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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Snow-Bound at Eagle's, by Bret Harte
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+Snow-Bound at Eagle's
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+by Bret Harte
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+August, 2000  [Etext #2297]
+
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Snow-Bound at Eagle's, by Bret Harte
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+
+SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+For some moments profound silence and darkness had accompanied a
+Sierran stage-coach towards the summit.  The huge, dim bulk of the
+vehicle, swaying noiselessly on its straps, glided onward and
+upward as if obeying some mysterious impulse from behind, so faint
+and indefinite appeared its relation to the viewless and silent
+horses ahead.  The shadowy trunks of tall trees that seemed to
+approach the coach windows, look in, and then move hurriedly away,
+were the only distinguishable objects.  Yet even these were so
+vague and unreal that they might have been the mere phantoms of
+some dream of the half-sleeping passengers; for the thickly-strewn
+needles of the pine, that choked the way and deadened all sound,
+yielded under the silently-crushing wheels a faint soporific odor
+that seemed to benumb their senses, already slipping back into
+unconsciousness during the long ascent.  Suddenly the stage stopped.
+
+Three of the four passengers inside struggled at once into upright
+wakefulness.  The fourth passenger, John Hale, had not been
+sleeping, and turned impatiently towards the window.  It seemed to
+him that two of the moving trees had suddenly become motionless
+outside.  One of them moved again, and the door opened quickly but
+quietly, as of itself.
+
+"Git down," said a voice in the darkness.
+
+All the passengers except Hale started.  The man next to him moved
+his right hand suddenly behind him, but as quickly stopped.  One of
+the motionless trees had apparently closed upon the vehicle, and
+what had seemed to be a bough projecting from it at right angles
+changed slowly into the faintly shining double-barrels of a gun at
+the window.
+
+"Drop that!" said the voice.
+
+The man who had moved uttered a short laugh, and returned his hand
+empty to his knees.  The two others perceptibly shrugged their
+shoulders as over a game that was lost.  The remaining passenger,
+John Hale, fearless by nature, inexperienced by habit, awaking
+suddenly to the truth, conceived desperate resistance.  But without
+his making a gesture this was instinctively felt by the others; the
+muzzle of the gun turned spontaneously on him, and he was vaguely
+conscious of a certain contempt and impatience of him in his
+companions.
+
+"Git down," repeated the voice imperatively.
+
+The three passengers descended.  Hale, furious, alert, but helpless
+of any opportunity, followed.  He was surprised to find the stage-
+driver and express messenger standing beside him; he had not heard
+them dismount.  He instinctively looked towards the horses.  He
+could see nothing.
+
+"Hold up your hands!"
+
+One of the passengers had already lifted his, in a weary,
+perfunctory way.  The others did the same reluctantly and
+awkwardly, but apparently more from the consciousness of the
+ludicrousness of their attitude than from any sense of danger.  The
+rays of a bull's-eye lantern, deftly managed by invisible hands,
+while it left the intruders in shadow, completely illuminated the
+faces and figures of the passengers.  In spite of the majestic
+obscurity and silence of surrounding nature, the group of humanity
+thus illuminated was more farcical than dramatic.  A scrap of
+newspaper, part of a sandwich, and an orange peel that had fallen
+from the floor of the coach, brought into equal prominence by the
+searching light, completed the absurdity.
+
+"There's a man here with a package of greenbacks," said the voice,
+with an official coolness that lent a certain suggestion of Custom
+House inspection to the transaction; "who is it?"  The passengers
+looked at each other, and their glance finally settled on Hale.
+
+"It's not HIM," continued the voice, with a slight tinge of
+contempt on the emphasis.  "You'll save time and searching,
+gentlemen, if you'll tote it out.  If we've got to go through every
+one of you we'll try to make it pay."
+
+The significant threat was not unheeded.  The passenger who had
+first moved when the stage stopped put his hand to his breast.
+
+"T'other pocket first, if you please," said the voice.
+
+The man laughed, drew a pistol from his hip pocket, and, under the
+strong light of the lantern, laid it on a spot in the road
+indicated by the voice.  A thick envelope, taken from his breast
+pocket, was laid beside it.  "I told the d--d fools that gave it to
+me, instead of sending it by express, it would be at their own
+risk," he said apologetically.
+
+"As it's going with the express now it's all the same," said the
+inevitable humorist of the occasion, pointing to the despoiled
+express treasure-box already in the road.
+
+The intention and deliberation of the outrage was plain enough to
+Hale's inexperience now.  Yet he could not understand the cool
+acquiescence of his fellow-passengers, and was furious.  His
+reflections were interrupted by a voice which seemed to come from a
+greater distance.  He fancied it was even softer in tone, as if a
+certain austerity was relaxed.
+
+"Step in as quick as you like, gentlemen.  You've five minutes to
+wait, Bill."
+
+The passengers reentered the coach; the driver and express
+messenger hurriedly climbed to their places.  Hale would have
+spoken, but an impatient gesture from his companions stopped him.
+They were evidently listening for something; he listened too.
+
+Yet the silence remained unbroken.  It seemed incredible that there
+should be no indication near or far of that forceful presence which
+a moment ago had been so dominant.  No rustle in the wayside
+"brush," nor echo from the rocky canyon below, betrayed a sound of
+their flight.  A faint breeze stirred the tall tips of the pines, a
+cone dropped on the stage roof, one of the invisible horses that
+seemed to be listening too moved slightly in his harness.  But this
+only appeared to accentuate the profound stillness.  The moments
+were growing interminable, when the voice, so near as to startle
+Hale, broke once more from the surrounding obscurity.
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+It was the signal that they were free.  The driver's whip cracked
+like a pistol shot, the horses sprang furiously forward, the huge
+vehicle lurched ahead, and then bounded violently after them.  When
+Hale could make his voice heard in the confusion--a confusion which
+seemed greater from the colorless intensity of their last few
+moments' experience--he said hurriedly, "Then that fellow was there
+all the time?"
+
+"I reckon," returned his companion, "he stopped five minutes to
+cover the driver with his double-barrel, until the two other men
+got off with the treasure."
+
+"The TWO others!" gasped Hale.  "Then there were only THREE men,
+and we SIX."
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders.  The passenger who had given up the
+greenbacks drawled, with a slow, irritating tolerance, "I reckon
+you're a stranger here?"
+
+"I am--to this sort of thing, certainly, though I live a dozen
+miles from here, at Eagle's Court," returned Hale scornfully.
+
+"Then you're the chap that's doin' that fancy ranchin' over at
+Eagle's," continued the man lazily.
+
+"Whatever I'm doing at Eagle's Court, I'm not ashamed of it," said
+Hale tartly; "and that's more than I can say of what I've done--or
+HAVEN'T done--to-night.  I've been one of six men over-awed and
+robbed by THREE."
+
+"As to the over-awin', ez you call it--mebbee you know more about
+it than us.  As to the robbin'--ez far as I kin remember, YOU
+haven't onloaded much.  Ef you're talkin' about what OUGHTER have
+been done, I'll tell you what COULD have happened.  P'r'aps ye
+noticed that when he pulled up I made a kind of grab for my wepping
+behind me?"
+
+"I did; and you wern't quick enough," said Hale shortly.
+
+"I wasn't quick enough, and that saved YOU.  For ef I got that
+pistol out and in sight o' that man that held the gun--"
+
+"Well," said Hale impatiently, "he'd have hesitated."
+
+"He'd hev blown YOU with both barrels outer the window, and that
+before I'd got a half-cock on my revolver."
+
+"But that would have been only one man gone, and there would have
+been five of you left," said Hale haughtily.
+
+"That might have been, ef you'd contracted to take the hull charge
+of two handfuls of buck-shot and slugs; but ez one eighth o' that
+amount would have done your business, and yet left enough to have
+gone round, promiskiss, and satisfied the other passengers, it
+wouldn't do to kalkilate upon."
+
+"But the express messenger and the driver were armed," continued
+Hale.
+
+"They were armed, but not FIXED; that makes all the difference."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"I reckon you know what a duel is?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the chances agin US was about the same as you'd have ef you
+was put up agin another chap who was allowed to draw a bead on you,
+and the signal to fire was YOUR DRAWIN' YOUR WEAPON.  You may be a
+stranger to this sort o' thing, and p'r'aps you never fought a
+duel, but even then you wouldn't go foolin' your life away on any
+such chances."
+
+Something in the man's manner, as in a certain sly amusement the
+other passengers appeared to extract from the conversation,
+impressed Hale, already beginning to be conscious of the ludicrous
+insufficiency of his own grievance beside that of his interlocutor.
+
+"Then you mean to say this thing is inevitable," said he bitterly,
+but less aggressively.
+
+"Ez long ez they hunt YOU; when you hunt THEM you've got the
+advantage, allus provided you know how to get at them ez well as
+they know how to get at you.  This yer coach is bound to go
+regular, and on certain days.  THEY ain't.  By the time the sheriff
+gets out his posse they've skedaddled, and the leader, like as not,
+is takin' his quiet cocktail at the Bank Exchange, or mebbe losin'
+his earnings to the sheriff over draw poker, in Sacramento.  You
+see you can't prove anything agin them unless you take them 'on the
+fly.'  It may be a part of Joaquim Murietta's band, though I
+wouldn't swear to it."
+
+"The leader might have been Gentleman George, from up-country,"
+interposed a passenger.  "He seemed to throw in a few fancy
+touches, particlerly in that 'Good night.'  Sorter chucked a little
+sentiment in it.  Didn't seem to be the same thing ez, 'Git, yer d--d
+suckers,' on the other line."
+
+"Whoever he was, he knew the road and the men who travelled on it.
+Like ez not, he went over the line beside the driver on the box on
+the down trip, and took stock of everything.  He even knew I had
+those greenbacks; though they were handed to me in the bank at
+Sacramento.  He must have been hanging 'round there."
+
+For some moments Hale remained silent.  He was a civic-bred man,
+with an intense love of law and order; the kind of man who is the
+first to take that law and order into his own hands when he does
+not find it existing to please him.  He had a Bostonian's respect
+for respectability, tradition, and propriety, but was willing to
+face irregularity and impropriety to create order elsewhere.  He
+was fond of Nature with these limitations, never quite trusting her
+unguided instincts, and finding her as an instructress greatly
+inferior to Harvard University, though possibly not to Cornell.
+With dauntless enterprise and energy he had built and stocked a
+charming cottage farm in a nook in the Sierras, whence he opposed,
+like the lesser Englishman that he was, his own tastes to those of
+the alien West.  In the present instance he felt it incumbent upon
+him not only to assert his principles, but to act upon them with
+his usual energy.  How far he was impelled by the half-contemptuous
+passiveness of his companions it would be difficult to say.
+
+"What is to prevent the pursuit of them at once?" he asked
+suddenly.  "We are a few miles from the station, where horses can
+be procured."
+
+"Who's to do it?" replied the other lazily.  "The stage company
+will lodge the complaint with the authorities, but it will take two
+days to get the county officers out, and it's nobody else's
+funeral."
+
+"I will go for one," said Hale quietly.  "I have a horse waiting
+for me at the station, and can start at once."
+
+There was an instant of silence.  The stage-coach had left the
+obscurity of the forest, and by the stronger light Hale could
+perceive that his companion was examining him with two colorless,
+lazy eyes.  Presently he said, meeting Hale's clear glance, but
+rather as if yielding to a careless reflection,--
+
+"It MIGHT be done with four men.  We oughter raise one man at the
+station."  He paused.  "I don't know ez I'd mind taking a hand
+myself," he added, stretching out his legs with a slight yawn.
+
+"Ye can count ME in, if you're goin', Kernel.  I reckon I'm talkin'
+to Kernel Clinch," said the passenger beside Hale with sudden
+alacrity.  "I'm Rawlins, of Frisco.  Heerd of ye afore, Kernel, and
+kinder spotted you jist now from your talk."
+
+To Hale's surprise the two men, after awkwardly and perfunctorily
+grasping each other's hand, entered at once into a languid
+conversation on the recent election at Fresno, without the
+slightest further reference to the pursuit of the robbers.  It was
+not until the remaining and undenominated passenger turned to Hale,
+and, regretting that he had immediate business at the Summit,
+offered to accompany the party if they would wait a couple of
+hours, that Colonel Clinch briefly returned to the subject.
+
+"FOUR men will do, and ez we'll hev to take horses from the station
+we'll hev to take the fourth man from there."
+
+With these words he resumed his uninteresting conversation with the
+equally uninterested Rawlins, and the undenominated passenger
+subsided into an admiring and dreamy contemplation of them both.
+With all his principle and really high-minded purpose, Hale could
+not help feeling constrained and annoyed at the sudden subordinate
+and auxiliary position to which he, the projector of the
+enterprise, had been reduced.  It was true that he had never
+offered himself as their leader; it was true that the principle he
+wished to uphold and the effect he sought to obtain would be
+equally demonstrated under another; it was true that the execution
+of his own conception gravitated by some occult impulse to the man
+who had not sought it, and whom he had always regarded as an
+incapable.  But all this was so unlike precedent or tradition that,
+after the fashion of conservative men, he was suspicious of it, and
+only that his honor was now involved he would have withdrawn from
+the enterprise.  There was still a chance of reasserting himself at
+the station, where he was known, and where some authority might be
+deputed to him.
+
+But even this prospect failed.  The station, half hotel and half
+stable, contained only the landlord, who was also express agent,
+and the new volunteer who Clinch had suggested would be found among
+the stable-men.  The nearest justice of the peace was ten miles
+away, and Hale had to abandon even his hope of being sworn in as a
+deputy constable.  This introduction of a common and illiterate
+ostler into the party on equal terms with himself did not add to
+his satisfaction, and a remark from Rawlins seemed to complete his
+embarrassment.
+
+"Ye had a mighty narrer escape down there just now," said that
+gentleman confidentially, as Hale buckled his saddle girths.
+
+"I thought, as we were not supposed to defend ourselves, there was
+no danger," said Hale scornfully.
+
+"Oh, I don't mean them road agents.  But HIM."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Kernel Clinch.  You jist ez good as allowed he hadn't any grit."
+
+"Whatever I said, I suppose I am responsible for it," answered Hale
+haughtily.
+
+"That's what gits me," was the imperturbable reply.  "He's the best
+shot in Southern California, and hez let daylight through a dozen
+chaps afore now for half what you said."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Howsummever," continued Rawlins philosophically, "ez he's
+concluded to go WITH ye instead of FOR ye, you're likely to hev
+your ideas on this matter carried out up to the handle.  He'll make
+short work of it, you bet.  Ef, ez I suspect, the leader is an airy
+young feller from Frisco, who hez took to the road lately, Clinch
+hez got a personal grudge agin him from a quarrel over draw poker."
+
+This was the last blow to Hale's ideal crusade.  Here he was--an
+honest, respectable citizen--engaged as simple accessory to a
+lawless vendetta originating at a gambling table!  When the first
+shock was over that grim philosophy which is the reaction of all
+imaginative and sensitive natures came to his aid.  He felt better;
+oddly enough he began to be conscious that he was thinking and
+acting like his companions.  With this feeling a vague sympathy,
+before absent, faintly showed itself in their actions.  The
+Sharpe's rifle put into his hands by the stable-man was accompanied
+by a familiar word of suggestion as to an equal, which he was
+ashamed to find flattered him.  He was able to continue the
+conversation with Rawlins more coolly.
+
+"Then you suspect who is the leader?"
+
+"Only on giniral principles.  There was a finer touch, so to speak,
+in this yer robbery that wasn't in the old-fashioned style.  Down
+in my country they hed crude ideas about them things--used to strip
+the passengers of everything, includin' their clothes.  They say
+that at the station hotels, when the coach came in, the folks used
+to stand round with blankets to wrap up the passengers so ez not to
+skeer the wimen.  Thar's a story that the driver and express
+manager drove up one day with only a copy of the Alty Californy
+wrapped around 'em; but thin," added Rawlins grimly, "there WAS
+folks ez said the hull story was only an advertisement got up for
+the Alty."
+
+"Time's up."
+
+"Are you ready, gentlemen?" said Colonel Clinch.
+
+Hale started.  He had forgotten his wife and family at Eagle's
+Court, ten miles away.  They would be alarmed at his absence, would
+perhaps hear some exaggerated version of the stage coach robbery,
+and fear the worst.
+
+"Is there any way I could send a line to Eagle's Court before
+daybreak?" he asked eagerly.
+
+The station was already drained of its spare men and horses.  The
+undenominated passenger stepped forward and offered to take it
+himself when his business, which he would despatch as quickly as
+possible, was concluded.
+
+"That ain't a bad idea," said Clinch reflectively, "for ef yer
+hurry you'll head 'em off in case they scent us, and try to double
+back on the North Ridge.  They'll fight shy of the trail if they
+see anybody on it, and one man's as good as a dozen."
+
+Hale could not help thinking that he might have been that one man,
+and had his opportunity for independent action but for his rash
+proposal, but it was too late to withdraw now.  He hastily
+scribbled a few lines to his wife on a sheet of the station paper,
+handed it to the man, and took his place in the little cavalcade as
+it filed silently down the road.
+
+They had ridden in silence for nearly an hour, and had passed the
+scene of the robbery by a higher track.  Morning had long ago
+advanced its colors on the cold white peaks to their right, and was
+taking possession of the spur where they rode.
+
+"It looks like snow," said Rawlins quietly.
+
+Hale turned towards him in astonishment.  Nothing on earth or sky
+looked less likely.  It had been cold, but that might have been
+only a current from the frozen peaks beyond, reaching the lower
+valley.  The ridge on which they had halted was still thick with
+yellowish-green summer foliage, mingled with the darker evergreen
+of pine and fir.  Oven-like canyons in the long flanks of the
+mountain seemed still to glow with the heat of yesterday's noon;
+the breathless air yet trembled and quivered over stifling gorges
+and passes in the granite rocks, while far at their feet sixty
+miles of perpetual summer stretched away over the winding American
+River, now and then lost in a gossamer haze.  It was scarcely ripe
+October where they stood; they could see the plenitude of August
+still lingering in the valleys.
+
+"I've seen Thomson's Pass choked up with fifteen feet o' snow
+earlier than this," said Rawlins, answering Hale's gaze; "and last
+September the passengers sledded over the road we came last night,
+and all the time Thomson, a mile lower down over the ridge in the
+hollow, smoking his pipes under roses in his piazzy!  Mountains is
+mighty uncertain; they make their own weather ez they want it.  I
+reckon you ain't wintered here yet."
+
+Hale was obliged to admit that he had only taken Eagle's Court in
+the early spring.
+
+"Oh, you're all right at Eagle's--when you're there!  But it's like
+Thomson's--it's the gettin' there that--  Hallo!  What's that?"
+
+A shot, distant but distinct, had rung through the keen air.  It
+was followed by another so alike as to seem an echo.
+
+"That's over yon, on the North Ridge," said the ostler, "about two
+miles as the crow flies and five by the trail.  Somebody's shootin'
+b'ar."
+
+"Not with a shot gun," said Clinch, quickly wheeling his horse with
+a gesture that electrified them.  "It's THEM, and the've doubled on
+us!  To the North Ridge, gentlemen, and ride all you know!"
+
+It needed no second challenge to completely transform that quiet
+cavalcade.  The wild man-hunting instinct, inseparable to most
+humanity, rose at their leader's look and word.  With an incoherent
+and unintelligible cry, giving voice to the chase like the
+commonest hound of their fields, the order-loving Hale and the
+philosophical Rawlins wheeled with the others, and in another
+instant the little band swept out of sight in the forest.
+
+An immense and immeasurable quiet succeeded.  The sunlight
+glistened silently on cliff and scar, the vast distance below
+seemed to stretch out and broaden into repose.  It might have been
+fancy, but over the sharp line of the North Ridge a light smoke
+lifted as of an escaping soul.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Eagle's Court, one of the highest canyons of the Sierras, was in
+reality a plateau of table-land, embayed like a green lake in a
+semi-circular sweep of granite, that, lifting itself three thousand
+feet higher, became a foundation for the eternal snows.  The
+mountain genii of space and atmosphere jealously guarded its
+seclusion and surrounded it with illusions; it never looked to be
+exactly what it was: the traveller who saw it from the North Ridge
+apparently at his feet in descending found himself separated from
+it by a mile-long abyss and a rushing river; those who sought it by
+a seeming direct trail at the end of an hour lost sight of it
+completely, or, abandoning the quest and retracing their steps,
+suddenly came upon the gap through which it was entered.  That
+which from the Ridge appeared to be a copse of bushes beside the
+tiny dwelling were trees three hundred feet high; the cultivated
+lawn before it, which might have been covered by the traveller's
+handkerchief, was a field of a thousand acres.
+
+The house itself was a long, low, irregular structure, chiefly of
+roof and veranda, picturesquely upheld by rustic pillars of pine,
+with the bark still adhering, and covered with vines and trailing
+roses.  Yet it was evident that the coolness produced by this vast
+extent of cover was more than the architect, who had planned it
+under the influence of a staring and bewildering sky, had
+trustfully conceived, for it had to be mitigated by blazing fires
+in open hearths when the thermometer marked a hundred degrees in
+the field beyond.  The dry, restless wind that continually rocked
+the tall masts of the pines with a sound like the distant sea,
+while it stimulated out-door physical exertion and defied fatigue,
+left the sedentary dwellers in these altitudes chilled in the shade
+they courted, or scorched them with heat when they ventured to bask
+supinely in the sun.  White muslin curtains at the French windows,
+and rugs, skins, and heavy furs dispersed in the interior, with
+certain other charming but incongruous details of furniture, marked
+the inconsistencies of the climate.
