. A man still well preserved, and
+      free from weakening vices, he was a dangerous rival to younger and faster
+      San Francisco, in the eyes of the sex, who knew how to value a repose they
+      did not themselves possess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to Sacramento, on
+      further business of the mine, leaving his two daughters in the family of a
+      wealthy friend until he should return for them. He opposed their ready
+      suggestion to return to Devil's Ford with a new and unnecessary
+      inflexibility: he even met their compromise to accompany him to Sacramento
+      with equal decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be only in my way,&rdquo; he said curtly. &ldquo;Enjoy yourselves here while
+      you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice. Possibly some
+      slight reaction to their previous disappointment may have already set in;
+      perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to their anxiety about
+      their father. They went out more; they frequented concerts and parties;
+      they accepted, with their host and his family, an invitation to one of
+      those opulent and barbaric entertainments with which a noted San Francisco
+      millionaire distracted his rare moments of reflection in his gorgeous
+      palace on the hills. Here they could at least be once more in the country
+      they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a little degraded
+      by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of the palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a three days' fete; the style and choice of amusements left to the
+      guests, and an equal and active participation by no means necessary or
+      indispensable. Consequently, when Christie and Jessie Carr proposed a ride
+      through the adjacent canyon on the second morning, they had no difficulty
+      in finding horses in the well-furnished stables of their opulent
+      entertainers, nor cavaliers among the other guests, who were too happy to
+      find favor in the eyes of the two pretty girls who were supposed to be
+      abnormally fastidious and refined. Christie's escort was a good-natured
+      young banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrative attentions, and lucky
+      enough to interest her during the ride with his clear and half-humorous
+      reflections on some of the business speculations of the day. If his ideas
+      were occasionally too clever, and not always consistent with a high sense
+      of honor, she was none the less interested to know the ethics of that
+      world of speculation into which her father had plunged, and the more
+      convinced, with mingled sense of pride and anxiety, that his still
+      dominant gentlemanhood would prevent his coping with it on equal terms.
+      Nor could she help contrasting the conversation of the sharp-witted man at
+      her side with what she still remembered of the vague, touching, boyish
+      enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil's Ford. Had her escort guessed the
+      result of this contrast, he would hardly have been as gratified as he was
+      with the grave attention of her beautiful eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fascination of a gracious day and the leafy solitude of the canyon led
+      them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit, and it became
+      necessary towards sunset for them to seek some shorter cut home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a vaquero in yonder field,&rdquo; said Christie's escort, who was
+      riding with her a little in advance of the others, &ldquo;and those fellows know
+      every trail that a horse can follow. I'll ride on, intercept him, and try
+      my Spanish on him. If I miss him, as he's galloping on, you might try your
+      hand on him yourself. He'll understand your eyes, Miss Carr, in any
+      language.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he dashed away, to cover his first audacity of compliment, Christie
+      lifted the eyes thus apostrophized to the opposite field. The vaquero, who
+      was chasing some cattle, was evidently too preoccupied to heed the shouts
+      of her companion, and wheeling round suddenly to intercept one of the
+      deviating fugitives, permitted Christie's escort to dash past him before
+      that gentleman could rein in his excited steed. This brought the vaquero
+      directly in her path. Perceiving her, he threw his horse back on its
+      haunches, to prevent a collision. Christie rode up to him, suddenly
+      uttered a cry, and halted. For before her, sunburnt in cheek and throat,
+      darker in the free growth of moustache and curling hair, clad in the
+      coarse, picturesque finery of his class, undisguised only in his boyish
+      beauty, sat George Kearney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blood, that had forsaken her astonished face, rushed as quickly back.
+      His eyes, which had suddenly sparkled with an electrical glow, sank before
+      hers. His hand dropped, and his cheek flushed with a dark embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You here, Mr. Kearney? How strange!&mdash;but how glad I am to meet you
+      again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried to smile; her voice trembled, and her little hand shook as she
+      extended it to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his dark eyes quickly, and impulsively urged his horse to her
+      side. But, as if suddenly awakening to the reality of the situation, he
+      glanced at her hurriedly, down at his barbaric finery, and threw a
+      searching look towards her escort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant Christie saw the infelicity of her position, and its
+      dangers. The words of Whiskey Dick, &ldquo;He wouldn't stand that,&rdquo; flashed
+      across her mind. There was no time to lose. The banker had already gained
+      control over his horse, and was approaching them, all unconscious of the
+      fixed stare with which George was regarding him. Christie hastily seized
+      the hand which he had allowed to fall at his side, and said quickly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you ride with me a little way, Mr. Kearney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned the same searching look upon her. She met it clearly and
+      steadily; he even thought reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do!&rdquo; she said hurriedly. &ldquo;I ask it as a favor. I want to speak to you.
+      Jessie and I are here alone. Father is away. YOU are one of our oldest
+      friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated. She turned to the astonished young banker, who rode up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just met an old friend. Will you please ride back as quickly as
+      you can, and tell Jessie that Mr. Kearney is here, and ask her to join
+      us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She watched her dazed escort, still speechless from the spectacle of the
+      fastidious Miss Carr tete-a-tete with a common Mexican vaquero, gallop off
+      in the direction of the canyon, and then turned to George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now take me home, the shortest way, as quick as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home?&rdquo; echoed George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean to Mr. Prince's house. Quick! before they can come up to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He mechanically put spurs to his horse; she followed. They presently
+      struck into a trail that soon diverged again into a disused logging track
+      through the woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the short cut to Prince's, by two miles,&rdquo; he said, as they
+      entered the woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they were still galloping, without exchanging a word, Christie began to
+      slacken her speed; George did the same. They were safe from intrusion at
+      the present, even if the others had found the short cut. Christie, bold
+      and self-reliant a moment ago, suddenly found herself growing weak and
+      embarrassed. What had she done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She checked her horse suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps we had better wait for them,&rdquo; she said timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George had not raised his eyes to hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said you wanted to hurry home,&rdquo; he replied gently, passing his hand
+      along his mustang's velvety neck, &ldquo;and&mdash;and you had something to say
+      to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; she answered, with a faint laugh. &ldquo;I'm so astonished at
+      meeting you here. I'm quite bewildered. You are living here; you have
+      forsaken us to buy a ranche?&rdquo; she continued, looking at him attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His brow colored slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm living here, but I have bought no ranche. I'm only a hired man on
+      somebody else's ranche, to look after the cattle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw her beautiful eyes fill with astonishment and&mdash;something else.
+      His brow cleared; he went on, with his old boyish laugh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Miss Carr. The fact is, I'm dead broke. I've lost everything since I
+      saw you last. But as I know how to ride, and I'm not afraid of work, I
+      manage to keep along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have lost money in&mdash;in the mines?&rdquo; said Christie suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&rdquo;&mdash;he replied quickly, evading her eyes. &ldquo;My brother has my
+      interest, you know. I've been foolish on my own account solely. You know
+      I'm rather inclined to that sort of thing. But as long as my folly don't
+      affect others, I can stand it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it may affect others&mdash;and THEY may not think of it as folly&mdash;&rdquo;
+       She stopped short, confused by his brightening color and eyes. &ldquo;I mean&mdash;Oh,
+      Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me. I know nothing of business,
+      but I know there has been trouble about the mine at Devil's Ford. Tell me
+      honestly, has my father anything to do with it? If I thought that through
+      any imprudence of his, you had suffered&mdash;if I believed that you could
+      trace any misfortune of yours to him&mdash;to US&mdash;I should never
+      forgive myself&rdquo;&mdash;she stopped and flashed a single look at him&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      should never forgive YOU for abandoning us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, which never
+      concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed her feminine
+      anticlimax.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Carr,&rdquo; he said, with boyish eagerness, &ldquo;if any man suggested to me
+      that your father wasn't the brightest and best of his kind&mdash;too wise
+      and clever for the fools about him to understand&mdash;I'd&mdash;I'd shoot
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had NOT intended
+      to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush upon what she really
+      intended to say, with what she felt was shameful precipitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One word more, Mr. Kearney,&rdquo; she began, looking down, but feeling the
+      color come to her face as she spoke. &ldquo;When you spoke to me the day you
+      left, you must have thought me hard and cruel. When I tell you that I
+      thought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you had for her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Jessie!&rdquo; echoed George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will understand that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That what?&rdquo; said George, drawing nearer to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to her
+      of me,&rdquo; added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away from
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an
+      imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to her
+      side. &ldquo;He will go now,&rdquo; she had thought, but he didn't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must ride on,&rdquo; she suggested faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slight
+      lifting of his head. &ldquo;We must ride together no further, Miss Carr. I must
+      go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on with your party,
+      whom I hear coming. But when we part here you must bid me good-by&mdash;not
+      as Jessie's sister&mdash;but as Christie&mdash;the one&mdash;the only
+      woman that I love, or that I ever have loved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand. With the recollection of their previous parting, she
+      tremblingly advanced her own. He took it, but did not raise it to his
+      lips. And it was she who found herself half confusedly retaining his hand
+      in hers, until she dropped it with a blush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have deserted
+      Devil's Ford?&rdquo; she said coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile, and said, &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; wheeled
+      his horse, and disappeared in the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, and
+      indignant. He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and indignant. Yet
+      she was so self-possessed when the party joined her, that the singular
+      rencontre and her explanation of the stranger's sudden departure excited
+      no further comment. Only Jessie managed to whisper in her ear,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn't me he meant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; said Christie coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A few days after the girls had returned to San Francisco, they received a
+      letter from their father. His business, he wrote, would detain him in
+      Sacramento some days longer. There was no reason why they should return to
+      Devil's Ford in the heat of the summer; their host had written to beg him
+      to allow them a more extended visit, and, if they were enjoying
+      themselves, he thought it would be well not to disoblige an old friend. He
+      had heard they had a pleasant visit to Mr. Prince's place, and that a
+      certain young banker had been very attentive to Christie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what all this means, dear?&rdquo; asked Jessie, who had been
+      watching her sister with an unusually grave face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie whose thoughts had wandered from the letter, replied carelessly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it means that we are to wait here until father sends for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It means a good deal more. It means that papa has had another reverse; it
+      means that the assay has turned out badly for the mine&mdash;that the
+      further they go from the flat the worse it gets&mdash;that all the gold
+      they will probably ever see at Devil's Ford is what they have already
+      found or will find on the flat; it means that all Devil's Ford is only a
+      'pocket,' and not a 'lead.'&rdquo; She stopped, with unexpected tears in her
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who told you this?&rdquo; asked Christie breathlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fairfax&mdash;Mr. Munroe,&rdquo; stammered her sister, &ldquo;writes to me as if we
+      already knew it&mdash;tells me not to be alarmed, that it isn't so bad&mdash;and
+      all that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long has this happened, Jessie?&rdquo; said Christie, taking her hand, with
+      a white but calm face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nearly ever since we've been here, I suppose. It must be so, for he says
+      poor papa is still hopeful of doing something yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Mr. Munroe writes to you?&rdquo; said Christie abstractedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said Jessie quickly. &ldquo;He feels interested in&mdash;us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody tells ME anything,&rdquo; said Christie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Christie bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth DID you talk about? But people don't confide in you because
+      they're afraid of you. You're so&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So gently patronizing, and so 'I-don't-suppose-you-can-help-it,
+      poor-thing,' in your general style,&rdquo; said Jessie, kissing her. &ldquo;There! I
+      only wish I was like you. What do you say if we write to father that we'll
+      go back to Devil's Ford? Mr. Munroe thinks we will be of service there
+      just now. If the men are dissatisfied, and think we're spending money&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid Mr. Munroe is hardly a disinterested adviser. At least, I
+      don't think it would look quite decent for you to fly back without your
+      father, at his suggestion,&rdquo; said Christie coldly. &ldquo;He is not the only
+      partner. We are spending no money. Besides, we have engaged to go to Mr.
+      Prince's again next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you like, dear,&rdquo; said Jessie, turning away to hide a faint smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, when they returned from their visit to Mr. Prince's, and one
+      or two uneventful rides, Christie looked grave. It was only a few days
+      later that Jessie burst upon her one morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were saying that nobody ever tells you anything. Well, here's your
+      chance. Whiskey Dick is below.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whiskey Dick?&rdquo; repeated Christie. &ldquo;What does he want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;YOU, love. Who else? You know he always scorns me as not being high-toned
+      and elegant enough for his social confidences. He asked for you only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an uneasy sense of some impending revelation, Christie descended to
+      the drawing-room. As she opened the door, a strong flavor of that toilet
+      soap and eau de Cologne with which Whiskey Dick was in the habit of
+      gracefully effacing the traces of dissipation made known his presence. In
+      spite of a new suit of clothes, whose pristine folds refused to adapt
+      themselves entirely to the contour of his figure, he was somewhat subdued
+      by the unexpected elegance of the drawing-room of Christie's host. But a
+      glance at Christie's sad but gracious face quickly reassured him. Taking
+      from his hat a three-cornered parcel, he unfolded a handsome saffrona
+      rose, which he gravely presented to her. Having thus reestablished his
+      position, he sank elegantly into a tete-a-tete ottoman. Finding the
+      position inconvenient to face Christie, who had seated herself on a chair,
+      he transferred himself to the other side of the ottoman, and addressed her
+      over its back as from a pulpit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this really a fortunate accident, Mr. Hall, or did you try to find
+      us?&rdquo; said Christie pleasantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partly promiskuss, and partly coincident, Miss Christie, one up and
+      t'other down,&rdquo; said Dick lightly. &ldquo;Work being slack at present at Devil's
+      Ford, I reck'ned I'd take a pasear down to 'Frisco, and dip into the
+      vortex o' fash'nable society and out again.&rdquo; He lightly waved a new
+      handkerchief to illustrate his swallow-like intrusion. &ldquo;This yer minglin'
+      with the bo-tong is apt to be wearisome, ez you and me knows, unless
+      combined with experience and judgment. So when them boys up there allows
+      that there's a little too much fash'nable society and San Francisco
+      capital and high-falutin' about the future goin' on fer square surface
+      mining, I sez, 'Look yere, gentlemen,' sez I, 'you don't see the pint. The
+      pint is to get the pop'lar eye fixed, so to speak, on Devil's Ford. When a
+      fash'nable star rises above the 'Frisco horizon&mdash;like Miss Carr&mdash;and,
+      so to speak, dazzles the gineral eye, people want to know who she is. And
+      when people say that's the accomplished daughter o' the accomplished
+      superintendent of the Devil's Ford claim&mdash;otherwise known as the
+      Star-eyed Goddess o' Devil's Ford&mdash;every eye is fixed on the mine,
+      and Capital, so to speak, tumbles to her.' And when they sez that the old
+      man&mdash;excuse my freedom, but that's the way the boys talk of your
+      father, meaning no harm&mdash;the old man, instead o' trying to corral
+      rich widders&mdash;grass or otherwise&mdash;to spend their money on the
+      big works for the gold that ain't there yet&mdash;should stay in Devil's
+      Ford and put all his sabe and genius into grindin' out the little gold
+      that is there, I sez to them that it ain't your father's style. 'His
+      style,' sez I, 'ez to go in and build them works.' When they're done he
+      turns round to Capital, and sez he&mdash;'Look yer,' sez he, 'thar's all
+      the works you want, first quality&mdash;cost a million; thar's all the
+      water you want, onlimited&mdash;cost another million; thar's all the pay
+      gravel you want in and outer the ground&mdash;call it two millions more.
+      Now my time's too vally'ble; my professhun's too high-toned to WORK mines.
+      I MAKE 'em. Hand me over a check for ten millions and call it square, and
+      work it for yourself.' So Capital hands over the money and waltzes down to
+      run the mine, and you original locators walks round with yer hands in yer
+      pockets a-top of your six million profit, and you let's Capital take the
+      work and the responsibility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Preposterous as this seemed from the lips of Whiskey Dick, Christie had a
+      haunting suspicion that it was not greatly unlike the theories expounded
+      by the clever young banker who had been her escort. She did not interrupt
+      his flow of reminiscent criticism; when he paused for breath, she said,
+      quietly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I met Mr. George Kearney the other day in the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whiskey Dick stopped awkwardly, glanced hurriedly at Christie, and coughed
+      behind his handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Kearney&mdash;eh&mdash;er&mdash;certengly&mdash;yes&mdash;er&mdash;met
+      him, you say. Was he&mdash;er&mdash;er&mdash;well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In health, yes; but otherwise he has lost everything,&rdquo; said Christie,
+      fixing her eyes on the embarrassed Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;er&mdash;in course&mdash;in course&mdash;&rdquo; continued Dick,
+      nervously glancing round the apartment as if endeavoring to find an
+      opening to some less abrupt statement of the fact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And actually reduced to take some menial employment,&rdquo; added Christie,
+      still regarding Dick with her clear glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it&mdash;that's just it,&rdquo; said Dick, beaming as he suddenly found
+      his delicate and confidential opportunity. &ldquo;That's it, Miss Christie;
+      that's just what I was sayin' to the boys. 'Ez it the square thing,' sez
+      I, 'jest because George hez happened to hypothecate every dollar he has,
+      or expects to hev, to put into them works, only to please Mr. Carr, and
+      just because he don't want to distress that intelligent gentleman by
+      letting him see he's dead broke&mdash;for him to go and demean himself and
+      Devil's Ford by rushing away and hiring out as a Mexican vaquero on
+      Mexican wages? Look,' sez I, 'at the disgrace he brings upon a high-toned,
+      fash'nable girl, at whose side he's walked and danced, and passed rings,
+      and sentiments, and bokays in the changes o' the cotillion and the
+      mizzourka. And wot,' sez I, 'if some day, prancing along in a fash'nable
+      cavalcade, she all of a suddents comes across him drivin' a Mexican
+      steer?' That's what I said to the boys. And so you met him, Miss Christie,
+      as usual,&rdquo; continued Dick, endeavoring under the appearance of a large
+      social experience to conceal an eager anxiety to know the details&mdash;&ldquo;so
+      you met him; and, in course, you didn't let on yer knew him, so to speak,
+      nat'rally, or p'raps you kinder like asked him to fix your saddle-girth,
+      and give him a five-dollar piece&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Christie, who had risen and gone to the window, suddenly turned a very
+      pale face and shining eyes on Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Hall,&rdquo; she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, &ldquo;we are old
+      friends, and I feel I can ask you a favor. You once before acted as our
+      escort&mdash;it was for a short but a happy time&mdash;will you accept a
+      larger trust? My father is busy in Sacramento for the mine: will you,
+      without saying anything to anybody, take Jessie and me back at once to
+      Devil's Ford?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will I? Miss Christie,&rdquo; said Dick, choking between an intense
+      gratification and a desire to keep back its vulgar exhibition, &ldquo;I shall be
+      proud!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I say keep it a secret&rdquo;&mdash;she hesitated&mdash;&ldquo;I don't mean that
+      I object to your letting Mr. Kearney, if you happen to know where he is,
+      understand that we are going back to Devil's Ford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cert'nly&mdash;nat'rally,&rdquo; said Dick, waving his hand gracefully; &ldquo;sorter
+      drop him a line, saying that bizness of a social and delicate nature&mdash;being
+      the escort of Miss Christie and Jessie Carr to Devil's Ford&mdash;prevents
+      my having the pleasure of calling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will do very well, Mr. Hall,&rdquo; said Christie, faintly smiling through
+      her moist eyelashes. &ldquo;Then will you go at once and secure tickets for
+      to-night's boat, and bring them here? Jessie and I will arrange everything
+      else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cert'nly,&rdquo; said Dick impulsively, and preparing to take a graceful leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll be impatient until you return with the tickets,&rdquo; said Christie
+      graciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick shook hands gravely, got as far as the door, and paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think it better to take the tickets now?&rdquo; he said dubiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; said Christie impetuously. &ldquo;I've set my heart on going
+      to-night&mdash;and unless you secure berths early&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In course&mdash;in course,&rdquo; interrupted Dick nervously. &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo; said Christie impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick hesitated, shut the door carefully, and, looking round the room,
+      lightly shook out his handkerchief, apparently flicked away an
+      embarrassing suggestion, and said, with a little laugh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's ridiklous, perfectly ridiklous, Miss Christie; but not bein' in the
+      habit of carryin' ready money, and havin' omitted to cash a draft on
+      Wells, Fargo &amp; Co.&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said Christie rapidly. &ldquo;How forgetful I am! Pray forgive me,
+      Mr. Hall. I didn't think. I'll run up and get it from our host; he will be
+      glad to be our banker.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment, Miss Christie,&rdquo; said Dick lightly, as his thumb and finger
+      relaxed in his waistcoat pocket over the only piece of money in the world
+      that had remained to him after his extravagant purchase of Christie's
+      saffrona rose, &ldquo;one moment: in this yer monetary transaction, if you like,
+      you are at liberty to use MY name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As Christie and Jessie Carr looked from the windows of the coach, whose
+      dust-clogged wheels were slowly dragging them, as if reluctant, nearer the
+      last stage of their journey to Devil's Ford, they were conscious of a
+      change in the landscape, which they could not entirely charge upon their
+      changed feelings. The few bared open spaces on the upland, the long
+      stretch of rocky ridge near the summit, so vivid and so velvety during
+      their first journey, were now burnt and yellow; even the brief openings in
+      the forest were seared as if by a hot iron in the scorching rays of a half
+      year's sun. The pastoral slopes of the valley below were cloaked in
+      lustre-leather: the rare watercourses along the road had faded from the
+      waiting eye and ear; it seemed as if the long and dry summer had even
+      invaded the close-set ranks of pines, and had blown a simoom breath
+      through the densest woods, leaving its charred red ashes on every leaf and
+      spray along the tunnelled shade. As they leaned out of the window and
+      inhaled the half-dead spices of the evergreens, they seemed to have
+      entered the atmosphere of some exhausted passion&mdash;of some fierce
+      excitement that was even now slowly burning itself out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a relief at last to see the straggling houses of Devil's Ford far
+      below come once more into view, as they rounded the shoulder of Devil's
+      Spur and began the long descent. But as they entered the town a change
+      more ominous and startling than the desiccation of the landscape forced
+      itself upon them. The town was still there, but where were the
+      inhabitants? Four months ago they had left the straggling street thronged
+      with busy citizens&mdash;groups at every corner, and a chaos of
+      merchandise and traders in the open plaza or square beside the
+      Presbyterian church. Now all was changed. Only a few wayfarers lifted
+      their heads lazily as the coach rattled by, crossing the deserted square
+      littered with empty boxes, and gliding past empty cabins or vacant shop
+      windows, from which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes
+      themselves, were gone. The great unfinished serpent-like flume, crossing
+      the river on gigantic trestles, had advanced as far as the town, stooping
+      over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked its life blood and was
+      gorged with its prey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whiskey Dick, who had left the stage on the summit to avail himself of a
+      shorter foot trail to the house, that would give him half an hour's grace
+      to make preparations, met them at the stage office with a buggy. A glance
+      at the young girls, perhaps, convinced him that the graces of elegant
+      worldly conversation were out of place with the revelation he read on
+      their faces. Perhaps, he, too, was a trifle indisposed. The short journey
+      to the house was made in profound silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The villa had been repainted and decorated, and it looked fresher, and
+      even, to their preoccupied minds, appeared more attractive than ever.
+      Thoughtful hands had taken care of the vines and rose-bushes on the
+      trellises; water&mdash;that precious element in Devil's Ford&mdash;had not
+      been spared in keeping green through the long drought the plants which the
+      girls had so tenderly nurtured. It was the one oasis in which the summer
+      still lingered; and yet a singular sense of loss came over the girls as
+      they once more crossed its threshold. It seemed no longer their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ef I was you, Miss Christie, I'd keep close to the house for a day or
+      two, until&mdash;until&mdash;things is settled,&rdquo; said Dick; &ldquo;there's a
+      heap o' tramps and sich cattle trapsin' round. P'raps you wouldn't feel so
+      lonesome if you was nearer town&mdash;for instance, 'bout wher' you useter
+      live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the dear old cabin,&rdquo; said Christie quickly; &ldquo;I remember it; I wish we
+      were there now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really? Do you?&rdquo; said Whiskey Dick, with suddenly twinkling eyes.
+      &ldquo;That's like you to say it. That's what I allus said,&rdquo; continued Dick,
+      addressing space generally; &ldquo;if there's any one ez knows how to come
+      square down to the bottom rock without flinchin', it's your high-toned,
+      fash'nable gals. But I must meander back to town, and let the boys know
+      you're in possession, safe and sound. It's right mean that Fairfax and
+      Mattingly had to go down to Lagrange on some low business yesterday, but
+      they'll be back to-morrow. So long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Left alone, the girls began to realize their strange position. They had
+      conceived no settled plan. The night they left San Francisco they had
+      written an earnest letter to their father, telling him that on learning
+      the truth about the reverses of Devil's Ford, they thought it their duty
+      to return and share them with others, without obliging him to prefer the
+      request, and with as little worry to him as possible. He would find them
+      ready to share his trials, and in what must be the scene of their work
+      hereafter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will bring father back,&rdquo; said Christie; &ldquo;he won't leave us here alone;
+      and then together we must come to some understanding with him&mdash;with
+      THEM&mdash;for somehow I feel as if this house belonged to us no longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her surmise was not far wrong. When Mr. Carr arrived hurriedly from
+      Sacramento the next evening, he found the house deserted. His daughters
+      were gone; there were indications that they had arrived, and, for some
+      reason, suddenly departed. The vague fear that had haunted his guilty soul
+      after receiving their letter, and during his breathless journey, now
+      seemed to be realized. He was turning from the empty house, whose
+      reproachful solitude frightened him, when he was confronted on the
+      threshold by the figure of Fairfax Munroe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to the stage office to meet you,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you must have left the
+      stage at the summit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did,&rdquo; said Carr angrily. &ldquo;I was anxious to meet my daughters quickly,
+      to know the reason of their foolish alarm, and to know also who had been
+      frightening them. Where are they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are safe in the old cabin beyond, that has been put up ready to
+      receive them again,&rdquo; said Fairfax quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what is the meaning of this? Why are they not here?&rdquo; demanded Carr,
+      hiding his agitation in a burst of querulous rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do YOU ask, Mr. Carr?&rdquo; said Fairfax sadly. &ldquo;Did you expect them to remain
+      here until the sheriff took possession? No one knows better than yourself
+      that the money advanced you on the deeds of this homestead has never been
+      repaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carr staggered, but recovered himself with feeble violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since you know so much of my affairs, how do you know that this claim
+      will ever be pressed for payment? How do you know it is not the advance of
+      a&mdash;a&mdash;friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I have seen the woman who advanced it,&rdquo; said Fairfax hopelessly.
+      &ldquo;She was here to look at the property before your daughters came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Carr nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! You force me to tell you something I should like to forget. You
+      force me to anticipate a disclosure I expected to make to you only when I
+      came to ask permission to woo your daughter Jessie; and when I tell you
+      what it is, you will understand that I have no right to criticise your
+      conduct. I am only explaining my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; said Carr impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I first came to this country, there was a woman I loved
+      passionately. She treated me as women of her kind only treat men like me;
+      she ruined me, and left me. That was four years ago. I love your daughter,
+      Mr. Carr, but she has never heard it from my lips. I would not woo her
+      until I had told you all. I have tried to do it ere this, and failed.
+      Perhaps I should not now, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo; said Carr furiously; &ldquo;speak out!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this. Look!&rdquo; said Fairfax, producing from his pocket the packet of
+      letters Jessie had found; &ldquo;perhaps you know the handwriting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; gasped Carr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That woman&mdash;my mistress&mdash;is the woman who advanced you money,
+      and who claims this house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The interview, and whatever came of it, remained a secret with the two
+      men. When Mr. Carr accepted the hospitality of the old cabin again, it was
+      understood that he had sacrificed the new house and its furniture to some
+      of the more pressing debts of the mine, and the act went far to restore
+      his waning popularity. But a more genuine feeling of relief was
+      experienced by Devil's Ford when it was rumored that Fairfax Munroe had
+      asked for the hand of Jessie Carr, and that some promise contingent upon
+      the equitable adjustment of the affairs of the mine had been given by Mr.
+      Carr. To the superstitious mind of Devil's Ford and its few remaining
+      locators, this new partnership seemed to promise that unity of interest
+      and stability of fortune that Devil's Ford had lacked. But nothing could
+      be done until the rainy season had fairly set in; until the
+      long-looked-for element that was to magically separate the gold from the
+      dross in those dull mounds of dust and gravel had come of its own free
+      will, and in its own appointed channels, independent of the feeble
+      auxiliaries that had hopelessly riven the rocks on the hillside, or hung
+      incomplete and unfinished in lofty scaffoldings above the settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rainy season came early. At first in gathered mists on the higher
+      peaks that were lifted in the morning sun only to show a fresher field of
+      dazzling white below; in white clouds that at first seemed to be mere
+      drifts blown across from those fresh snowfields, and obscuring the clear
+      blue above; in far-off murmurs in the hollow hills and gulches; in nearer
+      tinkling melody and baby prattling in the leaves. It came with bright
+      flashes of sunlight by day, with deep, monotonous shadow at night; with
+      the onset of heavy winds, the roar of turbulent woods, the tumultuous
+      tossing of leafy arms, and with what seemed the silent dissolution of the
+      whole landscape in days of steady and uninterrupted downfall. It came
+      extravagantly, for every canyon had grown into a torrent, every gulch a
+      waterspout, every watercourse a river, and all pouring into the North
+      Fork, that, rushing past the settlement, seemed to threaten it with lifted
+      crest and flying mane. It came dangerously, for one night the river,
+      leaping the feeble barrier of Devil's Ford, swept away houses and banks,
+      scattered with unconscious irony the laboriously collected heaps of gravel
+      left for hydraulic machinery, and spread out a vast and silent lake across
+      the submerged flat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the hurry and confusion of that night the girls had thrown open their
+      cabin to the escaping miners, who hurried along the slope that was now the
+      bank of the river. Suddenly Christie felt her arm grasped, and she was
+      half-led, half-dragged, into the inner room. Her father stood before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is George Kearney?&rdquo; he asked tremulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George Kearney!&rdquo; echoed Christie, for a moment believing the excitement
+      had turned her father's brain. &ldquo;You know he is not here; he is in San
+      Francisco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is here&mdash;I tell you,&rdquo; said Carr impatiently; &ldquo;he has been here
+      ever since the high water, trying to save the flume and reservoir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George&mdash;here!&rdquo; Christie could only gasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! He passed here a few moments ago, to see if you were all safe, and
+      he has gone on towards the flume. But what he is trying to do is madness.
+      If you see him, implore him to do no more. Let him abandon the accursed
+      flume to its fate. It has worked already too much woe upon us all; why
+      should it carry his brave and youthful soul down with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words were still ringing in her ears, when he suddenly passed away,
+      with the hurrying crowd. Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran out,
+      vaguely intent only on one thought, seeking only the one face, lately so
+      dear in recollection that she felt she would die if she never saw it
+      again. Perplexed by confused voices in the woods, she lost track of the
+      crowd, until the voices suddenly were raised in one loud outcry, followed
+      by the crashing of timber, the splashing of water, a silence, and then a
+      dull, continuous roar. She ran vaguely on in the direction of the
+      reservoir, with her father's injunction still in her mind, until a
+      terrible idea displaced it, and she turned at right angles suddenly, and
+      ran towards the slope leading down to the submerged flat. She had barely
+      left the shelter of the trees behind her before the roar of water seemed
+      to rise at her very feet. She stopped, dazed, bewildered, and
+      horror-stricken, on the edge of the slope. It was the slope no longer, but
+      the bank of the river itself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even in the gray light of early morning, and with inexperienced eyes, she
+      saw all too clearly now. The trestle-work had given way; the curving mile
+      of flume, fallen into the stream, and, crushed and dammed against the
+      opposite shore, had absolutely turned the whole river through the
+      half-finished ditch and partly excavated mine in its way, a few rods
+      further on to join the old familiar channel. The bank of the river was
+      changed; the flat had become an island, between which and the slope where
+      she stood the North Fork was rolling its resistless yellow torrent. As she
+      gazed spellbound, a portion of the slope beneath her suddenly seemed to
+      sink and crumble, and was swallowed up in the rushing stream. She heard a
+      cry of warning behind her, but, rooted to the spot by a fearful
+      fascination, she heeded it not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there was a sudden disruption, and another part of the slope sank to
+      rise no more; but this time she felt herself seized by the waist and
+      dragged back. It was her father standing by her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was flushed and excited, gazing at the water with a strange exultation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you see it? Do you know what has happened?&rdquo; he asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The flume has fallen and turned the river,&rdquo; said Christie hurriedly. &ldquo;But&mdash;have
+      you seen him&mdash;is he safe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&mdash;who?&rdquo; he answered vacantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George Kearney!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is safe,&rdquo; he said impatiently. &ldquo;But, do you see, Christie? Do you know
+      what this means?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pointed with his tremulous hand to the stream before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It means we are ruined,&rdquo; said Christie coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing of the kind! It means that the river is doing the work of the
+      flume. It is sluicing off the gravel, deepening the ditch, and altering
+      the slope which was the old bend of the river. It will do in ten minutes
+      the work that would take us a year. If we can stop it in time, or control
+      it, we are safe; but if we can not, it will carry away the bed and deposit
+      with the rest, and we are ruined again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a gesture of impotent fury, he dashed away in the direction of an
+      equally excited crowd, that on a point of the slope nearer the island were
+      gesticulating and shouting to a second group of men, who on the opposite
+      shore were clambering on over the choked debris of the flume that had
+      dammed and diverted the current. It was evident that the same idea had
+      occurred to them, and they were risking their lives in the attempt to set
+      free the impediments. Shocked and indignant as Christie had been at the
+      degrading absorption of material interests at such a moment, the element
+      of danger lifted the labors of these men into heroism, and she began to
+      feel a strange exultation as she watched them. Under the skilful blows of
+      their axes, in a few moments the vast body of drift began to disintegrate,
+      and then to swing round and move towards the old channel. A cheer went up,
+      but as suddenly died away again. An overlapping fringe of wreckage had
+      caught on the point of the island and arrested the whole mass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men, who had gained the shore with difficulty, looked back with a cry
+      of despair. But the next moment from among them leaped a figure, alert,
+      buoyant, invincible, and, axe in hand, once more essayed the passage.
+      Springing from timber to timber, he at last reached the point of
+      obstruction. A few strokes of the axe were sufficient to clear it; but at
+      the first stroke it was apparent that the striker was also losing his hold
+      upon the shore, and that he must inevitably be carried away with the
+      tossing debris. But this consideration did not seem to affect him; the
+      last blow was struck, and as the freed timbers rolled on, over and over,
+      he boldly plunged into the flood. Christie gave a little cry&mdash;her
+      heart had bounded with him; it seemed as if his plunge had splashed the
+      water in her eyes. He did not come to the surface until he had passed the
+      point below where her father stood, and then struggling feebly, as if
+      stunned or disabled by a blow. It seemed to her that he was trying to
+      approach the side of the river where she was. Would he do it? Could she
+      help him? She was alone; he was hidden from the view of the men on the
+      point, and no succor could come from them. There was a fringe of alder
+      nearly opposite their cabin that almost overhung the stream. She ran to
+      it, clutched it with a frantic hand, and, leaning over the boiling water,
+      uttered for the first time his name:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As if called to the surface by the magic of her voice, he rose a few yards
+      from her in mid-current, and turned his fading eyes towards the bank. In
+      another moment he would have been swept beyond her reach, but with a
+      supreme effort he turned on one side; the current, striking him sideways,
+      threw him towards the bank, and she caught him by his sleeve. For an
+      instant it seemed as if she would be dragged down with him. For one
+      dangerous moment she did not care, and almost yielded to the spell; but as
+      the rush of water pressed him against the bank, she recovered herself, and
+      managed to lift him beyond its reach. And then she sat down,
+      half-fainting, with his white face and damp curls upon her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George, darling, speak to me! Only one word! Tell me, have I saved you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes opened. A faint twinkle of the old days came to them&mdash;a
+      boyish smile played upon his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For yourself&mdash;or Jessie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked around her with a little frightened air. They were alone. There
+      was but one way of sealing those mischievous lips, and she found it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what I allus said, gentlemen,&rdquo; lazily remarked Whiskey Dick, a few
+      weeks later, leaning back against the bar, with his glass in his hand.
