initial commit of ebook 2535HEADmain

1 files changed, 6992 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/2535-0.txt b/2535-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fe7a9cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2535-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6992 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Openings in the Old Trail, 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: Openings in the Old Trail
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2535]
+Last Updated: March 4, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL
+
+        I.  A MERCURY OF THE FOOT-HILLS
+       II.  COLONEL STARBOTTLE FOR THE PLAINTIFF
+      III.  THE LANDLORD OF THE BIG FLUME HOTEL
+       IV.  A BUCKEYE HOLLOW INHERITANCE
+        V.  THE REINCARNATION OF SMITH
+       VI.  LANTY FOSTER'S MISTAKE
+      VII.  AN ALI BABA OF THE SIERRAS
+     VIII.  MISS PEGGY'S PROTEGES
+       IX.  THE GODDESS OF EXCELSIOR
+
+
+
+
+
+OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+A MERCURY OF THE FOOT-HILLS
+
+
+It was high hot noon on the Casket Ridge. Its very scant shade was
+restricted to a few dwarf Scotch firs, and was so perpendicularly cast
+that Leonidas Boone, seeking shelter from the heat, was obliged to draw
+himself up under one of them, as if it were an umbrella. Occasionally,
+with a boy's perversity, he permitted one bared foot to protrude beyond
+the sharply marked shadow until the burning sun forced him to draw it in
+again with a thrill of satisfaction. There was no earthly reason why
+he had not sought the larger shadows of the pine-trees which reared
+themselves against the Ridge on the slope below him, except that he was
+a boy, and perhaps even more superstitious and opinionated than most
+boys. Having got under this tree with infinite care, he had made up his
+mind that he would not move from it until its line of shade reached and
+touched a certain stone on the trail near him! WHY he did this he did
+not know, but he clung to his sublime purpose with the courage and
+tenacity of a youthful Casabianca. He was cramped, tickled by dust and
+fir sprays; he was supremely uncomfortable--but he stayed! A woodpecker
+was monotonously tapping in an adjacent pine, with measured intervals of
+silence, which he always firmly believed was a certain telegraphy of
+the bird's own making; a green-and-gold lizard flashed by his foot
+to stiffen itself suddenly with a rigidity equal to his own. Still HE
+stirred not. The shadow gradually crept nearer the mystic stone--and
+touched it. He sprang up, shook himself, and prepared to go about
+his business. This was simply an errand to the post-office at the
+cross-roads, scarcely a mile from his father's house. He was already
+halfway there. He had taken only the better part of one hour for this
+desultory journey!
+
+However, he now proceeded on his way, diverging only to follow a fresh
+rabbit-track a few hundred yards, to note that the animal had doubled
+twice against the wind, and then, naturally, he was obliged to look
+closely for other tracks to determine its pursuers. He paused also,
+but only for a moment, to rap thrice on the trunk of the pine where the
+woodpecker was at work, which he knew would make it cease work for
+a time--as it did. Having thus renewed his relations with nature, he
+discovered that one of the letters he was taking to the post-office had
+slipped in some mysterious way from the bosom of his shirt, where he
+carried them, past his waist-band into his trouser-leg, and was about to
+make a casual delivery of itself on the trail. This caused him to take
+out his letters and count them, when he found one missing. He had been
+given four letters to post--he had only three. There was a big one in
+his father's handwriting, two indistinctive ones of his mother's, and a
+smaller one of his sister's--THAT was gone! Not at all disconcerted,
+he calmly retraced his steps, following his own tracks minutely, with
+a grim face and a distinct delight in the process, while
+looking--perfunctorily--for the letter. In the midst of this slow
+progress a bright idea struck him. He walked back to the fir-tree where
+he had rested, and found the lost missive. It had slipped out of his
+shirt when he shook himself. He was not particularly pleased. He knew
+that nobody would give him credit for his trouble in going back for
+it, or his astuteness in guessing where it was. He heaved the sigh of
+misunderstood genius, and again started for the post-office. This time
+he carried the letters openly and ostentatiously in his hand.
+
+Presently he heard a voice say, “Hey!” It was a gentle, musical
+voice,--a stranger's voice, for it evidently did not know how to call
+him, and did not say, “Oh, Leonidas!” or “You--look here!” He was
+abreast of a little clearing, guarded by a low stockade of bark palings,
+and beyond it was a small white dwelling-house. Leonidas knew the place
+perfectly well. It belonged to the superintendent of a mining tunnel,
+who had lately rented it to some strangers from San Francisco. Thus much
+he had heard from his family. He had a mountain boy's contempt for city
+folks, and was not himself interested in them. Yet as he heard the
+call, he was conscious of a slightly guilty feeling. He might have been
+trespassing in following the rabbit's track; he might have been seen by
+some one when he lost the letter and had to go back for it--all grown-up
+people had a way of offering themselves as witnesses against him! He
+scowled a little as he glanced around him. Then his eye fell on the
+caller on the other side of the stockade.
+
+To his surprise it was a woman: a pretty, gentle, fragile creature, all
+soft muslin and laces, with her fingers interlocked, and leaning both
+elbows on the top of the stockade as she stood under the checkered
+shadow of a buckeye.
+
+“Come here--please--won't you?” she said pleasantly.
+
+It would have been impossible to resist her voice if Leonidas had wanted
+to, which he didn't. He walked confidently up to the fence. She really
+was very pretty, with eyes like his setter's, and as caressing. And
+there were little puckers and satiny creases around her delicate
+nostrils and mouth when she spoke, which Leonidas knew were
+“expression.”
+
+“I--I”--she began, with charming hesitation; then suddenly, “What's your
+name?”
+
+“Leonidas.”
+
+“Leonidas! That's a pretty name!” He thought it DID sound pretty. “Well,
+Leonidas, I want you to be a good boy and do a great favor for me,--a
+very great favor.”
+
+Leonidas's face fell. This kind of prelude and formula was familiar to
+him. It was usually followed by, “Promise me that you will never swear
+again,” or, “that you will go straight home and wash your face,” or some
+other irrelevant personality. But nobody with that sort of eyes had ever
+said it. So he said, a little shyly but sincerely, “Yes, ma'am.”
+
+“You are going to the post-office?”
+
+This seemed a very foolish, womanish question, seeing that he was
+holding letters in his hand; but he said, “Yes.”
+
+“I want you to put a letter of mine among yours and post them all
+together,” she said, putting one little hand to her bosom and drawing
+out a letter. He noticed that she purposely held the addressed side so
+that he could not see it, but he also noticed that her hand was
+small, thin, and white, even to a faint tint of blue in it, unlike
+his sister's, the baby's, or any other hand he had ever seen. “Can you
+read?” she said suddenly, withdrawing the letter.
+
+The boy flushed slightly at the question. “Of course I can,” he said
+proudly.
+
+“Of course, certainly,” she repeated quickly; “but,” she added, with
+a mischievous smile, “you mustn't NOW! Promise me! Promise me that you
+won't read this address, but just post the letter, like one of your own,
+in the letter-box with the others.”
+
+Leonidas promised readily; it seemed to him a great fuss about nothing;
+perhaps it was some kind of game or a bet. He opened his sunburnt hand,
+holding his own letters, and she slipped hers, face downward, between
+them. Her soft fingers touched his in the operation, and seemed to leave
+a pleasant warmth behind them.
+
+“Promise me another thing,” she added; “promise me you won't say a word
+of this to any one.”
+
+“Of course!” said Leonidas.
+
+“That's a good boy, and I know you will keep your word.” She hesitated
+a moment, smilingly and tentatively, and then held out a bright
+half-dollar. Leonidas backed from the fence. “I'd rather not,” he said
+shyly.
+
+“But as a present from ME?”
+
+Leonidas colored--he was really proud; and he was also bright enough to
+understand that the possession of such unbounded wealth would provoke
+dangerous inquiry at home. But he didn't like to say it, and only
+replied, “I can't.”
+
+She looked at him curiously. “Then--thank you,” she said, offering her
+white hand, which felt like a bird in his. “Now run on, and don't let
+me keep you any longer.” She drew back from the fence as she spoke, and
+waved him a pretty farewell. Leonidas, half sorry, half relieved, darted
+away.
+
+He ran to the post-office, which he never had done before. Loyally he
+never looked at her letter, nor, indeed, at his own again, swinging
+the hand that held them far from his side. He entered the post-office
+directly, going at once to the letter-box and depositing the precious
+missive with the others. The post-office was also the “country store,”
+ and Leonidas was in the habit of still further protracting his errands
+there by lingering in that stimulating atmosphere of sugar, cheese, and
+coffee. But to-day his stay was brief, so transitory that the postmaster
+himself inferred audibly that “old man Boone must have been tanning Lee
+with a hickory switch.” But the simple reason was that Leonidas wished
+to go back to the stockade fence and the fair stranger, if haply she
+was still there. His heart sank as, breathless with unwonted haste, he
+reached the clearing and the empty buckeye shade. He walked slowly and
+with sad diffidence by the deserted stockade fence. But presently his
+quick eye discerned a glint of white among the laurels near the house.
+It was SHE, walking with apparent indifference away from him towards the
+corner of the clearing and the road. But this he knew would bring her
+to the end of the stockade fence, where he must pass--and it did. She
+turned to him with a bright smile of affected surprise. “Why, you're as
+swift-footed as Mercury!”
+
+Leonidas understood her perfectly. Mercury was the other name for
+quicksilver--and that was lively, you bet! He had often spilt some on
+the floor to see it move. She must be awfully cute to have noticed it
+too--cuter than his sisters. He was quite breathless with pleasure.
+
+“I put your letter in the box all right,” he burst out at last.
+
+“Without any one seeing it?” she asked.
+
+“Sure pop! nary one! The postmaster stuck out his hand to grab it, but I
+just let on that I didn't see him, and shoved it in myself.”
+
+“You're as sharp as you're good,” she said smilingly. “Now, there's just
+ONE thing more I want you to do. Forget all about this--won't you?”
+
+Her voice was very caressing. Perhaps that was why he said boldly: “Yes,
+ma'am, all except YOU.”
+
+“Dear me, what a compliment! How old are you?”
+
+“Goin' on fifteen,” said Leonidas confidently.
+
+“And going very fast,” said the lady mischievously. “Well, then, you
+needn't forget ME. On the contrary,” she added, after looking at him
+curiously, “I would rather you'd remember me. Good-by--or, rather,
+good-afternoon--if I'm to be remembered, Leon.”
+
+“Good-afternoon, ma'am.”
+
+She moved away, and presently disappeared among the laurels. But her
+last words were ringing in his ears. “Leon”--everybody else called him
+“Lee” for brevity; “Leon”--it was pretty as she said it.
+
+He turned away. But it so chanced that their parting was not to pass
+unnoticed, for, looking up the hill, Leonidas perceived his elder sister
+and little brother coming down the road, and knew that they must have
+seen him from the hilltop. It was like their “snoopin'”!
+
+They ran to him eagerly.
+
+“You were talking to the stranger,” said his sister breathlessly.
+
+“She spoke to me first,” said Leonidas, on the defensive.
+
+“What did she say?”
+
+“Wanted to know the eleckshun news,” said Leonidas with cool mendacity,
+“and I told her.”
+
+This improbable fiction nevertheless satisfied them. “What was she like?
+Oh, do tell us, Lee!” continued his sister.
+
+Nothing would have delighted him more than to expatiate upon her
+loveliness, the soft white beauty of her hands, the “cunning” little
+puckers around her lips, her bright tender eyes, the angelic texture
+of her robes, and the musical tinkle of her voice. But Leonidas had no
+confidant, and what healthy boy ever trusted his sister in such matter!
+“YOU saw what she was like,” he said, with evasive bluntness.
+
+“But, Lee”--
+
+But Lee was adamant. “Go and ask her,” he said.
+
+“Like as not you were sassy to her, and she shut you up,” said his
+sister artfully. But even this cruel suggestion, which he could have so
+easily flouted, did not draw him, and his ingenious relations flounced
+disgustedly away.
+
+But Leonidas was not spared any further allusion to the fair stranger;
+for the fact of her having spoken to him was duly reported at home, and
+at dinner his reticence was again sorely attacked. “Just like her, in
+spite of all her airs and graces, to hang out along the fence like any
+ordinary hired girl, jabberin' with anybody that went along the road,”
+ said his mother incisively. He knew that she didn't like her new
+neighbors, so this did not surprise nor greatly pain him. Neither did
+the prosaic facts that were now first made plain to him. His divinity
+was a Mrs. Burroughs, whose husband was conducting a series of mining
+operations, and prospecting with a gang of men on the Casket Ridge.
+As his duty required his continual presence there, Mrs. Burroughs was
+forced to forego the civilized pleasures of San Francisco for a frontier
+life, for which she was ill fitted, and in which she had no interest.
+All this was a vague irrelevance to Leonidas, who knew her only as a
+goddess in white who had been familiar to him, and kind, and to whom he
+was tied by the delicious joy of having a secret in common, and having
+done her a special favor. Healthy youth clings to its own impressions,
+let reason, experience, and even facts argue ever to the contrary.
+
+So he kept her secret and his intact, and was rewarded a few days
+afterwards by a distant view of her walking in the garden, with a man
+whom he recognized as her husband. It is needless to say that, without
+any extraneous thought, the man suffered in Leonidas's estimation by his
+propinquity to the goddess, and that he deemed him vastly inferior.
+
+It was a still greater reward to his fidelity that she seized an
+opportunity when her husband's head was turned to wave her hand to him.
+Leonidas did not approach the fence, partly through shyness and partly
+through a more subtle instinct that this man was not in the secret. He
+was right, for only the next day, as he passed to the post-office, she
+called him to the fence.
+
+“Did you see me wave my hand to you yesterday?” she asked pleasantly.
+
+“Yes, ma'am; but”--he hesitated--“I didn't come up, for I didn't think
+you wanted me when any one else was there.”
+
+She laughed merrily, and lifting his straw hat from his head, ran the
+fingers of the other hand through his damp curls. “You're the brightest,
+dearest boy I ever knew, Leon,” she said, dropping her pretty face to
+the level of his own, “and I ought to have remembered it. But I
+don't mind telling you I was dreadfully frightened lest you might
+misunderstand me and come and ask for another letter--before HIM.” As
+she emphasized the personal pronoun, her whole face seemed to change:
+the light of her blue eyes became mere glittering points, her nostrils
+grew white and contracted, and her pretty little mouth seemed to narrow
+into a straight cruel line, like a cat's. “Not a word ever to HIM,
+of all men! Do you hear?” she said almost brusquely. Then, seeing the
+concern in the boy's face, she laughed, and added explanatorily: “He's a
+bad, bad man, Leon, remember that.”
+
+The fact that she was speaking of her husband did not shock the boy's
+moral sense in the least. The sacredness of those relations, and even of
+blood kinship, is, I fear, not always so clear to the youthful mind as
+we fondly imagine. That Mr. Burroughs was a bad man to have excited
+this change in this lovely woman was Leonidas's only conclusion. He
+remembered how his sister's soft, pretty little kitten, purring on her
+lap, used to get its back up and spit at the postmaster's yellow hound.
+
+“I never wished to come unless you called me first,” he said frankly.
+
+“What?” she said, in her half playful, half reproachful, but wholly
+caressing way. “You mean to say you would never come to see me unless I
+sent for you? Oh, Leon! and you'd abandon me in that way?”
+
+But Leonidas was set in his own boyish superstition. “I'd just delight
+in being sent for by you any time, Mrs. Burroughs, and you kin always
+find me,” he said shyly, but doggedly; “but”--He stopped.
+
+“What an opinionated young gentleman! Well, I see I must do all the
+courting. So consider that I sent for you this morning. I've got another
+letter for you to mail.” She put her hand to her breast, and out of the
+pretty frillings of her frock produced, as before, with the same faint
+perfume of violets, a letter like the first. But it was unsealed. “Now,
+listen, Leon; we are going to be great friends--you and I.” Leonidas
+felt his cheeks glowing. “You are going to do me another great favor,
+and we are going to have a little fun and a great secret all by our own
+selves. Now, first, have you any correspondent--you know--any one who
+writes to you--any boy or girl--from San Francisco?”
+
+Leonidas's cheeks grew redder--alas! from a less happy consciousness. He
+never received any letters; nobody ever wrote to him. He was obliged to
+make this shameful admission.
+
+Mrs. Burroughs looked thoughtful. “But you have some friend in San
+Francisco--some one who MIGHT write to you?” she suggested pleasantly.
+
+“I knew a boy once who went to San Francisco,” said Leonidas doubtfully.
+“At least, he allowed he was goin' there.”
+
+“That will do,” said Mrs. Burroughs. “I suppose your parents know him or
+of him?”
+
+“Why,” said Leonidas, “he used to live here.”
+
+“Better still. For, you see, it wouldn't be strange if he DID write.
+What was the gentleman's name?”
+
+“Jim Belcher,” returned Leonidas hesitatingly, by no means sure that the
+absent Belcher knew how to write. Mrs. Burroughs took a tiny pencil from
+her belt, opened the letter she was holding in her hand, and apparently
+wrote the name in it. Then she folded it and sealed it, smiling
+charmingly at Leonidas's puzzled face.
+
+“Now, Leon, listen; for here is the favor I am asking. Mr. Jim
+Belcher”--she pronounced the name with great gravity--“will write to you
+in a few days. But inside of YOUR letter will be a little note to me,
+which you will bring me. You can show your letter to your family, if
+they want to know who it is from; but no one must see MINE. Can you
+manage that?”
+
+“Yes,” said Leonidas. Then, as the whole idea flashed upon his quick
+intelligence, he smiled until he showed his dimples. Mrs. Burroughs
+leaned forward over the fence, lifted his torn straw hat, and dropped
+a fluttering little kiss on his forehead. It seemed to the boy, flushed
+and rosy as a maid, as if she had left a shining star there for every
+one to see.
+
+“Don't smile like that, Leon, you're positively irresistible! It will be
+a nice little game, won't it? Nobody in it but you and me--and Belcher!
+We'll outwit them yet. And, you see, you'll be obliged to come to me,
+after all, without my asking.”
+
+They both laughed; indeed, quite a dimpled, bright-eyed, rosy, innocent
+pair, though I think Leonidas was the more maidenly.
+
+“And,” added Leonidas, with breathless eagerness, “I can sometimes write
+to--to--Jim, and inclose your letter.”
+
+“Angel of wisdom! certainly. Well, now, let's see--have you got any
+letters for the post to-day?” He colored again, for in anticipation of
+meeting her he had hurried up the family post that morning. He held out
+his letters: she thrust her own among them. “Now,” she said, laying her
+cool, soft hand against his hot cheek, “run along, dear; you must not be
+seen loitering here.”
+
+Leonidas ran off, buoyed up on ambient air. It seemed just like a
+fairy-book. Here he was, the confidant of the most beautiful creature he
+had seen, and there was a mysterious letter coming to him--Leonidas--and
+no one to know why. And now he had a “call” to see her often; she would
+not forget him--he needn't loiter by the fencepost to see if she wanted
+him--and his boyish pride and shyness were appeased. There was no
+question of moral ethics raised in Leonidas's mind; he knew that it
+would not be the real Jim Belcher who would write to him, but that made
+the prospect the more attractive. Nor did another circumstance trouble
+his conscience. When he reached the post-office, he was surprised to see
+the man whom he knew to be Mr. Burroughs talking with the postmaster.
+Leonidas brushed by him and deposited his letters in the box in
+discreet triumph. The postmaster was evidently officially resenting some
+imputation on his carelessness, and, concluding his defense, “No, sir,”
+ he said, “you kin bet your boots that ef any letter hez gone astray for
+you or your wife--Ye said your wife, didn't ye?”
+
+“Yes,” said Burroughs hastily, with a glance around the shop.
+
+“Well, for you or anybody at your house--it ain't here that's the fault.
+You hear me! I know every letter that comes in and goes outer this
+office, I reckon, and handle 'em all,”--Leonidas pricked up his
+ears,--“and if anybody oughter know, it's me. Ye kin paste that in your
+hat, Mr. Burroughs.” Burroughs, apparently disconcerted by the intrusion
+of a third party--Leonidas--upon what was evidently a private inquiry,
+murmured something surlily, and passed out.
+
+Leonidas was puzzled. That big man seemed to be “snoopin'” around for
+something! He knew that he dared not touch the letter-bag,--Leonidas had
+heard somewhere that it was a deadly crime to touch any letters after
+the Government had got hold of them once, and he had no fears for the
+safety of hers. But ought he not go back at once and tell her about
+her husband's visit, and the alarming fact that the postmaster was
+personally acquainted with all the letters? He instantly saw, too, the
+wisdom of her inclosing her letter hereafter in another address. Yet he
+finally resolved not to tell her to-day,--it would look like “hanging
+round” again; and--another secret reason--he was afraid that any
+allusion to her husband's interference would bring back that change
+in her beautiful face which he did not like. The better to resist
+temptation, he went back another way.
+
+It must not be supposed that, while Leonidas indulged in this secret
+passion for the beautiful stranger, it was to the exclusion of his
+boyish habits. It merely took the place of his intellectual visions and
+his romantic reading. He no longer carried books in his pocket on his
+lazy rambles. What were mediaeval legends of high-born ladies and their
+pages to this real romance of himself and Mrs. Burroughs? What were the
+exploits of boy captains and juvenile trappers and the Indian maidens
+and Spanish senoritas to what was now possible to himself and his
+divinity here--upon Casket Ridge! The very ground around her was now
+consecrated to romance and adventure. Consequently, he visited a
+few traps on his way back which he had set for “jackass-rabbits” and
+wildcats,--the latter a vindictive reprisal for aggression upon an
+orphan brood of mountain quail which he had taken under his protection.
+For, while he nourished a keen love of sport, it was controlled by a
+boy's larger understanding of nature: a pantheistic sympathy with
+man and beast and plant, which made him keenly alive to the strange
+cruelties of creation, revealed to him some queer animal feuds, and made
+him a chivalrous partisan of the weaker. He had even gone out of his way
+to defend, by ingenious contrivances of his own, the hoard of a golden
+squirrel and the treasures of some wild bees from a predatory bear,
+although it did not prevent him later from capturing the squirrel by an
+equally ingenious contrivance, and from eventually eating some of the
+honey.
+
+He was late home that evening. But this was “vacation,”--the district
+school was closed, and but for the household “chores,” which occupied
+his early mornings, each long summer day was a holiday. So two or three
+passed; and then one morning, on his going to the post-office, the
+postmaster threw down upon the counter a real and rather bulky letter,
+duly stamped, and addressed to Mr. Leonidas Boone! Leonidas was too
+discreet to open it before witnesses, but in the solitude of the
+trail home broke the seal. It contained another letter with no
+address--clearly the one SHE expected--and, more marvelous still, a
+sheaf of trout-hooks, with delicate gut-snells such as Leonidas had
+only dared to dream of. The letter to himself was written in a clear,
+distinct hand, and ran as follows:--
+
+
+DEAR LEE,--How are you getting on on old Casket Ridge? It seems a coon's
+age since you and me was together, and times I get to think I must just
+run up and see you! We're having bully times in 'Frisco, you bet! though
+there ain't anything wild worth shucks to go to see--'cept the sea
+lions at the Cliff House. They're just stunning--big as a grizzly, and
+bigger--climbing over a big rock or swimming in the sea like an otter or
+muskrat. I'm sending you some snells and hooks, such as you can't get at
+Casket. Use the fine ones for pot-holes and the bigger ones for running
+water or falls. Let me know when you've got 'em. Write to Lock Box No.
+1290. That's where dad's letters come. So no more at present.
+
+From yours truly,
+
+JIM BELCHER.
+
+
+Not only did Leonidas know that this was not from the real Jim, but he
+felt the vague contact of a new, charming, and original personality
+that fascinated him. Of course, it was only natural that one of HER
+friends--as he must be--should be equally delightful. There was no
+jealousy in Leonidas's devotion; he knew only a joy in this fellowship
+of admiration for her which he was satisfied that the other boy must
+feel. And only the right kind of boy could know the importance of
+his ravishing gift, and this Jim was evidently “no slouch”! Yet, in
+Leonidas's new joy he did not forget HER! He ran back to the stockade
+fence and lounged upon the road in view of the house, but she did not
+appear.
+
+Leonidas lingered on the top of the hill, ostentatiously examining a
+young hickory for a green switch, but to no effect. Then it suddenly
+occurred to him that she might be staying in purposely, and, perhaps
+a little piqued by her indifference, he ran off. There was a mountain
+stream hard by, now dwindled in the summer drouth to a mere trickling
+thread among the boulders, and there was a certain “pot-hole” that he
+had long known. It was the lurking-place of a phenomenal trout,--an
+almost historic fish in the district, which had long resisted the
+attempt of such rude sportsmen as miners, or even experts like himself.
+Few had seen it, except as a vague, shadowy bulk in the four feet of
+depth and gloom in which it hid; only once had Leonidas's quick eye
+feasted on its fair proportions. On that memorable occasion Leonidas,
+having exhausted every kind of lure of painted fly and living bait,
+was rising from his knees behind the bank, when a pink five-cent stamp
+dislodged from his pocket fluttered in the air, and descended slowly
+upon the still pool. Horrified at his loss, Leonidas leaned over to
+recover it, when there was a flash like lightning in the black depths, a
+dozen changes of light and shadow on the surface, a little whirling wave
+splashing against the side of the rock, and the postage stamp was gone.
+More than that--for one instant the trout remained visible, stationary
+and expectant! Whether it was the instinct of sport, or whether the fish
+had detected a new, subtle, and original flavor in the gum and paper,
+Leonidas never knew. Alas! he had not another stamp; he was obliged to
+leave the fish, but carried a brilliant idea away with him. Ever since
+then he had cherished it--and another extra stamp in his pocket. And
+now, with this strong but gossamer-like snell, this new hook, and this
+freshly cut hickory rod, he would make the trial!
+
+But fate was against him! He had scarcely descended the narrow trail to
+the pine-fringed margin of the stream before his quick ear detected an
+unusual rustling through the adjacent underbrush, and then a voice that
+startled him! It was HERS! In an instant all thought of sport had fled.
+With a beating heart, half opened lips, and uplifted lashes, Leonidas
+awaited the coming of his divinity like a timorous virgin at her first
+tryst.
+
+But Mrs. Burroughs was clearly not in an equally responsive mood. With
+her fair face reddened by the sun, the damp tendrils of her unwound hair
+clinging to her forehead, and her smart little slippers red with dust,
+there was also a querulous light in her eyes, and a still more querulous
+pinch in her nostrils, as she stood panting before him.
+
+“You tiresome boy!” she gasped, holding one little hand to her side as
+she gripped her brambled skirt around her ankles with the other. “Why
+didn't you wait? Why did you make me run all this distance after you?”
+
+Leonidas timidly and poignantly protested. He had waited before the
+house and on the hill; he thought she didn't want him.
+
+“Couldn't you see that THAT MAN kept me in?” she went on peevishly.
+“Haven't you sense enough to know that he suspects something, and
+follows me everywhere, dogging my footsteps every time the post comes
+in, and even going to the post-office himself, to make sure that he sees
+all my letters? Well,” she added impatiently, “have you anything for me?
+Why don't you speak?”
+
+Crushed and remorseful, Leonidas produced her letter. She almost
+snatched it from his hand, opened it, read a few lines, and her face
+changed. A smile strayed from her eyes to her lips, and back again.
+Leonidas's heart was lifted; she was so forgiving and so beautiful!
+
+“Is he a boy, Mrs. Burroughs?” asked Leonidas shyly.
+
+“Well--not exactly,” she said, her charming face all radiant again.
+“He's older than you. What has he written to you?”
+
+Leonidas put his letter in her hand for reply.
+
+“I wish I could see him, you know,” he said shyly. “That letter's
+bully--it's just rats! I like him pow'ful.”
+
+Mrs. Burroughs had skimmed through the letter, but not interestedly.
+
+“You mustn't like him more than you like me,” she said laughingly,
+caressing him with her voice and eyes, and even her straying hand.
+
+“I couldn't do that! I never could like anybody as I like you,” said.
+Leonidas gravely. There was such appalling truthfulness in the boy's
+voice and frankly opened eyes that the woman could not evade it, and
+was slightly disconcerted. But she presently started up with a vexatious
+cry. “There's that wretch following me again, I do believe,” she said,
+staring at the hilltop. “Yes! Look, Leon, he's turning to come down this
+trail. What's to be done? He mustn't see me here!”
+
+Leonidas looked. It was indeed Mr. Burroughs; but he was evidently
+only taking a short cut towards the Ridge, where his men were working.
+Leonidas had seen him take it before. But it was the principal trail on
+the steep hillside, and they must eventually meet. A man might evade
+it by scrambling through the brush to a lower and rougher trail; but a
+woman, never! But an idea had seized Leonidas. “I can stop him,” he said
+confidently to her. “You just lie low here behind that rock till I come
+back. He hasn't seen you yet.”
+
+She had barely time to draw back before Leonidas darted down the trail
+towards her husband. Yet, in her intense curiosity, she leaned out
+the next moment to watch him. He paused at last, not far from the
+approaching figure, and seemed to kneel down on the trail. What was he
+doing? Her husband was still slowly advancing. Suddenly he stopped. At
+the same moment she heard their two voices in excited parley, and then,
+to her amazement, she saw her husband scramble hurriedly down the trail
+to the lower level, and with an occasional backward glance, hasten away
+until he had passed beyond her view.
+
+She could scarcely realize her narrow escape when Leonidas stood by her
+side. “How did you do it?” she said eagerly.
+
+“With a rattler!” said the boy gravely.
+
+“With a what?”
+
+“A rattlesnake--pizen snake, you know.”
+
+“A rattlesnake?” she said, staring at Leonidas with a quick snatching
+away of her skirts.
+
+The boy, who seemed to have forgotten her in his other abstraction of
+adventure, now turned quickly, with devoted eyes and a reassuring smile.
+
+“Yes; but I wouldn't let him hurt you,” he said gently.
+
+“But what did you DO?”
+
+He looked at her curiously. “You won't be frightened if I show you?” he
+said doubtfully. “There's nothin' to be afeerd of s'long as you're with
+me,” he added proudly.
+
+“Yes--that is”--she stammered, and then, her curiosity getting the
+better of her fear, she added in a whisper: “Show me quick!”
+
+He led the way up the narrow trail until he stopped where he had knelt
+before. It was a narrow, sunny ledge of rock, scarcely wide enough for
+a single person to pass. He silently pointed to a cleft in the rock, and
+kneeling down again, began to whistle in a soft, fluttering way. There
+was a moment of suspense, and then she was conscious of an awful gliding
+something,--a movement so measured yet so exquisitely graceful that she
+stood enthralled. A narrow, flattened, expressionless head was followed
+by a footlong strip of yellow-barred scales; then there was a pause, and
+the head turned, in a beautifully symmetrical half-circle, towards the
+whistler. The whistling ceased; the snake, with half its body out of the
+cleft, remained poised in air as if stiffened to stone.
+
+“There,” said Leonidas quietly, “that's what Mr. Burroughs saw, and
+that's WHY he scooted off the trail. I just called out William Henry,--I
+call him William Henry, and he knows his name,--and then I sang out to
+Mr. Burroughs what was up; and it was lucky I did, for the next moment
+he'd have been on top of him and have been struck, for rattlers don't
+give way to any one.”
+
+“Oh, why didn't you let”--She stopped herself quickly, but could not
+stop the fierce glint in her eye nor the sharp curve in her nostril.
+Luckily, Leonidas did not see this, being preoccupied with his other
+graceful charmer, William Henry.
+
+“But how did you know it was here?” said Mrs. Burroughs, recovering
+herself.
+
+“Fetched him here,” said Leonidas briefly.
+
+“What in your hands?” she said, drawing back.
+
+“No! made him follow! I HAVE handled him, but it was after I'd first
+made him strike his pizen out upon a stick. Ye know, after he strikes
+four times he ain't got any pizen left. Then ye kin do anythin' with
+him, and he knows it. He knows me, you bet! I've bin three months
+trainin' him. Look! Don't be frightened,” he said, as Mrs. Burroughs
+drew hurriedly back; “see him mind me. Now scoot home, William Henry.”
+
+He accompanied the command with a slow, dominant movement of the hickory
+rod he was carrying. The snake dropped its head, and slid noiselessly
+out of the cleft across the trail and down the hill.
+
+“Thinks my rod is witch-hazel, which rattlers can't abide,” continued
+Leonidas, dropping into a boy's breathless abbreviated speech. “Lives
+down your way--just back of your farm. Show ye some day. Suns himself on
+a flat stone every day--always cold--never can get warm. Eh?”
+
+She had not spoken, but was gazing into space with a breathless rigidity
+of attitude and a fixed look in her eye, not unlike the motionless orbs
+of the reptile that had glided away.
+
+“Does anybody else know you keep him?” she asked.
+
+“Nary one. I never showed him to anybody but you,” replied the boy.
+
+“Don't! You must show me where he hides to-morrow,” she said, in her old
+laughing way. “And now, Leon, I must go back to the house.”
+
+“May I write to him--to Jim Belcher, Mrs. Burroughs?” said the boy
+timidly.
+
+“Certainly. And come to me to-morrow with your letter--I will have mine
+ready. Good-by.” She stopped and glanced at the trail. “And you say that
+if that man had kept on, the snake would have bitten him?”
+
+“Sure pop!--if he'd trod on him--as he was sure to. The snake wouldn't
+have known he didn't mean it. It's only natural,” continued Leonidas,
+with glowing partisanship for the gentle and absent William Henry. “YOU
+wouldn't like to be trodden upon, Mrs. Burroughs!”
+
+“No! I'd strike out!” she said quickly. She made a rapid motion forward
+with her low forehead and level head, leaving it rigid the next moment,
+so that it reminded him of the snake, and he laughed. At which she
+laughed too, and tripped away.
+
+Leonidas went back and caught his trout. But even this triumph did not
+remove a vague sense of disappointment which had come over him. He had
+often pictured to himself a Heaven-sent meeting with her in the woods,
+a walk with her, alone, where he could pick her the rarest flowers and
+herbs and show her his woodland friends; and it had only ended in this,
+and an exhibition of William Henry! He ought to have saved HER from
+something, and not her husband. Yet he had no ill-feeling for Burroughs,
+only a desire to circumvent him, on behalf of the unprotected, as he
+would have baffled a hawk or a wildcat. He went home in dismal spirits,
+but later that evening constructed a boyish letter of thanks to the
+apocryphal Belcher and told him all about--the trout!
+
+He brought her his letter the next day, and received hers to inclose.
+She was pleasant, her own charming self again, but she seemed more
+interested in other things than himself, as, for instance, the docile
+William Henry, whose hiding-place he showed, and whose few tricks she
+made him exhibit to her, and which the gratified Leonidas accepted as a
+delicate form of flattery to himself. But his yearning, innocent spirit
+detected a something lacking, which he was too proud to admit even to
+himself. It was his own fault; he ought to have waited for her, and not
+gone for the trout!
+
+So a fortnight passed with an interchange of the vicarious letters, and
+brief, hopeful, and disappointing meetings to Leonidas. To add to his
+unhappiness, he was obliged to listen to sneering disparagement of his
+goddess from his family, and criticisms which, happily, his innocence
+did not comprehend. It was his own mother who accused her of shamefully
+“making up” to the good-looking expressman at church last Sunday, and
+declared that Burroughs ought to “look after that wife of his,”--two
+statements which the simple Leonidas could not reconcile. He had seen
+the incident, and only thought her more lovely than ever. Why should not
+the expressman think so too? And yet the boy was not happy; something
+intruded upon his sports, upon his books, making them dull and vapid,
+and yet that something was she! He grew pale and preoccupied. If he had
+only some one in whom to confide--some one who could explain his hopes
+and fears. That one was nearer than he thought!
+
+It was quite three weeks since the rattlesnake incident, and he was
+wandering moodily over Casket Ridge. He was near the Casket, that abrupt
+upheaval of quartz and gneiss, shaped like a coffer, from which the
+mountain took its name. It was a favorite haunt of Leonidas, one of
+whose boyish superstitions was that it contained a treasure of gold, and
+one of whose brightest dreams had been that he should yet discover it.
+This he did not do to-day, but looking up from the rocks that he was
+listlessly examining, he made the almost as thrilling discovery that
+near him on the trail was a distinguished-looking stranger.
+
+He was bestriding a shapely mustang, which well became his handsome
+face and slight, elegant figure, and he was looking at Leonidas with
+an amused curiosity and a certain easy assurance that were difficult to
+withstand. It was with the same fascinating self-confidence of smile,
+voice, and manner that he rode up to the boy, and leaning lightly over
+his saddle, said with exaggerated politeness: “I believe I have the
+pleasure of addressing Mr. Leonidas Boone?”
+
+The rising color in Leonidas's face was apparently a sufficient
+answer to the stranger, for he continued smilingly, “Then permit me to
+introduce myself as Mr. James Belcher. As you perceive, I have grown
+considerably since you last saw me. In fact, I've done nothing else.
+It's surprising what a fellow can do when he sets his mind on one thing.
+And then, you know, they're always telling you that San Francisco is a
+'growing place.' That accounts for it!”
+
+Leonidas, dazed, dazzled, but delighted, showed all his white teeth in a
+shy laugh. At which the enchanting stranger leaped from his horse like
+a very boy, drew his arm through the rein, and going up to Leonidas,
+lifted the boy's straw hat from his head and ran his fingers through his
+curls. There was nothing original in that--everybody did that to him as
+a preliminary to conversation. But when this ingenuous fine gentleman
+put his own Panama hat on Leonidas's head, and clapped Leonidas's torn
+straw on his own, and, passing his arm through the boy's, began to walk
+on with him, Leonidas's simple heart went out to him at once.
+
+“And now, Leon,” said the delightful stranger, “let's you and me have
+a talk. There's a nice cool spot under these laurels; I'll stake out
+Pepita, and we'll just lie off there and gab, and not care if school
+keeps or not.”
+
+“But you know you ain't really Jim Belcher,” said the boy shyly.
+
+“I'm as good a man as he is any day, whoever I am,” said the stranger,
+with humorous defiance, “and can lick him out of his boots, whoever HE
+is. That ought to satisfy you. But if you want my certificate, here's
+your own letter, old man,” he said, producing Leonidas's last scrawl
+from his pocket.
+
+“And HERS?” said the boy cautiously.
+
+The stranger's face changed a little. “And HERS,” he repeated gravely,
+showing a little pink note which Leonidas recognized as one of Mrs.
+Burroughs's inclosures. The boy was silent until they reached the
+laurels, where the stranger tethered his horse and then threw himself
+in an easy attitude beneath the tree, with the back of his head upon his
+clasped hands. Leonidas could see his curved brown mustaches and silky
+lashes that were almost as long, and thought him the handsomest man he
+had ever beheld.
+
+“Well, Leon,” said the stranger, stretching himself out comfortably and
+pulling the boy down beside him, “how are things going on the Casket?
+All serene, eh?”
+
+The inquiry so dismally recalled Leonidas's late feelings that his face
+clouded, and he involuntarily sighed. The stranger instantly shifted his
+head and gazed curiously at him. Then he took the boy's sunburnt hand in
+his own, and held it a moment. “Well, go on,” he said.
+
+“Well, Mr.--Mr.--I can't go on--I won't!” said Leonidas, with a sudden
+fit of obstinacy. “I don't know what to call you.”
+
+“Call me 'Jack'--'Jack Hamlin' when you're not in a hurry. Ever heard of
+me before?” he added, suddenly turning his head towards Leonidas.
+
+The boy shook his head. “No.”
+
+Mr. Jack Hamlin lifted his lashes in affected expostulation to the
+skies. “And this is Fame!” he murmured audibly.
+
+But this Leonidas did not comprehend. Nor could he understand why the
+stranger, who clearly must have come to see HER, should not ask about
+her, should not rush to seek her, but should lie back there all the
+while so contentedly on the grass. HE wouldn't. He half resented it, and
+then it occurred to him that this fine gentleman was like himself--shy.