+
+There was a coquettish indication of this in the costume of Miss
+Kate Scott as she stepped out on the veranda that morning.  A man's
+broad-brimmed Panama hat, partly unsexed by a twisted gayly-colored
+scarf, but retaining enough character to give piquancy to the
+pretty curves of the face beneath, protected her from the sun; a
+red flannel shirt--another spoil from the enemy--and a thick jacket
+shielded her from the austerities of the morning breeze.  But the
+next inconsistency was peculiarly her own.  Miss Kate always wore
+the freshest and lightest of white cambric skirts, without the
+least reference to the temperature.  To the practical sanatory
+remonstrances of her brother-in-law, and to the conventional
+criticism of her sister, she opposed the same defence: "How else is
+one to tell when it is summer in this ridiculous climate?  And
+then, woollen is stuffy, color draws the sun, and one at least
+knows when one is clean or dirty."  Artistically the result was far
+from unsatisfactory.  It was a pretty figure under the sombre
+pines, against the gray granite and the steely sky, and seemed to
+lend the yellowing fields from which the flowers had already fled a
+floral relief of color.  I do not think the few masculine wayfarers
+of that locality objected to it; indeed, some had betrayed an
+indiscreet admiration, and had curiously followed the invitation of
+Miss Kate's warmly-colored figure until they had encountered the
+invincible indifference of Miss Kate's cold gray eyes.  With these
+manifestations her brother-in-law did not concern himself; he had
+perfect confidence in her unqualified disinterest in the
+neighboring humanity, and permitted her to wander in her solitary
+picturesqueness, or accompanied her when she rode in her dark green
+habit, with equal freedom from anxiety.
+
+For Miss Scott, although only twenty, had already subjected most of
+her maidenly illusions to mature critical analyses.  She had
+voluntarily accompanied her sister and mother to California, in the
+earnest hope that nature contained something worth saying to her,
+and was disappointed to find she had already discounted its value
+in the pages of books.  She hoped to find a vague freedom in this
+unconventional life thus opened to her, or rather to show others
+that she knew how intelligently to appreciate it, but as yet she
+was only able to express it in the one detail of dress already
+alluded to.  Some of the men, and nearly all the women, she had met
+thus far, she was amazed to find, valued the conventionalities she
+believed she despised, and were voluntarily assuming the chains she
+thought she had thrown off.  Instead of learning anything from
+them, these children of nature had bored her with eager
+questionings regarding the civilization she had abandoned, or
+irritated her with crude imitations of it for her benefit.
+"Fancy," she had written to a friend in Boston, "my calling on Sue
+Murphy, who remembered the Donner tragedy, and who once shot a
+grizzly that was prowling round her cabin, and think of her begging
+me to lend her my sack for a pattern, and wanting to know if
+'polonays' were still worn."  She remembered more bitterly the
+romance that had tickled her earlier fancy, told of two college
+friends of her brother-in-law's who were living the "perfect life"
+in the mines, laboring in the ditches with a copy of Homer in their
+pockets, and writing letters of the purest philosophy under the
+free air of the pines.  How, coming unexpectedly on them in their
+Arcadia, the party found them unpresentable through dirt, and
+thenceforth unknowable through domestic complications that had
+filled their Arcadian cabin with half-breed children.
+
+Much of this disillusion she had kept within her own heart, from a
+feeling of pride, or only lightly touched upon it in her relations
+with her mother and sister.  For Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Scott had no
+idols to shatter, no enthusiasm to subdue.  Firmly and unalterably
+conscious of their own superiority to the life they led and the
+community that surrounded them, they accepted their duties
+cheerfully, and performed them conscientiously.  Those duties were
+loyalty to Hale's interests and a vague missionary work among the
+neighbors, which, like most missionary work, consisted rather in
+making their own ideas understood than in understanding the ideas
+of their audience.  Old Mrs. Scott's zeal was partly religious, an
+inheritance from her Puritan ancestry; Mrs. Hale's was the
+affability of a gentlewoman and the obligation of her position.  To
+this was added the slight languor of the cultivated American wife,
+whose health has been affected by the birth of her first child, and
+whose views of marriage and maternity were slightly tinged with
+gentle scepticism.  She was sincerely attached to her husband, "who
+dominated the household" like the rest of his "women folk," with
+the faint consciousness of that division of service which renders
+the position of the sultan of a seraglio at once so prominent and
+so precarious.  The attitude of John Hale in his family circle was
+dominant because it had never been subjected to criticism or
+comparison; and perilous for the same reason.
+
+Mrs. Hale presently joined her sister in the veranda, and, shading
+her eyes with a narrow white hand, glanced on the prospect with a
+polite interest and ladylike urbanity.  The searching sun, which,
+as Miss Kate once intimated, was "vulgarity itself," stared at her
+in return, but could not call a blush to her somewhat sallow cheek.
+Neither could it detract, however, from the delicate prettiness of
+her refined face with its soft gray shadows, or the dark gentle
+eyes, whose blue-veined lids were just then wrinkled into
+coquettishly mischievous lines by the strong light.  She was taller
+and thinner than Kate, and had at times a certain shy, coy
+sinuosity of movement which gave her a more virginal suggestion
+than her unmarried sister.  For Miss Kate, from her earliest youth,
+had been distinguished by that matronly sedateness of voice and
+step, and completeness of figure, which indicates some members of
+the gallinaceous tribe from their callow infancy.
+
+"I suppose John must have stopped at the Summit on some business,"
+said Mrs. Hale, "or he would have been here already.  It's scarcely
+worth while waiting for him, unless you choose to ride over and
+meet him.  You might change your dress," she continued, looking
+doubtfully at Kate's costume.  "Put on your riding-habit, and take
+Manuel with you."
+
+"And take the only man we have, and leave you alone?" returned Kate
+slowly.  "No!"
+
+"There are the Chinese field hands," said Mrs. Hale; "you must
+correct your ideas, and really allow them some humanity, Kate.
+John says they have a very good compulsory school system in their
+own country, and can read and write."
+
+"That would be of little use to you here alone if--if--" Kate
+hesitated.
+
+"If what?" said Mrs. Hale smiling.  "Are you thinking of Manuel's
+dreadful story of the grizzly tracks across the fields this
+morning?  I promise you that neither I, nor mother, nor Minnie
+shall stir out of the house until you return, if you wish it."
+
+"I wasn't thinking of that," said Kate; "though I don't believe the
+beating of a gong and the using of strong language is the best way
+to frighten a grizzly from the house.  Besides, the Chinese are
+going down the river to-day to a funeral, or a wedding, or a feast
+of stolen chickens--they're all the same--and won't be here."
+
+"Then take Manuel," repeated Mrs. Hale.  "We have the Chinese
+servants and Indian Molly in the house to protect us from Heaven
+knows what!  I have the greatest confidence in Chy-Lee as a
+warrior, and in Chinese warfare generally.  One has only to hear
+him pipe in time of peace to imagine what a terror he might become
+in war time.  Indeed, anything more deadly and soul-harrowing than
+that love song he sang for us last night I cannot conceive.  But
+really, Kate, I am not afraid to stay alone.  You know what John
+says: we ought to be always prepared for anything that might
+happen.
+
+"My dear Josie," returned Kate, putting her arm around her sister's
+waist, "I am perfectly convinced that if three-fingered Jack, or
+two-toed Bill, or even Joaquim Murietta himself, should step, red-
+handed, on that veranda, you would gently invite him to take a cup
+of tea, inquire about the state of the road, and refrain delicately
+from any allusions to the sheriff.  But I shan't take Manuel from
+you.  I really cannot undertake to look after his morals at the
+station, and keep him from drinking aguardiente with suspicious
+characters at the bar.  It is true he 'kisses my hand' in his
+speech, even when it is thickest, and offers his back to me for a
+horse-block, but I think I prefer the sober and honest familiarity
+of even that Pike County landlord who is satisfied to say, 'Jump,
+girl, and I'll ketch ye!'"
+
+"I hope you didn't change your manner to either of them for that,"
+said Mrs. Hale with a faint sigh.  "John wants to be good friends
+with them, and they are behaving quite decently lately, considering
+that they can't speak a grammatical sentence nor know the use of a
+fork."
+
+"And now the man puts on gloves and a tall hat to come here on
+Sundays, and the woman won't call until you've called first,"
+retorted Kate; "perhaps you call that improvement.  The fact is,
+Josephine," continued the young girl, folding her arms demurely,
+"we might as well admit it at once--these people don't like us."
+
+"That's impossible!" said Mrs. Hale, with sublime simplicity.  "You
+don't like them, you mean."
+
+"I like them better than you do, Josie, and that's the reason why I
+feel it and YOU don't."  She checked herself, and after a pause
+resumed in a lighter tone: "No; I sha'n't go to the station; I'll
+commune with nature to-day, and won't 'take any humanity in mine,
+thank you,' as Bill the driver says.  Adios."
+
+"I wish Kate would not use that dreadful slang, even in jest," said
+Mrs. Scott, in her rocking-chair at the French window, when
+Josephine reentered the parlor as her sister walked briskly away.
+"I am afraid she is being infected by the people at the station.
+She ought to have a change."
+
+"I was just thinking," said Josephine, looking abstractedly at her
+mother, "that I would try to get John to take her to San Francisco
+this winter.  The Careys are expected, you know; she might visit
+them."
+
+"I'm afraid, if she stays here much longer, she won't care to see
+them at all.  She seems to care for nothing now that she ever liked
+before," returned the old lady ominously.
+
+Meantime the subject of these criticisms was carrying away her own
+reflections tightly buttoned up in her short jacket.  She had
+driven back her dog Spot--another one of her disillusions, who,
+giving way to his lower nature, had once killed a sheep--as she did
+not wish her Jacques-like contemplation of any wounded deer to be
+inconsistently interrupted by a fresh outrage from her companion.
+The air was really very chilly, and for the first time in her
+mountain experience the direct rays of the sun seemed to be shorn
+of their power.  This compelled her to walk more briskly than she
+was conscious of, for in less than an hour she came suddenly and
+breathlessly upon the mouth of the canyon, or natural gateway to
+Eagle's Court.
+
+To her always a profound spectacle of mountain magnificence, it
+seemed to-day almost terrible in its cold, strong grandeur.  The
+narrowing pass was choked for a moment between two gigantic
+buttresses of granite, approaching each other so closely at their
+towering summits that trees growing in opposite clefts of the rock
+intermingled their branches and pointed the soaring Gothic arch of
+a stupendous gateway.  She raised her eyes with a quickly beating
+heart.  She knew that the interlacing trees above her were as large
+as those she had just quitted; she knew also that the point where
+they met was only half-way up the cliff, for she had once gazed
+down upon them, dwindled to shrubs from the airy summit; she knew
+that their shaken cones fell a thousand feet perpendicularly, or
+bounded like shot from the scarred walls they bombarded.  She
+remembered that one of these pines, dislodged from its high
+foundations, had once dropped like a portcullis in the archway,
+blocking the pass, and was only carried afterwards by assault of
+steel and fire.  Bending her head mechanically, she ran swiftly
+through the shadowy passage, and halted only at the beginning of
+the ascent on the other side.
+
+It was here that the actual position of the plateau, so indefinite
+of approach, began to be realized.  It now appeared an independent
+elevation, surrounded on three sides by gorges and watercourses, so
+narrow as to be overlooked from the principal mountain range, with
+which it was connected by a long canyon that led to the ridge.  At
+the outlet of this canyon--in bygone ages a mighty river--it had
+the appearance of having been slowly raised by the diluvium of that
+river, and the debris washed down from above--a suggestion repeated
+in miniature by the artificial plateaus of excavated soil raised
+before the mouths of mining tunnels in the lower flanks of the
+mountain.  It was the realization of a fact--often forgotten by the
+dwellers in Eagle's Court--that the valley below them, which was
+their connecting link with the surrounding world, was only reached
+by ascending the mountain, and the nearest road was over the higher
+mountain ridge.  Never before had this impressed itself so strongly
+upon the young girl as when she turned that morning to look upon
+the plateau below her.  It seemed to illustrate the conviction that
+had been slowly shaping itself out of her reflections on the
+conversation of that morning.  It was possible that the perfect
+understanding of a higher life was only reached from a height still
+greater, and that to those half-way up the mountain the summit was
+never as truthfully revealed as to the humbler dwellers in the
+valley.
+
+I do not know that these profound truths prevented her from
+gathering some quaint ferns and berries, or from keeping her calm
+gray eyes open to certain practical changes that were taking place
+around her.  She had noticed a singular thickening in the
+atmosphere that seemed to prevent the passage of the sun's rays,
+yet without diminishing the transparent quality of the air.  The
+distant snow-peaks were as plainly seen, though they appeared as if
+in moonlight.  This seemed due to no cloud or mist, but rather to a
+fading of the sun itself.  The occasional flurry of wings overhead,
+the whirring of larger birds in the cover, and a frequent rustling
+in the undergrowth, as of the passage of some stealthy animal,
+began equally to attract her attention.  It was so different from
+the habitual silence of these sedate solitudes.  Kate had no vague
+fear of wild beasts; she had been long enough a mountaineer to
+understand the general immunity enjoyed by the unmolesting
+wayfarer, and kept her way undismayed.  She was descending an
+abrupt trail when she was stopped by a sudden crash in the bushes.
+It seemed to come from the opposite incline, directly in a line
+with her, and apparently on the very trail that she was pursuing.
+The crash was then repeated again and again lower down, as of a
+descending body.  Expecting the apparition of some fallen tree, or
+detached boulder bursting through the thicket, in its way to the
+bottom of the gulch, she waited.  The foliage was suddenly brushed
+aside, and a large grizzly bear half rolled, half waddled, into the
+trail on the opposite side of the hill.  A few moments more would
+have brought them face to face at the foot of the gulch; when she
+stopped there were not fifty yards between them.
+
+She did not scream; she did not faint; she was not even frightened.
+There did not seem to be anything terrifying in this huge, stupid
+beast, who, arrested by the rustle of a stone displaced by her
+descending feet, rose slowly on his haunches and gazed at her with
+small, wondering eyes.  Nor did it seem strange to her, seeing that
+he was in her way, to pick up a stone, throw it in his direction,
+and say simply, "Sho! get away!" as she would have done to an
+intruding cow.  Nor did it seem odd that he should actually "go
+away" as he did, scrambling back into the bushes again, and
+disappearing like some grotesque figure in a transformation scene.
+It was not until after he had gone that she was taken with a slight
+nervousness and giddiness, and retraced her steps somewhat
+hurriedly, shying a little at every rustle in the thicket.  By the
+time she had reached the great gateway she was doubtful whether to
+be pleased or frightened at the incident, but she concluded to keep
+it to herself.
+
+It was still intensely cold.  The light of the midday sun had
+decreased still more, and on reaching the plateau again she saw
+that a dark cloud, not unlike the precursor of a thunder-storm, was
+brooding over the snowy peaks beyond.  In spite of the cold this
+singular suggestion of summer phenomena was still borne out by the
+distant smiling valley, and even in the soft grasses at her feet.
+It seemed to her the crowning inconsistency of the climate, and
+with a half-serious, half-playful protest on her lips she hurried
+forward to seek the shelter of the house.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+To Kate's surprise, the lower part of the house was deserted, but
+there was an unusual activity on the floor above, and the sound of
+heavy steps.  There were alien marks of dusty feet on the
+scrupulously clean passage, and on the first step of the stairs a
+spot of blood.  With a sudden genuine alarm that drove her previous
+adventure from her mind, she impatiently called her sister's name.
+There was a hasty yet subdued rustle of skirts on the staircase,
+and Mrs. Hale, with her finger on her lip, swept Kate
+unceremoniously into the sitting-room, closed the door, and leaned
+back against it, with a faint smile.  She had a crumpled paper in
+her hand.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, but read that first," she said, handing her
+sister the paper.  "It was brought just now."
+
+Kate instantly recognized her brother's distinct hand.  She read
+hurriedly, "The coach was robbed last night; nobody hurt.  I've
+lost nothing but a day's time, as this business will keep me here
+until to-morrow, when Manuel can join me with a fresh horse.  No
+cause for alarm.  As the bearer goes out of his way to bring you
+this, see that he wants for nothing."
+
+"Well," said Kate expectantly.
+
+"Well, the 'bearer' was fired upon by the robbers, who were lurking
+on the Ridge.  He was wounded in the leg.  Luckily he was picked up
+by his friend, who was coming to meet him, and brought here as the
+nearest place.  He's up-stairs in the spare bed in the spare room,
+with his friend, who won't leave his side.  He won't even have
+mother in the room.  They've stopped the bleeding with John's
+ambulance things, and now, Kate, here's a chance for you to show
+the value of your education in the ambulance class.  The ball has
+got to be extracted.  Here's your opportunity."
+
+Kate looked at her sister curiously.  There was a faint pink flush
+on her pale cheeks, and her eyes were gently sparkling.  She had
+never seen her look so pretty before.
+
+"Why not have sent Manuel for a doctor at once?" asked Kate.
+
+"The nearest doctor is fifteen miles away, and Manuel is nowhere to
+be found.  Perhaps he's gone to look after the stock.  There's some
+talk of snow; imagine the absurdity of it!"
+
+"But who are they?"
+
+"They speak of themselves as 'friends,' as if it were a profession.
+The wounded one was a passenger, I suppose."
+
+"But what are they like?" continued Kate.  "I suppose they're like
+them all."
+
+Mrs. Hale shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"The wounded one, when he's not fainting away, is laughing.  The
+other is a creature with a moustache, and gloomy beyond expression."
+
+"What are you going to do with them?" said Kate.
+
+"What should I do?  Even without John's letter I could not refuse
+the shelter of my house to a wounded and helpless man.  I shall
+keep him, of course, until John comes.  Why, Kate, I really believe
+you are so prejudiced against these people you'd like to turn them
+out.  But I forget!  It's because you LIKE them so well.  Well, you
+need not fear to expose yourself to the fascinations of the wounded
+Christy Minstrel--I'm sure he's that--or to the unspeakable one,
+who is shyness itself, and would not dare to raise his eyes to you."
+
+There was a timid, hesitating step in the passage.  It paused
+before the door, moved away, returned, and finally asserted its
+intentions in the gentlest of taps.
+
+"It's him; I'm sure of it," said Mrs. Hale, with a suppressed
+smile.
+
+Kate threw open the door smartly, to the extreme discomfiture of a
+tall, dark figure that already had slunk away from it.  For all
+that, he was a good-looking enough fellow, with a moustache as long
+and almost as flexible as a ringlet.  Kate could not help noticing
+also that his hand, which was nervously pulling the moustache, was
+white and thin.
+
+"Excuse me," he stammered, without raising his eyes, "I was looking
+for--for--the old lady.  I--I beg your pardon.  I didn't know that
+you--the young ladies--company--were here.  I intended--I only
+wanted to say that my friend--"  He stopped at the slight smile
+that passed quickly over Mrs. Hale's mouth, and his pale face
+reddened with an angry flush.
+
+"I hope he is not worse," said Mrs. Hale, with more than her usual
+languid gentleness.  "My mother is not here at present.  Can I--can
+WE--this is my sister--do as well?"
+
+Without looking up he made a constrained recognition of Kate's
+presence, that embarrassed and curt as it was, had none of the
+awkwardness of rusticity.
+
+"Thank you; you're very kind.  But my friend is a little stronger,
+and if you can lend me an extra horse I'll try to get him on the
+Summit to-night."
+
+"But you surely will not take him away from us so soon?" said Mrs.
+Hale, with a languid look of alarm, in which Kate, however,
+detected a certain real feeling.  "Wait at least until my husband
+returns to-morrow."
+
+"He won't be here to-morrow," said the stranger hastily.  He
+stopped, and as quickly corrected himself.  "That is, his business
+is so very uncertain, my friend says."
+
+Only Kate noticed the slip; but she noticed also that her sister
+was apparently unconscious of it.  "You think," she said, "that Mr.
+Hale may be delayed?"
+
+He turned upon her almost brusquely.  "I mean that it is already
+snowing up there;" he pointed through the window to the cloud Kate
+had noticed; "if it comes down lower in the pass the roads will be
+blocked up.  That is why it would be better for us to try and get
+on at once."
+
+"But if Mr. Hale is likely to be stopped by snow, so are you," said
+Mrs. Hale playfully; "and you had better let us try to make your
+friend comfortable here rather than expose him to that uncertainty
+in his weak condition.  We will do our best for him.  My sister is
+dying for an opportunity to show her skill in surgery," she
+continued, with an unexpected mischievousness that only added to
+Kate's surprised embarrassment.  "Aren't you, Kate?"
+
+Equivocal as the young girl knew her silence appeared, she was
+unable to utter the simplest polite evasion.  Some unaccountable
+impulse kept her constrained and speechless.  The stranger did not,
+however, wait for her reply, but, casting a swift, hurried glance
+around the room, said, "It's impossible; we must go.  In fact, I've
+already taken the liberty to order the horses round.  They are at
+the door now.  You may be certain," he added, with quick
+earnestness, suddenly lifting his dark eyes to Mrs. Hale, and as
+rapidly withdrawing them, "that your horse will be returned at
+once, and--and--we won't forget your kindness."  He stopped and
+turned towards the hall.  "I--I have brought my friend down-stairs.
+He wants to thank you before he goes."
+
+As he remained standing in the hall the two women stepped to the
+door.  To their surprise, half reclining on a cane sofa was the
+wounded man, and what could be seen of his slight figure was
+wrapped in a dark serape.  His beardless face gave him a quaint
+boyishness quite inconsistent with the mature lines of his temples
+and forehead.  Pale, and in pain, as he evidently was, his blue
+eyes twinkled with intense amusement.  Not only did his manner
+offer a marked contrast to the sombre uneasiness of his companion,
+but he seemed to be the only one perfectly at his ease in the group
+around him.
