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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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