+Who could help being so before such an angel? HE would help him on.
+
+And so, shyly at first, but bit by bit emboldened by a word or two from
+Jack, he began to talk of her--of her beauty--of her kindness--of his
+own unworthiness--of what she had said and done--until, finding in this
+gracious stranger the vent his pent-up feelings so long had sought, he
+sang then and there the little idyl of his boyish life. He told of his
+decline in her affections after his unpardonable sin in keeping her
+waiting while he went for the trout, and added the miserable mistake of
+the rattlesnake episode. “For it was a mistake, Mr. Hamlin. I oughtn't
+to have let a lady like that know anything about snakes--just because I
+happen to know them.”
+
+“It WAS an awful slump, Lee,” said Hamlin gravely. “Get a woman and
+a snake together--and where are you? Think of Adam and Eve and the
+serpent, you know.”
+
+“But it wasn't that way,” said the boy earnestly. “And I want to tell
+you something else that's just makin' me sick, Mr. Hamlin. You know I
+told you William Henry lives down at the bottom of Burroughs's garden,
+and how I showed Mrs. Burroughs his tricks! Well, only two days ago I
+was down there looking for him, and couldn't find him anywhere. There's
+a sort of narrow trail from the garden to the hill, a short cut up to
+the Ridge, instead o' going by their gate. It's just the trail any one
+would take in a hurry, or if they didn't want to be seen from the road.
+Well! I was looking this way and that for William Henry, and whistlin'
+for him, when I slipped on to the trail. There, in the middle of it, was
+an old bucket turned upside down--just the thing a man would kick away
+or a woman lift up. Well, Mr. Hamlin, I kicked it away, and”--the boy
+stopped, with rounded eyes and bated breath, and added--“I just had time
+to give one jump and save myself! For under that pail, cramped down so
+he couldn't get out, and just bilin' over with rage, and chockful of
+pizen, was William Henry! If it had been anybody else less spry, they'd
+have got bitten,--and that's just what the sneak who put it there knew.”
+
+Mr. Hamlin uttered an exclamation under his breath, and rose to his
+feet.
+
+“What did you say?” asked the boy quickly.
+
+“Nothing,” said Mr. Hamlin.
+
+But it had sounded to Leonidas like an oath.
+
+Mr. Hamlin walked a few steps, as if stretching his limbs, and then
+said: “And you think Burroughs would have been bitten?”
+
+“Why, no!” said Leonidas in astonished indignation; “of course not--not
+BURROUGHS. It would have been poor MRS. Burroughs. For, of course, HE
+set that trap for her--don't you see? Who else would do it?”
+
+“Of course, of course! Certainly,” said Mr. Hamlin coolly. “Of course,
+as you say, HE set the trap--yes--you just hang on to that idea.”
+
+But something in Mr. Hamlin's manner, and a peculiar look in his eye,
+did not satisfy Leonidas. “Are you going to see her now?” he said
+eagerly. “I can show you the house, and then run in and tell her you're
+outside in the laurels.”
+
+“Not just yet,” said Mr. Hamlin, laying his hand on the boy's head
+after having restored his own hat. “You see, I thought of giving her a
+surprise. A big surprise!” he added slowly. After a pause, he went on:
+“Did you tell her what you had seen?”
+
+“Of course I did,” said Leonidas reproachfully. “Did you think I was
+going to let her get bit? It might have killed her.”
+
+“And it might not have been an unmixed pleasure for William Henry. I
+mean,” said Mr. Hamlin gravely, correcting himself, “YOU would never
+have forgiven him. But what did she say?”
+
+The boy's face clouded. “She thanked me and said it was very
+thoughtful--and kind--though it might have been only an accident”--he
+stammered--“and then she said perhaps I was hanging round and coming
+there a little too much lately, and that as Burroughs was very watchful,
+I'd better quit for two or three days.” The tears were rising to his
+eyes, but by putting his two clenched fists into his pockets, he managed
+to hold them down. Perhaps Mr. Hamlin's soft hand on his head assisted
+him. Mr. Hamlin took from his pocket a notebook, and tearing out a leaf,
+sat down again and began to write on his knee. After a pause, Leonidas
+said,--
+
+“Was you ever in love, Mr. Hamlin?”
+
+“Never,” said Mr. Hamlin, quietly continuing to write. “But, now you
+speak of it, it's a long-felt want in my nature that I intend to supply
+some day. But not until I've made my pile. And don't YOU either.” He
+continued writing, for it was this gentleman's peculiarity to talk
+without apparently the slightest concern whether anybody else spoke,
+whether he was listened to, or whether his remarks were at all relevant
+to the case. Yet he was always listened to for that reason. When he had
+finished writing, he folded up the paper, put it in an envelope, and
+addressed it.
+
+“Shall I take it to her?” said Leonidas eagerly.
+
+“It's not for HER; it's for him--Mr. Burroughs,” said Mr. Hamlin
+quietly.
+
+The boy drew back. “To get him out of the way,” added Hamlin
+explanatorily. “When he gets it, lightning wouldn't keep him here. Now,
+how to send it,” he said thoughtfully.
+
+“You might leave it at the post-office,” said Leonidas timidly. “He
+always goes there to watch his wife's letters.”
+
+For the first time in their interview Mr. Hamlin distinctly laughed.
+
+“Your head is level, Leo, and I'll do it. Now the best thing you can do
+is to follow Mrs. Burroughs's advice. Quit going to the house for a day
+or two.” He walked towards his horse. The boy's face sank, but he kept
+up bravely. “And will I see you again?” he said wistfully.
+
+Mr. Hamlin lowered his face so near the boy's that Leonidas could see
+himself in the brown depths of Mr. Hamlin's eyes. “I hope you will,”
+ he said gravely. He mounted, shook the boy's hand, and rode away in the
+lengthening shadows. Then Leonidas walked sadly home.
+
+There was no need for him to keep his promise; for the next morning the
+family were stirred by the announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs had
+left Casket Ridge that night by the down stage for Sacramento, and that
+the house was closed. There were various rumors concerning the reason of
+this sudden departure, but only one was persistent, and borne out by
+the postmaster. It was that Mr. Burroughs had received that afternoon an
+anonymous note that his wife was about to elope with the notorious San
+Francisco gambler, Jack Hamlin.
+
+But Leonidas Boone, albeit half understanding, kept his miserable secret
+with a still hopeful and trustful heart. It grieved him a little that
+William Henry was found a few days later dead, with his head crushed.
+Yet it was not until years later, when he had made a successful
+“prospect” on Casket Ridge, that he met Mr. Hamlin in San Francisco,
+and knew how he had played the part of Mercury upon that “heaven-kissing
+hill.”
+
+
+
+
+COLONEL STARBOTTLE FOR THE PLAINTIFF
+
+
+It had been a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle. First, for his
+personality, as it would have been difficult to separate the Colonel's
+achievements from his individuality; second, for his oratorical
+abilities as a sympathetic pleader; and third, for his functions as the
+leading legal counsel for the Eureka Ditch Company versus the State of
+California. On his strictly legal performances in this issue I prefer
+not to speak; there were those who denied them, although the jury had
+accepted them in the face of the ruling of the half amused, half cynical
+Judge himself. For an hour they had laughed with the Colonel, wept with
+him, been stirred to personal indignation or patriotic exaltation by
+his passionate and lofty periods,--what else could they do than give him
+their verdict? If it was alleged by some that the American eagle, Thomas
+Jefferson, and the Resolutions of '98 had nothing whatever to do with
+the contest of a ditch company over a doubtfully worded legislative
+document; that wholesale abuse of the State Attorney and his political
+motives had not the slightest connection with the legal question
+raised--it was, nevertheless, generally accepted that the losing party
+would have been only too glad to have the Colonel on their side. And
+Colonel Starbottle knew this, as, perspiring, florid, and panting, he
+rebuttoned the lower buttons of his blue frock-coat, which had become
+loosed in an oratorical spasm, and readjusted his old-fashioned,
+spotless shirt frill above it as he strutted from the court-room amidst
+the handshakings and acclamations of his friends.
+
+And here an unprecedented thing occurred. The Colonel absolutely
+declined spirituous refreshment at the neighboring Palmetto Saloon,
+and declared his intention of proceeding directly to his office in the
+adjoining square. Nevertheless, the Colonel quitted the building alone,
+and apparently unarmed, except for his faithful gold-headed stick,
+which hung as usual from his forearm. The crowd gazed after him with
+undisguised admiration of this new evidence of his pluck. It was
+remembered also that a mysterious note had been handed to him at
+the conclusion of his speech,--evidently a challenge from the State
+Attorney. It was quite plain that the Colonel--a practiced duelist--was
+hastening home to answer it.
+
+But herein they were wrong. The note was in a female hand, and simply
+requested the Colonel to accord an interview with the writer at the
+Colonel's office as soon as he left the court. But it was an engagement
+that the Colonel--as devoted to the fair sex as he was to the
+“code”--was no less prompt in accepting. He flicked away the dust from
+his spotless white trousers and varnished boots with his handkerchief,
+and settled his black cravat under his Byron collar as he neared his
+office. He was surprised, however, on opening the door of his private
+office, to find his visitor already there; he was still more startled to
+find her somewhat past middle age and plainly attired. But the Colonel
+was brought up in a school of Southern politeness, already antique in
+the republic, and his bow of courtesy belonged to the epoch of his
+shirt frill and strapped trousers. No one could have detected his
+disappointment in his manner, albeit his sentences were short
+and incomplete. But the Colonel's colloquial speech was apt to be
+fragmentary incoherencies of his larger oratorical utterances.
+
+“A thousand pardons--for--er--having kept a lady waiting--er!
+But--er--congratulations of friends--and--er--courtesy due to
+them--er--interfered with--though perhaps only heightened--by
+procrastination--the pleasure of--ha!” And the Colonel completed his
+sentence with a gallant wave of his fat but white and well-kept hand.
+
+“Yes! I came to see you along o' that speech of yours. I was in court.
+When I heard you gettin' it off on that jury, I says to myself, 'That's
+the kind o' lawyer I want. A man that's flowery and convincin'! Just the
+man to take up our case.”
+
+“Ah! It's a matter of business, I see,” said the Colonel, inwardly
+relieved, but externally careless. “And--er--may I ask the nature of the
+case?”
+
+“Well! it's a breach-o'-promise suit,” said the visitor calmly.
+
+If the Colonel had been surprised before, he was now really startled,
+and with an added horror that required all his politeness to conceal.
+Breach-of-promise cases were his peculiar aversion. He had always held
+them to be a kind of litigation which could have been obviated by the
+prompt killing of the masculine offender--in which case he would have
+gladly defended the killer. But a suit for damages,--DAMAGES!--with the
+reading of love-letters before a hilarious jury and court, was against
+all his instincts. His chivalry was outraged; his sense of humor was
+small, and in the course of his career he had lost one or two important
+cases through an unexpected development of this quality in a jury.
+
+The woman had evidently noticed his hesitation, but mistook its cause.
+“It ain't me--but my darter.”
+
+The Colonel recovered his politeness. “Ah! I am relieved, my dear madam!
+I could hardly conceive a man ignorant enough to--er--er--throw away
+such evident good fortune--or base enough to deceive the trustfulness of
+womanhood--matured and experienced only in the chivalry of our sex, ha!”
+
+The woman smiled grimly. “Yes!--it's my darter, Zaidee Hooker--so ye
+might spare some of them pretty speeches for HER--before the jury.”
+
+The Colonel winced slightly before this doubtful prospect, but smiled.
+“Ha! Yes!--certainly--the jury. But--er--my dear lady, need we go as
+far as that? Can not this affair be settled--er--out of court? Could
+not this--er--individual--be admonished--told that he must
+give satisfaction--personal satisfaction--for his dastardly
+conduct--to--er--near relative--or even valued personal friend?
+The--er--arrangements necessary for that purpose I myself would
+undertake.”
+
+He was quite sincere; indeed, his small black eyes shone with that fire
+which a pretty woman or an “affair of honor” could alone kindle. The
+visitor stared vacantly at him, and said slowly, “And what good is that
+goin' to do US?”
+
+“Compel him to--er--perform his promise,” said the Colonel, leaning back
+in his chair.
+
+“Ketch him doin' it!” she exclaimed scornfully. “No--that ain't wot
+we're after. We must make him PAY! Damages--and nothin' short o' THAT.”
+
+The Colonel bit his lip. “I suppose,” he said gloomily, “you have
+documentary evidence--written promises and protestations--er--er
+love-letters, in fact?”
+
+“No--nary a letter! Ye see, that's jest it--and that's where YOU come
+in. You've got to convince that jury yourself. You've got to show what
+it is--tell the whole story your own way. Lord! to a man like you that's
+nothin'.”
+
+Startling as this admission might have been to any other lawyer,
+Starbottle was absolutely relieved by it. The absence of any
+mirth-provoking correspondence, and the appeal solely to his own powers
+of persuasion, actually struck his fancy. He lightly put aside the
+compliment with a wave of his white hand.
+
+“Of course,” he said confidently, “there is strongly presumptive and
+corroborative evidence? Perhaps you can give me--er--a brief outline of
+the affair?”
+
+“Zaidee kin do that straight enough, I reckon,” said the woman; “what I
+want to know first is, kin you take the case?”
+
+The Colonel did not hesitate; his curiosity was piqued. “I certainly
+can. I have no doubt your daughter will put me in possession of
+sufficient facts and details--to constitute what we call--er--a brief.”
+
+“She kin be brief enough--or long enough--for the matter of that,” said
+the woman, rising. The Colonel accepted this implied witticism with a
+smile.
+
+“And when may I have the pleasure of seeing her?” he asked politely.
+
+“Well, I reckon as soon as I can trot out and call her. She's just
+outside, meanderin' in the road--kinder shy, ye know, at first.”
+
+She walked to the door. The astounded Colonel nevertheless gallantly
+accompanied her as she stepped out into the street and called shrilly,
+“You Zaidee!”
+
+A young girl here apparently detached herself from a tree and the
+ostentatious perusal of an old election poster, and sauntered down
+towards the office door. Like her mother, she was plainly dressed;
+unlike her, she had a pale, rather refined face, with a demure mouth and
+downcast eyes. This was all the Colonel saw as he bowed profoundly and
+led the way into his office, for she accepted his salutations without
+lifting her head. He helped her gallantly to a chair, on which she
+seated herself sideways, somewhat ceremoniously, with her eyes following
+the point of her parasol as she traced a pattern on the carpet. A second
+chair offered to the mother that lady, however, declined. “I reckon to
+leave you and Zaidee together to talk it out,” she said; turning to her
+daughter, she added, “Jest you tell him all, Zaidee,” and before the
+Colonel could rise again, disappeared from the room. In spite of his
+professional experience, Starbottle was for a moment embarrassed. The
+young girl, however, broke the silence without looking up.
+
+“Adoniram K. Hotchkiss,” she began, in a monotonous voice, as if it were
+a recitation addressed to the public, “first began to take notice of me
+a year ago. Arter that--off and on”--
+
+“One moment,” interrupted the astounded Colonel; “do you mean Hotchkiss
+the President of the Ditch Company?” He had recognized the name of
+a prominent citizen--a rigid, ascetic, taciturn, middle-aged man--a
+deacon--and more than that, the head of the company he had just
+defended. It seemed inconceivable.
+
+“That's him,” she continued, with eyes still fixed on the parasol and
+without changing her monotonous tone--“off and on ever since. Most
+of the time at the Free-Will Baptist Church--at morning service,
+prayer-meetings, and such. And at home--outside--er--in the road.”
+
+“Is it this gentleman--Mr. Adoniram K. Hotchkiss--who--er--promised
+marriage?” stammered the Colonel.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The Colonel shifted uneasily in his chair. “Most extraordinary! for--you
+see--my dear young lady--this becomes--a--er--most delicate affair.”
+
+“That's what maw said,” returned the young woman simply, yet with the
+faintest smile playing around her demure lips and downcast cheek.
+
+“I mean,” said the Colonel, with a pained yet courteous smile, “that
+this--er--gentleman--is in fact--er--one of my clients.”
+
+“That's what maw said too, and of course your knowing him will make it
+all the easier for you.”
+
+A slight flush crossed the Colonel's cheek as he returned quickly and a
+little stiffly, “On the contrary--er--it may make it impossible for me
+to--er--act in this matter.”
+
+The girl lifted her eyes. The Colonel held his breath as the long lashes
+were raised to his level. Even to an ordinary observer that sudden
+revelation of her eyes seemed to transform her face with subtle
+witchery. They were large, brown, and soft, yet filled with an
+extraordinary penetration and prescience. They were the eyes of an
+experienced woman of thirty fixed in the face of a child. What else the
+Colonel saw there Heaven only knows! He felt his inmost secrets
+plucked from him--his whole soul laid bare--his vanity, belligerency,
+gallantry--even his mediaeval chivalry, penetrated, and yet illuminated,
+in that single glance. And when the eyelids fell again, he felt that a
+greater part of himself had been swallowed up in them.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” he said hurriedly. “I mean--this matter may
+be arranged--er--amicably. My interest with--and as you wisely
+say--my--er--knowledge of my client--er--Mr. Hotchkiss--may effect--a
+compromise.”
+
+“And DAMAGES,” said the young girl, readdressing her parasol, as if she
+had never looked up.
+
+The Colonel winced. “And--er--undoubtedly COMPENSATION--if you do not
+press a fulfillment of the promise. Unless,” he said, with an attempted
+return to his former easy gallantry, which, however, the recollection of
+her eyes made difficult, “it is a question of--er--the affections.”
+
+“Which?” asked his fair client softly.
+
+“If you still love him?” explained the Colonel, actually blushing.
+
+Zaidee again looked up; again taking the Colonel's breath away with eyes
+that expressed not only the fullest perception of what he had SAID, but
+of what he thought and had not said, and with an added subtle suggestion
+of what he might have thought. “That's tellin',” she said, dropping her
+long lashes again.
+
+The Colonel laughed vacantly. Then feeling himself growing imbecile, he
+forced an equally weak gravity. “Pardon me--I understand there are no
+letters; may I know the way in which he formulated his declaration and
+promises?”
+
+“Hymn-books.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said the mystified lawyer.
+
+“Hymn-books--marked words in them with pencil--and passed 'em on to
+me,” repeated Zaidee. “Like 'love,' 'dear,' 'precious,' 'sweet,' and
+'blessed,'” she added, accenting each word with a push of her parasol on
+the carpet. “Sometimes a whole line outer Tate and Brady--and Solomon's
+Song, you know, and sich.”
+
+“I believe,” said the Colonel loftily, “that the--er--phrases of sacred
+psalmody lend themselves to the language of the affections. But in
+regard to the distinct promise of marriage--was there--er--no OTHER
+expression?”
+
+“Marriage Service in the prayer-book--lines and words outer that--all
+marked,” Zaidee replied.
+
+The Colonel nodded naturally and approvingly. “Very good. Were others
+cognizant of this? Were there any witnesses?”
+
+“Of course not,” said the girl. “Only me and him. It was generally at
+church-time--or prayer-meeting. Once, in passing the plate, he slipped
+one o' them peppermint lozenges with the letters stamped on it 'I love
+you' for me to take.”
+
+The Colonel coughed slightly. “And you have the lozenge?”
+
+“I ate it.”
+
+“Ah,” said the Colonel. After a pause he added delicately, “But were
+these attentions--er--confined to--er--sacred precincts? Did he meet you
+elsewhere?”
+
+“Useter pass our house on the road,” returned the girl, dropping into
+her monotonous recital, “and useter signal.”
+
+“Ah, signal?” repeated the Colonel approvingly.
+
+“Yes! He'd say 'Keerow,' and I'd say 'Keeree.' Suthing like a bird, you
+know.”
+
+Indeed, as she lifted her voice in imitation of the call, the Colonel
+thought it certainly very sweet and birdlike. At least as SHE gave
+it. With his remembrance of the grim deacon he had doubts as to the
+melodiousness of HIS utterance. He gravely made her repeat it.
+
+“And after that signal?” he added suggestively.
+
+“He'd pass on.”
+
+The Colonel again coughed slightly, and tapped his desk with his
+penholder.
+
+“Were there any endearments--er--caresses--er--such as taking your
+hand--er--clasping your waist?” he suggested, with a gallant yet
+respectful sweep of his white hand and bowing of his head; “er--slight
+pressure of your fingers in the changes of a dance--I mean,” he
+corrected himself, with an apologetic cough--“in the passing of the
+plate?”
+
+“No; he was not what you'd call 'fond,'” returned the girl.
+
+“Ah! Adoniram K. Hotchkiss was not 'fond' in the ordinary acceptance of
+the word,” noted the Colonel, with professional gravity.
+
+She lifted her disturbing eyes, and again absorbed his in her own. She
+also said “Yes,” although her eyes in their mysterious prescience of all
+he was thinking disclaimed the necessity of any answer at all. He smiled
+vacantly. There was a long pause. On which she slowly disengaged her
+parasol from the carpet pattern, and stood up.
+
+“I reckon that's about all,” she said.
+
+“Er--yes--but one moment,” began the Colonel vaguely. He would have
+liked to keep her longer, but with her strange premonition of him he
+felt powerless to detain her, or explain his reason for doing so. He
+instinctively knew she had told him all; his professional judgment told
+him that a more hopeless case had never come to his knowledge. Yet he
+was not daunted, only embarrassed. “No matter,” he said. “Of course I
+shall have to consult with you again.”
+
+Her eyes again answered that she expected he would, and she added
+simply, “When?”
+
+“In the course of a day or two;” he replied quickly. “I will send you
+word.”
+
+She turned to go. In his eagerness to open the door for her, he upset
+his chair, and with some confusion, that was actually youthful, he
+almost impeded her movements in the hall, and knocked his broad-brimmed
+Panama hat from his bowing hand in a final gallant sweep. Yet as her
+small, trim, youthful figure, with its simple Leghorn straw hat confined
+by a blue bow under her round chin, passed away before him, she looked
+more like a child than ever.
+
+The Colonel spent that afternoon in making diplomatic inquiries. He
+found his youthful client was the daughter of a widow who had a small
+ranch on the cross-roads, near the new Free-Will Baptist Church--the
+evident theatre of this pastoral. They led a secluded life, the
+girl being little known in the town, and her beauty and fascination
+apparently not yet being a recognized fact. The Colonel felt a
+pleasurable relief at this, and a general satisfaction he could not
+account for. His few inquiries concerning Mr. Hotchkiss only confirmed
+his own impressions of the alleged lover,--a serious-minded, practically
+abstracted man, abstentive of youthful society, and the last man
+apparently capable of levity of the affections or serious flirtation.
+The Colonel was mystified, but determined of purpose, whatever that
+purpose might have been.
+
+The next day he was at his office at the same hour. He was alone--as
+usual--the Colonel's office being really his private lodgings, disposed
+in connecting rooms, a single apartment reserved for consultation.
+He had no clerk, his papers and briefs being taken by his faithful
+body-servant and ex-slave “Jim” to another firm who did his office work
+since the death of Major Stryker, the Colonel's only law partner, who
+fell in a duel some years previous. With a fine constancy the Colonel
+still retained his partner's name on his doorplate, and, it was alleged
+by the superstitious, kept a certain invincibility also through the
+'manes' of that lamented and somewhat feared man.
+
+The Colonel consulted his watch, whose heavy gold case still showed
+the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined for its
+owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness of breath in
+his fob. At the same moment he heard a step in the passage, and the door
+opened to Adoniram K. Hotchkiss. The Colonel was impressed; he had a
+duelist's respect for punctuality.
+
+The man entered with a nod and the expectant inquiring look of a busy
+man. As his feet crossed that sacred threshold the Colonel became all
+courtesy; he placed a chair for his visitor, and took his hat from his
+half reluctant hand. He then opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle
+of whiskey and two glasses.
+
+“A--er--slight refreshment, Mr. Hotchkiss,” he suggested politely.
+
+“I never drink,” replied Hotchkiss, with the severe attitude of a total
+abstainer.
+
+“Ah--er--not the finest Bourbon whiskey, selected by a Kentucky friend?
+No? Pardon me! A cigar, then--the mildest Havana.”
+
+“I do not use tobacco nor alcohol in any form,” repeated Hotchkiss
+ascetically. “I have no foolish weaknesses.”
+
+The Colonel's moist, beady eyes swept silently over his client's sallow
+face. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, and half closing his
+eyes as in dreamy reminiscence, said slowly: “Your reply, Mr. Hotchkiss,
+reminds me of--er--sing'lar circumstance that--er--occurred, in point of
+fact--at the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans. Pinkey Hornblower--personal
+friend--invited Senator Doolittle to join him in social glass. Received,
+sing'larly enough, reply similar to yours. 'Don't drink nor smoke?' said
+Pinkey. 'Gad, sir, you must be mighty sweet on the ladies.' Ha!”
+ The Colonel paused long enough to allow the faint flush to pass from
+Hotchkiss's cheek, and went on, half closing his eyes: “'I allow no man,
+sir, to discuss my personal habits,' declared Doolittle, over his shirt
+collar. 'Then I reckon shootin' must be one of those habits,' said
+Pinkey coolly. Both men drove out on the Shell Road back of cemetery
+next morning. Pinkey put bullet at twelve paces through Doolittle's
+temple. Poor Doo never spoke again. Left three wives and seven children,
+they say--two of 'em black.”
+
+“I got a note from you this morning,” said Hotchkiss, with badly
+concealed impatience. “I suppose in reference to our case. You have
+taken judgment, I believe.”
+
+The Colonel, without replying, slowly filled a glass of whiskey and
+water. For a moment he held it dreamily before him, as if still engaged
+in gentle reminiscences called up by the act. Then tossing it off,
+he wiped his lips with a large white handkerchief, and leaning back
+comfortably in his chair, said, with a wave of his hand, “The interview
+I requested, Mr. Hotchkiss, concerns a subject--which I may say
+is--er--er--at present NOT of a public or business nature--although
+LATER it might become--er--er--both. It is an affair of
+some--er--delicacy.”
+
+The Colonel paused, and Mr. Hotchkiss regarded him with increased
+impatience. The Colonel, however, continued, with unchanged
+deliberation: “It concerns--er--er--a young lady--a beautiful,
+high-souled creature, sir, who, apart from her personal
+loveliness--er--er--I may say is of one of the first families of
+Missouri, and--er--not remotely connected by marriage with one
+of--er--er--my boyhood's dearest friends.” The latter, I grieve to say,
+was a pure invention of the Colonel's--an oratorical addition to the
+scanty information he had obtained the previous day. “The young lady,”
+ he continued blandly, “enjoys the further distinction of being
+the object of such attention from you as would make this
+interview--really--a confidential matter--er--er among friends
+and--er--er--relations in present and future. I need not say that the
+lady I refer to is Miss Zaidee Juno Hooker, only daughter of Almira
+Ann Hooker, relict of Jefferson Brown Hooker, formerly of Boone County,
+Kentucky, and latterly of--er--Pike County, Missouri.”
+
+The sallow, ascetic hue of Mr. Hotchkiss's face had passed through a
+livid and then a greenish shade, and finally settled into a sullen red.
+“What's all this about?” he demanded roughly.
+
+The least touch of belligerent fire came into Starbottle's eye, but his
+bland courtesy did not change. “I believe,” he said politely, “I have
+made myself clear as between--er--gentlemen, though perhaps not as clear
+as I should to--er--er--jury.”
+
+Mr. Hotchkiss was apparently struck with some significance in the
+lawyer's reply. “I don't know,” he said, in a lower and more cautious
+voice, “what you mean by what you call 'my attentions' to--any one--or
+how it concerns you. I have not exchanged half a dozen words with--the
+person you name--have never written her a line--nor even called at her
+house.”
+
+He rose with an assumption of ease, pulled down his waistcoat, buttoned
+his coat, and took up his hat. The Colonel did not move.
+
+“I believe I have already indicated my meaning in what I have called
+'your attentions,'” said the Colonel blandly, “and given you my
+'concern' for speaking as--er--er--mutual friend. As to YOUR statement
+of your relations with Miss Hooker, I may state that it is fully
+corroborated by the statement of the young lady herself in this very
+office yesterday.”
+
+“Then what does this impertinent nonsense mean? Why am I summoned here?”
+ demanded Hotchkiss furiously.
+
+“Because,” said the Colonel deliberately, “that statement is
+infamously--yes, damnably to your discredit, sir!”
+
+Mr. Hotchkiss was here seized by one of those impotent and inconsistent
+rages which occasionally betray the habitually cautious and timid man.
+He caught up the Colonel's stick, which was lying on the table. At the
+same moment the Colonel, without any apparent effort, grasped it by
+the handle. To Mr. Hotchkiss's astonishment, the stick separated in two
+pieces, leaving the handle and about two feet of narrow glittering steel
+in the Colonel's hand. The man recoiled, dropping the useless fragment.
+The Colonel picked it up, fitted the shining blade in it, clicked the
+spring, and then rising with a face of courtesy yet of unmistakably
+genuine pain, and with even a slight tremor in his voice, said
+gravely,--
+
+“Mr. Hotchkiss, I owe you a thousand apologies, sir, that--er--a weapon
+should be drawn by me--even through your own inadvertence--under the
+sacred protection of my roof, and upon an unarmed man. I beg your
+pardon, sir, and I even withdraw the expressions which provoked
+that inadvertence. Nor does this apology prevent you from holding me
+responsible--personally responsible--ELSEWHERE for an indiscretion
+committed in behalf of a lady--my--er--client.”
+
+“Your client? Do you mean you have taken her case? You, the counsel for
+the Ditch Company?” asked Mr. Hotchkiss, in trembling indignation.
+
+“Having won YOUR case, sir,” replied the Colonel coolly,
+“the--er--usages of advocacy do not prevent me from espousing the cause
+of the weak and unprotected.”
+
+“We shall see, sir,” said Hotchkiss, grasping the handle of the door and
+backing into the passage. “There are other lawyers who”--
+
+“Permit me to see you out,” interrupted the Colonel, rising politely.
+
+--“will be ready to resist the attacks of blackmail,” continued
+Hotchkiss, retreating along the passage.
+
+“And then you will be able to repeat your remarks to me IN THE STREET,”
+ continued the Colonel, bowing, as he persisted in following his visitor
+to the door.
+
+But here Mr. Hotchkiss quickly slammed it behind him, and hurried away.
+The Colonel returned to his office, and sitting down, took a sheet of
+letter-paper bearing the inscription “Starbottle and Stryker, Attorneys
+and Counselors,” and wrote the following lines:--
+
+
+HOOKER versus HOTCHKISS.
+
+DEAR MADAM,--Having had a visit from the defendant in above, we should
+be pleased to have an interview with you at two P. M. to-morrow.
+
+Your obedient servants,
+
+STARBOTTLE AND STRYKER.
+
+
+This he sealed and dispatched by his trusted servant Jim, and then
+devoted a few moments to reflection. It was the custom of the Colonel to
+act first, and justify the action by reason afterwards.
+
+He knew that Hotchkiss would at once lay the matter before rival
+counsel. He knew that they would advise him that Miss Hooker had “no
+case”--that she would be nonsuited on her own evidence, and he ought not
+to compromise, but be ready to stand trial. He believed, however, that
+Hotchkiss feared such exposure, and although his own instincts had been
+at first against this remedy, he was now instinctively in favor of it.
+He remembered his own power with a jury; his vanity and his chivalry
+alike approved of this heroic method; he was bound by no prosaic
+facts--he had his own theory of the case, which no mere evidence could
+gainsay. In fact, Mrs. Hooker's admission that he was to “tell the story
+in his own way” actually appeared to him an inspiration and a prophecy.
+
+Perhaps there was something else, due possibly to the lady's wonderful
+eyes, of which he had thought much. Yet it was not her simplicity that
+affected him solely; on the contrary, it was her apparent intelligent
+reading of the character of her recreant lover--and of his own! Of all
+the Colonel's previous “light” or “serious” loves, none had ever before
+flattered him in that way. And it was this, combined with the respect
+which he had held for their professional relations, that precluded
+his having a more familiar knowledge of his client, through serious
+questioning or playful gallantry. I am not sure it was not part of the
+charm to have a rustic femme incomprise as a client.
+
+Nothing could exceed the respect with which he greeted her as she
+entered his office the next day. He even affected not to notice that she
+had put on her best clothes, and he made no doubt appeared as when
+she had first attracted the mature yet faithless attentions of Deacon
+Hotchkiss at church. A white virginal muslin was belted around her slim
+figure by a blue ribbon, and her Leghorn hat was drawn around her oval
+cheek by a bow of the same color. She had a Southern girl's narrow feet,
+encased in white stockings and kid slippers, which were crossed primly
+before her as she sat in a chair, supporting her arm by her faithful
+parasol planted firmly on the floor. A faint odor of southernwood
+exhaled from her, and, oddly enough, stirred the Colonel with a far-off
+recollection of a pine-shaded Sunday-school on a Georgia hillside, and
+of his first love, aged ten, in a short starched frock. Possibly it was
+the same recollection that revived something of the awkwardness he had
+felt then.
+
+He, however, smiled vaguely, and sitting down, coughed slightly, and
+placed his finger-tips together. “I have had an--er--interview with
+Mr. Hotchkiss, but--I--er--regret to say there seems to be no prospect
+of--er--compromise.”
+
+He paused, and to his surprise her listless “company” face lit up with
+an adorable smile. “Of course!--ketch him!” she said. “Was he mad when
+you told him?” She put her knees comfortably together and leaned forward
+for a reply.
+
+For all that, wild horses could not have torn from the Colonel a word
+about Hotchkiss's anger. “He expressed his intention of employing
+counsel--and defending a suit,” returned the Colonel, affably basking in
+her smile.
+
+She dragged her chair nearer his desk. “Then you'll fight him tooth and
+nail?” she asked eagerly; “you'll show him up? You'll tell the whole
+story your own way? You'll give him fits?--and you'll make him pay?
+Sure?” she went on breathlessly.
+
+“I--er--will,” said the Colonel, almost as breathlessly.
+
+She caught his fat white hand, which was lying on the table, between
+her own and lifted it to her lips. He felt her soft young fingers even
+through the lisle-thread gloves that encased them, and the warm moisture
+of her lips upon his skin. He felt himself flushing--but was unable
+to break the silence or change his position. The next moment she had
+scuttled back with her chair to her old position.
+
+“I--er--certainly shall do my best,” stammered the Colonel, in an
+attempt to recover his dignity and composure.
+
+“That's enough! You'll do it,” said she enthusiastically. “Lordy! Just
+you talk for ME as ye did for HIS old Ditch Company, and you'll fetch
+it--every time! Why, when you made that jury sit up the other day--when
+you got that off about the Merrikan flag waving equally over the rights
+of honest citizens banded together in peaceful commercial pursuits, as
+well as over the fortress of official proflig--”
+
+“Oligarchy,” murmured the Colonel courteously.
+
+--“oligarchy,” repeated the girl quickly, “my breath was just took away.
+I said to maw, 'Ain't he too sweet for anything!' I did, honest Injin!
+And when you rolled it all off at the end--never missing a word (you
+didn't need to mark 'em in a lesson-book, but had 'em all ready on your
+tongue)--and walked out--Well! I didn't know you nor the Ditch Company
+from Adam, but I could have just run over and kissed you there before
+the whole court!”
+
+She laughed, with her face glowing, although her strange eyes were cast
+down. Alack! the Colonel's face was equally flushed, and his own beady
+eyes were on his desk. To any other woman he would have voiced the banal
+gallantry that he should now, himself, look forward to that reward, but
+the words never reached his lips. He laughed, coughed slightly, and when
+he looked up again she had fallen into the same attitude as on her first
+visit, with her parasol point on the floor.
+
+“I must ask you to--er--direct your memory to--er--another point: the
+breaking off of the--er--er--er--engagement. Did he--er--give any reason
+for it? Or show any cause?”
+
+“No; he never said anything,” returned the girl.
+
+“Not in his usual way?--er--no reproaches out of the hymn-book?--or the
+sacred writings?”
+
+“No; he just QUIT.”
+
+“Er--ceased his attentions,” said the Colonel gravely. “And naturally
+you--er--were not conscious of any cause for his doing so.”
+
+The girl raised her wonderful eyes so suddenly and so penetratingly
+without replying in any other way that the Colonel could only hurriedly
+say: “I see! None, of course!”
+
+At which she rose, the Colonel rising also. “We--shall begin proceedings
+at once. I must, however, caution you to answer no questions, nor say
+anything about this case to any one until you are in court.”
+
+She answered his request with another intelligent look and a nod. He
+accompanied her to the door. As he took her proffered hand, he raised
+the lisle-thread fingers to his lips with old-fashioned gallantry. As if
+that act had condoned for his first omissions and awkwardness, he became
+his old-fashioned self again, buttoned his coat, pulled out his shirt
+frill, and strutted back to his desk.
+
+A day or two later it was known throughout the town that Zaidee Hooker
+had sued Adoniram Hotchkiss for breach of promise, and that the damages
+were laid at five thousand dollars. As in those bucolic days the Western
+press was under the secure censorship of a revolver, a cautious tone of
+criticism prevailed, and any gossip was confined to personal expression,
+and even then at the risk of the gossiper. Nevertheless, the situation
+provoked the intensest curiosity. The Colonel was approached--until
+his statement that he should consider any attempt to overcome his
+professional secrecy a personal reflection withheld further advances.
+The community were left to the more ostentatious information of the
+defendant's counsel, Messrs. Kitcham and Bilser, that the case was
+“ridiculous” and “rotten,” that the plaintiff would be nonsuited, and
+the fire-eating Starbottle would be taught a lesson that he could not
+“bully” the law, and there were some dark hints of a conspiracy. It was
+even hinted that the “case” was the revengeful and preposterous outcome
+of the refusal of Hotchkiss to pay Starbottle an extravagant fee for his
+late services to the Ditch Company. It is unnecessary to say that these
+words were not reported to the Colonel. It was, however, an unfortunate
+circumstance for the calmer, ethical consideration of the subject that
+the Church sided with Hotchkiss, as this provoked an equal adherence
+to the plaintiff and Starbottle on the part of the larger body of
+non-churchgoers, who were delighted at a possible exposure of the
+weakness of religious rectitude. “I've allus had my suspicions o' them
+early candle-light meetings down at that gospel shop,” said one critic,
+“and I reckon Deacon Hotchkiss didn't rope in the gals to attend jest
+for psalm-singing.” “Then for him to get up and leave the board afore
+the game's finished and try to sneak out of it,” said an other,--“I
+suppose that's what they call RELIGIOUS.”
+
+It was therefore not remarkable that the court-house three weeks later
+was crowded with an excited multitude of the curious and sympathizing.
+The fair plaintiff, with her mother, was early in attendance, and under
+the Colonel's advice appeared in the same modest garb in which she had
+first visited his office. This and her downcast, modest demeanor were
+perhaps at first disappointing to the crowd, who had evidently expected
+a paragon of loveliness in this Circe of that grim, ascetic defendant,
+who sat beside his counsel. But presently all eyes were fixed on the
+Colonel, who certainly made up in his appearance any deficiency of his
+fair client. His portly figure was clothed in a blue dress coat with
+brass buttons, a buff waistcoat which permitted his frilled shirt-front
+to become erectile above it, a black satin stock which confined a boyish
+turned-down collar around his full neck, and immaculate drill trousers,
+strapped over varnished boots. A murmur ran round the court. “Old
+'Personally Responsible' has got his war-paint on;” “The Old War-Horse
+is smelling powder,” were whispered comments. Yet for all that, the
+most irreverent among them recognized vaguely, in this bizarre figure,
+something of an honored past in their country's history, and possibly
+felt the spell of old deeds and old names that had once thrilled their
+boyish pulses. The new District Judge returned Colonel Starbottle's
+profoundly punctilious bow. The Colonel was followed by his negro
+servant, carrying a parcel of hymn-books and Bibles, who, with a
+courtesy evidently imitated from his master, placed one before the
+opposite counsel. This, after a first curious glance, the lawyer
+somewhat superciliously tossed aside. But when Jim, proceeding to the
+jury-box, placed with equal politeness the remaining copies before the
+jury, the opposite counsel sprang to his feet.