+
+"It's rather rough making you come out here to see me off," he
+said, with a not unmusical laugh that was very infectious, "but Ned
+there, who carried me downstairs, wanted to tote me round the house
+in his arms like a baby to say ta-ta to you all.  Excuse my not
+rising, but I feel as uncertain below as a mermaid, and as out of
+my element," he added, with a mischievous glance at his friend.
+"Ned concluded I must go on.  But I must say good-by to the old
+lady first.  Ah! here she is."
+
+To Kate's complete bewilderment, not only did the utter familiarity
+of this speech, pass unnoticed and unrebuked by her sister, but
+actually her own mother advanced quickly with every expression of
+lively sympathy, and with the authority of her years and an almost
+maternal anxiety endeavored to dissuade the invalid from going.
+"This is not my house," she said, looking at her daughter, "but if
+it were I should not hear of your leaving, not only to-night, but
+until you were out of danger.  Josephine!  Kate!  What are you
+thinking of to permit it?  Well, then I forbid it--there!"
+
+Had they become suddenly insane, or were they bewitched by this
+morose intruder and his insufferably familiar confidant?  The man
+was wounded, it was true; they might have to put him up in common
+humanity; but here was her austere mother, who wouldn't come in the
+room when Whisky Dick called on business, actually pressing both of
+the invalid's hands, while her sister, who never extended a finger
+to the ordinary visiting humanity of the neighborhood, looked on
+with evident complacency.
+
+The wounded man suddenly raised Mrs. Scott's hand to his lips,
+kissed it gently, and, with his smile quite vanished, endeavored to
+rise to his feet.  "It's of no use--we must go.  Give me your arm,
+Ned.  Quick!  Are the horses there?"
+
+"Dear me," said Mrs. Scott quickly.  "I forgot to say the horse
+cannot be found anywhere.  Manuel must have taken him this morning
+to look up the stock.  But he will be back to-night certainly, and
+if to-morrow--"
+
+The wounded man sank back to a sitting position.  "Is Manuel your
+man?" he asked grimly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The two men exchanged glances.
+
+"Marked on his left cheek and drinks a good deal?"
+
+"Yes," said Kate, finding her voice.  "Why?"
+
+The amused look came back to the man's eyes.  "That kind of man
+isn't safe to wait for.  We must take our own horse, Ned.  Are you
+ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The wounded man again attempted to rise.  He fell back, but this
+time quite heavily.  He had fainted.
+
+Involuntarily and simultaneously the three women rushed to his
+side.  "He cannot go," said Kate suddenly.
+
+"He will be better in a moment."
+
+"But only for a moment.  Will nothing induce you to change your
+mind?"
+
+As if in reply a sudden gust of wind brought a volley of rain
+against the window.
+
+"THAT will," said the stranger bitterly.
+
+"The rain?"
+
+"A mile from here it is SNOW; and before we could reach the Summit
+with these horses the road would be impassable."
+
+He made a slight gesture to himself, as if accepting an inevitable
+defeat, and turned to his companion, who was slowly reviving under
+the active ministration of the two women.  The wounded man looked
+around with a weak smile.  "This is one way of going off," he said
+faintly, "but I could do this sort of thing as well on the road."
+
+"You can do nothing now," said his friend, decidedly.  "Before we
+get to the Gate the road will be impassable for our horses."
+
+"For ANY horses?" asked Kate.
+
+"For any horses.  For any man or beast I might say.  Where we
+cannot get out, no one can get in," he added, as if answering her
+thoughts.  "I am afraid that you won't see your brother to-morrow
+morning.  But I'll reconnoitre as soon as I can do so without
+torturing HIM," he said, looking anxiously at the helpless man;
+"he's got about his share of pain, I reckon, and the first thing is
+to get him easier."  It was the longest speech he had made to her;
+it was the first time he had fairly looked her in the face.  His
+shy restlessness had suddenly given way to dogged resignation, less
+abstracted, but scarcely more flattering to his entertainers.
+Lifting his companion gently in his arms, as if he had been a
+child, he reascended the staircase, Mrs. Scott and the hastily-
+summoned Molly following with overflowing solicitude.  As soon as
+they were alone in the parlor Mrs. Hale turned to her sister: "Only
+that our guests seemed to be as anxious to go just now as you were
+to pack them off, I should have been shocked at your inhospitality.
+What has come over you, Kate?  These are the very people you have
+reproached me so often with not being civil enough to."
+
+"But WHO are they?"
+
+"How do I know?  There is YOUR BROTHER'S letter."
+
+She usually spoke of her husband as "John."  This slight shifting
+of relationship and responsibility to the feminine mind was
+significant.  Kate was a little frightened and remorseful.
+
+"I only meant you don't even know their names."
+
+"That wasn't necessary for giving them a bed and bandages.  Do you
+suppose the good Samaritan ever asked the wounded Jew's name, and
+that the Levite did not excuse himself because the thieves had
+taken the poor man's card-case?  Do the directions, 'In case of
+accident,' in your ambulance rules, read, 'First lay the sufferer
+on his back and inquire his name and family connections'?  Besides,
+you can call one 'Ned' and the other 'George,' if you like."
+
+"Oh, you know what I mean," said Kate, irrelevantly.  "Which is
+George?"
+
+"George is the wounded man," said Mrs. Hale; "NOT the one who
+talked to you more than he did to any one else.  I suppose the poor
+man was frightened and read dismissal in your eyes."
+
+"I wish John were here."
+
+"I don't think we have anything to fear in his absence from men
+whose only wish is to get away from us.  If it is a question of
+propriety, my dear Kate, surely there is the presence of mother to
+prevent any scandal--although really her own conduct with the
+wounded one is not above suspicion," she added, with that novel
+mischievousness that seemed a return of her lost girlhood.  "We
+must try to do the best we can with them and for them," she said
+decidedly, "and meantime I'll see if I can't arrange John's room
+for them."
+
+"John's room?"
+
+"Oh, mother is perfectly satisfied; indeed, suggested it.  It's
+larger and will hold two beds, for 'Ned,' the friend, must attend
+to him at night.  And, Kate, don't you think, if you're not going
+out again, you might change your costume?  It does very well while
+we are alone--"
+
+"Well," said Kate indignantly, "as I am not going into his room--"
+
+"I'm not so sure about that, if we can't get a regular doctor.  But
+he is very restless, and wanders all over the house like a timid
+and apologetic spaniel."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why 'Ned.'  But I must go and look after the patient.  I suppose
+they've got him safe in his bed again," and with a nod to her
+sister she tripped up-stairs.
+
+Uncomfortable and embarrassed, she knew not why, Kate sought her
+mother.  But that good lady was already in attendance on the
+patient, and Kate hurried past that baleful centre of attraction
+with a feeling of loneliness and strangeness she had never
+experienced before.  Entering her own room she went to the window--
+that first and last refuge of the troubled mind--and gazed out.
+Turning her eyes in the direction of her morning's walk, she
+started back with a sense of being dazzled.  She rubbed first her
+eyes and then the rain-dimmed pane.  It was no illusion!  The whole
+landscape, so familiar to her, was one vast field of dead,
+colorless white!  Trees, rocks, even distance itself, had vanished
+in those few hours.  An even shadowless, motionless white sea
+filled the horizon.  On either side a vast wall of snow seemed to
+shut out the world like a shroud.  Only the green plateau before
+her, with its sloping meadows and fringe of pines and cottonwood,
+lay alone like a summer island in this frozen sea.
+
+A sudden desire to view this phenomenon more closely, and to learn
+for herself the limits of this new tethered life, completely
+possessed her, and, accustomed to act upon her independent
+impulses, she seized a hooded waterproof cloak, and slipped out of
+the house unperceived.  The rain was falling steadily along the
+descending trail where she walked, but beyond, scarcely a mile
+across the chasm, the wintry distance began to confuse her brain
+with the inextricable swarming of snow.  Hurrying down with
+feverish excitement, she at last came in sight of the arching
+granite portals of their domain.  But her first glance through the
+gateway showed it closed as if with a white portcullis.  Kate
+remembered that the trail began to ascend beyond the arch, and knew
+that what she saw was only the mountain side she had partly climbed
+this morning.  But the snow had already crept down its flank, and
+the exit by trail was practically closed.  Breathlessly making her
+way back to the highest part of the plateau--the cliff behind the
+house that here descended abruptly to the rain-dimmed valley--she
+gazed at the dizzy depths in vain for some undiscovered or
+forgotten trail along its face.  But a single glance convinced her
+of its inaccessibility.  The gateway was indeed their only outlet
+to the plain below.  She looked back at the falling snow beyond
+until she fancied she could see in the crossing and recrossing
+lines the moving meshes of a fateful web woven around them by
+viewless but inexorable fingers.
+
+Half frightened, she was turning away, when she perceived, a few
+paces distant, the figure of the stranger, "Ned," also apparently
+absorbed in the gloomy prospect.  He was wrapped in the clinging
+folds of a black serape braided with silver; the broad flap of a
+slouch hat beaten back by the wind exposed the dark, glistening
+curls on his white forehead.  He was certainly very handsome and
+picturesque, and that apparently without effort or consciousness.
+Neither was there anything in his costume or appearance
+inconsistent with his surroundings, or, even with what Kate could
+judge were his habits or position.  Nevertheless, she instantly
+decided that he was TOO handsome and too picturesque, without
+suspecting that her ideas of the limits of masculine beauty were
+merely personal experience.
+
+As he turned away from the cliff they were brought face to face.
+"It doesn't look very encouraging over there," he said quietly, as
+if the inevitableness of the situation had relieved him of his
+previous shyness and effort; "it's even worse than I expected.  The
+snow must have begun there last night, and it looks as if it meant
+to stay."  He stopped for a moment, and then, lifting his eyes to
+her, said:--
+
+"I suppose you know what this means?"
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"I thought not.  Well! it means that you are absolutely cut off
+here from any communication or intercourse with any one outside of
+that canyon.  By this time the snow is five feet deep over the only
+trail by which one can pass in and out of that gateway.  I am not
+alarming you, I hope, for there is no real physical danger; a place
+like this ought to be well garrisoned, and certainly is self-
+supporting so far as the mere necessities and even comforts are
+concerned.  You have wood, water, cattle, and game at your command,
+but for two weeks at least you are completely isolated."
+
+"For two weeks," said Kate, growing pale--"and my brother!"
+
+"He knows all by this time, and is probably as assured as I am of
+the safety of his family."
+
+"For two weeks," continued Kate; "impossible!  You don't know my
+brother!  He will find some way to get to us."
+
+"I hope so," returned the stranger gravely, "for what is possible
+for him is possible for us."
+
+"Then you are anxious to get away," Kate could not help saying.
+
+"Very."
+
+The reply was not discourteous in manner, but was so far from
+gallant that Kate felt a new and inconsistent resentment.  Before
+she could say anything he added, "And I hope you will remember,
+whatever may happen, that I did my best to avoid staying here
+longer than was necessary to keep my friend from bleeding to death
+in the road."
+
+"Certainly," said Kate; then added awkwardly, "I hope he'll be
+better soon."  She was silent, and then, quickening her pace, said
+hurriedly, "I must tell my sister this dreadful news."
+
+"I think she is prepared for it.  If there is anything I can do to
+help you I hope you will let me know.  Perhaps I may be of some
+service.  I shall begin by exploring the trails to-morrow, for the
+best service we can do you possibly is to take ourselves off; but I
+can carry a gun, and the woods are full of game driven down from
+the mountains.  Let me show you something you may not have
+noticed."  He stopped, and pointed to a small knoll of sheltered
+shrubbery and granite on the opposite mountain, which still
+remained black against the surrounding snow.  It seemed to be
+thickly covered with moving objects.  "They are wild animals driven
+out of the snow," said the stranger.  "That larger one is a
+grizzly; there is a panther, wolves, wild cats, a fox, and some
+mountain goats."
+
+"An ill-assorted party," said the young girl.
+
+"Ill luck makes them companions.  They are too frightened to hurt
+one another now."
+
+"But they will eat each other later on," said Kate, stealing a
+glance at her companion.
+
+He lifted his long lashes and met her eyes.  "Not on a haven of
+refuge."
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Kate found her sister, as the stranger had intimated, fully
+prepared.  A hasty inventory of provisions and means of subsistence
+showed that they had ample resources for a much longer isolation.
+
+"They tell me it is by no means an uncommon case, Kate; somebody
+over at somebody's place was snowed in for four weeks, and now it
+appears that even the Summit House is not always accessible.  John
+ought to have known it when he bought the place; in fact, I was
+ashamed to admit that he did not.  But that is like John to prefer
+his own theories to the experience of others.  However, I don't
+suppose we should even notice the privation except for the mails.
+It will be a lesson to John, though.  As Mr. Lee says, he is on the
+outside, and can probably go wherever he likes from the Summit
+except to come here."
+
+"Mr. Lee?" echoed Kate.
+
+"Yes, the wounded one; and the other's name is Falkner.  I asked
+them in order that you might be properly introduced.  There were
+very respectable Falkners in Charlestown, you remember; I thought
+you might warm to the name, and perhaps trace the connection, now
+that you are such good friends.  It's providential they are here,
+as we haven't got a horse or a man in the place since Manuel
+disappeared, though Mr. Falkner says he can't be far away, or they
+would have met him on the trail if he had gone towards the Summit."
+
+"Did they say anything more of Manuel?"
+
+"Nothing; though I am inclined to agree with you that he isn't
+trustworthy.  But that again is the result of John's idea of
+employing native skill at the expense of retaining native habits."
+
+The evening closed early, and with no diminution in the falling
+rain and rising wind.  Falkner kept his word, and unostentatiously
+performed the out-door work in the barn and stables, assisted by
+the only Chinese servant remaining, and under the advice and
+supervision of Kate.  Although he seemed to understand horses, she
+was surprised to find that he betrayed a civic ignorance of the
+ordinary details of the farm and rustic household.  It was quite
+impossible that she should retain her distrustful attitude, or he
+his reserve in their enforced companionship.  They talked freely of
+subjects suggested by the situation, Falkner exhibiting a general
+knowledge and intuition of things without parade or dogmatism.
+Doubtful of all versatility as Kate was, she could not help
+admitting to herself that his truths were none the less true for
+their quantity or that he got at them without ostentatious
+processes.  His talk certainly was more picturesque than her
+brother's, and less subduing to her faculties.  John had always
+crushed her.
+
+When they returned to the house he did not linger in the parlor or
+sitting-room, but at once rejoined his friend.  When dinner was
+ready in the dining-room, a little more deliberately arranged and
+ornamented than usual, the two women were somewhat surprised to
+receive an excuse from Falkner, begging them to allow him for the
+present to take his meals with the patient, and thus save the
+necessity of another attendant.
+
+"It is all shyness, Kate," said Mrs. Hale, confidently, "and must
+not be permitted for a moment."
+
+"I'm sure I should be quite willing to stay with the poor boy
+myself," said Mrs. Scott, simply, "and take Mr. Falkner's place
+while he dines."
+
+"You are too willing, mother," said Mrs. Hale, pertly, "and your
+'poor boy,' as you call him, will never see thirty-five again."
+
+"He will never see any other birthday!" retorted her mother,
+"unless you keep him more quiet.  He only talks when you're in the
+room."
+
+"He wants some relief to his friend's long face and moustachios
+that make him look prematurely in mourning," said Mrs. Hale, with a
+slight increase of animation.  "I don't propose to leave them too
+much together.  After dinner we'll adjourn to their room and
+lighten it up a little.  You must come, Kate, to look at the
+patient, and counteract the baleful effects of my frivolity."
+
+Mrs. Hale's instincts were truer than her mother's experience; not
+only that the wounded man's eyes became brighter under the
+provocation of her presence, but it was evident that his naturally
+exuberant spirits were a part of his vital strength, and were
+absolutely essential to his quick recovery.  Encouraged by
+Falkner's grave and practical assistance, which she could not
+ignore, Kate ventured to make an examination of Lee's wound.  Even
+to her unpractised eye it was less serious than at first appeared.
+The great loss of blood had been due to the laceration of certain
+small vessels below the knee, but neither artery nor bone was
+injured.  A recurrence of the haemorrhage or fever was the only
+thing to be feared, and these could be averted by bandaging,
+repose, and simple nursing.
+
+The unfailing good humor of the patient under this manipulation,
+the quaint originality of his speech, the freedom of his fancy,
+which was, however, always controlled by a certain instinctive
+tact, began to affect Kate nearly as it had the others.  She found
+herself laughing over the work she had undertaken in a pure sense
+of duty; she joined in the hilarity produced by Lee's affected
+terror of her surgical mania, and offered to undo the bandages in
+search of the thimble he declared she had left in the wound with a
+view to further experiments.
+
+"You ought to broaden your practice," he suggested.  "A good deal
+might be made out of Ned and a piece of soap left carelessly on the
+first step of the staircase, while mountains of surgical
+opportunities lie in a humble orange peel judiciously exposed.
+Only I warn you that you wouldn't find him as docile as I am.
+Decoyed into a snow-drift and frozen, you might get some valuable
+experiences in resuscitation by thawing him."
+
+"I fancied you had done that already, Kate," whispered Mrs. Hale.
+
+"Freezing is the new suggestion for painless surgery," said Lee,
+coming to Kate's relief with ready tact, "only the knowledge should
+be more generally spread.  There was a man up at Strawberry fell
+under a sledge-load of wood in the snow.  Stunned by the shock, he
+was slowly freezing to death, when, with a tremendous effort, he
+succeeded in freeing himself all but his right leg, pinned down by
+a small log.  His axe happened to have fallen within reach, and a
+few blows on the log freed him."
+
+"And saved the poor fellow's life," said Mrs. Scott, who was
+listening with sympathizing intensity.
+
+"At the expense of his LEFT LEG, which he had unknowingly cut off
+under the pleasing supposition that it was a log," returned Lee
+demurely.
+
+Nevertheless, in a few moments he managed to divert the slightly
+shocked susceptibilities of the old lady with some raillery of
+himself, and did not again interrupt the even good-humored
+communion of the party.  The rain beating against the windows and
+the fire sparkling on the hearth seemed to lend a charm to their
+peculiar isolation, and it was not until Mrs. Scott rose with a
+warning that they were trespassing upon the rest of their patient
+that they discovered that the evening had slipped by unnoticed.
+When the door at last closed on the bright, sympathetic eyes of the
+two young women and the motherly benediction of the elder, Falkner
+walked to the window, and remained silent, looking into the
+darkness.  Suddenly he turned bitterly to his companion.
+
+"This is just h-ll, George."
+
+George Lee, with a smile on his boyish face, lazily moved his head.
+
+"I don't know!  If it wasn't for the old woman, who is the one
+solid chunk of absolute goodness here, expecting nothing, wanting
+nothing, it would be good fun enough!  These two women, cooped up
+in this house, wanted excitement.  They've got it!  That man Hale
+wanted to show off by going for us; he's had his chance, and will
+have it again before I've done with him.  That d--d fool of a
+messenger wanted to go out of his way to exchange shots with me; I
+reckon he's the most satisfied of the lot!  I don't know why YOU
+should growl.  You did your level best to get away from here, and
+the result is, that little Puritan is ready to worship you."
+
+"Yes--but this playing it on them--George--this--"
+
+"Who's playing it?  Not you; I see you've given away our names
+already."
+
+"I couldn't lie, and they know nothing by that."
+
+"Do you think they would be happier by knowing it?  Do you think
+that soft little creature would be as happy as she was to-night if
+she knew that her husband had been indirectly the means of laying
+me by the heels here?  Where is the swindle?  This hole in my leg?
+If you had been five minutes under that girl's d--d sympathetic
+fingers you'd have thought it was genuine.  Is it in our trying to
+get away?  Do you call that ten-feet drift in the pass a swindle?
+Is it in the chance of Hale getting back while we're here?  That's
+real enough, isn't it?  I say, Ned, did you ever give your
+unfettered intellect to the contemplation of THAT?"
+
+Falkner did not reply.  There was an interval of silence, but he
+could see from the movement of George's shoulders that he was
+shaking with suppressed laughter.
+
+"Fancy Mrs. Hale archly introducing her husband!  My offering him a
+chair, but being all the time obliged to cover him with a derringer
+under the bedclothes.  Your rushing in from your peaceful pastoral
+pursuits in the barn, with a pitchfork in one hand and the girl in
+the other, and dear old mammy sympathizing all round and trying to
+make everything comfortable."
+
+"I should not be alive to see it, George," said Falkner gloomily.
+
+"You'd manage to pitchfork me and those two women on Hale's horse
+and ride away; that's what you'd do, or I don't know you!  Look
+here, Ned," he added more seriously, "the only swindling was our
+bringing that note here.  That was YOUR idea.  You thought it would
+remove suspicion, and as you believed I was bleeding to death you
+played that game for all it was worth to save me.  You might have
+done what I asked you to do--propped me up in the bushes, and got
+away yourself.  I was good for a couple of shots yet, and after
+that--what mattered?  That night, the next day, the next time I
+take the road, or a year hence?  It will come when it will come,
+all the same!"
+
+He did not speak bitterly, nor relax his smile.  Falkner, without
+speaking, slid his hand along the coverlet.  Lee grasped it, and
+their hands remained clasped together for a few minutes in silence.
+
+"How is this to end?  We cannot go on here in this way," said
+Falkner suddenly.
+
+"If we cannot get away it must go on.  Look here, Ned.  I don't
+reckon to take anything out of this house that I didn't bring in
+it, or isn't freely offered to me; yet I don't otherwise, you
+understand, intend making myself out a d--d bit better than I am.
