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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Snow-Bound at Eagle's, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Snow-Bound at Eagle's
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2006 [EBook #2297]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE'S ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+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 the Project Gutenberg EBook of Snow-Bound at Eagle's, by Bret Harte
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