+
+“I want to direct the attention of the Court to this unprecedented
+tampering with the jury, by this gratuitous exhibition of matter
+impertinent and irrelevant to the issue.”
+
+The Judge cast an inquiring look at Colonel Starbottle.
+
+“May it please the Court,” returned Colonel Starbottle with dignity,
+ignoring the counsel, “the defendant's counsel will observe that he
+is already furnished with the matter--which I regret to say he has
+treated--in the presence of the Court--and of his client, a deacon of
+the church--with--er--great superciliousness. When I state to your
+Honor that the books in question are hymn-books and copies of the Holy
+Scriptures, and that they are for the instruction of the jury, to whom
+I shall have to refer them in the course of my opening, I believe I am
+within my rights.”
+
+“The act is certainly unprecedented,” said the Judge dryly, “but unless
+the counsel for the plaintiff expects the jury to SING from these
+hymn-books, their introduction is not improper, and I cannot admit the
+objection. As defendant's counsel are furnished with copies also, they
+cannot plead 'surprise,' as in the introduction of new matter, and as
+plaintiff's counsel relies evidently upon the jury's attention to his
+opening, he would not be the first person to distract it.” After a pause
+he added, addressing the Colonel, who remained standing, “The Court is
+with you, sir; proceed.”
+
+But the Colonel remained motionless and statuesque, with folded arms.
+
+“I have overruled the objection,” repeated the Judge; “you may go on.”
+
+“I am waiting, your Honor, for the--er--withdrawal by the defendant's
+counsel of the word 'tampering,' as refers to myself, and of
+'impertinent,' as refers to the sacred volumes.”
+
+“The request is a proper one, and I have no doubt will be acceded to,”
+ returned the Judge quietly. The defendant's counsel rose and mumbled
+a few words of apology, and the incident closed. There was, however, a
+general feeling that the Colonel had in some way “scored,” and if his
+object had been to excite the greatest curiosity about the books, he had
+made his point.
+
+But impassive of his victory, he inflated his chest, with his right hand
+in the breast of his buttoned coat, and began. His usual high color had
+paled slightly, but the small pupils of his prominent eyes glittered
+like steel. The young girl leaned forward in her chair with an attention
+so breathless, a sympathy so quick, and an admiration so artless
+and unconscious that in an instant she divided with the speaker the
+attention of the whole assemblage. It was very hot; the court was
+crowded to suffocation; even the open windows revealed a crowd of faces
+outside the building, eagerly following the Colonel's words.
+
+He would remind the jury that only a few weeks ago he stood there as
+the advocate of a powerful Company, then represented by the present
+defendant. He spoke then as the champion of strict justice against
+legal oppression; no less should he to-day champion the cause of the
+unprotected and the comparatively defenseless--save for that paramount
+power which surrounds beauty and innocence--even though the plaintiff
+of yesterday was the defendant of to-day. As he approached the court a
+moment ago he had raised his eyes and beheld the starry flag flying from
+its dome, and he knew that glorious banner was a symbol of the perfect
+equality, under the Constitution, of the rich and the poor, the strong
+and the weak--an equality which made the simple citizen taken from the
+plough in the field, the pick in the gulch, or from behind the counter
+in the mining town, who served on that jury, the equal arbiters of
+justice with that highest legal luminary whom they were proud to welcome
+on the bench to-day. The Colonel paused, with a stately bow to the
+impassive Judge. It was this, he continued, which lifted his heart as
+he approached the building. And yet--he had entered it with an
+uncertain--he might almost say--a timid step. And why? He knew,
+gentlemen, he was about to confront a profound--aye! a sacred
+responsibility! Those hymn-books and holy writings handed to the jury
+were NOT, as his Honor had surmised, for the purpose of enabling the
+jury to indulge in--er--preliminary choral exercise! He might, indeed,
+say, “Alas, not!” They were the damning, incontrovertible proofs of the
+perfidy of the defendant. And they would prove as terrible a warning to
+him as the fatal characters upon Belshazzar's wall. There was a strong
+sensation. Hotchkiss turned a sallow green. His lawyers assumed a
+careless smile.
+
+It was his duty to tell them that this was not one of those ordinary
+“breach-of-promise” cases which were too often the occasion of ruthless
+mirth and indecent levity in the court-room. The jury would find
+nothing of that here. There were no love-letters with the epithets of
+endearment, nor those mystic crosses and ciphers which, he had been
+credibly informed, chastely hid the exchange of those mutual caresses
+known as “kisses.” There was no cruel tearing of the veil from those
+sacred privacies of the human affection; there was no forensic shouting
+out of those fond confidences meant only for ONE. But there was, he was
+shocked to say, a new sacrilegious intrusion. The weak pipings of Cupid
+were mingled with the chorus of the saints,--the sanctity of the temple
+known as the “meeting--house” was desecrated by proceedings more in
+keeping with the shrine of Venus; and the inspired writings themselves
+were used as the medium of amatory and wanton flirtation by the
+defendant in his sacred capacity as deacon.
+
+The Colonel artistically paused after this thunderous denunciation. The
+jury turned eagerly to the leaves of the hymn-books, but the larger gaze
+of the audience remained fixed upon the speaker and the girl, who sat in
+rapt admiration of his periods. After the hush, the Colonel continued
+in a lower and sadder voice: “There are, perhaps, few of us here,
+gentlemen,--with the exception of the defendant,--who can arrogate to
+themselves the title of regular church-goers, or to whom these humbler
+functions of the prayer-meeting, the Sunday-school, and the Bible-class
+are habitually familiar. Yet”--more solemnly--“down in our hearts is the
+deep conviction of our shortcomings and failings, and a laudable desire
+that others, at least, should profit by the teachings we neglect.
+Perhaps,” he continued, closing his eyes dreamily, “there is not a
+man here who does not recall the happy days of his boyhood, the rustic
+village spire, the lessons shared with some artless village maiden, with
+whom he later sauntered, hand in hand, through the woods, as the simple
+rhyme rose upon their lips,--
+
+     'Always make it a point to have it a rule,
+     Never to be late at the Sabbath-school.'
+
+“He would recall the strawberry feasts, the welcome annual picnic,
+redolent with hunks of gingerbread and sarsaparilla. How would they feel
+to know that these sacred recollections were now forever profaned in
+their memory by the knowledge that the defendant was capable of using
+such occasions to make love to the larger girls and teachers, whilst
+his artless companions were innocently--the Court will pardon me for
+introducing what I am credibly informed is the local expression--'doing
+gooseberry'?” The tremulous flicker of a smile passed over the faces of
+the listening crowd, and the Colonel slightly winced. But he recovered
+himself instantly, and continued,--
+
+“My client, the only daughter of a widowed mother--who has for years
+stemmed the varying tides of adversity, in the western precincts of this
+town--stands before you to-day invested only in her own innocence. She
+wears no--er--rich gifts of her faithless admirer--is panoplied in no
+jewels, rings, nor mementos of affection such as lovers delight to hang
+upon the shrine of their affections; hers is not the glory with which
+Solomon decorated the Queen of Sheba, though the defendant, as I shall
+show later, clothed her in the less expensive flowers of the king's
+poetry. No, gentlemen! The defendant exhibited in this affair a certain
+frugality of--er--pecuniary investment, which I am willing to admit may
+be commendable in his class. His only gift was characteristic alike
+of his methods and his economy. There is, I understand, a certain
+not unimportant feature of religious exercise known as 'taking a
+collection.' The defendant, on this occasion, by the mute presentation
+of a tin plate covered with baize, solicited the pecuniary contributions
+of the faithful. On approaching the plaintiff, however, he himself
+slipped a love-token upon the plate and pushed it towards her. That
+love-token was a lozenge--a small disk, I have reason to believe,
+concocted of peppermint and sugar, bearing upon its reverse surface the
+simple words, 'I love you!' I have since ascertained that these disks
+may be bought for five cents a dozen--or at considerably less than one
+half cent for the single lozenge. Yes, gentlemen, the words 'I love
+you!'--the oldest legend of all; the refrain 'when the morning
+stars sang together'--were presented to the plaintiff by a medium so
+insignificant that there is, happily, no coin in the republic low enough
+to represent its value.
+
+“I shall prove to you, gentlemen of the jury,” said the Colonel
+solemnly, drawing a Bible from his coat-tail pocket, “that the defendant
+for the last twelve months conducted an amatory correspondence with
+the plaintiff by means of underlined words of Sacred Writ and church
+psalmody, such as 'beloved,' 'precious,' and 'dearest,' occasionally
+appropriating whole passages which seemed apposite to his tender
+passion. I shall call your attention to one of them. The defendant,
+while professing to be a total abstainer,--a man who, in my own
+knowledge, has refused spirituous refreshment as an inordinate weakness
+of the flesh,--with shameless hypocrisy underscores with his pencil the
+following passage, and presents it to the plaintiff. The gentlemen of
+the jury will find it in the Song of Solomon, page 548, chapter ii.
+verse 5.” After a pause, in which the rapid rustling of leaves was heard
+in the jury-box, Colonel Starbottle declaimed in a pleading, stentorian
+voice, “'Stay me with--er--FLAGONS, comfort me with--er--apples--for
+I am--er--sick of love.' Yes, gentlemen!--yes, you may well turn
+from those accusing pages and look at the double-faced defendant. He
+desires--to--er--be--'stayed with flagons'! I am not aware at present
+what kind of liquor is habitually dispensed at these meetings, and for
+which the defendant so urgently clamored; but it will be my duty, before
+this trial is over, to discover it, if I have to summon every barkeeper
+in this district. For the moment I will simply call your attention to
+the QUANTITY. It is not a single drink that the defendant asks for--not
+a glass of light and generous wine, to be shared with his inamorata,
+but a number of flagons or vessels, each possibly holding a pint
+measure--FOR HIMSELF!”
+
+The smile of the audience had become a laugh. The Judge looked up
+warningly, when his eye caught the fact that the Colonel had again
+winced at this mirth. He regarded him seriously. Mr. Hotchkiss's counsel
+had joined in the laugh affectedly, but Hotchkiss himself sat ashy pale.
+There was also a commotion in the jury-box, a hurried turning over of
+leaves, and an excited discussion.
+
+“The gentlemen of the jury,” said the Judge, with official gravity,
+“will please keep order and attend only to the speeches of counsel. Any
+discussion HERE is irregular and premature, and must be reserved for the
+jury-room after they have retired.”
+
+The foreman of the jury struggled to his feet. He was a powerful man,
+with a good-humored face, and, in spite of his unfelicitous nickname of
+“The Bone-Breaker,” had a kindly, simple, but somewhat emotional nature.
+Nevertheless, it appeared as if he were laboring under some powerful
+indignation.
+
+“Can we ask a question, Judge?” he said respectfully, although his voice
+had the unmistakable Western American ring in it, as of one who was
+unconscious that he could be addressing any but his peers.
+
+“Yes,” said the Judge good-humoredly.
+
+“We're finding in this yere piece, out o' which the Kernel hes just bin
+a-quotin', some language that me and my pardners allow hadn't orter be
+read out afore a young lady in court, and we want to know of you--ez a
+fa'r-minded and impartial man--ef this is the reg'lar kind o' book given
+to gals and babies down at the meetin'-house.”
+
+“The jury will please follow the counsel's speech without comment,” said
+the Judge briefly, fully aware that the defendant's counsel would spring
+to his feet, as he did promptly.
+
+“The Court will allow us to explain to the gentlemen that the language
+they seem to object to has been accepted by the best theologians for
+the last thousand years as being purely mystic. As I will explain later,
+those are merely symbols of the Church”--
+
+“Of wot?” interrupted the foreman, in deep scorn.
+
+“Of the Church!”
+
+“We ain't askin' any questions o' YOU, and we ain't takin' any answers,”
+ said the foreman, sitting down abruptly.
+
+“I must insist,” said the Judge sternly, “that the plaintiff's counsel
+be allowed to continue his opening without interruption. You” (to
+defendant's counsel) “will have your opportunity to reply later.”
+
+The counsel sank down in his seat with the bitter conviction that the
+jury was manifestly against him, and the case as good as lost. But his
+face was scarcely as disturbed as his client's, who, in great agitation,
+had begun to argue with him wildly, and was apparently pressing some
+point against the lawyer's vehement opposal. The Colonel's murky eyes
+brightened as he still stood erect, with his hand thrust in his breast.
+
+“It will be put to you, gentlemen, when the counsel on the other side
+refrains from mere interruption and confines himself to reply, that my
+unfortunate client has no action--no remedy at law--because there were
+no spoken words of endearment. But, gentlemen, it will depend upon YOU
+to say what are and what are not articulate expressions of love. We all
+know that among the lower animals, with whom you may possibly be called
+upon to classify the defendant, there are certain signals more or less
+harmonious, as the case may be. The ass brays, the horse neighs, the
+sheep bleats--the feathered denizens of the grove call to their mates
+in more musical roundelays. These are recognized facts, gentlemen, which
+you yourselves, as dwellers among nature in this beautiful land, are all
+cognizant of. They are facts that no one would deny--and we should have
+a poor opinion of the ass who, at--er--such a supreme moment,
+would attempt to suggest that his call was unthinking and without
+significance. But, gentlemen, I shall prove to you that such was the
+foolish, self-convicting custom of the defendant. With the greatest
+reluctance, and the--er--greatest pain, I succeeded in wresting from
+the maidenly modesty of my fair client the innocent confession that
+the defendant had induced her to correspond with him in these methods.
+Picture to yourself, gentlemen, the lonely moonlight road beside the
+widow's humble cottage. It is a beautiful night, sanctified to the
+affections, and the innocent girl is leaning from her casement.
+Presently there appears upon the road a slinking, stealthy figure, the
+defendant on his way to church. True to the instruction she has received
+from him, her lips part in the musical utterance” (the Colonel lowered
+his voice in a faint falsetto, presumably in fond imitation of his
+fair client), “'Keeree!' Instantly the night becomes resonant with the
+impassioned reply” (the Colonel here lifted his voice in stentorian
+tones), “'Kee-row.' Again, as he passes, rises the soft 'Keeree;' again,
+as his form is lost in the distance, comes back the deep 'Keerow.'”
+
+A burst of laughter, long, loud, and irrepressible, struck the whole
+court-room, and before the Judge could lift his half-composed face
+and take his handkerchief from his mouth, a faint “Keeree” from some
+unrecognized obscurity of the court-room was followed by a loud “Keerow”
+ from some opposite locality. “The Sheriff will clear the court,” said
+the Judge sternly; but, alas! as the embarrassed and choking officials
+rushed hither and thither, a soft “Keeree” from the spectators at
+the window, OUTSIDE the court-house, was answered by a loud chorus of
+“Keerows” from the opposite windows, filled with onlookers. Again
+the laughter arose everywhere,--even the fair plaintiff herself sat
+convulsed behind her handkerchief.
+
+The figure of Colonel Starbottle alone remained erect--white and rigid.
+And then the Judge, looking up, saw--what no one else in the court had
+seen--that the Colonel was sincere and in earnest; that what he had
+conceived to be the pleader's most perfect acting and most elaborate
+irony were the deep, serious, mirthless CONVICTIONS of a man without the
+least sense of humor. There was the respect of this conviction in
+the Judge's voice as he said to him gently, “You may proceed, Colonel
+Starbottle.”
+
+“I thank your Honor,” said the Colonel slowly, “for recognizing and
+doing all in your power to prevent an interruption that, during my
+thirty years' experience at the bar, I have never been subjected
+to without the privilege of holding the instigators thereof
+responsible--PERSONALLY responsible. It is possibly my fault that I have
+failed, oratorically, to convey to the gentlemen of the jury the full
+force and significance of the defendant's signals. I am aware that my
+voice is singularly deficient in producing either the dulcet tones of my
+fair client or the impassioned vehemence of the defendant's response.
+I will,” continued the Colonel, with a fatigued but blind fatuity that
+ignored the hurriedly knit brows and warning eyes of the Judge, “try
+again. The note uttered by my client” (lowering his voice to the
+faintest of falsettos) “was 'Keeree;' the response was 'Keerow-ow.'” And
+the Colonel's voice fairly shook the dome above him.
+
+Another uproar of laughter followed this apparently audacious
+repetition, but was interrupted by an unlooked-for incident. The
+defendant rose abruptly, and tearing himself away from the withholding
+hand and pleading protestations of his counsel, absolutely fled from
+the court-room, his appearance outside being recognized by a prolonged
+“Keerow” from the bystanders, which again and again followed him in the
+distance.
+
+In the momentary silence which followed, the Colonel's voice was heard
+saying, “We rest here, your Honor,” and he sat down. No less white, but
+more agitated, was the face of the defendant's counsel, who instantly
+rose.
+
+“For some unexplained reason, your Honor, my client desires to suspend
+further proceedings, with a view to effect a peaceable compromise with
+the plaintiff. As he is a man of wealth and position, he is able and
+willing to pay liberally for that privilege. While I, as his counsel, am
+still convinced of his legal irresponsibility, as he has chosen publicly
+to abandon his rights here, I can only ask your Honor's permission to
+suspend further proceedings until I can confer with Colonel Starbottle.”
+
+“As far as I can follow the pleadings,” said the Judge gravely, “the
+case seems to be hardly one for litigation, and I approve of the
+defendant's course, while I strongly urge the plaintiff to accept it.”
+
+Colonel Starbottle bent over his fair client. Presently he rose,
+unchanged in look or demeanor. “I yield, your Honor, to the wishes of my
+client, and--er--lady. We accept.”
+
+Before the court adjourned that day it was known throughout the town
+that Adoniram K. Hotchkiss had compromised the suit for four thousand
+dollars and costs.
+
+Colonel Starbottle had so far recovered his equanimity as to strut
+jauntily towards his office, where he was to meet his fair client. He
+was surprised, however, to find her already there, and in company with a
+somewhat sheepish-looking young man--a stranger. If the Colonel had
+any disappointment in meeting a third party to the interview, his
+old-fashioned courtesy did not permit him to show it. He bowed
+graciously, and politely motioned them each to a seat.
+
+“I reckoned I'd bring Hiram round with me,” said the young lady, lifting
+her searching eyes, after a pause, to the Colonel's, “though he WAS
+awful shy, and allowed that you didn't know him from Adam, or even
+suspect his existence. But I said, 'That's just where you slip up,
+Hiram; a pow'ful man like the Colonel knows everything--and I've seen it
+in his eye.' Lordy!” she continued, with a laugh, leaning forward over
+her parasol, as her eyes again sought the Colonel's, “don't you remember
+when you asked me if I loved that old Hotchkiss, and I told you, 'That's
+tellin',' and you looked at me--Lordy! I knew THEN you suspected there
+was a Hiram SOMEWHERE, as good as if I'd told you. Now you jest get up,
+Hiram, and give the Colonel a good hand-shake. For if it wasn't for HIM
+and HIS searchin' ways, and HIS awful power of language, I wouldn't hev
+got that four thousand dollars out o' that flirty fool Hotchkiss--enough
+to buy a farm, so as you and me could get married! That's what you owe
+to HIM. Don't stand there like a stuck fool starin' at him. He won't eat
+you--though he's killed many a better man. Come, have I got to do ALL
+the kissin'?”
+
+It is of record that the Colonel bowed so courteously and so profoundly
+that he managed not merely to evade the proffered hand of the shy Hiram,
+but to only lightly touch the franker and more impulsive finger-tips of
+the gentle Zaidee. “I--er--offer my sincerest congratulations--though
+I think you--er--overestimate--my--er--powers of penetration.
+Unfortunately, a pressing engagement, which may oblige me also to leave
+town tonight, forbids my saying more. I have--er--left the--er--business
+settlement of this--er--case in the hands of the lawyers who do my
+office work, and who will show you every attention. And now let me wish
+you a very good afternoon.”
+
+Nevertheless, the Colonel returned to his private room, and it was
+nearly twilight when the faithful Jim entered, to find him sitting
+meditatively before his desk. “'Fo' God! Kernel, I hope dey ain't nuffin
+de matter, but you's lookin' mighty solemn! I ain't seen you look dat
+way, Kernel, since de day pooh Massa Stryker was fetched home shot froo
+de head.”
+
+“Hand me down the whiskey, Jim,” said the Colonel, rising slowly.
+
+The negro flew to the closet joyfully, and brought out the bottle.
+The Colonel poured out a glass of the spirit and drank it with his old
+deliberation.
+
+“You're quite right, Jim,” he said, putting down his glass, “but
+I'm--er--getting old--and--somehow I am missing poor Stryker damnably!”
+
+
+
+
+THE LANDLORD OF THE BIG FLUME HOTEL
+
+
+The Big Flume stage-coach had just drawn up at the Big Flume Hotel
+simultaneously with the ringing of a large dinner bell in the two hands
+of a negro waiter, who, by certain gyrations of the bell was trying to
+impart to his performance that picturesque elegance and harmony
+which the instrument and its purpose lacked. For the refreshment thus
+proclaimed was only the ordinary station dinner, protracted at Big
+Flume for three quarters of an hour, to allow for the arrival of the
+connecting mail from Sacramento, although the repast was of a nature
+that seldom prevailed upon the traveler to linger the full period over
+its details. The ordinary cravings of hunger were generally satisfied in
+half an hour, and the remaining minutes were employed by the passengers
+in drowning the memory of their meal in “drinks at the bar,” in smoking,
+and even in a hurried game of “old sledge,” or dominoes. Yet to-day
+the deserted table was still occupied by a belated traveler, and a
+lady--separated by a wilderness of empty dishes--who had arrived after
+the stage-coach. Observing which, the landlord, perhaps touched by
+this unwonted appreciation of his fare, moved forward to give them his
+personal attention.
+
+He was a man, however, who seemed to be singularly deficient in those
+supreme qualities which in the West have exalted the ability to “keep a
+hotel” into a proverbial synonym for superexcellence. He had little or
+no innovating genius, no trade devices, no assumption, no faculty for
+advertisement, no progressiveness, and no “racket.” He had the tolerant
+good-humor of the Southwestern pioneer, to whom cyclones, famine,
+drought, floods, pestilence, and savages were things to be accepted,
+and whom disaster, if it did not stimulate, certainly did not appall. He
+received the insults, complaints, and criticisms of hurried and hungry
+passengers, the comments and threats of the Stage Company as he had
+submitted to the aggressions of a stupid, unjust, but overruling
+Nature--with unshaken calm. Perhaps herein lay his strength. People
+were obliged to submit to him and his hotel as part of the unfinished
+civilization, and they even saw something humorous in his impassiveness.
+Those who preferred to remonstrate with him emerged from the discussion
+with the general feeling of having been played with by a large-hearted
+and paternally disposed bear. Tall and long-limbed, with much strength
+in his lazy muscles, there was also a prevailing impression that this
+feeling might be intensified if the discussion were ever carried to
+physical contention. Of his personal history it was known only that he
+had emigrated from Wisconsin in 1852, that he had calmly unyoked his ox
+teams at Big Flume, then a trackless wilderness, and on the opening of a
+wagon road to the new mines had built a wayside station which eventually
+developed into the present hotel. He had been divorced in a Western
+State by his wife “Rosalie,” locally known as “The Prairie Flower of
+Elkham Creek,” for incompatibility of temper! Her temper was not stated.
+
+Such was Abner Langworthy, the proprietor, as he moved leisurely down
+towards the lady guest, who was nearest, and who was sitting with her
+back to the passage between the tables. Stopping, occasionally, to
+professionally adjust the tablecloths and glasses, he at last reached
+her side.
+
+“Ef there's anythin' more ye want that ye ain't seein', ma'am,” he
+began--and stopped suddenly. For the lady had looked up at the sound of
+his voice. It was his divorced wife, whom he had not seen since their
+separation. The recognition was instantaneous, mutual, and characterized
+by perfect equanimity on both sides.
+
+“Well! I wanter know!” said the lady, although the exclamation point was
+purely conventional. “Abner Langworthy! though perhaps I've no call to
+say 'Abner.'”
+
+“Same to you, Rosalie--though I say it too,” returned the landlord. “But
+hol' on just a minit.” He moved forward to the other guest, put the same
+perfunctory question regarding his needs, received a negative answer,
+and then returned to the lady and dropped into a chair opposite to her.
+
+“You're looking peart and--fleshy,” he said resignedly, as if he were
+tolerating his own conventional politeness with his other difficulties;
+“unless,” he added cautiously, “you're takin' on some new disease.”
+
+“No! I'm fairly comf'ble,” responded the lady calmly, “and you're
+gettin' on in the vale, ez is natural--though you still kind o' run to
+bone, as you used.”
+
+There was not a trace of malevolence in either of their comments, only
+a resigned recognition of certain unpleasant truths which seemed to have
+been habitual to both of them. Mr. Langworthy paused to flick away some
+flies from the butter with his professional napkin, and resumed,--
+
+“It must be a matter o' five years sens I last saw ye, isn't it?--in
+court arter you got the decree--you remember?”
+
+“Yes--the 28th o' July, '51. I paid Lawyer Hoskins's bill that very
+day--that's how I remember,” returned the lady. “You've got a big
+business here,” she continued, glancing round the room; “I reckon you're
+makin' it pay. Don't seem to be in your line, though; but then, thar
+wasn't many things that was.”
+
+“No--that's so,” responded Mr. Langworthy, nodding his head, as
+assenting to an undeniable proposition, “and you--I suppose you're
+gettin' on too. I reckon you're--er--married--eh?”--with a slight
+suggestion of putting the question delicately.
+
+The lady nodded, ignoring the hesitation. “Yes, let me see, it's just
+three years and three days. Constantine Byers--I don't reckon you know
+him--from Milwaukee. Timber merchant. Standin' timber's his specialty.”
+
+“And I reckon he's--satisfactory?”
+
+“Yes! Mr. Byers is a good provider--and handy. And you? I should say
+you'd want a wife in this business?”
+
+Mr. Langworthy's serious half-perfunctory manner here took on an
+appearance of interest. “Yes--I've bin thinkin' that way. Thar's a young
+woman helpin' in the kitchen ez might do, though I'm not certain, and
+I ain't lettin' on anything as yet. You might take a look at her,
+Rosalie,--I orter say Mrs. Byers ez is,--and kinder size her up, and
+gimme the result. It's still wantin' seven minutes o' schedule time
+afore the stage goes, and--if you ain't wantin' more food”--delicately,
+as became a landlord--“and ain't got anythin' else to do, it might pass
+the time.”
+
+Strange as it may seem, Mrs. Byers here displayed an equal animation in
+her fresh face as she rose promptly to her feet and began to rearrange
+her dust cloak around her buxom figure. “I don't mind, Abner,” she
+said, “and I don't think that Mr. Byers would mind either;” then seeing
+Langworthy hesitating at the latter unexpected suggestion, she added
+confidently, “and I wouldn't mind even if he did, for I'm sure if I
+don't know the kind o' woman you'd be likely to need, I don't know who
+would. Only last week I was sayin' like that to Mr. Byers”--
+
+“To Mr. Byers?” said Abner, with some surprise.
+
+“Yes--to him. I said, 'We've been married three years, Constantine, and
+ef I don't know by this time what kind o' woman you need now--and might
+need in future--why, thar ain't much use in matrimony.'”
+
+“You was always wise, Rosalie,” said Abner, with reminiscent
+appreciation.
+
+“I was always there, Abner,” returned Mrs. Byers, with a complacent show
+of dimples, which she, however, chastened into that resignation which
+seemed characteristic of the pair. “Let's see your 'intended'--as might
+be.”
+
+Thus supported, Mr. Langworthy led Mrs. Byers into the hall through a
+crowd of loungers, into a smaller hall, and there opened the door of the
+kitchen. It was a large room, whose windows were half darkened by the
+encompassing pines which still pressed around the house on the scantily
+cleared site. A number of men and women, among them a Chinaman and a
+negro, were engaged in washing dishes and other culinary duties; and
+beside the window stood a young blonde girl, who was wiping a tin pan
+which she was also using to hide a burst of laughter evidently caused by
+the abrupt entrance of her employer. A quantity of fluffy hair and part
+of a white, bared arm were nevertheless visible outside the disk,
+and Mrs. Byers gathered from the direction of Mr. Langworthy's eyes,
+assisted by a slight nudge from his elbow, that this was the selected
+fair one. His feeble explanatory introduction, addressed to the
+occupants generally, “Just showing the house to Mrs.--er--Dusenberry,”
+ convinced her that the circumstances of his having been divorced he had
+not yet confided to the young woman. As he turned almost immediately
+away, Mrs. Byers in following him managed to get a better look at the
+girl, as she was exchanging some facetious remark to a neighbor. Mr.
+Langworthy did not speak until they had reached the deserted dining-room
+again.
+
+“Well?” he said briefly, glancing at the clock, “what did ye think o'
+Mary Ellen?”
+
+To any ordinary observer the girl in question would have seemed the
+least fitted in age, sobriety of deportment, and administrative capacity
+to fill the situation thus proposed for her, but Mrs. Byers was not an
+ordinary observer, and her auditor was not an ordinary listener.
+
+“She's older than she gives herself out to be,” said Mrs. Byers
+tentatively, “and them kitten ways don't amount to much.”
+
+Mr. Langworthy nodded. Had Mrs. Byers discovered a homicidal tendency in
+Mary Ellen he would have been equally unmoved.
+
+“She don't handsome much,” continued Mrs. Byers musingly, “but”--
+
+“I never was keen on good looks in a woman, Rosalie. You know that!”
+ Mrs. Byers received the equivocal remark unemotionally, and returned to
+the subject.
+
+“Well!” she said contemplatively, “I should think you could make her
+suit.”
+
+Mr. Langworthy nodded with resigned toleration of all that might have
+influenced her judgment and his own. “I was wantin' a fa'r-minded
+opinion, Rosalie, and you happened along jest in time. Kin I put up
+anythin' in the way of food for ye?” he added, as a stir outside and the
+words “All aboard!” proclaimed the departing of the stage-coach,--“an
+orange or a hunk o' gingerbread, freshly baked?”
+
+“Thank ye kindly, Abner, but I sha'n't be usin' anythin' afore supper,”
+ responded Mrs. Byers, as they passed out into the veranda beside the
+waiting coach.
+
+Mr. Langworthy helped her to her seat. “Ef you're passin' this way
+ag'in”--he hesitated delicately.
+
+“I'll drop in, or I reckon Mr. Byers might, he havin' business along the
+road,” returned Mrs. Byers with a cheerful nod, as the coach rolled away
+and the landlord of the Big Flume Hotel reentered his house.
+
+For the next three weeks, however, it did not appear that Mr. Langworthy
+was in any hurry to act upon the advice of his former wife. His
+relations to Mary Ellen Budd were characterized by his usual tolerance
+to his employees' failings,--which in Mary Ellen's case included many
+“breakages,”--but were not marked by the invasion of any warmer feeling,
+or a desire for confidences. The only perceptible divergence from his
+regular habits was a disposition to be on the veranda at the arrival of
+the stage-coach, and when his duties permitted this, a cautious survey
+of his female guests at the beginning of dinner. This probably led to
+his more or less ignoring any peculiarities in his masculine patrons or
+their claims to his personal attention. Particularly so, in the case of
+a red-bearded man, in a long linen duster, both heavily freighted with
+the red dust of the stage road, which seemed to have invaded his very
+eyes as he watched the landlord closely. Towards the close of the
+dinner, when Abner, accompanied by a negro waiter after his usual
+custom, passed down each side of the long table, collecting payment for
+the meal, the stranger looked up. “You air the landlord of this hotel, I
+reckon?”
+
+“I am,” said Abner tolerantly.
+
+“I'd like a word or two with ye.”
+
+But Abner had been obliged to have a formula for such occasions. “Ye'll
+pay for yer dinner first,” he said submissively, but firmly, “and make
+yer remarks agin the food arter.”
+
+The stranger flushed quickly, and his eye took an additional shade of
+red, but meeting Abner's serious gray ones, he contented himself with
+ostentatiously taking out a handful of gold and silver and paying his
+bill. Abner passed on, but after dinner was over he found the stranger
+in the hall.
+
+“Ye pulled me up rather short in thar,” said the man gloomily, “but it's
+just as well, as the talk I was wantin' with ye was kinder betwixt and
+between ourselves, and not hotel business. My name's Byers, and my wife
+let on she met ye down here.”
+
+For the first time it struck Abner as incongruous that another man
+should call Rosalie “his wife,” although the fact of her remarriage
+had been made sufficiently plain to him. He accepted it as he would an
+earthquake, or any other dislocation, with his usual tolerant smile, and
+held out his hand.
+
+Mr. Byers took it, seemingly mollified, and yet inwardly
+disturbed,--more even than was customary in Abner's guests after dinner.
+
+“Have a drink with me,” he suggested, although it had struck him that
+Mr. Byers had been drinking before dinner.
+
+“I'm agreeable,” responded Byers promptly; “but,” with a glance at the
+crowded bar-room, “couldn't we go somewhere, jest you and me, and have a
+quiet confab?”
+
+“I reckon. But ye must wait till we get her off.”
+
+Mr. Byers started slightly, but it appeared that the impedimental sex in
+this case was the coach, which, after a slight feminine hesitation, was
+at last started. Whereupon Mr. Langworthy, followed by a negro with a
+tray bearing a decanter and glasses, grasped Mr. Byers's arm, and walked
+along a small side veranda the depth of the house, stepped off, and
+apparently plunged with his guest into the primeval wilderness.
+
+It has already been indicated that the site of the Big Flume Hotel had
+been scantily cleared; but Mr. Byers, backwoodsman though he was, was
+quite unprepared for so abrupt a change. The hotel, with its noisy crowd
+and garish newness, although scarcely a dozen yards away, seemed lost
+completely to sight and sound. A slight fringe of old tin cans, broken
+china, shavings, and even of the long-dried chips of the felled trees,
+once crossed, the two men were alone! From the tray, deposited at the
+foot of an enormous pine, they took the decanter, filled their glasses,
+and then disposed of themselves comfortably against a spreading root.
+The curling tail of a squirrel disappeared behind them; the far-off tap
+of a woodpecker accented the loneliness. And then, almost magically as
+it seemed, the thin veneering of civilization on the two men seemed to
+be cast off like the bark of the trees around them, and they lounged
+before each other in aboriginal freedom. Mr. Byers removed his
+restraining duster and undercoat. Mr. Langworthy resigned his dirty
+white jacket, his collar, and unloosed a suspender, with which he
+played.
+
+“Would it be a fair question between two fa'r-minded men, ez hez lived
+alone,” said Mr. Byers, with a gravity so supernatural that it could be
+referred only to liquor, “to ask ye in what sort o' way did Mrs. Byers
+show her temper?”
+
+“Show her temper?” echoed Abner vacantly.
+
+“Yes--in course, I mean when you and Mrs. Byers was--was--one? You know
+the di-vorce was for in-com-pat-ibility of temper.”
+
+“But she got the divorce from me, so I reckon I had the temper,” said
+Langworthy, with great simplicity.
+
+“Wha-at?” said Mr. Byers, putting down his glass and gazing with drunken
+gravity at the sad-eyed yet good-humoredly tolerant man before him.
+“You?--you had the temper?”
+
+“I reckon that's what the court allowed,” said Abner simply.
+
+Mr. Byers stared. Then after a moment's pause he nodded with a
+significant yet relieved face. “Yes, I see, in course. Times when you'd
+h'isted too much o' this corn juice,” lifting up his glass, “inside
+ye--ye sorter bu'st out ravin'?”
+
+But Abner shook his head. “I wuz a total abstainer in them days,” he
+said quietly.
+
+Mr. Byers got unsteadily on his legs and looked around him. “Wot might
+hev bin the general gait o' your temper, pardner?” he said in a hoarse
+whisper.
+
+“Don't know. I reckon that's jest whar the incompatibility kem in.”
+
+“And when she hove plates at your head, wot did you do?”
+
+“She didn't hove no plates,” said Abner gravely; “did she say she did?”
+
+“No, no!” returned Byers hastily, in crimson confusion. “I kinder got
+it mixed with suthin' else.” He waved his hand in a lordly way, as if
+dismissing the subject. “Howsumever, you and her is 'off' anyway,” he
+added with badly concealed anxiety.
+
+“I reckon: there's the decree,” returned Abner, with his usual resigned
+acceptance of the fact.
+
+“Mrs. Byers wuz allowin' ye wuz thinkin' of a second. How's that comin'
+on?”
+
+“Jest whar it was,” returned Abner. “I ain't doin' anything yet. Ye see
+I've got to tell the gal, naterally, that I'm di-vorced. And as that
+isn't known hereabouts, I don't keer to do so till I'm pretty certain.
+And then, in course, I've got to.”
+
+“Why hev ye 'got to'?” asked Byers abruptly.
+
+“Because it wouldn't be on the square with the girl,” said Abner. “How
+would you like it if Mrs. Byers had never told you she'd been married to
+me? And s'pose you'd happen to hev bin a di-vorced man and hadn't told
+her, eh? Well,” he continued, sinking back resignedly against the tree,
+“I ain't sayin' anythin' but she'd hev got another di-vorce, and FROM
+you on the spot--you bet!”
+
+“Well! all I kin say is,” said Mr. Byers, lifting his voice excitedly,
+“that”--but he stopped short, and was about to fill his glass again from
+the decanter when the hand of Abner stopped him.
+
+“Ye've got ez much ez ye kin carry now, Byers,” he said slowly, “and
+that's about ez much ez I allow a man to take in at the Big Flume Hotel.
+Treatin' is treatin', hospitality is hospitality; ef you and me was
+squattin' out on the prairie I'd let you fill your skin with that pizen
+and wrap ye up in yer blankets afterwards. But here at Big Flume, the
+Stage Kempenny and the wimen and children passengers hez their rights.”
+ He paused a moment, and added, “And so I reckon hez Mrs. Byers, and I
+ain't goin' to send you home to her outer my house blind drunk. It's
+mighty rough on you and me, I know, but there's a lot o' roughness in
+this world ez hez to be got over, and life, ez far ez I kin see, ain't
+all a clearin'.”
+
+Perhaps it was his good-humored yet firm determination, perhaps it was
+his resigned philosophy, but something in the speaker's manner affected
+Mr. Byers's alcoholic susceptibility, and hastened his descent from the
+passionate heights of intoxication to the maudlin stage whither he
+was drifting. The fire of his red eyes became filmed and dim, an equal
+moisture gathered in his throat as he pressed Abner's hand with drunken
+fervor. “Thash so! your thinking o' me an' Mish Byersh is like troo
+fr'en',” he said thickly. “I wosh only goin' to shay that wotever Mish
+Byersh wosh--even if she wosh wife o' yours--she wosh--noble woman! Such
+a woman,” continued Mr. Byers, dreamily regarding space, “can't have too
+many husbands.”
+
+“You jest sit back here a minit, and have a quiet smoke till I come
+back,” said Abner, handing him his tobacco plug. “I've got to give the
+butcher his order--but I won't be a minit.” He secured the decanter as
+he spoke, and evading an apparent disposition of his companion to fall
+upon his neck, made his way with long strides to the hotel, as Mr.
+Byers, sinking back against the trees, began certain futile efforts to
+light his unfilled pipe.
+
+Whether Abner's attendance on the butcher was merely an excuse to
+withdraw with the decanter, I cannot say. He, however, dispatched his
+business quickly, and returned to the tree. But to his surprise Mr.
+Byers was no longer there. He explored the adjacent woodland with
+non-success, and no reply to his shouting. Annoyed but not alarmed, as
+it seemed probable that the missing man had fallen in a drunken sleep in
+some hidden shadows, he returned to the house, when it occurred to him
+that Byers might have sought the bar-room for some liquor. But he was
+still more surprised when the barkeeper volunteered the information
+that he had seen Mr. Byers hurriedly pass down the side veranda into the
+highroad. An hour later this was corroborated by an arriving teamster,
+who had passed a man answering to the description of Byers, “mor' 'n
+half full,” staggeringly but hurriedly walking along the road “two
+miles back.” There seemed to be no doubt that the missing man had
+taken himself off in a fit of indignation or of extreme thirst.