+That's the only excuse I have for not making myself out JUST WHAT I
+am.  I don't know the fellow who's obliged to tell every one the
+last company he was in, or the last thing he did!  Do you suppose
+even these pretty little women tell US their whole story?  Do you
+fancy that this St. John in the wilderness is canonized in his
+family?  Perhaps, when I take the liberty to intrude in his
+affairs, as he has in mine, he'd see he isn't.  I don't blame you
+for being sensitive, Ned.  It's natural.  When a man lives outside
+the revised statutes of his own State he is apt to be awfully fine
+on points of etiquette in his own household.  As for me, I find it
+rather comfortable here.  The beds of other people's making strike
+me as being more satisfactory than my own.  Good-night."
+
+In a few moments he was sleeping the peaceful sleep of that youth
+which seemed to be his own dominant quality.  Falkner stood for a
+little space and watched him, following the boyish lines of his
+cheek on the pillow, from the shadow of the light brown lashes
+under his closed lids to the lifting of his short upper lip over
+his white teeth, with his regular respiration.  Only a sharp
+accenting of the line of nostril and jaw and a faint depression of
+the temple betrayed his already tried manhood.
+
+The house had long sunk to repose when Falkner returned to the
+window, and remained looking out upon the storm.  Suddenly he
+extinguished the light, and passing quickly to the bed laid his
+hand upon the sleeper.  Lee opened his eyes instantly.
+
+"Are you awake?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Somebody is trying to get into the house!"
+
+"Not HIM, eh?" said Lee gayly.
+
+"No; two men.  Mexicans, I think.  One looks like Manuel."
+
+"Ah," said Lee, drawing himself up to a sitting posture.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Don't you see?  He believes the women are alone."
+
+"The dog--d--d hound!"
+
+"Speak respectfully of one of my people, if you please, and hand me
+my derringer.  Light the candle again, and open the door.  Let them
+get in quietly.  They'll come here first.  It's HIS room, you
+understand, and if there's any money it's here.  Anyway, they must
+pass here to get to the women's rooms.  Leave Manuel to me, and you
+take care of the other."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Manuel knows the house, and will come first.  When he's fairly in
+the room shut the door and go for the other.  But no noise.  This
+is just one of the SW-EETEST things out--if it's done properly."
+
+"But YOU, George?"
+
+"If I couldn't manage that fellow without turning down the
+bedclothes I'd kick myself.  Hush.  Steady now."
+
+He lay down and shut his eyes as if in natural repose.  Only his
+right hand, carelessly placed under his pillow, closed on the
+handle of his pistol.  Falkner quietly slipped into the passage.
+The light of the candle faintly illuminated the floor and opposite
+wall, but left it on either side in pitchy obscurity.
+
+For some moments the silence was broken only by the sound of the
+rain without.  The recumbent figure in bed seemed to have actually
+succumbed to sleep.  The multitudinous small noises of a house in
+repose might have been misinterpreted by ears less keen than the
+sleeper's; but when the apparent creaking of a far-off shutter was
+followed by the sliding apparition of a dark head of tangled hair
+at the door, Lee had not been deceived, and was as prepared as if
+he had seen it.  Another step, and the figure entered the room.
+The door closed instantly behind it.  The sound of a heavy body
+struggling against the partition outside followed, and then
+suddenly ceased.
+
+The intruder turned, and violently grasped the handle of the door,
+but recoiled at a quiet voice from the bed.
+
+"Drop that, and come here."
+
+He started back with an exclamation.  The sleeper's eyes were wide
+open; the sleeper's extended arm and pistol covered him.
+
+"Silence! or I'll let that candle shine through you!"
+
+"Yes, captain!" growled the astounded and frightened half-breed.
+"I didn't know you were here."
+
+Lee raised himself, and grasped the long whip in his left hand and
+whirled it round his head.
+
+"WILL YOU dry up?"
+
+The man sank back against the wall in silent terror.
+
+"Open that door now--softly."
+
+Manuel obeyed with trembling fingers.
+
+"Ned" said Lee in a low voice, "bring him in here--quick."
+
+There was a slight rustle, and Falkner appeared, backing in another
+gasping figure, whose eyes were starting under the strong grasp of
+the captor at his throat.
+
+"Silence," said Lee, "all of you."
+
+There was a breathless pause.  The sound of a door hesitatingly
+opened in the passage broke the stillness, followed by the gentle
+voice of Mrs. Scott.
+
+"Is anything the matter?"
+
+Lee made a slight gesture of warning to Falkner, of menace to the
+others.  "Everything's the matter," he called out cheerily.  "Ned's
+managed to half pull down the house trying to get at something from
+my saddle-bags."
+
+"I hope he has not hurt himself," broke in another voice
+mischievously.
+
+"Answer, you clumsy villain," whispered Lee, with twinkling eyes.
+
+"I'm all right, thank you," responded Falkner, with unaffected
+awkwardness.
+
+There was a slight murmuring of voices, and then the door was heard
+to close.  Lee turned to Falkner.
+
+"Disarm that hound and turn him loose outside, and make no noise.
+And you, Manuel! tell him what his and your chances are if he shows
+his black face here again."
+
+Manuel cast a single, terrified, supplicating glance, more
+suggestive than words, at his confederate, as Falkner shoved him
+before him from the room.  The next moment they were silently
+descending the stairs.
+
+"May I go too, captain?" entreated Manuel.  "I swear to God--"
+
+"Shut the door!"  The man obeyed.
+
+"Now, then," said Lee, with a broad, gratified smile, laying down
+his whip and pistol within reach, and comfortably settling the
+pillows behind his back, "we'll have a quiet confab.  A sort of
+old-fashioned talk, eh?  You're not looking well, Manuel.  You're
+drinking too much again.  It spoils your complexion."
+
+"Let me go, captain," pleaded the man, emboldened by the good-
+humored voice, but not near enough to notice a peculiar light in
+the speaker's eye.
+
+"You've only just come, Manuel; and at considerable trouble, too.
+Well, what have you got to say?  What's all this about?  What are
+you doing here?"
+
+The captured man shuffled his feet nervously, and only uttered an
+uneasy laugh of coarse discomfiture.
+
+"I see.  You're bashful.  Well, I'll help you along.  Come!  You
+knew that Hale was away and these women were here without a man to
+help them.  You thought you'd find some money here, and have your
+own way generally, eh?"
+
+The tone of Lee's voice inspired him to confidence; unfortunately,
+it inspired him with familiarity also.
+
+"I reckoned I had the right to a little fun on my own account, cap.
+I reckoned ez one gentleman in the profession wouldn't interfere
+with another gentleman's little game," he continued coarsely.
+
+"Stand up."
+
+"Wot for?"
+
+"Up, I say!"
+
+Manuel stood up and glanced at him.
+
+"Utter a cry that might frighten these women, and by the living God
+they'll rush in here only to find you lying dead on the floor of
+the house you'd have polluted."
+
+He grasped the whip and laid the lash of it heavily twice over the
+ruffian's shoulders.  Writhing in suppressed agony, the man fell
+imploringly on his knees.
+
+"Now, listen!" said Lee, softly twirling the whip in the air.  "I
+want to refresh your memory.  Did you ever learn, when you were
+with me--before I was obliged to kick you out of gentlemen's
+company--to break into a private house?  Answer!"
+
+"No," stammered the wretch.
+
+"Did you ever learn to rob a woman, a child, or any but a man, and
+that face to face?"
+
+"No," repeated Manuel.
+
+"Did you ever learn from me to lay a finger upon a woman, old or
+young, in anger or kindness?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, my poor Manuel, it's as I feared; civilization has ruined
+you.  Farming and a simple, bucolic life have perverted your
+morals.  So you were running off with the stock and that mustang,
+when you got stuck in the snow; and the luminous idea of this
+little game struck you?  Eh?  That was another mistake, Manuel; I
+never allowed you to think when you were with me."
+
+"No, captain."
+
+"Who's your friend?"
+
+"A d--d cowardly nigger from the Summit."
+
+"I agree with you for once; but he hasn't had a very brilliant
+example.  Where's he gone now?"
+
+"To h-ll, for all I care!"
+
+"Then I want you to go with him.  Listen.  If there's a way out of
+the place, you know it or can find it.  I give you two days to do
+it--you and he.  At the end of that time the order will be to shoot
+you on sight.  Now take off your boots."
+
+The man's dark face visibly whitened, his teeth chattered in
+superstitious terror.
+
+"I'm not going to shoot you now," said Lee, smiling, "so you will
+have a chance to die with your boots on,* if you are superstitious.
+I only want you to exchange them for that pair of Hale's in the
+corner.  The fact is I have taken a fancy to yours.  That fashion
+of wearing the stockings outside strikes me as one of the neatest
+things out."
+
+
+* "To die with one's boots on."  A synonym for death by violence,
+popular among Southwestern desperadoes, and the subject of
+superstitious dread.
+
+
+Manuel suddenly drew off his boots with their muffled covering, and
+put on the ones designated.
+
+"Now open the door."
+
+He did so.  Falkner was already waiting at the threshold, "Turn
+Manuel loose with the other, Ned, but disarm him first.  They might
+quarrel.  The habit of carrying arms, Manuel," added Lee, as
+Falkner took a pistol and bowie-knife from the half-breed, "is of
+itself provocative of violence, and inconsistent with a bucolic and
+pastoral life."
+
+When Falkner returned he said hurriedly to his companion, "Do you
+think it wise, George, to let those hell-hounds loose?  Good God!
+I could scarcely let my grip of his throat go, when I thought of
+what they were hunting."
+
+"My dear Ned," said Lee, luxuriously ensconcing himself under the
+bedclothes again with a slight shiver of delicious warmth, "I must
+warn you against allowing the natural pride of a higher walk to
+prejudice you against the general level of our profession.  Indeed,
+I was quite struck with the justice of Manuel's protest that I was
+interfering with certain rude processes of his own towards results
+aimed at by others."
+
+"George!" interrupted Falkner, almost savagely.
+
+"Well.  I admit it's getting rather late in the evening for pure
+philosophical inquiry, and you are tired.  Practically, then, it
+WAS wise to let them get away before they discovered two things.
+One, our exact relations here with these women; and the other, HOW
+MANY of us were here.  At present they think we are three or four
+in possession and with the consent of the women."
+
+"The dogs!"
+
+"They are paying us the highest compliment they can conceive of by
+supposing us cleverer scoundrels than themselves.  You are very
+unjust, Ned."
+
+"If they escape and tell their story?"
+
+"We shall have the rare pleasure of knowing we are better than
+people believe us.  And now put those boots away somewhere where we
+can produce them if necessary, as evidence of Manuel's evening
+call.  At present we'll keep the thing quiet, and in the early
+morning you can find out where they got in and remove any traces
+they have left.  It is no use to frighten the women.  There's no
+fear of their returning."
+
+"And if they get away?"
+
+"We can follow in their tracks."
+
+"If Manuel gives the alarm?"
+
+"With his burglarious boots left behind in the house?  Not much!
+Good-night, Ned.  Go to bed."
+
+With these words Lee turned on his side and quietly resumed his
+interrupted slumber.  Falkner did not, however, follow this
+sensible advice.  When he was satisfied that his friend was
+sleeping he opened the door softly and looked out.  He did not
+appear to be listening, for his eyes were fixed upon a small pencil
+of light that stole across the passage from the foot of Kate's
+door.  He watched it until it suddenly disappeared, when, leaving
+the door partly open, he threw himself on his couch without
+removing his clothes.  The slight movement awakened the sleeper,
+who was beginning to feel the accession of fever.  He moved
+restlessly.
+
+"George," said Falkner, softly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where was it we passed that old Mission Church on the road one
+dark night, and saw the light burning before the figure of the
+Virgin through the window?"
+
+There was a moment of crushing silence.  "Does that mean you're
+wanting to light the candle again?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then don't lie there inventing sacrilegious conundrums, but go to
+sleep."
+
+Nevertheless, in the morning his fever was slightly worse.  Mrs.
+Hale, offering her condolence, said, "I know that you have not been
+resting well, for even after your friend met with that mishap in
+the hall, I heard your voices, and Kate says your door was open all
+night.  You have a little fever too, Mr. Falkner."
+
+George looked curiously at Falkner's pale face--it was burning.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The speed and fury with which Clinch's cavalcade swept on in the
+direction of the mysterious shot left Hale no chance for
+reflection.  He was conscious of shouting incoherently with the
+others, of urging his horse irresistibly forward, of momentarily
+expecting to meet or overtake something, but without any further
+thought.  The figures of Clinch and Rawlins immediately before him
+shut out the prospect of the narrowing trail.  Once only, taking
+advantage of a sudden halt that threw them confusedly together, he
+managed to ask a question.
+
+"Lost their track--found it again!" shouted the ostler, as Clinch,
+with a cry like the baying of a hound, again darted forward.  Their
+horses were panting and trembling under them, the ascent seemed to
+be growing steeper, a singular darkness, which even the density of
+the wood did not sufficiently account for, surrounded them, but
+still their leader madly urged them on.  To Hale's returning senses
+they did not seem in a condition to engage a single resolute man,
+who might have ambushed in the woods or beaten them in detail in
+the narrow gorge, but in another instant the reason of their
+furious haste was manifest.  Spurring his horse ahead, Clinch
+dashed out into the open with a cheering shout--a shout that as
+quickly changed to a yell of imprecation.  They were on the Ridge
+in a blinding snow-storm!  The road had already vanished under
+their feet, and with it the fresh trail they had so closely
+followed!  They stood helplessly on the shore of a trackless white
+sea, blank and spotless of any trace or sign of the fugitives.
+
+"'Pears to me, boys," said the ostler, suddenly ranging before
+them, "ef you're not kalkilatin' on gittin' another party to dig ye
+out, ye'd better be huntin' fodder and cover instead of road
+agents.  'Skuse me, gentlemen, but I'm responsible for the hosses,
+and this ain't no time for circus-ridin'.  We're a matter o' six
+miles from the station in a bee line."
+
+"Back to the trail, then," said Clinch, wheeling his horse towards
+the road they had just quitted.
+
+"'Skuse me, Kernel," said the ostler, laying his hand on Clinch's
+rein, "but that way only brings us back the road we kem--the stage
+road--three miles further from home.  That three miles is on the
+divide, and by the time we get there it will be snowed up worse nor
+this.  The shortest cut is along the Ridge.  If we hump ourselves
+we ken cross the divide afore the road is blocked.  And that,
+'skuse me, gentlemen, is MY road."
+
+There was no time for discussion.  The road was already palpably
+thickening under their feet.  Hale's arm was stiffened to his side
+by a wet, clinging snow-wreath.  The figures of the others were
+almost obliterated and shapeless.  It was not snowing--it was
+snowballing!  The huge flakes, shaken like enormous feathers out of
+a vast blue-black cloud, commingled and fell in sprays and patches.
+All idea of their former pursuit was forgotten; the blind rage and
+enthusiasm that had possessed them was gone.  They dashed after
+their new leader with only an instinct for shelter and succor.
+
+They had not ridden long when fortunately, as it seemed to Hale,
+the character of the storm changed.  The snow no longer fell in
+such large flakes, nor as heavily.  A bitter wind succeeded; the
+soft snow began to stiffen and crackle under the horses' hoofs;
+they were no longer weighted and encumbered by the drifts upon
+their bodies; the smaller flakes now rustled and rasped against
+them like sand, or bounded from them like hail.  They seemed to be
+moving more easily and rapidly, their spirits were rising with the
+stimulus of cold and motion, when suddenly their leader halted.
+
+"It's no use, boys.  It can't be done!  This is no blizzard, but a
+regular two days' snifter!  It's no longer meltin', but packin' and
+driftin' now.  Even if we get over the divide, we're sure to be
+blocked up in the pass."
+
+It was true!  To their bitter disappointment they could now see
+that the snow had not really diminished in quantity, but that the
+now finely-powdered particles were rapidly filling all inequalities
+of the surface, packing closely against projections, and swirling
+in long furrows across the levels.  They looked with anxiety at
+their self-constituted leader.
+
+"We must make a break to get down in the woods again before it's
+too late," he said briefly.
+
+But they had already drifted away from the fringe of larches and
+dwarf pines that marked the sides of the Ridge, and lower down
+merged into the dense forest that clothed the flank of the mountain
+they had lately climbed, and it was with the greatest difficulty
+that they again reached it, only to find that at that point it was
+too precipitous for the descent of their horses.  Benumbed and
+speechless, they continued to toil on, opposed to the full fury of
+the stinging snow, and at times obliged to turn their horses to the
+blast to keep from being blown over the Ridge.  At the end of half
+an hour the ostler dismounted, and, beckoning to the others, took
+his horse by the bridle, and began the descent.  When it came to
+Hale's turn to dismount he could not help at first recoiling from
+the prospect before him.  The trail--if it could be so called--was
+merely the track or furrow of some fallen tree dragged, by accident
+or design, diagonally across the sides of the mountain.  At times
+it appeared scarcely a foot in width; at other times a mere
+crumbling gully, or a narrow shelf made by the projections of dead
+boughs and collected debris.  It seemed perilous for a foot
+passenger, it appeared impossible for a horse.  Nevertheless, he
+had taken a step forward when Clinch laid his hand on his arm.
+
+"You'll bring up the rear," he said not unkindly, "ez you're a
+stranger here.  Wait until we sing out to you."
+
+"But if I prefer to take the same risks as you all?" said Hale
+stiffly.
+
+"You kin," said Clinch grimly.  "But I reckoned, as you wern't
+familiar with this sort o' thing, you wouldn't keer, by any
+foolishness o' yours, to stampede the rocks ahead of us, and break
+down the trail, or send down an avalanche on top of us.  But just
+ez you like."
+
+"I will wait, then," said Hale hastily.
+
+The rebuke, however, did him good service.  It preoccupied his
+mind, so that it remained unaffected by the dizzy depths, and
+enabled him to abandon himself mechanically to the sagacity of his
+horse, who was contented simply to follow the hoofprints of the
+preceding animal, and in a few moments they reached the broader
+trail without a mishap.  A discussion regarding their future
+movements was already taking place.  The impossibility of regaining
+the station at the Summit was admitted; the way down the mountain
+to the next settlement was still left to them, or the adjacent
+woods, if they wished for an encampment.  The ostler once more
+assumed authority.
+
+"'Skuse me, gentlemen, but them horses don't take no pasear down
+the mountain to-night.  The stage-road ain't a mile off, and I
+kalkilate to wait here till the up stage comes.  She's bound to
+stop on account of the snow; and I've done my dooty when I hand the
+horses over to the driver."
+
+"But if she hears of the block up yer, and waits at the lower
+station?" said Rawlins.
+
+"Then I've done my dooty all the same.  'Skuse me, gentlemen, but
+them ez hez their own horses kin do ez they like."
+
+As this clearly pointed to Hale, he briefly assured his companions
+that he had no intention of deserting them.  "If I cannot reach
+Eagle's Court, I shall at least keep as near it as possible.  I
+suppose any messenger from my house to the Summit will learn where
+I am and why I am delayed?"
+
+"Messenger from your house!" gasped Rawlins.  "Are you crazy,
+stranger?  Only a bird would get outer Eagle's now; and it would
+hev to be an eagle at that!  Between your house and the Summit the
+snow must be ten feet by this time, to say nothing of the drift in
+the pass."
+
+Hale felt it was the truth.  At any other time he would have
+worried over this unexpected situation, and utter violation of all
+his traditions.  He was past that now, and even felt a certain
+relief.  He knew his family were safe; it was enough.  That they
+were locked up securely, and incapable of interfering with HIM,
+seemed to enhance his new, half-conscious, half-shy enjoyment of an
+adventurous existence.
+
+The ostler, who had been apparently lost in contemplation of the
+steep trail he had just descended, suddenly clapped his hand to his
+leg with an ejaculation of gratified astonishment.
+
+"Waal, darn my skin ef that ain't Hennicker's 'slide' all the time!
+I heard it was somewhat about here."
+
+Rawlins briefly explained to Hale that a slide was a rude incline
+for the transit of heavy goods that could not be carried down a
+trail.
+
+"And Hennicker's," continued the man, "ain't more nor a mile away.
+Ye might try Hennicker's at a push, eh?"
+
+By a common instinct the whole party looked dubiously at Hale.
+"Who's Hennicker?" he felt compelled to ask.
+
+The ostler hesitated, and glanced at the others to reply.  "There
+ARE folks," he said lazily, at last, "ez beleeves that Hennicker
+ain't much better nor the crowd we're hunting; but they don't say
+it TO Hennicker.  We needn't let on what we're after."
+
+"I for one," said Hale stoutly, "decidedly object to any
+concealment of our purpose."
+
+"It don't follow," said Rawlins carelessly, "that Hennicker even
+knows of this yer robbery.  It's his gineral gait we refer to.  Ef
+yer think it more polite, and it makes it more sociable to discuss
+this matter afore him, I'm agreed."
+
+"Hale means," said Clinch, "that it wouldn't be on the square to
+take and make use of any points we might pick up there agin the
+road agents."
+
+"Certainly," said Hale.  It was not at all what he had meant, but
+he felt singularly relieved at the compromise.
+
+"And ez I reckon Hennicker ain't such a fool ez not to know who we
+are and what we're out for," continued Clinch, "I reckon there
+ain't any concealment."
+
+"Then it's Hennicker's?" said the ostler, with swift deduction.
+
+"Hennicker's it is!  Lead on."