+      &ldquo;'George,' sez I, 'it ain't what you SAY to a fash'nable, high-toned young
+      lady; it's what you DOES ez makes or breaks you.' And that's what I sez
+      gin'rally o' things in the Ford. It ain't what Carr and you boys allows to
+      do; it's the gin'ral average o' things ez IS done that gives tone to the
+      hull, and hez brought this yer new luck to you all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Devil's Ford, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Devil's Ford
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2006 [EBook #2286]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL'S FORD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL'S FORD
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL'S FORD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was a season of unequalled prosperity in Devil's Ford. The half a
+dozen cabins scattered along the banks of the North Fork, as if by some
+overflow of that capricious river, had become augmented during a week of
+fierce excitement by twenty or thirty others, that were huddled together
+on the narrow gorge of Devil's Spur, or cast up on its steep sides. So
+sudden and violent had been the change of fortune, that the dwellers
+in the older cabins had not had time to change with it, but still kept
+their old habits, customs, and even their old clothes. The flour pan in
+which their daily bread was mixed stood on the rude table side by side
+with the "prospecting pans," half full of gold washed up from their
+morning's work; the front windows of the newer tenements looked upon
+the one single thoroughfare, but the back door opened upon the uncleared
+wilderness, still haunted by the misshapen bulk of bear or the nightly
+gliding of catamount.
+
+Neither had success as yet affected their boyish simplicity and the
+frankness of old frontier habits; they played with their new-found
+riches with the naive delight of children, and rehearsed their glowing
+future with the importance and triviality of school-boys.
+
+"I've bin kalklatin'," said Dick Mattingly, leaning on his long-handled
+shovel with lazy gravity, "that when I go to Rome this winter, I'll get
+one o' them marble sharps to chisel me a statoo o' some kind to set up
+on the spot where we made our big strike. Suthin' to remember it by, you
+know."
+
+"What kind o' statoo--Washington or Webster?" asked one of the Kearney
+brothers, without looking up from his work.
+
+"No--I reckon one o' them fancy groups--one o' them Latin goddesses that
+Fairfax is always gassin' about, sorter leadin', directin' and bossin'
+us where to dig."
+
+"You'd make a healthy-lookin' figger in a group," responded Kearney,
+critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's trousers. "Why
+don't you have a fountain instead?"
+
+"Where'll you get the water?" demanded the first speaker, in return.
+"You know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a week's washing
+for the camp--to say nothin' of its color."
+
+"Leave that to me," said Kearney, with self-possession. "When I've built
+that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and bring the water over the ridge
+from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for that."
+
+"Better mix it up, I reckon--have suthin' half statoo, half fountain,"
+interposed the elder Mattingly, better known as "Maryland Joe," "and set
+it up afore the Town Hall and Free Library I'm kalklatin' to give. Do
+THAT, and you can count on me."
+
+After some further discussion, it was gravely settled that Kearney
+should furnish water brought from the Union Ditch, twenty miles away,
+at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, to feed a memorial fountain
+erected by Mattingly, worth a hundred thousand dollars, as a crowning
+finish to public buildings contributed by Maryland Joe, to the extent
+of half a million more. The disposition of these vast sums by gentlemen
+wearing patched breeches awakened no sense of the ludicrous, nor did any
+doubt, reservation, or contingency enter into the plans of the charming
+enthusiasts themselves. The foundation of their airy castles lay already
+before them in the strip of rich alluvium on the river bank, where the
+North Fork, sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for
+centuries swept the detritus of gulch and canyon. They had barely
+crossed the threshold of this treasure-house, to find themselves rich
+men; what possibilities of affluence might be theirs when they had fully
+exploited their possessions? So confident were they of that ultimate
+prospect, that the wealth already thus obtained was religiously expended
+in engines and machinery for the boring of wells and the conveyance of
+that precious water which the exhausted river had long since ceased to
+yield. It seemed as if the gold they had taken out was by some ironical
+compensation gradually making its way back to the soil again through
+ditch and flume and reservoir.
+
+Such was the position of affairs at Devil's Ford on the 13th of August,
+1860. It was noon of a hot day. Whatever movement there was in the
+stifling air was seen rather than felt in a tremulous, quivering,
+upward-moving dust along the flank of the mountain, through which the
+spires of the pines were faintly visible. There was no water in the
+bared and burning bars of the river to reflect the vertical sun, but
+under its direct rays one or two tinned roofs and corrugated zinc cabins
+struck fire, a few canvas tents became dazzling to the eye, and the
+white wooded corral of the stage office and hotel insupportable. For
+two hours no one ventured in the glare of the open, or even to cross the
+narrow, unshadowed street, whose dull red dust seemed to glow between
+the lines of straggling houses. The heated shells of these green
+unseasoned tenements gave out a pungent odor of scorching wood and
+resin. The usual hurried, feverish toil in the claim was suspended;
+the pick and shovel were left sticking in the richest "pay gravel;"
+the toiling millionaires themselves, ragged, dirty, and perspiring, lay
+panting under the nearest shade, where the pipes went out listlessly,
+and conversation sank to monosyllables.
+
+"There's Fairfax," said Dick Mattingly, at last, with a lazy effort. His
+face was turned to the hillside, where a man had just emerged from
+the woods, and was halting irresolutely before the glaring expanse of
+upheaved gravel and glistening boulders that stretched between him and
+the shaded group. "He's going to make a break for it," he added, as the
+stranger, throwing his linen coat over his head, suddenly started into
+an Indian trot through the pelting sunbeams toward them. This strange
+act was perfectly understood by the group, who knew that in that
+intensely dry heat the danger of exposure was lessened by active
+exercise and the profuse perspiration that followed it. In another
+moment the stranger had reached their side, dripping as if rained upon,
+mopping his damp curls and handsome bearded face with his linen coat, as
+he threw himself pantingly on the ground.
+
+"I struck out over here first, boys, to give you a little warning," he
+said, as soon as he had gained breath. "That engineer will be down here
+to take charge as soon as the six o'clock stage comes in. He's an oldish
+chap, has got a family of two daughters, and--I--am--d----d if he is not
+bringing them down here with him."
+
+"Oh, go long!" exclaimed the five men in one voice, raising themselves
+on their hands and elbows, and glaring at the speaker.
+
+"Fact, boys! Soon as I found it out I just waltzed into that Jew shop at
+the Crossing and bought up all the clothes that would be likely to suit
+you fellows, before anybody else got a show. I reckon I cleared out the
+shop. The duds are a little mixed in style, but I reckon they're clean
+and whole, and a man might face a lady in 'em. I left them round at the
+old Buckeye Spring, where they're handy without attracting attention.
+You boys can go there for a general wash-up, rig yourselves up without
+saying anything, and then meander back careless and easy in your store
+clothes, just as the stage is coming in, sabe?"
+
+"Why didn't you let us know earlier?" asked Mattingly aggrievedly;
+"you've been back here at least an hour."
+
+"I've been getting some place ready for THEM," returned the new-comer.
+"We might have managed to put the man somewhere, if he'd been alone, but
+these women want family accommodation. There was nothing left for me to
+do but to buy up Thompson's saloon."
+
+"No?" interrupted his audience, half in incredulity, half in
+protestation.
+
+"Fact! You boys will have to take your drinks under canvas again, I
+reckon! But I made Thompson let those gold-framed mirrors that used to
+stand behind the bar go into the bargain, and they sort of furnish the
+room. You know the saloon is one of them patent houses you can take to
+pieces, and I've been reckoning you boys will have to pitch in and help
+me to take the whole shanty over to the laurel bushes, and put it up
+agin Kearney's cabin."
+
+"What's all that?" said the younger Kearney, with an odd mingling of
+astonishment and bashful gratification.
+
+"Yes, I reckon yours is the cleanest house, because it's the newest, so
+you'll just step out and let us knock in one o' the gables, and clap it
+on to the saloon, and make ONE house of it, don't you see? There'll be
+two rooms, one for the girls and the other for the old man."
+
+The astonishment and bewilderment of the party had gradually given way
+to a boyish and impatient interest.
+
+"Hadn't we better do the job at once?" suggested Dick Mattingly.
+
+"Or throw ourselves into those new clothes, so as to be ready," added
+the younger Kearney, looking down at his ragged trousers. "I say,
+Fairfax, what are the girls like, eh?"
+
+All the others had been dying to ask the question, yet one and all
+laughed at the conscious manner and blushing cheek of the questioner.
+
+"You'll find out quick enough," returned Fairfax, whose curt
+carelessness did not, however, prevent a slight increase of color on his
+own cheek. "We'd better get that job off our hands before doing anything
+else. So, if you're ready, boys, we'll just waltz down to Thompson's and
+pack up the shanty. He's out of it by this time, I reckon. You might
+as well be perspiring to some purpose over there as gaspin' under this
+tree. We won't go back to work this afternoon, but knock off now, and
+call it half a day. Come! Hump yourselves, gentlemen. Are you ready?
+One, two, three, and away!"
+
+In another instant the tree was deserted; the figures of the five
+millionaires of Devil's Ford, crossing the fierce glare of the open
+space, with boyish alacrity, glistened in the sunlight, and then
+disappeared in the nearest fringe of thickets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil's Spur had crossed the river,
+and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the Pioneer coach,
+leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated bulk in the long
+shadows of the descent. Conspicuous among the dusty passengers, the
+two pretty and youthful faces of the daughters of Philip Carr, mining
+superintendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little
+anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below,
+that occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zigzagging road.
+A slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they
+gazed upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that
+stood equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble
+and inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed
+through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the preparation of
+that long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and pastoral
+glades and canyons, that, as the coach swept down the last incline,
+and the remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out before them,
+furrowed by ditches and indented by pits, under cover of shielding their
+cheeks from the impalpable dust that rose beneath the plunging
+wheels, they buried their faces in their handkerchiefs, to hide a few
+half-hysterical tears. Happily, their father, completely absorbed in a
+practical, scientific, and approving contemplation of the topography
+and material resources of the scene of his future labors, had no time
+to notice their defection. It was not until the stage drew up before
+a rambling tenement bearing the inscription, "Hotel and Stage Office,"
+that he became fully aware of it.
+
+"We can't stop HERE, papa," said Christie Carr decidedly, with a shake
+of her pretty head. "You can't expect that."
+
+Mr. Carr looked up at the building; it was half grocery, half saloon.
+Whatever other accommodations it contained must have been hidden in the
+rear, as the flat roof above was almost level with the raftered ceiling
+of the shop.
+
+"Certainly," he replied hurriedly; "we'll see to that in a moment. I
+dare say it's all right. I told Fairfax we were coming. Somebody ought
+to be here."
+
+"But they're not," said Jessie Carr indignantly; "and the few that were
+here scampered off like rabbits to their burrows as soon as they saw us
+get down."
+
+It was true. The little group of loungers before the building had
+suddenly disappeared. There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing in an
+adjacent doorway; the fading apparition of a pair of high boots and blue
+overalls in another; the abrupt withdrawal of a curly blond head from a
+sashless window over the way. Even the saloon was deserted, although
+a back door in the dim recess seemed to creak mysteriously. The
+stage-coach, with the other passengers, had already rattled away.
+
+"I certainly think Fairfax understood that I--" began Mr. Carr.
+
+He was interrupted by the pressure of Christie's fingers on his arm and
+a subdued exclamation from Jessie, who was staring down the street.
+
+"What are they?" she whispered in her sister's ear. "Nigger minstrels, a
+circus, or what?"
+
+The five millionaires of Devil's Ford had just turned the corner of the
+straggling street, and were approaching in single file. One glance was
+sufficient to show that they had already availed themselves of the new
+clothing bought by Fairfax, had washed, and one or two had shaved. But
+the result was startling.
+
+Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the only
+one who had achieved an entire new suit. But it was of funereal black
+cloth, and although relieved at one extremity by a pair of high riding
+boots, in which his too short trousers were tucked, and at the other
+by a tall white hat, and cravat of aggressive yellow, the effect was
+depressing. In agreeable contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was
+attired in a thin fawn-colored summer overcoat, lightly worn open, so as
+to show the unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of
+nankeen trousers and pumps.
+
+The Kearney brothers had divided a suit between them, the elder wearing
+a tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock-coat and a pair of pink
+striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly displayed the
+trousers of his brother's suit, as a harmonious change to a shining
+black alpaca coat and crimson neckerchief. Fairfax, who brought up the
+rear, had, with characteristic unselfishness, contented himself with a
+French workman's blue blouse and a pair of white duck trousers. Had they
+shown the least consciousness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they
+would have seemed despicable. But only one expression beamed on the five
+sunburnt and shining faces--a look of unaffected boyish gratification
+and unrestricted welcome.
+
+They halted before Mr. Carr and his daughters, simultaneously removed
+their various and remarkable head coverings, and waited until Fairfax
+advanced and severally presented them. Jessie Carr's half-frightened
+smile took refuge in the trembling shadows of her dark lashes; Christie
+Carr stiffened slightly, and looked straight before her.
+
+"We reckoned--that is--we intended to meet you and the young ladies at
+the grade," said Fairfax, reddening a little as he endeavored to
+conceal his too ready slang, "and save you from trapesing--from dragging
+yourselves up grade again to your house."
+
+"Then there IS a house?" said Jessie, with an alarming frank laugh
+of relief, that was, however, as frankly reflected in the boyishly
+appreciative eyes of the young men.
+
+"Such as it is," responded Fairfax, with a shade of anxiety, as he
+glanced at the fresh and pretty costumes of the young women, and
+dubiously regarded the two Saratoga trunks resting hopelessly on the
+veranda. "I'm afraid it isn't much, for what you're accustomed to. But,"
+he added more cheerfully, "it will do for a day or two, and perhaps
+you'll give us the pleasure of showing you the way there now."
+
+The procession was quickly formed. Mr. Carr, alive only to the actual
+business that had brought him there, at once took possession of
+Fairfax, and began to disclose his plans for the working of the mine,
+occasionally halting to look at the work already done in the ditches,
+and to examine the field of his future operations. Fairfax, not
+displeased at being thus relieved of a lighter attendance on Mr.
+Carr's daughters, nevertheless from time to time cast a paternal glance
+backwards upon their escorts, who had each seized a handle of the two
+trunks, and were carrying them in couples at the young ladies' side. The
+occupation did not offer much freedom for easy gallantry, but no sign
+of discomfiture or uneasiness was visible in the grateful faces of the
+young men. The necessity of changing hands at times with their burdens
+brought a corresponding change of cavalier at the lady's side, although
+it was observed that the younger Kearney, for the sake of continuing a
+conversation with Miss Jessie, kept his grasp of the handle nearest the
+young lady until his hand was nearly cut through, and his arm worn out
+by exhaustion.
+
+"The only thing on wheels in the camp is a mule wagon, and the mules are
+packin' gravel from the river this afternoon," explained Dick Mattingly
+apologetically to Christie, "or we'd have toted--I mean carried--you and
+your baggage up to the shant--the--your house. Give us two weeks more,
+Miss Carr--only two weeks to wash up our work and realize--and we'll
+give you a pair of 2.40 steppers and a skeleton buggy to meet you at the
+top of the hill and drive you over to the cabin. Perhaps you'd prefer
+a regular carriage; some ladies do. And a nigger driver. But what's the
+use of planning anything? Afore that time comes we'll have run you up
+a house on the hill, and you shall pick out the spot. It wouldn't take
+long--unless you preferred brick. I suppose we could get brick over from
+La Grange, if you cared for it, but it would take longer. If you
+could put up for a time with something of stained glass and a mahogany
+veranda--"
+
+In spite of her cold indignation, and the fact that she could understand
+only a part of Mattingly's speech, Christie comprehended enough to make
+her lift her clear eyes to the speaker, as she replied freezingly that
+she feared she would not trouble them long with her company.
+
+"Oh, you'll get over that," responded Mattingly, with an exasperating
+confidence that drove her nearly frantic, from the manifest kindliness
+of intent that made it impossible for her to resent it. "I felt that way
+myself at first. Things will look strange and unsociable for a while,
+until you get the hang of them. You'll naturally stamp round and cuss a
+little--" He stopped in conscious consternation.
+
+With ready tact, and before Christie could reply, Maryland Joe had put
+down the trunk and changed hands with his brother.
+
+"You mustn't mind Dick, or he'll go off and kill himself with shame," he
+whispered laughingly in her ear. "He means all right, but he's picked
+up so much slang here that he's about forgotten how to talk English, and
+it's nigh on to four years since he's met a young lady."
+
+Christie did not reply. Yet the laughter of her sister in advance with
+the Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she tried to
+crush further familiarity only ridiculous.
+
+"Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?"
+
+She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her
+own, and hesitated. After all, why should she add to her other real
+disappointments by taking this absurd creature seriously?
+
+"In what way?" she returned, with a half smile.
+
+"To play. On the piano, of course. There isn't one nearer here than
+Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You
+couldn't do anything on a banjo?" he added doubtfully; "Kearney's got
+one."
+
+"I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those
+mountains," said Christie laughingly, to avoid the collateral of the
+banjo.
+
+"We got a billiard-table over from Stockton," half bashfully interrupted
+Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to recover his
+composure, "and it had to be brought over in sections on the back of a
+mule, so I don't see why--" He stopped short again in confusion, at a
+sign from his brother, and then added, "I mean, of course, that a piano
+is a heap more delicate, and valuable, and all that sort of thing, but
+it's worth trying for."
+
+"Fairfax was always saying he'd get one for himself, so I reckon it's
+possible," said Joe.
+
+"Does he play?" asked Christie.
+
+"You bet," said Joe, quite forgetting himself in his enthusiasm. "He can
+snatch Mozart and Beethoven bald-headed."
+
+In the embarrassing silence that followed this speech the fringe of pine
+wood nearest the flat was reached. Here there was a rude "clearing," and
+beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently joined tenements. There
+was no attempt to conceal the point of junction between Kearney's
+cabin and the newly-transported saloon from the flat--no architectural
+illusion of the palpable collusion of the two buildings, which seemed
+to be telescoped into each other. The front room or living room occupied
+the whole of Kearney's cabin. It contained, in addition to the necessary
+articles for housekeeping, a "bunk" or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to
+leave the second building entirely to the occupation of his daughters as
+bedroom and boudoir.
+
+There was a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude
+utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the
+two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor
+Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept these young
+men from accompanying them into the room they had but a few moments
+before decorated and arranged with their own hands, and it was not until
+they turned to thank their strange entertainers that they found that
+they were gone.
+
+The arrangement of the second room was rude and bizarre, but not without
+a singular originality and even tastefulness of conception. What had
+been the counter or "bar" of the saloon, gorgeous in white and gold,
+now sawn in two and divided, was set up on opposite sides of the room as
+separate dressing-tables, decorated with huge bunches of azaleas, that
+hid the rough earthenware bowls, and gave each table the appearance of a
+vestal altar.
+
+The huge gilt plate-glass mirror which had hung behind the bar still
+occupied one side of the room, but its length was artfully divided by
+an enormous rosette of red, white, and blue muslin--one of the surviving
+Fourth of July decorations of Thompson's saloon. On either side of the
+door two pathetic-looking, convent-like cots, covered with spotless
+sheeting, and heaped up in the middle, like a snow-covered grave, had
+attracted their attention. They were still staring at them when Mr. Carr
+anticipated their curiosity.
+
+"I ought to tell you that the young men confided to me the fact that
+there was neither bed nor mattress to be had on the Ford. They have
+filled some flour sacks with clean dry moss from the woods, and put half
+a dozen blankets on the top, and they hope you can get along until
+the messenger who starts to-night for La Grange can bring some bedding
+over."
+
+Jessie flew with mischievous delight to satisfy herself of the truth
+of this marvel. "It's so, Christie," she said laughingly--"three
+flour-sacks apiece; but I'm jealous: yours are all marked 'superfine,'
+and mine 'middlings.'"
+
+Mr. Carr had remained uneasily watching Christie's shadowed face.
+
+"What matters?" she said drily. "The accommodation is all in keeping."
+
+"It will be better in a day or two," he continued, casting a longing
+look towards the door--the first refuge of masculine weakness in an
+impending domestic emergency. "I'll go and see what can be done," he
+said feebly, with a sidelong impulse towards the opening and freedom.
+"I've got to see Fairfax again to-night any way."
+
+"One moment, father," said Christie, wearily. "Did you know anything of
+this place and these--these people--before you came?"
+
+"Certainly--of course I did," he returned, with the sudden testiness of
+disturbed abstraction. "What are you thinking of? I knew the geological
+strata and the--the report of Fairfax and his partners before I
+consented to take charge of the works. And I can tell you that there is
+a fortune here. I intend to make my own terms, and share in it."
+
+"And not take a salary or some sum of money down?" said Christie, slowly
+removing her bonnet in the same resigned way.
+
+"I am not a hired man, or a workman, Christie," said her father sharply.
+"You ought not to oblige me to remind you of that."
+
+"But the hired men--the superintendent and his workmen--were the only
+ones who ever got anything out of your last experience with Colonel
+Waters at La Grange, and--and we at least lived among civilized people
+there."
+
+"These young men are not common people, Christie; even if they have
+forgotten the restraints of speech and manners, they're gentlemen."
+
+"Who are willing to live like--like negroes."
+
+"You can make them what you please."
+
+Christie raised her eyes. There was a certain cynical ring in her
+father's voice that was unlike his usual hesitating abstraction. It both
+puzzled and pained her.
+
+"I mean," he said hastily, "that you have the same opportunity to direct
+the lives of these young men into more regular, disciplined channels
+that I have to regulate and correct their foolish waste of industry and
+material here. It would at least beguile the time for you."
+
+Fortunately for Mr. Carr's escape and Christie's uneasiness, Jessie, who
+had been examining the details of the living-room, broke in upon this
+conversation.
+
+"I'm sure it will be as good as a perpetual picnic. George Kearney says
+we can have a cooking-stove under the tree outside at the back, and as
+there will be no rain for three months we can do the cooking there,
+and that will give us more room for--for the piano when it comes;
+and there's an old squaw to do the cleaning and washing-up any
+day--and--and--it will be real fun."
+
+She stopped breathlessly, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes--a
+charming picture of youth and trustfulness. Mr. Carr had seized the
+opportunity to escape.
+
+"Really, now, Christie," said Jessie confidentially, when they were
+alone, and Christie had begun to unpack her trunk, and to mechanically
+put her things away, "they're not so bad."
+
+"Who?" asked Christie.
+
+"Why, the Kearneys, and Mattinglys, and Fairfax, and the lot, provided
+you don't look at their clothes. And think of it! they told me--for they
+tell one EVERYTHING in the most alarming way--that those clothes were
+bought to please US. A scramble of things bought at La Grange, without
+reference to size or style. And to hear these creatures talk, why, you'd
+think they were Astors or Rothschilds. Think of that little one with
+the curls--I don't believe he is over seventeen, for all his baby
+moustache--says he's going to build an assembly hall for us to give
+a dance in next month; and apologizes the next breath to tell us that
+there isn't any milk to be had nearer than La Grange, and we must do
+without it, and use syrup in our tea to-morrow."
+
+"And where is all this wealth?" said Christie, forcing herself to smile
+at her sister's animation.
+
+"Under our very feet, my child, and all along the river. Why, what
+we thought was pure and simple mud is what they call 'gold-bearing
+cement.'"
+
+"I suppose that is why they don't brush their boots and trousers, it's
+so precious," returned Christie drily. "And have they ever translated
+this precious dirt into actual coin?"
+
+"Bless you, yes. Why, that dirty little gutter, you know, that ran along
+the side of the road and followed us down the hill all the way here,
+that cost them--let me see--yes, nearly sixty thousand dollars. And
+fancy! papa's just condemned it--says it won't do; and they've got to
+build another."
+
+An impatient sigh from Christie drew Jessie's attention to her troubled
+eyebrows.
+
+"Don't worry about our disappointment, dear. It isn't so very great. I
+dare say we'll be able to get along here in some way, until papa is rich
+again. You know they intend to make him share with them."
+
+"It strikes me that he is sharing with them already," said Christie,
+glancing bitterly round the cabin; "sharing everything--ourselves, our
+lives, our tastes."
+
+"Ye-e-s!" said Jessie, with vaguely hesitating assent. "Yes, even
+these:" she showed two dice in the palm of her little hand. "I found 'em
+in the drawer of our dressing-table."
+
+"Throw them away," said Christie impatiently.
+
+But Jessie's small fingers closed over the dice. "I'll give them to the
+little Kearney. I dare say they were the poor boy's playthings."
+
+The appearance of these relics of wild dissipation, however, had lifted
+Christie out of her sublime resignation. "For Heaven's sake, Jessie,"
+she said, "look around and see if there is anything more!"
+
+To make sure, they each began to scrimmage; the broken-spirited Christie
+exhibiting both alacrity and penetration in searching obscure corners.
+In the dining-room, behind the dresser, three or four books were
+discovered: an odd volume of Thackeray, another of Dickens, a
+memorandum-book or diary. "This seems to be Latin," said Jessie, fishing
+out a smaller book. "I can't read it."
+
+"It's just as well you shouldn't," said Christie shortly, whose ideas
+of a general classical impropriety had been gathered from pages of
+Lempriere's dictionary. "Put it back directly."
+
+Jessie returned certain odes of one Horatius Flaccus to the corner, and
+uttered an exclamation. "Oh, Christie! here are some letters tied up
+with a ribbon."
+
+They were two or three prettily written letters, exhaling a faint odor
+of refinement and of the pressed flowers that peeped from between the
+loose leaves. "I see, 'My darling Fairfax.' It's from some woman."
+
+"I don't think much of her, whosoever she is," said Christie, tossing
+the intact packet back into the corner.
+
+"Nor I," echoed Jessie.
+
+Nevertheless, by some feminine inconsistency, evidently the circumstance
+did make them think more of HIM, for a minute later, when they had
+reentered their own room, Christie remarked, "The idea of petting a
+man by his family name! Think of mamma ever having called papa 'darling
+Carr'!"
+
+"Oh, but his family name isn't Fairfax," said Jessie hastily; "that's
+his FIRST name, his Christian name. I forget what's his other name, but
+nobody ever calls him by it."
+
+"Do you mean," said Christie, with glistening eyes and awful
+deliberation--"do you mean to say that we're expected to fall in with
+this insufferable familiarity? I suppose they'll be calling US by our
+Christian names next."
+
+"Oh, but they do!" said Jessie, mischievously.
+
+"What!"
+
+"They call me Miss Jessie; and Kearney, the little one, asked me if
+Christie played."
+
+"And what did you say?"
+
+"I said that you did," answered Jessie, with an affectation of cherubic
+simplicity. "You do, dear; don't you? . . . There, don't get angry,
+darling; I couldn't flare up all of a sudden in the face of that poor
+little creature; he looked so absurd--and so--so honest."
+
+Christie turned away, relapsing into her old resigned manner, and
+assuming her household duties in a quiet, temporizing way that was,
+however, without hope or expectation.
+
+Mr. Carr, who had dined with his friends under the excuse of not adding
+to the awkwardness of the first day's housekeeping returned late at
+night with a mass of papers and drawings, into which he afterwards
+withdrew, but not until he had delivered himself of a mysterious package
+entrusted to him by the young men for his daughters. It contained a
+contribution to their board in the shape of a silver spoon and battered
+silver mug, which Jessie chose to facetiously consider as an affecting
+reminiscence of the youthful Kearney's christening days--which it
+probably was.
+
+The young girls retired early to their white snow-drifts: Jessie not
+without some hilarious struggles with hers, in which she was, however,
+quickly surprised by the deep and refreshing sleep of youth; Christie to
+lie awake and listen to the night wind, that had changed from the first
+cool whispers of sunset to the sturdy breath of the mountain. At times
+the frail house shook and trembled. Wandering gusts laden with the
+deep resinous odors of the wood found their way through the imperfect
+jointure of the two cabins, swept her cheek and even stirred her long,
+wide-open lashes. A broken spray of pine needles rustled along the roof,
+or a pine cone dropped with a quick reverberating tap-tap that for an
+instant startled her. Lying thus, wide awake, she fell into a dreamy
+reminiscence of the past, hearing snatches of old melody in the moving
+pines, fragments of sentences, old words, and familiar epithets in the
+murmuring wind at her ear, and even the faint breath of long-forgotten
+kisses on her cheek. She remembered her mother--a pallid creature, who
+had slowly faded out of one of her father's vague speculations in a
+vaguer speculation of her own, beyond his ken--whose place she had
+promised to take at her father's side. The words, "Watch over him,
+Christie; he needs a woman's care," again echoed in her ears, as if
+borne on the night wind from the lonely grave in the lonelier cemetery
+by the distant sea. She had devoted herself to him with some little
+sacrifices of self, only remembered now for their uselessness in
+saving her father the disappointment that sprang from his sanguine and
+one-idea'd temperament. She thought of him lying asleep in the other
+room, ready on the morrow to devote those fateful qualities to the new
+enterprise that with equally fateful disposition she believed would end
+in failure. It did not occur to her that the doubts of her own practical
+nature were almost as dangerous and illogical as his enthusiasm, and
+that for that reason she was fast losing what little influence she
+possessed over him. With the example of her mother's weakness before her
+eyes, she had become an unsparing and distrustful critic, with the sole
+effect of awakening his distrust and withdrawing his confidence from
+her.
+
+He was beginning to deceive her as he had never deceived her mother.
+Even Jessie knew more of this last enterprise than she did herself.
+
+All that did not tend to decrease her utter restlessness. It was already
+past midnight when she noticed that the wind had again abated. The
+mountain breeze had by this time possessed the stifling valleys and
+heated bars of the river in its strong, cold embraces; the equilibrium
+of Nature was restored, and a shadowy mist rose from the hollow. A
+stillness, more oppressive and intolerable than the previous commotion,
+began to pervade the house and the surrounding woods. She could hear the
+regular breathing of the sleepers; she even fancied she could detect the
+faint impulses of the more distant life in the settlement. The far-off
+barking of a dog, a lost shout, the indistinct murmur of some nearer
+watercourse--mere phantoms of sound--made the silence more irritating.
+With a sudden resolution she arose, dressed herself quietly and
+completely, threw a heavy cloak over her head and shoulders, and opened
+the door between the living-room and her own. Her father was sleeping
+soundly in his bunk in the corner. She passed noiselessly through the
+room, opened the lightly fastened door, and stepped out into the night.
+
+In the irritation and disgust of her walk hither, she had never noticed
+the situation of the cabin, as it nestled on the slope at the fringe of
+the woods; in the preoccupation of her disappointment and the mechanical
+putting away of her things, she had never looked once from the window of
+her room, or glanced backward out of the door that she had entered. The
+view before her was a revelation--a reproach, a surprise that took away
+her breath. Over her shoulders the newly risen moon poured a flood of
+silvery light, stretching from her feet across the shining bars of the
+river to the opposite bank, and on up to the very crest of the
+Devil's Spur--no longer a huge bulk of crushing shadow, but the steady
+exaltation of plateau, spur, and terrace clothed with replete and
+unutterable beauty. In this magical light that beauty seemed to be
+sustained and carried along by the river winding at its base, lifted
+again to the broad shoulder of the mountain, and lost only in the
+distant vista of death-like, overcrowning snow. Behind and above where
+she stood the towering woods seemed to be waiting with opened ranks
+to absorb her with the little cabin she had quitted, dwarfed into
+insignificance in the vast prospect; but nowhere was there another sign
+or indication of human life and habitation. She looked in vain for
+the settlement, for the rugged ditches, the scattered cabins, and the
+unsightly heaps of gravel. In the glamour of the moonlight they had
+vanished; a veil of silver-gray vapor touched here and there with ebony
+shadows masked its site. A black strip beyond was the river bank. All
+else was changed. With a sudden sense of awe and loneliness she turned
+to the cabin and its sleeping inmates--all that seemed left to her in
+the vast and stupendous domination of rock and wood and sky.
+
+But in another moment the loneliness passed. A new and delicious sense
+of an infinite hospitality and friendliness in their silent presence
+began to possess her. This same slighted, forgotten, uncomprehended,
+but still foolish and forgiving Nature seemed to be bending over her
+frightened and listening ear with vague but thrilling murmurings of
+freedom and independence. She felt her heart expand with its wholesome
+breath, her soul fill with its sustaining truth.
+
+She felt--
+
+What was that?
+
+An unmistakable outburst of a drunken song at the foot of the slope:--
+
+     "Oh, my name it is Johnny from Pike,
+     I'm h-ll on a spree or a strike." . . .
+
+She stopped as crimson with shame and indignation as if the viewless
+singer had risen before her.
+
+     "I knew when to bet, and get up and get--"
+
+"Hush! D--n it all. Don't you hear?"
+
+There was the sound of hurried whispers, a "No" and "Yes," and then a
+dead silence.
+
+Christie crept nearer to the edge of the slope in the shadow of a
+buckeye. In the clearer view she could distinguish a staggering
+figure in the trail below who had evidently been stopped by two other
+expostulating shadows that were approaching from the shelter of a tree.
+
+"Sho!--didn't know!"
+
+The staggering figure endeavored to straighten itself, and then slouched
+away in the direction of the settlement. The two mysterious shadows
+retreated again to the tree, and were lost in its deeper shadow.
+Christie darted back to the cabin, and softly reentered her room.
+
+"I thought I heard a noise that woke me, and I missed you," said Jessie,
+rubbing her eyes. "Did you see anything?"
+
+"No," said Christie, beginning to undress.
+
+"You weren't frightened, dear?"
+
+"Not in the least," said Christie, with a strange little laugh. "Go to
+sleep."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The five impulsive millionaires of Devil's Ford fulfilled not a few of
+their most extravagant promises. In less than six weeks Mr. Carr and
+his daughters were installed in a new house, built near the site of the
+double cabin, which was again transferred to the settlement, in order
+to give greater seclusion to the fair guests. It was a long, roomy,
+one-storied villa, with a not unpicturesque combination of deep veranda
+and trellis work, which relieved the flat monotony of the interior and
+the barrenness of the freshly-cleared ground. An upright piano, brought
+from Sacramento, occupied the corner of the parlor. A suite of gorgeous
+furniture, whose pronounced and extravagant glories the young girls
+instinctively hid under home-made linen covers, had also been spoils
+from afar. Elsewhere the house was filled with ornaments and decorations
+that in their incongruity forcibly recalled the gilded plate-glass
+mirrors of the bedroom in the old cabin. In the hasty furnishing of
+this Aladdin's palace, the slaves of the ring had evidently seized
+upon anything that would add to its glory, without reference always to
+fitness.
+
+"I wish it didn't look so cussedly like a robber's cave," said George
+Kearney, when they were taking a quiet preliminary survey of the
+unclassified treasures, before the Carrs took possession.
+
+"Or a gambling hell," said his brother reflectively.
+
+"It's about the same thing, I reckon," said Dick Mattingly, who was
+supposed, in his fiery youth, to have encountered the similarity.
+
+Nevertheless, the two girls managed to bestow the heterogeneous
+collection with tasteful adaptation to their needs. A crystal
+chandelier, which had once lent a fascinating illusion to the game of
+Monte, hung unlighted in the broad hall, where a few other bizarre and
+public articles were relegated. A long red sofa or bench, which had done
+duty beside a billiard-table found a place here also. Indeed, it is to
+be feared that some of the more rustic and bashful youths of Devil's
+Ford, who had felt it incumbent upon them to pay their respects to
+the new-comers, were more at ease in this vestibule than in the arcana
+beyond, whose glories they could see through the open door. To others,
+it represented a recognized state of probation before their re-entree
+into civilization again. "I reckon, if you don't mind, miss," said the
+spokesman of one party, "ez this is our first call, we'll sorter hang
+out in the hall yer, until you'r used to us." On another occasion, one
+Whiskey Dick, impelled by a sense of duty, paid a visit to the new house
+and its fair occupants, in a fashion frankly recounted by him afterwards
+at the bar of the Tecumseh Saloon.