+Either hypothesis was disagreeable to Abner, in his queer sense
+of responsibility to Mrs. Byers, but he accepted it with his usual
+good-humored resignation.
+
+Yet it was difficult to conceive what connection this episode had in
+his mind with his suspended attention to Mary Ellen, or why it should
+determine his purpose. But he had a logic of his own, and it seemed to
+have demonstrated to him that he must propose to the girl at once.
+This was no easy matter, however; he had never shown her any previous
+attention, and her particular functions in the hotel,--the charge of the
+few bedrooms for transient guests--seldom brought him in contact with
+her. His interview would have to appear to be a business one--which,
+however, he wished to avoid from a delicate consciousness of its truth.
+While making up his mind, for a few days he contented himself with
+gravely regarding her in his usual resigned, tolerant way, whenever he
+passed her. Unfortunately the first effect of this was an audible giggle
+from Mary Ellen, later some confusion and anxiety in her manner, and
+finally a demeanor of resentment and defiance.
+
+This was so different from what he had expected that he was obliged
+to precipitate matters. The next day was Sunday,--a day on which his
+employees, in turns, were allowed the recreation of being driven to Big
+Flume City, eight miles distant, to church, or for the day's holiday.
+In the morning Mary Ellen was astonished by Abner informing her that he
+designed giving her a separate holiday with himself. It must be admitted
+that the girl, who was already “prinked up” for the enthrallment of the
+youth of Big Flume City, did not appear as delighted with the change of
+plan as a more exacting lover would have liked. Howbeit, as soon as the
+wagon had left with its occupants, Abner, in the unwonted disguise of
+a full suit of black clothes, turned to the girl, and offering her his
+arm, gravely proceeded along the side veranda across the mound of debris
+already described, to the adjacent wilderness and the very trees under
+which he and Byers had sat.
+
+“It's about ez good a place for a little talk, Miss Budd,” he said,
+pointing to a tree root, “ez ef we went a spell further, and it's handy
+to the house. And ef you'll jest say what you'd like outer the cupboard
+or the bar--no matter which--I'll fetch it to you.”
+
+But Mary Ellen Budd seated herself sideways on the root, with her furled
+white parasol in her lap, her skirts fastidiously tucked about her feet,
+and glancing at the fatuous Abner from under her stack of fluffy hair
+and light eyelashes, simply shook her head and said that “she reckoned
+she wasn't hankering much for anything” that morning.
+
+“I've been calkilatin' to myself, Miss Budd,” said Abner resignedly,
+“that when two folks--like ez you and me--meet together to kinder
+discuss things that might go so far ez to keep them together, if they
+hez had anything of that sort in their lives afore, they ought to speak
+of it confidentially like together.”
+
+“Ef any one o' them sneakin', soulless critters in the kitchen hez bin
+slingin' lies to ye about me--or carryin' tales,” broke in Mary Ellen
+Budd, setting every one of her thirty-two strong, white teeth together
+with a snap, “well--ye might hev told me so to oncet without spilin' my
+Sunday! But ez fer yer keepin' me a minit longer, ye've only got to pay
+me my salary to-day and”--but here she stopped, for the astonishment in
+Abner's face was too plain to be misunderstood.
+
+“Nobody's been slinging any lies about ye, Miss Budd,” he said slowly,
+recovering himself resignedly from this last back-handed stroke of fate;
+“I warn't talkin' o' you, but myself. I was only allowin' to say that I
+was a di-vorced man.”
+
+As a sudden flush came over Mary Ellen's brownish-white face while
+she stared at him, Abner hastened to delicately explain. “It wasn't
+no onfaithfulness, Miss Budd--no philanderin' o' mine, but only
+'incompatibility o' temper.'”
+
+“Temper--your temper!” gasped Mary Ellen.
+
+“Yes,” said Abner.
+
+And here a sudden change came over Mary Ellen's face, and she burst into
+a shriek of laughter. She laughed with her hands slapping the sides of
+her skirt, she laughed with her hands clasping her narrow, hollow waist,
+laughed with her head down on her knees and her fluffy hair tumbling
+over it. Abner was relieved, and yet it seemed strange to him that this
+revelation of his temper should provoke such manifest incredulity in
+both Byers and Mary Ellen. But perhaps these things would be made plain
+to him hereafter; at present they must be accepted “in the day's work”
+ and tolerated.
+
+“Your temper,” gurgled Mary Ellen. “Saints alive! What kind o' temper?”
+
+“Well, I reckon,” returned Abner submissively, and selecting a word
+to give his meaning more comprehension,--“I reckon it was
+kinder--aggeravokin'.”
+
+Mary Ellen sniffed the air for a moment in speechless incredulity, and
+then, locking her hands around her knees and bending forward, said,
+“Look here! Ef that old woman o' yours ever knew what temper was in a
+man; ef she's ever bin tied to a brute that treated her like a nigger
+till she daren't say her soul was her own; who struck her with his
+eyes and tongue when he hadn't anythin' else handy; who made her life
+miserable when he was sober, and a terror when he was drunk; who at
+last drove her away, and then divorced her for desertion--then--then she
+might talk. But 'incompatibility o' temper' with you! Oh, go away--it
+makes me sick!”
+
+How far Abner was impressed with the truth of this, how far it prompted
+his next question, nobody but Abner knew. For he said deliberately, “I
+was only goin' to ask ye, if, knowin' I was a di-vorced man, ye would
+mind marryin' me!”
+
+Mary Ellen's face changed; the evasive instincts of her sex rose up.
+“Didn't I hear ye sayin' suthin' about refreshments,” she said archly.
+“Mebbe you wouldn't mind gettin' me a bottle o' lemming sody outer the
+bar!”
+
+Abner got up at once, perhaps not dismayed by this diversion, and
+departed for the refreshment. As he passed along the side veranda the
+recollection of Mr. Byers and his mysterious flight occurred to him. For
+a wild moment he thought of imitating him. But it was too late now--he
+had spoken. Besides, he had no wife to fly to, and the thirsty or
+indignant Byers had--his wife! Fate was indeed hard. He returned with
+the bottle of lemon soda on a tray and a resigned spirit equal to her
+decrees. Mary Ellen, remarking that he had brought nothing for himself,
+archly insisted upon his sharing with her the bottle of soda, and even
+coquettishly touched his lips with her glass. Abner smiled patiently.
+
+But here, as if playfully exhilarated by the naughty foaming soda, she
+regarded him with her head--and a good deal of her blonde hair--very
+much on one side, as she said, “Do you know that all along o' you bein'
+so free with me in tellin' your affairs I kinder feel like just telling
+you mine?”
+
+“Don't,” said Abner promptly.
+
+“Don't?” echoed Miss Budd.
+
+“Don't,” repeated Abner. “It's nothing to me. What I said about myself
+is different, for it might make some difference to you. But nothing you
+could say of yourself would make any change in me. I stick to what I
+said just now.”
+
+“But,” said Miss Budd,--in half real, half simulated threatening,--“what
+if it had suthin' to do with my answer to what you said just now?”
+
+“It couldn't. So, if it's all the same to you, Miss Budd, I'd rather ye
+wouldn't.”
+
+“That,” said the lady still more archly, lifting a playful finger, “is
+your temper.”
+
+“Mebbe it is,” said Abner suddenly, with a wondering sense of relief.
+
+It was, however, settled that Miss Budd should go to Sacramento to visit
+her friends, that Abner would join her later, when their engagement
+would be announced, and that she should not return to the hotel until
+they were married. The compact was sealed by the interchange of a
+friendly kiss from Miss Budd with a patient, tolerating one from Abner,
+and then it suddenly occurred to them both that they might as well
+return to their duties in the hotel, which they did. Miss Budd's entire
+outing that Sunday lasted only half an hour.
+
+A week elapsed. Miss Budd was in Sacramento, and the landlord of the Big
+Flume Hotel was standing at his usual post in the doorway during dinner,
+when a waiter handed him a note. It contained a single line scrawled in
+pencil:--
+
+
+“Come out and see me behind the house as before. I dussent come in on
+account of her. C. BYERS.”
+
+
+“On account of 'her'!” Abner cast a hurried glance around the tables.
+Certainly Mrs. Byers was not there! He walked in the hall and the
+veranda--she was not there. He hastened to the rendezvous evidently
+meant by the writer, the wilderness behind the house. Sure enough,
+Byers, drunk and maudlin, supporting himself by the tree root, staggered
+forward, clasped him in his arms, and murmured hoarsely,--
+
+“She's gone!”
+
+“Gone?” echoed Abner, with a whitening face. “Mrs. Byers? Where?”
+
+“Run away! Never come back no more! Gone!”
+
+A vague idea that had been in Abner's mind since Byers's last visit now
+took awful shape. Before the unfortunate Byers could collect his senses
+he felt himself seized in a giant's grasp and forced against the tree.
+
+“You coward!” said all that was left of the tolerant Abner--his even
+voice--“you hound! Did you dare to abuse her? to lay your vile hands on
+her--to strike her? Answer me.”
+
+The shock--the grasp--perhaps Abner's words, momentarily silenced Byers.
+“Did I strike her?” he said dazedly; “did I abuse her? Oh, yes!” with
+deep irony. “Certainly! In course! Look yer, pardner!”--he suddenly
+dragged up his sleeve from his red, hairy arm, exposing a blue cicatrix
+in its centre--“that's a jab from her scissors about three months ago;
+look yer!”--he bent his head and showed a scar along the scalp--“that's
+her playfulness with a fire shovel! Look yer!”--he quickly opened his
+collar, where his neck and cheek were striped and crossed with adhesive
+plaster--“that's all that was left o' a glass jar o' preserves--the
+preserves got away, but some of the glass got stuck! That's when she
+heard I was a di-vorced man and hadn't told her.”
+
+“Were you a di-vorced man?” gasped Abner.
+
+“You know that; in course I was,” said Byers scornfully; “d'ye meanter
+say she didn't tell ye?”
+
+“She?” echoed Abner vaguely. “Your wife--you said just now she didn't
+know it before.”
+
+“My wife ez oncet was, I mean! Mary Ellen--your wife ez is to be,” said
+Byers, with deep irony. “Oh, come now. Pretend ye don't know! Hi there!
+Hands off! Don't strike a man when he's down, like I am.”
+
+But Abner's clutch of Byers's shoulder relaxed, and he sank down to a
+sitting posture on the root. In the meantime Byers, overcome by a sense
+of this new misery added to his manifold grievances, gave way to maudlin
+silent tears.
+
+“Mary Ellen--your first wife?” repeated Abner vacantly.
+
+“Yesh!” said Byers thickly, “my first wife--shelected and picked out
+fer your shecond wife--by your first--like d----d conundrum. How wash I
+t'know?” he said, with a sudden shriek of public expostulation--“thash
+what I wanter know. Here I come to talk with fr'en', like man to man,
+unshuspecting, innoshent as chile, about my shecond wife! Fr'en' drops
+out, carryin' off the whiskey. Then I hear all o' suddent voice o'
+Mary Ellen talkin' in kitchen; then I come round softly and see Mary
+Ellen--my wife as useter be--standin' at fr'en's kitchen winder. Then I
+lights out quicker 'n lightnin' and scoots! And when I gets back home,
+I ups and tells my wife. And whosh fault ish't! Who shaid a man oughter
+tell hish wife? You! Who keepsh other mensh' first wivesh at kishen
+winder to frighten 'em to tell? You!”
+
+But a change had already come over the face of Abner Langworthy. The
+anger, anxiety, astonishment, and vacuity that was there had vanished,
+and he looked up with his usual resigned acceptance of the inevitable
+as he said, “I reckon that's so! And seein' it's so,” with good-natured
+tolerance, he added, “I reckon I'll break rules for oncet and stand ye
+another drink.”
+
+He stood another drink and yet another, and eventually put the doubly
+widowed Byers to bed in his own room. These were but details of a larger
+tribulation,--and yet he knew instinctively that his cup was not yet
+full. The further drop of bitterness came a few days later in a line
+from Mary Ellen: “I needn't tell you that all betwixt you and me is off,
+and you kin tell your old woman that her selection for a second wife
+for you wuz about as bad as your own first selection. Ye kin tell Mr.
+Byers--yer great friend whom ye never let on ye knew--that when I want
+another husband I shan't take the trouble to ask him to fish one out for
+me. It would be kind--but confusin'.”
+
+He never heard from her again. Mr. Byers was duly notified that Mrs.
+Byers had commenced action for divorce in another state in which
+concealment of a previous divorce invalidated the marriage, but he did
+not respond. The two men became great friends--and assured celibates.
+Yet they always spoke reverently of their “wife,” with the touching
+prefix of “our.”
+
+“She was a good woman, pardner,” said Byers.
+
+“And she understood us,” said Abner resignedly.
+
+Perhaps she had.
+
+
+
+
+A BUCKEYE HOLLOW INHERITANCE
+
+
+The four men on the “Zip Coon” Ledge had not got fairly settled to their
+morning's work. There was the usual lingering hesitation which is apt to
+attend the taking-up of any regular or monotonous performance, shown in
+this instance in the prolonged scrutiny of a pick's point, the solemn
+selection of a shovel, or the “hefting” or weighing of a tapping-iron or
+drill. One member, becoming interested in a funny paragraph he found in
+the scrap of newspaper wrapped around his noonday cheese, shamelessly
+sat down to finish it, regardless of the prospecting pan thrown at him
+by another. They had taken up their daily routine of mining life like
+schoolboys at their tasks.
+
+“Hello!” said Ned Wyngate, joyously recognizing a possible further
+interruption. “Blamed if the Express rider ain't comin' here!”
+
+He was shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed over the broad
+sun-baked expanse of broken “flat” between them and the highroad. They
+all looked up, and saw the figure of a mounted man, with a courier's
+bag thrown over his shoulder, galloping towards them. It was really
+an event, as their letters were usually left at the grocery at the
+crossroads.
+
+“I knew something was goin' to happen,” said Wyngate. “I didn't feel a
+bit like work this morning.”
+
+Here one of their number ran off to meet the advancing horseman. They
+watched him until they saw the latter rein up, and hand a brown envelope
+to their messenger, who ran breathlessly back with it to the Ledge as
+the horseman galloped away again.
+
+“A telegraph for Jackson Wells,” he said, handing it to the young man
+who had been reading the scrap of paper.
+
+There was a dead silence. Telegrams were expensive rarities in those
+days, especially with the youthful Bohemian miners of the Zip Coon
+Ledge. They were burning with curiosity, yet a singular thing happened.
+Accustomed as they had been to a life of brotherly familiarity and
+unceremoniousness, this portentous message from the outside world of
+civilization recalled their old formal politeness. They looked steadily
+away from the receiver of the telegram, and he on his part stammered an
+apologetic “Excuse me, boys,” as he broke the envelope.
+
+There was another pause, which seemed to be interminable to the waiting
+partners. Then the voice of Wells, in quite natural tones, said, “By
+gum! that's funny! Read that, Dexter,--read it out loud.”
+
+Dexter Rice, the foreman, took the proffered telegram from Wells's hand,
+and read as follows:--
+
+
+Your uncle, Quincy Wells, died yesterday, leaving you sole heir. Will
+attend you to-morrow for instructions.
+
+BAKER AND TWIGGS,
+
+Attorneys, Sacramento.
+
+
+The three miners' faces lightened and turned joyously to Wells; but HIS
+face looked puzzled.
+
+“May we congratulate you, Mr. Wells?” said Wyngate, with affected
+politeness; “or possibly your uncle may have been English, and a title
+goes with the 'prop,' and you may be Lord Wells, or Very Wells--at
+least.”
+
+But here Jackson Wells's youthful face lost its perplexity, and he began
+to laugh long and silently to himself. This was protracted to such an
+extent that Dexter asserted himself,--as foreman and senior partner.
+
+“Look here, Jack! don't sit there cackling like a chuckle-headed magpie,
+if you ARE the heir.”
+
+“I--can't--help it,” gasped Jackson. “I am the heir--but you see, boys,
+there AIN'T ANY PROPERTY.”
+
+“What do you mean? Is all that a sell?” demanded Rice.
+
+“Not much! Telegraph's too expensive for that sort o' feelin'. You see,
+boys, I've got an Uncle Quincy, though I don't know him much, and he MAY
+be dead. But his whole fixin's consisted of a claim the size of ours,
+and played out long ago: a ramshackle lot o' sheds called a cottage, and
+a kind of market garden of about three acres, where he reared and sold
+vegetables. He was always poor, and as for calling it 'property,' and ME
+the 'heir'--good Lord!”
+
+“A miser, as sure as you're born!” said Wyngate, with optimistic
+decision. “That's always the way. You'll find every crack of that
+blessed old shed stuck full of greenbacks and certificates of deposit,
+and lots of gold dust and coin buried all over that cow patch! And of
+course no one suspected it! And of course he lived alone, and never let
+any one get into his house--and nearly starved himself! Lord love you!
+There's hundreds of such cases. The world is full of 'em!”
+
+“That's so,” chimed in Pulaski Briggs, the fourth partner, “and I tell
+you what, Jacksey, we'll come over with you the day you take possession,
+and just 'prospect' the whole blamed shanty, pigsties, and potato patch,
+for fun--and won't charge you anything.”
+
+For a moment Jackson's face had really brightened under the infection of
+enthusiasm, but it presently settled into perplexity again.
+
+“No! You bet the boys around Buckeye Hollow would have spotted anything
+like that long ago.”
+
+“Buckeye Hollow!” repeated Rice and his partners.
+
+“Yes! Buckeye Hollow, that's the place; not twenty miles from here, and
+a God-forsaken hole, as you know.”
+
+A cloud had settled on Zip Coon Ledge. They knew of Buckeye Hollow, and
+it was evident that no good had ever yet come out of that Nazareth.
+
+“There's no use of talking now,” said Rice conclusively. “You'll draw it
+all from that lawyer shark who's coming here tomorrow, and you can bet
+your life he wouldn't have taken this trouble if there wasn't suthin' in
+it. Anyhow, we'll knock off work now and call it half a day, in honor
+of our distinguished young friend's accession to his baronial estates
+of Buckeye Hollow. We'll just toddle down to Tomlinson's at the
+cross-roads, and have a nip and a quiet game of old sledge at Jacksey's
+expense. I reckon the estate's good for THAT,” he added, with severe
+gravity. “And, speaking as a fa'r-minded man and the president of
+this yer Company, if Jackson would occasionally take out and air that
+telegraphic dispatch of his while we're at Tomlinson's, it might do
+something for that Company's credit--with Tomlinson! We're wantin' some
+new blastin' plant bad!”
+
+Oddly enough the telegram--accidentally shown at Tomlinson's--produced a
+gratifying effect, and the Zip Coon Ledge materially advanced in
+public estimation. With this possible infusion of new capital into its
+resources, the Company was beset by offers of machinery and goods;
+and it was deemed expedient by the sapient Rice, that to prevent the
+dissemination of any more accurate information regarding Jackson's
+property the next day, the lawyer should be met at the stage office by
+one of the members, and conveyed secretly past Tomlinson's to the Ledge.
+
+“I'd let you go,” he said to Jackson, “only it won't do for that d----d
+skunk of a lawyer to think you're too anxious--sabe? We want to rub into
+him that we are in the habit out yer of havin' things left to us, and
+a fortin' more or less, falling into us now and then, ain't nothin'
+alongside of the Zip Coon claim. It won't hurt ye to keep up a big bluff
+on that hand of yours. Nobody would dare to 'call' you.”
+
+Indeed this idea was carried out with such elaboration the next day that
+Mr. Twiggs, the attorney, was considerably impressed both by the conduct
+of his guide, who (although burning with curiosity) expressed absolute
+indifference regarding Jackson Wells's inheritance, and the calmness of
+Jackson himself, who had to be ostentatiously called from his work on
+the Ledge to meet him, and who even gave him an audience in the hearing
+of his partners. Forced into an apologetic attitude, he expressed his
+regret at being obliged to bother Mr. Wells with an affair of such
+secondary importance, but he was obliged to carry out the formalities of
+the law.
+
+“What do you suppose the estate is worth?” asked Wells carelessly.
+
+“I should not think that the house, the claim, and the land would bring
+more than fifteen hundred dollars,” replied Twiggs submissively.
+
+To the impecunious owners of Zip Coon Ledge it seemed a large sum, but
+they did not show it.
+
+“You see,” continued Mr. Twiggs, “it's really a case of 'willing away'
+property from its obvious or direct inheritors, instead of a beneficial
+grant. I take it that you and your uncle were not particularly
+intimate,--at least, so I gathered when I made the will,--and his simple
+object was to disinherit his only daughter, with whom he had had some
+quarrel, and who had left him to live with his late wife's brother, Mr.
+Morley Brown, who is quite wealthy and residing in the same township.
+Perhaps you remember the young lady?”
+
+Jackson Wells had a dim recollection of this cousin, a hateful,
+red-haired schoolgirl, and an equally unpleasant memory of this other
+uncle, who was purse-proud and had never taken any notice of him. He
+answered affirmatively.
+
+“There may be some attempt to contest the will,” continued Mr. Twiggs,
+“as the disinheriting of an only child and a daughter offends the
+sentiment of the people and of judges and jury, and the law makes such
+a will invalid, unless a reason is given. Fortunately your uncle has
+placed his reasons on record. I have a copy of the will here, and can
+show you the clause.” He took it from his pocket, and read as follows:
+“'I exclude my daughter, Jocelinda Wells, from any benefit or provision
+of this my will and testament, for the reason that she has voluntarily
+abandoned her father's roof for the house of her mother's brother,
+Morley Brown; has preferred the fleshpots of Egypt to the virtuous
+frugalities of her own home, and has discarded the humble friends of
+her youth, and the associates of her father, for the meretricious
+and slavish sympathy of wealth and position. In lieu thereof, and as
+compensation therefor, I do hereby give and bequeath to her my full and
+free permission to gratify her frequently expressed wish for another
+guardian in place of myself, and to become the adopted daughter of the
+said Morley Brown, with the privilege of assuming the name of Brown
+as aforesaid.' You see,” he continued, “as the young lady's present
+position is a better one than it would be if she were in her father's
+house, and was evidently a compromise, the sentimental consideration of
+her being left homeless and penniless falls to the ground. However, as
+the inheritance is small, and might be of little account to you, if you
+choose to waive it, I dare say we may make some arrangement.”
+
+This was an utterly unexpected idea to the Zip Coon Company, and
+Jackson Wells was for a moment silent. But Dexter Rice was equal to the
+emergency, and turned to the astonished lawyer with severe dignity.
+
+“You'll excuse me for interferin', but, as the senior partner of this
+yer Ledge, and Jackson Wells yer bein' a most important member, what
+affects his usefulness on this claim affects us. And we propose to carry
+out this yer will, with all its dips and spurs and angles!”
+
+As the surprised Twiggs turned from one to the other, Rice continued,
+“Ez far as we kin understand this little game, it's the just punishment
+of a high-flying girl as breaks her pore old father's heart, and the
+re-ward of a young feller ez has bin to our knowledge ez devoted a
+nephew as they make 'em. Time and time again, sittin' around our camp
+fire at night, we've heard Jacksey say,--kinder to himself, and kinder
+to us, 'Now I wonder what's gone o' old uncle Quincy;' and he never
+sat down to a square meal, or ever rose from a square game, but what
+he allus said, 'If old uncle Quince was only here now, boys, I'd die
+happy.' I leave it to you, gentlemen, if that wasn't Jackson Wells's
+gait all the time?”
+
+There was a prolonged murmur of assent, and an affecting corroboration
+from Ned Wyngate of “That was him; that was Jacksey all the time!”
+
+“Indeed, indeed,” said the lawyer nervously. “I had quite the idea that
+there was very little fondness”--
+
+“Not on your side--not on your side,” said Rice quickly. “Uncle Quincy
+may not have anted up in this matter o' feelin', nor seen his nephew's
+rise. You know how it is yourself in these things--being a lawyer and a
+fa'r-minded man--it's all on one side, ginerally! There's always one who
+loves and sacrifices, and all that, and there's always one who rakes in
+the pot! That's the way o' the world; and that's why,” continued Rice,
+abandoning his slightly philosophical attitude, and laying his hand
+tenderly, and yet with a singularly significant grip, on Wells's arm,
+“we say to him, 'Hang on to that will, and uncle Quincy's memory.'
+And we hev to say it. For he's that tender-hearted and keerless of
+money--having his own share in this Ledge--that ef that girl came
+whimperin' to him he'd let her take the 'prop' and let the hull thing
+slide! And then he'd remember that he had rewarded that gal that broke
+the old man's heart, and that would upset him again in his work. And
+there, you see, is just where WE come in! And we say, 'Hang on to that
+will like grim death!'”
+
+The lawyer looked curiously at Rice and his companions, and then turned
+to Wells: “Nevertheless, I must look to you for instructions,” he said
+dryly.
+
+But by this time Jackson Wells, although really dubious about
+supplanting the orphan, had gathered the sense of his partners, and said
+with a frank show of decision, “I think I must stand by the will.”
+
+“Then I'll have it proved,” said Twiggs, rising. “In the meantime, if
+there is any talk of contesting”--
+
+“If there is, you might say,” suggested Wyngate, who felt he had not had
+a fair show in the little comedy,--“ye might say to that old skeesicks
+of a wife's brother, if he wants to nipple in, that there are four men
+on the Ledge--and four revolvers! We are gin'rally fa'r-minded, peaceful
+men, but when an old man's heart is broken, and his gray hairs brought
+down in sorrow to the grave, so to speak, we're bound to attend the
+funeral--sabe?”
+
+When Mr. Twiggs had departed again, accompanied by a partner to guide
+him past the dangerous shoals of Tomlinson's grocery, Rice clapped his
+hand on Wells's shoulder. “If it hadn't been for me, sonny, that shark
+would have landed you into some compromise with that red-haired gal! I
+saw you weakenin', and then I chipped in. I may have piled up the agony
+a little on your love for old Quince, but if you aren't an ungrateful
+cub, that's how you ought to hev been feein', anyhow!”
+
+Nevertheless, the youthful Wells, although touched by his elder
+partner's loyalty, and convinced of his own disinterestedness, felt a
+painful sense of lost chivalrous opportunity.
+
+*****
+
+On mature consideration it was finally settled that Jackson Wells should
+make his preliminary examination of his inheritance alone, as it might
+seem inconsistent with the previous indifferent attitude of his
+partners if they accompanied him. But he was implored to yield to no
+blandishments of the enemy, and to even make his visit a secret.
+
+He went. The familiar flower-spiked trees which had given their name
+to Buckeye Hollow had never yielded entirely to improvements and the
+incursions of mining enterprise, and many of them had even survived the
+disused ditches, the scarred flats, the discarded levels, ruined flumes,
+and roofless cabins of the earlier occupation, so that when Jackson
+Wells entered the wide, straggling street of Buckeye, that summer
+morning was filled with the radiance of its blossoms and fragrant with
+their incense. His first visit there, ten years ago, had been a purely
+perfunctory and hasty one, yet he remembered the ostentatious hotel,
+built in the “flush time” of its prosperity, and already in a green
+premature decay; he recalled the Express Office and Town Hall, also
+passing away in a kind of similar green deliquescence; the little zinc
+church, now overgrown with fern and brambles, and the two or three fine
+substantial houses in the outskirts, which seemed to have sucked the
+vitality of the little settlement. One of these--he had been told--was
+the property of his rich and wicked maternal uncle, the hated
+appropriator of his red-headed cousin's affections. He recalled his
+brief visit to the departed testator's claim and market garden, and his
+by no means favorable impression of the lonely, crabbed old man, as well
+as his relief that his objectionable cousin, whom he had not seen since
+he was a boy, was then absent at the rival uncle's. He made his way
+across the road to a sunny slope where the market garden of three acres
+seemed to roll like a river of green rapids to a little “run” or brook,
+which, even in the dry season, showed a trickling rill. But here he was
+struck by a singular circumstance. The garden rested in a rich, alluvial
+soil, and under the quickening Californian sky had developed far beyond
+the ability of its late cultivator to restrain or keep it in order.
+Everything had grown luxuriantly, and in monstrous size and profusion.
+The garden had even trespassed its bounds, and impinged upon the open
+road, the deserted claims, and the ruins of the past. Stimulated by the
+little cultivation Quincy Wells had found time to give it, it had
+leaped its three acres and rioted through the Hollow. There were scarlet
+runners crossing the abandoned sluices, peas climbing the court-house
+wall, strawberries matting the trail, while the seeds and pollen of
+its few homely Eastern flowers had been blown far and wide through the
+woods. By a grim satire, Nature seemed to have been the only thing that
+still prospered in that settlement of man.
+
+The cabin itself, built of unpainted boards, consisted of a
+sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, all plainly
+furnished, although one of the bedrooms was better ordered, and
+displayed certain signs of feminine decoration, which made Jackson
+believe it had been his cousin's room. Luckily, the slight, temporary
+structure bore no deep traces of its previous occupancy to disturb him
+with its memories, and for the same reason it gained in cleanliness and
+freshness. The dry, desiccating summer wind that blew through it had
+carried away both the odors and the sense of domesticity; even the adobe
+hearth had no fireside tales to tell,--its very ashes had been scattered
+by the winds; and the gravestone of its dead owner on the hill was no
+more flavorless of his personality than was this plain house in which he
+had lived and died. The excessive vegetation produced by the stirred-up
+soil had covered and hidden the empty tin cans, broken boxes, and
+fragments of clothing which usually heaped and littered the tent-pegs
+of the pioneer. Nature's own profusion had thrust them into obscurity.
+Jackson Wells smiled as he recalled his sanguine partner's idea of a
+treasure-trove concealed and stuffed in the crevices of this tenement,
+already so palpably picked clean by those wholesome scavengers of
+California, the dry air and burning sun. Yet he was not displeased at
+this obliteration of a previous tenancy; there was the better chance for
+him to originate something. He whistled hopefully as he lounged, with
+his hands in his pockets, towards the only fence and gate that gave upon
+the road. Something stuck up on the gate-post attracted his attention.
+It was a sheet of paper bearing the inscription in a large hand: “Notice
+to trespassers. Look out for the Orphan Robber!” A plain signboard in
+faded black letters on the gate, which had borne the legend: “Quincy
+Wells, Dealer in Fruit and Vegetables,” had been rudely altered in chalk
+to read: “Jackson Wells, Double Dealer in Wills and Codicils,” and the
+intimation “Bouquets sold here” had been changed to “Bequests stole
+here.” For an instant the simple-minded Jackson failed to discover
+any significance of this outrage, which seemed to him to be merely
+the wanton mischief of a schoolboy. But a sudden recollection of
+the lawyer's caution sent the blood to his cheeks and kindled
+his indignation. He tore down the paper and rubbed out the chalk
+interpolation--and then laughed at his own anger. Nevertheless, he would
+not have liked his belligerent partners to see it.
+
+A little curious to know the extent of this feeling, he entered one of
+the shops, and by one or two questions which judiciously betrayed his
+ownership of the property, he elicited only a tradesman's interest in a
+possible future customer, and the ordinary curiosity about a stranger.
+The barkeeper of the hotel was civil, but brief and gloomy. He had heard
+the property was “willed away on account of some family quarrel which
+'warn't none of his'.” Mr. Wells would find Buckeye Hollow a mighty dull
+place after the mines. It was played out, sucked dry by two or three big
+mine owners who were trying to “freeze out” the other settlers, so as
+they might get the place to themselves and “boom it.” Brown, who had the
+big house over the hill, was the head devil of the gang! Wells felt his
+indignation kindle anew. And this girl that he had ousted was Brown's
+friend. Was it possible that she was a party to Brown's designs to get
+this three acres with the other lands? If so, his long-suffering uncle
+was only just in his revenge.
+
+He put all this diffidently before his partners on his return, and was a
+little startled at their adopting it with sanguine ferocity. They hoped
+that he would put an end to his thoughts of backing out of it. Such a
+course now would be dishonorable to his uncle's memory. It was clearly
+his duty to resist these blasted satraps of capitalists; he was
+providentially selected for the purpose--a village Hampden to withstand
+the tyrant. “And I reckon that shark of a lawyer knew all about it when
+he was gettin' off that 'purp stuff' about people's sympathies with the
+girl,” said Rice belligerently. “Contest the will, would he? Why, if we
+caught that Brown with a finger in the pie we'd just whip up the boys on
+this Ledge and lynch him. You hang on to that three acres and the garden
+patch of your forefathers, sonny, and we'll see you through!”
+
+Nevertheless, it was with some misgivings that Wells consented that
+his three partners should actually accompany him and see him put in
+peaceable possession of his inheritance. His instinct told him that
+there would be no contest of the will, and still less any opposition
+on the part of the objectionable relative, Brown. When the wagon
+which contained his personal effects and the few articles of furniture
+necessary for his occupancy of the cabin arrived, the exaggerated
+swagger which his companions had put on in their passage through the
+settlement gave way to a pastoral indolence, equally half real, half
+affected. Lying on their backs under a buckeye, they permitted Rice to
+voice the general sentiment. “There's a suthin' soothin' and dreamy in
+this kind o' life, Jacksey, and we'll make a point of comin' here for a
+couple of days every two weeks to lend you a hand; it will be a mighty
+good change from our nigger work on the claim.”
+
+In spite of this assurance, and the fact that they had voluntarily come
+to help him put the place in order, they did very little beyond lending
+a cheering expression of unqualified praise and unstinted advice. At the
+end of four hours' weeding and trimming the boundaries of the garden,
+they unanimously gave their opinion that it would be more systematic for
+him to employ Chinese labor at once.
+
+“You see,” said Ned Wyngate, “the Chinese naturally take to this kind o'
+business. Why, you can't take up a china plate or saucer but you see
+'em pictured there working at jobs like this, and they kin live on green
+things and rice that cost nothin', and chickens. You'll keep chickens,
+of course.”
+
+Jackson thought that his hands would be full enough with the garden, but
+he meekly assented.
+
+“I'll get a pair--you only want two to begin with,” continued Wyngate
+cheerfully, “and in a month or two you've got all you want, and eggs
+enough for market. On second thoughts, I don't know whether you hadn't
+better begin with eggs first. That is, you borry some eggs from one
+man and a hen from another. Then you set 'em, and when the chickens are
+hatched out you just return the hen to the second man, and the eggs,
+when your chickens begin to lay, to the first man, and you've got your
+chickens for nothing--and there you are.”
+
+This ingenious proposition, which was delivered on the last slope of
+the domain, where the partners were lying exhausted from their work, was
+broken in upon by the appearance of a small boy, barefooted, sunburnt,
+and tow-headed, who, after a moment's hurried scrutiny of the group,
+threw a letter with unerring precision into the lap of Jackson Wells,
+and then fled precipitately. Jackson instinctively suspected he was
+connected with the outrage on his fence and gate-post, but as he had
+avoided telling his partners of the incident, fearing to increase their
+belligerent attitude, he felt now an awkward consciousness mingled with
+his indignation as he broke the seal and read as follows:--
+
+
+SIR,--This is to inform you that although you have got hold of the
+property by underhanded and sneaking ways, you ain't no right to touch
+or lay your vile hands on the Cherokee Rose alongside the house, nor on
+the Giant of Battles, nor on the Maiden's Pride by the gate--the same
+being the property of Miss Jocelinda Wells, and planted by her, under
+the penalty of the Law. And if you, or any of your gang of ruffians,
+touches it or them, or any thereof, or don't deliver it up when called
+for in good order, you will be persecuted by them.
+
+AVENGER.
+
+
+It is to be feared that Jackson would have suppressed this also, but the
+keen eyes of his partners, excited by the abruptness of the messenger,
+were upon him. He smiled feebly, and laid the letter before them. But
+he was unprepared for their exaggerated indignation, and with difficulty
+restrained them from dashing off in the direction of the vanished
+herald. “And what could you do?” he said. “The boy's only a messenger.”
+
+“I'll get at that d----d skunk Brown, who's back of him,” said Dexter
+Rice.
+
+“And what then?” persisted Jackson, with a certain show of independence.
+“If this stuff belongs to the girl, I'm not certain I shan't give them
+up without any fuss. Lord! I want nothing but what the old man left
+me--and certainly nothing of HERS.”
+
+Here Ned Wyngate was heard to murmur that Jackson was one of those
+men who would lie down and let coyotes crawl over him if they first
+presented a girl's visiting card, but he was stopped by Rice demanding
+paper and pencil. The former being torn from a memorandum book, and a
+stub of the latter produced from another pocket, he wrote as follows:--
+
+
+SIR,--In reply to the hogwash you have kindly exuded in your letter of
+to-day, I have to inform you that you can have what you ask for Miss
+Wells, and perhaps a trifle on your own account, by calling this
+afternoon on--Yours truly--
+
+
+“Now, sign it,” continued Rice, handing him the pencil.
+
+“But this will look as if we were angry and wanted to keep the plants,”
+ protested Wells.
+
+“Never you mind, sonny, but sign! Leave the rest to your partners,
+and when you lay your head on your pillow to-night return thanks to an
+overruling Providence for providing you with the right gang of ruffians
+to look after you!”
+
+Wells signed reluctantly, and Wyngate offered to find a Chinaman in the
+gulch who would take the missive. “And being a Chinaman, Brown can do
+any cussin' or buck talk THROUGH him!” he added.
+
+The afternoon wore on; the tall Douglas pines near the water pools
+wheeled their long shadows round and halfway up the slope, and the sun
+began to peer into the faces of the reclining men. Subtle odors of mint
+and southern-wood, stragglers from the garden, bruised by their limbs,
+replaced the fumes of their smoked-out pipes, and the hammers of the
+woodpeckers were busy in the grove as they lay lazily nibbling the
+fragrant leaves like peaceful ruminants. Then came the sound of
+approaching wheels along the invisible highway beyond the buckeyes,
+and then a halt and silence. Rice rose slowly, bright pin points in the
+pupils of his gray eyes.
+
+“Bringin' a wagon with him to tote the hull shanty away,” suggested
+Wyngate.
+
+“Or fetched his own ambulance,” said Briggs.
+
+Nevertheless, after a pause, the wheels presently rolled away again.
+
+“We'd better go and meet him at the gate,” said Rice, hitching his
+revolver holster nearer his hip. “That wagon stopped long enough to put
+down three or four men.”
+
+They walked leisurely but silently to the gate. It is probable that none
+of them believed in a serious collision, but now the prospect had enough
+possibility in it to quicken their pulses. They reached the gate. But it
+was still closed; the road beyond it empty.
+
+“Mebbe they've sneaked round to the cabin,” said Briggs, “and are
+holdin' it inside.”
+
+They were turning quickly in that direction, when Wyngate said,
+“Hush!--some one's there in the brush under the buckeyes.”
+
+They listened; there was a faint rustling in the shadows.
+
+“Come out o' that, Brown--into the open. Don't be shy,” called out Rice
+in cheerful irony. “We're waitin' for ye.”
+
+But Briggs, who was nearest the wood, here suddenly uttered an
+exclamation,--“B'gosh!” and fell back, open-mouthed, upon his
+companions. They too, in another moment, broke into a feeble laugh, and
+lapsed against each other in sheepish silence. For a very pretty girl,
+handsomely dressed, swept out of the wood and advanced towards them.
+
+Even at any time she would have been an enchanting vision to these men,
+but in the glow of exercise and sparkle of anger she was bewildering.
+Her wonderful hair, the color of freshly hewn redwood, had escaped from
+her hat in her passage through the underbrush, and even as she swept
+down upon them in her majesty she was jabbing a hairpin into it with a
+dexterous feminine hand.
+
+The three partners turned quite the color of her hair; Jackson Wells
+alone remained white and rigid. She came on, her very short upper lip
+showing her white teeth with her panting breath.
+
+Rice was first to speak. “I beg--your pardon, Miss--I thought it was
+Brown--you know,” he stammered.