+
+The ostler remounted his horse, and the others followed.  The trail
+presently turned into a broader track, that bore some signs of
+approaching habitations, and at the end of five minutes they came
+upon a clearing.  It was part of one of the fragmentary mountain
+terraces, and formed by itself a vast niche, or bracketed shelf, in
+the hollow flank of the mountain that, to Hale's first glance, bore
+a rude resemblance to Eagle's Court.  But there was neither meadow
+nor open field; the few acres of ground had been wrested from the
+forest by axe and fire, and unsightly stumps everywhere marked the
+rude and difficult attempts at cultivation.  Two or three rough
+buildings of unplaned and unpainted boards, connected by rambling
+sheds, stood in the centre of the amphitheatre.  Far from being
+protected by the encircling rampart, it seemed to be the selected
+arena for the combating elements.  A whirlwind from the outer abyss
+continually filled this cave of AEolus with driving snow, which,
+however, melted as it fell, or was quickly whirled away again.
+
+A few dogs barked and ran out to meet the cavalcade, but there was
+no other sign of any life disturbed or concerned at their approach.
+
+"I reckon Hennicker ain't home, or he'd hev been on the lookout
+afore this," said the ostler, dismounting and rapping on the door.
+
+After a silence, a female voice, unintelligibly to the others,
+apparently had some colloquy with the ostler, who returned to the
+party.
+
+"Must go in through the kitchin--can't open the door for the wind."
+
+Leaving their horses in the shed, they entered the kitchen, which
+communicated, and presently came upon a square room filled with
+smoke from a fire of green pine logs.  The doors and windows were
+tightly fastened; the only air came in through the large-throated
+chimney in voluminous gusts, which seemed to make the hollow shell
+of the apartment swell and expand to the point of bursting.
+Despite the stinging of the resinous smoke, the temperature was
+grateful to the benumbed travellers.  Several cushionless arm-
+chairs, such as were used in bar-rooms, two tables, a sideboard,
+half bar and half cupboard, and a rocking-chair comprised the
+furniture, and a few bear and buffalo skins covered the floor.
+Hale sank into one of the arm-chairs, and, with a lazy
+satisfaction, partly born of his fatigue and partly from some
+newly-discovered appreciative faculty, gazed around the room, and
+then at the mistress of the house, with whom the others were
+talking.
+
+She was tall, gaunt, and withered; in spite of her evident years,
+her twisted hair was still dark and full, and her eyes bright and
+piercing; her complexion and teeth had long since succumbed to the
+vitiating effects of frontier cookery, and her lips were stained
+with the yellow juice of a brier-wood pipe she held in her mouth.
+The ostler had explained their intrusion, and veiled their
+character under the vague epithet of a "hunting party," and was now
+evidently describing them personally.  In his new-found philosophy
+the fact that the interest of his hostess seemed to be excited only
+by the names of his companions, that he himself was carelessly, and
+even deprecatingly, alluded to as the "stranger from Eagle's" by
+the ostler, and completely overlooked by the old woman, gave him no
+concern.
+
+"You'll have to talk to Zenobia yourself.  Dod rot ef I'm gine to
+interfere.  She knows Hennicker's ways, and if she chooses to take
+in transients it ain't no funeral o' mine.  Zeenie!  You, Zeenie!
+Look yer!"
+
+A tall, lazy-looking, handsome girl appeared on the threshold of
+the next room, and with a hand on each door-post slowly swung
+herself backwards and forwards, without entering.  "Well, Maw?"
+
+The old woman briefly and unalluringly pictured the condition of
+the travellers.
+
+"Paw ain't here," began the girl doubtfully, "and--How dy, Dick!
+is that you?"  The interruption was caused by her recognition of
+the ostler, and she lounged into the room.  In spite of a skimp,
+slatternly gown, whose straight skirt clung to her lower limbs,
+there was a quaint, nymph-like contour to her figure.  Whether from
+languor, ill-health, or more probably from a morbid consciousness
+of her own height, she moved with a slightly affected stoop that
+had become a habit.  It did not seem ungraceful to Hale, already
+attracted by her delicate profile, her large dark eyes, and a
+certain weird resemblance she had to some half-domesticated dryad.
+
+"That'll do, Maw," she said, dismissing her parent with a nod.
+"I'll talk to Dick."
+
+As the door closed on the old woman, Zenobia leaned her hands on
+the back of a chair, and confronted the admiring eyes of Dick with
+a goddess-like indifference.
+
+"Now wot's the use of your playin' this yer game on me, Dick?
+Wot's the good of your ladlin' out that hogwash about huntin'?
+HUNTIN'!  I'll tell yer the huntin' you-uns hev been at!  You've
+been huntin' George Lee and his boys since an hour before sun up.
+You've been followin' a blind trail up to the Ridge, until the snow
+got up and hunted YOU right here!  You've been whoopin' and yellin'
+and circus-ridin' on the roads like ez yer wos Comanches, and
+frightening all the women folk within miles--that's your huntin'!
+You've been climbin' down Paw's old slide at last, and makin'
+tracks for here to save the skins of them condemned government
+horses of the Kempany!  And THAT'S your huntin'!"
+
+To Hale's surprise, a burst of laughter from the party followed
+this speech.  He tried to join in, but this ridiculous summary of
+the result of his enthusiastic sense of duty left him--the only
+earnest believer mortified and embarrassed.  Nor was he the less
+concerned as he found the girl's dark eyes had rested once or twice
+upon him curiously.  Zenobia laughed too, and, lazily turning the
+chair around, dropped into it.  "And by this time George Lee's
+loungin' back in his chyar and smokin' his cigyar somewhar in
+Sacramento," she added, stretching her feet out to the fire, and
+suiting the action to the word with an imaginary cigar between the
+long fingers of a thin and not over-clean hand.
+
+"We cave, Zeenie!" said Rawlins, when their hilarity had subsided
+to a more subdued and scarcely less flattering admiration of the
+unconcerned goddess before them.  "That's about the size of it.
+You kin rake down the pile.  I forgot you're an old friend of
+George's."
+
+"He's a white man!" said the girl decidedly.
+
+"Ye used to know him?" continued Rawlins.
+
+"Once.  Paw ain't in that line now," she said simply.
+
+There was such a sublime unconsciousness of any moral degradation
+involved in this allusion that even Hale accepted it without a
+shock.  She rose presently, and, going to the little sideboard,
+brought out a number of glasses; these she handed to each of the
+party, and then, producing a demijohn of whiskey, slung it
+dexterously and gracefully over her arm, so that it rested on her
+elbow like a cradle, and, going to each one in succession, filled
+their glasses.  It obliged each one to rise to accept the libation,
+and as Hale did so in his turn he met the dark eyes of the girl
+full on his own.  There was a pleased curiosity in her glance that
+made this married man of thirty-five color as awkwardly as a boy.
+
+The tender of refreshment being understood as a tacit recognition
+of their claims to a larger hospitality, all further restraint was
+removed.  Zenobia resumed her seat, and placing her elbow on the
+arm of her chair, and her small round chin in her hand, looked
+thoughtfully in the fire.  "When I say George Lee's a white man, it
+ain't because I know him.  It's his general gait.  Wot's he ever
+done that's underhanded or mean?  Nothin'!  You kant show the poor
+man he's ever took a picayune from.  When he's helped himself to a
+pile it's been outer them banks or them express companies, that
+think it mighty fine to bust up themselves, and swindle the poor
+folks o' their last cent, and nobody talks o' huntin' THEM!  And
+does he keep their money?  No; he passes it round among the boys
+that help him, and they put it in circulation.  HE don't keep it
+for himself; he ain't got fine houses in Frisco; he don't keep fast
+horses for show.  Like ez not the critter he did that job with--ef
+it was him--none of you boys would have rid!  And he takes all the
+risks himself; you ken bet your life that every man with him was
+safe and away afore he turned his back on you-uns."
+
+"He certainly drops a little of his money at draw poker, Zeenie,"
+said Clinch, laughing.  "He lost five thousand dollars to Sheriff
+Kelly last week."
+
+"Well, I don't hear of the sheriff huntin' him to give it back, nor
+do I reckon Kelly handed it over to the Express it was taken from.
+I heard YOU won suthin' from him a spell ago.  I reckon you've been
+huntin' him to find out whar you should return it."  The laugh was
+clearly against Clinch.  He was about to make some rallying
+rejoinder when the young girl suddenly interrupted him.  "Ef you're
+wantin' to hunt somebody, why don't you take higher game?  Thar's
+that Jim Harkins: go for him, and I'll join you."
+
+"Harkins!" exclaimed Clinch and Hale simultaneously.
+
+"Yes, Jim Harkins; do you know him?" she said, glancing from one to
+the other.
+
+"One of my friends do," said Clinch laughing; "but don't let that
+stop you."
+
+"And YOU--over there," continued Zenobia, bending her head and eyes
+towards Hale.
+
+"The fact is--I believe he was my banker," said Hale, with a smile.
+"I don't know him personally."
+
+"Then you'd better hunt him before he does you."
+
+"What's HE done, Zeenie?" asked Rawlins, keenly enjoying the
+discomfiture of the others.
+
+"What?"  She stopped, threw her long black braids over her
+shoulder, clasped her knee with her hands, and rocking backwards
+and forwards, sublimely unconscious of the apparition of a slim
+ankle and half-dropped-off slipper from under her shortened gown,
+continued, "It mightn't please HIM," she said slyly, nodding
+towards Hale.
+
+"Pray don't mind me," said Hale, with unnecessary eagerness.
+
+"Well," said Zenobia, "I reckon you all know Ned Falkner and the
+Excelsior Ditch?"
+
+"Yes, Falkner's the superintendent of it," said Rawlins.  "And a
+square man too.  Thar ain't anything mean about him."
+
+"Shake," said Zenobia, extending her hand.  Rawlins shook the
+proffered hand with eager spontaneousness, and the girl resumed:
+"He's about ez good ez they make 'em--you bet.  Well, you know Ned
+has put all his money, and all his strength, and all his sabe, and--"
+
+"His good looks," added Clinch mischievously.
+
+"Into that Ditch," continued Zenobia, ignoring the interruption.
+"It's his mother, it's his sweetheart, it's his everything!  When
+other chaps of his age was cavortin' round Frisco, and havin' high
+jinks, Ned was in his Ditch.  'Wait till the Ditch is done,' he
+used to say.  'Wait till she begins to boom, and then you just
+stand round.'  Mor'n that, he got all the boys to put in their last
+cent--for they loved Ned, and love him now, like ez ef he wos a
+woman."
+
+"That's so," said Clinch and Rawlins simultaneously, "and he's
+worth it."
+
+"Well," continued Zenobia, "the Ditch didn't boom ez soon ez they
+kalkilated.  And then the boys kept gettin' poorer and poorer, and
+Ned he kept gettin' poorer and poorer in everything but his
+hopefulness and grit.  Then he looks around for more capital.  And
+about this time, that coyote Harkins smelt suthin' nice up there,
+and he gits Ned to give him control of it, and he'll lend him his
+name and fix up a company.  Soon ez he gets control, the first
+thing he does is to say that it wants half a million o' money to
+make it pay, and levies an assessment of two hundred dollars a
+share.  That's nothin' for them rich fellows to pay, or pretend to
+pay, but for boys on grub wages it meant only ruin.  They couldn't
+pay, and had to forfeit their shares for next to nothing.  And Ned
+made one more desperate attempt to save them and himself by
+borrowing money on his shares; when that hound Harkins got wind of
+it, and let it be buzzed around that the Ditch is a failure, and
+that he was goin' out of it; that brought the shares down to
+nothing.  As Ned couldn't raise a dollar, the new company swooped
+down on his shares for the debts THEY had put up, and left him and
+the boys to help themselves.  Ned couldn't bear to face the boys
+that he'd helped to ruin, and put out, and ain't been heard from
+since.  After Harkins had got rid of Ned and the boys he manages to
+pay off that wonderful debt, and sells out for a hundred thousand
+dollars.  That money--Ned's money--he sends to Sacramento, for he
+don't dare to travel with it himself, and is kalkilatin' to leave
+the kentry, for some of the boys allow to kill him on sight.  So ef
+you're wantin' to hunt suthin', thar's yer chance, and you needn't
+go inter the snow to do it."
+
+"But surely the law can recover this money?" said Hale indignantly.
+"It is as infamous a robbery as--"  He stopped as he caught
+Zenobia's eye.
+
+"Ez last night's, you were goin' to say.  I'll call it MORE.  Them
+road agents don't pretend to be your friend--but take yer money and
+run their risks.  For ez to the law--that can't help yer."
+
+"It's a skin game, and you might ez well expect to recover a
+gambling debt from a short-card sharp," explained Clinch; "Falkner
+oughter shot him on sight."
+
+"Or the boys lynched him," suggested Rawlins.
+
+"I think," said Hale, more reflectively, "that in the absence of
+legal remedy a man of that kind should have been forced under
+strong physical menace to give up his ill-gotten gains.  The money
+was the primary object, and if that could be got without bloodshed--
+which seems to me a useless crime--it would be quite as effective.
+Of course, if there was resistance or retaliation, it might be
+necessary to kill him."
+
+He had unconsciously fallen into his old didactic and dogmatic
+habit of speech, and perhaps, under the spur of Zenobia's eyes, he
+had given it some natural emphasis.  A dead silence followed, in
+which the others regarded him with amused and gratified surprise,
+and it was broken only by Zenobia rising and holding out her hand.
+"Shake!"
+
+Hale raised it gallantly, and pressed his lips on the one spotless
+finger.
+
+"That's gospel truth.  And you ain't the first white man to say
+it."
+
+"Indeed," laughed Hale.  "Who was the other?"
+
+"George Lee!"
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The laughter that followed was interrupted by a sudden barking of
+the dogs in the outer clearing.  Zenobia rose lazily and strode to
+the window.  It relieved Hale of certain embarrassing reflections
+suggested by her comment.
+
+"Ef it ain't that God-forsaken fool Dick bringing up passengers
+from the snow-bound up stage in the road!  I reckon I'VE got
+suthin' to say to that!"  But the later appearance of the
+apologetic Dick, with the assurance that the party carried a
+permission from her father, granted at the lower station in view of
+such an emergency, checked her active opposition.  "That's like
+Paw," she soliloquized aggrievedly; "shuttin' us up and settin'
+dogs on everybody for a week, and then lettin' the whole stage
+service pass through one door and out at another.  Well, it's HIS
+house and HIS whiskey, and they kin take it, but they don't get me
+to help 'em."
+
+They certainly were not a prepossessing or good-natured acquisition
+to the party.  Apart from the natural antagonism which, on such
+occasions, those in possession always feel towards the new-comer,
+they were strongly inclined to resist the dissatisfied
+querulousness and aggressive attitude of these fresh applicants for
+hospitality.  The most offensive one was a person who appeared to
+exercise some authority over the others.  He was loud, assuming,
+and dressed with vulgar pretension.  He quickly disposed himself in
+the chair vacated by Zenobia, and called for some liquor.
+
+"I reckon you'll hev to help yourself," said Rawlins dryly, as the
+summons met with no response.  "There are only two women in the
+house, and I reckon their hands are full already."
+
+"I call it d--d uncivil treatment," said the man, raising his
+voice; "and Hennicker had better sing smaller if he don't want his
+old den pulled down some day.  He ain't any better than men that
+hev been picked up afore now."
+
+"You oughter told him that, and mebbe he'd hev come over with yer,"
+returned Rawlins.  "He's a mild, soft, easy-going man, is
+Hennicker!  Ain't he, Colonel Clinch?"
+
+The casual mention of Clinch's name produced the effect which the
+speaker probably intended.  The stranger stared at Clinch, who,
+apparently oblivious of the conversation, was blinking his cold
+gray eyes at the fire.  Dropping his aggressive tone to mere
+querulousness, the man sought the whiskey demijohn, and helped
+himself and his companions.  Fortified by liquor he returned to the
+fire.
+
+"I reckon you've heard about this yer robbery, Colonel," he said,
+addressing Clinch, with an attempt at easy familiarity.
+
+Without raising his eyes from the fire, Clinch briefly assented, "I
+reckon."
+
+"I'm up yer, examining into it, for the Express."
+
+"Lost much?" asked Rawlins.
+
+"Not so much ez they might hev.  That fool Harkins had a hundred
+thousand dollars in greenbacks sealed up like an ordinary package
+of a thousand dollars, and gave it to a friend, Bill Guthrie, in
+the bank to pick out some unlikely chap among the passengers to
+take charge of it to Reno.  He wouldn't trust the Express.  Ha! ha!"
+
+The dead, oppressive silence that followed his empty laughter made
+it seem almost artificial.  Rawlins held his breath and looked at
+Clinch.  Hale, with the instincts of a refined, sensitive man,
+turned hot with the embarrassment Clinch should have shown.  For
+that gentleman, without lifting his eyes from the fire, and with no
+apparent change in his demeanor, lazily asked--
+
+"Ye didn't ketch the name o' that passenger?"
+
+"Naturally, no!  For when Guthrie heard what was said agin him he
+wouldn't give his name until he heard from him."
+
+"And WHAT was said agin him?" asked Clinch musingly.
+
+"What would be said agin a man that give up that sum o' money, like
+a chaw of tobacco, for the asking?  Why, there were but three men,
+as far ez we kin hear, that did the job.  And there were four
+passengers inside, armed, and the driver and express messenger on
+the box.  Six were robbed by THREE!--they were a sweet-scented lot!
+Reckon they must hev felt mighty small, for I hear they got up and
+skedaddled from the station under the pretext of lookin' for the
+robbers."  He laughed again, and the laugh was noisily repeated by
+his five companions at the other end of the room.
+
+Hale, who had forgotten that the stranger was only echoing a part
+of his own criticism of eight hours before, was on the point of
+rising with burning cheeks and angry indignation, when the lazily
+uplifted eye of Clinch caught his, and absolutely held him down
+with its paralyzing and deadly significance.  Murder itself seemed
+to look from those cruelly quiet and remorseless gray pupils.  For
+a moment he forgot his own rage in this glimpse of Clinch's
+implacable resentment; for a moment he felt a thrill of pity for
+the wretch who had provoked it.  He remained motionless and
+fascinated in his chair as the lazy lids closed like a sheath over
+Clinch's eyes again.  Rawlins, who had probably received the same
+glance of warning, remained equally still.
+
+"They haven't heard the last of it yet, you bet," continued the
+infatuated stranger.  "I've got a little statement here for the
+newspaper," he added, drawing some papers from his pocket; "suthin'
+I just run off in the coach as I came along.  I reckon it'll show
+things up in a new light.  It's time there should be some change.
+All the cussin' that's been usually done hez been by the passengers
+agin the express and stage companies.  I propose that the Company
+should do a little cussin' themselves.  See?  P'r'aps you don't
+mind my readin' it to ye?  It's just spicy enough to suit them
+newspaper chaps."
+
+"Go on," said Colonel Clinch quietly.
+
+The man cleared his throat, with the preliminary pose of
+authorship, and his five friends, to whom the composition was
+evidently not unfamiliar, assumed anticipatory smiles.
+
+"I call it 'Prize Pusillanimous Passengers.'  Sort of runs easy off
+the tongue, you know.
+
+"'It now appears that the success of the late stagecoach robbery
+near the Summit was largely due to the pusillanimity--not to use a
+more serious word'"--  He stopped, and looked explanatorily towards
+Clinch: "Ye'll see in a minit what I'm gettin' at by that
+pusillanimity of the passengers themselves.  'It now transpires
+that there were only three robbers who attacked the coach, and that
+although passengers, driver, and express messenger were fully
+armed, and were double the number of their assailants, not a shot
+was fired.  We mean no reflections upon the well-known courage of
+Yuba Bill, nor the experience and coolness of Bracy Tibbetts, the
+courteous express messenger, both of whom have since confessed to
+have been more than astonished at the Christian and lamb-like
+submission of the insiders.  Amusing stories of some laughable yet
+sickening incidents of the occasion--such as grown men kneeling in
+the road, and offering to strip themselves completely, if their
+lives were only spared; of one of the passengers hiding under the
+seat, and only being dislodged by pulling his coat-tails; of
+incredible sums promised, and even offers of menial service, for
+the preservation of their wretched carcases--are received with the
+greatest gusto; but we are in possession of facts which may lead to
+more serious accusations.  Although one of the passengers is said
+to have lost a large sum of money intrusted to him, while
+attempting with barefaced effrontery to establish a rival
+"carrying" business in one of the Express Company's own coaches--'I
+call that a good point."  He interrupted himself to allow the
+unrestrained applause of his own party.  "Don't you?"
+
+"It's just h-ll," said Clinch musingly.
+
+"'Yet the affair," resumed the stranger from his manuscript, "'is
+locked up in great and suspicious mystery.  The presence of Jackson
+N. Stanner, Esq.' (that's me), 'special detective agent to the
+Company, and his staff in town, is a guaranty that the mystery will
+be thoroughly probed.'  Hed to put that in to please the Company,"
+he again deprecatingly explained.  "'We are indebted to this
+gentleman for the facts.'"
+
+"The pint you want to make in that article," said Clinch, rising,
+but still directing his face and his conversation to the fire, "ez
+far ez I ken see ez that no three men kin back down six unless they
+be cowards, or are willing to be backed down."
+
+"That's the point what I start from," rejoined Stanner, "and work
+up.  I leave it to you ef it ain't so."
+
+"I can't say ez I agree with you," said the Colonel dryly.  He
+turned, and still without lifting his eyes walked towards the door
+of the room which Zenobia had entered.  The key was on the inside,
+but Clinch gently opened the door, removed the key, and closing the
+door again locked it from his side.  Hale and Rawlins felt their
+hearts beat quickly; the others followed Clinch's slow movements
+and downcast mien with amused curiosity.  After locking the other
+outlet from the room, and putting the keys in his pocket, Clinch
+returned to the fire.  For the first time he lifted his eyes; the
+man nearest him shrank back in terror.