+
+"You see, boys, I dropped in there the other night, when some of you
+fellers was doin' the high-toned 'thankee, marm' business in the parlor.
+I just came to anchor in the corner of the sofy in the hall, without
+lettin' on to say that I was there, and took up a Webster's dictionary
+that was on the table and laid it open--keerless like, on my knees, ez
+if I was sorter consultin' it--and kinder dozed off there, listenin' to
+you fellows gassin' with the young ladies, and that yer Miss Christie
+just snakin' music outer that pianner, and I reckon I fell asleep.
+Anyhow, I was there nigh on to two hours. It's mighty soothin', them
+fashionable calls; sorter knocks the old camp dust outer a fellow, and
+sets him up again."
+
+It would have been well if the new life of the Devil's Ford had shown
+no other irregularity than the harmless eccentricities of its original
+locaters. But the news of its sudden fortune, magnified by report, began
+presently to flood the settlement with another class of adventurers.
+A tide of waifs, strays, and malcontents of old camps along the river
+began to set towards Devil's Ford, in very much the same fashion as the
+debris, drift, and alluvium had been carried down in bygone days and
+cast upon its banks. A few immigrant wagons, diverted from the highways
+of travel by the fame of the new diggings, halted upon the slopes of
+Devil's Spur and on the arid flats of the Ford, and disgorged their
+sallow freight of alkali-poisoned, prematurely-aged women and children
+and maimed and fever-stricken men. Against this rude form of domesticity
+were opposed the chromo-tinted dresses and extravagant complexions of
+a few single unattended women--happily seen more often at night behind
+gilded bars than in the garish light of day--and an equal number of
+pale-faced, dark-moustached, well-dressed, and suspiciously idle men.
+A dozen rivals of Thompson's Saloon had sprung up along the narrow
+main street. There were two new hotels--one a "Temperance House," whose
+ascetic quality was confined only to the abnegation of whiskey--a rival
+stage office, and a small one-storied building, from which the "Sierran
+Banner" fluttered weekly, for "ten dollars a year, in advance."
+Insufferable in the glare of a Sabbath sun, bleak, windy, and flaring in
+the gloom of a Sabbath night, and hopelessly depressing on all days of
+the week, the First Presbyterian Church lifted its blunt steeple from
+the barrenest area of the flats, and was hideous! The civic improvements
+so enthusiastically contemplated by the five millionaires in the earlier
+pages of this veracious chronicle--the fountain, reservoir, town-hall,
+and free library--had not yet been erected. Their sites had been
+anticipated by more urgent buildings and mining works, unfortunately
+not considered in the sanguine dreams of the enthusiasts, and, more
+significant still, their cost and expense had been also anticipated by
+the enormous outlay of their earnings in the work upon Devil's Ditch.
+
+Nevertheless, the liberal fulfilment of their promise in the new house
+in the suburbs blinded the young girls' eyes to their shortcomings in
+the town. Their own remoteness and elevation above its feverish life
+kept them from the knowledge of much that was strange, and perhaps
+disturbing to their equanimity. As they did not mix with the immigrant
+women--Miss Jessie's good-natured intrusion into one of their
+half-nomadic camps one day having been met with rudeness and
+suspicion--they gradually fell into the way of trusting the
+responsibility of new acquaintances to the hands of their original
+hosts, and of consulting them in the matter of local recreation. It thus
+occurred that one day the two girls, on their way to the main street for
+an hour's shopping at the Villa de Paris and Variety Store, were stopped
+by Dick Mattingly a few yards from their house, with the remark that, as
+the county election was then in progress, it would be advisable for
+them to defer their intention for a few hours. As he did not deem it
+necessary to add that two citizens, in the exercise of a freeman's
+franchise, had been supplementing their ballots with bullets, in front
+of an admiring crowd, they knew nothing of that accident that removed
+from Devil's Ford an entertaining stranger, who had only the night
+before partaken of their hospitality.
+
+A week or two later, returning one morning from a stroll in the forest,
+Christie and Jessie were waylaid by George Kearney and Fairfax, and,
+under pretext of being shown a new and romantic trail, were diverted
+from the regular path. This enabled Mattingly and Maryland Joe to cut
+down the body of a man hanged by the Vigilance Committee a few hours
+before on the regular trail, and to remonstrate with the committee
+on the incompatibility of such exhibitions with a maidenly worship of
+nature.
+
+"With the whole county to hang a man in," expostulated Joe, "you might
+keep clear of Carr's woods."
+
+It is needless to add that the young girls never knew of this act of
+violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it. Mr. Carr
+was too absorbed in business to give heed to what he looked upon as
+a convulsion of society as natural as a geological upheaval, and too
+prudent to provoke the criticism of his daughters by comment in their
+presence.
+
+An equally unexpected confidence, however, took its place. Mr. Carr
+having finished his coffee one morning, lingered a moment over his
+perfunctory paternal embraces, with the awkwardness of a preoccupied
+man endeavoring by the assumption of a lighter interest to veil another
+abstraction.
+
+"And what are we doing to-day, Christie?" he asked, as Jessie left the
+dining-room.
+
+"Oh, pretty much the usual thing--nothing in particular. If George
+Kearney gets the horses from the summit, we're going to ride over to
+Indian Spring to picnic. Fairfax--Mr. Munroe--I always forget that man's
+real name in this dreadfully familiar country--well, he's coming to
+escort us, and take me, I suppose--that is, if Kearney takes Jessie."
+
+"A very nice arrangement," returned her father, with a slight nervous
+contraction of the corners of his mouth and eyelids to indicate
+mischievousness. "I've no doubt they'll both be here. You know they
+usually are--ha! ha! And what about the two Mattinglys and Philip
+Kearney, eh?" he continued; "won't they be jealous?"
+
+"It isn't their turn," said Christie carelessly; "besides, they'll
+probably be there."
+
+"And I suppose they're beginning to be resigned," said Carr, smiling.
+
+"What on earth are you talking of, father?"
+
+She turned her clear brown eyes upon him, and was regarding him with
+such manifest unconsciousness of the drift of his speech, and, withal,
+a little vague impatience of his archness, that Mr. Carr was feebly
+alarmed. It had the effect of banishing his assumed playfulness, which
+made his serious explanation the more irritating.
+
+"Well, I rather thought that--that young Kearney was paying considerable
+attention to--to--to Jessie," replied her father, with hesitating
+gravity.
+
+"What! that boy?"
+
+"Young Kearney is one of the original locators, and an equal partner in
+the mine. A very enterprising young fellow. In fact, much more advanced
+and bolder in his conceptions than the others. I find no difficulty with
+him."
+
+At another time Christie would have questioned the convincing quality
+of this proof, but she was too much shocked at her father's first
+suggestion, to think of anything else.
+
+"You don't mean to say, father, that you are talking seriously of these
+men--your friends--whom we see every day--and our only company?"
+
+"No, no!" said Mr. Carr hastily; "you misunderstand. I don't suppose
+that Jessie or you--"
+
+"Or ME! Am I included?"
+
+"You don't let me speak, Christie. I mean, I am not talking seriously,"
+continued Mr. Carr, with his most serious aspect, "of you and Jessie
+in this matter; but it may be a serious thing to these young men to be
+thrown continually in the company of two attractive girls."
+
+"I understand--you mean that we should not see so much of them," said
+Christie, with a frank expression of relief so genuine as to utterly
+discompose her father. "Perhaps you are right, though I fail to
+discover anything serious in the attentions of young Kearney to
+Jessie--or--whoever it may be--to me. But it will be very easy to
+remedy it, and see less of them. Indeed, we might begin to-day with some
+excuse."
+
+"Yes--certainly. Of course!" said Mr. Carr, fully convinced of his
+utter failure, but, like most weak creatures, consoling himself with the
+reflection that he had not shown his hand or committed himself. "Yes;
+but it would perhaps be just as well for the present to let things go on
+as they were. We'll talk of it again--I'm in a hurry now," and, edging
+himself through the door, he slipped away.
+
+"What do you think is father's last idea?" said Christie, with, I fear,
+a slight lack of reverence in her tone, as her sister reentered the
+room. "He thinks George Kearney is paying you too much attention."
+
+"No!" said Jessie, replying to her sister's half-interrogative,
+half-amused glance with a frank, unconscious smile.
+
+"Yes, and he says that Fairfax--I think it's Fairfax--is equally
+fascinated with ME."
+
+Jessie's brow slightly contracted as she looked curiously at her sister.
+
+"Of all things," she said, "I wonder if any one has put that idea into
+his dear old head. He couldn't have thought it himself."
+
+"I don't know," said Christie musingly; "but perhaps it's just as well
+if we kept a little more to ourselves for a while."
+
+"Did father say so?" said Jessie quickly.
+
+"No, but that is evidently what he meant."
+
+"Ye-es," said Jessie slowly, "unless--"
+
+"Unless what?" said Christie sharply. "Jessie, you don't for a moment
+mean to say that you could possibly conceive of anything else?"
+
+"I mean to say," said Jessie, stealing her arm around her sister's waist
+demurely, "that you are perfectly right. We'll keep away from these
+fascinating Devil's Forders, and particularly the youngest Kearney.
+I believe there has been some ill-natured gossip. I remember that the
+other day, when we passed the shanty of that Pike County family on
+the slope, there were three women at the door, and one of them said
+something that made poor little Kearney turn white and pink alternately,
+and dance with suppressed rage. I suppose the old lady--M'Corkle, that's
+her name--would like to have a share of our cavaliers for her Euphemy
+and Mamie. I dare say it's only right; I would lend them the cherub
+occasionally, and you might let them have Mr. Munroe twice a week."
+
+She laughed, but her eyes sought her sister's with a certain
+watchfulness of expression.
+
+Christie shrugged her shoulders, with a suggestion of disgust.
+
+"Don't joke. We ought to have thought of all this before."
+
+"But when we first knew them, in the dear old cabin, there wasn't any
+other woman and nobody to gossip, and that's what made it so nice. I
+don't think so very much of civilization, do you?" said the young lady
+pertly.
+
+Christie did not reply. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing. It
+certainly had been very pleasant to enjoy the spontaneous and chivalrous
+homage of these men, with no further suggestion of recompense or
+responsibility than the permission to be worshipped; but beyond that she
+racked her brain in vain to recall any look or act that proclaimed the
+lover. These men, whom she had found so relapsed into barbarism that
+they had forgotten the most ordinary forms of civilization; these
+men, even in whose extravagant admiration there was a certain loss of
+self-respect, that as a woman she would never forgive; these men, who
+seemed to belong to another race--impossible! Yet it was so.
+
+"What construction must they have put upon her father's acceptance of
+their presents--of their company--of her freedom in their presence? No!
+they must have understood from the beginning that she and her sister
+had never looked upon them except as transient hosts and chance
+acquaintances. Any other idea was preposterous. And yet--"
+
+It was the recurrence of this "yet" that alarmed her. For she remembered
+now that but for their slavish devotion they might claim to be her
+equal. According to her father's account, they had come from homes as
+good as their own; they were certainly more than her equal in fortune;
+and her father had come to them as an employee, until they had taken him
+into partnership. If there had only been sentiment of any kind
+connected with any of them! But they were all alike, brave, unselfish,
+humorous--and often ridiculous. If anything, Dick Mattingly was funniest
+by nature, and made her laugh more. Maryland Joe, his brother, told
+better stories (sometimes of Dick), though not so good a mimic as the
+other Kearney, who had a fairly sympathetic voice in singing. They were
+all good-looking enough; perhaps they set store on that--men are so
+vain.
+
+And as for her own rejected suitor, Fairfax Munroe, except for a kind of
+grave and proper motherliness about his protecting manner, he absolutely
+was the most indistinctive of them all. He had once brought her some
+rare tea from the Chinese camp, and had taught her how to make it; he
+had cautioned her against sitting under the trees at nightfall; he had
+once taken off his coat to wrap around her. Really, if this were the
+only evidence of devotion that could be shown, she was safe!
+
+"Well," said Jessie, "it amuses you, I see."
+
+Christie checked the smile that had been dimpling the cheek nearest
+Jessie, and turned upon her the face of an elder sister.
+
+"Tell me, have YOU noticed this extraordinary attention of Mr. Munroe to
+me?"
+
+"Candidly?" asked Jessie, seating herself comfortably on the table
+sideways, and endeavoring, to pull her skirt over her little feet.
+"Honest Injun?"
+
+"Don't be idiotic, and, above all, don't be slangy! Of course,
+candidly."
+
+"Well, no. I can't say that I have."
+
+"Then," said Christie, "why in the name of all that's preposterous, do
+they persist in pairing me off with the least interesting man of the
+lot?"
+
+Jessie leaped from the table.
+
+"Come now," she said, with a little nervous laugh, "he's not so bad as
+all that. You don't know him. But what does it matter now, as long as
+we're not going to see them any more?"
+
+"They're coming here for the ride to-day," said Christie resignedly.
+"Father thought it better not to break it off at once."
+
+"Father thought so!" echoed Jessie, stopping with her hand on the door.
+
+"Yes; why do you ask?"
+
+But Jessie had already left the room, and was singing in the hall.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The afternoon did not, however, bring their expected visitors. It
+brought, instead, a brief note by the hands of Whiskey Dick from
+Fairfax, apologizing for some business that kept him and George Kearney
+from accompanying the ladies. It added that the horses were at the
+disposal of themselves and any escort they might select, if they would
+kindly give the message to Whiskey Dick.
+
+The two girls looked at each other awkwardly; Jessie did not attempt to
+conceal a slight pout.
+
+"It looks as if they were anticipating us," she said, with a half-forced
+smile. "I wonder, now, if there really has been any gossip? But no! They
+wouldn't have stopped for that, unless--" She looked curiously at her
+sister.
+
+"Unless what?" repeated Christie; "you are horribly mysterious this
+morning."
+
+"Am I? It's nothing. But they're wanting an answer. Of course you'll
+decline."
+
+"And intimate we only care for their company! No! We'll say we're sorry
+they can't come, and--accept their horses. We can do without an escort,
+we two."
+
+"Capital!" said Jessie, clapping her hands. "We'll show them--"
+
+"We'll show them nothing," interrupted Christie decidedly. "In our place
+there's only the one thing to do. Where is this--Whiskey Dick?"
+
+"In the parlor."
+
+"The parlor!" echoed Christie. "Whiskey Dick? What--is he--"
+
+"Yes; he's all right," said Jessie confidently. "He's been here before,
+but he stayed in the hall; he was so shy. I don't think you saw him."
+
+"I should think not--Whiskey Dick!"
+
+"Oh, you can call him Mr. Hall, if you like," said Jessie, laughing.
+"His real name is Dick Hall. If you want to be funny, you can say Alky
+Hall, as the others do."
+
+Christie's only reply to this levity was a look of superior resignation
+as she crossed the hall and entered the parlor.
+
+Then ensued one of those surprising, mystifying, and utterly
+inexplicable changes that leave the masculine being so helpless in the
+hands of his feminine master. Before Christie opened the door her face
+underwent a rapid transformation: the gentle glow of a refined woman's
+welcome suddenly beamed in her interested eyes; the impulsive courtesy
+of an expectant hostess eagerly seizing a long-looked-for opportunity
+broke in a smile upon her lips as she swept across the room, and stopped
+with her two white outstretched hands before Whiskey Dick.
+
+It needed only the extravagant contrast presented by that gentleman to
+complete the tableau. Attired in a suit of shining black alpaca, the
+visitor had evidently prepared himself with some care for a possible
+interview. He was seated by the French window opening upon the veranda,
+as if to secure a retreat in case of an emergency. Scrupulously washed
+and shaven, some of the soap appeared to have lingered in his eyes and
+inflamed the lids, even while it lent a sleek and shining lustre, not
+unlike his coat, to his smooth black hair. Nevertheless, leaning back
+in his chair, he had allowed a large white handkerchief to depend
+gracefully from his fingers--a pose at once suggesting easy and elegant
+langour.
+
+"How kind of you to give me an opportunity to make up for my misfortune
+when you last called! I was so sorry to have missed you. But it was
+entirely my fault! You were hurried, I think--you conversed with others
+in the hall--you--"
+
+She stopped to assist him to pick up the handkerchief that had fallen,
+and the Panama hat that had rolled from his lap towards the window
+when he had started suddenly to his feet at the apparition of grace and
+beauty. As he still nervously retained the two hands he had grasped,
+this would have been a difficult feat, even had he not endeavored at the
+same moment, by a backward furtive kick, to propel the hat out of the
+window, at which she laughingly broke from his grasp and flew to the
+rescue.
+
+"Don't mind it, miss," he said hurriedly. "It is not worth your
+demeaning yourself to touch it. Leave it outside thar, miss. I wouldn't
+have toted it in, anyhow, if some of those high-falutin' fellows hadn't
+allowed, the other night, ez it were the reg'lar thing to do; as if,
+miss, any gentleman kalkilated to ever put on his hat in the house afore
+a lady!"
+
+But Christie had already possessed herself of the unlucky object, and
+had placed it upon the table. This compelled Whiskey Dick to rise again,
+and as an act of careless good breeding to drop his handkerchief in it.
+He then leaned one elbow upon the piano, and, crossing one foot over the
+other, remained standing in an attitude he remembered to have seen
+in the pages of an illustrated paper as portraying the hero in some
+drawing-room scene. It was easy and effective, but seemed to be more
+favorable to revery than conversation. Indeed, he remembered that he had
+forgotten to consult the letterpress as to which it represented.
+
+"I see you agree with me, that politeness is quite a matter of
+intention," said Christie, "and not of mere fashion and rules. Now, for
+instance," she continued, with a dazzling smile, "I suppose, according
+to the rules, I ought to give you a note to Mr. Munroe, accepting his
+offer. That is all that is required; but it seems so much nicer, don't
+you think, to tell it to YOU for HIM, and have the pleasure of your
+company and a little chat at the same time."
+
+"That's it, that's just it, Miss Carr; you've hit it in the centre this
+time," said Whiskey Dick, now quite convinced that his attitude was not
+intended for eloquence, and shifting back to his own seat, hat and all;
+"that's tantamount to what I said to the boys just now. 'You want an
+excuse,' sez I, 'for not goin' out with the young ladies. So, accorden'
+to rules, you writes a letter allowin' buzziness and that sorter thing
+detains you. But wot's the facts? You're a gentleman, and as gentlemen
+you and George comes to the opinion that you're rather playin' it for
+all it's worth in this yer house, you know--comin' here night and day,
+off and on, reg'lar sociable and fam'ly like, and makin' people talk
+about things they ain't any call to talk about, and, what's a darned
+sight more, YOU FELLOWS ain't got any right YET to allow 'em to talk
+about, d'ye see?" he paused, out of breath.
+
+It was Miss Christie's turn to move about. In changing her seat to the
+piano-stool, so as to be nearer her visitor, she brushed down some loose
+music, which Whiskey Dick hastened to pick up.
+
+"Pray don't mind it," she said, "pray don't, really--let it be--"
+But Whiskey Dick, feeling himself on safe ground in this attention,
+persisted to the bitter end of a disintegrated and well-worn
+"Travatore." "So that is what Mr. Munroe said," she remarked quietly.
+
+"Not just then, in course, but it's what's bin on his mind and in his
+talk for days off and on," returned Dick, with a knowing smile and a nod
+of mysterious confidence. "Bless your soul, Miss Carr, folks like you
+and me don't need to have them things explained. That's what I said to
+him, sez I. 'Don't send no note, but just go up there and hev it out
+fair and square, and say what you do mean.' But they would hev the note,
+and I kalkilated to bring it. But when I set my eyes on you, and heard
+you express yourself as you did just now, I sez to myself, sez I, 'Dick,
+yer's a young lady, and a fash'nable lady at that, ez don't go foolin'
+round on rules and etiketts'--excuse my freedom, Miss Carr--'and you and
+her, sez I, 'kin just discuss this yer matter in a sociable, off-hand,
+fash'nable way.' They're a good lot o' boys, Miss Carr, a square
+lot--white men all of 'em; but they're a little soft and green, may be,
+from livin' in these yer pine woods along o' the other sap. They just
+worship the ground you and your sister tread on--certain! of course!
+of course!" he added hurriedly, recognizing Christie's half-conscious,
+deprecating gesture with more exaggerated deprecation. "I understand.
+But what I wanter say is that they'd be willin' to be that ground,
+and lie down and let you walk over them--so to speak, Miss Carr, so to
+speak--if it would keep the hem of your gown from gettin' soiled in the
+mud o' the camp. But it wouldn't do for them to make a reg'lar curderoy
+road o' themselves for the houl camp to trapse over, on the mere chance
+of your some time passin' that way, would it now?"
+
+"Won't you let me offer you some refreshment, Mr. Hall?" said Christie,
+rising, with a slight color. "I'm really ashamed of my forgetfulness
+again, but I'm afraid it's partly YOUR fault for entertaining me to the
+exclusion of yourself. No, thank you, let me fetch it for you."
+
+She turned to a handsome sideboard near the door, and presently faced
+him again with a decanter of whiskey and a glass in her hand, and a
+return of the bewitching smile she had worn on entering.
+
+"But perhaps you don't take whiskey?" suggested the arch deceiver, with
+a sudden affected but pretty perplexity of eye, brow, and lips.
+
+For the first time in his life Whiskey Dick hesitated between two forms
+of intoxication. But he was still nervous and uneasy; habit triumphed,
+and he took the whiskey. He, however, wiped his lips with a slight wave
+of his handkerchief, to support a certain easy elegance which he firmly
+believed relieved the act of any vulgar quality.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," he continued, after an exhilarated pause. "Ez I said
+afore, this yer's a matter you and me can discuss after the fashion o'
+society. My idea is that these yer boys should kinder let up on you and
+Miss Jessie for a while, and do a little more permiskus attention round
+the Ford. There's one or two families yer with grown-up gals ez oughter
+be squared; that is--the boys mighter put in a few fancy touches among
+them--kinder take 'em buggy riding--or to church--once in a while--just
+to take the pizen outer their tongues, and make a kind o' bluff to the
+parents, d'ye see? That would sorter divert their own minds; and even if
+it didn't, it would kinder get 'em accustomed agin to the old style and
+their own kind. I want to warn ye agin an idea that might occur to you
+in a giniral way. I don't say you hev the idea, but it's kind o' nat'ral
+you might be thinkin' of it some time, and I thought I'd warn you agin
+it."
+
+"I think we understand each other too well to differ much, Mr. Hall,"
+said Christie, still smiling; "but what is the idea?"
+
+The delicate compliment to their confidential relations and the slight
+stimulus of liquor had tremulously exalted Whiskey Dick. Affecting to
+look cautiously out of the window and around the room, he ventured
+to draw nearer the young woman with a half-paternal, half-timid
+familiarity.
+
+"It might have occurred to you," he said, laying his handkerchief as if
+to veil mere vulgar contact, on Christie's shoulder, "that it would be a
+good thing on YOUR side to invite down some of your high-toned gentlemen
+friends from 'Frisco to visit you and escort you round. It seems quite
+nat'ral like, and I don't say it ain't, but--the boys wouldn't stand for
+it."
+
+In spite of her self-possession, Christie's eyes suddenly darkened,
+and she involuntarily drew herself up. But Whiskey Dick, guiltily
+attributing the movement to his own indiscreet gesture, said, "Excuse
+me, miss," recovered himself by lightly dusting her shoulder with his
+handkerchief, as if to remove the impression, and her smile returned.
+
+"They wouldn't stand for it," said Dick, "and there'd be some shooting!
+Not afore you, miss--not afore you, in course! But they'd adjourn to the
+woods some morning with them city folks, and hev it out with rifles at
+a hundred yards. Or, seein' ez they're city folks, the boys would do the
+square thing with pistols at twelve paces. They're good boys, as I
+said afore; but they're quick and tetchy--George, being the youngest,
+nat'rally is the tetchiest. You know how it is, Miss Carr; his pretty,
+gal-like face and little moustaches haz cost him half a dozen scrimmages
+already. He'z had a fight for every hair that's growed in his moustache
+since he kem here."
+
+"Say no more, Mr. Hall!" said Christie, rising and pressing her hands
+lightly on Dick's tremulous fingers. "If I ever had any such idea, I
+should abandon it now; you are quite right in this as in your other
+opinions. I shall never cease to be thankful to Mr. Munroe and Mr.
+Kearney that they intrusted this delicate matter to your hands."
+
+"Well," said the gratified and reddening visitor, "it ain't perhaps
+the square thing to them or myself to say that they reckoned to have me
+discuss their delicate affairs for them, but--"
+
+"I understand," interrupted Christie. "They simply gave you the letter
+as a friend. It was my good fortune to find you a sympathizing and
+liberal man of the world." The delighted Dick, with conscious vanity
+beaming from every feature of his shining face, lightly waved the
+compliment aside with his handkerchief, as she continued, "But I am
+forgetting the message. We accept the horses. Of course we COULD do
+without an escort; but forgive my speaking so frankly, are YOU engaged
+this afternoon?"
+
+"Excuse me, miss, I don't take--" stammered Dick, scarcely believing his
+ears.
+
+"Could you give us your company as an escort?" repeated Christie with a
+smile.
+
+Was he awake or dreaming, or was this some trick of liquor in his
+often distorted fancy? He, Whiskey Dick! the butt of his friends, the
+chartered oracle of the barrooms, even in whose wretched vanity there
+was always the haunting suspicion that he was despised and scorned; he,
+who had dared so much in speech, and achieved so little in fact! he,
+whose habitual weakness had even led him into the wildest indiscretion
+here; he--now offered a reward for that indiscretion! He, Whiskey Dick,
+the solicited escort of these two beautiful and peerless girls! What
+would they say at the Ford? What would his friends think? It would be
+all over the Ford the next day. His past would be vindicated, his future
+secured. He grew erect at the thought. It was almost in other voice,
+and with no trace of his previous exaggeration, that he said, "With
+pleasure."
+
+"Then, if you will bring the horses at once, we shall be ready when you
+return."
+
+In another instant he had vanished, as if afraid to trust the reality of
+his good fortune to the dangers of delay. At the end of half an hour
+he reappeared, leading the two horses, himself mounted on a half-broken
+mustang. A pair of large, jingling silver spurs and a stiff sombrero,
+borrowed with the mustang from some mysterious source, were donned to do
+honor to the occasion.
+
+The young girls were not yet ready, but he was shown by the Chinese
+servant into the parlor to wait for them. The decanter of whiskey and
+glasses were still invitingly there. He was hot, trembling, and flushed
+with triumph. He walked to the table and laid his hand on the decanter,
+when an odd thought flashed upon him. He would not drink this time.
+No, it should not be said that he, the selected escort of the elite of
+Devil's Ford, had to fill himself up with whiskey before they started.
+The boys might turn to each other in their astonishment, as he proudly
+passed with his fair companions, and say, "It's Whiskey Dick," but he'd
+be d----d if they should add, "and full as ever." No, sir! Nor when
+he was riding beside these real ladies, and leaning over them at some
+confidential moment, should they even know it from his breath! No. . . .
+Yet a thimbleful, taken straight, only a thimbleful, wouldn't be much,
+and might help to pull him together. He again reached his trembling
+hand for the decanter, hesitated, and then, turning his back upon it,
+resolutely walked to the open window. Almost at the same instant he
+found himself face to face with Christie on the veranda.
+
+She looked into his bloodshot eyes, and cast a swift glance at the
+decanter.
+
+"Won't you take something before you go?" she said sweetly.
+
+"I--reckon--not, jest now," stammered Whiskey Dick, with a heroic
+effort.
+
+"You're right," said Christie. "I see you are like me. It's too hot for
+anything fiery. Come with me."
+
+She led him into the dining-room, and pouring out a glass of iced
+tea handed it to him. Poor Dick was not prepared for this terrible
+culmination. Whiskey Dick and iced tea! But under pretence of seeing if
+it was properly flavored, Christie raised it to her own lips.
+
+"Try it, to please me."
+
+He drained the goblet.
+
+"Now, then," said Christie gayly, "let's find Jessie, and be off!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Whatever might have been his other deficiencies as an escort, Whiskey
+Dick was a good horseman, and, in spite of his fractious brute,
+exhibited such skill and confidence as to at once satisfy the young
+girls of his value to them in the management of their own horses,
+to whom side-saddles were still an alarming novelty. Jessie, who
+had probably already learned from her sister the purport of Dick's
+confidences, had received him with equal cordiality and perhaps a more
+unqualified amusement; and now, when fairly lifted into the saddle by
+his tremulous but respectful hands, made a very charming picture of
+youthful and rosy satisfaction. And when Christie, more fascinating than
+ever in her riding-habit, took her place on the other side of Dick, as
+they sallied from the gate, that gentleman felt his cup of happiness
+complete. His triumphal entree into the world of civilization and
+fashion was secure. He did not regret the untasted liquor; here was
+an experience in after years to lean his back against comfortably in
+bar-rooms, to entrance or defy mankind. He had even got so far as
+to formulate in fancy the sentence: "I remember, gentlemen, that one
+afternoon, being on a pasear with two fash'nable young ladies," etc.,
+etc.
+
+At present, however, he was obliged to confine himself to the functions
+of an elegant guide and cicerone--when not engaged in "having it out"
+with his horse. Their way lay along the slope, crossing the high-road at
+right angles, to reach the deeper woods beyond. Dick would have lingered
+on the highway--ostensibly to point out to his companions the new flume
+that had taken the place of the condemned ditch, but really in the hope
+of exposing himself in his glory to the curious eyes of the wayfaring
+world.
+
+Unhappily the road was deserted in the still powerful sunlight, and he
+was obliged to seek the cover of the woods, with a passing compliment to
+the parent of his charges. Waving his hands towards the flume, he
+said, "Look at that work of your father's; there ain't no other man in
+Californy but Philip Carr ez would hev the grit to hold up such a bluff
+agin natur and agin luck ez that yer flume stands for. I don't say it
+'cause you're his daughters, ladies! That ain't the style, ez YOU know,
+in sassiety, Miss Carr," he added, turning to Christie as the more
+socially experienced. "No! but there ain't another man to be found
+ez could do it. It cost already two hundred thousand; it'll cost five
+hundred thousand afore it's done; and every cent of it is got out of the
+yearth beneath it, or HEZ got to be out of it. 'Tain't ev'ry man, Miss
+Carr, ez hev got the pluck to pledge not only what he's got, but what he
+reckons to git."
+
+"But suppose he don't get it?" said Christie, slightly contracting her
+brows.
+
+"Then there's the flume to show for it," said Dick.
+
+"But of what use is the flume, if there isn't any more gold?" continued
+Christie, almost angrily.
+
+"That's good from YOU, miss," said Dick, giving way to a fit of
+hilarity. "That's good for a fash'nable young lady--own daughter of
+Philip Carr. She sez, says she," continued Dick, appealing to the sedate
+pines for appreciation of Christie's rare humor, "'Wot's the use of a
+flume, when gold ain't there?' I must tell that to the boys."
+
+"And what's the use of the gold in the ground when the flume isn't there
+to work it out?" said Jessie to her sister, with a cautioning glance
+towards Dick.
+
+But Dick did not notice the look that passed between the sisters. The
+richer humor of Jessie's retort had thrown him into convulsions of
+laughter.
+
+"And now SHE says, wot's the use o' the gold without the flume? 'Xcuse
+me, ladies, but that's just puttin' the hull question that's agitatin'
+this yer camp inter two speeches as clear as crystal. There's the
+hull crowd outside--and some on 'em inside, like Fairfax, hez their
+doubts--ez says with Miss Christie; and there's all of us inside, ez
+holds Miss Jessie's views."
+
+"I never heard Mr. Munroe say that the flume was wrong," said Jessie
+quickly.
+
+"Not to you, nat'rally," said Dick, with a confidential look at
+Christie; "but I reckon he'd like some of the money it cost laid out for
+suthin' else. But what's the odds? The gold is there, and WE'RE bound to
+get it."
+
+Dick was the foreman of a gang of paid workmen, who had replaced the
+millionaires in mere manual labor, and the WE was a polite figure of
+speech.
+
+The conversation seemed to have taken an unfortunate turn, and both the
+girls experienced a feeling of relief when they entered the long gulch
+or defile that led to Indian Spring. The track now becoming narrow, they
+were obliged to pass in single file along the precipitous hillside,
+led by this escort. This effectually precluded any further speech,
+and Christie at once surrendered herself to the calm, obliterating
+influences of the forest. The settlement and its gossip were far behind
+and forgotten. In the absorption of nature, her companions passed out of
+her mind, even as they sometimes passed out of her sight in the windings
+of the shadowy trail. As she rode alone, the fronds of breast-high
+ferns seemed to caress her with outstretched and gently-detaining hands;
+strange wildflowers sprang up through the parting underbrush; even the
+granite rocks that at times pressed closely upon the trail appeared as
+if cushioned to her contact with star-rayed mosses, or lightly flung
+after her long lassoes of delicate vines. She recalled the absolute
+freedom of their al-fresco life in the old double cabin, when she
+spent the greater part of her waking hours under the mute trees in
+the encompassing solitude, and, half regretting the more civilized
+restraints of this newer and more ambitious abode, forgot that she had
+ever rebelled against it. The social complication that threatened her
+now seemed to her rather the outcome of her half-civilized parlor than
+of the sylvan glade. How easy it would have been to have kept the cabin,
+and then to have gone away entirely, than for her father to have allowed
+them to be compromised with the growing fortunes of the settlement!
+The suspicions and distrust that she had always felt of their fortunes
+seemed to grow with the involuntary admission of Whiskey Dick that
+they were shared by others who were practical men. She was fain to have
+recourse to the prospect again to banish these thoughts, and this opened
+her eyes to the fact that her companions had been missing from the trail
+ahead of her for some time. She quickened her pace slightly to reach
+a projecting point of rock that gave her a more extended prospect. But
+they had evidently disappeared.
+
+She was neither alarmed nor annoyed. She could easily overtake them
+soon, for they would miss her, and return or wait for her at the spring.
+At the worst she would have no difficulty in retracing her steps home.
+In her present mood, she could readily spare their company; indeed she
+was not sorry that no other being should interrupt that sympathy with
+the free woods which was beginning to possess her.
+
+She was destined, however, to be disappointed. She had not proceeded a
+hundred yards before she noticed the moving figure of a man beyond her
+in the hillside chaparral above the trail. He seemed to be going in the
+same direction as herself, and, as she fancied, endeavoring to avoid
+her. This excited her curiosity to the point of urging her horse forward
+until the trail broadened into the level forest again, which she now
+remembered was a part of the environs of Indian Spring. The stranger
+hesitated, pausing once or twice with his back towards her, as if
+engaged in carefully examining the dwarf willows to select a switch.
+Christie slightly checked her speed as she drew nearer; when, as if
+obedient to a sudden resolution, he turned and advanced towards her. She
+was relieved and yet surprised to recognize the boyish face and figure
+of George Kearney. He was quite pale and agitated, although attempting,
+by a jaunty swinging of the switch he had just cut, to assume the
+appearance of ease and confidence.
+
+Here was an opportunity. Christie resolved to profit by it. She did not
+doubt that the young fellow had already passed her sister on the trail,
+but, from bashfulness, had not dared to approach her. By inviting his
+confidence, she would doubtless draw something from him that would deny
+or corroborate her father's opinion of his sentiments. If he was really
+in love with Jessie, she would learn what reasons he had for expecting
+a serious culmination of his suit, and perhaps she might be able
+delicately to open his eyes to the truth. If, as she believed, it was
+only a boyish fancy, she would laugh him out of it with that camaraderie
+which had always existed between them. A half motherly sympathy, albeit
+born quite as much from a contemplation of his beautiful yearning eyes
+as from his interesting position, lightened the smile with which she
+greeted him.
+
+"So you contrived to throw over your stupid business and join us,
+after all," she said; "or was it that you changed your mind at the
+last moment?" she added mischievously. "I thought only we women were
+permitted that!" Indeed, she could not help noticing that there was
+really a strong feminine suggestion in the shifting color and slightly
+conscious eyelids of the young fellow.
+
+"Do young girls always change their minds?" asked George, with an
+embarrassed smile.