+
+But she only turned a blighting brown eye on the culprit, curled her
+short lip till it almost vanished in her scornful nostrils, drew her
+skirt aside with a jerk, and continued her way straight to Jackson
+Wells, where she halted.
+
+“We did not know you were--here alone,” he said apologetically.
+
+“Thought I was afraid to come alone, didn't you? Well, you see, I'm not.
+There!” She made another dive at her hat and hair, and brought the hat
+down wickedly over her eyebrows. “Gimme my plants.”
+
+Jackson had been astonished. He would have scarcely recognized in this
+willful beauty the red-haired girl whom he had boyishly hated, and with
+whom he had often quarreled. But there was a recollection--and with that
+recollection came an instinct of habit. He looked her squarely in the
+face, and, to the horror of his partners, said, “Say please!”
+
+They had expected to see him fall, smitten with the hairpin! But she
+only stopped, and then in bitter irony said, “Please, Mr. Jackson
+Wells.”
+
+“I haven't dug them up yet--and it would serve you just right if I
+made you get them for yourself. But perhaps my friends here might help
+you--if you were civil.”
+
+The three partners seized spades and hoes and rushed forward eagerly.
+“Only show us what you want,” they said in one voice. The young girl
+stared at them, and at Jackson. Then with swift determination she turned
+her back scornfully upon him, and with a dazzling smile which reduced
+the three men to absolute idiocy, said to the others, “I'll show YOU,”
+ and marched away to the cabin.
+
+“Ye mustn't mind Jacksey,” said Rice, sycophantically edging to her
+side, “he's so cut up with losin' your father that he loved like a son,
+he isn't himself, and don't seem to know whether to ante up or pass out.
+And as for yourself, Miss--why--What was it he was sayin' only just as
+the young lady came?” he added, turning abruptly to Wyngate.
+
+“Everything that cousin Josey planted with her own hands must be took up
+carefully and sent back--even though it's killin' me to part with it,”
+ quoted Wyngate unblushingly, as he slouched along on the other side.
+
+Miss Wells's eyes glared at them, though her mouth still smiled
+ravishingly. “I'm sure I'm troubling you.”
+
+In a few moments the plants were dug up and carefully laid together;
+indeed, the servile Briggs had added a few that she had not indicated.
+
+“Would you mind bringing them as far as the buggy that's coming down
+the hill?” she said, pointing to a buggy driven by a small boy which
+was slowly approaching the gate. The men tenderly lifted the uprooted
+plants, and proceeded solemnly, Miss Wells bringing up the rear, towards
+the gate, where Jackson Wells was still surlily lounging.
+
+They passed out first. Miss Wells lingered for an instant, and then
+advancing her beautiful but audacious face within an inch of Jackson's,
+hissed out, “Make-believe! and hypocrite!”
+
+“Cross-patch and sauce-box!” returned Jackson readily, still under the
+malign influence of his boyish past, as she flounced away.
+
+Presently he heard the buggy rattle away with his persecutor. But his
+partners still lingered on the road in earnest conversation, and when
+they did return it was with a singular awkwardness and embarrassment,
+which he naturally put down to a guilty consciousness of their foolish
+weakness in succumbing to the girl's demands.
+
+But he was a little surprised when Dexter Rice approached him gloomily.
+“Of course,” he began, “it ain't no call of ours to interfere in family
+affairs, and you've a right to keep 'em to yourself, but if you'd been
+fair and square and above board in what you got off on us about this
+per--”
+
+“What do you mean?” demanded the astonished Wells.
+
+“Well--callin' her a 'red-haired gal.'”
+
+“Well--she is a red-haired girl!” said Wells impatiently.
+
+“A man,” continued Rice pityingly, “that is so prejudiced as to apply
+such language to a beautiful orphan--torn with grief at the loss of a
+beloved but d----d misconstruing parent--merely because she begs a few
+vegetables out of his potato patch, ain't to be reasoned with. But when
+you come to look at this thing by and large, and as a fa'r-minded man,
+sonny, you'll agree with us that the sooner you make terms with her the
+better. Considerin' your interest, Jacksey,--let alone the claims of
+humanity,--we've concluded to withdraw from here until this thing is
+settled. She's sort o' mixed us up with your feelings agin her, and
+naturally supposed we object to the color of her hair! and bein' a
+penniless orphan, rejected by her relations”--
+
+“What stuff are you talking?” burst in Jackson. “Why, YOU saw she
+treated you better than she did me.”
+
+“Steady! There you go with that temper of yours that frightened the
+girl! Of course she could see that WE were fa'r-minded men, accustomed
+to the ways of society, and not upset by the visit of a lady, or the
+givin' up of a few green sticks! But let that slide! We're goin' back
+home to-night, sonny, and when you've thought this thing over and are
+straightened up and get your right bearin's, we'll stand by you as
+before. We'll put a man on to do your work on the Ledge, so ye needn't
+worry about that.”
+
+They were quite firm in this decision,--however absurd or obscure their
+conclusions,--and Jackson, after his first flash of indignation, felt
+a certain relief in their departure. But strangely enough, while he had
+hesitated about keeping the property when they were violently in favor
+of it, he now felt he was right in retaining it against their advice to
+compromise. The sentimental idea had vanished with his recognition of
+his hateful cousin in the role of the injured orphan. And for the same
+odd reason her prettiness only increased his resentment. He was not
+deceived,--it was the same capricious, willful, red-haired girl.
+
+The next day he set himself to work with that dogged steadiness that
+belonged to his simple nature, and which had endeared him to his
+partners. He set half a dozen Chinamen to work, and followed, although
+apparently directing, their methods. The great difficulty was to
+restrain and control the excessive vegetation, and he matched the small
+economies of the Chinese against the opulence of the Californian soil.
+The “garden patch” prospered; the neighbors spoke well of it and of
+him. But Jackson knew that this fierce harvest of early spring was to be
+followed by the sterility of the dry season, and that irrigation could
+alone make his work profitable in the end. He brought a pump to force
+the water from the little stream at the foot of the slope to the top,
+and allowed it to flow back through parallel trenches. Again Buckeye
+applauded! Only the gloomy barkeeper shook his head. “The moment you get
+that thing to pay, Mr. Wells, you'll find the hand of Brown, somewhere,
+getting ready to squeeze it dry!”
+
+But Jackson Wells did not trouble himself about Brown, whom he scarcely
+knew. Once indeed, while trenching the slope, he was conscious that he
+was watched by two men from the opposite bank; but they were apparently
+satisfied by their scrutiny, and turned away. Still less did he concern
+himself with the movements of his cousin, who once or twice passed him
+superciliously in her buggy on the road. Again, she met him as one of
+a cavalcade of riders, mounted on a handsome but ill-tempered mustang,
+which she was managing with an ill-temper and grace equal to the
+brute's, to the alternate delight and terror of her cavalier. He could
+see that she had been petted and spoiled by her new guardian and his
+friends far beyond his conception. But why she should grudge him the
+little garden and the pastoral life for which she was so unsuited,
+puzzled him greatly.
+
+One afternoon he was working near the road, when he was startled by
+an outcry from his Chinese laborers, their rapid dispersal from the
+strawberry beds where they were working, the splintering crash of his
+fence rails, and a commotion among the buckeyes. Furious at what seemed
+to him one of the usual wanton attacks upon coolie labor, he seized
+his pick and ran to their assistance. But he was surprised to find
+Jocelinda's mustang caught by the saddle and struggling between two
+trees, and its unfortunate mistress lying upon the strawberry bed.
+Shocked but cool-headed, Jackson released the horse first, who was
+lashing out and destroying everything within his reach, and then turned
+to his cousin. But she had already lifted herself to her elbow, and
+with a trickle of blood and mud on one fair cheek was surveying him
+scornfully under her tumbled hair and hanging hat.
+
+“You don't suppose I was trespassing on your wretched patch again, do
+you?” she said in a voice she was trying to keep from breaking. “It was
+that brute--who bolted.”
+
+“I don't suppose you were bullying ME this time,” he said, “but you were
+YOUR HORSE--or it wouldn't have happened. Are you hurt?”
+
+She tried to move; he offered her his hand, but she shied from it and
+struggled to her feet. She took a step forward--but limped.
+
+“If you don't want my arm, let me call a Chinaman,” he suggested.
+
+She glared at him. “If you do I'll scream!” she said in a low voice, and
+he knew she would. But at the same moment her face whitened, at which he
+slipped his arm under hers in a dexterous, business-like way, so as to
+support her weight. Then her hat got askew, and down came a long braid
+over his shoulder. He remembered it of old, only it was darker than then
+and two or three feet longer.
+
+“If you could manage to limp as far as the gate and sit down on the
+bank, I'd get your horse for you,” he said. “I hitched it to a sapling.”
+
+“I saw you did--before you even offered to help me,” she said
+scornfully.
+
+“The horse would have got away--YOU couldn't.”
+
+“If you only knew how I hated you,” she said, with a white face, but a
+trembling lip.
+
+“I don't see how that would make things any better,” he said. “Better
+wipe your face; it's scratched and muddy, and you've been rubbing your
+nose in my strawberry bed.”
+
+She snatched his proffered handkerchief suddenly, applied it to her
+face, and said: “I suppose it looks dreadful.”
+
+“Like a pig's,” he returned cheerfully.
+
+She walked a little more firmly after this, until they reached the gate.
+He seated her on the bank, and went back for the mustang. That beautiful
+brute, astounded and sore from its contact with the top rail and
+brambles, was cowed and subdued as he led it back.
+
+She had finished wiping her face, and was hurriedly disentangling
+two stinging tears from her long lashes, before she threw back his
+handkerchief. Her sprained ankle obliged him to lift her into the saddle
+and adjust her little shoe in the stirrup. He remembered when it
+was still smaller. “You used to ride astride,” he said, a flood of
+recollection coming over him, “and it's much safer with your temper and
+that brute.”
+
+“And you,” she said in a lower voice, “used to be”--But the rest of her
+sentence was lost in the switch of the whip and the jump of her horse,
+but he thought the word was “kinder.”
+
+Perhaps this was why, after he watched her canter away, he went back to
+the garden, and from the bruised and trampled strawberry bed gathered
+a small basket of the finest fruit, covered them with leaves, added a
+paper with the highly ingenious witticism, “Picked up with you,” and
+sent them to her by one of the Chinamen. Her forcible entry moved
+Li Sing, his foreman, also chief laundryman to the settlement, to
+reminiscences:
+
+“Me heap knew Missy Wells and ole man, who go dead. Ole man allee
+time make chin music to Missy. Allee time jaw jaw--allee time make
+lows--allee time cuttee up Missy! Plenty time lockee up Missy topside
+house; no can walkee--no can talkee--no hab got--how can get?--must
+washee washee allee same Chinaman. Ole man go dead--Missy all lightee
+now. Plenty fun. Plenty stay in Blown's big house, top-side hill; Blown
+first-chop man.”
+
+Had he inquired he might have found this pagan testimony, for once,
+corroborated by the Christian neighbors.
+
+But another incident drove all this from his mind. The little
+stream--the life blood of his garden--ran dry! Inquiry showed that it
+had been diverted two miles away into Brown's ditch! Wells's indignant
+protest elicited a formal reply from Brown, stating that he owned the
+adjacent mining claims, and reminding him that mining rights to water
+took precedence of the agricultural claim, but offering, by way of
+compensation, to purchase the land thus made useless and sterile.
+Jackson suddenly recalled the prophecy of the gloomy barkeeper. The end,
+had come! But what could the scheming capitalist want with the land,
+equally useless--as his uncle had proved--for mining purposes? Could it
+be sheer malignity, incited by his vengeful cousin? But here he paused,
+rejecting the idea as quickly as it came. No! his partners were right!
+He was a trespasser on his cousin's heritage--there was no luck in
+it--he was wrong, and this was his punishment! Instead of yielding
+gracefully as he might, he must back down now, and she would never know
+his first real feelings. Even now he would make over the property to
+her as a free gift. But his partners had advanced him money from their
+scanty means to plant and work it. He believed that an appeal to their
+feelings would persuade them to forego even that, but he shrank even
+more from confessing his defeat to THEM than to her.
+
+He had little heart in his labors that day, and dismissed the Chinamen
+early. He again examined his uncle's old mining claim on the top of
+the slope, but was satisfied that it had been a hopeless enterprise
+and wisely abandoned. It was sunset when he stood under the buckeyes,
+gloomily looking at the glow fade out of the west, as it had out of his
+boyish hopes. He had grown to like the place. It was the hour, too, when
+the few flowers he had cultivated gave back their pleasant odors, as if
+grateful for his care. And then he heard his name called.
+
+It was his cousin, standing a few yards from him in evident hesitation.
+She was quite pale, and for a moment he thought she was still suffering
+from her fall, until he saw in her nervous, half-embarrassed manner that
+it had no physical cause. Her old audacity and anger seemed gone, yet
+there was a queer determination in her pretty brows.
+
+“Good-evening,” he said.
+
+She did not return his greeting, but pulling uneasily at her glove, said
+hesitatingly: “Uncle has asked you to sell him this land?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well--don't!” she burst out abruptly.
+
+He stared at her.
+
+“Oh, I'm not trying to keep you here,” she went on, flashing back into
+her old temper; “so you needn't stare like that. I say, 'Don't,' because
+it ain't right, it ain't fair.”
+
+“Why, he's left me no alternative,” he said.
+
+“That's just it--that's why it's mean and low. I don't care if he is our
+uncle.”
+
+Jackson was bewildered and shocked.
+
+“I know it's horrid to say it,” she said, with a white face; “but it's
+horrider to keep it in! Oh, Jack! when we were little, and used to fight
+and quarrel, I never was mean--was I? I never was underhanded--was I?
+I never lied--did I? And I can't lie now. Jack,” she looked hurriedly
+around her, “HE wants to get hold of the land--HE thinks there's gold in
+the slope and bank by the stream. He says dad was a fool to have located
+his claim so high up. Jack! did you ever prospect the bank?”
+
+A dawning of intelligence came upon Jackson. “No,” he said; “but,” he
+added bitterly, “what's the use? He owns the water now,--I couldn't work
+it.”
+
+“But, Jack, IF you found the color, this would be a MINING claim! You
+could claim the water right; and, as it's your land, your claim would be
+first!”
+
+Jackson was startled. “Yes, IF I found the color.”
+
+“You WOULD find it.”
+
+“WOULD?”
+
+“Yes! I DID--on the sly! Yesterday morning on your slope by the stream,
+when no one was up! I washed a panful and got that.” She took a piece of
+tissue paper from her pocket, opened it, and shook into her little palm
+three tiny pin points of gold.
+
+“And that was your own idea, Jossy?”
+
+“Yes!”
+
+“Your very own?”
+
+“Honest Injin!”
+
+“Wish you may die?”
+
+“True, O King!”
+
+He opened his arms, and they mutually embraced. Then they separated,
+taking hold of each other's hands solemnly, and falling back until they
+were at arm's length. Then they slowly extended their arms sideways at
+full length, until this action naturally brought their faces and lips
+together. They did this with the utmost gravity three times, and then
+embraced again, rocking on pivoted feet like a metronome. Alas! it was
+no momentary inspiration. The most casual and indifferent observer
+could see that it was the result of long previous practice and shameless
+experience. And as such--it was a revelation and an explanation.
+
+
+*****
+
+“I always suspected that Jackson was playin' us about that red-haired
+cousin,” said Rice two weeks later; “but I can't swallow that purp stuff
+about her puttin' him up to that dodge about a new gold discovery on
+a fresh claim, just to knock out Brown. No, sir. He found that gold in
+openin' these irrigatin' trenches,--the usual nigger luck, findin' what
+you're not lookin' arter.”
+
+“Well, we can't complain, for he's offered to work it on shares with
+us,” said Briggs.
+
+“Yes--until he's ready to take in another partner.”
+
+“Not--Brown?” said his horrified companions.
+
+“No!--but Brown's adopted daughter--that red-haired cousin!”
+
+
+
+
+THE REINCARNATION OF SMITH
+
+
+The extravagant supper party by which Mr. James Farendell celebrated the
+last day of his bachelorhood was protracted so far into the night,
+that the last guest who parted from him at the door of the principal
+Sacramento restaurant was for a moment impressed with the belief that
+a certain ruddy glow in the sky was already the dawn. But Mr. Farendell
+had kept his head clear enough to recognize it as the light of some
+burning building in a remote business district, a not infrequent
+occurrence in the dry season. When he had dismissed his guest he turned
+away in that direction for further information. His own counting-house
+was not in that immediate neighborhood, but Sacramento had been once
+before visited by a rapid and far-sweeping conflagration, and it
+behooved him to be on the alert even on this night of festivity.
+
+Perhaps also a certain anxiety arose out of the occasion. He was to be
+married to-morrow to the widow of his late partner, and the
+marriage, besides being an attractive one, would settle many business
+difficulties. He had been a fortunate man, but, like many more fortunate
+men, was not blind to the possibilities of a change of luck. The death
+of his partner in a successful business had at first seemed to betoken
+that change, but his successful, though hasty, courtship of the
+inexperienced widow had restored his chances without greatly shocking
+the decorum of a pioneer community. Nevertheless, he was not a contented
+man, and hardly a determined--although an energetic one.
+
+A walk of a few moments brought him to the levee of the river,--a
+favored district, where his counting-house, with many others, was
+conveniently situated. In these early days only a few of these buildings
+could be said to be permanent,--fire and flood perpetually threatened
+them. They were merely temporary structures of wood, or in the case
+of Mr. Farendell's office, a shell of corrugated iron, sheathing
+a one-storied wooden frame, more or less elaborate in its interior
+decorations. By the time he had reached it, the distant fire had
+increased. On his way he had met and recognized many of his business
+acquaintances hurrying thither,--some to save their own property, or
+to assist the imperfectly equipped volunteer fire department in their
+unselfish labors. It was probably Mr. Farendell's peculiar preoccupation
+on that particular night which had prevented his joining in their
+brotherly zeal.
+
+He unlocked the iron door, and lit the hanging lamp that was used in
+all-night sittings on steamer days. It revealed a smartly furnished
+office, with a high desk for his clerks, and a smaller one for himself
+in one corner. In the centre of the wall stood a large safe. This he
+also unlocked and took out a few important books, as well as a small
+drawer containing gold coin and dust to the amount of about five hundred
+dollars, the large balance having been deposited in bank on the previous
+day. The act was only precautionary, as he did not exhibit any haste in
+removing them to a place of safety, and remained meditatively absorbed
+in looking over a packet of papers taken from the same drawer. The
+closely shuttered building, almost hermetically sealed against light,
+and perhaps sound, prevented his observing the steadily increasing light
+of the conflagration, or hearing the nearer tumult of the firemen, and
+the invasion of his quiet district by other equally solicitous tenants.
+The papers seemed also to possess some importance, for, the stillness
+being suddenly broken by the turning of the handle of the heavy door he
+had just closed, and its opening with difficulty, his first act was
+to hurriedly conceal them, without apparently paying a thought to the
+exposed gold before him. And his expression and attitude in facing
+round towards the door was quite as much of nervous secretiveness as of
+indignation at the interruption.
+
+Yet the intruder appeared, though singular, by no means formidable. He
+was a man slightly past the middle age, with a thin face, hollowed at
+the cheeks and temples as if by illness or asceticism, and a grayish
+beard that encircled his throat like a soiled worsted “comforter” below
+his clean-shaven chin and mouth. His manner was slow and methodical, and
+even when he shot the bolt of the door behind him, the act did not seem
+aggressive. Nevertheless Mr. Farendell half rose with his hand on
+his pistol-pocket, but the stranger merely lifted his own hand with
+a gesture of indifferent warning, and, drawing a chair towards him,
+dropped into it deliberately.
+
+Mr. Farendell's angry stare changed suddenly to one of surprised
+recognition. “Josh Scranton,” he said hesitatingly.
+
+“I reckon,” responded the stranger slowly. “That's the name I allus
+bore, and YOU called yourself Farendell. Well, we ain't seen each other
+sens the spring o' '50, when ye left me lying nigh petered out with
+chills and fever on the Stanislaus River, and sold the claim that me and
+Duffy worked under our very feet, and skedaddled for 'Frisco!”
+
+“I only exercised my right as principal owner, and to secure my
+advances,” began the late Mr. Farendell sharply.
+
+But again the thin hand was raised, this time with a slow, scornful
+waiving of any explanations. “It ain't that in partickler that I've kem
+to see ye for to-night,” said the stranger slowly, “nor it ain't about
+your takin' the name o' 'Farendell,' that friend o' yours who died on
+the passage here with ye, and whose papers ye borrowed! Nor it ain't
+on account o' that wife of yours ye left behind in Missouri, and whose
+letters you never answered. It's them things all together--and suthin'
+else!”
+
+“What the d---l do you want, then?” said Farendell, with a desperate
+directness that was, however, a tacit confession of the truth of these
+accusations.
+
+“Yer allowin' that ye'll get married tomorrow?” said Scranton slowly.
+
+“Yes, and be d----d to you,” said Farendell fiercely.
+
+“Yer NOT,” returned Scranton. “Not if I knows it. Yer goin' to climb
+down. Yer goin' to get up and get! Yer goin' to step down and out! Yer
+goin' to shut up your desk and your books and this hull consarn inside
+of an hour, and vamose the ranch. Arter an hour from now thar won't be
+any Mr. Farendell, and no weddin' to-morrow.”
+
+“If that's your game--perhaps you'd like to murder me at once?” said
+Farendell with a shifting eye, as his hand again moved towards his
+revolver.
+
+But again the thin hand of the stranger was also lifted. “We ain't in
+the business o' murderin' or bein' murdered, or we might hev kem here
+together, me and Duffy. Now if anything happens to me Duffy will be
+left, and HE'S got the proofs.”
+
+Farendell seemed to recognize the fact with the same directness. “That's
+it, is it?” he said bluntly. “Well, how much do you want? Only, I warn
+you that I haven't much to give.”
+
+“Wotever you've got, if it was millions, it ain't enough to buy us up,
+and ye ought to know that by this time,” responded Scranton, with
+a momentary flash in his eyes. But the next moment his previous
+passionless deliberation returned, and leaning his arm on the desk of
+the man before him he picked up a paperweight carelessly and turned it
+over as he said slowly, “The fact is, Mr. Farendell, you've been making
+us, me and Duffy, tired. We've bin watchin' you and your doin's, lyin'
+low and sayin' nothin', till we concluded that it was about time you
+handed in your checks and left the board. We ain't wanted nothin' of
+ye, we ain't begrudged ye nothin', but we've allowed that this yer thing
+must stop.”
+
+“And what if I refuse?” said Farendell.
+
+“Thar'll be some cussin' and a big row from YOU, I kalkilate--and maybe
+some fightin' all round,” said Scranton dispassionately. “But it will be
+all the same in the end. The hull thing will come out, and you'll hev
+to slide just the same. T'otherwise, ef ye slide out NOW, it's without a
+row.”
+
+“And do you suppose a business man like me can disappear without a fuss
+over it?” said Farendell angrily. “Are you mad?”
+
+“I reckon the hole YOU'LL make kin be filled up,” said Scranton dryly.
+“But ef ye go NOW, you won't be bothered by the fuss, while if you stay
+you'll have to face the music, and go too!”
+
+Farendell was silent. Possibly the truth of this had long since been
+borne upon him. No one but himself knew the incessant strain of these
+years of evasion and concealment, and how he often had been near to
+some such desperate culmination. The sacrifice offered to him was not,
+therefore, so great as it might have seemed. The knowledge of this
+might have given him a momentary superiority over his antagonist had
+Scranton's motive been a purely selfish or malignant one, but as it was
+not, and as he may have had some instinctive idea of Farendell's feeling
+also, it made his ultimatum appear the more passionless and fateful.
+And it was this quality which perhaps caused Farendell to burst out with
+desperate abruptness,--
+
+“What in h-ll ever put you up to this!”
+
+Scranton folded his arms upon Farendell's desk, and slowly wiping his
+clean jaw with one hand, repeated deliberately, “Wall--I reckon I told
+ye that before! You've been making us--me and Duffy--tired!” He paused
+for a moment, and then, rising abruptly, with a careless gesture towards
+the uncovered tray of gold, said, “Come! ye kin take enuff o' that to
+get away with; the less ye take, though, the less likely you'll be to be
+followed!”
+
+He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A strange light, as of
+a lurid storm interspersed by sheet-like lightning, filled the outer
+darkness, and the silence was now broken by dull crashes and nearer
+cries and shouting. A few figures were also dimly flitting around the
+neighboring empty offices, some of which, like Farendell's, had been
+entered by their now alarmed owners.
+
+“You've got a good chance now,” continued Scranton; “ye couldn't hev a
+better. It's a big fire--a scorcher--and jest the time for a man to wipe
+himself out and not be missed. Make tracks where the crowd is thickest
+and whar ye're likely to be seen, ez ef ye were helpin'! Ther' 'll be
+other men missed tomorrow beside you,” he added with grim significance;
+“but nobody'll know that you was one who really got away.”
+
+Where the imperturbable logic of the strange man might have failed,
+the noise, the tumult, the suggestion of swift-coming disaster, and
+the necessity for some immediate action of any kind, was convincing.
+Farendell hastily stuffed his pockets with gold and the papers he had
+found, and moved to the door. Already he fancied he felt the hot
+breath of the leaping conflagration beyond. “And you?” he said, turning
+suspiciously to Scranton.
+
+“When you're shut of this and clean off, I'll fix things and leave
+too--but not before. I reckon,” he added grimly, with a glance at the
+sky, now streaming with sparks like a meteoric shower, “thar won't be
+much left here in the morning.”
+
+A few dull embers pattered on the iron roof of the low building and
+bounded off in ashes. Farendell cast a final glance around him, and then
+darted from the building. The iron door clanged behind him--he was gone.
+
+Evidently not too soon, for the other buildings were already deserted by
+their would-be salvors, who had filled the streets with piles of books
+and valuables waiting to be carried away. Then occurred a terrible
+phenomenon, which had once before in such disasters paralyzed the
+efforts of the firemen. A large wooden warehouse in the centre of
+the block of offices, many hundred feet from the scene of active
+conflagration--which had hitherto remained intact--suddenly became
+enveloped in clouds of smoke, and without warning burst as suddenly
+from roof and upper story into vivid flame. There were eye-witnesses who
+declared that a stream of living fire seemed to leap upon it from the
+burning district, and connected the space between them with an arch of
+luminous heat. In another instant the whole district was involved in
+a whirlwind of smoke and flame, out of whose seething vortex the
+corrugated iron buildings occasionally showed their shriveling or
+glowing outlines. And then the fire swept on and away.
+
+When the sun again arose over the panic-stricken and devastated city,
+all personal incident and disaster was forgotten in the larger
+calamity. It was two or three days before the full particulars could be
+gathered--even while the dominant and resistless energy of the people
+was erecting new buildings upon the still-smoking ruins. It was only on
+the third day afterwards that James Farendell, on the deck of a coasting
+steamer, creeping out through the fogs of the Golden Gate, read the
+latest news in a San Francisco paper brought by the pilot. As he
+hurriedly comprehended the magnitude of the loss, which was far beyond
+his previous conception, he experienced a certain satisfaction in
+finding his position no worse materially than that of many of his fellow
+workers. THEY were ruined like himself; THEY must begin their life
+afresh--but then! Ah! there was still that terrible difference. He drew
+his breath quickly, and read on. Suddenly he stopped, transfixed by
+a later paragraph. For an instant he failed to grasp its full
+significance. Then he read it again, the words imprinting themselves on
+his senses with a slow deliberation that seemed to him as passionless as
+Scranton's utterances on that fateful night.
+
+“The loss of life, it is now feared, is much greater than at first
+imagined. To the list that has been already published we must add the
+name of James Farendell, the energetic contractor so well known to
+our citizens, who was missing the morning after the fire. His calcined
+remains were found this afternoon in the warped and twisted iron shell
+of his counting-house, the wooden frame having been reduced to charcoal
+in the intense heat. The unfortunate man seems to have gone there to
+remove his books and papers,--as was evidenced by the iron safe being
+found open,--but to have been caught and imprisoned in the building
+through the heat causing the metal sheathing to hermetically seal the
+doors and windows. He was seen by some neighbors to enter the building
+while the fire was still distant, and his remains were identified by his
+keys, which were found beneath him. A poignant interest is added to his
+untimely fate by the circumstance that he was to have been married on
+the following day to the widow of his late partner, and that he had,
+at the call of duty, that very evening left a dinner party given to
+celebrate the last day of his bachelorhood--or, as it has indeed proved,
+of his earthly existence. Two families are thus placed in mourning, and
+it is a singular sequel that by this untoward calamity the well-known
+firm of Farendell & Cutler may be said to have ceased to exist.”
+
+Mr. Farendell started to his feet. But a lurch of the schooner as she
+rose on the long swell of the Pacific sent him staggering dizzily back
+to his seat, and checked his first wild impulse to return. He saw it all
+now,--the fire had avenged him by wiping out his persecutor, Scranton,
+but in the eyes of his contemporaries it had only erased HIM! He might
+return to refute the story in his own person, but the dead man's partner
+still lived with his secret, and his own rehabilitation could only
+revive his former peril.
+
+
+*****
+
+Four years elapsed before the late Mr. Farendell again set foot in the
+levee of Sacramento. The steamboat that brought him from San Francisco
+was a marvel to him in size, elegance, and comfort; so different from
+the little, crowded, tri-weekly packet he remembered; and it might, in a
+manner, have prepared him for the greater change in the city. But he was
+astounded to find nothing to remind him of the past,--no landmark, nor
+even ruin, of the place he had known. Blocks of brick buildings, with
+thoroughfares having strange titles, occupied the district where his
+counting-house had stood, and even obliterated its site; equally strange
+names were upon the shops and warehouses. In his four years' wanderings
+he had scarcely found a place as unfamiliar. He had trusted to the
+great change in his own appearance--the full beard that he wore and the
+tanning of a tropical sun--to prevent recognition; but the precaution
+was unnecessary, there were none to recognize him in the new faces which
+were the only ones he saw in the transformed city. A cautious allusion
+to the past which he had made on the boat to a fellow passenger had
+brought only the surprised rejoinder, “Oh, that must have been before
+the big fire,” as if it was an historic epoch. There was something of
+pain even in this assured security of his loneliness. His obliteration
+was complete.
+
+For the late Mr. Farendell had suffered some change of mind with his
+other mutations. He had been singularly lucky. The schooner in which he
+had escaped brought him to Acapulco, where, as a returning Californian,
+and a presumably successful one, his services and experience were
+eagerly sought by an English party engaged in developing certain disused
+Mexican mines. As the post, however, was perilously near the route
+of regular emigration, as soon as he had gained a sufficient sum he
+embarked with some goods to Callao, where he presently established
+himself in business, resuming his REAL name--the unambitious but
+indistinctive one of “Smith.” It is highly probable that this prudential
+act was also his first step towards rectitude. For whether the change
+was a question of moral ethics, or merely a superstitious essay in luck,
+he was thereafter strictly honest in business. He became prosperous.
+He had been sustained in his flight by the intention that, if he
+were successful elsewhere, he would endeavor to communicate with his
+abandoned fiancee, and ask her to join him, and share not his name but
+fortune in exile. But as he grew rich, the difficulties of carrying out
+this intention became more apparent; he was by no means certain of her
+loyalty surviving the deceit he had practiced and the revelation he
+would have to make; he was doubtful of the success of any story which
+at other times he would have glibly invented to take the place of truth.
+Already several months had elapsed since his supposed death; could he
+expect her to be less accessible to premature advances now than when
+she had been a widow? Perhaps this made him think of the wife he had
+deserted so long ago. He had been quite content to live without regret
+or affection, forgetting and forgotten, but in his present prosperity
+he felt there was some need of putting his domestic affairs into a more
+secure and legitimate shape, to avert any catastrophe like the last.
+HERE at least would be no difficulty; husbands had deserted their wives
+before this in Californian emigration, and had been heard of only after
+they had made their fortune. Any plausible story would be accepted by
+HER in the joy of his reappearance; or if, indeed, as he reflected
+with equal complacency, she was dead or divorced from him through his
+desertion--a sufficient cause in her own State--and re-married, he
+would at least be more secure. He began, without committing himself,
+by inquiry and anonymous correspondence. His wife, he learnt, had left
+Missouri for Sacramento only a month or two after his own disappearance
+from that place, and her address was unknown!
+
+A complication so unlooked for disquieted him, and yet whetted his
+curiosity. The only person she might meet in California who could
+possibly identify him with the late Mr. Farendell was Duffy; he had
+often wondered if that mysterious partner of Scranton's had been
+deceived with the others, or had ever suspected that the body discovered
+in the counting-house was Scranton's. If not, he must have accepted the
+strange coincidence that Scranton had disappeared also the same night.
+In the first six months of his exile he had searched the Californian
+papers thoroughly, but had found no record of any doubt having been
+thrown on the accepted belief. It was these circumstances, and perhaps
+a vague fascination not unlike that which impels the malefactor to haunt
+the scene of his crime, that, at the end of four years, had brought him,
+a man of middle age and assured occupation and fortune, back to the city
+he had fled from.
+
+A few days at one of the new hotels convinced him thoroughly that he was
+in no danger of recognition, and gave him the assurance to take rooms
+more in keeping with his circumstances and his own frankly
+avowed position as the head of a South American house. A cautious
+acquaintance--through the agency of his banker--with a few business men
+gave him some occupation, and the fact of his South American letters
+being addressed to Don Diego Smith gave a foreign flavor to his
+individuality, which his tanned face and dark beard had materially
+helped. A stronger test convinced him how complete was the obliteration
+of his former identity. One day at the bank he was startled at being
+introduced by the manager to a man whom he at once recognized as a
+former business acquaintance. But the shock was his alone; the formal
+approach and unfamiliar manner of the man showed that he had failed to
+recognize even a resemblance. But would he equally escape detection by
+his wife if he met her as accidentally,--an encounter not to be thought
+of until he knew something more of her? He became more cautious in going
+to public places, but luckily for him the proportion of women to men was
+still small in California, and they were more observed than observing.
+
+A month elapsed; in that time he had thoroughly exhausted the local
+Directories in his cautious researches among the “Smiths,” for in his
+fear of precipitating a premature disclosure he had given up his former
+anonymous advertising. And there was a certain occupation in this
+personal quest that filled his business time. He was in no hurry. He had
+a singular faith that he would eventually discover her whereabouts, be
+able to make all necessary inquiries into her conduct and habits, and
+perhaps even enjoy a brief season of unsuspected personal observation
+before revealing himself. And this faith was as singularly rewarded.
+
+Having occasion to get his watch repaired one day he entered a large
+jeweler's shop, and while waiting its examination his attention was
+attracted by an ordinary old-fashioned daguerreotype case in the form of
+a heart-shaped locket lying on the counter with other articles left for
+repairs. Something in its appearance touched a chord in his memory; he
+lifted the half-opened case and saw a much faded daguerreotype
+portrait of himself taken in Missouri before he left in the Californian
+emigration. He recognized it at once as one he had given to his wife;
+the faded likeness was so little like his present self that he boldly
+examined it and asked the jeweler one or two questions. The man was
+communicative. Yes, it was an old-fashioned affair which had been left
+for repairs a few days ago by a lady whose name and address, written by
+herself, were on the card tied to it.
+
+Mr. James Smith had by this time fully controlled the emotion he felt as
+he recognized his wife's name and handwriting, and knew that at last
+the clue was found! He laid down the case carelessly, gave the final
+directions for the repairs of his watch, and left the shop. The address,
+of which he had taken a mental note, was, to his surprise, very near
+his own lodgings; but he went straight home. Here a few inquiries of
+his janitor elicited the information that the building indicated in the
+address was a large one of furnished apartments and offices like his
+own, and that the “Mrs. Smith” must be simply the housekeeper of the
+landlord, whose name appeared in the Directory, but not her own. Yet
+he waited until evening before he ventured to reconnoitre the premises;
+with the possession of his clue came a slight cooling of his ardor and
+extreme caution in his further proceedings. The house--a reconstructed
+wooden building--offered no external indication of the rooms she
+occupied in the uniformly curtained windows that front the street.
+Yet he felt an odd and pleasurable excitement in passing once or twice
+before those walls that hid the goal of his quest. As yet he had not
+seen her, and there was naturally the added zest of expectation. He
+noticed that there was a new building opposite, with vacant offices to
+let. A project suddenly occurred to him, which by morning he had fully
+matured. He hired a front room in the first floor of the new building,
+had it hurriedly furnished as a private office, and on the second
+morning of his discovery was installed behind his desk at the window
+commanding a full view of the opposite house. There was nothing strange
+in the South American capitalist selecting a private office in so
+popular a locality.
+
+Two or three days elapsed without any result from his espionage. He came
+to know by sight the various tenants, the two Chinese servants, and the
+solitary Irish housemaid, but as yet had no glimpse of the housekeeper.
+She evidently led a secluded life among her duties; it occurred to him
+that perhaps she went out, possibly to market, earlier than he came,
+or later, after he had left the office. In this belief he arrived one
+morning after an early walk in a smart spring shower, the lingering
+straggler of the winter rains. There were few people astir, yet he had
+been preceded for two or three blocks by a tall woman whose umbrella
+partly concealed her head and shoulders from view. He had noticed,
+however, even in his abstraction, that she walked well, and managed the
+lifting of her skirt over her trim ankles and well-booted feet with some
+grace and cleverness. Yet it was only on her unexpectedly turning the
+corner of his own street that he became interested. She continued on
+until within a few doors of his office, when she stopped to give an
+order to a tradesman, who was just taking down his shutters. He heard
+her voice distinctly; in the quick emotion it gave him he brushed
+hurriedly past her without lifting his eyes. Gaining his own doorway
+he rushed upstairs to his office, hastily unlocked it, and ran to the
+window. The lady was already crossing the street. He saw her pause
+before the door of the opposite house, open it with a latchkey, and
+caught a full view of her profile in the single moment that she turned
+to furl her umbrella and enter. It was his wife's voice he had heard; it
+was his wife's face that he had seen in profile.
+
+Yet she was changed from the lanky young schoolgirl he had wedded ten
+years ago, or, at least, compared to what his recollection of her had
+been. Had he ever seen her as she really was? Surely somewhere in that
+timid, freckled, half-grown bride he had known in the first year of
+their marriage the germ of this self-possessed, matured woman was
+hidden. There was the tone of her voice; he had never recalled it before
+as a lover might, yet now it touched him; her profile he certainly
+remembered, but not with the feeling it now produced in him. Would he
+have ever abandoned her had she been like that? Or had HE changed, and
+was this no longer his old self?--perhaps even a self SHE would never
+recognize again? James Smith had the superstitions of a gambler, and
+that vague idea of fate that comes to weak men; a sudden fright seized
+him, and he half withdrew from the window lest she should observe him,
+recognize him, and by some act precipitate that fate.
+
+By lingering beyond the usual hour for his departure he saw her again,
+and had even a full view of her face as she crossed the street. The
+years had certainly improved her; he wondered with a certain nervousness
+if she would think they had done the same for him. The complacency with
+which he had at first contemplated her probable joy at recovering him
+had become seriously shaken since he had seen her; a woman as well
+preserved and good-looking as that, holding a certain responsible
+and, no doubt, lucrative position, must have many admirers and be
+independent. He longed to tell her now of his fortune, and yet shrank
+from the test its exposure implied. He waited for her return until
+darkness had gathered, and then went back to his lodgings a little
+chagrined and ill at ease. It was rather late for her to be out alone!