+
+"I am the man," he said slowly, taking deliberate breath between
+his sentences, "who gave up those greenbacks to the robbers.  I am
+one of the three passengers you have lampooned in that paper, and
+these gentlemen beside me are the other two."  He stopped and
+looked around him.  "You don't believe that three men can back down
+six!  Well, I'll show you how it can be done.  More than that, I'll
+show you how ONE man can do it; for, by the living G-d, if you
+don't hand over that paper I'll kill you where you sit!  I'll give
+you until I count ten; if one of you moves he and you are dead men--
+but YOU first!"
+
+Before he had finished speaking Hale and Rawlins had both risen, as
+if in concert, with their weapons drawn.  Hale could not tell how
+or why he had done so, but he was equally conscious, without
+knowing why, of fixing his eye on one of the other party, and that
+he should, in the event of an affray, try to kill him.  He did not
+attempt to reason; he only knew that he should do his best to kill
+that man and perhaps others.
+
+"One," said Clinch, lifting his derringer, "two--three--"
+
+"Look here, Colonel--I swear I didn't know it was you.  Come--d--m
+it!  I say--see here," stammered Stanner, with white cheeks, not
+daring to glance for aid to his stupefied party.
+
+"Four--five--six--"
+
+"Wait!  Here!"  He produced the paper and threw it on the floor.
+
+"Pick it up and hand it to me.  Seven--eight--"
+
+Stanner hastily scrambled to his feet, picked up the paper, and
+handed it to the Colonel.  "I was only joking, Colonel," he said,
+with a forced laugh.
+
+"I'm glad to hear it.  But as this joke is in black and white, you
+wouldn't mind saying so in the same fashion.  Take that pen and ink
+and write as I dictate.  'I certify that I am satisfied that the
+above statement is a base calumny against the characters of
+Ringwood Clinch, Robert Rawlins, and John Hale, passengers, and
+that I do hereby apologize to the same.'  Sign it.  That'll do.
+Now let the rest of your party sign as witnesses."
+
+They complied without hesitation; some, seizing the opportunity of
+treating the affair as a joke, suggested a drink.
+
+"Excuse me," said Clinch quietly, "but ez this house ain't big
+enough for me and that man, and ez I've got business at Wild Cat
+Station with this paper, I think I'll go without drinkin'."  He
+took the keys from his pocket, unlocked the doors, and taking up
+his overcoat and rifle turned as if to go.
+
+Rawlins rose to follow him; Hale alone hesitated.  The rapid
+occurrences of the last half hour gave him no time for reflection.
+But he was by no means satisfied of the legality of the last act he
+had aided and abetted, although he admitted its rude justice, and
+felt he would have done so again.  A fear of this, and an instinct
+that he might be led into further complications if he continued to
+identify himself with Clinch and Rawlins; the fact that they had
+professedly abandoned their quest, and that it was really
+supplanted by the presence of an authorized party whom they had
+already come in conflict with--all this urged him to remain behind.
+On the other hand, the apparent desertion of his comrades at the
+last moment was opposed both to his sense of honor and the liking
+he had taken to them.  But he reflected that he had already shown
+his active partisanship, that he could be of little service to them
+at Wild Cat Station, and would be only increasing the distance from
+his home; and above all, an impatient longing for independent
+action finally decided him.  "I think I'll stay here," he said to
+Clinch, "unless you want me."
+
+Clinch cast a swift and meaning glance at the enemy, but looked
+approval.  "Keep your eyes skinned, and you're good for a dozen of
+'em," he said sotto voce, and then turned to Stanner.  "I'm going
+to take this paper to Wild Cat.  If you want to communicate with me
+hereafter you know where I am to be found, unless--"he smiled
+grimly--"you'd like to see me outside for a few minutes before I
+go?"
+
+"It is a matter that concerns the Stage Company, not me," said
+Stanner, with an attempt to appear at his ease.
+
+Hale accompanied Clinch and Rawlins through the kitchen to the
+stables.  The ostler, Dick, had already returned to the rescue of
+the snow-bound coach.
+
+"I shouldn't like to leave many men alone with that crowd," said
+Clinch, pressing Hale's hand; "and I wouldn't have allowed your
+staying behind ef I didn't know I could bet my pile on you.  Your
+offerin' to stay just puts a clean finish on it.  Look yer, Hale, I
+didn't cotton much to you at first; but ef you ever want a friend,
+call on Ringwood Clinch."
+
+"The same here, old man," said Rawlins, extending his hand as he
+appeared from a hurried conference with the old woman at the
+woodshed, "and trust to Zeenie to give you a hint ef there's
+anythin' underhanded goin' on.  So long."
+
+Half inclined to resent this implied suggestion of protection, yet
+half pleased at the idea of a confidence with the handsome girl he
+had seen, Hale returned to the room.  A whispered discussion among
+the party ceased on his entering, and an awkward silence followed,
+which Hale did not attempt to break as he quietly took his seat
+again by the fire.  He was presently confronted by Stanner, who
+with an affectation of easy familiarity crossed over to the hearth.
+
+"The old Kernel's d--d peppery and high toned when he's got a
+little more than his reg'lar three fingers o' corn juice, eh?"
+
+"I must beg you to understand distinctly, Mr. Stanner," said Hale,
+with a return of his habitual precision of statement, "that I
+regard any slighting allusion to the gentleman who has just left
+not only as in exceedingly bad taste coming from YOU, but very
+offensive to myself.  If you mean to imply that he was under the
+influence of liquor, it is my duty to undeceive you; he was so
+perfectly in possession of his faculties as to express not only his
+own but MY opinion of your conduct.  You must also admit that he
+was discriminating enough to show his objection to your company by
+leaving it.  I regret that circumstances do not make it convenient
+for me to exercise that privilege; but if I am obliged to put up
+with your presence in this room, I strongly insist that it is not
+made unendurable with the addition of your conversation."
+
+The effect of this deliberate and passionless declaration was more
+discomposing to the party than Clinch's fury.  Utterly unaccustomed
+to the ideas and language suddenly confronting them, they were
+unable to determine whether it was the real expression of the
+speaker, or whether it was a vague badinage or affectation to which
+any reply would involve them in ridicule.  In a country terrorized
+by practical joking, they did not doubt but that this was a new
+form of hoaxing calculated to provoke some response that would
+constitute them as victims.  The immediate effect upon them was
+that complete silence in regard to himself that Hale desired.  They
+drew together again and conversed in whispers, while Hale, with his
+eyes fixed on the fire, gave himself up to somewhat late and
+useless reflection.
+
+He could scarcely realize his position.  For however he might look
+at it, within a space of twelve hours he had not only changed some
+of his most cherished opinions, but he had acted in accordance with
+that change in a way that made it seem almost impossible for him
+ever to recant.  In the interests of law and order he had engaged
+in an unlawful and disorderly pursuit of criminals, and had
+actually come in conflict not with the criminals, but with the only
+party apparently authorized to pursue them.  More than that, he was
+finding himself committed to a certain sympathy with the criminals.
+Twenty-four hours ago, if anyone had told him that he would have
+condoned an illegal act for its abstract justice, or assisted to
+commit an illegal act for the same purpose, he would have felt
+himself insulted.  That he knew he would not now feel it as an
+insult perplexed him still more.  In these circumstances the fact
+that he was separated from his family, and as it were from all his
+past life and traditions, by a chance accident, did not disturb him
+greatly; indeed, he was for the first time a little doubtful of
+their probable criticism on his inconsistency, and was by no means
+in a hurry to subject himself to it.
+
+Lifting his eyes, he was suddenly aware that the door leading to
+the kitchen was slowly opening.  He had thought he heard it creak
+once or twice during his deliberate reply to Stanner.  It was
+evidently moving now so as to attract his attention, without
+disturbing the others.  It presently opened sufficiently wide to
+show the face of Zeenie, who, with a gesture of caution towards his
+companions, beckoned him to join her.  He rose carelessly as if
+going out, and, putting on his hat, entered the kitchen as the
+retreating figure of the young girl glided lightly towards the
+stables.  She ascended a few open steps as if to a hay-loft, but
+stopped before a low door.  Pushing it open, she preceded him into
+a small room, apparently under the roof, which scarcely allowed her
+to stand upright.  By the light of a stable lantern hanging from a
+beam he saw that, though poorly furnished, it bore some evidence of
+feminine taste and habitation.  Motioning to the only chair, she
+seated herself on the edge of the bed, with her hands clasping her
+knees in her familiar attitude.  Her face bore traces of recent
+agitation, and her eyes were shining with tears.  By the closer
+light of the lantern he was surprised to find it was from laughter.
+
+"I reckoned you'd be right lonely down there with that Stanner
+crowd, particklerly after that little speech o' your'n, so I sez to
+Maw I'd get you up yer for a spell.  Maw and I heerd you exhort
+'em!  Maw allowed you woz talkin' a furrin' tongue all along, but
+I--sakes alive!--I hed to hump myself to keep from bustin' into a
+yell when yer jist drawed them Webster-unabridged sentences on
+'em."  She stopped and rocked backwards and forwards with a laugh
+that, subdued by the proximity of the roof and the fear of being
+overheard, was by no means unmusical.  "I'll tell ye whot got me,
+though!  That part commencing, 'Suckamstances over which I've no
+controul.'"
+
+"Oh, come!  I didn't say that," interrupted Hale, laughing.
+
+"'Don't make it convenient for me to exercise the privilege of
+kickin' yer out to that extent,'" she continued; "'but if I cannot
+dispense with your room, the least I can say is that it's a d--d
+sight better than your company--'or suthin' like that!  And then
+the way you minded your stops, and let your voice rise and fall
+just ez easy ez if you wos a First Reader in large type.  Why, the
+Kernel wasn't nowhere.  HIS cussin' didn't come within a mile o'
+yourn.  That Stanner jist turned yaller."
+
+"I'm afraid you are laughing at me," said Hale, not knowing whether
+to be pleased or vexed at the girl's amusement.
+
+"I reckon I'm the only one that dare do it, then," said the girl
+simply.  "The Kernel sez the way you turned round after he'd done
+his cussin', and said yer believed you'd stay and take the
+responsibility of the whole thing--and did, in that kam, soft, did-
+anybody-speak-to-me style--was the neatest thing he'd seen yet.
+No!  Maw says I ain't much on manners, but I know a man when I see
+him."
+
+For an instant Hale gave himself up to the delicious flattery of
+unexpected, unintended, and apparently uninterested compliment.
+Becoming at last a little embarrassed under the frank curiosity of
+the girl's dark eyes, he changed the subject.
+
+"Do you always come up here through the stables?" he asked,
+glancing round the room, which was evidently her own.
+
+"I reckon," she answered half abstractedly.  "There's a ladder down
+thar to Maw's room--"pointing to a trapdoor beside the broad
+chimney that served as a wall--"but it's handier the other way, and
+nearer the bosses if you want to get away quick."
+
+This palpable suggestion--borne out by what he remembered of the
+other domestic details--that the house had been planned with
+reference to sudden foray or escape reawakened his former uneasy
+reflections.  Zeenie, who had been watching his face, added, "It's
+no slouch, when b'ar or painters hang round nights and stampede the
+stock, to be able to swing yourself on to a boss whenever you hear
+a row going on outside."
+
+"Do you mean that YOU--"
+
+"Paw USED, and I do NOW, sense I've come into the room."  She
+pointed to a nondescript garment, half cloak, half habit, hanging
+on the wall.  "I've been outer bed and on Pitchpine's back as far
+ez the trail five minutes arter I heard the first bellow."
+
+Hale regarded her with undisguised astonishment.  There was nothing
+at all Amazonian or horsey in her manners, nor was there even the
+robust physical contour that might have been developed through such
+experiences.  On the contrary, she seemed to be lazily effeminate
+in body and mind.  Heedless of his critical survey of her, she
+beckoned him to draw his chair nearer, and, looking into his eyes,
+said--
+
+"Whatever possessed YOU to take to huntin' men?"
+
+Hale was staggered by the question, but nevertheless endeavored to
+explain.  But he was surprised to find that his explanation
+appeared stilted even to himself, and, he could not doubt, was
+utterly incomprehensible to the girl.  She nodded her head,
+however, and continued--
+
+"Then you haven't anythin' agin' George?"
+
+"I don't know George," said Hale, smiling.  "My proceeding was
+against the highwayman."
+
+"Well, HE was the highwayman."
+
+"I mean, it was the principle I objected to--a principle that I
+consider highly dangerous."
+
+"Well HE is the principal, for the others only HELPED, I reckon,"
+said Zeenie with a sigh, "and I reckon he IS dangerous."
+
+Hale saw it was useless to explain.  The girl continued--
+
+"What made you stay here instead of going on with the Kernel?
+There was suthin' else besides your wanting to make that Stanner
+take water.  What is it?"
+
+A light sense of the propinquity of beauty, of her confidence, of
+their isolation, of the eloquence of her dark eyes, at first
+tempted Hale to a reply of simple gallantry; a graver consideration
+of the same circumstances froze it upon his lips.
+
+"I don't know," he returned awkwardly.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," she said.  "You didn't cotton to the Kernel
+and Rawlins much more than you did to Stanner.  They ain't your
+kind."
+
+In his embarrassment Hale blundered upon the thought he had
+honorably avoided.
+
+"Suppose," he said, with a constrained laugh, "I had stayed to see
+you."
+
+"I reckon I ain't your kind, neither," she replied promptly.  There
+was a momentary pause when she rose and walked to the chimney.
+"It's very quiet down there," she said, stooping and listening over
+the roughly-boarded floor that formed the ceiling of the room
+below.  "I wonder what's going on."
+
+In the belief that this was a delicate hint for his return to the
+party he had left, Hale rose, but the girl passed him hurriedly,
+and, opening the door, cast a quick glance into the stable beyond.
+
+"Just as I reckoned--the horses are gone too.  They've skedaddled,"
+she said blankly.
+
+Hale did not reply.  In his embarrassment a moment ago the idea of
+taking an equally sudden departure had flashed upon him.  Should he
+take this as a justification of that impulse, or how?  He stood
+irresolutely gazing at the girl, who turned and began to descend
+the stairs silently.  He followed.  When they reached the lower
+room they found it as they had expected--deserted.
+
+"I hope I didn't drive them away," said Hale, with an uneasy look
+at the troubled face of the girl.  "For I really had an idea of
+going myself a moment ago."
+
+She remained silent, gazing out of the window.  Then, turning with
+a slight shrug of her shoulders, said half defiantly: "What's the
+use now?  Oh, Maw! the Stanner crowd has vamosed the ranch, and
+this yer stranger kalkilates to stay!"
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A week had passed at Eagle's Court--a week of mingled clouds and
+sunshine by day, of rain over the green plateau and snow on the
+mountain by night.  Each morning had brought its fresh greenness to
+the winter-girt domain, and a fresh coat of dazzling white to the
+barrier that separated its dwellers from the world beyond.  There
+was little change in the encompassing wall of their prison; if
+anything, the snowy circle round them seemed to have drawn its
+lines nearer day by day.  The immediate result of this restricted
+limit had been to confine the range of cattle to the meadows nearer
+the house, and at a safe distance from the fringe of wilderness now
+invaded by the prowling tread of predatory animals.
+
+Nevertheless, the two figures lounging on the slope at sunset gave
+very little indication of any serious quality in the situation.
+Indeed, so far as appearances were concerned, Kate, who was
+returning from an afternoon stroll with Falkner, exhibited, with
+feminine inconsistency, a decided return to the world of fashion
+and conventionality apparently just as she was effectually excluded
+from it.  She had not only discarded her white dress as a
+concession to the practical evidence of the surrounding winter, but
+she had also brought out a feather hat and sable muff which had
+once graced a fashionable suburb of Boston.  Even Falkner had
+exchanged his slouch hat and picturesque serape for a beaver
+overcoat and fur cap of Hale's which had been pressed upon him by
+Kate, under the excuse of the exigencies of the season.  Within a
+stone's throw of the thicket, turbulent with the savage forces of
+nature, they walked with the abstraction of people hearing only
+their own voices; in the face of the solemn peaks clothed with
+white austerity they talked gravely of dress.
+
+"I don't mean to say," said Kate demurely, "that you're to give up
+the serape entirely; you can wear it on rainy nights and when you
+ride over here from your friend's house to spend the evening--for
+the sake of old times," she added, with an unconscious air of
+referring to an already antiquated friendship; "but you must admit
+it's a little too gorgeous and theatrical for the sunlight of day
+and the public highway."
+
+"But why should that make it wrong, if the experience of a people
+has shown it to be a garment best fitted for their wants and
+requirements?" said Falkner argumentatively.
+
+"But you are not one of those people," said Kate, "and that makes
+all the difference.  You look differently and act differently, so
+that there is something irreconcilable between your clothes and you
+that makes you look odd."
+
+"And to look odd, according to your civilized prejudices, is to be
+wrong," said Falkner bitterly.
+
+"It is to seem different from what one really is--which IS wrong.
+Now, you are a mining superintendent, you tell me.  Then you don't
+want to look like a Spanish brigand, as you do in that serape.  I
+am sure if you had ridden up to a stage-coach while I was in it,
+I'd have handed you my watch and purse without a word.  There! you
+are not offended?" she added, with a laugh, which did not, however,
+conceal a certain earnestness.  "I suppose I ought to have said I
+would have given it gladly to such a romantic figure, and perhaps
+have got out and danced a saraband or bolero with you--if that is
+the thing to do nowadays.  Well!" she said, after a dangerous
+pause, "consider that I've said it."
+
+He had been walking a little before her, with his face turned
+towards the distant mountain.  Suddenly he stopped and faced her.
+"You would have given enough of your time to the highwayman, Miss
+Scott, as would have enabled you to identify him for the police--
+and no more.  Like your brother, you would have been willing to
+sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the laws of civilization and
+good order."
+
+If a denial to this assertion could have been expressed without the
+use of speech, it was certainly transparent in the face and eyes of
+the young girl at that moment.  If Falkner had been less self-
+conscious he would have seen it plainly.  But Kate only buried her
+face in her lifted muff, slightly raised her pretty shoulders, and,
+dropping her tremulous eyelids, walked on.  "It seems a pity," she
+said, after a pause, "that we cannot preserve our own miserable
+existence without taking something from others--sometimes even a
+life!"  He started.  "And it's horrid to have to remind you that
+you have yet to kill something for the invalid's supper," she
+continued.  "I saw a hare in the field yonder."
+
+"You mean that jackass rabbit?" he said, abstractedly.
+
+"What you please.  It's a pity you didn't take your gun instead of
+your rifle."
+
+"I brought the rifle for protection."
+
+"And a shot gun is only aggressive, I suppose?"
+
+Falkner looked at her for a moment, and then, as the hare suddenly
+started across the open a hundred yards away, brought the rifle to
+his shoulder.  A long interval--as it seemed to Kate--elapsed; the
+animal appeared to be already safely out of range, when the rifle
+suddenly cracked; the hare bounded in the air like a ball, and
+dropped motionless.  The girl looked at the marksman in undisguised
+admiration.  "Is it quite dead?" she said timidly.
+
+"It never knew what struck it."
+
+"It certainly looks less brutal than shooting it with a shot gun,
+as John does, and then not killing it outright," said Kate.  "I
+hate what is called sport and sportsmen, but a rifle seems--"
+
+"What?" said Falkner.
+
+"More--gentlemanly."
+
+She had raised her pretty head in the air, and, with her hand
+shading her eyes, was looking around the clear ether, and said
+meditatively, "I wonder--no matter."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+"It is something," said Falkner, with an amused smile, reloading
+his rifle.
+
+"Well, you once promised me an eagle's feather for my hat.  Isn't
+that thing an eagle?"
+
+"I am afraid it's only a hawk."
+
+"Well, that will do.  Shoot that!"
+
+Her eyes were sparkling.  Falkner withdrew his own with a slight
+smile, and raised his rifle with provoking deliberation.
+
+"Are you quite sure it's what you want?" he asked demurely.
+
+"Yes--quick!"
+
+Nevertheless, it was some minutes before the rifle cracked again.
+The wheeling bird suddenly struck the wind with its wings aslant,
+and then fell like a plummet at a distance which showed the
+difficulty of the feat.  Falkner started from her side before the
+bird reached the ground.  He returned to her after a lapse of a few
+moments, bearing a trailing wing in his hand.  "You shall make your
+choice," he said gayly.
+
+"Are you sure it was killed outright?"
+
+"Head shot off," said Falkner briefly.
+
+"And besides, the fall would have killed it," said Kate conclusively.
+"It's lovely.  I suppose they call you a very good shot?"
+
+"They--who?"
+
+"Oh! the people you know--your friends, and their sisters."
+
+"George shoots better than I do, and has had more experience.  I've
+seen him do that with a pistol.  Of course not such a long shot,
+but a more difficult one."
+
+Kate did not reply, but her face showed a conviction that as an
+artistic and gentlemanly performance it was probably inferior to
+the one she had witnessed.  Falkner, who had picked up the hare
+also, again took his place by her side, as they turned towards the
+house.
+
+"Do you remember the day you came, when we were walking here, you
+pointed out that rock on the mountain where the poor animals had
+taken refuge from the snow?" said Kate suddenly.
+
+"Yes," answered Falkner; "they seem to have diminished.  I am
+afraid you were right; they have either eaten each other or
+escaped.  Let us hope the latter."
+
+"I looked at them with a glass every day," said Kate, "and they've
+got down to only four.  There's a bear and that shabby, over-grown
+cat you call a California lion, and a wolf, and a creature like a
+fox or a squirrel."
+
+"It's a pity they're not all of a kind," said Falkner.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There'd be nothing to keep them from being comfortable together."