+
+"Not, always; but sometimes they don't know their own mind--particularly
+if they are very young; and when they do at last, you clever creatures
+of men, who have interpreted their ignorance to please yourselves, abuse
+them for being fickle." She stopped to observe the effect of what she
+believed a rather clear and significant exposition of Jessie's and
+George's possible situation. But she was not prepared for the look
+of blank resignation that seemed to drive the color from his face and
+moisten the fire of his dark eyes.
+
+"I reckon you're right," he said, looking down.
+
+"Oh! we're not accusing you of fickleness," said Christie gayly;
+"although you didn't come, and we were obliged to ask Mr. Hall to join
+us. I suppose you found him and Jessie just now?"
+
+But George made no reply. The color was slowly coming back to his face,
+which, as she glanced covertly at him, seemed to have grown so much
+older that his returning blood might have brought two or three years
+with it.
+
+"Really, Mr. Kearney," she said dryly, "one would think that some silly,
+conceited girl"--she was quite earnest in her epithets, for a sudden,
+angry conviction of some coquetry and disingenuousness in Jessie had
+come to her in contemplating its effects upon the young fellow at her
+side--"some country jilt, had been trying her rustic hand upon you."
+
+"She is not silly, conceited, nor countrified," said George, slowly
+raising his beautiful eyes to the young girl half reproachfully. "It is
+I who am all that. No, she is right, and you know it."
+
+Much as Christie admired and valued her sister's charms, she thought
+this was really going too far. What had Jessie ever done--what was
+Jessie--to provoke and remain insensible to such a blind devotion as
+this? And really, looking at him now, he was not so VERY YOUNG for
+Jessie; whether his unfortunate passion had brought out all his latent
+manliness, or whether he had hitherto kept his serious nature in the
+background, certainly he was not a boy. And certainly his was not a
+passion that he could be laughed out of. It was getting very tiresome.
+She wished she had not met him--at least until she had had some clearer
+understanding with her sister. He was still walking beside her, with his
+hand on her bridle rein, partly to lead her horse over some boulders in
+the trail, and partly to conceal his first embarrassment. When they had
+fairly reached the woods, he stopped.
+
+"I am going to say good-by, Miss Carr."
+
+"Are you not coming further? We must be near Indian Spring, now; Mr.
+Hall and--and Jessie--cannot be far away. You will keep me company until
+we meet them?"
+
+"No," he replied quietly. "I only stopped you to say good-by. I am going
+away."
+
+"Not from Devil's Ford?" she asked, in half-incredulous astonishment.
+"At least, not for long?"
+
+"I am not coming back," he replied.
+
+"But this is very abrupt," she said hurriedly, feeling that in some
+ridiculous way she had precipitated an equally ridiculous catastrophe.
+"Surely you are not going away in this fashion, without saying good-by
+to Jessie and--and father?"
+
+"I shall see your father, of course--and you will give my regards to
+Miss Jessie."
+
+He evidently was in earnest. Was there ever anything so perfectly
+preposterous? She became indignant.
+
+"Of course," she said coldly, "I won't detain you; your business must
+be urgent, and I forgot--at least I had forgotten until to-day--that
+you have other duties more important than that of squire of dames. I am
+afraid this forgetfulness made me think you would not part from us in
+quite such a business fashion. I presume, if you had not met me just
+now, we should none of us have seen you again?"
+
+He did not reply.
+
+"Will you say good-by, Miss Carr?"
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Kearney. If I have said anything which you think
+justifies this very abrupt leave-taking, I beg you will forgive and
+forget it--or, at least, let it have no more weight with you than the
+idle words of any woman. I only spoke generally. You know--I--I might be
+mistaken."
+
+His eyes, which had dilated when she began to speak, darkened; his
+color, which had quickly come, as quickly sank when she had ended.
+
+"Don't say that, Miss Carr. It is not like you, and--it is useless. You
+know what I meant a moment ago. I read it in your reply. You meant that
+I, like others, had deceived myself. Did you not?"
+
+She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty.
+She knew that Jessie did not love him--would not marry him--whatever
+coquetry she might have shown.
+
+"I did not mean to offend you," she said hesitatingly; "I only half
+suspected it when I spoke."
+
+"And you wish to spare me the avowal?" he said bitterly.
+
+"To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it. I could not tell what ideas
+you might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of Jessie--or my
+father," she added, with almost equal bitterness.
+
+"I have never spoken to either," he replied quickly. He stopped, and
+added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, "I've been brought up in
+the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed my feelings, instead
+of the etiquette of society."
+
+Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's truthfulness
+to notice the full significance of his speech.
+
+"Good-by," he said again, holding out his hand.
+
+"Good-by!"
+
+She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile. He held it for a
+moment, with his eyes fixed upon hers. Then suddenly, as if obeying
+an uncontrollable impulse, he crushed it like a flower again and again
+against his burning lips, and darted away.
+
+Christie sank back in her saddle with a little cry, half of pain and
+half of frightened surprise. Had the poor boy suddenly gone mad, or was
+this vicarious farewell a part of the courtship of Devil's Ford? She
+looked at her little hand, which had reddened under the pressure, and
+suddenly felt the flush extending to her cheeks and the roots of her
+hair. This was intolerable.
+
+"Christie!"
+
+It was her sister emerging from the wood to seek her. In another moment
+she was at her side.
+
+"We thought you were following," said Jessie. "Good heavens! how you
+look! What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing. I met Mr. Kearney a moment ago on the trail. He is going away,
+and--and--" She stopped, furious and flushing.
+
+"And," said Jessie, with a burst of merriment, "he told you at last he
+loved you. Oh, Christie!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The abrupt departure of George Kearney from Devil's Ford excited
+but little interest in the community, and was soon forgotten. It was
+generally attributed to differences between himself and his partners
+on the question of further outlay of their earnings on mining
+improvements--he and Philip Carr alone representing a sanguine minority
+whose faith in the future of the mine accepted any risks. It was alleged
+by some that he had sold out to his brother; it was believed by others
+that he had simply gone to Sacramento to borrow money on his share,
+in order to continue the improvements on his own responsibility. The
+partners themselves were uncommunicative; even Whiskey Dick, who since
+his remarkable social elevation had become less oracular, much to his
+own astonishment, contributed nothing to the gossip except a suggestion
+that as the fiery temper of George Kearney brooked no opposition,
+even from his brother, it was better they should separate before the
+estrangement became serious.
+
+Mr. Carr did not disguise his annoyance at the loss of his young
+disciple and firm ally. But an unlucky allusion to his previous remarks
+on Kearney's attentions to Jessie, and a querulous regret that he had
+permitted a disruption of their social intimacy, brought such an ominous
+and frigid opposition, not only from Christie, but even the frivolous
+Jessie herself, that Carr sank back in a crushed and terrified silence.
+"I only meant to say," he stammered after a pause, in which he, however,
+resumed his aggrieved manner, "that FAIRFAX seems to come here still,
+and HE is not such a particular friend of mine."
+
+"But she is--and has your interest entirely at heart," said Jessie,
+stoutly, "and he only comes here to tell us how things are going on at
+the works."
+
+"And criticise your father, I suppose," said Mr. Carr, with an
+attempt at jocularity that did not, however, disguise an irritated
+suspiciousness. "He really seems to have supplanted ME as he has poor
+Kearney in your estimation."
+
+"Now, father," said Jessie, suddenly seizing him by the shoulders in
+affected indignation, but really to conceal a certain embarrassment
+that sprang quite as much from her sister's quietly observant eye as her
+father's speech, "you promised to let this ridiculous discussion drop.
+You will make me and Christie so nervous that we will not dare to
+open the door to a visitor, until he declares his innocence of any
+matrimonial intentions. You don't want to give color to the gossip that
+agreement with your views about the improvements is necessary to getting
+on with us."
+
+"Who dares talk such rubbish?" said Carr, reddening; "is that the kind
+of gossip that Fairfax brings here?"
+
+"Hardly, when it's known that he don't quite agree with you, and DOES
+come here. That's the best denial of the gossip."
+
+Christie, who had of late loftily ignored these discussions, waited
+until her father had taken his departure.
+
+"Then that is the reason why you still see Mr. Munroe, after what you
+said," she remarked quietly to Jessie.
+
+Jessie, who would have liked to escape with her father, was obliged to
+pause on the threshold of the door, with a pretty assumption of blank
+forgetfulness in her blue eyes and lifted eyebrows.
+
+"Said what? when?" she asked vacantly.
+
+"When--when Mr. Kearney that day--in the woods--went away," said
+Christie, faintly coloring.
+
+"Oh! THAT day," said Jessie briskly; "the day he just gloved your
+hand with kisses, and then fled wildly into the forest to conceal his
+emotion."
+
+"The day he behaved very foolishly," said Christie, with reproachful
+calmness, that did not, however, prevent a suspicion of indignant
+moisture in her eyes--"when you explained"--
+
+"That it wasn't meant for ME," interrupted Jessie.
+
+"That it was to you that MR. MUNROE'S attentions were directed. And then
+we agreed that it was better to prevent any further advances of this
+kind by avoiding any familiar relations with either of them."
+
+"Yes," said Jessie, "I remember; but you're not confounding my seeing
+Fairfax occasionally now with that sort of thing. HE doesn't kiss my
+hand like anything," she added, as if in abstract reflection.
+
+"Nor run away, either," suggested the trodden worm, turning.
+
+There was an ominous silence.
+
+"Do you know we are nearly out of coffee?" said Jessie choking, but
+moving towards the door with Spartan-like calmness.
+
+"Yes. And something must be done this very day about the washing," said
+Christie, with suppressed emotion, going towards the opposite entrance.
+
+Tears stood in each other's eyes with this terrible exchange of domestic
+confidences. Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, they deliberately
+turned again, and, facing each other with frightful calmness, left
+the room by purposeless and deliberate exits other than those they
+had contemplated--a crushing abnegation of self, that, to some extent,
+relieved their surcharged feelings.
+
+Meantime the material prosperity of Devil's Ford increased, if a
+prosperity based upon no visible foundation but the confidences and
+hopes of its inhabitants could be called material. Few, if any, stopped
+to consider that the improvements, buildings, and business were simply
+the outlay of capital brought from elsewhere, and as yet the settlement
+or town, as it was now called, had neither produced nor exported capital
+of itself equal to half the amount expended. It was true that some
+land was cultivated on the further slope, some mills erected and lumber
+furnished from the inexhaustible forest; but the consumers were the
+inhabitants themselves, who paid for their produce in borrowed capital
+or unlimited credit. It was never discovered that while all roads led to
+Devil's Ford, Devil's Ford led to nowhere. The difficulties overcome
+in getting things into the settlement were never surmounted for getting
+things out of it. The lumber was practically valueless for export to
+other settlements across the mountain roads, which were equally rich in
+timber. The theory so enthusiastically held by the original locators,
+that Devil's Ford was a vast sink that had, through ages, exhausted and
+absorbed the trickling wealth of the adjacent hills and valleys, was
+suffering an ironical corroboration.
+
+One morning it was known that work was stopped at the Devil's Ford
+Ditch--temporarily only, it was alleged, and many of the old workmen
+simply had their labor for the present transferred to excavating the
+river banks, and the collection of vast heaps of "pay gravel." Specimens
+from these mounds, taken from different localities, and at different
+levels, were sent to San Francisco for more rigid assay and analysis.
+It was believed that this would establish the fact of the permanent
+richness of the drifts, and not only justify past expenditure, but a
+renewed outlay of credit and capital. The suspension of engineering work
+gave Mr. Carr an opportunity to visit San Francisco on general business
+of the mine, which could not, however, prevent him from arranging
+further combinations with capital. His two daughters accompanied him. It
+offered an admirable opportunity for a shopping expedition, a change of
+scene, and a peaceful solution of their perplexing and anomalous social
+relations with Devil's Ford. In the first flush of gratitude to their
+father for this opportune holiday, something of harmony had been
+restored to the family circle that had of late been shaken by discord.
+
+But their sanguine hopes of enjoyment were not entirely fulfilled. Both
+Jessie and Christie were obliged to confess to a certain disappointment
+in the aspect of the civilization they were now reentering. They at
+first attributed it to the change in their own habits during the last
+three months, and their having become barbarous and countrified in
+their seclusion. Certainly in the matter of dress they were behind the
+fashions as revealed in Montgomery Street. But when the brief solace
+afforded them by the modiste and dressmaker was past, there seemed
+little else to be gained. They missed at first, I fear, the chivalrous
+and loyal devotion that had only amused them at Devil's Ford, and were
+the more inclined, I think, to distrust the conscious and more civilized
+gallantry of the better dressed and more carefully presented men they
+met. For it must be admitted that, for obvious reasons, their criticisms
+were at first confined to the sex they had been most in contact with.
+They could not help noticing that the men were more eager, annoyingly
+feverish, and self-asserting in their superior elegance and external
+show than their old associates were in their frank, unrestrained habits.
+It seemed to them that the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, in their
+radical simplicity and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type of
+true gentlemanhood than these citizens who imitated a civilization they
+were unable yet to reach.
+
+The women simply frightened them, as being, even more than the men,
+demonstrative and excessive in their fine looks, their fine dresses,
+their extravagant demand for excitement. In less than a week they found
+themselves regretting--not the new villa on the slope of Devil's Ford,
+which even in its own bizarre fashion was exceeded by the barbarous
+ostentation of the villas and private houses around them--but the double
+cabin under the trees, which now seemed to them almost aristocratic in
+its grave simplicity and abstention. In the mysterious forests of masts
+that thronged the city's quays they recalled the straight shafts of the
+pines on Devil's slopes, only to miss the sedate repose and infinite
+calm that used to environ them. In the feverish, pulsating life of the
+young metropolis they often stopped oppressed, giddy, and choking; the
+roar of the streets and thoroughfares was meaningless to them, except to
+revive strange memories of the deep, unvarying monotone of the evening
+wind over their humbler roof on the Sierran hillside. Civic bred and
+nurtured as they were, the recurrence of these sensations perplexed and
+alarmed them.
+
+"It seems so perfectly ridiculous," said Jessie, "for us to feel as out
+of place here as that Pike County servant girl in Sacramento who had
+never seen a steamboat before; do you know, I quite had a turn the other
+day at seeing a man on the Stockton wharf in a red shirt, with a rifle
+on his shoulder."
+
+"And you wanted to go and speak to him?" said Christie, with a sad
+smile.
+
+"No, that's just it; I felt awfully hurt and injured that he did not
+come up and speak to ME! I wonder if we got any fever or that sort of
+thing up there; it makes one quite superstitious."
+
+Christie did not reply; more than once before she had felt that
+inexplicable misgiving. It had sometimes seemed to her that she had
+never been quite herself since that memorable night when she had
+slipped out of their sleeping-cabin, and stood alone in the gracious and
+commanding presence of the woods and hills. In the solitude of night,
+with the hum of the great city rising below her--at times even in
+theatres or crowded assemblies of men and women--she forgot herself,
+and again stood in the weird brilliancy of that moonlight night in
+mute worship at the foot of that slowly-rising mystic altar of piled
+terraces, hanging forests, and lifted plateaus that climbed forever to
+the lonely skies. Again she felt before her the expanding and opening
+arms of the protecting woods. Had they really closed upon her in some
+pantheistic embrace that made her a part of them? Had she been baptized
+in that moonlight as a child of the great forest? It was easy to believe
+in the myths of the poets of an idyllic life under those trees, where,
+free from conventional restrictions, one loved and was loved. If she,
+with her own worldly experience, could think of this now, why might
+not George Kearney have thought? . . . She stopped, and found herself
+blushing even in the darkness. As the thought and blush were the usual
+sequel of her reflections, it is to be feared that they may have been at
+times the impelling cause.
+
+Mr. Carr, however, made up for his daughters' want of sympathy with
+metropolitan life. To their astonishment, he not only plunged into the
+fashionable gayeties and amusements of the town, but in dress and manner
+assumed the role of a leader of society. The invariable answer to their
+half-humorous comment was the necessities of the mine, and the policy
+of frequenting the company of capitalists, to enlist their support and
+confidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, that
+what at any other time they would have hailed as a relief to
+his habitual abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was not
+dissipated--he did not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seem
+any harm in his frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry that
+appeared to be forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes was
+certainly apocryphal. He did not drag his daughters into the mixed
+society of that period; he did not press upon them the company of those
+he most frequented, and whose accepted position in that little world of
+fashion was considered equal to their own. When Jessie strongly objected
+to the pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual present
+wealth and pecuniary influence condoned for a more uncertain prehistoric
+past, Mr. Carr did not urge a further acquaintance. "As long as you're
+not thinking of marrying again, papa," Jessie had said finally, "I don't
+see the necessity of our knowing her." "But suppose I were," had replied
+Mr. Carr with affected humor. "Then you certainly wouldn't care for any
+one like her," his daughter had responded triumphantly. Mr. Carr smiled,
+and dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters' want of
+sympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least interfere with
+his social prestige. A gentleman in all his relations and under all
+circumstances, even his cold scientific abstraction was provocative;
+rich men envied his lofty ignorance of the smaller details of
+money-making, even while they mistrusted his judgment. A man still well
+preserved, and free from weakening vices, he was a dangerous rival to
+younger and faster San Francisco, in the eyes of the sex, who knew how
+to value a repose they did not themselves possess.
+
+Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to Sacramento,
+on further business of the mine, leaving his two daughters in the family
+of a wealthy friend until he should return for them. He opposed their
+ready suggestion to return to Devil's Ford with a new and unnecessary
+inflexibility: he even met their compromise to accompany him to
+Sacramento with equal decision.
+
+"You will be only in my way," he said curtly. "Enjoy yourselves here
+while you can."
+
+Thus left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice. Possibly some
+slight reaction to their previous disappointment may have already set
+in; perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to their anxiety
+about their father. They went out more; they frequented concerts and
+parties; they accepted, with their host and his family, an invitation to
+one of those opulent and barbaric entertainments with which a noted San
+Francisco millionaire distracted his rare moments of reflection in his
+gorgeous palace on the hills. Here they could at least be once more in
+the country they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a
+little degraded by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of the
+palace.
+
+It was a three days' fete; the style and choice of amusements left to
+the guests, and an equal and active participation by no means necessary
+or indispensable. Consequently, when Christie and Jessie Carr proposed
+a ride through the adjacent canyon on the second morning, they had no
+difficulty in finding horses in the well-furnished stables of their
+opulent entertainers, nor cavaliers among the other guests, who were
+too happy to find favor in the eyes of the two pretty girls who were
+supposed to be abnormally fastidious and refined. Christie's escort
+was a good-natured young banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrative
+attentions, and lucky enough to interest her during the ride with his
+clear and half-humorous reflections on some of the business speculations
+of the day. If his ideas were occasionally too clever, and not always
+consistent with a high sense of honor, she was none the less interested
+to know the ethics of that world of speculation into which her father
+had plunged, and the more convinced, with mingled sense of pride and
+anxiety, that his still dominant gentlemanhood would prevent his coping
+with it on equal terms. Nor could she help contrasting the conversation
+of the sharp-witted man at her side with what she still remembered of
+the vague, touching, boyish enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil's
+Ford. Had her escort guessed the result of this contrast, he would
+hardly have been as gratified as he was with the grave attention of her
+beautiful eyes.
+
+The fascination of a gracious day and the leafy solitude of the canyon
+led them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit, and it became
+necessary towards sunset for them to seek some shorter cut home.
+
+"There's a vaquero in yonder field," said Christie's escort, who was
+riding with her a little in advance of the others, "and those fellows
+know every trail that a horse can follow. I'll ride on, intercept him,
+and try my Spanish on him. If I miss him, as he's galloping on, you
+might try your hand on him yourself. He'll understand your eyes, Miss
+Carr, in any language."
+
+As he dashed away, to cover his first audacity of compliment, Christie
+lifted the eyes thus apostrophized to the opposite field. The vaquero,
+who was chasing some cattle, was evidently too preoccupied to heed the
+shouts of her companion, and wheeling round suddenly to intercept one
+of the deviating fugitives, permitted Christie's escort to dash past him
+before that gentleman could rein in his excited steed. This brought the
+vaquero directly in her path. Perceiving her, he threw his horse back on
+its haunches, to prevent a collision. Christie rode up to him, suddenly
+uttered a cry, and halted. For before her, sunburnt in cheek and throat,
+darker in the free growth of moustache and curling hair, clad in the
+coarse, picturesque finery of his class, undisguised only in his boyish
+beauty, sat George Kearney.
+
+The blood, that had forsaken her astonished face, rushed as quickly
+back. His eyes, which had suddenly sparkled with an electrical glow,
+sank before hers. His hand dropped, and his cheek flushed with a dark
+embarrassment.
+
+"You here, Mr. Kearney? How strange!--but how glad I am to meet you
+again!"
+
+She tried to smile; her voice trembled, and her little hand shook as she
+extended it to him.
+
+He raised his dark eyes quickly, and impulsively urged his horse to her
+side. But, as if suddenly awakening to the reality of the situation,
+he glanced at her hurriedly, down at his barbaric finery, and threw a
+searching look towards her escort.
+
+In an instant Christie saw the infelicity of her position, and its
+dangers. The words of Whiskey Dick, "He wouldn't stand that," flashed
+across her mind. There was no time to lose. The banker had already
+gained control over his horse, and was approaching them, all unconscious
+of the fixed stare with which George was regarding him. Christie hastily
+seized the hand which he had allowed to fall at his side, and said
+quickly:--
+
+"Will you ride with me a little way, Mr. Kearney?"
+
+He turned the same searching look upon her. She met it clearly and
+steadily; he even thought reproachfully.
+
+"Do!" she said hurriedly. "I ask it as a favor. I want to speak to you.
+Jessie and I are here alone. Father is away. YOU are one of our oldest
+friends."
+
+He hesitated. She turned to the astonished young banker, who rode up.
+
+"I have just met an old friend. Will you please ride back as quickly as
+you can, and tell Jessie that Mr. Kearney is here, and ask her to join
+us?"
+
+She watched her dazed escort, still speechless from the spectacle of the
+fastidious Miss Carr tete-a-tete with a common Mexican vaquero, gallop
+off in the direction of the canyon, and then turned to George.
+
+"Now take me home, the shortest way, as quick as you can."
+
+"Home?" echoed George.
+
+"I mean to Mr. Prince's house. Quick! before they can come up to us."
+
+He mechanically put spurs to his horse; she followed. They presently
+struck into a trail that soon diverged again into a disused logging
+track through the woods.
+
+"This is the short cut to Prince's, by two miles," he said, as they
+entered the woods.
+
+As they were still galloping, without exchanging a word, Christie began
+to slacken her speed; George did the same. They were safe from intrusion
+at the present, even if the others had found the short cut. Christie,
+bold and self-reliant a moment ago, suddenly found herself growing weak
+and embarrassed. What had she done?
+
+She checked her horse suddenly.
+
+"Perhaps we had better wait for them," she said timidly.
+
+George had not raised his eyes to hers.
+
+"You said you wanted to hurry home," he replied gently, passing his hand
+along his mustang's velvety neck, "and--and you had something to say to
+me."
+
+"Certainly," she answered, with a faint laugh. "I'm so astonished at
+meeting you here. I'm quite bewildered. You are living here; you have
+forsaken us to buy a ranche?" she continued, looking at him attentively.
+
+His brow colored slightly.
+
+"No, I'm living here, but I have bought no ranche. I'm only a hired man
+on somebody else's ranche, to look after the cattle."
+
+He saw her beautiful eyes fill with astonishment and--something else.
+His brow cleared; he went on, with his old boyish laugh:
+
+"No, Miss Carr. The fact is, I'm dead broke. I've lost everything since
+I saw you last. But as I know how to ride, and I'm not afraid of work, I
+manage to keep along."
+
+"You have lost money in--in the mines?" said Christie suddenly.
+
+"No"--he replied quickly, evading her eyes. "My brother has my interest,
+you know. I've been foolish on my own account solely. You know I'm
+rather inclined to that sort of thing. But as long as my folly don't
+affect others, I can stand it."
+
+"But it may affect others--and THEY may not think of it as folly--" She
+stopped short, confused by his brightening color and eyes. "I mean--Oh,
+Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me. I know nothing of business,
+but I know there has been trouble about the mine at Devil's Ford. Tell
+me honestly, has my father anything to do with it? If I thought that
+through any imprudence of his, you had suffered--if I believed that
+you could trace any misfortune of yours to him--to US--I should never
+forgive myself"--she stopped and flashed a single look at him--"I should
+never forgive YOU for abandoning us."
+
+The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, which
+never concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed her
+feminine anticlimax.
+
+"Miss Carr," he said, with boyish eagerness, "if any man suggested to me
+that your father wasn't the brightest and best of his kind--too wise and
+clever for the fools about him to understand--I'd--I'd shoot him."
+
+Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had NOT
+intended to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush upon
+what she really intended to say, with what she felt was shameful
+precipitation.
+
+"One word more, Mr. Kearney," she began, looking down, but feeling the
+color come to her face as she spoke. "When you spoke to me the day you
+left, you must have thought me hard and cruel. When I tell you that I
+thought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you had for her--"
+
+"For Jessie!" echoed George.
+
+"You will understand that--that--"
+
+"That what?" said George, drawing nearer to her.
+
+"That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to her
+of me," added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away from
+him.
+
+But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an
+imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to her
+side. "He will go now," she had thought, but he didn't.
+
+"We must ride on," she suggested faintly.
+
+"No," he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slight
+lifting of his head. "We must ride together no further, Miss Carr. I
+must go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on with
+your party, whom I hear coming. But when we part here you must bid me
+good-by--not as Jessie's sister--but as Christie--the one--the only
+woman that I love, or that I ever have loved."
+
+He held out his hand. With the recollection of their previous parting,
+she tremblingly advanced her own. He took it, but did not raise it to
+his lips. And it was she who found herself half confusedly retaining his
+hand in hers, until she dropped it with a blush.
+
+"Then is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have deserted
+Devil's Ford?" she said coldly.
+
+He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile, and said, "Yes," wheeled
+his horse, and disappeared in the forest.
+
+He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, and
+indignant. He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and indignant.
+Yet she was so self-possessed when the party joined her, that the
+singular rencontre and her explanation of the stranger's sudden
+departure excited no further comment. Only Jessie managed to whisper in
+her ear,--
+
+"I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn't me he meant?"
+
+"Not at all," said Christie coldly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A few days after the girls had returned to San Francisco, they received
+a letter from their father. His business, he wrote, would detain him in
+Sacramento some days longer. There was no reason why they should return
+to Devil's Ford in the heat of the summer; their host had written to
+beg him to allow them a more extended visit, and, if they were enjoying
+themselves, he thought it would be well not to disoblige an old friend.
+He had heard they had a pleasant visit to Mr. Prince's place, and that a
+certain young banker had been very attentive to Christie.
+
+"Do you know what all this means, dear?" asked Jessie, who had been
+watching her sister with an unusually grave face.
+
+Christie whose thoughts had wandered from the letter, replied
+carelessly,--
+
+"I suppose it means that we are to wait here until father sends for us."
+
+"It means a good deal more. It means that papa has had another reverse;
+it means that the assay has turned out badly for the mine--that the
+further they go from the flat the worse it gets--that all the gold they
+will probably ever see at Devil's Ford is what they have already found
+or will find on the flat; it means that all Devil's Ford is only a
+'pocket,' and not a 'lead.'" She stopped, with unexpected tears in her
+eyes.
+
+"Who told you this?" asked Christie breathlessly.
+
+"Fairfax--Mr. Munroe," stammered her sister, "writes to me as if we
+already knew it--tells me not to be alarmed, that it isn't so bad--and
+all that."
+
+"How long has this happened, Jessie?" said Christie, taking her hand,
+with a white but calm face.
+
+"Nearly ever since we've been here, I suppose. It must be so, for he
+says poor papa is still hopeful of doing something yet."
+
+"And Mr. Munroe writes to you?" said Christie abstractedly.
+
+"Of course," said Jessie quickly. "He feels interested in--us."
+
+"Nobody tells ME anything," said Christie.
+
+"Didn't--"
+
+"No," said Christie bitterly.
+
+"What on earth DID you talk about? But people don't confide in you
+because they're afraid of you. You're so--"
+
+"So what?"
+
+"So gently patronizing, and so 'I-don't-suppose-you-can-help-it,
+poor-thing,' in your general style," said Jessie, kissing her. "There!
+I only wish I was like you. What do you say if we write to father that
+we'll go back to Devil's Ford? Mr. Munroe thinks we will be of service
+there just now. If the men are dissatisfied, and think we're spending
+money--"
+
+"I'm afraid Mr. Munroe is hardly a disinterested adviser. At least, I
+don't think it would look quite decent for you to fly back without your
+father, at his suggestion," said Christie coldly. "He is not the only
+partner. We are spending no money. Besides, we have engaged to go to Mr.
+Prince's again next week."
+
+"As you like, dear," said Jessie, turning away to hide a faint smile.
+
+Nevertheless, when they returned from their visit to Mr. Prince's, and
+one or two uneventful rides, Christie looked grave. It was only a few
+days later that Jessie burst upon her one morning.
+
+"You were saying that nobody ever tells you anything. Well, here's your
+chance. Whiskey Dick is below."
+
+"Whiskey Dick?" repeated Christie. "What does he want?"
+
+"YOU, love. Who else? You know he always scorns me as not being
+high-toned and elegant enough for his social confidences. He asked for
+you only."
+
+With an uneasy sense of some impending revelation, Christie descended to
+the drawing-room. As she opened the door, a strong flavor of that toilet
+soap and eau de Cologne with which Whiskey Dick was in the habit of
+gracefully effacing the traces of dissipation made known his presence.
+In spite of a new suit of clothes, whose pristine folds refused to
+adapt themselves entirely to the contour of his figure, he was somewhat
+subdued by the unexpected elegance of the drawing-room of Christie's
+host. But a glance at Christie's sad but gracious face quickly reassured
+him. Taking from his hat a three-cornered parcel, he unfolded a
+handsome saffrona rose, which he gravely presented to her. Having
+thus reestablished his position, he sank elegantly into a tete-a-tete
+ottoman. Finding the position inconvenient to face Christie, who had
+seated herself on a chair, he transferred himself to the other side of
+the ottoman, and addressed her over its back as from a pulpit.
+
+"Is this really a fortunate accident, Mr. Hall, or did you try to find
+us?" said Christie pleasantly.
+
+"Partly promiskuss, and partly coincident, Miss Christie, one up and
+t'other down," said Dick lightly. "Work being slack at present at
+Devil's Ford, I reck'ned I'd take a pasear down to 'Frisco, and dip into
+the vortex o' fash'nable society and out again." He lightly waved a
+new handkerchief to illustrate his swallow-like intrusion. "This yer
+minglin' with the bo-tong is apt to be wearisome, ez you and me knows,
+unless combined with experience and judgment. So when them boys up
+there allows that there's a little too much fash'nable society and San
+Francisco capital and high-falutin' about the future goin' on fer square
+surface mining, I sez, 'Look yere, gentlemen,' sez I, 'you don't see the
+pint. The pint is to get the pop'lar eye fixed, so to speak, on Devil's
+Ford. When a fash'nable star rises above the 'Frisco horizon--like Miss
+Carr--and, so to speak, dazzles the gineral eye, people want to know
+who she is. And when people say that's the accomplished daughter o' the
+accomplished superintendent of the Devil's Ford claim--otherwise known
+as the Star-eyed Goddess o' Devil's Ford--every eye is fixed on the
+mine, and Capital, so to speak, tumbles to her.' And when they sez that
+the old man--excuse my freedom, but that's the way the boys talk of your
+father, meaning no harm--the old man, instead o' trying to corral rich
+widders--grass or otherwise--to spend their money on the big works for
+the gold that ain't there yet--should stay in Devil's Ford and put all
+his sabe and genius into grindin' out the little gold that is there, I
+sez to them that it ain't your father's style. 'His style,' sez I, 'ez
+to go in and build them works.' When they're done he turns round to
+Capital, and sez he--'Look yer,' sez he, 'thar's all the works you
+want, first quality--cost a million; thar's all the water you want,
+onlimited--cost another million; thar's all the pay gravel you want
+in and outer the ground--call it two millions more. Now my time's too
+vally'ble; my professhun's too high-toned to WORK mines. I MAKE 'em.
+Hand me over a check for ten millions and call it square, and work it
+for yourself.' So Capital hands over the money and waltzes down to run
+the mine, and you original locators walks round with yer hands in yer
+pockets a-top of your six million profit, and you let's Capital take the
+work and the responsibility."
+
+Preposterous as this seemed from the lips of Whiskey Dick, Christie
+had a haunting suspicion that it was not greatly unlike the theories
+expounded by the clever young banker who had been her escort. She did
+not interrupt his flow of reminiscent criticism; when he paused for
+breath, she said, quietly:
+
+"I met Mr. George Kearney the other day in the country."
+
+Whiskey Dick stopped awkwardly, glanced hurriedly at Christie, and
+coughed behind his handkerchief.
+
+"Mr. Kearney--eh--er--certengly--yes--er--met him, you say. Was
+he--er--er--well?"
+
+"In health, yes; but otherwise he has lost everything," said Christie,
+fixing her eyes on the embarrassed Dick.
+
+"Yes--er--in course--in course--" continued Dick, nervously glancing
+round the apartment as if endeavoring to find an opening to some less
+abrupt statement of the fact.
+
+"And actually reduced to take some menial employment," added Christie,
+still regarding Dick with her clear glance.
+
+"That's it--that's just it," said Dick, beaming as he suddenly found his
+delicate and confidential opportunity. "That's it, Miss Christie; that's
+just what I was sayin' to the boys. 'Ez it the square thing,' sez I,
+'jest because George hez happened to hypothecate every dollar he has,
+or expects to hev, to put into them works, only to please Mr. Carr, and
+just because he don't want to distress that intelligent gentleman by
+letting him see he's dead broke--for him to go and demean himself and
+Devil's Ford by rushing away and hiring out as a Mexican vaquero
+on Mexican wages? Look,' sez I, 'at the disgrace he brings upon a
+high-toned, fash'nable girl, at whose side he's walked and danced, and
+passed rings, and sentiments, and bokays in the changes o' the cotillion
+and the mizzourka. And wot,' sez I, 'if some day, prancing along in a
+fash'nable cavalcade, she all of a suddents comes across him drivin' a
+Mexican steer?' That's what I said to the boys. And so you met him, Miss
+Christie, as usual," continued Dick, endeavoring under the appearance
+of a large social experience to conceal an eager anxiety to know the
+details--"so you met him; and, in course, you didn't let on yer knew
+him, so to speak, nat'rally, or p'raps you kinder like asked him to fix
+your saddle-girth, and give him a five-dollar piece--eh?"
+
+Christie, who had risen and gone to the window, suddenly turned a very
+pale face and shining eyes on Dick.
+
+"Mr. Hall," she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, "we are old
+friends, and I feel I can ask you a favor. You once before acted as our
+escort--it was for a short but a happy time--will you accept a larger
+trust? My father is busy in Sacramento for the mine: will you, without
+saying anything to anybody, take Jessie and me back at once to Devil's
+Ford?"
+
+"Will I? Miss Christie," said Dick, choking between an intense
+gratification and a desire to keep back its vulgar exhibition, "I shall
+be proud!"
+
+"When I say keep it a secret"--she hesitated--"I don't mean that I
+object to your letting Mr. Kearney, if you happen to know where he is,
+understand that we are going back to Devil's Ford."
+
+"Cert'nly--nat'rally," said Dick, waving his hand gracefully;
+"sorter drop him a line, saying that bizness of a social and delicate
+nature--being the escort of Miss Christie and Jessie Carr to Devil's
+Ford--prevents my having the pleasure of calling."
+
+"That will do very well, Mr. Hall," said Christie, faintly smiling
+through her moist eyelashes. "Then will you go at once and secure
+tickets for to-night's boat, and bring them here? Jessie and I will
+arrange everything else."
+
+"Cert'nly," said Dick impulsively, and preparing to take a graceful
+leave.
+
+"We'll be impatient until you return with the tickets," said Christie
+graciously.
+
+Dick shook hands gravely, got as far as the door, and paused.
+
+"You think it better to take the tickets now?" he said dubiously.