+After all, what did he know of her habits or associations? He recalled
+the freedom of Californian life, and the old scandals relating to the
+lapses of many women who had previously led blameless lives in the
+Atlantic States. Clearly it behooved him to be cautious. Yet he
+walked late that night before the house again, eager to see if she had
+returned, and with WHOM? He was restricted in his eagerness by the
+fear of detection, but he gathered very little knowledge of her habits;
+singularly enough nobody seemed to care. A little piqued at this, he
+began to wonder if he were not thinking too much of this woman to whom
+he still hesitated to reveal himself. Nevertheless, he found himself
+that night again wandering around the house, and even watching with some
+anxiety the shadow which he believed to be hers on the window-blind
+of the room where he had by discreet inquiry located her. Whether his
+memory was stimulated by his quest he never knew, but presently he was
+able to recall step by step and incident by incident his early courtship
+of her and the brief days of their married life. He even remembered the
+day she accepted him, and even dwelt upon it with a sentimental thrill
+that he probably never felt at the time, and it was a distinct feature
+of his extraordinary state of mind and its concentration upon this
+particular subject that he presently began to look upon HIMSELF as the
+abandoned and deserted conjugal partner, and to nurse a feeling of deep
+injury at her hands! The fact that he was thinking of her, and she,
+probably, contented with her lot, was undisturbed by any memory of him,
+seemed to him a logical deduction of his superior affection.
+
+It was, therefore, quite as much in the attitude of a reproachful and
+avenging husband as of a merely curious one that, one afternoon, seeing
+her issue from her house at an early hour, he slipped down the stairs
+and began to follow her at a secure distance. She turned into the
+principal thoroughfare, and presently made one of the crowd who were
+entering a popular place of amusement where there was an afternoon
+performance. So complete was his selfish hallucination, that he smiled
+bitterly at this proof of heartless indifference, and even so far
+overcame his previous caution as to actually brush by her somewhat
+rudely as he entered the building at the same moment. He was conscious
+that she lifted her eyes a little impatiently to the face of the awkward
+stranger; he was equally, but more bitterly, conscious that she had not
+recognized him! He dropped into a seat behind her; she did not look at
+him again with even a sense of disturbance; the momentary contact had
+evidently left no impression upon her. She glanced casually at
+her neighbors on either side, and presently became absorbed in the
+performance. When it was over she rose, and on her way out recognized
+and exchanged a few words with one or two acquaintances. Again he
+heard her familiar voice, almost at his elbow, raised with no more
+consciousness of her contiguity to him than if he were a mere ghost.
+The thought struck him for the first time with a hideous and appalling
+significance. What was he but a ghost to her--to every one! A man dead,
+buried, and forgotten! His vanity and self-complacency vanished before
+this crushing realization of the hopelessness of his existence. Dazed
+and bewildered, he mingled blindly and blunderingly with the departing
+crowd, tossed here and there as if he were an invisible presence,
+stumbling over the impeding skirts of women with a vague apology they
+heeded not, and which seemed in his frightened ears as hollow as a voice
+from the grave.
+
+When he at last reached the street he did not look back, but wandered
+abstractedly through by-streets in the falling rain, scarcely realizing
+where he was, until he found himself drenched through, with his closed
+umbrella in his tremulous hand, standing at the half-submerged levee
+beside the overflowed river. Here again he realized how completely he
+had been absorbed and concentrated in his search for his wife during the
+last three weeks; he had never been on the levee since his arrival. He
+had taken no note of the excitement of the citizens over the alarming
+reports of terrible floods in the mountains, and the daily and hourly
+fear that they experienced of disastrous inundation from the surcharged
+river. He had never thought of it, yet he had read of it, and even
+talked, and yet now for the first time in his selfish, blind absorption
+was certain of it. He stood still for some time, watching doggedly the
+enormous yellow stream laboring with its burden and drift from many
+a mountain town and camp, moving steadily and fatefully towards the
+distant bay, and still more distant and inevitable ocean. For a few
+moments it vaguely fascinated and diverted him; then it as vaguely lent
+itself to his one dominant, haunting thought. Yes, it was pointing him
+the only way out,--the path to the distant ocean and utter forgetfulness
+again!
+
+The chill of his saturated clothing brought him to himself once more,
+he turned and hurried home. He went tiredly to his bedroom, and while
+changing his garments there came a knock at the door. It was the
+porter to say that a lady had called, and was waiting for him in the
+sitting-room. She had not given her name.
+
+The closed door prevented the servant from seeing the extraordinary
+effect produced by this simple announcement upon the tenant. For
+one instant James Smith remained spellbound in his chair. It was
+characteristic of his weak nature and singular prepossession that
+he passed in an instant from the extreme of doubt to the extreme of
+certainty and conviction. It was his wife! She had recognized him in
+that moment of encounter at the entertainment; had found his address,
+and had followed him here! He dressed himself with feverish haste, not,
+however, without a certain care of his appearance and some selection of
+apparel, and quickly forecast the forthcoming interview in his mind.
+For the pendulum had swung back; Mr. James Smith was once more the
+self-satisfied, self-complacent, and discreetly cautious husband that he
+had been at the beginning of his quest, perhaps with a certain sense
+of grievance superadded. He should require the fullest explanations and
+guarantees before committing himself,--indeed, her present call might be
+an advance that it would be necessary for him to check. He even pictured
+her pleading at his feet; a very little stronger effort of his Alnaschar
+imagination would have made him reject her like the fatuous Persian
+glass peddler.
+
+He opened the door of the sitting-room deliberately, and walked in with
+a certain formal precision. But the figure of a woman arose from the
+sofa, and with a slight outcry, half playful, half hysterical, threw
+herself upon his breast with the single exclamation, “Jim!” He started
+back from the double shock. For the woman was NOT his wife! A woman
+extravagantly dressed, still young, but bearing, even through her
+artificially heightened color, a face worn with excitement, excess, and
+premature age. Yet a face that as he disengaged himself from her arms
+grew upon him with a terrible recognition, a face that he had once
+thought pretty, inexperienced, and innocent,--the face of the widow of
+his former partner, Cutler, the woman he was to have married on the day
+he fled. The bitter revulsion of feeling and astonishment was evidently
+visible in his face, for she, too, drew back for a moment as they
+separated. But she had evidently been prepared, if not pathetically
+inured to such experiences. She dropped into a chair again with a dry
+laugh, and a hard metallic voice, as she said,--
+
+“Well, it's YOU, anyway--and you can't get out of it.”
+
+As he still stared at her, in her inconsistent finery, draggled and
+wet by the storm, at her limp ribbons and ostentatious jewelry, she
+continued, in the same hard voice,--
+
+“I thought I spotted you once or twice before; but you took no notice of
+me, and I reckoned I was mistaken. But this afternoon at the Temple of
+Music”--
+
+“Where?” said James Smith harshly.
+
+“At the Temple--the San Francisco Troupe performance--where you brushed
+by me, and I heard your voice saying, 'Beg pardon!' I says, 'That's Jim
+Farendell.'”
+
+“Farendell!” burst out James Smith, half in simulated astonishment, half
+in real alarm.
+
+“Well! Smith, then, if you like better,” said the woman impatiently;
+“though it's about the sickest and most played-out dodge of a name you
+could have pitched upon. James Smith, Don Diego Smith!” she repeated,
+with a hysteric laugh. “Why, it beats the nigger minstrels all hollow!
+Well, when I saw you there, I said, 'That's Jim Farendell, or his twin
+brother;' I didn't say 'his ghost,' mind you; for, from the beginning,
+even before I knew it all, I never took any stock in that fool yarn
+about your burnt bones being found in your office.”
+
+“Knew all, knew what?” demanded the man, with a bravado which he
+nevertheless felt was hopeless.
+
+She rose, crossed the room, and, standing before him, placed one hand
+upon her hip as she looked at him with half-pitying effrontery.
+
+“Look here, Jim,” she began slowly, “do you know what you're doing?
+Well, you're making me tired!” In spite of himself, a half-superstitious
+thrill went through him as her words and attitude recalled the dead
+Scranton. “Do you suppose that I don't know that you ran away the night
+of the fire? Do you suppose that I don't know that you were next to
+ruined that night, and that you took that opportunity of skedaddling
+out of the country with all the money you had left, and leaving folks
+to imagine you were burnt up with the books you had falsified and the
+accounts you had doctored! It was a mean thing for you to do to me, Jim,
+for I loved you then, and would have been fool enough to run off with
+you if you'd told me all, and not left me to find out that you had lost
+MY money--every cent Cutler had left me in the business--with the rest.”
+
+With the fatuousness of a weak man cornered, he clung to unimportant
+details. “But the body was believed to be mine by every one,” he
+stammered angrily. “My papers and books were burnt,--there was no
+evidence.”
+
+“And why was there not?” she said witheringly, staring doggedly in his
+face. “Because I stopped it! Because when I knew those bones and rags
+shut up in that office weren't yours, and was beginning to make a row
+about it, a strange man came to me and said they were the remains of a
+friend of his who knew your bankruptcy and had come that night to warn
+you,--a man whom you had half ruined once, a man who had probably lost
+his life in helping you away. He said if I went on making a fuss he'd
+come out with the whole truth--how you were a thief and a forger,
+and”--she stopped.
+
+“And what else?” he asked desperately, dreading to hear his wife's name
+next fall from her lips.
+
+“And that--as it could be proved that his friend knew your secrets,”
+ she went on in a frightened, embarrassed voice, “you might be accused of
+making away with him.”
+
+For a moment James Smith was appalled; he had never thought of this. As
+in all his past villainy he was too cowardly to contemplate murder,
+he was frightened at the mere accusation of it. “But,” he stammered,
+forgetful of all save this new terror, “he KNEW I wouldn't be such a
+fool, for the man himself told me Duffy had the papers, and killing him
+wouldn't have helped me.”
+
+Mrs. Cutler stared at him a moment searchingly, and then turned wearily
+away. “Well,” she said, sinking into her chair again, “he said if I'd
+shut my mouth he'd shut his--and--I did. And this,” she added,
+throwing her hands from her lap, a gesture half of reproach and half of
+contempt,--“this is what I get for it.”
+
+More frightened than touched by the woman's desperation, James Smith
+stammered a vague apologetic disclaimer, even while he was loathing with
+a revulsion new to him her draggled finery, her still more faded beauty,
+and the half-distinct consciousness of guilt that linked her to him. But
+she waved it away, a weary gesture that again reminded him of the dead
+Scranton.
+
+“Of course I ain't what I was, but who's to blame for it? When you left
+me alone without a cent, face to face with a lie, I had to do something.
+I wasn't brought up to work; I like good clothes, and you know it
+better than anybody. I ain't one of your stage heroines that go out as
+dependants and governesses and die of consumption, but I thought,” she
+went on with a shrill, hysterical laugh, more painful than the weariness
+which inevitably followed it, “I thought I might train myself to do it,
+ON THE STAGE! and I joined Barker's Company. They said I had a face
+and figure for the stage; that face and figure wore out before I had
+anything more to show, and I wasn't big enough to make better terms with
+the manager. They kept me nearly a year doing chambermaids and fairy
+queens the other side of the footlights, where I saw you today. Then I
+kicked! I suppose I might have married some fool for his money, but I
+was soft enough to think you might be sending for me when you were safe.
+You seem to be mighty comfortable here,” she continued, with a bitter
+glance around his handsomely furnished room, “as 'Don Diego Smith.' I
+reckon skedaddling pays better than staying behind.”
+
+“I have only been here a few weeks,” he said hurriedly. “I never knew
+what had become of you, or that you were still here”--
+
+“Or you wouldn't have come,” she interrupted, with a bitter laugh.
+“Speak out, Jim.”
+
+“If there--is anything--I can do--for you,” he stammered, “I'm sure”--
+
+“Anything you can do?” she repeated, slowly and scornfully. “Anything
+you can do NOW? Yes!” she screamed, suddenly rising, crossing the
+room, and grasping his arms convulsively. “Yes! Take me away from
+here--anywhere--at once! Look, Jim,” she went on feverishly, “let
+bygones be bygones--I won't peach! I won't tell on you--though I had it
+in my heart when you gave me the go-by just now! I'll do anything you
+say--go to your farthest hiding-place--work for you--only take me out of
+this cursed place.”
+
+Her passionate pleading stung even through his selfishness and loathing.
+He thought of his wife's indifference! Yes, he might be driven to
+this, and at least he must secure the only witness against his previous
+misconduct. “We will see,” he said soothingly, gently loosening her
+hands. “We must talk it over.” He stopped as his old suspiciousness
+returned. “But you must have some friends,” he said searchingly, “some
+one who has helped you.”
+
+“None! Only one--he helped me at first,” she hesitated--“Duffy.”
+
+“Duffy!” said James Smith, recoiling.
+
+“Yes, when he had to tell me all,” she said in half-frightened tones,
+“he was sorry for me. Listen, Jim! He was a square man, for all he was
+devoted to his partner--and you can't blame him for that. I think he
+helped me because I was alone; for nothing else, Jim. I swear it! He
+helped me from time to time. Maybe he might have wanted to marry me if
+he had not been waiting for another woman that he loved, a married woman
+that had been deserted years ago by her husband, just as you might have
+deserted me if we'd been married that day. He helped her and paid for
+her journey here to seek her husband, and set her up in business.”
+
+“What are you talking about--what woman?” stammered James Smith, with a
+strange presentiment creeping over him.
+
+“A Mrs. Smith. Yes,” she said quickly, as he started, “not a sham name
+like yours, but really and truly SMITH--that was her husband's name!
+I'm not lying, Jim,” she went on, evidently mistaking the cause of the
+sudden contraction of the man's face. “I didn't invent her nor her name;
+there IS such a woman, and Duffy loves her--and HER only, and he never,
+NEVER was anything more than a friend to me. I swear it!”
+
+The room seemed to swim around him. She was staring at him, but he could
+see in her vacant eyes that she had no conception of his secret, nor
+knew the extent of her revelation. Duffy had not dared to tell all! He
+burst into a coarse laugh. “What matters Duffy or the silly woman he'd
+try to steal away from other men.”
+
+“But he didn't try to steal her, and she's only silly because she wants
+to be true to her husband while he lives. She told Duffy she'd never
+marry him until she saw her husband's dead face. More fool she,” she
+added bitterly.
+
+“Until she saw her husband's dead face,” was all that James Smith heard
+of this speech. His wife's faithfulness through years of desertion, her
+long waiting and truthfulness, even the bitter commentary of the equally
+injured woman before him, were to him as nothing to what that single
+sentence conjured up. He laughed again, but this time strangely and
+vacantly. “Enough of this Duffy and his intrusion in my affairs until
+I'm able to settle my account with him. Come,” he added brusquely, “if
+we are going to cut out of this at once I've got much to do. Come here
+again to-morrow, early. This Duffy--does he live here?”
+
+“No. In Marysville.”
+
+“Good! Come early to-morrow.”
+
+As she seemed to hesitate, he opened a drawer of his table and took out
+a handful of gold, and handed it to her. She glanced at it for a moment
+with a strange expression, put it mechanically in her pocket, and then
+looking up at him said, with a forced laugh, “I suppose that means I am
+to clear out?”
+
+“Until to-morrow,” he said shortly.
+
+“If the Sacramento don't sweep us away before then,” she interrupted,
+with a reckless laugh; “the river's broken through the levee--a clear
+sweep in two places. Where I live the water's up to the doorstep. They
+say it's going to be the biggest flood yet. You're all right here;
+you're on higher ground.”
+
+She seemed to utter these sentences abstractedly, disconnectedly, as if
+to gain time. He made an impatient gesture.
+
+“All right, I'm going,” she said, compressing her lips slowly to keep
+them from trembling. “You haven't forgotten anything?” As he turned half
+angrily towards her she added, hurriedly and bitterly, “Anything--for
+to-morrow?”
+
+“No!”
+
+She opened the door and passed out. He listened until the trail of
+her wet skirt had descended the stairs, and the street door had closed
+behind her. Then he went back to his table and began collecting his
+papers and putting them away in his trunks, which he packed feverishly,
+yet with a set and determined face. He wrote one or two letters, which
+he sealed and left upon his table. He then went to his bedroom and
+deliberately shaved off his disguising beard. Had he not been so
+preoccupied in one thought, he might have been conscious of loud voices
+in the street and a hurrying of feet on the wet sidewalk. But he was
+possessed by only one idea. He must see his wife that evening! How, he
+knew not yet, but the way would appear when he had reached his office
+in the building opposite hers. Three hours had elapsed before he had
+finished his preparations. On going downstairs he stopped to give some
+directions to the porter, but his room was empty; passing into the
+street he was surprised to find it quite deserted, and the shops closed;
+even a drinking saloon at the corner was quite empty. He turned the
+corner of the street, and began the slight descent towards his office.
+To his amazement the lower end of the street, which was crossed by
+the thoroughfare which was his destination, was blocked by a crowd of
+people. As he hurried forward to join them he suddenly saw, moving
+down that thoroughfare, what appeared to his startled eyes to be the
+smokestacks of some small, flat-bottomed steamer. He rubbed his eyes; it
+was no illusion, for the next moment he had reached the crowd, who were
+standing half a block away from the thoroughfare, and on the edge of a
+lagoon of yellow water, whose main current was the thoroughfare he was
+seeking, and between whose houses, submerged to their first stories, a
+steamboat was really paddling. Other boats and rafts were adrift on
+its sluggish waters, and a boatman had just landed a passenger in the
+backwater of the lower half of the street on which he stood with the
+crowd.
+
+Possessed of his one idea, he fought his way desperately to the water
+edge and the boat, and demanded a passage to his office. The boatman
+hesitated, but James Smith promptly offered him double the value of his
+craft. The act was not deemed singular in that extravagant epoch, and
+the sympathizing crowd cheered his solitary departure, as he declined
+even the services of the boatman. The next moment he was off in
+mid-stream of the thoroughfare, paddling his boat with a desperate but
+inexperienced hand until he reached his office, which he entered by the
+window. The building, which was new and of brick, showed very little
+damage from the flood, but in far different case was the one opposite,
+on which his eyes were eagerly bent, and whose cheap and insecure
+foundations he could see the flood was already undermining. There were
+boats around the house, and men hurriedly removing trunks and valuables,
+but the one figure he expected to see was not there. He tied his own
+boat to the window; there was evidently no chance of an interview now,
+but if she were leaving there would be still the chance of following
+her and knowing her destination. As he gazed she suddenly appeared at
+a window, and was helped by a boatman into a flat-bottomed barge
+containing trunks and furniture. She was evidently the last to leave.
+The other boats put off at once, and none too soon; for there was a
+warning cry, a quick swerving of the barge, and the end of the dwelling
+slowly dropped into the flood, seeming to sink on its knees like a
+stricken ox. A great undulation of yellow water swept across the street,
+inundating his office through the open window and half swamping his boat
+beside it. At the same time he could see that the current had changed
+and increased in volume and velocity, and, from the cries and warning
+of the boatmen, he knew that the river had burst its banks at its upper
+bend. He had barely time to leap into his boat and cast it off before
+there was a foot of water on his floor.
+
+But the new current was carrying the boats away from the higher level,
+which they had been eagerly seeking, and towards the channel of the
+swollen river. The barge was first to feel its influence, and was
+hurried towards the river against the strongest efforts of its boatmen.
+One by one the other and smaller boats contrived to get into the slack
+water of crossing streets, and one was swamped before his eyes. But
+James Smith kept only the barge in view. His difficulty in following it
+was increased by his inexperience in managing a boat, and the quantity
+of drift which now charged the current. Trees torn by their roots from
+some upland bank; sheds, logs, timber, and the bloated carcasses of
+cattle choked the stream. All the ruin worked by the flood seemed to be
+compressed in this disastrous current. Once or twice he narrowly escaped
+collision with a heavy beam or the bed of some farmer's wagon. Once he
+was swamped by a tree, and righted his frail boat while clinging to its
+branches.
+
+And then those who watched him from the barge and shore said afterwards
+that a great apathy seemed to fall upon him. He no longer attempted to
+guide the boat or struggle with the drift, but sat in the stern with
+intent forward gaze and motionless paddles. Once they strove to warn
+him, called to him to make an effort to reach the barge, and did what
+they could, in spite of their own peril, to alter their course and help
+him. But he neither answered nor heeded them. And then suddenly a great
+log that they had just escaped seemed to rise up under the keel of his
+boat, and it was gone. After a moment his face and head appeared above
+the current, and so close to the stern of the barge that there was a
+slight cry from the woman in it, but the next moment, and before the
+boatman could reach him, he was drawn under it and disappeared. They lay
+on their oars eagerly watching, but the body of James Smith was sucked
+under the barge, and, in the mid-channel of the great river, was carried
+out towards the distant sea.
+
+
+*****
+
+There was a strange meeting that night on the deck of a relief boat,
+which had been sent out in search of the missing barge, between Mrs.
+Smith and a grave and anxious passenger who had chartered it. When
+he had comforted her, and pointed out, as, indeed, he had many times
+before, the loneliness and insecurity of her unprotected life, she
+yielded to his arguments. But it was not until many months after their
+marriage that she confessed to him on that eventful night she thought
+she had seen in a moment of great peril the vision of the dead face of
+her husband uplifted to her through the water.
+
+
+
+
+LANTY FOSTER'S MISTAKE
+
+
+Lanty Foster was crouching on a low stool before the dying kitchen
+fire, the better to get its fading radiance on the book she was reading.
+Beyond, through the open window and door, the fire was also slowly
+fading from the sky and the mountain ridge whence the sun had dropped
+half an hour before. The view was uphill, and the sky-line of the
+hill was marked by two or three gibbet-like poles from which, on a
+now invisible line between them, depended certain objects--mere black
+silhouettes against the sky--which bore weird likeness to human figures.
+Absorbed as she was in her book, she nevertheless occasionally cast an
+impatient glance in that direction, as the sunlight faded more quickly
+than her fire. For the fluttering objects were the “week's wash” which
+had to be brought in before night fell and the mountain wind arose. It
+was strong at that altitude, and before this had ravished the clothes
+from the line, and scattered them along the highroad leading over the
+ridge, once even lashing the shy schoolmaster with a pair of Lanty's own
+stockings, and blinding the parson with a really tempestuous petticoat.
+
+A whiff of wind down the big-throated chimney stirred the log embers on
+the hearth, and the girl jumped to her feet, closing the book with an
+impatient snap. She knew her mother's voice would follow. It was hard to
+leave her heroine at the crucial moment of receiving an explanation from
+a presumed faithless lover, just to climb a hill and take in a lot
+of soulless washing, but such are the infelicities of stolen romance
+reading. She threw the clothes-basket over her head like a hood, the
+handle resting across her bosom and shoulders, and with both her hands
+free started out of the cabin. But the darkness had come up from the
+valley in one stride after its mountain fashion, had outstripped her,
+and she was instantly plunged in it. Still the outline of the ridge
+above her was visible, with the white, steadfast stars that were not
+there a moment ago, and by that sign she knew she was late. She had to
+battle against the rushing wind now, which sung through the inverted
+basket over her head and held her back, but with bent shoulders she at
+last reached the top of the ridge and the level. Yet here, owing to
+the shifting of the lighter background above her, she now found herself
+again encompassed with the darkness. The outlines of the poles had
+disappeared, the white fluttering garments were distinct apparitions
+waving in the wind, like dancing ghosts. But there certainly was a queer
+misshapen bulk moving beyond, which she did not recognize, and as she at
+last reached one of the poles, a shock was communicated to it, through
+the clothes-line and the bulk beyond. Then she heard a voice say
+impatiently,--
+
+“What in h-ll am I running into now?”
+
+It was a man's voice, and, from its elevation, the voice of a man on
+horseback. She answered without fear and with slow deliberation,--
+
+“Inter our clothes-line, I reckon.”
+
+“Oh!” said the man in a half-apologetic tone. Then in brisker accents,
+“The very thing I want! I say, can you give me a bit of it? The ring of
+my saddle girth has fetched loose. I can fasten it with that.”
+
+“I reckon,” replied Lanty, with the same unconcern, moving nearer the
+bulk, which now separated into two parts as the man dismounted. “How
+much do you want?”
+
+“A foot or two will do.”
+
+They were now in front of each other, although their faces were not
+distinguishable to either. Lanty, who had been following the lines with
+her hand, here came upon the end knotted around the last pole. This she
+began to untie.
+
+“What a place to hang clothes,” he said curiously.
+
+“Mighty dryin', tho',” returned Lanty laconically.
+
+“And your house? Is it near by?” he continued.
+
+“Just down the ridge--ye kin see from the edge. Got a knife?” She had
+untied the knot.
+
+“No--yes--wait.” He had hesitated a moment and then produced something
+from his breast pocket, which he however kept in his hand. As he did not
+offer it to her she simply held out a section of the rope between
+her hands, which he divided with a single cut. She saw only that the
+instrument was long and keen. Then she lifted the flap of the saddle
+for him as he attempted to fasten the loose ring with the rope, but
+the darkness made it impossible. With an ejaculation, he fumbled in his
+pockets. “My last match!” he said, striking it, as he crouched over
+it to protect it from the wind. Lanty leaned over also, with her apron
+raised between it and the blast. The flame for an instant lit up the
+ring, the man's dark face, mustache, and white teeth set together as
+he tugged at the girth, and Lanty's brown, velvet eyes and soft, round
+cheek framed in the basket. Then it went out, but the ring was secured.
+
+“Thank you,” said the man, with a short laugh, “but I thought you were a
+humpbacked witch in the dark there.”
+
+“And I couldn't make out whether you was a cow or a b'ar,” returned the
+young girl simply.
+
+Here, however, he quickly mounted his horse, but in the action something
+slipped from his clothes, struck a stone, and bounded away into the
+darkness.
+
+“My knife,” he said hurriedly. “Please hand it to me.” But although the
+girl dropped on her knees and searched the ground diligently, it could
+not be found. The man with a restrained ejaculation again dismounted,
+and joined in the search.
+
+“Haven't you got another match?” suggested Lanty.
+
+“No--it was my last!” he said impatiently.
+
+“Just you hol' on here,” she said suddenly, “and I'll run down to the
+kitchen and fetch you a light. I won't be long.”
+
+“No! no!” said the man quickly; “don't! I couldn't wait. I've been here
+too long now. Look here. You come in daylight and find it, and--just
+keep it for me, will you?” He laughed. “I'll come for it. And now, if
+you'll only help to set me on that road again, for it's so infernal
+black I can't see the mare's ears ahead of me, I won't bother you any
+more. Thank you.”
+
+Lanty had quietly moved to his horse's head and taken the bridle in her
+hand, and at once seemed to be lost in the gloom. But in a few moments
+he felt the muffled thud of his horse's hoof on the thick dust of the
+highway, and its still hot, impalpable powder rising to his nostrils.
+
+“Thank you,” he said again, “I'm all right now,” and in the pause that
+followed it seemed to Lanty that he had extended a parting hand to her
+in the darkness. She put up her own to meet it, but missed his, which
+had blundered onto her shoulder. Before she could grasp it, she felt him
+stooping over her, the light brush of his soft mustache on her cheek,
+and then the starting forward of his horse. But the retaliating box on
+the ear she had promptly aimed at him spent itself in the black space
+which seemed suddenly to have swallowed up the man, and even his light
+laugh.
+
+For an instant she stood still, and then, swinging the basket
+indignantly from her shoulder, took up her suspended task. It was no
+light one in the increasing wind, and the unfastened clothes-line had
+precipitated a part of its burden to the ground through the loosening
+of the rope. But on picking up the trailing garments her hand struck an
+unfamiliar object. The stranger's lost knife! She thrust it hastily into
+the bottom of the basket and completed her work. As she began to descend
+with her burden she saw that the light of the kitchen fire, seen
+through the windows, was augmented by a candle. Her mother was evidently
+awaiting her.
+
+“Pretty time to be fetchin' in the wash,” said Mrs. Foster querulously.
+“But what can you expect when folks stand gossipin' and philanderin' on
+the ridge instead o' tendin' to their work?”
+
+Now Lanty knew that she had NOT been “gossipin'” nor “philanderin',” yet
+as the parting salute might have been open to that imputation, and as
+she surmised that her mother might have overheard their voices, she
+briefly said, to prevent further questioning, that she had shown a
+stranger the road. But for her mother's unjust accusation she would have
+been more communicative. As Mrs. Foster went back grumblingly into the
+sitting-room Lanty resolved to keep the knife at present a secret from
+her mother, and to that purpose removed it from the basket. But in the
+light of the candle she saw it for the first time plainly--and started.
+
+For it was really a dagger! jeweled-handled and richly wrought--such as
+Lanty had never looked upon before. The hilt was studded with gems, and
+the blade, which had a cutting edge, was damascened in blue and
+gold. Her soft eyes reflected the brilliant setting, her lips parted
+breathlessly; then, as her mother's voice arose in the other room, she
+thrust it back into its velvet sheath and clapped it into her pocket.
+Its rare beauty had confirmed her resolution of absolute secrecy. To
+have shown it now would have made “no end of talk.” And she was not sure
+but that her parents would have demanded its custody! And it was given
+to HER by HIM to keep. This settled the question of moral ethics. She
+took the first opportunity to run up to her bedroom and hide it under
+the mattress.
+
+Yet the thought of it filled the rest of her evening. When her household
+duties were done she took up her novel again, partly from force of habit
+and partly as an attitude in which she could think of IT undisturbed.
+For what was fiction to her now? True, it possessed a certain
+reminiscent value. A “dagger” had appeared in several romances she
+had devoured, but she never had a clear idea of one before. “The Count
+sprang back, and, drawing from his belt a richly jeweled dagger, hissed
+between his teeth,” or, more to the purpose: “'Take this,' said Orlando,
+handing her the ruby-hilted poignard which had gleamed upon his thigh,
+'and should the caitiff attempt thy unguarded innocence--'”
+
+“Did ye hear what your father was sayin'?” Lanty started. It was her
+mother's voice in the doorway, and she had been vaguely conscious of
+another voice pitched in the same querulous key, which, indeed, was the
+dominant expression of the small ranchers of that fertile neighborhood.
+Possibly a too complaisant and unaggressive Nature had spoiled them.
+
+“Yes!--no!” said Lanty abstractedly, “what did he say?”
+
+“If you wasn't taken up with that fool book,” said Mrs. Foster, glancing
+at her daughter's slightly conscious color, “ye'd know! He allowed
+ye'd better not leave yer filly in the far pasture nights. That gang
+o' Mexican horse-thieves is out again, and raided McKinnon's stock last
+night.”
+
+This touched Lanty closely. The filly was her own property, and she
+was breaking it for her own riding. But her distrust of her parents'
+interference was greater than any fear of horse-stealers. “She's mighty
+uneasy in the barn; and,” she added, with a proud consciousness of that
+beautiful yet carnal weapon upstairs, “I reckon I ken protect her and
+myself agin any Mexican horse-thieves.”
+
+“My! but we're gettin' high and mighty,” responded Mrs. Foster, with
+deep irony. “Did you git all that outer your fool book?”
+
+“Mebbe,” said Lanty curtly.
+
+Nevertheless, her thoughts that night were not entirely based on written
+romance. She wondered if the stranger knew that she had really tried to
+box his ears in the darkness, also if he had been able to see her face.
+HIS she remembered, at least the flash of his white teeth against his
+dark face and darker mustache, which was quite as soft as her own hair.
+But if he thought “for a minnit” that she was “goin' to allow an entire
+stranger to kiss her--he was mighty mistaken.” She should let him know
+it “pretty quick”! She should hand him back the dagger “quite careless
+like,” and never let on that she'd thought anything of it. Perhaps that
+was the reason why, before she went to bed, she took a good look at it,
+and after taking off her straight, beltless, calico gown she even tried
+the effect of it, thrust in the stiff waistband of her petticoat, with
+the jeweled hilt displayed, and thought it looked charming--as indeed it
+did. And then, having said her prayers like a good girl, and supplicated
+that she should be less “tetchy” with her parents, she went to sleep and
+dreamed that she had gone out to take in the wash again, but that the
+clothes had all changed to the queerest lot of folks, who were all
+fighting and struggling with each other until she, Lanty, drawing her
+dagger, rushed up single-handed among them, crying, “Disperse, ye craven
+curs,--disperse, I say.” And they dispersed.
+
+Yet even Lanty was obliged to admit the next morning that all this was
+somewhat incongruous with the baking of “corn dodgers,” the frying of
+fish, the making of beds, and her other household duties, and dismissed
+the stranger from her mind until he should “happen along.” In her freer
+and more acceptable outdoor duties she even tolerated the advances of
+neighboring swains who made a point of passing by “Foster's Ranch,” and
+who were quite aware that Atalanta Foster, alias “Lanty,” was one of the
+prettiest girls in the country. But Lanty's toleration consisted in that
+singular performance known to herself as “giving them as good as they
+sent,” being a lazy traversing, qualified with scorn, of all that they
+advanced. How long they would have put up with this from a plain girl I
+do not know, but Lanty's short upper lip seemed framed for indolent
+and fascinating scorn, and her dreamy eyes usually looked beyond the
+questioner, or blunted his bolder glances in their velvety surfaces. The
+libretto of these scenes was not exhaustive, e.g.:--
+
+The Swain (with bold, bad gayety). “Saw that shy schoolmaster hangin'
+round your ridge yesterday! Orter know by this time that shyness with a
+gal don't pay.”
+
+Lanty (decisively). “Mebbe he allows it don't get left as often as
+impudence.”
+
+The Swain (ignoring the reply and his previous attitude and becoming
+more direct). “I was calkilatin' to say that with these yer hoss-thieves
+about, yer filly ain't safe in the pasture. I took a turn round there
+two or three times last evening to see if she was all right.”
+
+Lanty (with a flattering show of interest). “No! DID ye, now? I was jest
+wonderin”'--
+
+The Swain (eagerly). “I did--quite late, too! Why, that's nothin', Miss
+Atalanty, to what I'd do for you.”
+
+Lanty (musing, with far off-eyes). “Then that's why she was so awful
+skeerd and frightened! Just jumpin' outer her skin with horror. I
+reckoned it was a b'ar or panther or a spook! You ought to have waited
+till she got accustomed to your looks.”
+
+Nevertheless, despite this elegant raillery, Lanty was enough concerned
+in the safety of her horse to visit it the next day with a view of
+bringing it nearer home. She had just stepped into the alder fringe of
+a dry “run” when she came suddenly upon the figure of a horseman in the
+“run,” who had been hidden by the alders from the plain beyond and who
+seemed to be engaged in examining the hoof marks in the dust of the
+old ford. Something about his figure struck her recollection, and as
+he looked up quickly she saw it was the owner of the dagger. But
+he appeared to be lighter of hair and complexion, and was dressed
+differently, and more like a vaquero. Yet there was the same flash of
+his teeth as he recognized her, and she knew it was the same man.
+
+Alas for her preparation! Without the knife she could not make that
+haughty return of it which she had contemplated. And more than that, she
+was conscious she was blushing! Nevertheless she managed to level her
+pretty brown eyebrows at him, and said sharply that if he followed her
+to her home she would return his property at once.
+
+“But I'm in no hurry for it,” he said with a laugh,--the same light
+laugh and pleasant voice she remembered,--“and I'd rather not come to
+the house just now. The knife is in good hands, I know, and I'll call
+for it when I want it! And until then--if it's all the same to you--keep
+it to yourself,--keep it dark, as dark as the night I lost it!”
+
+“I don't go about blabbing my affairs,” said Lanty indignantly, “and if
+it hadn't BEEN dark that night you'd have had your ears boxed--you know
+why!”
+
+The stranger laughed again, waved his hand to Lanty, and galloped away.
+
+Lanty was a little disappointed. The daylight had taken away some of
+her illusions. He was certainly very good-looking, but not quite as
+picturesque, mysterious, and thrilling as in the dark! And it was very
+queer--he certainly did look darker that night! Who was he? And why
+was he lingering near her? He was different from her neighbors--her
+admirers. He might be one of those locaters, from the big towns, who
+prospect the lands, with a view of settling government warrants on
+them,--they were always so secret until they had found what they wanted.
+She did not dare to seek information of her friends, for the same reason
+that she had concealed his existence from her mother,--it would provoke
+awkward questions; and it was evident that he was trusting to her
+secrecy, too. The thought thrilled her with a new pride, and was some
+compensation for the loss of her more intangible romance. It would
+be mighty fine, when he did call openly for his beautiful knife and
+declared himself, to have them all know that SHE knew about it all
+along.
+
+When she reached home, to guard against another such surprise she
+determined to keep the weapon with her, and, distrusting her pocket,
+confided it to the cheap little country-made corset which only for
+the last year had confined her budding figure, and which now, perhaps,
+heaved with an additional pride. She was quite abstracted during the
+rest of the day, and paid but little attention to the gossip of the farm
+lads, who were full of a daring raid, two nights before, by the Mexican
+gang on the large stock farm of a neighbor. The Vigilant Committee had
+been baffled; it was even alleged that some of the smaller ranchmen
+and herders were in league with the gang. It was also believed to be a
+widespread conspiracy; to have a political complexion in its combination
+of an alien race with Southwestern filibusters. The legal authorities
+had been reinforced by special detectives from San Francisco. Lanty
+seldom troubled herself with these matters; she knew the exaggeration,
+she suspected the ignorance of her rural neighbors. She roughly referred
+it, in her own vocabulary, to “jaw,” a peculiarly masculine quality. But
+later in the evening, when the domestic circle in the sitting-room had
+been augmented by a neighbor, and Lanty had taken refuge behind her
+novel as an excuse for silence, Zob Hopper, the enamored swain of the
+previous evening, burst in with more astounding news. A posse of the
+sheriff had just passed along the ridge; they had “corraled” part of the
+gang, and rescued some of the stock. The leader of the gang had escaped,
+but his capture was inevitable, as the roads were stopped. “All the
+same, I'm glad to see ye took my advice, Miss Atalanty, and brought in
+your filly,” he concluded, with an insinuating glance at the young girl.
+
+But “Miss Atalanty,” curling a quarter of an inch of scarlet lip above
+the edge of her novel, here “allowed” that if his advice or the filly
+had to be “took,” she didn't know which was worse.
+
+“I wonder ye kin talk to sech peartness, Mr. Hopper,” said Mrs. Foster
+severely; “she ain't got eyes nor senses for anythin' but that book.”
+
+“Talkin' o' what's to be 'took,'” put in the diplomatic neighbor, “you
+bet it ain't that Mexican leader! No, sir! he's been 'stopped' before
+this--and then got clean away all the same! One o' them detectives got
+him once and disarmed him--but he managed to give them the slip, after
+all. Why, he's that full o' shifts and disguises thar ain't no spottin'
+him. He walked right under the constable's nose oncet, and took a drink
+with the sheriff that was arter him--and the blamed fool never knew it.
+He kin change even the color of his hair quick as winkin'.”
+
+“Is he a real Mexican,--a regular Greaser?” asked the paternal Foster.
+“Cos I never heard that they wuz smart.”
+
+“No! They say he comes o' old Spanish stock, a bad egg they threw outer
+the nest, I reckon,” put in Hopper eagerly, seeing a strange animated
+interest dilating Lanty's eyes, and hoping to share in it; “but he's
+reg'lar high-toned, you bet! Why, I knew a man who seed him in his own
+camp--prinked out in a velvet jacket and silk sash, with gold chains
+and buttons down his wide pants and a dagger stuck in his sash, with a
+handle just blazin' with jew'ls. Yes! Miss Atalanty, they say that one
+stone at the top--a green stone, what they call an 'em'ral'--was worth
+the price o' a 'Frisco house-lot. True ez you live! Eh--what's up now?”
+
+Lanty's book had fallen on the floor as she was rising to her feet
+with a white face, still more strange and distorted in an affected yawn
+behind her little hand. “Yer makin' me that sick and nervous with yer
+fool yarns,” she said hysterically, “that I'm goin' to get a little
+fresh air. It's just stifling here with lies and terbacker!” With
+another high laugh, she brushed past him into the kitchen, opened the
+door, and then paused, and, turning, ran rapidly up to her bedroom. Here
+she locked herself in, tore open the bosom of her dress, plucked out
+the dagger, threw it on the bed, where the green stone gleamed for an
+instant in the candlelight, and then dropped on her knees beside the bed
+with her whirling head buried in her cold red hands.
+
+It had all come to her in a flash, like a blaze of lightning,--the
+black, haunting figure on the ridge, the broken saddle girth, the
+abandonment of the dagger in the exigencies of flight and concealment;
+the second meeting, the skulking in the dry, alder-hidden “run,” the
+changed dress, the lighter-colored hair, but always the same voice and
+laugh--the leader, the fugitive, the Mexican horse-thief! And she, the
+Godforsaken fool, the chuckle-headed nigger baby, with not half the
+sense of her own filly or that sop-headed Hopper--had never seen it!