+
+"On the contrary, I should think it would be simply awful to be
+shut up entirely with one's own kind."
+
+"Then you believe it is possible for them, with their different
+natures and habits, to be happy together?" said Falkner, with
+sudden earnestness.
+
+"I believe," said Kate hurriedly, "that the bear and the lion find
+the fox and the wolf very amusing, and that the fox and the wolf--"
+
+"Well?" said Falkner, stopping short.
+
+"Well, the fox and the wolf will carry away a much better opinion
+of the lion and bear than they had before."
+
+They had reached the house by this time, and for some occult reason
+Kate did not immediately enter the parlor, where she had left her
+sister and the invalid, who had already been promoted to a sofa and
+a cushion by the window, but proceeded directly to her own room.
+As a manoeuvre to avoid meeting Mrs. Hale, it was scarcely
+necessary, for that lady was already in advance of her on the
+staircase, as if she had left the parlor for a moment before they
+entered the house.  Falkner, too, would have preferred the company
+of his own thoughts, but Lee, apparently the only unpreoccupied,
+all-pervading, and boyishly alert spirit in the party, hailed him
+from within, and obliged him to present himself on the threshold of
+the parlor with the hare and hawk's wing he was still carrying.
+Eying the latter with affected concern, Lee said gravely: "Of
+course, I CAN eat it, Ned, and I dare say it's the best part of the
+fowl, and the hare isn't more than enough for the women, but I had
+no idea we were so reduced.  Three hours and a half gunning, and
+only one hare and a hawk's wing.  It's terrible."
+
+Perceiving that his friend was alone, Falkner dropped his burden in
+the hall and strode rapidly to his side.  "Look here, George, we
+must, I must leave this place at once.  It's no use talking; I can
+stand this sort of thing no longer."
+
+"Nor can I, with the door open.  Shut it, and say what you want
+quick, before Mrs. Hale comes back.  Have you found a trail?"
+
+"No, no; that's not what I mean."
+
+"Well, it strikes me it ought to be, if you expect to get away.
+Have you proposed to Beacon Street, and she thinks it rather
+premature on a week's acquaintance?"
+
+"No; but--"
+
+"But you WILL, you mean?  DON'T, just yet."
+
+"But I cannot live this perpetual lie."
+
+"That depends.  I don't know HOW you're lying when I'm not with
+you.  If you're walking round with that girl, singing hymns and
+talking of your class in Sunday-school, or if you're insinuating
+that you're a millionaire, and think of buying the place for a
+summer hotel, I should say you'd better quit that kind of lying.
+But, on the other hand, I don't see the necessity of your dancing
+round here with a shot gun, and yelling for Harkins's blood, or
+counting that package of greenbacks in the lap of Miss Scott, to be
+truthful.  It seems to me there ought to be something between the
+two."
+
+"But, George, don't you think--you are on such good terms with Mrs.
+Hale and her mother--that you might tell them the whole story?
+That is, tell it in your own way; they will hear anything from you,
+and believe it."
+
+"Thank you; but suppose I don't believe in lying, either?"
+
+"You know what I mean!  You have a way, d--n it, of making
+everything seem like a matter of course, and the most natural thing
+going."
+
+"Well, suppose I did.  Are you prepared for the worst?"
+
+Falkner was silent for a moment, and then replied, "Yes, anything
+would be better than this suspense."
+
+"I don't agree with you.  Then you would be willing to have them
+forgive us?"
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"I mean that their forgiveness would be the worst thing that could
+happen.  Look here, Ned.  Stop a moment; listen at that door.  Mrs.
+Hale has the tread of an angel, with the pervading capacity of a
+cat.  Now listen!  I don't pretend to be in love with anybody here,
+but if I were I should hardly take advantage of a woman's
+helplessness and solitude with a sensational story about myself.
+It's not giving her a fair show.  You know she won't turn you out
+of the house."
+
+"No," said Falkner, reddening; "but I should expect to go at once,
+and that would be my only excuse for telling her."
+
+"Go! where?  In your preoccupation with that girl you haven't even
+found the trail by which Manuel escaped.  Do you intend to camp
+outside the house, and make eyes at her when she comes to the
+window?"
+
+"Because you think nothing of flirting with Mrs. Hale," said
+Falkner bitterly, "you care little--"
+
+"My dear Ned," said Lee, "the fact that Mrs. Hale has a husband,
+and knows that she can't marry me, puts us on equal terms.  Nothing
+that she could learn about me hereafter would make a flirtation
+with me any less wrong than it would be now, or make her seem more
+a victim.  Can you say the same of yourself and that Puritan girl?"
+
+"But you did not advise me to keep aloof from her; on the contrary,
+you--"
+
+"I thought you might make the best of the situation, and pay her
+some attention, BECAUSE you could not go any further."
+
+"You thought I was utterly heartless and selfish, like--"
+
+"Ned!"
+
+Falkner walked rapidly to the fireplace, and returned.
+
+"Forgive me, George--I'm a fool--and an ungrateful one."
+
+Lee did not reply at once, although he took and retained the hand
+Falkner had impulsively extended.  "Promise me, he said slowly,
+after a pause, "that you will say nothing yet to either of these
+women.  I ask it for your own sake, and this girl's, not for mine.
+If, on the contrary, you are tempted to do so from any Quixotic
+idea of honor, remember that you will only precipitate something
+that will oblige you, from that same sense of honor, to separate
+from the girl forever."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"Enough!" said he, with a quick return of his old reckless gayety.
+"Shoot-Off-His-Mouth--the Beardless Boy Chief of the Sierras--has
+spoken!  Let the Pale Face with the black moustache ponder and
+beware how he talks hereafter to the Rippling Cochituate Water!
+Go!"
+
+Nevertheless, as soon as the door had closed upon Falkner, Lee's
+smile vanished.  With his colorless face turned to the fading light
+at the window, the hollows in his temples and the lines in the
+corners of his eyes seemed to have grown more profound.  He
+remained motionless and absorbed in thought so deep that the light
+rustle of a skirt, that would at other times have thrilled his
+sensitive ear, passed unheeded.  At last, throwing off his reverie
+with the full and unrestrained sigh of a man who believes himself
+alone, he was startled by the soft laugh of Mrs. Hale, who had
+entered the room unperceived.
+
+"Dear me!  How portentous!  Really, I almost feel as if I were
+interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame.  I
+haven't heard anything so old-fashioned and conservative as that
+sigh since I have been in California.  I thought you never had any
+Past out here?"
+
+Fortunately his face was between her and the light, and the
+unmistakable expression of annoyance and impatience which was
+passed over it was spared her.  There was, however, still enough
+dissonance in his manner to affect her quick feminine sense, and
+when she drew nearer to him it was with a certain maiden-like
+timidity.
+
+"You are not worse, Mr. Lee, I hope?  You have not over-exerted
+yourself?"
+
+"There's little chance of that with one leg--if not in the grave at
+least mummified with bandages," he replied, with a bitterness new
+to him.
+
+"Shall I loosen them?  Perhaps they are too tight.  There is
+nothing so irritating to one as the sensation of being tightly
+bound."
+
+The light touch of her hand upon the rug that covered his knees,
+the thoughtful tenderness of the blue-veined lids, and the delicate
+atmosphere that seemed to surround her like a perfume cleared his
+face of its shadow and brought back the reckless fire into his blue
+eyes.
+
+"I suppose I'm intolerant of all bonds," he said, looking at her
+intently, "in others as well as myself!"
+
+Whether or not she detected any double meaning in his words, she
+was obliged to accept the challenge of his direct gaze, and,
+raising her eyes to his, drew back a little from him with a slight
+increase of color.  "I was afraid you had heard bad news just now."
+
+"What would you call bad news?" asked Lee, clasping his hands
+behind his head, and leaning back on the sofa, but without
+withdrawing his eyes from her face.
+
+"Oh, any news that would interrupt your convalescence, or break up
+our little family party," said Mrs. Hale.  "You have been getting
+on so well that really it would seem cruel to have anything
+interfere with our life of forgetting and being forgotten.  But,"
+she added with apprehensive quickness, "has anything happened?  Is
+there really any news from--from, the trails?  Yesterday Mr.
+Falkner said the snow had recommenced in the pass.  Has he seen
+anything, noticed anything different?"
+
+She looked so very pretty, with the rare, genuine, and youthful
+excitement that transfigured her wearied and wearying regularity of
+feature, that Lee contented himself with drinking in her prettiness
+as he would have inhaled the perfume of some flower.
+
+"Why do you look at me so, Mr. Lee?" she asked, with a slight
+smile.  "I believe something HAS happened.  Mr. Falkner HAS brought
+you some intelligence."
+
+"He has certainly found out something I did not foresee."
+
+"And that troubles you?"
+
+"It does."
+
+"Is it a secret?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I suppose you will tell it to me at dinner," she said, with a
+little tone of relief.
+
+"I am afraid, if I tell it at all, I must tell it now," he said,
+glancing at the door.
+
+"You must do as you think best," she said coldly, "as it seems to
+be a secret, after all."  She hesitated.  "Kate is dressing, and
+will not be down for some time."
+
+"So much the better.  For I'm afraid that Ned has made a poor
+return to your hospitality by falling in love with her."
+
+"Impossible!  He has known her for scarcely a week."
+
+"I am afraid we won't agree as to the length of time necessary to
+appreciate and love a woman.  I think it can be done in seven days
+and four hours, the exact time we have been here."
+
+"Yes; but as Kate was not in when you arrived, and did not come
+until later, you must take off at least one hour," said Mrs. Hale
+gayly.
+
+"Ned can.  I shall not abate a second."
+
+"But are you not mistaken in his feelings?" she continued
+hurriedly.  "He certainly has not said anything to her."
+
+"That is his last hold on honor and reason.  And to preserve that
+little intact he wants to run away at once."
+
+"But that would be very silly."
+
+"Do you think so?" he said, looking at her fixedly.
+
+"Why not?" she asked in her turn, but rather faintly.
+
+"I'll tell you why," he said, lowering his voice with a certain
+intensity of passion unlike his usual boyish lightheartedness.
+"Think of a man whose life has been one of alternate hardness and
+aggression, of savage disappointment and equally savage successes,
+who has known no other relaxation than dissipation and
+extravagance; a man to whom the idea of the domestic hearth and
+family ties only meant weakness, effeminacy, or--worse; who had
+looked for loyalty and devotion only in the man who battled for him
+at his right hand in danger, or shared his privations and
+sufferings.  Think of such a man, and imagine that an accident has
+suddenly placed him in an atmosphere of purity, gentleness, and
+peace, surrounded him by the refinements of a higher life than he
+had ever known, and that he found himself as in a dream, on terms
+of equality with a pure woman who had never known any other life,
+and yet would understand and pity his.  Imagine his loving her!
+Imagine that the first effect of that love was to show him his own
+inferiority and the immeasurable gulf that lay between his life and
+hers!  Would he not fly rather than brave the disgrace of her
+awakening to the truth?  Would he not fly rather than accept even
+the pity that might tempt her to a sacrifice?"
+
+"But--is Mr. Falkner all that?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind, I assure you!" said he demurely.  "But that's
+the way a man in love feels."
+
+"Really!  Mr. Falkner should get you to plead his cause with Kate,"
+said Mrs. Hale with a faint laugh.
+
+"I need all my persuasive powers in that way for myself," said Lee
+boldly.
+
+Mrs. Hale rose.  "I think I hear Kate coming," she said.
+Nevertheless, she did not move away.  "It IS Kate coming," she
+added hurriedly, stooping to pick up her work-basket, which had
+slipped with Lee's hand from her own.
+
+It was Kate, who at once flew to her sister's assistance, Lee
+deploring from the sofa his own utter inability to aid her.  "It's
+all my fault, too," he said to Kate, but looking at Mrs. Hale.  "It
+seems I have a faculty of upsetting existing arrangements without
+the power of improving them, or even putting them back in their
+places.  What shall I do?  I am willing to hold any number of
+skeins or rewind any quantity of spools.  I am even willing to
+forgive Ned for spending the whole day with you, and only bringing
+me the wing of a hawk for supper."
+
+"That was all my folly, Mr. Lee," said Kate, with swift mendacity;
+"he was all the time looking after something for you, when I begged
+him to shoot a bird to get a feather for my hat.  And that wing is
+SO pretty."
+
+"It is a pity that mere beauty is not edible," said Lee, gravely,
+"and that if the worst comes to the worst here you would probably
+prefer me to Ned and his moustachios, merely because I've been tied
+by the leg to this sofa and slowly fattened like a Strasbourg
+goose."
+
+Nevertheless, his badinage failed somehow to amuse Kate, and she
+presently excused herself to rejoin her sister, who had already
+slipped from the room.  For the first time during their enforced
+seclusion a sense of restraint and uneasiness affected Mrs. Hale,
+her sister, and Falkner at dinner.  The latter addressed himself to
+Mrs. Scott, almost entirely.  Mrs. Hale was fain to bestow an
+exceptional and marked tenderness on her little daughter Minnie,
+who, however, by some occult childish instinct, insisted upon
+sharing it with Lee--her great friend--to Mrs. Hale's uneasy
+consciousness.  Nor was Lee slow to profit by the child's
+suggestion, but responded with certain vicarious caresses that
+increased the mother's embarrassment.  That evening they retired
+early, but in the intervals of a restless night Kate was aware,
+from the sound of voices in the opposite room, that the friends
+were equally wakeful.
+
+A morning of bright sunshine and soft warm air did not, however,
+bring any change to their new and constrained relations.  It only
+seemed to offer a reason for Falkner to leave the house very early
+for his daily rounds, and gave Lee that occasion for unaided
+exercise with an extempore crutch on the veranda which allowed Mrs.
+Hale to pursue her manifold duties without the necessity of keeping
+him company.  Kate also, as if to avoid an accidental meeting with
+Falkner, had remained at home with her sister.  With one exception,
+they did not make their guests the subject of their usual playful
+comments, nor, after the fashion of their sex, quote their ideas
+and opinions.  That exception was made by Mrs. Hale.
+
+"You have had no difference with Mr. Falkner?" she said carelessly.
+
+"No," said Kate quickly.  "Why?"
+
+"I only thought he seemed rather put out at dinner last night, and
+you didn't propose to go and meet him to-day."
+
+"He must be bored with my company at times, I dare say," said Kate,
+with an indifference quite inconsistent with her rising color.  "I
+shouldn't wonder if he was a little vexed with Mr. Lee's chaffing
+him about his sport yesterday, and probably intends to go further
+to-day, and bring home larger game.  I think Mr. Lee very amusing
+always, but I sometimes fancy he lacks feeling."
+
+"Feeling!  You don't know him, Kate," said Mrs. Hale quickly.  She
+stopped herself, but with a half-smiling recollection in her
+dropped eyelids.
+
+"Well, he doesn't look very amiable now, stamping up and down the
+veranda.  Perhaps you'd better go and soothe him."
+
+"I'm really SO busy just now," said Mrs. Hale, with sudden and
+inconsequent energy; "things have got dreadfully behind in the last
+week.  You had better go, Kate, and make him sit down, or he'll be
+overdoing it.  These men never know any medium--in anything."
+
+Contrary to Kate's expectation, Falkner returned earlier than
+usual, and, taking the invalid's arm, supported him in a more
+ambitious walk along the terrace before the house.  They were
+apparently absorbed in conversation, but the two women who observed
+them from the window could not help noticing the almost feminine
+tenderness of Falkner's manner towards his wounded friend, and the
+thoughtful tenderness of his ministering care.
+
+"I wonder," said Mrs. Hale, following them with softly appreciative
+eyes, "if women are capable of as disinterested friendship as men?
+I never saw anything like the devotion of these two creatures.
+Look! if Mr. Falkner hasn't got his arm round Mr. Lee's waist, and
+Lee, with his own arm over Falkner's neck, is looking up in his
+eyes.  I declare, Kate, it almost seems an indiscretion to look at
+them."
+
+Kate, however, to Mrs. Hale's indignation, threw her pretty head
+back and sniffed the air contemptuously.  "I really don't see
+anything but some absurd sentimentalism of their own, or some
+mannish wickedness they're concocting by themselves.  I am by no
+means certain, Josephine, that Lee's influence over that young man
+is the best thing for him."
+
+"On the contrary!  Lee's influence seems the only thing that checks
+his waywardness," said Mrs. Hale quickly.  "I'm sure, if anyone
+makes sacrifices, it is Lee; I shouldn't wonder that even now he is
+making some concession to Falkner, and all those caressing ways of
+your friend are for a purpose.  They're not much different from us,
+dear."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't stand there and let them see me looking at them
+as if I couldn't bear them out of my sight for a moment," said
+Kate, whisking herself out of the room.  "They're conceited enough,
+Heaven knows, already."
+
+That evening, at dinner, however, the two men exhibited no trace of
+the restraint or uneasiness of the previous day.  If they were less
+impulsive and exuberant, they were still frank and interested, and
+if the term could be used in connection with men apparently trained
+to neither self-control nor repose, there was a certain gentle
+dignity in their manner which for the time had the effect of
+lifting them a little above the social level of their entertainers.
+For even with all their predisposition to the strangers, Kate and
+Mrs. Hale had always retained a conscious attitude of gentle
+condescension and superiority towards them--an attitude not
+inconsistent with a stronger feeling, nor altogether unprovocative
+of it; yet this evening they found themselves impressed with
+something more than an equality in the men who had amused and
+interested them, and they were perhaps a little more critical and
+doubtful of their own power.  Mrs. Hale's little girl, who had
+appreciated only the seriousness of the situation, had made her own
+application of it.  "Are you dow'in' away from aunt Kate and
+mamma?" she asked, in an interval of silence.
+
+"How else can I get you the red snow we saw at sunset, the other
+day, on the peak yonder?" said Lee gayly.  "I'll have to get up
+some morning very early, and catch it when it comes at sunrise."
+
+"What is this wonderful snow, Minnie, that you are tormenting Mr.
+Lee for?" asked Mrs. Hale.
+
+"Oh! it's a fairy snow that he told me all about; it only comes
+when the sun comes up and goes down, and if you catch ever so
+little of it in your hand it makes all you fink you want come true!
+Wouldn't that be nice?"  But to the child's astonishment her little
+circle of auditors, even while assenting, sighed.
+
+The red snow was there plain enough the next morning before the
+valley was warm with light, and while Minnie, her mother, and aunt
+Kate were still peacefully sleeping.  And Mr. Lee had kept his
+word, and was evidently seeking it, for he and Falkner were already
+urging their horses through the pass, with their faces towards and
+lit up by its glow.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Kate was stirring early, but not as early as her sister, who met
+her on the threshold of her room.  Her face was quite pale, and she
+held a letter in her hand.  "What does this mean, Kate?"
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Kate, her own color fading from her
+cheek.
+
+"They are gone--with their horses.  Left before day, and left
+this."
+
+She handed Kate an open letter.  The girl took it hurriedly, and
+read--
+
+
+"When you get this we shall be no more; perhaps not even as much.
+Ned found the trail yesterday, and we are taking the first
+advantage of it before day.  We dared not trust ourselves to say
+'Good-by!' last evening; we were too cowardly to face you this
+morning; we must go as we came, without warning, but not without
+regret.  We leave a package and a letter for your husband.  It is
+not only our poor return for your gentleness and hospitality, but,
+since it was accidentally the means of giving us the pleasure of
+your society, we beg you to keep it in safety until his return.  We
+kiss your mother's hands.  Ned wants to say something more, but
+time presses, and I only allow him to send his love to Minnie, and
+to tell her that he is trying to find the red snow.
+
+"GEORGE LEE."
+
+
+"But he is not fit to travel," said Mrs. Hale.  "And the trail--it
+may not be passable."
+
+"It was passable the day before yesterday," said Kate drearily,
+"for I discovered it, and went as far as the buck-eyes."
+
+"Then it was you who told them about it," said Mrs. Hale
+reproachfully.
+
+"No," said Kate indignantly.  "Of course I didn't."  She stopped,
+and, reading the significance of her speech in the glistening eyes
+of her sister, she blushed.  Josephine kissed her, and said--
+
+"It WAS treating us like children, Kate, but we must make them pay
+for it hereafter.  For that package and letter to John means
+something, and we shall probably see them before long.  I wonder
+what the letter is about, and what is in the package?"
+
+"Probably one of Mr. Lee's jokes.  He is quite capable of turning
+the whole thing into ridicule.  I dare say he considers his visit
+here a prolonged jest."
+
+"With his poor leg, Kate?  You are as unfair to him as you were to
+Falkner when they first came."
+
+Kate, however, kept her dark eyebrows knitted in a piquant frown.
+
+"To think of his intimating WHAT he would allow Falkner to say!
+And yet you believe he has no evil influence over the young man."
+
+Mrs. Hale laughed.  "Where are you going so fast, Kate?" she called
+mischievously, as the young lady flounced out of the room.
+
+"Where?  Why, to tidy John's room.  He may be coming at any moment
+now.  Or do you want to do it yourself?"
+
+"No, no," returned Mrs. Hale hurriedly; "you do it.  I'll look in a
+little later on."
+
+She turned away with a sigh.  The sun was shining brilliantly
+outside.  Through the half-open blinds its long shafts seemed to be
+searching the house for the lost guests, and making the hollow
+shell appear doubly empty.  What a contrast to the dear dark days
+of mysterious seclusion and delicious security, lit by Lee's
+laughter and the sparkling hearth, which had passed so quickly!
+The forgotten outer world seemed to have returned to the house
+through those open windows and awakened its dwellers from a dream.