+
+"By all means," said Christie impetuously. "I've set my heart on going
+to-night--and unless you secure berths early--"
+
+"In course--in course," interrupted Dick nervously. "But--"
+
+"But what?" said Christie impatiently.
+
+Dick hesitated, shut the door carefully, and, looking round the
+room, lightly shook out his handkerchief, apparently flicked away an
+embarrassing suggestion, and said, with a little laugh:
+
+"It's ridiklous, perfectly ridiklous, Miss Christie; but not bein' in
+the habit of carryin' ready money, and havin' omitted to cash a draft on
+Wells, Fargo & Co.--"
+
+"Of course," said Christie rapidly. "How forgetful I am! Pray forgive
+me, Mr. Hall. I didn't think. I'll run up and get it from our host; he
+will be glad to be our banker."
+
+"One moment, Miss Christie," said Dick lightly, as his thumb and finger
+relaxed in his waistcoat pocket over the only piece of money in the
+world that had remained to him after his extravagant purchase of
+Christie's saffrona rose, "one moment: in this yer monetary transaction,
+if you like, you are at liberty to use MY name."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+As Christie and Jessie Carr looked from the windows of the coach, whose
+dust-clogged wheels were slowly dragging them, as if reluctant, nearer
+the last stage of their journey to Devil's Ford, they were conscious
+of a change in the landscape, which they could not entirely charge upon
+their changed feelings. The few bared open spaces on the upland, the
+long stretch of rocky ridge near the summit, so vivid and so velvety
+during their first journey, were now burnt and yellow; even the brief
+openings in the forest were seared as if by a hot iron in the scorching
+rays of a half year's sun. The pastoral slopes of the valley below were
+cloaked in lustre-leather: the rare watercourses along the road had
+faded from the waiting eye and ear; it seemed as if the long and dry
+summer had even invaded the close-set ranks of pines, and had blown a
+simoom breath through the densest woods, leaving its charred red ashes
+on every leaf and spray along the tunnelled shade. As they leaned out
+of the window and inhaled the half-dead spices of the evergreens, they
+seemed to have entered the atmosphere of some exhausted passion--of some
+fierce excitement that was even now slowly burning itself out.
+
+It was a relief at last to see the straggling houses of Devil's Ford far
+below come once more into view, as they rounded the shoulder of Devil's
+Spur and began the long descent. But as they entered the town a change
+more ominous and startling than the desiccation of the landscape
+forced itself upon them. The town was still there, but where were
+the inhabitants? Four months ago they had left the straggling street
+thronged with busy citizens--groups at every corner, and a chaos
+of merchandise and traders in the open plaza or square beside the
+Presbyterian church. Now all was changed. Only a few wayfarers lifted
+their heads lazily as the coach rattled by, crossing the deserted square
+littered with empty boxes, and gliding past empty cabins or vacant shop
+windows, from which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes
+themselves, were gone. The great unfinished serpent-like flume, crossing
+the river on gigantic trestles, had advanced as far as the town,
+stooping over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked its life
+blood and was gorged with its prey.
+
+Whiskey Dick, who had left the stage on the summit to avail himself of
+a shorter foot trail to the house, that would give him half an hour's
+grace to make preparations, met them at the stage office with a buggy.
+A glance at the young girls, perhaps, convinced him that the graces of
+elegant worldly conversation were out of place with the revelation he
+read on their faces. Perhaps, he, too, was a trifle indisposed. The
+short journey to the house was made in profound silence.
+
+The villa had been repainted and decorated, and it looked fresher, and
+even, to their preoccupied minds, appeared more attractive than ever.
+Thoughtful hands had taken care of the vines and rose-bushes on the
+trellises; water--that precious element in Devil's Ford--had not been
+spared in keeping green through the long drought the plants which the
+girls had so tenderly nurtured. It was the one oasis in which the summer
+still lingered; and yet a singular sense of loss came over the girls as
+they once more crossed its threshold. It seemed no longer their own.
+
+"Ef I was you, Miss Christie, I'd keep close to the house for a day or
+two, until--until--things is settled," said Dick; "there's a heap o'
+tramps and sich cattle trapsin' round. P'raps you wouldn't feel so
+lonesome if you was nearer town--for instance, 'bout wher' you useter
+live."
+
+"In the dear old cabin," said Christie quickly; "I remember it; I wish
+we were there now."
+
+"Do you really? Do you?" said Whiskey Dick, with suddenly twinkling
+eyes. "That's like you to say it. That's what I allus said," continued
+Dick, addressing space generally; "if there's any one ez knows how
+to come square down to the bottom rock without flinchin', it's your
+high-toned, fash'nable gals. But I must meander back to town, and let
+the boys know you're in possession, safe and sound. It's right mean that
+Fairfax and Mattingly had to go down to Lagrange on some low business
+yesterday, but they'll be back to-morrow. So long."
+
+Left alone, the girls began to realize their strange position. They had
+conceived no settled plan. The night they left San Francisco they had
+written an earnest letter to their father, telling him that on learning
+the truth about the reverses of Devil's Ford, they thought it their duty
+to return and share them with others, without obliging him to prefer the
+request, and with as little worry to him as possible. He would find them
+ready to share his trials, and in what must be the scene of their work
+hereafter.
+
+"It will bring father back," said Christie; "he won't leave us here
+alone; and then together we must come to some understanding with
+him--with THEM--for somehow I feel as if this house belonged to us no
+longer."
+
+Her surmise was not far wrong. When Mr. Carr arrived hurriedly from
+Sacramento the next evening, he found the house deserted. His daughters
+were gone; there were indications that they had arrived, and, for some
+reason, suddenly departed. The vague fear that had haunted his guilty
+soul after receiving their letter, and during his breathless journey,
+now seemed to be realized. He was turning from the empty house, whose
+reproachful solitude frightened him, when he was confronted on the
+threshold by the figure of Fairfax Munroe.
+
+"I came to the stage office to meet you," he said; "you must have left
+the stage at the summit."
+
+"I did," said Carr angrily. "I was anxious to meet my daughters quickly,
+to know the reason of their foolish alarm, and to know also who had been
+frightening them. Where are they?"
+
+"They are safe in the old cabin beyond, that has been put up ready to
+receive them again," said Fairfax quietly.
+
+"But what is the meaning of this? Why are they not here?" demanded Carr,
+hiding his agitation in a burst of querulous rage.
+
+"Do YOU ask, Mr. Carr?" said Fairfax sadly. "Did you expect them to
+remain here until the sheriff took possession? No one knows better than
+yourself that the money advanced you on the deeds of this homestead has
+never been repaid."
+
+Carr staggered, but recovered himself with feeble violence.
+
+"Since you know so much of my affairs, how do you know that this claim
+will ever be pressed for payment? How do you know it is not the advance
+of a--a--friend?"
+
+"Because I have seen the woman who advanced it," said Fairfax
+hopelessly. "She was here to look at the property before your daughters
+came."
+
+"Well?" said Carr nervously.
+
+"Well! You force me to tell you something I should like to forget. You
+force me to anticipate a disclosure I expected to make to you only when
+I came to ask permission to woo your daughter Jessie; and when I tell
+you what it is, you will understand that I have no right to criticise
+your conduct. I am only explaining my own."
+
+"Go on," said Carr impatiently.
+
+"When I first came to this country, there was a woman I loved
+passionately. She treated me as women of her kind only treat men like
+me; she ruined me, and left me. That was four years ago. I love your
+daughter, Mr. Carr, but she has never heard it from my lips. I would not
+woo her until I had told you all. I have tried to do it ere this, and
+failed. Perhaps I should not now, but--"
+
+"But what?" said Carr furiously; "speak out!"
+
+"But this. Look!" said Fairfax, producing from his pocket the packet of
+letters Jessie had found; "perhaps you know the handwriting?"
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Carr.
+
+"That woman--my mistress--is the woman who advanced you money, and who
+claims this house."
+
+
+The interview, and whatever came of it, remained a secret with the two
+men. When Mr. Carr accepted the hospitality of the old cabin again, it
+was understood that he had sacrificed the new house and its furniture
+to some of the more pressing debts of the mine, and the act went far to
+restore his waning popularity. But a more genuine feeling of relief was
+experienced by Devil's Ford when it was rumored that Fairfax Munroe had
+asked for the hand of Jessie Carr, and that some promise contingent upon
+the equitable adjustment of the affairs of the mine had been given
+by Mr. Carr. To the superstitious mind of Devil's Ford and its few
+remaining locators, this new partnership seemed to promise that unity
+of interest and stability of fortune that Devil's Ford had lacked. But
+nothing could be done until the rainy season had fairly set in; until
+the long-looked-for element that was to magically separate the gold from
+the dross in those dull mounds of dust and gravel had come of its own
+free will, and in its own appointed channels, independent of the feeble
+auxiliaries that had hopelessly riven the rocks on the hillside, or hung
+incomplete and unfinished in lofty scaffoldings above the settlement.
+
+The rainy season came early. At first in gathered mists on the higher
+peaks that were lifted in the morning sun only to show a fresher field
+of dazzling white below; in white clouds that at first seemed to be mere
+drifts blown across from those fresh snowfields, and obscuring the
+clear blue above; in far-off murmurs in the hollow hills and gulches;
+in nearer tinkling melody and baby prattling in the leaves. It came
+with bright flashes of sunlight by day, with deep, monotonous shadow at
+night; with the onset of heavy winds, the roar of turbulent woods,
+the tumultuous tossing of leafy arms, and with what seemed the silent
+dissolution of the whole landscape in days of steady and uninterrupted
+downfall. It came extravagantly, for every canyon had grown into a
+torrent, every gulch a waterspout, every watercourse a river, and all
+pouring into the North Fork, that, rushing past the settlement, seemed
+to threaten it with lifted crest and flying mane. It came dangerously,
+for one night the river, leaping the feeble barrier of Devil's Ford,
+swept away houses and banks, scattered with unconscious irony the
+laboriously collected heaps of gravel left for hydraulic machinery, and
+spread out a vast and silent lake across the submerged flat.
+
+In the hurry and confusion of that night the girls had thrown open their
+cabin to the escaping miners, who hurried along the slope that was now
+the bank of the river. Suddenly Christie felt her arm grasped, and she
+was half-led, half-dragged, into the inner room. Her father stood before
+her.
+
+"Where is George Kearney?" he asked tremulously.
+
+"George Kearney!" echoed Christie, for a moment believing the excitement
+had turned her father's brain. "You know he is not here; he is in San
+Francisco."
+
+"He is here--I tell you," said Carr impatiently; "he has been here ever
+since the high water, trying to save the flume and reservoir."
+
+"George--here!" Christie could only gasp.
+
+"Yes! He passed here a few moments ago, to see if you were all safe,
+and he has gone on towards the flume. But what he is trying to do is
+madness. If you see him, implore him to do no more. Let him abandon the
+accursed flume to its fate. It has worked already too much woe upon us
+all; why should it carry his brave and youthful soul down with it?"
+
+The words were still ringing in her ears, when he suddenly passed away,
+with the hurrying crowd. Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran out,
+vaguely intent only on one thought, seeking only the one face, lately
+so dear in recollection that she felt she would die if she never saw it
+again. Perplexed by confused voices in the woods, she lost track of
+the crowd, until the voices suddenly were raised in one loud outcry,
+followed by the crashing of timber, the splashing of water, a silence,
+and then a dull, continuous roar. She ran vaguely on in the direction of
+the reservoir, with her father's injunction still in her mind, until a
+terrible idea displaced it, and she turned at right angles suddenly, and
+ran towards the slope leading down to the submerged flat. She had barely
+left the shelter of the trees behind her before the roar of water
+seemed to rise at her very feet. She stopped, dazed, bewildered, and
+horror-stricken, on the edge of the slope. It was the slope no longer,
+but the bank of the river itself!
+
+Even in the gray light of early morning, and with inexperienced eyes,
+she saw all too clearly now. The trestle-work had given way; the curving
+mile of flume, fallen into the stream, and, crushed and dammed against
+the opposite shore, had absolutely turned the whole river through the
+half-finished ditch and partly excavated mine in its way, a few rods
+further on to join the old familiar channel. The bank of the river was
+changed; the flat had become an island, between which and the slope
+where she stood the North Fork was rolling its resistless yellow
+torrent. As she gazed spellbound, a portion of the slope beneath her
+suddenly seemed to sink and crumble, and was swallowed up in the rushing
+stream. She heard a cry of warning behind her, but, rooted to the spot
+by a fearful fascination, she heeded it not.
+
+Again there was a sudden disruption, and another part of the slope sank
+to rise no more; but this time she felt herself seized by the waist and
+dragged back. It was her father standing by her side.
+
+He was flushed and excited, gazing at the water with a strange
+exultation.
+
+"Do you see it? Do you know what has happened?" he asked quickly.
+
+"The flume has fallen and turned the river," said Christie hurriedly.
+"But--have you seen him--is he safe?"
+
+"He--who?" he answered vacantly.
+
+"George Kearney!"
+
+"He is safe," he said impatiently. "But, do you see, Christie? Do you
+know what this means?"
+
+He pointed with his tremulous hand to the stream before them.
+
+"It means we are ruined," said Christie coldly.
+
+"Nothing of the kind! It means that the river is doing the work of the
+flume. It is sluicing off the gravel, deepening the ditch, and altering
+the slope which was the old bend of the river. It will do in ten minutes
+the work that would take us a year. If we can stop it in time, or
+control it, we are safe; but if we can not, it will carry away the bed
+and deposit with the rest, and we are ruined again."
+
+With a gesture of impotent fury, he dashed away in the direction of an
+equally excited crowd, that on a point of the slope nearer the island
+were gesticulating and shouting to a second group of men, who on the
+opposite shore were clambering on over the choked debris of the flume
+that had dammed and diverted the current. It was evident that the same
+idea had occurred to them, and they were risking their lives in the
+attempt to set free the impediments. Shocked and indignant as Christie
+had been at the degrading absorption of material interests at such
+a moment, the element of danger lifted the labors of these men into
+heroism, and she began to feel a strange exultation as she watched them.
+Under the skilful blows of their axes, in a few moments the vast body
+of drift began to disintegrate, and then to swing round and move towards
+the old channel. A cheer went up, but as suddenly died away again. An
+overlapping fringe of wreckage had caught on the point of the island and
+arrested the whole mass.
+
+The men, who had gained the shore with difficulty, looked back with a
+cry of despair. But the next moment from among them leaped a figure,
+alert, buoyant, invincible, and, axe in hand, once more essayed the
+passage. Springing from timber to timber, he at last reached the point
+of obstruction. A few strokes of the axe were sufficient to clear it;
+but at the first stroke it was apparent that the striker was also losing
+his hold upon the shore, and that he must inevitably be carried away
+with the tossing debris. But this consideration did not seem to affect
+him; the last blow was struck, and as the freed timbers rolled on,
+over and over, he boldly plunged into the flood. Christie gave a little
+cry--her heart had bounded with him; it seemed as if his plunge had
+splashed the water in her eyes. He did not come to the surface until he
+had passed the point below where her father stood, and then struggling
+feebly, as if stunned or disabled by a blow. It seemed to her that he
+was trying to approach the side of the river where she was. Would he do
+it? Could she help him? She was alone; he was hidden from the view of
+the men on the point, and no succor could come from them. There was a
+fringe of alder nearly opposite their cabin that almost overhung the
+stream. She ran to it, clutched it with a frantic hand, and, leaning
+over the boiling water, uttered for the first time his name:
+
+"George!"
+
+As if called to the surface by the magic of her voice, he rose a few
+yards from her in mid-current, and turned his fading eyes towards the
+bank. In another moment he would have been swept beyond her reach, but
+with a supreme effort he turned on one side; the current, striking him
+sideways, threw him towards the bank, and she caught him by his sleeve.
+For an instant it seemed as if she would be dragged down with him. For
+one dangerous moment she did not care, and almost yielded to the spell;
+but as the rush of water pressed him against the bank, she recovered
+herself, and managed to lift him beyond its reach. And then she sat
+down, half-fainting, with his white face and damp curls upon her breast.
+
+"George, darling, speak to me! Only one word! Tell me, have I saved
+you?"
+
+His eyes opened. A faint twinkle of the old days came to them--a boyish
+smile played upon his lips.
+
+"For yourself--or Jessie?"
+
+She looked around her with a little frightened air. They were alone.
+There was but one way of sealing those mischievous lips, and she found
+it!
+
+
+"That's what I allus said, gentlemen," lazily remarked Whiskey Dick,
+a few weeks later, leaning back against the bar, with his glass in
+his hand. "'George,' sez I, 'it ain't what you SAY to a fash'nable,
+high-toned young lady; it's what you DOES ez makes or breaks you.' And
+that's what I sez gin'rally o' things in the Ford. It ain't what Carr
+and you boys allows to do; it's the gin'ral average o' things ez IS done
+that gives tone to the hull, and hez brought this yer new luck to you
+all!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Devil's Ford, by Bret Harte
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+***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Devil's Ford by, Bret Harte***
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+
+DEVIL'S FORD
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+DEVIL'S FORD
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was a season of unequalled prosperity in Devil's Ford.  The half
+a dozen cabins scattered along the banks of the North Fork, as if
+by some overflow of that capricious river, had become augmented
+during a week of fierce excitement by twenty or thirty others, that
+were huddled together on the narrow gorge of Devil's Spur, or cast
+up on its steep sides.  So sudden and violent had been the change
+of fortune, that the dwellers in the older cabins had not had time
+to change with it, but still kept their old habits, customs, and
+even their old clothes.  The flour pan in which their daily bread
+was mixed stood on the rude table side by side with the
+"prospecting pans," half full of gold washed up from their
+morning's work; the front windows of the newer tenements looked
+upon the one single thoroughfare, but the back door opened upon the
+uncleared wilderness, still haunted by the misshapen bulk of bear
+or the nightly gliding of catamount.
+
+Neither had success as yet affected their boyish simplicity and the
+frankness of old frontier habits; they played with their new-found
+riches with the naive delight of children, and rehearsed their
+glowing future with the importance and triviality of school-boys.
+
+"I've bin kalklatin'," said Dick Mattingly, leaning on his long-
+handled shovel with lazy gravity, "that when I go to Rome this
+winter, I'll get one o' them marble sharps to chisel me a statoo o'
+some kind to set up on the spot where we made our big strike.
+Suthin' to remember it by, you know."
+
+"What kind o' statoo--Washington or Webster?" asked one of the
+Kearney brothers, without looking up from his work.
+
+"No--I reckon one o' them fancy groups--one o' them Latin goddesses
+that Fairfax is always gassin' about, sorter leadin', directin' and
+bossin' us where to dig."
+
+"You'd make a healthy-lookin' figger in a group," responded
+Kearney, critically regarding an enormous patch in Mattingly's
+trousers.  "Why don't you have a fountain instead?"
+
+"Where'll you get the water?" demanded the first speaker, in
+return.  "You know there ain't enough in the North Fork to do a
+week's washing for the camp--to say nothin' of its color."
+
+"Leave that to me," said Kearney, with self-possession.  "When I've
+built that there reservoir on Devil's Spur, and bring the water
+over the ridge from Union Ditch, there'll be enough to spare for
+that."
+
+"Better mix it up, I reckon--have suthin' half statoo, half
+fountain," interposed the elder Mattingly, better known as
+"Maryland Joe," "and set it up afore the Town Hall and Free Library
+I'm kalklatin' to give.  Do THAT, and you can count on me."
+
+After some further discussion, it was gravely settled that Kearney
+should furnish water brought from the Union Ditch, twenty miles
+away, at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, to feed a memorial
+fountain erected by Mattingly, worth a hundred thousand dollars, as
+a crowning finish to public buildings contributed by Maryland Joe,
+to the extent of half a million more.  The disposition of these
+vast sums by gentlemen wearing patched breeches awakened no sense
+of the ludicrous, nor did any doubt, reservation, or contingency
+enter into the plans of the charming enthusiasts themselves.  The
+foundation of their airy castles lay already before them in the
+strip of rich alluvium on the river bank, where the North Fork,
+sharply curving round the base of Devil's Spur, had for centuries
+swept the detritus of gulch and canyon.  They had barely crossed
+the threshold of this treasure-house, to find themselves rich men;
+what possibilities of affluence might be theirs when they had fully
+exploited their possessions?  So confident were they of that
+ultimate prospect, that the wealth already thus obtained was
+religiously expended in engines and machinery for the boring of
+wells and the conveyance of that precious water which the exhausted
+river had long since ceased to yield.  It seemed as if the gold
+they had taken out was by some ironical compensation gradually
+making its way back to the soil again through ditch and flume and
+reservoir.
+
+Such was the position of affairs at Devil's Ford on the 13th of
+August, 1860.  It was noon of a hot day.  Whatever movement there
+was in the stifling air was seen rather than felt in a tremulous,
+quivering, upward-moving dust along the flank of the mountain,
+through which the spires of the pines were faintly visible.  There
+was no water in the bared and burning bars of the river to reflect
+the vertical sun, but under its direct rays one or two tinned roofs
+and corrugated zinc cabins struck fire, a few canvas tents became
+dazzling to the eye, and the white wooded corral of the stage
+office and hotel insupportable.  For two hours no one ventured in
+the glare of the open, or even to cross the narrow, unshadowed
+street, whose dull red dust seemed to glow between the lines of
+straggling houses.  The heated shells of these green unseasoned
+tenements gave out a pungent odor of scorching wood and resin.  The
+usual hurried, feverish toil in the claim was suspended; the pick
+and shovel were left sticking in the richest "pay gravel;" the
+toiling millionaires themselves, ragged, dirty, and perspiring, lay
+panting under the nearest shade, where the pipes went out
+listlessly, and conversation sank to monosyllables.
+
+"There's Fairfax," said Dick Mattingly, at last, with a lazy
+effort.  His face was turned to the hillside, where a man had just
+emerged from the woods, and was halting irresolutely before the
+glaring expanse of upheaved gravel and glistening boulders that
+stretched between him and the shaded group.  "He's going to make a
+break for it," he added, as the stranger, throwing his linen coat
+over his head, suddenly started into an Indian trot through the
+pelting sunbeams toward them.  This strange act was perfectly
+understood by the group, who knew that in that intensely dry heat
+the danger of exposure was lessened by active exercise and the
+profuse perspiration that followed it.  In another moment the
+stranger had reached their side, dripping as if rained upon,
+mopping his damp curls and handsome bearded face with his linen
+coat, as he threw himself pantingly on the ground.
+
+"I struck out over here first, boys, to give you a little warning,"
+he said, as soon as he had gained breath.  "That engineer will be
+down here to take charge as soon as the six o'clock stage comes in.
+He's an oldish chap, has got a family of two daughters, and--I--am--
+d----d if he is not bringing them down here with him."
+
+"Oh, go long!" exclaimed the five men in one voice, raising
+themselves on their hands and elbows, and glaring at the speaker.
+
+"Fact, boys!  Soon as I found it out I just waltzed into that Jew
+shop at the Crossing and bought up all the clothes that would be
+likely to suit you fellows, before anybody else got a show.  I
+reckon I cleared out the shop.  The duds are a little mixed in
+style, but I reckon they're clean and whole, and a man might face a
+lady in 'em.  I left them round at the old Buckeye Spring, where
+they're handy without attracting attention.  You boys can go there
+for a general wash-up, rig yourselves up without saying anything,
+and then meander back careless and easy in your store clothes, just
+as the stage is coming in, sabe?"
+
+"Why didn't you let us know earlier?" asked Mattingly aggrievedly;
+"you've been back here at least an hour."
+
+"I've been getting some place ready for THEM," returned the new-
+comer.  "We might have managed to put the man somewhere, if he'd
+been alone, but these women want family accommodation.  There was
+nothing left for me to do but to buy up Thompson's saloon."
+
+"No?" interrupted his audience, half in incredulity, half in
+protestation.
+
+"Fact!  You boys will have to take your drinks under canvas again,
+I reckon!  But I made Thompson let those gold-framed mirrors that
+used to stand behind the bar go into the bargain, and they sort of
+furnish the room.  You know the saloon is one of them patent houses
+you can take to pieces, and I've been reckoning you boys will have
+to pitch in and help me to take the whole shanty over to the laurel
+bushes, and put it up agin Kearney's cabin."
+
+"What's all that?" said the younger Kearney, with an odd mingling
+of astonishment and bashful gratification.
+
+"Yes, I reckon yours is the cleanest house, because it's the
+newest, so you'll just step out and let us knock in one o' the
+gables, and clap it on to the saloon, and make ONE house of it,
+don't you see?  There'll be two rooms, one for the girls and the
+other for the old man."
+
+The astonishment and bewilderment of the party had gradually given
+way to a boyish and impatient interest.
+
+"Hadn't we better do the job at once?" suggested Dick Mattingly.
+
+"Or throw ourselves into those new clothes, so as to be ready,"
+added the younger Kearney, looking down at his ragged trousers.  "I
+say, Fairfax, what are the girls like, eh?"
+
+All the others had been dying to ask the question, yet one and all
+laughed at the conscious manner and blushing cheek of the
+questioner.
+
+"You'll find out quick enough," returned Fairfax, whose curt
+carelessness did not, however, prevent a slight increase of color
+on his own cheek.  "We'd better get that job off our hands before
+doing anything else.  So, if you're ready, boys, we'll just waltz
+down to Thompson's and pack up the shanty.  He's out of it by this
+time, I reckon.  You might as well be perspiring to some purpose
+over there as gaspin' under this tree.  We won't go back to work
+this afternoon, but knock off now, and call it half a day.  Come!
+Hump yourselves, gentlemen.  Are you ready?  One, two, three, and
+away!"
+
+In another instant the tree was deserted; the figures of the five
+millionaires of Devil's Ford, crossing the fierce glare of the open
+space, with boyish alacrity, glistened in the sunlight, and then
+disappeared in the nearest fringe of thickets.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil's Spur had crossed the
+river, and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the
+Pioneer coach, leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated
+bulk in the long shadows of the descent.  Conspicuous among the
+dusty passengers, the two pretty and youthful faces of the
+daughters of Philip Carr, mining superintendent and engineer,
+looked from the windows with no little anxiety towards their future
+home in the straggling settlement below, that occasionally came in
+view at the turns of the long zigzagging road.  A slight look of
+comical disappointment passed between them as they gazed upon the
+sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that stood equally
+for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel.  It was so feeble and
+inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed
+through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the preparation
+of that long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and
+pastoral glades and canyons, that, as the coach swept down the last
+incline, and the remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out
+before them, furrowed by ditches and indented by pits, under cover
+of shielding their cheeks from the impalpable dust that rose
+beneath the plunging wheels, they buried their faces in their
+handkerchiefs, to hide a few half-hysterical tears.  Happily, their
+father, completely absorbed in a practical, scientific, and
+approving contemplation of the topography and material resources of
+the scene of his future labors, had no time to notice their
+defection.  It was not until the stage drew up before a rambling
+tenement bearing the inscription, "Hotel and Stage Office," that he
+became fully aware of it.
+
+"We can't stop HERE, papa," said Christie Carr decidedly, with a
+shake of her pretty head.  "You can't expect that."
+
+Mr. Carr looked up at the building; it was half grocery, half
+saloon.  Whatever other accommodations it contained must have been
+hidden in the rear, as the flat roof above was almost level with
+the raftered ceiling of the shop.
+
+"Certainly," he replied hurriedly; "we'll see to that in a moment.
+I dare say it's all right.  I told Fairfax we were coming.
+Somebody ought to be here."
+
+"But they're not," said Jessie Carr indignantly; "and the few that
+were here scampered off like rabbits to their burrows as soon as
+they saw us get down."
+
+It was true.  The little group of loungers before the building had
+suddenly disappeared.  There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing
+in an adjacent doorway; the fading apparition of a pair of high
+boots and blue overalls in another; the abrupt withdrawal of a
+curly blond head from a sashless window over the way.  Even the
+saloon was deserted, although a back door in the dim recess seemed
+to creak mysteriously.  The stage-coach, with the other passengers,
+had already rattled away.
+
+"I certainly think Fairfax understood that I--" began Mr. Carr.
+
+He was interrupted by the pressure of Christie's fingers on his arm
+and a subdued exclamation from Jessie, who was staring down the
+street.
+
+"What are they?" she whispered in her sister's ear.  "Nigger
+minstrels, a circus, or what?"
+
+The five millionaires of Devil's Ford had just turned the corner of
+the straggling street, and were approaching in single file.  One
+glance was sufficient to show that they had already availed
+themselves of the new clothing bought by Fairfax, had washed, and
+one or two had shaved.  But the result was startling.
+
+Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the
+only one who had achieved an entire new suit.  But it was of
+funereal black cloth, and although relieved at one extremity by a
+pair of high riding boots, in which his too short trousers were
+tucked, and at the other by a tall white hat, and cravat of
+aggressive yellow, the effect was depressing.  In agreeable
+contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was attired in a thin fawn-
+colored summer overcoat, lightly worn open, so as to show the
+unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of
+nankeen trousers and pumps.
+
+The Kearney brothers had divided a suit between them, the elder
+wearing a tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock-coat and a
+pair of pink striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly
+displayed the trousers of his brother's suit, as a harmonious
+change to a shining black alpaca coat and crimson neckerchief.
+Fairfax, who brought up the rear, had, with characteristic
+unselfishness, contented himself with a French workman's blue
+blouse and a pair of white duck trousers.  Had they shown the least
+consciousness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they would have
+seemed despicable.  But only one expression beamed on the five
+sunburnt and shining faces--a look of unaffected boyish
+gratification and unrestricted welcome.
+
+They halted before Mr. Carr and his daughters, simultaneously
+removed their various and remarkable head coverings, and waited
+until Fairfax advanced and severally presented them.  Jessie Carr's
+half-frightened smile took refuge in the trembling shadows of her
+dark lashes; Christie Carr stiffened slightly, and looked straight
+before her.
+
+"We reckoned--that is--we intended to meet you and the young ladies
+at the grade," said Fairfax, reddening a little as he endeavored to
+conceal his too ready slang, "and save you from trapesing--from
+dragging yourselves up grade again to your house."
+
+"Then there IS a house?" said Jessie, with an alarming frank laugh
+of relief, that was, however, as frankly reflected in the boyishly
+appreciative eyes of the young men.
+
+"Such as it is," responded Fairfax, with a shade of anxiety, as he
+glanced at the fresh and pretty costumes of the young women, and
+dubiously regarded the two Saratoga trunks resting hopelessly on
+the veranda.  "I'm afraid it isn't much, for what you're accustomed
+to.  But," he added more cheerfully, "it will do for a day or two,
+and perhaps you'll give us the pleasure of showing you the way
+there now."
+
+The procession was quickly formed.  Mr. Carr, alive only to the
+actual business that had brought him there, at once took possession
+of Fairfax, and began to disclose his plans for the working of the
+mine, occasionally halting to look at the work already done in the
+ditches, and to examine the field of his future operations.
+Fairfax, not displeased at being thus relieved of a lighter
+attendance on Mr. Carr's daughters, nevertheless from time to time
+cast a paternal glance backwards upon their escorts, who had each
+seized a handle of the two trunks, and were carrying them in
+couples at the young ladies' side.  The occupation did not offer
+much freedom for easy gallantry, but no sign of discomfiture or
+uneasiness was visible in the grateful faces of the young men.  The
+necessity of changing hands at times with their burdens brought a
+corresponding change of cavalier at the lady's side, although it
+was observed that the younger Kearney, for the sake of continuing a
+conversation with Miss Jessie, kept his grasp of the handle nearest
+the young lady until his hand was nearly cut through, and his arm
+worn out by exhaustion.
+
+"The only thing on wheels in the camp is a mule wagon, and the
+mules are packin' gravel from the river this afternoon," explained
+Dick Mattingly apologetically to Christie, "or we'd have toted--I
+mean carried--you and your baggage up to the shant--the--your
+house.  Give us two weeks more, Miss Carr--only two weeks to wash
+up our work and realize--and we'll give you a pair of 2.40 steppers
+and a skeleton buggy to meet you at the top of the hill and drive
+you over to the cabin.  Perhaps you'd prefer a regular carriage;
+some ladies do.  And a nigger driver.  But what's the use of
+planning anything?  Afore that time comes we'll have run you up a
+house on the hill, and you shall pick out the spot.  It wouldn't
+take long--unless you preferred brick.  I suppose we could get
+brick over from La Grange, if you cared for it, but it would take
+longer.  If you could put up for a time with something of stained
+glass and a mahogany veranda--"
+
+In spite of her cold indignation, and the fact that she could
+understand only a part of Mattingly's speech, Christie comprehended
+enough to make her lift her clear eyes to the speaker, as she
+replied freezingly that she feared she would not trouble them long
+with her company.
+
+"Oh, you'll get over that," responded Mattingly, with an
+exasperating confidence that drove her nearly frantic, from the
+manifest kindliness of intent that made it impossible for her to
+resent it.  "I felt that way myself at first.  Things will look
+strange and unsociable for a while, until you get the hang of them.
+You'll naturally stamp round and cuss a little--"  He stopped in
+conscious consternation.
+
+With ready tact, and before Christie could reply, Maryland Joe had
+put down the trunk and changed hands with his brother.
+
+"You mustn't mind Dick, or he'll go off and kill himself with
+shame," he whispered laughingly in her ear.  "He means all right,
+but he's picked up so much slang here that he's about forgotten how
+to talk English, and it's nigh on to four years since he's met a
+young lady."
+
+Christie did not reply.  Yet the laughter of her sister in advance
+with the Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she
+tried to crush further familiarity only ridiculous.
+
+"Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?"
+
+She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her
+own, and hesitated.  After all, why should she add to her other
+real disappointments by taking this absurd creature seriously?
+
+"In what way?" she returned, with a half smile.
+
+"To play.  On the piano, of course.  There isn't one nearer here
+than Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday.
+You couldn't do anything on a banjo?" he added doubtfully;
+"Kearney's got one."
+
+"I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those
+mountains," said Christie laughingly, to avoid the collateral of
+the banjo.
+
+"We got a billiard-table over from Stockton," half bashfully
+interrupted Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to
+recover his composure, "and it had to be brought over in sections
+on the back of a mule, so I don't see why--"  He stopped short
+again in confusion, at a sign from his brother, and then added, "I
+mean, of course, that a piano is a heap more delicate, and
+valuable, and all that sort of thing, but it's worth trying for."
+
+"Fairfax was always saying he'd get one for himself, so I reckon
+it's possible," said Joe.
+
+"Does he play?" asked Christie.
+
+"You bet," said Joe, quite forgetting himself in his enthusiasm.
+"He can snatch Mozart and Beethoven bald-headed."
+
+In the embarrassing silence that followed this speech the fringe of
+pine wood nearest the flat was reached.  Here there was a rude
+"clearing," and beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently
+joined tenements.  There was no attempt to conceal the point of
+junction between Kearney's cabin and the newly-transported saloon
+from the flat--no architectural illusion of the palpable collusion
+of the two buildings, which seemed to be telescoped into each
+other.  The front room or living room occupied the whole of
+Kearney's cabin.  It contained, in addition to the necessary
+articles for housekeeping, a "bunk" or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to
+leave the second building entirely to the occupation of his
+daughters as bedroom and boudoir.
+
+There was a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude
+utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as
+the two girls entered the open door of the second room.  Neither
+Christie nor Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy
+which kept these young men from accompanying them into the room
+they had but a few moments before decorated and arranged with their
+own hands, and it was not until they turned to thank their strange
+entertainers that they found that they were gone.
+
+The arrangement of the second room was rude and bizarre, but not
+without a singular originality and even tastefulness of conception.
+What had been the counter or "bar" of the saloon, gorgeous in white
+and gold, now sawn in two and divided, was set up on opposite sides
+of the room as separate dressing-tables, decorated with huge
+bunches of azaleas, that hid the rough earthenware bowls, and gave
+each table the appearance of a vestal altar.
+
+The huge gilt plate-glass mirror which had hung behind the bar
+still occupied one side of the room, but its length was artfully
+divided by an enormous rosette of red, white, and blue muslin--one
+of the surviving Fourth of July decorations of Thompson's saloon.