+She--SHE who would be the laughing-stock of them all--she had thought
+him a “locater,” a “towny” from 'Frisco! And she had consented to keep
+his knife until he would call for it,--yes, call for it, with fire and
+flame perhaps, the trampling of hoofs, pistol shots--and--yet--
+
+Yet!--he had TRUSTED her. Yes! trusted her when he knew a word from her
+lips would have brought the whole district down on him! when the mere
+exposure of that dagger would have identified and damned him! Trusted
+her a second time, when she was within cry of her house! When he might
+have taken her filly without her knowing it? And now she remembered
+vaguely that the neighbors had said how strange it was that her father's
+stock had not suffered as theirs had. HE had protected them--he who was
+now a fugitive--and their men pursuing him! She rose suddenly with a
+single stamp of her narrow foot, and as suddenly became cool and sane.
+And then, quite her old self again, she lazily picked up the dagger and
+restored it to its place in her bosom. That done, with her color back
+and her eyes a little brighter, she deliberately went downstairs again,
+stuck her little brown head into the sitting-room, said cheerfully,
+“Still yawpin', you folks,” and quietly passed out into the darkness.
+
+She ran swiftly up to the ridge, impelled by the blind memory of having
+met him there at night and the one vague thought to give him warning.
+But it was dark and empty, with no sound but the rushing wind. And then
+an idea seized her. If he were haunting the vicinity still, he might see
+the fluttering of the clothes upon the line and believe she was there.
+She stooped quickly, and in the merciful and exonerating darkness
+stripped off her only white petticoat and pinned it on the line. It
+flapped, fluttered, and streamed in the mountain wind. She lingered and
+listened. But there came a sound she had not counted on,--the clattering
+hoofs of not ONE, but many, horses on the lower road! She ran back to
+the house to find its inmates already hastening towards the road for
+news. She took that chance to slip in quietly, go to her room, whose
+window commanded a view of the ridge, and crouching low behind it she
+listened. She could hear the sound of voices, and the dull trampling of
+heavy boots on the dusty path towards the barnyard on the other side of
+the house--a pause, and then the return of the trampling boots, and the
+final clattering of hoofs on the road again. Then there was a tap on her
+door and her mother's querulous voice.
+
+“Oh! yer there, are ye? Well--it's the best place fer a girl--with all
+these man's doin's goin' on! They've got that Mexican horse-thief and
+have tied him up in your filly's stall in the barn--till the 'Frisco
+deputy gets back from rounding up the others. So ye jest stay where ye
+are till they've come and gone, and we're shut o' all that cattle. Are
+ye mindin'?”
+
+“All right, maw; 'taint no call o' mine, anyhow,” returned Lanty,
+through the half-open door.
+
+At another time her mother might have been startled at her passive
+obedience. Still more would she have been startled had she seen her
+daughter's face now, behind the closed door--with her little mouth set
+over her clenched teeth. And yet it was her own child, and Lanty was her
+mother's real daughter; the same pioneer blood filled their veins, the
+blood that had never nourished cravens or degenerates, but had given
+itself to sprinkle and fertilize desert solitudes where man might
+follow. Small wonder, then, that this frontier-born Lanty, whose first
+infant cry had been answered by the yelp of wolf and scream of panther;
+whose father's rifle had been leveled across her cradle to cover the
+stealthy Indian who prowled outside, small wonder that she should feel
+herself equal to these “man's doin's,” and prompt to take a part. For
+even in the first shock of the news of the capture she recalled the
+fact that the barn was old and rotten, that only that day the filly
+had kicked a board loose from behind her stall, which she, Lanty,
+had lightly returned to avoid “making a fuss.” If his captors had not
+noticed it, or trusted only to their guards, she might make the opening
+wide enough to free him!
+
+Two hours later the guard nearest the now sleeping house, a farm hand
+of the Fosters', saw his employer's daughter slip out and cautiously
+approach him. A devoted slave of Lanty's, and familiar with her
+impulses, he guessed her curiosity, and was not averse to satisfy it
+and the sense of his own importance. To her whispers of affected,
+half-terrified interest, he responded in whispers that the captive was
+really in the filly's stall, securely bound by his wrists behind his
+back, and his feet “hobbled” to a post. That Lanty couldn't see him, for
+it was dark inside, and he was sitting with his back to the wall, as he
+couldn't sleep comf'ble lyin' down. Lanty's eyes glowed, but her face
+was turned aside.
+
+“And ye ain't reckonin' his friends will come and rescue him?” said
+Lanty, gazing with affected fearfulness in the darkness.
+
+“Not much! There's two other guards down in the corral, and I'd fire my
+gun and bring 'em up.”
+
+But Lanty was gazing open-mouthed towards the ridge. “What's that wavin'
+on the ridge?” she said in awe-stricken tones.
+
+She was pointing to the petticoat,--a vague, distant, moving object
+against the horizon.
+
+“Why, that's some o' the wash on the line, ain't it?”
+
+“Wash--TWO DAYS IN THE WEEK!” said Lanty sharply. “Wot's gone of you?”
+
+“Thet's so,” muttered the man, “and it wan't there at sundown, I'll
+swear! P'r'aps I'd better call the guard,” and he raised his rifle.
+
+“Don't,” said Lanty, catching his arm. “Suppose it's nothin', they'll
+laugh at ye. Creep up softly and see; ye ain't afraid, are ye? If ye
+are, give me yer gun, and I'LL go.”
+
+This settled the question, as Lanty expected. The man cocked his piece,
+and bending low began cautiously to mount the acclivity. Lanty waited
+until his figure began to fade, and then ran like fire to the barn.
+
+She had arranged every detail of her plan beforehand. Crouching beside
+the wall of the stall she hissed through a crack in thrilling whispers,
+“Don't move. Don't speak for your life's sake. Wait till I hand you back
+your knife, then do the best you can.” Then slipping aside the loosened
+board she saw dimly the black outline of curling hair, back, shoulders,
+and tied wrists of the captive. Drawing the knife from her pocket, with
+two strokes of its keen cutting edge she severed the cords, threw the
+knife into the opening, and darted away. Yet in that moment she knew
+that the man was instinctively turning towards her. But it was one thing
+to free a horse-thief, and another to stop and “philander” with him.
+
+She ran halfway up the ridge, and met the farm hand returning. It was
+only a bit of washing after all, and he was glad he hadn't fired his
+gun. On the other hand, Lanty confessed she had got “so skeert” being
+alone, that she came to seek him. She had the shivers; wasn't her
+hand cold? It was, but thrilling even in its coldness to the bashfully
+admiring man. And she was that weak and dizzy, he must let her lean on
+his arm going down; and they must go SLOW. She was sure he was cold,
+too, and if he would wait at the back door she would give him a drink of
+whiskey. Thus Lanty, with her brain afire, her eyes and ears straining
+into the darkness, and the vague outline of the barn beyond. Another
+moment was protracted over the drink of whiskey, and then Lanty, with a
+faint archness, made him promise not to tell her mother of her escapade,
+and she promised on her part not to say anything about his “stalking
+a petticoat on the clothesline,” and then shyly closed the door and
+regained her room. HE must have got away by this time, or have been
+discovered; she believed they would not open the barn door until the
+return of the posse.
+
+She was right. It was near daybreak when they returned, and, again
+crouching low beside her window, she heard, with a fierce joy, the
+sudden outcry, the oaths, the wrangling voices, the summoning of her
+father to the front door, and then the tumultuous sweeping away again of
+the whole posse, and a blessed silence falling over the rancho. And then
+Lanty went quietly to bed, and slept like a three-year child!
+
+Perhaps that was the reason why she was able at breakfast to listen with
+lazy and even rosy indifference to the startling events of the night; to
+the sneers of the farm hands at the posse who had overlooked the knife
+when they searched their prisoner, as well as the stupidity of the
+corral guard who had never heard him make a hole “the size of a house”
+ in the barn side! Once she glanced demurely at Silas Briggs--the farm
+hand and the poor fellow felt consoled in his shame at the remembrance
+of their confidences.
+
+But Lanty's tranquillity was not destined to last long. There was again
+the irruption of exciting news from the highroad; the Mexican leader had
+been recaptured, and was now safely lodged in Brownsville jail! Those
+who were previously loud in their praises of the successful horse-thief
+who had baffled the vigilance of his pursuers were now equally keen
+in their admiration of the new San Francisco deputy who, in turn, had
+outwitted the whole gang. It was HE who was fertile in expedients; HE
+who had studied the whole country, and even risked his life among the
+gang, and HE who had again closed the meshes of the net around the
+escaped outlaw. He was already returning by way of the rancho, and might
+stop there a moment,--so that they could all see the hero. Such was the
+power of success on the country-side! Outwardly indifferent, inwardly
+bitter, Lanty turned away. She should not grace his triumph, if she kept
+in her room all day! And when there was a clatter of hoofs on the road
+again, Lanty slipped upstairs.
+
+But in a few moments she was summoned. Captain Lance Wetherby, Assistant
+Chief of Police of San Francisco, Deputy Sheriff and ex-U. S. scout,
+had requested to see Miss Foster a few moments alone. Lanty knew what
+it meant,--her secret had been discovered; but she was not the girl to
+shirk the responsibility! She lifted her little brown head proudly, and
+with the same resolute step with which she had left the house the night
+before, descended the stairs and entered the sitting-room. At first she
+saw nothing. Then a remembered voice struck her ear; she started, looked
+up, and gasping, fell back against the door. It was the stranger who
+had given her the dagger, the stranger she had met in the run!--the
+horse-thief himself! No! no! she saw it all now--she had cut loose the
+wrong man!
+
+He looked at her with a smile of sadness--as he drew from his
+breast-pocket that dreadful dagger, the very sight of which Lanty now
+loathed! “This is the SECOND time, Miss Foster,” he said gently, “that
+I have taken this knife from Murietta, the Mexican bandit: once when I
+disarmed him three weeks ago, and he escaped, and last night, when he
+had again escaped and I recaptured him. After I lost it that night I
+understood from you that you had found it and were keeping it for me.”
+ He paused a moment and went on: “I don't ask you what happened last
+night. I don't condemn you for it; I can believe what a girl of your
+courage and sympathy might rightly do if her pity were excited; I only
+ask--why did you give HIM back that knife I trusted you with?”
+
+“Why? Why did I?” burst out Lanty in a daring gush of truth, scorn, and
+temper. “BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE THAT HORSE-THIEF. There!”
+
+He drew back astonished, and then suddenly came that laugh that Lanty
+remembered and now hailed with joy. “I believe you, by Jove!” he gasped.
+“That first night I wore the disguise in which I have tracked him and
+mingled with his gang. Yes! I see it all now--and more. I see that to
+YOU I owe his recapture!”
+
+“To me!” echoed the bewildered girl; “how?”
+
+“Why, instead of making for his cave he lingered here in the confines of
+the ranch! He thought you were in love with him, because you freed him
+and gave him his knife, and stayed to see you!”
+
+But Lanty had her apron to her eyes, whose first tears were filling
+their velvet depths. And her voice was broken as she said,--
+
+“Then he--cared--a--good deal more for me--than some people!”
+
+But there is every reason to believe that Lanty was wrong! At least
+later events that are part of the history of Foster's Rancho and the
+Foster family pointed distinctly to the contrary.
+
+
+
+
+AN ALI BABA OF THE SIERRAS
+
+
+Johnny Starleigh found himself again late for school. It was always
+happening. It seemed to be inevitable with the process of going to
+school at all. And it was no fault “o' his.” Something was always
+occurring,--some eccentricity of Nature or circumstance was invariably
+starting up in his daily path to the schoolroom. He may not have been
+“thinkin' of squirrels,” and yet the rarest and most evasive of that
+species were always crossing his trail; he may not have been “huntin'
+honey,” and yet a wild bees' nest in the hollow of an oak absolutely
+obtruded itself before him; he wasn't “bird-catchin',” and yet there was
+a yellow-hammer always within stone's throw. He had heard how grown men
+hunters always saw the most wonderful animals when they “hadn't got
+a gun with 'em,” and it seemed to be his lot to meet them in his
+restricted possibilities on the way to school. If Nature was thus
+capricious with his elders, why should folk think it strange if she was
+as mischievous with a small boy?
+
+On this particular morning Johnny had been beguiled by the unmistakable
+footprints--so like his own!--of a bear's cub. What chances he had of
+ever coming up with them, or what he would have done if he had, he did
+not know. He only knew that at the end of an hour and a half he found
+himself two miles from the schoolhouse, and, from the position of the
+sun, at least an hour too late for school. He knew that nobody would
+believe him. The punishment for complete truancy was little worse than
+for being late. He resolved to accept it, and by way of irrevocability
+at once burnt his ships behind him--in devouring part of his dinner.
+
+Thus fortified in his outlawry, he began to look about him. He was on a
+thickly wooded terrace with a blank wall of “outcrop” on one side nearly
+as high as the pines which pressed close against it. He had never seen
+it before; it was two or three miles from the highroad and seemed to be
+a virgin wilderness. But on close examination he could see, with the
+eye of a boy bred in a mining district, that the wall of outcrop had not
+escaped the attention of the mining prospector. There were marks of his
+pick in some attractive quartz seams of the wall, and farther on, a more
+ambitious attempt, evidently by a party of miners, to begin a tunnel,
+shown in an abandoned excavation and the heap of debris before it. It
+had evidently been abandoned for some time, as ferns already forced
+their green fronds through the stones and gravel, and the yerba buena
+vine was beginning to mat the surface of the heap. But the boy's fancy
+was quickly taken by the traces of a singular accident, and one which
+had perhaps arrested the progress of the excavators. The roots of a
+large pine-tree growing close to the wall had been evidently loosened by
+the excavators, and the tree had fallen, with one of its largest roots
+still in the opening the miners had made, and apparently blocking the
+entrance. The large tree lay, as it fell--midway across another but much
+smaller outcrop of rock which stood sharply about fifteen feet above
+the level of the terrace--with its gaunt, dead limbs in the air at a low
+angle. To Johnny's boyish fancy it seemed so easily balanced on the rock
+that but for its imprisoned root it would have made a capital see-saw.
+This he felt must be looked to hereafter. But here his attention was
+arrested by something more alarming. His quick ear, attuned like an
+animal's to all woodland sounds, detected the crackling of underwood
+in the distance. His equally sharp eye saw the figures of two men
+approaching. But as he recognized the features of one of them he drew
+back with a beating heart, a hushed breath, and hurriedly hid himself in
+the shadow. For he had seen that figure once before--flying before
+the sheriff and an armed posse--and had never forgotten it! It was the
+figure of Spanish Pete, a notorious desperado and sluice robber!
+
+Finding he had been unobserved, the boy took courage, and his
+small faculties became actively alive. The two men came on together
+cautiously, and at a little distance the second man, whom Johnny did not
+know, parted from his companion and began to loiter up and down, looking
+around as if acting as a sentinel for the desperado, who advanced
+directly to the fallen tree. Suddenly the sentinel uttered an
+exclamation, and Spanish Pete paused. The sentinel was examining the
+ground near the heap of debris.
+
+“What's up?” growled the desperado.
+
+“Foot tracks! Weren't here before. And fresh ones, too.”
+
+Johnny's heart sank. It was where he had just passed.
+
+Spanish Pete hurriedly joined his companion.
+
+“Foot tracks be ----!” he said scornfully. “What fool would be crawlin'
+round here barefooted? It's a young b'ar!”
+
+Johnny knew the footprints were his own. Yet he recognized the truth
+of the resemblance; it was uncomplimentary, but he felt relieved. The
+desperado came forward, and to the boy's surprise began to climb the
+small ridge of outcrop until he reached the fallen tree. Johnny saw that
+he was carrying a heavy stone. “What's the blamed fool goin' to do?” he
+said to himself; the man's evident ignorance regarding footprints
+had lessened the boy's awe of him. But the stranger's next essay took
+Johnny's breath away. Standing on the fallen tree trunk at its axis on
+the outcrop, he began to rock it gently. To Johnny's surprise it
+began to move. The upper end descended slowly, lifting the root in the
+excavation at the lower end, and with it a mass of rock, and revealing a
+cavern behind large enough to admit a man. Johnny gasped. The desperado
+coolly deposited the heavy stone on the tree beyond its axis on the
+rock, so that it would keep the tree in position, leaped from the tree
+to the rock, and quickly descended, at which he was joined by the
+other man, who was carrying two heavy chamois-leather bags. They both
+proceeded to the opening thus miraculously disclosed, and disappeared in
+it.
+
+Johnny sat breathless, wondering, expectant, but not daring to move. The
+men might come out at any moment; he had seen enough to know that their
+enterprise as well as their cave was a secret, and that the desperado
+would subject any witness to it, however innocent or unwilling, to
+horrible penalties. The time crept slowly by,--he heard every rap of a
+woodpecker in a distant tree; a blue jay dipped and lighted on a branch
+within his reach, but he dared not extend his hand; his legs were
+infested by ants; he even fancied he heard the dry, hollow rattle of a
+rattlesnake not a yard from him. And then the entrance of the cave
+was darkened, and the two men reappeared. Johnny stared. He would have
+rubbed his eyes if he had dared. They were not the same men! Did the
+cave contain others who had been all the while shut up in its dark
+recesses? Was there a band? Would they all swarm out upon him? Should he
+run for his life?
+
+But the illusion was only momentary. A longer look at them convinced
+him that they were the same men in new clothes and disguised, and as one
+remounted the outcrop Johnny's keen eyes recognized him as Spanish Pete.
+He merely kicked away the stone; the root again descended gently over
+the opening, and the tree recovered its former angle. The two hurried
+away, but Johnny noticed that they were empty-handed. The bags had been
+left behind.
+
+The boy waited patiently, listening with his ear to the ground, like an
+Indian, for the last rustle of fern and crackle of underbrush, and
+then emerged, stiff and cramped from his concealment. But he no longer
+thought of flight; curiosity and ambition burned in his small veins. He
+quickly climbed up the outcrop, picked up the fallen stone, and in spite
+of its weight lifted it to the prostrate tree. Here he paused, and from
+his coign of vantage looked and listened. The solitude was profound.
+Then mounting the tree and standing over its axis he tried to rock it as
+the others had. Alas! Johnny's heart was stout, his courage unlimited,
+his perception all-embracing, his ambition boundless; but his actual
+avoirdupois was only that of a boy of ten. The tree did not move. But
+Johnny had played see-saw before, and quietly moved towards its highest
+part. It slowly descended under the changed centre of gravity, and the
+root arose, disclosing the opening as before. Yet here the little hero
+paused. He waited with his eyes fixed on the opening, ready to fly on
+the sallying out of any one who had remained concealed. He then placed
+the stone where he had stood, leaped down, and ran to the opening.
+
+The change from the dazzling sunlight to the darkness confused him at
+first, and he could see nothing. On entering he stumbled over something
+which proved to be a bottle in which a candle was fitted, and a box of
+matches evidently used by the two men. Lighting the candle he could now
+discern that the cavern was only a few yards long, the beginning of a
+tunnel which the accident to the tree had stopped. In one corner lay the
+clothes that the men had left, and which for a moment seemed all that
+the cavern contained, but on removing them Johnny saw that they were
+thrown over a rifle, a revolver, and the two chamois-leather bags
+that the men had brought there. They were so heavy that the boy
+could scarcely lift them. His face flushed; his hands trembled with
+excitement. To a boy whose truant wanderings had given him a fair
+knowledge of mining, he knew that weight could have but one meaning!
+Gold! He hurriedly untied the nearest bag. But it was not the gold of
+the locality, of the tunnel, of the “bed rock”! It was “flake gold,”
+ the gold of the river! It had been taken from the miners' sluices in
+the distant streams. The bags before him were the spoils of the sluice
+robber,--spoils that could not be sold or even shown in the district
+without danger, spoils kept until they could be taken to Marysville or
+Sacramento for disposal. All this might have occurred to the mind of any
+boy of the locality who had heard the common gossip of his elders, but
+to Johnny's fancy an idea was kindled peculiarly his own! Here was a
+cavern like that of the “Forty Thieves” in the story book, and he was
+the “Ali Baba” who knew its secret! He was not obliged to say “Open
+Sesame,” but he could say it if he liked, if he was showing it off to
+anybody!
+
+Yet alas he also knew it was a secret he must keep to himself. He had
+nobody to trust it to. His father was a charcoal-burner of small means;
+a widower with two children, Johnny and his elder brother Sam. The
+latter, a flagrant incorrigible of twenty-two, with a tendency to
+dissipation and low company, had lately abandoned his father's roof,
+only to reappear at intervals of hilarious or maudlin intoxication.
+He had always been held up to Johnny as a warning, or with the gloomy
+prognosis that he, Johnny, was already following in his tortuous
+footsteps. Even if he were here he was not to be thought of as a
+confidant. Still less could he trust his father, who would be sure to
+bungle the secret with sheriffs and constables, and end by bringing down
+the vengeance of the gang upon the family. As for himself, he could not
+dispose of the gold if he were to take it. The exhibition of a single
+flake of it to the adult public would arouse suspicion, and as it was
+Johnny's hard fate to be always doubted, he might be connected with the
+gang. As a truant he knew he had no moral standing, but he also had
+the superstition--quite characteristic of childhood--that being in
+possession of a secret he was a participant in its criminality--and
+bound, as it were, by terrible oaths! And then a new idea seized him.
+He carefully put back everything as he had found it, extinguished the
+candle, left the cave, remounted the tree, and closed the opening again
+as he had seen the others do it, with the addition of murmuring “Shut
+Sesame” to himself, and then ran away as fast as his short legs could
+carry him.
+
+Well clear of the dangerous vicinity, he proceeded more leisurely for
+about a mile, until he came to a low whitewashed fence, inclosing a
+small cultivated patch and a neat farmhouse beyond. Here he paused,
+and, cowering behind the fence, with extraordinary facial contortions
+produced a cry not unlike the scream of a blue jay. Repeating it at
+intervals, he was presently relieved by observing the approach of a
+nankeen sunbonnet within the inclosure above the line of fence. Stopping
+before him, the sun-bonnet revealed a rosy little face, more than
+usually plump on one side, and a neck enormously wrapped in a scarf. It
+was “Meely” (Amelia) Stryker, a schoolmate, detained at home by “mumps,”
+ as Johnny was previously aware. For, with the famous indiscretion of
+some other great heroes, he was about to intrust his secret and his
+destiny to one of the weaker sex. And what were the minor possibilities
+of contagion to this?
+
+“Playin' hookey ag'in?” said the young lady, with a cordial and even
+expansive smile, exclusively confined to one side of her face.
+
+“Um! So'd you be ef you'd bin whar I hev,” he said with harrowing
+mystery.
+
+“No!--say!” said Meely eagerly.
+
+At which Johnny, clutching at the top of the fence, with hurried breath
+told his story. But not all. With the instinct of a true artist he
+withheld the manner in which the opening of the cave was revealed, said
+nothing about the tree, and, I grieve to say, added the words “Open
+Sesame” as the important factor to the operation. Neither did he mention
+the name of Spanish Pete. For all of which he was afterwards duly
+grateful.
+
+“Meet me at the burnt pine down the crossroads at four o'clock,” he said
+in conclusion, “and I'll show ye.”
+
+“Why not now?” said Meely impatiently.
+
+“Couldn't. Much as my life is worth! Must keep watching out! You come at
+four.”
+
+And with an assuring nod he released the fence and trotted off. He
+returned cautiously in the direction of the cave; he was by no means
+sure that the robbers might not return that day, and his mysterious
+rendezvous with Meely veiled a certain prudence. And it was well! For as
+he stealthily crept around the face of the outcrop, hidden in the ferns,
+he saw from the altered angle of the tree that the cavern was opened.
+He remained motionless, with bated breath. Then he heard the sound of
+subdued voices from the cavern, and a figure emerged from the opening.
+Johnny grasped the ferns rigidly to check the dreadful cry that rose to
+his lips at its sight. For that figure was his own brother!
+
+There was no mistaking that weak, wicked face, even then flushed with
+liquor! Johnny had seen it too often thus. But never before as a thief's
+face! He gave a little gasp, and fell back upon that strange reserve of
+apathy and reticence in which children are apt to hide their emotions
+from us at such a moment. He watched impassively the two other men who
+followed his brother out to give him a small bag and some instructions,
+and then returned within their cave, while his brother walked quickly
+away. He watched him disappear; he did not move, for even if he had
+followed him he could not bear to face him in his shame. And then out of
+his sullen despair came a boyish idea of revenge. It was those two men
+who had made his brother a thief!
+
+He was very near the tree. He crept stealthily on his hands and knees
+through the bracken, and as stealthily climbed the wedge of outcrop,
+and then leaped like a wild cat on the tree. With incredible activity he
+lifted the balancing stone, and as the tree began to move, in a flash
+of perception transferred it to the other side of its axis, and felt
+the roots and debris, under that additional weight, descend quickly with
+something like a crash over the opening. Then he took to his heels. He
+ran so swiftly that all unknowingly he overtook a figure, who, turning,
+glanced at him, and then disappeared in the wood. It was his second and
+last view of his brother, as he never saw him again!
+
+But now, strange to say, the crucial and most despairing moment of his
+day's experience had come. He had to face Meely Stryker under the burnt
+pine, and the promise he could not keep, and to tell her that he had
+lied to her. It was the only way to save his brother now! His small
+wits, and alas! his smaller methods, were equal to the despairing task.
+As soon as he saw her waiting under the tree he fell to capering and
+dancing with an extravagance in which hysteria had no small part. “Sold!
+sold! sold again, and got the money!” he laughed shrilly.
+
+The girl looked at him with astonishment, which changed gradually to
+scorn, and then to anger. Johnny's heart sank, but he redoubled his
+antics.
+
+“Who's sold?” she said disdainfully.
+
+“You be. You swallered all that stuff about Ali Baba! You wanted to be
+Morgy Anna! Ho! ho! And I've made you play hookey--from home!”
+
+“You hateful, horrid, little liar!”
+
+Johnny accepted his punishment meekly--in his heart gratefully. “I
+reckoned you'd laugh and not get mad,” he said submissively. The girl
+turned, with tears of rage and vexation in her eyes, and walked away.
+Johnny followed at a humble distance. Perhaps there was something
+instinctively touching in the boy's remorse, for they made it up before
+they reached her fence.
+
+Nevertheless Johnny went home miserable. Luckily for him, his father was
+absent at a Vigilance Committee called to take cognizance of the late
+sluice robberies, and although this temporarily concealed his offense
+of truancy, the news of the vigilance meeting determined him to keep
+his lips sealed. He lay all night wondering how long it would take the
+robbers to dig themselves out of the cave, and whether they suspected
+their imprisonment was the work of an enemy or only an accident. For
+several days he avoided the locality, and even feared the vengeful
+appearance of Spanish Pete some night at his father's house. It was
+not until the end of a fortnight that he had the courage to revisit the
+spot. The tree was in its normal position, but immovable, and a great
+quantity of fresh debris at the mouth of the cave convinced him that the
+robbers, after escaping, had abandoned it as unsafe. His brother did not
+return, and either the activity of the Vigilance Committee or the lack
+of a new place of rendezvous seemed to have dispersed the robbers from
+the locality, for they were not heard of again.
+
+The next ten years brought an improvement to Mr. Starleigh's fortunes.
+Johnny Starleigh, then a student at San Jose, one morning found a
+newspaper clipping in a letter from Miss Amelia Stryker. It read as
+follows: “The excavators in the new tunnel in Heavystone Ridge lately
+discovered the skeletons of two unknown men, who had evidently been
+crushed and entombed some years previously, by the falling of a large
+tree over the mouth of their temporary refuge. From some river gold
+found with them, they were supposed to be part of the gang of sluice
+robbers who infested the locality some years ago, and were hiding from
+the Vigilants.”
+
+For a few days thereafter Johnny Starleigh was thoughtful and reserved,
+but he did not refer to the paragraph in answering the letter. He
+decided to keep it for later confidences, when Miss Stryker should
+become Mrs. Starleigh.
+
+
+
+
+MISS PEGGY'S PROTEGES
+
+
+The string of Peggy's sunbonnet had become untied--so had her right
+shoe. These were not unusual accidents to a country girl of ten, but as
+both of her hands were full she felt obliged to put down what she was
+carrying. This was further complicated by the nature of her burden--a
+half-fledged shrike and a baby gopher--picked up in her walk. It was
+impossible to wrap them both in her apron without serious peril to one
+or the other; she could not put either down without the chance of its
+escaping. “It's like that dreadful riddle of the ferryman who had to
+take the wolf and the sheep in his boat,” said Peggy to herself, “though
+I don't believe anybody was ever so silly as to want to take a wolf
+across the river.” But, looking up, she beheld the approach of Sam
+Bedell, a six-foot tunnelman of the “Blue Cement Lead,” and, hailing
+him, begged him to hold one of her captives. The giant, loathing the
+little mouse-like ball of fur, chose the shrike. “Hold him by the feet,
+for he bites AWFUL,” said Peggy, as the bird regarded Sam with the
+diabolically intense frown of his species. Then, dropping the gopher
+unconcernedly in her pocket, she proceeded to rearrange her toilet. The
+tunnelman waited patiently until Peggy had secured the nankeen sunbonnet
+around her fresh but freckled cheeks, and, with a reckless display
+of yellow flannel petticoat and stockings like peppermint sticks, had
+double-knotted her shoestrings viciously when he ventured to speak.
+
+“Same old game, Peggy? Thought you'd got rather discouraged with your
+'happy family,' arter that new owl o' yours had gathered 'em in.”
+
+Peggy's cheek flushed slightly at this ungracious allusion to a former
+collection of hers, which had totally disappeared one evening after the
+introduction of a new member in the shape of a singularly venerable and
+peaceful-looking horned owl.
+
+“I could have tamed HIM, too,” said Peggy indignantly, “if Ned Myers,
+who gave him to me, hadn't been training him to ketch things, and never
+let on anything about it to me. He was a reg'lar game owl!”
+
+“And wot are ye goin' to do with the Colonel here?” said Sam, indicating
+under that gallant title the infant shrike, who, with his claws deeply
+imbedded in Sam's finger, was squatting like a malignant hunchback, and
+resisting his transfer to Peggy. “Won't HE make it rather lively for the
+others? He looks pow'ful discontented for one so young.”
+
+“That's his nater,” said Peggy promptly. “Jess wait till I tame him.
+Ef he'd been left along o' his folks, he'd grow up like 'em. He's a
+'butcher bird'--wot they call a 'nine-killer '--kills nine birds a day!
+Yes! True ez you live! Sticks 'em up on thorns outside his nest, jest
+like a butcher's shop, till he gets hungry. I've seen 'em!”
+
+“And how do you kalkilate to tame him?” asked Sam.
+
+“By being good to him and lovin' him,” said Peggy, stroking the head of
+the bird with infinite gentleness.
+
+“That means YOU'VE got to do all the butchering for him?” said the
+cynical Sam.
+
+Peggy shook her head, disdaining a verbal reply.
+
+“Ye can't bring him up on sugar and crackers, like a Polly,” persisted
+Sam.
+
+“Ye ken do anythin' with critters, if you ain't afeerd of 'em and love
+'em,” said Peggy shyly.
+
+The tall tunnelman, looking down into the depths of Peggy's sunbonnet,
+saw something in the round blue eyes and grave little mouth that made
+him think so too. But here Peggy's serious little face took a shade of
+darker concern as her arm went down deeper into her pocket, and her eyes
+got rounder.
+
+“It's--it's--BURRERED OUT!” she said breathlessly.
+
+The giant leaped briskly to one side. “Hol' on,” said Peggy
+abstractedly. With infinite gravity she followed, with her fingers, a
+seam of her skirt down to the hem, popped them quickly under it, and
+produced, with a sigh of relief, the missing gopher.
+
+“You'll do,” said Sam, in fearful admiration. “Mebbe you'll make suthin'
+out o' the Colonel too. But I never took stock in that there owl. He
+was too durned self-righteous for a decent bird. Now, run along afore
+anythin' else fetches loose ag'in. So long!”
+
+He patted the top of her sunbonnet, gave a little pull to the short
+brown braid that hung behind her temptingly,--which no miner was ever
+known to resist,--and watched her flutter off with her spoils. He had
+done so many times before, for the great, foolish heart of the Blue
+Cement Ridge had gone out to Peggy Baker, the little daughter of the
+blacksmith, quite early. There were others of the family, notably
+two elder sisters, invincible at picnics and dances, but Peggy was as
+necessary to these men as the blue jay that swung before them in the
+dim woods, the squirrel that whisked across their morning path, or the
+woodpecker who beat his tattoo at their midday meal from the hollow
+pine above them. She was part of the nature that kept them young. Her
+truancies and vagrancies concerned them not: she was a law to herself,
+like the birds and squirrels. There were bearded lips to hail her
+wherever she went, and a blue or red-shirted arm always stretched out in
+any perilous pass or dangerous crossing.
+
+Her peculiar tastes were an outcome of her nature, assisted by her
+surroundings. Left a good deal to herself in her infancy, she made
+playfellows of animated nature around her, without much reference to
+selection or fitness, but always with a fearlessness that was the result
+of her own observation, and unhampered by tradition or other children's
+timidity. She had no superstition regarding the venom of toads, the
+poison of spiders, or the ear-penetrating capacity of earwigs. She had
+experiences and revelations of her own,--which she kept sacredly to
+herself, as children do,--and one was in regard to a rattlesnake, partly
+induced, however, by the indiscreet warning of her elders. She was
+cautioned NOT to take her bread and milk into the woods, and was told
+the affecting story of the little girl who was once regularly visited by
+a snake that partook of HER bread and milk, and who was ultimately found
+rapping the head of the snake for gorging more than his share, and not
+“taking a 'poon as me do.” It is needless to say that this incautious
+caution fired Peggy's adventurous spirit. SHE took a bowlful of milk to
+the haunt of a “rattler” near her home, but, without making the pretense
+of sharing it, generously left the whole to the reptile. After repeating
+this hospitality for three or four days, she was amazed one morning on
+returning to the house to find the snake--an elderly one with a dozen
+rattles--devotedly following her. Alarmed, not for her own safety nor
+that of her family, but for the existence of her grateful friend in
+danger of the blacksmith's hammer, she took a circuitous route leading
+it away. Then recalling a bit of woodland lore once communicated to her
+by a charcoal-burner, she broke a spray of the white ash, and laid it
+before her in the track of the rattlesnake. He stopped instantly, and
+remained motionless without crossing the slight barrier. She repeated
+this experiment on later occasions, until the reptile understood her.
+She kept the experience to herself, but one day it was witnessed by a
+tunnelman. On that day Peggy's reputation was made!
+
+From this time henceforth the major part of Blue Cement Ridge became
+serious collectors for what was known as “Peggy's menagerie,” and two
+of the tunnelmen constructed a stockaded inclosure--not half a mile
+from the blacksmith's cabin, but unknown to him--for the reception of
+specimens. For a long time its existence was kept a secret between Peggy
+and her loyal friends. Her parents, aware of her eccentric tastes only
+through the introduction of such smaller creatures as lizards, toads,
+and tarantulas into their house,--which usually escaped from their tin
+cans and boxes and sought refuge in the family slippers,--had frowned
+upon her zoological studies. Her mother found that her woodland rambles
+entailed an extraordinary wear and tear of her clothing. A pinafore
+reduced to ribbons by a young fox, and a straw hat half swallowed by a
+mountain kid, did not seem to be a natural incident to an ordinary
+walk to the schoolhouse. Her sisters thought her tastes “low,” and
+her familiar association with the miners inconsistent with their own
+dignity. But Peggy went regularly to school, was a fair scholar in
+elementary studies (what she knew of natural history, in fact, quite
+startled her teachers), and being also a teachable child, was allowed
+some latitude. As for Peggy herself, she kept her own faith unshaken;
+her little creed, whose shibboleth was not “to be afraid” of God's
+creatures, but to “love 'em,” sustained her through reprimand, torn
+clothing, and, it is to be feared, occasional bites and scratches from
+the loved ones themselves.
+
+The unsuspected contiguity of the “menagerie” to the house had its
+drawbacks, and once nearly exposed her. A mountain wolf cub, brought
+especially for her from the higher northern Sierras with great trouble
+and expense by Jack Ryder, of the Lone Star Lead, unfortunately escaped
+from the menagerie just as the child seemed to be in a fair way of
+taming it. Yet it had been already familiarized enough with civilization
+to induce it to stop in its flight and curiously examine the
+blacksmith's shop. A shout from the blacksmith and a hurled hammer sent
+it flying again, with Mr. Baker and his assistant in full pursuit. But
+it quickly distanced them with its long, tireless gallop, and they were
+obliged to return to the forge, lost in wonder and conjecture. For the
+blacksmith had recognized it as a stranger to the locality, and as a
+man of oracular pretension had a startling theory to account for its
+presence. This he confided to the editor of the local paper, and the
+next issue contained an editorial paragraph: “Our presage of a severe
+winter in the higher Sierras, and consequent spring floods in the
+valleys, has been startlingly confirmed! Mountain wolves have been
+seen in Blue Cement Ridge, and our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Ephraim
+Baker, yesterday encountered a half-starved cub entering his premises in
+search of food. Mr. Baker is of the opinion that the mother of the
+cub, driven down by stress of weather, was in the immediate vicinity.”
+ Nothing but the distress of the only responsible mother of the cub,
+Peggy, and loyalty to her, kept Jack Ryder from exposing the absurdity
+publicly, but for weeks the camp fires of Blue Cement Ridge shook with
+the suppressed and unhallowed joy of the miners, who were in the guilty
+secret.
+
+But, fortunately for Peggy, the most favored of her cherished
+possessions was not obliged to be kept secret. That one exception was
+an Indian dog! This was also a gift, and had been procured with great
+“difficulty” by a “packer” from an Indian encampment on the Oregon
+frontier. The “difficulty” was, in plain English, that it had been
+stolen from the Indians at some peril to the stealer's scalp. It was
+a mongrel to all appearances, of no recognized breed or outward
+significance, yet of a quality distinctly its own. It was absolutely and
+totally uncivilized. Whether this was a hereditary trait, or the result
+of degeneracy, no one knew. It refused to enter a house; it would not
+stay in a kennel. It would not eat in public, but gorged ravenously
+and stealthily in the shadows. It had the slink of a tramp, and in its
+patched and mottled hide seemed to simulate the rags of a beggar. It had
+the tirelessness without the affected limp of a coyote. Yet it had none
+of the ferocity of barbarians. With teeth that could gnaw through the
+stoutest rope and toughest lariat, it never bared them in anger. It
+was cringing without being amiable or submissive; it was gentle without
+being affectionate.
+
+Yet almost insensibly it began to yield to Peggy's faith and kindness.
+Gradually it seemed to single her out as the one being in this vast
+white-faced and fully clothed community that it could trust. It
+presently allowed her to half drag, half lead it to and fro from school,
+although on the approach of a stranger it would bite through the rope
+or frantically endeavor to efface itself in Peggy's petticoats. It was
+trying, even to the child's sweet gravity, to face the ridicule excited
+by its appearance on the road; and its habit of carrying its tail
+between its legs--at such an inflexible curve that, on the authority
+of Sam Bedell, a misstep caused it to “turn a back somersault”--was
+painfully disconcerting. But Peggy endured this, as she did the greater
+dangers of the High Street in the settlement, where she had often, at
+her own risk, absolutely to drag the dazed and bewildered creature from
+under the wheels of carts and the heels of horses. But this shyness
+wore off--or rather was eventually lost in the dog's complete and utter
+absorption in Peggy. His limited intelligence and imperfect perceptions
+were excited for her alone. His singularly keen scent detected her
+wherever or how remote she might be. Her passage along a “blind trail,”
+ her deviations from the school path, her more distant excursions,
+were all mysteriously known to him. It seemed as if his senses were
+concentrated in this one faculty. No matter how unexpected or unfamiliar
+the itinerary, “Lo, the poor Indian”--as the men had nicknamed him (in
+possible allusion to his “untutored mind”)--always arrived promptly and
+silently.