+
+The morning seemed interminable, and it was past noon, while they
+were deep in a sympathetic conference with Mrs. Scott, who had
+drawn a pathetic word-picture of the two friends perishing in the
+snow-drift, without flannels, brandy, smelling-salts, or jelly,
+which they had forgotten, when they were startled by the loud
+barking of "Spot" on the lawn before the house.  The women looked
+hurriedly at each other.
+
+"They have returned," said Mrs. Hale.
+
+Kate ran to the window.  A horseman was approaching the house.  A
+single glance showed her that it was neither Falkner, Lee, nor
+Hale, but a stranger.
+
+"Perhaps he brings some news of them," said Mrs. Scott quickly.  So
+complete had been their preoccupation with the loss of their guests
+that they could not yet conceive of anything that did not pertain
+to it.
+
+The stranger, who was at once ushered into the parlor, was
+evidently disconcerted by the presence of the three women.
+
+"I reckoned to see John Hale yer," he began, awkwardly.
+
+A slight look of disappointment passed over their faces.  "He has
+not yet returned," said Mrs. Hale briefly.
+
+"Sho!  I wanter know.  He's hed time to do it, I reckon," said the
+stranger.
+
+"I suppose he hasn't been able to get over from the Summit,"
+returned Mrs. Hale.  "The trail is closed."
+
+"It ain't now, for I kem over it this mornin' myself."
+
+"You didn't--meet--anyone?" asked Mrs. Hale timidly, with a glance
+at the others.
+
+"No."
+
+A long silence ensued.  The unfortunate visitor plainly perceived
+an evident abatement of interest in himself, yet he still struggled
+politely to say something.  "Then I reckon you know what kept Hale
+away?" he said dubiously.
+
+"Oh, certainly--the stage robbery."
+
+"I wish I'd known that," said the stranger reflectively, "for I ez
+good ez rode over jist to tell it to ye.  Ye see John Hale, he sent
+a note to ye 'splainin' matters by a gentleman; but the road agents
+tackled that man, and left him for dead in the road."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Hale impatiently.
+
+"Luckily he didn't die, but kem to, and managed to crawl inter the
+brush, whar I found him when I was lookin' for stock, and brought
+him to my house--"
+
+"YOU found him?  YOUR house?" interrupted Mrs. Hale.
+
+"Inter MY house," continued the man doggedly.  "I'm Thompson of
+Thompson's Pass over yon; mebbe it ain't much of a house; but I
+brought him thar.  Well, ez he couldn't find the note that Hale had
+guv him, and like ez not the road agents had gone through him and
+got it, ez soon ez the weather let up I made a break over yer to
+tell ye."
+
+"You say Mr. Lee came to your house," repeated Mrs. Hale, "and is
+there now?"
+
+"Not much," said the man grimly; "and I never said LEE was thar.  I
+mean that Bilson waz shot by Lee and kem--"
+
+"Certainly, Josephine!" said Kate, suddenly stepping between her
+sister and Thompson, and turning upon her a white face and eyes of
+silencing significance; "certainly--don't you remember?--that's the
+story we got from the Chinaman, you know, only muddled.  Go on
+sir," she continued, turning to Thompson calmly; "you say that the
+man who brought the note from my brother was shot by Lee?"
+
+"And another fellow they call Falkner.  Yes, that's about the size
+of it."
+
+"Thank you; it's nearly the same story that we heard.  But you have
+had a long ride, Mr. Thompson; let me offer you a glass of whiskey
+in the dining-room.  This way, please."
+
+The door closed upon them none too soon.  For Mrs. Hale already
+felt the room whirling around her, and sank back into her chair
+with a hysterical laugh.  Old Mrs. Scott did not move from her
+seat, but, with her eyes fixed on the door, impatiently waited
+Kate's return.  Neither spoke, but each felt that the young,
+untried girl was equal to the emergency, and would get at the
+truth.
+
+The sound of Thompson's feet in the hall and the closing of the
+front door was followed by Kate's reappearance.  Her face was still
+pale, but calm.
+
+"Well?" said the two women in a breath.
+
+"Well," returned Kate slowly; "Mr. Lee and Mr. Falkner were
+undoubtedly the two men who took the paper from John's messenger
+and brought it here."
+
+"You are sure?" said Mrs. Scott.
+
+"There can be no mistake, mother."
+
+"THEN," said Mrs. Scott, with triumphant feminine logic, "I don't
+want anything more to satisfy me that they are PERFECTLY INNOCENT!"
+
+More convincing than the most perfect masculine deduction, this
+single expression of their common nature sent a thrill of sympathy
+and understanding through each.  They cried for a few moments on
+each other's shoulders.  "To think," said Mrs. Scott, "what that
+poor boy must have suffered to have been obliged to do--that to--
+to--Bilson--isn't that the creature's name?  I suppose we ought to
+send over there and inquire after him, with some chicken and jelly,
+Kate.  It's only common humanity, and we must be just, my dear; for
+even if he shot Mr. Lee and provoked the poor boy to shoot him, he
+may have thought it his duty.  And then, it will avert suspicions."
+
+"To think," murmured Mrs. Hale, "what they must have gone through
+while they were here--momentarily expecting John to come, and yet
+keeping up such a light heart."
+
+"I believe, if they had stayed any longer, they would have told us
+everything," said Mrs. Scott.
+
+Both the younger women were silent.  Kate was thinking of Falkner's
+significant speech as they neared the house on their last walk;
+Josephine was recalling the remorseful picture drawn by Lee, which
+she knew was his own portrait.  Suddenly she started.
+
+"But John will be here soon; what are we to tell him?  And then
+that package and that letter."
+
+"Don't be in a hurry to tell him anything at present, my child,"
+said Mrs. Scott gently.  "It is unfortunate this Mr. Thompson
+called here, but we are not obliged to understand what he says now
+about John's message, or to connect our visitors with his story.
+I'm sure, Kate, I should have treated them exactly as we did if
+they had come without any message from John; so I do not know why
+we should lay any stress on that, or even speak of it.  The simple
+fact is that we have opened our house to two strangers in distress.
+Your husband," continued Mr. Hale's mother-in-law, "does not
+require to know more.  As to the letter and package, we will keep
+that for further consideration.  It cannot be of much importance,
+or they would have spoken of it before; it is probably some
+trifling present as a return for your hospitality.  I should use no
+INDECOROUS haste in having it opened."
+
+The two women kissed Mrs. Scott with a feeling of relief, and fell
+back into the monotony of their household duties.  It is to be
+feared, however, that the absence of their outlawed guests was
+nearly as dangerous as their presence in the opportunity it
+afforded for uninterrupted and imaginative reflection.  Both Kate
+and Josephine were at first shocked and wounded by the discovery of
+the real character of the two men with whom they had associated so
+familiarly, but it was no disparagement to their sense of propriety
+to say that the shock did not last long, and was accompanied with
+the fascination of danger.  This was succeeded by a consciousness
+of the delicate flattery implied in their indirect influence over
+the men who had undoubtedly risked their lives for the sake of
+remaining with them.  The best woman is not above being touched by
+the effect of her power over the worst man, and Kate at first
+allowed herself to think of Falkner in that light.  But if in her
+later reflections he suffered as a heroic experience to be
+forgotten, he gained something as an actual man to be remembered.
+Now that the proposed rides from "his friend's house" were a part
+of the illusion, would he ever dare to visit them again?  Would she
+dare to see him?  She held her breath with a sudden pain of parting
+that was new to her; she tried to think of something else, to pick
+up the scattered threads of her life before that eventful day.  But
+in vain; that one week had filled the place with implacable
+memories, or more terrible, as it seemed to her and her sister,
+they had both lost their feeble, alien hold upon Eagle's Court in
+the sudden presence of the real genii of these solitudes, and
+henceforth they alone would be the strangers there.  They scarcely
+dared to confess it to each other, but this return to the dazzling
+sunlight and cloudless skies of the past appeared to them to be the
+one unreal experience; they had never known the true wild flavor of
+their home, except in that week of delicious isolation.  Without
+breathing it aloud, they longed for some vague denoument to this
+experience that should take them from Eagle's Court forever.
+
+It was noon the next day when the little household beheld the last
+shred of their illusion vanish like the melting snow in the strong
+sunlight of John Hale's return.  He was accompanied by Colonel
+Clinch and Rawlins, two strangers to the women.  Was it fancy, or
+the avenging spirit of their absent companions? but HE too looked a
+stranger, and as the little cavalcade wound its way up the slope he
+appeared to sit his horse and wear his hat with a certain slouch
+and absence of his usual restraint that strangely shocked them.
+Even the old half-condescending, half-punctilious gallantry of his
+greeting of his wife and family was changed, as he introduced his
+companions with a mingling of familiarity and shyness that was new
+to him.  Did Mrs. Hale regret it, or feel a sense of relief in the
+absence of his usual seignorial formality?  She only knew that she
+was grateful for the presence of the strangers, which for the
+moment postponed a matrimonial confidence from which she shrank.
+
+"Proud to know you," said Colonel Clinch, with a sudden outbreak of
+the antique gallantry of some remote Huguenot ancestor.  "My
+friend, Judge Hale, must be a regular Roman citizen to leave such a
+family and such a house at the call of public duty.  Eh, Rawlins?"
+
+"You bet," said Rawlins, looking from Kate to her sister in
+undisguised admiration.
+
+"And I suppose the duty could not have been a very pleasant one,"
+said Mrs. Hale, timidly, without looking at her husband.
+
+"Gad, madam, that's just it," said the gallant Colonel, seating
+himself with a comfortable air, and an easy, though by no means
+disrespectful, familiarity.  "We went into this fight a little more
+than a week ago.  The only scrimmage we've had has been with the
+detectives that were on the robbers' track.  Ha! ha!  The best
+people we've met have been the friends of the men we were huntin',
+and we've generally come to the conclusion to vote the other
+ticket!  Ez Judge Hale and me agreed ez we came along, the two men
+ez we'd most like to see just now and shake hands with are George
+Lee and Ned Falkner."
+
+"The two leaders of the party who robbed the coach," explained Mr.
+Hale, with a slight return of his usual precision of statement.
+
+The three women looked at each other with a blaze of thanksgiving
+in their grateful eyes.  Without comprehending all that Colonel
+Clinch had said, they understood enough to know that their late
+guests were safe from the pursuit of that party, and that their own
+conduct was spared criticism.  I hardly dare write it, but they
+instantly assumed the appearance of aggrieved martyrs, and felt as
+if they were!
+
+"Yes, ladies!" continued the Colonel, inspired by the bright eyes
+fixed upon him.  "We haven't taken the road ourselves yet, but--
+pohn honor--we wouldn't mind doing it in a case like this."  Then
+with the fluent, but somewhat exaggerated, phraseology of a man
+trained to "stump" speaking, he gave an account of the robbery and
+his own connection with it.  He spoke of the swindling and
+treachery which had undoubtedly provoked Falkner to obtain
+restitution of his property by an overt act of violence under the
+leadership of Lee.  He added that he had learned since at Wild Cat
+Station that Harkins had fled the country, that a suit had been
+commenced by the Excelsior Ditch Company, and that all available
+property of Harkins had been seized by the sheriff.
+
+"Of course it can't be proved yet, but there's no doubt in my mind
+that Lee, who is an old friend of Ned Falkner's, got up that job to
+help him, and that Ned's off with the money by this time--and I'm
+right glad of it.  I can't say ez we've done much towards it,
+except to keep tumbling in the way of that detective party of
+Stanner's, and so throw them off the trail--ha, ha!  The Judge
+here, I reckon, has had his share of fun, for while he was at
+Hennicker's trying to get some facts from Hennicker's pretty
+daughter, Stanner tried to get up some sort of vigilance committee
+of the stage passengers to burn down Hennicker's ranch out of
+spite, but the Judge here stepped in and stopped that."
+
+"It was really a high-handed proceeding, Josephine, but I managed
+to check it," said Hale, meeting somewhat consciously the first
+direct look his wife had cast upon him, and falling back for
+support on his old manner.  "In its way, I think it was worse than
+the robbery by Lee and Falkner, for it was done in the name of law
+and order; while, as far as I can judge from the facts, the affair
+that we were following up was simply a rude and irregular
+restitution of property that had been morally stolen."
+
+"I have no doubt you did quite right, though I don't understand
+it," said Mrs. Hale languidly; "but I trust these gentlemen will
+stay to luncheon, and in the meantime excuse us for running away,
+as we are short of servants, and Manuel seems to have followed the
+example of the head of the house and left us, in pursuit of
+somebody or something."
+
+When the three women had gained the vantage-ground of the drawing-
+room, Kate said, earnestly, "As it's all right, hadn't we better
+tell him now?"
+
+"Decidedly not, child," said Mrs. Scott, imperatively.  "Do you
+suppose they are in a hurry to tell us THEIR whole story?  Who are
+those Hennicker people? and they were there a week ago!"
+
+"And did you notice John's hat when he came in, and the vulgar
+familiarity of calling him 'Judge'?" said Mrs. Hale.
+
+"Well, certainly anything like the familiarity of this man Clinch I
+never saw," said Kate.  "Contrast his manner with Mr. Falkner's."
+
+At luncheon the three suffering martyrs finally succeeded in
+reducing Hale and his two friends to an attitude of vague apology.
+But their triumph was short-lived.  At the end of the meal they
+were startled by the trampling of hoofs without, followed by loud
+knocking.  In another moment the door was opened, and Mr. Stanner
+strode into the room.  Hale rose with a look of indignation.
+
+"I thought, as Mr. Stanner understood that I had no desire for his
+company elsewhere, he would hardly venture to intrude upon me in my
+house, and certainly not after--"
+
+"Ef you're alluding to the Vigilantes shakin' you and Zeenie up at
+Hennicker's, you can't make ME responsible for that.  I'm here now
+on business--you understand--reg'lar business.  Ef you want to see
+the papers yer ken.  I suppose you know what a warrant is?"
+
+"I know what YOU are," said Hale hotly; "and if you don't leave my
+house--"
+
+"Steady, boys," interrupted Stanner, as his five henchmen filed
+into the hall.  "There's no backin' down here, Colonel Clinch,
+unless you and Hale kalkilate to back down the State of Californy!
+The matter stands like this.  There's a half-breed Mexican, called
+Manuel, arrested over at the Summit, who swears he saw George Lee
+and Edward Falkner in this house the night after the robbery.  He
+says that they were makin' themselves at home here, as if they were
+among friends, and considerin' the kind of help we've had from Mr.
+John Hale, it looks ez if it might be true."
+
+"It's an infamous lie!" said Hale.
+
+"It may be true, John," said Mrs. Scott, suddenly stepping in front
+of her pale-cheeked daughters.  "A wounded man was brought here out
+of the storm by his friend, who claimed the shelter of your roof.
+As your mother I should have been unworthy to stay beneath it and
+have denied that shelter or withheld it until I knew his name and
+what he was.  He stayed here until he could be removed.  He left a
+letter for you.  It will probably tell you if he was the man this
+person is seeking."
+
+"Thank you, mother," said Hale, lifting her hand to his lips
+quietly; "and perhaps you will kindly tell these gentlemen that.
+as your son does not care to know who or what the stranger was,
+there is no necessity for opening the letter, or keeping Mr.
+Stanner a moment longer."
+
+"But you will oblige ME, John, by opening it before these
+gentlemen," said Mrs. Hale recovering her voice and color.
+"Please to follow me," she said preceding them to the staircase.
+
+They entered Mr. Hale's room, now restored to its original
+condition.  On the table lay a letter and a small package.  The
+eyes of Mr. Stanner, a little abashed by the attitude of the two
+women, fastened upon it and glistened.
+
+Josephine handed her husband the letter.  He opened it in
+breathless silence and read--
+
+
+"JOHN HALE,
+
+"We owe you no return for voluntarily making yourself a champion of
+justice and pursuing us, except it was to offer you a fair field
+and no favor.  We didn't get that much from you, but accident
+brought us into your house and into your family, where we DID get
+it, and were fairly vanquished.  To the victors belong the spoils.
+We leave the package of greenbacks which we took from Colonel
+Clinch in the Sierra coach, but which was first stolen by Harkins
+from forty-four shareholders of the Excelsior Ditch.  We have no
+right to say what YOU should do with it, but if you aren't tired of
+following the same line of justice that induced you to run after
+US, you will try to restore it to its rightful owners.
+
+"We leave you another trifle as an evidence that our intrusion into
+your affairs was not without some service to you, even if the
+service was as accidental as the intrusion.  You will find a pair
+of boots in the corner of your closet.  They were taken from the
+burglarious feet of Manuel, your peon, who, believing the three
+ladies were alone and at his mercy, entered your house with an
+accomplice at two o'clock on the morning of the 21st, and was
+kicked out by
+
+"Your obedient servants,
+
+"GEORGE LEE & EDWARD FALKNER"
+
+
+Hale's voice and color changed on reading this last paragraph.  He
+turned quickly towards his wife; Kate flew to the closet, where the
+muffled boots of Manuel confronted them.  "We never knew it.  I
+always suspected something that night," said Mrs. Hale and Mrs.
+Scott in the same breath.
+
+"That's all very well, and like George Lee's high falutin'," said
+Stanner, approaching the table, "but as long ez the greenbacks are
+here he can make what capital he likes outer Manuel.  I'll trouble
+you to pass over that package."
+
+"Excuse me," said Hale, "but I believe this is the package taken
+from Colonel Clinch.  Is it not?" he added, appealing to the
+Colonel.
+
+"It is," said Clinch.
+
+"Then take it," said Hale, handing him the package.  "The first
+restitution is to you, but I believe you will fulfil Lee's
+instructions as well as myself."
+
+"But," said Stanner, furiously interposing, "I've a warrant to
+seize that wherever found, and I dare you to disobey the law."
+
+"Mr. Stanner," said Clinch, slowly, "there are ladies present.  If
+you insist upon having that package I must ask them to withdraw,
+and I'm afraid you'll find me better prepared to resist a SECOND
+robbery than I was the first.  Your warrant, which was taken out by
+the Express Company, is supplanted by civil proceedings taken the
+day before yesterday against the property of the fugitive swindler
+Harkins!  You should have consulted the sheriff before you came
+here."
+
+Stanner saw his mistake.  But in the faces of his grinning
+followers he was obliged to keep up his bluster.  "You shall hear
+from me again, sir," he said, turning on his heel.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Clinch grimly, "but do I understand that
+at last I am to have the honor--"
+
+"You shall hear from the Company's lawyers, sir," said Stanner.
+turning red, and noisily leaving the room.
+
+"And so, my dear ladies," said Colonel Clinch, "you have spent a
+week with a highwayman.  I say A highwayman, for it would be hard
+to call my young friend Falkner by that name for his first offence,
+committed under great provocation, and undoubtedly instigated by
+Lee, who was an old friend of his, and to whom he came, no doubt,
+in desperation."
+
+Kate stole a triumphant glance at her sister, who dropped her lids
+over her glistening eyes.  "And this Mr. Lee," she continued more
+gently, "is he really a highwayman?"
+
+"George Lee," said Clinch, settling himself back oratorically in
+his chair, "my dear young lady, IS a highwayman, but not of the
+common sort.  He is a gentleman born, madam, comes from one of the
+oldest families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  He never mixes
+himself up with anything but some of the biggest strikes, and he's
+an educated man.  He is very popular with ladies and children; he
+was never known to do or say anything that could bring a blush to
+the cheek of beauty or a tear to the eye of innocence.  I think I
+may say I'm sure you found him so."
+
+"I shall never believe him anything but a gentleman," said Mrs.
+Scott, firmly.
+
+"If he has a defect, it is perhaps a too reckless indulgence in
+draw poker," said the Colonel, musingly; "not unbecoming a
+gentleman, understand me, Mrs. Scott, but perhaps too reckless for
+his own good.  George played a grand game, a glittering game, but
+pardon me if I say an UNCERTAIN game.  I've told him so; it's the
+only point on which we ever differed."
+
+"Then you know him?" said Mrs. Hale, lifting her soft eyes to the
+Colonel.
+
+"I have that honor."
+
+"Did his appearance, Josephine," broke in Hale, somewhat
+ostentatiously, "appear to--er--er--correspond with these
+qualities?  You know what I mean."
+
+"He certainly seemed very simple and natural," said Mrs. Hale,
+slightly drawing her pretty lips together.  "He did not wear his
+trousers rolled up over his boots in the company of ladies, as
+you're doing now, nor did he make his first appearance in this
+house with such a hat as you wore this morning, or I should not
+have admitted him."
+
+There were a few moments of embarrassing silence.
+
+"Do you intend to give that package to Mr. Falkner yourself,
+Colonel?" asked Mrs. Scott.
+
+"I shall hand it over to the Excelsior Company," said the Colonel,
+"but I shall inform Ned of what I have done."
+
+"Then," said Mrs. Scott, "will you kindly take a message from us to
+him?"
+
+"If you wish it."
+
+"You will be doing ME a great favor, Colonel," said Hale, politely.
+
+
+Whatever the message was, six months later it brought Edward
+Falkner, the reestablished superintendent of the Excelsior Ditch,
+to Eagle's Court.  As he and Kate stood again on the plateau,
+looking towards the distant slopes once more green with verdure,
+Falkner said--
+
+"Everything here looks as it did the first day I saw it, except
+your sister."
+
+"The place does not agree with her," said Kate hurriedly.  "That is
+why my brother thinks of leaving it before the winter sets in."
+
+"It seems so sad," said Falkner, "for the last words poor George
+said to me, as he left to join his cousin's corps at Richmond,
+were: 'If I'm not killed, Ned, I hope some day to stand again
+beside Mrs. Hale, at the window in Eagle's Court, and watch you and
+Kate coming home!'"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Snow-Bound at Eagle's, by Bret Harte
+
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