+On either side of the door two pathetic-looking, convent-like cots,
+covered with spotless sheeting, and heaped up in the middle, like a
+snow-covered grave, had attracted their attention.  They were still
+staring at them when Mr. Carr anticipated their curiosity.
+
+"I ought to tell you that the young men confided to me the fact
+that there was neither bed nor mattress to be had on the Ford.
+They have filled some flour sacks with clean dry moss from the
+woods, and put half a dozen blankets on the top, and they hope you
+can get along until the messenger who starts to-night for La Grange
+can bring some bedding over."
+
+Jessie flew with mischievous delight to satisfy herself of the
+truth of this marvel.  "It's so, Christie," she said laughingly--
+"three flour-sacks apiece; but I'm jealous: yours are all marked
+'superfine,' and mine 'middlings.'"
+
+Mr. Carr had remained uneasily watching Christie's shadowed face.
+
+"What matters?" she said drily.  "The accommodation is all in
+keeping."
+
+"It will be better in a day or two," he continued, casting a
+longing look towards the door--the first refuge of masculine
+weakness in an impending domestic emergency.  "I'll go and see what
+can be done," he said feebly, with a sidelong impulse towards the
+opening and freedom.  "I've got to see Fairfax again to-night any
+way."
+
+"One moment, father," said Christie, wearily.  "Did you know
+anything of this place and these--these people--before you came?"
+
+"Certainly--of course I did," he returned, with the sudden
+testiness of disturbed abstraction.  "What are you thinking of?  I
+knew the geological strata and the--the report of Fairfax and his
+partners before I consented to take charge of the works.  And I can
+tell you that there is a fortune here.  I intend to make my own
+terms, and share in it."
+
+"And not take a salary or some sum of money down?" said Christie,
+slowly removing her bonnet in the same resigned way.
+
+"I am not a hired man, or a workman, Christie," said her father
+sharply.  "You ought not to oblige me to remind you of that."
+
+"But the hired men--the superintendent and his workmen--were the
+only ones who ever got anything out of your last experience with
+Colonel Waters at La Grange, and--and we at least lived among
+civilized people there."
+
+"These young men are not common people, Christie; even if they have
+forgotten the restraints of speech and manners, they're gentlemen."
+
+"Who are willing to live like--like negroes."
+
+"You can make them what you please."
+
+Christie raised her eyes.  There was a certain cynical ring in her
+father's voice that was unlike his usual hesitating abstraction.
+It both puzzled and pained her.
+
+"I mean," he said hastily, "that you have the same opportunity to
+direct the lives of these young men into more regular, disciplined
+channels that I have to regulate and correct their foolish waste of
+industry and material here.  It would at least beguile the time for
+you."
+
+Fortunately for Mr. Carr's escape and Christie's uneasiness,
+Jessie, who had been examining the details of the living-room,
+broke in upon this conversation.
+
+"I'm sure it will be as good as a perpetual picnic.  George Kearney
+says we can have a cooking-stove under the tree outside at the
+back, and as there will be no rain for three months we can do the
+cooking there, and that will give us more room for--for the piano
+when it comes; and there's an old squaw to do the cleaning and
+washing-up any day--and--and--it will be real fun."
+
+She stopped breathlessly, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes--a
+charming picture of youth and trustfulness.  Mr. Carr had seized
+the opportunity to escape.
+
+"Really, now, Christie," said Jessie confidentially, when they were
+alone, and Christie had begun to unpack her trunk, and to
+mechanically put her things away, "they're not so bad."
+
+"Who?" asked Christie.
+
+"Why, the Kearneys, and Mattinglys, and Fairfax, and the lot,
+provided you don't look at their clothes.  And think of it! they
+told me--for they tell one EVERYTHING in the most alarming way--
+that those clothes were bought to please US.  A scramble of things
+bought at La Grange, without reference to size or style.  And to
+hear these creatures talk, why, you'd think they were Astors or
+Rothschilds.  Think of that little one with the curls--I don't
+believe he is over seventeen, for all his baby moustache--says he's
+going to build an assembly hall for us to give a dance in next
+month; and apologizes the next breath to tell us that there isn't
+any milk to be had nearer than La Grange, and we must do without
+it, and use syrup in our tea to-morrow."
+
+"And where is all this wealth?" said Christie, forcing herself to
+smile at her sister's animation.
+
+"Under our very feet, my child, and all along the river.  Why, what
+we thought was pure and simple mud is what they call 'gold-bearing
+cement.'"
+
+"I suppose that is why they don't brush their boots and trousers,
+it's so precious," returned Christie drily.  "And have they ever
+translated this precious dirt into actual coin?"
+
+"Bless you, yes.  Why, that dirty little gutter, you know, that ran
+along the side of the road and followed us down the hill all the
+way here, that cost them--let me see--yes, nearly sixty thousand
+dollars.  And fancy! papa's just condemned it--says it won't do;
+and they've got to build another."
+
+An impatient sigh from Christie drew Jessie's attention to her
+troubled eyebrows.
+
+"Don't worry about our disappointment, dear.  It isn't so very
+great.  I dare say we'll be able to get along here in some way,
+until papa is rich again.  You know they intend to make him share
+with them."
+
+"It strikes me that he is sharing with them already," said
+Christie, glancing bitterly round the cabin; "sharing everything--
+ourselves, our lives, our tastes."
+
+"Ye-e-s!" said Jessie, with vaguely hesitating assent.  "Yes, even
+these:" she showed two dice in the palm of her little hand.  "I
+found 'em in the drawer of our dressing-table."
+
+"Throw them away," said Christie impatiently.
+
+But Jessie's small fingers closed over the dice.  "I'll give them
+to the little Kearney.  I dare say they were the poor boy's
+playthings."
+
+The appearance of these relics of wild dissipation, however, had
+lifted Christie out of her sublime resignation.  "For Heaven's
+sake, Jessie," she said, "look around and see if there is anything
+more!"
+
+To make sure, they each began to scrimmage; the broken-spirited
+Christie exhibiting both alacrity and penetration in searching
+obscure corners.  In the dining-room, behind the dresser, three or
+four books were discovered: an odd volume of Thackeray, another of
+Dickens, a memorandum-book or diary.  "This seems to be Latin,"
+said Jessie, fishing out a smaller book.  "I can't read it."
+
+"It's just as well you shouldn't," said Christie shortly, whose
+ideas of a general classical impropriety had been gathered from
+pages of Lempriere's dictionary.  "Put it back directly."
+
+Jessie returned certain odes of one Horatius Flaccus to the corner,
+and uttered an exclamation.  "Oh, Christie! here are some letters
+tied up with a ribbon."
+
+They were two or three prettily written letters, exhaling a faint
+odor of refinement and of the pressed flowers that peeped from
+between the loose leaves.  "I see, 'My darling Fairfax.'  It's from
+some woman."
+
+"I don't think much of her, whosoever she is," said Christie,
+tossing the intact packet back into the corner.
+
+"Nor I," echoed Jessie.
+
+Nevertheless, by some feminine inconsistency, evidently the
+circumstance did make them think more of HIM, for a minute later,
+when they had reentered their own room, Christie remarked, "The
+idea of petting a man by his family name!  Think of mamma ever
+having called papa 'darling Carr'!"
+
+"Oh, but his family name isn't Fairfax," said Jessie hastily;
+"that's his FIRST name, his Christian name.  I forget what's his
+other name, but nobody ever calls him by it."
+
+"Do you mean," said Christie, with glistening eyes and awful
+deliberation--"do you mean to say that we're expected to fall in
+with this insufferable familiarity?  I suppose they'll be calling
+US by our Christian names next."
+
+"Oh, but they do!" said Jessie, mischievously.
+
+"What!"
+
+"They call me Miss Jessie; and Kearney, the little one, asked me if
+Christie played."
+
+"And what did you say?"
+
+"I said that you did," answered Jessie, with an affectation of
+cherubic simplicity.  "You do, dear; don't you? . . .  There, don't
+get angry, darling; I couldn't flare up all of a sudden in the face
+of that poor little creature; he looked so absurd--and so--so
+honest."
+
+Christie turned away, relapsing into her old resigned manner, and
+assuming her household duties in a quiet, temporizing way that was,
+however, without hope or expectation.
+
+Mr. Carr, who had dined with his friends under the excuse of not
+adding to the awkwardness of the first day's housekeeping returned
+late at night with a mass of papers and drawings, into which he
+afterwards withdrew, but not until he had delivered himself of a
+mysterious package entrusted to him by the young men for his
+daughters.  It contained a contribution to their board in the shape
+of a silver spoon and battered silver mug, which Jessie chose to
+facetiously consider as an affecting reminiscence of the youthful
+Kearney's christening days--which it probably was.
+
+The young girls retired early to their white snow-drifts: Jessie
+not without some hilarious struggles with hers, in which she was,
+however, quickly surprised by the deep and refreshing sleep of
+youth; Christie to lie awake and listen to the night wind, that had
+changed from the first cool whispers of sunset to the sturdy breath
+of the mountain.  At times the frail house shook and trembled.
+Wandering gusts laden with the deep resinous odors of the wood
+found their way through the imperfect jointure of the two cabins,
+swept her cheek and even stirred her long, wide-open lashes.  A
+broken spray of pine needles rustled along the roof, or a pine cone
+dropped with a quick reverberating tap-tap that for an instant
+startled her.  Lying thus, wide awake, she fell into a dreamy
+reminiscence of the past, hearing snatches of old melody in the
+moving pines, fragments of sentences, old words, and familiar
+epithets in the murmuring wind at her ear, and even the faint
+breath of long-forgotten kisses on her cheek.  She remembered her
+mother--a pallid creature, who had slowly faded out of one of her
+father's vague speculations in a vaguer speculation of her own,
+beyond his ken--whose place she had promised to take at her
+father's side.  The words, "Watch over him, Christie; he needs a
+woman's care," again echoed in her ears, as if borne on the night
+wind from the lonely grave in the lonelier cemetery by the distant
+sea.  She had devoted herself to him with some little sacrifices of
+self, only remembered now for their uselessness in saving her
+father the disappointment that sprang from his sanguine and one-
+idea'd temperament.  She thought of him lying asleep in the other
+room, ready on the morrow to devote those fateful qualities to the
+new enterprise that with equally fateful disposition she believed
+would end in failure.  It did not occur to her that the doubts of
+her own practical nature were almost as dangerous and illogical as
+his enthusiasm, and that for that reason she was fast losing what
+little influence she possessed over him.  With the example of her
+mother's weakness before her eyes, she had become an unsparing and
+distrustful critic, with the sole effect of awakening his distrust
+and withdrawing his confidence from her.
+
+He was beginning to deceive her as he had never deceived her
+mother.  Even Jessie knew more of this last enterprise than she did
+herself.
+
+All that did not tend to decrease her utter restlessness.  It was
+already past midnight when she noticed that the wind had again
+abated.  The mountain breeze had by this time possessed the
+stifling valleys and heated bars of the river in its strong, cold
+embraces; the equilibrium of Nature was restored, and a shadowy
+mist rose from the hollow.  A stillness, more oppressive and
+intolerable than the previous commotion, began to pervade the house
+and the surrounding woods.  She could hear the regular breathing of
+the sleepers; she even fancied she could detect the faint impulses
+of the more distant life in the settlement.  The far-off barking of
+a dog, a lost shout, the indistinct murmur of some nearer
+watercourse--mere phantoms of sound--made the silence more
+irritating.  With a sudden resolution she arose, dressed herself
+quietly and completely, threw a heavy cloak over her head and
+shoulders, and opened the door between the living-room and her own.
+Her father was sleeping soundly in his bunk in the corner.  She
+passed noiselessly through the room, opened the lightly fastened
+door, and stepped out into the night.
+
+In the irritation and disgust of her walk hither, she had never
+noticed the situation of the cabin, as it nestled on the slope at
+the fringe of the woods; in the preoccupation of her disappointment
+and the mechanical putting away of her things, she had never looked
+once from the window of her room, or glanced backward out of the
+door that she had entered.  The view before her was a revelation--a
+reproach, a surprise that took away her breath.  Over her shoulders
+the newly risen moon poured a flood of silvery light, stretching
+from her feet across the shining bars of the river to the opposite
+bank, and on up to the very crest of the Devil's Spur--no longer a
+huge bulk of crushing shadow, but the steady exaltation of plateau,
+spur, and terrace clothed with replete and unutterable beauty.  In
+this magical light that beauty seemed to be sustained and carried
+along by the river winding at its base, lifted again to the broad
+shoulder of the mountain, and lost only in the distant vista of
+death-like, overcrowning snow.  Behind and above where she stood
+the towering woods seemed to be waiting with opened ranks to absorb
+her with the little cabin she had quitted, dwarfed into
+insignificance in the vast prospect; but nowhere was there another
+sign or indication of human life and habitation.  She looked in
+vain for the settlement, for the rugged ditches, the scattered
+cabins, and the unsightly heaps of gravel.  In the glamour of the
+moonlight they had vanished; a veil of silver-gray vapor touched
+here and there with ebony shadows masked its site.  A black strip
+beyond was the river bank.  All else was changed.  With a sudden
+sense of awe and loneliness she turned to the cabin and its
+sleeping inmates--all that seemed left to her in the vast and
+stupendous domination of rock and wood and sky.
+
+But in another moment the loneliness passed.  A new and delicious
+sense of an infinite hospitality and friendliness in their silent
+presence began to possess her.  This same slighted, forgotten,
+uncomprehended, but still foolish and forgiving Nature seemed to be
+bending over her frightened and listening ear with vague but
+thrilling murmurings of freedom and independence.  She felt her
+heart expand with its wholesome breath, her soul fill with its
+sustaining truth.
+
+She felt--
+
+What was that?
+
+An unmistakable outburst of a drunken song at the foot of the
+slope:--
+
+
+     "Oh, my name it is Johnny from Pike,
+      I'm h-ll on a spree or a strike" . . .
+
+
+She stopped as crimson with shame and indignation as if the
+viewless singer had risen before her.
+
+
+     "I knew when to bet, and get up and get--"
+
+
+"Hush! D--n it all.  Don't you hear?"
+
+There was the sound of hurried whispers, a "No" and "Yes," and then
+a dead silence.
+
+Christie crept nearer to the edge of the slope in the shadow of a
+buckeye.  In the clearer view she could distinguish a staggering
+figure in the trail below who had evidently been stopped by two
+other expostulating shadows that were approaching from the shelter
+of a tree.
+
+"Sho!--didn't know!"
+
+The staggering figure endeavored to straighten itself, and then
+slouched away in the direction of the settlement.  The two
+mysterious shadows retreated again to the tree, and were lost in
+its deeper shadow.  Christie darted back to the cabin, and softly
+reentered her room.
+
+"I thought I heard a noise that woke me, and I missed you," said
+Jessie, rubbing her eyes.  "Did you see anything?"
+
+"No," said Christie, beginning to undress.
+
+"You weren't frightened, dear?"
+
+"Not in the least," said Christie, with a strange little laugh.
+"Go to sleep."
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The five impulsive millionaires of Devil's Ford fulfilled not a few
+of their most extravagant promises.  In less than six weeks Mr.
+Carr and his daughters were installed in a new house, built near
+the site of the double cabin, which was again transferred to the
+settlement, in order to give greater seclusion to the fair guests.
+It was a long, roomy, one-storied villa, with a not unpicturesque
+combination of deep veranda and trellis work, which relieved the
+flat monotony of the interior and the barrenness of the freshly-
+cleared ground.  An upright piano, brought from Sacramento,
+occupied the corner of the parlor.  A suite of gorgeous furniture,
+whose pronounced and extravagant glories the young girls
+instinctively hid under home-made linen covers, had also been
+spoils from afar.  Elsewhere the house was filled with ornaments
+and decorations that in their incongruity forcibly recalled the
+gilded plate-glass mirrors of the bedroom in the old cabin.  In the
+hasty furnishing of this Aladdin's palace, the slaves of the ring
+had evidently seized upon anything that would add to its glory,
+without reference always to fitness.
+
+"I wish it didn't look so cussedly like a robber's cave," said
+George Kearney, when they were taking a quiet preliminary survey of
+the unclassified treasures, before the Carrs took possession.
+
+"Or a gambling hell," said his brother reflectively.
+
+"It's about the same thing, I reckon," said Dick Mattingly, who was
+supposed, in his fiery youth, to have encountered the similarity.
+
+Nevertheless, the two girls managed to bestow the heterogeneous
+collection with tasteful adaptation to their needs.  A crystal
+chandelier, which had once lent a fascinating illusion to the game
+of Monte, hung unlighted in the broad hall, where a few other
+bizarre and public articles were relegated.  A long red sofa or
+bench, which had done duty beside a billiard-table found a place
+here also.  Indeed, it is to be feared that some of the more rustic
+and bashful youths of Devil's Ford, who had felt it incumbent upon
+them to pay their respects to the new-comers, were more at ease in
+this vestibule than in the arcana beyond, whose glories they could
+see through the open door.  To others, it represented a recognized
+state of probation before their re-entree into civilization again.
+"I reckon, if you don't mind, miss," said the spokesman of one
+party, "ez this is our first call, we'll sorter hang out in the
+hall yer, until you'r used to us."  On another occasion, one
+Whiskey Dick, impelled by a sense of duty, paid a visit to the new
+house and its fair occupants, in a fashion frankly recounted by him
+afterwards at the bar of the Tecumseh Saloon.
+
+"You see, boys, I dropped in there the other night, when some of
+you fellers was doin' the high-toned 'thankee, marm' business in
+the parlor.  I just came to anchor in the corner of the sofy in the
+hall, without lettin' on to say that I was there, and took up a
+Webster's dictionary that was on the table and laid it open--
+keerless like, on my knees, ez if I was sorter consultin' it--and
+kinder dozed off there, listenin' to you fellows gassin' with the
+young ladies, and that yer Miss Christie just snakin' music outer
+that pianner, and I reckon I fell asleep.  Anyhow, I was there nigh
+on to two hours.  It's mighty soothin', them fashionable calls;
+sorter knocks the old camp dust outer a fellow, and sets him up
+again."
+
+It would have been well if the new life of the Devil's Ford had
+shown no other irregularity than the harmless eccentricities of its
+original locaters.  But the news of its sudden fortune, magnified
+by report, began presently to flood the settlement with another
+class of adventurers.  A tide of waifs, strays, and malcontents of
+old camps along the river began to set towards Devil's Ford, in
+very much the same fashion as the debris, drift, and alluvium had
+been carried down in bygone days and cast upon its banks.  A few
+immigrant wagons, diverted from the highways of travel by the fame
+of the new diggings, halted upon the slopes of Devil's Spur and on
+the arid flats of the Ford, and disgorged their sallow freight of
+alkali-poisoned, prematurely-aged women and children and maimed and
+fever-stricken men.  Against this rude form of domesticity were
+opposed the chromo-tinted dresses and extravagant complexions of a
+few single unattended women--happily seen more often at night
+behind gilded bars than in the garish light of day--and an equal
+number of pale-faced, dark-moustached, well-dressed, and
+suspiciously idle men.  A dozen rivals of Thompson's Saloon had
+sprung up along the narrow main street.  There were two new hotels--
+one a "Temperance House," whose ascetic quality was confined only
+to the abnegation of whiskey--a rival stage office, and a small
+one-storied building, from which the "Sierran Banner" fluttered
+weekly, for "ten dollars a year, in advance."  Insufferable in the
+glare of a Sabbath sun, bleak, windy, and flaring in the gloom of a
+Sabbath night, and hopelessly depressing on all days of the week,
+the First Presbyterian Church lifted its blunt steeple from the
+barrenest area of the flats, and was hideous!  The civic
+improvements so enthusiastically contemplated by the five
+millionaires in the earlier pages of this veracious chronicle--the
+fountain, reservoir, town-hall, and free library--had not yet been
+erected.  Their sites had been anticipated by more urgent buildings
+and mining works, unfortunately not considered in the sanguine
+dreams of the enthusiasts, and, more significant still, their cost
+and expense had been also anticipated by the enormous outlay of
+their earnings in the work upon Devil's Ditch.
+
+Nevertheless, the liberal fulfilment of their promise in the new
+house in the suburbs blinded the young girls' eyes to their
+shortcomings in the town.  Their own remoteness and elevation above
+its feverish life kept them from the knowledge of much that was
+strange, and perhaps disturbing to their equanimity.  As they did
+not mix with the immigrant women--Miss Jessie's good-natured
+intrusion into one of their half-nomadic camps one day having been
+met with rudeness and suspicion--they gradually fell into the way
+of trusting the responsibility of new acquaintances to the hands of
+their original hosts, and of consulting them in the matter of local
+recreation.  It thus occurred that one day the two girls, on their
+way to the main street for an hour's shopping at the Villa de Paris
+and Variety Store, were stopped by Dick Mattingly a few yards from
+their house, with the remark that, as the county election was then
+in progress, it would be advisable for them to defer their
+intention for a few hours.  As he did not deem it necessary to add
+that two citizens, in the exercise of a freeman's franchise, had
+been supplementing their ballots with bullets, in front of an
+admiring crowd, they knew nothing of that accident that removed
+from Devil's Ford an entertaining stranger, who had only the night
+before partaken of their hospitality.
+
+A week or two later, returning one morning from a stroll in the
+forest, Christie and Jessie were waylaid by George Kearney and
+Fairfax, and, under pretext of being shown a new and romantic
+trail, were diverted from the regular path.  This enabled Mattingly
+and Maryland Joe to cut down the body of a man hanged by the
+Vigilance Committee a few hours before on the regular trail, and to
+remonstrate with the committee on the incompatibility of such
+exhibitions with a maidenly worship of nature.
+
+"With the whole county to hang a man in," expostulated Joe, "you
+might keep clear of Carr's woods."
+
+It is needless to add that the young girls never knew of this act
+of violence, or the delicacy that kept them in ignorance of it.
+Mr. Carr was too absorbed in business to give heed to what he
+looked upon as a convulsion of society as natural as a geological
+upheaval, and too prudent to provoke the criticism of his daughters
+by comment in their presence.
+
+An equally unexpected confidence, however, took its place.  Mr.
+Carr having finished his coffee one morning, lingered a moment over
+his perfunctory paternal embraces, with the awkwardness of a
+preoccupied man endeavoring by the assumption of a lighter interest
+to veil another abstraction.
+
+"And what are we doing to-day, Christie?" he asked, as Jessie left
+the dining-room.
+
+"Oh, pretty much the usual thing--nothing in particular.  If George
+Kearney gets the horses from the summit, we're going to ride over
+to Indian Spring to picnic.  Fairfax--Mr. Munroe--I always forget
+that man's real name in this dreadfully familiar country--well,
+he's coming to escort us, and take me, I suppose--that is, if
+Kearney takes Jessie."
+
+"A very nice arrangement," returned her father, with a slight
+nervous contraction of the corners of his mouth and eyelids to
+indicate mischievousness.  "I've no doubt they'll both be here.
+You know they usually are--ha! ha!  And what about the two
+Mattinglys and Philip Kearney, eh?" he continued; "won't they be
+jealous?"
+
+"It isn't their turn," said Christie carelessly; "besides, they'll
+probably be there."
+
+"And I suppose they're beginning to be resigned," said Carr,
+smiling.
+
+"What on earth are you talking of, father?"
+
+She turned her clear brown eyes upon him, and was regarding him
+with such manifest unconsciousness of the drift of his speech, and,
+withal, a little vague impatience of his archness, that Mr. Carr
+was feebly alarmed.  It had the effect of banishing his assumed
+playfulness, which made his serious explanation the more
+irritating.
+
+"Well, I rather thought that--that young Kearney was paying
+considerable attention to--to--to Jessie," replied her father, with
+hesitating gravity.
+
+"What! that boy?"
+
+"Young Kearney is one of the original locators, and an equal
+partner in the mine.  A very enterprising young fellow.  In fact,
+much more advanced and bolder in his conceptions than the others.
+I find no difficulty with him."
+
+At another time Christie would have questioned the convincing
+quality of this proof, but she was too much shocked at her father's
+first suggestion, to think of anything else.
+
+"You don't mean to say, father, that you are talking seriously of
+these men--your friends--whom we see every day--and our only
+company?"
+
+"No, no!" said Mr. Carr hastily; "you misunderstand.  I don't
+suppose that Jessie or you--"
+
+"Or ME!  Am I included?"
+
+"You don't let me speak, Christie.  I mean, I am not talking
+seriously," continued Mr. Carr, with his most serious aspect, "of
+you and Jessie in this matter; but it may be a serious thing to
+these young men to be thrown continually in the company of two
+attractive girls."
+
+"I understand--you mean that we should not see so much of them,"
+said Christie, with a frank expression of relief so genuine as to
+utterly discompose her father.  "Perhaps you are right, though I
+fail to discover anything serious in the attentions of young
+Kearney to Jessie--or--whoever it may be--to me.  But it will be
+very easy to remedy it, and see less of them.  Indeed, we might
+begin to-day with some excuse."
+
+"Yes--certainly.  Of course!" said Mr. Carr, fully convinced of his
+utter failure, but, like most weak creatures, consoling himself
+with the reflection that he had not shown his hand or committed
+himself.  "Yes; but it would perhaps be just as well for the
+present to let things go on as they were.  We'll talk of it again--
+I'm in a hurry now," and, edging himself through the door, he
+slipped away.
+
+"What do you think is father's last idea?" said Christie, with, I
+fear, a slight lack of reverence in her tone, as her sister
+reentered the room.  "He thinks George Kearney is paying you too
+much attention."
+
+"No!" said Jessie, replying to her sister's half-interrogative,
+half-amused glance with a frank, unconscious smile.
+
+"Yes, and he says that Fairfax--I think it's Fairfax--is equally
+fascinated with ME."
+
+Jessie's brow slightly contracted as she looked curiously at her
+sister.
+
+"Of all things," she said, "I wonder if any one has put that idea
+into his dear old head.  He couldn't have thought it himself."
+
+"I don't know," said Christie musingly; "but perhaps it's just as
+well if we kept a little more to ourselves for a while."
+
+"Did father say so?" said Jessie quickly.
+
+"No, but that is evidently what he meant."
+
+"Ye-es," said Jessie slowly, "unless--"
+
+"Unless what?" said Christie sharply.  "Jessie, you don't for a
+moment mean to say that you could possibly conceive of anything
+else?"
+
+"I mean to say," said Jessie, stealing her arm around her sister's
+waist demurely, "that you are perfectly right.  We'll keep away
+from these fascinating Devil's Forders, and particularly the
+youngest Kearney.  I believe there has been some ill-natured
+gossip.  I remember that the other day, when we passed the shanty
+of that Pike County family on the slope, there were three women at
+the door, and one of them said something that made poor little
+Kearney turn white and pink alternately, and dance with suppressed
+rage.  I suppose the old lady--M'Corkle, that's her name--would
+like to have a share of our cavaliers for her Euphemy and Mamie.  I
+dare say it's only right; I would lend them the cherub
+occasionally, and you might let them have Mr. Munroe twice a week."
+
+She laughed, but her eyes sought her sister's with a certain
+watchfulness of expression.
+
+Christie shrugged her shoulders, with a suggestion of disgust.
+
+"Don't joke.  We ought to have thought of all this before."
+
+"But when we first knew them, in the dear old cabin, there wasn't
+any other woman and nobody to gossip, and that's what made it so
+nice.  I don't think so very much of civilization, do you?" said
+the young lady pertly.
+
+Christie did not reply.  Perhaps she was thinking the same thing.
+It certainly had been very pleasant to enjoy the spontaneous and
+chivalrous homage of these men, with no further suggestion of
+recompense or responsibility than the permission to be worshipped;
+but beyond that she racked her brain in vain to recall any look or
+act that proclaimed the lover.  These men, whom she had found so
+relapsed into barbarism that they had forgotten the most ordinary
+forms of civilization; these men, even in whose extravagant
+admiration there was a certain loss of self-respect, that as a
+woman she would never forgive; these men, who seemed to belong to
+another race--impossible!  Yet it was so.
+
+"What construction must they have put upon her father's acceptance
+of their presents--of their company--of her freedom in their
+presence?  No! they must have understood from the beginning that
+she and her sister had never looked upon them except as transient
+hosts and chance acquaintances.  Any other idea was preposterous.
+And yet--"
+
+It was the recurrence of this "yet" that alarmed her.  For she
+remembered now that but for their slavish devotion they might claim
+to be her equal.  According to her father's account, they had come
+from homes as good as their own; they were certainly more than her
+equal in fortune; and her father had come to them as an employee,
+until they had taken him into partnership.  If there had only been
+sentiment of any kind connected with any of them!  But they were
+all alike, brave, unselfish, humorous--and often ridiculous.  If
+anything, Dick Mattingly was funniest by nature, and made her laugh
+more.  Maryland Joe, his brother, told better stories (sometimes of
+Dick), though not so good a mimic as the other Kearney, who had a
+fairly sympathetic voice in singing.  They were all good-looking
+enough; perhaps they set store on that--men are so vain.
+
+And as for her own rejected suitor, Fairfax Munroe, except for a
+kind of grave and proper motherliness about his protecting manner,
+he absolutely was the most indistinctive of them all.  He had once
+brought her some rare tea from the Chinese camp, and had taught her
+how to make it; he had cautioned her against sitting under the
+trees at nightfall; he had once taken off his coat to wrap around
+her.  Really, if this were the only evidence of devotion that could
+be shown, she was safe!
+
+"Well," said Jessie, "it amuses you, I see."
+
+Christie checked the smile that had been dimpling the cheek nearest
+Jessie, and turned upon her the face of an elder sister.
+
+"Tell me, have YOU noticed this extraordinary attention of Mr.
+Munroe to me?"
+
+"Candidly?" asked Jessie, seating herself comfortably on the table
+sideways, and endeavoring, to pull her skirt over her little feet.
+"Honest Injun?"
+
+"Don't be idiotic, and, above all, don't be slangy!  Of course,
+candidly."
+
+"Well, no.  I can't say that I have."
+
+"Then," said Christie, "why in the name of all that's preposterous,
+do they persist in pairing me off with the least interesting man of
+the lot?"
+
+Jessie leaped from the table.
+
+"Come now," she said, with a little nervous laugh, "he's not so bad
+as all that.  You don't know him.  But what does it matter now, as
+long as we're not going to see them any more?"
+
+"They're coming here for the ride to-day," said Christie
+resignedly.  "Father thought it better not to break it off at
+once."
+
+"Father thought so!" echoed Jessie, stopping with her hand on the
+door.
+
+"Yes; why do you ask?"
+
+But Jessie had already left the room, and was singing in the hall.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The afternoon did not, however, bring their expected visitors.  It
+brought, instead, a brief note by the hands of Whiskey Dick from
+Fairfax, apologizing for some business that kept him and George
+Kearney from accompanying the ladies.  It added that the horses
+were at the disposal of themselves and any escort they might
+select, if they would kindly give the message to Whiskey Dick.
+
+The two girls looked at each other awkwardly; Jessie did not
+attempt to conceal a slight pout.
+
+"It looks as if they were anticipating us," she said, with a half-
+forced smile.  "I wonder, now, if there really has been any gossip?
+But no!  They wouldn't have stopped for that, unless--"  She looked
+curiously at her sister.
+
+"Unless what?" repeated Christie; "you are horribly mysterious this
+morning."
+
+"Am I?  It's nothing.  But they're wanting an answer.  Of course
+you'll decline."
+
+"And intimate we only care for their company!  No!  We'll say we're
+sorry they can't come, and--accept their horses.  We can do without
+an escort, we two."
+
+"Capital!" said Jessie, clapping her hands.  "We'll show them--"
+
+"We'll show them nothing," interrupted Christie decidedly.  "In our
+place there's only the one thing to do.  Where is this--Whiskey
+Dick?"
+
+"In the parlor."
+
+"The parlor!" echoed Christie.  "Whiskey Dick?  What--is he--"
+
+"Yes; he's all right," said Jessie confidently.  "He's been here
+before, but he stayed in the hall; he was so shy.  I don't think
+you saw him."
+
+"I should think not--Whiskey Dick!"
+
+"Oh, you can call him Mr. Hall, if you like," said Jessie,
+laughing.  "His real name is Dick Hall.  If you want to be funny,
+you can say Alky Hall, as the others do."
+
+Christie's only reply to this levity was a look of superior
+resignation as she crossed the hall and entered the parlor.
+
+Then ensued one of those surprising, mystifying, and utterly
+inexplicable changes that leave the masculine being so helpless in
+the hands of his feminine master.  Before Christie opened the door
+her face underwent a rapid transformation: the gentle glow of a
+refined woman's welcome suddenly beamed in her interested eyes; the
+impulsive courtesy of an expectant hostess eagerly seizing a long-
+looked-for opportunity broke in a smile upon her lips as she swept
+across the room, and stopped with her two white outstretched hands
+before Whiskey Dick.
+
+It needed only the extravagant contrast presented by that gentleman
+to complete the tableau.  Attired in a suit of shining black
+alpaca, the visitor had evidently prepared himself with some care
+for a possible interview.  He was seated by the French window
+opening upon the veranda, as if to secure a retreat in case of an
+emergency.  Scrupulously washed and shaven, some of the soap
+appeared to have lingered in his eyes and inflamed the lids, even
+while it lent a sleek and shining lustre, not unlike his coat, to
+his smooth black hair.  Nevertheless, leaning back in his chair, he
+had allowed a large white handkerchief to depend gracefully from
+his fingers--a pose at once suggesting easy and elegant langour.
+
+"How kind of you to give me an opportunity to make up for my
+misfortune when you last called!  I was so sorry to have missed
+you.  But it was entirely my fault!  You were hurried, I think--you
+conversed with others in the hall--you--"
+
+She stopped to assist him to pick up the handkerchief that had
+fallen, and the Panama hat that had rolled from his lap towards the
+window when he had started suddenly to his feet at the apparition
+of grace and beauty.  As he still nervously retained the two hands
+he had grasped, this would have been a difficult feat, even had he
+not endeavored at the same moment, by a backward furtive kick, to
+propel the hat out of the window, at which she laughingly broke
+from his grasp and flew to the rescue.
+
+"Don't mind it, miss," he said hurriedly.  "It is not worth your
+demeaning yourself to touch it.  Leave it outside thar, miss.  I
+wouldn't have toted it in, anyhow, if some of those high-falutin'
+fellows hadn't allowed, the other night, ez it were the reg'lar
+thing to do; as if, miss, any gentleman kalkilated to ever put on
+his hat in the house afore a lady!"
+
+But Christie had already possessed herself of the unlucky object,
+and had placed it upon the table.  This compelled Whiskey Dick to
+rise again, and as an act of careless good breeding to drop his
+handkerchief in it.  He then leaned one elbow upon the piano, and,
+crossing one foot over the other, remained standing in an attitude
+he remembered to have seen in the pages of an illustrated paper as
+portraying the hero in some drawing-room scene.  It was easy and
+effective, but seemed to be more favorable to revery than
+conversation.  Indeed, he remembered that he had forgotten to
+consult the letterpress as to which it represented.
+
+"I see you agree with me, that politeness is quite a matter of
+intention," said Christie, "and not of mere fashion and rules.
+Now, for instance," she continued, with a dazzling smile, "I
+suppose, according to the rules, I ought to give you a note to Mr.
+Munroe, accepting his offer.  That is all that is required; but it
+seems so much nicer, don't you think, to tell it to YOU for HIM,
+and have the pleasure of your company and a little chat at the same
+time."
+
+"That's it, that's just it, Miss Carr; you've hit it in the centre
+this time," said Whiskey Dick, now quite convinced that his
+attitude was not intended for eloquence, and shifting back to his
+own seat, hat and all; "that's tantamount to what I said to the
+boys just now.  'You want an excuse,' sez I, 'for not goin' out
+with the young ladies.  So, accorden' to rules, you writes a letter
+allowin' buzziness and that sorter thing detains you.  But wot's
+the facts?  You're a gentleman, and as gentlemen you and George
+comes to the opinion that you're rather playin' it for all it's
+worth in this yer house, you know--comin' here night and day, off
+and on, reg'lar sociable and fam'ly like, and makin' people talk
+about things they ain't any call to talk about, and, what's a
+darned sight more, YOU FELLOWS ain't got any right YET to allow 'em
+to talk about, d'ye see?" he paused, out of breath.