+
+It was to this singular faculty that Peggy owed one of her strangest
+experiences. One Saturday afternoon she was returning from an errand to
+the village when she was startled by the appearance of Lo in her path.
+For the reason already given, she no longer took him with her to these
+active haunts of civilization, but had taught him on such occasions to
+remain as a guard outside the stockade which contained her treasures.
+After reading him a severe lecture on this flagrant abandonment of his
+trust, enforced with great seriousness and an admonitory forefinger,
+she was concerned to see that the animal appeared less agitated by her
+reproof than by some other disturbance. He ran ahead of her, instead
+of at her heels, as was his usual custom, and barked--a thing he rarely
+did. Presently she thought she discovered the cause of this in the
+appearance from the wood of a dozen men armed with guns. They seemed to
+be strangers, but among them she recognized the deputy sheriff of the
+settlement. The leader noticed her, and, after a word or two with the
+others, the deputy approached her.
+
+“You and Lo had better be scooting home by the highroad, outer this--or
+ye might get hurt,” he said, half playfully, half seriously.
+
+Peggy looked fearlessly at the men and their guns.
+
+“Look ez ef you was huntin'?” she said curiously.
+
+“We are!” said the leader.
+
+“Wot you huntin'?”
+
+The deputy glanced at the others. “B'ar!” he replied.
+
+“Ba'r!” repeated the child with the quick resentment which a palpable
+falsehood always provoked in her. “There ain't no b'ar in ten miles! See
+yourself huntin' b'ar! Ho!”
+
+The man laughed. “Never you mind, missy,” said the deputy, “you trot
+along!” He laid his hand very gently on her head, faced her sunbonnet
+towards the near highway, gave the usual parting pull to her brown
+pigtail, added, “Make a bee-line home,” and turned away.
+
+Lo uttered the first growl known in his history. Whereat Peggy said,
+with lofty forbearance, “Serve you jest right ef I set my dog on you.”
+
+But force is no argument, and Peggy felt this truth even of herself and
+Lo. So she trotted away. Nevertheless, Lo showed signs of hesitation.
+After a few moments Peggy herself hesitated and looked back. The men
+had spread out under the trees, and were already lost in the woods. But
+there was more than one trail through it, and Peggy knew it.
+
+And here an alarming occurrence startled her. A curiously striped brown
+and white squirrel whisked past her and ran up a tree. Peggy's round
+eyes became rounder. There was but one squirrel of that kind in all the
+length and breadth of Blue Cement Ridge, and that was in the menagerie!
+Even as she looked it vanished. Peggy faced about and ran back to the
+road in the direction of the stockade, Lo bounding before her. But
+another surprise awaited her. There was the clutter of short wings
+under the branches, and the sunlight flashed upon the iris throat of a
+wood-duck as it swung out of sight past her. But in this single
+glance Peggy recognized one of the latest and most precious of her
+acquisitions. There was no mistake now! With a despairing little cry to
+Lo, “The menagerie's broke loose!” she ran like the wind towards it. She
+cared no longer for the mandate of the men; the trail she had taken was
+out of their sight; they were proceeding so slowly and cautiously that
+she and Lo quickly distanced them in the same direction. She would have
+yet time to reach the stockade and secure what was left of her treasures
+before they came up and drove her away. Yet she had to make a long
+circuit to avoid the blacksmith's shop and cabin, before she saw the
+stockade, lifting its four-foot walls around an inclosure a dozen feet
+square, in the midst of a manzanita thicket. But she could see also
+broken coops, pens, cages, and boxes lying before it, and stopped once,
+even in her grief and indignation, to pick up a ruby-throated lizard,
+one of its late inmates that had stopped in the trail, stiffened to
+stone at her approach. The next moment she was before the roofless
+walls, and then stopped, stiffened like the lizard. For out of that
+peaceful ruin which had once held the wild and untamed vagabonds of
+earth and sky, arose a type of savagery and barbarism the child had
+never before looked upon,--the head and shoulders of a hunted, desperate
+man!
+
+His head was bare, and his hair matted with sweat over his forehead; his
+face was unshorn, and the black roots of his beard showed against the
+deadly pallor of his skin, except where it was scratched by thorns,
+or where the red spots over his cheek bones made his cheeks look as
+if painted. His eyes were as insanely bright, he panted as quickly, he
+showed his white teeth as perpetually, his movements were as convulsive,
+as those captured animals she had known. Yet he did not attempt to fly,
+and it was only when, with a sudden effort and groan of pain, he half
+lifted himself above the stockade, that she saw that his leg, bandaged
+with his cravat and handkerchief, stained a dull red, dragged helplessly
+beneath him. He stared at her vacantly for a moment, and then looked
+hurriedly into the wood behind her.
+
+The child was more interested than frightened, and more curious than
+either. She had grasped the situation at a glance. It was the hunted and
+the hunters. Suddenly he started and reached for his rifle, which he had
+apparently set down outside when he climbed into the stockade. He had
+just caught sight of a figure emerging from the wood at a distance. But
+the weapon was out of his reach.
+
+“Hand me that gun!” he said roughly.
+
+But Peggy did not stir. The figure came more plainly and quite
+unconsciously into full view, an easy shot at that distance.
+
+The man uttered a horrible curse, and turned a threatening face on
+the child. But Peggy had seen something like that in animals SHE had
+captured. She only said gravely,--
+
+“Ef you shoot that gun you'll bring 'em all down on you!”
+
+“All?” he demanded.
+
+“Yes! a dozen folks with guns like yours,” said Peggy. “You jest crouch
+down and lie low. Don't move! Watch me.”
+
+The man dropped below the stockade. Peggy ran swiftly towards the
+unsuspecting figure, evidently the leader of the party, but deviated
+slightly to snatch a tiny spray from a white-ash tree. She never knew
+that in that brief interval the wounded man, after a supreme effort, had
+possessed himself of his weapon, and for a moment had covered HER with
+its deadly muzzle. She ran on fearlessly until she saw that she had
+attracted the attention of the leader, when she stopped and began to
+wave the white-ash wand before her. The leader halted, conferred with
+some one behind him, who proved to be the deputy sheriff. Stepping out
+he advanced towards Peggy, and called sharply,
+
+“I told you to get out of this! Come, be quick!”
+
+“You'd better get out yourself,” said Peggy, waving her ash spray, “and
+quicker, too.”
+
+The deputy stopped, staring at the spray. “Wot's up?”
+
+“Rattlers.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Everywhere round ye--a reg'lar nest of 'em! That's your way round!” She
+pointed to the right, and again began beating the underbrush with her
+wand. The men had, meantime, huddled together in consultation. It was
+evident that the story of Peggy and her influence on rattlesnakes was
+well known, and, in all probability, exaggerated. After a pause, the
+whole party filed off to the right, making a long circuit of the unseen
+stockade, and were presently lost in the distance. Peggy ran back to the
+fugitive. The fire of savagery and desperation in his eyes had gone out,
+but had been succeeded by a glazing film of faintness.
+
+“Can you--get me--some water?” he whispered.
+
+The stockade was near a spring,--a necessity for the menagerie. Peggy
+brought him water in a dipper. She sighed a little; her “butcher
+bird”--now lost forever--had been the last to drink from it!
+
+The water seemed to revive him. “The rattlesnakes scared the cowards,”
+ he said, with an attempt to smile. “Were there many rattlers?”
+
+“There wasn't ANY,” said Peggy, a little spitefully, “'cept YOU--a
+two-legged rattler!”
+
+The rascal grinned at the compliment.
+
+“ONE-legged, you mean,” he said, indicating his helpless limb.
+
+Peggy's heart relented slightly. “Wot you goin' to do now?” she said.
+“You can't stay on THERE, you know. It b'longs to ME!” She was generous,
+but practical.
+
+“Were those things I fired out yours?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Mighty rough of me.”
+
+Peggy was slightly softened. “Kin you walk?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Kin you crawl?”
+
+“Not as far as a rattler.”
+
+“Ez far ez that clearin'?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“There's a hoss tethered out in that clearin'. I kin shift him to this
+end.”
+
+“You're white all through,” said the man gravely.
+
+Peggy ran off to the clearing. The horse belonged to Sam Bedell, but
+he had given Peggy permission to ride it whenever she wished. This was
+equivalent, in Peggy's mind, to a permission to PLACE him where she
+wished. She consequently led him to a point nearest the stockade, and,
+thoughtfully, close beside a stump. But this took some time, and when
+she arrived she found the fugitive already there, very thin and weak,
+but still smiling.
+
+“Ye kin turn him loose when you get through with him; he'll find his way
+back,” said Peggy. “Now I must go.”
+
+Without again looking at the man, she ran back to the stockade. Then she
+paused until she heard the sound of hoofs crossing the highway in the
+opposite direction from which the pursuers had crossed, and knew that
+the fugitive had got away. Then she took the astonished and still
+motionless lizard from her pocket, and proceeded to restore the broken
+coops and cages to the empty stockade.
+
+But she never reconstructed her menagerie nor renewed her collection.
+People said she had tired of her whim, and that really she was getting
+too old for such things. Perhaps she was. But she never got old enough
+to reveal her story of the last wild animal she had tamed by kindness.
+Nor was she quite sure of it herself, until a few years afterwards on
+Commencement Day at a boarding-school at San Jose, when they pointed out
+to her one of the most respectable trustees. But they said he was once
+a gambler, who had shot a man with whom he had quarreled, and was nearly
+caught and lynched by a Vigilance Committee.
+
+
+
+
+THE GODDESS OF EXCELSIOR
+
+
+When the two isolated mining companies encamped on Sycamore Creek
+discovered on the same day the great “Excelsior Lead,” they met around
+a neutral camp fire with that grave and almost troubled demeanor which
+distinguished the successful prospector in those days. Perhaps the term
+“prospectors” could hardly be used for men who had labored patiently
+and light-heartedly in the one spot for over three years to gain a daily
+yield from the soil which gave them barely the necessaries of life.
+Perhaps this was why, now that their reward was beyond their most
+sanguine hopes, they mingled with this characteristic gravity an
+ambition and resolve peculiarly their own. Unlike most successful
+miners, they had no idea of simply realizing their wealth and departing
+to invest or spend it elsewhere, as was the common custom. On the
+contrary, that night they formed a high resolve to stand or fall by
+their claims, to develop the resources of the locality, to build up a
+town, and to devote themselves to its growth and welfare. And to this
+purpose they bound themselves that night by a solemn and legal compact.
+
+Many circumstances lent themselves to so original a determination. The
+locality was healthful, picturesque, and fertile. Sycamore Creek, a
+considerable tributary of the Sacramento, furnished them a generous
+water supply at all seasons; its banks were well wooded and
+interspersed with undulating meadow land. Its distance from stage-coach
+communication--nine miles--could easily be abridged by a wagon road over
+a practically level country. Indeed, all the conditions for a thriving
+settlement were already there. It was natural, therefore, that the most
+sanguine anticipations were indulged by the more youthful of the twenty
+members of this sacred compact. The sites of a hotel, a bank, the
+express company's office, stage office, and court-house, with other
+necessary buildings, were all mapped out and supplemented by a theatre,
+a public park, and a terrace along the river bank! It was only when
+Clinton Grey, an intelligent but youthful member, on offering a plan of
+the town with five avenues eighty feet wide, radiating from a central
+plaza and the court-house, explained that “it could be commanded by
+artillery in case of an armed attack upon the building,” that it was
+felt that a line must be drawn in anticipatory suggestion. Nevertheless,
+although their determination was unabated, at the end of six months
+little had been done beyond the building of a wagon road and the
+importation of new machinery for the working of the lead. The
+peculiarity of their design debarred any tentative or temporary efforts;
+they wished the whole settlement to spring up in equal perfection,
+so that the first stage-coach over the new road could arrive upon the
+completed town. “We don't want to show up in a 'b'iled shirt' and a plug
+hat, and our trousers stuck in our boots,” said a figurative speaker.
+Nevertheless, practical necessity compelled them to build the hotel
+first for their own occupation, pending the erection of their private
+dwellings on allotted sites. The hotel, a really elaborate structure
+for the locality and period, was a marvel to the workmen and casual
+teamsters. It was luxuriously fitted and furnished. Yet it was in
+connection with this outlay that the event occurred which had a singular
+effect upon the fancy of the members.
+
+Washington Trigg, a Western member, who had brought up the architect and
+builder from San Francisco, had returned in a state of excitement. He
+had seen at an art exhibition in that city a small replica of a famous
+statue of California, and, without consulting his fellow members, had
+ordered a larger copy for the new settlement. He, however, made up for
+his precipitancy by an extravagant description of his purchase, which
+impressed even the most cautious. “It's the figger of a mighty pretty
+girl, in them spirit clothes they allus wear, holding a divinin' rod for
+findin' gold afore her in one hand; all the while she's hidin' behind
+her, in the other hand, a branch o' thorns out of sight. The idea
+bein'--don't you see?--that blamed old 'forty-niners like us, or
+ordinary greenhorns, ain't allowed to see the difficulties they've got
+to go through before reaching a strike. Mighty cute, ain't it? It's
+to be made life-size,--that is, about the size of a girl of that kind,
+don't you see?” he explained somewhat vaguely, “and will look powerful
+fetchin' standin' onto a pedestal in the hall of the hotel.” In reply to
+some further cautious inquiry as to the exact details of the raiment
+and of any possible shock to the modesty of lady guests at the hotel, he
+replied confidently, “Oh, THAT'S all right! It's the regulation uniform
+of goddesses and angels,--sorter as if they'd caught up a sheet or a
+cloud to fling round 'em before coming into this world afore folks;
+and being an allegory, so to speak, it ain't as if it was me or you
+prospectin' in high water. And, being of bronze, it”--
+
+“Looks like a squaw, eh?” interrupted a critic, “or a cursed Chinaman?”
+
+“And if it's of metal, it will weigh a ton! How are we going to get it
+up here?” said another.
+
+But here Mr. Trigg was on sure ground. “I've ordered it cast holler,
+and, if necessary, in two sections,” he returned triumphantly. “A child
+could tote it round and set it up.”
+
+Its arrival was therefore looked forward to with great expectancy when
+the hotel was finished and occupied by the combined Excelsior companies.
+It was to come from New York via San Francisco, where, however,
+there was some delay in its transshipment, and still further delay at
+Sacramento. It finally reached the settlement over the new wagon
+road, and was among the first freight carried there by the new
+express company, and delivered into the new express office. The
+box--a packing-case, nearly three feet square by five feet long--bore
+superficial marks of travel and misdirection, inasmuch as the original
+address was quite obliterated and the outside lid covered with corrected
+labels. It was carried to a private sitting-room in the hotel, where
+its beauty was to be first disclosed to the president of the united
+companies, three of the committee, and the excited and triumphant
+purchaser. A less favored crowd of members and workmen gathered
+curiously outside the room. Then the lid was carefully removed,
+revealing a quantity of shavings and packing paper which still hid the
+outlines of the goddess. When this was promptly lifted a stare of blank
+astonishment fixed the faces of the party! It was succeeded by a quick,
+hysteric laugh, and then a dead silence.
+
+Before them lay a dressmaker's dummy, the wire and padded model on
+which dresses are fitted and shown. With its armless and headless bust,
+abruptly ending in a hooped wire skirt, it completely filled the sides
+of the box.
+
+“Shut the door,” said the president promptly.
+
+The order was obeyed. The single hysteric shriek of laughter had been
+followed by a deadly, ironical silence. The president, with supernatural
+gravity, lifted it out and set it up on its small, round, disk-like
+pedestal.
+
+“It's some cussed fool blunder of that confounded express company,”
+ burst out the unlucky purchaser. But there was no echo to his outburst.
+He looked around with a timid, tentative smile. But no other smile
+followed his.
+
+“It looks,” said the president, with portentous gravity, “like the
+beginnings of a fine woman, that MIGHT show up, if you gave her time,
+into a first-class goddess. Of course she ain't all here; other boxes
+with sections of her, I reckon, are under way from her factory, and will
+meander along in the course of the year. Considerin' this as a sample--I
+think, gentlemen,” he added, with gloomy precision, “we are prepared to
+accept it, and signify we'll take more.”
+
+“It ain't, perhaps, exactly the idee that we've been led to expect from
+previous description,” said Dick Flint, with deeper seriousness; “for
+instance, this yer branch of thorns we heard of ez bein' held behind her
+is wantin', as is the arms that held it; but even if they had arrived,
+anybody could see the thorns through them wires, and so give the hull
+show away.”
+
+“Jam it into its box again, and we'll send it back to the confounded
+express company with a cussin' letter,” again thundered the wretched
+purchaser.
+
+“No, sonny,” said the president with gentle but gloomy determination,
+“we'll fasten on to this little show jest as it is, and see what
+follows. It ain't every day that a first-class sell like this is worked
+off on us ACCIDENTALLY.”
+
+It was quite true! The settlement had long since exhausted every
+possible form of practical joking, and languished for a new sensation.
+And here it was! It was not a thing to be treated angrily, nor lightly,
+nor dismissed with that single hysteric laugh. It was capable of the
+greatest possibilities! Indeed, as Washington Trigg looked around on the
+imperturbably ironical faces of his companions, he knew that they felt
+more true joy over the blunder than they would in the possession of the
+real statue. But an exclamation from the fifth member, who was examining
+the box, arrested their attention.
+
+“There's suthin' else here!”
+
+He had found under the heavier wrapping a layer of tissue-paper, and
+under that a further envelope of linen, lightly stitched together. A
+knife blade quickly separated the stitches, and the linen was carefully
+unfolded. It displayed a beautifully trimmed evening dress of pale blue
+satin, with a dressing-gown of some exquisite white fabric armed with
+lace. The men gazed at it in silence, and then the one single expression
+broke from their lips,--
+
+“Her duds!”
+
+“Stop, boys,” said “Clint” Grey, as a movement was made to lift the
+dress towards the model, “leave that to a man who knows. What's the
+use of my having left five grown-up sisters in the States if I haven't
+brought a little experience away with me? This sort of thing ain't to be
+'pulled on' like trousers. No, sir!--THIS is the way she's worked.”
+
+With considerable dexterity, unexpected gentleness, and some taste,
+he shook out the folds of the skirt delicately and lifted it over the
+dummy, settling it skillfully upon the wire hoops, and drawing the
+bodice over the padded shoulders. This he then proceeded to fasten with
+hooks and eyes,--a work of some patience. Forty eager fingers stretched
+out to assist him, but were waved aside, with a look of pained decorum
+as he gravely completed his task. Then falling back, he bade the others
+do the same, and they formed a contemplative semicircle before the
+figure.
+
+Up to that moment a delighted but unsmiling consciousness of their own
+absurdities, a keen sense of the humorous possibilities of the
+original blunder, and a mischievous recognition of the mortification of
+Trigg--whose only safety now lay in accepting the mistake in the same
+spirit--had determined these grown-up schoolboys to artfully protract
+a joke that seemed to be providentially delivered into their hands. But
+NOW an odd change crept on them. The light from the open window that
+gave upon the enormous pines and the rolling prospect up to the
+dim heights of the Sierras fell upon this strange, incongruous, yet
+perfectly artistic figure. For the dress was the skillful creation of a
+great Parisian artist, and in its exquisite harmony of color, shape,
+and material it not only hid the absurd model, but clothed it with an
+alarming grace and refinement! A queer feeling of awe, of shame, and of
+unwilling admiration took possession of them. Some of them--from
+remote Western towns--had never seen the like before; those who HAD had
+forgotten it in those five years of self-exile, of healthy independence,
+and of contiguity to Nature in her unaffected simplicity. All had been
+familiar with the garish, extravagant, and dazzling femininity of
+the Californian towns and cities, but never had they known anything
+approaching the ideal grace of this type of exalted, even if artificial,
+womanhood. And although in the fierce freedom of their little republic
+they had laughed to scorn such artificiality, a few yards of satin and
+lace cunningly fashioned, and thrown over a frame of wood and wire,
+touched them now with a strange sense of its superiority. The better
+to show its attractions, Clinton Grey had placed the figure near a
+full-length, gold-framed mirror, beside a marble-topped table. Yet how
+cheap and tawdry these splendors showed beside this work of art! How
+cruel was the contrast of their own rough working clothes to this
+miracle of adornment which that same mirror reflected! And even when
+Clinton Grey, the enthusiast, looked towards his beloved woods for
+relief, he could not help thinking of them as a more fitting frame for
+this strange goddess than this new house into which she had strayed.
+Their gravity became real; their gibes in some strange way had vanished.
+
+“Must have cost a pile of money,” said one, merely to break an
+embarrassing silence.
+
+“My sister had a friend who brought over a dress from Paris, not as
+high-toned as that, that cost five hundred dollars,” said Clinton Grey.
+
+“How much did you say that spirit-clad old rag of yours cost--thorns and
+all?” said the president, turning sharply on Trigg.
+
+Trigg swallowed this depreciation of his own purchase meekly. “Seven
+hundred and fifty dollars, without the express charges.”
+
+“That's only two-fifty more,” said the president thoughtfully, “if we
+call it quits.”
+
+“But,” said Trigg in alarm, “we must send it back.”
+
+“Not much, sonny,” said the president promptly. “We'll hang on to this
+until we hear where that thorny old chump of yours has fetched up and is
+actin' her conundrums, and mebbe we can swap even.”
+
+“But how will we explain it to the boys?” queried Trigg. “They're
+waitin' outside to see it.”
+
+“There WON'T be any explanation,” said the president, in the same tone
+of voice in which he had ordered the door shut. “We'll just say that
+the statue hasn't come, which is the frozen truth; and this box only
+contained some silk curtain decorations we'd ordered, which is only
+half a lie. And,” still more firmly, “THIS SECRET DOESN'T GO OUT OF THIS
+ROOM, GENTLEMEN--or I ain't your president! I'm not going to let you
+give yourselves away to that crowd outside--you hear me? Have you ever
+allowed your unfettered intellect to consider what they'd say about
+this,--what a godsend it would be to every man we'd ever had a 'pull' on
+in this camp? Why, it would last 'em a whole year; we'd never hear the
+end of it! No, gentlemen! I prefer to live here without shootin' my
+fellow man, but I can't promise it if they once start this joke agin
+us!”
+
+There was a swift approval of this sentiment, and the five members shook
+hands solemnly.
+
+“Now,” said the president, “we'll just fold up that dress again, and put
+it with the figure in this closet”--he opened a large dressing-chest
+in the suite of rooms in which they stood--“and we'll each keep a key.
+We'll retain this room for committee purposes, so that no one need see
+the closet. See? Now take off the dress! Be careful there! You're not
+handlin' pay dirt, though it's about as expensive! Steady!”
+
+Yet it was wonderful to see the solicitude and care with which the dress
+was re-covered and folded in its linen wrapper.
+
+“Hold on,” exclaimed Trigg,--as the dummy was lifted into the
+chest,--“we haven't tried on the other dress!”
+
+“Yes! yes!” repeated the others eagerly; “there's another!”
+
+“We'll keep that for next committee meeting, gentlemen,” said the
+president decisively. “Lock her up, Trigg.”
+
+
+The three following months wrought a wonderful change in
+Excelsior,--wonderful even in that land of rapid growth and progress.
+Their organized and matured plans, executed by a full force of workmen
+from the county town, completed the twenty cottages for the members, the
+bank, and the town hall. Visitors and intending settlers flocked over
+the new wagon road to see this new Utopia, whose founders, holding the
+land and its improvements as a corporate company, exercised the right
+of dictating the terms on which settlers were admitted. The feminine
+invasion was not yet potent enough to affect their consideration, either
+through any refinement or attractiveness, being composed chiefly of the
+industrious wives and daughters of small traders or temporary artisans.
+Yet it was found necessary to confide the hotel to the management of Mr.
+Dexter Marsh, his wife, and one intelligent but somewhat plain daughter,
+who looked after the accounts. There were occasional lady visitors at
+the hotel, attracted from the neighboring towns and settlements by
+its picturesqueness and a vague suggestiveness of its being a
+watering-place--and there was the occasional flash in the decorous
+street of a Sacramento or San Francisco gown. It is needless to say that
+to the five men who held the guilty secret of Committee Room No. 4 it
+only strengthened their belief in the super-elegance of their hidden
+treasure. At their last meeting they had fitted the second dress--which
+turned out to be a vapory summer house-frock or morning wrapper--over
+the dummy, and opinions were divided as to its equality with the first.
+However, the same subtle harmony of detail and grace of proportion
+characterized it.
+
+“And you see,” said Clint Grey, “it's jest the sort o' rig in which a
+man would be most likely to know her--and not in her war-paint, which
+would be only now and then.”
+
+Already “SHE” had become an individuality!
+
+“Hush!” said the president. He had turned towards the door, at which
+some one was knocking lightly.
+
+“Come in.”
+
+The door opened upon Miss Marsh, secretary and hotel assistant. She had
+a business aspect, and an open letter in her hand, but hesitated at
+the evident confusion she had occasioned. Two of the gentlemen had
+absolutely blushed, and the others regarded her with inane smiles or
+affected seriousness. They all coughed slightly.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” she said, not ungracefully, a slight color coming
+into her sallow cheek, which, in conjunction with the gold eye-glasses,
+gave her, at least in the eyes of the impressible Clint, a certain
+piquancy. “But my father said you were here in committee and I might
+consult you. I can come again, if you are busy.”
+
+She had addressed the president, partly from his office, his
+comparatively extreme age--he must have been at least thirty!--and
+possibly for his extremer good looks. He said hurriedly, “It's just an
+informal meeting;” and then, more politely, “What can we do for you?”
+
+“We have an application for a suite of rooms next week,” she said,
+referring to the letter, “and as we shall be rather full, father thought
+you gentlemen might be willing to take another larger room for your
+meetings, and give up these, which are part of a suite--and perhaps not
+exactly suitable”--
+
+“Quite impossible!” “Quite so!” “Really out of the question,” said the
+members, in a rapid chorus.
+
+The young girl was evidently taken aback at this unanimity of
+opposition. She stared at them curiously, and then glanced around the
+room. “We're quite comfortable here,” said the president explanatorily,
+“and--in fact--it's just what we want.”
+
+“We could give you a closet like that which you could lock up, and a
+mirror,” she suggested, with the faintest trace of a smile.
+
+“Tell your father, Miss Marsh,” said the president, with dignified
+politeness, “that while we cannot submit to any change, we fully
+appreciate his business foresight, and are quite prepared to see that
+the hotel is properly compensated for our retaining these rooms.” As the
+young girl withdrew with a puzzled curtsy he closed the door, placed his
+back against it, and said,--
+
+“What the deuce did she mean by speaking of that closet?”
+
+“Reckon she allowed we kept some fancy drinks in there,” said Trigg;
+“and calkilated that we wanted the marble stand and mirror to put our
+glasses on and make it look like a swell private bar, that's all!”
+
+“Humph,” said the president.
+
+Their next meeting, however, was a hurried one, and as the president
+arrived late, when the door closed smartly behind him he was met by the
+worried faces of his colleagues.
+
+“Here's a go!” said Trigg excitedly, producing a folded paper. “The
+game's up, the hull show is busted; that cussed old statue--the reg'lar
+old hag herself--is on her way here! There's a bill o' lading and the
+express company's letter, and she'll be trundled down here by express at
+any moment.”
+
+“Well?” said the president quietly.
+
+“Well!” replied the members aghast. “Do you know what that means?”
+
+“That we must rig her up in the hall on a pedestal, as we reckoned to
+do,” returned the president coolly.
+
+“But you don't sabe,” said Clinton Grey; “that's all very well as to the
+hag, but now we must give HER up,” with an adoring glance towards the
+closet.
+
+“Does the letter say so?”
+
+“No,” said Trigg hesitatingly, “no! But I reckon we can't keep BOTH.”
+
+“Why not?” said the president imperturbably, “if we paid for 'em?”
+
+As the men only stared in reply he condescended to explain.
+
+“Look here! I calculated all these risks after our last meeting. While
+you boys were just fussin' round, doin' nothing, I wrote to the express
+company that a box of women's damaged duds had arrived here, while we
+were looking for our statue; that you chaps were so riled at bein'
+sold by them that you dumped the whole blamed thing in the creek. But I
+added, if they'd let me know what the damage was, I'd send 'em a draft
+to cover it. After a spell of waitin' they said they'd call it square
+for two hundred dollars, considering our disappointment. And I sent the
+draft. That's spurred them up to get over our statue, I reckon. And, now
+that it's coming, it will set us right with the boys.”
+
+“And SHE,” said Clinton Grey again, pointing to the locked chest,
+“belongs to us?”
+
+“Until we can find some lady guest that will take her with the rooms,”
+ returned the president, a little cynically.
+
+But the arrival of the real statue and its erection in the hotel
+vestibule created a new sensation. The members of the Excelsior Company
+were loud in its praises except the executive committee, whose coolness
+was looked upon by the others as an affectation of superiority. It
+awakened the criticism and jealousy of the nearest town.
+
+“We hear,” said the “Red Dog Advertiser,” “that the long-promised statue
+has been put up in that high-toned Hash Dispensary they call a hotel
+at Excelsior. It represents an emaciated squaw in a scanty blanket
+gathering roots, and carrying a bit of thorn-bush kindlings behind her.
+The high-toned, close corporation of Excelsior may consider this a fair
+allegory of California; WE should say it looks mighty like a prophetic
+forecast of a hard winter on Sycamore Creek and scarcity of provisions.
+However, it isn't our funeral, though it's rather depressing to the
+casual visitor on his way to dinner. For a long time this work of
+art was missing and supposed to be lost, but by being sternly and
+persistently rejected at every express office on the route, it was at
+last taken in at Excelsior.”
+
+There was some criticism nearer home.
+
+“What do you think of it, Miss Marsh?” said the president politely to
+that active young secretary, as he stood before it in the hall. The
+young woman adjusted her eye-glasses over her aquiline nose.
+
+“As an idea or a woman, sir?”
+
+“As a woman, madam,” said the president, letting his brown eyes slip
+for a moment from Miss Marsh's corn-colored crest over her straight but
+scant figure down to her smart slippers.
+
+“Well, sir, she could wear YOUR boots, and there isn't a corset in
+Sacramento would go round her.”
+
+“Thank you!” he returned gravely, and moved away. For a moment a wild
+idea of securing possession of the figure some dark night, and, in
+company with his fellow-conspirators, of trying those beautiful clothes
+upon her, passed through his mind, but he dismissed it. And then
+occurred a strange incident, which startled even his cool, American
+sanity.
+
+It was a beautiful moonlight night, and he was returning to a bedroom
+at the hotel which he temporarily occupied during the painting of
+his house. It was quite late, he having spent the evening with a San
+Francisco friend after a business conference which assured him of the
+remarkable prosperity of Excelsior. It was therefore with some human
+exaltation that he looked around the sleeping settlement which had
+sprung up under the magic wand of their good fortune. The full moon had
+idealized their youthful designs with something of their own youthful
+coloring, graciously softening the garish freshness of paint and
+plaster, hiding with discreet obscurity the disrupted banks and broken
+woods at the beginning and end of their broad avenues, paving the rough
+river terrace with tessellated shadows, and even touching the rapid
+stream which was the source of their wealth with a Pactolean glitter.
+
+The windows of the hotel before him, darkened within, flashed in the
+moonbeams like the casements of Aladdin's palace. Mingled with his
+ambition, to-night, were some softer fancies, rarely indulged by him in
+his forecast of the future of Excelsior--a dream of some fair partner
+in his life, after this task was accomplished, yet always of some one
+moving in a larger world than his youth had known. Rousing the half
+sleeping porter, he found, however, only the spectral gold-seeker in
+the vestibule,--the rays of his solitary candle falling upon her
+divining-rod with a quaint persistency that seemed to point to the
+stairs he was ascending. When he reached the first landing the rising
+wind through an open window put out his light, but, although the
+staircase was in darkness, he could see the long corridor above
+illuminated by the moonlight throughout its whole length. He had nearly
+reached it when the slow but unmistakable rustle of a dress in the
+distance caught his ear. He paused, not only in the interest of
+delicacy, but with a sudden nervous thrill he could not account for. The
+rustle came nearer--he could hear the distinct frou-frou of satin; and
+then, to his bewildered eyes, what seemed to be the figure of the
+dummy, arrayed in the pale blue evening dress he knew so well, passed
+gracefully and majestically down the corridor. He could see the shapely
+folds of the skirt, the symmetry of the bodice, even the harmony of the
+trimmings. He raised his eyes, half affrightedly, prepared to see
+the headless shoulders, but they--and what seemed to be a head--were
+concealed in a floating “cloud” or nubia of some fleecy tissue, as
+if for protection from the evening air. He remained for an instant
+motionless, dazed by this apparent motion of an inanimate figure; but
+as the absurdity of the idea struck him he hurriedly but stealthily
+ascended the remaining stairs, resolved to follow it. But he was only in
+time to see it turn into the angle of another corridor, which, when he
+had reached it, was empty. The figure had vanished!
+
+His first thought was to go to the committee room and examine the locked
+closet. But the key was in his desk at home, he had no light, and the
+room was on the other side of the house. Besides, he reflected that
+even the detection of the figure would involve the exposure of the very
+secret they had kept intact so long. He sought his bedroom, and went
+quietly to bed. But not to sleep; a curiosity more potent than any sense
+of the trespass done him kept him tossing half the night. Who was this
+woman whom the clothes fitted so well? He reviewed in his mind the
+guests in the house, but he knew none who could have carried off this
+masquerade so bravely.
+
+In the morning early he made his way to the committee room, but as he
+approached was startled to observe two pairs of boots, a man's and a
+woman's, conjugally placed before its door. Now thoroughly indignant,
+he hurried to the office, and was confronted by the face of the fair
+secretary. She colored quickly on seeing him--but the reason was
+obvious.
+
+“You are coming to scold me, sir! But it is not my fault. We were full
+yesterday afternoon when your friend from San Francisco came here with
+his wife. We told him those were YOUR rooms, but he said he would make
+it right with you--and my father thought you would not be displeased
+for once. Everything of yours was put into another room, and the closet
+remains locked as you left it.”
+
+Amazed and bewildered, the president could only mutter a vague apology
+and turn away. Had his friend's wife opened the door with another key in
+some fit of curiosity and disported herself in those clothes? If so, she
+DARE not speak of her discovery.
+
+An introduction to the lady at breakfast dispelled this faint hope. She
+was a plump woman, whose generous proportions could hardly have been
+confined in that pale blue bodice; she was frank and communicative, with
+no suggestion of mischievous concealment.
+
+Nevertheless, he made a firm resolution. As soon as his friends left
+he called a meeting of the committee. He briefly informed them of the
+accidental occupation of the room, but for certain reasons of his own
+said nothing of his ghostly experience. But he put it to them plainly
+that no more risks must be run, and that he should remove the dresses
+and dummy to his own house. To his considerable surprise this suggestion
+was received with grave approval and a certain strange relief.
+
+“We kinder thought of suggesting it to you before,” said Mr. Trigg
+slowly, “and that mebbe we've played this little game long enough--for
+suthin's happened that's makin' it anything but funny. We'd have told
+you before, but we dassent! Speak out, Clint, and tell the president
+what we saw the other night, and don't mince matters.”
+
+The president glanced quickly and warningly around him. “I thought,” he
+said sternly, “that we'd dropped all fooling. It's no time for practical
+joking now!”
+
+“Honest Injun--it's gospel truth! Speak up, Clint!”
+
+The president looked on the serious faces around him, and was himself
+slightly awed.
+
+“It's a matter of two or three nights ago,” said Grey slowly, “that
+Trigg and I were passing through Sycamore Woods, just below the hotel.
+It was after twelve--bright moonlight, so that we could see everything
+as plain as day, and we were dead sober. Just as we passed under the
+sycamores Trigg grabs my arm, and says, 'Hi!' I looked up, and there,
+not ten yards away, standing dead in the moonlight, was that dummy! She
+was all in white--that dress with the fairy frills, you know--and had,
+what's more, A HEAD! At least, something white all wrapped around it,
+and over her shoulders. At first we thought you or some of the boys
+had dressed her up and lifted her out there for a joke, and left her
+to frighten us! So we started forward, and then--it's the gospel
+truth!--she MOVED AWAY, gliding like the moonbeams, and vanished among
+the trees!”
+
+“Did you see her face?” asked the president.
+
+“No; you bet! I didn't try to--it would have haunted me forever.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“This--I mean it was that GIRL THE BOX BELONGED TO! She's dead
+somewhere--as you'll find out sooner or later--AND HAS COME BACK FOR HER
+CLOTHES! I've often heard of such things before.”
+
+Despite his coolness, at this corroboration of his own experience,
+and impressed by Grey's unmistakable awe, a thrill went through the
+president. For an instant he was silent.
+
+“That will do, boys,” he said finally. “It's a queer story; but
+remember, it's all the more reason now for our keeping our secret. As
+for those things, I'll remove them quietly and at once.”
+
+But he did not.
+
+On the contrary, prolonging his stay at the hotel with plausible
+reasons, he managed to frequently visit the committee room or its
+vicinity, at different and unsuspected hours of the day and night.
+More than that, he found opportunities to visit the office, and under
+pretexts of business connected with the economy of the hotel management,
+informed himself through Miss Marsh on many points. A few of these
+details naturally happened to refer to herself, her prospects, her
+tastes, and education. He learned incidentally, what he had partly
+known, that her father had been in better circumstances, and that she
+had been gently nurtured--though of this she made little account in her
+pride in her own independence and devotion to her duties. But in his
+own persistent way he also made private notes of the breadth of her
+shoulders, the size of her waist, her height, length of her skirt, her
+movements in walking, and other apparently extraneous circumstances. It
+was natural that he acquired some supplemental facts,--that her
+eyes, under her eye-glasses, were a tender gray, and touched with the
+melancholy beauty of near-sightedness; that her face had a sensitive
+mobility beyond the mere charm of color, and like most people lacking
+this primitive and striking element of beauty, what was really fine
+about her escaped the first sight. As, for instance, it was only
+by bending over to examine her accounts that he found that her
+indistinctive hair was as delicate as floss silk and as electrical. It
+was only by finding her romping with the children of a guest one evening
+that he was startled by the appalling fact of her youth! But about this
+time he left the hotel and returned to his house.
+
+On the first yearly anniversary of the great strike at Excelsior there
+were some changes in the settlement, notably the promotion of Mr. Marsh
+to a more important position in the company, and the installation of
+Miss Cassie Marsh as manageress of the hotel. As Miss Marsh read the
+official letter, signed by the president, conveying in complimentary but
+formal terms this testimony of their approval and confidence, her lip
+trembled slightly, and a tear trickling from her light lashes dimmed
+her eye-glasses, so that she was fain to go up to her room to recover
+herself alone. When she did so she was startled to find a wire dummy
+standing near the door, and neatly folded upon the bed two elegant
+dresses. A note in the president's own hand lay beside them. A swift
+blush stung her cheek as she read,--
+
+
+DEAR MISS MARSH,--Will you make me happy by keeping the secret that no
+other woman but yourself knows, and by accepting the clothes that no
+other woman but yourself can wear?
+
+
+The next moment, with the dresses over her arm and the ridiculous dummy
+swinging by its wires from her other hand, she was flying down the
+staircase to Committee Room No. 4. The door opened upon its sole
+occupant, the president.
+
+“Oh, sir, how cruel of you!” she gasped. “It was only a joke of mine.
+. . . I always intended to tell you. . . . It was very foolish, but it
+seemed so funny. . . . You see, I thought it was . . . the dress you
+had bought for your future intended--some young lady you were going to
+marry!”
+
+“It is!” said the president quietly, and he closed the door behind her.
+
+And it was.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Openings in the Old Trail, by Bret Harte
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OPENINGS IN THE OLD TRAIL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2535-0.txt or 2535-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/3/2535/
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.