+
+It was Miss Christie's turn to move about.  In changing her seat to
+the piano-stool, so as to be nearer her visitor, she brushed down
+some loose music, which Whiskey Dick hastened to pick up.
+
+"Pray don't mind it," she said, "pray don't, really--let it be--"
+But Whiskey Dick, feeling himself on safe ground in this attention,
+persisted to the bitter end of a disintegrated and well-worn
+"Travatore."  "So that is what Mr. Munroe said," she remarked
+quietly.
+
+"Not just then, in course, but it's what's bin on his mind and in
+his talk for days off and on," returned Dick, with a knowing smile
+and a nod of mysterious confidence.  "Bless your soul, Miss Carr,
+folks like you and me don't need to have them things explained.
+That's what I said to him, sez I.  'Don't send no note, but just go
+up there and hev it out fair and square, and say what you do mean.'
+But they would hev the note, and I kalkilated to bring it.  But
+when I set my eyes on you, and heard you express yourself as you
+did just now, I sez to myself, sez I, 'Dick, yer's a young lady,
+and a fash'nable lady at that, ez don't go foolin' round on rules
+and etiketts'--excuse my freedom, Miss Carr--'and you and her, sez
+I, 'kin just discuss this yer matter in a sociable, off-hand,
+fash'nable way.'  They're a good lot o' boys, Miss Carr, a square
+lot--white men all of 'em; but they're a little soft and green, may
+be, from livin' in these yer pine woods along o' the other sap.
+They just worship the ground you and your sister tread on--certain!
+of course! of course!" he added hurriedly, recognizing Christie's
+half-conscious, deprecating gesture with more exaggerated
+deprecation.  "I understand.  But what I wanter say is that they'd
+be willin' to be that ground, and lie down and let you walk over
+them--so to speak, Miss Carr, so to speak--if it would keep the hem
+of your gown from gettin' soiled in the mud o' the camp.  But it
+wouldn't do for them to make a reg'lar curderoy road o' themselves
+for the houl camp to trapse over, on the mere chance of your some
+time passin' that way, would it now?"
+
+"Won't you let me offer you some refreshment, Mr. Hall?" said
+Christie, rising, with a slight color.  "I'm really ashamed of my
+forgetfulness again, but I'm afraid it's partly YOUR fault for
+entertaining me to the exclusion of yourself.  No, thank you, let
+me fetch it for you."
+
+She turned to a handsome sideboard near the door, and presently
+faced him again with a decanter of whiskey and a glass in her hand,
+and a return of the bewitching smile she had worn on entering.
+
+"But perhaps you don't take whiskey?" suggested the arch deceiver,
+with a sudden affected but pretty perplexity of eye, brow, and
+lips.
+
+For the first time in his life Whiskey Dick hesitated between two
+forms of intoxication.  But he was still nervous and uneasy; habit
+triumphed, and he took the whiskey.  He, however, wiped his lips
+with a slight wave of his handkerchief, to support a certain easy
+elegance which he firmly believed relieved the act of any vulgar
+quality.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," he continued, after an exhilarated pause.  "Ez I said
+afore, this yer's a matter you and me can discuss after the fashion
+o' society.  My idea is that these yer boys should kinder let up on
+you and Miss Jessie for a while, and do a little more permiskus
+attention round the Ford.  There's one or two families yer with
+grown-up gals ez oughter be squared; that is--the boys mighter put
+in a few fancy touches among them--kinder take 'em buggy riding--or
+to church--once in a while--just to take the pizen outer their
+tongues, and make a kind o' bluff to the parents, d'ye see?  That
+would sorter divert their own minds; and even if it didn't, it
+would kinder get 'em accustomed agin to the old style and their own
+kind.  I want to warn ye agin an idea that might occur to you in a
+giniral way.  I don't say you hev the idea, but it's kind o'
+nat'ral you might be thinkin' of it some time, and I thought I'd
+warn you agin it."
+
+"I think we understand each other too well to differ much, Mr.
+Hall," said Christie, still smiling; "but what is the idea?"
+
+The delicate compliment to their confidential relations and the
+slight stimulus of liquor had tremulously exalted Whiskey Dick.
+Affecting to look cautiously out of the window and around the room,
+he ventured to draw nearer the young woman with a half-paternal,
+half-timid familiarity.
+
+"It might have occurred to you," he said, laying his handkerchief
+as if to veil mere vulgar contact, on Christie's shoulder, "that it
+would be a good thing on YOUR side to invite down some of your
+high-toned gentlemen friends from 'Frisco to visit you and escort
+you round.  It seems quite nat'ral like, and I don't say it ain't,
+but--the boys wouldn't stand for it."
+
+In spite of her self-possession, Christie's eyes suddenly darkened,
+and she involuntarily drew herself up.  But Whiskey Dick, guiltily
+attributing the movement to his own indiscreet gesture, said,
+"Excuse me, miss," recovered himself by lightly dusting her
+shoulder with his handkerchief, as if to remove the impression, and
+her smile returned.
+
+"They wouldn't stand for it," said Dick, "and there'd be some
+shooting!  Not afore you, miss--not afore you, in course!  But
+they'd adjourn to the woods some morning with them city folks, and
+hev it out with rifles at a hundred yards.  Or, seein' ez they're
+city folks, the boys would do the square thing with pistols at
+twelve paces.  They're good boys, as I said afore; but they're
+quick and tetchy--George, being the youngest, nat'rally is the
+tetchiest.  You know how it is, Miss Carr; his pretty, gal-like
+face and little moustaches haz cost him half a dozen scrimmages
+already.  He'z had a fight for every hair that's growed in his
+moustache since he kem here."
+
+"Say no more, Mr. Hall!" said Christie, rising and pressing her
+hands lightly on Dick's tremulous fingers.  "If I ever had any such
+idea, I should abandon it now; you are quite right in this as in
+your other opinions.  I shall never cease to be thankful to Mr.
+Munroe and Mr. Kearney that they intrusted this delicate matter to
+your hands."
+
+"Well," said the gratified and reddening visitor, "it ain't perhaps
+the square thing to them or myself to say that they reckoned to
+have me discuss their delicate affairs for them, but--"
+
+"I understand," interrupted Christie.  "They simply gave you the
+letter as a friend.  It was my good fortune to find you a
+sympathizing and liberal man of the world."  The delighted Dick,
+with conscious vanity beaming from every feature of his shining
+face, lightly waved the compliment aside with his handkerchief, as
+she continued, "But I am forgetting the message.  We accept the
+horses.  Of course we COULD do without an escort; but forgive my
+speaking so frankly, are YOU engaged this afternoon?"
+
+"Excuse me, miss, I don't take--" stammered Dick, scarcely
+believing his ears.
+
+"Could you give us your company as an escort?" repeated Christie
+with a smile.
+
+Was he awake or dreaming, or was this some trick of liquor in his
+often distorted fancy?  He, Whiskey Dick! the butt of his friends,
+the chartered oracle of the barrooms, even in whose wretched vanity
+there was always the haunting suspicion that he was despised and
+scorned; he, who had dared so much in speech, and achieved so
+little in fact! he, whose habitual weakness had even led him into
+the wildest indiscretion here; he--now offered a reward for that
+indiscretion!  He, Whiskey Dick, the solicited escort of these two
+beautiful and peerless girls!  What would they say at the Ford?
+What would his friends think?  It would be all over the Ford the
+next day.  His past would be vindicated, his future secured.  He
+grew erect at the thought.  It was almost in other voice, and with
+no trace of his previous exaggeration, that he said, "With
+pleasure."
+
+"Then, if you will bring the horses at once, we shall be ready when
+you return."
+
+In another instant he had vanished, as if afraid to trust the
+reality of his good fortune to the dangers of delay.  At the end of
+half an hour he reappeared, leading the two horses, himself mounted
+on a half-broken mustang.  A pair of large, jingling silver spurs
+and a stiff sombrero, borrowed with the mustang from some
+mysterious source, were donned to do honor to the occasion.
+
+The young girls were not yet ready, but he was shown by the Chinese
+servant into the parlor to wait for them.  The decanter of whiskey
+and glasses were still invitingly there.  He was hot, trembling,
+and flushed with triumph.  He walked to the table and laid his hand
+on the decanter, when an odd thought flashed upon him.  He would
+not drink this time.  No, it should not be said that he, the
+selected escort of the elite of Devil's Ford, had to fill himself
+up with whiskey before they started.  The boys might turn to each
+other in their astonishment, as he proudly passed with his fair
+companions, and say, "It's Whiskey Dick," but he'd be d----d if they
+should add, "and full as ever."  No, sir!  Nor when he was riding
+beside these real ladies, and leaning over them at some
+confidential moment, should they even know it from his breath!
+No. . . .  Yet a thimbleful, taken straight, only a thimbleful,
+wouldn't be much, and might help to pull him together.  He again
+reached his trembling hand for the decanter, hesitated, and then,
+turning his back upon it, resolutely walked to the open window.
+Almost at the same instant he found himself face to face with
+Christie on the veranda.
+
+She looked into his bloodshot eyes, and cast a swift glance at the
+decanter.
+
+"Won't you take something before you go?" she said sweetly.
+
+"I--reckon--not, jest now," stammered Whiskey Dick, with a heroic
+effort.
+
+"You're right," said Christie.  "I see you are like me.  It's too
+hot for anything fiery.  Come with me."
+
+She led him into the dining-room, and pouring out a glass of iced
+tea handed it to him.  Poor Dick was not prepared for this terrible
+culmination.  Whiskey Dick and iced tea!  But under pretence of
+seeing if it was properly flavored, Christie raised it to her own
+lips.
+
+"Try it, to please me."
+
+He drained the goblet.
+
+"Now, then," said Christie gayly, "let's find Jessie, and be off!"
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Whatever might have been his other deficiencies as an escort,
+Whiskey Dick was a good horseman, and, in spite of his fractious
+brute, exhibited such skill and confidence as to at once satisfy
+the young girls of his value to them in the management of their own
+horses, to whom side-saddles were still an alarming novelty.
+Jessie, who had probably already learned from her sister the
+purport of Dick's confidences, had received him with equal
+cordiality and perhaps a more unqualified amusement; and now, when
+fairly lifted into the saddle by his tremulous but respectful
+hands, made a very charming picture of youthful and rosy
+satisfaction.  And when Christie, more fascinating than ever in her
+riding-habit, took her place on the other side of Dick, as they
+sallied from the gate, that gentleman felt his cup of happiness
+complete.  His triumphal entree into the world of civilization and
+fashion was secure.  He did not regret the untasted liquor; here
+was an experience in after years to lean his back against
+comfortably in bar-rooms, to entrance or defy mankind.  He had even
+got so far as to formulate in fancy the sentence: "I remember,
+gentlemen, that one afternoon, being on a pasear with two
+fash'nable young ladies," etc., etc.
+
+At present, however, he was obliged to confine himself to the
+functions of an elegant guide and cicerone--when not engaged in
+"having it out" with his horse.  Their way lay along the slope,
+crossing the high-road at right angles, to reach the deeper woods
+beyond.  Dick would have lingered on the highway--ostensibly to
+point out to his companions the new flume that had taken the place
+of the condemned ditch, but really in the hope of exposing himself
+in his glory to the curious eyes of the wayfaring world.
+
+Unhappily the road was deserted in the still powerful sunlight, and
+he was obliged to seek the cover of the woods, with a passing
+compliment to the parent of his charges.  Waving his hands towards
+the flume, he said, "Look at that work of your father's; there
+ain't no other man in Californy but Philip Carr ez would hev the
+grit to hold up such a bluff agin natur and agin luck ez that yer
+flume stands for.  I don't say it 'cause you're his daughters,
+ladies!  That ain't the style, ez YOU know, in sassiety, Miss
+Carr," he added, turning to Christie as the more socially
+experienced.  "No! but there ain't another man to be found ez could
+do it.  It cost already two hundred thousand; it'll cost five
+hundred thousand afore it's done; and every cent of it is got out
+of the yearth beneath it, or HEZ got to be out of it.  'Tain't
+ev'ry man, Miss Carr, ez hev got the pluck to pledge not only what
+he's got, but what he reckons to git."
+
+"But suppose he don't get it?" said Christie, slightly contracting
+her brows.
+
+"Then there's the flume to show for it," said Dick.
+
+"But of what use is the flume, if there isn't any more gold?"
+continued Christie, almost angrily.
+
+"That's good from YOU, miss," said Dick, giving way to a fit of
+hilarity.  "That's good for a fash'nable young lady--own daughter
+of Philip Carr.  She sez, says she," continued Dick, appealing to
+the sedate pines for appreciation of Christie's rare humor, "'Wot's
+the use of a flume, when gold ain't there?'  I must tell that to
+the boys."
+
+"And what's the use of the gold in the ground when the flume isn't
+there to work it out?" said Jessie to her sister, with a cautioning
+glance towards Dick.
+
+But Dick did not notice the look that passed between the sisters.
+The richer humor of Jessie's retort had thrown him into convulsions
+of laughter.
+
+"And now SHE says, wot's the use o' the gold without the flume?
+'Xcuse me, ladies, but that's just puttin' the hull question that's
+agitatin' this yer camp inter two speeches as clear as crystal.
+There's the hull crowd outside--and some on 'em inside, like
+Fairfax, hez their doubts--ez says with Miss Christie; and there's
+all of us inside, ez holds Miss Jessie's views."
+
+"I never heard Mr. Munroe say that the flume was wrong," said
+Jessie quickly.
+
+"Not to you, nat'rally," said Dick, with a confidential look at
+Christie; "but I reckon he'd like some of the money it cost laid
+out for suthin' else.  But what's the odds?  The gold is there, and
+WE'RE bound to get it."
+
+Dick was the foreman of a gang of paid workmen, who had replaced
+the millionaires in mere manual labor, and the WE was a polite
+figure of speech.
+
+The conversation seemed to have taken an unfortunate turn, and both
+the girls experienced a feeling of relief when they entered the
+long gulch or defile that led to Indian Spring.  The track now
+becoming narrow, they were obliged to pass in single file along the
+precipitous hillside, led by this escort.  This effectually
+precluded any further speech, and Christie at once surrendered
+herself to the calm, obliterating influences of the forest.  The
+settlement and its gossip were far behind and forgotten.  In the
+absorption of nature, her companions passed out of her mind, even
+as they sometimes passed out of her sight in the windings of the
+shadowy trail.  As she rode alone, the fronds of breast-high ferns
+seemed to caress her with outstretched and gently-detaining hands;
+strange wildflowers sprang up through the parting underbrush; even
+the granite rocks that at times pressed closely upon the trail
+appeared as if cushioned to her contact with star-rayed mosses, or
+lightly flung after her long lassoes of delicate vines.  She
+recalled the absolute freedom of their al-fresco life in the old
+double cabin, when she spent the greater part of her waking hours
+under the mute trees in the encompassing solitude, and, half
+regretting the more civilized restraints of this newer and more
+ambitious abode, forgot that she had ever rebelled against it.  The
+social complication that threatened her now seemed to her rather
+the outcome of her half-civilized parlor than of the sylvan glade.
+How easy it would have been to have kept the cabin, and then to
+have gone away entirely, than for her father to have allowed them
+to be compromised with the growing fortunes of the settlement!  The
+suspicions and distrust that she had always felt of their fortunes
+seemed to grow with the involuntary admission of Whiskey Dick that
+they were shared by others who were practical men.  She was fain to
+have recourse to the prospect again to banish these thoughts, and
+this opened her eyes to the fact that her companions had been
+missing from the trail ahead of her for some time.  She quickened
+her pace slightly to reach a projecting point of rock that gave her
+a more extended prospect.  But they had evidently disappeared.
+
+She was neither alarmed nor annoyed.  She could easily overtake
+them soon, for they would miss her, and return or wait for her at
+the spring.  At the worst she would have no difficulty in retracing
+her steps home.  In her present mood, she could readily spare their
+company; indeed she was not sorry that no other being should
+interrupt that sympathy with the free woods which was beginning to
+possess her.
+
+She was destined, however, to be disappointed.  She had not
+proceeded a hundred yards before she noticed the moving figure of a
+man beyond her in the hillside chaparral above the trail.  He
+seemed to be going in the same direction as herself, and, as she
+fancied, endeavoring to avoid her.  This excited her curiosity to
+the point of urging her horse forward until the trail broadened
+into the level forest again, which she now remembered was a part of
+the environs of Indian Spring.  The stranger hesitated, pausing
+once or twice with his back towards her, as if engaged in carefully
+examining the dwarf willows to select a switch.  Christie slightly
+checked her speed as she drew nearer; when, as if obedient to a
+sudden resolution, he turned and advanced towards her.  She was
+relieved and yet surprised to recognize the boyish face and figure
+of George Kearney.  He was quite pale and agitated, although
+attempting, by a jaunty swinging of the switch he had just cut, to
+assume the appearance of ease and confidence.
+
+Here was an opportunity.  Christie resolved to profit by it.  She
+did not doubt that the young fellow had already passed her sister
+on the trail, but, from bashfulness, had not dared to approach her.
+By inviting his confidence, she would doubtless draw something from
+him that would deny or corroborate her father's opinion of his
+sentiments.  If he was really in love with Jessie, she would learn
+what reasons he had for expecting a serious culmination of his
+suit, and perhaps she might be able delicately to open his eyes to
+the truth.  If, as she believed, it was only a boyish fancy, she
+would laugh him out of it with that camaraderie which had always
+existed between them.  A half motherly sympathy, albeit born quite
+as much from a contemplation of his beautiful yearning eyes as from
+his interesting position, lightened the smile with which she
+greeted him.
+
+"So you contrived to throw over your stupid business and join us,
+after all," she said; "or was it that you changed your mind at the
+last moment?" she added mischievously.  "I thought only we women
+were permitted that!"  Indeed, she could not help noticing that
+there was really a strong feminine suggestion in the shifting color
+and slightly conscious eyelids of the young fellow.
+
+"Do young girls always change their minds?" asked George, with an
+embarrassed smile.
+
+"Not, always; but sometimes they don't know their own mind--
+particularly if they are very young; and when they do at last, you
+clever creatures of men, who have interpreted their ignorance to
+please yourselves, abuse them for being fickle."  She stopped to
+observe the effect of what she believed a rather clear and
+significant exposition of Jessie's and George's possible situation.
+But she was not prepared for the look of blank resignation that
+seemed to drive the color from his face and moisten the fire of his
+dark eyes.
+
+"I reckon you're right," he said, looking down.
+
+"Oh! we're not accusing you of fickleness," said Christie gayly;
+"although you didn't come, and we were obliged to ask Mr. Hall to
+join us.  I suppose you found him and Jessie just now?"
+
+But George made no reply.  The color was slowly coming back to his
+face, which, as she glanced covertly at him, seemed to have grown
+so much older that his returning blood might have brought two or
+three years with it.
+
+"Really, Mr. Kearney," she said dryly, "one would think that some
+silly, conceited girl"--she was quite earnest in her epithets, for
+a sudden, angry conviction of some coquetry and disingenuousness in
+Jessie had come to her in contemplating its effects upon the young
+fellow at her side--"some country jilt, had been trying her rustic
+hand upon you."
+
+"She is not silly, conceited, nor countrified," said George, slowly
+raising his beautiful eyes to the young girl half reproachfully.
+"It is I who am all that.  No, she is right, and you know it."
+
+Much as Christie admired and valued her sister's charms, she
+thought this was really going too far.  What had Jessie ever done--
+what was Jessie--to provoke and remain insensible to such a blind
+devotion as this?  And really, looking at him now, he was not so
+VERY YOUNG for Jessie; whether his unfortunate passion had brought
+out all his latent manliness, or whether he had hitherto kept his
+serious nature in the background, certainly he was not a boy.  And
+certainly his was not a passion that he could be laughed out of.
+It was getting very tiresome.  She wished she had not met him--at
+least until she had had some clearer understanding with her sister.
+He was still walking beside her, with his hand on her bridle rein,
+partly to lead her horse over some boulders in the trail, and
+partly to conceal his first embarrassment.  When they had fairly
+reached the woods, he stopped.
+
+"I am going to say good-by, Miss Carr."
+
+"Are you not coming further?  We must be near Indian Spring, now;
+Mr. Hall and--and Jessie--cannot be far away.  You will keep me
+company until we meet them?"
+
+"No," he replied quietly.  "I only stopped you to say good-by.  I
+am going away."
+
+"Not from Devil's Ford?" she asked, in half-incredulous astonishment.
+"At least, not for long?"
+
+"I am not coming back," he replied.
+
+"But this is very abrupt," she said hurriedly, feeling that in some
+ridiculous way she had precipitated an equally ridiculous
+catastrophe.  "Surely you are not going away in this fashion,
+without saying good-by to Jessie and--and father?"
+
+"I shall see your father, of course--and you will give my regards
+to Miss Jessie."
+
+He evidently was in earnest.  Was there ever anything so perfectly
+preposterous?  She became indignant.
+
+"Of course," she said coldly, "I won't detain you; your business
+must be urgent, and I forgot--at least I had forgotten until to-
+day--that you have other duties more important than that of squire
+of dames.  I am afraid this forgetfulness made me think you would
+not part from us in quite such a business fashion.  I presume, if
+you had not met me just now, we should none of us have seen you
+again?"
+
+He did not reply.
+
+"Will you say good-by, Miss Carr?"
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Kearney.  If I have said anything which you think
+justifies this very abrupt leave-taking, I beg you will forgive and
+forget it--or, at least, let it have no more weight with you than
+the idle words of any woman.  I only spoke generally.  You know--I--
+I might be mistaken."
+
+His eyes, which had dilated when she began to speak, darkened; his
+color, which had quickly come, as quickly sank when she had ended.
+
+"Don't say that, Miss Carr.  It is not like you, and--it is
+useless.  You know what I meant a moment ago.  I read it in your
+reply.  You meant that I, like others, had deceived myself.  Did
+you not?"
+
+She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty.
+She knew that Jessie did not love him--would not marry him--
+whatever coquetry she might have shown.
+
+"I did not mean to offend you," she said hesitatingly; "I only half
+suspected it when I spoke."
+
+"And you wish to spare me the avowal?" he said bitterly.
+
+"To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it.  I could not tell what
+ideas you might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of
+Jessie--or my father," she added, with almost equal bitterness.
+
+"I have never spoken to either," he replied quickly.  He stopped,
+and added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, "I've been
+brought up in the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed
+my feelings, instead of the etiquette of society."
+
+Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's
+truthfulness to notice the full significance of his speech.
+
+"Good-by," he said again, holding out his hand.
+
+"Good-by!"
+
+She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile.  He held it for
+a moment, with his eyes fixed upon hers.  Then suddenly, as if
+obeying an uncontrollable impulse, he crushed it like a flower
+again and again against his burning lips, and darted away.
+
+Christie sank back in her saddle with a little cry, half of pain
+and half of frightened surprise.  Had the poor boy suddenly gone
+mad, or was this vicarious farewell a part of the courtship of
+Devil's Ford?  She looked at her little hand, which had reddened
+under the pressure, and suddenly felt the flush extending to her
+cheeks and the roots of her hair.  This was intolerable.
+
+"Christie!"
+
+It was her sister emerging from the wood to seek her.  In another
+moment she was at her side.
+
+"We thought you were following," said Jessie.  "Good heavens! how
+you look!  What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing.  I met Mr. Kearney a moment ago on the trail.  He is
+going away, and--and--"  She stopped, furious and flushing.
+
+"And," said Jessie, with a burst of merriment, "he told you at last
+he loved you.  Oh, Christie!"
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The abrupt departure of George Kearney from Devil's Ford excited
+but little interest in the community, and was soon forgotten.  It
+was generally attributed to differences between himself and his
+partners on the question of further outlay of their earnings on
+mining improvements--he and Philip Carr alone representing a
+sanguine minority whose faith in the future of the mine accepted
+any risks.  It was alleged by some that he had sold out to his
+brother; it was believed by others that he had simply gone to
+Sacramento to borrow money on his share, in order to continue the
+improvements on his own responsibility.  The partners themselves
+were uncommunicative; even Whiskey Dick, who since his remarkable
+social elevation had become less oracular, much to his own
+astonishment, contributed nothing to the gossip except a suggestion
+that as the fiery temper of George Kearney brooked no opposition,
+even from his brother, it was better they should separate before
+the estrangement became serious.
+
+Mr. Carr did not disguise his annoyance at the loss of his young
+disciple and firm ally.  But an unlucky allusion to his previous
+remarks on Kearney's attentions to Jessie, and a querulous regret
+that he had permitted a disruption of their social intimacy,
+brought such an ominous and frigid opposition, not only from
+Christie, but even the frivolous Jessie herself, that Carr sank
+back in a crushed and terrified silence.  "I only meant to say," he
+stammered after a pause, in which he, however, resumed his
+aggrieved manner, "that FAIRFAX seems to come here still, and HE is
+not such a particular friend of mine."
+
+"But she is--and has your interest entirely at heart," said Jessie,
+stoutly, "and he only comes here to tell us how things are going on
+at the works."
+
+"And criticise your father, I suppose," said Mr. Carr, with an
+attempt at jocularity that did not, however, disguise an irritated
+suspiciousness.  "He really seems to have supplanted ME as he has
+poor Kearney in your estimation."
+
+"Now, father," said Jessie, suddenly seizing him by the shoulders
+in affected indignation, but really to conceal a certain
+embarrassment that sprang quite as much from her sister's quietly
+observant eye as her father's speech, "you promised to let this
+ridiculous discussion drop.  You will make me and Christie so
+nervous that we will not dare to open the door to a visitor, until
+he declares his innocence of any matrimonial intentions.  You don't
+want to give color to the gossip that agreement with your views
+about the improvements is necessary to getting on with us."
+
+"Who dares talk such rubbish?" said Carr, reddening; "is that the
+kind of gossip that Fairfax brings here?"
+
+"Hardly, when it's known that he don't quite agree with you, and
+DOES come here.  That's the best denial of the gossip."
+
+Christie, who had of late loftily ignored these discussions, waited
+until her father had taken his departure.
+
+"Then that is the reason why you still see Mr. Munroe, after what
+you said," she remarked quietly to Jessie.
+
+Jessie, who would have liked to escape with her father, was obliged
+to pause on the threshold of the door, with a pretty assumption of
+blank forgetfulness in her blue eyes and lifted eyebrows.
+
+"Said what? when?" she asked vacantly.
+
+"When--when Mr. Kearney that day--in the woods--went away," said
+Christie, faintly coloring.
+
+"Oh! THAT day," said Jessie briskly; "the day he just gloved your
+hand with kisses, and then fled wildly into the forest to conceal
+his emotion."
+
+"The day he behaved very foolishly," said Christie, with
+reproachful calmness, that did not, however, prevent a suspicion of
+indignant moisture in her eyes--"when you explained"--
+
+"That it wasn't meant for ME," interrupted Jessie.
+
+"That it was to you that MR. MUNROE'S attentions were directed.
+And then we agreed that it was better to prevent any further
+advances of this kind by avoiding any familiar relations with
+either of them."
+
+"Yes," said Jessie, "I remember; but you're not confounding my
+seeing Fairfax occasionally now with that sort of thing.  HE
+doesn't kiss my hand like anything," she added, as if in abstract
+reflection.
+
+"Nor run away, either," suggested the trodden worm, turning.
+
+There was an ominous silence.
+
+"Do you know we are nearly out of coffee?" said Jessie choking, but
+moving towards the door with Spartan-like calmness.
+
+"Yes.  And something must be done this very day about the washing,"
+said Christie, with suppressed emotion, going towards the opposite
+entrance.
+
+Tears stood in each other's eyes with this terrible exchange of
+domestic confidences.  Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, they
+deliberately turned again, and, facing each other with frightful
+calmness, left the room by purposeless and deliberate exits other
+than those they had contemplated--a crushing abnegation of self,
+that, to some extent, relieved their surcharged feelings.
+
+Meantime the material prosperity of Devil's Ford increased, if a
+prosperity based upon no visible foundation but the confidences and
+hopes of its inhabitants could be called material.  Few, if any,
+stopped to consider that the improvements, buildings, and business
+were simply the outlay of capital brought from elsewhere, and as
+yet the settlement or town, as it was now called, had neither
+produced nor exported capital of itself equal to half the amount
+expended.  It was true that some land was cultivated on the further
+slope, some mills erected and lumber furnished from the
+inexhaustible forest; but the consumers were the inhabitants
+themselves, who paid for their produce in borrowed capital or
+unlimited credit.  It was never discovered that while all roads led
+to Devil's Ford, Devil's Ford led to nowhere.  The difficulties
+overcome in getting things into the settlement were never
+surmounted for getting things out of it.  The lumber was
+practically valueless for export to other settlements across the
+mountain roads, which were equally rich in timber.  The theory so
+enthusiastically held by the original locators, that Devil's Ford
+was a vast sink that had, through ages, exhausted and absorbed the
+trickling wealth of the adjacent hills and valleys, was suffering
+an ironical corroboration.
+
+One morning it was known that work was stopped at the Devil's Ford
+Ditch--temporarily only, it was alleged, and many of the old
+workmen simply had their labor for the present transferred to
+excavating the river banks, and the collection of vast heaps of
+"pay gravel."  Specimens from these mounds, taken from different
+localities, and at different levels, were sent to San Francisco for
+more rigid assay and analysis.  It was believed that this would
+establish the fact of the permanent richness of the drifts, and not
+only justify past expenditure, but a renewed outlay of credit and
+capital.  The suspension of engineering work gave Mr. Carr an
+opportunity to visit San Francisco on general business of the mine,
+which could not, however, prevent him from arranging further
+combinations with capital.  His two daughters accompanied him.  It
+offered an admirable opportunity for a shopping expedition, a
+change of scene, and a peaceful solution of their perplexing and
+anomalous social relations with Devil's Ford.  In the first flush
+of gratitude to their father for this opportune holiday, something
+of harmony had been restored to the family circle that had of late
+been shaken by discord.
+
+But their sanguine hopes of enjoyment were not entirely fulfilled.
+Both Jessie and Christie were obliged to confess to a certain
+disappointment in the aspect of the civilization they were now
+reentering.  They at first attributed it to the change in their own
+habits during the last three months, and their having become
+barbarous and countrified in their seclusion.  Certainly in the
+matter of dress they were behind the fashions as revealed in
+Montgomery Street.  But when the brief solace afforded them by the
+modiste and dressmaker was past, there seemed little else to be
+gained.  They missed at first, I fear, the chivalrous and loyal
+devotion that had only amused them at Devil's Ford, and were the
+more inclined, I think, to distrust the conscious and more
+civilized gallantry of the better dressed and more carefully
+presented men they met.  For it must be admitted that, for obvious
+reasons, their criticisms were at first confined to the sex they
+had been most in contact with.  They could not help noticing that
+the men were more eager, annoyingly feverish, and self-asserting in
+their superior elegance and external show than their old associates
+were in their frank, unrestrained habits.  It seemed to them that
+the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, in their radical simplicity
+and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type of true
+gentlemanhood than these citizens who imitated a civilization they
+were unable yet to reach.
+
+The women simply frightened them, as being, even more than the men,
+demonstrative and excessive in their fine looks, their fine
+dresses, their extravagant demand for excitement.  In less than a
+week they found themselves regretting--not the new villa on the
+slope of Devil's Ford, which even in its own bizarre fashion was
+exceeded by the barbarous ostentation of the villas and private
+houses around them--but the double cabin under the trees, which now
+seemed to them almost aristocratic in its grave simplicity and
+abstention.  In the mysterious forests of masts that thronged the
+city's quays they recalled the straight shafts of the pines on
+Devil's slopes, only to miss the sedate repose and infinite calm
+that used to environ them.  In the feverish, pulsating life of the
+young metropolis they often stopped oppressed, giddy, and choking;
+the roar of the streets and thoroughfares was meaningless to them,
+except to revive strange memories of the deep, unvarying monotone
+of the evening wind over their humbler roof on the Sierran
+hillside.  Civic bred and nurtured as they were, the recurrence of
+these sensations perplexed and alarmed them.
+
+"It seems so perfectly ridiculous," said Jessie, "for us to feel as
+out of place here as that Pike County servant girl in Sacramento
+who had never seen a steamboat before; do you know, I quite had a
+turn the other day at seeing a man on the Stockton wharf in a red
+shirt, with a rifle on his shoulder."
+
+"And you wanted to go and speak to him?" said Christie, with a sad
+smile.
+
+"No, that's just it; I felt awfully hurt and injured that he did
+not come up and speak to ME!  I wonder if we got any fever or that
+sort of thing up there; it makes one quite superstitious."
+
+Christie did not reply; more than once before she had felt that
+inexplicable misgiving.  It had sometimes seemed to her that she
+had never been quite herself since that memorable night when she
+had slipped out of their sleeping-cabin, and stood alone in the
+gracious and commanding presence of the woods and hills.  In the
+solitude of night, with the hum of the great city rising below her--
+at times even in theatres or crowded assemblies of men and women--
+she forgot herself, and again stood in the weird brilliancy of that
+moonlight night in mute worship at the foot of that slowly-rising
+mystic altar of piled terraces, hanging forests, and lifted
+plateaus that climbed forever to the lonely skies.  Again she felt
+before her the expanding and opening arms of the protecting woods.
+Had they really closed upon her in some pantheistic embrace that
+made her a part of them?  Had she been baptized in that moonlight
+as a child of the great forest?  It was easy to believe in the
+myths of the poets of an idyllic life under those trees, where,
+free from conventional restrictions, one loved and was loved.  If
+she, with her own worldly experience, could think of this now, why
+might not George Kearney have thought? . . .  She stopped, and
+found herself blushing even in the darkness.  As the thought and
+blush were the usual sequel of her reflections, it is to be feared
+that they may have been at times the impelling cause.
+
+Mr. Carr, however, made up for his daughters' want of sympathy with
+metropolitan life.  To their astonishment, he not only plunged into
+the fashionable gayeties and amusements of the town, but in dress
+and manner assumed the role of a leader of society.  The invariable
+answer to their half-humorous comment was the necessities of the
+mine, and the policy of frequenting the company of capitalists, to
+enlist their support and confidence.  There was something in this
+so unlike their father, that what at any other time they would have
+hailed as a relief to his habitual abstraction now half alarmed
+them.  Yet he was not dissipated--he did not drink nor gamble.
+There certainly did not seem any harm in his frequenting the
+society of ladies, with a gallantry that appeared to be forced and
+a pleasure that to their critical eyes was certainly apocryphal.
+He did not drag his daughters into the mixed society of that
+period; he did not press upon them the company of those he most
+frequented, and whose accepted position in that little world of
+fashion was considered equal to their own.  When Jessie strongly
+objected to the pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual
+present wealth and pecuniary influence condoned for a more
+uncertain prehistoric past, Mr. Carr did not urge a further
+acquaintance.  "As long as you're not thinking of marrying again,
+papa," Jessie had said finally, "I don't see the necessity of our
+knowing her."  "But suppose I were," had replied Mr. Carr with
+affected humor.  "Then you certainly wouldn't care for any one like
+her," his daughter had responded triumphantly.  Mr. Carr smiled,
+and dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters'
+want of sympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least
+interfere with his social prestige.  A gentleman in all his
+relations and under all circumstances, even his cold scientific
+abstraction was provocative; rich men envied his lofty ignorance of
+the smaller details of money-making, even while they mistrusted his
+judgment.  A man still well preserved, and free from weakening
+vices, he was a dangerous rival to younger and faster San
+Francisco, in the eyes of the sex, who knew how to value a repose
+they did not themselves possess.
+
+Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to
+Sacramento, on further business of the mine, leaving his two
+daughters in the family of a wealthy friend until he should return
+for them.  He opposed their ready suggestion to return to Devil's
+Ford with a new and unnecessary inflexibility: he even met their
+compromise to accompany him to Sacramento with equal decision.
+
+"You will be only in my way," he said curtly.  "Enjoy yourselves
+here while you can."
+
+Thus left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice.  Possibly
+some slight reaction to their previous disappointment may have
+already set in; perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to
+their anxiety about their father.  They went out more; they
+frequented concerts and parties; they accepted, with their host and
+his family, an invitation to one of those opulent and barbaric
+entertainments with which a noted San Francisco millionaire
+distracted his rare moments of reflection in his gorgeous palace on
+the hills.  Here they could at least be once more in the country
+they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a little
+degraded by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of the
+palace.
+
+It was a three days' fete; the style and choice of amusements left
+to the guests, and an equal and active participation by no means
+necessary or indispensable.  Consequently, when Christie and Jessie
+Carr proposed a ride through the adjacent canyon on the second
+morning, they had no difficulty in finding horses in the well-
+furnished stables of their opulent entertainers, nor cavaliers
+among the other guests, who were too happy to find favor in the
+eyes of the two pretty girls who were supposed to be abnormally
+fastidious and refined.  Christie's escort was a good-natured young
+banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrative attentions, and lucky
+enough to interest her during the ride with his clear and half-
+humorous reflections on some of the business speculations of the
+day.  If his ideas were occasionally too clever, and not always
+consistent with a high sense of honor, she was none the less
+interested to know the ethics of that world of speculation into
+which her father had plunged, and the more convinced, with mingled
+sense of pride and anxiety, that his still dominant gentlemanhood
+would prevent his coping with it on equal terms.  Nor could she
+help contrasting the conversation of the sharp-witted man at her
+side with what she still remembered of the vague, touching, boyish
+enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil's Ford.  Had her escort
+guessed the result of this contrast, he would hardly have been as
+gratified as he was with the grave attention of her beautiful eyes.
+
+The fascination of a gracious day and the leafy solitude of the
+canyon led them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit,
+and it became necessary towards sunset for them to seek some
+shorter cut home.
+
+"There's a vaquero in yonder field," said Christie's escort, who
+was riding with her a little in advance of the others, "and those
+fellows know every trail that a horse can follow.  I'll ride on,
+intercept him, and try my Spanish on him.  If I miss him, as he's
+galloping on, you might try your hand on him yourself.  He'll
+understand your eyes, Miss Carr, in any language."
+
+As he dashed away, to cover his first audacity of compliment,
+Christie lifted the eyes thus apostrophized to the opposite field.
+The vaquero, who was chasing some cattle, was evidently too
+preoccupied to heed the shouts of her companion, and wheeling round
+suddenly to intercept one of the deviating fugitives, permitted
+Christie's escort to dash past him before that gentleman could rein
+in his excited steed.  This brought the vaquero directly in her
+path.  Perceiving her, he threw his horse back on its haunches, to
+prevent a collision.  Christie rode up to him, suddenly uttered a
+cry, and halted.  For before her, sunburnt in cheek and throat,
+darker in the free growth of moustache and curling hair, clad in
+the coarse, picturesque finery of his class, undisguised only in
+his boyish beauty, sat George Kearney.
+
+The blood, that had forsaken her astonished face, rushed as quickly
+back.  His eyes, which had suddenly sparkled with an electrical
+glow, sank before hers.  His hand dropped, and his cheek flushed
+with a dark embarrassment.
+
+"You here, Mr. Kearney?  How strange!--but how glad I am to meet
+you again!"
+
+She tried to smile; her voice trembled, and her little hand shook
+as she extended it to him.
+
+He raised his dark eyes quickly, and impulsively urged his horse to
+her side.  But, as if suddenly awakening to the reality of the
+situation, he glanced at her hurriedly, down at his barbaric
+finery, and threw a searching look towards her escort.
+
+In an instant Christie saw the infelicity of her position, and its
+dangers.  The words of Whiskey Dick, "He wouldn't stand that,"
+flashed across her mind.  There was no time to lose.  The banker
+had already gained control over his horse, and was approaching
+them, all unconscious of the fixed stare with which George was
+regarding him.  Christie hastily seized the hand which he had
+allowed to fall at his side, and said quickly:--
+
+"Will you ride with me a little way, Mr. Kearney?"
+
+He turned the same searching look upon her.  She met it clearly and
+steadily; he even thought reproachfully.
+
+"Do!" she said hurriedly.  "I ask it as a favor.  I want to speak
+to you.  Jessie and I are here alone.  Father is away.  YOU are one
+of our oldest friends."
+
+He hesitated.  She turned to the astonished young banker, who rode up.
+
+"I have just met an old friend.  Will you please ride back as
+quickly as you can, and tell Jessie that Mr. Kearney is here, and
+ask her to join us?"
+
+She watched her dazed escort, still speechless from the spectacle
+of the fastidious Miss Carr tete-a-tete with a common Mexican
+vaquero, gallop off in the direction of the canyon, and then turned
+to George.
+
+"Now take me home, the shortest way, as quick as you can."
+
+"Home?" echoed George.
+
+"I mean to Mr. Prince's house.  Quick! before they can come up to
+us."
+
+He mechanically put spurs to his horse; she followed.  They
+presently struck into a trail that soon diverged again into a
+disused logging track through the woods.
+
+"This is the short cut to Prince's, by two miles," he said, as they
+entered the woods.
+
+As they were still galloping, without exchanging a word, Christie
+began to slacken her speed; George did the same.  They were safe
+from intrusion at the present, even if the others had found the
+short cut.  Christie, bold and self-reliant a moment ago, suddenly
+found herself growing weak and embarrassed.  What had she done?
+
+She checked her horse suddenly.
+
+"Perhaps we had better wait for them," she said timidly.
+
+George had not raised his eyes to hers.
+
+"You said you wanted to hurry home," he replied gently, passing his
+hand along his mustang's velvety neck, "and--and you had something
+to say to me."
+
+"Certainly," she answered, with a faint laugh.  "I'm so astonished
+at meeting you here.  I'm quite bewildered.  You are living here;
+you have forsaken us to buy a ranche?" she continued, looking at
+him attentively.
+
+His brow colored slightly.
+
+"No, I'm living here, but I have bought no ranche.  I'm only a
+hired man on somebody else's ranche, to look after the cattle."
+
+He saw her beautiful eyes fill with astonishment and--something
+else.  His brow cleared; he went on, with his old boyish laugh:
+
+"No, Miss Carr.  The fact is, I'm dead broke.  I've lost everything
+since I saw you last.  But as I know how to ride, and I'm not
+afraid of work, I manage to keep along."
+
+"You have lost money in--in the mines?" said Christie suddenly.
+
+"No"--he replied quickly, evading her eyes.  "My brother has my
+interest, you know.  I've been foolish on my own account solely.
+You know I'm rather inclined to that sort of thing.  But as long as
+my folly don't affect others, I can stand it."
+
+"But it may affect others--and THEY may not think of it as folly--"
+She stopped short, confused by his brightening color and eyes.  "I
+mean--  Oh, Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me.  I know
+nothing of business, but I know there has been trouble about the
+mine at Devil's Ford.  Tell me honestly, has my father anything to
+do with it?  If I thought that through any imprudence of his, you
+had suffered--if I believed that you could trace any misfortune of
+yours to him--to US--I should never forgive myself"--she stopped
+and flashed a single look at him--"I should never forgive YOU for
+abandoning us."
+
+The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, which
+never concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed her
+feminine anticlimax.
+
+"Miss Carr," he said, with boyish eagerness, "if any man suggested
+to me that your father wasn't the brightest and best of his kind--
+too wise and clever for the fools about him to understand--I'd--I'd
+shoot him."
+
+Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had NOT
+intended to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush upon
+what she really intended to say, with what she felt was shameful
+precipitation.
+
+"One word more, Mr. Kearney," she began, looking down, but feeling
+the color come to her face as she spoke.  "When you spoke to me the
+day you left, you must have thought me hard and cruel.  When I tell
+you that I thought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you
+had for her--"
+
+"For Jessie!" echoed George.
+
+"You will understand that--that--"
+
+"That what?" said George, drawing nearer to her.
+
+"That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked
+to her of me," added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse
+away from him.
+
+But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an
+imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to
+her side.  "He will go now," she had thought, but he didn't.
+
+"We must ride on," she suggested faintly.
+
+"No," he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a
+slight lifting of his head.  "We must ride together no further,
+Miss Carr.  I must go back to the work I am hired to do, and you
+must go on with your party, whom I hear coming.  But when we part
+here you must bid me good-by--not as Jessie's sister--but as
+Christie--the one--the only woman that I love, or that I ever have
+loved."
+
+He held out his hand.  With the recollection of their previous
+parting, she tremblingly advanced her own.  He took it, but did not
+raise it to his lips.  And it was she who found herself half
+confusedly retaining his hand in hers, until she dropped it with a
+blush.
+
+"Then is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have
+deserted Devil's Ford?" she said coldly.
+
+He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile, and said, "Yes,"
+wheeled his horse, and disappeared in the forest.
+
+He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, and
+indignant.  He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and
+indignant.  Yet she was so self-possessed when the party joined
+her, that the singular rencontre and her explanation of the
+stranger's sudden departure excited no further comment.  Only
+Jessie managed to whisper in her ear,--
+
+"I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn't me he meant?"
+
+"Not at all," said Christie coldly.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A few days after the girls had returned to San Francisco, they
+received a letter from their father.  His business, he wrote, would
+detain him in Sacramento some days longer.  There was no reason why
+they should return to Devil's Ford in the heat of the summer; their
+host had written to beg him to allow them a more extended visit,
+and, if they were enjoying themselves, he thought it would be well
+not to disoblige an old friend.  He had heard they had a pleasant
+visit to Mr. Prince's place, and that a certain young banker had
+been very attentive to Christie.
+
+"Do you know what all this means, dear?" asked Jessie, who had been
+watching her sister with an unusually grave face.
+
+Christie whose thoughts had wandered from the letter, replied
+carelessly,--
+
+"I suppose it means that we are to wait here until father sends for
+us."
+
+"It means a good deal more.  It means that papa has had another
+reverse; it means that the assay has turned out badly for the mine--
+that the further they go from the flat the worse it gets--that all
+the gold they will probably ever see at Devil's Ford is what they
+have already found or will find on the flat; it means that all
+Devil's Ford is only a 'pocket,' and not a 'lead.'"  She stopped,
+with unexpected tears in her eyes.
+
+"Who told you this?" asked Christie breathlessly.
+
+"Fairfax--Mr. Munroe," stammered her sister, "writes to me as if we
+already knew it--tells me not to be alarmed, that it isn't so bad--
+and all that."
+
+"How long has this happened, Jessie?" said Christie, taking her
+hand, with a white but calm face.
+
+"Nearly ever since we've been here, I suppose.  It must be so, for
+he says poor papa is still hopeful of doing something yet."
+
+"And Mr. Munroe writes to you?" said Christie abstractedly.
+
+"Of course," said Jessie quickly.  "He feels interested in--us."
+
+"Nobody tells ME anything," said Christie.
+
+"Didn't--"
+
+"No," said Christie bitterly.
+
+"What on earth DID you talk about?  But people don't confide in you
+because they're afraid of you.  You're so--"
+
+"So what?"
+
+"So gently patronizing, and so 'I-don't-suppose-you-can-help-it,-
+poor-thing,' in your general style," said Jessie, kissing her.
+"There!  I only wish I was like you.  What do you say if we write
+to father that we'll go back to Devil's Ford?  Mr. Munroe thinks we
+will be of service there just now.  If the men are dissatisfied,
+and think we're spending money--"
+
+"I'm afraid Mr. Munroe is hardly a disinterested adviser.  At
+least, I don't think it would look quite decent for you to fly back
+without your father, at his suggestion," said Christie coldly.  "He
+is not the only partner.  We are spending no money.  Besides, we
+have engaged to go to Mr. Prince's again next week."
+
+"As you like, dear," said Jessie, turning away to hide a faint
+smile.
+
+Nevertheless, when they returned from their visit to Mr. Prince's,
+and one or two uneventful rides, Christie looked grave.  It was
+only a few days later that Jessie burst upon her one morning.
+
+"You were saying that nobody ever tells you anything.  Well, here's
+your chance.  Whiskey Dick is below."
+
+"Whiskey Dick?" repeated Christie.  "What does he want?"
+
+"YOU, love.  Who else?  You know he always scorns me as not being
+high-toned and elegant enough for his social confidences.  He asked
+for you only."
+
+With an uneasy sense of some impending revelation, Christie
+descended to the drawing-room.  As she opened the door, a strong
+flavor of that toilet soap and eau de Cologne with which Whiskey
+Dick was in the habit of gracefully effacing the traces of
+dissipation made known his presence.  In spite of a new suit of
+clothes, whose pristine folds refused to adapt themselves entirely
+to the contour of his figure, he was somewhat subdued by the
+unexpected elegance of the drawing-room of Christie's host.  But a
+glance at Christie's sad but gracious face quickly reassured him.
+Taking from his hat a three-cornered parcel, he unfolded a handsome
+saffrona rose, which he gravely presented to her.  Having thus
+reestablished his position, he sank elegantly into a tete-a-tete
+ottoman.  Finding the position inconvenient to face Christie, who
+had seated herself on a chair, he transferred himself to the other
+side of the ottoman, and addressed her over its back as from a
+pulpit.
+
+"Is this really a fortunate accident, Mr. Hall, or did you try to
+find us?" said Christie pleasantly.
+
+"Partly promiskuss, and partly coincident, Miss Christie, one up
+and t'other down," said Dick lightly.  "Work being slack at present
+at Devil's Ford, I reck'ned I'd take a pasear down to 'Frisco, and
+dip into the vortex o' fash'nable society and out again."  He
+lightly waved a new handkerchief to illustrate his swallow-like
+intrusion.  "This yer minglin' with the bo-tong is apt to be
+wearisome, ez you and me knows, unless combined with experience and
+judgment.  So when them boys up there allows that there's a little
+too much fash'nable society and San Francisco capital and high-
+falutin' about the future goin' on fer square surface mining, I
+sez, 'Look yere, gentlemen,' sez I, 'you don't see the pint.  The
+pint is to get the pop'lar eye fixed, so to speak, on Devil's Ford.
+When a fash'nable star rises above the 'Frisco horizon--like Miss
+Carr--and, so to speak, dazzles the gineral eye, people want to
+know who she is.  And when people say that's the accomplished
+daughter o' the accomplished superintendent of the Devil's Ford
+claim--otherwise known as the Star-eyed Goddess o' Devil's Ford--
+every eye is fixed on the mine, and Capital, so to speak, tumbles
+to her.'  And when they sez that the old man--excuse my freedom,
+but that's the way the boys talk of your father, meaning no harm--
+the old man, instead o' trying to corral rich widders--grass or
+otherwise--to spend their money on the big works for the gold that
+ain't there yet--should stay in Devil's Ford and put all his sabe
+and genius into grindin' out the little gold that is there, I sez
+to them that it ain't your father's style.  'His style,' sez I, 'ez
+to go in and build them works.'  When they're done he turns round
+to Capital, and sez he--'Look yer,' sez he, 'thar's all the works
+you want, first quality--cost a million; thar's all the water you
+want, onlimited--cost another million; thar's all the pay gravel
+you want in and outer the ground--call it two millions more.  Now
+my time's too vally'ble; my professhun's too high-toned to WORK
+mines.  I MAKE 'em.  Hand me over a check for ten millions and call
+it square, and work it for yourself.'  So Capital hands over the
+money and waltzes down to run the mine, and you original locators
+walks round with yer hands in yer pockets a-top of your six million
+profit, and you let's Capital take the work and the responsibility."
+
+Preposterous as this seemed from the lips of Whiskey Dick, Christie
+had a haunting suspicion that it was not greatly unlike the
+theories expounded by the clever young banker who had been her
+escort.  She did not interrupt his flow of reminiscent criticism;
+when he paused for breath, she said, quietly:
+
+"I met Mr. George Kearney the other day in the country."
+
+Whiskey Dick stopped awkwardly, glanced hurriedly at Christie, and
+coughed behind his handkerchief.
+
+"Mr. Kearney--eh--er--certengly--yes--er--met him, you say.  Was
+he--er--er--well?"
+
+"In health, yes; but otherwise he has lost everything," said
+Christie, fixing her eyes on the embarrassed Dick.
+
+"Yes--er--in course--in course--" continued Dick, nervously
+glancing round the apartment as if endeavoring to find an opening
+to some less abrupt statement of the fact.
+
+"And actually reduced to take some menial employment," added
+Christie, still regarding Dick with her clear glance.
+
+"That's it--that's just it," said Dick, beaming as he suddenly
+found his delicate and confidential opportunity.  "That's it, Miss
+Christie; that's just what I was sayin' to the boys.  'Ez it the
+square thing,' sez I, 'jest because George hez happened to
+hypothecate every dollar he has, or expects to hev, to put into
+them works, only to please Mr. Carr, and just because he don't want
+to distress that intelligent gentleman by letting him see he's dead
+broke--for him to go and demean himself and Devil's Ford by rushing
+away and hiring out as a Mexican vaquero on Mexican wages?  Look,'
+sez I, 'at the disgrace he brings upon a high-toned, fash'nable
+girl, at whose side he's walked and danced, and passed rings, and
+sentiments, and bokays in the changes o' the cotillion and the
+mizzourka.  And wot,' sez I, 'if some day, prancing along in a
+fash'nable cavalcade, she all of a suddents comes across him
+drivin' a Mexican steer?'  That's what I said to the boys.  And so
+you met him, Miss Christie, as usual," continued Dick, endeavoring
+under the appearance of a large social experience to conceal an
+eager anxiety to know the details--"so you met him; and, in course,
+you didn't let on yer knew him, so to speak, nat'rally, or p'raps
+you kinder like asked him to fix your saddle-girth, and give him a
+five-dollar piece--eh?"
+
+Christie, who had risen and gone to the window, suddenly turned a
+very pale face and shining eyes on Dick.
+
+"Mr. Hall," she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, "we are old
+friends, and I feel I can ask you a favor.  You once before acted
+as our escort--it was for a short but a happy time--will you accept
+a larger trust?  My father is busy in Sacramento for the mine: will
+you, without saying anything to anybody, take Jessie and me back at
+once to Devil's Ford?"
+
+"Will I?  Miss Christie," said Dick, choking between an intense
+gratification and a desire to keep back its vulgar exhibition, "I
+shall be proud!"
+
+"When I say keep it a secret"--she hesitated--"I don't mean that I
+object to your letting Mr. Kearney, if you happen to know where he
+is, understand that we are going back to Devil's Ford."
+
+"Cert'nly--nat'rally," said Dick, waving his hand gracefully;
+"sorter drop him a line, saying that bizness of a social and
+delicate nature--being the escort of Miss Christie and Jessie Carr
+to Devil's Ford--prevents my having the pleasure of calling."
+
+"That will do very well, Mr. Hall," said Christie, faintly smiling
+through her moist eyelashes.  "Then will you go at once and secure
+tickets for to-night's boat, and bring them here?  Jessie and I
+will arrange everything else."
+
+"Cert'nly," said Dick impulsively, and preparing to take a graceful
+leave.
+
+"We'll be impatient until you return with the tickets," said
+Christie graciously.
+
+Dick shook hands gravely, got as far as the door, and paused.
+
+"You think it better to take the tickets now?" he said dubiously.
+
+"By all means," said Christie impetuously.  "I've set my heart on
+going to-night--and unless you secure berths early--"
+
+"In course--in course," interrupted Dick nervously.  "But--"
+
+"But what?" said Christie impatiently.
+
+Dick hesitated, shut the door carefully, and, looking round the
+room, lightly shook out his handkerchief, apparently flicked away
+an embarrassing suggestion, and said, with a little laugh:
+
+"It's ridiklous, perfectly ridiklous, Miss Christie; but not bein'
+in the habit of carryin' ready money, and havin' omitted to cash a
+draft on Wells, Fargo & Co.--"
+
+"Of course," said Christie rapidly.  "How forgetful I am!  Pray
+forgive me, Mr. Hall.  I didn't think.  I'll run up and get it from
+our host; he will be glad to be our banker."
+
+"One moment, Miss Christie," said Dick lightly, as his thumb and
+finger relaxed in his waistcoat pocket over the only piece of money
+in the world that had remained to him after his extravagant
+purchase of Christie's saffrona rose, "one moment: in this yer
+monetary transaction, if you like, you are at liberty to use MY
+name."
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+As Christie and Jessie Carr looked from the windows of the coach,
+whose dust-clogged wheels were slowly dragging them, as if
+reluctant, nearer the last stage of their journey to Devil's Ford,
+they were conscious of a change in the landscape, which they could
+not entirely charge upon their changed feelings.  The few bared
+open spaces on the upland, the long stretch of rocky ridge near the
+summit, so vivid and so velvety during their first journey, were
+now burnt and yellow; even the brief openings in the forest were
+seared as if by a hot iron in the scorching rays of a half year's
+sun.  The pastoral slopes of the valley below were cloaked in
+lustre-leather: the rare watercourses along the road had faded from
+the waiting eye and ear; it seemed as if the long and dry summer
+had even invaded the close-set ranks of pines, and had blown a
+simoom breath through the densest woods, leaving its charred red
+ashes on every leaf and spray along the tunnelled shade.  As they
+leaned out of the window and inhaled the half-dead spices of the
+evergreens, they seemed to have entered the atmosphere of some
+exhausted passion--of some fierce excitement that was even now
+slowly burning itself out.
+
+It was a relief at last to see the straggling houses of Devil's
+Ford far below come once more into view, as they rounded the
+shoulder of Devil's Spur and began the long descent.  But as they
+entered the town a change more ominous and startling than the
+desiccation of the landscape forced itself upon them.  The town was
+still there, but where were the inhabitants?  Four months ago they
+had left the straggling street thronged with busy citizens--groups
+at every corner, and a chaos of merchandise and traders in the open
+plaza or square beside the Presbyterian church.  Now all was
+changed.  Only a few wayfarers lifted their heads lazily as the
+coach rattled by, crossing the deserted square littered with empty
+boxes, and gliding past empty cabins or vacant shop windows, from
+which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes
+themselves, were gone.  The great unfinished serpent-like flume,
+crossing the river on gigantic trestles, had advanced as far as the
+town, stooping over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked
+its life blood and was gorged with its prey.
+
+Whiskey Dick, who had left the stage on the summit to avail himself
+of a shorter foot trail to the house, that would give him half an
+hour's grace to make preparations, met them at the stage office
+with a buggy.  A glance at the young girls, perhaps, convinced him
+that the graces of elegant worldly conversation were out of place
+with the revelation he read on their faces.  Perhaps, he, too, was
+a trifle indisposed.  The short journey to the house was made in
+profound silence.
+
+The villa had been repainted and decorated, and it looked fresher,
+and even, to their preoccupied minds, appeared more attractive than
+ever.  Thoughtful hands had taken care of the vines and rose-bushes
+on the trellises; water--that precious element in Devil's Ford--had
+not been spared in keeping green through the long drought the
+plants which the girls had so tenderly nurtured.  It was the one
+oasis in which the summer still lingered; and yet a singular sense
+of loss came over the girls as they once more crossed its
+threshold.  It seemed no longer their own.
+
+"Ef I was you, Miss Christie, I'd keep close to the house for a day
+or two, until--until--things is settled," said Dick; "there's a
+heap o' tramps and sich cattle trapsin' round.  P'raps you wouldn't
+feel so lonesome if you was nearer town--for instance, 'bout wher'
+you useter live."
+
+"In the dear old cabin," said Christie quickly; "I remember it; I
+wish we were there now."
+
+"Do you really?  Do you?" said Whiskey Dick, with suddenly
+twinkling eyes.  "That's like you to say it.  That's what I allus
+said," continued Dick, addressing space generally; "if there's any
+one ez knows how to come square down to the bottom rock without
+flinchin', it's your high-toned, fash'nable gals.  But I must
+meander back to town, and let the boys know you're in possession,
+safe and sound.  It's right mean that Fairfax and Mattingly had to
+go down to Lagrange on some low business yesterday, but they'll be
+back to-morrow.  So long."
+
+Left alone, the girls began to realize their strange position.
+They had conceived no settled plan.  The night they left San
+Francisco they had written an earnest letter to their father,
+telling him that on learning the truth about the reverses of
+Devil's Ford, they thought it their duty to return and share them
+with others, without obliging him to prefer the request, and with
+as little worry to him as possible.  He would find them ready to
+share his trials, and in what must be the scene of their work
+hereafter.
+
+"It will bring father back," said Christie; "he won't leave us here
+alone; and then together we must come to some understanding with
+him--with THEM--for somehow I feel as if this house belonged to us
+no longer."
+
+Her surmise was not far wrong.  When Mr. Carr arrived hurriedly
+from Sacramento the next evening, he found the house deserted.  His
+daughters were gone; there were indications that they had arrived,
+and, for some reason, suddenly departed.  The vague fear that had
+haunted his guilty soul after receiving their letter, and during
+his breathless journey, now seemed to be realized.  He was turning
+from the empty house, whose reproachful solitude frightened him,
+when he was confronted on the threshold by the figure of Fairfax
+Munroe.
+
+"I came to the stage office to meet you," he said; "you must have
+left the stage at the summit."
+
+"I did," said Carr angrily.  "I was anxious to meet my daughters
+quickly, to know the reason of their foolish alarm, and to know
+also who had been frightening them.  Where are they?"
+
+"They are safe in the old cabin beyond, that has been put up ready
+to receive them again," said Fairfax quietly.
+
+"But what is the meaning of this?  Why are they not here?" demanded
+Carr, hiding his agitation in a burst of querulous rage.
+
+"Do YOU ask, Mr. Carr?" said Fairfax sadly.  "Did you expect them
+to remain here until the sheriff took possession?  No one knows
+better than yourself that the money advanced you on the deeds of
+this homestead has never been repaid."
+
+Carr staggered, but recovered himself with feeble violence.
+
+"Since you know so much of my affairs, how do you know that this
+claim will ever be pressed for payment?  How do you know it is not
+the advance of a--a--friend?"
+
+"Because I have seen the woman who advanced it," said Fairfax
+hopelessly.  "She was here to look at the property before your
+daughters came."
+
+"Well?" said Carr nervously.
+
+"Well!  You force me to tell you something I should like to forget.
+You force me to anticipate a disclosure I expected to make to you
+only when I came to ask permission to woo your daughter Jessie; and
+when I tell you what it is, you will understand that I have no
+right to criticise your conduct.  I am only explaining my own."
+
+"Go on," said Carr impatiently.
+
+"When I first came to this country, there was a woman I loved
+passionately.  She treated me as women of her kind only treat men
+like me; she ruined me, and left me.  That was four years ago.  I
+love your daughter, Mr. Carr, but she has never heard it from my
+lips.  I would not woo her until I had told you all.  I have tried
+to do it ere this, and failed.  Perhaps I should not now, but--"
+
+"But what?" said Carr furiously; "speak out!"
+
+"But this.  Look!" said Fairfax, producing from his pocket the
+packet of letters Jessie had found; "perhaps you know the
+handwriting?"
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Carr.
+
+"That woman--my mistress--is the woman who advanced you money, and
+who claims this house."
+
+
+The interview, and whatever came of it, remained a secret with the
+two men.  When Mr. Carr accepted the hospitality of the old cabin
+again, it was understood that he had sacrificed the new house and
+its furniture to some of the more pressing debts of the mine, and
+the act went far to restore his waning popularity.  But a more
+genuine feeling of relief was experienced by Devil's Ford when it
+was rumored that Fairfax Munroe had asked for the hand of Jessie
+Carr, and that some promise contingent upon the equitable
+adjustment of the affairs of the mine had been given by Mr. Carr.
+To the superstitious mind of Devil's Ford and its few remaining
+locators, this new partnership seemed to promise that unity of
+interest and stability of fortune that Devil's Ford had lacked.
+But nothing could be done until the rainy season had fairly set in;
+until the long-looked-for element that was to magically separate
+the gold from the dross in those dull mounds of dust and gravel had
+come of its own free will, and in its own appointed channels,
+independent of the feeble auxiliaries that had hopelessly riven the
+rocks on the hillside, or hung incomplete and unfinished in lofty
+scaffoldings above the settlement.
+
+The rainy season came early.  At first in gathered mists on the
+higher peaks that were lifted in the morning sun only to show a
+fresher field of dazzling white below; in white clouds that at
+first seemed to be mere drifts blown across from those fresh
+snowfields, and obscuring the clear blue above; in far-off murmurs
+in the hollow hills and gulches; in nearer tinkling melody and baby
+prattling in the leaves.  It came with bright flashes of sunlight
+by day, with deep, monotonous shadow at night; with the onset of
+heavy winds, the roar of turbulent woods, the tumultuous tossing of
+leafy arms, and with what seemed the silent dissolution of the
+whole landscape in days of steady and uninterrupted downfall.  It
+came extravagantly, for every canyon had grown into a torrent,
+every gulch a waterspout, every watercourse a river, and all
+pouring into the North Fork, that, rushing past the settlement,
+seemed to threaten it with lifted crest and flying mane.  It came
+dangerously, for one night the river, leaping the feeble barrier of
+Devil's Ford, swept away houses and banks, scattered with
+unconscious irony the laboriously collected heaps of gravel left
+for hydraulic machinery, and spread out a vast and silent lake
+across the submerged flat.
+
+In the hurry and confusion of that night the girls had thrown open
+their cabin to the escaping miners, who hurried along the slope
+that was now the bank of the river.  Suddenly Christie felt her arm
+grasped, and she was half-led, half-dragged, into the inner room.
+Her father stood before her.
+
+"Where is George Kearney?" he asked tremulously.
+
+"George Kearney!" echoed Christie, for a moment believing the
+excitement had turned her father's brain.  "You know he is not
+here; he is in San Francisco."
+
+"He is here--I tell you," said Carr impatiently; "he has been here
+ever since the high water, trying to save the flume and reservoir."
+
+"George--here!" Christie could only gasp.
+
+"Yes!  He passed here a few moments ago, to see if you were all
+safe, and he has gone on towards the flume.  But what he is trying
+to do is madness.  If you see him, implore him to do no more.  Let
+him abandon the accursed flume to its fate.  It has worked already
+too much woe upon us all; why should it carry his brave and
+youthful soul down with it?"
+
+The words were still ringing in her ears, when he suddenly passed
+away, with the hurrying crowd.  Scarcely knowing what she did, she
+ran out, vaguely intent only on one thought, seeking only the one
+face, lately so dear in recollection that she felt she would die if
+she never saw it again.  Perplexed by confused voices in the woods,
+she lost track of the crowd, until the voices suddenly were raised
+in one loud outcry, followed by the crashing of timber, the
+splashing of water, a silence, and then a dull, continuous roar.
+She ran vaguely on in the direction of the reservoir, with her
+father's injunction still in her mind, until a terrible idea
+displaced it, and she turned at right angles suddenly, and ran
+towards the slope leading down to the submerged flat.  She had
+barely left the shelter of the trees behind her before the roar of
+water seemed to rise at her very feet.  She stopped, dazed,
+bewildered, and horror-stricken, on the edge of the slope.  It was
+the slope no longer, but the bank of the river itself!
+
+Even in the gray light of early morning, and with inexperienced
+eyes, she saw all too clearly now.  The trestle-work had given way;
+the curving mile of flume, fallen into the stream, and, crushed and
+dammed against the opposite shore, had absolutely turned the whole
+river through the half-finished ditch and partly excavated mine in
+its way, a few rods further on to join the old familiar channel.
+The bank of the river was changed; the flat had become an island,
+between which and the slope where she stood the North Fork was
+rolling its resistless yellow torrent.  As she gazed spellbound, a
+portion of the slope beneath her suddenly seemed to sink and
+crumble, and was swallowed up in the rushing stream.  She heard a
+cry of warning behind her, but, rooted to the spot by a fearful
+fascination, she heeded it not.
+
+Again there was a sudden disruption, and another part of the slope
+sank to rise no more; but this time she felt herself seized by the
+waist and dragged back.  It was her father standing by her side.
+
+He was flushed and excited, gazing at the water with a strange
+exultation.
+
+"Do you see it?  Do you know what has happened?" he asked quickly.
+
+"The flume has fallen and turned the river," said Christie
+hurriedly.  "But--have you seen him--is he safe?"
+
+"He--who?" he answered vacantly.
+
+"George Kearney!"
+
+"He is safe," he said impatiently.  "But, do you see, Christie?  Do
+you know what this means?"
+
+He pointed with his tremulous hand to the stream before them.
+
+"It means we are ruined," said Christie coldly.
+
+"Nothing of the kind!  It means that the river is doing the work of
+the flume.  It is sluicing off the gravel, deepening the ditch, and
+altering the slope which was the old bend of the river.  It will do
+in ten minutes the work that would take us a year.  If we can stop
+it in time, or control it, we are safe; but if we can not, it will
+carry away the bed and deposit with the rest, and we are ruined
+again."
+
+With a gesture of impotent fury, he dashed away in the direction of
+an equally excited crowd, that on a point of the slope nearer the
+island were gesticulating and shouting to a second group of men,
+who on the opposite shore were clambering on over the choked debris
+of the flume that had dammed and diverted the current.  It was
+evident that the same idea had occurred to them, and they were
+risking their lives in the attempt to set free the impediments.
+Shocked and indignant as Christie had been at the degrading
+absorption of material interests at such a moment, the element of
+danger lifted the labors of these men into heroism, and she began
+to feel a strange exultation as she watched them.  Under the
+skilful blows of their axes, in a few moments the vast body of
+drift began to disintegrate, and then to swing round and move
+towards the old channel.  A cheer went up, but as suddenly died
+away again.  An overlapping fringe of wreckage had caught on the
+point of the island and arrested the whole mass.
+
+The men, who had gained the shore with difficulty, looked back with
+a cry of despair.  But the next moment from among them leaped a
+figure, alert, buoyant, invincible, and, axe in hand, once more
+essayed the passage.  Springing from timber to timber, he at last
+reached the point of obstruction.  A few strokes of the axe were
+sufficient to clear it; but at the first stroke it was apparent
+that the striker was also losing his hold upon the shore, and that
+he must inevitably be carried away with the tossing debris.  But
+this consideration did not seem to affect him; the last blow was
+struck, and as the freed timbers rolled on, over and over, he
+boldly plunged into the flood.  Christie gave a little cry--her
+heart had bounded with him; it seemed as if his plunge had splashed
+the water in her eyes.  He did not come to the surface until he had
+passed the point below where her father stood, and then struggling
+feebly, as if stunned or disabled by a blow.  It seemed to her that
+he was trying to approach the side of the river where she was.
+Would he do it?  Could she help him?  She was alone; he was hidden
+from the view of the men on the point, and no succor could come
+from them.  There was a fringe of alder nearly opposite their cabin
+that almost overhung the stream.  She ran to it, clutched it with a
+frantic hand, and, leaning over the boiling water, uttered for the
+first time his name:
+
+"George!"
+
+As if called to the surface by the magic of her voice, he rose a
+few yards from her in mid-current, and turned his fading eyes
+towards the bank.  In another moment he would have been swept
+beyond her reach, but with a supreme effort he turned on one side;
+the current, striking him sideways, threw him towards the bank, and
+she caught him by his sleeve.  For an instant it seemed as if she
+would be dragged down with him.  For one dangerous moment she did
+not care, and almost yielded to the spell; but as the rush of water
+pressed him against the bank, she recovered herself, and managed to
+lift him beyond its reach.  And then she sat down, half-fainting,
+with his white face and damp curls upon her breast.
+
+"George, darling, speak to me!  Only one word!  Tell me, have I
+saved you?"
+
+His eyes opened.  A faint twinkle of the old days came to them--a
+boyish smile played upon his lips.
+
+"For yourself--or Jessie?"
+
+She looked around her with a little frightened air.  They were
+alone.  There was but one way of sealing those mischievous lips,
+and she found it!
+
+
+"That's what I allus said, gentlemen," lazily remarked Whiskey
+Dick, a few weeks later, leaning back against the bar, with his
+glass in his hand.  "'George,' sez I, 'it ain't what you SAY to a
+fash'nable, high-toned young lady; it's what you DOES ez makes or
+breaks you.'  And that's what I sez gin'rally o' things in the
+Ford.  It ain't what Carr and you boys allows to do; it's the
+gin'ral average o' things ez IS done that gives tone to the hull,
+and hez brought this yer new luck to you all!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg etext of Devil's Ford, by Bret Harte
+
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